What is God

[Nick_A]

Nick, just so you know, I used to be very positive and optimistic about the idea of a God. I've written many topics about that many times here on this very forum.

Up until I had my final awakening, an epiphany that totally blew my mind, the shock and awe ripped away the rose coloured glasses I used to wear with pride, only to see what is God. What God really is, and not what I wishfully hoped God is.

First of all, I've always believed that reality is everything and nothing simultaneously.

So for me personally, If God is just another label for everything and nothing, then God is a dumb stupid game player. Life or nature or God or whatever we want to call reality, to me, is just one pointless, needless, endless cycle of suffering for nothing. There is no positive utility. Life is not beautiful or good. The idea of ( Good ) only arises when life is sensed to be absent of ( BAD ) and so it's certainly not because there is a fundamental GOODNESS in reality, far from it. There is nothing whatsoever good or beautiful about natures sadistic murdering killing machine, nature is an endless serial killer intent on spreading as much pain disease destruction suffering and misery upon everything it touches, nature is out to get you. It doesn't care.
Nature, which is just another word for God is creating needs and then satisfying them, all of which accomplishes nothing. All these cycles are dumb and pointless. Sentient life is a dead end. Life is inherently cruel for no specific reason or purpose. Humans are in my opinion, hopelessly addicted to this game sadly, who are mostly out of touch with the actual reality of what's really happening here, because they are blinded and seduced by the shiny trinkets ..it's a deluded trick of the brain, a trap we fall for, hook line and sinker. Until you WAKE UP... and when you really wake up from this delusion ...is when you want the fuck out fast. Intelligent people see this actual truth, dumb people just go on ignoring it.

Hello DAM

Just returned from five days at Montauk Long Island to experience amongst other things, the full moon on the magnificent Atlantic ocean. I'm a bit tired now but will answer your post with the respect it deserves tomorrow. In the meantime, consider this quote from P.D. Ouspensky along with your observtion:

“It is only when we realize that life is taking us nowhere that it begins to have meaning.”

Life or nature or God or whatever we want to call reality, to me, is just one pointless, needless, endless cycle of suffering for nothing. There is no positive utility.

You seem to have realized that life is taking you nowhere. Does this mean that life is meaningless or just that animal life is meaningless? It is a living machine; a necessity serving a cosmic purpose? Can human life evolve from animal man to experience conscious universal meaning rather than the meaninglessness of creatures of reaction including animal man?

[Dontaskme]

You seem to have realized that life is taking you nowhere. Does this mean that life is meaningless or just that animal life is meaningless? It is a living machine; a necessity serving a cosmic purpose? Can human life evolve from animal man to experience conscious universal meaning rather than the meaninglessness of creatures of reaction including animal man?

Well there is only NOWHERE Nick.

Glad to hear you are enjoying the sometimes but not always awesome view that is natures natural artwork.

A tad bit meaningless for mice is it not?






The only cosmic purpose is cannibalism. Human is an animal too, nothing more, nothing less. We've just dressed the beast up a little to make it more bearable and palatable, to make it look like it's worth the price of admission. But like I said earlier, we've just put lipstick on the pig. In reality, the suffering is just too high a price to pay. Any form of intelligence on this planet will know that. But as long the human is cast under the illusion that it is winning here, then it will just keep imposing this crapola game on the blissful Unborn so that they too can have a slice of the (well this is a really meaningful cake ) and so be compelled to keep putting them buns in the oven.

You ask...''Can human life evolve from animal man to experience conscious universal meaning''?

I say not really. Natures one sadistic serial killer, so I'm like why would humans want to participate in such a grotesque stupid game?
The only advantage for humans is they can stop playing the game by opting out of it. However, it seems like humans want to keep playing this game over and over again because they seem to think it's fun. So yeah lets just do it all again, like business as usual, on with the horror show and madness, for it has no limits.

.

[Dontaskme]

Mouse Lives Matter.




If humans have feelings, then so do all sentient creatures.

All Creatures Matter.

No Intelligent brain made this universe, lets just face facts, and stop sugar coating reality.

[Nick_A]

DAM

Well there is only NOWHERE Nick.

