Osaid

Does it feel like there is some kind of disembodied "identity" which is trying to latch on to your experience? You talk about a "self which is beyond mental because it has a center in experience", by that do you mean a sense of control? Is the fear perhaps about a loss of control? For the record, I definitely do see some kind of ego/identity which is trying to make sense of the experience, which is to be expected. I am just trying to get a more objective idea of what is occurring. It's really important to separate physical symptoms from any kind of mental egoic identities which are causing those symptoms. For example, it is one thing to burn yourself on a hot stove, but then another thing to become paranoid about hot stoves after that experience occurs. The paranoia is a fearful identity created from an objective experiential phenomenon. I get what you mean when you say that the experience itself is real and actually experienced, and I feel for you, but that doesn't mean it can't be untangled, so to speak.

I still see this idea of falling into some "void" and a "sense of self" which that is happening to, and I think that is mainly where the contention is and it is probably worth investigating what is actually happening there. Sounds like some kind of botched ego death or something. If it is just an identity issue, there really is no void where the ego can fall into because the ego is really just an expendable bundle of identifications, what truly does exist will always exist no matter what, and that is what you are. The ego can't fall into a void because it is the one that is imagining a void to be scared of. The ego is the one that says "I am this" and "I am that." Your sense of self has no existential pull or power on your current experience, it only feels that way if you react badly to it with physical symptoms like anxiety or worry or panic, that can make it seem more real and powerful than it is. It is important to realize that ego "death" or "dissolution" can come in many different "flavours", and those "flavours" are simply distortions and resistances created by the ego in order to elicit an emotional and conceptual reaction from you, perhaps in this case it is a fear of dissolving into some mysterious void. Really, just investigate what is genuinely there and keep your wits about you. The uncomfortable sensations can be very real. But what is actually creating them? Many times you imagine something and react badly to it. Don't mistake the reality of how your body reacts for the reality of what it is reacting to. A rope seen as a snake will create cortisol in the body.

Does it feel like you're desperately clinging onto what makes up your identity? You said at a certain point it felt like "all resistance was dissolved", do you still agree with this statement, that all your resistance is dissolved? If you want my really succinct and general analysis simply from what I've been told so far, you pointed to some kind of non-dual experience, but it seems like the ego somehow got a hold of it, which is just to say that there is some sense of self or identification which is causing friction in your experience. I see that it is difficult for you to communicate, but I am trying to piece together all your analogies and descriptions. If there is any resistance, maybe what you're feeling is you trying to "latch" on to your identity and then failing, which creates a feeling of resistance or detachment of some sort? Like, something you can never reach even though you want to? Is your experience of music any bit similar to how it previously was? Does it feel like everything is the same, except that it is "distorted" in some way? Like there is some kind of lens covering your experience? Can you still feel emotions normally?

Have you considered talking to a professional to rule out derealization or some such thing, or even just looking at the symptoms and potential solutions online? Aside from that, I see a narrative of "reaching reality" and "things that feel real." I would look here and question this. How is it possible for something to feel "non-existent", what does that actually feel like? Those choice of words can't actually be the case, since it is something you must be feeling, no? Could you feel or find something that is "empty" or "non-existent" in your experience, even if you tried? Maybe a better description is a "vastness" or "ungroundedness"? In the midst of all of this, do you ever feel overly panicked at times? For example, you are triggered by some thought pattern or perception, and then you are overridden with a fast racing heartbeat, and then maybe a looming sense of anxiety, and also a feeling of being hyperfixated on your present experience? Also, how do you feel listening to music that you like, better or worse? Or when you're taking a shower?

naturalistic fallacy + gay animals exist + sexual pleasure is not motivated by reproduction (no one gets aroused thinking about reproduction)

metaphysical solipsists don't even know how to represent their own position properly smh, they're just pretending

My most listened wasn't even accurate to what my favorites are, only cause I will often repeat a certain song like 100 times when I am tuning my equalizer or audio settings. I am very serious about my audio setup.

Youtube music >

Leo doesn't truly understand narcissism or NPD. Most people don't. He said his girlfriend had it and "she was still nice and not toxic", lol.

Good post. Only logic is complex. If logic is your reality, it will seem complex. People adopt many systems for making sense of reality; faith, philosophy, religion, science, math, logic, etc. But none of them ultimately work and they have to be dropped. None of these were meant to be used to explain reality as a whole, although they can be useful in other ways. Their usefulness is being misinterpreted as something that can explain reality at an experiential and metaphysical level.

I like this new communication style. Much more palpable.

Philosophy is ultimately more intellect.

🎯 One could contemplate further: What does this mean for any knowledge of the past and future? What past events have "you" gone through? What is the "you" which has gone through past events? What is your fundamental identity, or your fundamental existence?

I honestly only see it in psychedelic circles. It's just psychedelic-induced lunacy. If you do it sober it's definitely possible to not go through any of that. I know someone personally who got enlightened very cleanly sober, no existential delusions or existential horrors prior. It is possible to suffer from it if someone takes a psychedelic and then convinces you of it, though. It is ultimately ideological, so it can be transmitted to other people who haven't even taken psychedelics if they simply start believing in it.

Yeah for sure, this thread inspired me to look up random Zen quotes now, they're actually pretty interesting.

It is a very sneaky and intelligent form of psychosis. It can feel emotionally profound and beautiful. It can seem very intelligent and logical. It can even help you with certain areas in your life. But you can also feel its limits if you pay attention, those limits tell you that you're misguided.

