Forestluv

If a person assaulted another person, would you say God is both people and assaulted himself? And God is also the jurors and judge - and decided to imprison himself? Would you say there is a personal agency component? This seems to be an issue for creating constructs of responsibility and accountability.

I lived in Oregon for years. The actual amount of rainfall isn’t very high. It is mostly persistent cloudy, drizzly, light rain for around 7 months a year. It doesn’t rain hard very much. I had a harder time with the constant low clouds and low light. I remember going a month without seeing the sun. It felt like living in s dome. I had full spectrum lights throughout my house and work place.

Yep. It’s common with minds that strongly value intellect/logic/reason and are attached and identified with these dynamics. For example, Richard Dawkins has a very high intellect, yet is still Orange. One indicator, as you mentioned, is a “stuck in their ways” attitude. A form of rigidity and defensiveness to their views and intellect. These are often constrained within logical frameworks. As well, they are still immersed within a strong personality, Orange will often personalize ideas as “mine” and “yours” and want to engage in debate utilizing Orange level tools such as logic, facts and evidence. Nothing wrong with that, yet Orange is constrained within it. Yellow minds have conversations that are much less about personalities and more about fluid exploration.

Be mindful of mistaking high level orange for yellow. A high intellect does not necessary mean yellow. There are many brilliant philosophers, scientists and economists that are at a very high intellectual level within Orange. Orange intellect can go quite high and be mistaken as yellow.

Once a critical mass is green-centered, the self greed dynamics change at the population level - and continue to do so as more individuals evolve into yellow and turquoise. Look at the difference regarding self-centered greed of Lyndsey Graham and Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez. Graham is red/blue/orange self centered and AOC is Green community centered (and beginning to enter yellow level integrative systems thinking).

@playdoh There are no green-centered states, there are greenish areas within each state. Some states have more greenish areas than others. Personally, I’d rather live in a city/county at a higher conscious level and have a workplace at a higher conscious level. Most people spend the majority of their time in a 50 mile radius of their home/work. . . State laws can have an impact, yet the town/city dynamics has a much larger impact imo. I’d much rather live in a greenish city like Ann Arbor, MI than a blue/orangish city like Fresno, CA - even though California would be considered higher on the SD scale than Michigan.

By cutting out the middleman and corporate profits.

@Key Elements I didn’t mean to suggest it could have been induced by methods. Thank you for sharing those experiences with us. @SunnyNewDay ♥️

@Key Elements I had a profound experience with my deceased sister. This was a sober experience, yet if I hadn’t had done psychedelics previously, I doubt I would have met her.

Is this identification to the story necessary? There is a lot of information in my head. Someone could ask me “where did you go to school?” and “where did your sister ho to school?”. The information to answer both questions is available, one needn’t identify with either story. Another way to look at is - humans interact through stories. We play characters through story telling. It’s part of human life. Yet we don’t need to be identified with my story. These days, I’m not that interested in telling “my story”. Sometimes sharing experiences is fun, other times it practical. Yet I see people go on and on about their personal stories. It can be fun in some contexts, yet can get tiresome and boring. I generally prefer discussions at an impersonal level and to just be engaged with what is actually happening now.

In this regard, it sounds like your friend is stage blue and you are operating at at least orange. It’s not just your area. I live in the U.S. and mentioning American corruption or shortcomings can trigger defensive blue level nationalism. For example “You are unpatriotic, You aren’t a real American, if you don’t love America, then leave!!”. I’ve found it nearly impossible to have a conversation about what the U.S. does well and what it doesn’t to well with blue-level nationalists. It takes at least Orange, preferably higher. Or someone who does not identify with the country. When I travel out of the states, most people seem open-minded about discussing “pros and cons” of the U.S. because they don’t identify as “I am an American”. Many people with nationalist / religious identity will protect and defend their identity - it is a form of survival.

