Ethan_05

I remember watching Leo's video about stopping bad macro-level habits, not his micro habits one, but where he said something along the lines of needing to be able to sit in silence and be fine with presence but from my POV he is the only one i've heard of with this viewpoint. This brings up a challenge of can I trust what he's saying, I'd like to have some more perspectives on this topic. Hey @Leo Gura where did you develop this information from, or anyone else that read some books or watched some content online about the deeper cause of bad habits. I would love to start learning more to develop a stronger argument for myself that holds up against my self-delusions. I know that I shouldn't need more content and I should just take action but I have many biases because of my unconscious probably wanting to continue with the habit so I come up with all these weird rationalizations for continuing the habit even though consciously i know that I want to stop the habits. Any ideas?

@Leo Gura So Leo, What are some new markets? By new markets could that just mean like new types of content on youtube/social or a completely new platform altogether. I've just finished a digital marketing course and am currently taking a google adwords course but I feel like this is a little outdated in like trying to get traffic to a website. I'm trying to figure out if instagram or podcasting are highly saturated niches, it seems like podcasting has a lot of potential but instagram is still highly saturated. I'm in the really early stages, although I own a youtube channel, podcast, motivational instagram account, I still feel like I'm in the early stages of figuring out which tactics work and which don't and where I should begin investing my time into in the future. Thanks.

I'm not financially independent but am working very hard to make this lifestyle a reality. The corporate lifestyle has never appeared to me, instead the idea of travel full time seems like how I want to live my life. One of the most challenging things, in my opinion, is first building the dedication and setting aside the time to learn business and marketing concepts, but also to have the ability to filter BS marketing and business information from information that is actually valuable. This is an extremely challenging thing to do and it's not a skill that you'll acquire overnight. Like i've found that seth godin is great, but not the most practical. I mean if you understand his concepts deeply you can bring pragmatism into it, I've instead just been diving head deep into the field of digital marketing which if this doesn't go as planned as least I can work freelance or remotely in a digital marketing position to work towards building a "freedom business" as Colin Wright calls it.

I purposely stopped watching Leo's videos for a few months because I realized that Leo's content was having a bad influence on me. Not in the sense that what he's talking about is dangerous, but you have to admit Leo is a very persuasive guy, and his content was making me fall custom to developing new belief systems around Nonduality and my worldview was conceptually switching to nonduality even though that's not possible, but my worldview was shifting to a false, conceptual view of nonduality. People are probably going to reply with how developing ideologies and new belief systems is the wrong way to go about it, and I know. But do you guys think that many people that comment on Leo's videos and most talk in this forum are extremely influenced by leo's views and don't yet have a solid spiritual understanding so they bicker back in forth over their enlightenment ideologies, or what they think about spiral dynamics, etc. etc. etc. I doubt than nearly any spiral dynamics posts were being written before leo made those videos on them. Not trying to like confront people, just curious to think about when viewing the path and how much work we have to put in on our own instead of creating beliefs and what can happen when we don't have spiritual experience but follow our ego's agenda down the spiritual path. (I personally haven't had any major spiritual experiences, just a few short glimpses.)

@ivory I agree. I'm always battling the balance between too much content, not enough content and what content is right. You just have to accept that you're never going to be able to go through even 0.01% of all books, video, etc. which means that discernment is a must. Another trap I found is that I take in way too much content and then I don't want to do an "information purge" as you call it and that's the point when I fall back into comfort. I disagree a little on the idea that a paragraph or two a day is plenty, while that may be the case if you're reading scripture or deep content on the topic of like enlightenment or consciousness, but there's also a lot of valuable content that isn't as deep which could be read thoroughly and be valuable if you read 100+ pages/day. Your thoughts?

@Shin the question is how do we understand before we're conscious that this path is worth going down?

