Joseph Maynor

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Posts posted by Joseph Maynor

  3. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    Notice that things are only unusual when there is some standard you are holding reality to.  And that standard is conceptual.  If you can dig that out of your subconscious mind that would be useful.  Realize that reality just is.  There is something about reality that is rubbing your beliefs the wrong way.  Notice that you are taking those beliefs seriously or you wouldn't have a problem accepting reality for what it is.

  4. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    I think you guys are getting a little too metaphysical with this part of it.  This stuff does not resonate with me, this metaphysical stuff.  These claims are thoughts, beliefs too -- and false.  That word 'God' is causing you a lot of problems.  I don't know how many times and ways I have warned of that.  God has been a plague on Philosophy for so long.  Some people just have a 'God gene' apparently.  They can't help themselves. 

  6. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    Reality is Existential Truth.  It can also be a word that is loosely associated with several thought-stories that you have been exposed to.  We might call these thought-stories about Reality.  Existential Truth is what is sensed in the present moment.  So, thoughts as things sensed in the present moment are Existentially True.  But the insides of thoughts — their thought-stories — are not Existentially True.  

  7. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    13 minutes ago, Faceless said:

    Argumentation in of itself is one of the products of the neurotic, illusory, and deceptive nature of reality. If the totality of reality isn’t grasped then argumentation about one opinion vs another is inevitable. 

    It seems that the meaning of reality might not be agreed upon mutually amongst one another. 

    What is reality? I will make it a topic.

    Reality is not deceptive.  If you just watch reality there is nothing deceptive. It is only beliefs that deceive.  It is thought-stories that deceive.  I’m not talking about any concept of reality here either, I’m talking about what is sensed in the present moment.  Even the notion of deception is a thought-story.  Existential Truth is not deceptive.  That’s why you wanna be watching that in the present moment.  What’s deceptive is our clinging tightly to beliefs.  Our ideas get in the way of our plain view of reality. It’s kinda sad huh?  Yeah.

  8. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    The Mind is a concept.  What you need to start to do is to realize that all thoughts are just sensations.  And inside of those sensations is a fiction, what we call a thought-story.  Now, thoughts as sensations are part of reality, part of Existential Truth, but the insides of the thoughts are not Existentially True.  What we have a bad habit of doing, because we’ve been conditioned to do this from the time we were babies, is to create an Ego out of beliefs instead of just watching reality and being aware of reality.  Beliefs are simply the insides — or mental content — of certain thoughts.  This “Ego of beliefs” we create is a model and can never capture reality.  And we know this — but for some reason we have a hard time practicing it.    When you watch those thoughts as sensations, you will develop the awareness of what is happening, and so you’ll cling to beliefs less tightly.  And the less tightly you cling to beliefs, the more open you become to just seeing reality as it is.  Also you’ll become less judgmental because that results from clinging tightly to beliefs.  We spent the first part of our life learning beliefs and creating a strong Ego.  Now we must empty our cup of beliefs so we can see the Truth without any idea filters.  

  9. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    I think most people would agree that a life where you have the basics of food, shelter, security, access to healthcare is superior to a life where you don’t have these basics.  Now, beyond this, it’s up to the individual how they fashion their life.  What you wanna do is live your authentic values and strengths at that point.  But the problem is you gotta do the personal development work to locate the Authentic-Self and figure out those authentic values and strengths. You need to learn how to increase awareness.  This removes a lot of unnessesary suffering from your life and  promotes your success as a by-product. Now, is this life better than choosing to live as a bum on the street?  Well, probably right? It’s hard to see how it wouldn’t be.

  11. Posted

    2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    @Alien Well, of course, if you're into this work, that already makes you rather exceptional.

    My theory is, some people just naturally like to get their mind fucked. Those are the ones who gravitate towards nonduality. I'm like that.

    With that said, even though I love a good mindfuck, I also love my ego. So a tug-of-war must happen.

