caspex

This list is different from Asthapashas [Lajjā; Jugupsa; Bhaya; Śaṅkā; Kula; Śīla; Jāti; Māna] because while they DO list eight BONDS it's from the perspective of Tantra. You cannot be realistically be expected to eliminate a chain such as 'DOUBT' by yourself without the help of a deity because you cannot be expected to undo Ignorance. So while the Asthapasha list sounds very similar in goal to the 11 compulsions that restrain one's will; it's actually listed from a very different perspective. Shame is eliminated once one becomes Authentic (counterpart to vainglory) Fear is too broad to be on the list as explained earlier. Doubt is a downstream function of Ignorance so is disqualified. Clan and Caste are not compulsions so disqualified. Pride is already on the list. Sila being attachment to a sort of conduct or way of being, or the idea of things being a certain way (which you develop as you live); example: 'I am a human'. This is covered within Raga as an attachment to the world. The most interesting one within the bunch is Jugupsa i.e. Disgust. At first glance it looks to be a separate compulsion which can restrain one's will in certain circumstances but after some thought it's evident that it is either not of a nature that restrains one's will or it's of a nature which restricts one's will but that's due it being a downstream functions of other compulsions already within the eleven. For example: moral disgust often contains pride and wrath contamination disgust often contains cowardice and raga social disgust often contains envy or vainglory Thanks!

I beg to differ. *Brings in the ostrich*

Notice that most actions are taken in influence of the 11 compulsions. When's the last time you did something which wasn't heavily influenced by these eleven?

I like this idea.

I haven't truly had a full on Love awakening either but I have had enough to know it's definitely there. But this is why I can relate with Ralston and understand why he sees it this way. Love is like a completely different dimension of awakening. Imagine the x, y, z coordinates to be the mind, heart and gut. It's possible for all your awakenings to be somewhere along the mind - gut plane but never move along in the heart dimension. Love is like that snapping turtle right there in your face about to eat you every time you awaken but because you are so blind you miss it.

I love it. What an insight. I tried this and can see how I am constantly trying to define my walls so I can keep them erect. Protecting myself from change. Survival at it's finest. It's so scary to drop those walls but it's so freeing. The change is rapid but the whole point is not to care who you become. We have been beaten so senseless by this world into erecting these walls that we forget we put them in the first place. This is why my ego keeps coming back after ego deaths. Each action we do, each word we speak, it's all so we can keep defining ourselves.

Crazy stuff.

It's however you want to put it. You could also say "You wake up, make progress towards your goals, make money, complete quests and build relationships." The music is good too so the game can be both relaxing and stressful. Never again. I have heard of Runescape so much but I feel like it's too old a game to give it a serious try now, am I wrong? I have only played the Persona games, I have heard SMT is a lot more philosophical.

Will give it a read. What other good ones are you referring to? I am interested in the more occult sort of stuff or artistic stuff.

The title. I want to read through the Journals on this forum but I don't really know what the best ones or most insightful ones are. I know the question is highly subjective but I'd still enjoy your suggestions.

streaks of roots shoot deep in the ground holding on to earth, yes holding you down not a shriek not a shiver not a creak not a sliver of doubt it is stable it is able, don't label solid solid solid you can do it just call it

Beauty is a property of love and oneness. You see this beauty everywhere because you are everywhere. Alignment is beauty. You can also be in a state where everything is absolutely ugly with no exceptions. Hideous and disgusting. In those states you are in aversion to everything. You try to distinguish yourself away from everything but you cant because you are helplessly part of it all which creates an even greater disgust. Both states of Absolute Beauty and Absolute Disgust make me cry and the resultant state is still the same, TRUTH/ONENESS. These two aspects are not different at all. They both lead to stillness. You can't really name that non-dual state. It'd be wrong to call reality either beautiful or ugly. It's something that cannot be named.

