LastThursday

Most of us want to be normal. None of us are.

@The observer ok, but you have to be careful. You quoted me directly and talked about what I'd written - so I had to assume you were talking about me directly (you didn't mention Anna at all). Obviously, I'm not going to take it if someone puts words into my mouth. Anyway, no harm done. Carry on.

@The observer you seem to have expanded my one sentence into eight of yours. Where did those extra words come from? Anyway here goes: 1. I wasn't talking about control at all. I'm not sure where that came from. 2. I wasn't talking about anything being illusory. Where did that come from? 2. I wasn't manipulating, just giving my personal opinion, whether it was right or wrong. 3. What double standard? What are you talking about? 4. I wasn't talking about "forcing" anything. Marketing is marketing, there is no "forcing". Propaganda is forcing. Holding a gun to the head is forcing. 5. My use of the words "way in" is in double quotes for a reason. This is to indicate not a literal way in, like a gateway drug, but a suggestion that people may be guided towards increasing their own spiritual awareness - if they choose to do it for themselves. 6. I don't deny there are other ways to become more spiritual. Good. I'm glad for you. 7. Stop being sly yourself.

I think I understand now. I suppose spirituality ought to be held up to a higher standard and shouldn't be commoditised and sold like cheap plastic tourist trinkets. I personally think it might be a "way in" to spirituality for a lot of people, so it has its uses. I reckon most people don't have the refined discernment to be able to tell if they're being sold crap by a saccharine salesperson, they're just not aware enough - after all the majority of us are brainwashed by capitalist advertising. Thank God for people like Leo and others on here that produce more authentic content, it goes against the tide.

@mandyjw you shouldn't be encouraged, but you're hilarious.

I suspect this isn't new. It's just underdeveloped people behaving in underdeveloped ways. Men and women have extra-marital affairs for much the same reasons. It's hard for me to judge whether your issue is with people manipulating others, or that they're giving out false or bad information. Or is it that you think that wrongful "selling" by women is somehow demeaning or damaging to themselves or others? What do you think?

@traveler, @Keyhole I'd say you'd need a well developed level of awareness to separate the message from the messenger. If someone is not at that level yet, then being attracted by the messenger in some way to listen to the message ain't a bad thing. Also, if you're at that level then the message itself is probably not that advanced. However we all have to start somewhere. I think being confronted by Leo levels of awareness from the off, is probably too weird or just plain inaccessible to most. It's less to do with fetish and more to do with just plain old lack of awareness. I partially agree that Anna Brown is using a certain amount of "feminine" manipulation to give herself an air of mastery that she doesn't possess - i.e. she's getting away with it. But hey, don't we all do this to puff up our feathers from time to time?

There is no time. So everything must be happening now. Another way to see it, is to know that everything that can ever be experienced, will be experienced eventually. Consciousness is eternal. So how come you can't see through someone else's eyes? Because "someone else" and "eyes" are mental constructs. "You" are also a construct. Lastly, if it helps, "you" are like a radio tuned into an infinite field of consciousness. Your life is just one radio station amongst an infinite number all happening at the same time. The last one gives me hope, that I can "retune" myself and lead a better life. How do I do that? By dropping all my old mental constructs.

What a joy! Society programs us like automatons to constantly be doing, producing, striving, achieving, judging, consuming, comparing. When you feel lost or that things are pointless now, those are just withdrawal symptoms from the programming - the crutches have been removed and you feel off balance. But what about life purpose? What about it eh?

Consciousness is prior or meta to everything: time, space, matter, thought. The seed of consciousness is the ability to observe itself, and the flower of reality unfurls from it. Having thoughts is the same thing as dreaming is the same thing as reality is the same thing as consciousness. So a thought is really no different from the experience of the chair I'm sitting on - both are self-aware experiences. My chair is as solid as my thoughts. My chair is a thought story. It seems that thoughts must "come from" somewhere because we treat them like objects that ought to have a history. And that somehow some mechanistic process is happening underneath our conscious radar to produce them - but this isn't how reality presents itself. When you pay attention, reality is like a firework show. Things and appearances and stuff is constantly appearing and disappearing magically from and to nowhere and dazzling us. This is the real nature of consciousness, it is constantly creative and in motion. Thoughts are part of the show.

@Danioover9000 what you're really talking about is logic and language and not reality. It's similar to this statement: This statement is false. The above statement is really one about non-existence. Yet, clearly the statement exists. In other words, there is only existence, but non-existence "exists" within it (as a logic construct). If you're mathematically minded, existence is the Universal Set - it contains absolutely everything. You're worried about non-existence which should/would be everything outside the Universal Set. So existence contains everything - oh yeah, except, non-existence! So how to get around the contradiction? Either you change the definition of existence to include non-existence (eh?). Or people cheat the contradiction by equating the two (folks love that here). In other words the Universal Set has no boundary (a non-duality if you like) - there is no "outside" of existence. It's ok. Non-existence has already eaten you.

