I was happier as a kid

[Osaid]

2 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

i can for example visualize an imagine of me in my past, and there is a sense of me in that imagine.

The sense of self is created because you believe that "you" have experienced the past, but how can that be if you are currently viewing a memory of the past? If the past is experienced then it is not the past, it is the current moment. There can't be two of you, one which experiences the past and one which experiences the present, there can only be the one who remembers the past from the present. The only way to perceive yourself in the past is through imagination created in the present. Same goes for the future.

Try to define yourself without referring to the past or future. Your mind will draw a blank. It will immediately bring you back to that state of "not thinking" which is created by observing the present moment. This is not a coincidence. This is because the self is literally made out of your ability to imagine yourself in past and future situations.

2 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

Like if you just stop thinking for long enough somehow it would be clear you’re not there.

Pretty sure this is what classic meditation tries to accomplish, and it seems to work to a degree. There is a natural disillusionment that comes from it over time.

2 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

But why would the thoughts keep coming back constantly?

It's the way you're using thoughts that creates a sense of self, it is not inherent to thoughts. The self is created because you believe that you can imagine what you are. I still think but I don't use it to imagine myself.

2 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

Because there is still a sense of self here to engage.

Why do you assume that you need a self in order to engage with your thoughts?

If there was a sense of self outside of thought, what perception is it made of? Sound? Sight? Touch? Smell? Is it somehow void of any perception in your experience?

Edited March 9 by Osaid

[Sugarcoat]

On 2024-03-09 at 6:23 AM, Osaid said:

The sense of self is created because you believe that "you" have experienced the past, but how can that be if you are currently viewing a memory of the past? If the past is experienced then it is not the past, it is the current moment. There can't be two of you, one which experiences the past and one which experiences the present, there can only be the one who remembers the past from the present. The only way to perceive yourself in the past is through imagination created in the present. Same goes for the future.

Yea I agree that the only way to perceive yourself in the past is through imagination in the present.  I meant that it is the sense of separate self in the body that is the basis,  that makes it possible for me to imagine myself in the past or future, my sense of self projected into thoughts. Not that there is two me, but my attention can be absorbed into thoughts of me in past or future, but it all depends on the sense of me in the body. So if that would drop, then maybe I can imagine "me" in time but there's no sense of me in the thought. Maybe that's how it is for you? you can imagine exactly what I can but just no sense of you in it. 

you say "belief" a lot when it comes to the self. But where does that belief come from? Some speak as if we are taught that we are someone. Like our identity is created because we are referred to by our parents and are taught duality. But isn't that secondary, like at the core, is this sense of separation and the sense of im separate, which is just this sense that appears, and the belief and all else comes from that? im not sure but lets say I was born isolated from society and language, I can't know this, but im guessing id still feel like this being behind the eyes and maybe id be able to imagine my body and voice and sense myself in those thoughts, not that it matters for my situation but just to make it clear what I mean by it seeming like this sense of separation just appears and then belief and all else comes secondary

 

Quote

On 2024-03-09 at 6:23 AM, Osaid said:

Try to define yourself without referring to the past or future. Your mind will draw a blank. It will immediately bring you back to that state of "not thinking" which is created by observing the present moment. This is not a coincidence. This is because the self is literally made out of your ability to imagine yourself in past and future situations.

 

I can't define myself without thinking no that's right. And most of my thoughts are of me in past or future yea. I can't really say what I am. It is hard to pin point, I can sense myself, so for example as im writing this I can almost sense myself in the voice in my mind that is reading this. My mind will say, it seems like I am here somehow behind the eyes. 

 

but where does that ability come from? isn't it possible for me to imagine myself  precisely because I sense myself in this body, like I said before

 

Quote

On 2024-03-09 at 6:23 AM, Osaid said:

Pretty sure this is what classic meditation tries to accomplish, and it seems to work to a degree. There is a natural disillusionment that comes from it over time.

 

mm ive had a lot of loosening myself, and like layers peeling, done some meditation too so I can see its potential role. Never has the "whole thing" dropped tho. 

