What reasons do you have for believing in nonmaterial beings(spirits, gods, dieties etc.)?

For a long time I have been trying to pinpoint the specific cause/reason why people believe in spirits or gods. I was recently talking with a friend about an acid trip he had where he said he was visited by 3 spirits to see if he was ready to be a part of some kind of higher consciouness movement. While I had my own interpratation of what he was seeing I tried to take seriously what he told me to get at the heart of it, though he was never able to tell me what the spirits were(what they looked like, what they were made of, where they were), or what it is that made him interperate what he was experiencing to be spirits. I've had a number of discussions with people about God like this where they experienced something that absolutely blew their mind and because they were unable to understand it, yet found it enriching, attributed the experience to something non-material. Often when you start talking with a person about such an experience they are unable to give any specific reason why they believe this.

My question is this: what makes you believe in something nonmaterial or supernatural in particular such beings like spirits and dieties?

Direct experience.

Now you can ask me, "Well why do you believe your direct experience of said phenomenon is true?". But all I have is my direct experience, every moment. So I'm not going to deny myself. Everyone is living a subjective reality. Only you yourself will ever decide what is and what isn't real.

Personal experience, and I mean in waking life.

Could either of you elaborate on your direct experience? And also what it is that you believe in.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by juroara

Direct experience..

---

I've made this point in the past, but it bears repeating.

I'm always baffled that people on a lucid dream forum feel their direct experience carries so much weight. Remember, the entire subject of this site is based around realising that your brain can construct hallucinations and illusions that are staggeringly realistic. To actually have a lucid dream you have to realise that what you are directly experiencing is wrong.

Being interested in science, I was well aware that the brain has the capability to create extremely realistic falsehoods and that there are plenty of ways to trick it. You can find this out by a quick search on various illusions (the dragon head one is stunning). My understanding of this was further enhanced when I learnt about lucid dreaming, and I gained an even deeper appreciation for just how real something fictional can feel when the brain creates it.

Because of this, my experiences are even less valuable when it comes to establishing beliefs, because I know more about how the brain can be fooled.

It really does surprise me that many come here and manage to compartmentalise their beliefs and their knowledge that the brain can easily fool you in this way.

One word for you... OK, many words: matter is just electric signals that your brain interprets. This may sound very Matrixy, but it's a scientific fact. Matter isn't really there, it's only your brain perception of probability clouds of "events". Knowing that, non-material is actually the only thing there is.

I just saw these two vids on some post on this forum, somewhere else, that might help you understand this. The World We See Is A Dream In The Brain | You Are Truly Loved

The only reason why people still debate about what's real and what's illusion and what's natural and supernatural is because of their ignorance about the true nature of what they perceive as being real. They are convinced that what their brains shows to them is reality as it is, instead of a film we create in our minds that might be excluding infinite universes of existence that our senses filter out or are simply unable to capture and transmit to the brain.

Quote:

---

Remember, the entire subject of this site is based around realising that your brain can construct hallucinations and illusions that are staggeringly realistic.

---

Exactly, but that applies to all that your brain produces, not just dreams, but the whole "awaken" reality that you perceive daily. Like dreams, it's just a product of your mind.

And if you open your mind, it will show you more reality than you think exists.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stonedape

Could either of you elaborate on your direct experience? And also what it is that you believe in.

---

Id be more than glad to explain my experience and beliefs, just shoot me a PM.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mayatara

One word for you... OK, many words: matter is just electric signals that your brain interprets. This may sound very Matrixy, but it's a scientific fact. Matter isn't really there, it's only your brain perception of probability clouds of "events". Knowing that, non-material is actually the only thing there is.

---

Whenever I see "it's a scientific fact" on this forum I know there's a huge chance of the words to which it refers being complete bullshit. Those of us here with scientific knowledge and qualifications rarely need to preface our posts with "this is a scientific fact".

For starters, your nonsense is self-contradicting:

1) electric signals are a material phenomenon, namely the movement of charged particles (electrons and ions in the case of the human nervous system)
2) the brain is a physical structure that interprets electric signals. If your claim that matter was a fictional product created by the brain, then the very substance the brain is made up of wouldn't exist, and therefore there could be no brain.

