BlueOak

Definitely. The giving and connecting emotions build energy outward. The disconnected individual-focused ones draw it inward. *Editing this for clarity. Nothing wrong with disconnected or selfish emotions i have plenty, just recognizing that energetically they draw inward rather than build outward.

By form. In watching forms god watches itself. Otherwise, there would be no distinction between anything and you'd observe nothing. Form creates form.

This is about subtleties so there are many factors or ways of looking at it. When you are in a very high energetic state, people are often magnetically drawn to you, but it's YOU that brought them there. This was a very hard lesson I had to learn. If it was as she described, she was as much a magnet as you were. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mantak+chia+energy+dynamics It depends on how weak their own boundaries are. Connections energetically happen often before we know it. You can certainly manipulate others into giving up energy and you can certainly do it without thinking about it. A good way to become conscious of energy dynamics is by doing regular energetic work, like Kundalini Yoga or Taoist practices under Mantak Chia (great teacher) which I gave in that search link above. Some teachers talk about visualizations of removing energetic connections in a calm relaxed way. Example: This post drew a certain amount of energy to type. Let's say you made another post that was deep down just seeking attention but wrapped up as a question. Then you gave it to someone who forms their own identity around helping others. You could have a constant energy dynamic where they gave up their time/energy to help you, and both of you were getting what you need. - This would be a relatively benign energy exchange from both parties, but you can imagine patterns where it's not about help its about abuse, or control, or manipulation etc. Then imagine that advertisers know these patterns like the back of their hand, to understand that there are people walking around that are experts at this. I just picked advertisers to show an easy example, you can find people in all walks of life that are masters at it. I am somewhat sensitive to the energy of a room. If it's thick and bitter for example I can feel that walking in. If it's lively and intense I can feel that. You can be with a person that's down on everything, and they do this day in day out, maybe at work. That would be someone sucking in other people's attention and energy. Maybe they are going through something for the day and so you are happy to give it up, help them through it. Maybe all day every day they moan about everything and no amount of attention or help on your end is ever going to be enough for them. If there is a group the energy tends to balance out, but if enough people are in a negative state the group's energy will tank. I've heard it said a few positive people can balance out several negative polarities because they compound, it's much more supportive. Whereas individuals in a negative or drawing state are individuals for the most part. I believe, that a few energetic individuals can really change a room's energy. I also believe that these overlapping fields in a wider area are often held in place by whoever is in the best state energetically. Picking your peer group is really important you can't control every interaction you are going to have, just where you spend your time intentionally. It's also part of the reason why we are limited energetically by those that are the worse off in our society, because when looked at even as a very large group its always a shared field.

@Jodistrict Oversimplifying history is a necessity if it's going into a few pages of a model. The evidence to support spiral dynamics is in modeling human progression throughout history. How accurately it does it is what can be debated. The word cult gets thrown around like a wet newspaper these days. Also known as anything that deviates from the norm with sufficient intellectual reasoning or spiritual belief behind it. It's only a problem when people lose their ability to critically think for themselves, and start looking to an individual to decide their life for them, but then that would be the case if someone were especially lost in life. I agree it's somewhat flawed in that the entire thing has a collectivist bias, but it does allow for things like human history to be shown as part of consciousness development, and the collectivist/individualist dynamic to be expressed in a way it hasn't been elsewhere. Up until maybe 5-10 years ago, I hadn't seen collectivist and individualist dynamics discussed at all, or even recognized as the driving forces between many things like disagreements in society, spiritual fractures, troubles in relationships, and impasses in development, or wars being fought. Of course. That's life. Everything is formless eventually. @Danioover9000

Shotokan Karate was great. It's defensive and counterattacking until blackbelt, by which time you'll be disciplined, strong, and have little fear of confrontation, or any want to initiate it. I would sum up its ethos as how to get out of trouble, and strengthen the body/mind. I would look for a variant that still has unpadded kumite (sparring), which is part of the reason I felt confident because I was used to sparing more naturally. I had hardened wrists, legs and arms. Every week you are training to be hit, so a punch becomes nothing to fear. You'll walk a head taller after doing it for six months. As for spiritual marital arts, I've always been told that studying the ways of a ninja (Ninjutsu) with the spiritual component is what people recommend.

