Happiness and its reasons or the lack of

@ Joyce. The vision of contentment with farms and villages etc.. is what I think of when contentment is used. Soo yeah I think our differences basically come from our different ideas of the word contentment. o.0 But still i understand your points and they are pretty good. I think you iner urge to resist confromity comes from an inner restlessness which in turn comes from our tendencies to follow nature and its spontaniety. All that can be caged and pressed down by our need to survive in society. ALso, on the larger picture, the rules generated by society are afterall only from the society where morals and true goodness cannot truly be measured. So I also agree on the things you said about breaking what society finds right. The crime examples are just a bit extreme lol.
@Steph Squared
Lee
ANita
Luoh
ANdy
JOyce again
Joanne
the law of attraction being a law seem to be a restriction by itself which makes me think of Fate. But I think it ultimately comes down to what Ms. KAy said in class about Emerson's quote "So far as a man thinks, he is free." To read this quote quite simply, we would think thoughts give us freedom because our thoughts can transcend physical boundaries. But I think there might be more than that. Cause logically tracing towards the outer rims of understanding, fate can always exist since everything we do can be logically reasoned to be Fate. But even if we are restricted by Fate, it might be our honest belief which to an extent can even become an understanding that we are free afterall that allows us to transcend. Logic can be esily denied since life itself isn't really logical but the relation between fate and freewill is indeed there. For all we know it could be one thing or the other, or as Joanne and JOyce says, it can be mixed with a boundary that isn't so clear. But to bring everything back down to our role as human with goals to live life to the fullest and be happy, I guess it can be said that either fate or freewill are essentially the same in a way. The happenings and occurences that can be said as fate are spontaeous on different levels and Sopntaeous thigns can be said to be triggered by underlying connections affected by possibly every minuscule activity in the world. these levels of realities only converge to become this world where we live in and so far as we know, to our levels of realities we are indeed in control in every sense. Fate is generated by predetermined which is further predetermined by other things. This chain is never ending and therefore illogical. Fate itself being based on logical deduction then defies itself. Therefore we have freewill.
Well, this synthesis is logically deduced too soo... i dunno lol. But with so many things that are uncertain under the foot of science, logic is hardly trustworthy and all we really ahve is universal reliance.

I think that the law of attraction exists as a part of nature and the workings of the universe. It helps us to turn thoughts into reality when we are inspired by the spontaneous flow of essence from the universal being. I don’t think it’s a predetermined sequence because I believe that those inspiring thoughts and ideas are from the higher being, not from our ego minds or from anywhere retrievable. Therefore, I think life itself does include fate, however, we need to control that fate and not let it get to our ego minds and control us. I don’t think making thoughts become reality is fate because it is spontaneity that puts those thoughts through us (like we are instruments of the universal soul and its expression).
We cant deny ourselves of what we really want or need as long as those things are truly from our beings, not an image or perception implanted into us by the society and its materialism. Often times, we may think we desperately need something and just HAVE to have it (or else we die or something like that ), but after we obtain it, we realize that it isn’t exactly what we wanted or we just don’t like/need/want it that much anymore. Has that ever happened to anyone?
So it goes to show that, we often want things because advertisements, the media and many other influences around us tell that that we want these things, when deep down in our essences, we may not really need it. Of course that excludes the necessities in life such as water, food, shelter etc.etc.etc. but mostly the things we WANT, are the luxurious goods that contribute to excessive consumerism and the materialistic world. So I think it is important that we really know what our inner beings and essence wants, not what society tells us that we should have/need in order to be cool/fit in/be happy etc.etc.etc. The distinction between what we need (at the spiritual level) and what we want is very important…

omg i digressed so much... @@

this is one deeeeep well of thoughts.

anyway, mike, the ego-mind can be a tool for ANYTHING as long as we can control it. may you please tell me why the ego-mind can't be a tool to become happy?

Your example of reading a novel will reward you with happiness in various ways such as finding out what really happened in the end, or appreciating the technique and skill of the author. THe aforementioned are all similar to the contentment from competition because well, they're limited.The world created by the author is limited and as for the appreciation of the skill and technique of the author will only cause us to ask for more.

..can't you simply connect with the essence of the book without thinking about the skill and technique and the ending? we're not content because the ending of a book is satisfying or what such, but we're content after reading a book because the ideas communicated are from the universal being. do you get what i mean?

to andy,

So maybe that explains the concept of fate-if there is such a thing-, since we can believe in our "destined" path so strongly that we obtain it through the law of attraction! Am I making any sense?

yes you are making sense haha i have an example that i learned in AP econ...you know the financial crisis? anyway, people started spreading rumors that there was going to be a recession...so everyone started panicking and selling their bonds and houses, eventually stopping to buy altogether. this, ironically, stimulates the recession that they were, should i say, anticipating. this is just like people believing in fate. they act like what their fate should be. for example, a janitor believes that his fate is to be at the bottom of the social class forever, well he keeps thinking that so then it becomes true :] yep this destiny thing is pretty chaotic. no one can and will ever prove there's such thing.

to mike & everyone:
how do you know when something is spontaneous? ^.- remember we had this discussion in class? ms. kay decides to pick up the green tea bottle. is this spontaneous, or was it decided beforehand? or is it somehow a mixture of the two?

@ fiona
The ego mind cant be a tool for absolutely anything. The ego mind cannot connect with the UNiversal Beign nor can it connect with essence. The ego mind is a tool, yes, but on the comprehension and resolution on matters of the physical realm. It also isn;t your ego mind that experiences certain things in the world that areconsiderably important such as the connectivity with all and appreciaton for beauty. The example of reading a book with connecting with essence probably isn't the ego mind? The ego mind will bring you literal content of the book but not much more.

