Unity or Separation - which way do you choose to see things and WHY? Which brings more Peace and Joy

reply to post by Itisnowagain


I cannot watch videos at work, sorry.

Are you ever separate from the environment?

As something in the environment, I am separate from other things in the environment.

TheSubversiveOne
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

I cannot watch videos at work, sorry.

Are you ever separate from the environment?

As something in the environment, I am separate from other things in the environment.

You think you are a thing when really all things arise and subside in you.

Investigate nothingness - it is easily overlooked.

TheSubversiveOne

As something in the environment, I am separate from other things in the environment.

This is the misconception which causes all the fear - believing that one is a thing among other things is what makes life hard. Things have beginnings and endings - they appear and disappear.
What you are will never appear or disappear.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

You think you are a thing when really all things arise and subside in you.

Investigate nothingness - it is easily overlooked.

How is one to investigate nothing? By not investigating?

This is the misconception which causes all the fear - believing that one is a thing among other things is what makes life hard. Things have beginnings and endings - they appear and disappear.
What you are will never appear or disappear.

That is simply untrue. Life is the same no matter how we look at it or name it.

I have appeared and will disappear, the same as everyone else.

TheSubversiveOne
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

I cannot watch videos at work, sorry.

Are you ever separate from the environment?

As something in the environment, I am separate from other things in the environment.

The whole solar system as we currently understand it or at least on earth, everything is made of the same building blocks, we are all made of the same atoms that have been around since the beginning or big bang as some would say. There are unknown forces(dark energy and dark matter) that supposedly bind the universe together. Without fully understanding these forces we cannot rule out that they MAY be the forces that bind the whole of existence together, including all life.

Im more leaning towards the opinion that we are spiritual beings that like to enjoy materialism and the joys it brings, and also the pain. We reap what we sow because we inherit the earth we left for ourselves on our last "ride", I believe in reincarnation. I also believe that we each have our own personal relationship with god, because god is within, god is not without.

God is all things, both good and bad, for its the nature of a material universe, ying and yang, positive and negative, good and bad, love and hate, to deny the obvious would be silly. To acknowledge that nature of all things, requires us to also acknowledge the same of ourselves. We are god, each and every one of us.

In the beginning there was the void, and the void became conscious of itself, it became lonely so created the material and immaterial universes so that it could experience itself subjectively(seperated from the whole) in universes of infinite possibilities, so that it could learn about itself and understand itself. In that sense, as above so below, we are in gods image for we are all trying to understand ourselves and the reality we find ourselves in, thus enriching our own spiritual journey and contributing to the "UNITIES" understanding of itself. But ultimately there is still just the void, the singularity from which ALL stems.

Hey its all just my opinion, but for me it explains many things like good and evil, and why bad things happen to people. Thats what I think now, that could easily change as my beliefs have been moulded and changed many times over the years, Im finding MY "seperate" truth, in the "unity" we all find ourselves in.
I realise I may be wrong, we cant all be right.

TheSubversiveOne

I have appeared and will disappear, the same as everyone else.

Can you remember appearing?

Each night when you go to sleep, for you, your body disappears - the world disappears. Each morning, for you, your body appears - the world appears.
What you are in deep sleep is what you really are. When you awake in the morning an appearance appears - you are not the appearance. You are nothing until some thing appears and then you are what is knowing the appearance. You are never more than that.

reply to post by TheSubversiveOne

If Jupiter disappeared tomorrow, we would be none-the-wiser until we looked, because we are in no way connected to it

Perhaps Jupiter saved Earth from Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 Without Jupiter, those fragments may have bombarded us or another planet in our system. We are not truly separate.

reply to post by TheSubversiveOne


I can see that you think of yourself as your body. You are not your body, you a a spirit having a bodily experience.

Are there any gaps in life? Can you be aware of not being aware? No you can't, you could go into a coma for 20 years and from your perspective it will feel like the blink of an eye.

Life is a continuous, never-ending event. In all reality, your spiritual self never appeared and will never disappear. It may change perspectives, but it does not begin and it will not end.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

Can you remember appearing?

No, but my mother does.

Each night when you go to sleep, for you, your body disappears - the world disappears. Each morning, for you, your body appears - the world appears.
What you are in deep sleep is what you really are. When you awake in the morning an appearance appears - you are not the appearance. You are nothing until some thing appears and then you are what is knowing the appearance.