Matter is not "electric signals your brain interprets", it is a state of energy. Our perception of matter as being predominantly solid is an illusion created by our brains, but that matter is still physically there. The perception of it being solid is due to electromagnetic forces. The electrons in the atoms that are partly responsible for the repulsion can be described as being a cloud of charge distributed according to probability (though this is pretty much irrelevant given that there is a very high chance of it being in a certain area).

Edit: Fixed part of my post being cut off

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Photolysis

Matter is not "electric signals your brain interprets", it is a state of energy. Our perception of matter as being predominantly solid is an illusion created by our brains, but that matter is still physically there. The perception of it being solid is due to electromagnetic forces. The electrons in the atoms that are partly responsible for the repulsion can be described

---

I appreciate your corrections. I wasn't indeed very "scientific" with my choice of words. But for your information, I am a biologist, so I'm not a scientific illiterate and I know what I'm talking about. I'm not saying there's nothing out there, I'm saying there is much more than what you can perceive with your senses or even machines created under certain "physical" assumptions.
Discarding what some people experience just because the majority doesn't, may be a temporarily scientifically correct approach but it is nonetheless a huge mistake from a personal standpoint. If you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. It just means that your mind (and from now on I'll use mind instead of brain, because as you pointed out, this was creating some confusion I didn't intend to create) because of habitual tendencies - and because it cannot possible absorb all of the information cloud - is filtering it out.

I'm sure we can agree on this, no?
I'm sick and tired of reading books and watching Discovery Channel's documentaries with well quoted scientists rambling about this. It's not just something you see on new age websites.

I aprreciate your perspective photolysis, but I was expecting that kind of response. I want to hear about people's direct experiences and hear why the interpret that experience to be some kind of

I have had experiences where I felt as if the weight of the entire universe was pushing me to do something and at the time attributed this to some kind of spirit. This is back when I was more interested in pantheism and I was on a lot of good acid and my brain was not wroking clearly or rationally, though the images it produced where complex and enjoyable. For me, after such experiences I have always gone back to believing what I believed before afterwords, that if there is a god it has to be some kind of physical thing or only existent as an idea because those are the only two possibilities(if you know of a 3rd let me know). Other people I know have changed their beliefs after such Gnostic experiences and I am curious if I either haven't had the full experience or why they seem different. I do believe in God in a pantheistic way; I believe that God is refferent to the entire universe considered as one thing, at least in certain parts of the teachings of Jesus. I also think that the concept of God can be viewed as refferent to wisdom, a collection of ideas that have been passed down through religion. The ideas of a religion or culture, when considered as one thing, can look a little like God in that they shape and mold people in a way that they are often not fully concsious of. These ideas sometimes save people some trouble, and if said person associates these ideas with their God it may come out to them looking like a diety helped them avoid these problems.

I've spent a long time considering what God is and to me it seems that the idea that God is a person who lives in another dimension is unlikely. But I would like to know why people believe what they believe, in specific terms, something more than I had a feeling and I knew it was God which is all I've been able to get out of people in real life recently. Even more so I am wondering about people who feel like they have experienced God in this world. What form was it in and how did you get the impression that it was God and not just life as usual.

I wonder why no one ever answers "Because I feel like it."

StonedApe: I thought that I was a pantheist but then I realized that I am Panentheist. The reason I adjusted my position is because of personal experience. For me, God is just a word for everything. If you look up panentheism, you will find that panentheists say that there is a transcendent reality beyond matter and energy, time, etc... Why do I believe this? Because I experience it every night in my meditations. Someone could say that my experiences are false and only theirs are true, but they have no authority to make that claim about my experiences. That is their opinion and they have a right to their opinion and to believe in the Universe that they want to live in.

I don't have words to describe my experiences, I can only say things like "eternal, peaceful, light, dark, etc..." but that does not tell you at all what it is like.
As for spirits, I also experience those. I can tell more about them because they are not part of the transcendental reality, but just a finer material frequency. Yes, spirits are material. Things with form can be described, and they are material. I have seen rock spirits, nature spirits, but the spirits I experience daily are made of light. They have meridians of light, pulsating gossamer threads of light, woven into a tall humanoid shape with no facial features.

