Tim R

Might be a silly question, buy why did you @Leo Gura stop saying this as your intro sentence? It was a part of Actualized.org, we miss it more than we'd admit to hear you say those 4 little words

Well, so is his attempt to convey God or anything with words. And after all, when somebody calls "Leo" he turns around. It's not a problem.

Yes, so what?

Here's an example of green going too far https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-q4j_ttUgWmir4-Cwh_Hrg/videos

@mandyjw That's a nice answer @emenasche Well, you're neither in control not are you being controlled/determined, so your question has no meaning You live as you breathe. Do you control your breath? Or is it controlling itself? Do you live your life? Or is it living itself? Both are the same of course! So basically you just keep living your life and drop the illusion of being in control or being controlled. Both are nothing but meaningless ideas.

How does one make sure, that an insight gained by use of direct experience was actually an insight into the truth and not another illusion? If I look at the moon and see a disk, my direct experience tells me that it is a disk. Welp, it's not a disk but a sphere. If I look at the concentric waves that a pebble makes when I throw it into a pond, my direct experience fools me into thinking the water is flowing away. It's going up and down. How can we rely on direct experience, when it is the very reason we got into the illusion in the first place?

When do you think will we stop making a distinction between animals and humans? I mean a felt distinction. Everybody (with a few exceptions) understands that from a strictly scientific/taxonomic point of view, humans are of course also animals. But we treat neither ourselves nor the beings that we share the earth with as though we understand it - many people even deny animals to be conscious. They regard them like robots and their brain like computers. "Poke 'em and they'll cry, but not really. Put a metal hook through their mouth, it's okay, they don't feel anything". The less complex the animals is, the less people think they are conscious. I especially observed this in zoology- and animal-physiology class. How will this paradigm shift happen? / what must be understood in order for it to occur? How will this be related to our popular understanding of consciousness and ourselves? What will be the implications for society, animals and ecology? Since society is shifting towards Green more and more, this is going to be one of the great topics for us to deal with.

@Valwyndir Yes, but your personality won't vanish once you realized that you don't exist. The opposite is true, as far as I can tell; I know a few enlightened people and some of them have quite strong personalities and a lot of strength of character.

@Vibroverse You "produce/create" all your experiences, but without knowing how. You are the experience; creating and experiencing are the same thing. What do you mean?

I just discovered this blog https://www.integratedsociopsychology.net/ and I thought I might wanna share it with you Seems extremely interesting. Some serious yellow thinking. Great stuff.

Tucker? For real? Jesus Christ...

Haha what? "Extinguishing your personality"? And why would anybody try to do that? Looking for flaws? Looking for humanness in Leo, are we? Or what's the point of this thread? Gossip about my neighbor's cat, he doesn't care.

This is how you do it:

Fear overrides reason and sanity Our lives are more connected than we think People go to great lengths to maintain their comfort zone Companionship is important in order to stay sane The media controls weak-minded people immensely Nature restores itself very quickly Society functions only in times without fear Individual responsibility for ones' thoughts and actions is the most fundamental pillar of a functioning society

Terence is and was no guru. First of all because he himself didn't really understood enlightenment and second because he abhorred the idea of "guru-ship". I think he said about enlightenment "it's an act of rational apprehension" which is of course not the case. And he was also famous for "no method no teacher no guru". He's great if you want to get lost in mind, the weirdness of the world and crazy concepts, which really can be a lot of fun, but depending on your goal this might not be the right approach.

True, and this popular assumption is wrong, since consciousness isn't a neurological phenomenon. And when we find that out we'll also have to change our relation to animal consciousness.

@ivankiss You ask to understand mind by using mind. That's not gonna work

@ciclonado "Being" is all you can ever "be", right? That's pretty obvious. You can't somehow go beyond being, because then you wouldn't be. Very tautological, and rightly so So therefore, when you learn how to "be happy with only being" as you say, there's nothing that could ever disturb your happiness. Whether you "have" or "don't have" or "do" or "don't" doesn't matter anymore then. Because you always are, no matter the circumstances. You must make a distinction between happiness and satisfaction. Satisfaction: dependent of circumstances Happiness: independent of circumstances That's what Leo means when he says You can only be happy by being happy, and that's it. You see? Any "if - then"-situation isn't happiness but mere satisfaction. "If I had this car/house/wife/attainment/enlightenment/insight/etc., then I'd be happy." That way you will never ever reach true happiness (/enlightenment). To be happy is simply to be happy, without prior satisfaction of condition. Either now or never. Happiness is unconditional.

