Jodistrict

Many pure mathematicians are disappointed when their work turns out to have an application. Mathematics is so much more than a description of material reality.

I went to a healer in Mexico that uses plant medicines. I told him that I wanted to take Ayahuasca. He said that Aya lasts about 6 hours, but he had something called sapito (toad in Spanish) that is only thirty minutes and that since it was my first psychedelic experience, sapito may be better, since it is a shorter trip. He didn’t tell me how powerful it would be.

5meo was the first psychedelic I had ever taken.

Years ago, I attended a seminar led by Werner Erhard. He had an impressive presence and high verbal skills. All these “guru” cult leaders use similar psychological techniques.

What interests me is the origin of religion. There are scholars who say that Muhammad never existed and that the texts of Islam where written only after the Arabs conquered and established an empire. The religion gives the empire legitimacy. The empire has the power to spread the ideology. This is a familiar pattern of history. Scholars also say that the Old Testament was written down around 600 BC to provide a vision for the people when the Hebrews were at the peak of their power. Likewise, Buddhism was propagated by Asoka. These texts are written by poets. In the ancient world, poetry was considered a valuable source of knowledge. The ancient Greeks were heavily influenced by and directed their lives according to Homer. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122669909279629451 https://www.crisismagazine.com/2012/did-muhammad-exist

I took classes from Shinzen in the 1980s. He was my first meditation instructor. He was a teacher at a meditation center in Los Angeles. He would conduct a meditation every Sunday, give a dharma talk, and then after the talk we would all eat snacks and talk around a table. Shinzen is very knowledgable about not only Buddhism but many other spiritual paths, and he knows how to find the common elements of all of them. When I was there, he became interested in native American spirituality and actually did a sun dance with a North American tribe, including having the two knives put through his breasts and hung from a tree.

“Apocalypse” is an ambiguous word which can lead to straw man arguments. What I heard Shunyamurti say it one video is that he believes the financial system is bankrupt and will collapse. When this happens, supply chains will break down and people will be told that they are on their own, including finding food. At that point society rapidly descends into anarchy. This is not unreasonable considering the financial system already came to the brink of collapse in 2007 and the fundamental problems have not been fixed. Thousands of small business owners have already gone under due to the pandemic and were abandoned by the government. I was in a hurricane once, and in a matter of hours after it was announced the shelves of the supermarkets were bare. Once it happens, it is too late to prepare. It is prudent to prepare in advance. And the most important preparation is to purify your mind and detach so you can survive the descent into hell.

One of the root issues here is trust. You either trust the media and the government or you don’t. If you trust the media and government, then the right-wing sounds insane because they are intentionally ignoring facts. But the right sees the facts as “fake news” and the people who believe the news as normies. I don’t think the media is entirely blameless in this. The news use to be presented by figures like “Walter Cronkite”. The news was always presented objectively, and Cronkite’s most important feature is that people trusted him. Then 24 hour cable news took over and turned news into entertainment. Cable channels increasingly become partisan and objectivity is no longer important. Females give the news while showing their legs. Nobody ever saw Cronkite’s legs. Even Chomsky wrote a book about the distortions of the media. And several years ago, Chomsky was actually interviewed by Alex Jones on his show.

Now we know why science is so strict in its methodology. People will believe in all kinds of silly things. Conspiracy theories reside in the hell realm of lower consciousness.

By getting caught up in the story, aren’t we missing the deeper dynamics at work? America is an alienating country full of millions of lonely people and the standard of living is declining. Twenty five million Americans take antidepressants. The Trump followers see themselves as failures in the economic system and identify with Trump who plays the winner. He identifies foreigners as the problem (the wall), to deflect from the real problem, that the country at stage orange has turned into a pitiless machine over which they have no control. That’s why logic is useless and large numbers will continue to become radicalized and listen to someone that they see as their only hope. The right wing ideology deflects from the real problem which is internal and blames it on outsiders. In America it’s a blue revolt against the orange tyrants who strip away dignity and meaning and a return to religion and authoritarianism. What we are witnessing is just the beginning of the disintegration of America. This is real.

If you want to know the real conspiracy theory, google "Koch brothers politics".

I took the two online classes on IFS taught by Jay Early. After some practice, I believe that it is the correct model of the mind. At a superficial level, we experience ourselves as one personality, but it is an illusion. We have multiple personalities that weave together in real time and come to consciousness depending on the situation. We are unaware and experience them as a single “I”. The more trauma we had in our life, the more fragmented we are. It shouldn’t be surprising that personality is modular. We already know that modularity is a basic feature of the brain – vision and speech in distinct areas, etc. Multiple personalities appear throughout psychology: Carl Jung talked about complexes, Freud had the ego, id, superego. https://personal-growth-programs.com/interactive_groups/ http://sfhelp.org/gwc/personality.htm

I have been keeping a dream journal for years. The one thing that stands out for me is that the dreams are coming from a consciousness that it clearly separate from my everyday consciousness. The dreams are of things my everyday consciousness would never think of in a million years and they are far more creative. Freud said that dreams are the royal road to the unconscious. Dreams are the best way to track your unconscious mind. This is the best book I have found on dream analysis. https://www.amazon.com/Let-Your-Body-Interpret-Dreams-ebook/dp/B005IR08AW/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2ORGGLBBQVPDR&dchild=1&keywords=let+your+body+interpret+your+dreams&qid=1610685135&sprefix=let+your+body+%2Caps%2C205&sr=8-2

Trump is where he is because what he did worked in the capitalist system. Trump isn’t red. He is orange. It’s evidence that in a capitalist system, psychopaths tend to rise to the top. In this case he almost cornered the entire market. Why not? That’s what you do in Monopoly. Maybe this is what Marx meant by a self-contradictory system destroying itself.

