Debra Diamond Brings Wall Street Smarts to NDEs, and Mediumship |424|

If you have the opportunity, read Ernesto Sirolli's Ripples from the Zambezi. Sirolli joined an Italian aid agency in Africa straight out of uni, and was shocked by what he experienced and witnessed. That led to his passion - sirolli.com

From a comment on Amazon:

But Sirolli goes further. He takes these experiences and imagines them on a grand scale where, as he says, "reciprocity matters." Calling it a "civic economy," he envisions a world benfiting from "generalized reciprocity, from people helping people to succeed, with the understanding that well-being of the community is to everybody's advantage."
Don't misinterpret these sentiments. Sirolli is a capitalist at heart, but he presses for a system "beyind capitalism...which enhances participation in the creation of wealth, not only in its accumulation."
This sounds very similar to the model I carry called the Integral Capital Economy. The purpose of wealth is not to hold it, rather re-deploy it into ventures which target the ease of suffering and development of knowledge/quality of life for mankind. Cronies holding wealth and amassing as much as they can get their hands on, or mafiosi taking possession of the wealth of a nation, in the name of 'justice and equality' - are both the same exact evil. Just different uniforms. If you do strategy for them and live in their boardrooms/warrooms - you find that they both thrive upon suffering.

I have started a handful of businesses successfully. But, more importantly I have painfully failed at near to 25 attempts to start businesses, with great markets and ideas - merely because captial is not really available. I am ranked pretty close to the top 1% in ability to start a business and was strategist for many of the top brands in the US today (ranked by a prominent market firm) - and I cannot get capital. What hope does the average Joe have?

The reason for this is the hoarding of wealth in the name of 'capital' and 'equality'. These two clowns, the crony and the mafioso - are the problem. They do not want a middle class, nor especially a class of smart and funded competitors, which might someday challenge their empires. 95% of the globe is controlled by these clowns today.
 
Absolutely, if you simply help the lady with kids next door get groceries out of her car, you have done spiritually every bit the task I have ever done... this is merely my particular life situation/path and is not purposed to sound intimidating. I am still a journeyman spiritually and woefully behind at that.


hear, hear... my kids can't get disability, despite being both flat broke and severely disabled, for this very reason. They are not in the 'disadvantaged' social category because they are the wrong skin color, so their disability does not count. This is the handiwork of 'niceness in action' (also known as 'evil').


Will do, as this looks really good... 'passion, entrepreneurship and the rebirth of local economies'!!! Where has this guy been?!!!


Sirolli has been all over the planet. Last time I caught up with him he had been working in Africa and South America. He does stuff in Australia, US, Canada, UK, NZ too.
 
"hear, hear... my kids can't get disability, despite being both flat broke and severely disabled, for this very reason. They are not in the 'disadvantaged' social category because they are the wrong skin color, so their disability does not count. This is the handiwork of 'niceness in action' (also know as 'evil')."

TES,
I am going through the same struggle with my only sibling, a brother who is 4 years younger than I - who I'm sworn to protect and am legal guardian of - and who has been a chronic paranoid schizophrenic since he was 19 (33 years ago). I had set up a trust for him about 30 years ago and just about all of the money is gone now. I'm trying to get him on SSI and some other assistance and it's not going well. He has never worked and is severely disabled, though stable on meds for the past 28 years. The people in the system tell me that the problem is resources are tight. But them illegal aliens, they sure get everything they want in terms of govt support (and more if a democrat is elected). So American citizens, even members of multi-generational military families must take a back seat. Yep, that's one way bleeding heart do-gooders are actually evil doers.

My son, 100% disabled from a head wound received in Afghanistan is getting good enough care at the VA, but will that funding hold out if the do-gooders get all of their wishes granted in the next couple of years?


Eric, I find it incomprehensible that we persistently fail to look after our own. This applies to most, if not all, ‘advanced western’ nations. I get the sense of commitment by ‘do-gooders’ to care for others in need, but I do not believe in letting your child starve to feed a stranger. My argument with ‘bleeding heart do-gooders is not their compassion, but that they evacuate the first duty of care for one’s own before attending to others. We have the means to do both, I believe, but what we don’t have is a unity of purpose to act as one community rather than warring idealists.

