Jodistrict

Set and Setting. That's why I only take psychedelics as a medicine and under the direction of indigenous healers guided by their ancient wisdom.

Sadhguru gave an example in the video of “knowing” you have two hands because it is what you experience. By that criteria, I have some direct knowing of psychedelics because I have actually used them.

Any civilization that survives, will have to transcend the lower ego states into higher state of consciousness after it has mastered a level of technical ability. The ego is what suffers. If they don’t transcend the ego, they will self destruct. We are now at a stage where we have the technology to annihilate ourselves with nuclear weapons. If our consciousness does not evolve, we will destroy ourselves. There is no predetermined plan that says humanity has to survive. We can be one of the failures. Higher intelligence would be living in a state of bliss. It’s either bliss or death.

In the interview, Sadhguru is careful to make the distinction between “knowing” and “belief”. He then advises us that we are better to admit “I don’t know”, which opens up possibilities, rather than be stuck in beliefs, which we never know if they are true or not. But then he expresses his negative beliefs about psychedelics. It doesn’t appear that he has any direct knowledge of them. In the interview he mentions close friends of his that died from drugs. But, this would be like condemning all screwdrivers because one of your friends stuck a screwdriver in his ear and died. He doesn’t seem to be aware of indigenous people who have been using these medicines for thousands of years. Why doesn’t Sadhguru follow his own advice and say “I don’t know” ?

Probably the main factor is that we are just too far away. The universe is vast and any information that reaches us can not travel greater than the speed of light. There may be many civilizations as advanced as we are but energy from their activity won’t reach earth until a billion years from now.

When the dramatic upheavals were occurring in the 1960s, it needed an explanation. The right wing back then believed that it was being directed by the Soviet Union. The plan was that the communists were going to soften up America with social revolution and then they would surprise the US with a land invasion. Remember, this was during the cold war. There was a conspiracy that the new rock music was being directed from the Kremlin, and the Beatles were taught musicology in Moscow. The Beatles seemed to encourage this theory or play off of it with their song “Back in the USSR”. Also, the comedy movie “The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!” lampooned this conspiracy theory.

I attended a Wim Hof day workshop. During the first half of the workshop you are taught the Wim Hof breathing technique. During the second part of the workshop, you are prepared for and then take a two minute ice bath. Before you get into the ice bath, the instructor tells you to clasp your hands in front of you, put your shoulders below the water, and breath deeply from the belly with a longer exhale. I got into the ice bath and the shock and pain was excruciating. My legs felt like they were frozen solid. I was breathing so fast that I was hyperventilating and starting to faint. I didn’t think I was going to make it. About half way through, I started to naturally breath with slower and deeper breaths. My body had found its rhythm. It started to become more bearable. The instructor was there all the time encouraging me else I wouldn’t have made it. After I got out, there was a tingly feeling in my arms and legs and I could barely walk. After you leave the ice bath, you go to the grass and perform an exercise that you are taught. The purpose of the exercise is to warm up the blood in your extremities, so that this cold blood mixes with the warmer blood in the interior of your body. If you go for a towel first, bad things can happen. In my opinion, the ice bath is a valuable tool for testing and training your mind. In two minutes, you are forced to confront a major shock to your body and you either relax and breath or you panic. Wim Hof says that the cold is our teacher and instructs the body how to breath. I found this to be true because after the initial shock and panic, my body finally found its natural breathing rhythm and I could relax and deal with the intense body feelings. This is a the website. https://www.wimhofmethod.com/ To find a workshop. https://www.wimhofmethod.com/activities?category=fundamentals-workshop

When I took sapito, I immediately entered into a state of samadhi. The voice inside the head that is the ego stopped. There was complete silence. I thought I was dying. However, since there was nothing, I am not sure why I remember it. The dosage was determined by an experienced shaman. Maybe a higher dosage shuts down further areas of the brain including the memory system.

Why do they offer the “multiverse theory” as a scientific theory invalidating the need for a “God” when the multiverse theory itself is equally unprovable (and more complex) ?

I have done the Goenka Vipassana 10 day retreat. The group help maintain discipline and one’s enthusiasm. Years ago, I did meditation retreats with Shinzen Young, which was nice because he was informal and would give Dharma talks. I have done some Zen retreats, and they expect you to maintain a perfect posture.

Spiral dynamics seems to make more sense if you view it as a model of large scale cultural development, and not pertaining to individuals or even groups of individuals. Any individual could move in any direction over a course of time. What's to stop him? Personally, I favor purple. From a cultural perspective, before the 60s, America was solid blue with the orange business class supporting the blues. Today, the culture is a split between green and blue, creating a culture war, with the greens winning and largely supported by the orange technologists.

