Emerald

Some people might make that connection. But to be honest, I was never going to get them anyway. If a person is going to get hung up on semantics and the 'lack of righteousness' of my semantics, then they're probably not going to be receptive to the central message I'm trying to get across anyway. They're already choosing to focus toward the way I'm saying things as opposed to what I'm saying. And if your argument is that I'm just adding the tension that already exists by being frank and clear about this topic, then I have to tell you that it's impossible to not add to that tension other than literally closing your mouth and never speaking of these topics. Sometimes, you have to break some eggs to make an omelet. Plus, the coddling and sugarcoating is unnecessary when speaking frankly about a problem, as most people agree that racism is a problem. So, referring to a problem as being analogous to disease is an understandable analogy. And if people are easily triggered by my referring to systemic racism as being analogous to a disease, then they aren't the type of person who's going to be receptive to my perspective at all as they would be refusing to see racism as a problem in the first place. The system of racism is almost literally a disease that has debilitating effects on society at large. It produces dysfunctional symptoms that keep society from thriving. But if we can cure that disease, society will thrive in ways that it was unable to before. I think that most people agree with this analogy, unless they are the type of person who sees racism as a non-issue or even a virtue. But you still haven't told me how will I communicate the shift in thinking that is necessary to focus from the symptoms of a problem to the root cause of the problem. It's not like I can skip over that information because it's one of the most important things to understand. If people don't understand this point, they won't get how the system works at all. And they'll be unable shift their perspective in a way that has more efficacy in dealing with the issues that society faces. So, how should I communicate this idea in an equally effective way that also coddles the easily offended?

I didn't compare anyone to a disease. I compared an impersonal social system to a disease (as an example of another impersonal system). So, I was using one system that's more familiar and tangible to explain a pattern in another system that is still intangible and hard to understand for most people. And I use this metaphor to explain how a lot of problems work, as there is no more familiar example of 'problem/symptoms/root dynamic' that the vast majority of people can understand and relate to. So, understand that I'm not moralizing or shaming people who are unconscious one bit by using this metaphor. It is literally just the most effective metaphor. I also sometimes use the "if tree=problem; then problem lies in the roots rather than the leaves or fruit on the tree." But even this metaphor is kind of a stretch because it requires people to envision a tree as a problem first. But again, if you have a better analogy to explain this dynamic to get people focused toward root causes instead of symptoms and individual intent, be my guest.

In the beginning few dates, I recommend that everyone listen more and talk less. Ask more questions about them to show interest in them as a person. When you answer their questions, keep your replies to a minute or less and avoid rambling on. And maybe don't bring up your obsession during the first date... or only mention it in passing. You may even give them fair warning that you get really into specific topics as well so that they know to expect it in the future. Whenever I have a character quirk, and I fear that it will make a conversation awkward with people that I just met, I will mention it so that I don't feel like I have to hide my anxiety around it. So, relative to the social anxiety that I get from time to time, if I feel it flaring up I'll sometimes say, "Hey, sometimes I get social anxiety. So, if I start acting like a spaz, then I apologize. It's not a personal thing though. It just comes up." And this strategy has worked so well in allowing me to be authentic and minimize anxieties. People will usually understand and will feel better if they know why you're acting the way you're acting since they are in the loop. But during the first couple dates, speak less in general and listen more so that the conversation can go back and forth and flit between different topics. It should be kind of like a tennis game, where the conversation goes back and forth in relatively short and equal amounts of time. And garner genuine interest for what he is saying, so that you can listen actively. That way, there is not danger of getting too much into your interest because your focus will be mostly on learning about him and keeping the conversation going back and forth as opposed to getting us much information communicated to him as possible and talking a ton about your current passion. But when you do answer his questions and share, it should be eclectic and broad relative to your life and shouldn't be focused to deeply on one aspect.

With the "intention vs. impact" issue, it's a little bit different in that there is no assumption of responsibility if the intentions are good. People in this groove tend to see racism as an intentional act. So, if someone isn't intentionally racist, then people who think in terms of intention just think "That person's not racist." So, they always bring things back to individual character flaws, and think about things in terms of "I'm not racist." as opposed to "There is racism." So, it is caring more about personal intent, then the impact of racism in general and being blind to the impact one's actions have because of the rationale of having good intentions or just lacking bad ones. So, this is a failure to zoom out and see how racism comes from more than just intent, and a failure to be less selfish, and consider that staking the claim "I'm not racist." is such a ego-driven focus on those issues. With the "create your own reality" perspective, it could be very true. So, it's not necessarily rooted in blindspots to consider that reality may work that way. But it's susceptible to blindspots because of the way the human mind and ego work. And when the human mind and ego see this as the only perspective they can become very callous and even blaming of people who are suffering. There can be a person with cancer, and a person stuck in this perspective will think, "They caused their own cancer because they're creating their own reality. So, on some level they must have wanted cancer." And yes. If there is someone suffering next to them, they could rationalize it either the other way in thinking 'everyone creates their own reality' and becoming callous to their suffering in that way. Or they can think of it in terms of other people being an illusion, and if there's a person crying next to them that it means something about one's own internal state. So, there could be an idea, "I'm taking responsibility for the crying happening next to me." by doing some kind of internal process... as opposed to thinking of the external perspective as another valid perspective as well and taking a human, hear-centered approach to what comes up in reality. But either way, it is a (in these cases) and invalidation of external reality as a valid reality.

