Actualized.org Video Summaries!

[Elisabeth]

Conscious politics - part II (again, not-quite-a-transcript, I left out details and tangents)

Understanding politics and government will help you understand yourself and people. This will teach you how to be in communion with other people. It will help you in your family, in your business, in your local community. These are the same problems, in politics they are just scaled up by a billion, so you see how serious they are.

As you study your own selfishness, you will understand what makes other people so bad at politics and government.

Key insight:

Your level of consciousness development dictates your values, your morals, and therefore your politics.

People vote simplistically for whoever they resonate with. It’s not very sophisticated. Your level corresponds to your values corresponds to your vote. If you’re a nationalist, you will resonate with a nationalist, if you’re a hippie, you’ll resonate with a hippie. But people are not aware, so the votes seem like a mystery.

Your politics is not based in truth. You were mostly indoctrinated into your political positions. They come from your childhood and teenage upbringing, and from your culture. Chances are, you never thought from scratch.

The reason why people get defensive and emotional about politics, is because their political views are very much part of their worldview, and the ego doesn’t want to give that up. Your worldview is what needs to be survived. Questioning your politics opens the door for all sorts of existential crises.

I invite you to drop all your ideologies.

Culture plays a major role in politics. Even serious intellectuals and scientists often can’t think from themselves. And most influential people in our culture do their best for culture to stay the same, because it ensures their survival. In fact, the majority of people will resist any kind of change. 

Logic, reason and facts has been coopted by the ego. They serve survival. Your political ideas are rationalizations after the fact, for positions that you adopted

Important distinction: Content vs. structure

Content is the content of your beliefs, like whether you are a Christian or whether you want to ban weapons. These are not important.

Structure is the underlying cognition. E.g. the fact that you adopted your beliefs on blind faith.

The most important piece of structure that we will talk about at length is your sense of self vs. other. This is a question of who/what is in your circle of concern? Doing more conscious politics boils down to expanding your circle of concern.

(0:15:45)

Developmental psychology 

specifically the

Expanding circle of concern:

• Baby ... Just physical survival, only cares about needing milk, doesn’t even care what happens to his mother.
• Including family. Now the kid (or prehistoric human) cares about their family and their tribe.
• Me, my family, and my civilization (ethnic group, culture, religion, morality, country). This is the circle of concern of about 50% of people on this planet today. 
• All decent human beings. But “not the bad guys”, not the criminals and oppressors, these are evil.
• All human beings on the planet, good or bad. You have empathy even for the most monstrous people, because you recognize why they went down that route.
•  Include animals and the entire ecosystem. You care about the future of the entire planet. Not for your needs, not just because you want your children to live, but you actually care for the well-being of the entire planet (Gaia).
• Include all conscious beings in the entire universe.
• Lastly, your sense of self becomes infinite and you care for all of creation.

Lowrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development:

1.    Preconventional

        a.     Morality is based on obedience and avoiding punishment

        b.     Self-interested orientation … What’s in it for me?

2.     Conventional

         a.     Conformity. Motivated to be a good boy/girl and have some authority figure approve of them.

         b.     Authority and social order maintenance. You conform to the laws and orders of your civilization (and you believe they are an absolute).

3.     Post-conventional

          a.     Social contract orientation. Morality is about maximizing the greatest good for the most people…

          b.     Universal principles. Think critically and set your own principles. Only on the post-conventional level you can question governmental laws…

4.     Transcendent morality. (This stage is not Kohlbergs, but Leo’s!) Universal self-love. You love the entire universe.

The reason why we put them as numbered stages is because you evolve through them. The claim is, once you evolve to the 3rd stage, you don’t devolve backwards. Most voters are at a rather low level of moral development, eg. conventional or even below..

Ex: Abortion. Is abortion right or wrong? From people at different stages you'll get answers like:

1. Fuck you. I’ll do whatever I want to do.

2. Abortion is definitely evil, because God (or my culture) says so

3. It’s complicated. We need to balance the suffering of the fetus vs. the suffering of the mother.

Similarly, Susan Cook-Greuter – developmental psychologist, has 9 stages of ego development. Basically, there is convergence between various developmental psychologists.

Ego development is about how selfish you are. The less developed and more selfish you are, the more you are motivated by greed, fear, ignorance, hatred, bias, prone to denial, projection, blaming, division, the more dogmatic and ideological you are. And you vote for those type of leaders.

The trick to conscious politics is stepping out of your identity.

(37:45)

How to fix all the problems of government?

1.     Taking personal responsibility for them.

2.     Educating ourselves about the problem. They are complicated and require study.

3.     Expanding our circle of concern and capacity to love, through personal development, consciousness work, spiritual work. Purifying yourself from your devilry. Be an example for others. You become a better citizen and better leader. If people start doing this, we create an upwards spiral, and a beautiful society.

Obviously, most people don’t want to do this … But it is really that simple.

Highly conscious people take responsibility and become proactive about problems. Low-consciousness politics always blames, always has a scape-goat. If you are conscious, then you realize that this is the cards humanity has been dealt with. We are collectively trying to survive, and society is no easy thing. So a conscious person takes responsibility for the devilry of her government.

This means, YOU are responsible for pollution, Donald Trump, overfishing, racism…

I am not blaming you. Responsibility is a much broader notion then blame. I’m just saying, be responsible.

Ex.: Even if you live in a country where you can’t vote, you can do something. No country was started with a right to vote. People got it by standing up, activism, waging wars.

Ex.: Racists are not some unknown evil people, racists are your neighbors. You can think about how you contribute to a society that tolerates racism. Maybe you can teach etc.

Some ways in which you might be engaging in low consciousness:

1.     Trying to own or ridicule you opponents

2.     Taking glee in the suffering of your opponents

3.     Holding an intellectual position as an absolute. Not acknowledging that your perspective is a point of view.

4.     Scheming and manipulating to defeat your opponents. Also demonizing your opponent, calling them crazy or insane, because then you’re not trying to understand their point of view.

