Are you aware that you are NOT the thoughts that come from your human mind? In fact, your mind is your enemy...

Thank you .. I just bought the book :-) all for reading ..

Both threads .. amazing .. thank you!

glp is the place to go for spiritual advice

30 idiots per thread,

also some highly enlightened yogis here between all the conspiracy and idiocy

For more clarity you need to come to grips with some realizations that might challenge the views that society has conditioned and groomed us to buy into and believe in.

Society tries to teach us that our bodies and physical appearances are our identities. How you look is who you are, right? Look at the intense focus on beautification of the human body in our society. Eating disorders, countless cosmetic surgeries, people suffering depression over their perceived physical appearances. Women feeling they need to augment their bodies to increase their sexual desire and perceived attractiveness. Men feeling hopeless because they cannot attract sexual partners to give them a sense of self-worth. Good looking people being over-glorified and praised in the media for nothing other than their physical appearance. It's all one big bullshit FALSEHOOD, a lie. Who you are is NOT how you look and how your physical appearance is perceived by others. Is a down-syndrome person any less of a human being than you or I? Is a quadruple amputee returning from war any less of a human being than you or I? Is a burn victim, or a person with a severe birth defect or genetic disorder any less of a human being than you or I? Your heart tells you NO, but look at the impression that society would shed on this important question. The collective actions of society would tell you that all these physical attributes matter, and that people of varying physical appearances and abilities have different levels of value or worth than others. And again, it's superficial BULLSHIT!

Society also tries to reinforce in us that our mind & thoughts are our identities. I am having sad or depressed thoughts, so I am a sad/depressed person by nature! I am having angry or negative thoughts, so I must be a angry/negative person! I perceive myself as unattractive, so I am really an unattractive person. I am having delusional, thoughts, so I must really be a a crazy person! People have been trained to take these isolated emotions/thoughts and use them as the basis for deciding our identities. Our culture has reinforced this bullshit belief system that we are our minds, and that everything we experience in this body is really who we are.... Does this ring true to your heart? Not mine, and I would guess NO for you as well.. Is a highly autistic or catatonic individual less of a human being than you or I because of their mental states? Is a person who experiences a severe accident, and is a comatose state, now less of a human being than you or I? Is a severely handicapped adult who has the mental age of a child, less of a human being than you are I because of their restricted mental capacity? Should those intellectual and physical capacities (and appearances) be the basis for those individuals' identities in our world? We both know the answer to this, yet society's collective actions & responses would cast these individuals in a different light, and tell you they are lesser beings than those of us who are living with different circumstances.

Society also pushes this biological model whereby we need to infer all meaning and reasoning in everything from biology. Negative/depressed thoughts must be a chemical imbalance of the brain! All forms of mental disorders must have a biological cause in the body! All behavior traits that differ from one individual to a next must have a biological explanation in genetics or brain development! ETC ETC. It's a bullshit model that was valid for a period of time in human civilization but it has unfortunately run it's course and is now restricting human thought and evolution. This biological model is particularly damaging to buy into, because it crushes the acceptance or belief of a spirit or soul inhabiting these physical bodies. Scientists can't locate or measure the soul in a lab, therefore is must not exist! Well then where did this electro-magnetic energy in our bodies come from? And where will it go if science teaches us that energy cannot be destroyed? Something the medical/science field will never be able to answer under the current constraints of the paradigms forced onto us.

You can see all these once seemingly valid teachings that our society and culture has bestowed upon us, that do not make any sense to the individual when you search for meaning and answers from your heart. We have been deceived, corrupted, and brainwashed into believing some of these thought patterns and belief systems, and it has caused so much human pain and suffering and led us to this precarious state of affairs we find ourselves in today. One need not feel ashamed for buying into these belief systems, because did we know any better, growing up? The nature vs. nurture debate. You can groom a child to believe just about anything independent of the actual reality. We have moved away from nature, and placed all of our emphasis on nurture. A corrupt and misguided belief systems have taken over basic human instinct & intuition when it comes to matters of love & compassion.

Think of the human body as a highly complex system or machine. The brain is the centralized computer or control system, and when there's dysfunction in the brain, it creates dysfunction in the entire system. The brain, by itself, is not the entire system. How can it be? Take the brain outside of the human body, and do you have a human being? NO. So why do we believe that everything that transpires in the human brain is supposed to be our identity, and who we are? The EGO is the part of you that is OBSESSED with not only your physical well-being (body), but also with self-preservation in this current lifetime. The ego teaches you to avoid danger, it teaches you to do whatever you can for YOURSELF and your own self preservation. It's the ego controlled mind that urges others to take as much as they can for themselves, because they have to worry about their own preservation, right? It's the ego that urges people to control and manipulate others, to exploit. The ego that urges a young punk to rob and steal for himself at the expense of others. The ego that urges you to continue arguing with your spouse so you can feel you were 'right' and that your perceived identity was not tarnished. The EGO is just a part of the complex system, but the problem we face in our current lives, is that it's become HIGHLY imbalanced and energized, much more so than it ever had to be in past human history. The impulses of the EGO MIND are the cause of all the human suffering you witness before you today, the destruction of the earth and all it's resources, the endless pursuit of money & material things at the expense of the general well being of other humans, animals, and our very own planet.