@mmKay This is a really interesting view and I have never thought about it this way. I think it’s a great example of using the term self-conscious in a personal or “trans-personal” context. With some who is shy and insecure, there will be a form of awareness, a hyper awareness of certain things (such as how people are looking at them or reacted to them, whether their clothing sticks out, if they behaved awkwardly etc.) Yet this is all within the personality. This is immersed within the personal story. This would be a person having self consciousness within the personality. There is another “higher” level of self consciousness which is transcendent of the personality. It’s a consciousness that does not identify with the person and the personal story. It is transcendent of this personality construct. There is an awareness “outside” of the personality. Sorta like watching a movie character. There is awareness of the movie character in the story, yet the awareness does not identify as being the character in the story. It is a different perspective.

@theking00 Super! Be mindful if that non-existent “I” tries to take ownership of it.

@Knock When I first heard a yoga instructor say down-dog was a resting pose I was like “what?! Are you kidding me?”. It took me a few months of consistent yoga to get it. I don’t fully get it, yet enough so.

@Pauline Bureau I think there is a tendency for meditators to consider thoughts as bad that they want to get rid of during meditation. Thoughts are appearing Now, just like all other appearances. Yet when my mind is a chatterbox, the thoughts seem front-and-center, loud and intrusive and I can get so immersed in them, I don’t notice much else in the environment. It’s not like I even meditated, more like I sat down for a while thinking. So if my mind is busy, I do put some effort into slowing the thinking mind. The classic grounding techniques are being mindful of the breath and chanting. There are also various other techniques in kriya yoga that settles the mind. Another one I designed myself is to place a candle at a certain distance away such that the candle flame is still, yet moves with my exhales. For some reason, my mind gets centered staring at the candle and observing the interplay between breath and candle movement. I begin to lose sense of Inner me and outer me. When awareness can’t be located and seems sorta outside of my head, it’s a meditative state with good resonance. Here, thoughts feel far away - as if they are a small voice in another room - or a faint bird chirp from outside. They are not intrusive or bothersome and don’t have any power.

I was at an Ayahuasca ceremony and things started to get a bit hairy. Some moaning, yelps and anxiety in the air. It started to intensify and spread within the group. The leaders very rarely speak during the ceremonies. Here, a female leader said gently, yet firmly. . . B R E A T H. . . . It was like we were a collective organism that started breathing. There was definitely an energetic shift at that point and things settled down.

@krockerman I think it’s better starting with a very low dose and working your way than it is starting with a high dose and a trip killer. If you start with a low dose and work your way up, you will be gaining insights and experience and it will likely be a smoother process than starting with high doses and killing trips. . . Another option is to have a trip sitter to help relax anxiety and paranoia if it arises. I think the dynamics of a trip sitter for newbies is better than a trip killer. If this option is available and you go this route, I would choose a sitter with experience of a variety of trips. Not some nervous Nellie that will freak out at the first sign of trouble - that would make things worse. I had Etizolam available on a few of my early trips. Just having it available gave a sense of calmness. Yet to be honest, I always forgot I had it during the trip and worked through things. The only time I remembered was during an Ayahuasca trip that got intense. Yet there was astringent message not to take it and work through things, which I did. That’s just me, others are different.

I don’t quite see it like that. I think parts of your description conflate duality and nonduality. It would be like saying a chicken is a hamster. In a nondual context, it’s technically true, yet a sloppy way to say it and it could be misinterpreted as literally a chicken is a hamster - rather than . This conflates duality and nonduality imo. I think a better way to phrase it would be everything os One, thus a chicken and hamster are both One (as is everything). You are also introducing ideas of object-space. This is an area I’m interested in exploring, yet not the area of my deepest and broadest understanding.

Threads merged. I’ve noticed a lot of “where are you from?” threads popping up. Please keep that discussion here, so we don’t have various threads on the same topic floating around.

