Joseph Maynor

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Posts posted by Joseph Maynor

  1. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    List of gurus/ enlightenment teachers I found:

    1. Eckhart Tolle

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

    1. Shinzen Young

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

    1. Sadhguru

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

    1. Alan Watts

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

    1. Sam Harris

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

    1. Adyashanti

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

    1. Mooji

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

    1. Osho

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

    1. Yogananda

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

    1. Rupert Spira

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

    1. Ken Wilber

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

    1. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravi_Shankar_(spiritual_leader)

    1. Peter Ralston

    (No Wiki Page)

  8. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    Let me give another application to the need to seek and not seek paradox:

    A newbie like me who lives under the Ego paradigm grasps the same reality as Shankar.  The only difference is that he has done more work detaching from the Ego.  But if Ego is a feature of your reality, then that is reality!  This is why Enlightenment is both unsought and sought.   Reality doesn't change.  What changes is your identification with it.  But to the extent that Ego is a feature of reality -- then Ego is contained within reality too!  This is kinda hard to get across. 

    Videos on point to watch:

     

  9. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    25 minutes ago, Shanmugam said:

    What??? 9_9

    This might be the biggest area of disagreement in this work -- Is Enlightenment something that proceeds by degrees or not?  I argue that reality doesn't change but Ego-dissolution is something that takes a course of time to accomplish.  This is why there's the paradox that one must both seek and not seek Enlightenment.  The only way that you’re gonna get detachment is if the Mind realizes that the paradigms that it's clinging to are not the truth.  That takes some work to achieve.  Not just meditation and self-inquiry – but finding counter-theories to all your paradigms so the Mind realizes that those paradigms are false and then releases them.  You don’t release anything – the Mind has to.  Because we have so much cultural-conditioning, you're gonna have a shallow Enlightenment if you don't do this theoretical work.  This is where Leo's work is very on point and needed.

  11. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    I think everyone would be well-served to watch this video again.  It's amazing how well Leo lays out some basic principles of Enlightenment that even a lot of advanced students miss.  I just watched it again myself, and I was amazed at how good it is.  Invest an hour and fifteen minutes to watch this video today.

     

  12. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    3 hours ago, Dodo said:

    All the while you are encapsulating Reality with the word Reality. That's hypocritical! 

    No, because that is a pointer.  We can point without encapsulating.  It's still a model, but much less encapsulating than a definition or 'this is like that'.  I can say 'this' or 'this is like that'.  The former is much less distorting than the latter.  It still assumes a kind of individuation that is problematic.  But, we refer to reality as an Idealism for that reason.  As an idealism, it is by definition not definable in concepts.  We gotta be able to speak.  Language is inherently dualistic.  But that doesn't mean that reality can be defined in concepts.  That is empirically confirmable.  That's what makes this kind of expression acceptable to us.  We can confirm it empirically.  Once you experience nothingness, you realize that reality is the antithesis of a thought.  It is that which contains thoughts.  But even this container metaphor is just a model.  Reality must be observed in itself.

  13. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    1 hour ago, Shin said:

    If it's all there is, then it can't be a dream.

    If you can awake in it, then it's a dream.

    So it's both :) 

    What I am implying there kind of irreverently is that reality cannot be encapsulated by concepts.  That's why we use the term 'nothingness' to refer to reality.  But we gotta live that not just say it.  Saying 'reality is a dream' is like trying to encapsulate a 3-dimensional phenomena into a 2-dimensional model.  Almost any statement of the form "Reality is x", where x is a concept, is gonna be technically false.  Now, we can speak-loosely in many contexts, but if we're concerned with the highest level of truth, those statements are all technically false.  This is why we call reality 'nothingness' or 'everything'.  A common mistake I see is people give lip-service to this in theory but oddly forget about it in practice.   All that does is cause a nasty trap that will haunt you in this work until you see it and go -- oh shit! -- I've been sloppy -- I got hoodwinked by the Ego/Mind again.  

  14. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    7 hours ago, Mighty Mouse said:

    It's not one or two things, your whole paradigm is off because you don't really know yet what's going on here. Also you're too sticky with your ideas about where it's supposed to lead and how to get there. Probably because you've been taking your queues from teachers who got stuck with the same assumptions for the same reasons.

    Just like everyone else, you formed an image of what this is all about from the very start, from whatever sources you could find, and it never occured to you that you might be barking up the wrong tree. I know this because I've been there. I suppose it's inevitable, that's why it's such a common and effective trap. But seeing through the wrong tree and finding the right tree also doesn't happen overnight, and it doesn't happen at all until the First Step. Because that's what the First Step is.

    You're making pretty much every single mistake that JM warns against. What's more, you're teaching them to everyone else, just like those who taught them to you. They are very common mistakes of course which is exactly why he warns against them. You're certainly not a run-of-the-mill seeker but nobody is beyond these kinds of mistakes. If you wonder why I'm so grateful for JM, it's because I would probably still be barking up the wrong tree if it weren't for his books.

    I've tried to explain all this before in detail but there's no point until you see it for yourself. Which maybe you will, because the things you're learning are nonetheless pretty good in my not-so-humble opinion. Just stop trying to fit everything into your existing paradigm and expect the ground to disappear from under you. You won't find truth as long as you think you've already got it down. It's "further"... :P

    Wow, I didn't realize you had such substance.  Why don't you share your wisdom with us more?

