u/BallKey7607

Science is the best tool we have for talking about what stuff does. Just like in quantum mechanics it allows us to make very useful predictions, but hasn't got us any closer to knowing what an electron is actually made out of.

It's fundamentally not even possible for science to find the nature of reality because science is already arising inside the thing it's trying to investigate.

Every scientific observation, measurement and theory is ultimately something known through consciousness.

So if all evidence for matter occurs within conscious experience, then how could that say anything about whether matter is metaphysically prior to consciousness?

I get that there's an intuitive assumption here that "it feels like it must be", but people have said similar things about things which turned out to be wrong throughout all of human history. Asserting this as true seems like pulling a bit of a "materialist of the gaps" to me.

So this doesn't prove God or any other metaphysical claim, but it does challenge that science has in any way at all established materialism. Science tells us how things work within the material world as it appears to us, but says nothing about what is primary to that.

This is where an alternative method of inquiry comes in, if you want to investigate consciousness you have access to consciousness in your own direct experience.

Usually direct experience isn't considered "valid" but it's worth remembering that we're all happy to use our own direct experience of consciousness to decide that consciousness exists. There's no scientific proof of consciousness, we just all know it's here because we know that we're conscious.

So to investigate consciousness we can turn our attention onto the awareness within our own experience just as the Buddhists and meditators through history have done. Each person needs to discover this on their own but the common finding among those who have gone deep enough through history has always been that the mind, the body and the world arise within consciousness. Meaning consciousness is at least epistemically primary, whatever reality ultimately consists of, experience is where all knowledge claims begin.

This experiential finding isn't an argument which can convince anyone else, it's different from typical science in that you can't really show your findings to someone else in a way that will convince them so it needs to be done for yourself to see. It is in a way, the most rigorous use of inquiry though because you are looking at the nature of your own experience to determine what's real rather than just blindly trusting your experience and taking that as a given.

So if meditators inquire into their own direct experience of consciousness and find that consciousness appears primary and unified in direct experience (some might call this God), then nothing science has demonstrated has in any way rebutted that finding.

My dad always used to talk about how bad his dad abused him to kind of give me some perspective. He hated his parents and his whole orientation to life was basically to be nothing like them.

He'd say about how horrible they were and want me to understand how grateful I should be for how much better my life is. The true part was that he'd grown up poor and worked hard to get a good job so we weren't poor, however he was also raping, sexually abusing and torturing me at times too so my life wasn't as amazing as he portrayed.

One time when I was around 11 he was talking about how bad the stuff his dad used to do it him was in the abstract and I was kind of challenging him on whether it could even be much worse. He was looking very serious and said "you've no idea what happened to me", so I asked him to tell me then.

He basically said that it would be inappropriate to tell me because I'm just a child and I couldn't handle hearing it. And I was saying but surely just hearing about what happened to him couldn't be worse for me than actually going through everything he does to me. Eventually he accepted it and told me. He sort of paused to show how big it was going to be and said "My dad raped me." and looked at me as though he had just dropped a massive bomb and expected me to be shocked.

I was completely speechless because he was already raping me regularly anyway so I didn't understand how this was supposed to be "so much worse". My dad saw that I was speechless and stared smiling saying "yeah, exactly". And I said, "no, but isn't that just what you do to me??"

Then he looked surprised and said "yeah I suppose it is". And I said "so how's that worse?". And he kind of defeated, said "yeah I suppose you're right, okay it is the same then".

"animal-loving vegans"

I can't stop commenting "here come the animal-loving vegans 🙄" in agreement with any fellow omni's post/comment when they say something that'll trigger the vegans

My dad would often get it in his head that I'd done something which I hadn't, or that I'd done something on purpose to annoy him when it was an accident, or something that I'd said innocently was meant as a dig against him when it wasn't. Then he'd force to "admit" it through sustained violence until I realised that the only way out of this would just be to say that I done it. Then I'd get in trouble from him for it, and he'd tell my mum and I'd get in trouble from her too. She was a narcissist and so when she'd tell me off she'd tell me off she'd really tear me down and make me feel like such a bad person.

Another thing would be if I told my mum how he'd been abusing me or my sister and then he'd use the threat of violence to make me tell her I lied and then I'd get in trouble from her for "lying".

I always found this to be the most frustrating and unfair thing ever to be getting in trouble for something I didn't even do! Sometimes if my mum was really pushing really hard on saying how bad I was I'd break and tell the truth that my dad was forcing me to say it but that would lead to me getting hurt so badly by him later than I was usually too scared to.

My mum knew that this sometimes happened and when I broke and told her I always begged her not to tell him that I told the truth and just pretend she was still annoyed at me but she always told him, and he always got me back.