Amen to that??

@Leo Gura Why so dogmatic?

This is my (attempt of) constructive critique of some of the fundamental assumptions that Leo makes and that some people on this forum share (or simply believe to be true because Leo said so). It also ties in nicely with solipsism, which is for many on this forum an issue because they basically feel themselves trapped inside their head. The claim that I want to deal with is: "nothing outside you consciousness/awareness exists." I think that's not true. Not so long ago there was a thread about "does my kitchen still exist when I'm not in it?" The problem at hand is of course whether the world exist outside you're "bubble" (as Leo likes to call it (see his video on "guided exercises for realizing that you're god")) or not. This "bubble" consists of: your entire sensory field. You're visual field, your auditory experience, etc. And outside this bubble there seems to be nothing at all. This is where I disagree. I say: only because we're not conscious/aware of something, that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. To think that the bubble is the whole universe is confusing perception with consciousness. Let me give you an example: only because from a visual (sensory) point of view you're not aware of your head, that doesn't mean that your head doesn't exist. Because for example you can feel your head with your fingers. So this means, that your sensory experience of something is not a 100% reliable source for truth. Because you can get into all sorts of illusions. When you look at the waves that a pebble makes when you throw it into a pond, you're experience tells you that the water is flowing away. Until you put a leaf on the waves and realize that the water is simply going up and down. When you look at the moon, it looks like a circle. It's not a circle, it's a sphere. But you're "direct experience" tells you that it's a circle. It only looks like it's a circle. Equally, only because you can't perceive your kitchen, that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It exists, but you can't perceive it. Just like UV-radiation exists, but you can't perceive it. Or the gravitational pull of Alpha Centauri on your body; you can't perceive it, and yet it exists. If consciousness is the ground of existence, you don't have to be aware of your kitchen because the kitchen is aware of itself. And so forth, the whole Universe (outside your little bubble) exists because it is aware of itself. I believed in solipsism for quite a while and it seemed very persuading to me that your bubble is the whole universe. But now I'm starting to entertain the idea that Leo has overlooked this very subtle step from limited, solipsistic perception to consciousness and is now confusing one with the other. I think he has developed a very elaborate form of solipsism that rests on assumptions that one simply can't disprove (like "imagining" everything), but solipsism nonetheless. And I think "the bubble" aka Solipsism is also an illusion. Consciousness encompasses more that your bubble. In fact, there's no bubble. It only looks like there's one. Leo's highest source of truth is direct experience and he relies on that and nothing but that - there I think he fell into a trap. And this is a very tricky trap because it can make literally every illusion look like it's valid (aka not an illusion, but truth), as I showed to you. Doesn't have to, but can (and does). After all, if @Leo Gura really believed the bubble to be true, why shoot the videos? To whom are you talking? Nobody? Yes, but "nobody" in what sense? The sense that we don't exist because you can't see/hear/smell/taste (aka "aren't conscious" of) us? Of course you're conscious of us! Ok thanks for reading, I'm looking forward to discussion, just please don't let this escalate Love, Tim

In that case one mustn't claim that which can't be disproved to be true. That's right! But that's not the same as saying "nothing outside your awareness exists". Because "your" awareness extends into infinity. It doesn't stop at the walls of your bubble. The "bubble" is egoic projection. It's projecting the ego (sense of "I") onto perception which one has confused with consciousness. That's how (elaborate) solipsism works. Yes, perception is bound by consciousness (aka existence), but not the other way round.

@SirVladimir Best of luck to you! Take care

@Preety_India Haha yes, it doesn't explicitly and only mean that. But it also means that. Because if you are rich, you will get richer since you have the means to get richer. And if you're poor, the rich will take what you have because you're poor and they're rich. It's called the "Mathew-Principle" and it's applicable in many, many fields. Art for example: if you're a good artist, you sell well. The better you sell, the more attention you attract. And that sets up a feedback loop by which you'll get more and more famous and successful - equally, any other artist who doesn't do as well, won't be able to keep up with your success and therefore simply drowns in the ocean of competition. "Pareto distribution" is also a key word btw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution

@Preety_India Mathew 25, 29: "For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away." Welp. That's what happens in late stage capitalism, nothing particularly surprising. They will get even richer lol. Until they have taken everything they could get their greedy paws on - and then this whole structure will simply collapse like a house of cards. When there's nothing to take and nothing to spend, their money will become worthless. Unless they invest in public structures - which would basically be the transition towards a green(er) economy and society.