Drama Alert! Another YTber is calling us a cult! 😈☦️

[Yimpa]

7 hours ago, zurew said:

Its very clear what Leo claimed

Leo can contradict himself, hence why it is important to not take any of his teachings as dogmas or beliefs. One must verify everything using their own independent thinking. 

 

6 hours ago, zurew said:

I think Yimpa is a good, well-intentioned person).

I appreciate that.

[zurew]

4 hours ago, aurum said:

All the critiques being leveled at Leo in this thread rest on top of the assumption that he is wrong.

That is the actual red line.

You're not mad because he called you close-minded. You're mad because you think you're openminded.

You're not mad because he claimed he was the standard for epistemology. You're mad because you think he isn't.

You're not mad because he claimed he was more awake than other spiritual teachers. You're mad because you don't believe it.

You're not mad because he claimed he understood God better than you. You're mad because you don't think he does.

The ultimate red line question is this: what is God????

Everything in this debate hinges on how you answer that question.

The narcissism critique, the "he is narcissistic" critique, the "lack of integrity" critique, and the "you shouldn't bring attention to the idea or declare yourself to be more awake than every other being in the universe" critique do not rely on the premise that Leo is not the most awake being in the universe.

You can go back and read my previous posts. I provided numerous links throughout this thread documenting the behavior I consider problematic. Feel free to actually go through those examples, respond to them individually and/or comprehensively, and provide an explanation that makes them no longer problematic while still preserving your view that Leo has integrity and that his commitment to teaching is more important than preserving his special image.

 

 

You can criticize the morals, judgment, rhetoric, or behavior of a spiritual teacher without assuming that their spiritual realization is false. These are separate questions.(unless you want to make a weird move, where you want to collapse that seperation, and where you want to imply  that every instance of bad behavior was necessary (that it was the optimal strategy for accomplishing Leo's teaching goals and that only Leo possesses the special knowledge required to understand why behaving that way was both necessary and beneficial).

Lets suppose, for the sake of argument, that Leo actually is the most awake being in the universe. Lets also suppose that he genuinely possesses special abilities that allow him to know (with absolute certainty) the level of awakening of every conscious being in existence.

Even if I grant all of that, the criticism still stands:

You can be the most awake being in the universe and still choose not to repeatedly create threads declaring that you are the most awake being in the universe while explicitly undermining everyone else's cognition. If the stated purpose of this work is helping people awaken, making them more sovereign, encouraging independent realization, and emphasizing that people should "do the work," then repeatedly redirecting attention toward yourself and your own exceptional status is obviously counterproductive.

A Tier 2 guy who is the most awake being in the universe and can telepathically (with certainty) perfectly read everyone's level of awakening somehow failed to recognize how ineffective his "I'm the most awake being in the universe for the 1000th time, and everyone else is a fucking spiritual rat and should be beaten with a crowbar" rhetoric is (even though multiple people have given him very clear negative feedback about it)  -  Especially, again, if his main goal is to teach us, keep us receptive, help us awaken, and make us more sovereign.

If his primary objective is teaching, , helping people awaken, and increasing their sovereignty, then it is very weird why he continued using rhetoric that many of us repeatedly clarified was producing a negative effect.

Again, notice that this criticism does not depend on the claim that he is not the most awake being in the universe.

His rhetoric is problematic (regardless whether he is the most awake or not) :

• because of how it comes across;
• because Leo would never grant comparable claims if they would came from someone else;
• because many members of his own audience have repeatedly made it clear that this rhetoric makes them significantly less receptive;
• and because it predictably creates cult dynamics that undermine the very goals he claims to value (especially again if you combine that specialty claim with undermining the cognition of disagreers).
• More specifically:
  • It undermines people's sovereignty.
  • It encourages exceptional trust in Leo's authority.
  • It encourages people to become increasingly dependent on him while simultaneously distrusting every other spiritual teacher, because all of them supposedly belong to the category of "they don't know what they're talking about."
  • It also encourages people to distrust their own judgment and discernment (If the claim is that every single advanced spiritual teacher in history failed to reach Leo's level of realization, and if no one else truly understands consciousness, then why would anyone on this forum ever trust their own discernment?)

And no, the reply that "every other spiritual community has the exact same problems" does not work - because not every other spiritual community has a leader who claims to be more awake than everyone else in the universe , not every spiritual leader undermines the cognition of every single student every singe time when there is a disagreement ,not every spiritual community is set up in a way where your progress can only be evaluated by the leader (again, the "you can validate everything for yourself" doesnt work in practice, because if you do the work and disagree on things, then that can only mean that you havent done enough work and there is no possible scenario under which you can do enough work and disagree with Leo on spirituality  - the "did enough" standard can only be called by Leo and there isn't any independent standard from Leo's judgement. ).

