Juan Cruz Giusto

People suck at bridging the gap between theory and practice. They don’t know how to take concepts and take them into action. LEARNING = BEHAVIOR CHANGE You haven’t learned anything unless your behavior changes. It’s only learning when your behaviors change. Learning is not memorizing theories, it is about changing your attitudes, behaviors and actions! How to apply this: · How will this information change my behavior? · What did I learn? · How will my behavior change from what I learned? · What did I learn about myself? How will my behavior change? Examples: - You are an entrepreneur and you read an article about hiring. If you don’t change your hiring techniques, you didn’t learn shit. - You read a politics news. If you don’t change your behavior, is shit. - You fight with your girlfriend and then you come back together. If you don’t change your behavior for the better, you didn’t learn shit. - You fail a business project, if you don’t change your behavior in specific ways, you didn’t learn shit. LEARNING IS WHEN YOU HAVE SPECIFIC BEHAVIOR CHANGE! IF YOU DON’T HAVE SPECIFIC CHANGES, YOU ARE NOT LEARNING SHIT. Where to apply it: 1- When you read, ask yourself how is that going to change your behavior. Same with videos and lectures. 2- Same with retreats, seminars 3- When you are tripping 4- When you have a problem with your life 5- You can journal every night 6- You can review each day, week, month, year, post-mortems. 7- The end of chapters in your life Your mind will not articulate how specifically. USE A JOURNAL EVERY NIGHT AND SEE HOW YOUR BEHAVIOR IS GOING TO CHANGE.

Hey guys! I've been reading Ken Wilber's personal diary and stumbled upon a letter he wrote to a friend when he discovered he was going to die. It's so beautiful it puts tears in my eyes... "The more that Emptiness saturates my being, the more my life takes on a strange double-entry type of awareness. On the one hand, everything that happens - every singke thing, from the very best to the very worst - is the equal radiance of the Divine. The other side of this Emptiness, is that, in addition to the constant radiance of this moment, all the little moments are all the more themselves, somehow. Sadness is even sadder; happiness is happier. I laugh louder and cry harder. Precisely because it is all the purest Emptiness, each relative phenomenon is allowed to be itself even more intensely, because it no longer contends with the Divine, but simply express it. I will rage against the dying of that light until I can rage no longer, and my vice is ragged with futile screams against the insult of Samsara; which is the same as Nirvana." Just... beautiful

@momo You will have to think for yourself and decide what is closer to your experience and what makes sense to you...

@momo Yes, the grass is wet because it rained when you were comfortably sleeping in your bed. The world was still there too (what a surprise!)! There is so much more to consciousness - or the world - other than our individual perceptions. Realism is entails that objects exist independent of consciousness/mind. That is impossible to prove since all that is ever known is mind. BUT, where is consciousness? Where is mind? If non-duality is correct, consciousness is infinite. To think that if you go to sleep the world disappears is to equate your own individual perception with the totality of mind/consciousness. See how egocentric this view is? Just notice that is not the body, nor the eyes that are aware. Consciousness is aware, and that is a big distinction to make.

It's definitely not a nothing we can conceive of... "The Nothing that I refer to has no opposite; it is the nebulous source." " "The world of objects is limited, Nothingness is not." "Absolute Nothingness, on the other hand, is limitless, pregnant with infinite potential." Those are all quotes from God is Nothingness. Obviously our reality is an illusion, in reality is Nothingness or Nothing. Okay, this is in an Absolute way. But to say that trolls are as real as the tree is non-sense. One is conceptual, imaginary or what have you and the other one has an existence outside of the personal mind. Just because they are the same in the Absolute sense doesn't make them the same in the relative one. The exist in different levels... So, are Trolls real? In Absolute Nothingness, as real as I am. In the world of objects, yes, as a conceptual activity.

@Leo Gura Maybe. But also, maybe, it's just the case that I don't like your way of explaining the world... Many spiritual masters don't talk about the matter in this way and I just prefer their descriptions... Nothing personal though. Anyways, every non-enlightened being is grossly underestimating enlightenment. There is no way anyone could think about it...

In the meantime we are stuck in this "hallucinated" reality which is beautifully constructed and in which no pictures of a troll have been taken. Keep it practical and be happy. You do you Leo but I don't agree how you are talking about this whole issue but, you probably don't care... me neither. Saying that everything is an omission and hallucination is not spirituality, it's just metaphysical mambo-jumbo that doesn't help in any way IMO. Anyways, I'll go for whatever is absolutely true which is: I don't know the real substance of reality and I won't stop till I find it. My perceptions are just an indirect way of knowing.

