No Self

Sorry to hear you went through that. Online bullying is something that easily gets out of hand, since you have the worst elements of testosterone-fueled communities, everyone trying to prove they are 'tough', the need to put someone down in order to have a group identity and a lack of any real accountability. You've done well to at least get an apology of sorts out of the guy. I don't think you'll get anything more out of him. Time to move on. The next stage is dealing with the trauma. They say the best revenge is living well, and that is a good ambition to have. Having experienced suffering can make us deeper, more compassionate, more understanding people. It also means that we can help others going through the same thing. I wish I was nearly so far ahead when I was your age.

@egoeimai I understand how frustrating it must be. The first thing is that it OK to distance yourself from her for a while. In early childhood, an environment that is stable, affectionate and responsive to a child's needs leads to a sense of trust in the world and positive, secure relationships with others in later life (attachment theory). Such people as adults are easily able to form bonds, yet are not overly affected if a given relationship ends. If things go pear-shaped, however, an individual can compensate for unfulfilling relationships with faux overconfidence (arrogance) or try and prove themselves worthy of love through being competitive. If the individual is manipulative, abusive and lacks empathy, it might start to enter the territory of narcissistic personality disorder. But this is not a diagnosis to treat lightly. Serial killers usually have it, and even in mild cases, they are absolute nightmares in any sort of relationship. There is no cure. If you view her as someone wounded and in need of love, you might feel sympathy rather than anger. Also, if you can find someone self-centred and boastful who neglected you in childhood (a narcissistic parent?), then you can find the real source of the strong emotion. Healing is possible! You'll come to find the situation a blessing since it exposed this gremlin.

Saturn V is still the most powerful vehicle of all time. Safest is probably a Qantas airliner! Energy efficiency is hard to compare. Walking would be right up there. Electric cars are vastly superior to any other kind.

It is necessary to put effort into your foundation. For example, some of the worst disasters in human history (Soviet Communism and the Third Reich) came about as a result of 'open-mindedness' and a desire to destroy failing old systems like Tsarist Russia and Weimar Republic Germany. There were lots of angry overconfident men espousing conspiracy theories, too. When one's mind is open to the radical, it gives the perfect opening for the worst demons to sneak their way in. And yet, we have some pretty bad demons even in our normal society, namely our destruction of our own planet's ecosystem. And solutions needed are pretty radical. First have an historical and psychological understanding of the Mussolinis and Jonestowns of this world, be open as you wish and evolve at your own pace. Or, if you want to go straight to the ultimate truth, there is no content, no evolution, no seeker, no self, etc. there. Ramana Maharshi is my go-to.

@Leo Gura It depends on how you define dominance. If it's about military might, the US will dominate for decades to come, as this has been its primary focus. But this may not be the direction that society is heading. If it's about culture, the US is pretty well entrenched as well. I don't think Mandarin will be my primary language any time soon. If it's about GDP, China is fast catching up. China's automotive market overtook the US in about 2012 from memory. China is also heavily invested in poorer countries in Asia and Africa that are amongst the fastest growing economies. Its monopoly on manufacturing is still strong, though India has a bright future in this respect. In terms of technology, there are areas where China is vastly ahead (eg. high-speed railways), but also areas where it is still playing catch-up (eg. space exploration). What is clear is that the US no longer has the all-round monopoly on everything that it did in its heyday, when the rest of the world was a muddy swamp by comparison. I cannot say where things will be in another 30 years, except that it will be a renewable economy, not a 'beautiful clean coal' economy.

Thanks! The insight that I have come as a result of being quite close to some New Age people. There is often a downfall at some point and it can be sad to see. When a child is traumatised by uncontrollable and unpleasant events, sometimes the child resorts to fantasy as a coping strategy. In fantasy land, anything you want is true, you just have to build up walls to block the outside world. The syndrome that I mentioned seems to be a result of retaining this unfortunate habit into adulthood, and finding others to create a safe space/echo chamber/cult. I am not saying that all of the New Age claims are necessarily false, only that the movement is primarily an exercise in ego gratification and ego defence and thus, not the highest path by any means.

You have a lot of talent! I hope you get a loyal following and can keep doing what you love. Reminds me of a quote by Abraham Maslow. "A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself."

