r0ckyreed

Boundless infinity is what is meant by external world. It is the world of consciousness that existed before you were born and after your death. The external world is also you. The external world just means that there is a world beyond your current experience. If there are other minds, then there are other worlds. And they are all the Universe. If there was no external world, then what am I watching on a cops body cam footage? If there is no external world, then Leo doesn’t exist and neither does his house unless I am there. But the world doesn’t evolve around my ego.

I have been very lethargic and lazy today and was contemplating what meditation is. I came to the realization that meditation is not a doing but a being. Let me explain: In life, we are always doing something, and I started to notice myself meditating as another doing in that I would be "doing" meditation or performing a meditation technique just like I would another task or activity. But here is the truth: Meditation is NOT a task or activity. There is no such thing as a meditation technique or even meditation itself. As soon as you make a technique out of meditation, you turn it into a doing. True meditation is just being, just being aware and satisfied with just existence itself. Anything else you add onto that is a "doing" and is a distraction. You don't even have to sit to meditate because that is a doing. Whatever you are doing right now, just allow and accept everything as it is. Don't try to change anything about your experience. Just be. The thing is that you are always doing something. Let meditation just be just like your breath before you notice it. Just be aware of existence and just accept it. True meditation is being satisfied with not doing anything at all and just letting everything become a happening rather than a doing. Your breath happens, your thinking happens, and then your meditation happens. If you are focusing on your breath or doing anything else, you are technically doing a technique than true meditation. Why can't you just do absolutely nothing and just be satisfied with being? A client told me that she can meditate, but it is another task that she does. And when she has nothing to do, she gets really bored. But it is that moment you are not doing anything, that is the meditation. The only thing you are "doing" is noticing, letting it be, letting it go, and being satisfied throughout the experience. And notice that the act of noticing, letting it be, letting it go, and being satisfied are not doings but are happenings. Try that out. That is true meditation and to even call it "meditation" is a trap. To saying "I am meditating" then becomes a doing, and is therefore, not meditation. True meditation is when people ask, "What are you doing?" And you reply, "Nothing at all! I am simply being." One more thing I want to point out is that while meditation is helpful in your life, it shouldn't be all you do in your life. Notice that survival is against being. You have to do something if you really want to live, so in a way, just being is a way of facing death and being in touch with the present moment. But if all you are just being all the time, you will die, and you won't be fully satisfied as a human being. No amount of meditation will satisfy you. Did you get that? Let me repeat it again, NO AMOUNT OF MEDITATION WILL SATISFY YOU. A 10 minute or 10 hour "practice" may give you a little bit of satisfaction, but you will reach a point where your mind just has to do something. In fact, it is not healthy for you to be sitting in zazen 24/7. Life requires you to do other things besides shutting off your mind and just being. When I asked ChatGPT the purpose of meditation, it listed the themes to be centered around enhanced well-being, improved mindfulness, and spiritual development. On the other hand, when I asked ChatGPT about the purpose of contemplation, it listed themes around gaining insight/understanding, problem-solving, and introspection. Notice that no amount of shutting off the mind will give you insights because insight requires that you allow your mind to open, and to open, your mind needs to be able to be used, to think, and to connect dots. You cannot connect any dots in your mind if it is silent. Can you please notice this!!? You Buddhist Bats!! You cannot be deeply curious about life if you are silencing all forms of thought, including your curiosity. You cannot solve problems if you shut off your mind!! Solving problems requires that you use your mind. Some of you may object saying that meditation and having a silent mind allows you to have insights into problem-solving. Yes, but that is only AFTER you allow yourself to think again and use your mind. You get a ping of insight and that is mental content. And technically, you still can't solve problems with no mind. Contemplation is important to deeply think things through and to self-reflect. Just being aware of your self and your thoughts isn't enough. You have to engage with them and follow your curiosity. I hope this helps. So basically, meditation is a helpful "practice." You want to engage with just being satisfied with being. But don't mistake that for shutting off your mind and being a mindless Buddhist Bat. You want to engage your mind and be like a Leonardo Da Vinci or a Sherlock Holmes, Einstein, etc. Those are the greatest minds because they have used them but have also not used them. You cannot have a great mind if you are always shutting it off. That is really not a life worth living. The unexamined life is not worth living and so is the thoughtless life. Meditation is bullshit. Meditation doesn't exist. There is just being and doing. Allow yourself to be and then allow yourself to do. Engage in being deeply (meditation) and then engage in doing consciously and curiously (contemplation).