 

 

 

 

Now, let's temporarily stop assuming those two premises: (That Leo is the most awake being in the universe and that Leo can flawlessly determine everyone else's level of awakening.)

And lets challenge the implication that the reasonable default position is simply to grant those premises until someone can disprove them with absolute certainty.

Lets be clear and honest here - Neither you nor Leo would ever consistently apply that standard.

Imagine someone else making exactly the same argument to you.: Imagine a scenario where a teacher behaved in ways you considered manipulative or morally questionable. And then one of the teacher's follower told you:

"The reasonable thing is to simply assume this behavior is necessary because this person is the most spiritually advanced being in existence. He understands the effects of his rhetoric better than anyone else, so you should trust the process, regardless of how much negative feedback his students express."

In what world would you ever accept an implication or response like that?

Now, If your response is something like "Of course I would  grant that someone other than Leo could be the most awake being in the universe." Okay. then let's check how serious you are about that. Grant that special priviledge to me (After all, you cannot be absolutely certain that I am not the most awake being in the universe, right? - And thats the standard you are asking everyone else to adopt) So, from this point forward, assume that I am more knowledgeable than you:

• Assume I am the ultimate authority on epistemology.
• Assume that whenever we disagree (about spirituality, definitions of cults) that I am correct by default and that everyone ought to use the definition of cult that I provided

Do not rely on the possibility that I might be mistaken (because again, the reasonable move is to grant those things to me, because if you dont then you are closed-minded or not ready for this advanced work).

And from now on, you need to accept all of my rhetoric and behavior because you don't yet understand how this is going to be beneficial for you and everyone else. You can validate everything that I say, but you need to keep in mind that, as long as we disagree about anything I care about, that that will automatically mean that you are wrong and that you need to do more work. This is because sufficient validation is analytically defined as you agreeing with me on all the things I care about, and there is no standard outside of me that can tell you when you have done enough and proper work. (So, let me take on that role and be an absolute authority on what "enough work" and "enough validation" means - actually let me contradict myself since this work is paradoxical and say that there is a standard that is technically outside of me - this is the standard: Keep doing the work until the point where you agree with me perfectly on everything I care about. Until then, any disagreement simply indicates that you have more work to do)

 

 

 

if you acknowledge  that all of that shit is completely unreasonable and you can entertain for a moment that Leo is not necessarily that special or infallible as he trie to pretend to be - then we can begin discussing Leo's epistemology.

Explain:

• Why is there no video demonstrating the alien transformation that Leo repeatedly claimed he both could and would perform on camera? (Also - Why, when confronted about failing to deliver on that prediction, was his response dismissive rather than reflective ( where he acknowledge that he was wrong or at the very least acknowledge that he failed to deliver on that claim)?
• Why has there never been any healing miracle done by Leo ?
• How do you explain the repeated situations in which Leo denies making statements that he demonstrably made, even after evidence is presented? (One example that illustrates [this was one of my interaction with him] ,  you can search for my post related to this, its in this thread and I provided relevant links there)

This was the situation: Leo said : "I never claimed that I can't be wrong." I then presented him with a post where he wrote: "I can be full of shit, but not on this." His response then shifted from: "I never claimed X." to "Just because I claimed X doesn't mean X is true." (Those are entirely different propositions -  The first concerns whether the claim was ever made and the second concerns whether the content of the claim was correct) This is a sneaky and spineless shift in the discussion so that he doesnt need to take responsibility when he is cornered. He then ended with one of the most manipulative moves, when he uttered (paraphrased):

"I cannot ultimately be wrong because I once uttered the claim that self-deception is endless. Therefore, if I turn out to be wrong about something, that will just confirm my broader claim that self-deception is endless." - Given this logic, you can't be held accountable for any false or incorrect claim, because you can always pivot back to, "But I already told you that self-deception is endless."

Edited 6 hours ago by zurew

[Carl-Richard]

I'm going to balance out Zurew's effort posts by saying Elliott is a troll, Aurum is a reducing/fake-closure enthusiast, Sugarcoat is right, and Human Mint thinks Trump has never admitted being wrong even though he has.

Edited 3 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[UnbornTao]

I honestly don't think he's even so-called enlightened or awakened. Weird thing to say for most people, I know. If you ask me, I'll just answer with 'magic' or 'attention.'

He's gone down a false pursuit, conflating experiences and states (almost always externally and chemically produced) with 'consciousness.' I don't think people grasp the implication of his insistence on, and inability to produce, the promised video. That case showcases a bit of the inherent assumptions behind such a path.

Anyone can talk. Talking is cheap. God, Consciousness, Quantum Uncertainty, perception, skandhas, kundalini, chakras, and so on. Thread those into a convincing worldview that people like and feel validated by, and people won't know how to tell a faker from a real source. (Now, imagine that you did this unconsciously.)

Edited 6 hours ago by UnbornTao

[Elliott]

Just imagine Leo quiting Actualized, shutting this down

 

Now, be open minded to the criticism of your allegations. You people are being immature, stupid, and mean

Edited 5 hours ago by Elliott

[aurum]

1 hour ago, zurew said:

Now, If your response is something like "Of course I would  grant that someone other than Leo could be the most awake being in the universe." Okay. then let's check how serious you are about that. Grant that special priviledge to me (After all, you cannot be absolutely certain that I am not the most awake being in the universe, right? - And thats the standard you are asking everyone else to adopt) So, from this point forward, assume that I am more knowledgeable than you

To the degree I grant Leo "special privileges", it's because I've spent ten years verifying the accuracy of his work.

You, on the other hand, will not be granted any special privileges. I've debated with you in other threads and it's clear that you don't understand these metaphysical topics nearly as well. So you've not earned those privileges. 

If you want special privileges, go create your own metaphysical body of work on par with Leo's that I can verify. And if I can do that, then I will grant you  special privileges. But until then, you get nothing.

[aurum]

1 hour ago, UnbornTao said:

I honestly don't think he's even so-called enlightened or awakened. Weird thing to say for most people, I know. If you ask me, I'll just answer with 'magic' or 'attention.'

He's gone down a false pursuit, conflating experiences and states (almost always externally and chemically produced) with 'consciousness.' I don't think people grasp the implication of his insistence on, and inability to produce, the promised video. That case showcases a bit of the inherent assumptions behind such a path.

Anyone can talk. Talking is cheap. God, Consciousness, Quantum Uncertainty, perception, skandhas, kundalini, chakras, and so on. Thread those into a convincing worldview that people like and feel validated by, and people won't know how to tell a faker from a real source. (Now, imagine that you did this unconsciously.)

This is exactly what I'm talking about.

This is the actual red line of this debate.

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, aurum said:

This is exactly what I'm talking about.

This is the actual red line of this debate.

The red line is Leo is a hurt and/or simply misbehaving child and we're stuck pampering him.

Edited 56 minutes ago by Carl-Richard

[aurum]

9 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

The red line is Leo is a hurt child and we're stuck pampering him.

I was talking about you too, Carl.

I know you don't agree with his teachings.

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, aurum said:

I was talking about you too, Carl.

I know you don't agree with his teachings.

The fact that he oozes judgement and superiority with every comment does not have to boil down to a disagreement. It just so often happens that we can point to such disagreements as evidence that the aforementioned traits are the case (particularly when we're talking about what anyone with half a brain would consider a delusion).

When he says "huehue, scientists are so stupid" every gosh darn diddly blogpost he makes (which I don't read), I most probably don't disagree with the core message (probably more over time though), but the way it is said is disgusting and blown out of proportions. And that has to do with simply how he is, not whether I think his worldview is flawed or he said something wrong.

But yes, I do agree the main way he wants to distinguish himself from other spiritual teachers is to my understanding born out of Maya, and calling it Absolute truth makes no sense (unless you want to redefine the word in some peculiar way), and that I therefore disagree with his teachings, and that being high on your own farts 24/7 does notoriously impact your ability to see truthfully. But that is like 10% of the issue here.

Edited 50 minutes ago by Carl-Richard

[Natasha Tori Maru]

10 hours ago, jimwell said:

It’s comical that many, or even most, of his moderators turn on him. I have seen this pattern repeat for many years. He freely chose his disciples and generals, but they end up “betraying” him. 

What is your definition of "turn on" or "betraying" Leo (I may be mistakenly assuming you are using these two terms/phrases synonymously)?

I do not think you would be able to recognise the potential of what "betrayal" would look like, from a users perspective. 

I think how I would use the term "betrayal" would look very different to how a user would consider the term applicable.

Edited 3 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[Osaid]

This is blindness touted as open-mindedness.

You don't go verify a cult leaders claims about reality to figure out it is a cult. That is a red herring. You simply look at the behaviour. Same goes for narcissism.

