Dan502

I suppose most people who ask "why is reality the way it is?" have a fairly limited experience of reality and so one answer might be something like... if you become more conscious of reality, then the answer might become more apparent.

To take my mind off the inevitable suffering and death that the 90% of us who aren't lucky enough to die in our sleep will one day face. And in the case of any real self-improvement, to maybe delay that awful fate.

@rnd you seem a bit daunted by the complexity of it all. I know how you feel. What do you think about this kind of plan for starters: 1) make a list of half dozen areas of policy (e.g. economy, social, foreign, environmental) 2) check what the top three candidates' headline policies are in those areas 3) See what your opinions are and talk to some friends about it I expect members on this forum might offer reasoned opinions on the levels of consciousness of each candidate too and how that's reflected in their policies, with the caveats that: 1) it's important to "do the work yourself" to validate those opinions; and 2) it's not a politics forum so discussions relating to politics should be expressed in terms of, and geared towards, your own development.

Maybe someone had to work overtime, got home late and the cat had eaten some of his dinner. He thinks "I wish I had all the power, could be anywhere at any time and knew everything... hey, that would make a good book". With this seemingly foolish joke, my point is to humbly ask whether the basic idea of a God could come to anyone reflecting on fairly ordinary circumstances.

What a wonderful question. There is no "behind". If your intuition is telling you one thing, I wonder what is telling you the other. And what that means.

@Moreira it's like you're my twin. I've gotten slightly better in some areas and continue to work on my routine althouh I currently appear to be suffering from some kind of exhaustion so it's possible I haven't quite nailed it just yet.

Could a developed person, sensing a rise in the public's appetite for a nationalistic leader, vote strategically for Trump in 2016, thereby satisfying republicans in the short term while the economy was relatively stable, so that by the time a recession hit and people wanted a change in leadership direction, the pendulum was more likely to swing back left again rather than giving someone like Trump the excuse of hardship for which to blame outsiders? This seems unlikely to me as two terms is probable and is long enough for Trump to do more damage but is just a thought. I've never met anyone who claims to have voted like this.

This makes sense. Leo talks about spiritual growth and one aspect of that is discomfort. The dream seems to indicate an imbalance of discomfort relative to the other aspects of spiritual growth; joy. It seems empowering that you were able to leave.

Did anyone notice that in Zzen's video, he drank a smoothie similar to the one Leo showed us how to make? I've never tried psychadelics so am treating the video as a personal reminder that even though it's pretty cool to hear about these mystical states of consciousness, I don't actually understand or can relate to them myself. I sometimes judge people on the sophistication or sensibility of their dialogue. Sloppy expressions of rhetoric turn me off. It seems worth acknowleding that Leo is very careful about what he says and uses plenty of caveats. In fact it's the first thing he does in the Collective Consciousness video . This indicates groundedness and is conveniently ignored by critics. The conscious politics videos should indicate that, wild awakenings aside, Leo hasn't lost any of his intellect or composure. A cynic might say that such reassurances shouldn't be necessary and that those who need them will filter them out anyway. I wonder what I'm filtering out. Oh, love. If Zzen actually cared, he'd have acted out of real concern rather than making a bitchy YouTube video unless he wasn't particularly skilled at acting lovingly, which is possible as most people aren't, or unless my own understanding of love is overly-simplistic, which is also possible. I'm talking from my humble experience of love with a small "l" here, rather than love with a capital "L".

For context, there's an intensity to Kushu2000's recent posts. For example, to paraphrase, " I meditate for 2 hours a day, let's have a dick measuring contest", "If enlightenment = death, why don't we all just kill ourselves?" and "Do we all think Leo is spiralling into Lala land?"

Ralston advocates approaching things from a position of not knowing. I think he's trying to empty their cups. And yes this is my ego reacting to someone making fun of Ralston I'd probably delete more of my own comments if I could.

You can't buy your way into heaven.

I think you'd have to love what you did. And/or you'd have to be very conscientious. Which I suppose is self-fulfilling because it just means you work hard...