Those negative thoughts that invade your mind. Those thoughts that cause never-ending stress & anxiety, that's your EGO taking control of your system. That is NOT WHO YOU ARE. That is just one aspect of our this highly complex system running amok and creating havoc for the entire system. You are a physical body and all it's organs (including your brain & heart), a consciousness, a spirit/soul. If you over-identify with your brain and it's activity & thoughts, it will destroy your system and all that you are (at least in this physical reality that we live for the time being).

I know you said in previous threads that you have a family. I do not have children, but I have a 90 lb. German Shepherd who is very much my companion and I love him dearly. So I ask you an important question, when you love your child, do you love with your brain, or with your heart? I feel the love & compassion in my heart, not in my head (brain/mind/ego), and I'm sure you do as well. I think we are all connected via electro-magnetic energy, and the heart is the electro-magnetic pump of the human body. You see, not everything resides in the brain/mind. The brain/mind is just a tool that helps preserve the physical body so we can continue this physical existence whereby we learn important lessons. But if you don't take care of your mind, it will run amok and ruin everything else.

We have all the tools we need to make things right again. Society took the wrong path and we have gotten too far off course. We need to turn around and head back in the right direction. LESS ego, LESS material obsession, LESS concern with self-preservation at the expense of others. MORE love, MORE compassion, MORE understanding, MORE acceptance and tolerance.

I'm only 30, probably about the same age as you. But I tortured myself enough in my own mind during my childhood to have lasted a lifetime. The sudden death of a very important family member at age 20 caused me to question the realities of human existence & explore the possibilities of the afterlife, or an existence behind these physical bodies. After several years of searching for knowledge and seeking answers to some of life's most complicated questions, I was finally able to utilize my own instincts and intuition to come to several important realizations that have caused me to have a dramatic shift in how I perceive our very own existence as well as our experiences in this physical reality. It was what you can call a culmination. It's not something you can force, and that's only something that I learned after the fact. Without the negative experiences in my life, I never would have found this path. With no adversity in this lifetime, I would continue to be consumed by the false reality that our present day society & culture has shaped for us. I am now thankful for my experiences, even though I now find myself living in a world that is filled with bullshit and feels like a prison. I no longer feel naive, and deceived.

You can call it a spiritual awakening, you can label it whatever you want. It's basically an acknowledgement that these physical bodies we inhabit, and these current lifetimes that we live, are NOT EVERYTHING we will ever know or experience. They are all but a small blip on the radar. A short detour on a never-ending journey. Our ancient ancestors knew this, they would probably tell us that it's human nature to acknowledge this, but this knowledge has since been lost, and we now find ourselves living in an ego-driven world. When a spiritual awakening unleashes itself inside of you, you will never be able to experience anything in the same light as you had done so in the past. It changes everything. It allows you to love, to forgive, to look beyond judgements and labels. The only caveat is that it can make living during these current times increasingly difficult, because it makes everything around you and the current life you might have crafted for yourself, feel so disconnected from nature and everything that is true and pure. When enough people on this earth wake up and come to these realizations, it will create a collective shift that will be contagious, and only then will we be able to proceed in a manner that's compassionate for all living beings (including the earth).

I just wanted to say thank you for your post because I was having an increasingly difficult time trying to put my feelings into words in this very important thread. It was your question and pursuit of knowledge that gave me the impulse & motivation to respond and find a manner to express myself in a way that I hope helps not only you and others, but also helps me in the process.

Some pointers for reading this book:

-Read only a little bit at a time. Perhaps a chapter at a time. Allow yourself to sit and think about what you read and how it relates to experiences you have had in your own life. It is not a quick read.

-Not everything you read will immediately be clear, or make sense to you right away. I read this book over the course of several months, with long breaks inbetween, and I find myself discovering new meaning in passages & concepts that didn't quite 'hit me' the first time around. You get that "Aha!" moment, the "I get it now!".

-If you come across a passage that really resonates with you (and it's a feeling that you will get through your entire body when you sense it), write it down and log it, so you can revisit that idea or concept at a later date for quick reference, because it won't be easy to re-read the book, because it's a wealth of information and takes awhile to digest.

I urged my sister to read this book and as open-minded as she, she found it difficult to read. I am confident that she will reach a moment in her life where she will be able to make sense of it all and will feel compelled to revisit it. Not every one is at a stage in their life where every thing will come together and make sense to them, and I totally get that. If I came across this book 5 years ago, it probably would have fell by the wayside.

I am pretty excited .. thanks for the heads up .. I should have the book in a day .. patiently waiting :)

Did my post on the previous page help answer your questions about what the OP was getting at?

I just did ..

.. and I didn't respond nearly enough to what you put into writing for me ..

I am kind of in awe .. it is more appreciated then you could know ..

It is a very deep and complex subject, but you need to realise that our minds are also subject to "hacking" by other entities that do not have your best interest at heart. In other words, thoughts can be introduced/injected artificially causing you to believe that they are your thoughts.

Deep subject. Way down the rabbit hole. If this idea rings true to you, follow it more on your own...

Peace

What this means is that Nietzsche is claiming that all we can come to know about a thing or person is its effects, its appearance. However, because of the seductiveness of language, we are misled at times in relation to cause and effect. Take for instance the phrase "I think." What does this tiny sentence assert and lead us to believe?

That it is I who thinks, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that

thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a

cause, that there is an ‘ego,’ and finally, that it is already determined what is to be

designated by thinking -that I know what thinking is