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Hey all,

My Dad is a very clever engineer, rational thinker. I grew up on discovery channel. I always thought religion was pretty silly. People just following doctrines and stuff. My "religion" was observable science.

Though I did like to read about philosophy. And just explore different ways of being. I began to read Jiddu Krishnamurti, who I thought was very thoughtful, very observant, and ... not brainwashed. I had a lot of respect for him. He thinks for himself. I just found myself listening to him quite a bit though not really understanding what he was saying.

When I was 17 I took three hits of LSD. There was a moment in that experience where I felt like a veil fall away. Everything Krishnamurti was saying suddenly made sense. Perfect clarity. It's difficult to describe, but it's kind of like if you're in the shower, and you're holding a bar of soap, and you squeeze it, and it just slips out of your hand.

But it was like my ENTIRE identity slipped out of my mental grasp.

In that moment, I started laughing hysterically, because I saw something so profound. Something that was completely beyond words and beyond description.

I just remember repeating to myself, over and over again, "God is Love! God is Love! It's INSIDE-OUT!". There was something about a cosmic joke. Like life is a giant cosmic joke. A big practical joke God plays on himself to forget himself - sorta thing. God being the sort of universal intelligence of all of life, not a guy in the sky.

Then there was something about the seeming veil between me (you could say my consciousness) and the world outside me dissolving. And I saw that everything in the universe was happening together. In that moment, all of creation was unified - or something. It was like, there was ONE mind dreaming the world. I saw it clearer than I can see my hands in front of me right now.

But when the LSD faded away, I was left with only an echo. I was left with the words. And I had no idea what they meant. There was no life in them. It's like when a dream fades away and you're desperately trying to remember but the more you think of it the more it slips away. It was like I opened pandora's box and found the secrets to all the universe, and then it shut. And I couldn't figure out how to get it open.

That was 10 years ago. Even though that experience changed my life, I never really understood it.

...until last year...

For the intrepid explorers:

I didn't realize this, but for pretty much my entire life, I had always believed that to know something, you needed to be able to think it through. I didn't understand there was a way to know without thought.

You can call this type of knowing seeing. Seeing bypasses the intellect completely. It has nothing to do with the activity of thought. It's almost like there's a part of you that transcends the intellect that knows things intuitively. But when the activity of thought is chaotic, that knowing recedes into the background.

But what you can see is determined not by your beliefs, thoughts, and ideas, but by your level of consciousness. As your level of consciousness rises, you are able to see more.

You see I had been trying to understand what happened to me intellectually. Playing with all sorts of different ideas, philosophies, but I was always playing with ideas at the same level of consciousness - for years. And because I was always playing with ideas within the same level of consciousness, I couldn't actually see anything new. I was just repeating the old, or slight variations of the old.

My life changed massively (for the better!) when my level of consciousness went up. I was able to be more compassionate, think clearer, and feel so much more peace. And see aspects to this mind-boggling experience we call human consciousness I never would have believed I had access to. Kind of like plugging into the internet after being offline for a few decades.

When I talk about level of consciousness, I'm not talking about like ascending to the clouds with Jesus. It's a very ordinary thing. I just wasn't aware of it. So I hope to help you become more aware of it. It's an ordinary thing, but if it unlocks an extraordinary ability we all have built into us.

Think of it like this... when you're angry, you can feel a sense of constriction. It washes over you. When you're relaxed and at peace, it's like that sense relaxes. This is ordinary.

Imagine when you're arguing with someone. You feel tight and constricted. You're caught up in storm of angry, judgmental, defensive thoughts. In that experience, it makes sense for you to defend yourself.

If you step away for a bit and allow the mind to settle, your level of consciousness expands, and things just occur to you. You begin to see them in a different light. Your thinking hasn't changed, your level of consciousness did. Because your level of consciousness changed, you were able to see more.

This may sound stupidly simple. But if you see that your level of consciousness affects how you see life moment-by-moment, you can actually intentionally allow consciousness to expand (as it does naturally) and see more, and more, and more.

This is what I call an insight. An insight is literally a sight from within. It hits you as an obvious "how did I not see that before?" and the answer to that is always: because I wasn't at the level of consciousness I am right now.

Each of us has within us the capacity, within our own consciousness, to see the secrets of life. Not to speculate, to see.

I want to share the insights that have happened to me from allowing my consciousness to expand. I was able to see again, after 10 years, sober, what "God is Love" and "It's inside-out!" mean.

But be aware, this is merely an echo. The ideas I write here are just echoes of what you can see from the level of consciousness where this is all so obvious. Let me be clear on this: the intellect will never understand the following statements. But you can still see the facts they point to when the mind is clear. And so in a sense writing this is completely pointless. Because if we can understand it, it means we're already at the level of consciousness where it's obvious. But I'm doing it anyway.

1. It's inside out

It's inside-out refers to the fact that our experience is coming from within us, not "at" us from the outside. Each of us is experiencing life within our own consciousness. And it's through the formless energy of thought that we experience world around us. In that sense, we are all living inside of our own thought-created reality. Thought is not a camera. It does not capture facts out of the world and process them on consciousness. It doesn't perceive. Thought projects.

Listen to this statement and see if you can see the truth of it. And if you don't see it, throw it out the window and never think of it again.

You are not living the feeling of circumstances. You are not living in the feeling of the world. You are living in the feeling of the thought that happens to be passing by consciousness. Thought is your creative freedom. The freedom to see creation in whatever light you choose. And experience it as if it was outside you.

Our eyes aren't windows into the world, they merely take thought and project it outward. What appears to be outside us, what we see, hear, and believe about the world is but our own thoughts projected outwardly.

Nothing can scare you except thought.
Nothing can upset your innate peace of mind except a thought.

When thought settles, you return to your natural state of peace of mind, and you enter into a beautiful flow with life.

2. God is Love

This is the highest insight I've ever had, and I still have trouble putting this into words. In this instant, and forever, there is unfathomable beauty and love that can be found. And that love is so strong that it draws you to it. This seems utterly nonsensical at lower levels of consciousness. It seems like a pipedream. But it's not. It's a real thing you can experience it. You don't have to pray, you don't have to learn a religion. In the silence of your own mind, your consciousness expands, and you will see it. All the love we seek outwardly is actually the love that's hidden within our own consciousness.

Hello, troll!  As usual all you offer is a load of bullshit.  You must be a trumpie for all you say is a lie.

Quote from: Mike Cl on April 03, 2021, 11:42:29 AM
Hello, troll!  As usual all you offer is a load of bullshit.  You must be a trumpie for all you say is a lie.

No troll here.

Let me ask you Mike, with all respect. Human to human. Do you feel happy? Do you feel fulfilled?

Because if you don't, the only reason is that you're listening to your own thoughts. That's what takes away your happiness. Without the contamination of thought in your mind, all that remains is happiness.

As a common courtesy when posting on forums, one reads the rules.  I know that rules do not apply to trumpies or theists (I think you are both), but they should.  So, intro yourself if you really want to discuss something.  Do that, and I'll engage in some disscussions.

I understand what you are talking about and I've never used drugs. Several of the things you mention, such as the subjective nature of consciousness, I explore in meditation. Altered states of consciousness, especially chemically induced, can produce feelings of euphoria, depersonalization, and a sensation that what is being experienced in that conscious state is more authentic than in an unaltered state. Psilocybin and other hallucinogens are being studied to treat anxiety, PTSD, addiction, and other mental health issues. I believe if these experiences bring you peace and cause you to behave better to people around you then they have value.

However, these experiences are not an accurate source of knowledge. People don't come out of these experiences knowing new facts that apply to the physical universe. Altered states of consciousness provide a less accurate experience of the world, not more. For example, people can have bad trips that are horrifying. The feeling of absolute certainty that people are trying to kill you is no more real than the feeling of touching the face of God.

QuoteGod is Love. This is the highest insight I've ever had

Try harder. If ever there were two words with 10 billion different and meaningless definitions you found them for your "highest insight". Here is a nice Deepak Chopra site where you may actually seem insightful.
https://www.deepakchopra.com/event/hope-global-forum/

I found god after....drugs/alcohol/depression/death/near death/sniffing glue....ho-hum.....more little minds being slightly bent.

God is love!  That is true!!--when one turns 'god' into 'dog'--then it is TRUE!!!

“God is love”
But I’m gonna give your child spinal bifada to prove my love, but please pray to me to heal him. I’m going to allow thousands of you murder each other over a discussion of my characters, but please pray to me for deliverance from their evil. I’m going to let little boys and girls be raped sodomized and butchered while you argue over my nature, but please pray to me to stop it.  LOL aren’t I a loving and caring god?

By the way, don’t look now but I also gave you tiny little creatures so small that you can’t see them and they will kill millions of you whether you pray or not. LOL, nothing says love like completely fucking up your lives.

Quote from: GSOgymrat on April 03, 2021, 08:29:02 PM
I understand what you are talking about and I've never used drugs. Several of the things you mention, such as the subjective nature of consciousness, I explore in meditation. Altered states of consciousness, especially chemically induced, can produce feelings of euphoria, depersonalization, and a sensation that what is being experienced in that conscious state is more authentic than in an unaltered state. Psilocybin and other hallucinogens are being studied to treat anxiety, PTSD, addiction, and other mental health issues. I believe if these experiences bring you peace and cause you to behave better to people around you then they have value.

However, these experiences are not an accurate source of knowledge. People don't come out of these experiences knowing new facts that apply to the physical universe. Altered states of consciousness provide a less accurate experience of the world, not more. For example, people can have bad trips that are horrifying. The feeling of absolute certainty that people are trying to kill you is no more real than the feeling of touching the face of God.

What you're saying is true.

But what we think is true changes depending on our level of consciousness.

Every time we dream at night we think our dreams are true. Until we wake up.

Every dream has a seemingly physical observable form to justify its reality. It has its own laws and its own facts.

But despite appearances, every dream is actually made up.

While we're at the level of consciousness where we can't see that we are dreaming, we think that the characters and the story in the dream are facts of reality. We take for granted that we are observing facts rather than just observing formless thought dancing in consciousness.

When the level of consciousness rises, we are able to wake up out of the dream of form and see the formlessness of the dream.

When we wake up out of bed, we are still DREAMING with thought. If you want to understand the secret to life, you have to SEE that Thought is not a byproduct of the brain, but the spiritual energy, the principle, through which life is able to experience itself.

Experience is made out of CONSCIOUSNESS, THOUGHT, and MIND. MIND being the universal intelligence of all creation. THOUGHT is what determines the experience, and CONSCIOUSNESS is what allows us to awake to creation.

