Akim

This is just my speculation but here it is. You need a certain amount of order to integrate chaos and to make it beneficial. Like Leo is clearly very serious about it, reads tons of book, strategic, disciplined, have many conceptual frameworks in place and so on. When you alter your consciousness state with such strategic preparation of course it can grow you. You will make new reference points, expose some subconscious stuff, connect some dots about your inner experience and so on. There are many people that use breath techniques, mind altering substances and it doesn't look like it grows them, on the contrary. May be they have too much chaos and could use some strict dogmatic system to hold them together. Like atheistic materialism polished by many scientific experiments, brilliant thinkers, consensus and peer review. Though some dogmatic religion can be better, because it at least attempts to deal with what is important to people, like meaning, higher purpose, spiritual growth and at the same time was already tested by generations to be somewhat livable and wholesome.

I tried to understand Christianity and here is what I found. I was coming from atheist perspective in my research so the selection is biased. There is a great lecture series on New Testament from atheistic perspective. It is not spiritual at all and just uses text study methods and texts comparisons including newly found manuscripts not in the Canon. It really changed my understanding of Christianity and religion development in general from the historical materialistic perspective. There is Jordan Peterson Bible series on Youtube and also his posts like this recent small poetic one https://jordanbpeterson.com/philosophy/on-the-ark-of-the-covenant-the-cathedral-and-the-cross-easter-message-i/ Religious perspective is of course very different. Holly Ghost is involved with the development of Christianity and so on. There is a book called "Mere Christianity" by C. S. Lewis which explains Christianity in simple modern terms. It is usually recommended on r/Christianity subreddit Quotation from it: Also, probably most important thing, you can just read Gospels, if you haven't already. Parables that are attributed to Jesus. Epistles that show how earliest Christians understood his message. There are a lot of supernatural things in New Testament, it makes it impossible for some people to read it seriously, but you can kind of ignore it taking into account the age of the text and the tendency of stories to turn archetypal with time. Or be radically open-minded. Though I personally think it is possible to have too much open-mindedness.

Great post, I discovered a lot more about Hinduism. Just like to point out that Buddha views were more complex than that. My understanding is limited, but as far as I can understand now Buddha focused on giving direct instructions on what to do. There is an article that explained to me a lot about traditional Theravada Buddhism https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/uncollected/FirstThingsFirst.html byṬhānissaro Bhikkhu one of the most prolific translator of Pali canon. Some citations:

Suppose there was infinitely powerful Being we will call IT and IT created a robot. IT can do anything inside that robot, change programming and so on. So IT controls that robot. But then IT thinks that it would be interesting to make this robot free, independent and capable of self control. IT can do anything so why not. IT also created some space-time environment before that and put robot there. IT also created other robots of different types. IT has to constantly watch and decide where to intervene and use control and rob/relieve entities IT created from the consequences of their actions on themselves and others. Over time robots acquire different programming or understanding what they are and how the world works. Some of them think everything is predetermined, some think they are free. Some figured that their computational capacity is too small to understand it but decided that if there is no freedom it would not matter to believe in it, it was all predetermined. So on the chance there is freedom they decided to believe in it. Some robots think there is a creator, some think there is not. And some figured on the chance there is a creator and/or some possible help from above, they are gonna put that possibility into account when they try to interpret the world around them and act in it.

@Angelo John Gage You can try to create new type of community and make it work. But it looks like humans are not very good at that. Lenin and Stalin tried that, fought religion, put a lot of emphasis on science and education. But it is just hard to make it work. First their system became quasi religion with Lenin statues everywhere and Lenin is still in mausoleum like some Pharaoh. Also a lot of people died and suffered immensely in the process. And after the collapse of Soviet Union there was or still is a lot of chaos and people flock back to Christianity and other religions. I may be wrong here but this is a picture by Jordan Peterson. Also if you loose trust in materialism and rationality and try to read religious myths they start to make some sense, especially if you read or watch Jordan Peterson, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung. For me New Testament makes more sense than Old Testament. And Church Fathers make more sense that New Testament. And C. S. Lewis make more sense than Church Fathers. C. S. Lewis "Mere Christianity" is just great in explaining Christianity in modern terms. May be because the closer the author the more similar concept maps they use. May be some mistakes were sorted out, or corruption took place, I don't know. It is not just myths. Practices and rituals are valuable too. If you are serious about religion you have to concentrate your mind a lot on some chant or prayer, read a lot in different language that you have to learn, compare different verses and opinions of lots of people of different veneration and authority. Look https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectio_Divina for example. Modern self help alternatives are like small kids compared to that. If there are some tested by generations and somewhat wholesome ways of life different from religions, I would be happy to learn about them.

@Angelo John Gage You can say religions are mind viruses. But can you call a virus something that made their hosts more competitive? They evolved and won out in fierce battles in people minds and in bloody wars. Here are two communities pictured in completely materialistic and rational terms: One community do not have centralized set of values, they do as they please, they do not trust each other, you never know what your neighbor has on his mind. Some do one set of rituals, others different. Some believe in magic, other think it is silly, and some believe witches are responsible for crop failures and burn them. Some people work hard and some rob and steal. There is no central authority who can tell who of them is right apart from the most powerful warlord. Another community has centralized somewhat coherent story about how the world works, what should be done. There is God, he created everything including humans and gave humans free will. Because of some errors of distant fathers humans are now corrupted but they can repair and improve themselves if they work on it, combat sins and do wholesome deeds. And they have to work hard. Some of them become monks, pray, contemplate, study, pass knowledge. Some of them become priests and teach the values of the communities to people, answer questions and perform centralized rituals which bonds community together. Community guiding principles are written in huge, long books in ancient languages and people have to work a lot to study and understand them. In this books are stories that were passed down through generations and out-competed all other stories. They value marital vows, work ethic, mutual help and frown upon greedy, lazy, promiscuous people. They believe if they do good they will go to heaven after death, if they not they will suffer a lot. If something bad happens there is a reason for it, they were not good enough or it is just a test and if they persevere they will be rewarded. If there is an external threat they unite against it. Which community do you think is going to out-compete another? Then suppose I watch Leo channel and now think rationality and materialism are not completely true. What do I do? How do I decide who is right? How about if a system of believes produced somewhat decent life for many generations it should at least be taken seriously and studied.

@Girzo Yes, this is sad. But some people are doing the work, preserve and develop the good in traditions and put it online. I am grateful for that. Like in medieval times I imagine some monks would work a lot to copy by hand a book of some Church Father. People went to church to listen to Bible, because there was only one in the village and they couldn't read themselves. Now one can use wikipedia and google to find so much wisdom but most people just don't care.

You can discuss open mindedness with at least some Christians. In Catholicism, for example, there is a virtue Prudence which has a component Docility. "Docility is open-mindedness, and so it requires a recognition of ones own limitations and ready acceptance of those limits. Proud people who hope excessively in their own excellence will tend to make imprudent decisions because they fail to rely on others by virtue of their inordinate and unrealistic self-estimation." https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/education/catholic-contributions/the-virtue-of-prudence.html Later they even say that it is important to hear opinions different from yours: "A person with false docility seeks the advice of others, but only those deemed most likely to be in agreement with him, or of those of similar depravity and who are thus unlikely to challenge the overall orientation of his life." They just have different rules and you need to be able to quote from sources respected by them.

Why not use discussion to help Christians understand what God is? Sure you have to go to their territory, they value Bible and Church Fathers more than science or personal opinions. But many of them have the discipline and commitment to pray, stand listening to chants, read sacred text and contemplate the meaning of it for hours. May be it is not possible to resolve it with discussion. But it does not mean discussions are not useful to move in the direction of more consciousness. You use words to express ideas about consciousness. You are having a whole channel to communicate information verbally to people to increase their consciousness. It looks like people can interact with each other and grow in the process. One might say meditation is all you need to do, talking is pointless. But what is meditation? It is a technique mostly communicated verbally as far as I know. People teach each other to meditate and discuss different techniques. Buddha wandered for years having discussions with other schools and clarifying things for his disciples. His discussions were highly valued and transmitted. One could argue that because of them millions of people increased their consciousness. Jesus was wandering and discussing things. His talks with disciples and other people were passed down through generations. People were inspired by them. Again one could argue they raised the consciousness of millions of people, monks, hermits, lay people, etc. What other way to build bridges between cultures?

May be if you are high level mystic, don't know, but not from the perspective of Abrahamic religions. In Christianity: Greed, envy, ... - not God, far from him. Love - attribute of God. Average person - not God. Jesus - God. The word God is not everything and tells you how the world works and what you should be moving towards.

When we use the word God it has to mean something. For different people words mean different things. In your terminology they slice and map reality differently. In Christianity: "God in Christianity is the eternal being who created and preserves all things. Christians believe God to be both transcendent (wholly independent of, and removed from, the material universe) and immanent (involved in the world).[2][3] Christian teachings of the immanence and involvement of God and his love for humanity exclude the belief that God is of the same substance as the created universe[4] but accept that God's divine Nature was hypostatically united to human nature in the person of Jesus Christ, in an event known as the Incarnation." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Christianity What you are describing is Panteism "Pantheism is the belief that all reality is identical with divinity,[1] or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent god." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism In your language one could say different conceptual slicing of everything would create different interpretations of what the world is. Just saying that every religion is the same and it is all one at least robs the world of it richness. Religions are maps of how to interpret and interact with the world. I am more familiar with Christianity for cultural reasons so I will speak about it. In Christianity world that the human finds himself in is post catastrophe world. It is broken and the human is broken. But there is a way to restore yourself, you have to imitate Christ who is God and strive become him so to speak. There are different interpretations and rituals in different Christian branches. But there are basic common hierarchies of values. Truth is what human should strive for, lying and deceiving is what he should fight against. There are good qualities to develop and sins to fight with. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins. It is not "everything is one" worldview. Christianity is a set complex systems that clearly have many historic influences and were developed and continue developing in different branches. But it does not look like it is unifying to me, it is more like diversifying with more and more new sects. I don't think most Christians would agree that their religion is just a mix of pantheism and cultural archaic stupidity. It is at least a unique way to view the world where there is such entity as God which is not identical to material world.

@Joseph Maynor There are some basic things that you can say about Islam, like God in Islam is "the all-powerful and all-knowing ruler of the universe, and the creator of everything in existence within the universe." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Islam Humans are not God, material world is not God, they are just created and ruled by God. Concept of God, like mentioned above. Leo is saying he is God, reality is God. Don't know, hard to tell. But in Islam Mohamed is not God, Jesus is explicitly said to be prophet and not God. It is like serious deal. It looks to me that Leo is trying to build bridges and mutual understanding. But in doing so he paints very Hindu version of Islam. May be there are some Sufi citations that would agree with him, but in general it is not prevailing current Islamic worldview as it looks to me. But may be the point is to explain Islam in terms of non-duality for modern yoga oriented westerners. Then it may be a good start.

For me this video tries to reinterpret Islam. More precisely do a Hindu reinterpretation. Like all is one, everyone is God. I am not saying it is a bad thing, but there are huge distinctions between religions. In Abrahamic religions there is separation between God and human and material world. God creates humans and the world but is not them. Human submit to God not to the world. In Islam, as I understand it, there is a strong emphasis on God oneness and always controlling everything. Christianity is different in that you have a free human, who can make choices and God wants human to strive toward being God like and sent Jesus to show and create the way to make it possible. There are also some branches of Christianity that don't believe in free will, and in many other aspects it is way more complex than that, but that is the point. One may say that on some higher level this distinctions are irrelevant and just word games, but on my level and on the level on many people I suspect they are relevant. Some say this distinctions lead to very different cultures and worldviews, for example there is a popular notion these days in conservative circles that science is a direct consequence of Christian worldview. Worldview that says that material world is separate and humans have free will to develop and cultivate it. If you believe that everything is a dream or that God always controls everything, why bother.

Peterson became popular by weighting on issues that society currently debates. He kind of solved the problem of marketing this way. Being deeply knowledgeable in archetypes and stuff probably helped to do it. But he is much deeper than his short popular videos. His book “Maps on Meaning” was written 1999 but was not widely read. For example, taking into account topics popular of this forum, here are citations from the book. On the idea of the absolute: "The great dragon of chaos – the uroboros, the self-devouring serpent – might be conceptualized as pure (latent) information, before it is parsed into the world of the familiar, the unfamiliar, and the experiencing subject. The uroboros is the stuff of which categorical knowledge is composed, before being that knowledge; it is the primary “element” of the world, which is decomposed into cosmos, surrounding chaos, and the exploratory process which “separates” the two." "Mythic symbols of the chaos of the beginning are imaginative pictures, whose purpose is representation of a paradoxical totality – a “state,” (which is already to say something too determinate) self-contained, uniform, and complete, where everything now distinct resides in union: a state where being and non-being, beginning and end, matter and energy, spirit and body, consciousness and unconsciousness, femininity and masculinity, night and day remain compounded, prior to their discrimination into the separable elements of experience. In this “state,” all conceivable pairs of opposites and contradictory forces exist together – within the all-encompassing embrace of an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and altogether mysterious God." On the idea of transcending society, forging your own path and self actualization: “Rituals designed to strengthen group identity hold chaos at bay, but threaten individual identification” with the exploratory hero – an identity upon which maintenance of the group ultimately depends. For the sake of the group, therefore, the individual must not be rendered subservient to the group. The Word – in its guise as painstakingly abstracted action and object – can create new worlds and destroy old; can pose an unbearable threat to seemingly stable cultures, and can redeem those that have become senescent, inflexible and paralytic. To those who have “sold their souls” to the group, however, the Word is indistinguishable from the enemy." “The phenomenon of interest – that precursor to exploratory behavior – signals the presence of a potentially “beneficial” anomaly. Interest manifests itself where an assimilable but novel phenomenon exists: where something new “hides,” in a partially comprehensible form. Devout adherence to the dictates of interest – assuming a suitably disciplined character – therefore insures stabilization and renewal of personality and world. Interest is a spirit beckoning from the unknown – a spirit calling from outside the “walls” of society. Pursuit of individual interest means hearkening to this spirit’s call – means journeying outside the protective walls of childhood dependence and adolescent group identification; means also return to to and rejuvenation of society. This means that pursuit of individual interest – development of true individuality – is equivalent to identification with the hero. Such identification renders the world bearable, despite its tragedies – and reduces unnecessary suffering, which most effectively destroys, to an absolute minimum.This is the message that everyone wants to hear. Risk your security. Face the unknown. Quit lying to yourself, and do what your heart truly tells you to do. You will be better for it, and so will the world.”

It looks like his ideas are quickly propagated. I see it on this forum, other parts of the internet and in myself. He integrates psychoanalytical, mythological, religious, evolutionary concepts very nicely. Suddenly Bible stories make sense, hero stories make sense, anxiety make sense, resentment make sense, and so on. It is like something clicks together. According to him people don’t live in a world of objects. People live in a world of stories. We perceive world as tools, what is it for us, first. He divides the world into familiar territory, order to be constantly improved and restored versus dangerous unknown, chaos to be faced voluntarily to slay the dragon and to obtain the gold/rescue a virgin. He emphasizes responsibility and struggle for what we find meaningful versus being content with rights, freedom, what is given to us and lazy “happiness”. He promotes the old human wisdom of paying attention, speaking the truth, making order out of chaos through that. Which is what the concept of logos means if I understand it correctly. He shows why Biblical, mythological stories are deeply wise and meaningful and not just a bunch of old superstitions. Why we can’t just drop our old culture, deconstruct everything and expect a wholesome balanced society. What we can formulate in language is a tiny subset of our knowledge in a form of image based, intuitive dream like intuitions, and we should not discard the later. And embodied knowledge that we hadn't compressed yet in a form of intuitions is even bigger. He also emphasizes the importance that we don’t know what consciousness is and by the time we will know our notions of what is material and real will probably radically change. And he is on good term with psychedelics their role in human culture and history. There are many many insights by him, probably not all originally his, but integrated and promoted by him.

