Karl

To me it seems for you everything is easy. No suffering etc. I wonder whats wrong with you.

Everything is as it is, sometimes easy, sometimes hard. I only have it within my power to do what I can do and not that which I cannot.

Well, just don't be expecting things to change for the better any time soon.  The best we can do, I think, is to ignore as much of it as possible.

If I may say so that sounds a touch Ostrichy. Ignoring it won't make it less of a problem.

What a complete pile of statist crap.

The reason poor countries are poor is because they have few if any property rights and so they have no way to accumulate capital.

Capitalism is the engine of growth based on the maintenance of property rights under law.

It is not due to institutions or society, but the method of private ownership, law of comparative advantage, law of association, capital formation and competition.

It was the harsh northern climates that pushed their populations into having to try new methods. Had it not been for China miring itself in bureaucracy, massive government and high taxation it is probable that the technologically poor European principalities would never have become wealthy and powerful. They were forced to trade and compete which produced an abundance.

The USA was an outgrowth of European culture and for a few hundred years they practised an even freer form of lassez faire competetive free trade than Europe under its mercantile conglomerate state monopolies.

As if this isn't obvious enough we need only ask which comes first; institutions or wealth creation ? Institutions do not produce anything, they consume. Wealth must first be produced so that they can exist. Our institutions are busy destroying us.

Let's use shark fins as a model of government intrusion.

 

Shark fin soup anyone?

 

 

 

 

I'm looking for government subsidy of this.

 

http://www.stopsharkfinning.net/bycatch-is-ecocide-t-shirt/

 

 

 

 

 

 

So yes indeed.... but is it the real drive behind the ecocide of sharks?

 

 

 

Why Shark Finning Bans Aren't Keeping Sharks Off The Plate (Yet)

 

 

 

 

 

and

 

 

 

 

But wait - isn't that a key factor in the free market fundamentalism? transparency in the market so that prices reflect the true value of supply and demand?

 

 

 

 

So yes there is a "free market" - to pillage and plunder once again! Rape the oceans!

 

And yet the shark fin banning laws have had some impact to be sure.

If a market exists for a product then a ban will drive down supply and increase price. That will make illegal shark fishing even more attractive to criminals who are prepared to take the risk in order to reap huge rewards.

If the Chinese had allowed private property rights to cover oceans then the market would step in to sustainably farm shark and everybody is happy except the criminals who will now find it less attractive to harvest a lowered value bountiful supply.

Go and try what exactly? Make up some grammar, overlay reality with the symbols, make up some rules, convince yourself if you follow the rules you will arrive at some form of truth?

You don't even know what reality is, how can you establish a grammar? Well you can, but it is a conceptual invention.

From the wiki "trivium"

 

It is an art, not even a science.

Perhaps you could tell us about some of your millions of insights in a way that proves that they are just not imagination.

I don't need to. You have just done so. You are attempting to utilise a concept in order to disprove a concept. Find some other way to argue your point if you can.

Thank you for your open and honest answer.I will say that you were doing AYP. SBP left me with my mind floating on clouds. Really a drug induced feeling and it made it hard to concentrate and think.Many have talked how SBP is not grounded and can lead to issues. I think that is what you experienced.For many that can be to much and they don't care to continue along the way. It can be scary. Overloads can do that.I will just say that if you had the ability to think of a thing and be that thing. If you had the ability to think of Jesus and be, experience Jesus I don't think you would be talking like you are now.

I was able to be SRM simply by reading his texts. I could become the mental form of anyone where there were direct texts of their thoughts/words. It was direct empathy which I now understand on a different level. Jesus didn't say enough to allow that connection. Indeed it was clear he had often not said what has been quoted, or that he said it differently.

I knew all about overloading and had experienced it so handling meditation for me was very easy, as was SBP, Sanyama and Self Inquiry. I already had a plenty of stillness and the witness was present. I often advised others on how to deal with symptoms and overloads and wrote a book in which I included the use of these practices as being useful.

The Trivium is far more effective. Had I known then what I know now, it is likely I would have gone straight to the Trivium. It is the key that releases the entire contents of accumulated experience and fits it together. There are millions upon millions of insights available that I had no idea I had. It's like cells that merge into new cells and grow at a fantastic rate. Go and try it and then you will see. You can know things that you had no inkling you could. I'm not that bright, so I can only glimpse what someone brighter than I would see.

