LastThursday

The idea of free will is really one without an answer. There is one activity we all do that sits on the boundary of free will: breathing. Is breathing under control of our free will or not? It's good to contemplate this deeply. If you ascribe to a consciousness-is-everything-time-doesn't-exist paradigm, then the question of free will is actually meaningless. Free will implies causation: you made the thing happen. But in terms of the paradigm, consciousness unfolds itself moment to moment, no cause and no effect.

I used to think my memories were mine. But one day I realised that nearly everything I could remember as a small kid, there was a corresponding photo for in one of my mum's albums. The past happened, inasmuch as there is an imprint of it in the present moment.

I like to think of this place like a modern version Ancient Greece with all their different philosophers. There really are some good ideas flying about in this place, that you wouldn't find in the mainstream world. It's fun to be part of it. Oh, and I like attention.

@nistake I'm all for vaccines against Covid. I wish people didn't have the mentality that it was a cure though. And the virus will probably mutate faster than they can adjust and roll out the vaccines, but I have some faith. Masks are a waste of time and socially damaging. But they are a very good way of virtue signalling, and that you're being a good citizen, and an excellent way to make the virus seem "real". I can understand why the Government (UK) made it compulsory.

I've become less free. I was never that free in the first place. Societal collapse is only a step away. There is unjustified hysteria about society collapsing. Lockdowns and top-down control are caused by people not viruses. Everyone is driven by fear. Fear beats reason and even money and people's livelihoods. I like working from home. Having less options in lockdown makes life simpler. Getting a regular haircut is a luxury I enjoyed. People are sheep and don't think for themselves. Wearing a mask is just pure theatre. That I'm playing the game of wearing a mask to avoid social stigma. If people concentrate their resources disease can be eradicated.

It's a bit Pollyanna, but why not just go ahead and start the dream? As with anything in life, you can do it in stages (I love lists): 1. Go camping in the middle of winter. 2. Do a survival course: learn to catch your own food, make fire and shelter. 3. Go travel the world and live out of a backpack for a year or two (post Covid if that ever happens). 4. Move out into the country. 5. Go work on a farm or collective such as a Kibbutz. 6. Build your own home: I'm into tiny houses, if only, but the UK is not conducive. At the end of all that I think you'll know if it's for you.

Suffering stops when you die. Whichever thing dies stops suffering. Being alive is itself the cause of all suffering. This is because being alive is a constant battle against being not alive. I guess to fuck the universe you have to pull off the impossible and be alive and dead at the same time: that's enlightenment.

Isn't mind the "private space", the space where you keep your passwords and kinky fetishes and personal memories? I mean this in contrast with "public space" which is the part of experience that other people seem to know about, or could potentially know about? To explain mind you have to explain this division between private and public.

You can get a sense of non-duality by looking at your hand and try and explain to someone what you're seeing. For example I might say: I can see five fingers. I can see a palm. Fingernails Knuckles. And so on. But notice that your hand is none of those things. Your hand is a totally, it's also connected to your arm and body. See? Duality is words and divisions and descriptions and explanations. Non-duality is the thing itself, the raw experience of totality.

Time management. Have a weekly schedule of activities. Sit down, draw up a timetable of things you want to do each day and when. Then do it. The first few weeks will seem difficult but persevere, after that it will be plain sailing. Adjust your timetable over time as new ideas emerge.

I know that cash is going the way of the dodo. But the best advice I ever had was to pay for as many things as possible with hard cash. Have a weekly cash allowance that you take out just once on the same day, and use that as much as possible. Avoid using cards. The idea is that it stops impulse buying on small items. Any cash left over at the end of the week, should be topped up to the allowance amount - not rolled over! The other thing is to buy quality items and then keep them for as long as humanly possible before replacing. If they break and they're fixable then fix them. Don't buy mobile phones on contract, buy the handset and then get a cheap and realistic deal for minutes and texts. In fact, try and avoid anything which involves recurring cost. Keep all recurring costs to an absolute minimum. Gym membership you hardly use, then bin it. Accounts for all those streaming media services you only watch once in a blue moon, bin it. It's more economic to pay for one off use sometimes.

What Infinite Intelligence knows is the same thing as what Infinite Intelligence is. Everything is Infinite Intelligence. Infinite Intelligence is everything. Complete symmetry.

Absolutely, we all make stupid mistakes sometimes and we should be receptive to being challenged - in both directions. But in general shouting from the forum rooftops about the injustice of having a thread locked is fairly... stupid. Any of these responses is less stupid: 1. Forget about it and move on (don't bite the hand that feeds you). 2. Why not PM you or a mod and ask why the thread was locked? 3. Come up with a better topic. 4. Cool off for 24 hours, and think about what to do next. 5. Ask yourself: is it really that important?

Leo can do what the hell he wants. It's his forum. The problem with being stupid, is that you don't realise you're stupid. Only someone less stupid than you can point it out. Whenever people moan about locked threads and banning and so on, the only expression that comes to my mind is: don't bite the hand that feeds you - that's basic stupidity right there.

