YOU have seemingly unlimited potential.

Once you wrap your mind around that the next question you should ask your self is.

2) Is there anything more important than your time?

If you answer Yes to that question then continue to ponder points 1 and 2 above because you are clearly not getting it yet.

Once you realize that you have unlimited potential and finite time the next question you should ask yourself is.

3) Will I spent my time living? Or will I spend my time dying?


Peace.

thanks for that head realignment joe. stuff like this can help put life in perspective


In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in an old people's home feeling better every day. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, and then when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day. You work for 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous, then you are ready for high school. You then go to primary school, you become a kid, you play. You have no responsibilities, you become a baby until you are born. And then you spend your last 9 months floating in luxurious spa-like conditions with central heating and room service on tap, larger quarters every day and then Voila! You finish off as an orgasm! -woody allen

sorry, couldn't help but think of that ^ when i read 3)

LOL. I think I'd be down with giving that a go as well.

what is living and dying? Each persons interpretation of these I'd imagine differ slightly.
When it comes down to it we are just vessels for thoughts and feelings to do what they please. So I'm going to arrest all thoughts from here on. This will be my last thought process.

Sill trying to figure out how I have "seemingly unlimited potential."

Kind of vague, isn't it?

I have missed something, or is there no question 1?

Meditate on it longer.

It wasn't a trick statement.

Ha, yes you did. I referred to them as questions 1 and 2...1) was in the title. It was a statement. I noticed this when I wrote it, but left it figuring it would skate by!

Peace

OK so the point I see in the first post is to appreciate/make use of/live each moment, because each second is infinitely important. It is a good point, and I agree.

I don't like the 'seemingly unlimited potential' idea, though, because I think even though we can always improve and learn, one of the key parts of living is accepting and dealing with our limitations. It's always important to not self-impose limitations too, of course, but we can't do everything we want and we gotta live with that fact.

(sorry if im so rational )

You have free will.
Rocks, trees, lakes, clouds, and asteroids do not.

I'd say relative to those other random pieces of star dust laying around you do indeed have unlimited potential no?

The biggest obstacle in the average humans life is lack of belief in self.
Ever meet a really successful person (you define success) that didn't believe in themselves?

Me either.

...or at least the appearance of it

Nice, a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside of an enigma. I just love cosmic fortune cookies! I totally get where you are coming from, joedirt. I think? And I've worn the same pair of spiritual/philosophical shoes before and they seem fit just fine. And so, allow me to run towards a direct and transcendental answer. Your characteristically clear and brief threads, some of my favorites, often draw my 2,000,000 cents worth (to sometimes an embarrassingly voluminous degree). My bad... or good, you be the judge. Pardon the book n' novel, in advance. If you've a fear of lengthy, overly-detailed extrapolations, Run for the hills!

"Tis a looooooong wind blowing comsic dust."



A question or perhaps an affirmation of sorts? Either way, I like the direction this causes one to either sincerely ponder about the possibility, or blindly proclaim said affirmation as absolute fact. Are we a flock of oxymora in perpetual motion or what? How is it that a limited human organism might be so curious and/or bold as to consider that while knowledge and understanding are seemingly infinite in scope, and arguably, our cognition has obvious contained parameters in it's definitive perception... that we might be ourselves, limitless in potential? Doesn't our individuality constrain our grasp of perceptual potentiality? Or is our very singularity, as a vortex of awareness, the key which can unlock any door? Followed by an unending series of doorways into other realms/levels/planes.

"To be unlimited potential or not to be unlimited potential, that is the question."

(I tease because I love.)

But yeah, now you've really got me percolating. I think each of us has to answer this first question for ourselves. What do you see? Or rather, who sees through your eyes? Who bares witness to your perception? You know, who is the inner pilot, commanding the quantification of all of your sensory input and mental deductions? Is there an awareness looking out from deep within each of us, gazing at this universe through our finite consciousness? I digress? Usually (I resemble that remark).

