All becoming and unbecoming are simultaneous.
Life and death are happening at the same time.
Gain and loss are also simultaneous.
When something is gained, its opposite is lost to that same extent.
When something arises, something else passes.
We see things and events in time because of the dullness of our awareness.
Only when the gains/losses cross a certain threshold do we even notice them as such and experience them like they suddenly happened at a particular time.
Time is like a dreamed up story.
Things are forever brewing slowly.
There are no nouns/things, rather there are only verbs/processes.
Everything is a continuous process unfolding.
Imagination vs Reality
Imagination is on your terms.
Reality is on its terms.
Concentration is like sugar
Concentration is like sugar.
Mixed with anything, it adds pleasantness.
Good as long-term, Bad as short-term
When it comes to good/bad, right/wrong, noble/evil,
I think it is more often a ‘short-term vs long-term’ idea.
Good is often seen as a long-standing solution,
While bad is often seen from taking the much shorter easier routes,
Where the gains may rapidly or abruptly reverse themselves over time.
In a way, time will reverse everything no matter if good or bad.
So the notions of good and bad are in a relative sense.
Relatively longer lasting is seen as better and good.
‘Reason’ as a crutch used for acceptance
I feel like ‘Reason’ is often used as a crutch for acceptance.
Is it possible to accept directly without it?
Without having a reason? Without making a reason?
I sometimes feel like the need to know/understand/reason is also a crutch.
We use all of that to make the acceptance more bearable.
The knowledge from drugs
The ‘knowledge’ obtained from drugs does not come from the drugs, but comes from you.
Drugs are similar to books in that way.
The book is not the knowledge,
It is food for your mind, only if you are capable of digesting-absorbing-assimilating it.
Happiness is an elusive paradox
Happiness is like sleep.
I cannot study it,
Because when I am in it,
I am not there.
What is the real saviour?
It is not ignorance that saves you,
Nor is it knowledge that saves you.
Rather, it is ‘knowledge of ignorance’ that is the real saviour.
Some insights on change and free will
Generally, when we think of change,
We think of it in objective/external terms,
Like day-night cycles, season cycles, the rusting of iron, and so on.
So in this context,
We can study these changes, and make prediction models.
Here the subject stays as a relatively stable witness to the changing objects outside.
Changes of this kind are actually fairly superficial in our experience.
The subject is relatively unchanging while the object is changing a lot more.
Like when some people go on a vacation,
They are mostly the same people in different outer situations.
They mostly feel and act the same.
But there is another kind of change,
That is not objective, but subjective,
That is not outside, but inside.
Here, since the very subject changes,
This kind of change is unpredictable and profound,
It feels more like magic.
This kind of change is like when a person takes a medium dose of LSD.
There is a dramatic internal change that changes everything in their experience.
Childhood also is like that,
Where we go through dramatic shifts in our very view of reality itself with every passing year.
I am using the words objective and subjective in a more loose and colloquial sense here.
If I look at it deeper, all objectivity too would collapse into the subjective,
Where only the “Subjective” would exist.
Similarly I could also argue, that every subjective experience could theoretically be determined by objective factors that we still do not yet have the necessary subtle-enough instruments to define, study, and alter.
Objectivity = 3rd person perspective (3rd pp)
Subjectivity = 1st person perspective (1st pp)
All 3rd pp could be said to be subsumed into 1st pp.
I tend to look at all change as change in your state of consciousness (SoC).
Birth and Death are times of great change in consciousness.
Could equate it to sunrise and sunset?
While our Lifetime is more linear and less dramatic?
Could equate lifetime to day-time and after-death to night-time?
After death could be some unfathomable mystery though.
I think what is generally called free-will is the situation where:
We have a relatively unchanging subject in a changing outer world.
So then the subject is able to exert his/her steady will on the changing outer world and build things.
There is much less free will when we are undergoing any transformations of subject.
Here the subject changes relatively much faster than the outer world rhythms.
Transformation times are like kayaking in rapids.
The free will then has to be mostly used in service of the transforming force,
In navigating the rapid change,
So as to keep maintaining order and balance through the changes.
The 2 variables of environment and control
There are 2 variables: Environment, Control
This could apply to the external (outer-circumstances) or internal (identity) domain.
From the most pleasant to the most unpleasant, I can think of 4 levels:
1. You could have an environment so good, that is not only already pleasant, but more and more pleasantness keeps outpouring/blossoming from it. No control is even needed in this case. Blessings are simply overflowing without any intervention.
2. You could have an environment that is stable and neutral, such that, you can use your effort to get more and more pleasure. This would be the realm of hobbies, passions, explorations, romances, achievements, endeavours, adventures etc.
3. You could have a hostile environment, that is quite unstable, such that it imprisons and enslaves you even to just maintain stability. Here there is constant struggle, using control just to keep things ok.
4. You could have an environment so hostile, and so unstable, that everything around you devolves and worsens, and even the exertion of all your control only slows and makes somewhat bearable this unstoppable fall.
I could call the first 2 levels as heavens and the last 2 levels as hells.
The 1st world, 2nd world ——vs—— The 3rd world, 4th world
Journey to the Abstract 