I was happier as a kid

[Sugarcoat]

14 hours ago, Osaid said:

The same way your "self" separates is exactly how all objects separate. You can only perceive separation if you believe you are a separate entity.

In your experience, there can be various sensations and feelings, but these sensations and feelings do not make any kind of claim like "I am separate from everything else", that is only what the mind can claim about the sensations and feelings.

Blissful identity shifts are possible. They can feel relaxing or empowering depending on what you imagine or assume. The way that works is that it dispels whatever belief you had about yourself prior which was causing you to feel fearful or disempowered.

Yea. Are you saying the self is a belief tho ?

 

i wouldn’t say that shift in particular was like that 

For me I’ve had many shifts, some fit that description of yours.
 

they were kind of these layers of mind attached to the self, so one layer dissolving/releasing at the time. But that one in particular was like the last one of that kind, and it was like a total detachment from the mind, a total release from all those mind layers,  but there’s still a sense of self left, but very thin.  A physical self of the brain in my experience . A self is a self but it’s completely different worlds 

 

[Breakingthewall]

4 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

they were kind of these layers of mind attached to the self, so one layer dissolving/releasing at the time. But that one in particular was like the last one of that kind, and it was like a total detachment from the mind, a total release from all those mind layers,  but there’s still a sense of self left, but very thin.  A physical self of the brain in my experience . A self is a self but it’s completely different worlds 

 

Anyone who says that being enlightened means stopping believing that you are this body is lying. You are reality, but you are also this body, this specific pattern of existence, and you prefer a sex session with a beautiful girl to being tortured by the Gestapo. awakening is leaving the mind, realizing that the mind is within you, but you are still a defined pattern of existence.

After awakening comes real opening, and there are many degrees of that. Opening yourself to the flow of living intelligence to a high degree volatilizes the mind and you perceive that it could kill you, which is why your openness is limited.

[Breakingthewall]

21 hours ago, TheGod said:

remember summer evenings where I would run around in underwear with my dog. Smell of grass and heat of the sun. Freedom and Joy. I used to climb trees and jump around abandoned buildings. Good times. 

Yeah , like mostly of humans, same than the guy in the song. Our work is to come back to the real thing 

[Osaid]

2 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

Are you saying the self is a belief tho ?

Self is what you imagine or think that you are. It is the entity that is afflicted by past and future since those are also in imagination. 

2 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

 but there’s still a sense of self left, but very thin.  A physical self of the brain in my experience .

Physicality is not self.

I have seen people say that they feel like they are located in their head, or that they are looking out of their eyes, or some such things. But these are ultimately just beliefs they have; that they are located inside of the brain somewhere. They are identifying with a specific location in their experience, which creates that "sense of self." 

Edited March 4 by Osaid

[Osaid]

3 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

It depends, because if they call you now to tell you that you have lost your job and that you are going to be deported to the Congo to work in a mine, maybe you will start thinking about the future non-stop.

You can think about the future but you can't experience it. There would be absolutely zero fear about what is going to happen to me, but there would be a desire to avoid it. You can only avoid the future, you can't experience it.

[Sugarcoat]

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Anyone who says that being enlightened means stopping believing that you are this body is lying. You are reality, but you are also this body, this specific pattern of existence, and you prefer a sex session with a beautiful girl to being tortured by the Gestapo. awakening is leaving the mind, realizing that the mind is within you, but you are still a defined pattern of existence.

After awakening comes real opening, and there are many degrees of that. Opening yourself to the flow of living intelligence to a high degree volatilizes the mind and you perceive that it could kill you, which is why your openness is limited.

I called it an awakening too. Enlightenment for me would be total no self,  can’t imagine that. 

I’ve had dozens of shifts and releases , energetic mental etc,and they all accelerated after the awakening so makes sense what you’re saying there ,  but I’ve  never been even for a moment without a self even if it has been super thin,  aka opened all the way , not that I try to do that, but  can’t imagine how that happens except with very powerful mechanisms and practices  or just spontaneously 

[Sugarcoat]

1 hour ago, Osaid said:

Self is what you imagine or think that you are. It is the entity that is afflicted by past and future since those are also in imagination. 

Physicality is not self.

I have seen people say that they feel like they are located in their head, or that they are looking out of their eyes, or some such things. But these are ultimately just beliefs they have; that they are located inside of the brain somewhere. They are identifying with a specific location in their experience, which creates that "sense of self." 

I would say the self is at its core this indescribable (because it’s too direct, no distance too it) contracted sense of locality behind the eyes like those people say.  So not imagined (not that it’s real tho) And then attached to this can be a mental self(imaginary) .

