The Myth of Objective Reality

[opiumo]

We are creating distinctions inside of our consciousness and then all these distinctions are perceived as whatever we see, hear, feel, smell, taste, etc.

So, basically, we are creating our own reality, or illusion (depends on how you look at it)

The thing to grasp is that there is NO objective, physical world, as we believe and assume there is. What is actually there is not-known. Or to be even more precise: there is NOTHING there, but this is outside of belief and perception and has to be directly experienced. It cannot be believed, because in our perception it seems that there is "something" there.

It's as if our consciousness creates distinctions, and projects these distinctions onto an empty canvas, where our perception perceive this image or hears the sound, or tastes the pudding, etc.

To actually grasp this, one has to become aware that they don't know what anything IS.

For anything that exists, we only have a name (label) and what that thing can be used for. Besides this, we don't know what something is, and in fact, we have no way of knowing what something is fundamentally.

This is why most people have a difficulty with these viewpoints.

If you believe you KNOW something, and consider these things to be facts, you will resist these ideas.

What do you mean? Like that we can only see threecolourd wavelengths or that our senses are not as 'better' then other species? If we interp something it is real, its just our interp that is subjective? I'm quite bad at english so this discussion prolly wont go very far.

 

[GreenPlant]

"The Matrix" (1999) -- 'Construct' Scenes

An excellent sample of what I'm pointing at, when I say that everything that is occuring, is occuring in our imagination.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGZiLMGdCE0

Then your Complaining at the Body...
Ungrateful **** lol.

Or and then is the Body Redundant!

Open your Eyes!
Too speak more of what you will understand is
When you are Older.WISER.you will Understand
As Countless Generations Do Will And Have

Talk from polluted man spreads A disease that goes Far and Wide
Polluted man is Made from ACCEPTING What Society/media etc Throws at you.........
Also what you allow is what you accept

Yes Explore your tunnel Vision of Words! lol

Pictures Sounds! Tell me is that what makes your Words

Ever a Contradiction.

that makes ya happy CAN YOUU DIGG ITTT


Sorry to whinge on ya thread Man
Problem is mine

Must Add now this Vibe is opon me
Tell me what words there are for the CREATION of the Sun if all Creation was from a big Bang (lol)

Over sized star! Reason for!

 

[southflorida]

What do you mean? Like that we can only see threecolourd wavelengths or that our senses are not as 'better' then other species? If we interp something it is real, its just our interp that is subjective? I'm quite bad at english so this discussion prolly wont go very far.

The easiest way to grasp what I am trying to explain is to understand that our perceptions are in-direct.

We don't directly perceive anything that we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, think, etc.

For those folks that doubt: This has been a scientific fact for a while now.

This is where the confusion for human beings occurs. The majority of people believe and assume that they directly perceive what is there.

So when they see a tree, they believe and assume they are seeing a tree DIRECTLY.

But, this is NOT SO.

In the first post in this thread I wrote how our sense organs work, but if we boil it all down, what actually happens is inside our self-mind we are provided with images, sounds, tastes, feelings, tastes, etc.

So, in our in-direct perceptions there are both objective things (objects) like water, rocks, etc, and there are also subjective things (concepts, like beliefs, assumptions, convictions, ideas, etc).

But, it is important to understand that we are NOT directly perceiving reality, and have no way to experience reality through our senses.

We can only do that DIRECTLY, and this direct experience would be outside of our perceptions, or to be more correct the direct experience is what is always there, it is what is PRIMARY, ORIGINAL, AUTHENTIC.

It is what IS now.

What we perceive is what IS-NOT, what is SECONDARY, an illusion.

 

[BushyOldGrower]

Yeah, I have no way of knowing the objective reality but however things really are is the objective reality.

Really not sure about much other than some of the higher laws like reincarnation and gravity but what are they really?

The Matrix is just a movie though and while very entertaining I doubt that this is the objective reality. We just can't really know by guessing. So I agree that our subjective observations are unreliable but it's all we have to try and make sense of our lives.

You do exist. We are the objective reality...whatever we are.

Not this pitiful flesh that we see but beings of light who are truly immortal if only we could see through the illusion of birth and death.