This sounds all too fantastic and I know that many of you ridicule me already, but I am not going to pretend that I don't experience these. I am sure that you think I am crazy.

We all know that there are many frequencies of light that are not visible. Some people, like myself, believe that the spectrum is infinite. There may be an absolute zero baseline, but the other end then has to be infinite. But it might be infinite in both directions. Anyway, what we perceive as reality is just a finite range of frequencies in an infinite spectrum. Some of us like to explore beyond the consensus reality. In the past they have called us shamans, or mystics, etc.

Photolysis has said that lucidity is recognizing what we experience is "wrong". I disagree. I don't put judgements on experience like right and wrong and false, etc. Experience is experience. Sure, some people are crazy, but that doesn't mean that we understand what they are experiencing. Lucidity, for me, is a level of awareness. An awareness of not forgetting the self. The awareness that cannot be destroyed or engulfed or distracted by external phenomena, whether you want to call it "real" or not. Many lucid dreamers on this site are not lucid during the day, that is why they assume that what they experience is true during the day. Reality and unreality is also a spectrum that is controlled by lucidity or awareness. The more lucid or aware you are, the more unreal phenomena appears and the more eternal the self appears. Awareness is a tool, much like a microscope or a telescope. When you focus a camera on something close, the things far away become blurry. When you focus the camera on things far away, the things that are near become blurry. We could say that the blurry things are unreal, but that is just our opinion and beliefs. Two people can have different experiences and think that each other are crazy, not realizing that reality is bigger than our heads and that both people are right.

Most people do not focus their cameras to what you call "immaterial" because it is so blurry to them that it appears to be dreams or imaginations or wishful thinking. we all have a unique comfort level where we prefer to live and we adjust our beliefs accordingly. Some people believe in things that they don't experience in order to hopefully tune to that frequency and experience them after death. But how do they know? These are belief systems and could be true or not.

I strive to only believe in what I experience now, before death. And that is what makes me a shaman rather than a believer.

Quote:

---

I wonder why no one ever answers "Because I feel like it."

---

This is the truth. We all believe what we want in order to feel secure. Many people feel secure living in a material universe, where their surroundings behave predictably and are not influenced by the mind.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mayatara

One word for you... OK, many words: matter is just electric signals that your brain interprets. This may sound very Matrixy, but it's a scientific fact. Matter isn't really there, it's only your brain perception of probability clouds of "events". Knowing that, non-material is actually the only thing there is.

---

As has been pointed out to you, I think you need to seriously rethink your philosophy, because at the moment it is self-contradictory.

It is self-contradictory because you base your argument around matter being 'electric signals that your brain interprets'; however, this posits the objective existence of electric signals (which, assuming you're talking about neural activity, are in fact the movement of ions; matter), and also of your own brain, which entirely contradicts your conclusion that there are no material things. How can there be only non-material things if even you claim that to create these things you require a material brain?

Also there are assertions in there which aren't true, or at least aren't qualified and need to be. It is not at all a scientific fact that 'matter is just electric signals your brain interprets'.

Quote:

---

If you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't there.

---

Correct, there being no evidence for something does not disprove it. However, it does follow that there is absolutely no rational reason to believe in it.

I don't think that you are crazy, but I also don't have any way of knowing that what you see is really what you interprate it to be. This is why I'm trying to get very specific descriptions of peoples experiences. I have had certain mystic experiences myself, but none that has led me to believe in any kind of spirits afterwords while I have a few friends who have. When I press them for details, it starts to sound like they are making shit up and don't really know what happened.

Would you mind going into more detail about the spirits you've seen, particularly the ones you see on a daily basis? How often do you see them? Do they seem interested in you? Can you interact with them?

Also, about this other realm, is it easy for you to enter? And though you can't describe it in words, is your memory of it clear? I can hardly remember what it was really like when I was there on my acid trips, I get a vauge sense of images but it hardly encapsulates the experience, but it's been a few years since I tripped hard. Do you believe that this other realm is accessable from multiple points, can two people enter it who are not physically near each other?