@Joseph Maynor I agree. That is the point of separating Absolute Truths with relative ones... Yes, everything is non-dual and me, you, trolls, Leo, my mom and a zen master don't exist. But, and in my opinion, it is a really big but, is that it doesn't offer a practical explanation to reality. Yes, realizing this Truth will give you unconditional happiness, real freedom and love, but, IPO falls flat when trying to explain the reality we seem to live. That is why I just don't share the view that "if I close my eyes, the world disappears". That is a mixing between what is Absolute and what is relative. If you believe that you believe that there is nothing outside of perception and your own mind... and that is madness. For practical purposes, that statement just doesn't stand. Is as I believe you don't exist because I cannot see you... see, it's stupid... It's like saying that if Pikachu closes it's eyes, the whole Pokemon world disappears (don't say that pikachu and the world are distinctions in consciousness ) And please, when I refer to the word "you" or "I", I'm referring to the body/mind, not the Ultimate/God/Non-Dual Awareness/Consciousness/etc,etc,etc... We have to separate the Absolute from the Relative... If you want to unite them I suggest people to study Bernardo Kastrup and Rupert's Spira new book, The Nature of Consciousness or something like that... It gives you a really nice metaphysical explanation in which everything fits. Check it out PD. I'm meditating to realize Absolute Truth or Reality, but also it's critical to form a practical worldview which explains the phenomena that happens around us.

@WaveInTheOcean maybe he is Neo and dodge some bullets like a boss... Who knows

@Leo Gura it's crucial in this types of discussions to separate the Infinite/Absolute from the Finite/Relative. From an Absolute perspective, there is no Zen Master, no gun, no dead people... But from a Relative perspective there is a gun, there is me shooting and there is a dead body of a Zen Master. Obviously I will have to integrate these two perspectives the more I meditate self inquire. About the trolls, if I see them in a constant basis, I'm open to the possibility of alternative realities apart from the one I'm currently experiencing - my perceptions don't tell me a whole lot about reality. Maybe there are perceptive delusions or maybe they don't and they exist in another reality we don't experience. That doesn't contradict my current worldview. Moreover, we have to explain where the mind is, paranormal phenomena, psychic powers and so forth. As I said, the wisest thing is to separate the Absolute from the Relative. We still have to explain much more stuff and to say that when I close my eyes the world disappear is to reduce a beautiful and perfect thing - which is the world and reality - with my perception.

There is more to reality than your personal perception. If you close your eyes and I pull out a gun, shoot you and kill you, you are for sure dead, whether you are a zen master or a homeless guy. That the gun, the zen master and the world they inhabit are made out of consciousness or mind is another matter. The difference between a dream and waking reality is that one is personal and the latter is shared by others. If we want to formulate metaphysical conclusions, saying that there is no difference between a dream and this reality, taking into account that other people's perspectives, is IPO nonsense. Notice that I'm not saying that there is a world outside of consciousness nor I'm a materialist. I think idealism makes much more sense but there is more to consciousness (or the world) than what our mind perceives. Rupert Spira is quite enlightened and have similar view, so does Bernardo Kastrup and so does Ken Wilber. Or we can say that everything is consciousness and me, others and the world don't exist, everything is just an illusion and we are just Maya and end of discussion. And it seems to be true to enlightened people. But if we want to make sense of our world this paradigm is just useless.

@Leo Gura yes and no... I like to use Ken Wilber four quadrants to explain reality. From a phenomenological POV, there are no false experiences (this is the first quadrant), every experience is real. On the other hand, we have 3 more quadrants left which take place in a shared reality. The way to know the upper right one is with empiricism and so on. So, yes... There is no false experience but, which is the metaphysical explanation of that experience? Some are just hallucinations, some are created by the mind, some are part of another reality and so on. Just saying that every experience is real or that everything is an hallucination and that there is no difference between personal and shared reality is a upper left quadrant simplification... Not because I see I ghost it means that they exist in our shared reality, which seem to obey certain rules.. The ghost I've just seen is maybe a construction of my mind.

I cannot believe it... I found a picture of a highly enlightened being drinking beer and having a huge pretzel (yes, it has wheat) covered in what it seems to be chocolate. Moreover, he seems to be having a really good time! What type of joke is this? He should be meditating and merging with God! Here is the proof...