The first thing to know about the New Age movement is that it is a lightweight, half-arsed spirituality that wants the lovey-dovey, feel-good antics of true religion, but without the hard work, shadow investigating, deep meditation, philosophical contemplation and so on. The New Ager wants to endlessly pamper the wounded inner child with rainbows and unicorns, shamelessly abusing both scientific concepts and religious teachings to say whatever nonsense makes themselves feel angelic and magnificent. And it is so ungrounded that the current phase of promoting Trump will likely pass in favour of some other rubbish next year. It is feminine energy gone horribly wrong (except for the bullshit artists who make millions out of it). Just as an example, I remember several years ago, there was a New Age trend called 'quantum jumping'. The idea was that one can access a possible future scenario and 'jump' into it to have whatever you want. Sigh. Firstly, this is just the same old law of attraction (which I have no opinion on) rebranded. Secondly, the scientific community currently does NOT support the New Age interpretation of quantum physics. Thirdly, even the LoT requires some disciplined effort sustained over time. Fourthly, a genuine understanding of the nature spirituality, happiness and love would lead down a very different path. I realise I still haven't answered the question. New Agers despise authorities because they represent all the killjoys of grounded, reality-based, responsible, adult life. The need to wear masks in order to do the right thing by others is antithetical to an obsession with short-term gain and maximising whatever feels good for ME, right NOW. Conspiracy theories pamper the ego with a sense of superior knowledge, moral high ground and freedom to defame and abuse others to project their own dark shadow. Why? You guessed it, to feel good. I formally lost all respect for the New Age movement after I started getting bombarded with pro-Trump propaganda by those people. I realised that they truly stand for nothing except whatever bullshit makes them feel good this week.

Funnily enough, I have a 10 year old niece with some similar traits to those you describe, and I love her to bits. It is very helpful to understand where this behaviour comes from. There are factors like a lack of life experience, broken families, feelings of unworthiness, being misguided by society (if I 'win', I will be worthy of love), questionable parenting, schoolyard bullying, etc. Supposedly my niece has some sort of ADHD going on as well. Arrogance and low self-esteem are merely opposite sides of the same coin of dysfunction. Longer term, it is better to part company with someone rather than hate them, but the blessing is that something in you is being triggered that you can expose, explore and perhaps overcome. The trigger has to be caused by some sort of past trauma that carries a similar resonant frequency.

Yes, most people have to work for a long time to have any sort of consistency. Some people like Eckhart seem to win the spiritual lottery and never lose touch with the background of peace and joy. Relationships are an interesting topic. Neale Donald Walsch says there is a paradox. We do not have any need for another in order to be complete, and yet without others, we miss the whole function of the physical world of relativity. The whole "you cannot have big without small, light without dark, good without evil" sort of thing is very fundamental to this understanding. Perhaps everything is a relationship in this world. There seems to be some sort of relationship with any beings we come into contact with, relationships to institutions, relationships to cultures, relationships to ideas, even a relationship to the body and mind... yet from the ultimate perspective, none is real except the Self alone.

I totally feel you. The problem is that pretty much every single thing in society is pushing a completely different agenda to ultimate truth. And being outnumbered by about a billion to 1 makes it hard not to question ourselves and fall in line. That said, the classic nondual advice in this situation is to be less sympathetic to the mind. Who is the 'I' who needs more alone time? Who believes something is missing? Who buys into society? etc... The mind sort of sneaks in through the back door, pretending to be engaged in a spiritual pursuit and then sneakily restoring the old patterns. Mooji once said, "The mind is fired, but it keeps showing up for work." Also interesting, another Ramana quote from a book says something almost the exact opposite of this thread title. "The conclusion is that happiness is inherent in man and is not due to external causes. One must realize the Self in order to open the store of unalloyed happiness."

The sense of 'I' and the story of 'I' is at the centre of all of that. Ramana says: "When other thoughts arise, one should not pursue them, but should inquire: ‘To whom do they arise?’ It does not matter how many thoughts arise. As each thought arises, one should inquire with diligence, “To whom has this thought arisen?”. The answer that would emerge would be “To me”. Thereupon if one inquires “Who am I?”, the mind will go back to its source; and the thought that arose will become quiescent. With repeated practice in this manner, the mind will develop the skill to stay in its source. When the mind that is subtle goes out through the brain and the senseorgans, the gross names and forms appear; when it stays in the heart, the names and forms disappear. Not letting the mind go out, but retaining it in the Heart is what is called “inwardness” (antarmukha). Letting the mind go out of the Heart is known as “externalisation” (bahir-mukha). Thus, when the mind stays in the Heart, the ‘I’ which is the source of all thoughts will go, and the Self which ever exists will shine. Whatever one does, one should do without the egoity “I”. If one acts in that way, all will appear as of the nature of Siva (God)."

I cannot speak from experience, but teachings of Eckhart Tolle and the Buddha describe an underlying state of suffering, unease and restlessness in the unenlightened human condition. Much of our behaviour is all about managing it or covering it up through distractions. And yet, the masters say that genuine freedom from it is possible.

