Apparition of Jack

@Zizzero These are not airy-fairy philosophical questions though. These are deeply practical, deeply relevant questions about the state of the world we're in today. It's very hard to self-actualize if you're rotting in the dungeons of a prison because something about you triggers violent reactionaries. And yes, this is the potential future we're heading towards if conscious people don't do the gruelling work needed to prevent this. This isn't to scare you, really it isn't. I wish this wasn't happening. But it is. And the time for wishy-washy kumbayah nonsense about "all opinions being equally valid" has long since left. Please don't make the mistake that too many spiritual people make and think spirituality is somehow "above" or "unconcerned with" political issues. The Buddha railed against the corrupt caste system of his day, despite all the resistance he got for it. Jesus called out the Temple authorities and the Romans for their hypocrisy and oppression. Spirituality and politics are deeply intertwined.

I think you're overestimating the level of development of most people. Even most Democrat voters are very unthinking, gullible and selfish (although generally less so than Republicans.) A successful, relatively-tolerant Harvard educated New England businessman can still fall pray to his own (and to his culture's) ego. "I voted for Trump because he brought mojo back to America! And yeah, I'm not so hot on all the sexist and racial stuff, but come on, who here hasn't said embarrassing things like that? We're all human, I think his heart is in the right place." See all the hoops and jumps the ego is going through to justify voting for an aggressive, racist, sexist devil for president? You have to be extremely careful with all the "logic" and "reasons" you use to defend any of your political worldviews. You will be tricked by the ego.

@EvilAngel That's one hell of an ego backlash you're going through

@CMacD This sexy piece here

@lukej Damn. I have no words bro. What a shitshow. If you'd like, I will pray for you during this stage of your journey Actually, maybe you could look into visualisation yourself as a way of healing? Maybe think about doing some Medicine Buddha visualisations, for instance. Would that be something you'd be interested in?

I try to focus on policies over labels. If a Republican supports taking radical action on climate change, I will support him in that. If that same Republican also opposes increasing the minimum wage, I will oppose him in that.

What does your spiral stage have to do with productivity?

You are God. You are creating reality. By not wanting to harm another person (who you're imagining) even when you know it's the right decision to make, you will keep yourself bonded to that fear. Other people are surprisingly resilient. Even if they are hurt by decisions you make, so long as you do it from a place of love and truth, they will accept and understand them. It might even inspire them to make hard decisions they have been putting off themselves.

I've always been interested in the mystical American spiritual traditions of the 1800s. Stuff like Transcendentalism, the Swedenborgians, even some of the Quaker movements. I feel like they had an understanding of non-dual Truth, whether they were aware of it or not.

It's a good thing that you recognise these things. This self-awareness shows you already have the capability to correct them.

Why would you want to stay in a cult if you know it's a cult?

Something about Rick and Morty rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's how it's essentially stage Orange propaganda, maybe it's how it rubs off a very nihilistic and violent worldview onto its audience. Either way, I can't see much spiritual benefit in watching it.

I can't speak for sure, since there may be more to it than this, but perhaps the reason Sadhguru and Leo disagree is because they're talking to different audiences. Sadhguru obviously has a huge Indian following, and Indian society is very conducive to taking up yoga, finding a genuine guru, and so on. It makes sense for him to tell his followers to find a guru, since their life situation makes it that much easier to do so. Sadhguru himself has also initiated hundreds or possibly thousands of qualified teachers around the world through his Isha foundation, so it makes sense for him to promote that as a path to enlightenment. Leo's audience on the other hand are mostly young Westerners who are caught in the thick of toxic materialist capitalism. Starting any sort of legitimate, long-term spiritual practice here (whether that's yoga, mindfulness, etc.) has a lot more hurdles to it than it does in the East (skeptical family/friends, ruthless financial demands, over-consumerist culture, etc.) We in some sense are spiritually "isolated", and have to take a more pro-active role in teaching ourselves. There are spiritual communities here, but they tend to be a lot more watered down than in the East or, even worse, a cult. To that end, I imagine Leo feels that for the genuine seekers here, teaching yourself Kriya Yoga is beneficial for self-actualization, in lieu of making the (drastically difficult) lifestyle change of taking up full-time study under a certified guru. Is it the most optimal situation we find ourselves in? No, but we've got to make do with what we've got.

@Truth Addict Honest question, why are you even alive? It seems like you don't want to do anything at all@Truth Addict

@Truth Addict What makes you think your hard work won't pay off until you die? In fact if you're serious about whatever it is you're aiming towards you should see results within even just a couple of years.

I'll start by saying that I think Marianne is a very healthy stage Green-Yellow individual, and the fact that such a person is getting even just some politcal limelight today has shown you just how much we've advanced politically even within just the last few decades (emphasis on the "some", though.) With that being said, I will say that, as someone who hasn't fully tranisitioned out of Green, she is still dealing with an Orange shadow, which is probably where you're getting the "iffy" vibes from. Her desire to "fight" Donald Trump (in a very personal, one-on-one way, not a broad, communal way), the fact that she, a person with no previous political qualifications, has decided to run for President, etc. all point to this shadow, in my estimation.