On models. People adapt models all the time. I get that he's just passed so there would be sympathy naturally for wanting his work preserved, but that doesn't mean the way he's conceptualized life needs to remain stagnant from now on. Things don't remain static for long, if a model doesn't adapt to the changing conditions of consciousness then it's done. All that said, Leo would eventually benefit from devising his own model and having that become the thing people were referencing in the future, even if it took a lot of inspiration from this one.

@rnd Read about the history of Russia invading Eastern Europe repeatedly. Understand Putin's comments when he says he believes many of those countries on its border belong to Russia, and how that makes them react. Put aside the US boogieman and ask yourself why all of their neighbors want to join NATO. Consider why Russia has the right to tell anyone how to run their own country. Look at how Russia went from a country trying to democratic reform and looking to join the EU, into first an autocracy and now a fascist state. Look at how every time Russia threatens a country all countries pull closer together defensively. Read about the REAL Azov which were several hundred strong. They reformed to become part of the national guard, their leader left to try and get elected, he got 2% of the vote. They became 3,000 strong, people taken from all walks of life, regular people. 2% of the popular vote went to the far right, this has been on a decline in every Ukrainian election. With all the Russian fascist internal groups and its Russian Imperial Movement exporting Nazi's overseas who is the real fascist state? Want the answer, everyone has a far-right. Consider if scapegoating the extremists to attack the other 98% is pure propaganda and if it makes sense? If so, attack yourselves next. Read about the real history of the Donbass, the Russian-backed separatist movement, the trouble they started. The forces they put into the DPR which caused a rebellion there. Understand they did this because democratic forces overthrew the Russia puppet government. Understand all the gas that is under that part of the country, and that almost all wars are fought over resources. Understand why the Azov made their stand at the steel plant, which robbed Russia of part of what they wanted. Understand why Russia are going after all the port cities. It's not a coincidence that this area is used for trade. Money. Money. Money. That's all men ever fight over.

Someone mentioned the map of consciousness. Divine love, unconditional, without attachment or expectation, Is not the same as what most of us know as love. It is significantly stronger or more complete than romantic attachment or joy as an emotion for example. If you were in that state for long you wouldn't be here. That's all I know for a certainty. This is how you get there. Love every poster in this thread, sit down and show gratitude, joy and then love for every single word spoken. Pick the poster that you have the most difficulty with and find reasons to love their words, or them, or the experience. For some people it takes untangling acceptance with love, or agreement with love, or whatever they've tied to it. Love is just love. It's nothing else. There is nothing else there to attach to it. Love everything that enters your life. It's all you. Love everything you currently hate. Again, it's not agreement, it's not acceptance, it's just love. You can actively work to change something while loving it for example. Its not being a doormat, its not accepting or allowing abuse, violence or narcissism. It can be difficult, but there is no barrier to it other than what you put up. No thinking of worth or deserving, or worrying about what it will mean. So I'll end this one saying love to you all, and all the words that are spoken here, all the people that put their time and effort into these discussions to help others/yourself. Gratitude to leo and the moderators for running this and their effort in maintaining it. Thank you all for the many replies to all the topics here to increase awareness and insight. You all restored my faith in spiritual development where it was almost gone. If you want a spiritual practice that embodies this, the fifth agreement does. Toltec shamans do. Gratitude.

I don't mean to come down too hard on you and your experience, that's sort of the point though. To a certain extent, reality works differently for each of us. Based on who we are. If I were starting this comment chain I wouldn't say proof I would say: Experience is enough. When you have experienced a cycle of reflection over decades it's embodied. Some people can begin to manifest in 5 minutes, it takes me towards a year. That's just how it is. When someone says manifesting is easy, these days I laugh. It's not for me, that's my experience and my reality. Just like how some of us can predict the future, not like a spiritual seer might, I do it based on observing obvious mechanical patterns in people's behavior and looking at historical trends. The more awareness I gain the more obvious people's patterns are because I have seen them in myself, this changes the nature of any interaction I have. I somewhat predicted the response would be to refer to the absolute. We are absolute, so if I am stubborn, the reality around me is also stubborn. If I am argumentative, the reality around me will reflect that. If I say thank you for taking the time to respond to me, and place my hands together, gratitude will be reflected in how I interact with others.

There is no proof because its demonstratively false. Want isn't always created in front of your eyes. It completely depends on what is internally and externally going on. Consider how even in your own life you've wanted something, I mean really wanted it and not achieved or obtained it. Something you poured a year into, months, or countless hours. Still even now you might want it and have never found or gained it. Have you had those experiences? Because I have. In my case I was teaching myself persistence, that failure wasn't fatal. That often you don't get what you want. Often you get what's best for the group around you. Things around me have moved so far away from what I actually want, that the notion of this is comical and is making me laugh. I had to learn to adjust to what others wanted, I had to learn humility, empathy, how to transition through emotions etc. There are many reasons we exist on earth, and its not just to get what we want.

If there are complicated medical processes in place. To assess someone's psychological condition, and also their likelihood to recover from crippling pain for example. If these things are considered, then yes. If I was in too much pain to move physically I would kill myself. Why would I care about the law, i'd be dead. There is something missed in emotional pain and also surviving with a certain amount of physical discomfort. Its a rich experience, it shows you are alive. Its never coming again, once you are dead its gone. Its yours only for now, and it can lead to you not wanting to give up that pain, strange as it sounds to someone who has never been deeply tormented or in extreme emotional distress. In some cases its all you have. If you live there long enough it's expected, it forms a certain security about how you view the world and your place within it. Eventually it forms part of your identity and you learn to live with it, or use it to your and others' advantage. Some easy examples, victims of abuse, or drug users relating to people who have been through that, because who else really can? People who have been in serious accidents or suffered PSD in conflict, speaking or empathizing with others who have gone through it. I never could on the level they do in this example. Again I made the case in another thread that emotional intelligence needs to be taught in school, and part of that is the ability to allow emotions, to move through people naturally. This means emotional states naturally come and go, they are not resisted, buried, avoided, escaped or magnified to be bigger than they are. This at least would have spared me a couple of decades of deeply depressive states. *To relate, consider the discomforts you live with or have lived with in life and how they form your view of others/things or the world around you, eventually becoming part of your identity.

To the individual the shadow of liberalism and authoritarianism are similar. They believe they know best how you should live. They believe their values should be your values. Be aware though that rebellion against liberalism is also part of the same dynamic, and part of how it operates. Maybe help contribute to the third way? In whatever form that takes in your life.

