Apparition of Jack

You know, I'm going to go ahead and say that IQ is a dogshit metric for evaluating humans and could be done away with tomorrow without much detriment to human society. @GenuinePerspectiveXC You say that most people would prefer to spend time around people with higher IQs. I say "show me the evidence." Remember - IQ tells you nothing about social intelligence or wisdom. Perhaps someone says "would you like to meet this 90 IQ person, or 170 IQ person." You say you want to meet the 170 IQ person. Turns out, they're a black market surgeon who takes pleasure from performing live experiments on kidnapped people and ignoring their cries for help. The 90 IQ person, on the other hand, is a volunteer at their local charity shop who takes pleasure in asking the people they meet their life stories. And if you're still convinced that IQ is a "reasonable metric for judging people", then that shows you that you simply haven't expanded your level of concern enough, and by relying on it too heavily you will fail to do so. Your goal in life is not to surround yourself with people who will reinforce your views and make you "feel good." Your goal in life is to develop as much compassion and care for as many beings as possible. You should, if you're doing self-actualisation correctly, feel a deep sense of love and concern for a potato stuck in a wheelchair unable to even wipe their own ass. You should feel a deep sense of love and compassion for a literal earthworm. YOU ARE GOD, so you get to decide how much God loves EVERYONE or how much God loves autistic minutia like IQ scores.

Who says there's a difference? You could spend a decade living isolated in the country, doing nothing but reading, meditating, doing self-inquiry and self-actualising, before moving to the city and becoming an utter beast at business (ethical business, mind you.) David Bowie studied as a Buddhist monk before deciding his life purpose was to be a musician. So did Tom Waits. On the flipside, Matthieu Ricard was on par to become a very respected molecular biologist, before he decided to drop everything and become a Tibetan monk in the Himalayas. Emma Slade was a successful investor becoming a Buddhist nun. It's called the Hero's Journey, not Hero's "State of Being." Things can and will change for you. Follow your intuition in the current moment, and your path will unfold over time.

@Aeris That depends on what my ego wants and what will help it survive. If I had a Nazi ego that wanted a white ethnostate in order for it to survive, it would agree with that statement. If I had a refugee ego that wanted a place to stay after fleeing war in order for it to survive, it would disagree with that statement. The key thing I would try to keep in mind though is that in both cases, it would just be my ego trying to survive, rather than me actually experiencing Being without fear of survival. And I would try to choose the path that would make it easier for my ego to let go of that fear of survival (one based on love for all, self-care and courage), rather than a path that would make it harder to let go (one based on division, self-hate and fear.)

@Angelo John Gage Alright, I will try and point out what I see as your biases. Feel free to accept or reject them as you see fit. Anyway, here goes: - You have been indoctrinated by white ethno-nationalist ideology. This doesn't make you evil or bad - it means you have an ideology that doesn't align with reality. - You think white ethno-nationalist ideology is correct, because your ego directly benefits from it. If you were say, black or Chinese, you would not believe this ideology, since it would be a threat to your ego. - Since being an ethno-nationalist is frowned upon by mainstream society, your ego has had to try and pretend to itself that it isn't one, by using fancy ideas like "anti-supremacist" as as a way to deflect its white supremacist feelings. - You are still too caught up in the materialist paradigm. Physical science can only point to reality; it is never reality itself. Breaking this down could take a while, but it will have to be done if you wish to move up to Green, Yellow and Turquoise. Again, feel free to accept or reject any of these words as you please, whether you do or not doesn't really matter to my ego. I am saying these things because I care about you and hope that they will get you to look at yourself more critically, not because I'm trying to hurt you or make you look bad.

@Aeris The biggest danger to your own peace and liberty is your own ego. Be mindful of that. All the dangers of the world cannot touch you if you've broken down the illusions the devil has created to keep you trapped (and yes, I mean that literally, even falling bombs and insane murderers are no threat to you if your consciousness is high enough.) @Angelo John Gage I'm done with this conversation. This is not a cop-out, it's just a recognition that there's no point in continuing a discussion with someone so blind to their own biases. Please don't think I'm trying to be rude to you, as another conscious human being I care about you and wish to see you grow and be well. But this is the truth of the matter and I have to say it.

@Angelo John Gage You are still far, far too caught up in stage blue/purple ethno-nationalism to see just how badly you're deceiving yourself. If you're unwilling to shed your preconceived stage blue notions about race and culture, you will be stuck in this stage until the day you die. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that on an absolute level, it's really just a question of whether you want any sort of metaphysical clarity or not.

@Angelo John Gage @Aeris Both of you are way too caught up in the race-baiting and mass hysteria currently going on. If you want to self-actualise and raise your consciousness, you need to cut that shit out of your lives ASAP. Get smart about the content you consume, and be very skeptical of any and all news information being presented to you (protip: you ARE being lied to, yes even by the organisations you deem "trustworthy.")

@Angelo John Gage America's current social ills are not due to genetic differences between ethnicities, but due to decades of economic and social mismanagement at the hands of people who really should've known better. A prosperous, safe and coherent multiracial America is 100% possible, but not so long as there are devils who try and divide and manipulate the population for their own egoic needs. It will also involve a lot of open re-evaluating by Americans on what it truly means to be an American, but there are answers to this question out there, and when this has been done it will become so obvious at just how much the current feelings of fear and division were simply based on ignorance. As always, the answer to these problems is to raise the consciousness of society. More consciousness = more integrated, safer, more prosperous society. Less consciousness = more divided, more dangerous, poorer society.

