Peter Ralston interview by Leo Gura.

[bambi]

2 minutes ago, Davino said:

@bambi are you ok bro?

You seem much chiller on private messages

 

OF course, I respond to the task at hand!

[The Renaissance Man]

@bambi I believe your approach will save you from a lot of BS. You're right being skeptic of Ralston. The "trust me bro" advice leads to so much shitty information if you trust it blindly, it's crazy.

At the same time, I "trust" Leo's judgment, not only because his work has helped me insanely (not including the spiritual part, which I haven't yet explored at all), and I also get his "like gets like", because as I progress I can tell how certain very specific words Leo say go well beyond parroting any source. They match direct experience too well to be random.

I believe (but I don't know), that Leo feels the same about Ralston. At least about the consciousness aspect. Many members that could not tell you exactly why Ralston is so good, and a lot (but not all) of those who say "just read his work" will likely have poor understanding and suck in practice. That's my take. They're afraid of looking into their own incompetence. So I wouldn't blindly trust that advice either. But I believe Leo could be able to make explicit why Ralston is a genius, but that would take time and effort, and from his POV the average user would still not understand, so he doesn't bother. Again, my take.

About fighting though, I believe that without fighting experience AND understanding of Ralston's work one cannot make a judgment whether he would excel against today's top athletes. Genius or not, the truth is that you don't know. It's like the Messi vs Ronaldo, the LeBron vs Jordan debate. Standing on either side may be fun but it's fruitless, you don't know, especially if you don't have deep experience in fighting, and event then...

So, I am currently studying Ralston's work deeply, and testing it out. Ultimately, that's the only way out of this shit. (curiously enough, this is one of Ralston's main points, to cut through all the BS that one may find in martial arts and spiritual teachings, only trusting your direct experience rather than looking for "secret powers" that many promise). Since Leo's advice was SO EFFECTIVE, and he regards Ralston so highly, I thought it was well worth the time investment to explore what he has to say. But yeah, I'm still at the point where each one of his claims could be BS, because I have not put in the hours. Luckily the practice he promotes is not woo-woo, but highly logical and it makes a lot of sense, so the amount of blind trust required is pretty low (at least for now, I've only read The 

[Grateful Dead]

@bambi I have read 4 of Ralston's books. He gives you a complete system to have enlightenment experiences and transform yourself afterward. You will have lots of interesting topics to contemplate.

I think the beauty of his work is firstly that he is a master communicator. I have learned a lot from the way he uses language. Secondly, his work is completely free of spiritual or religious frames, like it is very authentic and clean, I don't really know how to describe it. I have never really been into Zen but I think it is like Zen Buddhism without Buddhism.

His books were some of the first I read on consciousness work and I would say it was a good introduction. If you are already advanced and have found a path that works for you then I would recommend to just read Zen Body-Being and The Genius of Being.

[bambi]

33 minutes ago, Grateful Dead said:

@bambi I have read 4 of Ralston's books. He gives you a complete system to have enlightenment experiences and transform yourself afterward. You will have lots of interesting topics to contemplate.

I think the beauty of his work is firstly that he is a master communicator. I have learned a lot from the way he uses language. Secondly, his work is completely free of spiritual or religious frames, like it is very authentic and clean, I don't really know how to describe it. I have never really been into Zen but I think it is like Zen Buddhism without Buddhism.

His books were some of the first I read on consciousness work and I would say it was a good introduction. If you are already advanced and have found a path that works for you then I would recommend to just read Zen Body-Being and The Genius of Being.

Thank you appreciate it.

I read so many books on spirituality that very rarely I find something innovative. Like I shared before David Hawkins is about the only spiritual teacher that has a novel way of approaching spirituality and conciousness, with coherent models and explanations that integrate other spirtual teachings with theology into a single framework. This was interesting for me to learn his model or framework

Ive read several zen books, and it never resonated with me that deeply, alot of round about the houses communication style, very indirect. From my research Ralston seems like a derivative of zen or his own take on it. At first glance is doesnt seem so interesting or novel to me.

[Rigel]

8 hours ago, Grateful Dead said:

@bambiHis books were some of the first I read on consciousness work and I would say it was a good introduction. If you are already advanced and have found a path that works for you then I would recommend to just read Zen Body-Being 

Did you read is book on mastery? It's a step up from Zen Body-Being imo while dealing with very adjacent & overlapping subjects. i.e. Principle of effortless interaction yadi yadi yada.

[Twentyfirst]

As much as we preach sharing and spreading love. Everyone keeps at least one guru private to themselves. I know I do

[UnbornTao]

On 10/06/2024 at 2:12 PM, Scholar said:

Why? What makes you believe Ralston is truthful/accurate about his own self-assessment?

What do you want me to say? He's deeply conscious and knows what he's talking about. I would first study a given teaching that's promising and do some real work, then make up my mind about it. Frankly, I don't think anything I'll say will make much of a difference at this point.

This is similar to the issue above; trivializing Ramana's teaching. Assuming that knowing the right spiritual terms implied any real personal understanding of what's being offered.

Edited June 12 by UnbornTao

[Leo Gura]

To appreciate Ralston you have to attend his live workshops. Reading books is not enough.

