caspex

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.

I think true friendship is born out of shared experience and hardships. I think exposing yourself to many people should get you a few acquaintances to crack jokes with or share some time with. To convert them into friends you should plan hangouts and things to do together away from uni. Some people you click with instantly, those are the best.

Aside from the Wikipedia article, can you tell me any good resources to learn more about causality?

If there's enough influence, you won't have a choice

Hm. I was under the impression that 'Cause' denotes a factor that the effect is dependent upon while 'Influence' being a factor that may not be the sole determinant. Which is why I used the word Influence and not Cause. I do think these things will be important in developing a framework for effectively engineering influences or predicting outcomes in the context of cognition and behavior and I am sure a lot of the specific research is already conducted in fields of psychology and such. However for now I am trying to thaw out the definitions, goals and philosophy of Plasmism. Thing is Plasmism is something that unexpectedly popped into my head during Upasana as an insight and I am trying to thaw it out since then. I can see it but can't quite put it into words. Until I can properly define what Plasmism really is I can't decide on whether it should be given a separate name instead of something like 'Determinism with a focus on personal development'. I think it is worth it, at least personally, to see this through.

Not really. Realigning your values is only a part of it. If you do that you are helping yourself out by modifying your internal influences (more motivation, finding more meaning in the work, etc.). Plasmism is wider in that where it accepts the fact that external influences play a major role in shaping your actions as well. The goal with Plasmism, at least for personal development, is to create a system of influences in one's life that pushes one towards their goals. I am not suggesting complete effortlessness but what I am suggesting should be the difference between success and failure. In my experience this is what successful people do naturally anyways. They either are lucky enough to have those influences or build those influences themselves. What I have noticed in people, regarding internal influences, who are considered 'Great' throughout history is this: There are two cases, they are either born with certain influences already active within or develop them in childhood/later in life. I heard Professor Jiang once say that Ivy League universities require you to write an essay not really to judge your character but to judge whether you have any underlying trauma that can push you towards success, ultimately benefiting the university having you as their alumini. (His point is more nuanced than just this statement but I paraphrase.) This makes sense from the perspective of Plasmism. If you developed a compulsion towards achievement and perfectionism, due to your poor upbringing, you are more likely to attain success given the opportunity than somebody who is satisfied in themselves and their conditions. After all, you have this 24/7 internal influence within you influencing you constantly to achieve or be perfect. Now I am not suggesting developing trauma within, internal influences and internal strength can be built in healthier ways. I was thinking of a new term for this called 'Internal Anchors'. Internal Influences like perfectionism that pervade most aspects of your life. I haven't really defined what I mean by external or internal influences yet as I am still working on it so it would be foolish to talk extensively on the topic just yet. Also, it's important to note that you'd need supporting influences to even be successful at getting really clear on your values and whys.

I think there are various ways to approach this. However when it comes to procrastination you hardly have to do anything about your internal influences(although it could be that your internal influences such as your trauma do not sit well with your external circumstances which cause you to procrastinate, in which case you can try to solve your trauma or you could change your external circumstances). You don't really need to find a way to remove your internal need for comfort. That influence, I feel, will always be there. What matters is when that influence really triggers and calls upon you to seek comfort. When it comes to procrastination you can remove influences, or add new ones. It depends on why you are procrastinating. The thing is, if you are a user of Plasmism your first instinct is to look for influences that cause your procrastination instead of blaming yourself. Nobody just wakes up one day actively looking to avoid what they want to do. Depending on why you are procrastinating, you can remedy it accordingly. Here are two types of examples: -- External Influences example: a person who is stressed due to bickering at home cannot focus as well on his/her studies. Strategy: remove influence Influence to remove: Home Environment i.e. find a library or any other place to study. -- Internal Influences Maybe some person procrastinates on learning about a subject because they have been at it for very long but have made little progress. Maybe each step forward feels like two step backwards in whatever process they are pursuing. Strat: introduce influence Influence to introduce: a community that is trying to learn the same subject (just one example of a solution) Explanation: In these cases you seek comfort because you perceive each step more as pain than progress. Each time you head out to do that thing you have been procrastinating on, it's like setting out to hit yourself with a hammer. The problem here lies in your perception of what you are doing. A common solution I have seen is joining a community who is doing the same thing as you. To see others do it gives you hope. To see others rant makes you feel you are not alone. This is in line with Plasmism because you introduced an influence, the community, in your life to mold you into a person who perceives their task more realistically. It influences you into seeing reality again and realizing it's not that hard to take small steps each time. "As they say when climbing a mountain, only focus on the immediately next hold to grab onto instead of looking at the peak." This quote right here can influence you to feel inspired. So if you're procrastination is related to creative pursuits you can look for things that give you inspiration. Reading your favorite authors, looking at painting, traveling. Maybe there are things influencing you didn't even know were influencing you. Judges could have never guessed who goes first can influence their decision making. There are many such examples, I have only written a way to think about it from the perspective of Plasmism. What Plasmism offers for now is not anything new, you already know the stuff I wrote above. It just influences you to think in terms of influences instead of waste time feeling guilty.

Nothing's at stake calm your heart don't be silly the ego's really smart the world permeates your being yet on a ghost you cling the flower in your heart yearns to bloom pour the mind water it with your tomb one day your heart shall spring up high it's canopy covering the sky

Yeah I think for now it is best to call Plasmism a behavioral interface over causality. I intuit there is something to discover here which may make it a distinct model, which is why I am so interested. I can't really figure out what that intuition is yet.