Leo Gura

And then there's actually losing your mind. Which is not so great. Being different or weird is not the same thing as insanity. Actual insanity is terrifying.

Well, firstly, 20 mins is the bare minimum. It usually takes 20 mins just to calm the mind. So you could meditate longer. Secondly, part of meditation practice is training to quickly let things go. It's a skill. Thirdly, you could even practice a bit of meditation while around people. Mindfulness shouldn't end out the door of your house.

Sadhguru is basically talking about selective breeding and artifical selection, which is how we create different dog breeds and domesticated animals. But also, Samskaras are not just genetic. Family lineage has a huge cultural and memetic component. Things get passed down through culture, not just genes. If you have a giant family of goldsmiths, they will certain infect your mind with goldsmithing memes. Just like how a family history of sexual abuse is likely to pass on to the children. Not via genes but via parental abuse. To reduce Samskara to genetics is to misunderstand it. African Americans have a collective Samskara due to slavery, even though one's genes might not have slavery encoded into them.

What?? No! Just go out and be social and share yourself freely. Why are you constructing this pathetic gloomy narrative? Go have fun. Then come back home and meditate your ass off. You can do both. Don't make your socializing too serious. A Buddha should be able to go out to a bar and drink some beers with some strangers and talk shit. Then return to his Buddhahood. Remember, life is long and you got plenty of time to space stuff out. You don't have to do it all at once.

@Dumuzzi I don't see that at all. India is developing very rapidly. Its best days are ahead. https://www.voanews.com/south-central-asia/worlds-biggest-toilet-building-program-india-gets-mixed-results Just this year India almost landed a robot on the Moon! What more do you want? Progress is happening.

Nature plays a role, but you underestimate the extent to which we construct culture and "nature". You might as well be saying that nature made black people slaves, therefore no problem. Shut up and go back to work. And all that black people could do was demand to be freed. And here we are. And all that Gandhi did was demand that the British Empire give India its sovereignty and stop exploiting it. Nature is anything which occurs. So your point is moot. Feminism is as much "nature" as patriarchy is. So who's version of "nature" will prevail? That's what this whole debate is about. That's your opinion, and obviously many feminists disagree. Don't forget, both can be done at the same time. Asking women to "shut up and become more competent" before you give them respect is the very injustice and patriarchy which is in question. Why should women have to work extra hard to please you? Who are you to tell them what is right and what they must do in order to be treated as they feel is fair? Maybe when a person tells you that she is being treated unfairly you should take it seriously rather than telling her to work harder and be more competent? Just a crazy thought.

Sorta proves the point, don't it? Ever wonder why guys send her so many death threats? Maybe there's some collective shadow there? Some self-deception at work? Something overlooked? Almost sounds like some patriarchy might exist that doesn't take kindly to being questioned, hmmmmm....

This dream in which we're in has a very specific structure. It has specific physical laws, rules, things, matter, energy, people, etc. This structure is not random or accidental. It was designed by an infinite intelligence. Now I ask you, Why did infinite intelligence select this structure? Why weren't you born with a dick on your forehead? Ever wonder about that? In the end you'll discover the answer is: To maximize love. It cannot be explained to you any further because you'd need a massive awakening to understand it. And that's not ever going to happen from reading my words. You are in over your head. But how else could it be?

It's complicated. The restrictions are systemic, cultural, psychological, and sociological. Both men and women are involved without being conscious of it. It's a bit like racism or slavery. It's not the fault of any one person. It's a massive widespread systemic problem which everyone is in denial about. Go study some feminist works. They will gives you a million examples. Those videos are giving you examples but you don't want to take that POV seriously. You have no idea how sexist game developers would act towards her. No, it's not confined to that. It's cultural too. Things would be more fair for future generations of women. Society would become more representative and less oppressive. Sigh... you are hopeless, so end of conversation with you. Go contemplate. Or don't. I don't care.

@CreamCat You are still not getting it. This isn't about you. Your logic is like this: "What's so bad about rape? I would love it if some girl sat in my lap. So what's the big deal?" Stop looking at this from your POV.