Set and Setting are more important than the drug. I saw a YouTube video of some Westerners having a 5-MEO-DMT ceremony and it sounded more like a beer keg party. Garbage in garbage out. That’s why I only take psychedelic medicines in Mexico, outside of the poisonous American culture.

Sacha makes a career of lampooning blues, and I hate the “Borat” character. However, this was pretty funny and reminded me more of Candid Camera.

Salt increases your water weight. We already have too much salt in our diet contained in all the processed food. I never put extra salt on anything.

I have found that the best way to manage food craving is not to eat and drink water. In my last diet, I would eat only one meal at night. I ate less than 700 calories a day. It sounds difficult, but it wasn’t that difficult because I had no craving for food. The more you eat, the more you crave. Some of that is because of sugar. When you eat something sugary, the sugar does not satisfy your hunger, but creates more hunger. Fat is actually better than sugar, because fat can satisfy hunger.

I took two six week courses online with IFS. The course included practicing with others during the week. The first course was on the protectors. The protectors are subpersonalities that we develop when we are children in order to protect us in the environment we were in. The second course was on the exiles. The exiles are what some call the inner child. But in IFS, you can have more than one inner child. You need to know the protectors first, because the protectors will not let you see the exiles (whom they protect) until they gain your trust. Once you contact an exile, you can unburden it, i.e. release it from its extreme views and pain. Once the exile is unburdened, the protector can be updated to perform more constructive strategies in your adult world. Also, the IFS model has the “self” which is compassionate and creative. The goal is to have the “self” be in control of the inner family system. https://personal-growth-programs.com/ifs-courses/

Has there ever been a conspiracy theory that was created by a woman?

An interesting example is the post modern philosopher “Giorgio Agamben” who states a conspiracy theory from the left. “He downplayed the severity of the disease as nothing worse than the seasonal flu, naively cited flawed government resources claiming there was no epidemic in Italy, and even engaged in speculation in conspiracy theory about the disease being “invented” as a pretext for the exceptional measures to replace the threat of terrorism in the new governing paradigm.” https://medium.com/@olesandberg/corona-is-a-crisis-also-for-political-philosophy-9b4b2477ed5f https://medium.com/@canalikaya/covid-19-state-of-exception-and-agamben-edf9d5bfd21c https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/3/29/covid-19-and-the-neoliberal-state-of-exception/ https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2020/04/08/agamben-vs-zizek-how-their-debate-reflects-the-social-reality-of-covid-19/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Agamben

The electoral college is a consensus system where the entire country, including urban and rural, comes to a consensus on one candidate. The rural areas are given a voice. There is nothing sacred about the popular vote. And in a month, Biden looks like he will win the electoral college, although I am not predicting anything.

This comes from Internal Family Systems Therapy created by Richard Schwartz. https://ifs-institute.com/about-us/richard-c-schwartz-phd The idea of multiple personalities also runs through the history of psychology - Freud had the ego, super ego, id, and Jung had the complexes, etc. An excellent book on the history of subpersonalites in psychology is “Subpersonalities: the people inside us” by John Rowan.

Obama won the electoral college twice, so in itself it is not a big barrier. I saw an interview with Chomsky where he thought the problem was the democratic party’s focus on identity politics which alienated large groups of people, and that the democrats should refocus on the class system and the gross inequality of wealth.

Trump’s key to success was being able to convince bankers to loan him money. He had to master the art of appearing successful and talking like a winner (as would be perceived by a banker). That is why he brags about being the king of debt. He used the same persona to win the election, i.e. “I’m a rich billionaire who has everything and now wants to serve you the people with no ulterior motive”. Trump’s talent was being able to project an illusion of success. Of course, as recently revealed in past tax returns, Trump may actually be broke. What I find interesting is that the Democrats project their hatred onto Trump but they never ask themselves where they fell down in order to be defeated by someone they have no respect for. After all, they had the demographic advantage and should have easily won the election. Trump was able to perceive a discontent that they totally missed and take advantage of it. Their lack of ability to introspect is as noteworthy as Trump’s ability to deceive. The more they blame it on Trump, the less likely they will learn from their mistakes and correct their behavior.

The Shaman I go to is fairly conservative. He says the plant teacher downloads your homework and the real work begins after the ceremony. If you don’t do your homework, you might not get anything the next time you take it. It is also better to able to learn more using less medicine. I am currently integrating with a healer who understands the medicine.

Good point. If Trump really gets sick, the election could become even more uncertain. What if Pence had to take over? I don’t see why progressives are celebrating this. As of yesterday, Biden was going to win. Now there is an October surprise with the possibility of changing the dynamics.

Trump is old, obese, and never exercises. But yet he has mild symptoms. Maybe this shows that the governments of the world have grossly overreacted to a mild virus, which has created massive damage and suffering for billions of people.