Consept

Not saying psychedelics are not useful, I've tried them myself and they definitely cracked my perspective of reality BUT, just an observation as far as I know there are no enlightened masters or gurus, at least that I've heard about ever get an awakening through psychedelics in fact they don't condemn but they don't really advise to do it when asked. I'm talking about people I regularly listen to, mooji, sadhguru, Paul Hedderman, adyshanti etc. So I'm just wondering why are psychedelics talked about on here like they will definitely get you enlightened very quickly when there isn't much evidence for it and most enlightened beings advise against it? It's like a 100m sprint champion saying you need hard work, nutrition and a good coach to be a champion and another guy saying you need that but steroids as well except (in the example) no champion has won taking steroids. Again not attacking psychedelics, theyre very useful but I don't think they're the be all and end all or you even need them to be enlightened

How could you have the diversity you speak of without segregation? Also keep in mind 'mixing' is not a new thing multiple past cultures did it (Romans, eygptians etc) which then gave rise to most of the 'races' that you know today, if you do a dna test you'll find that you're the make up of many different areas of the world, is the issue more specifically about colour? If you're white and American for example having nordic is not so much of an issue, but if the other race is African or Asian, is that then an issue? I think getting stuck on 'race' is really fruitless because what's going to happen will happen, if you look at somewhere like Brazil, they have the problems, but the blackest and whitest Brazilian will always be seen as Brazilian 'Some of the most beautiful women I have seen are multiracial, but so too are the absolute ugliest'. - couldn't this just be said about every woman or man for that matter, there are ugly and good looking people of all races, in fact you've said mixed are the most beautiful which is confusing. I don't want to come accross argumentative or insulting but I would encourage you to look and think about this issue a bit deeper, there are many holes in your claim that don't hold up and you should look to challenge them yourself

OK so heres one way of looking at it (dont worry about all the questions lol), I had or still kind of have OCD as in im a recovering thought addict if you like. Mine is pure O so essentially i would have a thought that is not true and literally not be able to stop thinking about this thought, lets say the thought is im a women in a mans body (some people have this), all day ill try and get this thought out of my head, ill try and work it out, ill try everything and it will drive me crazy trying to get this thought out of my head, to me at that moment its real even though logically i know its not. So what can 'i' do? If i try anything from the perspective of this self that believes this illusion it simply wont work as it will just create more thought activity and go round in circles, so its really 2 things which is one i have to really see that this thought is not true, its an illusion and yes also desensitise myself to it so this could be facing the fear, but the two go hand in hand. If you see its an illusion the fear disappears or rather is fully accepted, as the fear is also an illusion. So in your example of someone whos shy, he couldnt just approach women and then automatically it will be gone he would have to see that there is nothing there stopping and that the fear is created, once this is seen he would be able to approach them with the fear which will then lessen everytime he approaches, there will be a natural reaction of fear at first as the body is sensitised to this situation. It is possible that by approaching many women he will see that its not fearful and maybe you could see the illusion through that but thats not always the case, i think its good to be aware of both.

This is really the paradox of this spiritual thing, you understand it logically and because you understand you naturally want to change your mind to that way of thinking. But the difficulty comes in who wants to change it? If youre still identified with your mind as in you believe you are your thoughts or you believe that you are a separate self, then the change you want is to improve what youre attached to and what youre attached to is not real. So you are not accepting whatever you are, youre mind has constructed a fantasy of what you could be if only you could not care what people think, so this type of thinking gets you stuck because you could always find some concept that sounds good to the mind and could seemingly 'improve' 'you'. The truth of this is the realisation that you cant 'get' anywhere and that you are already there, essentially you need to give up and see that all of these thoughts, sensations whoever you think you are, is not you. This cant be done overnight, in fact it cant really be done, but once you see what youre not youll be able to see the truth.

Just curious but how would you meet a girlfriend? Asking as it can be difficult without socialising too much

I thought Her was really good and it deals directly with consciousness and enlightenment, it also got me into Alan Watts

Lol i get you, i normally dont pay attention to those comments either but it was just within the context of the discussion.

I was specifically talking about this comment by @Lento - I also said that Leo says to discover for yourself and in general im talking about the atmosphere on the forum, ive seen many times someone ask an honest question just to be told 'you dont exist' or something like that. Although that maybe a true statement it doesnt necessarily help and honestly if i was younger and didnt really listen to other teachers id find that very confusing.

I agree with you in terms of your take on skepticism, I was more using Christianity as an example. You're right in that an enlightened being wouldn't be skeptical as in a fearful questioning, but the point is that most are not enlightened on this forum, most are seeking and to teach that they should unquestioningly accept the teachings of someone who it's debatable whether they're enlightened themselves is potentially not the best path to go down. Even Leo says discover for yourself.

If you don't have skepticism then what's the difference believing whatever you believe and say Christianity? (I've heard similar arguments from Christians)

I pretty much agree with all your points in your last post, i think its just a tough situation to put yourself in, if youre not fully awakened and to some extent still 'chasing' its very difficult to teach others because simply put youre not always talking from that deeper place. The pressure of consistently making videos on any subject let alone this must be immense (even putting out a couple vids myself i can see this) and ive always been really impressed with the amount of high quality content Leo puts out, i mean he could be one of the most prolific on youtube period. But in terms of the nondual there is such a palpable difference between him and other teachers and you can see that they are fully there. Thats ok though and im sure Leo is aware of this as he does mention warnings, the problem really comes when people put him in this Guru status and get dogmatic about everything he says, as soon as he puts up a video i see posts saying 'im worried now that i have to be awakened before i do abc'. He would have to be honest with himself and look into whether hes encouraging this or enjoying that people follow him a little too much, not saying this is the case thats for him to decide. But young people are extremely impressionable esp those with mental health issues, those not happy etc so we have to be clear what are the benefits of Leos teaching and what are the limitations. Realistically if he wasnt so influential and so good at what he does we wouldnt even be having this discussion so full respect to him anyway

It sounds like your self esteem could improve and you should work on that But.... Yes neediness is very off putting and if its too much at the start if you actually get involved it will be 10x worse. Just because someone wants to sleep with you doesn't mean you should just do it, worry about what you actually want, are you attracted to her, do you know what you're looking for? You will have to be honest with yourself and work out if she's insecure or your self esteem is low

I would say the criticisms from @electroBeamare fair but also at the sane time not necessarily Leo's fault. I've always thought the idea of enlightenment as presented on the forum is potentially unhealthy and almost anti-enlightnement, as it sets it up as a goal and is taken very seriously, this leads to comments like 'I'm going to get enlightened and then work on a career', as if it's the same as getting a college degree. It's only here where I've heard it discussed in such terms, most good nondual teachers have a fun, I can't believe people take this serious outlook, which is very counter to Leo's. Personally I believe Leo is just not awakened at least not to their extent, I think he's had profound experiences but to me he doesn't embody it in the same way, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, he's still on his journey. If you want nondual teachings there's a ton of teachers who completely embody it, one of my favourites is Paul Hedderman, who often says the subject of non duality doesn't interest him at all, which might sound ridiculous to us but if you were really awakened why would it interest you? I Having said that I think the value of actualized.org is that it breaks down complex and not really talked about topics in a relatively easy way to understand and I can't express how valuable that is, things like the SD series were honestly amazing. The problem is when people take Leo as a guru and not a Gura lol. In that they hang on every word and start making life decisions based on what he says. To be fair he has always said do your own research and have your own sources. The teachings here (and anywhere) are tools and that's it, use them but don't add dogma or any kind of sacredness to them, don't assume Leo is right and work from there, do your own thing.

I actually did this the other day, but you could use a Socratic questioning to delve into your thoughts and see what is actually holding them up and why you believe them. They actually use these in CBT which is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and designed to do what you want which is change core beliefs or irrational thoughts in the therapeutic setting. I would google for more info but this is an outline of the method Clarifying concepts. ... Probing assumptions. ... Probing rationale, reasons and evidence. ... Questioning viewpoints and perspectives. ... Probing implications and consequences. ... Questioning the question.

What is your mental state when a) youre playing really well and b)when youre not playing well?

Whats more important to you?

