Zeldor

Interesting conversation between Vaush and a youtuber by the name of Perspective Philosophy wherein they talk about ethics during the first half and metaphysics during the second.

Just a pretty cool channel I recently found out about, although he does seem to take a lot of idea from spirituality without mentioning it as far as i have seen except for mentioning Buddhism once, and routinely says that nobody can know, which according to Leo at least is wrong:

@Carl-Richard Lol that should not be something u are able to do, not that I’m blaming u personally since u didn’t use it with any bad intentions; but that looks so much like I actually said that, that I had to check XD. I think I have always understood relativity intellectually since even low stage green, but I never really let that understanding affect my life. Right now though I’d say I let it affect me a lot more than it used to. I’d say I’m more high stage green/low yellow rn though, as in a conversation with my brother (who’s a moderate) we started talking about politics and I still got a little defensive. However, I let it go much more easily than I could have done in the past. I might not be fully stage yellow but one things for sure: I have become a lot less self absorbed. (:

As the title suggests: I think, but I’m not sure; that I have broken into stage yellow. Although this could be me jumping the gun and saying I’m higher than I actually am on the spiral because of my ego, I do feel pretty confident that at least for right now, I have become a lot less self absorbed and much more able to see other’s perspectives. I also am semi-confident that this is a stable state as it doesn’t feel unsustainable for me, like other spiritual highs so to speak; have felt. So how did this come to be? I first want to thank Leo: without him I’d probably still be living a mediocre life. So thank u Leo, if you are reading this, a million times a million times a million ad Infinitum lol. Specifically though I’d attribute this breakthrough to his video about democracy, which I think quite deeply lays out the flaws and limits of stage green, and thus at that time myself. This video was phenomenal, and if u are deep in stage green I’d highly recommended u watch it. I also want to tell anyone new to self-actualizing to stick with it. I know that most of the time it can seem like you are stagnating, or at least personally that’s how I have felt. But although the process is slow; it is also steady, and the rewards build upon each other. To give you a sense of the enormity of the time you’ll be required to commit to progress: I have been self-actualizing for 3 years now and have only really advanced one stage. But that one stage is worth it. Leo’s video wasn’t the only thing that helped me breakthrough, although the next part is much more personal. Personally, I have always been pretty introverted and a loner. I never had many friends nor did I feel the the need to get them. I have never really felt all that lonely either. But this introversion made me very unsure of my social capabilities, and for the longest time I felt I was way behind my peers in this department. So fast forward to around a week after watching Leo’s democracy video: I decided to play a dnd-style roll playing game so I could practice my social skills in what I felt was a safe environment. After playing for a while I met a girl who was going through some really bad times, although of course I only figured this out after interacting with her for a while. She opened up to me about her depression and through a long string of messages I finally managed to make her feel happy at least for today. In fact I think I managed to make her have a spiritual high even though spirituality as a whole was foreign to her. This interaction obviously made me much more confident in my social abilities, and since my lack of confidence was probably a key part of what was holding me back personally to stage green, I think that is why this boost made me break through. Anyways, that is it for this post and feel free to ask me any questions. I will let u all know if I fall back down to stage green. Also sorry if the formatting is a little weird, I wrote this out on my phone.

@Aquarius Thanks(: @UDT thanks for the list, I definitely agree with the first 4 checkboxes except I feel more excited about this new way of thinking than I am scared, although that might change in the future.

@bejapuskas Again, I’m not rlly sure I’m in stage yellow I’m just guessing I am and it’s only been one day. But right now I do, I feel better equipped to handle the problems life throws at me, and I think this probably happens whenever u go up the spiral, so even from stage orange to green for example.

At first I though nihilism was really bad, because it meant that nothing has meaning. So there's no point in doing anything. Then I thought it was great, because it meant that I choose what has meaning. So you should do what you want to do. Now I question why I should give anything meaning, and have come to the conclusion to do what I'm going to do. But while this seems logical to me, it also fills me with unease.

You are authentically beautiful. Remember philosophy. It's ok to have a mediocre life, don't be afraid of it, but set your sights on something higher.

