[SPECULATION: We need to steal your biometric facial data to sell it on the open market to the government, intel agencies, Israel, China, and non-state actors and scammers, so we've come up with these tricks. Pick one. How about we predict what your soulmate is going to look like or age progress your face? It's fun. Tell all your friends so we can build a network and connect the dots between all of your contacts. Do it for national security before China takes TikTok back from the nice Zionist Jewish American capitalist billionaire Larry Ellison and his network of operatives like his son David Ellison and his installed CBS News Boss Zionist Bari Weiss, who captures media assets with Trump's help.]
A few months ago, I [Lihi Be] stood on a stage in New York City and performed slam poetry for the first time. The scene was hosted by Nuyorican Poets' Cafe at the Bowery Poetry Club, a small, legendary room where decades of poets have stepped up to a microphone and turned their inner worlds into sound.
It's the kind of place where language has history, where words have weight, where the air feels charged from voices that came before.
I remember standing there, waiting my turn, feeling my heart beating in my throat,
which surprised me.
I’ve spoken in front of rooms before. I’ve guided workshops, taught movement, led breathworkjourneys where people open parts of themselves that are tender and alive.
Holding space for others doesn’t scare me.
But this was different.
This time, I wasn’t holding material space; I was the material.
A poem I wrote alone earlier that morning was about to leave the page and hit the stage, entering a room full of strangers, not through dead ink, but through my living breath, my voice, my body.
Until that moment, "poetry" was something I wrote, never something I performed.
When I published my book, The Self, Reframed, it felt like a big step outward. Suddenly the poems were technically "public." Someone, anyone, could order the book, underline a passage, carry a piece of it into her own life.
Butt even then, there was still distance.
The page protected me.
Readers meet a poem alone. They can pause, reread, close the book, throw it in the garbage disposal, flip the switch, make acid-free wood pulp that washes out to sea... That meeting happens quietly, inside their own interior worlds.
Shame? We refuse to limit ourselves
Slam poetry is different:
Spoken word removes the distance. When one performs a poem, there is no safe distance, no page between the room and the I performing. My breath carries my language. My nervous system becomes part of the delivery. My voice, my pauses, my trembling chest -- all of it becomes part of my poem.
In some ways, it feels easier to be naked than to perform one's own poem, in the woods, with someone you love, in front of Mother Nature, playing pretend it's Adam and Eve in a Sumerian garden.
I was in New York for a series of gatherings -- one of them a nude experience I was hosting with the Füde Experience: a roomful of naked people exploring embodiment, mindfulpresence, the simplicity of being in our bodies without the usual layers of social armor.
Standing naked in a room with others didn’t feel nearly as vulnerable as standing on this stage.
In fact, being naked felt surprisingly simple. Source: a poem is a different kind of naked (seeds of the self)
"No bikinis! Cover up those shameful bodies...or you are headed for hell!" - Loving Christian
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Lihi Be (Benisty)
AUTHOR: Lihi Be (Benisty), teacher of somatic self-inquiry, breathwork, movement, teacher, mentorship, poetry, summer retreat leader, author of The Self, Reframed. She leads a dynamic blend of somatic practices to navigate emotional landscapes. She is profoundly committed to the poetic art of self-inquiry through breathwork and movement. Her teaching is distinguished by her ability to weave these elements into a cohesive practice that respects the complexity of the human experience. Her poetry serves as a reflective mirror, deepening the themes she navigates in her somatic work and offering an additional avenue for connection and self-discovery. She lives in Los Angeles, California. (Substack, Instagram, FÜDEin LA, Amazon, Facebook, Omega Institute, lihibe.com)
At UC Berkeley, my roommate Nathaniel and I used to mull over the Big Questions -- rebirth, telepathy, PSI, ultimate reality, physics, infinity, the nature of space, psychic powers, black holes, UFOs, the meaning of life, the futility of death, and the importance of birth control, in addition to debating whether reading fiction (like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) could serve any practical function. Those were the salad days, under a powerful red light in a half-mannequin lamp in otherwise very hippie digs, there was no question we would not tackle. I came at things from mysticism, literature and psychology, whereas he was the numbers man, practical engineer, and theoretical physicist.
He loved sports, I loved music. He did homework (problem sets) with all his free time, and I meditated at the Berkeley Zen Center and more or less gazed at my navel the rest of the time. He was much smarter, but I got better grades. We were in school to be schooled and went on to grad school to continue the cat and mouse, chasing GPAs and glory of a most trivial and nerdy sort. Because what college really gives a person of privilege is the leisure to think, philosophize, question, debate, foster intellectual creativity, and expand. How sad that so many people spend it drinking or doing all the things they missed out in high school from having to study so much to get into a place like Cal, Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, or Yale in the first place. We were sober for our discussions.
If only I had done more math, if only he had taken a real philosophy class (instead of accidentally landing himself in a course on logic), what might have been? We'd be two doctors having this debate:
Natty, my good man, let me propose a problem for analysis.
Yeah-yeah, Dawg, wassup?
As you are a privileged white male in our society, having undertaken a full and rigorous course of mathematics up to and including calculus, I have a thought experiment for you.
Aw, Man, drop that b*tch, and let's hear it.
Would you mind, Friend, dispensing with the urban diction?
The whuh?
The Ebonics or whatever manner of slang you're currently employing.
Say whut, Nugs? I be talkin' like I always be talkin! Word!
You never talk like this! Anyway, if it's what you prefer, it's just that you're making a mockery of these proceedings.
Ahh, yeah, lemme git da redlight! Sounds like an all nighter to wax on 'bout.
Here it is. I say pi (π, 3.14159...) is stupid because it is, as you say, "irrational." I want it to be rational rather than go on forever. And I think I thought up a way to do it.
Do whut, Dawg?
Get it to end, get it to be rational, get it to divide cleanly (without remainder), get all the measurements in order, from say a perspicacious, anal, or OCD drive in me to make better pyramids, architecture, and other low-to-no margin of error constructions by making the calculations in the blueprints better.
"Better"?
They'll be better in that they come out without infinite remainders of trailing digits beyond the decimal point.
No need, my Brutha.
This has never been about a need. This is pure science with no (apparent) application, research for its own sake, and you're just the man to do. Take this back to your professors and put it to them. They may see the wisdom of such a pursuit in building, calculating, and approaching the verities of life in a perfect simulation/world.
Pi can'ts bee evenly divided; it stays irrational.
I know. But I have a way to evenly divide it and make it rational, that is, to turn it from an odd number to an even number.
Ain't gonna happen, Bruh.
That's what the purpose of this thought experiment is! I'm going to make it happen. See if you don't agree, as my mind is not bogged down with all the math knowledge, rules acceptance, and numerical assumptions you labor under, I think I'm onto something. It's very easy in theory. How it would be proven, that I leave up to you. I'm the visionary madman making a creature. You are a white lab coat wearing functionary in this thought lab.
STEP 1: Switch from Base 10 to another base, such as Base 11 (or 13, 22, 7, 28, 60, 364, or 365). We'll start with those first.
STEP 2: Calculate pi. I bet it will break even without all those digits after the decimal.
Aww, ai don't think it'll work, Dawg, ai'ight?
STEP 3: Keep plugging in different bases until it does work.
Whut's da use? If it ain't workin, how's swtichin gonna work it?
I suggest we try Base 11.5 or Base 5. Then Base 10.66 or 10.67. See Base 10 is even, and I think that's the fundamental problem, so let's switch to an odd base.
"Odd base"?
Yes, something that is not even like 10.
Ya may be onto sumthin.
I know. And I need you to prove it. Otherwise, I'm going to have to resort to Mathletics, AI, Chat GPT, Grok, and other demonic entities to work it out. And you know they can't, for all they can do is tell me what a genius I am and how I just invented a new math system, and all that other back patting and feelgood replying they do to sincere saps who resort to such compliments when, in fact, they need pushback.
I ain't sure Texas Instruments calculators can handle this job cuz, internally, they might be juzz as jacked as math books in publik schoolz, ya hear?
Yeah, I hear. We may have to use a computer or supercomputer for this one. Doesn't your physics class have a lab with just such a program or IBM, Apple, or Hewlett Packard device?
