Identity

@integral Haha, daym, looks like you’re crossing boundaries I aint ready for yet. Agreed though; underwear? Silly restraining invention 😝

@Moutushi hahaha, that sounds like a fantastic time 🕺🏻

Haha this discussion puts a smile on my face. Love you guys ❤️✌🏼

Right, if I understand you correctly, this perspective is similar to the point I’m trying to make. Just like @Leo Gura says ‘no legs, no pants, no problem’. Yet, if I see the ‘form’ Leo walking around. There will be legs, and most likely, there will be pants. Right? Unless you’re THAT wild. @UnbornTao and yes, the possibility to eliminate beliefs sounds great. Yet, when you’re in a conversation with someone, words are still being said, right? However awake, detached, loose, the ideas are held, surely there is still some general philosophy that acts as your operating system? These examples are symptoms of the underlying idea; No matter how deeply one gets grounded into nothingness, there will still be some form that appears, right? That’s actually what I’ve been really enjoying about the tantric perspective. Yes, be deeply rooted in the formless. But don’t reject the form, fully infuse your consciousness into that form. Feel it. Live it. Live the human experience.

@Lila9 Yup, definitely agree that there is a lot of stage greeny shallowness going around in most new age places. And then again, it also varies a lot depending on the community and the individuals. It comes back for me to this challenge; there is some form that needs to be taken. Some way to show up, behave, interact, live. Say you want to dance, waaay rather go to a hippy-filled Ecstatic Dance then to go to a macho orange club. I guess the point I’m making; if behind the new age externals, there is actually the seriousness, the depth, the direct experience. Don’t see the problem.

@Leo Gura Surely you own a pair of those loose patterned pants yourself 😉

After watching most of the video on the forum and reading Leo’s comments, I would like to open a conversation on the topic of new age. It seems that my ‘form’ is to a large extend that of a new-ager. Most of the characteristics mentioned in the video are boxes I check: - Beliefs, attitudes, clothes (to some extend), relationships, interests, practices. A telling sign; one of the people at the tantra centre where my girlfriend and I are doing a series of seven retreats said: ”I assume that you’re one of those ‘man circle’ guys, that lack any spiritual depth.” Aaand, my reply was; ‘I kind of do, huh? Looking at my feminine loose patterned pants.’ Aaand, at the same time, I truly feel that I have directly grasped, experienced and am embodying many of the truths and principles that we pursue in this work. Interestingly enough, from a young age, it had been challenging for me to find my place. To ‘create myself’. To take a particular form in the collective world. In the end… some form needs to be taken right? You’re either wearing feminine loose patterned pants, or you’re wearing stiff jeans in which it’s impossible to move. I’ll take the first any day of the week. Anyhow, I’m opening the floor here; Are any of you taking this form as a ‘new ager’? or have you found other ways of finding your place in this collective world?

Happy to see you doing well Leo ✌🏼 if this wasn’t a tragic death of a young girl, I’d propose it to be a meme. Perhaps a mouse trap is a better fit 😂😅 oke, the croc is definitely better. subtitles: “Are you sure?”

After a phase with the theme ‘Resting in Being’ I sense a renewed desire in me to grow into a new way of being. What I am contemplating, is the ‘bridge’ of getting from my current way of being to the vision I have. Let me explain. When I got into the world of personal development and spirituality I had to climb out of quite a deep hole. My reality then was; - I had very little discipline - There were many habits and addictions that were dragging me down; smoking weed, gaming, porn, unhealthy eating, the usual suspects - I had no idea who I was and what kind of life purpose to pursue - Very little experience with dating It’s a bit of a simple way of explaining a more nuanced situation, but in many ways I was a lost student. Over the last 6-7 years my life has improved radically. The list above can basically be flipped around. I am excelling at all of these domains for the most part. From dating, to business, to lifestyle, as well as many spiritual layers have opened up. With that period of change being quite exhausting on many layers, the past 6 months or so have been on the theme ‘Resting in Being’. Ending that chapter with a month of holiday, I feel recharged and want to take myself and my life to the next level. The vision for it I can see quite clearly. What is unclear to me, is the ‘bridge’, the ‘how’. With how I don’t mean the practices or practical steps, that is clear to me as well. It’s more about the way I want to pursue this change. See, the ‘bridge’ that was very effective to get to where I got consisted of: - huge vision board - Many goals and habits - (Neurotically) tracking - Setting commitments - Consuming a lot of content It was the structure and discipline I needed to pull myself out of this whole. But it also came with a tightness, guilting myself, whipping myself. This whole system had melted away for the most part and I have learned that I can trust myself to function also without it. So the question is, what new ‘bridge’ do I want to build? I know it will be lighter, less structured, less mental, more intuitive… yet, it won’t be nothing either… ‘Conscious Discipline’ is a term that comes up, but what that will entail is yet to be shaped. Would love to hear your inputs and happy to answer questions ✌?

