Leo Gura

There are numerous problems I have with Sam Harris: He doesn't understand what God is, what enlightenment is, what consciousness is, or what intelligence is. He does not understand the true origins of religion. He still clings to and advocates a rationalist morality, without being conscious that morality is a human invention and a weapon of the ego. He demonizes Islam by citing poll studies which are greatly distorted and misrepresentative. The majority of Muslims DO NOT believe it is right to kill apostates, etc. Those polls are just bad. He has built a cult following of atheists and rationalists which use Sam to justify a closedminded scientism. He still fundamentally holds a dualistic, materialistic worldview -- despite his meditation and spiritual questing. He doesn't really fathom the depth of psychedelics. He doesn't really fathom the depth of consciousness. He doesn't understand what Truth is. He doesn't understand that science and language cannot access Truth. He treats consciousness as though it is produced by the brain. He advances American exceptionalism, which is a blindness to national and cultural self-bias. He acts as though Western culture is objectively better and superior to other cultures. In evaluating the problems in the Middle East he places way too much emphasis on Islamic beliefs vs geo-political, historical, and economic factors, which are far more significant. There is no acknowledgment that Islam can be practiced at different levels of consciousness: Purple, Red, Blue, Orange, Green, Yellow, Turquoise. He paints all of Islam as Red/Blue. This is a fundamental error. The problems which exist within Islam are NOT due to specific beliefs in the Quran but due to lack of geo-political and consciousness development in the Middle East. All of the problems in the Middle East could be resolved without changing the Quran or the basics of Islam. He places way too much importance on the content of belief vs one's level of consciousness. He is engaging in a lesser Jihad and indoctrinating his fanbase into doing the same. Seems to me like he's making more enemies in the Middle East than building bridges. It's not an accident that he gets so many death threats. Because he's try to ram American culture down people's throats. He stokes up right wing Islamophobia. He is the poster-child for scientism by making claims like the following: "The scientific data can't be racist." Which is quite ignorant of what "data" is. There is no such thing as data. All data is theory-laden and will of course be cherry-picked by the ego to justify its self-biases. Which is precisely the problem of scientism, and what people like JP or Sam Harris are doing. They use "data" and "reason" to be advance their biases. I don't see an awareness of the nuances of epistemology within him. I also don't see an awareness of how the ego-mind uses logic, data, science, and rationality to advance its agenda. Sam's entire rationalist philosophy is ego-based from my perspective. He likes to play the philosopher without realizing that Western philosophy is dead because it is all mind-based ego games. You will never arrive a Truth via Western philosophy or science. And the problem is that because he presents an air of authority and intelligence, people just swallow it up without realizing that they are being indoctrinated into a religion. From the big picture perspective, the very problems that Sam Harris is pointing out within Islam, are the very same problems he himself is falling into. There is lack of self-awareness of the mechanisms of the ego-mind. Fundamentalism isn't just a problem for Islam. It's also a problem for materialistic atheists. If people didn't take him too seriously, that would be okay. But his fanbase is cult-like and really believes in it.

Great thread idea

@Etherial Cat I would put Marcus Aurelius at Blue. You have to understand that stages Green, Yellow, Turquoise basically did not exist 200+ years ago. At least that's according to the Spiral Dynamics model. People from 2000 years ago lived in a radically different reality and culture. They were not like us today minus smartphones and cars.

He seems more Blue/Green to me. I don't know that much about him though.

Here's what a Yellow wedding looks like:

For starters, someone who has a sense of life purpose and doesn't play victim or whine about women. A man who complains about feminism isn't a real man, that's a pouting child. A real man has something of value to offer the woman. And he treats women well, with love and respect.

@MM1988 Mating is a tough game. You think women have it easy?? Dating is much easier for guys than girls, so spare us your JP crocodile tears. You have no idea the kind of shit women go through. To expect top notch women to be handed to you on a silver platter sure sounds like communism. Women don't own you anything. Become a quality man and they will come aflocking.

@Emne There are tons of programs and courses available which teach you how to get good at dating and flirting with girls. It's like learning a programming language. You just commit to learning it and follow the tutorials.

One of the best PUA friends I know is about that height. He is crazy good at attracting girls. He's like a sex mongoose. What girls care about most is your charisma and confidence. Not your appearance. You are projecting your caring about appearance onto girls. Girls don't think like you.

I've done over 30 trips. I have not noticed any improvements of the mind per se. I've gotten tons of insights. I've gotten lots of emotional growth. I've gotten a deconstruction of my conceptual matrix. I've gotten crazy depths of consciousness. I've gotten massive openmindedness. But no baseline improvement of memory or things like that. Yoga, visualization, contemplation, concentration exercises will have a better chance of improving your mind vs psychedelics. If you have memory problems, perhaps look into vitamins or nootropics and clean up your diet.

Good God! Enough of this nonsense. Western society is still highly patriarchal. The reason men are sexless is cause they sit around watching JP too much and playing video games all day. It's hard to have sex when you're sitting in your man-cave all day. What ever happened to taking responsibility for your sexlessness rather than blaming women and society for it? By Peterson's logic society should ban: TV Video games Internet Porn Virtual reality Smartphones Social media Nerd culture That would solve most of your sex problems. A real man doesn't blame women for his lack of development. Any guy can learn to get good with attracting women. But it takes inner work, and it requires going outside your man-cave and actually talking to women. RSD is really the practical solution to the male problems JP rants about. But of course then you've got all the problems that come with getting indoctrinated into RSD culture. Which I've already ranted about in the past. What would really solve this problem is if schools did a better job of teaching boys and girls how to interact with each other.

Both of them stuck in Orange materialist metaphysics without being aware of it:

Actualized.org's grand-pappy:

In an Spiral economics books I have been reading, Paul Volcker is cited as being a Yellow economist under Obama.

I do very much enjoy Sam's tirades against Trump. It's a guilty pleasure of mine He's very good at articulating the problems there because temperamentally, if Trump is matter, Sam is anti-matter.

Notice how flexible his mind is, and how he loves to play with ideas, like a child:

Because Green cares too much. It's all about finding the right balance. If a mother loves her son so much that she isn't able to let him go to school (because she wants him around the house all day) then she cares too much, and her care has become neurotic. To this mother we would say, "Stop caring about your son so much", to which she would reply, "So you want me to hate my son?! NEVER! You are a monster!" At which point we would say, "Sigh..."

That's why after LSD you upgrade to 5-MeO

Explained in Gamana's books. See my book list for details.

I use these terms interchangably.

That's exactly how you get enlightened masters who molest people, or are secretly greedy, or dogmatic, or can't run a biz, etc. There is a lot more to life than sitting in a cave. If all you plan to do is sit in a cave for the next 50 years, okay. But that is not what you will do. You will enter all sorts of complex interactions with people in a complex society. That's when shit will hit the fan.

"Time to upgrade to LSD." -- The Buddha

Rationalism, materialism, scientism, moralism, intellectual crusading, demonization of Islam, duality. Sam Harris is stuck playing the role of an intellectual. The lesser Jihad. All classic traps you should watch out for. Writing a book or talking about spirituality & meditation does not mean one is awakened or has a profound understanding of nonduality. If you're at stage Blue/Orange/Green, Sam Harris might be useful to you. Once you get beyond that, he will hold you back. There's nothing "wrong" with him. He is who he is.

@Bryan Lettner Sweet!