5.     Acting morally righteous.

I’m not just saying this in the name of civility. I’m talking about something deeper than just behaving nicely to each other. Sometimes you have to fight. You don’t just take Hitler out to dinner to be a good neighbour But don’t fall into the same traps that make your opponents your opponents. A lot of liberals make this mistake of thinking they are above the conservatives, more evolved, so now they can act morally righteous, and demonize them and call them racist and even be glad when they suffer … this is not conscious behaviour! This is feeding the downward spiral into unconsciousness. Separate what you believe from how you behave, from the structure of your ego.

Changing your ideology from conservative to liberal won’t do it. Ideology can’t solve devilry.

Technology also can’t solve devilry. In fact, some of the new technology is extremely dangerous. Regulation (though necessary) also can’t prevent devilry.

Spiritual development is necessary. But one of the problems of orange-stage society is that any notion of bringing spiritual development into politics will evoke resistance.

(t ca. 50)

Proper education is central

A lack of education, study and contemplation is a severe factor contributing to the problems. If all people had just a basic sense of political history and government in other countries and times (Scandinavia, the Roman or Chinese empire) would help a lot. To understand politics, you need to understand history, to see what worked and didn’t work.

The founding fathers studied history well. Back then they were the top 1% of developed people. But today we have democracy, and most people vote for ignorant stuff.

So, one of my policy proposals will be much higher quality education across the board. But of course, this won’t be easy, because education becomes a political battlefield too. And the devils are trying to steer education backwards to teach their ideology (see Trumps administration).

(1:05:00)

Any political decision can be criticized from above or from below. It’s a question of nuance.

Ex. Religion. Criticism from below: ‘Religion is deteriorating, young people don’t go to church, we need to bring the Bible back to schools.’

Criticism from above: ‘Religion presents important truths about humanity and love, but does so in a dogmatic way, and as practiced today actually often prevents its own purpose, which is to help awaken humanity and help them expand their sense of selves.’

Ex. Science.

From below: ‘Science is so divorced from religion and morality…’

From above: ‘Science is locked into the materialist paradigm, and there are severe limitations to science as an epistemic method. Science is overlooking important aspects of spirituality and mysticism, and therefore can’t truly grasp reality. Also, science is stuck in group-think, and therefore isn’t questioning their own assumptions.’

Ex. Socialism.

From below: ‘Socialists are just communists, trying to take away all our assets and rights…’

From above: ‘If we give workers in a corporation the right to vote and run their own corporation, there is an important problem of lack of vision. A truly ambitious founder of CEO has a vision. A committee of workers can easily run the corporation to ground due to no sense of direction, which will backfire on the workers.’

To do politics properly, you have to throw away simplistic dichotomies like left/right, individual/collective, socialism/capitalism, minority/majority, masculine/feminine… To select one is a trap. Rather you should ask whether something is coming from fear and selfishness, or from an expanded sense of self and universal love.

(1:15:30)

Back to developmental psychology...

Spiral dynamics – stages of government/social development.

(See the spiral dynamics series, or the book.)

Purple. Human tribes. There might be a leader of the tribe, but otherwise the tribe is actually very communistic. Your identity is enmeshed with your tribe. But there is a lot of tribal warfare, genocide, slavery. Then, too much tribal warfare gives rise to an authoritarian rising. (Amazon and African tribes, some aspect of Afghanistan…)

Red. Authoritarian, totalitarian, monarchic. Some leader unifies tribes and creates an empire through conquest and brutality. (Roman empire, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, some aspects of Mexico… but today most authoritarian regimes have to pull of at least some pretense of democracy)

Blue. Theocratic, ethno-state, isolationist, nationalist. (Nazi Germany, Iran, India, China, Brazil, Israel, Poland, rural south of USA … of course in different intensity.) People think their culture is the best.

Orange. Democracy, capitalist, neo-liberal, libertarian. (Founding of US constitution, Japan, UK, ...) Most governments today, conservative or liberal, are orange.

Green. Limitations of unrestricted capitalism are recognized. Corporations corrupting government, the scissors between the rich and poor opening until there’s no middle class and the top capitalist’s basically own the entire country… Money becomes a cancer. Also, we realize that science or technology won’t solve problems. So government goes more socialist. Liberalist-progressive, with elements of pacifism, new-age, hippie movement…  Anarchism can be either orange or green. (Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Iceland, the most progressive cities in the USA)

Yellow. Emerging in Scandinavia. There are no solid stage yellow governments yet. We have to invent that. Probably hybrid between capitalist and socialist, very systemic and conscious of the entire spiral, somehow world-wide.

Turquoise. Mystical. No idea about the type of government.

For people at different stages, their reality is really, really different. These are different worlds. The tragedy is that anyone at a cognitive stage bellow stage yellow is not able to understand that there are different worlds, stages. This is lost on everybody stage green and bellow. They get hung up on the concepts, on specific policy proposals, fully based in survival.  Tier two (yellow and beyond) goes meta, recognizes something beyond survival, which is being and consciousness. Perhaps only 1-2% of the world’s population is in tier two. And its only there where conscious politics can be done.

Liberals will think they are tier two, but a lot of time the only reason you care about minorities is because you are a minority, or the only reason why you care about the poor is because you’ve internalized as an aspect of your own ego that you care about others. That’s good, but still survival. (Check out episodes on Spiral dynamics: Stage yellow and Intro to systems thinking.)

(1:35:..)

Some more points about the nature of governments.

·      You are part of a society, whether you like it or not. You can’t escape society.

o   You can’t be a billionaire and live on a private island and think you’ve escaped society, because the only meaning your billions have is because of society. Someone has to grow your food and fly your jet…

o   If you don’t care about money and go live as a hermit somewhere in the middle of Alaska... You’re still part of Alaska, of United States, you’re a citizen protected by the USA army, various services can help you if necessary, you can’t survive without a gun, without rope, without a manchette… all of it manufactured by society. Living by yourself for decades is virtually impossible.

You’re part of a superorganism, which is your country, which in itself is a part of the superorganism of all countries. It’s easy to be arrogant with your individualism, but unrealistic.

·      Bureaucracy, and especially the court system, is vital to the survival of society. In USA we like to make fun of lawyers, but the courts are really vital.

Here’s how it works: If you’re living in a stage purple society, say I’m part of tribe A, you’re part of tribe B. One of my pigs goes close to the territory of tribe B (there’s no clear line between the territories), and you see it and grab it without even knowing it’s mine. So I go knock on your door, but you have already butchered it and tell me to go fuck myself. But I’ve been growing the pig for years so that I can buy a bride for your son, and now I can’t buy the beautiful bride. This is bigger than just food. So I go away, but start talking bad about your tribe, and with some of tribe A warriors we take knives and murder some of your kids, because that’s only fair, you stealing my pig cost me my grandchildren with this beautiful woman. Then of course you go and murder mine … And this is clan tribal warfare and revenge, which can last for hundreds of years, to the point where people only know that the neighboring tribe are vicious enemies. This is what the court system was designed to handle.

The court system is a brilliant invention. The law provides clear boundaries, and courts provide a third-party impartial perspective, so that someone can say ‘Yes, you stole his pig and you owe him XX’… preventing tribal warfare over minor transgressions. The government has a monopoly to force, individual citizens are not allowed to execute their own justice. A third-party perspective is needed. If there’s not a fair, uncorrupt process of justice, then there will be blood.

In the libertarian fantasy of free markets, people will naturally form groups to get survival advantage… gangs, mafia, religious organizations, subcultures, syndicates, political parties, clubs, think tanks, cults. And if we have no court system to adjudicate their issues, if we don’t have a monopoly of force by an external third party, some of these groups sooner or later grab their knives or start a war. The beauty of our government is it allows a lot of diverse groups to coexist, so that for example we have a constitutional amendment about religious freedom, and one religion can’t take over all the schools and replace their textbooks with their bible. The major religion would do that. And they won’t have any moral qualms about it, because most people are not at that level of moral development.

(1:57:37)

·      Society is grossly unfair, selfish, exploitative and barbaric. Today. People are in denial about how unjust society is. If you are selfish, as most people are, you don’t care about other tribes being exploited. What’s worse, the oppression becomes so internalized in one’s own worldview, that those being oppressed do not even fully recognize that they are being oppressed. Because their society tells them that’s how it should be. A lot of Islamic women will say that covering up is not oppression, just being a good religious citizen. We have millions of wage-slaves which are brutally economically oppressed, but they don’t even know. And their employers are in denial about it. ‘Hey, this is just how capitalism works. If you don’t like it, go get a better job.’ This is considered totally normal. Oppression is not thought of by some evil genius – oppression is just brute survival happening blindly. Systemic. Cultural. It’s only cool if you’re the one benefiting from it. And, the system is so out of control that even the CEO’s have limited means to change it.

Responsibility has to be taken not only personally, but at a collective level. There are systemic problems, which we need to recognize and take responsibility for, even if “you’re not the one doing that bad thing”. Right now, people are mostly oppressed economically. We have people in our society that have billions of dollars, much more than they can ever use – but at the same time we have mothers working two jobs and barely can sustain themselves and their child. They are not poor because they don’t work hard – they are poor because how the whole system is structured.

The poorest people can’t self-actualize, because they don’t have the resources, the education, time and money. And this regresses us as a whole society. Billions of people are not reaching their full potentials, becoming the great speakers and teachers and inventors and artists they could be, because their family is hardly able to come by. This would improve the life of everybody. That is what we’re losing by not having a better distribution of resources.

Correcting oppression and inequality ironically makes the oppressors feel oppressed. If I own 100 slaves and a movement comes up and says that slavery is immoral, I’m not going to want to give up my slaves. In fact, I’m going to act as a victim. How dare you take away my slaves. I need them to pay for schools for my children. Besides, they are not human, it’s only natural I own them. This is devilry, this is how it works. The people profiting from the system manufacture narratives which will justify the system.

Replace slave owners by CEO’s (or yourself, if you’re privileged). They are in denial. By definition.

Selfishness is unsustainable in the long run. If things are too unbalanced, there are protests, civil disobedience, and eventually violent revolutions – many revolutions are about equalizing gross injustices – because the people doing the oppression are so stuck in their own rationalizations, that there is no other way then through violence.

The government, ideally, is about reducing these inequalities. If it’s not doing that, then it itself is corrupt and needs reform. Definitely, government can be corrupt.

·     You should not assume that what’s good for you is good for everyone else. Many people profit from the suffering of others. There are entire professions designed to profit from it. What’s good for the country as a whole is bad for many companies, politicians, and exploiters. For example, peace is bad for the military industrial complex. Or, free health care is bad for insurance companies and for many wealthy healthcare in hospitals. This is a problem for USA. But if they expanded their circle of concern… would they be ok with people dying, because they can’t afford some overprized medication? Free education is bad for private schools.

Normativity doesn’t exist. All norms are arbitrary and relative. There is no objective should and shouldn’t, no objective morality. And that’s exactly why there has to be a government. If there was objective morality, people could agree on it. It’s not hard to get everyone to agree, that there is a sun. This is not the case for ‘thou shall not kill’. The ego wants to make up the rules of the game, but then deny that they are made up. If your preference is that gay sex is dirty, you don’t only want to have it as a preference. You want it set in stone. Likewise, the ego doesn’t want to admit that murder is not objectively wrong, because the notion gives you comfort and security. 

Left and right is totally relative. To the culture and the era in which you are living. Overton window (wiki: The Overton window is a term for the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse, also known as the window of discourse.) … center of the gravity of the conversation … can shift between left and right in political discourse with time.

It’s improper to apply our own moral standards to past ages. Slavery wasn’t bad in stage purple, red or blue. The idea had to be invented and spread. We are built on the shoulders of giants. Today, nobody would argue that slavery is proper. That’s how much the Overton window has shifted to the left.

