Leo Gura

Hehe... You guys are really struggling to grasp this. Good. It's a big hidden obstacle for you on this path. Enlightenment = total nihilism. It's so nihilistic it makes ordinary nihilism look like child's play. Nietzsche would be shitting his pants. Nihilism goes full circle into absolute love. Only when nothing has meaning or value, can everything be equally valued = unconditional love. This is deep stuff. You gotta think more existentially about it all. Relativism goes full-circle into absolutism. It's all absolutely relative! Which is why it's all love. As soon as you start to assign values, you've kill it. You've dropped into duality. And you better believe you will suffer for that. The only way unconditional love is possible is through total equality, otherwise known as, total nihilism. As soon as you say that one thing is more important or valuable than another, you've killed it. You've dropped into conditional love. God makes no distinctions with it's love. Which is why you're a mere human. God's flavor of love is a bit too radical for you. So you got the watered down, self-biased version. Your love is centered around your petty human valuations. But God don't give a shit about any of that. It loves to infinity.

Ah... but physical pain is not so easy to distinguish. If I draw a cartoon of Mohammad, that will cause a lot of suffering to some people in the world, and it will outrage some more than physical pain. Zen master's inflict a lot of physical pain on their students. A Zen master wouldn't hesitate to slap you hard across the face just to disprove your point. Some of the most loving people where assassinated or killed because their love caused deep suffering for those unenlightened folks who couldn't handle it. These loving people were literally seen as evil. You are making all sorts of distinctions here between physical vs psychological suffering which are totally arbitrary and of little importance. The vast majority of suffering is psychological, not physical. But even physical suffering you will create plenty of. You will crush thousands of insects with your shoes. The problem is that you're assuming there is some kind of objective standard for what is and isn't evil. Like there is a line drawn somewhere which says that physical pain is evil, therefore enlightened people will not do it. But there is no such line. The whole notion makes no sense at all. You're not yet aware that that line only exists as part of your ego, and nowhere else.

@Pierre No. That cannot help at all. Value doesn't exist. Neither does hierarchy. Nonduality means: No values No heirarchies No parts No meanings No good/evil No stories No levels of importance No immorality It's utterly groundless. To infinity.

All change creates change. You cannot have motion without destruction. This is a rock-bottom existential fact. To create one phenomena another must be destroyed. To create a human the energy and atoms must come from somewhere. They come from the destruction of other things. Every time you sit on a chair, your ass squashes and kills thousands of bacteria and cells. You just happen to not give a shit about them. To live you must kill thousands of plants and animals. You must kill billions of viruses and bacteria. You must pollute the external environment with your waste, trash, CO2, sweat, urine, etc. You must occupy physical space which is taken away from other creatures and immaterial objects. Everything you do requires material resources which only come from the destruction of your environment. And I haven't even started to enumerate the footprint of humanity as a whole on the environment! #CycleOfLife Have you ever taken a long road trip in your car? Then ever look at your bumper and windshield? How many insects did that road trip kill? 10? 30? 100? How many insects will you have killed by the time you're dead? Could you even count them? But of course all of this is conveniently ignored by the ego's relentless drive for self-survival. "Me at all costs!" Even for one atom to come into existence, another one must be destroyed or dislodged. You cannot move your hand through the air without destroying that particular configuration of the air. Now, you will say, "But who cares? That's just air!" Well, using that same logic, who cares if you're destroyed? That's just human flesh. It's no more valuable than a configuration of air molecules. The only one who it's valuable to, is you (well, and maybe your Mom, IF she's a good Mom ) You see how your perspective shapes absolutely everything? You are utterly biased toward your own selfish needs. You would destroy a configuration of air molecules without a second thought just by waving your ugly hands around. How callous of you! When you realize that there is no self, that there are no who's in existence, you will realize that you are no more important than a configuration of air molecules. Now that would be true morality. Now you're able to really see. Now you can finally be humble and tread the Earth lightly.