We are not living in a world of facts, we are living in a world of THOUGHT. You already know this. You true nature, your BEING, is COMPLETELY beyond this world. Deep in you you already know this. You are a spiritual being having a human experience. CONSCIOUSNESS is BEFORE form. CONSCIOUSNESS is the empty canvas through which MIND paints using THOUGHT and creates EXPERIENCE.

Don't try to make sense of this. Nothing I said above can intellectualized. Nothing can be made into concepts. It's pointless to debate. SEEING obliterates all concepts. SEEING requires no belief. SEEING is a natural ability you have within you. MIND - the universal spirit of life - is already working within you. MIND is already bringing you to higher levels.

Let go of old patterns of thought and MIND will automatically bring you to higher levels of consciousness where you will be able to understand the secret to life. It's already within you, it's just OBSCURED by the contamination of thought patterns brought on through living a human experience, but it is revealed when you allow those patterns to fall away.

The only thing you need to know is that THOUGHT is what will take you to new levels of SEEING. THOUGHT is the key by which your level of consciousness is able to rise into previously unknown levels and experience life so beautiful that you had no idea even existed, let alone has been accessible WITHIN you for eternity.

When you write words in all uppercase they do seem so much more IMPORTANT. I prefer purple myself because it is so easy to SEE.

Quote from: pumita92 on April 04, 2021, 10:31:24 AM
What you're saying is true.

But what we think is true changes depending on our level of consciousness.

Every time we dream at night we think our dreams are true. Until we wake up.

All of your posts are fictional wishful thinking.  You have not even a whiff of empirical data to support your whimsy.  What I think IS true (for me) and changes not by my level of consciousness, but by empirical data.  And no, not every dream do I think is real nor true.  I have woken myself out of a dream by telling myself that this is a dream; and a dream I so dislike that I need to wakeup.  And I do.  What is evident to me is that you seem so dissatisfied with you real, actual life that you need to create another life; one based on wishful thinking and whimsy.  If that gets you through the night, then go for it.

Quote from: Mike Cl on April 04, 2021, 11:48:03 AM
All of your posts are fictional wishful thinking.  You have not even a whiff of empirical data to support your whimsy.  What I think IS true (for me) and changes not by my level of consciousness, but by empirical data.  And no, not every dream do I think is real nor true.  I have woken myself out of a dream by telling myself that this is a dream; and a dream I so dislike that I need to wakeup.  And I do.  What is evident to me is that you seem so dissatisfied with you real, actual life that you need to create another life; one based on wishful thinking and whimsy.  If that gets you through the night, then go for it.

Arguing will get you nowhere in life. Debating will never bring to closer to any kind of meaningful truth.

It will only bring you feelings of disconnection, discomfort, and dis-ease. It will only create separation between people. Nobody has ever gained from a debate. Nobody's minds have ever been changed.

Why?

Because neither party understands that they are living in a world of THOUGHT.

Each party believes the other party isn't seeing WHAT IS. That they are not looking at the evidence. But each party is seeing WHAT IS via their own THOUGHT.

We can't see our own thought patterns because they look like reality.

Only when we understand that we are each living in a separate reality, a personal reality, made of THOUGHT can we wake up out of the illusion, and have true compassion for others who are caught up in the misunderstanding.

Only SEEING. And SEEING cannot happen while your mind is continuing to give energy to old stale thought patterns.

Reality is NEVER the problem, THOUGHT is the only problem. Reality is nothing except energy. Everything beyond that is THOUGHT.

Quote from: pumita92 on April 04, 2021, 11:57:37 AM
Arguing will get you nowhere in life. Debating will never bring to closer to any kind of meaningful truth.

Just pronouncements and not a whiff of any data to support your whimsy.  And you do like to use falsehoods as they are facts.  The fact is, you have nothing to demonstrate what you are claiming except your own fictions and whimsy.  You want what you say to be true, so you think it is.  Debating/arguing/discussions are a major way I gain knowledge and is a great way to figure out if what I think are facts really are facts--run my ideas through others and see if they can punch holes in my 'facts'. 

You had one perfect sentence. “None of this will make sense to you”.
You’re right, it doesn’t, jibber jabber.

Quote from: pumita92 on April 04, 2021, 10:31:24 AM

The THOUGHT is the key by which your level of consciousness is able to rise into previously unknown levels and experience life so beautiful that you had no idea even existed, let alone has been accessible WITHIN you for eternity.

Poor blind people, never able to use any level of consciousness to see....oh well, on to a new theory.

Quote from: Mike Cl on April 04, 2021, 01:19:44 PM
Just pronouncements and not a whiff of any data to support your whimsy.  And you do like to use falsehoods as they are facts.  The fact is, you have nothing to demonstrate what you are claiming except your own fictions and whimsy.  You want what you say to be true, so you think it is.  Debating/arguing/discussions are a major way I gain knowledge and is a great way to figure out if what I think are facts really are facts--run my ideas through others and see if they can punch holes in my 'facts'.

What you think is not important. What's important is the level of consciousness you live in.

Only a shift in the level of consciousness will create true and lasting positive change in an individual. Only a shift in the level of consciousness can move one from a state of anger and bitterness to a state of peace and love. And this is available to EVERYONE, given they are ready and willing.

You are unable to truly listen because you are only paying attention to your own thought patterns. This is not an attack, I'm merely pointing out the obvious. You are unable to even read this message. You are only reading what you think I'm saying, and thus unable to truly HEAR. HEARING is different from hearing. Just like THOUGHT is different from thought.

HEARING requires great awareness. You must be willing and able to SEE through the incessant activity of your own thinking. Only from a tranquil mind can you absorb something new. If the mind is not tranquil, you will only hear the voice of your own activity of thought, and thus will live in a perpetual state of those thought patterns. Whatever anger, insecurity, or bitterness you feel will be a perpetual experience until you realize this.

There are beautiful secrets buried within your consciousness. Secrets you have access to even in this very moment save the thinking that's obscuring it. You have access to transform from a reality of pain, insecurity, and anger to a reality of peace, beauty, wisdom, and good feelings. You already have it in you.

You must TRANSCEND your own thought patterns. Or else you will be unable to SEE anything new. You will be unable to SEE the truth because your vision will be contaminated with the activity of the conditioned thought patterns.

What you think is true is only what you think is true.

The evidence you see outside you is a demonstration of the power of thought in action. The thought patterns you identify with combined with the power of MIND create an ILLUSION of reality. This is what you live in. You live inside an illusion of thought that appears real because of MIND. This is why other people appear stupid to you, because you do not understand that the power of MIND is working within them too, creating an illusion for them just like it's creating an illusion for you.

It appears as though you seeing reality when in reality you are only seeing THOUGHT.

Quote from: pumita92 on April 04, 2021, 01:56:19 PM
What you think is not important. What's important is the level of consciousness you live in.

Only a shift in the level of consciousness will create true and lasting positive change in an individual. Only a shift in the level of consciousness can move one from a state of anger and bitterness to a state of peace and love. And this is available to EVERYONE, given they are ready and willing.

You are unable to truly listen because you are only paying attention to your own thought patterns. This is not an attack, I'm merely pointing out the obvious. You are unable to even read this message. You are only reading what you think I'm saying, and thus unable to truly HEAR. HEARING is different from hearing. Just like THOUGHT is different from thought.

HEARING requires great awareness. You must be willing and able to SEE through the incessant activity of your own thinking. Only from a tranquil mind can you absorb something new. If the mind is not tranquil, you will only hear the voice of your own activity of thought, and thus will live in a perpetual state of those thought patterns. Whatever anger, insecurity, or bitterness you feel will be a perpetual experience until you realize this.

There are beautiful secrets buried within your consciousness. Secrets you have access to even in this very moment save the thinking that's obscuring it. You have access to transform from a reality of pain, insecurity, and anger to a reality of peace, beauty, wisdom, and good feelings. You already have it in you.

You must TRANSCEND your own thought patterns. Or else you will be unable to SEE anything new. You will be unable to SEE the truth because your vision will be contaminated with the activity of the conditioned thought patterns.

What you think is true is only what you think is true.

The evidence you see outside you is a demonstration of the power of thought in action. The thought patterns you identify with combined with the power of MIND create an ILLUSION of reality. This is what you live in. You live inside an illusion of thought that appears real because of MIND. This is why other people appear stupid to you, because you do not understand that the power of MIND is working within them too, creating an illusion for them just like it's creating an illusion for you.

It appears as though you seeing reality when in reality you are only seeing THOUGHT.

Repeating your whimsy over and over and in bold letters does not make it so.  It is whimsy.  Empirical data is what gets one to reality.  Your world is a creation of whimsy--if that is not so, prove it by giving me data for any of it.  It does appear to you that you are seeing reality, when in reality you are only seeing WHIMSY. 

The problem really arises when methane exceeds oxygen...this occurs easily when ones head is up his ass and he thinks he smells Rose's

Anyone who is telling others how to live when no one is asking is the one who can't HEAR. This group of people (preachers included) always make the most egregious of assumptions. Generally my experience shows it's likely a person of lower IQ and lower empathy who believes they have it all figured out with some lame ass epiphany, void of facts and full of feel good nonsense or dire warnings.

Quote from: Cassia on April 04, 2021, 03:54:54 PM
Anyone who is telling others how to live when no one is asking is the one who can't HEAR. This group of people (preachers included) always make the most egregious of assumptions. Generally my experience shows it's likely a person of lower IQ and lower empathy who believes they have it all figured out with some lame ass epiphany, void of facts and full of feel good nonsense or dire warnings.

Thank you so much, Cassia. I mean it. It's a blessing to be in the presence of another being. I know you are used to conversations where attacks are the norm, and that is your default way of interacting with people. I know there's a deeper side to you and I won't meet you at that level of attack, though I don't mind it at all if you choose to express yourself in that way.

Even people with low IQs have moments of profound insight. Like some children who are so in tune, they are able to say truths that shock adults without ever having learned them from anyone externally. Have you ever experienced that?

They are connected to a source of wisdom within their own consciousness, and it's almost as if that wisdom speaks through them.

Everybody has access to this wisdom. Every human being on Earth can tap into a limitless source of wisdom just past their conditioned mind. But in this world, we absorb certain thought patterns as we grow up. We then get attached to those thought patterns and believe them to be us, to be true.

It's a false identity. And because we fall for the illusion of those thought patterns are real, we hold on to them. That creates emotional pain. Then that access is our own innate wisdom is suppressed.

Emotional pain is the barometer that lets you know when you're holding onto a thought pattern that is blocking the living wisdom in you from coming through. By releasing your grip around that thought, you fall into a silent space where there is great beauty and peace. From that space, new thoughts arise. New reality, new behaviours. You can heal your relationship. The power is within you.

Underneath the conditioned mind there is a space where unconditioned wisdom is still living and active. And you absolutely have access to it. But only through SEEING that you are experiencing THOUGHT and not experiencing reality can you transcend the conditioned mind and move into the silent unconditioned space. First it will come as a beautiful feeling. A silent but beautiful feeling. Then that feeling will evolve into a new way of thinking. And the new way of thinking will bring you into a new reality. From the inside-out.

Again thank you for allowing me to take some space within your consciousness. It has been a pleasure.

Quote from: Mike Cl on April 04, 2021, 02:47:14 PM
Repeating your whimsy over and over and in bold letters does not make it so.  It is whimsy.  Empirical data is what gets one to reality.  Your world is a creation of whimsy--if that is not so, prove it by giving me data for any of it.  It does appear to you that you are seeing reality, when in reality you are only seeing WHIMSY.

Mike, my friend, I cannot prove anything to you. You have decided how the world looks to you. I cannot change your mind for you. Only you can change your mind.

The only thing I can do is bring to awareness the fact that the power of MIND gives evidence to THOUGHT. What you experience as material, as form, is merely an outward projection of THOUGHT. This you find hard to believe because of how convincing it appears through your senses. You say "how can I deny my senses? how can I deny reality?"

Yet the sensory evidence that justifies what you think is reality is merely an example of the power of MIND. Like a cosmic projector, the power of MIND brings to life THOUGHT projecting it through your senses, giving it all the evidence you can ever imagine and more.

You are trapped in a feedback loop in that sense. You are using your freedom of thought to create a world that is tormenting your soul, seeing that world through your senses, feeling terrified and hiding. Do not hide anymore. You are a powerful spiritual being. You are using your power to torment yourself.

Data reflects THOUGHT. Data will change the moment THOUGHT changes.

I cannot tell you what new thought will arise as you let go of the old and make space for the new.

That is for you, for your own personal experience. I can only point to the fact that MIND is Love. And in the silent space of your being, you will find the new reality you have been seeking. You will find peace, happiness, love, wellness. Your entire life will change from the inside out. It is truly all within your own consciousness if you are willing to look.

All anger, all insecurity will dissolve at that moment. And you will find yourself feeling at home.

The door is open. There is a hole time. You are free to enter it. And you enter it through THOUGHT. Not through any other means.

I have great appreciation for you, Mike. And I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to post. You might think I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not. You are welcome to post. You are welcome to express however you feel. I will not judge you. Thank you.

Quote from: aitm on April 04, 2021, 07:45:59 AM
“God is love”
But I’m gonna give your child spinal bifada to prove my love, but please pray to me to heal him. I’m going to allow thousands of you murder each other over a discussion of my characters, but please pray to me for deliverance from their evil. I’m going to let little boys and girls be raped sodomized and butchered while you argue over my nature, but please pray to me to stop it.  LOL aren’t I a loving and caring god?

By the way, don’t look now but I also gave you tiny little creatures so small that you can’t see them and they will kill millions of you whether you pray or not. LOL, nothing says love like completely fucking up your lives.

Aitm - I don't know your real name but thank your posting. I appreciate you sincerely and I would like to address your anger.

You are innocent.

LOVE would never make the world you see through your eyes. The pain, the suffering, the hatred, the killing. LOVE would never do that.

This is why it takes great awareness to see that what you see through your eyes is not LOVE, but an illusion made from THOUGHT which obscures LOVE. You are not seeing reality, you are seeing what you think the reality is.

You see people in bodies victims to others, oppressed, tortured. This is all like a movie playing out in your own consciousness, created from thought patterns that appear to be true. You do not understand the power of your mind so you externalize what you have made and blame a power outside. All the power of all of creation is within you. You are using this power to upset yourself needlessly. Understand the power of THOUGHT and you will be free again.

And a thought cannot leave the mind that thought it. No matter what you use your freedom of thought to see in the world, none of it is outside of your mind. All of creation is happening within you.

Therefore the world you appear to see outside you, which is experienced via THOUGHT, has not left your mind. You must forgive the world. To forgive is to see that it is merely a pattern of thought, and to release that pattern, restoring your mind to clarity.

What makes you angry is your own thought patterns.

You are playing with painful thought patterns.

That is what is causing your anger. Nothing else.

Much love for you my friend. You don't know me but I am your friend and I do appreciate you a lot. I know you wrote with anger. I acknowledge that anger within you. I am not afraid of it. I know its source and I know it is not you. You are a powerful being.

Quote from: pumita92 on April 04, 2021, 06:15:26 PM
Mike, my friend, I cannot prove anything to you. You have decided how the world looks to you. I cannot change your mind for you. Only you can change your mind.

I have great appreciation for you, Mike. And I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to post. You might think I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not. You are welcome to post. You are welcome to express however you feel. I will not judge you. Thank you.

Pumita do not think you are the first to deliver this message--not even in this forum.  I have searched for 'the answer' for most of my life.  I have read 100's of books, talked to people of all kinds and watched video's of all manner of religious/spiritual thoughts.  Unity, for example, suggests thoughts are the substance from which all else comes.  A table could not exist without the thought of a table coming first.  I agree with that idea.  Where is the empirical data?  The table.  Can't build it without thinking about it--for the first one, anyway.   

I agree that you cannot change anything about me--my wife can't even do that.  Nobody can--if we change it is because we want to.  For me, I am ready to change my behaviors or thoughts if I think it will better me.  But I have to do the changing.  But I also have to hear what is suggested and in a way I can understand.  BTW, I have not 'decided' how the world looks to me; I am deciding how it works for me.  I also view my understanding of the world as an evolving thing; this is how the world is for me, until something comes along that makes me want to change. 

So far, you are mostly words and hot air.  There is no there, 'there'.  This is old hat; old thinking.  Maybe if you could share with us who and what you are, that may help.  Are you new to this line of thought?  If so, what did the old you think and why did you change your mind.  As you said, we can only change us, nobody else can.  So, something caught your attention enough that you changed your thinking.  Why?

Quote from: pumita92 on April 04, 2021, 10:31:24 AM
Experience is made out of CONSCIOUSNESS, THOUGHT, and MIND. MIND being the universal intelligence of all creation. THOUGHT is what determines the experience, and CONSCIOUSNESS is what allows us to awake to creation.

We are not living in a world of facts, we are living in a world of THOUGHT. You already know this. You true nature, your BEING, is COMPLETELY beyond this world. Deep in you you already know this. You are a spiritual being having a human experience. CONSCIOUSNESS is BEFORE form. CONSCIOUSNESS is the empty canvas through which MIND paints using THOUGHT and creates EXPERIENCE.

Don't try to make sense of this. Nothing I said above can intellectualized. Nothing can be made into concepts. It's pointless to debate. SEEING obliterates all concepts. SEEING requires no belief. SEEING is a natural ability you have within you. MIND - the universal spirit of life - is already working within you. MIND is already bringing you to higher levels.

Let go of old patterns of thought and MIND will automatically bring you to higher levels of consciousness where you will be able to understand the secret to life. It's already within you, it's just OBSCURED by the contamination of thought patterns brought on through living a human experience, but it is revealed when you allow those patterns to fall away.

The only thing you need to know is that THOUGHT is what will take you to new levels of SEEING. THOUGHT is the key by which your level of consciousness is able to rise into previously unknown levels and experience life so beautiful that you had no idea even existed, let alone has been accessible WITHIN you for eternity.

It's refreshing that you realize it is pointless to debate this topic. I don't really enjoy debate and I'm responding to express my thoughts on the topic, not to be argumentative.

I agree that we are not our thoughts, that "CONSCIOUSNESS is the empty canvas through which MIND paints using THOUGHT and creates EXPERIENCE." That is why my tagline is "You are the sky. Everything else -- it's just the weather." I accept this as a metaphor for the nature of consciousness, which is an inherently subjective experience and difficult to explain. Where we differ is I don't see that "MIND is a higher level of consciousness that allows one to understand the secrets of life." You say one of these secrets is "MIND is love." This is where I become skeptical. If you had said the nature of MIND is equanimity, I could relate to that. Emotions, like thoughts, are clouds passing across the sky. They are ephemeral. Love, however, isn't like equanimity, it isn't neutral. Love is a very specific emotional state and a very desirable one. We are highly motivated for love to be the higher state of consciousness, people yearn for it. This is why people interpret a euphoric trip as Truth and not a horror trip. I would like to believe that there is a higher consciousness that is love, just as I would like to believe that everything that I am will not disappear when my body dies. Desire affects judgment-- we see what we want to see. Because love is an emotion, I suspect love, like all thoughts, emotions, and sensations, is yet another cloud passing across the sky.

Quote from: pumita92 on April 04, 2021, 06:27:40 PM
Aitm - I don't know your real name but thank your posting. I appreciate you sincerely and I would like to address your anger.

You are innocent.

LOVE would never make the world you see through your eyes. The pain, the suffering, the hatred, the killing. LOVE would never do that.

This is why it takes great awareness to see that what you see through your eyes is not LOVE, but an illusion made from THOUGHT which obscures LOVE. You are not seeing reality, you are seeing what you think the reality is.

You see people in bodies victims to others, oppressed, tortured. This is all like a movie playing out in your own consciousness, created from thought patterns that appear to be true. You do not understand the power of your mind so you externalize what you have made and blame a power outside. All the power of all of creation is within you. You are using this power to upset yourself needlessly. Understand the power of THOUGHT and you will be free again.

And a thought cannot leave the mind that thought it. No matter what you use your freedom of thought to see in the world, none of it is outside of your mind. All of creation is happening within you.

Therefore the world you appear to see outside you, which is experienced via THOUGHT, has not left your mind. You must forgive the world. To forgive is to see that it is merely a pattern of thought, and to release that pattern, restoring your mind to clarity.

What makes you angry is your own thought patterns.

You are playing with painful thought patterns.

That is what is causing your anger. Nothing else.

Much love for you my friend. You don't know me but I am your friend and I do appreciate you a lot. I know you wrote with anger. I acknowledge that anger within you. I am not afraid of it. I know its source and I know it is not you. You are a powerful being.

What a kook.

I am inspired.  My heart soars like an eagle.  I am at one with the cosmos itself, part of the cosmic whole.  A veil has been lifted.  I can clearly see that everything is related by a circle of consciousness, which is the great metaphor of life.  Time is an illusion.  Science is limited, but my imagination understands all.  I have come to the precipice and see beyond the horizon, and the horizons that follow all shifting like waves in a gentle flow of universal harmony.  I am both a seeker and a finder, a provider like creation itself that is the ultimate Pez dispenser of being.  You laugh, but you are fools caught in a web of deception, for you are blind and not yet made whole.  Join me and we will fly together.

