What Do You Think About Facebook?

What do you think about Facebook? Is it a healthy format? It seems a bit egoic. Not a whole lot of transmission of connection, love, etc. Posting pictures of yourself and quantifying friends, likes, etc. Seems like enhancing the ego. Are we going down the wrong path with social media? Well, the questioner has a point as even before the advent of Facebook and similar things, for hundreds of years or thousands of years, people constructed for themselves an identity in their head. That's me, me and my story, as I sometimes call it. And that was partly inherited from what your culture tells you you are, or your family and your culture. And partly by choice. Certain things you choose to identify with and then incorporate into your sense of self. Certain possessions, certain achievements, or the lack of certain possessions and achievements can all be corporated. They become mind forms or thought forms which you identify with. So there's a mental image that forms and that's the essence of ego. A mental image. That's me. So that's been going on for a long time. And then people live through that mental image of me. They seek out things or people that can improve the mental image of me and try to keep away things or people that could weaken or threaten the mental image of me. It all means not being in touch with who you are beyond any mental image, which is why we are here to go deep into that. And now we got the technology of Facebook which where you can externalize the image and you can create on the Facebook page, you can create the image of me and show it to the whole world. And so many young people, and maybe not so young. I believe the oldest Facebook user, I saw a video clip in the States, the world's oldest Facebook user is 105 years old. And it is often used unconsciously in enhancing the image one has of oneself and the image one wants to show to the world. And then you read other people's images on their Facebook page and you think that's who they are. And then you try to compete with that image and you try to polish up your image and compete with them. Most people want to show off, it seems. I'm not that familiar with it, but most people want to show the good things. Having this great meal. Here's a picture of it. Why would anybody want to see what you're eating right now? But they do, it seems, or I just bought this thing. Do you want to see it? And then you can connect people to a place where you bought it. It's another thing. And all kinds of things that I don't Understand, So you can. In many cases, it becomes an artificial construct that you add to every day, and everybody else has their artificial construct. And it can actually strengthens the delusion of the false self. It doesn't have to, but often it does. Facebook can also be used in conveying interesting information and to connect with people at a deeper level or bringing about some spiritual knowledge. So that's not impossible. I used to post occasionally things. I don't do it myself, but I would send it to Steve and he would post posted. But I must admit, I haven't done it in a while. Although some things do get posted, quotes and so on. That's fine. Twitter is another one that is. There's a. There's a Twitter message coming in. The last time I tweeted was when a few months ago in February. The Oprah Channel in the States. I don't know if you can get it here. It's called the own channel, Oprah Winfrey Network. They showed a repeat of our webinar that we did a few years ago that I did with Oprah. They did a slightly shortened, edited version over a period of 10 weeks, 10 Sundays, the new Earth was shown again, this time not on the Internet, but. Well, also on the Internet, but on tv. And Oprah sometimes is an active tweeter. And she said it would be great if we could tweet at the same time while this program is being shown. And so I said, okay, I'll see what I can do. So I was on the phone with Steve while the program was running, and then I was watching it, and then people sent in these questions, and they have to be answered immediately. So I was attempting to dictate answers to Steve and his assistant put in the answers, and my mind was quite. Or I felt almost dizzy afterwards because I tried to watch the program and at the same time watch the incoming tweets and think of an answer. Oprah must have realized it wasn't from me because she said, twitter is the exact opposite of how you operate. And before Oprah said it, Kim said exactly the same thing to me. And that's true. So I was glad when it was over. But while it was happening, I was surrendered to it, although I did feel dizzy afterwards. So if you can avoid constructing some pseudo identity for yourself on Facebook and be more real, then you can avoid that trap of just Facebook amplifying the human ego, which it does in many, many cases, especially for youngsters who have no idea what they're Sam Sa.