    The real test of how much you love a good mindfuck is: if there was a mindfuck so deep the only way you could glimpse it was by killing yourself, would you do it?

    The only reason you're gravitating towards it right now is because your mind doesn't really understand the extent of the mindfuck. You like little mindfucks. But you do not like big mindfucks which will totally obliterate you. The big mindfucks will take you totally by surprise, and it's good they do because otherwise you would probably never approach them.

    The whole problem here is that you are being asked to kill yourself. And of course you can't want that. 3 billion years of evolution are pushing their finger on the scale. But we can sucker you into it by having you believe that it won't be real death, but just like an mini "ego-death" -- which your mind can rationalize to itself as being "cool" and "good". But, then one day you will discover much to your shock -- No, we were talking about actual death! But then it will be too late. You will already be dead. And you will be pleased. But not in the way you expect.

    In other words, we have to use the mind's self-deceptions against itself to escape itself.

     

    Being addicted to having your mind fucked can be a trap too.  That could cause you to cling to beliefs to achieve said mindfucking.  Better to just watch the Truth.  I’m not really addicted to having my mind fucked.  I’m more interested in acceptance of reality.

  12. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    The Mind can’t wrap itself around reality because reality is always in flux and changing.  It’s like a 2-dimensional model trying to capture a 3-dimensional one.  Ain’t gonna work.  The Mind can only deal with 2-dimensional models.  Now, reality isn’t really a model, so it can’t be subsumed by the Mind.  The Mind likes to pretend reality can be captured under concepts, but this is never gonna work, ever. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use beliefs.  It just means that our expectations regarding beliefs and our paradigm regarding their function and use is wrong.  Beliefs are not good or bad — it’s how they are clung to that’s good or bad in the present moment.  

  13. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    The point is that all your garbage beliefs need to be cleaned out so you can have a sense of the Authentic-Self.  Once you have a sense of the Authentic-Self, you can use awareness of reality to basically keep the Mind from manipulating your beliefs and emotions.  The fox won’t chase its tail so much.  ?  And your life will become more aligned with your authentic values and strengths.

  14. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    I’m realizing that to say anything at all is not the Truth.  And that applies to this matter.  We wanna be making beliefs less rigid.  Why does there need to be a theoretical answer here anyway?  We’re trying to conceptualize what is.  How foolish is that?   But we’re addicted to it.  The Mind keeps egging us on and convincing us that this is possible.  Even I fell into this trap by asking this question.

  15. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    I think every true counselor first and foremost is counseling themselves.  Helping others is a byproduct of that.  Just like every jazz musician is playing for themselves.  So, you gotta see where your drive to do this work is coming from.  That’s why Life Purpose work is so important.  Counseling others can come from a less pure place, so you’ll wanna take a look at that issue within yourself.  You should do Leo’s Life Purpose Course.

  16. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    First of all, let’s organize things a bit.  Law of Attraction is a word that is associated with a number of loosely similar concepts that you have been exposed to.  Now, the question is, where do these concepts live in Enlightenment theory, such that they serve some kind of useful aim to you.  Well, recently I had an insight that might fit this bill.

    I realized that there’s a Law of Attraction like effect with tightly held beliefs.  When you cling tightly to an Ego of beliefs, or a system of beliefs, judgments will happen as a result.  And those judgments will effect actions and also corroborate the beliefs.  So, there’s where the fox is chasing its own tail.  Do you see it?  That’s why loosening up beliefs is so critical in this work.  Strong beliefs, judgments, and Ego all feed off and reinforce each other.  

