zazen

Before the counting of days, when consciousness first stirred in the vessel of flesh, there walked a being who was both less and more than what you are today. Less, for they had not yet accumulated the layers of thought and memory that now wrap around your minds like silk. More, for they touched reality with naked awareness, unmarred by the fragments and divisions that now scatter your perception. This First One did not know they were first, for such knowing requires an other to be second. They moved through the world as the wind moves through leaves - without separation, without reflection. Their eyes were not yet mirrors but windows, through which the universe gazed at itself in perfect unity. Their breath was the breath of all things. When they inhaled, they drew in not just air but the very essence of existence. When they exhaled, they did not release waste but returned themselves to the whole. Each step was a communion, each gesture a prayer they did not know they were making. They carried within them all that you are now - all possibilities, all futures, all potential forms of consciousness. But these lay dormant, like seeds in winter soil, waiting for the long spring of human becoming. Do not think of this First One as primitive or simple. Their consciousness was not less than yours but different - unified where yours is divided, whole where yours is fragmented. They were the original drop from which the ocean of human awareness would eventually flow. And here is the secret that burns like a star in the night of understanding: You are still this First One. Beneath your layers of thought and memory, beyond your boundaries of self and other, that original unity still breathes. Your fragments yearn to remember their wholeness. This is why you seek. This is why you question. This is why something in you resonates with tales of beginnings. For in understanding the First, you glimpse the Last - the circle completing itself, consciousness returning to unity while retaining all it has learned in its long journey through division. Meditate on this, you who would know yourselves. For in the First lies the seed of your completion, and in your completion lies the meaning of the First. - Anon

Guess this didn't land, no pun intended.

@PurpleTree That example always gets brought up. A key characteristic of imperialism is that it's exploitative, coercive, and has no respect for sovereignty. China offers loans to fund infrastructure at the request of Sri Lanka - they offer much lower interest rates than Western finance, build infrastructure that stays and is used in the country to provide benefit to that country - and without concessions to subvert their sovereignty by installing a military base or demand political alignment. In fact they restructured the deal into a 99 year lease (ie not ownership) as they were struggling to repay due to Western based debt - so it actually helped them out of a prickly situation. One or two bad deals which are bound to happen in business doesn't negate that many countries are doing many projects willingly with China - on terms much less subversive than the West could ever offer. That's true - US did build countries up post WW2 - they largely built them in exchange for leading the global ''rules based order'' and into their own hegemonic architecture via using the US dollar. That has given them the exorbitant privilege and position which they have weaponized and abused over the decades and has eroded much of the good will and image the US had in its earlier days.

BRI’s Pan-Asian high speed railway network bypasses the Malacca straight and integrates the region economically. The US want to “contain and encircle” China just like Russia - whether by land or sea. That’s the great game grand strategy at play in the backdrop of granular internal politics that can be endlessly observed, analysed and kept track of. The China containment pivot began with Obama and has continued through Biden and till Trump - continuity of agenda of Empire / Deep State policy which no “Democratic vote” will or can ever change - that is above the “people’s” pay grade who only ever get to vote for candidates that differ on social-cultural issue's but rarely on national security / foreign policy issues that their own citizens must die for. Western Empire is trying to strong arm countries to de-couple from China and force them to pick loyalty to either or, in order to prevent China and the regions rise. As a side note - China’s high speed rail scaling to the continent just makes the US look bad: what have they done in their neck of the woods for South America except be a market for drugs that empower a cartel dark state? China acts as an example of empire that isn't imperial but influential, and that other countries partner with, rather than be predated upon and extracted from. The example of an empire that empires better than the US is itself a threat to an empire acting imperially.

I was exaggerating to vent how angered the world is at the situation. The reason Gaza hits harder than Sudan is first because the West has a stake in it which means a leverage to stop it or continue it, and second because whilst its bad to sell weapons to war zones for capital gain, its evil to diplomatically and morally shield and justify such death and destruction. It's not simply arming the conflict but systematically enabling and holding up the conditions of that conflict - at every level. There's a distinction between good, bad and evil. Sudan's suffering is seen as a tragedy of war and collapse, Gaza's is seen as horrific and engineered whilst being ideologically excused and justified as a war for ''Western civilization and liberal democracy''. Sudan's hunger is a emergent byproduct, Gaza's hunger is a engineered condition - to pressure Palestinians into ''voluntarily'' cleansing themselves.

