Emerald

I knew you weren't referring to what I said. But I wanted to know if you looked into it.

@saffron Did you look at what I wrote? My impression is that this is the root cause of your fear. You are projecting an image of power over you onto women that isn't there. This is what Anima possession does. I think you would benefit a lot by integrating the Anima.

Jordan Peterson is not an asshole. In his mind, he thinks he's being altruistic and fixing things and sustaining "Western culture". His intentions are good. He sees problems in society and believes that bringing people back to a more traditional way of living will remedy those issues and that we will fall into a more natural order. But the point still stands that, despite his positive intentions, his teachings are to the detriment of society and encourage individuals to get caught down in regressive perspectives. And there are real consequences there. So, it is to the detriment of individuals to avoid voicing these concerns simply to avoid offending people or rustling people's jimmies. So, suck it up buttercups! If ye' melting snowflakes can't take the heat, then stay out of the kitchen. Go find a safe space ye' bleeding heart triggered cucks! So, I am not being mean to Jordan Peterson. So, I can't cease being mean to him, as I've never been mean to him. I'm just being very honest and blunt about what I perceive. And I'll continue to do so. Yet again, I've never started a thread about JP and I don't intend to start doing that. But I will certainly throw in my two cents.

Did you decide yet when you're going to be doing each of these phases yet, or are you still deciding?

@Annoynymous @Andreas Thank you. It's very encouraging to me.

Believe is the key word here. Don't believe anything. Go look for it and see what you find. I have personally found that reality is empty of good and evil as empirically observable phenomena. And I have found that everything is perfect. There is no combination of words that will talk me into trusting those words more than my own experiences. You can tell me that the color blue is a figment of my imagination all you want. If I see blue all around me, then it's wisest for me to realize that blue is a phenomenological reality that I'm currently experiencing and not believe a person that is telling me that blue doesn't exist and all of their rationalization as to why they believe that it does not. Also, what is a perception? What is a notion? Where do these things exist? I am not interested in debating this in the philosophical sense or getting you to believe what I'm saying is true. Go out and observe beyond the fodder of the mind what "evil" actually is. You will never find out by making postulations about the nature of reality. It must be observed.

I do take every opportunity to inform people about this because I see something happening that I think others (and society) would benefit from knowing about. I especially stress it on here because I know that people here are also actively trying to become more conscious. I know that it probably sounds like I put myself on a pedestal relative to other people in this. But it's not that. I just recognize that I'm looking at things from a different vantage point than a lot of people do. So, I can see what's going on from a perspective that many others are not seeing things from. But I'm not thinking this makes me better or more enlightened. I'm just detecting what, form my vantage point, is just a really obvious and tangible problem that a lot of people are not detecting in Jordan Peterson's teachings. So, I frantically (as I am quite attached in this way) try to point out the traps that so many people are falling into. For example, let's say that there are a bunch of people that are walking and they don't realize that they're about to fall into a giant hole as they're only looking up at the sky, as they think that's the right vantage point to take. So, they don't even think that looking at the ground is a viable perspective as looking up at the sky is the "superior" perspective. So, I see this as a person who realizes that they can both look up at the sky, the ground, side to side, etc., and that each of these vantage points will give me different information. And because of this, I realize that a lot of people are going to fall in that giant hole if I don't warn them to change their perspective and look down at where they're going. So, I am not so detached from this because I don't want them to fall in the hole. And it makes sense to me to help them avoid it. So, this is the dynamic that I'm seeing with Jordan Peterson and so many other influences that help people fall into that "hole". This "hole" is a huge part of the contemporary zeitgeist. And it's not a fun zeitgeist. Now, you could take a more detached perspective and could say that, perhaps these people falling into the hole is just part of how the entire system is supposed to work. Maybe because these people "fall in the hole" it will create such a catastrophic situation that humanity has no other choice but to become more conscious. And to some degree, I recognize that this is the case. So, the people in the hole become the example of what others want to avoid doing. And that eventually the system will work itself out in the way it's supposed to without my intervention or the intervention of others looking from a similar perspective to mine. So, that perhaps it is just best to trust that the system will do its thing. Or perhaps even the detachment to outcome and realizing that maybe humanity is supposed to destroy itself at some point and that's just part of the cosmic cycle. But I personally don't know if that's the wisest perspective to take. If I can assist people to avoid falling in that hole, that may help bring society forward without a ton of people getting into a bad situation. It is my preference to see fewer people in a situation of upheaval and I still feel like (perhaps foolishly) that helping individuals get free from the common illusions of the day will help us move forward while avoiding really destructive scenarios. But perhaps this is a pipe dream of mine. Maybe things are going to do what they're going to do. And perhaps my small ripple effect will have no impact to next to no impact. But this general topic (not just focused on JP) is on my mind a lot. It comes up clearly every day. And I can tell that EVERYONE is being affected by it, every day. No on is hiding from this zeitgeist. So, I feel that perhaps my obsession and others' obsession that comes across in different ways is just a natural symptom of the explorations that humanity is doing relative to the collective shadow. So, I want to facilitate this movement toward greater consciousness in every way that I know how.

