Forestluv

Those are huge assumptions. If the bank robber justly earned his money, who are we to steal it? Success should be rewarded, not punished. Relative lenses of perception act as filters. “Justly”, “success” and “value” are highly relative lenses that bend perception. Unquestioned assumptions allow for paradigm lock.

@Raptorsin7 It sounds cool to me. If you are honest and respectful to her and care about her well-being, she probably won't bad-mouth you to her yoga instructor friends. That would be very cynical. This type of thing is pretty easy to pick up on in one or two dates. If she is cynical it's pretty obvious. The fact that she does yoga is a good sign she could be stage green on the SD scale. They are fairly rare. Green isn't too self-centered and transcactional. Greens generally don't want to bring others down, especially if you treat her well. And Green sex is amazing. You mentioned you want to transition away from regular sex flings. I imagine you could learn a lot from her and grow a lot. If she is into Yoga, it's very likely she is into other Green things - healthy diet, fitness, open communication, creativity, spirituality etc. The key for me would be if it was open, honest and mutual. If I started to feel like I was taking advantage of her for my own gain, I would back off.

You told her you only want a casual fling and she is still interested and wants to see you? That would be very appealing to me. Especially since she is into Yoga. That can be a great fling. . . I would just casually mention the Yoga studio with something like "I noticed you go to xyz Yoga. I've been going there to. It's a great group of people". Then she how she responds. I think this is useful for her to, she might not want to have a fling with someone at the studio. For all you know, she may hope to find a long-term partner at the studio someday. . . It could be awkward if you hook up and then she is surprised to see you at yoga class. Yet I would just bring it up casually, without any drama or creating an issue. Who knows, she may have just gone a couple times and prefers another studio. For me, I would also be mindful of how good the chemistry is and her maturity level. If the chemistry is meh, it's probably not worth it. Also, many gals say they are open to a casual fling, yet want more. They actually do believe they just want a casual fling and aren't aware of how they might get emotionally attached. I would try and get a sense if she really does have a casual fling personality and could handle it. Things like her mentioning she would like to introduce you to her family early on would be a red flag that she isn't oriented toward a casual fling. I wouldn't overtly bring this stuff up like it's an interview. I would just get a feel for it. How she acts and behaves and your chemistry. . . There won't be a problem while you are in the fling. It's all fun and games. Even at the yoga studio. You two might agree to have a secret fling and give each other coded sexual suggestions during yoga. Or you might decide to let others know. . . The problem comes with the breakup and how that goes. Then it could get uncomfortable at yoga. Imagine if one of you starts dating someone else and you see each other at yoga. When people get emotionally involved, it can get messy. Both men and women can get emotionally involved, yet women have stronger emotional bonding hormones after sex than guys.

It sounds like you want to compartmentalize your flings into one compartment and yoga into another compartment. Nothing wrong with that. I would just be honest with her and tell her that you prefer not to date someone within your yoga community. I don't date anyone at my work, especially not for a casual fling. It's common for people not to want to date within inner circles. If things got messy in dating, it could spread to the social group. I would also look at the underlying cause of the discomfort. You mention things like "your reputation" at the yoga group. It sounds like you want anonymity within a fling, in case things get messy - which could happen. It seems like you are trying to play two characters. A wholesome health-conscious person in the yoga circle, and a flingster of hookups outside of yoga. Nothing wrong with that. We play multiple characters in life. My co-workers know very little about my personal escapades and I wouldn't have a fling with a co-worker. . . However, this can get out of control. A guy can want anonymity to escape consequences of bad behavior. For example, if a guy manipulates a gal for sex and doesn't want anyone to know about it. That is very different than a consensual fling in which both people know what they are getting into. Personally, I would be very cautious about getting into a consensual fling with someone within my social group. I know I could handle it, yet many women say they are open to a casual fling, yet deep down want a relationship. After a couple times of sex, they can get emotionally involved beyond a casual fling. This can cause messy ripple effects.

@Pilgrim That sorta sounds like an experience I had in a sensory deprivation tank.

The forum is a community of members exploring spirituality, self actualization and consciousness. Things like namecalling is against forum guidelines since it has a negative impact on the community. You can make your points without namecalling and proselytizing. As I indicated to you, this is described in the forum guidelines. If you would like to participate on the forum according to the guidelines, you are welcome to. However, you can't enter and decide to make up your own guidelines. It doesn't work that way. You can read the guidelines here: https://www.actualized.org/forum/guidelines/

Of course. No player thinks it is fair when the referee calls a foul on them. You have received warnings from two different mods so far. If you want to learn how to discuss/explore religious ideas in the context of spirituality/self actualization/consciousness while being respectful to others, I encourage you to read some previous threads that included religious ideas. There is a search function at the top of the page. As well, you can use google.

