LastThursday

I suspect this isn't new. It's just underdeveloped people behaving in underdeveloped ways. Men and women have extra-marital affairs for much the same reasons. It's hard for me to judge whether your issue is with people manipulating others, or that they're giving out false or bad information. Or is it that you think that wrongful "selling" by women is somehow demeaning or damaging to themselves or others? What do you think?

@traveler, @Keyhole I'd say you'd need a well developed level of awareness to separate the message from the messenger. If someone is not at that level yet, then being attracted by the messenger in some way to listen to the message ain't a bad thing. Also, if you're at that level then the message itself is probably not that advanced. However we all have to start somewhere. I think being confronted by Leo levels of awareness from the off, is probably too weird or just plain inaccessible to most. It's less to do with fetish and more to do with just plain old lack of awareness. I partially agree that Anna Brown is using a certain amount of "feminine" manipulation to give herself an air of mastery that she doesn't possess - i.e. she's getting away with it. But hey, don't we all do this to puff up our feathers from time to time?

There is no time. So everything must be happening now. Another way to see it, is to know that everything that can ever be experienced, will be experienced eventually. Consciousness is eternal. So how come you can't see through someone else's eyes? Because "someone else" and "eyes" are mental constructs. "You" are also a construct. Lastly, if it helps, "you" are like a radio tuned into an infinite field of consciousness. Your life is just one radio station amongst an infinite number all happening at the same time. The last one gives me hope, that I can "retune" myself and lead a better life. How do I do that? By dropping all my old mental constructs.

What a joy! Society programs us like automatons to constantly be doing, producing, striving, achieving, judging, consuming, comparing. When you feel lost or that things are pointless now, those are just withdrawal symptoms from the programming - the crutches have been removed and you feel off balance. But what about life purpose? What about it eh?

Consciousness is prior or meta to everything: time, space, matter, thought. The seed of consciousness is the ability to observe itself, and the flower of reality unfurls from it. Having thoughts is the same thing as dreaming is the same thing as reality is the same thing as consciousness. So a thought is really no different from the experience of the chair I'm sitting on - both are self-aware experiences. My chair is as solid as my thoughts. My chair is a thought story. It seems that thoughts must "come from" somewhere because we treat them like objects that ought to have a history. And that somehow some mechanistic process is happening underneath our conscious radar to produce them - but this isn't how reality presents itself. When you pay attention, reality is like a firework show. Things and appearances and stuff is constantly appearing and disappearing magically from and to nowhere and dazzling us. This is the real nature of consciousness, it is constantly creative and in motion. Thoughts are part of the show.

@Danioover9000 what you're really talking about is logic and language and not reality. It's similar to this statement: This statement is false. The above statement is really one about non-existence. Yet, clearly the statement exists. In other words, there is only existence, but non-existence "exists" within it (as a logic construct). If you're mathematically minded, existence is the Universal Set - it contains absolutely everything. You're worried about non-existence which should/would be everything outside the Universal Set. So existence contains everything - oh yeah, except, non-existence! So how to get around the contradiction? Either you change the definition of existence to include non-existence (eh?). Or people cheat the contradiction by equating the two (folks love that here). In other words the Universal Set has no boundary (a non-duality if you like) - there is no "outside" of existence. It's ok. Non-existence has already eaten you.

The destination will be what it is, when it is. What's wrong with a bit of reassuring drama along the way? Something to tell the grandchildren.

You have read the name of this forum right? If you walk into a farmers' market, expect to talk about sheep. Anyway, this thread is about synchronicity. I won't derail it any more. Carry on.

Maybe humans are the same as cats? But instead we just retrospectively make up a story for everything. Act first, think later. Is it really possible to connect thoughts with actions? It's completely feasible that our thoughts are not the cause of our actions. Maybe God is the cause of both our thoughts and actions, and we don't realise their common source and wrongly attribute thoughts as the cause of our actions? After all, how can you attribute those qualities to a cat - all your judgement is based on its actions only? Maybe the cat is contemplating itself through you, via the medium of consciousness/God?

@Meta-Man high five! That's two today. The question then arises can you have consciousness without duality (division, contraction, illusion, appearances)? My answer is: yes. The self referential nature of consciousness is indivisible, so it's non-dual. Because it's non-dual, it doesn't have a source. If it doesn't have a source then it can't be attributed to any particular thing or form. It can't be explained by brains or anything else. So. Is Consciousness = God? Or is God just another form within consciousness? Obviously, I haven't taken The Drug to find out for myself.

There is nothing contracted or filtered about consciousness - it continues to be self aware through thick and thin. The curse of human ignorance is still consciousness. The body is still consciousness. Consciousness always flows naturally.

