Leo Gura

Perhaps they can. Could also turn into a wild goose chase. Hard to say. There exist too many spiritual techniques for one man to test them all. And even if he could there would still be no guarantee whether those methods would work for others. I have been careful about how I invest my time because there are so many wild goose chases within spirituality. I don't disagree that there are many spiritual skills and abilities which I have not developed and probably will never develop. Again, it comes down to what are your priorities? Developing spiritual powers has never been a priority for me. I don't deny that wild things are possible. There are many deep rabbit holes within mysticism which you could explore for several lifetimes. If you like to explore that stuff, have at it.

Well, I'm glad it's worked so well for you. Good work and carry on then.

No

The purpose of the apology was to correct in peoples' minds the notion that your feelings do not matter. I didn't want that to be a point about which people were misled.

Only once psychedelics are legalized everywhere. Should happen within about 50 years.

Every girl has Insta these days. Get with the times.

Great!

Yes, that's how that tends to go. But for me I was not interested in any of those benefits. I was only interested in understanding God. So for me that kind of method was an obstacle. So I had to get creative. In this work your priorities and values play a central role. Most people in this work have very basic human priorities, not metaphysical ones. Again, neither is right or wrong but there are trade-offs. Could my health be better if I rigorously did Sadhguru's yoga? Maybe. But I was interested in something else.

One absolute. But there are many, many different kinds of awakened consciousness. So the fact that there is one absolute means little. The question is, what kind of consciousness have you accessed and what have you understood about how consciousness works? Different paths lead to very different kinds of awakenings. So then the question becomes, how do I reach the very highest, deepest, and strangest kinds? Truth be told, some of my very deepest awakenings I have only been able to reach during sleep.

Don't get me wrong. I still regard Ralston as a genius teacher. His integrity and mastery is insane. He offers tons of value. However that does not mean he has the right view on every point. Especially regarding psychedelics and Love. Those are the two biggest flaws I found in his teachings. I still respect him a lot. Let me be clear. Whenever I point out some deficiency with a spiritual teacher that does not mean I'm telling you not to study their work. Most spiritual teachers have a lot of value to offer regardless. Consider Teal Swan. I don't regard her as super woke but her videos offer a lot of helpful advice.

I never did the lessons in order. I built my own custom stack and kept it very simple. One of my greatest strengths and weaknesses is that I never blindly follow orders. I research ideas and invent my own way. One of the biggest issues I had with yoga is that I was always expected to just do it blindly like a sheep but that kind of attitude is just antithetical to my values. Yoga is really well-suited for sheep-like people who just want to be told what to do. I am not criticizing anything, I'm just saying that kind of approach has its pros and cons.

Yes, it's way over-complicated. What I did was strip everything down to just 1 core technique: the spinal breathing and I just do that for 1 hr. I think this will produce 80% of the results and it's just so simple. I suggest you pick 1-3 of the techniques you feel are most potent and focus on mastering those. Later you could always get more fancy but I don't think it's necessary, especially for the first year. The very core of Kriya yoga is the up/down spinal breathing through the chakras. Everything else is just a fancy addition to that. As you do the techniques you can sorta feel into whether they are effctive or not. Try the spinal breathing for a solid month and just see how it makes you feel. If you feel it is quieting your monkey mind, that's good, so then just continue with it and perhaps add 1 more technique to your stack like mahamudra or breath of fire. Slowly over a year or two can build up your own custom stack. I think this way is far superior to stricting following the book.

@Water by the River All paths don't lead up the same mountain.

@Water by the River I don't want to play games with you. If you are serious I suggest you study various teachers and keep your mind open to the idea that they might not all be pointing to the same thing. That is the really juicy possibility. Your mind will tend to see what it is looking for. If you want to see sameness you will see it. If you want to see difference you will see it.

Yes, of course. And historically all religions have disagreed with each other.

I once showed a video of Sadhguru explaining Mahasamadhi. Ralston said it was stupid nonsense. Who is right? And more importantly, how do you decide that? What happened to me is that I studied so many different gurus and traditions that their contradictions became unbearable to me.

Saying they will lead you off a cliff is too extreme. It's hard to deny that such teachings are helpful for many people. It's just that it won't lead to the highest possible consciousness. But that's also not the goal. You have to be very careful here not to be too dismissive of these spiritual teachings. A lot of nuance is required to see where they are good and where they are limited.

I was exaggerating a bit. You can find some guys who agree -- especially if they are all from a similar tradition or school -- but you can also find lots of disagreement. Especially if you actually forced these guys to sit down and have a serious discussion about it between themselves. Often the disagreements are buried and require a lot of experience to start to notice. If you're new to this work it all tends to sound the same. Just as an example, if you ask Ralston about Sadhguru he will say he's not enlightened and that yoga will not produce enlightenment. Rupert Spira says that solpsism is madness. Ramana Maharshi says there are no others. Rupert Spira says consciousness is love, Ralston says love is just an emotion. So who is right?

That's just not the case. This issue goes beyond pointers, to substance.

@Benton You are right that all those teachers have valid things to teach you.

No, it's not merely that. What he says about psychedelics and love is simply wrong. You are being too charitable to him. I've fallen into that trap myself in the past, but no more. At some point you will just hit a point of disagreement with a spiritual teacher which will never be resolved and then you just gotta move on. You will never get 100% agreement with spiritual masters. None of them even agree with each other. That's been my experience. I don't think I've ever found 2 spiritual masters who fully agree with each other. What does that tell you?

@MarkKol I don't regret my work on Actualized. It was all part of my path. I don't function like typical business leaders. Many of them can do what they do and not burn out. I'm just not built like that and the kind of work I do is very different from traditional business leadership. Although some of them can burn out too. I have a somewhat unique situation given my genetics, health, and personality type. So you shouldn't draw too many conclusions from my situation to yours. But in general, doing great work requires great health. The reason who leaders are able to work so hard for so long is because they were lucky to have great health and energy. If they lost that they would burn out and not be able to keep their jobs. Your ability to keep a job hinges entirely on your health. And health is a very individual thing. So you have to get in touch with your own health situation. Also keep in mind there are different kinds of stress and not everyone handles the same stresses as well. So you need to find your niche. Running your own company is usually very labor intensive and requires unlimited energy and great health. If you look at typical successful CEOs the one thing they all have in common is exceptionally high energy levels and solid health. Which is the only way they can sustain their jobs. That is a rare quality, which is why CEOs are rare people. The average joe does not have what it takes to be a CEO. Some jobs you gotta be born for. People are born suited to some jobs and not others. So, again, it's all about finding your niche. Steve Jobs is a good example. In the end his health just gave out. It wasn't in his control.

So apply that logic to unimagining all the spiritual teachers you took. But even so, if you take DMT your consciousness will increase more than anything else you do. And that's the only point here which is being obscured. I don't like when a bunch of spiritual logic results in the obstruction of simple facts like that. Which is what Ralston's position amounts to. Frankly it baffles me how people do this.

We have a thread on that here:

@Breakingthewall A better way to put it is that there is a very wide and deep scope to the comprehension and experience of Consciousness, and Buddhism is tapping into a narrow band of that. And if you want to access more you will have to free yourself of it. I'm getting tired of talking about this.