Carl-Richard

Both of your guys' perspectives are valid. You're just getting caught up in semantics. It's true that you do have some degree of control (one notion of control) over what happens to you, and it's also true that everything is God's will and that nothing is in your control (another notion of control).

That's from the perspective of your current life. You'd be surprised how easily you can adapt to new habits if you just try. I believe there are virtually no limits to what you can get used to.

It's the threads.

Because of your human conditioning and bias ?

And this was discovered while tripping?

Firstly, if you and her agree that it's not cheating, then it's not cheating. Other than that, my stance is quite liberal: unless there is a genuine possibility that you'll break up with her because of watching porn behind her back, then there is no reasonable difference between watching porn behind her back and simply masturbating behind her back. So if she wants to call porn cheating, then masturbation is also cheating (unless you guys somehow agree that they're different).

What do they say — the thing about relationships that last is not that you were perfectly made for each other, but that you put in the effort to make it work. If you have a habit of making yourself a slave to the hedonic treadmill, it will manifest itself in every aspect of your life, and you'll never be satisfied. At some point you have to take control. But of course, I haven't met your girlfriend.

Yes, and you're the only person who gets this amount of personal preferences being expressed about you (except Leo). Maybe something to think about.

There comes a point where the format invalidates the message. You're way past that point. No person who is at peace will spend hours of each day screaming at their top of their lungs. You're by my estimation still in the beginning phase of the spiritual journey, and I suggest to start integrating the insights, focus on yourself, see if there are bases you're not covering, instead of trying to teach other people who are obviously not open to your efforts.

What does that mean? You awoke just once?

How many times have you tripped? How many hours have you meditated?

Haha it's like the inverse of Plato's Cave: you emerge out of the cave and get blinded by the golden Sun vs. you descend down and get blinded by the golden shine of the Earth

Or when you finally strike gold (or you're about to), you're appalled by the fact that you have to sacrifice any notion you have of yourself as famous.

Stop saying

You'd be surprised.

I'm natty brah

@Yimpa Wow ?

Awakening rocks your boat and it takes time to get stable again. And it looks different for different people. Just give him some time ;D

Based.

@Razard86 Let's assume you did the sensible thing and answered no to the question (and not the definition). Why? Is it that rape as a general activity probably doesn't help people to awaken to the truth? Is it that rape perpetrated at the hands of the guru reflects something about the guru and not the truth? Now, given that proposition, if your desire is to help people awaken to the truth, why do you need to be an asshole to do that? Does your need to be an asshole reflect something about the truth, or does it reflect something about you? Does you need to be an asshole reflect the needs of the people you're supposedly helping, or does it reflect something about you? Is the truth suddenly not the truth if it doesn't entail hurting somebody's feelings; calling them "delusional", "liar", "idiot", "stupid"; in full caps and with three exclamation marks? I don't think so. I think that to claim that these things are inextricably tied to the truth would only be a corruption of the truth, and it's highly possible to teach it in another way.

Let's define rape as something like forceful sexual intercourse without consent. Should spiritual teachers be allowed to rape people if they claim that it furthers their ability to teach?

When your preoccupation with your own needs is often at the expense of others.

Should spiritual teachers be allowed to rape people if they claim that it furthers their ability to teach?

You can erode the separation between self and other without invoking the concept of private experiences. It's in fact a non sequitur. You don't have to deny that a rock has a private experience to realize your oneness with it, so it's the same with anything else. You don't have to deny that Jupiter is a planet for you to realize oneness with it, or that flowers are red. You just have to know what these things fundamentally are, which is like you say mental constructions. And if anything, other people's experiences will only become more apparent when you actually erode the separation between self and other.

And that is why it makes zero sense to say "only you experience pain, go slap a person to prove it", as that is dealing with personal selves and not the impersonal self. Q.E.D.