SOUL

Can you give any examples of them not being nice? I don't mean twitter trolls or content creator crankiness because those aren't the people who work on policy with other representatives. It kind of sounds like you are playing the centrist civility card they don't actually use themselves with the 'left'. It seems like you are content to admonish the 'left' for something you don't hold the rest to. I will also need to see some evidence that this being nice thing you say will work to actually change their priorities from their corporate donors to their constituents because I have yet to see it.

There's no work to 'do'....the mind mess and judging is only in the imagination. So simple. Peace.

Yes! Let's reverse racism! ....that's what you meant, right?

If there is no path, there is no work, it's all in the imagination. You got the dogmatic spiritualist rhetoric but I can see right through it. Yup, simple. Peace

I didn't draw a false equivalence but when mainstream liberals and centrists media and politicians attack the 'left' like what was said by some the previous election and just past election then it is accurately said they are doing the same thing as the right. I distinctly remember one saying how Bernie made her 'skin crawl' even though she couldn't explain why. Another was invoking the cold war of how if 'they won' he'd be dragged into central park and killed while talking about Bernie questioning how is Bernie not like that. The attacks coming against Bernie, the squad, Justice Dems and anyone who dares challenge the establishment dem party from the left are the norm and often are laced with moral implications even if not all are explicitly so. Don't want someone to say it happens then don't do it, that simple. Again, you are complaining that you want 'the far left' to 'play nice' with people who don't do it themselves to the 'left'. I'm apolitical when it comes to party, I'm an independent so not party affiliated if that matters. He has been an independent for decades and he only ran as a democrat because third party candidates aren't viable in the current political environment of the US. He became one of the most powerful US Senators as a independent. Polling from the recent cycle confirms progressive policies are popular with the majority of all Americans from all political parties and even establishment democrats passionate resist them. It's only been the recent pandemic events happening that they have embraced the most watered down versions of them and only under the constant pressure from progressives. So again... if centrists and liberals don't want to be viewed as hostile as the right towards the 'left' then they should just stop being hostile to them and they won't be viewed that way. Pretty simple solution if you ask me but I guess I'm not politically savvy enough to understand it. I'd prefer civility as well but complaining about the 'left' not being nice enough? Hm

It's only your imagination that anyone is messing or playing with words. You say everything is imagination....self is a sense of form. Awareness is free of form.... transcend the notion of self to realize aware being is formless, even of witness or observer. There is nothing to get, it's realized in letting go. Hah! Peace

If there is no path there are no stages and no 'ultimately', either.... so which is it? My path to self realization? I thought you said there is no path....oh and the self is imaginary, right? Even 'true self' too since "everything is imagination", so realize the imaginary? It seems my awareness is just fine.... I see right through this dogmatic rhetoric with absolute clarity. Peace.

A quick search engine exercise results in no written attribution of the phrase 'profit is theft' so I'm not sure where you are getting this other than maybe from the rhetoric of individuals but it may not have any basis as a principal of anything other than a personal value system. There is 'property is theft' which was written by french anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in his 1840 book "What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government". Which I recognize as something that could be espoused by communists. You may not see yourself as exploitative because people rarely see themselves in a negative light but the details of the circumstances will reveal the genuine nature of what is happening. I don't need to hear any details, I'm not asking but just thought I'd clarify. Capitalism is an ideology that prioritizes profit and cannot account for externalities such as the well being of individuals, society, communities and environment. If it doesn't show up in the ledger in a profit or loss it gets little attention or consideration unless it effects profit or loss. This is why it can become exploitative because it isn't equipped for or has the ability to account for or prioritize the well being of humanity. In my understanding socialism does account for those even including profit if it serves well being of those not at the expense of them. I'm not endorsing any particular 'ism' as I don't attach my identity as any 'ist' I'm just describing what I observe even though it may not be a complete understanding of it.

Just by adding the word ultimately you don't change anything. Whether it's the first step or last step of the journey and initial stage or ultimate stage and any other way you want to frame it the ceasing of self identity attaching is the path of nondoership. Being is just being.... we don't 'do' being.... we be even if we believe we do. It's present at all steps and stages. You are conflating imaginary with 'does not exist', everything is imaginary but that isn't the same as everything 'does not exist'. It's something that once you have direct experience of it's obvious how the dogma doesn't reflect reality.