The only cosmic purpose is cannibalism. Human is an animal too, nothing more, nothing less. We've just dressed the beast up a little to make it more bearable and palatable, to make it look like it's worth the price of admission. But like I said earlier, we've just put lipstick on the pig. In reality, the suffering is just too high a price to pay. Any form of intelligence on this planet will know that. But as long the human is cast under the illusion that it is winning here, then it will just keep imposing this crapola game on the blissful Unborn so that they too can have a slice of the (well this is a really meaningful cake ) and so be compelled to keep putting them buns in the oven.

So how can we understand each other? There is no objective reality for you. For me, the thinginitself is objective reality. What Plato called the GOOD doesn't exist for you.

If GOD is a reality it is ineffable so beyond our conception. We experience life as three dimensions so cannot conceive of the fourth dimension of time much less the fifth or sixth dimensions of eternity nd all possible eternities. Yet if the GOOD or GOD includes this quality of consciousness obviously it is beyond our quality of consciousness.

Knowledge of the One or the GOOD is achieved through the experience of its ‘power’ (dunamis) and its nature, which is to provide a ‘foundation’ (arkhe) and location (topos) for all existents (

So it is naive to ponder what God is but we can ponder what the universe is or the "body of God. Does Man have a conscious purpose within it?

The universe is cannibalism. It is a living machine which eats itself. The ancients described it as the Ouroboros

https://www.crystalinks.com/ouroboros.html

The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. The name originates from within Greek language; (oura) meaning "tail" and (boros) meaning "eating", thus "he who eats the tail".

The Ouroboros represents the perpetual cyclic renewal of life and infinity, the concept of eternity and the eternal return, and represents the cycle of life, death and rebirth, leading to immortality, as in the Phoenix.

It seems we have two basic questions:

Does the Ouroboros have a purpose for its existence or just an illusion created by a sadistic God?

If it has a purpose, is it found by examining the results or the suffering you've described, or in the PROCESS of existence found by learning the universal laws which regulate the living machine or the body of God? Do we find human meaning by concentrating on arguing the results we see or by discovering the purpose of the lawful PROCESS which creates this necessity we can only discover by consciously opening to this experience?

If the universe has no purpose and we are nowhere, let's just go our drinking and forget all about philosophy, religion, or anything else which supports this illusion and what Plato described as a being in search of meaning.

[Dontaskme]

Does the Ouroboros have a purpose for its existence or just an illusion created by a sadistic God?

If it has a purpose, is it found by examining the results or the suffering you've described, or in the PROCESS of existence found by learning the universal laws which regulate the living machine or the body of God? Do we find human meaning by concentrating on arguing the results we see or by discovering the purpose of the lawful PROCESS which creates this necessity we can only discover by consciously opening to this experience?

If the universe has no purpose and we are nowhere, let's just go our drinking and forget all about philosophy, religion, or anything else which supports this illusion and what Plato described as a being in search of meaning.

The only purpose for self aware humans, is to wake up from this senseless, brainless, mindless, pointless, useless, horror show of a nightmare life, to realise it has to stop playing this stupid game, unless of course it doesn't want to wake up, and would rather just carry on living this Freddy Krueger/ Frankenstien's monster nightmare scenario over and over again.

That's the only good and positive thing about being a self aware human, it can rationalise and reason with it's existence, it can see and understand logically using language just what's really happening here.

Animals sadly have not got the luxury of that critical thinking faculty.

[Age]

This excerpt comes from Jacob Needleman's book: "What is God."

“To think about God is to the human soul what breathing is to the human body.

I say to think about God, not necessarily to believe in God–that may or may not come later.

I say: to think about God.” ~Jacob Needleman in What Is God? p. 3 mm


More and more, as I see it now, this heartless way of thinking about God and ultimate reality dominates the mind of the contemporary world. For God or against God, “belief” or “atheism,” it makes no difference unless the inner yearning— or whatever we wish to call the cause and source of the “second breathing” — is there. And it can so easily be there, just as it can so easily be covered over and ignored, perhaps for the rest of one’s life. God or not God, “belief” or “science” — it also makes no real difference for my personal life unless the call of the Self and its need to “breathe” is heard and, ultimately, respected. Not only can thought about ultimate reality make no difference to the world or to my personal life unless we hear and respect the call of the Self, but such empty thought can bring down our personal and collective world, even our Earth itself. When thought races ahead of Being, a civilization is racing toward destruction.

