Joseph Maynor

Leo has no choice as to how his life is going or where he's gonna end up. Neither does Eckhart Tolle.

Unchanging Awareness is not anyone's mind. This was a major insight for me. This broke me away from the psychological conception of Ego. The mistake I was making was assuming 'my mind' was Awareness.

Where does growth stop?

Here's a deep question: What is a concept? Notice that even asking this question has some philosophical baggage to it. What am I presupposing to even ask this question? What are my expectations for what the answer should look like?

Idealism is conceptual. Non-duality is not conceptual. Non-duality is best pointed to as follows: BE-ing unchanging Awareness.

Maybe the world's oldest profession is the pseudo-guru.

Those are all great questions. What you’re gonna do on the Path is deep-dive all those questions. What you have there is like an investigation itinerary. You’re gonna go on an expedition to try to find answers to those kinds of questions. That’s the Path. You already got a great sense of what the beginning of the Path looks look like. You can see the issues. That’s great. Being puzzled is the first step of the Path.

When you see through Satan, you will no longer have to fight him. That’s what the Path is leading to.

What do you think you are? Give me a couple of paragraphs. I need more information.

1. Passion. 2. Have something you really want to say. 3. Care enough about your art to do a fine job.

The word ‘observation’ can have more than one meaning. The way ‘observation’ is used in one context might differ dramatically from another context. So, we need to be clear about what we are using words to mean.

This gets into what you take to be real. I could say this is the subject of Metaphysics, maybe it is maybe it’s not, that distinction doesn’t necessarily help us. This is where contemplation becomes relevant to get at the root of this. I think we’ve done a pretty good job of defining our terms, I don’t see an issue there. To me the key question is: “What is there?” What are you prepared to say in response to that question? Can you give me like a couple of paragraphs? Dealing with theory divorced from your actual intuitions is gonna lead to conceptual chicanery.

Maybe he was a pragmatist. A naturalistic pragmatist. Some people think the deeper philosophical-type questions are ridiculous and a waste of time. It’s true — I remember interacting with science professors who thought that way.

When I studied QM in college I remember the professor telling me that the equations work and that’s all he cared about. I remember being deeply unsatisfied with that answer.

You should look into the debate between Al Ghazali and Averroes. Al Ghazali tried to synthesize the more hard-nosed Islamic Theology and Philosophy with the Mysticism of the Sufis. Check out Averroes’ objection! Those of you who want to see Philosophers struggle with how to integrate mysticism and conceptual-truth can’t afford to miss checking out Al Ghazali. I know when I studied him, it made a mark on me. Islamic Philosophy is amazing! It’s a different perspective; a different way of solving the same problems that occurred in the West, in India, in China, etc. the same issues were dealt with by Islamic thinkers, but in their own unique way. So, you wanna take a look at that on the Path. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ghazali https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incoherence_of_the_Philosophers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averroes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incoherence_of_the_Incoherence

It shows that the Materialist Paradigm is art rather than truth. It’s a model that’s been laid on top of reality.

Awesome. Sounds like some good work.

Ayn Rand's 'Fountainhead' is so influenced by this! Nietzsche framed his Philosophy in a parable. I see this as a positive message of growth -- although it is Egoic. I can see a lot of traditional personal development theory being influenced by Nietzsche's Philosophical message. You need to overcome your weaknesses and transform yourself into something great! Right? That's the overarching message of Nietzsche. And do it on your own terms, don't look to the crowd for your values. Fashion your own values! That's all Nietzsche. So, a lot of Nietzsche's ideas have been assimilated into modern personal development theory.

Everybody is dismissive of all Metaphysics except their own. That’s one of the funny things about Metaphysics.

Self-inquiry seems to run its course I find. It’s not something that is done permanently like ‘do nothing’ meditation might be. There’s a certain time for self-inquiry on the path.

Even during Muhammad's life, he virtually took over all of Arabia. Islam has always been group-oriented thing, even in Muhammad's day. Sure, there were individualists, but from day one Muhammad was a political leader as much as a spiritualist. "The Arab tribes in the rest of Arabia then formed a confederation and during the Battle of the Trench (March–April 627) besieged Medina, intent on finishing off Islam. In 628, the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah was signed between Mecca and the Muslims and was broken by Mecca two years later. After the signing of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah many more people converted to Islam. At the same time, Meccan trade routes were cut off as Muhammad brought surrounding desert tribes under his control. By 629 Muhammad was victorious in the nearly bloodless conquest of Mecca, and by the time of his death in 632 (at the age of 62) he had united the tribes of Arabia into a single religious polity." [SEE WIKI ARTICLE "Islam"] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam#Muhammad_(610–632)

I think social cohesion requires relinquishing freedom. Think about it. This is one of the sources of culture mucking people up. Every time order is prioritized in a society, individual freedom goes bye bye. Look at Confucianism. You have to act a certain way if you live in Confucian China. You don't just get to do whatever you want to. But that brings a kind of order and harmony to society. Very agricultural values, right? This would contrast sharply with the more independent nomadic hunter/gatherer values. Hunter-gatherers have all the freedom, but no security, no stability. So, there's an interesting dynamic going on where freedom is inversely-proportionate to security. The more more group security you want, the less freedom individuals can have. The more freedom individuals have, the less security the group gets. Just thinking out loud here. Group thinking is the death-knell of individualism. If you go to China you can really see this issue play itself out in high-relief. You can start to see the advantages and disadvantages of the Individualism vs. Collectivism debate. Islam is an interesting solution to the Individualism vs. Collectivism problem. Yeah -- you're an individual in Islam who stands on your own merit, but you're judged by God's Law, which all Muslims are compelled to adhere to. Islam believes that it knows something about God's Law. So, that's where you get the reduction of individualism. You can't just do what you want and be a Muslim. There's certain rules you gotta follow. And that creates the one-mind, or the collectivism, leading to -- unity, security, safety, order, harmony, shared values, civilization, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivism

Nice! Islam started by solving a set of problems that the people of that place and time needed to solve. I look at Islam almost like Confucianism. It's an all-in-one cultural system for civilization. Everything is contained within Islam -- from law to government to social rules to marriage to spirituality, etc. Islam is a great one-sized-fits all system that creates a kind of basis for stable civilization to happen. All those tribes in Arabia were not unified before Muhammad. Islam unified the entire Arabian Peninsula and then some after that. Islam didn't really get influenced too much by Western Philosophy, so it kinda developed on its own. That's what makes it fascinating to study as a system. In contrast, Christianity was right at the center of Western Philosophy, so Christian Theology is like a philosophy in its own right. Islamic theology is much less philosophical, although you do have a certain brand of Islamic Theology that does get philosophical, it just has a different flavor from Western Philosophy. So, a lot of people don't know how to classify Islam -- is it an eastern or western phenomenon? I would argue that it's neither. It straddles both east and west. Islam is a very fascinating cultural system that solves a lot of problems that come up in human life. It's a civilization system in a way. I'm not a Muslim myself, nor am I endorsing Islam. I look at Islam more as a philosopher looks at any system, religious or secular.

What basis do you have for claiming this?