I was reading an interview the other day with a guy named Paul Vunak. He trains various special forces in hand to hand combat. He is reputedly very very good at what he does. Spookily so.

He was talking in the interview about the effects of getting his training as real as possible day in day out. For him this means entering a kill or be killed state several times a week. Eye gouging, biting, flesh ripping, anything goes in these sessions. He is after all training people to survive the bloodiest encounters possible.

He said that he often needs a good hours drive home afterwards before he is capable of really being with anyone in a normal way. There are so many chemicals in his bloodstream and so many sociopathic thoughts running through him that he needs this time just listening to music alone in order to be able to function again with his family.

I thought that the interview really captured the effects and reality of what it is like when we repeatedly focus on negative states.

Our lives are really a collection of habits responding to external events and I know there are many of us here on the forum with amazing levels of concentration or strong psychic energies acting in our lives. So my question really concerns what we may be inadvertantly doing to ourselves with our monstrous obsessions or abilities.

 
What are the effects of focussing on anger hatred guilt worry and other so called negative states?
Or to that end believing we are vampires alien good evil etc?
Will we really reap the effects of what we habitually focus on? 

[Amaya]

Question I.   No matter what we focus on, good or bad, it changes us. It's that simple. Then again, it really isn't that simple. What we focus on changes us in different ways. If we focus on good, we usually become arrogant, self righteous, and out of touch with reality. I've been there before. If we focus on anxiety, we will physically and mentally shut down. I have also been here before (it ended in several almost stomach ulcers...). If we focus on hatred, we become angry and vengeful. If we focus on guilt, we become weak and powerless to anyone who harms us. If we focus on evil, we become harmful to anyone around us. As you've probably guessed, I've had experience with all of them. As for what I focus on now, that's a secret.

Question II. We are partially what we believe we are, partially what others believe us, and partially something indescribable.

Question III.   We always reap the effects on what we focus on no matter what. Whatever it is. We'll also usually get the negative results of them more than the positive.

[Moloch]

My opinion? It depends on the individual's belief system. If they are among the fortunate who are able to break away from what they were taught growing up, or were never taught any particular system to begin with... that person may be able to achieve more, and with fewer negative results as opposed to the person whose reality has been shaped for them.

Kreeps and I, for example, and certain other members who may not wish their business tossed out there, are among those who have broken, or are in the process of breaking, free of the constraints our elders have forced upon us. We suffer some negative effects on occasion, but on the whole we are much freer to do as we please than most of our contemporaries would believe.

As for the ethics and morality, same answer. It is up to the individual in nearly every case. About the only exception would be criminal acts, such as molestation of children, rape, and murder. In those, the majority will always rule.

[Loki]

Behavior is also very dependent on the social structure. If tomorrow, there is shortage of food, it is very likely that people will eat each other instead of starving to death. In critical situations, survival is becoming the first principle of action before such things as morality.

[blow_fly]

What Loki said is rather accurate. Ethics and morality are two concepts that merely  consist of elaborate codes regulating what is deemed to be ideal behaviour. This ideal behaviour that a culture glorifies above others is typically designed to ensure that society continues to function in a way that is beneficial to those who currently dominate it. 

Ethics and morality can be viewed as ways of maintaining social structure. Thats not the only way to see them though. If you remove the emphasis of social order and concentrate instead on individual experience then living these 'codes'  will generate predetemined experiences.

Viewed like that they can be seen as guidelines to achieving experiences. A how to guide for want of better a better description.

In the case of religions these typically lead to spiritual states and arguably the potential to live a life consisting of such states.

The actual  guidelines and ethics are in fact similar to types of diet. Do this, to get this.

At the moment with modern communications as they are, we have at our disposal a complete pick and mix selection available to us.

For me what is interesting about the people here on this forum is that they are really experimenting with the selections available.

We have people following vampire ethics, alien ethics, etc etc. The traditional models have been thrown out of the window. Its a big free for all. Many here are even writing their own ethical codes. Perhaps these really are uncharted territories we forum members are entering. We are following rules that have not been followed before. Chances are these will result in new states.
Its an exciting time if you think about it.

[MK-ULTRA]

I believe that the only real time we suffer from negative effects of what we focus on is when we become so obsessed by our own thoughts that we refuse to accept any other alternative thoughts, and therefore try and enforce our own belief systems onto other people.

And it is a good thing for everyone to have their own differing focus and points of view and to share those with others, which is what this forum is about really.

Negative problems start to manifest when people mistake others beliefs and points of view as "challenges" and "attacks" to their own focus in life, their own system of beliefs etc. When people start reacting to points of view that differ to their own as dualisms, that is when "states of war" and "argumenmts" break out. This is what completely ruins the benefits of sharing our focus's in life and drags everything and everyone into destructive negative states.

MK-ULTRA

[blow_fly]

Viewed like that they can be seen as guidelines to achieving experiences. A how to guide for want of better a better description.

In the case of religions these typically lead to spiritual states and arguably the potential to live a life consisting of such states.

The actual  guidelines and ethics are in fact similar to types of diet. Do this, to get this.

 

So, if I have understood you correctly, ethics have more to do with the individual wanting to attain a certain state than with one behaving  in an examplary manner in order to avoid maliciously harming  the interests and wellfare of others? Thanks.

Feeling that you are examplary and that you act for the good of all is just a state.
Its an experience which you get if you act in certain ways.

You can view religious ethics and moral codes from many perspectives.
Seeing them as recipies that lead to specific results is just one perspective out of many possible ways of looking at this stuff.
Such a view is as valid as others views.
Ie the only true way, greater good, social control, manipulation of ignorant.

What I like about seeing them as recipies is that you get to see some of the mechanics of experience. Like an exploded parts diagram of how the thing operates.