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It's not a joke you decide you are enlightened and the you act enlightened it's a choice they don't tell you that in the manual meanwhile the next guy is mediation in a cave for six hours a day in Thailand getting bitten by mosquitoes wondering why he's still not enlightened remember nonduality ? > no distinction there is no distinction between being "getting" enlightened and choosing to be enlightened the "getting" part was the illusion You choose it But people don't want to give up everything, their attachments and especially their security It's not like actualization where you first establish your basic survival needs that type of safety net will not test you No, in fact the most profound enlightenment is often in the middle of a disaster or struggle where your survival may be insecure That may not happen but security is not guaranteed then you may suddenly break out laughing.. ha ha ha But if you do this in the U.S. or if you do it somewhere else each place will have it's unique conditions and response or lack of So after you are enlightened to you give up meditation? no, that has it's place as well, look at the leaf of an oak two hours have passed

Here is a new video by Jim Newman with the extreme kind of nonduality teaching that Tony Parsons has. I find it useful in combination with other teachings. This time I got the realizations that all objects are the same! A diamond ring and a candy bar and a flower, those are the same as a car. It's a nondual perspective.

Adeptus Psychonautica is the Youtube Channel of a long time psychonaut, who has recently (about 4 months ago) made a video in which has was voicing some concerns regarding the path that Leo and Actualized.org are headed down. I was really pleaseantly surprised watching this video. Unlike most criticisms of Actualized.org that I have come across throughout the years, this guy seems to be coming from a place of genuine concern, tries to remain open minded, and makes sure to provide constructive criticism rather than just starting an argument. While a few of the points he criticized might have been due to simple misunderstandings, I found that there was still a lot to take away from this video. I think Adeptus did a great job with this video, and definitely deserves a response. It's also worth saying that he had a generally positive impression of Actualized.org before stumbling upon some of the videos from 4-6 months ago, so he's in no way closed off towards this stuff. @Leo Gura , posting a response to this video on your YouTube channel would not only be a good lithmus test of how well you can keep your own ego in check when publicly facing criticism, but also a good way to show that the image of you being overly dogmatic or egotistical (which even genuinely spiritually interested and open minded people have been increasingly having of you) isn't true. There might even be some practical takeaways on how to make your presentation style more conductive of people staying open minded when it comes to these topics. A response video would not only be very interesting to see, but could also make a significant difference for the public image and future development of actualized.org, by showing that you're still willing to interact with people outside of the 5-Meo/Nonduality bubble. Definitely give Adeptus' video a watch! Lots of luck with your future endeavors! Sincerely, a long time viewer!

Adeptus Psychonautica is the Youtube Channel of a long time psychonaut, who has recently (about 4 months ago) made a video in which has was voicing some concerns regarding the path that Leo and Actualized.org are headed down. You should definitely give it a watch! I was really pleaseantly surprised watching this video. Unlike most criticisms of Actualized.org that I have come across throughout the years, this guy seems to be coming from a place of genuine concern, tries to remain open minded, and makes sure to provide constructive criticism rather than just starting an argument. It's also worth saying that he had a generally positive impression of Actualized.org before stumbling upon some of the videos from 4-6 months ago, so he's in no way closed off towards this stuff. While a few of the points he criticized might have been due to simple misunderstandings, I found that there was still a lot to take away from this video. I'd say this deserves a response video, which would not only be interesting to see, but could also make a significant difference for the public image and future development of actualized.org, by showing that Leo is still willing to interact with people outside of the 5-Meo/Nonduality bubble. What do you think? For somebody who hasn't had anything to do with this community much before, I think he did a great job when it comes to remaining open minded, and some of the points he talked about would probably really be worth adressing! @Leo Gura Would you consider posting a response to this guy on your YouTube channel? I posted a request with some more details in the Video requests section of the forums! I think an honest and mature criticism like this is a great chance to display some positive interactions with differing viewpoints: Definitely give Adeptus' video a watch, he's a pretty cool dude and would probably be just as glad as me to see you take people outside of this bubble seriously!

