Edvard

Reincarnation happens probably. Because before you were born, you were in the same state as you are after you're dead. And from that state you were born, and if it could happen once, why not again? And time doesn't pass for the dead, so you could be unconscios for an eternity and not feel any time having passed at all.

Hi. About a couple of weeks ago I had a discussion with Actualized.org (would guess it was Leo) on YouTube in the comment section under his video about loneliness, wondering whether going for a military engineering education, which I consider, maybe isn't the right way to go after all because of the lack of solitude and space I may need for developing my inside, and self-actualize. His answer suggested many other things to be concerned about when joining the military and essentially said I shouldn't do it, and I was slightly surprised and got confused about his answers. Can any of you here on the forum go a little deeper on this? I partly get it, and think I understand some of his principles as a matter of experience and consciousness; that it's, as we say "only you", or "only your consciousness", and good and evil doesn't really exist, but is a product of our minds manipulating reality, and what we call evil is just a matter of what our minds dislike. I'm starting to somewhat understand that. What I don't understand is the notion that there is no such thing as good or bad. Can't we define that? Isn't it bad when I'm unhappy, and good if I'm happy? If not, why take any self help course? Isn't physical pain bad, or are you saying that you can be happy having immense physical pain? What I also don't get is that by saying we don't need military (which he essentially does when trying to speak me away from joining it), isn't he then automatically accepting that I am guaranteed to get killed? Isn't he essentially saying: "I accept that ISIS will come into my house in one minute and chop my head off while meditating, still happy"? If that's OK, and you can be happy no matter what, why do you eat, and why do you even live? Why shouldn't we prevent ISIS from doing this, and I hope you agree that the only way to prevent them is indeed by violence.. Anyway, this is how the youtube discussion went: My starting comment: So going for a military carrier, firstly an education of 3 years, living on a 6 manned room, like I'm considering, is not a good idea if you need all this "space" to do self-actualizing? Actualized.org: You've got a bigger issue there than lack of solitude. You're making your career about killing other human beings. That's a huge problem from a self-actualization perspective. One of the folds of Buddha's eight-fold path is: Right Career: which means no killing of humans or animals Youtuber1: Actualized.org I disagree...if enemies take control of the situation, no matter what I will have to kill the enemy for my camps survival. Yes I understand the concept of The Dark Knight but it's foolish at certain situations. If you have read bhagavad geeta pls check out. Would you not kill a powerful psychopath responsible for killing children who did nothing to him? Off course there's nothing we can do about him but kill. Mental rehab for that guy will be foolish and what about the parents, is it the way of life? Yes decisions are tough to make but where did all the sanity go? Youtuber2: I admire you and your work. Just to play devils advocate though, are you not moralizing in saying a career in military is wrong? weren't we supposed to not moralize? Me: Thanks for the answer, although I was slightly surprised about your content moralization of being in the military, in addition to that I didn't know Buddhism had any relevance in itself here. I was thinking like there are lots of cons and pros. I mean, if some of your values are bravery/courage, I feel like I at least in some way would feel fulfilled when pushing myself, and that living a more comforting civilian life, not pushing myself or making tough decisions in the same way would make me feel more cowardly, as if something's lacking. I would also add, that it's called The Defence, and western countries are bounded by law to only kill if someone tries to kill us. The education I was talking about would give me a bachelor engineering degree in telematics along with lots leadership experience. I wonder, would you let someone kill you, if you knew the only way not to get killed was to kill the attacker, or maybe your point is not about whether or not being in the military is wrong, but rather that it would not give me "peace of mind", or something like that? On the other hand, I do in some way see your point, that maybe it wouldn't be too authentic to base a career on training for killing other humans Actualized.org: There's nothing wrong with killing human beings. There's nothing wrong with any action. You are free to kill and rape babies. It's just anti-spiritual. Meaning, you will regret it later. The problem with being in the military is that you're working not merely in self-defense, but in active provocation of violence, greed, oppression, fear, power, and corruption. You are literally making yourself the unconscious tool of the devil. Because you are committing yourself to follow orders unconsciously, without question. Nothing ultimately wrong with that. But it is not aligned with spiritual growth or consciousness, and you will never be happy doing that. When you are conscious and in the Truth, it makes no sense to do violence to others. When the USA military started testing LSD on their soldiers to make them tougher, they had to abandon the project because the LSD made them so conscious and so loving, they refused to kill human beings. They wanted to hug them instead. You can't be Jesus and be in the military. It doesn't make sense. At that point, you would rather die than be a tool of egoic unconsciousness. I know a highly enlightened American yogi who moved out of the USA because he does not want to even live in a country that has an active military. Bad karma. So he lives in a country with zero military. You gotta really appreciate how karma works. Me: Ok, I see. Any response to this, though? “For pacifism seems to me to be a deeply immoral position that comes to us swaddled in the dogma of highest moralism - but most of us are not pacifists. . . . Pacifism is ultimately nothing more than a willingness to die, and let others die, at the pleasure of the world’s thugs. It should be enough to note that a single sociopath, armed with nothing more than a knife, could exterminate a city full of pacifists. There is no doubt that such sociopaths exist, and they are generally better armed.” - Sam Harris Youtuber1: Love Sam Harris End of conversation

Because mass immigration can be seen as an excess of Green, and after having caused a range of problems, the countries are gonna be forced to think differently, or more systemically, eventually.

