Hi. About a couple of weeks ago I had a discussion with Actualized.org (would guess it was Leo) on YouTube in the comment section under his video about loneliness, wondering whether going for a military engineering education, which I consider, maybe isn't the right way to go after all because of the lack of solitude and space I may need for developing my inside, and self-actualize. His answer suggested many other things to be concerned about when joining the military and essentially said I shouldn't do it, and I was slightly surprised and got confused about his answers. Can any of you here on the forum go a little deeper on this? I partly get it, and think I understand some of his principles as a matter of experience and consciousness; that it's, as we say "only you", or "only your consciousness", and good and evil doesn't really exist, but is a product of our minds manipulating reality, and what we call evil is just a matter of what our minds dislike. I'm starting to somewhat understand that. What I don't understand is the notion that there is no such thing as good or bad. Can't we define that? Isn't it bad when I'm unhappy, and good if I'm happy? If not, why take any self help course? Isn't physical pain bad, or are you saying that you can be happy having immense physical pain? What I also don't get is that by saying we don't need military (which he essentially does when trying to speak me away from joining it), isn't he then automatically accepting that I am guaranteed to get killed? Isn't he essentially saying: "I accept that ISIS will come into my house in one minute and chop my head off while meditating, still happy"? If that's OK, and you can be happy no matter what, why do you eat, and why do you even live? Why shouldn't we prevent ISIS from doing this, and I hope you agree that the only way to prevent them is indeed by violence..   Anyway, this is how the youtube discussion went: My starting comment: So going for a military carrier, firstly an education of 3 years, living on a 6 manned room, like I'm considering, is not a good idea if you need all this "space" to do self-actualizing? Actualized.org: You've got a bigger issue there than lack of solitude. You're making your career about killing other human beings. That's a huge problem from a self-actualization perspective. One of the folds of Buddha's eight-fold path is: Right Career: which means no killing of humans or animals Youtuber1: Actualized.org I disagree...if enemies take control of the situation, no matter what I will have to kill the enemy for my camps survival. Yes I understand the concept of The Dark Knight but it's foolish at certain situations. If you have read bhagavad geeta pls check out. Would you not kill a powerful psychopath responsible for killing children who did nothing to him? Off course there's nothing we can do about him but kill. Mental rehab for that guy will be foolish and what about the parents, is it the way of life? Yes decisions are tough to make but where did all the sanity go? Youtuber2: I admire you and your work. Just to play devils advocate though, are you not moralizing in saying a career in military is wrong? weren't we supposed to not moralize? Me: Thanks for the answer, although I was slightly surprised about your content moralization of being in the military, in addition to that I didn't know Buddhism had any relevance in itself here. I was thinking like there are lots of cons and pros. I mean, if some of your values are bravery/courage, I feel like I at least in some way would feel fulfilled when pushing myself, and that living a more comforting civilian life, not pushing myself or making tough decisions in the same way would make me feel more cowardly, as if something's lacking. I would also add, that it's called The Defence, and western countries are bounded by law to only kill if someone tries to kill us. The education I was talking about would give me a bachelor engineering degree in telematics along with lots leadership experience. I wonder, would you let someone kill you, if you knew the only way not to get killed was to kill the attacker, or maybe your point is not about whether or not being in the military is wrong, but rather that it would not give me "peace of mind", or something like that? On the other hand, I do in some way see your point, that maybe it wouldn't be too authentic to base a career on training for killing other humans  Actualized.org: There's nothing wrong with killing human beings. There's nothing wrong with any action. You are free to kill and rape babies. It's just anti-spiritual. Meaning, you will regret it later. The problem with being in the military is that you're working not merely in self-defense, but in active provocation of violence, greed, oppression, fear, power, and corruption. You are literally making yourself the unconscious tool of the devil. Because you are committing yourself to follow orders unconsciously, without question. Nothing ultimately wrong with that. But it is not aligned with spiritual growth or consciousness, and you will never be happy doing that. When you are conscious and in the Truth, it makes no sense to do violence to others. When the USA military started testing LSD on their soldiers to make them tougher, they had to abandon the project because the LSD made them so conscious and so loving, they refused to kill human beings. They wanted to hug them instead. You can't be Jesus and be in the military. It doesn't make sense. At that point, you would rather die than be a tool of egoic unconsciousness. I know a highly enlightened American yogi who moved out of the USA because he does not want to even live in a country that has an active military. Bad karma. So he lives in a country with zero military. You gotta really appreciate how karma works. Me: Ok, I see. Any response to this, though? “For pacifism seems to me to be a deeply immoral position that comes to us swaddled in the dogma of highest moralism - but most of us are not pacifists.  . . . Pacifism is ultimately nothing more than a willingness to die, and let others die, at the pleasure of the world’s thugs.  It should be enough to note that a single sociopath, armed with nothing more than a knife, could exterminate a city full of pacifists.  There is no doubt that such sociopaths exist, and they are generally better armed.”  -  Sam Harris Youtuber1: Love Sam Harris End of conversation