Perhaps I should say, how can you know if what you see is all that there is to see? I have been frustratingly, trying to reach further than what I myself, am able to receive from my senses and mind. I want to go beyond my own limits as an intellect, mortal body and human persona. I want the nectar of Immortality to flow through my veins like quicksilver. Ambitious, inspired or batshit crazy? I wont really know until I arrive into the next paradigm.

Admittedly, this in no way makes it any more real than the myriad ideas and theories expounded upon by billions of peoples, lo these many thousands of years of collective consciousness. Ergo, reality is essentially what you think it to be (whether you are right, wrong or totally insane).



We may in fact be able to access (perceptually), far more than the established minds in our social collective's rational statistics allow us proclaim, as wholly conceptual organisms. I feel it matter little what we set as limits or boundaries to the parameters of our human consciousness, for most of us live in a dream world. I know that I sure do!!!

But what I must emphatically raise notice to, is that with clear intent and unwavering faith, we can move proverbial mountains. I speculate that there is something special in our encoding, which allows us to believe that we are more than just cosmic dust and a complex series of unfolding circumstances. It's my heartfelt conviction that we are Divine Light, passing through this material universe as freely as wind passes through the rustling leaves of a willow tree. Impressions drift into nothingness... only dreams, echoes and reflections. Washed into an eternal current, we arrive anew.

"When push comes to shove"... we are left ot see our own reflections in the format of our own thoughts. We are more than just the culmination of our sensory impressions and circumstances. We are the Omniverse searching for itself. Yet, part of us remains unborn and so, we are likewise undying. IMO, only the subjective dream falls away into the abyss. The Sacred aspect of a person, the seat of the soul, never actually commits to the solidity/reality of the whole dang material illusion anyway, so that's about the size of it.



From my windowsill, endlessness is spot on about one significant point, we cannot feasibly hold the whole of the universe in a teacup (AKA, within the human skull). We have limits to what we perceive as individual ego-selves and likewise, there are relative limits to our ability to know every little detail, every minute aspect of EVERYTHING that exists within the multiverse, let alone those mysteries which lay beyond the boundaries of any subjective, isolated point of awareness in this eternal expanse of energy. How could any individual hold all of the data available of all existential paradigms, in all places and throughout all levels of time and it's twin shadow, timelessness?

That being said, we are hardwired to aspire for unbridled potentiality. We desire to SHIFT into expanded states of mind, whereby we glimpse heretofore untapped potentiality lookin' us straight in the eyes! Mind is the bridge which allows our intention to take that leap of faith into the unknown (or even that which is unknowable).



From the mortal ego's sequential viewpoint, time is the most important thing to possess. For if one believes that self is the same as the sand in an hourglass... when it gone, we are screwed (if we are simply our material body, thoughts, memories, desires and fears). Then what could ever be more important than one's fleeting span of limited time? The more the merrier, I'd say!

But who am I? Is time all that defines my consciousness? If time stopped, would I too cease to exist? Can self exist without the apparent dichotomy of a cerebral, stardust monkey looking into a mirror and trying to find itself in the point-blank reflection gazing back at it? Must the witness to one's own perceptual field be defined by the dynamics of the progression of the past-present-future phenomena, itslef in ceaseless flux?

I have come to believe that sequential procession of self does not exist outside of the temporal time-space-continuum. IMO, what is most significant in the value of human awareness is it's, for lack of better words, the magikal bliss of suspended time perception. No mind. When we successfully stop the conditioned flow of our accumulated thought processes, just long enough to SEE something new and spontaneous, we step into an whole new universe, we see a whole new horizon line blooming before our morphing cognition.



Err... who me? I've honestly had a serious problem "getting it", since I was a wee, wee lad. I do, however, get double doses of awkward pauses and sublime refrains. But seriously, I honor your Zen koan and appreciate the measure it causes me to question the very fabric of my conceptual tapestry. Am I/me/mine self-reflections just this particular pattern, woven into this specific time-frame? Is there not something wholly eternal and enigmatic about my own tiny existence? Or is this too vain and overtly demanding?