Quote

On 2024-03-09 at 6:23 AM, Osaid said:

It's the way you're using thoughts that creates a sense of self, it is not inherent to thoughts. The self is created because you believe that you can imagine what you are. I still think but I don't use it to imagine myself.

 

this ties back to my point about belief

Quote

On 2024-03-09 at 6:23 AM, Osaid said:

Why do you assume that you need a self in order to engage with your thoughts?

If there was a sense of self outside of thought, what perception is it made of? Sound? Sight? Touch? Smell? Is it somehow void of any perception in your experience?

 

not that I need to, but that it seems like the almost constant frequency of thoughts are because there is a sense of self because a lot of thoughts are fear based or related to a kind of unease in my experience, which  all relates to the self, without the self im guessing less thoughts appear? 

that is hard to say but id say like before, it seems like this appearance of being located behind the eyes separate

 

im open to this. Im really going through it so that's one reason for me looking into this

[Salvijus]

On 2024-03-04 at 7:40 AM, Osaid said:

You don't need a self to experience physical pain, and you don't need a self to want to do something. The intention to do something is a reaction to a thought that you have, it's not really "you deciding it." You don't decide to have a thought prior to when it appears, so there is never truly a decision made by "you." When you imagine a unicorn, you don't ask yourself prior "Do I want to imagine a unicorn or not?" There is no entity which decides on anything, there is just an intelligent reaction to thought. There is nothing else beyond that.

This is not true. 

Actions (and that include emotions, thoughts, feelings) are not random

All actions are driven by the impulse.

There are two types of impulses:

1. Impulse to serve The Whole (love/God's will) 
2. Impulse to serve the little me (fear/egoic will) 

The original impulse in all of creation is love. Love sees all things as one-self and therefore always serves The Whole. 

When human mind loses the awareness of oneness, the false perception of separation, the "little me" and fear of death are born. And with it the pure impulse to serve The Whole gets corrupted by the ego to serve only the "little me". 

If the implications of the above are understood the conclusion thus follows:

If there is any trace of ego (self-centered rather that TheWhole-centered) driven/produced/manifested symptoms, thoughts, emotions, bahavior like fear, anger, judgement, envy, impatience, greed, worry, anxiety, depression etc. That means it was not generated by love/truth impulse, it was generated by ego driven energy. And that means that the mind is still under the false perception of separation (which is the source of all misery) and the awareness of truth/oneness is not complete. What could be called in all fairness, "not a liberated mind/not enlightened" 

Edited March 11 by Salvijus

[Salvijus]

In short, every thought, action, emotion has a cause for it. And if there is misery of any kind. Scrutinize what is the cause of it and you will find that the cause of it is the false identity and false perception of separation, ignorance. 

With that understanding you can gauge if your perception of truth is complete or not. 

Edited March 11 by Salvijus

[Osaid]

10 hours ago, Salvijus said:

Actions (and that include emotions, thoughts, feelings) are not random

I didn't say it was random. I am saying you don't choose what it is.

You didn't choose the flavor of an apple, and you didn't choose to love that flavor, you are simply someone who loves apples. And then if I ask "why do you like apples?" you say "because they are sweet", not "because I decided they are sweet and then I decided that I like sweet things." The reasoning "because they are sweet" is what I would call your "intelligent reaction."

It's not that you don't have free will, it's just that free will doesn't exist at all even conceptually because it depends on a self which chooses between imagined scenarios. It is like dividing by zero, it just doesn't apply to reality. It's more like reality just gives you a bunch of things and then you have to maneuver yourself through those things with your given intelligence. Like how when you play a video game you are given a certain set of controls to conduct yourself with. 

10 hours ago, Salvijus said:

All actions are driven by the impulse.

There are two types of impulses:

1. Impulse to serve The Whole (love/God's will) 
2. Impulse to serve the little me (fear/egoic will) 

The original impulse in all of creation is love. Love sees all things as one-self and therefore always serves The Whole. 

When human mind loses the awareness of oneness, the false perception of separation, the "little me" and fear of death are born. And with it the pure impulse to serve The Whole gets corrupted by the ego to serve only the "little me". 

