aurum

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Everything posted by aurum

  1. Yes I've seen someone claim a "walk-in" IRL. What to make of it I think is still beyond my understanding.
  2. That analogy seems to aligns with what they are saying. For instance, they mentioned that if they both leave the both simultaneously, the body apprently will just fall to the floor. I will have to contemplate it further.
  3. There are four parts for anyone following: Part 4 is maybe the most interesting in terms of looking at the metaphysics of all this. They appear to share a pretty typical New Age view, which is that humanity to going through a spiritual evolution in order to meet the collective challenges we are facing. Interesting though that they emphasize that this evolution is "slow", as apposed to many New Agers who assume this process will be extremely rapid. Also, tons of respect for Dr. Mishlove for how he conducted this interview. His open-mindedness and warmth made for an excellent conversation. All of them had great chemistry together.
  4. I'd agree with that. But in this specific case, that seems like an oversimplification. If we take their story at face value, what they are describing is not just a pastiche of identities. They are able control different parts of the physical body, enter and exit at will, have different memories, skills and feel each other's presence. They even have a different voice. If let myself drop the social exception of having to be the "same person", I will still not look anything like this. So it's much more extreme than anything most people experience. Also, they don't appear to have classic dissociative disorder. So what other explanations are left? We could argue they are making it all up, but that also is a weak explanation. What would they have to gain by making something like this up?
  5. I’m inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt that there is something spiritual happening here. It is not mental illness. They seem too well-adjusted and intelligent for that. I don’t quite understand the intricacies of how it works. Clearly it’s a non-dual phenomenon.
  6. 1) I have already made a suggestion for you to read and you have not done so. Read Yoga Body by Mark Singleton. Read Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and notice the distinct lack of modern asanas. It’s not until the Hatha Yoga Pradipika that we start to get modern asanas, but even here it’s minimal compared to what we have now. Most of the modern asanas we see people practicing don’t come online until people like Krishnamacharya, Swami Kuvalayananda, Yogendra, Iyengar, Desikachar, Pattabhi Jois and Indra Devi, Bishnu Charan Ghosh and Bikram Choudhury come along. Feel free to fact check all this with GPT. 2) It’s not necessary for you to give up all of Hatha Yoga. If you feel it’s meeting your goals, great. Keep it up. I am interested in critiquing the parts of modern yoga I find most problematic. Not getting people to stop practicing. The main traps to look out for are the following: excessive passive stretching, contortionism / hyper mobility, chasing "advanced" poses, guru worship, unsubstantiated health & wellness claims, excessive capitalism and unsubstantiated spiritual claims. 3) Ultimately, the fact that yoga is evolving IS a good thing! We want yoga to keep evolving and adapting to meet the needs of modern people. This is the downside of following a strictly traditional path, like Sadhguru is talking about in your video. In particular, I would like to see Yoga integrate more modern biomechanics and scientifically rigorous health claims.
  7. You said you were a non-believer? If you do want a serious relationship with her, then I misinterpreted your post. Please clarify what you meant and the situation between you and her.
  8. It has nothing to do with discrimination. She seems to believe in serious relationships and you don’t. So you two are not match in this context.
  9. My intention is to dispel myths about yoga for anyone reading this. Fair enough, I can't disprove or prove whatever personal experience you've had with this. But I'm also going to share my experience, which is that asanas are minimally effective for spiritual growth and basic health and wellness. They were not. Your assumption of how these asanas were created is too romantic. I'd encourage you to read some history on this topic. I have already offered one credible text in my previous post: Yoga Body by Mark Singleton. No they have not. This is the whole reason why I mentioned that asanas are mostly a modern, western development. People have created these romantic fantasies about why asanas exist. Which then encourages you to practice them more and more, thinking you are practicing some ancient spiritual technique that all the great yogis followed to become enlightened. There certainly has been some Eastern influence. People can experience benefits from Hatha Yoga. Hatha Yoga might encourage you to be more physically active, to take care of yourself, to set aside time for self-care, to meditate, to breathe, to turn inward, to relax, etc. You could also find community of people doing the same, which can be powerful. Also, it might encourage you to contemplate, take psychedelics or get into deeper spiritual work in some other way. So it's a mixed bag. It's not a simple as saying no one benefits from doing Hatha Yoga. It's some combination of real benefits + real problems + spiritual group think + romantic fantasies. Real yogis never did modern-form asanas. Asanas not even in the Yoga Sutras. The people doing modern asanas are mostly the people you are describing. Believe what you want. I am not saying you believe you are enlightened. I am saying beware of thinking you need to create perfect symmetry in the body.
  10. The charges are strong enough. But the legal experts I’ve seen so far have said that it’s very unlikely he will face prison. So no.
  11. I very much disagree with this post. I would read a book called Yoga Body by Mark Singleton. Asanas are largely a western, modern development and NOT part of yoga as a traditional practice. This doesn't on its own doesn't mean that asanas are useless. But having done many hours of asana yoga myself and been around yogis doing the same, I would argue your claims are way too strong. Asanas do not make you any more likely to download spiritual insights than just sitting comfortably or taking a walk. In fact, all those asanas can easily just become a distraction from contemplating. You are also never going to "make yourself completely symmetric and balanced". There is no such thing in the physical body. So beware of chasing something that doesn't exist, on top of assuming it will make you enlightened. In addition, all the physical stretching that typically comes from asanas is often not good for the body. This is especially true in schools of yoga like Ashtanga. You are basically asking for hyper-mobility problems. If you want to practice asanas, just stick to the basic ones and stay away from most of the passive stretching. Keep your poses ACTIVE, i.e under your own bodily strength. And don't go down this rabbit hole of chasing more and more "advanced" poses. Huge trap.