I haven't experienced Eternalness but I've had the experience of infinity. That probably doesn't make a lot of sense. To experience pure Being is an experience of nonduality. It's so simple it's stupid and brilliant at the same time. Presence is being. The felt sense of pure presence is nondual. It's neither good or bad yet at the same time, it's all good. It answers the question of the existence of nonduality and also the experience that duality exists within nonduality. Duality couldn't exist if there wasn't nonduality. The words only point at it. It requires a heart to experience it. This is what has given me the experience of infinity but strangely enough there is not a felt sense of the eternal. There is a concept of eternalness that I experience intermittently but it feels more like timelessness instead of eternalness.. Essence or presence is also being. Being has flavors in a sense. These are essential aspects of being or flavors of being or presence. It's a part of the makeup of our multidimensional nature. There is also awareness that is more fundamental than aspects of essence or felt or perceived aspects of beingness. A pure nonconceptual awareness. The came about for me in a prenatal experience. There was no memory just the sudden recognition of existence and awareness. Later on there was the remembrance that was like - Oh, here again. This happened a few times before I was born. Later on the meditation practice of Centering Prayer put me into this state of empty completeness in sporadic brief episodes. Some people have the experience of remembering their birth or rebirthing as it's called. I haven't had this yet and I guess it's possible I may never have it. It's supposed to be a powerful awakening kind of experience that resolves unrecognized Inner disparities in a big way. The experience of nonduality can be just real ho hum or it can be transcendent mystical fireworks. I just spontaneously felt like throwing down this abstract rap. It may just sound like bullshit and some of it could be but that is all for now. It feels good I got it out of my system. A good use for a Journal perhaps.

How do eastern people understand their own traditions. Are they aware of nonduality and oneness. Are they aware that you are God, the buddah, shiva,etc. I am asking because I come from an Islamic environment with idea of a separate God. But what about eastern traditions?

I had a dream where Leo was personally instructing me about reality and nonduality, thanks Leo for the free session,lol.

Bashing the ego as ACIM does, isn't that a form of suppression, a psychological repression? No, not when seen as a tool for transcending ego consciousness. So it's a matter of identifying the ego consciousness in oneself. And then there is acceptance! One's own self is recognized as having ego consciousness, And it's a natural development. It's only in contrast to higher consciousness that the ego becomes unnatural and something false. And that's the perspective ACIM takes. And in order to describe that difference to us in ego consciousness ACIM uses the ego's own concept of good vs bad, like in the ego being very, very bad, and the Holy Spirit being the perfect will. Contrasts like that are duality concepts, and only used as pointers towards nonduality and higher levels of consciousness.

No that is incorrect. Physicalism is nondual. It holds that everything is physical. There is no separate mind to separate please go back and study, Physicalism is a form of monsim monism is synonymous with nondualism Dualism holds that the soul and the body are two distinct things things "shutting down" or ending is not a trait of nondualism In fact in Zen Buddhism the idea that everything is impermanent is one of their most fundamental teachings and nonduality is most often associated with Zen Buddhism This is not to say Buddhism is Physicalism but it is to say Buddhism is Physicalism are both nondual in different ways In the Western tradition the other form of nondualism is that instead of all being physical all is mental, that is called monism and Idealism "Idealism" in philosophy has a specific meaning that is more detailed than just the common use of the word Physicalism is nondual. It is just nondual in a way you don't like

love love love love love NONDUALITY love love love...

Is light a wave or a particle? Is enlightenment nothing or is it light? If it's nonduality, not two, then how come we have the word two and the word not to name what we're talking about in the first place? There's no resolution, no ending. Thank GOD for that cause otherwise, this, (whatever the fuck this is, cause I don't know) wouldn't be so much fun.

So this one is a bit weird and sort of shows the more generally thought of as feminine side of spirituality. You're a living painting with a spectrum of color (duality) on a Snow White canvas (nonduality). "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" - I'm Wishing/One Song

