Moments

[Gesundheit]

@Forestluv Interesting insights on empathy. They give me vibes similar to Leo's sameness vs difference video. I think he nails it there and that that concept is an important piece of this puzzle.

[Forestluv]

9 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

@Forestluv Interesting insights on empathy. They give me vibes similar to Leo's sameness vs difference video. I think he nails it there and that that concept is an important piece of this puzzle.

Thanks for that insight. That was a great video. Now I’ve been contemplating the “sameness vs difference” between the empathic dynamics I’ve been exploring and the “sameness vs difference” video. There is some sameness and some difference. It’s fun to explore. 

[Forestluv]

Today, a forum member sent me a message about how there can be “mismatches” with some people. For example, someone can be amazingly talented in one area, yet amazingly untalented in another area.

Here is a story of one of my mismatches - an area in which I am amazingly untalented. . . 

It was Christmas morning with my extended family. At times, several people are simultaneously ripping open presents. Others times, there is a ‘special gift’ and one of my parents will make an announcement for everyone to stop so we can all watch the reaction of the person opening the ‘special gift’. For example, my Dad gave my mom the special gift of a nutcracker statue hand-made from some famous artist in Scandinavia. Everyone paused to watch the surprised look on my Mom’s face. 

Well. . .last Christmas, I got one of these “special gifts”. Everyone stopped opening to watch me and the video camera goes on. I’m totally not into this type of attention, yet it’s important within family dynamics to play along and I am all about harmony, so I play along. . . I open it and it’s some type of weird wooden box. I have no idea what it is. . . Keep in mind that the ‘money shot’ for these ‘special gifts’ is the immediate reaction. It’s only ok to say curiously react “Ooohhh, what is it?”, when it is supposed to be a mysterious “Ohhh, what is it?” gift. If it’s an obvious surprise gift like my Mom’s Nutcracker, you need to be super surprised and excited. If my Mom looked at the Nutcracker and reacted “Uuhhh, what is it?” It would be a super downer and everyone is disappointed with the reaction. If you f-up the ‘special gift’ reaction badly enough, people in my family can actually get upset. As well, timing is important. For it to come across genuine, there needs to be an immediate reaction when you see what it is. If my mom waited 10 seconds before saying “It’s beautiful! I love it!”. It comes across as in-genuine. A major downer with disappointment and upset. 

I get the the gift and I’m hoping for a no-brained like an iPhone. . . Yet here I am with this strange wooden box thing with hooks and metal rings and I don’t know wtf it is. For all I know, this is a priceless piece of handmade art from a famous Argentinian artist. And I only have about 2 seconds to decide wether to go the mysterious “Ooohhh, what is it?” route or the surprise “I love it!” route. . . . So I go the surprised, I love it route. I joyfully exclaim “What a beautiful piece of abstract art. I love it! This will go perfect in my office at work. Thanks so much Mom and Dad!!”. Silence and strange looks. Dang, I made the wrong choice. . . After about 5 seconds of awkward silence, my sister says “It’s a puzzle. The gift is inside. You need to figure out how to solve the puzzle to open it”. 

I have some talents in some areas. Yet not in this area. I can go sky high intelligence along some lines, yet along this line I am at ground-level stupidity. Seriously, I’m totally stupid in this type of thing. . . Then my mom says “He is so brilliant! He has a PhD in molecular biology! Watch how quickly he will solve it!!”. I literally look like a monkey poking the parts around. I have no idea how to solve it. And not because of the pressure. I do not have this type of physical manipulation skills. After a few minutes, my Mom gets restless and says “C’mon honey, stop screwing around with us. Just solve it.”. I look over to my sister with powerlessness and she comes over to help me solve the box puzzle. Needless to say, my performance qualifies as a “downer”. 

[Forestluv]

Some insights into recognizing and developing empathic abilities (written by a reluctant empath that never signed up for this). . .  

The area of empathic abilities hasn’t been a conscious thing for me until recently (about 4 years ago). Throughout my life, only one person has noticed an empathic ability in me. About 10 years ago, I was at my sister’s house and people were talking about abilities and my sister said that I was super empathic. I humbly brushed it aside and she exclaimed “What??!! You totally are. When someone enters the room, your energetics totally change. You don’t know that??!!”. . . I didn’t take it seriously. Looking back, I can see how in relationships, I would ‘feel’ the other person and would always try to have harmony. If they didn’t feel better, I couldn’t feel better. This led to a some unhealthy dynamics in which I couldn’t set up personal boundaries and would take responsibility for other people’s feelings. These are some garden variety empathy dynamics. Perhaps around the 25th percentile. Fairly low level. I never once thought I was different than others in this area or had some special ability like sensing stuff other people can’t. I’ve heard a few people say that if you have some paranormal ability, you had it since childhood. This may be true for many, yet not for me. However, many emotions were suppressed or misrepresented in my home. For example, as I child I may have sensed my mother was upset and ask her what is wrong. She may have responded “I’m not upset! I’m fine! Why would you think I’m upset!”. There were a lot of repressed and misexpressed feelings that may have led to confusion. 

