Leo Gura

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Posts posted by Leo Gura

  1. Posted

    1 hour ago, Will Bigger said:

    Thank you. But why do people talk of "enlightenment experiences" and "nondual experiences?" Like how in your psychedelics video, you talked about how you could actually feel the nonduality. Is there a difference between enlightenment itself, and an enlightenment experience?

    Mystical experiences can be had. But they ain't enlightenment.

    I can't articulate it better than that until I'm actually enlightened. But I know enough to know that these experiences ain't it. Enlightenment is much more radical, and it doesn't go away.

    Sometimes I say "enlightenment experience" in a loose way, which is actually more like mystical experience, because enlightenment isn't an experience. But you can certainly have samadhi experiences of union. They are really cool, although not enlightenment.

    I haven't really seen any teachers explain this well. And I've talked to many highly enlightened teachers. I'll try to explain it better when I get there myself.

  2. Posted

    If you can't handle AP classes, how you gonna handle self-actualizing?

    I loved AP classes in high school. Best decision I made back then was to enroll in them. Regular classes will make you lazy and dumb. I found regular classes harder than AP classes because of all the foolish kids and dumbed-down subject matter. But that's just me. I dunno what your goals are in life.

  5. Posted

    Seems like you're taking the rejections too personally, and that's because you probably aren't talking to nearly enough other girls.

    You gotta realize that MOST girls will NOT like you. It's that way with every guy. It's not just you. You don't need every girl to like you, you only need a handful.

    Focus on the variables you can control, which are:

    • How many new girls you meet per week
    • Improving your mood, self-esteem, and life

    Construct a great life for yourself, so you're happy without girls at all. And then you'll notice girls start to be more interested in you and it's much easier to attract them when you feel great about your life.

  8. Posted

    @David1 The whole idea is moot. There is no universe. Reality is nothing at all, and it's already a perfect unity. It always has been and it always will be. You don't need a technological revolution for that to happen. It's already the case. You just need to wake up from the dream you call life.

    Kurzweil is speaking about consciousness but he has no idea at all how consciousness really works. It doesn't work at all the way he assumes.

    The funny thing is, if Kurzweil just dropped all the singularity talk and just sat down and became enlightened, he would achieve the very thing he is seeking, minus the silly sci-fi technology. But then of course he would have to write a massive "sorry" letter to all his readers, apologizing for the nonsense he's been telling them for decades. Still, it would be worth it for him, given how keen he is on immortality.

  9. Posted

    @Samuel Garcia You will NEVER understand it with the mind. NEVER! It's utterly speechless. It's beyond anything you can imagine. Imagine actual aliens showed up at your house tonight, abducted you, and flew you to another galaxy. Well... that's peanuts compared to what we're talking about here. Aliens would seem normal by comparison. At least you can imagine aliens.

    Stop listening to scholars. They have no clue what reality is. A million scholars working for a million years would still not know. That's how radical this stuff is.

    I don't know how enlightened Muhammad was. My guess is, he had some deep mystical experiences but not full proper enlightenment. Which would explain the Quran.

    The universe is an idea in your mind. There is no such thing.

    The ultimate conscious being is Nothingness. Something can ONLY come out of Nothing.

    Nothing is NOT an experience. It's Nothing!

  10. Posted

    On 8/2/2016 at 1:43 PM, Irina Irina said:

    @Leo Gura you said you still go to nightclubs. for what purpose? 

    Where did I say that?

    On 8/2/2016 at 2:55 PM, jjer94 said:

    A lot of people here are confused about what enlightenment really means. Some think it's simply the realization of your true nature. Others think it's that PLUS the alignment with your true nature over a lifetime. How do you precisely define enlightenment, Leo?

    I dunno. It's a tricky issue. The depth that consciousness goes to is staggering. I don't know where it ends.

    If your entire reality hasn't been turned inside-out forever, I'd hesitate to call it enlightenment.

    4 hours ago, seaneyboyjazz said:

    @Leo Gura What's your opinion on Ralph Smart (Infinite Waters) ? 

    Haven't watched that much of him.

  11. Posted

    On 8/1/2016 at 7:26 PM, electroBeam said:

    @Leo Gura Why do you need to study the material? What advantages are there to hearing about dogma? I can understand learning techniques, but learning about enlightenment itself seems to me to have no place

    Because your mind will otherwise totally delude you. You will never even understand what enlightenment is. It's nothing you can imagine, and you won't know that unless you study the shit out of this topic.

    The only reason I haven't gotten lost so far is because I've literally researched 100s of perspectives. If you're not doing that, you basically haven't got a chance. You're gonna get deluded one way or another, and you will never even know it.

    That is why I started doing psychedelics. Everything has to be considered and seriously investigated. No stone can be left unturned.

    It's really a deep admission of ignorance. Which most people cannot humble themselves to do.

  14. Posted

    11 hours ago, 30secs said:

    @Leo Gura

    how tall are you? you know how to play basketball? :)

    6'2"

    Nope, I suck at basketball

    5 hours ago, Paul EMD said:

    @Leo Gura

    When you say you kicked out the internet habit, do you mean that you only use it for work aka Actualized.org ? Don't you watch any other channels on youtube or any other online content?

    I'm currently trying to stop losing my time online, but I always come up with excuses like "yeah but this channel is really helping me grow". Sometimes I feel like personal development is actually such a huge way to procrastinate, it's hard to differentiate between time well spent and time wasted when it comes to internet.

    And for your meditation habit, I believe you said you spent one hour meditating each day, is it correct? What about self-inquiry? 

    I currently spend around 30 minutes meditating in the morning, and 30 minutes doing self-inquiry at night, I feel like it's a good way to go about it. What do you think? Any tips?

    Thanks for everything Leo!
     

    I virtually watch nothing on Youtube, and I've blocked most websites on my PC. It's a huge distraction.

    If I do sometimes find some good channel on Youtube, I will download the audios and listen to it on my own time.

    But I do feed myself with TONS of educational information. Just not through such low-quality sources.

    4 hours ago, Thinh said:

    @Leo GuraThank you so much for everything you have done until now, I hope you can keep doing your work on Actualized.org to help other.

    Welcome

    3 hours ago, Beam said:

     I have a question , whats a  good method angle of approach to work on a fear of failure and rejection that  override common sense ?

    Stop doing, sit down, and just investigate the fears you have until you get to the rock-bottom beliefs and assumptions fueling them. You need to face the beliefs that create the fears.

    Get to know your fears intimately.

    1 hour ago, Frogfucius said:

    Hey Leo, have you read the unabomber's manifesto? It's actually pretty interesting stuff, about how the demands of modern society, industrialization, and societal norms have taken man outside of his natural biological evolution, and thus caused modern man to suffer psychologically. He also says that primitive man were at much greater peace and fulfillment, because their needs were simpler and they were one with nature. The dude was crazy and dogmatic, yeah, but his ideas on modern society and why we have widespread mental illness is fascinating.

    I have not. Sounds interesting. Of course that's basically true. He just took it personally. This is just how society is evolving.

  15. Posted

    For me it's not about pushing yourself. It's about consistency. The MASS comes from steady, slow, consistent daily work, NOT from becoming a frenzied self-help maniac.

    Slow and steady wins the race.

    Try installing 1 new powerful habit every couple of months. That's all you really need. A snowball effect will develop after a couple years.

  16. Posted

    13 hours ago, ttm said:

    I think you misunderstood me (I'm having difficulties expressing myself with english as non-native speaker). I was addressing your claim that every religion has the Truth "hidden" in it. Which clearly is the case for the most, or at least for many religions. But, I can imagine a set of beliefs and dogma (religion), constructed purely to gain personal wealth and power, with absolutely no Truth/Wisdom behind any of it.

