Mason Riggle

This makes no sense. If reality can 'create impossibility' then it's not 'impossibility'... if it's possible for reality to do, then by definition, it's not 'impossible'. 'Free will' doesn't make sense logically, experientially, or linguistically. My logical notions about [the lack of] Free Will perfectly align with my experience of Reality (I don't need to assume anything. I can literally notice what my experience is like by simply paying attention to it). The root of suffering is attachment (essentially, attachment to the notion that 'what is' should be [could be] different than how it is). Notions of 'free will' are actually the cause of much suffering. Hatred, judgement, jealousy, fear, etc, all arise from this notion that people are 'responsible' for [the ultimate cause of] how they occur in the Universe. Absent notions of 'free will', these things cease to make sense. (you don't hate, or judge, a Volcano for being a Volcano, for example, because you understand perfectly well that a Volcano is not the cause of itself [it couldn't be any other way than how it is]).

@Someone here I like the term 'Intelligent Will' Whether One considers Oneself 'ego' or 'Godhead', or whatever, One does what One WILL Intelligently.

Yep. It's soooooo simple.

@caelanb notice that everything you think of as 'objective' only exists 'subjectively'. "well, ever since I remember"... your subjective experience of remembering. "which I learned in science class".. your subjective experience of learning in science class. 'it's already been proven".. this has been your subjective experience, but you can't say this is 'objectively true'. The only thing you are 100% sure of is 'something seems to be occurring'.. your subjective experience is 'self evident'.. all other 'evidence' for anything 'objective' exists within your subjective experience. (you could be totally confused about what is occurring... you could be a brain in a vat hallucinating all of this, and you are vastly underestimating just how 'immersive and convincing' the hallucination can be) An entirely convincing dream would be indistinguishable to you from 'not dreaming', until you 'wake up'.

Survival. Why survival? That's the real question. (my best answer: it seems to be preferable to the alternative). Questions of 'why do I do what I do' go away when it's recognized that there's no doer, nothing to be done. 'You' are something that is occurring, not something that 'does things'. You might as well ask, 'why am I growing my hair the way I do?'.. the answer is 'hair is growing how it will' and there's no 'you' who's doing it. You can't stop 'growing your hair' because you're not doing that. Who(or what) is growing the flowers? Is it the plants? Well who(or what) is growing the plants? These questions are silly!! Flowers and plants are growing.. the entire Universe is doing that. It's all happening, and there's NO ONE doing it.

@Gabith 'choosing to love everything that arises' happens if and when it does, or it doesn't happen. Not up to you. 'judgement' and 'resistance' make no sense in light of 'no free will'. Judgement- You don't judge a volcano, because you recognize it makes no sense to.. you recognize that a volcano had no part in causing itself to be how it is. Resistance- Any attempt to resist what is occurring, is just more 'what is occurring'.

Humans can act dumb.. everything 'God does' is infinitely Intelligent, even if it doesn't make sense to your ego.

^which is also God's infinite Intelligence

If I train my dog to bite a child and it does, who is responsible for the bite, me or the dog? What if my father trained me to train dogs to bite children? What if his father taught him to train me to train dogs to bite children? How far back must we go to find out the 'cause' of any 'event'?

responsibility is also an illusion. If you stop having a problem with this, then the problem of 'how to reconcile this with principles of taking 100% responsibility for our life' just goes away. You don't reconcile it. Everything is happening and nobody is doing it.

^which is also God's infinite Intelligence.

@peanutspathtotruth well said. Perfect.

@Waken I wish you well too. ?

@Waken to me this sounds like 'being my authentic self' is better than being my inauthentic self.. am I just fine the way I am or not?

@Waken I'm being sincere. I suppose I don't understand how I can be 'more authentically me' since I'm always already that.

@Waken if I release ideas of needing to be better will that make me better?

@Terell Kirby my ex wife 'cheated'. I still love her. I recognize that she only ever behaves with good intentions.

@Waken consider- why the urge to make this post? If we're already 'just fine', what's the point of this post? 'Trying to be like myself' and 'trying not to be like myself' are the exact same thing.. both are 'what I'm doing', which is ' being like myself', and I'm always doing that without trying to.

@Waken that's fine.. that too is perfect.