Because in my experience that mental self can dissolve, and what remains is this thin core contracted sense. I said physical because it’s what makes everything seem solid, like Jim Newman said “the sense of solidity over here gives rise to the sense of solidity everywhere else” or something like that 

My description or belief that I’m behind my eyes comes secondary to this, not the opposite (the belief creating the sense of self). I can’t identify myself with a location in experience , that sounds like there is two, already a self there that is identifying- but I am that very sense of contracted locality, it’s direct.  Then if it’s “real” or not is another thing, but it’s what it seems like for me

 

 

Edited March 5 by Sugarcoat

[Osaid]

44 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

I would say the self is at its core this indescribable (because it’s too direct, no distance too it) contracted sense of locality behind the eyes like those people say.  So not imagined (not that it’s real tho) And then attached to this can be a mental self(imaginary) .

Because in my experience that mental self can dissolve, and what remains is this thin core contracted sense. I said physical because it’s what makes everything seem solid, like Jim Newman said “the sense of solidity over here gives rise to the sense of solidity everywhere else” or something like that 

My description or belief that I’m behind my eyes comes secondary to this, not the opposite (the belief creating the sense of self). I can’t identify myself with a location in experience , that sounds like there is two, already a self there that is identifying- but I am that very sense of contracted locality, it’s direct.  Then if it’s “real” or not is another thing, but it’s what it seems like for me

 

 

If you identify with a part of experience, that is always imaginary. Because experience has no capability to partition itself. You can't experience a part of experience, you can only experience experience, which is the whole thing, not a divided part of it. Only your imagination partitions. You cannot imagine yourself, which means any thing you imagine is not you. 

Why do you identify with one location and not the other? Why the bias? The bias is mentally projected, it is imagination. Solidity and physicality is unrelated, but you can certainly imagine yourself as that.

Edited March 5 by Osaid

[Sugarcoat]

46 minutes ago, Osaid said:

If you identify with a part of experience, that is always imaginary. Because experience has no capability to partition itself. You can't experience a part of experience, you can only experience experience, which is the whole thing, not a divided part of it. Only your imagination partitions. You cannot imagine yourself, which means any thing you imagine is not you. 

Why do you identify with one location and not the other? Why the bias? The bias is mentally projected, it is imagination. Solidity and physicality is unrelated, but you can certainly imagine yourself as that.

Imagination is for me thoughts in minds eye and then projections of that . Idk it just seems to me the self is not purely that, not that it’s an actual thing but that the sense of being a self doesn’t depend on the mind so the mind can be silent and all the layers of mental self can dissolve yet it still seems I’m here somehow and can’t be shook

Edited March 5 by Sugarcoat

[Osaid]

On 3/4/2024 at 7:29 PM, Sugarcoat said:

Imagination is for me thoughts in minds eye and then projections of that . Idk it just seems to me the self is not purely that, not that it’s an actual thing but that the sense of being a self doesn’t depend on the mind so the mind can be silent and all the layers of mental self can dissolve yet it still seems I’m here somehow and can’t be shook

Yes, imagination is thoughts and ideas.

Imagination is also limitation. It creates "things" or "objects" and various multiplicities. These multiplicities are equivalent to limitations and boundaries. Limitations are inferences created through imagination.

Experience does not have objects. It is always the whole thing. The whole thing does not have any edges or boundaries, that defeats the definition of being whole. To be whole is to be undivided. Something undivided has no limit or boundary.

When the mind is quiet, there is experience, but that experience is not anything you can imagine about it. It is undefined. If you point to some part of it and say "that is me" then you have defined yourself through mind and imagination, because you have separated that part of experience through intellect, which creates identity.

Edited March 7 by Osaid

[Yimpa]

Never too late to be awake

[Emerald]

On 3/2/2024 at 7:58 PM, TheGod said:

I was born in a relatively poor family in a small town (in Ukraine). As a kid I would spend a lot of time with my grandparents and their animals (cows, ducks, etc.) and I also didn't have money. Nevertheless, I was so much happier then now. Now I do have money and I can buy things for myself. I moved to a better country, but I don't feel as happy and free as I used to. 

I think the problem is all the identities that I've constructed. 

Why was I happier milking a cow in a small village rather than living in a developed city of Canada? 

As we move through life, we experience different traumas and unmet needs... and we construct different identities and worldviews. And to cope with all of this, we create different coping mechanisms and protections.

All of this accumulates over time... like dirt accumulates on the windshield of a well-driven car.

Then, the image we see through the windshield is dull and blurry and vague.

And you remember back to childhood when the windshield was cleaner... and say "Didn't the world used to be far more brilliant than this dull world in front of me now?"