If the implications of the above are understood the conclusion thus follows:

If there is any trace of ego (self-centered rather that TheWhole-centered) driven/produced/manifested symptoms, thoughts, emotions, bahavior like fear, anger, judgement, envy, impatience, greed, worry, anxiety, depression etc. That means it was not generated by love/truth impulse, it was generated by ego driven energy. And that means that the mind is still under the false perception of separation (which is the source of all misery) and the awareness of truth/oneness is not complete. What could be called in all fairness, "not a liberated mind/not enlightened" 

This is decently accurate as far as it might go religiously/philosophically. 

What you call "impulse" is what I would simply just call "desire" (and I think you mean the same). These desires are actually existentially equivalent to emotions, there is no difference between emotions and desire. Once you realize that you cannot imagine yourself, this permanently removes the "self", and thus your desires become "tuned" with "love" or "God's will" as you say. 

There is also a difference between seemingly "negative" emotions generated through an imagined self and emotions generated through a non-imagined experience. Fearing a bear or a loud unexpected sound has nothing to do with self, for example, but fearing a scenario in the future does. The desire to avoid a bear that is in front of you is equivalent to fear, but it is not necessarily ego because it does not require you to imagine a self.

Edited March 11 by Osaid

[Osaid]

4 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

Not that there is two me, but my attention can be absorbed into thoughts of me in past or future, but it all depends on the sense of me in the body.

What is the entity that gets absorbed into thoughts? What sense perception is that entity made of? Touch? Sound? Sight? Smell? Is it really there? Check if you can find it.

You also say that attention gets absorbed into thoughts. What is attention actually made of? Can attention exist without an object to pay attention to? What is the difference between the object of attention and attention itself? Perhaps they are both the same thing?

6 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

Maybe that's how it is for you? you can imagine exactly what I can but just no sense of you in it. 

Yes.

I can remember things, that is memory, but the memory is not something that happened to "me."

I can think about the future, but the future doesn't happen to "me" either. 

In both scenarios, there is no object or entity called "me" which can be in the past or future. The past or future cannot exist at the same time, therefore there can never be an entity which experiences both past and future, that is experientially impossible.

18 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

But where does that belief come from? Some speak as if we are taught that we are someone. Like our identity is created because we are referred to by our parents and are taught duality. But isn't that secondary, like at the core, is this sense of separation and the sense of im separate, which is just this sense that appears, and the belief and all else comes from that?

No, it is not secondary. All separation is strictly just imagination.

The belief essentially boils down to "I am affected by past and future." It is equivalent to your sense of time. You create this sense of time only through imagination. It also does not help that language is inherently dualistic. I am not sure what exactly causes the creation of self-image or ego in the first place, whether it is parents, language, society, etc. But those are probably valid speculations. The people around us pass their pathologies onto us.

As an example, in current experience, the identity "I am a human" is actually not experienced. "A human" is an abstraction of current experience. Thinking that you are a human is different from being a human. The experience of a human perfectly contains everything inside of it, including smell, sight, sound, touch, etc. It is not an isolated experience of a singular human. You can only abstract yourself as "a human" through imagination.

3 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

I can sense myself, so for example as im writing this I can almost sense myself in the voice in my mind that is reading this. My mind will say, it seems like I am here somehow behind the eyes. 

 

but where does that ability come from? isn't it possible for me to imagine myself  precisely because I sense myself in this body, like I said before

There are sensations in experience, that much is true.

But, is there an entity observing those sensations? Is there an entity which observes the body? Is there an entity which imagines a voice?

What sensation is the entity which observes those sensations going to be made out of? 

3 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

Never has the "whole thing" dropped tho. 

It is possible. It can happen in an instant, very simply. Just takes a bit of inquiry.

14 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

but that it seems like the almost constant frequency of thoughts are because there is a sense of self because a lot of thoughts are fear based or related to a kind of unease in my experience, which  all relates to the self

The frequency of thoughts is in direct proportion to how important you believe it is to think. If you believe you exist inside of thoughts, then you will think incessantly because you think that your survival depends on it. Fear is a strong emotion and desire, and if your thoughts can create that emotion and desire then you wont be able to stop thinking until you look directly at it and figure out what it is actually driving that emotion and desire.

