Consilience

Because reality is literally subjective experience Notice the only way for reality to ever “be” to an individual is through direct, subjective experience. That’s all that has ever existed for you and all that could ever exist.

@ardacigin Your other post inspired me to look into this guy’s work, so much so that I went on ahead and invested into his book The Mind Illuminated. It feels like Im finally starting to build consistent progress with meditation. I severely downplayed the importance of stable attention when it comes to contemplating reality or the self. And moreover, severely overestimated my concentration ability. I think investing the time required to master attention will pay off down the road, thanks for bringing this guy up on the forum. His work has been very helpful thus far.

Beautiful

Look into the hard problem of consciousness. Notice that everything in your direct experience is consciousness, including brains. Sight, taste, touch, sound, smell, mind, awareness, everything that is form, is some manifestation of consciousness. The idea that there is physical reality is itself an IDEA which is mind, which as we just discussed, is a manifestation or expression of consciousness. Physical reality has never been proven, nor could it ever be since literally everything we experience IS consciousness. Just because brains correspond with experience, this does not entail that they are the experience or even responsible for the creation of the experience. This is basic logic, correlation =\= causation. Moreover, since brains themselves are consciousness, it means that brains are consciousness interacting with itself. Does mass create gravity? Why does every particle of mass have a gravitational force associated with it? You could say, “oh mass creates the gravity!” But this is making a metaphysical jump. We only “know” that mass is correlated with gravitational fields and these can be calculated using mathematics. To say that mass creates the gravity is to make a claim (the mind) about the fundamental nature od existence that is ultimately just a belief, since such a claim could never be proven. Similarly, we only know brains correlate with consciousness insofar there seems to be a relationship, just like with gravity and mass. However, to make the claim that conscious is produced by the brain is to make a metaphysical jump that extends beyond the limits of honest epistemology. There’s your logic. Notice how quickly you’ll want to counter argue everything I say though, and point to gaps in the explanation. This is ego (more conscious manifestation). Ultimately you must become conscious that all that there is is consciousness, including brains. I hope this helped.

The body is dependent on physical nourishment. YOU are not.

I appreciate how blunt you are with these God-weed threads.

If Im meditating 1 hour per day doing self inquiry right now, would you recommend stopping the self inquiry and investing that time into concentration practice? Another question I had, more metaphysical, what exactly is attention? Is it awareness? And like... what is the mechanism of attention? Who or what is creating this attention around a particular object? It almost feels like concentration is a manifestation of ego.

Great post. The only thing id like to add is that the duality between introspective and extrospective awareness is the mind superimposing onto direct experience. The “inner” and “outer” world are actually one, not separate, and it’s important to recognize the nature of this distinction fundamentally being of the mind, like all distinctions (I think). Literally your mind and emotions is in the same location as a tree, it’s trippy once the insight sinks in haha.

Notice how his approach is triggering your ego. The truth is the truth regardless of which language is trying to speak about it. The language one uses is utterly meaningless, on the absolute level. You don’t need sanskrit to understand truth, which was his point.

I felt that Leo was spot on with his description of Zen and Buddhism not being a scalable path for humanity. The deeper I go into this work, the more I feel like despite our existential nature being total infinite consciousness/God/whatever words you want to use, there is beauty in the single life we all have. Our singular lives are so fucking infinitely unique.. it’s mind-boggling how rare and sacred the uniqueness actually is. It’s as if the whole cosmos and our existential nature = infinity/1 and our individual human life = 1/infinity. In the end though, infinity and 0 actually are the same, and in this way, the single life of every being and perspective is just as infinite as the universe itself through it’s total uniqueness. This is also the bridge between life purpose and enlightenment and it made me really happy hearing Leo discuss this connection. It’s been something Ive been contemplating a lot. There’s nothing wrong with Zen, it is the path for some and has so much wisdom, but if humanity is to awaken at large, we need something else.

I thought you were planning on doing a 100g trip with truffles though after you had already made multiple posts about how you were conscious that you were god

There isn’t absolute proof of the “physical world” either though. In fact, it’s an epistemic jump to even conclude that there is a physical reality at all. Just something to keep in mind.

I was only asking because I am going to two of the 4 (can only afford 2) and was wondering if I had remembered you going. Felt weird that you ignored such a straightforward yes or no question. But you’re right, you're not here to answer comments. Thanks anyways.

Ill take that as a no

Relative to those governments providing the space for such work to be undertaken.

Think about what you just said. History has shown this is clearly false, unless you’re trying to bring non-dual relativism into the discussion, in which case there’s no point in replying. Also speaking from personal experience as someone with a chronic illness and requires a functioning healthcare system to keep my body alive, politicians can very much influence the quality of my life. Obama raising the age for individuals staying on their parent’s healthcare has been pivotal for my early career and life purpose development.

What would happen if the whole of America shared your opinion, and no one voted?

This is a great post and awesome insights. Are you going to Ralston’s fall workshop? I feel like I have a memory of you saying you were but I can’t remember.

I'm a Personal Trainer/Weekend Fitness Director (I manage the training team on the weekends) at a big box gym. I fell hook line and sinker into the student debt cash cow and graduated with a two degrees. One in Kinesiology and one in Nutrition and $100k in student debt. Current plan is to become a project manager, fully integrate and master Stage Orange as I work in a business setting, while paying off loans. I also am intreguid by learning how to manage micro and macro systems simultaneously, which a project manager would certainly need to be capable of. Plus it pays a hell of a lot more than PT. Even though I love health and fitness, it's not my life purpose. My Life Purpose is to help others become conscious of their authentic self by essentially guiding them towards deeper and deeper levels of self understanding on emotional, mental, physical and spiritual levels. I'd like to find a way to open up a retreat like setting that does meditation, contemplation, and perhaps even psychedelic retreats once psychedelics are fully legal, and create workshops. But this is a long term, 15-20+ years down the line goal that requires a shit ton of personal development on a multitude of levels.

I died lmfao

I have to second The Book of Not Knowing. Very dense but crazy insights into the nature of the mind, psychology and consciousness.

The fact that you cant self reflect and see how furthers my point. You projecting, and casting judgement and then providing shallowing rationalization for why... all of that is ego dude.

So much ego. So so so much ego.

Real talk, if you’ve never tried psychedelics, how could you possibly know or have this opinion? One of the cornerstones of this work is radical openmindedness.

Working out and getting your heart rate into the 75-85% range for 30 minutes, 3-5x per week has phenomenal healing effects and promotes energy. Various breathing techniques help too. If you’re taking shallow breaths throughout the day, that’s going to affect your energy levels as well. If you drink caffeine, id stop this too, as their are going to be energetic consequences with chronic caffeine intake. Your body is capable of providing energy on its own. If you smoke weed frequently, this can also create lack of energy. Ive also personally found that if Im dehydrated, I have less energy than when I am hydrated. Finally, 60 mins of meditation per day also has helped me with my energy levels, surprisingly (in addition to being the tool for investigating reality and the self). Also sleep!! This one is so huge.