TheAlchemist

Infinity. The way we tend to traditionally think of the word "infinity" through our schooling and culture is something like an infinitely big thing. Something massive, something like a never ending number or an endless sea. I realized that for me it was limiting to try to "grok" infinity through that framing. It easily can get us to start looking "out there" for infinity. I recently realized that the words for infinity in my native language are quite interesting. The words in Finnish for infinity (ääretön, rajaton) could be translated quite directly as "boundless" or "without a border", "borderless". The terms boundlessness and borderlessness can bring about a different kind of flavor and perpective to what the term "infinity" might be pointing to. It doesn't have to mean some colossal thing, It can be something quite relaxed, something gentle. Infinity is simply that which has no border --> that which is not and cannot be separate. Would be interesting to hear, is the term infinity seen in a different way through the word that is used in some other languages as well?

I think I might would have replied something along those lines if I was asked this question as well. It makes a ton of sense. But for the sake of further exploration: What if it's an assumption that that's what needs to happen? Will we keep digging into the root causes if we take that sort of deterministic view on all this? Collective paradigm shifts can happen, mindblowing discoveries can be made that recontextualize everything, we could understand the root causes of problems and solve them very quickly. Change looks progressive only when looking back, but what has been is not always a good sign of what's to come. I think it's one of the potential traps if spiral dynamics and other developmental models are taken too religiously; what has unfolded so far is assumed to be a sign of how things will keep unfolding. And thus the @Nahm said: "Peace can not become a reality or be actualized because it’s already the default." So maybe by assuming the "progressive path" to peace, we are just pushing the "change" or "shift" further into the future. Maybe we must realize directly that peace is already here. Maybe that's "the way".

You could also ask: "have you ever met someone whom with there was a 0% possibility of making peace with?" Let's take the two people from all of human history who would be maximally opposing of each other and maximally violent towards each other. If there is a greater than 0% chance of them finding peace (utilizing all known methods of negotiation, communication and spirituality) then I would say world peace is in the realm of possibility. If the largest possible separation can be either healed or seen to be an illusion, that would make "solving" all the smaller separations between people a nice walk on the beach. Heal or see through the biggest separation, and you heal and undo it all.

I never fully understood that talking point. Isn't the growing of industrial hemp (with less than 0.2% thc) legal almost everywhere already? It's not like you need high amounts of thc in the hemp to use it for any of those things.

Volt Europa seems like an interesting movement. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volt_Europa

The sentence cannot be aware of the Awareness, but the Awareness obviously can be aware of the sentence. It only goes one way. If the sentence could be awareness (in its totality) there would be an appearance of multiple awarenesses, aka insanity. Just replace "sentence" with any limited definable item that appears in awareness (a rock, piece of toilet paper, the universe), and it will always apply. There's no possible way to escape Awareness.

How certain are you? You don't think there are assumptions there in your statement?

I think the EU will eventually become the worlds first federation that has what we might call stage green values at its core. Yellow? ? Well not yet, not at that scale. I think the UN is laying the groundwork for that, and it might become a reality in the coming centuries.

Without massive restructuring or adjusting of the current economic system, it will very likely just further concentrate the increasing surplus value into the hands of the few (billionaires, corporations and also countries that are already wealthy). That will not be accepted, and it ties in with so many other problems with sustainability and the monetary system for example, so in other words, big storms of change are coming soon near you!

I have also visited twice. I love it. To me India feels alive, diverse, vibrant and warm. Coming from northern europe, the people there in general seem quite authentic and not too self-concerned. There's a warm and fuzzy feeling to India and Indian people, at least for me. Of course the food is amazing. Still lots of problems, no doubt, but I find India and Indian people in general tend to have a very solid core of warm heartedness that will be an excellent springboard for the future development of the country.

@Ivan D Sounds like you're finding your path, which is great! Really wish you all the best on your journey

Since many of you have similar intuitions and paths, hopefully some of you can also find inspiration from these: Music: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quotes/Art: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clips:

What was the porn and fapping giving you? It was clearly giving you something, otherwise you wouldn't have consumed it compulsively. Saying it didn't give you anything is denial. Maybe it gave you a feeling you craved deep down, met some need. How is that hole being filled now? Dig deep and you can grow from this process a ton. I'm being straight to the point and not just patting you on the back here because I was in the whole anti-porn/discipline community actively for many years, talked to 100's of "addicts" online, even had a 6 month "streak" and many multi month streaks. But all that never got anywhere near the root of the real issue, which was/is fear of, and craving of deep intimacy for me. Working on that root issue requires a very very different approach than just abstinence. People say they quit, but 95% of people in that community were fooling themselves, in a never ending cycle of streaks and relapses, supressing their sexuality and never really digging deep to the root causes. But by all means, go for the long streak if it feels right, it can be a great experiment to learn something about yourself. And you can develop some confidence from developing that discipline, nothing wrong with that! This message is just in case you are in that 95%, and find yourself eventually relapsing, potentially helping you avoid many years of frustration by getting to the core of the issue. If you are the 5% that quit porn and fapping for good and don't have an underlying issue/need and find an outlet for their sexuality, come back in 6 months with this same streak still going. I'll be gladly proven wrong in my generalization/assumption.