As a citizen of an apparently kinder culture than the US we also have the problem with misguided generosity on the left and misguided tight-fistedness on the right. It is maddingly difficult to get the balance right. There must be a middle way - but we won’t find it if we fear, despise and insult each other.

I have never come across government policy that gets the balance right, but I know a few NGOs who do. It’s not a left/right issue - but we are constantly forced to pick between politicised extremes as if there is no other way. Part of the problem is that we have no agreed ‘theory of need and response’ - its almost always religious or atheistic moralising that becomes political in the hands the vote hungry.

I have come to favour what I call ‘ slightly left of centre conservatism’ as the best political foundation for making decent social policy.
 
Eric, I find it incomprehensible that we persistently fail to look after our own. This applies to most, if not all, ‘advanced western’ nations. I get the sense of commitment by ‘do-gooders’ to care for others in need, but I do not believe in letting your child starve to feed a stranger. My argument with ‘bleeding heart do-gooders is not their compassion, but that they evacuate the first duty of care for one’s own before attending to others. We have the means to do both, I believe, but what we don’t have is a unity of purpose to act as one community rather than warring idealists.

As a citizen of an apparently kinder culture than the US we also have the problem with misguided generosity on the left and misguided tight-fistedness on the right. It is maddingly difficult to get the balance right. There must be a middle way - but we won’t find it if we fear, despise and insult each other.

I have never come across government policy that gets the balance right, but I know a few NGOs who do. It’s not a left/right issue - but we are constantly forced to pick between politicised extremes as if there is no other way. Part of the problem is that we have no agreed ‘theory of need and response’ - its almost always religious or atheistic moralising that becomes political in the hands the vote hungry.

I have come to favour what I call ‘ slightly left of centre conservatism’ as the best political foundation for making decent social policy.

Michael,
Once cynical opportunists are put aside, politics really does have a lot to do with spirituality. Actually, even the cynical opportunists are a spiritual issue, but I don't want to go there at this time.

And yes, people do vote and otherwise contribute according to their self-interest. But again, I think that is a spiritual issue.

In fact, IMO, all life is spiritual in nature - just as consciousness is first and foremost the substratum of life (consciousness = spirit ---> spirituality).

IMO, a reason that politics gets so heated is that it is a reflection of spiritual values and interpretations. It gets to the core of who we are, what we believe in our hearts and how we live out our experience as physical beings.

People who are generally called "liberal" are making decisions based on lofty spiritual values that they feel in their hearts. IMO, they are more spiritually oriented in their decision making than people that can be called "conservative". Conservatives, on the other hand, are more process oriented and more practical. The liberal seeks an uncompromised utopia on earth in accordance to her spiritual understanding, whereas the conservative is interested how the goals can be achieved given limited resources, human nature, existing structures and organizations. The conservative is more comfortable with compromising spiritual values for other considerations.

So there is always a tension between what is practical, what creates the greatest utility, which spiritual values are to be emphasized.

A problem is that liberals typically are not well versed in hard cold analytics and process development and maintenance. They are ideas people. Dreamers. Nothing wrong with that because such people are needed. They're an important ingredient in society. Just as conservatives are needed to analyze what can and should be done and then to efficiently and effectively design and implement the program given competing priorities and limited resources.

Physical life on earth is not - and is not intended - to be a utopia. Much of the evidence discussed here suggest that life is meant to be full of challenges and that maybe some people even volunteer to come here and face even physically and/or emotionally excruciating situations.

OTOH if life is about learning to love, we cannot be completely callous to those who are suffering and must attempt to do something to alleviate the suffering, but without creating other suffering in the process and knowing that suffering can never be eliminated.

Each, liberal and conservative, get so caught up in their mode of thinking/perceiving that they fail to see the bigger picture and demonize each other.

Not a clear comment from me, I know, but just wanted to put something out there that's in the ball park.
 