Enlightenment is understanding the truth and it's a big concept but all you need to know is thyself. It's the first and the second most important thing to know.

Who are you? I am BOG

 

[southflorida]

Yeah, I have no way of knowing the objective reality but however things really are is the objective reality.

Really not sure about much other than some of the higher laws like reincarnation and gravity but what are they really?

The Matrix is just a movie though and while very entertaining I doubt that this is the objective reality. We just can't really know by guessing. So I agree that our subjective observations are unreliable but it's all we have to try and make sense of our lives.

You do exist. We are the objective reality...whatever we are.

Not this pitiful flesh that we see but beings of light who are truly immortal if only we could see through the illusion of birth and death.

Enlightenment is understanding the truth and it's a big concept but all you need to know is thyself. It's the first and the second most important thing to know.

Who are you? I am BOG

What's up BOG

Your disclaimer is pointing at the truth and at objective reality >>> NOTHING...and NOT-KNOWING.

This is actually what is first, primary, original, and authentic.

NOTHING and NOT-KNOWING.

And, yes, our subjective interpretations are all we have to make sense of this thing we call our "self" and our "life."

Thanks for stopping by, and your in-direct perceptions and subjective interpretations that helped you to create many strains that people love.

So, they are definitely effective at creating things that matter to oneself and to other human beings.

 

[southflorida]

Among the great things which are to be found among us,
the Being of Nothingness is the greatest.

—Leonardo da Vinci

"I know one thing: that I know nothing"

—Socrates

 

[bombadil.360]

this antecedent reality, prior to the perceptions formed by the senses as well as thinking process, is amply discussed in the Eneads by Plotinus btw. where he describes that this uncreated, antecedent 'state' is not only accessible by us, but also a necessary thing to do in order to understand philosophy.

if my memory serves me right, probably somewhere in tractate number nine or so he goes deeply into it.

 

[southflorida]

this antecedent reality, prior to the perceptions formed by the senses as well as thinking process, is amply discussed in the Eneads by Plotinus btw. where he describes that this uncreated, antecedent 'state' is not only accessible by us, but also a necessary thing to do in order to understand philosophy.

if my memory serves me right, probably somewhere in tractate number nine or so he goes deeply into it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plotinus

First time I heard about him, even this wikipedia page is interesting to read. Will definitely read the Eneads by him.

Thanks for the info

 

[opiumo]

The easiest way to grasp what I am trying to explain is to understand that our perceptions are in-direct.

We don't directly perceive anything that we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, think, etc.

For those folks that doubt: This has been a scientific fact for a while now.

This is where the confusion for human beings occurs. The majority of people believe and assume that they directly perceive what is there.

So when they see a tree, they believe and assume they are seeing a tree DIRECTLY.

But, this is NOT SO.

In the first post in this thread I wrote how our sense organs work, but if we boil it all down, what actually happens is inside our self-mind we are provided with images, sounds, tastes, feelings, tastes, etc.

So, in our in-direct perceptions there are both objective things (objects) like water, rocks, etc, and there are also subjective things (concepts, like beliefs, assumptions, convictions, ideas, etc).

But, it is important to understand that we are NOT directly perceiving reality, and have no way to experience reality through our senses.

We can only do that DIRECTLY, and this direct experience would be outside of our perceptions, or to be more correct the direct experience is what is always there, it is what is PRIMARY, ORIGINAL, AUTHENTIC.

It is what IS now.

What we perceive is what IS-NOT, what is SECONDARY, an illusion.

..So my weed is an illusion? bummer...

 

[mrcreosote]

Stand between the railroad tracks at 8:04 and wait for the 8:05 train.

Come back later and tell me there is no objective reality.

I'll wait.

 

[barnyard]

exactly mrcreosote.

the OP is confusing meaning and reality

 

[southflorida]

Stand between the railroad tracks at 8:04 and wait for the 8:05 train.

Come back later and tell me there is no objective reality.

I'll wait.

I made it quite clear in a few posts that there is an objective reality, but it is an illusion, an image, a sound, a feeling etc., provided to us through our in-direct senses.