Sounds very agreeable with how I interpret it...

Sacred geometry is the code of life, the foundation of reality, the assignment of order. It is activated through sound, a breath of life force. Each thing a song, made of verses, chords and single notes. Yet, each note is disectable, revealing itself to be an entire song in its own right; an ever evolving echo...leaving ripples that eventually fade.

Then you've got dimensions outside of the time we know, where a whole song is played/available in an instant.

In the beginning was the logos :-)

In it was all the constituents of the harmonic universe including time. That is the reason there is no beginning, because without time there is no beginning and without space there are no coordinate and so no place or time. All particles are harmonic waves curled into themselves and spin with respect to time and space which is integral in their creation.

Ask bigger challenge or higher understanding what you currently have. Already that saying or pledge bears higher vibration. Stagnating on one place just stimulating brain to get joy out of it, is it worth the short time we live?

No idea what you are saying ?

I understand the problems with production under communistic central planning.  I also know that without protected National parks, much beauty would be lost to the public, without regulation, despite your belief in rational market forces, forests would be clear cut, because that's where the immediate profit is.  The best land would be sold off to housing projects.  More roads, more fences that would be disastrous for wild life. 

 

Short term profit can mean long term destruction.  There is a need for sanctuaries against privatization.  On land and on the sea.  Places to protect nature.   Without environmental rules, modern industry can be a devastating destructive force.  In many ways it already is, but unfettered it could be apocalyptic.  We saw it in the 1960's and 70's acid rain, deforestation, great lakes on fire.  Horrible things, the government upped regulations and put teeth in them and we've seen improvements. 

 

Its not an all or nothing game. Your model leads to present day rules, regulations and government.  Everywhere, in every state, unless the countries falls into anarchy.  Its the nature of the beast.  We collectivize and organize; as populations grows we need laws and standards that cover everyone. 

 

That's not to saying things have to fall into communism or dictatorship, just that in one nation there needs to be one set of laws.   There will always be tension between municipal and central power.  There are places that municipalities do better with more autonomy but not always. 

Yet don't we create and preserve when we own the land? Don't we put it to productive use ? Isn't it true that Yellowstone has been damaged by state involvement ? Why would anyone build in Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon etc ? There are millions of miles of open space and yet where do people choose to live and work ? In the cities, where land is expensive, space is limited and people density is at the highest.

Private areas it would be harder to get planning permission if the development did not be fit the community where it was to be based. The law- unlike today-would not allow industry to ride roughshod over the property rights of others. It wouldn't be acceptable to pollute or damage for 'the common good' as is the current law on commercial development. Look at the fracking that is going on. People can object but the state over rules them. Look at agriculture and cattle farming subsidised by the state that turns land into dust bowls. Watch the forests getting torn down for Maize growing to benefit the farmers growing it for fuel production. What about the oil spills, Fukushima, 3 mile Island, the BP platform fire and oil spills, not to mention the polluted mess that resulted from the exploitation by the centralised states of USSR and China. More state, more destructive pollution and mis allocated resource.

In the UK we have vast tracts of Scotland which are wilderness and yet we are supposed to be a very over populated country. The developed areas are less than a few percent of the available land mass. Yet no one wants to build in Scotland. The most they can do is crofting and forestry. In both Scotland and the North East we struggle to attract industry despite reducing regulations to nothing and offering grant aid. Let people buy national parks just as our own, private, national trust does. It's funded by charity and buys up country houses, beaches and rural areas and conserves them. They charge a membership fee, or a small fee to enter their properties. They are scrupulously kept and well managed, where as our local state park is vandalised, strewn with rubbish and dog dirt. The facilities are badly maintained and the plants unkempt. Hordes of hoodlums infest the areas where children play and will often attack them, take money/ phones etc.

If you can see your way to understanding that less state leads to greater liberty and increased wealth, then it will also lead to a better environment and less mis allocation of resource. It's really that simple, but you have to get rid of the brain washing that tells you the state is good.

We can have laws and police we don't need the state to provide anything. The Government is always corrupt, wasteful, violent and inefficient. At best they are bearable at worst they will plunge us into a nuclear winter. They are just too dangerous to trust. Look at Biden, Clinton, Rice etc. Look at all those neocons banging the drum for intervention and war. They cannot wait to soak the land with blood and fill their pockets with money.

