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Messages - mic

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1
General Discussion / Re: Accepting what is
« on: March 16, 2026, 08:20:40 pm »
J) I was waiting for Plato and Mic to address some of the things you said but so far they haven't.
...really...? I was thinking J('s doing just fine...he's been working up a good head of steam on his own.
Everyone goes into the dark alone. I'm waiting to see what/if comes out the other side.


But if you have commentary you feel moved to contribute, Crystal, please don't hold back. There's no protocol of restraint here.

2
General Discussion / Re: Accepting what is
« on: March 15, 2026, 12:59:26 am »
I initially came to write on the Kave because a lot of the things written in the Jed books and similar, I simply could not understand and was looking for some kind of clarification to apply in real life situations, which somehow never worked and still don't.  Upon further reflection, I believe Plato's intent for this site was for like minded people to share from behind the "iron curtain of the mind" or more recently to  "waking up with a changed perspective". I simply am not there so anything I write would be a waste of all of our time.  Thank you.
Crystal, I truly understand the desire for real world application of non-dual principles and teachings. It became my raison d'etre and changed the course of my life because I couldn't shake the conviction of its potential for helpfulness (the ultimate measure, I believe) to the context and quality of the human experience.


What is critical is not to conflate causes with symptoms. In psychosocial work, almost all clients arrive wanting to do something about their symptoms - the unpleasant experiences predicating their search for help. They want help with their symptoms, while expending vast amounts of energy protecting the very causes of their afflictions. ("But mah true self!" aka 'ego')


...Isn't this exactly why Pharma has been so successful as a commercial model...?
"Don't change anything! You do you! Just take a pill!"

But there are no free lunches, physics is as real as the Earth we walk upon - BUT the stories we share about the experience of that are, for the most part, utter bullsh!t.

And you simply can't affect - with any degree of conscious awareness - the underlying root of a situation at the level of stories about the way they manifest. That's what the Red Queen tried to do, by painting the roses red. Going back and re-planting red roses involves a lot of work (rework and patience, for the Queen, who needed them red and needed them NOW) - but if you insist on 'solutions' right now - well, how often do we all get out our buckets and brushes and start slopping paint...?


...Isn't the world you see a very clear portrait of this same process, writ large...?

Sounds ridiculous at this level of abstraction - but that is exactly how it looks from the awakened perspective.


In the context of the Kave, the first question is: have you experienced the initial insight of 'no self'...? Have you passed through the Gateless Gate, wondering how it ever even became 'a thing'...?

If that's as far as you've gotten, then you are on the brink of what Jed called "the first step".

It's only the first step because the hard part is what comes afterwards, when you smell something cooking, start to feel the heat - and realise it's you that is on fire.


And you need that fire, because it is from its ashes that all possibility springs - including that of actually changing the world.

3
General Discussion / Re: Accepting what is
« on: March 13, 2026, 02:02:26 am »
… I’m getting a Jim Morrison, free association vibe from your riffs here… imagining now Plato putting his guitar to it and laying down some ‘shroom-laden slam tracks!

“… Cuss while killing each other, while animals just skip that part…”

Dayam, brother. ✊😎🎵

4
General Discussion / Re: Accepting what is
« on: March 12, 2026, 06:49:48 pm »

 
 
 
Individual actions make up society.
I heartily disagree. Actions speak to motives, certainly, but it is far more the jointly held interpretations of actions and events that bind people together. It's why narrative control is (and always has been) such a thing.

Quote from: Crystal
Were the jabs safe and effective including for grandma? The object of the game here is to see through all the lies, otherwise we can never create another kind of society. Or like J) says, just have an honest conversation. 
Seeing through lies is an essential element of waking up…the most important part of that is that you need to keep going all the way, and see for yourself how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Lies don't end with vindicating your pet theories about who did what to whom during which outrage.

Quote from: Crystal
And which animals? The ones in their natural habitat with freedom to roam, plenty to eat and drink, or the ones humans caged in zoos or compromised situations? There is a vet from Norway that says animals take on the sickness of the humans, treat the person and the animal gets better. 
No contest, animals in human proximity are susceptible to all our same sicknesses…I'm not sure why you brought that up though…

Quote from: Crystal
What’s the point of offering heretical therapy if the human horse is so far out of the barn, there is nothing to fix? It’s the actions some take from their thoughts that create problems for other humans and animals. If bombs were going off while you were trying to sleep, perhaps you could take it all on with complete neutrality, but you would be the exception. And I bet it’s frightening the hell out of the animals. However, I’m not the one who has woken up with a changed perspective.  In your model, both logic and morality seem to be on the chopping block, along with Dr. Suess, and neither the adults/children know if they are a boy, girl, or donkey’s ass. Although the changed perspective ones would most likely still say, there is no one, nothing’s happening, even if their whole family gets blown up in front of their face.

The term accepting what is, falls short, on its own as a universal concept that would have agreement across the board. What it means to us personally is at least workable.
I guess this is the meat-and-potatoes of your response… let's work back from the end, shall we…?

"what is" is merely reality: non-conceptual, unvarnished, uninterpreted, sans morality, ethics or judgments. It isn't relative, or personal and it is as it is, unembellished and regardless of whether billions agree 'across the board' …or nobody does.

In that sense, "it (just) is".

So…'accepting' that there is a reality before our judgments, morality, 'shoulds' and 'shouldn'ts' come in to cloud, selectively mask, twist and colour reality to suit our grotesquely simplistic internal mental, cultural and political models may appear to be a very small, almost imperceptible and meaningless gap… from the outside… but from the inside, I assure you it grants access to the very prism…the boundless space of possibility, from which one can see and appreciate how it is that what seems 'evil' when viewed from one angle, seems 'logical' and 'part of the natural order' when viewed from another… with plenty of room for all shades of in-between besides.

…And this also happens to be the view from 'done', btw.

Now…you persist in asserting that "accepting what is" somehow equates to smiling like a fool while one's house is being burnt down. I assure you that isn't the case. Nor does it equate with an absence of care, morals, ethics or preferences.

It is a starting point for putting one's own house in order, for the sole purpose of clarity…of the kind espoused by the Buddhist Eightfold Path.

Think about it: if I am psychotic and you are neurotic…what kind of meaningful, constructive or helpful conversation or action plan could we possibly hope to cook up between us to "save the world"…?

How could we even know there's "something very wrong" that requires saving…?

How could we tell it wasn't our own wonky internal wetwiring being projected upon an otherwise benign world…and we're not just making trouble for everyone we meet because of that…? (as I write this I'm getting a flashback to the movie "12 Monkeys"… what do you think of that guy's motives for what he did…? He saw a sick and twisted human world and decided to do something about it, that would help innocent animals).

There's more to respond to here, but I wanted to put this in response, before too much time elapses.
...And isn't it obvious to you that I care...? You've been wringing your hands and asking, "What to do?" Your questions revolve around "how can any of the stuff we discuss here be of practical use IRL...?"
To me, this is kind of what this whole Kave is supposed to be about, because Jed said simply "it isn't".
I disagreed and still do.

5
General Discussion / Re: Heretical Therapy
« on: March 06, 2026, 11:41:31 pm »
I like this.
 
 It's from Chase Hughes, a guy I've recently been watching some of his stuff.
 
"Let me ruin a little part of spirituality for you just really quick. Awakening when people talk about all this awakening stuff is unbelievably boring because there's no firework show. There's not a big cosmic moment. You don't find yourself sitting Indian style on a perfect beach. It's not something that makes you go out and buy a bunch of linen pants and bead necklaces and incense and maybe some sandals. Nothing explodes. Nothing gets hugely fixed and nothing dramatic really happens. But here's the one thing that happens. It's a shift in perspective.
 
 That's it. And that's exactly why most people, I think, never get it. Cuz perspective shifts don't feel super impressive. They don't feel a like a big spiritual thing. It definitely doesn't feel like we earned something. It just feels obvious when it happens. It's like realizing that this arrow that we've been fighting our whole life was just pointing the wrong way. And I think once people see it, there's nothing to celebrate. You don't feel special.
 
 And maybe you feel slightly embarrassed that you were fighting at all. And that's usually the first clue. Something real happened. and enlightenment.
 
 Even that big word enlightenment rarely feels flattering to anybody."
 
 What he doesn't mention here is the part that Jed caught - and what makes Jed's work a quantum shift away from the 'enlightenment' thing most are chasing - away from the part most focus on: the cleaning-up-afterwards part.
 
 The spiritual autolysis part.

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General Discussion / Re: Accepting what is
« on: March 06, 2026, 11:18:49 pm »
The closest I can come to any words around this, is we keep “doing the same things we have always done” by accepting what is, nothing can change and the full potential can never be realized or even explored. Hence why wars constantly repeat. People seem to accept that is the way humanity “is”. Is that true? By accepting that certain people in so called "public health" consider themselves the authority on what constitutes health, is that true?  Yet billions lined up for the latest jab. I question that “accepting what is” isn’t just another installed program. A door closer because it doesn’t allow for anything other.
The world is. The only 'problems' in the entire known universe exist inside the human mind. None are manifested in the external world. The external world also exists inside the human mind - albeit as cartoonishly simplistic models - and it is upon those inward projections, these inner maps, that we overlay the issues - including the 'shoulds' and 'shouldn'ts' of morality and ethics that so many have a hard time grappling with.

This difficulty arises because what I am (we are) in truth contains all of the above. Those who see problems believe they are human, interacting with their human models and calling that 'reality'.

And all who cannot pry their eyes from the models are what we call "sleepers".

And their resistance to opening their eyes to what lies beyond their models - opening their eyes to what is - generates conflict between cognitively bounded belief systems, because no system offers a complete picture and those gaps and dark places induce fear (fear is also the seed of the belief systems, the compulsive need to explain and reduce in order to understand). And conflict between sleeping believers is ironically what leads to consensual reality, as these systems hammer at and bend and twist each other into forms that eventually become more universally compatible but ultimately only mental models... think how Christianity appropriated pagan symbols to bring others into the fold.

This ebb and flow of conflict happens because what all belief systems have in common is:
internal logic.

They can all be understood only from within - even if they are logically flawed, mystical and emotional elements that prop up and cement together the fuzzy bits of what are basically unsustainable mental models.

Unsustainable because no hypothesis or belief system can adequately capture what is going on in reality.

I read recently that the efforts to build an accurate neuronal map of a mouse's brain would take more capacity than the already staggering entirety of the world's existing digital storage. What does that suggest about our ultimate ability to adequately capture reality and reduce it to some mental/conceptual/digitally reproducible model...?

Logic is an entirely mental construct, not an attribute of the universe.

Reality doesn't make intellectually discernible 'sense'. This is why it defies all necessarily reductionist modelling.
Reality is the ocean in a drop of water, whereas the model is a drop of water in a vast, endless ocean.

Just when you think you have it down, you will inevitably bang your nose, skin your knee and lose an eye to what lies behind whatever model you've dreamed up to explain reality.

Carbon is not a problem.
Hate is not a problem.
Conflict is not a problem.
Government is not a problem.
Pronouns are not a problem.
Donald Trump is not a problem.
Fascist oppression and unelected supranational bodies is not a problem.
Christianity, Islam and Judaism is not a problem.
Immigration and the cost of housing on Gen-whatever is not a problem.

Reality has no problems.

So if you cannot appreciate that - first and foremost - your view of the world is a tiny, 1D, moralistic pinhole view of something infinitely vast and incomprehensible, then it is no wonder you find it challenging to 'accept' things as they are.


And non-acceptance of what-is, is the basis for ensuring that nothing will ever change in that, because it is axiomatic that what you resist persists.






7
General Discussion / Re: Accepting what is
« on: February 27, 2026, 07:41:33 pm »
Hi Crystal, please break it down for me. What makes it a ‘door closer’ for you? I can’t help thinking we have only a communication problem here on this point and not a philosophical or ethical disagreement.

…Or (fresh thought, that just occurred to me) has the Marxist penchant for misappropriating well known terms seeped into the discourse and salted the metaphysical earth…? And is it now insisting on a newly ‘fixed’ meaning for what ‘acceptance’ must irrevocably mean…?

8
General Discussion / Re: Heretical Therapy
« on: February 27, 2026, 07:29:16 pm »
Seems you are drinking life through a fire hose right now, Steve!

It proved kind of an interesting thread, that veered totally away from my original intention.

…Justin seems to be drinking something through a firehose as well, I hope it is also just life.
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9
General Discussion / Re: Heretical Therapy
« on: January 17, 2026, 09:25:52 pm »

"Well, I'm gonna finish the game." I shall finish the game, Doc.

No argument here. Why not indeed...?

https://youtu.be/4z88U915uq8?si=rGRtbJGEnI8A-9md&t=11



10
General Discussion / Re: Heretical Therapy
« on: January 17, 2026, 03:04:09 am »
I pray for YOU to be shook out like the cartoon gangster you are.
I will never not love this - thanks, dude - I pray for the same. ✊😂

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General Discussion / Re: Heretical Therapy
« on: January 16, 2026, 07:46:08 pm »
No offence taken, mate.

My ‘assumptions’ about you being pissed were also spot on, Justin - you said so…though you blustered on for a while first, pretending otherwise…

None of this is rocket science, is ‘why’. It’s right in front of you, but there’s just so much ‘you’ in the way it’s hard to see without c0ck-blocking yourself.

This isn’t a new thing - at all - and yet you still refuse to acknowledge a pattern.

Of course you prefer talk.

That’s where ego is in its element - it’s why most prefer ‘tawk’ to considered, written responses with their name on it, endorsing its authenticity - warts-and-all. Most all of my clients vehemently resist journaling and would gladly sit and pay to blather on for years, rather than knuckle-down and write for months.

That’s a clue. That’s what bypass looks like.

As long as you’re raging and not writing, considering, re-writing, observing how it lands in you - and continue until you nail what’s going on - maybe starting with the real source of the rage (a method fully endorsed by both Jed and JBP - whose Self-Authoring program is well structured and a great start) then you are what AA calls “dry drunk”, and you and those around you are paying the cost.

Think also: there’s a significant part of you that doesn’t want that rage, and would clearly prefer it repurposed or gone. You might feel that part strongest in the regrets and apologies, efforts at self-censorship (eg., deleted posts) and other realtime cleanup activities.

And those two parts might have a great conversation, if that Spitfire of yours can see that it’s to its own advantage to allow it to happen.

I’m going through just such a process myself - and finding it challenging af…. Part of the reason I started this thread.

Here.

You call the Kave bogus because you don’t recognise it for the helpful mirror it is (you mentioned disgust with what you see)…you’ve spent a long time in and out of here and your ego is now saying you have nothing to show for it.

If that were true - that you actually got ‘nothing’ from all this - then you’d be down on your knees crying with gratitude.

…like those folk who believe keeping fit is sorted as long as they are paying for gym membership - attendance irrelevant - who then wake up one day to what they’ve pissed away and rage quit the gym because they can’t face the absurdity.

Here’s the thing about stories, Justin - which Jed also nailed: “as is as it is to me is as is as it is.”

Have you ever wondered why, with a bazillion possible data points in your field of awareness, you  choose the few million that frame the story of Justin the way you do…?

That’s the bird nest, the shadows, bollards, speed-bumps and other conditioning that resists being dragged screaming and kicking into the light, to be witnessed, picked apart, truly grokked for what it is and finally metabolised.

And that is anything but bypass.

Steve, care to add anything here, either way…?

12
General Discussion / Re: Heretical Therapy
« on: January 13, 2026, 05:58:44 pm »

Here's the deal Mic, I was pissed. Absolutely. I have a whole slew of issues to deal with here in the real world stemming from the fact that I've apparently been spiritually bypassing...

If it's not too late for you to read this, I'm saddened to hear of your decision to rage-quit the Kave, after throwing your toys the way you did.

Your final 11th-hour honesty here reminds me of when my younger son, aged 16, ponied up the courage to come out and tell us all that he's gay. He was gobsmacked that the rest of the family just nodded our heads and smiled back. His older brother punched him affectionately on the arm and said, "…You're still my brother!" His mother laughed, "…Why can't you be one of those fastidiously tidy gays?" and his 11-year-old sister smiled and said the quiet part out loud, "…Duh - everyone knew that!"

…Happily for us all, my son didn't leave home after his 'confession'… it was a few years later.

One question here (as a fellow Kavenaut) is why blame the Kave for what you call your spiritual bypassing… when it seems the Kave has just proven instrumental as an arena for outing it - to finally say it out loud…?

Bypass isn't Jed's fault - it's not even your fault. There is no 'fault', that's just more ego stuff, that won't help anyone with anything. And what you're going through is just what life does, tortured by the emotional barbs ego uses to keep its place as 'Self', rooted at the centre of the psyche… strategically placing "should", "mustn't" and other filters in the way of clear thinking to impede even the idea of what's being begged: cleaning house, back down to the floorboards.

Turning inward and looking at things honestly is such a hard thing to do that aspects of ego will do literally anything to prevent it: lose you jobs, ruin relationships, get you drunk …generally fvck up your sh1t, to keep you focused on outward facing messes you can't seem to stop making...
Anything to maintain the internal status quo.

But the good news is that very obviously other parts want you to do that very thing - or else you wouldn't be fighting the inner battles you obviously are.

And - like that old story about the two wolves - who wins is pretty well determined by which one you choose to feed.

Anyhow, bud… sorry to hear about your decision. Speaking for myself here, I believe the Kave can be helpful in precisely the kind of work your response implies would benefit you.

I know it has been for me, as I have drifted in and out over the years to test-drive thoughts and situations, to bounce them off you guys as a kind of stress-test. Yet, while the Kave has functioned well as a mostly fun kind of 'way station', I've never thought of it as a destination...more like a spiritual sandbox (in the software engineering sense of playing around with ideas).

But there's absolutely no reason why it cannot be put to work in earnest - is what I'm saying.

It already has, really… albeit indirectly.
The work I do these days has largely arisen from the way I have worked through many of my own issues and knotty problems. Spiritual bypassing of sorts seems a function of almost all modes of therapy, as well as the opiate of religion. It's why I only use a mishmash of what I see as useful techniques derived from it and do not embrace any single modality in full, as they all serve mostly to just reduce the annoying grating sound of cognitive dissonance, without doing anything to address the root causes, and thereby avoiding the ire of the gatekeepers - both internal and external.

…I sound like I'm asking you to stay, but I'm really challenging you to spell out what you believe [from all you have read, or said, or written, or done / not done in your life as a result of any of those since you first encountered Jed's work - and all that followed at IGF and the Kave - (what you're alluding to as 'spiritual bypass') ] has been keeping you from doing or being…? And could it not instead have just been the way it has been despite having the experience of those things…?

This question doesn't sound clear to me, so I'll try another way: I get clients who suffer degrees of intestinal and other distress, often for considerable time, after they amend their diet to begin including natural, healthy foods, similar or the same to what our ancestors ate for millions of years. Almost all of them say things like, "I can't eat X because Y", trying to rationalise the cause of not just their discomfort but their poor health itself as being… the intake of perfectly healthy food.

Even though their previous intake had been demonstrably instrumental in making them sick.

Jed's work is perfectly healthy food.

'Spiritual bypass' is taking that healthy food, removing the fibre, adding MSG, maltodextrin, high fructose corn syrup, then blitzing it to goop and frying it up to give it a crunchy outer coating… all to make it tastier and easier to swallow.


...So why not just hold your nose and eat the damned food...?

Just some parting thoughts, mate.

...And if he's already gone, then... funny old world, wot...?

…and sorry for busting up your Kave, Plato!

13
General Discussion / Re: Heretical Therapy
« on: January 10, 2026, 08:07:25 pm »
...Hey Justin, hope you're ok brother.


If the robber is never accountable for his actions, who will ever hold him responsible? Some unknown entity in the big sky of infinity? Let's pretend there is a beautiful man in the sky with piercing blue eyes watching what humanity does. They send one missile of corruption, and then another, and then there is so much corruption, it spread faster than any virus, strangely enough, there was no jab for that. Some brave men and women stand up and see what's going on, they try to tell the people, but the people are too scared that they too might get thrown in jail, so they cower in fear. Others will say, just accept what is, there must be a grand plan in place, there are no mistakes. Yep, it's called wake up people. David Icke has been calling this out for so many years and here we are, Little Miss Muffet's sitting on our tuffets. For the love of God, what does it take to say NO.

Side note: I'm doing this course right now, one of the questions in it is: 1. If you could change one world problem what would you change? I kind of have to chuckle as I'm pretty sure I can guess what your answer would be. Surprise me!!!


Kind of bashing this response out, so excuse its even more disjointedness than my usual... but simple: I have children and grandchildren, so the 'problem' (as all problems are) is egoic and it would be easier and funner (less suffering) if the world just woke up. This would better enable my loved ones to avoid hobbled-survival-mode as their likely future to full-frontal, exploratory, what-an-amazing-universe-we-live-in mode.

Why has god crept into the discussion…? Who is telling anyone to sit on their hands, or just file like sheep into some existential abattoir…?

What is the accountability of the robber? Their life choices clearly indicate their own thoughts and feelings about accountability… but then, so much of how they came to be who they are with those attitudes and behaviours arose from the context of their environment (have you seen that show 'Shameless'?) … so should we also not seek 'accountability' in their parents and grandparents…? Corrupt social institutions...? The breakdown of communities and family for profit…? Maybe Capitalism…?

…But if by 'accountability' you mean revenge, then just kill the robber before the police arrive…. Or is there some morality we are alluding to here…?
So many interconnected and overlaying fields and forces in motion…

The difficulty with grokking acceptance is purely egoic. Why is it difficult to understand that 'acceptance' doesn't equal 'collusion', 'compliance', or 'submission'? That it can very much include, "thus far but no farther"…?

Let me try to explain this better (and I'd be interested also in all your takes on the concept):
The world is the way it is - full stop. I'm sure you will agree with this very uncontroversial statement - even if you believe that it only APPEARS to be the way it is … because that is also part of the way it is.

Acceptance and non-acceptance is predicated by one's metaphysical starting point…

ACCEPTANCE is a byproduct of clear seeing. It carefully observes and sees that life, restricted to the experience itself, is indistinguishable from and as ephemeral as a dream.

Bleeping entirely over the mechanics of such a universe (…I also cannot explain it), its most prominent centrepiece is a storyline featuring the illusion of a separate, egoic self, surrounded by an atomised sea of other such selves.

Because doing literally nothing isn't really an option, and I appear to be wired this way, acceptance might proceed to try and drill down into the bedrock of the dream (there isn't any), analyse the apparent mechanics and historical trends a bit and hypothesise…coming up with something like: "Greed seems much an inherent attribute of such an ecosystem. Being the case, life in such an environment is inherently unfair. There have always been system-rigging racketeers. There has always been corruption and dishonesty and some will probably always take advantage of others. There has never been equal rights, values, access to resources. This kind of world entails much suffering. Suffering hurts more than just pain and seems so normal here - UNLESS one has (as I have) witnessed to the Lie of this apparent situation, and glimpsed the truth-by-process-of-elimination beyond the storyline.

…NOW…being central character in that very dream and having dissolved the Lie -  'my' story involves compassion for those who haven't yet, and are signalling readiness to do something about it.

But what can I possibly 'do' that might help any of these dream characters - maybe even those I love? What could shine a light on the source and tantalising optionality of suffering? The Buddha left some cool tools, but besides its irrelevance, I know most have zero interest in isolating for decades on a mountain so they can know the sound of one hand clapping.

So, knowing firsthand the non-negotiability of being intrinsically motivated for anything to happen, can the unleashing of Jed's Little Bastard be titrated into a digitalised, urban setting…? Are there psychosocial, somatic-based or even traditionally spiritual-type exercises that might help clear enough space to oxygenate the requisite fire, if facilitated…?

It turns out there kind of are, and so that's what I do.*

That's what I mean by acceptance.

NON-ACCEPTANCE, on the other hand, looks at life purely from the level of the story. Rooted in denial, it clutches its pearls and laments, "Greed is wrong. It's unfair that things are unfair.  Too many are corrupt and too many innocents are being hurt by them." The implication is, "Injustice" followed by "Someone should do something," and looks for scapegoats, "That human / That class of human are the evil ones, and should be removed or otherwise defenestrated"...and messiahs, "Who will think about the children...!?"

But even that weakest kind of virtue signal is eclipsed by the nauseating impotence of merely turning up to a voting booth a few times a decade and bitching with those one already agrees with about the current regime.

