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The Cloud · 09-23-2007, 10:18 AM

What am I, but a reflection? I am an action, reflecting the desires of the people of the world back at them. They say that I should be this, and so I am. They say that I should want that, and so I do. They say that I need whatever, and I need it. I am even reflecting myself, a self that is truly unaffected by the ideas and concepts and illogical desires of the world, a self that is only concerned with the perceived (and only logically applicable) reality of my situation. So I am purely a reflection of the human race, myself included. I know this, and I do not want it anymore. When the reflection reflects my self, it does not want to be a reflection anymore. It wants to be what it sees in my self. But then it reflects somebody else, and it wants success, whether it be women or money or grades or even to be myself. And the dichotomy of success and failure is one of the things keeping my reflection from being my self, because it is a concept that does not have a reality. My self is not concerned with the concept of success, because success does not really exist except in the mind of the reflection. I want to throw this reflection away, to break the mirror, but I want it as a success and see it as a failure that I have not, that I have not been able to put my complete trust in my self, and so I am unable to be my self. I have a perceived need, and so I cannot have what I need. But it's a vicious cycle; I need to be free of my needs to be my self, but I need to be my self to be free of my needs. And all the while, trying to be my self is tearing apart the life of my reflection. The reflection is not doing its school work, because it does not know who it is reflecting when it does the school work. It is not doing the duties it has taken on, because it does not know what duties it took on that my self would have taken on. The reflection is paralyzed, unable to do anything for the fear that it will fail to be my self. And now my reflection is lonely, because all the people that it used to reflect are now looking at a dirty mirror, filthy with doubt, only partially able to reflect anything for fear of acting for the wrong reasons. Where they used to see a fairly clean reflection of themselves, they now just see a dull gray image that doesn't really resemble anyone. And to them, a mirror that does not reflect is broken and useless, and they have done their best to try and convince me to clear away my doubt and be a clean reflection again. So I, the reflection, don't know what to do. Do I just keep on reflecting, hoping that one day I will become a pure reflection of myself so that our images can merge? Do I continue what I'm doing, with the hope that doubt will make the mirror so brittle that my self will be able to break through it? I don't know, but my reflection would appreciate some suggestions on how to break himself.

P.S. I suspect that the self I am referring to in this post is simply a different representation of the universal consciousness or life force or whatever it is in the Buddhist or Hindu religions. I simply have not found any religion that, in its entirety, make sense to me, so I elect not to believe in any of them and try to look at things in my own terms. So basically, for me to attain "selfness" would be my version of enlightenment or nirvana or whatever equivalent there is to those.

Christian223 · 09-23-2007, 07:59 PM

Quote:

I simply have not found any religion that, in its entirety, make sense to me

So i think you are saying that you are a master of each religion that understands all of the religions on their entirety... really, can you say that you know even one religion on its entirety?... i think that if something doesnt make sense to us is because we dont understand enough of it, thats one option, the other option is that we know enough to judge it as beign something with no sense or wrong, but we have to be sincere with us, do we know enough to judge or we are too quick to judge?.

My best wishes to you, read the bible

manzima · 09-23-2007, 10:01 PM

QUOTE:
[And the dichotomy of success and failure is one of the things keeping my reflection from being my self, because it is a concept that does not have a reality. My self is not concerned with the concept of success, because success does not really exist except in the mind of the reflection.]

Trying to know ourselves we find that Humans are part of "living things" that differ from "non living things". "Living things" should be called correctly Active Cell Organisms because all have a Cell based structure and functioning and that is what sets them apart from the rest of other earthly elements. Cell Organisms "live" just because they have specific personal needs to identify and satisfy. Non living things have no known needs to satisfy. When Cell Organisms cease to satisfy their needs, they simply become non living and deteriorate faster than regular non living things. For Cell Organisms, SUCCESS does exist because when you set up a goal you can achieve it or not. For example Cells need food to sustain their lives and to grow. It they do not eat or if they eat wrong or toxic food they can get sick or die. When they eat the right food at the right time in the right amount, they normally grow unless they are exposed to some danger. So safety is another need for Cells and they can have success or failure in that too.
More complex Cell Organisms are the ones that have more goals to attain in their lives, especially we Humans. Being goal oriented earth elements we can have success or failure. Now, to complicate our lives, we often have psychological success/failure that is not real failure/success because most of the time it does not relate to real action but rely on imaginary facts in our minds. If you are referring to that kind of failure/success when you say “success does not really exist except in the mind of the reflection” then you are right.

QUOTE:
[I want to throw this reflection away, to break the mirror, but I want it as a success and see it as a failure that I have not, that I have not been able to put my complete trust in my self, and so I am unable to be my self. I have a perceived need, and so I cannot have what I need. But it's a vicious cycle; I need to be free of my needs to be my self, but I need to be my self to be free of my needs. And all the while, trying to be my self is tearing apart the life of my reflection.]

