Leo Gura

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Posts posted by Leo Gura

  2. Posted

    This forum is mostly for you guys. I don't make much money off it. It mostly costs me money and time to manage it and host it.

    If enough of you don't like it, or you turn it into a pit of unconsciousness, I have no qualms about shutting it down.

    Use it as a resource for sharing useful ideas, not to gossip about shit while avoiding real-life self-actualization work.

    This is a problem that every community faces. Especially one in which doing hard emotional labor is required to progress.

    Why do you think religions exist?

    Exactly for this reason: they are a way to gossip and avoid the real work. That's what collective unconsciousness does. It breeds.

  4. Posted

    Yes, it's pretty clear McKenna doesn't give a purely objective description of enlightenment. It's highly dramatized.

    But also this has value, as what the ego sometimes needs most IS a dramatization, not a scientific, clinical description.

    McKenna's work is designed to light a fire under your ass, to punch you in the gut, to shock you awake.

    I do the same thing sometimes with my videos. I sacrifice truth and accuracy for an emotional punch to the gut.

    Because if I was truly objective and scientific, I would just come up without emotion and say: "Do whatever you want with your life. Nothing matters. Even truth is meaningless. Any action you take will be eclipsed by the ocean of time and long forgotten. Bye."

    But that wouldn't be very helpful to you.

    Most people basically have to be hoodwinked into the enlightenment. It's a delicate balance.

    In a sense, this is a deep problem about marketing. For marketing to be effective, it has to be a lie. That's the current state of society. No enlightenment teaching is immune to the marketing problem. Because enlightened people want to create more enlightened people. Somehow this shit needs to get marketed. You can't stop it.

    So then it becomes a question of... what's the best way to market it?

    And there are a thousand different answers.

    The Jews, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Jains, Yogis, Buddhists, all have their own ideas about that. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

    Enlightenment is in a very unique position because ANYTHING you say about its necessarily false. So in a sense, the most clinical and scientific description is no more accurate or useful than a story from the Bible. Because like Ralston says above, there is NO WAY! And what that effectively means is... it's up for grabs. People will spin it in their favorite way. And everyone has a different favorite way.

    You can read Ralston's book or McKenna's book, and neither one will really help you. Hell! Every minute you're reading a book, you're further from the Truth.

    Or both will help you! (If you're wise ;))

  5. Posted

    That's the difference between regular self-help and consciousness work. With consciousness work you're breaking down distinctions such as inner/outer and happy/miserable.

    Happiness really only comes in a consistent way when you abolish the distinction between happiness/not-happiness, and self/other.

    Imagine getting your teeth drilled and being happy. That's what it really takes to be happy. If you can't be happy in a situation like that, how can you truly ever be happy? Your happiness is really just accidental.

  7. Posted

    Sorry, this will sound self-serving, but if you're stuck in life and don't know where to start, that's what the Life Purpose Course was designed to address. It's a rather deep pickle you're in, and no one video will solve it. But a 25 hour course might. A course has the structure you're currently lacking from watching one-off videos. It baby-steps you through it.

    Then once you've that down, the one-off videos will be much more useful to you.

  8. Posted

    On 6/10/2016 at 2:44 AM, Ray said:

    @Leo Gura Ahahah yeah that is what I'm talking about. But don't you think that it could be counterproductive? Probably is a stupid example but is the one that pop up in my mind: maybe Steve Jobs actually get a cancer because he programmed his submind every morning thinking about his death and what he would be doing if that was his last day...  In other terms my question is: this kind of death contemplation (quote or poster) program the submind in a healty way? It could be possible that death contemplation is different from optimism and positive affirmations and program the mind in a negative way? 

    Maybe I'm just overthinking 

    It all depends on how you view death. If you view it in a negative way, then yeah, perhaps.

    But that's not how I personally view it.

    If you watched the very last video of the life purpose, you know what I'm talking about when I look at death.

  9. Posted

    Mindfulness isn't practiced to REMOVE emotions! That's to misappropriate mindfulness for ego purposes.

    The proper use of mindfulness is to be AWARE of emotions.

    So the next time you're pissed off, don't try to get rid of it, enjoy it mindfully.

    All meanings are ultimately false. You want to get to the point where you are aware of that and don't need any positive meaning at all. That will take practice.

  11. Posted

    @yahoo Sounds like you got a solid foundation there of passion. You just haven't spent enough time pondering it and testing the waters career-wise. How would you feel if you taught other people how to go on adventures around the world? Or if you took other people on adventures around the world for $$$?

    Expand your thinking. There are HUNDREDS of possibilities just within this narrow are of adventuring. For fuck's sake, people love adventuring! You can definitely tap that passion in yourself and in them and make a decent living doing it.

  14. Posted

    Treat money like a tool, not as a goal. If you need X amount of money to get your life purpose accomplished, they saving up some money can be a smart move. But don't chase the money. You will actually sell yourself short that way.

    If I had followed money, there would be no Actualized.org

    I followed my purpose instead and now money is irrelevant and plentiful AT THE SAME TIME!

    I can pretty much guarantee you'll regret chasing money, in the end.

  20. Posted

    No one really knows.

    At this point I would revise my estimate to above 100,000. There are thousands of monasteries & ashrams across the world that churn out enlightened folks from all major religious traditions, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Daoism, and Hinduism.

    It also depends on how you define enlightenment. A lot of people are semi-enlightened. A lot fewer people are "fully-enlightened".

  21. Posted

    10 hours ago, JustinS said:

    @Leo Gura

    Question, 

    What key insights have you gained from being around people in the Green stage?

    What was it at first that you noticed about yourself when you are around these people, and how has that changed now? 

     

    I learned that I have a very low tolerance for fruity, new-agey community activities. Like group art projects, etc.

    I learned that I'm extremely judgmental and critical of people.

    I learned that I prefer to do my meditation/enlightenment work solo.

    10 hours ago, Saarah said:

    @Leo Gura I'm still confused as to how it would be used dogmatically because I feel like enlightenment would be a way out of dogma, i don't seem to understand enlightenment very well, but definitely I'd want to be tier 2 and enlightened than otherwise, thanks!

    Well... take a look at various religious traditions. Even the few enlightened folks that occur within them are will quite dogmatic and have a limited perspective.

    Hell, take a look at Zen. Very traditional and rigid, even though it produces lots of enlightened people.

    Dogma is VERY tough to escape. Much harder than merely getting enlightened.

  23. Posted

    @Pelin No, that's not what is meant by selfless action. Selfless action is literally action without believing you exist as a self.

    You can kill someone selflessly.

    It's NOT about the content of the action. And it has nothing to do with "good" action.

    All "good" action is selfish. Because good only exists for a self.

    When you abolish the idea of good & bad, and the idea that you exist as a self, THEN action becomes naturally selfless.

    This is not anything that "regular" people are capable of it. It takes lots of inner growth to execute because your ego runs you in so many subtle ways.

    Basically, if you're trying to be selfless, you're actually being selfish.

    So in conclusion: be mindful of your self. Don't worry about being "good".

  25. Posted

    Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

    So, yes!

    But there's more to this journey than just having an enlightenment experience. There's a whole consciousness maturation process. A mind at stage Blue or Orange or Green is likely to misinterpret enlightenment and use it dogmatically.

    So your aim should be to shoot for enlightenment while at the same time advancing up the Spiral stages, into Tier 2.

    Yes, I used the word "should".