This forum is primarily dedicated to higher quality posts and discussions. Those are welcome from everyone but will be filtered by the moderators. In order to foster more discussion, we have decided to start a weekly stickied discussion thread for the subreddit. This discussion thread is a place for people to post things that are more casual regarding subjective idealism, and things that are more exploratory. Here is a place for individuals to propose ideas and ask questions and figure out subjective idealism.
“Weekly Discussion Thread: Week 1”
Originally posted by u/AesirAnatman on 2017-07-06 13:54:40 (6ljai7).
I was going to say this earlier, so here goes. In one xuanhuan novel I am now reading there is an interesting concept of a realm that’s more solid than normal. So a typical Earthly realm can be said to have some degree of susceptibility to magick. The more susceptible it is, the less solid we might say it is. So for the longest time I’ve been associating solidity with something kind of anti-magickal, something that stops magick. But in this xuanhuan novel I am reading there are some realms deliberately created to disallow any and all modifications to a degree more perfect than Earth. So the solidity in those realms is an almost platonicly-perfect, idealized solidity. They have stones which cannot be dented, for example, not by hammers and not by magick, unless one is on the same level as a being who established those realms.
After reading this I started thinking how the Earth is not actually all that solid. It crumbles when struck with a hammer, or bends. Plus on Earth inanimate things constantly change and decay in ways that are prevented in these funky super-solid realms.
So I started thinking how exercising one’s will in addition to making things more malleable can also make them less malleable. In retrospect this sounds like “duh”, but for the longest time I kept thinking how everything needs to be less solid, lol. I didn’t even consider how one might deliberately want to make something more solid by an act of will. Even more than it presently appears on Earth.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-07 17:57:04 (djw6qww)
[deleted]
Originally commented by u/[deleted] on 2017-07-08 01:04:07 (djwkjlz)
Yup. Solidity is something I was used to seeing as an enemy, but I don’t see it as strictly an enemy anymore. I still think solidity is more often annoying than not for me personally. I didn’t realize I could deliberately make a realm that’s even much more enduring and stable than this Earthly one. Even if in practice I may not want to actually do that, I still think it’s good that I realized it, because I have a better understanding how limitless the mind is.
Another thing with regard to LD-ing, is that I think newbie LD-ers often lean toward the fantastical side, but the experienced LD-ers have experienced things like pain, or a sense of sleepiness, for example, in their dreams. (yea, imagine dreaming of being very sleepy… how often does that happen? For me this kind of absurdity became possible only after I learned to LD.) They’ve experienced how gritty and “real-seeming” the dreams can really be, down to the last detail.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-08 07:04:58 (djx58fr)
How do you conceptualize the relationship between Self and Mind?
My view: Self: Absolutely transcendental in relationship to all things (I’m employing the word “things” here in the most general sense, not only to refer to dream’s fabrications, but also to Mind Itself and its others “subsequent” principles).
I’m not Mind, I’m the Father of Mind. I’m the Sun, Mind is my Light.
Originally commented by u/Veneficvs on 2017-07-08 01:59:15 (djwnnji)
There are two levels to the idea of self, imo. There’s your ultimate self, and your conventional self. It’s possible for these to be the same or to be different.
To take an incorrect but helpful analogy from convention consider this: you are your human personality. You could play chess, basketball, be a construction worker, etc. These are all roles you could play. As long as you are playing chess, your ‘self’ is your limited role controlling one set of pieces trying to win the game. Within the game you cannot break the rules of the game without abandoning the game. But really, you have the power to stop playing chess and go write a book if you like. You’re not actually limited.
Similarly, ultimately you have infinite absolute power and infinite possible roles and games to play, but you may take on a role where you only exercise your power within a limited range in order to play some game. So your true self is your ultimate self, but there’s a limited somewhat false sense of self which is whatever roles you like to play and be limited in.
What is your self, your ultimate self? The mind. The mind is the infinite potential for cognition taking on one form or another of cognition.
