The federal government says, despite daunting challenges, it made tremendous progress this year. With some information and culture, Lai Mohamed announced this while showcasing President Mohamed Buhari's achievements to newsmen in Lagos. Details. The list of information and culture Lai Mohamed acknowledged that the major challenge the country was faced with in the outgoing year was into charity. Lai Mohamed said, despite the enormity of the challenge, the military continued to live up to their billings. He also spoke on the implementation of the Community Policing Initiative of the current administration and it has led to the training of 25,000 constable areas in several police colleges across the country. In the Northeast zone, under Opusheana, Adenkai, a combination of magnetic and non-cognitive corporations, coupled with a review of strategies, led to the naturalization of over 1,000 terrorists, the rescue of 2,000 civilians, and the surrender of over 22,000 terrorists, including their families. Large catches of armed domination were also recovered. Although the country and the world suffered major hustles economically in 2020, Mohamed said the Buhari's administration was able to grow the economy and reform the oil sector. Listed major economic highlights to include the passage and signing into law of the Petroleum Industry Act, the federal government said it in place world-class infrastructure provided social safety net for the poor and also took advantage of the huge opportunities offered by the Information and Communications Technology sector. The non-oil sector indicated better performance of 0.79% in quarter 1 to 821, 6.7% in quarter 2 to 821, and 5.44% in quarter 3 to 821. Streamed and disciplined implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act will likely improve oil production, sales stability, relatively high oil prices will enhance revenue, performance and political implementation, while strengthening security will improve output of the economy. The federal government hinted that another major achievement was the posting of over 287 billion net profit after tax by the Niger National Petroleum Corporation, the first time in 44 years.


Hi everyone, I am from Perun off-chain labs and I want to take this chance today to present what we've been working on in the last few years Who we are we are two teams of applied cryptography researchers in Darmstadt, Germany and Warsaw, Poland and We provide cryptographic protocols and proofs, but our focus our goal is how we can use smart contracts to scale blockchain In particular, I want to present to you today three protocols that we've been working on the first one you might have heard about is called Perun and Extensions where we try to build a framework for state channels The second one is called fair swap where we try to build Use smart contracts to build a fair exchange protocol and the last one is a very recent one called fast kitten Where we use trusted execution environments to build secure private smart contract execution So let's start with the first one parent and extensions Smart order state channels is an extension of payment channels And most of you will have heard about payment channels and the ideas to get rid of this very long duration and costly Single payments on the blockchain and encapsulate them into a channel which is secured by a channel contract on chain And this allows to make off-chain direct payments between two participants really fast without additional costs and Our goal here is to take these existing payment channels and make them more powerful and we did this in three lines of works and The main component that we used is the observation that we can run or we can put the contracts That we can put on chain also in state channels and not just one we can put multiple contracts into a state channel and This is a nice observation because if we can do this then we can also put a channel contract into a channel And this is really nice when we want to connect more than two players In this case, for example, we have Alice and Ingrid who have a channel and Ingrid and Bob who also have a channel And in both of these channels we now put a channel contract which opens a new virtual channel between Alice and Bob And this is really nice because for opening this channel We don't have to go on chain, but this completely happens off-chain We can also update this and close this off-chain and use it as Much as we want again, we can also open contracts inside the virtual channel as Many as we want and the third extension That we very recently published is that we can also connect more than two people we can connect end parties by putting an end party contract into channels and This these end party channels also provide the same The same properties as a direct or a virtual channel But enough about channels. I have two more proposals to talk about the second one was fair swap and Fair swap tackles the problem of fair exchange, which is really hard to Solve without a blockchain Classical examples when you have a seller and a buyer and a seller has a file X and the buyer is willing to pay for this file But only if it's the right one which is here measured over his hash So a very naive solution is we just take a small contract buyer submits the coins Seller submits the money and then the contract verifies hash correct or hash incorrect But this is actually really expensive when we talk about large files about giga or megabytes So we propose a new protocol called fair swap where we encrypt the file and not send it to the contract But directly send it to the buyer in the first message This is happening directly between seller and buyer. So no on-chain communication The buyer cannot see the file at this point because it's encrypted and it's missing the key So it locks the coins which will make the seller submit the key And then the buyer can decrypt the file to actually look into it and verify if it's correct or not correct and In case it's not correct. It sends a proof of misbehavior To the smart contract which the smart contract the the judge in this case will verify So the goal here is to keep this piece of information as small as possible Ideally independent from the size of the overall file and how we did this is by splitting up the file in many small chunks and The hash that verifies its correctness is actually a merkle hash So the hash root of the merkle tree is Used to verify if the file is correct Or not correct So in this case we have a very nice scenario because Alice and Bob if they disagree about correctness of this can actually Limit the disagreement to a single element of this tree So either the last element is wrong or a single evaluation of this hash tree is wrong And in this case they only have to send a single element a single chunk of the file Which the judge has then to verify and this can be done really cheaply we measured it Around half a year ago where it was like two dollars Independent from the file size so you could send an arbitrary large file and this complaint was taking a constant amount of fees and We also evaluate the security This is something that we take a lot of effort in formally modeling and verifying security of our protocols in this case We ensure that it's fair so atomic exchange of payment and file We also want to make sure that it's sound so The buyer has the guarantee that if he gets a wrong file He can always generate a proof of misbehavior and it will always be accepted and Unfortunability property is really important such that the buyer cannot come up with a wrong proof of misbehavior Claiming the buyer misbehaved even though he didn't and We prove all of these properties formally in the paper We also worked on some extensions of this The most important one is that I was basically only explaining one example with the file and the hash This also works for generic witnesses and circuits So it's very powerful can use arbitrary Programs or it can verify arbitrary programs We also have Interactive and a non interactive version of this dispute of the proof of misbehavior and the non interactive is nice because we have the same as we Have five Interactions with the contract and that's it and the interactive dispute has many more Interactions with the contract, but we have fee fairness So we have the guarantee that all of these transaction fees that have to be paid for the dispute Will only be carried by the cheater by the cheating party So an honest party doesn't really care how long it takes or how expensive it is it will always get reimbursed Now to the last of three things that I wanted to present today Which is called fast kid in fast kitten. We use a building block, which is called a trusted execution environment TE or trusted hardware where This piece of hardware is trusted to run the code we give it and no one can influence this This execution but of course while this piece of hardware is trusted the person that runs this is not trusted So we have this operator Who is in charge of giving feeding information to the TE and forwarding its output? So it can stop the TE it can stop forwarding its messages But it can never lie about the computation inside the TE and it cannot influence the computation So we use this building block. We're just quite common now in in cryptography and Try to run smart contracts inside This piece of hardware and what we get from this is actually a really powerful protocol because we can run a contract Independent of size of chain. We have very high guarantees We can protect against malicious parties and malicious operator We can uniquely attribute faults in case someone misbehaves and also this protocol is so simple that we can actually build it on Bitcoin Okay, so how does it work? We have this TE here and the operator and all of the parties So they want to play a poker game now, which means we load a poker game into this piece of hardware The parties attest this TE so they know that this is actually trusted hardware and this is actually running the right code And then the operator deposits a security penalty deposit and all of the parties locked the coins for the game Then we start and at this point we don't need the blockchain We just run everything off-chain. So the parties send their inputs to the TE But they actually do it in an encrypted way. So the operator cannot see the inputs and the TE also sends an encrypted output back to the parties So the operator has no idea of what's actually happening And also the parties don't see each other's inputs. This is also a nice feature with Ethereum Doesn't have right now and it's really hard to build in smart contracts, but it's given for free in this setup So now the parties can actually see who won and get their money back from the TE Which means the TE outputs a transaction saying okay here Alice and Charlie get all their coins Of course, we still have to protect against all this power that the operator has so in case it misbehaves We actually have to wait for a certain time out and then the parties get refunded their money But the operator lost his security deposit, which is well really painful for him so to summarize over all of these three works is Very interesting observation that smart contracts are really powerful tools that we can use to ensure security and that can also use to build more scalable protocols and Our goal here is to really provide cryptographic models and proofs with all of these protocols and really show that they satisfy Cryptographic security. So if you want to learn more about this feel free to talk to me here at DEF CON. Thank you


There are many ancient areas which we often cover, which you, the viewer, will clearly realize is of a controversial nature, especially regarding dates in which we claim are actively being denied and concealed by powerful and wealthy academic institutions. Many ancient relics within, and the fact that these, what we claim are lost antiquities, are often dated by us merely through logical processes of deduction, are therein dated far before the officially guarded modern development of man, or the path thereof. My work is actively denied, and regardless of the mountain, and still mounting volumes of evidence we present, still denied as having ever existed. Funding refused en masse in regards to any consideration whatsoever possible officially, as any claim in any form of a highly advanced civilization except our own ever occurring here on Earth before will always be denied. Civilizations so old, the ruins now easily dismissed by geologists the world over as natural formations. However, thanks to the fact that nature rarely builds walls and courses, or create enormous megalithic walls of equal sizes, built in techniques akin to the modern house brick, yet with bricks often many hundreds, sometimes thousands of tons in weight. And all once seemingly effortlessly placed atop one another, and thanks to these clear factual elements, which can allow us to identify the artificial nature of many formations claimed as geological, this evidence thankfully still being visible upon these so-called geological formations, features which enable all with critical capacities to distinguish that of a ruin academically suppressed by being systematically dismissed as geological. Kai Manawa Wall, near Lake Taupo, New Zealand, is but one example of this massive dismissal of ancient antiquity, reluctantly explored by mainstream academia in the late 90s. However, an individual by the name of Barry Brails-Fords also published an article in the New Zealand listener, which stated as we do, that the wall is not geological. And for a brief moment created a public exposure of mainstream archaeology and historical institutions active refusal of the obvious in favor of the already concluded. Barry Brails-Fords' valiant journalism considers the possibility of a lost civilization, like one mentioned earlier, and although in his opinion is located within permitted history, and our claim is of one far older, pre-ice age in fact, he still regardless pinned its creation on the correct parties. Titled Megalith Mystery are giant stones in the Kai Manawa Forest Park evidence of an ancient New Zealand culture. According to Brails-Fords' article, the stone wall is at least 2,000 years old and was created by the first settlers of New Zealand, the Waitaha. Furthermore, Brails-Fords also pertain to the wall being a link between New Zealand, Egypt, and South America. We feel his article is a very well presented investigation into what is clearly an ancient ruin of artificial origin. However, we attest to the wall being a relic of a once far more advanced and much older, now lost civilization. Brails-Fords listed 12 pieces of evidence for its construction. For example, the fact that the visible stones in the front are a uniform 1.9 meters wide by 1.6 meters tall and 1 meter wide deep. However, politically, the view that civilizations existed in New Zealand before the Maori culture, the currently protected paradigm, is never going to be accepted. The conclusion made by the commissioned funded geologists, it that the formation is merely an outcrop of a large ignombrite, a natural formation created about 330,000 years ago. They claim the uniformed shapes were produced by conveniently identical fractures in the rock. The official line is that the Kaimanawa Wall has been proclaimed a natural rock formation. And we know better than many that this tale of events is very unlikely to change in the future. Yet, regardless of this, we find the Kaimanawa Wall highly compelling.


