Scholar

As far as I know there are cons and pros for different diets and different athletic sports, it seems like some vegans are doing exceptionally well and scoring high despite being a minority. However it could be that it is more difficult to maintain certain aspects of health on a vegan diet when for example going for body building, like your gut health. The same is true for a diet that includes meat that will damage your cardiovascular system, it might simply be the case that these kinds of things manifest in different ways. I haven't done much research though because I am interested in general health outcomes for the general population, if athletes cannot be athletes on a non-vegan diet, but can otherwise be healthy, I don't think athletes can justify being athletes. If every athlete was vegan it would remove the performance enhancing attributes of meat either way. If we can survive on a vegan diet, meat would be similar to steroids. Steroids for which you would have to kill animals. It could be that in a certain way meat does improve our performance, possibly cognitive as well as athletic, and that we are, due to having always consumed meat, used to this performance improvement as our normal way of feeling. If that was true it would simply mean we would need to get used to our new state or find other performance enhancing things that do not cause the mass slaughter of animals and the destruction of our environment, or go to sources that cause less amount of harm, like insects, mussels and so forth. To kill a cow for performance enhancement is to me a little crazy.

Joe Rogan is not a high quality source of information. I have posted this in another thread, but if you are interested to see what it takes to actually understand these topics, and why people like Kresser and even many vegan doctors are misinforming the public due to their incompetence, watch these two videos: It debunks both vegan and anti-vegan arguments made in one of the vegan-vs-nonvegan debates on Joe Rogan.

Watch the 14 hour stream, it goes into detail point by point. Super helpful to understand how deeply deluded people can get by just reading studies without actually being able to interpret them at all, for example having no basic understanding of the difference between relative and absolute risk. This kind of incompetence is found on such a basic level that it basically discredits people like Kresser or Kahn completely. And yes, B12 can cause serious brain damage, however we can supplement which has found to be effective in virtually everyone aside from people who have problem to get B12 from food. These people will not get adequate B12 from meat so will have to take injections anyways. By the way the kind of brain damage long-term serious B12 deficiency is causing is so serious it will literally make you unable to walk and eventually kill you, so it is essential to supplement whether you are vegan or not. I hate vegan dogma as much as this nonsense Kresser is spouting. If you are interested in truth, go ahead and watch the stream. It will open your eyes, probably humble you and make you realize just how prevelant incompetence is among these public doctors who do not know the basic scientific principles nor how to read data. It's basically free education, super valuable.

@Matt23 For a short debunk. For an indepth understanding of why Kresser doesn't know what he is talking about: That's 14 hours of content and it's not enough to fully explain all the non-sense Kresser (and Kahn for that matter) is spouting into the world. There might be some critiques of the science behind the plant based diet, but you will not get it from a charlatan like Kresser. And Joe Rogan is the most biased entity on this subject you could possibly imagine. If plant based turned out to be healthy he would have literally been killing animals personally for years for a completely unjustified reason. That's something even his ego couldn't handle. Here is an unbiased critique of Game Changers from someone who is atleast competent on that area of expertise:

Do you forsee that in the future, like in a hundred years, people will dismiss your teachings because they saw you keeping dead bodies in your fridge? I guess it won't be a problem because of how many new teachers are going to arise.

I have heard a Spiritual Teacher talk about how empathy is actually a great spiritual tool as it let's you to live the life of other beings without actually living their lifes. It in a way allows us to experience that which we otherwise would need to experience ourselves. The teacher was using the model of Souls who spiritually evolve throughout multiple incarnations. The experiences the Soul would have and therefore fulfill would lead to it's development. As it climbed up the hierarchy of Spiritual Needs it would come closer to Self-Realization. It was said that at some point a Soul evolves the ability for Empathy and then even Compassion. These abilities allow for the Soul to experience more Lifes within a single Life-form. The suffering and experiences of others would become a contribution to the evolution of ones own Soul and therefore leading to faster Self-Realization. Would you guys say this model is accurate, aside from the particular way it was framed (within the Soul-Paradigm)? Is empathy actually a great tool that fascilitates Spiritual Evolution? Is this why Higher Consciousness tends to lead to Higher Empathy and Compassion? Framing it in the Soul-Paradigm, one could say the Soul expands it boundaries to include more and more Being, which essentially is what Spiritual Evolution really is all about? Ultimate Compassion would dissolve the Soul as it would mean complete boundlessness and all-encompassing experience, it would basically be the same thing as full Self-Realization.

