I am not sure why I am attracted to catastrophic scenarios, but I have to follow my intuition, my inner voice anyway – so be it, I really believe in the disastrous future of our civilization and I am so mad, that I believe it’s not so far, it will be fast and unexpected by majority – the never ending old model of collapse of the big civilizations will play its role again. We have a great opportunity in these days to learn a lot of things about the history, enough to educate us what the ancient civilizations did wrong, so we don’t need to repeat the same mistakes – but you know it better than me, we learn nothing, we go in the same steps of the destruction.
Yes, I have joined the “doom & gloom” group of weird people, that are so attacked by “The Secret” type of groups – but I still believe in optimistic thinking – but for me, the blind optimism is very dangerous – optimism together with rational thinking and proper action is my best choice. I believe in the constrained resources – fossil fuels, water and most important of all – quality soil.
I have written this little summarization of my core beliefs only for the reason to explain my apocalyptic interests at this blog.
After poor harvests in the mid-1990s, the North Korean government was forced to reduce the food ration that its people relied on. This amounted to 700-900 calories per person per day supplied by the government. This was supplemented by what could be grown in home gardens or purchased elsewhere.
There was a natural progression that saw disease attack the most vulnerable, which were the children under five. Next were the aged; those over 70 followed by the 60-year olds and the 50-somethings. Death then stalked the people in the prime of life. Men, because they had less body fat, went next. The strong and athletic were especially vulnerable because their metabolisms burned more calories.
We need 500 calories per day, on average, to survive. Eating only food foraged in a temperate forest; you could expect to live no more than three months.
I wonder what could happen if we would be taught to believe the popular esoteric model that we are not our body, but we are Oneness, Everything. I mean, really taught from the birth. Do we need deep meditations, profound esoteric training to realise that we are all connected? Or can it be done simply by switching the ongoing consensus about the reality, about our belief in the connection to the single body? What if you were taught that you are All, your body is just the point of reference to this Everything world. But you are responsible for everything that happens around. There would be no logic in fighting against anyone – you would logically behave peacefully to everyone/everything around, because all is you. There’s no reason to steal, to cause pain, to cheat someone, to make money on someone, to not help someone – all is you. It’s hard to imagine this logic now, because we are preconditioned already, but it’s more possible with everyday training. I am not sure if the meditation is the only process for achieving great results in this matter, or if it’s also possible with pure logic, switching of the thoughts about this Reality. Buddha was saying, that whatever we do, whatever we feel, we shouldn’t take it, that we are the Doer – I understand it as one of the ways how to unconnect from the body-limited-view. There are many other examples in the esoteric texts – they are quite well known. I am simply pondering if the change in consciousness is happening only through the meditation sitting or if the way could be enhanced by the everyday act of changing our thoughts, of the belief system that we are all sharing, the paradigm shift – this shift has nothing to do with meditation, right? It’s done at the logical level of the thinking process.
Anyway, I am not sure what’s the end of the meditation activity at all – but if it would be realisation of the Oneness (or if this is one part of it) – I am beginning to believe, that it could be very much achieved by this rational act of paradigm shift – just start to think about Everything as You, you are responsible for all.
But in the end – maybe the point in meditation is, that you really realise this Truth internally, while logical realization at the level of brain is only a small part of this.
How can we find ourselves in the culture of capitalism?
We are determined by the idea of ever rising GDP.
We are tied by the artificial value of money.
To grow GDP every year, it’s totally necessary to consume, to throw out things for the reason that you can buy new – without consumerism, the present economic system couldn’t continue/prosper.
And we are totally determined by this present economic structure.
We agree to study deliberately, to become professional, to get a good job, to earn money, to spend money and to fulfil the dream of the stupid logic of the few idiotic leaders.
We are sheep, domesticated to create other sheep, to accept the present logic of the humanity, to accept the growing GDP logic, to accept the illusionary value of the paper money, to be stressed by the rules of the capitalism, to accept the masquerade of the political game.
Only when you have enough time, to study, to read, to question everything, you can start to see behind this curtain.
But it’s still very hard, because you are not learnt to question thinks – the educational system is in the favor of remembering facts, instead of critical thinking. When you do tests from the remembering of the hard facts, it’s also easier for the teachers to give you a grade, but it’s very hard for them, to grade you based on your critical thinking. So, just learn the historical facts, biological, economical… and repeat them – ok, a little bit freedom is given you to think, but this freedom is nothing compared to the totality of this Universe – we are still confined in the barriers of the dogmatic belief systems around us – the brain is able only to repeat the old.
It’s a very devil trap put upon us right from the beginning – that’s why I say, we are poor sheep – but I don’t blame us – who can blame the poor people that hadn’t time, or God given interest to ponder about things.
It’s like a Matrix and very few are lucky to see through it.
But when you start, when you get more glimpses, you can’t retrace – it’s impossible and you will struggle… you can get mad, or you can get braver, healthier, but only after a long inner/outer fight with the System – but return path is closed in the moment, you realise the basic logic, the core Truth that determines you – the Nature laws.
