Quote:
Quote:
Waffle waffle, change your perceptions on reality.
Once we disconnect the external world from our own internal mind, we realise that we don’t need to do or say anything, we need no more advice from anybody, and nothing “out there” needs to happen or not happen for us to achieve a sense of well-being and clarity.
Considering these process's in perception are automatic, without our consent or control allow me to ask one question. "How the hell do you plan to do THAT exactly?"
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I challenge the author to eat a choclate cake baked from Faeces and Needles I've collected from a Heroin den and to "choose" that it will make him happy.
What's interesting is that, when we look at people who have lost everything, or have always lived with little or nothing, we find that, on average, they are actually just as happy, or even happier than those of us with a comfortable lifestyle, the latest gadgets, and access to clean water, all the food we could possibly want, and more.
There are indeed individuals who would gladly be happy to sift through refuse similar to what you describe in order to find enough palatable foodstuffs to survive. They are just happy to have ANYTHING to eat at all, so happiness actually comes more EASILY to them, than it does to someone whose minimum expectation is caviar and champagne (and therefore finds themselves continually disappointed with anything of lesser quality).
What I'm NOT saying is "delude yourself into believing everything's perfect by just ignoring everything external." That's irrational. The external world does exist, and it's important to receive feedback from it, so you know where you are versus where you want to be.
What I AM saying is "don't tie your sense of well-being and happiness to the essentially arbitrary state of the external world." The never-ending ratrace we put ourselves through in the search for the next item of clothing, gadget, car, job or paycheque that'll definitely make us happy once we get it, stems from this fundamental CHOICE to interpret the external state of things as directly affecting our internal state "you MADE me unhappy," "the car MAKES me feel excited," "the money MAKES me feel secure."
THIS is the true delusion, because, of course, none of those things MAKES anybody anything. An inert object is not physically exerting a force through the air CAUSING you to feel ANYTHING! What's happening is you're DECIDING to feel happy because you are INTERPRETING the numbers on the bank statement, and making a decision that the number, being higher than it was previously, is going to make you more financially secure.
A poison, regardless of who eats it, actually MAKES people sick or dead. That is a physical and chemical reaction that is completely deterministic.
A bank statement of £1M will "make" a guy who had £100,000 beforehand absolutely ecstatic, but that same £1M will "make" a guy who had £10M depressed or maybe even suicidal! Clearly the same exact object cannot be "causing" two completely different things depending on the person! Of course it isn't - those two men have different mental states, and INTERPRET the same number in completely different ways, and they both CHOOSE to react in a certain way.
The way to live with a sense of contentment, then, is to just relax your "happiness standard" down to the bare minimum, as much as possible, and then every single day, every small triumph, and every little joy in life becomes an incredible gift and a wonder to experience and behold.
CHAT
