InfinitePotential

Even relatively thin people have orders of magnitude more body fat than they do glycogen in their body. It's perfectly safe for a reasonably thin person to engage in fasting. (Fasting does not equal starvation). In fact, if you feel like you're too thin and want to gain some weight, I've heard a long fast can help you better digest your food and assimilate nutrients, so that afterwards you can be at a healthier weight over time. (One way it does this is by killing off parasites in your body that steal your food ) I personally eat 1 or 2 meals, and 0 or 1 snacks most days, usually within an 8 hour window, often a much smaller window. Hunger comes in waves, and is largely driven by metabolism type. By metabolism type (not sure if that's a legitimate term), I mean are you a "sugar burner" or "fat burner". If sugar, once you run out of the 1,000-2,000 calories of glycogen stored within your body, you get hungry. Your body is not good at dipping into your fat stores for energy (this can even be the case for skinny people). If you still dont eat, your body will adapt and start burning fat for energy, of which it has plenty. This is why people who fast experience the most hunger in the first 1-3 days, then experience little hunger until "true hunger" returns and their body legitimately needs nutritients to perform its functions. Bottom line, fasting is extraordinarily healthy for you. We all do it every night when we sleep (besides meatheads who wake up to take a protein shake SMH!!!). I wouldn't say everyone should do it, but for your case... If you're not hungry I wouldn't eat.

Or, maybe Absolute Truth transcends existence and/or nonexistence altogether. To say it exists or to say it does not exist is not quite right. It is beyond all concepts including this one. Agreed that "you", @MarkusSweden can't experience it, but "You" The One can be it. You are it. Or, you're so infinitely powerful that you can seemingly not be it as well. How fun!

The present moment. So what? Are you saying there is nothing beyond the present moment, and experiencing? If so, you may need to go back and review yout own teachings, Bentinho Massaro ;)... https://www.trinfinityacademy.com/courses/infinity-awareness-wakes-up-to-the-absolute/lesson-3-what-is-beyond-experiencing/ https://www.trinfinityacademy.com/courses/infinity-awareness-wakes-up-to-the-absolute/lesson-1-infinity-is-originally-unaware-of-itself/ (Btw to anyone interested the trinfinity courses are some of the very best free teachings out there).

Wait what is the debate here... Whether the "Self" transcends experience? Don't we all do that every night in deep sleep? (Tbf I don't remember anything from deep sleep, maybe some crazy ineffable stuff is going on). We are aware, but not of anything in particular. Just Pure Consciousness, resting its attention, returned to its Source

In my experience, moderate length fasts (1-3 days) heightens tf out of your awareness. I would recommend some light exercise (weights included) for such a fast, if it feels right. But take it easy if you plan on continuing to fast for a while after exercising.

We will all get different Leos

Fair point, although i wonder if there are some sentient beings which a car indeed could NOT hurt. (For example, for all we know some extraterrestrial life could be so alien to us that we can't even interact with them, including with cars. Or maybe the Earth herself has some kind of subjective experience... Although im sure she would dislike cars smh global warming). "Objective" to me actually means what is the nature of something regardless of any life form / subjective perspective of it. This almost necessitates that there is no objectivity. What does a car look like ovjectively, despite any subjective take on it? Pure nothingness, black hole singularity etc. Tbf the question doesn't make sense... to look like something requires subjectivity. You would think "well mass energy charge and other fundamental qualities etc of an object (like the ability to run humans over) ARE objectively intrinsic qualities of those objects"... which makes perfect sense from our human intuition... however modern physics is strongly supporting that things have no intrinsic qualities on their own independent of the observation of them. There aren't even any "things" independent of our experience of them. For example, the photon that was not in a location / in every location / transcended "location" that was suddenly in spot A when observed... There wasn't actually a photon doing any of that, only the appearance of a photon (and the appearance of a scientist looking for the photon...) Similarly for a car running @Faceless over and killing him. Not to act like it's nbd.... The pain would appear to be real as would the grief it caused to all of us actualizers who enjoy reading his far out posts!

Do you think a car really looks like that? How does a car look to an ant? A bat? How does it look objectively? The qualities attributed to the car are merely appearances. There is no car, only the perception of a car. "Reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one"

A recycle bin on your desktop is not literally a trash can, but if you drop a file into it it is erased. Similarly for a car.

