Batman

Of course. Mind is only an abstraction. It has no real substance. It is a "mental object". An activity of representing some thing that it is not. It is like imposing a value on some physical object in order to asses its necessity to your survival. The assigned value is purely conceptual in nature and will never be the "real" value of the object at hand. Although, it has the immense power to direct the activities of survival. So even though the nature of the mind, in the relative experience, is completely conceptual, nevertheless it still is the dominant feature in the human experience. Mind is complete fabrication, but it helps to create astonishing worlds of intellect and language. This communication could not exist without the activity of mind. Memories would not exist. Future planning would be impossible. Thinking wasn't possible. The enormity of the human mind is what allows us as a species to dominant the planet. But it is a double edged sword when used constantly.

The question you should ask yourself is - are you free?

Purpose or meaning is a function of mind. Thus, it is invented and conceptual. There is no substance to it, it is imagined, usually to serve survival by assigning a conceptual value onto an object or activity. So, purpose and meaning are inventions of mind, and do not exist out of mind. Existence has no purpose, and no meaning. But it does not mean anything. It is "neutral". Meaninglessness and purposelessness is what allowing the "vacuum" or "emptiness" for creating invented purpose or some creating meaning for yourself. In our day and age, most purpose and meaning are attributed to survival and material success. But it does not have to be this way. It could be anyway you choose. You are completely free to design your own meaning and purpose. Mind has no inherent value. It is an abstraction, pure conceptual activity. You can form your mind - you already did, but mostly in accordance with the mind patterns that your family and the society in which you leave has already formed. But it can be reformed. Have fun playing and creating!

As a general note, bring in to mind the fact that you have already identified the limitations as beliefs. Now, be conscious of the fact that belief is created in the mind. It is an abstraction, a conceptual activity with no substance or real fixation in 'physical' reality. Dispelling beliefs is a possiblity, but when it comes to core beliefs that formed your self it might not be that easy, because they are "hooked" to your sense of being and much of emotional activity. So contemplating and dispelling beliefs is a one possibility, but sometimes in order to break a limiting belief you must cross that limit by action, sort of "proving to your self", and usually it will be accompanied with much emotional reactivity. Good luck my friend.

Perception is inherently indirect. By definition, you have no real perception of the thing perceived, because perception is a process by which 'data' is gathered and filtered by the senses to the mind. You believe that you are located in the head, because you identify your self mostly in the location where it seems that you control and interact with the environment (The eyes, the ears, the nose, speaking ability and facial recognition and expression). However, you do have sensations in other parts of your body. In fact, you have sensations all over your body, including inner body sensations. Why are you not being identified with being located there? When you generate a thought, where is it "located" in your experience? Do you perceive the thought being inside your head, or is it just being perceived regardless of any location, as an abstract conceptual sound that actually isn't located anywhere but only you are privy to it? Is it possible that you identify only with perceptions that seems to be in your "personal" and "immediate" control, such as mind and body? Why would a form distinguish itself from other forms by creating insular identity? Is awareness itself distinct from the thing that you are aware of? Is it possible that the assumed location of our awareness is somewhat of a red herring, distracting us from our original "place" of Being?

Kudos. Don't put to much emphasis on the visual reflection of the Consciousness. It is just your mind trying to form the Consciousness into knowledge or experience.

You are failing to grasp the meaninglessness is not a negative. If every thing lacks meaning, then meaninglessness is also meaningless. This means freedom, because as a self you can create meaning, and drop it if you find that it does not 'work for you'. You are not bounded by any seemingly inherent meaning. Work towards greater Consciousness but also ground your self in a life you want to live.

There is no 'other time' for 'God' to experience other perspectives. It is only Now, always. And experience can only occur in the Now. So 'God' does not experience any perspective 'simultaneously' to other perspectives, nor does 'he' experience them 'gradually'. This is indeed a Paradox, and why the Mind will never understand this. Now is not a moment in time, because time does not exist outside of the Now. Time is a figment of mind. Of course that 'You' as a mind cannot know other minds from within your own mind. Even if you would to 'bounce off' into 'other' mind, you will be exactly the mind that you bounce into! See how that works? It is impossible to figure it out from the level of Mind, so don't bound yourself to this self-mind imprisonment. And yes, within any experience, 'other minds' only exist as a conceptual assumption. However, isn't the experience of any mind, even your own, is itself a concept, an illusion?

