Tim R

@Nahm It is @Eternal Unity Haha hello there can't get lost in a jungle where there's no path to deviate from

And even to say that "there are appearances" is already saying too much. Haha although, actually, no. It's not saying anything at all? What a "mindfuck" lol

This is a small but important exercise I came up with as the result of something that I experienced today. Today when I was going for a run in the forest, I hugged a tree. And I noticed a curious thing: I felt reserved. I felt resistance within me to hug the tree. Before I hugged it, I looked left and right to make sure that nobody was around to see me being such a hippie don't get me wrong, I love doing this kinda hippie stuff (especially when on mushrooms) And when I hugged it, I felt love. For the tree and from the tree. On the one hand there was my love-deprived sorry ass who just wanted a hug (turns out: trees can't run away from you so you can really let yourself out on them) and on the other hand there was the tree who just "returned" the affection without resistance, judgement, fear, rejection, etc. Here's the important part of this story: we resist love. For various reasons, in this case it was fear of judgement. The exercise consists in noticing when you resist love. Have you ever hugged a tree? No? Then go do it. And do it where there's a slight chance that somebody might see you dong it and notice how you feel about it Notice it in other situations; Showing or receiving love/affection to/by someone when other people are around? Afraid? Tense? What about singing (if you love singing) when other people can hear you? Do you feel reserved? And what about showing love to yourself? Do you resist showing love to yourself because you feel guilty or unworthy or something else for doing so and therefore don't? Notice it. Feel it. And then, what are you going to choose? Love or resistance to Love? PS: it's all Love anyway

@machiavelli No, I mean there literally is no such thing as "mind" or "thoughts", because both are also just "mind" and "thoughts".

@Adamq8 There's nothing wrong with the materialist paradigm per se, it's great for creating technology and a comfortable and prosperous life, it just doesn't hold up for explaining reality? "Everything is consciousness" can't build a quantum computer or develop effective medicine. Everything has its merit, if properly used.

We need more people who serve as a bridge between the current paradigm and the new paradigm. People will listen to scientists because in this day and age: science = authority So a new branch of science will emerge. There will be pioneers and further down the road and unknown to mainstream culture, there will fringe explorers who are still much too radical to permeate popular epistemology. Leo is one of them, the only problem is that he doesn't wear a lab coat and so people don't consider him an authority And although this work has only one authority, people will have to create authority outside themselves. But those who have one foot in science and the other foot in mysticism will lead this paradigm shift. My prediction is that within the next few decades, new hybrid disciplines will emerge in science and even the non-scientific departments of universities, like "Theoneurology" or "Biochemistry of Consciousness" or "Neo-Epistemology" or something like that. The dualism between matter and spirit will collapse. I could also imagine that more and more stage Green/Yellow institutes like Esalen will emerge, which can offer intellectual harborage for the undisturbed and somewhat less restricted development of the ideas concerned.

@math159w Do you have any experience with spirituality/deconstructing the mind? Or are you completely new to the type of content presented by Leo? In advance: don't worry, you're not going insane, you're just experiencing a huge mind fuck. And proper mindfucks tend to make you feel like your going bananas but that's alright, because it will subside over time. What you're so afraid of right now is in philosophy called "Solipsism" and it's a meaningless idea. There is no problem, I promise I've been there, many of us have. It's the idea that you're the only person/mind in the whole universe. But it's not true (I won't explain it in this thread because we've had too many Solipsism thread in the last few months). Feel free to pm me if you wanna talk about it a bit more.

What is "good looking" anyway? Is life harder? no Is life harder in certain aspects? probably, yes Nuance!!

Familiar?

Guess we all have to find out for ourselves

I don't understand... how can there be something "boring" or "meaningless" or "not fun"? Since these are egoic projections?

Money is a promise. A convention. An agreement.

This is incredible. There's so much to recognize in this documentary. human psychology society survival corruption collective ego stages of development All in there and probably more. Just wow. Authoritarianism is awful.