Not all of these countries are doing this. Sweden and Germany seem to be "the worst" when it comes to this issue. Norway and Denmark have a much more moderate immigration policy, probably because of a concern about getting the same problems other similar countries are having, mixed with some reactive resistors too, of course. These issues are probably what will help move these countries to Yellow, which I think they are already beginning to do. The pendulum has to swing a little.

Donald Trump is more "experienced" than you, so why don't you shut up and listen to him, if experience is all you care about. Have an open mind and be ready to learn from people and listen to perspectives. Maybe you don't believe in arguments or logic, in which case there is nothing to discuss anyway. I was sincere, and if that wasn't obvious as day, then tell me why. If it's self-evident, then why even point it out?

Which means that you don't understand it either, because the mind is everything you can understand with, to form ideas with. You hold enlightenment as a concept right now in your mind. You reduce it to «showing» that it's all a dream and that it's not materialism - all concepts of the mind - ideologies. Ideas about reality is not unappropiate, but your assertiveness makes this ideological, in in my opinion an unhealthy way. You fundamentally know nothing, same is with me. Well, one step further than Descartes - you know that you are.

Here is the proof that implies that consciousness is not limited to your body: Assume that natural processes are continuous, and that every possible universe or ways a universe could occur can be represented on a continuous line, implying infinite numbers x on the interval (or the real number line, if you will). Then, P(X=x) = 0 for any continuous random variable X . (P means probability). In other words, «Your consciousness» would be X, which as shown has probability zero. This proves that becoming conscious through «mainstream materialism» is impossible. (Mushrooms are illegal in my country)

But - I forgot that eating whole wheat bread usually makes you need to move a bit more... or expect weight increase... if you're not used to carbs already. But I would really recommend it to people who struggle with fatigue during the day. It's the opposite of empty calories - the opposite of white bread. And sure, look at both the positives and negatives. Negatives could be gluten, escpecially for allergics, and bread could to some people produce more acne, although I'm not sure. I think it depends how sensitive your body is to bread.

Then, as Sadhguru puts it, they have no love for the game. Some have love for the game, and that's what goes into genius. Yes, there are lots of cheaters in sports, but saying everybody does it is a huge generalization and assumption. And Norway has a culture for looking very down on dopers, and given the popularity and love of the sport in the country, if it turned out everybody cheats, you don't wanna know the scope of such a scandal. And if you're once tested positive with a tiny amount of an illigal drug, unknown cause, you automatically guilty until proven otherwise, and get suspended from any competition for several years. Btw, I eat bread (except for some periods), and four slices certainly fills me up for 4 hours. Unless it's white bread of course, which I virtually never eat. I'm not talking about mcdonalds bread, so you know. Usually, the darker, the better, unless they have colored it just to make it look healthy... then look for grains. If it looks superficial and nice, it's usually the opposite, from my experience. And it's not perfect, of course, like nothing is. And different diets work for different people.

You have no idea what you're talking about. White bread is empty calories. Not whole wheat bread. It's what Norwegian skiers eat. Look at their medal statistics in the Olympics. I hope you're kidding when comparing it with spoons of suger.

Well, there is a saying... ...and maybe it's a bit of a thing on Actualized.org?

The evolution of Walter White - is it Orange turning Red, or just Good Orange turning Bad Orange? Or maybe Orange/Yellow turning into Turquoise Zen Devil, perhaps...? Given that I've heard that going back in Spiral Dynamics is not possible.

But these responses also illustrate that it's often hard to determine anyone's real stage based on their behavior alone.

That makes sense

You would start dreaming...

Or a Blue person who believes God is in control and fixes/destroys everything for a purpose to believe in climate change? Or a manipulative Orange person who is addicted to oil, giving enourmous wealth?

The way I see it is that materialism is an ideology, but so is anti-materialism. It just is what it is. A human mind thinking about it is just that, no matter the meaning of those thoughts for us. You are not really talking absolute truth by stating that it's not material. Rather that materialism is not true. But not false either. What determines what is material? The phone I'm holding is material. It's part of the material of a «dream».

I know a proclaimed Coral in spiral dynamics who seems to be a fan of him, TJ Reeves. He's a member of this forum, and I follow him on IG.

