SOUL

'very stable genius' I rarely if ever watch Leo's content but this thread piqued my interest so started to watch part of it and the warning at the beginning moved me to skip to the end. I randomly clicked a spot at the very end just as he was talking about him being impressed with his own intelligence and how stable it was. That phrase above from infamous use flashed in my mind and I literally did a spit take, it was quite humorous...I clicked off right after that. I didn't search out or stick around for any of the more controversial stuff so I couldn't share any impressions I got from it, I do wish him well though. It's difficult to spend so much time in esoteric and abstract states of mind while still maintaining a suitable life structure. He's actually quite fortunate to not have a normie 9-5 or something like that to deal with, his life sustaining work has enough flexibility and freedom to accommodate it. Again, I do wish him well and to be at peace.

Did you really just say there are two path to infinity? Um...if there are 'paths' to infinity there are infinite paths to it...and the paths are part of infinity...and even before a path there's still infinity so not sure why you think in such limited ways. I can understand why you are projecting some conceptualization onto my words that wasn't put there by me since you are on this forum and likely in other 'spiritual' communities so it's molding your own conceptualization in ways that you may not be aware of. You would be surprised how much conceptual priming that goes on subconsciously and how many ideas and beliefs one may have that come from others. Not to mention those conceptions guide the perceptions one would have in their mystical experience to form an ideology about it. I grew in awakening outside of these communities so wasn't seeded with preconceived concepts. My direct experience doesn't reflect the typical mystical perceptions that are found within these communities although there is no way for you to know this unless I told you. It's also difficult because we are using language that for all it's diversity it's still pretty limited in how we use it. So it's not uncommon that one would transfer ideas about those words from previous discourse onto the current conversation without being aware of it. I don't fall into the all self or no self duality you seem to have described, those are extreme poles whereas I perceive a spectrum of self that includes the all and no self poles but infinite degrees of self and no self. Infinite degrees of no self one might ask? Yep. But to get back to the comment I made in my initial reply was I don't see the point in the exercise of compiling so many diverse traits into ego 'archetypes'. Sure, we can see how some traits lump together because of the commonalities about them but we are all unique snowflakes...haha. I don't see how personifying an archetype helps to transcend those traits if they are a stumbling block to the cessation of self suffering for someone. Like I previously expressed it empowers identification with them allowing the ego to create more separation through them. The least amount of paradigm one constructs in the mind around our experience in mystical and in the manifest the simpler it is to transcend the limiting beliefs and obstructing conceptualizations which frees up awareness of being that is the experience of liberation. So maybe you can explain to me how personifying these archetypes helps you to cease self suffering so realize liberation.

What is the point of this broad stroke stereotyping? All that is being done is piling up various traits into different groups then labeling them as one 'archetype'. To be clear, empowering the ego with defined identity in an attempt at spirituality is like building a wall to get to the other side of it...if there was no wall, there would be no other side to get to. Awakening in awareness is increasing a knowing but this isn't the same as accumulating knowledge since awakening is expanding awareness beyond any understanding the mind seeks. ...and no, one doesn't need to understand the self to transcend the self unless one has the limiting belief that 'self inquiry' is to gain knowledge of self which is merely ego seeking more attention. Genuine awakening is not overcoming self after identifying it, it's transcending self by realizing it's absence and so it is bringing awareness of simply being to fulfillment in experience. But one can do whatever they want...I'm just pointing at it.

Blood can carry oxygen and nutrients to all parts of the body as well as carry toxins and disease to it. Thoughts are merely the mind-body's way of communicating something to our awareness and it can either nourish or poison our consciousness. We have no control over the pumping of thoughts as we have no control over the pumping of blood. Ceasing the reaction in our being to thoughts which distract that may pass through the mind takes away the attention that empowers them to be an obstacle to well being so leads to liberation.

Does the screen observe what is being shown on it? Does a screen create space between it and what is being projected onto it?

At the very core of all desire is the existential yearning that manifests in consciousness when we are aware of our own awareness so often it can create discontented self instead of fulfillment in just being.

I am P.O.D....... pit of delusions.

I gave you a clear answer and apparently you prefer the self suffering. buh bye

@Nathan @Loba Yep, people just come up with stories they imagine why so they can live with it....read all the ones offered here to you about why add them to the untold number of stories people tell themselves. I won't tell another other than to say just be at peace.

The mind habitually comes up with another method or milestone a practice or state, dissolving this or becoming that always finding a reason why one is lacking, incomplete so yearning for something other than what is. Just be.

@JuliusCaesar People often prefer the familiarity of misery than to change because of their fear of the unknown.

@Inliytened1 Living life at peace... oh and I had a move in my residence recently which kept me pretty occupied for a couple months worth of activity.

@Salvijus I said no such thing, I'm not sure anymore that we're talking about the same thing. Be well Peace

@Salvijus My well being isn't limited by opinion, I'm not talking about opinion, it's the experience of well being not the story about story. Which is what opinion is about, something like 'freedom' or understanding someone's teaching or the social dynamics of it. All of those things can become a distraction from well being and are replaced by the finite feelings of self justification through 'truth'. Genuine liberation transcends the conditional including the narratives we tell ourselves are true. So the enjoyment someone may get from the different expressions of descriptions and understandings of mystical and spiritual experience can be fruit of the unconditional well being that transcends the story and is not dependent upon having the 'true' story.

I don't pay any attention to getting anyone to think anything so people will just think, believe and do any which way they see fit. My own intention is for well being in my own experience and I don't need to legitimize it to anyone, not even to my 'self', to be well. I don't get involved with the social cliques aspect of the ideological differences, opinion doesn't influence my well being.

Watching that Spira video really demonstrates to me how there is a strong bias towards trusting one's own perception as true and dismissing another perception as false. It is extremely difficult to not fall into this 'trap' of confirmation bias especially when it is reaffirmed by 'traditional conceptualization', for lack of a better phrase to describe it.

Well, your sloppy framing is continuing to slide...first it was "not smart enough to see the truth of it" and then it becomes "not smart enough to recognize the wisdom"...both seem a bit self righteous about ones own perception. Again, to stay on the point I'm making it's just something that is in the imagination of the perceiver, there is no universal truth to it, it's a perception of personal truth.

@Salvijus The description of the 'reward-punishment' and I only use those words as a reference not as a 'truth' are different in different religions but the psychological mechanism is the same. Not 'smart enough to see the truth'? That's the same demeaning attitude dogmatic zealots of many religions use... I suspect those are just your words and not Buddhist ways of referring to it but it doesn't change the point. It's only in the imagination that one trusts it is true, that one believes it to be the truth. No hand waving away 'belief' either, that's exactly what it is, one trusts the perception one has in awareness, in the imagination that it is 'true'.

I would but since I transcend time I don't have the time to explain it.

@Salvijus The explanation of Buddhism you use to suggest that only if you believe as Buddhists do and do as they do can you know they are right and others don't have the authority to question them being right is pretty much how Christianity and many other religions suggest theirs is. This is in the imagination and that one believes is the truth which doesn't mean it is a universal truth for all.

People confuse the fact that all of our experience is known through the perception of imagination in the mind with thinking that makes everything imaginary. It's an inability to distinguish the difference between the field of perception that is generated in the mind's imagination which allows us to perceive what is actually in the physical manifest reality from the things that only exist in the imagination, so are imaginary. Not only are things like mystical and spiritual experience often transferred from something imaginary to trusted ideas so are believed to be true there are also things some have as self perceptions and aspects of memories they believe to be true but are only imaginary. This doesn't mean all mystical and spiritual experience are imaginary so are not to be believed but similarly we shouldn't believe all mystical and spiritual experience to be true. Mystical and spiritual experience is useful if it brings us well being not that it's 'truth'. Again to clarify, just because it is a fact of the natural world that all our perceptions of experience happens in the mind's imagination doesn't mean that everything is only imaginary. Although, I haven't read that book so am not trying to explain it to you. I'm just discussing the erroneous conflation of imagination and imaginary as being the exact same thing and some of the consequences of this.

No joke, just be is the simplest explanation because it's not even an explanation, it's the absence of an explanation.

What if the 'you' and the 'god' do not exist at all...and even as they don't exist it is only in your imagination that you believe they exist. whoop there it is....

Here's a simple explanation even though there are deeper ones that can be made: awakening is like taking off blinders and insight is what is seen once the blinders are off.

Being fit, making alot of money and having a hot sex life but still miserable so in conflict with random people on the internet is evidence those things you are doing haven't brought you well being.