DocHoliday

@Joseph Maynor Yes that is also true, although I was referring to the very first exposure that people have with spirituality and non-duality.

@Mighty Mouse That‘s another way to put it.? I think in our discussions on these various topics, most of the time we are actually saying the same things, they’re just wrapped up differently and packaged into other, varying arrangements of words. The ones who know It, know it, so in the end it doesn’t exactly matter how we try to express it through words and language. (Even though it is still important in some way, please don’t get me wrong here:P)

@egoless Source_Mystic and you have really got it right on point. True non-duality can‘t be achieved through any other way than exploring both extremes and then, from that basis, you can come to equilibrium. That’s what Yin and Yang are for - both extremes in harmony. It‘s the middle way.

@sarapr Well, now you know better to at least watch videos 'till the end before making such premature statements.

@Joseph Maynor So if deception is based upon belief, when I'm free of any beliefs, then does that make me free of deception? I'd certainly say so, because in order to even have a deception in the first place, it requires a belief (that I identify with) that contrasts against its negating counterpart, to which I obviously don't pay much attention or give merit to, thus deception is created.

@egoless In regards to the equilibrium that you're speaking of, that's definetely a necessity because you can never ever function without an ego, have you guys ever noticed that? It follows along the same lines as the desire to get rid of desire - it doesn't work because even the desire to get rid of desire is yet agan just another desire in and of itself, so just in the same way wanting to live without any identification, that is to say to live without an ego, isn't possible because the simple act of not wanting to identify yourself with anything automatically becomes your new identifiation, you see? Ego doesn't exist, but you can nonetheless never get rid of it. Therefore, to aim for an equilibrium is what's best in my opinion, and even beyond that, it's necessary.

@Alien You're from Lower Saxony? Me too! What a coincidence to find someone on this forum who's so close to me geographically, haha. But yeah, Leo's totally right bruh, even just a glimpse of it will completely turn your life upside down, you can be absolutely sure about that. I certainly don't claim to be fully enlightened but I can say that I've gone quite far down that road and let me tell you...pretty much every year post-enlightenment, you will be like "Who was that guy a year ago?", and then it will even turn into "Who was that guy just a month ago?", even though after a while you will always assume to be on top of the enlightenment-mountain because you think to yourself "How could this even get any better?!", but, it does get better continuously - it practically never stops which is the most beutiful thing about it.

@sarapr I idn't inherently think of time behaving in this spectrum-like manner, but I think that example depicts it quite well. Also that biological factor of experiencing time is quite interesting. Unfortunetaly I can't compare or contrast that statement, since I'm far away from turning 30, but it's an interesting thing to keep in the back of one's mind once the time has come.

So yesterday, after I watched our mighty king's video on "Understanding Absolute Infinity 1" (), in combination with the contemplation on time, a quite peculiar thought came to me. Based on the famous quote by John Archibald Wheeler that "Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.", I thought "Well, what if time actually is everything happening all at once?". Since past and future are merely conceptual frameworks implemented for the linguistic practicality of human perception, and the only "thing" that there really is occurring is the "present moment", could it be that, since time is realtive, the sensation of time passing, is merely linked to the sheer amount of differnt infinite possibilities for that particular moment? I know all of this sounds a bit weird perhaps and I personally don't even take this idea too seriously, but I'd still be very interested in what your thoughts on this are, since the experience of time is so individual and relative for everybody.

@Samuel Garcia Yeah it is necessary as long as you find it necessary to suffer. Sounds strange, right? But that's the truth. We/you suffer because we/you like to suffer - it's a story that we attach ourselves to and we seemingly can't live without. It behaves like a little blanket that a kid needs so it can fall asleep. But as I said, in a prior post, this will only resonate with you truly, once you go past all of your stories and all that... so, assuming that you're the little kid, realising that the blanket isn't necessary anymore, and that you aren't dependent on it in order to fall asleep, this is analogous to you in your current situation realising that the real you isn't depending on your life story and everything else you bring with it that would support the situation that you currently find yourself in. In other words: the existence of "the real you" isn't hinged upon and isn't dependent on any mind-games you play, even though it sure feels like it. And that's what you have to overcome! That's what's referred to as "ego-death", it's the overcomming of clinging and holding on to thought, emotions and stories like yours. But, until you're not ready to get to that point of realisation, you will continue to play your games and therefore, the suffering will continue. Once a disciple came to the master. The disciple asked "Master, can you give me peace of mind?". But the master refused to talk to him. Then the disciple thought to himself "Maybe I need to be more persistant, then he will teach me!", so for the next week the disciple sat in front of the master's hut to show him how determined he was. After one week, the disciple asked again "Master, can you give me peace of mind?", but still, the master refused to teach him. The disciple became more and more frustrated and hopeless since he was so eager to be taught by the master, so one day, when his frustration and longing for help became so intense that he couldn't bear it any longer, he cut off his left arm as a sign of his utmost determination and desperateness. As the master noticed this, he finally payed attention to the disciple so he asked him once more "Master, will you please give me peace of mind?, and the master said "So, you'd like to attain peace of mind, don't you? Show me that "mind" you're speaking of and I will pacify it.". Suddenly, the disciple understood and became enlightened. What does all of this mean for you? You're obviously the disciple in this parable and only when you will go to the lenghts that the disciple went to, only then will you receive the master's attention (that is to say, the master's attention equals to ultimate peace of mind). Surely you don't need to take this literal, so you obviously don't need to go and cut off your arm to become enlightened and all that, but you will have to suffer quite a bit before you will finally realise that the only source of suffering is first and foremost yourself, and secondly: that it's illusional.

