trenton

@Breakingthewall This still sounds like the idea that one day selfish and evil people will get what they deserve like the just world fallacy. My father used to preach to me about how evil people would one day get what was coming to them as he read the bible to me. I'm not convinced that these types of people are horrified at what they have become. My understanding of karma is much more nuanced than the fancy dressed up way of saying selfish people will ultimately fail. I see karma as multi dimensional and not just as a moral calculus. I see it as multi generational with extremely complex consequences which cannot be clearly calculated. For example there can be karma from my family of criminals which created intergenerational trauma by creating a chaotic environment. Of course I ended up being hurt deeply without asking for any of this. Me being hurt without any fault of my own is a consequence of karma spanning across generations. It is not wrong or evil. Karma is impersonal even if it means innocent people get hurt because of it. Here is how my father described karma. "I am a good, honest drug dealer. I don't mix my drugs with rat poison. My crack is so good that my customers constantly come back looking for more. I end up making even more money off of this. This is a sign sent from God that I am a good person and what goes around comes around. God is rewarding me with more money and customers for this crack. I don't really believe in the devil, but I do believed that evil people will get what's coming to them."

@Leo Gura I think you might be making a mistake here. Can you walk me through how a 12 year old is supposed to protect himself from his father and his gang of sexual predators armed with guns? I'm not saying you should tolerate this abuse from others. I'm saying that some people are powerless and are forced to endure these sorts of things like being born into slavery for instance or being an infant abandoned by your mother as you die in a dumpster for being a rape baby. Perhaps you are referring to my silence which enabled this to continue. In my case it might sound shocking, but I loved my parents too much to turn them into the police. Sometimes I end up angry with myself for loving them which enabled several layers of complex manipulation. I find that I am able to forgive my father, but I am not able to forgive myself. Is this the sort of behavior you are referring to? Is it my selfishness of not caring enough about the other children to ensure the gang was brought to justice?

@Leo Gura I have three questions about your views on selfishness. First of all, you mention that excessive selfishness is self-defeating and only works in the short term. However, there are extremely devilish psychopaths like my father and his gang who often get away with their crimes and harming others for their own gain. For some of them they completely get away with things like molesting children by preying on the child's shame and silence. Some of them go their entire lives without any consequences. Therefore, when you say selfishness only works in the short term and ultimately fails because reality is fundamentally selfless, it starts to sound like a perversion of karma and the just world fallacy. What do you mean exactly when you say selfishness is short term and self-defeating if not that one day psychopaths will not be able to get away with horrific devilry? You probably mean something more nuanced than what I'm describing. Furthermore, if I must be selfish in order to survive at all, then does that mean that my existence is self-defeating because survival is temporary game? thirdly, I have a scenario I want you to consider. I want to see how you would apply your level of consciousness to this situation. Suppose your psychopathic father took you with him to make a deal with his gang. When you arrived a group of men started offering your father money to have you spend the night with them in exchange for sexual favors. In this situation you are a child and these men are sexually exploiting other minors. When I was in this situation I was terrified of these men and I thought they were evil. I ended up staying silent. How would you apply your level of consciousness if your father sold you to these sex traffickers in exchange for 600 dollars, allowing them to gang rape you?

