Joseph Maynor

I'm realizing that my view of Enlightenment and somebody else's view of Enlightenment might not even resemble each other.

"We are all one" is a useful but equally incomplete and potentially harmful thing to believe or cling hard to.

Thanks for this. I have taken your advice and am now watching her videos so I can make a more informed decision.

This is a good video.

A way to break people out of an unenlightened Ego by use of an exemplar or model.

Becoming being is impossible, do you see this? It's the Ego-Mind that wants to become something. All your stories about being God is also not being. Those are stories about reality (Metaphysics) that your Ego-Mind is clinging to. Why do you need all these elaborate stories about you being God in reality? Being and thinking you're God is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I'm the Godlike No Ego! Yeah buddy, sure. That's the person whose inflated Ego-Mind (God Complex) is looking for a new home in Spirituality.

Enlightenment is a Path. It's a Path that begins with an unenlightened Ego-Mind and ends with an enlightened Ego-Mind that's able to mediate itself with being through a practice of No Ego.

My advice is to take the extra time and use it to get away from the concepts. The worst thing is to take the extra time and use it to double-down on the concepts. That will just put you more into the Philosopher's mentality. I went through this myself in my 30's, so I know how this plays out.

I think in general yes. The whole point of Enlightenment Work is to take pressure off your Ego.

Ocean Beach, San Francisco

I think the people who attain faster are people who have been working on Enlightenment all their lives without really knowing it.

We all have places where someone could jab at us if they were so motivated to look hard enough. Each one of us has a huge Ego. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but it's not a very acknowledged thing.

The first thing to understand is, what is your mind and what purpose does it serve? It sounds so basic, but then again, it's these basics people miss on the Path.

I would say that's a pretty good pointer. But there's a danger that it can be misinterpreted too.

You get to the point where you stop with the "true Self" language as well. You get to the point where you don't need to conceptualize being.

I think the way to be an Enlightened master is to aid others on the Path in useful ways: the emphasis is on helping others not on aggrandizing yourself. I think it's also about being humble too, to not be too bought in to any theory of Enlightenment, and to impart without imparting if that makes sense. At the end of the day your own personality and energy as a guide is much more useful than what comes out of your mouth in the form of theories. It's who you are that matters not what you say so much. Enlightenment should be changing who you are -- the kind of person you are. And that's what people can spot and say, "This person has done some Enlightenment Work, maybe I should ask them if they might have a tip for me on my Path." You're not pushing yourself on other people saying -- I am the master, no. People come to you because they can see that (if it's the case), they don't need you to tell them anything. It's like that famous quote: "What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say."

Yep. There you have it.

I will always be more comfortable calling myself a personal development coach rather than a "spiritual teacher". I'm starting to see a danger/ trap that a narcissistic Ego-Mind can transition into with a Spiritual Ego formation. A person with a God Complex can easily operate as a "spiritual teacher". And this is sneaky because that massive narcissistic Ego has to be expressly denied although it's right there in plain view for everyone to see.

Here's a great video to watch if you haven't seen this one:

I takes some work. I think dudes are wired to compare themselves to other men. I think this is what women don’t really understand about men because women are in part blocked from fully understanding men. Men compare themselves to other men just like women compare themselves to other women. And before you say I understand — do you, really? Are you walking in the shoes of being a man in the world?

I think she has a bit of that Spiritual Ego I’ve been seeing. Here’s a video that I didn’t post in my Journal under the topic of Spiritual Ego because it didn’t sit well with me. My intuition can read stuff pretty quickly. I’ll let you decide, I’m not clinging to pushing my views down on anybody.

The reason why Meditation appears to suck is because the Ego-Mind is not satisfied with being when it sees it — it’s like underwhelming to the Ego-Mind, so it’s overlooked. Being is a funny thing in that way. That’s what makes the Path so confusing to people who are still very much operating from Ego — which is basically everybody on the first part of the Path.

That's why you can't BS your way too far on the Path. As you marinate on the Path more and more, The Ego is not so much out front with Spirituality as it is at the beginning of the Path.

Yep. You got it. I learned more about spirituality playing jazz than I did from any book or "teaching". That's what makes me so grounded without needing to cling to all kinds of Metaphysics and beliefs. My spirituality was discovered and cultivated long before I knew anything about Enlightenment Work. Music is also the universal language.