The VIRUS of the MIND

[Saywhatnow]

A book I read many years ago inspired me to write this thread and help all INTPs lost in their thoughts be able to find a path to enlightenment so that your mind no longer controls you with thoughts, but rather you control your mind, where as Yogis and Spiritual Teachers, teach to let the thought come and go by being (Present) and Religious Teachers teach only their own scriptures and repeat the same information like a grammaphone never questioning the scriptures writen by people in the (Past) and psychics only wish to predict the (Future).

The Book is called "Virus of the Mind" and I stumbled upon it while looking for a solution to problems that led to Panic Attacks and Depression in my younger years where the doctor assisted medications and counseling were of no help and I being an INTP found it difficult to speak to others that I did not know, about the problems. I even believed in God and paryed days and nights to get God's help to healing to no avail. I was in a difficult situation and trauma was a daily feeling I was going through. I went from an "A" student to a "D" student because of the problems and I felt helpless and a feeling that my world had crashed, suffocating, and destroyed.

My only solution was to seek knowledge and learn how to fix myself and relieve the pain I was suffering from. I was my own saviour. I started with learning about how the mind works and I was able to fix and relieve the pain on my own in addition to finding freedom from some of the most controversial topics related to Society, Religion, Humanity, The School system, Politics, Television, News, and Pretty much about many topics that raise the question mark in our heads that make them almost impossible to solve.

I tell you, nothing is impossible because the word "Impossible" says "Im" + "Possible". No one will save you. Only you can save yourself. If you don't put a foot forward nothing will change and sitting there doing nothing about it while holding out your hand will not get you anywhere. But I hope to be able to help others like myself whom are or have been through similar situations where they were stuck. I took a step forward to seek knowledge and understanding and hope to inspire others to do so as well.

Before you read any further, I caution you that only those that seek the unknown must read further and those that wish to remain in their smothered comfort zone to stop right here.

Let us analyze what a Virus is. A Virus is something that spreads from one being or thing to another replicating itself. We have these viruses in the health field like a flu it infects one person to another and in the technology world, a virus affects one computer to another changing the behaviours whether physical or virtual qualities of those affected such as Zika Virus Epidemic that recently affected millions around the world. Some diseases do not have any cures yet and it will take research and studies to find a cure; thanks to the INTP problem solvers out there. The pattern seen in a virus is "repetition". It repeats itself until it has taken over, unless the affected person, being or thing is immune then it cannot spread there. Some viruses spread through the blood, some through the air, water or the food we eat and the Virus I want to speak about today is the One that spreads through what we see, hear, read and write. Through repetition, these viruses infect our minds taking control from us and to themselves, we then become programmed and become the carrier of these viruses without knowing that we have been infected. Once infected, we spread it to others through talking, writing and speaking and repeating it.

What is programming? Information repeated to us, by others or ourselves become our programming.

Any act that is repeated over and over becomes our habbits and our habbits become our programming and become part of our behaviours but to break some of those habbits will take a lot of effort and possibly months or years. They say "Do something for 21 days and it will become a habbit and part of your programming even breaking a habbit will take 21 days", for me it depends on the habbit.

In school, in every grade, we are thought many different subjects starting with lower difficulty to higher difficulty as the grades progress higher. We learn and apply the teachings in our lives wherever applicable or possibly in the future and some never apply. Religion was also part of the education system through repetition in every grade we heard the same stories over and over until those beliefs became part of our programming about God, Prophets, The Good and the Bad and a whole lot of things to distinguish bad from horrible. With that in mind, the school system used religion as part of their discipline and punishment while at the same time making everyone conform to rules and regulations they had set as well. But because it was also a private school they had to be a bit liberal. The school system uses repetition techniques to program us.

Where else is repetition used to program a person?

We have Marketing using Advertizing we see an Ad over and over on billboards, TV, hear it on radio, and see others whom have bought those products. Through repetition, marketing companies sell products and we buy these products because we became programmed to buy them regardless of whether they are bad for us or not. Coca Cola has had the most Marketing Success, many drink it without considering the side effects. Smoking has been advertized well in movies as well repeatedly showing the heros and he hot and cool people smoke cigarettes sitting in their mansion beside their high end cars and cool stuff and hot babes. Once a person smokes it will start spreading like a virus, unconciously making decisions.

