snowyowl

This is hilarious, when actually the military, schools and other public services paid by taxation (including the government itself) are perfect examples of socialism in action. And it works extremely well for some sectors of national life. I think the debate is over whether the socialist (state run) model works all through the society. In the UK, we used to have nationalised car factories, steel works, coal mines etc in the 60s & 70s, which didn't compete very well internationally. Maybe that's the difference, socialism works better for internal national organisations, but (in our current international situation) less well in a global capitalist competitive environment. An argument for a liberal mixture of two systems perhaps? Then the nice thing is that individuals can have some choice whether to work in one or other system.

What exists? Or more practically, what's 'real' and what's 'imaginary'? I can see all sorts of people in my direct experience, everyone is unique, a different colour, shape, height, accent etc. Even the distinction between humans and other species is relative, according to the genetics. But this isn't very helpful for everyday life, so we create conceptual categories to group people (& other things) into collections according to how we want to classify the world. Male/female, black/white, western/eastern, child/adult, able/disabled etc. The problem seems to be that we aren't very conscious of the difference between actual reality, and our conceptual categories which we've made up (socially). We open our eyes in the morning and the undifferentiated primal unified reality is quickly filtered by our minds through the conceptual matrix by and becomes 'the world of things'. It happens so fast and often that we don't even notice it any more. Of course this distinction between reality and imagination is another duality, which presumably collapses at some stage of conscious development, but I'm not quite there yet.

I can just about see Bernie Sanders as socialist, but Joe Biden is liberal isn't he? In my part of the world that means centrist. There's a lot of exaggeration in the media.

This, just one this. But I don't know it, that would be two

@Vlad_ "This time the realization of meaningless of existence was very deep and extremely shocking. So the questions is - why should we live if everything has no meaning at all?? I watched Leo's video about the point of life, but at the same time I know that there's no point. " I get that reality has no inherent meaning or purpose, other than just being itself, though the fact that you're shocked by this is a pointer. Finding your own purpose is akin to finding your passion and fascination with life. You can't think your way out of this one, it's about intuition and getting in touch with yourself, your feelings.

But it's just a mirror image of how the liberal media is reacting. Each side is upping their own flagship and downing the opposition. No change there.

@AlwaysJoggin Hi, have you seen Leo's video on addiction? I'm not very knowledgeable myself, but it seems to me that most addictive and greed habits involve a high level of stimulation such as gambling, drink, drugs, sex, food, shopping etc. Do you think this could be an escape from something you don't want to face up to? Any fears, past traumas or bad feelings which are difficult to deal with?

It's not just the brain, the whole nervous system is part of the consciousness system (brain is connected to hands by the nerves). I don't buy into this belief that 'brains don't exist' - rather, physical matter (brain etc) and consciousness are a mutually arising dual pair. But it's all a story created by the brain/consciousness pair, when the primal unity (being) splits itself up. Of course you shouldn't believe me either, because this is my story, I'm using these words in my own way. There's no argument, as long as we're all authentic to our own direct experience

Does any particular type of yoga interest you? For a general hatha yoga channel I use Yoga with Adriene https://www.youtube.com/c/yogawithadriene but of course there's many others. To be fit and healthy I'd also recommended aerobic exercise for a cardio vascular workout. Plus check out a healthy diet. Good luck!

People have such short memories don't we? I had a quick look at Iraqi history, which is a sad story of conquest and occupation since ancient times. Why for instance don't they hate the Turks who occupied them as part of the Ottoman empire for hundreds of years? Islam itself started off as a conquering empire in the 7th century. Just like the history of my own part of the world too, of course (Europe) - but after all the disasters of the 20th C (which the USA helped out with), we've managed to move on. Why are Americans worse than anyone else? What's a realistic alternative to the US leadership of the international community? If they did retreat in an isolationist policy, who else would rush into the power vacuum that results? For all their imperfections I'm still pretty pessimistic about the other options open to us.

Hi @Max1993, sorry my previous post was a bit brief, I was in a hurry and a cryptic one liner doesn't really do justice to your questions! We're all telling each other how it is on this forum, but the important thing is to have the direct experience. What is awareness like? Is there a something, a you, an apparatus as you call it, which has awareness? Or is it awareness which has all these various features and creates you? "I want to go deeper with my awakening" me too, that's the spirit, but just remember that it's all chasing our own tails while we look for ourselves!

@Max1993 ha ha yes, awareness is the apparatus, awareness is being.

Sounds awesome to me so what's the problem? You've got a steady practice, making progress. Sure, the world is awash with chaos, always has been, we all do our bit to help.

Then simply focus on your spiritual work. Perhaps try looking at why you have mixed feelings? Could be some social indoctrination which you have internalised that we should be fighting evil. But training yourself to be peaceful, equanimous, unconditionally happy is just as useful. What is your spiritual work, if you don't mind me asking?

@Alfonsoo I don't blame you for keeping away from social media. I've long since given up putting the world to rights, if the large scale isn't your thing, then I'd suggest doing small acts of kindness in your local community. Help out if you can, do a bit of volunteering, smile more, talk to your neighbours, make friends with lonely people, feed the birds, pick up litter. Start a meditation group. Whatever your loving consciousness feels is needed.

Isn't Love the answer? Cancels out neediness, co-dependency. Like in a loving relationship you set each other free, instead of shackling with neediness.

When it's all over we have to start paying the bill, and people are losing their jobs and businesses. We've already had what, 12 years of austerity since the 2008 credit crunch and now another massive recession. How on earth to make the fallout fair and not discriminate against the poor?

I haven't watched your video (no time) but looked up a definition on wikipedia. "the Law of Attraction is the belief that positive or negative thoughts bring positive or negative experiences into a person's life." I'd say it's another name for the placebo effect. Beliefs, positive or negative, have an effect psychologically and physically. So it's not bs, but not a magical force either.

I saw this thread by following a link from another one, "Building Concentration Recommendations". I had a similar trajectory with concentration / mindfulness of breathing meditation. Concentration used to feel like an effort, but when I experienced the effortlessness of letting-go, I realised there could be a similar approach to concentration. The awareness of breathing is already always present, it's a sensation which I can't turn off even if I wanted to. So all I need to do is rest my attention on that, and let go of everything else. It's kind of a stepping stone to letting-go of everything, but having one anchor left. Becoming effortless made it easier to drop the separate self watching the breath, and merge with it.

Did you get this from an astronomy source? I'm rather out of date, but thought that the universe is expanding at the speed of light, a constant value, as light is the fastest thing. Light doesn't accelerate or decelerate does it? Instead, if there's a black hole situation, or other high gravity, it gets red shifted and time dilated to lose energy. But I’m open to new knowledge.

@Dino D I don't have a good answer, but some teachers I've watched like Rupert Spira and Jim Newman, talk about us being a contracted form of awareness, rather than the whole shebang. Just think for a moment if you did have omni awareness, could you cope with it? I mean, my ability for multi-tasking is pretty poor anyway, I just about get by, but to take on everyone else's at the same time would send me crazy! Maybe there's a meta level which connects all awareness at a divine level, but at my level of development I'm sure I still need my blinkers on

Time is counting the number of repeating cycles of events, like days, years, swings of a pendulum. I can't see it existing beyond that as a separate thing. A bit like when I go for a walk in a wild ancient landscape and forget about the city, there's no year, I could be in the stone age if I don't look at myself. There's day and night, seasons, and that's it.

"This" exists, it's beautiful when you're one with it, ugly when divided from it.

@Nahm a spiritual masterclass in one post! Much gratitude

Physics is become poetry, lovely