SeaMonster

Nah, that's all very nice talk but ultimately this is about centralized authority and power and elitism and all the same problems that plagued the old religion. And you have no real answer for that, just that you're wiser and better than the ancients and it will all turn out better. Which it won't, because you're not.

And how many bad examples would be ok for us not to bother with (since you don't like all-or-nothing philosophies?) Like, give me a threshold percentage. You mean presents bad ideas in a palatable manner? He is not wiser than the Tao Te Ching, which is the antithesis of his Conscious Politics.

Nah. Leo says a million different things at odds with each other: some of them right on the money and some just straight up nonsense. He is channeling his Enlightened Politics bullshit and his irrational idealization of government (which may be a necessary evil, but to idealize it is just twisted) and applying it to spirituality.

We live in a world of the Internet where it's virtually impossible to hide anything, so people can gather all kinds of information they need and communicate in a decentralized manner. These boards are what's outdated. Top-down is obsolete, and is something to be captured by controllers and manipulators.

No, says the Daoist, and honestly, you're very intelligent but you should get beyond Leo's teachings once in awhile -- you're unduly influenced by his very questionable opinions on things. You have trouble understanding that power corrupts apparently, and any idealization of power is naive narcissism (---> Leo Gura.)

Duuuuuuuude. You literally sound like a communist - it's not a bad idea, it just hasn't been properly implemented yet - we will pull it off! Just hubris and lack of experience, sorry to say.

It's not the same, but if I keep hearing that - FOR WHATEVER REASON - some teacher has been particularly effective at getting people enlightened, I assume it's because he has some insight that translates into effectively helping people overcome their ego traps. Now, such teachers are NOT drones like your typical credentialed Ph.D. psychotherapist and tend to be highly individualistic and so trying to make them into such is very wrongheaded.

You've pretty much described religion. How effective has that been at awakening people?

If you genuinely believe that, then the whole subject is moot -- all reports of enlightenment are lies or self-delusion and why bother to pursue it in the first place? I assume testimonials have some degree of accuracy. Yes - I'm saying that going by which teacher resonates with you - as YOU said - is less effective than to go by some kind of external measure such as a reputation or testimonials.

And this is a most naive take, given that many people have incurred spontaneous awakenings via trauma or accident, or even sexual violation. Not that teachers should harm the ego, but you still don't see how your mentality on this subject is full of wishful thinking.

That's not true. Teachers can have reputations, testimonials, etc. You may not know which teacher will be effective for you with certainty, but you may certainly make a better educated guess which teacher to try. "Which teacher you resonate with" = whose sales pitch most appeals to your ego.

That's where you are wrong -- you believe it's another consumer product. Consumer products are about satiating the ego. Spirituality isn't.

I'm making it relevant because it's the reason why people seek teachers in the first place. You can't ignore that issue as part of the conversation. If a teacher is more effective than others, some people will not give a shit that he does not subscribe to some of the tenets of the code. They ultimately want to get enlightened. This whole thing really smacks of something like codes for psychotherapy, and psychotherapists can be notoriously ineffective (but they are still ethical!) A teacher should be self-responsible and have their own clearly stated code, but a board is just absurd in my opinion. I'm sure Jac O'Keefe is a fine teacher, but I don't think she has thought through all the implications here.

Re-read what I said. It's not that they make the teachings less effective, it's that they don't necessarily make them EFFECTIVE in the first place. So at best you have a teacher that does no harm, but no good either (and is doing no good its own form of harm?)

The problem with Ethics Boards, though, is that it smacks of a power structure which is misleading in its existence. Namely, that "spirituality" is another consumer product to be treated as a consumer product. This implies a whole set of presuppositions and expectations that do not apply in spirituality. It also creates the possibility of capture by corrupt forces that will wield that power to their own ends. In other words, make changes supposedly for the benefit of the seeker that aren't. It's better to have a standalone code that teachers themselves voluntarily adopt -- or even competing codes -- without a centralized authority. (Basically, all these ethics rules all sound nice - but a teacher can be entirely ethical and entirely ineffective. So what do you do about that?)

I'd say the saving grace of Green is that it creates enough trouble to usher in Yellow, so that at least reasonable people can understand the proper role and purpose of Blue and the lower stages. The mania of cult-like irrationality that sweeps through it is not fun to behold at all, though.

