Bizarre

This is a great question. Press the @ sign and start typing the name.

I suspected you had a covert motive. Doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

Rajas and tamas appear together. You can verify this for yourself. Desire hurts, and tamas denies it. Too much thwarted desire results in tamas, depression. This is why I said this is a psychological solution and to not bother about the inner child stuff.

Tamasic people are not interested in these teachings, cos it requires work. They want the modern teachings that say you don't have to do anything. But that's only if you're satvic. Direct teachings really just assume you're already qualified.

The things that cause action, extroversion, the self deluded by the appearance of objects are the vasanas and the Gunas conditioning the subtle body. "I am incomplete, in pain, and I need to change this situation" is karma. Once that is all see through then karma is finished because there is nothing to get, the objects are not real nor can they give you anything because you already have it.

@NTOgen The mind can't see the self, but the self can reveal itself through a calm mind. Most of the Rajas and tamas distorts experience, it is the self, but you want to get clear on what you're not first before taking it all back. You can be conditioned by any of these energies, enlightened people can be tamasic and satvic, tamasic and Rajas is, tamasic and tamasic, combinations of physical and mental shakti. This accounts for the fact you see so many types of enlightened people, everyone can have different things going on but the enlightenment is always the same (if they know who they are, that is). Some enlightened people are claiming to be enlightened but are only satvic and don't have self knowledge. Those are the guys you want to ignore because their "teachings" are just understood via their own limited experience. Gunas can change, you just want to take action while you're a doer to get yourself in the right circumstances for understanding. After you're enlightened then it doesn't matter what happens, because you're there dispassionately Witnessing it all, and you know none of its real anyway. I don't know about psychological issues apart from what we spoke about. I wouldn't tread that road unless I was sure this teaching is not sticking. If it sticks then happy days . If not then there is some cultivation of satva to be done to get the mind to stop seeking outwardly and keep to the business of inquiry. The crux of the matter is, if you still believe in experiential enlightenment then this one is not going to work. Because that's what they are saying, yoga, Buddhism, subtle body practices only prepare the mind to understand that nothing need be done to "get" something you already got. That's why they present the Four human pursuits teaching first, cos if you flunk that you're instantly disqualified and have to keep seeking unti you understand that life is set up as a duality that only frustrates.

In a nutshell from the perspective of the Self there is no karma, nothing is happening, nothing ever happened and nothing ever will happen. The self in this instance is already enlightened. But the self would not be limitless if it did not have the power to create, so this is where Maya comes in. The self in conjunction with maya creates experience. So the self pretends to lose itself in its dream, becomes identified with a particular experiencing entity and goes off on a journey mesmerised by the objects appearing which it thinks are there to complete it. Once the self understands it's true identity it also understands that nothing ever happened therefore nothing ever happened to modify or change it. Thus the vasanas that brought that "person" into existence to play out the collective drama of the total are rendered non binding for the rest of the lifetime, and burn up at the end of the life. Those particular sets of vasanas don't manifest again (reincarnate). But it doesn't really matter what happens after the apparent death of the apparent person, all that matters is the person in its lifetime now lives free, unbound by the suffering created by the binding vasanas and conditioning of the experiential subtle body (Gunas). Freedom from the person and also freedom for the person. Basically without putting too fine a point on it

If your goal is freedom and a quiet mind, you can just observe the tendency and if you don't act on it, it will pass. This is spiritual purification, after a short while your mind will be very clear and still and your energy will be nice and attentive, present. It's in those moments you know that you never needed it, because desire is just the inability to see that you're already free.

Obviously I don't know you, or your situation. But I do know a burning desire for liberation is a qualification for enlightenment. This means that you want nothing more than to be free. This desire is a good one, because you chose this desire instead of choosing to extrovert and try to get things from the world. Its like having your head held down under water by somebody. What is the one thought that is in your mind during this ordeal? "I need air"? That's how it should be for you. So don't be so quick to fob off desire, because creating a vasana for inquiry (which will be itself be burned away after your liberation) is what sets you free

@NTOgen The mind extroverts itself because of identification with the predominant guna (flavour of shakti) we are conditioned by, and the vasanas that appear in our stream of experience as likes and dislikes. The yoga I'm referring to is called Ashtanga Yoga, and it prepares the mind (indirect knowledge) to directly understand and then take a stand as awareness (direct knowledge). Ideally you want to get a routine going that involves a number of Yogas to get the mind nice and quiet: Karma Yoga - to neutralize the vasanas, and eventually cancel your sense of doership Triguna Vibhava Yoga (understanding the 3 gunas teaching) Upasana Yoga (meditation) Here are some comments from a little email satsang from one of my teachers which is a summary of the gunas teaching: The creation comes into existence with the emergence of the 3 gunas: sattva, tamas and rajas. Sattva is intelligence and knowledge; tamas, a heavy dense energy is matter the substance of the creation; rajas is the dynamic active energy also known that transforms objects. Psychologically it is known as the mode of action and desire. The gunas make up everything in creation, from thoughts to gross objects. In effect, the gunas are another word for God. Sattva, rajas and tamas correspond to the three forces in creation: Rajas, vikshepa shakti, which is the projecting energy; tamas, avarana shakti, the concealing energy and sattva, the revealing energy. When maya operates, sattva (pure knowledge-intelligence) is the first guna to emerge. It is known as pure maya and becomes the nature of the mind. Tamas and rajas appear next. Rajas and tamas are the main cause of ignorance; they extrovert the mind, turning it towards objects. When a person is sattvic the mind is turned inwards toward awareness, its nature. This happens when rajas and tamas have been largely eliminated. Sattva feels very good. With karma yoga and the practice of self knowledge it can become the person’s predominant guna. Purifying the mind is to aim for a sattvic mind. Liberation or self-knowledge means that you have assimilated the knowledge that you are whole and complete and that the ‘person’ that you used to think you were is no more than a notion in you, awareness. When ignorance (avidya) of yourself as awareness has been removed by self-knowledge, maya (macrocosmic ignorance and its effects still obtain and the gunas continue to condition the subtle body (the ‘person’)…but they are rendered non-binding as the doer has been negated by self knowledge. They have nothing to do with you, awareness, because you know that you are not the Subtle Body, the person/doer. You are trigunatita, beyond the gunas The gunas are called macrocosmic vasanas i.e. they belong to Isvara or the total, the creation, not to the person. As an apparent person or jiva, (the self under the spell of ignorance) they are in the driver’s seat, so to speak. The person thinks he/she is a doer so they drive him/her relentlessly until he/she gains the direct knowledge of his/her true nature as awareness. There are basically four stages to the guna teaching, which can be applied to people at different levels of their spiritual development. The Four Stages of the Guna Teaching Stage 1 The guna teaching is very effective for doers (karmi's); these are people in the world, not going for moksha. As a karmi, one uses the knowledge to accomplish things in the world and get what one wants. One can gain knowledge of the gunas without realising the self and use this knowledge very productively to live a better life. It is possible to ‘un-couple’ the guna teaching from Vedanta and apply it “on its own”, so to speak. This would be very useful for people in the human resources field, as well as a more enlightened approach to psychological counseling and related therapies. Stage 2 This is for the application of karma yoga. As a karma yogi, how does one really understand what giving up the results of your actions are, unless you understand what makes up the dharmafield? Also, the karma yogi uses the guna teaching to purify the mind as well as identify their conditioning. This is the most powerful way to negate the doer. Stage 3 Once the mind is purified, one uses self knowledge to discriminate the self from the not self. This means that your conditioning does not belong to you. At this stage, unless one really understands the gunas, many highly qualified inquirers get stuck with the most subtle teaching of all, the relationship between pure awareness and Isvara, jiva and jagat. Remember, it does not work to superimpose satya (pure awareness) on mithya (Isvara, jiva and jagat). If superimposition happens, even though the self is known, it will remain indirect knowledge i.e. the self will still appear as an object. And one will still think one has to “get” it. Or one will still wait to have that final experience that will prove he or she is awareness! Direct knowledge and self actualisation is the difficult part. Therefore, full understanding of the Isvara-jiva-jagat identity (aikyam) and the guna teaching is of paramount importance. Stage 4 In the fourth and final stage self knowledge has fully removed the ignorance of your true nature and you know without a doubt that you are beyond the gunas. This means that knowledge and ignorance are both ‘gone’; they are simply objects known to you. Only, you, the self remains. This is moksha. Typical Symptoms of Rajas, Tamas and Sattva Start observing them. Each of your thoughts and feelings are guna driven. See which ones are sattvic, which are tamasic and which are rajasic. Understand the implications of identifying with each kind of energy and the thoughts they cause. Start observing all objects (the world around you or your environment) from this perspective. It will be obvious that no-one is doing anything; it is all a play of the gunas. You will be amazed how clear it all becomes once the gunas are identified: it is like having 20/20 vision. When rajas is operating, the person will be projecting, arrogant, passionate, angry, frantic, over-stimulated/active/driven, extroverted, jittery, can’t sit still, afraid, dissatisfied, insatiable, possessive, jealous, controlling, can’t sleep, bored, wired and tired… (to name a few) Rajas triggers fear based thoughts and actions; the person will project their stuff onto ‘others’ or the ‘world’ and he/she will go “unconscious” (tamas). One tends to speak too quickly, do things too quickly, drop things, bump into things, break them, have accidents and injure oneself. In the extreme he/she will be totally extroverted, driven by passion and desire to gain whatever object he/she is fixated on, certain that the joy is in the object. The mind is turned completely outwards. When tamas is operating, the person will be in denial, blaming, holding onto the past or using it as a reason to justify action or inaction, or as an avoidance strategy to deny his or her fears, making excuses for why he/she can’t be honest or make decisions, rationalising, dithering, living in potentia, can’t wake up or get out of bed in the morning, exhausted, complaining, dull, lazy, depressed feeling a victim, feeling the wrongs of the world on his shoulders, unloved or that the ‘world’ is unloving or a bad place, cruel, uncaring, self absorbed etc. Here the mind is clouded, dull. When sattva is operating, the person is peaceful, calm, clear thinking, balanced, compassionately honest, loving, secure, taking appropriate action, owning all projections, cleaning up his/her karma, dispassionate (especially about his/her own thoughts and feelings), unconcerned, untouched by the opinion of others or the results of his/her actions, enjoying objects for what they are i.e. fully aware of all their inherent defects, satisfied, whole and complete... etc. How Do the Gunas Function? The gunas are programmed ways of thinking and acting. They are totally predictable. All the gunas build on themselves, so rajas will create more rajas, as will tamas create more tamas and sattva more sattva. The gunas all work together and at any given time, one of them will predominate. Rajas and tamas are inseparable. I call them the ‘terrible twins’. James calls them ‘incestuous bedfellows’. For instance, when rajas is operating, the mind will be projecting outwards and tamas will be right there to deny it. They are just the programmes that run the individual (and everything else). They are a problem if you do not have the knowledge of how the apparent reality functions, or if you identify with them. For instance, if you find yourself saying “I am rajasic or I am tamasic today”, you are identified with them. The person may be rajasic/tamasic today but you, awareness, are not. Remember, you are the knower of the person; therefore you are the knower of the gunas. Again, whenever you find yourself saying “I” press pause and ask yourself, “who is talking here... which perspective am I identified with, the reflected self (the person) or me, awareness?” If you can consistently do this, it will change your life forever. All three gunas have an upside as well as a downside, as does everything in this apparent reality. Without rajas, you would never get out of bed in the morning or accomplish anything. Rajas is the active, creative ‘force’. It is the mode of passion and desire. Not all desire or passion is bad however; you need a passion for self inquiry and a strong desire for moksha. It is one of the qualifications. Tamas is the very substance of matter, a heavy and steady energy. Without it you not be capable of endurance. You would not have the staying power to complete anything and would more or less float off the planet. You would not be ‘earthed’...and you would never be able to sleep. With too much sattva you can get stuck in a golden cage of experiential bliss, thinking happiness is the Holy Grail and that you are quite special. Sattva is not the be all and end all, even though sat, awareness (of which sattva is the most subtle manifestation) is actually the true nature of the mind. Sattva however, is a state of mind that is experienced by the doer, the Subtle Body. It is purely experiential and therefore does not last. It certainly will not free the person from dependence on objects or end the subtle existential suffering that comes with it. It is the last object to be released before moksha. Yet it is a valuable energy for inquiry and should be cultivated as it is the guna springboard for self-knowledge. ‘After’ moksha, sattva or peace of mind no longer needs to be the goal, although one will still make choices in alignment with it. However once all the objects have been negated along with the doer, it will be there naturally and if it should not be, that is fine too because you know that as awareness you are beyond sattva. ~ Is it Self-Inquiry or a Spiritual Lifestyle? Many spiritual seekers are looking for a way to cope with their unresolved psychological issues or as a balm to salve their emotional wounds. Often, they have the vanity to think