Aetherous

I think if you've cultivated spirituality enough, or even cultivated qi enough, your field becomes strong enough that bad stuff just sluffs off or bounces off you without any effort, and shadow beings flee from you. It's as if you radiate light, and it fills all the space around you, influencing the outer world...whereas you're aware of the outer world, but it changes your state of being less than before. I tend to think that living in a headspace of believing you're being negatively affected by others psychically isn't so good...to some extent, believe it is so and it becomes so. That's a dark state of mind to be in...better to even just pretend nothing is wrong. Then it becomes more true, and eventually the problem really goes away. It may also be the case that psychic attacks seeming to happen are a symptom of having poor boundaries in other aspects of one's life, and establishing rock solid boundaries in another area that needs it might help resolve the issue.

This doesn't make sense...immigrants breed uncontrollably, but nature in its wisdom is lowering the birth rates...but only of quality citizens? And we're pressed by others to let immigrants in with their excessive breeding, despite going toward automation and needing less workers? I don't think a decreased birth rate is the solution to the automation problem.

Let's put this into modern day realistic terms, where the living wage equivalent (let's be generous and say that's $15 an hour for 40 hours per week) would be the UBI. Are you saying you'd quit your $48,642/year job (I don't know what you make, this is the 2016 average wage for the US), to receive the living wage equivalent UBI ($31,200) for doing nothing? That would be a decision to lose $17,442 worth of gross income per year. At least personally, I wouldn't want to scrape by like that. Forgetting these calculations which I just made up...the actual UBI would probably be even less impressive.

I have an inkling that externally observable light (such as the sun, moon, stars, artificial bulbs, etc) isn't the light being discussed here. But it is an interesting and sensible interpretation of the book to think it means turning the attention away from external observation. I just don't think that's really the method, even if that is an effect of it.

double post

I agree, it seems very hard to make sense of this text without a teacher who could elucidate it. I also agree that the instruction in part has something to do with the eyes. From what little I know, the subject matter it deals with is usually sworn to secrecy in all cultures. In this thread, there are so many of what I would consider false interpretations...but hey, that's just me and it's not like I'm able to understand this text fully, either.

I think the book itself gives some preparatory arm opening movements. The more qi flow you develop, and also the more you get used to the position (so the more consistently you practice over months and years), the easier it becomes. I don't think it's productive to work through the pain. Just let the arms go, and do wuji...then you could go back to embracing the tree once the arms feel normal again. Gradually, you can handle more time.

I think you're right, it really seems to be market top right now...although I thought that advice was right 2 years ago also, and it wasn't. At that time I started using Investopedia's stock simulator, and today it's sitting pretty at 10% returns, despite the corrections this past year.

I just made this wage calculator on Excel...I'm sure it's been done before, but oh well. When job searching, I've noticed that sometimes a listing will give a weekly pay only...sometimes hourly only...sometimes a yearly salary only. At least personally, it's not so easy to put these numbers into context. Let's say if a job posting told you the hourly wage. When you type it into this calculator, you can easily see what the yearly salary would be, how much you'll have in a month (in gross pay, before taxes etc), or in a week. Or if they only told you the yearly salary, you could easily see what the hourly wage would equate to, etc. It's good to compare job opportunities in light of contextualizing the numbers. I also added a highlighted portion that reminds us what the average person makes in the US...hopefully that acts as motivation to find better work, rather than just going with the abundance of minimum to living wage jobs. It's interesting to type in your local living wage and compare that to the national average...living wage is still way below the average. Here it is: wage calculator.xlsx

You should learn more about long term investing in total markets. It's totally incomparable to gambling, or anything addictive or destructive. Learning more is what this thread is about. Check out the book I recommended, "Millionaire Teacher". They do. That's the way most people lose money in the stock market, and is what I think would be akin to gambling. I would prefer to call it "donating", since I wouldn't expect to see the money back (although it could come back sometimes). Two major problems with the suggested approach: 1) it's not diversified, so when the business fails, or the value of the stock decreases, your money simply goes away with it. 2) It's based on gut feelings rather than something reliable. What's reliable? Some smart people are good at investing in individual companies. But they don't do it based on how they feel that day...they do it based on things like the actual value of the company - and if it's undervalued in the market, then it's more wise to invest in that one because it's likely that the value of the stock will increase. Too much work and there's still the chance of being wrong with this approach...but for instance, Warren Buffett made his money this way. So for the rest of us who aren't as smart, who don't actually take the time to learn about individual companies and know how to analyse them...this approach is a losing strategy. It's similar to being the gambler who feels lucky, despite the odds being in favor of the casino. For planning for retirement, which is the opposite of a behavior that's "destructive", go with long term total market investing.