How many have felt the call of the self?

i have NOT felt the, so called, "call of the self", but i have, in the most unexpected but not all in the most unsurprising way, uncovered thee REAL and True Self.

The call of the self is not blind belief or blind denial experienced and expressed by our defense mechanisms. It is a call from the depth of our being we rarely ever experience; the need to be. It invites the second breath.

The Self that 'you' are referring to is just thee One and ONLY 'Self'. There is NO 'we' in relation to there being separated 'selves'.

There just exists a perception that there are separated and different 'self's', in the form of different 'people', but these 'selves' are NOT the REAL One and ONLY True Self.

Can a society which denies the second breath in pursuit of the pleasures offered by technology survive its loss or will the obsession with empty thoughts destroy civilization? We will find out.

Empty thought does not destroy civilization, but greed and dishonesty does.

When adult human beings begin being Truly Honest, and are serious about changing themselves, for the better, then civilization, itself, will also change/turn around, for the better, and then with that second breath/second coming of 'jesus', which just means with the coming of True understanding, itself, so to what will come is Peace on earth, as it is, said, 'in Heaven'.

[Age]

How many have felt the call of the self? The call of the self is not blind belief or blind denial experienced and expressed by our defense mechanisms. It is a call from the depth of our being we rarely ever experience; the need to be. It invites the second breath.

Can a society which denies the second breath in pursuit of the pleasures offered by technology survive its loss or will the obsession with empty thoughts destroy civilization? We will find out.

The need to be is a need that does not need to be.

Why impose a need to be that does not need to be.

Some could ask 'you', Why impose the 'need', that there does not need to be a need?

There are no benefits to coming into existence, whether you're a battery hen or a human born into a wealthy family.

If this is what 'you' BELIEVE is true, then there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, which could SHOW 'you' otherwise.

There are no problems with non-existence.

There are NO "problems" with existence, either. Obviously, of course, other than ALL of those "problems", which 'you', human beings make up and create.

Can you prove that bringing someone into existence is as perfectly harmless as non-existence.

Are you talking about 'perfectly harmless' in relation to the 'one', brought into Existence, or, in relation to what the 'one' will do to Existence, Itself?

This place is teeming with torture, not only in the animal kingdom but in the minds of humans, so why would anyone need this unless they were a sadist.

But there does NOT 'have to' "torture" in the thinking of the adult human being.

'you', adults, however, choose to view things in the perspective of 'torture' and 'pleasure'.

You see I'm a realist, I see the real raw truth of how things actually are.

And EVERY "other" person says they see things "how they actually are". But, and not surprisingly at all, EVERY one of 'you' sees things DIFFERENTLY.

What some see as 'torture' "another" sees as 'pleasure', and vice-versa.

By the way, is that 'I' which says it is "a realist", thee same 'I', which the 'you' also insists does NOT EXIST?

The writings under the label "dontaskme" REALLY are VERY CONTRADICTORY.

I've been there and done that and bought the T shirt, and it's nothing special at all. Don't get me wrong, I too have drank the cool aid, but in the end I saw that everything was fleeting, and just had to spit it all out and stop pretending I was having a good time.

If everything is fleeting, as you propose here, then so to is the 'torture', which 'you' imagine exists. If you just wait, then the, supposed and alleged 'torture', which you "see/experience" will just disappear also.

I saw that life tasted like crap, and that the cool aid was just something to cover up and mask the real brutality of real actual nature from filtering through to my mind.

And, Life tastes ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL, to "others". So, which one of 'you' is True, Right, AND Correct?

Also, where EXACTLY is and what EXACTLY is "your" mind'?

And so to deal with what to me was the real actual raw truth of nature I would artificially embelish this hostile dangerous experience of being alive by pretending there was a pleasurable part to this whole being alive experience, because even a fleeting pleasure would be better than natures true reality. So I put lipstick on this pig.

Why do 'you' not just get out of this MISERY permanently?

If you did, then you would not 'have to' LOOK AT, and dress up this "pig", which 'you' see and experience?