You always say something like, "Trump is a moron", but never why. Trump is obviously not stupid. Many of the things he has done is indeed quite hard and takes som IQ. All I know is that I disagree with him on some things, and agree with him on some things, and most things I'm not sure about. In terms of policy, I don't think he seems much worse than the other republicans, maybe even better. He basically says the same things, just in more interesting ways, but is less ideological. You seem too caught up on how he appears in media. I think fundamentally that republicans and far right policies are bad, but Trump is not particularly excessive when it comes to this. One example of dishonest media: When Trump supposedly mocked a disabled person, mainstream media of course didn't show you several other clips of Trump doing the same kind of mimicking immitating non-disabled persons. The only reason I defend him is because people are so biased when talking about him that it's insane. They are not looking at him in an objective way, like I think someone like Kyle Kulinski on Secular Talk is doing quite well. And BTW, there are several cases where the media and corporate Dems are attacking Trump from the right.

What if it turns out feminism doesn't work just according to the ideology/book of feminism? That's why I think it's silly to give it such a colored word. Just why? And why no blackism, disableism, gayism? BTW. It is also silly in the sense that it's just divisive. It just scares Orange and Blue people away. But then again, this is Green and not Yellow. Also, what man/masculine person calls himself a feminist? What about just subscribing to whatever-works-ism? I have nothing against women being equal though. I think that would be best, but what that means I don't know. I just care about equal opportunities. But you can't be too fundamentalistic here either. There are biological differences that we know of and don't know of. No reason to commit to anything here.

Cuz you're not projecting AT ALL... You say that Blue is necessary, but not why. There will come a time in history where no one is Blue. So if it's necessary, then Yellow better start to adopt some of their thinking. BTW, there will probably come a time where neither military or laws are necessary. According to you saying need for military = Blue, a need for laws or any kind of punishment = Blue. So if you follow the law you're Blue, IOW. Law is a useful tool. Self-defense is a useful tool. You don't need to be Blue to see that. But I'm not sure if you even read through what I say. Are you saying Kennedy is Blue?

OK, although you just presented an idea: infinity... which you claim to have an experience of. Even this one word has infinite meanings. Certainly infinite interpretations.

What this doesn't explain is that if it's plain infinitity, then randomness in terms of complete chaos is infinitely more probable than the type of reality we are perceiving through this life. And is the next life determined as a roulette, or is it a consequence of this life? To me the latter makes more sense. (What's dangerous about this kind of contemplation is that it could easily turn into religious dogma. I can't know anything for sure; it just makes sense to me)

Your body has reward systems for you by doing certain things and achieving certain things. You can have a life full of meaning or a life full of meaninglessness. Ultimately, this life will end either way. What are your urges right now? What do you really want? Try to connect with that.

Well, technically Blue is lower on the scale than Green, right? So in that sense you're saying it. And I didn't say "less developed" means something negative. There is a reason I put it in quotation marks... You don't sound very practical. You talk about these utopic perfect ideas about no borders, and getting rid of ego... but do you do that in practice? Ego is necessary, it keeps us alive. Of course, in the absolute it doesn't matter who wins a war between Hitler's Germany and the US, but if you were a US citizen at that time, I think I know which side you would root for, in practice. This is part of the problem about Green. It clings to a conceptual view of reality, and becomes fundamentalists in regards to "nice" models, thinking everything is perfect. Yes, technically it is, but that doesn't help you at all in practice. In practice, we need borders to survive. You seem pretty sure about your views without even considering nuances or that you may have misunderstood something. It sounds like you believe you are Turqoise or something; regardless, I would try to be a little more mindful of the possibility to keep evolving. Maybe perspectives would change. I don't even care if I was Blue... I would have no problem admitting that if it was true, but there is no way, sorry. Blue is not secular. Blue is not into renewable energy sources, like I am. Blue is rigid and conservative, I am flexible and open to any possibility, and yes, I also view the whole world as "one organism", ultimately. And Green tends to think everything and everyone is perfect, but also applies that in practice, the idea of tolerance for everybody, which is, you know, not very practicle in today's world. To me you sound kinda Greenish. And then you don't agree with Yellow. If you were Turqoise (while Turquiose I think largely would agree with Yellow, but also not being involved as much, spending more of its time in being) you would have recognized this thinking and called me Yellow or Coral, while Green would sometimes conflate that kind of thinking with Blue and Orange, like you seem to be doing. With all this said, I don't doubt that the US is spending waay too much on military. But that's another matter. We can hold the ideas about peace and love as the ultimate goal, or Northern Star for humanity (as Obama puts it), while at the same time not counting on a revolution in human nature, but rather a gradual evolution in human institutions (as Kennedy said). Found the quote: "Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace-- based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions--on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace--no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process--a way of solving problems. With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor--it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors." - JFK https://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/American-University_19630610.aspx That I would say is a decent example of Yellow thinking. Also,