Apparition of Jack

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying throw the baby out with the bathwater. I'm not saying we should get rid of technology, civil rights, material wealth or anything like that. I personally enjoy having access to world-class healthcare and stable judiciary systems for instance, plus I love movies, video games, etc. I just think we could also add a lot to our understanding of reality and society by incorporating the last arts of energy work, esotericism, bhakti, long-form poetry, divination, astrology, dream work, alchemy, etc. You don't even necessarily have to call them that, just so long as these methods are accepted and utilised properly. I've known people who've spent years struggling through counselors, psychiatrists, etc. who's problems could be solved if they instead just did some mushrooms or did a tarot reading to really pin-point the subconscious forces they were fighting against. I myself have been through the pyschiatric system and derived basically nothing useful from it. And it's not just like these are useful for people who are suffering deeply either, I see businessmen, bar tenders, game developers, etc. who are living otherwise "normal" lives but I can just tell they're struggling with inner apathy / anxiety / depression / confusion because they've never been given the tools to investigate their inner world and actually leave a more meaningful life. I barely hang out with people these days because it's just too depressing seeing how much potential is being wasted through a lack of knowledge about the inner world. Even people who are "happy" on the outside seem to just find their happiness through constant hedonism. And my point is that none of this is necessarily a problem in itself, the problem is that there's no social recognition of it, and that any effort to deal with it is seen as a "weird little hobby" at best, or downright confusing and dangerous at worst. If someone in India is struggling with depression or relationship issues or a career they hate or anything else like that, it's socially acceptable to go to your village yogi, and he or she will then analyse the situation, give you some cleansing activity to do, and the issue will be dealt with head-on then-and-there. In the West, however, it seems like your go-to response for any sort of inner turmoil is either scientific counseling, which (to me) is a dull and grey affair, abuse of substances (which is not only socially acceptable but actively encouraged), or you just become a sarcastic nihilist and brute-force your way through life. You can, of course, go to a New Age sharing circle or a desert festival and do mushrooms, and these are genuinely uplifting activities that truly benefit people, but they are still, at most, fringe activities that in many ways are still shunned by society at large. I think Bhikku Bodhi put it best when he said that the West is a materially first-world but a spiritually third-world civilisation. We've made a lot of progress in so many spheres, but a combination of our endless media cycle, alienation from nature, brute materialism as the mainstream metaphysical position and other factors have left our souls atrophied and traumatized. Perhaps I'm projecting a little here, but I truly do think that Westerners are by and large spiritually ignorant and immature. This is not to say that other cultures are somehow these spiritually-pure beings who laugh at us foolish materialists, god only knows how many problems there are in India, Nepal, etc., but I feel like there's a "sphere" of life that's accepted in these countries that isn't really at all in the West (not unless you're using very coded language and marketing it in terms that fits in with our predominantly-materialist paradigm.)

@Kailash Bhattarai Leo has said that he considers both David Pakman and Sam Seder as the most developed of the progressive youtube channels, so there's that

I kind of feel like it's part of my Life Purpose to help "re-spiritualise" the West, since for someone as spiritually sensitive as I am living here has been horrific at times. While I appreciate what Western culture has done in terms of law, technology, human right's etc. I feel like we're still missing out soo much that other cultures just know intuitively because we've just kind of forgotten about it or suppressed it for the last 500 years or so.

Yes, I'd imagine this is the case. Just look at how Hollywood willfully ignored Harvey Weinstein's abuses for several decades until the #MeToo movement eventually created enough moment to finally punish him for it. The entertainment industry has a lot of corruption. Systemic changes need to be made to stop cases like this from occurring.

@AtheisticNonduality The dad was making out with the son, LOL!

@Nak Khid Trumps ego is too dense for this to happen. If he did have a spontaneous awakening the experience would be so awful that he’d probably end up doubling-down on his devilry instead.

@Epikur I feel your problem seems to be that you seem more interested in making the world fit your paradigm than accepting the world for the way it is. Would a stage blue Republican be able to run New York if it was all white? Yes, probably, but the problem is that it isn’t all white, and hasn’t been for centuries. All the black, Chinese, Haitian, Lebanese, Puerto Rican, etc. New Yorkers are simply too embedded into NY society for anything other than multiculturalism to be feasible. And this is a growing reality across the whole world. Cheap travel, population growth, intertwined economies and migration have all made the world far more multi-cultural and multi-racial than its ever been. You can walk down a street in Toronto and pass a Sikh community hall, an anarchist library, a Chinese temple and a Christian church all within a few blocks of each other. The idea of mono-cultural nation-states is a dying idea that has to be abandoned if we’re going to meet our collective needs. And the point is this trend is inevitable. Non-duality makes it so. There’s no going back from this reality, so it’s either we adapt or die.

@Akemrelax The entertainment industry seems to be ripe with this kind of stuff. This particular example is disheartening but honestly not all that surprising, so while I can't speak for others I personally just don't have the energy to get worked up about it. I chalk this sort of behaviour down to an excess of unhealthy Orange attitudes towards sex and fame. There's enough people out there all trying to get shallow gratification based off their fame / status that eventually abuses like these are bound to happen.