It wasn't until I became enlightened, that I saw the bigger picture, and that enlightenment to me meant seeing through the stupid game for what it really was, I started thinking why the fuck would this fucked up place of carnage and suffering ever be a need.

And what was YOUR "conclusion"?

By the way, what is this "game" EXACTLY, which you call "stupid"?

I was unborn for 14.7 billion years and can honestly say that had I never been born I would not be complaining, not one iota.[/quote]

Why did you only say "for 14.7 billion years"? Are you one of those that are under some sort of illusion that there was NOTHING before?

God is just a stupid idea that humans invent in order to make sense of thier existence in their deluded need to be important and to have a purpose, it's all just silly wishful thinking by something that just showed up a few seconds ago within the trillions of years of universal evolution. And this deluded something is now hopelessly addicted and totally obsessed with it's own deluded pleasurable image, and then inventing an idea called the second breath what ever the fuck that is, and so even that delusion becomes part of their self obsessed pleasure dome. For anything is better than actual reality which is the game of human existence which in my opinion is a very bad idea, and that the universe has zero intelligence for even coming up with the idea of allowing sentient feeling creatures to experience.

Okay.

On a more serious note Nick, this is just my personal opinion,

REALLY?

(That IS SARCASM).

which I'm entitled to have since I'm already here having to experience this stupid game called life and having to endure the dangers it imposes day in and day out until death is my only relief and reward for all my pointless acomplishments and effort.
.

But you do NOT 'have to' "endure" any longer. 'you' CHOOSE TO.

So, WHY do 'you' CHOOSE TO?

[Sculptor]

This excerpt comes from Jacob Needleman's book: "What is God."

“To think about God is to the human soul what breathing is to the human body.

I say to think about God, not necessarily to believe in God–that may or may not come later.

I say: to think about God.” ~Jacob Needleman in What Is God? p. 3 mm


More and more, as I see it now, this heartless way of thinking about God and ultimate reality dominates the mind of the contemporary world. For God or against God, “belief” or “atheism,” it makes no difference unless the inner yearning— or whatever we wish to call the cause and source of the “second breathing” — is there. And it can so easily be there, just as it can so easily be covered over and ignored, perhaps for the rest of one’s life. God or not God, “belief” or “science” — it also makes no real difference for my personal life unless the call of the Self and its need to “breathe” is heard and, ultimately, respected. Not only can thought about ultimate reality make no difference to the world or to my personal life unless we hear and respect the call of the Self, but such empty thought can bring down our personal and collective world, even our Earth itself. When thought races ahead of Being, a civilization is racing toward destruction.

How many have felt the call of the self? The call of the self is not blind belief or blind denial experienced and expressed by our defense mechanisms. It is a call from the depth of our being we rarely ever experience; the need to be. It invites the second breath.

Can a society which denies the second breath in pursuit of the pleasures offered by technology survive its loss or will the obsession with empty thoughts destroy civilization? We will find out.

No, we shall not "find out". You have not even said what you mean by "second breath". You have only vauguely alluded to what "the call of the self" is NOT.
THis renders your whole post empty.

[Dontaskme]

Does the Ouroboros have a purpose for its existence or just an illusion created by a sadistic God?

Is there a purpose for the mouse to exist just to end dissolved inside a snakes belly? would you like to have that experience?

Oh I know a good idea, lets just make a mouse so it can die a horrible death by being swallowed alive, yeah that's a great idea, lets play that game, lets keep making lots of mice because mice really love to play that game, it cries with excitement, yah, lets keep doing that over and over again.
This is just one example of all the gory things that happen to life on earth. But the list is endless.

[Nick_A]

DAM

Is there a purpose for the mouse to exist just to end dissolved inside a snakes belly? would you like to have that experience?

Sculptor

No, we shall not "find out". You have not even said what you mean by "second breath". You have only vauguely alluded to what "the call of the self" is NOT.
THis renders your whole post empty.

Sculptor, you want everything explained but the second breath has to be experienced. The purpose of our universe and all the suffering it entails is beyond the duality of explanation and requires experience. We experience the suffering but not the why of it.

DAM, when we can't explain then we deny. But is denial the only option open to a human being when we don't "understand?

