Joseph Maynor

You have a lot to say but then always clam up when we get to the crux of the issue. I asked if YOU see my concern. Now — why did you clam up and deflect there as you did? You need to develop the guts to stand by your positions to the end. If they die they die — if they live another day, then so be it too. But don’t run away when you sense danger of being deprived of your cherished notions. Assume your notions are probably wrong instead. You wanna be right though. But if you really wanna be right — you have to see that that never works! You always end the dispute before you realize that. The Ego never lets you get there! I’ve seen that pattern with you over and over again. You never let things get to that point. You never dive-deep enough to get there. You just end the discussion to preserve your Ego every time. But that is not helping you! That is keeping you stuck in a trap almost like a self-consistent bubble. And that bubble will be protected no matter what. Am I right?

Thats what I thought it was too. But Leo needed to make that clear. The way he presents it is as a literal truth about reality. There’s a huge difference there. Loosening up the materialist paradigm would make his thesis a counter-weight paradigm to the dominant materialist paradigm — with the express intent to deprogram both paradigms from being seen as true. But Leo never makes that clear in the video. In contrast, Leo has more of a tone of “let me tell you what’s true here — reality is a dream.” Ah — no dude — that’s just more dogma if taken that way. Do you see my concern?

Yeah. Caffeine is a tool like all drugs are. It’s US that misuse these tools, not a problem with the drugs themselves. What makes it scary is our culture treats it like an acceptable drug — like doing a few lines of coke throughout the day were perfectly culturally normal. But coke is so bad right? Wags finger. But Caffeine is a stimulant very much like Coke. It’s not as euphoric as Coke, but it’s a powerful drug nonetheless. Caffeine is kinda like nicotine in a way. Nicotene gives a similar kind of craving and then shitty withdrawals when you detox from it. So, what’s worse, a caffeine addiction or a booze addiction, or any other kind of substance abuse problem? Caffeine is just good for business, so it gets a pass. But that doesn’t change the reality that it’s a powerful drug and addictive as hell.

GETTING BACK THAT CHILDLIKE SPARK TO LIFE When you stop trying to control and just let reality play itself out with full acceptance and surrender -- that's what makes every moment seem to have that spark that it did when you were a child. You gotta stop forcing yourself to do anything though. That's the caveat. Just rest as awareness and let reality do whatever it wants to. Most of you don't have the luxury of doing this, but if you ever can, it's really great. Just let go. Just let go. Just rest as being, as awareness, as Brahman. No trying to control, no clinging to impermanent things. Just resting as awareness. Let go. This should feel kinda scary, but you gotta just keep on with it. What happens after you do this is so magical you'll be amazed. It all moves without you! How fascinating! Right? Everything is magical! Reality is much more than you, or the Ego. The Ego is just a belief-story about Reality that is very limited and false. Reality laughs at stories. Stories exist within reality. Reality is the big kahuna -- it's always there, we just choose to cling to false beliefs about it.

Being cannot be encapsulated under any concept. It’s best to just be reality instead of trying to conceptually know it. Reality is best known through being it not through conceptual description. When you can be reality, conceptualization about it loses all importance. Concepts about reality then become almost like counterfeit money. In contrast, right now you probably believe that concepts about reality are highly-important. But that’s part of our cultural predilection for the paradigm that conceptual-truth is an important kind of truth. Know reality by being it. Rest as awareness. It’s like the difference between doing something and reading about doing something. Reading about having sex is not the same as actually having sex. I hate to use that example, but it’s a poignant one and drives home my point I think very well. This is Valentine’s Day after all.

One time I detoxed off caffeine and I felt like I was detoxing off a serious drug addiction. I recall excruciating headaches and fatigue.

The belief that reality is a dream. That’s not reality at all. That’s an idea about reality. This is so basic. Am I wrong? I realize there is a strong desire to defend Leo’s thesis — but let’s not fool ourselves with our stories. We are monkey-minds, remember?

