SOUL

A child's first steps are not dysfunctional, they function exactly as they do...they are the first steps and may not resemble the steps in the middle of the walk in life but can often resemble the last steps of the walk in life. Which is an interesting topic for another time. This doesn't make them dysfunctional, just part of the journey. It seems you have mistakenly perceived that the steps along a developmental process are a 'dysfunction' because they are not in a form that you apparently think is the only functional one. Although, I wouldn't call this mistaken perception you have as dysfunctional, it's just the first steps in a walk of perceptual life. Not only do I understand what you are saying, I understand what you eventually will be saying if you continue along the walk of perceptual life. That is, unless you set up your soap box at this particular unfinished point and preach it as the 'truth' without progressing any further. You behave very much like your spiritual guru does on their own forum, every new revelation is the absolute truth and nothing is higher. That is, until there is another 'awakening' and then that is the absolute truth and nothing higher. When will this pattern be recognized for what it is? These are all steps in a journey that can actually be transcended to see the whole path if someone isn't attached to any one particular step along the way.

Right from the first sentence there is a mistaken perception, the ego isn't dysfunctional, it functions exactly as it does. What may be dysfunctional is the concepts, ideas, emotional responses and self perceptions it employs as it does what it does. The very manner it functions in can be used to remedy the dysfunction of the content it employs so that we can heal in a holistic way.

I chuckle quite a bit at the stuff I read on this forum because I don't take the back and forth chattering all that seriously and I don't take it personally. It's just people doing people things, the ego is a sneaky facet of our psychology and it exerts influence on our perceptions and behaviors in ways that are often difficult to suss out. I began my journey decades ago, before there was even an internet so I spent alot of time face to face with people on a spiritual journey in quite an array of communities. I learned that people could adopt a 'glowy' disposition and have all the spiritual jargon and rhetoric on their lips but still not have an authentic experience of what they are portraying. Online now someone doesn't even have to have that 'glowy' disposition, they can just line up the words in text that fits the discourse and seem like they are something but behind the keyboard in their own inner life they aren't. So when you say you know someone is or isn't, insert your favorite bull crap spiritual term, you are just imagining you do. You really don't know it. It's helpful to realize that our perceptions of others may not be accurate, we don't know what's going on with their inner life and to believe we do is only in our mind. We can get some insight through the words they use but again, online people can write words that may not reflect what really is. Speaking of words, especially spiritual ones like 'enlightened', are abused to the point they may not be useful anymore. I know from direct experience that there are a few different facets of inner work and that don't necessarily correlate with each other. How these different words apply to those different facets is a vague and subjective thing. So, saying that someone is or isn't something using one of these spiritual terms, especially online, is more about projection of one's own contextual understanding and through the veil of subjective perception. You just don't know, making claims about others with regard to the state of their inner work is a fruitless endeavor other than food for ego. You don't need to apologize for anything and after further contemplation it actually seems like it can be helpful going through this rhetorical dance as I called it. There can be benefit to others reading our exchanges in learning that saying others are or aren't one of these spiritual terms is useless except to ego. That exercise may have value. It's great to see Leo chimed in to clarify his intent for the apology...of course, words said on the internet don't necessarily portray reality accurately. Haha

To be fair, as we grow in awareness we can become aware of the effects of our behaviors and words have on others, we can actually experience a first hand like experience of it and have an intimate knowledge of those effects in ways that we previously didn't have. So we don't necessarily need to project any emotion onto this, it can be something that is recognized as a sort of performative act to signal to others our intent to reconcile many different types of things as well as this simple act can make an impact on others and allow healing to happen. You declaring why he 'solely' did it may or may not be as you suggest, only Leo can answer that. Also, I'm not sure where you get the notion that you have any authority to determine what is or is not being awakened and who is or is not awakened. This isn't the first time you've said this to me and I suspect I'm not the only one you have said it to. It may have your desired effect on others who you say it to but I see through this ploy and has little to no effect other than for me to chuckle at your own arrogant hubris. I hope we don't have to go through this rhetorical dance again.

Do you mean he doesn't have to apologize or that he doesn't require an apology? I didn't say he should do either, though, did you think I did?

I will take your sentiments into consideration but I don't require an apology for your personal attacks towards me on this forum, this reply included.

Transcending the human perspective to awaken to a universal perspective doesn't mean that one should just dismiss human social interactions altogether. An apology is a way for someone to reach out to others to let them know they are aware the dynamics between them have been strained in some way and taking responsibility for the part one may have played in it. Although the apology isn't the end of the situation, it's more like the beginning and in fact, without resolving the issue that caused the straining and behaving in a way that remediates it then the apology wasn't much more than a token gesture and is not a genuine acknowledgment. So time will tell what this really is, the present moment will continue to reveal its actual nature.

The challenge for us is to remain present with the typical distractions of every day life. There is a misconception that we need to 'control' our mind, that we need to do something to tame it in order to remain present. This is the ego creating self identity around spiritual activity and is empowering the distraction as much as it is empowering a perceived part that controls it. The happenings of life are used by the self identity as a distraction from being present then turn around and use the supposed spiritual activity of controlling to create more distraction while all along being present is ignored or destroyed in the process. 'Being present' isn't an activity that one does in place of or instead of tending to life's daily chores, it is a nonactivity that exists in awareness simultaneously as we tend to those chores. So cultivating an inner life that has this coexisting dynamic builds a healthier mindset than the controlling one. The inner environment of coexisting that has a sense of peace even with the so called distractions is possible where one of controlling is by nature in conflict so a sense of peace isn't possible even if the distractions are kept in check because the dynamic is always tenuous and in tension.

