caspex

This is a theme you find common across all mechanisms in reality that operate on survival. Balance. Survival is all about balance and when the balance breaks the survival fails. Organisms seek massive power because that's a balancing act between their desire and limitations of the world. Survival makes it so the struggle is the point. Only way two planks of wood can stay upright is if they lean on each other. Till this balance is maintained they are upright. This balance requires resistance, leaning and pushing on the other plank. If one plank stops pushing as hard it will fall over due to pressure of the other planks and they both fall. Everything we do is about balance. Our desires are unlimited because we are limited. This is why the way to achieve freedom is not through fulfilling desires but through not having any at all. This is common trope within media where the strongest character loses meaning in competitions of strength. Because there is no struggle, the survival has failed. Being the strongest is the same as being the weakest. Both lose interest. The point was always to struggle but because their desire to achieve perfection was part of the balancing act, they never realized it. In vagabond, Miyamoto Mushashi turns inward to find true strength rather than chase external strength. This way he connects to the only thing in reality that isn't dependent on survival, consciousness.

Every software is free if you know how

We really are just animals, huddled up in our tiny homes engaging in ourselves. Reproduction, food, safety, social hierarchy, entertainment. Exploration is the gateway to experience something higher than animal. That is consciousness. Being open to receive. Curiosity and creativity.

AI is crazy good now. I see no spelling mistakes.

I was hoping for something more specific. Meaning-maxxing it is then. Never heard of image streaming before. Will definitely try it. I think I tried something similar once where I typed out everything I was thinking (fast typer here) and when I read it later it was like 3 pages of elite advice. Although I think image streaming is supposed to be messier rather than structured. N-Back is nice too though I got bored after Dual-4-Back because I thought it wasn't doing too much for me.

When I was in deep pain I realized there was a point after which the human mind simply stops holding on to sanity and gives up. I touched that boundary and barely came back. In pain you aren't really scared of death but reaching that boundary and going insane. Suffering has taught me to respect it and made me realize the point of life is goodness. I cry from gratitude for being alive and having a roof over my head, no pain in my body and a family. The world is full of suffering yet it is also full of love and goodness. In the depths of suffering and physical pain, when I dipped my toe in that insanity because my mind couldn't hold on to it, I fell to the ground screaming. I looked at all that pain and understood it was all God, all perfect and all as was always intended to be. I was crying in pain begging for it to stop but I knew it was perfectly God. I don't want to experience that ever again. Never Never Never. But that's God. That's true and that's perfect. No matter what you think of this, or whether I am on a high horse when I say the world is perfect, it is the truth and suffering is doing exactly what it is meant to do. The world is utterly perfect. When you cry beg and scream for it to all stop, when you cross that boundary and go insane you'll know it was all perfect and that it was love.

I have a lot in common with @Natasha Tori Maru in the mistakes I have fixed over the past few years. To add, the most prominent lesson I have learnt in the past year and half is respect towards the suffering of others. I cannot just go up to my friend and fix his problem for him unless he wants to fix it. I respect people and if they want to deal with something themselves they are free to. I will only help those who seek advice from me. Not because 'Don't throw pearls at swine' but because it's their choice if they want help or not. Respect your fellow being. By giving advice to someone who, although may need it, doesn't want it I disrespect their will. I will always be there and I'll have you cognizant of the fact that I CAN help, but not unless you ask me to. Respecting suffering has also allowed me to become a better listener and provider of emotional support rather than giving immediate advice. A lot of the times when people vent they do not seek advice but relief. They want someone to confide in. Like a scared animal they seek shelter. I know because I went through this exact phase. A surprising amount of times people know their faults, they just need emotional support to get back up. I used to think that having somebody vent their problems to me will fill me up with negativity and affect my life so it is best cut such people off. The truth is that there is a big difference between someone who genuinely vents for support and someone who vents for attention. The latter kind is what you must cut off. When humans suffer it is often like being lost in a raging sea not knowing where you will be taken. At such points in life one needs an anchor to hold on to so they can feel safe and then act to get out of that situation. I am continuously learning to become a better anchor for those around me. In periods of deep and prolonged suffering, even little islands of hope can go a long way. The only real way to mentally survive torture is finding happiness in the little things. A 5 minute walk, the way the sun shines through the window, the great taste of a burger. I have grown to love people because I learnt to love myself.

Me explaining how not paying my taxes is actually the same as paying them because I could have compared tax evasion to an ostrich.

