Electron

I think that the reason we only figure out how things work rather than what they are is because that is the only thing possible to find out. Also, in science, if something works perfectly then its the truth or you can say that the models and concepts are aligned with the real world. The assumption that there are these absolute truths out there away from our grasp is also a concept inside your head.

If I were not me, and not in this time, then this question would still be valid in another time for another me. Yes we are all one, and that one is you. The real you, which is not a human in the world among other humans but the world itself that includes everything. Whatever is in your experience right now is what the reality is.(NOT A THING MORE). Yes its bizarre, it has always been that way. In fact, everything is fuckingly strange. But there is nothing you can do about it, the more closer you look at things, the more alien they appear.

There is nothing I am jealous of more in the world than the discipline of the monks. See for yourself. Thats what hardwork really is. P.S. = Its a very long video of about 90 minutes and is more like a documentary of shaolin. But it has some mind blowing segments.

Negative motivation is cool for short periods of time but if you need to devote your life to the mastery of a certain skill its not a decent way to achieve that. It will only make you miserable in the long run as you are driven by fear instead of love. It might look like that fear induces an intense drive but i'd say that its nothing compared to the drive that love manifests in us.

@Sarah_Flagg I am interested too! UTC + 5:30

@JimmySmalls Do you find carl sagan's cosmos better than the neil tyson's cosmos?

Present moment=Everything=Nothing=Life=God=Universe=You

The most crucial thing that I think I've always lacked in my life is discipline. Even though I have certain fixed things that I do everyday. I am not able to do them on a fixed time. Poor time management is one of my major weaknesses. I am very much whimsical most of my day especially on the holidays. Whenever I try to constrain my activity through certain rules and regulations I end up being miserable. Also, I find that I am more productive in my creative endeavors when I am acting on a whim. But when it comes to the usual grind, I can't possibly allow myself to stay capricious as it infracts the consistency I need. I feel astonished to see the discipline that Buddhist monks possess which somehow enables them to never digress from their routine. But the thing is they live in a monastery where these rules are enforced upon them but I live alone and nobody is imposing anything on me except myself. These rules imposed by myself eventually dissolve if not revised ( thanks to the dynamic nature of our minds), and even if they are revised, the motivation to act upon them dies eventually. Is there any way to become disciplined by yourself without getting institutionalized?

Haha that's Giordano Bruno from the cosmos' first episode. He realized in that scene that our planet is not the center of the universe. And that the god/universe is infinite. @Leo Gura you should watch cosmos if you haven't. Its the best documentary I ever watched.

@A way to Actualize yeah, ur right. Loving what you do is the key. I watched a video about self-discipline on YouTube and the monk in that video told that its not that they are forced to do things in the monastery, they want those things for themselves. They like doing them. But the thing is at the start they don't, but eventually develop a taste for it by practicing daily. That's one benefit of the practice being enforced upon you. So yes, how to want something, something you don't particularly feel good doing, is the real question to ask. And institutionalizing is one good way to develop a liking for something.

@rrodriguez11 Lets take a ball, and let's assume that it has consciousness just like us. Now from a height, we drop it. We can predict exactly how its going to move with time using physics. But from the ball's perspective it will always look like it was the one controlling the motion and deciding where to go next at each and every step. Now imagine that the ball gets enlightened, and its ego dissolves. If we drop it now, the ball now no more attributes its actions, to itself ( the ego ) but it still moves along the same path. In some sense, it almost looks like if people realize that there is no control, they would ruin their lives just by sitting around and letting it go and indeed they would. Because the controller now thinks it can't control things but because its a controller it has to control something, so now it will try to control not controlling and consequently his actions will reflect that kind of thought processes. So you see, its more an illusion of controller rather than an illusion of control.

There is no point in becoming better or controlling your life because you were never really controlling it. You ask these questions from a presumption of a possible control that somehow still feels real to you. Try digesting this thing that whatever you do with full control, is not controlled by 'you', its just spontaneous, its just the destiny revealing itself. No matter what you do or whatever happens to you, it was always meant to happen that way even before you were born. The problem is not the control but the controller. Without the controller the control can't exist. If therefore the controller dissolves , the control vanishes with it.

One day while walking through the wilderness a man stumbled upon a vicious tiger. He ran but soon came to the edge of a high cliff. Desperate to save himself, he climbed down a vine and dangled over the fatal precipice. As he hung there, two mice appeared from a hole in the cliff and began gnawing on the vine. Suddenly, he noticed on the vine a plump wild strawberry. He plucked it and popped it in his mouth. It was incredibly delicious!

