The White Belt

What do you mean by proceeding without doing the daily practices? What daily practices? Acting related ones?

Just been checking out this guy Jordan Peterson. He seems real cool, I like his talks and he seems to be into a wide range of topics. One of the things he talks about a lot is setting goals and setting a coherent philosophy of life that you follow. I've been feeling a bit down lately and confused. I think it can be a lot to do with being so vague in life and this notion of 'paralysis by analysis'. But you have Osho on the other hand, who says if you set goals in life you will end up on a psychotherapists couch. This messes up my head. Am I confusing the contexts here? Not zooming between big and small picture? Whats going on here?

@David1 True man. The validation was like about, 'ooh look at me', and more about, 'hey, this is possible for me to do' @Leo Gura Thanks. That thought experiment helps a lot actually. I think I would come closer to loving it if I wasn't dwelling on my failure, because when I began acting I really did love it! It's all I used to think about. It's just after taking a few ego bruises that I started to doubt this.

@Dantas Thanks :-). Barcelona, Spain.

It's hard to answer these questions, because the suffering I feel as a result of limiting beliefs, conditioning, confidence issues makes it hard to love it per se. Yet something has brought me back to these classes all these years.

@Visitor Yes I think I have a fear of success. It's something to think about. I often get stupid thoughts like 'But, but, if i'm a busy actor, how will I have time to meditate'. Really dumb objections. I think I shy away from acting because it has TONS of resistance that comes with it when I think about it. Like ridiculous resistance. Convincing too. Meh

Great talk for you guys here. It's about Leonardo Da Vinci, the mastery process, and he briefly touches on non-duality at the end. This guy studied Da Vinci so much, that he was able to do amazing copies of his work, starting at just aged 11! Check it out.

@Steph1988 They were gifts from all over the world apparently. It just became a 'thing', rich people would send him more and more rolls royces. Nothing wrong with it. I doubt he lost sleep like neurotic people would, over the possibility of his cars being scratched outside.

@Juan Cruz Giusto Thanks dude,

My photography. Veeeery strong potential to be the avenue to express my life purpose. P.S, follow me if you have a Flickr acc. Let me know you did, and i'll follow back

@Leo Gura Haha! Seriously though, am I missing something here? I'm doing the LP course, I will need to make goals to get this of the ground, but these thoughts about letting it all flow is messing me up! @WelcometoReality I understand. Based on what you're saying, I guess it's context.

@egoeimai Haha. Then let us focus on the poison in our own selves, and not call the kettle black ;-)

@ajasatya Is this a claim to enlightenment? or by mastering, do you mean being in the process of mastery?

I don't know. Yeah, they might.

I live close to Manchester. When I heard the news, I wasn't shocked by it. It's happening so often nowadays. As sad as it is, let's not pretend these attacks are random. The British government have a history of being some of the most notorious terrorists around. Along with their friends, the American government. "The tables will turn, we can but stall them, every empire on this earth has fallen." - Akala (British Rapper).

Do thoughts come from the brain? I read somewhere that scientists will one day be able to tell what we are thinking, and that certain thoughts come from certain regions of the brain. Is this the case? If so how does it play into self-enquiry?

@Shanmugam hmmm. Sounds interesting. Thanks!

Have you had many breaks in your mindfulness practice, as in, missed days or weeks? Practiced? Is that past? Do you not practice it anymore? Did you do it daily in the past? @Shanmugam

@Shanmugam Great stuff. Thanks a lot man! Can I ask, for how long have you been practicing mindfulness meditation, and what other practices do you have? Thanks again!

@Be Yourself But if they come from the brain, this so called 'computer', then why are they so psychopathic? Why are they killing most of us slowly?!

A video I put together entitled 'Beauty'. (By the way, the screen is supposed to be blank until the initial speech is over ;-))

Just got back from a WHM Workshop. It wasn't held by Wim himself, but rather somebody who has been trained by him. The workshop was split into three distinct parts; Yogic breathing and retention cycles. Yoga postures. Finally more breathing with an ice bath, as well as a presentation on the health benefits and Q&A. Seekers may be interested a lot in the breathing technique, as an exploration of consciousness can be possible with this technique. One girl said that she felt as if she was slipping into a nothingness, and that she had a thought, that perhaps death is quite a nice and liberating experience. The ice bath was great as it requires a lot of one pointed concentration, and once you get in there, the monkey chatter slows a lot. I even went back for an optional second go in the bath. Once you do the ice bath, you feel confident and empowered, because it isn't easy, as well as really alive and awake. Anyway, I would recommend you guys to do it, if you are new or at least fairly new to it. If you've done the full online course I can't see there being tons of value. I enjoyed it anyhow.

‘I’m going to tell you a story,’ said Zedka. ‘A powerful wizard, who wanted to destroy an entire kingdom, placed a magic potion in the well from which all the inhabitants drank. Whoever drank that water would go mad.’ ‘The following morning, the whole population drank from the well and they all went mad, apart from the king and his family, who had a well set aside for them alone, and which the magician had not managed to poison. The king was worried and tried to control the population by issuing a series of edicts governing security and public health. The policemen and the inspectors, however, had also drunk the poisoned water and they thought the king’s decisions were absurd and resolved to take no notice of them. ‘When the inhabitants of the kingdom heard these decrees, they became convinced that the king had gone mad and was now giving nonsensical orders. They marched on the castle and called for his abdication. ‘In despair, the king prepared to step down from the throne, but the queen stopped him, saying: “Let us go and drink from the communal well. Then, we will be the same as them.” ‘And that was what they did: the king and the queen drank the water of madness and immediately began talking nonsense. Their subjects repented at once; now that the king was displaying such wisdom, why not allow him to continue ruling the country? ‘The country continued to live in peace, although its inhabitants behaved very differently from those of its neighbours. And the king was able to govern until the end of his days.’ – ‘Exactly,’ said Zedka.’They think they’re normal, because they all do the same thing. Well, I’m going to pretend that I have drunk from the same well as them.’ Excerpt from 'Veronika decides to die', by Paulo Coelho

@TJ Reeves Thanks a lot. Only had a flick through but this paragraph definitely stood out. "We have much to learn in terms of what separates the founder of a soup kitchen or a home for lepers from a suicide bomber; however, the uncomfortable truth is that there is a dimension in which they are similar: devotion to a cause or purpose beyond the self"

Was enlightenment included in the original hierarchy of needs? I always thought it was added on by others..