Heart of Space

I am so offended by this opinion.

Lol, ya man, I'm a huge fan of that film. I will say my first viewing was the final cut which I do think is far superior to the original. The original had that cheesy narration and goofy happy ending that the suits in the boardroom tacked on because they thought the dark ending wasn't "audience friendly."

How dare you say that. The final cut is very good and one of my favorite movies.

You get hung up on details that don't matter. That's been the story of our interaction. That and attributing false narrative to me. Trust me, I have no issue understanding what would be considered "Tier 2." You're a bit high on your own farts and up your own ass it seems. That's my personal reading of you, could be wrong though, unlike you I won't assume that I know what you're thinking.

This post is critical of a lot of the content in this forum section. That being said I have a deep respect for all of you that have done serious work in this most important realm of human development. I also think that the fact that there is an open minded space to talk about this sort of stuff with no judgement is extremely important and I commend all of you that make this conversation even possible. Here are a few very general critiques of the spirituality portrayed by this forum; i) Use of convoluted language and the overindulgence in spiritual narrative and concepts What is spirituality ultimately? A search for the end of suffering, for ultimate happiness, for truth? Why obscure what is mostly something very simple in all sorts of esoteric idea's and concepts? Aren't all or most of us just searching to quiet the ego-mind and find peace? Why do we have to talk about enlightenment as if we're all playing some sort of spiritual Dragon Ball Z with endless levels of higher attainment? All of that is a pointless obfuscation of the simplistic idea of quieting the ego-mind to live in peaceful presence. The greatest irony of really getting trapped in this is that you can actually become more deluded than the average person not less. Now don't get me wrong, it's a simple idea, but the journey to get there can be a long and arduous process. I don't mean to diminish that reality at all. I only mean to diminish the mental concept that conceives spirituality as some sort of game where we're all increasing our spiritual power level to get to the next awakening. ii) An overreliance of psychedelics and a lack of recognition of their ability to delude you into oblivion Use of psychedelics in certain contexts can result in the long run and added level of mental narrative and delusion. If someone preaches Christianity to you while you're tripping you might very well become a Christian, this is a real example that I've seen happen. In a similar vein you can go into a trip with all sorts of spiritual concepts and idea's you can color the narrative of your trip with those idea's, which then reinforces them as narrative and delusion in your sober life. Whether that be masahmadhi, Jana states, telepathy, or any of the other countless spiritual narratives out there. And let me tell you, it is very possible to have a completely convincing experience of telepathy, for example, but ultimately it just be a complete psychological illusion created in the experience. The level to which you can create illusion and narrative while using psychedelics is extremely vast, far more than most people here recognize. For example, if the narrative of self is an illusion, the narrative of a self that has lived countless past lives and has telepathy is an even greater illusion. Is it not? This being said, I believe that psychedelics do have their place in this work. But they are absolutely not a replacement for structuring your existence so that you can live a life of presence. Shouldn't you still practice as if psychedelics do not exist? iii) Lack of simplistic pragmatism, which would be the most effective, useful, and compatible form of spirituality for modern society What happened to the chop wood carry water approach? Not that all of you don't have some of that in your approach, but I never see any posts where people talk about how they spent 6 months meditating and doing simple honest hard ass work. Mostly I see people talking about sticking DMT up their anus and blasting off, which has its place I suppose. I guess the day to day grind and discipline just isn't as exciting? I think a lot of people would be amazed at the type of person they would become if they could leave their modern comfortable lives, meditate all day every day for part of a year and live in extreme discipline. Or hell, if you don't want to go that far just live a minimalist life style, build relationships based on love, meditate 3 hours daily, and do ice baths for discipline as an example (maybe throw in a psychedelic a couple of times a year if that floats your boat). I guess you could say I'm a spiritual minimalist because I think that moving in the direction of simplicity is moving in the direction of presence and peace. Ultimately this is just a singular perspective and I'm certainly not floating above everyone talking down to you from my perch lol. I just thought it was worth sharing and perhaps some interesting conversation could come of it. Feel free to show me where my perspective could be broadened. I welcome counter-perspectives and I hope I get some good ones to contemplate.

Lol, I was more poking fun at your last post. It was a pretty obvious joke I thought. "super ultra omega enlightened" didn't give it away?

As a tier 2 turquoise super ultra omega enlightened being I don't understand why anyone wouldn't resonate with what I said. Oh well, I guess I'll have to levitate over to another thread.

@electroBeamNot at all, man. Nothing personal at all. I simply did not resonate with the idea's you expressed and that's fine. I also felt it was off topic as well.

