Scholar

I have done some darkness candle meditation, and as I was looking at the candle, there was a strange sensation. It was just like I was looking into a mirror, as if that candle was a reflection of myself. This was a very subtle sensation and it was gone farely quickly. I wonder if this was expansion of self-boundaries, or if it was a deeper recognition of the True Self.

This is something you will have to observe yourself. Once you will see clearly, there will be no question anymore.

I don't find these boundaries useful as a way of looking at these practices. Conceptual vs Actual, imaginary vs real. As you visualize, simply be. Be the energy, be the love, be whatever you want. Is it not interesting how you are saying "imagination is not actuality!" simply because it is less permanent?

Just look at how many doctors are dying in italy from this virus, and how overwhelmed hospitals are. When did this happen with the common flu?

@Charlotte It is more of if you understand their energy you will learn how it will respond to yours. You can practice this after your meditation session, by visualizing yourself as being understanding and able to turn their energy around. You can understand the energy of an angry mob, but that does not mean the angry mob will resonate with your energy. Sometimes it would simply mean for you to keep a few steps distance, or you could change your own energy to fit theirs.

Learn to understand their energy and how this energy will respond to yours. Learn to transmute their energy into a different form of energy. Both of these are two areas of mastery.

I have observed an interesting phenomenon that is taking place among some streamers on platforms like Twitch. Due to the substantial amount of viewers some streamers have, they have the ability to almost instantly access thousands of people who are capable of doing research for them, including many scientists who work in different fields across the disciplines. They can ask questions when they lack knowledge about any specific topic and can censor and block people who are incompetent or unreliable, leading to a selective process that leaves only people who are very certain about their positions to post them in the stream. This kind of process leads to these streamers being extremely powerful tools in debate and inquiry, as they both educate everyone who is watching the stream and also incorporate the knowledge of the most competent people who are adding their expertise. When I think about how we could create a revolutionary integrative process, streaming is really the most optimal tool I have found for that endeavor. Even right now it is extremely powerful, despite the streamers themselves not being scientists and not necessarily as rigorous and determined as someone who does it professionally would be. I think there is a real problem in our civilization. There is an abundance of information, but it seems to be extremely fragmented. We don't have any effective processes of integration and holism, right now it is basically everyone doing it by themselves, stumbling through the infinite archive of knowledge and trying to determine what information is relevant and what is not. This is why Leo is selling a Book-List, it is because the information about what kind of information is meaningful is actually MORE valuable than the information it is leading to itself. The reason for that is that there is an abundance of good information, but also an abundance of bad information. There are no clear systems that allow us to navigate this landscape, and for someone like Leo is took years upon years. And not only that, he was also extremely lucky in the way he thinks about the world and what kind of information he stumbled upon in his life. Think about where you would be if you never found out about Leo's work? This overflow of information does not only make it difficult to navigate the landscape, but it also makes it possible to get lost in wrong information. There is just so much around, for a lot of people who have no epistemological understanding it is mere luck whether they become alt-right, flat-earths, conspiracy theorists or any other group that is clearly deluded. It is luck because we do not teach them any process of navigating information. It seems trivial, but in my opinion is a civilization-threatening problem. The information gets more and more fragmented, which means that the sense of reality will differ from person to person more radically than it did, further amplifying the fragmentation of information. I suspect that a revolutionary method of information navigation and integration will be the most significant and meaningful invention within the next century. It will be the step to a Tier 2 civilization, an integral society. And it seems like there are evolutionary pressures that force us into this adaptation, obviously predictable if we look at the consequences of stage-green relativism. This process though is hijacked by the information-revolution caused by the internet, changing the models that are mostly based on pre-internet-data. The evolution of the average person might have been altered due to this new factor. Now, one aspect about streaming that is so revolutionary is that it can broadcast the process of information navigation to thousands of people who themselves contribute to that navigation, teaching people about epistemology and integration while they are watching the stream. When someone adds information to a stream, they are not just giving that information to the streamer, but to everyone who is watching the stream. Imagine if Leo would be streaming the process of how he does research, imagine if he would let us participate in it. It would be next-level guru, a true integration of technology into the process of self-actualization and enlightenment. I think it would be just so much more effective at teaching because we would see Leo's thought process in action, we would see how he comes to his conclusions, and we could interact with him to aid him in that process. Sure, it would take him out of his comfort zone, but that is precisely what is needed. It would finally demystify the process of self-actualization. It would also grant a lot of people motivation that is hard to establish through on-demand videos. And not to forget that streaming is extremely lucrative. Instead of selling a book list, he would get donations and probably make 7 or at least high 6 figures. He could be completely open about the information he shares and would not need to structure his teaching methods from a perspective of monetisation. With the additional money gained he could further his life purpose, but in my opinion the most significant advantage is the increase in growth that he would experience from it. It is just a suggestion for @Leo Gura , I do not believe it will make much of a difference whether he acts upon it or not, as I believe it is inevitable for someone to do so in the future. But I do believe it would be superior to traditional methods of teaching, like the guru settings that have a tendency of creating cults and delusion, or generally being very ineffective at helping a greater amount of people. This Forum is very sub-optimal in my opinion as well, even though it does create some value for people. And 1 hour on demand videos that take a week to create? The irony is that we would get so much more value from seeing Leo create the videos than from the videos themselves. This is nothing but a waste of Leo's valuable time, which is limited. He is not showing us the most important aspect about self-actualization, which is the process of self-actualization. He is literally showing us results. It's like a martial arts-teacher who tells us what to do but never shows us how to do it in the first place. A masterful teacher is part of the process of learning, he is an active participant who shows us how to do the learning. When we see him exercise his mastery we ourselves can learn from it far more effectively than through some tutorial video that is a mere hour long. And what would be better suited for that than streaming?

