Consilience

You once mentioned in a blog post the importance of recognizing sameness and difference. In this example, spirits and science are both imaginary, but the difference would be that science has a predictability to it. So what is the difference between an imagination that’s not predictable or consistent (spirits) vs an imagination that is predictable (science)? Perhaps the majority of humanity isnt in a state of consciousness where spirits could enact predictable consistency, whereas if our baseline was more like NN-DMT, maybe spirits would be our normal.

Thank you for the post! This is fantastic

The Mind Illuminated by John Yates has given me incredible results regarding concentration. Much better than a standard meditation technique like mantra, do nothing, open awareness etc.

Maybe. I think it was his intense interest and massive amount of hours contemplating though. From what he discussed, it sounded like consciousness work helped his martial more than martial helped his consciousness work. The thing is, if you’re suppressing emotions in the name of martial mastery then I doubt you’d awaken to what Love is. His energy in person did not make me feel love or compassion. While he had a very lighthearted joyous presence and I was thoroughly appreciative of learning from him, I wouldn’t say I felt love from him. Not in the way Ive felt it on mushrooms or LSD. Not in the way Ive felt about Leo discussing it or other teachers like Adyashanti or Ruper Spira, for example. The paradox is that the masculine and feminine are one and yet you can become conscious of one and not the other. Just as you can become conscious of infinity or nothing even though both are technically the same. Ralston is an amazing teacher, and I think having his masculine approach to sorta kick the seeker’s ass is great. But... Personally Im not afraid to criticize and analyze his approach, especially when Ive had direct experiences of reality which no other word could do justice other than Love. Beauty, acceptance, love, and compassion were not mentioned at his Experience the Nature of Being workshop, and yet in my experience Being cannot be fully acknowledged or understood unless one uses words like Beauty, acceptance, compassion, love in addition to emptiness, nothing, infinity, or void. It’s all one, but you cant suppress or exclude all of these facets. You CAN, but you’d be missing what Being actually is.

One of the interesting things I heard at his workshop is an important principle for martial work which is being unemotional. Brendan was explaining how not letting yourself get emotional is an extremely effective principle for fighting. I wondered since then whether this approach towards martial mastery impeded Ralston’s understanding of what Love is.

I was going to a store with a friend, as we stopped at a traffic light, we heard this big pickup truck honk at what looked to be a homeless man. He was in the middle of the street slowly walking towards the intersection, dressed in a bathrobe. Within 30 seconds, 4 cop cars showed up. They all got out and started yelling at the man to get out of the street, which seemed to provoke him. The homeless man turned from looking confused to now somewhat aggressive and started walking towards the cops waving his arms up in the air. I hear 3 loud bangs, and I watch his body drop to the ground. News article later confirmed he was dead. Im not entirely sure how to process this or even how I feel or what I think... It was just a really intense moment and I haven’t had any comparable experiences in my life thus far. Ive experienced traumatic events of various kinds, but nothing so visceral. One thing I will say though, it makes me feel privileged to live in such a safe and comforting environment compared to various parts of the world. It felt like sharing would help. If anyone has any advice or input Im all ears.

This deserves to be featured.

Supposed to, but it doesn't always happen. This cop got put on paid administrative leave as the investigation took place. Apparently this guy had a knife so there doens't seem to be any big consequences or repercussions. For the most part, our cops are good, but like.. it's not uncommon for cops to get away with things either. They are kinda the authority figures and with all authority based on ego, corruption seems inevitable. Much stronger human rights than a lot of other places around the world though, but there's still much work to be done. Just a general update, I did a holotropic breathwork session and had a pretty big release. As weird as this sounds, I discovered that I felt frustrated at my complete lack of ability to prevent this. I felt pathetic just watching as this man got brutally gunned down within seconds of the police arriving... And I wished I could have prevented it. In a way, I somehow feel responsible for this dude's death which I know sounds completely irrational, but emotions aren't always rational. Overall I wanted to help, I wished this man could just get help, but I wasn't able to, I wasn't strong enough. I also felt horrible for the cop that killed him, because I clearly saw how the act was out of fear. The officer shot him so quickly, he panicked. It felt like I felt the panic and felt the pain this officer is going to have to live with after killing someone like that. I felt sadness for the child that watched with his father (saw the father get interviewed on the local news), how the kid is going to have to grow up with this scar and how the father is as well. I also felt the fear of being killed myself, and how utterly vulnerable I really was and am. I also wish I could have shielded this situation from my friend, in fact, everyone. This is all what the emotional body wanted. Today I felt extremely lethargic and unmotivated to do anything, but after doing the breathwork I feel a lot better somehow. Somehow acknowledging the emotions, no matter how irrational they seem, really helped me let them go, or start to let them go. Healing probably is a process and will take time. I've never seriously participated in breathwork until tonight, but given the immediacy of its result, I'll probably continue to do it. Thanks again for everyone's thoughts, ideas, insights, etc. I do sincerely appreciate it.

Yes! That's what I feel too. The more the mind starts unknowing that which it never actually knew, the more THIS becomes clear. Man there's so much to un-know

??

@VeganAwake It feels like THIS keeps getting deeper and deeper the more its observered. Relative to time, 2 years ago THIS was still here exactly as is, yet unknown for me. Relative to time, 2 years to now, THIS is observed more clearly, with no end in sight. If that makes sense. So the more time spent on this path, the more THIS appears. Yet.. why does it feel progressively more experienced? So then my question is more like... perhaps more understanding is unknowable, but is there a more direct experience of THIS available? A deeper more penetrating experience available, to YOU?

@Nahm Thank you for the wisdom ??

Do you think there’s still deeper insights to be had? Essentially deeper awakenings.

The reason I'm asking all of these follow-up questions is that it feels like the best approach towards understanding God is though radical open-mindedness, which would include the possibility of paradoxes being the nature of reality, in some way shape or form. I think the fact that you're contemplating this is great though, it's a really powerful and interesting approach towards understanding reality. I think so at least... Paradoxes are weird. One of my favorites is, "This sentence is false."

It feels like maybe that's a human centered projection onto God? Like... why would it be satisfying or unsatisfying? How could I, as a human, know what satisfies God or doesn't? And from direct experience... even my own existence as a human is a paradox, more specifically a strange loop. Look into "I am a Strange Loop" by Douglas Hofstadter. So if the existence of myself, as an individual, is a paradox, being totally self referential and grounded in absolutely nothing... why couldn't reality/consciousness be the same way? If God can be satisfied with the egoic self being a paradox, what would make God dissatisfied with consciousness being another paradox/paradoxical?

Let's just say for the sake of argument, it is a paradox. Reality/God is paradoxical. Why would this be a problem?

Ive discussed this in other posts but here’s the jist: it’s both, and neither simultaneously. Both can be observed in experience. Both are illusions. Both are available experiences which can be observed. Free will is no free will... and the mind will never be satisfied with that conclusion.

Yes... the timing for my friend and I was so weird. All the events of that day were timed so perfectly for us to watch, it didn’t feel accidental. It felt like reality gut checking me. Like.. “look truth in the eyes, do you still see love? Do you still see beauty? Do you still see safety? Do you still feel fearless?” And such a powerful observation because yeah, knowing, routine, familiarity, all create a perceived sense of safety that’s not actually there. Life could be taken away at any moment... and that lesson is sinking in deeper and deeper. It feels like there is a call to action... which basically amounts to accepting the way the world is without losing empathy and genuine human to human understanding. To grow my compassion for the collective situation humanity finds ourselves in. To understand my own position in life and how grateful I am to be in a position where I can do something like consciousness work. Life is brutal but it’s not often I see brutality firsthand. So... this felt like a harsh lesson that the Universe wanted to be acknowledged if I really care about something like Truth. Thank you for your input.