@Angelo John Gage IQ is malleable. 100 years ago the average IQ for American citizens was 30 points lower than it is today. Does that mean that Americans 100 years ago were "genetically inferior" to modern Americans? No, of course not, that would be completely ridiculous to suggest that, since they literally created the genetic pool of current Americans. What changed was not some magic shift in race or genetics, but an increase in the economic, social and educational standards of American society. You take "some dude" from the Congo with an IQ of 70, give him and his community access to safe water, affordable healthcare, quality education, an effective police force, reliable sources of nutrients, a functioning law system, etc., and within two or three decades him and his community's average IQ would've skyrocketed. The reason this hasn't happened is because there just hasn't been the social and political will to do it, not because genetic differences make rises in IQ impossible. EDIT: This is also nothing to say about how limited IQ is for measuring the health and wisdom of a society, although this has already been touched upon by others.

Do you mean in the sense that he was a non-physical being from a much higher dimension who "took on" a human form for the sake of uplifting humanity / performing miracles? Or that he was an extra-terrestrial from a more evolved race of people on a different planet?

@Zizzero These are not airy-fairy philosophical questions though. These are deeply practical, deeply relevant questions about the state of the world we're in today. It's very hard to self-actualize if you're rotting in the dungeons of a prison because something about you triggers violent reactionaries. And yes, this is the potential future we're heading towards if conscious people don't do the gruelling work needed to prevent this. This isn't to scare you, really it isn't. I wish this wasn't happening. But it is. And the time for wishy-washy kumbayah nonsense about "all opinions being equally valid" has long since left. Please don't make the mistake that too many spiritual people make and think spirituality is somehow "above" or "unconcerned with" political issues. The Buddha railed against the corrupt caste system of his day, despite all the resistance he got for it. Jesus called out the Temple authorities and the Romans for their hypocrisy and oppression. Spirituality and politics are deeply intertwined.

I think you're overestimating the level of development of most people. Even most Democrat voters are very unthinking, gullible and selfish (although generally less so than Republicans.) A successful, relatively-tolerant Harvard educated New England businessman can still fall pray to his own (and to his culture's) ego. "I voted for Trump because he brought mojo back to America! And yeah, I'm not so hot on all the sexist and racial stuff, but come on, who here hasn't said embarrassing things like that? We're all human, I think his heart is in the right place." See all the hoops and jumps the ego is going through to justify voting for an aggressive, racist, sexist devil for president? You have to be extremely careful with all the "logic" and "reasons" you use to defend any of your political worldviews. You will be tricked by the ego.

@EvilAngel That's one hell of an ego backlash you're going through

@CMacD This sexy piece here

@lukej Damn. I have no words bro. What a shitshow. If you'd like, I will pray for you during this stage of your journey Actually, maybe you could look into visualisation yourself as a way of healing? Maybe think about doing some Medicine Buddha visualisations, for instance. Would that be something you'd be interested in?

I try to focus on policies over labels. If a Republican supports taking radical action on climate change, I will support him in that. If that same Republican also opposes increasing the minimum wage, I will oppose him in that.

What does your spiral stage have to do with productivity?

You are God. You are creating reality. By not wanting to harm another person (who you're imagining) even when you know it's the right decision to make, you will keep yourself bonded to that fear. Other people are surprisingly resilient. Even if they are hurt by decisions you make, so long as you do it from a place of love and truth, they will accept and understand them. It might even inspire them to make hard decisions they have been putting off themselves.

I've always been interested in the mystical American spiritual traditions of the 1800s. Stuff like Transcendentalism, the Swedenborgians, even some of the Quaker movements. I feel like they had an understanding of non-dual Truth, whether they were aware of it or not.

It's a good thing that you recognise these things. This self-awareness shows you already have the capability to correct them.

Why would you want to stay in a cult if you know it's a cult?

Something about Rick and Morty rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's how it's essentially stage Orange propaganda, maybe it's how it rubs off a very nihilistic and violent worldview onto its audience. Either way, I can't see much spiritual benefit in watching it.

I can't speak for sure, since there may be more to it than this, but perhaps the reason Sadhguru and Leo disagree is because they're talking to different audiences. Sadhguru obviously has a huge Indian following, and Indian society is very conducive to taking up yoga, finding a genuine guru, and so on. It makes sense for him to tell his followers to find a guru, since their life situation makes it that much easier to do so. Sadhguru himself has also initiated hundreds or possibly thousands of qualified teachers around the world through his Isha foundation, so it makes sense for him to promote that as a path to enlightenment. Leo's audience on the other hand are mostly young Westerners who are caught in the thick of toxic materialist capitalism. Starting any sort of legitimate, long-term spiritual practice here (whether that's yoga, mindfulness, etc.) has a lot more hurdles to it than it does in the East (skeptical family/friends, ruthless financial demands, over-consumerist culture, etc.) We in some sense are spiritually "isolated", and have to take a more pro-active role in teaching ourselves. There are spiritual communities here, but they tend to be a lot more watered down than in the East or, even worse, a cult. To that end, I imagine Leo feels that for the genuine seekers here, teaching yourself Kriya Yoga is beneficial for self-actualization, in lieu of making the (drastically difficult) lifestyle change of taking up full-time study under a certified guru. Is it the most optimal situation we find ourselves in? No, but we've got to make do with what we've got.

@Truth Addict Honest question, why are you even alive? It seems like you don't want to do anything at all@Truth Addict

@Truth Addict What makes you think your hard work won't pay off until you die? In fact if you're serious about whatever it is you're aiming towards you should see results within even just a couple of years.