Emerald

I think that any time a spiritual teacher says anything, it can lead to negative consequences for a lot of people. So, even though Leo says a whole bunch of times to not just blindly believe what he says, the mind almost does this unconsciously. And then, if a person is unaware of this, they'll be stuck in that trap until they do become aware. But this is part of the path. And now that you realize this, you can throw away all the beliefs and move forward. There is a story called "The Parable of the Raft", and the main idea is that you need a raft to cross the river, but once you've crossed the river, the raft becomes a hinderance. So, if anyone gets attached to any particular spiritual ideas or teachings, this can be like holding onto the raft even though you don't need it. So, right now, the trick is to explore anxieties about letting go of beliefs that were unconsciously picked up from Leo's content. And to change those ideas from beliefs to tools that can be either picked up or set down. But this is not really an issue with Leo in particular, even if he does tend toward an intellectual approach and may create more of this belief-effect for that reason. You would have eventually come to the same conclusion about any teachings that you've learned. And this is good. It shows progress, even if it feels like going backwards and losing things.

Just remove all limiting beliefs and approach this potential relationship with a beginner's mind. Relationships are just a part of life, and you need not resist them. Resistance itself creates unconsciousness. Let everything go, and just enjoy your life and the experiences. Don't suppress anything, as you know nothing.

When it comes to making a choice between the same-old corruption with empty promises of progress and the same-old corruption plus Fascism and a moral leader that waters the seeds of hate, it is unfortunately wisest in that situation to choose the same-old corruption with empty promises of progress. Because, even if those promises are empty on the part of the establishment, they are still having a positive influence on the populace. So, in this case, you want to stick to the demons that you know... especially when Bolsonaro is so vile. And this is true even if you are sick and tired of the same-old-same-old coming from the establishment. Electing a Fascist will only give you more of the same corruption and much much worse, to the point where things may never go back to as good as it was before.

Which vitamins can you not get from plants/tubers/nuts/seeds that you can get from fish? I'm pretty well-versed on nutrition, and the only thing you can't get from plants is B-12. But the only reason why is because B-12 comes from dirt and human beings eat a diet that's free from dirt because we wash our fruits and veggies extensively in modern day. And all animals only get their B-12 from the dirt as well. So, this is why we get B-12 when we eat them. Other than that, you can get every essential vitamin, minerals, or amino acid from plants.

You're not really understanding what a Zen devil is and why people are telling you that you're being one. I do personally believe that it doesn't make sense to eat meat because it causes needless suffering to sentient beings. And I do believe that animals suffer unlike you who doesn't believe that animals suffer. But you state your belief in the idea "killing animals instantly for food = no suffering" as though it's a fact... when it's really just an assumption based in no evidence what-so-ever. But eating meat isn't Zen devilry in and of itself. Zen devilry is the use of mental gymnastics relative to canned insights about non-duality to justify all behavior that falls into the realm of self-interest regardless of consequence to others. So, I do think Eckhart Tolle is contributing to suffering when he eats meat. But I don't think he's being a Zen devil, and using a canned mind-based understanding of non-duality to justify eating meat for his own self-interest like you are. So, I would consider Eckhart Tolle's meat consumption to be a problem that he would be wisest to refrain from. But he's probably not jumping through hoops in his own mind to make himself unconscious so that he can prop up an identity of "righteousness" while actively doing things that needlessly encroach upon others' lives. That's the difference between simply doing actions that cause suffering and Zen devilry. So, they're both problems on the relative level, but they have different causes. In order to avoid being a Zen devil, don't use absolute truths invalidate relative truths. This will make you very unconscious indeed.

No. You are a devil for using the truth of non-duality to justify a behavior that contributes to pain and suffering. Zen devils use the truth of no-self to play mental gymnastics with those truths to justify harmful behavior like rape, murder, stealing, manipulation, etc. And they would use an idea like, "Cows don't have an ego, therefore they don't suffer when we kill them. Therefore, it's okay if I kill a cow." Not only are they assuming a lot of things about how cows experience things, they are also using canned insights relative to non-duality to justify something that they themselves find morally quesitonable... And if they didn't find it morally questionable, then they wouldn't bother with the rationalization. This is the entire game of Zen devilry is to use non-dual truths to justify any and all behaviors that they want to do without regard to who it harms. So, it's really about using certain insights to rationalize self-interest over the interests of others or the common good in general. So, Eckhart Tolle and Nasgardatta are probably not doing this, even if they do eat meat. So, they are not Zen devils.

You have to think more systemically than this and go from the root of the problem to solve it, instead of the surface area where the problem starts effecting you personally. The reason why there are so many refugees in your country isn't actually because of policies within your country being naive and allowing in too many refugees. That's not the root of the problem. The reason why there are so many refugees in your country is because they are fleeing a war zone. And that war was caused by corruption in politics. So, aiming for peace between "left" and "right" is a really localized and topical way to attempt to solve those types of issues. In fact, quelling conflicts between people in different political parties is a bad thing, because conflict raises awareness and pushes us forward. I know that I won't kowtow and compromise on a lot of things as I feel just that passionately about them, and a lot of people feel that way. And the conflict between those people is the discomfort that keeps us aware and allows us to grow. And when there is not awareness, that's the fertile ground for corruption to blossom, which is really what you want to be focusing on. But if you really want to nip that specific problem in the bud and strike at the roots of the problem, you need to ruthlessly care about Muslims and why they're coming to your country in the first place, instead of just caring about peace in partisan factions and maintaining your personal comfort zone. Right now, you only seem to care about maintaining the norm in Germany and getting rid of conflict and disagreement between people in your own country... and mostly for your own comfort and fears of "What if". But make no mistake, Germany is not the country that's actually in deep trouble. The country that is in deep trouble is Syria, and that's why they're there. So, regarding Spiral Dynamics, you should be a lot more Yellow about this topic. Strike at the roots, not at the branches. Cure the illness, not the symptoms of the illness.

The reason why I think this is because of the fact that you made this thread in the first place, and seem to be very adamant about defending your decision to eat meat... even against people who didn't directly tell you that you shouldn't. So, this indicates to me that there is perhaps a guilt about eating meat, because you're trying really hard to defend it even against people who aren't directly challenging you on it. So, you seem to be projecting some guilt and then trying to absolve yourself of that guilt.

How did this confirmation happen? Did you watch images of animals suffering with an open heart, and truly feel okay with it? Or did you begin and end in the mind, while using certain rational defenses for why eating meat is morally defensible because of a desire to protect your self-image as a "righteous person" from your own personal judgements? And then did you work backward from the idea "I'm a righteous person", and then find a way to continue identifying as a "righteous person" by using mental gymnastics to find ways to justify meat-eating on a public forum where you can convince others (and thus yourself) that meat-eating is a defensible action and that you are still a "good and righteous" person? My guess is the latter. So, my question is... Why does eating meat make you feel so guilty?

I think astrology is really interesting. It's a lot of fun. Birthday: 4/26/1989 Sun Sign - Taurus (leader of the Earth house) Moon Sign - Capricorn (Earth sign) Ascendent - Virgo (Earth sign) Also, in the Chinese Zodiac, I am year of the Snake which is an Earth sign because of the snake's close proximity to the Earth. And I am specifically an Earth snake as each twelve years the signs change from one element to another. So, my husband is also year of the snake, but he is 12 years older than I am. So, he is a fire snake. But there are also water snakes, metal snakes, and one other type that escapes me. Also, the vast majority of my extended chart which has about 20 or so constellations to it, consists of Earth signs. And all the chart that doesn't directly relate back to the element of Earth are water signs with just two Air signs thrown in there and no Fire signs. If you want to check your extended chart, here is a link to a great website for it that one of my subscribers shared with me - https://astro-charts.com

So, you're believing in what Nisargadatta says just because he's an enlightened master? Why does he know better than you what's right for you?

Seek first to understand why it is that you want that and accept the reasons why. Then, once you see your motivations at a deeper level, you'll be able to see if it's something that you should or shouldn't pursue. But brutal honesty is needed as your motivations may not be as straightforward as they seem at face value. Meaning, that it may not simply be a desire for sexual adventures, it may take root in something deeper... or it may not. It may literally just be a desire for sex. If you feel like you want to do it because you feel like you need validation, then be honest with yourself about that and realize that there is a reason why you crave validation that can never be solved on that level. And then, you'll need to explore that need for validation. Or it could be some other motivation as well.

I was considering saying something very similar to this. Spot on!

This is why the mind is a beautiful servant yet a terrible master. You can justify any form of devilry with a little mental gymnastics. It can create all sorts of castles in the sky to live in and cling to. And those who decide to live in a castle in the sky of their own making, totally forget that there is no ground below them. To truly make wise decisions, you must build your castle on the solid foundation of the heart. Right now, you are bringing the analytical mind into matters of the heart, to avoid what the heart has to say. The open heart will tell you clearly what is wiser if you dare to listen.

It is frustrating to me, so I would like it not to be this way. But to be clear, I don't have an issue reaching orgasm. I can't do it through sex because sex doesn't stimulate me enough to achieve orgasm. But I can experience pleasure, and I can climax in other ways. But this is not really the issue. The issue is more-so that when I experience sexual feelings it feels better if I just take time to feel them on my own without even engaging with physicality and definitely not trying to orgasm. I am most sexually fulfilled when imagining a sexual scenario and being able to experience the erotic emotions that come with the fantasy. But once it becomes physical, it loses like 85% of its charm. And I end up feeling less sexually satisfied by doing more work once sex becomes real, regardless of the pleasure I feel (which itself is usually pretty mild). And oddly enough, I prefer the mild pleasure to orgasm as well. So, it's just a lot of mixed messages and a promise of sexual fulfillment that has never panned out.

He's definitely Green with some Yellow, if I peg him anywhere. But, it doesn't really help. Yet again, he isn't the most romantic guy. I tend to have some pessimistic ideas about the experience of sex for a woman. I don't know if they're true in general, but it's been true for me. My pessimistic idea is that since the purpose of sex is toward reproduction it only requires the man to be satisfied sexually because it is the male orgasm that enables sperm to get to the egg and not female orgasm or sexual satisfaction. But in a human species, where we have the capacity for high intellectual thinking and noticing things like unfairness, there also has to be a motivation to have sex for women. So, our mind spins this projection of a sexual scenario onto reality where it feels really good to engage with that fantasy projection... and it is the projection itself that beckons us into a sexual situation where there is no actual sexual fulfillment to be had. It just feels good to feel the feelings associated with the projection, and there is an illusion that making that projection real will intensify the feelings of the projection that we crave. But then, when we actually get in the situation, the desire for the satisfaction promised by the projection doesn't get met. And this leaves us with a desire to seek it more (leading to more babies) and to avoid sex unless there is a really strong and emotionally alluring projection over the experience (nature's form of birth control and thus population control). But that's just my pessimistic idea about it, because that's been my experience. I don't know if all, most, some, or no other women are like this. Now, a romantic guy is really skilled at creating that illusion... That's what I think romance is. But I still have my pessimistic doubts that that illusion (no matter how skillfully created) will ever actually translate to the sexual satisfaction that the illusion and the desire for the illusion seems to promise.

I side with Teal on this one, because I do believe that socialization is necessary for the vast vast majority of people. So, unless a person is living a life of renunciation as a monk or hermit, then abstaining from socializing altogether is incredibly unhealthy and is a denial of our natural drives. I see a lot of people on here who are already socially avoidant, further solidify their tendency toward social avoidance because they start thinking it is a sign of virtue and higher consciousness. But it actually keeps them from addressing their needs from where they're actually at because they may even repress their needs and desires toward human connection. So, my view on this is that a person who is not specifically living a life of renunciation, where renunciation is the spiritual practice in itself, should not abstain from the basics of life. So, a person should eat normally, sleep normally, hold a job, and have friendships and relationships. It's important to meet our human needs. Our humanity is not a mistake to be sloughed off, but is a valid part of this experience. And belonging to a social group is a natural outgrowth of that, and need not be transcended.

I honestly don't think it has to do much with the guys that I've been with. Both my ex-boyfriend (who I was with for four years) and my husband (who I've been with for almost 9 years), were/are very focused toward wanting me to have pleasure. So, I've never been long-term with a guy who was oblivious in that way. I think the issue is that no matter what they did/do, the physical experience of sex just isn't a very satisfying experience for me. What is satisfying is to actually have erotic emotions and thoughts... but the physicality feels like a distraction from that as opposed to something that flows with the experience. The peak of my experience is always the moment before anything starts, and then once it begins it's all downhill from there. So, it sucks. But it doesn't suck because of some other person not doing something right.

It's not like that between my husband and I because he doesn't pressure me to have sex. But because I know that he wants sex and has a relatively high sex drive, the incongruence makes me feel pressure regardless even when he's not pressuring me. I know he would probably have sex everyday if he could. And I would feel enough desire to genuinely want to have sex maybe once in every two or three months. So, I've been with my husband coming up on nine years, and I want him to feel satisfied with his sex life. So, I don't feel like it's a good idea to abstain for three months and essentially make that decision for him too simply because sex isn't all that exciting for me. So, I try to at least go for once per month... but mostly for him because sex is pretty boring and banal to me overall. But I'm not shy toward sexual exploration. Funny enough, I do actually have a high sex drive as I can feel really deep desires toward sex. It's just that the reality pales in comparison to the fantasy of it, and over the years I've realized that (in terms solely related to my own pleasure) it's not worth the effort. It's a bit like imagining eating a really good piece of chocolate cake and having a strong desire to eat it. But then, every time you go to actually eat chocolate cake, the taste and texture is that of wet crumpled up paper that's been soaked in cocoa powder and sugar and formed to look like chocolate cake. Then, you learn that the closest you can get to the satisfaction you crave is to imagine it, because the actual experience of thinking about eating the cake is better than actually eating the cake. So, thinking about sex is actually significantly more pleasurable than having it. So, it's a bit of a dilemma. But I've done a ton of self-exploration relative to this topic, and nothing really ever changes. This has always been the way it's been. I've just gotten more honest with myself about it over the years and stopped striving for something that's seemingly just the way things are for me.

My point is that the idea of 'all egoic drives being invalid' can be a huge ego trap that causes a lot of repression and increases self-judgment and shadow. It is only the ego that wants to be free of ego, so it resists itself and doesn't want itself associated with egotism even though it is indeed an ego. This is called spiritual ego. And it creates suffering and keeps a person from really embodying their humanity. I see it all the time on this forum in people who paint themselves into a corner as to what they're allowed to feel because it undermines their identification with spirituality and especially spiritual superiority. But it really just causes them to be very judgmental toward themselves and others and makes them unaware of this pattern in themselves. So, it creates this huge blindspot where they learn to lie to themselves about how they feel because they want to feel more spiritually advanced than others. So, in order to maintain the identity of being "more spiritually advanced than others' in their own eyes, there is a need to self-deceive and become selectively conscious toward the contents of the internal landscape. And they won't be able to be aware of certain aspects of themselves or reality since their identification is so strong and they're afraid to undermine the ego structure. For example, if an emotion comes up recurrently where a person feels like they want a lot of attention, there is a valid psychological reason for that... and that emotion is also an extension of being itself. But if a person is identified with a resistance to ego, then recognizing that genuine emotion becomes a threat to the ego structure of the spiritual ego. So, the person finds a way to lie to themselves and ignore that feeling, thus relegating that feeling to the shadow which is totally unconscious to them. But the desire for attention doesn't go away, it just comes out in more convoluted ways that the person is not aware of. So, they may begin unconsciously seeking attention by becoming a hypochondriac, which necessitates that other people pay attention to them. Or they may self-sabotage and make themselves late for things, so that they are noticed when they walk in late. And none of that would be a conscious decision. So, if the front door is locked, the desires just go to the back door. And if the back door is locked, they sneak in through the window. So, it isn't like ego goes away if you ignore its drives. People get their ego fix by repressing these egoic drives because they can pat themselves on the back for it being a good boy or good girl. So, even when people are self-congratulating about being freer from ego for their renunciations, it is still strengthening their ego and fortifying that chains that hold them back from liberation. So, my point is to avoid falling on the other side of the horse to the scenario that you mentioned... You can be a fake business guru who only follow their egoic needs and get so wrapped up in that identity that they become unconscious and end up with lots of shadows and unconsciousness. But you can also be a spiritual person who renounces all the drives toward worldly success and popularity, in judgement, resistance, and reaction against "fake business gurus who only follow their egoic needs." And you'd pat yourself on the back for your superiority to those fake business gurus and repress away any similar drives... because (of course) your spiritual ego is better and more pious than their business ego. And you end up so wrapped up in that identity that you become unconscious and end up with lots of shadows and unconsciousness. So, the only difference in these two identifications is the window-dressing. So, you must begin with dis-identification with the emotions and a really clear perception of what your emotions are regardless of what they're telling you and your associations with that thing. If you desire popularity. The issue is not that drives toward popularity have come up. And the issue is not in exploring toward those popularity drives. The issue is in over-idenfitication with thoughts and emotions and making them mean something about your identity and resisting, self-deceiving, ignoring, repressing, and becoming unconscious to those thoughts/emotions to preserve a desired identity because of some moralization and judgment about how wanting popularity makes a person lesser. Can you see how this would strengthen the illusion of ego and create a situation where you'd have to judge yourself and others and be unconscious to quite a lot of things, simply to trick yourself into believing that you're beyond ego because of a desire to be superior to others? The ego is a sneaky devil... yes?