And maybe before, you were in the cow field and could see the brilliance of the cow field through the windshield.

And now, you're near a beautiful castle made of pearls... but it all looks so dull. 

[Sugarcoat]

On 2024-03-07 at 3:57 AM, Osaid said:

Yes, imagination is thoughts and ideas.

Imagination is also limitation. It creates "things" or "objects" and various multiplicities. These multiplicities are equivalent to limitations and boundaries. Limitations are inferences created through imagination.

Experience does not have objects. It is always the whole thing. The whole thing does not have any edges or boundaries, that defeats the definition of being whole. To be whole is to be undivided. Something undivided has no limit or boundary.

When the mind is quiet, there is experience, but that experience is not anything you can imagine about it. It is undefined. If you point to some part of it and say "that is me" then you have defined yourself through mind and imagination, because you have separated that part of experience through intellect, which creates identity.

So what you’re kind of saying is, if I for example just stare blankly, so there is no thought for a brief moment (hard for me to sustain for longer), or in the gap between thoughts, then it’s just this one experience , its  when the mind starts to thinks, about me for example, it’s how the sense of I is created. And since the stream of thoughts is pretty much constant, it seems like there is always a self there, being pointed to. Something like that?

 

Edited March 8 by Sugarcoat

[Osaid]

45 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

So what you’re kind of saying is, if I for example just stare blankly, so there is no thought for a brief moment (hard for me to sustain for longer), or in the gap between thoughts, then it’s just this one experience , its  when the mind starts to thinks, about me for example, it’s how the sense of I is created. And since the stream of thoughts is pretty much constant, it seems like there is always a self there, being pointed to. Something like that?

 

Yes exactly.

When you don't think, you can't use your imagination to point to any dualities anymore. That is what is happening when you are in that "gap." This can feel unfamiliar or confusing at first, as if you are a blank empty vessel, but that is just because you are so used to engaging in reality through your intellect that it feels impractical to keep yourself there, but there is actually a deep wisdom and clarity which can be observed in that state. That clarity and wisdom comes from the non-dual aspect of it. 

Dualities are literally equivalent to imagination. If I tell you to look at a chair, those words cause you to single out a "chair" in your experience through imagination. The word "chair" causes you to imagine that object and then search for it in your own experience. This is why communication and language must always fundamentally be dualistic. The way language and communication works is that you make the other person imagine things/dualities through your words.

It seems like there is "blankness" or "nothing" there. This can seem confusing or unsatisfying at first, but that is only because of your own expectations of what should be there. The "nothingness" you find there is of an entirely different quality than the one you might imagine. There is actually a very definite clarity to this "silence" or "nothingness." It answers all of your questions by saying nothing. If what you were previously imagining can be rendered void by simply stopping your thinking, it should be questioned how that is existentially possible. What is actually left over when you stop thinking? How come it vanishes when you stop thinking?

Edited March 8 by Osaid

[Breakingthewall]

2 hours ago, Osaid said:

Dualities are literally equivalent to imagination. If I tell you to look at a chair, those words cause you to single out a "chair" in your experience through imagination.

On 5/3/2024 at 0:40 AM, Osaid said:

 

Yes but dualities have a real basis, that is why they exist. A dog also perceives duality between itself and what is not it, it's simple, if you get hit it hurts, if you hit a chair it doesn't hurt. you cannot deny the separation, since it is real, not an idea. ideas arise based on this fact, don't create it

[Osaid]

12 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Yes but dualities have a real basis, that is why they exist.

No, they always just exist as imagination. Their basis is imagination. It doesn't affect anything outside of imagination.

Just because it is useful to imagine things doesn't mean it isn't imaginary. 

12 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

A dog also perceives duality between itself and what is not it, it's simple, if you get hit it hurts, if you hit a chair it doesn't hurt

Pain is not duality. Pain does not make claims about what you are either, that is a distinction that only your mind can make. I am not denying that physical pain exists. You are assuming that physical pain creates duality and separation though, which is not the case.

12 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

ideas arise based on this fact, don't create it

When you look at the color red, ideas can arise of it. However, those ideas are just ideas, they are not red. The ideas are about red, they are not red itself.

Similarly, any ideas you have may be inspired by your experience, but they are just ideas and imagination. Not the fact or experience itself. Ideas must always convert experience to something dualistic.

Edited March 8 by Osaid

[Breakingthewall]

58 minutes ago, Osaid said:

Pain is not duality. Pain does not make claims about what you are either

I can't see it in that way. At the end everything is unity, or oneness but the form is also real and its is duality, maybe the pain does not make claims of what you are, but that a lion eats you legs does. You can't denying what you are, that's evasion. The result is that it make impossible the real opening to what alive infinity is, then you are stuck in a kind of Buddhism, equanimity, clam happiness, that is much better that being anxious, but it's still close. The total opening to what lives is possible but it doesn't admit evasion like everything is imaginary. Because imaginary means false. The meanings are imaginary but the reality is absolutely real. 