The solution is to make it illegal to intentionally spread false information. You don’t try to convince murderers to be nice. You isolate them from society. The con men who created QAnon did a brilliant job of constructing a myth that people are willing to die for. Adding the “pedophile” narrative gives it an emotional charge so it can spread at the speed of light. Where was the FBI? Why do they know so little about this? Under cover of “freedom of speech” dangerous lies can propagate. Lies are more powerful than the truth in a low consciousness population. It’s interesting that “freedom of speech” is presently being forced on the tribes of Afghanistan at the end of the barrels of American guns. As if this is the solution to any problem they have. One silver lining to this situation, is that the era of American cultural imperialism has come to an end. https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/QAnon-reshaped-Trump-s-party-and-radicalized-15866983.php

Alex Jones is the one most responsible for Qanon, because Jones was the first to show that peddling conspiracy theories is a successful business model. Now he complains about the monster he created. America worships at the alter of the false god of free speech and is now paying for it. The train has left the track and there is no turning back. If the country devolves into violence, then the state will adopt authoritarianism – which is the proper model of governance for a low consciousness population. Be assured that these events are having a huge affect on China and Russia.

Brand suggests that the rioters were really motivated by wealth inequality and the rule of the rich in America, and he downplays the racial motivation. But Trump’s message is simple and clear. The touchstone of his campaign was “the wall” to keep out Mexicans. Confederate flags and white supremacist symbols were seen at the capital insurrection. Brand’s ramblings tend towards gaslighting and diverting from the truth. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/09/us/capitol-hill-insurrection-extremist-flags-soh/index.html

In my opinion, most of these people are stage orange. These conspiracy theories are hugely profitable for the conmen who create and peddle them. It is a profitable business model.

If someone libels or slanders another on public ground or anywhere else, it is not protected speech. If you falsely cry fire in a building, it is not protected. False speech can be regulated.

Trump has been fabricating facts for 4 years ultimately producing his biggest fabrication of a stolen election. Truth is important, and ignoring the truth leads to violence. In the 1960s, the Supreme Court was dominated by free speech absolutists and they went too far in opening the range of permitted speech to include freedom for irresponsible and false speech. There was no social media in the 1960s, and the laws have to be adjusted to take into account the new technology. Truth is more important than freedom of speech. False speech is not protected. You can still be sued for defamation of character if the facts are false. Social media actors who fabricate false information to destabilize the government and incite violence should be criminalized. Banning them from social media won’t work because the Internet is a distributed architecture that can't be controlled and they can just create new platforms.

One of the core systemic problems that is developing is that the 1st Amendment laws are not keeping up with the evolving technology. False speech is not protected speech. You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater. You tube is a perfect vehicle for scam artists. They construct elaborate conspiracy theories loaded with made up details and then present a false narrative using emotional imagery and sounds. Keep in mind that David Icke has convinced millions of people that the Queen of England is a shape-shifting reptile. Constructing a site like Alex Jones to create an illusion of credibility and fabricating facts in order to incite violence should be criminalized. This is well within the bounds of the 1st Amendment. False speech is not protected speech. Many of these people in the riots were white collar professionals who were persuaded by the fabricated QAnon conspiracy theory. Critical thinking skills aren’t taught in American schools.

Trump now condemns the rioters who he clearly provoked while wearing his little black gloves. Ironically, they could get 10 years under an executive order signed by Trump for damaging federal property. He encouraged them and then threw them under the bus. They will now learn a lesson about the treachery of politicians. The news media in America is non stop 24/7 noise. In order to attract eyeballs, there needs to be at least one crisis every day. The show never ends. This turns attention away from inner work. I think one of the first steps to self realization has to be to stop watching the news, which is nothing but distracting idol chatter.

According to the posts linked to at the beginning of this thread, Shunyamurti actually uses the word “apocalpyse” a total of one time at about 42.11 of the below video. He talks about the negative forces building and leading to destruction, which is a hidden blessing because it results in a world where the “I am” is dominant. The video was a year ago, and his message seems to be consistent. The genius physicist Stephen Hawkings came to the same conclusion using rational analysis and empirical evidence. “Hawking's rationale was that humankind would eventually fall victim to an extinction-level catastrophe perhaps sooner rather than later. What worried him were so-called low-probability, high impact events - a large asteroid striking our planet is the classic example. But Hawking perceived a host of other potential threats: artificial intelligence, climate change, GM viruses and nuclear war to name a few.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzFxUrAJQz0 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43408961

The problem is that technology increases exponentially, thus delivering more and more power to low consciousness leaders and elites. It is like giving a jet airplane to a 7 year old boy. So we don’t have time. The damage created every time an immature mind applies advanced power multiplies. Even a nuclear war could happen at any time. So the question is why can’t spirituality increase exponentially too? Can the increase of aware people create a network effect increasing the spread of awareness? Why does spiritual awakening have to be linear? Also, technology could influence spirituality. If an effective psychotherapy develops that can reliably heal trauma, perhaps with the aid of psychedelics, that could accelerate spiritual awakening.

The below video is a short summary of what Shunyamurti is actually saying about the state of the world. He talks about in order to get from our present low level to a higher level of consciousness, the world has to first go through a stage of chaos. The present order has to be disrupted in order to get to the next higher order.