Leo Gura

It's not ironic at all. It's precisely my point. I have taught from the very beginning that self-deception is a powerful force and I am not above it. Realizing that no one is above self-deception is a key step in reducing one's self-deception. As soon as you think you're above self-deception, you're fucked. This work is not about reaching perfection. This work is about constant vigilance of how your mind is tricking you.

Almost all spiritual schools offer some step by step process. It doesn't stop devilry. A step by step process is by definition mechanical and unconscious. The more simple, linear, and mechanical you make spirituality, the more potential for devilry. You guys are underestimating how relentless and sneaky devilry is. The devil precisely co-opts the highest spiritual teaching. The devil eats gurus and his followers for breakfast. This is the devil's specialty. This is what he's best at: corrupting the highest spiritual teachings. You've been warned. But of course my warning will largely go unheeded. Such is the work of the devil. So carry on with your devilry. Just don't be surprised when you open the newspaper and see devilry on every page, including the spirituality section. And don't be surprised when you see Isha involved in some scandal. And of course you must also realize, Isha will one day splinter into multiple rival factions who will start to fight with each other over Sadhguru's true intentions. Each faction will believe that they know best what Sadhguru really wanted. And they will have no qualms about attacking the other side. Because hey, Sadhguru is God and he told us what's right. If you're serious about this work you should start to notice these meta-patterns of spiritual communities. All of this has been well worn throughout the last 5000 years of history. Nothing new or surprising here. It's all duality 101. My only point is: don't take devilry for granted. Your mind is doing it.

Right, well, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. That's key part of life. Evil is baked into life such that it's hard to eliminate. This kind of simplistic black & white thinking is precisely what leads to devilry. Once people get it into their mind that some one technique makes them immune to devilry, devilry flourishes. The only solution to devilry is constant vigilance and careful, not Shambhavi. There you go again. This kind of mindless black & white thinking is precisely the problem. You have it in your mind that Sadhguru can do no wrong and that no one else can point out a blindspot. This is very thing I warn my students about over and over again. Self-deception and devilry is ALWAYS operative. I don't care how enlightened you are. And if you think that you've found a permanent fix for devilry, that's the surest sign you're gonna be a devil. It's hard to tell with you.

This problem should largely auto-correct itself once you have a strong sense of life purpose. A man grounded in his life purpose is to busy actualizing his bold vision for the world to have time for such nonsense. Most of your time, skills, and money should be going into your LP, so that little is left over for others to leech. Of course occasionally you can generous, but overall you're not working to help random people, you're working to actualize your vision for the world (which is a more coherent, deliberate, and powerful way to help others). Think of your life purpose as simply an organized and very strategic way of helping elevate the most people in the world according to your unique skill set. Which means that if you're not doing that, if you helping people randomly on their terms, you're actually hurting the world overall. For example, I don't need to worry about helping every random homeless person I see on the streets because my time is better invested in shooting videos and helping people via my business. My business was designed in such a way that it already incorporates that desire to help others. In other words, help others, but on your terms, not on their terms. Then you don't get used by vampires. Be deliberate about how you want to help people. Don't leave it up to chance. Don't wait for a homeless person to approach you.

This right here is your problem. Take ownership of this problem and fix it. Move to a city which has the kind of vibe and people you like. Of course some backwater town in Latin America is gonna be filled with very traditional stage Blue people. Create a plan for moving the fuck out. Go where the cool peeps at Getting there will be a great growing experience for you. Don't do it for them, do it for you.

As soon as you are born you start to die. Such is life Isha must die just like every other living thing. It's only a question of time.

You're not acknowledging that it's a double-edged sword. It can lead to good things. But it can also lead to lots of devilry. It's not merely other people's problem. It will be a problem for you and for Isha as a whole, as Isha becomes a collective ego it will commit evil in the same of your saint, Sadhguru, who will be rolling in his grave. This is the main reason why I don't start an organization like Isha. Once a hierarchy is established, it will commit evil in the name of God. History clearly bears this out.

@CreamCat I have no idea what you eat and where it's from.

