Pure hell of solipsism. I need help.

[Nowt]

18 hours ago, Forza21 said:

You are right.  I'm still a little afraid of meditation, do you think it may help?

Yes definitely. Have a look through the meditations section on the site. If there's still nothing you find helpful just shout up. Even if you don't resonate with it, trying won't hurt. 😊

 

18 hours ago, Forza21 said:

How long did it take for you to recover from bad trips?

A few days mostly in terms of physically having the stuff out of my body, but sometimes trying to make sense of what was experienced can take time to digest. What I often found was what I initially might have viewed as a "bad trip" was actually not that at all, and actually the opposite. That's not always evident straight away.

[Forza21]

18 hours ago, karkaore said:

What is this "I", "me", "my"?

Solipsism will be no more once you know.

But first, go do something fun, recharge. Ground yourself and recover.

Climb a mountain and then ask if it's real 😂

I have many thoughts' attachment, and i still fall into them. I know they make me suffer, but it's overwhelming ;( i'm questioning everything

[Forza21]

12 hours ago, Kevin said:

Hey brother. Really glad you made this topic. This is something I’ve struggled with for a while so maybe I’ll have something good to say. One thing that really helped me is noticing that 99% of spiritual teachers say that truth is amazing and it seems as though peoples lives improve tremendously on the path. So I assume I must be misinterpreting something or missing the mark because getting deep into believing solipsism feels awful.

Do you still struggle? What does make you better?

[Forza21]

10 hours ago, Blessed2 said:

Yes, this sounds good to me. 🙂

"Trusting your feelings" means allowing yourself to feel. Daily meditation, opening up and expressing honestly and authentically.

Allowing feeling is 'plunging toward life', rather than endlessly tread thick and heavy conceptual jungles: "existential rumination" as Phil often calls it.

I'd say don't be too philosophical and 'clinical'. Maybe there is nothing you need to know or to understand. Maybe there is just letting more and more and more of feeling and wellbeing come to you, and fill your life. Rather than philosophizing, loosen up a bit and bring in some magic. Maybe check out what crystal stones feel like. Charge them in full moon light. See what this childlike playingness with magic of nature, water, sun and moon, feels like. Maybe stuff like this could be a good way to plunge toward feeling and life, rather than 'hold back' and ruminate.

"These nursing babies are like those who enter the kingdom"  - Jesus

"Happiness is the absence of distance between our self and our feelings."  - Rupert Spira

i try, but those questioning thoughts still arise,  every damn time, i do something. Like "is it real?" "is it there?" "maybe i'm cheating myself?" it's tooough.  

Thank you very much for your heart ❤️

[Forza21]

49 minutes ago, Nowt said:

Yes definitely. Have a look through the meditations section on the site. If there's still nothing you find helpful just shout up. Even if you don't resonate with it, trying won't hurt. 😊

 

A few days mostly in terms of physically having the stuff out of my body, but sometimes trying to make sense of what was experienced can take time to digest. What I often found was what I initially might have viewed as a "bad trip" was actually not that at all, and actually the opposite. That's not always evident straight away.

it's been 2.5 weeks,  i hope i'll get on ground in some time...  it's better sometimes, and the other time it's getting out of hand...

[Isomorphic]

You can know that people exist to the same extent as you do, because a priori sensibility is a necessary ingredient for the consciousness you have right now. And since consciousness is absent (time speeding up) when your brain is knocked to that state, you can be sure that it has something to do with the brain and consequently that the brain of others is conscious

But this kind of knowledge has little to do with the idea and identity you have created of particular people, but instead serves you as a knowledge of 'there being someone there'.

The reason all this is known is because reality is a closed system. So far as reality is mystical you have no such knowledge, and why would there then be anyone on "the other side"?

How the world in material form operates as opposed to why it exist is entirely mystical however, and can never be known but merely believed. 

[Nowt]

49 minutes ago, Isomorphic said:

because a priori sensibility is a necessary ingredient for the consciousness you have right now.

