A Theory on Leo’s Consciousness Exploring

[BlessedLion]

I see a lot of back and forth and disagreement between “non dualists” and Leo and what he’s doing/teaching. 
 

It seems Leo has dropped non dual study and teachings and is much more interested in exploring consciousness for its own sake. 
 

The non dualists like Water By The River and Osaid are saying this is going deeper into Maya, Illusion and is thus pointless while Leo is saying they are lost in non dual brainwashing. 
 

I see it like this; the spiritual path of awakening has been laid out and mapped by many mystics and traditions. Many can follow this and realize it (to various degrees) and awaken as much as possible in this life (awakening just being how deeply they are in the infinite stillness or nothingness) 

This is the original wisdom and spiritual path. This is what I and others here (the “non dualists” resonate with) 

Then you have these powerful psychedelics which can show you aspects of infinite mind never before seen or available. 5MEO and other psychedelics are relatively new. And what Leo is doing is basically being a pioneer in this study. He’s like the Lewis and Clark of consciousness. A very cool and courageous exploration. I admire that. 
 

But it’s still mind, it’s still “Maya” albeit fascinating and mind blowing aspects of it. 
 

The question is not whether one is right or wrong but what you are interested in. Why is non duality more “right” than consciousness exploration? 
 

Personally I have no interest in exploring all the nooks and crannies of mind, I’d rather kick it on the beach and soak in the bliss of Being and Master that, and teach it. But that’s my preference. 
 

So let’s appreciate Leo’s exploration and bear the fruits of his insights rather than throw tomatoes at him. 
 

One Love

BlessedLion

[UnbornTao]

This relates to one aspect of your post: You're basically taking hearsay on faith. Whatever's true about anything is whatever's true for itself now. You seem to be fixating on a particular belief system such as non-duality, isms of all kinds, et al. This already undermines true investigation because it is not based on openness but on speculation and wishful thinking born out of ignorance, even by many of the creators/proponents of such cosmologies (ways of seeing the world).

It is not a process and there's nothing you can do about it, except being open now and wanting to get it (contemplation) seem to help.

Remember that Gautama, after having studied various schools of thought and practices, ultimately had to leave all that behind and stand on his own experience. This is already the case even before you've set out to study others.

Edited June 19 by UnbornTao

[What Am I]

34 minutes ago, BlessedLion said:

Then you have these powerful psychedelics which can show you aspects of infinite mind never before seen or available. 5MEO and other psychedelics are relatively new. And what Leo is doing is basically being a pioneer in this study. He’s like the Lewis and Clark of consciousness. A very cool and courageous exploration. I admire that. 
 

But it’s still mind, it’s still “Maya” albeit fascinating and mind blowing aspects of it. 

I think I agree with the crux of your post, but the one wild card is the power of 5meo in particular. You're definitely correct that practically all other psychedelics will mostly just show you the "10,000 things" of relative existence, but 5meo is a consistent revealer of the non-dual reality itself. If used properly, I think it has potential beyond any of the others. It's also an endogenous psychedelic, which probably has meaning that we haven't fully grasped yet.

I saw your recent video about psychedelics, so I'm guessing you already understand this. I'm just reiterating.

If some kind of future technology was aimed at turning on humanity's ability to access these things, I wouldn't be surprised if 5meo was somewhere in the mix as a chemical catalyst.

Edited June 15 by What Am I

[Leo Gura]

The issue is deeper than you imagine:

Nonduality is maya.

Edited June 15 by Leo Gura

[UpperMaster]

@Leo Gura Whats not Maya? How would you be certain that what you think is true isn't an illusion either, I mean the non-dualists were sure their perspectives were true. 

I feel like this is an annoying question ahahaha

Edited June 15 by UpperMaster

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, UpperMaster said:

Whats not Maya?

Consciousness's consciousness of itself.

Edited June 15 by Leo Gura

[Water by the River]

Nonduality doesn't mean Enlightenment. For Enlightenment to happen, Nonduality (or nondual states) have to ripen normally for a looooong time, for most (according to the traditions 100s to 1000s of hours), to get rid off the "Nondual-Realizer"-identity-arisings towards Impersonal Infinite Nondual Being/Infinite Consciousness without any remaining filter/lense/identity. 

 

https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=Nonduality&author=Water by the River

Leo doesn't differentiate between Nonduality and Enlightenment (although most sophisticated meditation traditions do, pretty much all of the more sophisticated Budhdist traditions like Mahamudra, Dzogchen and also Zen - Kensho vs. Enlightenment. A Kensho IS nondual but a looong way from Enlightenment), nor seem to care about the difference. 

His God-Realization is in between mere Nonduality with a nondual-Realizer-Identity and True Enlightenment, see link above. 

Since he can't imagine Enlightenment in any way (if he could he would be enlightened), he happily just throws the baby (Enlightenment) out with the bathwater (Nonduality) and rejoices with "God-Realization". Strange that the God-Realization seems to suck annoyingly often when sobre... but never mind, no problem, no problemo, pas de problème... that Enlightenment is the end of suffering is bullshit anyway, because... hey... it would mean I gotta practice and am not the most you know what.

@BlessedLion Seems you have to be happy with the one-liner or two-liner answers.

Putting Nonduality and Buddhism and Enlightenment together in one box and dismissing all of it is in my view an unsophisticated and reductionistic perspective. But apparently useful for some... 

 

Selling "the flair of spiritual still dark ages by the River"

[Someone here]

@Water by the River I don't know you personally (yet ) but I would enjoy smoking LM blue ™ with you while blabbering about metaphysical bullshit. 

[UnbornTao]

@Water by the River You seem to continue to speak of, and hold, enlightenment as something relative that is comprised of a plethora of distinctions, processes, states, duration, this and that, in addition to continuously using jargon and referencing a lot of external sources. Why? You seem to want to convince others as much as you want to convince yourself.

Clear communication is getting across one's experience as it is, and it is able to stand on itself.

Not so sure you're selling water at all.

Edited June 19 by UnbornTao

[Water by the River]

25 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Not so sure you're selling water.

I know you are not sure about that my friend. How could you? We have not met beyond exchanging mere written words.

Hope you don't mind if I just continue doing what I like, just the way I like doing it.

Selling Water by the River with a truckload of distinctions, states, duration, this or that, and outside sources and jargon. Why? Learned this is the way to do it in school & university. And honestly, I also like it like that. So a kind of hang-over. Delivered also with plenty of songs from my own heart & being, singing in resonance with the joy of Infinite Release and magnificent wonder at the majesty of it all.

Rejoicing in no real urgency being left to convince myself or "others". And just expressing myself and not trying to convince anyone in a grasping way.

Not taking the play in anway anymore serious at all, yet playing it. It truly is all just a play. A play where compassion doesn't truly hurt anymore, and nothing is really needed, yet it all seems to appear.

Who likes this expression is welcome, and who has a different style: Also welcome. And who doubts: perfect, caveat emptor, especially with sellers selling water by the River! 

 

And when all of that is done, I just look in the River, burn all the Sutras, kill Buddha & Alien & entourage, and smile  and rejoice

 

Selling Water by the River ... as I please 

 

[Osaid]

4 hours ago, BlessedLion said:

Why is non duality more “right” than consciousness exploration? 

It's not like that.

There is merit to "consciousness exploration", probably and possibly. But it is ultimately "relative", in that, it is of the intellect. Similar to exploring pizza recipes forever, or exploring basketball forever, or exploring philosophy forever. Pizza, basketball, and philosophy ARE consciousness. The entirety of life is consciousness exploring itself. That never stops happening, it is what you are always experiencing since birth. But enlightenment is its own secular phenomenon, which is fundamentally realizing what your conscious experience is. Not through intellect or understanding, but orbiting outside of intellect and understanding and seeing the limits of intellect and understanding. 

"It" does not happen through intellect or understanding because intellect and understanding are finite/dualistic subsets of experience, which is to say, they are concepts never truly experienced by any entity which is separate from experience. There is no entity which could be separate and accumulate understanding and consciousness of itself, because no one experiences duality/differences/separation in the first place. 

The trickiness with psychedelics is that it radically changes your physical/experiential experience while having the intellect/ego active, and so the intellect co-opts the experience and tries desperately to create its own form of conceptual non-duality, in the form of tautological ideas like "solipsism" and whatnot.

The thing with Leo is that he is making statements about consciousness which are dualistic, that is where the non-dual/enlightened crowd comes in and says: "no, that couldn't be the case."