This means that what you believe and assume you see, is fundamentally different DIRECTLY.

What we are perceiving is a SECONDARY process, it is NOT the PRIMARY REALITY, not what is REAL, and NOT what is actually there.

We (our self-mind) is INTERPRETING what is REAL, and providing us with an interpretation and a meaning to this REAL reality.

This is like saying that what is shown to you in a movie, on the movie screen is OBJECTIVE and TRUE REALITY.

I'm saying that the PROJECTOR and the FILM spinning inside providing the image on the screen is PRIMARY, and the image on the screen is a secondary illusion.

The image on the screen is a representation of reality, it is NOT the actual reality that was filmed.

Our present moment experience is like this, except the TRUE REALITY that we are interpreting is NOT-KNOWN to us, we are interpreting data that is not-known and our self-mind is providing us with images, sounds, tastes, feelings, etc.

This is ALL happening inside our mind, inside our imagination, inside our awareness, inside our consciousness.

===========================
Me standing between the railroad tracks at 8:04 and waiting for the 8:05 train will all happen inside my mind, not DIRECTLY as you and a few others believe and assume.
===========================

Human beings have a problem grasping this because they either ignore or are not aware that their senses provide perceptions that are in-direct and secondary.

You are confusing primary and secondary.

I'm saying that reality is primary, it is what IS, what is first, original, authentic.

You (and a few others) are trying to say that the secondary reality is primary, not grasping that your interpretation process is in-direct.

 

[southflorida]

exactly mrcreosote.

the OP is confusing meaning and reality

if you actually read and then contemplate what I'm writing and trying to point out, you will notice that it is not I, that is confused in this case.

 

[southflorida]

..So my weed is an illusion? bummer...

I'm simply trying to point at the TRUE NATURE of our human experience.

Inside our self-mind, inside our imagination that weed and the high you experience is VERY real.

My point is that 100% of our SELF-EXPERIENCE on a moment-to-moment basis is created by our self-mind.

Our experience is of our own making, we are the ones making the distinctions inside our awareness, inside our mind, inside our imagination.

We ARE the Consciousness that is aware OF everything and simultaneously aware AS everything.

Consciousness is absolutely NOTHING and infinitely EVERYTHING.

There is NOTHING outside of it.

And everything inside is IT, itself.

 

[offthehook]

I once came to this realisation after an outer body experience some years ago SF.

Sure, it did a whole lot to my comprehension of life and beeing out of existence*, still, one's gotto move on with the present circumstances and with the daily ppl surrounding you somehow.

A thing that becomes increasingly difficult to do once you get a taste of truth, while most others still seem to be lost.
This my friend, is the thing that makes me feel 'lost' most of all.

Thanks for sharing, write on please

*I prefere using the words 'out of existence' instead of 'beeing dead'. To me there is no difference in 'not beeing born yet' and 'having lived'.
More accurate would be to be 'out of existence'. The word 'dead' is rather negatively loaded in our society wich should not be imho.

I found that in nature and fysics, everything is always shifting between beeing in or out of existence.

Quote SF.[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Consciousness is absolutely NOTHING and infinitely EVERYTHING.Unquote.

Since I can't be 100% sure of this beeing a Universal truth, I put it on my list of possible options.
D'be so much more easy if I could take it as a full truth like the way I experienced it in my outer body experience.
But then again, an outerbody experience is also only something that was registered by my indirect senses called the inner mind. (or sixth sense)
At that moment I was kinda expecting it would let me go out of existence, but it just didn't. It realised it would have been too much of an impact to my surroundment.
(Not talking suicide here, just some weird stuff that just happened)

[/FONT]

 

[southflorida]

I once came to this realisation after an outer body experience some years ago SF.

Sure, it did a whole lot to my comprehension of life and beeing out of existence*, still, one's gotto move on with the present circumstances and with the daily ppl surrounding you somehow.

A thing that becomes increasingly difficult to do once you get a taste of truth, while most others still seem to be lost.
This my friend, is the thing that makes me feel 'lost' most of all.