Also most stable pattern of relationship in human culture is one man with one women for life. Or one man with several women for life if there are a lot of wars and not enough men. There is probably a reason for it, why such societies outcompete others. Not just that they were stupid and we are smart and have birth control. Now as we become sexually liberated and promiscuous, everything becomes complicated. Most of the sex/children will go to the top males. We will have lots and lots of single mothers. Will this be stable? What would men who are not needed anymore do?

There is a thing that female reproduction value is largely determined by her physical appearance and for males it is position in the dominance hierarchy. So men compete for dominance like their life is depending on it, because it is. Low status males will not have children. For low status females it is much easier to have children, because man can impregnate a lot of women easily. This fierce competition probably explain huge biological and psychological differences. I don't think it is just a paradigm that we can destroy quickly and build a functional and healthy society. It really reminds me of Marxism too, as Jordan Peterson says. Like people see differences in wealth between people and say, hey we don't like that reality, scrap that, we will redistribute everything, yeah some violence will probably be needed, oh look reality is more complex than we thought it doesn't work so well (to put it mildly). There is a lot of work to be done to understand how the dynamic is evolving and what can we try to do to improve society for all its members.

I think some societies are more hierarchical and male dominated. Two very stark examples among our closest relatives are chimps and bonobos. https://www.eva.mpg.de/3chimps/files/apes.htm. There are examples of more female oriented cultures among humans like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosuo_women Bonobo society: "females form strong bonds and exert social dominance over the males. Groups occupy specific territories, territories can overlap, mating across community lines observed. Sex used for social bondage, pairs can include all age and sex combinations, reduction of tension, elicit social or food benefits, frequent homosexual interactions esp. in females, Used as greeting, conflict resolution." Chimp society: "Linear set of relationships among all males. Includes a clear alpha-male specific territories, aggressive patrolling of boundaries, avoidance of neighbors. High ranking males monopolize and guard females in estrus" I looks to me that there is some movement in bonobo direction in western society. But will it last?

Animals can be depressed though. "Beaver said major changes in a dog’s life could lead to periods of depression. Those include moving into a new home, a new spouse or baby in the household, or adding another pet. Even a change in the dog’s schedule, for instance a stay-at-home owner who takes a job, can cause a dog to get down. But the two most common triggers of severe dog depression are the loss of a companion animal or the loss of an owner." "Dog depression symptoms are very similar to those in people, said John Ciribassi, DVM, past president of the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior. “Dogs will become withdrawn. They become inactive. Their eating and sleeping habits often change. They don’t participate in the things they once enjoyed.” But vets warn those symptoms also can mean a dog has a medical problem, so the first course of action should always be a full checkup by a veterinarian. A pet that mopes around and no longer wants to go for walks could simply have pain from arthritis, Beaver says." https://pets.webmd.com/dogs/features/depression-in-dogs#1

You can read books written hundred years ago like "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin". It really shows how different people were. Or books written by people in different cultures like "A Thousand Splendid Suns". Even better if it is a book written in different culture a long time ago. Bible is good for culture shock if you do not have deep religious background and just try to read the Old Testament without preconceptions. You can also find documentaries on Youtube about people living in different tribes, cultures.

I really liked “learning = observation” video. It helps to reframe awareness as observation because it makes the process more exciting and you can do much more of it. I tried to observe human photos for 25 minutes and started to see more details and differences in them. I also discovered that after several minutes the emotion of the face you observe overrides your emotion, so you can pretty much experience any emotional state at will. Short stories are great. I started to read them instead of big fiction books and really enjoy it. Instead of rushing through to see what happens next in a novel, I reread and contemplate a short story, see how all elements are important in it. Great short stories packed with condensed observations about the world. The last one that I liked is "The Standard of Living" by Dorothy Parker. It is just several pages long but filled with observations about culture, social hierarchy, how people interact with one another.

