ajasatya

Nope.

An old zen teacher of mine used to tell a story about a monk who was meditating and saw a flower bloom in front of his eyes. The monk got really excited about it and ran to the zen master to tell him what happened. After listening to him, the zen master screamed "MAKYO, YOU IDIOT! GO BACK TO YOUR MEDITATION ROOM!". The monk went back to his zafu and seated in tears. After a long period of time observing his emotions and mental state, he had a deep kensho.

@Joseph Maynor There is no dodging, Joseph. What you call "arrogance" may be required in order to maintain order. It's the very least that we can learn from Blue. Every cell of your body is constantly struggling to fight chaos... until it dies. The "effort" to keep things organized is intrinsic to Life itself, and it should manifest in higher levels. From my perspective, the corrupted feeling of arrogance is characterized by an unconscious lack of willingness to hear and take the words of others in consideration. Arrogance makes one's Heart feel heavy. And, sincerely, this is not what I am feeling as I am talking to you on this thread, discussing the role of a moderator. In fact, I think this kind of thread is essential to all of us. I am not here to please Leo. I am here for mankind. I think this forum is just the beginning of something BIGGER that's starting to happen. It feels like we're finally learning how to use the internet, like a baby who's learning how to walk.

@Joseph Maynor Even pointing arrogance on others sound arrogant. Depending on your lens and how you see and discipline yourself, it's possible to find arrogance anywhere! "Hey, look, that guy is quoting himself along with biggies like Stephen Covey and Nietzsche! How arrogant!" This is an online forum and so it has its limitations. The "generosity and abundance of spirit" that you long for cannot be completely fulfilled here. As I've said before, do your own experiment! Try managing your own open online group without ever being uncomfortably blunt with anybody while still maintaining a high quality experience for the community. It's just pure fantasy. An online forum is very different from Jesus and his disciples or Buddha and his sangha. We're dealing with all sorts of people, including those who come from toxic past experiences and who are unconsciously willing to spread their mental trash across every context they make themselves present. Most people who are that unconscious cannot even understand messages of "generosity and abundance of spirit". This is one of the main lessons that we can take from stories of characters like Jesus.

It's true. In fact, it kinda works the other way around. Emotional mastery is essential on the pursuit of Truth. How can you make optimal use of your time on a retreat if you're constantly obsessing over your ex? Yes, you can go to a retreat with the goal of overcoming an obsession. But that's not seeking Truth yet.

Do not confuse compassion with tolerance. You can be highly compassionate towards someone by showing very little tolerance. A lot of times, people actually need to hear harsh things that shake them out of their destructive mental patterns. Some people need to be shutdown in order to reevaluate their hypotheses. Unconditionally high tolerance is destructive. It's destructive to the person with filthy thinking patterns and it's destructive to society. You have the freedom to start new threads. If your thread about redpill gets locked instantly, you may start a new thread asking why redpill is not welcome here and we will do the best we can to answer you properly. But if the thread turns into an ideological war, it will be locked. Make a wise use of your freedom and this forum will serve you as an unique learning environment. If you're not using your freedom wisely, the forum will react and may shut you down somehow. Grow up, go meta and try to understand why it happened. Don't play the role of a SJW who hypocritically tries to change the world.

@oMarcos Go for it and see if you can feel any better about your life.

As a moderator, I am here to serve the community. I lock threads that satisfy one of the following items: The subject of the thread has a reputation of causing inflammatory wars; The subject of the thread has a reputation of offering little to zero learning experiences to the forum users; The OP has no genuine interest in learning and just wants to rant instead of actually facing his/her difficulties; The initial subject has lost its trail (very common) and the thread becomes dead in terms of learning material; The users don't do anything else except for trying to prove their own ideas right; The thread does more harm than good to the OP or to the community in general; The thread conflicts with the forum guidelines. If you notice any abusive behavior from me, make sure to hit the report button and the other mods will be aware of my actions. Truly yours,

@EvilAngel You say "It's all me" but you're still confused about what "me" means. Enlightened beings are extremely assertive about what to do in life. Go beyond all beliefs. Go beyond "It's all me".