You missed something: If a soccer player commits a foul and instigates a conflict and the other player responds with a foul - the first player usually gets called for the foul. You created this thread and dynamic and need to take personal responsibility for staying within the forum guidelines. You have recently created three threads that have all devolved into religious dogma (or "anti-religious" dogma) and religious debate. You are the common denominator. https://www.actualized.org/forum/guidelines/

Why would one want to worsen themself? Wouldn't that seem odd? The personality has evolved and is oriented toward self survival, comfort, security and pleasure.

@Gnostic Christian It is ok to discuss religious teachings in the larger context of spirituality, self actualization and consciousness. However, it is against forum guidelines to dogmatically promote any religion or to incite religious debate.

@Gnostic Christian It is ok to discuss religious teachings in the larger context of spirituality, self actualization and consciousness. However, it is against forum guidelines to dogmatically promote any religion or to incite religious debate.

@Philipp Why questions can be intriguing, yet they also are a downer for the magic show. Imagine going to an amazing magic show with a friend and he kept asking "why". . . "why did the magician tap the box twice? why was there steam instead of smoke? why did birds appear rather than a rabbit? why is he wearing a coat and not a cape? why is his hat red? Why is is magic wand less than 12 inches long?". . . That would drive me crazy. We would miss the whole magic show!

Are not decisions thought stories? If I dog chases me and I run away, did I "decide" to run away? I could make up a thought story that "I decided to run away", yet it is just a happening. There was simply a dog chasing me and running away. Without the thought story of "decisions" and "trust", what remains? What is actual? Constructs of decisions and trust can be very practical and valuable at the level of the human. It is a big part of how we interact with the world and our human experience. For example, imagine buying a used car and not feeling good about it. There was something odd about the car salesman and transaction that didn't feel right. You felt a bit too pressured. Three months later, the car breaks down and the salesman says "sorry, all sales are final and there is no warranty". You think "I knew something was wrong with that guy. I made a bad decision. I should have trusted my intuition.". . . This can be helpful at the personal level if we are in a similar situation. We may be buying a house and get a similar feeling and think "I remember this feeling. Someone is not right with this realtor. This time I am going to trust my intuition". So you switch realtors - and perhaps save yourself from getting scammed again. So the human constructs of decisions and trust are really important for personal evolution/growth and personal survival. For human wellness, it is of value to align the mind with body wisdom. For example, a person may go on a date and their body says that it is not a match, there is no resonance and something isn't right. Yet the mind can come in and create all sorts of thought stories "No, I think I am just nervous. She seems like a nice person. I really want to have a girlfriend. Once we get to know each other, it will be fine". This is a mind and body out-of-sync and it will cause inner turmoil.