  17. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    I’ve realized beliefs are a double-edged sword in this work.  They are useful to get a person to doubt their beliefs, but then that person simply exchanges one set of beliefs for the Enlightenment beliefs.  Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.  That’s a trap.  How about suspending belief?  Can you do that?  The less strongly you cling to belief, the less judgments you will make.  Now, don’t try to control anything, that’s not what I’m asking you to do.  Just watch the thoughts, don’t get so caught up in their insides. It’s a change in perspective, but in a non-theoretical sense of perspective.  Thoughts are just sensations.  You don’t need to cling to the stories at all.  It’s almost like asking someone who is so used to a horizontal perspective to learn to use a vertical one.  It’s like huh!  Yeah, that’s what you gotta do.  Enlightenment is friggin’ counterintuitive to the Mind.  You gotta change what you’re looking for and change what you’re looking at. 

  18. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    4 minutes ago, WaterfallMachine said:

    Hmm, sorry, but I’m confused. I thought those videos and statements applied to the Yellow stage already. Would you mind explaining what makes Turquiose different from the Yellow stage? 

    Did you watch the video “How to Change the World?”  A picture paints a thousand words.

  20. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    You are always doing something, think about it.  All of us are hard workers at doing whatever it is that we’re doing.  The only thing Enlightenment does is remove all your garbage ideas that are inclining you to do things that are not honoring your authentic values and strengths.  So, once you clean that garbage out of your head, and once you start to develop a taste for simply looking at reality, your actions will auto-correct on their own.  It’s important that you understand — you are not doing anything!  All you’re doing is becoming more aware of reality.  That’s it.   

  21. Posted

    5 hours ago, Lorcan said:

    +1 Joseph Maynor

    Reason: I agree with what you said. It gets rid of this "I have something wiser to say because I have more rep and likes than you". 

    This could not be more from the case. I often saw posts of threads and comments of significant wisdom, but did not get any likes. The forum appears more humble and wise now. An academy of egos trying to learn off each other to become less of an ego rather than a "Look how sage-like I am" status game.

    There will be less ego running amock on this forum with rep removed as it is now. Keeping rep boosts it.

    I think the problem with success is it goes to your head.  Anyone who gets some can tell you that.  And you start to cling to a persona that you are different or wiser or somehow more worth listening to than other people.  It’s exciting to the Ego to feel this way, but once you become conscious of this mechanism, you will become disgusted by it.  I know I have a knack for this kind of work, but I never want that to go to my head, and I never want to feel like I’m protecting some kind of false persona that always needs to be right or come out on top.  It’s something to watch out for.  And the Ego is sneaky with this.  Popularity seems to confirm this difference between you and me.  But that only gets in the way of my growth in this work.  Instead of growing at that point, I really start to hit a glass ceiling.  I had to bust through that recently by realizing my Ego had become too invested in this work.  Strange how that happens.  And those of us planning a career around this work need to always be very mindful that this trap is lurking there ready to suck you in.

  25. Posted · Edited by Joseph Maynor

    1 hour ago, Koyaanisqatsi said:

    Unless you just want to dabble in a language, if you don't plan to actually use it (by living in a foreign country, not visiting), learning a language is mostly a waste of time and effort. If you can't apply knowledge, you will forget it. I'd recommend learning something that will be more useful, and not just a 'feather in your cap'. But it's your life--do what you are called to do. :)

    This is just my two cents--I spent 10 years teaching ESL, and I've talked to a lot of people about languages and learning them. I find that most people want to learn a foreign language just to say they know another language. At least you've already learned one other language, so you can check that box. Also, I have learned Spanish, Nepali, German, French, and Japanese, but Japanese is the only language I really 'know' because I lived in Japan for years. By the way, Japanese is not a language I recommend you play with or try to pick up casually. If you speak English as your native language, you will need to forget almost everything you know about language and start over. But maybe you're into that... 

    It’s fascinating from a linguistics standpoint even to dabble in other languages.  It puts your own language in high-relief.  It’s kind of like being able to see your own culture better by traveling.  I have much more of a perspective on English from dabbling in other languages.  Without this kind of contrast, you don’t really see the difference between language and thought.  You also don’t see what language is until you travel through other languages — just like you don’t really see what culture is until you travel through other cultures.

     I recommend the Pimsleur Conversational audios.  They are affordable and good for doing this kind of work.