Akemrelax

You can't make a distinction between stage yellow and stage red? You can't make a distinction between different types of cars? You know perfectly well what I mean. You're purposely bringing in non-duality to prove me wrong.

Some concepts are more accurate than others. SP can be used in a practical way, MBTI cannot. SD can be used to predict behaviour, patterns of thinking, values, etc. I cannot see the distinctions MBTI makes in real life, like the ones I mentioned above. Making a claim and not providing any explaining doesn’t add much to the discussion. Just saying.

@modmyth Thing is that some people take it seriously because it is marketed as being kinda sciency. MBTI 'experts' claim you can't look at behavior to determine type because MBTI doesn't account for behavior. It gets super confusing when you dig deep into it. Like the terms used are differently defined in Jungian terms, 'feeling' is not the conventional definition of feeling.

It is so partial that it's not worth using. Harry Potter Houses are more accurate. I suggest we start a "Resources for Ravenclaws" thread .

Yea, it does seem that way. I’ve been trying to learn about MBTI for 1-2 days and so far it doesn’t seem that useful. I would say your personality is bigger than your cognitive function, there’s more to it. I can easily switch between these functions so what’s the point of knowing “my dominant function”? I also don’t understand what’s the difference between Ni, Ti, and Fi, they are so similar. In fact all the “introverted functions” and “extraverted functions” are so similar that it seems silly to draw distinctions between them. If someone who is knowledgeable about MBTI could explain in simple English what these Ne, Ni, Se, Si, etc... means maybe we would change our opinion. I find a lot of people here resonate with INTP but that’s only because it’s the “nerd”, “scientist lost in wonderland” stereotype. I think if they tried studying the theory more deeply and question it they would have a different opinion. IMO a better way to understand yourself would be to take a pen and paper and write down all the traits about you that you know like competitive, ambitious, etc. Sort of like character descriptions in CK2. And to study your behaviour in the past by writing about your past experiences. I also like the Big 5 as you mentioned. MBTI is also lacking in describing say how aggressive you are, which I think is very important for you to know. I watched this playlist and this Youtuber to understand MBTI: Notice just how different MBTI explanations are, there is no agreed upon definitions: Honestly, I can learn more from Harry Potter houses than MBTI.

This one should be watched with them. It adds on the part 1.

I think spirituality (pursuing enlightenment) require you to put effort, pursue a desire, and make commitments as well, just like a LP. For example, if you do the letting go technique, on day one you let go of some things, the next day you let go of even more things, and so on. The letting go technique requires “effort”. I put effort in quotations because it’s a non-conventional idea of effort. Of course there’s conventional “effort” involved in taking the time out, consistency, etc. Truth or enlightenment will not come to you without pursuing it: without effort. It usually seems that you are being spiritual by lazing at home, but you are just surviving without even trying to let go of survival. If you choose to be lazy then you’re already dead in a way, because your life will be swept by the current of unconscious habits and society. If you’re not going to have any desires in life, not even the desire to understand reality, then what’s the point of living? You might as well die! Actually you’re already dead. It’s worse than death because you haven’t even let go of everything. What other alternative do you have to living a passionate life? It’s a passionate life (alive) where you go where you want, a desire less mediocre life (living-dead zombie), or death (which will anyway happen).

@Serotoninluv “Police and citizens in the US: Citizens: we have the right to bear arms in case a tyrannical government tries to control us Police: we need to militarize to protect ourselves because citizens are armed Citizens: police are militarizing, the government wants to control us. we need less gun control, not more Police: we need more funding for more guns because citizens have fire power equal to us And its a revolving door in America”

I probably am but I still think that if we can look at statistics that show how likely people are to shoot at a cop issuing a traffic ticket, how likely is a gun to save an officer’s life if someone does pull out a gun, how many innocent lives police’s guns take, and how many officer’s they save, we might come to a different conclusion than yours. But countries other than the USA should consider disarming some tiers of the police. It seems the argument that citizens should have the right to bear arms to protect against a tyrannical government falls apart if the government is reacting to citizens bearing arms by equipping itself with even more arms. For example having every police officer with a gun in reaction to every citizen with a gun. A better strategy would be to put a cap on the militarization of both the government and the citizens.

