Forestluv

Notice how you said "For now, I already said that we break up and can't never fix this relationship". The *For now* suggests that you are not yet done for good. There is still a door open that maybe sometime in the future and it can be fixed. There is nothing wrong with that, just be aware. If you are really done with the relationship and there is zero hope of fixing it, then the questions that remain are "Do you want to be friends with her?" and "Can the two of you be friends?". . . After breakups, it is super common for a couple to want to remain as friends. Most of my relationships have ended with "let's be friends". This can allow a more amicable, gentle breakup. Yet it is rare to actually remain as friends. There is just two much history and emotions involved. . . What would friends look like for now? Would you go for lunch together and talk about her new boyfriend and you no longer have sex together? Are you really ok with that? Would she be ok with that? I imagine not. I have stayed friends with exes with one key: after the breakup, we decide to have zero contact for three months. This distance allows feelings to dissolve. Then after three months of no contact, we see if we are still interested in being friends. Usually, we both move on and don't want to stay in contact - or we might text once a month or so. A couple times, I've stayed friends and we do things together (e.g. going to a concert together). Yet importantly, the sexual/relationship energy has dissolved. If it hasn't then I ask that we go another three months with no contact and see again if there is interest in being friends. . . Yet I don't think there is any way to immediately switch from sexual/relationship mode to just friends - there is too much sexual/relationship energy still present.

@arlin You are asking great questions. . . A concept is dual in the sense that one concept is not another concept. A concept is nondual in the sense that every thing is inter-connected into Everything. Truth contains no opposites and all opposites. The Truth is zero, one, two, three, four. . . into infinity. Nothing = Everything. Tell me one thing that isn't Everything. . . In addition to the Awareness vs No Awareness duality, there are various other dualities in your statement: conceptual vs non-conceptual, understanding vs non-understanding, my vs. not-my, creation vs non-creation. Every word/idea is dualistic because it has an opposite. And there are an infinite number of inter-connections within the duality. For example, what is Awareness vs. No Awareness? What is awareness? Is there 100% Awareness? Can there be different degrees of Awareness? Can someone be partially aware? Are there different forms of awareness? . . . There is nothing wrong with such dualities and questions. Yet they will eventually collapse into Nothing and Everything. Just like all sandcastles collapse back into the beach. Within the construct you are creating, yes it does take place in awareness. That is a nice insight. From one perspective, yes - it has been gotten. From another perspective, there is no "it" to get, since there is no "not it" to contrast "it" with. The construct of nonduality can be explained and understood. Yet Everything is not understood. For understanding, we need to create some "thing" to be understood. For example, no one understands what glafdin is. To understand this, the mind would need to create a construct of what "glafdin" is. If there is no construct of glafdin, there is nothing to be understood. The intellect and conceptualization is limited. The intellect/conceptualization is within something. If there is intellectual/conceptual understanding, there must be non-intellectual/non-conceptualization understanding. Here, direct experience is King. So all the words appearing here are partial "pointers". For example: the collapse of the duality of dual vs. nondual raises another duality: the duality of the collapse of duality between dual and nondual vs. the non-collapse of duality between dual and nondual. . . . The collapse of this duality introduces another duality: The duality of the collapse of the duality between the duality of dual vs. nondual vs. the non-collapse of the duality between the duality of dual. The collapse of this duality introduces another duality. . . This continues on infinitely into Nothing = Everything. This highlights the limits of intellect/concepts.

