Peter Ralston interview by Leo Gura.

[BlessedLion]

Why the crusade against the ego? When a person realizes their God existentially, what else are they supposed to do? This whole attitude of needing to be quiet and humble about it is frankly quite annoying. 

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

6 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

And yes my friend, why so serious? 

Not serious, just a bit... melancholic, I guess. But hey, alles hat ein Ende nur die Wurst hat zwei, as the old German saying goes. (I am willing to bet that you're old and German enough to be familiar with that one, hehehe.)

See you in a̶n̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ this life!

[gettoefl]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@Water by the River You do not understand what Consciousness or God is. You have a bunch of human spiritual constructions running you.

In this respect you are very arrogant, even though you love to play humble and wise.

You are playing games on this forum around this whole topic.

Whatever enlightenment you think you have, it is not a profound understanding of God. What you have is a gross reduction. And you infect others with these ideas.

God dreams entire worlds, and you have no understanding of how this is accomplished. And because of that you invent your reductions. This makes your life much easier because you don't actually take on the enormous burden of comprehending God.

Enlightenment is a human dream. When you realize that, then you can begin understanding God.

i remember he has tried earnestly to teach you stuff Leo and you didn't run with it 

he is nothing but helpful and lovely

disappointed in you for hurling stones at one of the best on here

his posts are long winded but he is addressing points exhaustively with enormous compassion

[Breakingthewall]

A kangaroo is a dimension of the reality, you are another, both are infinite depth. The difference is in the breadth of the form, its content. There may be another dimension of infinity that is a mind that encompasses a quadrillion parallel universes for which any alien is less than a bacteria, and even so, that dimension will be exactly the same as the donkey in its essence, infinite depth.

only the elaboration of the form changes. If the infinite cosmos collapses into an empty singularity and restarts into infinite primordial particles, each of them will be exactly the same in essence as the most complex construction: infinite. nothing can be anything other than infinite, only the manifestation changes. So, what else can be enlightenment than being your essence, that is, infinite, the total depth? And how to be aware of it if it is not transcending the form completely? seems pretty obvious

Why a donkey can't trascend it's form? Because it's totally prisoner of it, the form is so dense than allow being aware of anything except the form, same of most of humans, but being aware or more complexity don't make the essence more obvious. Can make the mind more flexible but not necessarily more transparent. If the infinity manifest, it's totally obvious that anything that seems more is form. Form is great btw, I want to be aware of the alien conciousness, the galaxy conciousness and all that's possible, just because it's beauty. But infinity is infinity, the absolute depth, and that is what we are independent of the form. 

Being open to your unlimited nature implies happiness, freedom and vision. Aperture is inversely proportional to density. It is not something definitive but rather it occurs in a gradual and pendulum way, but you need to see the way, if not, you are lost in the form . That is what I realized until now.

Edited June 2 by Breakingthewall

[Water by the River]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

A kangaroo is a dimension of the reality, you are another, both are infinite depth. The difference is in the breadth of the form, its content. There may be another dimension of infinity that is a mind that encompasses a quadrillion parallel universes for which any alien is less than a bacteria, and even so, that dimension will be exactly the same as the donkey in its essence, infinite depth.

only the elaboration of the form changes. If the infinite cosmos collapses into an empty singularity and restarts into infinite primordial particles, each of them will be exactly the same in essence as the most complex construction: infinite. nothing can be anything other than infinite, only the manifestation changes. So, what else can be enlightenment than being your essence, that is, infinite, the total depth? And how to be aware of it if it is not transcending the form completely? seems pretty obvious

Why a donkey can't trascend it's form? Because it's totally prisoner of it, the form is so dense than allow being aware of anything except the form, same of most of humans, but being aware or more complexity don't make the essence more obvious. Can make the mind more flexible but not necessarily more transparent. If the infinity manifest, it's totally obvious that anything that seems more is form. Form is great btw, I want to be aware of the alien conciousness, the galaxy conciousness and all that's possible, just because it's beauty. But infinity is infinity, the absolute depth, and that is what we are independent of the form. 

Being open to your unlimited nature implies happiness, freedom and vision. Aperture is inversely proportional to density. It is not something definitive but rather it occurs in a gradual and pendulum way, but you need to see the way, if not, you are lost in the form . That is what I realized until now.

In my humble opinion: You got it.

Infinite Being contains Infinity up and down the ladder. In Wilber-speech: Holons, downwards to Infinity, upwards to Infinity. Especially upwards is hard to stomach. But a necessary step to see the smallness of any(!) holon, be it human or alien. Even the alien has an Infinity of Holons "on top" of it, upwards from it.

