SOUL

Isn't it really subjectifying? We see ourselves and others as objects with subjective experience.

Being at peace with yourself and the world around you radiates qualities that others are very attracted to so seek that in your life and they will come to you just to find out what your 'secret' is.

You are so much better at it than I am but I would encourage you to be encouraging to build up others..... /nlp....hehe

What makes you think you have the pearls and the others are swine? Although, if you weren't so concerned about how you and what you offer is perceived and received by others you might be at peace with speaking your piece. Also, you may think you know what they ought to hear but sometimes just hearing them out and being the mirror for them is the most helpful thing, people usually know what they need to hear and we just are there when they realize it.

I have nothing to defend so why would you think I'm being defensive? I just don't want to engage in a discussion with someone being disingenuous in it so if we are to have an honest discussion then I hope you will take account of the underlying bias you may be harboring. You may have an "open mind" as you say but if you are here to win an internet argument then find someone else to do it with, if you want to exchange ideas then please have some respect for the process. I did not make any "supernatural" claims and that wasn't the point of my comment to you in bringing up that word, the point was there is a certain amount of dog whistling within the scientific community by using words and labels. Saying things like supernatural, woo, quack, pseudo-science is meant to dismiss through ad hominem but is mostly motivated through ideology, power or profits. There are certainly a significant amount of the unscrupulous who will exploit the scientific method but those words are typically used to attack because of those mentioned motivations. We can go on for hours and hours discussing research methods, samples, controls, selection of data, conclusions and hypothesis in trying to ferret out what may be credible science or not. I just find that when the unscrupulous actors come from within the scientific community, established industries or are about previously accepted concepts those labels don't get used as readily. Although if it's about topics or ideas that don't fit the established ideology or industries those words and labels are used as a signal to dismiss it unequivocally. The other point is when there is enough evidence to support an idea or concept in the scientific community that previously was dismissed while using those words, they unflinchingly shift the word play so to accept the new understanding while continuing to use the words on other ideas. This isn't me saying that any of those other claims are really fact that have yet to be established but that the use of those words are tactics control the narrative and information based on ideology, power and profit. Those were my points, not to discuss which or if claims has evidence or not, I didn't @ you in support of any of that. I'm not really interested in getting too deep into an internet discussion on specific claims, there is no benefit for me and my inner work to do so. I just know clearing away my own biases conscious of them or not has allowed me to expand my consciousness for well being. That's why I am on here and I thought maybe you were too so why I went to the lengths I have to discuss something I thought I might have seen in the exchange in this thread. If you are here to discuss specific claims then there are others who will surely step up to do so, you say Leo made claims then ask him about them. I'm not making a claim other than the belief bias that pervades the mind, I'm sure there is plenty of evidence for this but I doubt there will ever be a pill or medical procedure to change that.... or maybe there will. Until that time I am here for inner work in my consciousness to create well being in my life. We cool now?

I find your use of thought concepts on this quite facepalmy....

@Ilya What do you mean by objectifying? Are you just having an appreciation of beauty in passing without developing an deeper personal connection with the person before doing so? Is it just a lustful desire where you sexualize them in graphic detail? There's a wide range of things that happen and not all of them are "objectifying" but until you explain what is actually happening beyond simply saying "checking out" nobody can really understand.. Besides, is "subjectifying" someone a preferred thing? Or are you suggesting we have to walk through life oblivious to any natural characteristic only viewing everything as manifest nothing? You don't have to explain for our benefit so anyone can advise you but if you think or feel there is an issue you may want to self inquire about what you are actually doing and discover what effects it has.

@Serotoninluv Why are you calling it "supernatural claims"? How about just say claims and we could discuss it from there? You proved my point again. Your approach is based in confirmation bias and your baiting communicates your intent. I don't really care to discuss anything with someone like that, there isn't much fruit that can be gleaned from it. I have one particular clear example I could offer but to be direct it's not worth my time to go any further in this discussion. I have things I'd rather place my attention on than this. Peace.