This is a great question. Ime meditating for 30 minutes twice is not as effective as 1 hour. The effort required for sitting twice as long seems to give me non linear results... such that the 1 hour is more effective in the long run. Doing 30 minutes x2 is still great and if that’s all that time permits, it’s the next best thing. But there seems to be something about sitting for that long straight and facing the extra boredom or sinking that much deeper into the meditation.

Im not positive. I just watched the news and it said 911 was called because he had a knife. So perhaps I missed it. It’s kind of a blur in my memory now. @Mikael89 Thank you. Like I said though, I dont feel safer. Instead, I recognized my relative safety. Until today, Ive been extremely disconnected from violence all things considered. And for that I feel grateful. My heart does go out to this man and any potential family members he has though. Im not sure if there were or werent weapons involved... I didn’t see any but the news report says otherwise so idk. The thing is, this one isolated event doesn’t change my situation. Feeling less safe doesn’t change anything. Just gotta stay extremely vigilant and aware at all times but letting my overall fear increase is not the lesson to be learned here. At least that’s not the lesson I feel.

You’re analogies dont really make sense. Also notice that I didnt say it made me feel safer. I said it was safe COMPARED to other parts of the world. Interesting how reactionary you got over a word I didnt use and completely misinterpreted my post. Safety here is relative. For example, have you seen footage of Syria, for example? Thousands upon thousands of people dealing with trauma much more horrible than anything I witnessed today. Was this act awful? Of course. I feel a great sadness for that apparent homeless man. It felt like a cruel and inhumane violence that was unneeded. But when I think about the collective lives of humanity, I hit the jack pot all things considered... it would be unwise to not acknowledge this, imo. I feel privileged to not live in a war torn country. I feel privileged to have a safe home to sleep in. I feel privileged to not have to live near warlords. I feel privileged that I dont witness violence regularly unlike thousands upon thousands of others. If you take this perspective as insanity, fine, but notice that this is all a projection of your ego. Watching someone die in front of you has the tendency to recontextualize your life, at least it did for me. It also represented how much more work our current society has to do with both collective mental healthcare, such as, why is it so unavailable for those who need it most? It also showed me how bad homelessness can be for people and also showed a level of police brutality that is alarming. Trust me, it feels fucked up and I feel the trauma forming in my body. It will be some time to process. But on the other hand, I would be lying if this event didnt create a recontextualization for my life. I am truly lucky to be where I am in life. If that seems insane to you, go live in a SD Stage Red/Blue country and get back to me.

@Anna1 True but I don’t actually know what the official reporting will be... Im going to be watching the local news tonight to see if there are any repercussions mentioned. But I could easily see the officer not receiving any punishment, seems to be a trend here in the states. I agree with your assessment on the training. Thank you for you input.

This is great. So many great insights, thank you for sharing ??

@Anna1 It didn’t seem necessary. He didnt have any weapons or anything, nor was he interacting with anyone other than blocking cars. It felt like there were alternatives law enforcement could have used rather than using guns. What was even weirder was that they used assault rifles to take him down. Maybe there’s more to the situation I dont know, ie what this man had been up to in the area prior than this incident, that caused the police to immediately use lethal force. It still felt unnecessarily violent though.

So so interesting this is your interpretation of actualized.org. Tbh I don't resonate with this post at all. My life has overall dramatically improved since taking on this consciousness work, specifically with using the principles discussed by actualized.org. But two of the most crucial points I always keep I mind is the map is map the territory and don’t use one source. What Leo talks about in his videos aint it, and I dont only learn from Leo. This post seems like what would happen if someone didn’t balance theory vs the practices. It’s one thing to binge watch Leo’s content, it’s another to spend the bulk of your time meditating, contemplating, doing yoga, doing psychedelics and integrating your insights into your specific life as an individual. This balancing act of theory and practice is HUGE. Sorry that this resource seems to have created so much negativity for you to write something like this. It’s not for everyone fosho. Farewell ❤️