Self-justification is also Ultimate Love. It doesn't really matter, Reality will do it's thing anyways. If you do not think all of Isness is Utlimate Love, then whatever you describe cannot be Ultimate Love. Ultimate Love is not merely a good self-justification for the causing of all Suffering, it is literally equivalent to it. There requires to be no justification.

The greatest Act of Love is to veil Love so as to fully accept non-acceptance. You have already achieved this, there is no greater Love than suffering and duality. Survival and morality are all Ultimate Acts of Love. Love knows no hierarchy. When Leo says there are greater or lesser kinds of Love, it is not God who is speaking, it is Leo the chimp.

Again I am not interested in a debate. I can only recommend you to do more research into gut health and resulting inability to absorb nutrients (especially plant nutrients), into the effects current standard diets have on our guts and into what kind of dogmatic diets vegans tend to be attractive to (insanities like raw-food vegans who not only do not have the required gut but also seem to be against supplementation, and a general tendency to dismiss the fact that human beings are omnivores not herbivores etc.). Also do some research into human history, we ate insects for the majority of our evolutionary history, we are obviously omnivores. That does not mean animal products like red meat and fish are optimal for us and if you were to be honest about the data we have on this subject I think you would see this. The environmental impact of the animal agriculture alone should force us to consume insects instead of mammals, birds or fish. Mussels, insects and so forth can be prefectly adequate for people who have gut issues and cannot maintain a vegan diet. For people who have genetic issues it will also suffice. The rest can probably survive on eating a vegan diet until we are able to produce lab-grown meats that will completely resolve all ethical and environmental problems. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/09/24/russia-produces-its-first-lab-grown-meat-sample-a67416 Russia is planning to do so until 2023. If you really thought meat was healthy and needed to be consumed by humans you would promote the heck out of this kind of thing, atleast if you had the consideration for ethics and environment that I do.

So you are just going to cherry pick studies and ignore the majority of data regarding this and an overwhelming consensus in the scientific community that a plant based diet is healthy and is correlated with reduction in all cause mortality? I am not interested to have a debate, but I would recommend you to try to be unbiased and research the other side of the argument.

But it also comes with heme-iron, cholesterol, hormones and all kinds of bad stuff that you are better to avoid if you can. You can get all of the nutrients above on a plant based diet and most people do not have to worry too much about absorption or internal production issues if they eat healthily. If there are issues, which will not manifest months or even years into the diet anyways, there can be an introduction of different kinds of foods like mussels so as to mitigate these problems.

Being nice is not a virtue if it stems from an inability to be violent. The one who does not kill another because he is unable to is not really moral, because he is inherently a slave to his limitations, much like say a cow would be. The one who is fully capable of being violent, evil and destructive but who chooses not to be can be said to be moral. So, ask yourself, what is the reason for why you are nice? Is it because you are a follower or because you are a leader? A leader is nice for a very different reason than a follow might be, and it is the case that women tend to be attracted to leaders. The problem with the one who has not the opportunity to be immoral is that once they are put into a position of power their true nature will be revealed. It is very easy to be nice when there will be consequences for it, but what about when you are in a position of absolute power? If you could snap your finger and kill anyone, how would that change you? There is always an uncertainty in the weak, because one cannot judge how they will act in positions of power. I observe this very often, when the "nice guy" gets together with a woman, and once comfortable and attached starting to treat her exactly the same way how the "bad guy" would. This is a basic power dynamic, think of Lord of the Rings. Power corrupts, if you never had power, how can one possibly know whether you are not going to be corrupted by it? Sure you can be nice and dandy when you are talking about how you don't need the ring, but once the ring is in your hands, things might very well change. And the weak, in general, are the ones who will be corrputed by power the most, because they never held it in their hands before. The most attractive thing is uncorrupted power. However it is very rare, and corrputed power is often more attactive than uncorrputed weakness.

