Self-Awareness is actually maladaptive

or by not being attached to it.

have you ever heard of Thich Nhat Hanh? I've listened to him before, very positive, very good books and talks.

 

I think you're on to something. We're fooling ourselves when we think we're kind and caring beings. We are not. We are selfish cold hearted bastards. Living in comfort and security has given us the freedom to think of ourselves as being more than we are. Take away out security and we'd see ourselves more clearly. We'd kill our neighbors for their food if our kids were starving. We'd eat the dogs we now consider members of our family.

When I was young and trying to support my family on a very limited income we'd sometimes go to the park for a cheap afternoon outing. We'd love watching the swans in the pond and my family was always amazed by their grace and beauty but inside I was scheming over how best to get away with harvesting one for dinner.

 

bro, this statement doesn't explain Jainism. There are many orders and religions that work on compassion, kindness, and overall goodness. They dedicate their lives to helping others and would readily die for their beliefs.

There is nothing wrong with that; shows you have a hunter's spirit and you were hungry. It sounds like you have had a lot of hardship in your life (like others I personally know...), but this life isn't about just raw animal drives. I understand that is part of it, but if a man is so base, then he really doesn't understand the concept of God and how man should reach out for him. By this, I mean the idealistic view, the grandest scheme, the best outcome. Magnanimity in spirit... the ghost of second Christmas!

This is one of my favorite scenes in film of all time.

Life and I made a mutual vow
'Till I die
Life and I
We'll both try to be better somehow

 

Awareness is often superficial, one who says or thinks to themselves "I am aware" is using their conscious mind, which is comprised of all your conditionings, your memories, all of which exists in the past. The past is an illusion, much like the future, all that exists is the present, as an eternal moment. So to exist in the present, to be truly aware, one must be able to see the world with a still mind, without labels or opinions, distance or division.

Our lives are constantly divided, between my life and your life, work life and personal life, religions, politics, what we like and don't like, and so on. Where there is division there is conflict, there is thought, so the mind cannot be still. Awareness implies action. Thought implies reaction, as well as analysis, which takes time, so while one is thinking, they cannot act in the moment; they cannot be truly aware.

 

You could be right, I go mostly by what I feel is true and I don't believe in the supernatural which includes Jainism. Nothing I could say would explain Jainism and nothing anyone else says can prove its existence. Anything I must accept on faith alone I have trouble with.

As far as people dying for their beliefs, that doesn't mean much. People like the Islamic extremists who blows himself up along with a bus of schoolgirls dies for his beliefs but it doesn't mean he's full of compassion and goodness, it means he's warped and his religion is responsible. Jainism is an interesting concept but I think someone simply made it up. IMO it's silly to believe there is a force in the world keeping track of our good deeds and bad, and will later give us our just rewards. Maybe Santa Claus does. I'm afraid to say Santa doesn't exist.

 

so do I, but as I explained above, the ideal remains. Am I an animal or am I a man? Also the question of the mind body problem is an interesting and ancient debate. Have you read the Upanishads? Also, your mode of thought (ie. physicalism) is actually a branch of yoga, but many don't know that. Many branches of yoga, but mainly there is three main branches which represent bhakti (worship and servitude), hatha (physical exercise type), and rasha (philosophical, meditative, etc).

 

Am I animal or a man? I am a man and everyone knows men are animals, just ask your wife. People make shit up. L. Ron Hubbard, the guy who came up with Scientology, wrote some great works of fiction in addition to his stupid Scientology books. He had an amazing imagination. I've enjoyed reading a couple of his books but I couldn't read his Scientology books.

There was a time, long ago but not so very far away, that I was briefly interested in the Eastern religions but I think it was because it was all the rage at the time. I was interested because it was new to me and some people I thought were cool were into it but when it came down to actually believing any of it I decided those religions may have something to say about human behavior but their truths weren't mine, I couldn't buy what they were selling. I guess I did buy a few sticks of incense from the dumbasses working the airports but I couldn't go for their programming. I think I still have a copy of I Ching somewhere around here. I found it on a mountain top in Placitas NM, a hippy turned yuppie area just outside Albuquerque.

I've wished I could have been a believer and I tried. Keep an open mind, they said. Now I think an open mind s a breeding ground for all kinds of silliness.

