kieranperez

@zambize I’m still a little confused by that.

Man... that actually made me feel pretty good. Thank you man ❤️ The moment I read this I said inside “YES!” Recommendations?

@Joseph Maynor man I get it but just understand that Blue felt the same when Orange finally started “spreading”. Every stage has its excesses, it’s own hypocrises, toxicities, ideology, etc. Orange is still plenty obnoxious. Stuff like bro-culture to me has always been the biggest turn off (even when I was heavily in Orange). And I’m sure if you talk to certain people who aren’t probalt-right or aren’t for ethnocentric groups that live in central Florida, they’d have plenty of things to say about how obnoxious the KKK groups are there when they go parading around their stuff. And believe it or not... that was once a high development that was necessary at the time! Understand what’s happening on the meta level. Remember this is how it always goes whenever a new stage starts to emerge. This is how a culture reaches 2nd tier! This is growth! Change is never pretty.

@zambize my first answer that came to mind is that I’m still here. Not the sense that I haven’t killed myself, but in the sense that I still have hope. There’s still some sort of fire there is something to do. I admire the fact that I haven’t sold out my highest intention since I was a kid. Not that my highest intention is to become fully awake or something like that. But there’s something higher for me and I know that’s there and I know that thing, whatever that is, is what matters most. I see a lot of people around me who have it better than me in their life circumstances than I do, are much more successful than me (pretty much all my friends in high school) and are already killing it but have no clue really where they’re going nor know what to really do. I think what inspired me so much about enlightenment and what not since the beginning and the whole notion of “becoming a sage” is that I saw ‘this is exactly the thing I was looking for my entire life’.

@Joseph Maynor yeah man, I hear you. I mean, hell, you and I live in SF and I personally can get very annoyed by it personally. I cant even go to the Zen center here anymore because it’s too much relativism to the point where there’ll be a disucussion where they’ll be an ideological rant about how there’s no gender and all this and I’m sitting there just wanting to yell “YOURE NOT A GENDER, YOURE NOT EVEN A PERSON!”... half joking on that. So I understand because that’s what you and I personally tend to see a lot of everyday. I remember in high school, I was balancing the peak of my Orange sort of self (which I still have A LOT to work on) as a hardcore athlete that wanted a lot of success and with a very deeply entrenched Orange household with NYC fashion oriented parents who didn’t like being in nature and at the same time being deep in the Bay Area underground rave scene (like the Ghost Ship Warehouse Fire that was on CNN, used to party in that building all the time). I bring this up because I had my feet deep in 2 totally different stages and I remember being so confused because I saw the validity of both of them and also the excesses of both of them and also saw the same common problem which was their own mayopia. Again though, Green is much more evolved into love than that of Orange and especially than that of Blue for sure. Their way more inclusive and accepting. Remember, the more evolved you are, the more inclusive you become.

Sure it does. Not to the same degree because it’s values are different but it still has social moralization about those who don’t model Orange values. Whether it be direct at Green liberals in Haight where we live or at fundamentalists. Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and such people, their whole shtick is moralizing!

@Joseph Maynor you’re making the case of how Green and Blue moralize and I’m point out to you that Orange moralizes, criticizes, etc. just like them. The content is different but they still apply just as much. All because it’s not necessarily directed at the collective (like Blue and Green is focused on “other” rather than “self” like Orange) doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply.

So is Orange if you actually think about it and look. Orange’s moralism is that they SHOULD progress, people SHOULD be rational and scientifically minded and be objectivists, you SHOULD just get material and personal success. If you actually look at Orange people you will see this is kind of should’s and moralism they have. Rather than having their moralism be directly related to others, it’s directly related to themselves in advancement to their own strategic and cold logical self agenda. Look at Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, etc. they’re perfect examples of this. A lot of their careers thrive strictly off of their moralism.

That’s just 1st tier as a whole. That’s not just a function of Green. Blue, Red, Orange, Green. That’s the whole thing that 1st tier doesn’t see - it’s own mayopic point of view. Each stage thinks its the best stage.

