Leo Gura

Suffering sits deeper than belief. When the suffering gets strong enough, all your pretty beliefs will fly out the window. Then only consciousness can prevail. And even that will flag and wane for most people. Only training of consciousness can overcome that.

Of course that is a misuse of psychedelics. I don't have time to police every foolish thing people decide to do on this forum. Some guy PMed me the other day that he was taking 10 armodafil pills per day. People do silly things despite what I say. I'm not creative enough to imagine all the ways people abuse my teachings. Something so foolish never even occurred to me.

The point is precisely that if you were conscious that suffering is imaginary, it would stop being painful. But you're not conscious of that, so it is still painful for you. There is a big difference between believing that suffering is imaginary vs actually being conscious of it at the moment of the torture. This work is not done at the level of belief. So you're right in that there is no point in believing that reality is imaginary. But you're wrong in that that's not what I'm suggesting you to do. I'm suggesting you to become CONSCIOUS of it. Which is a totally different thing. You are not anywhere near being conscious of it yet. This seems like a word game because for you it IS only a word game. But I am telling you there is something beyond the word game which you are not yet aware of. If you ever go beyond the word game, that's where you'll feel the difference. Imagine becoming so conscious that you can no longer be physically killed. That's what we're talking about here. Obviously this cannot happen as a matter of belief. You must actually become physically unkillable. How is such a thing possible? Well, if you knew how, you'd already be immortal. So of course it won't make much sense from your current vantage point. You have to be willing to go radically outside the box of what you consider reality to be. You have to appreciate that your ego will try to keep all of these teachings safely at the level of word games. Because then the ego is never threatened. The challenge in this work is to make sure you're actually doing the work, not just thinking about it. Thinking about doing the work is not the same as doing the work. Talking about enlightenment is not enlightenment. Thinking about reality being an illusion is not the same as experiencing it as such in every moment. It is the difference between talking about having a million dollars vs actually having one million in cash in your closet.

What I wrote will apply regardless of whether you take a masculine or feminine approach. Which approach you take it up to you. My style is my style. You don't have to like it or follow it. No You are confusing two things: truth and what your ego wants. Spirituality in its purest form means more truth, whatever that entails. It might entail an early death (as in the case of Jesus) or a long life (as in the case of The Buddha). But truth is truth regardless of its consequences on the ego. The point is not that spirituality ultimately leads to less stability, the opposite is the case if you do it right. The problem is that there are many traps, many ways to screw it up along the way. And even if you tell people about all the traps, they will still not listen and fall into them. But also don't forget the many dangers of not doing this work. It's not as though your life will go smoothly if you avoid this work. The opposite is the case.

I didn't particularly list my stages in order. They can happen in any order -- whichever resonates with you.

Buckle in, because your work has only just begun. You are like at page 2 of a 10,000 page book thinking you're close to the end. The work is far deeper than it is ever possible to communicate. Seems like you're taking too much too fast and have more basic personal development work to do. All of this is fine, just pace yourself better.

The topics we deal with here are inherently dangerous and could not be otherwise since they involve undoing and transcending survival. Spirituality is very dangerous to the ego-mind. These dangers are not merely perceptual, they are also "actual", in the sense of physical danger. You can't do serious spiritual work and also complain, "But this can be dangerous". Of course! If it wasn't dangerous it wouldn't be worth doing. The whole point is that its dangerous and therefore rarely done well. This works requires enormous nuance, care, and intelligence. These are structural meta-qualities which cannot ever be codified in the form of content. Which means, no matter how many times a teacher says to be nuanced, careful, and intelligent, it will not help someone who is sloppy, careless, and ignorant. You cannot make a person intelligent by telling them to be intelligent. If things were so easy we wouldn't be here struggling with consciousness. The danger of the work is exactly what makes it so appealing. There are stakes. Much like life. Otherwise it would just be armchair philosophy with no transformative power. Changing your life comes at a cost. You might change it for the worse.

Like I said, set priorities and pace things out in stages. If you pace things well, then yes. You need to think 10 years ahead. But if you just randomly try to do multiple things at once you'll probably not get anywhere on either front. Mastering a career or art takes so much work, dedication, and attention that you need to have a clear, singular vision for what you're trying to achieve. Then hit it every day for 5-10 years relentlessly. This is discussed in detail in my Life Purpose Course.

The Absolute is that and everything else. Anything that is -- and in any way that it is or could be -- is the Absolute. Be careful not to think that a colorful visual field is somehow not the Absolute. That's your mistake right there. Instead, open yourself to embracing it and loving it as one facet of what you are. The point of all this work is to transcend fear, replacing it with love.

@Justine There are an infinite number of different states of consciousness. So what? You can explore them forever.

That and a hundred other things. Your entire sense of self, your entire psyche is involved. Everything your psyche fears, hates, denies, desires, and worries about it is involved. The details aren't really important. It's just the sum total of all your attachments and impurities as an ego-mind.

No, because they are not phenomena. Consciousness itself transcends all contents of consciousness in the way that a TV screen is permanent even though the content it displays is impermanent. The mistake you're making here is thinking of enlightenment/consciousness as phenomena. They are not. That's the whole point. If they were phenomena they would not be worth pursuing. 1) The mind is always changing. 2) The mind will be gone forever with death. It only seems permanent because you're judging it exclusively from inside itself, inside the context of your life. Your mind is treating your life as an absolute standard next to which everything else is judged and understood. But this is precisely backwards. You life could end in a split second at any moment and nothing of it will remain.

