Do you know who you are?
If you think you're just the biomatter that occupies your particular space then read no further. namaste
If you think there's something else there but you can't articulate it and you don't believe all the religious bullshit then follow a simple exercise:
What are you?
Too wide a concept? ok, try this: Is there any single physical part of you that if lobbed off or removed would make you no longer be you? Dying aside. So you're something aside from your "meat?"
Thoughts and emotions you say? Both of those change moment to moment ... do you become a new person each time? Where's the one thing providing continuity? That's you.
So YOU are the thing underlying the body and mind. If you don't believe you're an illusion then what are you? Who are you?
Do you think you're an illusion? Are you aware?
Detaching that awareness from the body and mind can be rather liberating. namaste
2
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7 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.I went through this "Mind Body" problem in philosophy. Over hundreds of years we have for the regular person gotten nowhere. All the different manners of thinking just fracture the topic into different ways of thinking about the problem. Each manner of thought leads to a place where the questions get larger and larger.
My take on all this is that we have a brain, and a body and a number of systems that function between these to make the whole function on a larger level than each can separately do.
I think of myself as a structure in which each part contributes to what it is that is called Dale. To take something away takes something away from what is called Dale. Tasking some parts away makes little difference, while others make a large difference. Looking a finger means I will grasp and feel objects differently. I will still be able to read a book or understand an Opera (I jest). Loosing my sight or my hearing changes that but does not keep me from being and contributing to the world.
There is a limit as to how much can be removed without destroying that which is called Dale, while I am still seen as being alive. Thoughts?
dalefvictor
Level 8
May 17, 2020
0
it's your view and you're entitled to it. I don't believe we are the physical body at all. you do. thats what makes it an interesting world.
@JeffMesser What I said is just a part of the whole deal. There is much more to Dale than what I wrote. I am much more than a plop of mass and much less. I am all that I am and much more. I am a contradiction.
@dalefvictor well, OK. I just know we could lob off both your legs and your internal narrative would remain the same.
@JeffMesser So you lob off my legs, does this take away more from me or you? The harm done to another is harm first done to oneself. If you cut my legs off, I can function, if you cut my legs off you will know you harmed me and if you can do that without feeling anything, then we know far more about you than I.
As soon as the perceiver becomes the perceived, subject becomes objectified. "i am" is the subjective objectification of that which "i am not" and thus is neither the subjectivizing nor the objectivizing of that which "I am" i.e. that of the real.
Dedicated to:
Wei Wu Wei, A.K.A.,
Terence James Stannus Gray
(14 September 1895 to 5 January 1986).
Kodiamus
Level 7
May 16, 2020
0
the Hsin Hsin Ming is a very good poem.
@JeffMesser yes I like that poem very much
I think you have better weed than I do, and I have really good weed.
Sticks48
Level 9
May 15, 2020
5
opinions vary. not everyone feels the same way you do. you're welcomed to believe however you wish.
@JeffMesser Lighten up cowboy. 
@Sticks48 i wasn't being somber. just honest.
@JeffMesser Maybe your weed isn't as good as mine after all.
Honey, if I thought I was an illusion....I'd have made sure to be taller and thinner. Just sayin'..... 
Lavergne
Level 8
May 15, 2020
6
Oh man ! I love u
why would you care if it's just an illusion?
JeffMesser.....good point....now put a hat on it and go home.
Without memory our sense of self as a particular body would be gone in a flash, demonstrating the illusory nature of personal identity. In those with dissociative identity disorder various personalities occupy a single body, each unaware of the others. No one of them is any more legitimate than the others—they are all illusions.
The only thing real is deep awareness in the background—our true and ultimate Self.
WilliamFleming
Level 8
May 15, 2020
1
it's interesting you bring up the MPD's as an example. I also like the organic hypothalamus injury cases ... kinda like 50 first dates scenarios. even with no new LT memories made and ST dropping away overnight they still awake the next morning as themselves. no one else.
Pralina1
Level 9
May 15, 2020
5
I went to this zoo in tasmania and got to hold one of those really big bats. They really are like little puppies. The baby devils were the coolest though. namaste
Cute
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