Oh okay, I get how you want to portray it. Makes sense, it really does. Yes, that would align with my assumption of how the degree and amount of applied thought creates time.

@mohdanas I'm afraid we're not talking about the same kind of experience here, now that you elaborated on it in terms of the relation with your mother and whatnot, because that's so far away from what I tend to experience. I'm sorry that I confused you with my hastily made interpretation of your experience, because when I experience this "falling" during sleep, it's as if I would literally die and we're not even talking about ego death here...to me it feels as if, given that I totally give in to it, I will literally leave my temporary body and die physically, so I've never given into that feeling and always woken up again.

@Joseph Maynor There's definitely a differnt quality and motivation behind the questions one asks after he truly realised that nothing matters. Prior to this realisation many people still believe to "get something" out of their inquiry but once you crossed the line, all your attachments to your mind and to the questions it comes up with are non-existent anymore, they have been left aside - detached from. When you realise, profoundly, that nothing matters, it will be so utterly indifferent to you if you get your questions answered or not, because even when you get the answer, your experience of life doesn't change. The only thing that truly matters is the deconstruction and breakdown of ignorance and the boundaries of seperateness towards others - that's what will truly move you and the people around you. See, we kind of have to start to become more practical here and not dwell so much on mere theory because theory will not fundamentally be what changes the world.

That feeling of this "implosion" or sand literally running through the sandglass, could it be comparable to the sensation of "falling whilst asleep"? I might be totally off the mark here, but from time to time there's this feeling while I'm asleep of suddenly "falling through the fabric of existence", as if I was falling into complete ungroundedness. Perhaps you experienced the same kind of thing, in which case, that's nothing you really need to worry about.

@Samuel Garcia Might be true, and that's a really big "might" right there. I "suffered" from depression and loneliness as well at some point in my life and at that time I haven't even heard of psychadelics, not really. In a sense you are cursed and blessed at the same time, because also for me my depressive period ultimately gave rise to my "breakthrough" enlightenment experience at some point. There are essentially two ways for you: 1. You will become so agitated and frustrated after some time that you will become borderline-suicidal. Then, you either kill yourself (seriously) oooor.... 2. you will realise that all of this is a stupid joke that you're telling yourself, a simple ridiculous game that you're playing with yourself and yourself only, and you will see reality with absolute clarity, kind of like Eckhart Tolle - Style. If it will be something in the middle of those two extremes you will continue to oscillate between them because you didn't find "the means to an end", or in other words, you didn't find peace of mind - no satisfaction. So, it's either "rest in peace for you" or "no mind". SInce you're already on the forum and seem to have a respectable degree of self-awareness, chances are quite high, it will probably be the "no mind" alternative for you, but there will be no easy way out...even when you get to the no-mind state, you will (most likely, given your current situation) only reach it through the experience of great suffering. It will most likely occur when you get to a point where you realise for yourself so deeply and profoundly that just nothing matters anymore AT ALL! Life will seem so meaningless and synical to you that you will think to yourself "my god, what differnce does it make if I just kill myself right now or continue on living?". As I said, it's that borderline area that you will probably have to go to if nothing else works, so - yeah, psychadelics might be some kind of alternative last resort, but just maybe you will have to do it the hard hard, super hard, most challenging way of all. Maybe. But hey, going it all alone is not as bad as it might seem, because you will learn from it so much more than ANYBODY could ever teach you - as you can see, I did it too and I'm absolutely fine - in retrospect it's the best thing that ever happened to me. So, keep on going buddy.

@Truth Funny enough, the more you let go of your self through meditation or other means, the less there actually is to choose...at some point action will overcome the degree of thought and choice, since you simply flow along with life because you "just don't care anymore" to a great extent what happens because the "you" is kind of taken out of the equation.