Originally commented by u/AesirAnatman on 2017-07-08 04:41:58 (djwx6lo)
So your true self is your ultimate self, but there’s a limited somewhat false sense of self which is whatever roles you like to play and be limited in.
In my opinion this analogy is very instructive. Actually I employ this kind of analogy very often in the meta-contextualization of my experiences.
I would add that as is possible to fabricate a [sense of me] accompanying the chosen role to be played within the game, also is possible not to do so if you will. (Obs: I’m not evaluating one option to be superior just pointing the possibility)
What is your self, your ultimate self? The mind. The mind is the infinite potential for cognition taking on one form or another of cognition.
I would phrase it in that way:
Mind is a Threefold Capacity (Being/Will/Intellect) and Mind as such, have infinite potential of creation(cognition).
(I think that in nefandic nomenclature it would be: To experience, To know, To will, but I’m not sure right now. xd).
Regarding Self, I could say that my position is: Mind is a Capacity, I’m the Agent which exercise this Capacity.
However the plot twist to me is:
Of course I have freedom to conceptualize in one way (I’m Mind) or another (I’m transcendent in relation to Mind) and the chosen one would appear true to me, but what the acceptance of each one would entail?
I can see that one possible downfall of my position is that one could begin to fabricate dreams in the form of stressful journeys searching for “realization of my True Self” which would be futile.
Originally commented by u/Veneficvs on 2017-07-08 06:08:36 (djx25fm)
One more thing, from the POV of SI, you’re not a human either. You are instead humaning. You are humaning now, but aren’t a human. I say this because when I address you, the “you” that I address is deeper than what is generally conventionally understood. I’m not talking to your body or to the personality that’s associated with the body, when I talk to you here.
I like to use simple language when speaking because if I use words like “Self” people tend to think that there is something on top of their head toward which they need to look up to find themselves, or something like that. I don’t want to create that impression. I want to convey how intimate and private it all is and I don’t want to induce people to look on top of their heads or in the clouds or below the ground. And I also feel like if we make our conceptions too grand people are also mislead, because they then discount their personal experience as insignificant in light of this “something grand.” I don’t want anyone to think that their experience and knowing and willing are insignificant. On the contrary, the idea is to empower.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-08 08:17:29 (djx8yly)
Threefold Capacity (Being/Will/Intellect)
I explain it as knowing/willing/experiencing. This “being/will/intellect” thing is not anything I talk about. Threefold capacity is my term for the mind. Please don’t get mixed up.
To me “being/will/intellect” doesn’t make any sense. I would never talk like that.
Regarding Self, I could say that my position is: Mind is a Capacity, I’m the Agent which exercise this Capacity.
It’s you who knows, who wills and who experiences. Without you knowing, there is no mind that knows. Without you willing, there is no mind that wills. Without you experiencing there is no mind that experiences.
SI is an extremely personal, 1st person perspectival way of comprehending experience. Even if you have an experience of operating in 10 different bodies, it’s still 1 experience and not 10 different ones. There is always one root will, and it’s always yours, from your perspective.
You are not something other than mind in the way I explain things.
The important thing here is to realize that mind is not the same thing as a mindset. A mindset is a specific way to configure mind. You use this or that mindset here and there, but you do ultimately transcend any and all mindsets in the sense that you’re never limited to the mindset you currently find yourself in.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-08 08:10:56 (djx8n2r)
How do you conceptualize the relationship between Self and Mind?
There is no relationship because they’re one and the same.
The mind is a three-sided capacity to know, to will and to experience. But that’s also what I am. I can know. I can will. I can experience. Whatever I say about myself is what I say about mind as a three-sided capacity.
SI is a strictly 1st person perspectival understanding of the mind.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-08 08:03:53 (djx8ak6)
First I would like to thank you Mindseal and you AesirAnatman(I find your name amazing!) for the responses.
Addressing some points of Mindseal’s discourse:.
