zazen

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.

Warped as fuck. As good as Nazis Mind you this isn’t the entirety of Israelis, but the far right extremists. Makes you think - beside other factors that caused an unfounded hatred of Jews in the past - if a subset of them ever had this kind of delusional supremacist attitude - that could be a major contributing factor too.

None till you acknowledged it. Thank you for attending my Ted Talk. Jokes aside - it’s one thing I see plenty of. A spiritual superiority complex against those that haven’t yet “outgrown” this relic of religion. Like Jodistrict touched upon above and even Basmans point that today’s liberal ideas spread religion but were secularised and shed of their religious skin. Ideas like universal love and the dignity of the individual. It’s just cringe to see new agers mock religion not knowing their own roots. They do yoga 3 times a week, eat vegan and re-arrange their crystals at night - but they mock religion lol ironically. I too had my rebellious phase especially after studying Osho. But then I actually came to find more value in religion - understanding it deeper, largely thanks to studying non-duality, Osho, Alan Watts, Ram Dass and of course Leo’s body of work.

@PurpleTree Robert Maxwell was even honoured by Israel with a state funeral and burial on the mount of olives - their holiest burial site. This is despite him being a non-citizen and after being notorious for financial fraud UK. This was pretty good: Also:

Non-dualists act like discovering religious forms are constructed somehow invalidates them, as if pointing out that a cup is made by human hands means it can't hold water. That's what religions trying to do - hold space, contain that which can't be contained - God. Individuals can seek without containers, individually. Advanced seekers can transcend the need for particular containers - but it's not a scalable solution to community. We need something we can gather around. We can't build a community around the concept that concepts or constructs don't matter. The rituals of religion aren't the point - the ritual is the vehicle for the point. But obviously, people ordinarily get stuck on the mechanism rather than what the mechanism is trying to get them to. The issue isn't the container or construct (religion) - it's the consciousness that inhabits the container or construct. A Buddhist monastery can become a place of spiritual awakening or a den of ego's tripping over who mediated longer or sat more still when the bugs bugged them. A seeker can easily do without a container, but a civilization needs one. The point is, once you reach non-dualness, how to trasmit this with duality? You must use constructs even in informing people about that beyond construct and form itself. Even nothingness needs a container to be understood by something. Isn't consciousness exploring what it means to construct? Spiritualist non-dual bros are still living in the same constructed world as everyone else. They're still using their constructed language to have constructed conversations about their constructed spiritual insights.

Yeah, I understand why from a spiritual POV we de-construct everything to get to that which is beyond all construct - to ''Truth'' or God. Spiritual teachers get there via negation - negating all that is ''maya, illusion, or form'' - but then what? Intellectually it can be explained to someone within a few hours - okay fine, everything is a construct, what do you want me to do with that now? I am still a construct, just like you and all of us here, in bodies, using internet and mobiles to communicate to each other in words which are yet again constructs. The point is to live in construct but consciously - or more so to find that there is more to life than just the dual material world of surface, that there is depth and a consciousness within construct, that consciousness encapsulates constructs itself. Form and constructs aren't the ultimate, essential - they are operational and instrumental. In a sense spiritual teachers are correct when they say there is no absolute or fixed meaning - but we shouldn't stop there. There is no meaning, yet everything is absolutely meaningful. We can pick our individual purposes and means to their ends that we live through, but there is a deeper meaningfulness and purposefulness beyond and within all of it too. And that greater meaning and purpose is that the formless already chose that it wants to play through form - form is the love language of the formless. Form is the formality of the formless. We come into the world of duality and form lost, and asking why? Why life, why form? Then we go seeking for answers. We stumble upon the fact that there is that which is formless and non-dual - which is pointed to in various ways via spiritual community or religion (with all their flaws). The point then is to return to form - we are already in form anyway and can't escape it until we leave the body fully - so we return to it with that knowing, eyes and heart wide open. We go from why, to why not? After all, God - the formless, already chose form to exist as itself. Unconscious man never asks why. Curious man asks why? God says why not? Why not form, to inform myself, of myself that is the Self, through multiples selves? Conscious man respond why lets..dance. We come all the way back to where we are meant to be. It's a case of spiritual Stockholm syndrome - seekers and spiritualists become so attached to the idea that everything is illusion (maya), that they start emotionally bonding with nothingness and detachment as if those are the highest truths. Then people easily find them selves in a sort of spiritual nihilism - if all is maya, then what meaning does this world of maya have? I had a period of this too - the sense that I am nothing, all is nothing, all is void. That’s the so called “dark night of the soul” where we exist as astronauts cut from the cord - de-constructed everything, found something, but haven’t had a homecoming with that something. We need to BEcome, or come to BE. I came to realise it’s not void and nothing in the ordinary sense, it's everything , there is a presence there. And I am everything - just wearing this particular face today. I am just you, but over here *waving* hello at you. We are just God eating mangoes. Then I came to rest in being human. I think many teachers saying ''there is no meaning'' stop short. They aren't false, they just need to complete that line of thought by adding that ''yet everything is meaningful''. It reminds me of the Last Samurai movie where the Emperor says ''Tell me how he died'' and Tom Cruise replies ''I will tell you... how he lived.'' The Emporer, just like spiritual egotists and misguided seekers get hung up on the death part - the de-construction part, the death of the self, of ego and form - to a final destination of' ''Enlightenment''. But maybe its not about a destination but a participation in form, along side the formless. In this way, we aren't ''above'' the world, we are with it more fully and awake. What if we get to this destination of God, then God says what the hell are you doing here, go back and participate in form. As the saying goes, before enlightenment, chop wood carry water, after enlightenment, chop wood carry water. Tell me how he died = “Did he reach the formless?” Tell me how he lived = “Did he return and play in form?”