Welcome to Digital Asset News. Take a look at stories in crypto and bring about a bite-sized piece of today. Just the thumbnail suggests Ethereum is due for an upgrade and really what it does is it delays the difficulty bomb. So we're going to take a look at that. We're going to take a look at the data and do a follow-up from Saturday's video and we talked about the different factors that we're leading to this little pullback as far as the crypto market. We're going to talk about the Puerto Rico blockchain week and finally we'll talk about the IMF urging the Fed to do a couple of things which might be a little bit bearish news. So we'll take a look at all those things but first let's take a look at exactly what is going on in the market. So today is just one of those days. It's Monday and everybody's on the fence. There's a little bit of a bearish tone as you can see here. We're using trade the chain for a sentiment analysis. Links in the description. You want to check that out. But total market cap has took quite a beating 2.23 trillion. We got a Bitcoin price below 50k Bitcoin daily sentiment is 20 out of 100. Just not looking to we'll say positive right now. Is this positive for like the long term or negative for like the next 10 years. No we're talking about a bearish sentiment for a short term timeframe. And that's what I think we all need to make sure that we are fully aware of. So right now Bitcoin is down. Everything's down. What's up. Ted is up. Nobody cares. And let's see what else poker does as anything up. Gee. You know there was a pretty good movement as far as Terra Luna. I mean they had a 33% increase for the seven day but even now that darling has to take a little bit of a beating. So that is what we see as far the markets not a great day. And there's reasons for that. We talked about it on Saturday. The Fed was looking to taper back the S&P 500 different traditional markets were getting cut. We took a look at Evergrande and what was going on as far as like the loan repayment. You also look at the jobs report which is half of what are almost a third of what we thought it would be. So those are economic factors that play into the fact to make people jittery. Traditional markets get gets a little bit nervous. They sort of sell up their position traditional markets. Unfortunately, they are also in our crypto markets and they sell off as well. Now if we take a look at what is going on in the markets today, it's not too bad. I mean as far as like traditional sense I mean they're up S&P 500 is up 0.55 percent which is again it's huge for them right. 24% NASDAQ 0.07, 0.8 plus 277 points, Russell's up, US dollar index is up and the Bitcoin index is down. And again, I think it's just that these big players either their little manipulation or they're selling off to cover their positions. And then also if we take a look at what's going on with Bitcoin, we had quite a precipitous candle drop all the way down. Wow, 42,000. And then of course it just been moving sideways the RSI we can take a look at this it's looking pretty it's in that range of of oversold and it kind of jumped back forth. Then we take a look at the MACD things have kind of you know moved around but if you want to see some really good TA go follow Ben Cohen over on into the cryptoverse. He's going to talk to you about the 200 day moving average and how we slumped against that and where things could potentially go. I think that's for this way we're going to move sideways until we see some things come to fruition. Also, if we take a look at what's going on as far as like on chain analysis. Miners this is from Crypto Kwan. The miners aren't selling you can still still see they're not selling like they were back in January 2021 or way back here in the in December 2020. The all exchange reserve is dropping off as as far as like people who actually put everything back on this in the purple. When you see a spike that means that they're putting Bitcoin back on the exchange they can sell like crazy and they take it right back off. Whoever they sell to and then Ethereum just doesn't really care. There's like no we're going to keep it off because we need it for staking and for gas fees and for DeFi and lock up. So we're going to take it off the exchange as well. So Ethereum actually has been pretty solid in my opinion as far as everything else and the taker by volume you can just see right here that if it spikes that means people are propping it up. So they're kind of propping it right here especially when it jumped down to here around 40 49,000. There was a big buy but this is the thing that concerns me the most of all things that we see it's leverage plays and when me and Keying Su were talking about this this he's the CEO of CryptoQuant. We did a video together. It's a link at the very end. He says anything about 0.2 as far as leverage ratio is way way way too high and we can just see it just accumulated in October November before you know it we're a 0.17 0.19 and before you know it we're all the way up here to 0.21 on 25th of November then we had a dump and then it went up again because people like I can do that and they can it's all it's all what you want to do my goals are not your goals if you want to leverage play that's hey hey have at it but now I'm happy because now it's dropped down to a respectable 0.16 as far as the estimated leverage ratio and that's really what it comes down to if we can see these types of things I know people get ticked off about leveraged plays and whatnot but really what it does just resets the market and if you see a bunch of shorts people are gonna go they're like there's so many shorts I should probably do put a long position you see a bunch of longer people are super bullish they short the like living tar of it and like you know what we're gonna make some quick money and that's what they do and that's just how the market goes so it's really up to you to decide how you want to play these things as far as the market goes and that's just how I how I see it so I asked the question over in Twitterverse which was well now that we have another dip how you playing this and I got some pretty good answers people are just some are funny some are concerned but mostly just comes down to the big thing which was I'm just looking for the long term I'm just looking for the long term and there's a lot of different ways to play it depending on where you want to be and just follow me on on Twitter links in the description you can see everybody's answers pretty good information here but the big thing again is just when in doubt of course zoom out but if you if you're a trader you know you probably want to take some some profits along the way so you have these types of days where you don't freak out and that's why this is my portfolio I'm heavy holder but there's a part of me that likes to trade a little bit when these these we see these grace one events or even black swan events if I can have money on the sidelines to purchase not just crypto but to purchase stocks to purchase land to purchase real estate to put into my businesses if I can have dry powder because money does make that actually happen if I can do those types of things then I'm going to buy the dips I'm going to sell a little bit and I'm going to keep those profits for things that go on so and of course I do a little gambling with NFTs and virtual land but that's what we have as far as what's going on for the market and the date itself let's move on to just real quick if you're in the Puerto Rico area maybe you're here already there's the Puerto Rico blockchain week I will be there it's going from Monday through Friday I got to get