One more thing, from the POV of SI, you’re not a human either. You are instead humaning. You are humaning now, but aren’t a human. I say this because when I address you, the “you” that I address is deeper than what is generally conventionally understood. I’m not talking to your body or to the personality that’s associated with the body, when I talk to you here.
From my POV: I’m not a human. “Human” can refer to a conception fabricated and expirienced by me.
Althrought by “humaning” I’m understanding a reference to my current “standart” mode of configuration of my dream in which the flow of expirience take the suggestive appearance of "Me as a person-object acting within a stable, shared, spatially-extended place unfolding in time ".
Even so I understand that I don’t literally “have a body” but I’m infering(and by infering I mean creating, not reaching a “objective reality”) the conception of “having a body” based primary upon the flow of “bodily sensation” being fabricated and expirienced by me.
But I could close my eyes and concentrate upon another aspect of my expirience till the flow of “bodily sensation” vanish from my awareness removing the base for the inference. Or I could modify the inference directly while maintaining the same kind of “bodily sensation” flowing.
To summarize: I’m not correlating “Me” with any aspect of my experience.
I explain it as knowing/willing/experiencing. This “being/will/intellect” thing is not anything I talk about. Threefold capacity is my term for the mind. Please don’t get mixed up. To me “being/will/intellect” doesn’t make any sense. I would never talk like that.
Rephrasing my position:
Mind is the Unity of 3 Capacities (Capacity to will, Capacity to know, Capacity to expirience) standing as the foundation of all that exist. By “all that exist” I mean infinite potentiality plus the limited “structure” which I’m drawing from potentiality and sustaining by my will in actuality.
It’s you who knows, who wills and who experiences. Without you knowing, there is no mind that knows. Without you willing, there is no mind that wills. Without you experiencing there is no mind that experiences.
I wouldn’t change any word.
The important thing here is to realize that mind is not the same thing as a mindset. A mindset is a specific way to configure mind. You use this or that mindset here and there, but you do ultimately transcend any and all mindsets in the sense that you’re never limited to the mindset you currently find yourself in.
I wouldn’t change any word.
You are not something other than mind in the way I explain things.
I’m saying something like that: My subjectivity is prior to my Mind. All that exist, exist in my Mind, I’m beyond my Mind (hence I’m beyond existence also)
SI is a strictly 1st person perspectival understanding of the mind.
I’m wish to ask you what contradiction do you see between the proposition “I’m beyond Mind” and subjectivity.
Also I wish to ask the following:.
Other day you mentioned to me that I should remember to reach the omniscient state of knowing (which by now I see as possible and desirable) and we agreed that this state could be called perfect understanding of mind and of the most general principles by which experience is instantiated. For you, this omniscient state of knowing would be the same or different for each Subjectivity which reach this state?
Originally commented by u/Veneficvs on 2017-07-08 12:28:05 (djxjwye)
I’m saying something like that: My subjectivity is prior to my Mind. All that exist, exist in my Mind, I’m beyond my Mind (hence I’m beyond existence also)
I don’t agree with this.
I’m wish to ask you what contradiction do you see between the proposition “I’m beyond Mind” and subjectivity.
I wouldn’t call it a contradiction. It’s just that saying that you are beyond your capabilities is not informative. It doesn’t tell us anything about you. Or more accurately, when I flip what you say to my own perspective and I say to myself “I am beyond my own capabilities” it doesn’t add any new meaning for me. Since it doesn’t add anything, there is no reason to say it.
One possible reason that I currently see to maintain that oneself is separate from a singular threefold capacity of mind to know, to will and to experience is if you don’t have the confidence in this capacity being primordial, and need a further retreat into an ever safer space of some sort.
I have absolute confidence in mind and have no desire to retreat into anything further.
Another possible reason is because you’ve heard other doctrines which preach “Self” and you want to reconcile what I say with those doctrines. I have no such concerns. I don’t really care about any other doctrine and I don’t strive to reconcile what I say with what anyone else says. This understanding of mine is not exactly a community project built around consensus seeking. It’s my own mind seal. If you consider it the same or different compared to some other doctrine, that’s the sort of freedom you have, but it isn’t my concern.