I find that debates, from the perspective of an intellectual humble observer, can be a great tool to reveal obvious flaws in a teachers way of thinking and therefore their general comprehension ability. If I for example would see Leo commiting major logical fallacies in conversations related to the world I would get suspicious of the validity of his claims regarding politics, science and so forth. This is however not as much related to spirituality. I get suspicious of people who desperately avoid debates because they might be attempting to control their environments so flaws in their thinking cannot be revealed and therefore their authority be upheld. I know this mechanic to well because I used to do so myself. When there is a skilled debater they will be able to formulize a flaw in thinking and reveal it to a larger audience. There is a very fine line as to when someone can say they are beyond orange and when they are actually avoiding orange so that they do not have to deal with something intellectually. Anyways, debates can happen very playfully to test each others ideas and be great tools to exercise and learn formal operational thinking, which even nowadays most people lack, including many advanced spiritual teachers. Just because someone is beyond orange does not mean they have integrated all of the aspects that can be learned in orange. Someone who studies logic and the like for example will be far more masterful at these aspects of orange than any Yellow teacher will. A Tier 2 teacher would always do good to work to integrate more aspects of orange instead of simply disregarding them. This is the very reason why Leo is Leo. He has a sophisticated integration of Orange and for that reason has advantages over many spiritual teachers who did not bother to integrate these aspects as well. The "optimal" human being would be someone who fully integrates all stages to a masterful degree. Someone who fought in wars and killed people, who then realized the value of honor and religion, then spend decades studying reason, science and philosophy, then proceeded to open his heart to all creates and expanding his empathy and so forth and so forth. This is obviously beyond the capacity of any modern human being, so we will lack in many stages of the spiral. Today it is especially things like red and blue that are lacking in us, which is the typcial "The civilized man could not survive a week in the wild". This arrogance of being a higher stage and therefore having authority in all aspects of life is very misleading.

Imagine what the world would be like if God had a selfish agenda like we do. "Look at those nasty hairless chimps ruining my planet, better get rid of them before they spread to other planets. Let me just spray some chemicals all over the planet."

Yes, one does good not to be attached to their own creation. In Art-school we learn this by having our drawings be torn apart by our teacher until we no longer care for them but instead for the process of creation itself. This will also give us confidence in ourselves so that we can rely on the process of creation instead of on what we have created. This makes us better Creators.

I agree, but because all of us are using maps all day, as we are thinking creatures, we will inevitably be using tools that either increase our consciousness or halt our progress. For example seeing how concepts like Perception, Relativity, Imagination, Mind, Map vs Territory and so forth are actually part of the Materialistic Paradigm and ironically contribute to it's limited Framework is to me essential. This is not merely about using different words and concepts, this is about Seeing in what kind of relationships these concepts stand and therefore how the "Meta-framework" has a substantial influence of how we a look and perceive reality. By replacing the Pre-Consciousness concepts with Post-Consciousness concepts we actually get to observe the Pre-Consciousness concepts from a distance, we see their limitations by not being immersed in them. The Post-Consciousness concepts will, by having clearly constructed them ourselves, be obviously constructions to us. The danger of the Pre-consciousness concepts is that they go so deep we do not recognize them as constructions anymore. We are so familiar with them we do not even consider alternatives. In other words we are unconscious that the Pre-Consciousness concepts are even concepts. We don't actually see them for what they are. Like watching a Movie for the first time and being utterly immersed in it. That will not happen if you have created a Movie yourself. If you have created the Movie yourself every scene will be a reminder of how you have created it. Think of how people viewed the world thousands of years ago. When Spirits were fundamentally part of their Reality. Their worlds were different, their languages we different, the conclusions they formed from Non-dual experiences were different. To me it is very clear that Leo has framed his entire Philosophy within the Materialist Paradigm, precisely because he has put it in opposition of it. This is, to me, unnecessarily limiting and does not celebrate the full spectrum of expression that is possible.

