Dr. Jeffery Martin, The Finders Course Works, Sorry Haters |406|

Here working on a national energy strategy for a South American nation. Sick as a dog with the flu. Tell me there is some kind of enlightenment or Zen or whatever in this... I have to just work though it... uggghh....

Maybe fighting corruption in a national energy system to get the energy flowing is being metaphorically reproduced by your body's personal Chi system allowing you to anthropomorphize the feelings of the nation... Wu wei :)
 
Also, I have known very wealthy - idle rich - who were miserable. It's not just work that stresses us out. It's all manner of societal and personal issues.

People on welfare sit around drinking, doing drugs and living in trash strewn, high murder rate neighborhoods, feeling rotten. All that time on their hands and all they can do is complain and cause more misery.
A God granted human life is an awesome thing and surely a sin to waste in such ways, eric. But to realize the waste such persons must first comprehend the fact that they have value. How shall a person rise from being convinced they must be a loser because they have a learning disability and were born into a loser family and are constantly reminded of this by those around them. In fact such was the case with me. But I had strength, energy and a determination to be successful somehow. I took an apprenticeship in carpentry which was the only trade for which a mere grade ten education was required and began building my first house in spare hours next to my day job as carpenter's apprentice. Granted, it was only a small bungalow but I managed to complete it and have it all paid for inside of three years. The venture gave me a house and at last some confidence in myself.
 
People on welfare sit around drinking, doing drugs and living in trash strewn, high murder rate neighborhoods, feeling rotten. All that time on their hands and all they can do is complain and cause more misery.

I think you need a qualifier here - 'some people on welfare'. Certainly not all. There is certainly a valid conversation to be had about welfare, but it must be informed by facts, rather than perceptions. There is an entrenched negative loop that some people get into, but their chances of escape from their situation are as much about their limitations as ours. We can wall them out of movement out of their situation - save the few have the internal means to transition. It is important to understand that the 'welfare trap' is part of our cultural structure and the moralities that make it. The people in it are often paralysed by psychological trauma that arises from horrific life experiences. We do not know their stories. We see only the wreckage of their lives.

For example a few years back I was developing support packages for young people leaving the care of the state. One young woman has been placed in care after being removed from her family. She had been sexually abused by her father, her eldest brother and an uncle before she was 12. She had no therapy, so by the time she came into my area of influence she was a mess. She had been damaged by her family, injured by the state and at the age of 18 had been ejected into the world to live alone with funded supports - and things did not go well - as you might guess.

People do not end up living on welfare unless they have had life experiences that have deeply injured them and have closed down the options for advancement and prosperity that are open to others. A lot of us can look at our now lives, know we have suffered, and yet we have scraped together some semblance of a dignified life - even if we are not prospering. There is a political motive to identify an internal enemy - the undeserving who are a drain on our welfare funds and compassion. Sometimes we do not bother to care about them at all. Other times we use them to boost our own senses of self-righteous indignation about the shit we have to put up with.

But here's the reality - you end up in the gutter when life kicks there crap out of your capacity to flourish, or even survive with dignity. And you stay there if you don't have the strength of character to haul yourself out or there is nobody to help you. Some of us are born with the strength of character that makes us resilient in the worst situations. Some of us are blessed with a family that taught us how to develop and sustain strength of character. Do those who have neither deserve our condemnation?

For me the essence of Christianity is the reaching out to those who are not endowed with the means to survive or thrive. They are no less us. I have the good fortune to live in a country that is inherently compassionate - but also inherently stupid. It executes good intent badly - why is a whole essay.

Here's an interesting perspective. We treat people with profound physical disabilities with extraordinary compassion. We treat veterans who return from the horrors of conflict engaged on our behalf with necessary generosity and compassion. We have various compensation schemes for people who suffer through misfortune or accident. And yet the relentless toll of trauma induced by life circumstances - physical, emotional and sexual abuse - is unremarked because we are told there is a moral dimension to it - and we have no responsibility as a society or a community?

I get that there must be management of how we spend our welfare funds - because there is so little to be divided to so many. But the old divide of 'deserving' and 'undeserving' does not work. I grew up in a 'deserving' poor family. All that meant was that we were sufficiently together enough to function in a disciplined and lawful way. The 'underserving poor' were way more traumatised - and they couldn't get their shit together to organise a coherent and lawful act - let alone aspire. For a long time they were my friends.

US and Australian systems are very different, but they are plagued by the same ills - educated middle-class do-gooders who have not the foggiest notion that their elaborate systems are rubbish.

I get where you are coming from. I had the same POV once, and I still struggle after 4 decades in elements of the 'welfare' system. I struggle because it is right to ask why the passivity and the self-indulgence that creates more problems persists - and it is just as right to challenge how 'solutions' are imagined and implemented.
 
Maybe fighting corruption in a national energy system to get the energy flowing is being metaphorically reproduced by your body's personal Chi system allowing you to anthropomorphize the feelings of the nation... Wu wei :)

Nice, but with one huge problem. If we could collectively imagine that would be good.,But could I get my right big toe to participate in a remediation program covering my whole body? No. I spend around 15 months using everything I could muster to make my body work again after contracting GBS. A lot of people think I did a damned fine job. But my ankles don't work and I struggle to move my toes.

Flick that to fighting corruption on a national level - sure some good results will ensure. But unless the body politic is a cohesive singularity that will not be enough.

How willing are you to be selflessly dedicated to the cause?
 
I think you need a qualifier here - 'some people on welfare'. Certainly not all. There is certainly a valid conversation to be had about welfare, but it must be informed by facts, rather than perceptions. There is an entrenched negative loop that some people get into, but their chances of escape from their situation are as much about their limitations as ours. We can wall them out of movement out of their situation - save the few have the internal means to transition. It is important to understand that the 'welfare trap' is part of our cultural structure and the moralities that make it. The people in it are often paralysed by psychological trauma that arises from horrific life experiences. We do not know their stories. We see only the wreckage of their lives.

For example a few years back I was developing support packages for young people leaving the care of the state. One young woman has been placed in care after being removed from her family. She had been sexually abused by her father, her eldest brother and an uncle before she was 12. She had no therapy, so by the time she came into my area of influence she was a mess. She had been damaged by her family, injured by the state and at the age of 18 had been ejected into the world to live alone with funded supports - and things did not go well - as you might guess.

People do not end up living on welfare unless they have had life experiences that have deeply injured them and have closed down the options for advancement and prosperity that are open to others. A lot of us can look at our now lives, know we have suffered, and yet we have scraped together some semblance of a dignified life - even if we are not prospering. There is a political motive to identify an internal enemy - the undeserving who are a drain on our welfare funds and compassion. Sometimes we do not bother to care about them at all. Other times we use them to boost our own senses of self-righteous indignation about the shit we have to put up with.

But here's the reality - you end up in the gutter when life kicks there crap out of your capacity to flourish, or even survive with dignity. And you stay there if you don't have the strength of character to haul yourself out or there is nobody to help you. Some of us are born with the strength of character that makes us resilient in the worst situations. Some of us are blessed with a family that taught us how to develop and sustain strength of character. Do those who have neither deserve our condemnation?

For me the essence of Christianity is the reaching out to those who are not endowed with the means to survive or thrive. They are no less us. I have the good fortune to live in a country that is inherently compassionate - but also inherently stupid. It executes good intent badly - why is a whole essay.

Here's an interesting perspective. We treat people with profound physical disabilities with extraordinary compassion. We treat veterans who return from the horrors of conflict engaged on our behalf with necessary generosity and compassion. We have various compensation schemes for people who suffer through misfortune or accident. And yet the relentless toll of trauma induced by life circumstances - physical, emotional and sexual abuse - is unremarked because we are told there is a moral dimension to it - and we have no responsibility as a society or a community?

