axiom

- The ego might use this as an excuse for its actions, yes. In the same way, the wind blows a cloud. All thoughts, including excuses, are just things happening. Noone controls them. - "Is one allowed" doesn't come into it. There are no choices to make. Things happen and they are witnessed, but there is noone making them happen. - Yes, one can perform "bad" actions and after the action can think "I am not responsible for that". All of that can happen, but there is no-one in control of it. There is the illusion of a choice which seems to lead to an action. But all of that is just what is happening. You cannot control any of it. - "Actions are just appearing" - this is correct. In the dream, there is physics. There is cause and effect. As such, we can say that the motion of a group of atoms billions of years ago (for example) eventually resulted in your fingers typing a message here. If a computer had existed - billions of years ago - that was powerful enough to map the position and trajectory of all of the atoms in the universe, then it could have predicted every thought you have ever had with perfect accuracy. There is noone there to verify whether something is right or wrong, good or bad. Good and bad exist only as ideas. They cannot be verified to exist in reality because they don't exist in reality. There is no "how do we verify..." either. You are the witness. That is all you are. You are not the witness plus some other set of abilities. You cannot "do" anything or change anything. Your only function is watching.

So you want to see God? You want to feel so scared that you'll be driven to pray? To feel so exposed you'll be desperate to hide? Endure all the world's heartache inside of a day? To feel shame upon shame that you've had locked inside? To feel all of the love that you've failed to feel? And all that at once, and more real than real? To feel eternal compassion absolve all your sin? To laugh and to cry 'til there's nothing within? Then come here my child, and I'll give you that gift, The delivery is instant, the kill will be swift. You want infinity, yes? That is what you said? Kneel down before me, the price is your head.

Russia has recognised Donetsk and Luhansk (in the Donbas region), and it certainly looks ominous, but the mainstream media hasn't really put it into context. Donbas has effectively been under Russian control since the Maidan revolution in 2014 - (Yanukovych, Ukraine's pro-Russian, anti-Nato, anti-EU leader, was deposed in what Russia considered to be an illegal coup. Obviously, Russia would have much preferred Yanukovych to have remained in power as it has long feared eastwards expansion of Nato). So, the region was more or less part of Russia already. Officially recognising it as such isn't an unexpected turn of events. Naturally it looks concerning to the US and to Europe, and it gives the news media something else to hype - now that they can no longer promote realistic panic about Covid - but it doesn't make a full-blown invasion of Ukraine suddenly logical by any stretch, nor easy. Logistically, recognising Donbas actually makes a subsequent full-blown invasion almost impossible, since the element of surprise is now gone. Arguably, if Putin were seriously considering such an action he wouldn't have made such a rookie mistake. Ethically it would be a very hard sell for him as well. Putin likely senses weakness in the EU - which would not be misplaced - and probably wants to test the waters re their commitment to an alliance with the US.

No problem at all, glad you found it interesting or helpful. 1. There are no actions for which you are responsible at the human level. The actions just appear to happen, and according to the rules of the dream, could have theoretically been predicted with perfect accuracy aeons ago. 2. There are no "bad" actions, since the notion of "bad" is concocted by thought. 3. God is imagining all actions. As to whether it is "responsible" for its own imagination is hard to say. Rather I think it's more like an infinite feedback loop.

I posted this same reply in another topic but I think it might help here. Whether or not you consider reality to be a dream, we can say that at least within the dream, all of your thoughts are catalysed by preceding neurochemical processes over which you have no control. It is a straightforward matter to see this happening on brain scans, and in various experiments which show that the motor cortex acts *before* the pre-frontal cortex anticipates the action. The horse is before the cart. Thus, science (for whatever that’s worth) recognised a long time ago that free will is entirely illusory - hence the hard problem of consciousness: What is the function of awareness when it has zero input into the decisions made by the body (including but not limited to physical movements and language)? Awareness is just awareness. God does not judge because it literally cannot judge. Nevertheless, people (human bodies, human brains) suggest there is right and wrong action, and place blame on others for their actions. A VERY large part of enlightenment, in my view, is the recognition that whatever you previously thought of as "you", i.e. your thoughts and actions, are not in fact "you" at all. When distilled to the essence of what it is *like* to be you - which is surely the best definition of a "you", it can be noticed that you are the awareness alone. It's shockingly profound when this happens. It is especially very noticeable with practices like Vipassana, wherein you can passively watch your body sitting in extreme pain after many motionless hours... and feel like you're merely watching clouds go by. Total disidentification. If you still feel like you experience free will as it is commonly postulated, then there is not liberation nor enlightenment.