I am aware of that statement and that you are aware of what I speak of in terms of how things are. Our disagreement is in the framing, the usage of language to communicate this understanding. I don't subscribe to the idea that all frameworks are equally valid or useful for us, especially in terms of our existential investigations. In my eyes the materialist paradigms and their resulting "non-materialist"-paradigms (which stand in opposition to the materialist paradigm and are essentially a spawn of it, and therefore attached to it like a tick) are very unnecessarily vague, confusing and conflating because all of them stemmed from a deeper unconsciousness. Once the consciousness increase these frameworks have been kind of made to work from within that consciousness level. I would prefer for us to actually construct a cleaner framework that is specifically detached from the limited materialistic framework and does not require to stand in opposition of it, but rather is it's own evolutionary pathway of frameworks. Whether we like it or not but these frameworks have an impact on our consciousness and how we view the things we are talking about. Instead of having a framework that works against the essential nature of Oneness, Non-duality and so forth we can construct them in ways so they streamline these aspects. Things like "Perception, Mind, Relativity" always stand in contrast to the Materialistic Framework. They are essentially part of it, and in my eyes it is obvious that the usages of these concepts will keep as trapped, to a certain degree, in that paradigm. Basically what I am trying to say is that due to our unconsciousness in the past we have created entire languages and concepts based on that level of consciousness. When we are using that same language on a different level of consciousness we will naturally come to the limitations of that language and these concepts, which is happening all the time. And this is not mere surface level, this goes really, really deep. I don't see a lot of people adressing this problem while to me it seems like it has helped me increase my consciousness quite significantly. Think of if a high consciousness alien was to construct a language, what words would it never even come up with that we keep using all day. How would it refer to different kind of objects when objects themselves are part of the language framework and therefore more of conceptual clumps than anything else? There are a lot of things that would look completely differently. To me Leo and a lot of people when using language and attempting to communicate non-dual Truth are banging their heads against the wall. While of course this is obviously inevitable to a certain degree, I do think we could make it far more comprehensive if we were to adjust our language significantly.

Sero, as far as I see it either you are framing this a little bit clumsily, althought we had this disagreement a few times now. You cannot perceive my Red as your Green. Red is Red no matter what. You might call it Green, but my Red will be your Red. The labels might differ, but ontologically they will always be the same. This is why I don't like the Perceiver/Subjectivity framework. The language gets unclear resulting in misconceptions that in most people can actually lead to profound unconsciousness about existential issues. The relativity lies not in Redness vs Greenness itself, the relativity lies in the constructions surrounding Redness and Greenness. In my opinion it is better to have a clear distinction between the Isness of Redness and it's surrounding conception framework. We would say "What one labels Red could be labeled Green in another mind, however Redness is the same Redness is both minds". I still don't like the "mind" and "relativity" framework because of how attached it is to the materialistic paradigm, but if we are not going to abandon it atleast we can attempt to formulize it in ways so that there is the least amount of confusion.

Consciousness cannot be a tragedy, tragedy is made of consciousness. Good things are made of consciousness, consciousness does not have attributes. You ability to state questions like that means that you have no insight into what consciousness is, you are still operating on a level of content of consciousness and are confusing it for the Ground of Being. This is a typical materialist blindspot. Consciousness itself is not in any state, it is all states, including depression and suffering, but also joy and pleasure. Things handling themselves happens in consciousness, consciousness doesn't do anything. Consciousness is not good, goodness exists as one aspect of infinite consciousness. The same is true for purpose and possibility. Asking why consciousness itself has to exist is like asking why existence has to exist. Contemplate on what you are doing when you are asking such a question.

You could watch the new Planet of the Apes reboot trilogy, it has some of these themes as a main focus.

It seems like a lot of people view Spirituality from the framework of "Discover so that you may change", for example they would think they the experience of non-duality will change them significantly and thus they will desire to seek that experience or state. In my view that is the wrong approach. Fundamentally it is not the experience or state that will change them, it is not the discovery which drives change, rather it is the change which allows for the discovery, it is the change that allows for the new state or experience. It is not that we become enlightened, it is not that we become the Greater Self. It is merely that the change in us allows us to see what has always been there. It is the change which allows us to discover what is fundamentally true about us and what has been true all along. Insights are not given to us by attempting to discover them, rather we get sight into the nature of reality by changing that through which we look. Curiousity leads to change and therefore to the discovery of Truth. It is not Truth that changes us, because Truth is always there. Truth does not make us Dance, rather the Dance let's us see the Truth. Our work is not to travel, our work is to clean the window in front of which we have sat the entire time. Our work is not to become more Loving, our work is to clean our mind so that we see the Love that has always been flowing through us, the Love that has been Guiding all our actions all along, the Love that we cannot deny, that we cannot escape and that we can never be seperate from. Essentially there is nothing to do here, because we are what we are. All of spirituality is just another game.