Anyway, my breakthrough was only a few years ago at about 45 years of age. I started experimenting with psychedelics and they rocketed me into hyper-empathic realms. Similarly with edible cannabis. At first, it was very foreign and uncomfortable. No one knew what I was talking about and for the first time, I started feeling different. About two years ago, I met an empath who never used drugs. She could do it sober and encouraged me to try to develop abilities sober, which I have to some extent. 

One recurring feeling I would have is “Is this an empathic thing?”, “Does this count?”. Yet there is no empathic handbook for empathic wizards. There is no school of empathic magic in which certified empathic wizards validate a developing empath’s abilities. . . And I’m not talking about basic online stuff about how empathy is important for a manager to be effective. “Managers need to know the needs of their employees” kinda stuff. No. I’m talking about empathic wizardry that is like a new sense. Like you are sitting in a crowded restaurant and empathic energetics are like a siren going off and everyone is acting like they can’t sense it. And you sit there thinking “wtf is happening? Can no else sense this?”. 

So for anyone who gets glimpses of what seems like empathic abilities, yes it’s a thing. We are in the dark ages of empathy and very little is known. These are not the abilities people were allowed to express throughout history. The high level stuff scares normies. High level empaths in history have had to face consequences from normies around them getting creeped out because the empath can sense stuff they cannot. 

How many forms of animals can an average person describe? Maybe 100? How many forms of empathy can people describe? Most people have a vague idea of empathy as feeling other people’s feelings. Or being compassionate. This is a super low resolution. Imagine being able to clearly describe 20 forms of empathy with details. That about how many I’ve come across or have seen in others. I don’t have them all. I have certain ones better than others. My strongest empathic ability is being able to imagine “what it’s like” from the realm of “what it’s like”. And this can be subdivided. There are other abilities that occasionally arise and are like secondary abilities. As well, sometimes I can see other people’s abilities, yet I know I don’t have it (and often wish I had it). I imagine there will be hundreds of empathic areas to explore, similar to how there are hundreds of intellectual spaces to explore and how there are hundreds of food recipes to explore.

Also, one empathic ability is recognizing other empaths. You can sense it. It is like speaking a foreign language. When you speak the language, you can tell when others are speaking the language and those who can’t. Have confidence in this ability. It is an important guide to help you develop your abilities. And. . . Can someone be high level brilliant in one area and lack high level empathic abilities?  Yes. Someone can be a high level English speaker and not speak Vietnamese. We live in a culture in which intellectuals rule and control the narrative. Be aware that high level intellectuals can be brilliant in some areas, yet lack empathic abilities. Again, I’m not taking about generic empathy. I’m talking about high level stuff. For for many empaths, they concede those with higher level intellectual abilities than themselves. This is particularly obvious in the SD model. Notice how intellectuals want to define what “yellow” is. They want it pure meta intellectual modeling in which empathy is reduced to an intellectual idea of what empathy is. This is super common with intellectual men. You may have noticed on the forum that I am no longer putting up with it and I speak a lot about “integrated yellow”. As well, I’m introducing concepts of “experiential knowing”. Non-empaths often reduce empathy to some fuzzy idea about feelings, that is subordinate to intellect. Yet high level empathic abilities and not just feelings. It encompasses much more, which is why I often use the term “experiential knowing” and “experiential bias”. As well, there is the realm of “meta empathy” that in SD, is on par with meta intellect that sucks up most of the air in the room.