In the present families, they are making wars against each other for totally stupid matters – about proper education of their children (which is really devil education from the perspective of Nature, but your life becomes much harder without it in the present System), about brand of car, television, whatever… giving energy to maintain their phony social status, copying whatever is the present modern way of behaving – this all eats a lot of energy and logically, you have no energy left to question it all – you are lost in the Sheep land.
There are core things much more important than a good job, than a University education, than a proper marriage….
These things are hidden in a very simple things, so much simple, that our rational mind can’t accept them – again, because we were trained up so.
The simple things are found on the way of Heart – in the intuition, in the feelings, emotions – without questioning them with the mind if they are good or bad, if I can feel them or not, because it’s appropriate by the measure of present Sheep’s behaviour.
We need to trust in Ourselves, our feelings, emotions – but it’s very hard, it’s risky, we fear to stay immersed in them for a longer time – everything from the System gives you message that you are Unique, you are Different and causing you to fear, to return to the average behaviour.
Ahh.. what a Trap put upon us.. from our nearest to us – from parents, grandparents – we are poor repeaters – but you must still find hope in all of this, even when the logic says there’s no – as I said, the logic is very constricted, thinking in the barriers of the known only – the Heart sees much father and the Consciousness is the total Truth.
We are part of the reality that is happening out there, part of the whole.
Our disconnection is illusory – I am not sure if it’s because of the dicstinctions made by the eye-sense, that see strict borderline between our body and environment, or if the disconnection started much earlier in the brain decoding mechanism, or somewhere else.
Anyway, we have believed (in the end, the brain is behind any belief) we are disconnected from the Whole.
Let’s imagine again that we are not separated, that we are interconnected with everything and it was never different – let’s back it up with your favorite theory explaining this interconnection, for example the particle theory about each atom having vast space around and when you zoom close enough, you can’t see any borders between your body and your environment – makes quite sense, right?
Now, you are really connected with Everything – you are not your body avatar only – the Avatar is there only as your lens, as the point of reference from which you observe the Oneness.
How do you get informations from the World?
Senses. Is there anything else then them (I think there’s not, but make me correct in the comments)?
Senses are all there is for you, to get the knowledge about the world.
Does it make logic to listen these senses and to obey them, follow them, because they are some higher logic, higher messages from the Whole reality?
Can you make better decisions made by thinking, by brain, by logic?
What is more restrained – decisions based on senses or decisions based on pure logical thinking of the brain?
Can your brain think up anything different than it already knows from the past?
Isn’t the brain only repeating the past models of thinking, past theories, old stories, old worries?
What about senses? Can they lie? Can they manipulate you?
If you feel joy, is there any false in it?
Is there any reason you shouldn’t be really happy when you feel so? Even when everyone else is not so – maybe at the funeral?
Is there any logic in not following your feelings, your inspirations?
Why should you start using your logic to judge if the inspiration is good, if it’s worth of pursuing, if it will bring you enough of this or that, if it’s childish, if it’s embarrassing etc.?
Can you imagine living totally spontaneously – following your inspirations, feelings, senses – following your intuition – the path of Heart?
It takes some time, to re-learn listening to the senses, to switch from brain consciousness to the heart consciousness – it’s a regular learning process – to de-learn the old habit of “using too much logic”.
But finally, you’ll start to become very spontaneous, not restrained by the pure rational thinking repeating the old patterns – each situation is brand new, totally new variables are presented at each moment, and brain cannot understand it at all – only senses can tell you immediately what is happening around and giving you hints how to behave, how to deal with each situation in every moment.
Does it make sense?
It does to me.. but I am aware I am suggesting here extreme switching from the brain to the heart – I am aware about the advantages of the middle paths – no extremes are good. But I am still not sure what to think about this extreme. I think, that this is what Osho and other total-consciousness teachers do propagate – at least this is how I understand their tips for total-spontaneity. But this lifestyle would be really scary, when bravely applied – you would stop planning, stop thinking about consequences, about problems, barriers – you would just do what you feel at each moment, without fear.
Can it be so easy? Or am I compensating my long term tendency to use too much of the brain logic in my life, by clinging to the opposite extreme?
I am not sure, but I am experimenting with it now – living by the inspiration, intuition of each moment.
As many times in my life – I was hugely inspired by Steve Pavlina with this test.
And sorry for all the typos – I don’t feel like I want to repair them – anyway, I write it for myself at the first place (ok, maybe even for the 2 loyal readers).
There are many relative truths these days.
But many of them seems to be relative, because things are very complex – and their real logic is hard to find.
We are lost in believing many things that dig grave to our own children – and we even pursue them with great zest, as many others around do.
It’s hard to see the simple logic, but it’s hard only because we are not learnt so – because we are overwhelmed with thousands of unuseful informations.
Unuseful from the context of sustainability – of the ecosystem, which is our living environment and us.
Sustainability of our human health.
Sustainability is the key word to everything we do.
But the meaning is lost in times of the cheap abundant energy.
Many stupid undoable things are happening every hour, which we can understand in a minute, after we imagine world without cheap fossil fuels – many things are clear and we know what is needed to do, we are becoming effective in each moment – and at the end of the hard day, we are somehow internally happy, satisfied with ourself – something we are striving so hard to find in present society.
