tsuki

On the symbolic level, Christ is the self. He is the embodiment of Logos, a man that subjects himself to the will of the Father without detachment from his humanity. The nature of Christ is dual. He is fully God and fully man. He is one with God, but he is also human through his purpose, which is to be the pathway to God for others. Through Christ, God embraces and elevates humanity. I think that viewing Christ through the lens of his death on the cross as a martyr should not be the main focus of worship. It is merely the testimony that she walked the talk and fulfilled the prophecies. It makes him legitimate as a Christian Messiah, but not necessarily a role model to follow. The crucifixion is also a symbol for ego transcendence. The five wounds relate to rejection of personal will (limbs), and acceptance of self-harm of others through defiance to God (heart). Crown of thorns symbolizes the double function of the mind: understanding and egotism.

Dr Nicole LePera is a psychologist informed in enlightenment. She has her own youtube channel linked above, as well as instagram community. I was introduced to her content by @DrewNows.

There is no such thing as no-thing. To ask "Why is there something rather than nothing" is similar to asking "Why is the Moon made of cheese rather can carrots?". Nothing is not a thing. Nothing cannot possibly be, that is what it "is". On the existential level, you can ask "why anything exists?" and the answer is God! How anything exists? The answer is: Love! What loves that something (everything)? The answer is Nothing! God is so selfless that it does not exist and it loves so hard that things do exist.

Aren't you having fun, @mandyjw? Nothing is not-a-thing. It isn't.

I was so guilty of this... I used to share these paradoxical quips (and still sometimes do) when I'm in a certain mental space of inner disconnection. I do that when I'm high on structural understanding, but very low on empathy. They are not deliberate attempts to "own the discussion", they point directly to the core of the problem with the intent to illuminate it. The problem with this "solution" is that it's irrelevant. It's like giving a person a ladder that has only the first and the last step and none in between. We're relative creatures, we don't work this way. It's all contextual and we first and foremost want to be felt, not understood. So, here's a quip for this discussion: Meet the relative as the relative. Boom, thread closed. (Just kidding).

"Better" and "worse" are relative to your agenda. "Final" awakening is when there is no agenda because there is no self. From the POV of enlightenment, there is nothing better and there is nothing worse.

I'm a big fan of self-studying but it has its limitations. There are reasons to have a teacher apart from being disciplined by someone. Studying all by yourself has the disadvantage that you don't know how well you will be able to apply the studied knowledge practically. Even if you practice by yourself, you do not know what society expects from you and therefore don't know the market value of your skills. Other than that if you study by yourself, you introduce your own bias into the studies you do. If you study in a group, you can triangulate each others blindspots and self-biases with multiple perspectives.

"All teachings are relative" and they are relative from two "ends", so to speak. Not only they are relative to the teacher, they are also relative to the student. Even if you had many deep mystical experiences, they may not mean a thing to a regular person. Not just because a regular person is a devil, etc, but because different things speak to different people. Is there an objective criterion of teachings that would allow us to sort them into absolute hierarchy? I wonder what would postmodernists say. I understand that, but then again - maybe the fact that he aims for a big audience is the trade-off he has to make? The symbols he has to use must be much more widely recognizable so the quality of his transmission would obviously decrease. Not saying that he makes this choice deliberately - he may be a victim of his success. That would make him a tragic character, now wouldn't it? If he were conscious of it, it would make him a martyr, a bodhisattva . Is it really better to have a few, select, fully enlightened individuals than a mob of intellectuals ripe with knowledge, just waiting for their proper mystical experience? I just can't understand why you're behaving as if it was a contest between you and him. He's like a fertilizer for your flowers. And you fight devils as if they had existence apart from the energy you give them when you fight. Leo, I don't want to be cheeky or anything, but God has no opposites. Ego is a part of the design, that is the enlightenment of psychology.

You mean, like, zero? Not a single peak of all the enlightenment mountains? Maybe there is an enlightenment peak that is accessed through psychology? Yes, I agree. But don't you do that as well? All teachings are partial and lead straight to hell because if they aim at any audience, then they are based on objective meaning. If you don't admit the possibility that some hells are less contracted than others, then what is the point of teaching at all? I think that given how large Peterson's audience is, the hell he's leading into is not all that bad. The problem is that the solution that is proposed does not work in modern day society. It never had, It is aimed at select few individuals that are predisposed to this path. It's extremely masculine. Enlightenment has always been in short supply, just like Peterson claims. ___________________________ PS. I do understand why you're calling people devils, but as a technical term - demons would be more appropriate. Demons demonize, but devils? Hmmm...

For reference: to Peterson, evil is not just selfishness that stems from finitude. The tension within the human condition is brought upon because of polarity between finite and infinite s/he experiences. This is the cause of suffering in life and it has no obvious payoff. He sees two ways to address this problem other than suicide - one is by embracing meaning through conquering fear and the other is nihilism. Peterson thinks that when people choose nihilism, they basically rot with resentment and evil is the outward expression of that. It is the deliberate destruction of happiness of other people. Relatively speaking, in terms of human psychology, I think that he is right. Contrary to popular opinion here, I think that he actually does understand postmodernism, but he falls into believing that it is somehow universally evil. It is only evil in his own definition of evil, as it guides people into destroying meaning while giving no alternative. To him, this makes nihilism the only way of addressing suffering and since as a psychiatrist he's been treating people for that - it's no wonder that he hates postmodernists. I think that despite his multi-perspectival (yellow) thinking, he does not appreciate the importance of stages of development. I believe that he is spiral-aware as he brought up Piaget on multiple occasions, but he fails to see that postmodernism is needed at later stages of development. Given how much effort he's put into battling it, I don't think that it's likely that he will ever embrace it. I remember hearing this quote and I'm not sure, but I think that it comes from this video: In terms of human psychology, exploring the "humans infinite capacity for evil" is nothing else than shadow work. It was always clear to me that Peterson is not against enlightenment - on the contrary - he advocates FOR life that guides towards it. The tension point between Leo and Peterson's teaching is the goal they are aiming for. Leo does not respect the relative domain and goes full god-mode, masculine style.

Hey @Leo Gura. In the beginning of your blog post video, you mention the historical texts about Jesus. Were you talking about the Gospels, or did you read any external texts? If you have the titles handy, I would appreciate if you shared them.

Yesterday I had a deep prayer/meditation session that exploded into a surge of creativity. Since yesterday, I'm starting to feel weird tension around my jaw when I keep breathing/praying deeply throughout the day. When it starts bothering me, I notice that I would very much like to have it relaxed, open. It's very easy to notice the performance of my mind throughout the day thanks to this prayer. When I'm tired or focused externally, the words become smeared, like coming out of a low quality speaker. They also require conscious attention to maintain.

It's not just that replacing sex with masturbation to porn is unhealthy for a relationship. My point was that any contact with porn has negative consequences, regardless of whether you have sex with your partner, or not. Pornstars have a certain way of presenting themselves: looks, behavior, submissiveness, etc that are engineered to cater to the widest audience possible. By jacking off to them, you are training your brain with a very powerful stimulant to expect such behavior from women during sex. Of course, it should be said that if your partner accepts that and finds this behavior enjoyable, then it is absolutely fine. On the other hand, I would speculate that pornstars are not typical women and they mostly value money and derive self-worth from their attractiveness. By framing your partner into exhibiting their behavior, I wouldn't be surprised if you were damaging her self-esteem unintentionally.

The word "addiction" has a big load to it and it depends on what kinds of needs you are satisfying. If you simply have a high sex drive, then I think that satisfying it with masturbation is perfectly fine. However, if you masturbate in order to satisfy your other needs (such as companionship, or admiration) by injecting your brain with a hormone cocktail, then I believe that you are in effect dysregulating your body. Other than that, in my experience, watching porn has a negative effect on my sexual performance because it sets unrealistic standards for sex. These standards include looks, behavior of partners and the general outline for what sex is supposed to be like. I find that conditioning my mind to follow this outline is limiting and "sips through" to other aspects of my relationship. It introduces unnecessary, unconscious, judgement and creates emotional strain. Another point is that supposedly (haven't investigated it myself), porn industry thrives on sexual exploitation of women and is common grounds for rape and abuse. By indulging in it, you are supporting such behaviors. I remember @Shin mentioning it and he may want to chime in. Obviously, it has nothing to do with God-given morality to me, but I acknowledge that many Christians may be sexually repressed and show their frustration by being vocal about such topics. I find it to be very unfortunate.