takeoff because you get this thing done there's a couple things I wanted to see ones at 1030 I want to miss this one manufacturing Association the future of blockchain this one looks good 1125 crypto's impact on the everyday lives of Puerto Ricans and I want to find out there's a keynote speaker Hester Pierce from the Federal Reserve she's going to be there 230 to 330 talk so I'm going to be down there if you see me just say hi pretty approachable person and Puerto Rico blockchain week going on all week watch out all right so we got that let's go into the big story which it's a big story I mean it's an upgrade but really it doesn't it's not fantastic news or anything like that but it is something that's going on with a theory and so want to cover it a 3M update goes live here's what's going on there is this update called the Arrow Glacier Network update the upgrade is designed to change the parameters of the difficulty bomb on the network and push it back several months this so to push it all back it doesn't affect for a proof of stake it only affects the proof of work minors which are what they're doing right now right now the three I'm trying is going from proof of work to proof of stake that will happen sometime in late 2022 potentially 2023 and I applaud the Ethereum network for trying to do this it's kind of like changing the the engine while you're driving on the highway it's I don't know how they do it but very difficult even the talak said I had no idea it's gonna be this difficult because of the amount of people that have to work with to make this actually possible and this is is difficult but hey it's got to be done because those gas fees are ridiculous so just real quick the difficulty bomb is designed to significantly increase the difficulty level the network which will make minors stop opening new blocks and because of this upgrade which is voted on they're gonna delay that difficulty bombs or anything and keep going just the way it's been with our nice high gas fees but hey right now for us move advantage their aim is is doing that and we'll see how it all works I don't see this as a big big deal right now just kind of pushes things back and kicks the can down the road let me know what you think about that in the comment section let's move on to our last piece the IMF and the IMF International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve they're kind of like my my MVP's especially when the Federal Reserve starts to print a bunch of money and talks about how inflation is transitory when it really isn't that makes us that is great news for us because people come in however when it's hard to talk about tapering things and increasing percentage or interest rates that's not the greatest thing as far as what's going to spook the traditional market players because then they're going to get spooked and they're going to sell off and they're going to sell off in crypto and just a tumbling event so that's only the short term not moderate to long term that's what we have so here's what's going on this was today Fed chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank could step up its tapering efforts and that this would likely be discussed at a meeting this month data released in November showed that the US consumer price index CPI rose 6.2% in October from a year ago hitting its highest level in 30 years but the Fed has said market players shouldn't interpret tapering as a sign of an imminent tax hike I don't know how they're going to be able to do that and this actually piggybacks off an article from November 3rd we have known this is going to happen Fed will start tapering bond purchases later this month the Federal Reserve on Wednesday said it will start tapering bond purchases later this month so that was in November and November around December things are right on track the process will involve a 15 billion monthly reduction from the current 120 billion a month the Fed is currently buying so here's the thing as the Fed does these types of things then the markets like oh you're not going to bail us out the traditional markets like we're not going to bail us out that sucks well now I got to sell some things and you see like we covered the CEO and insiders are selling off like crazy so you've got an inflammatory or inflation which is going to which is going to keep going up I believe then you have the Fed buying stop buying these bonds which is not going to prop up the market and then you're going to have these different factors that could actually swoop in because people get spooked in this situation and especially if they start to raise the interest rates from super low to just even a point above it'll crash the whole system not the whole system but it'll make things a bit difficult we will say so I don't think they're going to raise it vastly but this is an issue and this is why I'm always talking to everybody about doing two things if you want to protect yourself because you know diversification I can't tell you what to do but I'm telling you what I do what I do is I want to minimize my taxes and the ways that I do that of course is there is this thing called I trust capital and there's a link in the description and what I do is every year I put and I've been doing this for two years now I put post tax dollars and I purchased crypto in this Roth IRA and then in you know when I want to retire and 60 what hopefully I can make it this far 65 then I take everything out and it's tax free Peter tilted the same thing made billions right and also on top of that I don't know what's going to happen in the market these days so like in the traditional sense people are going to sell off and then crypto people are going to sell off but there is one part that doesn't do that and that is with like masterworks which is the thing that sets below me I'm going into the big screen masterworks it's an uncorrelated asset because what you're doing is you're buying fractionalized multi-million pieces of art and the people who buy multi-million pieces of art aren't people like you and me those are the super rich so these traditional markets don't really affect them that much cryptocurrency markets are really affecting that much like I want that Van Gogh I want that basket and they will pay whatever it is and this has been it's been uncorrelated all the way since the beginning of time and they've even got data that shows that even the 2008 financial crisis didn't really affect them that much because people want these types of paintings so there is a link in the description looks just like this I did a deep dive series video for each one for I trust and for masterworks so you can watch those to figure out exactly what it is and just a reminder you don't have to use those links those are affiliate links if you cannot stand using fillings just go right to I trust and sign up or find out what's going on go right to masterworks but if you go to I trust without the link first of all you don't get a hundred dollars worth of with a Bitcoin when you sign up also there's no no monthly fees and then over on masterworks just so you know there's a waitlist right now but since your viewers of digital asset news you skip the waitlist so totally up to you what you want to do that's it for today so if you I know it's a bit short but a lot of things going on I got to get going for that Puerto Rico blockchain thing and that's it so if you like today's video give it a thumbs up also consider subscribing to talk about our time sensitive and that's all so thanks so much for watching I appreciate it and I'll see you on the next one


