lmfao

@The observer I've heard ideas here and there about karma as a synonym for memory. One of my favourite ways to articulate non-duality to people is to talk about how we are essentially conditioned robots. But explanations people have about karma, or my own explanations of this all, they're just lifeless theories to me currently.

A formulation for free will in the domain of the relative can be found in "compatabilism", Daniel Dennett for example. Seen under a good light, I see this framing of things as a pragmatic/grounded approach to it. If what I value and am interested in is exploration of life, then theoretical knowledge that yes I am free or no I am not free does nothing for me. Like either way, my life and existence is unchanged by my conversation with you about what might or might not exist. Of course I see the objection. Denying free will can be a tool for acceptance and love of others. If it works in that way for you, then all power to you. If you so wish, it's certainly a good line of inquiry/debate when talking to let's say, a conservative sort of person strongly bought into moral absolutism. Thinking everyone who's poor or a criminal is fundamentally culpable in this narrow minded view of good vs bad. Giving people empathy for the upbringing and genes of others.

How does anyone eat this shit up, I dont understand...

-Family -chronic fatigue -depression

@willen1995 Read Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton! I've only just started some of it but I can already tell it's gold. It's something that is relevant to all domains of your life. There are but a few very tricky things I can see myself learning to be completely open about.

@bazera I've thought about the possibility of there being a second peak if people are released from quarantine. Supposing the government take no further action and lift lockdown ,even if slowly, maybe it could peak a second time. But it doesn't have to stay on the trajectory of a second peak I'm assuming, with action during bought time. Like everyone else said, it buys time for researching cures, healthcare infrastructure and capacity, getting massive testing done so people can resume lives to normal, etc. Some people ( dunno if they're right or not or if it will happen) speculate that once quarantine is over, it might peak again. I'm pessimistic of the entropy and degrees of freedom you give virus transmission upon releasing lockdown. I just hope enough action is done during lockdown in all these countries to prevent a second peak. Maybe it will peak rhythmically over the period of years, idk. Maybe the virus will be an ever-present force you're always fighting the force/trajectory of. Either way, it seems like a very long term game will be played. TLDR coronavirus is Trump's master plan to cancel the 2020 elections and usurp democracy ; )

Jesus christ dude, stop being such a fucking baby just because you perceive someone has slightly slighted you. Your model isn't doing jack shit when you misread the intent of someone like Chakra Lion. The levels of irony in everything you write there is stupidly high beyond belief.

The model I referenced is less hierarchical than spiral dynamics, and has less or the same leeway to be butt hurt about. For someone who's engaged in such a system as spiral dynamics strongly and is making many labels and judgements, I think it's a little odd you got so offended by what I wrote. Throughout this thread you've been sensitive and touchy to responses and criticism. It seems as though at some deep level in general you feel as though you and your ideas aren't being appreciated. That's fine, everyones feels the same way and can empathise. I don't want you to feel that way, and I know you're only going to get more pissed from me typing that but that's okay.

@Virtually Good find! After reading that dialogue, I'm reminded of what I've read Jed McKenna say. That he thinks there's a difference between mysticism and enlightenment. From Jed's point of view, mystical experiences are simply to be having a good dream. It's still within the realm of duality. You're still in plato's cave. When one's goal is to wake up from the dream all together. I get a feeling that Peter Ralston might fall into a similar camp of framing. Jed frames enlightenment in a relatively binary manner, give or take a bit of time from when the "first step" is taken. However. Once enlightened, you are enlightened. Your work is done. And that sort of binary manner is the same manner in which him or Peter dismiss "subjective states" as irrelevant to enlightenment as those states fade but this thing called enlightenment is supposedly permanent. My problem with Jed's point of view (Not Peter, I just noticed a similar energy/vibe between the two of them) is best expressed by the koan "if you meet the buddha on the road kill him". Jed even talks about that koan. Funny that.

@w4read Yeah I can relate to this. I mean in the analyst category, you can often take interest in the impressionist and can see that point of view more, but your default cognition process will be on the more lexical side. I have similar OCD/Perfectionist-like streaks running through me in trying to write something "perfect". If I'm making notes in uni on a topic and the lecturer misses out something or says something slightly incorrect, it bothers me a lot and I make like 2-3 footnote side comments for my future self to read so that they don't get confused. @GodDesireOnlyLove For which system do you wanna know my type, mbti or this thing? MBTI wise I'm INTP. I mean for this thing, I'm quite unsure. I don't evaluate myself to be very hyper intelligent or creative compared to what I could be or others can be, so I'm perhaps not extremely lateral. Relative to this model I could be. I'm likely analyst or quick-witted possibly. I think I've always been around that region, even if I've started to enjoy more impressionistic domains of experience. When I was younger a few years ago (im 19 now), I was a bit more lexical, more entranced by semantics and verbal nit-picking. I still engage in that sort of thing, but I like to make it as colourful and dynamic as I hopefully can.