I hope you can understand fully what is meant here by zazed. I know this acceptance-thing of embracing reality as it is, seems to be a quite recurring theme here among many subjects, but it's important to understand the mechanics behind that. To evolve into the state of accepting reality as it is, really means moving from a state of re-action to a state of pro-action. What this means is simply that right now you're in a strong state of reactivity to your emotions and to your surrounding social environment (which is totally fine, again). To accept reality as it is means, moving onwards to the state of pro-activity where you are the one who's in charge and no longer the circumstances and situations you find youreslf in. Depending on how severe your state is, moving into pro-activity can be a quite challenging thing for many people to do, since they are so immersed in their victim-mentality that they often just find themselves to be lacking the resources to make that move. @zazed This exact deep immersion is also what will hinder most to "accept themselves as they are", because they simply don't want to accept themselves as who they (currently) are. This is what's problematic with non-duality and people who engage in it and perhaps even become enlightened at some point. When you're enlightenment is still fresh and you're still figuring non-duality out for yourself, it becomes challenging at times to "backwards-relate" to people who simply aren't on the same experiential page with an enlightened being. So sure, from the enlightened perspective it is very easy to say "reality is as it is" and that is surely absolutely true, but people who just can't really relate to how this is meant, aren't receptive to it and therefore, this will have absolutely no affect on them. I've learned a whole lot about this from Teal Swan because that's exactly what she's doing most of the time in her videos wonderfully well - she's reaching back into the perspectives of all of those, who aren't enlightened yet and helps them with what they really need. This is what I personally really appreciate her for the most. Additional note in regard to Teal Swan: Even though her explanations from time to time seem to be a bit vague and "out-there", she generally addresses the core issue at hand quite well I think, so my suggestion would be, take whatever you need and can relate to and leave out the rest for further contemplation in the future perhaps.

@Samuel Garcia @Alex K Self love is a good thing, but in Samuel's situation I'd completely understand it if that would be extremely hard to implement, since there is just such a sheer lack of love and compassion and just this incapacity to feel accepted and embraced (at least that's what I assume is going on for you, isnt it Samuel?). It really kind of hurts having to read this, I'm totally feeling with you bro... Even though this is not what will resolve all of your problems in the end, since you're in a co-dependent state in regards to the need for love and compassion (which is totally fine at the moment, I really don't want to judge or critise anything here), what will most likely help you is to find someone who can give you true, unconditional love so you can "restore" that emotion inside you, and building upon that basis, then you can go and apply lots and lots of self-love, I guess. I wish you all the best! This forum has got your back, mate.

@Faceless Thanks, I appreciate it. Just as my ex-gf asked me "But if we break up, don't you then love me anymore?", and I answered "How could I ever help myself to do anything other than loving you?", the reply to this one goes along the same lines: "How could I ever not care?"

@Shakazulu Well, it was and it wasn't, simultaneously.

@Faceless Now that you've explained your point more clearly it is definetly more understandable. Sounds totally legit now.

Please, don't do it for the sake of becoming better in another area of your life, don't do it! If you're lacking motivation or energy to realise your life purpose, maybe the problem resides somewhere else...but what I'm trying to say is, you shouldn't force yourself into becoming celibate or "work on it". If it's not a natural thing for you, then it's probably not the right thing to do, because (I'm making a really vague assumption here because I don't know you personally) most certainly after some time sexual cravings will come up again and you're going to want to have sex again, but because you've made that "commitment" to celibacy....well, now that will create mental suffering for you because you don't let yourself do what you naturally want to do, you see what I'm saying here? It's a quite tricky thing, I get that, because on the one hand you shouldn't just let yourself do whatever you want all day long but on the other hand you should, it's that balance that has to be held up. So, to summarise, if you can give up sex and all that willingly and with a good conscience (in other words, when it comes to you as a natural, unforced thing to do), then go ahead and do it, but if you just do it in order to gain something back from it in return to use it in an area where you seem to be lacking energy and motivation, that's bullshit. But hey, maybe you should just try it out and see how it works out for you, I don't want to completely destroy your plans here...if you find that it works for you, that's really great! But if not, then it's completely fine to come back to where you came from and look for other solutions. In that sense, good luck buddy!:)

To be happy and to "choose" to be happy constantly is all well and good, but the question is, if one can remain happy and unperturbed even when things happen to him that would normally cause great feelings of agitation, stress, anxiety, fear, anger or annoyance? That's where it gets tricky and most of the time when push comes to shove, for many people their pseudo-happiness and calmness flies right out of the window because their unconscious, primal emotions and behaviours take over...so I'd watch out with that more or less "conscious" "choice" to be happy all the time. It could also become a slight or severe compulsion for people when they experience anything else apart from happiness and then tell themselves "No, I'm not allowed to feel this way, I have to be happy!", so emotional denial kicks in. It surely ranges from person to person, that's a fact, but for people who aren't at a sufficiently high level of understanding this, it can become quite dangerous and harmful.

@Faceless Yeah, that's another way to put it...but, it's not inehrently "the movement of thought" that generates conflict, as you describe it, but it's simply the identifiation with thought, it's the ego that's responsible for any kind of agitation or arising of conflict because it can't handle what it is up against. If I was to insult you really badly in a language that is foreign to you, you wouldn't exactly feel offended, but if I was to say to you in english that you're a stupid worthless piece of shit that nobody cares for... and if I really meant what I just said, then you'd probably take it more seriously and would consequently feel offended and insulted by the meaning attached to these words and the conflict this creates with your self-image. (just to be sure, I didn't actually intend to insult you or anybody else who reads this, I just wanted to use it as support for the point I was making)