What are we?

  If anybody's interested in continuing the discussion, they're welcome.

  I said that, Scott: the limited must end for the infinite to pass through. No one's denying the infinite. But the house must be clean, empty of thoughts. I didn't say there's nothing but thoughts. But for something else to be there must be silence.

  To simply say there's more than thoughts, let's believe in something else, that's one more thought added into the mix. It is that very mix which keep the house from being empty.

  Perhaps you think thoughts are something spiritual, but they're actually very material, and a busy brain ( busy thinking) cannot be a host for truth. It's either or: when one insists on having a crowded house, beliefs, prayers, positivbe thinking and what not, truth is not.

  Part of the program we humans are being conditioned with is that through the symbol truth can be reached. False. Through symbols( symbol of truth included) only other symbols are reached. They are two parallel lines: symbols and truth never ever meet.

  So our thoughts and feelings are not important in themselves, not in the way a psychiatrist tries to find a solution somewhere in there. Let's get one thing clear: there is no solution within that content: none. Moreover, no solution can ever be found there, so no hope for future solutions within the content.

  But the content is important in the sense that it's an obstacle to bliss. And adding to the content only strengthens the obstacle; adding to the content means adding more beliefs, prayers, all those thinking activities.

  Prayers, beliefs are limited to the content of thought--they can never go beyond this content: but bliss is not there, the infinite is not within the limited. The limited must be quiet, ( and prayers and beliefs are noise), so that the infinite can be 'perceived', (not the best word, but 'felt' is a weaker choice of words here).

Oh come on, all one needs is money and a normal life. Psychiatrists are working in a fog of uncertainties.

  So, to continue for myself, how is the content to be quiet? How does it happen? First, one must be disgusted with themselves. This goes against the mainstream thinking of society, which is built on so-called confidence, yet it's true. In fact, that is not confidence, it's the result of fear, insecurity, so the reaction to that is a movement in the 'opposite' direction, of confidence, corage in response to fear. But real confidence knows no fear and cannot be born of fear, for then it's just fear: if fear is the source of confidence, then such confidence is also fear.

  I'm afraid of this or that: then I built confidence to overcome that. Such 'confidence' exists only as long as there is something to overcome, which triggers fear in the first place. Fear--courage--confidence and back again. But fear is always there, at the core, which is why I say that such confidence is based on fear. And what is built on fear is also fear. If the foundation of confidence is fear then the whole building is fear, for the building cannot exist without its foundation.

  Real confidence is totally divorced from fear. Its foundation is truth, which is perfection.

  So seeing that confidence is a myth and at our core there is but fear, will one become disgusted with themselves? Not partially disgusted, then we're back in the same game.

  So one must neither love, nor hate themselves. Ad mot one part disgusted, another content--that is the same game.

 It's extremly rare to find such a person.

  All one needs is money and a normal life.

   But such indolence doesn't solve conflict, suffering. And no matter how hard one's trying to cover it up, one can still see it, and feel its consequences.

you are not paid enough, you don't want to be there, and I'm not indifferent but nobody cares anyway, so it's not that I can change anything, I can't help, even if I wanted I can't

   I am not talking about implementing a change in society. A politician must be armed with a platform, in order to be consider efficient. For instance, Trump doesn't have a clear platform on this or that issue. But clear platforms or vague ideas are the same: nothing will change, not that way.

  There's nothing to change when on one hand they encourage greed and consumerism, while on the other hand they want peace and no conflicts. Comunists tried to force the issue by changing the outer conditions, changing the society first. That cannot possibly work because a change cannot be imposed from without.

  We are only talking about the personal level. If one doesn't have money, they fantasize that by being rich all problems will go away. So it takes a certain intelligence to not wait until one becomes rich( for it may never happen) before realizing that more money won't stop suffering.

  What will?

  What will it take for someone to reach the tipping point?

All problems won't go away if you're killing innocent people for fun, or you are working for anyone who does or you are politically inclined to support the so called working class even when by doing so you are unmistakenly doing something very wrong and against any of your so called principles, moreover proving on the way out that you don't have any.

  Forget principles, they are ideals, while the facts are contradicting those ideals. And getting lost in ideals the facts are forgotten.

  One is violent and has an ideal of being peaceful someday. Meanwhile they're lending themselves a free license to be violent. They are indifferent to the violence because of the belief in a future peace.

  So ideals are but a distraction from facts. But it takes quite a transformation to actually see things as they are, not as one'd like them be.

Talking is one thing and doing something without being fully aware of what we are really doing is something completely different. Violence is not necessary at all costs.

  Why, do you think violence is ever necessary?

  Besides, violent language is already violent behaviour, creating suffering through verbal abuse.

try meditation; maybe Buddhism

  Forced or induced meditation is not really meditation. It's just a game played by the noise to pretend it's doing something about itself. Can noise practice silence? Does noise know what silence is? It has an idea about silence, but an idea is just more noise, not silence.

"forced"?? "induced??" what the hell does that mean?? all you're doing in meditation of freeing your mind from the bullshit and noise that it is constantly bombarded with, from within and without. you have a choice about what you do with your mind. there is nothing forced or induced about meditation. it is a choice to allow your conscious mind to be still. 

  First of all, choice is an illusion. We choose whatever image becomes dominant at a certain moment. There is always a fight for supremacy between images, at one point this matter most, at the next one something else matters most, and our 'choice' changes. We're just acting under the compulsion of the predominant images at any point in time.

  Secondly, deliberately pursuing silence by following a method to deal with the noise is to try to force silence into existence, without understanding noise as a whole, not one thought/feeling at a time, but as a whole.

  So by not dealing with noise in a fragmented way we have eliminated an important part of the noise. Does this convey anything?

Profilactic. Self-defence profilactic measures. lol

I'm not silent when I'm pissed off.

Please note, religious or political debate or commentary is not to be conducted in the regular forums: https://www.chess.com/forum/view/off-topic/forum-posting-rules---be-nice--no-religious-or-political-debate; I am therefore locking this thread.
Please join the Open Discussion Club if you would like to discuss these topics: https://www.chess.com/club/open-discussion. Alternatively, you can try one of the less unmoderated private clubs, such as Debate+: https://www.chess.com/club/debate
Thanks,
David ~ Chess.com moderator