Joseph Maynor

I fit mine. Take the official test: https://www.mbtionline.com/TaketheMBTI My results were like this: There's (very likely, likely, and somewhat likely) for each letter: E (Very likely) N (Somewhat likely) -- this means that I have strong S too but a tip toward N T (Very likely) J (Very likely) ENTJ Frank, decisive, assume leadership readily. Quickly see illogical and inefficient procedures and policies, develop and implement comprehensive systems to solve organizational problems. Enjoy long-term planning and goal setting. Usually well informed, well read, enjoy expanding their knowledge and passing it on to others. Forceful in presenting their ideas. These are the four Cognitive Functions for ENTJ: Te Ni Se Fi Ideal Intimate Relationship Partner for ENTJ is INTP (It's good to have the NT in common so you have more to talk about): Although two well-developed individuals of any type can enjoy a healthy relationship, ENTJ's natural partner is the INTP, or the ISTP. AN ENTJ's dominant function of Extraverted Thinking is best-matched with a personality type that is dominanted by Introverted Thinking.

Good

It's all about context. In which contexts is a principle useful? That's the most important question for knowledge.

We have plenty to work on. Your last video is a goldmine for a restructure of one's Big Vision work.

Quite the contrary. Psychedelics allow you to see all the shitty parts of yourself so they can be identified and cleaned out.

Personal Development Applications.

Jordan Peterson is great for doing personality theory work. He was a psychology professor specializing in personality theory. His Big 5 Aspects of Personality test is great, I took it: https://www.understandmyself.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

Good

Emotional healing work comes down to Enlightenment work, Shadow work and unwiring traumas.

I will watch this with my accountability partner right now.

It's so tempting to dissociate into the Mind and bypass living life. I should know, I spent my 20's and 30's basically doing that. There are pros and cons to all of this of course. My long life stuck in the Mind has teed me up to live life very well in my 40's. But one does need to become mindful of this issue.

I try to integrate Yin and Yang, yes. This includes but is not limited to integrating liberalism and conservativism. Too much conservativism and you become a dummy. Too much liberalism and you become someone who doesn't have their head screwed on tight.

Liberalism (Yin) vs. Conservationism (Yang)

The pros of these stages need to be integrated by the higher spiral stages.

Sounds like you resonate with this insight.

"On Spiral Dynamics Stage Teal" (written by me) (1) 100% Transcendence of the Mind -- including but not limited to transcendence of white-knuckle clinging to metaphysics and white-knuckle clinging to Truth Teal, unlike Turquoise and Coral, has completely (100%) transcended the Mind. Teal has reached Satori (or the Zen Mind). Teal is not white-knuckle clinging to metaphysics or to Truth. This means that Teal is not not clinging to metaphysics or to Truth either. Teal realizes that it's the Mind that clings to metaphysics and to Truth, and Teal has seen through the Mind completely. Teal allows the Mind but is no longer ignorant of the Mind making itself seem more important that it really is -- this includes but is not limited to the Mind making thought seem more important than it really is. Teal is able to live their life without being trapped inside the Mind-Matrix while also picking up the Mind when it's useful to do so and putting down the Mind when it's no longer useful. Teal knows how to do thought without thought doing them. (2) Focus on real relationships rather than abstract metaphysical love Because Teal has transcended the Mind, Teal is not clinging to any concept of metaphysical love. Teal values real relationships however and places their focus on nurturing real relationships that they care about. This doesn't mean that Teal is selfish though. Teal continues to express interpersonal compassion and contribution, but Teal is not clinging to any metaphysical love or abstraction about love being part of Truth or anything like that. That's all white-knuckle clinging by the Mind which Teal is well aware of. Teal is ok with not liking everybody. Teal is also ok with being interpersonally reactive when it's authentic and doesn't try to repress, suppress, or demonize Ego or Ego flare-ups. (See No. 6 below) Teal is very relationship-focused and uses relationships to do personal development work. (3) Authentic expression and authentic being -- full integration of the masculine and the feminine Teal realizes that both masculinity and femininity express itself in all persons. Teal watches their personas change and is mindful of their personas changing throughout the day. Teal can identify when they're in their masculine and when they're in their feminine. Teal is all about authentic expression, healing traumas, reducing shadow, recognizing personas, and following your goose-bumps (or following your bliss) whatever that might be because that's what your Ego-Mind needs to do to grow and to become more authentic (even if your Ego-Mind needs to go in a negative or destructive direction). Teal has integrated both the masculine and the feminine completely (100%). (4) Drops down from the Mind Space into the Heart-Mind Space -- this doesn't mean you lose intellect, you just don't have any ignorance regarding the Mind anymore — this is another masculine feminine integration -- full integration of the Heart-Mind Because Teal has fully transcended the Mind, they no longer have ignorance regarding the Mind. This allows Teal to descend from the heights of the Mind down into the Heart and to integrate both into the Heart-Mind. Teal has integrated the Mind and the Heart completely (100%). (5) Drops down from the Mind Space into the Body-Mind Space — this is another masculine feminine integration -- full integration of the Body-Mind Because Teal has fully transcended the Mind, they no longer have ignorance regarding the Mind. This allows Teal to descend from the heights of the Mind down into the Body and to integrate both into the Body-Mind. Teal has integrated the Mind and the Body completely (100%). (6) Realizes the Ego-Mind has pros and cons -- and doesn't demonize, repress, suppress or deny the Ego-Mind in a black-and-white kind of way Teal doesn't white-knuckle cling to the idea that the Ego is bad or an illusion. Teal doesn't white-knuckle cling to the idea that the Ego is not bad or an illusion. Teal doesn't try to repress, suppress, demonize, or dissociate from the Ego or the Mind. Teal realizes that the Ego-Mind has pros and cons, and Teal wants to maximize the pros of the Ego-Mind while minimizing the cons of the Ego-Mind. Because Teal is relationship and connection driven (real relationships and connections), they are not likely to be as selfish and solitary as Coral. Teal doesn't think they're God because they've transcended this kind of white-knuckle clinging to metaphysics and to Truth. Teal allows both the light side and the dark side of the personality.