I want to discuss Leo's approach to discussing things like selfishness. I see how his framework around spirituality might ultimately hold people back by perpetuating their suffering. This isn't just a problem with Leo, but potentially other spiritual teachers as well. Leo discusses selfishness frequently in his spiritual framework. It carries a negative connotation because it is closely related with how he describes evil or the devil. Although there may be some truth to the framework, the framework itself is still a problem which prevents people from ultimately letting of selfishness and ego. In fact framing selfishness as being closely related to evil can reinforce that which we are trying to transcend. For example, if I recognize that I am selfish in any context, the idea of selfishness itself carries with it the connotation which in turn carries judgement which in turn is more ego and selfishness. Seeing selfishness or the devil in this way places you in a war with yourself which is ultimately counter to higher consciousness. You might think that reducing selfishness requires removing judgement of selfishness and evil, but if this attempt itself is coming from a place of needing to fix to avoid being selfish, then it implies a problem or undesirability which still implies judgement. I'm having a hard time finding the right words to describe this situation. Although true that selfishness can keep someone stuck in lower levels of consciousness, the point of view that this is evil, devilry, or in some way undesirable, sets connotations associated with selfishness which in turn implies judgement which comes from a place of ego which therefore reinforces ego and maintains the illusion rather than dissolves it. Of course if these teachings involve people with mental illness or already terrible self esteem problems, then I imagine that the problem would be even worse for them despite their efforts to find any way possible to heal. I think there needs to be a different framework for spirituality besides technically correct frameworks which themselves serve to maintain unconsciousness through implied judgements. Maybe this can be amended through Leo's other teachings which have implications of traps in other teachings. For example, in the episode about being wrong he points out that beating yourself up for being wrong is itself wrong. Similarly, he mentioned things like excessive guilt which is not a resourceful emotion and can hold you back from actualizing your highest self. I would suppose the implied teaching is that to see yourself as evil for being selfish is a trap which maintains unconsciousness, but I see selfishness and evil being closely related in his framework. The reason I am discussing this is because I am writing a book about self-love and this paradox came up. So long as any form of spirituality comes from a place of fixing something that is wrong, then it ultimately withholds self-love by requiring being different. I am currently seeing spirituality as a process of discovery. It is as if having insights about external phenomenon is ultimately learning about myself. Perhaps it is because the mind tends to immediately contextualize information in terms of what it means for me. It is as if I change when look at things in a new way. Of course none of this is a license to murder people just to be clear.

If Cthulu does this to everyone, I think we could all gang up on him and threaten him back. We have the force of every military on the planet and the world leaders aren't going to sit ideally by as this monster terrorizes the entire globe with impending doom. Maybe I'm taking it too literally.