Speaking of China, it is interesting to contrast its tactics for establishing hegemony to those of the US. They build subsidised infrastructure in poorer countries, then dominate by ensuring debts are almost impossible to pay. Though not ideal, I daresay this is an improvement of the American way of subjugation through bloodshed. We are also entering a new arena in which manipulation of public opinion is the new global battleground. We are only at the beginnings of seeing what AI is capable of in terms of flooding the population with propaganda that sows division and mayhem. Much of the US population still doesn't even realise that this war is happening and it is the main target.

The DSM is updated as new understandings cause additions, deletions and modifications of mental disorder classifications. This ongoing fluidity is the best we can do. No doubt it will look very different in the distant future. By the standards of a truly enlightened society, the average human today has severe mental disorders at several levels.

Much of the English language is a product of 'borrowing' from other languages and traditions, including those decimated by colonial violence, but here we are. Blackface was one of the more extreme historical examples of cultural appropriation, and had the effect of reducing African Americans to a sub-human, laughable parody. This also coincided with the rise of the KKK to the mainstream around the same time. Opposing such extreme expressions is appropriate as there's a direct link to the evils of dehumanisation. On the other hand, I used to know a group of young white people who were madly in love with Rastafarianism and presented themselves accordingly. I feel it would be cruel to try to shame them for being passionate members of a movement but having the 'wrong' ethnicity. When leftists go too far like that, it gives the perfect fodder for right-wing 'free speech' or 'anti-white racism' propaganda, which will be used for genuinely destructive purposes against minorities. The left still hasn't learned not to let perfect be the enemy of good.

Why are you bringing up Republicans? ...oh wait, my bad. Never mind.

The logical solution is a global United Nations army that is funded by all member states and responds decisively as needed.

Superficially, it would seem that memories are experiences stored in the brain. We forget 99% of our experiences, and the ones that we remember are very distorted and biased. But the idea of the brain being the storage medium can be disproven if one is open to profound anecdotes. Some people have been able to 'remember' past lives, particularly young children who recall places they have been in past lifetimes. They have been known to recall events that can be verified - events which occurred before their birth. In many near-death experience reports, people have left their 'dead' bodies and overheard conversations in other rooms. Those conversations have been later recalled and verified, including by medical practitioners. Where could such a memory be stored if the brain is dead at the time? The after-death process of 'life review' indicates that everything is stored. I think it would be beyond our scope from a human perspective to define God's hard drive server. But it is there!

@Inliytened1 Good advice nonetheless.

The former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard raised this issue as a core part of her campaign. As a US Army Reserve officer, she has seen the horrors of war first hand. She argued that the vast sums of money pumped into military expenditure could instead be used to provide first-world levels of education, health care, infrastructure and so forth to benefit US citizens. Just like a normal country. It seemed that almost nobody took her message seriously. Before parroting the propaganda that the US brings 'freedom', keep in mind the mass slaughter of 1980s El Salvador, the rape of Hissène Habré's Chad, the near-nuclear holocaust of the Cold War and countless others. Consider also that the powerful lobby groups and corporations building weapons have a business that requires violence in order for business to run smoothly. And consider that genuine solutions require a completely different energy. Yes, in very specific instances such as stopping Imperialist Japan in the 1940s, force is needed. This then becomes a slippery slope that is easily manipulated to spread violence.

Lots of assumptions even in such a simple question. 1) There is a God 2) There is an 'us' seperate from God 3) An object called Truth with some sort of value is hidden 4) There is a reason why the object is hidden 5) There is somebody who needs to find the object 6) There can be no peace until the somebody finds the something... ...etc.

The problem with forums is that any simple question or comment tends to get a whole spectrum of responses and debates. In other words, lots of noise. The exact opposite of what anyone seeking peace is after. And yet, there will be nuggets of gold here and there. The message of the masters is that you are already there, you just don't know it yet. I don't feel qualified to comment other than saying that Ramana Maharshi, Eckhart Tolle and others offer some of the purest insights. If genuine solutions are desired, it is definitely better to immerse one's self in such teachings than the noise of any forum. But the forum is still a worthy tool, too.

I recently had a work colleague ask me for a suggestion to replace an ageing iPhone 5 or similar. I'm no fan of Apple's corporate ethics (not that Google is saintly), though I suggested that he look at an iPhone 11, which should be discounted slightly in the wake of a new release. I suggested this for a few reasons: 1) He is an old man, not very tech savvy 2) He can afford paying 'more for less' 3) He is already in the Apple ecosystem, so the dramas of shifting away from Apple would not be worth it.

Protesting might be going a bit far. Certain actions, like voting as per one's own values or selectively sharing perspectives come naturally without needing an angry/depressed 'self' who desperately wants to change the world. Even extreme actions like the people who protected would-be Holocaust victims in their basements, require no 'self'. And I never have to try and argue with a flat-Earther on the internet again! Oh the joy. Thanks. You're welcome to make comics or anything else you like with it.