And for empaths who have wondered. . . Leo is at an extremely high level in some areas of cognition, yet not in empathic abilities. He has standard empathy. I can tell by the way he relates to certain people outside his experiential range. For example, women and minorities. This does not mean he doesn’t care about others outside his experiential range. He does. He does not mean he cannot imagine what it would be like for another person. He can, yet it is from the position of his experiential zone. He doesn’t jump into other experiential zones. He has had flashes, like he has a good idea what it would be like to be insane, due to entering insanity zones while tripping. Yet to me, this simply expands his own personal experiential zone. It doesn’t mean he can jump experiential zones. Part of this may be lack of interest, he loves the cognitive stuff as an INTP. Yet it also may be due to abilities. To me, it seems like a simple ability to do, yet I’m seeing more and more that for others they can’t do it. I think part of it is being attached and identified to one’s own story, experience and identity. When I was able to let go of my experiential identity, whole new worlds opened up. If I am not limited to my experiential identity, it opens the door to any experiential identity to enter. And at times it’s seemed crazy. Like having multiple personalities. For anyone that goes deep into another experience to the point it seems like it’s you, one good perspective is seeing it as a dream character you are waking up from. This is particularly helpful for disturbing empathic appearances. For example, I don’t have PTSD, yet I’ve empathically experienced a PTSD episode for something that never happened to me, yet it was happening during the experience. I know what’s it’s like to re-experience trauma. Not through memory. Through the experience re-happening. Spiraling down and not being able to make it stop and then you’re donzo. You can’t make it stop just like you couldn’t make the initial traumatic episode stop. The best way to get re-grounded back to baseline, so there isn’t a new pattern or identity set is to treat it as waking up from a dream. This way, the experiential knowing can be embodied, without the noise and anxiety of freaking out that I may have PTSD. And it reduces the chance of a seed pattern to get planted (in which the episode become re-occurring). I don’t think I’ve ever had the same empathic appearance occur twice. For me, this is good because one of my most common appearances is the experiences of vulnerable people undergoing distress. 

There are also many fun, joyful and intriguing empathic realms. These are the ones I want to explore more. Perhaps I should set an intention, start inquiries or communicate more with empaths in these realms. LoA kinda stuff. Oh, that reminds me. . . . Some empaths can go into an imaginative zone with a command from another. For example, a healer may tell you to imagine pure cool water running down your back. Or a golden orb radiating in your chakra. I don’t have that ability. Zero. Nothing. Nada. It doesn’t work like that for me. Rather, it just appears out of nowhere. Or there may be a trigger in the environment. For example, I may be hiking and be in the proper mental space. A crow lands near me and squawks at me and I know it’s spirit. It is communicating to me as a spirit being. And I don’t even believe that type of stuff. Yet there it is happening. Then I know the relationship American Indians had to spirit animals. However, if someone said to me “I am going to call a crow over and if it squawks at you I want you to sense it’s animal spirit that is communicating with you”. That might work for other empaths, yet not me. That would just be another crow squawking at me. 

[Forestluv]

Here are a few ideas and questions from a fellow empath:

“I can quickly feel and gain wordless understanding of animals since a young age, especially if I’m physically around that animal. I've had a few experiences of dream premonitions towards pets I had a connection with, defying time and distance”.

This is not my ability. I wish I could do it. I can tangentially relate to wordless understanding of humans. On rare occasions, wordless understanding of inanimate objects, plants or animals. Yet it’s rare for me.

You mentioned dreams. I love the idea of integrating empathic resonance with dreams. I got into lucid dreaming for a while and it changed my relationship with what is real and what is imagined. Occasionally, I go into what seems like lucid dream states while awake. Many of my empathic experiences are sorta like lucid dream states in which rational thought of what is real and what is imagined dissolve. If someone nearby called my name to say hi, it would take me a minute to “snap out of it”, wake up and get re-centered with my baseline identity. It would sorta be like waking up from a half asleep state. Ime, working with lucid dreaming (asleep and awake) is super helpful for letting go and allowing empathic resonance to appear. 

“For awhile I’ve been aware of how people ‘humanise’ animals, see that animal through a human lens. So if someone came up to a...bird, for instance, they may talk to it too loudly, like a dog, and be oblivious to when it feels scared, happy, angry, etc. They might laugh at it and say ‘oh it’s doing something naughty/angry! How cute!’ when really it’s not that at all. (that also might have less to do with empathy, and more just lack experience of  observing a certain animal)“

I think you are digging into something deeper than simply observing an animal. This is an area I’ve tried to develop empathic resonance with, yet have made little progress. As you say, part of the issue is my human lens. I know this and I have a hard time dissolving it. Substances can dissolve it, yet I can’t do it on my own. I would consider this a trans-human realm, since it is transcendent to one’s own human attachment / identity.

Another cool thing:

“The second empathic thing that I experience is getting a strong vibe every time I go to a new place-Sure it could just be the overall atmosphere, but I feel like a lot of it is the tangled up feelings of people there from the past and present. Especially when I move into a previously owned apartment.”