Before we begin, since this video is about material reality, we'd like to support you in your abundance by giving you a very special free abundance meditation. You'll find a link in the comments below to get it right now. And with that, please take a moment and ask yourself, does this sound familiar? The crown chakra is located at the top of the head and deals with pure cosmic energy and is blocked by earthly attachment. For starters, it should. It's from Avatar, the last airbender. And it's amazing. If you haven't seen it, you should totally go and watch Aang open his seven chakras. No question about it. But that little bit at the end is a confusing idea, isn't it? If there's one thing that most spiritual systems agree on, it's this idea that in order to achieve enlightenment, you need to renounce a material life and detach yourself from the world. But is that true? And what does it mean to live a life of anti-materialism? But more importantly, is it really needed to achieve a sense of enlightenment? Is it spiritually bad to have material possessions or to be even a little bit rooted in the material? I mean, let's face it, we're all watching this video with modern technology. And are we all spiritually doomed for it? Let's open this discussion with defining some stuff. Materialism can often have a lot of different meanings, and we've covered scientific materialism before on this channel. But for this episode, we're going to define materialism as a tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values. Basically, loving physical stuff and thinking it's so amazing that you neglect your emotional, mental and spiritual needs. Or find fulfillment solely in the physical pleasures. By contrast then, I guess you can think of spiritual values as anything relating to or affecting our soul or our truest essence. But really, we encourage you to come up with your own definition of what spirituality means to you. It's not usually just something non-physical. But for some people, maybe. A lot of modern spiritual practices talk about detachment, as if it's something to strive for. But I think sometimes a lot of people get confused on its actual meaning. The conventional definition is that if something is detached, it stands apart from something else. It exists in what philosophers would call an objective state. But there's a pretty big contradiction in that definition, don't you think? Almost every spiritual philosophy, in some way, contends that everything is connected or part of the universal mind, whole or God, God, God, God. So how can we detach then and separate ourselves from the physical aspect of consciousness if we are consciousness? Another way of looking at it is that people who claim you need to detach and be anti-materialistic to be spiritual often skip over the simple truth that everything in existence is a manifestation of consciousness. So by definition, doesn't that also mean that every material thing is, in a way, consciousness expressing itself? And if you were to detach yourself from that, you would be denying your own consciousness or soul that part of the experience, which would go against many other spiritual values. Perhaps what people mean when they talk about detachment is actually non-attachment. But not being attached to something doesn't necessarily mean that you're completely detached from it. You can experience an emotion and not act on it, but that doesn't mean you're disconnected from it, only that you're not influenced or triggered by it. Non-attachment then is when a person overcomes their attachment to desire for things, people or concepts of the world and can exist in a heightened perspective where they can influence things rather than things influencing them. And again, is it so bad to be attached? If you have a family or kids, you probably have some sense of connection and attachment to them. You want to take care of them, maybe even protect them, right? Is that wrong? Or at least, unspiritual?  Also remember that a lot of these great spiritual texts that talk about detachment and enlightenment were written during previous ages. In other words, they're really freaking old. Anyone studying these texts can experience profound wisdom and compassion by learning what's within them, but we should remember that they were written during times when society was structured differently, morality was different, and physical pleasures like food and drink weren't always an abundant supply like we have today. On top of that, with all of the recent advances in science and our amazing technology, there isn't a single spiritual text that teaches us how to use the internet or computers for spiritual gain. But hint hint, you're doing it right now, just by watching this video. This is most often embodied in the Buddhist concepts of detachment as they emphasize it comes from a release of desire, which ultimately leads to a release from suffering. When Siddhartha went into the wilderness and meditated under a tree for all that time, you can't tell me that he didn't get hungry or need to pee at some point. These are biological needs that make our conscious experience real. So what's the truth here? Why is spirituality so often associated with anti-materialism? Mostly, this might come from the idea that physical pleasures are interpreted by and related to the ego, our sense of individual identity, which in turn shapes how we experience the physical world. Since many schools of spirituality teach that we are all part of a unity consciousness, it makes sense that anything that separates us from that oneness is seen as something to avoid, or as something going against our natural self. And since most of our physical life appeals to the ego, with our society being largely built around gratifying it, it does kinda make sense that materialism is equated with the ego and therefore seen as the enemy of spirituality. While almost every faith basically trashes the ego, like it's the black sheep of the spiritual family, we should remember that everything has its place in the universe and nothing happens by accident. To deny the purpose of the ego would be to deny yourself access to a physical existence, which after all, is one of the main reasons our soul chooses to incarnate into physical bodies at all. Don't get us wrong though, life is messy and sometimes things happen that block our energy pathways and we experience emotions that we'd rather not. We all get into fights, have breakups and fall over from time to time, but it's that whole range of emotion and experience that makes life for us so innately human. In other words, we are human because we feel things so deeply, and a lot of the time material objects facilitate those feelings as a medium. The only difference is to what extent you allow yourself to be controlled by those emotions and let it affect your experience. This also gets into the question of money. We can pretty much agree that having it for the sake of hoarding and greed is not the highest use of this energy, but seeing it as an energy flow and using it for the benefit of others may be a rather spiritual use of this energetic substance. Let me ask another question. Why do spiritual masters always seem to run away to the mountains or the wilderness to become enlightened? Why can't we become enlightened in the frozen food aisle at Walmart? I'm just saying, if I was going to be enlightened, why not do it in a place where you have access to a whole aisle of frozen pizza? Is that weird? Jokes aside, the question is what's so special about the mountains or caves or a temple if enlightenment supposedly comes from within? The answer to everything like this is probably, of course, distractions and discipline. Maybe there's a bit of Bruce