 

that is nothing like I'm talking about. Eastern philosophy/religion isn't like Abrahamism (or Judaism, Islam, Christians, etc), it's more Platonic than that, or maybe I should say Pythagorean. Upanishads can really bring one back to the center, the source of consciousness; it really snags one. The Hare Krishna movement (like incense selling people) is nice too, but I'm not talking joining a cult I mean to stay on topic regarding consciousness and the need for compassion. It's not an easy thing for me to be compassionate; fuckin migrants everywhere, GD turncoat citizens not creating, just eating, ruining shit. I see what you see too man, but at the same time, I try to be greater than all these things, and I think that's what makes the difference. Without the introduction of compassion and virtue, than we are but dogs yelping for scraps from the owners, and I refuse to live like that. Anyhow, the Bhagavad gita is nothing like a cult movement; it's more just a guidebook of what man really is. Upanishads make you see life like you are in everything, and buddhism, well, that depends which school. My point to bring this up though was that many others live by these codes, even if they are not yours. They also recognize overpopulation, wide scale poverty, property crime, and violent fukheads, but yet they still live the way they do. You'd be surprised by the book I suggested, it's much more along your line of thinking than you think

 

I'm a humanist and I suspect the originators of the eastern religions were also. I doubt there's much difference between your codes and mine. I'm sure you're familiar with Humanism but reviewing the philosophy will only take you two minutes and I'm interested in how you think it compares with your life philosophy.

 

I am partially a humanist, although I still want to believe. Some things in this plane I cannot explain solely based on logic. When I first met my wife, I was really living in freestyle. No real money, very chaotic, but yet, I was very secure in my spirituality... so much that I could feel a weird vibe from people when attempting to guess their horoscope sign. Now hear me out, because I know it sounds flaky, and although I was not 100% accurate, I was getting very good at it and could list it off ~80% at the time. I was celebrating with some friends in a pub and we were all getting there, when a friend of mine says 'go ahead, guess her sign' as she waited in anticipation, I loudly lol'd and said 'capricorn, that's easy' (which I was right, and pompously knew); but there was something else there... I knew I had met my wife.

I personally think that consciousness is an eternal being that I saw once in deep meditation; very kaladescopic (!), but I also encountered another aspect of this eternal consciousness (once on psychedelics and atm was reading the bhagavad gita), which was very scary for me, and that was the knowledge of eternity and that I (or it, the source consciousness) was eternal. It was also all things. It was also alone. I found after reading many ancient scripts (ie. Upanishads) that they ultimately also saw it that way, maybe they had indulged in some soma back in the day.

Now if this eternal consciousness (spirit, knowledge, being) is there and knows it is for ever alive and being, this can become very heavy on a mortal mind, because it feels like the abyss. I suspect that's why Arjuna fell before Krishna, because Krishna showed is efflulgent form... and it was too much for Arjuna to handle.

If what I hypothesize is correct, than all creatures and manifestations are derived from this eternal consciousness, which are just his thoughts, his dreams.

I need to read more Schoepenhauser as he was the Western's source of the same information derived from the East, although I wonder how much Eastern philosophy had influenced him.

imo, there also needs to be an understanding when reading these ancient scripts, especially about Gods/demigods, etc. These 'Gods' that the ancients were talking about were representations of non-physical aspects that exist but are formless (*note similarity with Plato/Socrates); things like beauty, strength, intelligence, etc. Things that do exist, but we are not able to grasp. And when they claim (in the BG) that whoever worships a God/demigod will receive the appropriate boons, this is obviously true; so if I worship strength, well how do you do that? You go to the gym, you become a jock, etc. And the appropriate boon would be strength and endurance; or if you worship beauty, you get makeup, or clothes, or facelifts, etc and the boons are (normally) enhanced beauty. But I think people just don't get it. That's why I (and many great thinkers) have enjoyed and still enjoy the Bhagavad gita. It is not some weird cult thing.

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us the 'Universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security." -Albert Einstein, New York Post, 28 November 1972



I'd say I'm more a theosophist, but I'm not part of that organization. Maybe more Bahai? I try to find the similarity in all religions and it comes back to the Golden Rule, which isn't religious at all.

One last point, on catechism, or any (proper) religious training: consider society; can morality as taught by religion benefit society? I know, I'm secular/agnostic in most matters, but I feel there is still importance in fundamental religious and philosophical training.

sorry for the long post.

 

I'm only partly humanist also. Organized Humanism has officially endorsed abortion and other progressive ideas. It's gone political. I like the basic humanist ideals but like most good ideas, when people turn what should be a simple concept into a bureaucracy they fuck it up.

I'm afraid you lost me with the horoscope stuff but thanks for the discussion.