Forestluv

100% physical vs. 100% nonphysical is a hyper-duality. Saying that reality is *partially* physical is a big breakthrough. Going from 100% to 99% is a much bigger jump than going from 99% to 1%. 5-meo is both physical and nonphysical. We can create a pure physical reality with a physical brain, physical neurons and physical neurotransmitters. Nothing wrong with that. It's not a war between two sides. . . Yet staying within a physical vs. nonphysical construct, we will be limited to an all physical construct. . . For example, if one creates a duality of beautiful or ugly and believes that everything is ugly, it is a limiting contraction. They will be missing the beauty. And they will be missing an infinite number of inter-connections between beauty and ugliness.

The grave-ity is such a downer. . .

You are making a distinction between real and unreal - which is fine. That distinction can have practical value. It's easy to conceptualize the inter-relatedness between real and unreal in the comfort of one's own living room. As you say, it's a lot more difficult to conceptualize when one has fallen off a cliff - then things get real fast. Yet intensifying the story through subjective experiences related to personal survival does not increase the truth of the story. What *is* regarding real / unreal *is* regardless of interpretive filters. . . I had a nightmare in which I fell of a cliff and it was very real. . . It just so happens one of my greatest fears is falling off a cliff. . . For me, lucid dreaming is one of the best ways to explore real and unreal. There are many facets and integrations of lucidity and wakefulness. Do you think in the next 200 years, we could create virtual reality in which people cannot distinguish between real and unreal?

I've been thinking about the psychology of deflection lately. It is a common defense mechanism to protect an underlying vulnerability and a way to control a narrative. We all do it to some extent. For example, a person may feel uncomfortable looking at their own selfish intentions and may deflect to avoid the issue. This dynamic can cause all sorts of problems in interpersonal relationships. For example, a guy might arrive 20min. late to dinner and his gf gets upset and tells him "You were very inconsiderate. You showed up 20min. late and didn't even text me". He might defensively respond "What about the time you forgot my birthday? That was inconsiderate". It's really hard to resolve underlying issues with this type of deflection. All politicians do it to some extent. For example, during a debate a candidate may be asked about racial comments he made ten years ago. He may avoid the issue by talking about M4A or say "What about my opponent? He said worse racist things". It doesn't take a high level of consciousness to see this dynamic. I would say KellyAnne Conway has a high skill for deflection. She uses key words within the question as grounding to deflect upon, so it sounds like she is sorta answering the question, yet not really. In the below video, an expert debater analyzes KellyAnne's tactic, why it is effective and her backup deflection tactics when her primary tactic fails.

I think Bill Clinton and Warren are very articulate speakers. Warren has worked as a teacher most of her life and I think she has strong communication skills. Warren is not my overall #1, yet I would rank her the best at being able to clearly explain complex, nuanced topics to a general audience. She is outstanding in this area - she has natural skills and extensive experience explaining complexities through her teaching. I saw Bill Clinton speak in a small venue around 2003 and he was outstanding. It wasn't a campaign event. He was speaking about his work in Africa to help with tropical diseases and HIV. He was very knowledgeable and he integrated several dynamics, such as political, social, medical and philosophical issues. Hilary Clinton had too many personal filters for me and I didn't resonate with her. Biden is losing his cognitive abilities. Bernie is much more stable and coherent than Trump. In general, I think he does a good job at communicating his ideas, such as M4A. For example, I thought he spoke clearly during his FoxNews townhall. @Mason Riggle I would be curious about how Trump would be diagnosed after a thorough psychological evaluation by trained professionals. Yet on the other hand, we already know something is amiss in Trump's mind. It's like when someone's car breaks down it's pretty obvious. We don't need a car mechanic to tell us our car has broken down and isn't working. @Scholar Ooohhh!! The egoic psychology of advanced criminal minds and interrogators is so fascinating. Thank you for that juicy link. I can't watch it at work now, yet I will later tonight. . . One skill the best interrogators and investigators have is nonverbal communication. There is part of our brain that is aware of, and interprets, nonverbal cues such as facial expressions, voice tone, voice cadence and body language. There can be hundreds of very subtle nonverbal cues to integrate. People can get trained to due this - for example to detect when someone is trustworthy or untrustworthy. Yet the best investigators also have a natural skill at this, couple with intuition. Yet on the flip side, the stakes are high for criminals and they also have developed skills of masking nonverbal cues to cloak their dishonesty and nefarious intentions from detection. It's a really interesting dynamic. . .