(around 2:35)

·      You can’t judge other cultures on the basis of being less developed. Appreciate how much harder it is to survive in some parts of the world, like the middle east, the Africa, … just the environment makes building a government there much harder.

·      Society is complex and counterintuitive. Solutions which seem like they will help everybody end up backfiring.

·      Also, don’t romanticize the past. The past was not perfect. Besides, society can’t go back. With any new invention culture must also change.

·      New technology requires systemic thinking. Any new invention requires significant cultural change. This is what we need from our citizens too. Because you can’t elect a systems thinker into office, unless the person voting can appreciate systems thinking.

·      Remember: Balance is not splitting everything in the middle. You don’t balance pro-slavery commentary with anti-slavery views. Sometimes proper balance is to decide that slavery is not something we can tolerate.

 

Concluding:

We still have to lay more groundwork. How do you know anything I’m saying is true? I suggest you become a good observer. Observe politics, observe humans, observe history.

Also, have mystical experiences. When you become conscious that everything is an aspect of yourself, that we are in this boat together.

In part III, we’re going to lay down principles of conscious politics, and there will be part IV with specific policy proposals.

Edited July 26, 2019 by Elisabeth

[Elisabeth]

On 22. 7. 2019 at 8:04 PM, Nic said:

Let us know how they react to it! I think they might understand it in there own way. Those ideas aren't something you can understand on the spot, these are ideas you evolve and grow with.

Yeah, right, I have to think harder about how I go about this (and if). We have a progressive liberal hippie-ish party who try to be beyond left and right and push against old corrupt structures through accenting transparency, also have some great democratic control mechanisms set up inside their own party. So to me it seems their leaders are doing the best conscious politics available today. However, not everyone is as conscious as the leaders, and there's also a lot of not-so-great stuff going on. 

[Yannik]

Hey there, awesome work first of all. I was looking for the questions Leo stated in one of his recent videos where he talked about God. It was something along the lines like :"If I were fearless and unlimited what would I create?" and some other questions like this. Do you know where they came from and do you know the other questions? That would be aweome 

[SoothedByRain]

@Yannik

What would love do now?

[Nic]

@Elisabeth

Thank you Elisabeth, good job!

Take care!

[Elisabeth]

Unfortunately, I won't manage to see part III before my vacation, so if anyone else feels like writing notes, go ahead

[okulele]

@Elisabeth Your notes are great, thanks

[Rahul yadav]

Conscious politics III - the principle of politics.docx

[Nic]

@Rahul yadav

 

Thanks buddy!

[peqkno]

Hey guys!

Here's how to generate transcripts from the auto-generated subtitles in YouTube videos:

https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-way-to-extract-the-automatically-generated-subtitles-in-YouTube

I figured it'll save up a hell lot of typing. You just need to re-read and insert punctiation and replace filler words or errors YT's auto-translation made.

You also need a text editor with a decent "find and replace" function. (Remove the grey spaces with real spaces. Oh, and \n is short for 'next line' meaning the enter key. That'll be needed.)

Steps:
1. Find and replace all the grey spaces (you'll see what I mean) with normal spaces
2. Find and replace <space>\n with just <space>. (With <space> I mean the space character: )
3. Find and replace \n with space.
4. Ctrl+a and remove the formatting.

 

Anyways, I hope it'll be useful.
Thanks for the great work so far 

[d0ornokey]

Life Unfolds in Chapters: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Nbewyk5K-fXEhqa7Guhvjubd-9qQEEb3qbvUYfSMoCg/edit?usp=sharing

[Nic]

Come on guys, let's not loose track here, we are missing a lot of them now, and some of the best stuff ! I don't have the time to do it at the moment, working and studying at the same time... please share if you have anything, would love to read while on my way to work, thank you all for you help and contribution !

 

[AleksM]

Letting go technique

Let go of something every day.

you identify something within your experience - anything  and you let it go

- desires, needs, attachments, frustrations, emotions, grudges, habits, thoughts, obsessions...

 

 

[Hello from Russia]

HOW FEAR WORKS - PART 2 [NOTES]

 

"Wherever there is other, there is fear." - The Upanishads

 

Make sure to have watched part 1 where a lot of foundation is established.

 

Recognize that without fear you'd be dead. Therefore, fear is not bad or evil. Don't reject it or demonize it. Fear is there to serve you. Fear is absolutely necessary for base survival. All of your spiritural persuits, as well as everything else in your life, are predicated upon your base survival. You already know how to live through base survival, driven by fear, that's just nature. But there's also a way of living life beyond fear, beyond base survival, which you have to work hard to understand.

 

Don't judge. There's no such thing as a legitimate fear versus an illegitimate fear. Fear is relative. What you're afraid of is relative to what you're identified with, what kind of situation you're living in, how you were raised, what kind of enviorenment you encounter yourself in, your genetics, your beliefs, among a million other factors.

 

Notice that whatever you fear is completely irrelevant to somebody else. The very nature of fear is to be completely self biased [check episode on Self Bias].

 

Let's dig a little deeper into fear. Question: existentially, what is it that you ultimately fear? All fear ultimately boils down to fear of yourself. How? It doesn't make sense. Yes, it does, once you have a proper understanding what a Self is. Once you understand all is one, all your fear ends up being part of your Self. Consciousness is terrified of itself. Nothing exists but you. What you fear is your own infinite scope: when you're born, you're identified with this limited, weak, fragile body and everything around you threatens you, so you fear everything around you that you disassociate yourself from. As you grow up, you start to get over some fears. That's what growth is, essentially. The ultimate growth is when you finally realize that you're infinity itself, so there's nothing to fear. This entire process can be smooth or very difficult. You are God becoming aware of itself. You are being forced by the Truth to realize your true nature, so you need to be strong and corageous to accept it, when many people are in denial about it. You fear the enormity of what you are. It's difficult for conciousness to accept itself.