@charlie cho Aside from career pursuits, or how to react in a crisis for example, it is not so much about teaching them authenticity or how to be social, its about getting them to think on it and gain their own awareness of society and themselves. This brings authenticity naturally. That sums everything below, as I went far into possible methods. Firstly when I read your words, its evident that we are almost starting from ground zero. We are so far behind other forms of education we are needing to discuss how they can be taught at all in the modern setting. Social intelligence, Two things I can think of that are taught are how to work in a team and how to communicate in a group. I would extend this to how to work on a class project. Once in every class, I would assign roles as if it were a business, or a council, a TV studio, a charity, a sporting event etc. I would go through every major group or setting I could think, of and make sure at least one example was given to the child of how to operate within it. I would then focus on communication. How to effectively communicate with your boss, and your coworkers. In the curriculum I would have mock interviews, and how to handle them face to face. I would put students through having to write 50 job applications to get one interview, and have them work on their CV. I would teach them persistence to get a goal and how to handle disappointment or rejection. I would go to great pains to show them how to handle failure and rejection, to the point it became as natural as breathing. In a wider context of current events. I would show how to relate to friends and family through difficult social issues that are arising at the time. How to process the problems we as a family, friend or society face, to have them think on and develop their own answers or methods of processing these issues. Covering things like personal loss, distance from friends/family, how to deal with changing circumstances, how to meet new people and form connections with them. I would try to explain group dynamics and extend this beyond the individual. I would try to explain the dynamics of all systems we have in society. The nature of society's interactions with police, politics, different cultures, the environment, industries, events, and protests. I would try to keep this at a group level, and give them a group awareness not just considering the individual. It's important to link to the individual as we live in individualist societies in the west, but having that group awareness means the collective can be related to as a group, rather than just individual members within it. In some lessons, I would especially try to foster a sense of class community, rather than them just being individuals they would be a class watching each other's back. That's me with a basic understanding of social intelligence, I am sure if there was a socially intelligent genius present designing the curriculum they would better define this, especially the last part. Emotional intelligence. Even more so it's about having them develop their own awareness, not telling them how to feel. There are books and books on this to offer insight but nothing beats self-awareness. I would demonstrate each emotion and some examples of it. I would do so in image, color, music, language and location for the younger kids. What people experience when going through it. To show them its perfectly natural and they are not odd or alone for feeling a certain way. I would show cues for reading body language, tones or obvious signs in others. Examples in film, or literature to relate to others going through a certain emotion or event like loss, bullying, breakup, or parents divorce, on the extreme end when to call for help if someone is suicidal or being abused. I would introduce them to a wide variety of places and locations they were unfamiliar with and get them used to uncertainty for example. I would have them watch sad films, happy films, films that covered each emotion well, which schools do, I would try and get them to feel comfortable in different emotional states so they could move them through them more easily. I would have them identify whether they were feeling happy or joy doing something or just distracting themselves. This will save them decades later and a small fortune in bills. I would get them to develop their own emotional guidance system. I would discuss topics that bring about emotional states, and offer support and guidance how to look internally. I would prepare them for the triggered emotions we all experience in life. There are a million different models for emotional awareness to pick to discuss to better relate this. I'd have them write out their own emotional states, what they are feeling right now, to experience it and realise it. I would stop them often and have them assess what they are feeling right now to develop nuance in their emotional range. Especially when an argument broke out, i'd encourage them to become aware of why it happened, and what they are feeling. I would model the different human needs and the different emotions we go through in trying to find them. I would describe emotional spirals, why they happen, and how to act/react to them. For older kids I would talk frankly about addictions and how they fill emotional voids. I would speak about abuse, the trauma inflicted, and how we shape our behaviors around it. I would have people do what we did in smaller doses, in gaining our own self-awareness. Self-reflect on our own behaviors, but not as a punishment as a regular event. Why we are triggered to react a certain way, I would deeply encourage self-awareness and understanding of why we are who we are. Why others act as they do and how to not only predict reactions but understand the meaning behind them, and why we can cause them ourselves with our behaviors. Why sometimes we are our own worst enemy, in creating that which we least want. Virtues. I wouldn't just punish a kid for being dishonest, or disrespectful for example, I would go into great detail about two lives led, one that was dishonest and one that was honest for example. Pictures, a lifepath diagram with choices made, the results, the emotions that came about, why they informed the choices, and what resulted. Preferably with real-life examples. Both of these things we are talking about are touched on to a lesser degree, and sometimes the kids will pick up on them, but the fact they are not emphasized to be as important as the grades in other subjects, is why we are failing.

@Danioover9000 What defines how qualified someone is to be in a position of power? How does this type of experience-based or top-heavy leadership not lead to the stagnation or growth of the country? How does it not lead to internal unrest? Because naturally, the most experienced leaders are older, and naturally they are going to be less in touch with the younger generations, i.e those most prone to civil unrest.

The universe is love. Totally and completely. It has no conditions, no predispositions, no expectations. The more you love the more you are. Having experienced divine love once so profoundly it doesn't fit into words. What most call love, even desire, or intense passion for another is a minor experience compared to realizing divine love. The problem is, I put this experience up on a pedastool and don't realise that touching a leaf is the same. Drinking water is the same. These words are the same. Your reactions are the same. I could only think Sadhguru is trying to bring them closer together.