For sure. This is another empathic realm. I think it’s called geometric empathy. Again, not my strong suit. I get weak senses of knowing from physical places. I wish I could do it better. I have had a couple very strong forms of empathic knowing of place in which time and space broke down. One time was small medieval cathedral in Florence Italy. I arrived after all the tourists left. The lighting was low and there was a vibe. Zero tourist energy. It was like 700 years of essence appearing. I felt a calling to walk down into this small lower level that had a few pews an alter and some religious symbols. I sat in a pew and knew something was going to happen. Then the angelic chanting filled the cathedral and a group of monks entered the worship area and chanted for about 30min. It was like time and space dissolved. They never once looked at me and it was like I wasn’t there. . .

And finally, something in my wheelhouse. . . 

“Is it possible for highly empathic people to sense feelings that they themselves have never experienced before? If a person has never experienced depression in their life, is it possible for them to ‘feel’ depression radiating off another person? Sometimes I think, usually, no. Like if someone experiencing anxiety for the first time = imagining the color green for the first time, they cannot imagine the color green until they have seen it. But maybe if someone who has seen the colors blue (sadness) and yellow (fear) can imagine mixing those colors together and get a faint idea/vibe/guess at what anxiety is like, from their limited emotional experience, paired with imagination. “

We can for sure we can experience / feel new things.  When we were young, we had lots of first feelings. When we get older, we have less new feelings. Experiences are new combinations of previous feeling we have had in new circumstances. 

I’ve been in situations with people in which I sense something I’ve never felt / experienced before, yet it doesn’t necessarily seem to match up with what they are feeling / experiencing. Memories that come to mind is traveling in foreign countries, deep into foreign cultures and villages. There are probably a lot of universal human emotions were share, like vulnerability. Yet I’ve also encountered some new stuff from people way out there that seem very different than who I’ve met. For example, deep in the jungles of Belize or up in the mountains of Peru. There have been times I’ve felt dialed in with someone with a new feeling / experience. Yet I didn’t try to verify it by asking the person about it. There was a language issue and it just didn’t flow with the encounter.

This is why I usually say “knowing what it’s like” rather than “knowing what it is”. There is a knowing ‘what it’s like’ and this can easily be verified by talking with someone who knows what it’s like from their own experience. 

Another question:

”what about physical feelings? Can an empathetic person physically feel someone elses pain, not just emotionally feel their pain? Or is outside of the regular definition/experiences of empathy? “

This can get into nuances of what counts as a physical, emotional or mental feeling. We could keep it simple and say experiencing the pain of someone else’s broken bone. I can see someone having that ability, yet it’s not something I’ve ever had and not something I’ve heard much about. I have heard a bit about some empathic healers being able to feel someone’s pain, yet it’s not something I have experience with or have explored.

[Forestluv]

Empathy in the animal world. Notice how there is both intra-species empathy and trans-species empathy. My favorites come at 3:31 and 5:10. I’m amazed at how the dog intuitively knew the fish needed water and desperately tried to save them. I could feel the quiet sadness in the dog. As well, I love the primate who lovingly admires the creature she just saved.

 

[Forestluv]

The sun shines on everyone, it doesn't make choices.

When it rains it rains on everyone, it doesn't make choices.

The One Spirit, lives in everyone, it doesn't make choices.

We pray, we pray for everyone, we don't make choices.

Peace to All, Life to All, Love to All

[Forestluv]

One of my desires is to realize, create and show others bigger picture maps and higher resolution maps. One of my curiosities is defense mechanisms to maintain contracted and myopic mind states. This of course is relative. A relatively contracted / myopic mind will not perceive itself as contracted / myopic. It will perceive itself as being open, big picture and accurate. And within this mindset, it is true. If the mind is contracted within a low-resolution map of Paris, that is the limit of awareness for that mind. Relative to that mind, it's low-resolution map of Paris is a high resolution big picture map of the world. 

It seems like a mind would want to create and use the most accurate, highest resolution, integrative systems map possible. Yet this is a very rare mind because such a map will at times go counter to a person's prior conditioning, beliefs, identity, survival and lifetime investment. 

Yesterday I was reading a neuroscience textbook. I was impressed by how cleanly the authors could dissect the brain and describe individual components. Yet then the author explained how reductionism is the way to understand the whole. I wanted to scream. . . Reductionism gives one perspective of the whole and there are infinite levels of reduction and holism. It's not even accurate to call them "levels" since there is One continuum from infinitely reduced to infinitely whole - which comes full circle as One. . . Yet this neuroscientist has been highly conditioned within reductionism. He spent decades immersed in study, writing textbooks and teaching from a purely reductionist perspective. This perspective has truth and value, yet it is still contracted.

Ironically, the neuroscientist is open-minded, intellectually curious and exploratory within his domain - yet doesn't realize the boundaries of his domain. And double-ironically, there is infinite exploration within this domain. A mind can spend a lifetime exploring this domain and would barely scratch the surface. It would be like a biologist exploring a forest. There is immense exploration available within the forest. One could spend a lifetime studying one leaf or a handful of dirt and barely scratch the surface of it. . . Is it "better" to spend a lifetime exploring infinity within one domain, two domains or more? I would say it doesn't much matter. Yet the problem arises when the mind extrapolates understanding within a contracted domain into domains it is unaware of or does not understand. . . For example, this neuroscientist extrapolated his understanding within a contracted reductionist domain into meta domains he is unaware of and lacks understanding. This creates distortion. . .

A somewhat similar distortion can occur in the reciprocal direction. A meta-mind can distort by reducing down. . . Imagine a high resolution map of Paris. To zoom out to a high resolution map of France, we need to subtract details from the Paris map and add details of France. If we simply stretch out the Paris map, it will be distorted. Similarly, if we start with a map of France and zoom in to Paris, we must subtract details of France and add details of France. If we simply tried to re-orient the features of France to create a map of Paris, it would be distorted. . . This is easily realized with Google Maps. Zoom out of Google maps and notice the loss of details and the appearance of new details. Then Zoom into the map and notice the loss of details and appearance of new details.

Generally, a mind contracted within a smaller map is unaware of larger maps. A mind contracted within Paris is unaware of a bigger France map. Here, distortion due to extrapolation is a common problem. The vast majority of people are contracted within relatively small contracted maps. On the flip side, a mind attached to a bigger map is generally aware of the existence of greater details within that big map. A mindset with the bigger France map is usually aware that Paris is within it's France map. And such a mind is usually aware that there are details of Paris it is unaware of. This mind can zoom in to Paris, yet meta-minds generally don't like to do this. Here, there can be a problem of "reverse-extrapolation", yet I don't like this term here, since extrapolation suggests zooming out, not in. It's is more clearly described as zooming in, without adding in new details. For example, a meta-mindset may be aware of how neuroscience, metaphysics and collective consciousness are all inter-related. This mind will be know that it is unaware of details of neuroscience, yet it can dismiss such details because it wants to stay at the level of meta-cognition. This can prevent the mind from forming a higher resolution systems map. It will limit it's understanding of how the parts within the whole are inter-related. This is the opposite of the reductionist mind.

Imagine we are creating a map of France and we really like the big picture of France. In general, how the cities, mountains, weather patterns, lakes etc. are all inter-related. Yet this is still a crude map. Yea, yea, yea. . . we know that there are details in France, Lyon, Marseille etc., yet such details are boring and laborious - and they detract from our enjoyment of the bigger picture. Yet without those details, one's understanding of the bigger map is limited. And usually, meta-minds downplay this. . . How can we have a deep understanding of France, without knowing zoomed in details of components of France? Such as specific historical data points, detailed commerce routes, street maps, city-level ordinances etc. Without such details, a meta mind is vulnerable of making false conclusions and be under the false impression that reductionist minds are blind to such aspects. For example, from a big picture map, we may notice that Parisians congregate to certain areas of France. Without zoomed in details, we can make erroneous conclusions. Ironically, we make conclusions that lack detail and meaning that would allow for a bigger picture understanding. 

I often see this with meta thinkers regarding consciousness and reality. They may be aware of things like epigenetics and neurotransmitters at a level of detail sufficient for a crude big picture map. Yet the problem occurs when they make assumptions and subconsciously add in details. I've seen meta-thinkers often make assumptions of neuroscience and neuroscientists that lacks detailed understanding, yet don't see this as relevant in the bigger map. Sometimes the details don't really matter, yet other times they do. A poor understanding of the mechanics of epigenetics and neurotransmitters can lead to the creation of distorted big picture maps. 

[Loving Radiance]

?

[Loving Radiance]

10 hours ago, Forestluv said:

This may sound obvious, yet I observe these block dynamics often on the forum. Many users cannot recognize skills that others have on the forum, even when it's totally obvious. For example, someone might be talking about epigenetics that isn't quite right. I could give them some input about how to expand their understanding of epigenetics. Yet the response is often "You think you know so much about genetics. Well, I know doctors that told me I'm right". If I mention that I've studied and research genetics for many years and I know teach genetics at a college, the response is often "You are an arrogant professor in corrupted academia. Of course you will disagree with me because you are a sheep that follows mainstream media". Yet my position was not disagreement. It was to add in components and different angles of perception.

