Sugarcoat

I mean it works sometimes for the average person when it comes to conventional happiness. For example how someone feels happier during vacation so they chose to take that vacation. But if you wanna access an unconditional happiness which is what it seems you talk about then yes the very wanting can be hindrance

I’m sorry dude but the way you formulate yourself here makes it sound you’ve been in a medieval torture chamber or something 😭 Makes one wonder what can cause such suffering

Hahahah nah😂😎But it’s good you have social sensibility I mean pursuing something could mean identifying if you have things blocking it, so if something blocks your “being-ness” then it could block that happiness that is tied to being-ness as you say. But that assumes you have “blocks” to begin with, if not then yea pursuit can be a hindrance because ~wanting~ in itself can be a form of suffering.

Even happiness associated with circumstances arises from within so yea it’s possible to have it arise when nothing special is happening. I’m with you. We pursue the good not the neutral. Although being closer to neutral is a stepping stone to happiness and better than suffering I do pursue happiness …I was just sharing my view Yea exactly id have to get enlightened to answer some things🫡🫡

Relatable Relatable in my past. I used to have a very visual mind with a lot of daydreaming that could give me a lot of pleasure. But I am not able to gain that level of satisfaction from my mind anymore. What I can do is improve my mindset while I have a mind: and it has helped me but hasn’t gained me access to more than equanimity mostly

Yea their love is still valid it’s just that it’s often easy to love your children while becoming truly loving in general is harder It seems humans have the capacity to challenge this wiring and perhaps rewire it for something greater It’s not all self centered. That’s too black and white. A portion of self gratification permeates almost everything but it’s not the whole picture. Otherwise I’m with you when you say it’s not inherently wrong to be selfish. This ties to a discussion about how independent the mind is from the brain. Humans can engage their minds and form identities and beliefs that go against their wiring (like wanting to be a monk alone in the mountains while having social desires). So transcendental could mean it goes beyond the basic wiring. For example desiring enlightement is not really “wired”. The human has possibility to create a reality using their mind that isn’t much connected to the natural reality, as if the mind can become kind of independent . It’s still dependent on the five senses to gain “inspiration” from tho. I don’t know.

Hmm. I’d say yes but then on the other hand an emotion to me sounds like something that comes lika a “wave” . But i think happiness could be more static. But then an emotion could also be quite static. But yea i think id consider it an emotion. I agree I am rarely in a perfectly neutral state. But I can feel I can be close to neutrality. But there’s almost always a at least subtle liking/disliking present. I’m with you there For me personally dissolving neurotic tendencies has led me closer to a kind of equanimity rather than happiness. For now I can’t confirm it in my experience, but maybe there’s an even additional like transcendence of self that would open up the possibility for that primordial happiness. But I have a little bit of a materialist view that our happiness is partly limited to our wiring, but maybe if you become enlightened it’s outside the realm of human psychology so it works differently.

People love their children, but it doesn’t mean they are generally loving. Loving your children can be very limited, the same person can simultaneously be a racist. Loving your children is usually just a natural biologically wired kind of love. It’s not something someone has usually came to by evolving themselves and opening themselves up. Someone could be very close minded and judgemental and still love their children. ”It’s a logical investment” is a selfish standpoint. “Selfish” doesn’t mean bad, but I just mean it’s self serving, and not beyond that. Even if consciousness work would be illusion, one could say people drawn to it are people who have gone a bit away, or at least desire to go away, from the basic impulses and desires into more transcendental desires. Suggesting higher development. The desire for spirituality shows that part of the human that is touching upon more transcendental things. It’s not necessarily “better” than following your impulses: but it’s another level to being human. You say being social is the way, you can be social with anyone, you can adopt a child. You can love children that aren’t your own, love people of all sides of the world. You don’t have to be limited to the biologically wired love for your children. It can be included, and might be the strongest, but you don’t have to be limited to it like many are

Yea we can recognize how this isn’t “it”. How we are in something limited. Yea openness could mean how open you are to sensations in the body vs being dissociated from it. How your attention is dispersed vs focused. Etc. It’s recognizing you don’t really know what you’re looking at… One thing I can say is that I’m a little perplexed about the difference between happiness and neutrality. To me it seems the default is a kind of neutrality, but you seem to suggest it’s happiness. To me happiness sounds more intense, like something extra added to neutrality . The absence of suffering to me is neutrality not happiness. And it can be hard to produce happiness, it’s not entirely effortless I feel

I can agree there is some identity involved in one’s account even if it’s anonymous.

Thanks

Imagine telling a guy literally exploring the peaks of human consciousness to instead resort to the most basic animalistic purpose of our species. lol

I said it’s not the absolute pinnacle of life for every human. Just like sex and food. You can have those things and value them without putting it your number one thing . Not everyone values their own bloodline first and foremost: maybe they also value children in war that they’re not related to, and wanna help people overall raise their consciousness, without having a need to love their own off spring in particular. Love can be directed at many things, it could be metaphysical love, love for children is not necessarily “higher “ than any other form of love, could be self love, love for animals, humanity, for awakening. You say narcissistic, as if people having children isn’t a lot of the time deeply selfish. They extend their identity to their children, but identity could go even further, you could make it your identity to improve and care for the whole world. It can be limited or very expansive

Not everyone feels fulfilling their biological role to preserve humanity’s survival is their top value in life. Not everyone wants to be like every other mammal.

Yes!

Thanks. I enjoy your views too You might have a point. What comes to mind tho is that many people here are anonymous, so how does it serve them to create a nice self image for themselves? I mean since their real self isn’t shown in their profile how could one gain pleasure from that. Hmmm. Maybe it’s a mixture of both, more authenticity in the sense that people here express the topics that are closest to their heart, yet they might as you say control their replies a bit to come of as smart or awakened or something Real life allows for deeper connection I’d say. You see the whole of the person. Harder to hide oneself and be fake.

Thanks I agree. Awakening, level of consciousness is one of the most fundamental things about us, it permeates all aspects of life. To help others to raise their consciousness is contributing to a better world in one of the best ways.

If I’m getting you, i guess your overall point is that when dealing with direct consciousness, the absolute, it’s distinct from any other relative endeavor in which actions can be defined. So it’s like we can’t say exactly what to do action wise as we can when talking about relative pursuits. So it’s a bit difficult in that sense, but at the same time since direct realization of the absolute doesn’t seem to require anything in particular, we could also say it’s more accessible than anything else. Yet very few people realize it, so it’s a bit of a paradox. Okay, I wasn’t familiar with that definition of the word contemplation because I genuinely thought it was just using the mind, and hopefully it could lead to a breakthrough. But as you say, qualities like openness and ability for silence are crucial, which could be said to be qualities of the mind, like an openness would mean a less rigid mind. So it’s a combination of using the mind in the right way and then knowing when to let go of the mind. I’d say I’m with you there. The default state is not suffering, suffering is an extra added Yes. Then realistically it’s difficult to reach that kind of happiness. It’s not so hard to be happy when you’re in first world country, have shelter, food, security, friends. But if you’re in the midst of war, food is scarce etc then it’s much harder. You probably know this already tho. Just pointing it out. Not saying it’s impossible tho to reach that independent happiness, but it’s very difficult

Reasonable point

Upon reflection about what makes us like people in this forum, I think that part of it is that people here express themselves authentically. When we meet people irl, in the beginning stages of socialization there might be lack of radical authenticity coming from both sides, adherence to social codes and keeping conversations on a shallow level. But in this forum the superficial is skipped and it’s directly onto the deep. It’s a space for people to be radically themselves so we get to see their interesting and authentic side and it can make us like some of them because we also are in touch with such a side in ourselves. Commonality. So i think to bring it out in people irl and to increase chance of meeting such people irl who’d you’d like , it’s wise to be radically authentic. I think it’s a significant block for a lot of people. I don’t know who that Joseph guy is, but I know I liked some other people who left the forum. I don’t mind because I don’t depend on anyone though. But if let’s say every person I liked on this forum would leave then yea maybe I wouldn’t visit it as much

If we go directly for truth it entails a certain action, unless you say it’s “doing nothing”. But anything else would mean something, like for example “focus your attention on something actual in your experience”. And anytime we do something we are not doing something else, so when you focus on experience you may disengage from the mind which you were precisely engaged in. So I’m just saying that to say “go for truth directly” usually implies something . I thought contemplation was when you use your mind to think deeply about something. It could correlate to “direct insight”, consciousness etc, but those are still beyond the mind but the mind might be stepping stone to them I remember from previous threads you’ve said we are the ones doing/creating our suffering. Do you mean here that there’s no real self in non dual sense so that’s why you say “you aren’t doing it”?

We could be aware of how we are disconnected from our true nature. So it would be helpful to identify what it is that’s veiling and try to undo that. So the attempt to grasp our nature has a certain “direction” to it which is to try to step away from the mind, as we usually use our mind to grasp things and it doesn’t lead anywhere except keep us inside our current state. We could use our mind to contemplate but we will probably find as you say that it won’t really lead to anything actually true I’d agree. Happiness requires undoing of suffering, but not much extra aside from that.

Sense of self definitely affects political stance. But everyone isn’t super self centered so it’s not something that explains everything Maybe you are right. But well being and survival is closely linked. Neuroticism causes suffering but it can be seen that it has the ultimate goal of leading to more well being, someone might feel like obsessing over something “helps” them keep control of it: make it survive There’s different branches of spirituality that are more or less mainstream

👍🏻 I think as we develop psychologically our political stance evolves. So it translates to the other. Psychological development should be the main focus I think, as it’s more fundamental

I’d try a cigarette but I’d never start smoking it regularly