Karl

It made its way to the top by operating a free market for many years. It's been living on the legacy since the beginning of the 20th century. At one time everything that came out of the USA was top quality, but gradually it's protectionist policies, foreign policy and tax funded bailouts damaged its economy badly. In 1971 USA defaulted on its debt and forced the rest of the world to abandoned all attachment of fiat currency to hard metals ( even by then it was only a virtual gold standard). I do not wish. You are one, there are many. It depends where you are in the country and what job you do. Government money is pouring into places like California and into the tech sector. It's also into asset classes such as property and of course the Wall Street Casino. The problem here is that it is illusiory. What you have is malinvestment. No one can say where the malinvestment is until the tide goes out which it invariably does. Ho yes indeed, who would argue that it is not a global problem ? The current figures don't bare out kicking butt. They suggest bubbles instead that the bubbles are beginning to deflate. Janet Yellen has been using 'banker speak' to attempt to keep markets running. She has been promising to raise interest rates because of the fantastic economy, but always there is some reason why it isn't going to happen. That can has been kicked down the road for a year. Same with Europe, UK and Japan. However it is your currency that is the reserve currency and it is your Fed that directs every other central bank.

Lets take that 'stuck in emptiness' and explore the concept. What is emptiness ? Lack of fullness ? Can one mentally be inside fullness or emptiness ? Stuck-cannot move, but what needs to move. There is nothing to be stuck in and nothing that can stick. Emptiness is impossible. It's the same as 'go with the flow' . It's a cliche. 'Don't follow the crowd' is it's cliche opposite. :-) See, you are providing an analysis. You are intuiting from what I have written and referring it to your experience.

End suffering. If there is no suffering then nothing need be done. You are as you are. I can only provide approximations really, not solve it, nor provide the desire for it. Everyone has their own boats to row. There is only self. Everything is experienced by self. Self has always had direct perception of the physical. It's more a way of seeing than it is a change, but effort has to be undertaken never the less. You can try and stay in self, every hour of every day. If the effort is genuine, then all the rest follows. I kept in mind. "If it is temporary it is false". If you think you have found it, then it's temporary, there is no finding what was never lost. I don't know if that helps, hinders. I remember SRM giving these maddening answers to questions. I thought he was a fraud, a fake. His answers were cryptic and often had glaring inconsistenties. Yet, there is no reason to do anything at all. There is no requirement to chase rainbows unless you are driven to chase them. Life is perfectly good as it is. It's only when there is something that needles that action is required.

You have that ability. It is innate within you. However, it isn't something that will pop out like a genie from the lamp, it must be fought for and worked at. It is not easy. Sitting in meditation or gazing at flowers won't cut it. You have to work the muscle of critical reasoning. It's a part of the brain that gets cursory use these days. You have been lazy so far, you have relied on copied knowledge and believed gut instinct/intuition/feelings has some sacred place in further knowledge. Now, you have a little boat, some oars and arms like spaghetti, legs like pipe cleaners and a back like jelly. You have dreamed many times that you have rowed across lakes and oceans, but you have barely ever pulled a stroke. You have to want to know, you must fight for reality because it won't be given, you must meet it. No matter how caustic, how many blisters, how your muscles rebel you have to keep at it. You can of course go back to dreaming if you wish.

Separate them. Hold reality. The reality of mind created thought streams and the reality of concrete things in direct perception. If you confuse one with the other then you miss what is. Let poetry describe how you feel, let reality describe how you are. You are looking for emotional content in concrete form and it is unnecessary. It's possible to have both. Wander both into emotional poetic allegory and also see the reality of what is.

You will die, I assure you that one day that will happen. When it does you will lose consciousness of the world. The end. However whilst your corpse rots the universe will continue to exist because it's the universe. There will be no heaven, no joining some grand clump of consciousness or any floating around the halls. You will be dead in body, mind and spirit. Enjoy today because there is no other. You should know that, so that you know. The universe was not created and consciousness was not created. There is no dispute. Consciousness exists within the boundaries of the body as gravity exists within the mass of a star. Gravity was not created either. We can say every atom contains the seed of gravity, then each particle, then each sub particle until only pure state energy remains and we search but we find no gravity hidden in anything. The brain is the mechanics, consciousness is the perceiver. The body dies and the perceiver is gone. Yet beyond that dead body there are many alive bodies all containing the power of perception filtered through their minds.