It will probably be illegal once lab-grown meat becomes more prevalent and is cheaper to produce than the raising and slaughtering of animals. But I don't see more than a fifteen percent of people decide to abstain from meat-eating because most people are too attached to it. But in the meantime, Vegans and Vegetarians are creating the demand for the abolition of animal agriculture.

I've read you post similar statements in other threads relative to the practical details of life. Do you believe that you have to avoid your humanity to transcend your ego?

I did read your entire conversation. And my impression was that you were trying to shame the OP out of his desire to be popular by saying that his desires were "stinky" and a sign of "spiritual poverty." Then, he seemed to get uncomfortable and started trying to reframe his desires in a way that was more acceptable to you in order to feel more acceptable in your eyes and the eyes of others who have adhere to a similar belief in the invalidity of ego drives. But my impression was that it wasn't genuinely seeing his desires from a different point of view to get in touch even more with what he wants. It was just reframing the desire to be popular in a more socially acceptable way to avoid judgment. And this is shame, because he may then start to lose consciousness even of his desire to be popular and it will come out in a way that's even more steeped in shadow because it's a repression on top of a repression. And this is why I said it's important not to judge others, because they will learn to repress and selectively ignore aspects of themselves simply to fit a more socially acceptable mold. And notice how you were able to go into your dance shuffle inspiration without the fear of it being ego driven. This enabled you to actually explore that desire in real time without resistance. But if you had the inkling that your desires toward this were invalid and you had someone ten years older than you echoing that idea and calling you "spiritually impoverished" for such egoic desires, then you may have avoided that desire altogether. And you wouldn't have learned what you learned.

The only way to question them is to... 1. Realize those desires are there and valid 2. Actually go toward them and explore your response to them in real time So, to be moralistic and avoid a desire simply because of the belief that "This is egoic and therefore invalid.", is repression. Again, repression is not transcendence. You have to be careful, because you can lie to yourself if you keep deciding to not want what you want because you've chosen simply to decide something different and ignore what's there because of the egoic fears of seeming egoic. So, if the OP feels like he wants to be popular, that's simply where he is. And he has to take the journey from where he is and not where he thinks he SHOULD be.

When you're following your emotions and not repressing them, then this is very positive. So, being able to be in touch with your emotions and not resist them is most healthy, and that's probably why you can do your best work then.