 

So how do you ultimately transcend fear? By expanding your sense of self. It's pretty hard, though. It's super rare to find a fearless person. You can attain high levels of conciousness and feel no fear while you're at it, but it's not a state of conciousness that's easily sustained. So don't be a perfectionist and don't give up. Try to improve your life through this practice. Persuing fearlessness will get rid of a lot of unnecessary suffering and your life will be better, your survival will be easier and smoother. So don't aim at some sort of Jesus Christ kind of conciousness and fearlessness. It's too radical a decision to make. This can't be stressed enough. So don't kid yourself. Are you actually willing to make the ultimate sacrife of not even caring whether you live or not? Most people aren't. For most people talking about fearlessness is a joke. So set realistic, practical goals for fearlessness. So let's work on practical things! Practical things like fear within your marriage, your family, your career, your ambitions, etc. But realize that your fears will never end. There will always be fear unless you tackle the root cause.

 

Recognize that there are many degrees of fear. Some people can't even leave their house because of crippling fear.

 

There's difference in overcoming specific fears versus transcending fear as a whole.

 

Is fear a thought? No. It's a feeling. It's a very distinct feeling. To get a sense of what fear is, feel it in your body through mindfulness work. Thoughts can contribute to that feeling and the feeling can contribute to thoughts. You can realize that through mindfulness practice.

 

Is there truth behind fear or is all fear innacurate perception? There's a difference between absolute Truth and relative truths. In the absolute sense, all fear is false. But in the relative sense, fear can be a valuable indicator of something that's going to be harmful or dangerous to whatever you're identified with being.

 

Isn't it dangerous to eliminate fear? If we eliminate all fear, what will keep us alive? Nothing. Because if you successfully eliminate all fear, you literally won't care whether you're alive. But to surrender to the idea that you will die is different than actually dying. The thing that's going to keep you from danger if you get rid of all fear is conciousness, wisdom and caution. Being fearless is not being reckless.

 

Doesn't God want us to fear him? Otherwise what would prevent us from sinning? Absolutely not. Any religious or spiritual teaching based on fear is a corruption. God loves you no matter how much you sin because God is concious that it's you. God is not the devil. The devil judges. God doesn't.

 

12 METHODS FOR DEALING WITH FEAR:

 

1 - Face your fears head on. Just do the thing you fear. If you avoid the fear, all it does is deepen the fear.

2 - Put yourself proactively to challenging situations. Don't get too comfortable. Push your comfort zone. Be bold on purpose. Be bold, not reckless in a stupid way.

3 - Training. Massive experience. Massive exposure. Expose yourself to something mindfully, conciously. Feel into the fear. Get comfortable with that fear feeling.

4 - Rigorous mindfulness practice 20-30 minutes a day [see episode on Mindful Meditation]

5 - Be totally present. When fear comes up, if you're able to be totally present, you can notice that your mind is jumping into the future. This can be done through a lot of meditation practice.

6 - Psychedelics. One of the most practical and powerful tools for dealing with fear, because it puts you face to face with death.

7 - Kriya yoga, which is sort of a meditative yoga rather than physical [see episode on the Importance of Yoga]

8 - Contemplation using a journal: what is this fear? Why is it arising? How is it connecting back to my identity? Contemplation alone will not be enough, though. Fear is too powerful to just reason your way out of it. [see episode on How to Contemplate Using a Journal]

9 - The letting-go technique. The Sedona method. [see episode on The Power of Letting Go]

10 - Breathing conciously, slowly and deeply as you feel the fear. [see episode on Body Awareness] Fear is a physiological phenomenon.

11 - Visualization and law of attraction. Overwhelm the fear with a positive vision.

12 - Love. Love is the ultimate solution to fear. Whatever situation in life that you're in when you're scared, the most counterintuive move you can do in that point is experience love. There'll be a separate video in the future on how love and fear inter-relate. Be grateful and more appreciative of life. When you feel grateful in your heart, there's no room for fear. When you're feeling afraid, do something selfless to another person. Help somebody. Fear is selfishness incarnated.

 

LAST OBSERVATIONS AND HOMEWORK EXERCISE

 

Notice that knowing somebody's fear allows you to predict their behavior. This allows you to help them, create rapport with them, come up with solutions to people's fear, have good relationships, be a good leader, etc. Get into the habit of accessing other people's fears. For example, sit down with a piece of paper and brainstorm: what does your mother fear? What does your father fear? What does your spouse fear? What does your fear? What does your company fear? Your client? Scientists? Christians? Spiritual people? Atheists? Muslims? Etc. [Download the file in the decription to guide you] Don't judge people's fears. Understand their fears. Everyone has unique fears. Realizing how selfish, limited and ridiculous other people's fears are ultimately helps you realize the same about your own fears.

 

 

The paradox of fear is the shocking truth that what you really feared the whole time was not bad or evil stuff, but rather what you really feared is the realization that there is no such thing as bad or evil at all and that all is infinite love. What you really fear is dissolving into that love that leaves no room to your limited ego. Love is scary and radical.

 

 

The surest way to fail at life is to allow yourself to be crippled by fear and to not be bold.

 

 

You're not exploring the Earth. You're exploring your own self.

 

 

What is the most important quality you need to suceed in life? Fearlessness (which is synonymous to courage, love, conciousness). Fearlessness means that you feel fear but don't succumb stupidly to it.

[Hello from Russia]

How fear works part 1

“Tell me who you are and ill tell you what you fear

 

Tell me what you fear and ill tell you who you are.”

Fear is not a psychological problem or a human problem Why does fear occur? At the existential dimension. 

People barely teach fear because they don't understand it, we don't put importance on it where you would think to find understanding of fear like science, scientists are full of fear they usually don't know how it works so why learn from them about it. Fear might contradict current culture and science.

Fear dominates your entire life -peter Ralston

You’re fish in water a human in fear swimming in fear every day of your life this is deeper than an emotional problem-constant fear. And you don't even know it. The majority of your emotional system is outside your awareness its controlling you.

