Peter Ralston On LOVE - Newsletter Response

[Breakingthewall]

12 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Many of these conversations can lead to breakthroughs and new insights for users. Sometimes we have conversations where it doesn't seem to go anywhere; only to think on it more in our own time and have independent breakthroughs triggered through dialogue.

Sure, that's the point of talking about those matters. What's annoying without doubt is when anyone talks from the need of being right, not from the analysis. It's easy to check it: you can show a mistake in his analysis, if the person reacts defensive, not responding, changing topic (or saying peace brother 😅), it's that is speaking from the ego, but if they answer showing the argument from another perspective, admitting mistakes, then they are talking from analysis.

Sometimes it's irritating read someone who talks with too much certainly, but that doesn't means that they are talking from the need of validation or to be right. 

Edited yesterday at 12:22 PM by Breakingthewall

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Breakingthewall other possibilities too; sometimes it's just an energy thing, too tired to respond or give the time for thought.  Occasionally distraction happens and we don't return to the proper subject. I know, speaking for myself, more often than not I simply don't have the energy to reply so I tap out. We can't be 100% certain why that person responded how they did. It's why discussions should be in good faith. Without anyone making fun of each other. 

It's when we built up context around users who play the same game over and over, that reasonable assumptions can be made about their ego, or the little stories they tell themselves.

[vibv]

10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

What I said was that Reality is not built around your feelings, and that feeling cannot be prioritized above truth.

Feelings are Truth, too.

Denying feelings is denying Truth.

Problems arise when saying some feelings are 'good' while others - like fear - would be 'bad'.

[Joseph Maynor]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

What???

That is not my position.

I am not some logical robot who denies emotions and feelings. Of course we deal with emotions in this work.

What I said was that Reality is not built around your feelings, and that feeling cannot be prioritized above truth.

Just because feelings are not the #1 value does not mean they not a value at all.

I would be the first to criticize any worldview or approach that dismissed feeling as nothing.

"Facts don't care about your feelings" is a form of stupidity.

The million dollar question is how do feelings factor into Love.  Many people seem to believe feelings come only from finite egos.  It's hard to have a Unity perspective without erasing the finite, unless the Unity is a combination of the finite as Spinoza thought.  Then emotions are part of God/Nature.  Even erroneous emotions that are not purified by Truth.  

[Joseph Maynor]

On 5/22/2026 at 6:27 AM, tsuki said:

@Breakingthewall Nah man, you used up my good will. You're here to disprove, not to learn and I'm not wasting time for that. There is zero reason to care what he's saying unless you want to increase your own consciousness and get these things for yourself. 

Okay so there's something from Ralston that is needed, what is it?

[Ziran]

12 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Nobody wants to be held accountable.  

I do

[Joseph Maynor]

12 minutes ago, Ziran said:

I do

How much?

[Joseph Maynor]

5 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

@Breakingthewall other possibilities too; sometimes it's just an energy thing, too tired to respond or give the time for thought.  Occasionally distraction happens and we don't return to the proper subject. I know, speaking for myself, more often than not I simply don't have the energy to reply so I tap out. We can't be 100% certain why that person responded how they did. It's why discussions should be in good faith. Without anyone making fun of each other. 

It's when we built up context around users who play the same game over and over, that reasonable assumptions can be made about their ego, or the little stories they tell themselves.

Yes.  And I think this applies to everyone.  Sometimes this assumption is false, and it's hard to judge this online because we can't see someone.  It is easy to make assumptions online because you aren't dealing with people face to face.  We haven't even met in real life and we're judging each other.  It's weird.  We do the best we can I guess.

[Leo Gura]

8 hours ago, vibv said:

Feelings are Truth, too.

Denying feelings is denying Truth.

Problems arise when saying some feelings are 'good' while others - like fear - would be 'bad'.

No one is asking you to deny feelings.

Most people place feelings over truth and that is the mistake.

[Ziran]

10 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

How much?

Accountability is binary, isn't it?  Regardless, the notion of imagining myself cheating is repugnant without very good reasons.  And in that case, I do it, with fair warning, then turn myself over to the authorities.  