This is why I tend to avoid talking from this perspective. It may be true on certain levels. But it tends to lead to a lot of self-deception, callousness, constriction, solipsism,and unconsciousness in general. And this isn't because it's necessarily incorrect. Reality could actually be working this way. The reason why it's a risky perspective to wield, is that it's an easy perspective to hide behind and to avoid real-life situations and truths on other levels. Spiritual bypassing is a huge danger in this perspective, as the ego can use it as a shield and an affirmation that assures someone, "If I only get the internal right, then the external is fine no matter what." But this mindset can also reveal certain truths about reality, as I have found that external conflicts do tend to shift with my personal shifts. So, I use this perspective in hopes of being able to address these issues from the inside and out. But I'm always careful about it because it's such an alluring trap to get caught in and very difficult to get out of.

Or it could be the entire thing, for all you know. How do you personally know that reality springs forth from the self? Is it something that you observed directly? Or is it just something that you heard from someone else and adopted it as a belief?

Taking a limited perspective is foolish, when you can hold more than one perspective at a time. You're taking a huge gamble on the ASSUMPTION that reality springs forth from the self. You would also be taking a huge gamble on the assumption that reality is its own thing that has no projection from the self. So, because we are in an epistemic blind-spot relative to the workings of reality, it is foolish to remain only in one perspective relative to a given issue. I look at systemic racism from the "create your own reality" and "take 100% responsibility" perspectives as well. But I don't assume these perspectives to be absolute or think that I have reality figured out. And I don't really talk about them because a lot of people would fall down the rabbit hole and get stuck only in those perspectives And furthermore, I don't use these perspective to avoid taking responsibility in realizing more down-to-Earth things about reality and helping others realize these things about reality that may have previously been obscured from view. So, I always take responsibility on every level that I'm aware of. You are only taking responsibility on the internal level and are assuming a whole lot about a reality that you know literally nothing about, as a human being can't. And you are using this assumption of how reality works to avoid responsibility for solving external issues in an external manner. You're only willing to accept responsibility in the internal sense... where you can also easily self-deceive and hide from discomfort.

Why assume that we're not doing both?

I'll play ball with this perspective, even though I think it's quite foolish and limited to only look at issues in the world from this perspective. So, from the manifestation/create your own reality perspective, what are you doing to fix systemic racism internally in hopes of projecting a better external reality? Are you actively digging into your own shadow to see how your unconscious beliefs and viewpoints are creating systemic racism and actively dismantling them? Or are you just convincing yourself that, if I transcend the illusion of self, then all the relative problems in the world will be solved. Or are you convincing yourself that you've transcended the illusion of thought and that this is the solution... meanwhile deluding yourself and obscuring your awareness with the thought, "I have transcended the illusion of thought."?

I'm glad they helped.

I understand this perspective. And it's definitely true from that perspective. But not all truths are helpful in a given situation, as different paradigms call for different solutions. That said, if you are looking from the assumption that all of reality stems from our internal state, and all conflict stems from our internal conflict, we could certainly allude to the importance of our own integration and wholeness as an individual. This is something that's very important But in order to do this, we have to get rid of our resistance to truths from other perspectives that obscure from view our own shadow. Otherwise, there will be no internal integration to be had... as we will continue to deny certain emotional, practical, and intellect-based realities to ourselves. So, we can easily use this truth that you alluded to above, to self-deceive and remain fragmented and in conflict with the self and the workings of reality relative to issues like systemic racism as well as others that may make us uncomfortable. So, from the perspective of reality being a reflection of the wholeness and integration of the individual, it is best to become aware of these relative patterns of systemic racism and how the affect us as individuals, and how that individual effect plays into the system of racism on the macro level. To do anything else is to remain in fragmentation and ignorance. But also if we take on the other perspective that reality is its own thing, it is STILL just as important to realize our own implicit biases and the effects of systemic racism upon ourselves and others. And if we realize these patterns and we realize also that all is one and that there is no delineation between the self and other, it only makes sense to try to help others integrate these awarenesses as well so that our collective consciousness can integrate the truths that are currently in the collective shadow relative to racism and other systemic issues. So, don't let these top shelf perspectives, allow you to shield yourself from more down-to-Earth truths about yourself and the workings of the world and reality at large.

