PAIN, PROGRESS, and your Pleasure

Let me start by being as accurate as possible just for those folks that have problems understanding without "proof".

I will start by defining pain in 'my own' words. Pain is of the negative. In a creation in which we witness polarity, duality, good and bad, it is one side of the coin... and the lesser preferred.

Progress in 'my own' words is one's ability to be self aware of knowing where they were in regards to where they want to be. The ability to 'track' ones self on a defined scale, which is the path of desire with a starting point and an ending point(the goal).


What is my own goal? Easy. I want not only to maintain pleasure (the opposite of pain) but to experience pleasure at an infinitely increasing rate. I visualize this as a staircase. Goes upwards(analagous to increasing pleasure), then levels off and moves sideways(analagous to the passage of time) only to go upwards again. This cycle repeats infinitely, in this infinite stairway 'to heaven'

Is it possible to attain permanent pleasure? To my perception, yes. It is relative, in that when I am not increasing my pleasure i am staying at a fixed rate over a passage of time. If we are not experiencing increasing pleasure, we will acclimate to our current feeling, which is what the 'step' is. Do i view this stagnation as negativity? No i do not. Do i view it as positivity? No i do not. To understand this part is paramount in reaching the moment in time where the pleasure(or positivity) will resume in increasing from its stagnation. The stagnation correlates to challenges we face in life. Some folks crumble under stress, some folks give up after experiencing something they were not expecting... but here is the secret. It is possible to set the mind and the heart in stone. It is possible to hold yourself to your word and not budge for anything. In doing so, one has the ability to never experience negativity, only stagnation, which is temporary. Truthfully everything is temporary, even the pleasure, but in order to experience an increasing level of pleasure/happiness/positivity one must learn how to set the heart and mind 'to stone' (i am using an analogy).

Where does will power come from? It comes directly from our creator. We are allowed to witness willpower, and the amount of willpower we witness depends solely on how rigid we hold ourselves to our commitments. As man develops, cognitively, he reaches a point of self awareness. With this self awareness one can learn tricks such as manipulation of weaker minds. On the flipside one may also learn how to benefit everyone around him. Both paths will have a certain feeling that accompanies it, and this is where the heart and mind come in.

The accompanying feeling is put onto our hearts to help us understand the path that we took. To manipulate others one can achieve pleasure on the short term with relative ease, but afterwards the accompanying feeling will tell man that 'hey look at johnnys face, he is sad because you tricked him and got the best of him' I call this guilt. Some folks can and will ignore this accompanying feeling. To continue down this path though man will be met with a heavier and heavier accompanying feeling of guilt until he reaches a point of changing paths. Society today sets a poor example, as some of these folks that manipulate others have attained massive amounts of wealth in which they basically pull themselves out of the loop so to speak. While outside of the loop, the wealth, and not the willpower, is able to continue to manipulate others and keep that individual from feeling the guilt.

On the other side of the spectrum one can feel greater and greater feelings of pleasure. The catch is, the path does not come with the relative ease as the 'negative' path did. Our creator still wants us to find balance and so we have challenges and obstacles placed in this path. To overcome these challenges is to experience the pleasure that accompanies it. To overcome the challenges requires a heart set in stone, and a mind set in stone.

The goal of life is to learn. "man" is just one step along an infinitely long path of knowledge. We are souls that are here for a lesson, and 'man' is the vessel in which we witness from. When i say set the mind/heart in stone, i mean one must tell themselves(after finding self awareness) that the goal is to stay positive no matter what. This can be justified by the knowledge that tells us our creator is giving us this experience to witness and learn from, it is all meant to be. When man realizes everything he will encounter is put there by the creator, and also realizes the secret to finding the greater pleasures of life is to never let your self down by dishonoring your word/commitment, the soul begins its transformation. The soul is ever changing and cannot be shaped unless it has atleast two concrete entities that will not break under its pressure.

How does one never feel negativity again? Realize that what you are experiencing is your lesson, you are here for a 'good' reason and not a 'bad' one. Life is a 'positive' movement from the start. Realize that staying positive no matter what is put before you, will shape your soul, and you will witness it. Pain my friends, is going to be the accompanying feeling when you are striving for goodness, but our heart and our mind can overcome that, and not lose an inch of ground... And before you know it, you are on the rise again.

Edit: Discipline folks.

Thanks Chadderson. Now where can I purchase some of this discipline thing you've mentioned? Star for you my friend!

reply to post by ezekielken


Discipline is learned. It requires failure. Fail and fail and fail, but keep trying. You will find it.