[Joseph Maynor]

58 minutes ago, Ziran said:

Accountability is binary, isn't it?  Regardless, the notion of imagining myself cheating is repugnant without very good reasons.  And in that case, I do it, with fair warning, then turn myself over to the authorities.  

Let me try to clarify how I use accountability.  Accountability is doing what you say you will do.  

[AION]

Emotions are integral part of reality. This is the problem of having no model. It is easy for the student to misinterpret stuff. Even models aren’t the truth. It is needed to be used and let go after a certain stage of development. 

[Joseph Maynor]

Emotions are too easily dismissed I feel like.  You can always come up with a silly joke using the mind to discount someone's emotions that can sound funny but also have a dig in there that shows where that person is coming from -- usually a deficit in their own awareness of their own emotions.  They don't like emotions; they're a problem they want to bypass if possible.

[Breakingthewall]

4 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Emotions are too easily dismissed I feel like.  You can always come up with a silly joke using the mind to discount someone's emotions that can sound funny but also have a dig in there that shows where that person is coming from -- usually a deficit in their own awareness of their own emotions.  They don't like emotions; they're a problem they want to bypass if possible.

spirituality largely stems from Buddhism, which classifies feelings as maya. The practitioner's goal would be equanimity, which is a flat emotional structure. The idea is that emotions create a dense mental structure that hinders clear vision. Equanimity allows for the perception of the absolute. Taoism says something similar, differing in its concept of the absolute.

Christianity, for its part, exhorts you to love; you must love even your enemies. This is another form of equanimity. If you love everything and reject nothing, your emotional structure clarifies, and the whole can be perceived.

Islam exhorts you to total submission to God's law and to love God. In this way, supposedly the structure also clarifies, and you would become, in the best-case scenario, a Sufi like al-Hallaj or Rumi.

The point is that humans have for default a very dense emotional structure. This structure is what serves as the foundation of society. Human emotions are absolute; without that force, human evolution would never have occurred.

The problem is that emotions blind you; you only see emotions. They are a biological vector of enormous power that compels us to go to war or to fuse the atom. Without them, we wouldn't be human.

I think it's possible to achieve a structure transparent to the absolute without flattening emotions. You have to align and understand your emotional structure very well, and then you can hack the system at certain moments to put yourself in a mental position where life and death are the same for you. Then, sometimes, the totality manifests itself.

Edited 2 hours ago by Breakingthewall

[vibv]

12 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

No one is asking you to deny feelings.

Most people place feelings over truth and that is the mistake.

What do you mean by "Feelings"? If you mean biases and hunches etc. I'd agree.

But Feeling is of higher truth than words could ever be.

Feeling is the experience of Highest Truth. Not concepts.

The mistake is not placing feeling over truth, it's placing some feelings over others. 

Love is that which includes ALL, Truth is that which includes Nothing. Placing some truth over other truths is untruth. Saying "that is true" and "that is not" is not true. But it's creative.

There's no difference between Truth and Imagination.

Edited 1 hour ago by vibv

[Breakingthewall]

19 minutes ago, vibv said:

But Feeling is of higher truth than words could ever be.

Feeling is the experience of Highest Truth. Not concepts.

Most of humans feelings are about inclusion, exclusion, valoration, being enough, being better or worse, being humiliated, feel alone, fear death, poverty, sickness. Those feelings close. Feelings of acceptation, desire to give yourself to the reality, love reality and love yourself because you are the reality, those feelings open 

[vibv]

6 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Most of humans feelings are about inclusion, exclusion, valoration, being enough, being better or worse, being humiliated, feel alone, fear death, poverty, sickness. Those feelings close. Feelings of acceptation, desire to give yourself to the reality, love reality and love yourself because you are the reality, those feelings open 

But there's also the avoidance of fear, which leads to delusion. Accepting Truth means accepting Fear, too.

In fact, I'd say, fear is one of the feelings closest to Truth. Love includes even that.

To try to avoid fear means placing survival over truth. In the Highest, the Unlimited there can't be any fear, but fear is the narrow path that leads there.

Edited 59 minutes ago by vibv