Fear is a survival mechanism it's the thing that keeps you alive, it's not only that.  All emotions are elaborate and sneaky or subtle.

Fear is there to help you maintain whatever you identify with--maintain whatever you think you are.

Survival is not just physical it is conceptual-social-cultural emotions are important facts don't exist in reality all that exists is emotion. You can kill your self image by not avoiding fear

You cannot have an accurate perception of reality or do proper science if you are in fear.

That you are is defined by your fears and what you fear defines what you identify as.

Identities like being a human of a physical creature or real

Identity is like the sun it has various layers to it the layers become denser and denser when we say your identity is the edges of the sun and the inside you cant be another way like being its easier to detach from your car then your family then to being a man or a woman it's hard to detach from being a human then a gender. You make yourself up to be this way out of thin air this is what your identity is as a human being you fear losing all of your attachments this is what you call death. total ego death or loss of self.  All fear boils down to the fear of death. Psychological death or death of the self image.

Suicide bombers don't fear death they fear being a bad Muslim this is how powerful identity is. Identity is relative it's hard to change it calcified

Fear is constructed from the mind and is never objective or found out there then its projected outwards.  

ALL FEAR IS IMAGINARY

Try validating this, the fear of death is imaginary. Become conscious of this it will change your view on so many things relationships, war, and politics.

Everyone is scared shitless and all fear is falsehood and a lack of consciousness if you were totally conscious you would not fear anything you cannot even imagine a life without fear.  There is no objectively dangerous situation even if you run into a bear it only depends on what you identify with Truth transcends fear because it transcends survival this is the way  to realize Truth. Fear is an illusion. If you think the fear is real, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy society doesn't care about truth it cares about survival. It uses fear against you for survival. Your controlled through fear.  Even high quality stage green fears are imaginary there's levels of delusion. Low level is being afraid of homosexuality or other religions higher fears are global warming or environment going bad these aren't completely irrational but there is a problem with the fear itself,

Under the materialist paradigm where they think death is real fear seems legitimate  or when you run out of money or when you meet a wild animal. There is nothing scientific or rational to fear.  Radical terrorists don't want to disobey their god so this surpasses the fear of death so they suicide bomb in the name of truth. Which in reality is just another religion that became hideous. The real god allows this freedom you made up your whole life out of thin air, it's just a story you invented. You must misperceive reality in order to experience fear.  If you know what death is you wouldn't fear it keep your mind open its possible all fear and death is just a misperception of reality and maybe death is an illusion.  Maybe it's not true that no one can know what death is. Bring up a fear and feel it. Your not going to contemplate fear while a bear is charging you it's designed to keep you alive. Survival takes precedence over truth. Its a reaction without knowing why or what it is. Notice the times you are in fear and instead of reaction unconscious you can pause, feel it consciously and mindfully and ask what is it where is it why is it here what's its function and purpose. You only have fear when your in a bind. If you want to transcend it you have to change how you react to it start to feel it before you react to it it's counter intuitive. Every cell in your body will try to react to it.  Real power is standing calmly and consciously in response to grave danger don't put yourself in grave danger most of your fears are relatively minor start with small stuff.

Fear is resistance to a future experience

The strength to experience everything (the strength to be okay with your daughter down an alleyway sucking dick for cocaine)

Understanding this will transcend fear. You don't want to experience what you fear you refuse to experience without resistance. Consciousness doesn't have to do with god it has to do with this.  Be able to cut off your hand experience everything without fear. You become conscious that you realize no harm was actually done and that pain never existed, you have to stop identifying as a physical body.

The only way you can do it is totally align with truth. Use your imaginative mind to come up with radical fears that are with you that you don't even know this takes lots of consciousness and work fear is directly attached to survival. Brute survival trumps everything,

Attachment creates fear. The solution is to surrender yourself to the very thing you are afraid of.

Your beliefs logic and ideals are survival at work fear is the base/foundation of the pyramid and it gets less important as it goes up your logic does not touch your fears.

Fear of being poisoned (Donald Trumps fear) the Russians are the masters of poisoning this tells you that he fears being crossed

WRITE DOWN ALL YOUR FEARS (not going to give them here but that would be another fear for it to be public)

Most common macro fears below

Macro fears below

There's thousands of these kinds of micro fears you will notice more and more.

Become aware when you fear, notice micro fears and how it shapes your behavior and affects your thinking not just in your actions but feel them more rather than just reacting fear is not held just in the mind but tension in your body you have a lifetime of fear in your body. Fear happens in humans collectively

Life is a love simulator another way to say that is to say life is to learn not to fear fear and love are inverse to say life is a love simulator is that life will present fear over and over again and life is trying to teach you to transcend it life grows your love the fear is an illusion this requires consciousness don't deny or avoid the fear confront it head on facing it so deeply that you won't react the same way when it happens again. It will probably take a long time to realize fear is an illusion.  Confront your learned helplessness confront your mental behaviors obsessive habitual negativity boils down to fear. Confront the worst of it feel it. You will get relief and this will help you. Face your own greatness fear is a poor survival strategy sometimes it's healthy and effective but human life is more complicated than bears in the woods fear is a self fulfilling prophecy

 

Fear of being authentic

 

Fear of facing yourself

 

being your best self.

 

Face fear of death

- You cannot manipulate your way out of death YOU WILL FACE

The more you run from it the more you feel stuck in the fear

There are real dangers in the world when it comes to relative fear and its healthy for physical survival this is a good short term survival strategy but never a long term. Fear is status quo fear is not for great change a great society has to be built on love

 

Homework

 

Observe your micro fears at the end of each day you will write down your micro and macro fears for the next 7 days contemplate the following question:

How are these micro fears realized to my identity?

 

How is my mind projecting these out onto the world?

 

How am I creating these micro fears?

 

How are your thoughts shaped by your fears?

 

How are your actions shaped?

 

What am I unwilling to experience?

 

 

 

Coming in part 2

Top 10 ways to overcome fear

What is the most important quality you need to succeed in life?





