UnbornTao

I don’t get the rhetoric. I assume you don’t mean your physical eyes and that you’re talking about you, not yourself. Also I don’t get your signature. Why mention your self’s name? Is the truth’s name Leo? By imagination you mean thought, distinction? Like Gotama Buddha’s quote: “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.“

@Meta-Man you’re alive! Long time no see.

Eloquent ignorance. They’re chatting and extrapolating, coming from intellect. (I’m referring to the “spiritual” talk). Sure. Sounds smart and is entertaining.

https://futurethinkers.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Adapting-to-Our-Uncertain-Future-by-Future-Thinkers.pdf

To the degree honesty rules your life and decisions is the degree to which it will transform you.

Just don’t charge $1000 for it.

I resonated with your communication, Leo. Regardless of intention, I found Nahm’s platitudes a bit unnerving at times. Whatever the question, the response would almost always be something like, “You’re imagining that.” Seems to me that, instead of continuously spouting neo-advaita terms, coming from a grounded perspective would be a better “teaching” style. That said, Nahm sounds like a nice person. I don’t know him personally, but I’m sure he’s helped other members in various ways. I think there is no need to ban him. In the end, it feels like the right decision, IMO.

Isn’t intellect conceptually-based? What do you mean by intellect then?

Ramblings on Honesty Honesty serves the truth – not yourself. This is significant. Aligning yourself with this principle demands continuously moving toward whatever is estimated to be your most authentic experience at the present time. Naturally, this practice often puts you at odds with your self-agenda and your wants – and that's exactly where its power lies. Honesty will often point you in a direction you instinctively resist, as it will feel like self-denial. But here's a crucial point – if the truth is unknown, how honest can you be? This is where self-honesty comes in. Before you can be authentic, you've got to recognize what is for yourself. That's not easy. The survival of self is your primary concern – with truth usually ranking low on that list, if it's even considered at all. More often than not, it gets dismissed as a philosophical luxury – or bent and twisted to serve one's personal agenda. At that point, the focus shifts from noticing what's real to manipulating reality for personal gain. This process could be called corruption. We could think of it this way: honesty is like a fire that burns through every form of lie, inauthenticity, phoniness, confusion, distortion, withdrawal, pretension, and so on. As your personal honesty deepens, your attachments to various falsehoods – big and small – will be challenged. And the principle demands you let them go, no matter how familiar or convenient they are, since they have been assessed as less-than-real. Doing this tends to simplify your expression, as the demand is to be straightforward and clear. Given that real communication comes from present experience, the task is to observe it closely and convey it without distortion or misrepresentation, for someone to grasp it. The challenge isn't merely thinking about 'the truth,' which more often than not gets confused with a belief – it's discovering whatever is authentic in the first place, and then expressing that as it is. Rather than adopting a doctrine or belief system, let honesty itself be your spiritual practice – it is profoundly transformational.

Once beliefs are recognized to be conceptual fabrications, you may be tempted to take them as invalid and useless. Although untrue by nature, one's mind and self are still heavily influenced by them. Instead of trying to get rid of all of them immediately (which wouldn't be a terribly bad idea), you can change how you relate to them. They can be kept while one is aware of their invented nature; see them as tools. Notice they are ideations about something. Keep positive, empowering ones and toss out the negative, dysfunctional ones. Lastly, watch out for the possibility of falling into beliefs as if they were true, filtering reality though them and falling into a self-validating dynamic.

Fascinating read. Straightforward, honest and authentic. Find it here: anewlife.org

The point is that solipsism isn’t true; it is a belief system. Whatever the truth is is something to become conscious of by oneself.

Other radical videos of yours are unapologetic and irreverent. What happened to radical openness? If it’s true, it’s true. Who cares? Come on man, post it on the blog then.

@mememe Qualia Mind Essentials (the cheaper variant) has quite a lot of high-quality ingredients. Take a look at the ingredients list on the Neurohacker website. How much would it cost buying similar quantities of each ingredient separately?

“If you want to be happy, be.” - Tolstoy.

Questioning reality isn’t that useful. Fame, sex, money, entertainment — these are more appealing pursuits for humanity as a whole. Besides, survival demands pragmatism, not contemplation. Revisiting deeply held assumptions is inefficient. The mind is pretty efficient. By default, it won’t waste time with already established “knowledge”, unless moved in that direction deliberately.

You need to strike a balance between these two principles: Being open without groundedness — you become airy-fairy, pretentious, superficial, unreliable, unable to commit. Being grounded without openness — you become closed-minded, resistant to change, fearful of questioning, unwilling to entertain new possibilities. To counteract the tendency to be open without keeping your feet on the ground, breathe, relax, feel your body. Exercise or do mechanical, physical work. And rest. What am I perceiving right now?

Either do something to change it, or stop complaining.

On evaluating “spiritual” teachers. Are they: honest, clear, straightforward? coming from direct experience? communicating something real? facilitating the students' growth?

When perceiving things in relation to yourself, you may well infer that meaning is found in them or is produced by them. But consider anything (an object, a feeling, a thought) as something that is itself. What is actually there for itself - independent of my relationship to it? Meaning is generated and applied rather than inherent. It isn't found in the beingness of something but shows up as a relationship and an activity. That something is invented doesn’t undermine its function, value nor influence. It just means that it isn’t existential - it's ultimately untrue. Contemplate, for example: What's the meaning of a tree? For itself, what does the tree mean? What something is transcends value, worth, and meaning. To put it differently: The truth doesn't mean anything; it just is. And being is prior to meaning.

Taking lack of meaning as a negative implies you’re still operating from a meaning paradigm! Try to see it not in terms of positive or negative, but as something existential. Meaning is invented and applied, not inherent. Create a positive and ambitious purpose for yourself to ground your life on. Whatever you think is worth it, do that. Meaninglessness may be true, but holding it as cynicism is missing the point. —— You can think of it as the following: Life transcends meaning! You’re free to create whatever meaning you want. Make it a conscious, empowering one for yourself, if you want.

See if you can simply stop that reaction. Be willing to experience whatever the fear relates to, or stop creating the possibility of a future. By necessity, this will eliminate fear. Try to see the experience as it is.