I have had experiences where I've lost consciousness of my body and inhabited seemingly eternal worlds. But in retrospect these experiences seem to be creations of my own mind. Now this doesn't make them less meaningful, nor does it mean that they were not other worlds, it simply means that they were non-physical realms that only I experienced. I have a strong desire to understand this world, I feel like it's something very important to do before I die.

I interact with the spirits, yes. They are not ghosts or anything like that. I practice energy healing and they stand behind me and put their arms into my arms and move them around to where the healing is needed. I remain passive and allow them to work. Miraculous healings happen this way, I am not doing the healing, however, I am kind of like a physical anchor for their energy to flow through into another person. They show me images and tell me what the person needs to be healed. I then tell this to the person. It sounds all new-age but it is very ordinary for me. I can see them with my eyes open or closed when I get into the right mind-frame.

Matter is holographic, and so is the human body. That is how I can see into the body and see different organs, etc.

This realm is not actually a realm, but it is everywhere. It is the space where all realms come from. That is why it is immaterial. If it were a realm, it would be material on some level or another. I have never experienced this "formless realm" when I was on acid. I need to meditate and refine my attention in order to experience it. Refining attention, focusing on progressively subtler objects of meditation. Of course two people can enter it who are not physically near each other, we are all in it right now anyway, it is just that our attention is on this world of form that we are experiencing. Form always trumps the formless regarding attention. Just like you cannot see the stars when the sun is out, but they are still there.

I remember it, always, but it is impossible to describe, even to myself. I carry the feeling with me. But if you want to know about astral worlds and such, this is similar to lucid dreaming, and the jury is out regarding if it is real or a dream. You will need to make up your own mind about that. Astral travel and dreams are related, but are different. There is some overlap though, it is not cut and dry or black and white.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Photolysis

I've made this point in the past, but it bears repeating.

I'm always baffled that people on a lucid dream forum feel their direct experience carries so much weight. Remember, the entire subject of this site is based around realising that your brain can construct hallucinations and illusions that are staggeringly realistic. To actually have a lucid dream you have to realise that what you are directly experiencing is wrong.

---

I understand what you mean, but maybe I'm weird because I've actually taken the opposite perspective.

For me, what I've learned from dreams is - well - I perceive dreams exactly the same way as I perceive waking reality. And from what I understand from biology, its a fact that we experience dreams the same way we experience waking reality. In other words, I've come to the conclusion, all reality is subjective.

Understanding that reality is and always has been a subjective experience of reality, how then do you define what is and what isn't real?

I don't feel that I can say that dreams aren't real just because they are subjective! On the contrary, I say the opposite. The world appears more and more dream like.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stonedape

Could either of you elaborate on your direct experience? And also what it is that you believe in.

---

One of my direct experience was with whats popularly called a ghost. The female entity I saw in my bedroom was seen by five other people. She was glowing with moonlight, approached me, smiled, she wanted to communicate, I became scared when I realized what was happening. I turned over in my bed, when I looked again she was gone.

I didn't tell anyone. Neither did my sister, my father, or the neighbors (the husband and his two kids). But all of us saw her at independent times, without prior conversing about her, in other words placebo isn't an explanation. Each individual encountered her spontaneously without expecting or even believing that the apartment was haunted. But despite seeing this female entity at different times during the week, we each described the same defining features about her. Her age, her height, her face, her hair style, her clothes, etc.

I didn't hear anything, because I never gave her a chance to talk. My mom several times would wake up in the middle of the night upset because someone was playing with the pots and pans. But when she came downstairs to yell at us, there was no one there and we were fast asleep. When my father and sister saw her glowing face above their beds, they each also heard laughter that didn't belong to anyone in the house. The neighbors also heard the laughter while also seeing the female entity. The husband (neighbor) couldn't sleep anymore so they quickly moved out.

I know that many people remain adament that ghosts or entities or anything outside of the norm are just hallucinations. But logic tells me that what I experience can't be explained away as a mere hallucination. Hallucinations aren't shared with five other people. Not unless you're a believer that the government has created some sort of hallucination ray (and yes many people believe this)

I only consider this experience important because it happened to others around me. But for me, my most important direct experiences are completely subjective and my own. They happened in dreams, and I'm completely okay if people tell me they are just dreams. It doesn't change the personal meaning for me! :D

The most important was meeting a being in my dream whodirectly influenced my state of consciousness. At first the being looked like an eastern dragon, indigo. This indigo dragon offered me lessons on lucidity (without me asking). Later the being looked like Krishna, the same color as the dragon. Later, reflective watery-light. When I was in this beings presence, I was lucid, more lucid than I've ever been. When I stopped being in the beings presence, I lost all lucidity. And it wasn't gradual, it was instant. I went from lucid (snap) unlucid.