Read the 5am club by Robin Sharma.

Of course an external world would exist if there are other things outside of your experience. That is the whole concept of the external world. An external world is a world that is happening independent of your perceptions, thoughts and beliefs about it. If other minds do exist and continue to exist outside your own, then that would be the definition of an external world. The external world concept doesn’t have to be specific to materialism. Even Berkeley had to have an implicit idea of an external world because the objection still remained that other minds perceive things still existing even when I am not there, which means things still exist when I am not there. And Berkeley went so far as to say that God holds everything in existence because he is always perceiving it. So, the question is how is this any different from saying there is just an external world? Berkeley is making extra jumps when the simplest explanation is an external world exists, but its substance isn’t materialistic/mechanistic. Also, another thought came up and that is that if other minds do exist, where are they located? In my mind? Outside of my mind? Inside of God’s mind? Notice that the existence of other minds and Infinite Gods presents problems because if there are other minds, then there are other “worlds” external to mine. We have to contemplate what is meant by “world.” A world is basically a mind. Each human being has there own world external to mine, so therefore, there is an external world in that sense, and there is also an external world in the sense that absent of all humans, the world as we know it with all its animals still will be running. Just think about it, if I die and if you are conscious and not just some philosophical zombie I am talking to, then my death wouldn’t be the death of your “external world.” You would still interact with the world, but my console and VR would be destroyed. All of that is occurring somewhere and nowhere. So likewise, if all animal consciousnesses died, then this world will still exist for us. Heck, we even think aliens exist. Where could an alien exist besides just being an idea in our own minds? When we say an alien exists, we mean they exist outside our ideas of them and that they exist somewhere beyond our perception. Think about that. This idealism ideology fucks with your mind because this is not how the world works. There are things outside your perceptions such as other minds/worlds.

Because a lot of them are stuck in the Spiritual Matrix. I am actually thinking about writing a book about this very topic. Jed McKenna has been the only one I have heard articulate that concept well in writing.

Yeah. This is why Infinity of Gods contradicts solipsism. Solipsism says there is only one perceiver. Infinity of Gods says there are infinite perceivers. One of them is wrong. If there are Infinite Gods, then that would mean solipsism is false and that an external world exists.

I thought I would make a thread dedicated to deciphering the false teachings throughout Actualized.org and other things spiritual teachers have said. I will focus on the false teachings of Leo in this post, but I hope others expand on the false teachings of Leo as well as other spiritual gurus as well. In one video, Leo stated that he will start to put intention false teachings in 10% of his videos. This thread will explore those as well as the unintentional false teachings. Unintentional false teachings: - Overestimating fasting and psychic abilities - Underestimating the role of genetics - Psychedelics will lead to enlightenment - Meditation will lead to enlightenment - Enlightenment is real and not just a Buddhist fiction. - His previous videos were highly influenced by Buddhist dogma. - “Reality is neutral.” He stated this in one video long ago. - Consciousness has many bubbles like a sponge. (Sponge analogy from Perception video). -Perception being an illusion. This is a false teaching because being is absolute and is not an illusion. - Brain being imaginary. If the brain is imaginary, then everything is imaginary, and if everything is imaginary, then nothing is imaginary because that word would lose its meaning if there is nothing that isn’t non-imaginary. - Oversimplifying and generalizing science. Leo had a narrow idea of what science was in previous videos, which made it easier to straw man. To be fair, he was really critiquing materialism because there is no difference between spirituality and science. - Making claims about consciousness that he never verified such as being able to embody the skills of Kobe Bryant through a state of consciousness. Not sure if I understood what he meant. - Solipsism Intentional false teaching: - Stating that he has experienced Insanity when I highly doubt it. - Victim mentality and overestimating the role of genetics on level of mastery and attraction. - Narrow view of Art. Being an influencer is not artistic. - Infinity of Gods - Meditation is a waste of time and will never lead you to God Awakening. -“At some point, reading books stops adding to your life.” I am paraphrasing the quote here. It is possible I may be taking it out of context. I am sure there are more than I am overlooking. I appreciate Leo for pushing us to think for ourselves and contemplate. One thing I wish he would stress more is calling out when people are just parroting him and following Actualized.org ideology. Leo is quick to call out Buddhist bullshitters, which is good. But I think it is also important to call out fakers on here more often. It is kind of assumed that if people do not reach the same conclusions, then somehow they didn’t go “deep enough.” But what is overlooked is that if you went “deep enough” you would shatter your whole paradigm around awakening and teaching. The more you awaken, the more false insights/awakenings you also unravel. And technically, truth and falsehood must collapse at the ultimate degree if there is such a thing. Please feel free to add on to this list. Nowhere near comprehensive. Let’s all take back our spiritual/intellectual authority and contemplate the false teaching we have absorbed and bought into. It could be from Leo or any other spiritual teacher. One more thing I want to point out as a small critique is that I feel like Leo sometimes isn’t as careful with how he words things and will sometimes go back and contradict what he says. For instance, he says the brain is imaginary but then also says that you need psychedelics to help change the imaginary neurons in the brain. I feel like it would be better to say that the brain is made out of consciousness/energy rather than making it sound like the brain is just a fluffy idea. I mean we are thinking of our brain right now and that is a concept. But there is an actual brain that is the same reality as my hands right now in my skull. My car might not be in my sight right now, but it still has the same actuality as my hands right now. It isn’t just a mere thought like Santa clause. The idea of my car actually points to something in reality. My idea of a brain actually points to something. Thanks for reading. Please let me know if I am overlooking something because I know my understanding isn’t complete here. Thanks for those who take this work seriously.

Yeah but then you run into the problem of how the brain exists in a reality that it is imaginjng. That would mean that the brain is also imaginary too.

Everyone who is a materialist or anti-materialist needs to ask the question, what is physical? Every idealist or anti-idealist needs to ask the question, what is mind? Notice that they are identical. Physical = Mental

I still don’t understand the difference. Materialism says everything is physical and idealism says all is mental. It is like saying reality is all object or all subject. Notice how they are both pointing to the same thing, just two identical ways to look at reality.

What do you say about people with aphantasia?

They already are!

But self-deception is always inherent in the human experience even after awakening. Awakening doesn’t eliminate self-deception.

That’s an interesting point to ponder. God is already all-knowing so the God within is already awake. I guess awakening in this sense is more about re-membering its true nature as opposed to “knowing.” I will contemplate whether this is true. I don’t wanna strip awakening down to memory or knowledge because that’s too simplistic.

We are arguing here over concepts and their meaning. By your definitions, then I meant to say paradox instead of contradiction. All paradoxes are contradictions but not all contradictions are paradoxes. Life is a paradox, a type of contradiction, because it holds everything and results in a strange loop. Tell me how God inventing itself isn’t a contradiction or “paradox.” Existence is the ultimate paradox because it is self-existing, self-creating. EDIT: I understand that contradiction/paradox is an imposition into reality and is relative to our logical, linear way of thinking about reality. However, given this, I still would suggest that reality appears paradoxical because it is purely magical.

