soalbundy

#1 the stock market, the central bank, the Fed, huge corporations, billionaires, military industrial complex, the civil service. #2 the government #3 the public In order of who has the power in the land, and with 34 trillion dollars of debt it doesn't matter who the president is, the wagon has already been pushed off the cliff. 1 trillion seconds is 31 thousand years + + just to give you an idea of the magnitude of the debt that can't be paid back.

Kinda funny but you had to be there to get the full laugh

Democracy....it's a nice word. It has to exist first to be threatened.

According to the BBC Kamala Harris has already clinched enough support among the Democrats to be nominated.

So in the UK the nutters turn to knives.

They are the best kind, they can't make mistakes and they leave everybody alone to get on with their lives under a system they know.

I thought you didn't talk to Thais, you can't stand them.

One mustn't get too involved in the myths that grow around such famous figures in history, virgin births, walking on water, resurrection etc. there are also many unbelievable myths surrounding the Buddha. In more recent times even the Delai Lama has had myths attached to his birth (the sounds of trumpets and bells in the sky during his birth for instance). A high level of conscious awareness doesn't turn one from a man of flesh and bone with human desires into a demi god. Buddha expressed himself in a less exalted manner than Jesus saying, 'don't believe anything you hear or read, even if it is from me, if it doesn't correspond to your own experience' whereas Jesus elevated himself above humanity when he declared, the only way to the father is through me. What was really said is of course lost in the fog of history. In more recent times it is known that Ramana Maharshi (died in the 1950's) would hold gatherings without speaking a word and it has been testified by both westerners and Indians alike that his mere presence could bring about a state of enlightenment. The revered sage Nisargadatta, also in recent times, swayed his audiences with fiery discourses and could destroy ones pre-held spiritual conceptions by letting one explain them in his presence, he would say nothing but the held concepts died away under his gaze, people left his presence joyful and uplifted and yet his interpreters said he could be a rather foul speaking man, he refused treatment for his throat cancer saying, I as the absolute have no need of this body. No matter how enlightened a person may be, all are human beings with feet of clay with their desires and frustrations, joys and depressions. Jiddu Krishnamurti, at one time declared by the Theosophical society to be the world teacher of humanity (a title he rejected), when speaking to an audience never used the word 'I', instead he would say 'the speaker would like....' Shortly before his death at 90 said he felt that nobody took him seriously but that he was endured as a figure of fun and yet he was revered throughout the world and was showered with gifts of land, castles and money (which he returned)....in short, he was plagued by doubt about himself.

Mark Twain wrote, my life has been full of disasters that never happened.

If Jesus really existed, I personally think he did although there isn't much data to support that, he was an enlightened sage, a man who trod on too many powerful toes and ended up on the cross, he became a wiser man for a few hours because of it. A man, just a man but the church wants you to believe otherwise, the flock can only be kept together with myths and fear, only then will they pay for the protection of the mother church.

One shouldn't take the bible literally but as spiritual analogies. The garden of Eden is an important example of egoic growth smothering spiritual inspiration. The NASA physicist Tom Campbell, author of the trilogy 'My big T.O.E' (my theory of everything) was able to explain all the anomalies in physics in this book after investing years of scientific work into consciousness at the Monroe institute where he learned to have out of body experiences at will (see youtube). Basically the ever evolving absolute (call it god if you will) split off many independent units of consciousness (IUC) connected by a data stream in order for multiplicity to lower its entropy but this wasn't sufficient, it was similar to a chat room without consequences. So a 'digital big bang' was initiated to form a self evolving virtual reality which evolved according to the rule set(the universe), when sentient beings of a high order evolved the IUC's split off parts of themselves as free will units of consciousness (FWUC) to control the virtual reality avatars (our body minds). This now had consequences, as long as the actions of the FWUC's resulted in loving cooperation and caring the data streams to the IUC's resulted in lowering the entropy to the main body of the absolute which is infinite, eternal without form knowing only itself and being only of itself which hindert its own evolution. The IUC's through the free will units now had knowledge and experience other than themselves through the data streams received which could be processed by the absolute but since there were two different dimensions (the virtual reality universe and the absolutes reality) the IUC's couldn't interfere with the decisions of the FWUC's who acted in the virtual reality zone (universe) only the data stream could be received. The expulsion from the garden of Eden is to be understood so;- the free will units started to identify with their avatars which had survival instincts and hence formed egos, the FWUC's started to lose knowledge of their own identity and became the 'me', a mixture of ego and the absolute resulting in both good and evil being produced. Your real identity is the eternal absolute as a free will unit of consciousness. The death of the avatar results in the FWUC returning to the IUC to be given a new avatar,(reincarnation) hopefully with a better outcome, the knowledge of the old avatar is to 99% forgotten as the data stream is given up to the absolute but an inherent knowledge of its shortcomings remains.

I don't know of this god thread. While discussions on this subject can sometimes be interesting they lead to nothing, they are merely concepts and opinions. Even the teachings of such great sages as Nisargadatta, Ramana Maharshi, Buddha, and Jesus are just their truths, their experiences, profound though they may be. Your truth, your baptism of conscious awareness must come through personal experience, those of us bereft of such awakenings can only hope they happen on our deathbed if not before. Is it important? Except for the freedom it gives one during life's journey no, what is just is. My two dogs are are conscious sentient beings and hence part of the eternal 'I am' and yet such things don't concern them, they aren't equipped with introspection they are blessed with the ease of being, with 'it is as it is' which is as good a motto to live by as any other, acceptance of what is brings peace.

Look at it from the point of view that nothing is good or bad.....it just is. It is not for the elf to question the player, the lump of clay can't dictate its final shape to the potter. I am reminded of the young European on the hippy trail to Tibet, he spoke to a revered holy man in a Buddhist temple about the terrible things happening in the world, the monk replied, 'that is good so', the young man was horrified,'but I am fighting against such things, the monk smiled and replied, 'that is also good'.

He's in for a world of pain.

People who take the world and all that happens on it seriously.

Not everything can be known. The mind is material orientated and basically consists of thought, to search with it for answers outside of its realm of experience is therefore pointless. Conscious awareness just is, as human beings we are accustomed to beginnings and ends. There is a perceiver and the object perceived, the perceiver cannot be the object perceived, hence you are not the body which you can perceive, nor can you be the mind whose thoughts you can perceive, what is this 'I' that can observe your thoughts? what is the 'I am' awareness that never ages? It is the same at 5 years old or 80, attitudes and concepts change but 'I am' remains the same. 'I am' is consciousness, it is the space between two thoughts, the emptiness with the potential for everything that is experienced in deep meditation where there is no thought, it is undifferentiated existence without concepts. 'I am' was there at the birth of your avatar and will witness its death which is of no concern to 'I am'. Some people can have a deep spontaneous awakening, be it a farmer, a drunkard or a monk, while some monks can meditate for 40 years and never (like myself) have this experience, it is a matter of grace. Here an excerpt from 'The open Secret' written by a man who had such an awakening while walking through a park in Balham, London, it caused him to sit down in shock and changed his whole life. There is no me or you, no seeker, no enlightenment, no disciple and no guru. There is no better or worse, no path or purpose, and nothing that has to be achieved. All appearance is source. All that apparently manifests in the hypnotic dream of separation – the world, the life story, the search for home, is one appearing as two, the nothing appearing as everything, the absolute appearing as the particular. There is no separate intelligence weaving a destiny and no choice functioning at any level. Nothing is happening but this, as it is, invites the apparent seeker to rediscover that which is . . . the abiding, uncaused, unchanging, impersonal silence from which unconditional love overflows and celebrates. It is the wonderful mystery.

That's his visa sorted

Strange, I used to be a big beer drinker in Germany but severely limited my intake as I don't like the beer here, I can get drunk on 3 bottles now but I can drink gin tonics all evening with no ill effects.

I often talk to water buffaloes on my walks, once they know you they respond.

In my village the vet comes round at the noted down intervals (dog's names with address and last inoculation are recorded) and the injections are free, my two dogs know him and try to escape as soon as he appears even though the injections only take a few seconds and doesn't seem to cause them pain.

That is the norm here. Often the fault lies with the postman and not with the system per se, if feeling tired they may cut their round short and take the letters home, once they have done this several times a heap gets created that takes time to resolve. I once had to ask my German bank to send me 3 bank cards before they were all delivered on the same day with different sending dates, the first one 2 months late. I complained to the post office and they inspected his house finding several letter heaps in his living room, he was sacked. We now have a woman from our village delivering, she is consciences and delivery times have been cut to 3 weeks.

The bomb worked apparently. The scraps of nails were presumably going to be used as shrapnel, a budding terrorist cut off in his prime, may he rest in pieces.

While the welfare of the monkeys and their working conditions are of concern to us all but more important is, have they worked out the correct pronouns to use for them.

or can't be bothered anymore.

Age discrimination is as old as prostitution, even the different age classes in ancient Rome would bemoan each other. We don't live in Toy town and nobody has the god given right to not feel slighted, rebuked, or even insulted, praise would lose its meaning if fairy dust was blown into everyone's face. Indeed, 'inappropriate' remarks can be a wake up call to the recipient. Every age has its capabilities and drawbacks, to be told one is too old to sell fashion clothes to teenagers or too young to be an advice giver is just telling it as it is. Today I became 76 and am grateful for the good physical and mental condition I find myself in but I know my limitations however I am also aware of the vast accumulation of knowledge that I possess.......and I just don't care.