2006.03.28 - Q'uo on Online Gaming

[Zygra]

I would still smash his head in if I met him and he would be a jedi. Ingame ofc.

you would find it extremely difficult.

It is since the game isnt even out yet.

[NegaNova]

We're playing it with our minds.

[3DMonkey]

ooooo video game challenge

[Bring4th_Austin]

Let's start a B4th Old Republic guild.

[infinitycrownsword]

lol,

I thoroughly enjoy reading this thread. I've spend the majority of my free time (i'm 28 atm) throughout my life playing games. I still play a lot (especially EVE Online) and unfortunately it has depraved me of much opportunity of spiritual growth. Its an addiction that takes attention away from relationships (3d / 3rd chakra stuff rite?) and definitely does more harm than good.

In addition to that, I can't deny the benefits and opportunities it has created for me as individual and for others i do interact with in multiplayer games. Please bear in mind I'm currently an avid believer in reincarnation, ETs, the Law of One, etc. which was traditionally in direct conflict with my beliefs as a christian. Here's some of my positive experiences which are more the exception than the rule;

1. Building a spiritually centered relationship with a seeker when playing Starcraft 1 around 1999, we got to a point where I invited the person to ask Jesus for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I shared that they might experience some weird things like praying in tongues, possibly, but that its a normal occurence if so. I proceeded to type as the person followed the simple prayer and suddenly he didn't respond for about 10 minutes. I thought the guy lost internet connection, but he came back and told me he literally fell off his chair due to the intensity of the experience and was on the floor and praying in tongues. Just moments before he barely believed in any of it being real. He experienced an intense positive spiritual event in his life and that wouldn't have happened (at least at that time) if we didn't build a relationship through online gaming. This example was one of many, but they are the exception to the rule.

2. In general I've been a really arrogant person most of my life. This was especially bad in my online gaming as I would critisize people for any and every small thing in my competitive notions, especially in teamgames where I felt teammates were messing up. These interactions and the feedback I got from them mostly fueled themselves in a viscious circle, but occasionally I would be confronted by someone with patience or wisdom that pointed out things in a perspective that allowed me to consider what was going on from another point of view. This played a catalytic part in my seeking spiritual improvement as I saw the bad effects I was having on others around me mostly.

3. I've had some really insightful conversations with people I've met in online gaming. Things that inspire, things that educate. Countless things. Mutually too, most of the time.

So in general, the relationship-building opportunities that online gaming offers, have huge potential for connecting seekers with each other, but the actual activity of gaming itself, in my opinion, is not an optimal way to relax.

Yes I still play games, certain ones, and according to some it makes me a hypocrite. Perhaps I am one. I can just share my experience and let you be the judge of what of it is useful to you

Love n light

[kycahi]

Welcome to the community, infinitycrown. If you've read a fair amount of this site, you know about making the Choice of being in service to others or to self. IMO, your having been arrogant indicates that you hadn't made that Choice yet. Congratulations on putting that behind you. I also did that years ago. Feels good, doesn't it?

Regarding this topic, I never did much gaming, but don't think it is inherently bad unless you barely have a life outside of it. I think that my spending as much time on b4th forums as I do is a kind of gaming, and I am near or over the line of doing it too much.

[Technarch]

I recommend Ultima VI and VII, it contains some very interesting spiritual topics.

I'm also putting together a wiki with some Law of One concepts for a future video game. Feel free to contribute.

http://neverend.wikia.com/wiki/Ra

[Bring4th_Austin]

Hey Technarch, welcome to the forums. I've often imagined a video game based on metaphysical and Law of One concepts, I think that's a really cool idea.

Do you think you could elaborate a little more on your view for the game? What style/platform, etc?

[Technarch]

Adults only PC MMO based on different religions/mythologies

[Bring4th_Austin]

Out of curiosity, how would you enforce the adults only restriction? Why do you want that restriction in place?

Would the different religions be like different factions? Would it be combat based, or based on spiritual development?

[Technarch]

Exploration of sexual themes and its relation to spiritual concepts from different belief systems. Religions would be different factions using both combat and spiritual development. The challenge is in making a simulated spiritual experience both fun and interactive.

http://underworldmmo.wordpress.com/

[Bring4th_Steve]

This is a topic that has often been on my mind. In case anyone is interested, I started a thread in January 2009 about the pros and cons of video games and how it affects spiritual evolution.

I even went so far as to ask Q'uo directly, which I know that conversation is published not too far from the 2009 thread.

Check it out if this topic remains of interest to you!

http://www.bring4th.org/forums/showthread.php?tid=66

My personal outlook has remained that any "avatar" we fight or kill, slowly erodes our minds (through conditioning) and detracts from the energy that we could have spent refining our compassion or ability to Love. Most of us know it would be crazy to go out into our everyday world and start shooting up people, but the problem is that there are many gamers who fantasize of actually killing foreigners or other real-life representations as if they were actually committing the act. I believe Q'uo stated something about your mind processing the act of killing and passing along that negative energy to your energy body where it reduces its overall vibration, as if the energy were involved in the actual act of killing.

Ever since I made that connection, I have steered away from many of the violent games that I have once enjoyed, even though I personally never equated the killing of avatars as a symbol that has repercussions on my energy body in real life.

So to round off that thought, the significance of this is directly tied to the "action and intention" of killing/destroying, and not so much about whether some colorful pixels were obliterated instead of another human being, ant or fly (as an extreme example).

Steve

[Oceania]

it's not the what you kill but the act of killing, it's something fear-based. separatist and low-vibrating. you have to pump up adrenaline which then causes this lower vibration. do you agree?

[Bring4th_Steve]

it's not the what you kill but the act of killing, it's something fear-based. separatist and low-vibrating. you have to pump up adrenaline which then causes this lower vibration. do you agree?

Personally, I believe the adrenaline is just a physical validation/side-effect of the action taken. I still maintain that just having the mindful intention of killing something or someone can begin the process of lowering one's vibration.

[Oldern]

Wow, talking about chance of meeting this!

I have been playing very, very competitively in the last few years, most importantly Street Fighter IV and StarCraft II. Both games require fast hands, focus, and of course they are not directly "violent", but my opponents and I have both expressed anger and frustration from time to time. On the other hand, while these games can be played very, very violently (in terms of thoughts behind it), especially in StarCraft 2, I gave up on any negative thoughts on "ladder games" (which is basically ranked games against opponents in the same rank), and always wished good luck, conceded properly at the end of the game.

Well, the problem is that sometimes, my opponent does something bad, fails, and then I got a message like this: "You have no idea how much I hate you now". Let me tell you, that is very scary to me. I know that he only knews my "nickname", but I strongly believe that in competitive games, when both players focus on the match ongoing, they make a connection. And if hate comes through the connection, that is always bad.

But on the other hand, I see some pro players, who knew each other, play very serious games in a grand finals, and at the end of it, they go to the other, and hug each other. I cant see that they have any negative feelings. Along the way, It might be beneficial to try and earn that state, that emptiness inside the games ("Zen"), without any ill feelings towards the opponent. But I am not sure how much negativ thoughts I would pick up on the road.

My life has been built upon competitive gaming as a relaxation, and that is obviously not good. I am quite sure that games like Go and Chess do not gather that many ill feelings, mostly because it hase an intellectual barrier, and does not require fast reflexes - which in turn makes you have less adrenalin inside your system. I am aiming to create small, tactical games like that, that might even encourage player cooperation, not player hatred against each other.

[Bring4th_Steve]

Hey, Oldern! Great to see that you found this thread, and your experiences definitely add to the conversation. It seems you have hit a major point that can often go overlooked in these conversations; whether one is gaming against another human, or a computer-generated avatar.

The arguments seem to remain that there are two effects. One is the conscious will to kill/obliterate something that exists in any form. Step aside from the literal aspect of your pixels wiping out another set of pixels. Look at it a step before and think about the power of your intention to cause harm to another "thing".

Personally, I feel if a human is at the other end, this matter becomes even more complex, because as you stated, emotions can pass through the communications and the gaming process such that you know that hate or anger is coming at you.

In Reiki healing, those who are familiar with distance healing knows that there is a "Law of Proxy". And it is activated by simply using your will to substitute another object as another being. So I could be sending love to my friend, and the small act of declaring that my friend IS the little stuffed bear that I am holding (as a token or symbol), means that energetically, that IS my friend in my hand! Notice that is also is very similar to Voodooism, where it is often a black magic practice to create a doll with physical pieces of the human attached to it (like hair or finger nail clippings) in order to inflict energetic harm.

This is why I personally argue that through intention alone, it doesn't matter that it's only an avatar that the gamer is killing. Through the Law of Proxy, two energies are using two avatars to attack each other (when playing combat or offensive/defensive games).

Your comments about the guys hugging each other at the end is an interesting observation. Like all of our experiences in life, we have them because Earth is a school. It doesn't mean that gaming is an exception to that. Gaming in itself can be the school. And for the "adept gamer", perhaps he/she chose a life of having gaming experiences in order to learn how to experience intense anger through the catalyst of virtual combat, only to work on ways in which the same person can show compassion, graciousness, and good spirits at the end of such a competition. If an individual chose something like that, then gaming (for that person) might be a form of self-mastery, with video games being an intense catalyst towards helping the gamer to learn how to make emotional choices that are useful towards his/her spiritual development.

Steve

[Oldern]

Steve, thank you for the reply (I already made my intrductionary thread in the Wanderers subtopic).

Your point seems to be very, very spot on: because you KNOW that there is another player on the "recieving" end, you make the connection, and affect it. Now, the question arises for me: with the simple act of loving my opponents, will any ill feelings be negated?

But competitive gaming really resembles to the karma and reincarnation laws: until you have the urge to fight, you fight. Engaging in a competitive game means just the same: until you no longer have the urge, you will particibate in battles, some you will win, some you will lose. Especially nowadays, with proper matchmaking systems always maintaining every player's winrate around 50%, so for every 100 victory, around that amount of lose will occur, "no matter what".

[Zygra]

Steve, thank you for the reply (I already made my intrductionary thread in the Wanderers subtopic).

Your point seems to be very, very spot on: because you KNOW that there is another player on the "recieving" end, you make the connection, and affect it. Now, the question arises for me: with the simple act of loving my opponents, will any ill feelings be negated?

But competitive gaming really resembles to the karma and reincarnation laws: until you have the urge to fight, you fight. Engaging in a competitive game means just the same: until you no longer have the urge, you will particibate in battles, some you will win, some you will lose. Especially nowadays, with proper matchmaking systems always maintaining every player's winrate around 50%, so for every 100 victory, around that amount of lose will occur, "no matter what".

There is something called sports and sportsmanship. This is a contest but rather then a conflict or dispute. I believe that games are very beneficiall in many ways. We compete against each others on friendly terms in order to improve. Sometimes its about status, money, fame etc. But thats not so bad either. Sometimes I wish that we could do it in a friendly enviroment but that is not always so. Many times the ego steps in and takes over. Especially in competitions. "Im better then you" "my team is better then you". All kind of claims and boasts that can cause conflict. In poker the measure is "who can make the most money is the best". Keeps it simple. I love sc2 and the sc2 ladder is a good place to learn and practice. But it is perhapps not the best for true competition as people constantly are trying out new things and not playing as they would if it was life/death. It depends on where on the ladder you are.

Life would be so incredibly boring without sports and competitions of different sorts.

love

[unity100]

you are depicting 'compete' as a good thing. its not positive. there are winners and losers in a competition. even if the competition is 'friendly'.

competition is the opposite of cooperation.

[AnthroHeart]

That's one reason I like Second Life. It's not a competition as there's no goals but interacting with others and doing fun stuff. It's been awhile since I've been on though. But plenty of spiritual places to see there.

[Zygra]

you are depicting 'compete' as a good thing. its not positive. there are winners and losers in a competition. even if the competition is 'friendly'.

competition is the opposite of cooperation.

I disagree that it is automaticly negative. Its like cubs that play in order to learn and prepair for the "real world". Please understand that this world is wicked and not always nice. One needs to train and prepair oneself at least so much so that one is able to defend oneself. There is no point if one gets killed and eaten. Train the body and train the mind.

At least when I compete, I dont eat my opponent. It is a friendly exchange of skills and joy of the sport. How one behaves during and after the competition is up to each person. I do find this topic so interesting because I believe that earthlings generally have poorly balanced third chakras. Its either supressed or hyperactive. None of the options serve anything sutbstantial (but ones ego) and only block. I find "looser attitude" to be very common. It doesnt matter if you win or loose in the game but how well could you perform. There are often things we dont have any influence on that effect the outcome. I dont worry myself much with them as I dont have any influence on them. I do what I can from where I am.

Yesterday I played in a community based football tournament. It was a low level tour with people from around the neighborhood. We lost badly and as a goalkeeper I got my big toe smashed in. Now its all swollen and hurts. But I dont mind. I had alot of fun and as did many others. At that occasion it was about the enjoyment of the play and the gathering, not the winning. One of our players couldnt accept that we had such bad results and was very insulting to others and even shouted at them in a threatening manner. He had complete "looser attitude" as he was unable to accept that one might loose and not perform well.

And yes, you can compete in a cooperative manner. I do it all the time. The world is not all black and white ladies and gentlemen. There are more colors in this world.

love

[Oldern]

To be honest, I still think that the golden era has yet to come in gaming.
And by golden era, I mean games where serious theorycrafting and cooperation is required, (and I mean real cooperation), and the reward resonates with the amount of energy put into the battles/tactics by each players.

Right now, the most cooperative online "strategy" game is HON/LOL, and they both are games where 5 players play against 5 players, and every loss means that the players start insulting the weaker teammates, which is not only fruitless, but can be really frustrating to experience as a beginner. To change this attitude, less emphasis should be put on individual losses (to make sure that you "get" something out of a loss, even if it is just some XP, some ingame currency, anything), and even losing should be an experience in itself.

There is a "horde" gameplay wave in newer FPS games, where teams of players take on AI-controlled waves of monsters - that is another game where you only cooperate with your friends, and do not kill each other ingame.

[unity100]

I disagree that it is automaticly negative. Its like cubs that play in order to learn and prepair for the "real world". Please understand that this world is wicked and not always nice. One needs to train and prepair oneself at least so much so that one is able to defend oneself. There is no point if one gets killed and eaten. Train the body and train the mind.

'this world being wicked and not always nice' does not make things of negative nature, positive or agreeable. cubs play in order to learn catching and killing other entities. that is as negative as it can get in regard to 2nd density polarities. not something loving and sharing either.

in a negative world, you may need to act negative to survive. this however, wont make a negatively oriented act, positive.

At least when I compete, I dont eat my opponent. It is a friendly exchange of skills and joy of the sport. How one behaves during and after the competition is up to each person. I do find this topic so interesting because I believe that earthlings generally have poorly balanced third chakras. Its either supressed or hyperactive. None of the options serve anything sutbstantial (but ones ego) and only block. I find "looser attitude" to be very common. It doesnt matter if you win or loose in the game but how well could you perform. There are often things we dont have any influence on that effect the outcome. I dont worry myself much with them as I dont have any influence on them. I do what I can from where I am.

Yesterday I played in a community based football tournament. It was a low level tour with people from around the neighborhood. We lost badly and as a goalkeeper I got my big toe smashed in. Now its all swollen and hurts. But I dont mind. I had alot of fun and as did many others. At that occasion it was about the enjoyment of the play and the gathering, not the winning. One of our players couldnt accept that we had such bad results and was very insulting to others and even shouted at them in a threatening manner. He had complete "looser attitude" as he was unable to accept that one might loose and not perform well.

And yes, you can compete in a cooperative manner. I do it all the time. The world is not all black and white ladies and gentlemen. There are more colors in this world.

love

still, from the start you have engaged in an act which had a winning side, and losing side. even if you beautified the act in your minds as much as possible by trying to isolate and neutralize the negative traits of the act, 'somehow', it still led to negative results in the end ...

[Zygra]

I disagree that it is automaticly negative. Its like cubs that play in order to learn and prepair for the "real world". Please understand that this world is wicked and not always nice. One needs to train and prepair oneself at least so much so that one is able to defend oneself. There is no point if one gets killed and eaten. Train the body and train the mind.

'this world being wicked and not always nice' does not make things of negative nature, positive or agreeable. cubs play in order to learn catching and killing other entities. that is as negative as it can get in regard to 2nd density polarities. not something loving and sharing either.

in a negative world, you may need to act negative to survive. this however, wont make a negatively oriented act, positive.

At least when I compete, I dont eat my opponent. It is a friendly exchange of skills and joy of the sport. How one behaves during and after the competition is up to each person. I do find this topic so interesting because I believe that earthlings generally have poorly balanced third chakras. Its either supressed or hyperactive. None of the options serve anything sutbstantial (but ones ego) and only block. I find "looser attitude" to be very common. It doesnt matter if you win or loose in the game but how well could you perform. There are often things we dont have any influence on that effect the outcome. I dont worry myself much with them as I dont have any influence on them. I do what I can from where I am.

Yesterday I played in a community based football tournament. It was a low level tour with people from around the neighborhood. We lost badly and as a goalkeeper I got my big toe smashed in. Now its all swollen and hurts. But I dont mind. I had alot of fun and as did many others. At that occasion it was about the enjoyment of the play and the gathering, not the winning. One of our players couldnt accept that we had such bad results and was very insulting to others and even shouted at them in a threatening manner. He had complete "looser attitude" as he was unable to accept that one might loose and not perform well.

And yes, you can compete in a cooperative manner. I do it all the time. The world is not all black and white ladies and gentlemen. There are more colors in this world.

love

still, from the start you have engaged in an act which had a winning side, and losing side. even if you beautified the act in your minds as much as possible by trying to isolate and neutralize the negative traits of the act, 'somehow', it still led to negative results in the end ...

Seeing you write unity100 makes me sad. You must not have had much fun at all in your life. You remind me of some kids I have met in my life. They would never stop arguing their point no matter how much right or wrong they had. Everything for them was black and white to almost a degree of fanatism. Yet in the end, I found that what they really wanted was just attention and today I undestand it as acceptance and love.

So here are some artillery shells!

[unity100]

Seeing you write unity100 makes me sad. You must not have had much fun at all in your life. You remind me of some kids I have met in my life. They would never stop arguing their point no matter how much right or wrong they had. Everything for them was black and white to almost a degree of fanatism. Yet in the end, I found that what they really wanted was just attention and today I undestand it as acceptance and love.

So here are some artillery shells!

if you are defining 'fun' as competing against other people, and winning, yes, unfortunately i had such 'fun' in my life. the difference in between us, however, is how we take that, and your stray into making identifications and interpretations about my personal life while trying to argue that competing against others and winning instead of collaborating with each others and sharing, is a positive thing.

the proposition was simple - you have pictured competition as something positive. i have objected, citing the philosophical difference in between competition and cooperation in regard to negative and positive in respective order. you havent put anything that clears the philosophical difference in orientation between these two concepts. in the end, you ended up talking about my 'unfortunate' life, my shortcomings, my 'need for attention', beautified with some heart smileys.

it appears that there was a point during the sequence in this discussion that i was expected to 'back off' despite you have providing nothing in regard to the philosophy behind these things to make my mind change. and after we passed that point, it suddenly deteriorated into the perceived 'unfortunate' nature of my past.

....

now let me put it into plainspeak ; your above post proves exactly what can go wrong if someone ascribes into viewing competition as 'something good'; your post basically assaults my persona/demeans/belittles me in the expectation of me backing off, therefore, you 'winning' the argument, despite what was there was a discussion in regard to the nature of competition and cooperation in regard to the philosophical basis.