Do you think letting users question their own epistemic grounds of their knowledge in one area like epigenetics is a good approach to point out ways to expand the perspective without inducing a backlash? In a way every expansion of the perspective is felt to be death of the contracted perspective and would elicit a backlash.

Do we even want to prevent a shut down to expansion due to a backlash?

[Forestluv]

Sunny was not a 1 in a million random person that misinterpreted teachings. He was a daily poster on the forum. There are only about 30-40 members that post daily. Sunny was in the inner circle of actualized. He had a dreamboard he learned about on actualized. He wrote actualized members names on his dreamboard. He came to the forum for guidance through his first psychedelic experiences. He sought guidance via actualized before he took his life. He trusted members here. It breaks my heart to see so many people try to rapidly distance themselves from him. For a community that often speaks about how there is no separate individuals and we are all inter-connected, it's ironic how fast 100% responsibility is pinned onto a separate individual. No introspection about how the actualized community discusses topics like death, illusions of self, life as a dream etc. Yet when someone takes their life, it gets real fast and a lot of distancing occurs. . . If the self, life and death is illusory, then there was no "Sunny", his suicide is illusory and he didn't leave any family behind. Yet this would not be a tenable position to hold. 

On the forum, there is a lot of conflation between personal and transpersonal realms and it can cause harm to individuals. Yet some benefit as well. 

And a lot of good can come out be mass distribution of nondual teachings. The world is filled with intense selfishness, conflict, violence and absurd conspiracy theories. Teachings like Spiral Dynamics, relativity, nonduality etc. can help. 

Yet I also think there are also some gaps and structural issues. Notice the tone of conversation after Sunny's death. Mostly skepticism if it was real, distancing and finger pointing. In a healthy community, there would be an open discussion. The leader would get together with moderators in-person or via zoom. They would introspect and brainstorm ways we could improve. Then ideas would be brought back to the larger community for feedback. Yet this isn't the way actualized is structured or Leo's skillset. He is much more a top-down leader that makes decisions and he isn't into in person social meetings and discussions. I've been a mod here several years and we've never had a single meeting to discuss forum issues. It's not Leo's jam. 

In an effort to create more human connection, I'm happy to skype/zoom with anyone regarding nonduality, mysticism, breathwork, psychedelics, personality constructs etc. Just send me a pm and we can set something up. I think person-to-person communication is important. 

On 5/11/2021 at 3:57 AM, Loving Radiance said:

Do you think letting users question their own epistemic grounds of their knowledge in one area like epigenetics is a good approach to point out ways to expand the perspective without inducing a backlash? In a way every expansion of the perspective is felt to be death of the contracted perspective and would elicit a backlash.

Do we even want to prevent a shut down to expansion due to a backlash?

Sorry @Loving Radiance, I hadn't checked my journal for a bit. I think you have a good introspective question. Yes, I think allowing space to question ones own beliefs / epistemic grounds is super important. Yet unfortunately this is rare. And not just rare in spiritual communities, it can also be rare in the sciences. Scientists are often very open-minded and introspective - yet only within their whirlpool of the scientific paradigm. 

A couple years ago, I went to a scientific presentation on epigenetics. The researcher described data which suggests fish can predict seasonal temperature variations and epigenetically alter the gene expression of their offspring to better prepare them. After the presentation, I spoke with the scientist about the mechanics of his work. I then asked "Couldn't we consider this a form of intelligence?". There was a long pause of contemplation. It was like noone had approached him from this angle before. He responded "I suppose it could be. . . ". We then had a conversation of 'what is intelligence'? I could tell this was outside of his paradigm grounding and it was nice to see him questioning his own framework of what intelligence is. I definitely gave lots of space and I even 'played dumb' at times as if I was processing it for the first time as well. If I came at him knowing-it-all and saying "You are contracted within a scientific paradigm of intelligence with a human bias. You cannot see the higher systemic forms of intelligence" - he would have shut down. 

[Etherial Cat]

@Forestluv

I also share your pain. I have a lot of appreciation for your work and your approach. You make this place a very humane place.

I hope you're okay ?.

 

Edited May 21, 2021 by Etherial Cat

[Forestluv]

1 hour ago, Etherial Cat said:

@Forestluv

I also share your pain. I have a lot of appreciation for your work and your approach. You make this place a very humane place.

I hope you're okay ?.

Thank you. I consider you to be one of the minority on the forum that has empathic ability. And by empathic, I don't mean recognizing feelings exist nor compassion for others, nor an intellectual / conceptualization of empathy as the intellectuals love to do (ala Ken Wilber). Rather, I'm referring to a sensory ability related to knowing of experience and connectedness - of which I intuit you have some ability.

