Awaken to reality!

General Discussion
321

This literally on the same page:

" We have spent years building our ego self-images, living inside of them, and reinforcing them. Extracting our genuine self out of this matrix of false beliefs will take more than a few days. Yes, it will take a while… so what. It also took a while to learn to read, do math, walk, and develop proficiency at any valuable skill. Things worth doing take time and practice. What better thing do you have to do than let go of what is causing you unhappiness?"

Citing the Id or super ego is already off track when it comes to what he is referring to.

I don’t think we are more than the mind or ego, that’s literally all there is to people. He doesn’t mention much about what the more is. You have to sign up for the course to find out, and only the first four sessions are free and you have to wait a week before each one is available. It’s kinda suspect since very blog post ends in a plug for his course.

Even this guy was screwed up by it:

"Then how do we connect if it is not by similar stories or opinions….? Love. What is love? It’s an emotion, a feeling. What is the state of “connection” is a feeling as well. What we are essentially seeking in our search for connection is a feeling. And there is no more enjoyable way to connect than through love. You can connect with someone physically by making love, or you can connect with someone in that feeling of presence with them. You can say all the words you want, and have all kinds of common history, but that isn’t as enjoyable as the feeling. Besides, the common history and beliefs is just a way to feel trust, respect, acceptance, appreciated, and loved.

I direct you towards the exercises in the Advanced Series about developing emotions of love and expressing them towards the people around us. What ends up connecting us is the feeling. So why not create the feeling directly, instead of through an indirect means of common history, and opinion."

Which reading over this is no wonder why that happened. He has a wrong view of what connection actually is and what it entails. IT’s not just a feeling, it’s more than that, it’s actually sharing something meaningful with others. Being human doesn’t mean anything that’s not a connection, just look at other organisms and see how well they get along just because they’re the same species.

His notion of love is also wrong. It’s not just a feeling, it’s again more than that. It’s also what you say, what you do, things like that. Again his notion of love and connection is akin to what a stalker or someone obsessed with someone else feels.

As childish as it sounds I just know he’s wrong about this stuff but I can’t really put it into words, it’s just a notion that I have.

322

Thanks for quoting. In it, he refers to “genuine self”. What do you think that is?

I agree

323

Like I said, try stopping your breathing.

In meditation we are MINDFUL of our breathing, we don’t become masters over our breathing.

In meditation we pay attention to breathing, we influence, modify, we don’t “control” it.
That’s not trolling, that pointing out a biological reality.

I’d run from any guru who told me I can master my breathing.

You find making such distinctions trolling, I believe it’s being mindful of the biological reality ~ mind divide.
Something most of society seems decidedly not interested in these days. The evidence backing my claim is in this dysfunctional, Earth destroying, society we’ve created for our children to grow up within.

324

Dark,
I’ve looked at both those links and as you point out, they are in the selling business.
The first article, got me to wondering if you are familiar with Carl Jung and his thoughts on the Ego and id? I’m think you might find him interesting, perhaps even useful.

325

Try clarifying before roasting. I don’t know how you got from my post to this. In no world is there a meditation practice that has you become master of your breathing. Thus, I would never say that. Focusing on the breath is an easy path to noticing your evolved self, your automatic self, Buddhists would have some other name for it, it doesn’t matter. It’s one of the most noticeable things about the mind/body divide, that you can, if you think about it, control those muscles and breathe, like when the doctor tells you, or you can hold your breath, but the instincts will take over, or if you just focus elsewhere, or don’t focus at all, your breathing will go on. But why am I writing all this? How in all that is good and holy, would anyone think I don’t know this? Why would a fellow sexagenarian think I need to perform an experiment like, “try stopping your breath”? I did that in my first decade and later passed out for other reasons, and now I get dizzy when I stand up too fast. I think I have a pretty good handle on breathing.

:slight_smile:

326

Then don’t use “Control”.

No argument.

Because the devil is in the details.

327

The answer lies in looking at reality from different perspectives. The most informative practice is looking at reality from the inside out. It allows You to form the most direct relationship with your environment.
Roger Antonsen sums this up very nicely in this short but informative lecture.

328

I am so sick of math being placed in every single thread and it’s always by you, Write4u. Please give it a rest.

1 Like
331

What does “take a breath” mean? You can control the muscles of your diaphragm and chest. This conversation is getting weird.

335

There is no genuine self, that’s the bit, I’m thinking you aren’t very familiar with pseudo-eastern spiritual stuff like this. If you know the Four Agreements, his stuff is effectively the same thing as this reviewer puts it:

"HOW THIS BOOK HAS PERSONALLY HELPED ME:

  • No one person’s opinion will ever again have the power to limit what I can do, even if this person is an authority figure
  • No one group’s opinion will ever again have the power to limit what I can do
  • No one has a clear idea of who or what I am, not even me!
  • When people talk, they are telling stories. I don’t have to argue. I don’t have to fight. I simply have to listen. WOW!
  • I cannot comprehend another person’s dream. I can’t mind read. I can’t assume. I know nothing of their inner workings.
  • Even scary, aggressive people are just telling stories.
  • I no longer have to feel ashamed about who I am or what I’ve done or where I’m going. It’s not my job to assign a story to my life, or a judgment.
  • I no longer have to pretend to be something or hustle to gain love. I just need to love who is willing to love back. It’s so simple.
  • I take all gurus, religions, indictments and gossip with quite a high level of benevolent skepticism, which allows me to be free from the fear that goes along with these stories.
  • I don’t take myself as seriously as I used to.