Fiona, you state that the ego mind is a tool. If we can control it.....Have you ever been able to really control yours? I know I havent been able to since i was born. And if i cant, Michael definitely cant...

I doubt that the ego mind can be a tool, because Ms.kay said: ego mind= go into overdrive. The ego mid might seem controllable, but it never is, its like a virus, staying passive for a few months in your body, and then its bursts open and starts making you sick. Same as the ego mind, it doesnt want to be controlled by you, it is savage, it is barbaric, it will play dirty to the core ftw, for the win. I think earlier there was a thread? Josh and his thread? Im not so sure, but people on that thread said that we should coexist with the ego mind, because there is some use. Probably they think that it can be used as a tool too? To greet others in an egocentric society? Im not saying they or Fiona, is wrong, are wrong... which one? But by my slow inflexible brain, I came up with the feeling that we do not need the ego mind at all. It is from the external source and the mad juices from inside an individual, why do we need it if its only goal is to expand and cause mayhem?

For once I must agree with Mike...唉

Hey everybody, I've been following the discussion bit by bit, and everyone's got great ideas. I especially liked the talk about the business with fate versus free will, and kudos to those people who came up with the ideas (sorry, i can't really remember who came up with what, so no names xD) and It lead me to this new idea.

What if free will was simply a figment of our imagination? What if our minds are simply too weak to comprehend the true nature of the universe? Maybe we're imagining things, maybe all the possibilities of the world are simply too numerous for us to count, and so we label them as infinite. Perhaps the Universe DOES follow a set of rules? A long set containing christ knows how many rules? Maybe while (I think this was joyce's idea?) we're doing the whole, "If this is what I'm destined to do, I won't do it just to prove fate is wrong" kind of experiment/thought is following that set of rules. As in, you WERE supposed to think that and you WERE supposed to turn away from what was "supposed" to happen.

Humans have a tiny tiny little nut of a brain in comparison to the vast size of the universe. When I think of that, I simply can't imagine how it could be possible that humans are a part of a higher being that connects everything. Here's another thought, if there really is this interconnectivity, this free will, this potential, how come we can't feel the presence of any other life forms? Er, Aliens i mean. If all life shares this connection, shouldn't we be able to feel these aliens? Potential in the nonlocal domain takes no time to travel right? It doesn't need to go any distances, so why don't we feel any other presences other than what we feel now? I can see some of you saying, "maybe we've always felt it and just haven't realized it was there." Well then, in reply, why aren't these feelings of other life in the universe as distinct and as clear as the life we feel here on Earth?

I see two possibilities to this scenario, there may be more, but none have come to mind yet, much appreciated if you all could add on: 1. There isn't any other life in the Universe, we are the only combination out of a number-so-large-we-believe-it-to-be-infinite different possibilities, we are the only ones that have this kind of chemical make-up that allows for our condition we know as "life" or 2. Other life forms in the universe have a different kind of "life" maybe they follow a different set of rules than ours and have a different kind of "consciousness" and a different kind of "potential" or 'essence" and so we cannot connect to them with our type of existence.

This might have been an overinterpretation and it could've gone too far, but at the moment it seems a valid topic, and sorry if it digresses a bit from mike's topic, I just thought it'd be interesting to bring up. I'd be glad to see what you all have to say.

Interesting question there Michael. But in looking at the law of attraction, it speaks to how a desire comes up in our thoughts and then if we have it as a strong desire, our beings, and so it will magnetize to use the outcome, right? So how could that then be predetermined in the biggest sense of fate? Due to how a desire arises, which is in spontaneous response perhaps to a person we've just met and we want to get to know better, or to smelling a certain food and wanting it for dinner and getting it made for us by our mom the next night? How is that predetermined, unless, you're viewing it as there's a puppet master as the source of these spontaneous desires controlling to that level of human will.

Does that make sense?

So if what you're speaking to is a more fated feeling in that whatever we think about we will get - whether intended out of desire or a default manifestation out of fear - has a ring of fate to it, then I could see that older teaching being attempted to be applied here. But the Law of Attraction is based on human desire, and fate is based on a higher power being in control. The law of attraction works within the paradigm that we are each co-creators with this higher power within the universe i guess that's behind this law of attraction/magnetics to begin with, but we have to first have the desire in order for the magnetism to then emanate from us and outward to "the universe." So how is this fate, when fate implies a higher power in control and making choices.

Hey guys, its Allen from 10A.
I was reading through questions while watching JT and Michael debate about whos question is more interesting.
In order to make it fair, i had to answer Michaels question too.
To answer Michaels question on why living a happy life is the key to success to life is because of different opinions of what happiness and success is. From a personal view, as long as one is happy throughout their life, they will believe that they are successful. For example, if a poor person puts hard work into getting a job and succeeds at it too, they will feel like they succeed. However, did this poor person really succeed in life? From our point of view, maybe not. That is only because we have a different opinion on what success is. From the poor man's point of view, he feels like he succeed so far in life. This is vice versa too for someone like Bill Gates. As long as a human mind believes he or she is happy, they will feel like they succeed in life. We only want to succeed in life in order to be happy, but what if we are happy already. What is the point of succeeding if we are already happy.