Edit: There will come a point where it is harder to fail than it is to try your best.

I dont think we are here to live lives of pleasure, explain the pleasure of a starving child in India who has not got a hope of ever achieving any of the things you talk about.
True, everything is relative and that includes pain and suffering with moments of enjoyment.
Unless you know some amount of hardship you cannot judge what pleasure is.
We are here on a journey and it is not important how much you achieve in life rather how you went about achieving it.
If you only seek pleasure than you are self centred and not on a true spiritual path.
If you are willing to give of yourself to others than you are closer to achieving what your true purpose here is for.
Continue to seek pleasure for yourself and you may see yourself trying to repair the wrongs of this life in your next.
Peace

reply to post by chadderson


True only through failure can you truly learn, only through some form of hardship can you improve yourself spiritually.

reply to post by kudegras


You are correct in the sense that we are not here to lead lives of pleasure, because we are here to lead lives of balance. But to live a life of positivity is to automatically give back to those that are not experiencing positivity. In your case, the starving kid in india. There are folks that make generous donations that goes straight to kids just like you speak of, and it comes directly from their positivity.

EDIT: And to say they wont ever achieve the same levels of pleasure or positivity as someone here in USA, thats false, and completely relative. A starving child would take a loaf of bread before he would take a stack of $ paper. One cannot survive by eating money.

reply to post by chadderson


A lot of those people that give to the starving people do so more out of guilt for being so fortunate and it also makes them feel better.
Positivity is good, I try to be positive but through life have had many hurdles which has hardened me not unlike your stone analogy.
I now see things very differently than I did say 20 years ago. I suffered with depression and my analogy was I was in a deep hole and climbing a ladder and just as I got near the top, something would knock me back down.
That was a negative mindset, which I no longer hold to. I take everything In my stride now knowing that just when everything seems good, something is just around the corner to knock me down a bit
I now know my depression was due to poor nutrition as I am a celiac and foods I was eating was making me sick.
But that is a controllable illness unlike cancer or something worse. Some people are given more to deal with.
They say that you are only given in life what you are able to handle, some fail and thats sad.
That is life, if you can accept that then little will surprise you. All you can do is live a day at a time ready to meets life''s next challenge.

reply to post by chadderson


You believe in progress and the goal is permanent pleasure. The search for permanent happiness is an unhappy one, because all the time you seek happiness it is just out of your reach. It is only when we give up looking outside for happiness, that happiness will be found to be our true nature.
The belief that happiness can be found is what makes us seek - the seeking is the unhappiness. It's quite a paradox.

When we decide to make our hearts and minds 'stone', they are no longer like water which flows, instead they bang and knock into things and it hurts.

There is a way to permanent 'contentment', which does not mean there will be constant happiness or pleasure because happiness and pleasure are states that come and go (all states come and go). But you can be content watching the comings and goings, no matter what comes it will pass and there is delight in witnessing this.

I will leave you this amazing full length film which will show you were to look to find constant contentment:
youtu.be...

There are a couple of ways to be happy all the time.

1) Find that which you can appreciate/love that will never leave your life A.k.A "YOU"!


Stay centered at your core being, remember to breathe and to feel the sensation of your body, and to just be in appreciation of your self with (or without) words/thoughts.


2) Focus only on what makes you happy.

Whatever you find happy with this world, focus on that. If something leaves your life and you can't do anything about it, don't think of THAT anymore, stay focused on what is HERE that makes you happy. When you see violence , switch to thinking about peace/friendship in your mind. If there are arguments and you do not wish to take part because it makes you unhappy, try to find more of your AGREEING points than DISAGREEMENTS.

Originally posted by arpgme

Whatever you find happy with this world, focus on that. If something leaves your life and you can't do anything about it, don't think of THAT anymore, stay focused on what is HERE that makes you happy. When you see violence , switch to thinking about peace/friendship in your mind. If there are arguments and you do not wish to take part because it makes you unhappy, try to find more of your AGREEING points than DISAGREEMENTS.

When unhappiness is the state it is very hard to find things to think of that make you happy. If it that were that easy everyone would be happy.
It is hard to be agreeable when you are very unhappy and that is why depression is such a isolating disease. When you are very unhappy, you know you are spreading unhappiness but cannot stop.

This is the only way out.

Originally posted by arpgme
Find that which you can appreciate/love that will never leave your life A.k.A "YOU"!

Find the perfect lover that will never leave.