I see, that's a really healthy way to look at it. Another point I would like to make is that language is simply a tool. Language can but does not necessarily carry with us our ideology, or underlying beliefs and assumptions. There's no point in being critical about my language use unless the tool of language is being used poorly and the idea's are not being properly understood. As far as I've seen, people have understood me very clearly, so this is not the case. As far as language that assumes an "other." I think it's ridiculous to police ourselves to such a degree that we avoid any reference to "individual other." I think you are limiting yourself to a great degree. I mean if you want to get down to it, simply responding and writing responses on a forum equally assumes that there is an "individual other" as much as any other post even if you are careful about how you write. That being said, I am not making that criticism of anyone, I'm only pointing out the hypocrisy of even bringing up that criticism in the first place when you are on a forum interacting. I'm interested in having this conversation about language and the implicit assumptions held within the normal way we communicate. However, I think this is definitely not what I created this thread for, so it is off topic. If someone wanted to make that thread topic, I'll be happy to continue the discussion there.

@Danioover9000 Ok, I think I understand your feelings. You would like for there to be a general confidence, ability to be mindful, and proper knowledge and procedure to be instilled within people within the education system. Does this sound right? I think I like this idea too. Things like situational awareness and having proper training to react to a situation among a citizenry could have extremely positive benefits in society. You almost would be able to have a level of communities self-policing, which would be a great way to curb some of the present issues we have today. You've won me over on this topic.

@electroBeam From what I can see you are creating a whole lot of narrative around my motivations for writing certain things or using certain words. You don't know what my assumptions are. You are falsely attributing and projecting them onto my words. As when you you falsely thought I was assuming some sort of universal truth in my perspective from the start of this thread. You can't just make things up about what I'm thinking when I post and then criticize that. The understanding of the subjectivity is very clearly implicit, so why dwell and lecture me on something that's already understood by most if not everyone who I've already conversed with? You're only stating the obvious. Again, if a person's perspective is that enlightenment is achieved by stabbing their eye with a knife would you give the same response to someone trying to tell that person they were wrong? Probably not, right? And yes, obviously, that example is a bit on the nose. But it makes a valid point. You could easily make the same example with a less ridiculous perspective. Point being that while it's clear that perspectives are subjective we as humans still find a purpose for debating these idea's. My post delivery is fine, I didn't ask for your advice on that. If you want to make the same thread, but deliver the same idea's in your way be my guest. I take no issue with that. I will write my way as I see fit.

That's absolutely right.

What If I'm feeling a little kinky and I mildly disrespectfully back talk it so it puts me in my place?

@TrippyMindSubstance I think we share a lot of feelings about psychedelics, you really hit the nail on the head for me. Still I think a lot of people who use psychedelics as a spiritual tool need to hear things like what you just said dearly. A lot of people get lost in delusion using psychedelics. I will say though, if Leo says the his use of psychedelics works for him I will take his word on it. But I probably do differ in my feelings on psychedelics from Leo to some degree for sure. @Synchronicity "Not everyone will benefit from it but people are diverse. Some will. " People are diverse, well said. One absolutely should not and cannot tell another with absolute certainty that their approach is wrong. However, I do think that it is extremely healthy to turn your skeptical eye to spiritual ideas and practices. Radical open-mindedness is a great tool, but so is radical skepticism. We often are told to question our fundamental assumptions about self and reality, this is the greatest form of skepticism. People should engage in spiritual skepticism more in my opinion. Question all your narrative in regards to your reality, nothing should escape that. I can really appreciate the fact that you seem very grounded, but are willing to explore 'out there' topics as well. @electroBeamYou bring up some valid points and very rightly lay out some of the limitations of what perspectives can bring. I agree it is important to understand these limitations and as such I quite literally made this thread with everything you said in mind. I was very careful to mention and refer to the limitations of the perspective that I was presenting. And I tell you with absolute certainty that I was not assuming that my perspective was some sort of absolute truth, not at all. If that's what you got from it, you misinterpreted.

I assure you that is not an assumption that I have made during my participation in this thread. Edit: and I apologize for my brevity as I am on my phone qt work. ?