All of these are good questions that you do well asking yourself. However, True Love is not a singular perspective. The definition you presented is a limited perspective. Love is not a mere recognition of perfection. Love is the Light which is within Darkness. You are observing the play of shadows on a wall, you are looking back at the light which creates the shadows. Now, look at the Shadow very closely. See the Light that is emanating from the Shadow. Not the Light which gives rise to it, not the play of Shadows, but the Light which is found in the Shadow itself. That Light is so bright it will blind your eyes. It is what gives rise to all. It gives Rise to the light, it gives rise to the shadow, it gives rise to the play between light and shadow. It is the Light within the light. True Love is not something that is being done or experienced. It is omnipresent in all, it is the Ground upon which all rises and it is the Rising aswell. There is no way to increase it, to change it, to embody it because all things are it's manifestation. It is so well hidden precisely because it would blind you from seeing all the rest of Creation. This is most essential to grasp: To Love Suffering does not mean to deem Suffering to be beautiful, perfect or illusiory. To Love Suffering means to Love Suffering as it is. Suffering is not beautiful, not perfect, nor illusiory. Suffering is Suffering. To Love Suffering is to truly Suffer, not to go beyond Suffering by changing it into something else. This is the Love that no Chimp is capable of. Not merely because of lack of acceptance, but because of the very nature of Chimpness itself. This Love is what gives rise to Chimpness and rise to Suffering, it can not be embodies as all of Creation is it's body.

Some disagreements/objections I have: One is that he is not willing to get involved in confrontational situations, like debates and the like. I know he has his reasons for it but I feel like there could be some value found especially if it was about a topic that was maybe outside of direct experience. Would be nice to see some sophistaced conversations between him and other minds so that we can get a better picture in general. Also his teaching style, I am not entirely convinced whether the direct and 100% revealing way he is communicating is the most effective thing. It is appealling to a lot of us, but I think it might be worth it to sprinkle in some Zen like mystery here and there so as to get our curiousity going. I don't know if he would be able to pull it off while still remaining authentic though. And at this point he has laid all the cards open so maybe it is too late.

I have wheat weevils living in my apartment and I spent half and hour or so observing them how they crawling around. The surface of my floor is too smooth for them, so when they fall on their back, which they do all the time, they can't get back on their feet. Clumsy little critters, I have to flip them and evacuate them all the time and it doesn't seem to stop. They are amazing though, I observed a few of them how they crawled up a wall, which to them must be crazy high. I did some research about them and found out they live up to two years. When I see them struggling I keep asking myself, what better thing do I have to do than to save someones life? So I get on the floor and flip them, or catch them in a bowl so that I can let them walk around somewhere else. It's really fulfilling to help them on their journeys, though I have to watch my step because they are everywhere.

This is the strange nature of acceptance. Wanting acceptance is not acceptance. Accepting wanting acceptance is acceptance. You cannot truly desire to accept or force yourself to embrace existence. Yet it's nature is such that it is within all Being. It is hidden under a very thin veil of Illusion. All that exist is fully accepted already, it could not be otherwise. To accept reality as is is not something you can possibly do, it is only something that can be revealed to you. All that is is full and utter acceptance. There is no non-acceptance. Non-acceptance is the veil that is infront of acceptance. There is no reason for you to accept existence as acceptance is what nourishes all there is. Ultimate Love is the nature of existence. What happens is to fall into acceptance, is to fall into love. You do not come to accept things, you come to see the underlying acceptance which is present in all Being. It is to come to fall into the nourishing aspect of reality. Into that which by it's embracement let's all being be just as it is. To be attracted to acceptance is all there is. You cannot help but do it. One day you will fall apart and full acceptance will reveal itself, by itself. You do not need to do anything at all, you cannot really do anything at all. You only must see that which is already there. You have so fully and utterly accepted reality that you have forgotted acceptance itself. You are so in Love with what is that you cannot see your own Love for it. You are so immersed you cannot see yourself, all there is to you is immersion. When you experience the greatest horror imaginable, it is because you have fully surrendered yourself to that horror already. You were able to surrender yourself to that horror so completely and utterly that even your Love for it dissolved into the background so that you could fully experience it in it's rawest form. Sit down and contemplate all the horrors all beings have experienced and are experiencing. You are so strong that you were able to surrender and say "Let me experience all of it for all of eternity". This is your Love, this is your Strength, this is your Selflessness. You have already done this, there is nothing else to add. You have already fully accepted the greatest horrors possible.