Joseph Maynor

I went through this. This is where your Ego is collapsing for the first time and it feels like a part of you is dying. What's happening is your self-image is dying. This was followed for me by a "dark night of the soul" kind of depression. When I was going through this I was operating from my Shadow as my Ego crumbled away. I was rude, violent, and all the other things that are the opposite of the traits that I identified with. Good video to watch right now: Do the exercise! EXERCISE TO EXAMINE ROLES 1. What is the role that I am/was playing? Describe the role. 2. What are the specific ways that I act/acted out this role? 3. When did I adopt this role? (Can I pinpoint the moment when I started to adopt this role?) 4. What was life like before I started acting this role? 5. How did I acquire this role? 6. What traumatic event(s), if any, created the need for this role? 7. Why do/did I need this role? What function did/does this role serve in my life? 8. What deep psychological need did/does playing out this role satisfy? How was/is this role protecting me? 9. How artificial and contrived was/is this role? 10. Which genuine aspect of me was/is this role suppressing?

Emerald Leo Mark Serpentza

I'm aware that doubting is occurring in the present moment. Or, I sense doubting in the present moment. But even this language is all false. All language is false. Existential Truth is not conceptual.

Meditation is the key for the newbie. Meditation and mindful awareness. Then a little bit of theory after meditation has been practiced for a while. And then hopefully at a certain point, the person takes hold of their own spiritual journey. Then they will be coming to you asking questions. That's great. It shows they now have a fire lit under their own arse. I don't know how good this material is for people who are young though. Maybe it just confuses them. When I started studying this material, I was already in my mid-30's. So, I don't know. I'd only be speculating. All I know is my own path. I benefited from having a huge shore of reference before I studied this material. And it was still super-challenging to me for a couple of years. I can't imagine how someone with less experience and education would handle with this material. It's gotta be really hard for them. Or maybe it's easier, I don't know.

People who advance in this work are people who are really hungry for the fruits of spirituality. People who don't have this desire will not put in the work to get over the mountain. You wanna give information to those who are gonna naturally do the work. Those people are almost gonna become enlightened over time anyway. The worst thing that could happen to those people is lack of exposure to the material.

Why do you want to be celibate?

Existential Truth is not knowable via beliefs. Existential Truth is sensed in the present moment. People are always gonna be confused by this because the Mind wants truth to be conceptual. Existential Truth is not and never will be conceptual.

Notice that things are only unusual when there is some standard you are holding reality to. And that standard is conceptual. If you can dig that out of your subconscious mind that would be useful. Realize that reality just is. There is something about reality that is rubbing your beliefs the wrong way. Notice that you are taking those beliefs seriously or you wouldn't have a problem accepting reality for what it is.

I think you guys are getting a little too metaphysical with this part of it. This stuff does not resonate with me, this metaphysical stuff. These claims are thoughts, beliefs too -- and false. That word 'God' is causing you a lot of problems. I don't know how many times and ways I have warned of that. God has been a plague on Philosophy for so long. Some people just have a 'God gene' apparently. They can't help themselves.

I'm interested in this too.

Reality is Existential Truth. It can also be a word that is loosely associated with several thought-stories that you have been exposed to. We might call these thought-stories about Reality. Existential Truth is what is sensed in the present moment. So, thoughts as things sensed in the present moment are Existentially True. But the insides of thoughts — their thought-stories — are not Existentially True.

Reality is not deceptive. If you just watch reality there is nothing deceptive. It is only beliefs that deceive. It is thought-stories that deceive. I’m not talking about any concept of reality here either, I’m talking about what is sensed in the present moment. Even the notion of deception is a thought-story. Existential Truth is not deceptive. That’s why you wanna be watching that in the present moment. What’s deceptive is our clinging tightly to beliefs. Our ideas get in the way of our plain view of reality. It’s kinda sad huh? Yeah.

