r0ckyreed

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Everything posted by r0ckyreed

  1. Infinite dimension of empty consciousness! Which I guess Consciousness is neither something nor nothing. Consciousness isn’t an object and it isn’t nonexistent. What are you really pointing to then? Nothing or something? In my experience, the only Nothing you can point to is yourself. Where you think your eyes, brain, and head are, there is nothing, but there is also everything. You really are pointing at everything which includes the nothingness behind your eyes. Consciousness is Everything!
  2. That's what I thought. But nonexistence does NOT exist. To speak of nothing is to speak of something, which is a contradiction. If nonexistence exists, then it would be something in existence and would NOT be nonexistence! That is one of the reasons why death is an illusion. Something that does NOT exist cannot exist. But even the concept of something to NOT exist is an idea within existence. You see the problem? It is like saying that somethingness is nonexistent.
  3. Wondering what contemplation really is, is a form of contemplation. Although you can contemplate your goals and values and what you think about a certain issue, contemplation isn't just limited to that. It is about using the intellect to derive truth of the matter by evaluation and by eliminating all that is false, until the only Truth remains. A simple definition of contemplation is the process of deeply thinking about something to derive the truth of the matter through direct consciousness. Another definition is using the intellect to eliminate all that is false! Yes, contemplation is the act and process of thinking things through thoroughly to get at the truth of the matter. Curiosity, honesty, critical-thinking, and a desire for truth are what is needed to contemplate effectively. I would suggest you read The Book of Not Knowing by Peter Ralston or watch Leo's videos on Contemplation, or watch my videos on Contemplation, but no amount of watching videos and reading books on Contemplation will get you any closer to Contemplation. At some point, the books become a distraction from you doing the practice. You have to sit alone in nature with a journal and think deeply. Contemplation is deep thinking and truthful evaluation. You might wonder, where do I start? Start with trying to write down The Truth. That's it. That is the only question, "What is true?" Start by doubting everything you think you know. Try to get at something you do know beyond measure of doubt. See what you discover. Start with these questions: "What do I really know for certain?", "What is True?", "Who am I?", and "What do I really want?" Write your answers down so you can see your bullshit and then keep going until you have murdered The Buddha. Good luck!
  4. Any reaction to any stage of development shows that you have not developed, transcended, nor understood that stage. Reality is a mirror, and you are hurting yourself.
  5. Wow! That was beautiful and extremely profound! You have a gift and found your purpose and niche. Congrats! Consider doing a longer documentary and interviewing a diversity of individuals for future films. I think YouTube could be a good place to start. You might want to send clips of your films to production companies. Best of luck!
  6. Consider that the majority of humans aren’t ready to “decrease their ego.” Even most “spiritual” people aren’t even ready. Your survival needs have to be met before the needs for self-actualization and self-transcendence can be met. To transcend the ego, you first need to develop a healthy and strong ego. Spirituality is easily used as a “bypass” from working on egoic needs. Skipping these steps to developing a healthy ego first is a mistake/trap. Becoming egoless right now in your life won’t improve your life as you think it might. Consider that. Good luck!
  7. Leo is behind your imaginary eyes looking out.
  8. Who is it that has awakened? Who is it that wants to share the “awakening?” Why does it want to share? The it I am referring to is ego. The ego cannot awaken because it doesn’t exist. But even so, as long as you are sucking air, the ego and maya will be always with you.
  9. You all missed the entire point of the video. It isn’t about the T-word at all. That is Patrick’s word that he never uses. The whole point is to change your self-limiting language and stories to empower yourself to success. Your language has everything to do with how you think, feel, and act. So think about what limiting words you allow yourself to say and believe. Changing your situation and improving your life will be stunted as long as you continue using the same language and still believe that “I am _____.” Fill in your word. Mine is lazy, depressed, anxious, tired, etc. I am making a new goal to never identity myself with negative emotions. Now, if I am really tired or lazy, etc., then I will admit “I feel tired/lazy.” But I will always followup and use the affirmation that “I am resourceful, disciplined, and dedicated to my life purpose. I am going to find a way to get through this. I will not let how I feel right now to stop me from what I want to do because I am a Badass Motherfucker!!” Imagine if you could have that dialogue with yourself instead of the bullshit of saying “I am depressed. There is nothing I can do. It is all helpless.” If you use that language-talk, you will believe that about you and you will always look for evidence that supports your belief and deny everything else contrary. Think about the big picture lesson here! Y’all got lost in the weeds there for a minute. Notice your mind doing that and contemplate how your current mindsets prevent you from learning from this source in particular. It seems like the main reason is degrees of closed-mindedness and lack of objective thinking. If you think objectively and have openmindedness, you can learn and understand all perspectives. Hope that helped you all see the forest. But of course, I would be surprised if this post changes anything about what you think of that video. Much Love, Rocky
  10. This post is going to be very controversial, but I have been called to share my thoughts with ... Myself??? After some time contemplating what a dream really is, I have come to the realization that Awakening itself is a Dream! How did I come to such a conclusion? Well, we first must ask what a dream really is. A dream is consciousness inventing a reality/story through trickery and deception. As such, The Dream Doubt cannot be fully unraveled no matter how awake you are. For instance, I once had a dream (while sleeping at night) where I became lucid and realized that I was in a dream. I then woke up, went up stairs immediately and talked to my mom about it. I shared with her my excitement. But then, I "actually" woke up and realized that my mind imagined me waking up just to keep me in the dream!!!! This one dream I had redefined how I see spirituality, the concept of a dream, and awakening. I was lucid in the dream or so I imagine I was. It makes me wonder whether I was really awake or whether I was just dreaming that I was awake? I had another dream where I my grandpa died (still alive now I am assuming at the time of this writing) and I asked my mom whether this was real and if this was a dream. But of course, my mom (my mind) convinced me that it was real. These dreams really casted a major doubt upon me. I realized that no matter how conscious I think I am, I can never penetrate beyond the dream doubt. No matter how much meditation or psychedelics I do, it will all be a dream! There is no awakening because that is what the dream imagines. The duality between Asleep and Awake collapses as it must. The forum, Leo, Buddhism, psychedelics, meditation, and Awakening are part of the Dream!! This Dream is not going anywhere. But maybe lucidity within this dream is still possible? Or is it just a self-deception to make me think I am awake when I aint? Just because one is lucid within one dream does not mean one is lucid within all dreams. My lucid dream made me realize that when you start to wake up, your mind is going to do everything to keep you asleep. Even the resources/tools you think will wake you up like Leo, this forum, psychedelics, meditation, etc. will be used to keep you asleep. I dreamt that I was lucid in a dream, and it should make one wonder whether true Awakening is even possible and if it is but just another dream within the dream. How can we know anything for certain beyond the fact that Consciousness exists? How can you ever transcend self-deception or unravel The Dream Doubt? I don't think you can because to be dreaming requires self-deception, and there is no awakening without dreaming. I don't think you can never not consider no matter what experiences you may have, that you could be dreaming them all up right now!! Now, let me ask you (or other parts of myself) some questions. Given that reality is a self-deception or dream, how do you know you have awakened when it is possible that you are still inside of dream - a dream that has deceived you into thinking you have awakened when you really haven't? How can you know? How can acquire true understanding when ever tool you use is all part of dream? And please, don't give me any answers like "You will only know when you awaken" because that assumes that you can awaken to something beyond a dream. But how do we know there is anything beyond dreaming, and how can you know if you are awake? By the way, there is nothing wrong with dreaming. Awakening to me means realizing what is Absolutely True. But what is Absolutely True? Consciousness. The end. Alien consciousness is just another dream within Absolute Consciousness. Awakening is a Dream! How does that sit with you (pun intended)? Please let me know what you think. I cannot get past The Dream Doubt. Thanks!
  11. But... everything is experience. Whoever told you that is most likely not awake. That is like saying that lucid dreaming isn't an experience. Everything is experience/consciousness. Being awake or being asleep is all experience. Final Nirvana/Awakening is a Buddhist's dream. But yet, death is a dream and there is nothing but dreaming. Sleeping is a dream and waking up is a dream. You have to wonder, what is it that I am waking up from and waking up into? Layers and layers of Infinite Consciousness/Dream/Self-Deception!!