There is already sufficient evidence. It is against the law for a president to solicit a foreign country to investigate a political opponent in an election. Trump himself has admitted committing this crime. He then again committed the crime in public view. We already have the direct evidence. An impeachment trial can reveal the mechanisms have how extensive the crime was. As well, a trial can help educate the portion of the public that cannot yet see clearly. . . It is as if a person admitted he committed the crime of murder and tried to hide it and then committed a second murder in plain view for everyone to see. Yet his friends and family cannot admit that he committed a crime or that murder isn't really a crime. A trial can help such people see clearly. For example, there may be lawyers that testify that murder is indeed a crime. There may be witnesses of the murder. Yet this is secondary evidence since the person has already admitted committing the crime and did it again in plain view. It is against the law for a president to solicit a foreign leader to investigate a political opponent in an election. Trump is shown in the phone call committing this crime. Trump admitted to committing this crime. It doesn't get more direct than this. The part about Biden is the crime. All the other stuff is a distraction. It's like a man getting into an argument and murdering his wife, then saying "the evening was not just about the murder. He prepared his wife dinner and took out the trash. And they also talked about scheduling their son's summer soccer camp before he murdered her. And the neighbors didn't like this guy and wanted him to move out of the neighborhood. Oh, and what about the other guy across town that murdered his whole family?". . . All of this is distraction from the direct evidence of the crime and that the person admitted committing the crime.

It’s impersonal. I’m pointing to something prior to self constructs. At a personal level, I'm impressed with their abilities and development at such a young age. It’s great to see young people exploring consciousness like they are. Yet, it can all get deconstructed to Nothing and re-constructed to Everything.

@AleksM How did you know he was speaking English?

@AleksM I wasn’t referring to skill development or ability.

@Leo Gura Hmmm, so that means if I observe my own psychological dynamics then subtle forms of Trumpism will be revealed in my own mind. That’s a tough pill to swallow. It’s much more comfortable to observe Trump. Relative to Trump devilry, I’m an angel ?

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@Focus Shift I’m not familiar with contemporary Orange personal development speakers. The only reason I’m familiar with JP is because he appears a lot on the forum. I’d imagine some of Leo’s videos from a few years ago would be good. If I were to create a healthy Orange coach to help blue people transition to Orange - I’d just leave out the Green stuff and the coach would focus on personal growth, goal setting, how to achieve personal goals, self motivation etc. - yet in a healthy way, without harming others.

@Focus Shift Nice recontextualization for an Orange/Green.There is a different resonance when combined with imagery. There is an extra boost of inspiration and emotion with the imagery.

@Emerald I see a lot of guys that want to use JP as a pull up to orange - yet that comes at the price of a green poison pill. Do you know of any good male orange role models without the green poison? Tony Robbins comes to mind, yet he is getting old and I’m not sure if younger men would resonate with him.

I like that perspective. I hadn’t thought of it like that. I’m not so interested in how enlightened sages would experience/interpret psychedelic bells and whistles such as different realms, spirit guides, fractals, aliens etc. I’d want them to see/experience deconstruction to Nothing and re-construction to Everything. Then I’d ask “Wudda ya think?”

Trump: “As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!).” Trump is seriously mentally ill. If someone’s Uncle was this delusional, the family would come together and do an intervention to get him into a treatment center. If this was a pilot or doctor, he would lose his job. If a bus driver was this delusional, I’d get off at the next bus stop.

@Peo In terms of SD baseline consciousness, I would say green is where things generally start clicking with psychedelics. I was at upper orange / lower green when I first tripped. Yet I went into it humble and open. I really wanted to expand and I was teachable. My first trip took me into Turquoise and obliterated my orange anchors. Transcendence of Orange in one shot. . . Yet I also had years of personal development and meditation before that first trip. There might not be the same impact on other people. There are a lot of variables at play.

Tumors are in conflict with each other all the time. Big tumors kill little tumors so they can get more resources and continue growing. We wouldn’t call the big tumors doctors because they are killing little tumors. And humans as cancer is just an analogy. No analogy is perfect, they all collapse under enough scrutiny

They look like high conscious youths exploring different conscious states and realms. It is often referred to as “5D”. It’s great to see young people explore consciousness and expand. Yet they still have development along a timeline and they haven’t yet directly experienced Absolute Infinity / Mu. For example, they are nowhere near Leo’s level - yet have a good chance if they keep going deeper and broader.

