Everything

He doesn't sound too happy about being a solitary man. They jump from girl to girl, expecting that the girl is suppose to make them happy, be his 50%, fill the void in their lifes. No one can live to such expectations. A relation is doomed to fail that way. Why can't people just get infatuations out of their heads and be the man they want to be in the first place, before going on dating frenzy. Having a great life while single, have the girl add to that already good life. That seems more rational to me. That way you wont girl and if you do it does not matter anyway, you're ready for a new one on the fly, heck might even get two like some people do. But I feel ya, mon! Loves a pitch.

Indeed, at some age a boy needs to let go of the people most dear to him in order to go into the unknown wilderness out there to become a man. I think that is more the kind of solitude that is ment then being completely alone. It may seems like being a pig at first, very fragile and not comfortable. It is a scary position to be in, requires courage, but the rewards are great. There are many things that people CAN easily have in life, but end up never pursuing in the first place. In your journey, even when you are surrounded by many people, you will feel alone. I'm trying to understand why, what is the purpose of this loneliness. What is the core of it, how do we use it to our advantage.

Thats really confusing.

Ok, I'm not sure so I'm going to ask. From your post, it seems you have enjoyed the solitude with no humans around you at all, which I did not think was possible. Just like in that movie "Cast Away", where Tom Hanks washes up on an island and talks to a ball all day. He lives on that island, not knowing why, having an urge to survive, often more suicidal thought then not. He gets moments of hope where you can see the 0.0001% happiness arising only to fade away when the hope is lost again. So I am sceptical! Are you more often happy then not, while being in solitude? Or rather "neutral" and dull and just going trough the routines without much emotion. It seems more like a survival urge that keeps you going when real solitude is around, which is kind of your inner core anyway. I always dream that I am in a prison cell, I get alot of excersize but I'm cut of from nature. Every human being needs to fight for one day in the deep well, just to get a glimps of daylight for 1 minute. I thought I would get happy if I saw it again, but I did not. Then I sat there in my prison cell, close my eyes and decide to do nothing at all untill I die. I don't understand how one can be happy in such a situation. It does not seem that happiness comes from within! It is just that good inner mechanics are more likely to cause outer environments to match your happiness. So, basicly, maybe happiness does come from outside? A happy man in a city has alot more going for him then a not so often happy man in the city. But a happy man in the wilds has less going for him then the not so happy city guy. It seems that the environment is irrelevant to ones happiness, yes. But when there is so much excess around you that you become confused, it can be exactly the environment that prevents you from becoming happy and living an unnatural life. It is because we don't take the relativity of our environment into account that we live an unnatural life. A city guy should be rich, have alot of girlfriends, many friends, good business to be happy. A man living in the wild should have a group of people he can trust on, people to hear stories from, magicians to create shows, wise men to lead the people, etc. Finding security and prosperity, there are luxeries for people in the wild as well. It still seems that desires are the one thing that has driven humanity and shall always be the core engine of their journey.

I based that interpretation on the translation by John C. H. Wu as posted by Twinner. Should have quoted. I thought we were only discussing the translation posted by Twinner.

My interpretation: It is said that even the worst of all, the most evil men, have good intentions. Thus wise men stay open to all perspectives at all times and can only be stable enough once his experience has grown his perspective/believes to make it more advantageous and prosperous. You can never get the one best truth unless you find the moment of time itself. So giving that up, you must live in order to find the best truth by living in the present only. Not dwelling on the past or future without a present mindedness and awareness of doing so. When you dwell, you loose everything, because you loose your very essence. Like all the great kings who dwell have been thrown from their thrown only to be replaced by a common soldier who speaks less. He who wins the crowd with his deeds, wins the heart of the people. He can be respected enough to spread his teachings upon the entire kingdom, which is a spirit-like thing on it self. No body can ever take it away from him.

Yeah, takes time to handle a new truth, its annoying to loose your own truth or have it being threatened by someone else. The truth will eventually show it self in some way or another, when people are being guided by one who knows that truth. I've actually tried helping people trough words a lot. Never did I succeed, but the motivation to share my experiences is not gone. You can never give your full truth in one piece. It will confuse everyone and make them suspicious of your intentions and eventually feel threatened by you. Some vietnam veterans say that processing trauma's is the same as changing religions or changing "factions" in a war. People loose their reason to go on. Thus the wise does not speak... Haha, here I go using Tao te Ching again. I love it.

Hey, guys. I'm going to add my believe of the value / purpose of Tao te Ching and its first chapter. Feel free to read/comment. I believe that Tao te Ching is a wonderful text. Only master minds and mature men have been involved in the developement of this text. I also believe that what is written in Tao te Ching, especially the first chapter, gives away the fact that it cannot be discussed. It is like discussing a piece of art or painting. You cannot extract wisdom from this book. I believe that only the wise MATURE men can relate to the teachings that are trying to be described within this text. Thus only wise mature men can teach us the Tao, not because the Tao has teached it to them, but because they already knew it. Tao te ching has little more value then inspiration for the mature wise who cannot seem to find the right words. Ofcourse you can discuss Tao Te Ching, as is the purpose of this topic, but I must say that I personally believe: you wont get far. The only thing you will do is make Tao te Ching seem more important then it is and win "followers" to the "teachings" within this piece of text. Your discussion is like an advertisement or a marketing strategy for creating hype around this text and its so called "hidden teachings" which it does not even intend to give away to the immature and common folks. Lastly, I believe that discussing Tao Te Ching is still fun, even if it doesn't have much value to the avarage human being on planet earth. I personally use it to have something to give credit for my own personal developement. This will surely keep the people from ever finding out where my wisdom truely came from as they flip trough the pages of Tao te Ching and not finding much their entire lifes. The only times I did teach wisdom trough Tao te Ching was when I applied my own wisdom and used Tao Te Ching as a form of communication to obscure the core of my teachings. Thus we give our interpretation of chapter one, not to discuss it, but to share our knowledge in a more private/secure and fun/interactive way. We think we are discussing the meaning of Tao te Ching, while infact, we are discussing our own wisdom. As is said in chapter one. Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao. Don't even go there, Tao does not exist. It changes and is relative to every person. That is why the Tao lasted so long.

Anyone ever heard of it? Anyone ever practiced it and seen real results in their lifes? Alot of research has been done around it, so it claim, and they all seem positive. All I have seemed to understand is sit relaxed with eyes closed and think about one thing. I don't get it at all... What is the purpose of it? How can anyone teach this if no one understands it. And why does everyone overeact and exagerate the results? "It changed my life! I owe it my life!" bla bla. I have to concentrate but I cannot limit my mind, I have to focus but I can't focus or it is not natural anymore, bla bla all confusing and vauge explanations surrounded by tons of hype and asking for 1000 dollars for a non-proffit organisations so that I can have a teaher to tell me to sit with eyes closed and what to think about while doing it. How is this going to change the world?

roflmao

Looks like it has more marketing then results, which is pretty strange for a non-profit organisation on itself...

My thoughts on this: It is not possible to break free from your patterns unless you shoot yourself trough the head, only then are you pure awareness of the universe without the mechanics of your brain. You need your believes and perceptions, because they form the map of your reality. Without them it feels like walking on air, confusion. This is why people get very irritated when someone attacks their believes. The problem is no removing the believes and perceptions of reality, it is rather forming a more positive and constructive, less limiting believe systems. It requires faith to hold on to these positive believes, and break trough your old limiting believes and bad habbits. That is why faith is so important.

These are perceptions of all the diffrent input senses you receive as your brain goes to sleep, only you were aware of it and also recall the experience. I can imagine how exciting the experience must have been for you. It requires disciplined practice however to gain control over your perceptions within the dream. Mostly, your consciousness is turned off during the dream because it receives no meaningful sensory input to process and it remains off during the dream itself. It can be really hard to practice becoming a lucid dreamer if it is hard to remain aware within your dreams in the first place.

Thanks for such intense commentation on your topics. If you truely are a very happy person, I am only in the position of extracting wisdom from your words. The voices of our thought our indeed mostly not of my own, just like you described. Now I was wondering, when I turned those voices down I become so dull and uncreative. Empty... How come? I'm doing something wrong? I actually see the thought as it arises and become a witness to them, I find out who's voice it is in my imagination and then in between there is only silence, just awareness and observing and my focus. What is the purpose of this?

baby can't take care of self, it is helpless, he would do good to cry and whine. Want to get out of victim mentality? Stop whining about everything, do something good with your anger/fear, make decisions based on "there is abundance in the world." not "I can never have enough, I want more, there is not enough." Only you can get rid of your victim mentality. We don't have initiations into maturity in our day and age of individualism.

When I'm sad it always gets me happy in the end if I just encourage activity, which on it self makes me angry instead of sad. It is impossible for me to have "active sadness." It is like Rocky running up the hills and crying "I'm going to do this, yeah! " lol

Thats some real quantum physics for you.

So you are saying that when you become angry you do bad things that are not according to the way? Are you saying then when YOU become angry, the anger CONTROLS you? It came right out your fingers and you just typed that. This is obviously proof to me of how immature you are, I'm sorry, really. I don't want to judge you, I just want to show you the real way. I am not trying to brag either, I am not perfect either. Anger is what you do with it. I for one, have never, not even once adviced anyone here to be destructive or agressive with their anger IN ANY WAY. There is no person existant on this planet that feels no anger. We all have anger. I think the proper way here is to deal with it maturely, rather then let the anger make decisions for you or "control" you. The term WARRIOR is just a symbol. A symbol is relative to every being. Obviously, you who disagree with me, view the symbol of the warrior as a destructive tyrant who is actually closer to the symbol of the "HERO" who has no boundaries and always dies in mythology. The warrior I am talking about is one who acts out of higher commitment, knows his limits, and never acts agressively, only patiently and disciplined. Sorry about the edit of my quote and these are just my thoughts, I'm always open to new ideas. These thoughts are not the ultimate truth and my nickname "everything" is just a symbolic name for love. English is not my native language.

Oh, well, I thought I was giving her focus in a posivite manner aswell. Sorry, I have no idea. I do agree with you on trying to understand your view better, but its hard if I have yet to receive your perspective on things. So tell me, how is feeling anger wrong?

Yeah, it teaches you to always choose the patient decisions, being indiffrent to the outcome, having something above you, commitment to something more important then the petty details of your life. I don't think it implies doing nothing or know when not to act, rather it teaches you HOW to act. Not acting is more like what people do 5 feet under. You'll have plenty of time for that when your metabolism stops.

Sure, I'll don't advice it then. Perhaps you guys can think for your self aswell, I know that. Its all food for thought and this is the internet. Can we drop the avatar already? It was not insulting in any way, don't be so sensitive jeez. So, whats wrong with feeling anger?

Hell yeah, you nurture it like you mean it!

Oh, well, your avatar is still the most noticable I've seen on these forums. I find it hard to believe that you truely decided to do nothing. There is no sadness in such a decision, there is only the commitment of doing nothing. I'm also wondering, if you truely are deciding to nothing, how you came to such a decision. Personally? I think it is an excuse for being passive and not making decisions at all. I've used that one myself aswell, lol. Later I found my self doing something anyway. I did not really decide to do nothing afterall, hmm? On to the next decision you go!

OH yeah, very poetic, thanks for sharing your piece of art, but she obviously is sad. And from the looks of it, I think she'd rather be on the other side of the coin right now. The living side. You heard it from herself folks, "often my decision is to Do Nothing." She should be alot more angry, because if you just don't decide and turn your anger inwards you will become sad, depressed and eventually reverse your growth, arrest your developement. In the end, if you take it too far, you'll die. If you are wise, you will know that we have our anger only as an indication of our needs. She cannot sit there and be sad about it. Even being destructive and agressive is better. All I did was pointing to ASSERTIVENESS, you can also be constructive with you anger. I see most of you are still hero's who still have not faced death. You need to find your own death and rise as a warrior. This is the way for centuries. Thx kk bye

Not you, it was ment for manitou's comment where she was crying.