This is a common human/personal experience. I think it may be beneficial to make distinctions between: awakening and personal development ; between personal and transpersonal ; and between absolute and relative. This are common terms pointing to the same essence. If these dualities are seen unclearly and get conflated, additional inner turmoil can arise. This is mixing up awakening and personal development. The awakening is Presence. That's it. Whatever is happening Now. That Presence may be uncomfortable or comfortable. That Presence may feel hard or easy. It all just IS. That is an absolute awakening. Whatever is Now is Now. There is nothing "more Now" than "another Now". There is a singular absolute IS. . . Personal thought stories can appear Now, yet those thought stories are no more or less ISness than bird chirps. The thoughts stories are relative to the person and important to personal development. Such thought stories may include "That meditation session was uncomfortable, I thought the whole time - it wasn't very productive" or "I wasn't very conscious that meditation session. I'm not making much progress anymore". In terms of awakening, these are just thought appearances happening Now - there is no "me" to take ownership. In terms of personal development, these thought stories have a personal owner "me" and it is important to the personality and for personal development. I think it can be helpful to make this distinction. Here there is a conflation between transpersonal awakening and personal development. The thought stories about "making progress" is a construct relative to the person. There is an idea of what "progress" is. For you personally, progress means feeling present without distractions or staying focused while reading. This is important at the personal level for personal development. That's awesome. Yet awakening is trans-personal. This involves detachment and disidentification of this personal construct. Here, awakening would be the realization of Now. Whatever is happening. Staying focused while reading is Now. Being unfocus while reading is also Now. They are both Now. It is the personal thought stories saying that "focused Now" is better/more spiritual than "unfocused Now". As well, it is the personality creating thought stories that feeling "motivated Now" is better than feeling "unmotivated Now". That is important to the person/human. We live our lives as a personality and it's part of being human. Yet I think it's helpful to see the distinction between personal dynamics (making personal progress, feeling motivated) and transpersonal dynamics (whatever is happening Now, IS happening Now). Both have value. I think the underlying source of energy is important here. . . As the person awakens to absolute Now, there is often an energetic shift from personal to transpersonal. This includes what many refer to as "ego death". When the personality is transcended it will feel like a form of death, because it is the end of the personality as it was known. It is like playing a character in a movie and for your whole life believing that character. Then one day the character realizes the whole story of the character is just a story, that there is no "me". This was depicted in the movie "The Truman Show". At the end of the movie, Truman had an awakening that his whole identity of "Truman" wasn't real. His whole life story wasn't real. This created a crisis in Truman - if he isn't this Truman character who is he? If his whole life story wasn't real, then what is real? He went through a form of "ego death" in which Truman as he knew it died. This can be really hard for him to walk through, accept and surrender to. . . There can be a lot of resistance, pain and depression at this point. It is the point of "I don't know what the heck is going on". At this point, there can be an expansive energetic shift that transcends the personality into a "transpersonal realm". Or there can be an energetic contraction back into the personality. Both can have similar thoughts and feelings, yet there is a different source of energy and orientation. In the process of transcending the personality, questions may arise such as "If there is no me and all Now is the same, then nothing has meaning. What is the purpose of life?". There can be a sense of sadness as the personality is transcended. Almost like the sadness of a child when they realize Santa Claus isn't real. From trans-personal energy, this will open up a whole new world of curiosity, exploration and discovery. Yet when there is still attachment/identification there is an underlying question of "What's in it for me? This realization sucks for me. There is no meaning in my life. There is no purpose in my life". This is contraction back into the personality. . . For most, personal transcendence involves a "no-self" awakening stage in which there is immersion into "no me", "no doer", "everything is nondual". This is helpful because it provides contrast for the opposite personality dualism 99.99% of people are immersed into. It's an important stage of development, yet the "personal vs. transpersonal" duality will eventually collapse as well, yet you are not at that stage yet. To me, it seems like you may have gotten a couple brief glimpses of awakening, yet you are still deeply immersed within the personality of "Don". It's all getting contextualized relative to "me" to the story of "Don". You just haven't had sufficient direct experience needed to transcend this personal story/identification. One can work on both awakening and personal development. Even after awakening, the personality appears. The story of "me" appears. A life history of mental and physical conditioning appears. For example, while I'm at work there is a character that appears to interact with my co-workers. There is a story of "me" that appears. This is necessary to interact with other humans and has practical value. As well, previous life conditioning may appear. If someone has a broken arm and awakens, they will be awakened with a broken arm. Similarly, if someone has conditioned neurosis due to previous trauma, they will be awakened with neurosis due to previous trauma. Awakening often relieves a lot of this, yet it still persists. The show goes on after awakening. Personal growth is infinite and will continue for the life of the being. Even after realizing this, many beings still experience patterns of conditioning. For example, a few months ago a physical condition appeared in my body that was extremely unpleasant. At the personal level, I couldn't make it stop and felt it would go on forever. This triggered extreme anxiety and panic in my mind and body. The "flight or fight" response. I decided to get some EMDR therapy and with the assistance of the psychologist, we were able to revist previous traumas in my life in which "I couldn't make it stop and felt it would go on forever". We were able to explore the roots of this conditioned mental/physical response and unravel it. There was a release and now my mind and body no longer goes into anxiety and panic as a response to the discomfort. And absence of meaning does not mean "no meaning". Assigning "no meaning" is assigning meaning. It creates a "meaning vs no meaning" duality. For example, there is an absence of meaning for trifloz. There has been an absence of triflioz meaning your entire life and this never bothered you or excited you. However, if you spent your whole life seeking meaning of trifloz and then decided that trifloz is meaningless, that would be a very different dynamic and the human would likely suffer. What is the point in living in trifloz is meaningless?. . This sounds silly with something like trifloz that is irrelevant to you personally. To your well-being and personal survival. If you believed trifloz was essential to your personal well-being and survival, there would be a very different psychological dynamic.

@whoareyou I don't disagree with you. I also don't resonate with establishment/corporate dems and I'm highly critical of them. The same establishment dems that lost in 2016 want to go with Hilary 2.0 (Joe Biden). As you say, they haven't learned their mistake. . . Trump resonated with a lot of people and he did work hard. I live in Michigan and saw it first hand. This was a blue state for federal elections. Hilary took Michigan for granted and didn't even visit as we approached the election. Yet Trump did. He came here, worked hard and resonated with a lot of people sick of politics as usual - and Hilary represented politics as usual. Whenever I asked a Trump supporter why they liked Trump, they responded: "He speaks his mind", "He is the only one who says what people are thinking", "He isn't a politician". In their eyes, this gave him immunity to all his inappropriate behavior. I'm just pointing out that Trump does not have a large base of support. He has a very passionate base of minority support. He has never had majority support. He hasn't even had a plurality of support. I doubt he wins the popular vote in 2020. He will need to strategically work the electoral college to his advantage. That's how the current system is and part of the game.

I'm not questioning the validity of the win. I am questioning the underlying assumption of popularity. Quite often people speak in terms of popularity as if Trump was the most popular candidate in the 2016 election. Trump was not the most popular candidate, he was the second most popular candidate. The electoral system is clearly biased. It is not a left vs. right thing or my narrative or your narrative. A voter in California is weighed less than a voter in Wyoming. That is a bias. We could have a discussion of whether the bias is justified, yet it is still a bias. There are times when biases have practical value. . . The electoral college has been biased since it's inception. People started getting upset with the inherent bias of the electoral college with Bush vs. Gore, when Gore won the popular vote and Bush won the electoral contest. Of course people weren't upset before then. If the electoral result is aligned with the popular vote, there is no issue. It is when the two are uncoupled that there is an issue.

@skywords Welcome to the forum. I love your avatar and all the bicycles in davis.

Is it possible that most humans cannot perceive of plant perceptions because humans are perceiving through a human filter? You also mention how humans perceive calculators. Is it possible that AI will develop perception that humans cannot currently conceive of? Because they are contracted to believe that human perception is perception. Perhaps human perception is one form of perceptual expression. I've had some experiences with trees that suggest there is something going on that the vast majority of humans are not currently in tune with. Yet maybe I'm just hallucinating.

You are using right-wing talking points. Dems are not for "open borders". That is a hardcore republican frame.

@Bodigger To me you appear to be offering frames from a perspective on the right. From that filter, the policies will appear as being far left. For example, the tax rate on the wealthy is now the lowest in U.S. history. The wealthy now have a lower tax rate than the middle-class. From the perspective of the uber wealthy and anti-tax republicans, the wealthy are paying their fair share of taxes and taxes are bad. Yet most American's support a progressive tax structure in which the top 1% pay a higher tax rate. Regarding M4A. . . M4A is a most likely a more efficient system than private. Even the strongly conservative Mercatus study (funded by the Koch brothers) intended to show M4A as being outrageously more expensive - concluded that M4A would save about 7% under an efficient scenario and cost about 7% more under an inefficient scenario. So the range is about the same cost. And that is from a conservative anti-M4A group. For the sake of argument, we could say that M4A is roughly the same cost as private. . . However, regarding quality and coverage - there is no comparison. Public health care is by far a more ethical, just system of health care that would raise the overall community health. . . Think about it: the health care industry profits off of human illness. There entire business model is to squeeze out as much profit out of human illness. Health care and pharmaceutical executives are making outrageous profits over sick people and denying people as much coverage as possible. Hundreds of billions in profits over people suffering. It has gotten so extreme that pharmaceutical executives intentionally got people addicted to opioids in the midwest to raise their profits. The records and courts have shown that they new exactly what they were doing. Intentionally getting people addicted and to opioids and experiencing suffering on a massive scale. This is private corporate health care. It is inhuman and barbaric. There is an extreme conflict of interest that is unethical and should be removed. It is why ever developed country (other than the U.S.) has switched to public health care. Once the U.S. goes public, we will never go back. . . Imagine private fire departments that had a business model of profiting off of people's houses burning down and denying as much coverage as possible. Imagine hundreds of thousands of people going bankrupt and homeless because they couldn't afford to pay the fire department. That would be demented and cruel. Overall, I think a nonprofit public health care system is far more ethical and superior than a for-profit private health care system. I haven't seen any argument against this foundation. One may argue that the government is corrupt and incompetent and would screw up health care, yet that is another argument that I would consider relatively weak.

@Giulio Bevilacqua What is there to trust or distrust about a feeling? A feeling is a feeling. It is actual. It seems like you are asking whether to trust the thought story of meaning related to the feeling.

Yes! A great series about self actualization and consciousness. One of my favorites. Season 3 coming soon!

I think humans are much further away from that type of empathy. Humans relate closer to animals that look and behave similar to humans.

Trump lost the popular vote by a large margin: 3 million votes. To suggest he was more popular in the 2016 is inaccurate and misleading. He was an unpopular with the people and was able to win with a minority of votes through a biased electoral system.

I’m referring to this: Dial it down a notch.