hundreth

He grew up in Nepal around meditating monks. He didn't invent meditation. In fact a meditating monk was one of his greatest inspirations.

Bernardo Kustrap talks in depth about this from the standpoint of monistic idealism vs. solipsism. I suggest looking into his work. The simple explanation I can try to give for his ideas around this subject is that everything arises in consciousness, and each of our "personal" awareness fields is like a tiny branch or leaf on the giant tree of consciousness. So we're all part of the same consciousness, as individual nodes, each with our own "personal awareness." This is different from solipsism which suggests all experience is situated within my personal awareness.

So you're supporting the Islamic "movement" because they don't drink, they're a religion, and they makes sounds you like. Got it.

I recently read Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and absolutely loved it. Amazing piece of literature, and a highly recommended read. With that said, Hermann Hesse is a German poet writing with a German romanticism flair about Eastern philosophies and Buddhism. Being from a Western background, I resonated deeply with the text and it's take on the spiritual journey. I wanted to take a closer look at this and do a deconstruction on the effect of our our Western filters being applied here. I came across this wonderful article and wanted to share it with you all: https://tricycle.org/magazine/romancing-buddha/ A few excerpts: Would love to hear your thoughts!

For someone searching, it appears you have more answers than questions. This is a pretty dark worldview. Go back to the basics. You have a wife and a family, there's much to be grateful for.

I don't believe we will ever get to a complete Utopia. That said, we are doing very well now. It's not perfect, but capitalism appears to be the most "stable" system out of all we've tried so far. Does that mean it's perfect? Far from it. Does that mean we won't come up with a new system that is more virtuous than capitalism? No, we may come up with something new. Right now there are more questions than answers. We have the issue of inequality, and too much inequality is destructive. You can't remove all inequality. The current system is stable because it allows human competitiveness to stabilize itself. If you try to remove human competitiveness as Marxism attempted, the entire system will destabilize and the most corrupt will gain power. So what do we do about inequality? For one, life isn't a zero sum game. Just because there is inequality, doesn't mean we aren't all benefitting from it. Our quality of life as a collective has improved. At the extremes of inequality, capitalism has flaws. What do we do about those who are unable to compete? What do we do about rampant consumerism and the psychological burdens of this idol worship? Unfortunately we don't know.

Let's say you came up with a board game, one of the rules is "no cheating!" Everyone starts cheating. It's not the personality traits of "marxist people" - it's just the psychology of people in general. You can put the same people in different environments, and different outcomes will arise. It's not about "bad people", it's about systems that bring out the worst in us. We all have this darkness within us.

Do you honestly believe we're supposed to have a Utopia here? You are an infinitely powerful being who can dream up anything. You asked the question earlier, why not dream up something more pleasant? Because it's perfect the way it is. It's also clear you haven't done a deep dive into history. Marxist ideologies don't work. This utopia isn't compatible with human psychology. An amazing lesson from the man you despise:

Earlier you referred to terrorists and school shootings as far more sinister than SJWs. I would definitely agree, but this propping up of one over the other is a criticism. Clearly infinity loves terrorists. Sure, alright. So let's just accept terrorism? There is no way we can consciously make a transformation here? Even acceptance and compassion can AFFECT CHANGE. So is that self agenda? Are all forms of self agenda bad? Yeah, terrorists conflict with my self agenda. Yeah, SJWs conflict with my self agenda too. I'm conscious of it, but I also believe I'm here to exercise my self agenda. Clearly infinity loves when we play out our agendas. Infinity loves to play games. So what if Jordan Peterson doesn't look happy when he's ranting against SJWs? Who said the point of life is to be happy all the time? There's also something called delayed gratification. Even if you believe happiness is the ultimate goal, the reason why you sit there struggling through meditation in the beginning is for some pay off down the line. Delayed gratification is the birth of spirituality. I'm challenging some of your points, but I'm legit working through these questions myself.

You are hilarious, man. Here you are commenting and evaluating Leo's video through the lens of what? Leo's videos! It's like a dream within a dream. There's no "ground" to ground to.

Depends who you ask. I'm wrestling with this myself, but leaning towards yes. This isn't the only goal though, one among many. On one hand, you have those who argue for ultimate relativity and this makes "good" and "evil" arbitrary concepts. That may be true, but there are also themes deep inside us subconsciously, inside our humanity, inside our being that guide us towards a "better" way. There are ways to live that lead you into a life of despair, and ways to live that enrich your experience and those around you. That's a pretty good goal if you're going to choose one. If you've actualized yourself as part of a community, then as an individual, and ultimately are able to transcend your community, there's a great chance you are an agent of "good." At the end of the day, this is a choose your own adventure, this just happens to keep coming up over and over as the most enjoyable, challenging, and meaningful way to play the game. Have fun.