This has been exactly what I've been doing in this entire thread. I haven't been giving my opinion on anything that I've said. I've merely been alluding to what is and trying to point out other's blindspots to that awareness, in hopes of getting them to shed the aspects of their worldview that creates blindspots and obscures these issues from view. And yes. Violence and racism is the fact. And I am also affected by the systemic forces that create. So, I am hyper aware of these mindsets playing out in me. So, I was talking about this earlier in the thread... and alluding to how everyone can fall into patterns of self-deception. So, I just think that you have a different idea of what this communication with a suspended bias looks like, and you don't recognize it when it's happening right in front of you. And you take conflict to be the marker of not having a suspended bias. So, you totally miss it.

How does this "understanding together" even work if we're setting our perspectives aside. Are we just sitting there together wordlessly? And then if everyone in the world sits together worldlessly, it somehow undoes systemic racism and all other such problems?

I don't engage on the thing that they're trying to bypass, unless I think it's helpful for them in realizing that they're bypassing. I instead, tend to find it more fruitful to talk to them directly about spiritual bypassing as that's the root of the issue. But sometimes, I get a feel for if I'm wasting my words on them and I get disenchanted to engage, and I have to take a break. But relative to open avenues for conscious expansion, especially with regard to the most common and enforced worldviews and ego set-points of the day, it's important to find an underlying layer of their belief scaffolding to question as opposed to the most obvious and well trafficked areas of their worldview. So, if you're in a discussion with someone who believes deeply and is stuck down in a limited perspective, don't go toward their most cherished and protected beliefs. Instead, go to the assumptions that those illusory beliefs are grounded in and scaffolded upon. They tend to take these more for granted, and will find it more amusing than threatening to question those assumptions as they exist too far down in the framework they've created to relate back to the beliefs that they protect and cherish the most. The way that a worldview works is that it basically comes from nothing. There is nothing true about any worldview on the existential level because human thought cannot accurately conceptualize of reality. So, all worldviews (no matter what they are) have to start out with certain groundless assumptions that are assumed to be true. And from these assumptions, other beliefs and assumptions can be built on top of them. And this stacking and weaving of beliefs and assumptions continues to happen until the worldview is developed enough to feel airtight and 100% true to the holder of that worldview. Then, they project this worldview onto the world, and if there are aspects of reality that contradict that worldview, they will edit it out of their awareness. Anything that threatens to undermine that worldview is a danger to the worldview, so the ego becomes more contracted around these viewpoints out of a desire to know how things work and to not have its baseline assumptions (that it bases everything on) brought under scrutiny. So, to give an example form another thread I was commenting on last week, there was a guy who was saying that girls are so mean. But when he gave the reason, it was just that they were talking to eachother about finding another guy attractive when they were around him. So, it would be pretty useless to try to convince him that girls are not mean as the main talking point, as his assumption of girl's meanness comes from his other underlying beliefs... mostly about relative value in the dating game translating to actual existential value. So, instead it was more fruitful to talk about value as being a relative and not an absolute phenomena. And how relative value exists in the mind of individual human beings and had nothing to do with one's validity to exist.

How practically, does your realizations of relative to the illusory nature of thought and self percolate out into real-world effects on people who are on the receiving end of systemic racism. How do your realizations relative to the self help dismantle those social systems? How do your personal realizations about yourself dismantle subconscious holding points of white defaultism in society at large? How do your personal realizations about thoughts and self, help people of color who are dealing with generational poverty, conscious and unconscious discrimination, white defaultism, or any other systemic force. Your ideas of your own self-realization and the faith that you have this it percolates out into society at large in some substantial way, is just naive. Most people are not thinking in terms of self-transcendence. Most people are not predisposed to interests of questioning things on an existential nature. Most people are not going to transcend the thoughts or the illusion of self. And to expect others to just hop on board and do that is just wishful thinking at best and spiritual bypassing at worst. And you were still never clear about how to get everyone on board with this mass self/ thought transcendence. How do you suppose that would even be a reality. Besides, most of these problems are not problems that can be solved on the level of the absolute. We can transcend the self and still remain in unconscious holding pattern if we don't direct our attention to what has been in the shadow. Shadow work on the level of collective consciousness is what is needed. Self-transcendence can help with that, as there is no ego in the way to be afraid of those awarenesses. But for society at large, expecting some mass ego transcendence to solve the practical issues of society is not going to work. You have to work with the reality that we have... not with the reality as you'd like it to be.

