Are emotions needed for meditation?

[Black Rose]

When I close my eye I don't seem to feel anything.
What am I supposed to concentrate on if nothing is there?

 

[TimeAsylums]

Essentially the goal of meditation:

Now to the main point: I assume that you know about subvocalization (how everyone thinks to themselves in their head, or pronounces words mentally when they read). Perhaps my best explanation would be this: The brain processes all information, but the mind is what mentally/cognitively "thinks." I have yet to confirm this, but using a little common sense, it seems reasonable that extroverts probably don't nearly subvocalize as nearly as much as introverts.


Now, I imagine as simply an Ixxx, introvert that many of us subvocalize the majority of the time, which is what creates the reality of introversion vs. extroversion. I realize there is more to the definitions of introversion vs. extroversion ( I v E) than thinking, but hear me out.


I believe this is what people are attempting to achieve when they meditate: the loss of the inner voice, the one that thinks, to let go, its really eliminating subvocalization (temporarily).


Continuing on with my theory: Seeing as the brain processes information, one can reasonably assume (ill be doing a lot of that) that the mind is unnecessary. If the brain has already processed any information, being it text or observations, then what is the mind doing? It is wondering/thinking about the observations, however the brain is faster. So, by eliminating the need to think about something/anything (eliminating subvocalization) ones thoughts are...quicker.


If you are not familiar with this feeling, its comparable to a caffeine or adrenaline rush (however, I am able to induce this state without either caffeine, and I take my heart rate when I stop subvocalizing, and although it feels like it, it hasn't changed. Perhaps, it is relatable to being drunk - depending on how you are when you're drunk - how it shuts off certain parts of the brain and your thinking becomes (ahh, I found the word) : uninhibited.


I stumbled upon this while attempting to speed read (possibly a form of meta meditation). My eyes were moving over words at an incredibly fast rate (although speed reading has been determined to be HORRIBLE for comprehension, it has uses) and a few minutes after it had actually happened, I realized i was not subvocalizing. In fact, once turned off, its hard to bring it back. I am slowly coming back to subvocalizing after sitting down and having to write this




tl;dr temporarily calm your subvocalization and just "enjoy"
Edit: In some science mag I read once: "When people pray/meditate they are actually turning some part of their parietal lobe in their brain actually goes dark" and it brings some chemicals down into da body.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/out-the-darkness/201212/can-meditation-change-the-world

 

[some.body]

Have you tried meditating before? Or any sort of contemplative practice?
If not, it's very likely you are attempting something too advanced right now.

Anyone that has sat down and tried (or didn't try) to shut that voice up knows that this is a deceptively difficult thing to do.

 

[TimeAsylums]

Anyone that has sat down and tried (or didn't try) to shut that voice up knows that this is a deceptively difficult thing to do.

Agreed. especially when trying to go to sleep lol

 

[some.body]

Agreed. especially when trying to go to sleep lol

For sure, it completely just makes my mind light up more. I suppose that's why you will hear some people tell you to get up and read, walk or anything *except* for trying to sleep for a few minutes then going to back to bed.

 

[Black Rose]

The voice is not the problem. There is nothing to be aware of inside me. I cant find the focal point.

 

[TimeAsylums]

Yeah, I didn't really answer your question...oops. Haha I do suppose you should ask @Architect from reading his posts it seems he spent/spends a lot of time doing it.

Anyway, my own interpretation is that your problem is "trying to find a focal point." That's almost the exact opposite. Instead...Unfocus (focus on nothing).

No T(hinking), just S(ensation) and being.

 

[some.body]

The voice is not the problem. There is nothing to be aware of inside me. I cant find the focal point.

Hmmm. That's quite remarkable that you can just turn the switch on that thing. Even Sri Ramakrishna "went through the motions."

If I were to offer any meaningful input besides my opinion that a lot of people are confused about what the actual end result is and also think it easier then it is, I would need to know some basic things:

What is your practice?
Did you learn this online or where?
How long do you do this for? Are you consistent?

 

[some.body]

Yeah, I didn't really answer your question...oops. Haha I do suppose you should ask @Architect from reading his posts it seems he spent/spends a lot of time doing it.

Anyway, my own interpretation is that your problem is "trying to find a focal point." That's almost the exact opposite. Instead...Unfocus (focus on nothing).

No T(hinking), just S(ensation) and being.

Right. That's the point of Japa, it's to get your mind latching onto something so that way you can "drop" into the thing, the meditation

 

[kvothe27]

Unless I'm missing something, why not just focus on your breath? If you need something particular, you could focus on some point, such as your nostrils, where you feel some sensation of your breath.

Of course, according to my understanding, you don't want to just focus on the breath. You also want to be mindful of your thoughts and feelings, but not to concentrate on them or let them carry you away. To be clear, the point isn't to eradicate thoughts or feelings, but to put them into perspective -- that is, to realize that they're not you.

But, perhaps you're attempting some meditative technique unfamiliar to me?

 

[TimeAsylums]

Unless I'm missing something, why not just focus on your breath? If you need something particular, you could focus on some point, such as your nostrils, where you feel some sensation of your breath.

Of course, according to my understanding, you don't want to just focus on the breath, you also want to be mindful of your thoughts and feelings, but not to concentrate on them or let them carry you away. To be clear, the point isn't to eradicate thoughts or feelings, but to put them into perspective -- that is, to realize that they're not you.

But, perhaps you're attempting some meditative technique unfamiliar to me?

Yes try this

 

[some.body]

@kvothe27 yeah, those are good things breath (Pranayama) ect, I'm just trying to say that it seems like a lot of people sit there *expetcing*something to happen which confuses and the problem ultimately becomes the expecting.

 

[kvothe27]

@kvothe27 yeah, those are good things breath (Pranayama) ect, I'm just trying to say that it seems like a lot of people sit there *expetcing*something to happen which confuses and the problem ultimately becomes the expecting.

Of course. If one sits down expecting something, and doesn't treat this expectant feeling in the same way as other feelings and thoughts within the course of meditation, one won't achieve what one is expecting. Unless, of course, one is expecting to waste one's time. There are a lot of tricks the mind can play on a person. This can be frustrating. If one is frustrated, watch the frustration. Don't get caught up in it. If you do get caught in it, watch being caught up in it and don't get caught up in being caught up in it . . . so on and so forth and blah blah blah...

All of this is much better explained in the book Mindfulness in Plain English.

http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html

 

[Black Rose]

I'm not sensitive enough to feel my breath.
I don't have emotions often so I cannot examine them on command.
I just feel empty.

 

[TimeAsylums]

I don't have emotions.

ha.

 

[some.body]

I'm not sensitive enough to feel my breath.
I don't have emotions often so I cannot examine them on command.
I just feel empty.

Sounds like you need a liberal dose of 4 Ac0 DMT

You may replace your sugar and use this as a substitute.

 

[kvothe27]

I'm not sensitive enough to feel my breath.
I don't have emotions often so I cannot examine them on command.
I just feel empty.

Seriously? You cannot feel yourself breathing? Do you have some sort of condition? Not having emotions often enough on command to examine them doesn't preclude one's ability to practice mindfulness. You can be mindful of other things, such as your bodily sensations or thoughts.

Well, you don't have to focus on breathing. In prayer, for instance, the nebulous concept of God can serve much the same purpose. You could focus on other things, but I would suggest looking into those different traditions for specifics as to how to best go about it. IMO, it's best not to get too hung up on the supernatural details of the different practices. The practices shared among religions differ in their specifics, but they can be abstracted away and practiced in a secular way, if you're so inclined.

 

[some.body]

Here's a practice for your consideration. If the contemplative religious component puts you off just think about this as a experiment dive into the deep end and do the practice. Of course there are secular meditations like the mindfulness one @kvothe27 alludes to.

Get a Mala, most are 108 count, get one of these. You'll find ones made of different materials. The Tantras prescribe different ones for different things. You can even get ones made from human bone if you are so inclined.