Supporting mixed-level math learning: Mathletics success story from elementary
In classrooms where students read at different levels, teaching math becomes a double challenge: helping students understand both the mathematics and the questions [word problems] themselves.
Teaching a split class in rural Alberta, Canada, Jennifer Doherty at Alder Flats Elementary School needed a program flexible enough to support all her students.
She found that solution in Mathletics, an online math program for schools that has become an essential tool for building numeracy [the number version of literacy] skills and confidence.
Watch Doherty explain how Mathletics works in her classroom every day, from audio support to clear progress reporting. More
Edgar Cayce (A.R.E. or Association for Research and Enlightenment) conducted trance-channel readings that revealed a great deal more than he the man could have known. The council or collective that came through brought forth much understanding.
Our suffering is not necessarily accidental. While bad, offensive, and sometimes insufferable, there is something that could be learned if we would view it that way.
The Aggregates that experience are dukkha.
What is "suffering"? The Buddha often spoke of it long before Cayce, so it might be good to ask him, as this is a very misunderstood term. The ancient term is dukkha, "disappointment," "unsatisfactoriness," the range of the unpleasant between annoyance and agony. The Buddha defined suffering this way:
"Rebirth is suffering, aging is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are suffering; contact with what is disliked is suffering; separation from what is liked is suffering; not getting what one wants is suffering. In short, the Five Aggregates clung to as self are suffering [unsatisfactory, disappointing, unable to fulfill, associated with pain]" (SN 56.11).
Hey, why talk about it? Why doesn't the B shut up already? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we suffer. Got it. That's clear enough. We're doing everything we can to AVOID it. So the less we talk about it, the better we'll feel. Duh! Become a hedonist. And shut yer yapper, O Great One.
Sadly, this view has been prevalent since before the time of the Buddha, so when the Buddha, the Awakened One, bothered to mention this ugly word, dukkha ("suffering"), were people or devas happy to hear it? No way. That's the last thing they wanted to hear about.
Pain is inevitable, but suffering's optional.
This is where the misunderstanding begins, and it could end here if hearers would just put away their aversion and LISTEN. A doctor comes in with the results of your scan and examination. Want to hear what's wrong? No way, just get right to the cure! Let's only talk about perfect health. What's it going to take? It's going to take all that? Forget it. I'll keep my illness. Why, I never... It's only when we see how bad and big the problem is that we adopt the right view about it and are open to the cure.
The Buddha would have had a much nicer time to only speak positively and in an "airy fairy" sort of way, doling out magic, bliss, sprinkles, blessings, smiles, good cheer, good news, and the energy of a modern motivational speaker. He could have just told everyone who came to him in pain, confused, or ignorant, "That's right, you're doing great, attaboy, right on, keep it up!" They would have been so happy to hear it. But because he understood and was willing to show us the awful truth, he came to be called the Master Physician. He never met a kind of pain he couldn't cure. The first step? Recognition. Second step? Cause or diagnosis. Third step? Assessment or prognosis. Fourth step? (This is the best one!) The cure, solution, course of treatment, the way to fix what's broken as described in the first step.
"Suffering"?
I can take it because I'm a bodhisattva. Ouch!!!
No single English word captures the range, depth, and subtlety of the ancient Pali and Sanskrit term dukkha. Many translations try ("disappointment," "suffering," "unsatisfactoriness," "stress," etc.) Each captures part of the meaning in a given context. There is value in realizing more than one term is needed because the thrust of Buddhist practice is broadening and deepening the understanding of a term so important to the Buddha that he often claimed to only teach two things -- what is dukkha and what is the elimination of dukkha. Until its roots are finally exposed and eradicated, we will not understand why he focused almost as much on the problem as its solution. When landing on the single best English translation, think again. No matter how we translate dukkha, it's always subtler, deeper, and less satisfactory than that.
There's an interesting wrong view from the time of the Buddha. At that time, there were six sectarian teachers ("six heretical teachers") each teaching their own doctrine.
Two of these, Makkhali Gosala and Purana Kassapa, are very interesting because they taught a particularly pernicious wrong view (miccha ditthi) that deeds (karma) have no results, no effect on anything. We're just helpless pawns of Fate or Destiny, Kismet or Chance, Luck or some arbitrary God-being, but not to worry since rebirth (samsara) will run out by itself. There's nothing to do other than just live and suffer or try to have a good time as best one can.
The Buddha declared this wrong view (called the inefficacy of karma) as being very bad, very harmful, and very dangerous. Why? It can lead to inaction or a sense of helplessness, as if we are all just "victims" of the universe, suffering needlessly without recourse to any permanent relief.
In fact, we are suffering for a reason -- because of ignorance (wrong views/delusion/confusion), craving (lust/grasping/clinging), and aversion (hate/fear/frustration). These are the Three Poisons of the Mind/Heart. And something can be done about suffering because something can be done about them.
There is a way to liberation from samsara!
Samsara will NOT roll out like a ball of yarn that runs out; it will keep going and going like a hamster wheel, which never comes to an end so long as a hamster keeps treading it.
Things that happen to us due to causes, not without them. There are always causes. We may not like them or accept them, but things are not happening without them. Therefore, we can do something about it. It would be rare that nothing could be done.
We must do something about our circumstances or never expect disappointment (dukkha) to stop. There was a third teacher, Mahavira (Nigantha Nataputta), the founder of Jainism, who understood many things and had a great deal of respect for karma; it's just that he had an imperfect understanding of it, which led to wrong views and conclusions. Worse perhaps than these six heresies is the popular Vedic/Hindu view that all rebirths are progress towards heaven or liberation (moksha).
The Buddha, often accused in modern times of being a "Hindu," rejected this completely, just as Edgar Cayce rejects it in this video. Not all rebirths improve us and send us on our way in an upward direction. Most are useless, often very harmful, a "downfall" (niraya) of needless suffering not conducive to growth.
It is much better to suffer a little here (as by restraining ourselves or delaying gratification) rather than always trying to gratify our ego and having to pay the high price for it later -- due to our ignorance (delusion), greed (craving), and aversion (hatred, anger, fear).
It is remarkable that the council or collective being channeled by Cayce understood this so well, even if they keep speaking of a "soul" as if that were a fixed and permanent reality when it is not. But it sure will seem that way to anyone who develops the third eye (dibba cakkhu) to see beings being reborn according to their actions, because psychic powers like telepathy or the "divine eye" do not impart enlightenment or liberating wisdom without the path-of-practice and purification the Buddha spent 45 years teaching to the world.
With those practices (the 37 Requisites of Enlightenment), one can see what gives rise to rebirth, the illusion that the gandhabba (the continuity of the impersonal consciousness process) is a "soul," that all things are impermanent, disappointing, and impersonal, which will naturally cause one to let go of clinging and thereby be freed of all further suffering.
Meg, stop. You're causing the wheel to go round.
As that is far from the path most beings are pursuing, there is no reason to think anyone is headed for enlightenment and nirvana anytime soon. However, in the meantime, one can be reborn in a better world, in a safer world, a heaven, far from the subhuman planes of rebirth, which are full of suffering that is far worse than we meet with here in this middling human world that has as much suffering as pleasure, as much opportunity for wisdom as oppression.
Edgar Cayce reveals: Which spiritual realm am I in based on my level of spiritual evolution?
Cycling through major 31 planes
(Soul In Reflection) Aug. 3, 2025: Edgar Cayce, America's greatest psychic, documented exactly which spiritual realm our soul will inhabit based on our current consciousness level through over 14,000 psychic readings.
This shocking revelation from the Akashic Records shows how souls [the consciousness stream assumed to be the same person life after life, which in fact is not ultimately the same being yet it is not another] get trapped in lower dimensions for centuries and the specific practices that can elevate our spiritual frequency instantly.
Discover the consciousness mirror technique that reveals our exact spiritual evolution level in under five minutes.
Learn why some Atlantean souls incarnated now to help humanity's massive evolutionary leap. Cayce's documented cases prove that REAL forgiveness is the master key unlocking higher spiritual realms.
Find out which of the seven spiritual planes you're destined for and how to accelerate your soul's evolution in this lifetime.
We've all been trying to tell you these things.
Based on authentic readings from the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E. at edgarcayce.org) archives in Virginia Beach. Our spiritual evolution determines our eternal destiny.
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