Dorje Chang

I've just tested the new ChatGPT and it's unbelievably good: https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/

@Thought Art Great post! @Leo Gura It doesn't look like conservatism is caused by growing up in a harsh environment. Otherwise, we'd see conservatism rapidly declining with economic growth and being more prevalent in poorer urban areas. A related observation is that despite many changes in society and the economy over decades, we generally don't see conservative or progressive parties dominating national elections indefinitely in advanced democracies. It does seem that people are wired differently in ways that maintain a certain balance in the proportion of people who identify as conservative or progressive relative to the overall culture at the time.

I already work in machine learning, but not in natural language processing specifically. It's an interesting area, though! Just like with AI art, it's becoming more and more accessible so anybody can try the tool itself.

That is kind of a compliment since search engines are universally used and an indispensible technology. I'm finding ChatGPT genuinely useful and informative. For example, it is already good enough to tutor school and university students on many topics. The cost of running queries is probably too high at the moment for it be widely available at low cost, but I predict that future iterations of ChatGPT and similar systems will become an everyday technology as soon as this becomes economically feasible.

He's probably still trying to turn himself into an alien in a way that the camera will capture.

Ken Wilber is a good option for self-actualization content. His teachings have many similarities to Leo's, with the advantage that they are more established and structured in the form of books, courses, etc.

All things considered, Actualized.org is one of the best resources on the internet, and probably the most profound. Thanks, Leo! 1. Actualized.org is a lot about your own journey of psychedelic awakening, which is understandable, but you have a more lot to offer that is valuable to people on various dimensions of personal and spiritual development. For example, you got me into real yoga, shamanic breathing, developmental psychology and other things that took me to the next level, even though I was already doing other things. Don't leave this behind. You can continue to follow your path and integrate your awakenings while continuing to create content that is not as advanced but much more useful for most of your audience. You have a business, relationships, and presumably human problems yourself, so the basic stuff continues to be relevant even for someone like you. 2. There's a huge amount of useful knowledge across the videos, the blog, and the forum. Consolidating this knowledge in the form of a book, courses, or even a wiki would be a massive contribution to the world.

Enlightenment appears to be related to a profound rewiring of the brain. I'm not a neuroscientist, but the brain can only be rewired slowly. Shinzen Young might say that meditation rewires the brain in such a way that you develop higher concentration, clarity, and equanimity over time. If you do this enough, you can experience phenomena with such extraordinary awareness that you gain insight into non-duality. Reinforcing such insights further rewires the brain so that you shift your conscious experience more and more toward nondual awareness. That's a story that many people can follow, at least. Clearly, a psychedelic experience can induce a temporary state that has a lot in common with the description of enlightenment. The experience can be so remarkable that it also creates a powerful emotional memory. If you buy into neuroscientific reasoning, however, an isolated experience cannot possibly rewire the brain in a fundamental way. Same as with a single meditation session. The interesting question is then: how would the repeated use of psychedelics rewire the brain? There are reasons to be skeptical that this is a reliable method for enlightenment: There's no indication that Ayahuasca religions lead to enlightenment. Leo is certainly not the first person to use psychedelics hundreds of times. Where are all the people enlightened by this method? People who are heavily into psychedelics are generally not very impressive in their wisdom.

What's wrong is that devils may use this logic to justify abusing psychologically vulnerable and desperate people who may be persuaded that unconventional methods are the only solution for them. If I start a death cult and persuade hundreds of suicidal people to drink poison, would that be acceptable as long as they consent to it? As Leo mentioned at some point, it's very important to cultivate and safeguard the reputation of psychedelics. If we want psychedelics but be more widely accepted, the only way this is going to happen is to move toward agreed ethical standards and even independent ethics review for psychedelic therapy. That may sound very bureaucratic, but the current psychedelic renaissance will lead to another public backlash if irresponsible guides and psychonauts cause too much controversy. Martin Ball should know better if he's a sincere guide. It's on him to demonstrate the ethical validity of his methods, especially in light of legitimate concerns.

Anyone who thinks that consent is a sufficient condition for an act to be OK should watch the 1988 French-Dutch film The Vanishing. It will be a much-needed slap in the face.