Careful here. Talk about yourself. There are super advanced couples who live in harmony and are not slaves of their sexual impulses. This kind of thread is dangerous because it can mislead a lot of people. Reading @Arcangelo's post got me close to locking it. Again, marriage is a path of spiritual development and growth. Don't take the perspective that you have about it on your 20~30's as the absolute truth.

Don't tap into that. Focus on your own growth.

If you just believe it, it's just another dogma. Instead, tell me what you are. Nobody else can know better.

What an amazing question! Be creative in your answers Creativity is spontaneous magic.

Just to clarify and not make people more lost than they already are... Grammar is necessary. Without english grammar, for instance, the english language would have dissolved long ago. This (global) forum wouldn't be possible. Worldwide research wouldn't be possible. Travelling around the world would be almost impossible. Don't be lazy. Learn proper grammar and stay updated.

Enough of this thread already.

People change very slowly. If you stay for a while (I'm not asking you to do so) and pay attention, you'll notice. I enjoy seeing people changing and improving the quality of their lives and that's the main reason why I'm still here. As an extra, sometimes I find amazing content being shared here as well.

@DivineSoda Everyone and everything is made out of True Nature. Everyone and everything is True Nature itself. Enlightenment doesn't make you something else. Enlightenment is Reality becoming aware of the fabric of Reality. When you look at someone's eye, you're staring at the core of the Universe. If you're not experiencing an agitated mind, almost any conversation can feel amazing. Even the most mundane things like talking about the weather. Nobody is special and everyone is special. Discipline the mind and learn how to listen to people. The barriers between "you" and "others" will start to dissolve pretty quickly if you do that.

This forum has a clear specific goal: facilitate growth. People with real struggles in their lives come here to ask for advice. If you sincerely think you need help with something, feel free to create a thread; If you have experience on the subject that someone is asking for help, feel free to talk about it. You can share how you're struggling, how you're overcoming it or how you overcame it; Stay away from pride/intellectual wars. Just some straightforward good practices on how to participate on actualized.org/forum in order to create a better world. There is no need for drama.

That's why I asked you that question. There is no consensus on what feminism is. The term is so wide nowadays that I can argue that any reasonably intelligent person should be a feminist and I can also argue that feminism is a dumb idea. It's very nuanced. I'm not here to define what feminism is and what it's not. I'm just pointing out that you're not going anywhere by getting all spiky and prolix about it.

@CreamCat You're over complicating this and you didn't answer my straightforward question. I don't call myself a feminist nowadays but I do want men and women to have equal rights. Everyone should be allowed to go to school, vote, ask for a divorce, start a career etc. This is very basic for me and thinking otherwise doesn't make much sense to me. I'm done here... I have nothing else to add for now.

@CreamCat What does "feminism" mean to you, exactly? When it was first created, feminism was a movement to defend equal rights between men and women. In that sense, how come is a real man not a feminist?

@Peo It depends on what you define as "danger". My short answer is no. But if you're not entirely aware of what you're doing or if you lack the necessary discipline, you might just waste your time with distractions. And wasting your time may be considered dangerous by some.

@Mikael89 He did not mention muscular pain and he didn't say that he was feeling tired or anything "physical". Burning sensation in the abdomen? Feeling an urge to throw up? To me, it sounds like a mental/emotional reaction, like building up a huge peak of anxiety. The mental ego structure and the emotional body is a real phenomenon that happens for us human beings. Sitting in meditation and doing nothing is interpreted as a threat by the agitated/undisciplined mind. By the way, I have no idea what you mean by "enlightenment/spiritual stuff". Also, I don't understand where your tone comes from. What are you trying to do?

@saish You won't succeed if you don't try. So why not?

@LiberatedMonkey I don't know exactly what happened because I'm not aware of your mental stories and emotional body. But it looks like the ego structure felt violently threatened. Also, keep in mind that a daily consistent practice of 30m~60m is far more efficient than those 2h+ hickups. The mechanics of the mind have a huge inertia and can't be changed abruptly unless some crazy episode happens in your life. Imagine a car moving at high speed... it won't stop properly if you brake vigorously and then let it go (it's actually very dangerous). In order to stop the car, you better brake smoothly and hold it until it stops. The other option would be crashing violently against a huge obstacle, but this is far from desirable.