Thank you confirming my points. No, the scientific community doesn't get to draw the lines of legitimacy and be deciders what is "real science", the evidence does, and the scientific community gets to put forth their hypothesis about the evidence just like everybody else does. Reality and the evidence it provides is the arbiter of what is legitimate, we are just the observers of it and we hold each other responsible for being unbiased not good old boy system of protecting the establishment. Yet, they have taken upon themselves to act as if they are the High Priests who have the holy authority to decide what is canonized scripture of science or not. Then you give an example by picking out the most extreme you come across and imply an across the board "quackifying" of anything that doesn't submit to the anointed bearers of scientific truth you attempt to establish initially. Now this doesn't mean we should accept blindly all or any idea just because somebody seized upon some mysterious evidence and extrapolated it out with some extravagant concept. There is way too much ideology and profit behind the establishment's motive for control of these "boundaries" of "legitimacy". There is no problem with feeding poison to everyone including children in a multitude of forms because there is conveniently no incentive to procure evidence according to the "boundaries" set up by the establishment. Yet the evidence is overwhelming that with the increase in industrialization and chemical infiltration of our food system correlates with an increase in sickly people. It is only seen as an opportunity to prop people up for as long as possible to profit using even more industrial and chemical products and services. The reason for this is that there is no profit to be made in exposing the corrupt industrial and chemical "establishment" which also supports academia so they lobby to prevent exposure and protect their profitable establishment. I'm glad there is anesthesia, antibiotics and modern medical procedures when I break my leg or something like that but there are way too many *insert disease* societies and foundations that seem more intent on perpetuating donations or corporations protecting profits and appeasing share holders to stop the misdirection and misinformation.

@Serotoninluv I find that there is quite a bit of 'moving the goalpost' reasoning and ad hominem labeling done by the scientific community to save face or discredit others. One example is the use of the word 'supernatural' to refer to things we cannot currently detect or measure which is done to imply if we can't it must not be natural so doesn't exist. When in reality the ability to detect and measure continues to increase so something that was said to be 'supernatural' in the past to discredit it now gets relabeled in acceptable terms to then justify it while they ignore they perpetrated this slight of hand tactic in the process. By this labeling they want to 'quackify' anyone who would even have any interest in anything they want to consider 'woo'. Then if there is a change in knowledge with the detection, measurement and understanding of something previously thought of as 'woo' they attempt to obscure their paradigm lock from themselves and others to justify their confirmation bias as being 'scientific'.

It is a misnomer to say the totality of infinity because by it's very nature it isn't limited to a 'total' otherwise it wouldn't be infinite. I could say we can expand our consciousness to the 'ultimate state' of infinity so that we can be aware of it's absolute....but that is a mistaken perception. It would be inaccurate to suggest there is a totality of infinity or an end of time it can be accounted for that we can be aware of 'all' because...infinity. Enlightenment is perpetual as infinity has no 'end' to it or 'total' of it so we cannot 'get it all', no 'be all and end all' to enlightenment, there is always the potential to 'expand' consciousness. So, we can have intimate experience in our awareness of infinity and it's nature but the mind will conceptualize it in a finite terms in an attempt to contain and understand it. It can boggle the finite mind in trying to grasp this infinite dynamic and I know it may sound vague but language is limited so is inadequate to communicate the experience. Many years of the inner work in expanding consciousness has allowed me to experience being one with infinity while simultaneously being able to continue to expand because there is no all or end....it's infinite. I'm at peace with it.

@Leo Gura I think I need to provide more context for my reply, my apologies. I was initially making a fair observation to hopefully bring some clarity to the topic and you replied with what appeared to me as a somewhat farcical straw man so I continued down that path with even more humor. Honestly, your reply needed more context as well, there was the actual Greek Saint that the folklore was built on so Santa Clause is both a real figure in history and a fictional legend. So...there's that. If you had used Easter Bunny instead I'm not sure i would have been able to make the topical joke and I thank you for the set up.

Well, if you are nice maybe he will bring you a brain for Christmas.

"Brains do not exist" is mystical knowledge to those that believe it based on their personal experience but if someone were to assert that it is scientific truth/fact they are misusing this personal mystical knowledge.

There is no such thing as "truth" as an absolute apart from context because "truth" is a relative state, it's a correlation between what is communicated as "is" and what really "is". Such as I can say the sky is blue or chocolate is delicious but the relative variables of the circumstances I am making this statement from determines whether this statement is "truth". There is no absolute truth that exists apart from relative states because the word "truth" has a specific meaning and only someone misrepresenting the word's meaning will make this claim. Even "truth" about existence or reality is a contextual relativity, it's based on what we experience and what we are suggesting about it in relation to the experience on including the variables of the universe of which we may not fully have knowledge. This is why scientific truth, religious truth and personal truth are different things that can not only be different from each other but can contradict each other because the set of variables, the ideology, that the "truth" is determined on are different. Someone can overlap various "truth" sets or choose to ignore one or another but every "truth" is determined by the correlation between the communicated and the ideology. This is why there is so much conflict, because different groups with a different basis of ideology are trying to claim absolute truth over all others based on their own ideological variable sets. So when someone say "truth" just is and it doesn't need proof they either don't know what "truth" means or are confirming to themselves their own ideology belief paradigm.