@LfcCharlie4 first of all great topic and something I've thought about recently as well. I'm from the UK also and a man utd fan (boo lol). I think you're sentiments are right, sport is a great tool to get into flow, before I even knew about a spiritual pursuit I would get into amazing states of flow when playing football, to the point of doing a trick that I'd never even practiced right in the middle of a game and just being amazed after about how even knew to do it. I think there is value in mastering something just because. Alan Watts talks about it when he says he talks just because he likes to talk and he sees life as play, as in he finds something he likes to do, does it and gets better at it. The problem with sport though and in particular football, is that once you start getting to a higher level there's so much money, unconscious and toxic environments, that's not to say you can't carve out corners of it to address this but I'm just saying the current state is like this and you could get lost in it. Like watching football can be great, but recently I've been looking at emotionality behind it, as in how other people react and maybe how I used to react to a result not going your way and it's crazy, it can ruin people's whole day or year even. There's so much anger if you've watched arsenal fan TV you'll know what I mean. As much as we're connected to our teams we're not really anymore than we're connected to apple or Google, they're just companies essentially. Career wise, like Leo says your purpose can be completely derailed by an injury but the knowledge that you gained can be passed on it can also teach you about life, focus, diet, human relations, so much apart from the actual act of doing it and all this can be passed on to others. I never thought my career would be sports but I loved playing football which I can't do anymore because of achillies injuries, when I think about it I got to a good level at football and spent many hours playing but many of those hours I loved and wouldn't change them so for me it's not a waste. I've started boxing recently and that kind of gives me an outlet for an sporting endeavour but again I'm not playing on becoming a pro or anything I just like the process of learning something new. If you really love sports go for it and it seems like you're aware of the potential traps so why not

Yeah it's just balance you've leaned too far in one direction which has thrown you off, you can look at what you're feeling now as your minds attempt to get you balanced. I would go with it and see what interests you that you can make money from, you can literally make a business about anything now, or if it's just a job maybe do a flexible thing like deliveroo while you're looking.

I've done research into these type of companies before, the best thing to look at is their profit distribution, which is how much people are currently making from it. Usually around 90% of people make next to nothing, of the ones that do make something its not even minimum wage and around 1% or 2% make a lot of money, these are usually owners or people that got in early or people who are ridiculously driven and ruthless. The issue is as you say you're not really selling a product you're recruiting people but you'll fall in one of two camps, 1 is that you won't make any worthwhile income while basically working many hours, 2 is that you'll be taking advantage and recruiting people that you know won't make much money but you're income comes from them and people they manipulate. In my opinion yeah officially its not a 'scam' but it's a horrible business that takes advantage of peoples hopes and dreams and can have a damaging affect on communities. They should be illegal I'm very surprised they're allowed to still exist. They use a lot of tactics that cults use except spiritual enlightenment is replaced with the idea of being rich, a rich enlightenment if you like.

Lucky in that i didn't grow up religious at all or with any particularly strong beliefs, in fact I kinda wanted to be religious because they always seemed so happy and to have purpose and understanding, which I craved but I couldn't lie to myself I didn't believe it. So had to work everything out by myself which is impossible if you haven't got a clue. Eventually tried mushrooms didn't know what they would do, didn't know what to expect, gave me a glimpse of something else. Started getting into different materials, information, power of now was a big one, sadhuguru, mooji, Paul Hedderman, meditation, and now I wouldn't be able to close the door if I tried

I came across these 'Street Epistemology' videos that i found quite interesting (ive attached on below), its really interesting how ingrained beliefs are in people to the point where they come across as irrational. I also find it scary and frustrating because the fact that people can be so brainwashed obviously has led to or played a part in probably all major large scale tragedies in human history. But what do you think the limitations of Epistemology are? Can it be used to look at the non-dual perspective?

I mean it's a balance, if you don't care at all about results it won't push you and if you care too much it becomes obsessional and pointless. Unconditional happiness might be a good way to put it as you said, again going with my personal chess example, I used to get frustrated when I wasn't playing well and then get desperate to win, which makes you play worse and you don't enjoy it. If you set the target of wanting to win but being OK with it if you don't and just learning the lessons needed and enjoying the game regardless, then you come out with a lot even though you lose. Now even if I lose but play well I'm happy with it

I agree with @CreamCat here, to advance or to master something it's inevitable that you would need competition. The disclaimer is you shouldn't necessarily compare yourself to someone else and you should understand that you're on your own path, but we can't deny that competition makes you better. Think of all the great sporting rivalries, when you come accross someone that is difficult to beat it makes you push yourself more, mentally it makes you redefine what is possible. Before Roger banister break the record for running the mile no one had ever done it before, then after, as people had something to strive for, lots of people broke it. Look at Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, they both broke all kinds of records in football, is it a coincidence that both of them came at the same time or are they pushing each other constantly? From personal experience I play chess and I signed up to a site where you get your rating based how you play against other players, so I'm around 1500 to 1600, when I play someone that's 2000 say they kick my ass but I learn much more than if I play someone not as good, so I improve and it also let's me know what I have to do to get to that level. As long as you can take the ego out of it I think competition is the greatest tool you can have for mastery.

Nice, I'll give the video a watch, I probably watched it before but I don't think it hit me as hard as seeing it in action in the street epistemology vid

That's good advice