"Stage Turquoise Metaphysics Vs. Stage Coral Metaphysics" (Written by me) (1) Turquoise sees Non-duality as the Universe acting and speaking through all of its parts, as if all the parts are a conduit of the Universe a.k.a. one giant Mind. In contrast, Coral sees Non-duality as what is literally real, which is the true Self a.k.a. God Awareness but excludes Maya (a.k.a. Thought and Experience) from what is real because Maya is a literal illusion. (2) Turquoise tends to think of Consciousness or its rough synonym 'the Universe' as being a container that contains everything that Turquoise wants to exist in reality. In contrast, Coral is very literal in how they look at reality and realizes the only thing that exists is God Awareness, and God Awareness exists alone because all Thought and Experience a.k.a. Maya are a literal illusion. (3) Turquoise tends to think of God or 'Absolute Infinity' as they might call it as the 'full magnitude of everything that exists'. In contrast, Coral realizes that Absolute Infinity is Maya and that the only thing that exists is the true Self a.k.a. God Awareness. (4) Turquoise tends to equate Ego with the Egoic self, and tends to think of Ego as drawing a boundary in Experience. In contrast, Coral sees Ego as God Awareness forgetting who He is and becoming embedded in or distracted within Thought and/or Experience a.k.a. Maya. (5) Turquoise tends to think of Non-duality as everything losing all boundaries and becoming Oneness. In contrast, Coral tends to think of Non-duality as God Awareness being fully conscious of who He is and that all Maya a.k.a. Thought and Experience is a literal illusion. (6) Turquoise makes room in their metaphysics for perspectives of other beings and for themselves as a perspective within a Network of Perspectives. In contrast, Coral realizes that there's only one perspective that exists in reality, and that's the perspective of God Awareness a.k.a. the true Self. (7) Turquoise tends to cling to a life purpose aiming to help other people in truth-leaning ways and/or to change the world for the better in some manner. In contrast, although Coral does teach on occasion; rather than cling to an external Life Purpose, Coral is mostly focused internally on addressing their own Macro-Level Actual Problem Situations with their time.

I wrote this as I was going through Coral. "A Narrative About Spiral Dynamics Stage Coral" (Written by me as I was going through Stage Coral myself) I. Everything Is In My Consciousness: Stage Coral moves from being a synergistic Network of Perspectives (Turquoise) back to the lone, individual perspective; namely, a singular God Awareness. All I'm doing is maintaining Awareness from this God perspective; maintaining Awareness that everything is in my consciousness. That's the main insight. The thing is, you don't really realize what Awareness is until you realize that everything is inside your consciousness. That's the real mindf*ck. Once you realize that everything is in your consciousness, you'll see that your Awareness is God: there's only one Awareness, only one Mind. 'Non-duality' means everything is you. This means that everything is Metaphysically one; namely, it's all part of my consciousness. That's Metaphysical Non-Duality. All there is is your consciousness! I finally have an idea where 'compassion' comes from in Enlightenment Work -- it comes from realizing that everything is happening within your consciousness. When you realize that everything is inside your consciousness, all conflict will look like these silly swirls in your Awareness — one part of Maya fighting with another part. And when you realize that the only thing that exists is you as God Awareness, that will change dramatically how you respond to conflict in your Awareness. I wanna nip a potential confusion in the bud: when I say everything is in your consciousness, that doesn't mean everything in Experience is you. Just because everything is inside your consciousness doesn't mean everything inside your consciousness is you. Yes, every person you've ever disliked and Donald Trump have existed no place other than your consciousness, but their existence was Maya a.k.a illusory Thoughts and Experiences. It's the Devil (Section IV discusses 'the Devil') a.k.a. the Lure into Maya that gave these Thoughts and Experiences reality, when in fact they never actually existed. There's nothing behind the scenes so to speak with any Thought or Experience. So, yes, Maya a.k.a. Thoughts and Experiences do exist, but they exist like bad magic tricks that a keen observer can see right through. What you are is Awareness of Maya tending to get enmeshed in Maya as if it's real. In other words, you're Awareness of illusory Thought and Experience who has a tendency to lose yourself in that Thought and Experience as if that's what's real. The problem with that is, your Awareness is the only thing that's actually real. You're the only thing that exists where there's actually something behind the scenes. Fully seeing that you're the only thing that exists and that you're all alone is what causes God Awareness to emerge in your life. So, yeah, every person you've disliked and Donald Trump are part of your Maya, but they aren't you, not in the sense of the true Self as being God Awareness, which sees Maya as a total illusion without anything behind it. 'Consciousness' is a slippery word. 'Nothingness' is a slippery word too. I prefer to use the words 'Awareness' and 'Maya'. 'God Awareness' is aware of 'Maya', and Maya includes 'Experience' and 'Thought'. And 'God Awareness' is the only thing that actually exists. In other words, your 'Awareness' when stripped of the illusion of 'Maya' is the only thing that actually exists. 'God Awareness' is all alone -- you're literally all alone. All 'Maya' is literally dead, there's nothing behind any of it. What happens is that your 'Awareness' gets entangled within 'Maya' and starts to forget that 'God Awareness' is the only thing that actually exists. This is analogous to getting lost in a movie and losing sight of the fact that what you're really doing is watching a two-dimensional screen of flickering pixels. I think the biggest ego trap is refusing to face the fact that you're all alone in existence and that everything you care deeply about in Experience and Thought is a total illusion (dead) -- nobody wants to face that -- and actually what happens is you don't face it, it comes after you. In other words, the awakening may occur to you sometime in the future, and then you won't be able to unsee it. II. The Self (God Awareness) (a.k.a. God): Stage Coral sees Self as existing all alone as God Awareness. Nothing exists except for God Awareness. Awareness is not awareness for the little you in Maya. Enlightenment is also lonely because you realize God is all alone. All you can really do as God is maintain keen Awareness and realize that everything is 'in here' not 'out there', and what's 'in here' is mostly an illusion. Everything is inside my Consciousness, and none of it has anything beyond its impressions, everything else is filled in by the Mind -- my Mind. That Awareness that sits above the illusion, above Maya, is You; namely, God. God Awareness is completely outside of Maya, including but not limited to, life and death. My definition of 'Existential Truth' from before was incomplete. I previously defined 'Existential Truth' before as 'BE-ing right now'. I wanna re-define 'Existential Truth' as 'God Awareness'. God doesn't mean existence or reality. God doesn't mean Absolute Infinity. That conflates God and Maya. God is an Awareness whereas reality is Experience, and Experience is an illusion whereas Awareness is not. God is not an illusion. God is the only thing that actually exists; namely, 'God Awareness' -- or a very keen form of Awareness, which is You. You are not Experience or Thought, those are part of Maya, part of the illusion. God is who sees through Maya, who sees through the illusion. God is God Awareness a.k.a. Existential Truth a.k.a. You a.k.a. the only 'thing' that exists. Becoming God means that all Experience and Thoughts must die, not just the 'Egoic self'. They all burn into the illusion of Maya. The only thing that matters is ‘God Awareness’ right now, which is the true Self. What is the difference between 'Awareness' and 'God Awareness'? God Awareness is an Awareness that groks that it's the only thing that actually exists and that it exists outside Maya a.k.a. outside Thought and Experience. God Awareness is a liberated Awareness, an Awareness that has achieved Moksha. So, every God Awareness is an Awareness, but not every Awareness is a God Awareness -- in other words, not every Awareness fully groks its true Self. When you fully grok your true Self, that's when God emerges and you'll see that God is You. This is when true Spirituality emerges, at Stage Coral. III. Maya (Thought and Experience) (a.k.a. Hell): Stage Coral realizes that it’s the 'Egoic self' that wants to cling to Thoughts and Experience (including emotions) not the true Self. From the perspective of the true Self a.k.a. God Awareness, all Thoughts sound like insignificant bird chirps in the forest and all Experience looks like a bad movie. Stage Turquoise doesn't realize that it's still very distracted by being enmeshed in Maya; namely, enmeshed in Thought and Experience. That's what Stage Coral sees through and moves beyond. Chasing Thought causes suffering, chasing Experience causes suffering. Thought and Experience are distractions to maintaining God Awareness. The Mind breathes life into Thought and Experience to create 'Maya'. What is 'Maya'? -- let's look at that! Maya is attachment to Experience which comes from the fact that Awareness doesn't see a space between itself and Experience. (Experience also includes Thoughts, dreams, day-dreams, anything being sensed basically.) The thing is, there's nothing behind the Maya. You'll realize this when you realize that nothing is outside your Consciousness. It's the Materialist Paradigm that causes us to think there's real Awareness in anything except one source; namely You -- you're the only Awareness -- there's nothing outside your Awareness! -- that's what Maya points to or gets at. All Thoughts sound like insignificant bird chirps to God, all Experience looks like a bad movie to God. Unenlightenment is Awareness getting caught up in Maya basically. Once you see that Maya is an illusion, you can simply maintain Keen Awareness that everything is inside your Consciousness. Maya is like a virtual reality system. So, you're gonna be aware of Maya, the key is not to cling to it. Realize that Maya is an illusion and just maintain keen Awareness above and through it. All Experience and Thoughts are equally 'Maya'. All Thoughts sound like insignificant bird chirps in the forest to me now, and all Experience looks like a bad movie to me now, and this is one of those things that when you come to see it, it's hard to unsee. The Mind breathes life into both Thoughts and Experience. Identifying with Thought and Experience ('Maya') is the worst trap in Enlightenment, much worse than the trap of 'need to know BE-ing'. I think I understand what 'Absolute Infinity' is now. Absolute Infinity is what Maya looks like from the perspective of God Awareness. And Absolute Infinity can be any number of things, but Absolute Infinity is not Awareness, not God. God Awareness sits above Absolute Infinity; you sit above Absolute Infinity without even realizing it, see. You're like someone who sees more there than what's really there, like a person getting lost in a moving picture a.k.a. movie. What Enlightenment does is back you out of Absolute Infinity to realize that the only thing there is is you as God Awareness; everything else in Experience (which includes Thought) is just fluxing illusion. But God Awareness can see through all of that -- but it's definitely a paradigm shift -- and it's a heartbreaking one too -- everything that you care about will die on the vine at the same time -- that's what becoming God Awareness is and entails. Maya is the shifting Experience and Thoughts that aren't real, but the Mind blows life into them. Maya is a game. It's like a bad movie where you don't really wanna pay attention and most time you don't, but sometimes you lose yourself in it anyway. 'Maya' means that the Mind attributes life and meaning to Experience, which doesn’t inherently have life or meaning. (Experience in this sense includes Thoughts.) The Mind breathes life into Maya like watching pixels on a screen draws you into thinking you're seeing something real. You know how you get fixated with a movie and think it's real, well that's the same way that lower-Awareness gets fixated on Maya! That's why when you reach God Awareness, you're detached from Maya and you see through it as a total illusion. And this means total death of Experience too. This is literal, not figurative, and non-negotiable. All Experience and Thoughts are equally 'Maya'. All Thoughts sound like insignificant bird chirps in the forest to me now, and all Experience looks like a bad movie to me now. And this is one of those things that when you come to see it, it's hard to unsee: The Mind breathes life into both Thoughts and Experience. NOTE: Be careful with the notion of ‘relative truth’ in Enlightenment work, that’s a trap. The only truth insofar as Enlightenment is concerned is Existential Truth a.k.a. God Awareness. You gotta realize that Maya (Thought and Experience) is an illusion. The only thing that exists is God Awareness, everything else is dead just like a movie is (in the sense that there’s nothing behind the screen). Everything you think is outside is literally inside your consciousness. Other people are inside your consciousness, they don’t exist anywhere else — there is no external world. IV. Ego (Distractions into Maya) (a.k.a. the Devil): Stage Coral, unlike all lower Spiral Stages, realizes it's a trap to have their Awareness heavily distracted by and enmeshed within Thought and Experience. 'Ego' is your Awareness getting entangled in Maya a.k.a. Thought and Experience. Ego most commonly means a distraction away from keen Awareness a.k.a. God Awareness. I've been watching 'my Mind' getting kicked up all over the place trying to connect my Awareness to Thought (meanings) and Experience. This is part of the Devil: I've already defined 'the Devil' as 'lures into Maya a.k.a. distractions a.k.a. Maya Triggers'. Ego is a much larger concept than I previously thought. 'Ego' in its truest sense means distraction of your Awareness away from 'God Awareness'. Coral sees through all that and realizes it's a trap. It's reaching God Awareness that wipes out all your distractions in your life. You just wont engage in them anymore. You can't do it, it's like a switch was flipped. I.e., I can't sit down and just read now, I just won't do it unless there's a specific, pragmatic reason for me to read something. Getting lost in reading is one of the best ways to lose your God Awareness. (1) God is the true Self, which is God Awareness, the only 'thing' that actually exists. (2) Heaven is God Awareness fully groking that it's the only thing that actually exists, and that it exists outside Maya a.k.a. outside Thought and Experience. Heaven is also grokking that Maya can't hurt God Awareness because it's an illusion, in other words, Thought and Experience are an illusion that can't hurt God Awareness in any way. (3) The Devil is the seductor that tries to lure God Awareness into forgetting that He's God and losing Himself by enmeshment into Maya a.k.a. Thought and Experience. Another way to think of the Devil is as Triggers into Maya a.k.a. Triggers into Thought and Experience. (4) Hell is when your Awareness loses sight of the fact (or never knew the fact in the first place) that it's the only thing that actually exists and becomes enmeshed within the illusion of Maya a.k.a. Thought and Experience. This is what causes all suffering; namely, when Awareness gets enmeshed in illusory Maya a.k.a. illusory Thought and Experience. This is not simply analogous to being caught in a bad dream and waking up with your heart pounding out of your chest. This is being caught in any dream at all, even positive ones, and not just when you're sleeping. All enmeshment in Maya a.k.a. Thought and Experience just is Samsara, which leads to Dukkha (suffering). You gotta become mindful of are triggers that suck God Awareness temporarily into Maya a.k.a Thought and Experience: Web surfing on PC Web surfing on Phone Reading Watching YouTube videos Indulging in Thinking TV News websites Listening to music Writing Alcohol Marijuana Psychedelics Day-dreaming Indulging in Experience Indulging in research Teaching Talking Social media Getting lost in the future Getting lost in the past Getting angry with Experience Idle gossip Getting lost in art appreciation Indulging in food, including but not limited to junk food Worrying what others think about me Judging and begrudging others Showing off or trying to prove myself Day job Zoning-out Fantasizing Being online/ Internet Idle arguing Idle debating Idle criticizing Idle complaining Needing to feel superior to others Focused on career Focused on success Studying Doing Personal Development Consuming humor/ trying to be funny Audio books/ listening to audio content Journaling Commenting/ needing to be listened to/ needing an audience Being a Bodhisattva Being a do-gooder Traveling Introspecting Idle chin-wagging Being a helper Getting lost in technology Getting lost in programming Relationships Sexual interest Pornography Entertainment Casinos (I don’t gamble but enjoy going to Vegas) Sight-seeing Taking photos/ doing photography Education/ Self-education Feeding ‘need to know’ so I get to feel smart Identifying with Experience Identifying with Thought Identifying with Maya Trying to prove that I’m hip and cool Curiosity Love of learning Creativity Seeking respect Seeking pride Friends Getting too much into clothing Shopping Restaurants Talking about current events and/or the news Talking about politics Talking shit about other people Trying to impress others Seeking approval from others/ being over-eager to please Trying to have false humility Trying to have false modesty Pretending that I’m a nice guy Pretending that I’m loving Putting on a front/ wearing a social mask Being deceptive Playing office politics Talking behind people’s backs Getting too much into cooking Getting too much into exercise Getting too attached to my ‘ritual of terms’ or personal philosophy Being too fixated on having a good physical appearance Being too fixated on impressing others Workaholism Always needing to be doing something Seeking to leave a legacy behind me Losing myself in large social settings Being manipulative and goal driven Needing to be the smartest person in the room Need to feel like I’m one of the worthy and not a loser Need to be admired/ need to be the golden boy Getting too much into computers Caffeine All drugs including the minor ones are a distraction and tool of the Devil because they have a tendency to intertwine your Awareness in Maya. You wanna be 100% drug free to maintain keen Awareness. Realize that drugs are a distraction to your Awareness first and foremost. What they do is get you wrapped up in Experience, in Thoughts, in Maya. The problem with that is it causes you suffering because Maya is an illusion. You have to get used to the fact that God Awareness is all alone and to not wanna dip into Maya to avoid that reality. Some colossal distractions (Lures into Ego) that you might not be fully aware of yet: Technology in every form Creating art Love of learning Gossiping about news and politics Teaching others Listening to music V. True Spirituality (Moksha) (a.k.a. Heaven): Stage Coral is mostly interested in practicing True Spirituality; namely, they're focused on maintaining God Awareness and ruthlessly eliminating all Egoic distractions from their life, and doing very pragmatic work on their own Actual Problem Situations in their own life with their time. You can see the individualism of Coral here. Coral is not trying to save the world like Green and Turquoise; Coral is not trying to chase financial and material abundance like Orange; Coral is not getting lost in the Matrix of Meanings like Yellow; Coral is not trying to manipulate Experience like Red. Coral is a very spiritual, modest, pragmatic stage because it transcends Maya a.k.a Thought and Experience. The fact is, Coral is unattached to Maya whereas all the other stages are more or less embedded within Maya. Coral is outside Maya looking down on it and through it; in other words, Coral is outside Thought and Experience and looking down on it and through it. Coral is like a priest without a flock, in other words, God -- True God; namely, God Awareness, the only 'thing' that actually exists, You. (1) True Spirituality: Maintaining God Awareness. This is the observer. (2) Spirituality Once Removed: Talking to yourself about your own Personal Development. This is the Journaler. (3) Spirituality Twice Removed: Talking to yourself pretending that you're talking to others about Personal Development. This is the teacher, the Bodhisattva. Let's define some key terms: 'Ego' is your Awareness getting entangled in Maya. 