I should have probably explained, the person in the video to me is the one spreading misinformation. It is the person who claims that HIV is not proven, by the standard of a specific postulate to cause AIDS. He also claims that the only reason people fall sick to coronavirus is an compromised immune system and that it would be a good idea to let the young people continue life as is while we only isolate risk groups. This is what worries me even more, because some of the thinking he provides about the limitations of current scientific methodology and systems thinking are valid, aswell as to some degree his claims about vaccination and the pharma industry. But I feel like it is a huge half-truth and mixed with dangerous misinformation. I also don't see how his CytoSolve technology could possibly make true accurate predictions when we have such a limited view of the actual biological processes within the body, and therefore lack most mechanistic knowledge to truly simulate and predict outcomes. https://cytosolve.com/ This is why I wanted to ask you about this, because his criticisism are valid to a certain degree, but what he is replacing it with is not at all an improvement in my eyes. This is my laymans perspective.

What is the root cause of enjoying some things but not others? Why are we passionate about different things? Why do we find some things boring to do while others exciting? Is this beyond our control or can we learn to cultivate passion for anything?

It's an accusation for now, but it would not surprise me if it did happen. American politicians just give me the creeps.

@Serotoninluv I struggle arguing with people who find this kind of thinking very appealing. I don't know how to explain to them why this is a limited way of approaching knowledge. What do you tell someone who does not understand the value of scientific consensus, and is very skeptical of mainstream views? I usually find myself at a position where I tell someone that I simply do not agree with their epistemological standards. When I ask them to justify their positions, usually people get frustrated. When I explain that I do not have the time to understand these topics indepth and therefore rely on scientific consensus or some sort of intuition, I don't really feel like that is very appealing to them From their perspective I look like someone who is simply believing the "elites" and playing into what the deep-state wants them to think. Especially because often I can tell very quickly whether someone is a higher quality source rather than a low quality source, yet I could not exactly articulate why that is. I am not sure if my intuition is simply trained to be more accurate, or whether I use a different kind of intuition, or both? Because from their perspective it looks like they are doing the same I am.

