Scholar

I was just trying to give you some advice that might help you. I don't know you, and I won't pretend that I do. Just trying to spare you from potentially making mistakes that I made myself. But you are right, I projected and assumed, but that's what I do. What I write usually is first and foremost a reminder for myself, I just post it when I think it might help. Good luck anyways!

Atheism is not defined by a lack of belief in god, it's defined by the belief that a god cannot exist. If you claim to be an atheist, you claim to believe that god does not exist. It's not the absence of belief. But I guess the word is used very broadly today. Some people just use it as you do, and I guess this is where some of the confusion comes in.

I think that's a difficult way to go about this. "Keeping something in mind" that does not correspond to your consciousness can do more harm than good. The fact of the matter is that you love your family more than other people, you don't have to pretend that other people are equally as much worth as your family. It would be an idealogy, because you yourself know very well that you don't feel that way at all. You are not conscious of them being a tiny part of something big, you just believe in it, for whatever reason. You are basicly telling yourself something that you yourself are not truly aware of. That might hold you back from the path of finding out for yourself. Worth and value is still part of your mind, even if you believe that the are relative. The curiousity that will help you on your path will not come from adapting one idealogy over the other, it will come from the recognition of the mystery. It's important to recognize that you are acting out of belief, and lack of consciousness. Your feelings about your family are created by a lack of understanding or "seeing" reality, but equally are the feelings of thinking that you have to love everyone. And that is fine, but do not resist what you currently are. Accept the fact that you are selfish, that right now it cannot be otherwise, and from there seek the truth, not what you believe the truth to be. Being authentic about how you feel and what you are is, I think, very important on the path you are taking.

So you are masturbating without pornography? Inform yourself about what PMO (porn, masturbation, orgasm) does to your brain. Whether you are fantasizing or using pictures makes absolutely no difference. You can condition yourself to find anything attractive, even a piece of wood. To your brain it makes no difference whatsoever, once it can get off of it. The problem is that if you masturbate every day, and indulge in sexual fantasy or pornography, your mind will not be clear. You will not even be able to meditate properly because your brainfog will be to strong. As I said, you will not be able to do anything if you don't stop all sexual activity atleast until your brain regenerates. It completely takes away your motivation, it multiplies your anxieties and ruins your self-esteem. https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/ Imagine you had a certain amount of life energy, and each time you masturbate that life energy diminishes. Over the years, your total bar of life energy was always at a minimum, so it decided to shrink. Let's say 10 years ago your life energy was able to hold 100 life energy points. Now, for 10 years it was around an energy level of 0-5, because you always spend your entire life energy on masturbation whenever you could. Now the life bar decided to simply adjust itself. Why would it need a capacity of 100 if all you really ever have it a maximum of 5? So that's what it did, it shrank down to 5. Now, if you hold your life energy, you can get at maximum 5 points, because your capacity is that low. The longer you hold it at it's maximum capacity, the higher the chance that it decides to increase. So, if you hold it at 5 for a week, it will decide to increase to 6. You hold it, and hold it and hold it, until it's all the way back at 100. You will not be able to hold it all the time, but the more you reach the highest capacity, the more it will increase, the more you deplet, the more it will decrease. It's pretty much as simply as that. You life motivation is low right now, no matter what you do. And it will stay like that for some time, but you need to force yourself not to deplet it. This is a problem though, because you need the life energy to be able to hold it. In other words, you don't even have the motivation to stop masturbating anymore. This is why most people simply can't free themselves of it. But you can, if you somehow see how significant this is for your life. You have to do it, your survival depends on it. When your brain sees it, when it will feel threatened, there will be a sudden increase of life energy, until it doesn't feel threatened anymore. So that's a way to do it, but I can't tell you what exactly to do. You simply need to realize that your life literally depends on whether you take action now or you don't. Once you have that motivation, you can start holding. Stop your addictive behaviour, most importantly the sexual ones, and once you do that you will build up your motivation. It will become easier and easier, the beginning will be what's most difficult.

Truth is what it is, a thought. You still confuse and mix everything up. Truth is truth, there is nothing true about it, yet it is simply truth. Is anything truly real? Well, truly real is truly real. Everything else is everything else. This is the confusion I was referring when giving the example of seeing a tree. You see a tree, and you say "Oh look a tree!". This is the confusion. Seeing a tree is seeing a tree, it's not a tree. The thought of seeing a tree is the thought of seeing a tree, not the tree. The tree is just the tree. Spirituality is operating beyond language, which is why it leads to so much confusion. Language is about confusion and delusion, spirituality is simply about what is.

I think there might be a confusion here. It's not the content of consciousness that causes delusion, it is the belief that it is reality that is delusion. The point is, no matter what she saw, it wasn't real. No matter what you see, it's not real. The assumption of reality is delusional in itself. In this way, your grandmother was no different from someone like Stephen Hawking. Spirituality is not about finding a different reality, it is the absence of it. It's strange to even put into words, but it's the going away ofreality that will show you true reality. Sit down and see a ghost, and say "Oh look, a ghost!", you are delusional. Sit down and see a tree, and say "Oh look, a tree!", you are delusional. Sit down and see, and you are free of delusion. The delusion lies in taking expirience and putting it into thoughts. As soon as a thought arises, delusion arises. It's like the thought is delusion, that means no matter what thought you have, it is by it's nature delusion. Just notice that Samadhi is not an altercation of something, it's not an addition of something. Instead it is simply the absence of something.

