Joseph Maynor

Every time Leo makes a video and posts it on YouTube he's advertising Actualized.org. And all the old videos on YouTube are also advertising Actualized.org. The Forum also advertises Actualized.org. The Actualized.org website also advertises Actualized.org.

The only mentor I have at this point is myself. And I was even reluctant to say that, but that's the closest I could come to an answer to this question.

Exactly.

This video is definitely in my top 5 of your videos in terms of the influence it had on me over the long term. It would be interesting to see how you think this video and your God videos relate. How does your God theory aid practice? How does practice aid your God theory?

How so?

Theory is for the first part of the Path. The second part of the Path is where you're not obsessed with theory. You gotta lure the Ego-Mind onto the Path with theory, because that's what the Ego-Mind understands. But if you're clinging to theory, that can develop into a trap because being doesn't give a squat about theory. It's the Ego-Mind that is obsessed with being right or possessing the one right truth. Being doesn't care what theory the Ego-Mind clings to.

When you're learning how to drive a car you study that little driving test booklet like your life depends on it. After you pass the driving test, you just drive the car. Same thing goes for all this intellectual sh*t. Once you've gone through this conceptual stuff ad nauseum for years like I have, the issue just dies on the vine after a certain point. Babies love baby food, but adults have moved beyond that. No adult buys baby food just to reminisce a prior taste. That never happens. It it did, that would be kinda eccentric behavior to say the least.

Do you need any answers?

I'm not seeking any answers. I don't need any answers.

That's a good point. I've thought about that. Clinging to not clinging is indeed a trap. Am I doing that? I don't think so. But any kind of position that one frames in language is a kind of clinging to the extent that one is preaching it. What I'm trying to do is provide a counter-balance to try to deal with the larger issue of the Ego-Mind clinging to these kinds of beliefs at all. This whole intellectual game is no better than snorting coke off a stripper's hip.

Yeah but don't cling to it not being good or had either. It's just not that important to have an answer or a judgment either way. Even if you do say it is good or bad or not good or bad, that's just one Ego-Mind clinging to some thought about reality for better or for worse. The bottom line is it's just not that important or healthy to cling to a one right answer about these things. It just doesn't matter much. You're gonna die soon and have all these very practical interests about how to spend your remaining time. None of those interests involves you clinging to some kind of oversimplified judgment about reality; unless you just wanna be lost in your head your whole life, which is kind of a sad fate if you sit down and think about it.

"Self-esteem" is an interesting concept because it seems to be clear enough and not clear enough at the same time of exactly what the f*ck we're talking about. There's something dodgy about the concept of self-esteem that makes it like trying to catch a greased hog to understand specifically what it means. I'm gonna frame it like this. When you're miserable in your own life, that makes you very selfish. When you have lots of deficiency needs that are not being met, that makes you very selfish. How can you be generous when you're not happy with your own life? Generosity and compassion comes from someone who is coming from a place of abundance. When you have very few deficiency needs that are unmet, you're generally very helpful to others because you're content with life, you're happy. When you're content with your own life, and when you have few deficiency needs, you can feel compassion for even people and scenarios that even most regular people turn their nose up at.

I'm not a fan of using "truth" at all in Enlightenment theory. For me "being" is better than "truth" because it doesn't carry the baggage that "truth" does. But that's just me. I make room for other people to have differing proclivities regarding Enlightenment theory. To me clinging to "truth" is also a potential trap because it's the Ego-Mind that wants the one right "truth" about everything; it's frikin' insatiable. And then I get to run around telling everybody I have the one right "truth" like I'm some kind of super genius Ego-Mind among all the other Ego-Minds out there. That's a little dodgy and pretty obviously in error from my perspective regarding what the Path is all about, which is getting away from clinging to for lack of a better word at the moment, the "unenlightened Ego-Mind".

The physical plane as opposed to what? Reality doesn't seem to have fragmentation in that way.