Life and death are two sides of the same ole proverbial coin. One a beginning, another an ending. Still, yes, I chose to live. Leave death for another dreamscape! In the meantime, only the present moment is of any viable significance, within our sequential existence. NOW is all that exists. Really, this is it. In this momentary fulcrum of conscious-awareness, we are indeed FREE to manifest our own reality. Free to dream, free to awaken, free to create new vistas and new moments. Free to conceive of Hells nearly unimaginable but in nightmares and blind hysteria. Or sadly, free to hurt or deride another sentient being.

Freedom has it's weighty burden and it's innate redemption is hope and it's twin sister, faith. Yin and Yang dancing in the same circle of unity. Shakti and Shiva entwined as one, in effulgent, ecstatic embrace.

And the earth turns in rhythmic circles of Sacred Geometry, a vortex of Omniversal law. Itself, both a song celestial and ecstatic dance of truly cosmic proportions. Unlimited potentiality abounds all about us, so yeah, we've got the juice and the chance to awaken in this very lifetime.

AUM MANI PADME HUM

Dividing by zero gives you an undefined function.

Remember that you ARE.
Think about the vastness of the Universe and how it probabilistically is teeming with life.Think about all the forces in action in this thing we live in.Stars Dying, stars being born.
Everything continuously moving and changing.
You only have to think about our planet, our past, our future.

If all these don't make you think,you might have a problem.
The time we have in this place is limited, having the gift to be a part of this huge machine.

When you think how unique you are it's mind blowing.
How would you like to spend this short time....

All good responses everyone.

For sure there were two subtle meanings in my mind when I wrote this.

1) The materialist interpretation.

The moving mountains comment by RS really shines light on this. Men, people like us, have literally invented machines that can move mountains. We have literally sent people to the moon to walk around. We build machines that drop a mile into the ocean. We build re breathing apparatus' that allow us to scuba dive for hours at a time. We do what only a few hundred years ago seemed impossible. What unlocked potential will shine for from humanity in say 500 or 1000 years from now? What about 50,000 years from now? Maybe we all die off, but I have suspicions that isn't the course for humanity at this point. I think we rise to the challenge and leave this planet for the stars...well our offspring will... I guess i feel my job in this endevour is to try and do what I can to make sure the planet has the resources for future generations to pull this off!

Will we all become billionairs? Probably not. But that isn't really what I'm talking about.

2) The second meaning is more spiritual and personal. In this sense I believe that yes we can experience it all in a flash of sorts...at least that is what it feels like to me on the rare occasions I can pull of a mystical experience.

From this POV we are all just walking around like unlit candles. All it takes is for a divine spark to hit the wick just right and our illuminating potential is released. In this sense one could realize that their time was limited and the sooner they got on with the task of self realization the better of they would be.


For sure I know where endlessness was coming from as well. I agree with him, but the point of this post was indeed to challenge people to see how much potential they have. Whether you believe your potential is unlimited is largely irrelevant. All of us would likely agree that we are living under our potential...at least I do. If this post challenges anyone to even have a thought of rising above their current situation then it was a success.

Oh almost forget: Protopax why do you assume that rocks, trees and other assorted star dust have zero potential? They are all energy just like you and me. We can convert that energy and use it in many ways. But you are certainly correct dividing by zero is an undefined number. But since everything has some potential there is no zero to divide by. Ah metaphysical math.

All good vibes!

I don't.

I was talking about free will since that's what you were talking about in the post that I quoted...

So you are saying that you don't have unlimited potential relative to those things?

We're talking about free will, not potential.

Ok let's try this again...just for the fun of it!




Two way's to argue against this.

1) Using division like you did. As the potential of the rock approaches zero your potential approaches infinity. Sure on a calculator its undefined, but in calculas it's infinity.

2) Who said anything about dividing?

Why not look at the difference?

If I have +10 potential and the rock has zero potential then I have a +10 potential differential relative to the rock.


Pretty much any way you shake this tree your potential is relatively unlimited when compared to the other star dust laying scattered about. It's OK, go ahead and feel good about it!

I never said anything about potential...