Has anyone ever heard of, tried, or have any details on the effects of NMT?

I honestly do something similar to that. The times when my self acceptance gets going is when I naturally end up visualizing me as a little kid and I’m how I am now and I give love that little kid like crazy, and then (this is where it gets hard for me) is when I take the perspective of the little kid and I look at me now and then I give my current self love. The amount of shame I have to be willing to accept and love is a challenge for sure. When you’re so used to being ashamed you are of yourself for how you have nothing to show to yourself because you wanted to be something, you had this vow “I vowed I would NEVER become the very thing I have become. I wasn’t supposed to be this,” (I’m actually kinda tearing and choking up writing this to be honest) that’s the hardest thing in the world sometimes. I tell you man, just getting 10% through that shell rips me open in the best way. It’s hard because as counter intuitive as it is, I don’t want to let my guard down. It’s one thing to know conceptually why I keep my guard up, it’s a totally other matter when you realize how obsessively dedicated you are to keep that shield up, even to your own detriment.

Green is much more nuanced, all-inclusive, and developed than Orange... much less Blue. You’re only viewing Green from its excesses. Yeah, Green has PLENTY of excesses. There will be tons of problems with Green... just like there was with Blue and Orange! Do you realize that if you were to go back in history when say Orange was emerging after the excesses of Blue that the criticism was exactly the same on the meta level? People like Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, etc. that demonize and try lash at Green are just like those part of the mind and body that go off trying to retain homeostasis when you’re creating a new habit or if you’re about to kill the ego! The collective mind resists dying! I challenge you to go to an underground rave or go to a burner festival or just hangout here in the San Francisco Bay Area (granted, SF has gotten extremely gentrified). You tell me what you think then. Blue and Orange aren’t even very much in touch with love with for that matter. Not to bash, but I hope your comment on Trump being more nuanced than Obama (regardless of what the subject matter is) was a joke.

Probably The Book of Not Knowing by Ralston.

@okulele come on man... Goblet of Fire

What book? Biography?

Jesus is not a historical person. Jesus is an archetype. Historical or fictional is irrelevant. Search for what’s really true directly. If you want to know what God is, become conscious of what God is directly. All of “Jesus’s teachings” are just stories and heresay. How do you honestly know if he was right or wrong? You don’t.

That’s a metaphor for you. Before you came into this embodied perspective, aka your self or ego, you were one with God (Nothingness). Then you split from God confusing yourself for this separate character. Confusing the true nature of everything that is nonduality with duality. Of course you’ve been God this whole time. Just unknowingly. Start learning to read in between the lines with these very apt metaphors.

Couple of points I want to make on this, as someone who has been borderline suicidal and has communicated this on the forum... These nondual elitist know it alls exaccerbate this issue with people who are suicidal. As someone whose posted about my incredibly crippling low self esteem, lack of self love, depression, and utter confusion, all the comments that made me feel more isolated and less understood and felt like I got no help at all were these Zen Devil nondual know it alls who just want to play that card and completely lack compassion and empathy. I’ve gotten and see all the time comments such as “this is all your fucking ego,” “nobody is going to help you. Nobody will save you. It’s just you in this universe.” “Your mind has you by the balls.” YOU DONT SAY THAT SHIT TO PEOPLE WHO ARE IN THE HABIT OF BEATING THEMSELVES UP. Those responses come from people who’ve had the great fortune of not actually feeling that kind of pain and level of self torture. Those responses come from people who went from being newbs on this spiritual path, got some little glimpses, and now they think they understand everything and now they’re cocky. If anything I see Leo coming down on those people are trying to communicate to show more empathy and compassion. That’s not to make out all people on this forum like that. When I’m going through a hard time (like I am today) I sometimes get flooded with massages of people reaching out and it’s touching. I’ve made friends on this forum like @Sahil Pandit and @Robby and I hope these people are my friends for life. Leo isn’t here to fix all of us. Yeah, I personally really admire Leo. I wish sometimes I could get that face-face advice and serious from him but guess what? That’s my shit. That’s our shit. That’s our expectation. If you’re concerned about people’s mental health, how bout YOU meet them where they’re at? Show them some compassion and some love and give them some exercises and tips that will them to empower themselves this way they don’t need to cling to anybody? A lot of people on here express their deep depression and suicidal thoughts because they’re looking for someone to save them because they’re at a point where they can’t even intuit an empowering vision for their impact on the world, who they can become, what they want, etc. but they don’t want to die. If they TRULY wanted to die, they would. They become needy because they don’t believe in themselves at all anymore. How can YOU help with that? Rather than just expecting Leo to come in there and be their Superman?