Thought is the medium of the roots of such issues. The actual root within the medium of thought is that certain frameworks of thought make us blind to particular perspectives, and insulate us from the awareness of certain facets of reality. So, these issue do occur in the dimension of thoughts and not in the dimensions of sight, sound, taste, touch, or smell. But it is not in creating a resistance to thought that we can transcend these issues individually and collectively. It is in being able to realize when our thoughts (in the form of beliefs and assumptions) are getting in the way of our awareness of things from various relative and absolute perspectives. So, it is a matter of letting go of conscious and unconscious beliefs and assumptions on the level of thought that will allow ourselves to become conscious of our own blindspots relative to systemic racism and how it affects ourselves and others. When we let go of these thought-based illusions, we will notice what is actually there. We will notice the system of racism at play in the arena of practical experience. So, you seem to be using the idea of resistance to thought in order to avoid addressing the issues in a real way. And this resistance to thought comes in the form of... thought. Without the thought that "thought is the root of the issue", you would be more able to see tangible actionable solutions to these issues. You will not get rid of thoughts, in yourself and especially not in others. So, the solution is not to pretend like you are free of the delusions of your thought processes and to create more illusory thoughts that society should just stop having illusory thoughts. Objectively, these solutions aren't actionable. A real solution is to have these discussions on the relative level and the appropriate paradigm and to address the thought-illusions and assumptions that insulate ourselves and others from this systemic issue. Saying that others should know the self is not a practical and actionable solution to this problem. It has very little efficacy in remedying issues on the level of world systems. Solving problems on the relative paradigm requires mostly noticing relative truths that were previously in the collective shadow.

No. There is no action justification in this perspective, as this is an existential perspective and not a practical perspective. It is simply noticing what is, and then accepting that what is, is valid to be there. And the recognition that human concepts of good and evil (as implying valid and invalid) have no realness to them. So, if we see a person as "evil" and we label them that, it can only mean something on the practical level. There is no "evil" to them as an existential qualifier, other than when other human beings label them as such. So, the label "good" and the label "evil" have no existential reality to them... only practical reaity That said, it would be foolish to look from the existential perspective to justify doing harmful things. There are still consequences for destructive actions. And if we live by the Golden Rule of doing unto others what we would like done unto us, then engaging in destructive and harmful actions toward another person deviates from that goal. And if we realize that "all is one" and that there is no delineation between self and other, then it makes absolutely no sense to harm anyone at all. But in the human internal experience, there are two warring drives. One is compassionate and wants all things positive for everyone and everything. The other is destructive and sadistic and wants everything to burn to the ground in a huge heap of pain and suffering. And these aspects of the internal landscape are an aspect of the collective unconscious and have influence on every single person. This is why there is so much reference to the dichotomy of good and evil in myths, despite the fact that good and evil can't be found as an existential reality... even if it's applied as a lens directly to those two drives. The existence of those two drive is simply the case. All things in reality are morally neutral on the existential level. So, even if we have a terrible drive and a good drive, the existence of these drives is neither good nor bad. Their existence simply is, and as such is valid in the eyes of the creator. But these warring drives do have practical effects on the workings of individuals, and what they are willing to do. And if the evil drive is unconscious, it can more easily slip into the driver seat without the individual realizing. This is how the people who create the most destruction, believe themselves to be the most righteous. They are identified so much with the good drive that they don't even question that they could be influenced by evil. And so, evil sneaks right in and takes control, as all shadow material does. This is how we get Hitlers who believe themselves to be so righteous in their cause, that they don't even see the massive destruction that they create as negative. So, realizing these drives exist and integrating them into our consciousness without identifying with them is key to being able to see what is influencing our actions. And when we integrate and zoom out from both the good and evil drive without identifying with either one, we can then hear a much subtler voice... the voice of divine wisdom.

Exactly. This is why you won't respond in a real way to the things that I just wrote to you. You cannot listen to my perspective, because the ego is afraid that its worldview will be undermined. And that it won't be able to employ the proper mental gymnastics and rationalizations to maintain itself.

