Seek and ye shall find. That's the whole trick.

[Joshe]

The truth-seeking narrative is cope. What you call spirituality is just preference-driven consciousness training. 

The only difference between a spiritual teacher and a psych patient is which direction they train their consciousness in. 

One aims at love, hits love and calls it truth. The other aims at threat, hits threat and calls it truth.

Both trained consciousness in a direction. Both arrived exactly where they pointed. Both claimed discovery.

One gets a retreat center, the other gets a prescription. lol

"Seek, and ye shall find." How does this insight get so little attention? 

Go looking for rocks, find rocks. Go looking for love, find love. Go looking for threat, find threat. Go looking for God, find God. Go looking for meaninglessness, find meaninglessness.

Ask this community what spirituality is for and they'll say equanimity, peace, love, presence. Interesting how these just so happen to be things they desperately want. People rig the game so that winning = getting what they wanted all along. When they hit the target they're aiming for, they call it "discovery of reality". 

"Seek and ye shall find" is not a strategy to acquire something. It's a fucking warning😂. 

Edited 1 hour ago by Joshe

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Are you using the term cope as the slang term or typical definition?

Cope (slang): 'Mocking command or noun, implying someone is in denial, making excuses, or unable to accept an uncomfortable truth or defeat.'

Cope (dictionary): 'Have the capacity to deal successfully with. Deal effectively with something difficult.'

Edited 1 hour ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[Joshe]

1 minute ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Are you using the term cope as the slang term or typical definition?

Cope (slang): 'Mocking command or noun, implying someone is in denial, making excuses, or unable to accept an uncomfortable truth or defeat.'

Cope (dictionary): 'Have the capacity to deal successfully with. Deal effectively with something difficult.'

You know I suck with words, but I mean it like it's an excuse. I'm not mocking, even though I was aware that it carries that connotation. 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Just now, Joshe said:

You know I suck with words, but I mean it like it's an excuse. I'm not mocking, even though I was aware that it carries that connotation. 

Sure. 

You okay?

[Joshe]

Just now, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Sure. 

You okay?

As far as I know. 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

All good. Just some emptying 

[Joshe]

2 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

All good. Just some emptying 

Yeah, it's half venting but half substance too. I'm only human. There's still a deep line of inquiry here. 

[Nemo28]

That's an interesting perspective, but yeah, let's move on.

[aurum]

You find what you seek because you're God.

[Joshe]

4 minutes ago, aurum said:

You find what you seek because you're God.

You are the example bro.

I agree that consciousness is the fundamental substrate of reality. But to call it "God" is kind of my point. You were presented with the idea of "God" and you were eager to see it as such and turned reality into that. 

How do I know? Because I made the same mistake. I called consciousness "God" for many years as a result of following Leo's work. But then I grew up a little and realized I didn't need Leo's words to describe my experience and that it was a mistake actually. 

Just because consciousness is fundamental doesn't mean you get to call it "God" and import all the metaphysical baggage with it. I hope you can see the point.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

1 minute ago, Joshe said:

You are the example bro.

I agree that consciousness is the fundamental substrate of reality. But to call it "God" is kind of my point. You were presented with the idea of "God" and you were eager to see it as such and turned reality into that. 

How do I know? Because I made the same mistake. I called consciousness "God" for many years as a result of following Leo's work. But then I grew up a little and realized I didn't need Leo's words to describe my experience and that it was a mistake actually. 

Just because consciousness is fundamental doesn't mean you get to call it "God" and import all the metaphysical baggage with it. I hope you can see the point.

Doesn't this just point toward you taking it as a belief and projecting? A genuine possibility.

Why can't it be called God?

Does that mean I cannot call it jabberwooky?

It seems, arbitrary.

[Joshe]

The word "God" isn't a discovery. It's a choice, chosen from motivated reasoning. 

Rebuttal: "You'll understand when you go deeper."

Of course! 😂

[Natasha Tori Maru]

2 minutes ago, Joshe said:

The word "God" isn't a discovery. It's a choice, chosen from motivated reasoning. 

Rebuttal: "You'll understand when you go deeper."

Of course! 😂

Huh?

I didn't say that. 

Consider its very definition. It is being used to describe something. What does the word mean to you? 

Why do we apply certain words at all? Because they aid in communicating something.

If I am digging and I find a cable in the ground, I am going to call it a cable. Why can't a spiritual seeker progress without looking for something specific? If they were, it implies a bias and belief. It is not spirituality if this is the case.

[Joshe]

11 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Doesn't this just point toward you taking it as a belief and projecting? A genuine possibility.

I never took it as a belief. I took it as a description, which I carefully thought through and held as a possibility and constantly questioned if any part of my understanding was wrong. So I'm confident that it's not a projection. 

13 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Why can't it be called God?

Does that mean I cannot call it jabberwooky?

It seems, arbitrary.

Part of my point is you are free to call it whatever you want. But what you call it has significant implications. 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

It doesn't really matter what you call it then, adopting a word doesn't change anything?

 

[Joshe]

4 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

It doesn't really matter what you call it then, adopting a word doesn't change anything?

lol, ok. I know you don't believe this, but ok. What we call things matter. Calling a cable a cable isn't the same as calling conscious experience "God". If you call it God, then you're smuggling stuff in - love, purpose, sacredness, meaning, etc. And then you forget that you smuggled it in and act like you discovered it.

That's my whole point. I know you're capable of seeing this if you will allow yourself. It doesn't have to be a permanent frame forever, but what I'm saying is a very real mechanism that most spiritual seekers never account for.