The Mind is a concept. What you need to start to do is to realize that all thoughts are just sensations. And inside of those sensations is a fiction, what we call a thought-story. Now, thoughts as sensations are part of reality, part of Existential Truth, but the insides of the thoughts are not Existentially True. What we have a bad habit of doing, because we’ve been conditioned to do this from the time we were babies, is to create an Ego out of beliefs instead of just watching reality and being aware of reality. Beliefs are simply the insides — or mental content — of certain thoughts. This “Ego of beliefs” we create is a model and can never capture reality. And we know this — but for some reason we have a hard time practicing it. When you watch those thoughts as sensations, you will develop the awareness of what is happening, and so you’ll cling to beliefs less tightly. And the less tightly you cling to beliefs, the more open you become to just seeing reality as it is. Also you’ll become less judgmental because that results from clinging tightly to beliefs. We spent the first part of our life learning beliefs and creating a strong Ego. Now we must empty our cup of beliefs so we can see the Truth without any idea filters.

I think most people would agree that a life where you have the basics of food, shelter, security, access to healthcare is superior to a life where you don’t have these basics. Now, beyond this, it’s up to the individual how they fashion their life. What you wanna do is live your authentic values and strengths at that point. But the problem is you gotta do the personal development work to locate the Authentic-Self and figure out those authentic values and strengths. You need to learn how to increase awareness. This removes a lot of unnessesary suffering from your life and promotes your success as a by-product. Now, is this life better than choosing to live as a bum on the street? Well, probably right? It’s hard to see how it wouldn’t be.

How does any of this relate to Stage Coral? I wanna see who has something insightful to say about that.

Being addicted to having your mind fucked can be a trap too. That could cause you to cling to beliefs to achieve said mindfucking. Better to just watch the Truth. I’m not really addicted to having my mind fucked. I’m more interested in acceptance of reality.

The Mind can’t wrap itself around reality because reality is always in flux and changing. It’s like a 2-dimensional model trying to capture a 3-dimensional one. Ain’t gonna work. The Mind can only deal with 2-dimensional models. Now, reality isn’t really a model, so it can’t be subsumed by the Mind. The Mind likes to pretend reality can be captured under concepts, but this is never gonna work, ever. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use beliefs. It just means that our expectations regarding beliefs and our paradigm regarding their function and use is wrong. Beliefs are not good or bad — it’s how they are clung to that’s good or bad in the present moment.

The point is that all your garbage beliefs need to be cleaned out so you can have a sense of the Authentic-Self. Once you have a sense of the Authentic-Self, you can use awareness of reality to basically keep the Mind from manipulating your beliefs and emotions. The fox won’t chase its tail so much. ? And your life will become more aligned with your authentic values and strengths.

I know when you consider tactile sensations, visual sensations can appear to be 3-dimensional. But is that really true? Are visual sensations actually flat and not 3-dimensional?

I’m realizing that to say anything at all is not the Truth. And that applies to this matter. We wanna be making beliefs less rigid. Why does there need to be a theoretical answer here anyway? We’re trying to conceptualize what is. How foolish is that? But we’re addicted to it. The Mind keeps egging us on and convincing us that this is possible. Even I fell into this trap by asking this question.

I think every true counselor first and foremost is counseling themselves. Helping others is a byproduct of that. Just like every jazz musician is playing for themselves. So, you gotta see where your drive to do this work is coming from. That’s why Life Purpose work is so important. Counseling others can come from a less pure place, so you’ll wanna take a look at that issue within yourself. You should do Leo’s Life Purpose Course.

First of all, let’s organize things a bit. Law of Attraction is a word that is associated with a number of loosely similar concepts that you have been exposed to. Now, the question is, where do these concepts live in Enlightenment theory, such that they serve some kind of useful aim to you. Well, recently I had an insight that might fit this bill. I realized that there’s a Law of Attraction like effect with tightly held beliefs. When you cling tightly to an Ego of beliefs, or a system of beliefs, judgments will happen as a result. And those judgments will effect actions and also corroborate the beliefs. So, there’s where the fox is chasing its own tail. Do you see it? That’s why loosening up beliefs is so critical in this work. Strong beliefs, judgments, and Ego all feed off and reinforce each other.

Did you watch the video “How to Change the World?” A picture paints a thousand words.

Curious. Let's discuss.

Damn, this wiki article on INTP is pretty good: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTP