Gesundheit2

Send love her direction, make the connection Make the connection...

It's time to d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-duel!

I've never got to a final resolution on the issue of whether Actualized.org is a cult or not. It certainly has the dynamics of a cult, which are now less obvious, and actually less existing than before. But they're still there, which raises questions and question marks for me. Currently, I'm more on the side that it's not a cult. I don't think Leo is a bad person, even though my experience with him had not been the greatest, but still he is a good person in my opinion. I think Joseph is wrong about Leo. He is not naming anyone in the video, but it's crystal clear that he has Leo in mind throughout the video. If you're familiar with his story, this should be obvious. At various points of my timeline here, I thought Actualized.org is a cult, and some other times not. But the truth is that it is a difficult judgement to make. My current view is that the dynamics do not necessarily imply intentions. The dynamics get created naturally within any community, because well that's how people work, so they're not necessarily of Leo's creation. But he might have chosen to let them happen and evolve, or he might have even done something to make something out of them for his benefit. If that was the case, I think it would most likely be unconscious on Leo's side. Why? Because socialization is not one of his strengths. So, he might have subconsciously resorted to manipulation to leverage himself, or even to simply heal his wounds and integrate his shadows around socialization. That's my current perspective as someone who sucked big time at socialization. I think it's very likely. I think if I was in his place I would have done the same things. He used to get very defensive and try to debunk every criticism of him, no matter how small or irrelevant. Right now he's becoming less and less attached to what people think of him. It's especially hard for someone in his position where your survival is dependent on what people think of you to a very large degree, so I admire and respect him for that. My survival is not really affected by what people think and I still struggle with people's opinions of me. At the same time, manipulation is part of his work as a public speaker, because his work involves marketing, and marketing is basically a form of manipulation of the mind. So, the lines get blurred here and it becomes harder to separate the two. Maybe he didn't know where the lines are. I can see that it's hard to make that distinction especially for intellectuals and people who lack empathy and suck at socializing. However, Leo was not able to entertain criticism back in the day. He would take it personally and seriously and mark you in his mind as a "hater" or a troll that is trying to take him down because you're jealous or evil or a devil or whatever, and he would treat you like that until you change and stop criticizing him. I like how he is becoming less and less concerned with criticism and what people think. I think he has improved a lot, even in his communication and how he relates to us and the world. His replies now are very smart and subtle. He knows how to say the right things and how to effectively deal with trolls. These are signs that tell me he is walking the talk and improving and developing, which means high integrity and a good heart, as opposed to what Joseph thinks. I have always been honest about what I think, even if it meant being despised or getting banned. I didn't care, and I still don't. I am not anyone's enemy, that's simply not how I operate in the world. But I tend to express myself in an intimidating way. The truth is that I often just speak my mind, and many people simply don't like to hear certain things, whether true or false. Anyway, I like the model that Joseph proposed here. I like especially the terminology of "flying monkeys" and "useful idiots", not sure if they're original to him or borrowed from somewhere else though. I think these are very accurate descriptions for cult enablers who create the cult out of thin air, even without intending to. I had definitely clashed with some flying monkeys and had been a useful idiot at some point. The flying monkeys are probably the worst part of the dynamic. I like how smart Joseph is and how sharp and accurate his judgements are. But on this issue I disagree and think that he's biased and possibly still feeling hurt, which is probably an unresolved trauma that has become part of his shadow. But of course, we cannot know who is right. Maybe after all Leo is just an imposter and Joseph is right, even though very unlikely imo. The only way to know would be to meet Leo in person, know him directly, and then make the proper judgement. But for now, this is all guesswork and unverified assumptions. @Joseph Maynor Tagging you here to let you know that I am enjoying your content and that I always appreciated your wisdom ever since you were a member here, and to give you my perspective.

One should ask the doctor.

Principles are values that need conscious enforcement. They stem from your authentic values and are based on them. But since principles are not technically the values themselves but rather a way by which the values manifest themselves out there in the world, or a medium that the values get expressed through, they are more prone to corruption, distraction, gaslighting, delusion, forgetfulness, etc. even by oneself. Hence why many people can't follow through their chosen principles.

I don't take the forum or self-actualization very seriously. Development still happens, but it's not my focus, so I don't feel like I'm wasting my time nor that I am misusing the forum. I probably have 5000+ posts by now given my previous accounts, and that's probably since 2017-18 or so. I've changed a lot over the years, but that's just a bonus for me. I would say even if you think you're wasting your time here, it's at least 100 times better than playing video games. Most people give themselves a free pass while wasting weeks and months and years of their lives playing silly and useless video games, that goes under the radar. But when they come here, they start feeling guilty and think they're wasting their time. Well, yeah, if playing video games is your goal, then the forum is definitely a distraction for you. The truth is that the forum is more like a book, or a collection of highly refined perspectives from high quality thinkers, not everyone obviously, but still relatively a lot. I would much rather be hanging around here than be reading dry logical books or attend ideological debates somewhere else. At least here the concept of going meta exists, even though misused, but still.