Quote from: Mike Cl on April 04, 2021, 07:18:50 PM
Pumita do not think you are the first to deliver this message--not even in this forum.  I have searched for 'the answer' for most of my life.  I have read 100's of books, talked to people of all kinds and watched video's of all manner of religious/spiritual thoughts.  Unity, for example, suggests thoughts are the substance from which all else comes.  A table could not exist without the thought of a table coming first.  I agree with that idea.  Where is the empirical data?  The table.  Can't build it without thinking about it--for the first one, anyway.   

I agree that you cannot change anything about me--my wife can't even do that.  Nobody can--if we change it is because we want to.  For me, I am ready to change my behaviors or thoughts if I think it will better me.  But I have to do the changing.  But I also have to hear what is suggested and in a way I can understand.  BTW, I have not 'decided' how the world looks to me; I am deciding how it works for me.  I also view my understanding of the world as an evolving thing; this is how the world is for me, until something comes along that makes me want to change. 

So far, you are mostly words and hot air.  There is no there, 'there'.  This is old hat; old thinking.  Maybe if you could share with us who and what you are, that may help.  Are you new to this line of thought?  If so, what did the old you think and why did you change your mind.  As you said, we can only change us, nobody else can.  So, something caught your attention enough that you changed your thinking.  Why?

Mike. Great questions and I will answer them to the best of my ability. First I would like to thank you for taking the time to speak authentically and truthfully.

Your questions are precisely why I speak to levels of consciousness. I am not talking about changing a line of thinking. Though I do speak to the fact that our experience of life is a projection of the line of thinking we give energy to. But changing your line of thinking is not what leads you to KNOWING. KNOWING is completely beyond the activity of the thinking mind.

You perceive me talking about a line of thinking because I can only communicate through words in this medium. This is an internet forum. These are but pixels on a screen that create a pattern that your mind interprets. What you read from them is what you think they are saying. How can I share a level of consciousness through words? How can an arrangement of pixels on a screen bring you to a higher level of consciousness? It is impossible.

It is impossible for me to put a level of consciousness into words, yet it is possible for you to experience the level of consciousness where the secret to life is revealed for you. I cannot do that for you. Your desire and intention to see deeper, combined with the infinite intelligence of MIND of which you are intimately connected, is what propels you into a state of KNOWING. KNOWING is completely beyond intellectual comprehension.

The closest thing the intellect can compare KNOWING to is a FEELING. The intellect can not come with you into higher levels of KNOWING. If in reading these words you feel a powerful FEELING wash over you, let that FEELING guide you into a state of SEEING. Stop reading and be with the feeling. Forget everything I've written. Forget everything you know. Stay with the beautiful feeling and let it guide you into new levels of reality.

This is no exaggeration. You are part of MIND, and you have access to all the truths behind this great illusion if only you are willing to SEE beyond the illusion of thought that veils you from true KNOWING.

My story as you asked,

Over the last decade, I have dabbled in meditation, several Buddhist-like spiritual paths after my LSD experience. I have searched far and wide. Some ideas were thought-provoking, but nothing has given me a life-changing insight. Everything I have ever tried since I first had a yearning to understand a deeper meaning to life has been no more than changing the way I think. Nothing I have done has led me to KNOWING.

This is why I speak to levels of consciousness. At a certain point, my level of consciousness shifted. In that shift, I was able to see - just like waking up from a dream. My beliefs didn't change. My thoughts didn't change. Only my level of consciousness changed. But because my level of consciousness changed I was able to see my own thoughts through the loving intelligence of MIND which has always been within me. I was able to see the human experience from a higher perspective in which no thinking was needed in order to KNOW. KNOWING simply is. It does not need any conclusion.

Nobody changed my mind. I did not subscribe to any philosophy. I only experienced SEEING from a higher level of consciousness, SEEING catalyzed an experience of self-realization which utterly transformed my life in an indescribably beautiful way that I never knew was possible. I went from feeling insecure, bitter, and angry to feeling forgiving, loving, secure, caring without ever having to exert change in myself. The change was instant and automatic as a result of the shift in my level of consciousness.

My relationships flourished, I finally found a feeling of home within myself. Everything I felt I was missing I found in the depths of my own consciousness. And I know that EVERYONE can find that too because we are all connected to the same SPIRIT. Truth is NEVER held away from you, it is only OBSCURED by conditioned thought patterns that prevent you from moving up into higher levels of consciousness. Allow those painful thought patterns to fall away and you will find yourself gently rising into new levels of SEEING.

Quote from: GSOgymrat on April 04, 2021, 10:37:08 PM
It's refreshing that you realize it is pointless to debate this topic. I don't really enjoy debate and I'm responding to express my thoughts on the topic, not to be argumentative.

I agree that we are not our thoughts, that "CONSCIOUSNESS is the empty canvas through which MIND paints using THOUGHT and creates EXPERIENCE." That is why my tagline is "You are the sky. Everything else -- it's just the weather." I accept this as a metaphor for the nature of consciousness, which is an inherently subjective experience and difficult to explain. Where we differ is I don't see that "MIND is a higher level of consciousness that allows one to understand the secrets of life." You say one of these secrets is "MIND is love." This is where I become skeptical. If you had said the nature of MIND is equanimity, I could relate to that. Emotions, like thoughts, are clouds passing across the sky. They are ephemeral. Love, however, isn't like equanimity, it isn't neutral. Love is a very specific emotional state and a very desirable one. We are highly motivated for love to be the higher state of consciousness, people yearn for it. This is why people interpret a euphoric trip as Truth and not a horror trip. I would like to believe that there is a higher consciousness that is love, just as I would like to believe that everything that I am will not disappear when my body dies. Desire affects judgment-- we see what we want to see. Because love is an emotion, I suspect love, like all thoughts, emotions, and sensations, is yet another cloud passing across the sky.

You have wisdom in you, GSOgymrat (or whatever your real name is). These insights you have experienced about being the sky in which the clouds pass are powerful, but those insights go deeper, and as your level of consciousness rises, you will see more and more and more and more. And just when you think you've seen it all, you will see more...

THOUGHT cannot understand CONSCIOUSNESS because THOUGHT is within CONSCIOUSNESS. Therefore it is absolutely pointless to talk about it because words will never reach it. The paint cannot understand the canvas. YOU, on the other hand, are BEYOND THOUGHT. YOU are the GREAT MIND in which the play of life unfolds. YOU are the painter who can SEE the canvas. YOU can KNOW without THOUGHT.

Your skepticism will have no room to speak when the energy of LOVE washes over you. You will have no words. Belief has no place in SEEING. You can resist or accept an idea, in the context of TRUTH it makes as much difference as putting on a red shirt or a green shirt in the morning. There is no point in talking about this because talking about this will not bring you to a place where you SEE it.

You must SEE it in order for it to be real for you.

I am living proof of LOVE in action. Even as a type these words LOVE wells up within me. As I'm sure if you look inside yourself with a quiet mind you will find the feeling, perhaps quiet at first, welling up within you too. That feeling then becomes a voice, and the voice sings a new world. Allow this feeling to guide THOUGHT and it will transform your world from the inside out.

LOVE is a state of consciousness in which we see there is only ONE energy. There is only ONE intelligence. One SPIRIT that is animating all of creation. We are all connected, not because we are all human, but because we are all living expressions happening within ONE MIND. We share the same source and we have not left that source. There is no point in talking about this because talking about this is not SEEING it.

This is IMPOSSIBLE for the intellect to understand. Only the SPIRIT in you can realize that it is SPIRIT. SPIRIT sometimes believes it is human. Because it has lost itself in a dream, it feels alone, and so it seeks. It will continue to seek indefinitely, though what it seeks will change, it will always feel dissatisfied when it finally gets what it thinks it needs to feel whole.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to not seek while you are out of touch with who you really are. Because SPIRIT is seeking the KNOWING of itself, and only when we look within will that seeking be over once and for all. Only then will you feel the wholeness you have always been looking for. Not through ideologies, not through believing, not through rationalizing, through SEEING.

LOVE is not a passing state. It is the most natural state of being of the spirit. It is the default energy of creation before the contamination of thought. To the thinking mind, LOVE can be intellectualized as a level of consciousness, but it is much more than that. It is self-realization. It is experienced the moment the SPIRITUAL and the MATERIAL come together as ONE. The moment you remember that you are not separate from your experience.

LOVE is a state in which you look at the world which appears outside you and KNOW that it is all within you.

It is a place where fear disappears completely.

Can you be afraid of a nightmare when you know it is only a dream? You are SPIRIT dreaming of EARTH. You are looking down at your body even while you read this.

You have NOTHING to fear because EVERYTHING is MIND. And MIND is ETERNAL. In the absence of fear, there is only LOVE.

Quote from: pumita92 on April 05, 2021, 05:24:24 AM

Nobody changed my mind. I did not subscribe to any philosophy. I only experienced SEEING from a higher level of consciousness, SEEING catalyzed an experience of self-realization which utterly transformed my life in an indescribably beautiful way that I never knew was possible. I went from feeling insecure, bitter, and angry to feeling forgiving, loving, secure, caring without ever having to exert change in myself. The change was instant and automatic as a result of the shift in my level of consciousness.

My relationships flourished, I finally found a feeling of home within myself. Everything I felt I was missing I found in the depths of my own consciousness. And I know that EVERYONE can find that too because we are all connected to the same SPIRIT. Truth is NEVER held away from you, it is only OBSCURED by conditioned thought patterns that prevent you from moving up into higher levels of consciousness. Allow those painful thought patterns to fall away and you will find yourself gently rising into new levels of SEEING.

You did not exactly tell us who you are nor how you got to where you are.  You don't subscribe to any philosophy???  Of course you do.  It is called Gnosticism. Both you and Paul (of the bible) are sick with it.  Read only what Paul writes in the NT, and your condition is fully described.   You are a theist who worships Knowing; it is far superior to understanding and data.  Just let go and let god.  I tried that.  And, in a way, that did lead to a gnosis.  I did come to a 'knowing' of sorts.  I now fully think or know, that empirical data is the key to understanding the world outside and the world inside.  I know what the universe is and I know how I best interact with it.  (But I'm open to suggestion).  So you see, your Knowing is nothing new--it is probably the oldest form of christianity that we are aware of.  And it is no more relevant then than it is now.  But as I have said, if it lets you sleep at night, go for it.

I must admit a certain sadness when these loonies show up with their “new found” ideas on how they can separate the human animal from all animals by suggesting “we” have a connection with the universe or some other kind of whacky presence. Perhaps they are embarrassed by the primal actions of humans, our seeming inability to rise as a mass of humanity to a greater creature than we are. Perhaps they find defecation a disgusting event not worthy of humans and therefore decide to invent, like religion, some grand scheme in which separate “us” from lowly animals.

