part of the problem with the world

[happy soul]

First I want to say that I'm not claiming any special knowledge of the kind I'm gonna mention, and I admit that I stand a lot of room for improvement.

Plato said that the necessary thing in order to live virtuously was the apprehension of virtue, the knowledge of the good.

That echoes his teacher's, Socrates, belief that 'to know the good is to do the good'.

J. Krishnamurti said something very similar - 'the seeing is the doing'. He therefore taught that what we need to do is 'find out what love is'. When one 'knows what love is', they will proceed to live a life of love.

When asked what he thought the world needed more of, Bertrand Russell, a renowned agnostic and critic of religion, said, 'Christian love'.

We all know that Jesus preached love - divine love, to love one's neighbor deeply. But it seems that most people, including most Christians, don't really apprehend that kind of love.

I feel that one of the major problems with humankind is not knowing what love is.

Krishnamurti said that we need to 'put our whole being into finding out what love is'.

It's very important imo. The very survival of the human race may depend on it.

One of the best things we can do for ourselves and the world is to really look into the matter and make an effort to 'find out what love is'.

Ultimately, every situation we find ourselves in is an opportunity to choose love. Surely it's well worth it to do so.

As I see it the biggest problem facing most people driving their own lives (becoming aware of how deeply they're manipulated) is addiction to consumerism.
To me, consumerism is the devil doing his work well on the planet - temptations, seductions, reaching unnoticed into people's lives - chain them down, get them in debt so they can't escape the system.

You'd be surprised the marketing tactics used by agencies - well you must have read of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. I don't have any social media accounts but it seems that what these outfits can collate about people and their habits (therefore their weaknesses) is very substantial so the marketeers' tentacles know pretty exactly what nerves to touch.

I'm not innocent. Some of my work has been for companies via their agencies, not a lot and less now as advertising budgets have been cut back so, but I excuse myself as I have to eat and pay the Council Tax. And, of course, it's up to people if they fall for it.

My "training" gave me enough insights to extricate myself from consumerism but it doesn't take training and it's up to everyone to make the break. There are things people must have and things they pretend they must have. They must learn the difference. Stay a puppet to the system and social conditioning or look at how these affect you and free yourself of those strings! It isn't exactly spiritual awakening (though it could be for many) but it's an important spiritual initiation/empowerment.

Love is one of these constructs that means different things to every individual. You can have as much love as you like but that doesn't pay the rent. Getting out of social conditioning is the best conversion to self-love I can think of. You value yourself as YOU, not a puppet, unwittingly dancing to everyone else's tune. Think I'm exaggerating? Just take a look at it.

[SoulGenesis]

In order to understand what love is, it should be able to express itself. There's where I experienced my personal crisis - the ego-death meant also the death of irrational (unconscious) love. So love is in the word(s) revealed to us and it's about us becoming lovable by being reasonable. For me it has to do with objectivity where everything is included. They say "no justice, no peace", but without objectivity there cannot be justice based on true facts. The power has it's legitimation in our immaturity. Spiritual immaturity means being attached to the body, i.e. being unable to be objective = soul. So without spiritual enlightenment we will always be ending up in "Animal Farm(s)" and everything remains utopia.

[Starman]

"The story is told of a Jewish rabbi whose disciples were debating the question of when precisely 'daylight' commenced.
One student proposed: 'It is when one can see the difference between a sheep and a goat at a distance.' Another suggested,
It is when you can see the difference between a fig tree and an olive tree at a distance.' And so it went on. When they
eventually asked the Rabbi for his view, he said, 'When one human being looks into the face of another and says,
'This is my sister, or this is my brother,' then the night is over and the day has begun."

Thomas B. Coburn,
Naropa