Joseph Maynor

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Posts posted by Joseph Maynor


  1. 1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

    Of course real high-quality science is not in opposition to spirituality, and vice versa.

    Science just needs to be purified of its metaphysical dogmas and to clearly understand its limits. That's all.

    Science has always been corrupted by dogma, and it will continue to be for centuries to come. Science is in the process of weeding out its own dogmas. But this process takes millennia because people are so stubborn.

    In the next few centuries nonduality will to incorporated into science, and after that happens, every scientist will say: "Duh! Of course the universe is nondual. Those scientists in the 21st century were just stubborn materialistic fools."

    What is high-quality Science?  Sounds like a value judgment.  Don't get trapped up with these subject categories.  Science is nothing more than a dream.  It was designed to replace Aristotle, and it's hung around past its prime.  We need to get past the notion of Science and realize it's a distraction.  There is just knowledge.  If you wanna label it Science, that's a secondary and often irrelevant classification.  What matters is knowledge itself, and what we find useful about that, in its particulars.  How we might classify knowledge beyond utility in a particular context is most likely mental-masturbation.  Conceptual truth is the biggest trap in this work.


  2. 22 minutes ago, Nahm said:

    @Joseph Maynor ya. That’s funny. 

    I also notice that couples tend to resemble each other.  Like they’ll both have a similar flaw, maybe a weird nose or mouth or something.  That’s probably why they jive because they feel comfortable with each other because they both share the same or similar “flaw”.  Kinda similar to the dog example.  We’re Looking to accept ourself by loving ourself.  So, we love others that appear like us so that we may learn to love and accept ourselves.  This is why we are attracted to people that have our shadow traits.  The shadow is driven to re-integrate and to be loved and accepted.  This is the fuel for life, the fuel for our journeys — self-acceptance and acceptance of reality.  This is what is causing the flow of life, the current of growth, the sense of needing to arrive someplace.  We are driven to rid ourselves of inauthenticity.  That’s really what growth is.  


  3. 9 minutes ago, Patang said:

    @Joseph Maynor truth, there is only one, truth is consciousness and that is all that there is.

    Ok, say it that way.  That doesn’t change reality.  We don’t wanna get into the weeds of semantics too much here.  It doesn’t matter.  Consciousness is a conceptualization too.  I don’t really like the word ‘consciousness’.    It’s a little too much like trading one illusion for another.  What is is awareness of reality in the present moment.  What that points to.


  4. The Self is a conceptualization, not reality.  It’s like one of those illusion pictures where things appear not as they are.  Where an image looks like it’s there but it’s only a projection of the Mind from more mundane phenomenon.  That’s the self.  Reality exists as it always has; what changes are the thoughts we cling to about reality.  We loosen our beliefs.  We don’t conceptually know what reality is.  Practice not knowing.  When it comes to conceptual truth aka belief, it’s best to be agnostic of all of it.  Well, it could be like that, but it also could be like this.  None of that is existential truth, however, and existential truth don’t tell me nothin’ about no separate sense of self.  That’s conceptual truth, not existential truth.  And conceptual truth can only really point to existential truth, it can’t be existential truth.  Now, some conceptual truth resonates better with existential truth than others, but there’s still a key qualitative difference there.  


  5. On 1/28/2018 at 1:21 PM, Joseph Maynor said:

    There's an intellectual component to consciousness too.  There's experiential awareness and then there's cognitive awareness.  And actually both of these are happening simultaneously.  Being conscious means that you have a huge shore of reference, that you are studied as much as you are aware of the present moment experientially.  We don't talk about this much and nobody ever seems to explain this right.  They just want to focus on experiential awareness.  Well, a baby has experiential awareness, but that doesn't make the baby very aware, if that makes sense.  What the baby is missing is cognitive awareness.  You need both to be conscious -- experiential awareness and cognitive awareness.  And cognitive awareness uses concepts, thoughts, the Mind.  So, don't dump your intellectual life in this work so fast.

    By the way I no longer accept this view.  This was before my recent enlightenment experience which happened like a day after I posted this.  This is rubbish.


  6. 1 hour ago, egoless said:

    What is the source of consciousness? People usually ask where did god come from? Why same question is not applicable to consciousness? Yes we can know our nature as consciousness. Yes maybe everything is appearing in it. But since consciousness can be considered as the god where did it come from then? Is not it more logical that even consciousness would not exist? Why anything even exists? Don't tell me the consciousness is nothing. It is definitely something since we are all here... 

     

    This is all mental masturbation.  What is true?  There's awareness and what is happening.  

    Watch:

     


  7. You got people at all stages of development on here.  We must be tolerant and try to assist people where they are.  And remember, all students are also teachers in this work.  It is the Ego that's always playing the role of the teacher.  Some people cling to that identity.  That's a trap.  Sure, you can cling to it loosely, but if you cling to that strongly, that's gonna make you tone-deaf in a lot of ways.  What you are trying to do is see something that's already there but that the Mind is not ready to accept, because the Mind wants to look somewhere else for truth.  So, it's the Mind that realizes that beliefs are not the truth.  Once you get that, that's where you'll get your big crack.  But you can't force that.  You can't force a plant to grow by pulling on it.  But make sure you're doing the work.  It takes a lot of work.  You're not gonna get the shift without doing the work.  There is no simplified or easy path.  At least there wasn't for me.  It's not Leo's job to spoon-feed us.  You need to dive in and figure things out for yourself.  Enlightenment is about discovering your authentic-self.  So, this is a seeking mission for you.  The whole point of Enlightenment is the stopping of grasping.  This is called Enlightened Detachment.  Reality always shows you the truth.


  8. ON PERCEIVED ADDICTIONS -- JUST BE MINDFUL, DON'T BE IDEOLOGICAL

    Addictions are conceptualizations and conceptualizations are not real.  If you watch your addictions while you're engaging in them, that's still Mindfulness and still good work.  Have faith that Mindfulness will auto-correct your life and find the right balance for you.  Have a mindset that breathes about this.  A little addiction is fine, so long as it isn't interfering with what the higher-self wants to do too much.  But if you maintain Mindfulness, this balance will get calibrated right for you.  Be flexible, accept reality, and maintain awareness.  Even if you're drunk, maintain awareness.  Don't be too puritanical.  What matters is Mindfulness and clarity of mind.  This is why booze is not a great idea most of the time because it screws up Mindfulness.  But having a policy against drinking can cause some repression, so beware of rigid rules.  Awareness alone is curative.  Stop being ideological about addictions.  That's an attempt to control reality.  Let life live life.  Just maintain keen-awareness.  Stop creating limiting beliefs about perceived addictions.  They're only causing you useless suffering.  You're being ideological and Reality is not ideological.  Judgment about addictions are conceptualizations laid up on top of reality.  Like the scribbling on the glass covering the Mona Lisa that I discussed before.  That's what your monkey-chatter is about addictions.  You gotta stop judging reality so much.  Accept reality and just be Aware of it.  

    Video on point to watch:

     


  9. On 1/30/2018 at 3:26 AM, Leo Gura said:

    The biggest irony is that science is subjective whereas spirituality is objective.

    Bingo!  Science is a tool not the truth.  Science is more accurately Natural Philosophy, as it used to be known as.  Scientists are theorists about reality and about truth.  They are totally bought into the paradigm of conceptual truth.  Scientists are philosophers.  They are totally beholden to beliefs.  And that's fine as long as you don't bring that shit home with you.  It's like a lawyer bring the lawyer home to the wife.  Not good.  Leave that at work.  Put the tool back into the toolbox when you no longer need it.  The problem is people equate Science with Knowledge.  This issue is addressed in Philosophy, ironically, and not in Science.  People are very confused about beliefs.  You can go Meta on beliefs though and kind of look under the hood of what's going on there by practicing Mindfulness.  You can get out of the nest of beliefs and then look at the nest as a whole.  That's possible.  That's called going Meta or Awareness or Atman.

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


  10. I don't see why a Scientist could not also be Enlightened.  They would be watching themselves play the Science game.  There's much worse ways to make a living, I can tell you.  Scientists are just explicit theorists.  Most people keep their ideas to themselves.  Science tries to shove theirs down everyone's throat.  They attempt to do this by proving their hypotheses.  That's the only difference.  But we are all dogmatists.  At least Scientists are basing their beliefs on testability -- much of the time.  But Scientists are theorists about reality and about the truth.  Science could be thought of as Natural Philosophy, which it used to be.  I believe Physics was still called Natural Philosophy in Isaac Newton's day if my memory serves me well.

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