It is not enough to understand and appreciate the grandness of evolution, but to create a separate identity that grants us, and only us, a certain cosmic oneness with the very thing that knows nothing of our existence, cannot know nothing of our existence and even if it could, would not care of our existence. But preach on child, make yourself think your existence is greater than the squirrel or jellyfish. You have convinced yourself. The rest of the universe is not impressed with your self proclaimed grandness, indeed it is even unaware of your existence and when our time passes, will not even know it, nor care, it’s indifference is what makes life the even more spectacular.
Perhaps you should spend what time you have understanding the life around you, instead of making up incredulous ways to elevate yourself above them.

Yeah, we monkeys sure like to talk ourselves up, don't we...My prediction is that self awareness may be helpful for a short while for developing cooperation in relatively physically weak evolutionary branches but at some point the beetles, dragonflies, rodents, fish and crocodilians will still be doing their thing (and in better shape) in our absence. Our entire existence is a momentary blip and we have caused massive havoc and extinctions.  

Quote from: aitm on April 05, 2021, 09:41:45 AM
I must admit a certain sadness when these loonies show up with their “new found” ideas on how they can separate the human animal from all animals by suggesting “we” have a connection with the universe or some other kind of whacky presence. Perhaps they are embarrassed by the primal actions of humans, our seeming inability to rise as a mass of humanity to a greater creature than we are. Perhaps they find defecation a disgusting event not worthy of humans and therefore decide to invent, like religion, some grand scheme in which separate “us” from lowly animals.

It is not enough to understand and appreciate the grandness of evolution, but to create a separate identity that grants us, and only us, a certain cosmic oneness with the very thing that knows nothing of our existence, cannot know nothing of our existence and even if it could, would not care of our existence. But preach on child, make yourself think your existence is greater than the squirrel or jellyfish. You have convinced yourself. The rest of the universe is not impressed with your self proclaimed grandness, indeed it is even unaware of your existence and when our time passes, will not even know it, nor care, it’s indifference is what makes life the even more spectacular.
Perhaps you should spend what time you have understanding the life around you, instead of making up incredulous ways to elevate yourself above them.

It is your OWN THOUGHT PATTERNS that are creating the loneliness and despair you experience.

You are a being of a HIGH level of consciousness contaminated with thinking from a LOW level of consciousness.

Release the LOW level of consciousness thoughts and you will automatically return to WISDOM. WISDOM is an expression of a deeper mind IN YOU. You do not need to make up a voice, you only need to surrender the LOW level of consciousness thinking as it occurs to you to do so.

Resisting the impulse to release low level of consciousness thinking creates emotional turmoil. It is, in fact, the ONLY thing that creates emotional turmoil. In the releasing of a painful stimulus, you return to wellness. In the releasing of painful thinking, you return to peace and contentment.

All you need to do is SEE that. You are NOT those lower level of consciousness thought patterns. They pass IN you momentarily but they are NOT you.

Contentment, truth, happiness - this is all found from a POSITIVE FEELING. You must release negative thought as you notice it - and you notice it via the feeling. As you release negative thought you will return to a POSITIVE FEELING. True Wisdom emanates from within your own consciousness via a positive feeling.

You missed your decade by 60 years. In the 60’s lots of drug addled thought of the same nonsense you think you are privy too. Get over yourself. No one here is buying your “new” way. Maybe go to “exdruggies.com”..they will appreciate your vast and enlightening jibber jabber.

Quote from: Mike Cl on April 05, 2021, 09:07:30 AM
You did not exactly tell us who you are nor how you got to where you are.  You don't subscribe to any philosophy???  Of course you do.  It is called Gnosticism. Both you and Paul (of the bible) are sick with it.  Read only what Paul writes in the NT, and your condition is fully described.   You are a theist who worships Knowing; it is far superior to understanding and data.  Just let go and let god.  I tried that.  And, in a way, that did lead to a gnosis.  I did come to a 'knowing' of sorts.  I now fully think or know, that empirical data is the key to understanding the world outside and the world inside.  I know what the universe is and I know how I best interact with it.  (But I'm open to suggestion).  So you see, your Knowing is nothing new--it is probably the oldest form of christianity that we are aware of.  And it is no more relevant then than it is now.  But as I have said, if it lets you sleep at night, go for it.

I have told you, and you listen, but you do not LISTEN. You are only listening to your own ego as you perceive these words. Look BEYOND the words and you will understand. You are trapped inside your own ego's thought patterns. SEE beyond THOUGHT and you will find all the freedom and contentment you can ever dream of.

You say "I'm not hearing anything new". Of course you are not hearing anything new! You are unable to see anything new in these words because YOU are not HEARING. You are merely listening to the old. If you LOOK for the new, you will FIND the new.

It takes a huge amount of willingness to look beyond the ego's thought patterns. This is something we struggle with because we are so identified with its thought patterns. They are familiar to us. They are the thoughts we've thunk for years, decades even. But they are old, weary, and drain us of the life energy we long for.

Even as you read this message you believe it is an attack. Listen carefully! It is not YOUR belief that this message is an attack, it is the EGO'S THOUGHT PATTERNS that paint this message out to be an attack. You are identified with the ego's thought patterns and so you feel attacked personally. It is merely a mistake in identification.

This message is not an attack. This is a message of Love. Truly.

But you cannot HEAR that because you only hear. You cannot SEE the Love in this message because you are seeing it through the lens of your own conditioned thought patterns. Thus you are trapped. But you are ONLY trapped in THOUGHT. And so the power is yours.

There is not one person in this entire thread who HEARS. Not a single person. In fact, it is EXTREMELY uncommon for me to come across someone who HEARS. HEARING takes great willingness and courage. People who HEAR move into KNOWING almost instantly. People who have the courage to HEAR don't spend one more moment in the grips of loneliness, despair, anger of the ego's thought patterns. They move instantly into love and contentment because they SEE what is creating their negative experience of life: THOUGHT.

You cannot SEE that these words are pointing to a place inside of you where you will find FREEDOM from all your troubles. Your relationship troubles, your financial troubles, your pain. Within you, there is a key that unlocks a new reality. In this new reality, life is effortless and beautiful. It is a joy in which gratitude is the default emotion. Spontaneous ideas occur to you in perfect synchrony with all of creation. It is a MIND synchronized with CREATION. It is a life of endless emanation of insight, wisdom, joy, and love.

While we live in the grips of the illusion of thought, this seems like a pipe dream. You will NEVER be able to dull the seeker in you until you find the Truth.

But if you discover how to HEAR, you can reach a higher level of consciousness where SEEING is possible.

All philosophy is of the conditioned mind. I am speaking to an UNCONDITIONED space that cannot be programmed because it emanates directly from Life itself.

I am speaking to the LIVING SPIRIT WITHIN YOU which transcends the computer-like patterns of the ego's thought system. I am speaking to the deeper part of you that ALREADY KNOWS there is more to life than meets the eye.

You have spent your whole life in a conditioned thought system that has jailed you in an illusion. You see evidence for the jail around you. You have felt miserable from it. It has brought you pain, loneliness, anxiety, depression, and despair. This need not be. You have the key to freedom. You have the ticket to bring you home. There is hope for a new life. But you must know that a new life doesn't evolve through TIME, it evolves through THOUGHT.

Only when one begins to not value the old does one begin to see anew.

And believe me when I say you will only find pain and loneliness in the old.

Quote from: aitm on April 06, 2021, 08:52:11 AM
You missed your decade by 60 years. In the 60’s lots of drug addled thought of the same nonsense you think you are privy too. Get over yourself. No one here is buying your “new” way. Maybe go to “exdruggies.com”..they will appreciate your vast and enlightening jibber jabber.

I am not arguing with you. I am not fighting with you. I am merely pointing a new way to those who want to live a happy, beautiful, and insightful life. I will never give up on you either because I know every reply like this you write is merely you showing me the thought patterns that are troubling you. And I see right through them every time. I know YOU are beyond them. Even if you don't know that yet. Even though you may still identify with those thought patterns.

I have compassion for you. I have been there myself. I have dealt with ego thought patterns and I know how painful it is. I know how they seem to engulf you and jail you to the point where you feel like you ARE them. I know what it's like to feel lonely and jailed within a thought system and not even realize it's my own thoughts that are troubling me. I know what it's like to feel consumed by anger.

I don't feel insulted by anything you say because I know those thought patterns, and they don't scare me or make me feel insecure in any way.

They are nothing.

I know you are asking for help in the best way you can. You do not need to acknowledge this. In fact, I expect you to actively resist it because that's exactly what those ego thought patterns do. They fight for space in your mind and cause you pain while they do that.

But listen carefully: Your mind is no home for thought patterns that bring you pain. Your happiness is unconditional, and when the mind is clean, in the absence of those lower thought patterns, you will find what you've been looking for your whole life. In a tranquil mind, you will find peace. And in that peace, you will be able to think in a whole new way you have long forgotten. You will find beauty, you will find security, you will find happiness again. I promise you.

This guy doesn't quit. I'm sitting here laughing.  It's like going to a comedy club.  It takes talent to take some mundane thoughts from a drug trip and turn it into a routine, but eventually one must take a bow and leave the stage to make room for the next act.  I appreciate a good show, and I don't mind an encore or two, but eventually, I need other stimulation.

When is it time for the stripper to come out?

Quote from: SGOS on April 06, 2021, 09:47:23 AM
This guy doesn't quit. I'm sitting here laughing.  It's like going to a comedy club.  It takes talent to take some mundane thoughts from a drug trip and turn it into a routine, but eventually one must take a bow and leave the stage to make room for the next act.  I appreciate a good show, and I don't mind an encore or two, but eventually, I need other stimulation.

They are mundane thoughts to you because you are not SEEING them for what they are, you are seeing them as shadows of the past. If you could truly SEE, they would bring beauty & happiness to you.

You are bored of your own stale old thoughts.

You are bored of the routine of your own thought patterns.

Every interaction, every word, every action is an opportunity to see new, but you prefer to hold onto the past. This is what creates your boredom.

There is a space in you where new thoughts, new perspectives, new insights, new ways of viewing life can radically change your life. When you choose to see creation from that space, you will be entertained for the rest of your life. You will never feel bored, ever again. The simplest things in life will bring you great joy.

Quote from: pumita92 on April 06, 2021, 10:04:45 AM
They are mundane thoughts to you because you are not SEEING them for what they are, you are seeing them as shadows of the past.

No, I think I'm seeing someone's drug trip.

Quote from: pumita92 on April 06, 2021, 10:04:45 AM
You are bored of your own stale old thoughts.

No, I'm pretty sure I'm bored with you.

Quote from: pumita92 on April 06, 2021, 10:04:45 AM
You are bored of the routine of your own thought patterns.

No, I'm waiting for the stripper, or I'm out of here.

Quote from: pumita92 on April 06, 2021, 10:04:45 AM
There is a space in you where new thoughts, new perspectives, new insights, new ways of viewing life can radically change your life. When you choose to see creation from that space, you will be entertained for the rest of your life. You will never feel bored, ever again. The simplest things in life will bring you great joy.

