Leo Gura

I don't think Dems are interested in a centrist billionaire. Bloomberg has no base of support. The people who might support him already got Biden and Buttigeg, and the Warren and Sanders and Yang supporters will never accept Bloomberg. Bloomberg will not make any of the debates. He just wants to buy the election, which I think voters are too smart to tolerate. Bloomberg offers nothing new. The real problem here is that Bloomberg might simply use the Dems as a launching point for a 3rd party run, which could be a big problem in the general election. Seems like Bloomberg is not truly running to win the Dem primary but to set himself up as a 3rd party after the Dem is selected. There's just no way Bloomberg will overtake Bernie, Warren, or Biden. Biden may be a centrist but at least he's someone people can relate to. Bloomberg is gonna look like an elitist asshole. The Rust Belt is not going to vote for him.

I think there's depth to any state of consciousness, and there is nothing but states of consciousness. There are states of consciousness so nondual you would not be able to walk straight. Seems hard to make such things permanent. Usually one's baseline state will be much lower than a possible peak. But ultimately I don't know. It's a tricky topic since you need reference points of what's possible, and those are hard to come by and even harder to communicate and share.

Sahaja Samadhi is the end goal: a permanent state of nondual awareness 24/7 regardless of what you're doing. You don't access it, you are in nonduality at all times. That's the ideal. And ideally you don't get lured out of it by cravings and attachments. Accessing special states would be icing on that nondual cake.

Sadhguru is not in a no man's land of no perception in his regular life. That might be a state he enters when he sits in deep meditation, not while he's driving his motorbike. You have to be nuanced here. There are many possible states of consciousness with psychedelics, not just some one state called "enlightenment". There are various kinds of samadhi states which have been catalogued by mystics and gurus throughout the ages.

Probably because you care about how your friends will judge you. Which is of course just you judging yourself via them.

It is what it is. Arguing with people is largely a waste of time. If you care about truth you will sit down and do the work. Question what reason is. Study what post-rationality is. Don't take my word for it. I just don't have 10 years to explain to you all the limits of reason. It is your job to figure that out. I just give quick pointers. Under each pointer might lie 5 or 10 years of study and contemplation. So of course without doing that the pointer will mean very little to you. Don't confuse this work with any kind of proof. We're not in the business of proof or argumentation, we're in the business of self-reflection and exploration of how our minds work. The only way you can learn how your mind works is by studying how your mind works. Not by listening to arguments. Everything worth knowing can be found directly in your experience, so there is no need to argue about it. Observation work is necessary.

@Serotoninluv Hehehe...

This is really a discussion about feminism, and a lack of understanding of it's historical development and function in society. If you want to start a thread about understanding feminism, go for it. But let's get not derail this thread any further with debates about the validity of feminism. This threat for posting more Stage Green examples, positive and negative ones. Remember, to understand Stage Green is not the same as saying it is the end-all-be-all and that it doesn't have its problems and limits. There are much higher worldviews than Green. But to not understand Green is an obstacle to reaching those. Green's validity needs to be acknowledged to go higher.

There are truths so much more advanced and more important than science that they make science look like a joke. If you could access such truth you would stop wasting your time reading science or trying to convince scientists of their blindness. It is mistake to ask spirituality to lower itself to the gross material domain of science. There is an endless list of technical problems to solve and solving them does not really improve the human condition.

Go ahead, if you dare.

The cheif function of reason is to realize its own limitations and go beyond itself to vision-logic and then even further to pure consciousness. Reason eats its own tail if you question it deeply enough. At post-rational even the notion of argument falls apart. There is nothing to argue and no one to argue with but yourself.

It's far more complex than that. America has pockets of Blue. Lots of it in the South, which is of course a geographical factor. Rural America is much less developed than urban America. Amd rural parts of the Middle East are far lower than Blue. They are mostly Purple and Red. No problem here at all. The rational is being criticized from post-rational. Post-rational still uses reason but recognizes its limits, whereas the rational does not recognize the limits of reason. Which is Sam Harris' biggest problem.

Love is the not result of structure, but structure is the result of love. Life has a very specific structure which has a logic to it. I am not saying one part of reality is better than another. I am saying the entire thing as a whole works to maximize love. You are overlooking the intelligence that went into the design. This intelligence wasn't just dicking around, telling itself that nothing matters and spawning monstrosities. It had a goal in mind: to maximize the sharing of love / God.

And then there's actually losing your mind. Which is not so great. Being different or weird is not the same thing as insanity. Actual insanity is terrifying.

Well, firstly, 20 mins is the bare minimum. It usually takes 20 mins just to calm the mind. So you could meditate longer. Secondly, part of meditation practice is training to quickly let things go. It's a skill. Thirdly, you could even practice a bit of meditation while around people. Mindfulness shouldn't end out the door of your house.

