Forestluv

I think we are starting to see the first signs of this. I've noticed a couple Republicans criticize Scaramucci and Walsh as coming out too late and highlighted that they had come out against Trump years ago - as if it gives them more credibility. I'm curious if this dynamic will intensify in the future. Perhaps years in the future when the Republican party is drying to launder itself, Republicans will be bragging that they came out against Trump earlier than other Republicans.

Yea, I think he may be too far gone. Personal development and awakenings generally need some willingness. I can't see that from Trump. Especially if he is still in the power game and is fighting for power. . . If he lost re-election and became a toxic pariah and suffered greatly, perhaps he would become willing - yet I don't see it happening. One dynamic that is starting to slowly arise involves Republicans that have come out against Trump. The recent ones like Joe Walsh are being criticized because it took him so long. Republicans that come out in 2015 against Trump and remained against Trump are saying they are more credible than recent converts like Joe Walsh. There is a good chance this will continue in the future. I can imagine 10 years from now, Republican candidates touting their record on Trump - that they came out against Trump way back in 2017 and their Republican opponent didn't come out until 2020. There was a similar dynamic with democrats and the Iraq war. Democrats that voted for the Iraq war benefited short term, yet took a hit long term after the Iraq war debacle. This is one reason I support impeaching Trump. Put every congressman on record whether they side with Trump. Then shift the narrative to whether 4 Senators have the courage to do the right thing. Noone thinks the senate will convict, yet there would be extreme pressure on a small group of Republican Senators. . . 21 Tory's just left their party in the UK. It could happen in the U.S. as well.

"Candidate Forgets Dog Whistle" is a good title. There are plenty of people in the U.S. that think whites should be segregated from "the other". This mentality is particularly sensitive to inter-racial marriage because it is an integration of two ethnicity AND they will produce children of mixed ethnicity. To white supremacists, this is seen as losing their purity and heritage. Since Trump took office, racists have become more emboldened. Yet, there are still lines that white supremacists know they cannot cross because they will become weakened. Sometimes, a white supremacist needs to disguise their racism with a "dog whistle". That is, to phrase something in a way that racists know your intention/meaning, yet still gives the racist wiggle room. The woman in the video sucks at it. She comes right out and says "White and Black people should not get married". There is no wiggle room. A "dog whistle" would be something like: "I think men and women should stick with their kind when marrying". Racists will know what this means, yet they still have space for wiggling. For example, if called on this statement, the person could obfuscate and say "No, it wasn't racist. I just meant it's best for people to stick to their kind regarding common interests, goals, religion etc. YOU are the racist for suggesting I was the racist!!" Trump does this all the time. For example, when he first announced his candidacy, he said "Mexicans are rapists and criminals. And some I assume are good people". This is a type of "dog whistle". Racists clearly understood the intention/meaning, yet Trump and racists didn't have to absorb the full brunt of the racism. In response, racists could say "Trump didn't say all Mexicans were criminals and rapists. He said some were good people. YOU are the racist for saying it's racist!!". Then the racist can play the victim as if they are being oppressed. Trump does this well and about 35% of the U.S. population strongly resonate with it.

I agree it is very difficult to approach - including all the reasons you write about. I find it much harder to empathize with Trump than the vulnerable people he is harming. I'm high on the empathic scale and I naturally empathize with vulnerable people getting abused. This generally overwhelms my ability to empathize with the perpetrator. It takes effort for me to empathize with Trump. I agree with what you said about people using past trauma to justify their behavior. Some people even make up traumatic stories to get attention and compassion so they can cause more harm . . . In the case of Trump, he plays the victim, yet he does not use his past trauma as an excuse for harmful behavior. Being open about his own personal traumas would be far to intimate, scary and a sign of weakness to Trump. He is the opposite. He is in denial about his past trauma and in denial that his behavior is harmful. From his perspective, it is beneficial. He is so far on the narcissist scale, that he completely lacks empathy. It's very difficult for me to imagine what this mentality is like, since I am on the other extreme toward empathy. What makes it even harder to have empathy/compassion for Trump is that he has had the resources and access for help and to evolve beyond this. It's not like he lived in poverty, was abused as a child, continued to live in poverty, act out his trauma by hitting his own kids, getting locked up in solitary confinement, getting beaten in prison etc. . . Trump has had privilege his whole life and used his privilege and power to enact pain onto others - often the most vulnerable among us. So, he is a very difficult case. He is at a Red level, yet had resources and opportunities to evolve upward. This is the first Red-level president the U.S. has had in modern history. It's a bizarre thing to process. Yet, other countries have had to deal with Red-level dictators. Yet I can tell he is mentally ill and it's getting worse. I've watched his recent interviews and speeches closely and he is ill and not doing well. Yet, I also think he should be stopped. I live in a "swing state" that narrowly went to Trump and I will be doing a lot of volunteer work for the democratic nominee (hopefully not Biden). That is a potential positive from this mess. I do think a lot of people are becoming more "woke". Especially the younger "z" generation. I've been working with 18-22 y.o. students for 15 years. There is something different about this next younger generation - a type of transformational shift. This is a really good question. Trump clearly needs therapy. If this was any other person - an uncle, a coworker, a bus driver - whoever - family and friends would have intervened to reduce the harm and help him. Yet power and denial makes intervention much much harder. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if we could isolate Trump in a small high conscious community off the grid. Filled with self-actualized people and psychologists - completely out of Trump's element. It would be hell for Trump, yet I wonder if he is capable of having a breakthrough.