@Space indeed! I'm doing a workshop with him next month so super fucking excited!

Dream big, strategize bigger Expectations matter a lot. Just having the wrong expectations can determine the difference between success and failure. The most common failure point in every project or endeavor is because they underestimate the cost, time, energy and emotional labor that the project requires to be actualized. Just having the wrong idea of the time your project will take will destroy your intentions. We expect something from nothing. We expect great relationships, awesome businesses and so on without any cost or effort. The consequences of wrong expectations are: - You will get frustrated easily and quit prematurely - You will not accomplish nothing big with your life You cannot expect to generate profit in the first year of your business. It is just a ridiculous expectation. You cannot expect to become enlightened in just one retreat. The expectations that you set determine your level of perseverance, and this is one of the most important factors in your success. If you set unrealistic expectations, you will end up quitting. Expectations also determine how you judge yourself. Always ask if you have the right expectations!!! Expectations also determine how good you feel about your work. Expectations determine how hard you practice. Also, they determine how you strategize and make plans. The scope of your projects must match your will and your resources. How to set the right expectations for yourself: 1- Do research into the thing you are trying to succeed at. Get fascinated about the “behind the scenes”. 2- Read biographies 3- Interview successful people in what you want to accomplish DREAM BIG, BUT IN A REALISTIC WAY. If you want to accomplish big things, you need to strategize bigger and more intelligently. You have to be 10x more pragmatic. Realistic doesn’t mean that you don’t dream big, just realize that it will take a lot of work. Get truthful about how is going to cost you and ask yourself if you are willing to pay it. Don’t let expectations limit you though…

@Danielle thanks ☺☺☺

In this short article, Ken Wilber shows us that even though you realize God when you get enlightened, you still need to function as a human being, but in a more full way! Check it out https://www.lionsroar.com/egoless-means-more/amp/

@Leo Gura I definitely lack an experiential understanding of all of reality and all of my explanations lack personal experience and I accept it.. I just think that my understanding of reality is based on indirect understanding (perception). When you say it is my consciousness in point A, are you saying that the body is the one who is having the concept, whose consciousness We can take Peter Ralston's position that everything is a distinction or we can take Rupert Spira's one that every individual mind is informed by the same infinite consciousness.. As I said before, we cans at that everything is consciousness and that is it, because that is the ultimate truth. Reality is what is, and it is it.. There is no more metaphysical explanation to make. But if we want to make it metaphysical explanation, our minds are just perceptions and minds are informed by the same infinite consciousness. Read Spira's new book about the nature of consciousness.. We don't what consciousness is though and every explanation it is just more concepts.. I don't really see a point in disscussing this stuff when we could just understand reality in a direct way (enlightenment). It is just more concept.

But why does my friends perceive the same thing as I am. Even though it is not the same color, there has to be something that inform us both. Either mine or matter.. There is definitely something outside of my egoic mind. In the absolute sense there is nothing outside of consciousness, but in the relative world there has to be something outside my individual mind. There is stuff independent of my individual mind, even though it don't know what is outside of that, more mind or matter

@Leo Gura but what is the difference between what you are saying and solipsism. If my mother is in my house, does my house still exists or not? Just because I'm not in there it doesnt mean that it doesn't exist. Furthermore, where is the observer if it's not in my body.. Where is the witness if it's not in my body? Why does stuff seems really really consistent even if I'm not there.. Definitely there is a world outside of my perception.. That doesn't mean that something is outside of mind though...

Hmm... I agree that no amount of success will make you happy since you will be arriving for more and more, for decades until you finally die. Success without awareness is plain wrong and will create the suffering you are describing.. Ambition is a gift and Elon is a really good example of people who are trying to improve society. Having said that, i believe the wisest move is to separate spiritual development/happiness from success.. They are just not in the same line of development. Yes, you can be incredibly successful and not happy at all or you can be a beggar and be extremely and unconditionally happy. We should strive for success and for liberation.. I would love to see a fully enlightened guy being the CEO of a conscious, big and successful company and in my world, these things don't collide.. Just look at Eckhart Tolle, Sadhguru, etc. Success is wrong when you do it to be happy but it's necessary if you want to live an abundant life with the freedom you desire (economically speaking). What we have to learn from Musk is that he is definitely not happy since he is not enlightened. Most of what you do before you realize there is no self is fueled with a need for love and happiness.. What we can learn is the ability to be successful.. So I would strive for: Ellen Musk + Enlightenment = Ultimate Life. We definitely need more people as ambitious as Musk but with a high degree of spiritual development because, even though at an absolute level, everything is perfect as it is, at a relative one we are still human beings and we should all try to improve our society.