Yes This case is one example of what is meant by patriarchy. As a basic example, many video games don't even allow the player to create a female character AT ALL! You are just forced to be male! And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Firstly, Green isn't seeking to replace one inequality with an opposite one. Green simply asks for equality. Secondly, in a patriarchy, the whole point is that women CANNOT do whatever they want about men because women have been denied positions of power. To make this example clear for you, women in Saudi Arabia cannot do whatever they want. Men actively prevent them. But you will say that America is not Saudi Arabia. True, it's more subtle in America, but it still exists. You just don't notice it because you're male and it doesn't even register on your radar because it is irrelevant to your ego's survival.

@Ibn Sina You are missing the point. The point is that society & culture is dominated by certain sets of values which please one group of people while marginalizing another, and so of course the marginalized group will seek to equalize this situation. The problem she has is that women in video games are not depicted as women would depict themselves, but as objects for gratification for men. Which she views as unfair. And the reason this happens is because the video game developers are mostly young, immature men, so they depict women to please their own fantasies, not as women would depict themselves. If there were more women working in video games, video games would have a more fair and accurate depiction of women. Anyhow, don't get lost in the details. This is a thread about Stage Green, not women or video games. The details are irrelevant. What's important is that you see the structural inequality that Green sees. You are blaming individuals while refusing to acknowledge the systemic and collective aspects of this issue. Yes, self-esteem has an individual aspect, but it also has a collective and cultural aspect. Stage Green is about seeing collective aspects, which does not deny the individual aspects. If you really care to understand this issue, read some books on feminism to understand why feminism is needed in some areas.

That's because you're looking at it from a Stage Orange, selfish perspective. As long as it makes your dick hard, you're good. But there are other concerns. For example, have you considered how such overly-sexualized depictions affect the self-esteem of young girls? What if you had a daughter and she grew up with self-esteem problems because her tits did not look like those of Tomb Raider? Then you, as the father, would have to deal with that. Sarkisian's point is not that all sexuality should be banned, but that things are overly-sexualized in ways which are designed to cater to men's desires, and that women are not fairly depicted as they really are, but as men want them to be for their sexual gratification. How would you feel if all video games were made to please the desires of butch lesbians? You wouldn't like it. How would you feel if all guys in video games were depicted with giant dicks, making your girlfriend ask you, "Why is your dick so small?" See, when the shoe is on the other foot, you start to cry and whine about how unfair things are. But when things are skewed in your favor, you think it's great and there is no problem. I'm not saying Sarkisian never goes too far. She's certainly stuck in unhealthy Green. But the problem is that you still don't understand her. Which is a problem not for her, but for you.

Not a fair point when you take into account scale. It's a totally different challenge to provide 1+ billion people with toilets. Everybody overlooks the problems that come with scale. How to organize 1 billion people is a problem of epic proportions requiring a God-like intellect to solve. Not to mention that technology has advanced far beyond toilets.

Not sure what your problem is here. What he said is fairly reasonable. You should distinguish between a thing being true vs how others might use it to justify whatever devilry they want. For example, it is a general truism that men are physically stronger than women. But some devil could use this to justify raping women. Just because he does that does not undermine the original truth. Truth is always used by devils for selfish purposes. Clearly Sadhguru is not doing that. He's not justifying anything, he's explaining the notion of Samskara, which is a very powerful notion that would be worth your time studying and understanding. Samskara is not just genetics, it's broader and more profound than that. Hehe... yeah. That's exactly what high-consciousness teachings sound like. Because you are judging them from a low level of consciousness, lacking Sadhguru's decades of deep mystical experience. To understand a sage you must access the states of consciousness he has accessed.

@jd1279 None of what you said contradicts what I said. All of that is dependent on different starting conditions. What the conditions and who is advantaged or disadvantaged is irrelevant, since reality unfolds in chaotic and backward ways, with one part sloping up, another sloping down, and then many oscillations and reversals. The development of nations is not linear, it is chaotic. Europe had a tremendous amount of competition which lead to lots of development. The actual details of the history are not important. What's important is the general principle that in a chaotic system small differences in starting conditions lead to very different evolutionary paths. And the ultimate point is that it is foolish to blame anyone for these developmental paths. The paths are precisely whatever they are and no one is to blame (as Sam Harris likes to do). It is like blaming a 3rd grader for not yet being a 5th grader. Well, some people take longer to reach 5th grade. Rather than blaming them, help them along.