  12. No. It isn't one video on YouTube that caused you to end up in your current situation, it is because of Putin's Damn War!! By the way, you were warned many times, by the title of the video and by many warnings in that video that if you are suffering mentally to turn it off. It was deleted for a reason. This isn't what you wanna hear, but in the end, nobody is responsible for how you feel and what you do, but you. You have free will to choice how to act, think, feel, and how to perceive reality. You can act/perceive/think/feel in helpful or unhelpful ways. It is so amazing how many people destroy their lives through clinging to one idea and one philosophy. I think you and many people here give Leo too much authority over truth. Listen or not listen to whoever you want, but the main person you need to listen to is yourself and to think for yourself about what is really true. I wish you all the best. I believe in you. But more importantly, you gotta believe in you. Take a deep breath, meditate, and connect with your inner-wisdom and inner-peace. Let that be your guide to give you all the solutions you need. Solipsism isn't the problem, it is the ego. It is all about how you perceive, act, feel, and think. Keep Going!! Much Love, <3 Rocky
  13. From Leo's recent video on Intro Into Pure Philosophy, I found it interesting that Leo put Empiricism and Rationalism into the category of philosophies that are a waste of time. This makes me wonder how do we acquire knowledge at all? It also seems wrong because Actualized.org seems to advocate for empiricism (knowledge through direct experience) and appears to be against rationalism, despite advocating for contemplation rather than meditation. Another way to frame this debate of empiricism vs. rationalism is meditation (empiricism) vs. contemplation (rationalism). Empiricism suggests that knowledge is derived through direct experience, and rationalism is the view that knowledge is derived through reflection, using the intellect and rationality to contemplate both thoughts and sense-perceptions. It seems that both schools of thought are correct to me. They both hit at the point that knowledge can be derived through actuality (empiricism) and through concepts (rationalism). I would say that empiricism is a more fundamental way of knowing and rationalism is a higher-order way of knowing. Argument For Rationalism Actualized.org seems to shoot down rationalism by saying that you cannot trust rationality and the mind. But isn't reflecting on the fact that you cannot trust rationality, a part of what rationalism is? Your senses alone cannot tell you that logic is limited in its understanding of reality - only reflection and contemplation can. So in a way, what you are really doing is meta-logic. In addition, Descartes and Al-Ghazali (Sufi Mystic, Hyperlinked) even suggested that rationalism is a higher-order faculty than empiricism because our senses can easily deceive us. For instance, we see the sun rising and setting, but that isn't how reality works. Stars appear small in the sky but are actually bigger than our planet. We can also trip balls on drugs and hallucinate different things, and we can also be in a dream for all we know. In a dream, our senses will never tell us that we are in a dream. Only rationalism used properly can tell us that we are in the dream. The way you use rationalism properly is by using openminded contemplation and skepticism. Your senses cannot be skeptical, only your logical mind can. This is why rationalism is a higher-order way of attaining knowledge. Of course, people can rationalize anything they want to, but they are not being rational when they do so. In the same way, people cannot escape philosophy, but only engage in a certain quality of philosophy. The same is true of rationality and sense-perception. Limits of Rationalism The limits of rationalism is that no amount of rationality can give us any knowledge about objects themselves. Colors, shapes, objects, etc. cannot be grasped through the intellect because no amount of thought can get one any closer to what is being perceived or held within consciousness. Rationalism can question whether what I am perceiving is an illusion or not, but it cannot grasp what a thing is because all thoughts are second-order to existence. I got that part. But I would suggest that deeply thinking about our sense-perceptions helps us to raise our consciousness to our sense-perceptions. For instance, if I question whether I am hallucinating or not, I will naturally pay more attention and my senses/consciousness will raise slightly. Whereas if I go about life not deeply thinking, I would have never entertained the thought and my awareness of perceptions will be shallower like everyone else. The saying goes, "a wise person doesn't see the same tree as a fool." I would suggest that this is because the wise person questions their experience deeply, and as a result, is at a higher-level of consciousness than the fool. Conclusion: Why Rationalism Is A Deeper Way of Knowing I also want to acknowledge that for us to be able to think, use logic, and contemplate, we first have to exist and have sense-perception experiences. So in a way, empiricism is more fundamental than rationalism, but it may not be higher-order than rationalism. Just because something is fundamental does not mean it is a higher-order phenomenon. For instance, dogs have sense-perceptions to a greater degree than humans do (i.e., this was derived through rationalism and empiricism). But dogs do not have the rational component of the brain like us humans do. A dogs worldview is limited to sense-perceptions, and a dog does not question whether reality is a hallucination or not. I make a sound and a dog barks. It is stimulus and response because without thinking, rationality, and contemplation, there is no room for choice. A dog's choice is limited because their cognitive capacities are compared to humans. As a result, humans have a greater understanding of the context of reality than dogs do. But dogs may have a greater understanding of the contents of reality than humans do because they can perceive more than us. Rationality is that step that I would argue that allows us to be more context-aware. The fact that we can question our content and use rationality is what allows us to go meta. We cannot escape sense-perceptions, but we can escape rationality. That is the phenomenon of NOT thinking/contemplating and self-reflecting for the sake of Truth, which is what most people do. What do you think? How do we acquire knowledge? Based on the importance of independent contemplation, is rationalism a better way of acquiring knowledge than empiricism? What is your answer? What critiques may you have of my analysis?