I think it depends on the person and their prior conditioning, energetics and baseline conscious level. I had 20+ years of meditation and personal development work before my first trip - I was primed. For a while, I assumed my experience would be true for others and I was pro-psychedelics. Yet over time, I've seen that for some - psychedelics are a very sensitive, tricky thing and can distract or even derail. Now, I have a much more cautious attitude with people using psychedelics. As well, there is a certain skill involved that may take many trips to develop.

A few thoughts on my experience: 1) Many deep insights are remarkable at first, yet after a while seems pretty obvious. The paranormal is remarkable at first, yet then becomes normal. 2) A deep / expansive experience gets re-contextualized into a puny human brain. A human mind can't capture it all. The mind tries to "make sense of it" and in doing so it becomes condensed and a lot is lost. Imagine being omniscient and returning to human. That would fry a human brain. 3) Once the the direct experience is contextualized, it becomes an "experience", a "memory". It's not just with psychedelics. Imagine the first time having sex, scuba diving or sky diving. At the time., it is mind-body amazing - perhaps for days afterwards. Yet then it becomes a memory/experience and that naive excitement of the first time dwindles. Yet, it can become embodied and mature. For example, on one 5-meo trip all of reality was deconstructed to Mu and then fully reconstructed. This was mind-blowing at the time. I remember pacing around my house yelling "That just happened! That just happened!". It was so far beyond anything imaginable it was like I had to reinforce to myself it actually happened. When I reflect on it now, I don't have that same amazement - yet it was extremely profound. It has altered the way I relate to reality, duality, nonduality, relative and absolute. I can never unsee it. When I'm with someone, I can tell if they have been to the null void. This summer I was with a high level buddhist monk who had much more knowledge and meditative experience than I. Yet I knew he hadn't gone the whole way to Nothing in direct experience. To me, it's simple and obvious now. Yet at the time of realization, I was shaken up for about a week and my whole reality was transformed.

Direct experience is really important. There is an energetic shift that is key.

I would say Mate has a lot of yellow, which isn't quite showcased in the context of the video. Empathy is a green trait and Mate has very strong empathic understanding ability. In a sense, I would consider absence of personal judgement to be a Tier2 trait, since the personality gets transcended as we enter Tier2. So in that regard, I suppose we could say it's yellow. Yet I think a mature strong empathetic green could still be operating at high green. I think Mate and Wilber are good contrasts. Mate has a much deeper embodiment of Green, while Wilber is much shallower on Green embodiment and is concentrated toward cognitive intellect.

I went to a similar place. I think some ideas may be more true or delusional - relative to the population consensus of what reality is. Yet on the absolute level, all just ideas appearing. . . For example, Trump thinking Alabama is in hurricane danger after he draws a Sharpie circle on a map would be delusional on a relative scale, yet just more ISness on an absolute scale. @cetus56 That woman reminds me of spinners at Grateful Dead shows.

No creation needed. You are already a no-self. There is no escaping no-self. The question is: "How does one create an illusory self state?" Is this assumption true? I think self love and care is awesome. I also like activities to release blockages, such as yoga, shamanic breathing and sensory deprivation tanks. I would be mindful of creating a "no-self" state. In some contexts it is helpful. For example, relaxing the mind and letting go of the "story" of me and allow space for greater awareness of body and mind dynamics - which can lead to healing and personal development at the human level. Yet in another context, it is trying to create a "state" that is not Now. This can be alluring in terms of desiring and chasing states that are not Now. This gets nuanced and tricky. In terms of personal development, nondual experiences can certainly be helpful for personal development. For example, if I can enter trans-personal realms, could I heal myself and rewire my brain? I think a lot of new discoveries in this area will arise in the future. So I'm not saying this is a "bad" thing. Yet observe this dynamic at a deeper level. Who is the "I" in which the desire is arising? To me, the energetic source is from the construct of a personal "I". That's great for personal development. Yet when we enter trans-personal states, it's a different game. It seems like you are asking "How can I use trans-personal states for personal gain?" (To create the world "I" desire). There is a deep and challenging surrender here. It is not intellectual, it is energetic. "How do I create the new world I desire?" is an important question at the personal level. Yet the person dissolves as we go trans-personal. This question gets surrendered along with the entire personality. This personal question is not important at a trans-personal level. Some people refer to this as a form of "death". Who you are as real "dies". At a trans-personal level, your question is equivalent to "How can I use this to create the world some dude name Marc in Greece that I've never met desires?" - because there is no you or Marc. This will be unpalatable at the personal level and there will be backlash. "Well, I'm not going to surrender if that means I become irrelevant and don't benefit". . . At a trans-human level, it gets even more radical. Your question would be equivalent to "How would I use this to create the world that a mosquito in Vietnam desires?"