Whenever I hear "be yourself" I think of the scene in Alladin where the genie turns into a bee and says "bee yourself"

I remember turning into an infintely long page in an infinite page book. My thought was "I hope I'm not stuck like this forever" It was a hoot

You are correct about the nature of perspective. Everyone has a finite subjective experience, which is why open mindedness can be extremely important especially in the realm of spirituality. That's why I was careful to word this so that people understand that I am not attacking them and simply sharing a subjective point of view. Ultimately it's up to the individual reading my post whether or not it resonates with them and I'm totally fine with that. That being said, you can say the same thing about language in general, yet wouldn't you agree that we can have reasonable discussions about the most pragmatic and effective way to communicate? Ultimately we could all cop out of the debate with something similar to your response here and ultimately be right in doing so. Not to mention, the idea that it is a good idea to stick a knife in your eye is a perspective, surely you would debate a person suggesting this? Also, what you say in your response to me is a perspective as well. The subjective nature of perspective does not stop me or many others from having the discussion, nor should it.

It's certainly a mental narrative that people get attached to. If you're on this forum you probably shouldn't be imbibing in that narrative for your own sake.

If done wrongly, yes. As with anything. What kind of defense would you suggest versus a weapon? Like non-physical de-escalation techniques?

Ethics would only effect health if you believe it does. I do think a healthy vegetarian diet is better on the cardiovascular system and in my experience makes the quality of my conscious experience more clear. That being said I do think some lean meats are ok, like fish or chicken. Sometimes the extra animal protein can be helpful if you're an athlete. I do think that a vegetarian diet is best for someone who is trying to increase their clarity. That's my personal feelings on the matter.

I am pretty schooled on this, so I can tell you what's up. I'm on my phone at work so I'm a bit limited in post length. So, one of the major factors in modern recessions is debt and institutions leveraging themselves to create a competitive edge. On a household level, people rely on credit cards and loans for cars, homes, higher education, and more. When you take on debt instead of paying cash you make yourself more vulnerable financially in an emergency situation. Someone who utilizes less or no debt will generally be more financially secure, but they will have less capacity to live a higher income lifestyle then someone who uses maximum debt. On an institution level, it's actually quite shocking what our financial institutions do to increase their competitive edge. Pre-2008 banks in the US were leveraged up to 36 to 1. This is why you heard of banks going bankrupt 5 times over. The advantage of a leveraged system is that if you are an institution you can make more money. For example, if you wanted to start a restaurant business and you have a successful business model you would prefer to open two locations instead of one because you can double your profit, however opening two locations increases your chances of going tits up. It's a double edged sword. There's more, but my finger is tired typing on my phone.

Well shit, I mean your description of your spirituality is something I think I can really get behind. Objectivity and honesty are extremely important in the fundamental point being made behind this thread. And then also you think it's beneficial to drop alternative concepts about spirituality and that not all of them are necessary. That's essentially what I'm advocating, although I do think that some of the words and phrases you listed could have pragmatic use. So, hopefully I'm not coming across as a language Nazi, or someone that is being too nit picky. I really do have a purpose behind what I'm saying and believe my perspective could be beneficial to some people. When I talk about concepts that could be discarded I more refer to concepts that sort of divorce themselves from fundamental present reality. An example would be someone saying that there are many levels and layers to awakening and sort of creating a mythological narrative around those awakenings. It almost turns into a sort of new age religion for example when you start talking about how a particularly deep level awakening can end the cycle of reincarnation for example. Something like that is not truth, or presence, it is simply a narrative that your mind made up. There is a ton of ideology mixed into people's spirituality on this forum. It just tends to not be as dogmatic, or literalist as say a fundamentalist Christian. My question is why have any ideology? Or if it's too hard to avoid some level of ideology in regards to your spirituality shouldn't you try to break it down to it's basic and most simple parts? Why do we have to talk about narrative such as spirits, telepathy, past lives, reincarnation, Gods, demons, and play spiritual dragon ball Z with endless levels of awakening and enlightenment? You say you discovered truth, so from that perspective, how do you feel about what I say? I wouldn't question your experience of telepathy. I would only ask what is its significance and how does this experience relate to your spirituality? I've had experiences like the one you describe. I don't know your experience, so I don't want to seem like I think that I understand it better than you do, because I absolutely do not. However, I think with drugs and even in sober reality, there is a vast ability for people to ascribe narrative and significance to reality that is simply falsehood. I think people underestimate how much they tend to mythologize their own experiences, spiritual people are some of the worst offenders of this.

So, my critique relating to those topics aren't for this subsection? Do you tell the guy critiquing socialism in the socialism forum subsection "this is the socialism subsection I don't know what you expect?" I'm not telling people not not post about things. I'm not telling people to do anything. I'm simply sharing a perspective on the topics discussed.

Wooosh So, what you're saying is that it's ok to be critical of particular ways of practicing spirituality?