Well, for starters, your whole model of suffering is wrong. You're speaking about it as through someone is inflicting suffering on you. When in fact suffering is an activity you do. Buddha himself could not stop inflicting suffering on others because "suffering of the other" is not in the Buddha's control, but occurring in the mind of the unenlightened other, caused by the other's ignorance, not by Buddha's actions. You know how much suffering an enlightened master will cause in the world? Tons! Because to the ignorant, the kindest gesture of love will be interpreted as pure evil and cause them much suffering. Have you noticed that the most loving people get killed the quickest? Why is that you think? Because they spread love, or because they spread suffering? To the ignorant, is love not suffering? Isn't that why you suffer from loving "evil"?

@Snick If humans are God, and humans eat popcorn, God eats popcorn If humans are God, and humans care about outcomes, God cares about outcomes.

@unknownworld You idealize this path too much. If you think you're going to stop inflicting suffering on people in this life by becoming enlightened, you're in for a rude awakening. Maybe you can put an end to YOUR suffering, but not the suffering of others. And you have much to learn about rapists. All this stuff is vastly more complex than it first seems. As should be expected. You're dealing with a system here that is WAY beyond your mind.

You can't determine it. You can only guess. We deal with imperfect information on this path. You assume rape doesn't feel natural or good after enlightenment. That is a dangerous assumption. Study rapists. Ask yourself, "Why do they rape in the first place?" Are they just stupid? Isn't it because it feels natural and good? Don't assume that everyone out there has the same desires and natural inclinations as you. People are clearly different. Serial rapists find it VERY hard to stop themselves, even when they know they should stop. Some of them require castration to stop. Ah, but if you have brain wiring or the social conditioning which compels you to chop your finger off, or to chop a child's dick tip off, you will do it precisely for that reason! An enlightened Jew will still chop off the dick tip of his child. Some might call that torture. Others wouldn't wink an eye. Because morality is RELATIVE!!! Your culture tells you what is acceptable and unacceptable. American cultural finds it totally acceptable -- and even highly desirable -- to chop off the tips of little boy's dicks, but totally unacceptable to chop off the clitoris of little girls. Could it get any more arbitrary? If your logic was correct, an enlightenment person would be unable to circumcise his boy. Which is just silly. Of course he can. Enlightened people have not only raped, but murdered people. Common practice even among Buddhists. Pain is something you unconsciously create. You can stop creating it, but you don't know how because you're not conscious yet of how you create it. If a person becomes conscious of how they create pain, they can handle torture because it will not be painful to them. Literally. But enlightenment alone will not make you conscious of how you create pain. Which is why I keep saying there is WAY MORE to mastery than enlightenment. Mastery and moral perfection is 1000x harder than enlightenment.

What about that then? Yes, which is why there is some correlation between enlightenment and "morality". The biggest thing enlightenment precludes is stories and lying. So any actions you currently take which are based on stories and lies will be the first to drop away. But not all "evil" actions are rooted in that. Some "evil" actions are just animal instincts, like the lion who will eat you. He doesn't need a story or a self-lie. He will just honestly fucking eat you and feel please about himself. In this case, the real problem is not with the lion, but with the human who expects not to get eaten and thinks that getting eaten is wrong. The human is projecting that narrative/lie onto the lion in this case. Which is why he suffers. True morality only comes about when you accept that nothing is moral. That's the paradox here. To be as loving as Buddha or Jesus, you MUST first accept everything I'm saying here. Then you will have a shot at being truly moral. Your morality will be absolutely groundless. It will not be justified in any way. It will totally pointless. But it will be the strongest form of morality possible. With ultimate integrity. You cannot love unconditionally without loving EVERYTHING, including all the "evil" stuff. And the only way to love the "evil" stuff is to literally be unable to see it because it stops existing for you. You love evil out of existence. Literally. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we all hate each other. You are too weak to love evil out of existence. Only God can do that. And you are not God. Or are you? Really! Are you ACTUALLY God? Or do you just tell yourself you are?

