Robanan wrote:So it all came down from the "infinite why..." to the "ultimate why.."? Please Alisima don't let your mind play it's unfair game with the rest of the world.
The reason I posted these questions was to illustrate that the mind does not have an answer. Therefor, because of not having an answer, life must be meaningless. However, I have been engaged in various activities in life with which I got a deep satisfaction and a deep feeling of meaning. And this troubled me. Because, is it meaningless or meaningfull?? According to my mind it must be meaningless since I can't find any meaning. But on the other hand when I play a gig, I am a musician, or when I compose music or play with my 4-year-old nephew I feel meaning. So I concluded both must be right. It just depends, and that is with most things, on how you look.
Robanan wrote:If you lose your self you will completely disentegrate back into whatever was the "nothing" that you asked about in your quote above. What you say shows you are completely misunderstood about your own mind.
I am sorry, I meant lost as in able to regain. As with lost memories, they are still there but you can't see them. They have to be rediscovered. This is the same when I say that the self is lost because we have identified ourselves with our minds. I don't mean it is lost as in completely lost, but lost as in unaware of its existence. I am sorry, I should have explained that better.
Zark wrote:I didn't twist your words. I made it quite clear in my post that I felt what you meant and what others meant by saying 'go with the flow' are two different things. My whole point is that the saying is bad because of what it means to the average person - how then can you say that I twisted the words of the saying.
No correct you never twisted my words. But the people who will misinterpreted my saying of 'go with the flow' will have twisted my words. Well, rather twisted its meaning. I am aware that saying much in very little words can create misinterpretations easily. But then again I am not in favor of typing a whole book to explain something as easy as 'go with the flow'. You either understand, you don't understand, or you think you understand.
Zark wrote:People do use the saying as an excuse to act like mindless sheep and just do what everyone else is doing... and that is very harmful.
Yes, we probably all have behaved like sheep somewhere in our lives, or former lives. It is not bad, growth just takes a little longer. Afterward, we all laugh about it.
Zark wrote:I change every single day. And I don't just mean my clothes.. But do I change myself, or does life and experience change me? The cogs are turning in my brain Alisima heehee
I think you answered your own question in a later response.
Zark wrote:hehe no I don't think so . Actually I think it is something of a paradox -- we constantly change, and yet we are always the same entity.
It is true. Go back your whole life and you see that it is always the same you. And yet again, you have changed. You body is different, you have different thoughts, you have changed.
Vesko wrote:You are right, there are more why's. There's another one: what if there was never just nothing, and always a creator? Then you'd also ask why, and you are right to do so. But you know, questions and answer have a certain order to be asked and answered when one is learning. Perhaps it is irrelevant for us to be able to know right now the answer to this one and the one you asked? Perhaps not. I am not trying to evade your question. I have absolutely no idea how to answer it. I also think we have other problems to solve because we are here and now living on Earth, in this universe, and the answer to this particular question does not really matter to us right now, does it? What do you think? Or perhaps it does? You tell me -- how will knowing the answer to this question help you right now? My answer is it won't. Perhaps you are more insightful and you will know better...
I think the question cannot be answered. Certainly not in a way which it can be discussed and taught. Once you have become enlightened you probably know the answer, but then you can't tell anyone else cause no one would understand.
Vesko wrote:Something else, what is it you think we misunderstand when we disagree with the statement "You cannot change yourself"?
Probably because we all have different concepts of our self. If you were to say that your brains are your self, then ofcourse you can change your self. But you must agree with me that it is hard to explain, through words, what the self is. Or what I think the self is. I think the self is that which never changes. Try to find it, it is inside you. It is something you have know all along, something which was already there before your father was born, and it will remain long after you die. Call it spirit, soul, atman, self or whatever. You can feel it only if you are very quiet.
Don't read my signature.