Joseph Maynor

Exactly. You and me are on a very similar page on this issue.

I like your passion for Enlightenment Work, but I don't think you're really interested in discussing things. Whatever you have to communicate or teach is lost on me, I don't get it. It's easy to say that everyone is wrong -- but a lot harder to say why they're wrong and how they can correct their errors. That requires discussion and contemplation, which I get the sense you think is "mental masturbation". You gotta be a little bit more careful on what you think mental masturbation is. Contemplation is necessary in Enlightenment Work. There's a difference between Contemplation Work and mental masturbation. Mental Masturbation is Thought focused away from self-observation. Contemplation is Thought focused towards self-observation. If I'm trying on your insight to see if it fits and I ask you on what basis you have to say what you do, that's me trying to get more information from you to try on your insight. Otherwise your insight is just mental masturbation to me and 100% hearsay.

Leo said it not me. And I quote -- "Relative and Absolute must be ONE. God's creation is not separate from God, it IS God!" -- Leo Gura Source of quote:

The only way is to cultivate your own seeing through your own self-observation. Theory is moot with this. Understanding don't mean squat unless it's grounded in your own looking at yourself.

Who do I believe you or my lying eyes?

What if "God is ALL" is not quite correct? That would upset your applecart substantially. Your entire view of Enlightenment would change. I say this because I went through the shift myself. Of course, it's only by you doing your own seeing that you're ever gonna challenge such a definitive axiom that you've built for yourself. If fact, you don't challenge it, you'll have the awakening and then a shift. Ego doesn't kill Ego, Truth kills Ego. Keen seeing of reality kills Ego. Ego tries to define reality or Truth to include itself. God is not Ego. God has nothing to do with Ego. That's because Ego is a literal illusion.

No. It’s a desire for Awareness to discover what it is. It’s the extraction of Awareness from being entangled within illusory Maya.

Leo and I see this issue very differently: (1) Leo: Maya is none other than God, Brahman, and the Absolute. (2) Me: God is not Maya. Maya is a literal illusion. ----------------------------------- (1) Leo: Nonduality means embracing both, not elevating one over the other. (2) Me: Who is doing this embracing? ----------------------------------- (1) Leo: Relative and Absolute must be ONE. God's creation is not separate from God, it IS God! (2) Me: Relative Truth is an illusion. There's only one reality. Reality doesn't have facets. ----------------------------------

A true Dark Night of the Soul is like grieving a death. Either the death of the Egoic self, or the death of Ego more broadly; i.e., the death of Other Beings, the death of the External World, the death of Thoughts.

You don't give up rationality. You don't give up anything. You still have some work to do to see through the illusion of the Egoic self. Contemplate these: Does Experience need a controller? Does Thought need a controller? What is controlling Experience? What is controlling Thought?

Find your own levels of Enlightenment. Track your own journey. People don't want to look at themselves, they want to cling to theory about something. But in this work looking at yourself is the only relevant thing. You don't need to look anywhere else other than you for your answers. What are/were your Enlightenment levels? Contemplate that. Can you look back on your own Path and see something there? Would you be willing to write about that and share that with us? That would be doing the real work. You tell us what the levels of Enlightenment are from your own looking at your own Path. That's the opposite of hearsay theory in this work.

Although I use the word 'Mind' to communicate my Thought in my writing, don't get hung up on the word 'Mind'. Mind doesn't actually exist. All there is is Thought and Experience. Actually, all there is is Experience, but it's useful to section-out Thought from Experience. Thought is part of Experience. But what the word 'Mind' does, the way I intended to use it, is to point you in the right direction regarding your contemplation.

That's good to know. I scanned the table of contents and it looked much more rigorous that I expected.

What if Ego is Thought and Experience? People miss the Experience leg of Ego and only catch the Thought leg of Ego. Now contemplate this: Does Experience exist? In what sense does Experience exist? Is what sense does Experience not exist? And this is not just a thought problem, it's a seeing problem. In other words, whether or not Experience exists can be seen, it's not a conclusion drawn from thinking or theory. Don't cling to this existence/ non-existence duality. What you're gonna see has nothing to do with Thought or duality. The Thought is just used to get you to ask the questions. What you wanna be focused on is what the questions cause you to come to see by directing you to look. Now, keep in mind, technically Thoughts are Experiences, but it's useful and not too misleading to discuss Thought distinctly from Experience. Here's some good contemplation questions for Experience: Does Experience exist? In what sense does Experience exist? Does Experience not exist? In what sense does Experience not exist? Is Experience real? In what sense is Experience real? Is Experience unreal? In what sense is Experience unreal? What is Experience? What does the Mind add into Experience that isn't actually there? Does the Mind create any assumptions or fill in any gaps in what we Experience? Do the same contemplation exercise for Thought: Does a Thought exist? In what sense does a Thought exist? Does a Thought not exist? In what sense does a Thought not exist? Is a Thought real? In what sense is a Thought real? Is a Thought unreal? In what sense is a Thought unreal? What is a Thought? What does the Mind add into a Thought that isn't actually there? Does the Mind create any assumptions or fill in any gaps in what we Experience as a Thought? Videos on point to watch:

I looked at it online. It looks like quite a tome. It wasn't was I expected it to be. I was expecting something written in a lighter style.

Would be rather be enlightened and be super-educated, traveled the world, skilled in lots of areas, OR Enlightened with no education, never left your hometown, no skills?

You are not Ego; however, increased awareness has a non-linear affect on Ego. In other words, paradoxically, the more you let Ego die the more your Egoic-self actually flourishes. But the flourishing is not a Stage Orange kind of flourishing. It's a Stage Coral "getting all your authentic needs met" kind of flourishing. This is what Stage Coral is all about -- but, here's the kicker, you can't cling to Ego because you realize it's a total illusion. But, paradoxically, the illusion improves as your Awareness improves in a Stage Coral 'monkish' kind of way, not a Stage Orange 'success' kind of way. God Awareness is not clinging to Ego, but Ego gives God Awareness everything He needs too. That's the paradox. And notice that needs are not wants. Only a subset of your wants are your authentic needs. Stage Coral is all about needs. Stage Orange is all about wants. The distinction between your authentic needs and your wants span a gulf. And you need to know what that gulf is for you. You can discover that. I did it for myself so I have first-hand proof that it's possible.

What are you learning from Rupert Spira? (1) Give us 5 things you're learned from him. Moreover, (2) how come you never post any of his videos to share with us? Please respond to both.

I think what Trump really wanted to integrate was Orange, but the problem is Orange plays by the rules much more so than he wanted to do. Trump is a mover and a shaker. He sees Orange as not having the balls to win no matter what. Red is all about manipulating Experience to get the results they want. Red is almost exclusively focused "out there" rather than "in here". Red is totally encapsulated by Ego. That's why they call Red "Power God". Red is an aping of Coral: Red is trying to become God "out there" instead of realizing they're already God "In here".

@How to be wise You're so right. Trump is Red pretending to be Blue and Orange, depending on who he's trying to manipulate. Trump is too manipulative to be at Orange. Orange is manipulative, but within guidelines. Red has no guidelines, and that's how you can spot Red from Orange. At the end of the day, Red respects truth less than Orange. The higher you go up the Spiral, the more truth is respected.

It's easy to snipe from the sidelines without fully understanding what's being discussed. Anybody can say "is not" or "is too". You provide no reason for your conclusory statement whatsoever. So, what do you want us to make of your response? Are we supposed to take your word for it? You better have a valuable word then.

Yep. Once the grenade explodes you can't unexplode the grenade. That's the key. At the advanced levels, you don't have to try to be mindful, it just stays with you all the time. Awakenings should be things you can't unsee, that's what make them true awakenings. If your awakenings aren't producing this kind of change over time, they're probably not very deep awakenings. Mindfulness is not a trying, it's a keen seeing. Mindfulness is directly proportional to love of the Truth; love of the true nature of Reality.

That's what I do now. It's ideal. I used to have an office but I cancelled that and now work from home.

Mindfulness Self-Inquiry Contemplation Meditation Work with Psychedelics ——————————————— Shadow Work (useful at the early stage of the Path but becomes moot when Ego is transcended)

Good job. I did that myself about a year ago. I use a different blocker though. You’re doing the right thing. The Internet is a distraction machine. Ditto for YouTube. Ditto for Infotainment and News websites. I’ll take a note to check out uMatrix. Thanks for the recommendation.