Thursday, May 3, 2012

Real Life v. Second Life

Second Life (secondlife.com) is a virtual world, complete with personalized avatars, homes, businesses, events, and ...spiritual centers and activities.
I've created a group "Spiritual Self-Realization" and held four events since I joined last month, with attendance varying from 5-12. In the process I've found how real are the people behind the avatars. They take things seriously, can be neurotic, get offended by my inexperience as a "newbie." Some have been on for several years, and built up complex and exotic kingdoms, paying $300 a month for an entire "sim." I've dealt with several owners of spiritual sims. There is a Buddha Center, OSHO Island, Nirvana Island, and India Land with a beautiful Hindu Temple. There are regular teachers and students, meditation classes, dharma talks, and like mine, discussion groups. People go dancing or listen to a rock concert from their home computers via their customized avatar. To use the sim owners places to hold events, we pay rent and or donate. A new sim "Spiritual Retreat" is an elaborately conceived island with 11 meditation terraces leading to a 12 spot on the top. The owner is a real life spiritual teacher in Canada. The people are world-wide.
I've just been smitten by a vengeful and rather greedy owner (and her two admins) who apparently is trying to make a profit over her $300 payments. The 3 events I held there were difficult, for a variety of reasons. I'm now negotiating with the owners of the temple and Spiritual Center to do events with them in the future. I shouldn't be surprised that SL spirituality would feature the personal crap that RL has, perhaps even more, as some owners try to do something really not possible - make a living at it. Just yesterday I learned that all the donations I put into their various bowls and boxes "don't count" as they are anonymous! We are talking about $7 (basic membership, free if you just want to flit around) to $25 a month if you want to fully participate and hold meetings of some sort. More if you want to rent or buy a big chunk of land and build on it.
There are amazing possibilities, and the owner of Spiritual Retreat is on a mission to explore them all. He's having his first organizational meeting of spiritual teachers/event holders in two days.
UPDATE 10-19-12
Ive been giving regular events weekly, probably over 50 now. Have folders full of lectures and outlines. In my 7th month. Good to grow! Even getting some good friends and feedback. No enemies ATM and should be able to keep it that way. There are the usual crazy sides to the spiritual community, and egos, narcissism, and hazing.

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