AtmanIsBrahman

You thought the most beautiful equation in mathematics was e=mc^2? Or e^pi*i=-1? You thought wrong This is the equation of the universe: 1 = 0 = ∞

@Osaid I guess I am talking about Leo’s model of reality. When I used the term enlightenment, it was a loose use of the phrase. Still, any model of enlightenment has to involve higher and lower consciousness (unless enlightenment is an instantaneous 0-100 type of thing, which I don’t buy into).

This is going to be long and touching on a lot of topics. I've been wondering about a certain inconsistency in Leo's teachings. He says that there is really no separation between good and evil, and that really everything is good. So Hitler is good, rape is good, etc. and you just imagine it is evil because of your selfishness as an ego-- it goes against your survival needs as a being with a limited sense of self. And this is because reality is infinite and includes everything, not just the stuff that you like. But at the same time, if we're being honest, Leo does admit a certain duality between good and evil by calling it consciousness and unconsciousness. So although Hitler is good in some absolute sense, he is low-consciousness: his perspective is too narrow, focused only on Germany, and he is not aware of truth, enlightenment, and spirituality, or even more basic concepts such as liberalism and democracy. Same with rapists, murders, and the like. Now, having heard this, people ask, "Why shouldn't I do evil stuff? What is stopping me, since it is absolutely good?" Leo's answer across multiple videos has been that there is no reason why you shouldn't do "evil". But then he follows this up by saying that there will be consequences to your actions. Is this some law of karma, or what? If it is, then doesn't this mean the universe actually favors good and punishes evil? And if not, then there aren't really any consequences for doing evil. Now, this leads to the question of what high consciousness is. The way Leo talks about high consciousness, it is like a higher stage of development. But does this mean more intelligence or more emotional capacity? Let's imagine a serial killer who is highly intelligent, calm, and collected. He meditates regularly and, though not enlightened, has a high level of consciousness. We can hypothesize that he kills for some kind of spiritual high. Next, let's imagine an unusually good, noble person. He doesn't mediate, has poor control over himself, and is unintelligent, but he helps people and avoids doing evil things such as murdering people. These people don't add up according to Leo's model of high vs. low consciousness. The serial killer should be low-consciousness and the "good guy" should be high-consciousness, but we see from their descriptions that it seems more like the opposite. So basically, my question is, can a high-consciousness person do things that are thought of as evil with full awareness of what they are doing but be so spiritually developed that they don't care? Can a zen master be a serial killer? Does this contradict them being a legitimate zen master, or is it possible? Then, as a side note, does high consciousness have to do with intelligence, self-discipline, and these sort of things or is it something entirely different? Anyway, this was kind of convoluted, but I'd appreciate any comments or answers people have.

This is just an insight I had. I was thinking about how everything anyone does is selfish. Obviously there is what we normally think of as selfish, but also altruism. If we do something for the good of someone else, that’s only because it makes us feel good. In other words, because we include them in our idea of self. Then I realized that our degree of selfishness or selflessness depends on how large our idea of self is. If it includes the whole universe then that is infinite selfishness— which is synonymous with selflessness. And this is basically what oneness is.

To take the analogy literally, your hand can grasp a part of itself, just not the whole thing. Based on that, we can grasp a part of reality but not the whole thing.

I know that it's an assumption, but I don't see why it's wrong. Isn't it also an assumption that a rock can only exist inside consciousness? Or is this just a better assumption? I'm willing to accept that all we can know for sure is our own consciousness, but why does this mean that everything "out there" only exists when perceived by consciousness? I feel like this is making the mistake of saying, "because I can't know things about physical objects outside of my consciousness, they must not really exist and I must just be imagining them". There's a difference between the epistemological status of things and their actual metaphysical being.

I struggle to understand why Leo, along with many other spiritual and philosophical schools of thought, think that reality is essentially mental, or non-physical. The materialist view is that the universe is made of physical stuff and that our consciousness results from a specific arrangement of matter. This runs into the issue, how do subjective experiences come about from matter that doesn't have subjective experience? This doesn't make sense intuitively. So it might seem like considering consciousness the most fundamental thing solves that issue. But since most things in the universe are not conscious, at least as far as we can tell, this seems like projection because we are giving the entire universe our human attribute of consciousness. Why is consciousness really fundamental and not just a projection? P.S. I ask this genuinely wanting to learn, not just to criticize