Why not challenge stupidity? You can't knock the stupidity out of people, but you sure can make them become aware of it. Once a stupid person becomes receptive, then you can open them up to a world of non-stupidity. Of course, it works both ways, don't be a hypochrite. We are all deeply stupid in lots of different ways. Accept the challenge in return.

For every measure of ugliness, there is beauty. For every worry; fear; a happiness. In every loneliness, a yearning for togetherness. For every dream destroyed, some kind of bliss. In the abyss of my despair, there is a shining light. In every wrong; there must be some right. For I'm no longer that kind of man. Far grander than some thought am I. Because: In every waking moment, I must die.

What a load of old waffle

Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream. What's the revelation that life is a dream? Is it that it's insubstantial? Is it that once it passes it becomes a whispy memory? Is it that you can actually wake up from it? Is it that it's full of weirdness? Is it that it's all an illusion? Is it that you can actually become lucid? Is it that night dreams and waking reality are the same? Is it that given the right magic, you can suddenly end up being someone else entirely? Is it that the dream is fantastic and incredible? Is it that dreaming is the natural mode of the universe?

???

@Frenk yeah, probably not one to tell around the campfire.

Apparent separation from the Godhead is a feature not a bug. All that being alive means, is to be separated. Alive to dead is not just a one way street though. "You" could merge with the Godhead and die and yet still come back to life later. Will it be the same "you" again? No. But you're not the same "you" even of five minutes ago: that "you" already died.

If by future you mean the present moment in ten minutes time, then yes it probably will along with all those non-physical events. If by exist you mean with 100% certainty, then probably not - maybe we'll all be swallowed by a passing black hole?

The future doesn't exist. It's just linguistic trickery. All there is, is an ever-changing present moment.

Some of the most rewarding things I've done in life have involved communal activities. For example I remember a work trip where we made willow fencing for a play garden for disabled kids. The sheer act of doing something physical for the communal good is magical. Some of my most rewarding holidays have been where I went with a bunch of friends and just hung out together. I think many of us are missing this communcal aspect of living in the modern world. There seems to be an inverse correlation between the richness of a country and how communally they live. Don't misunderstand me I'm not advocating a political system here. I just thinking that there is a missing piece of the humanity jigsaw in modern Western societies. As well as a strong emphasis on individualism there appears to be an island mentality within family units. That's not to say that there aren't bridges between the islands in the form of friends: but that doesn't constitute communal living. Of course if you don't have much money for rent in Western society you can go and flatshare. You may or may not get to choose you share with however. I'd say that in general it isn't conducive to living communally. What is missing is the sharing of resources, ideas, meal times, child care and generally "pitching in together" that communality entails. Perhaps it isn't for everyone and certainly we are so inculcated in the myth of individual consumerism that deviating from that is impossible for most. It's a cultural attitude and mindset more than enything. It isn't a complete panacea of course. Any society of people at whatever scale will have its inherent problems both organisational, relational and in terms of self policing. Long term communality requires rules and regulations and probably a strong element of routine, so that everyone knows where they stand. As an extension to the communal tribe that you belong to, you would also have to fit into the bigger tribe of society at large. So largely there would be an overlap of values: there is no point living communally if that community shuts itself off from everything else. Even the Amish are not completely disentangled from American society at large. You see how difficult it is not to veer into a political system. How difficult is it to live differently in Western society? It appears that communal living entails living in communes which by definition are somewhat separated from mainstream society. Often there is a strong element of religion and or idealogy involved. I believe that just provides a shared basis for living from the outset. But I also think it's possible to do it the other way around. Start living communally and over time work out what the best rules and policing strategies are. After all most of us are employed to work communally, often we have to "work out" the culture of the workplace, there are no explicit rules given to us from the outset: i.e. it can be done. So why is employment not a good surrogate for living communally? It certainly has some of the aspects of working together for the common good (of the business) and of sharing values. But there are other aspects which don't work so well. Most businesses have a strong hierarchy where the people higher up the echelons are distant and don't interact much with the lowly workers. The emphasis is also wrong: making money, instead of sharing. And if you don't belong to a union of some sort, there is generally no safety net if you get ejected from the workplace or you need your child looked after. In other words working in business is at best token communal living. If I were to set up some sort of commune then the following is a must: Regular shared spiritual practise (non-religious) and high consciousness activites in general Shared physical activities - building, constructing, gathering food, Shared preparing and eating of food, Ready and open discussion of ideas of any persuasion, The use of technology as an enabler for communal living, Some system that stops certain individuals dominating the group: no kings or big-man mentality, A strong attitude of self sufficiency for all members, An attitude of doing things for both the common and individual good, altruism and reciprocity. I'm sure there are 101 other points I could add.

NLP has the Swish pattern, where you can use visualisation: https://www.nlp-techniques.org/what-is-nlp/swish/