I guess the best way that I can explain how weird it was, is, I was the one who felt like the dream character, and the being, that was the dreamer. What I mean is, your dream characters only have existence because your consciousness (or subconscious) gives them life. And without your conscious (or subconscious) they can't possibly exist.

That's what I mean. This being was like, a source of my own consciousness, so much that, when I walked away from them, I literally lost consciousness. So the relationship between dreamer and dream character was reversed. Even more, when I desired to see the true nature of the being before me, that's when the being melted into a reflective light undulating like water. I couldn't stand to stare at the pure reflective light so I woke up. :cheeky:

Since then, I've been really interested in Hindu spirituality, namely that we are self-aware extensions of Shiva (God/Source/Universal Consciousness).


In another (subjective) experience, I did a visualization meditation. It was my most lucid visualization meditation, usually they're foggy, but this one was borderline hypnogogia. It had color and texture. In my meditation I asked the same indigo dragon to heal my stomach ulcer. My stomach ulcer had been there for months. In the meditation the dragon would smush black bloody slugs that would pop out of an open wound where the ulcer was.

At the same time, in real time, the area of my stomach where the ulcer was. . . sizzling. Kinda fizzing. Like someone put an ice cube on something hot, it was fizzing! It felt weird and good at the same time. I was following a guided meditation on a cd, and the cd said the meditation was over "come back to your body". But I didnt feel my indigo dragon was done, so I continued to visualize my dragon next to my bed side. And finally he was done smushing the last bloody black slug.

When I woke up from the meditation, I felt fine! There was no more ulcer pain. I could press on my stomach, there was no more pain. Before, even lightly brushing my stomach would make me cringe. I could eat pepper! I could eat oranges! I couldn't do any of that for months!

I'm okay if you think the dragon is only a figment of my imagination, it doesn't really change the significance for me (which was literally physical!). For me the experience was both spiritual and biological. I think what happened to me can be explained through modern day biology. But it was still a spiritual experience for me. I try hard to not separate the two.

I am not here to debate my direct experiences with anyone. I shared them because stonedape asked nicely :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mayatara

One word for you... OK, many words: matter is just electric signals that your brain interprets. This may sound very Matrixy, but it's a scientific fact. Matter isn't really there, it's only your brain perception of probability clouds of "events". Knowing that, non-material is actually the only thing there is.

I just saw these two vids on some post on this forum, somewhere else, that might help you understand this. The World We See Is A Dream In The Brain | You Are Truly Loved

The only reason why people still debate about what's real and what's illusion and what's natural and supernatural is because of their ignorance about the true nature of what they perceive as being real. They are convinced that what their brains shows to them is reality as it is, instead of a film we create in our minds that might be excluding infinite universes of existence that our senses filter out or are simply unable to capture and transmit to the brain.



Exactly, but that applies to all that your brain produces, not just dreams, but the whole "awaken" reality that you perceive daily. Like dreams, it's just a product of your mind.

And if you open your mind, it will show you more reality than you think exists.

---

I posted that link by the way. I couldn't help but to point that out. :cheeky:

I just remembered the one time three friends and I saw an actual fairy! We were camping in the forest in Florida at a Gathering. It was full moon and there was a drum circle. One of the people was this girl and we had a mutual crush on each other. There was another couple and we were all hanging out, dancing and having lots of fun and love was in the air. Just then out of the sky we saw something glowing float down and land on the grass. We all ran over there and looked at it and it was a little woman with butterfly wings. We all saw it and we were all amazed. She didn't seem to notice us as she was self absorbed and maybe we were invisible to her or something. We just stared at her for about ten minutes. She was the color of moonlight. She was flowing with energy like a cobweb in the breeze. But I got bored after I got over my amazement. I wanted to get her attention. I gently blew on her. And what happened? Instead of getting her attention, she disintegrated into flakes and all the flakes floated away and disappeared. I was crushed. I thought that maybe I killed her but actually I felt that she just returned to her world, where-ever that was.

