Leo Gura

I'm not gonna trust any of his self-reported numbers.

I was once electrocuted by a small stingray.

Lol, I was there when he said it. No! He's not talking about what I am talking about. When I say LOVE I am not talking about compassion or helping people or any such human thing, nor a side effect of enlightenment. He did not address the issue of metaphysical love. He addressed the human emotion. Ralston does not actually tell you what Love is -- its existential nature. He misleads you by getting you to believe that it is impossible to have an awakening into the nature of Love. It would be like you asking him, what is the I? And he told you, the I is just an illusion invented by humans so don't think about it. This confuses the I with the human ego, like Love is being confused with human emotions. The only point of all this talk is for you to realize that there is a distinct realization/Awakening which you can have on the question of What is Love? Either you will have it or you won't. And it has nothing to do with how compassionate or good you are towards others.

No, he said love is a relative experience. And he is misleading people by telling them that love is just a human emotion. I understand his position. He doesn't want a bunch of New Age crap to infect his teachings. But Love is not merely a New Age thing, like astrology, that can be dismissed as a human invention, Love is fundamental to Consciousness. Ralston does not teach that. You figure out for yourself who's right.

I'm aware of it. I don't like splitting my content across multiple platforms.

Right, until you outgrow them.

Same as in dreams.

Ralston is not being coy. He just isn't conscious what Love is because of the way he frames consciousness in his mind. Framing matters that much. How you frame things determines what you are able to recognize. He does not frame psychedelics nor mind properly either.

No, they tend to be full of crap. It's the New Age which Ralston seems to be reacting against. But he takes it too far in the opposite direction. Ralston treats Love like it's some feel-good, New Agey hippie invention. But that's a strawman. That's not what is being said when it is said that God Is Love.

That's because you're dealing with issues which are very complex and also poorly defined. What does "mindfulness" even mean? Ask 10 people and they will give you 10 different definitions. The reason something like math works is because it's very strictly defined.

This is incorrect.

Ralston has mistaken love for a human emotion. He's not actually conscious of what love is. Ralston suffers from an overly narrow, reductionist notion of consciousness. Same mistake as the Buddhists make. In the end, if you never realize that God is Love, all your enlightenments are a game.

More sentences coming next week.

They like it when a politician takes bold action towards a larger vision which he sold them. A politician doesn't sell policy, he sells a general vision or ethos, such as: "Stop the woke crap" or "Down with corporate power".

Lol

The key is to focus on your strengths, what's you're good at, and your passions. No one will care what university you went to unless it was like Harvard. And even then, you competence and experience matters way more. You can find girls to hook up with at any college.

As the forum grows, we want to preserve the cream of the crop. This will be especially useful for attracting newbies. This thread is intended to be a place to link to the best, most helpful topics of this sub-forum. Meaning, any topics which are found in the "Meditation, Consciousness, Enlightenment, Spirituality" sub-forum which you think are particularly juicy, link them here. I will then periodically update this post with links to the best topics. Please don't link to topics from the Self-Actualization sub-forum, or other sub-forums, here. By "best" we mean: topics which are popular, or highly up-voted, or which contain lots of useful resources. Please be selective with your suggestions. We want the cream of the crop here. Best Of: The 5-MeO-DMT Mega Thread Meditation Techniques Mega Thread Music To Inspire Enlightenment, Meditation, & Personal Development Enlightenment One-liners Sharing Our Favorite Enlightenment Videos 5-meo-dmt | Trip Report #3: On Being God Enlightenment Jokes Here A Challenge To Everything You Think You Know MDMA and Spirituality 4 Grams Psilocybin Trip Report: That Was Intense Secrets Of Concentration - Part 1 Enlightenment Quotes Paradoxical Quotes

I don't think he will ever change.

No doubt in the long-term view the US played a big role provoking this war. The issue is that the US feels entitled to expand itself as far as it wants. This is part of the US arrogance, exceptionalism, and bias. But Putin is also not innocent in how we conducts this war. Putin has no respect for Ukrainian sovereignty. If he could he would incorporate Ukraine into Russia. The real cause of this war was that Ukraine started allying itself with the West, slowly infected with Western culture, and there was no way Putin was going to sit by and let that happen. Putin believes Ukraine belongs to the East. And he does not respect Ukraine's decision to side with the West culturally. So in a sense it's a literal culture war.

I don't think he needs anyone to tell him how brilliant he is. He's got that covered himself. Which then becomes the problem.

I don't think it's greed. I think it's about power and influence. He wants to impose his will on the world because he thinks he knows best.

He's just an egotist.

Musk needs someone to blame for the disaster he created.

I can't relate with that. It's never felt like a curse to me. Perhaps the problem is how you're holding it.

It doesn't much matter if your goal is feeling comfortable. But there is another pursuit at play here which is truth and pure understanding. If you are trying to understand reality it matters very much that you recognize all of your biases as biases and don't confuse them with something fundamental. The issue you're having is that you're not appreciating how much bias distorts your whole understanding of reality, and then how much that distorts how you live life. Self-deception matters in the long-run.