Forestluv

This is the emerging field of epigenetics. This field studies how environmental input can be alter gene expression, without changing DNA sequence. Studies have shown the effects of some environmental input can be passed on to the next generation. Yet this is still a young, emerging field and there is still a lot we don't know.

relative = relative not actual = not actual actual vs not actual involves another distinction. Any separation of Oneness involves relative distinctions to contrast a thing that is not another thing. Any thing has a not-that-thing for contrast. If we say that is a cup, it is relatively contrasted with all that is not-that-cup.

@Parththakkar12 I’m not disagreeing with the essence of the idealism. I’m questioning the realism of it. I could imagine a world in which no dogs ever fight. Yet realistically, that would take a lot of work - lots of de-conditioning, training, breeding, scientific research, building infrastructure, education, etc. And to attain 100% peaceful interactions would be extremely difficult to attain. How many humans today have 100% peaceful interactions? I suppose we could try cloning 7 billion Eckhart Tolles. I may say you are a dreamer, yet you are not the only one. I hope someday others join you and we can live as one. . .

Whether it is a made-up distinction or a non-made-up distinction does not nullify the distinction. And ‘made-up” vs “non-made-up” is itself a relative distinction. It’s in the realm of distinguishing between what is imaginary and real - another relative distinction.

And how realistic is it to get 100% of the worlds population to not want bombs? How much time and work do you think it would take to get 100% of the people in the world to voluntarily want to get rid of bombs?

What percentage of the population needs to voluntarily get rid of bombs for all bombs to be gotten rid of?

Tier 2 is sparsely populated.

Is that another way of saying perceiver and perceived are the same?

I'm not sure about your specific case, yet the most common gaps I see in yellow men is an imbalance toward intellect and conceptualization with poor integration of empathy, emotions, intuition, compassion and post-rational being. For example, I will see minds that are very good at integrative and systemic thinking intellectually/conceptually, yet their integration of empathy and emotions is intellectual! They will literally intellectualize empathy into an integrative conceptual model without having embodied empathy. Generally, women seem to be able to embody modes of Green being easier than men. Men tend to analyze/intellectualize/conceptualize Green. And I agree that the lack of Green embodiment can lead to major gaps at Turquoise. I see lots of men limited to intellectual/conceptual models of Turquoise.

The distinction between category A and category B is itself distinct from intention. A distinction is a distinction, regardless of how or why it was created. Constructions of "true map" do not erase the distinction drawn between category A and category B. We can create a distinction between A and B and then create a long song and dance about A and B. Yet at the end of the day, there is still a distinction between A and B.

Yet how accessible is this cure to some minds? Imagine a war veteran that had horrific experiences and now has severe recurring PTSD episodes. Is it fair to tell him that he is just imagining it and if he doesn't like the hell to stop creating it? Isn't that kinda like telling someone to be like Arnold Schwarzenegger and lift 400 lbs.? I think this is one of the greatest potentials of psychedelic therapy - it can boost someone to Schwarzenegger levels in which they become empowered to stop creating it.

@datamonster Thank you, that is a great description of pros and cons. Germany is further on the socialism spectrum than the U.S. and I think it's hard for Americans to imagine what it's like. Especially those over 50 yrs old. They were conditioned to believe that socialism was scary Stalin type stuff. You had mentioned that some people choose not to work a menial job because they can be taken care of without working. Yet if their basic needs are met and higher education is essentially free (paid by social taxes), why wouldn't someone develop goals they want to pursue? For example, a creative writer, artist, psychologist etc.? If there are no financial barriers, are there other barriers blocking them? Are some people unambitious and don't want to learn, develop skills and work? Or perhaps they have depression or drug dependency issues? Also, do you think the social support funds distributed fairly? Is it harder for some people to get access to social services due to discrimination?

This reminds me of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs driving motivation. According to the theory, there is motivation to meets one's basic needs (e.g. food and shelter). Once those needs are met, a new motivation toward higher levels can arise, such as motivation to participate in social groups, to learn, to personally develop, to create, to contribute to society etc. It sounds like in Germany, the lower basic needs are met. By your observations, do you think this generally leads to less motivated people (since basic needs are met) or does it allow for people to pursue their higher potential? In other words, do you think most people that have basic needs met are motivated to take advantage of the opportunity to strive for higher personal needs and goals?

There is an aspect of dualistic relativiity here. There is a 'true set of thoughts' and a 'false set of thoughts'. The distinction between the two categories is an aspect of relativity. That relative aspect may have value, yet the distinction between the two categories can collapse.

“What Has Jimmy Dore Been Smoking?” Whatever it is, I’d like to plug it. It’s a two level consciousness booster ?

Kellyanne Conway comes to mind.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. ?

@purerogue Good points. Thanks for the insights! I’m still a work in progress. That sounds awful. I wouldn’t be interested in that either.

Every massive movement toward equality and justice has had elements of violence. The evolution of peaceful protests is relatively new. It’s common for the mind to launder the past to demonize the present. Consider the women’s suffrage movement. There were some highly violent suffragettes that burned down buildings! They weren’t all peaceful angels! Understanding ultimate causation and “the ends justifying the means” can be two separate issues. I would consider both to be important.

Of course this is true within the story and the story confirms itself within the story. I’m not saying the story is false. There could be lots of truth within this story. I’m saying something more may be going on that we are missing. An exploration of that would need an open, curious mind. Yet why waste our time if we already know this “forestluv” character is arrogant and defensive? We haven’t even asked forestluv why he spends so much time writing lengthy posts - yet we have assumed we know why. Why would we ask an arrogant, defensive person like forestluv about why he writes lengthy posts? We already know why! And he would just give us some arrogant, defensive answer anyway. . . Yet how can we expand and deepen our understanding if we have already decided we know and have no open-ness or curiosity to explore? We are caught in a conundrum of assumptions and story immersion. We can stay immersed within the content of our forestluv movie or we can transcend the movie and see that it is merely one movie of many movies we can create. This is taking a “meta view”, yet it involves letting go of attachment / identification of a story we have created. To me, you don’t seem interested or curious about this, which is fine. Yet it’s kinda the end of the movie then. Looks like we are stuck with this arrogant, defensive forestluv character ? ?

Observe how the mind creates tone. . . Imagine a mind that takes things personally and gets defensive. Oh wait, we already have that part down. We can easily see how “forestluv’s” comments are personally defending itself. No more work needs to be done here. We are fluent in that language. Could our interpretation of defensiveness be missing something? Perhaps not. Maybe this “forestluv” character is getting defensive. Maybe he is pacing through his house cursing, throwing things and kicking his dog in frustration. Maybe he is trying to prove how wise he is with all his amazing experience. Maybe he is making up the experiences and they never happened. Yet maybe something else is going on. What are the pros and cons of being close-minded to this possibility? Now imagine if the ideas and comments came from from a de-tached, de-personalized space. Imagine we are a detached observer. . .observing all the experiences that has shaped the mind of the character we call “forestluv”. Imagine there is no ownership that these are “my experiences”. Rather, we are simply observing how inputs has shaped the mind of “forestluv”. Similar to how an artist shapes clay to create a sculpture. Or could It be an interesting combination of all three of the above ingredients? As if the mind is cooking a meal with lots of ingredients. We don’t know. We would need to have an open, curious mind to explore this territory. Yet such an exploration may take some time and effort. Notice how “playing devil’s advocate” is of no use here. This situation of exploring and understanding another perspective takes a different skill and mindset. Or we can say “Forestluv is being defensive” and call it a day. . .

Observe how the mind creates stories, how the mind becomes immersed into those stories and how those stories limit the mind. For example, is it possible that Leo has opened up realms of exploration for my mind? Of course. Is a mind necessary limited to parroting those ideas? Perhaps. . . Yet how do you know that I haven’t spent hundreds of hours contemplating those ideas, adding my own creations and integrating those ideas with other experience and knowledge? Do you think spending 30,000 of hours studying, researching and teaching cellular biology has had no impact on the mind? Living within villages in Honduras, Guatemala, Peru and Colombia has had no impact on the mind? Thousands of hours of volunteering with alcoholics and patients in psychiatric wards have had no influence on the mind? 100+ psychedelic trips has had no influence on the mind? Why might a mind want to take a myopic view? ? ^^^^ Observe ^^^^ ? How can my mind hold this “deeper understanding” if it isn’t “Leo-approved”? ? The former point is a key. Being aware of one’s limitations and gaps opens doors to learn from another. The context of how I’m using the term “playing devil’s advocate” may be different than yours. I consider “playing devil’s advocate” to be within an argumentative / debating mindset in which one is actually trying to protect pre-conceived ideas. It does not have genuine, open, curious, exploratory energetics. I do not consider someone truly exploring another’s perspective and experience to be playing devil’s advocate. And yes, not everyone has the opportunity to immerse themselves in a foreign culture. Yet it is the orientation and intention that is more important. For example, if someone truly wanted to understand what schizophrenia is like, what the mind do? That mind would start reading books about schizophrenia and talk with psychologists and people who have schizophrenia. We would ask them “what is it like to have schizophrenia?” If we wanted to learn about psychedelics, we could speak with people who have done psychedelics and ask them what it’s like. We could actually try psychedelics ourselves. This leads to a much deeper and expansive understanding than speculating in an argumentative mindset with assumptions that I already know.