What kinda of collective and societal infrastructure do you think needs to be in place for this to become a possibility? The way I see the problem of waking up the masses, it seems like just a problem of system overload as far as what a leader can really feasibly facilitate. Waking up on your own is hard enough as it is. All the homeostasis and ego building blocks that hold your life together that need to be broken down is already hard as fuck and takes years. The highest level systems thinker and 2nd tier leader couldn’t lead such a process even if they taught from the place of the greater jihad. Hence why the bigger the following the more diluted the teaching has to be. I mean really think about this. Let’s say your a 2nd tier turquoise masterful sage that can do all the psychic stuff in the world, you’re fully awake, you got the big picture nailed down, conceptual mastery, the whole 9 yards... but your task is getting THE MASSES. That includes those guys in the hood who are stage Red, getting evangelical Bible Belt Stage Blue Christians, etc... you think there wouldn’t be the biggest collective homeostatic ego backlash with that?... Assuming you even got their attention to begin with. As far as I’m concerned, that’s something that’s going to take at least several more hundred years of years, potentially thousands.

That’s your problem with your petty selfish expectations. You nondual keyboard warriors who lack compassion, humility, self reflection, and open mindedness act like you know all there is to be known (and you definitely fit this bill in your other posts and replied to other people’s thread so I’m talking about you here to). This is apparent in the way you guys answer questions. Personally I’m glad a lot of these threads and comments get shut down from time to time. If I was a world class track coach and I ran my own team and I had athletes who I’ve been trying to coach through a multitude of ways and they don’t listen and act after reading a few books on training theory and now they act like know it alls (and make no mistake what you and a lot of people on here, including myself plenty of times) I would have to be hard with them and if they keep it up, guess what? They’re off the team. They would end up wasting my time, their time, and everyone else’s time. Your complaining and expectations of what Leo and all other nondual and personal development teachers should and shouldn’t do has everything to do with you.

@Leo Gura was about to make a post about the utilization of 5-MeO-DMT under a hardcore spiritual practice/regimen/system. As far as I'm interpreting, before one were to even do 5-MeO-DMT in the way you're describing, one should already have a strong enough big picture foundation yes and spiritual practice already up and going but also a very strong foundation of self-esteem to really carry themselves through such a process? I feel like that would be obvious stuff but can't hurt to confirm. Do you think cases like Martin Ball who achieve liberation (under the assumption that he is truly and fully liberated) using 5-MeO-DMT are still rare cases and would still be rare cases if people were to use 5-MeO-DMT under his way of using it (smoking/vaporizing it and then stay embodying the energy through bi-lateral symmetry AKA "fractal energy yoga"... whoever came up with that title by the way needs to go into marketing) or yours? I've spent time really strategizing in the coming years towards when I fully go into spirituality and have put a lot of thought into the possibilities of how 5-MeO-DMT would work in conjunction with a hardcore yoga, concentration meditation, and contemplation practice and what not. As far as what you seem to report, you still come back down and it's not lasting as far as the abidance of the realization itself. Obviously that doesn't diminish, reduce, or debunk the realizations that I imagine come with such a substance and of course you do get personal growth from doing multiple rounds of 5-MeO-DMT over the course multiple days but... does it really leave something lasting that doesn't turn into more conceptual ideas several weeks and months after you stop doing it? Not to suggest that 5-MeO-DMT would someone's only tool for their spiritual practice towards full liberation and full depth of awakening. Then again though... if brings you back to baseline, aren't you just back to square one where you started with just needing to grind through tens and tens of thousands of hours of concentrative meditation in order to abide in pure liberation anyways? You've said in the past that 5-MeO-DMT is just so much more ridiculously potent and effective that it takes you orders of magnitude deeper than these more traditional practices would ever take the average person. I'm trying to really listen the emphasis on the quality and magnitude of depth there is but if 5-MeO-DMT can't for sure sustain though through proper use (since you do come back down) + spiritual practices, does it really even effect the average person's chances of true full liberation and mastery of this domain?

