Carl-Richard

No. Soviet Union was Blue. Communism is not.

Yes, I'm a Zappa fanboy, but this one is special. This is the concert that inspired the lyrics of "Smoke On The Water" by Deep Purple: It has surprisingly good audio quality. You can hear "Fire!" at 1:21:05 and Zappa telling everybody to calmly exit the building.

That is one lens. Let's look at some different lenses: Cognitive: enlightenment is caused by the cessation of self-referential thoughts. Intrapsychic: enlightenment is caused by the cessation of egoic drives. Social: enlightenment is caused by the cessation of need for external validation. Existential-Humanistic: enlightenment is caused by the transcendence of the self. Behavioral: enlightenment is caused by a specific change in stimulus-response patterns. Buddhist: enlightenment is caused by the cessation of karma and thus the end of dukkha and samsara. Sometimes the idea of causality can be misleading. It's useful to first concede that these are merely descriptions (including the neurophysiological one that you mentioned, namely neurons and neurotransmitters), and that causality must then be recontextualized within this new framework.

@SolarWarden 0:55

Are you fucking serious bro? KEN WILBER

As a former doormat, no.

I'm from Norway. Max 5 visitors allowed in the same house, max 20 people allowed in outside gatherings, mandatory masks on public transport and inside stores. Recently reopened gyms with capacity restrictions. ...then on the news, 1000 young people gathered in the same place to party 2 days ago ? People are generally positive, but then you have the odd weirdos burning masks outside the government building (my roommate was there and ended up front page on the news the idiot?).

This is called the relative/absolute conflation. From a relative perspective, things matter. Having a life purpose and helping people matters relative to whatever human standard you want to set for yourself. But from an absolute perspective, nothing matters. However, that doesn't really change much, because from an absolute perspective, humans don't even exist. So as long as you're still human (relatively speaking), you should still strive to live as humanely as possible (whatever that means for you).

My conception of karma is not contigent on morality in the first place, so yeah, if you spend more time in flow, you more efficiently deal with karma, because that is all that karma is: information about the universe.

JP might go harder in this direction in the future. His talk with Russel Brand and other recent appearances seems to show this.

Here's a perspective: I used to seek enlightenment, but when I actually stood up next to it, I realized I was getting more than I wanted. Then I stopped seeking it, and man, that is when it really started. In a relative sense, the person that sits down and meditates can be said to be seeking, and that behavior is necessary for him to get to where he wants, but in an absolute sense, there is no person seeking and there is no place to go. Then what do you tell people? Well, you could say that enlightenment is when there is a spontaneous flip from the first perspective to the second perspective. It would therefore be wrong to say either "stop seeking – there is nothing to seek" or "keep going – there is something to seek", because it depends on where you're currently at. Some people need to pull and some people need to release. That is why teachers give different pointers that mean the opposite to different people and why people who aren't resonating at the same level get confused when they hear these conflicting messages.

Ah, so sweet and innocent. If only truth was that simple Enlightenment is the death of the separate self. It's the end of you. You'll know how literal I'm being when you experience it for yourself. Merging with God is no joke. The price is your life. Do you know why spiritual teachers have this empty look in their eyes like nobody's home? It's because there is actually no one there. Literally. They're completely dead inside. When you go from being "alive inside" to "dead inside", that feels exactly like death, and I mean EXACTLY like it. However, some think death is glorious. I'm just not there yet.

I mean let's say your goal is to manifest non-dual baseline awareness in your daily life. If this should happen, should you start actually going about your day like normal or should you fill it with 50 meditation sessions and 250 thoughts about how, where and when to do them? You already know that meditation works. So meditate, go about your day, and don't worry about it

What keeps you away from it is entertaining these types of thoughts ("Do I just have to keep remaining alert and vigilant?"). The key is essentially to do whatever it takes to gain enough trust in yourself to not go around worrying that you're not good enough. If you do 1hr every day where you put in 100% and there is no way you could've done any better, then you know that you atleast did your best and that you can try again tomorrow. If you instead choose to drag every insecure thought about meditation into every moment of your day, you're royally self-sabotaging yourself. Deal with your insecurities about meditation when you're actually meditating.

I don't want to die — what can I say? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Entertaining these types of thoughts is the very thing that keeps you away from it. This is why I keep hammering it in again and again that all your meditation sessions should only happen within a designated spot of your day where you dedicate 100% of your attention to meditation and nothing else, and then when you're done with that, you STOP! — meditation session over. If it didn't work for you that day, come back tomorrow. If you instead spend your day looking for free moments to do short spontaneous meditations, your mind will never stop producing these thoughts of "oh maybe I'm not present enough" or "maybe now I got some time to boost my presence". The only place where you're going to fix that is in your meditation session, so worrying about it during the day is pointless and will only keep fueling the monkey mind.

Yes but it's terrifying so I stopped doing that

When a thought arises, you realize that it's a thought. Job done.

The way she describes it sounds like a flow state. Flow maximizes information flow, so the more flow you have, the more karma you're able to burn through (which you could say is good in her case). Maybe next life she'll be a "normal" person

7:50 The crop byproducts argument is the equivalent of saying we have recycle stations so pollution isn't a problem. That and the numbers "2.8kg edible plants for 1kg meat" are complete red herrings, because the numbers are based on current crop usage and not the crop usage in an all-vegan world. An all-vegan world would use much fewer crops, so all the other numbers like crop byproducts wouldn't be represented in those numbers.

@Megan Alecia That already exists in China ?

There are a few common traps with this pointer (as with all pointers). For instance, does this mean you don't need to do any spiritual practice? Well, all the teachers who say these things did tons of practice, so that can't be right. Maybe it's more about the way you're supposed to do the practice? Well, there is really only one way to do the practice, and that is to actually do it. The idea that meditation is something that should be effortless is actually you forcing something onto the situation ("it's supposed to be this and not this"). You can't try to not try. That is actually the very reason why you have to do the practice. If meditation feels effortless for you, that's OK. If you feel like you have to make an effort, that's OK as well. Your only job is to do the practice. There is no person to make an effort in the first place, so you shouldn't worry about that. Then what is the problem? Well, it's the worry. My advice is to keep a consistent daily practice where you pick one time of the day where you devote all your attention to just that practice. No immediate breaks, no checking the phone, no doing it while standing in line or waiting on the bus. When you're not practicing, you live your life. This is how you avoid the trap of worrying that you're trying too hard or not trying too hard. The mistake is actually not that you're trying too hard; it's when it's coming from a place of compulsion and a feeling of lack, a.k.a worry. It's not the feeling of effort that is bad, rather it's the fear that you're not making enough effort (or not being effortless enough).

Enlightenment doesn't give you anything. It only shows you what you got. That said, it doesn't hinder you in operating in the world either. Gary Weber got enlightened while he was running a research project with 1000 employees and a quarter billion budget.

Because most people on the world stage got there by selling their soul to the devil. Sadhguru isn't too bad though: