Forestluv

The mind likes to create dualities of opposites. For example, we can create a duality of “lie vs truth”. At one level of consciousness there is an assumption of an objective, universal truth and we may ask “Is that a lie?”. Adding in “from whose perspective”, is a major jump in consciousness be we are no longer restricted to an objective, universal truth - there is relativity. From the perspective that there is no sickness, “I am sick” is a lie. From the perspective that there is no i, “I am sick” is a lie. From the perspective of cancer cells metastasizing, “I am thriving” is true and “I am sick” is a lie.

@Parththakkar12 So sneaky you have sneaked yourself. Very impressive.

It depends on the context. From a religious view, “I” is a person that is sick and “He” is a separate, external god that cures “me”. From a scientific view, “I” is a physical organism that is sick and “He” is a separate, external doctor/medicine that cures me. From a metaphysical view, “I” is a physical/nonphysical entity that is sick and “He” is a physical/nonphysical existence that cures me. From a transcendent view, “I” and “He” are the same and “I/He” cures itself with itself.

@Moreira The ego wants to protect it’s own survival and will resist ego transcendence. Ime, there are many ways for the ego to resist. One way is to set up unpleasant consequences. For example, the mind may think “Wait a minute. . . If I’m not around to control things, I may end up unhappy like this guy on YouTube who is awakened. That’s not good”. . . My mind set up scenarios in which I would go mentally insane or that I would harm others if ego transcendence occurred. Yet with transcendence there is awareness of these stories as stories. A new freedom emerges. Yet it can be a bumpy ride at times.

@Angelite Yes. As you say, identification and attachment is key. When a person enters a class as the teacher, there is a character of a teacher. There are certain roles the teacher plays. The teacher generally stands in front of the class and speaks to the class about the subject material. The teacher has more factual knowledge of the material. The teacher hands out exams and grades students on their progress. Within the hierarchical structure of the University, the teacher is “above” the students in terms of factual knowledge, skill development and experience. The teacher has certain responsibilities and the students have certain responsibilities. The term “I” is a useful pragmatic term that helps the character play it’s role within the structure of the content. The teacher may enter the classroom and say “Good morning students. *I* am your calculus teacher this semester”. The teacher may think “*I* need to grade exams before next class.”. Someone on campus may ask “I am looking for the Provost. Are you the provost of this University?”. And the teacher may respond “No, *I* am a teacher here. The Provost is in Robertson Hall. *I* can take you there”. These appearances of “I” are helpful for communication within the content and structure. The “I” has no inherent negative connotation. Identification and attachment to “I” is a different dynamic. That is what I was pointing to.

This is the contraction I am pointing at. The ego wants to control the narrative. You keep saying you know. You keep talking over people, correcting people and “telling them how it is”. This is a contracted mindset that will not allow for exploration, growth and expansion. If you are content within your current paradigm, great. Be happy and content there. I wish you the best. Yet you won’t deepen and expand with a mindset that talks over others, thinks I know it all, corrects others and lectures others about how it is.

You are very generous and give him too much credit. He is not a billionaire and just an ounce of Orange. Mainly mafia, mob boss red.

I think “Trump is a revulsion” would be more accurate.

Trump’s threat to bomb Iranian culture sites is heinous. It is threatening to destroy their cultural heritage and murder innocent civilians. He is a stage red psychopath. @Florian Yes, he is living out his own trauma and traumatizing many others in the process. Yet I think there is more going on than conditioned trauma. I think his genetics, brain and endocrine system is not functioning normally. Like psychopaths, I don’t think he can physiologically experience some emotions like empathy for others.

It varies. You get to have your own adventure. That is part of the beauty.

Even without knowing your gender, it is completely obvious that you are a male. Everything you write is going through a conditioned male filter. Don’t you want to expand beyond that? Being limited to the filter I was conditioned with during my upbringing would be awful to me. It would be like being imprisoned. As soon as I left the household of my childhood, I started questioning everything that was programmed into me from my parents and society. Religion, politics, gender roles - all of it. I wanted to be free of it, explore, grow and expand. To me, everything you are saying sounds like it is coming from a spokesperson for men. You seem really unaware about the plight of women through history, what they have had to endure, oppression and the courage of women that have stood up to oppressive men. To say that men have been on board for equal gender rights, women in the workforce and overall betterment of women is absolutely absurd. It is so absurd that I don’t know if you are serious or are trolling me. Women have been slowly gaining rights in spite of men. Men have been resisting gender equality for centuries - often violently. Your framing of men as the caring providers toward gender equality is a grotesque distortion and very disrespectful to the courageous women that stood up to men and suffered terribly for doing so. I’d like to think that you are unaware rather than intentionally doing so. Go read up on the suffragettes who fought for women’s right to vote. Men were not on board for their equal rights or betterment. Men saw them as a threat, imprisoned women and tortured women in prison to oppress women. Literally horrific physical torture. As well, men have resisted women in the workforce. Men have resisted every step of the way, and exposed women to awful work environments including sexual exploitation, sexual harassment and abuse. Read up on women in the workforce in the 1970s. Courageous women stepped up and put their own welfare on the line to fight for better conditions. For a man to take credit for such efforts and say it was only through the goodness of men that women have any rights is dripping with male privilege and arrogance. It’s gross to anyone familiar with female oppression. Step outside of your male bubble, get curious and learn about female oppression. Read books, watch documentaries, ask women questions and learn from women. Put all this male-biased programming aside and expand. Do you really want to live your life in a hyper male-biased contraction? To me, that would be awful. This is a form of “concern trolling”. You seem to see women striving for equality as a threat and want to maintain the status quo. You are not an advocate for the upward progression of women. Your advice to women on how they should proceed seems hollow to me.

To me, this doesn’t sound like the perspective of a well-integrated embodied Yellow male. I would work through residual orange and green resistance. Eben Pagan is a good example of a well-integrated embodied yellow male supporting the evolution of his wife Annie evolve from green to yellow.

When a person is self-biased, they cannot see inequalities. Both sides seem equal. Men have more power, control, earn more for the same work, get more speaking time and decision-making. They don’t see the imbalance due to conditioning. Men can be in work meetings that are 80% men, men get 80% of the speaking time, interrupt and talk over women. This will seem balanced for both sides to men. Many men are literally unable to see the inequality due to their conditioning. If we set up work meetings with 50% women, gave women 50% of speaking time, allowed women 50% of decision power and cut off men when they spoke over on time - it would appear unbalanced to men. Men would complain that they aren’t getting equal time. Men would complain that they are being oppressed and how unfair it is. Men would complain that women are being toxic and bitchy. Men will say they are being dis-empowered as women are empowered to 50%. Men that are conditioned to perceive an 80:20 split as normal and fair will perceive a 50:50 split as being unfair and oppressive. To me, you are wearing an 80:20 lens and think it’s a 50:50 lens. From a male perspective, gender equality for women looks like male oppression. When you say finding solutions that work for both sides, this is coming from a male dominated perspective. It is like being in a work meeting that is 80% men, men get 80% speaking time and 80% decision making power and saying “ok everyone. Let’s be conscious about this and find solutions that are win-win, solutions that work for both men and women in our company. Let’s care about each other”. And then the men set the rules of discourse for the meeting, control the narrative, talk over women, correct women and win all the votes. The men give a few crumbs to women and leave the meeting with policies that disproportionately benefit themselves. This will seem fair and balanced to the men that have been conditioned to perceive these inequalities as normal. Do women have 50% representation in your government? Do women hold 50% of the most powerful positions in your government? If not, why aren’t you advocating for equal representation? The reason I am not engaging with you about examples of toxic femininity and male issues is that you already have that part down. If I was speaking with a woman that thought women were angels and that men are privileged and have no issues, I would try to highlight examples in which women an overstep too far and examples of male issues. Yet you are already an expert in this area.It would be counter-productive to engage in that.

Due to perceiving through a conditioned lens, there is limitation and distortion. I understand your perspective because I’ve worn that lens. And I can wear that lens if I want to. For example, if I was communicating with a woman that hated men, I may use this lens to describe the perspective of certain men. Yet that won’t help you. You already have that part down. That is the lens that you are deeply immersed into. I’m not saying your view is wrong, I’m saying your view is incomplete and very limited. Part of the problem is a desire to control the narrative through the lens a person is wearing. Most people are attached and identified to one lens and they want to define things like what counts as a “critical analysis” of feminism. Or to define what counts as “fundamental problems”. Or to define “patriarchal-bashing”. There is some truth to it, yet it is incomplete, very limited and distorted. From one lens, your posts appear reasonable, from other lenses many of your posts appear as mansplaining and dripping with male privilege. The type of stuff that makes women roll their eyes. Yet you seem so immersed in your man cave that you are unaware and don’t care. Trying to be understood and to persuade others will not lead to expansion and depth. Letting go of defense mechanisms and stepping into another’s perspective and experience is where the expansion is. There was a point in my life that I got very curious about women’s perspectives and experiences. I made a lot of female friends and asked them a lot of questions about their views and experience. I really wanted to understand, relate and experience it. I asked hundreds of questions, allowed space for her and listened. I didn’t correct the women, talk over them, control the narrative or mansplain. I didn’t care about “being a man”. I wasn’t afraid of looking weak or like a “beta male”. I wasn’t trying to impress her or to get in her pants. I had no agenda. I genuinely wanted to learn, understand and expand. This allowed me to put on their lens and see through many different lenses. Yet very few men are willing to do this and they remain contracted within their own self-centered lens. For me, being limited to one conditioned lens is a prison. I can’t stay there for very long. And it’s not just women. I’ve done this with black and brown people, LGBTQ people, polyamorous people, drug addicts, criminals, people with paranormal abilities, people with psychosis, autism, bipolar and others. If we were out for lunch, I would be asking you lots of questions about Indian culture. Debating one’s current perspective will further contract them into that perspective. It will not allow for depth and breadth. One would need to sever their chains of conditioning to explore. Yet not everyone is interested in that.

No. You are perceiving through a particular lens. There can be various defense mechanisms protecting this lens. One defense is that others are being “PC” for their personal gain. Another defense is accusing others of what one’s self is doing. I stated other defenses above. I know all these defense mechanisms very well because I had to personally work through them over the last 20 years. Once one has worked through their own conditioned psychological dynamics, they are easy to spot in others. I was raised and conditioned in a traditional patriarchal household. De-conditioning takes work and is uncomfortable at times, yet it is so worth it. It is so liberating and allows much deeper and meaningful connections. I would never go back to how I was. Yet it looks like you are more interested in protecting a conditioned perspective than expanding and transcending it. That’s fine. Yet over time, you may get sick of it and realize how much it is limiting your potential. Or maybe not. My dad is in his 70s and still holds similar views to you.

The privileged group will often use “both sides-ism” to protect their privileged position. The ego will not want to surrender it’s privileged position and will resist seeing inequalities. Ways to protect an unequal privilege is to avoid looking at the inequality as well as creating false equivalencies and justifications to maintain the status quo. The vast majority of women simply want equality and to be treated in a decent manner free of oppression and harassment from men, yet this will appear as demanding and threatening to a privileged male who wants to maintain the status quo.

LSD may be a good tool for this, depending on how you resonate with it. For many, myself included, LSD can help dissolve the personal story and allow a new relationship with Here and Now to be revealed. It can increase one’s resonance and conscious level, allowing for realizations. Yet there are many variables, including karmic load. What worked for me, might not work for you. What I did was dedicate a certain amount of time each day to be Here and Now. I told my mind that 85% of my day could be past and future thinking, yet for this one hour a day, it was for Here and Now. I would spend time doing yoga, listening to a nonduality speaker, gardening, meditating, time in nature, cooking, self massage etc. I also dedicated a week to a solo retreat in which 90% if each day was dedicated to Here and Now. At the time, I already had many realizations and had previously worked through a lot of karmic conditioning - years of meditation, therapy, dozens of psychedelic trips etc. . Yet I had “lost it” and regressed. So I had a knowing of what it was like. The initial breakthroughs may need an extra boost. For a newbie with a lot of karmic conditioning, LSD could reveal the magnificence of Here and Now, or a new realm, or it may reveal stuff that needs to be worked through and purified.

No it’s not. That is a false equivalency. To the privileged group, equality will appear as threatening and oppressive. In this case, gender equality will appear as threatening and oppressive to many men, especially men conditioned in patriarchal households and societies. One key to overcome this is being able to view things from others’ perspectives. For example, if you truly understood the experience and perspective of women striving for gender equality, your perspective would radically change. Yet this is precisely why the ego resists. The ego wants itself to survive - it doesn’t want to surrender it’s identity.

I wouldn’t be too concerned about what input the mind and body is resonating with. At various times, I’ve resonated with meditation, weed, psychedelics, sensory deprivation tanks, holotropic breathing, lucid dreaming and on and on. I just roll with the resonance and momentum. And that shifts around. For now, you may resonate with weed in a way that that is offering a new perspective and opportunity for growth. For me, discomfort is often a sign of growth. Or perhaps the resonance with weed right now is off and a change of direction is best. I would trust intuition and body wisdom over thought stories in my mind. Let go of the thought stories and listen to the guide along the path.

@AlphaAbundance I’ve done some 80+ hour work weeks in my life and it took a physical and mental toll. As well, my productivity would decline. Fatigue would accumulate and there was physical and mental decline. For example, my error rate would increase and I’d have to spend time re-doing things. After several 80+ hr work weeks, I would only accomplishing about 60 hrs worth in 80 hrs. In general, I don’t think it’s very healthy. I’d say my maximum sustainable work week is 60 hrs per week, yet I rarely work that much because there are other things in life I want to do.

That’s really high. A few years ago, I estimated 90+ of my time was not Here and Now. I realized that percentage was way too high and my goal was to knock it down to 70% over three months. Several aspects of my life changed for the better.

@Raptorsin7 What percentage of each day would you estimate is not being present Here and Now?

It depends on the conservative view. A conservative view about self discipline is different than a conservative view about the immorality of homosexuals. Some conservative views get integrated during evolution, some conservative views go extinct. For example, pro-slavery was once a mainstream conservative view, yet no longer is. I think it’s important to understand and empathize with other perspectives-yet not all get integrated. For example, I can see and empathize with the fear and insecurity white supremicists have of the “other”. It is often due to conditioning and a desire for survival of one”s perceived self, tribe and culture. Yet few of those views will be integrated into an evolving society. In this case, I would want to provide resources to those conditioned into white supremecy and help them acclimate to a new evolving society. Currently, there is also a dynamic with traditional gender roles within historically patriarchal societies. Some features may get integrated to the new evolving gender society and sone will go extinct. This will be distressing for those attached/identified with traditional gender roles. One question is “How can we integrate their views?”. Another question is “How can we evolve in a way that best allows conservatives space and opportunity to grow and evolve?”. The challenge with this is that conservatives will often fight like hell for the survival of their conservative views. Look how hard conservatives have fought against same-sex marriage. From the perspective of the conservative view, it is a matter of life or death. I think it’s also important to understand that today’s progressives are tomorrow’s conservatives. In developed countries, today’s youth that support same-sex marriage may one day fight against human-android marriage. Today’s progressive view that marriage is between two humans will be a conservative view in the future.

Indeed. You’ve had some nice explorations. I’m reminded that I used to be bothered by what appeared as contradictions. Now I find it beautiful. Everything includes every thing - including all contradictions.

Black relative to what? If a being was born in outer space and spent their entire life in outer space, they would have no reference of “black” vs “not black” and “black” would not exist. You are creating a thing calked “black” relative to a thing called “not black”. Without that contrast, there is no “black” and “not black”. “Not black” must exist for “black” to exist. Once a construct of “black” vs “not black” is created, of course “black” and “not black” do not need to be side-by-side. “Black” can be in the foreground and “not black” can be in the background. If you went to outer space, “black” would be your foreground and “not black” would be your background. They don’t need to be side by side. You seem to be creating an external, objective, universal reality in which a “thing” can independently exist without a “not thing”. Thus, you are seeing black is not equal to white, yet not seeing that black = white. If black is not different than white, then they are the same and there is no longer black and white. In terms of experience: without the reference of contrast, the experience of black and white is the same. To highlight this, watch the video of the man with a 7 second memory. Over and over again he said “Night and day are the same. Night and day, no difference”. . . Night and day are the same in his experience because he has no experiential reference for night and day being different, even though he is within what we refer to as night or day. This man can be in complete dark at night or bright sunshine during the day, yet he tells us his experience is the same because he cannot experientially contrast night and day. Also, I’m not disagreeing with you. From within your context everything you are saying is true.