14 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

without the self im guessing less thoughts appear? 

Yes.

15 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

im open to this. Im really going through it so that's one reason for me looking into this

That's good. I remember a bit about your situation.

[Salvijus]

3 hours ago, Osaid said:

I didn't say it was random. I am saying you don't choose what it is.

You didn't choose the flavor of an apple, and you didn't choose to love that flavor, you are simply someone who loves apples. And then if I ask "why do you like apples?" you say "because they are sweet", not "because I decided they are sweet and then I decided that I like sweet things." The reasoning "because they are sweet" is what I would call your "intelligent reaction."

It's not that you don't have free will, it's just that free will doesn't exist at all even conceptually because it depends on a self which chooses between imagined scenarios. It is like dividing by zero, it just doesn't apply to reality. It's more like reality just gives you a bunch of things and then you have to maneuver yourself through those things with your given intelligence. Like how when you play a video game you are given a certain set of controls to conduct yourself with. 

This is decently accurate as far as it might go religiously/philosophically. 

What you call "impulse" is what I would simply just call "desire" (and I think you mean the same). These desires are actually existentially equivalent to emotions, there is no difference between emotions and desire. Once you realize that you cannot imagine yourself, this permanently removes the "self", and thus your desires become "tuned" with "love" or "God's will" as you say. 

There is also a difference between seemingly "negative" emotions generated through an imagined self and emotions generated through a non-imagined experience. Fearing a bear or a loud unexpected sound has nothing to do with self, for example, but fearing a scenario in the future does. The desire to avoid a bear that is in front of you is equivalent to fear, but it is not necessarily ego because it does not require you to imagine a self.

Hmmm, I wonder if this really addresses the main issue. 

That all misery (and that includes restlessness, fear, anger, irritation, judgement, envy, depression, greed, anxiety, lementing etc.) is generated by the ego. 

And i personaly wonder does that challenge your understanding of enlightenment or do you see it the same way. 

Edited March 11 by Salvijus

[Osaid]

40 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

That all misery (and that includes restlessness, fear, anger, irritation, judgement, envy, depression, greed, anxiety etc.) is generated by the ego. 

And i personaly wonder does that challenge your understanding of enlightenment or do you see it the same way. 

The issue is not really those emotions, but rather the desires that they are trying to perpetuate. The emotions are an intelligent reaction to what you desire. What needs to be seen is that the thing you are desiring is based on a false premise of "self", once that is realized then the desires and emotions automatically correct themselves to serve what is not imaginary.

If you desire to perpetuate an imagined version of yourself, then you will feel the emotional response which helps to serve that desire. Your emotions only become maladaptive when they are created to serve an imaginary self, otherwise they serve exactly what you want.

As an example, if you are scared of the future because you imagine yourself in it, then you will desire to physically change your environment in order to stop imagining that future scenario, and this creates the emotion of fear through imagination. The desire to change your environment is literally equivalent to fear in that scenario. As another example, If you desire to protect the belief that you are intelligent, this will create anger/jealousy/fear towards anything that might change that belief. The emotion serves what you want, but the error is not being able to see that there is no "you" in the future, and there is no "you" which can believe that it is intelligent. The fundamental object of desire in both scenarios is incorrect, it does not exist outside of imagination. 

I elaborate more on how emotions work here:

 

Edited March 11 by Osaid

[Salvijus]

19 minutes ago, Osaid said:

The issue is not really those emotions, but rather the desires that they are trying to perpetuate. What needs to be seen is that the thing you are desiring is based on a false premise of "self", once that is realized then the desires and emotions automatically correct themselves to serve what is not imaginary.

If you desire to perpetuate an imagined version of yourself, then you will feel the emotional response which helps to serve that desire. Your emotions only become maladaptive when they are created to serve an imaginary self, otherwise they serve exactly what you want.

As an example, if you are scared of the future because you imagine yourself in it, then you will desire to physically change your environment in order to stop imagining that future scenario, and this creates the emotion of fear through imagination. If you desire to protect the belief that you are intelligent, this will create anger/jealousy/fear towards anything that might change that belief. The emotion serves what you want, but the error is not seeing that there is no "you" in the future, and there is no "you" which can believe that it is intelligent. The fundamental object of desire in both scenarios is incorrect, it does not exist outside of imagination. Thus, the maladaptive emotional response.