first things first,
i never said that the ego-mind can be a tool for absolutely anything. it serves as a useful tool when we can actually control it. i have had many, many experiences where my ego-mind just went berserk and i wasn't able to calm it down for a long time.
-------
okay anyway,
michael, what i mean is that we use the ego-mind to generate an ideathat will help us connect with essence. remember the secret? it says that we should do what we love. well, we can use our ego-mind to bring us to the situation of doing what we love, and then let our essence take over. this is a very simple idea.....i never said that we are using our ego-mind to enjoy the book. it's as simple as using the ego-mind to think of the idea to read the book, and then using our essence to read the book....=]

bradley,
think of this discussion. we're USING the ego-mind as a tool to generate these insights, these talks about essence. how can we not use it as a tool?
lol i would like to see you operate without the ego-mind. you would not be able to do the very things in life that keep us alive... you would not be able to crack lame jokes. the ability to think analytically is the essence of the ego-mind. so yes, it is essential in life. it's just like sleeping pills - it is useful when we use a certain amount of it, but if there's an overdose, we DIE. get it? :]

yea allen,
it all depends on perspective, but what we're discussing is, what exactly is happiness? and what kinds of happinesses are there? ego-based happiness or perpetual happiness? as michael asks, " is happiness an emotion arises out of comparison, does it come out as an added effect from a situation, or does it require a complete connection of being while maintaining control of the ego mind? "


kenneth,
lol to your cynical tone. interesting, free-will as a figment of our imagination. but why would our ego-mind create the idea of free-will if it wants to remain in control? or did our essence create the idea? but our essence is connected to the universal being, and if the universal being really IS fate, why would essence create the idea of free-will?
---
why can't we feel the essence of aliens? intriguing question, absurd as it sounds. well, we can't feel the essence of everyone on earth right? or else we would all collapse because of the over-dose of energy. we can only feel the essence of those we're really close with. for example, a twin on the other side of the word, or a friend next door, or a lover overseas. we feel the essence of the friends we hang out with everyday, the beings of our family. however, we don't feel obama's essence do we? if we can't feel his, or oprah winfrey's, or the guy eating McDonald's right now in the middle of Kansas, how would we be able to feel the essence of aliens? if you can explain why we don't feel the essence of people we have no connection with, you might be able to explain why we can't feel the essence of extraterrestrial lifeforms. and your hypothesis of they having a different universal spirit....hmm just an idea - why would it be called "UNIVERSAL" spirit if it only exists on earth? kind of a disappointment if you think about it - authority figures keep telling us that this spirit is UNLIMITED and permeates through the universe. haha anyway, i'd like to see what you have to say.

Why do we need sleeping pills in the first place? Stress? caused by the ego mind. Pressure of losing job? caused by the ego mind. I crack lame jokes because i willingly submit to the ego mind, since I still am not able to part with this beast that has been inside of me for so long. That does not mean that I need it to survive, it just means that I am not ready to dismiss/reject it. yet

We were pure when we were first born into the world, then why not stay so? In an organisms learning period, the organism will pick up learning/imprinting faster. For example, birds learn how to 'sing", chirp when they are young but not when they grow out of learning period, same for humans, we learn and imprint from the external sources. That is maybe a reason why that we have the ego mind. Since everyone has gone through this, the society is egocentric, materalistic, realistic. That is why some people agree that we still need a bit of ego to survive, to interact with each other. People might have mistaken the timid inner need of presence as dependency on the ego mind.

That doesnt mean we have to degrade ourselves into using the ego mind, because we can break free? What the hell have we been freaking learning for the whole baloney year? Critical thinking, connecting the dots, reading beneath surface. Beginners mind, penetrating through seemingly long and hard topics. Then we are presented with Deepak? Osho? Arishita? Ms Kay through out the whole year is teaching us how to break through the ego mind. Do you remember our last Osho packet? he was yelling at the ego mind of ours to gtfo, why do we need it? It only harms us, there is no good of the ego mind, if there is, the negative aspects are far greater than the tiny positive points of it.

Building from this far fetched basis, that is why i agree with michael that there is no need of the ego mind.

If i did sound harsh through the post, please do not be offended, its a shout at your ego, not Fiona. If your not, then wth, good for you..

sleeping pills = just a metaphor

THE WHOLE YEAR...
was to teach us how to CONTROL our ego-mind [note: not eradicate, or exterminate, or destroy, or wipe out, or make extinct, or, did i mention eradicate?] and to connect with our inner being to accomplish great things to ensure we survive this century.

so your essence is writing the posts then? so you're saying that you don't need the ego-mind for anything?

what do you mean by the "timid inner need of presence"?

it's okay. not offended, merely amused

Let's Get It Started, in here...

And the base keep runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and
runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and runnin' runnin', and...

In this context, there's no disrespect, so, when I bust my rhyme, you break your necks.
We got five minutes for us to disconnect, from all intellect collect the rhythm effect.
Obstacles are inefficient, follow your intuition, free your inner soul and break away from tradition.
Coz when we beat out, girl it's pullin without.

Thats the lyrics of black eyed Peas.

As the song says, the whole paragraph(s) above was from my intuition breaking away from tradition. My damn soul is free baby.
Since I sort of feel the conversation getting heated, or maybe because we are exchanging sexy thoughts so rapidly, that heat is generated, nothing is 100 percent efficient.
Random thoughts above.. sorry XD

You are right, my essence wasnt the one writing the post above. Because my being is still caged by the ego mind, it cannot fully connect with yours. That is why we use English, another classification of language(something that seemingly makes things simple , but acutally complicates the matter, ego mind made) to communicate. So, yes, that wasnt my Soul. My apologises.
Second, i didnt say the that I do not need the ego mind for anything, I still need it, look at me and the numerous "I's" in my post and you ll see why i still need it. I have not transcended into a higher level that can shake off the iron grasp of the egocentric yet.

WHen we can control the ego mind, we eradicate it. BC thinks that control= destroy, target down, affirmitive, lets go home boys.
Timid inner need of presence, sorry i meant as need of interaction, interdependency like.

