Carl-Richard

What is awakening then?

He doesn't mean Actualized.org is literally just a podcast. He means it literally has its own podcast on Apple Podcasts.

It tells you that it's a phenomena that actually exists as opposed to somebody lying about their internal experience, claiming that they're awake when they're actually not.

I guess you're talking about Leo's concept of awakening, which is an infinite regress (whatever new insight he adds to the list). It's not a stably defined concept, so by definition, nothing can refer to it. However, traditional spirituality has a stable definition of awakening, and we've found a good neural correlate for it (the Default Mode Network). So this idea that "nobody is awake", is only true within Leo's paradigm.

To think that it tells you nothing is foolish.

What traditional spirituality calls awakening looks like something in the brain: 32:19 - 33:28

How so?

No way ? Really? Let's hope it's not like his talk with Michael Brooks ?

Close your eyes and touch your nose.

Yep

What do you think of the Steve Vai collab video in the Freak thread?

I've actually noticed that the few times I've talked to people who've had a few drinks without drinking anything myself, I easily get into that party mood where I'll talk a little louder and make jokes. A lot of the party mood is really just a mood. Try drinking alone (don't) and see the difference. About drinking alone, back in my weed smoking days, I would try experimenting by adding a few beers into the mix, and I found it was a complete letdown. It's like the alcohol completely removes the manic velocity and interconnectivity of ideas, which was the main thing that I liked about weed.

@thisintegrated What do you think of my newest topic about Leo's "main shtick"? I need your perspective on it

It was just the way you formulated that sentence that was funny to me

It truly is. Don't let any spiritual bypassers tell you otherwise. I took a class in psychology of religion, and you can learn a lot about it there. It made my previous knowledge a bit more fleshed out and made me see more connections that I didn't see before. You'd be surprised how many of the great Western psychologists were genuinely interested in spirituality (William James, Abraham Maslow, Carl Jung, etc.).

WOAH, almost like any other human being

With these types of things, you just have to ask yourself which technological innovations made it possible. For example, only a few years ago, collective e-scooters started popping out of nowhere. Why did that happen? Well, only in the last few years, we got a mainstream market of smartphones with mobile pay and scanner technology, as well as a rapid increase in battery capacity thanks to companies like Tesla, and the natural conclusion of that is of course collective e-scooters for boosting pedestrian travel. So in this case, the answer for why podcasts became popular is because we got a mainstream market of internet-using devices and a surge in social media and multimedia technology (YouTube, spotify, etc.).

It can be that, but it can also be the desire to connect with your surroundings.

If you had read past that first little sentence, you would know that I'm really only talking about a traditional type of spirituality that is generally associated with the world religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, etc.). What I'm not talking about is for example a belief in supernatural phenomena (ghosts, crystals, auras, etc.), or being interested in personal development, or shamanism, or psychedelics. I'm talking about the place that all these non-dual teachers I've mentioned in some way draw their inspiration from or resonate with. The crucial characteristics of that place, along with "the search for the sacred", is a deeply embedded notion of progress/growth/transformation. I happened to go for a stroll on Wikipedia, and they put it like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality Notice how strongly it alludes to the concept of transformation. This is also tied to the historical origin of the "mythological worldview", which in a very fundamental way created the distinction between "who you are now" and "who you could be", and which arose in tandem with the world religions. John Vervaeke explains this very well here: 10:35 Leo hasn't managed to change his default experience into abiding non-dual awareness, and he has said he is more interested in experiencing deeper and deeper psychedelic states. This specific choice, is what I'm saying falls outside this traditional conception of spirituality.

@Thought Art Sorry for losing patience. I have repeated myself so many times, even after you re-read the topic. I interpreted your engagement as contrarian and nitpicking. I don't feel that you actually don't understand the point I'm making.

Main. Shtick. It's about degrees. It's a bigger-than sign for a reason. Please don't let me repeat myself any more times.

They all agree that growth > states. Leo doesn't. That is the basis for the two categories.

Correct.

If you're having such a hard time understanding what I wrote, here is my point: When Leo says "I'm the only person in the world who is awake", and that "no other spiritual guru is awake because they haven't taken enough trips of 5-Meo", this is because Leo's idea of awakening is categorically distinct from these gurus' ideas of awakening. When these gurus talk about their idea of awakening, and when Leo calls those gurus "not awake", it's misleading and ambiguous: does he mean that they're not awake according to their own definition, or does he mean that they're not awake according to his definition? You can't know that based on what Leo says in that sentence, let alone that there are multiple definitions of awakening. If you're a newbie, you have to spend hours, days and maybe weeks being confused about it until you finally realize "ah, he is using a different definition", and by then, you've stirred up so much confusion and unnecessary animosity across communities, that you certainly have no right to claim yourself as spiritual. I want to correct that mistake.

Why am I even responding to you?