Is Leo Gura awake or not?

[Flowerfaeiry]

No. And we know this because of how he interacts (and doesn’t interact) with others. 

[Someone here]

47 minutes ago, Flowerfaeiry said:

No. And we know this because of how he interacts (and doesn’t interact) with others. 

He’s not that bad but he’s definitely not a care bear either .  And regardless, you should separate out spiritual realization itself from how he expresses himself . He’s not your stereotypical nice guru . I never heard Rupert Spira or  Tolle say the word “fuck “ or “shit “ lol . But Leo speaks casually . He treats you as his bro .  

[Mellowmarsh]

No one knows what consciousness is though. You can define consciousness as a concept known but no one has ever seen it or can look at it and say that is consciousness or that is what consciousness looks like because it cannot be imaged. A image of consciousness would not be a thing outside of itself to be looked upon. The thing is we can’t know consciousness because we are consciousness. So we can’t actually know what or who exactly is waking up, or having an awakening experience, so to speak. 
 

The human mind seems to have the capacity to transcend itself, or for the mind to fall away from consciousness, and for pure consciousness to become aware of its Self. This begins to get into areas which philosophy and theology have been trying to go for millennia. But none of it can actually get there because as soon as it is put into thoughts or concepts it becomes relativised. And no relative is the absolute, and so it will be never be that absolute Truth, that Ultimate Reality. It will always be fallible, uncertain, partial, imperfect, and it will pertain to the particular, the finite, the limited, the temporal, it will be conditioned. It will not be Reality as-it-is.

[LastThursday]

It's the age old question: how do we know anything?

The best you can do is ask and then observe the answer. But if you don't know what you're looking for then it's a dead duck even before you've got started. 

In general you can't trust what anybody tells you, because they could be grifting, deluded, misinformed, ignorant and so on.

It's even worse in Leo's case because none of us has met in him person, all we have to go on are is his videos and what he writes on here and elsewhere. He seems intelligent, sincere, coherent, and the sum of his behaviour and output over time seems to support the view that something's going on him - so I would give him the benefit of the doubt.

The problem with having any particular trait or experience (such as being awake) that nobody else has, is that it's blindingly obvious to yourself that you have it and others don't, but the converse doesn't hold, and no amount of grandstanding can convince everyone or even some people - because they don't have it and they can't understand it.

[Flowerfaeiry]

@Someone here so you think he’s awake? I really don’t think anyone who’s done any amount of spiritual work is saying you need to be a care bear, that swearing is sinful or even that you have to be “nice”. 

[Someone here]

3 minutes ago, Flowerfaeiry said:

@Someone here so you think he’s awake? 
 

it’s not easy to answer it like that . According to Leo himself , there are degrees and facets to Awakening. It’s not a single realization or an on-off switch .  But you can assume that he has obviously some large degree of that knowledge because he’s consistent with all spiritual traditions like Hinduism , Buddhism , Taoism , regarding the nature of what consciousness is and and what the self is . And also certain Sects of Christo judaic religions, especially regarding the definition of “God “ and its characteristics. He claims to have arrived to these conclusions on his own work of meditation, contemplating, psychedelics and the research he’s done into these subjects. 
the only thing I personally disagree with him is Solipsism.  Nobody says solipsism is the highest level of awakening expect for him . He deleted the video because I feel like he’s deep down unsure .

[Mellowmarsh]

20 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

In general you can't trust what anybody tells you, because they could be grifting, deluded, misinformed, ignorant and so on.

There is a lot of grifting about it for sure. No human being does anything for free these days. Talking about Something that’s not for sale really is just a business venture that’s open to anyone willing to pay, nothing wrong with that if one is desperate to pay for knowledge, and where’s there’s muck there’s brass so to speak. And also what I find irritating is when someone else tells you you’re not awake yet because you have not yet reached a certain expansion of awareness that they have reached. I mean how can someone else possibly know the consciousness level of another person is beyond me. 
 

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Mellowmarsh

[Yimpa]

It is important to not confuse a person becoming enlightened or awoken to awakening to what God really is.

[Mellowmarsh]

7 minutes ago, Yimpa said:

It is important to not confuse a person becoming enlightened or awoken to awakening to what God really is.

It’s also important to make up your own mind about what you are listening to within the voice of others as to what you personally find as valuable to you, and not just have them tell you what they think is best for you. What’s best for you is for you to decide, no one else. 

[Flowerfaeiry]

@Someone here ok but in the original post it asked if he could be compared to certain well known figures that a majority of people consider awake. We don’t just consider these people awake just because of their raw knowledge of consciousness. 

[Someone here]

2 minutes ago, Flowerfaeiry said:

@Someone here ok but in the original post it asked if he could be compared to certain well known figures that a majority of people consider awake. We don’t just consider these people awake just because of their raw knowledge of consciousness. 

Then inform me why we consider them awake ? Because of their teachings about spirituality. And it’s even more tangible when it comes to Leo because you can watch his recordings and speak to him . Whereas Buddha and Ramana Maharishi are dead . And they didn’t even teach that much . And Leo got their version of spirituality covered in his old content as I mentioned anyways .So it’s nothing new .

[Jirh]

Someone should invent an Awakening-o-meter.

[Joseph Maynor]

I would have to meet him in person to determine this lol.  I hope the humor comes thru.

[Willy Phallicus]

No one is awake because we're all still living the dream.

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Jirh said:

Someone should invent an Awakening-o-meter.

Has existed for more than a decade:

32:21-35:07

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Carl-Richard

[Olaf]

@Flowerfaeiry I thought Bentinho was awake, because of his spiritual performance, until it came to public that he is running a sex cult. So even tho we are putting these guru's on a pedestal don't forget that some of them might actually be doing some fucked up shit behind the scenes. It is mainly a performance, a script, like the king or queens are talking with a script to seem formal and powerful, it is a performance.

[Carl-Richard]

31 minutes ago, Willy Phallicus said:

No one is awake because we're all still living the dream.

You can be lucid dreaming.

[LastThursday]

3 hours ago, Mellowmarsh said:

There is a lot of grifting about it for sure. No human being does anything for free these days. Talking about Something that’s not for sale really is just a business venture that’s open to anyone willing to pay, nothing wrong with that if one is desperate to pay for knowledge, and where’s there’s muck there’s brass so to speak. And also what I find irritating is when someone else tells you you’re not awake yet because you have not yet reached a certain expansion of awareness that they have reached. I mean how can someone else possibly know the consciousness level of another person is beyond me. 

To be sure Leo himself is not grifting. He has to make an income yes, as we all do, but I've never felt pressured into buying or doing anything I didn't want to over the years, he seems to keep his income streams fairly separate from the rest of his free content. This is what makes me laugh about accusations of this being a cult, Leo couldn't be less cult-like if he tried - he's even vacillated about meeting people in person. Only the people who consume his content behave like cult members! Hilarious.

Is Leo deluded about his claims about himself? I have no way to tell and neither does anyone else. Except to say that most people don't claim what he does, and so the balance of probability would say he's wrong - deluded if you like - but most people are not master violinists  either (e.g.) and we believe them when they play. Leo's biggest problem is that he can't demonstrate what he claims very easily so that the masses can understand it, so there will always be doubt.

Of course no one can know what "level of consciousness" anyone has, unless some form of telepathy or mental embodiment of other people exists (seems highly doubtful, but I'm open). Those claims should just be ignored as idiotic babble. I mean it's not even possible to define what "level of consciousness" really means, but, it's the same with defining intelligence and if you've got it, you can generally tell if others have less of it - who knows? Shrug.

 

[Davino]

I've taken quite some time to study many spiritual teachers and these are my conclusions about Leo (although I could be wrong).

For baseline state of consciousness (meaning everyday awareness) Leo is slightly above average for what is expected of a serious spiritual teacher (the category of people who make of this path their full time job). In this category many of his contemporaries surpass him greatly, like let's say, Frank Yang.

For peak states of consciousness (meaning how far have you reached towards the most mystical, trans-human, Infinite and Godly Awakenings), Leo is the Goat. I haven't seen any records going at the length and breadth of the Awakenings described in Actualized.org, with a key focus on how integral, multifaceted, radical and holistic they are. The only reasonable thing to be objected here is that he has awaken to all popular facets and even pioneered new ones, except for Cessation. Leo has not had the Cessation type of Awakening, for what he has publicly reported so far. This is due primarily because the methodologies he uses are mainly incapable of producing that very specific type of Awakening, in the same way that some types of Awakenings can only be reached through psychedelics.