Edvard

I've been doing these enlightenment exercises for some time now, aiming to do them more, and they're useful. I'm seeing where it's going, I suspect the key here is to train the ability to concentrate and stay aware of all sensations simultaneously, and after having reached mastery in these skills, along with surrendering the ego, the self will collapse. But enlightenment; that's more than experiencing "just" no self, or raw experience? Because after all, this is quite logical, and something I think a significant number of people deep inside know is true: that the only thing we can be 100% certain of is consciousness. I came at this from Sam Harris. He also talks about this, no self, and that "as a matter of experience the face and head are just more sensations arising in consciousness". I've heard you're not a fan of Harris. What differentiates you and his views on this? I guess there's a deeper thing than no self here? Understanding/seeing absolute infinity, is that what he's lacking? And also, what I don't understand is your seemingly absolute certainty about reality not existing. Sure, the world can never exist within raw experience, and raw experience could be viewed just as a dream and the external world an illusion, but that doesn't mean it's not external... at any rate, what experience/realisation could ever make you know that for sure - when all you can know is your consciousness, and yes, it is in many ways logical to conclude that that's the only thing that exists, but I don't understand what difference it really makes. The world is behind you, turn around. You won't remember it by living in the present, but predict that when turning around it's there, and it's there. Of course, there is no you, and turning around is just another sensation that happens within consciousness and reality, but come on, what could ever make you conclude that the physical world isn't real (or is)?? Sure, everything seems infinite (and what would "physical" even mean?), but so what? That doesn't make this unreal, or suffering unreal. I mean, isn't this just semantics, or going deeper into what many already was thinking at primary school? That "oh, maybe the whole world is just an illusion". But I do love the exercises and I think this path is meaningful and makes sense, there's just still so much I don't quite understand and things that make me confused. Is 5-MeO-DMT a good solution here? The Book Of Not Knowing is on its way, so I'll read that too, for now.

@No-Thing But by this you will also die. We need the ego to eat, to put the body out of danger and harm. So the goal then becomes to die, which I guess you at the point of enlightenment would think is fine? And I don't mean physical death, I mean physical death IDK.

Would you say an Elon Musk life style goes against self-actualization? I mean, he is an important figure for humanity, and may end up being crucial to the existence of the human race, certainly if it turns out that going to Mars will become an urge. He has also sped up the usage of electric vehicles. Is it stupid trying to do that, you think? Leo mentioned him among others in his video called "Successful People Are Not Happy". Actually, Musk sort of confirms that himself, with this interesting conversation with him (at 32:30 in the video): What do you people think about what he is doing, and about aiming to be like him?

So about 1 person in the world has an idea about absolute reality, then? (7*10^9)-((7*10^9)*0.9999999999)=0.7

Didn't see this edit until now. Finally a response that makes sense to me. I have nothing to argue here. It didn't sound much like you were a fan of his projects, though, it felt like you spent about every argument saying how bad of an impact he's making on humanity, which is why this thread has lasted so long, because those arguments in my opinion were just full of flaws and seeming to miss information about Musk. But I like this one. It would seem possible to get someone to supply him in his place, or make sure everything is not depended just on him. So if anything sounds a bit egoic, it's gotta be that. But of course, I don't know his reasoning behind his choices. But yeah, working 100 hours at this point, getting divorces and depression... aha.. I see it now, why couldn't you or Leo just say it this way, instead of mixing in flawed arguments about his impact when you actually think he ultimately helps humanity? But anyway, a lot of thoughts came out of this, and of course it's something to think about that what may seem nice, may not be so nice after all, so thanks for that

OK, thanks for adressing that. I needed a response to this question as I thought this might be one aspect that this topic boils down to. I've seen no one say the ego is necessary for survival, as that would make sense, so yes, good to eventually have that out of our way. What I basically meant by it is that we don't have free will. I don't know how reality is, but no one's gonna change it, because no one exists (which I have not had a completely direct experience of, meaning it's an idea) and we don't have free will (which I do experience). This wasn't really all that important for my main point, but thought it was just worth mentioning. I used reality as a semantic in this case, referring to the notion that things are the way they are and are gonna become the way they become, ultimately. Correct, I don't have the answers. BTW, who has?, we're just exchanging ideas and questioning ideas. The notion that enlightened people know what reality is is also at this point just an idea for me. Why do I hear Leo all the time talking about not getting into arguments, or push enlightenment, tell others how to live, etc.? Someone who is not a systemic thinker does that, they're not really able to see the world from other people's perspective, but instead just condemn people for not being like this or that, not seeing that "they" are part of a system that is not going to change by forcing opinions overnight. People don't want to think about the climate in their everyday life. This characterizes stage green - a lot of talk and condemnation of lower consciousness people. I earlier said Elon might be at stage green (a lot because of people scolding him for low consciousness), but I now think he is yellow, but of course, I don't know. BTW, recognize that I'm not claiming to know anything, I'm coming up with arguments my mind creates based on your responses, while I want them to be challenged. So you're confident it's not gonna be any risk? The fact that man has had the view of the world ending since the dawn of time, mostly religiosly motivated, has extremely little to do with today's concerns about this. 1) The timeline of humanity is relatively extremely small, and for the 200.000 years there have been humans, almost no progress in technology and population growth was made until the industrial revolution at the 1700s, a tiny, tiny fraction of history. Things are just accellerating really fast, and it's extremely hard to predict the future of Earth. I wouldn't be so confident. Technology is just on top of the already occasional natural events like super volcanos and meteorites (while eventually the Sun will soak up the Earth, while we have time for that). Don't know if you've heard about this (I assume you have), but research shows that CO2-levels in the atmosphere are increasing every year, which has and will lead to further temperature rise of the atmosphere, causing all sorts of trouble. Don't know whether you deny this or not. Point is, not comparable to ancient times at all. 2) Elon doesn't claim to have any immediate doomsday prophecy, and I certainly don't know what's gonna happen in the future. It's just that it may happen. Remember, this answer is a response to this isolated response of yours, above, which to me doesn't make any sense. I read that you supported him, but it seemed like you changed your mind. "For all intents and purposes, I'm probably the person most focused on helping his project considering the literal hundreds of hours I've put into it - but even I can see the pitfalls." So are you still focused on helping his project, then? That's also what I'm wondering. How do you measure Elon's ego? He seems fairly humble to me. I've written about this earlier, but why would he choose space if it was about money and success for success itself, while he also thougth he had a slim chance of succeeding with a high risk of losing everything he had earned from paypal, and being OK with living on $1 a day? Plus, he says we probably live in a simulation. Do you see this as typical egoic traits? Is this the thinking process of the stock market, Wall Street, Putin, Trump, Kim Jung-un? - Can you imagine them saying: "People, we live in a simulation". No, egoic people want themselves, and especially others to have a limited worldview, like belief in: significance (i.e.:Earth center of universe, God made the planet for us), free will, tribalism, self-centeredness, profit at all cost. That's at least the notion I have of it. I agree that we should be more mindful about the root cause of technological issues; like stop having profit at all cost, living unsistainably. There wouldn't be any need for Musk's plans if everybody thought like this. But so many don't; so many just want to consume what gives the most wealth, or not giving a shit about nature as long as they get the maximum profit. So many people are also already trying to convince them to have other values. I can't say that I know that Elon is doing what is best, but at this point, i think most likely. You think most likely not (or definitely?). Maybe he has a big ego, and that's a problem. I don't see it, and I don't know how I could find it, except for what I said earlier; that egoic thinking is what makes us want to survive and thrive, which we all do... All the personal issues about Elon's happines I kind of agree with, it's probably not pleasant, and yes, he would probably benefit and do better by being enlightened and raise consciousness (which I think is relatively high), I'm not gonna argue with you there, because I have little direct information about the true benefits of enlightenment. But I don't argue about this. I'm not enlightened myself so I have to be "agnostic" about it, although I have a goal of becoming enlightened, because I do think it makes sense, exactly because I understand that success won't make me happy! But that's not what I'm arguing. What I'm arguing is a lot of seemingly flawed arguments about the importance, usefulness and relatively positive impact that Musk is making on the world, regardless of whether it makes sense for me to take his path, although that's what I'm contemplating in regard to the value of the purpose and impact. However, if you want to solve the problem, it has to be by action and hard, determined work. Why can't technnology solve any problems, if wisely used? Why shouldn't we create sustainable technology when today's technology is NOT sustainable? I just don't get your point here. Of course you have to solve it technologically when the world won't move backwards and quit oil by itself! By sustainable technology, and it preferably has to work even better for enough people to want to use it, and that requires extraordinary work. Of course Musk could do things differently, and if enlightened he probably would. You could i.e become enlightened first, and then choose a similar kind of purpose. I don't know how far Musk would have gotten if he spent so much of his time doing enlightenment work, but I think he is a more positive than negative force, and if he took out pension in his early-mid twenties after selling PayPal for $300M, I think the world would be worse off. But I don't know how things would be without him, neither do you. I've heard of Neuralink and some of the conscepts of it, but I need to do more research on it. I'm not claiming people will be more accepting of that. Sure, Elon could advocate meditation, although anybody could, and everyone has heard of it. But sure, it's true that him advocating to work 100 hours a week instead of meditation is a possibly negative impact, but he only says this in response to people asking him how to succeed. In those videos, also Leo talks about accepting drudgery and working your ass off. It's just a recipe for success. If people are more accepting of meditation, they can do it, most people know about meditation and many people advocates it. Sure, Elon could advocate it, although that's not really his job, but sure, it would be great if he responded with that. He probably hasn't meditated much himself. Elon Musk is not an enlightened guru. If he was, I guess it would be better (although how would he have time for that. He is thinking systemically about the world, and don't see what more you need to change it if your intents are good - and that doesn't mean enlightenment is not beneficial), but that doesn't mean he is not making a positive impact.