I don't believe that a set of psychedelic experiences can get you the whole way there, and I see ZERO evidence that anyone has reached full liberation using only psychedelics. They do certain things well, and have their uses, but the problem is the same problem as with any tool used in spirituality - the ego always captures the "seeking" process and uses it for its own ends. There has to be an element of genuine sacrifice, letting-go and uncertainty in order for full awakening to happen. If you're thinking, "oh, I'll just do psychedelics a bunch of times and I'll be fully enlightened" that is already evidence that the ego is firmly in charge of the process. Psychedelics cannot overcome the fact that one cannot INVOLUNTARILY, PASSIVELY become fully enlightened. With shaktipat, e.g. you're paying someone a lot of money to do sessions -- and you have no guarantee if/when it's going to work. So there is a real element of letting-go-of-control involved. There is a real TENSION to overcome (the ego will keep telling you that you're an idiot for paying a lot of money for something that isn't working.) The ego likes a path, a straight line, certainty, guarantees (how do I accomplish this?) It wants to control not only the end but the means, and can get picky about the means. But that's entirely the opposite of "letting go."

The problem with Orange is obvious from the beginning: everyone is NOT equal in a functional, down-to-earth sense which manifests in serious inequality...and that brings Green, which attempts to enforce the idea that everyone is equal via a romantic irrationalism that tells you that all inequality is systemic corruption. So modernity (and post-modernity) is two layers of stupid. But we get a lot of technological advancements and feel-good safe spaces as a compensation.

That's forum dogma. Regular shaktipat can get you enlightened within a year, and then you work on integration.

By definition, every spiritual seeker is brainwashed and manipulated to begin with, since they believe certain things inculcated in them by their upbringing. The irony here is that the people telling them "there are no teachers" ARE serving the function of teachers. A nondual or solipsistic teaching is still a teaching. So you can't get around it -- you can't pretend what you are offering isn't teaching. At that point, you have to take actual responsibility for the teaching you're offering and this is the issue here.

Please, dude -- try to be honest and not conflate separate issues into the category of "spiritual teachings." This is a rhetorical gambit that allows you to victim-blame and defend questionable ideas, such as the "teaching" of solipsistic dogma as part of "spiritual teachings." You basically criticized and attacked the video guy who directly experienced the negative effects of certain types of "spiritual teachings." You threw out the red herring of kundalini awakenings, which had nothing to do with the issue at hand. If you want to talk about ego and self-deception, that was pretty much a good example of that. Can you admit that teaching solipsistic dogma to spiritual seekers can be harmful or not (without blaming the victim)? This guy is not the first and only example of this negative impact, and not everyone who has experienced such suffered from schizophrenia either.

Kundalini awakenings are one minor aspect of spirituality, I would hardly characterize understanding what one is as "understanding spirituality." And what does this have to do with the video that I watched? The person in question suffers from schizophrenia and was negatively influenced by solipsistic dogma that is very much part and parcel of what I'm referring to as this notion, popular on the forum, that spirituality is to be "explained" and "understood." Did we watch the same video? But this is not "understanding spirituality." This is merely a minor technical aspect of the effects of certain techniques or drugs. You are being awfully evasive and refusing to address the elephant in the room, which is that certain ways of approaching spirituality can be harmful to many people.

To be fair, this notion that spirituality is to be "understood" is an egoic delusion perpetuated by Leo and accepted by many of his followers. To the contrary, I have found no evidence that the right way of approaching "spirituality" is to "understand it." I mean, it may be true for SOME people who have vast deficits as far as their intellect , but it isn't true for Leo or most people on the forum. For most people who are already inclined to be cerebral, the right path to spirituality is physical/action-oriented/emotional. You DO NOT fucking double down on your strengths to get "more spiritual." You address your biggest weaknesses, what is scary and unexplored and unfamiliar to you. And for most people here it's not contemplating their fucking navel as far as consciousness or God or anything abstract. That's the path of feeding the ego.

God created free will, so God created the possibility to believe or not believe in him. I disagree with the fundamental premise of the atheists that belief in God is intellectual in nature. It may be all that atheists are capable of, but many people are capable of intuiting the existence of God.

I do think it is the big growth breakthrough you've always wanted to experience. Your description is pretty consistent with shadow integration. I assume the breakup shocked you out of your negative habit patterns and unconscious contents surfaced so you experienced more wholeness.