Shane Hanlon

Beautiful.

Given our current contexts, I believe it is a difficult undertaking worth the risk. Daniel Schmachtenberger seems like a reasonable example of attempting to weave this thread with some success.

I think a majority of the grievances and disconnections within this discussion arise from everyone having a different understanding of what integration/inclusion is. This makes sense since everyone is integrating/including different things in different ways. Why don't we try to create a comprehensive working definition together? I'll start with something and encourage everyone to change or add what they feel is inaccurate or missing. "Weaving together the different aspects of who you are—your emotions, insights, experiences, shadow, and past identities—so that they become a coherent and valued part of your overall being. This process often leads to a rich inner complexity, a deepening of being, and a profound sense of wholeness." Keep in mind we are not trying to define or relate it to transcendence in this definition.

That is a great point! In typical western society there is essentially no emphasis on transcending. It is almost entirely absent. My experience has been spiritual circles (maybe in backlash towards societal norms) obsessing over transcendence. I would also add here that accepting and loving LGBT people requires just as much if not more integration and inclusion as it does transcendence. I know many people who may never have had a peak experience in their lives who care for all people and in many cases care for those who are vulnerable more. Firstly, I want to say that there are a lot of really good thoughts here. To anyone reading this thread, I'd recommend reading @Brittany full post. Secondly - just for the record - I don't personally identify as part of any subsection or group within spirituality. You're right, you cannot bypass the human experience. That is one of the points embedded in what I am trying to communicate. I find spiritual circles tend to glamorize or idealize transcendence/enlightenment/"non-human" states of consciousness. This leads to people striving to reach other states of consciousness always thinking their current reality isn't enlightened enough. Meanwhile right in front of there face is a million opportunities for deepening your soul and Love. For me bringing Love to my darkest moments brought the most brightness and depth to my essence. Often the most profound moments of growth aren't in peak experience, but in every average moment or even in your darkest ones. But you have to embrace your humanness and suffering in order to grow. Avoiding them or tolerating them won't provide such depth. To lean into humanity is powerful and ultimately as a human being is what we are here to do. Now to address your default state concerns. I'd like to note that my criticism is limited to serious non-dual spiritual circles. You're right to point out that many beautiful beings are on autopilot. To me they are neither transcending nor including. You are also right to point out that larger systems and structures are often at fault here. Perverse economic incentive, externalization of harm, coordination problems, naive exponential growth, and many more large misalignments lead to a depressing world to live in. I find it hard to blame those who are apathetic towards their life. As for monks, if being a monk is integrated into your civilization like it was in tibet before china invaded, that sounds like a valid way to integrate and include while spending a lot of time moving toward transcendence. But in most modern contexts, becoming a monk means leaving humanity as a conglomerate behind. I don't know what I am talking about as I have never become a monk - I've only done retreats - but I'd imagine you would have less opportunities for integration and inclusion due to less complexity in your days. I don't think everyone should become a monk. But could be good for the right person in the right context I suppose. I really love your point on many teachers for many topics. I think that is beautiful. No one teacher is God to do everything perfectly. Still, I think generally there is too much emphasis on trancsendence. I think very few spiritually literate or otherwise people realize how deeply profound and beautiful inclusion and integration is. I fundamentally agree with what is being said here. Service and giving is deeply related to human actualization as it is deeply related to Love. With that being said (and admittedly I am not familiar with this man nor his community) when I hear the king and queen framing, I can't help but cringe. Why can't we leave it at deepening our Love in service to others? Maybe it is just more viral and we are slaves to our economic incentives.

I appreciate you following up! thank you! While I see transcendence and inclusion as interrelated, I don't see them as identical. I do believe you can have transcendence without integration/inclusion. I don't believe you can have healthy transcendence without integration/inclusion. Think about it like this. Your legs are only useful because of the relationship between them. No leg on their own does much for you. But lets say you're told all the amazing things about the right leg and all of the mysteries and beauties it can provide you. So you spend years focusing on training your right leg. You rarely hear or see the benefits of the left leg so you tend to neglect it. After a couple years your right leg is sculpted like a greek god and has olympic level athleticism. But your left leg is small and weak. Yes it is cool that your right leg is so beautiful but when it comes to being human, all of the benefits of becoming stronger and athletic are lost on you. Because it is only valuable in relationship to the other leg. You can't walk better. You can't swim better. You can't play football better. You may be worse off than if you hadn't done the training at all because of such an asymmetry or out of harmony relationship. Transcendence and inclusion are like this. They require different exercises for both and most of their value comes from the relationship between them. When we focus on one and not the other, we lose our way. Seperation and Oneness are both true simultaneously. I think it can start to be confusing to call one a total illusion. It is the relationship between the two that catalyzes creation. I think you are bringing inclusion and integration into a transcendence world where it doesn't belong. You can include and integrate all normal human experiences like relationships and tending the Earth and flavor and art, meanwhile have no idea of different states of consciousness. You would likely have a loving grounded respect for the world and yourself yet know nothing of transcendence. They do not necessarily lead to each other. In the same way transcendence is seemingly infinite, so too is inclusion and integration. You can always include/integrate deeper and wider. Fear/negativity is often a symptom of serious schisms, but happiness, self esteem, and Love are symptoms of deep integration and inclusion. You can always deepen it. Let me know if I'm still not communicating this well