News is another type of virus, you open so many news channels whom talk about an incident that happened and it spreads like a virus to many minds, now if that news is something you saw in a movie before the same feeling sensations will get triggered in your mind that came from the movies. The movies showed Muslims as terrorists and plane hijackings repeatedly years before the News agencies started to show muslims as terrorists.

The same goes for the 9/11 twin towers, many movies showed terrorists blowing up buildings and messages years before they happened such as Die Hard Movie and Fight Club and many movies showing muslims hijacking air planes. It didnt take long for people to believe, because they were programmed through repetition and the virus was planted in their mind.

These days even lies repeated to us many times become truth to those that are infected, the naive and those that believe the lies of religion about those that do bad must be punished. There are hundreds of sins written in scriptures alone and various methods of punishments from stoning to beheading to lashing to torture also in the bible not just the quran yet they claim an imaginary paradise after you die for those that do good and an imaginary hell for the bad ones. But since they made you believe their nonsense imaginary beliefs, they have created their own religious laws and additional man made laws to further add to the torture and their virus to infect your mind so they can control your mind and if they cant control your mind, they will find others to control to control your mind.

"I will present to you a product that you will need and cannot live without, then I will make you excited about it because some of the world's greatest people have used it, it is on TV, radio and everywhere and even God and Jesus would give it a 5 out of 5 and the best of the best use it and those that dont are either evil, stupid or considered the terrible ones. So what do you say? Buy my product and after you die, you are guaranteed to grow wings, and become loved by all in this life and the next and the one after that. I will guarantee you that this product will be so useful to you because I will give you a book that God has written that it is the book of God and must be true because God says that he wrote it afterall why would God lie if he is so great? Why wait, buy it today. Dont forget to refer all your friends to benefit from this products because you will gain extra points and go higher in the elevator of higher heavens than others. Dont you worry, God's wrath and anger will be upon those that do not buy the product. Repeat and read this paragraph over and over now until your mind becomes infected with the virus. Other people have done it. Why cant you? Are you one of the bad ones?"

All viruses come with their way of identification. Our mind constantly tries to identify, judge, label and categorize based on how we have been programmed.

Now try to deprogram yourself by not idetifying with anything you have been programmed to believe that you are... What remains is the real you. A being that is breathing, seeing, sensing, hearing, tasting free from the mind. When a thought comes to your mind, do not label it, categorize it, judge it or identify with it. Then you will realize that a higher intelligence exists that is you and yet greater than you. You will come to this realization when your mind no longer controls you nor can anyone's mind control you.

Once you reach this realization, you will also realize that we are all connected and will be able to use our mind as the tool and no longer the tool controlling us. Those that master their mind, master the world.

 

[Brontosaurie]

I'd like to add that a virus is, specifically, a reproductive parasite - a kind of being that can only perpetuate its existence by high-jacking the genetic infrastructure of a host organism.

That's what's so nifty about the virus metaphor in describing how the ideas we create take on a life of their own, indifferently exploiting our minds for reproduction although they technically aren't alive themselves, sometimes with deleterious effects on the host. Ideas survive because they can, just like lifeforms - and just like lifeforms they act opportunistically without regard for others, unless some specific symbiotic interplay has emerged. There is often a dangerous illusion of control with respect to the sphere of ideas.

BTW psychedelic drugs act like a cheat code for breaking mental patterns.

Nice topic although i find it difficult to discuss meaningfully.

