Leo Gura

@winterknight I wonder, is this logic applied to artists and athletes too? Did Tiger Wood spend many lifetimes playing golf? Why not apply this logic across the board? But if you acknowledge there are natural differences in golfing ability across people, why not for spirituality as well? Does every human soul start existence with identical spiritual capacities? Why would that be so?

@Richard Alpert In practice you can still learn stuff from people like that. It just requires care.

In any human endeavor you should expect to see a Gaussian distribution curve of results and effectiveness. There will always be super-human freaks who will attain spiritual heights inaccessible to normal people just as there are weightlifters who can bench press 1000 lbs. Best not to compare yourself to them, or you will forever feel inadequate. Walk YOUR path. Your path will be uniquely yours.

This is why gurus keep their mouth shut about such things. The ego-mind cannot understand it and only becomes more deluded with fear.

@ivankiss You are not accounting for genuine understanding. Belief is not understanding. Contemplate: What is understanding?

He is acting out stage Blue/Orange with a massively repressed Green shadow. Which is a common developmental pathology at his level. The danger with taking his teachings too seriously is that he will corrupt your mind with his massive Green shadow, causing you to have a massive Green shadow, thus stunting your growth to higher levels. His politics is also helping to maintain the status quo of corruption, American Exceptionalism, and mass income inequality as he resists systemic reform of capitalism. With all that said, of course some of his teachings can be valuable. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Very few teachers are 100% wrong. Rather, it's a question of how developmentally advanced, accurate, and healthy are their teachings? Is he teaching you pathological stuff like duality, judgment, hatred, demonization, dogma, illusions, division? Or is he teaching you love, consciousness, truth, integration, holism?

The hero goes through lots of suffering of course. My point is, the hero isn't undertaking his journey in order to suffer. Suffering isn't his motive. The Buddha didn't seek suffering, he sought the Holy Grail (an escape from the inevitability of death). Suffering was just a by-product of seeking the Holy Grail. Generally speaking it's good to have positive motivation for whatever you are doing, not negative one. Seeking rather than avoiding.

No! That's precisely the point! Not everything you imagine flys. Only certain kinds of understanding will make an airplane that flies.

Hare Krishnas a very dogmatic folks. Many of them are just brainwashed believers who have never approached awakening. This is the classic problem with religion: people belief stuff without ever validating it through consciousness work. Which is actually worse than atheism. At least the atheist values empirical investigation, albeit a crippled materialistic version of it.

@LastThursday To me ambition is elemental. Don't try to redefine it using other words. It is what it is. Find it in your direct experience and observe how it works. It is a sort of emotive force. Some people have more of this force, others less.

@How to be wise There is still something missing in your explanation. The most remarkable thing about science is that despite it being a human invention, it works! How is that possible?

He's a late bloomer

You will only reach equanimity when you are fully conscious of what consciousness. And that is only possible directly, without analogy. Analogy, metaphor, and symbols are the only things separating you from God consciousness. You are going 1 step too far. You must take the zeroth step to reach yourself.

@How to be wise But HOW is the mind able to predict and understand anything at all? What makes that possible?

@bejapuskas Of course the biological, biographical self cannot achieve satori since satori is the absence of a biological, biographical self. Yes, Fred gives some great direct pointers, cutting through the stories.

Look around the room. Everything you see is consciousness. No analogy needed when you are neck-deep in water. You can't really analogize consciousness because since everything is consciousness, your analogy is itself consciousness.

@How to be wise That doesn't account for bad science. What distinguished good science from bad science? It's not merely a story when science predicts a solar eclipse.

He's a character. Just don't expect instant enlightenment.

Creativity seems like a drive, like sex, but it is never satisfied. Maslow puts creativity as a self-actualization drive at the top of the pyramid. Although for very creative people creativity can be as fundamental as food. Creative people tend to be more insane. But sanity is overrated

One Simple Rule For Acing Life? It's a weird title

It feels like your mind gets into a groove. Theta and Delta can feel very deep, sleepy, dreamy, like the depths of one's subconscious. Alpha feels more meditative.

I don't think of it that way. It doesn't feel like a negative need. It feels more like a postive need to express oneself. Like life bursting forth with creative enthusiasm. There is this passion for creating stuff just for the sake of creation. I have found that some people just aren't into creativity. It has always baffled me because my entire life is dominated by creativity. Like 24/7 creativity mode.

@ivankiss So here's a riddle for you: how is it possible that science is able to manipulate "reality" so effectively despite the fact that it is stories and imagination? What differentiates science from pure fiction?

@Seed But you are also in hell, because of your imagination