Seeking....the route

Arun - Unhappiness is a byproduct of the desire to be happy.
Me - Happiness is not a continuum. Just moments. Desire can't be for momentary states. There must be another ingredient that influences the byproduct. Creating a faux state of mind?
In my experience, it is ones degrees of freedom that hold the key to at least the absence of unhappiness. The freedom to do what one does or doesn't. Responsibility for and to oneself.
Arun - I think I don't know of the freedom that you are talking about. So be it!
Me - The freedom to create and sustain the conditions necessary for introverted seeking, which is the desire.
Arun - Seeking WHAT?
Me - Your SELF
Arun - Do you have to be introverted to find your SELF? Is it your individual SELF or part of the universal consciousness?
Me - Introversion is the only route to subsume the individual as a part of SELF and the possible realisation that IT is part of the universal consciousness? It takes a desire for freedom to make that acceptance and further degrees of freedom to stay on that to inwardly realise that desire.
The awareness that the Truth is out there, begins in here.

Desire - a felt need

Me - Desire - a felt need. Fulfillment contingent upon ever changing circumstances that constantly impel one to become, as dictated by situational needs - the circle of misery.
To BE....:-)
Arun - The only desire/felt need in my life is to have a good drink after work and a good sleep!
Me - The only felt need in your life appears to be to have a good drink after work and a good sleep! The only desire being that, that happens on your terms....Full circle bro.

You once told me:
there isn't any answer,
there ain't gonna be an answer,
there never has been an answer.
That's the answer!
Its great intellectual mooring for all the questioning.

Caring....Its just this

Caring is spontaneously doing all those things that you feel can help to alter favorably the situation of someone who triggers such desire.
No whys.....Its just this!

Desire... Belief.....Faith.....connections??

Arun - Desireless, you are enlightened. With desire. you go on moving in a circle of misery.
Me - Desireless is when one has no felt needs. Without felt need there is no basis for belief. Without belief, there is no faith. Without faith, nothing really matters......One view of enlightenment!!
With desires, you go on moving in a circle of misery when, there is no constancy in desires. As desire moves, attainment too keeps shifting out of reach....How much is enough!
Arun - Belief and faith have no interdependence. The former is imposed upon you by virtue of your family, religion etc. Faith develops by virtue of realising the genuineness of the subject. One is passive, the other is active. Belief is in a system, while you can have faith in an individual. Both of them have no dependence on felt needs, that's my view.
Me - Subscribing to a belief system is a matter of choice. The decision variable is a felt need. Can there be any other basis for choice. That choice to believe or not becomes the basis for instilling faith in you.
Theism makes you believe in God. Atheism makes you believe in oneself and agnostics just don't believe in believing!
Felt need > Belief > Faith?

Me - When one is the judge, jury and executioner on one's own problems, one either ends up dead or, keeps commuting the sentence to the same life. And the circle of misery never ends!!

Sharing

Raman - Sharing problems and asking for help doesn't mean that we are weak or incompetent....It actually indicates an advanced level of Trust...
Me - When one is the judge, jury and executioner on one's own problems. One either ends up dead or, keeps commuting the sentence to the same life.
Sharing means you present your case to a new judge who is objective and can give one fresh insights on how to execute life.
By sharing, One accepts that judging oneself has its weaknesses and limitations. And that's a strength.

Digest this!

Arun - "We live in an unexplained world....
Where Poor People walk miles and Miles to Earn Food.
AND
Rich People walk Miles and Miles to Digest Food..!
Me -Whats unexplained actually is the differential needs, abilities and provision of sustenance, given that its been explained that most alimentary canals are the same!

Belief.....and the purpose of Life?

Me - Am I wrong when I say that the purpose of life has been codified variously as different belief systems millenia ago. And we just try to understand and interpret this as we deem relevant or, as faith. And yet, despite all this time, knowledge and exploration, there is still no unanimity about the genesis of life, whose purpose we seek?.....Strange?
Scientific inquiry has given us evolution, the most recent addition which I think also questions most established belief systems. Bringing matter over mind in this realm!!
Arun - No belief system can tell you the purpose of life. They can only instill faith in you, and, one has to have faith either in God or Oneself.
Theism makes you believe in God. Atheism makes you believe in oneself and agnostics just don't believe in believing!

Im here

Conscious thought as attention to a wish, creates the presence of what you want. Here I am in your mind. Acknowledge me and I have form. In whateva shape and situation you wish to place me/us.
Is the real world only what you see and feel? Isn't that just a reflection of what your mind is perceiving sensorily. Do you sense me only if you touch me! The mind has more sense my luv.

Expression

Raman - "Crying Alone" is really better than laughing with the people who pretend to "Like U".
"Life is to express yourself not to impress others."
Me - Life, as we have been brought up to know, has conditioned us to understand our worth through the impressions and assessment others make of us. Conformance is the norm. When you start to express independently, you develop the capacity and strength to communicate without regard for approval. Without need for companionship. An understanding that, we alone are Life.

