Justifying The Unpleasant Nature Of Reality

[dyslexicCnut]

Over the last year I've spent a huge amount of time researching nonduality, and everything I have gathered seems to necessitate a rather unfavorable outlook on life. My general estimation of the ultimate structure of reality is that we as human beings are experiencing a small portion of absolute infinity that is being manifested through a metaphysical infinite mind. The apparent reason why this metaphysical mind subjects itself to the unpleasant lives we live is because at a metaphysical level there is no difference between pain and pleasure, and any manifestation of anything at all is the result of a metaphysical embrace of consciousness, or what's referred to as "love" in spiritual circles. From an uninformed perspective this honestly seems like a horrible travesty.

Basically what I've gathered is that the metaphysical mind is delusional, and believes itself to be immune from suffering because all pleasure and pain is supposedly an illusion. The only problem is that this illusion is so convincing that it may as be real. I imagine myself "waking up" from this reality to a metaphysical one, once this life has concluded, and saying to my true self, "what a great experience, now for a harder one". It seems that the true metaphysical self could not possibly be receptive to the actual suffering that it is subjecting itself to since it perceives suffering as illusory. I worry that the entirety of life as we know it is merely a poorly calculated manifestation of metaphysical willpower that has trapped itself into a system of cycling through rebirths that it mistakenly believes to be positive. When I hear talk about life being a "love simulator" it makes me think, "so this metaphysical mind is just training itself how to endure worse and worse situations, and it has mistakenly convinced itself that this process of horrific masochism is love?".

I'm hoping that a more experienced perspective can provide a more positive interpretation of this reality, because from my perspective, this seems like an absurd way to design reality. It's so absurd it has me doubting whether or not my life is a computer simulation, and all this spirituality bullshit is just a mean trick being played on the person being simulated. Unfortunately I have watched Leo's video "Why Reality Cannot Be A Computer Simulation" 3 times and this was not able to sufficiently eliminate that possibility.

[Johnny5]

I so wish I knew what to say to this. Because I totally get what you're saying.

[Leilani]

@dyslexicCnut both can be true. The beautiful gift of this is looking and seeing and remembering that those sick hurt people ultimately are free and perfect. But you are here as a human you understand suffering and you feel even more immense compassion when non duality is realized because "they" just like you became this. Love became this for experience and it's so honorable. Its so incredible and beautiful. You became seperate just so you could be you! There is no, whatever your name is there because you are everything and nothing. You are hot and cold you are all opposites. here you get to experience what it's like to be a little piece to feel seperate from the rest to say I am bigger, smarter, funnier etc  it's a gift. It's an honor. You look around and you see the sacrifice everyone "else" is making and you realize that's you as in love.Here you get to create yourself and be seperate from the whole. You get to know a small aspect of yourself. The seperation really does feel like a broken heart but in the oneness it's as if for the first time your heart came back together. It's so beautiful on both sides. 

[Leilani]

@dyslexicCnut its not training itself to do anything. You are free and whole and perfect. This life is short you get to be a lonely human for a while and have limitations. It's so hard to wrap the mind around but it's the most beautiful thing. 

[Consilience]

Not saying this is true or false, but just concede for a moment that you're interpreting all of this non-dual theory through a human ego. If you were to really merge with the absolute, how would you conceptualize suffering? Or perhaps a more grounded question - the closer your experience moves towards what is absolutely true, how does that change your relationship to the nature of suffering? 

All of this post is cool to think about, but it does very little justice to this infinite mind you're speaking of. 

 

Edited August 21, 2020 by Consilience

[Leilani]

Also it's not a being. It's beyond thoughts or anything like that. We have thoughts here. 

[Nahm]

On 8/19/2020 at 4:10 PM, dyslexicCnut said:

I'm hoping that a more experienced perspective can provide a more positive interpretation of this reality, because from my perspective, this seems like an absurd way to design reality.

You need more experience of reality. Practices, expression, loving, retreats, trips...anything that is less thinking and more feeling & experiencing. Reality is limited by your perspective. Direct experience expands it. No one else can expand your perspective. Given where you’re at, I wouldn’t entertain any more perspectives from anyone. Go see, so to speak. Let go of everything you’ve heard everything you think & think you may know. Empty your cup. Start scrutinizing the actuality, the direct experience of right now. 