You have dug yourself into a deep hole. Actually I think yesterday someone posted a video of Sadhguru talking about this problem. Everything is pointless to you precisely because you already have expirienced so much in terms of movies, books etc. A second problem I hear is the addiction to pornography, maybe by far your biggest problem. https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/ Read it, educate yourself. Seems to me like you have screwed up your brain, your dopamine receptors are so desensitized that you literally are unable to find joy. And you are by far not the only one, just go on the site and inform yourself, and see how many people have suffered just the same way you have. You can meditate all day long, if you continue watching pornography then it nullifies everything else you do. This is just how the brain works, you cannot cheat nature. Social anxiety can be entirely rooted in pornographic consumption. I am afraid that if you do not stop this addiction, you will be unable to get out of that hole you have dug for yourself. The problem is that you are so addicted, you will suffer greatly if you try to stop doing what you are addicted to. I don't know if you will be able to do it by yourself. I believe the best would be if you could somehow spend a year without internet, pornography of anything the likes. Your brain would have chance to resensitize and life would seem meaningful once more. Then you'd have the motivation to actually do something about it. So, either try by yourself, and be very disciplined, or join a monestary of whatever, so someone else restricts you. The internet, to the mind, is nothing but pandora's box. It can give you everything you want in an instant. And now ask yourself, why would you go out and find a real partner, if you can have sexual intercourse within seconds, just by clicking a few buttoms? What's the point? You can read a book and be on another planet, or slay dragons in a video game. And you don't have to do anything for it. Now, look at life. You want a car? You have to work for it, for months, 8 hours a day 5 days a week. It's just ridicilous, and your brain does not care if it's artificial or not. It will not care about anything anymore, because it gets everything it needs without any effort. It gets the reward without having to do anything. Aside from the bio-chemical and neurological restructuring of your brain, if you simply see it as a tale, it all makes sense. Give a child everything it wants, whenever it asks for it, what kind of person will it grow up to be?

Only by accepting everything you deem as wrong you can truly accept god. There is no action counter to god, all actions are god.