'Maya' is the illusion of Experience and Thought. 'God Awareness' is the antidote to Ego. 'God Awareness' looks down on and through 'Maya'. 'God Awareness' extracts itself from entanglement in 'Maya'. 'God Awareness' sees through the magic tricks of 'Maya'. I really love this quote from Leo, it's a spot on definition of 'Internal Wealth': 'Internal Wealth is how happy I can be doing nothing.' I think it's more important for me to do True Spirituality now and keep the Preaching (Section VI discusses 'the Preacher') to a much more minimal secondary thing now. I see becoming a Preacher as a trap and a distraction now. But I still feel inclined to indulge in it as a sort of guilty pleasure, which concerns me now. True Spirituality doesn't require a Preacher or a Church. NOTE: Although religious language becomes very natural at Stage Coral, it's not required that you use religious language to discuss Coral, it just fits really, really well and is so tempting to use for that utilitarian purpose. This is because 'True Spirituality' emerges at Stage Coral, which is maintaining 'God Awareness'. True God emerges at Coral, which is You. Religious language fits Stage Coral to a 'T' and in fact it's a very useful framework to have when you get to Coral for assisting you with your Coral practice, your Coral Spirituality. Here's proof: (1) God is the true Self, which is God Awareness, the only 'thing' that actually exists. (2) Heaven is God Awareness fully groking that it's the only thing that actually exists, and that it exists outside Maya a.k.a. outside Thought and Experience. Heaven is also grokking that Maya can't hurt God Awareness because it's an illusion, in other words, Thought and Experience are an illusion that can't hurt God Awareness in any way. (3) The Devil is the seductor that tries to lure God Awareness into forgetting that He's God and losing Himself by enmeshment into Maya a.k.a. Thought and Experience. Another way to think of the Devil is as Triggers into Maya a.k.a. Triggers into Thought and Experience. (4) Hell is when your Awareness loses sight of the fact (or never knew the fact in the first place) that it's the only thing that actually exists and becomes enmeshed within the illusion of Maya a.k.a. Thought and Experience. This is what causes all suffering; namely, when Awareness gets enmeshed in illusory Maya a.k.a. illusory Thought and Experience. This is not simply analogous to being caught in a bad dream and waking up with your heart pounding out of your chest. This is being caught in any dream at all, even positive ones, and not just when you're sleeping. All enmeshment in Maya a.k.a. Thought and Experience just is Samsara, which leads to Dukkha (suffering). VI. Egoic Spirituality (Bodhisattva) (a.k.a. the Preacher): Stage Coral fully understands that 'successful people are not happy'. But this doesn't just apply to chasing fame and money, it also applies to chasing contributing positively to the world. In Coral's eyes, the theme of 'successful people are not happy' applies to Stage Turquoise as much as it does to Stage Orange, whether you're chasing money or chasing changing the world, both of those have many differences, but their similarity lies in their entanglement in the illusion of Maya. (1) True Spirituality: Maintaining God Awareness. This is the observer. (2) Spirituality Once Removed: Talking to yourself about your own Personal Development. This is the journaler. (3) Spirituality Twice Removed: Talking to yourself pretending that you're talking to others about Personal Development. This is the teacher, the Bodhisattva. Why is the Preacher or Bodhisattva doing Spirituality ‘Twice Removed’? Don’t misunderstand me to say being a Preacher or Bodhisattva is bad per se, it all depends on how it’s clung to and whether or not it’s being used as a distraction from doing ‘True Spirituality’. A Bodhisattva is an Awareness that doesn’t fully grok that everything is me — they don’t fully see through the illusion of Maya. Basically the Bodhisattva is just distracting themselves from maintaining God Awareness. You gotta get this deep: all Thought and Experience is a distraction. All entangling of your Awareness in Maya is a distraction, and distraction is much wider than people think. ‘Spirituality’ is like Maya licking the face of God as a dog might do, but Spirituality is still Maya — it’s still your Awareness being distracted within Maya, see. Better to maintain God Awareness than to do Spirituality. Teaching is unconducive to growth ironically. That’s the price the Bodhisattva pays. It’s hard to surrender Thought when you’re pounding it in so hard all the time trying to teach people and be consistent in your ‘teachings’. Your ‘ritual of terms’ as a teacher is like an anchor keeping you pinned in Maya. To God, all Thoughts sound like insignificant bird chirps in the forest. Drowning in Thought is one form of drowning in illusion a.k.a. Maya. Drowning in Experience is the other horn of Maya. To God, all Experience looks like a bad movie. The Bodhisattva is a Preacher if we wanna continue our religious analogy. Be a Preacher if you must, but keep God Awareness as you do it and don't go overboard with it, don't cling to it. Do it as part of your Spirituality as God, the only thing that exists. Being a Preacher is kind of a guilty pleasure that you gotta make sure doesn't ensnare your Awareness too much, because at the end of the day, you're only talking to yourself and all Thoughts sound like insignificant bird chirps to Maya -- don't forget that part, see. God exists all alone. God Awareness is fully conscious that all Maya is an illusion, all Maya is dead; all Thoughts and Experience are dead. God Awareness is fully aware that it is all alone: You are all alone and nothing that looks real or sounds real is real. You gotta really come to terms with this. Enlightenment is the literal death of all illusion, the death of all Thoughts and all Experience. Be careful you're not letting your Awareness dip too much into playing the role of the Spiritual Ego or the Preacher, it can become a huge trap. Just engage a little bit with Spirituality, but most of your Spirituality time should be spent remaining in God Awareness or being God. True Spirituality is being God and no more. Remember this -- God doesn't need anything that the Preacher, the Church, the Devil, or Hell have to offer. God doesn't need anything except God Awareness! In other words, all God needs is keen Awareness. Teaching others is just a foil for teaching yourself. 'The world is for the education of each man.' -- Ralph Waldo Emerson ('Self-Reliance') VII. Personal Development Work: Stage Coral realizes the sustainable solution to the problem of Personal Development is to identify and drop all your distractions. This is what God Awareness does automatically and mercilessly. Clinging to Personal Development is clinging to the 'Egoic self' and the 'Other'. Personal Development is a double-edged sword and trap in advanced awakening. Clinging to teaching Personal Development is also a way to keep one foot in 'Maya' as well. All of a sudden I have this huge insight that talking about Personal Development is a delusion and distraction. My Awareness is backed out of all that and is looking at Experience as a whole. I haven't lost interest in very pragmatic Personal Development though: the kind of Personal Development that's wordless like going to the gym and cooking my own food, etc. Wordless Personal Development, yeah, I'm still into it, but the writing seems moot to me now -- who am I gonna write to, myself? See, the whole premise of me writing was that I was writing to others! I have no desire to study, to write, or to listen to music anymore, it all seems like a huge distraction into Maya to me now. All I wanna do now is very mundane practical things to improve my life. I call this wordless personal development. I'm still doing wordless personal development but all my words have gone away. My God Awareness is blocking all of those things; those things are too up to their eyeballs in Maya for me now. The only thing I seem to wanna do now is maintain God Awareness all the time without distraction. So, that means entertainment has also become a distraction, a vehicle into the bowels of Maya. If you know all Experience is Maya, why would you want Awareness to get so wrapped up in it? See -- it makes perfect sense from God's perspective. From the perspective of Maya (the Egoic self) it sounds like a deprivation and a fool's errand. It's like I'm always meditating yet never formally meditating anymore. God Awareness is 100% outside the illusion of Maya looking down on it and seeing through it. All I seem to really wanna do now is maintain mindfulness and not let my Awareness get distracted. This really keeps me doing only the most mundane things. I call this stuff wordless personal development, right. It's doing very pragmatic things and maintaining keen Awareness all the time that seems to fire my rocket most now. I'm still doing wordless personal development effortlessly now. Wordless personal development is very pragmatic Awareness-driven personal development rather than word/language-driven personal development. Start to become aware of things that lure your God Awareness into Maya. Maya is a seductor, it's always trying to lure your Awareness into its game. VIII. Enlightenment Work: Stage Coral thinks of Enlightenment Work very differently than Stage Turquoise does. In Enlightenment Work, you wanna transcend the 'Egoic self' and become God Awareness, which is basically becoming God. Most Enlightened people are still stuck in the 'Egoic self' whether they realize it or not. You can tell by what they say and how they act. And I'm talking about actually transcending the 'Egoic self', not just thinking you have. This is way more bizarre than I think most people could handle or really want. Yeah you say you want Enlightenment until you realize what Enlightenment is. Being a 'Spiritual Ego' is still being stuck in the Egoic self; being half-Enlightened is still being stuck in the Egoic self. Being Enlightened is the literal death of all Thought and Experience -- do you want that? -- probably not! -- just sayin'! All of our values are set by the 'Egoic self'. When you're no longer an 'Egoic self', what are you gonna do with 'self-improvement'? You're not gonna be identifying with an 'Egoic self' to improve, see. I can tell you right now, most of you do not truly want Enlightenment, what you want is self-improvement, and that goes bye bye once you become God. When you reach 'God Awareness', you'll encounter this lovely paradox regarding teaching Enlightenment too: nobody wants to listen to you anymore and you don't want to teach anyone anymore either. And this makes perfect sense too since everything is me, see. Teaching Enlightenment to others is losing 'God Awareness' in the illusion of Maya. Enlightenment is the literal death of everything that I value insofar as Thoughts and Experience are concerned; Enlightenment is about discovering 'God Awareness' and realizing that Maya is an illusion; Enlightenment is about truth; Enlightenment is realizing that you're all alone. Enlightenment is Awareness (You) slowly pulling yourself out of Maya a.k.a. Thought and Experience. Once you see Maya for what it is, that's when you reach Awareness of God a.k.a. Awareness of you. That's where you become God. That's where God Awareness emerges on the Enlightenment path. Post-Enlightenment, your life will be put into complete perspective alright hehe -- you'll realize your life and everything around you is a total illusion. Enlightenment goes way beyond self-improvement, see -- Enlightenment will cause you to jump a paradigm from self-improvement up a level that you don't even know exists yet. Get ready for the mindf*ck of all mindf*cks. Giving real Enlightenment advice is not a way to make friends and influence people haha, I can tell you that right now -- quite the contrary actually and naturally so! You're basically telling everybody that everything they value is a total illusion. A real Enlightenment teacher would probably be killed in the old days, and that's not surprising. You're turning the value of life, reality, and thought on its ear. To be an Enlightenment teacher who's palatable to the masses, you kinda have to be a Spiritual Ego or at least pretend like you're one, and you dirty your God Awareness when you do that, see. Enlightenment is the total death of everything you think exists and everything you think is worthwhile. The biggest Spiritual Ego is the one pointing out other Spiritual Egos. You still don't realize that Everything is you. There's nothing but you as Awareness getting entangled in Maya -- that's all there is. There's nothing but you as Awareness refusing to allow Maya to die. You're inflating a bunch of balloon animals and then pretending that they all have personalities and life in them and such. What you don't understand yet is that you're the only thing that exists, and you're all alone. You couldn't take that huh. See? It's You the Awareness that's entangled and distracted within Maya that's the only Ego. This is the only way it could be because it's all you. You're not ready for my insight. That's ok, nobody is. It will find you, you don't find it! I think I’m definitely in the camp now who say awakening (or Enlightenment Work) has stages to it. It’s not a single shift, but each shift builds off of prior shifts. In other words, each new shift stands on the shoulders of the shifts that came before it. Never think you've reached the final shift, if you do you're probably wrong, and you're gonna set yourself up for a real mindf*ck when you hit the next shift. There are two independent paths you can go down to do Enlightenment Work: one is more Epistemological and the other is more Metaphysical -- and you wanna explore both paths, don't pooh pooh one to the exclusion of the other. I like the idea that advanced Enlightenment is liberated Awareness. It's Awareness that is 100% liberated from Maya, which is when God Awareness emerges. Enlightenment is a divorce between you and Maya. As Leo says, Enlightenment is physical death. It's actually much more than that -- Enlightenment is the death of everything accept for liberated Awareness a.k.a. God Awareness. That Awareness has always been there, it's just not always been as keen as it is now. That's why people say you're already Enlightened, which is a half-truth. But it's not fully true though because you need to go through a process of raising your Awareness to keener and keener. See, that's the other side of Enlightenment. Babies aren't enlightened either. The only thing there is is You! You're the only thing that can be Enlightened! God emerges through keen Awareness, it's not always there. God is born into existence at a certain stage of Enlightenment. The idea that God is there without you knowing He's there is one of those instances of the Materialist Paradigm. No, God doesn't exist until you become God, which is pretty obvious when it happens to you. All of Experience is dead, not just the Egoic self. The only thing that's alive is God a.k.a. You -- and God/You is just Keen Awareness. You're 'alive' as God, but the best you can do is raise your Awareness higher and higher and higher until you escape Maya entirely. That's what Enlightenment is. In Enlightenment Work, you wanna transcend the 'Egoic self' and become God Awareness, which is basically becoming God. Most Enlightened people are still stuck in the 'Egoic self' whether they realize it or not, you can tell by what they say and how they act. And I'm talking about actually transcending the 'Egoic self', not just thinking you have. This is way more bizarre than I think most people could handle or really want. Yeah you say you want Enlightenment until you realize what Enlightenment is. Being a 'Spiritual Ego' is still being stuck in the Egoic self. Being half-Enlightened is still being stuck in the Egoic self. Being Enlightened is the death of all Experience -- do you want that? Probably not! -- just sayin'! All of our values are set by the Paradigm of Self. When you're no longer an 'Egoic self', what are you gonna do with 'self-improvement'? -- you're not gonna be identifying with an 'Egoic self' to improve, see. I can tell you right now, most of you do not truly want Enlightenment, what you want is self-improvement, and that goes bye bye once you become God. If you wanna be Enlightened, you can't have it both ways otherwise you're gonna be a Spiritual Ego: Enlightenment is the death of all Experience (except Awareness which is not Experience) -- and Thought and Experience is something that the 'Egoic self' never wants to give up. Enlightenment is you as Awareness trying to liberate yourself from the illusion of Maya -- that's what truth-seeking means. Virtually no one wants true Enlightenment because it means the literal death of a everything except God Awareness. Nobody wants to hear that they’re all alone as Awareness of Maya. That’s why I’ve discovered this paradox: Nobody wants to hear about true Enlightenment and nobody wants to teach it either. In order to make Enlightenment sellable you gotta fudge this truth to make Enlightenment more palatable to Egos. IX. Conceptual Understanding Work: Stage Coral thinks of Conceptual Understanding Work very differently than Stage Turquoise does. Conceptual Understanding Work has changed for me. I think I've done enough Conceptual Understanding work at this point. I think I need to get off the teet with doing Conceptual Understanding Work frankly. Nevertheless, the Conceptual Understanding work that I've done is very valuable and it does factor into my present Awareness and 'Conceptual Shore of Reference'. I have no interest in reading anything in my 'Course of Study' now (which could be temporary too, who knows). I feel like I already possess all the foundational knowledge I need, and I feel like I could pick up whatever other knowledge I need pursuant to solving some Macro or Micro-Level Actual Problem Situation. I feel like my 'Conceptual Shore Of Reference' is broad enough, I don't need to keep neurotically filling it. The only real issue is whether I have enough conceptual background to solve or be able to research solving the Macro or Micro-Level Actual Problem Situations in my own life. I've become very pragmatic and ‘end-oriented’ regarding Conceptual Understanding Work ('End-oriented' in the sense that my Macro and Micro-Level Actual Problem Situations tell me what further research is relevant or irrelevant to invest my time in doing now.) I'm not allowing my Awareness to just get lost in the Matrix of Thought anymore without some specific purpose in mind -- you lose yourself literally when you do that. What happens is that your Awareness becomes entangled inside the Matrix of Meanings, inside Maya, rather than maintaining