This excerpt from Jacob Needleman’s ‘I am not I” helps to explain the need for experience and why philosophy is essential to awaken the second breath.

https://www.dailygood.org/story/2249/ja ... -am-not-i/

Among the great questions of the human heart, none is more central than the question, “Who am I?” And among the great answers of the human spirit, none is more central than the experience of “I Am.” In fact, in the course of an intensely lived human life—a normal human life filled with the search for Truth—this question and this answer eventually run parallel to each other, coming closer and closer together until the question becomes the answer and the answer becomes the question.

Not long after I began my career as a professor of philosophy, I discovered that there exists in many people a hidden yearning for metaphysical thought, for ideas about reality and human life that bring the hope of discovering a great purpose in the universe and, correspondingly, in one’s own given life.

Again and again I witnessed the remarkable effect that certain kinds of philosophical ideas and questions can have on the state of mind, not only in my students, but in men and women of all ages whom I happened to meet outside of the academic setting. The effect of such ideas and questions was unmistakable—in the light in the eyes, and often in the way the individual suddenly adjusted his or her posture. Something unique was awakening in the mind.

At first, I attributed what I saw mainly to the great ideas themselves, which stimulate the mind to ponder questions of ultimate meaning and purpose—questions that the current scientific worldview delegitimizes through its materialist standards of logic and evidence. It troubled me to see how so many contemporary explanations of higher human faculties—love, art, religious feeling, and even scientific thought itself—reduced these faculties to mechanically “evolved” automatisms, serving such goals as meaningless physical survival and meaningless physical or egoistic pleasure. It troubled me to see the dominance of toxic ideas and concepts that offer no hope for the attainment of the transcendence that is the unique possibility written into the very essence of human consciousness. Such toxic ideas and the worldview they engender cannot help but have a dark effect on the aspirations and morals of entire peoples, whether consciously or unconsciously…………………

The first breath gives the physical body life and the second breath awakens the spiritual body. The second breath is awakening to human consciousness and the awareness of its Source. Normally we live by the duality of animal consciousness. Human consciousness or the second breath is awakened to what reconciles it from a higher human conscious perspective. It must be experienced. It cannot be explained. In fact it is repulsive to the secular mind. All my experiences with secular intolerance has proven to me how intense the emotional denial of the second breath is and how easily the great ideas are devolved into useless argument. Academic Philosophy can no longer serve its awakening purpose and further aid in awakening the second breath.

[Dontaskme]

In my opinion, why create a need that does not need to be?

This excerpt from Jacob Needleman’s ‘I am not I” helps to explain the need for experience and why philosophy is essential to awaken the second breath.

Oh I know a good idea, lets create a human being so that it can be tortured for half it's life. So that it can experience the pain and misery of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and have a firework explode into it's eye socket, oh yeah that'll be a fun idea.

Another fun idea would be just happily relaxing on board the airplane, looking forward to getting home and seeing my loved ones, but then realise I'm going to die a really horrible death as the plane is about to crash into a mountain, because the pilot decided to be a suicidal selfish bastard, yeah I just can't wait to incarnate to experience that need. It's really fun this being alive stuff isn't it, you just never know what exciting experience will be next, in our needless need to keep the stupid dangerous game going out of need.

[Nick_A]

DAM

In my opinion, why create a need that does not need to be?

A good question. Our ineffable source is perfect. Why create imperfection? Simone Weil describes creation as the absence of God.

Absence is the key image for her metaphysics, cosmology, cosmogony, and theodicy. She believed that God created by an act of self-delimitation—in other words, because God is conceived as a kind of utter fullness, a perfect being, no creature could exist except where God was not. Thus creation occurred only when God withdrew in part. This idea mirrors tzimtzum, a central notion in the Jewish mystical creation narrative.

This is, for Weil, an original kenosis ("emptiness") preceding the corrective kenosis of Christ's incarnation (cf. Athanasius). We are thus born in a sort of damned position not owing to original sin as such, but because to be created at all we had to be precisely what God is not, i.e., we had to be the opposite of what is holy. (See Apophatic theology.)