One of the most important things I learned from reflecting on Leo's videos is that I was focusing too much on meditation and ignoring yogic practices. Instead, it's worth considering both mind and body-based paths to awakening. I'm writing this topic to share what I've learned from researching different practices and implementing them in my daily routine. I looked into: Kriya Yoga and Kundalini Yoga, based on the books in Leo's list. Tibetan yogic practices. Shambavi Mahamudra Kriya, taught by Sadhguru. To my surprise, these three directions all suggested a similar practice: The Kundalini book from Leo's list says that Kriya Supreme Fire is the most effective practice for awakening Kundalini. Kriya Supreme Fire also appears in his Kriya yoga books. In Tibetan traditions, Tummo/Inner Fire meditation is usually regarded as the quintessential and most powerful yogic practice for achieving realization. Tummo is basically Kriya Supreme Fire with added visualization. Shambavi Mahamudra Kriya culminates in a practice that is essentially one round of Kriya Supreme Fire. What these practices have in common is that you hold your breath while applying bandhas (locks) and focusing on something. Whether you do Kriya Supreme Fire or Tummo according to taste, this is unbelievably powerful. It works. In the end, my daily practice became: 3x Mahamudra (KSR/SG books) > Shambavi Mahamudra Kriya (Sadhguru) > Tummo > Rest in the natural state Note: Gamana would say that Supreme Fire/Tummo is too strong for beginners and could lead to side effects if not incorporated gradually. Sadhguru's instructors would be vehemently opposed to combining Shambavi with other practices. I'm an experienced meditator and have low sensitivity. I'm not sure how other people might respond to this potentially explosive cocktail. The logic for the routine is that Tummo/Kriya Supreme Fire may well be the ultimate yogic practice and the only one needed in the long term. I'm doing Mahamudra and Shambavi Mahamudra Kriya before because I find them enjoyable and beneficial. Also, the Kundalini book on Leo's list recommends doing some preliminary practices to take the edge off Supreme Fire. As a bonus, I found that it's useful to do the Wim Hof method another time or at least take cold showers. The reason is that Tibetan yogis practice Tummo alongside extreme cold exposure. The hypothesis, suggested by Wim Hof himself, is that the stress from cold exposure sends the body a message that it should generate heat when you do Kriya Supreme Fire/Inner Fire. What do you think? Am I missing out on anything by skipping Kriya Pranayama?

Interesting, thanks!

@Christoph Werner Worth a trip to India someday to learn it? I liked Shambavi Mahamudra Kriya more than I was expecting.

That's a good question. In my experience, Ayahuasca is not a magic pill. I've taken it several times and while it was powerful and very helpful, there was no such awakening. The other people in the ceremonies didn't experience anything like it either, since they were always talking about healing instead of any type of awakening. The best approach seems to be the combination of meditation (including self-enquiry), real yoga, psychedelics, and any other practices one may resonate with it. I'd say that different schools of Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, and yoga are the only systems that seem to produce enlightenment to a limited but significant extent. In contrast, I know some Ayahuasca-based religions well, the ones in Brazil, and there's no indication that these religions lead to awakening in meaningful numbers despite regular ceremonies.

I like Jed's books but people take them way too seriously. The books are fictional. Jed McKenna is just a character. The other characters come across as vehicles for him to make a point rather than actual people. He's more interested in creating catchy terms such as Dreamstate and Human Adulthood than in making any serious arguments for his worldviews. Spiritual autolysis doesn't lead to enlightenment. It was probably just an invention to have Julie's letters in the second book. Fantastic writer, nevertheless. The books are very entertaining and make many good points.

There always seems to be a higher, more counterintuitive, more ineffable awakening to be had. Nice if true, but I've seen this movie before. I predict that higher awakenings will keep coming, testing the open-mindedness of even the most open-minded person.

Great video, Leo! I hope you have the desire to one day write a book expounding your philosophy. I mean, you already went above and beyond with your content and have done enough, but academic and popular culture is such that a book would carry more weight in the terms of getting your ideas seriously considered and leaving something for the future. Philosophy always struck me as a strange field. Who would try to learn physics by going back to Newton's original writings and studying them outside the context of all the developments since then? Now, some feedback. Remember in the 5-Meo-MALT video when you said that there's a collective responsibility to safeguard the reputation of psychedelics? When you say that you've achieved omniscience, the end of philosophy, and so on, you're going against that. What's the point of undermining your message with extravagant claims for which you have no evidence? It just gives ammunition for people to dismiss your teachings on the basis that it's all a hallucination from psychedelics and that you're being iconoclastic for egoic purposes. The more outlandish the claims, the more this becomes the "rational" Bayesian update from their perspective. I imagine your response: you're being authentic and saying what is true. Shut up and do the work to verify. However, the above remains valid even if you're completely right about everything. This is about how the message is received.