The destination will be what it is, when it is. What's wrong with a bit of reassuring drama along the way? Something to tell the grandchildren.

You have read the name of this forum right? If you walk into a farmers' market, expect to talk about sheep. Anyway, this thread is about synchronicity. I won't derail it any more. Carry on.

Maybe humans are the same as cats? But instead we just retrospectively make up a story for everything. Act first, think later. Is it really possible to connect thoughts with actions? It's completely feasible that our thoughts are not the cause of our actions. Maybe God is the cause of both our thoughts and actions, and we don't realise their common source and wrongly attribute thoughts as the cause of our actions? After all, how can you attribute those qualities to a cat - all your judgement is based on its actions only? Maybe the cat is contemplating itself through you, via the medium of consciousness/God?

@Meta-Man high five! That's two today. The question then arises can you have consciousness without duality (division, contraction, illusion, appearances)? My answer is: yes. The self referential nature of consciousness is indivisible, so it's non-dual. Because it's non-dual, it doesn't have a source. If it doesn't have a source then it can't be attributed to any particular thing or form. It can't be explained by brains or anything else. So. Is Consciousness = God? Or is God just another form within consciousness? Obviously, I haven't taken The Drug to find out for myself.

There is nothing contracted or filtered about consciousness - it continues to be self aware through thick and thin. The curse of human ignorance is still consciousness. The body is still consciousness. Consciousness always flows naturally.

@Etherial Cat high five!

Surely consciousness by definition is aware of itself? The problem arises when trying to define "it". Is that "it" allowed to be a flower or does it have to have "a brain"? The argument is definitely inside out. The "it" comes from consciousness not from the form consciousness takes. Consciousness first, everything else second.

Good and bad are only relative to your own survival. In those terms bad is something that diminishes your ability to survive. And, survival is just the avoidance of physical death. To understand the why you have to understand survival. Every single human being lives on a knife-edge in terms of survival. There are a zillion things that can cause your death and you are constantly trying to avoid those things. The potential for bad things to happen to you is very high. In fact it is a miracle that you are still alive. That miracle has come about from all the good things that have happened to you: having nurturing parents, having food regularly, bathing regularly, having common sense and so on. In a certain sense some people bring "bad" into their lives (and others' lives) precisely because they are not "good" at survival. But most of the bad stuff in our lives happens because the potential for it is very high.

1. Persistent long lasting depression and anxiety (thankfully subsided, but permanently changed my outlook). 2. Climbing out of the pit of my own mental programming (still scrabbling out of it). Letting things go and accepting. 3. Realising and loving the perfection and beauty in everything including myself - without trying to make it all perfect (still working on that). And sort of on the list, is becoming aware that a life without struggle is no life at all.

I think every friendship has different amounts of positivity and negativity. Friends will put up with the negativity because the positivity wins. But as soon as you start having doubts or the balance is wrong, the friendship is doomed. Cut your loses and move on, even if it's hard. Don't cling on hoping it will change or it will go back to how it was or because of fear of being alone. Keep moving forward.

If you've done all you can, why not respect your friend's wishes? If he doesn't want to change why force it on him? I think once you give up trying to help him, you will be less conflicted. Your relationship with your friend will change, but give it time.

There is nothing wrong with you. The software development industry (I can only speak for the UK) is full of people that are not competent programmers or systems developers. I've seen this over and over in nearly 25 years of being in the industry. There are several reasons this happens. The trouble starts with hiring. Job adverts are full of buzzwords for the latest programming languages, frameworks and trendy techniques. Generally, there will be very few candidates that match all the criteria. Instead they are just designed to be honeypots in order to lure prospective candidates. On the whole you will be hired if you fit some of the criteria. Secondly the interview process is inadequate to ascertain with any degree of certainty if you have the required level of skill. Most interviews are informal chats designed to see if you'll "fit in" to the culture of the company (i.e. Team Worker, Go the Extra Mile, happy to be fed pizza and coffee with no extra remuneration for hours worked, blah, blah, blah). The interviewer is hardly ever an actual developer. Lastly, if an incompetent programmer is hired they tend to be carried by the only one or two highly skilled programmers who have been working there forever. In other words the incompetent programmer wastes time and resources, but the good programmers are so good that managers don't notice the deficiencies. And further, the pay can be lucrative so incompetent programmers are tempted to try their luck gaming the system. And from experience, they know they can get away with it. I can only say, that if you are a competent programmer and can prove it, then you will eventually be well rewarded for your efforts. Stick with it. Don't despair my friend.

You're living in a hall of mirrors and the synchronicities are reflections. What is the purpose of a reflection?