mandyjw

Oh no, I'm finding out a lot about what I think that I did not know I thought. How is that the golden nugget?

Are you shaming me for going back to implications and mind stuff? Because communication requires the mind. Freedom is life. I enjoy my life, I enjoy my ego, I enjoy my freedom. It's all an illusion, but it is a breathtakingly beautiful one. You're like someone who won't stop talking in the movie theater. SHUT UP AND LET ME WATCH THE DAMN MOVIE. I paid to see this goddamn movie, and I'm not leaving before it's over. I know it's not real. Stop whispering in my ear that it's not real.

One implies freedom and the other the lack of freedom?

This is why focus is necessary. And separation is necessary. Bear with me here, because I know what I'm saying is blasphemous and taboo and oh so very PEDESTRIAN and low level. Ego death and actual physical death are the same thing. Thinking they aren't is creating yet another a duality. You exist as a limited form for a reason. That is the very thing that means you have the power to choose and make decisions and create things as an expression of life. That duality of life and death is exactly why you are alive. Getting rid of that duality means there is nothing. You have to choose, life or death. Light or dark. Pick one and love, appreciate and thank the other for it's existence because it is what allows you to be. Enlightenment is just a bounce back into going about your stupid life again, knowing that transcendence was ONLY an internal transformation and not an external one. Disappointing? Only to the ego. Still alive. Still an ego with likes and dislikes. Just a self realized one.

I think that's the magic. Nothing is dark in its essence but we make it so in our minds. That can only be true in experience though. There is no value in telling people that Hitler was not evil. It is not something that intellectually needs to be understood. Trying to do so can be a dangerous distraction. The truth that there is no good nor bad but thinking makes it truth is a SECONDARY realization. Let people discover it for themselves and not think they have to dig up the most disgusting videos they can find on the web as some sort of spiritual practice and watch them without feeling or judgement to get enlightened.

There's truth to what you're saying but when you apply it in practicality to life you cannot choose dark. Read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning and tell me he was deluded. That's what I'd like, a little more focus on Viktor Frankl, a little less Hitler. We already know all about Hitler. They taught us all about Hitler in school. Few of us were taught about Victor Frankl.

@SQAAD Having no free will is just another half truth because it's part of a paradox. The other part of the paradox that is true is that this world is here all for you, just for you and you have the power to make it be anything you want.

@Serotoninluv You touched on two points I'm currently trying to figure out about life in general. I think that to better understand feelings you can make a sort of hierarchy, form (material beings and objects), spoken or written language thoughts feelings being/ body awareness deeper being, oneness with all life/ enlightenment, love, God, the thing, language and thoughts cannot point to. So feelings are the thing that really bridges our mind with that deeper being. That's why they are so important and cannot be overlooked. You have to move through feeling to integrate everything. If you separate feeling from being the connection that it is, it seems useless so it makes sense to say it can be thrown away. Feelings are something that one can be easily caught up with, overtaken with and they can be really difficult to regulate and control. It's a particular challenge for men, whether that's because of nature or nurture or both, I really don't know. The answer is not don't have feelings. The temptation to skip right from thoughts and intellect to being or deeper being is a fantasy. It can be done successfully, but 24/7 practical life comes in and ruins everything, usually in the form of what we call "ego backlash". Ego backlash is a sign that you neglected your feelings. The other thing I'm trying to figure out is the balance of darkness and light and you asked if I see them as something that should be equal or if I think darkness is a stepping stone. So far, I have always seen them as something that should be equal, because giving them equal attention was equivalent to the truth in my eyes. Now I've dropped that belief. To me enlightenment is equal to love. It is the love that connects us. Focus on the darkness is what causes us to judge other people and disconnect from them. Focusing on darkness in others strengthens our own egos. The darkness and the evil separates. It's value is that it is a part of us and it has to exist for love to exist. It has to be acknowledged. Beyond that it is something that should not be meditated on or focused on.

Well that's just it. It was always just you. So if you see something that you want to change about someone else you can, you just have to change it about yourself. Myself. Whatever.

Thank you. That's a really important point and I can't imagine being in Leo's position. At the same time I believe that the teacher and student are one so I see it as an amazing opportunity. We are pioneers in a way because spiritual teachings and this information for the first time is available to anyone who comes across it. Usually before you would study under a teacher and the teacher would adapt the teachings intuitively depending on where you were. That or it would take you years of seeking and research to get very far. It's incredibly tricky to make videos for a very wide audience and also delve deeply into advanced subjects.

@Serotoninluv Eckhart Tolle says that there are "doers" in the world and that there are "frequency holders", (think enlightened yogi in a cave) and most people have a mix of each. Neither is morally superior to the other. A 100% enlightened frequency holder can't teach, help others, contribute and create in the world. A 100% doer does things with no guidance whatsoever and intentionally or unintentionally harms people and the earth. You find that most spiritual teachings cater to or promote being more one or the other. Abraham Hicks speaks to doers. There is a lot more value to her work once you already know how to be, but her work has so much value because some people have such busy minds that they cannot/do not have any interest in being. She does give you materialistic incentives to be. At one time I thought that was evil but that was mostly because I also thought that being a frequency holder was much more morally superior than being a doer. Trying to force yourself into being when you have a drive and a purpose to fulfill doesn't help anyone.

@Serotoninluv Creativity, emotion, empathy (or compassion is a better word I think), and intuition are great places to start. Maybe also throw in some communion with nature/mother earth and constantly humble yourself? The problem with an emphasis on thinking and analyzing is that it neglects feeling. You have to care about how you feel and when you teach, you have to care about how others feel. Instead the idea here is the very masculine "feelings make me weak, feelings must be destroyed, I'm doing this work so I don't have to feel." This problem is evident by the incessant strings of questions and complaints from people who have fallen into dark depressive states. Here, we just sort of dismiss this as ego backlash and give people a pat on the back for suffering more, because we're taught that the more you suffer the more spiritual you're becoming and the closer to your object of the truth. The problem is that this work is supposed to feel AMAZING. You are essentially cultivating, love, compassion, warmth, creativity, inspiration and opening yourself up to endless possibilities in life. Before you were closed off to them, or you self sabotaged yourself or you were too caught up in negative thoughts to see the light. I've done this work for four years now, Leo's videos helped to inspire me and open my mind enough to do it but I sought out different teachings. No psychedelics. Very little meditation. Very little suffering. No sitting down to do much of anything but instead constantly watching my thoughts and training myself how to see. My life before provided all the suffering I needed. I feel AMAZING. I have mitigated most of the lows that I feel and the only made the highs higher. Events in my life have become so serendipitous that I feel like I'm going f-ing insane every day. But in a good way. The tiniest little things have the power to make me insanely happy. My experiences and desire for truth continue to deepen my understanding and depth of experience. Seemingly organically. There's a lot of focus on the dark aspects of spirituality here. I don't need to take drugs, or think very long on how I'm actually Hitler and every concentration camp victim at the same time. If talking about the dark things has value, then we must equally talk about the love and joy. If we are speaking to someone who is already depressed, he needs teachings that are at the very least balanced to guide him to truth. Otherwise there's a real danger of self destruction. That's a topic that's being discussed here daily. Maybe love and joy just doesn't appeal to 20 and 30 something men? It just doesn't sell so well. I understand why Leo had a target audience in the past, but why is he still pandering to it so much? Is this Enlightenment, Just For Men? Look around at this forum and tell me, if you were a woman who was just getting interested in this work, would you want to stick around here? So much of truth is paradoxical, so if you lean too far to one side of the paradox and say "this is the way" you tip over the canoe before you make it down the river. So let's take the paradox of, "You must be intensely dedicated to seeking the truth to find it." and "You are already enlightened." There's this sort of unspoken narrative here of being the hero who goes out on his own and discovers the truth and makes the truth his bitch. Equally true is the narrative that life and mother earth brought you forth for a reason and she is loving and leading you towards the truth with every conscious step and misstep you make. It's a balancing act to keep the dedication to truth without getting a spiritual ego... then comparing your progress with others and expecting rewards from doing a certain amount of work as if spirituality could work out as nicely for you as a math problem would. Another paradox is that God is a man, and God is a woman. You have to learn and understand the qualities and viewpoints of the opposite gender, the gender that you were not egoically identified with your entire life, in order to evolve. You also have to consider and embrace their approach to spirituality if you want the truth. Which ironically is why I'm probably getting way more out of Leo's teachings and being around here than the rest of you.

@7thLetter I'd really suggest starting a retirement account with Vanguard or another low fee investment management company. You can just set it to withdraw a monthly amount from your account and start with whatever you're comfortable with. That way you get a retirement savings building without having the shock of a market crash when you just invested a huge sum. You can choose just a target retirement account or a lot of people recommend investing in the total US stock market. It totally depends on your comfort level.

You know how the sun feels when you're kind of cold and your just sitting there quiet and feeling grateful for the warmth? Love is when you emanate that feeling outwards.

Do you find yourself absolutely overjoyed with little things?

Use how you feel as a guide. Are you happy, peaceful or still very prone to falling into depressive states, or anxiety, etc?

Of course it's not in time. Now is the only time you can experience timelessness. Then why look for it in the future? I found his "practices" to be life changing.

Dedication and intense focus for the present moment. Did you watch the video? He specifically addresses that toward the end.

You need to find something to pursue that lights you up.

All I'm saying is focus on the change you want to make, do not give the suffering a single thought. You're giving it too much weight. Also yes, accept the ego backlash. It is a really beautiful thing. It's the thing that tells we we made a superficial change because we thought the problem was superficial and didn't really understand what the deep problem was that we needed to address.

Yes, stop the work. Keep the consciousness. Why do you think studying will give you a good life? Do you really truly want the job that you're studying in order to get?

You've created a separation between your normal life and your meditative states. You need to watch your thoughts as you go about everyday life. You cannot expect meditation to fix your thoughts when your mind is active throughout the day, you must bring space and bits of meditation in throughout the day. Eckhart Tolle is an AMAZING teacher for doing just that.

Suffering is secondary. It has value as guidance, but never in itself. Suffering means that you aren't accepting. Seeking out suffering doesn't mean that you'll accept more, sooner. There are no hacks to acceptance. You can't hack your way to surrendering. That's what ego backlash is, it means you went too, far too soon. The value in the suffering from ego backlash is that it shows you what you still must accept.

Do you realize how analytical and masculine your approach is? You've got to balance things out to fully grasp truth on a deep level. You've especially got to balance it out when you're teaching people who are struggling to get a basic understanding of that which cannot be understood.