You = God is a tautology so it is really useless in saying anything. It is like saying 1 = 1 or 2 = 2. You are already exactly what you are. It is just as useful as saying You = You. If you say that the color red is God, it doesn't change anything about the color red, it doesn't become more or less red, it just continues being unique to its own nature, it continues being exactly what it was before. The only relevant question is, do you understand what you actually are and what your true nature is? It doesn't matter what "You" is equal to if you don't know what "You" actually is to begin with. Taking God as an identity is complete delusion and falsehood, as all identities are. The intellect creates lots of tautologies when it tries to encapsulate reality because it is trying to escape the limits of itself. It's rampant on the forum. You = Love = Infinity = Imagination = yadda yadda yadda. It's like a calculator trying to divide by 0. The Minecraft analogy I made before is pretty good at exemplifying how silly the whole tautology game is: The math equation "1 + 1 = 2" is more analagous to the threads you see where people use logic to come to some conclusion about reality. There are no conclusions in reality, there is just logic. Logic can only explain logic, not reality. Reality is the container for logic. For example, "If god is infinite, that means x is equal to y, and y is equal to z" or "If there is only me, that means x doesn't exist outside of y." Stuff like that is all intellect, but the mind has a hard time getting around it because of how correct and logically sound it seems, but it is irrelevant to experience.

Solipsism is stagnation derived from intellect. You can say "1 + 1 = 2", and that is perfectly logical and correct, but it only exists in your intellect. There is no experience of "1 + 1 = 2" aside from the equation itself that you imagine. The mind can infinitely lose itself in correct logic for eternity, because there is an infinite amount of numbers, and so there is an infinite amount of equations. Reality is not something you can derive through logic, it is what contains and generates logic within itself. You cannot define reality through solipsism because it defines itself through non-existence. It is a figment created by your intellect. It says nothing about what exists, it only tries to define existence through what doesn't exist. It can certainly feel very intellectually satisfying to think about such things without actually making any real progress, though.

Amazing.

Oh man, a Zen poet? Zen masters are already cryptic enough haha. These are some other good ones I found from him: "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought." "Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves." "At the ancient pond the frog plunges into the sound of water." (he had a few of them which were in similar vain to frogs jumping into water, guess he liked the metaphor) "Every moment of life is the last, every poem is a death poem." "A flute with no holes is not a flute." "Come out to view / the truth of flowers blooming / in poverty." "Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die." "Learn about a pine tree from a pine tree, and about a bamboo plant from a bamboo plant." "Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice... Or backyard love?" "Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it." "Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water." (No way, he was the one that dropped this banger?)

Don't put God's name over it. It's your loneliness. Why ascribe divinity to it? Is that sandwich you ate yesterday God's sandwich? Are you gonna worship sandwiches as you worship loneliness? I pray you leave the game your intellect is playing on you.

“Know that a sudden comprehension comes when the mind has been purged of all the clutter of conceptual and discriminatory thought-activity.” “Discard all you have acquired as being no better than a bed spread for you when you were sick.” “In these days people only seek to stuff themselves with knowledge… All you can call them is people who suffer from indigestion… All the concepts you have formed in the past must be discarded and replaced by void.” “The Way is not something which can be studied. Study leads to retention of concepts and so the Way is entirely misunderstood… The first step is to refrain from knowledge-based concepts.” “The foolish reject what they see and not what they think; the wise reject what they think and not what they see.” “Here it is—right now. Start thinking about it and you miss it.” “People are afraid to empty their minds fearing that they will be engulfed by the void. What they don't realize is that their own mind is the void.” “Your true nature is something never lost to you even in moments of delusion, nor is it gained at the moment of Enlightenment.” "The enlightened ones are neither attached to nor detached from their senses and thoughts." "A perception, sudden as blinking, that subject and object are one, will lead to a deeply mysterious understanding; and by this understanding you will awaken to the truth." "Words used to attract the dull of wit are not to be relied on." "Those who seek the truth by means of intellect and learning only get further and further away from it. Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone will you be on the right road to the Gate." "Our original Buddha-Nature is, in highest truth, devoid of any trace of objectivity. It is void, omnipresent, silent, pure; it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy-and that is all. Enter deeply in it by awakening to it yourself. That which is before you is it, in all its fullness, utterly complete. There is naught besides. Even if you go through all the stages of a Bodhisattva's progress toward Buddhahood, one by one, when at last, in a single flash, you attain to full realization, you will only be realizing the Buddha-Nature that has been with you all the time; and by all the foregoing stages you will have added to it nothing at all. You will come to look upon those aeons of work and achievement as no better than unreal actions performed in a dream. That is why the Tathagata [the Buddha] said: I truly attained nothing from complete, unexcelled Enlightenment." “The real Buddha has no mouth and preaches no Dharma... real hearing requires no ears”

🎯🎯🎯

You're way overthinking this. It's like tasting vanilla ice cream and asking "Damn why isn't this vanilla something that isn't vanilla? Why did God do this?" Stop turning your perception into a morality or philosophy. The reason as to why God created vanilla has nothing to do with the experience of tasting vanilla, vanilla will continue to be experienced the same regardless of any reason. Your question fundamentally has nothing to do with your experience. Question experience, not God. If God is truly an experience for you, you will have no questions. If it's not an experience, then it is just a belief.