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@now is forever Sorry, but I don't quite understand what you're saying. Not even the relationship between what you said and the post that you are quoting. Are you hinting at a possibility to find a universal trend that all humanity follows? From what I understand, you're saying that this trend can be found by curiously exploring the symbolism of religions in the context of political philosophy. I don't understand what do you mean by that. You seem to be saying that this universal trend is the basis for oneness with everybody else. It is also possible to predict where we're all headed, but I fail to see why would I want to know that. I think that you're trusting my intellect too much and drop topics that are too deep for me at once. If you want me to understand you, you have to start from a common place and first gain momentum before dropping them. Baby steps. If that how you define it - it is impossible for me to survive. To me, positivity is a drive towards incidental values that I cling to. It is again, a matter on how the values are chosen. If I am the one that chooses these values, then I need something to optimize. How do I choose what to optimize, if I have no values? If I am not the one that chooses these value, then my values have nothing to do with me. So does my positivity, or negativity.

@Zweistein It is not a matter of insolence, but a matter of honesty. What is the difference between a master and a novice? They are both unconscious, so the difference is competence. What is competence? Competence is a measure of performance given a certain set of standards. The degree of your competence is therefore predicated on the standards you compare your measurements of performance against. So, the question arises: who is responsible for establishing the standards that are used to measure your performance? If somebody else is responsible for that, then the distinction between a master and a novice is their choice and it has little to do with you. If you are responsible for the standards, then you can call yourself a master, or a novice on a whim. In a sense - yes. It is not something voluntary, though. A master knows what he knows so, by extension, he knows the limit to what can be done. A novice not only doesn't know, but also doesn't know what he doesn't know. There is no limit to not-knowing. If there is a problem to be solved, a master will know when it is impossible to solve it, because he knows what can be done. A novice however, has no such limitation. To a novice, there can always be a solution, because his search space is not constrained. Knowledge of a master is a lens through which he perceives the world. If the world is misaligned with his knowledge, he calls it a problem. A master that knows to be a novice understands that and can re-frame a problem so that it lies in a different domain. Out of his expertise. This way, not only solutions can be found that are not bound by knowledge, but the problems can be solved without doing anything. One may find that a problem in one domain is necessity for another domain. That a problem is actually a solution. This is the path to peace/infinite intelligence that I'm following.

@Zweistein Intuition is exactly the word I was looking for. Thank you. There is a deeper connection to learning and nihilism I will go into later. For now, I think that your diagram is incomplete: The squares are logic-based. It is a symbolic, mechanical manipulation of knowledge. Transitions however are intuitive and occur when there is an equilibrium within a stage. When all beings within a stage are of equal importance. When search within a stage in exhausted.

@Zweistein I never considered this difference. I simply used a word that felt appropriate. After reflecting on it, I think that the difference lies in openness towards the I=you=we. I think that beliefs are aggressive in nature. One believes in order to orient oneself in the world. If one is not accustomed with the unknown, one becomes upset when beliefs don't work in a particular situation. By not working, I mean - the hierarchy of things (values/importance) is being messed with, and whatever one holds dear is brought among beings with no significance. It's like when you tell a Christian, that the Holy Bible is just a fantasy book. That upsets his hierarchy (order) and the unwillingness to face the unknown (chaos) makes him suffer. What beliefs tend to do is to make people try to influence 'the other' so that the other conforms to the believed hierarchy. They try to change the world so that it doesn't upset their order. What I called a 'vague hint' is different in its nature. It is non-aggressive. Beliefs arise as a substitute of contemplation. Contemplation being a process in which things become unknown, so that one can watch like a child. This hint is born (or rather, is open) as a result of contemplation. This hint is not something that is used to orient myself in a hierarchy of separate things. That particular hint that I was talking about is a hint of totality that joins instead of severing. It cannot be used for orientation. What hints do, as opposed to beliefs, is actually upset the order (the inner order) so that the order fits whatever arises. That is why I was talking about its relationship to infinite intelligence. It bears similarity to a still mind, but it has nothing to do with the mind per se. It is a singularity within the mind. It is neither no-mind, nor a mind. Thinking of it as a hint is not a good way to put it. As a 'vague hint', it is much more 'vague' than it is a 'hint'. It is a form of openness, a smear, a cloud, a mist, a smoke, a water. It does not cut things into order, nor it can be cut. Do you know what I'm talking about? Do you have any words (cuts) to point towards it?

@Athena I did! You realized that you are the problem, but the root of your problem are not other people. Very good! What is a problem? What is any problem? What does any problem have to do with you?

