caspex

Has it ever happened to you that constant failure hammered you down every time you mustered the courage to gather hope and stand up again? This cycle will eventually lead you to a point where you lose all hope. Hope and purpose are the fuel to your actions. Here stands a choice, either you give up or somehow try again by finding more hope. Many give up, but those who choose to try again usually do not do so because they consciously chose it, but rather because they don't have the option in their psyche to let that go. They have to try again, there's no other choice. It is at this point you realize that up until now your hope was based on external objects. For example: The fruits of your actions, the end goal, inner peace, inner satisfaction, some elaborate worldview on how your actions are meaningful. No matter what it is, as long as your hope is derived from external objects, it'll always give out after X amount of failures. For some it may take 5 failures, for another 10, maybe for someone else it takes 50 failures, and for another a 100. The bigger the task the more failures you'll encounter, and at that point, after 1000s of failures, you'll eventually run out of things to find hope in. If you're lucky you succeed before that happens. If you're not so lucky, you end up feeling hopeless. And because your attachment is deep, you can't let that desire go either. Here a person reaches a very dark place, where they find themselves incapable of both action towards their goals and letting that goal go. So what's the solution? Faith. It is hope turned onto itself. Faith is that state of mind where the source of your hope has no basis. Faith is by design a strange loop. When you have some hope for better times, you would have reasons to explain to another person as to why you believe that. But when you have faith in better times, there's absolutely no basis at all for why you think that. That is a feature. If you're looking for a base, a logic behind it, then it is not faith, you're still searching for hope and purpose. Life is a balancing game between Faith and Doubt. Those who have no Doubt are blind, constantly stumbling into countless traps that life has laid out. Those who have no Faith are too slow to get anywhere and perish. Those who strike the right balance achieve stuff really fast. You simply have faith in yourself, for no reason at all. There was never any need for a reason to believe you can achieve your goals. Many intelligent folk take pride in being able to question and doubt conditions. But that is precisely what holds them back from truly achieving their goals. You cannot achieve self-mastery until you master the mechanics of belief and faith. One needs to be able to embrace uncertainty and the unknown head on, Faith is just that.

@Carl-RichardNever thought about it like that. Have any idea about the same for other stages?

Makes sense although I am not so sure about tying this in with the current state of society so much. I don't think that it is an artificially perpetuated narrative but rather a natural outcome as we shift from villages to civilizations. Moreover, my focus regarding Faith is not about fixing "Do I deserve to live?" or "What do I have to achieve to be able to prove that I deserve to exist?", it's more so about developing confidence in your own way of doing and thinking things. I had been so full of doubt that I constantly looked for validation about my way of doing things just so I know I am not fucking something up. I looked at people with the confidence to dive head first into any situation and it made me scoff at their stupidity "You have no real plan, you can easily fall into traps, there is no basis for your confidence as to why your actions would work." But it still worked for them. In fact I was the stupid one, making plans but never having enough confidence to see it all the way through. Turns out, it's a feature that confidence doesn't have a true basis to it. It's not stupidity but a deep sense of trust in yourself and in the future. This is where bravery stems from as well. My mistake was to think everything needs to have a logical backing behind it. Dialectic is more like a formalized doubt. Instead of aiming that doubt internally you aim it outwards. So there is a difference but not in the way you say it. It's all still a formalized doubting process though. thesis → antithesis → synthesis This process is about creating tension between views and revising them. The moment you acknowledge an antithesis in the hopes of a synthesis, you already acknowledge that your current worldview is incomplete. If there is room for more integration (which there always is) your worldview is provisional and open to revision. That there is an implicit doubt in your worldview, that something could be wrong. You can't pair epistemic certainty "I am not doubting" with Epistemic Incompleteness "I have not integrated its antithesis yet".

This thread is pure comedy

It can't be this simple. For one, I can think of one other reason for it's emergence within someone. Powerlessness. If one has an irrational fear of losing control and being powerless, and cannot feel powerful within, they seek this by controlling and dominating others. Of course powerlessness can be tied in with abandonment but they are quite distinct as well. Maybe powerlessness is a broader term. This can manifest in many ways, and can be mild to very extreme. Ted Bundy likely felt this way considering how he described taking someone's life as the ultimate act of control. In my opinion Epstein didn't do it because he was scared of abandonment but because he felt powerless within. One indication may be that he had very low Testosterone and therefore took supplements. I wonder if he didn't feel like a 'man' because of this. Of course there are many other indications. The whole Epstein class of people seem to be such high in powerful positions precisely because they constantly chase power as they are scared of losing control. This is just one analysis of why it may happen. Of course, your post makes just as much sense too. But it goes to show, it cannot be that simple. With stuff like this unless you do actual science it's hard to figure out whether something like pedophilia is truly curable or not. Also the stuff about sensitivity regarding meaning seems too simplified a model too. This sensitivity varies a lot by age, experience and maturity.