Sure seems that way. And Sadhguru is great. But it's precisely his greatness which will create blindness and devilry. As if Jesus was not an admirable God-like being? Lol. Oldest mistake in the book. The more God-like the teacher is, the bigger the problem for his followers.

And Hitler too was an expression of God. Lol It's precisely this attitude which you display which leads to devilry. The arrogant one here is you. You are blinded by your admiration of Sadhguru. And this blindness will lead you astray. You are precisely the thing I'm warning about here. You've drunk the Isha cool-aid a bit too deeply. Precisely because it works well for you. You are not willing to kill your guru. It's not about me being better than him. Sadhguru simply has blindspots just like all humans do.

Religion teaches some very specific things, like stoning homosexuals or not eating selfish or not lusting after your neighbor's wife or praying 5 times a day facing Mecca. Religion has always taught specifically absurd things.

That's precisely why the process will be corrupted very soon. That identity will need protection. And the protection of identity breeds selfishness, closedmindedness, dogma, and devilry. Be careful assuming that. That's a big assumption. Sadhguru is not automatically right about everything just because he's awake. If Jesus was not smart enough to foresee the evils of Christianity, no one is immune. The truth is, it's really not in Sadhguru's hands. Isha will take on a life of its own and Sadhguru will be rolling in his grave at some of the things they do after he's gone. Every spiritual teaching degrades over time. It's like making a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy on your copy machine. It's not gonna get better. It's gonna get worse than the original.

Yes, definitely. There are phases in this work when you're doing lots of general research but not getting much tangible results. And there are phases where you're practicing a narrow set of techniques and seeing tangible results but not doing much research. You can naturally cycle between these phases depending on what your life requires. You'll need to dynamically balance between the two extremes. Watching a bunch of my videos will fill your head will too much theory and not enough tangible results. And yet, that theory will serve you well in the future when you get stuck or lost. Things tend to auto-correct themselves in the long-run. Too much theory should naturally drive you to crave results. And vice versa.

Which is why it will take some 100+ years. Starting a significant cultural movement takes a long time. We still barely have a cultural movement on climate change. And it's been like 50 years. And it's an issue that directly impacts all humans. By all means, devote your whole life to it and transform society. If you dare We have a better chance of simply evolving current humans. And anyways, you shouldn't be too worried about spiritual competition. There exist beings in our universe 1 million times more conscious and advanced than humans. So it's really not a race. We can only do so much so fast.

@CreamCat Any kind that uses large predatory fish like tuna, salmon, etc. All seafood in general is getting problematic if eaten frequently. Don't even think of eating a bass you catch at your local pond. That thing is ridden with toxic chemicals. Most freshwater fish in American lakes and rivers is unhealthy to eat due to toxic pollution.

Actually, yes. (But hopefully less of an asshole). Actualized.org was deliberately designed to be an open-source spiritual platform. That is one reason I advocate psychedelics. Once you have a supply of 5-MeO-DMT, you no longer need me or Actualized.org The most important function of 5-MeO-DMT is that it democratizes spirituality in a way that no guru can. With access to 5-MeO-DMT you no longer need to look up to gurus for answers. You become your own guru. The difference is that on an Actualized.org forum you can freely discuss Sadhguru's programs. But on an Isha forum you would not be discussing other spiritual programs. It would be discouraged. Very few spiritual schools encourage the cross-comparison of all other spiritual schools. Most of them discourage it out of self-bias. Most of them don't even care to understand anything outside the school. In the end, closed spiritual systems will not be good enough for mankind's evolution. The future will require cross-understanding between all spiritual schools, as the world becomes too global and interconnected for anything less.

Not all things can be found through such naive direct experience. Here's a counter-example which throws a wrench in your logic: Sushi seems healthy and delicious. Eating it makes you feel good compared to many other foods. It's light and refreshing and not over-cooked. But if you take this as a sign of health and you start eating sushi 4 times a week, eventually you'll discover it gives your lead and mercury poisoning. Your brain will start to function poorly as it fills with more and more heavy metals and you won't even know what's wrong with you until you get some medical tests which finally reveal the truth. The moral of the story is that not all problems can be solved through straight direct experience. Sometimes you need an external source like an x-ray or a satellite photo or a Geiger counter to tell you something is unhealthy or problematic. Also, some things are so dangerous that it's too risky to discover so through direct experience. For example, sticking a fork in the wall socket. In this case you just have to take people's word for it.