I don't think deleting your account will get rid of your posts or name on the quotes.

I am in as well I might be in the 20%, I am the most neurotypical person I know but I don't have the money or time for the retreat. Bummer.

I have progressed. Past few years my spiritual journey was all about the mind i.e. building knowledge, experiencing ego deaths, realizing oneness, no others, impermanence. Now it's moving towards the heart. Few days ago I had an awakening of the heart where I understood the certainty of the true self. My heart bloomed and I felt I had breathed in after a long time. Calmness, peace. Above all I felt that I was good. Goodness seemed to be the point of life. I am the source of all Goodness in the world. This was a long time coming, I realized that I needed to move towards the heart for a long time. Although this made me realize how backwards I am going about it. In the three granthi system you go bottom up. i.e. the gut, heart then the mind. Awakening in your gut should provide you with a sense of utter security, balance and stability. I actually want to work on that before the heart. I believe the ephemeral nature of the spiritual states would be made more permanent if I do this. During the start of this journal I was going at my sadhana hardcore and I became a complete celibate too. I had forsaken even garlic and onion. Right now the only thing I avoid is non-vegetarian items and any sort of intoxicants. If I am gonna work on awakening my gut and the base of spine I assume controlling my sexual urges must be a big part of that. Brahma Granthi sits between Muladhara and Svadhisthana after all. This should increase my connection with my deity too and increase the quality of my sadhana. For now I am just going to start by sitting and focusing on the contract points between me and the ground. Really feeling into the base of my body and hopefully my being as well.

It was a mindfuck when I woke up one day and realized I was headless.

Not old enough for this, not rich enough for this, not free enough for this. Hopefully you are still doing this 3-4 years down the line. Will you be making a video about this? At least on the blog? Any sort of records or posts for those of us who couldn't go?

They are at a level of development where the best medium of comparison they have is money. By the way, how do you know you have achieved mind mastery? How do you define it?

Somebody has to say the boring stuff, and it often gets ignored. When I was in the same sort of rut I didn't even want to read the boring stuff because I automatically assumed that's all basic stuff that can never help me who was dealing with much higher problems. There was a sort of pride in my suffering. This is exactly what I needed though. You'd be surprised how much a little bit of discipline solves in life.

Your problem doesn't seem to stem from spirituality, I think you are using it to justify your behavior. It seems like from your post that you need a lot of normal self-help with developing motivation and discipline in life. Take a break from spirituality not because it is bullshit but because your ego is using genuine insights to spin its bullshit. This is quite common and I have gone through the same shit. For me it was the fear of failure, bad relationships, attachment to the past and other such issues which kept me down. Addiction and an unfit body also contributed massively to my depression. I used to believe that if I could just get one more insight that's just one degree deeper I would miraculously escape my depression. That's just not how it works. You probably need genuine shadow work, emotional healing, and discovering yourself(not in the spiritual sense). Trust me when I say this. If I striped you of all the spiritual insights you'd still be just as miserable because the real problem is a lack of development. This is why many traditions across the world have had practices to build and purify one's body and mind before attempting deep spiritual awakenings.

In the 1880s the British abducted a few them and kept them nearby at Port Blair but they kept getting rapidly ill having been exposed to new diseases and dying. However one man named Enmei survived. The stay was quite short and he was sent back to his island. There are no records of any conversation or any knowledge gathered from Enmei. I am just wondering what Enmei thought of the ordeal and what he communicated to his people. How is this story preserved in their culture over a hundred years later?