they are pure and holy because they have had some kind of transcendental spiritual experiences or because they have walked away from a samsaric life when their ‘renunciation’ is actually escapism. They build a ‘spiritual’ identity that makes them feel less small and afraid. This is one of the negative effects of sattva. Being “spiritual” becomes a lifestyle. ~ How to Manage the Gunas Other than gaining the knowledge of what the gunas are and how they operate, which is half the battle , you can do a great deal to manage them through self knowledge. This means that you know that there are appropriate actions to maintain peace of mind for the jiva. If you are feeling brain dead, depressed or lazy, you can do something physical, like take a walk or exercise. If you are bouncing off the walls with extroversion, stress, fear or anxiety, driven by desire or action….slow down. Skip the coffee, cut down on sugar. Find some time alone where you can sit quietly and breathe in light. Once you have calmed down, meditate, sit in silence or light a candle, do a puja, chant or pray. Many enlightened people do not bother managing the gunas and simply accept whatever transpires in the dharmafield, knowing it has nothing to do with them. This practice is fine if the underlying motivation is not a refusal to face binding vasanas; or a way to camouflage the doer. If the mind is agitated or dull because of your life choices or lifestyle, freedom will not be that free unless you acknowledge the cause of the agitation in the light of self-knowledge. This is a common trap for spiritual seekers and one the ego likes. Often it is not lack of self-knowledge that is the problem. It is just that the ‘self-realised’ person is avoiding doing what it takes to change their behaviour…meaning staring down their vasanas, and getting their actions and lifestyle to conform with dharma. ~ Practical Lifestyle Management Take a look at your lifestyle and change what you can. Diet is very important for guna management. Learn which foods cause which guna. Examine what you do for a living, how you recreate, spend money and exercise. Stop hoarding unwanted ‘stuff’ (psychological and otherwise). Examine your relationships with people. Don’t keep company with people who bring you down. Or, if you can’t avoid them, see how the gunas run them. See where they want things to be different and the pain it causes. People can’t help being true to their predominant guna when they are unaware that there is choice. The practice of seeing how the gunas operate in yourself and ‘others’, will put you in a whole new world of perception. Of course there really are no ‘others’ as there is only one self with three guna- manufactured bodies. By that I mean that they work the same way in everyone. The gunas run the show for everyone who is identified with the body/mind and the story of personhood. If the predominant guna is tamas, clean out your cupboards; give away everything you don’t really need, stop staying up or getting up late, stop eating tamasic foods, get some exercise. Educate yourself about proper nutrition. Guna management is just common sense. Avoid depressants such as alcohol, sleeping pills and drugs. Be constantly on the alert for denial of any kind. If the dominant guna is rajas, be on constant alert for mindless activity, aggression, arrogance, projection, desire and extroversion. Rajas and tamas are the real problem makers. Check your diet. Too much sugar, coffee and other stimulants exacerbate rajas and induce it. So do many over-the-counter as well as prescription medications. More than half the planet seems to be on some kind of tranquiliser and it is not hard to see why. James says that rajas is the disease of the 21st century. If you observe too much sattva, stop pretending that you are ‘special’ because you have ‘out of this world’ epiphanies, spiritual knowledge and lots of bliss. Or stop pretending that you are very holy because you meditate, chant for hours or have an enlightened guru, (or worse, that you think you are an enlightened guru). Or you think you have the moral high-ground because you are a vegan/vegetarian and live on sprouts. Get real, keep it humble and keep up the practice of self-knowledge. The point here is that everyone has a predominant guna which will not only create their most entrenched tendencies, (i.e. vasanas) but it will also be what has conditioned them to have a particular kind of nature. There is no right or wrong here, no better or worse. We do not make ourselves the way we are; Isvara…the gunas…do. The ‘work’ involved in self-inquiry is identifying the gunas through self-knowledge and allowing the knowledge to help ‘you’ manage the gunas by dis-identifying from them and standing as awareness. ~ You can Choose the Guna Once you find yourself acting a particular guna out, just observe what is going on. As a person you have relative free will to choose what action to take to achieve a desired result and thus success in the world is possible. One can make ‘the best of one’s life’ as a jiva. However, those choices themselves are determined by your conditioning, i.e. Isvara or the gunas. Don’t judge or beat yourself up, be dispassionate about whatever is going on… it’s a movie after all. Trace back the train of events, thoughts and feelings to their source and identify what triggered them. The practice of knowledge, the ‘work”, is keeping an eye on the person and his/her likes and dislikes. Make a note of the guna and adjust it in light of the kind of mind you are trying to create. Make peace of mind your aim at all costs. Each time you do this, it will get easier to manage the gunas and it will be easier to recognize them quicker when they appear as your likes and dislikes. Consider the likes and dislikes appearing in your mind as red flags, ways to identify the vasanas that keep a particular program running. It is like playing a computer game: although it appears as if you are making the moves, all the moves that are possible are already programmed into the game. If you keep up the practice of knowledge, before long, you will have de-activated the like or dislike that keeps the program running. It will no longer condition the subtle body, although it may still appear. You will no longer be a robot acting out unconscious motives by reacting to your environment. If the vasana is still there but you do not have to act on it, it is considered non-binding. As stated above: understanding the guna teaching means that you understand the nature of your environment, (meaning Isvara) which includes you as a jiva. It is also important to remember that it is impossible and unnecessary to de-activate all vasanas. Not all vasanas are bad; you need a vasana for self inquiry and other to motivate yourself. As long as a vasana is not causing excessive agitation in the mind, it is dharmic. Knowing the nature of the gunas and vasanas renders the doer non-binding. Quote from Edwin on the Gunas As it is with all the teachings of Vedanta, knowledge is power. Sadly, many people try to control the gunas without understanding them. This can lead to a painful exercise in what is called “will power.” When we do things we recognize as harmful, but don’t understand the mechanism at work, we make resolutions, manhandling our psyche, so to speak. Sometimes these resolutions are kept; often they are broken. And we suffer accordingly. As the gunas are Maya, they are illusory. They draw us into the world of objects – including thoughts and feelings – and lead us to identify with these objects. The whole point of identifying the gunas, (which are also objects) and managing them is to understand the gunas, not to be afraid of what is bad or become attached to what is good in the gunas. ~ A Fearless Moral Inventory Conduct a fearless inventory of your likes and dislikes and see which guna values they represent. Be totally honest, without shame, blame or fear as you investigate what you are invested in. Be really alert, like a sharp bird with an acute monocular vision; witness the person you think you are and what goes on in his/her mind and life. Triguna vibhava yoga (managing the gunas) is a great way to purify your mind and prepare it for enlightenment. All the vasanas and samskaras (a conglomeration of vasanas) are nothing but the results of the gunas and their conditioning. They become binding obstacles (pratibandikas) when they are not understood and controlled. ~ Prarabdha Karma, the Effects of Ignorance and Karma Yoga If the effects of ignorance are playing out (prarabdha karma) and you cannot change it, accept it. Don’t resist. Do what you can to ameliorate them with equanimity and through dharmic lifestyle choices. Know that it is not you and it will pass; this is what Isvara is bringing your way as the jiva and you must flow with it. Resistance keeps you tied to the person and is a guarantee of more suffering. The gunas are constantly changing and impersonal, like everything else in the apparent reality; what use is control? Karma yoga is the only solution as there is no way to fast forward this process. It is common that people who have realised the self, still struggle with stubborn samskaras and with fears that seem to have no origin. The effects of ignorance take as long as they take to subside; it is not up to the jiva or to awareness. Fear is an acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real, and is the very nature of rajas. It is part of the fabric of the macrocosmic mind and the jiva being an extension of it has unnamed and gripping fears that emerge from the depths like monsters from the deep. Rajas and tamas are impersonal and together these two form the main problematic components of ignorance. They are not real. They belong to the causal body, not to you. It only seems like they belong to the jiva because there is always a corresponding story that comes with them. The gunas belong to Isvara and have nothing to do with awareness or with the person. The person has a story and has suffered; there is no escape if you are a jiva. As long as one is identified with the person, rajas stalks you every step of the way and the pitfalls of tamas are waiting to engulf you. ~ Following Dharma The knowledge of how the gunas function alleviates existential pain and guilt and gives you X-ray vision into yourself and everyone else. It shows that no-one is doing anything…or ever has. You can stop blaming yourself or anyone else for anything you did or anything that happened ‘to you’. Those who think that they are doers have no choice but to follow their natures. When you know you are not the doer, you can choose to drop “your” story’. This is not to say you do not take appropriate action when required or that you would do harm to any part of the creation. You would naturally make choices that give peace of mind, (sattva) and causes no injury, not because you feel guilt or duty bound, but because you are doing what is right. This is what following dharma means. Om and prem,

