This note is for you Steve.

[write2win]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Even Jesus didn't travel much in His own day. Just mostly around the Middle East.

Well, I respectfully disagree. Jesus, is said to have visited Tibet and studies at Tibetan monasteries for about 3 years. Church, for their own reasons, do NOT want us to know this. But ask any Bible scholar about the record of Jesus from the age 16-19, and they would agree that time period just glossed over.

[dreardan]

Okies, I have been reading this stem of the forums, and ...
well ... from all that I have read, Nietzsche summed it all up
by the stating ...

"The Earth hath skin, and the skin hath diseases,
and one of these diseases is called Man."

The thing is, Opinions Vary. That is the one thing humans need
to learn to deal with. It seems that the majority of what was said
were personal feelings and personal opinions; and it all seems to
try to blend or merg into an argument; where everyone is trying to
be the correct one. And since Intelligence was mentioned a few times
well ... Intelligence is learning to deal with other peoples opinions. For
in the spans of life, to learn anything ... you need all the opinions (and just to mention it, not correct spelling.) - anywayz. You need all the opinons, you need all the facts, you need all angles within life, just to find your own unique Truth. Oh, and the Intelligence ... is knowing when to just .. shut up, and listen. (or read as the case may be) So, who is right. You all are.

And aye am not meaning to put anyone down, for it is within the mergence of opinions, and the arguments that are required; that anything can really be defined. So, and thusly ... thank yee all for the reading, for the arguments and the replies that put others down - well, yee pretty much summed up the human race.

oh, and before I forget ... the taking over of yerself in dreams. Aye for one have to say that is pretty freakin kewl. And aye recently heard of turning your back on monsters in dreams to make them go away; well ... turning your back on opposition; just does not sound right to me. When aye finally was able to take over myself in dreams; aye learned to watch all, and confront all. For only in situations of the nightmares, with the enemy in front of you, are yee actually able to come up the with reasons and means, of being safe. And just in case, if yee are akin to my own self - all it takes to begin to take over yerself in dreams - make sure to look at your hands. And that is within the dream; for the seeing of my hands started it all. Well, it was actually the seeing of my hands that gave me the idea of self, and once that was allowed to be gained ... well, self is only one thing - the individual, and everything else. for only when everything else, and anything else is possible, ... do yee actually have the means and reasons for Individuality.

okies, getting kinda long.
I end.

[billybrads]

I saw Kerouac's Dharma Bums mentioned in this post. The whole premise of Dharma Bums is basically how to cultivate a subjective reality. Whether Steve's read Kerouac or not, Kerouac would be a big fan of Steve's for spreading 'the way.'

[Tsuyu]

There is a difference between the writings of Nietzche, Dostoyevsky, etc., and a PD blog. They are a whole different genre, a whole different world. Nietzche doesn't give you tips on time management, on how to sleep well, how to discipline yourself more, and so on. Is reading Nietzche gonna help Steve in giving us useful life tips? No.

Most people don't read his blog to be a "follower". They read his blog because it offers useful things that benefit their lifestyles. Nietzche doesn't exactly help with that.

And do us all a favour, ImOpen. Don't argue with personal opinions. Some people do find Nietzche boring, and lots of people find your posts ridiculous. Arguing with personal opinions won't change anything, because they aren't fact.

[Erock]

Steve just layed down the absolute most powerful response I have ever seen. He truly is a master.

Erock

[billybrads]

I've been getting a lot from this forum, especially Adrienne's posts, and Steve's writings.

I also get a lot of enjoyment out of philosophy, art, literature, music etc. To me these are very important areas of life to build a full human life.

I am reading this blog for different purposes.

I really don't think it matters, because I don't think anybody is going to change the name of the blog, but I have to say that the title 'Personal Development for Smart People,' did intimidate me. I have considered myself intelligent for most of my life, but I found this blog/forum at a time when I was very depressed and low in confidence and I thought maybe a place for 'smart people' would not be completely accepting.

[dalante]

Ok, to put my two cents in...

This blog is helping me a lot in the pursuit of my goals and I like Steve's take on many topics.

However, I do agree with some points that ImOpen raised. From what I have gathered, ImOpen is young (so bless her energy in supporting her opinion), and faced difficulties in her life when she stumbled upon Steve's website... When introduced to the concept of Intention Manifestation and Steve's view on the nature of reality, she freaked out a bit (I read that from her, if I am not mistaking).

Now, Intention Manifestation is a great way to see life because it made me (and other people) realize that a lot of things are actually in our control (much more than we think) and that we attract things that we intend/visualize.

BUT, I am wondering how long the Intention/Manifestation model can hold in the face of traumatic, unexpected events. I would find it very insulting to explain IM to certain people, such as survivors of the holocaust, September 11th, Tsunamis or Bagdad bombings... I would NEVER dare to say to these people that what happened to them is the manifestation of what they intended.

That is to me the limit of IM. In the face of complexity of reality, a lot of philosophy books were written, and that is what ImOpen was getting at. If you want to get ideas about the meaning of life, of reality, then I suggest that you read classics of philosophy. These texts are much harder to understand than this blog, they're not an easy read... but they go deeper into things.

I am not into ImOpen's cult theory, because Steve hasn't asked any money from me, and he's genuinly helping me out, without expecting anything back from me (unlike some organizations such as scientology). But the types of theories he uses and the way he presents them ("I know the true nature of reality") could be used by a cult leader to attract simple minds who are in need for direction in their life.

Voila!
Thank you for this blog and this forum, as it is bringing a lot of positive change into my life

Take care!

[Adrienne]

Originally Posted by billybrads

I've been getting a lot from this forum, especially Adrienne's posts, and Steve's writings.

I also get a lot of enjoyment out of philosophy, art, literature, music etc. To me these are very important areas of life to build a full human life.

I am reading this blog for different purposes.

I really don't think it matters, because I don't think anybody is going to change the name of the blog, but I have to say that the title 'Personal Development for Smart People,' did intimidate me. I have considered myself intelligent for most of my life, but I found this blog/forum at a time when I was very depressed and low in confidence and I thought maybe a place for 'smart people' would not be completely accepting.

Glad I have been able to help. And I completely agree, I am not reading this to learn more about classic philosophy. I have studied that. And while I will agree that I am far from mastery of classic philosophy, I love to read that take that Steve has on life. I don’t want read something that is just someone mimicking someone else’s ideas or ideals.

Originally Posted by dalante

Ok, to put my two cents in...

This blog is helping me a lot in the pursuit of my goals and I like Steve's take on many topics.

However, I do agree with some points that ImOpen raised. From what I have gathered, ImOpen is young (so bless her energy in supporting her opinion), and faced difficulties in her life when she stumbled upon Steve's website... When introduced to the concept of Intention Manifestation and Steve's view on the nature of reality, she freaked out a bit (I read that from her, if I am not mistaking).

Now, Intention Manifestation is a great way to see life because it made me (and other people) realize that a lot of things are actually in our control (much more than we think) and that we attract things that we intend/visualize.

BUT, I am wondering how long the Intention/Manifestation model can hold in the face of traumatic, unexpected events. I would find it very insulting to explain IM to certain people, such as survivors of the holocaust, September 11th, Tsunamis or Bagdad bombings... I would NEVER dare to say to these people that what happened to them is the manifestation of what they intended.

That is to me the limit of IM. In the face of complexity of reality, a lot of philosophy books were written, and that is what ImOpen was getting at. If you want to get ideas about the meaning of life, of reality, then I suggest that you read classics of philosophy. These texts are much harder to understand than this blog, they're not an easy read... but they go deeper into things.

I am not into ImOpen's cult theory, because Steve hasn't asked any money from me, and he's genuinly helping me out, without expecting anything back from me (unlike some organizations such as scientology). But the types of theories he uses and the way he presents them ("I know the true nature of reality") could be used by a cult leader to attract simple minds who are in need for direction in their life.

Voila!
Thank you for this blog and this forum, as it is bringing a lot of positive change into my life

Take care!

I love when people have passion for what they talk about too. I am glad that Imopen, set, and Markus are sharing their opinions and helping to create this great conversation.

As to the idea of subjective reality/ IM breaking down when used when used for disasters, I understand why people think that, tho I disagree. Lets take a smaller example and then reeve it up (and I will even pick a controversial one)..

Rape victims/ victims of abuse. Lot of people see this as a great tragedy and never should happen. While I agree, that I wish no one wanted to hurt anyone and I hope one day we live in a world where we don’t have a word for victim because they just don’t exist, today they do. Now does the abused attract the abuser or vice versa? None? Both?

Both. Why? You cant have one without the other. An abuser wants a victim, I think it is obvious as to why.

Now what most people would see as the harder one.. why in the world would someone attract being hurt? Well, to learn. Sometimes learning is painful, but sometimes our greatest lessons come from that which was the most painful. I have worked with rape victims and victims of abuse. While some break, others find a new since of purpose, they grow in a way they probably would not have.
I heard this somewhere.. it might have been Steve’s blog but might have been somewhere else.
Rewind time back before the abused and the abuser were born. The entity that will become the abused says, I want to learn forgiveness and inner strength. The abuser agrees to help them with this. The abuser might want to understand abuse of power. In life now, they act these out to learn. The abuser learns the misuse or power, and the abused inner strength, acceptance, and ultimately hopefully forgiveness.

For some people the harder the lesson, the more it is ingrained.

Now, on a grand scale of disasters. I won’t say I know the specific purpose people need to learn. But did we create it? Yes. Think of what we learned from the recent tsunamis.
• How 1st world counties are so far removed from nature.
• How we have to respect nature. The less we respect it, the more we can we be hurt by it
• Shows the character or the counties and people around. Who rises in the face of disaster, who does not?
• Lots more…

I can understand not wanting to take responsibility for actions like these. But if you don’t acknowledge that part we play in this, how can we be empowered to not let it happen again? Responsibility is ours, whether we take it or not, it is still everyone’s. Denying responsibility is the same as not making a choice to make thing better, you just ignore it. What happens when things get ignored, they get bigger, they don’t go away.

Adrienne

[dalante]

Originally Posted by Adrienne

Rewind time back before the abused and the abuser were born. The entity that will become the abused says, I want to learn forgiveness and inner strength. The abuser agrees to help them with this. The abuser might want to understand abuse of power.

For some people the harder the lesson, the more it is ingrained.

What if one doesn't believe that one was an entity before life? What you just said assumes that one already believes in a lot of concepts. (plus have you already explained this theory to the face of a raped person? I know that if I did, I would cringe about it)

Moreover, are you telling us that 6 million entities asked to learn about forgiveness, so they were born as jewish people right before the 1930s and many other entities agreed to help them, so they were born as non-jewish German people in the same time?

Originally Posted by Adrienne

• How 1st world counties are so far removed from nature.
• How we have to respect nature. The less we respect it, the more we can we be hurt by it

Are you referring to the New Orleans Tsunami?
What about the tsunamis in Asia? They hit countries that are considered to be developing countries...
Then again, you assume that we believe that nature has a personality and wants to take revenge.

Originally Posted by Adrienne

I can understand not wanting to take responsibility for actions like these. But if you don’t acknowledge that part we play in this, how can we be empowered to not let it happen again? Responsibility is ours, whether we take it or not, it is still everyone’s. Denying responsibility is the same as not making a choice to make thing better, you just ignore it. What happens when things get ignored, they get bigger, they don’t go away.

IM is a simple theory. It can explain everything. Simple theories are seductive. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I find), the world is too rich to fit into a couple of axioms.

[Adrienne]

Originally Posted by dalante

What if one doesn't believe that one was an entity before life? What you just said assumes that one already believes in a lot of concepts. (plus have you already explained this theory to the face of a raped person? I know that if I did, I would cringe about it)

Moreover, are you telling us that 6 million entities asked to learn about forgiveness, so they were born as jewish people right before the 1930s and many other entities agreed to help them, so they were born as non-jewish German people in the same time?


