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J: And... we're live Leo Gura. How are you sir? L: I'm pretty good thanks. J:You haven't done many podcasts have you? L: I've been saving myself for you Joe J: OK so there's no pressure... if we fuck this up (joking) you'll just never do another podcast L: (More sarcasm) Yeah but I can cross it off my bucket list J: You can absolutely J: Your channel is unusual. Can I say that? I think I can say that. L: It is unusual. J: I've watched a fair few of your videos and there are some very, very controversial statements in there. L: (explains history of A.org making comparisons with more mainstream self-help, meditation, enlightenment.) Cue psychedelics discussion. Joe asks plenty of skeptical questions. Leo responds, with plenty of caveats and fundamentals, e.g. they both acknowledge that you can't just tell a religious person to drop their faith, or an atheist to consider nonduality. Leo may or may not smoke some bud. Politics. Dating. UFOs. Boom.

mhhh i have a complete different understanding of non duality. in some sense we could discuss every one of these positions and probably would come to completely different outcomes for at least half of them. but he somehow makes the talking about it already a no go which makes it difficult to talk about the essence of „what“ he is really talking about which he also denies being of any importance. the sheet therefore is critiqueless in itself. but nonduality for me means to see the juxtaposition in everything.

Thought I'd share this concise poster presentation on nonduality by Akilesh Ayyar (Previously known as WinterKnight in this forum). I found it from his website. It was presented in science and nonduality conference. Check it out! Its a shame though that 2 enlightened masters couldn't remain in the same jungle ? Anyway puns aside, check out the content SAND+poster+presentation+2019+pdf.pdf

Is spiritual enlightenment just about removing the ego's identification as a separate self? Yes, that seems to be the main theme according to nonduality teachers and ACIM at least. In practice this is a huge thing. Why? Because all our personal memories were formed from that ego belief in a separate self. And the same with our whole society, and our whole human history and probably our whole biological evolution up to now. So the ego is a massive heap of false conditioning.

@remember Yes, but that’s what “on one scale” pointed to (or the intention anyway)...that it’s that same ‘thing’ fundamentally at play. @Raptorsin7 Can some dots connect here...? Conflation...mixing spiral dynamics references with nonduality, or ‘the path’ references....? In ‘putting down the armor’, allowing for emotional sensitivity...one is free of the prior held beliefs for doing the inspection work, which is Good, and feels Good, btw...yes? If I knew someone looking to feel good, to find “the zone”, to breathe more and more life into their LP... I’d tell em to do inspection work. As the “Good book” says....do not eat from the tree of good & evil (judgement).....eat instead from the Tree of Life Purpose. (Paraphrasing a bit there). *Not suggesting a dogma of Christianity. ....for good contextual measure perhaps.... “Whoever loves to meet God, God loves to meet him.” - Muhammad

The nonduality of the we are ONE is not incompatible with fractality and infinite possibilities: The omnipotent creator GOD is inside of limited beings so insignificant and vulnerable like a blind worm. A worm cannot levitate, telekinesis or manifest things with his primitive mind. Whats the problem with that? At the same time GOD is inside of some superinteligent alien in the other side of the universe that can move mountains with his thoughs. Absolute infinity means that GOD is here to experiment everything. Being a limited helpless maggot or being a super powerful entity.

5-MeO-DMT Trip Report | Life Changing Nonduality Insights With The God Molecule

My husband has been vandalizing my dream board lately, which has been annoying to me, even though ironically yesterday I was thinking about nonduality and art and how obscene graffiti is art as much as fine art. I just noticed that he wrote, "Pop Goes the Weasel World" on it. The weasel is sneaky.. Sometimes external "dots" and signs have to connect before deeper connections can be made. I just realized that I give myself "gifts", I literally manifest signs so I can feel alignment with love. They are also pointers pointing me along. They give me confidence and reassurance, like intermittent rewards among the infinite. I spent my entire "life" with a deep desire to know Divine Love, believing that it was something outside of me... because I believed there was a me. Love is always implicit. Therefore, whenever anyone speaks of Truth without speaking of Love, they have chosen to never make the implicit explicit. How could this be a problem? How could this ever be a threat to the implicit Love itself? To the mind this sounds obvious. You know this already, right? Do you know it implicitly? Do you know that Love is implicit, implicitly? This is the deepest mind fuck, it's so deep, it's right on the surface, right under our noses and was the entire time. Right under our noses? You mean explicit? How can THAT be? Because what do two negatives make? What do two "implicits", make? That is how I can be... yet there is no "I." Love is neither explicit nor implicit. "Effort/time as the i, implicitly sets its own limit and continuously tries to exceed that limit."-Faceless Self Love is simply feeling, feeling when you've "got it right" and wisdom is "seeing" that judgment and separation feels bad. Is a feeling implicit? Only if there's a you. That's what makes feeling both. It only ever exists in your own internal experience. That's all. The only feeling that is ever TRUE is Love. True meditation is Feeling, Being Love. You can only know by how it feels. There's no one and nothing outside of you. Every teacher, teaching, experience and person is an aspect of you. It does not have the ability to resonate or be wrong. You only ever make yourself feel wrong, by making yourself out of whatever fragmentation and abstraction you create. Letting go of self judgement and giving in to Self Love means letting go of all fear. It also means letting go of all fear and all internally felt discord of responsibility. It's too good to be true. "All around the cobbler’s bench The monkey chased the weasel. The monkey thought ’twas all in good fun, Pop! goes the weasel." Pop.

