Leo Gura

Of course not all monks are enlightened. But just study this subject in some depth and you'll see many enlightened masters who were morally questionable. Because morality is relative. Like REALLY! You're not grasping this yet. It's totally made up! It changes across culture and time. So there is no absolute standard. If you were born in the Middle East 1000 years ago, you could probably be enlightened and chop people's heads off without too much problem. Nowadays, it's a bit harder. But still... plenty of latitude. You gotta understand, once you're enlightened, you REALLY accept yourself. So if you were a rapist, those rapist animal tendencies will still be there -- they will not magically disappear -- and you will not think of them as "wrong" either, because you'll clearly understand that "wrong" is a concept. So you will be quite free at that point to do whatever the fuck you think is right, and whatever your body/mind is pulled towards doing. In the same way that a lion will not worry about eating you. He's not gonna have moral qualms about it. He will fucking eat you and be happy about it. The lion is not gonna sit there thinking, "Oh gee... maybe eating him is wrong? I shouldn't have this hunger for human meat. I am so wicked! Why has God cursed me with this craving? Why God, why?!!! I know... I will just hold back. I will resist. I will be a good little lion the way humans want me to be." He's a lion, not a Catholic!

It cannot work in the "real world", which is why the "real world" is a fake Hollywood stage built on lies. The cost of having a smooth-running "real world" is lying your ass off to everyone, especially yourself. (Again, Trump is a great example of this.) His lying is precisely why he's become so successful. You cannot do what Trump does and be enlightened at the same time. Your head would explode from the cognitive dissonance. It only works because he lies to himself first. See... Truth is VERY antithetical to self-survival. Notice how your question only cares about self-survival, not Truth. In this work you have to be willing to say... fuck it... if the Truth kills me, so be it. I will take death and Truth over the "real world". Not many people want to make that commitment, understandably. Hence few people are truly spiritual. Yes, if the judge was enlightened, he wouldn't be a judge at all. Because judgment is a lie. It wouldn't work in our current system. But then again, you gotta consider the full picture here. If the judge literally experienced all of reality to be perfect, then what would be the problem? Rape wouldn't bother him. See... unconditional happiness is a tricky thing. You think you want it, but do you really? Are you cool enough to be happy with rape? See... spirituality is too radical for most people. They want enlightenment to conform to human norms. But of course that cannot be because enlightenment is Absolute. Alternatively, an enlightened judge could be honest and say, "This rapist is a lovely person, one of God's creatures. I understand that he only broken an arbitrary law which our community has created. But, he broke the law, for which there are consequences! So I will put him to death. I will chop off his head with my own hand because that's what our community has agreed to as the proper punishment, and I swore that I would uphold the law when I took this job." That's totally viable. And it's honest. Nothing about enlightenment says that you cannot create or enforce laws. But is it right or wrong to kill a rapist? Neither. Those are ego-created labels and delusions. Human laws are not based on justice or Truth. They are based on arbitrary human needs, which are then wrapped in a veneer of justice, freedom, truth, and goodness, so that their arbitrariness and selfishness can be denied. So you can enforce a law and feel justified about it at the same time. That's the magic of the legal system. It's a bullshit machine. It's built on pure bullshit. Yes, even The Constitution, all of it! Just self-righteous ego-stuff designed to enable society. It does a damn fine job. But it's bullshit.

You could call it Zen-Devilry, but that would just be a label. Doesn't matter what you call it, it is exactly what it is. Calling it anything just creates a level of abstraction and delusion. Calling someone a "Zen Devil" has a moral component to it. It's a judgment. You're saying, "Being a Zen Devil is wrong". When in reality, it's not wrong at all. It is exactly what it is. God loves Zen Devils, which is why so many of them exist. Strictly speaking, no. Because the Truth is total freedom. And there is nothing wrong with inflicting suffering on anyone. "Wrong" is a dualistic concept. "Suffering is bad and shouldn't occur" is also a dualistic concept. But usually there is some correlation. In that, once the ego has been rubbed out a lot, there's less desire or need to do selfish things. And also, the negative consequences of selfish acts becomes very obvious and transparent. So it's harder to harm others because you'll see how it just makes your own life a hassle. You don't walk into a bank with a rifle because it's just a plain stupid move for you. Because you're conscious enough to see that you'll immediately get shot in the face. But this does not by any means mean that you will not inflict damage to people just by your very existence. To exist, you must create collateral damage. The only question is, how much? The greatest Buddha still creates collateral damage just by breathing. Part of your enlightenment path and your spiritual development will require that you deeply contemplate all this for yourself. You're gonna have to reconcile morality with Truth. And it's probably not gonna be like your ego would like. Your ego wants the world to be rainbows and butterflies. But that's just not at all reality. It will be painful for many of you to accept that. You're gonna have to fully accept, for example, that your child could get raped, and that that is Good, and that is God's love, and that you must be humble enough to surrender to it. See... this spirituality business isn't for most folks. It's a bit hardcore. It really means you have to give up your self. No kidding! This isn't philosophy. You actually must live this way. Most people would call it total insanity. Certainly appears that way from a self's perceptive. The self defines sanity as that which serves itself. Of course! That's what selves do.