The guy is denying that HIV causes AIDS.

But is there not infinite depth of Awakening? Is this not the whole nature of Consciousness? Totality is Infinite Expansion. This is the paradox, is it not? So a metaphor could be between a river and an ocean. The fish is swimming through an ever expanding river, until the river becomes an ocean. But really, the ocean is the river, and the river is the ocean. And as the fish swims through, it will ever keep expanding. So the expansion of Awakening will never end, because the Awakening is itself what expands that which it is Awakening to. The Act of Swimming and the expansion of the Ocean/River are one and the same. As long as you Swim, the Ocean will expand.

This virus could open our eyes. The entire world is being put on hold, giving us an opportunity to self-reflect. Furthermore the entire world has now one common enemy, an enemy that is not as abstract as Global Warming. An enemy which effects us in the here and now. This might teach us the lessons necessary for tackling environmental destruction and climate change, because this virus will be nothing compared to what we will face if we do not get our act together very soon.

I would very much like to know, other than Survival Benefits, what is the difference?

Holy shit, it just hit me. I can see it clearly, I will now attempt to put what I see into language, which is actually quite an interesting secondary insight. What I see in is not linguistic, it is not an idea, it is a clear sense of what Is rather than a thought that came to my mind. It is more fundamental than thought. Back to topic. Why can the Mind understand the World? Why can math describe and predict "outside" reality? It sounds so simple, but it is because of the nature of Duality. It's so unbelievably difficult to put this into words, but it's so simple. Imagine there to be 4 coins. What is it that the mind does? It can create from the 4 coins, 2 and 2 coins. It can say 2+2=4. But notice that there is no such thing as "+" or "2", or even 4 for that manner. This is how the Mind has divided the Ultimate Presence. This is what Mind is, this is what Reality is, this is what "World" is. The universe does not express itself in Numbers, Equations and Math. But because the Universe expresses itself in Duality, that same expression can be transmitted into a different kind of Duality. We are using the Duality of Math to describe the Duality of Physicality. We can predict the future because it is the HUMAN MIND that has divided the ETERNITY into DUALITY. It divided INFINITY and made of it FINITE things. There is no World. There is only the Mind. The mind is Reality. The mind is the Act of travelling, The Act of Duality. It is literally Manifestation itself. There is no seperation, Division and Duality is not Seperation. Seperation is Illusion. This is scrambling my brain, I just can't put it into words. I could create metaphors. Imagine a sphere that is a perfect mirror. It travels through Void, yet it reflects a world. The World Reflects the Void, yet the Void itself looks like nothing, not even like blackness. It takes the sphere to create a Reflection of the Void, a colorful play of that which is within the Void. Now imagine your Consciousness is that Sphere. The mindblowing thing about Reality is that the Sphere contains Nothing at all. It is not filled with Empty Space, and it is not Surrounded by Empty Space. It is not Travelleng through Empty Space, it is travelling through ETERNAL VOID. And now the second mind blowing thing. There is no difference between looking at the Inside of the Sphere and at the Outside of the Sphere. The Reflection within the Mirror of the Sphere will determine whether the Sphere is an All Surrounding 360° View of the World, or the Perspective from outside of the Sphere, looking at the Sphere as a Sphere. And without the Sphere, there would only be Void. Not Emptiness, but Void. Now get this: When you look at the Sphere from the Outside, you call it "Understanding", when you look a the Sphere from the Inside, you call it "World". The Sphere itself is Understanding and World at the same time. But I can already see, me trying to come up with metaphors and explanations is removing me from the clear sense I have of it. The images and thoughts in my mind are a distraction. So how could it possibly help anyone else to see it? In this work the only use of language is to ask the right question. Everything else is mental masturbation, delusion, distraction. Forget what I wrote. Mu. And also, Math can predict the World because it takes the World, divides it up, and in the process of adding things up again it can see what it had been dividing in the first place. It's like it divided it too much and had to add it up again so then when it attempts to add it up it could get closer and closer to where it wanted to Divide in the first place. So Math is basically the discipline of Inaccurate Divisions and then the adding up of the divisions until the point of finding the point of division that was sought after. It's strangely elaborate, but I guess it works for us.

