soalbundy

Do I take that as a compliment or are you taking the pi$$? I have merely shown a small amount of knowledge that I have assimilated over 30 years of study, obviously none of it stems from me but from great enlightened men or from those who have put a great deal of work and money into their hypothesis's and who have tried to underline the work of gurus and holy men with scientific fact. I am not what one could call enlightened, that comes from grace not from study because the intellect has no way of fully grasping the concepts so I can only stroke the surface but I truly believe what they have taught. I have however meditated on Ramana Maharshi's "who am I" method, 'neti neti' not that, not that, with some success.

Some adults shouldn't be allowed to leave the house alone. Their own immoral acts and stupidity led to their demise, I have no sympathy.

Hopefully the worm is turning and the fad of 'woke' will soon be buried.

No, we are not in control. Things happen due to causality and there is your reaction to causal events. Reactions are predetermined by genetics, your upbringing as a child, past experiences as an adult, your country of birth, education, religion, society, etc. There are certain religions and philosophies that try to mitigate and alter the afore mentioned properties, to build a new house on the foundations of the old with some success. Zen Buddhism, the dissertations in Hinduism (Bagavat Gita, Advaita Vedanta etc.) then there are individuals who try to produce a life's map to overcome the pattern into which you have been stamped, Meister Eckhart the 14th century German Christian Monk, Buddha, the gurus Ramana Maharshi and Nisargatta, Markus Aurelius the Roman emperor and philosopher to name but a few. Unfortunately those predetermined properties that I mentioned will determine whether you are open to such teachings and causality will play a role whether you come into contact with them. Modern spiritual teachings, leaning on the old teachings and to some extent on modern physicists such as Tom Campbell and Donald Hoffman and several others consider that all that exists in reality is consciousness controlling the avatar that we call a body existing in a self evolving illusory field produced by consciousness that we call the universe, which is merely an interface for consciousness to reduce its entropy as it too evolves, some call it God, Brahman, Atman, the absolute, it has many names. As Nisargadatta said "That which changes is not real, that which is real does not change", Buddha's dissertations on "No Self" and "The World is Empty" is the same idea. Your true self is eternal undifferentiated consciousness which was there at the birth of the avatar and will witness its death.

Divorce was too complicated? Killing him and going to prison was easier.

Perhaps they should have sought mental health treatment before obeying this monk. Why go to study Dharma when many of Buddha's teachings can be read online or in books. It was Buddha himself who said, don't believe anything you hear or read, even if it is from me, if it doesn't correspond to your own experience. The monk is an opportunistic pervert who needs serious prison time, even Catholic priests don't go this far.

"A distinguished officer"?? What did he do, eat all his dinner?

Teens can be difficult, they aren't adults and they aren't children. I know the difference from when my son was 10 to his present age of 16, changing moods, a sense of entitlement, distancing himself from family, introverted, rebellious etc. He was so respectful, nice and polite when he returned from 2 weeks of army training but that only lasted 10 days or so, my wife and I are looking forward to when he goes again at years end. The only time we hear him laughing is when he contacts friends in Denmark, Finland, Holland etc. countries where they speak good English via his laptop, behind the locked door of his room. My wife says we should be grateful he isn't in a clique drinking and taking drugs.

Never say never. The state is mightier than the individual. "Yes sir, I appreciate what you are saying but we need official confirmation, until such time we will tax you on that amount and you can apply to have the money returned at a later date."

I consider myself left of the center but liberalism has gone too far, it's turned our politicians into woke cowards, anyone in the public eye, be it police, comedians, editors, teachers, politicians etc. are scared of putting a foot wrong, our legal systems are becoming impotent. So despite my political leanings I would now welcome right wing governments. I can see that geopolitical concerns wouldn't allow us to ban Muslims from entering Europe even though that would be desirable.

By visa renewal you get an 'under consideration stamp', the student employee then, at the end of the day, punches in all the names online to the tax office, the tax office clears all those registered with them and you get your visa, otherwise not. It could be made quite simple. It's never a good idea to mess with the tax office. Imagine it's inefficient for 2 or 3 years and you have evaded tax, then one fine day you get called in to back pay 3 years ++++ and get charged with tax evasion and get deported. I've worked out that at the very most they could charge me is 25,000 Baht for a year, that's less than the tax I would pay in Germany for 2 months while I was working, I haven't paid tax legally anywhere for nigh on 20 years so I've had a good run.

A simple standard letter issued through every IO from the tax office at the time of the 90 day registration telling you to register at the tax office would suffice, if you ignore that you are guilty of tax evasion, it's not rocket science. Having said that I don't believe they will be ready by 2024 due to lack of qualified personnel, of course they will be relying on tax accountants to do the heavy lifting and it's an ideal chance for some illegal moonlighting by the rank and file tax inspectors, one reason why this will become a reality, the scope for corruption is immense

A lot of Indians turned up in the UK with British passports, a remnant of British India, Lots of Turks legally in Germany where even the third generation still speak German with a Turkish accent, remnants of the 'guest worker' generation, then there are lots of Arabs legally in France due to their empire in that region, we are just a different form of legal 'migrant'. Migrations of large numbers of people have been ongoing for thousands of years, consider the Anglo and Saxon migrations to England along with Danish (Dane law) and the Normans, a more mongrel nation than ours would be hard to find, genetic studies found that we are more genetically related to Germans than to the Welsh.