Thanks for sharing, write on please

*I prefere using the words 'out of existence' instead of 'beeing dead'. To me there is no difference in 'not beeing born yet' and 'having lived'.
More accurate would be to be 'out of existence'. The word 'dead' is rather negatively loaded in our society wich should not be imho.

I found that in nature and fysics, everything is always shifting between beeing in or out of existence.

Quote SF.[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Consciousness is absolutely NOTHING and infinitely EVERYTHING.Unquote.

Since I can't be 100% sure of this beeing a Universal truth, I put it on my list of possible options.
D'be so much more easy if I could take it as a full truth like the way I experienced it in my outer body experience.
But then again, an outerbody experience is also only something that was registered by my indirect senses called the inner mind. (or sixth sense)
At that moment I was kinda expecting it would let me go out of existence, but it just didn't. It realised it would have been too much of an impact to my surroundment.
(Not talking suicide here, just some weird stuff that just happened)

[/FONT]

As far as living with people after becoming directly conscious of the truth is NOT harder, it is easier, because you stop pretending to be something that you are NOT.

For some people it might be harder to be around YOU, but that is another story. This, as a rule happens because they might not like you being YOU.

In this case, this kind of relationship based on pretending would be better off coming to an end...no?

 

[southflorida]

WARNING: This is a long post, so GreenPlant do not read it

===========================

When we perceive reality in-directly, we not only DON'T have a direct experience of what IS there, we also perceive everything in relation to what it means "FOR-ME" - as in - what does this perception mean for me?

What does this person mean for me? What does this circumstance mean for me? What does what he/she just said mean for me? ETC.

Every perception that we have, this question..."what does this mean for me?...is included in the perception.

On the other hand, when we perceive something for-itself we’re much closer to grasping its unaltered presence, but it’s still a perception, and therefore it’s still indirect.

When we make a distinction between the awareness of something for-itself and the consciousness of something as-itself, we see that getting something as-itself does not occur in the domain of perception.

"As-itself" is the thing.

It can’t be perceived, since perception by nature is not the thing perceived. Perception is a method, a vehicle, through which to glean practical but indirect information about something.

The thing-itself can only be gotten through direct consciousness.

With this consideration, we have gone beyond what is immediately intelligible, or even thinkable or imaginable. Yet, pondering what’s being said and where it points, we may begin to recognize how the term "as-itself" refers to the true nature of something.

Unfortunately, the operating principle that founds our entire experience, mind, and understanding is the persistence of the self.

Our experience of our whole existence is based on this principle.

An awareness that’s dominated by self-survival is inconsistent with the consciousness of being-as-itself. Unless we can deeply grasp this, how can we do justice to our attempt to become conscious of Being?

Taken all together, our perceptive faculties do not amount to consciousness. Beyond what we can perceive physically or mentally, perhaps we sense that there may be a possibility of becoming conscious of what something actually is, what "Being" is, without really understanding what that means.

Whatever Being actually is as itself cannot be discerned through our perception or mind, if for no other reason than our perception—our experience, our awareness —was never designed for that purpose.

Its purpose is self-survival.

FROM ANOTHER THREAD:

The "Social Survival" domain is the largest and most continuously attended domain of our moment to moment self-survival. It is much broader that most folks might suppose...in fact MUCH, MUCH broader.

The mere existence of another person—whether in front of us or only in our minds—creates an entire world, one that cannot exist without the possibility of interacting with another. Think about it.

The act of comparing yourself to others, the idea of being a good or bad person can only occur in relation to others.

The existence of social interplay generates realms such as judgment, communication, emotion, manipulation, sexuality, empathy, and argument.

Without "other people," we wouldn’t have notions like value, self-worth, individuality, beauty, deceit, honesty, agreement, and accountability; nor would we experience reactions like hurt feelings, intimidation, pride, love, embarrassment, loneliness, hate, and shame.

Social survival is the source of language, family, religion, politics, the media, community, culture, entertainment, education, fashion, status, employment, government, subcultures, music, law, and on and on. All of these activities exist solely because the social domain exists.

Imagine what it would be like without any of those domains of experience.

Our social survival is the source of every concern of self-image, self-consciousness, and self-esteem, and these issues don’t pause for us, ever. In fact, most of our thoughts and feelings are socially oriented, since they arise and exist in relationship to other people.

