save the frogs

They're not a bank, but neither are they only a way to move money anymore. They've morphed into a sort of bank by offering an ATM card -- with lower fees than normal banks. The issue is you have to put money in the account to use the ATM. From the research I've done so far, they're reliable and the amounts deposited for use with the ATM card are protected as they would be in a normal bank. ie they deposit they money in actual banks. So the anti-wise crusade seems unwarranted as far as I can tell so far.

bar girl + weed + alcohol + low balcony + friday the 13th floor = bad luck yo!

because he's a cult leader? maybe i'll go back and read his "body of work" on this thread at some point to confirm my suspicions.

@sunmaster, you made a comment about "information that has been passed down thousands of years". well, you would have to assume that the information was kept in tact for those thousands of years. never corrupted or modified or tainted in any way. passing through thousands of hands throughout those thousands of years. your comment reminded me of a quote attributed to buddha. "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."

just saw an interview with a guy who worked on wall street. he said a lot of day traders got heart attacks.

ha, that's pretty wild.

FYI: has anyone mentioned "mantras" on this thread yet? i came across this video by sadghuru. i'll post the quote in case you don't have time to watch the video. "In India, there are people that if you have a snake bite, just by uttering a mantra they will relieve you of the poison. Long distance." Apparently, there was a guy in India who got famous doing this.

Amen to that!

with the tragic news stories, they would be far more interesting if we knew all the events leading up to the suicide/murder. there's a whole lot of 'karma' behind those stories. but we will never know. so it's just fear porn.

yes, that's correct. but it's hard to avoid. even forums like this are full of negative news. pays the bills.

maybe people try to gravitate a bit too much towards the "sexy stuff". i recommend this book. it was written by a taxi driver. he's not an academic. he's not a buddhist, but he learned a few buddhist principles and he applies it to his life while contemplating on his life as a taxi driver. no outlandish claims about having visions of the virgin mary or talking to angels. simple language. and most importantly, uses it as a form of introspection on his own life.

please don't give me homework. i watched 2 minutes of it and my initial impression is that he's completely fabricating everything. not that past lives or atlantis doesn't necessarily exist. but this guy looks like he's inventing stuff to make himself famous. i could be wrong, but i don't have time to watch.

because living abroad is a mixed bag. and humans are emotional creatures. you may love some things ... but then other stuff causes you to leave. so it causes mixed emotions.

I didn't read that much. I read that book and a few others. This is decades ago. I was disillusioned with the whole "spiritual crowd" after joining a meditation group. The people running it were screwed up. The were on a power trip and most members in the groups were recovering alcoholics. Then lived abroad. Not many people interested in talking about this stuff. Except one young American girl I met abroad. She had gone to a strict ultra religious school in the US... was it mormon? can't remember. They weren't even allowed to watch hollywood films. So she was escaping from that and was open to different stuff. This thread is memory lane.

"wild horses" maybe their best song? dont listen to most of their stuff. i can't get no satisfaction listening to mick jagger.

your definition of 'spiritual' may be somewhat narrow or very specific. the way human beings interact with each other is part of spirituality. if you're always playing one-upmanship, power struggles, bullying etc ...as discussed in celestine prophecy, this is part of spirituality. and it's happening everywhere. families, workplace ... cuz people are non-spiritual.

yeah because he might get kicked out of the church if he doesn't meet his weekly quotas. these people are salesmen.

well, someone mentioned james redfield's celestine prophecy in another thread. that's an interesting read. one thing i remember from that book is the discussion of power struggles. many/most human interactions involve power struggles ... do i do that? i hope not. i try not to.

yes, that's right. found him. his name is michael mirdad.

deliberately cryptic to get people to talk about it

scary.

maybe try playing scrabble with the bar girls. don't just sit there and drink.

ok. game on. there's literally a preacher out of sedona, arizona that looks exactly like jesus. can't remember his name. i'll try to dig him up. i have a funny story. my high school friend came to me one day and said he was "saved". so i went to his group's bible study. they tried to save me, but i was asking way too many questions and playing devil's advocate. they gave up and kicked me out of the bible study group. ha ha.

i haven't dismissed everything you've said. i haven't read most of it. i pointed out that ONE of tipaporn's comments was bs. and i still think it is, 1000 years of wisdom handed down notwithstanding. but you've confirmed what i thought. you said you've been researching this stuff for 25 years. so this isn't a normal thread. you're basically "an authority figure" on this thread. from my life experience, challenging an authority figure is never a pleasant experience. and I don't feel like playing that game.