    Oh, well, yeah. Of course you could. Look at Scientology ;)

    9 hours ago, electroBeam said:

    You seem to be cherry picking the parts you like, there are plenty of parts of the Quran that doesn't refer to reality. Can you sense a pointing to the truth in any of these quotes:

    "For those who deny (the coming of) the Hour We have prepared a flame. When it seeth them from afar, they hear the crackling and the roar thereof. And when they are flung into a narrow place thereof, chained together, they pray for destruction there." 25:11-13 -> Why does someone have to prepare the flame, when they are already in it??

    Qur’an 9:29—"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." -> Jizyah is a metaphor? Really?

    And judgment day has nothing to do with reality.

    Of course every religion is dogmatic and limited. It's a partial, incomplete understanding of nonduality.

    You gotta understand that 2000 years ago, given the state of humanity back then, this was a huge advance. Islam was a very peaceful and civilizing force back in the Middle East of 2000 years ago, when neighboring tribes were raping and pillaging each other left and right with no sense of decency, worshiping dozens of various deities.

    Today of course, it's very outdated, and there are MUCH better techniques and conceptual frameworks available for reaching enlightenment (God).

  19. Posted

    On 7/30/2016 at 1:56 AM, ttm said:

    Wouldn't it be possible to create a religion with no valuable insights hidden in it? For example, completely for the personal purpose of gaining wealth and power? Also, it really isn't all metaphor for reality, there's a lot of stuff there...

    As long as people cling to all that stuff which is actually called religion (and which so makes one religion different from another), the real insights are (at least for the most part) missed. The wisdom there is religion-independent. Also, reading between the lines does not mean that every sentence is wisdom there and you just have to understand it somehow, but exactly the ability to recognize the anti-wisdom there and just let that go. At some point it gets reeeally inefficient to find the wisdom from the haystack. 

    I wasn't referring to islam here in particular, I haven't read the Quran so I don't know if there's any wisdom and if there is, how it is proportioned with anti-wisdom. A wise person can use pure solid antiwisdom to get enlightened, and a fool will do literally anything to deepen his foolishness, so that kind of approach isn't very practical to many people.

    No, it is actually not possible. Because all thoughts are illusory and false. The mind cannot access Absolute Truth by definition. Any symbolic representation you make of the Truth will never be the Truth itself. So Truth is always hidden by language & beliefs.

    Science is no better. You can have a perfect description of the Truth in scientific terms but it will still be 100% untrue. So science is not any more accurate than religion when it comes to grasping Absolute Truth.

    There is no approach possible for Absolute Truth. Which is why so few people every grasp it. The only way is to step outside the mind. But that requires consciousness, which is lacking, which is the whole problem.

    On 7/30/2016 at 6:34 AM, electroBeam said:

    How do you know that your interpretation is correct? Its all subjective isn't it?

    Hehe, it's so obvious if you actually do self-inquiry and study nonduality. It's just so freaking obvious! There's nothing subjective about it at all. It seems subjective to you because you are operating on the level of the mind: beliefs & thoughts. None of which can get you access to Absolute Truth, which is what God is.

    What Islam is talking about is the only thing in the world that is NOT subjective. God is the only objective thing there is. That's what makes it God! It's infinite! There is nothing outside it. It covers everything!

  20. Posted

    In 2035, we'll be lucky if the apps we install on our smartphones are all patched up and not-buggy.

    A technological singularity won't happen for hundreds of years.

    Science doesn't have a clue how consciousness works. Like zero. It's quite sad. Their paradigms aren't even right yet.

    Kurzweil is talking nonsense.

  22. Posted

    On 7/30/2016 at 5:34 PM, Patrick said:

    @Leo Gura Wow. We are thankful you didn't go down that route. Didn't know that part. Criminal how? (I understand if you'd rather not answer that).

    In any case, how did you deal with the "social game" involved in working with your past gaming career company? I understand you are introverted--I am struggling with this so so hard right now. I'm floored by how much employers value extroversion and "fitting in well into the corporation" versus actual competence, which I value so much. I am very introverted as well (INTJ personality type)...

