Joseph Maynor

To the Guru every perspective is a teacher.

I hope Leo is doing well.

Sure. People who act like Gurus but who depend on you staying lower consciousness than them so they can retain their Egoic power over the group. Think of a cult leader. These people don’t really want you to grow to their Growth Level because it’s a threat to their advantage over you. A true Guru wants you to reach whatever Growth Level you decide to evolve into, even if it’s higher than theirs. The anti-guru wants you to grow — but only so much as you don’t upset their system. The anti-guru is all about themselves — the true Guru is about the entire Network of perspectives.

This was a great video when it came out for me. I was so happy on 12/4/16! At that time I was nowhere near where I am now on the Path. But it was a distinct stepping-stone for me around this time period. I think Leo’s shift precipitated a shift in me. Of course he’s way ahead of me at this juncture, so the shift was more analogical on my end — but it was a true growth point.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_forum

Haha. Egoless got wise!

Nah. He’s gonna take it to the next level. Y’all need to make sure you grow yourselves too so you keep up. Leo loves this stuff, I can tell. I personally enjoy his newer videos.

I agree. The tongue can’t taste itself. I can’t take credit for this, I think it comes from Mooji. However — can the tongue BE itself? That’s what’s interesting! From the tongue’s perspective — what’s the difference between tasting and BE-ing? Or you can even get fancier — what’s the difference between the tongue’s tasting, BE-ing, and its becomming?

This resonates with me.

Correct. Rest as Awareness is a metaphor. It’s a pointer. It’s the best pointer we have. Adya is spot on.

This is my favorite video on Enlightenment:

Dude, you got smart! Seriously.

I agree with you 100%.

I agree with that. My point is that form is just window-dressing in this work. Can you rest as Awareness? Whether you think in terms of form will not help you there! I can rest as Awareness all the time! In a sense, I’m always meditating. So, form is irrelevant to me. Form is a distraction frankly. There is no mechanical way to Enlightenment. Enlightenment is simply BE-ing reality.

I meditate lying in bed. 30 mins each morning of do nothing meditation. It’s not about all the formal BS.

Reality hides in plain sight. The more conceptual you are, the more you have to deprogram from conceptual-truth to find it — and then ultimately be it. There’s a personal transformation that accompanies this. It’s like looking all over for a pair of glasses that have been placed backwards on your head. Reality hides in plain sight. It’s tricky. Using psychedelics especially LSD helped me see the obvious, as I’m a pretty conceptual person too. Sometimes you’re so smart, your brain leaks out of your head — and this definitely applies to Enlightenment! Leo’s gonna conduct his experiment and tell us his results. I get it. Go for it! Explore! That’s what I’m all about. I say go for it Leo! — full tilt! See what happens. Until you do it, it’s just speculation. After you do it, you’ll know something. And that will be a notch in your belt — an item to be placed in your shore of reference. Science is all about exploration and seeing and testing stuff for yourself. Science doesn’t just sit back and rely on complascent and lazy speculation — Science actually goes out here and sees for itself! I love that approach and attitude to everything, including Enlightenment. Be an explorer! Then come back and give us a report on your findings. How could that be a bad thing? Think about it. It’s a great thing.

Correct. Reality is right here right now.

Nice insight! Everybody has to find their own way to peace though. All you know is you don’t yet have it. And you’re gonna chase until you find it. When you do find it, you’ll stop chasing. Sometimes you have to explore a path just to see it doesn’t work the way you thought. That leads to growth too. Enlightenment is not linear and each person is gonna need to burn through a different path to obtain it.

Nice insight! I was thinking Leo should take 60 days without making any videos. You need solo time to grow without the tugs of obligation. Growth requires lots of relaxed solo time.