I think I finally found the correct alignment of breath in the prayer. It's funny because I'm starting to lose the distinction between breath-in and breath-out.

It was a long road for me to bridge the subjective and the objective. The thoughts you have, subjectively, can be shared and agreed upon. Multiple perspectives, when shared, can converge into one, coherent, useful explanation/model that guides behavior of multiple agents. That would not be possible without external/objective reality. Just don't confuse the map with the territory.

Today was the first time I woke up crying from a dream. The dream reconnected me with the events that happened when I was fighting to get my manager fired. In the dream, I took the initiative to stand up to the management when people were complaining about overtime. They didn't listen so I spoke up and the atmosphere soured up so much that I realized that it's a dream and woke up. I started praying for an emotional release and it came in the morning, when I remembered that I had to give my cat to my parents because my wife is allergic to fur.

Yesterday's couple's therapy session wrecked me. I feel like shit. Unfortunately, the way this therapist conducts his practice is like grist for the mill to my superego. It is so ridiculous that I feel worse for not being playful enough.

Ah yes, if you found LOVE then that's awesome.

Are you Leo's spokesman? (I'm not being sarcastic here) Do you have any information that is not publicly available? I'm asking because his posts in the beginning of this thread paint a completely different picture. Even now I'm feeling like I'm dragging things down by speaking up: Here's a different context for you:

I've been vocal against Leo's decisions in the past and openly disagreed on many topics with him. I find some of his behaviors towards members juvenile at best and aggressive at worst. I believe that this comes from his false sense of superiority and arrogance common to us, men in their 30s. That is why I'm highly suspicious of accusations of devilry and purges such as these. And I do appreciate how difficult it is to moderate an online community because I did just that for many years when I was in my early 20s. Oh no, please. It's enough to bear witness to just one me on some days .

I would say that one's capacity to recognize one's finitude is what gives birth to one's humanity. Evil is relative, yes of course! But even if you are actualized enough to forgive from a distance, most people aren't! Isn't it lonely this way? A sage would never come up to you and shove wisdom down your throat precisely because of that. It is not that s/he is too valuable for "swines", but to protect his/her humanity. The decisions he made were relative to the cultural context he lived in. I believe that what he decided for brought less suffering than what he decided against. He was a wise man, I read the parts of his Meditations. It was one of the earliest books I looked into when I was physically free of my parents' influence. I'm a bigger fan of Seneca though.

I think that these "two elements of taking responsibility " are artificially created (not actual), so I'm going to say both (a) and (b). The mind-content of the murderer is not the primary cause IMO. What is, is the broken heart and constant suffering they are going through that led them to believe (attachment to a thought) that they have to be violent to "fight" for their survival. A "The world is brutal, so I have to be brutal or I will die" sort of thing. "If I'm not the top dog in this place, I will suffer", not realizing how much they suffer already because they forgot or never experienced unconditional love. In this context (which is partial, obviously), the God's will is the will to survive which is biological. The individual person has the capacity to choose their own thoughts, but it is SOOO DIFFICULT if you are constantly suffering. This suffering is not always just a lack of wisdom, some people are traumatized by their environment (culture, parents, etc). The most important question though is, how does a suffering person come to a conclusion to introspect and change his/her ways? That is the question that points into direction of the soul, the "thing" that mediates between what we feel and what we think. In this light, the mass murderer has not even begun to be a person, a somebody that is capable of deciding how their interior world looks like. S/he is wholly identified with their biology and will to live. That happens when the inner child gets murdered before the adult dies or is even born.