I feel I must respond to TESs accusations. They appear to put me in a bad light and therefore I must defend myself. Thereafter I would be quite content never again to correspond with him, as he prefers. Also, I might have preferred to write a PM to him, but as I have been asked to ‘leave him out of it’ I didn’t think he’d respond well.

I had barely contributed to the thread when I posted the post (#138) about Eric’s life review. Which later I went on to explain (#155) what I meant. My intent here, was incorrectly interpreted on at least two separate occasions by different individuals, including TES.

The reason is because I was engaging with you, and not a half-hour video veneer. After you decided to yet again, step in unprovoked, and start categorizing and demeaning people you have targeted, for no good reason.

Exactly who might you think I was targeting?

More importantly, were you a target? If so, show me where I categorised or demeaned you anywhere in the thread where it wasn’t in response to having been accused first? If you can’t do so, what gives you the right to single me out? Are you a moderator?

Please point to where I was ‘categorising and demeaning’ those targets? If by demeaning you mean pushing against, then yes, I was.

- the video was insincerely posed and therefore, was moot. Just as the 'I can't go for that' video was also insulting and darkly purposed. This does not make Hall and Oates a bad musical group, nor does it mean that I must watch and evaluate that music video.

The video was most certainly was not insincerely posed!
It was a perfectly valid response to the assertion by Jim Smith in particular that enlightened people aren’t necessarily ‘nice’ people.
Spira’s informed opinion directly contradicts that.
In the video, he says: “Every person that I have ever met, or heard of, or read about, that had recognised their true nature is a kind, loving, compassionate person.”
Now you might think his opinion is no more value than anyone else’s and might disagree with it, but please show me the slightest evidence that indicates that I was insincere to post (or pose) it?

The first video was nothing more than a phrase that came into my mind reminding me of this song with that exact title, ‘I can’t go for that’, one that I had recently been listening to and enjoying. There was nothing more to it than that.

When I was saying, “I can’t go for that” I was surely supporting your post #143, where you wrote :

They are the most wonderful, sincere and genuine people I know. I cannot get either of them to lie, even as a spoof to trick my spouse for humor's sake. They simply will not lie. They don't even know how to lie.

I will copy the post here for you. Can you not see that?

Yet we hear from others that there are those who have reached a state of ‘enlightenment’, whose personalities appear to be very different from that of these two children.

In the words of Hall & Oates - “I can’t go for that”.

That you somehow are able to interpret that as being insulting and darkly purposed, is really rather disturbing, even bizarre, to me.

The issue was that the two videos reflected negatively upon you... They were costume ornaments.

If you say so.

You the messenger are not consistent with the message of the enlightenment video. The enlightenment video was simply another Hall and Oates song.

I don’t understand this.

You missed that the comment, 'academic, untested, the costume' was not about the video. You may fool yourself, but you are not fooling me. This entirely unnecessary and pointless-other-than-for-ill-intent conversation is now done.

The facts are that you started the accusations! Starting to go downhill in post #152, and again in post #153 in which you posted:

No, you CLEARLY made the direct accusation in a post that Eric's life review will be bad. It was a low-character thing to do. Not impressed in the least.

‘It was a low character thing to do.’ That’s an accusation isn’t it?

From that point on, you were fair game. If you had apologised instead of writing what I saw as a patronising “Good response ;;/? “ as I thought someone who plays the Ethics card might, I may have softened somewhat.

Your basic first instinct is to attack, insult, demean, categorize, ... based upon someone you hated in your past.

This is unfair. I have been a member here for many years, if that were true, I’d surely have been banned long ago. I’ve never hated anyone in my life. What I will do, is stand up and oppose people when I think they’re wrong.

I really detest unfairness. It is particularly distasteful when one party portrays itself as a victim, as I think you have done.

So that’s my side of the story. I leave it for others to judge.
 
Last edited:
The whole series originated from your interjection of this:
Yet we hear from others that there are those who have reached a state of ‘enlightenment’, whose personalities appear to be very different from that of these two children.
In the words of Hall & Oates - “I can’t go for that”.