Tír na nÓg was considered a place beyond the edges of the map, located on an island far to the west. It could be reached by either an arduous voyage or an invitation from one of its fairy residents. The isle was visited by various Irish heroes and monks in the echtrae (Adventure) and immram (Voyage) tales popular during the Middle Ages. This otherworld was a place where sickness and death do not exist. It was a place of eternal youth and beauty. Here, music, strength, life, and all pleasurable pursuits came together in a single place. Here happiness lasted forever; no one wanted for food or drink. It was the Irish equivalent of the Greek Elysium, or the Valhalla of the Norse.
I’ve been increasingly angry about the bigoted Greek-bashing attitude by people that have no idea.
So here’s some myth-bashing:
1. Greeks are lazy and live in luxury. After the introduction of the Euro, multinational and domestic cartels started increasing the prices for basic goods and services. The local producers were blackmailed into giving up their produce for pittance while the final prices at the supermarkets were sky-rocketing. Thus Athens became more expensive than London for basic goods, in just a few years. Because the salaries were about half of what an average Londoner makes, this drove the public sector pay up and a very small proportion of the private sector pay. However, especially in the case of the private sector most of salaries are still survival-only or less, especially for young people. While most people had to work two or three jobs to make ends meet, large corporations were making millions selling the same product in Greece for double the price as other European countries. In fact, with the exception of public-sector workers, for the last decade Greeks are in the top 5 most overworked people in EU27, but amongst the least well paid. Of course, basic goods are not luxury but the few that had anything to do with the big companies did actually share in some of the profits, but that’s the same in every country in the world.
2. Greeks are sneaky tax-evaders and should be punished. Corruption is rampant in Greece, that’s a fact. Greeks just adapted to a situation perpetrated by the political elite which was supported by EU members since they could use the corruption to make multi-million Euro deals – see Siemens scandal. The state of play at the moment is that the ordinary Greek doesn’t trust any politician and immediately assumes that he or she has got their hand in the “pot of honey”. This, in conjunction with corrupt public services (a misnomer as they are neither services nor public), which require thousands of extra cash to function (imagine an UK-style NHS where you need to pay to get the doctor’s “attention”) has made Greeks extremely sceptical about where their tax money is going and where it should be going instead. So, instead of paying taxes to have a decent health service you end up evading your taxes to pay the doctors under the table to look after you. It’s not right but people everywhere adapt to the status quo to survive.
3. Greeks get 14 monthly salaries for 12 months work! No, they don’t. They get a yearly salary in 14 instalments. This is not as good as it sounds for two reasons. Firstly, instead of getting more every month you get lump sums at Christmas, Easter and for your holidays, which mostly go to repaying credit cards. Secondly, now that the 13th and 14th salary is about to be stopped, you lose one seventh of your yearly salary. And it’s not as if it was that big a salary in the first place. This is almost the same as if the UK government asked people to work March and September without pay, but it sounds more acceptable.
3. Greece fudged their statistics to get into the Euro. This is a perfect example of a lie that is repeated by the media so often that it becomes the “truth”. The real truth is that Greece got into the Euro as all other countries (except Germany – perhaps) by getting some help from the Goldman-Sachs-type American financial behemoths. This was not illegal at the time, the fact is that everybody was dumping other currencies and getting Euros. Then a new government came into power and wanted to buy some F16s from the US (a deal that I am sure included some hefty bribes) and changed the rules of accounting (payment on order instead of delivery) retrospectively so that it had the money to do so. What was bizarre was that the rest of the EU didn’t object to that, perhaps there was something in it for them too. Then they changed the rules again to what they were before. The same government is mostly responsible for today’s mess and was ousted from power last October. Strangely, most of the problems started after that.
4. It’s the Greeks’ fault for electing corrupt politicians. The fact is that, as in the rest of Europe, there is a two-party political system that has entrenched itself so well into power that only a revolution would change things. Unfortunately, that’s not allowed in the EU, as such a revolution would probably be either a far-right or far-left affair. So political leaders change and keep promising to battle corruption while they end up doing the same things as before. The rest of the EU is happy to co-operate with whatever Muppet is elected as long as they are nice and quiet.
5. Why should the Germans or any other European pay? There are two good reasons for that, a moral and an economic one. The moral reason is that most of the money Greeks owe were diverted to the big European corporations like Siemens, J&J, and others too numerous to mention, and hence paid for some European jobs. These companies used the Greek status quo to charge extortionate prices for their products and services. In a country with honest politicians they would have been told where to put their products, but a few millions here and there sealed the deals. The economic reason is that if Greece defaults it’s mostly German, French and British banks that would lose their money. Instead, Europeans will get loans at 1.5-3% and give loans to Greece at 5% and make a nice little profit, while they keep selling their “superior quality” products to the Greeks at extortionate prices and keep some jobs going.
6. The IMF is involved because EU cannot handle the crisis on its own. This is a half-truth, that doesn’t explain the situation adequately. The truth is, that the EU cannot tell Greece what to do when it comes to public services and welfare and cannot ask for privatizations. But the IMF doesn’t have such restrictions. The EU (and the US) see massive privatization as a way out of this hole mostly because it suits them. They will get to buy everything for peanuts.
