Winter

Is desire nothing but dislike of the present experience, associated to an imagined "better" experience? How do I know what I desire? How could you distinguish between what you desire and what you don't, what you like and what you dislike? Am I free to not desire? Can I let go of desire for sex? Can I let go of desire for human relationships? Can I let go of desire for food? Can I let go of desire to keep the body alive? Desire and Want are the same thing, their definitions are circular in the dictionary. @Phil says focus on what you want. Why would one ever do that instead of just "not wanting"?

How do you know it's stronger? Have you measured it? And what exactly is it stronger than? You? How do you know?

There's no such thing as "assuming", there is only acting in accordance to assumption. Are you assuming the floor is lava? or are you not? We'll only know when you walk accross the room. People may say "stop assuming X" or "stop thinking Y" but what they really mean is to stop behaving like X or Y are true. Right now you don't need to do anything to "get rid of your bad beliefs". "Getting rid of your bad beliefs" is an act, which assumes there is bad beliefs. Right you may act in accordance to your true desires and independently of any assumptions.

Dang, does that mean we'll forever be stuck looking at places for it? 😁

Pretty sure I was INTP a couple years ago

Is Direct experience better than Indirect experience? Is the screwdriver better than the hammer? To what goal? Nothing is "better" in the absolute. If you assume "Survival" is the goal then both are useful. Indirect experience may contains lies, indeed, but you are free to valide someone's indirect experience with your direct experience. Only ever trusting direct experience would mean you wouldn't ever believe anyone ever and only trusting indirect experience would mean you wouldn't ever know who is right as you are unable to see which idea matches your experience. Obviously both are needed to survive in society. That being said it isn't natural to "only trust direct experience". Your feelings don't have this "problem" of ignoring indirect experience. If people warn you of consequences of your actions your feelings will guide you to investigate whether that concern people are raising is founded or not. Someone may ignore those warnings and pretend it feels good to do so but really I doubt they are being at true peace doing so. Pleasure inducing drugs are indeed tricky because they can contribute to someone pretending they are happy when they aren't really. What's a better way to ignore the consequences of my actions than to incapacitate my brain's ability to make me feel their weight. But even the most addicted junkie knows that his high is temporary and that when his drug will wear off he will be back feeling the suffering associated to his actions and his life. Is this junkie making the mistake of trusting direct experience? No, he is making the mistake of trusting indirect experience. As he sits down and feels all sorts of feelings in his stomach, he judges those as "bad" and convinces himself that he would feel better if he got high again. None of this is true nor direct experience, it's basically hearsay, or indirect experience. Notice that this idea that "Direct experience > Indirect experience" is a claim someone else made you are trying to challenge. That claim IS indirect experience. How can you know whether that claim holds water? Will you ever be satisfied with more indirect experience (people telling you their opinion)? Even if the message "Direct experience > Indirect experience" is silly when taken literally, it more or less means "have your own opinion, verify things for yourself". If you don't want to agree with the message then that's fine, have your own opinion.

Sounds to me like you want to meditate more. Good idea. Challenge this notion that to have enlightenment you must meditate all day and not do anything else. Have you ever tried meditating 1 hour a day every day? 2 hours? 3 hours? If you never tried meditating that much, then how can you say that enlightenment is ONLY reached with 12 hours a day? Why not just gradually increase up to satisfaction? I have no clue how much you are meditating right now, but you can just double that and see if that's enough. At some point you'll get the results you are looking for.

Have you ever wondered what is a question? We basically sequence words together and then expect a response. This expectation comes from the fact everyone assumes this is the way communication works. In reality questions are no different than any other series of sounds. It's great because this allows for communication and sharing of information, when communicating with human beings. But we must not forget that what comes after the question will always be just an answer, a message, information with some meaning that may be interpreted by a human. When you say "What is nonduality?" you are asking for a reply that would give you a definition of the term nonduality. In english the word "is" is used to define things and the word "What" is just a placeholder. Finally "?" implies that you are requesting the listener to respond. You might have asked the same question like ____ is nonduality (please fill in). Please define nonduality. However "definition" and "duality" are synonym so you might as well ask: Define nondefinition. Create a duality that isolates nonduality. Which is literally impossible, by definition. You might then well "non duality is when you stop defining" but this implies that there is someone making definitions and that they suddenly stop. Any concept you may have of nonduality, spirituality or "the path" is entirely bogus and a distraction from experiencing actual nonduality. Every newborn is already a nondual master, there is absolutely nothing to "get into" here. There is nothing to subscribe to and if you forget entirely about dualities and nondualities, you won't be missing out on anything.