We are social creatures, and the majority of our self-identity is designed in relation to the social domain. It’s difficult to grasp this because we live so thoroughly ensconced within our self-identity that it seems merely an aspect of reality.

The fact is that our self-identity exists because of the social domain.

Our overall experience of life is determined in reference to others and the community we inhabit. Even in the life of a hermit, most conceptual "survival" activities are devoted to self-in-relationship. In fact, without others, he could not even be a "hermit."

It is very important for us to maintain, promote, and protect ourselves in relation to everyone we encounter, or even imagine. This whole domain is central to our lives, and yet we are rarely able to comprehend the enormity of its effect on our experience.

The impact of social survival becomes a more grounded idea for us when we examine our emotional reactivity. What and how we feel determines the quality of our lives and motivates our behavior. Emotional reactions continually arise in relation to how others view and relate to us, or we to them. We can be devastated by another’s comment, or exhilarated by their attention. We may suffer a moody depression when feeling inferior to our peers, or delight in witty conversation with our friends.

A large part of our efforts in communication and interaction revolve around our emotional states, with our more intimate relationships typically revealing the greatest range and depth of our feelings.

We are continually spurred on by how we feel, and our actions are most frequently taken to lead our experience away from negative emotions and toward more positive ones.

Of course, it can’t be as simple as that, since it’s obvious that we often fail to avoid negative emotions and sometimes even evoke them or take action that brings them about.

Why on earth would we do that?

Because there is an even bigger concern than whether or not we feel good.

The primary concern of your self-survival drive isn’t to increase your happiness or status in the world. More important even than that is to "be" in the world. This impulse will include "social" aspects as you promote the continued existence of the person you identify as yourself—your character and personal identity.

It is imperative that you survive, and doing so requires a consistent recognizable "you"—the one you’ve always been.

You might like to become all that you imagine you can be, or even make a change to your way of seeing things. Yet whatever you do, you will do it within the boundaries of who you already are in the world.

"Who we are" in a conventional sense is full of image, history, status, values, character traits, and self-worth. We are largely made up of concerns such as what people think of us, what we want them to think or fear they may think of us, what we think of ourselves, and what we present as ourselves to others.

We seem to come by all of these things quite naturally, but upon reflection we can trace much of it to choices we made and struggles we’ve survived throughout childhood and beyond. These emotional characteristics, behavioral patterns, self-images, personal beliefs, and every other attribute identified as one’s self need to persist in order to ensure the survival of that particular self.

The survival drive protects our conceptual self with the same tenacity that it applies to our bodily persistence. A threat to our identity is a threat to self. Since our survival in the conceptual world is largely at stake in our interactions—in other words, "socially"—the way that we think of ourselves and "position" ourselves in relation to other people is seen as very important.

Even when there is no one around to challenge our identity, our continuous sense of self-in-relation-to-other remains a nearly inescapable aspect of self-survival.

The more self attributes we’re attached to and the more traits we identify with, the more we have that needs to be protected and managed as “self.” This means that every facet of our self-image, every characteristic pattern of our behavior, every emotional nuance that comprises our self-concept and emotional self becomes something to defend, express, and promote—in other words, to "be" as a verb.

Protecting our social status is a primary motive for misrepresentation (lying). We find that what we present and express influences the kinds of reactions we receive. Since we have many social needs, and we want people to have a good image of us, this becomes an almost irresistible trap. We begin altering our expressions, painting a picture of "who we are" that diverges slightly from what’s actually true in our experience. This is a misrepresentation, a lie.

Once we get used to going down that road, it begins to become automatic. By the time most of us are adults, so much of this has taken place and the real and the false have become so blurred that most people honestly believe things about themselves that aren’t true.

These affectations were only adopted so that we and others would view us in a particular light, but repetition has created a real pattern of misrepresentation. Such patterns then turn into character traits, and become believed as real even by oneself. This is one way a false-self begins to be perceived as real.

When a false-self determines our expressions, these will not only be inaccurate representations of what’s there, they will be purposeful misrepresentations. The consequence of such distortion and misrepresentation provides the bulk of the negative self-concepts, feelings, and experiences that we currently endure.