[Zygra]

As I keep reading I can just feel the knot that you have within yourself. It pains me. I have had a knot myself so I can say that I know what you go through. As we discuss and as I have read many of your earlier texts on this forum it reminded me of a quote by the q'uo. I have decided to share it as a gift. It helped me alot.

q'uo:

There is release from the tyranny of the mind. There is acceptance of all of the imperfect-seeming self by a love so great that it has called you and the creation into being.

Why dont you come over here instead ? It is a much nicer place to be at. Come and open your heart brother. You are welcome.

[Bring4th_Steve]

I would like to see some steps taken to not judge others as the last few posts have done. It's quite disappointing to see a member being characterized in such a way that highlights how much others are "unlike" him. It only proves the real problem is for the one who cannot handle the reflections of our community and tries to "change" that which he does not like.

It doesn't matter how people present themselves through the written word. Some will appear crass, some will appear sugary, but they are expressing themselves in ways that you have chosen not to.

We seem to all share the common goal of understanding ourselves better, and we chose this site as a place of focus to do it. But just because we each appear to have different perspectives, doesn't mean there are any "knots" to resolve or that someone suffered in the past and should consider changing behaviors. We each are interacting in ways that are stylistic to our own life paths.

Might I suggest that the differences between you and another member be cherished, instead of dragged out into the open for criticism?

Steve

[Oceania]

it's not the what you kill but the act of killing, it's something fear-based. separatist and low-vibrating. you have to pump up adrenaline which then causes this lower vibration. do you agree?

Personally, I believe the adrenaline is just a physical validation/side-effect of the action taken. I still maintain that just having the mindful intention of killing something or someone can begin the process of lowering one's vibration.

sounds right.

[Zygra]

I would like to see some steps taken to not judge others as the last few posts have done. It's quite disappointing to see a member being characterized in such a way that highlights how much others are "unlike" him. It only proves the real problem is for the one who cannot handle the reflections of our community and tries to "change" that which he does not like.

It doesn't matter how people present themselves through the written word. Some will appear crass, some will appear sugary, but they are expressing themselves in ways that you have chosen not to.

We seem to all share the common goal of understanding ourselves better, and we chose this site as a place of focus to do it. But just because we each appear to have different perspectives, doesn't mean there are any "knots" to resolve or that someone suffered in the past and should consider changing behaviors. We each are interacting in ways that are stylistic to our own life paths.

Might I suggest that the differences between you and another member be cherished, instead of dragged out into the open for criticism?

Steve

No sorry. I do not believe that avoiding conflict gives anything positive except remaining tensions. I believe in conflict-solving and not conflict-avoiding attitudes. The worst kind of negativity one is one that is unexpressed. If I have a problem with someone, I have found much better results and friendships by expressing my concerns. Doesnt mean I force anyone or anything. Most of the time it is my humble oppinion. I have my likes and my dislikes and I feel no negativity in expressing them if I can do it in a good enough way. Communication skills are essential here.

My best and strongest friendships have stemmed from rivalry and conflict. We achieve it with skilled and daring confrontation. I am not afraid of getting hurt. But I am afraid of hurting. We experience, we learn, we choose, we move on.

I am a masseur and I regulary treat anyone in need of my skills. If a muscle is stiff and is hurting, it needs treatment. Often they are triggerpoints which are very tense spots that hurt alot to to treat. But after the treatment my patients almost always talk of "invisible" tension that they did not sense until I started my triggerpoint massage. I have made many brave men cry like children during treatments. (With experience I have become better on optimizing the treamentso that it becomes more tolerable). After the treatment I always have very gratefull and thankfull people that the pain (which they often diddnt even think about because it was so normalized) is gone.

No. There is no avoiding conflict. You just kick the bucket further down the road. Making it worse.

As for Unity100. I love him, god loves him. We have a loving conflict.

Love

[Oceania]

not everyone benefits or thrives on or is thankful for conflict or the results of it. you gotta remember, we're all different and just cuz you and your friends like it, doesn't mean everyone should.