Ever since 2020 started the news cycle and social media has been nothing but negative. They focus on negative stories and present them in ways that push all our emotional triggers. Outrage culture is at it’s prime on social media. All this is really bad for mental health, so I decided I’ll share one of Leo’s older videos to remind everyone to distance themselves from the media to focus on their actual priorities. Remember, the world is not as bad as they want you you to believe. Replace the word TV with social media, youtube, news, etc.

I think this situation can tell us about how much tension there is in such situations which can escalate to police brutality, implicit racism, and unnecessary killing. Studying such situations, we can learn how many unnecessary lives guns with officers take versus the lives they save. Think about what the tension in this situation might look like without guns. There shouldn’t be this much tension over a DUI arrest. Cops shouldn’t carry weapons that can kill you in a millisecond in such situations. I predict reducing the number of guns from officers will save more lives than it will take. (I haven’t looked at any studies so I might be very wrong) I also think cops who deal with DUI’s and traffic laws shouldn’t have the same equipment and policies as the cops who deal with gang members and murders. Those are two very different situations. PS: I understand that there is a fear that someone might shoot the police officer without a gun but I would hypothesize it’s less probable than a police officer using a gun in a moment like the one above.

Idk know much about tasers, but I don’t think they are designed to kill. How much of a danger is a man with a gun? I’m sure they could have come up with a strategy to corner him. I could understand if he was a sociopath or a high profile killer. I also understand the cop didn’t do anything wrong, he did what he was ‘taught’. Maybe we can teach cops not to shoot if they don’t suspect any further criminal activity. Another suggestion would be to have only a few specialist cops with guns so that if there is a tough situation they can be called for backup. I don’t think we need every cop with a gun.(Risk vs reward)

@Leo Gura Did he really need to shoot him? The black man was clearly trying to get away, not trying to harm the officers. He didn’t even go towards his car. They had no reason to believe he was going to kill someone. They could have tried instead to call backup and look for him later. I’m not blaming the cop. This incident highlights a systemic issue in the US police. The officers are too eager to pull their triggers on petty criminals. It wouldn’t have mattered that much if he ran of with a tazer or even a gun. So many American already own guns.

“Out beyond ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” - Rumi

I have been listening to Cornel West recently. Although he is brilliant in politics and African-American Culture, I find him to be an inside the box thinker for a philosopher. I have yet to hear him talk about things like the nature of thought, nature of mind, nature of language, experience, reality, the structure of beliefs, awareness and consciousness. These things are absolutely essential for “philosophers”. I think he’s a good case study for stage green. He has healthy stage green qualities no doubt but don’t forget to look at his limitations. He is lost in thinking yet knows nothing about the nature of the mind. The love he talks about is a moralistic sort of love based in survival, not the love for existence as it is; not the love for isness. Imo that’s the difference between yellow and green, yellow realizes morals don’t exist. Turquoise realizes and appreciates consciousness.

So I've been thinking that it may not be true that suffering must be avoided at all costs, or that spirituality is something that is anti-suffering. I would like to question the general assumption that happiness is the ultimate goal here. I think suffering, strife, sadness, struggle, and grief can be beautiful experiences too. Sort of like when parents work hard to ensure a good life for their children or a lover doing something very difficult for his/her love. We like that suffering. There is a 1st order happiness behind the veneer of suffering. It seems we like to do irrational things and suffer all because of Love. So therefore, it is not happiness but Love/passion/obsession which is greater than superficial happiness. This perhaps breaks the duality between suffering and happiness? What do you say?

Ya absolutely.

@IAmTheHolySpirit Sorry, I completely disagree. Detachment is a small part of Love. Attachment is part of Love, so is suffering. Don’t kid yourself. You’re as attached as anybody. As long as you’re alive you’re attached. If you were truly detached you wouldn’t care if you were alive or dead. You would just sit and let go of everything. Life is suffering. We can learn to not view it as bad or negative. If you want to live (which most of us want) then you’re by default attached. You have preferences, values, likes, dislikes, etc, etc. The pursuit of Truth is itself an attachment. Passion is necessary to live a good life. You need passion to find Truth. Leo cover this topic extensively in Life Advice for Young People Part 1. Passion is really important.