Has anyone else experienced this with getting in trouble for things you didn't even do? What was it like?

(30m)

Both my parents were pretty horrible people, but my dad was particularly competitive with me in terms of wanting to "be the man" etc, which is what led to these kind of petty things. This was when I was around 8 or something though.

I was often blamed for things I didn't do and in trouble when I hadn't done anything wrong or just him being nasty to me for no reason so it led to me wanting to antagonise my dad for a sense of control. Especially in front of my mum because she didn't approve of lots of anger etc so I wanted her to be annoyed at him.

So the first time he threw my food on the floor was when we were sitting at the table (mum, dad and sister) and I must have said something to piss him off in response to someone mean he'd said to me so he threw my food on the floor. My mum got really upset with him saying that she'd just spent ages making the food and asking what she'd done to deserve that. He said he wasn't thinking about that and was just angry at me.

So then my mum made me pizza since I hadn't eaten yet and I sat down to eat it. Just as I sat down with it I said to my dad "see that didn't work out very well did it, now I have a lovely pizza which I want even more". Then my dad threw my pizza on the floor! And I told my mum and she was so annoyed my dad for doing it again after she's just spent the time making me two meals. On this occasion I kind of found it funny to see him getting in trouble so I didn't really mind.

Then it happened more often and it started to really get to me. I wasn't being fed very much to begin with because my mum was a narcissist and had some weird ideas about how she thought it makes her look like a good parent if me and my sister were as skinny as possible so she fed us basically the absolute minimum. I wasn't dangerously underweight but very skinny and always hungry so it was a big deal when my dad would take my food.

For a while it would happen quite a lot and then I'd throw my dad's food on the ground after. Or sometimes after he threw mine on the ground I'd try to quicky grab his and eat his instead, or if he was guarding it I'd take my mum's and eat hers. So our dinners got pretty crazy for a while.

My mum was getting really upset that she was spending all that time cooking when a lot of the food would always get thrown around so she kept threatening to stop cooking.

I started asking if I could eat my food separately and my mum said yes but my dad wasn't keen. So then he'd come through to the other room I was eating in and just stand and stare at me to make me uncomfortable. One time I carried my plate back through to make sure he didn't knock it over and come to tell my mum he wasn't letting me eat Iike we'd agreed and then he just knocked it out my hand on the way to tell her.

My dad would often be quite mean and patronising to me and when telling me off for something (when I was a child) and he'd turn to my mum and say "it's like talking to a child", and I'd always say "I am a child!".

So then one time at the table just before dinner I said to him "DO NOT THROW ANY FOOD ON THE FLOOR TODAY" and turned to my mum and said "it's like talking to a child".

I don't even remember what happened after that but I know he went crazy, then probably threw me on the ground and really hurt me but most of the violent side of things usually gets blocked out in my mind.

One time then after we'd agreed to stop this we were all sitting at the table about to eat and I was feeling a lot of tension so I said "let's just hope none of it ends up on the floor today" and my dad went crazy and my mum was just asking why I'd say that.

My mum always treated us "as bad as each other" and thought it was immature and like neither of us were doing anything to stop it.

All my cheeky comments would be after my dad saying something really mean though and he was always calling me pathetic/a buffoon/a useless article/retard and impersonating me for my stutter to mock me.

How does all this sound to you?

(30m)

Both my parents were pretty horrible people, but my dad was particularly competitive with me in terms of wanting to "be the man" etc, which is what led to these kind of petty things. This was when I was around 8 or something though.

I was often blamed for things I didn't do and in trouble when I hadn't done anything wrong or just him being nasty to me for no reason so it led to me wanting to antagonise my dad for a sense of control. Especially in front of my mum because she didn't approve of lots of anger etc so I wanted her to be annoyed at him.

So the first time he threw my food on the floor was when we were sitting at the table (mum, dad and sister) and I must have said something to piss him off in response to someone mean he'd said to me so he threw my food on the floor. My mum got really upset with him saying that she'd just spent ages making the food and asking what she'd done to deserve that. He said he wasn't thinking about that and was just angry at me.

So then my mum made me pizza since I hadn't eaten yet and I sat down to eat it. Just as I sat down with it I said to my dad "see that didn't work out very well did it, now I have a lovely pizza which I want even more". Then my dad threw my pizza on the floor! And I told my mum and she was so annoyed my dad for doing it again after she's just spent the time making me two meals. On this occasion I kind of found it funny to see him getting in trouble so I didn't really mind.

Then it happened more often and it started to really get to me. I wasn't being fed very much to begin with because my mum was a narcissist and had some weird ideas about how she thought it makes her look like a good parent if me and my sister were as skinny as possible so she fed us basically the absolute minimum. I wasn't dangerously underweight but very skinny and always hungry so it was a big deal when my dad would take my food.

For a while it would happen quite a lot and then I'd throw my dad's food on the ground after. Or sometimes after he threw mine on the ground I'd try to quicky grab his and eat his instead, or if he was guarding it I'd take my mum's and eat hers. So our dinners got pretty crazy for a while.

My mum was getting really upset that she was spending all that time cooking when a lot of the food would always get thrown around so she kept threatening to stop cooking.

I started asking if I could eat my food separately and my mum said yes but my dad wasn't keen. So then he'd come through to the other room I was eating in and just stand and stare at me to make me uncomfortable. One time I carried my plate back through to make sure he didn't knock it over and come to tell my mum he wasn't letting me eat Iike we'd agreed and then he just knocked it out my hand on the way to tell her.

My dad would often be quite mean and patronising to me and when telling me off for something (when I was a child) and he'd turn to my mum and say "it's like talking to a child", and I'd always say "I am a child!".

So then one time at the table just before dinner I said to him "DO NOT THROW ANY FOOD ON THE FLOOR TODAY" and turned to my mum and said "it's like talking to a child".

I don't even remember what happened after that but I know he went crazy, then probably threw me on the ground and really hurt me but most of the violent side of things usually gets blocked out in my mind.

One time then after we'd agreed to stop this we were all sitting at the table about to eat and I was feeling a lot of tension so I said "let's just hope none of it ends up on the floor today" and my dad went crazy and my mum was just asking why I'd say that.

My mum always treated us as "as bad as each other" and thought it was immature and like neither of us were doing anything to stop it.

All my cheeky comments would be after my dad saying something really mean though and he was always calling me pathetic/a buffoon/a useless article/retard and impersonating me for my stutter to mock me.

How does all this sound to you?

(30m)

I know I am definitely attracted to women, but trying to figure out if I could be bi

My dad was sexually abusing me anyway so it didn't only happen because of this.

He was really homophobic, I remember one time when I was around 8 or 9 we were in a changing room and he saw me looking at a man who was getting changed and I think the man might have noticed which is what made my dad so angry. Then he threw me hard against the metal bench in the changing room and I really hurt my head.

Another time, he had again thought I'd been looking and when we got home he was telling me how bad it is and how bad gay men are. He was saying "this is what these kind of men will do to you" and raped me saying it was for my own good because he can't let me grow up thinking it's okay to be gay, and that what they would do to me is much worse so it was for my own good to realise never to do that.

There was other similar things too and so by the time I was old enough to understand sex and think about it consciously I basically just considered myself straight and never questioned it. I had relationships with women and never gave any consideration to my sexuality, then in my 20s I had a sort of love affair with a gay man but it was mostly just emotional. We'd hug and sometimes kiss when drunk but it was really just an emotional thing, I did feel like I loved him though. He was interested in the sexual side but I didn't feel drawn to that so we kept it just emotional really.

Then, now more recently I've started enjoying watching gay porn sometimes so I'm thinking there must be at least some attraction to men. But the feeling is quite different, I'm more into it in a sort of dirty kinky way than I would be watching straight porn where I'd enjoy intimacy and kissing too so I don't really know. When I think about hooking up with guys I don't really feel like I want to but I don't know if that's partly because of my association with being told it's shameful, plus I've been sexually abused by a lot of men as well as my dad so I think I also just don't really feel safe with men.

When I had initially fallen in love with the guy before I'd sort of thought maybe I was bi but then the sexual side never really went anywhere so then I thought maybe not so much and was left confused. Now I'm thinking maybe there is something to it but I only get off to men in quite a narrow way since it's just kind of a porn fantasy at the moment. My beliefs are completely progressive around sexuality but I wonder if the physical and sexual punishments as a child for looking at men could have taught my body that it isn't okay at a level deeper than my own personal beliefs.

Does anyone have any insights on this?

So my parents were kind of weird people. Basically I'd often go to the shops with my dad, and we'd go up to the bakery section of the supermarket where all the bread is lying uncovered rather than in packaging and my dad would pretend to sneeze on it as a joke. I found this pretty funny at the time (when I was about 8) so I'd join in although sometimes I'd blow pretty hard through my nose and my dad would be like "woah woah" and tell me to be careful. A couple of times a member of staff saw us and told us off and my dad explained that it was "just a joke", although that really didn't help and they just pretty firmly told us to stop and seemed to be saying that it's not a joke.

Then one time my mum was asking something about our time at the shops and I mentioned the game and was excitedly telling her how funny it was but she was completely horrified when I told her. She seemed extremely worried about what people would think if they saw us and I tried to reassure her that we're only pretending to sneeze on the bread, but again that didn't reassure her either. She said we couldn't play that game anymore and I was quite disappointed.