This happened like half an hour ago to me and I learned a lesson from it, because it was a bit shocking tbh. I was riding my bike through town on my way home, when I saw a person laying on the sidewalk. Just smack in the middle of the way and he was rolling from one side to another. I looked at him and saw the other people who also just looked at him and then simply kept walking. I thought "what the hell why is no one helping" so I turned around and got to him. Turns out he was pretty drunk and fell, he was repeating himself so I assumed he might've hit his head, he was also and that he was in pain and that he had psychological problems. So I called an ambulance. As we were waiting for the ambulance to arrive, people kept passing us, looking at the person with an aversive expression of disgust and pity. Of the dozens of people who passed us, two asked whether I've called someone. Two. Let that sink in. The ambulance arrived, they helped him, I went home, where Just a few minutes ago, I was taking about what happened to a couple of people on a relatively unknown social media platform. And even there, they said "I would've also walked away" or "why did you help him, maybe he was dangerous" and "I would've only helped him if he looked relatively normal", etc. So I was confronted with two lessons: people don't give a shit about you, even if you are obviously in a painful situation right in front of them. and second: they always have some bullshit rationalization for why they shouldn't help. Not only for why they shouldn't help but why they shouldn't even stop by and ask "excuse me, are you alright?" Not even that. So I thought: what if this happens to me? Or some of my friends? Or a family member? There's no reliance on people. This is stage Orange at it's most toxic form. Dog eat dog. And you're being judged for not playing along. So if you see someone like that, imagine that this person was you. Totally fucked up and in pain, rolling around on the street with 95% of society looking at you as though you were a piece of dog sh*t.

Where you at, mods?

@James123 but not everybody sees that that is so.

@AverageMonkey There's nothing to explain, your question is meaningless and I am not enlightened.

She's making a very good and important point I think. Basically an aspect of spiritual egotism when it comes to relationships. Leo needs to make a video on the spiritual ego, it's such an important topic because it will happen to everyone on the way.

@Opo Nope, small city in Germany. population of 83K, 50% of which are university students. and a whole bunch of hippies and weird crazy people?

Best case scenario: psychedelics will ruin reductionist science But these new compounds are definitely a step in the right direction. Remember, not everyone is interested in tripping. Many people would benefit enormously from the effects of those drugs. Imagine if we could actually treat depression effectively. How that would transform society... @Forestluv Never heard of it. Can't find anything about it on the internet, what is it? New research? Any papers on it?

@Mason Riggle Unfortunate.

@Mason Riggle I wouldn't judge a volcano for erupting, because I wouldn't hold it accountable for doing so. But if you would for example go kill 20 people, I would judge you for that and it wouldn't matter to me whether the killing is what you do or who you are. And on top of that, I would behave pragmatically towards you, aka selfishly. Of course. Wouldn't you?

@Mason Riggle I know that I myself am a Zen devil to a certain degree. I have one foot in Zen and the other in Devil. Though of course, both feet are actually standing on pure Zen ground - only I'm still too much of a fool to see it all the time. I wouldn't judge you for being a Zen devil, but depending on what you do, I might judge you for that. I'm no saint and I try not to pretend to be one. True, any attempt of changing whatever is going on in the world is simply more of the same, but for that exact reason I will superficially discriminate between good and bad and play my role. Because no matter what I do, that's what's happening anyway. I haven't forgotten that me helping that dude doesn't mean jack in the end, but neither does anything else. Whatever happens, is Good. Choose your way. Alan Watts made it clear, you're a Buddha anyhow. And if you really know that, you don't have to go around doing devil shit in order to prove that you're a Buddha anyhow. But it just so happens that for some reason you start feeling more and more compassion on your way, and then you simply act from there.

@Mason Riggle People misunderstand Alan Watts so easily... This is the problem with listening to him: on one hand he's a great teacher. on the other hand, it's so easy to become a zen devil by listening to him. One of my absolute favorite excerpts of all his talks is this one, and I'd like to use it as a response to your post: "[...] but if you will treat yourself for a while as a cloud or wave and realize that you can't make a mistake whatever you do, because even if you do something that seems to be totally disastrous it all come out in the wash somehow or other, then through this capacity you will develop a kind of confidence. And through confidence you will be able to trust your own intuition. Only the thing that you have to be careful about is - and many people who have not understood then properly fall into trouble here - is that when they take the attitude that I can't possibly make a mistake, they overdo it. Which shows that they don't really believe it. So a lot of people come on and say ""well in Zen anything goes, you're naturally with it anyway, you are a Buddha anyhow and I'm gonna prove I'm the Buddha anyhow by breaking all the rules"". So you've got on the weirdest, filthiest clothes and you're gonna steal things and all kinds of things like that, that's overdoing it. That shows that you haven't learned. You're overcompensating, because before you were told to do this to that the other and watch and be self-conscious and nervous and so on and so you just go to the other extreme. But this is the middle way - of knowing it has nothing to do with your decision to do this or not whether you decide that you can't make a mistake or whether you don't decide it, it's true anyway."