Great discussion: 19-41min is especially good. Azerbaijan is a linchpin state that can be used to overextend both Russia to its South and Iran to its North - hence deep ties with Israel, US and the UK. US think tanks have covered extending Russia in the caucus region before. As my earlier lengthy post on this page said - the Ukraine war is bleeding the West through attrition it’s not built for. As the West isn’t acknowledging Russia’s main concern for the war - the war will now continue and be decided by Moscow as to where and when it ends (like the guys in the vid above mention). Putin is now actually incentivised to prolong this war and weaken a Western bloc that isn’t cooperating with regards to the main security concern Russia has continuously laid out. If the other party rarely ever considers your concerns or dismisses them flippantly - the next best thing to do is weaken that party in a war of attrition, so that they are no longer a concern to your national security. A fractured, indebted, vassalized neighbour - a pussycat rather than a pitbull is what they must become, at great cost and risk of course. Europe seems to be fleecing itself for the Empire. Just see this supposed deal (yet to be ratified) between Trump and the EU - what does the EU get in return? A tax on its products that will lower their competitiveness and sales to the largest consumer market, with talks of 100’s of billions worth of investment in expensive US energy and military equipment, with money from where? Europe worked well because it had cheap inputs (energy) from the East (Russia) paired with a strong out put of products to its West (the US). Now Europe is basically squeezed from both ends and being asked to ramp up its military spending that will cut from its social welfare spending - already burdened as it is, in a political climate of right wing anti-immigration, anti-EU, anti-establishment rhetoric. How do we think this is going to work out.. An unfortunately dark decade ahead for Europe - as they say in Dragons Den - “I’m out”

Brilliant video and agree with your comment. Western frame works including Spiral Dynamics handicaps us in understanding other societies including ourselves - the map is not the territory. Spiral dynamics isn’t a ladder as if to view societies within a hierarchy from, but a spiral where values / stages are embedded, constant, and context dependent - manifesting in various ways at all times - whether latent or dominant. Life is not as linear, or black and white as it seems.

Wow, enforcers videos are amazingly good at granular analysis - first time seeing them. All the above - I think it’s temple/land dispute, internal politics and external realpolitik of great power meddling to de-rail China’s BRI / regional development and rise. So it’s not an either or situation but a this and situation. This guy I follow is a ex Marine living in Thailand and does great geopolitical analysis. I initially thought he overweighted US’s role and that could be his bias (overlooking internal politics / agency) but a older video of his came with some receipts on how the US intervenes in those “internal” politics: The first 20 min and from 30 minutes onwards is good. The latest video is covering the current flare up with Cambodia:

My god, it got worse the longer you listen to it. The stopping of baby formula, then the clustering and pattern of different areas of the body being shot at each day as if it’s a game - like the title said “target practice”. This is another from Sky news: Everything is just Hamas’s fault or Hamas propaganda. Do Israelis and their Western conspirers think Hamas have some blackmail Epstein level kompromat on all these Western doctors and global aid agencies - to have blackmailed them into taking the Palestinians side? Or is it just the facts on the ground that the Israeli government is genocidal? Even if it isn’t state policy, the fact is Israeli soldiers themselves act genocidally individually on the field - most evidently at the aid sites daily. It’s not “just Bibi” - its a sick rot in that country - and a sick terrorist state of the US who’s the only one that can stop it but isn’t. Israel and US are the devils of the world and rightfully are hated by the world. If the tables ever turn to where the East and South have more power than the West - let’s hope they have and show mercy upon a relatively weaker and unstable West, for the crimes they have done.

Is Sadhguru at Tomorrowland fake spirituality? Next up Burning Man to belly rub Aubrey Marcus.

Like a narcissistic dog you say .. 😂 Awkward way to stand and hold a hand while the mics in the other.. homie just trying to establish 45sec of kino contact to unlock cosmic levels of attraction and free love.

On most topics there seems to be a polarised 50/50 split down the middle on things being debated politically - yet on Israel the political apparatus is unanimous - it bends over backwards. Like the recent amendment vote on the bill to supply Israel €500 mill for the Iron Dome - which AOC got a lot of heat for voting against. The result was 466-6: only 6 in favour for the amendment to remove the funding. The US is either completely cucked by Israel which only feeds into the stereotype of “the joos” controlling nations like some cabal. Or the US see’s Israel as its own (a 51st state) so they take its defence personally. Either way, the US State (not people) are either cucked or cuckoo in the head, just as cuckoo as extremist Zionists. Chat GPT: “Criticism of “the West” isn’t about blaming individuals. It’s about holding accountable the structures, institutions, and narratives that enable and excuse mass suffering. Most Westerners don’t consciously support the killing of civilians. But the political systems, media framing, and foreign policy apparatus that act in their name often do. This is what people mean when they say “the West is complicit.” It’s about the empire that claims to represent you — and acts as if it owns the moral high ground while subsidizing the machinery of domination elsewhere.”

Juicy ratio

Found this reaction video of an American woman listening to a conservative perspective on modesty interesting: Whats the middle way between modesty and liberty?