I'll start this journal with things that are important bits of wisdom I discovered for myself. Examine and investigate deeper what you really want to do and really don’t want to do. It is like your subconscious is coloring things as more import, so that you pay attention to them. Deliberate, don’t choose too fast. Also along with previous rules, really contemplate what you really want and what will be your best decision. Desire is your main fuel or may be even the only fuel, so learn your desires, integrate them, have meta desires about changing desires, but not just what you should desire, try to find authentic desires about changing desires. As a counterpoint to desires, limit yourself, develop disciple. Otherwise you growth will be greatly determined by external problems that you have to solve, kind of involuntary growth. It is best to limit yourself voluntarily. Golden rule, being kind and forgiving is like cheating. I don’t know how it works, karma, magic, self deception into reinterpreting things as positive, in any way it just works wonders in life. Second guess your thoughts, think how they may be false. Argue with yourself in your head, but not in a negative, self-depreciating way. Integrate everything, especially inside yourself. This is what inner peace means, settling inner conflicts. Take time to do nothing external and just slowly integrate yourself.

I find viewing myself as a system is a good metaphor. Like there are a bunch of modules that compete like it is described in a book “Why Buddhism is true” by Robert Wright or sub personalities by Jordan Peterson. So I have intellectuals, who lobby consuming more information, science lobby that wants to do experiments and expand known possibilities, traditional religious people, who want to create order based on tried and true principles, business people who want to earn more money, different foreign lobbies that want to maintain productive relationships with others, survivalists who want to prepare resources for worse days, vegans who try to reduce meat consumption, people seeking different basic pleasures etc. They form a system and consciousness is kind of like a parliament where they discuss and argue issues, they will even try to deceive each other to advance their position. After viewing it that way, there appears a group that wants to integrate different lobbies and improve cooperation. To build a stable hierarchy of values and integrate the whole system around it. Groups may push their values, but they have to do it in the most truthful manner they can, if they want to get their interest to have higher priority. They also have to accept the current balance and try to cooperate with each other.

I’m kind of lost in the complexity of reality. Things are so strangely related, twisted, non obvious, it is shocking. In ordinary map of reality explored by billions of people, things are kind of known. It is great to have that as an option. But there are so many territories that can be explored. In some, thousands of people ventured and explored things, like serious pursuit of Christianity or Buddhism. Those are like relatively safe explored continents. But there are immeasurable number of other ways to map and construct reality. Some are fascinating and beg to be explored. But you don't know anything, there are many silly mistakes that you will make. Kind of like you are on a new planet that no one been before. You can't just work for someone and rent a room to read books and watch videos on the internet. You have to discover for yourself how to breeze on this planet, is it possible, is there ways to get or create food. This survival metaphor is really liked by psyche, there is something deep and fundamental about it, not just in a sense that I was formed that way by evolution. There are systems, systems that survive are systems that can guard themselves, explore to find opportunity, integrate and assimilate things. The job is to constantly renew your system, explore, try to understand things around you, look for useful information. What is more fundamental than that? May be understand that you are a part of a bigger system, like family, humanity, identify with it and work for its benefit. I want to be wiser and make better decisions. Why? I love making good decisions and making my world better in some way. Why? Some things are just better than others. Why? I don’t know, but I am not willing to drop that intuition based on my inability to articulate an answer.

Great videos, thanks for posting, I think I should watch more Shinzen Young. Regarding sexuality I think in modern culture we pumper, feed and tease this beast way too much with masterfully engineered stimulation, tailored to all varieties of people. And the very ethics of modern western society is all about sexual liberation, expression, uniqueness and creativity. May be we need that after repressions and horrors that we had in earlier stricter societies where people also did not have birth control and ways to prevent diseases. If you discover the value of sexual abstinence this may seem very appealing, but too much change too fast destabilize the organism and freaks out the sexuality system that we grown so much. I think one should try to cope and integrate different aspects of his personality, I look at it as trying to survive and thrive in unknown environment kind of thing, where you try to explore, find food, heal your wounds, learn what works for you, experiment but cautiously and also building a strong infrastructure to fall back to. And if you needs help in a form of medication or professional, there is nothing wrong with that.