You don’t know. Start there. You yourself, start there. Investigate. Find out. No answer I can give you helps. Direct.Experience.

It’s so tricky and really funny how that works.

@DecemberFlower honestly I’ve found that the more I really embrace not knowing the more grounded and in touch I am with myself because not knowing is already the case. Not knowing is kinda like an ego death in the sense that we’re often so afraid and struggle to let go of our points of view because of how much we cling to them but the moment you get free the more free you are. It’s like an overweight person finally dropping 100 pounds from 260-160. I imagine for someone like that it’s this sense of ‘look at how much more I can do now that I’m rid of all that?!’ To really get and create to anything new, deep, and profound, not knowing needs to be recognized. This is exciting because now you have enough consciousness and groundedness to see the possibility of something new that you’ve (and depending on your ambition, something no one else has) never done before. One of the ways I practice deconstructing my own positions, beliefs, assumptions and having my awareness of them is questioning the people I follow and also the people I criticize simultaneously. For example, I’ve fallen so many times without recognition blindly believing @Leo Gura because I get certainty from him because I really resonate with the personality, style of charisma, the background he’s given on his life that matches similar to myself, and a lot more. I was going down this point where I’d disagree and shun anyone he’s disagreed with on video without actually looking for myself. To go further, if I say watched Jordan Peterson, I’d see him in “the light of my assumption and prejudice”. So if Jordan Peterson would say something in a certain video (let’s say he’s bashing postmodernism and “snowflake culture”) that disagreed with a point Leo made in one video, I would start to contemplate such that I get to the point where I recognize that all I did was make a bunch of assumptions. NOT “oh Leo is wrong” or “JP is full of shit” but that I don’t know. NOW the inquiry and investigation can begin. I find not knowing incredibly empowering. As far confusion with one’s life and life purpose, I know exactly about that because for me I’ve always been (I find significantly more than other people) extremely impressionable. So I’ll look for role models but than I get stuck fantasizing about role models and possible routes without being in touch with me. If you’ve taken the LP course and you have your values and your strengths and you feel solid on them but you still feel stuck on your impact and your ZoG, try just doing to the reprogramming the subconscious mind exercises on those and see what comes up. Follow your values and strengths (whichever resonate more with you) and see what happens.

I’m considering saving up money I’m going to earn this summer for one of Ralston’s retreats (preferably the upcoming Fall one). I know some of you on here have gone to his retreats (some of you I’ve met... shoutout to my man @Juan Cruz Giusto). My main question I have is, as funny as it is, does Ralston go in deep with questions? I mean, in the end, he does play coy with a lot of the questions he gets and in the answers he gives. To me, I think this is for good reason, as frustrating as it can probably be. When I listen to Ralston on YouTube it blows my mind because it’s like ‘I can do that?!’ I really slow down to try to comprehend what it is he’s communicating and it blows my mind because there’s so much fucking depth that I feel like the average attended of these retreats or reader just overlooks so easily because he’s so clear. In yet, when I listen to the questions he gets on say his YouTube videos, nobody really seems mindblown or is asking anything really deep? How does Ralston help facilitate and asnswer questions? As an example: one of the things I think is missed in his work that I want more clarification on how to do is how he contemplates “outside” the domain of pure consciousness work. So how he used “Zen contemplation” as he puts it with say contemplating domains of running, or the body, or evil, etc. and then do something with that to create something. I’ve emailed him in the past (and I suggest you guys do to... the fact that you can email this man and he responds in a couple hours blows my mind) but I don’t want to be some pest lol otherwise I’d be emailing him every single day LOL