Interesting discussion

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LOVE is the answer

peace
patrick

Sure they matter and openly discussing such experiences is one way to break whatever cycle keeps repeating.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

I have struggled with this same sense of "Loss of motivation" and have never been able to find it thinking of myself alone. My true (or BEST) motivation has always come from the realization that there are people that have come to depend on me. And after consideration, I realized that there are many people (some of whom I have yet to meet) that will benefit from my presence. We have an effect on every situation we encounter. And every room we enter is changed by our presence.


http://buddhistchaplains.org/cmsms/inde ... attva-vows

"We must try to help people. If we cannot help them at least try not to hurt them" ~Dalai Lama

I see it as, not so much an issue of helping others to reduce their entropy, but more like, just HELPING others in general. I am not sure that we CAN help ANYONE reduce their entropy (everyone must face, and overcome their own fears).
The Buddha was attributed to saying: "No one can save us. No one can and no one may".

But we CAN offer some food to someone that is hungry, some water to the thirsty, or a blanket to someone who is cold. Sometimes the best way that we can help another person is to simply lend an ear to listen to them, or a shoulder for someone to lean on.
We really must be careful of Boredom and Lethargy, as they may simply be manifestations of the EGO. If I am bored it because I am not paying attention. And if I suffer from a lack of motivation its because Im forgetting all the people counting on me.

It is ALWAYS reduced to LOVE vs FEAR, or SELFISHNESS vs SELFLESSNESS

_________________
LOVE is the answer

peace
patrick

But by helping someone with hunger, thirst, cold, or whatever we are helping them expand their decision space. They now have the capacity to make more choices, and thus they have greater potential to lower their entropy. So I would argue that you are in fact helping them reduce their entropy, just not directly.

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Mike

Some of us may even be participating in a sort of volunteer program aimed at not leaving anyone behind. The idea being that "enlightenment" and "liberation" are not something that we seek for ourselves, but something that we should seek for ALL. That if ALL of us dont make it, then NONE of us will, we cannot leave our "brothers" behind. Choosing "rebirth" over and over in order to bring some "positive" influence, sometimes by our mere presence...

"Not often in life has a human being caused me such joy by his mere presence as you did."
~ Albert Einstein in a letter to Bohr (1920)




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%E1%B9%8 ... _(Buddhism)

And by easing someones hunger, helping someone to overcome their FEAR, or simply being a friend, we MAY present new opportunities to expand their decision space (even if only temporarily). But not everyone will be able to hear your message of "entropy reduction" and the "One Consciousness". Sometimes we teach more by our actions than by our words. And even though they may not understand your message, they will be able to FEEL the LOVE of a simple act of kindness, compassion, or courage.

There may also be some transferance (of love and compassion) that occurs when we help to ease the "suffering" of others. I feel that LOVE is spread in much the same way that FEAR is spread (like a wave). If you think of it in terms of the "Defraction pattern" of intersecting waves of probabilities in the "Double slit experiment"

Tom has suggested that our "Reality" behaves in a manner similar to (or EXACTLY like) the behavior of sub atomic particles. That would imply that we are all, essentially, "Probability distributions" and we behave in such a way that we can be called intersecting "waves" of information. We do not truly "exist" as "solid objects" until tha data is measured, recorded, and interpreted. And the more refined and focused the INTENT, the more likely it is that we can manifest, affect change, and even alter some properties of, our reality.
(Or collapse the waveform into a particle?)

The more I think about it the more I feel that... all you need is LOVE
Love vs Fear
Selfishness vs Selflessness

_________________
LOVE is the answer

peace
patrick

Reducing is easy, the question is how we extrapolate into reality. In real life the examples aren't clear cut and the choices are not obvious.

It is impossible to live in the physical world without making ascertions, taking up space, and breathing air. "Selflessness" doesn't mean anything in the physical world. Selfishness can have many meanings, and I'm not a proponent of them.


How can you be sure you are not trying to "buy yourself a better place in heaven"? You are also making assumptions about how decision space works.

A house cat (this example will sound horrible) that is never allowed to hunt will have limited decision space, compared to a cat that is allowed outside to do whatever it likes. That's why I partly object to the idea of pets - they are bred to conform to a fantasy about what a real-life teddy-bear should be like. Specifically lap-dogs and those sorts of things.

I feel treatment of "poor people" sometimes echoes the pattern with pets. Perfect dead-weights to offload bad conscience on, and to offer latitude to build ego from.

A test could be, do you really honestly care about the person, or are you trying to follow "the manual"? And if you don't know the person, you can't honestly say you care. Getting to know them, becoming friends, and helping them see the world differently would be real help.

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Johan

Johan,

I must vote with Patrick and Mike here. Selflessness does not mean that you do not exist. If you look it up in the dictionary, you will find that it simply means having no concern for your self.

In contrast, selfishness means, again based upon common usages from the dictionary: being concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself, seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others or arising from concern with one's own welfare or advantage in disregard of others.

Surely you are aware of this as a spectrum of behaviors and that there are those persons who are quite selfless in their interactions with others while in contrast, there are those who seem only concerned about themselves in their interactions with others. It is essentially a principle of MBT to advocate in the direction of the selfless end of the spectrum instead of the selfish end of the spectrum. The concept being to optimize the free will of all rather than having the free will of the selfish dominate all, thus reducing the free will of all others.