 

[nanook]

interesting read.

i happen to be suffering from a viral outbreak right now. it's a life long sleeper in my body, but whenever it breaks out it contributes to dementia and is also fairly unpleasant.

you speak of repetition so i'm thinking: where is some repetition going on - and i think it's in the cyclic pattern of my recent addiction to caffeine or cocoa, stimulation and enervement, that certainly doesn't help to stabilize the immune system. there is also repetition in some social behavior that causes me to feel frustration and anger, which weakens the immune system. i've overcome a million of other particular food addictions (i mean common habits, random taste preferences). but am still addicted to managing food in rather regular manner, shopping at the same stores, etc, so whatever bad thing i eat (perhaps a particular pesticide used by a particular producer), i'm going to eat it frequently. similarly i look for worthwhile social exchange at the same ol' places (what am i doing posting at intpforum again). i can see how a perfectly irregular behavior would at once expose me to more risks but protect me from particular repetitive damages. repetitive damage can wear out my immune system. a virus needs only one shot, but one shot at a time-window of vulnerability. in a time of strength, one shot can lead to immunity, or so they say, har, har, har.

what i have found about changing habits:

- always replace a habit with a new better one. otherwise there will be some sort of hole that makes you relapse to the old habit. you must understand those holes. always analyze all the circumstances, because as dr gabor mate explains, even physical addictions are largely only affecting a person who has vulnerable neurology which is created through their overall physical circumstances or actions - you do unhappy things, your brain becomes unhappy, you need happy drugs.

- become less habit addicted in total by realizing how letting go of stuff is a good central theme for development. for me that has involved experiments with drugs and exposing myself to spiritual viruses of the advaita type - adyashanti actually calls it the "spiritual bug" - in spirituality and nutrition i have found that one bug or virus (paradigm) can cancel out the other('s harm), so don't just subscribe to one teacher or nutritional paradigm, explore all of them and in time they will cancel each other out like highlanders, but usually none of them have the whole truth, so you will probably end up resonating with a small hand full of them from a certain distance. your intelligence becomes immune to partial bugs by ingesting more and more of them.

don't try to achieve both goals at once (getting rid of a particular habit and becoming less habit driven in total):

intending to let go of a very particular habit without replacing it causes suppression, dissociation, projection, inner conflict and even more conflict with others, who have this habit, than is unavoidable anyway.

unless the ability to let go is already very powerful in you, i guess. but this is different from intention. you still would not intend to let go of a particular thing. it would just slip away. like a child forgets about something and turns to something more exciting but new.

i am still a bloody beginner at unschooling myself and probably much more so at programming myself in useful ways. but i notice how few people can do this or even try. amongst those i interact with.

i often wonder how many people work on it, in total and how conscious their efforts are.

reasonable and creative change are the core values of rationality (science, achievement) and pluralism (developing community relationships, cultural creativity), which have been the leading paradigms since the age of enlightement.

and while almost everyone pays lip service to these values, people aren't even willing to give up the food that tortures and kills them. and yet it seems there are many professions, that can not be accomplished without some genuine freedom.

it seems easy to find a part in you, that has not been enslaved by a particular common paradigm and to say: look, i am so free. but it's so much harder to ever notice a paradigm that has been driving you, that you have never consciously examined and chosen. it's those meta-paradigms, that are sneaky. psychological attitudes. people have so many conditions on how they want change or learning to happen. or else they reject the possibility. they don't surrender to truth or reality, no matter what. the don't want to disappear inside of it. they want it handed to them on a neat plate with their name on it and best wishes from mom. they want absolute control. they don't want change to affect the unconscious core of their identity. "show me some evidence, mom! i eat only evidence from my favorite brand!"

there are various unconscious emotional issues operating at the core.
they must be seen through as being all subjective.

the concept of guilt for example.

if you think you are responsible for anything, then you can not admit to having made a mistake before. you can't handle the experience of discovery of truth, if it feels like an accusation of having committed fraud to you. but you have actually been acting like a fraud al along, as you have fraudulently pretended to be absolutely sure of your previous conviction, which you had to do, in order to deflect the potential hunch that you were doing things without knowing for sure if they are really all right, which you would think of as irresponsible and feel guilty about, which really matters, if you believe in condemning or even punishing those who are guilty of such mistakes.

perhaps the enneagram can be helpful in discovering some emotional issues like that.

so i guess you have to be coming from self love, from self acceptance, in order to deprogram yourself. otherwise you remain a machine, dedicated to whatever old core virus was put into you once. and re-program yourself into being that, only in a more efficient manner.