@Peo You are missing the part about baseline conscious level and contextualization. If Trump did 5-meo there is a minuscule chance he would be able to integrate it as a full blown enlightenment experience. His baseline conscious level is way too low. On the other end of the spectrum someone who has had 30 years experience of personal development and conscious work would have a high likelihood of integrating it as a full blown enlightenment experience. The vast majority of people are somewhere in between and it’s much harder to predict. We can look at controlled studies in which normies are given a psychedelic in a clinical setting under the guidance of a health care provider. The majority of patients report it to be one of the most profound experiences of their life and that deep insights were revealed. Psychologists say one six hour session can be worth years of psycho-therapy. Yet most participants won’t be able to fully integrate the magnitude. This takes a high level of baseline consciousness. As well, usually only aspects of Truth are revealed and it takes many trips to be exposed to enough aspects such that a holistic big shebang is revealed and integrated.

Yes there is suffering from the perspective of the person. Humans have constructed a thing called "suffering". Different humans have different suffering constructs. For example, a common construct of suffering is that the mind and body experience intense physical/emotional pain and don't want to feel this physcial/emotional pain and there is a strong desire to be free of the physcial/emotional pain - yet an inability to be free of it. That is a human construct of suffering. It has practical value when humans are discussing their experience. When someone tells me they are suffering - I use this type of construct to relate and communicate with them. When you say their is *nobody, nothing* then how can there be suffering? You just said there is nobody to suffer, nothing. Is a bowl full of nothing suffering occurring in nobody wind? From a trans-human perceptive, we could say that there is a "thing" that the human calls "suffering" that appears in a "thing" the human calls It's mind and body - in which the human identifies as being "me". If you say it's "the suffering before nonduality is revealed" - then we are now immersed back into the perspective of the person. Which is fine. So overall, is it happening or not? Both. Illusion = Reality and Reality = Illusion. Non-happenings = Happenings and Happenings = Non-happenings. This is a deeper level in which the duality between dual and nondual collapses. Yes Nothing wrong with philosophising about duality and mechanisms of happenings. Confusion and inner turmoil arises when there is conflation between absolute and relative. As well, when there is a belief/assumption that relative is absolute. From the perspective of a doer, there is choice. From the perspective of no-doer there is no choice. From the perspective of intention and meaning, suffering is meant to happen. From the perspective of no intention or meaning, suffering is not meant to happen. You are getting into causation, determination and choice again. Your answer depends on how you create constructs of causation, determination, doer and choice. We can create all sorts of constructs, just like we can construct all sorts of sand castles. Creating constructs can allow insight and we can create more elaborate constructs. Nothing wrong with that - that's what humans do. Yet the inner turmoil comes with the seeking energy of wanting to create a construct that is objectively and universally true and permanent. Just like a child will experience inner turmoil if they want their sandcastle to be grounded and permanent. At the end of the day, all sandcastles will get deconstructed by waves. And all constructs get deconstructed to Nothing. . .