Good question. Your questions have been good lately. I can tell you’re doing the work more and growing. The only limit to thought is what you accept. The only dogmas are what you cling to. Explore whatever you want to. Build up your own shore of reference. Privilege your own intuition over what is said by others. People feel safe by clinging to ideology. It makes them feel like they can move past an issue. But is that really true? Can clinging to some theory of non-duality be what Enlightenment is all about? That would be a very sad Enlightenment indeed. Enlightenment is much more expansive than that. Enlightenment is not an ideology, and it’s a trap to turn it into one. All ideologies can do is point to Enlightenment — but none can ever catch it. Enlightenment is a personal transformation. It’s a way to untangle ideas from reality and see the map as being distinct form the territory. It’s getting acquainted with reality minus thoughts about reality. We have so many thoughts about reality that we lose sight of what pre-conceptual reality actually is. We’re so concerned with thoughts about reality — that we take them to be reality! You can get to the point where you see and feel this distinction so clearly that you lose fear of thoughts. People who fear thoughts are still insecure about making the map and territory distinction. When you can BE pre-conceptual reality — you no longer fear thoughts. Thoughts become quite fascinating cultural constructs actually. I like thoughts! I just don’t mistake the thought stories to be reality. Thoughts are human technology. Reality is not human technology. Human technology exists within reality. We’re never gonna be able to encapsulate reality existentially using thoughts. That’s the map versus territory idea deeply grokked — not just intellectually but existentially. LSD is great help with teaching this. But you don’t need psychedelics to grok this. Psychedelics just give you another perspective to draw on that might help you do so. You can actually see this if you do “Do Nothing Meditation.”

Awareness never changes. That's my current view. I had this insight on psychedelics. All the change that happens is aware of, but awareness itself never falters. It never changes. Even when you do 5MeO DMT, Awareness is still there is it not? I've never done 5MeO DMT.

Change seems to be more fundamental than time. Time is a metric or theory that we apply to change. Because Awareness never changes, change is part of the Dream. Thus, time is a construct, a family of related paradigms that are laid on top of change in contexts by us. Time is not part of reality. Time is a thought about reality. Here's a question for you. Is change a thought about reality? Or is change something that we're aware of empirically prior to thinking? It seems as though we have a pre-conceptual awareness of change to me. Do you need the concept of change to perceive change? And even if you couldn't conceptualize change, does that mean that the phenomena of change is absent from Awareness? Take a newborn baby for example. I don't know if that works -- but does a newborn baby have a sense of change or it all one static thing? What about a baby that just came out? Can that baby perceive change? Is change part of that baby's awareness? It seems as though we would want to say that that baby does perceive change -- but not time. So, change does not appear to be merely a concept fundamentally. Awareness of change appears to be pre-conceptual. Time is a family of concepts that we add later. One must come to learn a concept of time later. Time is cultural whereas change is not. Does a dog experience change? How about a housefly? Does a housefly experience change? Does a dog experience time? What about the housefly?

I’m sure you’re giving your goals a second look. That’s what happens to me around my birthday each year. Going from 39 to 40 last time was brutal for me. I think I grew more in 1 year than my whole life so far. 39 was my most growth year so far. The looming of 40 did something in me. Kind of a mid-life crisis thing happening in there too. There’s something about turning 40 that’s a real mindf*ck. Subconsciously, you realize you’re not really a kid anymore. You can’t continue to be one either! It’s a mandatory growth point. Or at least it functioned that way for me. It’s like the gods said — time to grow up now whether you’re ready to or not. Happy birthday haha. It’s profound huh? I can say that I’ve been happily 40 now for 4 months! In your 30’s you’re still given a little leeway to be a kid and to be at sea about your life. At 40 though you’re expected to have a few things figured out about life. Mother Nature will haunt you like a concerned demon to grow past childhood. It’s like she says — times up! School’s out! You’re grown now and you’re expected to act like it. You’ve pissed and frittered half your life away — now what are you really gonna do? Like that. It’s a wake up call — a forced transition from boy to man. Time to do whatever work you’re gonna do before you die. No more waiting around. No more time to piss and fritter away. No more slack being given to screw up like kids receive. You’re expected to be past that. You’re an adult at age 40. A real adult. And you’re expected to act like one! In your 30’s, you’re still given leeway to screw up and learn. You’re still sort of young in your 30’s. At 40, you need to act grown or it’s just contrary to nature. You’ll realize you’re gonna die a loser if you don’t finally shape up in certain ways. And that’s real, not something you can put off any longer. There’s no more time to waste! It’s now or never at 40. The training-wheels are released whether you want them to come off or not — and the bike speeds up too!

That was a good explanation. Thanks for posting it. Here's another great video

Realize that you are part of a large, non-linear, interconnected system of reality. And that system is always in homeostasis. Changing that system sustainably requires consciousness, awareness, and patience. Growth is non-linear. Make Personal Development and growth a side-hobby in your life. There are things you can do, but they’re different from what you think. Embrace the challenge of learning about and optimizing the system of your life.