Joseph Maynor

ON SELF-INQUIRY AS AN ENLIGHTENMENT PRACTICE Once you've transcended the 'Paradigm of Self', Self-Inquiry as an Enlightenment practice becomes moot. BE-ing just is what it is. What Self-Inquiry as an Enlightenment practice is designed to do is put the 'Paradigm of Self' into high-relief in awareness so it can be transcended. Now, this doesn't mean that contemplation becomes moot post-Enlightenment, don't fall into the trap of thinking that. Enlightenment doesn't change anything about BE-ing other than raising awareness of what's always gone down. And actually, what you need for Enlightenment is to transcend the 'Paradigm of Self or No Self'. And this can only happen when you can BE in the moment without pre-judgments or pre-expectations. So, you gotta transcend all paradigms for Enlightenment. 'Need to Know' BE-ing has nothing to do with BE-ing. I just wanted to point out that Enlightenment is much more than transcending the 'Paradigm of Self', that's just the starting point.

The only sustainble way to solve the problem of 'self-sabotaging thoughts' is to transcend the 'Paradigm of Self'. This is part of Enlightenment work.

Mooji and Adyashanti are exceptions. Those guys get it. And maybe Eckhart Tolle too, but I'm slightly less certain about him. But those three get it. The reason I'm slightly unsure of Tolle, is I get the feeling that he's clinging to some ideas about BE-ing. As I said before, he might benefit from psychedelics. If I'm wrong, please forgive me. But I feel like I need to be honest and express my intuition fully. But those are my top three Enlightenment Gurus. Eckhart Tolle should do 200 mics of LSD.

Set it as a long term goal and start to chip away at it slowly.

For Enlightenment, you wanna just accept BE-ing in the moment without pre-judgments or pre-expectations. So, just let judgment happen, don't try to judge or not judge. The idea that there's a you that's judging is clinging to the 'Paradigm of Self'. What if judgments were just part of what's here? Could you surrender to BE-ing in such a way that you'd be ok with whatever happens? Don't try not to judge. Raise your awareness instead. I know this is counter-intuitive because we wanna do something for Enlightenment, right. But Enlightenment is only BE-ing in the moment without pre-judgments or pre-expectations. You're surrendering to BE-ing without pre-judgments, that's doesn't mean that you don't judge. Judgments will be part of your experience when you surrender to BE-ing -- they just won't be 'your' judgments anymore. And that hinges on the degree that you can transcend the 'Paradigm of Self or No Self' -- the only way you can do that is to locate and embody BE-ing.

MANAGING OTHER PEOPLE’S EXPECTATIONS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT SKILL TO HAVE FOR CAREER — AND YOU’RE NOT BORN WITH THIS SKILL, IT’S AN AWARENESS YOU’LL AMASS OVER TIME THROUGH THE 'SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS' Just keep people in the loop. If the work-product is gonna be late, tell people straight-up it’s gonna be a day or two late. Don’t leave people hanging. That way people can go do something else with their day and not be looking for the work-product. Managing expectations poorly causes a lot of needless consternation. I learned this the hard way in my career. It’s a tough one to learn. It’s hard to be sensitive to breaching other people’s expectations until you’re on the receiving end of a breach of expectations yourself. Then you have awareness of how it made you feel and you can be sensitive to that happening to others. And I get it, when you’re stressed to try to get a project done, it’s not always on the top of your mind to worry about managing other people’s expectations. But you can piss people off inadvertently very easily, when a simple heads-up note can put out that fire when it’s small. I’ve poisoned the well at prior jobs by mismanaging expectations. It wasn’t what I was concerned with. But now I realize it’s the most important thing to be concerned with. It’s a systems issue. Nobody is gonna be happy missing a meal, but it makes it much more palatable to know why you’re missing a meal and when you can expect the next meal. If you leave someone waiting at a table drumming their fork and knife staring at an empty plate, that just pisses them off. It’s basically shitting where you eat. Proactive communication is the best way to avoid the undesired outcome of causing breach of expectations in people who are expecting something from you at a certain time. You do this too often with the people you work with and you can really poison the well at work. It can turn into a really nasty breach of trust kind of issue. I know this firsthand from experience.

You stretched to try to ‘one up’ me. Read what I said again. Calling something an addiction when you’ve set up the expectation sounds like a convenient Ego Defense. I wouldn’t say my boss is addicted to getting my work-product when it’s due. No, they expect it, and when I breach that expectation, I don’t get to accuse them of being addicted to receiving my work-product on time. That ship don’t sail. That’s a way for the Ego to try to save face.

I agree. And rank as well.

Distinguish between addiction and expectation.

Let's not add more pressure to Leo. Creativity can get stifled by too much structure.

The Paradigm of Memory or No Memory is a conceptual system.

The first half sounds like Peterson, the second half less so.

He doesn’t seem to be interested. There’s plenty more to discuss about Life Purpose than what’s in the Course. The Course was made like 3 years ago now. Too much same ole same ole with the Enlightenment theory. Enlightenment is only one aspect of Personal Development. You also have Life Purpose and Conceptual Understanding. Leo should branch out more into these latter two areas now. All the Enlightenment videos are starting to sound the same to me now — same ole beliefs regurgitated over and over again. And Enlightenment isn’t even about beliefs! But when you talk about Enlightenment so much, you get calcified around beliefs, around your ritual of terms — it becomes a trap. Enlightenment doesn’t really lend itself to being talked about ad nauseum; that puts Enlightenment too much in the Mind, which causes a lot of inadvertent tail-chasing.

Get rid of that word ‘we’, it’s irrelevant. The only question is what do you need on your path. ‘We’ is only relevant to the extent that it helps ‘you’. Put your own intuitions front and center.

I’d like to see a video on Life Purpose. What happened to Life Purpose videos? People need to hear more about Life Purpose.

Do you know how to just Rest as Awareness?

Sounds to me that you could really benefit from more Enlightenment work. Counter-intuitively, your problem isn’t really a problem. The Mind is creating a problem where no problem exists.

Why does one thing need to be reduced to another? Why can't things stand alone on their own merit? There's always this relation or connection that the mind wants to draw -- a 'this is like that' relation.

The best way to talk with Egos is to realize that you have Ego too. The only difference is you're not as chained to Ego like most people are. Also, realize that Ego is not personal: that happens when you transcend the 'Paradigm of Self'. Ego is just part of what's here -- it's not good or bad. When you accept what is in the moment, there is no more fighting with BE-ing in terms of should dos or should do nots. I credit Mooji with the phrase 'should dos or should do nots', I like that. I think the best way to think about Ego is to realize you have Ego too. That's why you can become compassionate. The only difference between you and them is they're more asshole-to-bellybutton with their Ego than you are with yours due to their clinging to the 'Paradigm of Self'.

To me this looks like really old technology. It's like dragging out a slide-rule to do contemporary calculations. I see a lot of room for literal interpretations of what you posted that could cause a lot of tail-chasing if Enlightenment is what you want.

You’re not gonna achieve sustainable fulfillment with techniques alone. That’s why we need Enlightenment. Otherwise there would be no need for Enlightenment, right.

I never had any use for the Chakras model myself nor for Kriya Yoga. But that’s just me. But every person has to develop their own useful systems, see. You wouldn’t dare say everybody should eat the same items on the buffet table, right. Chakras and Kriya are available items on the buffet table for those people who resonate with them. And they're not for everybody. At the end of the day, the only relevant question to you is whether Chakras is useful to you. If not, there are plenty of other options like Do Nothing Meditation, which i’m a fan of, etc.

A NOTE ABOUT ENLIGHTENMENT For Enlightenment, ‘clinging’ to the ‘belief’ that other people don’t exist is just as bad as ‘clinging’ to the ‘belief’ that they do. Both are stuck in the Paradigm of ‘Need to Know BE-ing or Not Know BE-ing’. Enlightenment is not about ‘my belief is better than yours’. Need to Know BE-ing or Not Know BE-ing is orthogonal to simply BE-ing in the moment without pre-judgments or pre-expectations.