How to be wise

@John Lula Leo has a channel in iTunes.

@Serotoninluv What I mean is, if somebody did conciousness work for fourty years to expand their consciousness, what is the most they could be conscious of permanently. How does that compare to a 5-MeO peak experience? Which one is higher?

@Ampresus Personal Development is easy: 1. Find a problem you are facing currently in your life. 2. Do research on how to solve it (Leo’s booklist). 3. Use the book and its exercises to solve it.

@Leo Gura Are you aware that the last two episodes are not in the podcasts?

The writer ‘Bernardo Kastrup’ says that between Idealism and Solipsism, the latter is just too sceptical. But isn’t that the more correct one? The more skeptical we are (the less beliefs we’re willing to entertain) the more correct the theory should be, right? What do you guys think about this.

@Superfluo Jesus, how can I read such a long thread! Please summarise the main points.

You can only forget a thought, never reality.

@Jed Vassallo How can you “forget” something? You can only forget a thought, never reality.

Is achieving Emotional Mastery going to automatically lead to Enlightenment? Or is it possible to achieve full Emotional Mastery without becoming Enlightened.

It’s tea, not thea.

@Jack River “Psychological time”. You remind me of Faceless. @Serotoninluv Security and comfort for the ego is different from bliss. Bliss is what you feel when your identity expand outside the body to include everything. It can also be called unconditional love. It feels very peaceful!

@DrewNows Lol you will know when an emotion is causing you suffering ?. Suffering is never necessary. In fact, when you are more joyful, you can think a lot better. Most self-help books do not teach this, rather they teach you how to ‘cope’ with negative emotions. My definition of emotional mastery is: feeling blissful 100% of the time, for the rest of your life. Sadhguru and Byron Katie report that they haven’t felt any negative emotion in more than 30 years! It’s fucking possible. But it takes a mixing of emotional mastery with enlightenment. Enlightenment is a must! No other way.

100% wrong. The more conscious you are, the more you feel blissful with life. This is so obvious! I can’t believe that you don’t know that yet. In Vedanta, they associate “The absolute” with three terms: Sat Chit Ananda, which means Truth, Consciousness, Bliss. Do more study please! Awakening clearly has a preference to bliss. Unconsciousness prefers terror.

You’re contradicting yourself. You say that you can have emotional mastery without enlightenment, then you say you can’t. Make up your mind dude.

Are you sure there aren’t easier ways of getting there. I’m doing The Work of Byron Katie, and my mind is becoming very still after just four months of practice. These days my whole body is just oozing with ecstasy. A lot of the time my mind is in ‘actuality’ rather than just wondering off into theoryland. Before I started The Work of Byron Katie, I did mindfulness meditation for three months, then Neti Neti for three months, then Kriya Yoga for four months. None of them worked for me quite as well. I suggest you stop thinking of The Work as just a means to ‘cure depression’ and think of it as a very strong technique for mastery of the mind.

It looks nice on paper, but the difficult question is how to live it in your everyday experience. It’s true that all suffering comes because of the distinction between self and other. When I say Emotional Mastery, I mean somebody who will never feel any negative emotion no matter how bad the situation gets. If somebody feels any negative emotion to begin with, it is not emotional mastery. A lot of enlightened teachers haven’t got that one down. They still sometimes have negative emotions when something bad happens to them.

@i am I AM Lol how can anger motivate self to do work... @Joseph Maynor @Jack River By emotional mastery, I simply mean being able to be joyful and peaceful no matter what life throws at you. There is no situation where you will feel any negative emotion. Basically, it’s the end of suffering.

Anger is never great, wtf are you talking about?

You can still remember that joke... it was over a year now.

EVOLUTION!!!

@Outer Yes, but how can you know that other people are themselves aware. I’m sure you don’t believe that inanimate objects like stones are aware. In the same way, how can you be sure that other people are aware.

@archi Surely the substance can’t kill you physically.

I was just wondering, if somebody completely purifies themselves of their ego, so that they no longer have any shadow, no negative emotions, and no neurotic behaviours, then would 5-MeO still help such a person? If yes, then how could it? Wouldn’t we call that person ‘perfect’ for completely mastering himself. What more could 5-MeO show him?

@Outer The only problem I have with idealism is that you must assume that other people are conscious as well. But from my direct experience, how can I be sure that other people are themselves conscious. You can never really know if that’s true or not. For all I know, everybody else is just faking consciousness but actually are just walking zombies. That’s a belief, which if proven wrong, will bring the whole of idealism crashing down. If the first floor of a building collapses, so will the rest of the building.

Idealism, although better than materialism, is still wrong. Let me show you why. According to the book ‘Why materialism is baloney’, idealism still makes two assumptions: 1. Your conscious perceptions exists: everything that you experience with the five senses are real without a shadow of a doubt. 2. The conscious perceptions of other living creatures other than yourself also exists: so other people that you see are also themselves perceiving. Note that both of those assumptions are completely groundless. They are both false when faced up with non-duality. So the concept of ‘universal mind’ can be safely debunked.