Leo Gura

Well, he's been banned from YT.

I think the craziness has to play itself out so that people can suffer from the consequences and learn to let go of unworkable and painful ideas. Humans basically learn through suffering. Excess leads to chaos and suffering, suffering leads to a desire for re-balancing, sanity, and peace. And so it goes in cycles. It's the Hegelian dialectic. We have had 80 years of relative peace since WWII. This peace has made us complacent and spoiled. Now this peace is starting to crack as the old system which got us here will not be enough to get us to the next level, but people are not willing to evolve consciously. So there will be suffering. This is what the Orange >> Green transition looks like. It has begun, but only just, so there is much backlash.

You never appreciate what you got until you lose it. Just wait till you start losing your health.

Survival is the purpose. No mystery there. There will always be some degree of selfish elites running things. Because all creatures are selfish and "elite" is anyone who is in a leadership position that people follow. Again, these are deep systemic dynamics of human civilization. Not conspiracies.

Yes, 100%. BUT! The question is, Is America today perhaps also so corrupt and capitalistic that socialism will also collapse if implemented again? I don't know about that.... America is pretty fucking corrupt with capitalist ideology and money and habits. I think you are right that we would not get Soviet style gulags, executions, and dictators. But I think there would be enormous cultural backlash, and business leaders would probably start a plot to bring back the old system which they have gotten addicted to. For socialism to truly work it requires more than merely changes in law. It requires a cultural reprogramming. Which freaks people out. If socialism was implemented in full, it could be enough to cause a real second Civil War. The people have to want it. You can't just sneak it upon them or ram it down their throats.

Don't poo-poo quality education. All of my work with Actualized.org is grounded in a solid classic education. I wouldn't be here otherwise. There is a good reason why Trump supporters are mostly white people with no college education. And why they are so prone to toxic conspiracy theories. And why the right-wing is so critical of universities. 2/3rds of Americans have no college education. If 50% of Americans had a college education, Trump would never have gotten elected. Quality classic education is hugely important. It teaches people basic academic rigor which cut down conspiracy thinking a lot. Universities are somewhat corrupt, but overall they are a net positive force in society. We need more, not less. And also better. Yes, of course. All standards are relative and self-biased. I am not saying to blindly trust the mainstream. Pretty much all mainstream narratives are collective illusions. Yes, but this is a very dangerous thing. It's like giving a child a loaded handgun to play with. In the hands of a trained expert who knows what he's doing, a loaded gun is a useful tool. But in the hands of a moron, it's very dangerous and he will more than likely end up shooting himself. A Trumpist's definition of truth is inferior to that of the mainstream news. The mainstream news is biased, but at least they have serious journalists with some integrity working for them. The Trump cult just makes up bullshit all day long and treats it as truth. I agree.

This can be a clever cop-out by lefties. I think it's too convenient to say that true communism was never attempted. The point which conservatives are right about is this: what if it can't really be attempted because human nature doesn't allow it to even get off the ground? At least not at our current level of development. If every time communism is attempted it goes horribly wrong, that tells us something important about the lack of fit between communism and people. It's sort of like saying, "I've never truly attempted to put on a size 8 shoe" when my foot is size 12. Yet I keep going to the store and buying size 8 shoes, convinced that one day a "true attempt" will finally get it on my foot. "True attempt" is a very loaded and sneaky notion in this situation.

That's a noble life purpose. Yes, I totally agree. That's the biggest lesson we learned from Soviet Russia, China, and Korea. Socialist ideals are good, but ideals are not enough to make a thing fly. It needs to be practical too. A 1st grader cannot handle algebra. Most people are too selfish to handle socialism. So we need to work on the selfishness part.

To be fair, this guy did not shit on them. His communication was very balanced and reasonable. But the thing you gotta ask this guy is, "What kind of psychedelics? How much of them did you do? And in what settings?" << That is the key question when a guru starts talking about psychedelics. Ask them that question and you will probably realize that they are utterly inexperienced. "Yeah, bro, I took 8 grams of mushrooms back in high school at a rock concert and puked. I don't recommend it."

It is, but you aren't aware that. It is, but you aren't aware of that. Yes, of course. This moment is Infinity. But you are not infinitely conscious right now. Look, to be awake you must be conscious that you are God. I don't know any simpler way to put it. It's almost impossible to explain to someone who has never experienced themselves as God. It is not good enough to believe that you are God. You must feel it so profoundly that it is totally obvious beyond any possible doubt or question. When you reach this point, you will understand why everything exists as it does.