Your observation regarding the eye inability to perceive itself is key and really on the spot regarding any existential questioning. However, the assumption that our senses give us direct access to reality is false. The perceptive faculties of any organism were developed for serving the survival of the organism. Survival is the principle behind every facet of your experience. Can you grasp that your entire experience is self survival, and not on a logic and intellectual level? You know a 'thing' only by perceptive or mental faculties. And they are never the 'thing' itself. Knowing is an abstraction of what is. And you don't see red, you only perceive a certain light, and distinct it from another by conceptualizing it into the label 'Red'. That is the case for every distinction you make conceptually in order to know any thing. Of course the moon does not exist for you other than be perception and conception. It's existence (or non-existence) are dependent on you making a distinction of a moon.

Mate, those are some good question which only you can answer. Knowing is a function of mind and perception, and occurs only as a process. Not knowing serves to 'open' you to Consciousness, because knowing contracts (so to speak) Consciousness into some form of concept or perception, and so must be a limitation or restriction of Consciousness into that form of knowing.

Fear is a function of mind, serving the survival of particular self. You claim that you couldn't think, but miss the fact that fear is based on thought (although, a rather automatic and fast enough that we fail to notice that we create the fear using our mind). 'God' is not any state, experience or awareness (nor is it separate from them). Being raped is not 'God'. It is an experience, a manifestation or expression of 'God', and this is why it is not separate from it, but not what God is. Don't mistake an experience of sleep paralysis with Consciousness. Maybe you were cut off from some functions of mind, mainly those relating to operate the body. But it seems that you had perceptual experience, which was also interpreted and produced emotion in accordance with the circumstances. As such, a sleep paralysis experience may reveal some aspects of mind and bring about some insight.

There is no contradiction. But common self-survival and Truth might not be 'Parallel Pathways'. In the world of self-survival, a lot of people manipulate or use others to serve their personal survival. They are lacking Consciousness and therefore hold an exclusive self (meaning they identify almost solely with their body and character traits or behaviors). From this vantage point it is also possible to forgive them for their 'devilry', because they lack Consciousness. In the world of Truth, there is only you. Your sense of self is all-encompassing. These births expressions of love and compassion that are aligned with the Truth of who and what you really are. But this does not negate survival of the organism, and only the survival of the conceptual self. This level of Consciousness will sure affect the drive to pursue uncommon wealth, material success and so on. Seeing behind the illusion of the self may cut many motivations to accumulate or gain something that is not currently present. The self drive still exits, but is diminished, in a scope that is reflected by the new level Consciousness.

If it was 'SO SCARY' it wasn't 'God'. You were still in the domain of experience and self.

Mate, did you try Psilocybin? The experience might reflect mind activities that may cause your 'root chakra' imbalance. What signals does your body gives you regarding your imbalance? Do you suffer from fear and anxiety?

No, they are concepts which are distinct one from another. Brain refers to a distinction of an organ in animals, usually the one that is central in the nervous system which is controlling most of the activities of the body. Mind refers to the complex conceptual activities in our experience, such as memory, imagination, thinking, interpretation, etc. It is common that people believe that the source of mind activities is the brain organ. This may be where the concepts meet or overlap. This is a legitimate assertion, but the fact of the matter is that if you open the skull, you will not find a the mind activities. However, it is possible and even probable that affecting the brain will in turn affect the mind activities. This seems to suggest a causational relationship between this two distinctions in our experience, but this does not mean that the source of the mind is in the brain. The brain is a concept of the mind, the same way that the mind is in itself a concept and a product of mind activity (conceptualization, interpretation). So, in the usual sense of your question, brain and mind are not the same thing. But, on a more wide sense, yes, both brain and mind are distinctions, concepts, and a product of mind activity.