What Leo says doesn't really contradict this as much as you'd like to think btw

Definition πλάσσω (plássō) → plasma — “to mold, shape” Plasmism is a worldview in which all cognition and behavior are products of shaping forces (“plasma” in the Greek sense of being molded). In this framework, everything you think or do comes from influences acting on you. Randomness may exist, but it is not something you control, and “willpower” is not an independent force—it is just the result of certain influences becoming stronger and more stable than others. This worldview states: (1) Free Will is illusory (2) Randomness exists (but is non-agential) (3) Influence is king. Influence here means any factor that affects what you think or do. This includes: External influences (environment, people, situation) Internal influences (genetics, conditioning, biology) Abstract influences (beliefs, ideas, identity) Not all influences are equal, some are stronger than others and behavior follows whichever set of influences has the greatest combined strength. Explanation Illusory Free Will According to Plasmism, free will does not exist. Every decision, thought, and action is the result of influences acting on you. When you make a decision, what is actually happening is that multiple influences are pushing you in different directions. The one that ends up being strongest is what determines what you do. “Willpower” does exist in a sense, but only as an appearance. Someone with “strong willpower” is just someone whose internal influences (discipline, habits, identity, conditioning) are strong enough to override competing influences. Someone with “weak willpower” has weaker internal influences or stronger opposing ones. For example, if you choose between a green apple and a red apple, that choice may be influenced by things like: “I like green more than red” “Green apples are healthier” “I’ve never tried this before” “Someone told me to pick this one” You follow whichever set of influences ends up being strongest in that moment. Randomness Randomness may exist in reality, meaning that even if conditions are the same, outcomes might still differ slightly. However, in Plasmism, randomness does not give you control. At most, it slightly shifts how strong certain influences are or pushes a decision one way or another when things are close. So whether randomness is significant or not doesn’t really matter here because it still doesn’t create free will. Influence is King This is the core idea of Plasmism. Everything you do comes from competing influences. At any moment, you can think of different actions as competing against each other. Each one is backed by a set of influences, and whichever side is stronger is what you end up doing. So it’s : “This had the strongest influence on me at that moment” Practical Applications The real power of Plasmism lies in understanding and working with influences. A good example is the Hungry Judge Effect, where judges tend to make harsher decisions when they are hungry or tired. Most of them would not agree that something like hunger is affecting their judgment that much, but it clearly does. Even if we consider that scheduling (wanting to get done with one prison before meal break so the judge can start with another) influenced the decision of the judge to grant parole or not, the point still stands. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_judge_effect) You are constantly being influenced by things you don’t even notice. Environment Your environment heavily influences your thoughts and actions over time. The idea of “clean your room” works because your surroundings act as constant influences: A clean environment would push you toward order and action A messy environment would push you toward laziness and avoidance It has always been said that bad company leads to worse outcomes and good company leads to better ones. Plasmism explains this by stating that people around you are strong sources of influence that shape your trajectory. Procrastination Plasmism states that there are influences pushing you to do the task (goals, pressure, identity) and influences pushing you to avoid it (comfort, distraction, fatigue). You procrastinate when the avoidance influences are stronger. The solution is changing the influence balance instead of 'trying harder': Remove influences that push you to procrastinate Add influences that push you to act When the balance shifts, you will act automatically. Comfort Comfort is a very strong influence. Humans naturally move toward the path of least resistance. You eat bad food because it is easier to access. You avoid work because distractions are easier to engage with. Your behavior follows whatever is most convenient within your environment. Reinforcement Some influences get stronger over time. Repeated behaviors become habits Exposure increases preference (what advertisements target) Biological drives combine with learned patterns: For example, something like lust starts as a biological influence, but over time it can combine with habits and conditioning to become much stronger and harder to resist. Over time, these influences stabilize and start to dominate behavior. Shaping Influence If everything is influence, then the way to change your behavior is to shape your influences. Remove bad influences where possible Introduce good influences Make good actions easier and bad actions harder You can also create internal influences. For example, if you decide that a certain idea or principle is good, and you consciously affirm it(for eg. Verbally), that acts as a reinforcing influence in your mind. It doesn’t magically control you, but it increases the likelihood that you act in line with it. Media and Attention Things like short-form content expose you to a constant stream of influences in a very short time. This can heavily shape your attention, preferences, and behavior. Music and art also influence you deeply. What you consume repeatedly will shape how you think over time. One method that has worked well for me is to find a piece of music or a stotra/chant that I believe to be a good influence in line with my goals, and before listening to it, I verbally say to myself, "I allow this music/stotra to influence me deeply". Closing I decided to create this new label because the idea of Plasmism brings together ideas that people already recognize and puts them under one system. Once you start looking at things this way, the focus shifts from trying to change yourself to changing what influences you which I think is how most people end up achieving what they achieve.

Nothing else.

That makes sense. If you could link me a source for this that'd be great. I am collecting examples.

What causes a desire to convert into an intention?

High on Potenuse

Everything has its pros and cons, depends on what you consider 'bad'. I live in India where most of the parenting you'll see is the traditional kind. I think the major shift is from believing you know what's best for your kid vs. believing your kid will figure it out. Reality is nuanced and sometimes you know best while sometimes it is best to let your kid figure it out. Both extremes are bad and make dysfunctional human beings.

I think success also depends on you ability to leverage resources in ways others can't. I am interested in reading your insights on success as and when you post them.