@Human Mint I have a mixed relationship with videogames. The truth is that I love playing videogames and I'm really good at them. I played them a lot in my childhood. Once I was an adult and I started doing personal development, I then started thinking to myself that although videogames are fun they don't provide tangible value in terms of life purpose. I forced myself to stop playing videogames even though I loved them because I thought I was supposed to read all these self help books and build a compelling purpose. What ended up happening is I replaced videogames with social media. I watch a bunch of YouTube, look at this forum, and at some point porn which I also forced myself to stop watching and I had a journey with that. I ended up sinking a lot of hours into this stuff and I judged myself for not doing enough career building. At the same time I felt lost in life anyway no matter what I tried. I wanted to start playing videogames again, but I also have a book I'm working on. I am almost done with the introduction because I started it recently. It is a project for building around my life purpose. I'm not sure how I will balance these things once I add videogames.

@integration journey I wasn't trying to lucid dream and I didn't know there were techniques I was supposed to be using. I have had similar experiences before at my other house. I noticed in my previous lucid dream that I was also jumping between dreams. In those dreams I noticed I had some control over time and I could rewind the dream. That was also a very complicated lucid dream. It involved a cross over between Zelda, the Simpson's, and more sleep paralysis monsters. I'll try to describe that one too. at first I was in my bed and there was a monster standing by my bedside. This time the monster was my grandma and she was a vampire. I ignored it and instead closed my eyes, going back to full sleep from sleep paralysis. I then ended up in a dream where my bed started tilting up. I was able to reverse time before I finally let time carry on. The bed tilted up until I fell into a black hole that took me to a secret chamber. There were more skeletons and redeads from Zelda in there. I saw a bunch of statues in this long hallway. They looked like people paralyzed by the monsters. I became one of the frozen statues as I stood in the hallway. I stood "helplessly" as an elephant ran through the hallway and started crushing all the statues. It was obvious to me that all the statues would be crushed except me. That is what happened. The dream then disappeared. I ended up in a new dream where it looked like I was in the Simpson's. I was in an amusement park with lots of people having fun. I was not having fun though. I felt an uneasy sense of impending danger in the false safety. I went in an obstacle course with people jumping into these dark pits and dying but nobody paid much attention to that and just moved on. I finished the course until I ended up outside some kind of mansion. I laid out on one of those sunbathing chairs you are by pools. I silently looked to the sky contemplating what this fear and uneasy feelings might be coming from. Meanwhile other Simpson's characters observed me from the windows, but even Nelson decided to leave me alone. The Simpson's dream continued with some kind of ancient burial ground. There was a witch cackling as she formed a vortex that formed into another mansion. I once again started manipulating time, but eventually I let time proceed. eventually it all disappeared. I then woke up in a sleep paralysis episode again. This time I saw some kind of demonic symbol levitating above my body. I tried to cry out for help, but my vocal cords were weak due to the paralysis. Then someone came into my room. I thought it was my sister because she was the only one home. She started standing by my bedside smiling at me. I continued to make weak cries until the symbol disappeared. I noticed I could move and talk again. I looked at my sister and started thanking her. It was something like "hey Brieanna, thanks for helping! Brieanna! Brieanna!? Brieanna?" I sat up and the hallucination disappeared. I then realized that the hallucination looked more like a man than a woman. Apparently this kind of confusion is common in sleep paralysis. I used to sleep perfectly fine until the doctors started changing my medication. I now have more problems sleeping along with some withdraw affects. Maybe this is causing these complicated lucid dreams when I'm not even trying to have them.