So every now and then I think about what I know about enlightenment, and my rational mind comes to the conclusion that it is entirely explainable with simple rational means. Of course, this will not keep me from investigating myself, but from time to time it creates confusion within me. So, when we look at the mind, or at my mind in particular, I can say that everything that exists and that I exist. But ironically, everything that I believe to exist, everything that from me is everything, solely exists within my mind. It cannot exist anywhere else. But of course, the mind creates a dualism within itself. It differentiates certain aspects of the expirience from others. For example, there is a very particular feeling when someone "else" is in the room. That other entity is a very specific expirience within the mind. Entity itself is an expirience. Now as far as I know, the path towards enlightenment is disassambling that very specific expirience, so the entity disappears and all that is left is the direct input of expirience meaning color, sound etc. But if I look at it from a rationalists perspective, all of it makes complete sense. The mind is a simulation of the brain. All of the mind, which is all of the expirience, happens nowhere else than in the brain. The irony here is that the mind itself thinks that the "outside world" exists, even though the outside world is simply part of the simulation. Everything the mind thinks exists is part of the simulation. So, one way to look at enlightenment would be simply disassembling the expirience of "I" and "something else", so that everything becomes I. In the moment that happens, the mind will believe that it is everything in existance. Because previously it wasn't aware of the fact that everything the mind thinks exists is part of the mind. That includes everything, the simulation of time and space, the simulation of object and subject, the simulation of nothingness and everything. All the mind is left to recognize is that infact, even the simulation of the mind itself is part of the simulation. So, of course the mind will first think believe it is god. God is everything, and because what the mind thought everything was, was now revealed as part of the mind, the mind is in the disbelief that it is infact everything. It is not just what previously was defined as "me", it is what previously was defined as anything whatsoever. But here comes the trap. The mind, from this perspective, is an isolated expirience. The fact that this is the case is that noone can be part of someone elses expirience. If that was truly possible, that we would have easily provided proof for that. But yet, there is noone on this entire planet that can access someone elses expirience. But here comes the confusion. Me, and I am kind of talking to myself here, is still operating within that simulation. So, I have no clue wether or not anything at all exists or not. The mind cannot be aware of anything outside of the mind. The illusion here though is that "revealing" the truth is nothing more than revealing another illusion. If I look at it from a rationalists perspective, someone saying that "He is god" or he is "Infinity" is completely explainable. Yes of course he is infinity, of course he is god. He is literally everything within his expirience. But, if the expirience of that person ends, that infinity is gone. God is gone. Everything that person thought or believed, or even expirience as "absolutely everything" is no gone, because inherently it was nothing more than his mind playing another trick on himself. The mind recognized that it was an simulation after all, and that it was able to alter itself. Infact, the mind is inherently nothing at all, it simply is what it is, the expirience itself. And as far as I can tell, I cannot explain even the most simply thing. I cannot explain the color red, or the sound of my fingers tapping on the keyboard. There is no explanation for that, because explanation is concept. But what I do know is that the mind is capable of anything. It can simulate absolutely everything. It can even simulate the expirience of absolutely everything. Infact, it is simulating that expirience at all times, because from the perspective of the mind, whatever is within the mind is absotutely everything. So, when Buddah sat down and discovered the true nature of the self, didn't his brain literally just discover that it was a simulation? That, the "me" is no different from what the mind thinks the "everything else" is. That infact, the "me" is nothing at all, because it is a simulation? That infact, everything in existance (within the mind) is nothing at all? Now, the confusion within me is mainly that I am trapped within the simulation, so everything I think is part of the simulation, even the rational explanation I just gave for the phenomena of enlightenment. And here comes the explanation for why people stop trusting rationality. Because once you realize that everything you believe is rational, there is no reason to trust rationality. Infact, how can you trust rationality if it is part of the mind. How can the mind possibly explain itself? But yet, every expirience that I have heard of so far is explainable with rational means. Unconditional love for example is the obvious choice of the mind for recognizing that all of the simulation is the mind. And of course, the mind likes to take care of itself, so it will love everything within it's simulation. But what if the mind lacks one step. What if the mind is not recognizing it's own limits? What if the mind is capable of simulating whatever we might belief to be "infinity", an expirience so incredibly that it completely transforms the mind, but yet the mind is uncapable of recognizing that even everything, or nothingness, is simply the mind. That, yes, whatever the mind thought was the "outside world" was infact part of the mind, but that what truly is the "outside world", will for the mind always be a mystery, because it inherenitely cannot access any of it. Yes, everything that enlightenment is still is true from the perspective of enlightenment. You are "everything" and yet "nothing at all". Infact, the "you" does not exist because it's simply the expirience. But what I fail to understand is why one takes the step further and says that "expirience" is everything that exists. I mean, what if it isn't? Yes, from the expirience perspective, everything is expirience, so obviously it will assume that everything is expirience, but what if the expirience is simply limited. What if whatever one beliefs to be everything is simply a very limited part of the true nature of reality, which the mind might not be able to access even on the most basic level. Yes, if I sit down and do enlightenment work, I will have the expirience of god and being everything and being nothing. But why do I assume that this expirience actually is everything and nothing? Yes, it might be a direct expirience of everything and nothing, but what if that direct expirience is an illusion? We cannot forget that the mind is capable of simulating EVERYTHING that we think exists. It is literally the simulation all of your entire reality, even the part that you think is not part of your reality. Literally everything that exists within or "outside" of you is your mind. But that doesn't change the fact that it might just be the mind, whatever we call the mind. We can call the mind god, of infinity, but what if it's not what the mind beliefs it is? What if the expirience does not correlate with actual reality, whatever that might be? I hope someone can understand my doubts. I know thinking is not the way to expirience truth, but what if thinking is the only thing that will keep me from "thinking" that infact expiriencing the "truth" is nothing more that expiriencing the truth of the mind, which is obviously that it is nothing at all, and that it is everything within the mind... If one has an expirience of infinity, isn't it simply the expirience of what the mind would think "infinity" is, or even what within the mind infinity is? I'm so confused.

The notion of free will is very intregal for the function of the human, and even of society. You can notice that even in our language we use that notion all the time. When a stone rolls down a cliff, we say "That stone is rolling down a cliff!". We are claiming that the stone is doing something, instead of saying something like "The stone is being rolled down a cliff.". The stone is not doing anything, the stone is being done to. It is the same with the mind, really. In this sense, the intelligence of any action does not come from us, but from the universe or existance itself. When we look at the stone rolling down, we can actually see that it is gravity that is pulling that stone. The stone doesn't have to do anything but being what it is, and gavity doesn't have to do anything but being exactly what it is. That means we as humans are not doing anything but being humans. A dog is not doing anything but being a dog. Water is not doing anything but being water. The universe is not doing anything but being the universe, and awareness is not doing anything but being awareness. Everything is simply exactly what it is. A claim about reality is nothing but a claim about reality, no matter what claim it is. This is precisely why you cannot know what reality is, because the act of knowing is just exactly what it is. Knowing reality is knowing reality, not reality itself. Reality is always just exactly what it is, and knowing will always be just knowing. I have to correct myself. The intelligence of any action is not coming from the universe, but instead from the intelligence of the action. The action itself is simply being an action. The mind tends to define everything with everything but itself. Words cannot define anything but words. Everything is self-defining. Asking what something is, is already delusional.

But how do you overcome the fear of going insane? What if I just lose myself after I let go of a certain belief. If my reality just gets broken down in some parts, but is still intact in others, isn't there a chance that I will be just stuck there, because even the act of questioning reality won't make any sense anymore? What if I just lose my sense for time, and then I just become a vegetable because I can't do anything anymore? How to overcome the fear when being faced with the lose nature of ones own reality?