  12. It’s shocking and completely not shocking at the same time. Most of us here had an idea of what kind of character Trump was. Now we wait and see what happens with sentencing.
  13. @Agrande All things in health and wellness require you to pick your battles. You have limited time and resources. So the question really is, is the EMF minimizaton battle worth fighting? And to what degree? There are anecdotes about people who seem to be extreme electrosensitive, or those who experience ill effects from extremely high doses. But unless you'd fall into either of those categories, basic precautions will probably suffice. Don't strap your cell phone to your head all day and you'll probably be fine. You can invest in earthing materials (www.earthing.com) if you want to go the extra mile. But you should also know that such products and practices have limited scientific consensus at this point. You could just be throwing away your money.
  14. People are dumping on conspiracy theories because there is so much self-deception going on in conspiracy theorists. Conspiracy theories are a deep trap. I can create any theory with a "spiritual foundation".
  15. The shift you’ve made personally over the past year has been really noticeable. The tone, the authenticity and general maturity stands out to me a lot in the newer videos. Just wanted to reflect that and say thank you for making those changes and setting an example for us.
  16. You don’t even need to be a math nerd to see the flaws. His “proof” doesn’t even follow basic laws of algebra. Most high school kids should be able to debunk it.
  17. There will certainly be a lot of devilry that goes down, that much is guaranteed. It's just a question of whether it will be a net-positive or net-loss for humanity's development. So far, I'm leaning towards net-positive. Humans have been developing revolutionary technologies for a long time, and they have mostly been net-positive in the long-term. I think it's a mistake to assume that our timing in history is so unique that this trend would stop. But it's a genuinely unclear situation that is near impossible to predict.
  18. Whatever risks exists related to not taking in nutrients for 72+ hours. You’d probably have to speak to a doctor or dietician with an understanding of fasting to get a real assessment of your personal risk profile. The most obvious one to me is simply muscle loss. To put it plainly, if your fast causes you to lose muscle, then it’s hard to justify it in terms of cost / benefit. Muscle is extremely valuable from a health perspective. But it’s also easy to lose and hard to gain back. You will be in an extended catabolic state while fasting and it’s very possible you could lose muscle. Other potential risks could be dehydration from throwing off your electrolyte balance, exacerbating already present nutritional deficiencies, passing out, hypotension, heart palpitations etc. In general, people in the alternative health community can be sloppy with their risk assessment of their various interventions. They will point out all the potential side effects of pharmaceuticals, but not mention their own.
  19. I'm not vegan myself but I am generally sympathetic to the cause. I think we can improve our relationship with the other animals on the planet. So I'm just going to lay out what I feel are a necessary criteria for anyone interested in making veganism more mainstream: 1) Show how veganism significantly reduces the externalities that come from human survival compared to eating meat. The accounting needs to be holistic, including whatever externalities are caused by a vegan diet, including things like Big Agriculture. This is much more challenging than I see many vegans admitting. It is not easy to significantly reduce externalities. 2) Show how veganism will be nutritionally superior, or at least on par, with eating meat. Right now vegans are losing on this point. But this may change in the future as we improve on things like lab grown meat, supplementation, etc. 3) Make veganism pragmatic and accessible to the average person. If people have to spend an extra 10 hours a day to be vegan, pragmatically no one will do so. It needs to be convenient. 4) You need to win a large culture war around the tradition of eating meat. Many people eat meat simply because it's a part of their culture and identity. Just being mad at people for eating meat accomplishes nothing. And it's foolish to think you can just demand society change. You have to actually solve these problems.
  20. This guy's channel is so good at illuminating the geo-political chess game. 10/10
  21. Not legally. There would have to be a trial for that. Maybe. It’s certainly not a good look for Israel. But given that there will be no trial, I suspect ramifications will be relatively minor.
  22. My guess is that it's unlikely there will be any serious consequences for the Israeli leaders. Symbolic move more than anything else.
  23. @shree honestly I don’t really recommend longer fasts for people at this point. My experience is that the benefits are largely overhyped and you’re mostly just putting yourself through unnecessary suffering / risk. You’ll have to decide for you. If you are going to do it, here’s some hacks that will help: 1) Electrolytes. There are specific fasting supplements that exist you can purchase. Some people try to make their own or just add salt to their water, not recommended. Get a real brand. Also I’d recommend spring / mineral water (not distilled!) 2) Essentially amino acid supplement (EAAs). These are such a hack because they allow you to get protein in without breaking your fast. Perfect Amino is a brand I like. 3) Assume you will have no energy to do anything. You may be functional, but that’s not gamble you want to take. Plan like you know you are going to be sick for those couple days. And just relax. 4) I like breaking my fast with watermelon. Super easy to digest, kicks you out of fasting mode quickly.