Surviving as a Self

We devote our energies and intelligence to whatever we believe to be ourselves. We promote, defend, protect, serve, maintain, advance, care for, and preserve this self. We are genetically and culturally programmed to do whatever it takes to ensure that our selves persist, that we survive any and all ordeals that life metes out. This same motivation permeates every facet of our experience, from escaping mortal danger to a trivial conversation with someone in a forum such as this.

This impelling force doesn’t just relate to some factual or objective self; it is applied to anything that we identify as the self—the entire "snowball" of characteristics that we know as self.

We find this self-preservation impulse in everything we do, think, and feel, since we are constantly compelled to maintain our self-identity.

If you want to have a direct experience of "being" who you truly are, you must place yourself in opposition to this relentless drive for self-continuity.

By "surviving a self" I don’t mean outlasting or persisting in spite of, as in "I survived a tsunami," but there’s no word I know that can do the job as well.

The words maintain or persist are simply not accurate enough since they don’t convey the force, magnitude, and complexity of the drive that I'm talking about.

Although to maintain something means keeping it in existence, which is what we do with a self, the word suggests both puttering and working on something that already exists.

But, when we actually look into this matter, we find that self is continually creating as well as maintaining itself, so "surviving a self" is the best phrase to indicate the entirety of conceptual survival—the activity of generating, sustaining, protecting, promoting, and persisting as a self.

So "self survival," as I speak of it, should have a sense of someone busy being like a verb—like the hamster on his wheel, very active, but actually not going anywhere.

When we are surviving a self, we’re creating it, living within it, and creating from it. We’re shaping the world around us in our perceptions, just as we are defining ourselves not only by our reactions in the world but through whatever we identify and cling to as the self.

Imagine that self is like a "magic dust" that gets on anything we see and reforms it so it becomes part of us, or at least relates to us.

The way we create and live as a self is quite functional and appropriate for our survival. It’s not all that hard; billions of people do it daily. The essential impulse is to "exist," and to exist we need to be something in particular.

The drive might be basic and simple, but surviving a self is an extremely complex activity, generating the world we perceive as well as the self that we are.

The whole process is so all-consuming and so essential to human nature that we are hard-pressed even to recognize it.

Can you find this in your own experience?

Are we confusing Happiness with Self-Survival?

Nothing seems to mean more to us than our happiness, but we may once again be confusing one thing for another. Culturally, we share a belief that obtaining what we desire will make us happy. Yet when all is said and done, does it?

Obtaining what we desire may indeed temporarily alleviate some fear, tension, or struggle related to our self-concerns. It may even bring the rush of pleasure that accompanies success. None of these is happiness.

Contrary to our common assumption, the pleasant emotion associated with accomplishing a goal or avoiding a threat is not an experience of happiness, it is an experience of victory or relief. Perhaps a bit of giddiness or satisfaction arises when we successfully manage some aspect of self-survival, but this is not happiness—and is always only temporary. The next survival issue is sure to arise in due course.

...Since survival is about persistence, issues will persist.

Although it may seem like it, happiness never was the goal of our efforts. Self-persistence is our goal. This is an important distinction. Although everyone says in earnest that he or she wants to be happy, this statement really means: "I want to have what I want, and to not have what I don’t want." For most of us these seem like the same goal, so what’s the problem?

The thing is that wanting and not wanting are really statements of self-survival, not happiness. There is a reason this dynamic goes unnoticed for what it is.

As a metaphor we could say we are like a mouse running inside its wheel. What keeps us moving is the allure of some tasty cheese—the myth of obtainable "survival-happiness"— just outside the wheel. The "cheese" is only there to get us to run; it is not there for us to obtain. Unfortunately for us, we don’t know that.

Since we don’t seem to be closing the gap, we run all the harder chasing this cheese—the promise of happiness. If we didn’t believe we were entitled to the cheese, or we knew we couldn’t ever get the cheese, we’d stop running. But our wheel and our running and what we perceive as our particular needs are a large part of what makes us "this particular self."

