Scholar

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.

Your love is limited, and it will not increase by you thinking you are obligated to increase it. What you are facing is the fundamental challenge of corruption. Your inability to show true love towards the fruit flies will inevitably lead to an inability to express true love towards you own child. Your mind currently is so twisted, however, that it will only want to know true love so it can show love to what it is attached to most. That desire is not a desire for true love, it is once more a desire for limited love, which your child and your self will suffer for. Only when you come to love the fruit fly, when you will cease looking at it through your own desires, you will start being able to expand your love. When it will be you who is saving the fruit fly instead of terminating it. When you will realize that your desire to kill the fruit fly is no different from the desire of the pedophile to abuse a child. This is deeply personal, for the fruit fly as much as it is for you. This truth will offend you, but the hatred you feel for the fruit fly and for the pedophile will become part of your child, as much as it is part of yourself. One day, if you have not learned to truly Love, it will be your child who will have to be the one who forgives, the one who expands their love. If you fail to do so however, it is likely that your child will too. Notice that you not only get offended by this, but that the desire to change is completely egoic. You want to change for yourself and for your child, which is only more limited love. You truly need to find love for the fruit fly, not because you want to love your child, but simply because you love the fruit fly. This is why True Love is so radical and rare. It cannot be forced, it cannot be sought after. It can simply manifest itself into being.

One fascet of the Greatest Awareness is indeed Evil. Evil like all other creation is part of the play of existence. Evil is it's own substance, therefore nothing but evil can truly be evil. However, an Enlightened Person can certainly lead to the creation of Evil. An enlightened person could rape you and that would create evilness in your experience. Do not forget that the highest consciousness is all-fasceted. The reason why the human mind tends to focus on the so called positive aspects of Existence once realized is that it is attractive to us. Reality however does also contain suffering, evilness and so forth. The enlightened mind, as you would call it, simply has a tendency to extinguish these fascets of existence from their own experience. Actions and objects are never evil, only evil is evil. So an enlightened person cannot be evil as much as anything cannot be evil, however evil can exist in the presence of full awareness.

I find the hallucination/perception framework very limited. To say the mind is creating color seems to create just another story which does not reveal the infinite Creativity it takes to create any aspect of existence. Fundamentally, cone cells have absolutely nothing to do with color and neither do fundamentally neurological structures. Color is irreducable and is directly linked to the Causeless Cause. All duality, including the Imagination/Non-imagination duality is sourced directly from the Causeless Cause or the Creator. So is Color, and it exist as much as anything else we could possibly say exists. Redness is Quintessential. And yes, there are Colors with no bounds, infinite of them. Not mere gradiations, but entire types of colors. This also includes Sound, Touch, Emotion and all other quintessential aspects of reality. Moreover, there are Infinite types of Quintessential dimensions. Things other than Sound, Touch, Sight and so forth, that do not exist in Human Minds. And even more, there are infinite gradiations between all of these dimensions. These very gradiations are what we then call the World or Perception.

