UnbornTao

The purpose of this journal is to share questions, humor, miscellaneous creative content, and raw reflections on personal empowerment and consciousness. My goals are to deepen my experiential understanding of these topics, improve my communication skills, have fun, and help others see things in a new light.

Really? God.

This is just sad. Ironically enough, despite your professing, you are quite closed-minded in some fundamental ways. It won't look this way for most of your acolytes, though. It's also clear that you want to avoid being challenged. You're smart enough to notice that Ralston knows a thing or two that you may be a bit dizzy about. Potentially deluding altogether. Remember that Adi Da knew what he was talking about. His group, unfortunately, turned into a full-on cult.

Sounds like a good pointer.

Love it. It could be taken a step further: What even is experience? What does it mean to experience something?

lol That's commitment.

Okay.

I'm a believer

@Natasha Tori Maru Body language, for example. Pretending not to know is not the same as actual not knowing.

Oh, you can definitely tell. You think it can be kept hidden or something. And you do it all the time.

Yeah, the issue I raised speaks to a deeper dynamic and includes what you're saying here.

Check out this belief.

No one, apparently. But it's a matter of honesty, not smartness. The latter can actually be used to fuel the deception. But seriously, yeah. Not just a video but a week-long workshop. We are such poor listeners in general. The more you look the more you realize this. And the more depth you find to the principle. Learning how not to see what is not there is another invaluable ability.

Of course it is, of course it is.

Didn't you hold consciousness to be a function of the brain when arguing in favor of drugs as a means to awakening? And do you consider things like so-called "absolute color" awakenings to be direct consciousness? It's possible that some of our distinctions aren't as rigorous or precise as those made by certain masters - hence the value of a conversation. Honestly, people will just believe this. They already do. They like it and don't really care about what's true, even though they may think they do. They're after a better experience. And who isn't? And of course they'll adopt it. It's much better than listening to some disagreeable jerk who's seen as taking away their candy. Alright then, let's feel good about ourselves. It's soothing. It's comforting. And when all is said and done, what is true?

I call BS on that, sorry. Like Christians claiming a Christ Awakening. There are things that are deliberately left unsaid. Don't you think it is easy for people to talk? I can chat away too. With some effort, you'd have believed the same about me. Talk is cheap. And certainly, I could have complemented that with a psychedelic trip report and all the extra bells and whistles. But in the end, it would've just been a self‑indulgent exercise. It would've started with me believing in something, and then trying to retroactively confirm it in my own mind.

I'll repeat that agreeing and disagreeing are irrelevant and not my concern. Hmm, I think we desperately need a video on listening. But who would make it? And who would listen to it? Leave the person aside and consider that a set of beliefs can be, at least partly, inconsistent with direct consciousness. Direct consciousness is not a worldview, even though it could be made to fit into one. But at that point it would no longer be true. It would be something believed. Are you sure that the reason you gave, both to us and probably to yourself, is the real reason you aren't willing to talk to him? Is it about fostering an open discussion, or about defending one's worldview?

Again, I don't give a duck. You have a lot of Leo's yes-persons here. I should have clarified that you yourself provide the cosmology for others to adopt. Revisit the Teal Swan thread and the videos on listening.

And you talk about rigid framing. Behold, a believer. Do an episode on belief. Isn't this pretty much the issue? One's framing (because it is a framing) is taken for granted as true and the contradicting parties are held to be the ones that are closed-minded and lacking in consciousness. You just have to reframe the disagreement as "The other just needs an X (which might be a belief system) Awakening."

I think he was just asking for a way to contact him.

Again, this is just a weird conflation. Why bring up particular activities in relation to something you hold as absolute? An absolute doesn't care, so to speak. It makes no distinctions between one thing and another. It's like saying black holes are absolute space. Sure, space contains everything, but why single out one particular invention happening within it? Are you trying to imply that a combination of the elements found within some "thing" is what makes up that thing? Why would it even occur to you to choose those things other than as rhetorical devices? You could be just as radical by teaching people that cauliflowers are absolute. They're as disgusting as genocide, too. People would start having Cauliflower Awakenings. It seems to me that many of your "absolutes" sound an awful lot like relatives. And also, look at how people end up generating a worldview out of this.