Don't dismiss the balancing effect of the majority. I'll get to that. I'll set up the test. That way people who think like me, or within the boundaries I set will be doing the electing. Or do we get 15 experts to set up the test, and we'll adapt it every year? That means the intellectuals will always hold the vote, even if they are intelligent enough to suppress their own bias. Maybe the 15 experts are taken from a widespread spectrum of society? Then that creates exactly the same problem you want to avoid? Who are these 15 experts, what do they allow under the terms political understanding. Are radical centrists allowed? Is there a left-right axis, or are we modeling many political axis? Do we have to define what is allowed in society to fit the test questions? Are fringe parties allowed in this understanding, how about movements or social groups? Will political understanding itself lead to radicalization of politics? You see the average person is not very radical, they are average, and the average political activist or politician is significantly more entrenched in their opinions. Which is what gives them the drive to do politics! The average person, when not manipulated so heavily, is able to bring some balance to politics by sheer weight of numbers. So don't dismiss the balancing effect on an electorate, especially on individualist societies. It really comes down to removing the magnification of issues on the electorate through the media, and the ability to give them as balanced a view of the issues facing their country as possible.

Diasterously financial intelligence isn't taught at all. Social Intelligence, for example, healthy relationships, working, and social relations are not covered. Emotional Intelligence isn't even mentioned. These things alone make everything else that is taught potentially pointless. You can end up a poverty-stricken, social outcast, who has the emotional IQ of a wooden spoon, yet have a genius-level IQ and a degree. Then people wonder why everyone ends up diagnosed with social or emotional disorders, and self medicating? Well its because one aspect of their mind or life has been magnified so greatly for 20 years of education day in day out, and the other left behind at the starting line, or at best glimpsed through busy parents (who themselves were never educated in these areas) or from the TV. Let's do some specifics. Kids not having long enough to be kids. Its got very slightly better in 'pre school' here, but even then its stupid how tightly controlled kids are. Targets are pushed at the expense of adaptive and experiential learning. Exams, meaning one day out several thousand you were in education decides the value of those thousands of days, are utterly archaic. Minds are entrenched in a flawed system of thinking, then punished when they try to improve this system. Kicked off when they draw too much attention to it. Individuals are not nurtured toward their actual potential and instead have to spend years on subjects they will never need or use. Discipline isn't taught in a disciplined manner. So nobody learns it. People use emotion to teach what needs to be controlled. This is a problem in almost all cases where discipline is being taught, even to a pet. If you are shouting at something you are not teaching a person, an animal, or child discipline. You are teaching them emotion, anxiety, anger etc. I've been out of education for a long long while, maybe some of this has improved. From my understanding kids are still compressed into flawed collective thinking only with less of an authoritarian lean. If it was an environmentally conscious, and socially and/or emotionally intelligent collective that would be great. It isn't. *Oh and how to be successful in life, should be a course in every curriculum. **I keep wanting to add to this. Kids should be able to try all subjects easily, then based on performance over a year and their interest, pick a handful (or more) to specialise in. They should be able to swap between these until they find their way. Rather than wait till they are 18 to try 500 jobs, and maybe if they are lucky come across the one career that is right for them.

Everyone. Represented by a council. The council members being responsible for sectors of society and running their own teams. If those council members make mistakes or don't do an adequate job, individual council members are elected by the majority.

Unhelpful Generalizations: One day you all criticize America or Europe for doing something and the next for not doing something. People cheer on Russia for doing a military operation, then complain when Turkey does one. If you can instead understand that geopolitics are much more complicated than a generalization. In Ukraine's case, it was in the process of NATO negotiations, reforming its government to be more pro-west to hopefully one day join the EU. It had guarantees by USA, UK and Russia. Syria's government is openly unfriendly to the west and has a pro-Russian government, which is also a concern for Turkey and any NATO member right now to have on its border. By people wanting the world divided up into two powerblocks, and there are a lot of people that seem to think this is a good idea, this kind of thing is bound to happen. There will be competition, war, friction, and an increase in hostilities naturally over the next decades. People will use it as an excuse to take territory. This is obviously the outcome from two large nation-state groups competing with one another and in this case a knock-on effect from the war(s) Before anyone thinks this just anti-Russian bias talking, I would rather the Kurds had a nation-state of their own, which is obviously weighing into this move by Turkey as well to try to stop, but as has been told to us many times I am a foreigner, and what I want for a foreign nation is of little consequence to it. All I can do is observe the obvious outcome of the trajectory the world is choosing.