Look up the main Devas (Gods) and Devi's (Goddesses) of Hinduism and see the cross over with Tibetan Buddhism. Pick one.

Learn one of that Devatas Mantras.

Out loud, quietly, in your mind, are the three types of recitation.

Sit in a comfortable Asan. Start chanting, out loud or whatever way you pick. Use the Mala to count. Try doing only one round while, in your mind visualizing the Devata you chose. Make this as clear as you can. Keep going while also minding your breath.

So your doing three things at once and if doing them truly you shouldn't be able to pay attention to anything else. Or thinking that you should pay attention, or thinking about the thinking ect.

Your:

Minding breath (Pranayama)
Minding the Mantra (Japa)
Minding the formless non dual nature through Deva/Devi (Istha Devata)


The idea is your so busy caught up doing that that you ultimately end up dropping into a meditation. Zen Buddhists have a practice like this where they keep you so busy physically that, hopefully, the end result is the same.

(and I'm only half joking about the 4 ac0 DMT. May be that's exactly the type of thing you need? Why are you meditating in the first place?)

 

[Black Rose]

Why are you meditating in the first place?

When I'm not actively thinking or doing I have anxiety. It wont go away unless I find something to idealize about. Simply I need to understand where things originate.

 

[some.body]

When I'm not actively thinking or doing I have anxiety. It wont go away unless I find something to idealize about. Simply I need to understand where things originate.

When you get anxious pay very close attention to what you were thinking about or doing at that time. Try the above mentioned method or the secular meditations but if you need a focus as you said, the one I just spoke of will truly give you something to focus on. Anxiety has an answer. I've delt/deal with it too. Try the DMT or something like this. Do you know much about its usage? Remember too that even though the meditation I wrote out for you is rooted in Hinduism, the end result has absolutely nothing to do with any ideology.

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

I thought the point was to focus on nothing and just let everything appear on its own...? Once things get started, sometimes you're able to change your focus to what you want to think about while other times you lose yourself and the rest of the world completely. Sort of a lucid dream meets ouija board thing.

Would faith in said appearance resolve the anxiety?

 

[some.body]

@thehabitatdoctor I know that your not saying this but there are people that have an idea that meditation is supposed to be like an explosion or fireworks going off in your head like a LSD trip or whatever. When in reality the contemplative state is not far from what you normally experience. Your dropping that feeling that your behind your eyes and looking out/through a pane of glass or something (maybe in certain people's cases this is stained glass) but there is a way to shatter this glass. You don't end up like a bumbling mess unable to drive or whatever.

There's lots of ways to alter your consciousness. Some people are more prone to certain ways than others.

Dancing past the point of exhaustion, sleep deprivation, chanting (alone and in groups), mindfulness meditations, music are just some of the ways. Some you may get a "full" experience from and others perhaps not much at all. However there is one way that will always with 100% certainty do *something* and that is the use of psychedelics.

Before anyone jumps the gun here: I am not advocating the use of anything without lots of research and consideration and the chemical I mentioned, 4 ac0 DMT, is a legal research chemical. The Tantras talk about uses of entheogens but in a coded language. Hence one of the reasons you needed a Guru. It is changing now but if I recall correctly we had something absurd like 6 years of *known* (RE: MK Ultra) research with LSD.

There is a famous story that Ram Das (Harvard born Richard Alpert) tells about his Guru:
Ram Das goes to India, brings LSD from Harvard with him. Gives this man, Neem Karoli Baba who doesn't ask but rather tells him, "you have medicine, give me some" Ram Das gives him a shit load. They wait. Absolutely nothing happens to Neem Karoli Baba. Alpert goes back to the US. Comes to the conclusion that this isn't true. Something had to have happened thus this little old Indian man tricked him, he palmed the acid somehow. Alpert goes back to India, meets this man again, the Guru says "you don't believe I took that do you?" he asks Alpert for more, he takes the acid this time (which is in pill form) puts it all on his tongue, chews it all up so Ram Das can see. They wait again. This time the old man goes under his blanket and Ram Das freaks out thinking that he has driven this man crazy. Neem Karoli Baba pops up and starts laughing because he's fucking with Ram Das, there is once again no effect.