@Etherial Cat high five!

Surely consciousness by definition is aware of itself? The problem arises when trying to define "it". Is that "it" allowed to be a flower or does it have to have "a brain"? The argument is definitely inside out. The "it" comes from consciousness not from the form consciousness takes. Consciousness first, everything else second.

Good and bad are only relative to your own survival. In those terms bad is something that diminishes your ability to survive. And, survival is just the avoidance of physical death. To understand the why you have to understand survival. Every single human being lives on a knife-edge in terms of survival. There are a zillion things that can cause your death and you are constantly trying to avoid those things. The potential for bad things to happen to you is very high. In fact it is a miracle that you are still alive. That miracle has come about from all the good things that have happened to you: having nurturing parents, having food regularly, bathing regularly, having common sense and so on. In a certain sense some people bring "bad" into their lives (and others' lives) precisely because they are not "good" at survival. But most of the bad stuff in our lives happens because the potential for it is very high.

1. Persistent long lasting depression and anxiety (thankfully subsided, but permanently changed my outlook). 2. Climbing out of the pit of my own mental programming (still scrabbling out of it). Letting things go and accepting. 3. Realising and loving the perfection and beauty in everything including myself - without trying to make it all perfect (still working on that). And sort of on the list, is becoming aware that a life without struggle is no life at all.

I think every friendship has different amounts of positivity and negativity. Friends will put up with the negativity because the positivity wins. But as soon as you start having doubts or the balance is wrong, the friendship is doomed. Cut your loses and move on, even if it's hard. Don't cling on hoping it will change or it will go back to how it was or because of fear of being alone. Keep moving forward.

If you've done all you can, why not respect your friend's wishes? If he doesn't want to change why force it on him? I think once you give up trying to help him, you will be less conflicted. Your relationship with your friend will change, but give it time.

There is nothing wrong with you. The software development industry (I can only speak for the UK) is full of people that are not competent programmers or systems developers. I've seen this over and over in nearly 25 years of being in the industry. There are several reasons this happens. The trouble starts with hiring. Job adverts are full of buzzwords for the latest programming languages, frameworks and trendy techniques. Generally, there will be very few candidates that match all the criteria. Instead they are just designed to be honeypots in order to lure prospective candidates. On the whole you will be hired if you fit some of the criteria. Secondly the interview process is inadequate to ascertain with any degree of certainty if you have the required level of skill. Most interviews are informal chats designed to see if you'll "fit in" to the culture of the company (i.e. Team Worker, Go the Extra Mile, happy to be fed pizza and coffee with no extra remuneration for hours worked, blah, blah, blah). The interviewer is hardly ever an actual developer. Lastly, if an incompetent programmer is hired they tend to be carried by the only one or two highly skilled programmers who have been working there forever. In other words the incompetent programmer wastes time and resources, but the good programmers are so good that managers don't notice the deficiencies. And further, the pay can be lucrative so incompetent programmers are tempted to try their luck gaming the system. And from experience, they know they can get away with it. I can only say, that if you are a competent programmer and can prove it, then you will eventually be well rewarded for your efforts. Stick with it. Don't despair my friend.

You're living in a hall of mirrors and the synchronicities are reflections. What is the purpose of a reflection?

Sorry for the essay I'm in the mood to write. I totally agree with you. As soon as you open your mouth and speak, it's no longer truth, it's just a possibility. Even "consciousness" is just a word, it's not a truth. The map is not the territory. The only truth is the territory. Most people around here call it "direct experience", and unfortunately direct experience can't be shared (although see Leo's latest video!). I think the delusion is happening not to Leo, but to the people interpreting Leo's words and body language with reference to their own experiences. It's your classic projection 101. You are giving the character of Leo life by creating a story around him, just like a character in a book. Yes, I am saying that we're both deluded - we both love a good story. We in fact know hardly anything about Leo. Telepathy (I don't know about healing) is in the realm of communication. Communication is a very strange beast. But at its core is: Correlation. Say you set up an experiment, where you stand on a hill with a torch in the dark. You have a friend on another hill in the distance looking out for the light from your torch. You can send a message say in morse code by switching the torch on and off and your friend can make notes of what s/he receives. The first strangeness is that you have no way of knowing if your message was received. Your friend may have fallen asleep for example or there was fog in the valley between you blocking the light. The simplest solution to this is for your friend to also have a torch and replay the message they received from you - that way you will know if they received your message. How strange! All communication is a two way protocol. Unless you have confirmation of what you sent, you will never know if your message was received. Ok, so what if the confirmation message from your friend is different from the message you sent out? Maybe your friend misread your flashes or got distracted. Then you can say, well most of the message is the same, so they must have received it ok. Notice how strange this is. Now we are less sure about whether our message was received. It's gone from a certainty to something less. It's gone from causation to correlation. No communication is perfect. The best you can do in any communication is to say that what is received is correlated to what is sent out. The correlation can go from 0% to 100% and everything inbetween. So back to the experiment. You decide to try out telepathy to communicate. You throw your torch away and sit there in silence. Instead you just think about the message you want to send. Your friend is now receiving your thoughts, but still sends confirmation back using her/his torch and morse code. Now you find that most of the time the confirmation message does not match your thought message, it's completely different; the correlation has gone down to 0%. But maybe, just occasionally your friend sends back one or two correct words! So the correlation is now above 0%. Did some of your message get through? Some will say it was just coincidence, some will say telepathy is real. And maybe there is a way to increase the correlation towards 100%?