Society needs bullshit. All of reality itself needs illusion. Illusion is the very FABRIC OF REALITY! Not just laws, ALL OF REALITY ITSELF is bullshit! How else could something which doesn't exist come into existence but through an act of bullshittery? Reality itself is like the ultimate Trump. It lied itself into existence. Trump is God. What a mindfuck! That's the depth and genius of Maya. It succeeded in creating everything from nothing. The ultimate magic trick! Hats off to your sir! You are the ultimate bullshitter. You bullshitted yourself into being. And you're damn determined to keep bullshitting your way to infinity. Infinite bullshit Note: Be careful not to judge bullshit as "wrong" or "bad". That would be more bullshit! Reality is free to bullshit all it wants. If you don't like bullshit, that's your petty little ego's problem. God LOVES bullshit. Hence we got Trump He has been personally ordained by God to rally Americans together to hate on brown people. Oh, yeah... God LOVES hate too! Which is why we got those lovely ISIS folks. They've been ordained by God to fight Trump. God LOVES strategy games. God LOVES drama. God LOVES boxing. God LOVES racism. God is a huge fan of Game of Thrones and House of Cards and Westworld. God's getting the popcorn ready and placing bets.

Of course not all monks are enlightened. But just study this subject in some depth and you'll see many enlightened masters who were morally questionable. Because morality is relative. Like REALLY! You're not grasping this yet. It's totally made up! It changes across culture and time. So there is no absolute standard. If you were born in the Middle East 1000 years ago, you could probably be enlightened and chop people's heads off without too much problem. Nowadays, it's a bit harder. But still... plenty of latitude. You gotta understand, once you're enlightened, you REALLY accept yourself. So if you were a rapist, those rapist animal tendencies will still be there -- they will not magically disappear -- and you will not think of them as "wrong" either, because you'll clearly understand that "wrong" is a concept. So you will be quite free at that point to do whatever the fuck you think is right, and whatever your body/mind is pulled towards doing. In the same way that a lion will not worry about eating you. He's not gonna have moral qualms about it. He will fucking eat you and be happy about it. The lion is not gonna sit there thinking, "Oh gee... maybe eating him is wrong? I shouldn't have this hunger for human meat. I am so wicked! Why has God cursed me with this craving? Why God, why?!!! I know... I will just hold back. I will resist. I will be a good little lion the way humans want me to be." He's a lion, not a Catholic!

It cannot work in the "real world", which is why the "real world" is a fake Hollywood stage built on lies. The cost of having a smooth-running "real world" is lying your ass off to everyone, especially yourself. (Again, Trump is a great example of this.) His lying is precisely why he's become so successful. You cannot do what Trump does and be enlightened at the same time. Your head would explode from the cognitive dissonance. It only works because he lies to himself first. See... Truth is VERY antithetical to self-survival. Notice how your question only cares about self-survival, not Truth. In this work you have to be willing to say... fuck it... if the Truth kills me, so be it. I will take death and Truth over the "real world". Not many people want to make that commitment, understandably. Hence few people are truly spiritual. Yes, if the judge was enlightened, he wouldn't be a judge at all. Because judgment is a lie. It wouldn't work in our current system. But then again, you gotta consider the full picture here. If the judge literally experienced all of reality to be perfect, then what would be the problem? Rape wouldn't bother him. See... unconditional happiness is a tricky thing. You think you want it, but do you really? Are you cool enough to be happy with rape? See... spirituality is too radical for most people. They want enlightenment to conform to human norms. But of course that cannot be because enlightenment is Absolute. Alternatively, an enlightened judge could be honest and say, "This rapist is a lovely person, one of God's creatures. I understand that he only broken an arbitrary law which our community has created. But, he broke the law, for which there are consequences! So I will put him to death. I will chop off his head with my own hand because that's what our community has agreed to as the proper punishment, and I swore that I would uphold the law when I took this job." That's totally viable. And it's honest. Nothing about enlightenment says that you cannot create or enforce laws. But is it right or wrong to kill a rapist? Neither. Those are ego-created labels and delusions. Human laws are not based on justice or Truth. They are based on arbitrary human needs, which are then wrapped in a veneer of justice, freedom, truth, and goodness, so that their arbitrariness and selfishness can be denied. So you can enforce a law and feel justified about it at the same time. That's the magic of the legal system. It's a bullshit machine. It's built on pure bullshit. Yes, even The Constitution, all of it! Just self-righteous ego-stuff designed to enable society. It does a damn fine job. But it's bullshit.