@cypres Yeah, that's a good question. I know that sometimes I think in images and have gut feelings sometimes that I can't really put into words. I think it might be a bit more common for impressionistic thinking to think in images, but that needn't be the case. I think many highly lateral thinkers in general think in images. Impressionistic folks are more inclined to artistic stuff on average I think. Unsymbolised thinking is generally associated with the impressionistic realm. But it needn't always be that way, I would think. e.g. Someone who's lexical might be into Zen forms of consciousness work, and to quote R.H Blythe

I made a post which talks about this topic of why people talk past one another on this forum and communicate differently , in reference to my above message

Absolute ascension. Spiral Dynamics breaks down and/or isn't the appropriate metric to ascertain certain mystics or enlightened folks. His level of consciousness is off the charts. Talk about the ascension of all images, and the importance of attention. What he cared about and spoke about cannot be reduced to spiral dynamics, those sorts of things would be minutia within the matrix, when one wants to leave the matrix. Funny that one of the men I idolise the most is the one most against the whole notion of authority and idolisation. How beautiful.

@UnconsciousHuman Yeah. I just meant unwarranted to my own standard. Edit: Looking at these chat logs, I think @UnconsciousHuman is more of an "impressionistic thinker" compared to @The observer who're a more "lexical thinker". As in, UnconsciousHuman seems to perceive The observer as being too nitpicky, when that needn't be the case completely. UnconsciousHuman isn't giving some simple orderly presentation of his thoughts, its moreso like a barrage of images/aesthetics and impressions. I heard these cool terms from an anime YouTuber called Digibro (he layed out the system which also includes a lateral vs linear dichotomy, before talking about the different categories he made with the two scales). Even though he came about it in the confines of anime, it's actually pretty cool in terms of applying to to real life. Hmmm, maybe I should just make a thread on this. Check the timestamps in the video for various combinations you can be. e.g. very linear + very lexical as opposed to very lateral + very impressionist

There can never be too many Peter Ralston appreciation threads.

I wouldn't seek to unwarrantly reduce stages to these simple approaches. But if this sort of a breakdown works for you and only serves as a tool/pointer, then all power to you. I suppose this is generally true with ideas anyone holds or says. What is said perhaps isn't so important as the relation and context with which you hold the idea. If its all seen as approximate and loose and rough it's fine. Its a very hard to judge in another person, whether they are holding the right relation or not. The same way it's hard to judge any characteristic of someone, e. G.Their archetype/stage. It's as though the moment you put your observational understanding into words you've already betrayed the image you had. Hmmm I'm reminded of this quote from monogatari. "The moment you put it into words and tell someone, it starts to diverge from your feelings. Words are nothing but lies and nothing but cheats. No matter what the truth, the moment it is told, it becomes dramatized."

Thank you for the reply! Thankfully you posted this just as I checked this website again. I will certainly try that.

What I am confused about is these visualisations involving your body. Okay so for example, there's spinal breathing in kriya yoga. You visualise cold prana rising up your spine from muladhara to third eye when inhaling, visualise warm prana going down spine from third eye to muladhara during exhalation. What I'm confused about it the difference between entering my own mental landscape of images versus feeling into my body. It's always been a general principle in enlightenment work that you don't make any images/idols of god. You know, the whole thing about paying attention to your experience without abstractions. I'm not saying this to disregard visualisations or anything of that sort at all. I'm merely sharing with you the sentiments that express how the confusion I'm experiencing could arise. So I'm paying attention to the different locations in my body, the spine for example...it appears as though I am indeed able to project an image into the space there and move that projection up and down. There's another type of visualisation meditation exercise I came across in regards to emotional healing. It involves recalling a person or negative experience that's caused grief in the past. You then visualise a white light emanating from your heart chakra....Again, I pay attention to that space in my body and project that impression/image of compassionate/loving/forgiving white light. I suppose what trips me up slightly is about whether, I am supposed to project some sort of image into the space surrounding my body. When I concentrate and try , this feels like it's happening but it doesn't make sense why/how or what's going on, too much brain fog. What's also tripping me up in general with that is, what to do with my attention and my mind. Am I supposed to put all my attention into building some mental image, where the mental image is me looking at myself in third person and seeing white light coming out. Or am I supposed to just pay attention to my body and just work the projection from there... ------ This is now a tangential point. I just wonder about the effectiveness of yoga in general. You're projecting all sorts of mental images into the domain of your body, seems ripe for entering into fantasy. Because there are states of consciousness you can experience in which you see the body as fictional to begin with, yet there's so much emphasis and treating it as a real thing with this chakra system. Concentrating on your third eye, visualising prana, etc. Hell, if you take it far enough just the concept alone of paying attention to your breath is a construct...And so when I try and concentrate on just the now, I can start to feel immersed in something profound but not before getting lost in thought again. So that leads to using the body and the breath as tools for concentration even though, they don't really exist. What a mind fuck.