Science is a body of knowledge about the physical world and the scientific method is how that knowledge in attained. Although, the knowledge of life isn't limited to just what can be attained through the scientific method and there are many who are skeptical of any knowledge that has not been vetted through that method but this doesn't nullify or falsify the knowledge of personal experience. It seems that most are preoccupied with focusing on who is right and what is true as if this is the pinnacle of all existence. The religious, the scientists, the mystics, so many it seems, nearly everyone wants not to just know what the "truth" is but tell others what "truth" is for them. There is too much energy put into attempting to discredit other people's knowledge they have gained through their own experience. It's as if the mere presence of knowledge that doesn't fit their own experience is a threat to something...... hhmmmmm... what could be threatened by knowledge that doesn't support a certain narrative or paradigm..... I wonder. Although, it is especially humorous when people who claim this threatened 'thing' doesn't exist act as if they are consumed by it. There are different methods that produce different kinds of knowledge, growing more aware of the distinctions between them and the correlations of them is just another form of enlightenment. Being that they are all part of one whole of existence I cannot understand how anyone would think they are unrelated except to protect the destruction of something that supposedly doesn't exist.

The clickbait is that duality exists as much as paradoxes do.....and vice versa.

The paradox continues......

The clickbait is that enlightenment exists as much as the self does.....

Awareness is the observer of our consciousness and thought is the manifest of information in the mind that awareness in consciousness observes.....

Is the thought wondering if all thoughts are useless useful?

Do disappearances exist, too? Or should I say did they.....since, well... you know.....

People have a tendency to associate feelings with the heart and thoughts with the head but really both thoughts and emotions take place throughout the body. Even your own words talk about a "feeling" that prevents you from being as you wish to be.... but if your "heart is blocked" then where did this feeling come from? You see, it's not as it appears. What is happening is that you have emotions and thoughts to which you place your attention on so that these becomes more prominent and empowered in your consciousness. So, place your attention on thoughts and emotions that you wish to become more powerful in you and when your self conscious, otherwise called ego, tries to remind you of those thoughts and feelings from the past attempting to convince are "yours"... do not agree. Again, instead place your attention on the thoughts and emotions you wish to bring to light in you, this is how you will transform your consciousness. It will take some time and just like a seed planted in the ground doesn't bear fruit overnight but eventually your work will bear fruit in you, in your consciousness.

Want or desire is the psychological expression of what we experience in the physical as hunger but though we can be hungry, to satisfy that hunger we "want" cheese and we don't want lima beans. We are horny but we want who appeals to us and not who doesn't, it's the psychological expression of it that satisfies us in a way that just the food or sex doesn't.

This is a mistaken perception formed in the mind, there really isn't any duality, there is variation yes, but it's not a duality. Pleasure is pleasure and is known for it's own characteristics, it's not recognized because it is the opposite of pain which has it's own characteristics. Both of these can be simultaneously experienced together, to prove this point we can see it in how many people push themselves to train their bodies or in some people's sexual proclivities. So joy and misery aren't opposites countering a two sided scale, they are individual expressions that can be experienced by themselves or even together. We can even experience another indifferent or placid state which isn't like those others two that has it's characteristics of it's own and can simultaneously exist with those others. Ceasing to feed the mind's mistaken perception of duality isn't an act of resisting or pushing back against it which actually feeds the notion by creating an opposite to it. What dissolves the mind's perception is awakening to the diversity of infinite variation and eventually the old perception falls away like a habit or behavior. I know what happened in your mind, it likely spoke up and said 'but wait, the opposite of infinite is finite' to defend it's perception, it's paradigm of belief. Although, the actual nature of those two isn't in opposition to each other or a duality or polarity since all the bits of finite comprise the infinite, finite is part of the infinite, not apart from it. Awaken the consciousness by being aware of a perception that transcends the erroneous one in the mind.