Nikolai1

Hi Yueya, Great questions, thanks. I agree that my labels aren't the best. To be honest I didn't give them enough thought. The second type I've noticed aren't suffering people. They aren't afflicted with depression, anxiety, guilt, addiction. They haven't been set back by some really shitty parenting. They are balanced, happy, functioning and, yes, maybe successful. But this is not enough for them. There is something more to life, they feel. This is what brings them to the path. They are looking for more than worldly happiness offers. These people will find it hard to understand the first kind, who have overcome their had start in life and have reached the level of the normal person. They are as happy and contented with their path/teacher as the everyday person is happy with their house and car. They defend it likewise. They are nominally religious but spiritally and psychologically just veryday people. The third kind I considered rare and so didn't give them much attention, but they are probably more common than I thought. These are the ones have have found a solution to their suffering, and yet haven't rested contented. This takes immense courage, because to push on usually requires a reevaluation of the path we started on and grew to love. We have to become more open than feels comfortable. We have to deal with ambiguity rather than certainty. To question what has clearly worked for us and with nothing obvious to replace it takes courage. Thanks for you words.

Thanks Manitou - it actually sounds like you are one of those I meant when I said:

I think many of us have experienced this kind of anger. It feels like some kind of show. It is strategic, and at the same time happening outside your control. You watch yourself be angry, but you are emotionally uninvolved. There is none of that unpleasant adrenal aftermath that you normally get after anger. It is actually very pure and beautiful, and usually very persuasive. In my experience it has only happened when I have had the other person's interests at heart.

For me the teacher/writer is the person whose metier is the written word. The student, therefore, is best served by reading the person's books rather than meeting them in the flesh. It might also refer to someone who is very gifted at explaining the spiritual life, but their actual daily life is not the best living example. So who fits this desrciption in my opinion? J. Krishnamurti Alan Watts Joseph Campbell Aldous Huxley Wei Wu Wei Paul Brunton Wayne Dyer Deepak Chopra Carl G. Jung Leo Tolstoy Ralph Waldo Emerson Hermann Hesse Most of the grestest spiritual teachers have only incidentally written books, or had books made of their own words e.g Ramana Maharsi. Then we have those who are great teachers and writers e.g. Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti and one of own niche favourites: Nirmala.

Hi Orion, I agree with all this, but I'd like to add a few things: 1) Once the witness state is seen as 'somewhere to go', the emotions do continue to arise (as they always have) but our engagement with them is much more detached. Things don't escalate because the witness state removes energy from them. We might notice our anger at another driver, but it is noticed instantly and with a kind of irony. This removes the energy from the anger and we do not find ourselves slamming our horn and shouting expletives. This just stops happening and our lives becoes smoother, mellower and less angry. So, this idea that life goes on as normal is slightly misleading. Shit does stilll happen, but in a very much milder form. 2) I've noticed that there are lots of people who are very fond of this 'we still feel anger after awakening theory'. These are people who are stil getting riled about a whole range of stuff, still quite neurotic, still very concerned about how they appear to others etc. They may have had one or two genuine non-dual experiences, but rather than carry on practising to deepen on, they prefer to think that their anger is all very healthy and awakened and pure and spontaneous. 3) The other side of the coin is those who think that they must demonstrate their aakening by always being very peaceful and mellow. They suppress their anger because they think that's how it should be. And because suppression works for a while they claim success in their awakening...and every now and then they explode. So yes, I get what you're saying but I'm also sure that others will totally misread you.

At the intellectual level we have no choice but to stop at stage 2 out of 3. But in our actual deeds in the world, and in our love for the word it is clear when we have moved to stage 3. Peace and compassion emanate. We act as if the world is more real than ever...and yet when we speak, pure emptiness is all we can say.

Interesting times in Britain! Jeremy Corbyn, a lifelong socialist and republican, has suddenly become Her Majesty's Leader of the Opposition. As part of the role he is expeced to join the Privy Council, the Monarch's special panel of advisors, but first he must show his loyalty by kneeling at the Queen's feet and kissing her hand. If he agrees he will be called insincere and a turncoat; if he disagrees he will be called unpatriotic, dogmatic, and perhaps worst in some eyes...impolite to Her Majesty. Can the correct course of action be recommended? I'd like your views. But first, what is a republican? What is a monarchist? The republican is essentially an idealist. Despite the huge differences in status that we see in society, to the republican all humans are in their essence equal. The reality fails to match up to the essential truth. Hierarchies of human worth are a pernicious illusion, the equality of man is the reality. We must act and behave in the way that ensures the two tally. The common man msut be raised up, the Monarch must be debased The monarchist, on the other hand, is a realist. There is no underlying unseen essence. Things are exactly as they should be. Hierarchy is a wholly natural and valid phenomenon. We see it in nature and in all human societies. The attempt to overcome it is unnatural and contrived and bound to fail. Idealism is the peculiarly human perversion and is what disturbs the natural order. So we see in the republican and the monarchist two expressions of the ancient dilemma. Is the perfect order unseen and yet to be realised? Or is the perfect order already here in things as they are? Do we need to attain heaven?, or simply surrender, and realise that we are already in it? At the intellectual level it is very difficult to arbitrate between these two positions, when we see them stated so baldly. Those who can find intellectual justification only do so to the extent that they ignore their basic assumptions. But both are united in one thing: that things aren't quite satisfactory as they are. So what should Jeremy Corbyn do?

All conversations with the likes of Karl will reduce to this statement. The mystical beyond is either known in your deepest heart - the certainness behind all certainty...or it is not known at all. And alas, our deepest certainties are beyong description. We cannot tell or show Karl. He either believes us or he doesn't.

Ah, the 'don't think about things, just do things' side.

A noble race of thinkers. Can't fault the Prussians.

What's your ancestry Marblehead?

Maybe not kissing her hand is also part of the fun game. It's just more interesting not to, isn't it?

To like Britain, you maybe need that distinctive nostalgia for the ancient. Not everyone has it, but for those who do, Britain is a really rich and evocative place.

When I was a boy in the eighties people still thought Britian was great. we were still proud of something, maybe the war. No-one thinks like that anymore. We're neither great nor rubbish, just a normal country.

Great refers to the larger political grouping of England, Wales and Scotland so not Isle of Man, Scilly etc. It means size not grandeur.

I'm a bit disappointed to see that there is already quite a lot of politician answers in Corbyn. When Laura Kuenssberg asked him if he would kiss the Queen's hand, he claimed this was the first he had heard of such a requirement and would have to think about it. This can't possibly be true! Everyone who reads the papers knows what the politians must do with the Queen. Articles are written every time a new figure comes along. Surely Corbyn knows what has happened with fellow labour MPs whether in power or in opposition. if he is going to hold on to his power base, the everyday Labour party, he has to be thoroughly transparent and honest in everything. if he can't do this then he has to just jump through all the hoops without question as Blair did. Both extremes can work, but the middle appraoch won't.

I think like you that there'll be lots of conservatism in Corbyn, despite his surface socialism. I've never met a socialist where this isn't the case. And yes, like you say...if he was truly anti-monarchist he probably wouldn't be seeking power for himself. There is very little difference between the King and the Chairman (of the Mao variety).

i think your perhaps arguing what he should pragamtically do. i've been wondering what he should do on principle.

You say that Corbyn, along with all politicians are already collectivist conservatives because only that breed engages with it all. But time has shown constant change with regards to the monarch's powers. This change hasn't happened by some Act of God. Individual politicians with individual values have been the agents for it. Or perhaps you don't agree?

So a politician shouldn't act on personal principle, but on what he judges to be already the majority principle. So he should be a conservative collectivist basically. Suppress his uniqueness in favur of tradition and consensus.

There have been many times in British history when British monarchs have been overthrown, improsoned even executed by dissenters. Not kneeling is a mild gesture in comparison to what has happened. Why wouldn't this happen now? Why wouldn't Corbyn succeed in joining the Privy Council without kneeling? Why do you say: 'He is opposition leader and as such he needs to get singing along with the national anthem, kneeling before the queen and wearing a red poppy'

So what you're saying is that he must play the role as it should be played. Just as an actor must speak Hamlet's opinions and not his own?

Hi Karl So wat he should do is continue the 'maintenance of the establishment?'

One thing that all people are agreed on is: that the Queen shouldn't play any real role in policy. Even David Cameron wouldn't take his respect for the monarch that far. The privy council and the ceremonies that surround admittance to it date back from a time when the Monarch was sovereign in all things, policy especially. Loyalty was crucial. Is David Cameron being insincere by kneeling before the Queen but refusing to be in anyway subordinate in ruling the country?

To call the Queen a mere symbol is already republicanism. To many she is not a symbol but the living embodiment of sovereign power. She is there at the head of society as legitmately as the Alpha Chimp is at the head of his. The whole course of history has contrived to put her there. We dethrone her at our peril!