Osaid

You are not afraid of hell. You are afraid of the idea of it. That is why you are also afraid to let go of the idea of Catholicism. Catholicism and hell are both the same idea. Liberate yourself.

I never got that impression actually. It seems he reduces it down to "intuition" and then applying that to what you eat and do essentially. "Your body tells you what nutrients you need", that kind of idea.

Completely out of left field advice here cause this seems super multi-faceted, but the word that immediately came to my mind was "cortisol." It seems like some kind of dysfunctional cortisol response. This would also explain the comorbid lack of libido. You can't be aroused with high cortisol or stress. I have had an acute high stress period in my life before where the cortisol response basically induced what I can describe as like a "temporary depression", it felt like a lingering feeling of doom or anxiety that wouldn't go away until I ate a piece of bread to curb the cortisol response.

I don't get your point. That you'll get brain bleed if you follow Sadghuru?

There are a few things which I can't fully contest but I am suspicious about. Like the 4 hours of sleep thing. Weirdly enough, there is literally a genetic condition which brings down your sleep quota to only about 4 hours, so maybe he actually has that, so that's actually more believable. But there was one time where he talked about how he healed his ankle just by sitting with it or something, like a sped up healing process.

I've gotten that stubborn illness-defying vibe from him before. I think he got sick on a ship once and basically refused treatment from everyone. To be fair it seems he did heal afterwards.

Yeah that part didn't seem like a joke. Didn't the doctors conclude that they fixed it? He probably just meant that he is fully recovering. That's how I interpret it at least. Ayurveda is a pretty good approach to diet and I agree with him that most ailments tend to come from diet. Perhaps he is experiencing the latter 5% of ailments. Who knows what caused the brain bleed in the first place though.

I think he meant it as a joke. Like there was no brain in there lol

I was planning on it, starting to seem circular at this point.

You don't enjoy the logic. There is logic behind it. But that's not what is pleasurable. You can't enjoy taste without taste. Taste is not logic. It is a sensation. There is no logic in hearing a good song, and there is no logic in experiencing the benefits of that. It is pure sensation.

If you observe your experience that's not how it goes. You find the sensation itself pleasurable. You don't find logic behind it in order to find it pleasurable. There is no such thing as a song or smell that is better for the body. You can prefer the taste of one candy over the other, but both are equally bad for the body.

It is as simple as this: Why do you prefer apple pie over cherry pie? Because one has more meaning? No, just the sensation of taste. The sensation is void of meaning. Why do you prefer the smell of a flower over the smell of a trash can? Because one has more meaning? No, just the sensation of smell. The sensation is void of meaning.

The body has never meant anything. That doesn't remove its value. There is no "neutral state" you reach by removing meaning, you simply just reach existence itself without your imagination about it. Meaning is literally imagination. You don't lose anything but imagination, it does not change the value of what exists, it only changes the value of what is imaginary. Meaning is not inherently a function of ego either. You can imagine meaning without imagining yourself as separate. Meaning is just a function of your mind to piece things together, which often gets co-opted by the ego. Meaning is what happens when you comprehend words on a screen or read a book.

The value in a flower doesn't come from meaning, it comes from the pure sensation of the smell. The value of taste doesn't come from meaning, it comes from the pure sensation of taste. The value of music doesn't come from meaning, it comes from the pure sensation of sound.

When you value something, it is because of what that thing exists as. There is an existential element to value beyond meaning. Something sweet can't have the same value as something bitter. You can't decide to make something valuable by thinking of it as valuable, you look at how it impacts existence in the first place. You value things that have no meaning all the time. You value music. You value taste. You value the smell of a flower. Meaning is imagined. Meaning is not the same as value. Thus the ego doesn't determine value, although the ego itself can be seen as valuable.

Right. The experience of being human is the experience of the world it interacts with. There is the "experience of being human" but there is no "experience that has a human inside of it."

If you equate "meaningless" with "neutral" then I agree, but your previous answers indicate that a lack of meaning is equivalent to a lack of care or value, which is not the case.

Death is not a necessary motivator for being alive. You don't lose interest in life when you realize you can't die.

The body absolutely does care. You will experience physical biological motivators like an uptick in dopamine for example. And that is unrelated to what you think or imagine about it. You can't imagine or think that away. Being physically tired is not neutral, that is your body indicating that you should go to sleep. You can't imagine or think that away. The idea of a "neutral sensation" is fantasy. Your imagination does not control whether a physical sensation is neutral or not. Your preference for vanilla over chocolate is also completely unrelated to ego. You did not decide that you want to prefer vanilla over chocolate. If you think that you did decide it, that is where ego begins, not the actual physical occurrence. You are conflating biology with ego.

I'm not denying that your shift in attention phased out the pain because of a difference in desire. I'm just denying that this excludes pain from infinity. There is no boundary or limitation to the sensation of pain, it is as infinite as anything else. What you experienced was a shift in attention or desire, not necessarily a lack of ego. It's not like the video game induced enlightenment or no self.

The sensation is the value. That is why your body retracts when tasting something bitter instead of something sweet. That reaction itself is the value it provides. You don't need to imagine value further than that. You can't just imagine value onto something bitter by saying "I like tasting things that are bitter" because it doesn't actually change the sensation itself. It only changes how you imagine it. And then perhaps that imagination has value to you as well. There is no such thing as a "neutral sensation" because every single sensation is different. It is like saying all colors are neutral.

You don't need ego to give value to things. You don't need to imagine things in order to give value to things. When you remove meaning from existence you don't arrive at a lack of value. You don't need to imagine meaning or value in order for things to have value. That is why vanilla ice cream tastes good despite what you think or imagine about it. What you're talking about is not neutral at all. It is a limitation which says that you shouldn't care about things. It is a limitation which says that you cannot value things. You will drive yourself insane imagining a limitation like that because it goes against the inherent experiential value of existence. So the body is analogous to "poop" or "pain"? I don't think that analogy tracks appropriately. Why would the universe exclude poop or pain from infinity; just because it is less pleasant to look at? Pleasurable feelings do not dictate whether something is infinite or not. A lack of attention is not no self. That is just a lack of pain. No self is not about deciding to focus on pleasurable sensations. There are many who lack pain and experience blissful states who still have a self.

A human is not self. A human is. A plant is. A self also is, but it is only ever imagination. And it can be unimagined. Again, there is a difference between being a human and thinking that you are a human. Thinking that you are a human is self. It is imagination. It is thinking.

The logic tracks until this point. You are conflating the perception of your body with ego. Why would being absorbed in infinity exclude the body? Is the body not infinite? At what point in infinity does the body lose its meaning? Do things only have value and meaning when you imagine a false self alongside it?

That is correct. Again, there is a psychosomatic connection between self and what is not self. The part that creates action is not self, but it is a reaction to the imagined self. The imagined self which cannot do anything is being used as an object of desire, and that object of desire physically drives you to act out a desire in accordance with that self. Physical movement is not self, but it can be used to serve the self, and this relationship is what is called ego or self-image. It is the belief that you can imagine yourself which causes the physical reactions which serve that self, because now you have a desire to serve and protect that self. In the exact same way how a kid who believes in Santa Claus acts differently while imagining Santa Claus. Santa Claus is not controlling anything, it is the reaction to the belief that Santa Claus does control things which causes the kid to physically act it out. And it is the same reason why that kid will feel genuine physical fear when you tell them that they are on the naughty list. I wrote out some of the tangible measurable symptoms that come along with the no self state here: