If you are not familiar with “The Secret”, it’s a modern redaction of the ancient Law of Attraction. I like the way Andreas Buttler, founder of Spiritologie puts it:
“All – and by that I mean actually just that, namely all – that you perceive and experience is exactly that, which you out of yourself, through your own causal thinking create, and indeed right…now!”
So when I see the Law of Attraction, I cannot forget my studies in Theravada Buddhism.
The first problem with the Law of Attraction is it presumes there is a You. The final realization in Buddhism is annicca, or no-self.
The second problem with the law of attraction is the that your thoughts and feelings create your reality. Well, most people are not conscious of what they are thinking subconsciously. And feelings of any sort show that you have fallen down the 12-dependant links of Origination into the Like-Dislike process.
Anyway, I sought sources far wiser than I to further confirm my suspicion and they had some excellent things to say.
We are in an age where everything is valued in terms of its price instead of other things such as knowledge, heroism or skill.
My response:
Previous ages based on barter suffered from lack of coincidence of want. The price is there so that there can be an exchange of value without having to have a coincidence of want. If you need a loaf of bread, what good is the fact that you can solve differential equations in and of itself? Nothing! And who needs to barter with you for that? Not the grocery store owner, most likely.
Furthermore, there are certain cryptocurrencies such as WhyCoin that are in fact based on Proof of Knowledge.
And finally do not confuse money with currency. The rupee, the US Dollar, the Euro are all NOT MONEY, none of them. They are not finite and they do not have intrinsic wealth. Update: later in the video he speaks of a time when the currency had intrinsic wealth.
Every age has an end, we are reaching the end of the financial cycle when all is valued by money alone.
What complicates things this time is that cryptocurrencies are emerging to provide the very values Sri Ranade is talking about — where the power is decentralized into the hands of the people as opposed to the ruling banks. And where there is in fact proof of knowledge, proof of trust, etc. He really should educate himself on groups such as the New Economy Movement and numerous other decentralized systems where you can become your own bank in literally seconds.
Real money is not a physical object.
The dictionary doesnt agree with you. I would save the terms “money” and “currency” for what the dictonaary says and give the metaphysical predecessor that Sri Aurobindo talks about another name. Technically everything you see is consciousness, but it is not practical to label everything consciousness.
Active consciousness is female and witness consciousness is male:
That may be true in Indian mysticism but Chinese yin-yang theory inverts this.
The right use of money is to create the largest benefit.
Yes. This is very wise. Now, the vision of this will finally be entering India after a long, hard fight. As it stands for the past millenium and longer, the people of India and most of the world has been spending money separately instead of using the power of togetherness. That is changing as we speak. Currently, when money is spent for goods and services, you just get the product. Soon, all of the following will happen with each purchase:
you will save money
your two closest friends will earn money (from the fact that you saved money. and they were not even buying anything).
the environment gets helped
educational and medical supplies are provided for the needy
ALL of that with each purchase. It has been happening for 12 years in Europe, 4 years in the USA and will be entering India in March of 2016.
A single grain bursts out into hundreds of grains.
This is in fact how this system coming to India works… 1 becomes 4. 4 becomes 16. 16 becomes 64 and so on… from a single “seed” comes many fruit which then drop seed and produce more fruit.
Money flows out and comes back
Yes! Most purchasing involves only flowing out, with no coming back… but imagine if purchasing were a cycle where you got money back with each purchase and a number of people and initiatives were helped with each purchase? And do realize: this is not really what-if because we have been doing it for 12 years.
Poverty is not spiritual or divine.
Fascinating viewpoint.
Characteristics associated with Shakti are emerging, so women will play a more important role
Hilary Clinton president? 🙂
Layers of devaluing – from paper currency, to stocks
Eric Worre has a lot of excellent material, but this is his most important video:
Why? Because nothing else he says matters until you can master your thoughts. Mastery of thoughts might seem like a difficult thing, but it is not, if you use the fact that thoughts and breath are linked. The slower you breathe, the less you think.
Both Zen and Vipassana Buddhism go at this from the other way. They give you a practice designed to reduce your attachment to thoughts, this eventually gets you to calm down and eventually you breathe slower. The problem is that most people eventually come across a thought that tugs them away from it all – it might be an old argument with their mom, they realize they left the stove on, etc.
So let’s go about this the direct way, get a stop watch and GO! First start with 5 seconds for your inhale and exhale. When that’s easy, go up to 10, 15, 20, etc.
And just keep going deeper and deeper towards the source of all creation – NO-THOUGHT. Then you can create what you want!
and yet elsewhere – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfJ95vOdi-E
he says it’s a lie… aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!
But he makes a great point – about how realization also requires devotion and how realization without devotion can lead to a bit of questioning and confusion about what you have.
Facebook started out OK. I added a few co-workers. Then a few spiritual people. Then a few hip-hop dancers. And now I have a mess. I log in and I am hit with the activity of all sorts of people – technical ones, spiritual ones, hip-hop ones. And I cant imagine that my various updates are pleasing to them. Are my hip-hop dance updates useful or palatable to my co-workers, etc?
I think I need a bunch of non-conflicting facebook profiles:
The Deep Self – all my various spiritual pursuits, oh but throw in space music?
Metaperl Terrence Brannon – technical Terrence Brannon. The least interesting, but the most powerful. It pays my bills. These are the people I want the least to do with in my social networking time
Irmo High School and earlier Terrence Brannon – all my high school friends who I have not talked to in 20 years and who have nothing other than former spacetime overlap.
Electronic Music Terrence Brannon
Rock music Terrence Brannon
Gentle nature Music Terrence Brannon
Hip hop dance Terrence Brannon
Social activitism Terrence Brannon
Zenmaster Cash Terrence Brannon – to deal with all the MLM and money making schemes out there
People who ignore me – you know the people who friend you and then never respond to you? The famous ones? What kinds of friends are these
Family Terrence Brannon – my sister is on facebook. I talked with her more in-person in 2 days that I have on facebook in the last year. And she’s on there every day basically.
And then we can divide the deepself up into many pieces based on former versus current spiritual pursuits. Or the type of spiritual pursuit.
And this whole dilemma stems from what Sailor Bob Adamson has described – I have been called a certain name, told I was a good boy, bad boy, etc… all these various separating communications.
No one talks to me on facebook!
And then the big thing. Why am I always writing on other people’s walls and no one has anything to say to me, either directly or indirectly? Oh I take it back. I did once have a scientologist writing on my wall until he got aggravated with all the hip-hop dance videos. At which time he un-friended me.
So now we have plumetting self-esteem heaped onto personality crisis! GREAT! WONDERFUL!
How many people have reached enlightenment via facebook? I think it’s possible, once you realize all your friends are your real self. But Judith Lamb-Lion trashed it, saying: “they arent thinking about what they are doing, just chatting, chatting ,chatting” … and me? I think this time would have been better off tracking the motion of my belly.
David Spero starts this video describing his ability to take people past identification with their body to a place of freedom.
And then he continues with a very useful statement – no witness. In god-realization there is no seer separate from what is seen. Then he says “I am that” is an obfuscation and corrects it with “that is that” … however this phrase has its problems too. There is an implicit “I” pointing at that. While “I” is explicit in the phrase from Nisargadatta Maharaj’s book, it is implicit in David’s.
It just goes to show that TRUTH cannot be spoken only experienced. While FACT can be spoken, discussed, analyzed, etc.
David continues saying “What is this I that is that? You know it is a lie.” … lie is a strong word. It implies that someon is saying something intentionally to deceive another. It may be inaccurate, but it is unfair to call it a lie. In fact “I am that” is not such a bad thing to say, because it makes “I” and “That” equivalent and synonomous, leaving no room for anything else — no “I” separate from that.
But of course, there is a huge gap between David and me. David can induce people into awareness above the throat over the internet and/or in person. He is absolutely no joke in terms of guru ability. But having studied with him, the typical guru things come up – shock at something that the guru has done to you or someone else… when you would’ve done something different.
For instance, once I saw him absolutely torch a newcomer. The person said: “how can I do this on my own?” And David said: “I thought of writing an article called real gurus and fake students.” And continued to berate this individual. I’m guessing he sensed the person was not sincere and decided to fight fire with fire. Whatever the case, it made me uncomfortable.
And I give him props for having public metaphysical discussions with Swami G. And given the two, I’d have to say I’d opt for David because his path is ultra simple. But that takes nothing away from Swami G because she clearly has done a lot for seekers as well. And the keynote, perhaps for this whole post, is what she puts in a quote as the top of her website:
“Knowledge has to do with duality. There’s knowledge, and then there’s wisdom. If you’re still seeking knowledge and you think you’re going to learn your way there, you’re going to read all these texts and magically get it, you’re in intellect and your’e in duality. Welcome to all your fantasy world of creation.”