  14. It is a joke. If Alien consciousness and alien transformation were true, your mind would perceive it as if it didn’t exist, unless you raise your consciousness. Since you have not awoke to alien consciousness, you won’t perceive Leo as an alien. As the saying goes: The wise man does not see the same tree as the fool.
  15. That is the whole issue is how can you know that you are in a state with no self-deception at all? As long as there is Mind, there is always self-deception knocking at the door. The Dream Doubt still lingers. Also, can God know itself? How can God know itself if it is itself? Knowledge is always about some part of God and yet God is all there is. God/Existence/Consciousness is prior to knowing. Knowing already creates a duality between the knower and the known. I am just trying to understand. I could be wrong. Yup. That is what I am saying. Awakening is imaginary. I was lucid in my dream, but then I created a story when I wanted to share that with my mom. It is almost as if the lucidity/awakening was part of the dream. Can you think of other examples where this "need for sharing" happens? Why is it that when we awake, we have a desperate desire to share that with "others?" Maybe it is another clever mind trick of the dream. That is my hypothesis. How powerful is the Mind? If you think or "know" you have "awakened," then you have greatly underestimated the power of the Mind/self-deception & The Dream Doubt. How do you know you are awake? How do you know you aren't imagining/dreaming you are awake?
  16. They are the same thing. Everything is a dream in your mind. I guess with AP, your mind is convinced that you are not dreaming and that you really are in an astral plane, when in fact, you are really just dreaming. But I could be wrong.
  17. I guess I should start with answering the question, "What is knowledge?" Because empiricism and rationalism do presuppose that knowledge does exist and can be acquired through direct experience or through rationality. Skepticism though holds that knowledge of anything is untenable. Knowledge presupposes a duality between knower and the known. You have already alluded to what knowledge is in your video on Not-Knowing. Our senses cannot give us any knowledge about the spoon and neither can rationality. We can know the utility of things, but we cannot know the being of it through either empiricism or rationality. But then again, if empiricism and rationalism cannot derive knowledge, then what is awakening? Is awakening the knowledge and understanding of Consciousness/Truth/Existence? How does one know they have awakened if they cannot rely on direct experience or rationality? How can you trust insights on psychedelics if we cannot rely on our senses or rationality? It seems like the only thing you can know for certain is that consciousness exists and nothing else can be known for certain, which is basically epistemological solipsism.
  18. Trump never won. If any election was stolen (as MAGAs claim), it has been stolen from democrats for the past decade (Al Gore, Hillary Clinton). Electoral college is arbitrary and nonsense. Popular vote is what is objective. The problem is always bias.
  19. You can’t. Awakening is a Dream!! There is nothing but dreaming. Waking up from a dream is being asleep in another.
  20. Listening to audiobook isn’t the same thing as reading!! Maybe that is the problem. Reading a physical book under a tree in nature is so enjoyable. It is much harder to listen to books on technology. Consider that.
  21. I agree. Sherlock Holmes uses both observation (empiricism) and deduction (rationalism). We need both to acquire knowledge and form conclusions. Observation is fundamental and rationality is higher-order. Rationality after all is using logic to deduce what we observe. Look around you. What you call “the world” is your mind. Mind is not just thoughts, it is perception itself.
  22. Amen. That’s my attitude as well! My overarching goal is aiming for the highest understanding possible!
  23. A better technique is the omne hoc et omne quod (“All This and All That”) technique. Point to everything and call it I or Self. Enlightenment is realizing you are Everything, you are Infinity!!