Unfortunately, intellect bullies empathy. The forum has turned into intellectual masculine gladiation. Of course there is value in that, yet it has sucked out all the air out of the forum. The recent thread regarding community was a battle call for all hands on deck - Us vs the evil outsiders that want to use this event to harm us. There is some truth and value to that, yet heart, empathy, love, understanding, introspection, compassion and connection has all been marginalized. It has been taught here that external threats will reduce one's baseline conscious level. The same goes for collective conscious. Due to hyper yang entering, I've seen members write incredibly insensitive things that are hurtful to friends of Sunny and his family. I've seen levels of cynicism spike. 

Consider the below post made the day we learned of Sunny's death pointed at Sunny and those in similar places as Sunny.

17 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It does amuse me that you guys need a video from me to tell you why not jump off a bridge.

How about the video: Why you shouldn't stick your dick in a woodchipper?

I think some of you guys need it.

I wouldn't a PR nightmare next month when your mom tells me that you lost your dick in a spiritual woodchipper ritual.

From one perspective, this has some truth - yet it shows a gross deficit in empathic understanding. Friends of Sunny on the forum have been grieving his death and Sunny's family members had been reading that thread to learn more about Sunny's mindset. Sunny was one of the most loving / kind people I know. Reading the above made me physcially sick in my stomach. Imagine being Sunny's sister, devastated with grief after her beloved brother jumps off a bridge. She comes to the forum, giving us information to help us grow so this doesn't happen to someone else. And then she reads the community leader, who Sunny admired, speaking about how he is amused he needs to create a video telling people not to jump off a bridge and compares it to sticking one's dick in a woodchipper. And how Sunny's death is a PR nightmare for his brand. It's extremely hurtful to those of us grieving the loss of a community member, those on the forum that are marginalized due to confusions similar to Sunny and to Sunny's family. I called Leo out on this, and I'm very disturbed and disappointed that he sees nothing wrong with this post. Leo has many amazing abilities and cares for people in certain ways, yet he also has major deficiencies in certain areas. I have students with autism that have higher level awareness and ability in this area. 

And now my empathic / human perspective is marginalized to this journal section. It is no longer welcomed in the main forum. This is the danger of polarity. My view is that we as a community should introspect ourselves and consider our flaws. Intellect has value, yet we should also consider the human experience of Sunny and other confused members of our community. Those voices should be heard. Yet they cannot be heard because in a polarized environment, there is only Us vs Them and if one shines light on the flaws of Us it is seen as a threat from 'Them". 

In my view, Actualized has an impact on Sunny's life. He was in the inner circle of the Actualized community. Outcomes have many contributing inputs and Actualized was one of many contributing inputs into Sunny's life and him giving his life away. I could write many essays empathizing with Sunny's experience. I'm not saying Actualized was the only factor. I'm saying it was one of many contributing inputs into Sunny's life, experience and mental space. Yet this view has no place in a hyper polarized environment in which it must 100% Sunny's independent decision with 0% input from Actualized. It cannot be 99.99% Sunny. It must be 100% Sunny. Yet this is not how inter-related humans work. This is basic spiritual understanding, yet is overlooked by people within the spiritual community. Look at how much emphasis is being placed upon PR, branding, and defending ourselves in a smart way that doesn't make us look cultish. There is some truth and value in this, yet it is not integrated. In this area, the forum as now dropped below green, including Leo. Look at the Tier 1 level identification, attachment, defensiveness and survival instinct occurring. That is not detached metacognition. 

This is one of the problems of not integrating green within the forum community. I'm not talking about intellectualism of green. I'm talking about actual embodiment of emotion, connectivity, intuition, empathy and heart-centeredness. It's one thing to intellectualize green and criticize SJWs, yet there is a glaring deficiency of actual healthy green on this forum. Leo has genius-level abilities in some areas, yet at lower levels for other abilities - in particular empathic abilities. The good news is that he has mods that have highly developed abilities in these areas. The bad news is that he isn't utilizing us when the forum needs us most. For example, I wish he would have called all the mods together on a zoom call to get our input on community dynamics and how we can proceed. I wish he did a preliminary response video and get feedback from mods before releasing it. The mods love our community and including us would have been an enormous boost to morale and community bonding - even if he dismissed most of our ideas. Yet I feel like my role as a mod is to simply be an enforcer of rules and to stop scammers and trolls. Leo has used the analogy of us mods being cops on the forum. Yet I'm not just a cop. I'm a member of this community and care about this community. Protecting the welfare of the community from nefarious actors is important, yet so are the human bonds, emotional connections and empathy within our community. I feel like my view has no value in the "Us vs the evil invaders. We must protect our PR and brand above all else!" narrative. And if I speak up, I would be seen as a traitor to the forum. So here I am, marginalized to the journal section. 