Nobody said you have to shout about it. Taking a stand as awareness simply means you (we) stop acting like the whiny, hard done by little bitch you (we) think you (we) are and start living life as a free person.

@Nadie hi yeah, don't try to control it, just look after yourself and get some morality going to balance out the insecurity and (it's always the same for everyone, it's just a pain in the ass and not the end of the world) don't they say resistance is acceptance in slow motion? Stay vigilant. The reason it's difficult to take a stand as awareness is the mind extroverting, so keep up with the yoga (if you do it? If not, then I think you should cultivate simple yoga routine). Just relax.

An enlightened person feels everything, all moods, emotions, thoughts, experiences just like a normal person. The difference is pure awareness is no longer confused about who it is, so does not claim these experiences or feels any need to obey them. There is no acceptance either, acceptance is for doers with karmic accounts to be dealt with. An enlightened persons karmic account is permanently closed.

@retardedhorse1 I have no idea. I vaguely remember having something like this going on in the old days, but now.. or maybe I'm just used to it? Do a body scan, and then just pay attention to the stillness pervading the monkey business itself. You don't really want to calm the mind, just get a sense that the body and mind arise in you, rather than you being inside a body and mind. That's all I got

I think ego is a language thing mainly. Were all programmes here, animals, humans, plants, it's just that humans use the 1st, 2nd and 3rd person pronouns so tend to take or assign credit for what is appearing in their stream of experience.

The Fundamental Problem And The Four Human Pursuits

Psychology is the realm of samsara. There is nothing conscious about it. It's all mechanics and its designed to get you to function in the society you find yourself in. It helps in so much that it equips you to go for certain things, but to reap the spiritual rewards from your goals you eventually need to understand the lessons inherent in those experiences. Mainly that nothing in samsara can lead to lasting fulfillment because nothing here is True. It's only relatively true. Try making things work in samsara and I guarantee you now that it will never happen. Obviously, as I mentioned, this is a fantasy. But knowing its a fantasy doesnt stop you going for it despite you knowing that it's not true. We're conditioned and hard wired to seek. But my teacher says "sin intelligently" which means be mindful of the zero sum nature of samsaric life and remain vigilant so that you assimilate the lessons into your subconscious and rewire your thinking so that its in harmony with the truth as it reveals itself time and time again through repeated ups and downs. The bizarre thing is, once you just allow yourself to act but understand that you are not entitled to the results you want, this attitude will drastically increase your confidence and social skills purely because you're learning to not give a fuck anymore - in a positive way living as an increasingly free person in the world rather than a resignation to defeat. If liberation is your goal, you cannot lose. But if you're looking to win and get everything you want in samsara, be prepared to be disappointed.

Looks like you got it all figured out

Yes, I agree with this. Wise words. However, this does not extend to becoming a good little soldier for society "according" to what psychotherapists believe one should turn out like. Just enough "healing" to get the mind nice and clam so that it can get down to the task of finding out its true nature is enough. All things are workable, but strangely enough being a bitch for society isnt.

@Telepresent Eh? That's what we do. Maya means we mix up satya and mythia. There's only one fact. You. Consciousness existence. But we don't see that and we try to look for the only "fact" in Samsara, while the only real fact that exists sitting right under our nose identitifies with anything and everything except itself. Madness! No wonder we suffer

You're not being antagonistic. I just wanted to know what the facts were... maybe I imagined you had possession of them? No worries tho, I'm not actually interested in facts because there aren't any facts available to us. Sorry if I mislead. My bad

So you don't "in fact" know the "facts" either? So why you interested in me knowing "the facts" that you don't even know?

@Telepresent @Telepresent Ok. So what are the 'facts' then? I'll adjust my original comment because I'm genuinely interested in the reality of the situation

Don't approach strangers in bars. They will shoot you down with no remorse as if you were merely a free range duck ready for plucking, tearing put your giblets and render you the ultimate humiliation of sending you off to hang naked in the market as meat to be haggled over! Don't do it!