This dream was really complicated and detailed, so I won't be able to remember everything. It was like I was creating multiple dreams simultaneously and jumping between dreams while being aware that I was dreaming and that I was able to have conscious influence over the dreams. It started when I saw a monster that usually walks up to my bed during sleep paralysis, but this time it was a dream in which I was in bed, but not sleep paralysis. As the monster approached me and tried to grab me, the monster began to fade. I was able to see that that the monster was nothing. As I saw this more deeply, the monster eventually disappeared entirely. This is when a different nightmare started to emerge. I recognized that I didn't like whatever it was that emerged, but I don't remember what it was. I recognized that that was also nothing. This nightmare also faded away. This is when new dreams started taking the place of the nightmare. They were dreams about me being inside videogames. There was one cool videogame I never saw before and clearly wasn't star wars, but Darth Vader was a character anyway despite this video game being a totally separate universe from star wars. This was some kind of Sherlock Holmes investigation video game, but this time with Darth Vader. He used the force to push me through the floor of a tall building. I fell through several floors and didn't feel any pain despite being clearly wounded. At some point there was an unstable floor I landed on as a man yelled out for me to move. I didn't move because I felt lazy due to being asleep. The floor cracked and I fell through. I recognized that this was nothing and everything began to disappear. A new dream emerged. It was another videogame. This time it was actual star wars. It looked like a video game I saw before. It was like star wars battle front. I played as a regular storm trooper while everyone else on my team played as an imperial engineer. I guess the strategy was to endlessly heal each other, but the shotgun is terrible at long distances so I used a blaster and thermal detonators instead. For some reason I started shooting everyone on my team so that they were nearly dead. This was before I realized I was on the empire team instead of the rebel team. We spent most of the match just running from the rebels. I recognized that this was nothing and everything disappeared. Another dream emerged. This time I was in a Harry potter videogame. This was the goblet of fire and I was fighting Voldemort in the graveyard. It looks like it did in the actual videogame I beat. My sister played as Hermione who shouldn't be there, but she was there anyway. She was telling me that I was doing a crappy job of deflecting Voldemort's spells. I complained that this never happened last time I played this videogame. I eventually died and spawned at the previous checkpoint. My sister continued to tell me how much I sucked at this game. Eventually I tried again, doing much better this time as I defeated the skeletons rising from the graves. With Voldemort's defeat clear, I began to recognize this as nothing and it faded away too. Another dream emerged. This time I was back in the Sherlock Holmes investigation video game, but this time Darth Vader was nowhere to be seen. I was in an old house looking for clues. I followed a dark corridor leading to a room with a bed sitting against the back wall. I moved the bed and discovered a trap door underneath. I crawled down the chamber until I ended up in digon alley from Harry potter. I was in some kind of ruined shop. I started looking for clues about the culprit with the red light saber and discovered some charred wood, possible caused by the lightsaber blade. I took the evidence and crawled back through the chamber. I was back in the abandoned house. I took one last look through the other rooms before leaving the house. I recognized This as nothing and the dream disappeared. Another dream emerged. I was back in Harry potter. This time it was the prisoner of Azkaban and I was being chased by a hoard of dementors as I fled on a broomstick. This was not the Quiddach scene from the movie though. As they tried to steal my soul, I skillfully pressed the PlayStation buttons at just the right time to dodge them. I eventually ended up on the ground facing off against Malfoy outside of Hogwarts. We started having a wizard duel, but I ended up losing and had to respawn at the previous checkpoint. I did the dementor chase again, this time doing worse than last time, but I realized I was supposed to also charge magic and fight back while dodging them. I ended up at the Malfoy duel again. I recognized This as nothing and the dream disappeared. I ended up back at the Sherlock Holmes investigation in which I was fighting Darth Vader. Darth Vader pushed me through the same floor as he did before. I ended up at the part with the man yelling at me to move. This time I wasn't lazy and I started moving. The floor broke even more and I realized I would take more damage if I tried to move. I fell through the final floor and safely landed on the bottom with no pain. I found myself at the bottom floor of the badly damaged building. A red lightsaber ignited in the darkness as Darth Vader emerged from the shadows. I stood up defiantly prepared to face off in the final battle. Darth Vader stood up on a ledge and used the force to start throwing rubble at me. I started running around the room doing rolls and flips to dodge as I hid behind rocks. There was one final puzzle I needed to solve. I needed to find weaknesses in the building to cause a ton of rubble to fall on top of Darth Vader, defeating him. I looked for weak pillars, beams of wood, and rope that I could manipulate to collapse the ceiling. Luckily Darth Vader stood in the exact same spot the whole time rather than Chase me with the lightsaber, leaving him weak to these tactics like a videogame boss would do. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the end of this fight because it would have been epic. I recognized This as nothing and the dream faded. It would have been cool if Harry potter showed up at the last minute on the broomstick to fly me away from the collapsing building. I was back in my bed. I saw my grandma walking around my bedroom and taking things out of the closet. She was setting up all these board games and for some reason the instructions were glued to the ceiling. She took the board games and set them by my bedside. She then stood over my bedside and started smiling at me kind of like how people and monsters do to me during sleep paralysis and it gets creepy. I found that this wasn't sleep paralysis because I could move my body. I started calling out to her. She stood still silently. I started moving around and looking around the room. The instructions were still glued to the ceiling and my grandma was still standing there staring at me. I started sitting up completely as my grandma started fading away. This reminded me of some of my past hallucinations when I thought I saw my sister standing by my bedside smiling at me but actually it was a monster. I looked carefully as my grandma faded away and then all I saw was the curtain by my window. The instructions on the ceiling were gone and I was now awake with no more hallucinations. During the dreams I also tried to recognize that I was nothing and physical reality was a hallucination. It didn't work. It is easier to become conscious that dreams are illusions than it is to realize physical reality is a dream and I am God. It was worth a try though. I feel like I didn't sleep well and feel a bit groggy. I ended up laying in bed for a while before getting up to type this out. I hope you enjoy reading this.

@Thought Art I mean, in past elections there were republicans who openly admitted that they cannot win elections without cheating. This was mainly with things like gerrymandering meaning that if you live in a red state, there is a chance that it is actually supposed to be a blue state. Republicans already have cheated their way to power through these methods. I would not be surprised if Trump and the republicans cheated, but I don't know to what extent. Did they cheat enough to put an illegitimate President in office? I think it's possible considering the previous election. There were already republicans intentionally under counting Biden's votes and over counting Trump votes. If they did this again, then they probably would have been able to cheat more effectively than they cheated before. My only fear with discussing the evidence that Trump cheated is that it makes me look like maga did when they simply refused to accept reality despite all the court cases that proved Biden wasn't cheating. If you want to investigate this issue, then don't let Americans gaslight you into thinking you are exactly the same republicans. The difference is that we didn't have 100s of court cases, recounts, and repeated proofs only to deny reality anyway. We will accept reality given this level evidence which we were not given unlike maga. This is the double standard republicans are using to shut you up immediately. Unlike the Republican investigations and conspiracy theories there is actual proof that republicans cheated to steal elections.

@Apparition of Jack my theory for why Trump wants Greenland is because of the radical possibility that Trump actually has the best interest of the world at heart. He believes that America is the greatest evil in the world because of all the countries we exploited and invaded. He realizes that the only way to stop these great evils is by destroying America from within. That is his goal with these invasions as he destroys out relationships with our allies. Although he will go down in history as the worst President ever, he knows that he will have thoroughly exposed the corruption of money in politics and corruption of the presidential powers. Several constitutional amendments will be needed to ensure the fairness of our broken system in the future. This is my wishful thinking about America's doom. It raises questions about why he didn't do it in the first term, so it probably isn't true. In reality he probably is just extremely selfish.

There are also parents teaching their children to do the salute for the sake of owning the libs. People engaged in this behavior are losing their jobs. I did not feel angry or sad by this. I felt stunned by the level of moral degeneracy I am witnessing. The election of trump has brought these people to new lows.

I don't mean to freak everyone out, but this is very concerning. Don't draw the conclusion that the invasions are happening yet. Basically, Trump has been talking about invading multiple countries to expand the United States. He is claims he wants to expand the United States to include Canada, Panama, and Greenland. He has also designated the Mexican drug cartels as terrorists, which could lead to the use of military force like it did with other terrorists. Although many have rejected this and want to ignore these insane claims, the leaders of other nations are taking these threats seriously. For example, the European union fears that Trump may try to take Greenland by force. Countries such as France therefore offered military support to oppose the United States in case of an invasion. Although this idea was rejected, it is part of a pretty bad trend for America on the international stage. Other countries are taking the threats seriously and our allies are preparing to use military force against us if necessary. This means that the United States might lose the support of the many allies which help make this country as wealthy and powerful as it is. I therefore am concerned about the implications of America's future due to our betrayal of our allies on many levels. I don't know how it would impact my life, so I will have to cross that bridge if it gets there and we become broke and powerless. Maybe if America falls from global dominance it would ultimately be a good thing for the rest of the globe, but I'm not sure about the calculations that would have to go into making that conclusion. Yes it would hurt me personally, but politics isn't about me, it is about what is good for humanity as a whole. Maybe it means bad things will happen to some countries in the process, even the ones we live in. Politics isn't about putting America first like Trump and his supporters want. When you take that attitude, you end up screwing America over. The tariffs will raise our prices and the mass deportations is destabilizing our economy. The domestic policy of the Trump administration has been disastrous, but the global implications are not yet seen. I still get the feeling that Trump and his allies and all of their shameless corruption will ultimately lead to horrible consequences. Trump is already destroying the American economy. Maybe America will collapse before any invasions begin. Only time will tell how bad this will be. Sorry if I sound kind of freaked out, but I have been concerned about politics lately. I don't mean to freak you out either because we need to stay level headed when discussing these possibilities. What are your thoughts on these developments? Do you think my fears are exaggerated and I should stop it? Do you think I'm exaggerating if I say Trump is the worst President in American history? Should I stop thinking about the implications of Trump's actions as they are far reaching and hard to foresee and predict like these military conflicts? At which point should I be concerned about military conflicts and possible invasions? I hope the rest of the world can stop us or discourage us enough before it gets that bad.

@Leo Gura I'm curious about this statement. Where would you place me in terms of the maturity, wisdom, and level of development compared to the rest of the forum? Am I less mature because of the crazy posts around my mental health I made? Am I more mature because I am respectful and I don't attack other members while being willing to confront inner demons to transform myself? Am I about average for this forum with pros and cons? Why would you place me there and where can I most grow? How much would I need to change to become a mod? Given my strengths and weaknesses I'm guessing you think I'm about average. That would probably make me around stage green.

Somehow Fox news is still maintaining the appearance that everything is fine through constant lying. There is a great contrast between what I'm witnessing and what my grandma is witnessing. She is complacent and confident that prices will go down over the next few months. I have been looking online and it is a complete horror show. It is impossible to keep up with all the damage Trump is causing. @Buck Edwards I do consume a lot of news. I think it might be one of those addictions I want to change like with social media. It seems that I am able to meet my goals, but I could do better if I limit this intake. I plan to start working out along with the other goals and habits I'm setting up. Do you think working out is an unnecessary expense?