Bentinho Massaro Forum and Community
Bentinho’s Forum Launches Today!
Finally, a place on the internet to call Home
BentinhoMassaro.com/forum
A Letter from Bentinho
When I was a teenager, a deep passion for—what most people strangely enough still call—the ‘paranormal’ was ignited. Not much later, this passion matured into a deep interest in the profound possibilities of spirituality, human existence and the science of enlightenment or liberation through direct, experiential practices and understandings.
Back then, the Internet was still in its early stages. Social media wasn’t a thing yet. Youtube didn’t exist yet. Online communities would interact with one another in forums, often organized around very specific niches or topics and interests. In this way, you knew and could feel that everyone you would interact with on these forums was already “pre-selected” to have a similar passion or interest to yourself.
This sameness of intent, in my experience at least, made that forum environment truly conducive to the organic development of a tight-knit, intimate circle of friends, teachers and fellow students of a certain topic. I remember being truly excited to hop online and read everything I had missed while being asleep, and responding where I felt called to respond with my own thoughts on the topic.
I also distinctly remember feeling an often even closer connection to those people with anonymous names whom I had never met in person than I did to some of my in-person friends. Because of the likeness of heart and intent, there was often a mutual trust, sameness of vibration and compassionate understanding that even years of physical time spent with a person of a different intentionality could not catch up to.
Then came the age of social media, and over the course of approximately 5 years, the ‘online family’ landscape changed drastically into a much less interest-specific, and much broader, more general environment. This was soon followed up with monthly new additions and features providing all kinds of bells and whistles to the social media user, ultimately leading to the mass-scale distraction-machine, advertisement-business and the overall globalisation of personal passions—connecting people to products and industrializing human beings—capitalizing on their tendency to get distracted, which social media has (for the most part) become today, in my opinion.
Initially the rise of a severely generalized, global platform for literally every human being seemed like a potent development towards global unity. And in some ways, it has delivered on this benefit: people today know much more about what’s happening around the world, and have a much better—albeit mostly subconscious—sense of humanity as a collective. However, for as much good as it did, it has been a double-edged sword to say the least. Especially for the individual seeking true awakening or niche-like community.
Social Media has become a big distraction from ourselves. When I see Instagram pages with hundreds, sometimes thousands of pages they are ‘following’, I wonder how they are focusing on being present with their actual, in-the-moment selves and how much of their daily energy is invested in developing themselves and growing spiritually.
Additionally, whenever you write something valuable and thoughtful on the globalized social media platforms, its content and energy will survive the algorithms and the constant influx of new ‘content’ (which functions similarly to the great swallower of everything: time, or death) for a few hours, maybe for a few days, back in the early days. A good practice in non-attachment I suppose.
But I believe it has become too “big,” institutionalized and too general for its own good. Social media has lost its social aspect, and is now mostly media. It has lost much of its heart and trustworthiness. The tight-knit vibes of having a private little corner on the web where you could whole-heartedly, and even with trust in ‘strangers’, share about the topics and experiences most dear to your mind, heart and soul.
Where social media as it stands today is mostly a giant distraction device, forums like in the old days are still to this day excellent environments for learning, honing in on certain topics and being present to something meaningful as a way to accelerate your growth and development as an entity.
I have never lost my love for the old school forum layout. Every time I would google search a specific topic and I would land on one of those old school PhpBB forums with the library-like layout, I felt the nostalgia of ‘being home online.’ Facebook and the like has never been able to replace that or improve on this concept for me.
When you write on a forum, your posts tend to be more thoughtful and long-form. It is like sharing a mini-article every time you post (not that every post has to be long!), with generally supportive, focused and helpful responses from others in reply.
What’s more, your content remains accessible and easily findable, basically for as long as the forum continues to exist. Your content does not disappear down some invisible drain, never to be seen or replied to or benefitted from by anyone else ever again. And so what you write in a forum matters, whereas what you write on social media these days either disappears completely or does little more than bite you in the ass at some point.
A forum is like a collective book-writing project; where every member with the same interest over time is adding to this massive book written by hundreds of different people on a particular niche, topic, interest, project, exploration. A forum contains a wealth of knowledge by real, individual agents of the universe. A forum is essentially a massive, ever-evolving case-study.
