Tim R

How much do you know about the upcoming federal elections in Germany? Do you know what is happening politically in Germany at the moment? How important is it to you who wins? What do you know about the candidates? How much is it reported in the news? I'm just really curious as to how important this is to the US and its citizens, because when you guys had your election earlier this year, our media was constantly reporting on it (at the very least towards the last week or so) and everybody knew what was going on and had their opinion. So how much is our federal election present in your collective consciousness?

Yeah I know?? actually the first thing I wanted to write was that either your catholic friend or the angle is a troll?

So "focus" is the self-referencing? (somehow?) If focus is "yours" (or "mine") as you said and judgement makes things seem to be not me but "yours/mine", i.e. seeming to be separate from me, then the act by which "yours" is created is focusing? Or am I completely overthinking this??

@Nahm What is focus?

First of all, what is written on that image you posted doesn't occur anywhere in the bible, neither in Genesis nor in the book Hosea (where there is another reference to Jacob wrestling with God / the angle) . And secondly, not all bible passages / verses have necessarily anything to do with nondualism or mysticism in general. In fact, only a small, small fraction of all bible stories consist of nondual pointers of any sort, and most of them don't even occur in Genesis (which is where Jacob wrestles with the angle), but rather in the new testament because that's when Jesus showed up. The story of Jacob wrestling with the angle is I think more commonly known as "Jacob wrestling with God". I recommend you watch this lecture: It's from JBP's biblical series (which imo is the best of all his lecture series). Of course he won't go into nondualism, but I don't think this story is aimed to describe anything mystical anyway. But to get back to your question; My interpretation of why "the angle was hitting him with his own hands" is because the struggle with God/reality is the struggle with yourself, literally. And the reason why the angle/God says "stop hitting yourself" is your frustrated desire to end suffering; which itself is the cause of your suffering. Edit: JBP presents a totally different view on this story (obviously, given that it isn't written like that in the bible), but I recommend you watch it anyway.

In Russia, there is a saying that goes; when you look at yourself in the mirror at night, you will frighten your soul And it's kinda true?

Because nothing lasts. Your physical body won't keep working forever. In fact, every single cell in your body has been replaced after 8 years or so - so you are in a constant process of dying in order to keep living.

In the end, no theory is necessary. Not only that, but you will have to shed all your theories and concepts about what awakening is. The purpose of theory in this work is to prepare you mind to be let go of. It's not your mind that will awaken, but that which has been clouded by the mind.

The fall of man is one of the most profound bible stories there is. It describes the fall into duality. Which is why after Adam and Eve eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, they get kicked out of paradise. They fall into illusion/duality/knowledge. It says in Genesis 2:25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. This is right after God created Adam and Eve. They were not yet self-conscious; no duality "me" and "other". It goes on to say: And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. This is the description of the moment that they became self-conscious. This is the moment they developed an ego. Genesis 3 ends with: And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. This ties in perfectly with Leo's latest episode; to know good and evil is to have bias. And to have bias is to fall from paradise.

I like it. The ending is beautiful

Yeah? but because Leo was giving 20 examples for something which Curt already understood? no need to list two dozen movies.. Btw, if anything, it was Leo who kinda interrupted Curt a bit to often. I don't think he "denied" infinity either, he was just being skeptical, which imo is perfectly fine and totally understandable, given how incredibly radical some of the things Leo said must've sounded to his ears.

I don't think he was "triggered" at all. On the contrary, he was impressively open minded.

Fear and stupidity make a lot possible my friend...

Lol, none of the above. There is no "how" to reality.

Lmao this guy?? "he does have brain worms but I don't think Ivermectin works for that" haha

God damn.. Alex Jones is deluded beyond hope of repair. I wouldn't want to live in his head for a second. imagine going around with that image of the world and people..

@Dazgwny Wow, that's a juicy mindfuck? There's a nice German word for this: "Schachteltraum"; Schachtel - "box" and Traum - "dream".

She's amazing?

@Flowerfaeiry Didn't mean it like that? The point is that thought alone won't lead you anywhere. Telling yourself that everything is imaginary won't lead you to actually realizing that. "Everyone is me". Is it accurate to look at other people as me? Only if I have awoken to the fact that this is so. Otherwise it's just a meaningless thought. I mean go ahead, do as you like. But the thought "imagination" is not the same as imagination.

Not quite. Because so long as it's a mere thought, it's perfectly meaningless to you. You might as well think that materialism is true or that other people have been created by the Christian god. This is all fantasy, as far as you're concerned. Because it isn't yet grounded in actual insight. This is very important to understand; It's like asking "is it accurate to think that reality a dream?" and the answer is: no! you can't know that reality is a dream until you have awoken from it and recognize that it was just a dream. You see? Just like in an actual dream. Only upon awakening from the dream do you realize that it was all a dream. Or if you become lucid, which is essentially the same as awakening within the dream, but the main point is that you realize it to be a dream. "Dream" is just another word for "imagination". When you awaken from a dream/become lucid during the dream, you realize that it's just your imagination. But if you don't awaken to that and during the dream some dream character comes up to you and tells you "hey, you know, actually this is all just imaginary", it doesn't mean anything to you! until you actually awake for yourself. Otherwise your thought of imagination is still only part of the dream that you have bought into and are still buying into and thus are not realizing to be a dream. That's why the thought isn't enough. And the fact that you're asking this tells you that you haven't yet awoken to imagination - otherwise you wouldn't ask and it would be perfectly obvious! just like when you awake / become lucid This is the duality of dream and awakening; It takes the awakening to realize the dream.

@Knowledge Hoarder I don't need to know, but I did it for two reasons; 1) Mainly just out of plain curiosity 2) To a certain limited extent, it allows you to recontextualize this forum and much of what is going on here. If for example, people would start to argue about scientific or any such technical issues, it would actually make a big difference if we had let's say 90% people who have (only) graduated from high school VS if we had 90% people who have a PhD. You can see how that would matter a lot, if you were to talk about a scientific problem. Or any other problem, which formal education gets you to master!! That's basically the main point here. Obviously we don't have such a gaping difference, so there is no such major pull in any direction to be considered/ used for recontextualization. The results (so far) are interesting nonetheless and probably something to keep in mind anyway. It also lets you roughly gauge the average members age, but I think I did a poll on that a year ago or so. Most members here are fairly young. @NoSelfSelf When Leo starts handing out degrees for realizing God after plugging??

I would like to start a small survey to estimate the approximate distribution of the educational levels of the forum members. I am using the american education system as a reference (High school/College/University Degrees), because the majority of the forum members live in the USA. For those not educated in the US, please select your approximately corresponding level of education. 1) Please select only the degree which you already have, not the degree which you are currently working on getting. 2) Only select the highest degree you have. The survey is anonymous.

This is amazing?

Forget it. This guy is lost, there is nothing you could do or say to convince him otherwise. The confidence with which he spouts around his outrageously stupid and unfounded claims is almost admirable. To be honest I kinda feel bad for him. He just doesn't know any better.

We already had a thread on this when this video came out.