Unfortunately toxic chemicals are also imaginary, so they are perfectly capable of clogging up your imaginary brain.

Sure. That's selfishness and survival and devilry in action. It's been that way since the dawn of civilization. It is important to study and understand how selfishness and survival and devilry work. But there is no cabal of evil elites running the world.

Proper, quality education -- while admittedly a rare thing -- does not make you a slave. It teaches you how to learn and think for yourself and how to have high epistemic standards. Media makes you stupid if you don't use it properly by not diversifying your sources and not reading books. Corruption is certainly a problem. Yes. Which is what we're trying to correct. Via education and public policy.

I admit I was very provocative. Similar to my Libertarianism video. Yeah, it pisses some people off. I should soften up my approach in the future. I am still learning what upsets people because intellectual stuff doesn't upset me so it's hard for me to know ahead of time which ideas will offend people. You make a great point. But let's just see a bit more how this thread evolves. If it gets too distracting and toxic, we'll close it.

Of course there will never be any such clear lines. Our knowledge is highly limited and fallible. But the things you talk about are addressed with systems thinking, journalism, education, and academic research.

And in a sense that's not wrong. If you listen to the most radical leftists they tend to want some pretty radical socialistic stuff that probably will never work in practice, at least not for hundreds or thousands of years. Yes, both extremes of the political axis are slippery slopes that veer off into delusional ideas of society which will never scale to the mainstream. The center is a pragmatic compromise and tends to scale well. For example, some far leftists advocate the idea of totally open boarders or actually disbaning the police. This is a silly utopian idea that will never fly. Covid clearly shows the importance of national boarders. But there is still a difference. The ideals of communism are more conscious than the ideals of white supremacy or nationalism. There is no way that white supremacy will ever work in the future. But communism or socialism might. It's just a question of, To what degree? White supremacy is an evolutionary dead end. Socialism is not. At least not yet. There is much to study and learn from socialism even if we don't fully go socialist (which, BTW, I don't advocate doing in our lifetime). But there is little value to studying the merits of white supremacy or nationalism other than as an example of what not to do. At least not in developed countries like the USA or Europe. Maybe in the Middle East or Africa nationalism still has some merit, although even that is becoming hard to stomach. The illusion that your nation/culture is the best simply cannot survive in our globalized economy. How much easier life would be if people simply surrendered the notion that their culture/nation/race is the best. It's such an obviously childish and self-biased position.

Obstacles are a function of the ego's desire to survive in its limited form. See, if you surrendered yourself to Truth completely, there would be no obstacles. But also no guarantee of survival. So you're caught in an existential bind. On the one hand you want life to be effortless and truthful. On the other hand you want to survive, which is falsehood. These two things are in existential conflict. The core existential problem is this: survival is falsehood. So it must always fail because falsehood isn't true.

You got it backwards. They mate for life cause there's no one else around to fuck

Thanksgiving is just around the corner

Direct experience of yourself as God imagining yourself into existence. And even that is just the beginning.

Probably a bad idea. Be careful not to make some rash move. Once you are homeless, enlightenment will probably be the last thing on your mind as you struggle just to stay warm. Remember, after enlightenment, all your survival needs will still have to be met. Enlightenment WILL NOT solve your survival needs for you. Very dangerous and naive to assume so. Do you know what monks spend most of their day doing? Cleaning toilets and cooking food. Survival. They do that for 8 hours. Then they meditate for like 3 hours. That's typical monk life. They do not meditate 18 hours a day as you might imagine. That is not a luxury they have. Ideally you'd save up a nest egg of so much money that you could just take a year off work and meditate while living in a comfy cabin. This is far more realistic than being homeless.

You can soar like an eagle or peck around in the dirt with the turkeys Yes, eagles are lonely yet majestic creatures.

Ha! Nice try.

No, just an example. It's a great example when meditation teachers pretend like meditation can get you there. Salvia shows you, No you are fooling yourself. Nothing will humble you like a puff of salvia. That shit is insane. You won't understand what consciousness can do without it. Consciousness is so much more radical than any meditation teacher knows. Be careful. It will be the scarieat thing in your life. You will cry for mommy. You will beg God to give you your sanity back, and God won't.

Meh, he dismisses the power of the consciousness that is possible with something like 5-MeO or DMT or salvia. No way you will access that naturally through his meditation programs. Bliss and peace of mind is not the same thing as Infinite Consciousness and I gaurantee none of his students have accessed Infinite Consciousness. Of course they are not an ultimate solution. You will still have to do meditative work.