@FindingPeace Ya this indeed is the case. If you think about it, we can only possibly answer questions like "how" & "why" in science. As soon as you try to question "what" the answers simply break down to a label and can't be questioned any further without getting more labels as answers. The problem is most people accept that label as an answer to "what" when in fact there is no answer. Things just are. Also, scientists live for knowing about the world around them. If they accept that there is no point in knowing, and realize that only being is important, why the hell will they know? So in a sense they kinda need to be ignorant of the possibility that they might not be really knowing the reality but playing with a bunch of models about the reality.

@FindingPeace Quantum mechanics is already being used in today's tech and its probably the best advancement in the entire history of physics. I don't know what documentary you saw, but to be clear, most scientists are aware of the insufficiency of the concept or theory underlining the math. Theories are just used as a way to comprehend the relationships b/w the events as described by the math unlike the good old days when physics was mainly guided by theories and philosophies and then the associated math was described. Models are a way to grasp the math, but nonetheless, the math is the real deal. Physicists are completely aware that the models are futile and imperfect and mere stories in their minds. Also, there can be at times, many models to conceive the same math.

Lucky you, I never saw anything abstract like that or maybe I never noticed. I usually see things which I m familiar with, mostly people.

I think thoughts and stories both are equally real as the external reality. The only difference is in their quality i.e, a change in the manifested world inside the mind doesn't changes the external reality. Maybe that's why this internal reality is labeled as an illusion. As no matter what you do in this fairy land you are not going to produce any change in the external world ,,which I think most teens today are stuck with, and that's why they are very poor results maker.

You didn't answer my question

@Driven I think its just due to the stories in your head about that thing in the external reality which compels you to act a certain way towards that thing.

@Purple Jay But you gotta appreciate the detail to which the thoughts map the reality. Its astounding. The people, the objects ,,they almost feel real in the mind. Maybe that's what fools people to think of these images of the things in the reality as the the reality itself.

If we need something in the external world or want to create something in the external world, I think we need to be passionate about this vision of ours, In a sense, we are craving for the emotional joy that we associate to our picture of the future. So that even a thought about its manifestation gives us a certain kind of satisfaction, but I think that whenever the presence of something excites you to the core, its absence doesn't do the same. So in a way you create a duality by desiring something; an emotional or sensational duality which is associated to your having it or not having it. In his recent video about fake growth vs real growth, Leo said that you gotta grow to a point where you don't need external something to satisfy yourself emotionally, you just need to change your emotional structure so that you become free from any emotional or sensational biases you have associated to any kind of circumstances. ( In some sense, its destroying the duality ) But I think we need an emotional bias towards our vision to work on it on the first place. otherwise your having it or not having it wouldn't bother you emotionally. Because if inner growth can give us everything we want, why would someone realizing this bother to change something externally, with all his energy and time? Its neurotic to be a workaholic and use all the power in your body to manifest your vision, but isn't that the thing, which revolutionize the external world & helps mankind? Isn't external achievement and success important in a sense that it changes the external world in a better way, even though it might not be truly satisfying to us in the end? If someone doesn't associate any better emotional state other than what he is in, to his vision, Why the hell will he desire it and work on it obsessively? And if he isn't really obsessive about his work and is happy either way, won't the external change that he will produce will be relatively less than the obsessed one's( even though he'd end up much happier) ? So finally, should our health, emotional balance and inner fulfillment be prior to the external change we produce in the world?

@Ben Landrail You got it right. That's the thing. Somehow we need a balance and in a way need to limit the inner work even if that's what we truly want and spend rest of the time in our worldly endeavors even if it brings us no peace of mind and mere suffering. That's the price of massive external impact on the world.

@ShubhamI don't really think focus is the problem. I would say the major problem is lack of interest and fear from the study of the subject. If one manages to replace that fear with love, studying becomes probably the most enjoying activity you can possibly imagine. After that you are just playing and exploring. You need a lot of revision and practice to master certain things at times, and it might feel like grind but I'd say if you try to learn something just because someone is forcing you to, or its in your school curriculum and now you don't have any choice, you won't get very far if that's what compelling you to study. It's like forcing a child to play something. What are the odds that he will enjoy it? And if he doesn't enjoy it, why would he give all his attention and focus to it? You just gotta ask yourself, what are you REALLY curious about, then go and open a book and explore what other people have to tell you about it. Studying is not something to fear from.Who told you that? Throw away that shit from your mind. Its fun, LITERALLY.

@Saitama "You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to become great." --Zig Ziglar