Haha, they already are. Unfortunately advanced yogic practice is not enough to eliminate dogma. In a sense, the more successful the practice, the bigger the problem. The success of the practice justified the dogma in the person's mind. "After all, if these techniques works so well, then teaching them rigidly can't be wrong." Dogma is not a function content, it's a function of cognitive structure. And I don't see Sadhguru teaching his students how to avoid dogma by exposing them to diverse sources and teachings. So his students will not have an deep integrated stage Yellow/Turquoise spirituality. They will have a narrow Isha spirituality. Isha will be best in their minds. Sadhguru will be best and worshiped as some ultimate master. This of course will lead to bigotry. I like Sadhguru, but his programs are not designed to encourage deep, independent contemplation or inquiry. They are designed for sheeple to blindly follow. It's sort of like the Apple eco-system. It's used by the least computer savvy people who just want a simple experience. But it's a closed, proprietary eco-system. And you better expect Apple to milk you for the convenience. It's in Apple self-interest to lock you in to their walled garden. But a wall is still a wall even if it's a spiritual wall. P.S. Constructing temples only deepens the problem as it reinforces the myth of Sadhguru. The more tangible the benefits of the temple, the worse the problem. If I built an Actualized temple which gave you legit visions of God every time you entered it, Actualized would quickly become a cult.

Yes, this will become a big issue in the next 100-200 years. But right now we have so many exploited and suffering humans that worrying about animal suffering is basically a luxury. We simply aren't advanced enough as a species to end such animal suffering. Not yet. One day we will. In the next 100 years our technology should get so good that we will be able to grow meat in a lab. You are never going to get rid of eating meat. But we could make the manufacture of that meat free of suffering. We are getting close. Soon it will only be a question of scale and cost. Of course we can work on both issues at once -- which is already happening. But human suffering will always be a first priority because we are human and survival drives us.

That's what I'm here for It's not an ego-defense per se. It's just a lack of vision, leadership, and empathy. Lots of people in society are suffering due to exploitation by those in power. Yet you don't care much about addressing that because you're in a relatively comfortable position yourself. If your daughter was raped, enslaved, or poisoned by some giant corporation dumping toxic chemicals in your water supply, you'd sing a different tune. All the sudden you'd take this stuff seriously because it now impinges on your survival agenda whereas before it was an intellectual abstraction. You would feel very differently about global warming if you bought a $1 million house and it was sunk under water in 5 years. But so long as it doesn't personally cause you suffering, you don't care much. That's perfect for the big oil companies. That's exactly what they want. While you sit around and wait, they will rake in $100 billion. Millions of people in 3rd world counties will be dislocated, famine and desertification will get real bad, wars will be waged, and new terrorist groups will form. But none of that will matter to the guys who rake in $100 billion. And it won't matter to you until one of those terrorists blows up your daughter's school. But even then you'll probably just get angry at the terrorist group rather than connecting the dots and seeing how the terrorist group was merely an outgrowth of the global warming problem which lead to geopolitical stress in impoverished parts of the world. In this way, root problems are never seriously understood or addressed. That's precisely a recipe for disaster. The correct path forward is never an average of all the possible paths. Finding the right path requires careful judgment, research, contextual awareness, awareness of exploiters and manipulators, and ultimately wisdom and consciousness. Finding the correct path requires a visionary. One who can look 100 years into the future and think in a non-self-biased way, aligned with Truth, Consciousness, and Love. Such a person must be selfless enough to sacrifice himself to show people the correct path, because he will be vehemently demonized and resisted by self-biased devils defending their self-interest. Progress and innovation requires deep questioning of status quo positions and traditions. Nothing can be taken for granted. What's "normal" must be questioned and challenged without any concern for social norms. In a society where slavery is considered normal, it takes a radical to stand up and say, "This is not normal at all! This is devirly! You guys are selfish fucking devils." Seeking to always be nice, peaceful, and "moderate" paradoxically leads to the rise of radicalism. When 100s of millions of people around the world are deeply suffering and deeply exploited, and you ignore this because you want to be "moderate" and congenial (because you are in a position of comfort), don't be surprised when those oppressed people organize and come after you with pitchforks. When they burn down your house, maybe you'll reconsider your moderate position. Everything is intellectual until someone burns down your house or rapes your kids. Then you start paying attention.

