snowyowl

I did wonder what's the connection with Indra. Turns out one of his powers is God of rain, which makes sense looking at your fab illustrations. Indra us an interesting God, the historical roots appear to be equivalent to Jupiter and Thor with their magical thunderbolts and hammers.

@Inliytened1 how much of the gospels is historically true, vs later additions - Christians mainly worship the Bible's image of Jesus instead. Same with other religions. The early Christians were expecting the second coming, which never came, so they created the Church instead.

@Consept fair enough, it's not a simple matter of one side = good, the other side = bad. Just different visions. It's pretty clear that we all need some radical and creative thinking, 'outside the box' because we're entering an uncertain new phase. Plus, there's other disruptive forces around, technological, geo-political, demographic, environmental, medical too, meaning that no-one can just carry on in the old way. Who knows, perhaps the EU will be slower and more bureaucratic adapting to the future than small independent states? But we're still Europeans, we will have relationships for the economy, security etc.

But how do you know if this is due to EU policies, or domestic govt? How to separate the complex variables? Don't forget there was another massive shift in politics in the late 70s when the nationalising Labour party approach gave way to privatisation, monetarism and deregulated free market policy of Margaret Thatcher (who was pretty Eurosceptic). We've had higher average incomes, but inequality is still a major problem, and the North-South divide is as bad as ever. There's plenty of old mining communities up north here which had their industries destroyed while there's still plenty of coal left underground. (Rant over, the 80s was my formative time politically!).

Desire means we're not fully satisfied and complete in the here and now, we are creating stories about finding future happiness somewhere else. That's what the Buddha meant by life is suffering, ie life estranged from the present moment (reality) by ego desire. It's the difference between Samsara and Nirvana.

Everything is a balance of union and difference. A single sovereign country is in effect a union of cities and regions, the UK has been a closer union for 300 years than the EU, but there's always ongoing debates about independence vs togetherness. The USA, Russia, China, Spain, everywhere you look there's tension between federal and local government. Each country is also unique culturally, so England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland all have their preferences and agendas which partly overlap with France, Germany, etc. But our UK relationship with the EU has always been fractious, with exemptions and rebates that created a compromise which never quite satisfied anyone completely. Now at least we can have multiple agreements to create a better bespoke relationship rather than feeling bulldozed into a future we never asked for (United States of Europe). Another issue is the invisibility of EU politics vs domestic politics. We vote for our Euro MPs, in a very democratic proportional way, only to never hear from them till the following elections (compared with Westminster Government), Perhaps this is more a fault of the media than the politicians, but it does create an impression of decisions being made behind closed doors.

Good communication skills, some charisma and know the right words to say, you can set yourself up as a guru. Who can tell the difference? Not so easy for newbies, I guess that's why we get organised religions with their lineages, authorisation and so forth. Plus all the bureaucracy, power games etc. We're programmed to follow the leader from childhood.

Immigration gives a clue to the shadow side of stage orange: that it becomes unsustainable quite quickly in historical terms. Advanced capitalist economies have low birth rates, skill shortages, shortage of cheap labour, raw materials, customers (for its growth agenda), and destroy nature. Immigration effectively dilutes orange (temporarily) by bringing in more stage blue. But it's only a short-term fix, sooner or later a more radical shift (to green) will be needed. But unfortunately we still have inequality on the global stage.

@Preety_India I totally agree, Christmas or other gifts, are just tokens for the love, friendship and quality time you spend together. That's what we need to express when we thank each other for presents, rather than how useful or valuable they are.

This belief is worth contemplating. You seem to believe she has this power over you, when she pushes your buttons, to control your emotions. Can you see there's some work to do here, a transformation from allowing other people to pull your strings like this, to reaching freedom, letting go of their negative energies, retaining that strong peaceful centre?

@Javfly33 This is Samadhi, a state of nondual unity. IMO you aren't connecting with anything, but rather dropping the imaginary divisions and noticing the universal reality beneath the facade of difference.