I've spent alot of time camping out in the wilderness and in NM I spent alot of time near some hot springs. We used to sit in the springs at night and watch the light show as we called it. These mysterious lights zipping across the sky, even sitting motionless for an hour or so until the military jets come to check them out and they'd wait until the jets get real close then in an instant race off away at a speed that made those jets look like they were the ones sitting still. This would go on all night long, night after night. I'm not going to claim anything about those lights other than they were silent, moved in ways and at speeds that no known human technology can. If there were a long history of crashed 'ufos' then we'd have come across them many times before even if we had no clue what to do with them. This suggests it hasn't happened before...or since, too.

This is just speculation but if we are being visited by some extra terrestrials the question I would pose is why have they never crashed before and why does it seem like they only crashed at the time they did? Humans were only exploding atomic bombs in the atmosphere for a very short time and it was during that short time in which the only really widely 'known' crash is to have supposedly occurred. Could it be that setting off an atomic bomb in the atmosphere messed up their technology enough to take one of their crafts out of the air and crash? Again, this is just pure speculation.

One member thinks alien insanity is boring...duly noted.

In a world where one trusts it is truth that alien insanity is real and actual life isn't real, people will endlessly argue about things that that take place in their imagination. /movietrailervoice

For every mystic it appears to them as being awake and for some who claim to be the only one awake it appears to their perception as if they are the only supremely awake but to those who are even more awake than that it is realized the potential awaken further. To put it in words that aren't sufficient to communicate the message, god isn't done waking up, not just to itself but awakening beyond what it presently is awake to. God is growing, and its own conscious awareness expanding is god evolving and growing.

In a world that requires a dollar, you seem to believe he provides a dime, but really he's only offering his two cents.

@Princess Arabia Oh, I am simply enjoying the moment of pure innocent revelation, there is nothing to correct. It's grate!!!

Contemplate the notion of rude awakening...then realize it isn't.

I said it is absence of conflict in response to you asking what is 'our peace', that's what peace is, an absence of conflict. I never said avoiding conflict, that's what your mind told you I said or how you interpreted what I said but I never said it. To avoid a conflict, the conflict would have to exist and someone is avoiding it by going around it, or they are taking action to not meet it. Or we could suggest it means that someone is a-'voiding' the conflict, they are negating or erasing it. This would also be saying someone is doing something or efforting in some way to 'void' out the already existing conflict. Peace is the absence of conflict, not the voiding of conflict, so your interpretation of what you heard me say is the falsehood, not my words. Genuine inner peace is an absence of conflict in our consciousness, and the only thing to do to find inner peace is to not do the thing.

Why confront truth? What is truth that it needs to be confronted? Why be in conflict with truth? Who is determining what the truth is that needs to be confronted? Your egoic design?

Yes, if we transcend the avatarization(even a word?) of the internet and embrace the humanity behind the pixels then it can connect people to each other. Especially for people that have been shunned and shamed by portions of society so they can actually feel they are a part of a community instead of apart from society. We can acknowledge the uplifting and connecting potential without ignoring the reality of finger pointing at 'fools' and othering that goes on all too often.

Peace is the absence of conflict....'our peace' would refer to an absence of conflict, distress or self suffering within our own consciousness. Now applying it to some of the dynamics going on with social interactions, including online. So 'being at peace' would not only an absence of conflict but is also a presence of harmony that exists in our own consciousness and expands from our own consciousness in perception to all expressions of consciousness we perceive. This may be a challenge when encountering differing opinions and expressions that don't resonate with our own. It can create a conflict within us if we believe our own perspective to be 'right', 'good' and 'truth' with others that differ are 'wrong', 'bad' and 'false'. This forum is replete with examples of this but is not limited to this forum.

The term troll existed before the internet, people just repurposed the term to describe behavior on the internet. Some like to use the term as in someone is being a 'troll', which in folk lore aren't considered human, so feeds into the dehumanizing aspect of using the term. There is also the behavior of trolling, which uses the fishing technique of trolling as an example of how someone would bait to catch a fish and the posts some would use to bait arguments. The internet is good at reusing old concepts for new meanings and is useful in that way. You may not be dehumanizing others, that is appreciated, yet it would be hard to argue that this electronic medium of social interactions hasn't created more separation between us as a society so is also increased the dehumanizing. It's just interacting with avatars now. Those who are doing inner work may have a deeper insight into the self suffering of an appearance of separation and identity with avatars. Which touches on a point of this thread about calling the appearance of others' avatars fools as an expression of inner conflict. Of course, one can have criticisms about the discourse that goes on here without allowing it to disturb our peace. Especially if one has transcended identity with the avatars, the words, the opinions and the appearance of separation the behavior exhibited would reflect it.

I have the benefit of seeing what life was before the internet, and there were trolls back then, too. The internet just amplifies it, it makes it appear like there is more, or it's getting worse or some other form of dramatizing it. The context and scope become abstract. There will always be some new form of social interactions to use, that's just how we are wired as a species. Add in some technology, and it can cause some to lose all humanity, if some humans weren't already adept at dehumanizing. Again, just amplifying it. Our work in the face of all the antics is actually not a doing, it's being at peace.

@Princess Arabia This is the internet, there's no use for sincere apologies, do you think we are emotionally mature and mentally healthy here? Pfft