When the cat says, "I wish I'd never been born"

and Ricky's cat goes "Don't ever say that. Life... is gift!"

It's such a cliché and obvious line that a kid could come up with. It has absolutely no emotional intelligence and belongs in r/thanksimcured.

As if telling someone "don't ever say that" makes them suddenly never feel that way again, not even trying to understand why they feel like that or being there for them in the actual issue.

Albino watching that

It's a scam, it somehow tricks people into thinking it's relaxing them when it's actually doing the opposite. There is an initial relaxing or the mind with the first one or two hits but then it very quickly agitates your body. Your body then gets wound up and agitated and eventually you reach for something to soothe it, and the nicotine feels like the answer. But all you get a very short mental relaxation followed by triggering more agitation in your body again.

What's happening in your body is generally "deeper" than what's happening in your mind, meaning that the relaxation effect on the mind is actually quite superficial compared to the disturbance in your body.

I feel like most smokers roughly intuit this but still overall carry a belief that it's "relaxing" them.

On my spiritual journey I've come to a place where my body is getting very sensitive to what I eat and it really affects how I feel and my state of consciousness.

I'm also going to the gym and looking to make progress so I'm trying to keep protein high enough. I'd probably be happy with 80-100g a day but I'm finding it hard without eating food that agitates or dulls me.

Not every ingredient needs to be strictly Sattvic, I'm more just looking for meals that are the least disruptive and most supportive to my system as possible.

Open to hearing about new ingredients I might not have heard of before but would also appreciate whole meal ideas

I am vegan though

If you don't watch it, how do you feel about that? Does it feel like an intrusion to have to change your habits, or does it feel completely fine?

I'm a man myself btw

I used to watch all the fitness and bodybuilding stuff on YouTube years ago and my memory was that he was always widely respected.

Coming back into this space again now, it seems that that's changed? I'm aware that there was someone who apparently exposed how bad his PhD was but then he said that was just an early draft which I think people don't believe.

Is that the only thing or has there been more too?

How well respected is he now?

We all know all the classics, I'm looking for lines which came and went without being picked up as having something.

My favourite "flew under the radar" Karl quote is "See how it's all coming together"

It's in the episode "a day in the life of Karl Pilkington", Ricky and Steve are basically just laughing at all the nonsense that happens during his day which he's kind of taking seriously such as his mam calling him to tell him about the tablets what are food.

Then a few hours later, Suzanne comes home and asks if they're still having Scampi or if he's gone off the idea and Karl says

K "oh we should get them tablets that me mam's been talking about"

S "What tablets?"

K "They're food"

Then the line "so see how it's all coming together"

I can't always find them when I search because I don't always know exactly what was said but I just remember the general theme. When I ask chat gpt if it remembers, it usually does remember the conversation but isn't always able to point me back to the specific chat again.

I wish it had the ability to just open up the one I was talking about and let me go back into the old chat again from when we talked about it before

Basically I have some other priorities that conflict with high protein, so most likely I'm going to be getting around 60g a day. Maybe slightly higher sometimes. So I'm wondering, should I just stick to cardio or is lifting weights still worthwhile too?

So by "that" I'm talking about something beyond thought, the reality that awakening wakes us up to.

Early Bob Dylan is one of my favourite artists of all time because he just exudes aliveness and immediacy with the moment.

One aspect of awakening which really lights me up is the "aliveness" that comes with it. The sense of having very little distance between "me" and "the moment". Obviously the alternative would be filtering it through layers of concepts until the actual moment is forgotten and all that's left is what we're saying "about" the moment.

In all of his early interviews he seems extremely alive in a way that I don't think is really possible if reality is being heavily filtered through concepts.

His early live performances also have a strong visceral feeling of vitality and lack of distance between himself and the song.

But then as he got older his performances mostly lost that for me, it doesn't feel as immediate and spontaneous, and feels much more stylised and distanced.

His interviews have become much less alive too, where he used to be playful and had more "emptiness dancing" vibes, now he just performs a grumpy rock star persona.

My impression is that he was genuinely pretty awake at the beginning, or at least had access to what's here in a way in which the ego doesn't usually allow and then his difficulties with fame and the press caused him to pull back and he lost the lightness. Obviously this was around the same time that he went electric precisely because he didn't want to be pinned down and forced into a box. However I think he somehow got it backwards and ended up pinning himself down even harder in his effort to avoid this because this is the point where the aliveness seems to fall away for me.

So I've been thinking about the possibility of losing it after having such direct connection to it. From looking at early Dylan, I'd have thought he'd intuitively see what was lost and see what was stopping him from getting himself back into alignment again because he'd have little interest in anything else. So I am surprised as to why he never seemed to make it back and wondering exactly what happened, and what it says in general about this possibility.