Lipton's epigenetics in here too, where the environment actually plays a significant role in your own biological processes. Then again, perhaps it's more like, of course someone will become enlightened in the mountains when they have nothing better to do. Do you think it's possible to become enlightened in a city with trains and cars zooming past you every five minutes? Of course you could, but it would probably be a lot harder with so many physical distractions. But yeah, you should absolutely be able to do it. Perhaps the key to achieving a sense of detachment in the modern day then is to redefine how we consider detachment at all. It's not about retreating from the world to go inwards, as our sole duty with enlightenment is to teach and help the world transcend. Perhaps instead, we could see detachment as the act of striving for a balance between our physical existence and spiritual nature. Bringing the conversation back to money for a moment, basically everything costs money in our world today. By definition, if you want stuff, you kind of usually gotta have some money. So in turn, money is often equated with being the height of materialism. There's a general opinion in society that money is this materialistic force that somehow corrupts those who have it and turns us all into goblins trying to hoard gold. That somehow, once we get money, it takes our focus away from anything meaningful or heart-centered and transforms anything good within us into an attempt to make more money at all costs. Sometimes, people even say that it's the root of all evil, and certainly this might have been a factor in Buddha's mind when he ditched his family and his whole kingdom. This disharmonious relationship with money is explored in our spiritual money mastery course, which examines the relationship that we have with money in our society and completely flips it on its head, showing once and for all that having money and the physical stuff that comes along with it doesn't necessarily mean we can't act in accordance with our heart center. So check that out if you're interested. Ultimately, people usually see things like money as merely a tool to progress in life, and yet conversely, we also subtly see meditation as a tool to progress spiritually, sentiments which arguably have the same energy. This isn't really a bad thing, but we do seem to get attached to one experience or the other, when in reality, we could perceive both our physical lives and spiritual experiences as one unified experience called life. So to answer our original question, do you need to be anti-materialistic to be spiritual? At least for us right now, it feels to us that answer is not at all. Even the greatest gurus and sages of the past still ate and drank. In Greek mythology, the gods often had fancy golden tables in Olympus, stacked high with ambrosia to eat. And in ancient Egyptian myth, both and seashat were said to regularly drink some kind of white drops or liquid gold to retain their ascended state. Ancient Egyptian LSD? That sounds epic. I don't think that you can get more materialistic than literally drinking gold, but okay. FYI, we do not recommend you drink gold unless it's that special mono-atomic gold mixture which we'll probably do a video about in the future. Your doctor probably wouldn't be too happy of us. If we suggested you should melt down gold bars and shove it down your gullet, but I digress. The point is, regarding physical pleasures, let's be mindful of them, but maybe not swear them off completely? Even the Bhagavad Gita describes that the four goals of human life are doing one's duty, earning wealth, material and sensual enjoyment with your senses under control and attaining salvation. So if you want to indulge in physical pleasures, go ahead, do it. Experience something physical, something so moving and awe-inspiring that it inspires an emotion within you that could lead you to a spiritual revelation. You might even remember in our cannabis episode that it was through the enjoyment of cannabis that led to my first massive spiritual transcendent visionary awakening experience, which completely shifted how I perceived and used the medicine. Instead of thinking in terms of attaining a quantity of things, why not strive for less things but ones that are higher in quality or more valuable, like handmade clothes or eating food that took some extra time to make but is like a thousand times better for you than whatever else you might have been eating? The most important thing though is always to maintain that sense of balance. Experience everything the physical and spiritual worlds both have to offer, but don't get so caught up in one or the other that you forget that we belong in the center of both. You wanna have that cheesecake? Go for it, savor every mouthful, but maybe only have one slice and not like the entire thing. You wanna gain profound spiritual wisdom through meditation and detachment? Go for it, but remember, the point of wisdom is to be shared and experienced together, not to run away with it, to be hoarded by yourself, all alone in isolation at the top of the mountain. With that, we're curious what you think. How do you cope with materialistic pleasures and what role do you think physical experiences have to play in our spiritual journeys? Let us know in the comments below and don't forget to download the free abundance meditation in the comments below. We'll see you next time on Spirit Science. Toodles!


A fiery horse with a speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a party hyo silver, a lone ranger. Before this exciting adventure, a word from our sponsor. A cloud of dust, a flash of light, and a hearty hyo marita, the lone stranger, heaps again. Reach, and get away from my cache of silver bullets. Ronto, you're the one who's been taking my silver bullets? No, me just trading silver bullets for golden rich marita sandwich bread. What? Well, it's better than the warm form. I know, but you've got to stop taking my silver bullets for my six guns and putting in marita. Me, sorry. Sorry. Today I fired at a bandit and hit him with a bologna sandwich. He didn't get away. No, I caught him when he stopped for mustard. Not caught. So was the sandwich. All sandwiches taste better on marita. All right, Ronto. Here's your marita sandwich bread. Now enter your pockets, faithful Indian companion. Do it again for those thrilling days of yesteryear. The lone stranger eats again. I owe marita away! With his faithful Indian companion total, the garing and resourceful mask rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early western United States. Nowhere in the pages of history can one find a greater champion of justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. From out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great war silver. The lone ranger rides again. I owe marita away! Let's go, people! I owe marita away! I owe marita away! Mark Pierce, owner of a freight and stage line out of Pekos, Texas, stopped in front of an old shack in limestone canyon, a few miles from town. Popping a large Cuban cigar, he strolled to the front door and pushed it open. He stood a moment looking at the three tough-looking men who sat playing cards. Then he spoke. Smokey, I'll have another job for you in Blakie and Al tomorrow afternoon. What is it this time morning? My stagecoach is bringing 10,000 in new bills to the Pekos Bank. I want you men to get it. Have a less robbed your own freight and stage line sure is profitable. I do out of business if it weren't for what we take, Smokey. You men have no kick. You get your share. The sheriff is still hunting us because of the shipment we