In the overall scheme of surviving as a self, it’s imperative that we remain ignorant of what’s true and what’s only an illusion. If we were to grasp this dynamic for what it is, this self we’ve become confused with might cease to persist.

Although we tend to think that attaining all positives and avoiding all negatives would make us happy, this is not actually the purpose of wanting and not wanting. Notice our desire to be happy is not the desire to be happy with whatever happens to be the case, or to be happy whether we get what we want or not, or to be happy regardless of how life turns out.

Being happy is confused with being successful, or being comfortable, or having life turn out as desired, or being free from pain and suffering. Believe it or not, all of these last examples are self-survival orientations. They are not the impulse to be happy.

It’s hard for us to recognize the difference between happiness and the sensations associated with successful self-survival. We’re hardwired so that the activities of self-survival take precedence on every level, especially an emotional one.

The emotional promise of happiness IS what keeps us moving on our wheel.

When we confuse obtaining survival goals—getting what we want, fulfilling needs, winning some battle, protecting ourselves from danger—with being happy, we also assume that realizing these goals is the only way to be happy. This is a false assumption.

Using “happiness” as a survival goal puts it out of our reach—it becomes the unobtainable "cheese" that motivates us forward in life. We are stuck moving from one obtainment to another, from one struggle to the next, sometimes feeling good about it and sometimes feeling bad, yet never actually and only being happy with whatever is taking place. The promise of the cheese drives us to persist as the one that we are or want to be, but it doesn’t provide a sense of inner freedom or happiness where we stand.

Another thing that we completely ignore or are not aware of is that self-survival is the cause of all suffering.

As much as we desire happiness, we abhor suffering. Suffering seems to be the antithesis of being happy, and yet they are both based on the same dynamic. As much as we run toward the cheese of happiness, we run away from the pain of suffering. They both keep the wheel spinning in the same direction. It is easy to see suffering as unwanted; it’s not so easy to see that it exists solely as a mechanism of self-survival.

If there were no self, and so no drive to survive, then there would be no suffering. There would be no manipulation, no struggle, no dissatisfaction, no desire, no misrepresentation, no self esteem, no hurt feelings, no worry, etc. There would be no pain, but even if some activity existed fulfilling the role of pain, it would be of little
consequence and not a form of suffering.

Self-survival is the origin of suffering.

Strange as this may sound, "being" and life can take place without a self or the need to survive. In our culture it isn’t likely, but it is possible.

Since being without a self is inconceivable and very hard to realize, such freedom remains unknown to virtually everyone. Yet without a self designed for and committed to survival, there is no suffering.

To get a handle on this, recall any form of suffering, any distress, worry, upset, fear, misery, stress, longing, or anything else that you suffer, and consider long and hard: if you didn’t care about you persisting in any way, if it didn’t matter to you if you existed or not, got your way or not, or that things turned out in a way consistent with your desires and needs, if you let go of attachment to your self and the survival of your self, would you suffer any of these things? The answer is NO.

You cannot suffer when there is no self trying to survive. You cannot suffer when you have no drive to persist. The desire to survive, to persist as the self that you are, is the cause of suffering.

Of course, the self can be very convoluted and intricate, involving attachments to any number of things—emotions, perceptions, ideas, memories, character traits, objects, senses, and so on —even objects and concepts outside the jurisdiction of the individual self.

But the principle is the same, whatever self "is" or "is attached to" will engender the persistence and protection of that thing, and the self will also suffer the struggles, and so the fear and pain, that accompany this survival disposition.

Freedom from self and self-attachments ends the suffering involved in persisting as a self.

No self = no suffering.

But we don't need to reach an absolute state of complete "no self" to reduce suffering. Any movement in the direction of understanding this dynamic will serve to decrease our suffering. Notice that "no self = no suffering" translates to "no aspect of self = no suffering that aspect."

We can see that "being" doesn’t mean that one has to persist as this particular self, being this particular way. If in the next moment the self is no longer that way, but some other way, then that self didn’t survive, but being still remains. Letting go of the self-survival-drive can apply to anything you identify with or are attached to, from the smallest and most insignificant belief or reaction to your life and death.