Edited March 8 by Breakingthewall

[Osaid]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

I can't see it in that way. At the end everything is unity, or oneness but the form is also real and its is duality, maybe the pain does not make claims of what you are, but that a lion eats you legs does. You can't denying what you are, that's evasion. The result is that it make impossible the real opening to what alive infinity is, then you are stuck in a kind of Buddhism, equanimity, clam happiness, that is much better that being anxious, but it's still close. The total opening to what lives is possible but it doesn't admit evasion like everything is imaginary. Because imaginary means false. The meanings are imaginary but the reality is absolutely real. 

Imagination does not mean false. That itself is an imaginary distinction you are creating, because you are creating a duality of false and real. You are making up that duality through imagination, the very thing you criticize as false.

Duality is your ability to imagine things. Pain is not imagined. Physical reality is not imagined.

I believe you are conflating some kind of grandiose state of consciousness with existential truth or non-duality. What is absolutely true must always be true, or it is not absolute. You cannot get around this fact. It can't be a state or experience located somewhere else in the future, otherwise that makes it relative. If you believe that duality is true or existential, you are mistaking the map for the territory, which is to say, you are mistaking imagination for reality.

Edited March 8 by Osaid

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, Osaid said:

What is absolutely true must always be true, or it is not absolute

What it's absolutely true is existence, but then you have to perceive as deep as you can what existence is. Realize just that existence exist is good but just the beginning 

[Sugarcoat]

23 hours ago, Osaid said:

Yes exactly.

When you don't think, you can't use your imagination to point to any dualities anymore. That is what is happening when you are in that "gap." This can feel unfamiliar or confusing at first, as if you are a blank empty vessel, but that is just because you are so used to engaging in reality through your intellect that it feels impractical to keep yourself there, but there is actually a deep wisdom and clarity which can be observed in that state. That clarity and wisdom comes from the non-dual aspect of it. 

Dualities are literally equivalent to imagination. If I tell you to look at a chair, those words cause you to single out a "chair" in your experience through imagination. The word "chair" causes you to imagine that object and then search for it in your own experience. This is why communication and language must always fundamentally be dualistic. The way language and communication works is that you make the other person imagine things/dualities through your words.

It seems like there is "blankness" or "nothing" there. This can seem confusing or unsatisfying at first, but that is only because of your own expectations of what should be there. The "nothingness" you find there is of an entirely different quality than the one you might imagine. There is actually a very definite clarity to this "silence" or "nothingness." It answers all of your questions by saying nothing. If what you were previously imagining can be rendered void by simply stopping your thinking, it should be questioned how that is existentially possible. What is actually left over when you stop thinking? How come it vanishes when you stop thinking?

 I think I get what you’re saying. Although I would say that the state I’m in when I don’t think for a brief moment is not non dual in the way it would be if my sense of self was gone. Like I’m guessing it is for you. Not that you said that exactly but something along those lines. 

Because in order for me to stop thinking requires a certain effort, even if it’s subtle, like placing my attention on sensory perception . It’s still experienced for me like an action I’m doing, directing my attention. I am involved in that as much as I’m involved in the incessant stream of thoughts. 

One could say that is my mind that is saying that, creating a dual description again, yes it is. But the mind isn’t just describing for nothing. 
 

I would say that the constant stream of thoughts is there because there is a sense of self, not the reverse, that the thoughts are giving rise to the sense of self

i can for example visualize an imagine of me in my past, and there is a sense of me in that imagine. I wouldn’t say the image created that sense of self, but the opposite , my sense of self is simply being projected into that imagine, so it’s already here regardless if I’m thinking or not. Same with auditory thoughts of my voice. 

What is left over when I stop thinking? I’d say I’m still here. The thoughts are engaging me, not creating me. So I’d say the self is prior to thoughts. Like this appearance of separation that arises in children . This is my mind saying that, yes, but it’s still not for nothing it’s saying it. All these imaginary dualities are possible because of this one duality appearance of the self that appears in humans, I’d say

if it were just about the mind, it would seem to me easier to break through the self. Like if you just stop thinking for long enough somehow it would be clear you’re not there. But why would the thoughts keep coming back constantly? Because there is still a sense of self here to engage. I can’t say I know this. But it just seems to me we’re dealing with something prior  to the mind when it comes to this self. 

Edited March 9 by Sugarcoat