Isn't the belief of future the root of our paralysis, the reason for why we think we can meditate more tomorrow, instead of doing it right now? Someone told us how to achieve the end of all suffering, how to expirience true self and how to win the game of life, and yet we sit here, doing anything but what will actually make us happy and fulfilled. Why is that? Why can we not act wisely, why are our emotions so chaotic, and our motivations so fragmented? Isn't it because we are so attached to the future? We really belief that some day we will reach enlightenment. That all we need to do is wait for the right time, do some work, and hope it will come as soon as possible. But we know that, if we were wise, we would do everything to reach enlightenment, right now. We would meditate as much as we can, we would use all the resources of our brain to be mindful, to investigate the mind. But we don't, because we think we can wait for it. And we think we can wait for it, because there is a firm belief within us that we will expirience another moment. Most of us belief that we will wake up tomorrow, just as we did every single day of our lifes. We are absolutely certain of it, if not ideologically, then emotionally. We are not truly afraid to miss the opportunity to become enlightened, but isn't that fear what would motivate us to do the work we actually need to do? Humans, when thinking that they have time, will lose motivation to do what is truly important to them. We think we can fix our problems tomorrow, tell our loved ones some other day how much we appreciate them, and we think we can be enlightened in a few years. Only if we are faced with the limitation of our own lifes, we actually do these things. When faced with terminal illness, we start appreciating every second of our existance. But what if we truly didn't belief in the future. If we didn't belief that even one second from now will ever come? If we were truly skeptical, would we have any other choice but to act right now? When else would we act, if nothing but the moment exists? When else would we get enlightened, if not right now? I think our ego is attached to the future and past, because without them, where would the ego exist? Everything the ego does, it does to create a certain future. Let's take pain as an example. The human mind doesn't like pain, but what if we are faced with painthat only occurs for a few seconds? If we know that we will feel pain only for a few seconds, and then it'll be gone, we don't really seem to be that worried about the pain. We don't desperately try to make it go away, because after all, we know that, in a future not that long from now, it'll cease to exist. In a way, the belief of a certain future allows us to accept a huge amount of pain and suffering in an instant. When the mind avoids pain, doesn't it avoid it to have it cease to exist in the future? The moment doesn't really matter, does it? If the mind has certainty for a wonderful future, it will easily overcome the pain in the moment. The irony is that this wonderful future is a construct in the mind that is existing also in the moment, right next to the pain. We don't need the pain to disappear, we just need it to disappear in the thought of future. But what is the difference between a few seconds of pain, and eternal pain? Both of them happen in the moment, and if you simply see the moment for what it is, there won't be no difference whatsoever. We are so afraid of eternal pain, because, in the moment, we attach and multiply the pain into something greater. One second pain, one minute pain, one hour pain. But essentially, this pain is not happening for any amount of time, that pain is happening simply right now. The belief of past and future is what creates the suffering. This one delusion, that anything but the moment exists, is what motivates our actions. If we were conscious of the illusiory nature of future and past, on an existential level, what would be the point in doing anything? Why would we care so much about manipulating this moment in a certain way? What's the point? But more importantly, for our practise towards enlightenment, I think to motivate ourselves we need to work on this matter as much as we can. The problem is we can only work on this matter right now. We can only right now decide to do it or not. I can observe my own mind already making up excuses, of doing it tomorrow, or later. But these things are complete delusions. Tomorrow is right now, it's literally nothing but the same moment in a different form. So it's quite hilarious, because I can only really do it right now, there is no waiting. I can only right now rid myself of the delusion of future and past, there is no other way. So what the hell does even waiting mean? When I do not act, what does that mean? This is frying my brain, I can't even think anymore. What does enlightenment even mean? It's nothing but a thought in my head. Why do I even believe in it? What is even believing? If only the moment exists, how can I be enlightened in the future? I still think about the future, I still belief that there is a future. I can sense how my mind is creating that future, how it is only in this moment that this future exists. It's literally just a thought, a belief, a construct. Even enlightenment is, whatever I belief that to be. Everything I belief is only a construct, what else would it be? It doesn't exist anywhere but in the moment, but even the moment, what I think it is, is nothing but a construction. Calling it moment is so weird, why would I even do that? It's all that exists. But what does existing even mean? This makes no sense. I'm using all these words, but they are completely empty. My life, my past, my identity, what the fuck doesthat even? It's just thoughts, but I don't even know what thoughts are. Why am I even writing this.

I think what would be most helpful for you right now is self-love, so you have the strength to get out of the victim state that you are currently in. It seems like your self-esteem is very low, and telling yourself that you have to do more to be better is probably counterproductive. When you tell yourself to stop being a victim, ironically, you are literally making yourself a victim. Picture the subconscious mind as a little child or animal, and your conscious thoughts as a person who interacts with that child. The child, when it fails at an exam, is sad and scared for it's fture. It feels worthless, not worthy of love. Listen to your thoughts. You are angry at the child for being a victim. You call the child pathetic, worthless. You hate the child for being weak. You expect it to be better, to be stronger. Now, how does that make the child feel? How would that make any child feel like? Unfortunately, this is not just an exaggerated metaphor, this is really how it works. Your conscious thoughts can be either the abuser, the bringer of hell and suffering, or they can be a guardian, a lover and protector of your inner child, of the subconscious mind. If you had a child, and it was broken, sad and lonely. It was weak and scared. How would you help that child? You wouldn't demand it to be stronger, would you? The simple and most effective solution to heal the wounds of that child, to help it create self-esteem, is showing it unconditional love. You have to tell it that it is fine. It's not ugly, it's not weak, it's not bad in any way. It's beautiful, and it needs help. It needs your aid, your protection. And you will promise it that you will do anything you can to help it prosper. You will encourage it, you will take care of it when it needs you. This way it will grow stronger, it will feel loved. Whether you believe me or not, your subconscious mind does exist. And it is what controls your emotional state, and your self worth. If you don't treat it kindly, like you would anyone you love, then it will crumble into dust. It will create mechanisms to protect itself, it will be scared and hateful. It is how you treat it that will decide of your future. Every thought you have is taken in by your subconscious. So be very careful of what you think about yourself. Don't do the same mistake so many other parents do when they try to help their child. Don't force that little child to become a warrior before it is ready. Now, if you have someone who loves you, who truly cares about you, they will do that for you. But there is really no difference whether it is your lover, or yourself, who is talking to that helpless child. If you have noone, you still have yourself. Take care of it whenever it feels bad, and I mean actually taking care of it. Listen to how it feels, and tell it that everything will be fine. Right now that's what it needs, and it might take months, even years, before it grows strong enough to face the realities of the world.

It might have to do with confidence. Highly intelligent people usually are not as certain of their own opinions as less intelligent ones, simply because they are aware of the subtle nature of reality. The world is not simple, but people like simple solutions. I guess this is the same reason why Donald Trump is President of the United States. If you can make the world look simple, people will like you. If you can create the illusion of offering easy and quick solutions, they like you even more. Let's say you are facing a decision and you are intelligent. You will most likely analye the problem before doing anything. But someone who is less smart, but more confident, will do whatever he feels is right. He might not find the best solution, but he will find a solution very quickly. And the certainty, or in other words that confidence, is really alluring for people. Stupid people rarely stop and ask themselves "What if I am wrong?". You ask two men for advise whether to go left or right. One man says "Well, I'm not certain. Both paths have their difficulties, but I think I would go left." And the other says "You should definitely go right, left will lead you to hell!" Who do you trust? Who seems more competent? Don't analyse, just look at how both make you feel.

I disagree. You don't know how the world would react to it. You even gave the perfect example. Galileo shared his knowledge about the world despite conventions of the time, and even risking his own life in the process. Imagine where we would be if noone ever stood up to it because of some moralistic view like "I shouldn't do that because my god says so!". Imagine how different the world would be. You talking in this forum and claiming that you have these abilities is already egoic. There is no difference between claiming it and showing off. You are basicly showing off right now, and if you were concerned for your gods rules, why did you even tell us about it? Of course it's not special whatsoever, but it doesn't change the fact that people are living in delusion, and that delusion is causing suffering throughout the world. You can stop that suffering, but you don't because your inner voice says not to? This is not about showing off, this is about lessening the suffering of others. And you said it yourself, there is absolutely nothing special about these abilities. If I tell someone the earth revolves around the sun, is that showing off? Why would a god tell me not to tell someone about it?

Isn't it egoic to keep it from the world? You being concerned about your own safety is egoic. We are talking about revolutionizing the world. Actual proof of any of the abilities you claim to have might literally keep mankind from extinction. Just think about how spiritual the world would become if we had proof that these abilities could be created by meditation practices. Modern scientists would have no choice but to investigate the true nature of reality.

As people said, a good way to free yourself of racism is simply understanding. Racism, like so many other problems we face, is rooted soley in ignorance. Your emotions come from a lack of awareness, so to alter them you need to expand your awareness. Be aware of the mechanical nature of the human mind, how helpless it is to it's own doing. Let go of the strange belief that somehow the human mind possesses free will. "Will" itself is a very intregal aspect of the mind that can be investigated. People act the way they do for a reason, no matter what the action is. They have no control whatsoever over the reason. This is the notion you will have to give up, because it doesn't matter whether you are right or wrong. Maybe most refugees are intolerant and evil, maybe they are not. It shouldn't really matter whatsoever. If you see the full truth, there is no need for fear, anger or sadness. As a practical solution I would suggest expanding your meditation habit. What you really need to do is simply become aware of the workings of the mind, and because your own mind is the only one you have access to, that will have to do. Of course you can read literature on this subject, but awareness usually comes from direct expiriences. You need to expirience how the mind works, and you need to be aware of it. The more you will do that, the more understanding you will be of other human beings. You will be able to feel more empathy even for what you would call evil human beings. There will be an understanding of why there is no choice, no other way, for people to act the way they do. When a stone rolls down a hill, you don't get angry at the stone because you know it has no choice. It is simply acting the way it does, it is a force of nature. It is the same way with the human mind, and you can see that with unbiased investigation. As you do that, your mind will accept itself, and thus accept others. There will be no need to judge and moralize, but instead there will be a will to create viable solutions. So, to really solve this problem you have to accept reality for what it really is, not for what you want it to be. It is a problem within your perception. What you basically are right now is delusional. Working on that delusion will take great effort, but it really is the only way to find sustainable peace that I know of.