    It was a bit rocky, the social game, because I'm not politically correct. I offended some people. But it was a small company so mostly it wasn't a problem. Game developers are a pretty laid-back folk. So they tolerated my rougery pretty well.

    On 7/30/2016 at 5:59 PM, Emerald Wilkins said:

    I'm sorry but I'm way too interested not to ask. Why would leaving your game design career in Boston result in you potentially becoming a criminal? Was it a doing illegal things for money to get by on in the interim that you were considering or was it more of a going postal thing? :D Either way, I can totally relate to the thought process (not actions) on both accounts. You totally don't have to answer this question, but I'm amused either way. 

    I was desperate for a way out of the wage slavery I had unwitting submitted myself to. I didn't know any other way. Until I found online business.

    On 7/30/2016 at 8:41 PM, Rashad said:

    What are your top ten values in life?

    That's discussed in the life purpose course.

    On 7/30/2016 at 1:11 AM, quantum said:

    How many hours did you approximately spend on personal development? Just curious because of the 10,000 hours rule

    I wouldn't even know how to start counting the hours.

    On 7/30/2016 at 4:56 AM, Growf said:

    What habit was the most difficult to kick/form?

    TV and internet were pretty hard.

    Bad food too.

    Meditation was very challenging to start. And self-inquiry for enlightenment.

    On 7/31/2016 at 4:24 AM, Naviy said:

    @Leo Gura  Are you planning to finish the Blueprints section of the website?

    Yes, but in the distant future. It needs a total revamp and lots of content.

    On 8/1/2016 at 6:56 PM, MrPeak said:

    You said something about going to college to study game programing. But yet you said in another video that you went to college to study philosophy. In another video you said you went to college to study Aerospace engineering. Which one is true? If you did study all of that, how did you do it? If you did'nt went to college to study one of the topics I manage above, than where did you get your knowledge?

    I college is spent 2 years studying Aerospace engineering (which was basically just a bunch of math and science). Then I transferred to philosophy and graduated with that.

    I learned programming (or rather scripting) on my own, outside of college because I was developing websites and games as a hobby.

    16 hours ago, Thinh said:

    Hi Leo, I'm 20 years old and I've watched about 30 to 40 videos in your list and I'm kinda see the pieces put together but I feel like I'm lost because there are too much of information. I want to ask you that where should I start in the journey? (sorry if there is any English mistakes).

    Select one habit to install and spend a few months installing it.

    Then do it again with a new habit.

    And so on.

    The life purpose course could be game-changer for you. Consider taking it and working it hard. I feel it's very foundational. It gives you a roadmap for the rest of your life.

    11 hours ago, 7thLetter said:

    @Leo Gura

    Why did you quit pickup/game?

    I have more important things to do with my time. I just can't justify wasting 4 hours per night in a noisy nightclub, as fun as it is sometimes. It's also emotionally taxing on me because I'm a heavy introvert and I don't like socializing. I can do it, but it feels unnatural and goes against my values.

  23. Posted

    @LiberalPipe Let you higher intuition guide you. If you're reasonably emotionally stable and you take them in a good setting, then there's really nothing to fear. You just have to be developed enough to be okay with letting go the ego and surrendering to the experience.

    Many undeveloped people take psychedelics and the majority still have awesome experiences, so don't be paranoid about it. The only thing to fear is fear itself. That's what causes bad trips.

    If you follow the guidelines in my next video, you should have a great trip. But of course, there are no guarantees.

  24. Posted

    Obviously! That is told to you by every enlightened teacher (and myself) from day 1.

    The problem is you don't understand it until like 10 years later.

    The study is necessary UP TO A POINT. Then you have to let it go.

    Like scaffolding around a skyscraper. Don't get attached to the scaffolding.

    But denouncing the scaffolding is equally a newb mistake. Study is necessary and has its place. Otherwise you would be totally lost.

    A delicate balance must be struck, and newbs suck at that. They always go too far to one side or the other. Newbs want a formula for enlightenment, a black/white answer, and no such thing exists.