Tricky this, because the status quo includes all our reactions and inner stuff: complacency, apathy, indignation, compassion, hatred, lust, you name it. Change of a particular type is never required, but sometimes flows naturally when Love is present (through non-resistance?).

The Universe is flying apart on the mega scale, the Big Bang is still in progress and we're part of it. On smaller scales, it's a mixture of forces of attraction and repulsion, eg gravity, electromagnetic forces, strong and weak nuclear forces etc. The "rules" of Physics are purely descriptive, not controlling. As far as I can tell, the deeper into the structure of reality the physicists go, the more energy is required in their particle accelerators etc, so we've only got as far as our technology and budgets allow. How can we ever prove if we've got to the very bottom without ever more powerful experiments?

Consciousness is simply just This. It's the easiest thing to see, yet difficult to explain. 'Me' is when This has the thought of an observer looking from inside to outside.

I guess addictions aren't rational, so telling you the small chances of this actually happening doesn't penetrate to the emotional core which you're trying to avoid and suppress. Leo has a video on addictions, could be helpful if you haven't seen it. To summarise, you need to open up to, embrace and fully experience your feelings and work through them. Easy enough for me to say, hard to practice I know. How have you tried to quit so far, by yourself or with a support group? They may be helpful if you've not tried yet.

But this is our creation. When we used to believe in binary gender identities, lo and behold there were just two. Now, if we believe it, there are more: male, female, trans, intersex, cis, queer, I don't know them all myself. It's the magic of consciousness

nice, but then of what is 'the mind' a concept?

I didn't know he has staff, lucky bloke! I follow his youtube videos (which are mostly of his meetings with students) and sent off for his book 'Being Aware Of Being Aware' the other day.

Hi I can't really recommend which teacher you could try as it depends on what works for you, plus I haven't met many in person. But here's a few others I can think of. Rupert Spira - lives in Oxford and travels round the world https://non-duality.rupertspira.com/meet/ Tony Parsons - not sure where he lives but he does hold meetings in London (Covid permitting) https://www.theopensecret.com/calendar Spiritual covers a wide range - there's Buddhist / Zen type groups & teachers too, but I'm not sure if that's your thing.

Thought is a stream of language, it's effectively talking to ourselves; speaking out loud is talking to someone else. But then everything is just awareness (or being) taking various temporary forms. The sofa I'm sitting on is made of it too, but what's different about thought / language is that it is an abstraction, it's form labelling and pointing to other forms. This is us human's greatest superpower and greatest flaw, because it makes us feel separate and superior to the rest of nature.

@Javfly33 the alternative perspective I'm not expressing very well, is that the music, colour etc are self-aware, and that is me. I am unified awareness, I am the phenomena we call everything. But yeah, that's not a very practical perspective for everyday life in society so if we want to be a person we need to split it up like you put it.

I think if you literally have a completely empty mind there would be nothing to remember, not even any awareness of time passing, rather like being in a dreamless sleep state, or a general anaesthetic. But there is a state of pure awareness without thought, where there are still sensory activities like hearing, feeling etc, which just flows through without anyone to observe it or think about it. I've got the TMI book as my meditation project for next year - btw it's available for free download on archive.org if you're short of cash.

Love you too Javfly But can I ask about this: "Awareness being aware of everything." It has a subtle suggestion (in my loosely held opinion) that you're driving a wedge between 'awareness' and 'everything'. Is there something called awareness which is distinct from its content (everything), or are everything and awareness just two names for the same unity? Is the screen distinct from the picture? Sorry if this sounds like I'm splitting hairs but I come up against this everywhere in the nondual scene. Otherwise such a beautiful letter

"As above so below"? I can't pass the buck onto God for changing stuff if I'm not supposed to change it either. But I get your point, even though I'd use a different language to this.

Seeing life as a whole ... yes but where I get stuck is that my resistance, my wanting to change something, is also part of life! So, letting life flow means stopping my urge to change it. But that's changing something! It's a strange loop!