Haumea2018

I'm not Leo either, and as much as I enjoy busting his balls on his politics, ultimately, it's his fucking money, and pissing it away on taxes that will be spent on programs that will do nothing to fix the structural problems in the US economy doesn't seem like a good idea. The whole premise that tax money will be spent wisely is anything but an automatic.

Go live in Miami or Los Angeles if you want super models. Yeah, "open-minded" and "conscious."

True...but you supported Bernie, so in his vision of America, for sure. Of course, but most people aren't making that much, and as far as those who are, it might be worth it and wouldn't be so cumbersome. Do you? If that's so, why are you so particular about state taxes if you expect it will be taken from you at some point. Unless you know it'll highly unlikely to happen. I mean, wealth confiscation is as Unamerican as it gets. You may as well tell Americans you will shoot their puppies next.

But comrade, it is the glorious collective that determines when you've made enough money. Can be escaped through expatriation. And besides, the point of advocating a progressive tax is that when you've made YOUR money, you're not taxed on the wealth you've accumulated, which puts you at an advantage over upstarts.

Isn't a high state income tax a "progressive" policy?

The US isn't that corrupt given its size, demographics, history, etc. 23rd least corrupt out of 198 on CPI. Find me a country comparable in population or even close in total GDP (the amount of money flowing around) that is less corrupt. It's not even a contest. Look at China, Brazil, India. I mean could it improve? Certainly, but the fact that it's 23 is nothing short of a miracle. Better than some large European countries (Italy, Spain, tied with France.) I mean would you want to live in the 23rd least corrupt country or the #1 least corrupt, given all the other advantages? It's not like China (80th) or Russia (137th) bad.

"Be Here Now" by Ram Dass is a classic, but it's quite different in format. Very 60s-70s psychedelic.

That probably is the closest, although I don't think it's likely he was what one would consider fully enlightened if at all. Maybe partially, since his theories are pretty rooted in thinkers who were at least partly enlightened. But then lots of partially enlightened people are far away from having a major integrative shift psychologically.

One could argue that cognitive development isn't really even "development", but socially and materially conditioned evolution of attitudes: social conditioning/technology. In other words, it's superficial. In fact, I would argue there isn't a single "Turquoise" person alive on earth at the moment if we are to take the implications of it seriously. We simply don't have the technology to include the circle of "care" to "all of life." If one follows that to its logical conclusion, that means we need Star Trek replicators for genuine Turquoise: both animal and vegetable life are "off-limits" for consumption. So at best we have very few genuinely Yellow types and no Turquoise.

If you lived in ancient times, or even 100 years ago, you couldn't have backwards beliefs unless they were backward relative to that time and place. We can't measure all of history using the yardstick of the values of educated, mostly white, mostly middle- and upper-middle class Westerners living in 2020. That's the entire point of my whole spiel: we're talking about basic "fitting-in" shit of the modern milieu, so there isn't much there to impress anyone as far as really going out on a limb and being advanced. We take material advantages for granted that they couldn't even imagine, and one can't suggest that those material advantages haven't shaped our attitudes. So there couldn't be a more unfair comparison imo. But that stems from my criticism of his approach - I simply don't buy the "two separate tracks" theory of stages vs. structures. So if I reject the theory, I reject the possibilities of that theory. Here's why I don't buy it: one is ivory tower, the other is the baseline of one's entire being, one's consciousness independent of theories and concepts. One is mental, the other is embodied. The mental one has feet of clay. It's an issue that Wilber never bothers to get out of the ivory tower and check whether his theories have validity.

Because Wilber posits enlightenment as stages of consciousness, while Spiral Dynamics or Integral Theory are structures of consciousness. So he has two separate tracks of development, stages/states vs. structures. In his view one can be fully developed on one dimension (i.e. what he calls the Nondual state or what I call Unity Consciousness or LOC1000) and be relatively undeveloped on another (Spiral Dynamics.) But I dismiss much of Wilber's thinking -- or to be fair, how some people interpret him, because I'm not sure he would disagree with my points -- as mainly ivory tower, First World privilege. There is nothing particularly unique about SD levels aside from such factors as socioeconomic status, being part of a particular intellectual community or group, IQ and personality traits, etc. It's like if you're a millionaire and live in a gated community shielded from the harsh realities of the world you can say "Oh, I'm Green." But it means nothing because you are shielded from reality. You can advocate all kinds of Green policies because their effects won't touch you. You lose nothing feigning floating on a higher plane of development than the vast masses (and gain social cachet in your community.) If you live in a much worse neighborhood you might have a different outlook on the value of Blue or Orange. Back to his statement -- typical of ivory tower thinkers, he can't present a single real-life example of an "enlightened nazi" -- instead it's merely a possibility derived from his theories. Theory first, reality second. I would venture to guess that he would have trouble finding such an example, because he doesn't fully understand all the real-life implications -- the psychological development especially -- of the Nondual state.

The evidence is pretty damning. Her parents testified that she complained about his dalliances with other women. He cremated her body before an autopsy could be done. The only thing countering that are his claims as a spiritual figure. In the West, he would have certainly stood trial for murder under those circumstances.

About 50-50, maybe a hair on the unselfish side. 100% unselfishness is impossible in human form. There's the body to take care of, and besides, even if one is not particularly interested in luxuries/fine, expensive things there are still immaterial inducements, such as self-importance, vanity, recognition, etc. Besides, one can't consciously decide that they are 100% unselfish because that's not how human psychology works, enlightenment or not.

The superconscious aspect of you, has all the answers.

"Multiple selves" is basic analytical psychology, from Jung to Internal Family Systems. They call it subpersonalities or parts. The Voice Dialogue technique is by Hal and Sidra Stone, it's a technique that predates Teal Swan.

I guarantee you that your type hasn't changed. Any self-administered test is unreliable for certain people. It's filled with possibility of bias in answering the questions. You can answer questions in different ways: narrowly or broadly. You can fail to be objective about yourself, etc. There's simply a world of difference between an ISFJ and an ISFP. One is a "guardian" type (SJ) and one is an "artisan" type (SP.) Those are completely different categories, easily observable to anyone who cares to look at the differences. Read the descriptions for ISFJ and ISFP. Then decide which fits you better over a consistent timespan. Any fluctuations in behavior don't make you a different type. E.g. If a typically spontaneous and impulsive ISFP is forced to do something regularly and on-schedule it doesn't make him an ISFJ. You simply can't change from one to the other. An ISFP is an Fi dom, an ISFJ is an Fe aux. So there's a strong Fe and no Fi in the top 4 functions, you don't suddenly become an Fi dom. The easiest way to know is to learn about functions and figure out your dominant function. Fi (for ISFP) is introverted feeling, very different from the introverted sensing of an ISFJ.

A lot of people get intuitive insights about their own lives from other people's music. That's what good music is, it creates a resonance in others through a harmony of musical and lyrical content. Really good music accomplishes it even more effectively than just talking to someone.

You're a psychologist, so I'm going to tell you stuff you already know. There's a trigger, but what follows isn't necessarily the genuine expression of a negative emotion but possibly some unhealthy coping mechanism which distracts you from fully experiencing it. So what's the emotion that you're experiencing: pain, anger, sadness? Perhaps it's loneliness or just something physiological like hunger or thirst? So if you experience that emotion you will feel it, stay with it, allow it to process, and processing it calms you. Otherwise it's just papering it over with something. It stays trapped.

Of course mysticism <> postmodernism. The story of everything being a story IS a story, a metanarrative itself. At the highest level of awakening is Only Don't Know state, the daisy fresh Buddha mind that draws no metaphysical conclusions. That's what many people here don't get -- if you've come up with a Story Of It All and believe it to be real, then you're not really present to what is -- you're filtering reality through the prism of that story.

As long as there's a trace of identification -- the thought "I" -- there is a subtle ego. Whether that "I" is a local no-self/emptiness, the whole universe, God or anything else. When there is no longer the thought "I", there's something that can't successfully be described in terms of duality, it is paradoxical in those terms. It's both black and white, night and day, male and female, the potential and the manifest.

Hey, personally I don't care either way. I'm just curious if there would be some new objection to calling them something else.

@Gesundheit Of course, the enlightenment/non-enlightenment binary are two levels. So to be fully consistent, let's delete this forum, right? There's nothing that can be said about any of it, so why are we still talking?

Would people be happier if we called them degrees or levels of illusion instead of levels of consciousness? They are real, consistent, universal stable experiences of self, which vary as far as unconscious frame of "I" vs. "other" (until that duality is erased completely.) You can call it whatever you want: the experiences are stable and consistent within a "level."

Really good post. Of course, anything having to do with the world (such as politics, social change, etc.) is rife with delusion and self-deception. Everyone filters news and information according to their biases, and there's plenty to lead one astray. All we need to do is look at history to see that things rarely if ever turn out as hoped for. The way I look at it is, if people were perfect (or substitute your closest approximation, such as "highly evolved/enlightened/conscious") there wouldn't need to be a discussion of what political systems and social arrangements are preferable. And if people aren't evolved/enlightened/conscious, then they will corrupt any system you construct. This doesn't simply mean "the man" or "people at the top" but in a collaboration at all levels of society. Such a state of affairs, in fact, argues for as much separation of powers as can be achieved lest the baddies hold one ring to rule them all. So I've never been a fan of "conscious politics" because they are superfluous. Get conscious people first, and you don't need to worry about conscious politics.

Yeah, this is sort of an issue of necessity. There are different physiological types, and finding a diet that works for any given person can very much be an issue of trial and error. Some people very much agree with meat and not dairy or vegetables, and others vice versa. Of course, meat production ideally needs to be ethically regulated (and e.g. why The Jews have had kosher/slaughter laws since antiquity.)