It's a beautiful resort (esp. the gardens), but it is a bit too expensive (at least IMO). However, if that's not an issue for you and you feel that you resonate with what they offer (check their website) then go right ahead. I personally would recommend you to visit the Ramana Maharshi Ashram, Auroville/Shri Aurobindo Ashram in Southern India. Other places like Haridwar, Bodhgaya, Dharamshala can be good for opening your eyes to the culture and how spirituality plays a role in it. If you are looking for a specific spiritual line of work (Yoga, Zen, etc) then you might want to look around on the internet and check the reviews to get a feel for it. But you will find spirituality and Nonduality infused in every nook and cranny of the country if you have the eyes for it. Namaste

True. True. All judgement is relative to the self(-concept) and its survival. Feeling good, or being a good person is good, for the self. Nonduality is not relative to the self-concept and is not dependent upon its existence or non-existence.

@Elham For me it is very funny, i bursted out when i read this. It is funny for me in a few angles: all the nonduality wars and arguments i engage in and others engage in like it matters or something, but maybe it does, depends on what you know about it, i guess, and the many valid ways to look at this that gets rejected by people in each others arguments, because they believe only they are right or just want to be right because that makes them look better (in some social gathering cases, i remember one guy was discussing how he doesnt agree with that mackenna guy and some other schools of non-duality, like he knows, and the fact that i think i know something also and choose to judge him, the whole saga is hillarious); the whole suffering pain-pleasure saga of my life where i really want to know the answer to that question, but how can you know and get answers, ofc somehow experientially where it happens from me randomly from time to time; I feel like this question has become a meme for me at the point because i have gotten far less serious about life in general, tho i still want to know the truth, maybe even more than ever, but the fact is i am getting very non-serious with arguing with people about life in general, i don't see why not, the burden of proof is on them and in them, usually when you share your intimate far out ideas you get dragged down to their "uuh, but it has to be logical" and get confused if you believe them. Don't get me wrong its a valid question to find out some crucial info about somebody, depending upon if they are lying or telling the truth as they think it is. Idk if you hear an aswer like mine, you should run or something. Don't take this personally tho, i laugh about the question not about you asking it or you in general.

From the Nonduality perspective, this is all moot. We're all one. Race is Maya.

Hardcore nonduality teacher Ramesh Balsekar said that life is like a movie already made. My model says the same thing with one crucial constraint added: reality starts with zero information. Reality is NOT like in a Hollywood movie which starts with a world already created. Instead reality starts as undifferentiated oneness and then information expands more and more. It's like oneness splitting itself into zillions of bits which integrate back again, not as undifferentiated oneness but as oneness that now includes duality. Aaron Abke has a new video where they talk about oneness and individuality from an ACIM and biblical perspective:

So again. There are 3 things for me. The formless (like the nothingness, infinity and more), being the ego, and just being the observation and being laid back in trance/flow and just letting things happen. For example right now, I am just observing myself typing this. I hear my voice, I feel my fingers tiping it, but I am not doing this. It s like being in a deep meditative state where things just are. Then there is the formless. Infinity overshadows ever other perception, but the nothingness feels like dying, and realising there is nothing there. But I am able to become an observer without perceiving the nothingness in that specific Moment. If I am aware of the nothingness, then sure, but this state can also happen without the intense feeling of dying right? When I am in a room with a lot of people, I feel their energy and I suffer If I don't go into the trance state of being the observer. No need for the formless. So I was told this was nonduality? Or do I actually need to experience the formless 24/7 first? I know an enlightened woman, she told me that I am able to switch between duality and nonduality. She can switch from duality to nonduality and the formless within a second, and not have thoughts at all when she wants to. That for me is enlightenment. However She told me the formless isn't needed to go into nonduality. She said if she wants to feel the formless she goes into nonduality first and then into the formless. She is basically referring to a state of "Flow/trance" and it really helps me when I am around people. She called that state of pure observation nonduality. Now that's semantics... it helps me. What do you call the state enlightened people remain in when they are the observer but want to function? They cant stay in the infinity if they want to have thoughts or have a conversation with people... I am apparently able to enter that state of being the observer, how is that called? I feel it when I see enlightened people, I just sense that they are being the observer, which kind of fills the room with purity... However I feel the people acting a little anxious-weird when I am the observer. (I don't want to make them feel weird though) Its like they look in a mirror while talking to me.

The cross represents transcendence through/of suffering. It also represents the intersection between horizontal and vertical dimensions. Jesus was God made man (or man made God, rather). It's about duality merging and becoming one with nonduality. It's a strange loop. As Ramana Maharshi describes the world as being projected and consumed all at once, as all river and streams flow to the sea and the cycle begins and repeats infinity, Christ was telling his disciples that he must be consumed, accepted as part of themselves as the One. John 6:53 So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves."

Nonduality is neither form nor formless...but transcending both. Nonduality is already the case...whether there is form or formlessness. Form and formlessness are not separate or other.

Prime Directive: When approached with a difficult or personal question, evade it by claiming 'there isn't anyone here'. Indirectly imply through negation your claim on the truth by negating and undermining all other forms of teachings, useful or otherwise. Indulge in 'guru bashing'. If a teacher or teaching ever used the term 'I am', it clearly shows duality, and therefore isn't a valid teaching, except in situations where the context would prove you to be right. Claim there is no intention behind said meetings, but then use it as a platform to mock and undermine someone who expresses a belief. Practice meditation for years, even decades, then claim that said practices were pointless and should have never been indulged in. Attack attendees for using personal pronouns when it doesn't suit your argument. When someone approaches you about your reactiveness, shrug it off by claiming there is simply a misunderstanding and 'there isn't anyone here.' Be as reactive and confrontational as you choose, there isn't anyone here after all, it's all one, your just attacking yourself so it's perfectly fine. Imply, but don't reveal, that you hand out enlightenment via osmosis Make sure it is YOU who always gets the last word in. Dominate the conversation. And the number one rule you should follow totally: You are always right no matter what, and everyone else is wrong, if you don't except this one idea above anything else on the list, you will not be successful at running these meetings. Guys, don't take this post too seriously. I've taken some obvious jabs at the neo-advaitains, but I wont throw the baby out with the bath water. This obviously doesnt apply to all situations and all nonduality meetings. But like all satire, it points out the hypocrisy inherent in any modern movement it targets. It is also a reflection of my own brooding creation. There are clearly 'someones' out there claiming to be 'no ones', and it's a quasi-religious movement. I think neo-advaita has its place. In fact, I do enjoy listening to many of the talks, its refreshing and sometimes shakes loose some of those tightly held beliefs. It can cause you to react, it can trigger you, which is important, because otherwise your just listening to what comforts you, and expansion doesn't occur in comfort but rather in the absence of security.

Contemplate what that is. Scrutinize for subject-object false thinking. Such as, a first thing (person) could be controlled by a second thing (emotions). Such is the pointer, “nonduality”. Notice emotions are not separate. Control is a thought, an idea / belief. So is “enlightened people” btw. That emotions are something or could be something to “conquer” is a false perspective, and “makes an enemy” of emotion in belief, leaving a constant “goin against the grain”. Let go of this notion of “enlightened people”. That is not a real thing, at all. It’s more or less, working against you, because you hold a yet inspected indirect belief that you are not. You are putting people above yourself, putting them on a pedestal so to speak, subtly demeaning yourself. This is a form of ruminating. Instead, inspect your own beliefs. No, they are not. You have never experienced that anyone else is experiencing emotion. I’m not saying it is not a reasonable, logical deduction. I am pointing you to inspect your own direct experience. This reveals an entirely different actuality, from your existing beliefs. You could believe the story of Peter Pan and Dumbo too, and that would also be an idea in your head. But where would that get you in self realization? Look to direct experience, rather than believing stories (your own thoughts). ♥️

