Surya

From where? 👀

I wonder if you have any insight based upon this: https://ibb.co/mVHgR8Qy edit: I do have the privilege of studying under a kind hearted astrologer, so we will go trough it in detail. I guess I am sort of asking for first impressions, if that makes sense. Also, I am starting to believe my future might lay in teaching; be it to children at school, in the mysteries, helping people out, what have you. Does my profile fit the teaching role?

What a world 😂

Alright, this turned out to be a mess. It needs a lot of work, obviously, I might work on it tommorow... but it is three at night. Ill leave you with this wonderfull docu in the meantime:

WORK IN PROGRESS, under edit Intro Alright, so I think I have a little thesis going. Ill start by arguing that in the state of nature, human beings are primarily egaliterian and reciprocial. Leaders are chosen by pro-social traits and expertice. Antisocial behavior, greed obviously being one of them, is likewise punished. Then Ill go over to a theory where I have only very superificial knowledge, but Ill try to argue that greed has been dispised even in many agricultural societies for millenia. Then ill try to argue that this mentality gradually changed as a result of industrilisation. Reason being that industrilisation allowed for mass production and explotation of workers. The so called neoclassical theorists, made up a bunch of (in my not so humble opinion) bs rationalisations, economic models and theories in order to justify this model and feed their greed, however. These theories, are however built on extremly dubious assumptions. Sadly, we much of our economic policies are still built upon them, even tho they are obviously faulty. So what do you (the economic elite) do when they have an abundance of goods, but the demand is lacking? They manufacture demand. That is the very point of marketing: manipulating you into believing you want something that you do not. These techniques has also been used for social engineering. Alright, lets go. Leadership - from prehistory till today @Nungali Feel free to come with input here, as this is something you are more knowledgeable of than me. In the study ‘Leadership in Prehistory’ (Pierce and Lewis-Williams, 2019), the authors investigated which characteristics correlated with leadership in prehistoric times. The findings suggest that leaders were chosen on the basis of pro-social behaviour, high expertise and respect within the group. Furthermore, they only had the power they were given. Once the problem was solved, the leader stepped down. In the book ‘Hierarchy of the Forest’ (1999), Christoffer Boehm characterises traditional tribal societies as egalitarian. He describes how dominant and selfish behaviour is collectively counteracted through, among other things, ridicule and ostracism. In more extreme cases, the situation can escalate to violence or expulsion. A sense of justice, the spread of rumours and long-term ‘tracking’ of behaviour and character help to maintain an egalitarian structure and social harmony. Today, the situation is somewhat more complex. In the 1990s, British anthropologist Robin Dunbar conducted a study comparing the size of the neocortex and the social group of 38 different species of primates. Based on this relationship, he found that humans are capable of relating to around 150 individuals. This is known as Dunbar's number, and has been shown to explain the size of organisations, the number of friends on social media and more. As society grew in size and complexity, it became possible for individuals who traditionally had not been suitable or chosen as leaders to use language and other forms of manipulation to ‘hijack’ the leadership role. In a review of leadership literature, the authors take a rather harsh stance: ‘The increase in social complexity of societies that took place after the agricultural revolution produced the need for more powerful and formal leaders to manage complex intra- and intergroup relations — the chiefs, kings, presidents, and CEOs — who at best provide important public services and at worst abuse their position of power to dominate and exploit followers [60].’ Agrarian societies attitude to greed The Midas touch Epictetus on greed: General roman attitude: Verses from Havamal (somewhat related to greed): I was planning on writing on medival christendom as well, but this is getting to long. I guess most here is familiar with it anyway. The Marginal Revolution and Neoclassical Theory The Marginal Revolution, spearheaded by William Jevons, paved the way for neoclassical theory towards the end of the 19th century. Economics took on a more mathematical character, with the relationship between consumption and demand becoming central. They rejected the idea of objective value, instead viewing utility as a personal assessment, and humans as perfectly rational, utility-maximizing machines. Alfred Marshall and his demand curve are among several key contributors. Smith and Ricardo defined three factors of production: labor, capital, and land (Sandmo, 2006, p. 70). However, only one of them, the amount of labor input, determined the price of a good (the labor theory of value). Furthermore, Say's Law states that supply creates its own demand. Consumption is a consequence of production, and overproduction is an impossibility. For the neoclassicists, the distinction between supply and demand made no sense. Price was a result of the interaction between utility-maximizing consumers and suppliers. William Jevons introduced the concept of marginal utility. Marginal utility was diminishing: the more you have of a good, the less utility an additional unit provides. The rational, utility-maximizing individual will consume as long as the perceived utility is greater than or equal to the price of the good. Similarly, firms would produce as long as marginal revenue is greater than or equal to marginal cost. Alfred Marshall further described how the interplay between the consumer and the producer—supply and demand—determined the price of a good. If the quantity demanded is greater than the quantity supplied, the highest bidder will get the good, and the price will be pushed up. A high price makes production profitable, and supply will increase. Similarly, a higher supply than demand will cause the price to fall. Only the point where demand meets supply is stable. The market is in equilibrium. It is this point that determines the price of a good. Here's the English translation of your text, maintaining the academic tone and content: Assumptions for Perfect Competition In the previous assignment, we looked at the neoclassical idea of pricing. Alfred Marshall described how markets tend to move towards equilibrium, the point where supply meets demand (Kishtainy, 2017, p. 64). At this point, marginal revenue will equal marginal cost, and marginal utility will equal marginal price. If the market is in perfect competition, the price of the good will be the same everywhere, and this is thus the equilibrium point. Important assumptions for perfect competition are: All goods are normal. This means that demand changes in line with income. Goods are homogeneous. Large number of producers and consumers. No one has market power (no one can influence the market price). Rational actors. Producers aim to maximize profit, consumers utility. Perfect information. All actors have equal and necessary knowledge about the goods and the market. No entry barriers. (Snl, perfect competition) (Riis and Moen, 2016, p. 204) A market in perfect competition will be Pareto optimal. This implies that it will not be possible to improve one actor's situation without negatively affecting another (Kishtainy, 2017, p. 149). This entails equilibrium, efficiency, and maximum social surplus. Criticism Thorstein Veblen is the man behind the theory of conspicuous consumption. Here, he points out people's tendency to buy expensive goods. He believes this happens because people try to buy their way to status. This is relevant considering the assumptions about normal goods and rational actors. He believed these assumptions were based on an unrealistic view of human nature. Humans are largely driven by habits and instincts, and the desire for recognition, belonging, and status (PowerPoint from a lecture by Geir Knutsen). The Veblen effect refers to how demand for certain goods increases with price. These are thus not normal goods, nor do they indicate particularly rational behavior. For Joan Robinson, the presentation of a market as either a monopoly or perfect competition was, at best, overly simplistic. More often, it was an intermediate state, which she described as imperfect competition. This is a market consisting of a few large players all offering close substitutes. An important distinguishing factor for products is, among other things, the brand (PowerPoint from a lecture by Geir Knutsen). And since actors can have market power and the model is therefore flawed, regulations would also be necessary to avoid crises (Rethinking Economics Norge, 2019, Joan Violet Robinson – an economist for the 20th century). Finally, I want to look at Akerlof's "lemon theory," which concerns the assumption of perfect information. In Cassidy (2009), the used car market is used to illustrate the problem. Why do people generally prefer new cars when there can be a lot to save by buying used? This stems at least partly from imperfect and asymmetric information. The risk of buying a "lemon" increases if you buy used. This, in turn, will cause more serious actors to withdraw, and the efficiency of the industry to fall. Incomplete information is a pervasive problem in many markets and can, for example, lead to overpricing of stocks or the best candidate being overlooked. Industralisation, marketing and consumerism - industralisation and greed made production far exceed demand - Marketing was used as a tool to manufacture demand. This has also been used for social engineering. There are countless examples, but let me start with one of the more infamous: Edward Bernays: The "Torches of Freedom" Campaign Edward Bernays, often considered the "father of public relations," was Sigmund Freud's nephew (Freud's sister Anna was Bernays' mother, and Bernays' father was the brother of Freud's wife Martha). Bernays famously applied psychological principles, inspired in part by his uncle's theories, to manipulate public opinion for commercial gain. In the late 1920s, the American Tobacco Company hired Bernays to overcome the social taboo against women smoking in public. At the time, smoking by women was largely considered unladylike, even a sign of "loose morals." Bernays saw an opportunity to associate smoking with the burgeoning women's rights movement. He consulted with a psychoanalyst, A. A. Brill (a former student of Freud's), who suggested that cigarettes could symbolize male power and independence. Brill's reasoning was that the emancipation of women had led many to suppress "feminine desires," and that cigarettes, equated with men, could become "torches of freedom." Bernays seized on this idea. In 1929, he orchestrated a publicity stunt during New York's Easter Parade. He hired a group of young women, including debutantes, to light up cigarettes openly as they walked, portraying it as an act of feminist defiance. This event, widely covered by the press, became known as the "Torches of Freedom" campaign. The campaign successfully reframed smoking for women from a vulgar habit to a symbol of emancipation, rebellion, and equality. It capitalized on the aspirations of first-wave feminism, linking a consumer product to a powerful social movement. This initiative dramatically increased smoking rates among women in the subsequent decades, with significant long-term public health consequences. Paul Lafargue The Right To Be Lazy Let us be lazy in everything, except in loving and drinking, except in being lazy. – Lessing Chapter I A Disastrous Dogma

I do have some superficial knowledge of marketing, markets and its history, so would like to participate. But before I do so, I wonder if you could provide me with the definition of magic you are useing in this context 🙏

Thank you. Nothingness is kind of a tricky concept for me, as... nothing is... nothing. I once heard some fellow say nothing = everything. I didnt understand it, nor do I belive it is very relevant. But I wonder, could nothingness in the DDJ school be compared to the western concept of aether or the vedic akasha? As always, I have no clue what I am talking about, but maybe someone better versed in these traditions can clarify. Intruiging post @illuminated_luke, but in order to reread with carefull attention, ill have to do as you do with the garage: do it tommorow.

1.1.8 And because you are submissive, your spiritual masters have endowed you with all the favors bestowed upon a gentle disciple. Therefore you can tell us all that you have scientifically learned from them. ____ Indeed I can! Lets include the purport for this one: Purport The secret of success in spiritual life is in satisfying the spiritual master and thereby getting his sincere blessings. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura has sung in his famous eight stanzas on the spiritual master as follows: “I offer my respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of my spiritual master. Only by his satisfaction can one please the Personality of Godhead, and when he is dissatisfied there is only havoc on the path of spiritual realization.” It is essential, therefore, that a disciple be very much obedient and submissive to the bona fide spiritual master. Śrīla Sūta Gosvāmī fulfilled all these qualifications as a disciple, and therefore he was endowed with all favors by his learned and self-realized spiritual masters such as Śrīla Vyāsadeva and others. The sages of Naimiṣāraṇya were confident that Śrīla Sūta Gosvāmī was bona fide. Therefore they were anxious to hear from him. 1.1.9 Please, therefore, being blessed with many years, explain to us, in an easily understandable way, what you have ascertained to be the absolute and ultimate good for the people in general. 1.1.10 O learned one, in this iron Age of Kali men almost always have but short lives. They are quarrelsome, lazy, misguided, unlucky and, above all, always disturbed. _______________________________________________________________ The request put forward by the sages was done so due to the knowledge of the comming Kali Yuga. The purport of 1.1.10 goes into further details of what these challenges would be (in the comming (this) age). The purport to 1.1.10 states that in adition to the above mentioned vices, man is also troubled by politics, the education system, distractions marketing, spiritual frauds and the likes, but above all they are lazy. Lazy even in self realization, which is stated to be the goal of human excistence. It is for this reason, Śrīla Sūta Gosvāmī is asked to get to the essence of scripture in the following verse. __________________________________________________________________ 1.1.11 There are many varieties of scriptures, and in all of them there are many prescribed duties, which can be learned only after many years of study in their various divisions. Therefore, O sage, please select the essence of all these scriptures and explain it for the good of all living beings, that by such instruction their hearts may be fully satisfied.

O Lord Krsna, please protect me and maintain me. O Lord Rama, descendant of King Raghu, please protect me. O Krsna, O Kesava, killer of the Kesi demon, please maintain me. Here I will, at the very least, study one verse each day, quote the text as well as purport by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, and possibly some reflections on it. I have already read the intro and first chapter. I’ll skip the intro here, but will start again from chapter one. I very much hope someone would like to participate in it. best wishes! edit: apologies, the purport and Sanskrit is not available at vedabase, but as I have it in print as well, I might scan and include it by request!

Well, you have mine

I appreciate the concern, and I agree that those things are not helpful, but I did not at any point feel stirling was doing so

Would like this twice if I could.

Mhm, well, you are right. While I have dabbled in meditation for a good time, consistently and sincerely I have not. It has been more like a game of whack a mole. A thought a appears and than I start to thinking about thinking, and suddenly I am thinking about thinking about thinking. Thoughts are kind of a bizarre phenomenon, really. Why would I have to tell myself… anything at all? Is true meditation more about non-reactivity, not asscociating with the thoughts, and let the mind silence itself? Not sure it has to be intellectual, but not convinced that the intellectual is neccesarily something to be avoided either. There is a time for both. But by far the greatest source of pain is, in my experience, the mind torturing the observer of mind with all sort nonsense, so maybe it is the key. Perhaps I should attempt meditation more sincerely. Would you then warn me against chanting as a way to silent the mind, and instead try to just sit? _/\_ Massive question. I for sure want a sense of peace, flow, love and bliss. Furthermore, I’d like to put that almost superhuman state of mind to use, to help people in a worse state than I. To be a lighthouse in the night, so to speak. Purpose/dharma/to apply myself. Aaand truth be told, I wouldn’t mind some gratefulness in return. 🤗❤️‍🔥

To take one example, what is nothing?

@Cobie do you think it is possible that the philosophy of the ddj doesn’t work in translation to languages unrelated to Chinese, as they might lack satisfactonary terms for certain concepts?

Won’t bother with what exactly? With this: Don’t get me wrong, I realize I might sound like a smartass, but I don’t: I just want to say that in my experience, at this point of life and in this environment, this kind of philosophy or practice of non-doing (which again strikes me as a little bit of a paradox) doesn’t resonate with me. Not to be taken as an attack, I have no doubt of its validity to you and countless others, but for me it is.. idk, I do not get it. As I’ve mentioned earlier, the distinguishing between attatchment and detatchment seemed depressing. Reason being, if I am not attatched to events or people in any way what so ever, it seems to me like life becomes meaningless and all beauty disappear. Why would I care about you or anything if I did not feel the slightest sense of attatchment? A mindset I found way more useful, was that of love vs. lust. If you love people, you want what’s best for them. If you feel lust, you want what’s best for you (from them). Continuing, I don’t have the slightest doubt that meditation can do wonders for loads and loads of people. For me tho, my experience is that it doesn’t help. What does help, in my experience, is stuff like communal practice, service, limiting distractions, nature, what have you. Again, with all due respect, for me personally that text just appears as a giant paradox. I’m sure it is of great value for many, buuuut… I also think it is a little bit odd to say «this is the way,» and than say with a bunch of words that you shouldn’t say anything and that you do non-doing. If I could just turn the inner chatter off, I would, but at this point, I don’t think I can. And apologies in advance if I butchered the entire philosophy, I’d be happy to be corrected.

There's a time for everyoneIf they only learnThat the twisting kaleidoscopeMoves us all in turnThere's a rhyme and reasonTo the wild outdoorsWhen the heart of this star-crossed voyagerBeats in time with yours So bear with me, as you prob know by now: I do have a strong tendency to speak before I think, and I am also at a point where I have no clue what its really about or how it works. But I trust in it is something to astrology. To worsen the situation, I rely a lot on AI. Entirely, actually. Ill spear you for the commands, and leave you with the synthesis: Overall quite flattering, but I guess that might be the nature of astrology done by AI. When it came to point four, I found that very relatable, and it is nice to be presented with "oppurtunities with approvement." 1. Is this along the lines of what you adviced me to look into? 2. Does the reading done by AI seem reliable to you? 3. Other then self knowledge, which I guess is nothing to be scoffed at, what can I use this info for? 4. If you are satisified, what can I/we (and gemini ) analyze next, and if not, what ressources would you reccomend me to use to reavaluate? edit: 5. I read that Jupiter entered cancer (whatever that means) at 09.06 and will remain there for 13 months, and that this is advantageous for everyone, but I guess extremely so for me, considering how heavily I am concentrated in cancer?

So we have discussed what brings us closer to it, does anyone want to shoot in on what drives us away from it? I guess we could call it «sin,» no?

Solid point actually. I do have this tendency to always look at the "big answers," forgetting the obvious that is right in front of me. I kind of feel like the glass (old me) has been sort of emptied, but I do not know what to fill it with yet, so I am sort of looking for a path, makes sense? Dharma, I guess one could call it. But probally not a good idea to overthink that to much, and forget the beauties and oppurtunities that present themself every, single day.

1.1.4 Once, in a holy place in the forest of Naimiṣāraṇya, great sages headed by the sage Śaunaka assembled to perform a great thousand-year sacrifice for the satisfaction of the Lord and His devotees. 1.1.5 One day, after finishing their morning duties by burning a sacrificial fire and offering a seat of esteem to Śrīla Sūta Gosvāmī, the great sages made inquiries, with great respect, about the following matters. 1.1.6 The sages said: Respected Sūta Gosvāmī, you are completely free from all vice. You are well versed in all the scriptures famous for religious life, and in the Purāṇas and the histories as well, for you have gone through them under proper guidance and have also explained them. 1.1.7 Being the eldest learned Vedāntist, O Sūta Gosvāmī, you are acquainted with the knowledge of Vyāsadeva, who is the incarnation of Godhead, and you also know other sages who are fully versed in all kinds of physical and metaphysical knowledge. __________________________________ Alright, so today I qouted quite a few more, because I feel each one left on a cliff hanger, so to speak. But I guess the essence is to keep and inquiring mind, asking the right question to the right people with respect. Which is a good lesson indeed.

Another question for the enlightened: how do you know you are enlightened?

Perhaps I should avoid dwelling any deeper, as I might not be ready yet, but I wonder: 1. What can one do to refine the heart? 2. would you mind providing me with an intellectual framework, in hope that it might dawn on me one day? Thank you.

Are there principles of cooperation with the macro, or does one has to go on gut?

Thank you, could you elaborate a little on the concepts mentioned, please?

The Love which moves the sun and other stars Dante I was a hidden treasure, and I loved to be known, so I created the world that I might be known Hadith Have they not travelled throughout the land so their hearts may reason, and their ears may listen? Indeed, it is not the eyes that are blind, but it is the hearts in the chests that grow blind. Quran 22:46