The world is an excellent accountant. The same problems will repeat until you solve them. Escape is not an option. This fact should make you feel relieved instead of trapped. Because this implies a 100% success rate given enough time. Life can fucking suck but it's always temporary. Once a pattern repeats enough times you figure out how to solve it.

Your post gave me an insight into who I was 3 years ago. I used to be a lot more feminine back then and frankly that helped me with my spirituality. I used to struggle a lot with thinking "Why am I not manly?" "I want to be a true man!". I used look at men in TV shows and anime could never relate to their bravery because I did not know what it felt like to be a man. I think gender inside is highly fluid. In the past 3 years I managed to become a 'true man' within myself. I feel like a man right now. I don't want to complain and I want to take on responsibility. 'FUN' for me means relieving my stress. Everything I do is for the sake of duty towards the world and myself. When I achieved this I felt amazing, but reading your post now makes me feel I left a very big part of me back there. I used to be a woman too. Being a woman is such an upgrade to spirituality by the way and life is so much more dynamic. You do not need any fixing, nor are you out of alignment. The best thing to do for you is to explore your femininity. Just because you are not a woman doesn't limit you in exploring your femininity. Even most women don't go deep into their own femininity. You don't have to be a woman to master your femininity. Actually the biggest trap for you would be to think you are trapped as a woman inside a man's body. The truth is you are neither male nor female. It'd also be a big trap to romanticize being a woman. You have to take responsibility even as a woman, you have to do a lot of manly things even as a woman. This is because despite the existence of gender roles, both functioning men and women need to be in touch with both their masculine and feminine sides. I'd advice every human to develop both of their feminine and masculine sides before settling into what they like best. The thing with society is, the freedom you likely desire would not be available even to women. Your issue might go deeper than simply being feminine or masculine.

7 days into the gut meditation and I have had my first experience. The way I do this is by sitting under a cold shower, cross legged (one shin over the other), and doing the Prithvi Mudra. It was building up to this over the past week and finally had that release today. Essentially my awareness finally shifted from my head to my gut and suddenly the entire world was enveloped within my gut. It was as if the world was in a cosmic womb. Which suddenly reminded me of the concept of 'Hiranyagarbha'. I looked it up later and found out that it is closely related to the creator god 'Brahma'. The whole point of this meditation was to stimulate my 'Brahma' Granthi. I think it worked quite well. My midsection and below felt as light as a feather. As if a source of pure light and energy had opened for a second within my gut already overloading it with energy. It was amazing. Another big insight I had during this was that the world is essentially like being underground where each and every thing is connected to each other like roots branching out in the dirt. Very interesting indeed. I am gonna continue on. This is likely a very early stage of whatever I am hitting at. Now I don't know whether to call it placebo or something else, but whenever I am stuck in my meditation I can call out to the deity I worship and I get an instant boost in concentration power. In fact sometimes it even helps me skip the initial stages altogether when starting my meditation.

Bump

I was performing Chandra Arghya(Offering water to the moon) yesterday as part of my full moon fast and I looked at the moon and thought of something. The moon is associated with the mind. I looked at the moon and admired its beauty. It was bright and it gave me a thought. I noticed that my mind is usually enveloped in this veil of darkness compared to the rest of the world. This veil is only lifted during very vivid dreams but other than that it is always there. It dulls clarity. If this veil was somehow lifted then the mind would become as bright as the full moon. In fact, the vividness and detail of one's imagination should also increase substantially. Some people are better at visualizing things than others and it may be that the veil is much lighter for them in their subjective experience. I am not really sure how to illuminate my mind but I do think it should result in faster thinking and actually a much more joyful existence. I am sure I am not the first to think about illuminating one's mind, therefore I want to ask you guys if you know anything about it and how one goes about doing it. When I am in higher states of consciousness the veil is lifted is significantly but that's because I start to see everything as the mind rather than what we mean colloquially. I wanted to figure how to increase the brightness of this mind we talk about normally.

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.