Thanks for your clarification. But how does something die if it never existed in the first place? My thoughts are that the ego is identity that was imagined/created, so it was technically “born” and technically exists. But this doesn’t answer to the fact that you still have an ego even after “awakening.” Hence, you still have to play these ego games of survival. You are still maintaining an attachment to form and all attachment is ego right?

Right. This is where I am coming from that awakening via death is speculation. We assume that there is something after death and that death actually happens. We can also assume that there is an afterlife or no afterlife. We are in this assumption game no matter what we do. How can you be fully awake if you are still in the human form? As we know from direct experience, the human form is limited, finite, and full of self-deception. Our human brain cannot even begin to comprehend a fraction of God. The part cannot grasp the whole. In order for the part to grasp the whole, it has to become the whole. But if that happens, there is no longer any part. If you “awaken” to the whole of God and then come back as a part, then you will be missing the understanding of wholeness because a part has to deal with self-deception survival games to maintain the identity of a part. That’s what people don’t get here is that you haven’t awakened fully because you still have to focus on survival to maintain selfishness to some degree. It’s impossible to be fully awake to Absolute God because God is Absolute Selflessness. God is too profound to be comprehendable by the human brain. God is infinite which means no matter how far your understanding of God goes, you won’t be any closer to the end than when you began. Your understanding will still be at an ant level even after all of your psychedelic/meditation trips.

That is always a possibility, but contradiction is a feature of nonduality.

Notice that “awakening, enlightenment, solipsism” are indeed all concepts, speculation, and theory at a certain state of consciousness. At another state, they are direct. I am just stating that these concepts are filled with hidden preconceived ideas associated with them. The idea that you can awaken is an idea right now until you actually awaken, which you would be too dead to even have anymore ideas of it if you actually awaken totally.

I see your point, but I was referring to that it depends on your point of reference. The idea that you can awaken from this dream is an assumption because I believe it is true without direct evidence. We can’t really live life without assumptions. You are gonna assume either way or another. Your assumption is that you can actually awaken from the dream while yet still being inside the dream. I think you can be awake in the dream but I don’t see how you can awaken from the dream and live to tell the tale. Because as you start telling the tale, you are back in the dream. Do you follow? Awakening from the dream entirely is the same physical death. In the meantime, we can only be as awake as our biology allows us to.

The idea that enlightenment will eliminate suffering and all of your problems is a false teaching. True Enlightenment has nothing to do petty human needs and suffering. Enlightenment is a state of consciousness beyond human and identity. Another false teaching is that everyone is already enlightened.

No.

Interesting. That has not been my experience. I ask questions and they tell me to just have faith and trust in God. They also give more conceptual stories, but a lot of times dogmatic people want you to stunt your curiosity. If more people questioned their religion and those conceptual stories, it would be a damnation for the church. Silencing the mind has its benefits, but the deepest insights I have attained came from being curious and asking questions and not from silencing that. The only thing I have attained from a silent mind is serenity but that doesn’t compete with the feeling of awe and connection I felt when I let my curiosity and mind wander in wonder.

I would say LoA isn’t necessarily a false teaching. It has many truths to it. But I think if you take it to its extreme and misunderstand it as being able to think the reality you want, then it would be false. LoA is basically like CBT in that our thoughts influence and create our reality. But what is meant by that statement is often misunderstood. Thinking alone doesn’t manifest but our actions, which often times are influenced by a frequency of thought if you think about it. War exists because there is a negative thought/belief that is being acted upon.

One of Sadhguru’s best teachings I’ve heard is him challenging Buddha’s conclusion on desire being the root of suffering and people wanting to silence their minds. He said that the best way to silence your mind is physical death. Hands down. Another false teaching is telling students to stop asking questions because it is monkeymind and to just sit in silence because “thinking is bad.” I can see how this can be interpreted in multiple ways, but sometimes it reminds me of religion where followers are encouraged to just take your word and not question the teachings but it is by questioning the teachings that makes you stronger and deepen your understanding/growth.