Sorry for shit formatting, I copied it from youtube comments

[AleksM]

Understanding Impermanence - Why Reality Is Always Changing

//

Devilry occurs when you try to make the impermanent permanent. 

 

you can only be a devil for a short while, not forever, devilry is temporary, god is forever.

 

  God is a shapeshifter

 

a devil is what god becomes when it limits itself to a particular limited shape or form. and the devil then tries to maintain it shape or form by using all sorts of manipulations. 

 

make a list of all the forms your try to freeze and identify the ones you are most attached to freezing  (people, animals, things, ideas, stuff about your body, appearance, your life, finances, whatever it is)

 

 

"i'm not willing to let go of the position of power, money, business (oil company that destroys the environment - can you let that go for the sake of the environment and then nooo I wont let that go!.... you are selfish as fuck, you are a devil

 

 

impermanence happens because of oneness, nonduality (reality is one thing, that means that no part of reality can gain an absolute monopoly over any other part, because all parts are equally powerful, not in one moment in time, but across all of time, no part of God can be all powerful and dominate the other parts because all balances itself in the end. But every part of God is trying to do that and that is the very mechanism of devilry. Devilry is when one part of god overtake all other parts and create a monopoly.  ( The term monopoly is often used to describe an entity that has total or near-total control of a market. / the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service.(

 

from the perspective of the part (from you) is very unfortunate that things are impermanent, because you call that death. You call that mortality and for you mortality seems very unfortunate. From the gods perspective you want the devil to be mortal, not immortal. At first glance impermanence will seem depressive and negative to you, because you are devil and you're selfish. But impermanence is a great gift. So we reform devils by showing them that impermanence is not something you fear, resist and manipulate your way to avoid but something that you embrace. 

 

Not only does impermanence liberate you in the end and reduce suffering it also hidgens appreciation, love, enjoyment and beauty of the formed world. Start to notice that the things that you love the most in your life, that are so good, are precisely good because they are temporary. It is their impermanence that makes you appreciate them so much. 

 

ice cream, caviar, favorite food, film ... if you would eat the same ice cream every day for a year you would find it disgusting

 

you appreciate things much more when they are gone (parents, children)

 

God wants to maximize the creative diversity of life. 

 

Train yourself to appreaciate the cycle of lose, this is the cycle of life, the death of one thing creates room for something else

 

"Awareness of the transience of all things heightens appreciation of their beauty, and envokes a gentle sadness at their passing. "Wikipedia

 

God is lost in translation. God is that which you cannot put into words. 

 

Impermanence means that you will:

 

• lose your family.
• fame, status, wealth, good furtune, 
• health, 
• youth and good looks
• sharp mental faculties, 
• memories
• being the strongest or the best at whatever
• your skills and your mastery
• every relationship you have will die
• every religion will die
• corporation, organization, political party, social movement, cult will die
• trend will pass
• every language will die
• every scientific theory will die
• every spiritual teaching will die and become corrupt
• every book will be lost and forgotten
• every person will be forgotten
• every city and country will die
• every civilization will die,
• every culture, tradition, will die
• species will go extinct
• humanity will die and go extinct
• continents go out of existence cause they transform into something else

every physical object will die

....

Every part will be made whole, every duality will collapse, every devil will merge back with God. That's what oneness means, that's what impermanence means, because life and death is a duality. The cost of being born is death. 

 

cigarette companies still cling to their products even though it's killing people, that's devilry. 

 

Foolish people try to cling and freeze reality into certain forms. 

 

One of the counter intuitive moves is to embrace impermanence rather than manipulating your way out of it. 

 

The cost of being a form is that eventually you must change form. Death is really a changing in form, you are shifting your shape . Surrender everything. 

 

Immortality is not possible via attachment to form. 

 

The bad news is that everything good that you gain in life will be lost. And the good news is that everything bad that be false you, will not be permanent. 

 

Impermanence is gods safety vault, but you labeled it as the greatest evil, precisely because your mind is limited and cannot see the full perspective. 

 

The mistake that you made is that you identified with a human being but what you truly are is a infinite shape shifter. When a shape shifter clings to his identity the suffers because it's untrue to his identity,

 

Your likes, dislikes change, every cell becomes a totally new one...but you kid yourself that you are always the same. 

 

Become an infinite shape shifter. 

 

"Shape-shifting requires the ability to transcend your attachments, in particular your ego attachments to identity and who you are. If You can get over your attachment to labeling yourself and your cherishing of your identity, you can be virtually anybody. You can slip in and out of different sheels, even different animal forms or deity forms" - Zeena Schrech

 

Form is formlessness

 

Your first awakening will be moving from form to formlessness, but it will still be a duality and you will not be fully awake. You no longer 

This duality collapses and you no longer think nirvana is some other place but that nirvana is this place and has been this place the whole time. 

 

You have to access truth like you are the first one to access it,.  Directly, here and now.

 

How to apply this wisdom:

 

Deeply observe impermanence in practice every single day. What you're feeling on your body, notice how you are being scared now and an hour later you are no longer scared.....

Train your mind that everything fades. Observe how you cling and how this clinging to permanence, trying to freeze reality, how this causes suffering for yourself. Observe yourself doing this

observe how others cling and the suffering that that causes, observe how politicians cling to their power, how celebrities cling to their fame

Gradually surrender more and more attachments.

notice yourself trying to cling to a state, like you cling to a pleasure and you want to keep that pleasure as long as possible

Try to enjoy impermanence, how it's good that you're not eating the ice cream and how it good when you're eating it

 

You become more spontaneous and able to enjoy the positives and the negatives, the peaks and the quiet moments. 

 

For the next 7 days, wear a wrist band and every time you look at it, remember to pause and remember that you're doing this exercise, trying to see things impermanence. 

 

Every moment will become more precious and special

 

Edited October 20, 2019 by AleksM

[Conscious life]

Put // symbol on the statement on comment. 