Looking good can make social interactions much smoother and many times helps you get stuff done quicker. I think we all know the gist of the benefits. My question is, why? Is it all the health and fertility indicators that tricks are monkey brains into favoring this person or is there more of a psychological role? I get that a good physique, at least for men, shows that this person, despite all his personality traits, has some sort of consistency and ability to put in the work. One example I think about is Simmons in Whiplash. Think about it, as you watch the movie, you sort of hate the guy but there's also an understanding of why he does it that way. People who watch that movie typically don't tend to describe Simmon's character as hypocritical upon first watch. But I believe that the story would change if he was fat and unfit. Suddenly, for most people, the emotions would flip. At least I would have seen all his demands and precision as hypocritical. I'd feel this subconsciously, but it'd be there. The presence of a bad physique would show to me the absolute lack of discipline and self-control this person has, and the fact that he demands such precision from others would be very hypocritical. If he was neither fit nor unfit, but average, this feeling wouldn't be quite strong, but it'd be somewhere in the middle, and being fit definitely helped his case. But that's a very easy example. What about good facial structure, a good frame, being tall and other genetic lotteries? We understand that those features do not require any inner work to achieve, it's handed to you from birth. But people still get 'tricked' by it, if you know what I mean. I understand that evolutionary speaking being taller and having a bigger frame gets you more reach in fighting situations and it also indicates that the person was well-fed and under good conditions, but what does a person, subjectively, feel and really think that attracts them? I think it's also important to note that I am asking these from the context of your everyday normal and social life and person. For a spiritual guru, attractiveness stops mattering as much and I actually think an attractive spiritual guru can be quite the hindrance. Spirituality is really working against all the survival programming so that checks out.

Okay, so my hot witch girlfriend is genuinely real while I am in my dream, and she was 'never' real after I wake up. The way the term relative is used in context of all the other stuff implies that God is not a bigger circle encompassing a smaller 'dream' circle but that it is the same size, and in fact the same circle as the dream circle. The term 'relative' defines not the location of being within that dream circle within a larger God circle but the state of that one circle. This is consistent with solipsism. However, 'never' implies that there's an 'explanation' which changes the state of this circle from dream to real. This is because 'explanations' or 'realizations' tell you that the previous state was never real or the way it was. It creates a deeper more basal reality. When you enter the dream again the 'explanation' ceases to exist and therefore the dream becomes real once again. You could say god lowers its consciousness by ceasing 'explanations'. Now, unless I am completely wrong about the way I have been going about this, how can we know that these 'explanations' take us to truth beyond 'making sense'? All they do is change the state of that one circle. Explanations create basal realities which didn't exist (because there's nothing beyond one's experience) prior to the explanation's being. How would you know that after you wake up from the dream, you are in the same reality you went to sleep in, because the explanation for the new reality (because reality implies there being an explanation explaining away the dream, therefore causing you to wake up.) would create a basal reality telling you how this reality was always real and never not real. Unless there exists only one explanation to your dream there can't be any guarantee that you're waking up in the same reality. This is seriously concerning because there can only be one Truth. Unless you explain away each truth as being a different aspect of the ultimate Truth, such as Love, Light, Suffering, etc. terming them as different 'awakenings'. How could you ever know these different aspects are taking you to the ultimate truth? Knowing depends on explanations after all, and I wonder if explanations can be trusted at all, because they always will make sense and create a basal reality.

Doesn't this imply that the earth is actually, truly, flat unless you fly beyond it and take a look? I mean the very idea of an 'illusion' assumes something beyond it. But there's nothing beyond your own experience. The illusion has to be it, the truth. So the 'others' when you are in low consciousness cannot be an illusion but the real truth. And as you gain consciousness, you basically kill the whole world by 'realizing' there's no one else. How does using the concept of 'illusions' make sense when you're talking about solipsism the way you describe it? Genuinely confused.