Of course thoughts happen. As you say, otherwise what’s all this thinking we are doing? To me, this seems like a valid perspective in 3D/4D realms. What is a happening? It’s not just about thoughts. This has to do with all happenings. How can there be a happening without a Now and Not Now? Most people perceive “Not Now” as the immediate past. Even when they say “Now” they are contrasting that with an immediate past of “Not Now” - consciously or subconsciously. That is how human brains are conditioned. I’m cool saying that “Not Now” is simpler than a time construct and that calling it the immediate past is unnecessary conceptual construction. Yet even more directly, introducing a “Now” also introduces a “Not Now” that contrasts “Now”. Happenings involve a “Now” and “Not Now”. One side of the coin is like a still photo. The 3D aspect is maintained and the 4D aspect is removed. There is no Now and Not Now, so nothing is happening. Yet this is just one side of the coin, because in aliveness there is also Now and Not Now in 4D, which involves happenings. Yet, without the contrast of “now and not now”, there is no happening. We could have a series of still 3D images in 4D time - we would need to contrast the relative nature of two still 3D images to have a happening. 4D includes both 3D non-happenings and 4D happenings. Leveling up to so-called “5D” would include both 3D non-happenings, 4D happenings and a transcendent 5D “happenings” with new expansive potential and meaning for “happening” I would say this is one aspect in transcending the standard 4D timeline into realms of so-called 5D, which go deeper and broader than simple happenings and non-happenings within a linear construct of time. I suppose some of these realms can be accessed within a framework of happenings, yet it would have limitations and I think the tendency would be to contextualize and try to make sense of such happenings within a more grounded 4D framework, most commonly as an experience that happened. If one simply sees happenings occurring now, the tendency is to subconsciously assume things have happened. Most importantly that experience happened. Strictly speaking, I would say that acknowledging now happenings, without acknowledging the non-happening of those happenings, is a very subtle form of experience - “current” experience happening now. I’m not saying the framework of “things are happening now” is false. I’m saying it is a contraction within realms/dimensions of greater depth and expansiveness.

I suppose we could speak of eternity in multiple dimensions. Most people speak of eternity as an infinite horizontal axis of infinite past, present and infinite future. Yet as you’ve suggested, there is also eternity along the vertical axis of Now. Much fewer people seem aware of this and far fewer have direct experience here, because humans are conditioned to perceive and think of reality as past-present-future. Most people’s sense of “now” still has a tiny piece of the horizontal time axis. Without that, there is no longer “now”, because there is no “not now” to contrast “now” with.

My impression was people in this thread are discussing this as two sides. I see three sides: 1. Thoughts within a conventional past-now-future timeline are illusory since thoughts cannot happen in the past or future. People can be mesmerized by thoughts and become immersed into an illusory conceptual thought world of past and future. 2. Thoughts happen now and only now 3. Thoughts never happen now because a happening would need a timeline to happen (albeit an extremely short timeline of one instant to another instant). So, thoughts don’t even happen.

Is there also another side of the coin? The idea that thoughts “happen” now and only now can bring the mind’s attention to the immediacy of now. Yet upon even further inspection, doesn’t the idea that “thoughts happen now” necessitate a timeline? (albeit an extremely short timeline). A happening seems to be an appearance and disappearance within an extremely short time construct. Could this collapse into a Now of nothing, in which nothing is happening since there is no timeline to happen within? I’m not trying to contradict the other two sides of the coin, I can see the truth in those sides.

I understand these are extremely difficult spaces and how much the mind and body wants relief. Notice how you said “If my assumptions are correct” and then how you immediately pivoted and entered a space as if they were correct. Notice your orientation and where you go with these assumptions. As hard as it is, I would try to re-orient and face prior to “if my assumptions are correct” and examine those assumptions. What is the key belief(s) underlying this discomfort? What belief(s) is triggering this fight or flight response in your mind and body? Just one or two short statements. Not thought stories.

@EvilAngel Observe your assumptions and your orientation.