Viking

how do i stop objectifying people?

23 posts in this topic

I am noticing in the last few months (also when i started to meditate) that while im walking around people im checking them out(especially women) im doing it completely unconsciously.

now when i notice it more i see that its so automatic i cant seem to be able to do anything about it. it just happens and i dont see people as people, but as things i can get somethinf out of.

how do i break this habit? 

Edited by Ilya

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Stop needing things, if you don't need anything from anyone else you won't objectify them.

Edited by Spiral

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@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.

 

Edited by SOUL

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@Natasha Wow that's actually a deep insight. Thanks.


In the depths of winter,
I finally learned that within me 
there lay an invincible summer.

- Albert Camus

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By realizing that YOU are them. There is almost no difference between you and others. You can't possibly objectify people when you know your true nature. Your understanding of others is low-minded, ego centered - start self-inquring; what am I, what is others?

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1 hour ago, Max_V said:

@Natasha Wow that's actually a deep insight. Thanks.

The issue here is the mind that can't stop judging and labelizing everything.

Once that does not happen anymore, you stop judging yourself and other, you stop seeing object as merely objects too.

You don't see reality as it is unless this system stop, you live in an augmented reality that feels dead, without any beauty.

 

Edited by Shin

God is love

Whoever lives in love lives in God

And God in them

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@Shin Ye it is not something controllable. 

Still suprising to see though, that judging oneself and judging others are really two sides of the same coin.


In the depths of winter,
I finally learned that within me 
there lay an invincible summer.

- Albert Camus

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This is a very interesting question: how do I stop objectifying people?

By working on yourself so that you have something to bring to the table. What topics are you going to talk about? Is it useful? Will it benefit both sides? Will it benefit all? Because when you actually meet others and discover another person, no one would want to be objectified (not even yourself).

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@Ilya As Nisargadatta says, "It's just a uniform". Look beyond the uniform.

IMO this picture represents that quite well. Is it many or is it one? Or maybe none at all.

 

1000+buddhas.jpg

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@Ilya Objectifying as thinking in terms of separation. As long as you see yourself as a separate entity (duality), you'll see everything else as 'the other'. Non-dual awareness would help see that this separation is actually an illusion, and from that perspective 'the other'/objectifying is no more. That's why they also call non-duality the Absolute and duality the Object reality. When you objectify, you operate from the latter perspective.

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6 minutes ago, Natasha said:

@Ilya Objectifying as thinking in terms of separation. As long as you see yourself as a separate entity (duality), you'll see everything else as 'the other'. Non-dual awareness would help see that this separation is actually an illusion, and from that perspective 'the other'/objectifying is no more. That's why they also call non-duality the Absolute and duality the Object reality. When you objectify, you operate from the latter perspective.

This might be an ignorant question, but doesn't that lead easily for you to "carry the problems of the world" and other people on your shoulders? Or does it give you peace of mind to accept things that happen to you and other people, and not trying to solve them?

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Let me add: You can't objectify anything: not people, not women, not chairs. :P Why not chairs, even though in daily life chairs are actually objects? Because when a person passes away, he/she becomes one with everything, unless he/she becomes reincarnated (that's a different story). But, ultimately we are one, like everyone is saying in this thread.

Ultimately we are one, but how do we work towards living that kind of lifestyle in real life? There comes a point where we have to meet and interact with other people. How you interact, who you choose to interact with, and the topics that you bring up counts. 

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

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2 hours ago, Eva said:

This might be an ignorant question, but doesn't that lead easily for you to "carry the problems of the world" and other people on your shoulders? Or does it give you peace of mind to accept things that happen to you and other people, and not trying to solve them?

Peace, because there is no 'you' to carry or solve anything :)

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