Are you referring to the New Orleans Tsunami?
What about the tsunamis in Asia? They hit countries that are considered to be developing countries...
Then again, you assume that we believe that nature has a personality and wants to take revenge.



IM is a simple theory. It can explain everything. Simple theories are seductive. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I find), the world is too rich to fit into a couple of axioms.

That’s fine, you don’t have to believe there was anything before or after, I was using it as an example because many people do believe in that. But what is life besides an experience to love and learn?
Every situation can be looked at a horror, a disadvantage, or something to learn from. I chose to take the one that is most empowering. I would rather be empowered and try to change things then to believe lives can be lost without point.

Everyone is going to die. We have not found a way to change that yet. Yes, 6 million plus people chose to died in the holocaust. Is that horrible? Yes. Would they have died anyway? Yes. But why just chop it up to horrible? Why not learn from it? Subjective reality means that you accept the responsibility that you are the cause for everything. Do you think it is easy to take that responsibility on? For me, it is not. I do it. But it is hard to look inside yourself and say, “what in me do I have to heal to stop people from killing each other, hurting each other etc” I don’t see this as an easy solution at all. Heck, it would be a lot easier to escape to my own island and present the rest of the world did not exists and people did not kill people, but that does not stop it from happening because on some level I would still be aware of it.

Not everyone of those 6 million died for the same reason. Some perhaps for forgiveness, some perhaps to show the world what happens with abuse power figures, some to fight and just take it, and so much more. Think of what their deaths of taught us, the people who came years, decades after them.

It is a tough concept to swallow because when you do, you realize you have the ability to change it and you haven’t. For better or worse, I have created the world I live in.

I can see why this looks like an easy, solve all answer concept from the outside. But it is really just a doorway into a whole new area. And the doorway is not all that easy to get to. Once you walk thru tho, the true force of the magnitude hits you. There is a whole other life with much deeper struggles (try accepting that you are responsible, just you for the hate and fear that created the holocaust, that someone within you is the hate and fear needed to create that) and much higher rewards because just as I am that which created the hate for the holocaust, I can also create the love and tolerance for peace.

I can’t prove it until you believe it. Once you believe it, you find your own proof.

And yes I have explained to rape victims and such. Not within minutes, but eventually. Many I know have risen above it, learned, and become who they feel are better people. The situation forced them to grow in a way they would not have. Most (that I have talked to) would go thru it all again to be the person they became.

As to tsunamis in Asia, nature has always been a forced not to be reckoned with. I don’t mean to say that the ocean wanted revenge. What I mean is more along the lines of, nature proved to us how little we really know. We had no warning. However, little villages with elders with little western influence without all our sophisticated technology knew. There towns were destroyed but their people lived because they knew it was coming.

And I agree that “too rich to fit into a couple of axioms.”

Adrienne

[billybrads]

Originally Posted by Adrienne

I love when people have passion for what they talk about too. I am glad that Imopen, set, and Markus are sharing their opinions and helping to create this great conversation.





Adrienne

I feel the same way. I also think ImOpen brings to light a lot of ideas that are healthy to be skeptical about. I don't think there is anything wrong though with looking to an expert on PD on PD. However, I think it would be unhealthy if everybody started doing Tae Kwan Do or playing poker, or whatever else Steve enjoys doing. Ultimately, people have to be themselves and do what interests them. I don't think the world would be such an interesting place if everybody had the same interests, read the same authors, enjoyed the same activities. But I do think everybody trying to be their best and understanding things on a different level would make a real interesting world to live in.

[Adrienne]

Originally Posted by billybrads

I feel the same way. I also think ImOpen brings to light a lot of ideas that are healthy to be skeptical about. I don't think there is anything wrong though with looking to an expert on PD on PD. However, I think it would be unhealthy if everybody started doing Tae Kwan Do or playing poker, or whatever else Steve enjoys doing. Ultimately, people have to be themselves and do what interests them. I don't think the world would be such an interesting place if everybody had the same interests, read the same authors, enjoyed the same activities. But I do think everybody trying to be their best and understanding things on a different level would make a real interesting world to live in.

I totally agree. I love when people share their opinions even when they are extreme. (such as how extreme people might find my views). To each their own. By having such a diverse group, we can hear opinions from everyone, and take what works for us and leave what does not. And maybe someday what did not work for us will, or perhaps we can use it as a spring board for something else.

Adrienne

[bonzai]

"Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."

Albert Einstein

[Ron Stoppable]

Originally Posted by ABlix

his advertising slogan is a little too witty. Does it imply that people who are not smart should not be allowed on his web site?

Indeed! You can read (and fully understand) all the epic texts available, but if you're not smart enough to act upon them, what's the use?

[Rosie]

You say that Steve is neglecting his cultural side. You obviously don't know Steve, so how could you come to that conclusion? Maybe he is extremely cultural and he just hasn't expressed that side of himself because he doesn't find it relative to the site?

We all have strengths and areas of interests. I am interested in the paranormal, and spiritual, but am not very interested in history. Does that mean that I am some how lacking? I don't think so. No body is interested in everything, and no one is knowledgable of everything. If Steve has no desire to read any of those authors you discussed, then you should respect that.

[EmilOsterstrom]

Originally Posted by ImOpen

This will probably sound very harsh. I'm sorry for that, I don't mean to. Hard to express yourself in a different language...

Anyway... you are writing about raising your awareness, about your purpose in life and so forth. You are writing about personal development - but still you seem to neglect an area of your life constantly - the "Cultural Pavlina".

Have you even read Dostoyevsky? Strindberg? Blake? Faulkner? Voltaire? Rimbaud? Do you know a van Gough when you see one and how many times have you been outside of the US? Have you seen the children dying in the smelly streets of India and have you seen the sun go down over the Mediterranean.

I think not and I think that doing these things would alter the way you see the world considerably. Actaully, I think it's a bit hard to take your advice seriously when I'm aware of the fact that you live in the USA and have not seen very much else of the world.

I mean... you yourself talk about how important knowledge is and that you should be open etc. Shouldn't you be reading some Nietzsche and Schopenhauer just to make sure that you haven't missed out on anything? Because, these things: travelling, education (and meeting people) are very good ways to improve yourself and the best part is that they don't make you "strive" so much after things that you can never be satisfied with anyway - like networth and so on.

(Also, pleeeeease remove "personal development for smart people". It's so transparent.)

I'm 21 years old and so far I've visted 6 countries in 3 different continents.

Those experiences have enrichened and formed me to the person I am today and I probably would have been a different (less open?) person if I had not travelled as much.

What I'm saying is that I can partly relate to the message of the opening post.

[Mr.Mustache]

I don't see the relevancy in the opening post. Why should Steve have to do all that reading and traveling in order to share insights? What do pessimistic philosophers like Schopenhauer (whose writings are basically worthless in my pinion) have to do with living a life of purpose and joy? And what do suffering kids in India have to do with this specifically?

[way451]

As someone who has traveled extensively for cultural reasons, does recognize a van Gogh when he sees one, I can say for certain that world travel has tremendous value for any sensitive thinking person.

That said, aside from world leaders who I think should be REQUIRED to travel the world and stay in local hotels or with local families for at least 3 months and on at least 3 continents, the rest of us should come to this as desire in the course of their personal journey.

I truly gained a deep appreciation for the similarities of all humans in my 14 month trip through Europe and South / South-east Asia. Of course I had many adventures, saw many beautiful things, and had a great time overall. If it interests you at all, plan and go. If not, explore what does interest you.

Above all, follow your heart and your mind where it wants to go and do it with pride and grace.

[Steve Pavlina]

Erin and I visited a foreign country a couple months ago. We reviewed the experience here:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...y-trip-review/

Hope to visit more alien lands in the future.

[KeithHandy]

Baaa...