While it is certainly possible to be self deceptive and do things that are good for reasons other than that you are 'good', I think someone coming from the direction of MBT is not too likely to be doing so as they simply are not believers in heaven or therefore being able to 'buy' your way in with good works.

I think that your concept of pets is also too limited. In my experience, pets can gain a lot in their interactions with humans. I agree that the treatment of lap dogs can get pretty disgusting at times. Decision space includes more than just being allowed to hunt or not. There will be more of an intellectual aspect for an animal associated with humans and our language skills than just in the wild. While there is an element of language like communication between wild animals that exist within communities, it is limited. Wild animals have willingly maintained interactions with humans and thus presumably found some value in the interaction.

I see no reason that one must know another personally and perhaps well or even intimately to care about them. If you fully understand the MBT model of reality, you understand that we are inherently as IUOCs all equivalent in a very fundamental way. That the relationships that we perceive here in PMR are limited to here and now in PMR. That we exist a vastly greater amount of our time in terms of being part of the whole of AUM and as our non physical selves in NPMR where we have no such interactions possible as being based upon physical interactions here in PMR, as we spend in this short, limited PMR existence. And that all together, we exist on a one for all and all for one basis like the literary three musketeers.

You must excuse me now as my decision space limited pet dog has asked me to take him out on a short potty break and sniffing around session.

Ted

If a term is defined as meaningless, its consequent is meaningless as well. If there is no selflessness, selfishness ceases to have meaning.

I am sensing a trend to define out particular concepts because they do not meet rigid criteria, but substituting the opposite in their places.

This is a quote from http://www.my-big-toe.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2587&hilit=altruism&start=26 by Tom Campbell, in a thread called "Direct Experience".

A problem that occurs with feeding wild animals is that it conditions a sort of expectation in them.

This is a real problem during long winters. If you feed the animals that come into the cities and yards, they will lose their fear of humans, and seek out populated areas when they get hungry or just include populated areas into their territories. It functions as limitation on their "decision space". In order to do it "right", it's necessary to place the feed in a spot where the animals would naturally find it.


I understand what MBT says, but I can not honestly say that I know it is true or believe it. In my current appreciation it is plausible and probably a good model of reality to act by.


No? One may look at it like a spectrum from 0 to 100, like Ted proposed for example. 0 would mean no potential, 100 alot.

Another way to look at it: air is meaningless to an airplane when it sits on the ground. When the airplane flies it is necessary. Potential to lift plane is propoportional to air speed, when air speed = 0, air might as well not exist and all lift is provided by the normal force of the landing-gear.


Yes, this somewhat describes my position. Rather, most of altruism seems to fill this description, and it causes even more despair as a result.

I don't dispute that real honest altruism can exist.

Another angle; I think that people who do feed animals without enough forethought are honestly altruistic. But it might create more problems. The reason the intent is bad, is that they see how cute and cuddly they look.

Another good test; if this person you are considering to help is a murderer, a rapist, a racist, and completely disfigured - would you still feel as motivated to be altruistic towards him?


No, this does not follow by logic.

I'm agreeing that intent is crucial. The question then becomes, how do we help? What do we wish for those in need?

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Johan

What does the "disfigured" part have to do with the price of tea in China (as my mom would say)?

Providing warmth, food, access to others to love to other without the need that they stop doing one thing that hurts two beings (one person one dog) that love them is hard. A test I guess. Is it helping them to give up and ignore it or was telling them how much they are hurting those others right? Current events.

If it was about me it was to say no everyone around you isn't Evolving and you're sitting still. I was wrong about everyone around me so maybe I'm wrong about me too. :)
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

I also am undergoing some lack of motivation. But I guess, for me it might be more just psychological issue.

It seems, until now, the motivation for me was mostly acknowledgement from my parents, my friends, my boss, my clients and the society in general. Also satisfied clients, good salary. It was a game of ego. And now as ego slowly is being pushed away, there is an empty space left. It just needs something new to fill in. If I leave it empty, then I get depression, nostalgic feelings and lack of motivation. It is a hard question: what do I myself wish to do in this world (and not what others want me to do)?

I like the song "Now that I own the BBC" by Sparks:
"Now that I own the BBC
What am I supposed to make of this thing?
Make of it what you will, make of it what you will"

Now just change "the BBC" with "myself", and you get the answer .. or maybe that is just another question: what do I want to want? :D

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In order to understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.

I want sentient entities to have what they need. :)

It's a good general concept I think and leaves huge decision space and opportunity to work towards that goal.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

This thread is becoming difficult to follow, causing confusion, and I propose that the various issues be moved to unique posts by topic with the exception of posts regarding loss of motivation.

Recap:

Now that I don't have ego, I have no motivation
- You should help others
How do I know I'm helping?
- The important thing is intent (is that where we're at?)

So, intent can affect actions within uncertainty. Therefore the actions must open a possibility for solving the underlying problems, and skew the probabilities in favor through intent. My feeling is that charity and social services, for example, has a stigmatising effect and is overall negative because it advertises the people as incapable, and funnels bad intent from society into the outcome.


It's so easy to have endless compassion for a cute little dog. What about a dog that has been abused and has become angry and difficult? What about a crocodile?

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Johan

Who said they were egoless? Yes it "should" be as easy to be compassionate to those less symmetric or balanced.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.