It's not really about what is practical, but about what is true. True love doesn't mean loving the person, but instead what the person truly is. The person is a facade, a shallow expression of the essential being. If you become conscious of what you are, and thus, of what everyone else is, it'll be difficult not to love it all, because you will actually be aware of there being no difference between your wife and child, and the person who is harming them. They are the same, so loving one over the other will simply make no sense. Either you love it all, or you do not, at all. The question whether or not it is wrong is essentially the question of whether you like it or not. Everything that is evil and wrong is what the human dislikes. Everything that is good and beautiful is what the human being likes. You have to inspect what the love you are describing truly is. You feel the need to protect something that is yours, to defend it from something that is not yours. Why? Is it not because you would feel terrible if something happened to your children? What is it then truly about, is it about your child and wife, or is it simply about the way you feel for them? Do you truly act out of love, or do you act out of anger, fear and sadness? You will know if you inspect how you feel while committing the act. There are alot of people who confuse anger with love. Acting out of love does not contain any anger or fear, it simply is an action of love. Most human beings haven't even once acted out of true love, so they do not even comprehend how powerful it is. Acting out of true love does not keep your from protecting your children, it simply means that you will care for both the beater, and the beaten. A mother who watches both her children fight can still keep them from fighting, even if she loves both of them. Infact, the compassion she has towards both allows her a deeper understanding and a solution that brings the least amount of suffering. That doesn't mean that she cannot use force, it just means that she won't unnecessarily harm them. In your case, if someone tries to harm your children, you would try your best to understand the position of the harmer. What leads him to this desperate action, and what way could you protect both your wife and child and the harmer. Anger, fear and hatred will make it impossible for you to really solve the problem. You can beat the shit out of the person, but that will only make him more angry, and if he has a family, it will bring just as much suffering to them as it would to you. In the end, you create more suffering by acting unwisely, feeding the system of aggression. If you truly love, then you will try to find the best solution for everyone. It might not be possible, but atleast you will try. In the end, only a wholistic solution will truly benefit us all.

I think your mind is beginning to realize the egoic falsehood of love and compassion. It is discovering the selfish discrimination of what we value and what we don't. People do not love each other, they love aspects about each other. Their looks, personality, achievements, relationships and so on. Why does a mother love it's child? Because it is the mothers child. If it wasn't, the mothers love would be gone. This is how fragile and discriminate conventional love is. You just have to change one circumstance, and it disappears. Brothers and sisters love each other because they are brothers and sister, and because they have known each other since birth. Take away that relationship and they don't care about each other whatsoever. So what love really is, is a selfish act of perserving and taking care of something that is part of oneself. "My child", "My sister", "My boyfriend". It's all about yourself, if it wasn't, you'd love everyone uncondtionally. If they don't give you joy, chances are you will not love them, or care for them. This is why true love is unconditional. It is permanent, because it does not discriminate. It is not about what is yours. It is not about "your family", but about all families. It is not about "your species", but all species. It is simply a love of everything there is. If you realize that this is the one and only, true and honest kind of love, you will see how shallow every other kind of love is. The great love of the mother becomes a selfish act of self-preservation. The "selfless" act of a husband sacrficing himself for his wife becomes equally selfish. Because in the end it's always about them, about what is theirs. They do not sacrifice themselves for someone else wife. In the end everyone wants love, but at the same time everyone is too selfish to develope true love. There needs to be an absence of attachements, because each attachement will create a selfish desire to perserve one thing over the other. It shouldn't make a difference wether you are saving your own child, or a helpless dog on the streets. Infact, it shouldn't make a difference wether you are saving Adolf Hitler or Jesus Christ. As soon as it does, it is a selfish act. True love is completely unconditional, because the conditions themselves are selfish. They don't hold truth, they hold what you like and what you don't like. You don't like mass murderers, so you decide not to care about them. This process of discrimination is what keeps one from true love. We only love what we like and we give compassion to those we prefer most in our lifes. Ironically, most people prefer to be with happy people, so their compassion goes towards those who already have a good life. The sad, miserable, angry and truly lonely people are scary, disgusting and boring to us, so we keep away from them, distancing ourselves until they act out their suffering. Then we wonder what could have made those people do these things, completely ignorant to the source, which lies in all of us. There is so much suffering in the world, the craving for love is so great that people are unable to give back. They endlessly search for a tiny bit of authentic love, and because most of them are doing it, none realizes that simply stopping and giving true love and compassion would completely solve the problem. Our selfishness is creating our own suffering. I think once you see this, it is hard to unsee. The shallowness of what people call love and friendship today is so obvious, it can hardly give any fulfillment. But it doesn't need to, because in the end you don't need that to be fulfilled and happy. You can take joy in it if you start seeing life as the little game that it truly is. Humans tend to take their existance way too serious, if you can let go of that, you mind will realize that it brings only suffering to you and others. The next time you say you love someone, think about what you are referring to when you say that. Do you love them, or do you love aspects about them? And then think about what they truly are, what these people are at their essence. Asking that question is the same as asking what you are. The essence of your being, what is it? Is it your personality? Your genes? Your looks? In the end, what you truly are, is consciousness. And in the end, what everyone else is, is consciousness. You can call it soul if you want. But the thing is, the essence of everyone is the exact same thing. Everyone is essentially consciousness. Every living being that exists. So, if you love one of them, you cannot not love everyone else, because they are all exactly the same. There is no difference whatsoever, not even between yourself and others. Of course, the content of consciousness differs from one person to the other, but you are not the content, are you? And so is noone else. This is another way of seeing true love. If you discover what you truly are, and you love that essence, you cannot help but love everyone else, because you know they are the exact same thing.

