Heart of Space

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?

Appreciate you @Nahm @mandyjw I liked your post and I feel it very thoughtfully makes a good point in regards to a potential trap in minimalism. Still, I can't help but feel some level of spiritual minimalism is extremely beneficial. I think there is a huge benefit to being pragmatic and minimalist in our language when talking about spirituality. That is to only say what is necessary and to not tack on unnecessary concepts or ideology when it serves little to no purpose. An exception here for poetry and artistry in general, because poetic language does have its own purpose. And in terms of your every day life keeping things that only serve a real purpose. My main issue is that the fundamental aspects of spiritual practice are muddied by a lot of the extra layers of decoration. If something doesn't make a real substantive change in your life why do it? Do you understand what I mean? I think a lot of people get caught in a hamster wheel because they get caught up in complexity of narrative and minutia that doesn’t matter.

It's threads like these that make me feel like the word spirituality is far too broad. We include zen style discussions on consciousness with threads about Casper in the same section even though they couldn't be more opposite in content. OP, have you considered the possibility that this apparition is the product of your own mind? I'm not trying to convince you of anything, I'm just curious if you have even considered the possibility.

Most of the bullying I ever received in life was social. I've been a very competent grappler for many years. It came in handy a few times when I was younger, but overall it never really helped me. I'm not arguing against having it tought at all, it can be great in a lot of ways, but it is not some magical solution for all or even most confrontation. Most of the time it just served as knowledge in my mind that I could win a physical fight against most people, but served me little utility in my adult life aside from fun sport.

They do, the greatest, most effective, and most underrated martial arts of all; wrestling.

It is their job to regulate health issues, which is why there is the FDA for example, or public schooling with health related curriculum. The argument is how far they should go in this regard. Socialist countries tend to ban more unhealthy food ingredients for example. Dare I say, but the more dictatorial our government would be on health issues, the better. Assuming the approach was coming from a high level understanding of health. They could start by banning unhealthy fast food, I'd get behind that. Fuck fast food.

@Adodd Perhaps I could. I don't really view myself as someone who is mature enough to teach others like that quite yet. You could always PM me, or maybe I'll make a topic one day about that who knows. Thanks for the suggestion.

@Preety_IndiaFalse beliefs and ideology can certainly be a side effect! @dflores321 No doubt, there's good and bad postings here. Part of my purpose for posting this is that I wanted to see how people would react to reading this particular perspective. I figured it would provoke some interesting responses. And I agree it is important to be honest with yourself and your thoughts. @Someone here Well in that case, let me tell you that the only way to salvation is through our lord Jesus Christ. Come on Sunday we have our special Kool-Aid ceremony where we meet God after.

All reasonable questions and discussion. My criticism is more targeted to people who use esoteric spiritual and religious concepts and language to talk about it. You don't have to look far for an example of someone obfuscating spiritual discussion in the manner in which I'm talking about. I guess maybe simplicity versus complexity is not the best way of wording it. More that there is an obfuscation of the conversation with superfluous language and concepts which in my opinion only work to delude and pointlessly make the conversation more complex than it needs to be. Asking questions like "what is suffering?" is good because it is simple and to the point. there's no ideology baked into it, it's an honest and concise introspection on reality.

Most underrated psychedelic plant. Extremely easy to acquire and one of the smoothest longest acting psychedelic drugs there are. Definitely give it a shot.

Hehe I read your entire post, OP. Nice it sounds like you had one of those doozy's. San Pedro is as legit as it gets.

All I know is that I made a masculine man with a vagina and vampire eyes.

I just got a little vision while meditating, it happens to me a lot and they usually are some sort of metaphor relating to anything in my life. I got a vision metaphor relating to my response in this thread which I thought was pretty interesting and funny. I had a vision that I keep Richard Dawkins severed head in my refrigerator. The severed head of Richard Dawkins had a third eye. Just thought I'd share that, it was interesting.

Everything is possible due to the nature of infinity. Guess everything thing said by everyone is valid, right?

But as you've said you are unable to do this because of the nature of infinite experiences, hence it is unprovable and always will be. Otherwise, you would have already proven it to me now. You talk about this power as if it's something that you can learn to prove, yet learning is a limitation of the human brain because of it's finite nature. This doesn't seem like something like learning how to ride a bike. Yet you are able to articulate this experience which would imply that Ethan is describing an experience in his memory. If you are not describing an experience in your memory then you are just mouthing words and in that case how would Ethan know that the narrative the words your mouthing are pointing to a real experience? This doesn't make any sense to me at all. If you are describing an experience as a human, the human has a reference point by which they describe that experience like a memory, otherwise they are just words pointing to nothing. Yea, you just seem mildly autistic. A lot of people out there like you, dude. I'm not saying with certainty that you are full of shit, because that would be overstepping on my part. I ultimately don't know what you experience. However, my experience does not allow me to understand the possibility of what you describe so my skepticism is a natural result of that. I cannot believe what you are saying for that reason.

You say it's clearly not true because certain anecdotes you've read? Consider for a moment how many people are delusional or full of shit and rethink the possibility that none of those experiences happened the way they are claimed. If I had one major criticism of the forum culture here it is the absolutely blind open mindedness that people apply to anything spiritual. People take experiences like this as if it is 100 % truth and apply zero skepticism.

A bit if devils advocate. Firstly, you'll never be able to prove this because the infinite possibility is a catch all cop out for never having to prove it while still claiming that you have the experience. Also, how is Ethan capable of speaking about the experience? Your experience implies a memory of the experience that is articulated by the human that is Ethan. The implication would be that human Ethan is having this experience which makes no sense. If Ethan the human truly had access enough to these experiences you could list an infinite number of extremely complex things even if they don't apply exactly to this world wouldn't you? I feel there would easily be some sort of odd quality about you that would make you stand out in an obvious way. But it sounds like your just a normal dude who is entirely indistinguishable from a version of you that didn't have infinite experiences which makes me extremely skeptical of your claims. One quality of pure presence is that the human mind cannot articulate it because it cannot experience or articulate nothing. You can only be it. In the same sense God's eye view should not be able to be articulated through a humans mouth.

So, @AdeptusPsychonautica as someone has been following Leo's work for a while I was interested to see your criticisms. I was hoping for a well thought out critique in both video's I watched. I say that in absolute earnest. Too be perfectly honest I wasn't very impressed. It felt like you gave the absolute most uncharitable interpretation of his statements and were projecting quite a bit. You come across angry and attacking too.

Man this year I had the Hiroshima of spiritual crisis. At its most intense it was a month worth of absolute hell of the highest order my mind could concoct. Imagine the intensity of tripping, losing your concept of time and at the same time your mind constructing quite literally the most expansive vivid narratives of hell that I could possibly imagine. I think my egomind went through 6 or 7 iterations of hell and I was thoroughly convinced of it each and every time. I went to the emergency room once, I got a welfare call from my mom who sent police and ended up in a psych ward for 5 days, got out and it continued at full intensity for another couple weeks. It was so horrific and psychologically punishing that I became suicidal many times and begged for mercy and equal number of times. I was rendered to an absolute gibbering mess of sobbing and state of psychological pain so intense I had no idea that level of suffering was even possible. This is obviously not a competitive thing, but I'd imagine that very very few people have attained this level of darkness and suffering. That being said there's a happy ending, it was what I needed at the time and I'm better than ever now.