itself as God Awareness. I think I can finally define what 'mental masturbation' means from the perspective of God Awareness, and why 'mental masturbation' is a problem to the extent that it is a problem. This is the mindf*ck that you're gonna have when you reach God Awareness: all Thoughts sound like insignificant bird chirps in the forest to God Awareness. So you being immersed in Thought is tantamount to you not being keenly aware, see -- you're in Maya. If you're entangled in some linguistic paradigm or framework, you're probably not keenly aware of what you're doing. It's like a kid playing a video game not realizing that his Awareness is being lured and entangled into the illusion of the flickering pixels on the two-dimensional screen. Mental masturbation is the conceptual equivalent to that; it's your Awareness being lured and entangled into the illusion of meanings, whether through words, vocalizations, sentences, paradigms, frameworks, etc. You're similarly zoned-out see, just like the video game kid is. Your Awareness is distracted by empty meanings. It would be one thing if you consider some framework or concept with God Awareness in a context where you're solving an Actual Problem Situation, but most people just let their Awareness gets sucked into the matrix of distinctions, the matrix of meanings, which is Maya. What you wanna do instead is keep your Awareness above Maya at all times, see. That's what God Awareness is. God Awareness is looking down at and through the illusion of Maya. Using 'True' as an adjective modifier seems to work at Stage Coral much better than it did at Stage Turquoise. This is because Coral has a metaphysical leg to stand on; namely, the idea that God Awareness is all that actually exists. So, for example, we can talk about True Spirituality, True God, True Awareness, etc. Turquoise is too humble and collectivist to use 'True' in this manner, and I railed against it as Turquoise before because I thought it was a trap. But at Coral it becomes very natural in certain contexts to use 'True' as an adjective modifier as I've described here. I was wrong to assume that Metaphysics comes out of an Epistemological precondition. It doesn't work like that. Metaphysics and Epistemology are independent from each other, although they can influence each other enormously. In Enlightenment work you gotta work both ends of the philosophical horn; namely, Epistemology and Metaphysics. Don't pooh pooh one to the exclusion of the other, you need both! It's Metaphysical insights that make Stage Coral possible, specifically regarding the true Self and Maya. X. Life Purpose Work: Stage Coral fully understands that 'successful people are not happy'. But this doesn't just apply to chasing fame and money, it also applies to chasing contributing positively to the world. In Coral's eyes, the theme of 'successful people are not happy' applies to Stage Turquoise as much as it does to Stage Orange. Whether you're chasing money or chasing changing the world, both of those have many differences, but their similarity lies in their entanglement in the illusion of Maya a.k.a. the illusion of Thought and Experience. Instead of trying to shoot to make a lot of money and get a lot of success, why not get your expenses and possessions down to nothing and just work a regular job? You really only need to spend a tiny fraction of the money that you choose to spend. This is why the practice of frugality is so important. You have to set the intention, the goal, to implement and practice frugality in your life. Frugality doesn't just happen automatically. I'm not saying Life Purpose is unimportant, but it doesn't have to be intertwined with success and money, like we all tend to conflate Life Purpose with. Life Purpose doesn't necessarily have anything to do with making lots of money or achieving fame and whatnot. You could start your own freelance gardening business and be doing genuine Life Purpose work. If you got your expenses and possessions down to zero, every penny you make can be saved or invested, even if you're making very little money. Here's a funny story that I heard about China in that even the very blue collar men in China often have quite a sum saved up because saving money and frugality is such a part of Chinese culture. Think about how much money you would have right now saved up or invested if you were practicing frugality over the last 5 or 10 years!. So see, you don't really need to chase making lots of money or fame or success to do Life Purpose work, but you do need to get your spending under control by practicing frugality. It doesn't really matter if you make more money if you're spending more money, it's the money that you save and invest that matters. Get your expenses and possessions down as close to zero as you can, but also buy the sh*t you need too. You'll have to do the ongoing work to figure this out. Set this as an ongoing project in your life. Frugality is a life-long project and discipline. I would love to be at the point in my life where I had success or fame and big bucks but not changing my frugal lifestyle which would stay exactly the same -- that would be awesome! What would you with all that money? Save it, invest it, give it away? -- it doesn't matter very much, right, because it's all surplus. Once you have a good surplus, more surplus doesn't really mean squat -- not if you're practicing frugality! See, we don't really know how to practice frugality and saving here in the West -- it's not in our culture; and we're terrible at it, and because we are, we think our only solution is to earn more money. Life Purpose Work does build Awareness. The problem with Life Purpose is that when you sleep with dogs don't complain that you're always covered in fleas too. In other words, Life Purpose Work can keep your Awareness enmeshed in Maya rather than maintaining God Awareness. Life Purpose is the 'little you' being squarely enmeshed in Maya, plotting and planning within Maya. Maintaining God Awareness is much more important than pursuing some dream career. Dream career is all Maya. Your needs are much simpler than dream career. Life Purpose can set up a huge distraction and get you doing everything but maintaining keen Awareness. Also teaching Personal Development can be a big disco-dance with Maya too -- I'm not sure I want my Awareness enmeshed in that. I think the best thing for me to do is not to have any plans at this point or cling to any Thoughts and just maintain my Awareness at the God Awareness level. I wanna rid my mind of all Thoughts and just maintain keen Awareness and let what happens happen. But I'm definitely not as excited to be a Personal Development teacher as I was before. I don't think I wanna be an Enlightenment teacher either. But I don't wanna pre-judge. I'm going to let whatever happens happen. The key is I'm not gonna be clinging to any of it. I think things will naturally unfold for me at this point so long as I maintain God Awareness as much as I can. I don't need to cling to any more Thought or Experience. I feel like I'm glad I did that Life Purpose Work and Personal Development Work, but I kinda feel like its behind me now too -- it's a distraction to me now. All Thought and Experience is a distraction to God Awareness. I kinda feel that by letting go, that's paradoxically when everything will come together. It's by forgetting Personal Development that my Personal Development will come together. It's by forgetting Life Purpose that my Life Purpose will come together. It's by forgetting Conceptual Understanding that my Conceptual Understanding will come together. It's by forgetting Enlightenment that my Enlightenment will come together. The problem with Thought is that it keeps you firmly planted in the illusion of Maya. You gotta let Thought go, let it die. That's something that most people do not want to do. They don't realize that Thought is an illusion, a distraction from maintaining God Awareness. Everything you think is valuable, including Thought, is turned on its ear when you reach God Awareness. Even doing art is an invitation into Maya. It's a distraction from God Awareness. It's your Awareness forgetting itself and getting lost in Maya. It's like you getting lost watching a movie and forgetting you're just sitting there watching a flat screen of flickering lights. God Awareness is always seeing the flat screen and flickering lights of Maya. God Awareness is a keen Awareness that wants to remain keen. I have a real sense that Thought is pointless and a distraction. Experience is lifeless ironically: life is in your Awareness not in Experience to the extent that life exists. Your Awareness is all that exists. You surrendering Awareness to art is you swimming around neck-deep in Maya. Art is not a godly thing at all. It's from the perspective of Maya that art and creativity appear godly. All you're doing with art is playing with your toys in the sand like a little kid with the mentality of of a little kid too (your Awareness is totally distracted). Art is a distraction from keen Awareness. Art is you very cunningly forgetting you're God because you think you're doing a good thing in creating art. You can temporarily forget you're God even after you've realized God Awareness. It's like getting lost in a movie, getting zoned-out. If you don't even know you're God, that's a much bigger problem to have. This is the color Coral if you've never seen it -- it's kind of a light orangish color