Probably the most valuable of all . . .

  • I have a deep compassion for all people. We are all just stuck here together, trying our hardest and doing our best. I don’t have to hate someone because their best wasn’t up to some story I tell myself. I don’t’ have to insist they believe in my story. I can just smile and listen and do what I can."
336

Cool. Not sure how we got here, but, cool.

337

It’s more to give you a clearer picture of what the guy is trying to arrive at, it’s effectively the same as that book.

Though IMO it’s more like a key to narcissism rather than anything else. It’s the same spiritual new age stuff about blocking things that don’t agree with you by just labeling them as stories.

Also dude is way off about it being based on modern linguistic theory or how philosophy actually works. He name drops a few people but he’s wayyy overboard with what is actually going on.

I’m not well read on linguistics to fact check their claims but looking over their response it just seems off.

338

Not to mention said link refers to the arbitrary nature of language I was referring to earlier:

“Linguistics - When you study words and language, you realize that all our beliefs are based on language and this language can never “touch reality” in that language is just an arbitrary description of reality, posing as real. I believe Miguel Ruiz must have taken a linguistics course as well–as his first agreement attests to the power of language. The four agreements pulls heavily from Saussure and Derrida. Both Saussure and Derrida (and many, many others) did work on how we form ideas in our heads based on language. The gist is this: we have something called a “symbol” in our brain which is composed of two parts: the word and the visual representation of the object (look up semiotics for further detail). These symbols are in our mind and work together to form meaning, then belief. The unfortunate thing is that they are entirely made up. It isn’t real. Our ideas of it aren’t real.”

339

image
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“Common Denominators”

340

@inthedarkness
Given your philosophy, you appear to be rather cruel. Offering articles to read and videos to watch, according to you, can only make someone more miserable. Yet you persist.

341

I don’t really care what Einstein said about math, because it really doesn’t apply to everything or every single thread. As for my “logical beauty spiritual formula” I don’t personally use math to feel numinous feelings when relating to nature or others. The neurochemistry just happens in my brain to give me those feelings. I don’t do any mathematical formulas for that to happen. When it happens it happens, just like it did when I held my older son for the very first time right after his birth. It was the most transcendent experience I’ve ever had in my life and I didn’t sit there and calculate it for it to happen. The neurochemistry just happened at that very moment and personally, I don’t want that sort of spirituality to be calculated by lame ass mathematical formulas. Neurochemistry is fine, but don’t be throwing numbers at me about it and ruin the whole numinous experience. Math maybe part of your spirituality, but it is not part of my atheistic spirituality, thank you very much and I, for one, would appreciate it if you would stop preaching it. It’s like a religion with you.

342

There again, same distinction, we have a modicum of control.
You can’t command yourself to not breathe. :v: :innocent:

Consider “control”
… Many believe in the “control” of the dam builder,
… other’s recognize the “control” of a kayaker.

I’m coming at this from the position of explicitly recognizing one’s own biological body as something qualitatively distinctive from the thoughts it produces. Those thoughts, that consciousness, is the body/brain interacting with itself and the outside reality, in real time.

A consequence of that conviction is recognizing our bodies contain innate knowledge that’s been gained through its long evolutionary journey. You seem to think all that is a silly conceit, or irrelevant to the philosophical debates, …?

We look at things differently.

But how does that work to help you understand the body you inhabit?

Or do you think your body is irrelevant to how you experience your self and the world around you?

That’s fair enough, (actually pretty good if originating from you) but does it help you with the dialogue you are having with yourself?

Do you deal with expectations of yourself, that go back to your early experiences?

343

Mathematics is the scriptural bible of physics. Contrary to the religious preaching of different versions of Abrahamic scripture, all scientists use the same mathematics in describing the world.
Scientific scripture is based on provable evidence. If you do not believe in mathematical logic, you are forever stuck in mystery.

So if you want to call that preaching, have at it. Note that I am very comfortable quoting Galileo, Pythagoras, Einstein, and every serious scientist on earth. These people existed and provided mathematical proofs of what they discovered and explained it with mathematics that has held and has been used in the applied sciences for centuries and taught preached about.

Contrary to biblical scripture these “minds” actually existed and established the foundations on which all later science has rested. Were these mental giants preachers of mythology or disseminators of knowledge in the physical sciences?
Methinks it’s the latter.

Mathematics is the Atheist scientific bible. Something you can really believe in because it deals with “measurable” reality, not religious mythology.

As I understand the OP question, this discussion is about reality and how to understand and experience it.

Experiencing satisfaction from practicing science via measurable equations about relational mathematical “values” and"functions" is nothing like being addicted to religious euphoria experienced from “divine inspiration”, that doesn’t explain anything about reality itself.

344

How you get from me saying my brain can send signals to my muscles to, “you’re silly”, I have no idea. This conversation is moving into an alternate universe.

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345

Anything can be turned into a religion depending on how you use it and you’re using math like a religion.

Yeah, but not all of it is math.

Yeah, and sometimes God does play dice, just look at the platypus. rolling eyes

Thing is, Einstein’s god was not math. It was philosophical and in his view god doesn’t play dice, but I guess Einstein forgot about the platypus. Fact is, when he went on a god tangent, it wasn’t about math, it was philosophical.