Be careful about working on it though because that's just more Ego-Mind clinging. It's a little bit counter-intuitive. You don't want to try to be humble, that will only backfire and your Ego will not do that sustainably anyway. It's best just to keep working on your Path and meditating. Let No Ego or being work on you. I recall in one of Emerald's videos where she talked about those Chinese Finger Traps where the harder you pull the harder the damn thing locks down on your finger. It's only when you stop trying to pull your finger out that the trap releases. Humility is like that too. Trying to be humble doesn't do it. It's when you release from the Ego-Mind that humility naturally comes, as does calm and peace and all kinds of other things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_finger_trap

When I sent to Istanbul, Turkey for 2 weeks, I would hear the Muslim call to prayer 5 times per day and people would stop what they were doing to go into the nearest mosque to quickly pray. You can see the Blue Mosque (to the right) and the Hagia Sophia (to the left) in the background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul

This answer seems unsatisfactory. It sounds deep but has no cash value.

Why do you have 2 eyes? Why do humans live 100 years instead of 200 years? Why don't we have eyes on the back of our head?

You must feel like you're right. That's what makes me cocky, when I feel like I'm right. When we feel we're right, we act cocky. Maybe what you should do (and we should all do) is examine that clinging to feeling right. The Ego-Mind loves to be reinforced that it is right. But maybe you're not so right, or maybe this is a deficiency need that is coming from the Ego-Mind's need to feel right.

Look at how you guys rationalize stuff. It's like telling one lie forcing you to tell 3 more lies to cover up that first lie. Honestly, is reality forcing you to make these Metaphysical distinctions? Nothing changes if your Metaphysics goes away. Notice that. Nothing changes. All that changes are the beliefs that your Ego-Mind is clinging to.

Because when you're not clinging your ears are open for the first time. But at the same time we don't wanna cling to being Enlightened beings, because that's just the Ego-Mind clinging to that. The Ego-Mind wants to be an Enlightened being.

I think some of the changes the Path can elicit in you are permanent. Just like you don't go from being a 41 year old man back to being 17 years old. Some of the changes are irreversible. Ultimately Enlightenment is about unclinging from the Ego-Mind, so that has some permanent affects to it.

Think about the kind of person that is generally respected by others for being a good person. What is it that separates that kind of person from other people? What is that person doing, what is that person saying, what is that person thinking, how is that person living?

Thinking the girlfriend is an illusion is overthinking too, is it not?

Being doesn't really benefit too much from the Ego-Mind trying to understand it. That's why it's called being. One must be, which really isn't an understanding. You ride a bike, but that's not really an understanding. You just ride the damn thing. There's no conceptualization needed in the first instance. Same thing with hunger, you just eat. You're not sitting there conceptualizing your hunger in the moment. This is really hard for the intellectual mind to grasp. Same thing with peeing. You're not sitting there pondering the nature of peeing when you have to go pee, you just go pee. To me it's kinda sad to see all these books about being because being is very simple and non-intellectual. People get confused into all this Metaphysics by reading these books, and then they cling to that which sets up a block for being. Being is so simple that you have to find more sh*t to say about it to write any kind of book about it -- that's why all the Metaphysics has to be brought in to fill up those pages. This just ends up filling the Ego-Mind with concepts about being, which moves you further and further away from being. Being is like noticing a pretty woman, you don't need to say anything to appreciate her look. Rather than turning Enlightenment into Philosophy (or Metaphysics), I think a much better idea for a book is to write an autobiography of your own experience on the Path. That's where you'll get your fat book without all the misleading conceptualization of being. That's an Enlightenment book worth reading. All the abstract stuff, all the conceptualization, is trying to turn being into some detached thing that can be theorized about in the abstract, which is not only impersonal, but misleading. It's hiding out in a concept of being, which is just the Ego-Mind using Enlightenment to stay the same. No, Enlightenment should be changing who you are both externally and internally, with manifestations that are apparent to others too. Enlightenment is not some conceptual odyssey for the Philosophical Mind. In fact, Enlightenment should be bringing you back down to earth from that Philosophical Mind, see. If that's not happening, then you need to look at that.