Russia has paved the way for military operations that are no longer called wars. Over the entire globe. The international order is done. The US tried this years ago but never spun the lie so well as it's been done by Russia. I said at the time expect this to happen elsewhere and it will, doubly so if Russia takes land.

Do you want a person to be themselves or be as you want them to be? I am not very concise when I am learning something new. I find meaning by exploring a concept in thoughts, feelings, and words. It is messy and disorganized. It is not more or less spiritual than if I were to do it in three words or 300. My mind breaks things apart or puts things together, and I am especially doing this when I am communicating or sharing with another. If I were at work in most jobs, i'd be repeating the same three lines 300 times a day and i'd have a phrase that rarely branched out and was mostly the same in every interaction. I'd be learning nothing new, and experiencing almost no emotion. In typing this message I now considered whether I should, or how I should type it, I moderated my response more than I usually would. So it became more mechanical and edited. By setting those expectations and judgments you don't get as much of an honest response from the person speaking to you.

Failure being fatal came from a few of places inside me. If I am on a downward spiral in mood and looking for an excuse to retract. Like you say isolate. - People rarely understand this but I do very well. Its a natural push and pull depending on my daily experiences and focus. If I felt the identity I had created was threatened beyond the point of repair. Less so these days but it still happens if I want an employer to think of me as reliable or hardworking, and something comes up to threaten that for example. If I am expectant to see results over a period of time and don't see them. If I put a lot of work in and get nowhere over a long period, several months or even a year, eventually a few more failures will push me over the edge to giving up on the idea. It might be a good idea to actually answer what the point of some of these things are, write them down, make a note of them, and learn them for yourself. Get good genuine reasons for doing them that are not easily shaken, and that will persist for some time. Put them on your wall, a noteboard or a whiteboard to remind you when the day is frustrating. Consider, what’s the point of any communication, of meeting new people, or each of your goals? Don’t cut the question short. Get a very long list. That’s where i'd start 1) Get reasons clear in your mind in front of you under your goals. 2) Role model someone successful. At the start you are a newbie, go look for teachers or instructors under each goal. 3) Adapt. Work out what’s working, and remove what isn’t. 4) Keep going, get new reasons for doing so. I am great at instigating and starting things, someone else will hopefully be along with better with the longer-term advice. Some of those teachers or rolemodels for each goal for example! To get you started for your goal number 1. I used to listen to Robert Kiyosaki, Brian Tracy, and Tony Robbins. Try to take advice piecemeal, don’t lose yourself in any one strategy, personality or philosophy. Its got to come from you in the end, these are just people that help you adjust your way of thinking on certain financial issues. Good luck, hope it helps.

I isolate myself because that's who I am, an introvert, specifically a social or thinking introvert. Covid was almost a normal period of time for me, I missed going out but only for small walks for example. I did get lonely and do get lonely but it doesn't require much for this to pass. It's difficult to make judgments on people you haven't met before Thought Art. You might think socialization and meeting people is right for everyone, but chances are people need that in different doses. I find a few limited interactions in a week are more than enough, I enjoy them and I enjoy people but if I am everyday socializing I find it tedious, repetitive, and often frustrating. Although I do seek out some deeper meaning in interactions I find most don't and that's fine. I have met one or two that do, like a small spiritual group I used to attend, but not many. I can find it here from time to time, so I come here, share, and learn.

People choose hate. All the time. I almost did in this response, I am as fallible as anyone. They don't look at love. It almost feels wrong or hard to say, like there are barriers there, the correct when or where to use the word. Whereas hate is uttered as easily as breathing. It is so much easier to magnify the hate, safer, and more comfortable.

@Shambhu An animal is no more ignorant than you or I. It just does not make the same distinctions we choose to. It is no less or more than us, its interaction with the mirror is no more or less than us. It is us. Yes consciousness is the observer. That is true. It is always observing. I created a distinction of my own where none exists. If all of this is the mind. then all of this is consciousness. Again I've enjoyed this. I wish I could have knocked that last duality or separation down for you. I feel you helped me and I failed to help you. All the best.