snowyowl

of course, 99.99% of us are unenlightened (incl me) so we aren't very good at recognising who is

I agree with reducing waste, as well as moving to less processing of food. But not reducing production necessarily, that would just mean more imports which take food away from poorer countries surely? Eg in the UK we only produce about 60% of our own food requirement, we've not been self-sufficient for a long time and create cash crops in poor countries rather than crops for their own consumption. Foreign aid and private charity to help poor countries is all very well, but only as a temporary fix. One of the biggest drivers of hunger is war - eg the current conflict in Ethiopia & Tigray creating refugees without the means to grow food. How long have they had fighting and famines in that part of the world.

@PurpleTree yes, if you're a good communicator and can speak to people's hearts and souls they'll come flocking to hear you - the danger isn't so much whether you will starve, but how to avoid creating a cult. @Javfly33 For an enlightened person the survival motivation is service to others - Jesus presumably felt that giving up his life was in the greater good, whereas Buddha felt that a long life teaching the dharma was the right thing to do. Who am I to judge between them? 'Why not "help ants"? ' Sure why not, St Francis helped animals didn't he? But I remember Leo also saying something like enlightenment doesn't automatically remove your bias and cultural conditioning, or give you emotional mastery. Numerous sexual scandals attest to that.

@Beginner Mind thanks, that's really clear. I'll stay with being rather than awareness for now as I can't seem to find pure awareness itself, separate from the contents of awareness. And I'll give my monkey mind space to be itself too, while it settles itself down

Hi, are you saying these two approaches merge together when you develop a more advanced stage of consciousness; or are they distinct techniques which don't converge until you get all the way to enlightenment? Just curious because I'm practicing the 'let it be' approach at the moment, but my restless monkey mind keeps asking if there's a better technique out there to try, it's never quite satisfied. If they're only really different at the beginner stage, then there's less need to shop around and get distracted and slowed down.

The Buddha already lived in a culture in ancient India where homeless ascetics were an accepted part of life, and ordinary working people supported them, that's why (in the story) a woman gave him a meal when he decided to pursue the middle way and give up starving himself voluntarily. Then he went on to create a monastic community (Sangha) - with support from the royal families - and made rules that the monks & nuns aren't allowed to handle money and grow their own food, but go begging from the lay community. This is still how many Buddhist monks & nuns live today in the far East, especially Theravadins, but in the West (also presumably other non-Buddhist areas), they have to make arrangements so there's lay people around to give them a roof over their heads, food to eat etc. I guess there are some folks who can live on their wits without much money & other forms of plugging into civilisation but most of us have never learned how to, the capitalist system would hate that

So, acceptance (= love) of the present and past, of the whole situation, and action from that acceptance is the good. But if we divide reality up into some parts which we like and accept; and other parts which we dislike and reject; that's a recipe for evil and suffering.

@IamMystic Different teachers suit different students - there's a relativity here - the very fact that you're calling these people teachers is putting yourself into the role of student. Maybe at your present state of being, Leo is just the right person to help move you on, but I'd suggest, don't write anyone or anything off as a potential source of learning. Including yourself. Maybe the more we expand our awareness, the more that everyone and everything shows us the truth

Ok, I'm trying to understand this, not sure if I've got it yet. I resist stuff, procrastinate too (resistance to doing things on my to-do list). Are you saying that resistance is like another name for lying to myself, creating a fantasy which is different to reality? But there's also a tradition from the east, Buddhism & Taoism, which says that we shouldn't reject or cling to anything - find the middle way - so are we talking about acceptance without clinging (clinging is as bad as rejecting)? Is it letting things be themselves without trying to change them? But then sometimes there are conflicts. For example, there's poverty and homelessness, I don't want to accept that, but it exists. So does my feeling of rejecting it exist. So presumably I need accept the whole situation, the reality of poverty, plus my thought that I want to change it? How is that different from what I'm doing already?

A couple of random thoughts: An accurate map, when you zoom in, contains a little picture of the map itself, and when you zoom in on that ... you get an infinite regression, because it is self-referencing. How does this relate to the ego, which is a thought trying to reference itself? A strange loop perhaps. A map is a load of abstract shapes and squiggly lines on a piece of paper, without any inherent meaning. Just like these letters I'm typing on the screen. The meaning occurs within our minds, ie the idea that the unreal picture represents, or points to, something real outside itself. But, this whole process is occurring within a single reality. My mind is somehow creating this distinction between abstraction and reality, the idea of one thing pointing to, representing, another.

@Natasha when you passed out, was it an experience of void, peace, liberation in time ? Did it last for a while with a beginning and an ending? Your story reminds me of when I had an operation under general anaesthetic. I remember starting to count down from 10 while inhaling the gas, got to 7. Then I blanked out and the next moment I woke up in the post-op room. In normal time it was an hour or two later. I had a void, peace etc, but no awareness of time so I couldn't experience it or enjoy it!

Sounds hopeful. I've no assumptions about Israel, or other middle eastern countries really. Also stage orange corporations and organisations are beginning to accept things like mindfulness and meditation as tools for productivity, wellbeing and achieving the flow state. We have that type of thing where I work in the public sector. You're just ahead of the curve, is all.

You're right, sometimes you just need a good hug. Says it better than all this talking about nonduality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Nwadike_Jr.

It's a tough choice whether to stand up against the mainstream culture, go to prison and potentially harm your future job prospects. I don't know about the politics & ethics of the IDF so I'll swerve that debate and look at how you can keep up a meditation practice in the army. If you can frame your meditation practice as a spiritual practice, won't they give you access to somewhere quiet where you can meditate etc? Presumably they allow religious soldiers to pray, attend services etc, so why not just talk to the padre like this is your path to God / Truth (whatever language works for you) and can they find somewhere for you to practice? Also what's the culture like with the other soldiers, are they open to accepting you or would you be seen as an oddball? I'm curious how progressive and open minded young Israeli recruits are. I don't think you should feel pushed into rocking the boat if you're not comfortable to. Best wishes and good luck!

If there's a choice of other crypto currencies out there, and Bitcoin is starting to show its age, then maybe there'll be some competition if the newer ones have a technical or price advantage. What is Bitcoin's advantage? Just its large size and brand image?

Yes, it's the ultimate fear of change. @Danioover9000 Could be you're developing some clairvoyance or telepathy - that's exciting - hope you find out more

Biden will have the chance to put his words into action, we will wait and see. As for Trump, he did play hardball over the trade talks, risking a trade war over his efforts to create a level playing field with the Chinese. He stopped them getting into the 5G network too.

You see it's hard to talk about this without those sneaky pronouns, "I", "we" popping up as if they are the knower, experiencer or observer of pure being. But if being includes everything, then you can't get outside it to "know" it. You have to see it from within, be part of it. Be the being as you say. Actually that's what we always have been, but for the illusion we are separate. This says it well:

Speaking from direct experience, I know what consciousness is like in the form of a self-identified separate human body (ie dual). I have brief glimpses of what human consciousness is like as non-identified, non-separate human form (ie nondual). Outside that, it gets into the realm of guesswork. When this body, with it's superpower to conceive of itself as a separate self dies, it merges back into the general non-human form of existence. I don't see why the other forms of reality (worms, soil, gas, whatever else I will turn into), can't have forms of consciousness too.

@Willie @Anderz yeah unity is totally unrealistic, and in any case the whole point of democracy is to have different parties which disagree with each other. But I'll be charitable for now and assume Joe Biden just likes the idea of unity and wants to de-escalate the anger and high emotions going round at the moment. I don't expect a particularly radical term of office, but maybe he'll get the US back to somewhere like where Obama left off. BTW I was checking the figures and have got that Biden currently has 279 electoral college points (56.6% of current total of 493 against 50.6% of total votes counted). Trump has 214 (43.4% vs 47.7% of votes counted). It means the US system (just like ours in the UK) isn't proportional and gives more to the winners than the also-rans, so the actual feeling of the country is closer than the result suggests. I don't see Republicans wanting to compromise on such a close result, it's about as close as our Brexit referendum was and look how that turned out, years of wrangling followed. Speaking of also-rans, I can't find how many votes went to the other candidates - there's 1.7% balancing figure up to 100% total votes - presumably they got zero electoral college points. The media makes them almost invisible.

@Danioover9000 thanks for the support (both of you) I don't think I have the type of problem to get professional help, I'm not afraid of death for my own sake, but anxious for the people I'll leave behind (which probably every unenlightened person with loved ones has). I was wondering if Crysty is aware of other spirits around trying to contact physically living people and could give some tips. But if not, that's ok too. The answer is to keep on with the spiritual work and become an embodiment of what @Moksha says 'love is all there is'.

How about if (and this is a question too) the feeling of the separate "I" which lives and dies, isn't untrue, but is just a limited perspective which is a limited truth? Rather like when you only look at one piece of the jigsaw. The untruth comes in if you extrapolate from the small piece and assume you know what the fill picture is like, instead of actually looking at the whole jigsaw. Edit -- or if we are the jigsaw, which can choose to identity as a single whole, or as separate pieces. Except that the 'pieces' are impermanent, virtual pieces, the borders being redrawn over and over.

@Moksha thanks, yeah you're right of course, I suppose I'm just clinging onto an impermanent state of physical living here. I should know better, I've lost both my parents, they haven't contacted me. Maybe there's another answer too around the fact that love is way bigger than our individual physical life & death.

I had a major anxiety today. I thought, what if I die before the rest of my family (I'm married with children), and they are missing me and struggling with grief, financial worries etc. Does Crysty know if there's any way for deceased people in spirit to contact their families and somehow reassure them that death isn't the end, give them practical advice etc? Or am I just clutching at straws here? I'm doing my best to be a good husband and dad, but really we need each other and would be devastated if we lost any one of us.

'In his first speech as US president-elect, Biden vowed "not to divide but unify" the country' (BBC news website today). Is this just rhetoric or if not, how's he planning to unify his progressive supporters with Trump's side? If he is serious about unity, that implies some major compromises and policy changes. Will he stick with some liberal policy (I don't call him left wing) or look for a middle ground at the right hand side of the democrats?