Platos Kave

When I opened this forum in 2014, I was just trying to create a place where people could discuss this whole new world (to me) of Advaita Vedanta, Zen, Buddhism, the Sufi's, Christian mystics etc. I had taken it all in as a full time job, well actually it was more 24/7, like drinking from a firehose and I was looking for people who seemed to be on the same "seeker" journey to bounce ideas off of and to learn from. Mostly these people came from Ken's forum where cross talk was prohibited.

Over time it became more of an online social club, personally I exited seeker mode in 2015 and was looking more into cleanup and post "belief apocalypse" and so personally my role shifted pretty dramatically from it's inception, still growing, learning and figuring out how to navigate what felt like new waters after a lifetime of being stuck in a small pond seemingly filled with my own filth.

So no, I wasn't looking for like minded individuals, on the contrary, I was (and still am) looking for ideas that rattle this cage, granted, they seem few and far between, mostly because they are all centered on someones beliefs and what I've come to realize is that beliefs are incapable of being truth. So here we sit, gotta do something, so I do what this has always done, just with a lot more love and understanding than an "I" was capable of prior to this point in time.

Me thinks Kristen Bell is actually our old friend Frits, with whom I agree on these points but seemingly few others...

Finally catching up in here, Hmm, looks a lot like the Palisades region of LA, burned to the ground!

When I went searching in 2012 "I" was a wreck, when I stumbled on the trilogy in 2014 I finally had something, that something was the idea that "everything" was really "Nothing" (although I didn't understand it nor could I believe it). Through a lot of hard work and battle (against "myself" once I found out who the enemy was) and with the help of a few generous sign posts coupled with a bit of grace, I saw THROUGH myself and found there was was "Nothing" here. Nothing. Oh there's rocks and trees and stuff, food and things that want to eat you, there's a place to urinate and get a drink and whatever, beyond that it's all made up, mind stuff.

I have not met another person who has this perspective, I tried to tell people, explain it, here in the Kave mostly but also in this non-cyber existence... but all in vain. It's true what Jed said, every human is a fanatical member of the "Cult of Self" and not a damn thing that I can do will extract anyone from that cult... Oh well. Not my job it turns out, I did my work, now just an ordinary guy going about his business.

Over 10 years here, and nothing. Either I'm a freak or everyone else is, I'm guessing you know the answer because for 50 years I was just like everyone else. Doesn't really matter one way or the other, I'm content and that's what I went searching for in the first place. Doesn't make "me" special or enlightened or anything... just Nothing, which for the first time in this life, finally feels perfect.

Cling to your opinions and think they are right all you want, why not, everyone else on the planet does. My guess is that that is the problem Crystal keeps trying to fix, not realizing that the actual fix is the dropping of all opinions of what's right or wrong as they arise.

 

PS. loving Mic's working through of all this, feels right on the button over here. 

...

Solid.

Wow.

Ever have life coming at you so fast that you forget to eat or go to the bathroom... until it's a little too late? I have a large balloon payment due Feb. 1st and I needed to sell a property and pay it off before then or I would lose an important income producing piece of property. We've had one property for sale since October thinking that would solve the problem, buyer bailed out in late December so I put the house we live in up for sale in January hoping something would move... it did, both properties went under contract on the same day within 2 hours of each other.

The problem then became that there was, no place set up to move into, a lot of "stuff" in both houses that needed to be moved and a lot of "fixes/repairs" that the buyers needed on both houses and not much space, time or money available for any of it. This is the first time Ive seen any of this thread since my last post, Justin loves talking about other's assumptions about him, I wonder how many assumptions he's made about my not being here for awhile after his temper tantrum?

Currently I'm still in the thick of this sh!t going down in my little slice of the world, happy about where it's going but exhausted (back is killing me) and trying to muster the stuff to forge ahead with both houses closing this Friday... What a ride!

Consequently I'd love to respond, I'm only here now because Mic pinged me with a post on Instagram and reminded me that the Kave still exists... See you the first week in Feb. if you can stand this place for another week Justin 

Accepting “ what is” appears to be a blanket statement used extensively by the spiritual community as nonnegotiable. If not utilized it appears to infer, the result is to “suffer”. I think there are some things that make sense to accept “what is”, while others, such as deliberate harm and suffering for others, make more sense to “reject”. The climb out of in my view, is to do the best we can to take the chains off that have straddled us from birth by our ignorance or buy in of “what is” universally accepted by the masses. No one thrives under enslavement, not even the masters of their own delusion, although they think they do. 

Enjoy your truffles. And best to you with your heretical program.

When you're born pushing a boulder up a hill for what seems like Eternity, life tends to feel as if you're shackled and enslaved, so I get that part of your position on this Crystal but I have to agree with Mic, in that once one shifts perspective from "victim of life or life is unfair" (having to roll that boulder forever) to "I have no idea the breadth and depth of existence, consequently how can I make a correct assumption as to what's right or wrong?"

Then doing any type of service takes on a completely different flavor, there's no anger nor self righteousness no bitterness or judgement, it's so much cleaner and infinitely more enjoyable.