That's what I was getting at. The breakdown of subject vs. object. Yet it would probably open a can of worms. Worms can be fun to play with, yet sometimes it's better I keep my lid shut @Telepresent Yea, sometimes I need to refrain from being a nondual prankster.

@Fuku Language and beliefs are inherently dualistic and humans tend to become attached/identified to one side of a dualism. So, it can be helpful to see the opposite side of the dualism - yet "right" vs "wrong" is still a dualistic framework and highly contracted/limited.

It's not missing the point, it's another point. Often, human minds become contracted within a conditioned framework and it's helpful to come from a different angel, Yet here, it's probably not the best approach, so I edited my comment.

The organization of atoms is different between a fish and a grain of sand. The mechanisms of that is interesting, imo.

Stones can move. I just threw one and it certainly moved.

This is like asking “If my kidney cells are me, why can’t one of my kidney cells prepare and eat a tuna sandwich?” It is mistaking you as You. One must transcend self to realize Self.

Didn’t you mention earlier that you will be studying abroad for 4 months? This could be a good opportunity to get distance and focus on yourself. I’d also try to shift toward building a support group outside your parents and becoming financially independent of them. It sounds like a very unhealthy environment.

You are Oliver in a "big brain". By your reasoning, you are imaginary and a total illusion.

I get what you are asking. It's a commonly asked question, yet difficult question to answer - because there is a destination in mind. A destination that is ill-defined. Exactly how would you determine if one is a Buddha, arhat or free from fetters? if you really get in there, dig deep and try to define it - it will collapse - because it is groundless grounding. We could spend years discussing the essence and meaning of a Buddha, arhat or total freedom from fetters. And we would keep going around in circles. Ime, the most powerful aspect of 5-Meo is the potential for a transcendence of all of this. For example, consider the question: Can a man restrained by fetters be totally free from fetters? There is a transcendence of that question.

Psychedelics are certainly powerful. In some ways, I learned more in six hours of my first trip than I had during the previous 20 years of meditation combined. I would say psychedelics have opened many doors. I hear a lot of people asking and debating whether "only" psychedelics can yield "enlightenment". To me this doesn't make sense because we cannot isolate a psychedelic experience from the inter-connectedness of Reality. If someone has an awakening related to psychedelics, how would we determine it was "only" psychedelics? What if the person had meditated a few times years ago and got a couple insights? Would that disqualify the awakening as "only" psychedelics? What if the person had reach quasi nondual states while running? What if the person had laid under the stars and pondered "who am I?"and received insights? Would that count as self-inquiry? What if the person had entered another realm during lucid dreaming? Or had a revelation watching a nondual video? To me, it's all inter-related and we can't remove and isolate an event from it's vast inter-connectedness. I don't think the question "Can only psychedelics yield awakening?" is a good question - because it is a binary "either / or" framework. I think a better question would be "Can psychedelics contribute to awakening?". I like this frame better as it allows for inter-connectedness. Then we could ask questions like "How significant is the contribution?", "What factors is this contribution related to and dependent upon?".

I think this is a difficult question to answer based on the terms "awakening" and "permanent". I've experimented heavily with 5-Meo (daily breakthrough use for over three weeks). I would say there are aspects I think you would consider to be "awakening" and aspects you would consider "permanent" - from a subjective human perspective. Yet there would also be aspects I think you would not consider to be "awakening" and "permanent". At deeper levels, ideas/concepts/images of awakened vs. non-awakened and permanent vs. temporary break down. I suppose it can serve as a framework up to a point, yet it eventually breaks down.

The past does not equal the present. Breath, relax, pay attention and do your best. You will be fine. Let us know how it goes.

What would awakening simply by psychedelics even look like? Would we take a newborn baby and isolate him in a solitary room with no windows? Then throw in some psychedelics during his life and monitor him with a hidden camera? How would we even be able to determine "enlightenment"? And how could we determine that the person had never “meditated” or “self inquired”? Everything is inter-related.

English as a foreign language I'm not sure if we have any english football league members

@whoareyou Tone it down. As a general reminder to everyone: This is a global international forum. Many forum members speak English as their second or third language. English is a difficult language to write well. English shaming can create a toxic environment to our EFL members. Please don't do it.