[Breakingthewall]

3 hours ago, Water by the River said:

Nonduality doesn't mean Enlightenment.

How would you define enlightenment? I would do it like this: reality perceiving itself without obstacles.

nonduality is an obstacle, it says: I perceive everything as one. It is already something, it is an identification, an idea about reality: it is non-dual. is limited 

Enlightenment is deeper, it's not seeing that everything is one, it's seeing what is everything. 

Edited June 15 by Breakingthewall

[Water by the River]

12 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

How would you define enlightenment? I would do it like this: reality perceiving itself without obstacles.

nonduality is an obstacle, it says: I perceive everything as one. It is already something, it is an identification, an idea about reality: it is non-dual. is limited

These are good pointers which you mention.

"I perceive everything as one" is already one I to many. As strange as that sounds. The "I perceiving" is just more clusters of arising sensations taking ownership of another cluster of sensations/understandings of "everything is one". All appearance, all temporary, all illusion, all happening in Infinite Being.

Yet, the impersonal Vastness of Infinite Reality/Consciousness can understand itself. But impersonal. And then, "it" just sees it was always what "it" is (Infinite Being), giving rise to illusions within itself, lending "its" Infinite Consciousness to a mirage/illusion, even if already cosplaying an "I perceive everything as one".

Enlightenment is knowing what one truly is, and what Infinite Reality/Being is. And that is shockingly impersonal. Yet, it can't be any different. "Anything" else would be mortal, finite and changing. Truly formless Infinite Being, eternal always here, One without a second.

[Davino]

 

 

[Breakingthewall]

20 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

 

 

20 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

perceive everything as one" is

yes, I perceive everything as one, and same: I perceive the total depth of existence, the infinity, a perceiver implies a perception.

I cannot say: I am enlightened, but I have accessed states of total openness in which there is no perceiver, there is total amplitude. It is very subtle to arrive at this because the slightest movement of the mind bifurcates it. As you say, it is completely impersonal since there is no perceiver, or the perceiver is the perception . My previous definition maybe was not exact. Reality perceiving itself implies subject. There is no subject, there is total existence, it is not thinkable, it is attainable, and quite difficult btw, just some seconds . But in other hand, once it happened, seems that it's always in back ground 

Edited June 15 by Breakingthewall

[Breakingthewall]

30 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

Yet, the impersonal Vastness of Infinite Reality/Consciousness can understand itself. But impersonal. And then, "it" just sees it was always what "it" is (Infinite Being), giving rise to illusions within itself, lending "its" Infinite Consciousness to a mirage/illusion

Interesting . Where is the difference with god realization?

Edited June 15 by Breakingthewall

[Rafael Thundercat]

We keep tryimg to express the unexpressable

NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE.. Why they didnt send a poet 

 

[What Am I]

11 minutes ago, Rafael Thundercat said:

We keep tryimg to express the unexpressable

NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE.. Why they didnt send a poet 

Maybe it's similar to the four imponderables in Buddhism. Maybe the monks of that time were doing a lot of conjecture, and the rule was made to shut it down lol.

https://buddhist-spirituality.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/FourImponderables.pdf

From the document: "would bring madness and vexation to anyone who conjectured about it"

Edited June 15 by What Am I

[Rafael Thundercat]

19 minutes ago, What Am I said:

four imponderables in Buddhism

A box have 4 sides. If you put a mind inside it, the only limits it see are the 4 sides. Looks like Buddhists also had a lot of "Thinking out of the box" to do

 

[What Am I]

10 minutes ago, Rafael Thundercat said:

A box have 4 sides. If you put a mind inside it, the only limits it see are the 4 sides. Looks like Buddhists also had a lot of "Thinking out of the box" to do

 

That's possible, but I think the point of the four imponderables was that they simply can't be understood conceptually, and to continue to try would be a fruitless exercise that will never lead to a satisfactory result, no matter how many words are used to do it. The rule was likely made to point attention back to the experiential spiritual practice itself, where things like that can be grasped, though in an intuitive way.

Of course, who knows, maybe it is possible to describe those things in words and Buddhism was short-sighted. I don't think so, but I don't know everything.

Edit: I just reread your comment and realized you may be joking lol. I noticed the humor too late.

Edited June 15 by What Am I