Telepresent

@ivankiss In fairness, I have to confess to a very specific point: I look at everything on here as to how helpful it is in providing the most direct path to waking up. So in my reply you see my prejudice. I apologise. To play by the rules: I wonder if you conflate technology and AI, when one is a specific application of the other? But I still don't want @luckieluuke to allow him/herself to become distracted without knowing it's happening! I expect that's where my irritation comes from - feeling like I've wasted my own time and mental/emotional energy

I'm sorry, but whether or not that's true is entirely beside the point. Same with @ajasatya's reply, and so many others when thought experiments are posited. The details of the technology of the thought experiment don't matter. The point is the question it is making you address*. @ivankiss seems to want to go the other way, dismissing the validity of the thought experiment by heading down a philosophical tunnel (unless, on a re-read, I have misunderstood you, although I'm afraid the point still feels obscure to me. But I think I did you a miscredit at first) Well @luckieluuke, I think it's an interesting avenue of exploration so long as you don't take it too literally - and you've just very politely replied to a couple of questions, which - if you look at what you wound up talking about - provide great examples of how responding to a literal interpretation of your original question can completely derail you. * I posted a thought experiment years ago asking how we could be sure we aren't aliens on a spaceship in cryosleep being fed sensory / emotional stimuli to keep our brains active and healthy. People seemed to be far more concerned with talking about the technology and rationale of cryosleep than actually, you know, addressing the point. And, of course, I had actually answered the point myself in my original post, but that's another thing entirely

But I'm willing to bet you're still looking for one. Written from one who still is a well - he's just realised how fucking stupid it is

@Cepzeu Ok, the thing I find here is that we mustn't allow the meme of 'direct experience' to stop us from making as accurate deductions and inferences as possible, in order to bring our thinking in closer alignment to what is true, even if ultimately it is still thought/story. Not all thoughts are created equal when trying to find truth. So, to take your example of round earth / flat earth: it doesn't remotely have to be a question of faith, belief, or choosing whose statements you trust more. Putting aside for the moment questions of infinity or brahmanic consciousness or whatever: your daily life consists of this space which conforms to a set of consistent patterns of behaviour, which we call laws. These can be expressed through mathematics, physics, etc. The great thing about these laws is that they are PROVABLY consistent: you don't have to rely on a textbook, you can do as much experimentation as you want to attempt to disprove them (falsifiability is the name of the game: scientific testing in its purest form should always be about trying to prove something FALSE). If you can prove that sometimes 2+2=5, or 3, or banana, then you have to throw all of maths out the window and start again. But nobody has managed it yet. So back to the earth. It may be that your visual experience appears to be that it looks flat, but you can apply understood laws and rules (and frankly logic) to ask yourself what the laws of geometry tell you about what must be happening when you see a ship disappearing over the horizon from the bottom first. Or about the ways the sun and moon behave relative to the idea of the earth being a sphere or a disc. You could choose to extend your direct experience, travel to the southern hemisphere and see if the moon appears 'upside-down', or if the constellations differ (or vice versa). In this way, you don't have to choose who to believe, but you can USE your direct experience in order to draw meaningful conclusions about what the best model must be. Now I know I'm being naughty here: I'm talking about the physical world and using thought to build models and ideas! But the point is that you can actually use your ability to think, investigate, imagine and abstract to your advantage. And then it gets really interesting because you can turn it in on itself. Use that same process of simple verification of observable laws of self, thought, experience, etc., and check whether your 'geometric-model-of-self' stands up to scrutiny

@Pouya I suggest maybe shaking up your methodology, see if that helps. If you're sitting and thinking, maybe try writing. If you've been writing longhand, maybe try typing. Sitting still? Do it walking. Or, just accept that it doesn't want to happen and give up on it. If you really want to come back, you will. I've quit so many times I can't count, and I always come back

Jed McKenna has an interesting take on this: the characters from your past which 'possess' you. As in, you might have some issues because a parent was overly critical of you; now you've grown up with all of their thoughts and criticisms masquerading as your own, belittling you or whatever, and you probably believe them, even think of them as you. One of his characters references this in Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment while she is going through her process, and in Spiritual Warfare he describes a character who became enlightened primarily through fighting with her 'father-demon'

@LiakosN Yes. If you only inquire during 'special' or 'ritualistic' periods, when 99% of your time is spent not on those moments, how are you going to get a realistic picture of what is happening 99% of the time?

Hi all, just had a thought. I've noticed a number of posts from people asking about their body twitching and the like during mediation. Just now I was alternating between writing and sitting, investigating the (seeming) physically-felt boundaries of self, as opposed to other. As I felt like something was dissolving, boom! A head spasm snapped me back into 'normality'. I then remembered something my therapist told me: infants require movement in order to help them develop a sense of sense, and the boundaries between themselves and others. This is one of the reasons we bounce them. So it might be that these twitches and spasms are a psychological defence mechanism to stop us from going too far away from our boundaried sense of body/self; of the border between 'me' and 'other'.

@Annoynymous Sorry to be 'that guy', but this is exactly the question you need to answer yourself, not have an answer provided. And despite how it may feel, it is actually unhelpful to get descriptions from other people

@seeking_brilliance ok. Take yourself when you're not at work. I mean it, on your day off, imagine them being short staffed and for whatever reason you don't have to work that day but it would be helpful if you did Pull up pull up the footboards

Something isn't letting me quote both your posts in a row. I haven't read your long post yet and I'm sure I'll come back and reply something, but you know not being able to grasp what people are saying, and not having intellectual words by which to reply, and grabbing an example from the insect world is just fucking smart. Well done you on finding and expressing!

Alright then. Of your last two posts, one is coming from a perspective of feeling, one of thought. Are they the same things? Separate things? If separate, do they interrelate, and if so how? Don't think about it, examine and relate from experience

@Aaron p @Charlotte I tell a lie: he has a couple of seven day retreats lined up in Wales (one very soon): https://non-duality.rupertspira.com/meet/#united_kingdom

@Aaron p Spira lives in Oxford but from what I can tell travels for most of his longer retreats. He does do a two hour session in Oxford every couple of months (depending on his schedule) which only costs £10 - of course I appreciate there is travel on top of that. His website lists all his upcoming groups. Have you encountered Lisa Cairns? She does regular webcasts you can Skype call her on

Ok

@Jack River Alright. Thank you and I look forward to playing x

@Jack River so is it an issue? If not why be here?

Ok but what about you and your life? Track back to your very origin - were you limited or no? How does it all tie in?

@now is forever I mean that, when I think of energy as a definition, I think of the universal capacity to perform work. When I think of me or my energy, I think of it as a finite limit which may be based on what my grandfather ate, or may be based in the last 10 minutes So what or where or who is your energy, please?

@Jack River ok thank you

You treat what you see, think, feel etc as having absolute truth. That's it

Actually, from where I am, no. Because I respond in certain ways to how you are talking, based on beliefs, and my own understanding of energy, and the way other people talk about energy. If you want to not talk from a limited standpoint, you'd better clearly explain how to be unlimited

Then explain and define this in an easy to understand manner

No, I'm not. I have a very nice working understanding of energy which doesn't involve looking, working, going anywhere. I understand what my self is energetically, and any resistance to what you write energetically. What I don't understand is an indistinct use of the word "energy". I know what it means to me. I'm certain I am correct. I am open to being proved wrong. Please prove me wrong

Ok, so help me now with my misunderstanding. What do I have wrong? Please be specific, even if it's just to move me from stage 1 out of 10,000