Before then, i had always been skeptical of people telling me stories like that. One girl told me that she had seen little gnomes with beards and red hats in Switzerland. I wanted to believe her, and I believed that she believed it, but I just couldn't believe her. But after this encounter, I believe more stories like this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dannon Oneironaut

I interact with the spirits, yes. They are not ghosts or anything like that. I practice energy healing and they stand behind me and put their arms into my arms and move them around to where the healing is needed. I remain passive and allow them to work. Miraculous healings happen this way, I am not doing the healing, however, I am kind of like a physical anchor for their energy to flow through into another person. They show me images and tell me what the person needs to be healed. I then tell this to the person. It sounds all new-age but it is very ordinary for me. I can see them with my eyes open or closed when I get into the right mind-frame.

---

Wanna send a few of those spirits my way, my necks been bugging me. But to be serious this sounds at least plausible. I will likely never believe if I don't have any first hand experience, but this at least is logical, relative to other things I've heard.

Do you see these spirits in other contexts? What other sorts of things do they do? Do they have a sense of humor or anything like that?

What kind of healing do you practice, and where did you learn it?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dannon Oneironaut

Matter is holographic, and so is the human body. That is how I can see into the body and see different organs, etc.

This realm is not actually a realm, but it is everywhere. It is the space where all realms come from. That is why it is immaterial. If it were a realm, it would be material on some level or another. I have never experienced this "formless realm" when I was on acid. I need to meditate and refine my attention in order to experience it. Refining attention, focusing on progressively subtler objects of meditation. Of course two people can enter it who are not physically near each other, we are all in it right now anyway, it is just that our attention is on this world of form that we are experiencing. Form always trumps the formless regarding attention. Just like you cannot see the stars when the sun is out, but they are still there.

I remember it, always, but it is impossible to describe, even to myself. I carry the feeling with me. But if you want to know about astral worlds and such, this is similar to lucid dreaming, and the jury is out regarding if it is real or a dream. You will need to make up your own mind about that. Astral travel and dreams are related, but are different. There is some overlap though, it is not cut and dry or black and white.

---

I see, I think your using the word realm threw me off. I was thinking of more of the type of selfless experience where one loses oneself in a hallucination. I've heard that this state can be entered through meditation and have always wanted to do so but never have. I've only gotten there on acid, and sometimes good pot, but I always am at least a little bit aware of my body still with weed.

Is this formless realm similar to the state of just being in zazen? It sounds like it is. I've been working on cultivating this myself. Is it possible to stay in this realm while going about daily life? Also, what kind of meditation do you practice? Sorry for asking you 10 million questions, but it seems like you actually know what your talking about.

I only see these spirits when I am in a healing session. Otherwise I don't see them. They don't have a sense of humor that I can tell. They are very impersonal yet filled with compassion and caring. They are selfless. They also work on me when I am healing myself. They open my crown chakra and stuff.

I practice energy healing and I learned it from my teacher, who would blow your all minds. he blows my mind. He does chiropractic adjustments over the telephone. I have utmost trust and confidence in him. He healed me of a tachycardia (sp?). I still study with him, and just enjoy spending as much time as I can with him.

The formlessness might be like zazen. I am not sure as I am not that educated on Zen. It is probably more like zen than zazen. Zazen is the path to zen, right? I am not sure. But it is not losing oneself in a hallucination. That is what life is. We lose ourself in life. It is not losing oneself in anything. It is giving up all hallucinations, all phenomena and entering yourself. the self appears like a pinhole, but when you enter it it expands and includes the whole Universe. Resting in the spaciousness of yourself. This may be what zazen or Zen is. Zen is direct knowing of the true nature of the self beyond all scriptures and....