     

     

  16. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    I just watched the video again with more of an objective eye.  It reminds me of when I trip on LSD.  When I took 7 tabs one day, this is very much the kind of observations I made.  Everything is in the Now, and the Now never changes.  There is just emptiness and illusory change within that.  You just have to accept reality in the present moment -- the Truth.  Spirituality is about systematically removing barriers to authenticity.  You're just an awareness of the content of being in the present moment.  LSD is a hell of an Enlightenment teacher.  As you said -- "perfect understanding of the present moment."  Thank you for recording this and sharing it with us.  It's funny how you start to take the keen-awareness of LSD for granted when you trip.  You're like -- how could it not be like this?  I get it!  Then you come down, and you realize -- shit!  I got a similar "decision-tree" observation while tripping too.  I laughed so many times during this video because it rings so true to my experiences on my trips.

    // Here's a section from my 7 Tab LSD Trip Report for reference:

    So, I'm walking along these quaint streets in San Francisco around the Haight-Ashbury District where I was.  And first off -- my sense of boundaryness was like completely gone.  I had the distinct sense of being nothing and everything at the same time.  And this isn't just some kind of theoretical mumbo-jumbo.  I really experienced the sense of being nothing and everything at once, and it was right there in the Now.  This wasn't some kind of idea thing, it was experience-able.

    I'm walking along towards my office and of course I'm tripping-balls.  Everything is in high-relief and ordered as LSD so characteristically gives us.  And I'm like really just being Authentic, no BS, no clinging.  And I'm noticing all this shit basically filling all these input channels as I'm walking along.  I steered my thoughts to Enlightenment and started to contemplate.

    And I realized immediately that the dirty-little-secret that nobody wants to talk about is that all of this Enlightenment ordering that we do -- with our Minds -- all of this arranging -- all of it -- is total and complete BULLSHIT.  Ego-stroking at its finest.  That was so clear to me.   I was embarrassed.  The 'I'm more conscious than you are' game is pure Ego.  Pure unadulterated Ego.  You and your rules.  Notice that your rules always have your Ego on top.  Always!  That's as fixed as the Now, it never changes.

     

  19. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    I have a degree in Philosophy.  I would never have done anything differently.  Just expect to create your own career and not to get much help job wise from your degree.  If you have a love for Philosophy, you might as well take the opportunity.  I was so happy when I switched my major to Philosophy, as I was studying it on my own for a couple of years before that.  I had (and have) a passion for Philosophy.  At that time -- Philosophy was all new to me and I felt like a kid in a candy store looking at all the philosophy books at the bookstore.  I just remember seeing so many of them and thinking how I'd love to read all of them someday.  

  21. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    Where you want to get to is where you are systematically detaching from all your attachments.  Don’t suppress your thoughts, that is no good.  That is the Ego trying to control.  Acknowledge reality fully, and then move your awareness away (if you so desire).  But don’t suppress or repress anything.  I know in your newest video Leo you talk about suppressing thoughts — that’s a trap.  Allow the thoughts to be there, just don’t identify with them.  That’s the proper way to handle thoughts.  When you use the Ego, you reinforce the Ego.  When you allow the Ego but don’t attach to it, that’s when it releases.  Some work that really helped me was finding my top 3 Ego attachments. Once you find your attachments, you can work on detaching from them.

    Re-cap: Don’t suppress thoughts.  Let them flow by, just don’t identify with them. If you must, move your awareness away from them once you’ve acknowledged them, but never suppress them.  That just feeds the Ego, which creates more thoughts.  You want to let reality do it’s thing fully, just don’t identify with it.  Cultivate an absolute lack of resistance to what arises.

    Watch — and do the exercises in the video.  This is practical work everyone needs to do.  

     

  22. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    4 minutes ago, Elephant said:

    This is judged by your level of consciusness. I don't think it matters if you understand it or not. Don't get so attatched to the "meaning" of infinity. Notice instead how your mind bullshits the concept of infinity all the time. and notice your egoic reacition towards that. Why does infinity have to have a meaning for you? Why are you attatching yourself so much to it? Just notice the whole lying thought-process your mind makes up. Try going meta.

    There are no levels of consciousness.  

  23. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    Strong desire to know conceptually for whatever reason.  We all have this too.  But many of us see the trap in it as well.  Don’t identify with thoughts and beliefs as facts, that’s the error.  It’s clinging to conceptual knowing that is the source of this kind of trap.  Now, his motive and reasons for wanting to take this approach is unclear to me.  

  25. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    3 minutes ago, blazed said:

    @Joseph Maynor

    Dude... Didn't you say was leaving the forum for 2 weeks!?

    You can't even keep to your word on basic things man... No self control.

    Just kidding.

    I trust Leo but you know you never know...  Haha next thing you know he's creating a RASA video course to give you loc levels of 1000 @ $500 a videoxD

    Leo's new video brought me back.  Outrageous.  How the hell could I sleep with that video.  Impossible.  

    Ok, I'm going back on my sabbatical now.  See ya.