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It's so absurd it has me doubting whether or not my life is a computer simulation, and all this spirituality bullshit is just a mean trick being played on the person being simulated.

I don’t know if you’ll be able to notice the actuality of this, but when you say it’s so absurd, the ‘it’ you’re referring to is your own perspective. Let go of thoughts & perspectives that don’t resonate, that don’t feel good to you. Holding them when feeling ‘isn’t going there with you’ is the suffering. You can not think suffering, you can only self realize transcending it. All experience is relative to you. Expanding your mind & perspective abiding in feeling is critical, in comparison to believing perspectives which don’t feel good. Let every single one of those go. 

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Unfortunately I have watched Leo's video "Why Reality Cannot Be A Computer Simulation" 3 times and this was not able to sufficiently eliminate that possibility.

Yes, it’s because it’s your belief. The way of ‘eliminating’ it, is recognizing it doesn’t resonate, and you are suffering by continuing to put your attention on it (your belief / perspective).  You can choose how you feel over what you believe, you can put how you feel first - and choose to focus on something which does resonate. There are ‘full circles’, where you come back to something later on the path, and it does resonate & make sense. If you’re around 20...compare how you see the world now, perspectives, to when you were 10. It’s very different, yet reality was in a sense always the same. Perspective. If you utilize the effortless power of focus, attention, and expand your mind, you have from where you’re at now in perspectives, to realizing the actuality of infinite unconditional love. And those words don’t do any justice at all to what they point to. You can do this. Only you can do this. It is already afoot. I’d start with a new user name and pic. It’s funny but still. 

[cobalto]

If you want to know God, observe what you see. God is love, God is creation, God is destruction, God is wild, but there are only words , god over all  is incomprehensible to the mind. It's necessary let the mind go

Edited August 22, 2020 by cobalto

[Member]

On 8/19/2020 at 11:10 PM, dyslexicCnut said:

My general estimation of the ultimate structure of reality is that we as human beings are experiencing a small portion of absolute infinity that is being manifested through a metaphysical infinite mind.

"Human being" is what YOUR metaphysical infinite mind is experiencing and manifesting at this moment. That doesn't mean that you're a small portion of absolute infinity. Maybe you create your own suffering and limitations thinking that you're a human being?

On 8/19/2020 at 11:10 PM, dyslexicCnut said:

Basically what I've gathered is that the metaphysical mind is delusional, and believes itself to be immune from suffering because all pleasure and pain is supposedly an illusion. The only problem is that this illusion is so convincing that it may as be real.

Of course suffering is real. The question is why human beings create suffering, diseases, poverty, death?

On 8/19/2020 at 11:10 PM, dyslexicCnut said:

I imagine myself "waking up" from this reality to a metaphysical one, once this life has concluded, and saying to my true self, "what a great experience, now for a harder one".

You're already your true self. The false self is when you're believing that you're something else.

On 8/19/2020 at 11:10 PM, dyslexicCnut said:

Unfortunately I have watched Leo's video "Why Reality Cannot Be A Computer Simulation" 3 times and this was not able to sufficiently eliminate that possibility.

Yes, that's a possibility but would you live your life searching for clues that everything is a simulation? Or better try to understand how this simulation works?

[Johnny5]

@dyslexicCnut The key to relieve suffering is to make peace with the design of reality. And the key to making peace with it, is to see how everything fits together and everything is necessary. And the key to seeing that, is to release everything you hold about it that causes you to take it personally. That is part of the dying, and that's the mercy of the process.

Unpleasantness may be inherent in reality in a way, but suffering is not. Suffering is the emotional contraction we inflict on ourselves about reality, as a result of misperceiving it. That is part of the human design, but not of reality as a whole.

Of course humans are part of the design of the whole, but once you understand which is which, the suffering becomes optional. It serves a purpose until then (neural networks only learn through positive and negative feedback), but at some point it needs to be re-evaluated and shed. Your post suggests that you're already past that point, so that's the good news.

