dwai

I see. I understand how different levels of revelation can happen at different levels of understanding. I do that in my stories as well... Also I found that having terse and direct exposition of truth was beneficial too — made/makes me puzzle over what was said, and why, at various points in my ever-unfolding journey. Sometimes it will elicit ridicule, sometimes disbelief, and underneath that will be a planting of a seed — which will bear fruit on its own accord...

Even if it’s not true? IMHO it is a false dichotomy that the absolute is useless in the transactional world. All ethics, guidelines for proper conduct, etc come from the absolute. Isn’t it also indicated in DDJ chapter 38? The way I was taught to refer to the I Ching by my teachers was to do it meditatively, stepping out of the monkey-mind mode and letting the deeper mind/spiritual mind take over. Then cast the yarrow sticks (though I find that virtual coin tosses work for me too). The point I’m making is that certainly, the I Ching provides a framework for interpretation, but to make it work, we have to work with it at a much deeper level than our ego-mind.

Haha my daughter and I have had long talks about the Self

Whether we recognize it or not, we can never not be the Self. I’ve had similar discussions too. Often been reprimanded for conflating the absolute and relative. So I wrote some thoughts on this matter — https://www.medhajournal.com/dcar-vs-sbnr/ Everything we do in the relative, is informed by, and guided by the absolute imho. Duality also appears within the non-dual.

How can we be anything but the Self ?

I hear you. This is not just for india — this will come back to bite us all in the collective buns if we don’t have a solution that will help all (or at least a large percentage of people across the world). As we all know, diseases, like death, don’t pick sides — all are equally vulnerable. What can we do here? I guess what we already are doing — respectfully share our thoughts, concerns and feelings in a safe environment without fear of judgment or reprisal. I love this new TDB — less (or negligible) chest thumping machismo, and more of the genuine and mature discourses that we’ve been having

If there’s a valid medical reason to not get vaccinated, imho there is no problem. The issue is that there is a lot of FUD around the vaccinations — many people refuse to take it simply based on hearsay. Also we have the entire section of individuals who keep questioning the need for masks and social distancing and refuse to follow the safety guidelines claiming that it is “mind control”.

This is also congruent with Advaita Vedanta, though the Vedantin would say “experience is great, but the complete realization of our universal nature is what is of greater importance”. What in this do you find to be similar to Neidan?

The situation internally within India is also highly politicized and polarized with issues unrelated to Covid. So there is certainly some brinksmanship going on with the amount of noise being generated from within, which is getting amplified to the rest of the civilized world. In my friend circle, there are many high-level medical professionals in India (for e.g., heads of departments medical schools/hospitals) who have clearly outlined that vaccination is the fastest way to get out of this pandemic. They also prescribe a combination of medication as a counter for milder cases of Covid. Last winter, when my aunt (81) succumbed to the pandemic, her daughter and son-in-law too contracted the disease. But they were given strong doses of Zinc, vitamin C and some other medications, asked to do regular steam inhalation, and isolate themselves and thankfully they pulled through without infecting my uncle (87) (who was undergoing chemo and radiation therapy for cancer at the time) and my nephew (17). Another of my aunts caught the disease at the same time, was admitted to the ICU for a week and pulled through - she is in her early 60s and has been a yoga/pranayama practitioner for many years now. Fast forward to the second wave, another cousin’s entire family caught the disease. His mom (in her 80s) was moved to a hospital in mumbai, but after seeing that she was exposed greater risk in the hospital, my cousin brought her back home and the entire family has recovered now. Aunt was sick for a few weeks, my younger cousin was sick for 2 weeks Family friends have lost one or more parents. The human impact is tremendous — though it is not always apparent through statistics. My wife returned from India in the middle of the pandemic as she had to go help her mom, who lives alone in India. She told me how terribly dangerous the entire situation is — people were not following social distancing (hard to do given the density of population), many were not masking properly (they’d cover their mouths but not noses). To complicate things, India’s economy, with the last round of lockdowns (which lasted several months) shrunk in double digit numbers last year. So the choice is really to either shelter-in-home or starve to death (in case of more than 300 million people who are at or below the poverty line and rely on daily wages to survive — about the size of the US in population)! What option do they have other than vaccination? To make things worse, anti-Vaxers in India have been spreading FUD about the vaccines, making poor/uneducated people afraid to get vaccinated. I’ve heard anecdotes of people running away to avoid getting vaccinated. This post from a friend on FB summarizes the feeling in India

Your Self is what answers

How did you jump to that conclusion from what I wrote? 😲 Many Indians consider Churchill and the British Raj to be as evil as the Nazis. To be very clear — it has nothing to do with the British people of today.

I guess The Massachusetts General Hospital is one of those “overnight experts”? https://www.massgeneral.org/children/news/asymptomatic-spreaders-young-people-with-covid-19 UC Health https://www.uchealth.org/today/the-truth-about-asymptomatic-spread-of-covid-19/ Harvard https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/08/looking-at-children-as-the-silent-spreaders-of-sars-cov-2/ I admittedly don’t have much direct knowledge on this matter, but really, this was basic biology, but surely the CDC has good information on this matter? https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dsepd/ss1978/lesson1/section10.html

There are many things in the video that make sense. But when he says there’s no evidence of asymptomatic spreaders, that’s what has caused the second wave in India according to many experts. https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-whats-changed-in-second-wave-7289002/

I really think it is a relative thing at one level and a psychological disease at another. Relative how? The British Raj (as an example) was a source of much pride to the English of that time. It certainly seemed to have benefited some of the citizens of England, and certainly ushered in the industrial revolution, often on the backs of appropriated technology from India and China. On the other hand, they committed atrocities of unfathomable proportions (and yet to be fully accounted for) on Indians, and other colonized people. Churchill is as bad as, if not worse than Hitler (he was the architect of the genocide of millions of bengalis in India). Most Indians would consider both the Raj as well as Churchill evil. Yet, in the west, he is considered to be a “hero”, while Hitler is (rightly) vilified everywhere. So good and evil are relative. The psychological problem aspect is where we find the sociopaths and psychopaths — who of course kill and hurt with impunity. It is a disease of the mind/brain. We consider them evil. But similar defects when resulting in great leadership (such as successful CEOs in the business world), are celebrated and feted. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackmccullough/2019/12/09/the-psychopathic-ceo/?sh=6271ed03791e

100% and emphatically agreed!

I think this article captures the sentiments of many Indians/diaspora. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/western-media-double-standard-for-crises-in-foreign-countries-by-brahma-chellaney-2021-05

What would correct action be in this case? When india locked down for 6+ months last year, the spread was contained. It also decimated its economy. Vaccinations started well but lost steam due to anti-Vaxer conspiracy theories and disinformation, along with embargo on raw materials etc in place to make big Pharma richer. India opened up her economy again before vaccinating enough of the population(and it was a proposition of letting millions starve or work) and soon enough the second wave happened. I was not setting up a straw man argument at all. I’m pretty sure you don’t think any one country matters more than another, or that a person’s nationality (or any other identity) should affect the value of their life. I’m no fan of MSM — which I do believe has been coopted by certain politically motivated ideologues and/or ironically also weaponized by large business interests. IMHO MSM makes so much noise when it comes to tragedies like this in India or other developing nations from a position of gleeful condescension — a throwback on the colonial racism and supremacy (though now camouflaged in some other garb). Take for example the images of funeral pyres — will they do that with bodies of westerners in a similar case? They rightly respect the privacy and sanctity of the dead in western nations (for the most part) but the same consideration is not applicable to India or Indians. And, I bet you dollars to donuts someone will win a journalism award for the obviously insensitive images of the burning pyres in India.

How does that impact or alter in any way the the daily cases of people dying in both countries? Is it the case somehow that lives of Americans (or any other nation) are more valuable than those of Indians? Or vice versa? I would say not at all! The per capita statistic doesn’t do much for those affected by this disease, or those millions who have struggled and are struggling to find help in any meaningful way.

This is Swami sarvapriyananda’s message and a lesson on how we can transmute the troubles the world is undergoing with the current pandemic towards Self-realization

I think it's more than just statistics. I'm hearing reports of friends and family falling sick. Lost an aunt to it last December. We can't reduce this kind of pandemic to mere numbers...the human factor looms large. Kind of like the question I asked when the local school district was trying to start in-person classes last year, quoting statistics, "Only 1% are affected", they said. So I asked, "whose kids do you think are dispensible that you're willing to risk in-person classes?"

https://www.taichitao.tv/programs/vintage-complete-single-form-set?categoryId=33727

I think you’ve got it figured out quite well — but I can understand if you are reluctant to name it Beautiful! We already are that which we seek...and yet, seeking, and realization are not mutually exclusive. The wave realizes it is nothing but water, same as the mighty ocean. For a bit more clarity about the OP — I find it very interesting to see how different people look at this topic in different ways. @forestofemptiness’ post about Layman Pang is quite apropos to this most interesting conundrum. The paradox of the “awakened” waking up to one’s innate awake nature leads to the questions — “Who was asleep? Who wakes up?” I asked about the perspective of the waker and the dreamer because when the waker acts in the waking world, the dreamer is forgotten. And yet, when the dreamer wakes up in the dreaming world, the waker is forgotten. The remembering and forgetting interplay with the waker and the dreamer. But that which lights up both the remembrance and the forgetting — that IS our awake nature.

No I mean Dao Gong as a part of the temple style practice. Tai chi forms are a vehicle for learning and delivering “dao gong” as the practice matures. You can get a lot of detailed single person practices here — https://www.taichitao.tv/

I was hoping we could explore this topic in the context of your post as you brought up remembering and forgetting in context of waking and sleeping. I’d perhaps like to further categorize it as the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep — which is one of the several methods used for inquiry into our true nature. I certainly didn’t mean it as a challenge, but rather assumed that you have a grander plan in motion with that initial observation. I hope I didn’t inadvertently offend you.

Forgetting and remembering from which perspective? The waker or the dreamer?