_OneSoul_

Definitely true, you're right. But I've not heard of one that specifically aims to completely stop thoughts. And as I said, it's a common and unfortunate misconception that that's the most general goal of it.

I banned this user as I have little reason to think he'll participate in the community with any degree of decency. As already evident. Also see their modlogs.

The question in particular is fine though.

General conduct. You made it clear you're not interested in meditation as a spiritual practice and then use unnecessarily crass language. If you are unable to participate in a good faith, rational discussion, this space is not for you.

Don't try me.

Edit: They tried me.

Please keep civil. Note that this is a spirituality community. If you wish to discuss meditation as a self-improvement practice, you might try !mentalhealth@lemmy.world instead.

Just gave my view on the matter with precise language.

I made a distinction between a description of a subjective experience, and a claim about consensus reality.

People experience something and then use the best language available to talk about it. These experiences are viscerally real to the experiencer.

Vast majority of people will reasonably make a claim about consensus reality if they experience something that feels very real. Because vast majority of people don't know or understand that you CAN have a very visceral subjective experience that only happens in the brain. Or to put it another way: the brain behaves in a way that gives one every reason to think the experience happened in consensus reality.

It doesn't make them "crazy" or "stupid". But again, because most people don't understand the distinction between a subjective experience and consensus reality, it's easy to be dismissive of people who talk about outlandish experiences.

It would be more rational and kind to meet in the middle: "I believe you had an experience, but I don't believe it means Aliens exist in consensus reality."

I meant that to have the subjective experience of aliens to be considered to have the same level of reality as emotions, 99% of people would have to experience it.

I know I already experience things that vast majority of people don't. It doesn't bother me because there are people who experience things I don't. Consensus reality is fine for general use but the range of human experience is incredibly diverse.

The goal of meditation isn't an empty mind though. It's a common misconception. Not sure if this is your case of course.

Flow state is considered spiritual though, yes. But it's not necessarily the state all meditations seek.

Flow state is a hyper focused meditative state. It's also possible to have a hyper open meditative state, such as noticing thoughts and everything else that arises.

People interested in spirituality usually practice both 🙂

99% or so. Leaving just a tiny bit of room for outliers which always seem to exist.

Yes, though honestly been a bit sloppy about it lately. But I stay in meditative awareness quite a lot without sitting formally at this point. And I "drop in" through the day.

I'd say we'd need to be able to consistently capture it in some way other than the human mind:

any type of a recording. From basic audio/photo/video to fancy science gadgets.

Else, it's just a blip in the brain. A very real blip for those who experience it but again, not consensus reality. Of course if there was some kind of an universalish experience of aliens comparable to an emotional state like love, then we'd probably have to revise.

So there are aliens, just maybe not in the direction that is popularly assumed

There are subjective experiences that people characterize as "aliens". And the more people talk about aliens, the more exposure there is to the idea of aliens, which leads to more people describing a certain kind of subjective experience as "aliens".

Subjective experience of something some people characterize as aliens is real (as in: people genuinely have an experience). Does not mean aliens exist in consensus reality.

I'm not setting myself up as a teacher, more like my guide is an info board outside the city.

And anonymous community shouldn't be one's primary spiritual community anyway. Place like this is fine for abstractly discussing teachings and finding resources but more personal discussion should happen with people you can be face to face with, at least sometimes.