Cut and paste from Kipling's poem 'Gunga Din' before breakfast

Now in Injia’s sunny clime, Where I used to spend my time A-servin’ of ’Er Majesty the Queen, Of all them blackfaced crew The finest man I knew Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din, He was ‘Din! Din! Din! ‘You limpin’ lump o’ brick-dust, Gunga Din! ‘Hi! Slippy hitherao ‘Water, get it! Panee lao, ‘You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din.’ The uniform ’e wore Was nothin’ much before, An’ rather less than ’arf o’ that be’ind, For a piece o’ twisty rag An’ a goatskin water-bag Was all the field-equipment ’e could find. When the sweatin’ troop-train lay In a sidin’ through the day, Where the ’eat would make your bloomin’ eyebrows crawl, We shouted ‘Harry By!’ Till our throats were bricky-dry, Then we wopped ’im ’cause ’e couldn’t serve us all. It was ‘Din! Din! Din! ‘You ’eathen, where the mischief ’ave you been? ‘You put some juldee in it ‘Or I’ll marrow you this minute ‘If you don’t fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!’ ’E would dot an’ carry one Till the longest day was done; An’ ’e didn’t seem to know the use o’ fear. If we charged or broke or cut, You could bet your bloomin’ nut, ’E’d be waitin’ fifty paces right flank rear. With ’is mussick on ’is back, ’E would skip with our attack, An’ watch us till the bugles made 'Retire,’ An’ for all ’is dirty ’ide ’E was white, clear white, inside When ’e went to tend the wounded under fire! It was ‘Din! Din! Din!’ With the bullets kickin’ dust-spots on the green. When the cartridges ran out, You could hear the front-ranks shout, ‘Hi! ammunition-mules an' Gunga Din!’ I shan’t forgit the night When I dropped be’ind the fight With a bullet where my belt-plate should ’a’ been. I was chokin’ mad with thirst, An’ the man that spied me first Was our good old grinnin’, gruntin’ Gunga Din. ’E lifted up my ’ead, An’ he plugged me where I bled, An’ ’e guv me ’arf-a-pint o’ water green. It was crawlin’ and it stunk, But of all the drinks I’ve drunk, I’m gratefullest to one from Gunga Din. It was 'Din! Din! Din! ‘’Ere’s a beggar with a bullet through ’is spleen; ‘’E's chawin’ up the ground, ‘An’ ’e’s kickin’ all around: ‘For Gawd’s sake git the water, Gunga Din!’ ’E carried me away To where a dooli lay, An’ a bullet come an’ drilled the beggar clean. ’E put me safe inside, An’ just before ’e died, 'I ’ope you liked your drink,’ sez Gunga Din. So I’ll meet ’im later on At the place where ’e is gone— Where it’s always double drill and no canteen. ’E’ll be squattin’ on the coals Givin’ drink to poor damned souls, An’ I’ll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din! Yes, Din! Din! Din! You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din! Though I’ve belted you and flayed you, By the livin’ Gawd that made you, You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

Yes they could do, they would be the first European country to do so and may set the ball rolling. In an ideal world there would be no need to flee ones own country but here we are. Eventually I can see lethal force being used when the effects of global warming accelerate and a human tide crashes on to northern shores around the world. Our planet needs an escape. Still when all is said and done we should be the last people complaining about foreigners coming to live in someone else's country, we too are a different colour from a different culture and religion and a different language and who show, for the most part, a lack of interest in integrating with the local population.

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It does metaphorically speaking, the national psyche is cold and wet, warmed only by football and 'big brother' or 'love island'

I can only relate what I saw on youtube, a man who bought 2nd hand cars at auctions to sell on to 2nd hand dealers, he said, and showed cars, he bought at absolutely cut price but he had trouble selling them on because the dealers couldn't find customers. The cars at auction were from people who couldn't keep up with the payments but the bank didn't want to take possession as the price they would get was to small for the trouble. Some of the cars looked really good and he bought them for like $4,000

Falling car sales is a universal problem, everyone is getting squeezed, in the US they are almost giving 2nd hand cars away but still cant find customers.

Most soldiers didn't fight for democracy and freedom, they had to because they were called up. My father ran away from home and joined the navy (he was too young to do so and his parents wouldn't allow him anyway but he got away with it) and why? For adventure, not for democracy, after a year or two it sickened him. My whole family left the UK years ago, most to Australia, I left for Germany over 50 years ago followed by my sister, nobody ever regretted leaving.

How true, I like Thailand because although it's charmingly, unashamedly, openly corrupt, they still have national cohesion, their traditions are still adhered to despite being more show than substance, their institutions are still respected in an amusingly careless ad-hoc way. No woke nonsense here. They are proud of their country and they like being Thai, good luck to them. I was born in England in 1948 but I've disliked the place even as a child.

Male pronouns, what has that got to do with it? It doesn't matter what your politics are, no political party gives a thought to its people until its power base is threatened, just look at the chaos in the US and UK.

With that amount of cash it would be a prolonged stay of decades, still such cases aren't unknown.