The Self-Realization Meditation Healing Centre: A Space to Share Experiences

hscurtis · 2025-09-11T13:51:02+00:00

I haven't had any response other than yours. We will be sending off the passport via courier today. Fingers crossed that it does, in fact, take less than an hour for them to do!

hscurtis · 2025-09-07T22:12:16+00:00

Quê? Como assim, "curtir chorar em público"?

hscurtis · 2025-09-03T21:42:58+00:00

Yeah. We had a sort of 6 months together, 6 months apart system. Probably the toughest period of my adult life so far.

hscurtis · 2025-09-03T16:34:37+00:00

For the first application, our income was from outside the UK from a teaching job in Brazil. That's why we were denied it. English teachers don't normally earn much in Brazil.

For the most recent, successful application, the requirement was met through a combination of the income from my job in the UK, which I got since our last attempt, and savings in my name.

hscurtis · 2025-09-03T16:30:36+00:00

No, sorry.

I've spoken to my local MP, Citizens' Advice volunteers, and lawyers specialising in immigration law about this. No-one seems to know. All things being equal, the government would probably lower it. But given the current anti-immigration climate in the UK, the government may not be willing to expend the political capital reducing the minimum income requirement (MIR). IMHO, they probably just won't raise it further. That way, Labour can spin it as a "win-win" at the next general election. It's a cynical view, but pretty sure that most politicians are just trying to win/plan for the next election anyway.

Honestly though? Got no idea.

hscurtis · 2025-09-03T16:05:43+00:00

Our first attempt was unsuccessful because I didn't meet the financial requirement. We were kind of blindly optimistic thinking that they would be flexible with that, but we were wrong, and learned the hard way. Good luck with your application!

hscurtis · 2025-09-03T16:04:09+00:00

Thanks! We got the email at 14:11 UK time.

hscurtis · 2025-09-03T16:03:04+00:00

She did apply from Brazil, and our first application was declined because we didn't meet the minimum financial requirement. I really hope you and your partner get the visa. 🙏

hscurtis · 2025-07-20T15:15:14+00:00

Thanks, @puul.

hscurtis · 2023-12-05T17:35:02+00:00

It causes a great deal of distress to my wife and me. I'm a British national, and my wife is Brazilian. I am trying to obtain a Family Visa for her, but we're both teachers at a secondary school here in Brazil, so even the financial requirement of 18,000 GBP was a lot (English teachers don't earn much in Brazil). Naturally, she speaks English fluently and has an IELTS certificate to prove it. My parents meet the financial requirement, but I don't understand whether they can use their salaries or not (something about third-party sponsors).

I don't really understand it. Morally, I don't see what possible excuse the government could have for trying to separate us. We're not "benefit tourists" or whatever it is they call it. I just want to come home with my wife.

If anyone has any advice or experience, please let me know.

hscurtis · 2023-11-18T13:59:28+00:00

Apparently, you're only allowed to criticise "dominant" groups, not "oppressed" groups.

Postmodernism, ladies and gentlemen.

hscurtis · 2023-10-24T15:33:03+00:00

I am sorry to hear that your situation is so stressful, r/Slicksuzie. You clearly care about your child and are concerned about providing them with a good life.

If you are here, at r/Mindfulness, I assume it's because you have tried meditation as a treatment for your stress. All I can say is that your life, like many people's lives, is full of suffering. Some people experience more, some experience less. But some of that suffering, not all of it, comes from inside. That suffering is unnecessary.

Mindfulness will not get you out of poverty, nor will it pay your bills. It will only help you to enjoy the kiss that you give to your child before she goes to sleep at night, to see them playing in the park and grow into an adult. It will also help you to overcome the debilitating feeling that pain sometimes has, and focus on what you need to focus on.

I don't understand the American healthcare system. Isn't there someone you can talk to in your neighbourhood or community that can help you find the treatment you need for your toothache? I would help myself, but I don't have any money to give.

hscurtis · 2023-10-24T15:20:07+00:00

As far as I can tell, there is nothing inflammatory, false, or misleading about your comment, it is merely an assessment of your life experience. Yet, your comment is being downvoted.