The problem is that the blindness and horizontal thinking in any other group but vegans is equally as high or even higher. Just talk to your average person about meat eating and see how they respond. Creating identity, even if at some point these identities might be limiting, is a crucial part of social process. It is better to have a dysfunctional vegan movement than to have no vegan movement at all. Fundamentally it is about creating awareness of the suffering and destruction the animal industry is causing world-wide and locally. Sure, vegans have an us-vs-them mentality, but so do non-vegans. They hate vegans, as soon as you even dare to mention it you are an outcast. And this is relevant, because we are talking about a difference in morality that is quite substantial. Most people still think it is fine to kill animals simply for the pleasure they receive from eating animal-products. The conversation about whether it is healthy or not is not even in the foreground and is only used to dismiss veganism as a whole in current mainstream media. Sure there are dogmatic people, crazy raw-food flat-earthers who ruin their health and then go on about how ideological veganism is. There are also people who are very passionate about animal rights and are willing to make health-sacrifices for it and demand for other people to do the same. There are also vegans who only do it for health reasons. There is a difference between debating these issues and actually seeing animals being killed and slaughtered for the products that you deem necessary. The facts are most people can get by without eating most animal products, those who do need them probably can live by eating mussels or insects. Sure they will not feel optimal, but the right to feel optimal is in my opinion does not overstate the right for another beings freedom of deliberate slaughter. Additionally, if anyone here does indeed believe animal products are necessary for health, then it would be our utmost moral imperative to push society towards developing technology like lab-grown meat so that we can abolish the kind of exploitation that is currently necessary. Do I see any ex-vegans argue for that? Of course not, because they do not really care. We have an impact on this world and on other individuals, while it is obvious that we cannot demand people to stop consuming these products if they are necessary for their survival, in a society in which it is still fully acceptable, I do think we can have more deeper conversations than "Vegans are ideological, I was part of it and I know it!". That to me has nothing to do with integral thinking. It is a regression into individualistic paradigms that put the humans at the center of the universe. If we do need certain products to survive, we better reduce the impact we have on others as much as possible and also work on solutions which will do so in the future. Right now the awareness around animal rights and ecology is so low that the dogmatism in veganism and similar movements must be accepted. You can try to correct it, but to dismiss the movement as a whole means to regress and not to progress.

You lack passion. To have passion is to love. To love is to give, not receive. Everything you have listed are things you are going to receive, not give. The artist who creates art puts love into the creation of art itself, every brush-stroke is an act of love, is an act of passion. From passion there will come vision, not the other way around. From the love of creating you will find desire to create things. No artist ever paints one painting for his entire life, that would be absurd. An artist who is passionate does not create goals for all the paintings he will be painting for the rest of his life. The painter loves painting, he uses the excuse of a finished piece so that he can do what he loves more to paint. Look at the passion of Christ. His passion was for humankind, his love was for human beings. Give him anything that would make him able to help humans and he would have been satisfied and happy for the rest of his life. He would have never grown bored of helping human beings, as it is his passion, his love. From that love grows a vision, a vision of how to increase that love. How to help more human beings becomes the vision of the one who loves helping human beings. It is not artificial, it is true Love. A vision should be an extention of your passion, not the other way around. First you will need to find your passion, that which you are willing to give Love. It is not about receiving, it is about infusing other experiences with love. If you, for example, truly love feeding birds, it will give you joy until the very end of time. You could stand there and feed them all day long, even if it was only one bird. To feed 10 birds might give you even more joy. To feed 1000s even more and so forth. There is no end to it. All of Creation is fundamentally the Passion of God, God gives Love to Creation. God does not receive, God gives. The Passion of God, therefore, leads to a Vision which will Increase Creation. Because to Create is Love, there is no end to Creation.

Of course, so is everything else, including "figments of the imagination".

And the suffering of the animals is completely irrelevant? We have mussels, how can you possibly argue for torturing and killing animals for products that are completely unnecessary for survival? Sure you might feel a little less optimal if you eat mussels, but they will give you everything you need. Veganism is an ethical principle not a diet, it means to reduce exploitation where it is not necessary. Criticizing veganism from below is easy, a critique from above will not result in the same kind of justification of exploitation as orange gives, like appeals to futility coming from Leo. The assumption is that optimal human health is more important than everything else in this world, including the future of our ecology, the suffering of the majority of beings living on this planet and so forth. That is an insane, human-centric way of looking at the world. The fact that you think veganism is about being special, unique of having a label means you have not yet reached green whatsoever. Veganism is about an increase in compassion for groups that we currently view as objects, it is about equality fundamentally. The same reasons that give us the right to live and be free of exploitation are the same the animals deserve them. If you stopped having black slaves and joined the abolitionist groups what do you think would have happened if you at some point decided you want to go back to having slaves because of all the back pain that you have now that you have to work in the fields yourself? It is human nature to react agains that kind of "betrayal" far more excessively than against people who have not yet become conscious of the suffering they are causing to their black slaves. And recognize that Leo's way of looking at this would have easily allowed him to keep his black slaves, because "You cannot live without evil", and because "It would not help him optimally self-actualize because of the back pains he would have from working on the field".

That's what we have mussels and insects for. Humans might be designed for consumption of insects. It would be interesting to know whether you actually have ever truly faced the "evil" you talk about outside of mere intellectualization. If not, I would recommend visiting a slaughterhouse.

True Love is ruthless, it is the Destroyer of all Worlds. Love is inherently indiscriminate, it wields the sword of the merciless as much as it gives shelter to those who are in need of it. The Feminine and the Masculine are not better or worse, they are forces of Existence. They are in an eternal balance, in a play between the great Mother and the great Father. Both forces will eventually lead to your dissipation. This is beyond your ego, beyond your individual needs and wants. You are playing a game that will eventually lead to your death, your inability to accept that will be the degree to which you will suffer in this world. Stop viewing the Feminine and Masculine as that which serves you, and accept that it is you who is inevitably serving the Feminine and the Masculine. You are the ant who has confused itself for the colony. Fundamentally, suffering is the question of "What can God do for me?", whilst Liberation is the question of "What can I do for God?".

lol, I did not even consider that it could have been fake, how can this happen on amazon. I guess you gotta check your sources everywhere nowadays.

Humans fundamentally do not possess anything. We could say Free will is part of the condition of the Being of human, however that Freedom would have nothing to do with the Desire a human possesses. Free Will is Creativity, it is the Causeless Cause. It is the manifestation of Nothingness or Infinite Potential into Finite Form. It is not random. Imagine something that does not exist, in a world that does not exist, with rules and limitations that do not exist. Imagine that without having any knowledge of any kind of that which you will imagine. That process of imagination is Free Will, or Creativity. It is the Root of all Form. The closer a Form is to the root, the more "free" it is. Or in other words, the closer it is to non-duality and the further away from duality, the more potential it has to express in more ways. Full non-duality leaves room for full expression. The Human mind is already an expression and therefore limited in it's potential, yet where it carries the lose ends of non-duality is where it can express true Creativity. Free Will is Divine Will, and indiscriminate in it's expression.

I never said that adopting better integration policy and structures will solve poverty. The integration policy is for the benefit of war-refugees and the countries which adopt these refugees. Don't forget that these refugees are cheap labor and benefit the economy of a lot of the countries which adopt them. This has nothing to do with our culture being deconstructed by post-modernism. Solving the poverty of other countries requires far more systemic approaches and most likely great sacrifices to western economies which depend on the cheap and exploitative labor in third world countries. However, you claimed western countries would benefit from an increase, or mitigation of a decrease, in population, and adopting refugees with effective integration would be a solution to that problem.

What do you think about Geopolitics in this regard? When you look at countries like Germany who basically sustain their wealth by keeping surrounding countries economies down, is it really as easy as saying Socialistic systems work because these countries can sustain them? Europe is currently trade-wise dependend on the US as the sea is controlled by the american navy, however China is trying to establish a trade route from China to Poland so as to create a major trade-route via land instead of sea, disrupting the power-dynamics between the US and China significantly. Poland is the only country which does not have a mountain range obstructing a possible trade-route into Europe. Germany for that reason is trying to keep Polands economy as dependent on Germany as possible, so that they can control possible trade-deals between Poland and China. Creating a central distribution network in Poland would change the power dynamics between Germany and Poland, which once more creates different dynamics in that context. China on the other hand would rather establish a distribution network in Poland because they can expect more leverage against that particular government. We can look at domestic policy, but I don't know if we can divorce them from geopolitical dynamics. Germany has very aggressive foreign policy which has a huge impact on countries which are viewed as threats economically, and much of the wealth in that country can certainly be attributed to the fact that they have upheld a dominant position in that particular economical framework. Is scandinavias policy the reason for their success or is their geopolitical situation the reason for why they are able to introduce these domestic policies in the first place?