Slaying snake heads apparently Thought the head of the snake was Iran though? Maybe the entire Middle East is like one fat Medusa head to them that they love to play whack a mole with lol On a serious point there weas massacring of minority Druze by extremists and Israel said they want to secure the border from any tensions spilling over + protect minorities. Not sure how attacking the government you’re supposed to normalise with helps stability exactly.

Israel struck Syrias capital just now.

Ironically, the very chains meant to constrain the Jewish people ended up sharpening the tools that later made them disproportionately successful in modern society. Excluded from land ownership = clustered into cities = urbanism lends itself to more ideas, culture, commerce and power = developed and excelled non-physical skills due to being barred from physical domains (craft guilds and agriculture) that later become transferable in a financialised media run world. Today they are over represented in media, academia, finance, law and politics. Those structural constraints combined with their tradition of valuing education and literacy (debate, critical thinking) + group cohesion and wide diaspora networks = successful. No wonder they became wealthy enough to be envied, yet different enough to resented.

Like everyone else has said - it’s a confluence of factors. Jews were exiled from most economic activity so had to revert to moneylending and intellectualism / study which their religion / culture placed value on. Those structural changes never changed until much later, which is why the persecution and pogroms kept occurring for centuries. Imagine being forced into a role, then despised for it when economic downturns inevitably come. Naturally, being in the business of money meant proximity to power - perhaps even a certain influence on power itself. Jews were a minority yet seen as being visibly powerful due to this, plus being concentrated in urban centres near wealthy elites. They were familiar enough due to being widespread across Europe, yet distinct enough to be “other” as they maintained their identity. The historic expectation among the West was to be absorbed, not assimilated into society - the two get conflated. This counters Westerners beliefs about themselves being pluralistic and tolerant in the past. But just as the book Joshe shared on the previous page says - Jews didn’t “absorb” ie lose their identity, which is the expectation. In the Middle East meanwhile they were structurally inside the system, rather than outside it. Even though they weren’t given equal status to the degree we speak of equality today - they were given protected status and recognised as “people of the book”. There was space for them and others. They also weren’t the only moneylenders as Islam provided alternative financial mechanisms and regulation - so couldn’t be scapegoated during hard times. The gasoline on the fire is also theological as Judaism rejects Christ as the Messiah. Whilst theological differences are there between religions - the issue is that they were politicised and weaponised a lot more before. Medieval Christianity viewed Jews as cursed and eternally sinful for rejecting Jesus, while most of the Islamic world viewed them as mistaken cousins. Tensions still existed in the Middle East, but it rarely led to the type of exclusionary or violent pogroms like in Europe. Another point is that they were at the edge of society in intellectual bubbles pushing novelty and new ideas. The past was way more conservative which meant being more resistant to novelty and avant gard type thinking. They were barred from universities and had their own systems of education, ethics and philosophy being built in the back drop of society. So all this intellectual infrastructure was there - which means when modernity came and they were gradually accepted, they dominated most academic fields and were at the forefront of revolutionary thought and movements. Their over representation in all these movements easily gets conflated with them “controlling” all sides and being everywhere in society - but mostly it just them having a diversity of thought amongst themselves, and excelling in the world of thought which they had been involved in over centuries. Today’s Zionism which started as settler colonialism and still continues till today, is obviously where things take a turn. The same pattern of ancient resentment is being triggered today but for very real injustices rather than injustices of the past that were attributed to Jews through association. It’s also easy to view Israels influence on the US today, and retroactively validate ideas about how Jews secretly controlled societies in the past. Israel’s present day behaviour isn’t helping rid these stereotypes at all and is in fact only cementing them.

Debate on Israel at Turning point, itself a turning point. As the thread title mentions deception: