Leo Gura

Yes it would be risky.

Perhaps don't do psychedelics at all until you have cleared up some of those issues through more traditional methods.

If there is serious evidence, what are the chances Tate flees?

Thanks, cheers.

1) He speaks of the brain in a relative fashion. I also speak of brains in the relative sense even though the brain is a construct of the mind. 2) Like I said, for a long time I had a strong bias towards his work. I may have erred on the side of being too charitable. 3) Ralston is a stange cat who's hard to fully figure out. He's clearly very conscious but there seem to be gaps too.

@Kenza Benjelloun I never said I was leaving.

It's hard to say. I don't have a good sense of the Romanian legal system, what is normal and what is not. All I know is what Tate himself has bragged about doing, which is quite damning. But who knows if they have enough hard evidence to convict him? That's iffy. Convicting Trump for his crimes has also proven very challenging.

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?