The meditation I practice, I do lots of them. I rest in the spaciousness of myself whenever I can. I run energy throughout my body with my breath and practice deep relaxation while being vigilant self-remembering. I practice Yoga Nidra. I relax my second chakra and heal that. But generally, self-remembering is my meditation. Which when done in a dream triggers lucidity. We all know what self-remembering is because that is what happens when we become lucid. I am partial to Vajrayana Buddhist practices because it is so practical and honestly real and non-judgemental. Otherwise known as Buddhist Tantra. I am learning about Amritayana right now and look forward to practicing that.

Yes, there can be a dual awareness of both the formless immaterial and the body. Observe the sensations of having a body and visualize the body as hollow. You will feel an outline. Imagine your body is just an outline drawn with a piece of chalk. Erase the outline slowly and see how it feels. Sufis use humming to vibrate the body so that its edges are lost. Try entering the formless in a lucid dream and see how that feels.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by juroara

I understand what you mean, but maybe I'm weird because I've actually taken the opposite perspective.

For me, what I've learned from dreams is - well - I perceive dreams exactly the same way as I perceive waking reality. And from what I understand from biology, its a fact that we experience dreams the same way we experience waking reality. In other words, I've come to the conclusion, all reality is subjective.

Understanding that reality is and always has been a subjective experience of reality, how then do you define what is and what isn't real?

I don't feel that I can say that dreams aren't real just because they are subjective! On the contrary, I say the opposite. The world appears more and more dream like.

---

I would define real things as being things that I percieve with my sense organs, whereas I can experience things in my mind that are not real, though still meaningful and beautiful, often more meaningful and more beautiful. Even these things are real in some sense, there are signals going through my brain that cause them.

You can say(as my friend nick often does) that any experience is purely subjective. However as a dreamer and explorer of psychedlic consciousness I feel like I have had experiences which were more subjective, it's hard to put into words. When you are tripping your ass off, or when your in a dream, what you are experiencing is as close to being a pure creation of your mind as possible. Yeah maybe theres some influence from the senses, but it's negligeable. I find this state to be very different from waking life.

Clearly dreams are real, this is a whole fucking website dedicated to them. But a dream is not real in the same sense that my teapot is. Multiple people can see my teapot and pour delicious tea from it. I can verify that my teapot does in fact exist if I am truly bored enough. However dreams are but fleating images. Yeah yeah, you can say the same about reality, but in my opinion reality is more than that. In this world we can connect with other people who do exist and come to know these people, to me this is more beautiful than any image or dream.

I'll respond to the rest of your post when I get a chance, but I just got done having a snowball fight and am pretty beat. I deeply thank both you and dannon for sharing your experiences, I hope that this can be for once an R/S thread that isn't just intended to tare people down over their beliefs.

The problem with defining what is real and what isn't is that it is philosophy, and philosophy is bullshit. When we have concepts of what reality is that means that we don't know what reality is because: reality is not a concept. reality just IS. And we cannot say what reality is without settling on concepts that limit reality. The reality that can be said is not reality. Babies don't distinguish what is real and what isn't real. Everything is real to a baby. It is our conceptual mind that dissects our experience and defines some things as real and other things as unreal. Either everything is real or nothing is real. And everything is nothing and nothing is everything. One thing is for sure though: the one who is having the experience is real.

Zazen is just seated meditation, just focusing on the breath to work on concentration and awareness. I feel like when I do it I can cultivate chi, or vril(haha I just googled vril and it is a way crazier/new agey concept than I thought, have some reading to do now), or in other words become aware of the energy I'm taking in with each breath and not waste it uneccesarily. I'll have to try meditating on what you said in the last paragraph, even just reading it brings a bit of that formless awareness. I generally just do open eye meditation and focus on the breath and its relationship with the body, I've been meaning to try some exercises of sorts but haven't found any I like so far. Do you meditate with eyes open or closed?

I would say words are words and when compared to reality they are nearly nothing, however I gain a lot of pleasure from them and think that through using them to understand reality I can gain a wider perspective on it. Though maybe I just like losing myself in their noise.

Generally when doing formal medtation I have eyes closed. With concentration techniques, however, I start with eyes open and concentrate on a symbol on the wall or my eyes in a mirror or a candle flame. I concentrate until my vision gets all weird. I keep going. Then I close my eyes and concentrate on the same object visualized inside. I then get rid of the object and concentrate on my own formless awareness. This is refining attention. This leads to Rigpa.