My own religion...

yes, and thats because they need a constant self-affirmation of 'their inner happiness' in order to be able to maintain the psychological state they are in amidst external odds.

you need to ignore and reject all external concepts and effects continually in order to reinforce your mental state. which directly leads to denial, neglect, distancing oneself, and ultimately fanaticism, when the philosopy gets challenged quite strongly.

 

no, both ways go true.

if there wasnt an ice cream as catalyst outside you, your brain would not be pulling the taste of icecream from your subconscious, and therefore you wouldnt be experiencing it as you did.

 

Correct. NOW you are beginning, BEGINNING, mind
you, to speak some truth

 

I can pull the taste of ice cream from
my subconcious right now, without any
ice cream in front of me.

 

the magnitude isnt the same, it requires concentration, therefore uses more energy than actually eating icecream, while still not providing the same magnitude.

 

I know unity100 Im just being silly.
But really? Life is a product of thought. -

 

Id have to disagree, but not in the same way that other person did. Happiness is there whether your part of it or not. True Happiness certainly does not come from material objects which is what I think you were saying, but its not entirely from within. I would say that becoming aware is within, but happiness itself is external

 

It's quite nasty really. In the case of some Hindu sadhus for instance they practice something called 'breaking the penis' - that's fanaticism ok, and probably actually mental illness. That's how we'd tend to regard self-harm these days.
Same with idiots like opus dei with their leg chains and self flagellation.

 

Before you can have happiness, one must be aware of the happiness that lies within. I understand what you are saying, but happiness is acceptance of something that first begins in the mind. External objects cannot make you happy, unless you are ready for it, spiritually and mentally.
Peace and love

 

And maybe, just maybe... after watching 'The Matrix' a few more times, I'll actually get to your infinite level of wisdom.

Anyway, the mind needs something to play off of... it's not just by itself here. There is an external cause to what my mind creates... if not, there would be no reality at all. This 'before we know' is actually what Kant thought God was, I think... maybe... anyway, he WAS a Christian... and he was a genius as well. I would even go so far as to say he was smarter than anyone here, especially those who think all Christians are idiots.

Actually, Kant talked about that in his Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics... certain things exist before the fact, but certain things only exist after the fact (I mean, the point where you know them and 'understand' them). He called the a priori (basically, the before-we-know) a component of synthetic experience (if I understood him correctly)-- meaning it is what we eventually interpret alongside what we ourselves add to the eventual experience, likely, those things which we assume based on previous experiences of the perceived, I think... what he called the 'analytic'...

But before conditioned responses take over, there is a component of experience which is wholly original to that space and time, and I think Kant even suggested that mathematics could potentially understand or observe the a priori-- of course, he never really applied the idea...

 

Not necessarily. I've been yanked out of despair by things that happened and I wasn't expecting them at all... simple things. Or sometimes someone can say something and that would improve my mood dramatically... like if someone tells you they love you and you weren't expecting it, or if someone reminds you that they still love you... those kinds of things that you can't always see or expect, but they happen.

Honestly, I think you're trying to explain the world away through a single oversimplified concept.

 

I've never seen it :tongue: I'd suggest
meditation though. It may loosen you
up heywood. -

 

Or rather, one must become peaceful and attain a calm within before becoming aware of the happiness (nothing to do with objects) that lies without
Although, I really have no way of saying that either of us is closer to truth, but this is simply what I believe from my experience.
Perhaps were Both! right

 

objects are also parts of existence. why are you trying to deny them or their existence or their effects

 

That (there is no external reality at all) is a conclusion. What are the premises that you base this on?

 

Im not denying them at all. Im saying that they don't create true happiness. SO yes, objects exist. ...... Not the quite the same as saying that they bring happiness

 

I suppose you can't really ever gain a sense of exactly what causes happiness, because basically our existence is so completely intertwined with the objects around us that it's very likely that everything has come to be through a probably endless chain of reactions to reactions. It's another one of those pontless arguments like nature versus nurture and the chicken or the egg.

You can only really identify cause if you select a random point in the things around you as a beginning, but even that beginning has been caused by something else... so cause is actually probably more just a concept than an actual identifiable phenomenon.

I guess if you wanted to pinpoint an exact cause it would be like the Big Bang or something, but even that had to be caused by something...

I think perhaps the whole idea of cause and effect, or action and reaction is probably flawed, and we need to start thinking in less concrete terms-- I mean, you're talking about reasons in a universe which, as far as we know, has none... so you're just going to end up stuck with infinity.

 

Anyway, the original idea of happiness coming from within is too vaguely defined... how do you define 'within', exactly? Like, the brain? The soul? They're both completely intertwined with what we see everyday.

I guess if you include the mind as like a sixth sense organ, really the only thing dividing us from our surroundings is an elaborate and fluid neurophysical construction.

 

The heart. But chakras are also something
that science hasnt proven or disproven
yet, so pretend your not reading this. -

 

'The heart' is pretty vague too. That could mean anything from an organ in your body to some kind of emotion center to everything that's good about a person. When you say 'the heart', I think of some godawful sentiment on a Hallmark card.