Thank you again for sharing Da77en! I appreciate you engaging with me You are right to point out their intertwined nature. However, they are not synonymous in the way that hot and warm are synonymous but they are related to each other more in the way that thinking and feeling are interconnected. Or maybe similar to the way (often talked about here) right and left politically are dialectical. It is its' own relationship not exactly like any other so examples can only do so much. Integration and including which I'm using here interchangeably (I probably should've said that lol) go deep and include everything you have mentioned and more. Anything can be integrated/included. Trauma can be. A hug can be. A dog barking can be. Feelings of elation can be. It is all potential to deepen and ground your being. I am in the sense that talking to your dad on the phone or playing video games can be integrated/included in a way that entirely deepens and enriches your soul. It is all god and all reality and all beautiful. This is beautifully put. Deep satisfaction and contentment can be found in integration/including. Again well said! It is the same project. And this project permeates every single moment of your life in every context. We tend to seperate video games from school from soccer from personal growth from morality from flirting, from spirituality. Even though those are useful distinctions in some contexts, when it comes to spirituality we want to dissolve them all which means everything is spirituality and everything is to be integrated. Everything is to be Loved. You could play video games 12 hours a day and if you were integrating/including well you could be one of the most Loving beings. Results may vary though LOL

Thank you for taking the time to share some thoughts. This idea is still half baked so bare with me. They both exist to some extent. I believe the term "transcend and include" was popularized by Ken Wilber - a hugely influential writer in most english speaking spiritual contexts. Transcendence is exciting, mysterious, illuminating, confusing, and easy to spike emotions. It is often communicated as a panacea that you just quite haven't glimpsed yet. Just sit more, or go on more retreats, or buy my course. Memes spread faster and are stickier when it is presented in this framing. Thus it is common. This also means courses sell better in this framing and vulnerable people are easier to manipulate. Economic incentives perpetuate this framing as well. Moloch and marketing. Communicating to hurt souls that they must go through their own internal and external complexity (relationships, traumas, ambitions, sadness, anger, prides, joys, enlightenments) in a unique and personal way specific to them that no paint by numbers approach can facilitate doesn't sell and doesn't spread. This is however mostly true. Most of which enlightenment doesn't solve. After enlightenment the laundry or in our case the breaching of planetary boundaries, collapse of civilization, and destruction of all life on Earth. (I love you Leo no shade <3 just trying to make a point with a shared reference) Why has Leo reached "Alien conciousness" yet still talks down to his viewers and struggles to show even moderate levels of Love? Because in spite of his transcendence he has a lack of inclusion or integration. Why are we always talking about stages of development and (even though it is occasionally mentioned) never talk about what it means to include fundamental stages or what integration even looks like? Love, compassion, and depth are all ripened during inclusion and integration. These are the qualities that touch others hearts. Almost no one is moved to tears by your stories of how its all nothingness and god. They are moved by the way you listen when they need a shoulder. They are moved by an act of kindness when there is nothing to gain. These things are not cultivated in transcendence but rather inclusion (transcendence is necessary not trying to downplay its value) and yet are what a human life is about. When we strive for "higher" states of consciousness we forego reality. We want a delusion in our head, not the sacred reality that is our face. Who wants to cry for an hour about their childhood, or have depression or depersonalization for 2 years? No one, yet that is what life may call for us. This all can be part of a deepening process if integrated and included into our beings. If I bring Love to my darkest moments, then I can Love anything. Thank you for adding your perspective and sharing your time. <3 Spirituality is about reality and what is true. Transcendence and humanity are true at the same time. Relegating humanity to something lower or simply survival misses the point. Ultimately it is a dialectic to be resolved. God and humanity are one. God and survival are one. A human life although deeply moved by survival is so much richer than that. We are tasked with bringing as much of God into our human life as we can. Continually growing that capacity. It means how can we deepen our Love? How can we deepen our Wisdom? How can we deepen our compassion and understanding? How can we heal our trauma? How can we communicate more lovingly in an argument? How can we make sure our sister feels seen when she is sharing something vulnerable? Practical things that require so much inclusion and integration. Thank you for sharing! This is a point of view that I sympathize with because it makes so much sense to me. Unfortunately, I don't think it always lives up to its logic. We so often (not always) see those with seemingly enlightened states abuse their power, struggle to show compassion/Love, and be distant. You are right to point this out. It most certainly does not contradict and I apologize if I notioned in that direction. I believe they have some kind of dialectical relationship. If you have no new experiences, you have nothing to integrate. If you only have new experiences and no integration you are hollow/shallow. Integration/inclusion is so much deeper and richer than letting go of fear. But most people wouldn't know this since integration and inclusion never gets spoken about. Thank you for sharing this PurpleTree! This is certainly a trap in spirituality. To truly see reality you can't be looking elsewhere. But this is not what I am speaking of. Integration and inclusion is more than self help, self healing, or solving issues. It is about deepening your soul. If transcendence brings you up, integration grounds you. two sides of the same coin. Never heard of this! Sounds interesting! However, it does seem like another genuine but misguided reductionism of reality. to reduce spirituality to just trauma healing or to just vipassana or to just zazen is a similar reductionist mistake that scientists make when they reduce reality to just atoms. The human complex is so varied, personal, and mysterious. To grow takes everything. Preach my brother! Reality is everything in every direction. Just integrating/including the Love you shared in conversation with your mother is some of the most beautiful spiritual work you can do.