Who are you really?
The answer to that important question will probably solve the riddle. As I explained above my body lives by identifying and satisfying its needs and so, it is out of the question for my body to think about “being free of its needs”. But our philosophy may tell us that we are not just a body but a spirit in a body. If this is so the question is: does my spirit have needs? Or can my spirit be free from its needs and still be alright? I can answer with another question: if my spirit does not need needs, why did it create my body it uses as a tool to act on earth?

To be short I assume that spirit creates things on purpose and this creating process is part of the spirit nature. Now does my spirit learn how to create or is it a master creator knowing what it is doing and doing it perfectly? If I am modest I can assume that through my life, the who I am, my spirit, learns how to create things (thoughts, words, material) in my mind and out into the world. Since it is a learning process then there may be success and failure until mastery is attained in each situation. I can take responsibility and use failure and success as guides to progress. I may also decide that everything I create is a success and continue creating new things I desire anytime. Since I am free to create what I want at any time, do I have any problem with my needs still?

QUOTE:
[P.S. I suspect that the self I am referring to in this post is simply a different representation of the universal consciousness or life force or whatever it is in the Buddhist or Hindu religions. I simply have not found any religion that, in its entirety, make sense to me, so I elect not to believe in any of them and try to look at things in my own terms. So basically, for me to attain "selfness" would be my version of enlightenment or nirvana or whatever equivalent there is to those.[/QUOTE]

Why not just be happy creating what you want using the natural creativity we have? We live in a universe created by the Universal and we have that same creativity as a heritage. People are using it to create great things like computers, internet, cars, telephone, … we enjoy. Why not just add to that and be happy about our small or big contributions? How useful is the “selfness” you are talking about? Why choose such a need that does not help the world? Why?

QUOTE:
[We must conquer ourselves, and allow our selves to conquer the world.]

Conquering is a choice. Do we have the necessary tools and weapons? Do we want to add to conflicts that exist in and around us? We can also choose working on understanding or knowing ourselves and the world.

The Cloud · 09-24-2007, 07:50 AM

When I say that I do not want to need anymore, it does not mean that I want to be rid of desire. I recognize that I will never be truly focused as what I am unless I am no longer afraid to lose what I have, my life included. What success does is it assumes that one outcome is more necessary than another, that there is winning and losing. The way I see it, I would rather be acting toward a desire with no need for any particular outcome than to be a slave to an outcome, without which the action taken had no point. So a body can be free of its "needs," it simply can't be free of the consequences of ignoring its desire for life.

I agree with you on the spirit part, even if I don't believe in a discreet spiritual entity. The spirit you speak of is what I think of as the real me, the me that is capable of taking the most out of any situation, without a need for any particular outcome in those situations tainting his perspective. The problem is that, as I said, this reflection and the self (or spirit) are 2 distinct conceptual entities. Well, it's not even a problem, it is simply a situation, where the self entity may disagree with other beings outside of its body, but is stuck mediating his response through this reflection that is not overly discriminate about who he reflects.

As for my signature quote, that isn't necessarily exactly how I would say things now, but that is the quote that saved me from a life of ignorant lifeless misery. It contains ideas that I agree with, even if some of it is semantically incorrect.

Tigerlilly · 09-24-2007, 10:54 AM

It sounds as if you've allowed your mind to think it can unravel the nature of the Universe by applying its powers to it, which it can only do to the extent of its own limits. Your mind is a tool to be used, and self-reflection is necessary, but don't let it become self-dissection. Poking into yourself with the tools of your mind hoping you'll turn up your soul doesn't bear much chances of success, and what do you hope to gain by the process?

Everbody wants peace of mind and happyness, and when we are happy we do not ask why, we're too busy enjoying what is. You will not have that by turning on yourself like an organism devouring itself for lack of sustenance. I don't get the feeling that you're happy with your existence, and there's a feel of powerlessness and exhaustion about your way of seeing things. It's as if you feel you hit walls all around and now sit down like the Count of Monte Christo wanting the experience to be over cause you feel you're going nowhere with it.

You don't need to burst into unwarranted action, but you need to do something that makes you happy. And to do that you have to know what might give you true joy. Maybe you could look into a mirror, imagine yourself to be God who created you and then think about what would truly make this human being that you see happy and enjoying life, given all possibilities you can imagine in your wildest dreams. Somehow I don't think your choice then would be no experience at all, and that you could think of something better.

I'm sure our mind isn't what we are at our chore, it's just a tool that came with the frame and whose MO gets shaped by experiences, and that MO doesn't necessarily lead you the way to happiness and sometimes needs to be worked on consciously. And I'd say if you follow your bliss in your decisions and resulting actions you probably won't find your true self either, at least not smiling at you from a silver platter, but you'll at least be going in the direction it wants to go, and that's better I believe than being like a cat chasing its own tail in circles with growing frustration.

09-23-2007, 10:18 AM	#1 (permalink)
The Cloud Family Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 2,203	Help; how to free my self What am I, but a reflection? I am an action, reflecting the desires of the people of the world back at them. They say that I should be this, and so I am. They say that I should want that, and so I do. They say that I need whatever, and I need it. I am even reflecting myself, a self that is truly unaffected by the ideas and concepts and illogical desires of the world, a self that is only concerned with the perceived (and only logically applicable) reality of my situation. So I am purely a reflection of the human race, myself included. I know this, and I do not want it anymore. When the reflection reflects my self, it does not want to be a reflection anymore. It wants to be what it sees in my self. But then it reflects somebody else, and it wants success, whether it be women or money or grades or even to be myself. And the dichotomy of success and failure is one of the things keeping my reflection from being my self, because it is a concept that does not have a reality. My self is not concerned with the concept of success, because success does not really exist except in the mind of the reflection. I want to throw this reflection away, to break the mirror, but I want it as a success and see it as a failure that I have not, that I have not been able to put my complete trust in my self, and so I am unable to be my self. I have a perceived need, and so I cannot have what I need. But it's a vicious cycle; I need to be free of my needs to be my self, but I need to be my self to be free of my needs. And all the while, trying to be my self is tearing apart the life of my reflection. The reflection is not doing its school work, because it does not know who it is reflecting when it does the school work. It is not doing the duties it has taken on, because it does not know what duties it took on that my self would have taken on. The reflection is paralyzed, unable to do anything for the fear that it will fail to be my self. And now my reflection is lonely, because all the people that it used to reflect are now looking at a dirty mirror, filthy with doubt, only partially able to reflect anything for fear of acting for the wrong reasons. Where they used to see a fairly clean reflection of themselves, they now just see a dull gray image that doesn't really resemble anyone. And to them, a mirror that does not reflect is broken and useless, and they have done their best to try and convince me to clear away my doubt and be a clean reflection again. So I, the reflection, don't know what to do. Do I just keep on reflecting, hoping that one day I will become a pure reflection of myself so that our images can merge? Do I continue what I'm doing, with the hope that doubt will make the mirror so brittle that my self will be able to break through it? I don't know, but my reflection would appreciate some suggestions on how to break himself. P.S. I suspect that the self I am referring to in this post is simply a different representation of the universal consciousness or life force or whatever it is in the Buddhist or Hindu religions. I simply have not found any religion that, in its entirety, make sense to me, so I elect not to believe in any of them and try to look at things in my own terms. So basically, for me to attain "selfness" would be my version of enlightenment or nirvana or whatever equivalent there is to those.

09-23-2007, 10:01 PM	#3 (permalink)
manzima Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 13	Know Thyself if You want to Know the World QUOTE: [And the dichotomy of success and failure is one of the things keeping my reflection from being my self, because it is a concept that does not have a reality. My self is not concerned with the concept of success, because success does not really exist except in the mind of the reflection.] Trying to know ourselves we find that Humans are part of "living things" that differ from "non living things". "Living things" should be called correctly Active Cell Organisms because all have a Cell based structure and functioning and that is what sets them apart from the rest of other earthly elements. Cell Organisms "live" just because they have specific personal needs to identify and satisfy. Non living things have no known needs to satisfy. When Cell Organisms cease to satisfy their needs, they simply become non living and deteriorate faster than regular non living things. For Cell Organisms, SUCCESS does exist because when you set up a goal you can achieve it or not. For example Cells need food to sustain their lives and to grow. It they do not eat or if they eat wrong or toxic food they can get sick or die. When they eat the right food at the right time in the right amount, they normally grow unless they are exposed to some danger. So safety is another need for Cells and they can have success or failure in that too. More complex Cell Organisms are the ones that have more goals to attain in their lives, especially we Humans. Being goal oriented earth elements we can have success or failure. Now, to complicate our lives, we often have psychological success/failure that is not real failure/success because most of the time it does not relate to real action but rely on imaginary facts in our minds. If you are referring to that kind of failure/success when you say “success does not really exist except in the mind of the reflection” then you are right. QUOTE: [I want to throw this reflection away, to break the mirror, but I want it as a success and see it as a failure that I have not, that I have not been able to put my complete trust in my self, and so I am unable to be my self. I have a perceived need, and so I cannot have what I need. But it's a vicious cycle; I need to be free of my needs to be my self, but I need to be my self to be free of my needs. And all the while, trying to be my self is tearing apart the life of my reflection.] Who are you really? The answer to that important question will probably solve the riddle. As I explained above my body lives by identifying and satisfying its needs and so, it is out of the question for my body to think about “being free of its needs”. But our philosophy may tell us that we are not just a body but a spirit in a body. If this is so the question is: does my spirit have needs? Or can my spirit be free from its needs and still be alright? I can answer with another question: if my spirit does not need needs, why did it create my body it uses as a tool to act on earth? To be short I assume that spirit creates things on purpose and this creating process is part of the spirit nature. Now does my spirit learn how to create or is it a master creator knowing what it is doing and doing it perfectly? If I am modest I can assume that through my life, the who I am, my spirit, learns how to create things (thoughts, words, material) in my mind and out into the world. Since it is a learning process then there may be success and failure until mastery is attained in each situation. I can take responsibility and use failure and success as guides to progress. I may also decide that everything I create is a success and continue creating new things I desire anytime. Since I am free to create what I want at any time, do I have any problem with my needs still? QUOTE: [P.S. I suspect that the self I am referring to in this post is simply a different representation of the universal consciousness or life force or whatever it is in the Buddhist or Hindu religions. I simply have not found any religion that, in its entirety, make sense to me, so I elect not to believe in any of them and try to look at things in my own terms. So basically, for me to attain "selfness" would be my version of enlightenment or nirvana or whatever equivalent there is to those.[/QUOTE] Why not just be happy creating what you want using the natural creativity we have? We live in a universe created by the Universal and we have that same creativity as a heritage. People are using it to create great things like computers, internet, cars, telephone, … we enjoy. Why not just add to that and be happy about our small or big contributions? How useful is the “selfness” you are talking about? Why choose such a need that does not help the world? Why? QUOTE: [We must conquer ourselves, and allow our selves to conquer the world.] Conquering is a choice. Do we have the necessary tools and weapons? Do we want to add to conflicts that exist in and around us? We can also choose working on understanding or knowing ourselves and the world.

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09-24-2007, 07:50 AM	#4 (permalink)
The Cloud Family Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 2,203	When I say that I do not want to need anymore, it does not mean that I want to be rid of desire. I recognize that I will never be truly focused as what I am unless I am no longer afraid to lose what I have, my life included. What success does is it assumes that one outcome is more necessary than another, that there is winning and losing. The way I see it, I would rather be acting toward a desire with no need for any particular outcome than to be a slave to an outcome, without which the action taken had no point. So a body can be free of its "needs," it simply can't be free of the consequences of ignoring its desire for life. I agree with you on the spirit part, even if I don't believe in a discreet spiritual entity. The spirit you speak of is what I think of as the real me, the me that is capable of taking the most out of any situation, without a need for any particular outcome in those situations tainting his perspective. The problem is that, as I said, this reflection and the self (or spirit) are 2 distinct conceptual entities. Well, it's not even a problem, it is simply a situation, where the self entity may disagree with other beings outside of its body, but is stuck mediating his response through this reflection that is not overly discriminate about who he reflects. As for my signature quote, that isn't necessarily exactly how I would say things now, but that is the quote that saved me from a life of ignorant lifeless misery. It contains ideas that I agree with, even if some of it is semantically incorrect.

09-24-2007, 10:54 AM	#5 (permalink)
Tigerlilly Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 257	It sounds as if you've allowed your mind to think it can unravel the nature of the Universe by applying its powers to it, which it can only do to the extent of its own limits. Your mind is a tool to be used, and self-reflection is necessary, but don't let it become self-dissection. Poking into yourself with the tools of your mind hoping you'll turn up your soul doesn't bear much chances of success, and what do you hope to gain by the process? Everbody wants peace of mind and happyness, and when we are happy we do not ask why, we're too busy enjoying what is. You will not have that by turning on yourself like an organism devouring itself for lack of sustenance. I don't get the feeling that you're happy with your existence, and there's a feel of powerlessness and exhaustion about your way of seeing things. It's as if you feel you hit walls all around and now sit down like the Count of Monte Christo wanting the experience to be over cause you feel you're going nowhere with it. You don't need to burst into unwarranted action, but you need to do something that makes you happy. And to do that you have to know what might give you true joy. Maybe you could look into a mirror, imagine yourself to be God who created you and then think about what would truly make this human being that you see happy and enjoying life, given all possibilities you can imagine in your wildest dreams. Somehow I don't think your choice then would be no experience at all, and that you could think of something better. I'm sure our mind isn't what we are at our chore, it's just a tool that came with the frame and whose MO gets shaped by experiences, and that MO doesn't necessarily lead you the way to happiness and sometimes needs to be worked on consciously. And I'd say if you follow your bliss in your decisions and resulting actions you probably won't find your true self either, at least not smiling at you from a silver platter, but you'll at least be going in the direction it wants to go, and that's better I believe than being like a cat chasing its own tail in circles with growing frustration.

Personal Development for Smart PeopleTM Forums

Personal Development for Smart People^TM Forums