@Spinoza you have to follow the train of thought and the implications. Materialism: the world is "out there" and made up of tiny bits of stuff (atoms, elementary particles, forces) that obey consistent laws. The world works like a machine that just runs by itself, and it all started with a "big bang" and has been going on ever since. It's possible to invisibly transmit messages, but this is just electromagnetism which obeys its own set of laws. It's not really possible to explain consciousness with materialism, because consciousness is not made of anything and doesn't obey laws - instead it's bodged so that "somehow" the matter machine produces the "conscious experience" via the brain. Telepathy is not explainable, because conscious experience would have to be transferred directly from one person to another - but there is no explanation for the conscious experience in the first place. Non-materialism: the world is exactly what you are experiencing - it is the conscious experience and nothing else. There is nothing beyond the conscious experience, everything is encompassed by it. The brain and atoms and electromagnetism are just experiences within consciousness. More importantly they are just inferences based on analogy and memory, in other words: stories and beliefs. The natural question is then to ask where the conscious experience arises from - and if it's separate from other people's conscious experiences - and even if other people are having a conscious experience. The "simple" answer is that there is no separation at all. Consciousness cannot arise from anything because there is nothing beyond consciousness to produce it. Your consciousness is not separate from mine, because then your consciousness would be beyond my consciousness. Hopefully you see where I'm going. If there is no separation at all then it is possible for one part of the conscious experience to affect another part without any force or particles or transmission of any sort (because they're not needed). That is telepathy. The final question is one of ownership. The conscious experience is exactly that, an experience. Who is experiencing it? That's where much confusion arises. The "who" is just an experience inside consciousness, it is a side effect of consciousness not the source of it. Consciousness is therefore not owned by you - and it is not really an "experience". Technically, you don't need to exist for consciousness to exist. So, you cannot "do" or "learn" telepathy, because "you" are too limited. But consciousness (a.k.a. reality) itself is not limited, it can do what it likes. Telepathy is perfectly possible, but you have have to remove "yourself" for it to happen.

@Preety_India it looks like you're confusing two different things in what you want. You say it yourself: What is a talent? Isn't that just mastery in a certain subject? I may have talent in maths, which just means I have a certain mastery of maths. Naturally, mastery doesn't just "happen", I wasn't born knowing maths, it took work. Some people may find the work easier, some harder - but the end result is the same. What is creativity? Isn't that the ability to come up with something new and original? I would say that everyone has that ability from the moment you are born. The question of talent or mastery is simply one of time. Do you want to dedicate twenty years to improving your talent with a guitar for example? Talent can be measured by taking a test or by the appreciation of your peers. But the more mastery you have the less you need vindication from others - you can be self sustaining after you reach a certain level. Creativity is a natural state for everyone, but it needs to be channelled and shaped. That just means focus. Whatever you focus on, your creativity will eventually flourish in that area. But creativity needs to be nutured, it needs to feed on excitement and passion and calmness and love and support and self belief. So you are looking for reassurance that you're not wasting precious time on something that you might never master. But whatever you decide to focus on, you can guarantee that your skills and talent will improve over time and if you have a good environment creativity will be there. Nothing in life is wasted, what you create and learn in one area will transfer over to another area later in life. After all, you can always change your mind and take a different path.

Nothing is hidden. Nothing is finite. You're staring into the infinity of God right now. Here it is! God loves to hide from God only to discover God again. What a good story.

@Preety_India you can learn to appreciate the immensely creative talents you already have. Just to utter a word takes great creative skill and dexterity; just to walk takes immensely precise control and creativity. It's taken me 47 years of creativity and mastery to create that last sentence