Joseph Maynor

Yeah it’s permanent. Enlightenment Work has a path to it, but once you get to a certain attainment, it becomes permanent. And that attainment has nothing to do with theory. It’s something that the theory helps bring about in you. Paradoxically, people stuck in Enlightenment theory are not quite there. The pendulum needs to swing into theory and then out of theory with Enlightenment Work. It’s when the pendulum swings out of theory and you see that your Enlightenment remains without the theory that you start to be able to get what Enlightenment really is and how Non-Egoic Personal Development mediates and complements Egoic Personal Development.

Sounds like a great goal for Leo.

You are free to use any words you like and to object to any words you like. At the end of the day it's best to realize the buffoon uttering the words and realizing that this person isn't gonna change. I read somewhere that Nietzsche said that you have to account for stupidity in your worldview. Stage Green could really learn from that -- you have to account for stupidity in your worldview. Turquoise learns how to fix this by realizing that reality is a Network of Perspectives all at different stages of development. If a buffoon uses a terrible word, are we still arguing about language or is the problem a lot deeper? You can learn to give people the freedom to be stupid and to accept that. That's basically what Turquoise is all about. That doesn't mean that you take abuse from anybody though. It just means that you understand and accept and account and allow for stupidity in your worldview.

What does it mean to "be Enlightened"?

The best way to develop good habits is first to develop a compelling Vision for your life. This Vision is where you want your life to be ideally in 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, 5 years, etc. A Vision is something that you know you want. It's like someone says to you, "If you climb this mountain you can have the basket of gold bars at the top." All of your good habits should fit this metaphor. Your good habits are like the price you need to pay to get those bars of gold, however you define them. When your habits are aligned with your Vision that way, it's a lot easier to be motivated to do them. If you knew you were running every morning for 30 minutes per day so that one day you will be able to reach that basket of gold bars, that would change your relationship to the habit of running every morning! That's what aligning your good habits with your Vision does for you. Vision is something that you develop by doing Big Picture Life Purpose Work. Leo's Life Purpose Course (linked below) is a great way to get started on that.

I must say, I loved Beijing when I was there. I loved the Chinese people. I loved the food and the architecture and the long history. When you go to China you're seeing a culture that's been evolving for 5,000 years. China is one of the major sources of "philosophical civilization" in the world along with Europe and India. If you look at the three most important divisions in Philosophy it's Western Philosophy, Chinese Philosophy, and Indian Philosophy.

Merry Christmas to the Forum old and new members alike!

Merry Christmas to all of you!

I like to think of it as The Paradox of Control and No Control and that you gotta work both ends of this paradox. The belief that one lacks control is the problem. What you are cannot be straight-jacketed by a belief like no control.

Chinese Culture is very different from Western Culture. From being in China, I got the sense that I would be a very different person had I grown up in China. I definitely would married with a family.

Evil is always relative to the point of view of one or more Egos.

I like the idea of having a million dollars.

How many realities are there actually?

It's not one or the other -- it's one and the other. It's order and chaos.

The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

I think the biggest difference is China has a lot of customs and rules about relationships and about history and family that we don't have in the West. I've been to China and Taiwan. China has a lot of customs and culture regarding relationships that we don't have in the West. In the West every person stands alone and every person is equal, at least in theory. The West is more Individualistic and China is more Collectivist. In China everybody knows what the rules are and follows the same rules. In the West, there's no real enforceable cultural rules. Each family has it's own set of rules. I felt like when I was in China that I was part of a collective system where everything worked together in harmony. I don't feel like that in the West. In the West it's more like individuals all agreeing to tolerate each other and make deals with each other. China is much more like everybody knows their place and does that place very well. Even the guy sweeping the street is doing such a fantastic job. In China it's all about doing the small things well. And then just the massive amount of people in China too is very different from the West. In China there's so many people that it's pretty easy to start taking other people for granted, like strangers. In the West there's much fewer people so each person thinks he's a God basically and he doesn't have to deal with so many people and crowds of people.