Spiritual bypassing, by definition, is when a person always defaults to higher up spiritual truths to avoid the emotional and physical labor that goes into more worldly issues. So, it presents itself as an enlightened detachment, but is really an avoidance technique that the ego employs to avoid aspects of reality that undermine its worldview, create feelings of cognitive dissonance, and require a shift out of the ego's comfort zone. There is an insight about enlightenment that applies here. "Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water." The implications of this insight are far-reaching. It means that, even after discovering the truth of no-self and transcending the delusions of ego, there are still practical issues that have to be dealt with on the level of duality. And defaulting to higher up non-dual and spiritual truths, just aren't going to cut the wood. And the water isn't going to carry itself either. The same is true for the relative issue of systemic racism. Understanding the delusions of self on the personal level, will do absolutely nothing to the issue of systemic racism in the world at large. The system of racism won't chop itself, just because you're enlightened. But let's flip this around if you really care about overcoming personal delusions as the solution to all things. Why do you believe that your perspective is THE correct perspective to the exclusion of other perspectives? What does it give to you?

@Serotoninluv You might realize this already and I might be preaching to the choir, but I think he's a little too sure of the rightness of his perspective to hear what you're saying. In my opinion, with Outer, it's a little different. He has a lot of resistance relative to certain perspectives but he shows some promise in shifts that he's already made, and he doesn't really think he has it all figured out. There's really only some barriers there to realizations of certain liberating relative truths. So, definitely worth trying to get him to release some resistance, because there is a big part of him that's trying to become more conscious in general, even if there's lot of resistance present. But it's a lot harder to convince someone who is in perspective that spiritually bypasses the issues, because they think they've already arrived at the perspective to end all perspectives. That's why spiritual bypassing is so dangerous. It doesn't just block one or two perspectives. It blocks all relative perspectives, under the guise of being in the most superior perspective. So, that person can stay stuck forever because they won't question their viewpoints or shift perspectives at all and without being able to shift into more appropriate perspectives for a given issue.

Whoosh!

If that wasn't your intention, then why did you even go into the Gandhi stuff? It was pretty obvious that the quote was very far divorced from Gandhi's negative actions, and that I was just responding in a half-agreeing way to the quote in the first place. Plus, you know that most people don't know about Gandhi's issues in the first place, and that most people don't know that was his quote. So, it's like you decided to pull that small part out of my response to someone else, and then make it like I am permissible to his viewpoints because I 'think words are more important than actions.' Admit, even if it wasn't you intention, this totally looks like a set-up for a dishonest debate strategy.

I wasn't making any over-arching claim about Gandhi being a good person because he made that quote. In fact, I didn't even know it was a quote from him when I responded to it. Gandhi himself, was nowhere in that discussion. So, what you're doing is trying to make it seem like I was making a claim in support of Gandhi (because of or despite his racism and pedophilia) by half-agreeing with a quote by him that I didn't even know was from him. Then positioning yourself as a more reasonable person by saying, "Well actions speak louder than words, to me at least." Which implies that I don't think actions speak louder than words and assumes that I'm coming from the perspective of saying that "Gandhi is okay and his perspective is permissible because he made this quote that I kind of agree with from some perspectives this one time, even if I disagree with his actions." But this is not what I said. You're just trying to trap me into that perspective, so you can discredit my points of view. You know this already. But I was just responding to a totally different point that Jack River brought up, where I was even nuanced about the quote and said that we shouldn't use that quote to obscure broader truths and always default to the individual perspective as some issues can't be solved from that perspective. But you saw that as an opportunity to debate in bad faith, and to discredit me by implying that by my half-agreeing with a quote by Gandhi (who very few people know that he actually did pretty messed up things), that I somehow see words as weighing in more than actions relative to racism and other issues. This can then be used to launch ad hominem attacks and to discredit my viewpoint on the basis that I'm the type of person who values words over actions, and is willing to overlook racism if someone has the right words. It's a very tricksy hobbits thing to do. Sneaky Sneaky. Shame on you.

I have observed that "good" and "evil" are noticeable forces in the internal landscape. So, even if there are no good and evil things out in reality, there are two warring drives that exist in the wilderness of the internal experience. And the friction between the two drives creates a lot of chaotic energy. It is only in being able to detach from identification with these drives in full, both good and evil, that we can zoom out and see how they interact together. So, good and evil both do and do not exist. They don't from the objective labeling perspective. There is nothing about reality that is good or evil... not even the drives of good and evil. The drives of good and evil are both morally neutral. But they do exist phenomenologically as drives that have real and tangible effects on our attitudes and behaviors. They are there.

The quote I agree with from some perspectives. But I also think it shouldn't be used to avoid looking at issues on the big picture level as it was in the post I was responding to. But obviously, I don't agree with Gandhi's statements or actions. So, I don't really see how this quote relates to his racism and pedophilia. It's not really related in any way. It's not like he said, "Be the racist pedophile that you want to see in the world."