I elaborate more on how emotions work here:

 

Hmmm I quite like that response. 

Let me see if we are on the same page here. So desires are there to serve some purpose. In ordinary person who is not enlightened desires are there to serve the belief in ego (which doesn't exist) 

I think this part I quoted and understood you right. 

Now... The next thing I want to rise. The implications:

If one realizes that ego doesn't exist experiencially. Would there still be desire to serve the ego? Or would the fear to protect the ego be gone and there would be just open vast all inclusive state of awareness. (Sometimes also called love.) and therefor there would be no room for misery to get generated. 

 

Edited March 11 by Salvijus

[Osaid]

28 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

So desires are there to serve some purpose. In ordinary person who is not enlightened desires are there to serve the belief in ego (which doesn't exist) 

Yes exactly.

There is a profound enmeshment which can be observed with emotion and desire. They are literally the exact same thing, there is no difference between the two. This is not semantics. The object of desire creates the emotion, and so it is the exact same thing as the emotion itself. If you love the taste of vanilla, then the taste of vanilla becomes equivalent to love, because you can't love something without experiencing it.

A desire as I would define it can be perceived as having two dichotomies: 

The intention to be with something, which means you exist in its proximity (love)

The intention to be away from something, which means you don't exist in its proximity (fear)

Either you want to be with something, or you don't. And then from that you get love, joy, excitement, jealousy, anger, hate, etc. All the negative/undesirable emotions are just aversion (fear), and all the positive/desirable emotions are just assimilation (love). The emotions come in different "flavors" because they describe different situations in which they can manifest, but it is essentially the same desire of aversion (fear) and assimilation (love).

All desires simultaneously create the opposite desire of aversion or assimilation. If you desire to be with a person, then you must also simultaneously desire to avoid losing that person. Both are the same desire. If you desire to have 100 dollars, then you must also simultaneously desire to avoid losing 100 dollars. Both are the same desire. The ego takes advantage of this two-pronged dynamic by imagining itself inside of the scenario that you want to avoid, which creates a fear of that imagination, and so it turns the imagination into an object of fear which seeks to threaten the initial desire.

28 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

If one realizes that ego doesn't exist experiencially. Would there still be desire to serve the ego?

No. You can't serve something that doesn't exist.

28 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Or would the fear to protect the ego be gone and there would be just open vast all inclusive state of awareness. (Sometimes also called love.)

Yes, when the imagined self vanishes so do all the dualisms you relate it to. That is the non-dual state.

Edited March 11 by Osaid

[Salvijus]

9 minutes ago, Osaid said:

No. You can't serve something that doesn't exist.

So when the desire to serve the ego is gone. Can there be any cause for misery to manifest? In other words. Without the desire to protect the ego (fear and aversion like you say) can there be experience of contraction, fear, doubt, anger, greed, etc. etc. etc. 

Edited March 11 by Salvijus

[Salvijus]

Damn we were so close to finishing this. 

Here are my closing thoughts and I'm leaving this. 

1. Desire to serve the ego, the little self rather than The Whole is what causes all the misery. 

2. Realization that ego and separation is an illusion removes all desire to serve the ego (you admitted this to be true @Osaid ) 

3. By simple logic it follows: enlightenment (experiencial knowledge that ego doesn't exist) = all removal of misery and is replaced by perfect love and peace that never fades.

4. If the third point doesn't seem to be the case in one's experience, if there is even a speck of misery in one's mind being generated. It can only mean the belief in ego and desire to serve the ego is still active and thus that one has not fully realized the unreality of the ego yet. Aka, not enlightened. 

.... 

So. That's where I was trying get to. I hope this will sound logical and perfectly reasonable for you. ciao

 

 

Edited March 11 by Salvijus

[Osaid]

Just now, Salvijus said:

Can there be any cause for misery to manifest? In other words. Without the desire to protect the ego (fear and aversion like you say) can there be experience of contraction, fear, doubt, anger, greed, etc. Etc. Etc. 

I don't know exactly what you mean by "misery." All I can say is that all emotions are seen as something that is entirely perpetuated by you. If you desire to change where you are, that is something you want to do. There is no ruminating about past and future, the entire focus is just what you can do right now.

When you say "doubt", I don't necessarily see that as an emotion but it could be something which drives an emotion. Doubt is an assessment about the validity of something, as I would define it.

Fear is the desire to avoid something and it can manifest in many ways. There is no imagined or psychological fear, which means you don't avoid or fear past or future because you cannot perceive past or future anymore. If there is an unexpected loud sound then that creates adrenaline because it is recognized as something potentially dangerous in the environment, which is fear. If there is a bear running at me and I have the desire to protect my body, that creates adrenaline because of the desire to avoid it, which is fear. 

Anger is a desire to protect yourself or someone else. I don't get angry at people or objects, but rather the situation itself is what causes the anger. Once the desire to protect is fulfilled or stopped then there is no anger.

However, there are certain types of emotions which completely vanish. These are the emotions which are only perpetuated by comparing yourself to something else, these emotions strictly occur only by imagining yourself. For example, greed never occurs again. Jealousy never occurs again. Etc.

[Osaid]

12 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

So. That's where I was trying get to. I hope this will sound logical and perfectly reasonable for you. ciao

Makes enough sense to me.

[Salvijus]

@Osaid I grant you that there are some exceptions when the body's intelligence recognizes danger and gives you a signal to avoid something which is different than ego generated misery. 

But leaving that aside. To keep things simple. Leaving the special cases rare cases aside. 

Simply living life. If there's stress, anxiety, attachment, lememting, maybe lust can be included, impatience etc (everything that is not peace and love basically) . Simple miseries like that. The first point I would try to make is that all of these are a product of desire to serve to ego. 

And by simple logic enlightenment (realization that ego doesn't exist) would mean the end of that. 

Edited March 11 by Salvijus

[Osaid]

18 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Simply living life. If there's stress, anxiety, attachment, lememting, maybe lust can be included, impatience. Etc. Simple miseries like that. The first point I would try to make is that all of these are a product of desire to serve to ego. 

I can say that all anxiety vanishes, because that is all future imagination. Yes, there is no ego-generated misery. There is simply just immediate fear, which I define as "an object in the environment which you want to avoid." Once the situation ends so does the fear, the fear is equivalent to the situation. 

The reason I'm being so specific about describing the emotions is because it is very important to understand how they work after enlightenment, and how they fundamentally work in general. They don't completely vanish, they just serve your immediate experience instead of your imaginary experience. The emotions purely become situational instead of something you carry.
 

Edited March 11 by Osaid

[Salvijus]

7 minutes ago, Osaid said:

I can say that all anxiety vanishes,

All insecurities aswell?

Impatience? 

[Salvijus]

12 minutes ago, Osaid said:

The reason I'm being so specific about describing the emotions is because it is very important to understand how they work after enlightenment, and how they fundamentally work in general. They don't completely vanish, they just serve your immediate experience instead of your imaginary experience. The emotions purely become situational instead of something you carry.

I sort of agree. In my understanding the desire shifts from serving the ego to serving the whole. And serving THE Whole is pure love. And the more you serve the whole the more love you feel. So every action that eminates out of you becomes just pure expression of love at that point that is not ego centric anymore. Actions are no longer in service to the "little me" would be another way of saying it. 

Edited March 11 by Salvijus

[Osaid]

Just now, Salvijus said:

All insecurities aswell?

Impatience? 

Yes, none of that.

Impatience is the same as boredom created through a perception of time. You perceive it by imagining yourself in a desired future scenario. There is zero perception of time so that cannot occur anymore.

[Salvijus]

12 minutes ago, Osaid said:

The emotions purely become situational instead of something you carry.

Idk, in my understanding emotions are not situational. Emotion is a response to a situation. And you will respond to a situation depending on what you wish to serve. The little me or The whole. And if you are only interested in serving The Whole because you know that you are actually serving yourself and everything is one. Then... It's a different world altogether.