 From which point one is no longer forced to do anything (roll any boulder at all, let alone for eternity) and what ensues from that shift in perception is there is no longer any fire under the ass of Humanity (at least for this one Human). It's the beginning of an elegant and smooth (albeit a little boring) existence spent watching the Carinval of Life from the sidelines (with a renewed and deep capacity to support others when so desired) instead of constantly screaming one's head off at the injustice of being shackled/enslaved on the ever quickening rollercoaster...

PS. Every friend I've ever tried to explain this to has rejected it... They all think that nothing will ever get done if we douse the fire under the ass of humanity. They also see the "dropout" and accept "what is" position as that of a loser... All I can say is what Jed said and Mic alluded to earlier "Come have a look for yourself..."

Really enjoyed both your responses to Justin's hand grenade....

Here it all seems superfluous. Even Mic mentioning that I get mine through painting seems wrong, albeit that might be a new feeling here, it really seems like an old, old feeling. Probably because so much of "Me' trying to validate my existence through proficiency ("look Ma no hands!") in the arts was really just polishing the turd looking for validation.

As far as spirituality and enlightenment go, here it all revolves around the GC event that sent me on the seeker quest. That event was probably more akin to a near death experience because it changed the nature of existence.  Through that, I grokked that everything from here to infinity is simply; all Love, all the time. The problem now was; I was an organism that only knew all fear all the time. The searcher was born. 3 years later, mind stopped, silence ensued and a new way of maneuvering through the world was born.

Enlightened? Why yes, compared to the terrified invertebrate that once inhabited this skin. Some amazing buddha ready to pass on enlightenment and save the world? Not so much, it's very personal, I've learned that even trying to express it denigrates it. So Ive kinda, slowly without trying, just shut my yap. Recently I've been made aware of new areas within "the attic" that need to be sorted and dumped, thats the new work I'll be spending some time on, chatting in here helps open pathways for that work, so thanks for being here and being willing to toss that occasional hand grenade into my fox hole. 

 
 
 Truth doesn’t care about your suffering. That’s not a flaw in Truth—it’s a misunderstanding about what suffering is for.

This isn’t philosophy. It’s what’s left once philosophy stops helping.

The organism still has a nervous system after the illusion of self collapses. Conditioning doesn’t evaporate because insight arrived. Survival patterns continue to run, because they were never personal to begin with.

Most spiritual discourse quietly assumes that seeing through the self should clean up the mess it made. It doesn’t. At best, it removes the moral narrator. The machinery keeps turning.

What people call “inner conflict” isn’t a fractured self. It’s a set of competing regulatory strategies, each optimised for a different threat profile, installed at different times, and never updated because nothing forced an update.

As long as the system remains tolerable, it won’t change.

Jed’s demons aren’t enemies. They’re engagement engines. Their job isn’t to destroy the organism, but to keep it busy—circling familiar terrain, mistaking motion for progress. They persist because they work.

The problem isn’t ignorance. It’s inertia.

Some strategies that once ensured survival later become liabilities. When they repeat, we invent stories about character, willpower, or spiritual failure. That moral overlay obscures what’s actually happening: the system is conserving energy by defaulting to known configurations.

This is where my heresy begins.

I’m no longer interested in liberation, awakening, or fixing the dream. I’m interested in whether the dream-character can operate with less internal friction - especially if the metaphysical scaffolding has already begun to collapse.

I work with a model (IFS, among other things) not as a theory of selfhood, but as a way to surface and renegotiate conditioned responses. Not to make them virtuous. Not to integrate them into a higher narrative. Simply to reduce unnecessary drag.

This has nothing to do with Truth. It doesn’t lead anywhere. It doesn’t resolve the contradiction. It’s maintenance, not transcendence.

Taleb uses the word antifragile to describe systems that improve through stress rather than break under it. That’s the closest analogue I’ve found—not as an ideal, but as a functional description.

Reality remains indifferent. Anything can still happen. No configuration makes you safe.

And nothing about this makes you better. It just makes the machinery quieter.
 

There is a lot of good stuff here, it reminds me of all the stuff I used, upgraded, used, upgraded...for 20+ years through therapy, the Human Potential Movement, self help books, religion... trying to release pressure from the ever growing sense of worthlessness and nothingness that an "I" intrinsically felt from childhood. The scaffolding here was getting difficult to navigate as the proverbial "house of cards" became taller and broader.

And then Jed, he wasn't the first to say it, he was just the first to say it to "me" when I finally had ears to listen. I don't revere Jed, any more than any other being I've met, I'm thankful for the call to self annihilation when I finally had enough fuel to burn it all down.

I still deal with the machinery because, after all there's a body here that still deals with other bodies, thankfully this body/mind left it's drama at the theater so that when others drama (daughter's current divorce situation) arises, my old drama's and programmed responses play no part in the conversation. I am totally available, totally loving. Asked to communicate with son-in-law because no one else in the family could let go their anger to do so, I cried with him for a 1/2 hour on the phone and made sure he felt cared for and knew he would always be part of the family (they have 3 kids together).

I speak of these things because they are so foreign to the ego here that wants badly to run the show, to put people in their place. The practice is as simple as smiling at that character, understanding where he came from and never letting him touch the wheel again.

I get what you are up to Biisuto, I've leaned on many like you through the years just to survive and through the end of the "I" sh!tshow and the dropping in of the Understanding or the Perennial Wisdom, there is thriving here... even as nothing changes.