There's probably no way of proving this story or not. Lets say it is true: what might this say about consciousness? Is this level of awareness available to everyone?

@AnimeKitty, here's something I thought of this morning you might give a try sometime:
It's called the KhadgaMala Stotram. It starts with Beeja Mantras (these are like the roots of a tree, then the branches are like the longer Mantras and Stotrams) and takes you mentally through the Sri Yantra. Go to the actual YouTube page because there is a very good explanation of the whole thing there. There's also much better translations you can find by using google and there are a few mistakes in the video anyway but the recitation is great. Don't get hung up on Beeja Mantras. These can be very difficult to grasp and they are supposedly pre-lingual sounds.

One last thing: I use to ignore this but IMO and experience it really does make a difference the time that you meditate. As soon as you wake up and at night, try these times.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmKo72JSLac

 

[Late2theParty]

When I'm not actively thinking or doing I have anxiety. It wont go away unless I find something to idealize about. Simply I need to understand where things originate.

There's a lot of different approaches to meditation, but like others have pointed out it either directly or indirectly is teaching you how to quiet the inner dialog you have constantly running in your head.

Consider this, every thought leads to an emotion, every emotion leads to a physical response. Almost everything you feel has to do with you buying into and believing all of your thoughts. What if you didn't buy into any of them? It's not so much about fighting your thoughts... it's more about not believing any of them.

If you want to take the awareness approach. Every time a thought pops into your head try bring your attention away from the thought and back onto what you are focusing on. A couple good methods for this....

• breath (classic)
• stare at something complex like a bed of leaves, or something moving like a river, or out a car window. Every time you have a thought shift your eyes to a new location. Momentarily you'll be "stunned" and unable to think for a second when you shift your eyes. Can also be done with a laser pointer randomly moved around a wall.
• candle. Light a candle in a dark room and every time you have a thought try to focus back on the candle.
  
  

  When I close my eye I don't seem to feel anything.
  What am I supposed to concentrate on if nothing is there?

The previous methods are good, but for something a bit deeper....I would highly recommend a guy called Mooji. His approach is very potent and I think relevant to the way you are thinking about it. I talk about the video of his I think you should watch in this post..

http://intpforum.com/showpost.php?p=347013&postcount=24

 

[cæsura]

If you actually notice nothing, then you may be accidentally much further along the road than you suspect you are. Sometimes people get fairly far along in meditation without realizing it through prayer, compulsive thoughts, or rumination. Of course you could also just be bad at recognizing what's occurring as well.

If you can't hear or feel your breath, get a metronome and focus on that.

I advise you to check out DharmaOverground. The folks there seriously know your stuff and can probably offer some useful advice tailored to your particular situation.

 

[BloodCountess88]

Very informative!

I have tried meditation. I do Yoga, so many of my classes end in some kind of meditative state. And I really get antsy and nervous and I close my eyes and see, well, nothing too and I just lay there wondering if something is supposed to happen. Which is the reason why I stick to the more physically demanding types (Bikram/Ashtanga) where I'm so exhausted at the end of 90 minutes, just laying there is bliss itself and calms me...


I tried kundalini with absolutely no success. My friend did it with me, she did see colors and forms and all that stuff . I was extremely bored.

 

[h0bby1]

True meditation by Gendun Rinpoche

http://genericindigo.com/forum/topic6460.html

 

[Milo]

For me, meditation was thinking thoughts from the inside of myself to find what it is I really wanted.

I used it to find my Truth. But is my Truth the same as yours? I could never know I suppose.

I found freedom as free as it could be--But with freedom comes a whole lot of adversity in this world which is a system that tells you what to chose. If you listen to it, are you really choosing though? The adversity brings meaning back in to your life. What meaning am I fighting for that allows freedom to be free that gains more from all its adversity? It is fun that I seek. And fun is found in the mystery of not knowing anything. Because if I knew everything I would make the best choice, but if it were the best choice would it really be me choosing it? You will find that fun relies on luck and when you use the system to beat the system you become the system and lose your freedom to be free because the system is what you choose in order to win. And when you win in that way, you lose your freedom. Everything is easy, you become trapped in the comfort of the knowledge making the best choices for you because your knowledge relies on the system.

This is why the dark side (Thinking Star Wars) is actually the good side (perceptively the bad side to the side the system is on). It creates the meaning. But if you are on the dark side because of understanding what it is I say, you would never kill the ones who believe they are on the right side. The side that fights for knowledge's sake. It is why there is ying in the yang and yang in the ying (the two circles within the ying and yang symbol). Without someone to fight against our life becomes meaningless--just a system.

The one's who realize this would never kill anyone in the system, but the one's in the system might kill us if they do not have the understanding. That is why the hero always wins, but he is the hero of the system because the villan would never kill the hero since he understands life is all a game to get as much excitement and fun as possible, but if he told the hero, the hero would no longer be a part of the system.

The paradox of this is, if the villans and heros are fighting, but still understand it is all a game, then the watchers who watch their hero and their villan fight each other in vain because they do not actually understand that it is all a play, a game, as the Allegory of the Cave tries to explain.

Life is a game, the object is fun which you can only get in the present moment
Fear of the unknown causes us to be afraid and join the system by learning and knowing more (loss of excitement and fun)
Fear of things that should be feared in the here and now are really the things to be afraid of (and are also the causes of excitement)
No danger = Nothing to fear = No excitement = No fun
Danger + Knowledge of how to avoid it so one never sees danger = No excitement = No fun

You see? When you win you lose and when you die the game is over. But isn't it better to play a losing game and stand against the system for the fun of danger than to play a winning game for the comfort of security which you really have no choices in because you must pair up with the strongest system to win?

Win forever - Become immortal - Lose interest - Become an existential nihilist - One who kills themselves eventually or becomes a vampire.

Or

Lose for now - Stand against the current - Know only that you are ignorant (Which makes you the least ignorant of them all) - Take the chance - Make your own choice - Be the underdog always - Become an adventurer - Let luck be your guide and only use the system when in a bind


What do you say? If you understand, you've come all this way. To make the biggest choice of your life. The red or the blue pill. Freedom, or the system?


The choice is yours finally to make.

I will tell you now that if you choose freedom, you will be filled with a wider array of emotions than the system lets you feel. You can feel however you want any time. You don't have to repress anything. This is self actualization, enlightenment, and zen all one in the same. They all understand what ying and yang really represents. This is also why the enlightened ones like nature a lot more than society. Life in the forest is filled with adventure.

 

[h0bby1]

if you do anykind of action or effort during meditation, then it's not meditaion in the zen sense meditation is more about observing the mind work rather than doing anything in particular, or focusing on anything in particular, or doing anything, neither mentally, emotionally, neither focusing on anything or anything at all actually =) it's just watching the mind work without any constraints or without any kind of action being forced on it, it's just observing consciousness as the act of perceiving =)

 

[Milo]

You're probably right. I only speculated that zen would be the same as the understanding of ying and yang because it seems to answer all questions at once. I don't even see a purpose in meditation of the kind you speak of while knowing my Truth.

 

[h0bby1]

zen budhism has been influenced a lot by chinese school, actually in occident budhism is often presented as tibetan, with the lama and daila lamma put in the fore front of the media with whole lot of thing associated with him, but tibetan budhism is actually pretty weird, it's more mix of remanant of shamanism as in the tantra, a plain feudal system lead by lama, but many thing of budhism are coming directly from taoism

the purpose is basically linked with the theory that is close to cognitive therapy, as to see how the thought we force on our mind are mostly determining our actions, and that they are mostly illusion, that are use to replace the full scope of the mind reaction to the perception of our surrounding, the essense of the zen is the path of no effort, of letting things be as naturally as it can be, including the mind, to be able to observe 'natural reaction' of things without constraints to have the most unbiased perception of their essence and dynamic

zen is very connected to chinese school, the tao tend to say the same thing, that we must 'live in the now', and lettings thing be how they are to perceive them as wholly as possible, meditation is this principle applied to the mind, that you can't understand how the mind move and it's dynamic if you don't let it act freely


but zen imply no conscious purpose, but more being able to understand the dynamic of things, as already attributing a purpose to things is already doing some kind of mental action or effort that tend to mess up the functionning of the mind that is supposed to be the source of actual understanding