@unknownworld Enlightenment is realizing all judgments are just stories. Absurd? Not at all. Plenty of enlightened gurus and monks commit rape. Happens very often. Buddhist monks get raped by other Buddhist monks all the time! They will drag little boy monks out of their beds at night and rape them. Common practice in the East. Many famous gurus have sexually exploited their disciples. Of course. This should be expected. Enlightenment is more nuanced than you've been lead to believe. It's not possible to walk down the sidewalk without inflicting suffering on others. Think of how many ants you've squashed in your lifetime. Think of how your carbon footprint, and other footprints, have lead to the deaths of thousands of animals and people around the world. Yes, you're free to hurt others just as much as you hurt yourself. Think about how easily you hurt yourself. Life is a messy, bloody business. That's enlightenment. Enlightenment doesn't mean rainbows and butterflies. It means warfare, torture, rape, theft, exploitation, slavery, concentration camps, etc. All of that is God. You cannot reject these things without going into delusion.

I thought you disappeared? God is only neurotic when it takes the form of a human. And even then, only certain kinds of humans. It's very obvious when you awaken. In the same way it's obvious when you awoke from last night's dream. Of-fucking-course! Spirituality is nothing but accepting everything as it is. What else could it be? Anything else would be lies. Enlightenment is nothing at all. So just imagine everything is made of nothing. Imagine that atoms are little balls of nothing. But drop the image of balls. So there's only one "atom" of nothing. But this nothing is infinitely everything. Which is why it's nothing. All the something's cancel out to zero. So everything and nothing are identical.

Fake news! A liberal conspiracy to get people to love each other.

Koan #482: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a master Jedi misplaced his light-saber, so he divided his birthday cake in half with his mind. Was the cake one or two?

@Alii Enlightenment = Truth = existence itself. Anything that exists is part of what's true. Enlightenment is not a point of view. It's the fabric of reality itself. Instead of thinking that reality is made out of atoms, think of it as made out of enlightenment. In spirituality, we're not dealing with human perspectives. We're dealing with the fabric of reality itself: consciousness. And consciousness constitutes all there is. So if Hitler exists, there he is... consciousness. When he exists in your mind, there he is... consciousness. What he's doing is irrelevant when it comes to the question of his substance. You don't say Hitler isn't made of atoms just because he killed a bunch of people. He's still made of atoms even if he's the most horrible person in the world. The atoms don't care. There are no "good" atoms and "bad" atoms. Hitler's not made out of "bad" atoms. They are exactly the same atoms. A quantum physicist doesn't care what Hitler did. Neither does a nondualist. At least not on the metaphysical level. On the practical level, the social level, the political level, of course we say it's "bad" and "don't be like Hitler".

@Alii How many times do we have to say that you can be an enlightened rapist? Enlightenment changes nothing. You can think of it this way: everyone is already enlightened, including Hitler. EVERYTHING is GOOD. There are no restrictions upon reality. It can do whatever the hell it wants. To be at peace with that, is to be enlightened. To not be at peace with that, is also to be enlightened. If you imagine yourself becoming the most morally perfect human being of all time, more moral than Jesus, you will be not one ounce better than Hitler. That is nonduality. So all your ideas about how enlightened people "ought" to be behave are just that -- your ideas, not the Truth. People are free to behave in all the ways the human body/mind is able to behave. How do you know it's Good? Because it's happening. Don't be questioning God's creation with that little mind of yours You will always be wrong. Which of course, is just how it's supposed to be. Not only did he eat a cheeseburger, we went to the best strip club in town and I bought him a lap dance so this stripper with perfect, melon-sized boobs smeared him across his face. And he enjoyed it. Fun was had by all. That's life. So throw all your moralizing in the trash. It has nothing to do with enlightenment. If you're thinking enlightenment will make you a good person, think again. If you were an asshole before enlightenment, you'll likely be an asshole long after enlightenment. God creates assholes, after all. Assholes are an integral part of creation. Just look at Trump

No

@Hardik jain Contemplate your death. What do you want out of life? If you can't connect to any higher-consciousness desire, then you're out of luck. Maybe in the next life. Or just wait until this life kicks your ass to the point where you can't take it any more.