This is untrue. My body is still there breathing, thinking, sleeping, dreaming, in the world. Without it, there would be no appearance, and no disappearance.

You are never more than that.

You think too little of yourself and others.

reply to post by Sahabi

Perhaps Jupiter saved Earth from Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 Without Jupiter, those fragments may have bombarded us or another planet in our system. We are not truly separate.

I wonder why earth didn't save jupiter. It's because your connection is arbitrary.

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

I can see that you think of yourself as your body. You are not your body, you a a spirit having a bodily experience.

Are there any gaps in life? Can you be aware of not being aware? No you can't, you could go into a coma for 20 years and from your perspective it will feel like the blink of an eye.

Life is a continuous, never-ending event. In all reality, your spiritual self never appeared and will never disappear. It may change perspectives, but it does not begin and it will not end.

Have you seen or felt your spirit? Then how can you say you are a spirit?

Have you seen or felt your body? Then how can you say you are not your body?

TheSubversiveOne
reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

 

I can see that you think of yourself as your body. You are not your body, you a a spirit having a bodily experience.

Are there any gaps in life? Can you be aware of not being aware? No you can't, you could go into a coma for 20 years and from your perspective it will feel like the blink of an eye.

Life is a continuous, never-ending event. In all reality, your spiritual self never appeared and will never disappear. It may change perspectives, but it does not begin and it will not end.

Have you seen or felt your spirit? Then how can you say you are a spirit?

Have you seen or felt your body? Then how can you say you are not your body?

I havent seen my spirit, but I did see the spirits of others while I was a child.
I have lived in a haunted house.

reply to post by TheSubversiveOne


I "see" it and "feel" it every second of my life, and so do you, but you don't realize it. What gives you sight and animates your body? Your body is made up of atoms just like a rock is, but what sets your body apart is that something gives it movement and makes it alive. That something is you, your spiritual self.

Does life have any gaps from your perspective? Can you be aware of non-awareness? If not, what makes you think it will be any different after death or that it was any different before birth? Consciousness is pure energy, and energy cannot be created nor destroyed. That means your consciousness has always existed in one form or another.

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

I "see" it and "feel" it every second of my life, and so do you, but you don't realize it. What gives you sight and animates your body? Your body is made up of atoms just like a rock is, but what sets your body apart is that something gives it movement and makes it alive. That something is you, your spiritual self.

What "something" are you talking about but your body?

What ends when you die? Your spirit? Or your bodily functions? How come the spirit cannot keep the body animated? Why, when the body gets ill, or injured, or diseased, does one die despite the spirit giving it movement? Why does a "spirit" only exist in live bodies? Does it simply give up? Why does one go blind despite, at least according to you, that the spirit gives us sight? Could it be something wrong with they eyes?

There are reasons rational minds have run away from vitalism.

Does life have any gaps from your perspective? Can you be aware of non-awareness? If not, what makes you think it will be any different after death or that it was any different before birth? Consciousness is pure energy, and energy cannot be created nor destroyed. That means your consciousness has always existed in one form or another.

I don't think you know what energy is. Consciousness isn't pure energy. Consciousness doesn't even have a proper definition. So no I don't agree with any of this. It doesn't work that way, unfortunately.

reply to post by TheSubversiveOne


The electrical impulses that travel through your brain are what give you life, they are what animates your body. What's the difference between a live body and a dead body? What is the difference between someone who is alive and someone who is dead? Why are there dead bodies and live bodies if we are only bodies as you assume? If you can't discern the difference between the two then unfortunately you aren't capable of understanding yet.

Electrical impulses are energy aren't they? Electrical impulses are what make up consciousness, so yes, consciousness is energy. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, meaning consciousness was neither created at birth nor destroyed at death.

TheSubversiveOne

Each night when you go to sleep, for you, your body disappears - the world disappears. Each morning, for you, your body appears - the world appears.
What you are in deep sleep is what you really are. When you awake in the morning an appearance appears - you are not the appearance. You are nothing until some thing appears and then you are what is knowing the appearance.

This is untrue. My body is still there breathing, thinking, sleeping, dreaming, in the world. Without it, there would be no appearance, and no disappearance.

You are never more than that.

You think too little of yourself and others.

How is that I think too little of myself - I am nothing and everything - I am all that is and so are you.

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

The electrical impulses that travel through your brain are what give you life, they are what animates your body. What's the difference between a live body and a dead body? What is the difference between someone who is alive and someone who is dead? Why are there dead bodies and live bodies if we are only bodies as you assume? If you can't discern the difference between the two then unfortunately you aren't capable of understanding yet.

Electrical impulses are energy aren't they? Electrical impulses are what make up consciousness, so yes, consciousness is energy. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, meaning consciousness was neither created at birth nor destroyed at death.

I'm talking about real things; you're talking about abstract ideas and calling them truth. I am using the term "body" to contrast your "consciousness", which you seem to think is more fundamental then the body. I will continue to use the term in order to keep this grounded in reality.

A body functions or it doesn't. There are dead bodies because bodies malfunction or stop working. A body must be functioning to be alive. No, nothing leaves the body upon death as you assume, no "consciousness" floats out of one's ear. The body has merely stopped working. This is why people die—of heart-attacks, old age, disease, illness, accidents—because the body has been damaged, it ceases functioning, not because of "consciousness" or "energy". This is why there are no such things as zombies, there is no force or energy able to animate a body after it has died.

Where do those electrical impulses come from? You said it: the brain, the body. Without the brain, without the body, there would be no "electrical impulses", no "consciousness", no "spirit", no "energy". These are names for things in the body made up by people who cannot see inside themselves. This is why when we open up a living being we find no substance such as "consciousness", "spirit", or life force, only more of the body. The body animates itself. When it stops working, breaks down or malfunctions, it stops animating itself. When the eyes get injured, we cannot see properly. When we get sick, things don't taste the same and we feel awful. We eat with our body to acquire energy; we metabolize it with our body; it doesn't just magically appear on its own.

Consciousness is not a form of energy. Nowhere in the world does it say that. Electrical impulses is not consciousness. No where in the world does it say that.

You are not energy. Energy is energy. You have to acquire energy. Sustain it, until you can no longer.

TheSubversiveOne

No, nothing leaves the body upon death as you assume, no "consciousness" floats out of one's ear. The body has merely stopped working. This is why people die—of heart-attacks, old age, disease, illness, accidents—because the body has been damaged, it ceases functioning, not because of "consciousness" or "energy".

The existence of consciousness isnt really debated is it?
We have a consciousness and a subconsciousness, thats a scientific fact is it not?

Well have feelings and emotions and instincts. We have heart felt feelings from the heart, we have instinct feelings in the gut.

As far as I was aware the existence of consciousness wasnt up for debate, what is up for debate is where it resides, our brain, our heart our gut etc etc.

There are far too many out of body experiences and near death experiences that are completely at odds with your "opinion" on the consciousness being able to leave the body. Many scientific studies have shown that out of body experiences and some "supernatural" abilities have some merit. Hell the Russians used "psychics" for out of body spying and so did the USA, so its not like its completely baseless.

When my mother died right in front of me, a SECOND after my sister reassured my mother(who was in a coma), that we(my sister and myself would be okay), I saw what happened to the "body" or "vessel" the very moment the life-force left it. So was my mothers consciousness listening? Or was a SECOND such a damn coincidence that it doesnt even deserve mentioning? There are so many unknowns that its pretty ridiculous to claim to know about something that is largely unproven, it doesnt mean it doesnt exist.
Before they found a way to measure oxygen, it didnt exist(by the standards of measurable science).
Just because you cannot see something, doesnt mean it doesnt exist, its possible it doesnt exist, its also possible that we are yet to find a way to measure it or confirm it.

Also on the subject of my mother who the doctors said was brain dead, was in a coma for a week, the doctors said she wouldnt make it through the first night after a major brain haemorrhage.
Not only did she survive for a week, but there were moments during the week, that a "brain dead" mother tried sitting up and communicating with our family, she even spoke a few sentences, then reverted back into the coma . Sometimes "educated" people are so invested in the "truths" they have been told, they refuse to accept anything that challenges their "belief system". Which is exactly the reason the consultant refused to believe that any of that happened, although there were many witnesses.

We are products of our environment, so how can you really claim to be seperate from that which moulds you into what you are today?

reply to post by OneManArmy

The existence of consciousness isnt really debated is it?
We have a consciousness and a subconsciousness, thats a scientific fact is it not?