Was just rewatching the episode on Authority. Am now 40 minutes in. There are some confusions and nuances I want to lay out here. On the absolute domain, I’m on board. God is the true identity. Looking for any form to validate absolute truth is silly, since it is a partial element of God. In the end, I am God and that is all there is. (That’s to say, I’m on board theoretically. I’ve had various experiences of becoming conscious of it, but at this moment there is little direct experience of this.) Now, where things get murky for me is in the relative domain. It seems to me that there is more going on than saying it’s simply a matter of projecting out authority and in the end I get to decide what’s true. Oke, now that I’m writing this out, it becomes clear to me that as long as there is the belief that I’m an individual ego, it’s a very tricky game…. What would happen if I were really fully conscious as myself as God…. I guess that would give me full authority, even in the relative domain, since I’m the one creating the whole thing…?! Nevertheless, let’s lay out the line of reasoning that came up before. So, in the relative domain, let’s say I do identify as this body-mind being. From that perspective it does make sense to have a sense of authority, right? For example, I need to get my bike fixed because I have a flat tire. It would make sense to give the mechanic who has fixed 1000’s of tires more authority than the kid who has never done it before, right? And let’s say, I would have never fixed a tire before and have no clue how to do it, then it would make sense to listen to someone ‘outside myself’ to gain information on the topic, right? This comes back to the whole discussion on ‘what is understanding’. Yes, ultimately all language, beliefs and images are a mere subset of absolute truth and will always be partial. But in the relative domain, there are ways of building up a mental construction that has resemblance of an object or process. And in this survival game of relative mental constructions, it can make sense to give authority to ‘others’ who have created a more effective, more truthful mental construction. To make this topic a bit more personal, the reason it’s so interesting to me, is because my profession is to be a trainer/growth facilitator. So I give trainings on topics such as leadership, softskills and personal development. The game of authority is very prevelant here, not something I particularly like, but it’s a necessary game to play in order to survive in the business. There are many authority claims I refer to, from my education, to experience, to sources, to results, to even the way I dress and talk. I guess I am finding my way in navigating this in a balanced and relatively authentic way. Those are enough thoughts for now, would love to hear some reactions ✌?

8 years ago being courageous was not a trade associated with me. When I asked people around me what my top 5 strengths are last year, courage was part of everyone’s list. Reflecting on my growth process, I would say it was a rather gradual one. As Nathaniel Daniel describes, self-esteem is a reciprocal trade. When we have more self-esteem, we act like it. When we act like it, we grow in self-esteem. my advice would be to deliberately start taking small courageous steps outside of your comfort zone. Pick-up can be great for this. I did door-to-door sales which helped. Starting your own business. Talking to strangers. Posting something online. Expressing your boundaries. The list is endless. Brain Begin from Fearless has this technique called smth like the ‘tension journal’. Where he would note down throughout the day which actions he could take and which degree of tension they would be. 1 being completely comfort zone. 10 being completely out. Then he would challenge himself to do actions in the 4-7 range to train his courage. In the end, what I’m saying is that courage, bravery and decisiveness can be seen as a skill. Train it deliberately and you will grow.

@LastThursday Thank you for sharing. Yes, I agree that having a clear payoff is crucial in order to sustain the discipline over a long time. I think the crux in discipline is that it is the ability to do something, even when resistance shows up in the form of emotions/thoughts. on insight that comes to me whilst typing this, is that conscious discipline would be the ability to still fully feel, embrace, accept whatever is going on inside, and then choosing to act. Which is the opposite of hoe discipline is often thought of; pushing away, denying, rejecting, belittling the resistance. You mention the phrase ‘conscious disciple ins being aware of the process of being disciplined’. I don’t fully get what you are pointing to with this, could you elaborate?

One thing I see myself and a lot of people around me struggle with, is creating conscious discipline. To use Spiral Dynamics, what I see is a lot of people of my generation in the wealthy west are at this orange/green border. However, they lack a solid blue foundation. Beyond lacking it, there is actually resistance to it. And for good reason. A stage green person who is working on self-acceptance does not want to go back to create discipline through self-judgement. That is a lot of self-help around the topic of discipline; a super-ego being hard on itself. Conquering your inner bitch. Guilting oneself. Pushing away emotions. my question; how can one go about creating conscious discipline? I intuit that there must be a more conscious way of building discipline, perseverance and structure than described above. However, I can’t quite get a grasp on what that looks like. Any ideas?

Why not go for the mother? Oke, all jokes aside, I agree, mostly who you are being and who she is being will be the most important. There is no quick fix to create a conscious relationship, the individual inner work will have to be done first. It sounds like the basis is right, both on a similar path of growth with aligned values. That being said, creating a conscious relationship could also be seen as a separate skill. What has really benefited my relationship is a tantric approach where both people are allowed to be where they are at, feel what they feel, without that being judged or needing to change.

Am on a tantra retreat. This van is of one of the participants. Couldn’t imagine a better example of stage green ?