The only thing I knew about enlightenment back then was that it was a thing. Literally nothing else. I had spent a week doing active mindfulness exercises, and then I decided to meditate for real. On the 3rd meditation, I reached a state where my mind became totally silent and it started to feel like my body was turning hollow and that I was going to disappear forever and never come back. Very blissful, but terrifying, so I stopped it out of fear. I then started googling what was going on, and I didn't think that it had anything to do with enlightenment, but I was wrong. I didn't turn into a saint or anything, but it changed me forever. Weed stopped being fun, I had less cravings for stimulation, less boredom, less fear, social anxiety almost disappeared. What really happened after that is that I became acutely aware of what I later learned is called "dukkha" in Buddhism: the fact that every moment is filled with an innate sense of dissatisfaction, and you're always trying to alleviate the subsequent pain by seeking new objects and events. It intuitively showed me the path out of that endless cycle, and it gave my life a new sense of purpose and meaning. It was only later when I discovered people like Sadhguru, Alan Watts and Rupert Spira that I started to conceptualize the experiences I was having. I entered the experience of nonduality essentially ignorant, only having watched like three of Leo's videos and listening to Sam Harris talk about meditation.

Money is a powerful control structure, but it's a clunky and mechanical control structure. And also, money is the typical ego structure of separate control, which ultimately is an illusion. From a nonduality perspective control is the whole of reality moving as one process. And it's a process caused by both past and future rather than being a mechanical cause and effect from past to future. Otherwise it would be duality. To meditate on being one with God as ACIM recommended is the examination of the whole process of life from a nondual perspective. It's tricky to meditate on all of reality so meditation on money is useful. For example instead of observing clouds as in Ramana Maharshi's practice one can observe thoughts and feelings about money and let them dissolve.

I don't know how to fully go into non-egoic consciousness but I think a lot of it possible though a lot of meditation, self help work, and shadow integration. One thing I will say that feeling like an idiot is a part of the ego because the ego likes to feel smart (its a shadow), but the self, the self is everything therefore it is an idiot and is also smart. It's okay, I've had a similar experience of felt like an idiot because I just accepted the assumptions around me. The best way to integrate feeling like an idiot, is to recognize it without judgement. It seems difficult, but what helps me is to say that it's okay to feel like an idiot, it happens and its natural given the quality of consciousness we are surrounded by. I'm using this as an example because incorporating self love does help in expanding the self while minimizing the ego. In addition to meditation, I would probably add self inquiry and more research into subjects like nonduality and non egoic consciousness. I know you said instead of thinking or studying it but I think that is important because the more background knowledge you know, the more you plant seeds mentally . Therefore if you have an experience or an observation in your everyday life or in meditation, it will register as nonduality and non egoic consciousness and you will be more aware of it because that is what you had your eye out for. Always be looking for connections in the real world on how nonduality plays out. Basically ,the law of attraction is at play here. I don't think you're doing anything wrong if meditation mainly just brings you calmness. That's perfectly fine, you probably need more things to supplement it. I can't say I have all of the answers, but that's at least what I did because I personally don't feel comfortable with psychedelics or a magic pill so that's what I'm trying to stick to. I'm not entirely sure if this helps but I thought I'd put my view out there.

Gautam Sachdeva like Roger Castillo had Ramesh Balsekar as a teacher and is also a nonduality teacher. Roger sometimes talks about A Course in Miracles and I found that Guatam is also talking about ACIM:

Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Leo Gura Jul 19, 2020 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ However in the video Leo says: " Everything is Nothing" and " there is no distinction between something and nothing " But the title does not say this. The title says that nothing exist only something exists. So where is the evidence that nothing exists other than "nothing" being an abstract dualistic concept but not a real thing? The title of the video is not " There is no Distinction Between Something and Nothing " Similarly Leo has said there is only Love and that hate doesn't exist and he justifies that because assuming nonduality is true then if we add hate to Love it's two things not one. ____________________________________________ So we return to the original title Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Prove that that is not true. That "nothing" doesn't exist. It's a mental construct. What about the idea Nothing is all there is , everything is an illusion? It doesn't matter, an illusion is not nothing. What about the statement alone Nothing is all there is ? That doesn't work because we experience different things. We only experience things, thoughts etc You go into a pitch black dark room insulated from sound yet you can sense your feet standing there, or your own breathing , thoughts memory etc. Just being alive you are experiencing and that is not nothing. Ok what about statements like Infinity is Zero Up is Down Hate is Love Everything is Nothing I am you You are Me If you take two words like this that are considers opposites and you put the word "is" or "am" in between. The are interesting because they doesn't make sense. They seem clever , paradoxical and your brain tries to make sense of them but it keeps looping an it can't In the video the idea is raise why does the universe have various things in it ? Wouldn't it be simpler and more elegant to have nothing? Hypothetically yes but that would be extremely boring. So we return to the original title Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Why wouldn't only something exist? Where is the proof that nothing exists? See, the intuition gets it right the first time. There is only something Then the mind comes in, intellectualizes and imagines that nothing also exists That's the minds illusion, nothingness. It's elegant in it's simplicity. However reality is not elegant in that way. Sometimes we find peace in simplicity. But that is because our minds can be overwhelmed if attempting to be aware of a multitude of things at once. To focus on on one sometimes is a needed relief from the whole universe Meditation is an artificial thing, But it is useful to use to step out of distracting, repetitive chatter We need to get away from "it all" sometimes ______________________________________________________________________ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/emptiness-most-misunderstood-word-in-buddhism_b_2769189 Emptiness: The Most Misunderstood Word in Buddhism “Emptiness” is a central teaching of all Buddhism, but its true meaning is often misunderstood. If we are ever to embrace Buddhism properly into the West, we need to be clear about emptiness, since a wrong understanding of its meaning can be confusing, even harmful. The third century Indian Buddhist master Nagarjuna taught, “Emptiness wrongly grasped is like picking up a poisonous snake by the wrong end.” In other words, we will be bitten! Emptiness is not complete nothingness; it doesn’t mean that nothing exists at all. This would be a nihilistic view contrary to common sense. What it does mean is that things do not exist the way our grasping self supposes they do. In his book on the Heart Sutra the Dalai Lama calls emptiness “the true nature of things and events,” but in the same passage he warns us “to avoid the misapprehension that emptiness is an absolute reality or an independent truth.” In other words, emptiness is not some kind of heaven or separate realm apart from this world and its woes. The Heart Sutra says, “all phenomena in their own-being are empty.” It doesn’t say “all phenomena are empty.” This distinction is vital. “Own-being” means separate independent existence. The passage means that nothing we see or hear (or are) stands alone; everything is a tentative expression of one seamless, ever-changing landscape. So though no individual person or thing has any permanent, fixed identity, everything taken together is what Thich Nhat Hanh calls “interbeing.” This term embraces the positive aspect of emptiness as it is lived and acted by a person of wisdom — with its sense of connection, compassion and love. Think of the Dalai Lama himself and the kind of person he is — generous, humble, smiling and laughing — and we can see that a mere intellectual reading of emptiness fails to get at its practical joyous quality in spiritual life. So emptiness has two aspects, one negative and the other quite positive. Ari Goldfield, a Buddhist teacher at Wisdom Sun and translator of Stars of Wisdom , summarizes these two aspects as follows: The first meaning of emptiness is called “emptiness of essence,” which means that phenomena [that we experience] have no inherent nature by themselves.” The second is called “emptiness in the context of Buddha Nature,” which sees emptiness as endowed with qualities of awakened mind like wisdom, bliss, compassion, clarity, and courage. Ultimate reality is the union of both emptinesses. Some Buddhist students think that a meditative state without thought or activity is the realization of emptiness. While such a state is well described in Buddhist meditation texts, it is treated like all mental states — temporary and not ultimately conducive to liberation. ___________________________________________________________ Reality is impermanent. Things come and go. When they go do they go into "nothingness? " No they disappear. They don't go into a place called "nothingness" Nothingness is the mental construct. That is the idealistic illusion things don't have "no" or "non" in front of them. Those are abstractions There is. There is no such thing as nonduality. Absence of duality is not a thing And because it's not at thing that doesn't mean duality is real. that is another construct There only are things And if you says there are only illusions of things illusions are not nothing They are something Welcome to somethingness

I think desire is fine. It's when desire is fueled by suffering it's a problem. And interestingly, A Course in Miracles says that desire is fine too, such as: Desire needs to be aligned with the Holy Spirit, meaning recognizing and actualizing nonduality. The term "holy place" can be seen a wholeness, nonduality (holy means whole).

This term "nondual" it was mainly associated with Zen Buddhism although the Vedanta school of Hindus, also centuries old now describe their philosophy as nondual as well. And Zen monks never describe nonduality as experiencing God

Love, obviously. You are me, I am you, we are in this together. Notice you didn’t answer the question. You’re employing deflection. I would answer, so that you got deeper’ into it, or at least contemplate why you didn’t answer. In simple relative logic, you made a thread, you claim you’re open minded, then you ignore via deflection. It’s highly worth noticing and understanding - in my opinion. That I am making you understanding something is a misnomer. Understanding is letting go of thought attachment, of relativity believed to be absolute, and as such always up to what is absolute To do, though the doing is apparent. Without that suffering, love is readily ever present. Letting go is initially highly counterintuitive to thinking, striving in the vein that there even is something to figure out & perpetuating the experience of the ‘figuring out’. Which is why I asked what’s on your mind, so to speak. By all means though, carry on, and Godspeed. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder, a bit personally held in my regard / yet at the same time you do seem to be sincere in your seeking understanding. Forewarning...you’re challenging attitude is enjoyable. Here’s some new perspectives you’re open to that might be useful. If you’re not as open as you believe, no worries, just disregard...might come back around down the road, might not at all. "Everything is Love" is subjective bias “Everything” is a thought. No one ever experiences an everything. There isn’t even one thing, let alone an all things, or an every thing. If you inspect & scrutinize, it is discovered there is only a complete perfect no-thing wholeness, no parts, or things. Nonduality is not a state. That’s a belief about nonduality. You can’t experience God, that’s a misunderstanding of “both”, duality. You can’t experience that everything is love, love is self realization, not “everything” realization. Again, there is no “everything”. You as depressed is a label upon what can not be labelled, and that is precisely why it feels as it does - because you are love & pure goodness. Love is well beyond, prior to, and appearing as, meaning. Love can not be a perspective, all perspectives are initially an appearance of love, and ultimately there is no appearance. Only you can transcend suffering. Start be recognizing what is and is not, direct experience. In this example, you’d have to humble down to the recognition the direct experience is only your thought about these. Also notice that to cover that up, blame and accusation is utilized. You don’t have to choose to do that, you can choose to inspect instead. Always up to you. If there seems to be a struggle to do that, letting go emotionally is the key. Emotional suppression keeps the mind contracted, attempting to resolve feeling with thinking. We all try our best, but that never pans out. All roads lead to letting go. How rough your road must be is always up to you. Nonduality means, as in points to, that there are not two. Your mind seems paradox locked. I’d write the opposite of your beliefs down, and contemplate them until you genuinely realize they are equally true. That is all an appearance of love. Suffering, with a little inspection, is not something you could be in or out of, it is experience you do or don’t create now, by believing or not believing thoughts (aka thought attachment, or identification as a separate self in many different ways which all are thoughts being believed.) There are not other people, that’s a belief, and you most definitely can literally see through their eyes. You probably wouldn’t presently believe this and I wouldn’t expect you to, but that can actually become completely normal to you & if you are genuinely interested in helping anyone transcend suffering, it is extremely useful and insightful. There’s a lot of letting go prior to such apparent experiencing. But that’s a relative statement, it’s all appearance / experience, love. Everything is love and there are degrees and modes of love. Nothing is love and there are no degrees or modes of love. You can also put the games down and awaken, and begin playing the game. No ya don’t. It’s up to you to transcend that. You can expect people to comply with your conditions, but you’ll suffer for it and inevitably let it go. Love is formless, boundless, unlimited and infinite. Love is conceptual to you because you’ve conceptualized a you and in turn, conceptualized love. Pretty much unavoidable, and absolutely innocent. You are the love conceptualizing, just haven’t self realized yet. Scrutinizing and holding positions as you are is most beneficial, as it inevitably leads to doing the actual “work”, practices, inspection of direct experience, etc. The stuff you are reading about other people doing. All roads lead to letting go, and letting go reveals absolute love. There would seem to be objectivity, and for that matter subjectivity, unless you have transcended perspectives and realized you are what you are referring to as objectivity. Then, there is neither. Reality is love. Reality is nothing. What do you practices look like? Meditation every day? For how long have you? Weeks, months, years? This would be a key questioning with noticing if you ignore it. It would put to some resistance to letting go of thinking. It would reveal and release what is ‘grinding your gears’ in regard to love.