Guess this fits into the MAGA pervertery:

First time being exposed to Rupert Sheldrake - that was a great first listen. Religion is much more than simply being a mechanism for awakening - it serves multiple needs and makes up a large part of cultural heritage and identity. Recognising it as a construct - seeing ''through it'' doesn't mean its redundant - awakening doesn't necessarily mean abandonment of forms. Recognising money or nationality as construct doesn't render them valueless - they are operational and instrumental, not the ultimate or the essential, but necessary in their own ways. Perhaps part of awakening and integration is seeing through constructs while remaining functional within them. Humans are meaning making creatures who live in communities across time. In this sense religion in some format or another is inevitable. Humans also create culture around everything meaningful - food, music, art, love. Why would our deepest (spiritual) encounters with reality be any different. Why wouldn't people sing, pray, create temples to commune in, best practices and rituals to pass down the ages. That most people forget the source that gave inspiration to those practices and rituals doesn't negate them. The game is to participate in the form while seeing through it. Neither trapped by heritage or alienated from it. Because why not? What else would we do? Non-duality isn't no duality - and part of ''Truth'' is that it includes duality, which is very much as real as reality, as is a non-dual essence behind and beyond it. Pure teaching is like pure water - it takes the shape of whatever container holds it. It seems humans need forms, structures, rituals, stories. Even celebrated non-dualists gather in circles, create practices, write books, revere teachers. They can't help but create what will eventually look like... religion. If tomorrow all of humanity awakened to their true nature, what would happen next? They would ask ''What next with this New Age awakening?" And being human, they would create: guidelines for living this awakening, communities for mutual support, methods for teaching others, sacred spaces for gathering, texts to preserve the wisdom, teachers to guide seekers. It would become institutionalised and perhaps eventually ossified over time as most religions have become. Then another ''New Age'' religion would prop up critiquing the ''Old New Age'' religion of its dogmatic flaws and lack of purity. The cycles begins again. Individuals who awaken directly by non-traditional means (non-dual teachings) don't need to reject the cultural inheritance of religion any more than a master chef rejects recipes. They might transcend religious rituals or frameworks, but they can still appreciate and even employ the forms that serve the various other needs of others - not for the purpose of awakening, but as a celebration of awakening.

@Nemra That’s true too - that some constructs are more conducive for awakening than others. I just think there’s wide variability and religion isn’t a monolith either. There’s plenty of debate regarding metaphysics, theology and ethics within religious circles perhaps most aren’t exposed too. The Islamic Golden Age was very open and full of debate - the people living within that container did so with a different conciousness say compared to ISIS today which is the other extreme. Both identify as the same religion (container) but live it at different levels. Leo uses the same container word for reality - God, but he’s coming at it with a different conciousness compared to the average believer. Carls message above is on point and related. Everything you rightly critique about religion can also be applied to religions we don’t think are religion - such as the New Age. Many surrender authority to gurus like Sadhguru, Mooji and Osho. They surrender to practices like breathwork, energy healing and yoga poses. Or even entire yogic systems and plant medicines. They can end up doing these practices mechanically and think enlightenment will come to them via law of attraction - just as robotically and naively as a religious person praying for their wish list from sky daddy. People seek out religion in different aesthetics. Religion is bound to happen and be created because religion is simply a scalable way to orient society and groups of people towards something more meaningful and deeper than just the material world of duality. People always figure out a way to form around something at a social level - veganism, New Ageism, Aubrey Marcus cults 😂 That doesn’t mean we need to find ourselves belonging to anything at all individual level. But at a scalable level, it’s inevitable people will organise themselves around something. Religion is baked in that way, whether we call it that or not. And with that comes all the usual flaws of dogma, groupthink and plenty of unconscious people within that given religion.

Think you got it correct in your first line - it is about how conscious someone is - the container / system is just neutral. The same way you said there is no consciousness to conformity, like wise there is none to systems and containers. Blind conformity is an issue, but people can blindly conform to any system or container - democracy, autocracy, liberalism or conservatism, religion or atheism. Structures/systems/containers are just the bones (container) - it’s the meat suit and brain soup (conciousness) that moves it and directs it towards better or worse outcomes. The moment any container scales to the level of the collective, we’ll find unconsciousness there - as that’s the price of consensus reality. That’s the nature of the crowd. Are Democratic people idiots? Are there idiots within Democracies? Does that mean Democracy is idiotic?

Nazi terrorist state of Israel backed by terrorist state of USAsshole:

Related comment on the topic approaching it from a macro Eastern vs Western lens:

Someone say Afghanistan?

I like that - and it dovetails nicely to what I commented earlier and on the previous page - the distinction between meaning (noima) and meaningfulness (seemasia) Meaning is the outcome of the mind’s engagement with reality - but meaningfulness is the very being of reality itself. The mind's job is to mind, to sense make, find meaning and purpose, which has a path to that purpose, which is a means to that end, and that means gives the meaning. So in this context, there is no meaning, unless we create it and make it, sense make it. But as existence has no end, then there is no means to an end. What's left is not nothing-ness but everything-ness - which is inherently meaningful and significant, despite having no externalised meaning or means to an end. The purpose is in the suchness. The reason Krishnamurti doesn't mind what happens is because he is resting in a meaningfulness beyond the mind. No need to assign meaning when you are awake to meaningfulness. Mind creates meaning, being radiates meaningfulness. He doesn't sense make, but has sensed the maker.