snowyowl

This sounds more like conditioning, where unenlightened people have a load of mental baggage which affects their behaviour. What I don't agree with is the individualism of the religious karma theory. We don't have our own personal stock of karma or conditioning following the soul through incarnations. Rather it's impersonal and distributed throughout society. The effects of one person's good or bad deeds ripple out through society and even nature because we aren't separate, there's only one of us really. Karma is communal not individual imo. Edit. With the example of the thugs, why are they thugs? Maybe an element of free choice, but also influences of nature/nurture. Genetics inherited from the family tree, and upbringing. If someone's had a tough childhood it can affect their brain development. We are who we are because of the whole situation outside of ourselves.

@SageModeAustin Are you doing the Jesus alignment by yourself or have you joined a church or something? I'm curious what an independent Christianity looks like if you're doing it on on your own.

Natural just means being true to your nature, whatever that happens to be. And perhaps this is relative to the development of the society you're trying to belong to. Your picture seems truer in a less technological economy, but now we have a more complex picture where leadership roles require more interpersonal soft skills traditionally associated with the feminine, not just the dominating alpha male skillset. But I don't think the higher divorce rate is a sign of failure, rather it's a sign that the more liberal societies (I don't like the western vs eastern split) are evolving and experimenting with a new paradigm where women's potential and contributions to society are more fully realised. It's hard for some couples to adjust for instance when the woman becomes the breadwinner, but these are the birth pangs of something new.

Does that mean the thugs weren't doing anything wrong (and didn't incur bad karma themselves) because they were just giving cosmic payback for someone else's bad deeds?

@Blackhawk ok, so it sounds like the neutrality is a sham. I would like to see Sweden join NATO too, also Ireland who in practice shelter under protection of NATO countries around them, but don't take the responsibility and cost of full membership. If they did did come under a military threat who would they look to for help.

Sorry to hear you're going through this depression, I can relate having suffered with it for a long time earlier in my life. Have you tried medication, it may help to change to a different one if your current treatment isn't working, with consulting your doctor of course. The tablets which worked for me had unpleasant side effects, but it was worth it. Also if you drink alcohol I suggest quitting because it can have a depressing effect. Above all don't give up and keep talking, lots of people here do care.

Folks here are happy to give advice, be a shoulder to cry on etc, but a consistent theme in your posts is that you just want a girlfriend. Of course you do, you're a young guy in need of a relationship and a sex life, so why not prioritise that with regular self-help and whatever therapy you need? Put all this spiritual stuff on the back burner and come back to it when your frustrations are healed. But that sounds like advice so feel free to ignore me

And the significance of Sweden for me is their neutrality through the 20th Century, neutral in 2 world wars & the cold war. Haven't had an empire since probably the Vikings? And your GDP per head is higher than ours. Liberal-ish politically. Gotta say there's a lot going for Sweden, no wonder people want to emigrate there.

You're very modest. Sweden is the largest European country in size isn't it (unless you count Greenland within Europe, but I'm not sure about that). Her population of about 10m is small though, leading to a low population density. So much space, man i'm jealous!

@Blackhawk even if you don't share the same religious interests, chances are he would be pleasantly surprised by someone who takes a friendly interest in his rituals and is open to discussing life as equals, as Muslims are often misunderstood and stereotyped in Europe. Maybe you'll strike up a friendship. Or it may turn out you don't have much in common, but I can't see you have anything to lose. It may help to be open about your social anxiety if you find conversation difficult. But just do what you feel comfortable with.

'Practice what you preach' is an important point, but there's a difference between green and yellow. Green is the impatient judgemental type who can't understand why the people in power can't just flick a switch and make society perfect overnight. They probably haven't been the bosses to appreciate the difficulties. Yellow put themselves into the boots of all sides of the issue, and see that real deep seated change takes time. For instance, if one firm gives a big pay rise unilaterally while their competitors don't, they will be at a competitive disadvantage until the rest of society catches up with them.

Definitions of karma vary, so I don't want to get into disagreements based on misunderstanding each other. However I think the root meaning of karma is 'action'. So action leading to karma means something like cause & effect, or actions having consequences. Maybe karma is more a state of mind than a substance. If we see reality in terms of a sequence of cause & effect in time, then we 'have karma', we're living in samsara. When karma ends, time ends, no more birth/death, no separation between events.