I just stumbled upon this tool and thought people here might find it interesting.

I remember Leo sharing his favorite earplugs a while back. There is no way to search his blog. So I was wondering if any of you have suggestions or if someone remembers what he reccomended! Cheers, Shane

Thank you guys

Regardless of AGI and what even constitutes AGI, We are creating things that have shown emergent behavior (gpt wasn't trained on research-grade chemistry but one day it just could do it). We don't know what they are capable of at any given time. We don't know the timeline, We don't know what comes next, and we aren't acting considerately when it comes to new tech and its externalities.

It takes a couple of months for your current watch history to entirely dissipate, but once it does you will no longer be given recommendations or shorts. This has saved me a lot of distraction. Hope it helps!

So recently it's come out that in many dark chocolate brands (including the one that I've been eating daily for 5 years.) have alarmingly high levels of heavy metals. https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/lead-and-cadmium-in-dark-chocolate-a8480295550/ I am only 26 yeas old, but would this be a good reason to try chelation?

I'd love to go down a rabbit hole of quality video essays. Does anyone have one that comes to mind?

You're welcome! I'm glad you got something out of it

I’ve watched this twice and took notes. It gives a deep structure for contemplation. This guy makes video essays about Movies/TV/Books but almost all of his advice applies to contemplating anything.

Any good examples of brands? Actually sounds awesome! What is the science behind this? I'm a bit ignorant when it comes to different sources of water. Why is spring/well water so low? I thought that is where bottled water companies sourced their water? This was a great idea for a thread!

I love the idea of this diet! It feels so harmonious. Just eating what plants give you. No killing of plant or animal life. The unfortunate reality is you are missing a lot of essential nutrients if all you eat is fruit. Not a good diet. You'd need like 100 supplements.

This is a profound point!

LOL I love it! I'd expect nothing less from god himself

What does contemplation look like for you? Journaling? Just thinking through different topics/ideas?

Just to clear things up - DR. Gundry is a grifter. I worked at a supplement company a few years back. The Head of marketing used to work for Gundry. He would always try to get us to make these incredibly unethical VSLs (video sales letters). They were basically hour long scare tactics for old people. Tell them whatever you need to tell them to sell the product. Doesn't matter if it is true or false. "I'd rather get sued for making millions than not make anything." He always kept talking about how many lies were in the Gundry videos and how so much of it was made up. And it just so happens Gundry sells a lectin product... https://gundrymd.com/supplements/lectin-shield/

Also if you want some movies here they are!

Not a movie but even better is Arcane The way each character has a unique and valid perspective and how they all clash is unmatched. It's animation and art style is one of the best to ever be created. It deals with ethics and progress and trauma and war. It is my favorite piece of media I've ever seen.