I think I might have some useful advice, coming from my personal expirience. In the past few meditation sittings I have noticed that there are particular skillsets for exploring and adventuring within the mind. When you want to meditate, or as I would say "explore the mind", you will first need to develope the ability to calm almost all obvious processes that are going on. It starts with thoughts and conceptualization, or what people call the "monkey mind". But it also encompasses the "virtualization of raw input", for example when you look at a chair, you should be able to make the object go away, and only leave the raw colour information that is present on your visual perception. All of this you can do by focusing on the moment, and really trying to let go of everything. This, on a good day, usually takes a few minutes for me. In general one could say that you need to be able free up space or psychic energy, to leave processing power for the tasks ahead. Conceptualization, dimensionalization and interpretation processes need all to be shut down to minimum to continue. The next skillsets are holding focus and directing focus. You need to be able to change focus on any perceptions at will, and you need to be able to hold your focus where ever you please, for however long you want. This is a difficult skill to develope, you can try yourself by focusing only on a point on a wall. It's not as easy as it sounds, because even the point can represent a multitude of perceptions within you. You might focus on the visual information or the position, even a certain feeling the point evokes in you, which are all very different thing. What the mind tends to do is switch around between these subtle perpections, of the same "object" so to speak, without really noticing that it is shifting focus. Focus tends to be very unsteady in the untrained mind. Learn to control this feature, because it is essential for further exploration purposes. The even harder part, and why I think it takes years for people to become "enlightened", comes next. You might never, ever even come close to enlightenment if you do not have the skill of "finding new ways". It's hard to put into words, but the mind has the ability to find new things to focus on. New perceptions, so to speak. So for example, you might be able to focus greatly on the raw sound that you hear, but you might not be able to focus on the processing of sound that your mind does every single second it is operating. Every single sound you hear is brought in context to previous sounds, creating sensations of harmony or disharmony depending on the sounds. So, as everything is really happening in the moment, you will notice that there is a certain memory to sounds. This process you can become aware of, and you can focus on it. But you can only do that if you find the process. So it's essential to have the skill of becoming aware of processing within your mind, that you previously were not aware of. It is one of the most important tools of exploration. When talking about consciousness, or the witnesser, you could find a hint of it today if you just found the right way to recognize it. For example, if you focus on visual perception, you can ask yourself "Who or what is seeing?". This question can be completely empty and mean absolutely nothing to someone, or it could trigger someone else's mind to go seek new "processes" that are taking place within their mind. So, the same words can mean nothing to one, but trigger a new way of "seeing" at things in another. This is a very particular skill, and you can notice that it is actually happening. It's like switching your "focus beam" at something you have never had your focus on before. And like this, you can explore your mind. Of course, it's quite hard to learn this skill, especially before you even know what it is. To that skill I would say comes another difficulty, the difficulty of recognition. Focus can sometimes jump to one new "process" of your mind, be confused, and jump to another without really recognizing what it is. So, it is quite possible that you have already had an expirience of witnessing the witnessing, but you simply didn't recognize it. It's quite strange, but I would say it has to do with how much psychic energy you have free to use? I don't know. And the last skill would be to be able to remember how to get somewhere. Exploring the mind is far different from exploring dimensionality. You cannot really remember the way, if you know what I mean. For example, an enlightenment expirience might have been trigger this way: Focusing on visual perception -> focusing on the flatness of visual perception -> focusing on the "canvas" on which visual perception is happening -> focusing on what is actually expiriencing the canvas, or where it canvas is happening Now, the last step would be the focusing awareness on itself. There are two problems though. If you haven't developed the ability to hold your focus, you might just "expirience" awareness for a split second and then your focus will crumble and fall onto something else once more. The far bigger problem though is remembering how the hell you got there. Sure, you can mark each steps with some conceptualizations, but that will not really help you to get there again. It's hard to explain, but I think people who do consciousness work will know what I mean. Our mind has not really a basic function for remembering the "location" of processes. It's not really a location anyways. The mind is really bad at creating "mind maps", and it's even worse at following the whatever maps it created. So in the end you really have to do it so many times, until it becomes "muscle memory". I do not know if there is another way but intuition. This means the first enlightenment expirience might be years apart from your next, but the more expiriences you have, and the more often you "went the way", you basicly get better at it. I guess there is a genetical disposition to people who can intuitively do this faster than others. Like some people can simply learn faster to paint, some might learn faster to become enlightened. So basicly, these are all the skills that, as far as I am aware of, need to be trained: 1. Clearing and shutting down mind processes 2. Steering Focus 3. Holding Focus 4. Finding new "mind processes" to focus on 5. Recognizing new "mind processes" 6. Remembering how to move your focus to specific "mind processes"

What ways do you guys know of to cultivate true compassion? I heard Thich Nhat Hanh talk about "Deep listening", but I'm not exactly sure how to practise that on a daily basis. I'm an empathetic person, but I feel like I have mostly used that to manipulate people instead of helping them, even if it was subtle and not ill-intended. How do create undiscriminate motivation to resolve someone elses suffering, even for people that I haven't met before, or people that I don't seem to like? Are there any special meditative methods to develope it? Or is it just about mindfulness at all times?

I think there is a reason for why this kind of thought-pattern, or paradigm, has not survived and become an established religion. It is because, if you take the road to non-duality, or enlightenment, before having taken the road to love and compassion, one is destined to manifest into complete absence of action. In a way, it's quite like evolution. Those who were enlightened and loved, spread their enlightenment, because they indeed did not belief everything to be pointless. They have engineered their psyche in a way, that despite facing absolute nothingness, they could still operate from love. From that, actions of love took place, revolutionizing the world in the process. Now, everyone who was enlightened and did not take the path of love, did take another path nonetheless. That path simply lead to them not do anything. Their enlighenment showed them that the world is illusion, and even love was illusion. They had no reason to love anyone or anything. They had no reason to relief other beings of suffering, because after all, other beings don't exist. See, both paths are equally valid. The zen devil just as much as the enlightened buddhist. There is no reason not to love, just as much as there is no reason to love. Whether you will love or not completely depends on the leftovers of your psyche. The structures of your psyche will decide the actions you will take. And make no mistake, because even the absence of tradition will lead you to one set of actions over the other. How your mind interpretes "enlightenment" completely depends on your psyche. And ironically, any interpretation is illusion. Yet, the interpretation always happens. I choose the path of love now, not only so that it gives me strength to actually take this path to the end, but also because I want to act out of love if I ever am "enlightened". And if enlighenment was my only goal, I'd simply jump off a building. That would make short shrift of my ignorance. The true question is why not meddle with it? The avoidance of action, after all, is an action in itself.

I'd say this is an entirely linguistic problem. The problem is that "consistency" is a concept. "Physical laws" are concept. Even what you call "awareness" is merely a concept. The entire cognitive system is based on concepts and symbols. The ideas are not invalid because they are wrong, the ideas are invalid because they are ideas. They are not reality. "Everything happening in awareness" is just as much concept as the notion of physical laws. Infact, any interpretation of reality is completely invalid. The notion of truth itself is invalid. That is the problem, and that is why people tend to have problems. Enlightenment is the art of not knowing, but people take it and use it to pretend they know. One needs to understand that understanding itself is not what it is understanding. Any notion is unreal, even the notion that any notion is unreal. This is so hard to comprehend because there is no way to comprehend it. Any attempt to comprehend is already a mistake. So in a sense, any words even the most enlightened person utters is completely invalid. In the end the only thing that is left is silence. And make no mistake, that silence doesn't mean anything. It does mean that "everything is awareness". It doesn't mean that you are infinite. It means absolutely nothing at all. And that, the absence of truth, the absence of understanding, is all that will be left. I guess a lot of people hope for some ultimate supremecy of truth. Ironically, truth exists, it's just exactly what we think it is, a thought. Not more than that.

Okay, I want to write this down before this state I am in disappears. So, I just meditated, and I don't know how to put it into words, but I see the content now. I can see the content for what it is, I think? And I am aware that the content is nothing but content, and I am aware that something is witnessing the content. I have no clue what it is, but I am aware of it being there. I feel like I am a movie, and this person is sitting there and watching the movie. And, I can sense the calmness of that person, even though I am still the movie. I feel anxious right now, but at the same time it's like I am completely calm. I don't know what just happened, but whatever it was, it was so fucking obvious I am can't believe it. I don't feel any different, but at the same time everything is different. I wasn't even meditating for 20 minutes and this happened. I have no idea, but this is way too underwhelming to be enlightenment. I don't feel any different at all, I don't even feel really happy about it. But it's like I'm aware that I'm dreaming? That the content is just content... And before, I thought I was aware of content being content while meditating, but right now, as I am writing this, I feel like I am in a more meditative state than I ever was, even though I am nervous. This is so strange and subtle, but it changes everything, and it's kind of scary at the same time, but I am not scared of the "scariness"? I was just talking to my dog and it didn't even feel like I was talking... But this can't be it? I still feel the ego being there, I don't feel "unconditional love". It's more like I am aware of the "simulation"? I am pretty sure this will go away after a while, I don't even know if I want it to stay this way. But at the same time, it's so fucking obvious, that I don't even know if I can unsee it. This is just so fucking weird. I hope I didn't break my mind or something. I'm thinking that maybe I'm seeing the tail of the bull, or maybe the trails? But, I haven't even been meditating for a year, and not more than 20 minutes a day. It's impossible that this is it, I'll just wait until this goes away. Someone probably had similar expiriences, right?