All human frameworks are by their very nature based in relative truth. The second things go through the human intellectual lens, they automatically become relativistic. This is true, even if the truths allude to the level of absolute truth. Absolute truth can be experienced in an absolute way, but can only be described and interpreted through the lens of relative truth. God is infinite. Therefore it is perfect... but within the absolute perfection exists the inherent imperfection of the relative. If you avoid viewing things from different frameworks, you will be blind to certain relative truths and awareness of the absolute. Good and evil are human concepts based in both universal and individual human preferences. So, it is based in the needs and wants of human beings. But it doesn't have anything to do with an absolute value, as human preference and absolute value are not the same thing. Human beings don't want to die, and may consider causes of death to be in the realm of evil. But from the absolute perspective, death is just another aspect of reality no better or worse than anything else. It is only human preference for living that makes death seem negative or "evil." God is not just good. God is infinite. So, it is everything, good, bad, and ugly. But that's only to speak relativistically and from the human understanding of the world. On the ultimate level, God is perfect and is pure divine love. It abhors none... even if human beings don't like those things or they aversely affect our health. But if you're looking for an absolute truth morality, you won't find it. But in finding the absolute truth and recognizing that all is one, there will be a natural compassion that springs forth and you will resonate at the level of perfect unconditional love. This is how realization of the absolute and resonating at perfect divine love tends to affect human emotions and behaviors. When I had my experiences of ego transcendence and observed these things, I had an overwhelming amount of love for all things and my abilities for empathy and compassion were through the roof in a way that I was never capable when I was leaving it to my conscious mind to formulate ideas about morality. Morality begets judgement and gets in the way of perfect unconditional love because it invalidates certain aspects of reality. And it creates distortions and blindspots that keep us from coming into resonance with that perfect love. So, counterintuitively, the way to more ethical actions is through letting go of the need to cling to particular morals or ideas of good and evil as meaning valid and invalid. So, I think the main point to drive across here is to stop philosophizing and creating ideas and frameworks and seek to discover for yourselves @Sockrattes what good and evil is and isn't. And try to find something about reality that is actually invalid to exist. Can you empirically find something that "shouldn't" exist?

Perfectly said. And I think the OP misunderstands why Leo is openly against Jordan Peterson. It's not for the purpose of demonizing him. It's for the purpose of helping others out of unconsciousness... which is his whole deal. It's ultimately, that Jordan Peterson has a high degree of influence over people, and the recognition that his influence enables people to get further lodged into a contracted perspective that is unconscious, destructive, and discouraging to the forward momentum of society and thus our ability to make the paradigmatic jumps necessary to avoid destroying ourselves. So, Leo's ranting against Jordan Peterson is likely in hopes to get people up out of the unconscious perspective that JP assists people in getting lodged down in. So, his "rants" are for very practical reasons. And I'm glad that someone of influence who also has a high degree of systemic awareness is calling out the traps inherent in JP's perspective. The way to "help people with Jordan Peterson" is to make people realize that his perspective is narrow, unconscious, and steeped in all sorts of biases (especially anti-feminine biases). He flies under so many people's radar, that it's troubling.

I also have a video on the topic...

@saffron The best thing to do would be to work on releasing resistance to the feminine and integrate your feminine side in the form of the Anima (aka the inner woman in every man as an archetypal aspect of the psyche). When a society has really strong resistance to the feminine principle and women by extension (as has been the case in almost all cultures for the vast majority of written history up until present day), the men in that society will usually have issues with Anima integration that will have debilitating effects on their psychological health, which brandishes itself most in the form of sexual obsession issues and misogyny. Because the Anima is literally the aspect of you that is a woman, it has needs and feeling and desires and strengths, just like the conscious aspect. So, if you learned a resistance to the feminine from a young age, and an extreme one at that, it will manifest in the form of Anima repression and Anima possession. And it is always the Anima's desire to reintegrate and become known and accepted by your conscious awareness. It wants to reunite with you and be accepted. So, it projects itself out onto reality in form of an acute sexual obsession (or obsession in general) with women. This is especially strong, since the man sees this as the only acceptable outlet for connection to the feminine... as he has a strong desire to reunite with his own feminine side but society disapproves... and he has learned to disapprove in the same way. So, sex with a woman is like a metaphor for the connection with himself that he unconsciously desires, so he craves sex with women in a stronger way than normal. But despite the desire to reintegrate, the Anima also gets jealous and spiteful. She doesn't like to be rejected. So, she seeks revenge upon the man that rejected her by projecting onto women an image of power over the man who rejected her. And that power that she projects is that women have the power to validate and invalidate the man's very existence just through forming an opinion about a man's sexual desirability. And the Anima will project the image of the cold and impersonal woman who is up on a pedestal and all powerful and holds a man's worth in her hands. So, the man who is Anima possessed will have deep feelings of misogyny and a strong desire to drag women down from the pedestaled position of power that he projects onto reality. And when he sees images of men dominating women physically, sexually, and otherwise, it will be very satisfying because to him it is the story of the underdog male taking down the all-powerful female tyrant and putting her in her place. And archetypally, it will be the false story of how he overcomes the issue of Anima possession by beating his feminine side away and keeping it in a state of submission. But this beating away is just adding fuel to the fire of his Anima possession, as this is the very pattern that causes Anima possession in the first place. So, it becomes a self-feeding cycle and the Anima possesses the man more and more and the shadow feminine consumes him. So, the only way to actually overcome Anima possession is to integrate the Anima and accept the feminine side as an integral part of yourself. Also, with the integration of the Anima, you will gain access to divine wisdom hidden in the unconscious mind.

I personally find Spiral Dynamics to not be too compelling or helpful as a tool for self-growth and self-diagnosis. There's too much potential for ego to come in and want to label itself this and that. So, I honestly couldn't tell you where I am on the Spiral. But I find it to be an EXTREMELY compelling model for understanding how complex societal issues tick and to give more context for the events of present day and how they will likely lead into certain other predictable patterns. So, it's a great tool for understanding humanity on the systems level. And it illuminates many viable solutions to the issues of present day and what we should encourage and advocate for in the near and distant future.

The reason why morality is relativistic is that it only exists on the level of relative truth. And relative truth is still valid from the paradigm of relative truth. In fact, on the level of relative truth it would be very unwise to base our social norms for behavior on the level of absolute truth. On the absolute level, there is no set morality. And on the absolute level, there is no good and evil. But this doesn't mean that a society should buck cultural norms around what is desirable and undesirable behavior. It's important that we discourage unhealthy, destructive, and suffering-inducing behavior and encourage behaviors that produce more social harmony. So, this realization of the inherent emptiness of good and evil within reality, isn't a conscription for behavior that's acceptable or unacceptable. All of that occurs on the paradigm level of relative truths. So, to think that the realization of there being no good and evil is a conscription for what constitutes permissible behavior within a society is to mix paradigms. And since all paradigms are mutually exclusive, mixing paradigms lead to all sorts of folly. There is a quote that refers to this folly of mixing paradigms and invalidating practical/relative truths in the realization of higher/absolute truths. The quote is, "Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water." The quote means that practical and relative things within the illusion of duality still need to happen in order for life and society to continue working in a functional and healthy way. So, even if one realizes that all is an illusion and all is perfect and divine, there still needs to be practical work being done and the emotional and physical labor of it. The same is true for ethics and behaviors. Certainly, on the absolute level, there is no inherent value to anything. So, there is no good and evil from that level. But on the practical level, there are certainly behaviors that lead to dysfunction and suffering within individuals and society at large. So, understanding what produces social harmony and encouraging it, while discouraging what gets in the way of social harmony and produces dysfunction is key to living the type of life that a human being most thrives in. And we need structures on the individual and social level to enforce and encourage a more harmonious social arrangement. We can't just have murderers running around in the street because on the absolute level, "There is no evil." Murderers running around in the street is inherently bad for human beings and our societies, if our primary goal is to live happily and healthfully. That is to take that truth out of its paradigm and use it foolishly in another paradigm where it is not true. So, don't use absolute truths to invalidate relative truths. Be able to hold space for the many perspectives, paradigms, and paradoxes that are key to the human perspective of interacting with reality. Then, you can receive truths from any paradigm and be wise enough to know which paradigm is most appropriate for the situation at hand.