So are things 'out of balance' so to speak or is it necessarily this way?

Hey guys, this is something i'm working on understanding and reconciling with everything I've learned these past few years. For the most part, in these circles we have this suggestion to separate oneself from society and focus on inner being / non duality. This is a kind of freedom or liberation from externalities, societies, cultures, expectations, etc and allows one to just be present and bask in the grace of being. Now, this is all lovely, except I see a recurring theme in my own life and in those around me. Especially those one generation older than me (I'm 32.) In my own life, my parents each have their own struggles. My mother has chronic health issues, my father struggles with alcoholism. My mother is also very burdened taking care of my grandmother, who not surprisingly has even more serious health issues. Among others in my family and friendships, I see many take on a huge responsibility and devoting a large portion of their lives and well being towards caring for their parents. I fully understand there are situations where it warrants completely cutting off from parents especially if they are toxic. For most, there's this giant gray area and it seems a necessary burden and moral imperative to care for your parents. Though, this can sometimes feel like a bottomless pit. So I wonder, what do consciousness and non duality seekers have to say about this? Is this just another arbitrary societal illusion? Is this just a barrier to higher levels of consciousness? Is there a greater truth and inherent morality that involves caring for others as an expression of non duality? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Thanks @Ocean. Your comment lead me to re-explore the chop wood, carry water proverb and with this practical situation I feel I understand it in greater depth.

I don't deny it, I'm just attempting to reconcile this with the message of "go live in a cave." On the other hand, for most of us, even though caring can be a learning / growth experience that brings about understanding, this can feel like an obligation at times. Any time you're "required" to take an action that doesn't seem to follow where you want to be expending your energies, this can feel like an obligation. I'm sure there are many out there who have transcended such feelings, but I'm speaking on behalf of myself and the layman. So there's this sort of chicken and egg, caring can lead to transcendence, but transcendence leads to caring.

I'm an INTP as well. I used to get caught up in all of this nonsense. An INTP behaves this way, an INTP behaves that way. An INTP has these strengths, an INTP has these weaknesses. If you continue down this path, you will get stuck inside an echo chamber and self fulfilling prophecy of who or how you are supposed to be. I don't recommend it. Especially considering you already know you have a tendency to get stuck in thought. You're just adding more thoughts to get stuck in, and these are the worst kind, because they seek to define you. Meditate, become directly aware of your individual processes and transcend them.

I really don't agree with this idea that the forum should be some kind of metaphor for spirituality or enlightenment. If you want to keep deconstructing the forum and approaching nothing just shut the whole thing down lol

I'm not sure why you highlighted my usage, but to that point I'm all for removing the counts. I made another post advocating for quality over quantity. I believe the upvote button helps remove unnecessary "I agree" posts. Keeping the rep counts private (on both user level and post level) removes the group think while maintaining feelings of connectedness.

Here's a thought, and I don't know if it's possible or not given the forum's feature set. Is it possible to enable the upvote functionality but keep the count private? Thereby removing the Group Think but maintaining the connection aspect of it.

Overall I don't like the change. I agree with removing those ranking titles and total rep count, etc. Having the rep counts on individual posts is useful. There's a reason why websites like StackOverflow are so damn useful. In addition to being useful for highlighting good posts, you join the forum to connect with others and relate thoughts, experiences, etc. Up-voting individual posts is a way to say "I'm resonating with what you're saying!" This is satisfying to both the upvoter and the upvotee. I find myself reaching for the button often when browsing. I don't usually feel like writing a post to agree with someone is useful. The upvote button is a way for content consumers to have a voice in the discussion as well without further cluttering it. On the other hand, the user based rankings and titles were not useful. They favor high frequency posters and reward quantity over quality. Also, what happened to forum notifications, mentions, etc?

I think less of myself, but I'm feeling myself more than ever

I think of enlightenment as binary, but awareness levels in gradients. You "know" the truth. You're enlightened. But do you truly believe it? Do you embody it? What level of awareness do you have of the truth? I'd venture to say almost everyone on this subforum is enlightened, but how many of us live in such a way? Myself included. Most of the time, I feel like I'm "me" and separate from my surroundings. I get glimpses.

I used to have similar feelings about comic books, wanting to have mutant powers like an X-Men and help people. I definitely had a phase of my life where I felt like I was stuck, and not having deep, meaningful experiences. Over time, just following your standard school -> job -> career trajectory I was presented with several calls to action and adventure. I had to choose to accept these. Choose to leave the corporate job for a Start Up. Choose to leave the start up and move my entire life to Israel for a year and a half. Choose to travel, experiment with psychedelics, have an intense relationship, etc. Over time I found out the real world is just as magical and adventurous as those fictional worlds are. Will those adventures bring you ultimate fulfillment? No, but they will teach you 1000x more than sitting around and reading on the internet will. Life has beaten me with a stick so many times, it's the ultimate teacher. Just be ready for those calls to action, and when adventure calls, make sure to pick up the phone and accept!