@Cody_Atzori I would make distinctions between skills, process and content. For example, if I replicate someone's artwork, am I creative? I would say no. There is a process of learning and developing creative skills. People have different potentials in different areas - based on genetics, interest, curiosity and life history. For example, I don't have natural abilities in creating music. I love listening to music, yet my mind just isn't oriented to creating music. Who knows why. Maybe my brain can't distinguish notes well. Or maybe my neural auditory pathways are not inter-connected with other neural pathways - like emotions, liguistics, neural-muscular etc. . . In contrast, my brain naturally does well with abstraction and integration of concepts. My mind can integrate concepts in genetics, neuroscience, psychology and sociology easily and my mind loves to do it. Yet my mind can't even integrate a few musical notes together! You mentioned that you like to gather knowledge and wisdom. One question I would ask: Do you like the accumulation of knowledge or the integration of knowledge? For me, knowledge without integration is sooo boring. Last year I went on a date with a gal that was super knowledgeable and she talked for an hour about the details of some European war. General XYZ and battle ABC. Country 1 vs. Country 2. All these different battle dates and locations. . . It was a miserable hell for me. All those detailed knowledge has no color without integration. Why was Country 1 against Country 2? How did the psychology of General XYZ allow him to be more successful than General Q? How did the battles transform society? What aspects of the war is still evident in society? How did the war shape the culture? . . . Yet hear mind was oriented differently. She kept getting upset when I was in integrated/systemic/holistic mindsets. She kept asking "What does that matter? I'm trying to list out all the battles that occurred in the year 1947". She was much more oriented toward concrete, grounded facts. In terms of developing skills of integrative/systems/holistic thinking: A helpful book for me was "How to Think like Leonardo Da Vinci". This book helped me realize various forms of intelligence such as intellectual, social, creative, social intelligence. The book gave different examples of genius in each area and explained how Da Vinci was a genius in all areas. He didn't excel in seven different areas. Da Vinci excelled in ONE holistic area because he didn't have boundaries between areas such as barriers between engineering, ecology and art. . . Also, there are many expressions of Yellow. Saying "I want to become Yellow" is like saying "I want to become an athlete". There are many different ways that athletes express themselves. It's nice to have a framework, yet don't limit yourself. For example a good framework for an athlete might be that athletes develop strength, balance, flexibility and endurance. Yet we wouldn't limit ourselves to "An athlete is a soccer player". Soccer is just one expression of athletics. Also, it is much easier to recognize Yellow than create Yellow. You can recognize a full stage higher than you can create. For example, I recognized the Yellow in Da Vinci and was amazed. Then I started seeing the Yellow in others. Yet my mind wasn't able be Yellow on it's own. This was frustrating at times. I would be walking in nature or journaling and think "Why can't I be Yellow on my own?". . . One thing that helped me was to watch and engage in Yellow-ness. For example, if I recognized Yellow in another I would try and converse with them. I met a Yellow-level artist and he pulled me up into Yellow-ness and we would have Yellow-level discussions. I was thinking and being Yellow with him. Yet went I was on my own, I didn't do it very well. I really wanted to be able to do it on my own. With time, it just started happening spontaneously. I would be out in nature and insightful integration between nature, art and science would appear. . . I already had the skill of recognizing Yellow, so when it spontaneously arose in my mind I was like "Whoa, that's Yellow!!". Almost like learning a new language and being able to think in the foreign language naturally without translation. . . Once the language is known, all sorts of doors open. . .

The nonduality is that there is One coin that contains Everything about the coin. Any description of the coin is the coin. We can create all sorts of dualities: For example, one side of the coin is silver, the other side is copper. Yet the silver and copper are the One coin. As you suggested, there is a trap of opposites. Imagine a person is conditioned for thirty years to see the coin as either Heads or Tails. They debate throughout there life about Head-ness or Tail-ness. They identify as a "Heads-seer" and want to marry another "Heads-seer". They are raised to believe that anyone who sees the Tails-side as being immoral. They want to raise their children to be good, moral "Head-seers". . . Now imagine after thirty years of opposition conditioning and identifying as a "Heads-seer" a person get sick and tired of all the inner turmoil and inter-personal conflict. They might do some spiritual work and realize "Omigosh, it's all One coin. I am creating Heads and Tails. There is no Heads and Tails!!". . . This awakening of nonduality is a major step forward, yet the mind will create a whole new duality. The mind will think "There is the One Coin vs. Heads/Tails". This is creating a new duality of nonduality vs. duality. The person may now think "I am a *One-Coin-Seer*, not Heads-Tails-Seer. There is no Heads-Tails. The Heads-Tail seers are delusional". . . The next stage is the collapse of the dual construct of nonduality vs. duality. . . There is realization that there is the One Coin and Heads-Tails. . . Most emphasis is placed on awakening to the nonduality of One Coin because the vast majority of humans are conditioned to see Heads vs. Tails. The nondual awareness and embodiment of One Coin is a major development. If 99% of the people haven't become aware of the nondual stage, that is where most of the effort should go. . . Few humans have nondual awareness/embodiment, even fewer have reached the collapse of nondual vs. dual. . . And there is another stage after this. . . Yet there is a problem trying to communicate two stages in advance. . . For example, imagine we are with a person that sees Heads vs. Tails and is unaware it is the same coin. For this person we need to point out that Heads and Tails are One Coin. We can't jump two stages ahead and point out that One Coin vs. Heads/Tails is also a duality because the person hasn't yet become aware of One Coin.

@Recursoinominado I couple factors. As others have said sometimes coaches/teachers an ulterior agenda . Perhaps a coach is trying to sell a personal development package and doesn't genuinely care about helping people, the coach might want to make money and get famous - and takes advantage of others. . . . Secondly, quite often egos do not want to be coached/taught. There is a level of openness and willingness. Let's say that there is a coach that genuinely wants to empower people for success or a teacher that genuinely wants to teach people knowledge. Some egos don't want to be coached or taught. It is a particular personality dynamic. Within this dynamic, a person may think "He thinks he better because he is a coach. . . She thinks she is so smart because she has a phd. I'm smarter than her. She can't even prove I'm wrong". . . So a couple things going on - the coach could be ingenuine or a person may perceive a coach through a lens of cynicism. There can also be various mixtures of the two.

Imagine the duality of a coin. One side is Heads and the other side is Tails. To transcend that, one simply sees that both Heads and Tails are one coin. It is One coin. We can create a duality and say "This side of the coin is Heads and this side is Tails". This duality is a construct and can have practical value. For example, at the start of American Football games there is a coin flip to see who gets the ball first. Without the duality of opposites, the referee would flip the coin and everyone would be confused thinking "who gets the ball?". The One coin is both Heads and Tails as well as neither Heads and Tails. It''s all the One Coin. All relative perspectives of the coin is the coin. The coin can have as few or as many opposites we can to construct. For example, we could say there is a flat side of the coin and an edge side to the coin. Voila! A new opposite

@tsuki Thank you for shining light into this area. I love what you are doing here.

Sure, that's another way to look at it. We could consider the map to be a construct to help navigate the territory. A map can be an analytical description of the territory that can help ground us so we aren't aimlessly wandering around. Maps come in handy. And it's useful to continually update our maps. . . . Other times, it's nice to put the map aside and go with the flow for a while.

@Matt8800 Thank you for sharing about your path and perspective. It helps clarify.

As I wrote above: the words I speak are both true and false. . . . We are not on the same frequency. I wish you a pleasant evening ♥️ ?

Therein lies the answer. Goal posts are designed with a goal in mind. A soccer player is not a violinist.

There is Nothing to attain.

I did. It sounds like you are content in the place you dwell. Enjoy. ❤️ ?

It isn’t about you.

Through a particular lens. Sometimes it’s fun to try on another lens. It’s all impossible.

@Matt8800 Sacred is also relative. You hold what you perceive to be sacred as sacred. Yet you don’t hold what you don’t perceive to be sacred as sacred. . . There is a sacrifice to be a person. . . . It has nothing to do with you.

A few musings, for what it’s worth. Philosophy is construction which can be deconstructed. The unreasonable is not seen through a lens of reason. Boundlessness cannot be captured. Awakening involves letting go and surrendering everything. In Truth, philosophy has no more relevance than birdsong. The words I speak are both true and false. The wise know Nothing. One word is too many, a million not enough. ♥️?

I would be careful with cause and effect. There are beings that have awakened to Being and Oneness through getting hit with a Zen stick. It wasn’t the stick itself and it’s not the philosophy itself. One cannot transcend reason through reason. Just as one cannot leave France by exploring Paris.