7. Greece should live within its means and not borrow more than it can repay. A recent study in Greece revealed that corruption and mismanagement since 1980 has cost the Greek economy €600 billion. This is double the current debt. Enough said.
What should happen now? I personally think that Greece should default, tell the banks to stuff it, put most politicians in jail and confiscate their property, forcibly drive out the big financial institutions, go back to the countryside and live the simple life growing veggies and fishing. Unfortunately, they will never let them, there’s profit to be made.
For the last several years I have been addicted, yes addicted is the best description, to powering down, to down sizing, and simplifying. It is truly amazing to me to get to a level of existence that seems radically below where I once was, settle into it a while, then start seeing even more areas where I can simplify even further.
There is a wonderful feeling of liberation and freedom that comes with this activity that can be addictive.
My whole family, wife and two children, are actively participating in this process and share the feeling, although now and then my children talk about some of the “cool stuff” people have. My children have perhaps benefited most from this exercise because they no longer have the huge pressure that the “American Dream” represents, hanging over them. Consequently they have blossomed. They are both wonderful musicians, artisans, technicians, hard working craftsperson’s, highly social, and physically active. All of this on their own leisurely schedule (and we thought if we didn’t constantly ride them they would never do anything, ha!).
I don’t kid myself that it will be easy or that it is even going to happen but I am optimistic that a new way is possible.
My current passion is to create a labor movement where people can perform simple, useful tasks in return for food, shelter, clothing, etc. combinned with a central gathering location for fun and entertainment like music, reading/storytelling, plays and productions, games, and stuff.
The only thing we need to transition to is a zero-growth economy, which is going to be forced upon us. Peak oil does not mean the collapse of modern agriculture, however, and population die-off. This mantra among peak oil theorists is flawed. Bear with me here. Here’s why:
Peak oil destroys oil demand. When the price gets too high non-essential industries collapse first (airlines, car manufacturers, etc.) We’ve seen what happens then. The price of oil drops. It starts rising again as there’s some economic recovery, but eventually the price gets too high again and more industries collapse. Each collapse make the subsequent recovery smaller. It’s a bumpy down slope.
But agriculture won’t collapse during these high price peaks, because people need to eat. They will spend their last dollar on food. They will stop flying. They will stop buying new cars. But they can’t stop eating. So even if food prices rise during these brief oil-price peaks, agriculture won’t collapse. Remember also that the world food crises in many countries in 2008 was not due to the rising cost of oil (or natural gas) needed to produce food. Those amounts are marginal. Rather, it was the result of biofuels diverting cropland, and the UN and other world organizations woke up to that danger. It’s doubtful that will happen again on the scale it did in 2008. It’s doubtful economic recovery will ever increase enough to produce oil prices that high again, making biofuels competitive. Remember demand destruction REDUCES oil prices. Peak oil will over time REDUCE oil prices by destroying demand. This is such an important point.
Some important stats:
All farm machinery combined (tractors, combines, etc.) uses less than 1% of world oil consumption.
Producing nitrogen fertilizer uses less than 5% of world natural gas consumption.
As long as supply remains greater than demand and the price remains low (which is virtually assured because peak oil = industrial collapse) there will be plenty of oil and natural gas around for agriculture for a very, very long time. Even the transportation of food, which clearly uses more oil than farm machinery, will not be affected by oil depletion for these same reasons. Transporting furniture around the world from IKEA might slow down, but nobody is going to stop buying food.
Only when people are completely broke without a penny to their name will they stop buying food. But when this happens the government starts buying it for them, because otherwise the result is food riots, and that is bad for the upper classes as well.
Hence there is no imperative to localize food production. Most locations around the world can’t live on locally produced food anyway. Most States in the US are net food importers. Most countries are also.
LeBlanc, was originally a believer in the peaceful nature of man. The evidence he found as an archeologist forced him to change his mind.
It took more than twenty-five years and a great deal of additional fieldwork for me finally to change my initial naïve view of the past, and humans in general. My take on warfare is now very different from what it was. Though these new ideas about conflict seem exceedingly obvious to me, I arrived at these conclusions not by means of abstract theory, but by being forced to look at warfare based on conclusive evidence found on the ground. The central importance of warfare throughout known history came to me slowly, prompted by archeological fieldwork in a number of different region and reinforced as I tried to reconcile theoretical positions that became increasingly impossible to accept.
Steven LeBlanc, “Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage” page 3
Way back in our hunter-gatherer days, a few tribes decided they were not going to arm themselves at all. They decided to be peaceful and not resist their neighbors should they try to take their territory, or their women, or anything else they possessed.
All those tribes went extinct. I wonder why?
But you can rest assured, the surviving tribes passed along their genes. And those folks who inherited their genes are your neighbors today.
Not only are human societies never alone, but regardless of how well they control their own population or act ecologically, they cannot control their neighbors’ behavior. Each society must confront the real possibility that its neighbors will not live in ecological balance but will grow its numbers and attempt to take the resources from nearby groups. Not only have societies always lived in a changing environment, but they always have neighbors. The best way to survive in such a milieu is not to live in ecological balance with slow growth, but to grow rapidly and be able to fend off competitors as well as take resources from others.
Steven LeBlanc, “Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage” page 73
That describes why human nature has evolved the way it has. We still have the exact human nature that we had during our hunter-gatherer evolution. It is totally irrational to deny that human nature will be any different in the near future than it was in the past.
“When law enforcement vanishes, all manner of violence breaks out: looting, settling old scores, ethnic cleansing, and petty warfare among gangs, warlords, and mafias. This was obvious in the remnants of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and parts of Africa in the 1990s, but can also happen in countries with long tradition of civility. As young teenager in proudly peaceable Canada during the romantic 1960s, I was a true believer in Bakunin’s anarchism. I laughed off my parents’ argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose. Our competing predictions were put to the test at 8:00 A.M. on October 17, 1969, when the Montreal police went on strike. By 11:20 A.M. the first bank was robbed. By noon most downtown stores had closed because of looting. Within a few more hours, taxi drivers burned down the garage of a limousine service that had competed with them for airport customers, a rooftop sniper killed a provincial police officer, rioters broke into several hotels and restaurants, and a doctor slew a burglar in his suburban home. By the end of the day, six banks had been robbed, a hundred shops had been looted, twelve fires had been set, forty carloads of storefront glass had been broken, and three million dollars in property damage had been inflicted, before city authorities had to call in the army and, of course, the Mounties to restore order. This decisive empirical test left my politics in tatters (and offered a foretaste of life as a scientist).”
Steven Pinker, “The Blank Slate” page 331.
How to feed people in the near future:
Actually the most apt question is; ‘How are we going to feed all these people during the transition?’ It’s fine to consider how things might transition more peacefully, but people are anything but friendly when it comes to eating when there isn’t enough food. Survival instincts will kick in and chaos, mayhem, marauding gangs will ensue. Small towns will block entrance to strangers and martial law will become the law of the land. It will breakdown into the lowest common denominator until there is enough food to feed everyone that remains, and then, and only then will some semblence of order be re-established. It’s pure cornucopian dementia to think it can transition peacefully to a lower state of food production.
Part of Ecclesiastes 9, found in the Hebrew bible:
7 Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do.
8 Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil.
9 Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun— all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun.
Anyone remember the Mose Allison tune “Ever Since the World Ended”? The last line is:
“Ever since the world ended,
I face the future–
With a smile.”
Shiduri, in Gilgamesh: A New English Version
“… until the end comes, enjoy your life,
spend it in happiness, not despair.
Savor your food, make each of your days
a delight, bathe and anoint yourself,
wear bright clothes that are sparkling clean,
let music and dancing fill your house,
love the child who holds you by the hand,
and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.
That is the best way for a man to live.”
The most negative scenarios come about when you study actual human behavior. The reason societies collapse is because humans evolved to seek advantage. They do not cooperate for the common good. That’s why all these suggestions for one-child families, etc. just get ignored.
FALLING NET ENERGY, OVERPOPULATION, AND COLLAPSE
The “collapse” of a country is caused by “too many people competing for too few resources”[16]. When a country can not supply enough resources to satisfy its members, that country becomes unstable and subject to fundamental change.
The human mind serves “fitness” – not “truth.” Since every individual is programmed to pursue personal fitness and lie about intentions, no civilization has ever been able to convince its members to cooperate enough to survive the depletion of the energy resources which gave it birth. When confronted with ever-declining resources, the preservation of social order requires more-and-more cooperation, but individuals are genetically programmed to reduce cooperation and seek advantage. This genetic legacy sets up a positive feedback loop: declining common resources cause individuals to reduce cooperation even more, which reduces common resources even faster, which leads to collapse even faster.
LIE, CHEAT, STEAL, RAPE, AND KILL
Society only directs our behavior when we perceive that it is able to reward or punish us. A “collapsed” society has no influence over our behavior. That’s why cultures disappear and people revert to more violent ways of life. Our present society began to collapse years ago because of the rising energy costs of energy.[17]
We include others in our society when we feel that it increases our fitness to do so, but we invent excuses to kick minorities out of our society when resources are insufficient. Allies can become enemies almost overnight. The collapse of Yugoslavia is an example of neighbor slaughtering neighbor.
Jay Hanson gets derided as a hopeless doomer but his research has been backed up by the likes of Garrett Hardin and Jared Diamond and books like Constant Battles: Why We Fight. If we want to avoid the worst we had better take human nature into consideration.
Everything changes, but the Principles repeat!
Observe the history and her repeating periods – pinpoint the underlying Principle of each crisis and apply it to the contemporary civilization predicaments.
Historical books from Arnold Toynbee are perfect study material for this job – Kushi learned from them very much.
The agriculture of the future, like agriculture in any thickly populated society with few energy resources, will thus use land intensively rather than extensively, rely on human labor with hand tools rather than more energy-intensive methods, and produce bulk vegetable crops and relatively modest amounts of animal protein; the agricultural systems of medieval China and Japan, chronicled by F.H. King in Farmers of Forty Centuries, are as good a model as any. Such an agricultural system will not support seven billion people, but then neither will anything else, and a decline in population as malnutrition becomes common and public health collapses is a sure bet for the not too distant future.
So you think all this conspiracy talk is bullshit huh?
“While you here do snoring lie, Open-eyed conspiracy His time doth take.”
William Shakespeare, The Tempest (Ariel at II, i)
“Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th; malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty.”
George W. Bush
“…if the American people had ever known the truth about what we Bushes have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets and lynched.”
George H.W. Bush – interview 1992
“[The war in Iraq is] a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times…a new world order can emerge.”
George H.W. Bush
“From the days of Sparticus, Weishophf, Karl Marx, Trotski, Belacoon, Rosa Luxenburg, and Ema Goldman, this world conspiracy has been steadily growing. This conspiracy played a definite recognizable role in the tragedy of the French revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the 19th Century. And now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their head and have become the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.”
Winston Churchill
“The ruling class has the schools and press under its thumb. This enables it to sway the emotions of the masses.”
Albert Einstein
“If it is not in the media… it did not happen.
If it did not happen, but is in the media… we believe it has happened.”
Charles T. Tart
“The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli of England (1844)
“All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”
David Rockefeller
“People yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands.”
David Rockefeller
“The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments’ plans.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli of England (1876)
“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet it was planned that way.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws.”
Mayer Amschel Rothschild
“The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.”
Woodrow Wilson 28th President of the United States
“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the US, in the field of commerce and manufacture,
are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive,
that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”
Woodrow Wilson 28th President of the United States
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwillingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated in the hands of a few men.”
Woodrow Wilson 28th President of the United States
“The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.”
J. Edgar Hoover
“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an INvisible government owing NO allegiance and acknowledging NO responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul this unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today.”
President Theodore Roosevelt, 1906
“To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men, their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas.”
Brock Chisolm, former Director of the World Health Organization
We have restricted credit, we have restricted opportunity, we have controlled development, and we have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world… no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and a vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominent men.”
Woodrow Wilson 28th President of the United States
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
Henry Ford
“The one aim of these financiers is world control by the creation of inextinguishable debts.”
Henry Ford
“Here we’re talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filed with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center.”
Donald Rumsfeld
“And I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon,…”
Donald Rumsfeld
“The real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over city, state and nation. Like the octopus of real life, it operates under cover of a self created screen. At the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the US government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both political parties.”
John F. Hylan, Mayor New York 1918-1925
“Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.”
Josef Stalin “Fifty men have run America, and that’s a high figure.”
Joseph Kennedy, US Ambassador (father of JFK & RFK)
“The real rulers in Washington are invisible & exercise their power from behind the scenes.”
Justice Felix Frankfurter, U.S. Supreme Court.
“I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insideous forces working from within.”
General Douglas MacArthur
“We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it. The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent.”
Statement made before U.S. Senate Feb. 7, 1950 by James Paul Warburg
“We’re the tools &vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We’re the jumping jacks; they pull the strings & we dance. Our talents, our possibilities & our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
John Swinton (1829-1901) Former New York Times Editor-In-Chief
“I believe that if the people of this nation fully understood what Congress has done to them over the last 49 years, they would move on Washington; they would not wait for an election. It adds up to a preconceived plan to destroy the economic and social independence of the United States.”
George W. Malone, U.S. Senator (Nevada), speaking before Congress in 1957.
“They’re gonna make it look like suicide.”
Hunter S. Thompson, one day before his death. He was working on a 9/11 piece.
“The high office of President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American’s freedom,
and before I leave office I must inform the citizen of his plight.”
John F. Kennedy, speaking at Columbia University, 10 days before his assassination
“All of us will ultimately be judged on the effort we have contributed to building a new world order.”
Robert Kennedy, former U.S. Attorney-General, 1967
“For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as internationalists and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”
David Rockefeller – From his Memoirs
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
Thomas Jefferson
“To repress rebellion is to maintain the status quo, a condition which binds the mortal creature in a state of intellectual or physical slavery. But it is impossible to chain man merely by slaving his body: the mind must also be held, and to accomplish this, fear is the accepted weapon. The common man must fear life, fear death, fear God, fear the Devil, and fear most the overlords, the keepers of his destiny.”
Manly P. Hall
Consensus Trance:
“If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it.”
Edward Bernays
“The conscious and intelligent maniplulation of organized habits and opinions of hte mses is an important element in a democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country… We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of… We are dominated by a relatively small number of persons… It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind and who harness social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.”
Edward Bernays
“The sick individual finds himself at home with all other similarly sick individuals. the whole culture is geared to this kind of pathology. The result is that the average individual does not experience the separateness and isolation the fully schizophrenic person feels. He feels at ease among those suffer from the same deformation; in fact, it is the fully sane person who feels isolated int he insane society – and he may suffer so much from the incapacity to communicate that it is he who may become psychotic.”
Erich Fromm
“When in group narcissism, the object is not the individual but he group to which he belongs… The assertion that “my country” (or nation, or religion) is the most wonderful, the most cultural, the most powerful, the most peace-loving, etc. does not sound crazy at all; on the contrary, it sounds like an experssion of patriotism, faith and loyalty.”
Erich Fromm
George: Why do you keep calling Sheriff Cartwright a commie? If ever a man had KKK written all over his forehead, it was that reactionary redneck prick.
Mavis: Don’t you know your Trotsky? ‘Worse is better.’ Slobs like Cartwright are trying to discredit America to make it ripe for a left-wing takeover.
From ‘The Illuminatus Trilogy: The Eye in the Pyramid’ by Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea
“Don’t believe anything you see or hear from the media. Everyone (including me) is intentionally or unintentionally lying to you. The things I say are being related to you through a flawed language system.”
Bryan Kemila
A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest; A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. To free ourselves from this prison, to embrace all mankind indiscriminately and the whole of nature in its beauty is a task all too necessary yet all too difficult to achieve. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. However, the foundations of our separatist institutions had deliberately displaced even the thought of such achievement from independent consideration long ago; generations of social conditioning have distorted our understandings of humanity and lead us to devalue it, thus we devalue ourselves. Time is accepted as a linear process pressured with social deadlines and an irreversible biological clock that we’re labored to work around; we’re kept so busy that we’ve come to accept that there’s no other time to learn our ways as any other. Prejudice continuously emerges in all its manifestations as history repeats itself in more sophisticated manners because of that defeatist belief. There is something very profitable and empowering about the mindset of ignorance which only those who observe and manage society from outside the box can truly benefit from when they’ve learned how to invest in it; when the value of a human being is measured in financial worth. The inner conflict’s humanity suffers is nothing short of a tragedy but it’s nothing that we can blame ourselves for. Through the eyes of the powerful, there is no order without chaos.
There is discrimination in the world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments repress their people; millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere. These are differing evils, but they are the common works of man. They reflect the imperfection of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, our lack of sensibility towards the suffering of our fellows. But we can perhaps remember –even if only for a time—that those who live with us are our brothers; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek –as we do—nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men. And surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become, in our own hearts, brothers and countrymen again. Of course, initiation of this course objective riddled with idealism doesn’t come without question or ease.
The answer is to rely on youth –not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. The cruelties and obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to the obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. They cannot be moved by those who cling to a present that is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger that come with even the most peaceful progress. It is a revolutionary world we live in, and this generation at home and around the world has had thrust upon it a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived. Some believe that there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills. Yet many of the world’s great movements of thought and action have flowed from the work of a single man or woman. They were unique in their individualism as they had found a way to operate their agendas while the powerful pulled their strings from behind the curtains. And as their sense of self had come into focus with the public array, they let it be known that their breakaway was the result of heightened awareness and not luck; a capability not limited to singled-out demographics.
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. For it is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues; the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world and its societies which yield most painfully to change.
Society is a cruel dictating entity which carries a simple-mindedness reflecting the people within it. Among the essential unspoken “ten commandments” embedded in our subconscious are publicized rules and norms; a sort of life orientation. We all have our roles in society and we are expected to follow through with the tagged responsibilities. Early on in life we are taught to love our neighbor yet destroy the competition; a lesson symbolizing the roots of our conflicting “pick a side or shut up” ways of thinking. Success, failure, manhood, womanhood, maturity, immaturity, beauty, ugliness, strength, weakness, rich, poor, smart, unintelligent, young, old, good, bad; these are the major critiques which under judgment measure a man or woman, determining their level of acceptance in a community. Constantly pressured by demand, we are also stressed with social deadlines and biological clocks, leaving our lives narrowed down to a linear timeline that barely gives us time to think or make thoughtful judgment, so our institutions think for us.
The ironic nature of these institutions can’t be recognized by first impression and particularly so, the average person wasn’t meant to understand it beyond what’s masked on the surface. Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroys information, and religion destroys spirituality; not to say that those passionate about these fields of study share the intention. I acknowledge the sensitivity that comes with such a claim that may be perceived as radical, but this is what I’ve come to understand. I don’t know the meaning of life, but I do know that it wasn’t meant to be dictated by the investments of special interest groups.
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in a democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power I our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of.. we are dominated by a relatively small number of persons.. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind and who harness social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world. With that said, it’s considerably easier to understand why most people decide to follow the “in-crowd” and why so many when looking at the consequences of transgression and how complex peer-pressure is distributed so sophisticatedly by those above and beyond the “need-to-know” basis.
The norms of our society were not designed for equal opportunity, and nor do many of us start from scratch. It’s easy to find a person who has had their head start in life, but not so easy is it to find one whom would not impose their inheritance or whom understands the struggles of those on the lower end of whatever social hierarchies. For the fortunate among us, there is the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who enjoy the privilege of education and wealth. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. Like it or not, we live in times of uncertainty. But they are also more open to the creative energy of man than any other time in history. The infrastructure of social conditioning that had persuaded our society for so long is at its most vulnerable thanks to advancing technology and the suggested opportunity should not be taken for granted. All of us will ultimately be judged, and as the years pass we will surely judge ourselves on the effort we have contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which our ideals and goals have shaped that event. Modern society yearns for change, but time and time again we habitually place our faith and that burden on the wrong people; time and time again blinded by the illusion of change, unaware of history on its course to repeat itself once more. The old ignorant mindset milked of its profit and power to the last drop, a new one is born and the cycle continues with those who had not yet broken free. The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
The strength in our ability to make change comes with the sense of awareness, and the measure which our society is in need of is by no means easy to reach but by no means is it impossible. The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of a free-will society. Our future may seemingly lie beyond this vision, but it is not completely out of our control. It is the shaping impulse of the human spirit that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle that will determine our futures. Mankind can be as big as it wants; no problem of human destiny is beyond the divinity of human beings; Power through knowledge, composure through wisdom, understanding through awareness, focus through spirit, compassion through soul, and aspiration through heart.