I get that there must be management of how we spend our welfare funds - because there is so little to be divided to so many. But the old divide of 'deserving' and 'undeserving' does not work. I grew up in a 'deserving' poor family. All that meant was that we were sufficiently together enough to function in a disciplined and lawful way. The 'underserving poor' were way more traumatised - and they couldn't get their shit together to organise a coherent and lawful act - let alone aspire. For a long time they were my friends.

US and Australian systems are very different, but they are plagued by the same ills - educated middle-class do-gooders who have not the foggiest notion that their elaborate systems are rubbish.

I get where you are coming from. I had the same POV once, and I still struggle after 4 decades in elements of the 'welfare' system. I struggle because it is right to ask why the passivity and the self-indulgence that creates more problems persists - and it is just as right to challenge how 'solutions' are imagined and implemented.

Michael,
I don't want to talk about socio-economic forces, psychology, etc of welfare. That would be a trollish thing to get into on this thread. Suffice it to say that you are correct that not everyone on welfare fits my description. I have known some people on welfare who kept their living quarters squared away and who were good people working as hard as possible to get out of the situation. That said, I grew up a few blocks from the Detroit border with my suburb. We called Detroit "the jungle". It was filled with people that lived like wild animals and that would literally kill me if I strayed across the border. We always locked the car doors and my Dad kept a loaded pistol ready whenever we had to drive the many miles through there to get downtown ( a practice I adopted when I was old enough). So many once nice homes and neighborhoods turned into filth strewn hellholes by welfare recipients with so much time on their hands. The industrial epicenter of a nation looking like a bombed out ruin, mile after mile. No excuse for any of that. I'm sure there is no equivalent in your country.
 
.....So I am not unsympathetic to the materialist model and ramifications. I disagree with it, personally, but I understand why it is dominant and fights to maintain that position. I see Dr. Martin as someone who might be able to be an ambassador between the two camps. The materialists have to understand that they are wrong and that people, being vastly more than meatbots, are going to keep having experiences that defy the current paradigm. Social media and that sort of thing are going to further promote the paradigm gaps and the ruling paradigm will increasingly be seen as corrupt. The spokespeople for the ruling paradigm would do well to work with such ambassadors from the non-materialists camp to find a way to integrate what people experience into the existing system. Revolutions are never pretty. You don't want that. You want incremental change. A guru from the Himalayas or some goofy New Ager is not going to make for an acceptable ambassador.
It is such a pity that the word 'materialist' has two meanings that are basically distinct but vaguely related. A materialist in the sense of someone who enjoys lots of 'stuff' might be a non-materialist philosophically, but equally he might not care a damn!

I think there is a decent chance that chunks of supposedly established science will turn out to be false, and that may give a jolt to everyone. Particularly if people come to see that life simply has to have been designed.

Perhaps in the dangerous parts of Western cities, you are seeing people grouped into what are effectively tribes. They (mostly) fend for each other, but have scant concern about laws or property in general.

Keeping people sensibly occupied with work that also pays reasonably is a hell of a problem, but when this breaks down badly and for long enough, tribal structure re-emerges.

I am not sure this has much to do with people recognising spiritual values of some sort.

David
 
Interesting when I am sick I seem to gain better mental clarity my brain fog dissappears and the thoughts I am having are calm

Just to report, the client nation absolutely loved the energy strategy - and is crafting a work order to begin the development immediately (2 weeks). Got the call this morning. That was a marathon of sickness and work... but the ministers were 'floored' and are eager to begin... according to the liaison.

Apologies, for the subject break. Now back to the thread subject... ' the formula'
 
No excuse for any of that. I'm sure there is no equivalent in your country.
There isn't. I get it. A certain density of despair breed a culture that is self-sustaining and can seem self-chosen. But this is my point about the way a culture crafts layers that become entrenched. Think of it the other way.There are ideal rich who are ill-disciplined and self-indulgent, and who squander wealth and are abusive and cruel in their own way. They generate a different kind of havoc. But envy them because we are seduced by the superficial appearance of plenty. If w edit deep enough we may find they are also 'welfare' recipients - living off the public purse or drawing down on our 'commonwealth' courtesy of nicely crafted contracts, cosy legislation, tax breaks or paying no tax at all - or plain criminal activity executed in the comfort of knowing penalties will be light.

I am a great believer of the normal curve - there are extremes either end. It does matter whether we have welfare systems that provide enough to stave off desperation for the bottom end of life's fortune - regardless of reasons - because insufficiency deepens the 'negative' extreme - just as extreme excess deepens the 'positive' extreme.

The interesting thing about life is that it inhabits extreme environments with great tenacity. If our culture creates extremes of fortune and misfortune they will be inhabited. Its not a moral issue, but a structural one. If there is a moral dimension it rests not with the inhabitants of the extreme states, but with those who permit or enable their creation.

It is easy for the middle to look to the extremes with moral outrage, but that is a projection we are encouraged to engage in by religious and political forces who long ago discovered moral outrage is a better tool for manipulation and control than compassion and honest self-reflection.
 
I think there is a decent chance that chunks of supposedly established science will turn out to be false, and that may give a jolt to everyone. Particularly if people come to see that life simply has to have been designed.

Science is a constant reframing of belief. What we are so often induced to ignore is that science is about gathering the data and making sense of it. Interpretation is another matter. Scientists, like everyone else, make metaphysical guesses about the nature of human reality - and those guesses inform how they interpret data - scientific and otherwise.

For example materialists guess their POV is right in the same way atheists guess there is no God. Without compelling experiences to dislodge that guess they are likely to create a narrative on the assumption they are right - and be biased to toward that assumption. They can't know whether they are right - and believing they are is intellectual arrogance and laziness.

So what we call Science is persistently proven to be false, not because the data are wrong or badly understood, but because the presumptions that inform interpretation are demonstrated not to be sustained. What we call Science was once called Natural Philosophy, which is a more accurate name in my view. There is a vast difference between being wrong because your observations and measurements were crap and being wrong because you misinterpreted what the data told you (not, of course, that it 'tells' you anything).

This is why there is a lunatic intolerance for the idea of Intelligent Design. Let's ignore the oxymoronic issue of design being inherently intelligent. The objection to 'Creation' is mostly an objection to the idea itself because of its theological stigma, rather than a reasoned objection to the idea that there could be a spirit driving manifest existence as a creative and evolutionary endeavour. The materialist absolutely denies the metaphysical. They do not know. They guess. And because they have no grasp at all of the metaphysical beyond the idiotic theologies they have no escape from their guess trap until evolving science tramples their intransigent confusion.

Personally I am not a fan of ID. I think the engine of evolution is intent, rather than chance. The difference is that design requires forethought and imagination before action, whereas intent expresses and adapts to the response from inherent complexity. I suspect that the term 'design' is misapplied, when a word like 'craft' might be closer. For example people use the term 'designer baby' to confer an idea that a child is formed by deliberate actions at a genetic level - executing a plan of action thought out beforehand. That is not the equivalent of Divine Creation - and we can't use Genesis as a text book or a history. If we fall into the folly of debating Genesis as if it is a statement of record rather than a myth we give it status it does not deserve.

What we do know from a global perspective is the belief that the Divine (in all its aspects) caused what is to be by a creative act of will - intent. Whether that act can be said to incorporate design as opposed to coherent will might be a matter of refined metaphysical debate. But given design is an act of will in any case, we can at least safely argue for will as a valid proposition - and then we can get into whether it is a better mechanism than chance.

For me will, or intent, makes more sense than chance. That does not mean that 'religion wins'. Our understanding of psychology vindicates the value of love and compassion. But that does not mean that Christianity is vindicated as a religion just because the central mythic figure embodied those values. The faith's behaviour has not enacted conduct consistent with them to a sufficient degree to allow any claim of vindication. Likewise acknowledgement of the driving causative agency of intentional will does not validate any theology or belief mired in literalism.

Science can assert intentionality and will based on evidence and not fear being tainted by theology. But then these days scientists are often so narrowly educated they don't know enough to know that. They have no decent philosophy of nature - just a bunch of data and not very good opinions about what it means.
 
I am a great believer of the normal curve .

As am I. Anyone who fails to incorporate the ramification of the normal curve (or any distribution mode) in social policy (or any policy or ideology) is making a serious mistake.

The movers and shakers of the world, for better and worse, are usually those at the more extreme ends of the distribution (+/- 2.5 standard deviations). What these people are going to do makes or breaks the entire concept. It's not the impact on the average that matters.
 
I love everything about this guy and thus guys work apart from the price of the finders course. Two and a half thousand dollars. Meanwhile he's talking about this being something everyone should experience.
But the work is amazing, practical results without the restrictions of quote unquote spirituality.
Spirituality has been my main focus for decades but inner peace and happiness have nothing to do with religious dogma.
I'm grateful for his work but I'm gonna spend the next month investigating his techniques like the Headless Way but I'm probably not paying for the full finders course.
 
I love everything about this guy and thus guys work apart from the price of the finders course. Two and a half thousand dollars. Meanwhile he's talking about this being something everyone should experience.
But the work is amazing, practical results without the restrictions of quote unquote spirituality.
Spirituality has been my main focus for decades but inner peace and happiness have nothing to do with religious dogma.
I'm grateful for his work but I'm gonna spend the next month investigating his techniques like the Headless Way but I'm probably not paying for the full finders course.

Seems like a lot, I agree... I'm more of a DIY type of person. Although if he gets results faster than religion... think about a 10% tithe... or then there's spa retreats that charge $1000 a day for a temporary stress relief. If he can get the silicon valley crowd to buy into it, there's plenty of people who will give it a try at that price.
 
I want to echo and add to an earlier comment about Dr. Martin’s mentioning of Douglas Harding’s Headless Way. Prior to listening to this episode I came across numerous seekers from diverse schools who shared exactly what Dr. Martin and his Buddhist research subjects reported here: that they spent numerous years or decades seeking fruitlessly or only experiencing minor or modest therapeutic gains and then discovered the headless way and WHAM! self-realization took hold. These were people who sacrificed attending college or having relationships or garnering financial stability in order to lay it all down for self-realization - AND THE WAY THEY TOOK FAILED THEM... and then, maybe decades later they found the headless way and that was the end of the road.

When I heard Dr. Martin share about the headless way in this episode I laughed out loud because, of course, this seemingly silly collection of experiments that you can watch on YouTube for free is what did it for Dr. Martin and his Buddhist lifers but we’re supposed to fork out $2,500 for a meditation course when Douglas Harding says in his books that he hated meditating and gave it up because it was boring and he disliked it!

WTF? Let’s just do the headless way! It’s all but free! The books are cheap and YouTube is littered with Harding’s experiments! Who cares if it’s so simple that it’s embarrassing!? If that’s what works then that’s a virtue, not a failing! Sounds like the real “finders” are the people who take the headless way!
 
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I want to echo and add to an earlier comment about Dr. Martin’s mentioning of Douglas Harding’s Headless Way. Prior to listening to this episode I came across numerous seekers from diverse schools who shared exactly what Dr. Martin and his Buddhist research subjects reported here: that they spent numerous years or decades seeking fruitlessly or only experiencing minor or modest therapeutic gains and then discovered the headless way and WHAM! self-realization took hold. These were people who sacrificed attending college or having relationships or garnering financial stability in order to lay it all down for self-realization - AND THE WAY THEY TOOK FAILED THEM... and then, maybe decades later they found the headless way and that was the end of the road.

When I heard Dr. Martin share about the headless way in this episode I laughed out loud because, of course, this seemingly silly collection of experiments that you can watch on YouTube for free is what did it for Dr. Martin and his Buddhist lifers but we’re supposed to fork out $2,500 for a meditation course when Douglas Harding says in his books that he hated meditating and gave it up because it was boring and he disliked it!

WTF? Let’s just do the headless way! It’s all but free! The books are cheap and YouTube is littered with Harding’s experiments! Who cares if it’s so simple that it’s embarrassing!? If that’s what works then that’s a virtue, not a failing! Sounds like the real “finders” are the people who take the headless way!

There's a key page on YouTube that introduces the headless way, which I've been vaguely aware of for some time, but watching and listening to a student of Douglas Harding (Richard Lang) in the first two videos on the page reminded me that the experience of the One can also be experienced in other ways.

I mentioned one in another post of mine: simply being in the right mood whilst exploring YouTube for music videos, where at some point I become aware of the Oneness, of being one with the singers and musicians, and their being one with me. The difference is, that particular trick of mine probably can't be used by others unless they've experienced Oneness at some point prior to that (and also like to search for music, of course).

OTOH, Harding's way or trick should work for anyone, right from the first experience. It doesn't depend on having had some prior seminal experience of Oneness (as I fortuitously had for a couple of weeks back in '94, and which I find I can reconnect with via occasional YouTube experiences). Harding's way is a very quick and eminently practicable method of demonstrating the One, and the many within the One, with very little metaphysical manoeuvring involved. It doesn't challenge one's existing spiritual or religious views, and can be used in conjunction with any philosophy (except perhaps materialism!) and other methodologies (e.g. meditation), one might be used to.

Moreover, it can be repeated at will and can form the basis for much further introspection, which can potentially be life-changing. So all in all, it gets my vote as the only way I've come across so far that should unfailingly work for any sighted person because it starts not in conceptualisation or faith, but in simple, incontrovertible observation. Of course one probably won't achieve full enlightenment in one session, but with a number of repeats/reminders that can be made anywhere and at any time (even in imagination), one should be able to build on it.

Incidentally, I liked the way Lang described what we usually call "lateral inversion" in a mirror. I don't think, strictly speaking, it's lateral inversion. Imagine a rubber mask over one's face that one pulls off along an axis extending directly out from the nose, gradually inverting it along the way. The eye socket on the left of your face is still on the left of the image of the mask when it's inverted, and vice-versa for the right socket.

The "inversion" could be thought of as occurring along a front-back rather than left-right axis, and to be psychological. When you wink your left eye as you look in a mirror, you actually see the eye on the left of the reflected image of your face wink. However, you've been trained, consciously or otherwise, to think of that as a right eye in someone else.

Thing is, you usually see other people's faces when they are turned towards you, i.e. when their frame of reference is opposite to your own. Ask someone facing you to wink their left eye, and you will see that the eye on the right of your image of them winks, but you invert it to your own point of view and think of it as being a left eye. There's no lateral inversion; it's just a psychological thing to invert left and right so that the viewpoint is always outwards from the self.

Prior to the advent of movies, people only ever saw themselves as reflections in shiny surfaces such as water and latterly, actual mirrors. They never saw their own faces as others saw them. But nowadays they can if they've ever viewed themselves in photographs, home movies or selfies. All of these are taken from someone else's frame of reference, which is often opposite to one's own. Within your own frame of reference, the left and right of your face are inverted with respect the frame of reference of anyone else looking at you, and the two frames only ever become aligned when you're all looking in the same direction and can't actually see anyone's face.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention that...:)
 
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A different approach to improving well-being is to identify and reduce exposure to things that reduce well-being.

Entertainment, news and social media all manipulate peoples' emotions and can cause them to feel unpleasant emotions.

For example, when you read a novel where the characters experience adversity, you feel emotions such as anger, disappointment, and fear.

But it is not just novels. Other types of books, TV programs, movies, the news media, and social media that manipulate your emotions can do it to you too. What they all have in common is that the more they manipulate your emotions, the more you become addicted to their products, and the more money they make.

If you read a little, watch a bit of TV, see a movie, follow the news, and use social media, you might not be getting a large dose from any one source, but in combination, you might be getting a large enough dose from this constant barrage for it to have a harmful effect on your psychological well-being.

The effect can be subtle, people might not realize the harm they are experiencing. This harm has become obvious to me because meditation can put me in a very pleasant happy mood and I have made a habit of trying to notice what disrupts this good mood. From making these observations in myself I have become concerned about what is happening in the rest of society where people don't realize they could be exposed to multiple factors in their environment that might combine to cause psychological harm.
 
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Personally I am not a fan of ID
Think of it then as a proof that evolution by natural selection is wrong! That is what the serious books by people such as Behe are concerned with. I wish more people would discover for themselves the fact that natural selection can't possibly create life, or the incredible variety of living beings.

People need to be confident about that bad science here, in order to come forward with alternative ideas - "Yaweh did it" and morphic fields are only two such ideas.

David
 
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A different approach to improving well-being is to identify and reduce exposure to things that reduce well-being.

Entertainment, news and social media all manipulate peoples' emotions and can cause them to feel unpleasant emotions.

For example, when you read a novel where the characters experience adversity, you feel emotions such as anger, disappointment, and fear.

But it is not just novels. Other types of books, TV programs, movies, the news media, and social media that manipulate your emotions can do it to you too. What they all have in common is that the more they manipulate your emotions, the more you become addicted to their products, and the more money they make.

If you read a little, watch a bit of TV, see a movie, follow the news, and use social media, you might not be getting a large dose from any one source, but in combination, you might be getting a large enough dose from this constant barrage for it to have a harmful effect on your psychological well-being.

The effect can be subtle, people might not realize the harm they are experiencing. This harm has become obvious to me because meditation can put me in a very pleasant happy mood and I have made a habit of trying to notice what disrupts this good mood. From making these observations in myself I have become concerned about what is happening in the rest of society where people don't realize they could be exposed to multiple factors in their environment that might combine to cause psychological harm.
I don't meditate, but your comment very much resonates with me, and I know others that should take your idea to heart. I watch less and less programs on TV, and sometimes give up in the middle, not because they are boring, but precisely because I feel they are messing with my emotions.

If you are involved in even the slightest way with politics, it is vital to have a way of clearing your head of such thoughts.

David
 
Here is the definition of persistent non-symbolic experience (consciousness) from an article by Dr. Martin:

http://nonsymbolic.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/PNSE-Article.pdf
...​
Eastern psychologies have often pointed to the nonsymbolically mediated, or immediate ways of knowing as the only kind of knowing that can lead to enlightenment or true insight into human nature. In fact, they consider our addiction to language-mediated, discursive thought as a major hurdle in realizing the true or divine Self, or union with the Ground. (Cook-Greuter, p. 230)​

...​

Try to notice what consciousness is like when you are observing (perceiving) something through your senses, and compare that to what consciousness is like when you are thinking. When you are observing, you are directly experiencing reality. When you are thinking it is like being in a dreamworld of illusions, you are existing in you mind, that reality is not the physical world.

Many meditation techniques involve observing (eg observing the breath) while letting go of any thoughts that may arise. This helps to bring you out of the illusory "reality" of thought which makes it possible to see it for the illusory "reality" that it is. Then you can see that many of the unpleasant emotions that you experience are the result of being fooled by illusions and it can be a very profound experience.
 
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Try to notice what consciousness is like when you are observing (perceiving) something through your senses, and compare that to what consciousness is like when you are thinking. When you are observing, you are directly experiencing reality. When you are thinking it is like being in a dreamworld of illusions, you are existing in you mind, that reality is not the physical world.
The only problem with that, is that it seems to downplay thinking. The only problem with that, is that I would guess practically everyone on this forum does a fair bit of thinking!

Perhaps it would be better to say, think or observe/act, but focus on whatever you are doing without being constantly distracted, and don't let others - such as the makers of TV programs - drag you off course.

David
 
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