This notion of creation is a cornerstone of her theodicy, for if creation is conceived this way (as necessarily containing evil within itself), then there is no problem of the entrance of evil into a perfect world. Nor does this constitute a delimitation of God's omnipotence, if it is not that God could not create a perfect world, but that the act which we refer towards by saying "create" in its very essence implies the impossibility of perfection.

However, this notion of the necessity of evil does not mean that we are simply, originally, and continually doomed; on the contrary, Weil tells us that "Evil is the form which God's mercy takes in this world".[65] Weil believed that evil, and its consequence, affliction, served the role of driving us out of ourselves and towards God—"The extreme affliction which overtakes human beings does not create human misery, it merely reveals it."[66]

The complete fullness of God includes everything as a conscious potential but also the lawful actualization of all potentials and their levels of reality that form our universe.

By definition, the necessary potentials of our universe must exist in an imperfect form. The universe is the necessary body of God.
Can human being evolve to escape existing as animal Man? We have the potential for it and why I am Christian.

“The supernatural greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering but a supernatural use for it.” ~ Simone Weil

This explains the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Instead of avoiding the sufferings of the cross, Jesus invited the conscious experience of all the horrors animal Man is capable of producing the great struggle between conscious will and mechanical avoidance. This invited the help of the Spirit and the potential for the birth of conscious humanity. The disciples were invited to follow with the help of the Spirit.

Of course all this is beyond me. I'm still a prisoner of sin. But at least it is helpful to begin to understand and grow from the knowledge of what human being is and our place within the universe and what the difference is between triune human and dualistic animal consciousness.

[Dontaskme]

I'm not buying the God story Nick.

Simone Weil and Jacob N are both human story tellers. The Bible was written by human story tellers.

I trust only in what I personally witness and experience which is the only reliable first hand account available to me, informing me of what is really going on and happening here, I have seen for myself what is real and not real. What really matters to me is what and how I feel, and what I see when I look at myself in the mirror, so to me, what I personally know and understand is the only authentic and real reality, the reality as I see it, and that everyones elses story is their story, and will never be my story.

I used to buy other peoples stories Nick because they would feel so seductive and appealing, but then I had my final and last awakening which informed me that ... I know nothing except what I want to wishfully believe about reality. I saw that the first and fundamental default position of this game was the NEGATIVE ... and that the positive only arose briefly because there was a brief absence of the negative....but the negative always returned because it was the ultimate default position. And that's what evolution was about, it was about one long brutal and cruel FIGHT for survival at the COST of a really big unecessary violent endless struggle, totally pointless and meaningless.

I too used to make up all kinds of unicorn stories about how wonderful nature is/was.. until I realised the truth of my wishful thinking there was a perfect God behind all of creation to be a big pile of horseshit.
I changed my mind about God, I finally woke up, I finally let go of all my delusions about the idea of God, I accepted the actual brutal and senselessness reality of existence, and let me tell you, the actual real truth of what's happening here was an absolutely shocking revelation revealing that for many years I had been in denial of what I instinctively knew from around the age of 5 - 6 years old, yes I'd already worked it out by then what a fake stupid game this was. And that's why I was drawn to Nonduality very early on in my life.

So again, I believe that because humans have evolved to become self aware knowing creatures, we have two choices, we can either stop playing this silly game of rinse and repeat, or we can just pretend the endless cycle is worth carrying on. It's our call. And I vote OUT.

.

[Nick_A]

DAM

I'm not buying the God story Nick.

Simone Weil and Jacob N are both human story tellers. The Bible was written by human story tellers.

I trust only in what I personally witness and experience which is the only reliable first hand account available to me, informing me of what is really going on and happening here, I have seen for myself what is real and not real. What really matters to me is what and how I feel, and what I see when I look at myself in the mirror, so to me, what I personally know and understand is the only authentic and real reality, the reality as I see it, and that everyones elses story is their story, and will never be my story.

Why buy the God story? The first question is what we need. Do we need clever stories or to have the experience of meaning? How can we experience meaning in a meaningless world was described in Ecclesiastes 1

The words of the Teacher,[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.

This is our problem “Man is a being in search of Meaning.? It doesn’t exist in the meaningless world. You’ve discovered like I have that the world is meaningless and have chosen to deny your need. I’ve learned that human need is experienced beyond the domain of our world. Can we verify the inner direction which offers the means to experience the quality of meaning that doesn’t exist in the mechanics of the world?