Life

Me - "The unexamined life is not worth living." - Socrates.
3 millenia on, one gets a sense that its the examined life that's not worth living!
Arun - Because this precious gift of life has been given to us, we have the choice of either blithely accepting the bounty and living from day to day, or asking questions about its meaning.
Where there is rationality, there is purpose. Where there is purpose, there is hope.
Me -And the basis of hope is oft faith without questions. And rationality questions faith in the hope that its all for a purpose. And a purpose demands meaning, not mere faith!!
Arun -

What can be..

Opportunities are situations for betterment of oneself. If the standards one measures that by are the perceived norms in the environment, both opportunity and outcome take on a material hue.
What is....is basically the result of one's world view. What one chooses to be is the ever present opportunity. What one seeks...is a basis for that choice.....Inside or outside oneself

Is fear the key...

Raman - Happiness keeps you sweet.
Trials keep you strong.
Sorrow keeps you human.
Failure keeps you humble.
Success keeps you glowing.
But only Faith keeps you going...
Me - When you don't know where you're going, you just face up to all that comes your way. All that happens does, inspite of you, not because you are there. Any response is soon a memory, that rarely ever stays.
And you come to understand that Nothing really matters, as an article of Faith.
Raman - Freedom is; freedom from fear. Fear of the unknown is a blessing coz only out of investigating this fear, can one evolve one's understanding....so fear can be a friend rather than an enemy....face fear with faith....faith, that it has come to awaken you to make your understanding more profound and then thank fear, if it evolves your understanding rather than hiding yourself in a cocoon which will ultimately increase it many folds and will deprive you of your freedom from it.
Me - Fear is a gross sense, a primary instinct for survival. It is a by-product of knowledge. The unknown only surfaces fear when one's environment seems to threaten survival. Exploring fear only gives an understanding of what can keep you comfortable in one's environment. Cocoons do the same.
Freedom is knowing that fear is only a life support tool.
Raman - You are mixing instinctive fear which is present in all life forms with conceptual fear which is present in all humans and, fear of the unknown which comes in seekers.
Me - I believe that perception evolves as instinctive response. Without perception one cannot understand the fallacy of perception. Instinctive fear to protect life is not very different from the fear of letting go of the perceived life as we know it. Fear is the basis of preserving life as we choose to know it in both cases. You can't seek if you fear.

Words!!

One is oft bogged down by semantics in trying to understand philosophy. Earlier, words arose in thought to convey understanding. Now words tend to seed thought that confounds it!!!

That was IT

Raman - is this it?
It is This
This It is!
It Is This.
Is This It....
When you deeply get rooted in "This Is It", you thoroughly enjoy responding to "IT" and after the response, you can relax and enjoy the response as "That Was IT"....LoLzzzzzz

Is This It.....

Me - When there are no thoughts, there are no feelings. In their absence, what is present is only what is manifested and seem. What is seen is perceived by the mind as is. The absence of thought and feelings lead it to accept without evaluation. The mind just mirrors the objects seen in space-time, as What is, unblemished by the duality of emotion. The minds reflection of reality as seen, seeds no thought or desire to alter the imagery. Reflecting peace in the mind. What is, here and now, is seen as just this.In both this and the extended continuum of space-time, this seen reality keeps the mind in peace.
Given the limits to what can actually be seen, what and how I see as "me" is the key to the reflections by the mind of what is, as is. So what I see as "me" can keep the mind at rest. As long as I'm detached and do not blemish the mirror that is the mind, by experiencing emotion!

is this it?
It is This.
This It is!
It Is This.
Is This It....

Circling in understanding. Symbolising that It is Nothing. Does one keep circling to see if It is No Thing?

Raman - is this it?
It is This.
This It is!
It Is This.
Is This It....
Until there is no doubt don't believe this.....Doubt the doubter and stay with this question...

i-am-ness

Raman - Its the play of the consciousness, by the consciousness, within the consciousness...felt, enjoyed and watched by the consciousness itself as i-am-ness.... I am the knower and watcher of this consciousness as it arises and subsides continuously within me as waves !!
Me - Wow....the joy of Being. Just continue to BE.

Trust

Raman - If you trust someone, trust till the end, whatever the result may be. In the end, either you will have a very good person or a very good lesson...
Me - What is trust? A belief that how it was, so it always will be, come what may. An expectation that actions will always adhere to the basis on which belief was built. Is that trustworthy?
For me, all people are good till they prove they are otherwise. By deed not belief. Trust, like other expectations, only sets one up to learn lessons that are avoidable.
Raman - What is misunderstanding? It is missing to understand. Once understanding happens, then there is nothing left but laughter...laughing at missing to understand what is, was all the time so very obvious....

"Let Go"

Raman - What do you understand by "Let Go".
Me - Detachment. Shedding....Wat you hold on to and what others hold of you.
Raman - Very true...the desires that keep arising in mind...to let go of them....understanding that all desires are bondage and letting go of them, you remain free.
Me - It's attachment that creates desires and, memories are a primary source of creating it. It's the residual of experiences good, bad or ugly that haunt you to recreate or exorcise what was as, what should be. Based on the feeling lingering in memory, felt as a wish or desire. Thus the relevance of living in he here and now. Let go of "memory" to feel free.