@Preety_India have you tried flipping this over, and seeing that all those superficial people are the losers because they're rejecting anyone who isn't like them and getting stuck in a rut. They're missing out on the rich diversity of life with such a narrow gate to let out their love to the world, and receive love back. You should feel sorry for them rather than yourself.

Find the "I" that's here right now if you can! Yes there is a mind and a physical body which arises and falls away as a temporary form, within all the other forms of existence (the continued existence of this bodily form actually requires death of many others to keep it going). But the "I" is the illusory phantom which thinks it owns this human being.

@Blackhawk your health and wellbeing is the important thing, not enlightenment. If you're getting suicidal thoughts and horrific experiences then I'd suggest packing in the spirituality and getting professional help.

@Blackhawk Hi, I've suggested in other threads that you do some specialised therapy which may help in the non-spiritual areas of life, but you seem to be resistant to establishing any regular practice, whether spiritual or therapeutic. You say things like this: "1. I don't have the energy for that. 2. I don't have the time for that. 3. I hate doing it. 4. I don't have the discipline for it. 5. I don't want to waste so much effort into something which might not even be true." The areas of enlightenment and therapy are basically experiential so you gotta put in some work and effort to achieve any sort of change in your consciousness. Many spiritual people spend years practicing without achieving a full enlightenment, but what keeps them going is lower level experiences like peacefulness, bliss, insights, nondual / mystical glimpses etc. You've been into this stuff for some time now. What practices have you tried, and have you had any limited success so far?

Also probably UKIP / Brexit party which did quite well in EU elections ironically, which were more proportional than general elections as I understand. There were far more parties standing in EU elections so more choice at both ends of the spectrum, less of a race to the centre. We've been divided ever since we joined the Common Market, probably before then. The main reason for the referendum was to try and end the internal division within the Conservative party. What else can we expect, politics is all about trying to find a practical and peaceful way through disagreements and different stages. Maybe it's the stage blue vs orange split behind this - you can't force the pace of development too fast - I should know, I feel a tension between blue & orange in myself lol!

My ultimate goal is to stop trying to change anything and simply be at ease with whatever is. Actually that's already the case if I don't have free will, but it still feels like I do, so I go around thinking I'm trying to do stuff, survive, have fun and make the world a better place in my small way. In the meantime I want to be of some loving service to my family, local community etc. Be a good dad, husband etc. Look after myself wholistically.

Fear is sometimes just suppressed excitement, holding itself in. The ego clings to its comfort blanket while other possibilities beckon ... Letting go of 'I can't' or 'what if I get it wrong' allows us to dive in and flow along the river of life. Fear is washed away. Good luck @Blackhawk you can do this.

@Blackhawk nowadays most types of conditions have support groups where you can meet in person or chat online with others having the same problems. I'll hazard a guess there's thousands of people in your country with similar symptoms who know what you're going through, have tried different things first hand, and can give much better advice than someone like me who's only really guessing. People who understand your situation will be less judgemental and easier to be friends with, you may even be able to get some peer mentoring, if you don't want to try therapy again.

@Sonny Have you come across the writings of Paul Brunton, who taught about the Overself, a bigger version of self inbetween the individual and the whole. I like the idea of levels of selfhood to progress through, however a warning, I found his writing style a bit hard to follow and he's dated nowadays, so there's probably other teachers on this.

@DefinitelyNotARobot hi, your ideas aren't far fetched or weird at all, in fact I've met plenty of voluntarily celibate people who I enormously respect. I'd say it's a matter of knowing yourself well enough, to know what's the most fitting lifestyle for you. Horses for courses kinda thing. Personally, I'm not judging which is more or less advanced. @DefinitelyNotARobot nice

@wildflower thanks for sharing your experience, I guess we've all been hurt by following our desires. I certainly have, I'm no sage. But on the other hand, resisting my desires is suffering too. Maybe that's another level of meaning to the middle way.

Sensory pleasure is sensory pleasure in the moment. Suffering is caused when you are attached to it, like an illusory ego wanting to hold onto something impermanent. If you simply surf the wave of pleasure while it lasts, and let go when it goes, where's the problem? Murdering kittens is suffering because you (hypothetically please!) are both the murderer and the murdered kittens. No two, no separate me.

@BipolarGrowth thanks, I may put MCTB on my reading list, after TMI and Boundless Awareness ?