It is absolutely senseless to seek any refuge in Infinity. Not so in the Infinite. Or Infinite Being. Who or what created all of that? Who or what contains all of that? Who or what explores itself forever and ever and ever? What is in the end a mystery to itself, both when it comes to its essence of Nothingness, and its forever unreachable Event Horizons of Infinities of Infinities yet to explore? And who at the same time never leaves its True Home while doing so?

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

The difference is in the breadth of the form, its content. There may be another dimension of infinity that is a mind that encompasses a quadrillion parallel universes for which any alien is less than a bacteria, and even so, that dimension will be exactly the same as the donkey in its essence, infinite depth.

This simple thought experiment frees from the need to grasp every mechanism of manifestation, and trying to "understand" all of these realms.

Even God will forever explore new dimensions and realms, strange and multidimensional (n+1) realms and universes totally different than ours, and will never run out of them. It is the nature of Infinity. N+1 dimensions. And God will never run out of its fascination with the mechanisms of these Infinities. An Infinity of Infinities.

Home is Infinite Being. Not Infinity or Infinities. Home is that "before" or "within" which all these Infinities of Infinities of appearances & manifestations "roll" by.

I wonder if Leo ever had https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_induction in his Aeronautical Engineering mathematical courses. N+1. Yours truly did.

" Mathematical induction is a method for proving that a statement 𝑃(𝑛) is true for every natural number 𝑛, that is, that the infinitely many cases 𝑃(0),𝑃(1),𝑃(2),𝑃(3),…  all hold. This is done by first proving a simple case, then also showing that if we assume the claim is true for a given case, then the next case is also true. Informal metaphors help to explain this technique, such as falling dominoes or climbing a ladder:

Mathematical induction proves that we can climb as high as we like on a ladder, by proving that we can climb onto the bottom rung (the basis) and that from each rung we can climb up to the next one (the step).

— Concrete Mathematics, page 3 margins."

It never ends... Aliens and alien realms n+1.

In what do they all appear?

"It takes a leap of faith
To awake from these delusions
You are the coder and avatar"

And now you can drop into Infinite Void in peace, if your Karma holds that for you....

 

Selling Mathematical Inductions by the River

 

 

Edited June 2 by Water by the River

[Water by the River]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

God dreams entire worlds, and you have no understanding of how this is accomplished. And because of that you invent your reductions. This makes your life much easier because you don't actually take on the enormous burden of comprehending God.

Good luck trying to accomplish as Leo-mostly-human-part-time-alien that which God itself will forever not reach: The event horizon of an Infinity of Infinities of realms & dimensions yet to explore & understand how they are manifested.

Dont you see that? Is it that complicated? Or is it just a huge blindspot for you?

Hubris.

A perfect recipe to keep on suffering.

What can be very well understood and realized and lived is the essence of each and any of these Infinities manifested and yet to be manifested. In Infinite Being. In YOU!

Good luck surviving your project of achieving more than God or Infinity itself can ever hope to reach. The event horizon of Infinities of Infinities. Until you see the futility of this project, and get tired, and finally drop into the Infinite Ocean of your True Being.

The more positive view: Isn't it wonderful that there is an Infinity of Infinities yet to explore? "We", or rather True Infinite Being will never run out of adventures.

Can't you make peace with just that?

Do you subtly have to send all beings following you on this insane grasping voyage? Letting them suffer the same suffering that you still have, and temporarily ease it with new insights into new "Awakenings", Understandings, or whatever-states/experiences are still being grasped for?

Why not enjoy the beauty of a rainstorm? A sunset? The chirping of the birds? They hold the same infinite depth of Infinity. Holons all the way down also. They all hold the same beauty in the eyes of Divinity. The exactly same! If no one is left to tell otherwise, it is the same beauty of Infinity in all appearances.

Maybe you take some time to reflect on that, and truly look into the essence of these arisings in your mindstream that keep pushing you upwards to Infinity of Infinity. What is the essence of these arisings? They are the core of what is still left of you, dear Leo. Small you. False you. They are the price to pay to truly realize what You really are. They ARE the dream.

Look into them. You only risk finding what you truly are.

Meet you there.

[Yimpa]

This discussion in a nutshell 

Edited June 2 by Yimpa

[Davino]

@Yimpa You are a necessary balancing tool for the forum

[ryandesreu]

As a self, I'm a human being, but if you're asking me what I am, there is nothing there.

[Breakingthewall]

On 2/6/2024 at 10:19 PM, Water by the River said:

my humble opinion: You got it

I have, in a pendulum way, not constant and not full, the opening to the true nature of reality, to what we are: the unlimited breadth, the bottomless abyss. The nature of this breadth cannot be thought, it has to happen in real time and when it happens, you are home, it is enlightenment. If your psyche closes, it becomes dense again, you no longer have it. Your psyche can elaborate anything, but you are separated, isolated, in suffering to a greater or lesser extent. I think this is inevitable being human at certain moments, you know, when your cousin Genghis approaches you smiling, explaining the sophisticated plans he has for your immediate future.