stole from your freight line last week, boss. Don't worry about the sheriff. He's about ready to give up the search. The cigar's about finished. Last one I have with me, too. Sure a fancy band on those cigars. What kind are they? Carmarina cigars. Get them all away from Havana. Better throw this on the heart. Any particular place you think we ought to stop a stage? Well, Rock Valley's a good place. Be careful with your bullets. Drivers and guards are hard to get. We won't wail unless we have to. All right, now cover your trail back here. Tomorrow night I'll come out here for the loot. I'll keep it in my safe till the excitement dies down and we'll split it. I'll see you later. So long. Bye, young boss. The following day, Dan Reed, nephew of the Lone Ranger, was returning to Pecos by stage after visiting a friend some distance away. As the stage rumbled along the trail through Rock Valley, Dan was suddenly startled by gunshots. We must stop those coming. There must be a hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I got you. Come and get out. All right. I'm not armed. Leave while I search you. There it is. Only a few dollars. All right. Get back in. Thanks. All right, David. Throw down the cash box and be quick about it. From inside the coach, Dan studied the three outlaws closely for a moment. Then Smokey called out. All right, David. Get going. Hit him. Hit him. When the stage reached town, Dan went to the livery stable and got his horse, Vicki. A short time later, he arrived at a camp in the nearby hills where the lone ranger and Toto waited to greet him. Hold on. Hold on.  Dan told the masked man and Toto about the holdup, saying that he noticed a strange gray dust on the outlaws' boots. The lone ranger and Toto rode to the place where the holdup took place. Later, they returned to camp. Any luck? No, Dan. A sheriff in a posh he arrived there before us, who covered any tracks the outlaws may have left. It will soon be dark, so there's little use for searching the hills now. We'll hunt for them in the morning. The following morning, while the lone ranger and potter continued the search for the three outlaws, Dan Reed rolled to town for supplies. After dismounting at the hitch rack, Dan was walking past the sheriff's office toward the store, where a cold from the doorway. Hey there, son. Come here a minute. All right, Sheriff. Come inside. I should look at some hand bills. Here, look at these over. Maybe you might just recognize one of the outlaws you saw yesterday. Sorry, Sheriff, but I don't recognize any of these faces. It was just a thought I had. Look, there on the floor, somebody dropped a ring. That's bad. Looks like a finger ring, all right, but it's just a circle of fancy paper with gold on it. Came off one of the cigars Mr. Pierce, the freight line owner, smokes. Well, for a moment I thought it was a ring. La Marina. Yeah, mighty expensive cigars. He's the only one smokes them in town, has them sent in special from Cuba. I'm not a judge. I don't smoke. Sorry, I couldn't get anything from the hand bills. That's all right. Goodbye, son. Bye, sir. As Dan approached the general store, Smokey came out carrying a small bundle of supplies and went to his horse at the hitch-rack. Dan's attention was suddenly drawn to the man's boots. The lower part of each boot was covered with a layer of gray dust. Gray dust on his boots. Just like the dust on the outlaw's boots. I'll follow him and see where he goes. Is he like this heavy? Come on, Victor. Then, using the knowledge he'd gained from the long ranger and carroll, quailed Smokey without attracting the outlaw's attention. But as he approached the entrance to Limestone Canyon... Falcon reach, I got you covered.  Ho, ho, there, ho. I was watching in case somebody followed Smokey. Good thing I wasn't. Yeah, you're the young fellow who was on the stage yesterday. That's right. Victor, I can't back you. Sneak and lavric was trailing you, Smokey. It's a good thing you were on guard. He's the unbrave who was passing you on the stage yesterday. Yeah, I recognize him right off. I don't know how he spotted you, though. Don't matter. It's his hard luck that you did. Shall I plug him? No, no, I'll take him to the shaggy. You wait here a while to see if anyone else was following. It's more to the shaggy. Ride into the canyon ahead of me. There are no tricks or I'll put a bullet in your back. Get gone. Come on.  At your time later, Smokey shoved Dan ahead of him into the shack.  Who's that, Smokey? The young hombre who was riding the stage yesterday. He trailed me from town. Holy mackerel, I wonder why he trailed you. Most likely he recognized me in town. But I can't figure out how he did it. Let's speak up you. How come you're following me out here? You've been smart to clean your boots after the stage robbery. That great dust made me suspicious. So that's it. Now that you're here we can't let you get away. You think you're smart, don't you? Sit down. Dan was tied to the chair, then gagged. After inspecting the knots to make certain they were secure. Smokey, is that it? Yeah, that'll hold him. Guess you'll be mighty sorry he picked up my trail. Maybe we ought to drill him and dump his body in the river. I agree. But the boss might find out and be sore about it. When wait until he tells us what to do with his snooper. Knowing the boss, I'll say this young man will be dead before morning. We'll continue our lone reign to re-venture in just a moment. A cloud of dust, a flash of light, and a hearty hyalurita. The lone stranger eats again. Well Pronto, ever been to a picnic before? That little bighorn. That was no picnic, maybe not for cavalry. Why is the lone stranger in Pronto? Hello ma'am. Hello.  Much obliged ma'am. There you are. How come there no hot dog or hamburger in these buns? Maybe they're vegetarians. Why goodness gracious, no. Think we just love the baked, wirelessly fresh taste so much? We never put anything in our marita hot dog and hamburger buns. Well, they're very delicious. Thank you and goodbye ma'am. Oh my, he handed me a silver bullet. He takes that. Indian giver. Dune in again for those thrilling days of yesteryear. The lone stranger eats again. I owe marita. All right. Then we'd captured by the three outlaws and tied and gagged in the shack. Realized that unless he found a way to get help, he had little chance of surviving. After a short time, Blinky came to the shack and the three men played cards. Then after eating lunch, Smoky said, Blinky, I will ride to town to see the boss out. You stand guard at the entrance to the canyon until we get back in. Do they get safely that fella here alone? Sure, he's tied good and gagged. Don't worry, he'll be here when we get back in. Let's go. Then waited until the three cooks were gone. Then he looked around in hopes of finding some means to loosen his buns. As he glanced through the side window, he saw his horse Victor tied to a sapling a short distance away. By using his toes, he managed to inch the chair across the floor to the window, which was closed. Finally he reached the window and found that his head came above the window sill.   Just regarding the small cut on the back of his head, Dan managed to turn the chair sideways. Then he faced the open window and saw that Victor was looking his way. The intelligent white horse saw his young master with a gag tied to his mouth. After you, Dan needed help and tried to get loose by bucking and pulling on the line that held into the sapling. Unable to break it, Victor took it into his mouth and began gnawing. Within a short time, the rope potted. With a loud snort, Victor potted toward the broken window.  For a moment Victor nibbled at Dan's ear, then seemed to realize what he must do. He nibbled at the knot that held the gag. Finally the knot gave and the gag came loose. Good boy, Victor. Now come inside. Go to the door and come inside, Victor. Victor stood a moment as low puzzled and tentatively reached his head toward the broken window. No, Victor. No. You'll get cut by that broken glass. The door, Victor. The door. Come through the door. Victor pawed the ground, then raised his head and whinnied in understanding. He whirled and crotted around the corner of the shack. A moment later, Dan heard the click of the latch as Victor pressed down on it with his nose. Then the door was pushed open. That's fine, Victor.  Untimely boy. Victor, as well as Silver and Scout, had been clinging for just such emergencies. The intelligent horse found the knot that held his young master's hand. That's right, Victor. Keep trying, boy. After many attempts, Victor's strong teeth pulled apart the knot that held Dan's hands. Damn it. That's great, Victor. Now I'll untie my teeth. Within a short time, Dan got to his feet and was free once more. As he started toward the door, something glittered on the hearth. He stooped and picked it up. Cigar band. Not a cigar stump. La Marina. That's the brand the Freight Line owner smokes. He must have been here. I'll go find the Lone Ranger and Tonnell. They'll know what to do. Come along, Victor. Easy boy. Stay here. Now I'll go up through the far end of the canyon to avoid the guard. Come on, Victor. When Dan arrived at the camp, he found the Lone Ranger and Tonnell already there. He told them what had happened and showed them the cigar band. Then the Lone Ranger spoke. Then Lord Pierce must be in with those cooks. He may be the boss they spoke about. That's right. What we do, Kimazaki? Let me think a moment. This should do it. Potter, go back with Dan the way he came from the shack to avoid the guard. Tie and gag him again. Then hide nearby to make certain he isn't harmed. And what you do? I'll remove my mask and disguise my features. Then I'll go talk to Pierce. But before I do, I'll find the sheriff in a posse and tell them of my plans. You think Dan'd be all right? Yes, with you nearby to protect him. If things work out, we should be able to catch those three outlaws along with Lord Pierce. After identifying himself to the sheriff, the Lone Ranger related what Dan had discovered and told of his plan. Then he went to town and stopped in front of Mort Pierce's office. Well, stranger, what can I do for you? Howdy, Mr. Pierce. I just left the posse because I had to come back to town on business. But the sheriff asked me to tell you they have a line on the outlaws. He thought you might like to know. How sure is he? I mean, has the posse found their hideout? Well, not yet. But they found tracks they know of those of the cooks. And the sheriff figures you find the hideout and that was in an hour or so. Just a matter of following their trail now. Those ombres are mighty clever covering their tracks. Maybe the sheriff will lose the trail again. Nope. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they move in on those kiles. Reckon that's mighty good news for you. Yeah, yeah, sure. Thanks for the information, stranger. Glad to give it to you. Goodbye, Mr. Pierce. Bye. The Lone Ranger mounted and rode to the edge of town where he waited in a stand of trees. Soon he saw Mort Pierce and drove the trail on horseback. There he goes. Now we're following big fella. Come on, sir. Mort, disturbed by the news and wishing to reach the shack to warn his men, rode at top speed. At the entrance to the canyon, he called to Al to join him. Then the two men rode on to the shack. Oh, holy moly. I just got back from your office. I just found out the sheriff and his posse have a line on this place. You have to leave here right away. What about the young ombre we got tied up here? Shoot him and hide his body in a thicket. We can't take any chances now. Funny thing. When we came in a short time ago, we found him still here. But that window's broken. It sure is a mystery. Forget that. Maybe it was already broken and you didn't notice it. All right, Smokey, you take your gun and drill that snooper. All right, boys. Smokey drilled his gun and stood a short distance behind Dan Reed. But before he could pull the trigger... Hey, what's that? Hey, red skinnet. I went out to him. Dr. Guns, all of you. Oh, my hand! Hey, that's the stranger who came to my office. Use your gun now. Hold it, please. My men are covering all of you from the windows. Keep them covered, Sheriff. I'll take your gun. Quickly, the lone ranger took the outlaw's guns, then took the gag from Dan's mouth and untied him. There you are, Dan. Sorry I had you take the risk. Well, that's all right, sir. I knew Tana was watching. And the crooks didn't suspect that I'd left here and come back. Let them came back. They don't serve me. That gives you something to think about. Sheriff, now you have proof that Mark Pierce is the leader of this small gang. That's right, sir. He gave the order to have me killed and then told the men to leave before the sheriff found the hideout. Young Maverick's lying. I came out this way to join the plaza and accidentally found this hideout. These crooks got the drop on me. They would have killed me along with the young men. You can't walk out on us.  He's lying. In fact, you'll find the loot in his office safe, still in the cash box. That's right. Mort's trying to get out of this with a whole skin. But we're not going to let him get away with it. Don't worry. We'll take him in with the rest of you. When we get to town, we'll get the evidence from his safe. I don't know how this happened. You can thank the tall stranger for getting online on your Pierce. The credit really goes to Dan. He was sharp enough to realize Mort Pierce was the leader when he found a cigar ban here in this shack. What? It's a fancy La Marina ban, like the one he found in your office, Sheriff. Cigar ban. I say now, that young fella's going to turn into a muddy clever lawman someday. I hope so, Sheriff. My wallet they stole is in the table drawer. Good. Yep, here's the wallet. I'll hold it as evidence. Mort, you and those fancy cigars.   I am up, men. Then we'll take him back to Pekas. I'm sure you and your men will be able to finish the job, Sheriff. So we'll leave now. Adios. Goodbye, Mr. We should have finished off that young smart aleck when we first caught him.  And Don said, smarter than all that you put together. Yeah, I reckon he learned what he knows from his friend, the mask man. What? Mask man. What mask man? The tall stranger usually wears a mask, but he used a disguise to fool you this time. You see, Pierce, that fella who tricked you into coming here is really the lone ranger. Hello, there. I'd like to just take a minute to talk to you about Merida Brown and Serve Rolls. As you know, Merida means all that's fresh and good that goes into and comes out of your oven. And Merida Brown and Serve Rolls are the ones that bake to a flaky golden brown in just six minutes. There are 12 delicious Merida Brown and Serve Rolls in every package. And if you don't use them all right away, that's all right, too. Merida guarantees freshness for several days after you buy them. Of course, in your freezer, they'll last indefinitely. But don't wait for company to have Merida Brown and Serve Rolls. Your family would love to have a basket of fresh, steaming hot rolls with breakfast or lunch or dinner. It'll mean you care. And what a delicious way to show your love. After all, your family deserves the best. They deserve Merida. Merida Brown and Serve Rolls.