I love all my exes. If my wife wanted to leave me tomorrow, I would lovingly help her along on her journey, as I only desire for her health and happiness, above all else. I was fine before we met, I'll be fine without her.

@Waken everything is perfect. Reality is occurring the one, and only one, way it ever will. Any attempt to change 'how reality is playing out' is just more 'how reality is playing out'. You are something that is happening, not something which 'does things'. The only thing I ever do is 'be myself' and I'm always doing that, effortlessly.

Sure, but there are implications to this realization that can also be realized.. this 'collection of things' self is something which is 'happening' from moment to moment, and not something which 'does things' moment to moment, for example. It can be noticed that this 'collection of things' has no boundaries.. it's actually 'everything in awareness'.. you are 'all of it'. Consider that 'infinite mind' is infinitely adept at creating a 'dream' that remains internally consistent. Ask yourself, 'where is physical reality?' Where is the center of 'physical reality'? Are you closer to it, or am I? How big is 'physical reality'? You think it's 'obvious' that physical reality is 'all around you', but I'm not sure you've ever deeply questioned this assumption, or what 'all around you' means in light of 'no self'. You don't really know if there are 'really' people elsewhere having an experience any more than you know when you are dreaming that the characters in your dream are having an experience of their own. In your dream you don't question it. You don't question it now. Consider that when I say 'dream', this is a metaphor, and not a literal dream.. I could say 'hallucination', or 'simulation', or 'illusion', or 'imagination'.. The idea is that physical reality isn't 'rock bottom', some substrate from which consciousness springs.. but the other way around.. 'infinite mind' is source.. only it's pretending it's 'something separate from itself'.. this 'dream' of being an 'object/self' duality, so that 'infinity/nothing' can 'seem like' something at all.

@caelanb a few things for your consideration.. "Awakening" - Awakening is just a word we use to describe a paradigm shift, and there are many many ways your paradigm can change, and these shifts in the way you perceive reality can range from simple mundane realizations, to deeply profound insights. An example of a 'simple' awakening would be something like, the 'ah ha moment' when a child learns how multiplication works.. previously they could only add and subtract, and the concept of multiplication was unavailable to them, until someone showed them how to do multiplication, and at a certain point, the concept of multiplication was 'realized'. A deep Awakening would be something like, the realization of 'no self'.. the moment when an organism discovers that what it persistently mistakes to be 'the thinker of it's thoughts' is just more thoughts, and there is no 'locus of attention' hiding somewhere inside the organism, controlling the organism or causing the organism to be how it is. This type of awakening can be profoundly life altering. There is not just one 'Awakening', nor is there just one way to 'Awaken'. "Materialism" - Materialism is a paradigm, and many here on this forum have transcended it, the way the child from my prior example transcended addition to multiplication.. it's not that addition gets thrown out and replaced by multiplication.. there is just a deeper understanding which integrates both. So then, those who have transcended Materialism recognize the limits of Materialism.. they understand, for example, that all of physical reality is completely imaginary.. that is to say, the only place reality 'exists' is 'within your awareness of it'. Have you ever considered where 'material' reality is? Where is the Universe? So then, talk of 'proof' and 'experts' and such will largely fall on deaf ears and be dismissed here, because to someone who has transcended Materialism, proof, and experts, and physics are all 'imaginary'.. can you prove to yourself, for example, that you are not dreaming right now? What proof could you or anyone else provide you that couldn't just be dismissed as 'more dreaming'?

@Tim R missing my point. I never said something Seeming to be True makes it True. I said Truth doesn't matter, but what Seems to be True does. Are you Really talking to me right now, or does it just Seem like it? Does it matter which is True?

Solipsism and Seeming Truth is unimportant, but what Seems to be true is. Consider, is this Forum real (in the physical material sense), or is it all imaginary (Mind)? Well, it doesn't matter (by 'matter', I mean- 'seem to have some affect on experience') which is True. Either one being True, changes nothing. It doesn't matter if Solipsism is Truth, so long as it Seems like it isn't. It SEEMS like there's a me and a you. It SEEMS like I'm sitting here writing this sentence. Whether or not either of these things is Truth, is irrelevant to my experience. The only Truth is Now. Reality is EXACTLY how it Seems, until it Seems otherwise, at which point it's still EXACTLY how it Seems.