This can be experienced directly, but even just using logic and science... Everything is interconnected with everything else. Anything with mass (or equivalently, energy) exerts a gravitational pull on everything else with mass/energy. And that's just Newtonian speak. We can arbitrarily draw imaginary boundaries around objects to separate them from the rest of reality (which can be useful and practical to do), but they are just that, imaginary. Every boundary line can be instead looked at as where an object meets with the rest of reality, and thus, reality is an extension of that object. Moving to quantum mechanics, reality is nonlocal. Space and time are illusory, eminating from a more fundamental "stuff". "Where" is this stuff? Well that question doesn't even make sense, the "stuff" transcends location. This "stuff" is nonmaterial (like consciousness), a "field of potential existence", and sources information (which is that which has meaning... meaning to whom/what? "Consciousness"). And from this consciousness is manifested all of the seemingly separate objects, as plays and displays of itself. Just like in a dream... you dream for example of "other" people, they may even talk to you while you sit there listening, not knowing what they'll say next... And yet it is all generated by "your" consciousness. Even the space you seemingly traverse in your dream isn't really there, it emanates from consciousness. As does all the seemingly separate objects, and the "you" main character of your dream... All plays and displays of consciousness. And it is getting more widely accepted that the physical universe is like a hologram. And a fundamental feature of holograms is that every piece of them contains the information of the whole. This may be how particles "know" how to behave. A ball falls down in the manner it does because it contains all relevant information of the state of the universe within it. Additionally, when we say Reality, that is automatically all inclusive. If we find anything separate from Reality, it is automatically included in Reality. Hence, Reality is one.

Huge fan of using a meditation stool although I could see where not sitting on anything (via a squat as previously mentioned) could be helpful for root chakra gains hmm

Not a fan. There may be some situations where it's appropriate, but taking pharmaceuticals tends to just mask the symptoms rather than fix and heal the underlying cause of them (is your diet poo, do you get any sunlight and nature, are you overly stressed, etc). Since they don't heal you, you often need to take them long term / forever (Big Pharma doesn't mind). And they come with all kinds of side effects. The medical community has been back asswards af about a ton of things. Maybe the most important thing we've gotten wrong as a society was the widespread scientific belief that nutrition had no effect on mental and physical health -- an unfunny joke. And when recommendations WERE made about what to eat (USDA food pyramid), they were PERFECTLY upside down. Wow!!! Almost like there were $ome other motivator$ other than our health and well being... And then fasting has been looked upon suspiciously and often has been said to be unhealthy, when for most conditions it is the single best thing you can do to turn around your health. And it's 100% free hmmm...

Cordyceps mushroom and a long walk (or other low level aerobic activity) and "buteyko" breathing works absolute wonders. Raw cacao is amazing too.

Labeling is great. Just like oh there's a sound, there's a feeling... there's a thought. Treating it like any other object that arises in your awareness helps to disidentify with it. And like @MarkusSweden put it, you haven't actually chose your thoughts. There isn't a thinker who is thinking the thoughts. No one is in control. Sam Harris puts it really well in the book Free Will: Try to choose your next thought. You might think "banana" (or in your case "cat"?). But you didn't realize you thought "banana" until you realized it. You can't choose a thought to think, as if you have access to the infinite thoughts you could think and you pick one. To choose what to think, you'd have to think the thought before you think it. So there is no homunculus in your brain to identify with. Also I like to think about how each thought (like Leo's penny in that blog video) has infinite causes. Literally everything in the past since the big bang, all evolution on earth, all of your life's experiences and circumstances, your physiology genetics and environment, the present location and momentum and charge etc of every particle in the universe, possibly all of the particulars of the future (as we all know reality is more non-linear than Newtonian dynamics), and probably infinitely more causes... all of these led to this thought arising in awareness. So where's the free will / thinker in that? Also, I've found it helpful lately to let go of trying to control thoughts (which you can't, it's an illusion that you can), and let them do their thing and instead focus on feeling more.

@Aimblack cool, thanks Maybe this concept is dumb af and we'd be better served to not use it, I just thought it was kind of fun. And if muscle testing is truly an accurate way to measure how in alignment with Truth something is... this would be an extremely valuable tool. It can be applied to anything... books, movies, music, choices, spiritual teachings, policies, goals... Like, "it would be good to go to the gym right now"... muscle test positively, go to the gym. Or "this death metal is instilling positive values into my mind"... muscle test negatively, listen to something more positive. I'm giving it a shot.

Using the above scale, how conscious do you think you are? And none of this "~who is the I that is conscious~" bullcrap, unless that's actually your direct experience (I agree but don't just talk the talk, let's be really honest here). For me, I'd put myself in the high 400s, perhaps 475. I'm pretty analytical and left brain dominant and love reasoning my way into these spiritual principles. I'm definitely highly optimistic and positive, and genuinely want the best for everyone else, although I'm a bit undisciplined and selfish at times, and can get anxious and agitated. I think my understanding is above 500, but my body-mind is still needing to integrate this understanding a bit more. I definitely have instances of being above 500 (for example, for the last 2-3 years or so I've often just heard the word "love" randomly in my mind -- not me saying it, just hearing it, and have felt the most intense feelings of appreciation for life). Even have had a few obscured glimpses of the highest levels of consciousness... Deep meditative states where for example thoughts and sensations were just appearing in consciousness but I possessed no ownership of them and was entirely unaffected by them... As well as glimpsing the so called Void on many occasions. (More information found here: http://www.artofwellbeing.com/2016/11/08/mapofconsciousness/, the scale comes from David Hawkins' books -- which btw are some of the best I've ever read... Get yourself 'Letting Go' and profit / dissolve into Infinity). So, where are you at on this scale?