Could something exist prior to consciousness? How would you know? Wouldn't consciousness first need to exist to be conscious of something coming prior to it?

 

50 minutes ago, Isomorphic said:

And since consciousness is absent (time speeding up) when your brain is knocked to that state, you can be sure that it has something to do with the brain and consequently that the brain of others is conscious

Is it consciousness being absent or is it just an absence of objective experience? 

[Isomorphic]

2 hours ago, Nowt said:

Could something exist prior to consciousness? How would you know? Wouldn't consciousness first need to exist to be conscious of something coming prior to it?

 

Is it consciousness being absent or is it just an absence of objective experience? 

When we tempt to define existence as something that are not contingent on the consciousness required to define it we are doing ourself no favor, end begin with an impossible task. (To begin with definitions in metaphysics like the mathematicians in physics is to put the cart in front of the horse)

Absence of experience is what we call it when consciousness is absent. You can not have experience without consciousness.

When you ask if something can exist prior to consciousness, what that question must amount to is if the appearances of object points to objects with an independent existence. That this independence is such - we can in our naivete from childhood say with certainty, for otherwise there are no congruence to anything in consciousness, we simply call it independent from us all things that comes and goes without us doing anything. 

This does not mean that it is that which appears to us, is it prior? Well causality or time is entirely our a priori sensibility, something which we impose onto this independent realm of substances, so if it could be prior then that would mean that the object which is prior is NOT the appearance but something "behind" it.

Edited March 17, 2022 by Isomorphic

[Phil]

4 hours ago, Forza21 said:

I have many thoughts' attachment, and i still fall into them. I know they make me suffer, but it's overwhelming ;( i'm questioning everything

Just some suggestions…

Maybe frame it as just - thought attachment - vs I have many thoughts attachment. Allow it to be simpler, as simple as possible. It’s only ever now, and attention is on thoughts / believing thoughts now, or on feeling breathing from the stomach now. Let it be simple. Relax. 🙂 Feel the right-now-relief in doing so. Thoughts can be very tricky so to speak, but relief - feeling - is never in a past or future. If there is relaxation, it is now. If there is happiness, it is now. If there is a ‘you know what, who cares about all this crap, I’m gonna just have fun’… it’s now. 

In regard to the belief in solipsism, notice any tendency to focus on thoughts / believing thoughts like ‘if I just had the right thought’, ‘if it would just click’, ‘if I could just figure it out’, ‘if I could just grasp what someone is saying’, etc……….then I would feel better. Trust in the feeling (which is present right now) of bringing attention to feeling breathing from the stomach. Perhaps question / contemplate… if solipsism is true, then what is aware of the thought / belief, “solipsism”?  

Would not that which is aware, awareness, be prior to, thoughts, beliefs, and all ism’s? In noticing some thoughts feel great, and some thoughts feel not so great - isn’t feeling prior to the thoughts? Perhaps, wonder about this feeling, and not so much about the thoughts. Thoughts come & go, appear & disappear - isn’t it so in direct experience? On the contrary - ANY time you check if feeling is present, indeed ‘it’ is - isn’t it so in direct experience? Simplest ‘way to check’ - is there the presence of sensation in the bottoms of the feet? Yes. Is this presence of sensation present right now through out the entire body? Yes. You could even go so far as to try to remove this presence of sensation / feeling. Try to ‘take it off’ like you would a coat, and put it on the floor next to you. Then check again… is this presence of sensation present in the bottoms of the feet, the entire body… yes. 

Consider comparing solipsism to other ism’s, and see if anything ‘comes up’. As an example, you have probably heard of Catholicism, and that we’re all judged when we croak, and that we go to a heaven or hell. That ism doesn’t seem to feel discordant to you (as far as I know). But, someone who worries about what other people think, and focuses on a lot of comparative / judgmental thoughts, might be triggered by hearing someone tell them Catholicism is The Truth. 