“Stop looking for who’s to blame; instead start asking, What’s the system?” Donella Meadows Systems Thinking is a way of looking at the world as a series of interconnected webs, all of them interacting with each other. Is about seeing the world from a meta-perspective. It is used to change things larger than yourself. Reasons to study ST: - To understand and changer larger structures - To realize your life purpose and have a big impact on the world - To change the world - It is the Yellow stage in Spiral Dynamics - To avoid collective disaster System: A set of interconnected elements. It is composed by the elements – mostly physical – and their relationships, which are much less tangible. The relationships are much more important than the elements themselves. A system causes their own behaviors and serves a function/goal. The function is more important than the relationships and the elements of the system. One of the primary purpose of systems is homeostasis (protect themselves). Goals > Relationships > Elements What isn’t a system? Scattered parts which are not connected are not a system. There are problems we have to face as humanity. These are persistent systemic problems. Some examples: - Poverty - Shrinking Middle Class - Global Warming and the Environment - Drug Addiction - War - Obesity - Crime - Low-Quality Marketing - Education - Unemployment - Terrorism - Corruption - Depression - Endangered Species - Runaway Materialism These problems are very difficult to solve and the only way is to solve them is by thinking in systems. The Principles of Systemic Thinking 1. Problems are systemic and not personal: It is not some Hitler or Trump that is creating problems. It is poorly designed systems that are creating problems. Start asking: What is the system that is causing this behavior? Issues are much more complicated than we think. 2. See everything as a system 3. Non-linearity: Playing the game changes the rule of the game. This mean unpredictability and chaos. 4. They are very counter-intuitive: Systems are incredibly complex and results are not easy to predict. 5. Local actions have global impact: You can no longer worry about your personal sphere. You are part of a larger system and your behaviors will affect yourself and the system you are in. 6. Becoming conscious of back-firing mechanisms: Sometimes you change something in a system and it back-fires on you. Systems’ biggest enemy is its own behavior 7. There are no easy, brute force solutions: Systems are all about balance and harmony. Those type of solutions will collaps the system and make it worse. 8. Intuition and Holism vs Reductionism: We have to recognize that reductionism is not going to fly with high-level problems. 9. Being aware of false boundaries: In reality, there are no fixed boundaries. They are conceptual in nature so don’t get bought into that. Just by understanding the boundary differently, we can create a new solution and perspective 10. The world is dynamic rather than static: Everything is constantly morphing and evolving/devolving. 11. Complexity, valuing nuance, wisdom and learning: You need to be studying and learning all the time. The power in working with systems is not by manipulating but understanding them. A systems thinker will spend a lot of time studying and understanding the system. 12. Take preventative actions rather than fixing problem: It is about being forward looking and having a long-term horizon. It is about sustaining the system for decades on end. Each action has a big consequence! 13. Admitting the unknown: Systems thinkers admit that systems are incredibly complex and it requires a deep and wide understanding to start trying to solve the problems. 14. Self-reflection: Systems thinkers need to self-reflect. They understand the system creates their own problems so by reflecting on themselves they can start to solve them. 15. Looking for the root causes of issues rather than the superficial aspects 16. Concern for balance: STers really appreciate the ying-yang of life. Systems usually have many opposing forces and eliminating one of them can have huge implications. 17. Having a global concern rather than having tribal concern: ST integrates the whole world. We see animals, people and environment are equally important. 18. Materialism is not the only game in town and success is not the most important goal. Growth at all cost is just a cancer. 19. Sustainability is key for STers 20. Recognizing the dangers of self-interest: People in the lower stages of Spiral Dynamics pursue their own interests without realizing its dangers. 21. Changing paradigms is a huge leverage point for changing systems: If we shift our perspective, solutions may appear. An example is the mind-body problem. 22. Integrating multiple perspectives 23. Studying patterns and cycles: Systems are cyclical. You need to study patterns through times! 24. Studying systems vs manipulating them: Study them first 25. Studying feedback loops and realizing its implications.

@Afonso ???

So... What is your life purpose?

I love this video! Check it out!