Evil doesn't exist existentially. So, all morality is inherently relativistic on the existential level. Reality, on the absolute level, is empty of both good and evil. All things are perfect, as they are manifestations of an all-loving and perfect creator, regardless of how natural the tendency of human beings to label something evil is. So, good and evil come down to human interpretations and labels of events and realities that are beyond the human concept of good and evil or the human mind's ability to conceptualize in general. An example would be that a murderer is someone that people would label evil because they cause pain and suffering for their own reason without regard for the pain and suffering they cause. So, on the relative level of practical human functioning, they cause a lot of problems for people. But the murderer, on the absolute level, is empty of evil as it is part of the grand play that God creates from itself and for itself. So, the murderer is just another indistinguishable aspect of the field of consciousness which is divine and perfect as it is God. Just as in a painting of a murderer murdering someone, on the existential level all it is paint on a canvas. There is nothing evil about the paint that is used to paint the murderer in the painting relative to the paint used to create the victim or the background. It is only the human ability to conceptualize of an interpretation of the painting that makes us supply a meaning for it. It's an illusion painted by its creator and all of the creation is inseparable from the rest of the creation. And like the painting, on the existential level, all is an illusion. However, on the level of duality, there is such a thing as healthy and unhealthy. There is also such a thing as functional and dysfunctional. There is also such a thing as building up and breaking down. And there is such a thing as something that's constructive versus being destructive. There at also actions that produce pain and suffering and actions that don't produce pain and suffering. And human beings will often categorize this dichotomy by labeling it good and evil.... and may think there is even an existential reality to those labels, when they really only exist as practical labels. So, these dichotomies are all relative truths within the field of duality. But on the level of the non-dual, there is no dichotomies including the dichotomy of good and evil... there is only one which is also nothingness. For example, there is nothing inherently and existentially invalid about eating a diet consisting of only donuts. But objectively speaking, if your goal is health, then an all-donut diet is not conducive to the goal of health. But there is nothing existentially more valid about being healthy relative to being unhealthy. God loves both the healthy and unhealthy unconditionally and abhors nothing and no one. That said, on the human practical level, it is a mostly universal human preference to desire health and not desire illness. But God has no such prejudice. It loves all regardless of how beneficial or detrimental it is to human beings or other sentient beings in general. So, if we label something practically "evil" as being influenced by the destructive drive, then the practical term has the most efficacy in describing a situation that is unhealthy, dysfunctional, and focus toward creating suffering and breaking down. Evil is something that goes against harmonious human functioning. And on the practical human level we recognize that these practically "evil" situations cause us or others suffering, then it makes sense to avoid participating in and perpetuating these patterns. This is especially true if we realize the inherent oneness of reality and how others' pain is our own pain. But within the field of duality, there is a destructive drive and a constructive drive that can be noticed as phenomenological realities. They are there, and they can be observed as the fodder of the internal landscape. And they influence human thought and action. But there is nothing inherently good or evil about those two drives, as they too are just part of God's perfect creation and God loves them both. God doesn't abhor the destructive drive... it created it. And so, counterintuitively, the drives of both good and evil are empty of good and evil on the existential level just like everything else is.

Good advice regardless of gender.