I used to buy other peoples stories Nick because they would feel so seductive and appealing, but then I had my final and last awakening which informed me that ... I know nothing except what I want to wishfully believe about reality. I saw that the first and fundamental default position of this game was the NEGATIVE ... and that the positive only arose briefly because there was a brief absence of the negative....but the negative always returned because it was the ultimate default position. And that's what evolution was about, it was about one long brutal and cruel FIGHT for survival at the COST of a really big unnecessary violent endless struggle, totally pointless and meaningless.

I’m the same way. I was always the one in high school and
College who found holes in the arguments. It was a necessary negative approach because I didn’t just buy beliefs but was attracted to "meaning" and the logic of ideas. It was clear that if the essence of religion and science are both true. if I sense a contradiction, it is my inability to understand their connection.

I too used to make up all kinds of unicorn stories about how wonderful nature is/was.. until I realised the truth of my wishful thinking there was a perfect God behind all of creation to be a big pile of horseshit.
I changed my mind about God, I finally woke up, I finally let go of all my delusions about the idea of God, I accepted the actual brutal and senselessness reality of existence, and let me tell you, the actual real truth of what's happening here was an absolutely shocking revelation revealing that for many years I had been in denial of what I instinctively knew from around the age of 5 - 6 years old, yes I'd already worked it out by then what a fake stupid game this was. And that's why I was drawn to Nonduality very early on in my life.

One of my ancestors was an extraordinary seascape painter. Turner called him genius. One of his great strengths was depicting awe and wonder as can be experienced in nature.

When we experience awe, we are taken out of our normal superficiality and temporarily feel the reality of something greater than ourselves. Calling nature “wonderful” is like idolatry. It cheapens awe.

Later on thru contemplating his art, I discovered there were people in the world who have had the same questions concerning what meaning is in a meaningless world and how to approach it. What does it mean to “Know Thyself?”

So again, I believe that because humans have evolved to become self aware knowing creatures, we have two choices, we can either stop playing this silly game of rinse and repeat, or we can just pretend the endless cycle is worth carrying on. It's our call. And I vote OUT.

Here is where we differ. We can either vote OUT by avoidance or vote IN by consciously experiencing the world for what it is without judgment rather than basking in the security of imagination. If we vote IN it becomes matter of developing conscious attention and conscious will to open to the quality of impressions we have been conditioned to avoid.

I've read that if person suddenly consciously experiences the contradictions of what they are without being protected by imagination, they would go mad. Is it better to avoid awakening to the reality of what we are or invite it as essential to becoming the New Man? How to slowly awaken?

[Dontaskme]

Nick..I do not see the world the way you do...and nothing you can say to me will ever convince me of valuing your ideas. I've already made up my mind about what is happening here. And NO, my understanding of what it is to be alive has not made me go mad or insane, in fact I'm totally at peace and comfortable with myself in every moment. I've never personally abused my own body or mind. But others have tried and failed to impose abuse upon me. So for me, the only positive about being born is the knowing that any thing born will die.

I already know myself from within my own direct experience of beingness here, I do not NEED to be informed by 'another' as to what the ''myself'' needs or what I am or what I am not. Only I can work out what it is I want to know. I'm the only reliable source of knowledge. I worked that out very early on in my life.

For me, there is no such thing as a utopian new man. The only utopia that could possibly exist in my logic is within the realm of the unborn.

There are no winners here in the realm of the born, life is designed to FAIL, it's a losing game everytime. If and when there is a winner, then that winner has only been made a winner because something else has been made a loser which is sick. And so even as the winner stands, that winner also loses in the end, life is a dead end, the default position. All totally meaningless, we're born without meaning, and we go out without meaning.

We can stop this meaningless existence any time we like by going extinct, but nature will do that for us eventually anyway, for every life form will at some point in the evolutionary assembly line go extinct, that's the way evolution works in my opinion, no intelligent brain made this universe, it's as dumb as rock.

The universe will not shed one tear if man goes extinct, in the same sense the universe DOES NOT cry for the non-life that is on Mars, or on the Moon, or on Jupiter .....if you get my drift.

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