Good question. The temptation is to say "I identify as the watcher", but only because I don't want to say "I identify as a human". That would just spoil the illusion that you're talking to an enlightened being

Yes, agreed.

Then I think the confusion here may simply be semantics. I would not personally say you are "responsible" for something that you do not originate. Are you responsible for the clouds in the sky? Same thing. Thoughts are happening, and clouds in the sky are happening. You are witnessing both, but you are not responsible for either.

It depends how far you want to distill the idea of you-ness. Advanced meditators would generally agree that there appears to be a "you" that exists prior to thought, and which witnesses thought.

@Mason Riggle Spot on. @Wilhelm44 Everything is causing everything... yes. Unlike Leo, I think even God's imaginings are deterministic in nature. @WokeBloke "Notice that only you can think and thus only you are responsible" It sounds like you're making the mistake of considering thoughts to be originators of action. They are not. Thoughts are actions in themselves. They are merely part of a long line of actions stretching back infinitely far. Within the brain there are neurochemical catalysts for all your thoughts- none of which you control. Thoughts happen. The thoughts have nothing to do with what you are. You have been watching the thoughts for so long that you think they are "you". If you had instead watched clouds moving across the sky for your entire life without ever glancing away, and that was all you had ever known, you would think you were the clouds.

Just came up with it as I was typing my reply Thank you! X

There should be disclaimers and warnings when it comes to people who are seriously pursuing God. I have seen it myself, and have been torn to shreds by its agonising pure love energy. It's like a singularity of every emotion playing at infinite volume. So here's a warning in the form of a spontaneous poem This is no joke. You have to be willing to leave your old life behind. The reality is very different to the concept. Sometimes I'm not sure myself whether it was worth it, as there is no small amount of lingering existential anxiety. That said, it's amazing, and unbelievably liberating, to know that *everything* is ultimately going to be alright, that however you fuck up in life you are infinitely forgiven... that nothing really matters... that it was always just a cosmic joke all along. Good luck but be careful!

Perhaps God is not in control of what God does.

All of this makes sense, except the last part: "you are responsible for all your thoughts". Whether or not you consider reality to be a dream, we can say that at least within the dream, all of your thoughts are catalysed by preceding neurochemical processes over which you have no control. It is quite easy to see this happening on brain scans, and in the various experiments which have been done to show the motor cortex acts before the pre-frontal cortex anticipates the action. The horse is before the cart. Thus, the jury decided a long time ago that free will is entirely illusory - hence the hard problem of consciousness: What is the function of awareness when it has zero input into the decisions made by the body (including but not limited to physical movements and language)? Nevertheless, people suggest there is right and wrong action, and place blame on people for their actions. A VERY large part of enlightenment, in my view, is the recognition that whatever you previously thought of as "you", i.e. your thoughts and actions, are not in fact "you" at all. When distilled to the essence of what it is like to be you - which is surely the best definition of a "you", it can be noticed that you are the awareness alone. It's pretty damn profound when this happens. It is especially very noticeable with practices like Vipassana, wherein you can passively watch your body sitting in extreme pain after many motionless hours... and feel like you're merely watching clouds go by. Total disidentification. This is not what Leo is teaching here of course. I remain open-minded as to whether there is something meta and/or bigger going on.

The map is not the territory, yes... so: Q: How much bigger than an ant is infinity? A: Infinitely bigger. Q: How much bigger than "God realisation" is infinity? A: Infinitely bigger. You have also said: Talking about one particular method getting you closer to God realisation, whilst also saying that you already are God, suggests that you consider realisation to be on a different level to being. This is entirely logical. I have also always considered realisation to be a second-order (and therefore finite) phenomenon. In which case, "realising infinity" or "God realisation" is oxymoronic. Infinity will always escape realisation. Speaking in relative terms, you can get much further along the path than someone who only realises that they are not the body, for example. You seem to have gone much further along this path than most. But speaking in absolute terms, any form of realisation is an equal distance from infinity. As you attempt to close that distance, it will always be further away, always slightly out of reach. Achilles and the tortoise.

