The0Self

Congrats! Some call this Witnessing or the figure ground reversal. Almost like looking in at the world instead of out at it? Very, very transcendent? State of pure subjectivity. It's an auspicious sign. It's often brought about by turning attention away from all objects no matter how subtle, but it can arise for many reasons. Don't reflect on it too much though as that creates a divide -- just inquire as normal and treat the memory of the state like any other object -- ignore/relax/turn-away-from it / attempt to find its assumed knower. You can continue to do self inquiry on Witnessing itself, or perhaps just abide as Witnessing and solidly enjoy it... until it gets old and you move on to whatever the next step is.

Do you think a rock would see a difference in goodness between nazis and those killed by nazis? Course not, they aren’t selfish. Good/better only means good for me and what I identify with. If I’m a terrorist, “good for me” might be beheading someone — otherwise why would they do it... the infidel is considered a threat to the goodness of reality in their minds, so they obviously have good intentions. Pretty straightforward. Of course for us that would be very bad. Same deal. Everything is ultimately perfection (that’s all there is), and equal, but of course NOT relatively equal — we’re more developed and clearly display more apparent goodness (depending on who you ask) than terrorists... No one is arguing against that.

Arising and passing of meaningless chaos, glommed together by imagination, appearing as gratitude; joy; etc.

The 2 most powerful simple Self-Love exercises, in my experience: Metta, after getting pretty good and steady with it — though it may start out slow, it builds tremendously. Staring at reflection in the mirror and telling yourself “I love you,” repeatedly, with ease and mindfulness.

In one manner of speaking, they’re at a lower stage of ego development. They identify with, and have compassion for, men who they perceive as having been wronged; heartbroken; seduced; affected; emasculated by women. They identify less with the women, creating a differential in perceived goodness — women painted as the evil ones. Pretty simple.

It makes sense only if you have unfalsifiable beliefs — namely that there exists something outside of consciousness. If you’re self honest and uproot self deception, materialism is utterly and literally insane — much like believing that if you believe that someone named Jesus 2000 years ago arose from the dead (how random...), you’ll go to Heaven... so basically just believing as you’re told.

Many would say to advise on this is to miss the point, but if you’re seeking you’re gonna seek, so TMI by Culadasa is as good a place as any to start. It’s just that enlightenment is not an achievement or prize that you get.

Liberation/enlightenment. A cessation is a sort of glimpse. I'm talking about the end of cessations.

Yes but many think that liberation is just being convinced that there is no liberation to achieve -- but in that case there's still someone there merely thinking they're done. Many other ideas for what it is, but what it is can't be imagined. Liberation/enlightenment actually happens a bit more completely than that, liberation is transcended like everything else (everything is empty of existing in reality), but there's absolutely no separation left to experience exactly what that's like (which is why what enlightenment is like cannot be imagined). It really is different from God-realization and more complete -- there are no mystical experiences after liberation.

What Frank talks about is not what Leo talks about. Frank is beyond enlightenment -- the only enlightenment -- the end of mystical experiences.

What? Meditation of course... It takes a lot of practice, but even in terms of pure intensity of pleasure it beats cocaine and heroin if you take it far enough.

You’re still coming back to the same fundamental misunderstanding — I’m not talking about metabolic rate. As you said, that does not vary much. It’s the increased total caloric expenditure via movement throughout the day using more muscle mass which is very wasteful — NOT because of its weight, but because of the mass of energetic fibers constantly using energy as they move, even while moving leisurely. Get your deadlift up to 500 and you will find you have to eat so much, OR stay very still throughout the day, just to maintain that. Of course after a lot of even pure fat-weight loss, there will be less force acting on those muscles as well, causing total caloric expenditure to plummet — a phenomenon that is much more prominent the more muscle you have, and much less prominent the less you have. And as far as the 60 calories per 10lb — that’s fine; the entire point of mentioning it was to say muscle isn’t energetically costly while at rest, and that’s why people overlook just how energetically costly they are while in movement. I was mentioning the 600 entirely for the purpose of saying that 600 is negligible — 60 makes the point even more strongly. And now that I remember I think you’re right about the 60, my bad, but again that makes the point — as to why it’s overlooked just how costly muscles are in the real world, rather than on paper in reference to the resting/RMR/BMR cost... people look at a small number like 6cals per day and then it very much hides the reality of the situation.

Sure, except you have no idea how right you are. There’s a reason for why I actually know that other account is not the real Justin Bieber ?

Understandable, but that's essentially God pretending to be a 5 year old in Syria. Yeah it's not "good" as in "good for me," it's just boundless love. Love isn't always physically pleasant.

^^ This. Nice. Even with Buddhas who teach, it's still hard to tell. When they give pointers and teachings, it will almost necessarily seem as though they're "beating around the bush" -- that's because that bush is a massive black hole that can't be talked about. Lol I just saw that! Imagine if it turned out to actually be him that'd be hilarious.

^^ This.

Somewhere close to the following 1RM’s: 300 lb bench 400 squat 500 deadlift Though the bench is less important as it uses a fraction of the muscle mass relative to the other 2. I have the deadlift but not the other 2. Maybe +100lb chin up and close to 200lb standing press as well, for further reference. Maintenance for that will be absurdly high if they’re moving around a lot during the day — once a decent amount of muscle mass is accrued, activity throughout the day (as a whole) modifies the total caloric expenditure FAR more acutely than focused training sessions. After losing, say, 25lb fat though, one might have lost up to 5lb of muscle (more if they didn’t do it right) — that provides a whole lot more metabolic efficiency... as in fat-loss will stall. Even 1-2lb of muscle loss will decrease maintenance calories by a nice chunk.

That’s fair enough. I appreciated the 7000 steps insight as well. What I said still stands though.

Of course not. When you get extremely lean the scale tips greatly towards preserving fat and muscle. And in natural bodybuilding there is greatly reduced muscle mass in late cut. There are no contradictions in what I wrote I can assure you.

Bro... If you had read what I wrote, you’d see I said exactly this. It was kinda the whole point man ? Maybe you just misread a small part what I wrote, no big deal — I said 600 cals per 10 (TEN) lb. exactly what you said. But... that’s for BMR only... +6 calories a day per pound of muscle at rest. So +600cal per day for +10lb muscle. That’s at rest — the effect on BMR only. The increased daily caloric expenditure is utterly insane though! Several thousand calories per additional 10 lb of muscle, very much depending on how much movement is done throughout the day. Most very strong intelligent lifters know this — it’s hard to miss when you’re living it. It’s not some theory I just came up with willy nilly. It’s just not known to everyone.

Well you can't really. Self-inquiry (repeatedly turning away from every object no matter how subtle by looking for its assumed knower) until it gives way to pure subjectivity, and beyond, can maybe seem to be associated with it. The point is the seeming allure and significance of that state is just as much here and now.

Exactly. He can be correct in a sense, but not from a first try... Having a God-realization event can rip reality wide open but that's nothing compared to having reality ripped almost as wide open from sober meditation...because much more stays... Even though that's quite difficult, it can absolutely be done. Inquiring into who knows the difference between God-realization and this/now, in the presence of deep stillness and powerful consciousness, can accomplish this.

^^ This. (duh...)

Inquire into what knows the difference between that state and this/now.

Nice! Enlightenment is the collapse of the distinction between that and ordinary presence... i.e. that "state" is only a memory -- nothing has actually changed -- presence is absence and reality is unreality. Then, everything is "on the same level" -- awareness has the same status as chair, table, body, thought, etc.