RendHeaven

tHiS ViDeO iS SpOnSoReD bY sKiLlShArE Pitiful

@Keyhole @lmfao @Extreme Z7 Feels more genuine...

Correlation is not causation.

Exactly. "Enough" is a brilliant answer. It's direct and honest, but also modest. It suggests "a lot" without any sense of compensation or manipulation. This is a very keen insight: When the woman asks, "how many girls have you slept with?" what she (usually) really means is: "Can I trust you? How will you treat me?" And responding "5" or "50" does not answer that implicit underlying question.

@Gili Trawangan True, and there's also the added subtlety that in @Keyhole's example, the guy she referred to verbally announced his "lay count," which is probably half the issue right there. If a guy has lots and lots of sex, but keeps his mouth shut and makes no effort to flaunt it, that could be seriously sexy. Gives him mystery and modesty. To the woman, she has no clue how much action he's had in his life! But what sets him apart from a virgin would be his vulnerability, confidence, lack of "sheltered" or compensating behavior, etc. this basically says "I am not afraid of my sexuality, nor am I afraid of yours" or, in other words, "I've had lots of practice " If a guy pulls this off, whether or not he has AIDS is probably the last thing on your mind. It becomes toxic when the guy then takes the additional step of being a loudmouth, "bro I've fucked soooo many women ahahah..." At that point subtlety and class flies out the window and it becomes very easy to picture him with ALL the AIDS. Although he might still seem to have the same general sense of vulnerability and confidence, this verbal affirmation of his "lay count" actually acts as a compensating behavior. He might as well be saying "I don't believe I am enough by my own merits, let me convince you that other girls have liked me in the past! So you should too!" It's very manipulative when you break it down like that. It's no wonder that women hate it.

@TruthandPurpose T'was a jest!

@Mu_ Great analogy!

Me too! Damn, we're all HOT?

CORONAVIRUS! I'm sorry lol! Marking this thread for later

Like others have already indicated, the answer you are looking for utterly depends on your frame of reference. At the highest level - when we inquire into the raw IS-ness of experience, we realize that the thing which we call "the brain" is an appearance among appearances. If you are committed to appearances, then yes. "The brain" "exists," since your notion of "existence" is grounded in appearances. But what if you are not committed to appearances? Well, "existence" becomes a much broader notion. In this broader sense of "existence," any perceived substance behind appearances begin to melt away. So really, when Leo says that "the brain does not exist," he encourages us to expand our notion of what "existence" is. He is not denying that there appears "a brain."

Immediately I wonder: Why are you an authority on mental health? Why should I listen to you? Why should I pay you? These questions aren't meant to beat you down, or to make you feel unqualified. Here's a secret about authority... it's an illusion. If people perceive you as an authority, BAM. You literally become one. On the flip side, if people don't perceive you as an authority, who the hell are you? So maybe the initial question is better phrased as something like, "What are you doing to give off the perception of authority?" The reason authority is so critical is because nobody wants to invest their hard earned money into information on the internet cooked up by "a random nobody." Even if you have the highest wisdom in the universe in neat little packages, as long as you appear to be "a random nobody," you'll only hear crickets.