This was an uncomfortable slap of truth, a wake up call. It's spot on. I run away from any signs of deep intimacy in fear of losing my autonomy. And consequently the women I have had some relationship with have been anxious attachers, who get interested because their belief in their unworthiness is enforced by my dismissiveness. And I push them far away because of all the neediness I sense. Painful.

Oh nice this went straight to nonduality! Love it

Some reasons I noticed in myself for not wanting to watch the video (at least yet). These are probably also trends in the population at large, groups of people who are leaning towards skepticism of the vaccine will probably be more likely to excitedly devour this tyoe of content, and people who are more trusting in the vaccine will likely be much less likely to excitedly watch a video like that. So just to offer some perspective and possible reasons why me or someone like me might not be excited about content like this: 1) I am concerned there could be a one sided agenda and a lack of nuance, since Joe has been entangled in drama around this and may want to soothe his emotions by bringing on reputable individuals that speak in a way that more matches his narrative. So there is a concern about the possible biases in this conversation just based on the context where it's happening. 2) Watching it might cause painful feelings of discomfort because of cognitive dissonance. My mind has put a ton of effort to build a kind of narrative around this whole thing. Who is trustable, what is happening, whats true etc. Things that might disturb that are easily resisted to avoid potential pain. 3) I don't consider a conversation between people to be a solid source of information, since all kinds of rhetorical tactics are likely on the loose that will affect my mind. Be it for or against the vaccine. A conversation can be a good source of perspectives yes, but with this type of stuff, for making sense of the truth it's in the weaker end of sources. I think there are areas where science and goverments can be trusted more, and areas where they can be highly unreliable sources. I think the vaccine research is on solid ground in regard to that and goverment reactions are mostly well justified and understandable, although perhaps on a little bit more shakey ground than the research itself. I don't think reasons 1 and 2 are totally solid reasons for not watching the video since they are based on some assumptions and emotional reaction, but 3 might be good enough. I might still watch it though, just offering some perspective that could aid in understanding where someone like me who is not as excited as you are about this alternative viewpoint might be coming from.

This is a vital topic to consider as the deeper forms of spirituality gain traction at the collective level through increasing access to psychedelics and powerful spiritual techniques. This article goes along very well with Leo's series on cults. Feel free to engage and comment based on just the title, the excerpts, or the whole article: https://metamoderna.org/the-totalitarian-potential-of-new-age-spirituality/ "Why then would I claim that New Age has the potential to be even more hellish than Gulag or Holocaust? Think about it: These relations involve your innermost ontological belief structures. They can make you believe that if you don’t follow suit, if you even think the wrong thought, you will be punished for a literal eternity of unbearable suffering. And they can make you believe that in full and earnest. That’s much, much more radical than making you think you’re a bad comrade or not a part of the master race. And they can make you believe that the fate of the entire cosmos, literally speaking, depends on your work with this and that inner purifica­tion, enlightenment, etc. And they can make you believe this or that person is literally God speaking and that nothing else has any relevan­ce compared to what they may be saying. And they can make you inti­mately feel that with every cell of your body and soul. It’s the Michelin Star Club of totalitarianism. It’s totalitarianism magna cum laude, extra everything; ketchup and mustard. Because it reaches into the depths of your soul and controls parts of you neither Stalin nor Hitler could reach. In theory, then, what crimes could that sort of power make you commit? And if you were invested in it, what would you be prepared to do to defend it from perceived attackers?" -Hanzi Freinacht "We must see that spiritual insight and higher universal love are powerful futu­re attract­ors, but that they reside in the posthuman or transhuman realm of poten­tials, which means that we shouldn’t rush it. In this case, we must remain careful and conservative, as the sheer terror that can be unleashed under the auspices of a “metamodern totalitar­ianism” leaves a heavy ethical bur­den on us. Imagine a world where dictators control your soul and the con­struction of your social universe and have a thousand social, psycho­logical, chemical and technological tools to control the structure of your mind. That would be beyond nasty." -Hanzi Freinacht