The thing to understand about duality is that it works a certain way, and in this sense God's imagination, being infinite, is bound to perfection. Without the balance of yin and yang, so to speak, the wheels would come flying off. So it's either this or nothing at all.

From here, you can explore all the parts that you're still at war with, until you get to see each of them as both useful and necessary, and you get more and more of a birds eye view of the whole thing. The more you see of that, the more you will see of the intricate perfection of the design.

Once Love is recognized, everything gets redeemed.

Edited August 23, 2020 by Johnny5

[Fran11]

As he says, many many answers, none of them satisfying 

Edited August 23, 2020 by Fran11

[dyslexicCnut]

@Leilani That's definitely a comforting idea. Thank you.

@Member I'm trying to conjure what you think I could have possibly derived from your text which could reasonably beget a positive outlook on existence on a rational basis. Your first quote seems to reiterate precisely what I said, while you've mistakenly convinced yourself I meant something else. I can't say I'm not annoyed that my genuine inquiry for solace and understanding has been met with a seemingly juvenile urge to hear oneself speak.

On 8/21/2020 at 7:41 PM, Nahm said:

Let every single one of those go. 

Yes, it’s because it’s your belief. The way of ‘eliminating’ it, is recognizing it doesn’t resonate, and you are suffering by continuing to put your attention on it (your belief / perspective).  You can choose how you feel over what you believe, you can put how you feel first - and choose to focus on something which does resonate.

I appreciate this attempt to reassure me, but as of right now I find it impossible to refrain from an analytical approach to comprehend my existence. What you're saying seems to be "just go with the flow", and that I can choose to believe whatever sparks happiness. I'm sure once I'm further along in spirituality I will see the merit to what you're verbally pointing to, but right now it just seems like an irrational denial of empiricism, which to my ego mind is too risky to lend credence to. I don't want to be incorrect about major existential truths.

On 8/21/2020 at 7:41 PM, Nahm said:

Only you can do this. I’d start with a new user name and pic. It’s funny but still. 

Could you explain a little more why you think this is necessary? I suppose I see what you're trying to say, but I'm nowhere near a point in enlightenment where I can renounce my 'masked role' or identity features that my username and avatar respectively convey. 

@Johnny5 That's definitely a more positive way to intellectually approach this epistemic dilemma. I only wish it were possible to logically prove these insights. Thank you.

Edited August 28, 2020 by dyslexicCnut

[Johnny5]

4 hours ago, dyslexicCnut said:

@Johnny5 That's definitely a more positive way to intellectually approach this epistemic dilemma. I only wish it were possible to logically prove these insights. Thank you.

Not logically but empirically/experimentally.  Well, much of it makes logical sense too, or at least once you understand that reality is consciousness then these kinds of possibilities open up for consideration. But if indeed they turn out to be true, then it wouldn't be conceptual but actual, wouldn't it? So it means that there must be other reasons why you're not seeing it yet.

In other words the problem isn't necessarily with logic, but with it not being grounded in reality. And you already know or at least suspect that reality may not be as it seems, even can't be. So you can't get there from where you are now, i.e. by building on top of what you think you have. You have to start fresh. And that means dropping old baggage and back to the drawing board.

So that takes at least a switch to a primary reliance on observation, particularly of yourself and your life, and your own subjective experience. Other things flow naturally from that, such as contemplation, re-evaluation, re-contextualization, purification, integration, etc. in other words the usual "work" to discover these things for yourself and address any obstacles to it. That's the whole point of it, and why you'd want to. But it all starts with observation. Makes sense too, if only consciousness exists.

But even in the materialist paradigm, your neurological/psychosomatic/bodymind system needs good, proper feedback in order to learn and correct itself. Hence observation. Impartial, unpolluted, honest, direct. So you can't just stay in your head, because then it becomes a closed system and self-reinforcing echo chamber. Starting fresh also means looking with fresh eyes.