Consider: if you were to suddenly let go of one of your beliefs, if you had no motivation to maintain this belief (have it survive), then it wouldn’t matter at all to you if it were right or wrong, remained or vanished, would it? You would no longer suffer any of the struggles that formerly accompanied your attachment to the belief—defending it, promoting it, or fearing its loss.

This is also true of every emotion, thought, self-image, possession, perception, idea, or anything else you consider you or yours. If "being" is inherently free of any attachments, then it really doesn’t matter if any aspect of a self persists or if the entire self fails to survive altogether.

We assume that if we aren’t in immediate pain, if we aren’t suffering, we should be happy, but in reality this just isn’t so. We may chalk it up to our inherent "human condition," assuming that somehow pain and suffering accompany us just because we exist. In the case of self-survival, this is true. Ultimate happiness seems to elude us no matter how hard we try, and various forms of suffering seem to find us no matter where we hide.

Perhaps it is time to seriously reconsider our assumptions in this matter.

The assertion here is that both the rarity of happiness and the presence of suffering are based on self-survival.

Still, we have little interest in challenging what is perhaps the most fundamental presumption upon which we live - our selves.

In order to embrace such a practice, we would need to be convinced on an experiential level that the source of our unhappiness is somehow tied to the force of maintaining ourselves. We would have to feel for ourselves that in the very impulse of our struggle to survive, we produce unhappiness.

In this way we would be far more inclined to welcome a practice of letting go of the self, and open to becoming conscious of whatever is true about being.

Noticing that the "self" is simply a false cultural assumption in your awareness is a major step toward eliminating it.

Being, who we are originally and authentically, and existing only in the present moment, is what will remain once the false-self is let go.

Very few folks want to take this step, but the few that are ready to stop carrying around this huge rock of concepts on their back, this false-conceptual-self that we confuse with our being, will find true freedom.

 

[offthehook]

As far as living with people after becoming directly conscious of the truth is NOT harder, it is easier, because you stop pretending to be something that you are NOT.

Nope, gotto keep on pretending. It's not all about me yanno.

For some people it might be harder to be around YOU, but that is another story. This, as a rule happens because they might not like you being YOU.
True, so I adjust to what they are comphorteble with.

In this case, this kind of relationship based on pretending would be better off coming to an end...no?

I don't know, and I'm not going to plan that out by myself either as it could only do harm. Not going to fuck with the ways of the Universe SF, lol.
I think it can be doeble somehow & without relationships comming prematurely to an end. It means I will only have to grow larger again wich takes time. Never was a quiter, lol.

 

[southflorida]

I don't know, and I'm not going to plan that out by myself either as it could only do harm. Not going to fuck with the ways of the Universe SF, lol.
I think it can be doeble somehow. It means I will only have to grow larger again wich takes time. Never was a quiter, lol.

If it is working out for you, then okay. But, this pretending and mis-representing yourself, in the long-term leads to suffering and struggle.

Emptiness, self-doubt, feeling trapped....all forms of suffering!

...ever experienced these? Or should I ask has there been a day, where these haven't been experienced?

And what about the struggle necessary to manipulate the circumstances, yourself, and other people in order to eliminate the suffering from experiencing emptiness, self-doubt, feeling trapped?

Maybe this strategy is not so effective?

 

[southflorida]

To sum up where are currently in this thread:

We are NOT aware of any aspect of any object (or concept created by our self-mind) that can’t be represented through our senses.

Any aspect of the object that can’t be carried within a medium of perception cannot be known via perception.

What’s most significant about all this, however, no matter what can or can’t be carried through some perception, is that we are never directly experiencing anything.

We are interpreting the perception of stimulated nerve patterns. This activity is not the object.

We have no direct contact with or perception of the object itself. This is true for each and every one of our perceptive senses. So, we aren’t ever perceiving the thing itself.

We never grasp the real nature of the object.

We never grasp the real nature of our thoughts or emotions either.

From the viewpoint of our in-direct perceptions we simply DON'T KNOW what anything IS.

What’s true is that our consciousness is disconnected from the true nature of reality.

The fact that perception is indirect means there is no amount or method of perception that can bridge this gap.

This is how it IS.