I was running a WordPress blog for seven years before coming to Steemit.
The blog was available at the address www.wordpress.com (link to a website containing archived snapshots). The address yogidarshan.guru that currently points to Steemit also used to point there.
Everything was fine while I didn't have many viewers. I didn't used to know that WordPress had stats I could look at, I wasn't receiving any likes nor subscriptions, so I thought I was alone.
Eventually I started writing a couple of articles per day. I was living then in a gentrified apartment in Wroclove with over a hundred mice.
Eventually I was evicted, so I started documenting the process of relocating with my mice to some other apartment.
The blog became popular, and people started liking and subscribing.
Unfortunately, people wouldn't give me any feedback, and when I looked at the websites of people who would create the subscriptions, give me the likes, I noticed that they didn't have anything to do with my content. I assumed these were just advertising bots who would strive to leave a mark on my blog without any benefit to me.
I thought I would monetize the blog by posting my bitcoin donation address, but since there were probably very few humans interacting with the blog, all traffic I was receiving was from spammers who would send me positive, but otherwise irrelevant comments, some likes and plenty of subscriptions that couldn't benefit me in any way.
I had been already considering moving on to Steemit for a couple of months before making the final decision. The last week of using WordPress was just subscription after subscription (even after deleting most of the articles), and next to none significant interactions with my viewers.
Eventually I decided that I could use the attention that I was receiving from readers to my benefit, and actually get paid for votes. Since I was considering running a Steemit blog, and I decided to close down WordPress because of the interactions that added no value, Steemit was the natural choice.
While I was running the other blog, I thought that the users would reward me by writing comments, sending me bitcoin from their own wallets, or share with me their similar blogs.
Turned out that people didn't have content very similar to my own, so when somebody did subscribe or like my articles, even thought I would look at their own website, I wouldn't find there much of what interested me.
Here on Steemit, votes by themselves count as rewards, so people can choose whether they want to reward me by voting, commenting or sending a donation directly.
The purpose of this blog is to figure out how to create an environment where people can contribute their skills, or s
I've noticed that there is much abuse in modern religion. It doesn't have to be this way.
It is possible, however, to set up one's own religion that is free of such disadvantages.
Sri Kumaré, the filmmaker who briefly became a guru for the sake of a film, showed everybody than a moderately educated man can build a religion from scratch and offer people who bother to side with it a venue where they can engage in meditation exercises in pairs, or share their overall life experience.
Contrary to Kumaré, I am not a filmmaker, but a programmer.
I've noticed how the website The Witches' Voice helps people in Ireland to find other people of a religion that suits them.
I myself used that website to find a few Pagan meetup groups in Dublin.
Unfortunately, religions other than Paganism are not represented on WitchVox.
I want to use my Android development skills to eventually create an Android app where people can advertise the religions and religious groups that they themselves founded, or get familiar with other religions available in their local area.
I've noticed an article in which a man reviewed a book by Alan Watts about the alleged advantages of being empty-headed.
I do not understand why would anybody want that, so I wrote a comment:
What is the purpose of having an empty mind? Following your example, when I watch color, my eyes are not completely empty, but are full of this color, otherwise how could I see it?
You give example of a guru the trickster, who was putting their disciple further into their folly. Did the guru just point out to the student the potential absurdity of their preexisting beliefs, like 'following your logic one would arrive at an absurd conclusion', or outright con the student?
If con artists were defrauding people, would you just say that they benevolently force people to abandon their beliefs in order to be liberated from them?
I still don't understand what value the book is creating. What is it supposed to teach me? Would teaching anything at all defeat the purpose of having a mind free from all beliefs?
The author answered:
It's not claiming that as the path, but rather explaining what that path is. Also you're eyes don't have color in them they receive color because they are void of color
They didn't answer my concern about 'trickster' gurus who lead people 'further into their folly', and further confused me. Unfortunately the author declined answering my further comments.
I've decided to write in this blog about this short interaction, because I may from time to time interact with other bloggers, trying to force them to clarify their articles if I think that they are pointless or just harmful.
At the same time, I want to make it clear in my articles what my views on spirituality really are, so that when people interact with me, they know what to expect.
I want to figure out how to create an environment where people can contribute their talents or just meditate together.
I want to draw from the pattern set by gurudwaras, where people volunteer by cooking, teaching the language, or even teaching martial arts.
Another good example if anarchist centres, where people hold bicycle workshops, community kitchen events, language classes, you name it.
Still, in the anarchist centres I have encountered, people would often abuse each other by exposing them to noxious cigarette smoke, or engage in self-harmful behavior, such as consuming alcohol.
Gurudwaras, Hare Krishna temples, Friends' meeting houses, even Jehovah's Witnesses' Kingdom Halls, are just places where people genuinely go to study and worship, as opposed to engage in destructive activities for no apparent reason.
Still, in religious places I've seen plenty of pursuits that were actually pointless or superfluous, like dressing up dolls, 'feeding' books with real food, or chanting meaningless mantras.
In my view these apparently fruitless tasks may be replaced by giving attention to the actual humans that participate in the service.
Sri Kumaré demonstrated that a religious service may consist of custom-designed yoga postures ore (more importantly) meditation exercises in pairs, or simply listening to each other.
Towards the end of the film Vikram Gandhi (now dropping the character of Sri Kumaré) was able to tell what pursuit each of the participants in Kumaré's course had in their life.
The main disadvantage of Kumaré's classes, though, was that when the course ended, the participants would just disperse, rather than continuing to propose their own custom-designed yoga positions, or practice their listening skills, or meditate in pairs.
My proposition is that such meetings shouldn't have ended, but continue, so that each participant would became a guru for every other participant (the way Kumaré was).
I am an Android developer.
I've noticed that other religions have their great books, like Guru Granth Sahib, but most of them aren't really interactive.
I think that Guru Granth Sahib failed as a collection of works of different religions, as it is no longer being updated, and I believe it defeats the purpose.
Wikia, kind of, serves as a piece software that can be used to collect religious information, but it specifically says in the introduction:
Please note that this wiki is not the place for writing about your own fictional religions. Do not create your own religions here!
I don't know what qualifies, then, a religion to be included in the Religion Wiki.
I guess the words 'your own' are important here. Maybe I am allowed to use Wikia to promote a religion created by somebody else, but still, this explanation is not clear enough, and creates an inconsistent situation in which some religions may be arbitrarily listed at the website, while others cannot.
Therefore, I want to bring forth a piece of software that can be used to promote your own religion.
I believe there is an urgent need to abandon, or completely forget, some religions, yet a religion cannot be simply abandoned without replacing it with another one.
The name Yogi Darshan sounds clever, but I made it up the way Kumaré made up many clever-sounding expressions in their own tradition.
I picked to use the part 'Yogi' in my name, because then it sounds like the name of another spiritual practitioner, who is already very well known, Yogi Bhajan, as well as the title of the book 'Autobiography of a Yogi.
The part 'Darshan', on the other part, refers to what is also known as eye gazing, or looking in the eyes. (I do not really understand the more official definition of the word 'darshan' as indicating some 'divine vision', but it ought to be the same). This is my favourite mode of meditation in pairs, and this is what I want to promote in this blog.