I'd make a list but this is my real name and photo and if various people I know found it, it could adversely affect my life (oh look, survival). So for the time being I'll just say: I'm curious about counsellor training but am not sure I'm empathetic enough but might pursue it anyway. I also have some "bad" habits.

Thank you Winternight

Zero

@Ibn Sina no but succinctness is I'm kidding. I did hear somewhere that introversion correlates with self-awareness. I think it was in one of Jordan Peterson's lectures about personality.

If you want to dance around with crystals, I don't see a problem with that. Dancing can be fun and relaxing. From a theoretical point of view, humans are opaque. We don't photosynthesise because we need more energy than plants due to all our movement, so we eat protein instead. I know some bacteria can photosynthesise but I don't know if they're particularly present in or around humans. If you want more light on your skin, why not go outside? The sun is brighter and healthier than artificial light.

Personal development at stages orange and green is a well trodden path. If you walk around a bookshop for five minutes wearing a blindfold and crash helmet, some of the books that fall off the shelves that you bump into will probably be useful. Leo, as I understand it, is pioneering a route to enlightenment and is documenting his own progress. This is his unique offering to the world and it's most important to him and others that he continues to make content that interests and engages him. Of course if that content happens to be practically useful at stage orange, I wouldn't complain. God knows I haven't exactly nailed that stage.

I'd be interested to attend a talk if Leo ever makes it to London, UK. I think I feel "triggered" (or whatever) by Leo sometimes because my ego is probably really jealous of him and can't stand being told that there are things I don't understand or am conscious of but I try to bring awareness to that and lay it on the table directly. I love how he has the courage to explore topics in ways that others don't dare to.

@Shadowraix Agreed. I may need to work on my own behaviour too in this respect. I sometimes use charity marketers in the street to practice awareness because I resent how they try to be all friendly when they don't know me. So I blank them, neither saying yes or no. There's that second or two when they realise that I can hear them and am deliberately not responding. Similarly, I occasionally use beggars for kicks like if one asks for a cigarette, I'll say no but them go buy them a pack of 20 just to witness their shock and gratitude. I'm not sure if this is entirely responsible. It does feel good but I suppose ideally I would just be kind without needing the added stimulation of that shock reaction.

The recent video about survival seemed to explain a kind of "everything is survival" perspective. I wonder if it's useful to explore this perspective a bit, conceptually, in order to understand and support it, with the added caveat that doing so has its limitations in terms of developing awareness which of course goes beyond concepts. I imagine such an exercise might be useful at or below stage yellow. For example, although it's not the only work of its kind, Dan Dennett's philosophy attempts to set out cultural evolution so that our thoughts and behaviours can be understood through the lens of survival. Perhaps more appealing to self-actualizers would be an individual thought experiment whereby we start off with some crude, simple concepts and introduce minor variations, over and over again, imagining how new concepts are created, seemingly through sheer probability, until we have something more complex and more closely resembling our usual idea of a person. Also, what does it mean to say that worrying about a meeting at work or a homework assignment IS survival? No doubt it's apparent that we may hurry to get there, fail to look both ways and get hit by a bus on the way to the office. *That* doesn't seem like survival. However the extent that our eyes see the bus before it hits us, the eye itself in fact, is something that, from a scientific viewpoint, evolved through repeated cycles of survival of lesser eyes. Still, lots of things don't survive. In fact the vast majority of living organisms throughout history, so I'm told, died childless. Presumably the perspective of survival is important to us because we see ourselves as the products of such processes. I'm not suggesting we cling too tightly to the theory here, rather that it could be beneficial to understand it in order to validate the perspective, which then acts as a base for awareness work. Afterall, maybe it's easier to recognise the survival perspective in everyday life if we have some knowledge around how it works and how it seems to have developed.

Lost Connections by Yohann Hari looks interesting.

What a great question. I agree with the previous answers. Also there seems an almost inevitable loss of passion after realising a possibility if the anticipation was what caused the passion to begin with.

Nice post, and well done!