But what is the nature of the cosmos? the structure of reality. How and why infinite potential is infinitely coordinated in the unimaginable dance that is manifest reality? interesting question. I would say that it is something inevitable, cyclical and the most strange and incomprehensible, as you said that Wilber said: infinite on its scale. This cannot be understood, it is impossible. infinite multiverses, infinite scales of complexity. infinite minds intertwining infinitely, without ever reaching a limit, because that is not possible.

Then, Leo, your alien seems the boss in the high school of his village, but out he is so small than anything else 

Edited June 3 by Breakingthewall

[Girzo]

This thread got deeply unserious, real quick.

I think what most people forget is that Enlightnement is mostly a social, mental construction. When people say that they are Enlightened they are thinking of an identity they have learned through elaborate process, similar to how people become Marihuana smokers, for example. (https://archive.org/details/becker1953becomingamarijuanauser/page/n1/mode/2up)

And the biggest upside of Ralston is that his school of thought has ZERO tolerance for this stuff. While all the New Age stuff is dominated by the socially-constructed stuff.

[Butters]

Just got around to watching this, wonderful! 
 

In between his responses you can see, nobody there 🤷‍♀️

[QandC]

2 hours ago, Butters said:

Just got around to watching this, wonderful! 
 

In between his responses you can see, nobody there 🤷‍♀️

Everyone knows it's Butters! - That's me! 

[bambi]

55 minutes ago, Bandman said:

there should be a ban on buddhist dogma about consciousness on this forum just as there are bans about other religious dogmas.

 

What do you think is Buddhist about his post lol?

[strika]

1 hour ago, Bandman said:

there should be a ban on buddhist dogma about consciousness on this forum just as there are bans about other religious dogmas.

By that logic there should be a ban for 5-meo anal-inserting hippies on this forum that pretend they have figured out everything with 0 actual embodiment in actual baseline state of consciousness as well, if it's up to me i'm for free speech, you're not superiror for inserting a chemical in your body

[Osaid]

On 5/30/2024 at 5:17 PM, Leo Gura said:

"Have" is just a figure of speech. You are consciousness.  And consciousness has degrees.

If there was a genuine perception that "now" is all there is, then all your "degree searching" is moot because you are imagining degrees of consciousness...right now. What occurs now "encompasses" itself perfectly, it's just that there are thoughts about "not now" appearing now, which don't actually describe anything outside of what is occurring right now.

On 5/30/2024 at 5:17 PM, Leo Gura said:

If I was a kangaroo, yeah, I would not have a desire for higher consciousness.

What's sad is that most humans don't utilize that desire even though they are one of the few animals on this planet capable of such desire.

Isn't it obvious to you that the only reason humans were able to build a civilzation, while none of the other animals did, was because we have higher consciousness than them?

Humans are more intelligent because we are more conscious. A donkey does not have enough consciousness to build a rocket ship.

I can't believe I have to explain this to so-called enlightened people.

You actually believe that aliens are not any more conscious than humans. You're not being serious.

You can't quantify consciousness by imagining things other than you...because there aren't things other than you which can be compared to you. You are not going to ever properly slice and cut consciousness and then compare all the pieces to each other, because it all has to happen right now; there isn't separation.

I'm not saying anything about what aliens are or aren't; you are. You are quantifying your own consciousness by imagining aliens; by imagining things that you aren't. 

Humans and donkeys are the human capacity for imagination and intelligence, they aren't entities that have intelligence. It's like you're imagining a unicorn and then saying "unicorns are so stupid, humans are more intelligent compared to unicorns, etc.", but the entire thing is just your imaginative capacity describing things that aren't actually experienced outside of that imagination. The function of imagination allows you to describe things that aren't there, in the same way a blueprint or weather prediction does. The entire thing is human intelligence, and the projection of intelligence onto a donkey is anthropomorphism of the donkey, because donkeys and kangaroos can't think they are anything separate, and so they certainly don't think of themselves as "kangaroos" and "donkeys" since they literally cannot. That is where human intelligence comes in. There aren't separate entities which have intelligence, your intelligence is the description of those entities. Descriptions don't describe anything outside of themselves, because you can't experience something that describes another experience, and you can't use experience to point at another experience, because there is always just what is occurring now. Descriptions are now, and they don't describe what is not now, since there is no "not now." There is only describing, not a "thing" described. When you point your finger at something, your finger didn't actually create any objects, and so it is not actually pointing at anything, it is simply just pointing.

[Inliytened1]

On 6/2/2024 at 5:56 AM, Leo Gura said:

@Water by the River

Enlightenment is a human dream. When you realize that, then you can begin understanding God.

