The Spiritual Basis of The Republican Ideology

[Leonardo17]

How long does one have to meditate for to directly experience this Reality?

There is no clear cut formula. I’ve heard that in some place they created meditation groups that guarantee spiritual enlightenment when members abide to a given set of rules and meditate for a given set hours. As far as I know, this is not really how it works.
 

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+ I did not deny the philosophical nature of these principles. The person who first told me about the philosophical principles that are the basis of republican ideology was my high school philosophy teacher (not the Imam of my neighborhood and not any new-age book or anything like that)
 
Yet, I think there is more depth to what I am saying. The issue of the world is mainly an ego issue. If you look at colonialism for instance, 90 % of the indigenous population in North-America (10% of the global population were simply erased from the map. And this is not some “issue of the past”. The Sami population of Sweden (the indigenous inhabitants of the northernmost parts of Sweden) are also being forced to abandon their way of life in the name of “development” and “short term economic interests”.
 
So when somebody creates a new nation and says in the founding documents of that nation something like:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
 
I will agree with the fact that this is a very idealistic approach. But it’s also deeply revolutionary, and because of that (I think) it’s also highly spiritual as well.
 
Because it doesn’t say that “All people of European origin (except Jews, east- European, Italians and Irish) have the right to freedom, liberty, pursuit of happiness and equality. It says “All human being have these rights, and these rights are unalienable and therefore all man have these rights”.
 
Yesterday I was watching how 7000 migrants had arrived (mostly from sub-Saharan Africa) to the Italian island of Lampedusa within 24 hours.  
 
One the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island there is the saying:
 
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” This country's greatness and true genius lies in its diversity.”
 
So That’s the exact opposite of “Build walls, build minefields, sink those migrant boats if you have to, capture them and put them back in the Sahara desert, torture them, Exort money from their families, kill them and sell their organs to the highest bidder or ship them back to countries like Rwanda, create floating hotels for them, separate them from their children etc.”
 
(And I am not alluding to anything. In north African countries, that’s what they do with these migrants. In my country, Belisarius is getting cash for keeping some 5 million of them here (mostly in miserable conditions) and he is getting money from the EU for doing that).
 
And Marriane Williamson has a great book called “The Politics of Love”. She says that a fraction of the military budget of the industrialized nations are being used to “avoid despair” in several parts of the world. And If there was more foreign aid (like the Marshall plan after WWII) this would avoid the creation of rogue nations + organizations like ISIL in a far more efficient ways than nuclear bombs and aircraft carriers. So again: Revolutionary approach
 
And that’s what true spirituality does. I am not talking about religious bigots and dogmatic / unscientific approached that are “ordering” people to behave in a given way. No, this is more like inspiration. Like a deeper understanding of “be good to your neighbors”.
 
So I, personally, see a parallel with those philosophical principles. Therefore, I want this Wedjat, to be on top of our Pyramid. Not money, not short term interest, not dogmatism, not self-awarding approaches, not this or that ideology, Not even values, definitely not the “capitalism on steroid” we have today. Not a richest 1% having more cash than the poorest 50%, not any of that, but a deeper understanding life that is reminding us that there are things that are bigger than all of that. And if we can’t do that, well, the prospects are not so good for any of us who are willing to keep inhabiting this planet.
 

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[FrustratedFool]

Do how do we know it works for everyone?

What would be a reasonable time frame to test and if it doesn't work to say its not effective for that person?

[Leonardo17]

Do how do we know it works for everyone?

What would be a reasonable time frame to test and if it doesn't work to say its not effective for that person?

   I think the very issue of spirituality is not for everyone. And this is not an issue, the way I understand it, different souls have a different curriculum. One might be a British Aristocrat who came to experience grandiosity and power, the other might be in an intellectual middle class family who came to experience the limits of science and/or academic knowledge or you might be attracted to hardship and financial struggle or even physical illnesses but the way I understand it, even these are serving some spiritual purpose. The Indian Yogi Sadh guru is said to have experienced three lifetimes as a slave to learn things like humility perhaps, we don’t really know these things. So being a dogmatic religious bigot is also something like that. It probably serves that person to live in a world that is 5000 years old and in which primates never evolved once they were created.
 

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    Still the main issue is: If at some point, any point you have this “calling” and start wondering things like “If this world is but an illusion (Einstein’s and Quantum physics words not mine) what is the Reality?” or “Is there a reality within us all that transcends all other realities” or things like that, you don’t really need to see a psychiatrist for that. There are (and has always been) many teachings that can potentially lead you to that type of understanding.
   But don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to convince anyone. As I said before, old school Dogmas and scholastic approaches care about numbers and therefore try to convince anyone they see. That’s not how we see things, because as Jesus said “Our Kingdom is not (only) of this world”
 
So back to the subject. The migrant situation in Europe and in Northern America is really worrying and this has been so since a very long time:
 
https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-pr...crackdown/
 
I watched a televised debate on that yesterday and I think I am understanding that what is completely unsolvable from an ego perspective is just another “problem solved” issue if we are willing to look at things from a “better perspective”.
 
Right now this is happening. Because many women have no control over their own lives and bodies all developing nation are facing a problem of overpopulation. Their governments want to send these people out because once they are in Europe (or America) they are sending back Euros to their relatives and in places like Mali / Burkina Faso this is a huge part of the economy. So there is a whole mafia organized around taking these people to the sea and leaving them on the first European territory they see. Many are dying during this journey in the middle of the sea. Once they are in, it’s difficult for Europeans to send them back. It’s almost impossible (because they come from war-zones, dictatorships, countries that are being struck by climate change etc.). North African countries + the Eastern Roman Empires has understood this issue perfectly so they ask the Europeans for cash in return for not letting human traffickers start their journey upon the Mediterranean. Belarus Has also used this with an aim of destabilizing what they see as a weak European Unity. In deed all sorts of ideas are currently being expressed. One of them is to impose stricter immigration rules (Georgia Meloni’s idea = Same thing as Donald Trump’s Mexico Wall). + All over Europe (and North America) this immigration issue is strengthening the far right for the simple reason that no country on earth can keep accepting an unlimited number of refugees without any rule or limit.
 
   And all of this is the Ego perspective of the issue. That’s all that the mind or reason alone can do. That’s the limit of the “small self”. Now let’s take a look at the spirit perspective:
 
- These are human beings, not cans of Tuna Fish. So they are not supposed to be in the sea in the first place. So what kind of madness is it that’s creating such an influx on some remote fishing village that happens to belong to a European Nation? So this is how we approach this issue. Then there are solutions.
 
1) Let’s take a fraction of our military budgets and start using this (like 5% or 10%) to avoid situations of hopelessness. Instead of economies that are based on Euro’s being sent from the UK, France etc, lets create jobs in these countries. Let’s build solar farms producing green Hydrogen and send this green Hydrogen back to Europe for our energy transition.
 
2) let’s create agricultural jobs for women. Like a green belt (this is a project form the 70’s) in which women are paid to plant trees in semi-arid region. Let’s give them economic + education opportunities.
 
3) Before the 80’s there were legal ways of working in Europe etc. There were “guest worker” schemes. People would come, make money, and then leave. So let’s open means of legal immigration while completely blocking all means of illegal immigration.
 
And that’s about it. 9/11 and/or the Bataclan Attack in Paris in 2015 is showing us that Nuclear bombs are not enough just by themselves. So I’m looking at it from a defense perspective and that’s where populist leaders (like Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel) are getting it wrong. Desperate people are doing desperate things. So we need to act in a way that fights despair. This has to become a part of our defense strategy. I’m not against the UN food program etc. But this is just one part of the solution. And this has to be done with an understanding that the global North already took a lot from these “developing nations” during the last 500 years or so.
 