That is a thought story being creating. We can live with a thought story like that, or we can de-construct it and let go of it. Regarding value: most people use "value" in a relative context. You can construct your own relative value system. For example, you wrote: Here you say value is created. Based on this, not creating has no value. You can continue to build your model. . . Is anything created valuable or just certain things? If I punch someone in the face and create a black eye, most people would say this is not creating something of value. What about creating videos? Well, if I created a video on how to build bombs, most people wouldn't consider that of value - yet from the perspective of terrorists it would be of value. If I created videos on DIY plumbing, it would be of value to homeowners, yet not of value to plumbers. It's all relative. We could also say just being is of value. Yet this is relative as well. Last Thursday, I spent a couple hours sitting under a tree in nature, just being one with nature. Just observing life happen. That has value relative to me. I mentioned this to a co-worker and she was like - "Sitting under a tree for a couple of hours is unproductive". Relative to her, just being doesn't have much value. Yes, it is indeed a trick. It is the trick of conflating absolute and relative. For example, right Now in this moment - everything is Absolutely Perfect. Everything is exactly as it should be. It just IS. All the ISness right Now is Perfect. Whatever arises Now is Perfect ISness occurring Now. . . Yet from a relative perspective, all is not relatively perfect. I've slacked off on my yoga and I've been gaining weight. I still haven't bought a plane ticket to visit my family for Christmas holiday and they are getting upset . . .and I've been procrastinating at work. . . The trick of the ego is to conflate Absolute Perfection with relative perfection. Something like this: "If everything is perfect as it is right now, I don't need to do anything. I don't have to do yoga or buy a plane ticket and I can keep procrastinating at work". Yes, this would be self deception.

It is a term used to describe a perspective that is transcendent to the personality construct.

At a physical level, that can effect how your brain develops. Yet I wouldn't freak out about it. Creating a new thought story that I messed up my brain is just a thought story - which can also have a negative impact. Give your brain a break. Instead of smoking cannabis daily, cut down to once a week, or take a few months off. There may be some underlying issues you may want to work through. As well, provide nutrients to your brain. Healthy food, low stress, exercise, yoga, meditation, time in nature etc. Your subconscious is trying to tell you to chill out with the cannabis and to treat your mind with love. . . Not to get online and spending hours looking at brain scans and creating a new story/identity that there is structural brain alterations.