I have to disagree with you there  Enlightenment is not a human dream.  That's absurd.  This is no human involved at all.  God realization and Enlightenment are really one and fhe same.  

@Water by the River thus God realization the way i look at it is not lesser than a classic non-dual enlightenment or a natural Enlightenment.   Anyone can get their own definition to a word..  but to me they should be the same thing.   There are a series of realizations not just one.  But the key here is that in enlightenment God realizes itself.   So there isn't an ego involved. 

Edited June 4 by Inliytened1

[Leo Gura]

6 hours ago, Osaid said:

f there was a genuine perception that "now" is all there is, then all your "degree searching" is moot because you are imagining degrees of consciousness...right now. What occurs now "encompasses" itself perfectly, it's just that there are thoughts about "not now" appearing now, which don't actually describe anything outside of what is occurring right now.

This is false. You are engaging in a now reductionism. It is wrong to strip consciousness down to only the now. It is now, but it's also more than now.

Degrees of consciousness is not a conceptual or even a human construction, it is part of the absolute nature of consciousness.

You can be profoundly awake and still realize there are higher degrees of consciousness which you do not yet have. In fact, if you don't realize this you're not very bright.

Yes, imagination must be employed to go beyond the now, but that's a feature not a bug. Imagination IS how consciousness fully grasps itself, because it IS imagination. This imagination is absolute, not merely conceptual.

Right now even if you are enlightened, Consciousness is hiding from you. It is hiding things you cannot even comprehend are there. If you say, "But NOW is all there is!" Well, that's how you hide it from yourself.

Notice, NOW is absolute, but also NOW is always changing. You can't deny that NOW is never the same. So clearly things are hidden from you. And not just material things, but Consciousnes itself is hiding from you. For example, you don't even know what insanity consciousness is. Because you need to be sane to stay alive as a human. So you being human hides a lot from you.

If you've never experienced an increase in your consciousness then I don't even know why you do spirituality.

There are only two options here: either consciousness can increase or it cannot. If it cannot, then all spiritual practice and all of spirituality is bullshit. So then why are you doing and talking about it? Just go drink and party and enjoy your current level of consciousness because there's nothing more.

And if you think you've maxed out your consciousness, you truly are a fool.

Edited June 4 by Leo Gura

[Osaid]

46 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It is now, but it's also more than now.

"More than now" is a concept which could only ever occur now.

The vantage point is always now, no matter what. To see the past, you have to be in the now. To see the future, you have to be in the now. There's no such thing as a past while being in the past, or else you are simply in the present. There's no such thing as a future while being in the future, or else you are simply in the present. Your imagination is throwing you for a loop.

There is no difference between someone who only experiences the past, someone who only experiences the future, and someone who only experiences now; there is no difference between any of those periods of time. Thoughts don't thread time together.

There is just thinking, now. It is always thinking, now. It is always concepts, now. 

32 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

beyond the now

There's nothing beyond the absolute. Ralston even told you this one during the interview.

48 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Imagination IS how consciousness fully grasps itself, because it IS imagination. This imagination is absolute, not merely conceptual.

Imagination is now. Concepts and speculations aside, it's always here, now. Meaning, it exists, and you are experiencing it. If it's not now, it's not here.

It's not even a matter of saying "your imagination doesn't exist bro, it's just concepts." Everything is now and subject to now, it doesn't matter what it is.

But for imagination, that also means it isn't really describing anything other than itself, since it can't describe something other than now. Meaning, what is always seen is just imagination occurring presently.

49 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Consciousness is hiding from you.

I thought I was consciousness! How could what I am hide from what I am?

There is no "consciousness" and "me" because both are the same occurrence. This is just another way of extrapolating your idea of yourself into time. You cannot imagine yourself, period. Because "imagination" and "yourself" is the same occurrence; there is no separation. The imagination isn't describing anything outside of itself; outside of what is presently occurring.

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

For example, you don't even know what insanity consciousness is. 

I'm sure you have memorable and interesting experiences. But those are now too. 

[Osaid]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

There are only two options here: either consciousness can increase or it cannot.

This notion of "higher consciousness" limits consciousness. Isn't it much better to not be limited? 

There aren't things that can have lower and higher consciousness, because, yeah, you guessed it: it's all now. You're holding all those notions in your experience right now.

Also, I suspect you are conflating knowledge/understanding with consciousness or something. You can of course increase your knowledge and learning to a certain degree, probably infinitely. But absolute consciousness is meta to such dualisms.

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

If it cannot, then all spiritual practice and all of spirituality is bullshit.

Spiritual practice is mostly for reaching enlightenment.

After enlightenment, it's not like experience stops, so consciousness continues unfolding in all the variety of ways it tends to do.

I'm not really trying to discount your psychedelic experiences, for the record. It's just the pesky false self that can persist.