Reality (God) is unlimited. If it weren’t, something outside of reality would have to limit it... meaning the limiter would be unreal by definition. The consequences of this are rather amazing: absolutely anything is possible, including God’s self creation. And the really cool thing is... since time is among those aspects that are created, rather than creation being some event that happened long ago, you’re witnessing it right now... from the so-called vantage point of pure infinite potential, only inferred to exist because in a sense you can never experience it... it IS you. You are where you have always been: here and now. You are nothing and everything, but the only way you as God can actually be truly infinite, is to limit yourself infinitely... and ONE of those limitations is the perception of you right here and now being a seemingly finite being that feels it is not omniscient. It is as it is. How? Psychedelics... but also Self-inquiry: where is this I-know-it-ness coming from? Anything seen is not you since you are the one seeing (at least you assume ), but that appears too and is just a thought. When the I is absorbed in itself it eventually purifies and stops, revealing nonduality. Seeing and seen arise from each other, together, however, it is also true that they do not arise, as they are empty. Since emptiness too is empty, there is this.

I am enjoying it. I am aware of you helping me. Are you aware of me helping you? Look into 'Light Density' to gain understanding of how things become. Nonduality = Love Do you know what a thought actually is? A thoughtform is made of the same substance as anything else; Pure Love-light. And it is made through the process of polarization. It has nothing to do with humans or bodies or beliefs. Rather; frequency. Separation is literally impossible. It never happened nor will it ever happen. Being lost in thought does not imply separation. Only sleep. Become Love, you mean? ? Cool story. Your mind is kinda awake... But your heart is definitely shut down. This...is a thought. And it's happening. This is also pure consciousness. Pure Love. Pure Light. It's only 'nothing' to the mind. The Heart bothers not with such things. The Heart is way too occupied with loving. The Heart has no polar opposite. The Heart is whole. The Heart only beats. The Heart only is. The Mind...is just a fun little game. (which I absolutely love playing)

Hey, loves. I have a peculiar appeal today. Questions are highlighted at the bottom. I'm a writer, though only recently my little sheep started bleating in English. But enough of the background, the rest is in my journal. Now for the rare butterfly itself. I'm interested in combining reading and psychedelics. But for what cause? As a conscious artist or a creator, one could refer to themselves as to a refracting glass prism. (Thinking of Pink Floyd's logo.) The prism's purpose is to refract the Universal love and wisdom it is receiving; onto others. You are the prism. Please, excuse my analogy and take it with a grain of salt. It's the best I came up with. As such, the glass prism, indeed you, face various problems. One of them is the MASSIVE "information loss" that happens between you and the receiver. Almost all of the original meaning, wisdom and emotions are lost in the transition. You ache to express the boundless, yet through bounded ways such as writing or painting or speaking. And what little amount DOES reach the reader, is skewed and distorted by their world-view and perception. If you do realize the infinite beauty of art in those forms, good. You know the Truth. But you are a statistical outlier, and to the majority it will remain as described in the paragraph above. Now, I'll stick to writing. Of great help to opening up can be psychedelics and other methods (mainly shamanic breathing for me) -- helpful to the point where the writing pulls you in and becomes as real as your hand. Of course the hand itself goes and meets it half along the way, but I don't want to bring any truth-talks here today and spit nonduality. The point is, with the right mindset, any writing, picture, video game, can become epic adventures you're on. I'm talking about living through the art as the reader. As the author, it makes sense I have literally lived through the adventures of my characters. But wouldn't it be amazing if you could bring the reader along with you onto the same vibration? Perhaps I'm the only one. Perhaps only I see the scope of possibilites if less "information" got lost in the transition between the creator and the receiver. People dream about virtual reality technology, when in fact the greatest potential has been in front of them the whole time. I haven't experienced with microdosing psychedelics while reading, and so I would like to ask you. 1) Have you ever read a novel on psychedelics? 2) If so, did the story become more immersive and fascinating? 3) Did you feel a deeper connection to what the author was trying to say; sort of telepathically? ...or, instead, address any previous point from the post if you have a relevant experience. My point for this is to create something fun and adventurous while also being worthwhile to quote in development journals. It could be a whole new branch of art and business. Adventure is one of my top values, and while I'm not doing a hardcore spiritual practice, I always held a special place in my heart for things like Uncharted game series or books by Jules Verne. I wouldn't mind explicitly calling my fiction books 'to be read under psychedelics.'

Blinding Joy I took a moment to reflect on the last couple posts. I am noticing how this journal where I record thing that bring me joy is still an egoic response. While joy is a higher quality emotion, one that is more preferable to experience since it is closer to our natural state of oneness, high quality emotions are still a compass pointing us towards survival. That said, that doesn't meant that we throw away the compass, rather it is still important to critique and reflect on what is bringing us joy as it too can have blind spots. I'm thinking of doing this critique and analysis of the things that brings me joy every now and then on this journal. One thing that brings me joy is the idea of growth especially up the spiral towards stage yellow (systems thinking). The desire to grow is rooted in survival. There are some people who stagnate and that's because growth is not a part of their survival. I think wanting to grow can be used consciously to get us to higher qualities or more sustainable stages of survival, but it is still important to recognize this as a part of survival. If that's the case for a person who sees growth as survival and identifies with it, it isn't surprising that a lack of growth or an ego backlash can hurt the ego and that person's self concept. Instead of fighting it, its important to embrace is and paradoxically it will result in more sustainability and more survival because you aren't constantly beating yourself up for things. Also, I did mention this on that particular post but it bears repeating Joy can point us towards an authentic sense of survival. Considering this, sometimes we interpret something that scratches any psychological itches or traumas as a sense of joy. Nothing wrong with that, it's just more data to go off of. Whether or not it is problematic can be determined by how healthy or sustainable the manifestation of this form of joy is (again also recall that the words problematic, sustainability, and growth still deal with survival but I digress). Drinking away your sorrows is a lower form of expressing trauma through an addictive, hedonistic, form of joy while acting from the joy of teaching is a higher form of joy even though both indulge in the thought of the same event. I suppose because of the potential limitations of joy, I can see how something like peace can be seen as a more higher consciousness state as it relates more with being. I wondered why peace was typically placed after joy because I always felt the most expanded when I felt joyful. But now I'm starting to get it more. (also the two emotions in the yellow section are anger and desire since it is hard to read) Nevertheless, I'm not going to stop pursuing joy. I think it is still important for me to embody it more and have it become my natural setting as I continue to move up. I do experience everything on this pyramid, but I would say that my default setting, the emotions I feel the most often has moved up as I began working on myself. Right as of now I would say most of my emotions fall between neutrality and joy. I remember at one time a few years ago when I was very depressed my default was between courage and shame. I'm still working through the lower emotions and I doubt they will ever completely go away. I see them as more of a "warning emotion" rather than a "negative emotion." I feel that calling them "negative emotions" causes more resistance to accepting those feelings and makes the ego more likely to tense up while calling them "warning emotions" gives one a sense of agency to fix whatever is going wrong, identify what the emotion is trying to tell you, and helps you distance yourself as the feeler from the feeling itself without negating it (acceptance is a more higher emotion) . I don't think the "warning emotions" will ever completely go away since they are there to inform but the goal is to build a more sustainable life where you aren't always on edge for something going wrong I suppose so that you can have more time for being. And also to completely negate the lower tier and separate oneself from it is also a form of duality which deters away from being (but then again duality is still a part of nonduality and nonduality is everything) Ok..... I'm going to stop there and embody what I do know since I think if I keep talking, I'm going to confuse myself and that is going to cause an ego backlash lmao. Goals for now: Joy can be informative for where you need to heal and what your survival mechanisms are. It comes in many forms in both higher and lower consciousness so it's important to be critical and draw distinctions. Peace doesn't have as many limitations as joy and therefore is higher than joy. It is also closer to being. Still, keep your eyes out for it. Keep an eye out for survival, even higher consciousness forms of it. I still need to embody joy more as it is the higher bracket of the section of emotions that I feel the most option (which is between joy and neutrality).

ACIM says that all minds are connected. Is that true? Of course it is! That's trivially true from a nonduality perspective since everything is connected. And this also means that in a collective consciousness, when one person learns something, the whole collective learns it! So now we can see how incredibly limited ego consciousness is where each person needs to learn the same knowledge.