@Emerald Most definitely, some people replied to my question with "Well don't believe what he's saying just get what's true" but I think deeper down I was wondering and questioning whether this process is even conscious. I feel like I unconsciously fall into this trap and this is why I'm so skeptical and not wanting to fall into the trap again with watching more of his video. It's important to have the realization directly that you're committing these basic epistemic fallacies that have been talked about for probably 1,000+ years especially in western philosophy but then to act on this and go deep within experience as well. Thanks!

@Truth Addict Holy shit that was a good answer. I appreciate it I agree, in my anecdotal experience I realize that if i'm not always going deeper and deeper into contemplation most importantly and being skeptical and yet open-minded I fall back into comfortable habits of theorizing and trying to conceptually understand spirituality instead of experientially understanding because the latter is extremely uncomfortable, but seems to be the much more rewarding path in the end. And I also agree that research and information collecting is extremely important. Reading a variety of different books, especially ones not on leo's list is what I've committed to doing in order to train my open-mindedness and skepticism yet not avoiding practice and direct experience.

@ElisabethI know this thread is quite old, but I have to say I'm looking back at past threads I started and had questions about. This is very insightful and thank you for the advice. If i'm honest with myself I agree with what you're saying and so it's something I need to work on. Have you started your own blog yet on personal development?

I think my problem and most likely something that others have encountered as well is that if you don't have a large variety of sources on this topic then it just becomes that much easier to fall into the trap of mistaking the map for the territory. At the time that I was building up my belief system about nonduality, subconsciously that is like I wasn't purposely trying to create beliefs about mysticism, but at that time I had maybe 3 other sources other than leo (Rupert Spira, Peter Ralston, and Alan Watts) and I've realized that this is a very small sample group and to avoid the trap of belief systems it helps to have at least 15 sources where you dive deep into all the different traditions and what all the enlightened masters of history have to say. Maybe diving into Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and other thoughts about mysticism from different religions rather than focusing on one religion or one person online like leo. It's all in the balance my friend. Agree, disagree, thoughts?

I agree. His content can help you get to a certain point, but there comes a time when you may realize that it is no longer adding the value that it once did and turns into your own personal belief system. And that's the crazy thing, the ego is so tricky because even though I've heard leo say about 100 times that the map is not the territory and that you shouldn't be creating beliefs about nonduality, for some reason this didn't resonate deep down in my mind and in retrospect I realized how much of a belief system I had and still have built up around nonduality. I think that the overall message is that consciousness work is very deeeeeeep, and if you want to go deep and have mystical experiences than there are so many ego traps, paradoxes and tricky mind manipulations that you have to become conscious of with brutal self honesty. Your thoughts?

Great point. To me it seems that what he is saying might be profound once you've achieved a certain level of consciousness but for the layman it's just nonsense and it's helpful in growth to not turn consciousness into a belief.

@Leo Gura I saw that you mentioned to someone who said that they have little free time so they should just do the most potent and effective techniques such as psychedelics, etc. What might some other techniques be if psychedelics weren't the route I wanted to go? Kriya? Contemplation? Holotropic Breathwork? Self-Inquiry? I guess all I'm asking is what techniques are the most powerful to do if one is short on time, yet not overpowering for a person with an intermediate amount of consciousness practices under their belt. I'm not a complete beginner, but I still have a long way to go, and throughout the few years that I've been practicing consciousness work I've seen very little results. I can still see the benefits of meditation, concentration, etc., but they're just long processes and I'm willing to delve inward and partake in a transformation of how I see the world, I just need to know how and what practices might I try to see which are the most effective for my mind.

@Leo GuraI have never had a direct experience of "truth" or anything of my true nature, but I still pursue inner work. Up until recent that is. My ego is starting to win and stopping me from pursuing consciousness work because the mere fact that, my life is super chaotic and busy(I had a golf tournament from 6:30AM to 7:00PM today), but deep down I know that if I set my priorities straight then I can find time to pursue this stuff on the weekends and in my short amount of free time. But I'm just not motivated. What are some ways to become motivated for this work without having ever had direct experience of these insights.

