Someone Reviewed Leo's Views on Enlightenment

[Joseph Maynor]

 

Edited April 16, 2019 by Joseph Maynor

[Inliytened1]

It seems like she might have had a glimpse of awakening but she is getting stuck on the no self and isn't getting any further.

She can become directly conscious that reality is pure consciousness but it seems her awakening was just one limited facet.

She kind of spells this out when she admits she has no understanding of infinity and also of non-duality.   

[tecladocasio]

1 minute ago, Inliytened1 said:

she admits she has no understanding of infinity and also of non-duality.   

@Inliytened1 I think you don't undestand . You cannot understand infinity , you can't understand non-duality . Any understanding you think you have of those two things are not it . Or I don't know what's your definition of understanding . 

[Inliytened1]

@tecladocasio correct..you can only be infinity.  But i simply meant she doesn't even grasp it as a concept.  In other words she doesn't even understand what is being pointed at.  (What you are pointing at)

Edited April 17, 2019 by Inliytened1

[electroBeam]

@Joseph Maynor YES!! My experience is much more similar to hers than Leo's

Having said that:

1. She says that everything and nothing is a stepping stone and she derives that reason from her experience as just 'nothing' and no 'everything'. My experience is the same as hers, I experience literally nothing and I have no idea what Leo means by 'everything' or I've never experienced 'everything' before. Yet I have a feeling that this is an interpretative difference rather than experiential difference, and not because Leo is less advanced than her. Leo might be trying to say everything as in form rather than formless, but I'm not sure.

2. Totally agree with her when she says awakening has nothing to do with changing facts. In my awakening experiences, facts do not change only your perspective of it. Yet at the same time, what DOES change facts(like the physical world being made up) is actually not consciousness work but philosophy work: reading philosophy, intellectual contemplation, etc.. I think Leo mixes consciousness work up with intellectual work, hence he thinks that awakening experiences cause you to loose sense of physical reality or any other relative facts. relative facts only change when you do a lot of intellectual contemplation work, or in other words, authentic western science. 

3. Totally agree with her with the lower self and higher self. She said Leo thinks there is a higher self, but in her experience she has only experienced nothingness. I experience the exact same. When I experience no ego, I don't get an experience of being god. I just get an experience that I do not exist. Like whether I'm god, or a self, or a lamp or an alien is totally irrelevant. The whole trying to identify yourself as something game drops away, and hence I do not experience myself as 'God' Reality is just existing the way it is, there is no identification at all. So yeah don't get at all what Leo means by we are 'God'

4. Again agree with her with the distinctions. But again, I think that's because she doesn't do much intellectual contemplation. 

[Inliytened1]

@electroBeam 

Nothing IS everything.  They are superimposed right on top of each other.  Thats what infinity is.  It can't be anything else.

 

[SgtPepper]

she seems to contradict herself when she says that she's experienced the world as hyper physical and then as pure nothingness. Perhaps that experience of "hyper physical" is what Leo is referring to when he says "infinity" but on a grander scale.

It could also be she just needs to try some psychedelics. I personally seem to get or am familiar with nearly everything Leo has mentioned. 

[Leo Gura]

The rabbit hole goes very deep. There are facets of the Absolute that even most enlightened people have not realized.

This is not just a verbal or stylistic difference. You can realize Nothing but miss Everything. You can realize Everything but miss Nothing. Or you can realize them both at once to see they are identical.

And it does not end there. There's more! There's God, there's Infinity, there's Intelligence, there's Love, there's Eternity, there's Goodness, there's Will, there's Truth, there's Consciousness, there's Paradise, and it still does not end there.

You can spend a lot of time understanding all the above at deeper and deeper degrees of wholeness and interconnection.

Do not expect a typical enlightened YouTuber to have that level of total understanding. This is rare, rare stuff. It requires extreme levels of seeking and openmindedness which almost no one has. Neo-advaita is not gonna cut it.

BTW, I don't claim to be awake. But I know how deep the rabbit hole goes. It's ironic how many awake people do not. See, this shit is very, very tricky. When you try to boil this work down to a binary categorization like awake/not-awake you over-simplify and distort it. If only it were so simple.

[purerogue]

It is irrelevant, only thing that non-dual state shows is that ego is not you, ofc there are many state in it, but that is not a point I am getting at, observer object state does not free you  from I completely, or minds perception of how you will perceive this experience,  not to mention that going back into ego mind will surely make it play with experience and picking wrong perspective listening ,reading can make you completely miss the point. 

[luckieluuke]

I agree with a lot of what she says. 
I think we can all agree that Leos deepest insights he shares as "truths" are derived from psychedelic states that are deeper and more intense than most psychedelic users have never been...maybe hardly anyone. And he claims to have an understanding deeper than almost anyone.
Personally I take what I experience from my psychedelic states with a grain of salt, and I do the same with Leos. They can show you a goal but you will have to walk there sober if you ask me.