Everything you say and do is a reflection of you telling us who YOU are. That’s because all there is is you. There is no conflict, that’s an Egoic interpretation of reality. There is only reality. And reality is one. So any perception of conflict is an Egoic mis-interpretation of reality — a clinging to beliefs about reality. Do you see? Sorry to use you as a test case here, but this fell into my lap. This is a teachable moment for all of us. Are you really as much without Ego as you believe you are? How much have you actually transcended the Ego versus the extent to which you believe you have done so? Do you appreciate that the Ego might hide this truth from you? The Ego who believes it is without Ego is pretty sneaky indeed. So, I’ve shined a light on this issue here. We should all examine this issue within ourselves, including myself too of course. The Spiritual Ego is a huge trap in this work. It’s a well known but incredibly sneaky and hard to see blind-spot. It’s almost unconscious in its operation.

You shouldn’t continue to lie to yourself. We can see plainly that that’s not true from the record here. You have not transcended “conflict mode” as you allege. I’m gonna drop this now as the issue is resolved and therefore moot.

You appear to be blind to certain things about yourself and tend to project. Have you done any shadow work? You’re not saying anything about me — you’re telling us who you are. Who is in conflict mode as you allege? You and I are engaging in a side discussion that YOU prompted initially. I just held a mirror up to you, and that made you uncomfortable — and you dealt with that by turning attention to me in a quite desperate and funny way. Am I wrong? We have the record here to review.

You seem pretty certain. Almost as certain as I am that it’s false. Who’s right? See? This is where dogma is at issue. There’s a deeper lesson here.

Nice attempt to rationalize your way out of this — but no.

We are discussing impersonal things here. Nobody’s said anything personal. That’s YOUR projection, not anything to do with this discussion.

What is intuition?

The fact that it’s so old just tells me it is probably dogma. We don’t need any more dogma. If I want dogma I can read Philosophy. What we’re focused on is personal development I thought. Philosophy can be a distraction to personal development.

Saying reality is a dream is clinging to belief. No one is forcing you to make claims like that about reality. Why not just suspend such beliefs regarding reality.

Why not suspend belief. That’s an option too.

It came off as dogmatic to me. But a lot of people seemed to love it if you look at the Youtube comments. They think it’s brilliant.

Something was off about it in content and in tone for me. But that’s just me. That’s why I think it could be tongue in cheek. As in — here’s another story for you to use as a chew-toy while you continue to avoid the only truth there is — that which is contained in the present moment.

What is Science? Im not trying to be cute here. What is not Science?

I still can’t figure out his motive in that video. Something is missing. It’s like a contemporary art piece that leaves you walking away with something, but you’re not sure what.

Examine this question carefully: What does it mean for some thing to exist?

https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/great-minds-of-the-eastern-intellectual-tradition.html Very well done. Buy it on Audible with one of your credits, it's a lot cheaper that way.

Enlightenment is not something that happens quickly. There are no quick fixes in personal development. Changes happen slowly but steadily in this work. If you don’t take ignorance seriously, you will stall in this work. Moksha just is the removal of ignorant assumptions about reality. Nirvana is the cessation of clinging to impermanent things, such as pleasures and pains or thoughts. Moksha is not necessarily happiness or fulfillment, it’s peace. Moksha is complete cessation of attaching to Maya in the moment. That doesn’t mean you repress or suppress beliefs — you just don’t consider them very important! You don’t cling to them (beliefs) much. You are passionate about just resting as awareness, just Being what exists in the Now, the present moment. You are that which is non-changing, or the Soul, and this Soul is Reality. So, attaching to impermanent states is like a walker being distracted and mesmerized by every plant on the side of the road. We err in thinking that beliefs are SO important. They’re like fake currency really. They look valuable on the surface, but they lack true value. Reality doesn’t need anything. It already has what it needs. Your attempts to try and control reality are mistaken and only cause you suffering.

Intelligence can be a trap in this work — especially those who are addicted to conceptual knowledge and thinking. Those people often have no insight about the cause of their neurotic concept-weaving and how that detracts them from acceptance of reality as it is.