The reason I don't explain it is that those who are unwilling to invest the time and money into a workshop will not get much out of him. So I don't want to waste my time.

Edited June 11 by Leo Gura

[Grateful Dead]

On 10.6.2024 at 4:28 PM, bambi said:

At first glance is doesnt seem so interesting or novel to me.

I like Hawkins too. Maybe there is nothing novel about Ralston's work, but it was interesting for me to get a glimpse into his mind. As I said you can sense that he is a authentic freak.

20 hours ago, Rigel said:

Did you read is book on mastery? It's a step up from Zen Body-Being imo while dealing with very adjacent & overlapping subjects. i.e. Principle of effortless interaction yadi yadi yada.

I've read the short version and worked on the practical part but then I got distracted by other books. Now I'll pick it up again, thanks!

[The Renaissance Man]

I found this article on Ralston's life, there's quite a lot on his proficiency in fighting.

https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/10270380

[Inliytened1]

Here's an interesting tidbit guys .I listened to the interview again with Leo and Ralston - the most pertinent aspect - about what enlightenment and it's significance is - and what he means by direct experience- and I have to say he was dead on and I think he was paramount in a lot of Leo's teachings.   I think the interesting thing is that Leo is a lot more charismatic- and for people not already into spirituality a guy like Ralston would never be found - despite his books being top notch.   But a guy just perusing the internet for almost anything has a good chance of stumbling on a guy like Leo's YouTube channel and thus find spirituality and Enlightenment.    The thing that I find interesting is that Leo is a serious intellectual who really prides himself in understanding everything.   The only problem is thinking there is always something more - this is the problem (or advantage( with the intellectual.  There is a constant desire to understand things at ever deeper levels.. but when it comes to enlightenment- actual enlightenment- it is not comprehended it is Being - which Ralston attempts to articulate in the interview.  Bringing this forward as Leo goes through his own spiritual journey, the young Leo does a great job in bringing Ralstons teachings of direct experience or Being to life in his videos.    Here he is an extension of Ralston, which I realize now is why I didn't need Ralston.

Edited June 12 by Inliytened1

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

Here he is an extension of Ralston, which I realize now is why I didn't need Ralston.

Nope, that's not it.

Ralston and I don't teach the same things.

Edited June 11 by Leo Gura

[Inliytened1]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Nope, that's not it.

Ralston and I don't teach the same things.

At some point you did and at some point it branched off.  But the first 10 minutes of that interview really tells all.  I'm not saying you didn't confirm what Ralston was saying in your own direct experience- you did.  That's what made your teachings so authentic- because they were. (Are)   

Edited June 11 by Inliytened1

[Ishanga]

2 hours ago, The Renaissance Man said:

I found this article on Ralston's life, there's quite a lot on his proficiency in fighting.

https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/10270380

I'm telling You, I have history in this stuff, Chinese Martial Arts specifically, since the late 80's, researched a ton of it, specialized in Wing Chun, am telling You I've never heard of Ralston since I came to this forum, if he was so great I would have heard of him...

No doubt he has skills, I've heard of his teachers and researched the styles he has learned, plenty of Americans went overseas to learn from these Masters, I just think he's a great promoter of himself in certain circles, not the main stream martial arts otherwise I would have heard of him before coming here...

[Leo Gura]

10 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

At some point you did and at some point it branched off. 

My work didn't branch off from his. The reason I found him was because I was doing parallel work on my own and then recognized he was doing similar things to what I was interested in.

[Inliytened1]

9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

My work didn't branch off from his. The reason I found him was because I was doing parallel work on my own and then recognized he was doing similar things to what I was interested in.

Ahh - well your early videos and his books seem to align very similarly...i guess it was just coincidental that they did.....there aren't many human beings on this planet that know what this stuff is let alone understand what you guys were talking about - which makes it all the more amazing...so basically you interviewing him was simply because he was already well known and established in the spiritual/metaphysical community and you had realized that what you had been discovering via psychedelics aligned with what his own findings on existence were.  Interesting.   Or was this before psychedelics and just meditation?  I know you did meditation for a while before delving into psychedelics..at least that's what your videos revealed.

Edited June 12 by Inliytened1

[Leo Gura]

@Inliytened1 

I learned from dozens and even hundreds of sources, not one. Although Ralston was a juicy one. That interview was before I had my own awakenings.

Edited June 12 by Leo Gura

[Inliytened1]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Inliytened1 

I learned from dozens and even hundreds of sources, not one. Although Ralston was a juicy one. That interview was before I had my own awakenings.

On the shoulders of Giants we stand.  

[CARDOZZO]

@Leo Gura How did you found out about Ralston's work? Books? Blog? 

[Leo Gura]

17 minutes ago, CARDOZZO said:

@Leo Gura How did you found out about Ralston's work? Books? Blog? 

That's actually an amazing story.

I did the 100 questions exercise from my Life Purpose Course, where you write down your top 100 questions you want answers to most badly.

My #1 question was: What is consciousness?

So the next day I went to Amazon and typed in What is consciousness? and Ralston's book was the first to appear. And as soon as I saw its title I immediately knew this was the most serious book on this topic.

And so it was.

That is the power of asking good questions.

Edited June 12 by Leo Gura