Tim R

To confuse the map with the territory simply means to confuse ideas, concepts, models and abstractions with the real world. It's just a metaphor and has nothing to do with maps or territory.

Yeah, there is "I am" is all there is.

@James123 I don't quite agree. Maybe you mean the right thing, but formulated it the wrong way. Can't I say "I am"? Because I know that I am. And to say that "I am" doesn't change anything whatsoever. So, he who understands, can talk. He who doesn't understand can also talk, but he doesn't and won't understand. When I truly know, I can talk, because I also know that it won't make any difference. I can be and talk. To say that the only way to be is to be in silence is attachment to silence. One could say "every way is the only way".

You don't want to get rid of your emotions. To transcend your emotions doesn't mean that you get rid of them, it means that you keep them but don't let them dictate your life. As you observed, many people suffer, but it's not because of their emotions. It's because they are a slave to their emotions. It's because they can't allow pain. It's because they blindly follow their desires. It's because they crave joy. So to transcend you emotions doesn't mean that you are perfectly stoic and emotionally immovable because you killed that part of yourself. It means that you are no longer in a position in which emotions can cause you any suffering.

Oh for God's sake, how many more of these solipsism threads do you guys wanna make?... Just use the search function, it really ain't that difficult.

@Leo Gura Great video, really enjoyed it. Many insights. Thank you <3

To my understanding there's a difference between the two. Critical thinking is based on nothing but thinking. This doesn't necessarily have to be limited to rational or linear thinking, but it mostly is. It's an excellent tool for navigating the abstract and conceptual realm in order to discover for example logical consequences or implications. Contemplation basically does the same but also takes intuition into account to allow non-deductive, spontaneous insight which doesn't hinge on any prior thoughts. Contemplation also relies more on direct experience. I can for example look at the color red and try to use critical thinking in order to find out "what is red?" but this won't ever help me to understand what "red" is. Contemplation on the other hand would allow the phenomenological and intuitional aspect of the question "what is red" to flow into my process of discernment.

@hugoalfven Well do you understand it yourself? Do you feel it? Do you know it, actually? Because if you do, you don't care how to explain. Because then you know and it will be so clear and so obvious that there's no question about how to explain it. And if you don't understand it yourself, why parrot something that as far as you know could be an ideology?

Terence proposes some very, very interesting ideas. He basically says that with the evolution of language into a visually beheld realm of directly communicated intent, language and reality will merge into one. I think he's right. The evolution of media and language tend to become ever more visual and intent seeks to travel faster to the receiving end. Your thoughts? Could we already be in a virtual reality that was originally designed to communicate linguistic intent, but got so evolved that we confuse it with our former reality? Sort of "Matrix" style (this isn't about whether reality is a simulation or not; it isn't). What will come after VR? What role do you think will "Neuralink" play? We already merge with our technology. The line between "human" and "robot/machine" will blur. How will this affect our understanding of consciousness? Some Tier Two thinking exercises for you guys Man we've got some seriously interesting times ahead...

https://www.reddit.com/r/blackmagicfuckery/comments/eb0nia/this_hurts_my_brain/ Wooah this is so cool

Computers are currently probably the least stagnant thing in the world... They evolve faster than anything else we possess.

never said that, did I? Well you asked for the definition of happiness. I gave you mine, make of it whatever you will. Happiness isn't necessarily joy. If you say that joy doesn't equal sadness I'm with you on that one, but happiness is the inclusion and acceptance of sadness. Exactly! But in a yes-way. It's the acceptance of non-acceptance. It's a meta-yes.

I'm sure many of you can relate to this problem. Misusing/misinterpreting spirituality to "neglect" life and responsibility. I sometimes find myself rationalizing all kinds of unhealthy and irresponsible behaviors with truths found in spirituality. Especially my (sense of) responsibility tends suffer from that and what happens is that I project the theoretical truths onto life in order to justify my behavior. There's a nice little story I really like which perfectly illustrates this; The student and his teacher sit together in the ashram and the student asks him: "Isn't it true that everything is Brahman, including me?" to which the teacher replies "Yes, everything is Brahman and you are also Brahman." So the student walks away. On his way he encounters a Mahout, riding on his elephant. The Mahout says "hey, you!! This isn't a very nice elephant, you better get out of the way!" But the student ignored the Mahout and thought to himself "Oh, nothing will happen to me. I know that I am Brahman and everything else is Brahman too, so this elephant is also Brahman and therefore surely won't harm me." So the elephant swung his trunk and hit the student, yeeting him into the brambles. The student stood up and went back to the ashram where he furiously accused his teacher: "you lied to me! You said I was Brahman and everything else too, but the elephant hit me!!" The teacher replied "you fool! You forgot that the Mahout warning you from the elephant was Brahman too!!" So yeah, I think you get the point. I'm fooling myself into believing that what I'm doing is alright because of some truth that I understand in theory. How do I stop this? I sometimes realize that I'm thinking way too much about the teachings and then neglect all kinds of things because of that. Should I maybe drop spirituality for a while and get a grip on my life? Probably not such a bad idea, right? haha oh boy.

Wikipedia say "Potential generally refers to a currently unrealized ability." Ok then the question emerges: what is ability? Seems like a somewhat circular definition to me... Does potential even exist? In physics for example, before there's a current, a potential is present. Sort of the ability/desire of the electrons to jump over to the other electrons and generate the current. But either there's a current or not, potential is like non-present. Not really. So what is potential in human beings? Does potential itself even exist or does it actually not exist, only as something else that is manifested? Is potential the nothing that gives birth to the something?

