Carl-Richard

You have a "search for the sacred" (the highest value), be it truth, Consciousness, God, the Absolute, the Good. You have different dimensions like intellectual frameworks (doctrine, theology), mysticism (experience of God), practices (e.g. psychedelics, meditation, contemplation, "prayer"), rituals (go to the Church of Actualized.org/forum and talk shit about e.g. the Catholic Church), institutions and communal aspects (e.g. again Actualized.org, YouTube, scienceandnonduality.org). Where they differ is mainly the cultural and traditional backdrop. New Age has a postmodern and individualist orientation where they pick and choose from religious traditions they like and create a smorgasboard of all kinds of religious stuff. Meanwhile "Christianity" (or what you call Christianity, which is actually a specific kind of Christianity, let's call it "traditionalist Christianity") is indeed more traditionalist and follows traditional Christian doctrines and practices more strictly. "The New Age paradox" which I coined earlier is the paradox that while they claim to be in favor of individualism and "doing it your own way" or "going it on your own", they claim so on platforms like Actualized.org or YouTube where like-minded people congregate to share their opinions and experiences, where they learn about practices and techniques and theology and doctrine endorsed in those spheres.

I didn't because I already knew what it was about: placing New Age religion as the true spirituality, anything else as fake. We also had a discussion about the variety that exists within Christianity, and you might remember I disagree with that as well.

Don't you remember our old discussions of me deconstructing the spirituality vs religion distinction for you? That I think your idea of spirituality (New Age) is actually indistinguishable from religion?

👍

I dispute that very claim.

It's interesting how "oh no, not the group-think!" everybody is 🫠 Ok I'll stop.

"Here on Actualized.org, we absolutely fetishize individualism, and if you don't, you are possessed by group-think". 🫢

What you try to repress the most, you become.

The irony with this and planning a retreat in the same thread (and saying "you should really heed what Leo said"). The New Age paradox.

It's terror management until you actually experience it. Then it's terror. For it to not become terror, you must drop it as a terror management strategy. Because if you use it to seek comfort or solace, that's the thing that must be let go of. You don't get to bring yourself into enlightenment. The self is the very thing that must be left behind. If you expect enlightenment to be for you, you will be disappointed when you get a taste of it. Because there is no you to be comforted, no you to be given solace. It's what exists before that thing.

@Elliott "There is no teacher or student, there is only the One" is a marketing trick to make him seem more enlightened and is more effective for drawing people in than saying "I'm enlightened and I can enlighten you". The latter is actually the most honest position, the former could be the position concerned about not turning people off. Prove me wrong

A word is not a model? What is a model?

If only people could apply the same kind of thinking for the S-word.

"You feel it more, but you're bothered by it less" — Ken Wilber (possibly paraphrasing).

But wouldn't Spira claim that embodying this teaching (that he happens to be teaching) leads to enlightenment? See how the framing ultimately is indeed about style and not substance? The flip into the absolute of "there is just the One, there is no teacher or student" is probably mainly a tool for pointing to the truth, maybe also an optics tool. But the substance is that he is a teacher and he is teaching enlightenment, he believes his teachings work, and therefore he would honestly have to answer "yes, I do believe I can enlighten people". But maybe @Elliott would say "optics matter, it decides how you pull people in and sets their expectations". That is definitely the case, but how much is it the case? If you're already paying 4000$ for a retreat, are you not already sold? And what if the optics of "I'm so enlightened that there isn't even a distinction between teacher and student", what if that is more alluring than the alternative? It's the case in music, humor, sex, that it's often that which is denied or left unsaid, or the gaps inbetween, or the play of subtlety, that causes the most excitement. And for spirituality, maybe particularly so.

Tried the magnesium glycinate again, and while it doesn't have the soul eviscerating effects of vitamin Evil, it makes me want to fall asleep (at the gym). Maybe the dose is too high (now 240 mg pure mineral weight) and there are some possible confounds, but man I can't remember ever having wanted to take a nap when warming up for deadlifts. Anyways, next I'll be trying magnesium malate.

Do you believe that Sadhguru and Spira, if they were allowed to be completely honest and not concerned about optics, would claim that they are able to enlighten people through their work?

That's so fucking dangerous to say.

You have a problem with women? Sorry, that's the most troll comment I've ever written, but let's see the reaction.

Yeah, it's like it produces text kinda like a human, therefore it must be conscious like a human (is what absolutely braindead materialists like Mike Israetel think). Meanwhile you don't hold a dog or a human baby to the same standard. It's such a piecemeal and childishly short-sighted understanding of consciousness.

Wait, did you say "the strong position" when I said "a strong position"? I didn't read that correctly until now. But yeah, if you read me say "something you didn't have a strong position on" and you interpret it as "not having the strong position", maybe we are on different planets indeed.

Are you going to deconstruct this quote for me too?:

I should've read my own mind better that I could see this coming from our politics conversation. If you can give me an advice of not reading minds, I can give you an advice of not arguing for something you didn't have a strong position on anyway. Virtually nothing good ever comes from it.

And to bring up "fallacies" as if they're making a point is just additional red herrings to get lost down, just like the first one you brought up (false dilemma fallacy). You didn't post statements about the cost of books, courses? (I also asked you where you got the 3500 dollar number from, maybe you didn't see it because I edited the comment, but you didn't answer that, backing up your factual claims). I gotta admit it's hard to read minds that change their mind every other comment. There is a possibility I've at some point inaccurately portrayed one or two statements or arguments you've made, but again, it's hard when you're waffling around vague statements that you build on top of with endless ad hoc arguments and quotes pulled from the depths of the internet that must be interpreted with millimeter precision for your initially vague arguments again to be supposedly validated. Again, it's much simpler to just say "here's my position, here is my knowledge, here are my facts", and when you run out of knowledge and facts, you say "I don't know" instead of "actually, I meant this, and here are four new quotes for you to read where every word, despite me not knowing about any of them before right now when I searched them up on ChatGPT, is of UTMOST importance".