@Carl-Richard makes sense. Good points

Disclaimer from CDC about VAERS (their own system): "VAERS accepts reports of adverse events and reactions that occur following vaccination. Healthcare providers, vaccine manufacturers, and the public can submit reports to the system. While very important in monitoring vaccine safety, VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness. The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. In large part, reports to VAERS are voluntary, which means they are subject to biases. This creates specific limitations on how the data can be used scientifically. Data from VAERS reports should always be interpreted with these limitations in mind. The strengths of VAERS are that it is national in scope and can quickly provide an early warning of a safety problem with a vaccine. As part of CDC and FDA's multi-system approach to post-licensure vaccine safety monitoring, VAERS is designed to rapidly detect unusual or unexpected patterns of adverse events, also known as "safety signals." If a safety signal is found in VAERS, further studies can be done in safety systems such as the CDC's Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) or the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) project. These systems do not have the same scientific limitations as VAERS, and can better assess health risks and possible connections between adverse events and a vaccine. Key considerations and limitations of VAERS data: Vaccine providers are encouraged to report any clinically significant health problem following vaccination to VAERS, whether or not they believe the vaccine was the cause. Reports may include incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental and unverified information. The number of reports alone cannot be interpreted or used to reach conclusions about the existence, severity, frequency, or rates of problems associated with vaccines. VAERS data is limited to vaccine adverse event reports received between 1990 and the most recent date for which data are available. VAERS data do not represent all known safety information for a vaccine and should be interpreted in the context of other scientific information. VAERS data available to the public include only the initial report data to VAERS. Updated data which contains data from medical records and corrections reported during follow up are used by the government for analysis. However, for numerous reasons including data consistency, these amended data are not available to the public."

Ok let's help Africans and Indians end hunger and lets provide schooling and healthcare for everyone globally. We will quickly have a couple billion more potential Einsteins.

That article and writer are not coming from a place of anti- new age, but point towards integrating the healthy parts of it while remaining aware of the potential traps. It's more about the extreme forms of new age spirituality that are popping up now in the form of cults and strong "us vs. them" narratives that are justified in new age terminology. And about how those ideas have potential to go viral and hijack the human mind Christianity or Atheism style, but potentially in an even darker and stronger way. Although I think the diversity of worldviews is something that guards us quite well from that in the modern world. Diversity typically increases resilience, whether it be in the natural environment, or in culture. So I'm not too worried about it, it's just something to be aware of and keep an eye on.

Yes. Along these lines is why I think people like Leo, Sadhguru, Rupert Spira and Eckhart Tolle with an authentic message are a necessary part of avoiding devolution and getting stuck in dogmatic thinking in the modern age. For the future transitions of humanity, it's no longer good enough for the mystics to withdraw in the caves, now they must come into the society and market themselves, make themselves and their ideas sexy, competing in the marketplace of (spiritual) ideas. Otherwise the more exploitative, manipulative and toxic version of spirituality take over our minds, individually and collectively. The mystics voice has usually been drowned out by the roaring massive machine of preaching spiritual dogma. Now we need a strong grounding in the introspective mystic path of spirituality, where we avoid collective madness and evolve past our prior limitations.

The problem at the collective level still remains. How to prevent for example the stuff Leo talks about from being hijacked by someone as a tool for totalitarianism? 90% of people who practice "spirituality" don't do it quietly at home contemplating stuff independently. People want to belong to a group and have some big purpose to work towards. And wherever two or more people gather, there are people interested in hijacking that collective entity and its enthusiasm to feed their own ego. And if the group becomes attractive enough (meets enough human needs), and has an ingrained powerful incentive that causes people to "spread the word", it will become like a parasite trying to take over the individual and collective human psyche (the host). Cults are a small scale example, religions, belief systems and ideologies a larger scale example. Parasites. I think a lot of the neo-advaita stuff for example can also be quite easily corrupted by power hungry egos to gaslight people at the deepest levels of their existence. These high states Leo talks about can easily be hijacked and forced into a premade framework of interpretation that feeds some belief system if they happen in a certain type of group context. Also spiral dynamics is an amazing tool for creating a new kind of pecking order if improperly interpreted. And improper interpretation is not an exception, it's the rule. Especially if the ideas are powerful enough to take hold in human minds at a larger scale. I think there are totally new kinds of risks in the modern world, with the easy access to the most potent spiritual teachings that have traditionally been kept secret, increasing access to totally new kinds of powerful psychedelics, strong tribal dynamics on the internet and the breakdown of a sense of shared fundamental truth in society. This will be a very difficult terrain to navigate for us a society. A solid grounding in epistemology is absolutely vital, but almost completely lacking.

A distinction between some absolute good and absolute evil is not needed. There can be other motivators for not hurting people besides an absolute moral code. I'm sure you realize that. You don't need morals to love people. You can directly see that it is the highest joy. Doesn't meant that doing the opposite and hurting people would be "evil" in any absolute sense. It's simply not life/love/joy-enriching in the grand scheme of things. And at the relative small scale human level, we can still put structures in place that steer people towards love. Luckily we have a universe that naturally rewards love the highest! I find it odd that many people are so reliant on a rulebook or strict moral code to not hurt people. Sometimes it almost sounds like the only thing keeping them from hurting and exploiting people is a rulebook that tells them not to do so, with a threat of punishment. Don't you think it a sign of maturity to be able to do that which is life/joy/love enriching, purely out of your own desire to do so, not just because somebody/something is pressuring you?