@Leo Gura In your most recent blog post you said that you've been enabled to heal your brain and that you've removed the heavy metals from it. This reminded me of shamanism; they too use psychedelics as tools in order to heal themselves and their fellow villagers. Is this the same kind of healing? The same method? And if not, what are the differences?

@Valwyndir I don't understand. Could you elaborate?

@Carl-Richard Thanks brother <3

@zeroISinfinity I've glimpsed that by accident and it's to this day the most incredible realization I've ever had. I'd really like to meet a human being who is like this. Get infected with their Love.

So what about your perspective of "reality is groundless" then? Isn't that itself what you in your own words "would consider a ground"? Not true non-duality. The essence of non-duality is that it has no opposite.

The Daoist notion of "Wu Wei" is one of the most counterintuitive things I've ever come across. Getting things done with so little force that you get to the point where it seems that you're not doing anything. This change in your "method" gets rid of the tension and force in doing things.

@Someone here The latter. Yes, these thing are only going to increase you're satisfaction (which is a form of happiness), but only temporarily. The ego is never fully satisfied. Let that one really sink in, never satisfied. As I said, happiness includes sadness. Happiness is the inclusion and acceptance of everything, as it is, right now, without the desire to change it in any way. To be happy doesn't mean that you won't cry or grief when for example someone you love died. You do cry and you do grief, fully accepting the reason for why you're crying and the crying itself. Don't confuse happiness with joy. Joy is (a form of) happiness, but happiness isn't joy. Because we don't know any better and because we've been conditioned to think that. Therefore it's nobody's fault, not really. Everybody inherits this idea from everybody else, it's the game we play in and on our society. It's simply a false belief, there's nothing more to it. Because satisfaction is only one form of happiness. Satisfaction can't be induced without any means, it's always bound to certain conditions. Unconditional satisfaction* = True Happiness *this is just a word game to illustrate the point of what happiness is, satisfaction is always conditional Well as I said, we don't know any better. Sit and be happy, that's exactly it. Accepting hunger doesn't mean that you'll stop eating. Accepting pain doesn't mean that you'll stop caring for your bodily ailments. Acceptance doesn't mean saying "yes" to everything. It means saying "Yes" to everything - even to the "no".

@Someone here Read my first long reply, there I try to explain it. I'm not twisting any words, on the contrary. And yes, happiness includes diseases and pain. Happiness isn't just a feeling or bodily sensation like joy or sadness. It's much more fundamental.

It's not separate from pleasure, pleasure is a form of happiness. Is "being" a sensation in your body? Or does "being" somehow include all sensations?

Well I guess to answer that question, we first have to define happiness. The way I see it, there's happiness and there's satisfaction. Satisfaction is conditional: "if I had a million dollars, if I had had this car, if I had a hot girl-/boyfriend, if I had a bigger house", etc. Happiness on the other hand is unconditional: "no matter what, I'm happy." We confuse happiness with satisfaction/hedonism. We think that in order to be happy, certain things must happen. And if these things don't happen, we won't be happy. We've been chasing satisfaction all our lives long, not realizing that it is a complete fallacy. Why is it a fallacy? Because to be happy is to be satisfied with what is - satisfaction is something very similar, the only difference: specific things must be. We all know what it's like to be satisfied. When we get what we want, we say "I'm happy" and in a sense that's true! Because in that moment we are satisfied with what is, the only difference to happiness is that we are clinging to this specific condition! And if this specific condition seizes to be, we aren't satisfied ("conditionally happy") anymore. And happiness drops this conditionality. Happiness drops expectation. Happiness drops the desire for specific conditions; specific events/things/people/feelings/experiences/etc. Here's the funny thing: we think that if we drop all expectations and desires, we won't be happy and we won't be unhappy either. We think it will simply be sort of neutral because after all, why should there be any happiness? Doesn't it make much more sense that it will simply be neutral? Haha... But what we don't see is this: Happiness is this neutral condition Happiness is the baseline of existence. It can't be anything else. Because "no-desire-for-anything-specific-other-than-this" and "that-which-is-now" are the baseline of existence. This is just so incredibly obvious. Unconditional happiness is the nature of existence. It's exactly the same way for love, these words "love" and "happiness" are describing the same, only seen from a slightly different point of view. So happiness isn't something that comes from anywhere, it is always the case, only it's clouded by desire and expectations for specific conditions other than the current moment. The only way to happiness is to realize what is. And what is, is always the case, so happiness doesn't come from anywhere. It's not something you get from somewhere else, it's something you find. Don't make the mistake to think that you'll find it in any specific place, you see? Because then you're back again at satisfaction. To be happy is simply to be. And you already are, only you think you're not. Here's the trick: the moment you start to realize this, you'll say "oh okay then, I'll drop my desires and expectations so I can realize the unconditional happiness within." Well. But you're still caught in conditions then. Because you say "if I could drop desire and expectation, I'd be happy." Same old rat race. "What can we do about that?" Why do you wanna do something about that? You see? Your desire to change the current circumstances shows that you still haven't understood! No road leads to happiness. Happiness is, and the only way to be happy is to be happy. No method, no way, nothing. You can't go to where you already are

Hey Leo, you made a video about understanding Islam and a couple of videos about religion in general. Since Christianity is the dominating religion in the world, I'd really like to hear your comments and explanations of certain aspects of Christianity from your point of view! What is often misunderstood about it? What did Christ actually point towards with some of his teachings? Can a Christian (I'm sure there are some among us) transcend Christianity by actually understanding Christ's teachings?