Forestluv

This is really straightforward. . . Words and symbols are within infinity. A subset of infinity cannot capture infinity. A simple example: Words and symbols cannot capture the direct experience of tasting an apple. Any description of how an apple tastes is not the experience of tasting an apple. Go describe the taste of an apple to someone who has never tasted an apple. You can spend years describing the taste of an apple and that person will have never experienced the truth of the actual taste.

@ActualizedDavid This "death" refers to attachment and identification to a psychological self and a body. The physical body does not die in the traditional sense. It keeps going. It is self attachment/identification to the body that dissolves.

Still applies. The map is not the territory, yet the map is territory. Being attached to words is quite limiting.

Map and Territory.

@Nivsch I noticed that Israel denied Reps. Omar and Tlaib entry hours after Trump's tweet and call to block them. I'm curious about you view on this and how the government and society may view it.

@Schahin I think you ask some good questions, yet I don't think I can answer them properly. The way you frame it has a controller and something to control. This may be true and I totally get how it can be framed that way. If someone has an opportunity to experience being god, it seems natural that they would want to find out "How do I do it?", "How does this whole thing work?". I can see how deeply spiritual people would pursue those questions and that there are meaningful awakenings there. Yet to me, those questions seem important to the person at the human level. Ime with "trans-human" consciousness, questions and curiosities important to humans was no longer important. Rather than being a god that controls all things, it would be closer to say I was all things. But even that can be misinterpreted with the term "I". This piece you wrote is so poignant. It reflects the love, wonder and yearning within the human spirit. It's so beautiful.

“There is no-doer” is a major realization and it helped me with harsh self-criticisms and regrets I carried. Yet “there is no-doer” can also get out of hand. I’ve seen people use “there is no-doer” to justify all sorts of behavior - which twists the realization out of context.

@Schahin This is just my take: I think it would be best to first consider the illusory nature of a personal self. Adding in a traditional external god with divine plans muddies the waters, imo. For example, right now I have a headache. If I am god, why can’t I stop my headache? Is god choosing that I should have a headache? These questions are arising from a personal level of consciousness. Consider removing the god part for a bit. Asking if a person should take 100% responsibility assumes that there is a person and asks if an occurrence is caused by the choices this person has made. This construct has practical value at the human level. Yet let’s take a closer look. . . Who/what is this person? If we are to assign responsibility to a person, there must be a person that has agency to make choices and cause effects. Assigning responsibility to the apparent proximal cause (the person) is convenient and has practical value. Yet if we look deeper into ultimate cause, we will start to see many inputs outside the person that contributed to cause. The number of inputs expands to infinity, such that no thing or set of things cause the effect. We are left with One/Nothing/Everything/Universe. Yet this truth does not have much value at a relative human level. Some people may refer to this One/Nothing/Everything/Universe as “god”. This is transcendent of a personality construct. Or we could introduce a god with agency that has a divine plan. The tricky thing here is lower conscious ideas of an external god that makes decisions and has a plan. These ideas about god have been conditioned into most humans and using these assumptions will distort understanding. Higher understandings of god are much more expansive and I would say direct experience of such consciousness is really important to gain understanding. Taken together, I think it would be more efficient to ask your questions with substituting “One/Everything/Nothing” instead of “god”. This can help get trans-personal realizations without the baggage of “god” terminology getting in the way. If the inquiry is about a personal illness, the desire for Truth may be quite strong - yet so is personal attachment and identification.

@Schahin Your questions are putting stress on traditional framework that a “you” exists and a concept of a god separate from “you” exists. We can intellectualize on this framework, yet eventually it will collapse. Yet this can take years (or decades) of intellectualizing. I would put more pressure on this underlying framework and deconstruct it. . . . How can we assign responsibility to a person, when we don't understand what a person is? How can we assign attributes to god without direct experience and understanding of god? I would back up the truck and inquire who/what is this “you”? Who/what is this “person”? Who/what is god? Without depth in these areas, intellectualizing about how persons and god interact will be superficial. This is much deeper and radical than you realize.

That is a major insight that few people realize. I think the realization of the illusory sense that I have free will is one of the most important doors to open. Related to this is the realization that I am not the author of my thoughts.

@Pouya I had a revelation in a sensory deprivation tank. Consciousness went back to the womb, prior to birth. Everything after birth dissolved. All language, ideas, things. Anything that comes after birth dissolved. One might think there would be nothing left. Yet a lot was revealed, because it was no longer veiled and clouded.

You are transcendent of this teaching and Ramana Maharishi. Both are creations of You. I also see value in that. ?

This boils down to the usage of “you”. If one tries to see a transcendent Self from the perspective of a finite self, it won’t make sense. It’s like asking “If I punched someone, were my muscles cells responsible? Or were my neurons responsible? Should a neuron just lay back like they had no control?” This frame doesn’t make sense because it is conflating two conscious levels. Your personhood is transcendent of all the cells in your body. Talking about you from the perspective of a muscle cell wouldn’t make sense. To say “I didn’t punch him, the muscle cells in my body punched him!” doesn’t quite work. Yet a being would need to transcend the cells in their body to realize this. Similarly “You” are transcendent of the self construct of “you”. Speaking of the transcendent “You” from the perspective of a self construct of “you” won’t make sense. One needs to transcend the self construct of “me” to realize this.