No, I'm not arguing that it may be worthwile for me to pursue, at least not in terms of happiness. I posted because I wonder about the authenticness and fulfillment in this purpose, as well as the impact (which I view as important), but the impact alone is not why I argue that a Musk lifestyle is "good". But responses here use the impact as part of the argument, as if that means something to why an Elon Musk lifestyle is "worth it". And that's what I'm arguing - that if the impact means something - how much does it mean, and what I argued was only the parts of the arguments that says his impact is negative, which there are quite a few of. So if the argument depends a lot on that, then I think it makes sense to discuss that part of the argument.

I kind of wondered mostly about this originally, but when I try to boil it down to the question of how the value of personal development/enlightenment should be balanced with life purpose, many of the responses I got from like @Leo Gura,@TJ Reeves and several others, are arguments and attacks on the content of Musk's purpose, and that his purpose may have a negative effect, as a part of their argument to why he's not a person to look up to, and to that I am responding.

We have been discussing many angles around this, all from the reason to go to Mars and develop technology, to enlightenment, to success, to workaholism. I've adressed several of them spread out on this thread. Of course the best thing would be if humans were "nicer" or raised their consciousness. But you also gotta realize that the way people are is just reality, so by changing the level of consciousness for the "good" of the world you're also manipulating it. So what are you gonna do? Make the whole world give up technology and energy from fossil fuel without replacement? A systemic thinker that wants to make an impact on the world sees that that won't happen, at least not until the earth is in pretty bad shape, and it's too late. So what should he do - develop a technology that works even better, but that is also sustainable, so that people are gonna buy it not necessarily because it is good for the environment, but because it's better - because at this point, that's the only way. Too many are below stage green. That's for Elon Musk the best way he can make an impact, because he understands that he's not gonna change people's minds over night, or decades, at least not alone. So what does Elon see? He sees that the reality of this world as now has a high likelyhood of not making it in 100-200 years. Actually, he has said that he views it as extremely important for consciousness to survive, so that we in the future are able to think and ask questions of our existence. This also make sense when you know every society goes through the different stages of consciousness. The future of humanity will be a better version of us, on other planets or not. That requires, of course, that we are able to keep our species alive so that we are actually able to develop ourselves. He could say, of course, like you suggest: - Hey, world, let's do this instead: fucking stop relying on the internet so much live more sustainably by accepting that you don't need so much stuff don't make the planet so dirty you have to leave in the first place! *Which he in fact is saying why the hell do we need to develop an A.I. so badly? war? health? porn? no one who's enlightened needs this shit to get by. On top of that, even if we inevitably move toward creating such A.I., at least we can become more aware of its affects and how to mitigate those effects by slowing down and thinking. we could benefit from slowing down a little bit and being aware of our actions. He has not desputed this. He is also careful about pointing fingers towards others, as he should, or speak about it quite a bit more diplomatically than in a specific interest group like this. He has BTW said that life should be about more than just solving problems... The world is a little too complex to say these things and expect to make a big impact. And Musk may not be controversial here, but many places is the big world, he is. - And let's not develop sustainable technology, let's not go to Mars, let's hope this will all be sorted out. This is not a strategy for saving the world. It's a strategy every individual themselves have to work on, while people like Leo Gura are dealing with these issues. So how many followers does Leo have? Like 630K on YouTube. That are 630K who are ready to hear his message. Elon Musk, as a systemic thinker, the only way he can change the world is to meet the vastly different levels of consciousness on their level, cooperate, integrate it. Seeing that all levels inhabit some parts of the truth. His solution is not to hide in a mountain or away from the rest of the world, or by just talk. What do you think people are gonna do? Quit oil, quit internet, quit technology? Do you seriously think that will happen at this point in history because a guy like Elon just said that? Do you think fundamentalists, ideologists of the world, etc.. will change their openmindedness so radically in some decades, not to mention centuries? BTW, as I said earlier Elon has said that life's gotta be more than solving problems, and I don't know how aware he is of enlightenment. The point is, he thinks it would be nice if consciousness survives, and he also thinks that the only thing that makes sense is doing good. Anyway this is just reality, I don't know, maybe you guys don't care if consciousness goes extinct, it doesn't ultimately matter - although this is Elon's purpose. I guess you have some too. Of course, ultimately it doesn't matter, one can say. Well, I think it does matter to be able to stay alive, to have food, to not live on a destructed planet. Now, are you gonna say this is ego? To eat? To stay alive? Well, you're able to write a post, so you're manipulating reality yourselves. You eat - manipulating reality. You do things to stay alive, because your ego doesn't want to die, or does it? I know, it's counterintuitive - you could of course eat without being attached to the thoughts that want to eat. But that doesn't make any sense, because your intire survival is depended on you caring for yourself. That's why consciousness creates the ego. So we do care, IMHO.

What is Sam Harris' worldview?According to this, spirituality means to have no opinion, which is quite hypocritical, when you have to have opinions to stay alive. Every human being has the worldview that says eating makes us survive, i.e. But then again, assuming that you eat is just rationalism, right?

Any opinions on this? Have seen many here argue that you can't define good from evil and right from wrong. Sam Harris seems to disagree with that. Any thoughts? Counter-arguments to this video?

Every scientist, automatically? I may become a scientist, and I think I'll be willing to take it. Of course, I may underestimate the intensity of it, but it's not hard to just snort it - just do it, as they say...

@Leo Gura 5-Meo-DMT is not an unknown psychedelic - so how can it be that scientists are, as you essentially say, ignorant of the drug, if reality will become so obvious to them if they take it? Has no scientist taken it? And why would it then be so hard to convince other scientists to take it? Additionaly, I've seen some writings on other forums from people who have taken this drug, and they explain that they get a feeling of dying, but often they don't talk about Absolute Truth. So does this mean that Absolute Truth needs interpretation to be understood? But according to you, that's not how it was supposed to be, right? The Truth, as I have understood it, involves complete nonthinking, which means no interpretations, yet still, many who take the drug don't understand that the Truth is what is revealed?

Are you now capable of enjoying physical (you know what I mean) pain? Do you ever think you can, and if so, could you effortlessly become anything «you» want?

@Leo Gura But suffering exists (or?), and one matters in terms of increasing or decreasing suffering, even though there ultimately is no «you» who are responsible for it. What we do does matter, even though we don't have free will. Of course you can ask: because of absolute infinity, is one less suffer infinity-1, so what's that? But then, why does Leo bother about anything? You have enough money to just «be» the rest of your life. I'm just asking, solely out of curiosity, and perhaps in the hope of getting some insight. Idk, maybe I'm rationalizing too much... and reality it's just me, you said. No one else, which is hard to understand. You're supposedly a facet of me.

Are you concerned about the future implications of global warming, in the sense that you care about it? Like, do you have opinions on it? Should efforts be done to prevent it, by convincing, creating green technology, introcuding tax incentives, etc? Or do you think it is all «meaningless» in the end? What would you vote for?

@Serge It's not "wrong" to become famous or popular, I don't think that's what Leo advocates. However, what you should focus on is to reach your own goals based on your own values leading you to do what's necessary to reach it. Popularity will not make you fulfilled or self-actualized. You get fulfillment by living according to your values, and by doing that you probably attract people who share those values. Popularity may just be a bi-product of you living up to your full potential, in sort of the same way money is. Chasing popularity I would say can be very toxic, because it will make you very depended on what other people believe or value. Do what you yourself think is right, be yourself. If people happen to like that, fine. If not, also fine, although someone out there probably will. Think about it, if your goal is to become popular or famous, what would that require? It would require you to live other people's lives, being a people pleaser and living according to their values. With that said, popularity and fame is not bad, but it will never make you fulfilled or happy. Now, these are my words.

@AleksM 1) How do you get anything done if you stop thinking 24/7? I guess this could work for an enlightened person, but before you get enlightened? Because this takes effort, so I don't see how mindfulness 24/7 is as compatible with life purpose. 2) Can you enjoy having a root canal without anesthetics?

Now, this seems a little deeper than free will, an understanding that may actually come naturally after the understanding of free will. Hard to grasp what this really means, though. What would "physical" be anyway? He adresses the issues I mentioned in my post, but I don't get all that much more out of it. Except that I think what he might mean is that it's more a matter of ideology and being aware that assuming the physical world is real is ideological. Maybe we actually agree, but that it makes me more aware and openminded that things that have been taken for granted my whole life, I have no way of knowing for certain is true. I have been having those thougths, but haven't been taking them too seriously. That is, on the other hand, really quite obvious. The clue is to be aware of it, enough; that all you know is direct experience, and by that becoming enlightened. "To pay close enough attention to the present moment so that you're not doing anything to it", as Sam Harris puts it I mean, is this basically what enlightenment is, or is it something deeper, and even more counterinuitive?

