Metaphysics and self

[Anonymous No.11639085]

I followed a chain of thought and now I think I need to understand some metaphysical doctrine in order to live a meaningful life.

Because of an addiction, I started questioning what was my ego. There was a cognitive dissonance going on, because I wanted to quit but still relapsed constantly.
I started thinking of myself as a parasite in my own body. As if the ego was just a flow of language imposed on the body, with rationalizations and discourse, using the body to extract pleasure.

Recently, I started meditating. Although most of the time stuck in thought patterns and flows of language, I am able to silence the discursive reason in my head and focus only on my breath, when meditating. The thoughts in my head seem to be autonomous, I can notice them without pursuing any. My true self is the thing that watches the thoughts, not the thoughts themselves. Also, when deeply engaged in something, my awareness of myself seems to vanish.
>Why should I attach myself to any thought? Why not just ignore them and stay still, doing nothing?
I have to act, otherwise I will die. I need to eat, sleep, etc. To do that, i need to follow thoughts, let them decide what I will do.
>but why should I live? Why not just kill myself and silence all thoughts?
The only answer I could find to this is that there is a “will to survive” within myself. I also have other wills, like the desire for sex. These are the most primitive impulses.

So as far as I understand, my psyche is constituted of: (I probably used the wrong terminology, I hope it's intelligible)
>impulses (the will to survive, libido, etc)
>the Self (the thing that watches the thoughts and can silence them, the deeper I)
>the Ego (discursive reason, flows of language, thoughts, images, memories, and things that are associated with my "identity")

But if follow impulses and experience them phenomenologically through the self while ignoring the ego, I would basically turn into an animal. Without the ego, I wouldn't be able to plan things, function in a complex society.
I also think there are wills that need the ego to be realized: it seems to me that there is a desire to use the ego, to follow thoughts, to understand, explore, build, articulate; to attach the self with the ego, and form an identity.
I think this process is called individuation, or development of the Self. The will to integrate, to became whole.

So how is it possible to allign the impulses, the self and ego into an harmonic being?
One possibility is doing what I tried to do here: trying to systematize the psyche, articulate impulses (with psychoanalysis) and self (with philosophy) into language and trying to act coherently

Another possibility is to explore an higher consciousness, a state above the Ego. Using discourse reason and phenomenology, seeking metaphysical knowledge. I think this process would be deeply meaningful and I would become less fragmented, confused and alienated.

What do you anons think of this? Am I full of shit?

[Anonymous No.11639169]

What was the addiction, friend? I'm a compulsive eater. I know this sounds like bullshit, but I will binge around 5000kcal two, three days a week. I always tell myself that I'll stop, but it's indeed like having a parasite inside my own body.

[Anonymous No.11639169,1]

> The thoughts in my head seem to be autonomous, I can notice them without pursuing any.

This is Insight into Mind and Body, the first of 16 Vipassana Nanas in the Theravadan Progress of Insight.

This is just the beginning.

Get a copy of Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha (Daniel Ingram) or The Mind Illuminated by Culadasa. These are both pragmatic, goal-oriented books focused on attaining enlightenment. It is a real thing that can be attained with enough practice.

May You Awaken In This Lifetime

[Anonymous No.11639420]

>>11639169
holy 5k calories of what?

[Anonymous No.11639462]

>>11639085
You follow the Self alone and acquire knowledge. Thelemic true will is the reconciliation of what you're talking about. You're on the right track. It's a good question, probably the question. I guess you have to work your way up to a spontaneity that isn't dependent on passion or discursion

[Anonymous No.11639550]

>>11639085
>My true self is the thing that watches the thoughts

This right here. Just think for a second that consciousness is just one. That one being the "observant" one who can see the thought of 16 billion people just come and go. Only way access this reality is too mediate, and find out for yourself.

am I full of shit? lol. Good job Op, you're definitely on the right track. Keep observing those thoughts and analyzing them.

[Anonymous No.11639574]

>>11639462
Thanks anon, I will do some research about this

[Anonymous No.11639592]

>>11639550
Interesting perspective

[Anonymous No.11639895]

Mindfulness?

[Anonymous No.11639923]

>I started thinking of myself as a parasite in my own body
hmmm I think I can use this, thanks professor bucko.

[Anonymous No.11640002]

>>11639085
It sounds like you've already intuitively grasped the gist of Advaita Vedanta, aka the cream of the crop top-shelf Indo-European primordial metaphysical wisdom. There are many thousands of pages of Advaita texts which have been translated into English but the Ashtavakra Gita is a particularly good one and is easy to understand for people new to it. You can read the whole thing online here in an hour or so.

https://realization.org/p/ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita.html

There are several ideas you stated which are more or less expressed in the text (as demonstrated by the below quotes from it)

>My true self is the thing that watches the thoughts, not the thoughts themselves

You do not consist of any of the elements — earth, water, fire, air, or even ether. To be liberated, know yourself as consisting of consciousness, the witness of these. 1.3
If only you will remain resting in consciousness, seeing yourself as distinct from the body, then even now you will become happy, peaceful and free from bonds. 1.4
Your real nature is as the one perfect, free, and actionless consciousness, the all-pervading witness — unattached to anything, desireless and at peace. It is from illusion that you seem to be involved in samsara. 1.12

>Why should I attach myself to any thought? Why not just ignore them and stay still, doing nothing?

In the infinite ocean of myself the world boat drifts here and there, moved by its own inner wind. I am not put out by that. 7.1
Whether the world wave of its own nature rises or disappears in the infinite ocean of myself, I neither gain nor lose anything by that. 7.2
It is in the infinite ocean of myself that the mind-creation called the world takes place. I am supremely peaceful and formless, and I remain as such. 7.3
My true nature is not contained in objects, nor does any object exist in it, for it is infinite and spotless. So it is unattached, desireless and at peace, and I remain as such. 7.4

>Another possibility is to explore an higher consciousness, a state above the Ego. Using discourse reason and phenomenology, seeking metaphysical knowledge.

Unmoved and undistressed, realising that being, non-being and change are of the very nature of things, one easily finds peace. 11.1
At peace, having shed all desires within, and realising that nothing exists here but the Lord, the Creator of all things, one is no longer attached to anything. 11.2
Realising that suffering arises from nothing other than thought, dropping all desires one rids oneself of it, and is happy and at peace everywhere. 11.5
Realising, “I am not the body, nor is the body mine. I am awareness,” one attains the supreme state and no longer remembers things done or undone. 11.6
Realising, “I alone exist, from Brahma down to the last clump of grass,” one becomes free from uncertainty, pure, at peace, and unconcerned about what has been attained or not. 11.7

[Anonymous No.11640022]

>>11640002
Fantastic!
Im planning read "I am That". Is it a good book?
What kind of meditation Advita do?

Im not the OP.

[Anonymous No.11640081]

>>11640022
"I am That" is an excellent book. It differs from Advaita texts in the sense that it's the recorded talks of a sage who lived in the 20th century instead of being a 1st millennium BC/AD text like most Advaita texts, but Maharaj himself received a traditional Advaita initiation and instruction by a teacher of an authentic lineage going way back, so he is basically a living example of what someone practicing Advaita teachings would be like in the modern world. Reaching the talks of Advaita sages like Maharaj and Ramana Maharshi are good, but the primary texts are also very good to read too, I recommend both.

Advaita occasionally makes use of meditation as a means of training, calming and focusing the mind, but the main practice largely involves developing a continual awareness of and directly experiencing the reality of non-duality, it involves both an intellectual understanding but also training the mind to concentrate. The primary texts from the classical era of India explain how to do this extensively, and some of the modern sages like Maharshi and Maharj do as well in some of their books.

[Anonymous No.11640093]

>>11640081
Thanks for responding, kind anon.

[Anonymous No.11640140]

>>11639085
Admit and post the addiction. Your reluctance to admit it tells me it isn't a drug addiction. It's far more insidious. I can tell you first hand that Pornography/Masturbation/Sexual Release habits are far more difficult to break than even cigarettes and opiates. People recognize these and can openly say they've struggled with them with little stigma. Mention the habitual patterns of release, and their detrimental influence on your life, and the terrible after-effects that result from their indulgence and in general distractability of it all, and, people will laugh and mock you. That's because in this day and age, where people lead sedentary lifestyles and sexual stimuli abounds, you would be hard pressed to find someone who isn't addicted. They rationalize it with every excuse under the sun and are convinced that it is a biological free lunch.
You have what effectively translates as a drug delivery system, not just attached to your body but within your very mind. Sight and even sexual thoughts bring the act of reward. You cannot think of a drug and be rewarded for it. It's worse than heroin. If anyone thinks it isn't, just try going several weeks without any sexual release. Periods of abstinence become more difficult with age, so it's a problem that only gets worse the more you reinforce the sexual instinct.

[Anonymous No.11640504]

>>11639085

youre over complicating everything. i know its easy to do, and we're all consumed with it, because we want to be smart, or whatever. we want to catalog, and understand, and structure, and say, look, there it is, i figured it out.

stop systematizing. keep it simple. i do thus:

change is the only constant. motion is change. i am mobile, and when moving, in certain ways (flow states), i am the motion. i am alive, all life is movement. all sound is the product of motion, music is motion, my body must move to produce music. etc.

i stopped trying to catalog and categorize into a self consistent system a long time ago. kant and hegel failed, u should take their lesson.

get off your ass and move. every day. exercise and diet are the fucking keys to life. not intense.

not for anything other than the pure sake of doing: moving.

there is not a single meaningful question you can formulate that cannot be answered by looking within. and i dont mean looking within to your soul with your mind, too categorical. i mean merely being in this very moment.

experiencing the density, not appreciating the depth.

but u cant do that on a laptop, watching tv, reading academic phil, etc. you need a daily time that is your time where u do u. it is when u do u that u learn who u r. this time must involve an activity, and that activity must be defined by the motion it involves.

swimming is the chillest, and gets u a free otterbody. art has saved lives. you could be an artist who hasnt found his art. imagine the suffering of that guy, jeez.

[Anonymous No.11640655]

>>11640504
Are you under the influence of any drugs?

[Anonymous No.11640687]

Op here. Thanks very much for the responses

>>11640002
This will be very helpful, I will definitely get into these texts. I was also thinking about studying traditionalism, it seems to be helpful to get westerners into this mindset

>>11640140
Yes, it's pornography. One of the interesting things is that it hijacks the libido, a primordial impulse related spirituality and all other life phenomena.

>>11640504
Yeah, most of the time I am unreflective anyway, acting and immersed in daily activities

[Anonymous No.11640730]

>>11640687
>I was also thinking about studying traditionalism, it seems to be helpful to get westerners into this mindset

Guénon's 'Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines' (free online) is generally recommended as the starting point because as his first book it provides an intro to his thought and all the terminology he uses (and which are reused by Evola, Eliade, Schuon et al.), while also serving as a helpful intro to Hinduism, with a focus on Vedanta particularly; although much of it applies to understanding Daoism and Sufism too.

[Anonymous No.11641825]

Bump!

[Anonymous No.11642565]

Read Reasons and Persons

[Anonymous No.11642611]

Smoke weed and see the great blue sky. Or search for another adicction

[Anonymous No.11642615]

Smoke weed and see the great blue sky. Or search for another adiction

[Anonymous No.11642624]

One thing is for sure: stop listening to the retards telling you to read Nazi philosophers like Schmitt or Guenon

I would stay away from anything Italian, German, or Japanese in general, or just get the fuck off 4chan, a Yotsuba American imageboard

[Anonymous No.11642634]

>>11642624
Muh Natsees!

[Anonymous No.11642661]

>>11642634
You know it’s true.

Also, fuck anime. That doesn’t get said often enough

[Anonymous No.11642663]

That's very interesting. I hope you take it in a personalist direction that dignifies what you call the Ego, or what (I think) is sometimes called the discursive, empirical, or psychological self. From what I've seen, most people who reach the point that you're at presently assume that all particularity in selfhood is an illusion, and that the higher Self is simply the original One or the world-soul or etc. But the way I see it, why would God give us discursive selves if they were ultimately irrelevant to the acquisition of metaphysical intuition, to be shed when the latter is (re)discovered?

The more I think about it, the more I just cannot see this-worldly, discursively mediated life as meaningless dross to be transcended. Morality, the exploration and understanding of nature and the universe, the Promethean capacity to improve the world and ourselves within it, all of that can't be just the waiting room for the perennial rediscovery (by a select few) of metaphysical truisms about Oneness. What the hell would be the point?

So I hope you don't assume that by default. Most people who have mystical experiences or report "pure" metaphysical knowledge seem to be impersonalist, but I always wonder: what if you learned to stay in that state of metaphysical intuition or mystical insight, and instead of throwing yourself blissfully into the "nameless all," explore it? What if the higher Self is indeed a higher Self, a unity that binds and grounds the discursive self, but doesn't dissolve or abnegate it?

[Anonymous No.11642672]

>>11642624
Guenon had nothing at all to do with Nazism or Facism you autist

[Anonymous No.11642754]

>>11639085
Fucking saved thread