The entire community is co-creating a body of knowledge, separated by many chapters (categories, topics) of an even more specific topic within the already niche interest. This can greatly benefit countless people and seekers of this niche knowledge down the line.
On a forum, everything you write matters because it lasts and because the platform incentivizes quality over the quantity of likes and it is not concerned with ever-shifting algorithms to maximize profit.
What’s more: if you are trolling on a forum, your access will likely be limited or terminated. A forum is a shared living room that can be kept relatively clean and tidy, and yet be cosy and filled with the warmth of intimacy of true connection and valuable exchange of information and vibration for all to enjoy.
You can ‘sit’ in this virtual living space and pick whichever sub-book or chapter (topic) of this overarching book of knowledge you wish to engage in that day, like grabbing a book from the shelf found on every wall of this living space, digest its knowledge, and even add your own 2 cents at the end of that sub-book or chapter for future readers to enjoy, learn from and further contemplate and refine.
Social media cannot function in this way anymore, and in a way, it never really has.
Not to mention how all our private data and writings can be, and in many ways are, used against our sovereignty, freedom of thought, speech and general privacy.
It is difficult to find any sense of ‘being at home online’ these days, except in niche-like forums.
Investing your thoughts and writing time in a forum, you can also rest assured that what you are writing is much less likely to be utilized by corporations for financial domination in certain markets, and you can, if you wish, remain anonymous to a greater extent, while still sharing your experiences and thoughts in an intimate fashion with people who may be dear to your heart even though you’ve never met them in person (yet!).
For years now, I have pondered creating such a space for the people interested in my work and in the spiritual journey in general, especially as I saw the quality of engagement on existing social media platforms decline over the years. I felt a forum would be much more conducive to quality interaction on the topic of spiritual realization and actualization.
And now... it is here. And now you are here! :)
And so, my friends, fellow adepts of life, I welcome you wholeheartedly to this new and evolving virtual environment which my team has created, and I hope this can offer you a sense of home online that your everyday social media accounts simply cannot provide in as meaningful a way.
Now, I want to acknowledge how grateful I am to social media for everything it has facilitated for seekers of my work and similar work the world over. I truly do not think anything is wrong or should have gone any other way. I acknowledge that Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and so on have all played a really big role both in the distribution of my own message, my own learning, as well as that of many other meaningful messages and movements around the world. Also it has done wonders to bring the world together in new ways, and it has connected people from all countries together in ways undreamed of even 25 years ago.
So it is from a foundation of gratitude for the platforms and companies that have enabled all this that I suggest the usage of this forum over the usage of social media when it comes to really diving into one’s self-development and awakening and connecting with the community at a deeper level, simply because I believe it is a more conducive platform for those purposes.
Please consider getting used to actually using this forum to share your thoughts, ask for clarification on whatever it is you are seeking at present, and provide thoughtful support (without turning into a preacher/teacher/savior/show off) to whomsoever you feel your experience could benefit.
Note that it may take a little bit of time to decondition your brain and habits from using social media automatically, and to ‘train’ it to transition to taking a little bit more time every week and effort to explore the forum and write meaningful content therein.
We’ve been greatly conditioned over the past decade to unconsciously seek instant gratification. Our dopamine response has further anchored-in this need for instant and varied information, entertainment, and social validation or confirmation of our thoughts, over taking the time to unwind, and really be present with our truest of thoughts, other people’s truest of thoughts, and dive deep into specific topics that are directly connected to our development as an individual and thus benefit our civilization.
While using this forum, please stay humble and of service to one another, ever double-checking before posting how much of your desire to post a topic or reply to an existing one is about your personal self being boosted, versus how much of it is about being genuinely of service to others and dissolving the illusory boundaries between self, other-self and Source, and in that way, automatically be most of service to your own expansion, growth, purification and realization of the inherent oneness of existence.
Have fun, enjoy each other’s thoughts about the Creator and its Self-Expression known as Creation; ever appreciate its infinite mystery with confidence-yet-humility and do your best to make everything you contribute here, including your own questions, a thoughtful addition to this collective book of knowledge that is being generated.
May this forum also facilitate a deep sense of companionship and trust, since the spiritual journey can often be a lonely road. May you find a true sense of friendship and like-hearted communion during your time here.
Much love to all,
Bentinho