I'm creating this thread inspired by Leo's blog post on October 23rd, recent posts on this forum, Shinzen Young's writings, and books such as 1000 (Ramaji). Needless to say, different teachers and traditions talk about different (though possibly related) things when they talk about enlightenment, awakening and spiritual development. Therefore, it would be interesting to identify the most important dimensions of awakening and spiritual development claimed by different traditions. We could then ask: 1) Which practices allow you to progress most effectively along different dimensions? 2) Which dimensions might not be worth focusing on because others subsume them? These are some dimensions that I can come up with off the top of my head. I'm not claiming that this list is correct or complete. Some dimensions may be redundant. I don't necessarily agree with every item. I'm just trying to collect the claims made by various teachers and spiritual traditions. Increasing concentration. Increasing sensory clarity. Decreasing reactivity. Dismantling habituated patterns of behavior. Reducing suffering beyond that caused by reactivity. Increasing recognition of the constructed nature of the self. Increasing recognition of the constructed nature of phenomena. Increasing recognition of the nondual nature of experience. Increasing ability to rest in and live from more awakened levels of awareness. Increasing ability to embody and sustain positive states such as love and open-heartedness. Increasing recognition of consciousness as ultimate reality. Realizing God (this is specific to Leo). Interestingly, some teachers are supposedly highly developed along the most sophisticated dimensions yet are clearly deficient in others. Think of a meditation master who fully recognises nonduality but suffers from alcoholism. Which dimensions would you add or remove?

I can attest to this. Daniel Brown was the only meditation teacher I ever came across that is explicit about teaching the most efficient techniques for awakening and advanced Mahamudra and Dzogchen. His stuff works. Do you know others? Here is an example of how his teachings do not beat around the bush (nevermind the jargon): Furthermore, he explicitly claimed that a certain number of his students achieved these states. Highly recommended, just noting that their retreats are expensive.

First post here. I'm genuinely curious to know why Leo, who's deeply into epistemology, feels so confident about extrapolating from his psychedelic experiences to radical claims about the nature of reality. My most profound experiences sometimes felt beyond the duality of being real vs not real and sometimes "more real" than ordinary states of consciousness. Such experiences yielded invaluable personal lessons, but I can't say that they explain anything about reality or even my subjective experience in general. Let's compare this "first-person science" to conventional science. Leo is right to point out that conventional science inevitably rests on beliefs and assumptions, but that misses the point. Despite beliefs and limitations, conventional science produced good explanations about the physical universe as we experience it. Not ultimate explanations but good, which is what we can hope for. The "problem" with science is that it doesn't explain what arguably matters the most to us, consciousness and the highest possibilities for our subjective experience. So here are some questions: 1. Why does Leo think it's valid to extrapolate from his psychedelic experiences? Why doesn't he see a problem in denying physical reality on the basis of ingesting a physical substance? 2. What does God explain, in the sense that it would be difficult to impossible to account for some sort of consensus reality if we remove God from the picture? 3. Why is Leo so confident that the knowledge he gained through psychedelics surpasses that of, says, highly realized yogis that spent 40+ years meditating in a cave?

I'll take that on board, thanks.

I totally agree with you, skepticism can get in the way. As I emphasized at the beginning, I'm asking these questions to try to understand Leo's perspective and just because he talks a lot about epistemology, self-deception, and questioning everything. I'm not asking for "proof". This has more to do with integration than deciding whether or not to do the work. Like many people here I've had my share of mystical experiences on psychedelics, but never felt that these experiences warranted metaphysical conclusions. I'm open to that changing in the future. A final point: the optimal amount of skepticism is not zero. If that were the case, I'd be stuck on Transcendental Meditation hoping to become a flying yogi (or whatever) one day simply because it was the first spiritual practice I came across. Spiritual people (not necessarily anyone here) often do not understand the difference between seeing beyond logic and abandoning logic. If you abandon rationality as opposed to seeing beyond it, you'll get stuck going sideways in delusion. Classic New Age mistake.

I do the work, don't worry. However, I take the risk of self-deception in spiritual work seriously to avoid wasting time. This is why some sort of epistemology is important. Where you are at, it may be different.

Back to the main topic, I also wanted to comment that I don't always follow when people say something of the kind "In my trip I became directly conscious of X, therefore X is true". I'm all for learning from direct experience, but: (i) Why elevate one rare state of consciousness over others and declare it to be the one where the truth lies? It should work both ways. Once the trip was over, you became "directly conscious" that you're a human living a normal life in a physical universe. But then you don't accept that. (ii) Claims based on special states inevitably imply the possibility that someone can have completely deluded view of reality, namely their state before any awakening. Therefore, you have to consider the possibility that the special state is also delusional. In my view, only permanent shifts in baseline consciousness count as some sort of knowledge or awakening.

Fair enough, my only point is that there's essentially zero chance that anyone but the most advanced spiritual practitioners will truly understand what you mean when you say that the suffering of others is illusory. Is saying what you believe is the truth, as opposed to simply knowing the truth, or at least communicating it in a way that will not alienate 99.9999% of the world's population, worth the cost of being burned at the stake? That's a sincere question.