@Serotoninluv Fair enough. I am open enough to try psychedelics and in fact find them quite fascinating but I mostly just try to go by what intuitively feels most true to me and my heart. That's how I guide myself and for the most part that is how I decide to take my next step. I will probably do more again at some point in the future. I have nothing against them but am afraid for people and their internal state, what they expect to get from them. @Chumbimba That's bullshit. If you think realizing nonduality is enough I got some news for you. It is a milestone for sure, but often people mistake it as the final destination when it's not even damn close, at the least through buddhist maps. Typically people who claim this, including teachers are using is as a massive defense mechanism to reject the rest of life. Life is more nuanced than this and much more integrated. Again, I'm not perfect by any means and have massive issues to work out on the psychological end of my humanness. Still, wanted to point out what I've noticed.

Projection of what I’m saying but do what you will. I said nothing about anybody being good or bad. There is no good. There is no bad. There’s what they’re doing. Nonduality has no relationship to anything. The Absolute is not relative nor has any relationship to anything. I am not saying something IS hideous. Shadows are parts of personality we can’t see and disown and we relate to as if it were hideous. Just like a super model doesn’t suck the cock of some 600 pound dude who has cookie crumbs falling off his third chin. Existentially speaking, no he ISNT hideous or disgusting but she relates to him as such.

@kieranperez There's a difference between hideous and love and light? Hitler=good. Hippies= bad. Not about nonduality. Got it.

If you’re going to talk about nonduality, which is not what this post is about, then there are no children in Africa, there is no purpose, there is no meaning, there is no value, there is no Jesus, and there is no you. Jesus is a concept. There is no historical evidence to suggest such a person. Nonduality has no relationship to anything. As someone whose been around a lot of hippies having been raised in the bay and know more than enough hippies, burners, and new age people, they aren’t exactly genuinely loving people. A lot of it is victim culture and isn’t authentic in all of its talk about love and blah blah blah and is actually rather spiteful. Yes, they have more of a capacity for inclusiveness but you’re literally highlighting my point that all because you can have high capacity to love doesn’t mean you also don’t have both a high disowned capacity for hate, violence, etc. If you think that you’re trying to get far in this work by only trying to cling to love, light, and bliss then yeah... there’s nothing else to tell you than that you’re wrong. Any real authentic master worth their salt will tell you that all of the valuable growth has been going through the hideous aspects of themselves that they didn’t want to know about themselves. @Serotoninluv excellent story. Thanks for sharing. I can definitely attest to what you’re saying in my own life for sure. I personally would frame it differently but I get the spirit of what you’re saying. One of the things I think has served me is really when I commit to being both honest and being able to really take feedback from others and seeking that out.

Hence why post modern Green spirituality and western Buddhism is an absolute mess. Are you talking about Larry Nassar? https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/01/31/us/usa-gymnastics-larry-nassar-settlements/index.html You illustrate the issue very well in your example though in the reaction to the crime of the doctor. Part of the problem though is that, for example, well educated and reasonably intelligent people, say in the US, tend to grow up in places that only hold a post modern or modern stage of development. So when a child grows up, they don’t really have the chance not ability develop say their egocentric and ethnocentric stages for example (and many other aspects). From the very get go once say a little boy is put into a school that is traditional in how the system works but is post-modern in its altitude of values and how they relate to their children, it’s not a container that’s okay for boys around 5 years old who may be very aggressive and high energy to integrate those tendencies and are instead force to try and sit still and pretend to be nice (something that wouldn’t really be to authentically grow into once they’re much older). So instead they have to repress and suppress such tendencies and then you have very angry kids who aren’t able to really socialize and are diagnosed with ADHD and have a chronic anger problem but have to put on this mask of being nice. You also touched on that compassion piece well. Most people aren’t REALLY compassionate at all. Most of those people who preach compassion are truly spiteful people and the degree to which they act compassionate is more often than not just that, it’s an act. They ape and preach compassion. As I like to say, kindness at the expense of honesty is lying. I wouldn’t even call though the “acts of compassion” to be compassion to even be that because in practice it tends to just perpetuate lies and that is of no real genuine service to the growth of others. Real genuine service to others is grounded exactly that, what’s real. However, what I said was not imagine putting ourselves in the others shoes. What I said was realize that there are aspects of ourselves that we don’t see that is ALREADY present. I am not speaking about nonduality here. What I am not saying is not “we literally are the rapist.” That is not the point I am making. I am talking about the shadow or the unconscious, loosely speaking if we’re to use those terms. The point I am making is that is that is that you as a self right now have an inner racist, an inner rapist. Jordan Peterson actually articulates it very well. Can you find that aspect of your self that has the capacity to kill and harm others to an extraordinary degree? The “trick”, if you will, is that in its not in some hidden far distant place or aspect of experience. Imagination exercises are nothing compared to really getting in real time that we might actually be just as much of a racist as the people that support Trump.