As long as there is a self, there will be "problems". This is why we construct the self to begin with. The self's job is to label some aspect of experience as a problem, so it could be solved to serve the persistence of the self. Psychedelics can rather quickly "expose" this self-agenda dynamic, and 'bring to light' Consciousness regarding the nature of self and mind. Once self and mind nature is fully "known" or "recognized" by Consciousness, it is possible with contemplation or integration to transcend self and mind, or formulate a new, healthier self, which is more aligned with what is true regarding it's nature.

Thanks. I really liked your post, relaxation is indeed important and fruitful. Can you clarify what do you mean by observing unconscious tensions with 'heightened awareness'?

Get a cat

In your dreams you also believe that your 'Consciousness' comes from the body, but we all know this is not the case. In the dream you are not conscious of the deeper reality of the dream, which is the dreamer's mind. Even if your perform surgery on your brain in a dream, you might still perceive a brain. Moreover, damaging the head in the dream might even cause damage to the perceptions within the dream. This is because even the dream world has some persistency and realness to it. If someone is hurting you in your dream, you will be fearful and might even react to protect yourself. But when you wake up, you realize the the entire dream, including the one who tried to hurt you, was of your own making. When you realize this to be the case, your identification with your dream character dissipates. Although the dream analogy does fall short in some aspect, the case in our "reality" is not very far from it. The perception of body and the feeling of a subjective experience and an ability to control an object of perception or awareness does not negate the possibility of a fundamental existence.

You can take psychedelics such as Psilocybin, LSD, DMT that on a certain dose will lead you to a "no mind" experience. You won't have all the complex conceptual activities that are imposed on your perceptions (memories, imagination, interpretation, thinking, etc.). In this state you will not identify with your self, because the mind that generates the self is temporarily inactive. You might also do meditation or contemplation. But usually they are not as effective as psychedelics, and usually require tons of persistence and discipline.

This post actually feels like a good first step in the direction of honesty, which will allow you to rebuild your integrity.

The Meta-Skill of knowing how to acquire any skill efficiently.

I think I can get what you are communicating. But a name is only a concept, used for the purpose identifying a certain object (usually a life form that participates in human culture such as humans, cats, dogs, etc), or a group of objects (such as a family name which refers to some linkage between human beings). Given it's conceptual nature, name has no meaning whatsoever, unless we assert meaning to it. And I sense that it is you who is 'trapping' yourself inside a certain character, that is recognized by some name. Of course you are not your name. This is not the only concept you are not Being. Your entire self-concept is a fabrication, and is not who you really are. So feeling trapped by a specific name is no different from feeling trapped by some belief, such as that you are smart. If you believe you are smart, you will act to reflect this self-image to others, reinforce it for yourself, and avoid activities that may nibble in this belief. Feeling trapped is the reasonable outcome of any self-distinction you assume. So, name is just a small piece in the puzzle of the self. And yes, if you have associations or meaning that you imposed on your name, you may find you are trapped by them, because you identified with them, maybe even without noticing. The only one trapping you. is. your. self.

Yes, this happens when you are being dishonest with yourself, and lack the consciousness to distinct whether your understanding comes from belief or from Consciousness. This is pretty basic stuff IMO, distinguishing between concept and realization. But it is a common trap to fall into. Hope your head is fine though.

Look, I can really sense you man. But why care so much? Peterson, Harris & Co. (and also more self-help "gurus" such as Jocko WIlling, Tai Lopez and whatever) are all on same band-wagon of materialism intellectualism, who got stuck really hard in the "orange" values domain. That's their thing, and being trapped in belief system for so long should not interrupt you, because this is just how society works. You can't have Tolle, Ramana, Spira, Adyashanti, Leo Gura, Ralston, Osho, Wilber, and so on (order has no significance) without throwing some Petersoniasim in the mix. That's how society works, it has different layers of mind that reflect the consciousness of the individual. You should deep in the Spiral Dynamics water, maybe it's model might clarify this for you.