@Zweistein Thank you for your kind words. I love answering questions. There is this vague hint within me that total peace with whatever is is equal to infinite intelligence. To be able to jump any chasm and understand where the other is coming from. Regardless of whether the other is a person, or any part of Maya. Because who said that I=you=we is limited to living beings in a biological sense? Who said that I am a biological being that should empathize with others? I have never seen my face. I have seen a mirror, though.

@Athena Let me ask this question in a different way: what would have to happen if there would have to be no more problems in the world? Since you missed what I was asking once, here is a hint: That is pointing fingers at others. Haven't you realized that you are the problem? Realize that I am not pointing a finger at you and blaming you (like you did with others just now). You are a problem. What does it mean? How does it relate to my questions?

Normal is not a very helpful word here. Most people have no idea of what you are talking about. You are growing. The question is: what is the root cause of all problems (including the problem of you being the problem)?

@isabel Yes. You know the teachings and your job is to 'look through your own eyes' and see how they are true. Assume that the teachings are 100% true and try to 'squeeze' your understanding of your perception so that it fits into the theory. Suffering is resistance to what is (isness/suchness/self-apparence/obviousness). You avoid acknowledging what is happening and try to change it. It is not that suffering is unpleasantness of something. Suffering can be very much co-existant within pleasure. For example, you can suffer when you are having a pleasant evening. Suffering is the context in which you anticipate the ending of this evening and thinking about your tomorrow's work. You can also not suffer when you argue with your partner. That happens when you actually focus on the negative emotions you experience and are honest to what you are doing. Suffering is resistance to what is. Suffering is dishonesty towards your experience. Suffering is an action, or an attitude towards whatever is happening. There are answers on many levels to this question. At the basic level - you can cause suffering to others if you assume that they do not see the difference between suffering and pain. At this level, you can cause pain to others and that makes them suffer. At the higher level - you cannot cause suffering to others. If you know that experiencing and embracing pain makes the suffering go away, then your doings are not related to other people's suffering. For example, you can actually cause others to suffer by being nice to them if they start to worry about being rejected by you. That suffering is then related to their ignorance towards the nature of suffering. If they were present with your niceness, then they would not suffer and you cannot be held accountable for their response (neither to pain, nor to pleasure). At yet higher level - you recognize that whatever you assume about other people will influence your perception of their suffering. Not only that you have an intention of inflicting pain or pleasure to others, but you also are the one that reads their response to it. Your understanding of their response is dependent on your assumptions about how advanced they are, so by influencing your own perception you can swap between the two levels I mentioned earlier. From this point of view you can neither cause, nor not cause suffering of others. From this point of view, suffering is an incidental idea that you use to orient yourself in maya. Empathy towards animals is what causes your suffering. You assume that they feel whatever you feel when you cut your finger with a kitchen knife. You extrapolate that experience and imagine that dying is that experience multiplied by 1000 times. That of course is an assumption, as it may very well be that an organism releases painkilling chemicals upon near death, so that it is anesthetized to pain. Nobody knows that though. You empathize with animals out of your ignorance to what I already said. These answers are my personal answers, so they may not be applicable to you.

@Prabhaker Thank you very much for these resources. I really appreciate your contributions to the forum.

@Zweistein To me, disappointment is a feeling that I associate with fragmentation. Fragmentation being the lack of I=you=we. It has something to do with defying my expectations by the 'other'. I strive to make my understanding as universal as possible and tend to assume it as such. I feel disappointed when I perceive that 'the other' fails to look within himself/herself and connect to what I'm trying to convey. The assumption that my reasoning is universal is of course the root cause of my disappointment, and thus it is not a 'fatherly disappointment' that says: you better act like I expect you to. It is more of an ungrounded feeling that points to that there is a chasm in I=you=we through which either of us is unwilling to jump. Either because the context of the situation does not warrant such leap of faith, or that there is a lack of intelligence (on either part) that fails to recognize the position in which 'the other' finds himself/herself in. Disappointment is a pointer that I=you=we should strive to uphold the context in which it is appropriate to 'let the other person in'. That is sometimes difficult if I recognize the understanding presented by 'the other' as something that I have came out of by contemplation. If that is the case, then I'm usually compelled to guide the person out of their point of view, but that is often met with resistance. Resistance is understandable in the sense that the place where I'm at is mostly filled with the unknown. Unless the other is willing to let that unknown in, there is no explaining that will do my understanding justice. This understanding will be re-contextualized into whatever is perceived by that person and made into knowledge. I hope that it is impossible and ultimately leads to contradiction and paradox. Of course, my willingness to transmit the unknown to the other is equally responsible for disappointment, as his/her willingness to transmit knowledge. My basis for not accepting this knowledge however does not come from rejection, but from exhaustion. I simply see it as uninteresting. To me, it is a tool to arrive at deeper and deeper levels of the unknown.

