Working Too Much for a Living?

[trumpet_is_cool]

Hmmmm....what happen if people use it to supress themselves even without consciously knowing it?

What makes them to be not consciously aware of that ? It is often worth to turn around the question...For example it is difficult to find an answer to "How to prevent war`s ?" if you turn the question into "Who does benefit from a war ?" or "How to start a war ?" you will find a lot of answers, these method is a real eye opener....

There is a nice little story , that shows what happens if you start to re-ask the "matter of course" :

A Fisherman comes back at noon after a good fishing, goes to the beach and have a lie in the sun.
A tourist ask the Fisherman why he doesn`t goes fishing again on a successful day like this to make another good haul.
The Fisherman ask him why he should do this.So starts the following conversation:
Fisherman: "Why should i go fishing again at this day , i got already a good haul." Tourist : "You could sell the fishes and
earn a lot of money with that" Fisherman: "For what do i need much money ?" Tourist : "You could spend it for a lot of things,
for example you could travel to make a holiday" Fisherman : "What do i have from a holiday ?" Tourist : "You could lie in the sun at the beach"
Fisherman : "But...I`m doing this already"

It is a common belief that rich people gets rich by taking advantage of other people. What happen if such assumption is not wholefully correct? Wouldn't it defer you from being able to achieve financially self-reliance? Wouldn't you cut yourself of being financially literate? Couldn't you use your financial literacy to increase your time for spiritual development in future? Early retirement perhaps? Of course, financial freedom doesn't make sense if it is not used to accelarate spiritual development. Can I say that?

I think yes....You can say that. The important thing is the sprititual development, with enough spiritual development you know that you don`t need all the money and would propably use it to support the poor`s , wouldn`t you ?

Vesko wrote

So called "stars" indeed do not deserve the millions they get.

If they don`t deserve it, why do they keep it ? Some make some donations but only to be hip and stay in the news...

[Vesko]

It is a common belief that rich people gets rich by taking advantage of other people. What happen if such assumption is not wholefully correct? Wouldn't it defer you from being able to achieve financially self-reliance? Wouldn't you cut yourself of being financially literate? Couldn't you use your financial literacy to increase your time for spiritual development in future? Early retirement perhaps? Of course, financial freedom doesn't make sense if it is not used to accelarate spiritual development. Can I say that?

I personally could say it is quite correct insofar as I cannot think of any particular conspicuously affluent person who has not made compromises with their conscience. Undoubtedly, few such people exist in the world, and are not those too few? I also think that all those few ones are still of modest affluence in comparison with the ones with the compromised conscience.

Could one get confused that "rich people get rich by taking advantage of others" mean that one ought to be poor and lack independence in order to progress spiritually? Unfortunately, for various reasons one can. For example, if one takes the statement only verbatim, or because of one is blinded by "envy, jealousy, hatred for those richer" (p. 75, "The Seven Masters and the Aura").

Regarding "early retirement", I think one should not think in terms of early retirement, and not even any retirement. To be happy, one should think in terms of doing things that one will never wish to retire from doing. In addition, the chosen things to do should be spiritually-focussed, things that will bring real benefit to one, others and society as a whole.

Benefits? As it is peceived by minority of us here or majority of people? It is an entertainment at least to majority of people. An human generated illusion at large. A very clever one.

Real benefits, in a spiritual sense, as perceived by the minority of us here. What most people call entertainment is actually cheap thrills exploiting
primitive instincts, and it does them far more spiritual harm than good.

Some make some donations but only to be hip and stay in the news...

Even in the more rare cases when they donate not only to be hip and stay in the news, they keep significantly more than they can ever make use of for their spirituality.

[bomohwkl]

trumpet_is_cool wrote

bomohwkl wrote:
Hmmmm....what happen if people use it to supress themselves even without consciously knowing it?


What makes them to be not consciously aware of that ? It is often worth to turn around the question...For example it is difficult to find an answer to "How to prevent war`s ?" if you turn the question into "Who does benefit from a war ?" or "How to start a war ?" you will find a lot of answers, these method is a real eye opener....

It happens everyday. Just having beliefs implanted by others (eg cultural/peer/family/professional/media/society expectations and pressure) and negative self-talks are sufficient examples to demostrate how often we are unaware of ourselves supressing ourselves. Not a lot of us are 100% aware of our thoughts. It is even rarer for someone who takes some time to analyse assumptions and beliefs that give raise to particular thoughts. Then, how can we be the master of own thoughts? Thoughts run us. A master run his/her own thoughts. The former is, in my own opinion, a self-supression. Just looks at normal professional workers in Japan! They are extremely hard-working. They work more hours than Americans and Europeans counterparts.

Vesko wrote

Real benefits, in a spiritual sense, as perceived by the minority of us here. What most people call entertainment is actually cheap thrills exploiting
primitive instincts, and it does them far more spiritual harm than good.

In this earth, the majority wins. We can't enforce our values to the majority can't we? That's dictatorship. In contrast, the majority can in some ways influence their values to the minority. That's democracy. See the big picture?

[Vesko]

In this earth, the majority wins. We can't enforce our values to the majority can't we? That's dictatorship. In contrast, the majority can in some ways influence their values to the minority. That's democracy. See the big picture?

We are not talking about enforcing values, are we? And what do they win? Longer material confinement? Their enforcing their primitive values is the reason why Plato and Aristotle have been against democracy, calling it "tyranny of the masses".

[bomohwkl]

Vesko wrote

Their enforcing their primitive values is the reason why Plato and Aristotle have been against democracy, calling it "tyranny of the masses

Tyranny of the masses. Wonderful phrase. It has effectively illustrated the main flaw of democracy. How are you going to avoid "tyranny of the masses"? Have Plato and Aristotle succeeded?

[Frozn]

Tyranny of the masses...

Wonderful as it is simple.

The democracy itself is no more flawed than the people who make it up, I would argue. But which is easier?

A. Make people smarter?
B. Make democracy smarter?

Democracy of course.
As I started to express in 'The current situation' thread, democracy should start and end in the community, and those elected therein could handle choosing the upper leaders after having proven their integrity in local governing. Since "Majority of the stupid can be guaranteed", the 'stupid' could elect the 'smart' to make descisions they're incapable of making. Then we could put this whole party politics rubbish behind us and make some real progress.

Oh dear! I'm way off topic!!!