Take notice that everything we are doing is within the ego, because as mike states below, we need the ego mind to analyze the author's thoughts. But the author has communicated himself through written language, a tool made by humans to make things easier. But now look at what has turned out, various languages, and the hard work of translating it into other languages. Another maginificent work of the ego mind. Then one can see, or might see how the ego has controlled our lives, our intimidating this beast is.

The Supreme Being didnt give us legs and hands just to do physical activity as Emerson states. He probably sees it as a way to communicate, there is no need of language. Too bad we live in a world with languages. Imagine a world without language. Heaven.

Since the convo sort got heated, well from what i felt, probably because my egotistic mind is roaring for approval to contiune this bicker, I posted this vid, in hopes to turn down the vol. and enjoy the vid.
WARNING
There is obscene language in the vid, If you are annoyed or angered by obscene language please dont not view
(This vid is a low level joke, so people with high moral, or at a higher level, DONT watch....sorry)

Fionaaa wrote:
kenneth,
lol to your cynical tone. interesting, free-will as a figment of our imagination. but why would our ego-mind create the idea of free-will if it wants to remain in control? or did our essence create the idea? but our essence is connected to the universal being, and if the universal being really IS fate, why would essence create the idea of free-will?

OK, I took nearly an hour trying to think up an answer to this and I can't. Where does the body end and where does essence begin? I really have no answer to that, see, of the many replies I contemplated, only two seemed to make at least a bit of sense, on one hand, I kept digging further into the physical and started talking about thoughts being electrical impulses that were the result of atomic interactions and energy wave particles and that our minds were really just the result of combinations of different amounts of energy and that they formed some supercomplex structure that resulted in a higher fluidity in the transition of energy which was our ability to think. And then I stopped and called BS and tried again because it was starting to sound ridiculous.

So I started again, This time I tried working from explaining the plausibility of freewill in our essence and how it connected to the physical, and I don't even wanna try explaining where I went with that, So I called BS on that one too. And now, Here I am, left without an answer, probably just wasted a good bit of your time while you're reading this trying to figure out what in the almighty crap I'm trying to say, sorry about that by the way. But yeah, I can't find a real answer to that, all i can do is propose those ideas, if you can find fault with them or prove them then share it please, I really hate to admit it, but I don't know how to answer that fully, I have some theories and some strings of thought pertaining to this, but they all contradict each other and are all highly unlikely.

BUT, if we apply occam's razor here in this question, We CAN deduce that the universe is spontaneous and that we DO have free will and that free will comes from essence, because this system is a lot more simple than one that possesses an intelligent design. That's as solid of an answer as I can get to xD

Fionaaa wrote:
why can't we feel the essence of aliens? intriguing question, absurd as it sounds. well, we can't feel the essence of everyone on earth right? or else we would all collapse because of the over-dose of energy. we can only feel the essence of those we're really close with. for example, a twin on the other side of the word, or a friend next door, or a lover overseas. we feel the essence of the friends we hang out with everyday, the beings of our family. however, we don't feel obama's essence do we? if we can't feel his, or oprah winfrey's, or the guy eating McDonald's right now in the middle of Kansas, how would we be able to feel the essence of aliens? if you can explain why we don't feel the essence of people we have no connection with, you might be able to explain why we can't feel the essence of extraterrestrial lifeforms. and your hypothesis of they having a different universal spirit....

As for this part, good catch. In that case, I have no answer for this either then, because there isn't any way for me to know if there really is other life out there. Again, I am forced to attempt to resolve this with occam's razor which tells me yes, there is life out there and yes we do feel it's essence, we just don't notice it because none of us are fully connected to the universal being yet and thus we cannot feel each individuals essences as distinctly as would be necessary for us to distinguish from one person to another.

Fionaaa wrote:hmm just an idea - why would it be called "UNIVERSAL" spirit if it only exists on earth? kind of a disappointment if you think about it - authority figures keep telling us that this spirit is UNLIMITED and permeates through the universe. haha anyway, i'd like to see what you have to say.

yeah it is quite a disappointment, I actually mention the basis for your thought in my own topic, so we can discuss it further then. I'm really just wasted right now and i think we might be digressing abit too far off from mike's topic xD Really good catches you made with my idea though, I really didn't see the stuff you pointed out.

@ ajk
I am a little uncertain about the source of our desires. Say, if we generate a desire out of earthly values such as materialism or anything out of greed, it can possibly be predetermined by a higher being or a puppet master. If however, the desire is simply a wanting to know somebody simply because we want to ratehr than because we think what they wear looks cool or etc. or if theres something we want to know simply because we do then it'slikely to be spontaeous. Fate only exists when there is a higher being but if the law of attraction works with every individual as a co creator to the world then it cannot be workign within Fate. Fate requires a higher being which by simply being higher cannot be one with the world. Tell me if that doesn;t make sense lol. But to me it seems like the oneness requires an equal significance in every entity to all be one. If there is a higher being to it then unless the being is THE ONE that contains all, it isn;t one with everything or equal in significance. What I had in mind at first when i saw the law of attraction, i kinda went for the simpler definition of wanting equals getting. If the law of attraction works within a universal realm, then it does indeed seem like fate but if it works as a connection between equal and connected entities then I guess it's not.
@ Fiona
Well when you capitalized the word "anything" it is a little misleading. And i think it actually takes the ego mind to read a book because it analyzes the data recieved from our physical senses which in this case is vision. But if your talking about connecting with the author's essence then ok.

i love kenny's questions!!