It is the law of attraction in a sense because what enables change is you being fixated on making the change. You ever notice that anything that you really want to do, you'll just do it? So, it's taking your detailed plan for career change and tee-ing that up as the thing you're always thinking about and that you really want to do. Strategically, that's what Life Purpose Work is helping people do.

In the first instance it's important to narrow the issues here so we can get clear what we're talking about. We're talking about career development, big picture life purpose work, and career change. Now, all the other personal development issues and skills are obviously relevant to this, but it's important to draw a fence around our problem. Regarding career work, you can look at it through two different lenses. The first lens is, "What kind of box do I need to put myself in to get what I want?" The other way of looking at things is this way -- "I want to make money doing what I am already doing, how do I steer my mouth up to the chute of where the money is coming from?" So, really, the first person is trying to fit into society's boxes. And that's great for certain people, God bless them. But then you have these renegade people, and I'm one of them. 4 out of the 5 of my strengths are Wisdom and and the 5th one is Courage. There is no conventional job for me. I really had to accept that. There is no stock job for me. So, here's what I decided to do. I decided to get paid for what I already actually do, see. So, that's my Vision. My project is to get paid doing what I already actually do which is teach personal development and write about personal development and help people with personal development. So, from where I'm standing, what's the relevance of "How do I do it?" Ok. it's very simple. I need to figure out how to get paid for the kind of work that I'm already doing. This is a research issue, see. This is not rocket science. There's nothing mystical about this. There's nothing vague about this. This is a problem-solving issue that has a clear starting-point and a clear ending-point. But of course look at all the personal development work I had to do to get to where I'm at. But if you're like -- I wanna be a therapist. Everybody is a therapist! You don't need a license to be a therapist. There are people that hang a shingle and promise all kinds of things that don't have a psychology degree. Hell, even Leo is a therapist on some level. The downside is you're not going to be able to take the easy, conventional path, you're gonna have to create your own path with a machete. And if that's the case for you, forget about taking the easy road to being a therapist. You're not gonna have that easy, conventional road. You're gonna have to create your own road to your own therapy and solicit your own clients. You're gonna have to move your ass to make this stuff happen in a very on-point, systematic way. I shit you not there's a psychic in my neighborhood that has her own business and she drives a Mercedes that looks like it costs a pretty penny. If you think about it, a psychic is basically a therapist. The first question is, do you have the balls to make it happen? And then question number two is, do you have a detailed plan to make it happen? Nobody can stop you to do something that you really want to do, you'll find a way. The key is teeing-up career development, big picture life purpose work, and career change as something that you really want to do.

Beware of the "How am I to do it?" fear.

Why do you see depth and wisdom of saying reality is nothingness?

Totally. People get trapped within one side of seeing things. That's ultimately a clinging to concepts. It's where concepts have placed a limit rather than provide a use.

My Zone of Genius is deep-diving issues and projects.

I think there is something to the law of attraction. In a way it’s the inverse of the self-fulfilling prophesy principle. The self-fulfilling prophesy principle is where you’re fixated on failure and that’s what ends up happening for you. The law of attraction turns that around and says when you’re focused on your life purpose vision and on succeeding, that’s what you’re gonna get. I think what you’re glomming into and a big problem with the law of attraction is that people have taken it out of this context and exaggerated it for all kinds of reasons. But really what it comes down to is when you know what you want and you create a Vision out of it, that’s a major step forward in getting it. But people have taken this law of attraction principle and tried to sell it as a quick-fix kinda thing. But see there’s nothing quick-fix about creating and developing a life purpose vision. It’s taken me like 2 years to create a detailed life purpose vision. And when I talk about life purpose, I’m not just talking about career — I’m talking about everything I do with my time in a day. Videos on point to watch:

Both of you have amazing energy!