Modern Western culture on one hand allows overt sexualisation of people (usually women) to exist in its public sphere (usually through the forms of advertising, Hollywood movies, pop music, etc.), usually for the sake of corporate profit (sex sells, after all), whilst also having latent Catholic/puritanical/Victorian underpinnings of being ashamed about our natural urges and wanting to keep it all "hush hush" around "polite company." The result is, in my perspective, a society of people who are constantly having their sexual urges subtly evoked, but then feel subconsciously ashamed and hateful about them. I'm convinced that trends like the incel movement and even alt-right chauvinism are in a good part caused by this. Sexual desire is one of the most powerful and forceful energies in the human being, and if not properly understood and controlled it can cause one to fall into all sorts of deeply unhealthy thinking. Go onto some place like /r/nofap and a lot of the guys there seem to be struggling with deep feelings of guilt and unworthiness that they have, in my opinion, erroneously attached to masturbation as the cause. A good start to fixing these deep psychological wounds would be to fight against the weaponisation of sexuality in the name of corporate profits. Sexuality is a wonderful and beautiful thing, and should be celebrated, but it should not be used as a cheap tactic to siphon money from sexually frustrated men and women. You let this run rampant and you end up with societies like Japan, where something like a third of all young people aren't even interested in exploring the joys of romance and intimacy (along with all the demographic and social impacts that such a thing brings.)

@Keyhole My apologies.

@Keyhole Don't let anticipation of bad things prevent you from learning more about the world, friend. In fact, getting a very deep grasp on sociology and human dynamics can actually make any future occurrences less scary and more manageable. Besides, that fear you feel is ultimately just yourself. An enlightened sage could wake up in a utopia or wake up in hell on earth and neither would bother him, since he knows all is Love and that reality is exactly perfect as it is right now. Chop chop. Get to it. You've got much to learn.

I would say so, but we'd still have to go through a lot of suffering and civilisational re-adjusting in order to get to that point. If North Africa, the Middle East, India, etc. become uninhabitable due to climate change, along with all the crop failures and diseases that will result from such an unstable environment, then you can bet your ass we can say bye-bye to things like cheap goods, stable borders, complex food chains, everyone owning a car, etc. A human being born in the year 2100 will probably have to be taught farming and crafting skills that us modern humans have forgotten about for the last two hundred years.

The Chinese officials carrying out this cultural genocide have given their authority over to "communism," the "Chinese language," and so on. The Uighurs being persecuted have given their authority away to "Islam", to the "Uighur language", etc. which the Chinese officials unfortunately see as being "in opposition" to "communism", the "Chinese language", etc. Both are instances of people giving authority to things outside of themselves, which will always be based on ignorance, since everyone, as God, are their own highest authority. With that being said, the practical, down-to-earth effects of this are that the Chinese officials are causing so much needless suffering, as they haven't realised they have given their authority over to illusions, and that the Uighur identity isn't actually a threat to these illusions at all. What's going on in China is a lesson of the incredibly unhealthy manifestations of giving over your thought-making capacity to external authorities that serve nothing but their own selfish, short-term egoic goals, at the expense of universal human decency, compassion, consciousness and love. We see similar things happening elsewhere in the world, such with reactionary Americans or Europeans who, having given their authority over to the idea of "America/Europe" and/or "whiteness", are treating desperate Hispanic or Middle Eastern refugees as "criminals" and "thugs." The solution is to always investigate your assumptions about authority, to continue with self-actualisation work, and to always, always be sceptical of anyone making any sort of cultural, social or political "truth claims." You cannot reach enlightenment whilst thinking that the Truth, in no matter what context, exists "somewhere outside of yourself."

@Identity For the record, Leo isn't saying just because science is relative that makes it "bad" or "not worth it." Science is still a useful tool for understanding the base, causal mechanisms of this physical mind-realm we inhabit, and if applied smartly can have a lot of healthy benefits for a community/society. It's just that science can in no way shape or form point to the way reality actually is, when all too often too many materialist-minded people claim that it does just that. If this single-minded obsession with science gets too strong it can even have negative consequences, such as drugs being used as a "cure-all" for physical and mental ailments (when more often changes in diet, lifestyle and spiritual mindset are far more effective), or incredibly destructive arms-races between nations to see who can use science to come up with the best ways to murder millions of people in an instant. If you want to self-actualise, to liberate yourself, and to return to Godhood, your conception of knowledge is going to have to move way, way beyond the way science conceives of it.

My understanding is that saying someone is in stage Blue or Green or whatever else doesn't mean they're always acting in a Blue/Green/whatever way, just that, given all else is stable, they will predominately display behaviours and thoughts associated with that stage. A blue person sitting under a tree during a nice picnic will be having blue thoughts. A green person sitting under a tree during a nice picnic will be having green thoughts. This also means that people can devolve in behaviour if situations change. A predominately-green human rights activist might suddenly become a stage beige or even red devil if they find themselves on a sinking ship with not enough life boats. A stage blue patriarchal father might display a rare green-like tolerance to his daughter telling him she's dating a guy from a different civilisation, if he's in a good mood and feeling particularly secure about his life situation. People are multifaceted and have many many dimensions to their psyche. The goal isn't to try and "finish the blue level so you can collect your power-up and move onto orange", it's to gradually integrate the many parts of yourself so that you, by nature, start to exhibit higher-stage ideas and behaviours.

@Elham When I was a kid, I was always upset that adult characters in movies would at first dismiss the children characters who told them about the ghosts/monsters/aliens haunting the area, only to have their minds blown when the adults saw these things for themselves. Looking back, I think that was my childish way of telling myself that there are other realities to this universe that most people (the "adults") simply dismiss due to lack of faith / lack of conviction / collective denial. So yeah, I understand how you feel. Children are often more perceptive and open-minded than grown-ups who've had collective memes implanted in their minds.

Not all discussion is equal. If that was the case, your loud-mouthed uncle who loves ranting about politics and sports after a few cans of beer would be enlightened in no time, and yet we know for a fact that his hilarious rants often cement his delusion and ignorance, not draw him out of it. You have to be way more discriminating with the words you're putting out into the universe.