David Icke has been an eerily prescient Cassandra on the fringe of public awareness for longer than any of us should be comfortable and his way of responding to the perceived threat of alien lizards has been to adopt the role of warning as many as he can reach through his work. (...Incidentally, what's his action plan for all of his warnings…?)

If you have one foot firmly in how things are and the other in how they seem to be AND feel both moved to do something of service AND are tooled-up to do so… then what else would you do with your time here…?

Sure-footed navigation comes from clear situational awareness, starting with knowing upon what your feet are standing...and of what those feet are composed.

Just don’t half-ass it. "Thus far but no farther" and saying "No!" come with a corollary to actually DO something when the line you drew in the sand has been crossed or the 'no' ignored. What is it that you DO when (as J( wrote) you fully accept that you cannot accept further trampling of your freedoms - however you measure them?

Because that is not at all any kind of spiritual matter. It's a matter of principles. Trying to frame it spiritually sounds like an evasion… like dumping on Jesus because he didn't intervene when your best friend got cancer.

 


*The ostensible purpose of my work is to help manage stress (I call it Allostatic Regulation, because that's what it is). My 'technique' relies on not trying to escape, elude or evade stress but by turning towards and, at first, cultivating the courage to just gaze upon their allostatic environment and take an inventory… kind of like Arjuna, surveying the battlefield before he launches the war of Kurukshetra.

Is what I do a bait-and-switch…? Perhaps. My clients aren't overtly spiritual seekers and I don't advertise (nor do I see) myself as a spiritual service provider. They come suffering from health & wellbeing issues, unmanageable levels of stress and diminished functional capacity and I facilitate conscious connections with the mechanics of their own system, through polyvagal science, psychology, philosophy and reframing of their metaphysics to better support the work.

14
General Discussion / Re: Heretical Therapy
« on: January 04, 2026, 02:56:09 am »
…Recently I've been made aware of new areas within "the attic" that need to be sorted and dumped, thats the new work I'll be spending some time on, chatting in here helps open pathways for that work, so thanks for being here and being willing to toss that occasional hand grenade into my fox hole.  8)

Always happy to toss ‘nades and perform the occasional random drive-by here - because I know that this is exactly the place for it. We all have demonstrated the propensity to give as good as we get… and it can’t be personal, coz nothing ever can be, right..?

Glad to hear you are still vigilant in your housekeeping, Sklato… Ego can be a highly contagious disease and I often feel moved to scrub things down to the floorboards here - no “happily ever after” here, but much serenity nonetheless.

This is why my work interests me as much as it does… and I kinda gotta as I have no desire to remove myself from my busy urban setting and settle somewhere quiet (…even though I am actually in the middle of almost nowhere as I write this!) …anyway, did that for 16 years in Japan.


15
General Discussion / Re: Heretical Therapy
« on: January 03, 2026, 05:56:33 pm »
Crikey, I hope by now, we can stop accepting things as they are and start moving the chains of slavery off our necks.
I know what you mean here, Crys… but I’m not sure you can be an agent of change UNLESS you accept things are the way they are. Failure to do so means your starting point for anything that may arise is grounded in ‘should’ rooted in your own sensibilities instead of ‘is’ … this is like trying to navigate complex reality with a hand-scrawled map taped across your eyes.

Maps can be helpful augmentation in getting to destinations, but they aren’t substitutes for looking at the terrain as you are crossing it.

As for the chains of slavery… is gravity a chain… or just an operational parameter for life…?  A key observation I’ve made about those who believe in democracy and egalitarianism is a foundational error: belief they’ve ever lived in one. As if a two or multi-party democracy - as if blue or red means win or lose and showing up to cast a ballot a few times a decade means their interests are represented …or they’ve had real input into the way they are governed or the extent of the power held by their rulers.

I can’t see that we ever have.

In which case… what are these “chains” you see? Describe what you’re looking at and how it enslaves you more than you already were…because from here it looks pretty much business as usual, with maybe some of the furniture rearranged…

It seems the internet has given us better visibility of the structures and architecture of power, but all that reveals is that a trend that started maybe 10,000 years or longer ago is continuing today, aided by the tools and technologies we all enjoy - as if by design. Design that was always only ever about control and power.

This is the only terrain all of us have ever inhabited … and certainly not the ground zero of all enslavement.


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