You're welcome. I've gotten a lot of attractions over the course of my life. And I can tell you that it's just me putting my observations into words. So, it isn't a rationalization after the fact. It's a pattern that I've directly observed in myself many times from the age of three all the way up to present day. That would be like me saying... "you don't really get attracted to a woman's physical appearance, that's just your rationalization after the fact." And you'd be like, "No. I've witnessed myself do this tons of times. It's not a rationalization. It's an observation."

Some people might make that connection. But to be honest, I was never going to get them anyway. If a person is going to get hung up on semantics and the 'lack of righteousness' of my semantics, then they're probably not going to be receptive to the central message I'm trying to get across anyway. They're already choosing to focus toward the way I'm saying things as opposed to what I'm saying. And if your argument is that I'm just adding the tension that already exists by being frank and clear about this topic, then I have to tell you that it's impossible to not add to that tension other than literally closing your mouth and never speaking of these topics. Sometimes, you have to break some eggs to make an omelet. Plus, the coddling and sugarcoating is unnecessary when speaking frankly about a problem, as most people agree that racism is a problem. So, referring to a problem as being analogous to disease is an understandable analogy. And if people are easily triggered by my referring to systemic racism as being analogous to a disease, then they aren't the type of person who's going to be receptive to my perspective at all as they would be refusing to see racism as a problem in the first place. The system of racism is almost literally a disease that has debilitating effects on society at large. It produces dysfunctional symptoms that keep society from thriving. But if we can cure that disease, society will thrive in ways that it was unable to before. I think that most people agree with this analogy, unless they are the type of person who sees racism as a non-issue or even a virtue. But you still haven't told me how will I communicate the shift in thinking that is necessary to focus from the symptoms of a problem to the root cause of the problem. It's not like I can skip over that information because it's one of the most important things to understand. If people don't understand this point, they won't get how the system works at all. And they'll be unable shift their perspective in a way that has more efficacy in dealing with the issues that society faces. So, how should I communicate this idea in an equally effective way that also coddles the easily offended?

I didn't compare anyone to a disease. I compared an impersonal social system to a disease (as an example of another impersonal system). So, I was using one system that's more familiar and tangible to explain a pattern in another system that is still intangible and hard to understand for most people. And I use this metaphor to explain how a lot of problems work, as there is no more familiar example of 'problem/symptoms/root dynamic' that the vast majority of people can understand and relate to. So, understand that I'm not moralizing or shaming people who are unconscious one bit by using this metaphor. It is literally just the most effective metaphor. I also sometimes use the "if tree=problem; then problem lies in the roots rather than the leaves or fruit on the tree." But even this metaphor is kind of a stretch because it requires people to envision a tree as a problem first. But again, if you have a better analogy to explain this dynamic to get people focused toward root causes instead of symptoms and individual intent, be my guest.

In the beginning few dates, I recommend that everyone listen more and talk less. Ask more questions about them to show interest in them as a person. When you answer their questions, keep your replies to a minute or less and avoid rambling on. And maybe don't bring up your obsession during the first date... or only mention it in passing. You may even give them fair warning that you get really into specific topics as well so that they know to expect it in the future. Whenever I have a character quirk, and I fear that it will make a conversation awkward with people that I just met, I will mention it so that I don't feel like I have to hide my anxiety around it. So, relative to the social anxiety that I get from time to time, if I feel it flaring up I'll sometimes say, "Hey, sometimes I get social anxiety. So, if I start acting like a spaz, then I apologize. It's not a personal thing though. It just comes up." And this strategy has worked so well in allowing me to be authentic and minimize anxieties. People will usually understand and will feel better if they know why you're acting the way you're acting since they are in the loop. But during the first couple dates, speak less in general and listen more so that the conversation can go back and forth and flit between different topics. It should be kind of like a tennis game, where the conversation goes back and forth in relatively short and equal amounts of time. And garner genuine interest for what he is saying, so that you can listen actively. That way, there is not danger of getting too much into your interest because your focus will be mostly on learning about him and keeping the conversation going back and forth as opposed to getting us much information communicated to him as possible and talking a ton about your current passion. But when you do answer his questions and share, it should be eclectic and broad relative to your life and shouldn't be focused to deeply on one aspect.

With the "intention vs. impact" issue, it's a little bit different in that there is no assumption of responsibility if the intentions are good. People in this groove tend to see racism as an intentional act. So, if someone isn't intentionally racist, then people who think in terms of intention just think "That person's not racist." So, they always bring things back to individual character flaws, and think about things in terms of "I'm not racist." as opposed to "There is racism." So, it is caring more about personal intent, then the impact of racism in general and being blind to the impact one's actions have because of the rationale of having good intentions or just lacking bad ones. So, this is a failure to zoom out and see how racism comes from more than just intent, and a failure to be less selfish, and consider that staking the claim "I'm not racist." is such a ego-driven focus on those issues. With the "create your own reality" perspective, it could be very true. So, it's not necessarily rooted in blindspots to consider that reality may work that way. But it's susceptible to blindspots because of the way the human mind and ego work. And when the human mind and ego see this as the only perspective they can become very callous and even blaming of people who are suffering. There can be a person with cancer, and a person stuck in this perspective will think, "They caused their own cancer because they're creating their own reality. So, on some level they must have wanted cancer." And yes. If there is someone suffering next to them, they could rationalize it either the other way in thinking 'everyone creates their own reality' and becoming callous to their suffering in that way. Or they can think of it in terms of other people being an illusion, and if there's a person crying next to them that it means something about one's own internal state. So, there could be an idea, "I'm taking responsibility for the crying happening next to me." by doing some kind of internal process... as opposed to thinking of the external perspective as another valid perspective as well and taking a human, hear-centered approach to what comes up in reality. But either way, it is a (in these cases) and invalidation of external reality as a valid reality.

This is why I tend to avoid talking from this perspective. It may be true on certain levels. But it tends to lead to a lot of self-deception, callousness, constriction, solipsism,and unconsciousness in general. And this isn't because it's necessarily incorrect. Reality could actually be working this way. The reason why it's a risky perspective to wield, is that it's an easy perspective to hide behind and to avoid real-life situations and truths on other levels. Spiritual bypassing is a huge danger in this perspective, as the ego can use it as a shield and an affirmation that assures someone, "If I only get the internal right, then the external is fine no matter what." But this mindset can also reveal certain truths about reality, as I have found that external conflicts do tend to shift with my personal shifts. So, I use this perspective in hopes of being able to address these issues from the inside and out. But I'm always careful about it because it's such an alluring trap to get caught in and very difficult to get out of.

Or it could be the entire thing, for all you know. How do you personally know that reality springs forth from the self? Is it something that you observed directly? Or is it just something that you heard from someone else and adopted it as a belief?

Taking a limited perspective is foolish, when you can hold more than one perspective at a time. You're taking a huge gamble on the ASSUMPTION that reality springs forth from the self. You would also be taking a huge gamble on the assumption that reality is its own thing that has no projection from the self. So, because we are in an epistemic blind-spot relative to the workings of reality, it is foolish to remain only in one perspective relative to a given issue. I look at systemic racism from the "create your own reality" and "take 100% responsibility" perspectives as well. But I don't assume these perspectives to be absolute or think that I have reality figured out. And I don't really talk about them because a lot of people would fall down the rabbit hole and get stuck only in those perspectives And furthermore, I don't use these perspective to avoid taking responsibility in realizing more down-to-Earth things about reality and helping others realize these things about reality that may have previously been obscured from view. So, I always take responsibility on every level that I'm aware of. You are only taking responsibility on the internal level and are assuming a whole lot about a reality that you know literally nothing about, as a human being can't. And you are using this assumption of how reality works to avoid responsibility for solving external issues in an external manner. You're only willing to accept responsibility in the internal sense... where you can also easily self-deceive and hide from discomfort.

Why assume that we're not doing both?

I'll play ball with this perspective, even though I think it's quite foolish and limited to only look at issues in the world from this perspective. So, from the manifestation/create your own reality perspective, what are you doing to fix systemic racism internally in hopes of projecting a better external reality? Are you actively digging into your own shadow to see how your unconscious beliefs and viewpoints are creating systemic racism and actively dismantling them? Or are you just convincing yourself that, if I transcend the illusion of self, then all the relative problems in the world will be solved. Or are you convincing yourself that you've transcended the illusion of thought and that this is the solution... meanwhile deluding yourself and obscuring your awareness with the thought, "I have transcended the illusion of thought."?