r0ckyreed

If there were other minds, then they would be different because they aren’t connected. Think about twins who share the same body. They have different minds and the same mind simultaneously. They can read each others thoughts, but one mind will move an arm and the other one will move the other side of the body. They have to work together. So in that case it isn’t either same or different mind, it is both. Now think of split brain person. One part of their mind does one thing and the other another thing. The mind is split and isn’t connected with itself. You could think of the Universe has an infinite split brain. But don’t think all the parts are the same because they aren’t connected. They were connected but aren’t anymore. The same with you being born. You were your mother. But now, you are your own individual mind no longer tethered to your mothers cord. If there are other minds, they would be different. The question is are the other minds whole minds or part minds. If we all share a part-mind, then we would be the same and different at the same time. But if we are whole-minds, then there would be nothing to share but the common reality we are communicating and living in.

Don’t dismiss logic so easily. If you say that your POV is Absolute Truth, then how are you rejecting Solipsism? If you rely on direct experience, there are no other POVs. It is only your logic that tells you that others exist. Notice that. That is why you can’t trust your perceptions. Even though all logic is based on your perceptions, it is a higher mode of perception that can think and analyze perception. But how do you know you have awakened other than you feeling like you have and being convinced? How do you know your awakening isn’t a self-deception? In my awakening, I realized there is no difference between the two. Don’t dismiss the camera analogy too easily. The videos you record on your camera are taking place in your camera, which takes place in reality. A camera just like your brain is a filtering process of consciousness. If your camera or brain gets damaged, you lose connection to reality. When your camera breaks, it “dies.” You can’t experience reality without a body/brain. Please notice that strange loop. When you are dismissing solipsism, you are trusting logic more than your experience lol. You ain’t gonna find another experience in your experience. Logic is gonna be an inference at best that there are others who experience like you do. There is no inference in direct experience. Inference is a conceptual/logical faculty lol.

If truth and false are the same, then that means awakening vs. deception are also the same. And so is wisdom and foolishness. But isn’t it foolish to not make distinctions? Isn’t it false, untrue, and foolish to think that a wise person is no wiser than a fool and truth is no more than falsehood? Why do psychedelics if all that does is drive you deeper into Falsehood since you state going into Truth is going into Falsehood. There need to be distinctions and dualities made. Otherwise, you can’t escape and solve this maze. It’s like the rat saying there is no difference whether I escape the maze or stay and eat the cheese. In that sense, why are we here? What are we seeking? But feelings are biases, they aren’t Truth. Feelings come and go but the Truth is the way reality has always been. To say that an Andrew Tate and Trump support is as wise as Leo Gura is a mistake. There is a duality there. Nazis are not as good as Buddhists. That is objective because good is defined as spreading kindness and respect to others. Nazis kill and Buddhists don’t, which makes Nazis less good than Buddhists. Only a fool would conflate the two. If you can’t separate reality from fantasy, psychologists will diagnose you with a psychotic disorder because in order to function is to be in alignment with reality. Conflating reality and fantasy together is not the same as being in alignment with what is true.

Think of the brain being like a camera that filters consciousness. When I take a picture or take a video, there is a camera required for that image and video to exist. That image/video is a subjective representation of objective reality (AKA consciousness/existence/universe). Of course there’s no right way of perceiving reality. You can do it with a telescope or microscope or naked eye. It’s all reality.

I would agree and have confirmed it all except for what you say about brains and solipsism. Brains and solipsism are unknowable. We cannot know for certain that reality right now is or isn’t rendered in a brain. However, we have evidence of other brains but not much our own. Because if reality is occurring in the brain, then I can never study my own brain because the brain I see in the mirror is a representation of what my brain is creating. The claim that the brain does not exist is like saying there is no camera that took the picture. It’s absurd. The Universe invented the brain to have a human experience. There is no human experience without a brain. But what is interesting is that you claim that the brain isn’t perceiving reality but you claim that solipsism is false and others are conscious. You can never confirm this because like you said, what is in front of you is all that exists. You can’t see your own brain now head, so it doesn’t exist. Apply that same logic across the board and you will reach solipsism. This conscious field right now is all that can be known. There is no way I can know if anyone is conscious but myself. But I believe others are conscious because it helps me function in this social world to maintain my human existence/survival. You contradict yourself when you say the apple exists as its beingness without a need for a brain. But your ideas of timelines and other consciousnesses are not taking place where the apple is. The apple and another human is just your consciousness. The apple does not have a separate field of experience and neither that human. Your mind is drawing these lines of a rock has no experience whereas the human bodies I see walking do. If you think others are conscious and have a brain to perceive reality, then so do you by that logic. Hence, the contradiction. I hope I made that contradiction that I am seeing clear to you.

I kindly disagree. I think focus shift covers more of the original video in-depth and gives a good summary. The clips take out one section of Leo talking rather than putting it into context like Focus Shift. Notice how the Actualized Clips doesn’t cut to other sections of the video. It is just a highlight of a video rather than a summary of insights like Focus Shift. Everyone though has their own cup of tea and drinks it too.

But isn’t it Trump and Satan? I thought God was the same as Truth. It would be unwise to say that Truth and falsehood are the same. That’s what the Devil will say. That would mean that awakening to Truth is a fantasy and would be an Absolute Falsehood.

Bioshock.

What is a question, and what question God would you like me to ask?

I don’t know. Maybe to find and rewatch the clip that you really liked rather than having to flip through the whole video. It’s like rereading a chapter rather than the entire book. I liked Actualized Clips. I think it is just an algorithm problem right now that some day it will switch around in favor.

It’s not possible. Reality is infinite and understanding is always finite. The part cannot grasp the whole because the whole will always be greater than the part. This should be obvious. Omniscience doesn’t exist at least in this finite human form. Anyone who says they understand all of reality should be able to demonstrate understanding and clear articulation of all mathematical equations, mental health disorders, how electricity works, how AI and computer coding works, etc. All of those are part of reality and you will never understand everything in this lifetime period. Please read The Book of Not Knowing and check out Leo’s video on The Power of Not Knowing. Leo already admits that total understanding of reality is impossible. He admits that the only thing he knows is that reality is infinite. That’s all we can know.

OP makes a good point and is asking good questions. If everything is a hallucination that would mean hallucinations are also a hallucination which makes everything real. Hallucinations are occurring in existence/reality.

Death is imaginary. The self is imaginary. Lol.

Studies show that religious people in general are typically more happier. This could be because nonreligious folks may be more pessimistic, which makes sense when you realize everything is a lie. Ignorance is bliss in that sense. But there could be many other factors as well such as community involvement gives people more sense of a purpose.

No character in your dream can awaken. There are no enlightened beings.

I have been thinking about this thought. How do Buddhist Monks live any different than from being dead? They spend their whole lives confined in a monastery sitting and counting their breaths. The few monks who leave to meditate in a cave are also not living any different than from being dead. Meanwhile, there are those who are traveling the world, following a purpose to improve society and make a difference. They are improving themselves, facing conflict/stress, are actively overcoming their fears, and are living ambitious lives. One of my first thoughts when watching Leo Gura is why is he not spending his life meditating in a cave if that lifestyle is so important for enlightenment? Why is he wasting his time by teaching and running a business. But that is when the thought came that the people who take up a monk life are actually fooling themselves because they are existing and not truly living. They actually believe that if they spend their entire lives meditating that they will reach so-called enlightenment. The thought never comes after 10 years of practice that maybe enlightenment and the whole monk life is a self-deception and a way of lowering a man’s ambition. But who am I to judge, the eastern culture values the man who abandons his ego, not the one who builds it. Why do we desire to abandon our ego if the point of life is to develop it? Why would the Universe create an ego in the first place to only want to go back to the Source? Why not enjoy the game life is and work on maximizing our character and growth while we are alive rather than pissing it away seeking an enlightenment that does not exist. There comes a point when one must stand up and take action and not spend most of their lives on a comfy meditation cushion. The Jedi meditate, but they do other things too that make them men and women of action and service. There is more to life than formal sitting meditation. Learn to meditate while doing hard work in the moment. If Buddhist monks can meditate high consciously in a monastery, why not carry that over to meditate in a business and life purpose? These are just my thoughts here about the self-deception of enlightenment and Buddhism. I hope it is helpful or not. Don’t get me wrong. I do formally meditate. But 10 minutes is all I need. The rest of the day, I am striving to following my ambitions as mindfully as I can.

Profoundly wise person. I plan on exercising, reading many books, contemplating reality, and writing books and producing original work based on my contemplations. 30 minutes of meditation can be spaced out during my day to help me find balance in using my mind and quieting it and learning to just be satisfied with what is right now. But at the same time, there are goals and things I want to create. I wanna be a creator since apparently I am God. I cannot create much if I am meditating 3 hours a day. I don’t have that kind of time to achieve all I want in this lifetime. I find 5-10 minutes of meditation is helpful. Any longer is counterproductive to my goals at this point. My reasons for meditating are to help me improve my thoughts, creativity, and happiness.

Good point! I’m still young and trying to find myself. It would be wise for me to explore the stage Orange stage to its fullest. Then move on from there.

There’s a lot of noise in the River. With that being said, let’s focus back on the topic at hand and not on petty human BS. Why spend anymore than 10 minutes on your ass meditating when you got crap to do in life? Why spend 2 hours a day? Why can’t monks meditate while running a high conscious business that will impact the world even more than chanting and charities in a monastery? You might argue that there is the connection paradox of the more one isolates themselves from the world, the more connected to reality they will be. This may be true to a point, and we do need solitude and silent space for reflection, but this lifestyle seems like an excuse. At some point, isolation from the world is isolation from the world. One needs to connect the insights from solitude to the social world. Before enlightenment, run a business. After enlightenment, run your vision.

There is no mastery without understanding. They are linked lol. ? Andrew is correct on value and challenge being linked. But I don’t think you are correct in stating understanding and mastery aren’t.

If 10 minutes isn’t even worth doing, then 2 hours is just a waste. I get more out of my 10 minutes than you may get out of your 2 hours. My whole point is that you need to get off your ass and do other things besides doing monk meditation. We only need 8 hours of sleep. We only need 10 minutes of formal meditation practice. You telling me to do 2 hours when 10 minutes makes me calm and peaceful is like we telling you to sleep 12 hours a day when 6 hours is enough for you. Too much sleep has its consequences and so does too much meditation. It becomes another comfort zone that you must break through. All growth requires a change in routine and challenging yourself while pursuing goals. If you spend your whole life meditating, you will never travel around the world. You will just be a drone sitting in one spot for your life. And then you will be living life as if you were already dead, just sitting and focusing on your breath. When instead, you could’ve been focusing on your goals, desires, and purpose. I do 10 minutes of formal meditation mindfulness practice and then I move on with my life. I see the benefits at 10 minutes. I have done 5 hours of meditation before and lost all the benefits after the first 30 minutes. Diminishing returns. Some days, I don’t even formally meditate at all, and I still live meditatively and ambitiously.

It is so obvious to me that Buddhism is an ideology. But it wasn’t until after I deeply questioned it. Thank you Jed McKenna. It’s just another authority game. If you take Buddhism teachings to its fullest, the attachment to the label and philosophy of Buddhism is also let go of. No true Buddhist would identify as a Buddhist because that becomes another attachment lol. You can see the circular reasoning there. But it’s funny because The Buddha is so worshipped in those communities, and they are attached to that authority figure.

I totally agree. I see my hikes in nature as a meditation. I don’t need to sit down for one hour to empty my mind. I only need 5-10 minutes a day of that. But most of the time, I am just observing and contemplating whenever and wherever I can. I value adventure and you could call that a meditation. But I don’t. I just call it mindfulness adventure.

Yeah. I call this mindfulness. When I say meditation, I mean sitting down and doing a formal mindfulness practice. When I say mindfulness, I mean an informal process of standing, sitting, running, driving, etc. while being aware of the present moment without judgment. I am not against mindfulness. I am against the monastic lifestyle of long-term meditation and other stuff. One should not make their life about meditation but rather about being mindful. I can be mindful and engaged in this moment while working out and growing a business. I can’t do any of my ambitions if I am on my ass.

Awakening is. But I realize that I am not ready to pursue that yet. I am 26 and need to focus on building my ego before I deconstruct it. Not a good idea to put the cart before the horse.