[Myioko]

25 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

And now my empathic / human perspective is marginalized to this journal section. It is no longer welcomed in the main forum.

This is really sad, when I do venture off to the main parts of the forum I've come to see your voice as being both grounded in reason and intellect, and empathy/emotion. Same with @Emerald. I appreciate your presence on this forum.

I don't think it's healthy to push out every person who disagrees with some parts of how Leos teachings or how the forum runs, I think there can be room and tolerance for both

25 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

The mods love our community and including us would have been an enormous boost to morale and community bonding - even if he dismissed most of our ideas. Yet I feel like my role as a mod is to simply be an enforcer of rules and to stop scammers and trolls. Leo has used the analogy of us mods being cops on the forum. Yet I'm not just a cop. I'm a member of this community and care about this community. Protecting the welfare of the community from nefarious actors is important, yet so are the human bonds, emotional connections and empathy within our community

<3

Edited May 21, 2021 by Myioko

[Forestluv]

12 minutes ago, Myioko said:

This is really sad, when I do venture off to the main parts of the forum I've come to see your voice as being both grounded in reason and intellect, and empathy/emotion. Same with @Emerald. I appreciate your presence on this forum.

Thank you. I'm considering asking to be demoted from a mod to a regular user that hangs out in the journal section. Perhaps forming a mini community of people interested in integrating reason, intellect, empathy and emotion. 

I agree that @Emerald is at a high level in this area and I would be curious to hear her perspective on recent events. 

[mandyjw]

@Forestluv ❤

[Forestluv]

3 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

@Forestluv ❤

Hey there. I loved your latest video on light and emotions. You have abilities in awareness / understanding of emotions and it's cool to see you create concepts that integrate intellect and emotions.

A couple times on the forum, you've nudged me outside my intellectual comfort zone and got me reflecting.

We need more Light on Earth in the forum and in the world 

[Loving Radiance]

22 hours ago, Forestluv said:

"You are contracted within a scientific paradigm of intelligence with a human bias. You cannot see the higher systemic forms of intelligence"

Btw, thank you for reminding the suicide thread that his family is reading this and also later in the feedback thread for holding Leo to a standard.

1 hour ago, Forestluv said:

This is one of the problems of not integrating green within the forum community. I'm not talking about intellectualism of green. I'm talking about actual embodiment of emotion, connectivity, intuition, empathy and heart-centeredness.

I couldn't agree more. The more I learn about communication, intuition and relating the more I realize that I am still a child in that area. And it feels good to explore that more deeply.

1 hour ago, Forestluv said:

I feel like my view has no value in the "Us vs the evil invaders. We must protect our PR and brand above all else!" narrative. And if I speak up, I would be seen as a traitor to the forum. So here I am, marginalized to the journal section.

Was your voice shunned? I haven't read from anybody saying something like that about your post of holding Leo to a higher standard.

Edited May 21, 2021 by Loving Radiance

[soos_mite_ah]

2 hours ago, Etherial Cat said:

@Forestluv

I also share your pain. I have a lot of appreciation for your work and your approach. You make this place a very humane place.

I hope you're okay ?.

I'm with @Etherial Cat. I really value your contribution to this forum. 

I also feel a lack of empathy and proper grounding in parts of the forum. It's part of the reason why I don't go to some parts of the forum tbh. Nowadays, I mainly try to stay in my own lane in my own journals. I glossed over the threads about recent events but after reading some comments, I didn't feel comfortable with really going into it. I just said my piece and went my way. The whole thing was heart breaking and overwhelming. 

Not to bring spiral dynamic into this but sometimes I feel that people are so focused on stage yellow and turquoise that they don't properly integrate green and that some people who claim to be yellow don't have the best foundation of integration because they are so concerned with getting towards the highest stages as soon as possible. 

[Preety_India]

@Forestluv I understand your pain and sensitivity.

I share similar sentiments. The whole Soonhei incident took an emotional toll on me.

I do feel that mods shouldn't be treated as cops but made to understand and resonate with forum members as well.

I often felt like mods were an absolute authority on this forum. 

Also there is a lack of belongingness here. Everyone is left to their own devices. The idea of such a forum in my view should be free discussion and welcoming each other rather than looking for ways to out each other.

I don't like how Leo doesn't organise meetings. It shows a lack of trust. 

In general I felt like mods were very secretive here.

You have contributed a lot to this forum and I always enjoy reading your posts. They are very objective, a quality I admire in people.