Joseph Maynor

Wow. This is a nice insight and set up for a nice discussion. The paradox you gotta balance in life is being the ego and no-ego at the same time. It’s a little bit tricky to see how you can do both of these at once, but you can. Looking at things from the perspective of no-ego represses ego, which is a denial of reality and creates a shadow to the ego to boot. And that shadow acts incognito of awareness, which is what makes it such a trap. If you can learn how to be the ego and no-ego at once, and to cling loosely to that paradox, and to be able to release it at anytime as well — you’ll approach my present state of consciousness.

Once you find yourself you still have the issue of how to deal with beliefs. So, Enlightenment must deal with beliefs as well as the Authentic-Self. This is kind of where Philosophy and Enlightenment need to have a baby. You might call this Epistemology, although I don’t like that word very much. It’s too loaded of a term.

Yes. But the biggest block to mindfulness is the Ego, and that is built by culture. So, it’s culture and not knowing how to get up under culture that blocks mindfulness. Culture includes ideas too.

Lately I’ve been really aware of the fact that this is such lip service and denial of reality. Everyone has an Ego, even Enlightened people. I think there’s a bullshit false narrative that “Enlightened people” no longer have an Ego or that they have transcended the Ego. Them’s just words and beliefs, and a denial of reality to boot! Video to watch for some background:

Greece — Athens Italy — Rome Turkey — Istanbul China — Beijing Taiwan — Taipei

Not right now because of the holidays. It will start to pick up for me in the next couple of days. I’m a freelancer.

Only when I’m so burned that the break takes me. I’ve been working like 12 hour days now for days and days on end. I’m doing a shitload of Life Purpose work, and I got a bunch of shit to read and write about too.

Solo international travel for 2 weeks to a very different country is an Enlightenment tool. You will have so many insights and realizations when you do this. It’s so healthy that I try to do this twice a year.

I think his top strength is in working on his own personal development.

The solution is to both be an ego and not be an ego, and to be as aware of reality as possible in the moment. We can use culture as a way to make our awareness stronger, which is one reason why Enlightenment is difficult — because you need to be exposed to culture to see up underneath all culture. This is why we have the paradox that Enlightenment is both extremely challenging and extremely simple at the same time.

This is gonna sound very nerdy, but I work on my Personal Development for fun. I can do that for hours and hours and hours, days and days on end without getting tired. It’s like effortless effort — Wu Wei.

Oh yeah. I’ve come to the conclusion that many times people with the hugest egos are the ones trying to claim they have the smallest egos. This is a way to hide their own shadow traits from conscious awareness. Their ego has clung to the trait of no-Ego, but it’s not really reality for them, they’ve just repressed the truth from conscious awareness by pretending the opposite. But when you watch their behavior, in contrast to their talk, they reek of massive ego.

The paradox with Enlightenment is you have to both seek and not seek at the same time. This balance confuses the hell out of the Mind, which wants a singular, rational kind of answer.

Our chin-wagging is like the cry of a neurotic bird in the forest amusing and comforting itself.

Reality could give a shit about your thoughts. Right?

Agreed. Leo has a conflict of interest in that he is part of the Enlightenment educational system, so he needs to make sure that that mileu continues to be needed. haha. Every profession has a bullshit game that they play to try to make themselves seem very valuable. That's one of the downsides of playing the game of business -- you get wrapped up in that.

"The Sanctuary of Self" by Ralph M. Lewis. https://www.amazon.com/Sanctuary-Rosicrucian-Order-Kindle-Editions-ebook/dp/B00TYM7WVU Explains what it means to be a mystic.

I've worked really hard on my Enlightenment. I paid my dues. Not saying that I don't have further work to do -- but I got the basics down. Enlightenment doesn't puzzle me anymore.

You gotta become influenced by yourself. That's the only true path. You gotta be your own guru. I have a huge shore of reference, which is rare. Therefore, more knowledge ain't really gonna do much for me insofar as Enlightenment is concerned. I don't need to listen to people talk about Enlightenment. I am it. The paradox with Enlightenment is that it is both complicated and incredibly simple at the same time. Once you grok that and live it, what more do you need? More talk? More reading at McDonalds? You guys are gonna talk yourselves out of Enlightenment if you don't watch it!

I do man. But I'm the guru to me. I've been influenced by you though.

I don't mind people. I like to be alone more though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_Samba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Getz

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_Changes

When you tell them that there is no right answer to a particular point or issue. They don’t get to be right, I don’t get to be right. Rightness is not that big of a concept all the time, although the Mind likes to project that it is almost all the time. That attitude causes so many blocks! It’s like taking the foil the candy is wrapped in as more important and valuable than the candy is! That’s us! Although the Mind is calling bullshit on me — of course! Do you see why? You need to understand what the hell the Mind is. Do you? Nope, you don’t! You do not. Thoughts are sticky and we don’t have a great awareness of that. We don’t. The Mind tells us we do, which is false and self-serving. We do not appreciate the stickiness of thoughts — not really, not fully, not sufficiently. I can’t stress this issue more. The Mind is telling us that we have something handled that we don’t, for self-serving, self-survival purposes. That’s the mechanics of this particular kind of trap. Do you see?

Yeah. Totally. The Mind is like a crazy girlfriend, you never know what you're gonna get -- but every extreme is there.