silene

Group dynamics is a powerful influence, drilled into us from an early age in family life to 'fit in' for meeting our survival needs. We need a radical honesty with ourselves and clear self-insight to ensure, as Leo says, we are searching for Truth. Rather than other motives, like believing in group-think to deceive ourselves and gain approval in the community. Cults encourage self-deception to hand over authority to the leadership; questioning everything on our own authority is the opposite of that.

Picture of tomato seedlings - I'm planning to do a series to show the lifecycle. It's a variety called Red Cherry sowed on 22-mar-20. I'm going to grow them outdoors so it usually takes ages for the tomatoes to ripen up.

A circle has two sides: inside and outside. Inside is a limited space, separated off from the rest of the universe. The outside is the rest of reality, infinite and unbounded. Together they represent Totality. It's like a metaphor for our existence, in a very simple form.

Cool, I'm starting some tomato seeds, they've just germinated. Let's share pics. Geraniums to go later.

Where am I on the Spiral? I've seen Leo's series on Spiral Dynamics (SD) which goes through the levels and leaves me with the impression that we progress through the stages in succession. Some other people in the forum measure their progress as a percentage in various stages: eg % of me is stage: 40 blue 40 orange 15 green 5 yellow 0 turquoise 100 total I understand that approach but I'm trialling a different method to gauge my development. I will give a percent completion for each stage, this may give me a clearer picture of my shadow, the areas where I need to focus on. % complete for each stage: 100 purple - no further work needed 100 red - " " " " 80 blue - some remaining work 60 orange - work in progress 30 green - " " " 5 yellow - had a glimpse but not very far yet 0 turquoise - not really started yet I'm doing some work on these areas such as family life for blue; career and intellectual knowledge for orange; relating with diverse people and nature for green. I could revisit my year-plan (aka new year's resolution) to bring SD colours into my various ideas, to make sure I'm covering the bases.

As I see it, egos are bubbles within bubbles - eg I have numerous egos including my individual self, my family, my town, my country, my religion and all sorts of identities like that. These are all ideas within the overall unity of Being. So there isn't really a separate ego: separation is the illusion or imagination.

I started following Actualized about 18 months ago, watching Leo's videos forwards in time. But recently I'm noticing Leo's move towards a more psychedelic approach and finding it less relevant to me (I'm a non-user). So I'm currently going back in time to see his older work and actually there's plenty of people in the forum who are at all different phases, so it's still possible to have a community here even though I'm working with a previous version of Leo to the present one. I don't believe his claim that you need psychedelics to reach the deepest levels of awakening, but have never tried them so can't really rebuke his reply that I don't know what I'm missing. In any case, I hate all this spiritual oneupmanship about who is more enlightened than who; if I'm on a path which is working for me, that's good enough.

Sending compassion Any chance you can forgive yourself and let go, draw a line under the past?

Hi tsuki, would you say you're a perfectionist? One memory of my astronomy tutor at uni was when he said of our work: you can either do it perfect or do it for Thursday (ie on time) - the answer is usually Thursday unless it's life & death. A friend of mine recently started a job programming the air traffic control system so that needs to be perfect but most other things can be just good enough What does it feel like when things don't go to plan, or if you realise you could have done it better but don't have time to redo it, can you use that as part of your spiritual work?

@electroBeam yes true enough, but if the psychic has good empathy and intuition they can give us a nudge in the right direction, like a good counsellor.

in my case it's just the monkey mind intruding into what I'm trying to make into a serious inquiry (you should see what I think about when I meditate ) Which is kind of why I asked about whether I'm making good use of my time here in my life, or frittering it away. Actually this is really about me asking myself; I have no idea what being psychic actually means. But if Bittu can help me self-inquire that's a good result too.

Q1. Is there an afterlife / life after death in the conventional sense (our individual consciousness carries on in another dimension). Q2. Have I made the most of my life, or am I wasting it? After all, I am pretty well off compared to most people in history. PS. How do you know the answers when you don't know who we are, most of us are anonymous in the forum.

I thought Sangha Live's Sunday online live sessions are free? But I know what you mean, I'm surprised more spiritual groups aren't trying to create online contact at the moment. Fixed times to meet up would be difficult for me though, my life depends on what's going on with my family. Plus we're spread over many time zones so maybe a drop-in approach would work better? There's something in the forum guidelines about not setting up new groups so it would need to comply with the mods.

Hi @andyjohnsonman do you have a preference for which tradition of meditation? I sometimes catch the meditation & teachings on Sangha Live which is a general Buddhist orientation https://sangha.live/ This week there is a daily meditation with Martin Aylward https://sangha.live/sunday_sangha/daily-meditation-23-03-2020/ If you're into Zen there's Treeleaf Zen sanga https://www.treeleaf.org/ These are just 2 online meditation groups I've come across but there's no doubt others. I wonder if there's any mileage in us Actualized.org people trying to do something if we have people who know the technology? To move us on from all this talking about it to doing it together

I guess they germinated ok and putting roots down? How do you water them? Our TV gardening show (Gardeners World) says seedlings & new plants should be watered heavily but infrequently, not little and often. You want the roots to grow down into the soil looking for water. So when you water, use enough to drench the soil below where the roots will be, then wait till it's dried out on top before watering again. Otherwise if it's damp on top and dry below, the roots won't grow deep down, so more likely to dry out during the summer. Man, this is understandable, you're nervous because you're taking a chance getting close to someone and making yourself vulnerable to rejection. Looking at it in a positive way, your fear is a sign of how much this means to you, that it's important to you. Stay open to your feelings, don't try and resist it. Your mom & dad's relationship reminds me of my mum & stepfather. If you want my advice (and please tell me to stay out of it if you don't), you both seem to disagree with each other's way of handling the situation with your father. Can you find a calm time to talk with her alone (ie not just after a row with dad), and agree to differ and respect each other's personalities and ways of dealing with conflict? Trying to change other people is rarely successful.

Mon 23mar20 I'm studying the Hsin Hsin Ming, the Chinese poem which begins: "The Great Way is not difficult, for those who have no preferences. Let go of longing and aversion, and it reveals itself. Make the smallest distinction, however, and you are as far from it as heaven is from earth. If you want to realise the truth, then hold no opinions for or against anything" How am I attached to my likes, and repelled from my dislikes? I have my desires and dislikes pulling & pushing, and according to some Buddhists I won't be free till I extinguish my desires and become a sort of zombie Buddha. But I can't accept this, it's so easy to misunderstand it. I need to see the source of my desire: is it coming from my unconscious instincts like my survival instinct? There's a process creating a push-pull layer on top of my natural state of equanimity (= unconditional love). To want to get rid of it, that would just be more aversion. To see the whole movement of instinct, pulling attraction & pushing aversion. To sink down through the layers of instinct to the depths of spacious equanimity. Our lockdown has just been extended to only leaving home for essential reasons, alone or in pairs with people in your household only, to be enforced by the police. Non-essential shops etc will close. I've been working from home for a week now, I'm lucky to be able to continue working.

'I am God' sounds like Hinduism (thou art that, Brahman) 'there isn't anyone' sounds like Buddhism (see the 3 signs of being: impermanence, suffering, no-self). Take your pick. Expand your sense of self by identifying with others, loving others, nature, all of life, until your circle includes the whole universe. Or deconstruct your small sense of ego self until it disappears and you are left with the original undivided suchness. Different paths to the same end.

me too except that when I looked up self-reference I by coincidence discovered the Ouroboros symbol with its links to alchemy, gnosticism, hermeticism, even Jung. But I think that meaning exists in our imagination. These letters I'm typing right now are just squiggly lines but they are given meaning in the shared space of our collective imagination.

He seems to be saying that nothing matters or has meaning or value. Including his own post which states there is no meaning. A circular and self-referential argument? It's like Ouroboros eating his own tail, a mystical symbol indeed.

@RestWithinTheHeart yes I find that letting go is much less effort than concentration, although I do both. Awesome for you to reach a stage where you don't need to meditate, but just do for the beauty of it. Sounds like it's freeing up your intuition too, and releasing some good insights.

Monde = anagram of demon

I haven't got to this stage, but if true, it suggests an answer to the first question: because there would be no division between "God" and "us", and if God doesn't exist, neither do we (I think).

I never understood the problem with the tree falling question. If no-one perceives it, ie there's no evidence to us that it happens, how can we know that it does happen in the first place for us to ask the question? In other words, this whole scenario is imaginary and the tree only falls in our mind's eye. But of course that posits a duality between imagination and physical reality, right?

@RestWithinTheHeart hi and welcome to the forum This sounds a good technique, as I do sometimes have ideas which I think would be good to put in my journal or somewhere, only to forget by the time I try to write them down later (I'm rather forgetful). I guess it could be used with any meditation technique (either on a gadget or old fashioned pencil & paper) - what is your technique and how's it going?

Great that your new job is going well Tsuki, and it's good to have some time outside commuting - I can walk to work, making friends with the trees, plants and birds along the way. I can't imagine what it's like to work as a programmer full time, I just do it for a hobby which is hard enough.