Leo Gura

Again, you have to consider the alternative. Consider the gamble of letting NATO just swallow Ukraine forever while you sit around and do nothing. From Putin's perspective it's NATO that's shaking up the status quo by expanding ever eastward. I don't know. I'm not saying Putin's worldview is correct. I think it would actually be better for Russia to accept Westernization and just ally with the West. But then again, I'm from the West so that's my bias. They obviously don't like the West like we do and I'm not aware of all the costs and compromises this might involve for Russia. This is very complicated stuff and you can't appreciate it until you sit down and start negotiating with the West. What kind of deals are they gonna give you? How fair will the deals be? I have no idea. If Putin is to be trusted he says the West is impossible to negotiate with fairly. Is that true? I don't know. But it well could be. I also don't know much about Turkey's situation and what kind of deals and/or compromises they had to make. I'm sure Russia could play a similar role if Putin's worldview and values were different.

I don't think it's the same at all. There is a giant difference between becoming conscious that the Earth is conscious, vs just treating the Earth like Gaia, as hippies tend to do. Most New Age spirituality, even if it is in the right direction, it's still just beliefs and group-think. It's not based on deep awakening. I think extremely few people have been directly conscious that the Earth is conscious. Isn't that always the case with everything? It was hard for me to enjoy the ride because for a long time I was using the wrong methods and following the wrong teachings. I got a lot of bad spiritual ideas because I assumed these spiritual people knew what they were talking about.

By invitation from me.

No, you just have a very narrow view. He doesn't care about outsider opinion. That's not his aim. His aim is strengthening Russia according to his traditionalist, nationalist values and worldview. There are much bigger things at stake than some silly bridge or territory. You think this war is bad, but consider the alternative. Was Putin just supposed to sit around and let the West slowly creep its way into Russia until Russia was too weak to mount any kind of struggle? That scenario was worse in Putin's worldview. Creating a great power can involve breaking a few eggs and incurring some short-term pain. I'm not saying he's guaranteed to succeed, but he's not the kind of guy who will just sit meekly in the corner out of fear. He's at least gonna try. Maybe it won't work. And maybe it will. It's still not clear what the West will do. Putin might be able to hold Crimea and his land bridge. Or get a neutral Ukraine. And that's good enough for him. Putin has the benefit of patience. He can wage this war for 5 years. Meanwhile NATO will get tired and move on to something else. All Putin has to do is be steady and persistent while Western neoliberalism gets distracted like a squirrel on crack. Putin can also form stronger alliances with China and India, creating an alternative to the Western order. Really look at it from Putin's POV. Just assume that your #1 job is to strengthen Russia, and also assume that Americas will try to fuck you as soon as you let them. Now what do you do? This is Putin's situation. Giving into Western values is not an option. Take that option off the table for yourself. See what options remain.

Dude, he already has infinite power. He does not need more personal power or wealth. That's not what motivates him. He's already the richest man in the world. A few billion more will not do anything for him. He's not in it for the money or fame. He's in it for Russia. He's a true believer in Russia. His life purpose is to make Russia as strong as possible for the good of the Russian people. His #1 priority is to uphold the sovereignty of Russia, so Russia does not get raped over a barrel by American wolves and their NATO allies and fucked like in WW2 where 20 million Russians died. Or fucked like in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed and American wolves moved in to rape the country. He is also defending Russian culture against corruption from the gays and other such Western forces. He is a traditionalist. He does not want Western progressivism to infect Russian culture or politics and weaken it. Putin manipulates people in the service of defending Russian sovereignty. Not because he's an evil greedy guy with nothing better to do. You have to really appreciate the challenge he's taken on: He has to return Russia to its former glory without it all falling apart. This is an epic responsibility.

If you want an understanding of Putin's worldview, study Alexandr Dugin. They have the same worldview. Basically, they fundamentally disgree with liberalism and see it as a kind of oppressive force. What they want instead is a Russian nationalism. This debate is basically the clash of the NATO vs Putin worldview.

From what I have seen, there were multiple factors: 1) The West, NATO, and the US were always hell-bent on maintaining hegemony and power. So they were never going to seriously allow Russia to be an equal partner or regain its former super-power status. 2) Putin couldn't really align himself with the West and maintain his authoritarian control. For Putin to align with the West he would have to buy into the whole notion of democratic norms, elections, term limits, free press, and that kind of stuff. 3) Putin's worldview is simply very different from the West. The West has an internationalist worldview whereas Putin has a nationalist worldview. Putin simply does not want to allow American neoliberalism and globalism, and West culture to infect and corrupt Russian culture. For Putin this is a question of preserving Russian nationalism, culture, and sovereignty. 4) The US broke its promises and kept expanding NATO further and further eastward, forcing Putin to make counter-moves to defend his position. Putin complained for many years that the US was encroaching on Russian defense agendas and not taking Russian concerns seriously. The US became impossible to negotiate with, according to Putin.

No one has been demoted. Old Mods often become inactive so I look for new ones to add to the ranks. First I demoted him for going too heavy on the Neo-Advaita talk to the point of becoming a pain in the ass to communicate coherently with. Then I was forced to ban him for secretly recruiting our members. This is old news. It was all aired in the public eye.

Keep in mind that it took me A LOT of work to this far. Don't expect to get here with just a few years of spiritual work. It's probably gonna take you much longer. And there's no particular rush. Enjoy the ride.

I'm mostly uninterested in human ideas, because I try to ground all my understanding now in direct experience. What would contaminate my teachings is ingesting a bunch of spiritual beliefs from hearsay. I'm not interested in beliefs at all. I'm interested in advanced awakenings of my own. That's what I report. I don't sit around concocting belief systems or even studying belief systems. Whether my discoveries align with someone's belief systems makes no difference to me. That's not what I said and you take what I said out of context. Of course people have played all sorts of trickster roles. It's just not something you commonly see in nondual teachers. You guys take me way too literally. Only a fool reads spiritual communications strictly literally. Don't start acting like the things I recently started talking about are part of any kind of mainstream spiritual teaching. What some ancient civilization believed 10000 years ago is none of my concern. What I'm concerned about is what is commonly taught today among all the spiritual stuff I've seen and read. If some spiritual experience is news to me, after all the studying I've done, it will be news to 99.99999% of people. Half the people on this forum think I'm insane just for talking about these experiences, and then you come along and accuse me of just stating obvious stuff that's all been commonly understood. Maybe try getting a read of the room.

I don't doubt that Russia did a bunch of manipulation there.

Of course you gotta do work to see the Love on a regular basis. The initial breakthroughs are not enough. After a lot of work, and 100s of awakenings, I can see the Love much more consistently on a daily basis. Of course if someone kicks you in the dick you're probably gonna be hard-pressed to see that as Love.

From what I understand there are many Russians living in Eastern Ukraine and there has been fighting in that region between them and Ukrainian nationalists. Which is why Putin wanted to annex those regions. Of course Putin also wants to annex them for other reasons such as natural resources and to get a land bridge to Crimea. It's Russian The situation in Crimea is much less clear than Alaska. I generally agree. But again, people have different perspectives on that. Crimea used to be part of Russia and has many Russians living there. And in practice, the way politics works is.... yes, you literally CAN just come and chop a piece of land away because you desire to do so. If you have the power to enforce it. That's how countries are made. And that is exactly what happened. This is a power game. If you don't have the raw power to hold a piece of land, you lose it. Putin understands this reality. Yes, it's an asshole move, but countries are made by assholes not saints.

Thanks for the kind words. Seems more like a human projection. But also, remember, reality will take on the qualities of your projections. If you think that the Sun is a dog, don't be surprised if you hear it bark at you one day.

@Meta-Man I am done teaching you. You are hopelessly closedminded. Don't waste my time communicating with me.

There is a mix of Russians and Ukrainians living in that region, so things are not so clear cut. Of course there is manipulation by Russia. But also it is the case that many Russians live there. It's a classic dispute over ethnic boundaries with both sides having their own justifications for where the lines should be draw. Is Crimea Russian or Ukrainian? Who the fuck is to say? People have differing opinions about that depending on your view of history and various biases and agendas you might have.

It doesn't and it isn't. I know you are, but the way you're going about it is so unintelligent that you won't reach a comprehension of what you truly are. You shouldn't just be concerned with some reductionist aspect of truth. You should be concerned with comprehending what you actually are and how you create yourself. You should be concerned with what consciousness is and how it functions. This is a much larger and more elaborate question than your simplistic focus on empty being. Consciousness of empty being (what you call truth) is NOT the same as God-Realization. Although of course it does not contradict it since empty being is an aspect of God. You're not appreciating that God has an intelligence function, and this intelligence function must be deeply utilized for God to be able to understand what it is and how it works. Sitting mindlessly in meditation does not employ this intelligence function. This intelligence function is active through experience, form, and states, which you deny and denigrate. Although this intelligence is not limited to any state, form, or experience. You are literally not being intelligent enough to understand God. You are being so unintelligent that you deny the function of self-understanding and form.

Maybe. That's a grey area. Really depends on how cynical, closedminded, and stubborn you act. You don't have to accept me as most awake. There's no way you could know that anyway. Just be here to learn new things. That's mostly want I want from people. Stop resisting and be genuinely interested in learning. It's quite easy to tell, just energetically, who here is serious about learning about consciousness and who is not. Serious people ask high quality questions rather than acting snarky or trying to get into debates. Or so you believe. You dangled that ban hammer over yourself. I'm not the one who said anything about banning you. You did. Plenty of people disagree with me here who I have not banned. I tolerate quite a bit of bullshit from people here in the name of democracy.

The fact that you equate Truth with the unchanging is already a limitation of your models. Truth isn't limited to that and there is more to get than just the beingness part of truth. But your ideas of "valid" spirituality came from somewhere and they are running you. You have an extremely limited, reductionist understanding of Consciousness. This sort of reductionism is typical of Buddhism and Vedanta. That's where is originates from. It is a form of group-think and paradigm lock, and I would go so far as to say that you don't actually understand what Consciousness is, even if you had some glimpses of truth. Trying to teach you is just impossible because your cup is already full of nondual dogma. I have totally new things to teach you about Consciousness, but you have stuck your fingers in your ears. So I am going to stop trying to teach you. I have to make a list of every user on this forum who refuses to be taught anything new because they already know everything. So that I stop wasting my time on you. In good faith I try to teach everyone. But you guys just abuse by generosity.

Yeah, but I'm pretty sure there were nationalists on the Ukraine side too who were engaged in local violence.

Yeah, but the point was about pre-war. There has been fighting in that part of Ukraine before Russia invaded which they have used as pretext for the invasion. I don't really know who started it and who did what. It's a mess. I'm just saying there's nationalists on both sides which throw fuel on the fire. Of course at this point Russia has committed many atrocities during the war and fighting back is necessary.

That's what grows you the most Sartre has a famous quote: Hell is other people. I propose we change that to: Hell is being stuck with a group of hippies for a week

No, it's much more tricky than that. You have ideas about what nonduality is and what is means. You have mental models of "the bottom line" which you conflate with reality itself. Even what you consider "the bottom line" is a state of consciousness. "But Leo! I've accessed the bottom line so it's not a model." << That's a model you hold. How would you even know what the bottom line is? Or that there is only one bottom? Or that you should be pursuing the bottom rather than the top line? All these things are conceptual constructs you hold, even if you have some meditative accomplishments. Something has to tell you that your meditative accomplishments are "it" or "the end" or that you're "done" or that you've reached "the bottom line", or that this is "The Truth". This is all mind stuff. It's very much the point because consciousness needs to grasp itself. This is an active function of consciousness, not some passive "truth" that you just get handed to you or hit your head against like a brick wall. Truth is not a reductionist thing. Truth requires extreme Consciousness to grasp. It's a very high order capacity that you don't even know you have yet. Truth needs to be comprehended. Stop strawmanning everything I say by parroting that. You're just parroting Buddhist dogma at me. You're not actually thinking for yourself! What I'm talking about has nothing to do with "craving more experiences". This is the biggest bullshit that Buddhists parrot.

It is a subtle framework which constructs a paradigm that will limit your awakenings and access to the full gamut that consciousness is capable of. Nonduality is not contradicted per se. Of course reality is ONE, but there's way more to consciousness than just that. Just don't forget, gravity's a bitch

Yes, that's the challenge of this situation. On the one hand I must allow for diversity of opinion and perspective. I have no interest in being a tyrant here. On the other hand I cannot allow people to run wild with ideas about Awakening/Consciousness/God which I know are untrue. Which makes for a challenging balancing act. In the end you have to decide whether you trust my leadership or not. Ultimately this issue is not avoidable. You can't really follow a set of teachings if you fundamentally disagree with the creator of those teachings or you think he's leading you in the wrong direction. You can't sign up for a meditation retreat and then also hold that the guy who organized the retreat is deluded and wrong about the most fundamental of things. If you think that I am fundamentally wrong about Awakening/Consciousness/God, then don't waste your time playing games with me. Go be with a teacher or community where your views align. Don't waste time. Do whatever you feel you need to wake up and get closer to Truth/God. There is no use hanging around here struggling against me. I am here because I cannot leave this place without shutting the whole thing down. You, on the other hand, can find any number of spiritual communities which will fit your values and worldview if this one does not. There is no point in following a spiritual leader who you do not respect. If you truly believe that I'm bullshitting you, then you shouldn't follow me and you shouldn't be here. The reason I kick some people off this forum is when I see that they clearly do not respect my leadership but stick around here just to play games and argue. This is a waste of time and energy so eventually I will kick such people out. Not only for my sake, but for theirs. Do not waste your time in unproductive argumentation. The goal is not to argue, it's to increase consciousness. I teach very radical things which are not for most people. My teachings do not align with many conventional, happy-go-lucky spiritual schools which seek to be noncontroversial, nonconfrontational, and "all-accepting". I am not spiritually "all-accepting". There are worse and better ways to do spirituality. Traditionally the way this worked is, you find a guru who you deeply respect, and then you follow his leadership. And if you think you know better than him, then he cannot be your guru. Now, I don't really consider myself anyone's guru. I don't want to be your guru. I want you to think for yourself. But some baseline of respect for my authority is necessary because what I do is lead people to consciousness. And I think I do a decent job of it. If you disagree, then don't interact with me. It's that simple. I am not going to waste time on people who do not want my leadership when there are thousands of other people who want it. We are not on the same level. I am in a leadership position. You are free to reject my leadership. But then we have no more business talking because I am certainly not going to be following you. Nothing personal. I wouldn't follow the Buddha himself. I teach things that nobody else teaches. It's up to you to decide whether you want such teachings. I do take responsibility for what I say. In this case the issue isn't one of my word choice, it's more fundamental. Even if I chose my words to be the sweetest ones possible, the core issue would remain: people here who think they understand Awakening/Consciousness/God, but actually don't. And there's no nice way to tell them that. They will fight it tooth and nail because that's how the illusion is maintained. But at the same time I cannot sit by and allow such misinformation to flourish on a platform that I am responsible for. This does not mean that I cannot be sweeter or kinder. I can make improvements there. But my core positions on the nature of Truth/God/Love/Awakening/Consciousness -- this is not negotiable for me, I am very certain about these things after all the work I've done, and I have a low tolerance for spiritual bullshit. It's very clear to me when spiritual people do not know what they're talking about but have convinced themselves that they do. Of course you can always claim that I am wrong/deluded. In which case we just have a fundamental disagreement which will never be resolved through talk. In which case, go do it your way. But don't waste time arguing with me, trying to convince me of something. No human is every going to change my positions on Consciousness. Because all of my positions on Consciousness from this point on can only be grounded in my personal experience, not anything human. No amount of talking with any human will ever reveal to you the true nature of Consciousness.