There is a difference between adopting a victim mentality and actually being the victim of abuse and brutality. As much as I agree with the idea that it's not beneficial to emulate the abusers and it isn't a path to ending the cycle of abuse there is more than just behaviors that is at hand. Some, even many or most from those 'right' of them, have viewed leftists not as just someone having a different opinion we can discuss but as evil, degenerates that is ruining everything and are going to hell that need to be purged in every way possible including violence and death. This comes from their core beliefs and they say is from their 'god'. Explain to me how do we have a discussion with them that think this way and how can we have any productive resolution if they only see others as evil people doing devil's work they can't be 'yoked' to? I'm all ears....

Does that mean the female ones get a pass? Asking for a friend...haha

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with what you are saying but it appears you may be filtering your view through a possibly misinformed understanding. I can't say for sure because I haven't read any of the theory and writings so I can't confirm or deny the veracity of what you say about marxism or it's proponents, I only understand overarching themes about it. Although, just from your own words I get a sense of reactionary rhetoric within what you say. The statement 'profit is theft', whether it ever was written by Marx or not or really is part of his theory or not, is a statement about the values of those that say it. They are saying that profit doesn't belong to the one who takes it. Your statement of disagreement with it is one of your own values in that you think who deserves the profit. How can we parse out the right or wrong in something that has differing values which the opinions are based on? It's almost as if it's religious belief, one will call out as sinful that another celebrates as sacred. What we can do is look at what actually transpires and the effects and influences around it. People will try to justify these things based on the value system they believe in but the actions, effects and influences of it can't be disguised by values. No matter how much rationalization or reasoning used to convince oneself of one's own 'truth' is true.

It's not that I disagree with much of what you say here but ultimately it's not control over the mind as much as it is through the ceasing of 'doership', resting in awareness as you said which can also be called 'just being' the mind ceases to spontaneously create the activity we call 'thoughts'. Yet, it doesn't ever really cease all of this activity completely because every sense of our manifest body happens in our imagination which all of these can be considered our 'thoughts' so for it to completely cease would mean our experience of manifest existence in life would cease with it. Our being is expressed in manifest existence so our dancing and dreaming in life are the divine fruit of our being not the bane of it.

So if someone starts punching you in the face you just let them without defending yourself? Jesus approves but Christians don't. But you are conflating the actual brutality perpetrated on marginal communities and someone verbally not accepting that as the status quo anymore which is disingenuous at best and vile at worst.

You are touching on the whole contention between capitalism and marxism. You say that money = energy but it's also energy = labor, so labor = money even though some want to suggest and believe that money = money and energy = labor is an asset to exploit to make the money. The criticism that resonates in what is happening in the world is that people use the power of their capital to exploit the labor of others extracting the value from it and leaving very little for those who expended the energy to benefit from. The system as currently constructed rewards this exploitation and offers very little protection for those who labor. Those that advocate for policies and practices that benefit the workers are often called socialist/marxist by those who want to demonize them, those ideas and that word. Seeking a more equally shared benefit in the excess of profit doesn't seem like a radical proposition but according to those who call themselves capitalist those that do are the evil incarnate. People don't really understand what capitalism, socialism and the other types of 'isms' actually mean beyond what they are propagandized to think about them and told to 'love' or 'hate' by their 'tribe'. Ceasing to be attached to labels can help bring clarity once one looks at the actual actions and effects that result from behavior and dynamics at hand.

So after the years, decades and even centuries of the 'left' being demonized by red scare McCarthyism, black listing, witch hunts, flogging, societal exiling by right wing and centrist castigation it's the left that are the meanies now? Hm....interesting. Is that like blaming the victim for beating them up and after they finally stand up for themselves they are framed as the abuser because they do? So it's them that need to 'chill out' for this according to your reasoning? Very very interesting.....

Well, I don't want to reverse on my previous statement too much but will add that both individual action and collective action are required to change systematic issues, not just one or the other. We need both responsible individual behavior and regulatory governance with policy to effectively transform the conditioning and habituation of society and the people that comprise it. Just because one can accumulate wealth doesn't mean it also accumulates the behavior that benefits society. In fact, a strong argument can be made that the behavior that drives the accumulation of wealth doesn't translate to behavior that benefits society, just the individual and often at the expense of others. So we shouldn't just conflate personal benefit with societal benefit even if they do share some common benefits. I think that's enough breaching my own declaration for now. Hah

Inner monologue or dialog.....yup, that's a thing, too, are only a couple of the different varieties of activity that forms the inner life. These things aren't inherently bad, wrong or negative and their absence isn't always good, right or positive although transcending them has it's benefits. The subconscious mind spontaneously produces all sort of inner activity and to cease identifying with and endorsing it will dampen it's influence and effect while increasing the potential of limiting the subconscious mind from producing it, even eventually ceasing it. Transcending them is always available.

@LfcCharlie4 You are so close to having a clear perspective on the genuine nature of some things but it appears that you hold onto seemingly 'pragmatic' concepts and rhetoric that veil you to reality. I'm not going to try to clarify things for anyone because often experience is the most effective teacher and one person cannot give another those lessons. So my radical view is I'm not here to tell anyone what to think, feel or believe.

I was surprised to hear that hedge funds could short exceeding the amount of real stock that actually exists but am not surprised they do stuff like that to manipulate the market for their benefit at the expense of others. Learning they can do this leaves me wondering many things about the influence and effect of that on the market as well as who permits it, who enables it and by what process it takes place. It doesn't seem fair that a fund can short stock exceeding the amount of real stock existing. The thing is there are many other stocks that are currently being shorted in this way and even establishment traders have engaged in short squeezing as well so this isn't unprecedented circumstances apart from who is doing the squeezing, Will it continue to happen or will the retail trading apps block individual traders from doing it again and will they allow institutional traders to do it while they block the retail traders from doing it? It will be interesting to observe how it plays out.

Well, it's not as clear cut as protecting regular people from themselves, I added some other aspects of it in my response to them you may also consider.

Options expire by Friday so it isn't completely over and there has been some murmurings that regulators might even give them a longer grace period to save them from their own greed. If they do would they do the same for individual investors? Hmm

It wouldn't be a 'top' if the demand to buy was still there and the buyers are allowed to buy, a manipulated catch 22 done by the apps. I just wonder if there is no buying of real stock permitted then how can those individual investors sell what they currently hold? The hedge funds with their imaginary shorts can close those positions by the time the options expire but the people with current unrealized profits may be prevented to realizing those profits if there is no buying of the real stock allowed. This is one of the reasons for the class action lawsuit undoubtedly.

I agree there are likely people who don't understand what's happening and think they can cash in on something they aren't fully informed on. This is a disheartening outcome to people who may not be prepared for it and aren't in a position to rectify it. Although, part of the establishment manipulation that is going on to harm some of these individual traders is halting BUYING of the stock, which would raise the price and may have those people to see a gain but allow hedge funds to SELL the stock. Some may think to themselves how can someone sell stock that people can't buy? That's not how the market works! Well, in this circumstance hedge funds shorted stock that didn't exist to profit on the demise of the company so they don't need buyers to close positions. So they prevent the price to raise by blocking individual traders buying real stock so hedge funds can close positions on 'imaginary' stock to limit losses....and if they can suppress the price enough before the option matures maybe erase the unrealized loss before it's due. As those individual traders sell their stock to realize their gains because they are still permitted to do so this will also help the hedge funds recoup unrealized losses before it's too late as it all adds to the devaluation of the stick price. Let's just hope the more vulnerable individual traders do it to take their small gains or small losses before the complete tanking of the price after the options mature and all the shorts have to be closed since many of them aren't real buy/sell trades, they are imaginary ones. I'm not an expert in this so I may not be fully informed of every aspect of it but this is just from my current understanding which may or may not be accurate admittedly.

I'm sure there are a wide array of people that comprise the people who participated in this situation. I heard something read by a content creator that was written by one of the traders who did and I may not be able to actually find it to link but it was very telling. They spoke about how they have always been in financial insecurity even in childhood and every day they are at risk of financial ruin if something accidentally goes wrong not of their own doing while working low paying jobs. So when took this opportunity it was a risk easily born because they are always at risk. Sure, some, even many or most may have been 'day traders' but I suspect there are many varieties of people who are involved so I won't moralize about them as a collective block. I myself am just taking note of what is happening in observation of it and doing my best to not ascribe much morality to it even if it may appear as if my describing what I see does.