Is this really a stage Green issue? Being opposed to child sexual abuse doesn’t really have to do with a specific stage tbh.

The good thing about this is that a lot of Blue/Orange football fans will watch this who would otherwise dismiss BLM, but then take a moment to think about the message more critically because it’s coming from a source they put authority in.

Consciousness, consciousness, consciousness! Any policy that helps both individuals and collectives raise consciousness will always be preferable to ones that don't. This can include things like: - meeting everyone's basic needs (so they can then focus their efforts on growing consciousness, not meeting these needs), - promoting health and high-consciousness nutrition - teaching systems thinking and meta-awareness of social issues - teaching people how to find their life purpose And so on. Also, being pragmatic and non-ideological about policies tends to be superior to being stubborn and ideological. You should be willing to work with conservatives if you're a progressive and vice versa, since you're never going to have a government full of people who 100% agree with you. That's not to say don't have values, but it does mean you shouldn't resist the good because it's not your version of the perfect. Although it's important to keep in mind that as you yourself grow in awareness, you will begin to see how everything, even the stuff that looks mean and nasty on the surface (like poverty, war, rape, genocide, etc.), is in fact still the unfolding of universal Love, so in a sense perfect utilitarianism is already happening.

I think he's genuinely stuck at that level of development and can't see problems through anything but a "black vs white" perspective. When he asks "do you support killing babies?", he doesn't understand that someone might find abortions abhorrent but still accept the need for them because of all the unfortunate social / economic / pscyhological implications of unwanted pregnancies. It's either you enjoy killing unborn babies or not in his mind, with no middle ground.

Leo, this is one I gotta disagree with you on. Not that I disagree that death metal isn't generally pretty bad (I've never listened to it in my life for the exact reasons you've pointed out), but the way you're making fun of something so personal and expressive to people is counter-productive, IMO. Unlike say, political opinions, there's little immediate, explicit harm that music choices can have on the world, so it just seems kind of callous to tell people off for liking what they like. And yes people will naturally grow out of it the more they grow and develop in consciousness, but that's a choice they have to make themselves, not one that I think can be forced on people.

Big cities are run by Democrats because they have to be in order to balance all the competing social forces. Democrats, as a rule, are more open-minded and compromising than Republicans. Republicans would have a harder time running a big city without creating more social problems than they fix. As to why there seems to be so much crime in big cities? Well, this is a function of American civilisation as a whole, not any one party. You could have Jesus Christ himself at the helm of a big American city and he’d still have a hard time fixing all the crime and poverty because it’s just that entrenched in the American psyche.

Even conservatives seem to be growing a Green consciousness these days. Yes, it's still obviously very undeveloped and tempered by a lock of Blue nationalism and racialism, but I feel like just over the last few months a lot of Blue people have really had to wrestle with just how unjust US society and history has been.

Noam Chomsky would support progressive policies but I’d have a hard time calling him a “populist.” I’d say populism has less to do with the specific content of any one ideology and more to do with the structure of how it’s promoted.

@Leo Gura Hopefully he grows out a better haircut as be slowly becomes a hippie

@Leo Gura You have to admit though, that in the last few decades the divide between the haves and have-nots has grown, almost exponentially, and that the increasing power differential is causing a lot of problems? Even if it's mostly due to ignorance, it feels like more and more money is just being funneled upwards for no long-term benefit for society. I understand that your average hedge fund manager or tech billionaire is more evolved and conscious than your average person, but even an undeveloped construction worker or nail groomer needs to eat food, have a secure place to live, etc.

Sometimes you just won’t feel horny for a while no matter what you expose yourself too. Horniness comes and goes depending on life circumstances, dating situations, mental health, current preoccupations, etc. If you felt like you’re no longer attracted to feet, give it a few months and see how you feel then. It might come back when you’re feeling a bit better about things.

Being a turmeric

Maybe use this as an opportunity to try out new things that aren’t composing. Yes it sucks that you can’t do that since it’s your passion, but there’s no reason why you couldn’t find other passions too. Maybe try learning languages, or researching interesting topics, or getting real good at film critique, or hell just listen to music yourself and be inspired by what others have created. Maybe take up another way of expressing yourself, like drawing or writing. Music is your one love but it doesn’t mean you can’t cheat a little while she’s out of the picture, and I’m sure there’s plenty of other frisky hobbies waiting for you to fool around with them, haha ?

I think he’d have a heart attack and die due to being unable to process the completely alien industrial technology we’ve used to terraform reality since his time

Covid exists. It’s dangerous and deadly. If you’re asking this question because you feel fear about the current situation, then that I understand. Some part of the ego-mind always wants to deny the parts of reality it finds uncomfortable. But the solution isn’t to dig your head in the sand and look for ways out of accepting this fact of life. It’s instead to look at the situation, cooly and calmly, and try and understand how what is unfolding is the work of Love. Even a global pandemic has useful lessons for us to get us to grow in awareness and Love. Wisdom abounds if you know how to look for it.

No, astrology is astrology for smart people You should go to a certified astrologist and see what they say about you. You’ll be surprised.

I wonder if a similar thread for INFPs/INFJs would be useful. I would imagine that they’d also be pretty common here, since these types are very into spirituality, self-discovery, creativity, etc