"The only one that can love you unconditionally is yourself." Great video! I will definitely be watching more of his content in the months, maybe years to come. One video per week at least.

Joseph Maynor I'm gonna check out some of his videos later. Glad to finally find the channel.

It's the end of the awakening phase.

It's nothing that exists.

Sigh.

Selflessness, in the most basic sense, means not having a preference. If you do have a preference, that's selfishness. I do have many preferences, so I am selfish. The more preferences you have, the more selfish you are. And vice-versa.

@Thought Art Let's get one thing clear. I don't think that being selfless is better than being selfish, or the other way around. That added morality is not my thing, it's yours. Selflessness is not about being in service to others. But selfishness is about being in service to oneself or another. Notice the difference.

And you don't need money to survive.

All of this is selfish. Less damaging, maybe, but still selfish nevertheless.

Talk is cheap. That's called post-modernism. Don't mistake it for spirituality.

"The price of Truth is everything." -- Jed McKenna.

Because I am selfish, and I don't claim to be otherwise. Anyone who claims selflessness should be the one to donate all their money. No. I'm honest about my selfishness. You probably didn't read my previous posts. It's not a moral judgment. It's calling it as it is. Try and see. The more material possessions you gather, the less spiritual you'll become. You will feel the difference directly in your experience. It's just how it is by definition. Try minimalism, and you will reach God faster than you'd ever do normally. Sigh.

@Thought Art By all means, go make your money. I'm not gonna stop you. I will just consider you selfish and unspiritual, and I don't think you'd care, so no harm being done here.

But it obviously doesn't embrace the poor nor the homeless. It only embraces what the ego wants. Of course. More money for me = less money for the poor. It's such an easy equation. Notice, I'm not telling you what to do. This is not a moral speech. It's just the truth.

No, spirituality does not and should not include survival. Survival pollutes spirituality and ruins it for any serious seeker. God does not care about your life. Only you care about your life. Notice that survival is not the same as breathing and eating and all that basic stuff that happens organically. Survival is a lot broader of a concept than just surviving, and it requires sacrificing goodness and selling your soul to the devil. Except that there is. If you want to be spiritual, there are things that you do and things that you don't. Survival is not one of the things you do, it's one of the things that either happen or don't. You're not willing to die for God, and that's fine I'm not asking you to. I'm just telling you how it is, and that your spiritual ego is not true spirituality. If you want to be a millionaire, there are things that you do and things that you don't. You can't sit around at home and expect to be a millionaire out of nowhere. Same thing with spirituality, but in reverse. If you don't even label/consider yourself spiritual, then why do you feel certified to talk about spirituality? I think you're confusing post-modernism with spirituality here, which happens a lot.

What you want is not what is. The nature of desire is that it seeks what isn't and distracts from what is. That's how it is. Check in your own direct experience and see. And of course, you can do whatever you want, but that's called "ego" not higher self. If you want to follow the ego, that's totally fine and I'm not against it. But then you're not spiritual, nor selfless, nor highly conscious. If you follow your ego, then you're unspiritual, selfish, and low consciousness. And don't take it from me, ask Leo himself. He's the one who sets spirituality, selflessness, and higher consciousness on a pedestal, not me (at least at the moment). For me personally, as I said, I am currently chasing after money. I don't care about being selfless right now, and I am honest about it. You guys want spirituality to be this sweet romantic thing that allows everything, but it just can't be that way. There's a trade-off between survival and spirituality, and Leo said many times that he could have made a lot more money if he wanted to. But he didn't obviously because he has a spiritual side. If you want spirituality to include survival, then you're in the wrong realm buddy.

Actually, there is. If spirituality is the realization that you are dead/eternal, then seeking money becomes unspiritual. Any seeking activity is antithetical to spirituality for that matter, because the spirit is all there is, so what are you seeking except your delusions? Now, I'm not saying Leo is this way or that way, but that's how it is with money and spirituality. You can test this in your own experience. Just look at how detached you are from any of your possessions, and you'll quickly realize that what you said is nonsense. The truth is that you can't have it both ways. You can't claim idealism and then act materialistically, it's just hypocritical. I myself have gone poor because I left all materialism behind and sought after God for over 5 years until I found it. Now, I'm done seeking after God and I'll be chasing after money again. I am 100% honest.

The only thing that's sillier than this movie is the original 50 Shades of Grey. But still, I don't know how this is not considered racist. Humans are crazy and play jump the rope with racism, that's granted. But to play jump the rope with jumping the rope, that's the next level of double-standards. Just shows you how bullshit everything is, and that survival is king.

Are they what we're told they are? Are our eyes or minds deceiving us or what? Are they portals to other realms? When there is a mystery, we go to our most trusted advisor; Science. We seek explanations, but we get demystifications. "Ha! There ain't no secret." -- they say. On the first whim, every child thought that they were real. Magical, but real. Was our intuition correct and science wrong? Or is everything really just a perspective? - Look at the sky, it's so majestic! -- What's majestic about gas? A little snippet from a chat I had with a random materialist on Omegle some 5 years ago, smh ??‍♂️