@Ritu https://www.actualized.org/articles/how-you-must-think-about-failure

@Huz The funny thing is, if Actualized.org was my first business, I would be much more popular, richer, and more developed than I am now. When your work is not aligned with your purpose, you're highly inefficient. In the same way that when you want to go North, yet you're on a bus going East, it's highly inefficient even if goes very fast and very far.

@electroBeam By being a visionary and a leader. Also, you don't need to necessarily convince investors. Do everything yourself if you're that picky. That's what I do. I work solo by design. To run a successful business you have to be a relentless doer and outside the box thinker. No one is going to hold your hand in that process. You will either lead yourself, or nothing's gonna happen. You need to provide all the answers. That's your job. If I solve your business problems for you, then I'm the one creating that business, not you, making you obsolete. The whole point of starting a business is that you personally assume responsibility for solving the hard problems. That's why you get paid the big bucks if you succeed. It's not a paint by numbers process. If you want to paint by numbers, go work in a factory which some visionary has created. You can't have it both ways. You can't say, "I want to be a leader! Can someone please tell me how to lead? It's hard. I don't know what to do!" In that case, you're a follower.

@zikzak Consider that it goes even deeper with manual work.

@MsNobody Sounds like you have a naturally high tolerance. Some people report this. 300ug of AL-LAD should shake the foundations of your reality. You should have difficulty walking on that dose. Brains do vary genetically. Some people are genetically more sensitive to certain neurotransmitters like serotonin, which tryptamines mirror. Sounds like you need larger doses.

@cle103 Anything could be the starting point for a deeper purpose. You could be a thief or rapist, and that could be the starting point for your purpose. Life works in twisted ways. This process requires that you search your heart and contemplate. Use your intuition, foresight, and consciousness.

@Afonso Maybe it is a strength of yours, but you've just totally lost touch with it? Or you discount it as unimportant or "not a good strength". Or you can't easily imagine how to utilize this strength. Or maybe it's not right for you. Search inside for the answer. Contemplate.

You don't understand because you haven't yet become conscious that the waking state (life) has exactly as much reality as the dreaming state. Experiences seem solid through interpretation. Without interpretation, they are nothing at all. This is the KEY point of enlightenment. You need to see that reality is Maya. An infinite hallucination.

Excellent!

You might want to take the assessment again, and make sure you're answering the questions authentically. When you answer each question, think for a moment if the situation and your answer is being authentic and clicking with you. It's easy to sometimes give pat answers which come from social conditioning or bad old habits. You can also approach the whole thing backwards. Look through all the possible strengths, select the top 5 which resonate most, and then double-check that by filling out the assessment in such a way as to arrive at those strengths. And see if those answers really resonate on some level so you're not tricking yourself.

@Hero in progress If very strong emotions are arising, try to just sit quietly doing nothing. Just sit and feel them. That's all. Start letting go of your efforting and trying to achieve something. Just sit, relax, enjoy, surrender. Let it happen naturally. It will happen all on its own if you just sit and watch. Get curious about what is happening. Avoid distractions and entertainment though. If suffering arises, remember to ENJOY your suffering. Seriously.

@Hero in progress You're still chasing experiences and positive states. Enlightenment is not that. Pursue what is TRUE, not bliss and love. Everything else is experience. And all experience is impermanent, and thus an illusion.

Not all vomiting is spiritual purging. It could simply be that you ate a bunch of greasy food which doesn't sit right with the chemical. The problem with vomiting is that if you have a terribly uncomfortable trip, you probably won't ever trip again. With proper chemicals and proper techniques, you NEVER need to vomit. And you will still grow a ton. Don't romanticize vomiting. That's one of the things I don't like about Ayahuasca. We have far better modern chemicals available which don't produce vomiting. Natives use Ayahausca because they have nothing better. If they had 99.9% pure 5-MeO-DMT growing on trees, they would snort that shit up like cocaine.

Yup, all good insights.