Sadhguru is basically talking about selective breeding and artifical selection, which is how we create different dog breeds and domesticated animals. But also, Samskaras are not just genetic. Family lineage has a huge cultural and memetic component. Things get passed down through culture, not just genes. If you have a giant family of goldsmiths, they will certain infect your mind with goldsmithing memes. Just like how a family history of sexual abuse is likely to pass on to the children. Not via genes but via parental abuse. To reduce Samskara to genetics is to misunderstand it. African Americans have a collective Samskara due to slavery, even though one's genes might not have slavery encoded into them.

What?? No! Just go out and be social and share yourself freely. Why are you constructing this pathetic gloomy narrative? Go have fun. Then come back home and meditate your ass off. You can do both. Don't make your socializing too serious. A Buddha should be able to go out to a bar and drink some beers with some strangers and talk shit. Then return to his Buddhahood. Remember, life is long and you got plenty of time to space stuff out. You don't have to do it all at once.

@Dumuzzi I don't see that at all. India is developing very rapidly. Its best days are ahead. https://www.voanews.com/south-central-asia/worlds-biggest-toilet-building-program-india-gets-mixed-results Just this year India almost landed a robot on the Moon! What more do you want? Progress is happening.

Nature plays a role, but you underestimate the extent to which we construct culture and "nature". You might as well be saying that nature made black people slaves, therefore no problem. Shut up and go back to work. And all that black people could do was demand to be freed. And here we are. And all that Gandhi did was demand that the British Empire give India its sovereignty and stop exploiting it. Nature is anything which occurs. So your point is moot. Feminism is as much "nature" as patriarchy is. So who's version of "nature" will prevail? That's what this whole debate is about. That's your opinion, and obviously many feminists disagree. Don't forget, both can be done at the same time. Asking women to "shut up and become more competent" before you give them respect is the very injustice and patriarchy which is in question. Why should women have to work extra hard to please you? Who are you to tell them what is right and what they must do in order to be treated as they feel is fair? Maybe when a person tells you that she is being treated unfairly you should take it seriously rather than telling her to work harder and be more competent? Just a crazy thought.

Sorta proves the point, don't it? Ever wonder why guys send her so many death threats? Maybe there's some collective shadow there? Some self-deception at work? Something overlooked? Almost sounds like some patriarchy might exist that doesn't take kindly to being questioned, hmmmmm....

This dream in which we're in has a very specific structure. It has specific physical laws, rules, things, matter, energy, people, etc. This structure is not random or accidental. It was designed by an infinite intelligence. Now I ask you, Why did infinite intelligence select this structure? Why weren't you born with a dick on your forehead? Ever wonder about that? In the end you'll discover the answer is: To maximize love. It cannot be explained to you any further because you'd need a massive awakening to understand it. And that's not ever going to happen from reading my words. You are in over your head. But how else could it be?

It's complicated. The restrictions are systemic, cultural, psychological, and sociological. Both men and women are involved without being conscious of it. It's a bit like racism or slavery. It's not the fault of any one person. It's a massive widespread systemic problem which everyone is in denial about. Go study some feminist works. They will gives you a million examples. Those videos are giving you examples but you don't want to take that POV seriously. You have no idea how sexist game developers would act towards her. No, it's not confined to that. It's cultural too. Things would be more fair for future generations of women. Society would become more representative and less oppressive. Sigh... you are hopeless, so end of conversation with you. Go contemplate. Or don't. I don't care.

@CreamCat You are still not getting it. This isn't about you. Your logic is like this: "What's so bad about rape? I would love it if some girl sat in my lap. So what's the big deal?" Stop looking at this from your POV.

Yes This case is one example of what is meant by patriarchy. As a basic example, many video games don't even allow the player to create a female character AT ALL! You are just forced to be male! And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Firstly, Green isn't seeking to replace one inequality with an opposite one. Green simply asks for equality. Secondly, in a patriarchy, the whole point is that women CANNOT do whatever they want about men because women have been denied positions of power. To make this example clear for you, women in Saudi Arabia cannot do whatever they want. Men actively prevent them. But you will say that America is not Saudi Arabia. True, it's more subtle in America, but it still exists. You just don't notice it because you're male and it doesn't even register on your radar because it is irrelevant to your ego's survival.

@Ibn Sina You are missing the point. The point is that society & culture is dominated by certain sets of values which please one group of people while marginalizing another, and so of course the marginalized group will seek to equalize this situation. The problem she has is that women in video games are not depicted as women would depict themselves, but as objects for gratification for men. Which she views as unfair. And the reason this happens is because the video game developers are mostly young, immature men, so they depict women to please their own fantasies, not as women would depict themselves. If there were more women working in video games, video games would have a more fair and accurate depiction of women. Anyhow, don't get lost in the details. This is a thread about Stage Green, not women or video games. The details are irrelevant. What's important is that you see the structural inequality that Green sees. You are blaming individuals while refusing to acknowledge the systemic and collective aspects of this issue. Yes, self-esteem has an individual aspect, but it also has a collective and cultural aspect. Stage Green is about seeing collective aspects, which does not deny the individual aspects. If you really care to understand this issue, read some books on feminism to understand why feminism is needed in some areas.