A better life through chemicals.

Quote from: pumita92 on April 06, 2021, 09:00:08 AM
I have told you, and you listen, but you do not LISTEN. You are only listening to your own ego as you perceive these words. Look BEYOND the words and you will understand. You are trapped inside your own ego's thought patterns. SEE beyond THOUGHT and you will find all the freedom and contentment you can ever dream of.

You say "I'm not hearing anything new". Of course you are not hearing anything new! You are unable to see anything new in these words because YOU are not HEARING. You are merely listening to the old. If you LOOK for the new, you will FIND the new.

It takes a huge amount of willingness to look beyond the ego's thought patterns. This is something we struggle with because we are so identified with its thought patterns. They are familiar to us. They are the thoughts we've thunk for years, decades even. But they are old, weary, and drain us of the life energy we long for.

Even as you read this message you believe it is an attack. Listen carefully! It is not YOUR belief that this message is an attack, it is the EGO'S THOUGHT PATTERNS that paint this message out to be an attack. You are identified with the ego's thought patterns and so you feel attacked personally. It is merely a mistake in identification.

This message is not an attack. This is a message of Love. Truly.

But you cannot HEAR that because you only hear. You cannot SEE the Love in this message because you are seeing it through the lens of your own conditioned thought patterns. Thus you are trapped. But you are ONLY trapped in THOUGHT. And so the power is yours.

There is not one person in this entire thread who HEARS. Not a single person. In fact, it is EXTREMELY uncommon for me to come across someone who HEARS. HEARING takes great willingness and courage. People who HEAR move into KNOWING almost instantly. People who have the courage to HEAR don't spend one more moment in the grips of loneliness, despair, anger of the ego's thought patterns. They move instantly into love and contentment because they SEE what is creating their negative experience of life: THOUGHT.

You cannot SEE that these words are pointing to a place inside of you where you will find FREEDOM from all your troubles. Your relationship troubles, your financial troubles, your pain. Within you, there is a key that unlocks a new reality. In this new reality, life is effortless and beautiful. It is a joy in which gratitude is the default emotion. Spontaneous ideas occur to you in perfect synchrony with all of creation. It is a MIND synchronized with CREATION. It is a life of endless emanation of insight, wisdom, joy, and love.

While we live in the grips of the illusion of thought, this seems like a pipe dream. You will NEVER be able to dull the seeker in you until you find the Truth.

But if you discover how to HEAR, you can reach a higher level of consciousness where SEEING is possible.

All philosophy is of the conditioned mind. I am speaking to an UNCONDITIONED space that cannot be programmed because it emanates directly from Life itself.

I am speaking to the LIVING SPIRIT WITHIN YOU which transcends the computer-like patterns of the ego's thought system. I am speaking to the deeper part of you that ALREADY KNOWS there is more to life than meets the eye.

You have spent your whole life in a conditioned thought system that has jailed you in an illusion. You see evidence for the jail around you. You have felt miserable from it. It has brought you pain, loneliness, anxiety, depression, and despair. This need not be. You have the key to freedom. You have the ticket to bring you home. There is hope for a new life. But you must know that a new life doesn't evolve through TIME, it evolves through THOUGHT.

Only when one begins to not value the old does one begin to see anew.

And believe me when I say you will only find pain and loneliness in the old.

Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence.  Pete fell off.  Who was left?  You, apparently.  On and on and on..............................

Yeah, right? there is no balance, no dark side, no ying and yang. Just happy, happy, happy !!!

Well I embrace the darkness, I revel in it. I own the pain and rejoice in how life ends and thus has worth. The creatures that consume each other in a deadly dance all day and all night, the bacteria that infects the wound, even the mindless sheep (nuff said) are all part of this shit show. I love it all. You SEE.

Sorry, but not everybody can be a half wit.

Half a million people just died in the US alone, mostly because of delusional shit heads. Tired of them.

It’s certainly easy to sit in your room with a hit of lsd bouncing around your brain, smelling incense, looking a the fan go round and round as if my magic, staring at a picture of the cosmos, imagining you are one with it, feeling love and dissipating hate and fear, and feeling the energy of the cosmos vibrating in your loins. But, at some time, you have to leave the room, rejoin the real world, go to work, if you even have a job, deal with people...but please share your idyllic thoughts with them all day, constantly remind them of their anger and hatred, preach love all day....but by all means...send us the video...LOL. 🤣

Quote from: aitm on April 06, 2021, 01:00:06 PM
It’s certainly easy to sit in your room with a hit of lsd bouncing around your brain, smelling incense, looking a the fan go round and round as if my magic, staring at a picture of the cosmos, imagining you are one with it, feeling love and dissipating hate and fear, and feeling the energy of the cosmos vibrating in your loins. But, at some time, you have to leave the room, rejoin the real world, go to work, if you even have a job, deal with people...but please share your idyllic thoughts with them all day, constantly remind them of their anger and hatred, preach love all day....but by all means...send us the video...LOL. 🤣

Hahahaha, I love your depiction.

That was what I believed after I had that experience 10 years ago. "Nice to get a glimpse of heaven, but I do need to pay the bills!" In fact, I went to university to study neuroscience to try to figure out how such a small molecule created such a powerful experience. A mildly interesting pursuit that led nowhere.

I didn't SEE at the time that even though I left the LSD experience, I was still experiencing thought. I thought I went back to "reality", when in reality I went back to my thoughts.

I was still living inside the illusion created by my own mind. But I couldn't SEE it.

I do work for a living, by way. I'm a web designer. I used to be an insecure, angry web designer. Now I'm a happy, insightful, creative web designer.

What changed?

The only thing that changed was that I had a moment oF SEEING, where I saw was that my experience was coming to me via thought. That life is an inside experience of thought, projected outward, appearing as an outside reality. Life does not come at you from the outside. It is generated from the inside, and through the power of MIND, appears to us as an outside experience.

If you can SEE that your feelings of negativity, anger, hatred, frustration are all merely a response to thought passing through the mind, not a response to anything happening in the world, then you will have the key to a happy, healthy, and beautiful life.

This is ONE of THREE key Principles to all psychological wellbeing. Understand the power of THOUGHT. Understand that you are living in THOUGHT. And you will begin to see from new heights.

If you understood for even a moment what a state of negativity does to the body physiologically, you wouldn't spend another minute in it.

But because you believe that things outside of your mind are bothering you, you feel that you have no choice in the matter. This is what creates anger. You are trying to fix the world to fix your anger to find peace, but you don't see that THOUGHT is creating your anger, not the world. THOUGHT can only obscure the peace that lies untouched underneath.

MIND is SPIRIT (SPIRIT simply meaning before the creation of form, not incense and crystals), while the BRAIN is physical (after the creation of form). You are the formless energy of thought, or MIND, of CONSCIOUSNESS, which has TRICKED itself into believing your identity lies inside the physical. You are an eternal being momentarily manifest as a body with a personality.

This cannot be understood intellectually, believing or disbelieving does not make a difference. It has to be SEEN from higher levels of consciousness. And in order to SEE from higher levels of consciousness, you have to wake up out of the illusion of thought.

Quote from: Cassia on April 06, 2021, 10:45:51 AM
Yeah, right? there is no balance, no dark side, no ying and yang. Just happy, happy, happy !!!

Well I embrace the darkness, I revel in it. I own the pain and rejoice in how life ends and thus has worth. The creatures that consume each other in a deadly dance all day and all night, the bacteria that infects the wound, even the mindless sheep (nuff said) are all part of this shit show. I love it all. You SEE.

Sorry, but not everybody can be a half wit.

You believe you have no choice and so you try to make suffering palatable. Don't try to love your suffering. It does not serve you. "Embrace the suck" - that's what they used to tell me in the military. I fully subscribed to the notion that in order to achieve happiness, you must go through suffering. It is an error in thought. It is a justification for the pain we experience when we lack true understanding of the MIND.

Every day you're haunted by fear. Fear of sickness, fear of death, insecurity, loneliness. This need not be. You were not designed to live in fear.

Though through the freedom of thought, you have the power to see creation in the light you choose. How you choose to see creation, via the power of thought, determines how it appears to you.

You are innocent because you do not understand the mind. You innocently misuse your freedom of thought to create pain, suffering, and fear in you. You are not aware you create fear in yourself, and so you project it outside, and blame the world. The world causes nothing. It is an effect. MIND is the cause. THOUGHT is the cause. EXPERIENCE is the effect. And the world is within EXPERIENCE.

Every time you feel your peace disturbed, look no further than THOUGHT and you will see what is disturbing it.

LSD is a very potent hallucinogen. Even in very small doses it can alter adult human brain profoundly. It creates changes in personality that can last years. You said you took 3 hits at 17. As your experince was a 'positive' one, you probably took more and still doing.

LSD creates a dissolution of ego, reduces fear and enhances emotional empathy. This is why people who use this drug and get good trips feel like they have just hugged the universe and everything in it, feeling a great loooove. And percieve everything from a very distorted point of view. They feel like they have become one with everything. It is one big hallucination. And a very powerful one.

A lot of people also get terrifying bad trips. If the state of mind created by this drug was really about opening a door to a high consciousness that exists, it would be the objective result. There wouldn't be bad trips. But that is not the case. Because it is not about some high level of consciousness or reality, it is about your altered mind.

There are good, solid reasons why evolution equipped us with these unpleasant feelings of fear, guilt, pain, anger and gave us that annoying thing called ego. Or rather that's how we have survived.

Long story short, you have brain damage. You live in a severe subjective reality. Ideally, you should seek help. But I don't think you can comprehend that right now.

A friendly advice. Your sense of fear is probably impaired, your self awareness is distorted and you have difficulty understanding boundaries. It is ok via internet, but you should stop pestering people about this stuff obssessively in real life. Otherwise, you'd put yourself in danger.

Quote from: drunkenshoe on April 07, 2021, 05:55:37 AM
LSD is a very potent hallucinogen. Even in very small doses it can alter adult human brain profoundly. It creates changes in personality that can last years. You said you took 3 hits at 17. As your experince was a 'positive' one, you probably took more and still doing.

LSD creates a dissolution of ego, reduces fear and enhances emotional empathy. This is why people who use this drug and get good trips feel like they have just hugged the universe and everything in it, feeling a great loooove. And percieve everything from a very distorted point of view. They feel like they have become one with everything. It is one big hallucination. And a very powerful one.

A lot of people also get terrifying bad trips. If the state of mind created by this drug was really about opening a door to a high consciousness that exists, it would be the objective result. There wouldn't be bad trips. But that is not the case. Because it is not about some high level of consciousness or reality, it is about your altered mind.

