Joseph Maynor

Why are you worried about backsliding before you are backsliding? Don’t you see that the Mind is just finding all these traps to keep you from taking action! Oh — I can’t take actions until I get this piece of knowledge first, and on and on and on. The Mind is sneaky with these kinds of traps. You need to start to become aware of these traps! The best way the Mind can sabotage your Higher-Self is to make you believe you need something before you can take action — in your case an answer to a hypothetical issue you aren’t even facing! You are distracting yourself, and I want you to see that this is a way for the Mind to block your actions — it’s a pattern of self-sabotage that you need to be able to spot with more acuity. What are your top 5 goals right now? Give me a list.

The Mind will chase happiness — just not always the wholesome kind. If the Mind were solidly aware that only the wholesome kind of happiness is happiness — the Mind will start to get on board with Enlightenment work. The problem is that this requires higher-consciousness beliefs, which only come from higher-consciousness culture.

What are your top 5 goals for self-improvement right now? Give me a list.

Yeah — the best way I have found to do this is to loosely cling to the paradox: I am a self and not a self. This way you can work on both sides of the paradox at once. On the one hand you are finding the Higher-Self, which is still the Ego, just a more purified version. On the other hand, you are releasing from being an Ego all together. What you’ll find is that this work is essentially a long term project. You can’t really prentend that you have ditched the Ego — when it is still there. But what you can do is strip as much delusion out of your beliefs as possible and the let your cup re-fill with more wholesome, loosely held, tentative beliefs. And then you do some psychedelics to really locate the Authentic-Self, so you can feel what that is and be able to locate that within you. Now you have a rock to stand on — which is beyond beliefs. Once you discover the Authentic-Self — all beliefs are seen as attempts to augment the Authentic-Self into something that isn’t quite what is really there.

What are your top 5 goals right now? List them for me.

Because if you ignore the Authentic-Self, you doom your life to a life where the Mind is basically always at war with itself — which is a life of great suffering and unfulfillment.

What is Enlightenment? Give me a paragraph on what the word means to you.

Higher-consciousness is growth, maturity, increased awareness, increased perspective, increased knowledge of reality as it is — less delusions, or false, self-serving beliefs.

Yes it does. It develops awareness. With increased awareness you become wiser, more centered, and more reality focused.

Understanding some things about language, belief, thought, and reality. Having a deep knowledge of classical self-help and knowing where to apply those tools. Having a deep understanding of the Authentic-Self so I can align with it rather than oppose it.

Where do you think you’re backsliding? Give me a paragraph description.

I’m very well read and well traveled. I’ve been kind of a loner all my life, but I am always working on improving myself with my time. I’ve done a shit load of personal development. ive always been kind of a fearless, original dude. i examine all my beliefs for myself and don’t like to take anything on faith. I like to help people improve their thinking. I am a great researcher about the things I care about. I have a desire to provide my unique perspective on issues that I care about.

Thank you for being so passionate about doing this work. The journey is long but very rewarding. There are a lot of beliefs that need to be examined anew.

Money is not good or bad in and of itself. Money is nothing other than potential. Realize this. This is a very deep truth about money that a lot of people seem to miss.

You need to contemplate more. There’s no primrose path to Enlightenment. It takes a ton of work. You need to be willing to do that work.

There’s a theoretical scaffolding that one needs to develop before they can really sustainably raise their awareness though. And that takes a lot of contemplation and awareness to build. So, yes and no — Enlightenment is both right in front of you and not right in front of you at the same time, paradoxically.

Do this for me. Answer this question in a short paragraph: What does morality mean to me?

Ask these: What am I? What does it mean to say that I am alive? What is existence? What happens when there is an absence of thoughts? Does the absence of thoughts change awareness?

Psychedelics are just a tool in the personal development toolkit not a magic pill. You need to be doing newbie personal development work right now. You’re not gonna get a quick fix if your foundation isn’t properly layed. Make a commitment to do this work for the long term.

Who is this you that has the will? That’s the deeper issue. You need to start there. What is this you that has the will? Do you see how metaphorical this language and thought is?

I’ve done this kind of thing. The best thing it does is force the Mind to realize how much distraction you really have. It can build awareness around that issue.

Every block can be analyzed to look for its source. You need to identify each block and then contemplate the source. Either you are acting inauthentically or you have a negative association with the value you are trying to pursue. You gotta do deep self-therapy to find the root causes of your blocks.

Music is amazing. I’m so glad I had so much of it in my life. It really gets you to feel subtle emotions that it would be hard to get you to otherwise feel — accoss the entire emotional spectrum. Pandora is good for exploring different genres of music: Music is like food — there are many different approaches to doing it. Music is culture. There’s actually a field called Musicology that traces the influences and historical developments of music-making across cultures. I’ve kind of informally dabbled in this work myself, as kind of a hobby over the years.

Indeed!

Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you have a nice, relaxing day. And all pets are happy today too, I’m sure.