You could call it Zen-Devilry, but that would just be a label. Doesn't matter what you call it, it is exactly what it is. Calling it anything just creates a level of abstraction and delusion. Calling someone a "Zen Devil" has a moral component to it. It's a judgment. You're saying, "Being a Zen Devil is wrong". When in reality, it's not wrong at all. It is exactly what it is. God loves Zen Devils, which is why so many of them exist. Strictly speaking, no. Because the Truth is total freedom. And there is nothing wrong with inflicting suffering on anyone. "Wrong" is a dualistic concept. "Suffering is bad and shouldn't occur" is also a dualistic concept. But usually there is some correlation. In that, once the ego has been rubbed out a lot, there's less desire or need to do selfish things. And also, the negative consequences of selfish acts becomes very obvious and transparent. So it's harder to harm others because you'll see how it just makes your own life a hassle. You don't walk into a bank with a rifle because it's just a plain stupid move for you. Because you're conscious enough to see that you'll immediately get shot in the face. But this does not by any means mean that you will not inflict damage to people just by your very existence. To exist, you must create collateral damage. The only question is, how much? The greatest Buddha still creates collateral damage just by breathing. Part of your enlightenment path and your spiritual development will require that you deeply contemplate all this for yourself. You're gonna have to reconcile morality with Truth. And it's probably not gonna be like your ego would like. Your ego wants the world to be rainbows and butterflies. But that's just not at all reality. It will be painful for many of you to accept that. You're gonna have to fully accept, for example, that your child could get raped, and that that is Good, and that is God's love, and that you must be humble enough to surrender to it. See... this spirituality business isn't for most folks. It's a bit hardcore. It really means you have to give up your self. No kidding! This isn't philosophy. You actually must live this way. Most people would call it total insanity. Certainly appears that way from a self's perceptive. The self defines sanity as that which serves itself. Of course! That's what selves do.

@unknownworld Enlightenment is realizing all judgments are just stories. Absurd? Not at all. Plenty of enlightened gurus and monks commit rape. Happens very often. Buddhist monks get raped by other Buddhist monks all the time! They will drag little boy monks out of their beds at night and rape them. Common practice in the East. Many famous gurus have sexually exploited their disciples. Of course. This should be expected. Enlightenment is more nuanced than you've been lead to believe. It's not possible to walk down the sidewalk without inflicting suffering on others. Think of how many ants you've squashed in your lifetime. Think of how your carbon footprint, and other footprints, have lead to the deaths of thousands of animals and people around the world. Yes, you're free to hurt others just as much as you hurt yourself. Think about how easily you hurt yourself. Life is a messy, bloody business. That's enlightenment. Enlightenment doesn't mean rainbows and butterflies. It means warfare, torture, rape, theft, exploitation, slavery, concentration camps, etc. All of that is God. You cannot reject these things without going into delusion.

I thought you disappeared? God is only neurotic when it takes the form of a human. And even then, only certain kinds of humans. It's very obvious when you awaken. In the same way it's obvious when you awoke from last night's dream. Of-fucking-course! Spirituality is nothing but accepting everything as it is. What else could it be? Anything else would be lies. Enlightenment is nothing at all. So just imagine everything is made of nothing. Imagine that atoms are little balls of nothing. But drop the image of balls. So there's only one "atom" of nothing. But this nothing is infinitely everything. Which is why it's nothing. All the something's cancel out to zero. So everything and nothing are identical.