I can agree with this.

 

The book?  No, I don't know it.

Do a search on Amazon. Definitely a nice thing to have on the shelf and full of wonders.

Wow Karl,So if you don't mind me asking. What is your meditation experience like? What is your day to day experience like?Is your heart opened and do you feel joy during the day radiating outward? Do you reside outside of thoughts or have moments of silence?Are you at the point where you think of someone and you are that person? Do you become one with all that which is around you?Do you feel ecstatic energy in your body during meditation? How about during the day outside of meditation?Just curious as to your experience. It might help explain your positions.

I don't meditate now.

When I was then pretty much all the usual epithets about emptiness, mindfulness, floating along untroubled by life and doing what was in front of me. I recognise all the descriptions and experiences that I read on the forum. Even to the point of having unexplainable synchronicity in which life would offer up things just when and where I needed. It convinced me I had reached the point where things were automatic and effortless. Often I would become tree, animal, person, grass, even rotting logs, rivers, stone and wind. I would certainly say I felt at one and without identity. It was very carefree and joyous. I could and did meditate almost continuously so that 'no thought' stillness of mind was pretty much constant.

Yet I knew that something wasn't quite right about the floaty, disconnected feeling. It felt almost drug induced. Pleasant but Somatic. However, I wasn't consciously looking for anything to change when a post on disqus pointed me towards the occult and the work of John Gatto. The post was quite a strange one, the writer didn't elaborate, he just mentioned these subjects in reply to a quote I had posted about the Matrix in connection with economics. You know the old saying 'when the student is ready the guru will appear'. So, I followed the signpost........

You still didn't win me over.  Sorry.  I don't (and can't) do the math.  I rely only on what I can gather enough information of and then view the total collection of information from the logical workings of my brain.

 

I have never accepted the theory of multi-verses.  But then, I have never denied the possibility based on information I have heard and seen that I accept as valid.

 

I can see a star.  I cannot see a quark.  This is my biggest problem in such matters.  After all, I am a physicalist (materialist).

 

And while it is true that "zooming in" will give us a different picture than what we see with the naked eye, I live my life with my naked eyes and they don't zoom in.

Think of the universe as unpacking itself, with time unfolding on the edge of the unpacking. There is no boundary to reach because time is unpacking at the boundary so it is impossible to catch up with it. The universe is finite but unbound. You can see it in all life and material forms. It is all resonant field recreating itself and ever expanding.

Have you ever studied the golden ratio and the golden cut ? Fascinating stuff and visible in everything. You should get yourself a copy of 'the quadrivium' by the publisher 'wooden books' -it's the full compilation of the four smaller books. If for no other reason that it is simply a gorgeous thing to have. I deliberately leave it on a convenient table when guests come around and they never fail to pick it up and start reading. It's got great illustrations. The connection is sacred number, to sacred geometry, to music and cosmology. So, it is number, number in space, number in time and finally number in time and space. It's the stuff they didn't teach you, the connections between things. Add it to your library. Even the cover reminds me of an alchemists magic book-all holographic, symbolic on a black background.

The chakras are part of an energy state, and they can all take place in the presence of egoic and mental functions. The energy body is beyond ego and will be there whether you are sinking into present awareness or not.

The brightest, most gold auras I've ever seen have been from practitioners who "step out" during their practice and let their Divine connection guide the operation. Some of them have this talent innately and don't know they're doing it, while for others it is cultivated. The awake ones can operate this way even outside of their targeted spirit work.

Think of it this way. A lot of people have a meditation practice where they sit and experience emptiness or connection, or kundalini, or whatever. Then they get up and go about their day to day lives. But it's a false separation because the meditation never ends. If ego re-engages then you're just doing the ego meditation. Or the sorry meditation. Or whatever million things the mind comes up with.

The crown chakra doesn't necessary indicate an awakened person, but access to an additional layer of one's own energy body. However, I do believe it contains information and spiritual access which may point the ego toward its own redundancy. On the other hand, people who are ungrounded will lack useful insight even if the crown is open, because there will be no earthly realm to connect it all to practical understanding.

Have you got any proof at all to substantiate all that ?

I quite agree that meditation is simply thinking. That people can be engaged in more or less thoughts, with very different thoughts depending on their current concerns.

Also 'practical' understanding seems similar to useful thinking, common sense with a practical value. Is that what you mean ?

If this is driven by the theory that people will do the rational thing that produces the most gains, I think you'll be disappointed because reality doesn't work that way.  I am pro-capitalist, but humans singly and in groups can be relatively insane.  With no government intervention needed we will create irrational commodity bubbles every decade, we will soil our environment, we will vote bread and circus on a family and national level.  We are too often greedy and malleable.  

 

I digress- Lets keep to OP, selling off portions of the Ocean, privatizing it. 

 

I assume someone crossing my water/land is trespassing and will have to pay me a toll or I could say, enter at your own risk of being sunk.   This has nothing to do with economic theory.  If you needed to drive your boat from a to z, and you passed through 10 or more privately owned pieces of water, it'd be a nightmare.  I own a big enough 'piece' of water close to a harbor I can choke people off.  Maybe not forever but long enough to put others out of business and buy longer and longer pieces of ocean. 

 

Take the Suez Canal, it that was broken up so many people owned a piece of it, there'd be disaster.  Own a big enough chunk and you can bottleneck it.  Course its been nationalized for decades hasn't it.  On land privatization is a good idea, as long as there are public roads people can use.  And there are large chunks of public land that all can enjoy.  Without parks, people would go crazy. 

 

I'd add national parks are huge blessings.  Being in Chicago, one of the smartest things done was making the beach public, so all enjoy it, instead of the rich.  Same with islands like St. Lucia, all beach front private, it makes for a much better quality of life.

 

I'll go further.  Its a good thing there are building and zoning regulations.  These are made for the people by the people and keep buildings from collapsing and make for better organized cities.

Firstly I would question your pro-capitalist stance. Government simply extract money from one group by force and give it to another group whilst giving themselves a nice cut of the stolen loot. But as you say that is a digress. Funnily enough I wasn't an An Cap until about 4 years ago and would have considered myself broadly socialist pro state.

We must first accept the premise that the Government has done some good things-if they hadn't then I doubt you would even be arguing. However, we also have to accept that the free market might well have done these things anyway. So, in the case of building and zoning regulations, if you had local, accountable governance for a specific private area I suggest it would do something similar at less cost and with greater efficiency. People don't generally build things that will fall down on purpose as its costly for purchaser, insurance company and builder both in terms of reputation, finance and often falling foul of the law.

No area is really free. Indeed during your own issues with Government finance the very first thing the Government did was to close your national parks. The state was holding the people to ransom, it didn't close down its tax offices but went straight for the thing that would hurt the people the most. They could close them down because they are filled with state employees who you are paying through taxation. What's more they often do a very poor job, there are immense problems with wildlife at Yellowstone due to the Government intervening in nature. There are also many stories of parks that were once private being bought by force and then let to go to ruin. Central Park has/had a curfew due to the number of crimes being committed-that doesn't happen in Disney land. Also, what happens about those who never use these state owned areas ? Why are they forced to pay ?

When the Suez Canal was nationalised we had the suez crisis. The canal ended up full of sunken ships. I haven't researched the full history behind it so excuse any inaccuracies, but it was an undertaking thought to be impossible by the state. It would never have been built but for private money and vision. There would have been nothing at all to nationalise as it simply wouldn't have existed.

Back to the ocean. Private actors are rational. The market forces them to be rational. The ocean wouldn't necessarily be owned by many seperate people, it's pointless to conjecture how the market would work until the possibility is implemented. People always ask how things are going to work in the absence of state control because they are brainwashed into believing things could not work without it. That's deliberate. The school systems begin it by saying how there would be no education without the state because they are taught that through going to state schools, reading state defined history, state regulated text books supplied by state employed publishers, in schools built by state employee builders, by state licensed employees.

In Russia it was unthinkable that the private sector could supply footwear optimally. Who would know how many shoes, boots were needed and how would the quality, style be regulated and price be kept at affordable level. Surely the private sector would gouge the market and the poor would go without shoes, whilst the wealthy had the finest boots. The private shoe manufacture would monopolise leather, rubber, labour and machinery and squeeze the people for everything they had. Yet we know this isn't what happens. Instead, unlike the state footwear companies that often ran out of shoes in summer, or boots in winter, that made a wasteful excess of boots that would then find there way onto a black market. That couldn't keep up with sizes, so that children were forced to wear adult sizes and all made in factories which were inefficient. The result was a very expensive shoe industry that could never hope to compete with the free market that could produce endless styles, sizes and types of footwear to suit every pocket.

