White

@Dogsbestfriend Yes brad makes assumptions. His assumptions are resonant with many long time non dual practitioners. Why mess around going to the organ grinder when the monkey has already trodden the path for us? You want to have a stab at re-inventing spiral dynamics? Or would you just rather go with it and check out of it makes sense with other more experience People?

@Dogsbestfriend Ok. But what about this dude here? 40 year Zen master, no messing with this guy, was at stage green before his first enlightenment experience, and stayed in the absolute state for 23 years. Even Ken Wilber one of the sharpest non dual researchers we have says there is no such a state. Yet so many people on here are beginner's yet want to believe that abiding in a permanent non dual state is going to save them. Even Ramana Maharshi said abiding in Samadhi doesn't solve anything. Michael James, one of the most knowledgeable scholars on Ramana Maharshi says there is no such a thing as abiding in God head.

@tentacion You should practice self inquiry and you will experience for yourself what is being pointed to.

@Ether Underneath the positive and negative is a quality and it's essential nature is one of positivity. It's just has no opposite because its beyond the play of opposites. If it were not positive in nature then none of us would bother chasing it. What would be the point?

@blazed Ken Wilber says the states you have permeate your ego and become stages of development for the ego. This fits nicely with what you're saying. Which is what yellow does, it finds the connections between seemingly opposing or fragmented ideas.

Yes. I cant find any disagreement with what you are saying. Yes, a background knowing, stillness from practice, yes, while life is still happening and one is participating.

@blazed Yes to all of that. But I'll say I don't believe that anyone can be in an enlightened state constantly. When I say enlightened state I mean that Non dual God head state. I don't believe that's possible and I've heard many a credible teacher say likewise. But the state you're talking about is constant vigilance - and that for me is just the ability to distinguish the true from the false.

The pain-body wants to survive, just like every other entity in existence, and it can only survive if it gets you to unconsciously identify with it. It can then rise up, take you over, “become you,” and live through you. It needs to get its “food” through you. It will feed on any experience that resonates with its own kind of energy, anything that creates further pain in whatever form: anger, destructiveness, hatred, grief, emotional drama, violence, and even illness. So the pain-body, when it has taken you over, will create a situation in your life that reflects back its own energy frequency for it to feed on. Pain can only feed on pain. Pain cannot feed on joy. It finds it quite indigestible. Once the pain-body has taken you over, you want more pain. You become a victim or a perpetrator. You want to inflict pain, or you want to suffer pain, or both. There isn’t really much difference between the two. You are not conscious of this, of course, and will vehemently claim that you do not want pain. But look closely and you will find that your thinking and behavior are designed to keep the pain going, for yourself and others. If you were truly conscious of it, the pattern would dissolve, for to want more pain is insanity, and nobody is consciously insane. The pain-body, which is the dark shadow cast by the ego, is actually afraid of the light of your consciousness. It is afraid of being found out. Its survival depends on your unconscious identification with it, as well as on your unconscious fear of facing the pain that lives in you. But if you don’t face it, if you don’t bring the light of your consciousness into the pain, you will be forced to relive it again and again. The pain-body may seem to you like a dangerous monster that you cannot bear to look at, but I assure you that it is an insubstantial phantom that cannot prevail against the power of your presence. Some spiritual teachings state that all pain is ultimately an illusion, and this is true. The question is: Is it true for you? A mere belief doesn’t make it true. Do you want to experience pain for the rest of your life and keep saying that it is an illusion? Does that free you from the pain? What we are concerned with here is how you can realize this truth — that is, make it real in your own experience. So the pain-body doesn’t want you to observe it directly and see it for what it is. The moment you observe it, feel its energy field within you, and take your attention into it, the identification is broken. A higher dimension of consciousness has come in. I call it presence. You are now the witness or the watcher of the pain-body. This means that it cannot use you anymore by pretending to be you, and it can no longer replenish itself through you. You have found your own innermost strength. You have accessed the power of Now Source: New World Library

@MM1988 This makes a lot of sense to me

I agree he is helping people. But if you can't see the plant based vegan agenda mixed in then you're missing a trick. His work is clearly worked it's way into your consciousness, even to the point that you preptuate his propaganda with completely false statements like propaganda prɒpəˈɡandə/ noun 1. information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view. This conversation IS self actualizing. I hope you can see that

@Michael569 I don't want to be dismissive of your concerns but to say that dairy is the major cause of all diseases is not too wise. It's a bit of a straw man. Anyway if it works for you then I'm happy for you. Just be careful not to make bold claims that are not true. Just say you don't know.

@lmfao If you are interested I can show you research data done on observations of the 1st person experience of each stage. I already posted how blue thinks in the mega thread Leo started. Red will never be conscious in relation to the existing paradigms we already know about. Red is the first stage where awareness of itself arises, but it can't yet take 2 perspectives on anything. It can't inhabit a we space, it's completely bound to it's own impulses and ideas. It has absolutely no concept of another person. Back in the day it was the cutting edge, but now it's a very bad place to be stuck.

@lmfao The mistake you make is you think that there is such a thing as enlightenment. If you are interested then think of it another way - you can have nondual experience, but when you come out of it you will interpret it according to the stage you're actually at. Non dual experience can help you expand your framework and move up the ladder to more complex ways of making meaning.

You need a little bit of theory to set the context for your practice. When you become aware of who the thoughts are arising TOO you will always inevitably say "me". The next thing to have to do is ask yourself WHAT / WHO you are. You are always going to say you are this body. You can't deny that. Then you need to look at your assumption that you are this body IN LIGHT OF what you have learned through the prepatory theory exactly what awareness is NOT. This means you will come to a dead end. You will be wondering how the hell you are supposed to be awareness without a body but still no matter what you do you always discover that you think every time that you are this body. If you just keep doing that you will not be focused on externals anymore, you will consistently be questioning your own ego via your own ego. The ego is the one who is questioning itself. The quieter you become the more you sense non dual reality. When you get an experience you must reflect on it and integrate it. But never allow yourself to get stuck there. People who get stuck believe they have become enlightened permanently and then create all kinds of problems for themselves. Just keep practicing and you will no longer create problems for yourself because your ego is distracted with continuous questioning instead of trying to look outside for satisfaction.

Here's what Genpo has to say about making a concept of Being

This is very insightful. You understand that everyone is just doing what they do because that's their way of trying to find happiness.

What he's done is introjected a belief that enlightenment is about being aware of thought stories and now all he's apparently seeing is thought stories projected outside of himself. He has actually no integrated skills because of this, because all those life skills are now just labelled "thought stories" in his mind so he has basically split off all his mental faculties and thinks that he can trash another's boundary by forcing his truth down their throats. This is psychological abuse and it's a shtick.

I mean, seriously dude, no offence meant, but who the fuck do you think you are? I already told you I don't consider you enlightened or a teacher or even barely able to string a cohesive teaching together. I'm not your student. I did actually invite some coaching but then I retracted that because you told me that enlightenment is about studying enlightenment and that I should go watch Leo's videos. You have lost the plot. I wonder how you would get on at a real integral forum? You seem to get away with it here because this is a beginner's site.

You have no idea what enlightenment is about It's not about teachers ramming a teaching down others throats and telling them to give up their scepticism because they are not as enlightened as some frustrated chump who read a bit of spiral dynamics and watched a bunch of videos on YouTube and now thinks he's the big daddy. You're seriously fucking off the chart buddy and someone should stop you.

Maybe people dont want your help? You should learn to respect people's boundaries.

Is this your line when people don't agree wholesale with your bullshit? They are ignorant and the ones who believe you are smart? This is low level stuff. Even orange is aware of how abusive this is. If you can't see it then you're not even orange yet. Plus your impulsive. You send hit on your post and then go back and edit it because you can't control yourself. You cant act in a composed way and just write what you need to say in one go. Enlightened my ass

You come across as aggressive pushy and overy sensitive. Plus you write in an inflammatory way. There is no way you are self aware. Absolutely no way. You're a regular frustrated chump.

Now you're getting all shitty and taking it personally that I don't swallow your bullshit immediately.

I'm mocking you. I don't believe your stuff. I already said you're not enlightened because according to the research yellow and turquoise isn't enlightenment. It's only at unitive do people become aware of their meaning making. I don't think anyone can really become enlightened full time anyway. Spiral dynamics is a map of phenomena and what we know about what enlightenment is that it's not a state or station, it's not perceivable or conceivable. Enlightenment seems like a process more than anything else. I think you concocted your OWN story about what enlightenment is and have made that your identity. You don't sound very wise. You think other teachers don't teach awareness, or that they are ineffective because they are not getting scars from blowback. That doesn't sound too healthy to me..getting scars from people getting angry with you? You should know your place and only coach people who ask for your opinion.

Ok, but don't mislead people. I've already sussed Dr. Greger. His intentions are good but he is coming from an angle. The data on dairy is not conclusive. Yeah, a litre of cows milk is a lot. Yeah it may make you feel bad. Anything in excess can make you feel bad (especially those who don't have the lactase enzyme to be able to digest the stuff!). But saying that dairy is the leading cause of disease is going overboard. There is no issue in consuming moderate amounts of cheese, yoghurt, kifr, Greger uses very weak arguments to try to fit everything into his model of lifestyle medicine. Research his research, it's really inconclusive and just a story he has concocted with other plant based advocates.