Also… “I still fall into them”… notice this is not possible.  Self referential thoughts like that are the ‘stickiness’ of thought attachment. Allow it to be readily recognized that if there is the activity of thought, you as awareness are aware of it. Therefore, you can never actually be “in” thoughts. If thoughts “about you” arise - allow it to be fine. Relax. “Oh, that was a thought which seemed to be about me, yet I see, I am the awareness of the thoughts”. 

Note the implied duality of language / communication as well. You might say “yesterday I was at the park and there was this huge dog there playing frisbee”. That would be the experience of communication. That isn’t necessarily believing that you are or were ‘in a past’, or are ‘in the thoughts’. 

Meditations - check out the Body-Feeling Awareness section. 

[Nowt]

18 minutes ago, Isomorphic said:

Absence of experience is what we call it when consciousness is absent. You can not have experience without consciousness.

This seems like it contradicts itself, sorry if I misunderstand. I agree that there would be no experience without consciousness (your second statement), but when might you ever experience consciousness being absent (your first statement)?

I hope I'm understanding you properly. I'm English 😆

[Forza21]

55 minutes ago, Phil said:

Just some suggestions…

Maybe frame it as just - thought attachment - vs I have many thoughts attachment. Allow it to be simpler, as simple as possible. It’s only ever now, and attention is on thoughts / believing thoughts now, or on feeling breathing from the stomach now. Let it be simple. Relax. 🙂 Feel the right-now-relief in doing so. Thoughts can be very tricky so to speak, but relief - feeling - is never in a past or future. If there is relaxation, it is now. If there is happiness, it is now. If there is a ‘you know what, who cares about all this crap, I’m gonna just have fun’… it’s now. 
 

Right.
" i have million thoughts" it's actually one thought 🙂

55 minutes ago, Phil said:

 

In regard to the belief in solipsism, notice any tendency to focus on thoughts / believing thoughts like ‘if I just had the right thought’, ‘if it would just click’, ‘if I could just figure it out’, ‘if I could just grasp what someone is saying’, etc……….then I would feel better. Trust in the feeling (which is present right now) of bringing attention to feeling breathing from the stomach. Perhaps question / contemplate… if solipsism is true, then what is aware of the thought / belief, “solipsism”?  

 

Consciousness is before any beliefs.As you said very well on the video, an infant wouldn't have such problems. It's pure consciousness, pure infinity, before any beliefs were introduced. 🙂

 

55 minutes ago, Phil said:

 Would not that which is aware, awareness, be prior to, thoughts, beliefs, and all ism’s? In noticing some thoughts feel great, and some thoughts feel not so great - isn’t feeling prior to the thoughts? Perhaps, wonder about this feeling, and not so much about the thoughts. Thoughts come & go, appear & disappear - isn’t it so in direct experience? On the contrary - ANY time you check if feeling is present, indeed ‘it’ is - isn’t it so in direct experience? Simplest ‘way to check’ - is there the presence of sensation in the bottoms of the feet? Yes. Is this presence of sensation present right now through out the entire body? Yes. You could even go so far as to try to remove this presence of sensation / feeling. Try to ‘take it off’ like you would a coat, and put it on the floor next to you. Then check again… is this presence of sensation present in the bottoms of the feet, the entire body… yes. 

 

isn’t feeling prior to the thoughts?

here, i'm not sure i need to be more aware when it happens. I believe it's thoughts -> feelings, not the other way around. The next part - 100% yes, awarness/the presence is always, always there!

55 minutes ago, Phil said:

 

Consider comparing solipsism to other ism’s, and see if anything ‘comes up’. As an example, you have probably heard of Catholicism, and that we’re all judged when we croak, and that we go to a heaven or hell. That ism doesn’t seem to feel discordant to you (as far as I know). But, someone who worries about what other people think, and focuses on a lot of comparative / judgmental thoughts, might be triggered by hearing someone tell them Catholicism is The Truth. 

 

True. There's much more attachment/ feelings engaged to beliefs like solipsism, than to any other. I need to start questioning, why is that? i guess there's no good reason, other than it's more "fresh". 😉 

 

55 minutes ago, Phil said:

Also… “I still fall into them”… notice this is not possible.  Self referential thoughts like that are the ‘stickiness’ of thought attachment. Allow it to be readily recognized that if there is the activity of thought, you as awareness are aware of it. Therefore, you can never actually be “in” thoughts. If thoughts “about you” arise - allow it to be fine. Relax. “Oh, that was a thought which seemed to be about me, yet I see, I am the awareness of the thoughts”. 

Note the implied duality of language / communication as well. You might say “yesterday I was at the park and there was this huge dog there playing frisbee”. That would be the experience of communication. That isn’t necessarily believing that you are or were ‘in a past’, or are ‘in the thoughts’. 

 

There's no one to fall into these thoughts, they simply just arises. It just seems like there's someone who gets glued to it, but it's just more thoughts.  Yes. I am that which is aware of that. 

 

55 minutes ago, Phil said:

 

Meditations - check out the Body-Feeling Awareness section. 

I'll check that!!

 

 
Thank you so much, Phil ❤️❤️❤️ I really, really appreciate it! 

 

 P.s 
I know you have video on youtube,  but maybe small article about how to handle solipsism would also be helpful for others ❤️ 

 

Edited March 17, 2022 by Forza21

[Forza21]

18 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Do people who claim solipsism is true act like it is so?  If not, why is that?  

True ❤️ 

 

18 hours ago, Nyingpo said:

I feel theres alot of explaining on the non dual /wisdom paths of the fear thats encounted when glimpses of the dissolution or unfindableness of a separate self arise, but not much on the area of the same dissolution of otherness that can be revealed . 

Its equally as fear producing and theres a strong backswing of trying to grasp the old and also deal with the ramifications of the new.  Meaning if others arent "really" there as separate identities with edges and qualities,  then that crumbles so much of the way we relate,  and has such strong impact on our reasons for doing etc.  Big glimpses bring big swingbacks  of fear and ramifications. 

But just like big ego death glimpses take a while of dealing with the fear swingback so does otherness death glimpses.  Theres a new way of seeing that can be revealed,  and the swings can be held in love and gentleness.  

The death glimpse of otherness can bring strong arising of Im the only one,  its just a grabing hold that happens, but  surrendering and opening helps. 

In the end youre already where you and I are and it will always be us and all.  One soup.  Love

 

Thank you ❤️❤️ 

[Joseph Maynor]

24 minutes ago, Forza21 said:

True ❤️ 

 

Thank you ❤️❤️ 

Do people who claim complete omniscience is true act like it is so? If not, why is that?  There's an old saying, how do you know when a lawyer is lying . . . .  

Edited March 17, 2022 by Joseph Maynor

[Faith]

31 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

how do you know when a lawyer is lying

When their lips are moving 😉

[Isomorphic]

5 hours ago, Nowt said:

This seems like it contradicts itself, sorry if I misunderstand. I agree that there would be no experience without consciousness (your second statement), but when might you ever experience consciousness being absent (your first statement)?

I hope I'm understanding you properly. I'm English 😆

I did not say what you will have had me say, it is not derived from experience that consciousness is absent from the world of substances, that it (so far as it is yours) is absent from the world of substances is self evident, which is why I can represent it here to you, and why most people can understand what it means.

The only alternative is that sensibility (which is what me and you are made of such to for example point towards space in the agreement that such is the same for me and for you) is derived from induction, which is an infinite regression  and the only actual contradiction here.

[Stillness]

Experiencing the same issue some years ago, it seemed like a very big shock, at the time.  I had a flash of sudden insight, (realization may or may not come like a sudden flash) not through tripping.  I haven't ever tried that.  It was simply having read hundreds of books from various enlightened beings.  I think, jmho, that pursuing a truer alignment with being a being of love since as long as I could remember set me  up with a solid foundation.  I never felt the need to use a substance that would alter brain chemistry to have an experience which then might be faulty due to altering the organ by which these insights would have to be interpreted.  But I learned to be silent from a couple neither of whom had a religious affiliation, who had written a book called "The Journey That Never Was," and taught a course on it. I think it lasted 5 two hour sessions and by then everyone felt they had succeeded and went on their way.  I had not meditated before.  But the wife that taught their course with her husband had experienced instances of communicating with her inner voice regularly, and she had a wonderful gift of transmitting Love through her teaching.  I followed their simple instructions and just did as they said.  As we did the meditation, I felt my heart overflowing with Love and Peace.  I was not a people person for most of my life until then.  But I felt pure inexpressible Love for everyone and everything that made me weep.  That was when I felt real Love for the first time.  And I felt it like a parent's Love for me, someone who cared deeply for me, like the kind of Love a mother would give her treasured child with a hug.

When I had the sudden flash that nothing was real, it was a few years later.  I went into a kind of shock thinking nothing and no one was real.  I spent sometime to get over the shock, and even lost my job at the time mainly because I had no interest in being productive just to entertain myself and impress some imaginary people.  In order to stop obsessing over it, I eventually had to drop that whole line of thinking and go back to my old way thinking.  Only once in a while I still questioned it.  I hadn't forgotten it.  But at least the obsessing stopped, and I still did meditation. 

One day after that I was playing in my backyard with my dog.  We played "fetch" and as I waited for her to fetch and bring me her toy, I looked out into the small woods directly behind our house.  It was a sunny afternoon and as I looked the trees were bathed in afternoon sun and I studied the leaves and the veins flowing with Life through the almost transparent green and they lit up like they had a bright aura all around them.  Then I looked at the trunks and the bark flowing with Life traveling up and down through them, and I saw Life in them and the rocks as well.  They too seemed alive and even intelligent.  Everywhere I looked there was Life throbbing right through every object.  And in a moment I knew that the Life I saw was me.  The people walking past on the sidewalk were me.  I was Life and they were all, all things, were me.  It made me almost giddy with happiness and Love for them all.  We were all one.  Everything and I were connected and completely one, unified and blessed with Life that flowed through everything and loved everything.  That was the moment when I no longer felt like an isolated being and no longer felt lost and lonely.  That moment was a gift to me.  Of course my dog barked and broke the spell, but that happiness stayed with me ever since.  This is a true story and I hope perhaps it helps you to see what you're not seeing when you obsess on solipsism.

And just one small observation here:  I don't think Leo's teaching is from the point of view of  transmitting Love.  He seems to have little empathy and teaches the mechanics from a very analytical viewpoint.  When I go to his forum, if I go there, I usually feel negative energy and a bit of depression afterward.  I rarely feel inspired or uplifted and often feel that Leo has not yet experienced the emotion of deep unconditional Love.  Some may connect with the analytical side more.  I'm analytical myself and he makes good arguments for some things, but I don't feel it at my heart level.  As I said, just my observation.

 

[Nowt]

4 hours ago, Isomorphic said:

I did not say what you will have had me say

My apologies 🙏

[Isomorphic]

3 hours ago, Nowt said:

My apologies 🙏

No problem at all, all I try to say is that even though thoughts are fantastical and imaginative and always disappear they are strict and limited. 

That precisely which makes them limited is intuited in all thoughts, Kant would call such things a priori forms of sensible intuition. Though they require no such name, for they mean nothing more than for example time and space.

[Nowt]

@Isomorphic Gotcha! 😊

[Nowt]

4 hours ago, Stillness said:

Everything and I were connected and completely one, unified and blessed with Life that flowed through everything and loved everything.  That was the moment when I no longer felt like an isolated being and no longer felt lost and lonely. 

❤️