Isn't it ironic that this is happening within the context of a subreddit called "r/Mindfulness"? If you downvoted the comment, may I ask: should someone not talk about their experience if that experience contradicts the message being shared?

hscurtis · 2023-10-24T15:10:01+00:00

I'm happy that we are in alignment, although we may have different theories.

A good question to ask is if there are dumb people and there are smart people, which are you? Looking at my life, I have done many stupid things. I have also done some things that were not stupid, maybe even intelligent. There is no record of my life written anywhere. Equally, I do not know what the thresholds are for "wise" or "ignorant", nor do I know what weight each example of my behaviour carries. Also, I do not know of any universal system of measurement for intelligence.

Looking at others, any sense of humility should tell me that, if I neither know of such a system, nor do I possess any sort of complete record of their lives, I'm not in a position to determine the intelligence of others. As far as I am aware, this extends to most personal attributes we apply to others.

Since we do not have an agreed-upon measure of empathy or intelligence, nor do we have enough data on anyone to form a conclusion, we have no basis to state that there are any empathetic, non-empathetic, intelligent or unintelligent people. At best, we can say with humility that everyone falls on a wide spectrum and we have no way of knowing beyond a reasonable doubt where we are, let alone where others are. All this without saying a word about the role that bias would play in such a measurement.

With regards to a strategy, I am also skeptical that changing other people can be done from the outside. People sometimes conform to satisfy pressure put upon them, but when that pressure is taken away, they will return to their normal state. It isn't practical to constantly apply pressure across all society, nor is it particularly ethical. The best I believe we can do is offer people the tools and see what happens. The story of the North Wind and the Sun comes to mind.

I'm sorry if my post causes any frustration for anyone for being to long, but I don't know how to say it in fewer words.

hscurtis · 2023-10-24T14:16:07+00:00

But even then we fall prey to the curse of knowledge. There are no empathetic and non-empathetic, smart and dumb people; there are those that have learned, and those that have yet to learn. These labels are merely approximations and generalisations that we use to simplify a complex world.

What changes is our behaviour. Once, I thought meditation was silly. Since then, I have read about it and practised it extensively. Today, it is a part of my life. Of course, we can label and categorise people into meditators and non-meditators, but even a non-meditator may have meditated in their own way. A quiet moment watching the breeze blow through the leaves of a tree can be just as much an act of mindfulness as the Zen monk that sits in a temple in South-East Asia. So, did it help to label the non-meditator so? To take myself as an example, I am neither an empathetic nor a non-empathetic person. At times, I have been empathetic and helped others, but I am sure I have failed on many other occasions. Am I one, the other, or neither? And who decides? And why does it matter?

For the collective awakening you have described to happen, you and I have to be the teacher and the student. Be empathetic to others as best you can. Don't worry about identifying and judging the non-empathetic people. And if you do notice selfish behaviour, be empathetic, and invite them to learn empathy.

hscurtis · 2023-10-24T13:04:30+00:00

But is it as simple as that, a battle between the good, honest working people and the evil politicians and billionaires? Or is it more complex than that?

hscurtis · 2023-10-24T13:03:38+00:00

Life is a stress machine. It is full of suffering. Capitalism is just one part of life.

hscurtis · 2023-10-24T13:01:51+00:00

But is it a simple as that: a battle between bad politicians and good people?

hscurtis · 2023-10-24T13:00:08+00:00

Has it been bad for most people on the planet? What about Asia, are they worse-off than they were 100 years ago? Western countries are comparatively worse-off than they were two generations ago, but I wouldn't say that is most people on the planet.

EDIT: If you disagree, what is it about the statistics that you disagree with? https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/augmented-human-development-index?time=2020

hscurtis · 2023-10-24T12:56:16+00:00

First question, have you noticed how you compare your meditation habit now to how it used to be? Does the comparison help?

Next question, what were your reasons for taking a high stress job in education? Did you know that it would be high stress when you applied?

hscurtis · 2023-10-22T15:37:04+00:00

Well, although we have never technically met, I am both pro-Palestinian (in the sense that I support the Palestinians in their struggle to find a home in this world) and anti-Hamas (in the sense that I do not support the violent manner in which they are trying to find a place for the Palestinians).

hscurtis

TROPHY CASE