Leo Gura

The problem with this is, many of the greatest enlightened masters report direct experience of past lives. How is that explained? As delusion? Seems like a very insufficient explanation. Could there be something they know that we don't?

Generally I agree. But then again, science is moving ahead and it may one day have to map out stuff like souls and perhaps even figure out a way to create them. For example, maybe it's possible to use the science of souls to create a robot with a soul.

That would be an improper definition. When people talk of souls that is different from the Absolute. The Absolute is universal, formless, and infinite. A soul is localized and limited. When we talk about souls we are talking: Body >> Mind >> Soul >> Absolute Self Each of those levels is less fundamental than the first. With Body being least fundamental. The Absolute does not necessarily preclude souls. Souls could be an intermediate structure between Body/Mind and the Absolute.

Then how do you explain why some people are so spiritually gifted? Genetics? I could buy that souls evolved, similar to how animals did.

Of course people enjoy music because it has a spiritual quality to it. But then again, that's true of all art. The point of art is to connect us with spirit. Spirit and nature are identical. In fact, everything is spirit, so you could probably make anything into a vehicle for spirituality, like peeling potatoes. Music seems to have a hypnotic effect on the mind unlike other activities like peeling potatoes. Which makes music useful for changing people's emotional states. Which is a doorway to changing people's states of consciousness. Shamans use repetitive beating to induce shamanic trances and enable astral projection. In our modern materialist culture, where virtually everyone is disconnected from spirit and God, music becomes an easy alternative to undertaking the hero's journey. Which is why it's so popular and so shared. It's like spirituality for the spiritually-clueless, lazy, and cynical masses. It is fascinating how the human animal is like the only animal that digs music. Why don't cats tap their foot to the beat? That would be a great question for some neuroscientist to research.

If souls exist they must have a beginning. Since the only thing without a beginning is the Absolute itself. And the whole point of the notion of a soul is that it's localized and finite, as soul is precisely not the Absolute Godhead. If souls exist, they are subtle forms. Which means they are born and die just like all forms. Before there was life on Earth, I would expect that there were no souls. So souls must have arose alongside the evolution of life.

But supposedly a soul must have a beginning, even if it lasts across multiple lifetimes. The universe did not start out with human souls. They had to be created, and with a full and final liberation they end. They must also be individuated from other souls since all people do not share the same samskaras and past-lives. And just how many souls are there? 7 billion? What happens when the human population doubles? Is there an infinite number of human souls sitting around waiting for the Earth's population to grow before they can take Earthly form? Where did these 7 billion souls come from? Why would they exist long before humans were even a species? Seems like an ineffective design. Or are human souls the recycled souls of dinosaurs? So the question is, when these souls were born many life-times ago, were they all equally spiritually capable? Or were some more capable than others? Is the soul of a Neanderthal the same as the soul of a Homo Sapien? Lots of questions arise when it comes to souls and past lives.

@clouffy Many people end up doing spiritual practice precisely because they are fed up with depression and suffering. Through spiritual practice, through consciousness work, you can learn how depression is caused by the meanings your mind creates, and you can train yourself to stop having those negative thoughts. It is not possible to be depressed if you fully in the present moment, not lost in the conceptual past or future. But this will takes lots of mindfulness training to actualize. It's not enough to merely know it intellectually. This issue is not just about enlightenment. It's about emotional mastery. You must become more conscious of how your mind creates emotional states and how it assigns meaning to an otherwise meaningless world. You don't need to be enlightened to start developing mindfulness over your emotions. Nor will enlightenment automatically give you mastery of your emotions. I recommend to burn this candle from both ends. In practice, you need some "agenda" to bootstrap your spiritual journey. You can shed the agenda later, once you're towards the end. Careful not to burn the bridge before you've crossed.

@winterknight I wonder, is this logic applied to artists and athletes too? Did Tiger Wood spend many lifetimes playing golf? Why not apply this logic across the board? But if you acknowledge there are natural differences in golfing ability across people, why not for spirituality as well? Does every human soul start existence with identical spiritual capacities? Why would that be so?

@Richard Alpert In practice you can still learn stuff from people like that. It just requires care.

In any human endeavor you should expect to see a Gaussian distribution curve of results and effectiveness. There will always be super-human freaks who will attain spiritual heights inaccessible to normal people just as there are weightlifters who can bench press 1000 lbs. Best not to compare yourself to them, or you will forever feel inadequate. Walk YOUR path. Your path will be uniquely yours.

This is why gurus keep their mouth shut about such things. The ego-mind cannot understand it and only becomes more deluded with fear.

He is acting out stage Blue/Orange with a massively repressed Green shadow. Which is a common developmental pathology at his level. The danger with taking his teachings too seriously is that he will corrupt your mind with his massive Green shadow, causing you to have a massive Green shadow, thus stunting your growth to higher levels. His politics is also helping to maintain the status quo of corruption, American Exceptionalism, and mass income inequality as he resists systemic reform of capitalism. With all that said, of course some of his teachings can be valuable. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Very few teachers are 100% wrong. Rather, it's a question of how developmentally advanced, accurate, and healthy are their teachings? Is he teaching you pathological stuff like duality, judgment, hatred, demonization, dogma, illusions, division? Or is he teaching you love, consciousness, truth, integration, holism?

The hero goes through lots of suffering of course. My point is, the hero isn't undertaking his journey in order to suffer. Suffering isn't his motive. The Buddha didn't seek suffering, he sought the Holy Grail (an escape from the inevitability of death). Suffering was just a by-product of seeking the Holy Grail. Generally speaking it's good to have positive motivation for whatever you are doing, not negative one. Seeking rather than avoiding.

Hare Krishnas a very dogmatic folks. Many of them are just brainwashed believers who have never approached awakening. This is the classic problem with religion: people belief stuff without ever validating it through consciousness work. Which is actually worse than atheism. At least the atheist values empirical investigation, albeit a crippled materialistic version of it.

@LastThursday To me ambition is elemental. Don't try to redefine it using other words. It is what it is. Find it in your direct experience and observe how it works. It is a sort of emotive force. Some people have more of this force, others less.

He's a late bloomer

You will only reach equanimity when you are fully conscious of what consciousness. And that is only possible directly, without analogy. Analogy, metaphor, and symbols are the only things separating you from God consciousness. You are going 1 step too far. You must take the zeroth step to reach yourself.

@bejapuskas Of course the biological, biographical self cannot achieve satori since satori is the absence of a biological, biographical self. Yes, Fred gives some great direct pointers, cutting through the stories.

Look around the room. Everything you see is consciousness. No analogy needed when you are neck-deep in water. You can't really analogize consciousness because since everything is consciousness, your analogy is itself consciousness.

He's a character. Just don't expect instant enlightenment.

Creativity seems like a drive, like sex, but it is never satisfied. Maslow puts creativity as a self-actualization drive at the top of the pyramid. Although for very creative people creativity can be as fundamental as food. Creative people tend to be more insane. But sanity is overrated

One Simple Rule For Acing Life? It's a weird title

It feels like your mind gets into a groove. Theta and Delta can feel very deep, sleepy, dreamy, like the depths of one's subconscious. Alpha feels more meditative.