This is called in ethics and philosophy, an amphibology. It is clumsy at best, a clever insult at worst. So instead of assuming, I asked of you:

I don't know what you mean by this. If you are stating that there are those who have faced their own evil, and no longer wear the costume of enlightenment, then I might buy this.
A half hour video was not an encouraging answer - one which I took to be pedantic (to my best interpretation). And if you had never before used clever insult as a discussion method in the forum, I would have given you benefit of a doubt most assuredly.

That you somehow are able to interpret that as being insulting and darkly purposed, is really rather disturbing, even bizarre, to me.

OK fair enough, I hear you on this then. Perhaps examine and see that the statement above should have been written more clearly, or have been clarified when I asked you to do so? To me, after you would not answer, it felt like a put-down of my children (and me). If I was wrong in this I will express regret that this happened, and for my part, yes - but the seminal error would reside with you and poor communication in this instance.
 
Last edited:
I really detest unfairness. It is particularly distasteful when one party portrays itself as a victim, as I think you have done.

So that’s my side of the story. I leave it for others to judge.
Please resist the temptation to be melodramatic. This is a simple issue and does not really involve everyone else. I am not a victim. I just need clear & positive communication. ;;/?
 
Last edited:
Yet we hear from others that there are those who have reached a state of ‘enlightenment’, whose personalities appear to be very different from that of these two children.In the words of Hall & Oates - “I can’t go for that”.

I really don’t see how you could find that ambiguous.
Your post portrayed your children as being ‘good souls’ that couldn’t so much as utter occasional lies. No problem at all with that. I believe you.

The statement above is surely simple to understand?

I’m surmising that the real problem might have come from the slightly more flippant “I can’t go for that”.
Or to put it plainly - ‘I disagree with the statement.’

You might have thought it clumsy, or a clever insult. I don’t possibly see how it could be the latter, and the former is imo an individual judgement. I think it’s ok to lighten a thread (such as this up) with a song, you maybe think otherwise.

If you wanted things clearer, you must learn to taylor the questions to suit the individual you’re addressing. Your question was far from simple. I didn’t understand the question, or even realise it was a question. I couldn’t see how you couldn’t see what I meant. I assumed that you must be complicating something. In that I was possibly wrong.

A half hour video was NOT an answer to this pointed critical path question. I gave you a chance to clarify your intent here. You did not.

The second video was a stand alone post. I have said that I left the forum and checked my YouTube feeds. I thought it rather synchronistic that that particular video had appeared at that time, as Spira’s comment added weight to my previous post #144, (agreeing with my proposal that enlightened people must surely be ‘nice’), the one you had doubts about. So I was quite excited to post it.

This was the main reason I posted the video, one sentence. But the video is about relevant things, such as comparing the thoughts of Hitler vs Ramana Maharshi. I thought it was quite interesting.

It’s as simple as that.
 
In fact, IMO, all life is spiritual in nature - just as consciousness is first and foremost the substratum of life (consciousness = spirit ---> spirituality).

IMO, a reason that politics gets so heated is that it is a reflection of spiritual values and interpretations. It gets to the core of who we are, what we believe in our hearts and how we live out our experience as physical beings.

People who are generally called "liberal" are making decisions based on lofty spiritual values that they feel in their hearts. IMO, they are more spiritually oriented in their decision making than people that can be called "conservative". Conservatives, on the other hand, are more process oriented and more practical. The liberal seeks an uncompromised utopia on earth in accordance to her spiritual understanding, whereas the conservative is interested how the goals can be achieved given limited resources, human nature, existing structures and organizations. The conservative is more comfortable with compromising spiritual values for other considerations.

So there is always a tension between what is practical, what creates the greatest utility, which spiritual values are to be emphasized.

Pure gold Eric.

I want people like you defending our borders [imagine we share the same land], but not running our welfare system. Now you might think you'd do a great job, but please do allow me to respond to that notion with the same delight as you would respond to the notion that I should defend our borders.

The necessary tension must not become conflict. Tension is necessary because we do not have infinite means and the structures we establish in our society determines how finite means are applied. Enter spiritual values. In ancient China there were warrior monks - a fusion of necessity and ideal. We have ideals and necessity in defense and in welfare services - and what is ideal is a balance that is rarely attained.

I am profoundly critical of advocates of welfare who are all ideal [as imagined by them] and no sense of pragmatic necessity. For me that means we debase the spiritual ideal of compassion because it has no strength, no sense of necessity - and no sense of duty upon the recipient. That kind of welfare weakens everybody. It is one thing to have a spiritual ideal and another to elevate that above sentiment and sentimentality.

I have great respect for military service. I didn't serve because my number didn't come up in the ballot, and I had no motive to enroll. Besides was I not then temperamentally suited - I was going through the trauma of rampant psi phenomena. By the time I left high school I had read the 20 volumes of the history of Australian military campaigns [probably the only kid to do so] and after 3.5 years in Veterans Affairs I developed a deep respect for the men who came back from awful experiences with various degrees of physical and psychological damage. I had occasion to read their files in detail from cover to cover as I prepared evidence for tribunal hearings for pensions related to degrees of damage and enduring disability. That's a sobering experience.

Not every one is in control of the spiritual experience of military service. My father in law was torpedoes twice in the Pacific, both times at night, ending up in the water with sundry body parts of his shipmates who had been alive and whole moments before. There were enough bits of his shipmates to keep the sharks happy - but he didn't know that. He survived with what we now would call PTSD. But he was diagnosed with Insufficient Personality - not man enough, apparently. He got a pension, and an insult.

A Vietnam vet took 3 hours to come to see me on what was a 30 min train trip. He got off at every station and 'hid' in the toilets until he felt able to continue. His wife told me that he ended up behind the couch trembling after a TV news chopper flew low over their home. He wanted to come in and the guts and determination that trip took touched me deeply.

We are spiritual beings having a physical experience, and for many that is a shit time, a hard time. Vets end up homeless and disabled. So from the time they commit to the noble ideal of service for their country their lives take a radical turn it is hard to imagine would be chosen - would you serve if you could foresee how things would be?

I see recipients of welfare in a different way. They do not end up where they are because they made a noble and selfless choice. But they are often traumatized by abuse when young. Here I have a deep problem. In sympathy for their suffering we excuse them personal responsibility, duty and discipline - and then wonder why they remain dependent. We do not tax their character and challenge them to extend it.

I wouldn't want the military to run welfare programs but I sure as hell wish the people who administered them were not clean effete middle class urbanites with no grasp of character building experience - like having military service. I grew bushwalking in the Tasmanian wilderness. We weren't shot at or blown up, but it had its character building aspects.

Sometimes what we do, or experience, builds character and sometimes it causes injury. Either way it is a 'spiritual' experience. I look people today and find myself struggling to accept what I see. My grandson is an inner city wimp in my view. But it is not right for me to compare him at my age. The world is different. But the moral challenges are still the same - and that I have to remember. He didn't start walking to school by himself until he was in grade 6. I started when I was in grade 1 and walked 4 times as far. I grew up differently and experienced the same moral challenges to character in a different way. He's not like me. He's not me.

We share a lot of values. But I can't implement your remedies - as much as I'd like to do, often. I share many of your criticisms, but I have to work with what is and change things as I can.

I have little affection for the Left any more, because I agree with a lot of the criticisms, but I am equally unimpressed by the right for the same reasons. For me the spiritual path is often a struggle to find the middle way - unattached to passions on either side. I fail often, but I know it.
 
Michael,
The problem with too much welfare is that making people dependent and care for can lead to them not facing the challenges of life and, thus, retards their spiritual development. There has to be a fine balance. None of this stuff is clear cut. As I said, the arguments, demonization, etc is all over where the balance lies.

You might think it's all about cold hearted greed or uncaring on the part of conservatives, but, in my experience, it isn't. Many conservatives really believe that people do best spiritually when left to fight their own fights to the extent possible. "The devil makes work for idle hands" is an old conservative idea.

