Leo Gura

Evolution seems to be accelerating. The whole universe is accelerating. New technology makes a big difference. But it's hard to say for sure. There are many factors. In the 60's the US was extremely Blue. Green was very radical in the 60's. There was a huge backlash to it. And it really only emerged in California and the most advanced cities. You have to understand that what shapes culture via the media is not representative of the average people. Many people in rural America are still very Blue. They are the Fox News audience. Probably 70%+ of the world is at stage Blue or below. Hollywood media is not representative of that, giving a skewed picture of progress. Most people in the world are still racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and nationalist. Basically 70% of the world population is at the level of development of Nazis. Think about that.

This is pure genius Come back and watch it after you awaken.

I exist.

@EternalForest It did. You just aren't appreciating how backwards it was before the 60's revolution. The entire self-help movement stems from there. But you can't go from Blue straight to Green. You must pass through Orange, and so here we are. It's not easy to shift 300 million people. We're getting there... slowly...

And a map is a territory within a territory

To me awakening means a permanent disidentification with form. An ever-present state of nondual awareness. That's not something I have yet.

@Immortal peace You're sort of conflating two issues there, existential issues with mundane survival issues. If you care about survival there's no escaping that you will have to handle those survival issues. For example if you're starving and you have no money or food, no amount of meditation will fix that issue. But what meditation can do is allow you to die in peace. How? Well, you'd need to become very good at meditation or you'd need to awaken to realize that death is an illusion. The body will die from lack of food, but you as God will not. If you want the body to be alive there's no escaping finding food. Which is why spirituality is not an escape from everyday obligations. That's a bad way to look at it. You want to get masterful at handling survival issues. Which in your case means: design a way to make a decent living. Don't try to offload this issue on meditation or enlightenment. Learning how to earn a decent living is a whole skillset. It's tempting to think that you can avoid developing such skillets through "finding peace" via spirituality. That's a bad approach. As your practice spirituality though, even though you'll still have tricky survival issues to deal with, you will deal with them more calmly and effectively. They won't stress you out as much as they would otherwise because in the end you know that whatever happens will be okay. And you will have more emotional self-control. A simple way to calm yourself is to breath slowly and deeply for a few minutes or hours. Sedona Method is also really good for clearing out emotions.

There cannot be emotional mastery without enlightenment. Emotional mastery is even harder than enlightenment. But if you just want to do some basic self-help stuff and work on emotional issues, yes, you can do that. You ain't gonna be anywhere near understanding the true nature of emotions. But it can be helpful.

You must understand that all such texts are highly context-sensitive. So you don't just robotically send such a text randomly to a girl. For example, I once sent that exact scorpion text to a girl because the day before at the bar she told me that she had scorpion pests in her neighborhood (she lived in Vegas). So it was a great text for her. If you think that text is sexual that's you reading that into it.

Dating is a game. Don't act too above it. This is otherwise known as flirtation. It does not harm a girl to send her some flirty texts. What she doesn't want is needy creept texts.

Like I keep saying over and over again, enlightenment is not a binary thing, nor is it the only important factor. Spiral development stages are equally important and they are independent of enlightenment. You can have an enlightened Buddha who's also a racist and misogynist because he's at Spiral stage Blue. Enlightenment is not going to unwire all of your beliefs, habits, or worldviews. If you thought the Earth was flat before enlightenment, you will probably still think the Earth is flat after enlightenment.

Yeah, I think that's possible to some extent. 5-MeO-DMT is already that technology in powdered form. It still won't be that easy in practice because to deeply awaken your entire mind has restructure itself. It's not as simple as cutting a few wires. Your entire web of beliefs needs to be reconfigured too. Otherwise it will be a half-assed enlightenment leading to Zen devirly and pathology. And awakening alone is not enough, there is also the need for Spiral development which cannot happen simply through some surgery or even a chemical. There are all sorts of rare and interesting abnormal brain case studies. For example some people can hallucinate monkeys or see the world as a cell-shaded cartoon. Some people convinced that other people are robots. The brain/mind is a very tricky thing. Enlightenment is far from the only interesting mystical thing that the brain can do.

@Paul92 I have given you too many answers already.

God is also infinitely divisible. All the divisions taken together are a unity.