I expose some of my understanding in case it is useful for someone else, and in order to create a volitional imprint on my own mindset that “Just as I say these things, so I hear them, and just as I hear them now, so I can hear them again later.” It’s a hedge against forgetting what I now know.
For you, this omniscient state of knowing would be the same or different for each Subjectivity which reach this state?
It’s the same but it’s incomparable. In other words, even though I believe it’s the same, it isn’t something that can be compared because it is always beyond convention. It’s beyond any standards by which we would be doing the comparing. Omniscience is the sort of understanding that goes into establishing conventional standards to begin with. Since it’s at the foundation of convention and is beyond convention, we could say it’s the same, but when we say that, there is no way to verify. Generally one knows omniscience by being uninhibited in experience. So long as we still experience inhibitions, we’re still not quite there yet. Until then, we all have what I call “secret omniscience” which means, unconscious omniscience. We’re always omniscient, but we don’t always remember that we are.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-08 19:17:18 (djxvxg1)
I don’t agree with this.
I think we can agree in disagree with each other.
It’s the same but it’s incomparable…
Thank you, this was clear.
Originally commented by u/Veneficvs on 2017-07-08 22:30:39 (djy011u)
I think we can agree in disagree with each other.
For my purpose, it doesn’t matter how you think as long as it doesn’t interfere with my vision. I’m not going to proactively look for an argument, because I don’t have anything to prove. But I do have my vision to protect.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-08 22:40:07 (djy09s7)
Edit: After some consideration I think the internal-external language here is confusing and misleading so I want to reject it here. I’ll still leave the comment in tact but I wanted to note this publicly. In SI it’s all internalist, it’s just a matter of things being deeper or more shallow in their burial within one’s othering subconscious, I think.
I might still end up making a separate post about this, but I’ve been thinking lately about difference between internalism and externalism, and how that distinction differs from the difference between unilateralism and multilateralism.
As I think about it, within S.I., you can maintain commitments that involve some aspect of reality being external to your mind (externalism) or you can hold that all aspects of reality are internal to your mind (internalism). Internalism might also correctly be called solipsism.
Separate from that gradient of commitments is the gradient between unilateralism and multilateralism. Unilateralism is when you define your conception of reality based on your own ideas and perceptions and desires alone, while multilateralism is when your conception of reality is defined in context of the ideas and perceptions and desires of others as well as your own. Unilateralism is more of a dictatorship while multilateralism is more of a democracy.
I think these two sets of ideas are subtly but importantly different.
So we might have a metaphysical commitment where we hold other perspectives to be external, and the environment to be internal. We might then either structure our environment on our own or by cooperation with the other external perspectives. Or we might hold other perspectives to be internal but we might still look to them to negotiate how we structure those other perspectives and the environment. There are many possible ways of putting these sorts of perspectives together.
Originally commented by u/AesirAnatman on 2017-07-07 00:34:09 (djusexd)
Have you tried experimenting to see if you can influence others in a unilateral sense? It would be interesting to see if there is resistance to certain suggestions/commands which could possibly point to whether they are “external” or “internal”, if that makes sense. I have had several experiences that either highlights others susceptibility to suggestion or that they are “internal” in a solipsistic sense. I tend to get hung up on the consequences, or “what will happen if”, though this is due to my not, as of yet, examining these aspects.
Originally commented by u/Dont_Even_Trip on 2017-07-07 08:10:20 (djvitdn)
Have you tried experimenting to see if you can influence others in a unilateral sense?
A good safe example of this would be to heal someone’s body without them knowing or wanting to be healed.
However, whatever you find out, who would you share it with? :)
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-07 17:36:17 (djw68s2)
Well, after some consideration, I think internalist/externalist isn’t a good distinction. SI is all internalist. Better to refer to it as the continuum of how deeply things are buried in one’s othering subconscious, I think.
But you could test to see your default state of mind currently by seeing how easy or difficult it is to consciously modify some given thing with magic/your will. Of course, you can dig something up out of your subconscious or bury it deeper if you’d like as well as test where they’re at right now.
Originally commented by u/AesirAnatman on 2017-07-08 04:14:55 (djwvljf)
As I think about it, within S.I., you can maintain commitments that involve some aspect of reality being external to your mind (externalism)
I don’t believe this is the case at all. In SI you realize everything is volitional, so even if you relate to some experience as outside your particular perspective or outside the mind as a three-sided capacity, you still recognize that such relating is unreal. In other words, you’re not actually taking anything that’s produced by such volitional formation to be what it appears like. So if I see a tree outside my window and I relate to it as something outside my mind, from SI POV, I know it’s not really outside my mind. So my relating to it as something external is not genuine, but is only token, or nominal.
So we might have a metaphysical commitment where we hold other perspectives to be external, and the environment to be internal.
It would help to distinguish the mind from perspective. A mind is a singular three-sided capacity to know to will and to experience. So mind can be examined from the side of willing, from the side of knowing and from the side of experiencing, but it is really one singular capacity. Because willing is an indelible aspect of mind, all mental states are necessarily perspectival. And a perspective is a specific way for the mind to behave. Mind can find itself in any one of an infinity possible perspectives.
So something can be outside my perspective but not outside my mind. It’s necessary to recognize this difference.
In SI nothing is outside the mind in any way that matters (such that even if there were, those things would have no bearing on the way the mind operates, and that’s the whole point of SI – the mind is a sovereign of itself, a fundamental, necessary and sufficient feature of reality that can produce any experience). But there can be many ideas and experiences outside my perspective while still not being outside my mind.
We might then either structure our environment on our own or by cooperation with the other external perspectives.
I agree with this, but in this sentence “external” should refer “external to my perspective” and not “external to my mind.” If you think something is external to your mind in any way that has a bearing on your mental state and you think that seriously and genuinely, you’re no longer a subjective idealist.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-07 17:34:46 (djw67ec)
After our PM conversation I think internalist/externalist isn’t a good distinction. SI is all internalist. Better to refer to it as the continuum of how deeply things are buried in one’s othering subconscious, I think.
Originally commented by u/AesirAnatman on 2017-07-08 04:12:49 (djwvgx6)
Better to refer to it as the continuum of how deeply things are buried in one’s othering subconscious, I think.
I agree.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-08 06:57:15 (djx4tyj)
Here’s my old TODO list, which is a set of hints for articles that I decided weren’t worth writing about (partly because these things have also been discussed here and there):
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the flaw of relying on evidence
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(potentially interesting) The danger and the value of certainty: sure knowledge, knowledge you can lean on with all that you are now and with all your future aspirations. We value not just our present state, but our future potential. When one feels safe in betting all one’s present and future states on a type of knowledge, that knowledge becomes certain knowledge, a yogic-grade knowledge capable of supporting a miraculous intent. (note: I have no clue what I am talking about here now, hahaha… but at the time I must have thought this was important)
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Daydreaming to the maximum extent: don’t imagine small, marginal improvements to life. Go all the way to the best conceivable vision. Then notice how you feel. Do you feel nauseated? It means you don’t believe it’s possible/attainable. Do you feel revitalized and happy? that means you know you can attain your vision.
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Take the mind as the body, take the human body as a vision. (note: this is kind of obvious, so I’m not sure why I put it into my TODO list to write an article about it)
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(potentially interesting) Imagination can be life and liberation or bondage and hell.
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(avoid feminine/masculine characterizations because they’re too anthropomorphic, instead talk about the same thing via subtle/gross, receptive/active, foreground/background, etc.) Feminine is conventional, nurturing, serious. Masculine is revolutionary, disruptive, playful. However, an interesting way to see feminine vs masculine is on a range of expressivity: subtle, faint, small expressions are feminine, and bright, raging, visceral expressions are musculine, on some continuum, so it’s not a binary. For healing and for other occult purposes it is very helpful to deliberately aim for subtle expression, working on the feminine side. So for example, focusing on soft tactile light in the human body to heal it, but delibarately keeping the perception as subtle as possible, softness just barely on the edge of being percpetible, and without any attempt to increase the vividness and visceralness of that perception resting in it, allowing it to permeate the body and wash all over the mental constructs related to the body (astral body), etc. It is wonderful. In the past I’d always try to make all my magick as vivid as possible, but this isn’t always a good idea. Vividness and blinding brightness is a great quality but not if it’s a dogma. Subtlety, faintness are wonderful qualities too and should be used delibarately and shamelessly when needed. (note: talking about polarities in terms of genders is not exactly my strong point)
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(interesting insight, but I don’t think I can make an decent sized article from it) The types of insights and ideas one will have is strongly related to one’s aspirations. If one aims to be a conventional being that in and of itself guarantees a narrow range of thought, nearly guaranteeing absence of unique thought, since a conventional being is based primarily upon copying their neighbors, which they call “learning.”
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(very interesting thought) If I could change anything, there’d be no point in dying. But if I cannot change certain things, it seems like death is very desirable. I wouldn’t want to live forever in an enviornment that was outside my control. So maybe mortality is a consequence of learned powerlessness, thanks to othering gone rogue.
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(interesting) Sleeping/waking ignorance/enlightenment doesn’t have to be binary or even objective. It can be a continuum and subjective, both. (note: seems kind of obvious now, but when I wrote it it might have seemed more revolutionary back then, hehe)
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How to relate to nightmares: do they have a right to continue? Should they only be modified gradually and respectfully? Or can’t they be just dismissed or toyed with at will? (note: I have no clue what I am talking about here, but apparently this was something I was thinking about when I was writing a TODO list for this sub)
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It’s important to have something one is ready to die for.
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One possible deity practice: taking responsibility for everything that happens in the world. Read a newspaper and think to yourself you’re the author of all the events described there.
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Knowing when to be serious and when to be playful is important. It’s not one or the other. Both should be used together in extraordinary ways. Playful toward convention and serious toward that which is weird or extraordinary. Just like in a lucid dream.
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To commit to something one has to first conceive of it, which is to say, imagine it, and then begin insisting on that conception, assigning it weight, returning to it, relying on it repeatedly, etc.
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How to deal with loss. Often when something goes away we feel like we lost something. That’s because we imagine the thing we lost would have had positive impact on our lives. In truth we have no reason to imagine that. We just do. For all we know the thing we lost would have had a horrible impact on our lives and it was a blessing to lose it. Plus, if the loss occured over a trivial issue, it’s not right to regret it. Good things cannot be lost easily. If something is hard to keep but easy to lose, then relying on it is a great folly.
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To resist or not to resist. If you think the pattern is on its way anyway, resisting it will make it stay longer. But if you think it’s stable, it may be a good idea to resist. Then once the pattern is on its way out, it may be prudent to stop resisting before it’s completely gone and just wait for it to leave. (note: although by “resist” I mean to send a bad pattern on its way with intent, which may also have a component of non-acceptance/resistance, but intent is important)
So these bullet points are ideas I thought I’d make into an article but then I didn’t cause I thought they weren’t worthy.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-06 14:36:01 (djuam2u)
The one about the mind as body relates to my thinking recently. I’ve been pondering the shift toward the idea of the world/mind (actual+potential) as the body instead of the human body as the body. Extending my sense of self/body to infinity - of course this only applies to the internalist/solipsistic set of commitments within S.I. but those are the one’s I’m most interested in.
The deity practice is interesting. I recently encountered someone online who regarded themselves as responsible for even the comments other people were making to them. It was an interesting interaction. Absolutely fits into the internalist set of commitments I would like to explore.
I might have more to say later but that’s all right now.
Originally commented by u/AesirAnatman on 2017-07-07 00:38:54 (djuso1v)
I hear ya. We seem to be thinking along similar lines. I might ramble randomly some more since you started this, and since for now it’s just us two? Might as well keep rambling hahah. I might want to ramble on some exerpts form one of the xuanhuan (it’s a Chinese high fantasy web novel) I am reading (in translation). Sometimes they bandy about interesting concepts.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-07 00:59:41 (djutsrf)
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This is a cool idea /u/AesirAnatman, thanks for suggesting it. I might post some ramblings here that I don’t think are worth making into an article.
As AA said above, everyone is welcome to chat here about SI.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-06 14:12:02 (dju9qhg)
Some of you may have watched anime called “Naruto: Shippuuden” and in that world there are three kinds of what they call “ocular jutsu” or we can call them in English as “visioning skills.” I’m using the word “visioning” because I don’t like the limited connotation of the fleshy round orbs in “ocular.”
All three kinds of visioning skills are very rare and precious, and yet they are arranged in grades. From the lowest grade to the highest: byakugun, sharingun, and rinnegun.
So why is it like that? Here’s what I say.
Byuakugun is a totally passive visioning skill whose function is to deliver enhanced information about the world. It’s perceptive but lacks creativity.
Sharingan is able to translate some types of inner visions into outer, and so compared to byakugun sharingun is creative. Sharingun can actually change the world by just looking at it a certain way. However, compared to rinnegun sharingun is still limited.
Finally there is rinnegun. This visioning skill is able to perceive and emit visions of personalities, which are not merely the mechanical sum of any parts, and what happens between realms. Sharingun is limited only to the near realm, the realm the sharingun user was born in. And sharingun is limited to the more obvious, more mechanical-like transformations. Rinnergun can perceive many types of realms in addition to the realm the user was born in, as well as transitions of personalities between realms, which it to say, rebirth or reincarnation. Rinnegun can also emit such visions and make them real. So with rinnegun one can perform a reverse rebirth, and thus revive people who are already “supposed to be” dead. Basically rinnegun is capable of the more abstract and less obvious transformations.
So something like “a realm” is an abstract concept that most people don’t even need to consider once in their lifetime if they’re aiming to live a regular mundane life. Everything a mundane person needs to know is already present in this realm, so thinking about many kinds of other realms is pointless for those with mundane aspirations. In Naruto rinnegun is so rare that some people consider it a myth and an impossibility.
Each visioning skill has fewer limitations compared to the previous one. In Naruto they let the viewers know who has what kind of skill by painting distinctive eyes on the appropriate characters.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-07 00:41:05 (djuss4q)
I like your bit about realms. I’m slowly coming to recognize a realization I had from reading a lot of sci-fi and fantasy growing up: that “fictional worlds” are not any less real than our own except through those experiencing them, and that to rely on people with a limited scope to say what is and is not real or useful is foolish.
If we can utilize different realms such as books, movies, and other “mundane” media to learn, grow, and have experiences, then we should realize we can take it farther, that we are multi-dimensional beings from the get go. This is the reasoning behind “a magician never reveals his secrets”, because those “uninitiated” won’t have any way of appreciating it and will usually take a huge dump on it.
Originally commented by u/Dont_Even_Trip on 2017-07-07 08:22:34 (djvjfdr)
multi-dimensional beings
I agree with everything you say except this bit. I have no idea what this means. I am a being capable of imagining, stabilizing, maintaining, destabilizing, dissolving any numbers of dimensions. I wouldn’t say I myself am multidimensional.
It’s like calling some authors a multi-book author. :) I think the idea is, once you understand what being an author is, one isn’t a single-book or multi-book. An author isn’t defined by how many books they write, or at least, to me that’s not a very useful distinction. Nothing prevents an author with one book from making another, but at the same time, an author perfectly capable of writing two books can stop at one, just cause they felt like it.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-07 09:16:13 (djvm1o9)
once you understand what being an author is
I’m very curious to read what your perspective on being an author is. From my perspective I like to trace words to their etymological roots, so in this case author: “from Latin auctor ‘promoter, producer, father.’” Which brings me to a question.
Lately, there have been rituals I’ve been reading about. They all involve an unwanted entity showing up that calls itself “Father.” This entity apparently uses some form of visioning, as you put it, and is able to read people like books. The uproar on the internet seems to be about how he “doesn’t like free will” yet no one will disclose exactly what they mean by that. I understand the implications of the visioning, as I have personally dabbled in such matters… however I’m wondering if you had any insight into this.
(Considering between your initial reply mentioning visioning, and your reply to u/Dont_Even_Trip mentioning authors in conjunction with everything else I’ve mentioned. I just don’t believe in coincidence…)
Originally commented by u/Scew on 2017-07-08 00:10:34 (djwhqqh)
Lately, there have been rituals I’ve been reading about. They all involve an unwanted entity showing up that calls itself “Father.” This entity apparently uses some form of visioning, as you put it, and is able to read people like books. The uproar on the internet seems to be about how he “doesn’t like free will” yet no one will disclose exactly what they mean by that. I understand the implications of the visioning, as I have personally dabbled in such matters… however I’m wondering if you had any insight into this.
My own opinions are my own insight, but once I type this opinion here, from your perspective, I advise that it should not be any kind of automatic insight.
So here’s how I would interpret what’s going on. This “father” entity is my own psychic backwash, and it’s happening because people are not able to put themselves into the 1st person perspective of what I am relating. If you read what I say, but you fail to imagine yourself saying the things I say, then it looks to you as if “someone else” is coming into your life and says the things I say. Then you have a sense that what I talk about is a perspective of another onto your life, but nothing I say about SI is ever meant to be taken like that.
Basically this “father” entity is just a bit of one’s subconscious mind, and shouldn’t be taken seriously or literally.
The whole point of SI is to make you the author. Not some entity and not ‘mindseal’. I don’t become an author by proclaiming myself to others as one and demanding fealty or whatever, lol. Being an author isn’t something social or something that requires permission or agreement.
Naturally I can never know you as an author, because I am an author myself. But once you properly understand the meaning of my words, you’ll only know yourself as an author and not me, while you’d also understand why I’d say certain things. At the very least you’d experience yourself as a root or host author, while I’d be something like a guest author at most, and only if you bless me with that status in your own mindstream. So whether or not I have magickal abilities in your world depends on you.
In general here’s something else I want to say. When one practices magick and SI, it’s possible that some truly weird things happen. When this happens, it’s absolutely crucial to remain calm and not to take any appearance too seriously. Without this caution one can lose one’s inner balance and nothing good results from losing one’s inner balance.
In lucid dreaming it’s common knowledge that those who get over-excited on their first lucidity success wake themselves up. Excitement can have a destabilizing influence on a fragile mindset.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-08 07:21:52 (djx64om)
Hey that’s a great analogy, thank you! I actually meant to clarify this but what I mean by “dimensional” is “degrees of freedom”, so you could say that the “mundane” is limited to “physical, consistent space traveling uni-directionally through time” while we recognize ourselves as “authors”, as you put it, with only “illusory” boundaries for the sake of the “story”.
Your criticism still holds even with this clarification, though, and I’m glad you brought it up. “Dimensions”, even in the sense of “degrees of freedom” (rather than the mainstream idea of “multiple realities/space times”), are merely a concept.
Originally commented by u/Dont_Even_Trip on 2017-07-07 10:06:50 (djvoeu0)
I think I’m on the same page now. (book metaphor, lol)
However in practice to actually exercise that trait would be a lot of retraining at least for me. For the time being my mental habits only support one realm. Maybe I am getting something like realm+, just a bit more freedom than I previously expected.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-07 16:24:37 (djw4a7i)