Is there anyone here who has looked into salt and the effects it has on health? What do you think of this video? I find it interesting but because of how notoriously hard it is to navigate around the science of diet I've reserved judgement on the topic of how much salt we should be consuming.

@Leo Gura is Ken Wilbers book The Religion of Tomorrow worth reading then? It has a tier 3 (in this formulation) , although I don't know the justification. Whilst he makes it a point to separate psychological/(Spiral Dynamics) development from spiritual awakening development, perhaps he dovetails the two into one when considering tier 3.

The prospect of clinging onto a physical substance for higher consciousness is extremely scary to me, it would sound like the most beautiful and destructive drug. It's sounds like the problem you can get with meditation, maybe multiplied over several times. I'll have to try psychedelics and see how they compare to meditation for me. That said, in spite of fear, whatever is the truth is the truth.

@Leo Gura What is your perspective on Kriya Yoga, or yogic practices which have some sort of chakra system added to them as supplementation? Does what you're saying here have any ramifications to that and etc. Obviously you're saying everything is imaginary. My question to you is, by using difference phrasing, is the chakra system fictional? Does it actually exist? i.e. is real in the same way this "table" in front of me is real, like it's an existing structure. I've had strong experiences with my third eye having sensations, or if I'm doing spinal breathing I will interpret there to be energy spots on my spine. What makes this tricky however is the fact this spinal breathing is a visualisation exercise of imagining prana moving up the spine, so my mind can be seeing what it wants to see or my mind rather will change my bodily sensations to match my visualisations ( I need to experiment with this a lot more than I currently am). So does this structure called the chakra system exist? If it is true that (adding the phrase "If it is true that" because I don't want to pretend like I've directly experienced this) I imagine my nervous system to have an impact on my consciousness. The spine being a part of the nervous system, it is of energetic significance? I'm not ultimately concerned with rationalising it as nervous system or as this or that tbh, I'm just curious what you think about this entire concept of chakra system. Is Kriya Yoga effective because it is using this existing structure called the chakra system (existing in the same sense this table in front of me exists)? --- Lots of things are blurring for me and I've perhaps created a false/strange-loopey dichotomy by making the distinction between fictional and imaginary as I did above. The biggest mindfuck for me I suppose is seeing glimpses that my labels for things are illusory, seeing glimpses of the fact that causality doesn't exist. Yet here exists science, here exists math. That just fucks with me I think, and it definitely freaks me out a lot if I contemplate it, I'm probably subconsciously preventing myself from examining it fully. ---- ALSO, WELCOME BACK LEO I MISSED YOU. I'm so excited to see you talk about the various perspectives and teachers, especially now that you've been doing a lot of work, because there's still a lot I don't get. Love, or how it is someone like might Peter Ralston lack love realisation, what that means and why that is and etc..and other stuff about why some people/teachers/teachings/gurus only see one side or some facets but not others.

@Bulgarianspirit I suppose the idea that you are the only sentient being/ego is scary. This post made me nostalgic of these threads a long a time ago, although I have no intention of perpetuating that karma I just thought you might find it interesting. If everything is you/one, who is it that is getting afraid at the prospect of solipsism being true or not true? Whether someone's theory about the universe and "other sentient beings" existing is true or not is a relative truth, which ultimately doesn't matter. Even this level of theory is ultimately a relative matter, although you sure as hell can contemplate it if that orientation will yield growth! @GskDon't make this work about Leo or any person. There is no ultimate authority, just see what you can use for growth. Try not to get bamboozled by the words and concepts he inevitably has to use to explain his experience. E.g. Maybe you don't see the lens from which or like the way in which Leo uses words like "imagination". But that's okay. Accept that it doesn't jive with you. Maybe it will later, maybe it won't. Just keep your steady spirit of not-knowing and inquiry alive.

Haters gonna hate, preety.

Yeah it's bizarre, most Orwellian thing here by a long shot ( which is a complement to how this forum is overall). I think it's just a slippery slope approach (which can sometimes be fair), it ensures the potential harm doesn't happen at the expense of potential good. So it's a risk and reward evaluation for rule makers. If this sort of thing turned out wrong, it could turn out really wrong.