This is based on “nature and nurture” theories. It has value in relative contexts, yet ultimately it all collapses to nothing/everything. There isn’t even a “you”. What caused your gene sequence? And what caused those causations to cause your genetic sequence? And the causations of the causations of those causations that caused your genetic sequence? Eventually you get to One everything/nothing and the whole “me” house of cards comes crashing down. It goes even deeper. That “you” in bold doesn’t exist.

It can not be explained through the lens you are looking through. However, I’m not saying that lens is “wrong”. It’s like someone wearing infrared glasses asking someone to show them UV light. There is nothing “wrong” with infrared glasses, yet one will not be able to see UV light while they are perceiving through infrared glasses.

I’m not addressing you personally here. These are general observation of social dynamics. The above sentiment could come from someone at Green/Yellow trying to pull Orange up to Green. Or it could come from Orange resisting Green and trying to maintain Orange. These two positions are very different orientations driven by different values and desires. The Green/Yellow person may see the collective good in BI, yet may realize that it may not be practical to implement and there may be unintended negative consequences. The key here is that Green/Yellow values that collective goodness and will advocate for it. Such a person will want things to progress and offer ideas to keep the progress going. For example, they may see some drawbacks in the structure of BI and offer some ways we could modify it to address those concerns and make the proposal more efficient. For example, if BI is funded by rerouting social security funding - it could make both BI and social security programs vulnerable to future dismantling (since social security has much deeper infrastructure). If both B1 and social security was lost, this would not be good for the collective. We may say in this context that the current BI proposal is not good for the collective - yet let’s re-work it to address this concern. Or, a Green/Yellow may say that the most important here is the underlying value of meeting basic needs, yet BI is not the best way and offer other another option to achieve this goal. Orange will have a very different orientation. An Orange person may see the collective good in BI, yet not want to move in that direction because they are anchored in Orange. Similar to Green/Yellow, they may voice support for the underlying intention of the proposal and voice “concerns” about how it’s not practical or it will have unintended consequences. Yet Orange will not want to progress, so they will not offer energy and ideas to progress. Rather, they will delay, stonewall, drag their feet, undercut and make excuses. For example, over the last six years, the workforce at my job has gone from 150 years of being 90% upper-class white to being highly diverse - ethnically, socially and economically. This is had positives for the image and economics of the institution - which is attractive to Orange administrators. The problem is that the administrators are still all upper-class straight white men. There is a lot of grass roots Green, yet Orange administrators resist. They know they can’t resist by rejecting Green values, so they try to appear supportive of Green. Yet they aren’t. They try to appear as being pragmatic and concerned - yet they keep avoiding, delaying or resisting any new initiative toward progress. And often try to slip in Orange level constructs. Just like conservative Blue has “dog whistles” that Green has awakened to, Orange can speak in “code”, in which Green is awakening to. This dynamic can also be seen with corporate Orange Democrat’s resisting progressive Green Democrats.

Great question. True resolution won’t come from the same mindset that created the situation in need of resolution. That mindset keeps the mind engaged within that game and will perpetuate the game.

This is a lock. ?

And that is where ethics enters regarding personal gain, corporate toxicity and public wellness. E.g. Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf. His behavior was certainly profitable for him at a personal level, yet was harmful at the societal level.

A good video on the conflict between mainland china and hong kong

@Bodigger I agree that personal responsibility and empowerment is an important factor, yet just one factor. Taken to extremes anything becomes unhealthy. 100% independent is unhealthy. 100% dependent is unhealthy. I find it healthiest having a balance between the two - aspects of independent and inter-dependent. I am an individual consciousness and within a collective consciousness. No one is 100% separate and dependent. At the collective level, there is a shared inter-dependence within a community/society. Denying that aspect of being cause a shift toward being a separate self from the whole, which leads to suffering. I’m not saying 100% collective is healthiest. I’m saying a balance between individual and collective is healthiest. Sometimes, people can shift too far toward individual, other times too far toward collective. I try to keep a balance. Right now in the U.S., I think the shift is too far toward individual/tribal and it would be healthy to balance that with more holistic collective consciousness.

Journaling is a useful tool for many people. There is a sub-forum for personal journals. You can start one if you like.

@theking00 I would keep in mind things you are into, You mentioned you like nature a lot. Perhaps find a meetup or activity that is nature-related. Even if you don’t find a date, you are still engaged in something you like and spending time with people with common interests.

Be careful with that quote. There are different levels of awareness regarding “you”.

I’d let go of beliefs that others programmed into me. Let go of those beliefs that are causing me pain by interfering with my desire and capacity to love. We are allowed to do that, it’s totally legal. We can get rid of old beliefs and see the world with a new pair of glasses. Then we can be open and follow our heart and true desires. I also grew up with racist parents. They mocked dark skinned people too. The same crap got conditioned into me. I got into a relationship with a black woman I really liked. And that crappy conditioning came up. I didn’t even know it was there, it just came up. She could feel it and I felt bad. Then I realized there was subconscious racism conditioned into me. It was all bullshit that and holding me down. I wanted to be free of it, so I got rid of it. Then I was free to love her.