Is this not all Survival?

What do we need to be careful about?

This is why I like the Zen approach. Don't talk about realizations, instead point to them. Also: A few hundred years ago Leo and many of us would have been burned at the stake, now we get this. We can be very grateful.

Time-stamped. About the efficacy of the confrontational approach.

When you see the Love in Suffering, Suffering will not cease to be Suffering. Only the cessation of Suffering will lead to the cessation of Suffering.

There are some very important things to grasp here. Love is not something that is done. Love is not something that do you to something. You do not Love creation, you do not Love the pedophile, you do not Love suffering. Love is not done by the ego. Acceptance is the same. Transcendental acceptance is not done by ego. You do not accept things, you do not accept creation. There is a false understanding of Love or Acceptance being opposite to emotions, like anger or fear. "To be Accepting, I must feel Nothing but Love when I witness the suffering of another being! I must accept the suffering, which means I feel no emotion at all. Acceptance is detachment!" Love and Acceptance is Ultimate. There is no such thing as increasing your Love or Acceptance. Love and Acceptance is the fundamental nature of all that exists, this includes anger, this includes suffering, this includes judgement and ego. Love is not "to love something", but rather Love is the substance of all that Is. This is eternal, this is undeniable, this is always the case. Love and Acceptance is equivalent to Being. Our work is to see that this is the case or in other words, to bring the underlying Love and Acceptance present in all things forth into your Presence and Awareness. To be able to see it and focus on it. Love does not mean any particular thing, Love is all things that are. It's not a lofty feeling that sits opposite to the ego. It's not "Hatred vs Love". You are pure Love when you judge and exterminate the pedophiles in a grand pedophile holocaust. That would be pure Love. Make a distinction between Waking up and Growing up. To become more compassionate will mean to Grow up. But to Grow up means to be able to use your full spectrum of emotions and transmute them into a unified presence and consciousness. To be able to use your hatred and transform it instead of falling prey to it. It does not mean, and I cannot stress this enough, that you must be free of hatred, anger and fear. God is perfect Love. Look at it's presence. You are it, already. You are the perfect expression of Love. So is the pedophile and so is the person who in anger, judgement and hatred holocausts the pedophile. To see the Love in all things, including your judgement, will be what transmutes your life. The mind of the human reacts a very particular way to the recognition of Love in all things. Do not love the pedophile, because love is not something you do. Love is presence, you simply need to recognize what presence is. Once you do, everything will be love, and there will be no difference between you judging the pedophile or not. Your survival will be a perfect expression of Love, as it already is. Detachment is for rocks, not for humans. If your goal is detachment, there are much quicker ways to achieve that. Feeling nothing when you see another suffer will make you a sociopath, not enlightened or more loving.

Which governments? Governments react different ways. Although, I would not say there is a point when action is pointless. Even when windows of opportunity have been missed, governments can still do things to mitigate and delay the damage

Thank you, that was very helpful! I might have been overly excited with the cartoons, the not addressing users specifically and falling into ego as the argument ensues are also good insights. What I find most tricky is to show my opinion on Spiral Dynamics without getting personal or generalizing a group. I can be very upfront about how I talk to people even though I have no intention to provoke them, but it also seems like I do not care too much about whether or not I do create a negative reaction in them. In real life I would not do such a thing, the presence of a real person makes it much easier to feel empathy and be more thoughtful as to how one would explain something. In this environment I value authenticity more than effectivity, maybe because it is one of the rare instances where I can let my ego play out and observe it. This is in many ways selfish.