Gerard said, "no God" and thus through normal interpretation of same meant per dualism of mind which such can not define - either with a no or yes. (since it or "God" is transcendent to mind) Btw, the mind of light doesn't have to give itself up completely but to go beyond that it has to be left behind since it cannot reach any further than pure light. (for only no-thing can fully return) to the Source of such light.

I still ask what is meant by God. If it's unknowable then it's unknowable and therefore there isn't any point in mentioning it. If it's knowable then we should be able to discuss what it is with universal commonality and by definition. If it's a great creator, or a bloke on a cloud then we can discount it.

I've noticed this hurry into flights of fantasy over the why and how of the thing discussed without ever touching on the what, where or when of a thing. We may just as well be discussing the tone used by the three bears to goldilocks instead of wondering why we have never experienced a talking bear, never mind ones that build houses and make porridge.

Trivium style study of meditation cant answer for anyone the mystery of what awareness itself is, nor why it exists , nor why we experience it . Under the headings of data rhetoric and grammar, all the processes of the human condition are sorted, but none of the components are gone. As Karl said to me earlier, its basically a sorting of what practitioners already describe. It isnt a universal trump card, just a tool. Youve lost nothing.

Exactly. Science may one day answer these questions, but until then it is an irreducible axiom. TI loses nothing, he can utilise the Trivium more exactly than he is currently using it. He goes looking in texts to answer his experiences, but he doesn't utilise his own logical power pack to become his own scientist.

You are using the Trivium to try and construct an argument. Every time you reason, you are using the Trivium. The problem is that you don't want to play by your own rules, I can argue with you and you aren't losing anything- exactly as Stosh stated. It's only when you go and apply the Trivium more concisely to your own argument that you will reveal the truth of it.

No matter what I say you will carry on believing in rainbow bodies, until such a time comes when you may question your belief. Until that time al, you are really trying to do is to persuade me that they are real. That they are real to you I have no doubt, but you haven't provided any proof to substantiate them to my satisfaction.

I don't completely agree with Bill Joslin either because he does not provide proof of the specifics of his theory, but I have sufficient experience of meditative practice and I know Bill has quite a lot of experience, so I can make an inductive leap-if not an empirical one-that meditation has some value, but that it isn't the magic carpet ride to some 'otherwhere' except in the mind of the practitioner. It may even be nothing more than a placebo for those already having made the decision/moving towards greater self awareness.

You will never know what it is like to be pregnant.

My world revolves around experiences. I look to the texts for possible explanations of those experiences.

The world of thinking and thought is a small part of the whole. A very small part.

You do not see that presenting Bill Jilson as a seasoned meditator, who teaches/taught is a form of being enamored by titles.

You said "The writer-Bill Joslin- has been meditating for over 19 years plus many more esoteric practices and has been a teacher for several years.". You say one thing and behave the opposite. You are not in a position to evaluate his experiences or accomplishments (or lack of) therefore you rely on his personal history and presentation (title) in order to ascertain his authority.

The problem with using a candle to illuminate the darkness is if you blow too hard, the flame goes out.

I presented it, you can decide if it has value. If you don't-jog along, nothing to see.

You are relying on texts to decide what your experiences are....LOL and if you can't evaluate the writers experiences or lack of accomplishments either.

So what are we left with.

We have to make our decisions on the value of information by using a knowledge of grammar, the reasoning power of logic and the output of a rhetorical answer.

Of course you will regard it as an experience and then look for yet another piece of text to corroborate your own conclusion.

I tried my best to answer you based on your accusation that I ignored your question. You are convinced of your argument and I will leave it at that.

Yes, there are so many costs and people and things involved (near infinite if you go deep enough) that divying up the costs and recompense is very difficult.  I'm better at imagining what the world would be like if your solution was implemented.  

 

Maybe privatizing as far as large sanctuary sites, with studied and controlled harvesting might work out well.   My biggest worry would be an ocean with pathways split amongst dozens of hundreds of competing interests that'd be a nightmare of tolls and restrictions to navigate. 

There are lots of tolls and restrictions already. The market really doesn't do 'nightmares of tolls and restrictions', that is very much a product of anything the state does. What causes the biggest delays in receiving a package from abroad ? Customs and Excise. We are then shaken down to pay duty and taxes which the state forces the delivery company to collect at your expense.

Did you know the first lighthouses were private enterprises ? The state was more interested in catching pirates than making navigation safer or faster. The Suez Canal was a private enterprise which carved weeks off sea transport and made it far safer. What I'm showing is that the private sector market does not tolerate delays or losses. It is the Profit and loss accounting plus competition that results in ever greater innovation, improvements and reduced costs. What was good for farming in private ownership, would be equally great for the sea. In Britain, prior to the agricultural/industrial revolution the population of a mere 6 million were starving, now we are a nation of ten times that many worried about obesity-in which an enormous market has grown up around a slimming industry. How unimaginable is that for a period of only a handful of centuries ?

What it feels like to be pregnant is a part of being pregnant. You settle for conceptual induction when in fact you don't have the whole picture. The experience gives the whole picture.

 

The first thing the taught us in university philosophy is that just because someone has a title does not mean that they speak the truth. You seem to be enamored by titles and certificates. Case in point. Yogani has been at it for over 40 years and look at the crap he has come up with. Joselin and Yogani are in the same league.

You have just agreed with what I have said.

I don't need to know what it feels like to be pregnant in order to know how it works, what can go wrong, the responsibilities of it, the mental conditions such as post natal depression. I don't need to know it in order to deliver a baby or get a woman pregnant.

I'm not at all enamoured by titles and certificates, only in what I can reason as reality. You have picked on the fallacy of vericundiam (appeal to authority), but are using that in defence of your argument. This is your game, you love texts, famous teaching books and fancy sounding rhetoric. Your world revolves around texts you perceive as having prime importance. You aren't thinking. You are trying to persuade by false rhetoric and fallacy. I don't know if you are aware you are doing that ?

So it appears to me based on what youve said that your experience with the trivium is much like many others with meditation just in a different realm. It does seem to me however that you are still somewhat trapped in a belief system, and a sort of fear based one at that. Wether the nwo or illuminati is real is very much up for debate to say the least. To me it just keeps one in a "someones out to get me" mindset which can most undoubtedly affect ones subconscious just as your arguing meditation does. Do you have legitimate proof of these groups existence? It seems to me you traded one story for another, Karl, No offense. Has the trivium extracted you from the effects of these groups influence, real or imagined? Im sort of confused how someone can claim meditation can be a mind control thing yet out the other side of their mouth has revealed they are very much embedded in a belief system that is dubious, at best. Its ifunny just based on the way you write, I thought you may believe in such things. You may very well be right who knows but for someone who seems to be ultra logical its kind of funny.

 

"once an external authority has gotten you to decide an issue is important

Youre already under their control-regardless of which side you choose."

It's very different to meditation. As I said, meditation gives the ability to have a more intimate view of how I thought and felt. Beyond that -if you are taking practices seriously-there isn't much except continued reinforcing of an ideology. Practice meditation and you get good at meditation. The Trivium is a combing out of what I had absorbed. Imagine a big jigsaw all muddled up in which some pieces match the shape, but not the picture. The Trivium allows a simplification of the puzzle so it can be easily fitted together and the false bits removed. It means a highly accurate rendering of reality as opposed to trying to substitute consciousness primacy as a fluid reality. If meditation leads you to believe nothing is real, then it's easier to believe any old rubbish that passes I front of your eyes.

I thought you understood what I was saying re the illuminati and NWO. These are real things. The illuminati being two separate movements of which one existed in 1700s in Austria and the NWO was a stated aim by politicians-I don't think it's a group as such. It could be said that we are all illuminati now to a greater or lesser degree. These are historical facts, but interestingly you believe they aren't. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. I can dig out the history if you want, but it's as pointless as discussing Mccarthyism, or the the new deal.

I don't think 'out of their influence' is anything like the way I see it. I only want to know reality as closely as possible. The esoteric practices create an 'I'm up and above all this mundane human mess' or even that a meditator has gained certain powers with which they can alter reality so there is no requirement for concern. It's like pretending the attacking tiger is just a cuddly bunny rabbit, or some figment of imagination.

At present you don't know so it's difficult to discuss what you don't yet have any access to. Take the red pill and you get to find out just how unpleasant things really are and then how amazing they are too. True Liberty requires knowing reality no matter how difficult it is to accept it. Many people who begin to suspect something isn't quite right will attempt to find ways in which they can make things more bearable- either by trying to mentally seperate themselves from reality, or by full physical separation such as moving to the woods and trying self sufficiency. The Trivium shows how it is without any buffer, it's real and direct-like coming off the soma in Huxleys novel 'A brave new world'.

correction for Gerard:  There is - no mind definable God - when reaching enlightenment beyond mind  - for such a definition by mind, which itself is dualistic in nature can not circumscribe "God" as either existing or not existing per such a tool as the "mind". 

Depends what you mean by God.

Im re copying my questions from my post further up the page since you either ignored them or decided they werent advantageous to your argument to answer:

 

You said meditation changes the way one "normally" sees the world.Did you "normally" see the world the way the Trivium instructs you to see it before you undertook the practice? Did you need to know beforehand exactly precisely what the practice would do to/for you before you undertook it?

 

As far as where I personally got the "instructions" to practice meditation, well actually it was recommended to me by an infectious disease doctor funnily enough who I was seeing for health issues. His instructions were to simply follow the breath and I was told to give it a shot to calm my overactive inflamed nervous system down. There was absolutely no philosophy involved or followed. In fact I did not even attempt a meditation for a whole year after this suggestion because quite frankly I thought it was bullshit. I tried one night for 20 min and enjoyed the relaxation effect and my body and mind continued to enjoy it so I have practiced everyday for the past 21/2 years between 20min and 2 hours/day depending on the mood. I have also incorporated standing meditation which again involved absolutely no philosophy or dogma other than bringing health benefits. From doing these things I have beneffited greatly in ways simple words cant describe. I never ignored any why, when, or how. In fact the why, when and how got in my way from ever starting in the first place and actually to my detriment. I dont doubt there is programming going on everywhere and of course one should be mindful of what they ingest etc, in fact I try my best to ignore most media and I have a select few tv programs which I enjoy. Music, well, Im a sucker for music if it  moves my emotions so Im sure Im "absorbing" some stuff into my subconscious thats fing w my programming. Gangsta rap and dubstep can do  that but it gets me pumped to take on the day. Other than that I try and have fun and not take myself too seriously otherwise whats the point in being here. Do you believe in the New world order and the illuminati, Karl? not trying to "get one past your goalpost" as it were, just interested/

Prior to the Trivium I wasn't armed so I saw the world much as most people see it. It was more difficult to make informed decisions-although it was helped by making a study of Austrian economic philosophy which contained the seed of thinking. I knew precisely what the Trivium was before embarking on the study. It didn't promise anything at all and the reason I looked into it was to ensure I had logical premise in my current novel. I could not have foretold the changes it would make, but then, I wasn't expecting anything beyond applying a bit of logical thought.

The new world order/illuminati movement are real. They aren't a matter of conspiracy theory,they are factual, historical groups. That said, there isn't currently one group (the illuminati pretty much died off a few hundred years ago in Austria) but an idea which could be described as 'squaring the circle' or 'to cube the globe' which is now supported by the wider public, who in principle or part support these aims. For instance, even amongst virtual libertarian types on this forum there is support for population control by force. Others support taxation, force, war, state education, big government security etc. So, the new world order ideology is now well embedded and widely supported in different ways and forms. For some it is overt and unthinking (army/police/bureaucracy) others to a lesser extent. This was Plato's republic and hails from the Indian content originally. We are all, to some extent, Policing each other's actions and ideas.

Some run off to the woods when glimpsing the truth, others turn to esoteric arts or religion.

Well what a load of crap.

A man will never know what it feels like to be pregnant because he can never have the experience.

Only those whom have had the experience have the right to present their observations as knowledge.

If one wants to accept the observations from someone whom has never had the experience, then they are a fool.

Knowing about some thing is not the same as experiencing it. Knowing about something is just a borrowed belief.

Who said 'feels like to be pregnant' ? Joslin has meditated in both Dao and Buddhist form for over 19 years and taught these practices. He certainly does have enough to qualify him to make an argument, just as a doctor/midwife/ nurse or bystander can make an informed decision about pregnancy. Just as you can make the argument that spaceships are orbiting the Earth and the means they employ to maintain the orbit despite not being an astronaut, physicist or technician.