@Raptorsin7 I sincerely have my doubts about your vision, although it would be awesome if one day those doubts are proven to be dead wrong. I've been a gamer (borderline addict) my whole life as well. It took me quite a lot to really let go of the choke-hold that games have had on my life. It's taken serious awareness for me to notice the ever-increasing hollowness inside me as I would keep playing, and as much as I love these games (especially for their nostalgic value!) at my current awareness level it's simply untenable to keep playing. The fantasy only lasts for 15 or so minutes until I'm confronted with emptiness. In the past I would suppress that and get lost in the fantasy (and really, that right there has been the value of gaming for me my whole life) but that's no longer possible. I'm at the point in my journey where I'd much rather prefer to sit there with the emptiness, to be curious, to befriend it. Just recently (this past week, actually!) I finally "denounced gaming for the rest of my life." Not in a reactive, toxic, withholding or fearful manner, but in a loving, passing, bittersweet manner. So that actually means that I might end up playing games again, lol. This "pact" isn't anything neurotic or serious. But it IS a commitment to presence and awareness. Now, certainly you could argue that "you can do whatever you want post-enlightenment... there is nothing 'bad' about gaming as long as you do it with consciousness" but that doesn't do it for me. From certain perspectives (perhaps yours, though don't let me speak for you), that frame of reference is 100% applicable. From other perspectives it is definitely not applicable. For some people, it's simply the case that video games are holding them back in their spiritual development. Don't even get me started on the devious ways that modern video games are carefully crafted to lull you into unconsciousness! To me it feels like you are trying to mash incompatible subject matters together. It's as though you want to be an candy store and weight-loss program at the same time. Interestingly, those two DO have some commonality! For example, maybe people who eat a lot of candy would like a weight-loss regimen. So your store would be perfect! Right? Well, I think that's overly optimistic, because realistically, most people who love candy don't care about weight loss, and most people who care about weight-loss have nothing to do with candy. It's a small, small minority that actively goes for both... either people struggling with temptations/relapse/guilt (who you really shouldn't be selling candy to), or people who have accepted a balanced but rather lax lifestyle. So even if your target audience is the latter, your store seems to have a conflict of interest, and the brand looks confused. Similarly, here you are trying to be a video game connoisseur who advocates for consciousness and enlightenment. Whatever commonality those things have, you seem to see it! But that's certainly lost on me, and I suspect it will be lost on the rest of the world as well. To round out the analogy, most people who love video games don't care about consciousness or enlightenment, and most people who care about consciousness and enlightenment don't care about video games. It's a small, small minority that actively goes for both... either people struggling with temptations/relapse/guilt (who you really shouldn't be selling video game stuff to), or people who have accepted a balanced but rather lax lifestyle. So even if your target audience is the latter, your business seems to have a conflict of interest, and the brand looks confused. Even if you do manage to pull it off... by somehow drawing amazing parallel insights and perfectly targeting the right people, you're still inherently limiting the ceiling of your work, I think. What if one day it turns out that you'll have to drop video games entirely to really push to the forefront of spiritual communication? Well, maybe that's not on your mind yet, but if you ever run into that wall you will need to go through the stress of a massive re-branding. Since this is an AMA, I guess my question would just be: have you thought carefully through all of these concerns I've expressed? Is there a side to the story that I'm not seeing, or an opening that's very obvious to you but not necessarily the world? I hope it's clear that none of this is meant to be an attack on your vision. You're clearly passionate, and I would love to see that bear fruit. I'm just wondering about the practical side of things. All claims are based on personal experience, and encounters with fellow gamers and consciousness enthusiasts.

@Javfly33 I don't believe you for some reason...

What is this question in response to?

Contemplate what a vow IS. It's not as absolute or serious as you seem to hold it as.

Exactly what the title says. Most members of modern society are between spiral dynamics stage blue and green. Stage green+ people have some vague sense of consciousness (usually an image instead of the real thing... but nonetheless the word rings intuitive bells within them) so there's really no need to explain anything there. Well, really there is no need to explain anything to anyone, but occasionally there are times when I am talking to blue/orange relatives and friends and I see the perfect opportunity to mention Consciousness to make a point - about politics, psychology, or whatever - and yet I choke on that word because I realize "this means nothing to them!" After all, what is a "more conscious person" or a "less conscious person" to someone in blue/orange mentality? Does that even exist to them? For example, I may want to say that, "Donald Trump is an unconscious person." Of course this statement is relative and from my perspective, only partially true and even sometimes false, (or both, or the distinction is meaningless!) and yet if I were to say this to a stage green+ person they would "get it." There is no further need to explicate what I mean. With stage blue/orange, I may say that statement and get blank stares - and something in me tells me that further explicating this word "consciousness" is not the way to go since then I begin to ground one meaning within another meaning, which ultimately misses the mark entirely: that consciousness is the groundless ground. So maybe it's just better to conjure metaphors, although orange tends to hate that (blue might like it though ) Currently I just bite my tongue and swerve this topic altogether around certain people, but I'd like to change that if I could.

He might be right, though. Maybe one day it won't be so irritating... it's good to keep an open mind

I really like this idea, I am thinking of stating a Youtube channel where I do just that...

Yes great points all around, the problem is doubly tricky when you consider that it's not just a matter of explicating the right words, because a lot of the times the right words will enrage them! (I mean, imagine making that environment metaphor to someone at stage orange who doesn't give a shit about the environment, and instead of learning something about awareness/consciousness, it becomes an ethical debate about how humans ought to treat the planet) It's definitely a matter of tiptoe-ing around their egos, I mean we could have a whole different thread on that dynamic alone. Thanks for the responses though, it gives me a lot to contemplate