I didn't say to demonize religion. Of course there is a lot of wisdom in everything, including religion. That is the whole point. Seeing that there is wisdom in everything is non-ideological. If someone was pushing an agenda of anti-religious / atheist dogmatic ideology - that also would not be tolerated on the forum. As well, the phrase "and everyone shall find what they're looking for." is consistent with the theme of a non-dogmatic forum. If someone said "Religion resonates with me, personally. I'm looking to deepen and expand my religious understanding. Can someone give me some suggestions?". That orientation is totally fine. Perhaps they would get suggestions about ACIM, Neal Donald Walsch, the sermon on the mount etc. This is fine. It is not the problematic orientation. A clear dogmatic orientation would be something like a person coming to the forum and calling LGBTQ members sinners that will burn in hell and push dogmatic religious conversion therapy on them. That orientation would be inappropriate on the forum. This is welcomed on the forum. No one gets warnings or banned for sharing wisdom or seeking their personal development. You may be referring to grey areas. Consider degree. For example, there was a previous user that kept posting horrific graphic images of human torture, suffering and death. And his writings were equally gruesome. He framed it as "freedom through death" as a way to fly under the radar. Should we say that all perspectives have value and should we allow the graphic imagery and writings that promote human torture, death and suicide? Would moderating this behavior be "wanting the person to behave a certain way and not some other"? I think most people on the forum would want some standard of behavior. This is a nuanced issue. There are extremes and grey areas. Intention and impact can be straight-forward or difficult to determine. As you say, some cases are hard to tell intent, others not so much. The user posting horrific graphic torture images wrote that he wanted to promote nonduality through the acceptance of human torture and to promote ultimate freedom through physical death and suicide. I think most people would agree this is clear intent. . . . Yet as you say, there are cases in which it is not easy to determine intent and cases in which intent cannot be determined. . . However, there are times that impact supersedes intent. What if the above user said his intent was good and that he was posting horrific images of human torture and death to help people? In this case, impact supersedes whatever intent he claims and he won't be allowed to post it. The current spiritual atmosphere we enjoy on the forum isn't the natural default state of online forums . If this forum wasn't moderated it would devolve into a mess of namecalling, trolling, scammers, spammers etc. A lot of people would get sick of it and leave the forum to find another spiritual community. . . The moderators here put in a lot of work to allow for an atmosphere conducive to personal development and spiritual growth. It's easy to say that every comment has value and everyone should be allowed to express whatever they want when the forum is moderated. It's very different in an un-moderated forum filled with trolls, scammers, ideological dogma and people threatening each other. Check out unmoderated anything goes forums - nasty stuff. It's not a black or white issue. It is a nuanced spectrum of degrees. There are grey areas. The extreme stuff is easy to moderate. It is the grey area stuff which is hard to moderate.

I never suffered from social anxiety before my first awakenings, but after the 6 month period of regular non dual awakenings (nothingness) when I was fully back into duality, social anxiety started to come up and it got worse and worse. Probably the ego backlash. Now 5 years later an enlightened person (who can switch from duality to nonduality anytime she wants, so I guess that s close enough to enlightenment) told me that it is not social anxiety, but the "Self" perceiving all the energies from those people around and the ego tries to differentiate from them. When I stop trying to differenciate between me and them, and just focus on them the fear disappears for a moment, until my monkey mind thinks about me, me and me. Not nonduality, no mystical states, just the mind differentiating or thinking about ME. Little absurd story: I was also able to show her my light-Body and she told me which chakras were open and which ones were closed (which turned out to be true) and she made my light-Body bigger (I felt it) . Now I never tried any astral travel or something, I just had the intuition to try it, and she never did something like that "on command" either, said it was the first time that had happened to her. I would usually call that BS, but it worked. I don't know what a light body is and never astral travelled either, I just saw hers and then she tried to fix me and told me what was wrong. So now I am pretty open minded to anything. Any thoughts on those 2 things? Do you have any Idea how to explain it? Alternative explanations?