Does it let you throw dead diseased beavers into the city water supply? SimCult Lol

Yes, this is a great thought experiment which I indirectly referred to. Unfortunately most people cannot preform it because they are too self-biased and they are not conscious of: 1) their privileges, 2) how bad life is for some people on this planet. And ultimately they don't care because all they are about is increasing their personal survival advantage, regardless of where they are situated in the hierarchy. Watch that Vice documentary video on Liberia and imagine that you were born there. If that doesn't open your political eyes, nothing will. A big part of the libertarian and conservative fantasy is that they assume everyone is as equally capable and privileged as them. Most conservatives cannot even imagine that 200 years ago it was only a matter of luck that they were not born slaves or terrorists. In their minds such an outrage isn't even a possibility. Because they purely see themselves as "the good guys". It does not enter a conservative's mind that he could be born a mentally crippled kid in a poor urban neighborhood to drug addicted parents surviving on food stamps, so someone predisposed to drug addiction. A conservative mind is not capable of such empathy. For example, an Evangelical cannot imagine being born a Wahhabist Muslim. Nor can a materialist scientist, really. Which is why they demonize divergent worldviews. It takes an extraordinarily developed and open mind to run such thought experiments in an objective, non-self-biased way. Rawls' through experiment is only the tip of the iceberg. It's not merely that you COULD be born as someone else. It's that you WILL be born as EVERYONE else! It's that YOU ARE EVERYONE ELSE! The moment you realize this your entire politics is revolutionized. You can on longer advance positions which exploit the ignorance and weaknesses of others. Because it's like fucking over your own mother on her birthday.

@Salvijus It will be a problem because in 500 years humans will not even be humans any more. His teachings will be so outdated and antiquated as to be counter-productive. If history has taught us anything, spirituality must be reinvented for each new generation. Even the language and metaphors Sadhguru uses today in his videos will be hard to understand in 500 years. In the same way that it's almost impossible for ordinary people to read Shakespeare. Even today Sadhguru's integration of cutting edge spiritual tools like psychedelics is outdated and crude. Just imagine how outdated it will be in 500 years when we use genetic engineering to transform the structure of the human brain. The spirituality of the future will be much more radical than anything that has occurred in human history in the last 10,000 years. The next 1000 years will be nuts! It will be completely unpredictable and it will require extreme mental flexibility and innovative new spiritual teachings which bridge the divide between science, technology, society, and spirituality.

That's precisely what I said, another religion. We are in agreement. He just doesn't see it as a problem.

What you fail to appreciate is that God CANNOT fulfill your wish because God has no form. It can only come through a vehicle, and this can always be denied. By it's very nature God cannot force itself on a person in denial because the one denying God is God! God explained this to you in the book. Yet you missed this important point. God IS a closed circle. If you do not realize that God is talking through you, you're shit out of luck. Because you denied yourself, because you are God. If God appeared in a glowing white robe and beard on the White House lawn tomorrow, and procliamed, "HEAR ME HUMANS! I AM YOUR GOD!" Most people would laugh, denying it, and some would even try to kill it and subject the corpse to scientific testing, at which point they would conclude: "this was just an ordinary human with some brain defects." So it is imposisble for God to reveal itself to humans because humans are too stupid and closedminded to understand God. This seems like a cop out. And yet it's precisely true. Because you are God denying you are God. If you don't get that you're God. That's it. You're fucked. Even God cannot help you now. This is the definition of devilry: you have cut yourself off from God by your own ignorance. The truth is that God speaks to and through everything, but you must have enough wisdom to see it. And neither science nor skepticism nor proof is wisdom.