I think it is also something that i have been wondering about ever since we had began to explore this topic and unit. If it is indeed called the Universal Soul/Being/Spirit, and we have a connection to absolutely everything that exists in this universe, why cant be feel the presence of every single person/being/thing? Why is feelings and the connection seemingly limited to those that we are surrounded by or are close to? And when you come to think of it, can we really say that we fully understand our friends and family? Do we indeed have that connection to them that allows us to feel their presences and sense their emotions or the connection that exists between us? What is that connection exactly? Is it the connection where we seem to receive a vibe from them whereever they are on this planet? Or is it the type where if a friend is upset or something, we feel with them? But when we see strangers in a crisis or bad situation, dont we feel with them too? So how exactly are we connected to everything else that exists if we are indeed connected? (Of course there is no way to really prove this or have evidence to support such arguments, so we are just supposed to rely on our faiths in intangible and somewhat incomprehensible (is that a word?) concept?)
And if it is this inner connection at the spiritual level that allows us to be content and feel happiness in this world, what happens to the connection when we are unhappy/upset? Is it because the connection has been blocked/disrupted/disconnected that we feel a sense of hopelessness/unhappiness/discontent? Or is our emotions only affected by the exterior factors that we are faced with everyday (meaning that it doesnt affect our essence just the ego mind kicking in and affecting our mood and thoughts)? Do our emotions come from the essence or is it only the product of the outside world affecting our ego minds?
A few more questions... Ms Kay taught us that ways like meditation and such can calm the ego mind to help remove it and shut up right?
But how exactly do we do this? And if the ego mind is so loud and crazy and can only be calmed for like one minuet MAX, does that suggest something about our connections with the higher intelligence/universal soul? For me, this short short short span of connection time seems to suggest that the connectiong that exists (if it does) is somewhat weak and perhaps cant do much to our lives? If we can only be connected for so many MINUETS in our whole entire LIVES, what does that say about the underlying connection? Is it weak, or are we weak because we are letting our ego minds control us and steer us away from this universal being? But if it is in the nature of the ego mind to be so loud and crazy and not to want the essence to reveal through, then there really isnt anyhting we can do to shut it up and to allow that connectiong with the universal soul to dominate is there? If we only have so little time to develp that connection, how is it supposed to be strong and to guide us in our lives to help expose our essence and let that shine through?

Just a bunch a random (somewhat off topic) questions that i hope makes sense...?

What if free will was simply a figment of our imagination? What if our minds are simply too weak to comprehend the true nature of the universe? Maybe we're imagining things, maybe all the possibilities of the world are simply too numerous for us to count, and so we label them as infinite. Perhaps the Universe DOES follow a set of rules? A long set containing christ knows how many rules? Maybe while (I think this was joyce's idea?) we're doing the whole, "If this is what I'm destined to do, I won't do it just to prove fate is wrong" kind of experiment/thought is following that set of rules. As in, you WERE supposed to think that and you WERE supposed to turn away from what was "supposed" to happen.

like how kenneth states, so what it seems like is that fate and free will function together and have something beyond what we usually define them as. they work in a way we cant logically categorize. maybe it's like essence, it's not as logical as we put it (like how you, mike, say how your synthesis is logically deduced so then youre unsure of it)
but now i'm stumped with Ms Kay's clarification of the law of attraction and fate.

wait, in regards to what bradley says about the egomind, is it really here just to cause chaos? i know it wants to be in control and stuff, but if we detach and observe it, can't we control it? sure it may spin off into a huge tantrum at first (like what you asked during class, bradley) but didnt Ms Kay say that eventually, we'll be able to quiet down the egomind?
and so why were we given the egomind if it's only here for destruction? ok, i dont know why viruses are here, or why cockroaches survive like everything, but if it's reasonable to expand Emerson's quote of how 'things happen for a reason' to 'things survive for a reason' - this reminds me of a quote i read somewhere. it said something along the lines of 'there's a reason for why some people are in your lives now and why others are only part of your past'- then i could apply it to the egomind.

fi: egomind could create the idea of free-will because it wants freedom from the being? by thinking it has free-will, it thinks it has liberated itself from fate and whatnot and so it remains in control

so then bradley, arent you then conforming to youre egomind? you say you dont think you can function without it just yet. what's it going to take for you to become ready? is this not your egomind making you think you have to rely on it, even just for now?
but i'm with fi on how we still need our egomind. we need it to help us communicate essence with others.

oh, didnt see soph's post there when i posted. but your question of whether our connection with the being is weak made me think of chem and hydrogen bonding and all those other weak bonds (vaa W-something? London dispersion) these bonds are pretty weak yet they affect sooo much! attractions between nonpolar molecules happen for a trillionth of a second or something yet they cause deviations from ideal gas laws and whatnot. the hydrogen bond is oh-so-powerful, as we learn in bio. it's because of water's hydrogen bondings that plants carry out transpiration without needing any energy input.
so i dont know, it might not seem like a lot, but it actually can have a huge difference? that doesnt really answer your question, i think, but just a thought that popped in my mind as i read your reply, soph ^^

Joyce, we discuss essence with speaking, through words, through english, through language.

I dont feel like typing my hypotheses again, please take a min or 2 to skim through the post above that I posted.

my response to fionas comment.
I agree with its all on perspective and i do believe that i answered michaels question fully, because michael clearly explained the question to me in person. What exactly is happiness? How can one pin-point the definition of happiness without discussing the opposite of happiness which could either be anger or depression. Happiness is not based on the process but the result of a process. Therefore by saying ego-based happiness such as materialism and perpetual happiness such as nature and spiritual, it is still not defining the word happiness.
Why cant happiness be an emotion of the combined three? I believe its a combination of all three.