I did read it, really like it but never ended up applying any of it. I think I just learn the hard way.

I am on my path to achieving Self-Mastery. But I just can't for the life of me figure out how to actually achieve discipline. I believe discipline to be some function of consistency, persistence and doing things imperfectly. I have been sitting for a few hours, can't get in a few hours of study. Some days I get in 8+ hours, and other days I cannot manage even a single one. I believe that Discipline on the outside should look like, for me, getting in 8+ hours of study everyday for at least a month or so (that's what I require to achieve my goal). At first, not being able to achieve this consistency, I went through a lot of emotional labor, but it only grew me more resilient to my own guilt. All the emotional nights didn't actually improve my discipline. I don't think, at this point, it's about 'caring' about your goal. I care a lot, but all that does is make me cry myself at night to witness my incompetency. I have now grown more emotionally mature, my failures and incompetency doesn't discourage me. Which is good for discipline, but I feel I still lack something, which is why I cannot get that consistency. I believe some part of self-mastery to be able to act despite your emotions. I am so far from that. If I could act and if i could focus despite my emotions, I should've been able to get those consistency hours in. Despite all the stake in the world, and I have tried putting in high stakes and pressure on my self, and I have also tried a very relaxing approach with little to no stakes at all, I cannot achieve that Discipline. What am I doing wrong?

Hopefully this post isn't too old for me to post an update. - I have it sorted now. For the past 5 days, I have been studying for 8 hours. Today's the 6th day, already done with 4 hours. I have never studied this consistently and this is what I have been trying for so hard since the start of this year. I am so glad to have made it to the other side. I am pretty sure I just applied the BEDSM method as posted above(@Ninja_pig ), but I wasn't thinking of it while doing so. I just put my phone away, set fixed times for studying and gave myself enough leisure time to not have the day feel overwhelming. I study 6-10 (AM & PM) to get those 8 hours. I have free time from 10am - 5pm which is great for hanging out with friends, going out, following hobbies, working out or simply catching up on sleep. I think the one big thing I fixed was my mind's tendency to achieve perfection. Now, I don't care if I messed up the timings, nor do I care that I messed up the efficiency of my study, I still sit the rest of the way through. Better than not doing anything and wasting months (learnt it the hard way). Another thing that helped was reducing my expectations about how much needs to be done in a certain amount of time. I expected to cover 80-90 pages of my study material every single day (Total's about 2500 pages, i.e. 5 Books for my first subject). The truth is, I am not a machine and the study material is sometimes hard to comprehend. I lowered my expectations and that helped me get done more than if I hadn't. Now I cover about 40 - 64 pages a day and make notes alongside it. -- I do think discipline as a whole is something I haven't even touched upon yet. I can steadily sit for 8 hours a day to learn about a subject, great, but I cannot yet be disciplined enough in other domains such as fitness and dieting. I will consider it mastered the day I am able to be consistent regarding any action upon which I set my mind to. That is non-negotiable for me. That is a degree of freedom not many achieve before death. It really hits you during the 'embodiment' phase of your spiritual journey, because you really need to be healthy mentally and physically in whatever context your nature and awakening has taken place to truly embody those things and then progress further beyond. --- I read the other posts here about not going for discipline at all, being a 'passion-oriented' person (@Cred , @Riccurdo ). Maybe I am not ND enough to have that work as fast for me. If you want to call it being 'Mike Tyson' at doing boring shit then that's alright; however I view my concept of self-mastery as being so free and have such control over one's senses and mind that one is able to do anything that simply requires time and effort. For me, this notion of self-mastery stems from my need to be truly authentic. While one can define being authentic as letting your mind and personality run free and do whatever it wants, I think that idea is flawed. You are not your impulses, nor are you your emotions. You're not even your logical mind and nor are you your imagination. You are not your personality and therefore you are not your passions and interests either. While there's nothing that needs to be done to be pure consciousness and to be one with God, there is indeed a lot to be done to embody that highest love and let it run through you as if you are its vessel. I define true authenticity as embodiment of the Truth, embodiment of God. That's because that's truly what you are. I don't plan to achieve this by rejecting my personality, body, interests or passion, because that would be the same trap The Buddha fell into initially, but I do understand that one at least needs a mind that is not controlled by the senses and impulses. This is how I define achieving true self-mastery and discipline. I read the tagged post about NTs and NDs and it does seem a bit too simplified for how it really works. Discipline always has suffering in store, I don't think I have ever met somebody who could read a book and simply apply those teachings and move on the way you describe NTs. But there is definitely some truth to that post, but I will refrain from labeling myself as either ND or NT.

Yeah if you mean it correctly

I see Vishnu in everything and everything in Vishnu. The contradiction I felt initially between non-duality and bhakti has been resolved. I can verify that Bhakti leads to non-dual states regardless of what you might think. It does so primarily through the heart with no logic involved, just faith. The way it is done by Leo is through Gyana, primarily through the mind. Both work. Both lead to the same place. Bhakti probably has an edge over Gyana too in the sense that Gyana is at a greater risk of feeling dry. However, no way is superior in the sense that one is faster or if one is more dangerous, all depends on who you are. I am going to take time out and go to a few 7 day retreats this year. I must deepen this state. I don't think posting highly organized posts detailing each experience in this thread is a good idea for Bhakti. I find every prior post on this thread to be something I wouldn't have posted as I am today. I love the me who posted them still. I'll post in this thread any new things I do like what happened on a retreat or something. I am going to take a more heart centric approach. Rama

My Upasanas are mainly based around Bhakti, which is what I'll be talking about in this journal. I am not here to argue whether the experiences and encounters generated by these practices is inside your head or there are actual beings contacting you. I think for these upasanas to work fast, it's important one is somewhat irrational, because Love is irrational. Bhakti is all about Love. My Practice Did my first upasana that lasted 40 days back in May. I practiced Bhakti towards Lord Hanumana. Read "Hanumana Chalisa" 7 times a day after lighting a diya, alongwith 108 times japa of "Rama", before and after the hanumana chalisa. Took around 30 minutes each day. That changed a lot within me, and it really opened up my emotions, my heart chakra is getting more powerful as I do these upasanas, and so is my third eye chakra. I'll talk about this in a bit. After gradually building up, I have started doing 100 Hanumana Chalisas with other mantras before and after the main upasana. Takes 3 hours if I am quick about it, 5 hours if I am relaxed about it. I do it at night, 9 PM - 1/2 AM. All of this is useless if you don't actually love the deity you are worshipping. If anyone reading this is seriously considering these practices, do not shy away from what you feel like is dogma. It's all based on faith. To truly appreciate the efficiency of these practices, you have to go balls deep into the religion. Don't be picking and choosing, do the practice as it is told. You have to really embody Spiral Dynamics Stage Blue, and that's important, because IT WORKS. My Anahata(Heart) and Agya(Third Eye) Chakra have received MASSIVE activation due to these practices. I can't tell you how much pleasure I feel in these centers 24/7 now. And if I think of Lord Hanumana or Lord Rama, I lose all sense of my sensory experience. It's THAT good. If you have problem with your expressing your emotions it'll fix that. If you have problems controlling your emotions it'll fix that. These practices simply work and it's amazing. My agya and anahata chakras are so active at all times that, if I let go of my control of them, tears will form instantly in my eyes, so much it'll cloud my vision. If I think of the deity I worship, I'll start crying. It feels like everything you do in life is just so you can have more time for Bhakti towards the deity you worship. You are not a slave to your deity, you do this willingly because nothing else feels as good. Not even sex, masturbation, food, exercise feel this good. Goal The goal of this journal is to promote interest regarding this amazing practice, and probably act as entertainment and motivation for those who do a similar practice. Motivation is really important at first, especially when you're devoting 3 - 8 hours every day just doing Japa.

Pretty much. This is why I say 'self-mastery' specifically. I think the one thing I want to master in life is myself. Yeah you're right. But neither positive nor negative motivation worked for me. I had strong positive motivation of going on a trip with friends once a subject was complete. Didn't make it. I also let many people down by procrastinating too. That negative motivation didn't work either. I am so confused man.

For me it's been the opposite. Ever since I was a kid my instinct has been to go to the root of the issue. Looking at the big picture never really occurred to me. If I see a tree, I wanna find out where its roots are, not where it stands in reference to all the other trees, i.e. the forest. Various people have said to me, and I have received this in multiple aptitude tests, that I would be a good researcher because I seem to get hung up on one thing until I can find its root cause. But instead of setting me back in terms of metaphysical thinking and open minded discussions, it really aided me. This tendency of mine to go to the very root is what enabled me to ultimately see I am not real, that my perspectives are relative and that we are all one. I don't explicitly look for big picture connections, but because I have gone to the root of many problems, they seem to automatically connect eventually, because at its root reality itself is connected. I think Scientists' problem isn't that they don't try to see the big picture, rather it is dogma and strictness. That would hinder anybody, even those who do think big picture.

