Consept

Yeah I agree, these responses are pretty much useless and just serve to elevate the poster to some sort of enlightened guru status and if you don't get it you're just not there yet poor soul. They have no real value for the poster. Even if the zen quipper is enlightened he's not speaking to people on their level which makes it pointless

I haven't got any children and am on the fence about whether I will or not. But I think if anyone has children it has to be a completely altruistic endeavour, I know it rarely is but you have to just not expect anything back at all, there's no guarantee they will look after you, there's no guarantee they will give you the love that you seek. If you haven't got this mindset I think you'll run into problems. Why I might consider having children is that I would want to teach them all I know and make them understand life in a completely different way. When you learn anything useful it should always be in your mind to pass it down and yes you can pass it down to anyone but I think there is something about the bond you have with someone that close to you. Also consider conscious people need to have kids as well otherwise kids will be brought up unconsciously ad infinitum. Those are really the only reasons for me, but obviously reasons against us that if you're not self actualized, at least to a decent degree you can pass down a lot of disfunctions to your child. On top of that a child could hold up your growth as you are putting a lot of energy in to them. So I don't know man lol

The thing with content like this is that it depends on the receivers current level of consciousness. For example a knife is a great tool for cooking etc but in the wrong hands its a weapon used to inflict pain, its not the knifes fault either way. That being said Leo isn't an inanimate object so there is some responsibility on him to be aware of these situations happening which I believe he is and he does do disclaimers, but regardless some people with fall through cracks or be influenced negatively by his content. For me the net return makes it worth it in that he helps a lot more people than get hurt and ultimately that's what it comes down to, that's why we still have knives and they're not banned. I do agree with criticisms from others in that Leo speaks as if speaking from absolute truth, other gurus are trying to gently nudge you in the direction and if you can't understand it you're just not ready, whereas with Leo there's a sense that you're wrong and you need to take in what he's saying. I don't think this is the best way to go about and can lead to people blindly following an ideology. This is similar to people like Jordan Peterson and Ben shapiro who speaks in such a definite way that you either are against them or a die hard devotee. Obviously he's not as bad as that esp not content wise but it's just a manner of the way this content is spoken that can create this strong opinion. So just something to be aware of.

Just some thoughts on this - recently I've been really trying to accept all my thoughts and everything about me fully. I have quite an anxious mind so not always easy, but I have 2 paths one is continually trying to improve myself in the hope that 'i' no longer feel anxious or the second is that I just accept that the anxiety is there and realise that I am whole with or without it. If you think of someone you love, do you live them less because let's say they are anxious sometimes or do you accept and give them love regardless, maybe even more love if they need it? So just because the thoughts occur in my head and there's some sort of ownership of them why should there be no love, acceptance or understanding given to oneself? Truth is you are complete and whole what stops you from seeing this is unrealistic expectations of what that means, unrealistic meaning that you need to be something other than you currently are. The journey to becoming whole is a realisation and acceptance, so anything you do physically or whatever to achieve wholeness would mean you don't realise you're whole and you don't accept yourself as is, this is what leads to a feeling of not being whole. It's a complete mental maze that you need to opt out of

@LfcCharlie4 thanks man, really appreciate the advice, I'll have a look into it

1 on 1s sound interesting, how did you get in contact with yours and are there any you could recommend around London or southern England?

Thank you ? it's interesting how pick up can be a route to self actualization

I'm aware of him and have watched a few of his videos in the past esp when I was looking for a way to make money online. I don't mind him but he doesn't really resonate with me personally but I think some of his content can be useful. But here's the thing with all these YouTube teachers, everyone of them will have their own issues, their own negatives and even ulterior motives but the trick you and all of us have to learn is he to get the good useful content and leave the rest. Some teachers you can recognise they're just concerned about making money but some of their techniques can be useful, take what is and put it into something that you're trying to do. The problem is we take teachers wholesale and if they say something we dont like we throw everything out. Forget the teacher just worry about the content and that goes for everyone from Leo to Dan Lok to Eckart Tolle

Ultimately its all a roll of a dice, theres people that could do psychedelics all their life and not be fully realised. Awakening is a realisation that 'you' are not in control and ceding control to the bigger you, i actually got a first real insight by watching a psychology doc on the brain and it stated something like the conscious you just thinks its the star of the movie but its not at all and that really made me think. But i definitely take your earlier point, i think a lot of pain and despair can be chipped away but looking through the perspective psychedelics give you, i would advise anyone to do it myself at least once. But i dont think its a sure route to enlightenment i just think its a good tool that can help you along your way

It's true in a lot of cases with the popular masters but when you look at someone like Paul Hedderman he was not spiritually gifted, he did every drug under the sun and came to a realisation during the depths of despair. Similar with Eckart he was just about to commit suicide from depression and came to a realisation, so in these instances extreme mental anguish made them see clearly but previously no spiritual gifts necessarily. So I don't think it's a fact that seem people just get it from birth and everyone else has to crawl with meditation or take psychedelics, I think if you can really see the futility of your efforts to become enlightened and essentially realise what you are you will get there, it's just maybe pain needs to be the fuel to get you there.

I agree with you in that the psychedelic can crack the current perspective, I know this from personal experience trying mushrooms for the first time when I wasn't really into spiritual topics, once I had that experience there was no going back and I learnt a lot after the fact. But it's not necessarily going to stabilise you into that so it's not a direct route which I guess you did agree with. My point was though, that I've never really heard of someone getting enlightened even mentioning psychedelics as a big factor in it, in fact ive heard a lot of people not even that into spirituality or non dual topics that take psychedelics regularly but are not concerned with enlightenment. So I'm just questioning whether apart from maybe initial insight into something else are psychedelics really fast forwarding people to enlightenment? I'm more than willing to be proven wrong on this I just haven't seen it personally. Potentially the fact that people are chasing enlightenment through anything, in this case psychedelics, could actually slow down your enlightenment until you get past that crutch.

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.