@remember Yes, thank you that was sort of what I was trying to get at. I've already acknowledged the limitations of the use of the word "consciousness." What that means could be literally anything! But going back to my original example: "Donald Trump is an unconscious person," I think it's somewhat true that I wouldn't have to explain that to a hippie in California at her yoga class. She would just say, "yes, of course!" Your suggestion is spot on, I think - that you have to sort of "bring it down to their level" in a sense, with the goal being a mere "aha, I get it!" This is really hard in practice though, because you will necessarily have to compromise your original meaning. For example, to a stage blue person you might say, "Donald Trump is a bad person," and follow that with "because he is greedy." And all of those things are a cousin of "unconsciousness," yet of course the two are not the same thing. Merely calling Trump "bad" and "greedy" misses how he is exactly like you and I, with perhaps just a little less... what, awareness? (from certain perspectives). @Roy Though the problem with namedropping "awareness" is that you then have to explain THAT in the same way that you would have to explain "consciousness," so in a sense you are sent back to square 1. I know it might sound like I'm making this unnecessarily complicated, but I'm a communicator at heart and this is something that I've been wrestling with for a while so apologizes for all the winding responses

1) That's not quite my intention - intellectual flexing isn't on my mind when approaching discourse. It's possible to hold an idea in your mind and to want to communicate it from a place of sharing and mutual learning. Notice that It's not a matter of "convincing." If someone completely disagrees with me but still manages to grasp in some form where I am coming from, that's a success to me. 2) Do you think you can give an example of what "nudging" looks like?

@ivankiss Your posts tend to do this curious thing where you carve distinctions in the most subtle and seemingly unfalsifiable ways. You acknowledge non-duality briefly, state that there are greater depths to plumb, and then proceed with your "distinction." And I have to put "distinction" in quotes here, since I've seen you state things such as, "difference is not the same as separation" as if to say, "I make this demarcation without distinction!" (which really just sounds like more distinctions! At least from a certain perspective. And from other perspectives it is not a distinction. Or maybe it is and is not a distinction simultaneously, or maybe all of this is an infinitely nonsensical comedy) I notice that when people judge you for these "distinctions," you retort with a, "you've yet to experience this~" which usually ends in a non-duality dick-measuring contest. (a subtle one, of course. Because in a true non-duality dick-measuring contest, you have to act as if you are sooo detached that it doesn't even occur to you that you are measuring dicks ) Now, I know it sounds like this is a critique already because I'm clearly raising some eyebrows at these trends (the way distinctions are danced around, the way that all retorts are "you've gotta experience it bro, you're just not as advanced as me~") but really I do trust your insights, and I understand that you understand more than anyone how deeply personal your insights are and perhaps that is exactly why you are so inspired to share. So yes, this is a critique, but not of your insights. Rather, this is a critique of your communication. I wonder if your communication would be better received if you acknowledged upfront that your insights are deeply personal, deeply inspired, and deeply moving FOR YOU. For example, in this thread it sounds like you put down the classical non-dual interpretation of time as illusory. And it sounds like you offer your interpretation as somehow better, though of course that is never stated. This makes it sound like you are making a distinction (the cardinal SIN of this forum!!!) of there being two conclusions with varying degrees of Truthfulness (i.e. that time as illusory, the first conclusion, is semi-truthful. MY conclusion, time as a shining side-effect of consciousness, IS [Truth]) This dynamic, combined with your response from up-top on the pedestal of woke-ness, (i.e. "I've experienced it, you haven't~") it's clear to me why your insights only land on some of our most conscious members such as @Nahm. I mean, at the end of the day I wonder if there really is any difference between your beautiful write-up and the word "illusory." They are both pointers, are they not? I see that these pointers aim for the Same, albeit from different angles. All this to say that some of our forum members really need these disclaimers of relativity. It might seem redundant or obvious sometimes, but it's critical for communication because it's so easy for the ego to judge if there's even a hint in your words that "My perspective is THE perspective!" Bless.

@Malken Hmm, but what about the example of "Donald Trump is an unconscious person" Is what's being described - unconsciousness - a mentality? Is that a state? Yes, No, Maybe so... (It really depends on the one judging) Let's grant for now that "Unconsciousness" really is a "mentality" or a "state." Let's imagine that conversation: Me: Donald Trump is an unconscious person. Blue/Orange: What do you mean by "unconscious person?" Me: Unconsciousness is a state of mind. Blue/Orange: So you're saying that Donald Trump has a state of mind of unconsciousness? Me: Yes! Blue/Orange: Maybe at night when he's asleep! But he's awake during the day and fully conscious, just like the rest of us. Me: That's not what I meant! Not literally whether or not he is awake or sleeping - but rather _____________ Try to fill in the blank

@Lento lmao alright buddy