Meanwhile it's entirely possible that you just need to be angry at god or existence or whatever for a while. Or at least, if anger comes up, that you don't repress it. So-called purification involves dredging up and flushing out emotional baggage that we've turned away from all our lives. What it is doesn't matter, only that it's there. All that crap stuck in there is the main obstacle to clarity, and the only reason we carry it with us all our lives is because we actively avoid any and all confrontation with it.

Have you read Jed McKenna's books? If you are of an intellectual bent, as I am, then you might like them.

Edited August 28, 2020 by Johnny5

[Nahm]

@dyslexicCnut

Ok. Always up to you. 

[Member]

4 hours ago, dyslexicCnut said:

I can't say I'm not annoyed that my genuine inquiry for solace and understanding has been met with a seemingly juvenile urge to hear oneself speak.

Have you thought that maybe english is not my native language? It appears to me that your attitude is juvenile since you're reacting so butthurt and misinterpret my intention as being an urge to hear myself speak. If you don't appreciate answers, then stay arrogant and don't ask questions.

[Breakingthewall]

@dyslexicCnut

your doubts and your analysis is also mine and I think it has been one of the main philosophical dilemmas of humanity. I suppose you already know the answer: good and bad, pleasant or unpleasant, are distinctions of the ego, necessary for the being that you are to survive. if you want the truth, you have to go beyond the ego and eliminate the judgments. nothing is better or worse, it just is. I know that it is much easier said than done. living it is reaching enlightenment ... not easy business

[WaveInTheOcean]

Would there be any room for so-called 'pleasant experiences' if there was no room for so-called 'unpleasant experiences?

Unpleasant - pleasant: it's a dualistic construction of your selfish survivalistic mind. Of course, for 'a separate self' that HAS to survive, it is necessary to differentiate between pleasant and unpleasant experiences. 

What would a world look like without any personal self-agenda (conscious or unconscious)? Would there be any judgments left about the world anymore? Would there be any resistance left to reality? How could one not smile when one sees that there is absolutely nothing going on but Love's Infinite Play of Nothing?

Go beyond your mind.

When the illusion of the separate self has been fully seen-through -- when the ego has fully surrendered to Oneness -- it doesn't make sense anymore to talk about pleasant and unpleasant parts of reality. Existence, Reality is seen for what it is: one empty infinite eternal perfect experience/happening/dream unfolding out of itself out of play/love ... That's what it is ... this <3

Edited August 28, 2020 by WaveInTheOcean

[dyslexicCnut]

@Johnny5 As per your recommendation I've just finished Jed McKenna's Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing, the book that's supposed to leave you depressed afterward, and I've found that his explanation of enlightenment was pretty much in line with what I expected, I was not left "depressed" or disappointed by his negation of common enlightenment myths. I've now started Jed McKenna's Theory of Everything, if you have any more recommendations I'm here for it. Thank you. 

@WaveInTheOcean Funnily enough my first major LSD experience seemed to be conveying the same insight to me. That you can't have good without bad, as if they were necessary opposites like up and down. It's definitely nice seeing this sentiment expressed by others who are into this work.

@Breakingthewall Definitely easier said. I've been following your thread about your unfavorable breakthrough experience and it's good to see most of your doubts about the experience have seemingly been dispelled. I'm curious whether you would recommend trying 5meo without a trip sitter. Having moved to Las Vegas I don't have anyone here I could try it with, but I still want to do it.

@Member If your intention was not to inundate me with irrelevant corrections derived from your notebook of spiritual gospels that you've haplessly collected like Pokémon cards, then you certainly failed to make that apparent. Imagine having a passionate goal to educate yourself on an advanced topic, so you carefully express your qualms with the subject matter to a group of supposed connoisseurs, only to have the obvious intention of your inquiry overlooked in favor of poorly conceived nitpicks regarding the trivial wording of your question. Take a closer look at the intention of this thread and try to comprehend how your input is utterly incompatible.

Member: "then stay arrogant"
Also Member: "God: the title suits me well."

My eyes have rolled to 'Absolute Infinity'.

[Johnny5]

@dyslexicCnut Glad you liked it, have at it.

[Member]

@dyslexicCnut You don't know me so keep your biases to yourself. Also, trying to sound smartass won't make you a smartass, dumbass.