aurum

Higher: Non-materialism, ego-awareness, non-resistance, autonomous meaning and decision making

Don't care enough to watch but I'm a casual sports fan. I played a ton of sports growing up and still enjoy a good pick-up game every once in a while. It's fun and good for your health as long as you don't overdo it. And it helps me bond with more mainstream people. You can definitely participate in sports from a higher or lower perspective. Also, I just checked the score and the Chiefs are getting spanked. Justice exists

Higher: Cognitive complexity, construct-awareness, pluralism, root-cause thinking, emphasis on ecology / well-being, high ethical standards, lack of demonization

As if Trump and his goon squad are interested in a nuanced, complex discussion around reform of the CFPB that will lead to the betterment of everyone.

Lower: conflating truth with pragmatism, lack of construct-awareness around scientific, circular reasoning. In contrast with, Higher: Construct-awareness, meta-rationality, transcends and includes lower perspectives

I'm not talking about heads of departments. Obviously every president does that. I'm talking about the deep state. The thousands of federal bureaucrats and workers we have. Also, it should be noted that Trump's choices of department heads are not just normal picks. They are badly unqualified and deep loyalists. This is a false reduction. Corrupting elections is only one part of authoritarianism. Also ,Trump has already attempted to steal one election. Elon donated $270 million for this one. I have no faith they will not at least try further corrupting our elections. They do not believe in democracy. This is also completely false. The president has many checks on its powers. That's the whole point of why the Founding Fathers drafted the constitution the way they did. Checks and balances. President is checked by Congress, the Supreme Court, and in modern times the deep state. This is as it should be, because presidents are not supposed to be kings. The president only has the power to veto a law that Congress has approved. But even this veto can be overturned by Congress. Presidents absolutely cannot unilaterally decide which laws to execute. The "keystone pipeline" was not a law passed by Congress. What Biden did was reverse an executive order that Trump did and that some people argued overstepped his powers. This is not the same thing. If Trump wants to abuse executive orders, you can expect they will be overturned when another president comes steps in. This is again false. A president can veto a law only before it has been signed into law. Once it's signed, it's done. The president can legally do pardons, this is true. But it would certainly be unwise to abuse such a power. If you are pardoning people committing authoritarian acts, the pardon itself becomes authoritarian. Just look at all the lawsuits being filed.

What's your argument for this?

The entire premise of Project 2025 was unitary executive theory. Which is essentially just removing as many checks on Donald Trump's power as possible and replacing gov officials with loyalists who will do all his bidding. Again, you can argue this is what the people voted for. But in that case they voted for authoritarianism. They voted to destroy democracy. So it doesn't make much sense to still call what is happening democracy, assuming Trump and team succeed. If Elon Musk now has the power to override laws that have been signed into existence by Congress + president, are you still going to call that democracy because people voted for Trump? What about if they start refusing to obey federal court orders and are no longer accountable to the justice system?

I don't understand your perspective then. If you've been having profound spiritual experiences for almost a decade, you must have realized God. And you must have realized awakening is not just about aimlessly wandering forever, however poetic that may sound. What are some of the infinite possibilities of the valley that Wilber is missing?

You can argue the American people democratically elected him to be an authoritarian. But their end goal is still authoritarianism.

Trump was elected to do Project 2025, which is in essence an authoritarian takeover of the government. I see no evidence republicans will suddenly change their mind. Trump will likely only lose support if things go very badly economically and a significant percentage of the public turn on him.

@Nilsi What is your relationship to mysticism? Have you realized God yet? Your work is academically impressive, which I respect. But I think you are ultimately missing the larger point. The reason for the resolution into a synthetic whole is because reality IS ONE. That includes the distinction between sameness / difference. The genius of Hegelian dialectic is that it moves the mind towards ONENESS. Both have some truth. No, the very condition is God. Which is infinity, which is ONE. Any difference you can make is included in this. Maybe I don't understand what Nietzsche means by "will to power", but this sounds very wrong to me. There is no relationship between personal power and higher states of consciousness. I think the bottom line is that neither Nietzsche or Deleuze understood God all that well. So it's a mistake to take these guys too seriously when it comes to the ultimate questions.

That's right. That's one of the challenges of this work. 100% yes. I recommend being highly selective about who and what insights you share, as well as when to share them. They will probably notice some changes, but they won't be able to understand why. There's a lot I don't communicate. Just do the work. You don't need your family to understand or approve of it. Be the captain of your life. When you're with your family, you talk about more normal stuff they can relate to. Your career, your kids, mortgage, blah blah blah. And yes that kind of shallow socializing can be really uninteresting. Often I struggle to stay engaged. But you're probably going to have to deal with these kind of people for the rest of your life. So get used to it. You can sometimes frame things for them in more simplistic ways they will understand ( "I want to be a better person", "I want to explore my potential", "I'm maturing as a person") without going into excessive detail. Also, make sure you make an effort to carve out solitude + deeper friendships where you can engage in deeper topics that feel more authentic. I have a handful of people I share some of my deeper thoughts, which helps a lot.

Good stuff. You're on the right track, just need to deepen your understanding. Because you are not really human. This is what is revealed with awakening. No, these experiences are not just human. Not if you go deep enough. That's the whole point. They are transcendent because they transcend being human. That's why we have tools to help your tiny monkey brain You just need to contemplate. If you watched Leo's series, then should already have a good place to start. What's wrong with post-modernism? What does it get wrong? Keep working at that until it's clear.

Don't spread BS. Plants and trees absolutely need to obtain energy from outside them. Some plants are even carnivores, like the Venus fly trap. But mostly it's through photosynthesis, which is absolutely not free. Just because their survival doesn't look like human survival doesn't mean it's not survival. That doesn't mean you can magically absorb free energy from them. Yes DNA is very cool. But you really need to be careful what kind of conclusions you draw from that. The fundamental flaw of all this new age stuff you are talking is making all kinds of assumptions about how reality must work.