@NilsFlair @DrewNows Thank you for your thoughts. I think empathy is an often overlooked mode of being. Similar to you, I would make a distinction between empathy and sympathy/compassion - although they can inter-relate. I also agree that there is an empathy spectrum ranging from a pure empath to a pure narcissist. I would consider the top 20% of people on the empathy spectrum to be "empaths". People in the middle of the spectrum have the capacity for empathy, yet empaths have a higher skill for it. Similar to how most people can understand the basics of math, yet the top 20% have an aptitude for it. I like how you discussed how empathy can be misunderstood and cause confusion and inner turmoil. As well, empathic skills can be developed. Those in top 2% on the empathy spectrum get into a hyper-empathy zone that can be a paranormal-like. A few ideas of exploration. . . I would say it is also much more than this. You describe empathy between two communicating humans. Yet empathy can exist between a human and a tree. Empathy can also exist between a human and an inanimate thing, such as a stone. It can also occur between human and immaterial. For example, one may experience empathy with immaterial when they enter an ancient monastery. I would be careful mixing empathy with a variety of subjective experiences. This adds filters and muddy the waters. An entry level view of empathy would be shared experience, which could involve emotion - yet is broader. A simple example: imagine a woman has suffered through postpartum depression in which she experienced intense anxiety of harming/killing her newborn child. She joins a support group for mothers that have experienced and are recovering from postpartum depression. As soon as the mother starts talking about her experiences with harm anxiety toward her newborn - the other mothers will know exactly what that is like. They will know what the terror of the unwanted desire to harm their baby. They will know the feeling of being a monster. They will know the fear that others may find out she is a monster. The fear of others seeing her as insane - of getting locked up. All the mothers in that room will know what it's like because they have direct experience. Some of the mothers in the group may re-experience it during the support meeting - other women may just "know". This is a form of empathetic knowing - that may or may not involve the actual emotions. . . This empathetic knowing is much deeper than if you or I imaged what it would be like. We may listen to the mother and feel fear or anxiety - yet we don't know. . . People that are empaths can get very close to this knowing. These are awesome insights about increasing awareness about inter-personal emotional dynamics. This is super important to understanding someone else's experience and perspective and gives insight into how one's self responds to various emotional stimuli. I think societies are grossly deficient in this area and society would be much healthier if they could develop what you suggest. We could call this empathy for normies - yet for empaths it is much deeper. They don't need to try and interpret the essence of another - they are that essence. They just know. Perhaps like a language. If a person is fluent in Spanish and speaking Spanish with someone, they don't need to translate what the other person is saying. They just know. Similarly, in the deeper levels of empathy - there is a knowing without interpretation or translation. It is direct. . . Imagine sitting on a park bench with someone and a breeze flows by. You can't see the breeze, yet you know it's there and you know the other person is within the breeze as well. There is no "my breeze" and "your breeze" - there is simply the breeze flowing through both of you. There is no need to interpret the breeze. There is knowing of the breeze. This knowing may manifest as a sensation/feeling of the breeze and a knowing of that sensation/feeling. And a knowing that this breeze-related sensation is being shared. Or, there may be a knowing of the breeze and breeze-related sensation/feeling without a physical sensation/feeling - similar to a woman at the postpartum support group knows postpartum harm anxiety even if she is not experiencing harm anxiety in that moment. . . It's much easier for someone to enter these hyper-empathic realms if they have had previous direct experience with it. Yet strong empaths can enter this realm as a form of direct experience - yet not a traditional type of experience.

Notice how you say *I* suffered, rather than suffering appeared. There is an "I" dynamic that can be transcended. Again, notice how you say *I* tried to end the suffering. It's fine to talk at the level of the personality, yet there is transcendence of that. To me, it seems like you keep reaching out for that transcendence, yet can't quite take the plunge. Who/what is this *I* that is suffering and trying to end it's own suffering? Is it a story of *I*? Is it the brain suffering? The body? . . . So far, you have said "I know *I* doesn't exist, yet you know what I mean". . . If you don't get clear on the "you know what I mean part", you will be swimming through muddy waters. Notice how you default back to your pre-conceived assumption and construct. Using the framework of a psychological self is fine if you want to talk about suffering in the context of a psychological self. Yet you are using the framework of a psychological self and reaching toward transcendence of that psychological self. You've said multiple times "where we obviously don't exist" - and then you speak as if we do actually exist. To me, it seems like you are reaching toward nondual transcendence of the psychological self, yet you are still clinging to the grounding of a dualistic psychological self. Eventually, the duality of nondual vs. dual collapses - yet you seem to be trying to skip a step. From the nonduality, there is no god experiencing through us. You said yourself: "where we obviously don't exist". So Everything is God. There is One God. Not god experiencing ourselves. Just God. No ourselves. . . To me, this seems to be the next big realization which comes through direct experience.

@kieranperez Along the imaginary theme. . . Could you have a dream in which objects fell to the ground when dropped? Sure. I've had many dreams like that. @Jed Vassallo Nice jinx.

If there is no person, who/what is suffering? Does there need to be a sufferer to suffer? Right now, my neighbor is suffering because he lost his job and is unable to provide for his family. Are you suffering over this? Why not?. . . I imagine you are not suffering over this because this person does not exist to you. For all you know, I made it up. . . You have no attachment/identification of being this person. . . Yet if you identified that this person was you, you would be suffering. What is necessary for suffering? Is being human necessary? Can a rock, tree or dog suffer? Can an idea suffer?