There is no synchronicity, there is reality. I need no explanation for delusion I've experienced its raw force first hand and it hides the world from view. Delusion is delusion, it's the minds attempt to put a gloss on everything, or add spikes to an orange. It means you cannot determine what is real and what is illusion and that is an unpleasant state to be in. People have a habit of wanting to withdraw from reality, but it is not reality that they are withdrawing from, it is themselves. Playing hide and seek in your mind is unproductive and pretty bloody indulgent. It's cowardice really.

No, I do not mean that. I mean that all learning is conscious experience and nothing more. Our everyday experience is our everyday experience there is no other, there is not a different one. While away your time with trinkets and daydreams if you want, take the Soma and everything feels so nice, but reality is truth. No more than that. I'm a bore you see. I don't come with fireworks, lights or party tricks. I go to a barbecue and habitually point out the completely serviceable and infinitely better electric oven. "Come on Karl" they say, "it's fun to eat outdoors and cook on charcoal". I see no fun in that at all, it's like a weird kind of artificial wrapping. I suggest to them that we built dwelling places and created ovens specifically to avoid 'outside' and 'charcoal'. Now that's not to say I don't like 'outside' . I like it well enough to go walking and cycling in the mountains, scrabbling up rock faces or descending into holes in the earth. I don't need to do 'outside' if you see what I'm getting at. Outside is just outside I'm keen to keep it in perspective.

What created the universe ? It was not and was never created. I said I was a simple man so here is an example. I'm chucking ideas here because I'm not a scientist but I'm am an observer of reality. I look at the double split experiment and I get to wondering that a seemingly self contained particle is really that self contained. It has an energy, indeed it is an energy. So then isn't it energy travelling within energy-like a particle of sand chucked into other particles of sand. A wave is produced in the sand by kinetic conversion of energy and harmonics. I know these things are connected because I have this base knowledge. It doesn't help me to construct wave guides, musical instruments or detection systems, that's beyond my understanding- or I have never applied myself to learn them. So, back at the double slit. It isn't that consciousness is causing the effect. It isn't the observer principle. It's the clouded thinking principle of seeing what one wants to believe one is seeing, then extrapolating an erroneous conclusion. Years ago in the 17th century an experiment was conducted with canon balls to see how far they would travel with a given amount of gunpowder. As the amount of powder increased the distance the ball travelled increased and then it stopped. No more amount of gunpowder would make the ball travel any further. The experimenter concluded that the problem was air pressure preventing the ball travelling any faster which by simple physics meant it could not travel further. Later in the 20th century they came across the phenomenon whilst trying to break the sound barrier. Energy meets energy and energetic waves are produced which are harmonic derivatives. There is frequency and amplitude. Didn't the Chinese already say that in the beginning there was a vibration ?

LOL mundane reality. You don't know reality or you would not say that :-) You say "the gorgeous fissures" and so you hear the birdsong but are blind to the bird. The fissures are enough in and of themselves. Try not to add your mind stuff to them. It's like dripping perfume on a flower. :-)

That brought me right back to my third week on an NLP practitioners course. Did you get the answer you wanted ? :-)

All learning is the result of conscious experience. The lesson of reality is to show you that 'spiritual learning' is no different from any other type of learning. It isn't special in some way. It's because you are adding this idea that it is somehow intrinsically different that creates a schism. It is illusion, false self, gliding gold and painting the Lilly. I tell you this as a matter of factual reality. It is neither judgement nor analysis. In other words use the drugs, have a good time, get high, laugh, love, sing and dance, but tomorrow you will be sober.

Cheaper products are always a good thing. Quality withstanding. I've never heard or seen anyone unhappy about a price cut except for those who bought prior to it and those that have to compete with it. The massive trauma will be coming your way shortly. The dollar hegemony has so far insulated the U.S. Generally from the financial oppression caused by central banking and government policy. Those that have lost well paying jobs in the middle sector have seen their lifestyles go down hill at a rapid rate. Of course it's true that the U.S. 'Poor' (as all western poor) are immensely well off in comparison to the vast bulk of the rest of the world. However that's just an excuse for ignoring those that have lost their median income and are scrabbling around trying to keep afloat of rising prices, families and debt. Your government and its financial cronies have direct responsibility for the damage they have done and they show no signs of empathy and are busy heaping pain on pain whilst creating illusions of growth through manipulated statistics and media talking heads. The U.S. Is trillions in debt, there is no hope of ever paying off that debt and it's weight is crushing down on the productive. Meanwhile a few billionaires get a few more billion. It's time this financial oppression was ended and the sooner the better. The first step is for the addict to admit he has a problem.

It wouldn't. It would protect them and right wing types would consider that area for use by the state for whatever purposes it deemed necessary for the good of the state. In other words they wouldn't privatise them, they would remain in state control.

Exactly. New Ageism. I've swum in that ocean, so I know it's attractions. Reality beats it into powder on the face of a pig.

Always with respect. That's what I thought you were saying. This theory is also contained in my book as is the current belief that decisions arise prior to the conscious decision being made in the brain. In effect we are viewing a similar thing with consciousness apparently viewing consciousness through the medium of electrical detection. There's a problem with that theory and the quantum double slit experiment. We make the wrong conclusion simply because we are fallible and not because of what the experiments or science reveals. We can be conned by our own magic show. These aren't the hard science experiments of the past which offered us physics, chemistry and biology knowledge. I'm neither a scientist, nor a very good logician, I'm not particularly intelligent either, but I have one clear advantage. I know I'm fallible, I know that I have mistaken rope for snake and that potential error always remains. Basic logic is my guide. Even without constructing the syllogisms, I can know that, if I'm be told or shown that a square is a circle, then it is wrong. I have been deceived in some way which may not be apparent. Two things are never one thing-check your premise. The universe always contained the potential of conscious awareness, but we are matter first. When the body dies there is no consciousness in the body, neither is it swimming around looking for a host like some errant tadpole. The body remains, consciousness does not. Therefore matter must coalesce for consciousness to be. Consciousness must be conscious of some thing. Matter then prior to consciousness. Consciousness as a result of matter. It's elementary my dear Watson ;-)

Kurt Cobain of Nirvana fame used to daub the slogan "God is gay" throughout his local town of Aberdeen according to his biography.

Has somebody strapped up your typing finger ? It's not like you. I'm worried.

I don't know where to start to answer that. It was a few years ago now that I read them. I formed that opinion because the guy was clearly exploring his own psychosis. No problem with that, but it has been adopted into recruitment and other walks of life. I ran a Myers Briggs testing operation as a service to employers until I read his books and I scrapped it immediately. I wouldn't have anything more to do with these charlatan products. This is what happens with all these kinds of books. People extract the bits as factual evidence instead of simply the subjective ramblings of a manic depressive.

LOL If bathing in a bath of baked beans, standing on your head and singing the national anthem Does the job, then that's what is needed. I see no point in arguing God away from people unless it is contrary to their development. The fruit falls from the tree when it's ripe.

Yes. It's on record :-)

Most awesome tenaciousness. I got completely bored after the second point. I've concluded I can no longer be bothered to discuss it further it singularly unhelpful to the believers and redundant for me.

Well said. I also have no interest for the same reason, except when someone wishes to debate it. There is a place for the belief in God regardless of logical arguments or proof. It's the same argument for children believing in Santa Clause ( I mean that in the sense of its positives for children ). Everybody is going through their own thing. I recommended a belief in God in my own book and had a relationship with God for several years. Sometimes it's just necessary and there is no particular reason why. It just is.

You are being uncharacteristically bashful. I can't ponder, I don't know, I find it hard to believe. He's just a puppet politician.

You should support the free market in the USA. The products coming from China are far cheaper than the U.S. could have produced. This is a change prompted by the ending of Chinese communism. A flood of new workers were then available for production. It effectively exported US price inflation abroad. This has caused massive trauma for the workers in the U.S. Who have seen there jobs disappear. The problem is that the corporations and Government have failed to adapt. Those that have lost their jobs now get crappy, low paid jobs because crony capitalist policies have nailed entrepreneurs legs to the floor. Then the monetary policies have destroyed capital formation and money has been doled out to industries which the Government thinks are winners and not what the market has priced as winners. If they aren't doing that they are goosing up asset markets. It's all illusiory economics based on sand. 1. Cut military spending 2. Cut anti competition policies causing cronyism. 3. Stop interventions abroad. 4. Get rid of obamacare 5. Cut taxes 6. Cut government The free ride for crony corporates is at an end and so is big government spending. It's time to go back to proper free market economics and let the real economy grow.