Not quite. The scientific fact is that we are conscious, not that we possess or have something called "consciousness".

Here's from wikipedia:

Philosophers and non-philosophers differ in their intuitions about what consciousness is.[19] While most people have a strong intuition for the existence of what they refer to as consciousness,[citation needed] skeptics argue that this intuition is false, either because the concept of consciousness is intrinsically incoherent, or because our intuitions about it are based in illusions. Gilbert Ryle, for example, argued that traditional understanding of consciousness depends on a Cartesian dualist outlook that improperly distinguishes between mind and body, or between mind and world. He proposed that we speak not of minds, bodies, and the world, but of individuals, or persons, acting in the world. Thus, by speaking of 'consciousness' we end up misleading ourselves by thinking that there is any sort of thing as consciousness separated from behavioral and linguistic understandings.[20] More generally, many philosophers and scientists have been unhappy about the difficulty of producing a definition that does not involve circularity or fuzziness.[18]

Consciousness—The having of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings; awareness. The term is impossible to define except in terms that are unintelligible without a grasp of what consciousness means. Many fall into the trap of equating consciousness with self-consciousness—to be conscious it is only necessary to be aware of the external world. Consciousness is a fascinating but elusive phenomenon: it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it has evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written on it.[18]

Well have feelings and emotions and instincts. We have heart felt feelings from the heart, we have instinct feelings in the gut.

As far as I was aware the existence of consciousness wasnt up for debate, what is up for debate is where it resides, our brain, our heart our gut etc etc.

That is not the debate. The debate is whether it is a viable concept.

Here is a good starter on "consciousness" if you care to take a read:

Consciousness

There are far too many out of body experiences and near death experiences that are completely at odds with your "opinion" on the consciousness being able to leave the body. Many scientific studies have shown that out of body experiences and some "supernatural" abilities have some merit. Hell the Russians used "psychics" for out of body spying and so did the USA, so its not like its completely baseless.

When my mother died right in front of me, a SECOND after my sister reassured my mother(who was in a coma), that we(my sister and myself would be okay), I saw what happened to the "body" or "vessel" the very moment the life-force left it. So was my mothers consciousness listening? Or was a SECOND such a damn coincidence that it doesnt even deserve mentioning? There are so many unknowns that its pretty ridiculous to claim to know about something that is largely unproven, it doesnt mean it doesnt exist.
Before they found a way to measure oxygen, it didnt exist(by the standards of measurable science).
Just because you cannot see something, doesnt mean it doesnt exist, its possible it doesnt exist, its also possible that we are yet to find a way to measure it or confirm it.

Also on the subject of my mother who the doctors said was brain dead, was in a coma for a week, the doctors said she wouldnt make it through the first night after a major brain haemorrhage.
Not only did she survive for a week, but there were moments during the week, that a "brain dead" mother tried sitting up and communicating with our family, she even spoke a few sentences, then reverted back into the coma . Sometimes "educated" people are so invested in the "truths" they have been told, they refuse to accept anything that challenges their "belief system". Which is exactly the reason the consultant refused to believe that any of that happened, although there were many witnesses.

Yes. The body is an amazing instrument.

We are products of our environment, so how can you really claim to be seperate from that which moulds you into what you are today?

I said we are separate from other things in the environment, not the environment itself. Sure, we all exist in the same reality, but that in no way connects us.

TheSubversiveOne
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

Each night when you go to sleep, for you, your body disappears - the world disappears. Each morning, for you, your body appears - the world appears.
What you are in deep sleep is what you really are. When you awake in the morning an appearance appears - you are not the appearance. You are nothing until some thing appears and then you are what is knowing the appearance.

This is untrue. My body is still there breathing, thinking, sleeping, dreaming, in the world. Without it, there would be no appearance, and no disappearance.

When you go to sleep FOR YOU the body disappears, the world disappears - for you there is absolutely nothing appearing in deep sleep. In deep sleep there is no appearance - there is nothing - you do not even know you exist, there is no awareness of breathing or thinking or the world. There is nothing appearing FOR YOU.

So in deep sleep you don't appear to exist - it is only when the light comes on (when the eyes open in the morning) that you know you are.

What are you though?? Are you what is appearing or are you what is seeing and knowing the appearance?