 

[h0bby1]

the principle of the tao is that even when you don't actually consciously do anything, things happen none the less, the goal is to be able to percieve this dynamic that happen independantly of any conscious action, as well for the mind, and for the rest of the world, tao is actually addressed to leader, and advocate rather libertarian principle of leading population, that are actually rather ironically in opposition with many of the practice that are found in tibetan lamaism, that are asking lot of discipline, and rituals, that more tend to impose whole lot of constraint on the functionning of the mind, and used more as conditionning, compared to the original idea being the 'practice' of the zen , which is actually about no practice at all, getting rid of all illusion of the mind that condition the functioning of consciousness

 

[Milo]

What if consciousness itself were created by the illusion that you were controlling the body. A metaprogram of the mind. A block of associations that cause us to think we are in control. Can that control gain more control with the associations to create free will? To create its own system of functioning? A system that creates another system in the mind when the mind then relies on after creating that system.

Again all speculation, but there is so much in the universe that we don't know which could mean all we ever see is correlations and never the causation.

I guess I shall continue on my adventure I have created for myself in my mind either way because my life is not worth living without it.

 

[h0bby1]

wanting to reach the zen with an effort is like trying to wash blood with blood. you only add more effort and you never reach the zen

why is it that you need to do this effort, what is it that you miss ? it's what meditation can peek into

what is it that give worth or not to your life, it's just some conscious judgement , mostly conditionning, if you just live by, you don't really need to find some worth or purpose to anything, if life needed to be conscious of it's purpose to exist, all life would be extinct since long time lol

plants are not conscious of the purpose of why they grow, they just grow =) why should it be different for human mind ?

 

[Milo]

Extinction is not what I am afraid of
It is the fear I miss
I find it by fighting in the mist
Of uncertainty

When I am ignorant of my own ignorance
I think I know
When I know
Then I feel safe
When I feel safe
I feel nothing
But the chemical pleasures

The fear brings back emotions
The fear is my friend
Without it I only wish for the end

Of emptiness

 

[Milo]

So adventure I willl
Into the darkness
Of uncertainty and free will

The knowledge is my knowing of the system
The system I've only created myself
Reading the system with the system
I seem to be speculating to others

Though I know the truth of reality
The Truth of myself does not want to see it
Because now that I am knowing of my ignorance
All mystery remains

Through the adventure of uncertainty
I will play the part I choose
Though my part will play another part
In the tale of another's story

 

[h0bby1]

according to cognitivist, fear and most emotion are vastly conditionned by the paradigm you live in

like let say you sit on a box, and then someone say there is a bomb in the box, it would create fear automatically, and if you don't know it, you won't be scared, all of the fear and anxiety and emotion have a root in cognitive approach of the world, the perception of cognitive nature that create often uncessary fears of potential danger, of negative expectations, that are most likely not to be very relevant in the present situation, but more there because being rooted in the cognitive pattern during child hood or early life experience or education, like fear of punishement or other things

there are whole lot of cognitive pattern that emerge from the plasticity of the brain in early life, that will have big deal of impact on one behavior latter on, even if the circumstance is actually different, there are still some more or less irrelevant cognitive schema that will be applied to trigger whole lot of fear and emotion that doesn't stem from a really rational analysis of the present situation without bias or a prioris

all form of zen and meditation are sort of there to cancel the deformation of the brain due to it's plasticity related to past events, for it to take it's most natural shape, to develop it fully without unnecessary constraint


but also holding paradigm of everything can tend to calm anxiety, because everything seem predictible, and if the schema is positive enought, like basically the whole lot of positive thinking, it will mostly likely hinder anxiety and fears as well, but zen is yet different from positive thinking