These are two of my favorite Sikh devotional prayers/songs. They are directly from the Sikh Holy Book. Music is a big part of Sikhism and chanting mantras (Jap) is a big part of Sikhism. The music is given by their gurus, I think, it is suppose to heal you. If you don't know about the Sikhs, you should Google them. Their teaching come from their 10 Gurus and many other Muslim and Hindu spiritual people of those times. These have translations to read along.

@Leo Gura Doesn't the duality between negative and positive motivation break at a certain point in the path?

I'm creating this to share some of the spiritual music I found on Youtube. Some of these might not have subtitles in English so I decided to create a thread in the Journal section to explain them fully. I'll start by posting one of my favorite ones.

@Leo Gura The Arnold Schwarzenegger videos you linked don’t resonate at all with me. The underlying vibe is of greed, lust and gross survival, and not of meditativeness, curiously and playfulness. The videos seem very dirty. ? Don’t you think there is a more quieter, conscious way that doesn’t require me turning into a Slytherin or an animal for success? Perhaps a stage green or above motivation? @lostmedstudent Identify your top values and follow through on them - this is what motivation boils down to, I think.

I have narrow all the traps I faced in self-actualizing to the ten biggest ones. These are the traps that I personality had trouble with the most. Feel free to share your list of top 10 traps. Top 10 traps (biggest to smallest): Realizing life is meaningless and not having desires. Desires do not cause suffering. You will be swept by unconscious desires if you have no meaning. Realizing the NOW or realizing thoughts/symbols are not the thing and thinking that is the end. It's the beginning. Not learning concentration, thinking letting the mind wander all the time is a good thing. Concentration is letting go, not suppression. Exerting effort is not bad. Not realizing intuition. Once you do you will go from negative to positive motivation. Differentiate between subconscious biases and intuition. Realizing the limitations of thinking and trying not to use it at all. Thinking, symbols, and words are very useful and necessary. Not realizing awareness has degrees. I find doing various practices increases consciousness, it's not constant all the time. Not having any ideals/vision to strive to. You need goals and ideals to guide you on the journey. Connects to 1,2 ,4 and 5. Ignoring the subconscious. It will come out when you least expect. It clouds judgement and intuition. Not paying attention to everyday life/survival. It will become a bottle neck to your growth. Thinking pleasure/comfort is happiness. It will lead to negative motivation. Suffer more mindfully, suffering is not bad. There are many more traps but these are the most time consuming ones for me. You will notice that many of these traps are preceded by a realization. This happens when realizations are not deep enough, or we don’t see all aspects of the realization, or when we emphasize some aspects of it too much. Little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Most of these traps come from reading and listening to Jiddu Krishnamurti and some UG Krishnamurti. From what I got, J Krishnamurti basically taught differentiating our thoughts from the thing/reality to see the NOW. Which is good but his teaching put too much emphasis on that and not on things like concentration. He also didn't believe in any practices. Ime practices like meditation, concentration, and yoga increase my awareness. He leaves out A LOT and puts too much emphasis on some things. Be wary of these traps above when reading these krishnamurtis. My advice would be to not stick to one teacher or technique but to explore many. That way you can avoid falling in their traps. You can see which ones increase your awareness the most and which ones don't. Lastly, having a desire to improve, a vision and disciplining the mind is crucial, let no one tell you otherwise.

First, recognize that life is meaningless and that’s NOT a negative thing. You are projecting negativity on to meaninglessness. It can be a positive or a negative. But it’s neither. Things are things, everything IS. There is no reason or why. You don’t have to do anything. Signs. symbols and words have meaning, a cloud floating in the sky has no meaning. Second, recognize that because you don’t have to do anything, you are free to do anything. That’s where you have to recognize your intuition. What does your deepest intuition want? (Trap number 4) Ask yourself, what do I want to do? Do I want to die?... What does intuition tell me?... No?... Then how do I want to live?... An amazing life?... What does that entail?... and so on. Leo has videos on it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zGDGobqibDc (relevant to you, his other videos can be misleading if you don’t understand this.)