@arlin You are asking really good existential questions that dig into deeper layers. Be careful with accepting/rejecting sides of duality. The human mind is conditioned to think in opposites. Most humans are conditioned to believe that everything in their waking life is "real". This is attachment/identification to one side of a "real vs. illusion" duality. To break this attachment/identification, it can be helpful to see the opposite side of the duality: that everything in their waking life is illusion. This is a major breakthrough in consciousness. However. . . the mind will want to now attach/identify with the opposite: that all of life is illusion. This is still playing the game of the duality. The next step is to transcend the opposites of real vs. illusion. In what ways is waking life real? In what ways is it illusion? Have you ever been in a state of mind in which you could not tell the difference between real and illusion? Perhaps during a lucid dreaming state or on a psychedelic. . . Then we see that real and illusion are mental constructs we are creating. Real = Illusion and Illusion = Real. . . However, this doesn't mean that the duality doesn't have practical purpose. If I got a call that my sister was in the hospital after a car accident, at the human level I would consider that as "real" and I would go to the hospital and try to help. Yes, experience is a contextualization. From this perspective, experience never happened. The mind simply contextualizes it. "That was a beautiful bird that just flew by" is a contextualization. Adding in the "I" is further contextualization. "That was a beautiful bird that just flew by. It reminds my of my childhood in California. I've always loved birds. Perhaps I would be a good Ornithologist" Be careful here with "knowing" and "reality". There is an underlying assumption that there is an objective reality that can be known. This is entering a deeper level of "knowing" and "reality". The ladders of "knowing" and "reality" are useful to climb to higher levels, yet eventually they need to get discarded and we upgrade to new ladders. Also be careful with conflations of "you". The term you is so strongly associated with a personal identity, it can cloudy the picture. To rephrase: When awareness arises that the "i" is an illusion, there is understanding that reality can't really be known if there is still an "i" there. Here, I removed ownership of awareness, understanding and knowing. I think this is an important step to transcend the "you". Just notice awareness, understanding and knowing without any owner. Once this is realized, the transcendent You can be explored. Yet I think it's really hard to do before the "observer + object" stage is reached (in this case, the construct of a "you" is an object being observed). I think this is at the "observer + object stage" and is starting to see that the construct of a personal "you" is just a story. Yet the "observer" is being conflated with "you". This is dividing "you" into a "higher me (the observer)" and the "lower me being observed". This is an intermediate stage. Rupert Spira explains it very well. He refers to it as "enlightened duality". One of the keys is knowing what this "higher you" is. Yet it is at a stage in which it cannot be explained rationally. It can only be "pointed" to. There is another way to see this. "Are-ness" is evident during a psychedelic trip or while sober. Both psychedelic and sober is "Are-ness". Human minds are conditioned to see their sober perception as the "real Are-ness". Taking psychedelics can destroy the attachment to sober being the "real Are-ness". Once again, flipping to the other side of the duality in which the psychedelic state is "real Are-ness". Yet be careful about becoming attached to either side of the duality. For example "The psychedelic state was illusion and sober is real" OR "The psychedelic state is real and the sober state is illusion". Psychedelic and sober states are BOTH real and illusion. One power of psychedelics is that they can break the attachment to sober being real. However, we don't want to become attached to the other side of the duality that psychedelic states are real. BOTH states are real and illusion. It's all contextualizations by the human mind. You don't even need the "I" in there. That just adds in another layer. The "I" is at the personal level. Contextualization occurs at the human level (the personal level adds another layer). For example, "This was terrifying". Can simply be terror without a personal "I" identifying as being terrorized. It could simply be the feeling of terror with no owner. And yes, it goes through an interpretive filter. This filter doesn't need the personality construct. There is a filter at the human level. One human may interpret the felling as terror. Another human can interpret the feeling as an awesome adrenaline rush. . . The personality is an extra add-in. For example, a person can interpret the feeling "That was terrorizing. I have never experienced something so terrifying. I wonder if I went through ego death. I hope this trauma doesn't interfere with my personal development work". . . Notice how we have added in the personality dynamic to the contextualization. This is a trans-personal view. Notice how we are embracing opposites again. One may become attached to: It was wonderful, unconditional love, an incredible intelligent design. The opposite of that is it is NOT wonderful, unconditional love, and incredible intelligent design. This can be a huge step in consciousness to see the falsity of one side. The temptation is to grasp the other side as true. For example, one may realize that the coin is not the heads side and see the tails side. The temptation is to grasp the tails side and say "Heads is false, Tails is true". . . For someone conditioned to believe heads is true, this is a huge step up in consciousness. The next stage is to realize the whole coin is BOTH heads and tails. They are not in opposition with each other. Seeing it as meaningless is a huge step forward. Yet don't get attached to meaningless. Saying it is meaningless is attachment to one side of a "meaning vs. meaningless" construct you are creating. It would be more accurate to say there is an absence of meaning and the human minds assigns either meaninglessness or meaning. Because that is part of the human experience. That is part of the magic of life!! What else are humans going to do? Sit in a cave their whole life being trans-human Nothing/Everything? As a human, I'm not ready for that yet. It's a nice place to visit. Yet there are still things I want to explore and experience as a human. . . At the human level, growth and experience is infinite. I've barely scratched the surface. So much more to explore. Be careful with terms like "Never", "Nothing" and "Nobody". These terms can have existential value, yet are commonly conflated with rational usage. Never/Nothing/Nobody does not equal never/nothing/nobody. Conflating them together will cause confusion and inner turmoil. . . Never = Always. Nothing = Everything. Nobody = Everybody.

For sure. Spoken stories and thought stories --- all stories of creation. Lots of thought stories could appear. Rather than a thought story of "Oh crap, I'm feeling anxiety now, they must think this is weird. How can I backtrack out of this?" another thought story could appear like "I am playing the role of a mad scientist and I have my audience right where I want them. I'm feeling anxious because I can't wait to see their reaction when I tell them the Big Finale". . . Fun stuff.

@electroBeam Some nice introspective work. It sounds like you are getting close to the whole house of cards crashing down and gleefully shouting “Yahtzee!!” And you might be in a good space for Leo’s video on Truth.

Sometimes I’m with normies telling a story and suddenly realize this sounds really weird to them. Then I’m like “crap, how am I gonna backtrack outta this?.”. . . “Uuhh, then I woke up and realized it was all a dream. . . How about those Tigers? Heck of a game last night, eh?”