   So this is a change of approach. To me it’s taking the Wedjat and putting it on top of the pyramid (instead of money, short time profit and ego / fear dominated approaches).
 
   And this is also the solution to climate change. This is the message all over Greta Thunberg’s “The Climate book”. We need change. We need a totally different approach. The current system is insane. It’s operating in order to make a few thousand people even more rich than they already are while ignoring the existential threat we are all facing.
 
   So in that perspective the answer to your question is “Seek and you shall find. Knock the door and it shall be opened”. It’s not so difficult after all but it does require some amount of curiosity and introspection too. But no need to hurry either, “The teacher is usually there when the student is ready”
 

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[FrustratedFool]

Fair enough. Reality is not for everyone, I guess.

[The Grand Nudger]

Great replacement meets great displacement. First we had to worry they were coming for our jobs. Then our culture. Then our kids. Now they're coming to steal our climateses.

Anywho, I think it's a really decent idea to build up local industries - but if people are fleeing because of climate change that's a pretty strong indication that we shouldn't be building up industry there. We likely will, because the people there can probably be squeezed for just a little bit more - but, obviously, that's not in the spirit of the proposal - just a description of it's inevitable execution. Meanwhile, we'll debate "the migrant problem".

[Leonardo17]

Great replacement meets great displacement.  First we had to worry they were coming for our jobs.  Then our culture.  Then our kids.  Now they're coming to steal our climateses.  

Anywho, I think it's a really decent idea to build up local industries - but if people are fleeing because of climate change that's a pretty strong indication that we shouldn't be building up industry there.  We likely will, because the people there can probably be squeezed for just a little bit more - but, obviously, that's not in the spirit of the proposal - just a description of it's inevitable execution.  Meanwhile, we'll debate "the migrant problem".

That was just one idea that I had. And this time I’m being reminded of my intellectual limits by Pope Francis. See the young man at 1:55 for instance. I think religion can be a great thing when it decides to be just that: Religion.

[Ahriman]

Do how do we know it works for everyone?

What would be a reasonable time frame to test and if it doesn't work to say its not effective for that person?

   I think the very issue of spirituality is not for everyone. And this is not an issue, the way I understand it, different souls have a different curriculum. One might be a British Aristocrat who came to experience grandiosity and power, the other might be in an intellectual middle class family who came to experience the limits of science and/or academic knowledge or you might be attracted to hardship and financial struggle or even physical illnesses but the way I understand it, even these are serving some spiritual purpose. The Indian Yogi Sadh guru is said to have experienced three lifetimes as a slave to learn things like humility perhaps, we don’t really know these things. So being a dogmatic religious bigot is also something like that. It probably serves that person to live in a world that is 5000 years old and in which primates never evolved once they were created.

Right, these things are not known by anyone, not even, in this case, by Sadhguru. Three lifetimes? People tend to get overly specific when they're lying to you.

[Angrboda]

   I think the very issue of spirituality is not for everyone. And this is not an issue, the way I understand it, different souls have a different curriculum. One might be a British Aristocrat who came to experience grandiosity and power, the other might be in an intellectual middle class family who came to experience the limits of science and/or academic knowledge or you might be attracted to hardship and financial struggle or even physical illnesses but the way I understand it, even these are serving some spiritual purpose. The Indian Yogi Sadh guru is said to have experienced three lifetimes as a slave to learn things like humility perhaps, we don’t really know these things. So being a dogmatic religious bigot is also something like that. It probably serves that person to live in a world that is 5000 years old and in which primates never evolved once they were created.

Right, these things are not known by anyone, not even, in this case, by Sadhguru. Three lifetimes? People tend to get overly specific when they're lying to you.

[The Grand Nudger]

Specificity is an afterthought. Stopped being applicable to me at souls and curriculum, possessing neither. The “as I understand it” doing a lot of work as a rejection of any view that doesn’t include any part of that nasty soul forge garbage.