Fake news! A liberal conspiracy to get people to love each other.

Koan #482: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a master Jedi misplaced his light-saber, so he divided his birthday cake in half with his mind. Was the cake one or two?

@Alii Enlightenment = Truth = existence itself. Anything that exists is part of what's true. Enlightenment is not a point of view. It's the fabric of reality itself. Instead of thinking that reality is made out of atoms, think of it as made out of enlightenment. In spirituality, we're not dealing with human perspectives. We're dealing with the fabric of reality itself: consciousness. And consciousness constitutes all there is. So if Hitler exists, there he is... consciousness. When he exists in your mind, there he is... consciousness. What he's doing is irrelevant when it comes to the question of his substance. You don't say Hitler isn't made of atoms just because he killed a bunch of people. He's still made of atoms even if he's the most horrible person in the world. The atoms don't care. There are no "good" atoms and "bad" atoms. Hitler's not made out of "bad" atoms. They are exactly the same atoms. A quantum physicist doesn't care what Hitler did. Neither does a nondualist. At least not on the metaphysical level. On the practical level, the social level, the political level, of course we say it's "bad" and "don't be like Hitler".

@Alii How many times do we have to say that you can be an enlightened rapist? Enlightenment changes nothing. You can think of it this way: everyone is already enlightened, including Hitler. EVERYTHING is GOOD. There are no restrictions upon reality. It can do whatever the hell it wants. To be at peace with that, is to be enlightened. To not be at peace with that, is also to be enlightened. If you imagine yourself becoming the most morally perfect human being of all time, more moral than Jesus, you will be not one ounce better than Hitler. That is nonduality. So all your ideas about how enlightened people "ought" to be behave are just that -- your ideas, not the Truth. People are free to behave in all the ways the human body/mind is able to behave. How do you know it's Good? Because it's happening. Don't be questioning God's creation with that little mind of yours You will always be wrong. Which of course, is just how it's supposed to be. Not only did he eat a cheeseburger, we went to the best strip club in town and I bought him a lap dance so this stripper with perfect, melon-sized boobs smeared him across his face. And he enjoyed it. Fun was had by all. That's life. So throw all your moralizing in the trash. It has nothing to do with enlightenment. If you're thinking enlightenment will make you a good person, think again. If you were an asshole before enlightenment, you'll likely be an asshole long after enlightenment. God creates assholes, after all. Assholes are an integral part of creation. Just look at Trump

No

@Hardik jain Contemplate your death. What do you want out of life? If you can't connect to any higher-consciousness desire, then you're out of luck. Maybe in the next life. Or just wait until this life kicks your ass to the point where you can't take it any more.

@Ritu https://www.actualized.org/articles/how-you-must-think-about-failure

@Huz The funny thing is, if Actualized.org was my first business, I would be much more popular, richer, and more developed than I am now. When your work is not aligned with your purpose, you're highly inefficient. In the same way that when you want to go North, yet you're on a bus going East, it's highly inefficient even if goes very fast and very far.

@electroBeam By being a visionary and a leader. Also, you don't need to necessarily convince investors. Do everything yourself if you're that picky. That's what I do. I work solo by design. To run a successful business you have to be a relentless doer and outside the box thinker. No one is going to hold your hand in that process. You will either lead yourself, or nothing's gonna happen. You need to provide all the answers. That's your job. If I solve your business problems for you, then I'm the one creating that business, not you, making you obsolete. The whole point of starting a business is that you personally assume responsibility for solving the hard problems. That's why you get paid the big bucks if you succeed. It's not a paint by numbers process. If you want to paint by numbers, go work in a factory which some visionary has created. You can't have it both ways. You can't say, "I want to be a leader! Can someone please tell me how to lead? It's hard. I don't know what to do!" In that case, you're a follower.

@zikzak Consider that it goes even deeper with manual work.