AllenFang wrote:Happiness is not based on the process but the result of a process

Wrong, you are so damn wrong on this allen. Sorry for the emphasis, but I have to point it out. This is just wrong. The happiness is based on the JOURNEY to your goal. But according to your reasoning, you'd be much happier if one day you suddenly had the skills of an NBA all star without any particular reason instead of getting there through your own toil and sweat. You can't be serious about that, millions of people have the same goals, what defines the level of happiness is how they got there, if it was the result of the process that mattered, everyone that has the same goal should have the same level of happiness. But they don't, ask people who's dream it was the play in the NBA who got in, they all have varying levels of happiness with where they are. I know that my happiness is different from yours when I make in a shot in basketball, the journey is a lot harder for me, so I get more "HELL YES" from that shot, for you, it's a lot easier, so you might end up feeling something like, "ok yeah, just got another one."

Oh and something else that pertains to this, I have a feeling that you might be someone that thinks "The ends justify the means" if I'm wrong, you don't have to read this, if i'm right you can apply what I said earlier over here, because the ends do not and never justify the means. Say you have to kill one to save a thousand, that's just wrong, the whole "greater good" propaganda is crap, no one has any say in deciding anyone's fate. If you're going to ask me "what if I was in the thousand" then here's your answer: If I was in the thousand, then yeah I'd want to kill that one guy to save that thousand, but in my head, I'd still know that it's wrong to do that, I'd kill the person for a selfish intent, but I'd still feel the hit my morality throws at me. ok, digressed a bit there, but here's the summation of my point again: Process > Result

@ bradley
friggin funny video, when I saw pedobear I choked on my water xD

Anyways, I read some of your comments, and you got the ego mind completely wrong, the ego mind in itself isnt bad at all, it's only our misuse of it that makes it seem bad, look at hammers, if you smash your finger, it's not because the hammer is bad, it's because you used it wrong. Right? same concept with the ego mind. And the reason you need the ego mind, is because you're dead without it, try going out into the world with a beginner's mind, you'll get killed before you live your first 5 minutes. What we're supposed to do is to use the ego-mind to achieve the needs of the body and use our essence and beginner's mind to achieve the needs of the soul.

And no, when we control it, we control it, we don't eradicate it, we only eradicate it, if we eradicate it. You don't really want to kill it off either, cuz without it, you'll be walking around looking, listening, touching, feeling, tasting anything you see to try and understand it's essence, and what happens when the ego mind isn't there to tell you, "fire is hot, don't touch, not good"?

There is no true good or bad, that is only a measure of perspective, if you see the ego mind as good or bad, you are in its control, the ego mind is the one that classifies, and for good reason, to survive in this world, you NEED classification. You know what else besides stress and fear comes from the ego mind? Relief and bravery. Bravery can kill your spirit just as easily as fear, so can relief just as much as stress, the ego mind spews these out to help you with physical survival, in the process, if you let it maintain things on it's own, the ego mind may cause these feelings to concentrate and give you an "overdose" of these feelings, fear becomes terror, bravery becomes recklessness. So you have to find a balance between how much ego mind you need to survive and how much restriction you put on it to keep it from going wild.

@ sophia
glad to see you liked them
Anyways, I think that meditation serves two purposes, one as a momentary respite from the chatter of the ego mind, which amounts to short term results, while the other purpose is to hone our ability to control the ego mind, that's the long term. Essentially the connection we have to the higher being starts out strong at birth, but as we need our ego mind to survive, it's influence slowly weakens that link, over time however, as we grow and begin to rediscover it's existence we will voluntarily attempt to revive that connection, the only downside is that by the time we realize what we've lost, it's already been too late for most of us to completely "uncondition" ourselves, some people who have not been influenced as much or have always had a level of control may eventually get completely back in touch with their higher beings, but for the most part, we don't have enough time on this earth to achieve that. Perhaps the connection automatically reverts back to it's original state when we die?

Kenny wrote:

AllenFang wrote:Happiness is not based on the process but the result of a process

Wrong, you are so damn wrong on this allen. Sorry for the emphasis, but I have to point it out. This is just wrong. The happiness is based on the JOURNEY to your goal. But according to your reasoning, you'd be much happier if one day you suddenly had the skills of an NBA all star without any particular reason instead of getting there through your own toil and sweat. You can't be serious about that, millions of people have the same goals, what defines the level of happiness is how they got there, if it was the result of the process that mattered, everyone that has the same goal should have the same level of happiness. But they don't, ask people who's dream it was the play in the NBA who got in, they all have varying levels of happiness with where they are. I know that my happiness is different from yours when I make in a shot in basketball, the journey is a lot harder for me, so I get more "HELL YES" from that shot, for you, it's a lot easier, so you might end up feeling something like, "ok yeah, just got another one."

I see what you're communicating here, but I have to clarify that happiness is derived both from the process and the end result, not just one. It is true that a long and arduous journey might make the actual reaching of the destination that much sweeter, but you can't deny how good instant gratification is. Granted, instant gratification does usually cheapen the experience. Still, it's important to acknowledge both the process and the result. As for your reference to you and Allen making shots in basketball, I have to bring up habituation. Let's say all of a sudden you are given this awesome new guitar and a sweet amp to go with. You'll be ecstatic at first and very happy for a while, but after some time, you'll get used to it and begin to take it for granted. So once you reach a point where you will able to make three-pointers rather easily you will begin to gain less and less satisfaction from it. Then you'll have to take it to the next level. It's a continual process.

Oh and something else that pertains to this, I have a feeling that you might be someone that thinks "The ends justify the means" if I'm wrong, you don't have to read this, if i'm right you can apply what I said earlier over here, because the ends do not and never justify the means. Say you have to kill one to save a thousand, that's just wrong, the whole "greater good" propaganda is crap, no one has any say in deciding anyone's fate. If you're going to ask me "what if I was in the thousand" then here's your answer: If I was in the thousand, then yeah I'd want to kill that one guy to save that thousand, but in my head, I'd still know that it's wrong to do that, I'd kill the person for a selfish intent, but I'd still feel the hit my morality throws at me.