@okulele @Mart Thanks! I'll try to add another 30 min session of abiding during a separate part of the day.

I'm currently doing the kriya yoga laid out by Santata Gamana for 30 mins. At the end of the yoga I meditate for as long as I want to, which is only about 5 minutes. So, should I force myself to meditate more, or is that ok?

@i am I AM Are you just saying that concepts are perceptions too? I would agree, but why is that prevalent to the discussion? Just to avoid confusion, I'm not saying success is better than happiness. Just that I don't think happiness is what you should search for in the end.

If all of perception is negative space, that means wanting any perceptual thing is wanting to be less than what you already are. So people who want material things are wanting to be less than they are. Does this also apply to happiness? Does wanting happiness equate to wanting less than what you are?

@111111 I'm actually taking AP Psych right now, lol. I never stipulated that there was a positive correlation between happiness and material wealth(: But I'm usually of the mind set that happiness is what you should be aiming for, not success. But both material wealth and happiness are perceptions, so they must both be negative space, right? Also, isn't the only reason the illusion of ego exists, is because your excluding everything you aren't?

Hi, I just finished watching Leo's latest video and I think I have a very, very, very rough idea for what I want to do for work when I grow up. In one sentence - I want to be a philosophy professor who teaches people how to teach themselves. There are 3 reasons I think this would be a good life purpose for me. 1) I love philosophy. Doing philosophy gives me the same feeling that doing yoga does, sometimes an even better feeling. 2) I want to teach a class and not teach over a media platform. This will allow me to put more effort into each individual, and I think it would be more fun/stimulating for me. 3) I want to teach people how to teach themselves. I think this would have a bigger impact on people, and would require less time. I have 2 questions: 1) What questions should I ask myself? 2) What skills should I cultivate while I still have an "abundance" of free time? Thanks in advance. P.S: I probably won't teach spirituality. Instead I'll teach self-actualization because I think this would be a less controversial method. I can't buy the life purpose course because I am financially dependent on my parents. I'm scared that if I ask them to buy me the course, they'll look into him and see his videos on psychedelics/god. I'm currently trying to raise their level of trust in me. I will probably try to answer any question I get on this forum. This helps me organize m thoughts, get feedback, and get motivation. It also gives me a place to store my research.

@CroMagna Honestly, I don't even know if I want to go to college. Instead of becoming a professor, I might make my own "class". If I become a professor, i'll have to jump through hoops and teach what the principal wants me to teach. Also, although there isn't a large market for philosophy teachers, there is a large market for parents who want their children to become successful. So I can market from that angle.

@Mu_ Yeah, i'm doing kriya yoga for 30 mins, or 1 hour if i can. It's not that I don't have free-time, but i have a lot less free-time than i used to. The yoga definitely helps with the frustration i get from lack of progress(:

Hi, I just came down from around a week long high. During the final part of this high, which was around an hour ago, I felt like I "grasped" enlightenment. It was probably the happiest experience in my life, and this is what I appeared to have grasped: Basically that all is one and one is all. This includes paradoxes like everything is nothing and it is also wrong to say everything is nothing. That the Absolute Truth is wrong, is partial, does not exist, does exist, is absolutely true, can be intellectually understood, and can't be intellectually understood. That I am enlightened and not enlightened. It also included a bunch of other things that can be derived using this logic. I am going to stop using this logic to save time. But using this logic will also not save time. This is confusing.... but it is also easy to grasp...…… WTF! I have a couple of questions. 1. Am I correct? Is this logic only partially true? 2. Is this a enlightenment experience? 3. Is this the furthest I can intellectually understand enlightenment? 4. Why am I not enlightened? (Even though intellectually I know I am enlightened). I may edit this post to add further questions. Thanks in advance for any help you may provide.

@Serotoninluv &@Mu_ Thank you both(: I'm probably going to stop posting in this forum for a while. I'm at the point in my school career where it's a little hard to keep up, and trying to do school and philosophize at the same time is making me lose sleep ): Thank you all for listening to me ramble on.

@Shin Lol, thank you for reminding me. I think the title is a bit of a misnomer though. I don't claim to be enlightened, i just didn't understand why i wasn't. The people on this forum made me rethink my question. I am infinity, i am everything, i just haven't felt it. @Mu_ I think i have deepened my understanding of free will. I know you said i should try to feel things but i think intellectually understanding things will help me feel them. That way i kind of know what i'm searching for and should be choosing to feel? I think beliefs are a very important part of choosing. After all your beliefs change how the world feels to you. For example if you believe you are angry, the world appears to have more things to be angry at. Same with sadness and happiness in my experience. I think this is also why gurus emphasize surrender so much. If you surrender yourself to the idea that you are infinity, you get closer to becoming it. What you believe dictates your reality to a degree.

@Mu_ So I think I have a conceptual answer for what is free will. I read in a book somewhere that free will is the ability to choose whether to look inside or out. I think it is more than that, I think it is the ability to choose what to be directly conscious of or what to "feel". So everything and nothing is already happening around me but I haven't "chose" to be conscious of it. I don't know if I am actually "choosing" to have these realizations though. Can you choose to be directly conscious of not choosing or choosing? Or both simultaneously?

@Mu_ Wow, so you're saying that I should try to feel things along with understanding them? Do you think feeling is another way of saying "becoming directly conscious of"?

@Nahm Thanks(:

@Leo Gura I don't know if i'm misunderstanding something here, but I don't claim to be enlightened, or to even understand this aspect of enlightenment, I just understand it "better" than how I've previously understood it. To your first question, I have no idea what I should identify with, but if i'm being honest, I identify most with being a mind. I still want happiness even though happiness is a concept and different from just being, which is closer to what I should be aiming for? To your second question I think that depends on what I identify as. If I do identify with anything then my identification will probably collapse but I will still exist? As you've said in the past, I don't think I could explain why I exist, but if we go off the assumption that I do, then I think you'd have to go "back" to the origin of existence. Since I think existence is the same as non-existence, I don't think there was ever a origin of existence. I think that the only way existence couldn't exist is if it was non-existence, and since non-existence is existence, that means existence has always existed. Since I exist now, that means that I probably have existed for all eternity and probably will keep on existing for all eternity. Of course if someone pointed a gun at me i'd probably be scarred and try to run away. I think I have an "ok" model that explains why i'm immortal but I haven fully "embodied" the idea. I also can't really explain why I think non-existence = existence, but i make that claim on the logic derived from All is One.

@SoonHei lol, that's pretty cool, the last line describes part of what I felt pretty well. Are you saying that my understanding was the understanding that there is infinite content within the container that is all the same/different? And that actually being enlightened is becoming the container where all these experiences are actualized. That when you become enlightened you have a constant pathway to witness all these experiences. If this is true, does becoming enlightened mean that not only do you understand the fundamentals of what reality is, but all the ways reality could be, like you would know all that there is to learn. Even though it all appears the same, that it is all also different and that there are individual aspects to be understood? That all Is one also means one is one and not all? @Dodo I know your response wasn't directed at me, but is Mu an advanced form of skepticism. Like skepticism that's even skeptical of itself? https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-mu-in-zen-449929 (are links allowed? This is where I "learned" what mu is). @Leo Gura I definitely don't think I became enlightened, if I did, then I would be kind of disappointed because that experience wasn't the most amazing experience that I think is possible(: I think for all your what questions, I would say they're all the same, but as I explained in my first paragraph that they also may be individual aspects that I need to understand independently from another, which means I definitely have more work to do. Yay? For your why reality is this way, I think that's because it has to be this way, that all the other ways it could be would limit it and then it wouldn't be absolute. I am definitely not conscious of infinity.

Has anyone here read Beyond Shiva by Avahtara? It is SantataGamana's biggest recommendation in Kriya Yoga Exposed. He described it as "almost a guided meditation". After doing my Kriya Yoga routine, I read it and it prolonged the After-Effect-Poise of Kriya by around an hour.