Man is the rational animal, so to speak. He alone can say “I”- and can contemplate his own existence and behavior and actively seek to affect the world around him or her. This is called independence; the opposite of which is collectivism. But this unique capacity is threatening to the Establishment who do not wish man to become aware of the various forms of manipulation which contravene his independent thought and action. The most strongly enforced of all taboos is the taboo against knowing who and what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate and isolated ego. Many will be convinced that we will never find the answers to burning questions regarding the meaning of life, nature of the soul, or the arguable existence of a divine higher intelligence- otherwise nicknamed “God”. Many will also enclose themselves within their safety bubbles in spite of fear, denying themselves the profoundness of experiences which simply cannot be offered by an orthodox lifestyle. Society tries to convince us that life as simple as a drawn out plan; that you are to graduate college by this age, that you are to marry and start a family by that age, that you are still young and just starting life because you are however old, that you must make this much money to be considered successful, that you are not beautiful because you are not perfect, so on and so forth.. But if you were to follow the paths constructed and influenced by society’s shallowness, so would you be submitting your will. And because they have self-prophesized their failure, they will never make the attempt to journey outside of the social pattern they were scripted to improvise.
There are testing moments in life that make or break a person which are irrelevant to our biological clocks or sociological deadlines; they are moments usually lived through unexpectedly, unpredictably, and uniquely. They are what I believe trigger our mental growth and build our individuality from the ground up. Whatever trials and tribulations we all may go through in life, the most difficult test which it seems to all dwindle down to is the challenge of overcoming death, for harmony doesn’t come without balance. When life is treated and valued in the deepest sense, not just as a captivation of experience, but as an exploration of truth, a test of awareness, a challenge of logic, an innovation of human potential, the maturity of intuition and most importantly an opportunity of knowledge humbled by wisdom, then consciousness can eventually be understood as an entity grander than the reality we perceive before us. Energy, unlike matter, cannot be destroyed. Awakening to such a realization makes it absolutely capable for us to overlook, if not overcome, our fears of death. If triumphant over the irrational subconscious within, it’s then that we are truly opened to the opportunity to know what it is to be alive in all its potential; to be purely free and independent, to be human.
This is outrageous free online downloadable book about the Great Work of Enlightenment. I have read many and this one speaks to me more intimately – it portraits the consciousness & meditation territory in a language my Soul is vibrating on. It’s really not a usual meditation book, it talks very differently about many well-known esoteric topics and that’s why I like it. The more time I have invested into the practice and reading of Enlightenment Game, the more I am sure, that the general conclusion is widely lost.
I like how Daniel Ingram describes it interestingly in his 400 pages book. And the practice techniques are awesome!
Here are few reviews from Amazone, that tell you more:
I can say with extreme confidence that if you read this book, put its principles and techniques into practice and have a clear aim at making progress in your meditation practice, you will be amazed at how quickly you can make real and lasting progress. This book excels at the specifics regarding insight meditation practice (with enlightenment as its goal) and the states and stages related to concentration practice (with unusual and profound states of consciousness as its goal). It also excels at deconstructing the various confused models and misperceptions that spiritual practitioners often have regarding enlightenment.
So, if you’re interested in down-to-earth, practical dharma, and want a clear guide on how to master the core teachings of the Buddha this is the book for you. If you’re looking for coffee table dharma or feel good, new-age fluff, then I would suggest something a little less hardcore.
Of the countless reasons that you should read this book, I offer the following three:
1.) Many books about meditation leave out important information about the sequential stages one will likely (dare I say “inevitably”) encounter in their practice. The ups and downs in one’s practice can be severe, which causes many people to get stuck, and maybe leave the practice all together. Daniel breaks down what one may experience on their journey, and gives very practical advice on how to navigate the territory.
2.) This book clears up a lot of confusion around the goals of meditation practice, particularly what it means to be enlightened (or “awakened”, etc.). By supplying an extensive list of the various models of enlightenment that are used by various contemplative traditions, one may comparatively examine them and get a good idea of what is true and what is false in regards to the process and goal of awakening.
3.) Daniel is brutally honest. He is fully aware that calling himself an Arahat is likely ruffle many feathers. But, it is my impression that he wouldn’t make the claim if he didn’t believe with his entire being that it is beneficial to others to do so. By explicitly detailing his particular attainments and how he was able to gain mastery of very specific techniques, he provides hope to those who also believe that it can be done.
I can say with complete honesty that after reading and applying the basic practices in this book, my meditation practice deepend beyond what I knew was even possible (and still is). I can’t even begin to express how grateful I am to have read it, and how hopeful I am that it will continue to benefit others.
If you want to learn meditation with the goal of attaining earth shattering insight in to the nature of your identity and the universal characteristics of the whole of reality, than this book is for you.
No, seriously: Whose story is that?...