----‐------------

guy: *kicks puppies*

me: that guy kicking puppies is narcissistic

follower of guy: if you studied his work you would know that God actually personally told him to do that, and you have no way of proving otherwise

------------------

Like ok, you can believe his claims or epistemology, but it's irrelevant to the topic and doesnt change anything about what he is doing.

[Carl-Richard]

16 minutes ago, Osaid said:

This is blindness touted as open-mindedness.

You don't go verify a cult leaders claims about reality to figure out it is a cult. That is a red herring. You simply look at the behaviour. Same goes for narcissism.

My fishing level is 99 from all the red herrings I'm catching in this thread.

I'm a nerd 🤓

Edited 3 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Osaid]

5 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

My fishing level is 99 from all the red herrings I'm catching in this thread.

gg

[Elliott]

Oh my god just leave, you whiny little brats

Edited 2 hours ago by Elliott

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Elliott

Just close the eyes.

No read.

Participation is not mandatory 🙂

[Elliott]

6 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

@Elliott

Just close the eyes.

No read.

Participation is not mandatory 🙂

Youre unable to put dumb moderators on ignore

[Natasha Tori Maru]

1 hour ago, Elliott said:

Youre unable to put dumb moderators on ignore

Right. So, don't open the notification? Don't open the thread?

[zurew]

3 hours ago, aurum said:

If you want special privileges, go create your own metaphysical body of work on par with Leo's that I can verify. And if I can do that, then I will grant you  special privileges. But until then, you get nothing.

I gave you a lot that does not rely on this premise or on the premise of who is the most awake. But also notice the subtle epistemic differences here. You have this premise - "I manage to successfully verify some of the claims he said" - and then from there you want to get to "therefore I believe he is justfied to behave the way he does, and therefore this Leo dude is justified in believing that he is the most awake person in existence"???. Thats a big fucking jump there.

I don't want to strawman you there, but if that's not what your core argument is, then I don't see the relevance of your response to any of my points.

Also to give my personal opinion on this—I think you are insane for this. You shouldn't give such special privileges to anyone. The ethics you are okay with should not be dictated by anyone, regardless of how spiritually awake they are or how asymmetric the knowledge difference is. (And yes, Leo has made such comments and justifications in the past where he implied multiple times that the cognitive undermining and "Im the most awake" rhetoric he used was necessary to help the "closed-minded" awaken).

The effect of his rhetoric is an empirical question—and there can be no hiding behind "you don't understand" claims. We see the effects, and we see the very clear negative feedback.

This special privilege-giving attitude alone goes against the core "you shouldn't idolize me and should only focus on the work" teaching. This is why most of us here have emphasized this multiple times. That there is the teaching, and then there is what goes down in practice. 

You get desensitized to the "him being special" bullshit, to the point where you think the most reasonable default position is to grant him insane special privileges.

And to be very clear on this -  All of this comparative "who is the most awake" shit is inferentially justified and both you and Leo know this. And both you and Leo know that such inferential comparative judgements are subject to be wrong (especially , again, when you dont have access to all the data that you make your claims about)

And as an additional point to all of that, the Relativity (where there are ever-deeper awakenings and previous shit gets recontextualized by additional shit) alone should make Leo much more reserved about making "who is the most awake" claims. You have no clue how your next awakening will recontextualize your understanding of the awakening hierarchy/scale. All of this shit is retrospectively justified and retrospectively recontextualized (again, even if I grant that the Relativity frame is not just epistemic and conceptual but that it is actually robustly metaphysical).

 

-----

As long as you concede either of these configurations, the "Leo should change his behavior and rhetoric" argument goes through:

As long as you concede that you can be the most awake being in existence without knowing with absolute certainty that you are the most awake being in existence; or

As long as you concede that you can be the most awake being in the universe, know with absolute certainty that you are the most awake being in the universe, and not make any public statements about it; or

As long as you concede that you can be the most awake being in the universe, know that with absolute certainty, make public statements about it, but not make cognition-undermining comments alongside those statements.

-----

I can create more configurations if you want. The point is just to give you an intuition pump about the things he can change that does not turn on spiritual disagreements. You can think of it this way: Clone Leo a 100 times in your mind and maintain that each clone is the most awake being in the universe , maintain that each clone knows with absolute certainty how awake other beings are, and then slightly change each clone's teaching style, rhetoric, and behavior.

[Elliott]

2 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Right. So, don't open the notification? Don't open the thread?

Lady, you don't know how this forum is setup.