[AlwaysBeNice]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The rabbit hole goes very deep. There are facets of the Absolute that even most enlightened people have not realized.

This is not just a verbal or stylistic difference. You can realize Nothing but miss Everything. You can realize Everything but miss Nothing. Or you can realize them both at once to see they are identical.

And it does not end there. There's more! There's God, there's Infinity, there's Intelligence, there's Love, there's Eternity, there's Goodness, there's Will, there's Truth, there's Consciousness, there's Paradise, and it still does not end there.

You can spend a lot of time understanding all the above at deeper and deeper degrees of wholeness and interconnection.

Do not expect a typical enlightened YouTuber to have that level of total understanding. This is rare, rare stuff. It requires extreme levels of seeking and openmindedness which almost no one has. Neo-advaita is not gonna cut it.

BTW, I don't claim to be awake. But I know how deep the rabbit hole goes. It's ironic how many awake people do not. See, this shit is very, very tricky. When you try to boil this work down to a binary categorization like awake/not-awake you over-simplify and distort it. If only it were so simple.

Well, you're either caught by delusion or you're not.

[mandyjw]

Trust no one. They reflect your own ego. You are creating all teachers as a reflection of you. pay close attention to the teachings that don't resonate, that upset you because those are the things you are blind to in yourself. It's all you. Trust no one. 

 

[luckieluuke]

@mandyjw You´re damn right! Including people who say that other people are reflections of your own ego ;-)

@AlwaysBeNice And you´re either searching or content
 

Edited April 17, 2019 by luckieluuke

[Enlightenment]

Leo talks mainly about drug induced temporary experiences which is fine, whether they are a mental construct or not. Enlightenment, however, is about a persistent change in the experience of being you and it's completely different.

[Adam M]

@Enlightenment drug induced, not drug induced... what's the difference?

 

An awakening is an awakening. Even without drugs an most awakenings are temporary as the ego always reforms after a while as a result of homeostasis...

One can integrate an awakening from DMT just like one can integrate an awakening from Kriya Yoga...

The absolute is the absolute regardless of how it is accessed.

Shamans and mystics have been using psychedlics for permanent spiritual growth for thousands of years...dont stigmatize the psychedlics.

[Adam M]

Seems like a very intelligent and openminded lady but she just misunderstands many of Leo's teachings...

In my opinion working w blurring the lines between the samenesses and the differences is the foundation of contemplation and nonduality. If dualities are not broken down (like physical vs nonphysical) then one will have trouble accessing the deepest states of nondual conciousness...

Furthermore, I do not believe that Leo believes in a "false self" and a "true self"...these concepts are teachings aids for helping one understand the process of self inquiry.  The false self is identifying w differences between you and God (ego) while the true self is realizing those differences are arbitrary and that you are the same as God.

The false self and the true self are not seperate but identifying w the false self is limiting and will result in suffering.

 

Also, about universal intelligence...with more contemplation about nonduality and spiral dynamics and ego and survival...it is impossible to ignore the intelligence of creation...

What is the alternative? Believing that all these beautiful and complex systems exist by accident? 

And dumb vs intelligent is but another duality. I intuit that God is constantly learning from it's own experiences...which is why everything seems to be trending towards higher conciousness and deeper integration.

[Enlightenment]

@Adam M Awakened/enlightened people have ego's (otherwise they couldn't even communicate), so it's not that ego reforms back. What I mean is that Leo's 5-MeO trips which he takes as "Ultimate Reality" have almost nothing to do with how it is to be enlightened. Leo makes assumptions about enlightenment from his trips, that are incorrect. Enlightened people don't feel infinite love or infinite goodness/intelligence. It's more like a state of disidentification from ego with no sense of agency.

[Forestluv]

2 hours ago, Enlightenment said:

@Adam M Awakened/enlightened people have ego's (otherwise they couldn't even communicate), so it's not that ego reforms back. What I mean is that Leo's 5-MeO trips which he takes as "Ultimate Reality" have almost nothing to do with how it is to be enlightened. Leo makes assumptions about enlightenment from his trips, that are incorrect. Enlightened people don't feel infinite love or infinite goodness/intelligence. It's more like a state of disidentification from ego with no sense of agency.

Which enlightenment handbook are you using? There seem to be a lot of versions floating around.

[Enlightenment]

@Serotoninluv Jeffery Martin's study, and my own experience. Before you say that it's just insight into no-self, be aware that he studied thousands of so called enlighten people at this point, so it would be evident that some of them have other enlightenment that includes 5-MeO God infinite love or however Leo claim enlightenment can be.

[Forestluv]

@Enlightenment Thank you. He has some interesting ideas about what enlightenment is. I like reading about different theories of enlightenment. It's fascinating stuff.