Oh nice to have you here!

I wish I knew who you are though! DM?

If I am to observe a neural network externally, the neural network being in a state of understanding in relation to a particular problem that is attempted to be solved is the local maximum of the fitness function, that is the solution that is (locally) the best at solving an issue. "Best" defined as the least energy expensive and functional. So I think understanding is just a thought that works out to solve something and it feels good because it works. I think it differs from knowledge by the fact that it is knowledge directed at problem solving, whether that problem is communication or something else. While thought is not observable you can clearly see whether someone understands something or not though. Problem solving can be tested. If I give you a rubix cube I can test you on whether you understand the techniques to solve it or not. But both understanding and thought can only be observed in external behavior. I have never observed my own understanding. When it comes to nonduality however, there is nothing to understand, because there is no problem in the first place. Recognition of that fact is sometimes labelled as "understanding" or "enlightenment" but those labels imply either a problem that was understood or something which wasn't lit. Implications that are false.

When I look at my past and relatively recent behavior, I see so much struggles to avoid judgments. Not only do I fear the judgment of others, I anticipate what they might think and I judge myself based on my anticipations rather than what they actually think, as a way of "preventing" their judgments. No matter what my behavior is, I will assume everyone will secretly judge all the mistakes I do in my behavior but not say anything. Actually, this issue was the reason I started self-help in the first place. The very first self-help material I consumed was Leo's video about "Not caring what others think" which essentially advice you to internally say an affirmation "I am fully independent of what others think". While this wasn't bad advice it only got me so far. What makes someone obsessively concerned about judgements? Why can't I live my life without imagining and fearing criticism? Trivial answer: "That you are concerned about judgements is just an idea you have about youself, in reality you aren't that person who fears judgement." While this answer is trivially true it doesn't really feel good or fit the jigsaw puzzle. Looking for new perspectives here, because the one I got isn't really working.

Welcome friend! 👋

A man who does not impose himself a concept of "high quality man". Total carelessness and freedom from judgement where actions are motivated by love and not by the desire to project an image of "high quality".

Belief that motivation is a finite resource you "have" and if you lack you will be forced to do things you don't really want to do (procrastinate). There is no such thing as motivation, you cannot lack motivation, you can only experience the thought of lacking motivation. Belief that discipline is a finite resource you "have" and if you lack you will be forced to do things you don't really want to do (procrastinate). There is no such thing as discipline, you cannot lack discipline, you can only experience the thought of lacking discipline. The assumption that some activities are "work" and some activities are "play", with "play" being identified as a category the self likes and "work" being identified as a category the self dislikes. In actuality whether you like an activity is up to you and whether society would consider it "work" or "play" is not relevant to your enjoyment of the activity.

IMO the guidelines are very strict and it make it seem like it's not OK to be here if you struggle. If someone is depressed I doubt that they "follow principles outlined twenty five centuries ago by Lao-tzu". Does this mean we should just ban such users instead of helping them? The guidelines try to address this by including "to the best of your ability", implying that one can "be unable" to follow those principles/be happy/be enlightened. This idea is nonsense, anyone is able to follow those principles, whether someone is currently following them is a matter of their belief systems. Also I notice there is no section for serious emotional issues. Why not? I found the serious emotional issues section of Actualized.org one of the most productive, where people actually receive help instead of just chatting about their concept of enlightenment. Those sum up my suggestions. Good job on the forum @Phil!

That this is an issue, or that there's something preventing you from being in the NOW right now is imagination. There's no "trick" or "solution" to this issue because it is untrue, you can just stop believing that something holds you from the present moment right now. Congrats on the first post btw! 🎉