I feel I contemplate too much and act too little. If I just do it, it feels like pain. The boredom is so painful. I thought it was my dopamine receptors being fried or something, so I refrained from social media, etc. and life felt really nice, but the discipline did not arrive. I always seem to be waiting for some 'state' of mind that'll allow me to study my target. That state is all too infrequent. I doubt people who are masters of themselves need to wait for a 'state' to do what they need. I think facing that emotional labor and pain is the only way forward. That is what I am seem to be running away from. That is why I procrastinate. I will never be ready to face that pain, and never not feel that pain unless I actually go do it and get the hang of it. Maybe what it means to achieve self-mastery is to develop one's capacity to tolerate and operate under this pain.

This is precisely where I have seen growth. I don't guilt myself nor stress over the fact of not achieving my daily targets. I realized sometime ago that stressing does not help. I have been relaxed the past few days, but that doesn't seem to help me at all in my consistency. I don't expect myself to work like a machine anymore, but I must at least achieve those targets to achieve my goal. I don't want to give up on my goal. All the people I admire had this one thing in common; They could control themselves. I believe it's my duty and also my right to achieve self-mastery. Yeah, I don't really identify myself as either a lazy person or an active one. I am who I am. But my issue seems very simple. For one, I know I am mentally and physically capable of studying my target. The problem for me seems to be the inner drive. I need certainty really badly. If things don't go according to plan I give up easily. That's too much emotional tension for me. I have seen some recent improvement in this aspect, but without a plan I can't have enough faith in myself that I am working at a good pace, after all I could be doing it really slowly and not realize it until it's too late. I have been doing this for the past two months. I have had many insights regarding my own inner workings. But I am afraid it'll be too late before I achieve enough understanding to attain that discipline I need.

Yeah it's true. Spirituality is not about shunning survival. It's about seeing through it's games, and still taking part in it anyways. The advantage over typical looksmaxxers for some awakened person would be that they don't feel insecure. Looksmaxxing is great for survival. The problem really starts when no matter how much you try, you cannot find yourself beautiful enough to love yourself. Your happiness is more important than your looks, and if you're happiness depends on your looks you need a lot of growing to do. Most looksmaxxers confuse looks with happiness. Looksmaxxing in the most healthy sense can only be achieved when you don't mind being ugly. Paradoxical, this is why nobody does it that way.

I mean it's not fixed that you visit those realms as a human. You could also visit it as a being that enjoys hell. In which case, hell would be heaven while heaven would seem like hell. Wait, so if what's hell is determined by how you absorb any experience, you'd have already experienced hell if you ever suffered deeply, right here on earth.

The Yellow Pipe-Dream

What do you guys think on Authenticity? Why does someone who is authentic attract so many people, good or bad? Are there any costs to authenticity? I know that being inauthentic comes with inner conflict and suffering. Your average person does not see that the benefits of authenticity outweigh the benefits of inauthenticity, why is that? What can cause that shift in clarity?

Just an update here that I am still going strong. Haven't missed a single day. Some stuff has happened but I'll detail everything here when something really significant happens.

@mmKay I live in Delhi, often a contender for the most polluted city on earth. Gotta save up to leave this place first .

Yeah it's quite tricky to explain. People believe it's not even possible, but the mind is capable of imagining it. When you actually get it, it's a big recontextualization into how you perceive space. While thinking of the 4th axis as time is useful to get started, the real goal is to imagine 4 spatial dimensions and how an object- for example a sphere- might move through it. To test myself, I like to imagine a 4D plane and a 3D slice of it being perceived by a being much like humans. Then, I move a sphere- or other shapes- through the 4th dimension, and perceive how it might look within that 3D slice to that being. Then, I go to an actual 4D visualizer software to see whether I got it right, and 8/10 I do. I feel this is more than a simple exercise of the mind. The stark difference between 3D and 4D space actually mirrors quite well how in many aspects of life, we perceive things in a flat manner, when to see a truer picture, we need to add an extra axis. To me, that sudden recontexualization from 3D to 4D actually quite closely resembles that recontexualization you get moving from ego-self to no-self.