@isabel What do you mean by 'wanting'? There is no external consciousness you are supposed to arrive at which is different from what you experience now. You are not supposed to become something that you are not right now and arrive at consciousness. You are supposed to understand what exactly are you (as you are yourself here and now) and within that understanding recognize the teachings of various non-dual schools (some of which talk about consciousness). Any desire (wanting) and any suffering (rejecting) is within your experience because you project it upon other human and non-human beings. Even the suffering of animals is what you experience as you talk about butchering them inhumanely, because you understand yourself in a way that relates butchering with suffering. There is only one 'person' in existence, playing various roles by blinding itself to itself. As I write this post to you, I miss the fact that you are my understanding of your post. Therefore I'm answering myself. The more and more universal this 'person' becomes, the less and less qualities it has. The limit being consciousness itself. So, can consciousness have an experience that it doesn't want, or not? Consciousness is inconceivable. Asking and answering questions about it bears no usable knowledge. It is impossible to answer this question in any meaningful way.

To me the only reason I'm considering going meat free is the feeling of disgust when I think about industrial killing of animals. Disgust is what I tend to avoid around food.

@isabel Because the way in which we kill animals disgusting when inspected closely. Not to mention that it's unnecessary.

@George Fil A mirror.

@Zweistein What is your relationship with disappointment?

@NoSelfSelf You are always yourself. At the very least, you authentically don't know who you are. There is no plan for who you are supposed to be, so take whatever you call you and put it to motion to see where it takes you. (It really sounds like a plan, doesn't it?)

@Ayilton That is a difficult question. I think that there is a perspective from which all paths to enlightenment are exactly the same. I wish to arrive at that context to see it clearly. Intuition tells me that contemplation is a way to arrive at that perspective by repeatedly explicating the unknown context we are left with after a mystical experience. Mystical experiences are moments in which our context is made explicit and we see a way to 'punch a hole in it', or so to speak. That movement is done through noticing the apparent duality in experience brought upon by that context and understanding from which perspective the duality comes together to form oneness. Perhaps, this 'coming together' of dualities is what is common to all paths to enlightenment. Their apparent differences come from the background in which they appeared. I'm tempted to say that no - contemplation is not the best way to enlightenment. Not because there are better ways, but because all ways are exactly the same. I do not know why, though.

@Zweistein Oooh, don't do that . I'm kind of disappointed. That's the philosopher's ultimate coup-out. To call something nihilism. Nihilism has a bad reputation. People fear it needlessly.

@Zweistein Is there any difference between an answer and a speculation though? The only difference seems to be a feeling of certainty that is indistinguishable from unrecognized ambiguity. What does it even mean to ask 'why'? Are we really interested in 'answering' this question with the incidental content of our lives? It seems like it comes from outside of the relative domain, but we can only answer from within it. This is why all answers to this question always seem unsatisfactory and temporal. Is the only winning move not to play?

@Zweistein Why why?

@Zweistein It is really encouraging to see people engaged in my explanations, but frankly - I'm stuck here and you did not interrupt me at all. For now, I'm hunkering down and waiting for things to come to me. Thank you for your kind words. Lately, I've been interested in Ken Wilber and I saw that there may be a connection between his AQAL and my diagrams. Without any deep inspection, it seems like his intersubjective and interobjective categories are what the world from my understanding is split into. It suggests that this tripartite structure of the bodyminworld is arbitrary and this whole exploration is simply an exercise in enlightenment. This is why I'm not as invested in this subject as much any longer. It sometimes seems to me like I'm thinking new things faster than I can explore them, or note them down. There is always this meta-movement of trying to see how they fit into greater scheme of things that captures their essence as incidental (and therefore uninteresting). What I ultimately want to arrive at, is the essence of this meta-movement that generalizes concrete examples into categories. I want to see it clearly. This is why I'm exploring things at this level. I simply chased my own tail so much, that I became a helicopter.

@Pamela Zamora Don't blame the ego. Ego is innocent. Ego simply fights for whatever you feel is important. It is a watchdog. It is doing its job. It is the best watchdog there is, because it will even protect whatever is important to you from you. It does that because you make the ego your enemy, and in doing so you make yourself its enemy. That is because you are your ego. To transcend the ego does not mean to permanently kill it. You can kill it to see a glimpse, but you are supposed to understand it by seeing how it's like when it's gone. The ego always comes back, because it is the most loyal watchdog there is. Make friends with it and form a team. That is what transcendence is. 1+1=3.

@Pamela Zamora Because we're driving infinitely fast and the guy behind the steering wheel is blind.

@Emerald You are right, of course. Thank you @cirkussmile .