I try to do a little of both. Perhaps this was more fit for the self actualization forum. I'm not fully enlightened at the moment and would love to feel positive emotions. In fact some schools of enlightenment teach that that is a direct way to reaching enlightenment and identification with The Self. For example loving kindness meditation, or Tibetan monks achieving "Rainbow Body" because they had only loving thoughts (yes this is a bit out there). As for classifying the self, I believe it helps to be honest and to know thyself. But no I don't think we need to go labeling everyone 24/7, just an interesting exercise to see where you're at, where you can improve, and how much better things can get.

This is such a freaky, mindfuck topic. I've had the exact same thought, and it's scary (but also magnificent and beautiful). I believe the answer is yes. Even with the most conservative multiverse theory (which imo is that big bang happens, universe plays itself out, universe ends, another big bang happens), this would necessitate that anything that could happen would happen. And at least that kind of infinity must be the case, I mean it would make no sense for one universe to happen and "then" pure eternal nothingness. But I think reality is much more infinite than that still. If it helps, like the others have said, You remain unaffected. In fact, to be technical nothing ever actually happens. It's all just appearances. You may have had some horrific dreams which royally sucked, but then you woke up to find out it was just a dream and you were safe and unharmed.

Come back to dualism for me for just a second. This scale is talking about the self, not The Self. The self can be "very conscious" (imperturbable Buddhist monk), or "very unconscious" (Kim Kardashian... Sorry Kim if you're reading this, I don't actually know how conscious you are). We say things like "one needs to be very conscious to realize Truth" or "the main goal of life is to raise your consciousness" with no problems... this is just putting numbers to that. Yes Pure Consciousness remains the same, but the self's subjective experience and perspective does not, the more conscious it gets. The "more conscious" one is, the more one will feel love, joy and peace, versus pride, anger and grief. It's not whatsoever judging one as "good" or "bad" for whatever "consciousness level" they are at. It's simply saying one can be more conscious or less conscious, and describing the different emotions and worldviews one has the more conscious one is... Speaking dualistically of course as I have no other way of doing. <3 Thank you!!!! So you tend to be optimistic and hopeful... me too!

@who chit Yes the muscle testing method is questionable for me but I'm open to it and have been working on it.

There is actually a proposed method for calibrating where you are on this spectrum, using the admittedly sketchy (in terms of its validity) practice of "muscle testing". How do you feel about Spiral Dynamics, in which levels of psychological development are above and below others? I could very easily arbitrarily assign numbers to these different stages, in the exact same way as the "Map of the Scale of Consciousness". And do you agree with the notion of "higher" consciousness values (love, truth, gratitude) over "lower" consciousness values (success, achievement, accumulation). 500 isn't any "better" than 75, at least objectively speaking. But, love will feel better than fear (don't you think so?), and people tend to gravitate more towards one emotion or the other. Not that we should judge fearful people as "bad" or "losers" and loving people as "good" or "geniuses".

I'm not boasting, if you feel I am then maybe you are projecting. I shared something from a book if you don't like it then don't use it and move on, or post something constructive rather than just making fun of it and being hurtful. Perhaps the topic would have been better suited to just be a discussion of how to go about feeling these different emotions and achieving these different states of consciousnesses than discussing where we feel we are at in our lives right now. This is not a description of Truth or Consciousness (capital C). I agree that that cannot be communicated. It can be likened to "raising your vibration" or "raising your frequency". You can having loving feelings, shameful feelings, be accepting of reality or angry at reality. And to have "better" feelings (don't you want to feel better?), you "let go" of these negative feelings (and indeed let go entirely), and you will feel these more positive feelings. At least, that's the method proposed in Hawkins' books. WTH is everyone's beef with this?

Would it help if we used colors instead of numbers a la Spiral Dynamics OMG people, lovingly frustrated af with y'all rn y'all just sunk my consciousness level to 150 but I'm taking the perspective that this is a great opportunity to be unconditionally loving (consciousness level 540, deal with it), so thank you. <3

Objectively, yes. But for most it doesn't seem that way. A highly shameful or angry person is much less likely to "get enlightened" than a highly loving person (apparently with some exceptions like Eckhart Tolle's severe depression leading to enlightenment). Yes, the Self isn't in any of the state's but the self seems to be. Two truths. And guilt feels bad, acceptance feels good, for example. No, was obviously a joke. But apparently everyone on this forum is! good for y'all

Agreed af, so there are varying degrees to which we identify with our limited self vs our "true self" (you could arbitrarily assign yourself a value 0-1000 as to how much you identify with either or). I think we're using "consciousness" in two different ways. Yes there is one Absolute, or Pure Consciousness. But on the other side of the coin there is the relative, perceiving and feeling state... And in this relative state, I would like to feel as good as possible. Which it turns out, I believe, to mean acting selflessly and with all these "higher" consciousness values. No we're not walking around with a number 0-1000 printed on our souls, but we all have different baseline emotional states, that's science and firsthand experience (well we can't be sure what others are feeling). Anyways I'm not too tied to this concept just thought y'all might enjoy discussing where you're at on this imaginary ~spectrum of consciousness~.