I’m just offering a POV, perhaps it has value, perhaps not. Guilt / shame is a creation and a major block against observation, introspection, learning and growing. The mind / body will not want to feel guilt or shame and will move in another direction - thereby depriving the opportunity of observation, introspection, learning and growing. The simplistic form is creating a “good” vs “bad” binary construct. For example a person is either racist (bad) or non-racist (good). In such a construct, the mind will resist and avoid introspecting how it’s own mind works. It will not be open to looking into nuances. Who wants to examine racial biases if it means I’m racist, bad and feel guilty about it? Nobody. Therefore, we would need to detach from this. When I lived in Honduras, my Spanish teachers often pointed out that I pronounced words incorrectly. If I reacted “You are shaming me for speaking poorly! You think I’m stupid!” - my mind would not be open to introspection, exploration and discovery. Rather, my mindset was “How interesting. I wonder why I keep pronouncing the Rs and RRs incorrectly?” I got curious. Then I noticed that the tongue position to pronounce Rs in Spanish is very different than in English. How fascinating!! My tongue was literally conditioned to move a certain way through pronouncing Rs hundreds of thousands of times. Could I break this habit? Could I train my brain and tongue to effortlessly and automatically pronounce the Rs the proper way? What a wonderful challenge! Then I made a fun game out of it. I made songs with lots of words that started with Tr, Dr and Gr. And I retrained my mind and tongue! . . . Notice how this curious and open mindset allowed for exploration and discovery. Similarly, a couple years ago I dated a black woman for the first time. Occasionally, she would point something out to me that I was unaware of. She would say something like “That sounds like the view of someone who grew up with white privilege”. If I got defensive and said “You are saying I’m racist!! You are shaming me!!” I would have been closed off. Rather, I got curious. What an amazing opportunity to view myself through her eyes!! Then I started asking questions about what that means and I learned so much. I was blown away. There were all sorts of conditioning I grew up with that I was totally unaware of. My mind had all sorts of subconcscious biases I wasn’t aware of. Yet she was able to see it. What an amazing opportunity for introspection and discovery!!

This gets into what is real (true) and what is imaginary (not true). Notice how we create constructs of what is real and what is imaginary. What comes ‘prior’ to those distinctions? Imagine you are dreaming. Within that dream, it is prior to your analysis of what counts as “real” vs “imaginary”. When you wake up, you might be disoriented and start trying to figure out what is “real” and “imaginary”. The mind may think “Oh, that was just a dream, it wasn’t real. I’m in the real world now. I better get to work”. Those distinctions have practical value for the survival of the organism, yet they are distinctions the mind creates. Color is also an interesting example. From one perspective, colors don’t exist. There are only colorless, wavelengths of light that the mind converts into a subjective perception of color. Colors are hallucinations that the mind makes up, colors actually don’t exist. Yet from another perspective, colors exist. Just look around! Duh, it’s so obvious there are colors! Colors are both imaginary and real. We create those distinctions. It’s like having a magic wand!

Of course it’s not racist, since no race is involved. However, it sounds like she may have a bias against men in general due to her trauma. This would be an extrapolation. In terms of race, this would be a form of racism. If someone was attacked by an Asian person and extrapolated that to label all Asians as violent - that is a form of racism. The term “racist” is nuanced and people hold very different views on what “racism” is. Many views have a connotation that is always means a bad thing. This can prevent someone from introspecting their own racial biases because they don’t want to see themself as racist, bad, shameful, guilty etc. In the case of someone feeling awkward around people of one race, of course that is a racial bias. They have a bias toward feeling comfortable around one race and uncomfortable around another race.