Is this forum even helpful?

[Psych2Awak3n]

What we're all looking for is an experience which cannot be explained, and which is driven further from us the more we theorise about it. Then why do we have a forum like this? Shouldn't it be purely for discussing *experiences* instead of ideas about what consciousness/awakening is or what it should be? I feel like most of the time this is just a bit of a circle jerk (I'm not innocent, I participate in this myself sometimes)

[omar30]

what you are looking for is to balance theory vs practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOIf3pY9LqE

[mandyjw]

The very nature of thought is circular. Writing, reading and communicating is experience. Coming to this forum completely changed my understanding and experience. There isn't a higher, purer or better place to go no matter where you are. 

[omar30]

@mandyjw 

2 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

There isn't a higher, purer or better place to go no matter where you are. 

are you sure about that ?

[Emotionalmosquito]

1 minute ago, omar30 said:

@mandyjw 

are you sure about that ?

As far as online communities go, I would say yeah 

[mandyjw]

@omar30 @Emotionalmosquito I was speaking in a very general manner, as in you don't actually go anywhere. When you walk you think you're moving within a world, but maybe you're attracting it all, sorta like VR but without a screen. Test it out. 

[Mason Riggle]

@mandyjw everywhere I go.. there I am.  

[BipolarGrowth]

@Psych2Awak3n I treat it mainly as spiritual social media. That perspective may be of value to you. Doing the work yourself is #1. 

[VeganAwake]

2 hours ago, Psych2Awak3n said:

What we're all looking for is an experience which cannot be explained, and which is driven further from us the more we theorise about it. Then why do we have a forum like this? Shouldn't it be purely for discussing *experiences* instead of ideas about what consciousness/awakening is or what it should be? I feel like most of the time this is just a bit of a circle jerk (I'm not innocent, I participate in this myself sometimes)

The sense of being an individual is overwhelmingly unsatisfactory.

So it continues running on the hamster wheel searching for something that was never lost.

Sometimes it's recognized this seeker isn't real.... and then there's just everything which includes an unsatisfied seeking energy ❤ 

[Preety_India]

This forum is only good if you know how to keep away from ideology. I have very carefully tried to not be influenced by the meditation section of the forum. It can sometimes brainwash you with ideas that are not very practical. Be careful of the spiritual trap. A lot of people who embrace this trap often end up feeling lost and lose touch with reality. Consciousness is fine and healthy as long as it aids your living. If consciousness is making a person lose touch with basic reality, it undercuts the benefits of spiritual development. The idea is to use spirituality as a supplement rather than evading what is essential to living. 

Be careful of that trap 

 

 

[Fearless_Bum]

No teacher or teaching will ever help you. 

Only your own effort and open mindedness to explore the different techniques/teachings will work. 

If it doesn't work, or makes you feel bad, throw it away.

Be careful of the trap of becoming too attached to a teacher, and blindly following them for them and not for the Truth itself.

Question everyone, the first person you should be questioning is Leo himself, not implying anything, but if you're serious about this then doubt and inspect every teacher especially those you admire the most. 

If someone mentions a spiritual teacher or teaching and you become triggered, be honest with yourself and open your mind to the teacher and try it out, then throw it away if it isn't working.

[Vibroverse]

No, nothing but the Absolute Zero is ever helpful, everything else is just blah blah at best. 

Edited November 30, 2021 by Vibroverse

[Space Lizard]

It seems like a place where people want to talk about powerful states of consciousness that words can’t convey, but keep trying anyway. So we get a lot of very abstract statements like “God is love” that don’t seem to have any practical meaning. But I’m not going to be too critical; at least people are trying to talk about something more interesting than the latest political scandal or sporting event. My only real complaint is the association of leftist political ideals with mysticism, which doesn’t agree with my own perceptions or biases.

[Carl-Richard]

14 minutes ago, Space Lizard said:

My only real complaint is the association of leftist political ideals with mysticism, which doesn’t agree with my own perceptions or biases.

Systems thinking (the cream of leftism) and mysticism are related, yes. 

 

On 25.9.2021 at 3:31 PM, Carl-Richard said:

There is an interesting link between between a construct-aware epistemology, mysticism and systems thinking that I think is not much emphasized by people like Ken Wilber who emphasize the distinction between growing up and waking up. It's no coincidence that Fritjof Capra saw the link between non-duality and QM, was inspired by holistic philosophers like Thomas Kuhn and Gregory Bateson, and then went on to revolutionize systems thinking as a field, just like it's no coincidence that people who are averse to these ideas are also averse to systems thinking.

Systems thinking emphasizes the ramifications of relationality/relativity, like the relationship between the observer and the observed in QM, the relationship between the map and the territory in metaphysics, between historical context and scientific discoveries, between the individual and collective in social ecology, and the relationship between two dualities in a whole (yin-yan). It's not that mysticism is the whole story (like Ken Wilber points out with pre-rational mysticism), but it's that the marriage of mysticism and rationality leads to transrationality, and transrationality puts the rational in context so that one can observe the relationality of it, of how its constructed as a product of relationships, and hence you break into a construct-aware, paradigmatic systems view.

In that sense, there does appear to be a connection between growing up and waking up that happens at the cutting edge of rationality (Green) that facilitates a movement into Tier 2. Other than that, a pre-rational mystic is still confined to Tier 1.

 

[Guest EmptyVase]

Depends on how you use the forum and what you define as 'helpful'.

[BlackMaze]

It is what it is. You have rare weird people mixed together what more do you want. Weird is a compliment in my world. 

[Moksha]

If someone has directly realized their true nature, they are in a better position to help others than someone who has not. It's true that language is self-limiting, and at best teachings can only point to the truth. As long as the teachings are not mistaken for the truth, but seen for the map that they are, they can help others navigate toward the truth within themselves. Once that truth is directly realized, the teachings can be dropped entirely.

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

13 hours ago, Preety_India said:

This forum is only good if you know how to keep away from ideology. I have very carefully tried to not be influenced by the meditation section of the forum. It can sometimes brainwash you with ideas that are not very practical. Be careful of the spiritual trap. A lot of people who embrace this trap often end up feeling lost and lose touch with reality. Consciousness is fine and healthy as long as it aids your living. If consciousness is making a person lose touch with basic reality, it undercuts the benefits of spiritual development. The idea is to use spirituality as a supplement rather than evading what is essential to living. 

Be careful of that trap 

 

 

Attagirl... you've been way smarter than me.

[LastThursday]

It's true that this forum is no substitute for actual first-hand experience of whatever it is you're looking for. On the other hand this forum is experience so it's useful as an experience. Although, an experience that hasn't been had, is no experience at all: so it's never possible to "look for" an experience anyway, you just have to wait for it to happen to you.

[RMQualtrough]

20 hours ago, Psych2Awak3n said:

What we're all looking for is an experience which cannot be explained, and which is driven further from us the more we theorise about it. Then why do we have a forum like this? Shouldn't it be purely for discussing *experiences* instead of ideas about what consciousness/awakening is or what it should be? I feel like most of the time this is just a bit of a circle jerk (I'm not innocent, I participate in this myself sometimes)

Good to post thoughts you can later reflect on.