Obviously a conservative would be damaging her own soul if she refused to render assistance to the mentally retarded, the physically disabled, etc. But what of able bodied young men who are simply unemployed? What of healthy low income unmarried women that just keep having children? Again, it's over the grey areas that the fighting occurs. I think it's important to keep that in mind.

BTW, IMO, the VA system is pretty darn good. Don't believe everything you hear on the fake news media - and the US military is often used to provide assistance to victims of natural disasters and attempted hostile take-overs of their countries.
 
Last edited:
The problem with too much welfare is that making people dependent and care for can lead to them not facing the challenges of life and, thus, retards their spiritual development. There has to be a fine balance. None of this stuff is clear cut. As I said, the arguments, demonization, etc is all over where the balance lies

Eric, as a former ultra left winger you don't need to teach me how to suck the eggs of personal responsibility. That fine balance hinges on what should be the heart of Christianity [and hence our culture?]. We are so often incompetent in our compassion, and rather than examine how we fail to love well, we blame the recipient of our ministrations as unworthy for a myriad of reasons.

I detest the 'welfare' industry because it does not examine its conduct and comes to believe the conceit it is performing good service when it is [by my measure] merely indulging in intellectual sloppiness and moral arrogance. It will howl in outrage at this suggestion. Of course, it is so unaware it can do no otherwise.

But the alternative is not religious conceit formulated in the prosperity gospel - saying if you are poor you deserve it because you are not spiritually up to standard and believing the right stuff. Were this the case we would have no need of the central Christian themes of forgiveness and love. Implicit in that Christian message is the honoring of duty and self-discipline in oneself - and aiding others to value the same. But the challenge is that when others fail to do so, how do we respond? That question, for me, defines how we see ourselves as moral and compassionate beings - when do we have permission not to be like that? We can invoke the Old Testament, or excite our unresolved emotions. Either way we can create a mask of self-righteous passion.

I struggle. Sometimes [often to be honest] I find myself passing the most unkind judgment on a person, merely because of how they appear to me - as if that is a sufficient basis for an opinion that is fair. On reflection, so far it has never been apparently fair.

I am a man with a very obvious disability, unless I am sitting down. I get around with the aid of flash Canadian crutches [none of those awful aluminum things for me]. I am rightly assessed as not dangerous. I am not up to picking fights with men, or stealing their women. There are times when my physical disability is assumed to extend to my intellect, and I have been badly underestimated. That's fun sorting that out.

Spiritual balance is immensely difficult to attain - but it is something we must strive for - and in so doing hope we are the first to see our failings - rather than be a finder of failings in others.

There's a sense drawn from deep eastern thought - I am that I am. This is the essential formula of The One, and it is echoes down the hierarchy of being - only it is not an absolute statement, but an evolutionary one - I am that I am [becoming].
 
Eric, as a former ultra left winger you don't need to teach me how to suck the eggs of personal responsibility. That fine balance hinges on what should be the heart of Christianity [and hence our culture?]. We are so often incompetent in our compassion, and rather than examine how we fail to love well, we blame the recipient of our ministrations as unworthy for a myriad of reasons.

I detest the 'welfare' industry because it does not examine its conduct and comes to believe the conceit it is performing good service when it is [by my measure] merely indulging in intellectual sloppiness and moral arrogance. It will howl in outrage at this suggestion. Of course, it is so unaware it can do no otherwise.

But the alternative is not religious conceit formulated in the prosperity gospel - saying if you are poor you deserve it because you are not spiritually up to standard and believing the right stuff. Were this the case we would have no need of the central Christian themes of forgiveness and love. Implicit in that Christian message is the honoring of duty and self-discipline in oneself - and aiding others to value the same. But the challenge is that when others fail to do so, how do we respond? That question, for me, defines how we see ourselves as moral and compassionate beings - when do we have permission not to be like that? We can invoke the Old Testament, or excite our unresolved emotions. Either way we can create a mask of self-righteous passion.