Unfortunately I don't know what kind of shrooms these were or the exact dosage. I'm a foreigner living in Israel, and I did things the old fashioned way. I bought them from a questionable dealer, and kept them for months until the right time. Don't worry though, these shrooms were fantastic! I've had quite a few Psilocybe trips before, but never solo. Still, I know I always feel the most grounded in nature when I'm on shrooms, so I went to HaYarkon park in northern Tel Aviv. I biked to a nice secluded area, locked my bike up, and prepared to sit and meditate. To contemplate on who I am, experience No Self. Not to go too far, get lost, lose my bike, get into trouble while I'm on shrooms, etc. I sat down, ate them, and started to meditate and follow the plan. Within 10 minutes of them kicking in, I was off wandering in a completely different direction - in a state of blissful awe and curious exploration. Everything was so vivid and beautiful, really magical. I couldn't stop moving. I had completely abandoned the plan. No self?? Who gives a shit? My inner child was let out. As I was on my journey, a thousand insights were hitting me at once. They were so deep and plentiful, I couldn't even hold them. Why had I abandoned the plan? I had all these fears. Don't get lost, don't deal with people much, stay in my lane nearby and stick to the agenda. It suddenly dawned on me, our EGO is simply our inner parent which we develop to keep us safe and allows us to manipulate the world. Without our egos, we would simply be directionless children. The catch is, even a child needs boundaries to feel safe. We NEED our egos to give us the lines for us to color in. I was walking endlessly, and another fear popped into my mind: "Aren't you going to be exhausted if you keep walking in this heat?" - and my inner child went "Hell nah!" Onward I went, and I realized I had all the energy I needed. It was driven by this child like desire to play. As it turns out, we generate and absorb life force when we're tapped into our child like desire to play. I'm generally a low energy guy, and have a lot of trouble maintaining the will to follow through on things. I realized my inner parent was way over powering my inner child to the point where it was literally stifling my "life force." It still feels odd using that term as it's the first time I've ever felt the need to use it, based on the inexplicable feeling I had on the shrooms. When your inner parent or EGO is too strong, you literally stifle your ability to generate and absorb the life force around you. It's almost like you can't breathe the air that's around you. When you don't have enough play and exploration in your life, you are literally starving for life force and dying. I now knew what I needed to balance. I learned how to parent myself from my parents, and I desperately need to let go of control to find my life force in the only place you can find it - CHAOS. As children, you play in the wilderness, you get your hands dirty, you literally thrive in chaos. Our ego brings ORDER to the chaos and attempts to guide our inner child. It's very much like coloring within the lines. Without the lines, there is no form. Too many restrictions, and the art can't breathe and express. The thing is, all the life force you thrive on is deep inside the LIMITLESS CHAOS. I now understand this is why people who go through near death experiences or other extreme circumstances come out with a new appreciation for life. Our ideal selves are the perfect marriage of ORDER and CHAOS. As I kept walking alone, I was in such a blissful awesome state. I felt this deep desire to hug someone and share this, but I was alone. It's not as if anything was "missing" - but I really wanted to share this beauty. The insight arrived, duality is a GIFT we've given ourselves to be able to love and share. Duality is not the enemy, this is what we've chosen. We quite literally are all the "children of god". I now realized those words were divine. As I've said, I was in a very playful explorative state, and the mushrooms are a very playful spirit. It felt as though the shrooms spirit told my inner parent "Go sit down, I will guide him from here." So Ron shut the fuck up and the shrooms spirit took over, reminding me what it was to be a child and sharing hundreds of insights with me. It felt like I was plugged into the source of truth, but the spirit was giving me the answers in my own voice. Why was the spirit talking to me in my own voice? Then it hit me, I was talking to myself. The answers were all within me, but the only way I would understand them was through the channel of "another." In other words, of course I experienced the truth through the "other" - DUALITY IS ALL I'VE EVER KNOWN! Without duality, we quite literally would be nothing. There were so many other insights gained, but I'm sharing some highlights to keep this from being insanely long. If these words resonated with you, I can't take any credit for them. They were given to me, and forms of the experience we all share. When you experience the beauty of being, the only thing to do is share it. Love to you all. - Ron

Thanks for the response. Regarding the New Age movement, I'm honestly not sure. You have alluded to the New Age movement in some of your videos as the ideas starting to make sense, and in your posts on the forum you've pointed to someone moving from a scientist to a New Ager as if that was a forward progression.