I think that's really what's going to happen here, regardless of your choice.

Totally agree. It's just setting up money for retirement, when you can't work but somehow need to live. Social security isn't a guarantee...some people don't have pensions, or any other retirement accounts. To me it seems a way to potentially get rich quickly, not decades down the line, is with passive income from rentals. Or other ways...but from what I know so far, that seems the easiest to get into (versus owning or buying a business).

I think that's very true, especially for people getting into trading. But with long term investing, like multiple decades, the market has a tendency to grow by about 10% each year on average. Not to say all stocks will grow that much...only the market as a whole, like DJIA or S&P500. I view money as a means of survival, and also the primary means to be able to do the things I want in life...so it's very important. I plan on buying my freedom, and bringing others with me. I'm just 33, so I have quite a few years left. I've spent most of my years already doing things that I enjoy, and will continue to do so...but these days I have a strong yearning to be free, and that will never be the case so long as I'm one paycheck away from being in the financial hole. I love the universe a lot...even money! Even myself!

Also, I'd go back and edit some posts of mine, but that would take up more time than I want to spend on this... So here's my opinion these days (not that I'm an expert, clearly still learning). For stock market investing, I really just like the idea of Paul Merriman's ultimate buy and hold strategy, using ETFs through Vanguard. Either doing portfolio 7 to be super diversified, or portfolio 8 to be riskier yet likely fare better in the end.

Does anyone do real estate investing...owning multiple properties that you rent out and having a property management company do everything? That's looking like where my future will be heading. https://www.biggerpockets.com seems to be a great resource for this. Robert Kiyosaki also seems to be a good resource on how to think about this stuff in general...such as why people should invest in assets like this. Morris Invest on youtube has some videos which describes some real estate investing basics, and although it seems to be created for getting people to purchase properties through his company, it does appear to have good info.

I personally think it's just the image, and the viewer's mirror neurons reacting. You could try doing the same movements without intending to send any energy, and see if it still causes an effect for viewers...at least that would eliminate the intention on one side of it.

So, we saw Soros finally striking back with Apple, Facebook, YouTube, and Spotify all censoring or banning Infowars on the same day. I'm actually surprised Twitter didn't join in.

I think it's possible to affect someone's mirror neurons pretty easily. I've seen videos where people have a smudge stick, and wave the smoke at the lens...that definitely seems to have an effect on the viewer. Not because it's sacred smoke blessed by a high priest Mayan shaman named Dave who is able to send energy on a quantum level, but because the body interprets it as if the lens were your eyes and the smoke was really being waved at you.

I'm all for checks and balances. That's what worries me when people are talking about a totally free market with no government.

Most of the time this doesn't happen. People buy primarily out of self interest...not just in terms of what they're buying, but also how cheap it is. Self interest isn't always in the interests of the larger society, or other people in it. Not just with consumers, but with producers...they look to get the best profit from their service, and to not lose those profits to wages. I don't think capitalism is bad, or that business is evil...I'm a capitalist who believes in business of any size. I just think the free market won't ever consider those who don't directly benefit it, and they won't see the repercussions of the lack of consideration. A government is needed, for instance, to set up unemployment insurance in case workers lose their jobs, food stamps in case local jobs aren't paying enough to survive, etc...so that these people can contribute to businesses (even if they didn't earn that money themselves, like with food stamps) and not ruin the areas these businesses operate in (like laying in the street, begging, annoying shoppers). For instance, what business wants to move to the poverty stricken areas of Detroit? There's no prosperity there, so it becomes basically a wasteland that everyone moves away from. How is that good for business?

Well, that's not the only time. If there were zero government, problems would certainly get out of hand. A free market has no concern for society or even individuals...it's only win-win in terms of the business and the customer who buys there. Some people like Libertarians think a free market is self regulating, and would improve society...for instance because customers would want an improved society and put their money toward it...but there's zero evidence that would occur, and if you give it some thought, the opposite would most likely happen - gradual destruction of society. I think the solution is just a tight rope walk that the government does between benefiting society in the midst of a relatively free market, and not infringing too much into it.

Couldn't agree more.

You can do anything you set your mind to. If you want to be more of a warrior, and if you have an interest in transcendence and liberation...no problem. You will be able to tell when different things you're cultivating are conflicting.

While I don't always agree with him and think he's a little bull headed, knowing the truth takes a bit more digging than immediately discarding someone who you disagree with. What if you're the one who's wrong? The only way to find out is to be impartial and listen over time.

I think it was Lee Stranahan (who himself is a questionable source, due to being associated with Sputnik News)...on his twitter he shared some evidence how at least one of these photos was fake. Sorry I don't have a direct link, but if anyone is interested in veracity testing this Q stuff, look into that.