I disagree. If you refuse to decide the fate of one (for a bad fate that is) then you are condemning a thousand people to the fate of death. Weighted objectively, a thousand is far greater than one. Killing someone to save others isn't a pleasant ordeal, yes, but sometimes we have to choose between the lesser of two evils. And when we kill someone to save a thousand, is that truly selfishness? I believe selfishness would be sparing yourself the guilt of having to murder one man and letting a thousand people die.

Anyways, I read some of your comments, and you got the ego mind completely wrong, the ego mind in itself isnt bad at all, it's only our misuse of it that makes it seem bad, look at hammers, if you smash your finger, it's not because the hammer is bad, it's because you used it wrong. Right? same concept with the ego mind. And the reason you need the ego mind, is because you're dead without it, try going out into the world with a beginner's mind, you'll get killed before you live your first 5 minutes. What we're supposed to do is to use the ego-mind to achieve the needs of the body and use our essence and beginner's mind to achieve the needs of the soul.

And no, when we control it, we control it, we don't eradicate it, we only eradicate it, if we eradicate it. You don't really want to kill it off either, cuz without it, you'll be walking around looking, listening, touching, feeling, tasting anything you see to try and understand it's essence, and what happens when the ego mind isn't there to tell you, "fire is hot, don't touch, not good"?

There is no true good or bad, that is only a measure of perspective, if you see the ego mind as good or bad, you are in its control, the ego mind is the one that classifies, and for good reason, to survive in this world, you NEED classification. You know what else besides stress and fear comes from the ego mind? Relief and bravery. Bravery can kill your spirit just as easily as fear, so can relief just as much as stress, the ego mind spews these out to help you with physical survival, in the process, if you let it maintain things on it's own, the ego mind may cause these feelings to concentrate and give you an "overdose" of these feelings, fear becomes terror, bravery becomes recklessness. So you have to find a balance between how much ego mind you need to survive and how much restriction you put on it to keep it from going wild.

No disagreement there, though does bravery come with the egomind? It certainly can be distorted by it, but isn't bravery, courage, what Osho emphasized in his writings on being? Why would bravery come from the egomind? And could you elaborate on relief as well? Your idea seems to be a bit contradictory there. How does relief kill your spirit?

Vincent_Lee wrote:
I see what you're communicating here, but I have to clarify that happiness is derived both from the process and the end result, not just one. It is true that a long and arduous journey might make the actual reaching of the destination that much sweeter, but you can't deny how good instant gratification is. Granted, instant gratification does usually cheapen the experience. Still, it's important to acknowledge both the process and the result. As for your reference to you and Allen making shots in basketball, I have to bring up habituation. Let's say all of a sudden you are given this awesome new guitar and a sweet amp to go with. You'll be ecstatic at first and very happy for a while, but after some time, you'll get used to it and begin to take it for granted. So once you reach a point where you will able to make three-pointers rather easily you will begin to gain less and less satisfaction from it. Then you'll have to take it to the next level. It's a continual process.

oh yeah, I might've gone a bit overboard with that then, sorry. Both the process AND the result then. Right on about the continual process.

I disagree. If you refuse to decide the fate of one (for a bad fate that is) then you are condemning a thousand people to the fate of death. Weighted objectively, a thousand is far greater than one. Killing someone to save others isn't a pleasant ordeal, yes, but sometimes we have to choose between the lesser of two evils. And when we kill someone to save a thousand, is that truly selfishness? I believe selfishness would be sparing yourself the guilt of having to murder one man and letting a thousand people die.

No, Refusing to decide the fate of that one man is different from deciding that he should not die, I don't make a choice, I simply choose to not play the game, in the end the result may be the same with the thousand dying, but I can sleep easy, well, perhaps not, but at least i know that it was not I who condemned them to death. Sometimes yes we have to act for the greater good, And as I said, and here's an extension to that, If I was to come to any harm, or anyone I cared about, I'd go through with it. It's not selfish to not want to flip people on and off like a lamplight is it? As long as it's because I'm doing it because I dont believe that I have any right to decide someone's fate and not because I want to be spared guilt?

No disagreement there, though does bravery come with the egomind? It certainly can be distorted by it, but isn't bravery, courage, what Osho emphasized in his writings on being? Why would bravery come from the egomind? And could you elaborate on relief as well? Your idea seems to be a bit contradictory there. How does relief kill your spirit?

On Bravery: There's this thing called altruism, when animals will risk or sacrifice themselves to help another animal survive, We don't just look after our own survival, we look out for others we care about as well, that comes from the ego mind as it is a survival instinct.

On Relief: Sorry, I wasn't being clear, not relief per se, more like carelessness, like relaxed to an extent in which you shit to a bit of a careless state.

Kenny wrote:.

I disagree. If you refuse to decide the fate of one (for a bad fate that is) then you are condemning a thousand people to the fate of death. Weighted objectively, a thousand is far greater than one. Killing someone to save others isn't a pleasant ordeal, yes, but sometimes we have to choose between the lesser of two evils. And when we kill someone to save a thousand, is that truly selfishness? I believe selfishness would be sparing yourself the guilt of having to murder one man and letting a thousand people die.

No, Refusing to decide the fate of that one man is different from deciding that he should not die, I don't make a choice, I simply choose to not play the game, in the end the result may be the same with the thousand dying, but I can sleep easy, well, perhaps not, but at least i know that it was not I who condemned them to death.

It may not have been you who dealt the death blow but you were the one who just let it happen. Letting such atrocities be commited is arguably as bad as commiting them. And even in not making a choice of whether a man can die or not, you are still deciding the fate of other people. 1000 other people in fact. In choosing not to act, you have left them to the fate of death. So again, which is worse, the death of 1 or the death of 1000?

Sometimes yes we have to act for the greater good, And as I said, and here's an extension to that, If I was to come to any harm, or anyone I cared about, I'd go through with it. It's not selfish to not want to flip people on and off like a lamplight is it? As long as it's because I'm doing it because I dont believe that I have any right to decide someone's fate and not because I want to be spared guilt?

I'd say it's a selfish decision, nonetheless, because really, saying you don't believe you have the right to decide anyone's fate just sounds like a cheap excuse. Is your belief in that idea strong enough to stop you from saving lives? That belief might help you in situations where there is less at stake, but in this case, it's foolish and deadly. And then some.

On Bravery: There's this thing called altruism, when animals will risk or sacrifice themselves to help another animal survive, We don't just look after our own survival, we look out for others we care about as well, that comes from the ego mind as it is a survival instinct.

You haven't quite answered my question. How is part of the egomind?

On Relief: Sorry, I wasn't being clear, not relief per se, more like carelessness, like relaxed to an extent in which you shit to a bit of a careless state.

Relief and carelessness are too quite different things. Even then though, carelessness would fit recklessness better. Complacence may be what you're looking for.

Vincent_Lee wrote:

Kenny wrote:.

I disagree. If you refuse to decide the fate of one (for a bad fate that is) then you are condemning a thousand people to the fate of death. Weighted objectively, a thousand is far greater than one. Killing someone to save others isn't a pleasant ordeal, yes, but sometimes we have to choose between the lesser of two evils. And when we kill someone to save a thousand, is that truly selfishness? I believe selfishness would be sparing yourself the guilt of having to murder one man and letting a thousand people die.

No, Refusing to decide the fate of that one man is different from deciding that he should not die, I don't make a choice, I simply choose to not play the game, in the end the result may be the same with the thousand dying, but I can sleep easy, well, perhaps not, but at least i know that it was not I who condemned them to death.

It may not have been you who dealt the death blow but you were the one who just let it happen. Letting such atrocities be commited is arguably as bad as commiting them. And even in not making a choice of whether a man can die or not, you are still deciding the fate of other people. 1000 other people in fact. In choosing not to act, you have left them to the fate of death. So again, which is worse, the death of 1 or the death of 1000?

*nods* I think there's a school rule of how if you see someone cheating but you stay silent, you're also guilty. By staying silent, you let it happen, and that is neither helped nor worsen the situation. I guess you could counter and say that's good that nothing's changed, but what about staying indifferent? (unless you didnt mean indifference, then nevermind for the rest) You know how we always say how bad it is to stay indifferent? how it's just as bad as being the one to committ whatever it is? All the while, you could stop it but you chose not to. ok, I guess usually the situation is different, because in this case, stopping it would mean like stopping the death of that one person. and then what?
but I just finished watching Madagascar2 again and this 'kill one to save the rest' is totally in there.
but wait, lemme get back to what you, Kenneth are trying to say. you say that refusing to pick a side is different from saying he shouldnt die (and this might result in the thousand dying).
ok, i think i've kinda just stopped there. my thoughts havent really formulated a complete opinion just yet. but wiat, how did this connect to mike's questions? sorry, a bit out there at the moment

"To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all"
- Elie Wiesel, survivor of the Holocaust

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bradley,
read kenneth's post. he successfully captures my stance about the ego-mind and why we need it.
if control = eradicate, then say, you're the president and you're controlling the armed forces. does that mean you're destroying them? i think not. what you mean is you're eradicating their "free-will." Therefore, we will never destroy the ego-mind, we're simply destroying the ability to act on its own.
oh & btw, awesome video.

joyce,
good hypothesis - you're saying that the ego-mind created free-will because it wants freedom from the being, hmm but our idea of free-will is the ability to be in control of our destiny, the ability to be free from any higher power that determines our future. isn't this kind of different from the ego-mind wanting freedom from the being? oh and why would it need freedom? we're already having a helluva time trying to be free of the ego-mind - it doesnt need to be free from the being ;]

OR maybe if 'destiny' is determined by the Universal Spirit, the ego-mind creates the idea of "free-will" (freedom from destiny) so that we can go against the Universal Spirit. dang, thick stuff.

kenneth,
"And now, Here I am, left without an answer, probably just wasted a good bit of your time while you're reading this trying to figure out what in the almighty crap I'm trying to say, sorry about that by the way."
you got that right ;] just kidding.

okay then, you're saying that essence is not an intelligent design?

Replying to kenneths comment about
"Happiness is not based on the process but the result of a process"
Yes that is all true, however you have to keep in mind that what if the process of reaching happiness is a negative process. Also, if i suddenly woke up one day and found out i had the skills to play in the NBA, of course i would be happy. Thats like saying if i offered you 1 million dollars, you wouldnt take it because you didnt work for it. Back to the example of a negative process, if one day an African boy hadnt had food for a week and one day he finally recieved food from a UN soldier. Is the boy happy that through the proccess of the Un soldier coming and raping the african females or that the result of the UN soldier coming gave him food to survive? Correct me if I'm wrong, but is that the "ego mind" speaking in Kenneths head?
"if it was the result of the process that mattered, everyone that has the same goal should have the same level of happiness"-Kenneth. Goal and results are very two different things. Goal is the place where you want to be at, or go to. Result is where you currently are. Therefore by sayng by saying everyone that has the same goal should hve the same level of happines is unrealistic.