It's not really a paradox in the strong sense. But for a lot of people it is a paradox. A lot of people are stuck in their heads too much and don't take enough action. Other people take a lot of action but are not in their heads enough. So, in that sense it's a duality that needs to be integrated. It's a weak duality, but still functions sorta like a duality. There's an integration of theory and practice that needs to be attained in personal development work. Video on point to watch for you folks who are stuck in your head at the expense of taking action:

Great theory and great practice need to marry and have a baby together. That's the secret. Don't pooh pooh theory or practice, they gotta be integrated. Great practice only becomes possible with great theory. It's the paradox of theory and practice and you gotta work both ends of this paradox.

The end of the limbo phase of a new chapter. Areas: (1) basic personal development mastery, (2) career teaching personal development, (3) intimate relationship mastery, (4) embodiment of Enlightenment, (5) advanced personal development mastery.

Good

Recommended reading. Get for free on Audible. "The Mueller Report: Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election " https://www.amazon.com/Mueller-Report-Findings-Special-Investigation/dp/B07NMVF5SQ/ref=sr_1_13?crid=35RU7UYUZYWL6&keywords=mueller+report+free&qid=1557447465&s=gateway&sprefix=MEULLER+REPORT%2Caps%2C322&sr=8-13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mueller_Report

I'm interested in someone else taking a crack at these question. See my answers.