@Principium Nexus If you like that, you'll love some of the books about infinity in my book list.

Anita Sarkisian is a great example of Stage Green SJW-type: And the whole GamerGate reaction against her is mostly grounded in stage Blue/Orange. GamerGate is a great example of how Tier 1 fights with itself, not able to understand each other. Each side feels self-righteous and therefore unable to learn from the other side.

You'd have to study a lot of history and culture of the Middle East. The classic book: Gun, Germs, and Steel makes some interesting points about how geographical conditions shape development of nations and cultures. It's not exactly rocket science to suggest that geography plays an important role in how nations develop and survive. Arabian culture was highly tribal because survival in harsh desert climates is no easy business. That strong tribalism is evident even today. You can think of nations almost like species. Different bird species develop and survive in different ways depending on the geography they must survive in -- as Darwin discovered and catalogued. Well, same thing with nations. Some nations develop quickly because their environment demands it. Other nations develop slowly because their environment allows for it. Some species like crocodiles have not changed much in the last 50 million years while others like birds and primates had to evolve rapidly to adapt to new emerging environments. To reduce all this complexity to problematic passages within the Quran is rather silly. The Quran itself is a byproduct of this evolutionary process of survival. Islam is a religion uniquely suited to survival within the conditions where it arose. Unfortunately as the world becomes more globalized Islam has difficulty adapting to more modern times. But this problem is not unique to Islam. All religions face this problem to some extent. Fundamentalism is a reactionary movement against modernization and secularism. Fundamentalist movements exist within Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, etc. Fundamentalism is an ego backlash against modernity and post-modernity.

Even so, he exaggerates his results. But of course his underlying material is solid.

I want your help. As I do research for my book, I want to gather a potent collection of objections to spirituality, nonduality, enlightenment, mysticism, the paranormal, etc. I want legit objections that newbies and skeptics commonly have in this work. Here are some examples to get you thinking along the right lines: How can you trust that a subjective experience reveals Absolute Truth? Isn't awakening just a subjective brain phenomenon? Could awakening be a self-deception? Is it possible that there's something beyond Absolute Truth which you could be missing? How is awakening different from solipsism? How is awakening different from nihilism? How is awakening different from pantheism? Why do awakened people still commit evil acts like sexually abusing their students? If God is real, why would God hide himself from people? Why isn't God evident to all people in the same way that the sun is? If awakening is true, why do all the religions disagree so much? You say reality is infinite, but doesn't quantum mechanics say there is a fundamental lower limit to space known as the Planck Length? Why is love, beauty, goodness, and intelligence a fundamental property of the universe but hate, ugliness, evil, and stupidity are not? If God is so loving why would he allow so much evil in the world like rape, torture, genocide, war, etc? How can you trust psychedelics reveal valid truths and aren't just subjective hallucinations? If science is as wrong about the fundamental metaphysics of reality as you say, how come it's so successful at manipulating reality? Why couldn't there be more than one God? If physical reality is imaginary, why can't I imagine a million dollars into my bank account or imagine away a physical illness? If what you say is true, how come serious scientists aren't talking about it? Where is your Nobel prize? I want stuff like that in this thread. Note: I won't necessarily resolve your objections in this thread. I'm simply trying to gather a solid list of them. Please formulate your question/objection clearly and concisely.

That's right. Because we have a hierarchy here. Welcome to society. No one here is forcing you to trust us. You decide who you trust.

In practice maintaining a harem requires a lot of lying and manipulating. The girls are never satisfied being in the harem long-term. Girls inevitably drop out and must be replaced with new ones. But it's easy for the guy to justify it to himself because he's getting laid so much.

The average person has zero chance of awakening up. So it's a moot point. When you try to make awakening mainstream, it turns into crap like Catholicism or Mormonism.

Yes, the normal thing is to form unhealthy attachments to those who you idolize. Which is why you must be extra mindful not to form such attachments. Work extra hard not to get attached to me. Maybe it will help if you imagine me boiling a basket of kittens in hot oil