I struggle. Sometimes [often to be honest] I find myself passing the most unkind judgment on a person, merely because of how they appear to me - as if that is a sufficient basis for an opinion that is fair. On reflection, so far it has never been apparently fair.

I am a man with a very obvious disability, unless I am sitting down. I get around with the aid of flash Canadian crutches [none of those awful aluminum things for me]. I am rightly assessed as not dangerous. I am not up to picking fights with men, or stealing their women. There are times when my physical disability is assumed to extend to my intellect, and I have been badly underestimated. That's fun sorting that out.

Spiritual balance is immensely difficult to attain - but it is something we must strive for - and in so doing hope we are the first to see our failings - rather than be a finder of failings in others.

There's a sense drawn from deep eastern thought - I am that I am. This is the essential formula of The One, and it is echoes down the hierarchy of being - only it is not an absolute statement, but an evolutionary one - I am that I am [becoming].

Well, yogis are considered "spiritual" and all they do is sit in a cave meditating.

The selection of the Christian model is arbitrary.
 
I have two children, as you know, with permanent disability. They will never be able to work, never be rich, never attain great things on a social context. They struggle and simply endure every single day under their disabilities - both cases, a harm brought on as the result of professional experts thinking they were smart/competent, when indeed they were not. They are the most wonderful, sincere and genuine people I know. I cannot get either of them to lie, even as a spoof to trick my spouse for humor's sake. They simply will not lie. They don't even know how to lie.

My greatest fear is that they will be taken advantage of, tricked, swindled and abused by the 95% of us on this planet who have never been forced to face their own evil - and live under an assumed veneer of goodness and spiritual competence.

In some ways, spiritual maturity is both easy to attain, yet still unattainable for most.
wow... thx for sharing this. don't know how to process.
 
Well, yogis are considered "spiritual" and all they do is sit in a cave meditating.

Big Smile! Not all of them. Apparently the ability to meditate for hours or even days is a big thing in some circles. If the intent is to generate 'good vibes' I don't have a problem with that. I go back to my assertion that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience - so the idea of anything we humans do is or is not 'spiritual' is kinda silly.

What we mean is what is good and uplifting - and I think we should say this, rather than falling back on such a vague term as 'spiritual'. My spiritual education introduced me to the idea of 'service' - acts that further individual and common good. This is safer, I think. You can say a priest is 'spiritual' by virtue of his station as if that is a given. But ask what is his 'service' and a different perspective on his value emerges. It is hard to imagine molesting children is okay if you are thinking in terms of service, rather than a presumption of 'spirituality' which can lead to the delusion that station permits such moral debasement.

Maybe meditating in a cave is a service. In some cases I have no doubt it is - but I also suspect there's an awful lot of wanking going on as well.
 
They are the most wonderful, sincere and genuine people I know. I cannot get either of them to lie, even as a spoof to trick my spouse for humor's sake. They simply will not lie. They don't even know how to lie.

The motive to lie seems to be stronger among people who have no functional impairment to force them to constantly see their place in the world as problematic. There will always be predators who will target who they see as weak. But a decade into having an acquired disability that actually rendered me very vulnerable I am finding that folk are mostly caring and compassionate.

The strange thing is that men do not see me as a competitor because of my evident physical disability, and women do not see me as a threat. I have become harmless in terms of threat. My options are to be a cranky cripple and piss people off - or be nice. It is a remarkable creative space to be in. It can be used for self-interest or for real acts of service.

Looks like your kids are going down the service path.
 
I have found that 'spirits' of the higher order are disinclined to set us straight about things they see we are not ready to work with. I have been flat out refused answers to questions posed and when I have asked why the answer is always the same: You are not ready for this.

Hello Michael,
I have a question regarding "not ready". A person I considered as wise many years ago taught me this: When you are able to phrase the question, you are ready for the answer. Whenever I was denied an answer, in the material world, the refusal came from a person with a paternalistic attitude. Were those spirits that denied you the answer paternalistic?
I am asking this because sometimes I think we accept things that are coming from the non-material realm easier than what is in this world, and I am not sure that this is always a good idea.
 
Back
Top