Well, that Void is a classic advanced meditation state. Totally healthy and fine. Of course it will be shocking for anyone the first time they encounter it. The ego-mind will perceive it as death.

It's not that big of deal for me. Just don't do it more than once a day, and take some days off in between. A couple times a week seems to work best. Don't forget, having sex actually takes a lot more time and energy. As with most things, a lot depends on how you do it and how you frame it in your mind. For me there is no negative vibe associated with it. You can do it in healthy ways to rejuvenate yourself.

@Dean Walker Figuring all that out is the bulk of your path. We can't tell you want you want and in which order you want it. You have to introspect to get clear about what your priorities should be for the next 5 years, let's say. Usually you want to focus on one key area of life like: business/career/life purpose, relationships/family, health/fitness, spirituality/meditation, education, etc. You can't do it all at once. You gotta prioritize what you're most engaged in working on, what you most need to advance to the next stage. As an example, my first business stage lasted about 3 years, basically full-time. Then my relationship/dating stage lasted 1-2 years almost full-time. Then my next life purpose/business stage lasted 6 years, almost full-time. My fitness stage lasted a few years, part-time, sprinkled within the stages above. Remember, life is long and if you're young you've got plenty of time to pace yourself and plan stuff out in stages. 3 years invested into X, 5 years invested into Y, 2 years invested in Z. If you are starting a new biz, I would recommend planning to invest 5 years into it. At least 3 years. Anything less than that I just don't see how you'll succeed. 3 years is barely enough time for something like that. Not all things require equal time. Something like biz will be one of the most time-intensive things in your life if you want to succeed at it. Competition is fierce and there is a never-ending amount of work. Since biz is such a massive time investment it's wise to be very clear what values your want your business to represent.

Post here links to YT channels, podcasts, & websites which offer high quality political analysis. High quality political analysis is: Systemic, complex, nuanced Holistic Questions the status quo, calls out corruption, speaks truth to power Non-blaming, non-demonizing, non-conspiratorial Grounded in facts & evidence Grounded in historical understanding Grounded in solid non-partisan journalism Attempts to be fair to the other side, avoids strawmanning the other side Non-dogmatic, open-minded, willing to change its mind on issues Not overly focused on culture war issues Shows empathy for all humans and living beings, regardless of race, ethnicity, class, gender, etc. Advocates for non-violence as much as possible Doesn't fear-monger Doesn't scapegoat gays, non-whites, communists, globalists, Jews, feminists, academics, etc. Appreciates cultural diversity and different POVs In-depth rather than merely sound bites Cares about environmental issues Appreciates the importance of balance Understands the dangers of false equivalency and "neutrality" Interested in unearthing root causes of problems Yes! These can be tough subjective calls to make. Self-bias is always a distorting factor.

How is anything possible?

No, depends on how powerful your will is. If you're talking about altering physical reality in a way which affects others, your will needs to be equally powerful. These are not levels of access that the universe grants to most people, for obvious reasons, since there is enormous potential for devilry. Only the most spiritual advanced people might be given such access. Which is why you don't see people walking through brick walls every day. The whole point of "physical reality" is so that ordinary beings could not change it willy-nilly. You won't want people being able to walk through the walls of your house while you're jerking off in there.

It depends.

He is not as progressive as he seems. This is what the Yang Gang doesn't understand -- doesn't want to understand.

I am not well enough informed on this issue to give an opinion. Indian politics is not my jam. If you study the principles of Conscious Politics as I laid them out in my 4 part series and also Spiral Dynamics, that should allow you to make sense of most political issues by yourself. Of course you also need accurate facts about the on-the-ground situation. Which I don't have in this case. Generally speaking I know that Modi is Blue and pushing a Blue cultural agenda. But India is so under-developed that I would be less critical of such things than I would in America. America should know better. India, not yet. Realistically, oppression of minorities and even genocide in India is par for the course. They are not collectively developed yet to transcend that. They must learn the hard way, by causing great harm to themselves and facing the ugliness of their selfish actions.

UBI is a good idea, but it is only the beginning of other much needed reform. UBI by itself will not fix the fundamental corruption at the heart of the system. The systemic corruption is worse than anyone understands or knows how to fix. The corruption is at an existential level.

Hehehe.... All "physical reality" is a hallucination held stable in the mind of God. But that's still not the end of the mindfuck. The mind of God is nothing at all. So the fan doesn't really exist even when you stick your hand in it. It's all absolutely nothing. Nothing has ever happened. You imagine it did. All being is a direct manifestation of Will. As you become more conscious your will is able to materialize physical objects. But this is not the ego's will, it is the Will of Infinite Mind. As thr ego-mind unravels you become Infinite Mind, completely unlimited. If you became totally selfless you would have enough Will to materialize the entire physical universe in the blink of an eye. Well, you already are doing it, which is how it is here, but you're not conscious of how you're doing or even that you are doing it. When you trip you get a tiny, tiny taste of how Will generates physical reality, which is why the visual field starts to warp and the things you think start to spawn "hallucinations". If you think of a devil hard enough, one will materialize.

Now that's how you trip! Great job man @Consilience Namaste

Yes, AA is a bit dogmatic and stage Blue-ish. It's not designed for advanced people, and that's fine for what it is. But there is so much more. It's just a question of where you're at and how high you want to go. You must be willing to outgrow your peers, your support structures, and even your teachers. This is what makes advanced growth so challenging: you have to transcend all invented social support structures (since they don't go high enough). Once you climb to the end of the ladder mankind has built for you, you must chop down some trees and build new rungs yourself. Those who always expect the ladder to be built for them by others won't go very high.