@ardacigin I don't think that such medieval methods are healthy or lead to the highest understanding. Sure, those monks are badasses, but I doubt how much of reality they really understand or how Spirally developed and well-rounded they are. I would bet most of them are underdeveloped on the Spiral, which would be a great shame. The thing is, running marathons has little to do with insight, development, or understanding. Don't automatically assume that doing brutal rigorous mechanical training methods will get you to the highest levels of understanding. I highly doubt it would. I am much more in favor of a thoughtful contemplative approach which incorporates study of psychology, sociology, semiotics, science, etc. I think some of the hardcore Eastern schools are not thoughtful and scientific enough. They can be too grounded in tradition for tradition's sake without evolving with technology and the times.

No, I think it's definitely possible, just very, very rare and difficult. Yogis and sages have definitely accessed the highest levels of awakening without any chemical assistance. I suspect though that they were exceptionally gifted, whether due to genetics, karma, past-lives, upbringing, the right brain chemistry, luck or a combination of all the above. I don't know exactly why some people are exceptionally spiritually gifted. That is still a deep mystery waiting for an answer. 5-MeO just makes it so much easier and more accessible to ordinary people. I recommend a hybrid approach.

@Girzo That's you! You as emptiness. There is nothing in the universe but you.

@Paul92 Discover for yourself what you are.

@ardacigin I know all that. What I meant was, he's still missing a few deeper layers of awakening like Absolute Infinity and Absolute Truth. Last time I spoke with him I asked him why reality exists and he was not able to give me an answer. Nor was he aware of Infinity. Of course I still consider him enlightened. Just not at the highest level of understanding possible because I've clearly become conscious of why reality exists. So I know it can be done. Just probably not through mindfulness meditation and labeling. Being aware of God is one thing. Being aware of the mechanics of God is another yet deeper thing. There is a lot of important stuff to discover about the mechanics of God. How does God actually materialize reality? And why? This can all be understood and it is worthwhile to understand it. Don't take this to be anything negative against Shinzen. He's still great.

Hehe, that's mostly what self-help as a field/industry is. That's okay. It's mostly geared towards stage Orange/Green folks. There are still very important lessons there, just don't expect it to come anywhere near the depth of the stuff I teach. Most self-help does not include a metaphysical, epistemological, or spiritual component. As a result, it cannot possibly be profound or an ultimate solution. But I'm still a big fan of even that type of basic stage Orange self-help. People really need it in our society. In fact, most people who follow me probably need it more than they need my metaphysical musings. Metaphysical stuff is quite advanced and assumes you've already handled other basic parts of life. Of course Reddit is not a high-quality source of life advice. You should expect a lot of keyboard-jockeys there. For the best advice, read quality books.

@ardacigin Sounds very solid. Keep it up and you should see awesome gains.

@kieranperez I'm not clear what you wrote, but anyways... Whatever thoughts arise in your human head/mind are of course God's doing. God does not think somewhere elsewhere from human minds. When God is thinking, it's using a human to do it because thinking requires form. So God as a formless entity technically cannot think unless it first materializes a human who then becomes a vehicle for thoughts. So you might say that God as formlessness cannot do anything at all, but at the same time it can materialize all of physical reality and then whatever physical reality does, is equivalent to God doing stuff. So formless God cannot eat a cheeseburger (because eating is form), but it can spawn a Big Bang, wait 14 billion years, spawn a cow, spawn a human, spawn a chef who cooks the cheeseburger, and then have the human eat the cheeseburger. That's how God eats cheeseburgers God as formlessness lives vicariously through all form. Remember, form and formlessness are identical. So God literally is the taste of the cheeseburger. Ta-da! Or think of it this way: when you're playing a video game you cannot directly enter the world of Mario as a human. But you can live through that world as the Mario character. To manipulate Mario's world requires that you use Mario as the interface. You become Mario while also being a human who's distinct from Mario. Mario can die but it does not harm you.

@Yonkon My opinion of him has not changed much. I don't think he is ultimately awakened, but he doesn't need to be in order to teach what he teaches, and he's more than enough awake for you. He's an excellent meditation teacher.

@Serotoninluv You can probably handle it. Each trip will go deeper and deeper, and wider and wider. There will certainly be significant cumulative effects. With this method you're cramming years of spiritual growth into a single week. So be prepared for some ego-backlash and unexpected stuff. In a sense it must disrupt your old life. This can be both great and problematic when you return. I highly recommend it for very serious, seasoned spiritual aspirants with a very solid theoretical and practical foundation, and high emotional maturity. Not for newbies. Don't be too surprised if this kind of work makes your depressive or even suicidal for a while. You need to be stable enough to weather such storms. The payoffs though are HUGE. To handle a solid week of 5-MeO requires pushing yourself. The ego will want to stop somewhere half-way through as it gets overwhelmed with Truth.

@montecristo Love it! Delicious paradox This is a good thread. We need more strange loops in here!