The thing is, I don't believe in free will. To me, the notion of having free will is counter intuitive and impossible. I've been on a process to fulle settle and accept it as a fact for a quite wide period. When I was in my mid teens I first got the idea hitting me, when thinking about why people do "bad" stuff, and couldn't ultimately trace it down to sole responsibility/evil. But literally NO ONE talked about this. This is not something I had heard mentioned at school or society. The whole society was based on the notion that we have free will. "Was I the first to actually begin to realize this was an illusion?", I pretty much asked. That couldn't be, but given the importance of it, someone must have spoken about it before. As the years went by, I held this sort of in my pocket as a possiblity ready to be taken into heart when philosophizing more deeply about it, but I didn't completely accept it. Because I was thinking a little like: "It's quite amazing that not more people realize this, if it's true, and it's quite amazing to have realized it myself, but if it is true, I can't even take credit for it, and if I commit to this belief publicly, people may use it against me. Is this a truth that will make society better?" And I figured, at least it would give us more compassion, hatred doesn't make any sense, and the world would be less egoic if people held this belief. Additionaly, it is in a way a liberating truth, because it frees us from moral dictatorship, making self-acceptence easier and religion stops making sense (so if God wanted people to hell, they couldn't do anything about it). But I also thought it could take away responsibility. Then the internet got bigger (2011-2013) and more articles and videos of this concept appeared, so I realized I wasn't the only one. Then I stumbled into Sam Harris' talks on it on YouTube, and I was sold. Never completely though, because I have always been careful of absolute certainty of anything, but I've been getting more and more sure over the years, even more sure when I was watching Leo's video about the topic. Stumbling into Leo taught me to see my process through this for what it was; the ego resisting becoming enlightened (understanding what's true), a concept that I wasn't even aware of until I saw his enlightenment video this April (I had heard about "Nirvana", though, as something sort of related to enlightenment, I think). The point is that the reason the notion of no free will is hard for so many to understand, is probably because such an "idea" hurts the ego, so it suppresses it. Even the thought is hard to bring to surface and contemplate. The ego wants to believe in free will, because it wants to take credit. So even though you don't believe it, you need time to digest that realization, to get used to it. I have now gotten very used to it, it's natural to me and it has made me less hateful. But I still do get stroked by regrets from the past, and there still are things that my ego wants to take credit for. I remember the first time I decided to conclude free will is an illusion and holding it in my mind. My ego was screaming a bit, and it was a weird feeling to let go of the doubt, realizing I'm just floating around in this universe, totally unpredictibly. That it sort of doesn't matter what I do, no right or wrong. And yet, most people I knew (have no idea how many) thought they were behaving freely. I think there still are more steps I will go through in order to fully embody this fact, and when I completely do, when the ego has been punched enough, screaming on its death bed, then, enlightenment may occur. That's what I'm thinking.

When you're talking about enlightenment, people are saying that it gives insight of knowing that reality is an illusion. Sure, consciousness is the only thing we can be 100% certain exists, but how does that mean that we can be 100% certain the external world, with all its consistency, doesn't exist, just because you have an awareness of direct experience? What experience could make you know for certain that anything other than consciousness does OR doesn't exist? Everything is consciousness, after all. And if the illusion was created by the mind, or God, where did God get this idea from? That's what I have trouble understanding.

@Leo Gura Is there any chance that you, given the opportunity, would show up on a world famous talk show and talk about absolute infinity, or any other concept within self-actualization, for that matter?

@Nahm So why say enlightenment can't be explained by words? Words and concepts don't exist, neither non-existence nor existence exist. That's what I meant by stating that no one is ultimately right or wrong in what enlightenment is, or means, because it's just experience, my mind figured. Now, within the content of the illusion, there probably are right or wrong ways to reach enlightenment...

@Nahm I am doing the exercises, but I also wonder about certain things to what this means. But ultimately no one is right or wrong.

@Nahm Maybe so, and in a way it makes most sense after all, we are unsignificant even within the content of the illusion... so, I just wonder what does it matter? What matters is consciousness in its content, right? This is the content. There is suffering and happiness, and it makes ultimately sense that it doesn't exist, but exist at the same time, because why is there something instead of nothing? Because there is nothing, or only awareness, experience. All that makes sense, but what I'm trying to understand is how anyone can know anything based on experience alone. What I also wonder is that by reality being an illusion, does that mean that other illusory organisms don't feel anything - that it's just something I think, and that it's all just a dream? It can't be that, because everyone here cares about suffering, meaning that you in practice can say that other conscious beings exist? Which leads me back to saying, what matters is consciousness in its content. If we think we exist, why isn't that good enough to say that we exist? To me that is just as valid as saying that we don't exist. Saying that we don't exist is also an idea, created by the ego?