There are good, solid reasons why evolution equipped us with these unpleasant feelings of fear, guilt, pain, anger and gave us that annoying thing called ego. Or rather that's how we have survived.

Long story short, you have brain damage. You live in a severe subjective reality. Ideally, you should seek help. But I don't think you can comprehend that right now.

A friendly advice. Your sense of fear is probably impaired, your self awareness is distorted and you have difficulty understanding boundaries. It is ok via internet, but you should stop pestering people about this stuff obssessively in real life. Otherwise, you'd put yourself in danger.

You clearly have wisdom in you, and you have a grasp of the importance of fear and how it keeps us alive. Let me offer you another perspective that may make your life easier.

Absolutely LSD does NOT open the door to higher levels of consciousness, that's why I'm not recommending anyone to take it! LSD increases the intensity of the experience, the volume of it. It makes your thoughts feel even more real, and even more compelling.

THOUGHT determines the direction the trip takes. Just in the same way THOUGHT determines how you are feeling at any given moment. Yet we don't see that because the realness of thought lures us into it.

You can tell what level of consciousness you're at by how constricted you feel emotionally. It is a perfect design. It's a feedback system.

If you press your hand against a stove, there is an impulse that's created at that moment. A biological movement of energy moves through you and is attempting to open your hand. You can resist that impulse. You have freedom. But by exercising that freedom to resist that impulse, you experience pain.

This is similar to how the mind works. When we feel tight, constricted, frustrated, it is because we are using our freedom of thought to hold on to a pattern of thought, resisting the impulse of our inner wisdom, which is attempting to let go of the pattern of thought that is preventing you from tapping into your innate source of inner genius, love, and creativity.

This is practical.

It is not dissociative from the world. Let me give you an example, and you can SEE this play out in your own experience. Don't take my word for it (not that you would anyway).

The next time you face a frustrating problem in your life, just watch the difference. Most of us will engage with the problem from a place of frustration and end up making it worse. Does this sound like you? In relationships and such? Everything you touch turns to dust kind of thing?

Those who understand the mechanics of the mind will SEE that frustration means they are, at that moment, at a lower level of consciousness. That their judgment is clouded. That they are not thinking with the fullness of creative wisdom that's available to them. At that moment of FEELING frustration, the wise person will allow the mind to settle, allow the frustrating patterns of thought to dissolve. In that dissolving, the mind returns naturally to a state of clarity. In a clear state of mind, there is a free flow of thought, a river of thought, that arises out of the blue.

At a higher level of consciousness, between 2 and 20 solutions become obvious to us that were otherwise invisible and lower levels because the mind was not able to SEE. Our inner wisdom easily addresses whatever difficult challenges lie ahead of us at the practical level.

We are using our freedom of thought against ourselves. You see? Like hitting yourself on the head with a stick. You don't need to do that, and in fact, by doing that, you're suppressing the incredible wisdom of your own being.

QuoteThe next time you face a frustrating problem in your life, just watch the difference. Most of us will engage with the problem from a place of frustration and end up making it worse. Does this sound like you? In relationships and such? Everything you touch turns to dust kind of thing?

You presume a lot. I evaluate problems and outcomes in terms of probabilities and make decisions based on the best data I can obtain. This has served me well. I even found a partner with the same exact ideas and philosophy. There is no wishful thinking, praying for supernatural intervention, or taking mind altering chemicals. There is appreciation of science, all the arts, nature, history, beauty, and reality. There is no sin. There is sorrow and sadness at times and it makes the good times even sweeter.

You will turn to dust as will everything you touch. Sorry, it's the arrow of time. You can't "think" entropy away. Doesn't mean you have to be all depressed or in denial.

Pumita, this is for you from a great insightful poet:  Kahlil Gibran

Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can
contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Or as a mentor of mine once said, "The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.

Quote from: Cassia on April 07, 2021, 08:59:01 AM
You presume a lot. I evaluate problems and outcomes in terms of probabilities and make decisions based on the best data I can obtain. This has served me well. I even found a partner with the same exact ideas and philosophy. There is no wishful thinking, praying for supernatural intervention, or taking mind altering chemicals. There is appreciation of science, all the arts, nature, history, beauty, and reality. There is no sin. There is sorrow and sadness at times and it makes the good times even sweeter.

You will turn to dust as will everything you touch. Sorry, it's the arrow of time. You can't "think" entropy away. Doesn't mean you have to be all depressed or in denial.

Am I wrong about your relationship problems? I am familiar with the symptoms of a life lived from within the personal thought system, so it's no mystery to me. In order for relationships to feel warm, trusting, and loving, there needs to be the underlying feeling of warmth present. This feeling is not present while the personal thought system is active.

I know that without an awareness of the fact that life is an experience of the power of thought in action, these problems are sure to manifest. Simply because we do not realize we are creating them while we are experiencing them. They manifest for everyone. It's the same story: mild (or severe) depression, insecurity, loneliness, being tired, lack of vitality, constant seeking... relationship problems, work problems. It's all part of the same package.

These are all symptoms of people who live in a simple misunderstanding of the mind, and do not understand their true nature.

Though each problem seems separate and needs a specialized, they all share one common denominator: they are experienced in the moment via thought.

Understanding our true nature leads to an experience of the IMpersonal mind, which can be described as living in the flow of fresh thinking. Rather than holding on to stale old thought patterns and tinkering with them, we let go and allow new ones to arise from within. If you simply let your mind be, the natural trajectory of thought is to leave the mind. In it's wake there is space, and in that tranquility, a beautiful feeling arises. A tranquil mind is always experiencing a beautiful feeling.

If you are purely allowing, you will begin to experience a sort of river of thought, a kind of flow. The less you "fuck with" thought, the more this natural flow takes over. The more it takes over, the more of your own deeper wisdom you will have access to. This natural flow of thought is the natural expression of your own deeper wisdom. It's a source of spontaneous creativity, your inner genius, and where insights come from. It's like unblocking a tap and receiving a stream of fresh water instead of trying to tinker with stale water.

If during an argument with your partner, you have a moment of SEEING that the negative feelings you are feeling are being generated via THOUGHT in-the-moment, and not by whatever you THINK they are being caused by, it will no longer make sense to you to continue to play with thought patterns that hurt you. As you surrender these thought patterns (and you can drop them in an instant), you will return to that natural flow of wellbeing.

In this space is where we find warm feelings and that's how relationships can become beautiful again.

Quote from: Mike Cl on April 07, 2021, 09:09:22 AM
Pumita, this is for you from a great insightful poet:  Kahlil Gibran

Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can
contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Hm... What does this mean to you, Mike? Are you alluding to the notion that we need to feel pain in order to feel joy? Because that's not true. It only LOOKS true from a particular level of consciousness. And not a good one, believe me.

According to duality, in order to experience satisfaction, you must experience dissatisfaction. Riddle me this, how much of your life have you spend dissatisfied? And how much satisfied? What's the proportion there?

Again, I'm not attacking you. I'm merely inviting you to see in a way that will bring more love and freedom into your life. I am asking nothing in return. If somehow in this in this conversation you realized you could live your life with a deeper, more lasting, and more present sense of joy, wouldn't that be something worth listening to?

I know you're used to conversing with debate. But some things just can't be communicated via the intellect. Some things need to resonate at a deeper level, and the intellect serves as a barrier. It's like a shield you hold up to protect yourself but you're only pushing away love

Quote from: pumita92 on April 07, 2021, 06:35:50 PM
Hm... What does this mean to you, Mike? Are you alluding to the notion that we need to feel pain in order to feel joy? Because that's not true. It only LOOKS true from a particular level of consciousness. And not a good one, believe me.

According to duality, in order to experience satisfaction, you must experience dissatisfaction. Riddle me this, how much of your life have you spend dissatisfied? And how much satisfied? What's the proportion there?

Again, I'm not attacking you. I'm merely inviting you to see in a way that will bring more love and freedom into your life. I am asking nothing in return. If somehow in this in this conversation you realized you could live your life with a deeper, more lasting, and more present sense of joy, wouldn't that be something worth listening to?

I know you're used to conversing with debate. But some things just can't be communicated via the intellect. Some things need to resonate at a deeper level, and the intellect serves as a barrier. It's like a shield you hold up to protect yourself but you're only pushing away love

Not alluding to anything--just stating the facts.  Let me use an example.  I happen to be a dog and cat lover and have had them for most of my life.  I find sharing my life with these furry creatures adds joy and fun to my life.  When one of my companions die, I suffer pain in the form of grief.  If I had not had these companions, I would not suffer grief from their deaths.  One of the aspects of life on this planet is that it is brief.  Along the path of my life I have lost several companions (not to mention all the humans I've lost).  My life was richer and more joy packed because of them--one of the natural results is that they live a shorter life and that causes pain when they pass.  No amount of a 'deeper consciousness' will change that.  Grief is a part of life.

Intellect is what allows us to traverse this life in a sane way.  Yes, I've searched the other 'levels' of consciousness, and it is simply a dead end.  Just like trying to find the 'super' natural of the universe is impossible, 'levels' of  consciousness is a dead end, as well.  Intellect is what allows us to see and understand what is around us.  I've tried airy-fairy stuff and found no there, there.

Quote from: Mike Cl on April 07, 2021, 07:24:05 PM
Not alluding to anything--just stating the facts.  Let me use an example.  I happen to be a dog and cat lover and have had them for most of my life.  I find sharing my life with these furry creatures adds joy and fun to my life.  When one of my companions die, I suffer pain in the form of grief.  If I had not had these companions, I would not suffer grief from their deaths.  One of the aspects of life on this planet is that it is brief.  Along the path of my life I have lost several companions (not to mention all the humans I've lost).  My life was richer and more joy packed because of them--one of the natural results is that they live a shorter life and that causes pain when they pass.  No amount of a 'deeper consciousness' will change that.  Grief is a part of life.

Intellect is what allows us to traverse this life in a sane way.  Yes, I've searched the other 'levels' of consciousness, and it is simply a dead end.  Just like trying to find the 'super' natural of the universe is impossible, 'levels' of consciousness is a dead end, as well.  Intellect is what allows us to see and understand what is around us.  I've tried airy-fairy stuff and found no there, there.

I had a pet too! He survived a fire actually, and I definitely grieved when we had to put him down.

I'll share a story and tell me what occurs to you. When I was 18 I had a girlfriend for a year and a half. I believed she was "the one" and when we broke up I was absolutely devastated. I would cry myself to sleep almost every night, for almost six months. I was actually in the military at that time and one day I cried in the ranks. Couldn't hold it in...

In my mind, at the time, I believed I had to feel x amount of grief for the x amount of joy I felt being with her. To me that was the process. Can't have the rain without the rainbow. In my mind, I believed they had to balance out so I could "complete the cycle" of yin and yang. It made sense to me.