[AleksM]

A little summary, some insights might be missing. So, if you have a solid summary of this one, post it. I really liked this episode.

How Corruption Works

 

Definitions:

• dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power,
• a departure from the original or from what is pure or correct

 

 

Corruption operates on untruth, manipulation, lack of spiritual connection, lack of love and perspective, rightenousness, denial,

projection, fear, attachment, materialism, lower chakra drives for higher power - sex, money, laziness, glutany, chronyism.

The more you are run by your lower chakras the more corrupt you are.

The more corrupt you are the lower you are on the spiral dynamics stage. The higher the stage, the larger sense of self. The more limited

the more you comform and are corrupt, too self-involved and worried about your self agenda.

 

see your own little corruptions and admit that you are being corrupted, awareness alone is curative, purify yourself of your corruptions

how is corruption holding me back from greatness, fro mactualizing my vision for my life purpose

 

examples of corruption:

• manipulating your spose to get what you want out of her
• downloading copyrighted illegal material
• exploiting the situation to get sex
• cheating in a video game
• lying
• cheating on a test
• exagerating on your resume 
• trying to get favorse from people
• cutting corners at work
• laziness
• greed
• envy
• anger
• fear, your thinking process, hatred, judgement
• thinking you deserve special treatment in certain situations
• lying to get a better deal
• when you have a craving. how that corrupts you
• see how your worldview is distorted by your survival needs
• excuses, rationalization, justifications 
• the ideologies you adopt to manipulate life

all these things will expand when you get more power and become a leader

 

how is corruption solved

the light of awareness - awareness alone is curative

 

curruption is falsehood

 

corruption is solved by truth, truth always wins in the long term, but falsehood can win sometimes temporarily

 

I am so thoroughly self deceived that it distorts my entire perception of reality."

 

evolution increases consciousness and love

 

the solution is love, consciousness, truth, spirit

 

corruption lurks in the shadows, if you were totally transparent and a camera followed you everywhere there

would be no chance for corruption, your selfish thoughts, emotions are only recognized by you, but what if everybody knew what they were

 

don't judge others corruption, getting yourself rid of corruption is a life's work, its god's work

 

have some compassion towards others corruption, corrupt people are not evil, they are just lost in unconsciousness, they are trying to survive

 

you need to be able to go from big picture to this little picture, to not get lost in the little picture and forgetting the big picture,

or just being in fairy land and talking about big picture ideas and ideals but then not doing any work or practices

 

sometiems you have to see how ugly your behavior is to correct it

 

elevating the quality of life, satisfying basic needs stop corruptions, so people have less need for corruption

 

as you become more spiritual, corruption stops

 

what are the ways in which I am corrupt?

 

journaling, contemplation, shamanic breathing, facing your fears, opening your heart and being more loving, you also need to take collective action

[Nic]

Thank you guys!!

[AleksM]

What is love part 2 - The Brutal Nature Of Love

 // pasted from a youtube comment, some insights might be missing

“The greatest love seems indifferent”- lao Tzu

Go watch video for the Lego analogy it's very important 

Existential awakening of love is central and the heart of the path. It's a distinct aspect of it. Identical to truth; your purpose to understand love, which is identical to: truth, being, nothing, everything, consciousness, god, absolute, infinity, creation, reality. 

First order love is the substance of consciousness which everything is made. Absolute love

second order love is relationships and friendships children or food ect. Relative love 

Consciousness is love all hate is an expression of first order love. The greater the understanding of first order love reflects second order quality. 

All brutality is actually inherent to reality, consciousness is running into all aspects of itself and it recoils at its own self reflection. Consciousness is impermanent. everything you cling too will leave you. Your identity is trying to make impermanence permanent there's always that potential brutality you think unconditional love is hate. You need it to be to survive as an ego and is the hardest thing for a finite thing to do, infinite consciousness ends finite form.  Ego is conditional love to survive. Ego is arrogant not everything is about you. 

laws of love

Everything in the universe happens to maximize love

Colay if something is happening and you don't see the love in it you are not conscious enough

Truth and love are tautologies 

Everyone is doing good from their point of view and acting from love. 

Tyrants, genocide, rape, murder, cannibalism, incest and cancer is out of love if your (infinite) scope is large enough, it is a nessesary function that is counterintuitive everything is interconnected the selfless universe gives you the freedom to have selfishness. Reality is radical, god gives you enough rope to hang yourself and you love to shoot yourself in the foot and blame reality. 

    

Everything that is, is what must be 

What has already happened has already happened that is necessary, Reality is infinitely complex take this into account.  You will make sense of this when you realize the necessary aspects, the brutality of love. This isn’t justifying hate, actual love is selfless and unconditional anything else creates the very thing you hate. love is serious and is so real and threatening that it will change the very thing you don't want to accept  God is all things including unsustainable devilry. Pain and death are necessary to life. 

Pure love is proportional to consciousness 

How is survival crucial to love? 

How is devilry crucial to love?

These questions will help you see how love is hate. Transcending hate is realizing infinite love  if humans had a god it would be a devil, because God's love is infinite people hate. You can be as selfish as you are free; you are not human you are god.

No finite being can handle infinite love of god dissolve limited human identity

GOD=DEATH

CONSCIOUSNESS-EGO=TRUTH

EXISTENCE=LOVE

The infinite love of God has no desires but to explore all potentials of consciousness and all of life creating and imagining simultaneously that's how everything was created not through natural selection but through infinite mind. God is the one talking and listening and imagining. you are god being a devil.  God describing itself to itself. 

3 things to be a good person 

1. Be conscious
2. surrender fears
3. get rid of devilry 

LOVE is courage and absolute do not fail at either masculine or feminie love (Balance)  it is contextual get to the point where the horror of reality strengthens you and tests your love how much can your consciousness accept that that horror is god. 

Awakening is not dry, stoic, and cold you will not be a terminator without emotions with awakening you will be softer and more emotional you will care more and become more human awakening transcends these opposites don't be dogmatic about awakening be open to love