Joseph Maynor

Higher-consciousness is growth, maturity, increased awareness, increased perspective, increased knowledge of reality as it is — less delusions, or false, self-serving beliefs.

Yes it does. It develops awareness. With increased awareness you become wiser, more centered, and more reality focused.

Understanding some things about language, belief, thought, and reality. Having a deep knowledge of classical self-help and knowing where to apply those tools. Having a deep understanding of the Authentic-Self so I can align with it rather than oppose it.

Where do you think you’re backsliding? Give me a paragraph description.

I’m very well read and well traveled. I’ve been kind of a loner all my life, but I am always working on improving myself with my time. I’ve done a shit load of personal development. ive always been kind of a fearless, original dude. i examine all my beliefs for myself and don’t like to take anything on faith. I like to help people improve their thinking. I am a great researcher about the things I care about. I have a desire to provide my unique perspective on issues that I care about.

Thank you for being so passionate about doing this work. The journey is long but very rewarding. There are a lot of beliefs that need to be examined anew.

Money is not good or bad in and of itself. Money is nothing other than potential. Realize this. This is a very deep truth about money that a lot of people seem to miss.

You need to contemplate more. There’s no primrose path to Enlightenment. It takes a ton of work. You need to be willing to do that work.

There’s a theoretical scaffolding that one needs to develop before they can really sustainably raise their awareness though. And that takes a lot of contemplation and awareness to build. So, yes and no — Enlightenment is both right in front of you and not right in front of you at the same time, paradoxically.

Do this for me. Answer this question in a short paragraph: What does morality mean to me?

Ask these: What am I? What does it mean to say that I am alive? What is existence? What happens when there is an absence of thoughts? Does the absence of thoughts change awareness?

Psychedelics are just a tool in the personal development toolkit not a magic pill. You need to be doing newbie personal development work right now. You’re not gonna get a quick fix if your foundation isn’t properly layed. Make a commitment to do this work for the long term.

Who is this you that has the will? That’s the deeper issue. You need to start there. What is this you that has the will? Do you see how metaphorical this language and thought is?

I’ve done this kind of thing. The best thing it does is force the Mind to realize how much distraction you really have. It can build awareness around that issue.

Every block can be analyzed to look for its source. You need to identify each block and then contemplate the source. Either you are acting inauthentically or you have a negative association with the value you are trying to pursue. You gotta do deep self-therapy to find the root causes of your blocks.

Music is amazing. I’m so glad I had so much of it in my life. It really gets you to feel subtle emotions that it would be hard to get you to otherwise feel — accoss the entire emotional spectrum. Pandora is good for exploring different genres of music: Music is like food — there are many different approaches to doing it. Music is culture. There’s actually a field called Musicology that traces the influences and historical developments of music-making across cultures. I’ve kind of informally dabbled in this work myself, as kind of a hobby over the years.

Indeed!

Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you have a nice, relaxing day. And all pets are happy today too, I’m sure.

A very expensive bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon for my wine collection. Leo’s Life Purpose Course (I got this one a month early), but it was a Christmas gift too.

Not necessarily. See, that seems right to you because you are assuming that meanings can be true — which is a belief, a paradigm. Thoughts can be used in many more ways than that — which is actually how we use them. But the Mind is insistent on assuming that meanings are things that are true and false.

Be careful. Take the concepts Leo is giving you and contemplate and formulate them for yourself. A borrowed Spirituality is not a genuine Spirituality. You need to be influenced by Leo — not a follower of Leo. You need to be coming up with your own authentic meanings for the words that Leo exposes to you.

Use the Socratic Method. This is where you take nothing for granted. E.g. What is the Socratic method? What is a Method? What is Socratic? What does it mean to take nothing for granted? What does it mean to mean? What is a question? What is truth? What is a belief?

You can think of it as accepting a paradox that says that we both do and do not have control. Just like you both are and are not a self. That’s another useful paradox to loosely cling to.

The solution is to do Life Purpose work. Start Leo’s Life Purpose Course asap.

You are uniting too many theories here and then trying to infer facts about reality from that. That is a recipe for an incorrect result. Nice try, but reality has to be observed in a kind of non-theoretical way to get at its properties.