When I finally moved on, eventually I got another girlfriend. We had a beautiful relationship too, for about the same amount of time. It was deep and meaningful, but eventually, we did break up, I started grieving again. I recalled having grieved for six months the previous time and I just thought "Not this time."

I wasn't suppressing my emotion. I simply let it go. I didn't really give much attention to grieving thoughts. It's not like I pushed them away. But the natural trajectory of a thought is for it leave our awareness. It's our digging-into-it that makes the experience persistent. And so simply by allowing that natural flow of thought to take place, I was able to live my life joyfully.

There is always so much to be grateful for. The grief wasn't making room for joy, it was obscuring the joy that was always present in my life.

During that first six months of grieving from my first girlfriend, I had no idea that I was creating the experience through thought the entire time. It felt so real and so overwhelming to me. I didn't know that *I* was exercising my freedom to create the experience of grief. I thought it was happening to me. Not from me. But the real-feelingness of an experience isn't evidence for it's importance, it's just a demonstration of how powerful and convincing thought feels in the moment. But thought can change moment by moment. This is very difficult to see when we feel shrouded by negative emotion, however, it still remains true.

When we see that joy is the undercurrent of experience, duality becomes non-duality. Non-duality is impossible to intellectualize because the intellect can only understand things in contrast. But seeing from a deeper place, a place beyond the intellect, enables us to become aware of the undercurrent of beauty and joy in our experience. This beauty and joy is never lost but only obscured by thought. In the absence of thought, in a tranquil mind, the beauty rises to the surface of awareness.

And in fact, it's those moments we spend with our loved ones when the mind is quiet that we really see and appreciate the beauty in them and all around us.

I have had many opportunities to grieve in the last few years. Some people close to me died. I had very small bouts of grief, if any. Simply because I would rather feel the joy. The joy has never felt. The joy has been consistent. The feelings of gratitude have been consistent.

So let me ask you a question... what if you didn't need suffering to experience happiness? What if you didn't need pain to make space for joy? What if the belief in duality was simply a result of a misunderstanding of the mind? A misunderstanding of the source of experience?

Quote from: pumita92 on April 08, 2021, 05:08:39 AM
I had a pet too! He survived a fire actually, and I definitely grieved when we had to put him down.

I'll share a story and tell me what occurs to you. When I was 18 I had a girlfriend for a year and a half. I believed she was "the one" and when we broke up I was absolutely devastated. I would cry myself to sleep almost every night, for almost six months. I was actually in the military at that time and one day I cried in the ranks. Couldn't hold it in...

In my mind, at the time, I believed I had to feel x amount of grief for the x amount of joy I felt being with her. To me that was the process. Can't have the rain without the rainbow. In my mind, I believed they had to balance out so I could "complete the cycle" of yin and yang. It made sense to me.

When I finally moved on, eventually I got another girlfriend. We had a beautiful relationship too, for about the same amount of time. It was deep and meaningful, but eventually, we did break up, I started grieving again. I recalled having grieved for six months the previous time and I just thought "Not this time."

I wasn't suppressing my emotion. I simply let it go. I didn't really give much attention to grieving thoughts. It's not like I pushed them away. But the natural trajectory of a thought is for it leave our awareness. It's our digging-into-it that makes the experience persistent. And so simply by allowing that natural flow of thought to take place, I was able to live my life joyfully.

There is always so much to be grateful for. The grief wasn't making room for joy, it was obscuring the joy that was always present in my life.

During that first six months of grieving from my first girlfriend, I had no idea that I was creating the experience through thought the entire time. It felt so real and so overwhelming to me. I didn't know that *I* was exercising my freedom to create the experience of grief. I thought it was happening to me. Not from me. But the real-feelingness of an experience isn't evidence for it's importance, it's just a demonstration of how powerful and convincing thought feels in the moment. But thought can change moment by moment. This is very difficult to see when we feel shrouded by negative emotion, however, it still remains true.

When we see that joy is the undercurrent of experience, duality becomes non-duality. Non-duality is impossible to intellectualize because the intellect can only understand things in contrast. But seeing from a deeper place, a place beyond the intellect, enables us to become aware of the undercurrent of beauty and joy in our experience. This beauty and joy is never lost but only obscured by thought. In the absence of thought, in a tranquil mind, the beauty rises to the surface of awareness.

And in fact, it's those moments we spend with our loved ones when the mind is quiet that we really see and appreciate the beauty in them and all around us.

I have had many opportunities to grieve in the last few years. Some people close to me died. I had very small bouts of grief, if any. Simply because I would rather feel the joy. The joy has never felt. The joy has been consistent. The feelings of gratitude have been consistent.

So let me ask you a question... what if you didn't need suffering to experience happiness? What if you didn't need pain to make space for joy? What if the belief in duality was simply a result of a misunderstanding of the mind? A misunderstanding of the source of experience?

Interesting.  I am affected by grief, but not as profoundly as you seem to be.  I've lost grandparents, parents and even a grandson.  Many pets have lived in my space and are gone.  I grieve for them all.  I had a divorce and grieved that as well (a relationship died).  In all instances I totally give in to that grief and literally roll in it!  It is one huge and deep pity-party!  Then I come out of it.  Well, never totally out of it in the sense of never feeling that grief ever again.  For example, my mother died over a decade or so; I still feel grief, but only very briefly, but I still do miss her presence in my life, even though she lives in my memory.  And the same with all the deaths I've had happen in my life.  I don't regard grief as a blockage of joy.  It is simply part and parcel of living; it is a part of the fabric of life.  I don't think of it as a 'duality' but something that is part of the entire package of being alive.  One could strive to be emotion free, but that would deaden the joyful impact of relationships of any kind.  Why live?  If one is going to love one is going to be impacted by grief.  But also a whole lot more of joy and the celebration of life.  Grief and pain give a contrast to the joy and love we feel from the same sources.  In order to get rid of the grief and pain, one would also have to get rid or the source of love and joy.  One could work at not feeling any pain nor grief; but that would be like killing part of oneself to protect oneself.  So, I accept life; and I try to follow Joseph Campbell's motto--follow your bliss.  And I do.  So, I accept the joy and love of life and also the pain and suffering of grief.  It's just life.

Quote from: Mike Cl on April 08, 2021, 09:33:49 AM
Interesting.  I am affected by grief, but not as profoundly as you seem to be.  I've lost grandparents, parents and even a grandson.  Many pets have lived in my space and are gone.  I grieve for them all.  I had a divorce and grieved that as well (a relationship died).  In all instances I totally give in to that grief and literally roll in it!  It is one huge and deep pity-party!  Then I come out of it.  Well, never totally out of it in the sense of never feeling that grief ever again.  For example, my mother died over a decade or so; I still feel grief, but only very briefly, but I still do miss her presence in my life, even though she lives in my memory.  And the same with all the deaths I've had happen in my life.  I don't regard grief as a blockage of joy.  It is simply part and parcel of living; it is a part of the fabric of life.  I don't think of it as a 'duality' but something that is part of the entire package of being alive.  One could strive to be emotion free, but that would deaden the joyful impact of relationships of any kind.  Why live?  If one is going to love one is going to be impacted by grief.  But also a whole lot more of joy and the celebration of life.  Grief and pain give a contrast to the joy and love we feel from the same sources.  In order to get rid of the grief and pain, one would also have to get rid or the source of love and joy.  One could work at not feeling any pain nor grief; but that would be like killing part of oneself to protect oneself.  So, I accept life; and I try to follow Joseph Campbell's motto--follow your bliss.  And I do.  So, I accept the joy and love of life and also the pain and suffering of grief.  It's just life.

Sorry about your mom, and especially your grandson. That must have been tough.

Hmmm... I am all for full acceptance of the whole of the human experience. Meaning to embrace and allow every thought and emotion that passes through you fully. I sometimes refer to myself as a "passive receptor of life". An empty vessel through which life expresses itself. As "that which experiences life", I feel the feelings fully.

The thing is, throughout much of my life, I used this idea that you can't have the rainbow without the rain as a means to make the rain seem more palatable (though I do love rain actually!). I didn't realize through those times that I did have freedom in me. I didn't realize that I was actually giving energy to painful thoughts without even realizing it, and creating a lot of unnecessary suffering for myself. I was under the misunderstanding that life happened TO me, not that my own thoughts were creating my experience and my feelings - and they just felt really compelling and real in the moment.

I've dealt with a lot of insecurity throughout my life. And I had spent most of my life seeking security in all sorts of stuff... money, people, things, working out to look better, etc. And I never actually realised that how I feel is (and has always been, will forever be) simply a shadow of the quality of thought passing through my mind. Thought, originating from within, appearing to be outside me.

So it wasn't like "I was going through a breakup", it was like, breakup thoughts were arising in me, and because I didn't understand how the mind worked, I innocently gave them my attention and created more pain in myself.

My life didn't get duller when I started to allow those painful thoughts to pass, in fact, it got brighter and more beautiful. I have attempted to share this simple understanding with many people. Few people see it in an instant and have eureka moments, most fight me and argue with me. I really don't mind because I know what it's like. I just never know when the right sentence might hit home for someone. One profound insight into the nature of thought and a life of hell can turn into heaven in an instant. Happiness is never more than one thought away. Allow painful thoughts to dissolve and happiness returns. Happiness is inherent to a tranquil, clear mind. Negative emotion needs thought to support it.

So... it's actually the opposite that happened as I began to understand the simple mechanics of the mind that I had overlooked. My life just got better and better and better. Life got easier and easier and easier. I didn't need to practice mindfulness or anything. Everything just changed when I had an insight. I was feeling more grateful by the day. And this whole notion of needing to suffer to feel good simply made no more sense to me.

My friend/roommate Chris for example has always believed that because I didn't spend much time dwelling on insecure, depression, or frustrating thoughts, that that meant I couldn't feel the beauty and joy of life as deeply. And so in his head, he thought I was living a 'grey' life. He always argued with me about how crazy my ideas were. How it was all too simple for me. He was my roommate for four years. He had gone to several counselling sessions in the interim that had been marginally helpful. It wasn't until I moved out that he began to reflect and see that I had been pretty consistently enjoying life while he was usually anxious, depressed, or worried.

He contacted me and said he really wanted to listen to what I had to say. So we sat through a zoom session together (to break the pattern of him getting angry with me, we didn't meet in person), and we spoke for an hour. He started to see what I was talking about. And that weekend he told me something changed in him and he felt much more comfortable in himself. His social anxiety was gone, he was playing and smiling and having fun with new friends - something he forgot he could do without feeling anxious. Simply because he had an insight into the nature of thought, the nature of where his experience was coming from. He was able to feel comfortable in himself. How amazing is that?

We do have freedom! We choose which thoughts to give energy to, and we're choosing in every moment whether we realize it or not.