@robdl True. What if we could better communicate this by combining the two connotations, like Thirst for Truth, a yearning curiosity, curiosity drive. Now that's more like. Again, so true. Stating it this separate way better gets the point across about how crucial and powerful this drive needs to be in order to get past the ego that doesn't want to know its true nature.

@who chit Why do you think I need to take 10+ years of ass whoopin? I'm ready right now. As long as I can continuously foster of a curiosity for the nature of the self, mind, consciousness and reality at large. There's no reason to wait 10+ years before getting started when I can start now and get ready for the brutality of life and suffer less in the process by becoming more conscious at a younger age. Note: This rebuttal wan't meant to be like an ego backlash, I just want to honestly and kindly criticize and question your logic at work. In the nicest way possible, was this reply just the bubbling up of your conceptual self who went through suffering and thus thinks that I need to feel the same ass whoopin of life before I'm where you are and can take on this process?

@robdl That's what I've heard, but that's the very same problem I was explaining in my first post. This thread has really gone full circle, we're back where we started. Enlightenment is probably wild, but I won't know that until I experience and thus only main motivation is a curiosity for life and reality.

Thanks Leo! This helps a ton. I found that I often get caught up in the intellectualizing of these practices and I just need to get back to my roots of a deep curiosity for life and reality and use that as my motivation.

@robdlI'm too young for that(i'm a high schooler), I'm going with the non-psychedelics path at the moment.

@moon777light The best fiction book about enlightenment is hands down "Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse. Or that's the only one I've read, lol, but it was truly amazing.

Wow, dang I never thought of it that way.

@Leo Gura Oh thanks. I guess I didn't realize that. On his website he displays pictures of the dyad-style of self inquiry. He often posts videos of his lectures on his youtube channel, like this recent video about relative vs. absolute, so I thought that's the style of his intensives. I'm curious about what they dyad style of self-inquiry looks like, given the fact that self-inquiry is a very personal practice. Does is just involve asking questions and like speaking about what you're discovering as you're discovering it with a partner? Leo, would you recommend it to a teenager. From my point of view, age doesn't really make a difference as long as you're serious about the work. I read the BNK and am just starting up a habitual contemplation habit.

I'm looking into attending one of Peter Ralstons enlightenment intensives. Any thoughts from those who've done one?

@Max_V Hey Max. I'm not saying I have a ton of money lying around either to spend on a pretty expensive intensive, but I can justify this expense as investing in myself and in my future. I would much rather spend my money on this type of experience and learning process than on a new car or some new material possession. I see myself as a minimalist, and I really enjoy listening to and watching TheMinimalists and what they've taught me is that being a minimalist means spending money on the important things in life rather than the excess stuff that we don't really need in the long run. I think this is the important stuff in life, this work and learning pays dividends.

@Maycol I'm interested in exactly why you think Peter Ralston's teaching are lacking and less direct. I also read the book of not knowing and found it to be very effective in communicating inner work to one with little experience with this topic. I guess I can see where you might think that Ralston's techniques are less direct because he focuses, at least for beginners doing his contemplation, on contemplating the motives of the conceptual self in order to better understand the workings of the ego/conceptual matrix. This might not be as direct as asking "Who am I?" but in my own opinion at the moment I think that this is an amazing way to ease oneself into the practice of self inquiry and inquiry into the nature of reality, by starting with understanding the ego on a very foundational level. I don't know exactly where they're lacking though, I'm curious. In my own opinion, I find Leo's videos to be quite lacking. For example, the self inquiry videos go pretty deep into the practice itself but there's still much left uncovered that can be found elsewhere, in books often, about how to avoid some of the pitfalls of inner work. I perceive leo's videos to be more of just inspiration to learn and practice these techniques further than anything else. Also, I'm currently somewhat lacking in having direct experiences of these insights so I don't think all these videos about absolute infinity and everything really help me at all because I've yet to experience it. Although Ralston also mentions the nature of reality as absolute and infinite so that makes me slightly more comfortable that I don't have a one-sided viewpoint, but I also understand that I don't have a well-rounded understanding either.