 

[Milo]

Expecting something to happen at all times (just something in general--nothing in particular that one is seeking or whatever) will allow one to accept all things at once, because all things are something. This rids the mind of all cognitive dissonance, which allows it to calm. The left side of the brain that allows us to stay aware of possible danger then, the tool we humans constantly overuse and seemingly never stop using, calms and we are left with only the right side which will allow us to feel the bliss of enlightenment. This is what I can feel when I do not need to look for danger. Like this woman:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTrJqmKoveU

But, there is something other than enlightenment our minds can achieve. When one uses one's logic to destroy its own bars it puts on us--opening us up to the real world with no framework to reference it. This allows us to see the world as Neo in the Matrix seen it. It allowed Alice in Alice in Wonderland to see it. It is when you let the creativity of the right hemisphere have its way with the logic to create the outside world into a much more interesting place.

I have a split personality, but I know how to switch back and forth between them. You may even say I am tripolar, but the last personality I keep inside me is far too dangerous to let out all the way. It would only be used in a time of near death or for something I deem to be at the up most importance. It currently gets channeled into the creativity I lock it in. In most people, it is chained in their logic--which is creativity thought to be true, so it is far less flexible. My creativity allows me to channel the "third" personality even though it is needed in order to allow my creative personality to have life. A demon only given one path will surely take that path. And so I channel it through the path my creativity makes, just like everyone does with their reasoning. Although, the demon morphs into different things depending on my emotions. Which is a good thing I can create settings that cause specific emotions in it. This is the reason I suspect the people who "know" the most (again, a maze built with knowledge is static and ever growing) get this "demon" stuck so much that it finally disregards all reason and bursts through the maze walls into a fury.

So it is not me I worry about, I worry about those who have caged themselves too much. Even while explaining this, I resurrect my "knowledge" in order to explain what I am trying to say through logic and analogies that I think would best explain it to others. Doesn't mean others will understand, but my "knowledge" tells me so.

 

[h0bby1]

the way i see it, any kind of "uncontrolled" emotion or behavior come from some sort of dynamic happening in the subconscious mind, like there is a particular state of the subconscious that call for an action or another, it's not because it's subconscious that it doesn't follow some sort of logic or that it is 'bad' or evil or demonic, all part of the mind are there for a reason, ignoring or repressing them only lead to some kind of trouble at some point, and it doesn't allow for a in depth understanding of the dynamic of the mind , which would be required to act in an actually truly rational manner, taking in account also the subconscious dynamic of the mind

 

[Milo]

I think that ultimately our perceived environment dictates our emotions--even our memories play parts in our environment. That is why when I have a task I must do, I imagine an environment that motivates me to do it. If I still was worried about my future, then my logic would take over and lock me in. Then my emotions would have to work around the boundaries with much less freedom to move. This would perpetuate frustration and possibly change the emotion to a dangerous one. That is why I allow my "logic" to be fluid. To optimize my performance at every moment without dread of the task.

I see what you are saying, but I'm not talking about repressing them or anything, just redirecting and influencing. Also, by demonic, I really meant nearly unstoppable with uncompromising drive and only one task.

 

[Black Rose]

I think that because I have Ni which is the opposite of Si I don't get to experience internal bodily sensations. Without the ability to gauge where I'm at I cannot move towards the feeling of bliss. This is why I mentioned emotion. I can feel emotion when listening to music but its not 3d within. Once I felt my amygdala at my center as a tingling heat but it went away.

What exactly about Ni is it that suppresses?

 

[Milo]

One time I thought myself into having a miniature seizure--I then went into a weird sort of psychosis where I saw all objects as what it meant to me (subconsciously--which made it seem almost like I was speaking to a divine being).

Perhaps you are putting to high of expectations on this bliss. Maybe the bliss occurs when you diminish your expectations and just take everything as is while appreciating it at the same time. You'll become perma-blissed.

Note:
You might become a tinge bit like a sociopath. Which, in my opinion, isn't a bad thing.