AMA: Consciousness Apprentice Program Graduate - Peter Ralston

[ougyarg]

21 hours ago, aurum said:

What is God?

No idea, I just have concepts about God.

From what I can see, God can't be a thing. Anything that exists has a specific form. It's exactly what it is if it does exist. God, which I think of as the origin of all things, can't be limited to one thing and so can't exist as something. I have nothing I can go on, as all my experience is something. I have no idea what God is. 

[Sugarcoat]

1 minute ago, ougyarg said:

No idea, I just have concepts about God.

From what I can see, God can't be a thing. Anything that exists has a specific form. It's exactly what it is if it does exist. God, which I think of as the origin of all things, can't be limited to one thing and so can't exist as something. I have nothing I can go on, as all my experience is something. I have no idea what God is. 

Good you’re aware of it atleast that you don’t know god and it’s just a bunch of concepts for you (same btw) rather than walking around talking about god thinking you got the real deal!

[ougyarg]

1 hour ago, AerisVahnEphelia said:

Ralston is a scam but he is a genius at it which makes him legit. 

Leo too, the art of selling nothing is an art.

You really just need nothing anyway, go get some more nothing. 

Ralston is not a scam. He has too much integrity to lie. 

[ougyarg]

 

1 hour ago, Yimpa said:

Ralston taught me that I can just buy a MF'in toaster!

DUH!

Haha yes, I remember that video!

[Davino]

@ougyarg You seem very grounded.

What was the Program like? Biggest lessons and insights?

How was Peter Ralston as a person if you had the opportunity to interact with him.

[aurum]

6 minutes ago, ougyarg said:

No idea, I just have concepts about God.

From what I can see, God can't be a thing. Anything that exists has a specific form. It's exactly what it is if it does exist. God, which I think of as the origin of all things, can't be limited to one thing and so can't exist as something. I have nothing I can go on, as all my experience is something. I have no idea what God is. 

Good starting point. 

I'd encourage you to keep working at it until you know.

[ougyarg]

20 minutes ago, CARDOZZO said:

Share your practices and core knowledge about the program.

The program was very strict. From what I recall it was 8-9 dyads every day 6 times a week. A dyad is a ~40 min session where we take turns contemplating and communicating a question, most of the time it was on who/what we were. Peter came down once a day to do a satsang. 

The practice is to get conscious of what's true, and so a lot of the program was spent contemplating. We also had transformation objectives where each of us had goals of doing something that ran counter to the self we had. It pushed us to transform and become a different self. We also had work projects to do around the ranch to learn about communication, teamwork, and how to be efficient.  

One core thing from the program is to question. To open up and not know something and so you can begin to look at it with an open mind. It changes ones experience in relation to whatever your questioning as you see it in a different light then when you know what it is. 

Another core thing from the program is to be honest. The truth is not about what I want or don't want, it's about what's true. 

Another core thing is that I am responsible for my experience of life. If I'm suffering, feeling really bad, it's because I want to. Nothing's forcing me to feel bad, I am creating my own suffering. If I want to not suffer and be happy, I have to do it. No external achievement will do that for me. 

[Yimpa]

18 minutes ago, ougyarg said:

We also had work projects to do around the ranch to learn about communication, teamwork, and how to be efficient.  

What kind of animals at the ranch?

[ougyarg]

14 minutes ago, Davino said:

@ougyarg You seem very grounded.

What was the Program like? Biggest lessons and insights?

How was Peter Ralston as a person if you had the opportunity to interact with him.

Program was very strict. We had a lot of ground rules we had to follow. We were busy pretty much the whole day, and most of it was spent contemplating. 

Biggest lessons/insights

- I become conscious of who I am. I see now that I'm not anywhere in my experience yet still exist.

- My experience at its base is whole and complete as it is. All suffering is something I add on top of what's there and I create with my mind.

- The self is not objectively real. It's all concept.

- If you pay attention to others enough you can start seeing the patterns/self they have. 

- I can calm my mind by focusing my feeling attention to my center, which is located beneath my belly button.

- Peter said something to the effect that self survival is everything. I see bits of what he means. The more I look into it, I see that everything I experience is for me, and is something I generate in order for me to persist. I don't fully get what he's saying, but I got pieces of it.

Peter is very intelligent. He's very aware of his surroundings. He can see things about people that others can't as easily. He's direct, honest, and cares about his apprentices. He has a strong personality and takes command of conversations/work projects. He's great at telling stories. He was such a bad ass when he was younger, and had a lot of good martial art related stories. 

 

 

[BlessedLion]

@ougyarg That’s awesome! Congrats. We were almost apprentice brothers, I was very close to doing the apprenticeship but decided to apprentice with another school at the last minute as it was also their last one. I was so torn between the two, and emailed with Ralston back and forth about it. It was like 50-50, so we almost knew each other very well! 
 

However, I think the apprenticeship looks incredible and I’m sure it’s only going to keep producing fruits for you as time goes on, being with Ralston that long will plant seeds that will flower for a lifetime. 
 

I’ve done about 6 weeks of in person workshops there but I’m sure that’s different from the apprenticeship. Super powerful though. 
 

My biggest question is if you guys ever did work on the heart, Love, as a metaphysical truth? Or do they still label that as hippie nonsense? 
Was Love spoken about or taught at all? 
Did you ever have moments of wanting to quit? 
What do you plan to do now that you’ve completed it? 
Do you feel you’ll be more effective and disciplined at whatever you want to do in life? 
 

Cheers 

Edited Sunday at 09:05 PM by BlessedLion
Grammar

[UnbornTao]

@ougyarg Good to hear, thank you.

[yetineti]

9 hours ago, Yimpa said:

Ralston taught me that I can just buy a MF'in toaster!

DUH!

@Yimpa

Him saying that is toasted into my skull. I’m glad someone else remembers.

[Yimpa]

 

On 4/30/2025 at 2:03 AM, Yimpa said:

“I don’t care about me. That’s why I keep laughing!” -Peter Ralston

Edited Monday at 07:09 PM by Yimpa