Al Khidr

Incredibly informative. Thank you for posting. What strikes me when learning more and more about the Buddha is how humble and shy he was in terms of making definitive cosmological, ontological and metaphysical assertions despite his superior spiritual status. So different from people now who do psychadelic drugs and then blabber on for hours about the "true nature of reality" (TM Leo Gura) thinking they have it all worked out. I recall Shinzen Young making a similar point about how one should be humble in making definitive statements about reality, cosmology and metaphysics. Great advice IMO since in the end all we can be 100% sure of is our own phenomenological and subjective experience. Making grand claims about God and reality seems so childish and immature and is one of the biggest turn offs of actualized.org, personally speaking

Is that why you're milking your followers for 4k every month? So that they have less money and can advance themselves spiritually?

There's a Prophetic tradition popular in Sufi circles where God says: " I was a secret and I wished to be known, so I created creation " I think that succinctly but perfectly encapsulates my thoughts on this subject

Fully agree with this. There's a concerted effort by factions in the US government (Pompeo and others) to blame the crisis on China and take the spotlight off the government's terrible mishandling of the crisis. Hate crimes against Asian Americans have been surging lately and like you said we all should do our part in rejecting this hate ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/evangerstmann/2020/04/04/irony-hate-crimes-surge-against-asian-americans-while-they-are-on-the-front-lines-fighting-covid-19/#130444da3b70 ) Coming from a muslim background I remember the media/government blitz to demonize and dehumanize muslims post 9/11 to manufacture consent for US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm very conscious to not get reeled into hating Chinese (under the virus pretext) just because they're a geopolitical threat to US hegemony.

@Surfingthewave All the best to you in your spiritual journey. I'm not a very active poster but I've followed Leo for a few years and tbh I concur with what you have said. All of Leo's videos these days are (and have been for a while) essentially just him bloviating about his esteemed spiritual status, how spiritual practices are useless for him, how no other spiritual teacher can even come close to him (with the obligatory dig at Shinzen Young) and just proclaiming 'I am GOD' at the camera ad nauseam. Objections raised always brushed away with inane philosophical/phenomenological and ontological arguments. All in all, just worthless ego masturbation disguised as spirituality

@ardacigin I just wanted to say thank you for your lucid, informative and highly readable posts on this forum. You are the reason I signed up here. I'm also a fellow TMI practitioner (usually practicing around stages 3-5) and after rapid initial progress and even entering jhana states once or twice before I even knew what they were, my practice seems to have hit a wall the past 8-9 months despite doing two retreats and maintaining a daily practice for the most part. Also the Culadasa scandal fucked me up and I almost quit altogether but I've gotten past that and am focusing solely on the practice. It was a great wake up call with regards to putting people on pedestals and making saints out of humans. Please keep up the informative posts and I'd recommend doing more TMI related posts, I'm sure there are many others here that appreciate it as much as me.