@Leo Gura Do you wonder whether this distillation of the methods used to approach God consciousness, no matter how precise you try to make them, may ultimately fall prey to Axiom's axiom? : that all methods, descriptions, hypotheses or realisations - no matter how basic or how advanced - must, by definition, be an equal distance from infinity? There is an epistemic asymmetry that Georg Cantor never resolved - circumscribing the infinite with the finite. I appreciate the search is extraordinarily seductive, but at some point one's ability to remain functioning within the dream is going to be called into question, and then there will be a choice to make: Stop searching, or dive into a black hole for eternity, never able to get out. Do you think we are really allowed to know ultimate truth? As you have hinted at before yourself, the endless rabbit hole of Incompleteness and its implications likely contributed to Godel starving himself to death and to Cantor's incarceration. They crossed the Rubicon and burned the bridge.

I think they're opposite. "Understanding" of infinity is reductionism.

You are imagining that you think it's BS. In reality you think it's wonderful - and you're very welcome of course

@Preety_India Imagine you have some type of disorder which involves ultra-convincing hallucinations. As a result of the disorder, your direct experience repeatedly confirms that the Earth is flat. You're experiencing a similar hallucination right now. Except in your hallucination, most people think the Earth is round, and it sounds like the science you're imagining would be able to confirm it as such. But of course it is neither. It is however you imagine it to be.

I noticed you remembering Georg Cantor in your blog video.

If you believe in the physical world and physical laws, then according to the cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman, the world might indeed be flat. It might only appear to be 3D to aid in error-correction, as part of a biological survival mechanism. Of course, this is not what people generally mean when they debate Flat Earth vs Round Earth. The real question should be: Is the Earth flat, round, or imaginary? And of course the answer is the latter.

You're a good guy Leo. Ultimately all debate is for entertainment purposes. Problems arise when people get so wrapped up in the story that they develop manias.

I can't speak for other statistics globally, but certainly in England and Wales the mortality rate from the virus alone is 0.008% for people under 65. This is based on: People in England and Wales under 65: 48,587,115 Covid-caused deaths in England and Wales for people under 65 (since start of the pandemic): 3774 This is approximately the same probability as: - Tossing a coin and getting heads 17 times in a row - Being fatally injured by a toilet - In a group of four people, one dying from the vaccine. People don't like mandates because: - They don't trust government (has your government lied to you before?); - They don't trust pharmaceutical companies. Maybe this is pretty reasonable too, considering that Glaxo's $3 billion settlement in 2012 was the largest civil False Claims Act settlement on record; and Pfizer's $2.3 billion settlement in 2009 ($3.5 billion in today's money) included a record-breaking $1.3 billion criminal fine. - They realise that if they give up this freedom, then it sets a precedent for the government in future to inject you with anything else they like, including (but not limited to) custard, Coca Cola, sewage, etc Is it really so far fetched at this point to imagine a future (say, 20 or 30 years hence) where your civil liberties will be compromised should you refuse to be microchipped? Even a few years ago, such an absurd notion would be laughed off by most sane people. Today, the idea doesn't seem so far-fetched at all. All they need is the narrative, and for enough people to be sufficiently suckered in to parrot the government's official policy to their social groups. People question motivations far less these days. Large numbers of us are becoming increasingly subordinate to government. Canada's moves here are Totalitarian, no question. If you believe in liberty, then even if you think vaccine mandates are a good idea for other reasons, you'd have to concede that this is not a great trend.

On the other point re mandates, the issue here is the precedent. The government should not have the right to inject you with whatever they deem to be safe or "in the national interest". It should be perfectly lawful to resist without coercion. The coercion as-is (threats to job security, freezing of bank accounts and the like) feels very much like a CCP-inspired social credit system. Anyone remember that tweet from China's US Embassy last year: Read: Forced sterilisation injections linked to social credit scores and personal freedom. Yes, I can see the benefit to mandates. I suppose the rationale here is that "desperate times call for desperate measures" ? The potential for Dystopian downsides massively outweighs the benefits though IMO.

It's not as simple as left or right though of course. A lot (perhaps most) torture, murder and genocide in world history was perpetrated by movements generally regarded as left-wing. Personally, I would feel silly identifying very strongly with either side. It's not about right or left for me at all. The pendulum will always swing from one side to the other. Personally I'd like to extend the time it spends moving through the centre. Maybe also see the swings themselves calm down a bit too.