Leo's Blog Discussion Mega-Thread

[Yimpa]

You know break your mind.

And so do I.

Edited Wednesday at 11:10 PM by Yimpa

[Nemra]

[Terell Kirby]

9 hours ago, Yimpa said:

Kiwi:

 

LMAO 

[Leo Gura]

5 hours ago, Nilsi said:

Also, just as a sidenote: at 30:30, Jordan Hall shows his cards when it comes to his direct apprehension of infinity - which, in my view, is precisely the hallmark (no pun intended) of someone with a clear understanding of God. He argues, very precisely and clearly, that any attempt to grasp or formalize God is ultimately futile. That moment recontextualizes his Christian framing as just one attempt to gesture toward the ineffable.

I listened at 33:30 and no such thing was said.

But even granting he said it, Jordan does not understand God. He has a nice theoretical abstraction it, which is precisely the danger I am pointing out.

Just because he can speak about God being ineffable does not in any way mean he is conscious of what God is.

And also, notice BTW, how Jordan Hall will now ally himself with the likes of Jordan Peterson and the right-wing thanks to his new Christian identity, showing exactly why mistakes at this level will also spill over into politics.

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Another sidenote: Ken Wilber never makes that kind of move, which is why I’ve never understood why you hold him in such high regard. To me he is just a highly sophisticated ideologue. In contrast, Jordan Hall and Daniel Schmachtenberger clearly strike me as way further along. So I don’t get why Wilber is treated like some sacred cow here.

Wilber doesn't understand that the Dao is ineffable and can't be formalized?

Come on. Anyone in the Integral community can parrot such cliched profoundness.

I'm unsure exactly what Wilber is conscious of, but it seems more than Jordan Hall. But I wouldn't say Wilber is fully conscious of God either. He's conscious of Nothingness which is not the same thing as I'm pointing to.

Wilber is not a sacred cow here. He's just a great philosopher relative to Western philosophers, and guys like Jordan and Daniel owe a lot of their knowing to Wilber and the Integral community. They are like Wilber's children.

Wilber was smart enough not to get seduced into converting to Christianity and then promoting it across the web. So what does that tell you?

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And to be even more heretical - many European philosophers do give this kind of honest signal in their work. Hegel, Nietzsche, Lacan, Deleuze and many others. Yet their work isn't framed around “God-realization” per se. In fact each of them pursues a radically distinct philosophical trajectory, yet at the core of their work is a shared, implicit understanding of reality. Which should give you a real epistemological crisis, if you take what I say seriously.

Nice try but no. There is no crisis for me here. These people did not understand God, with the exception of Hegel.

Their level of understanding of reality is tiny.

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Also, this is exactly Žižek’s point with the cup of coffee without cream:

It’s not what’s explicitly said that reveals one’s true position, but what’s left out. The absence itself structures the meaning. What’s omitted isn’t just nothing - it’s constitutive.

No! Zizek has no clue what God is.

This is intellectual masturbation which is designed to obscure lack of understanding and substance.

Zizek is a perfect example of philosophy turned into bullshit. The issue is not that I don't understand Zizek. I do not fully understand his confused mental ejaculations. The issue is that he would not understand me. See, if I fail to understand Zizek, virtually nothing is lost. But if he fails to understand me, Infinity is lost. That's the difference.

Edited Thursday at 01:31 AM by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

6 hours ago, Nilsi said:

I’m not here to defend or critique Jordan Hall or Christianity - I’ve got no stake in either.

My point is about philosophy more broadly. You said, “the point of philosophy is to understand reality,” and that’s where I fundamentally disagree. Yes, philosophy involves understanding - but the real question is: when does understanding stop being the highest aim, and what could possibly justify putting it second?

I don’t think you need to privilege understanding above all else to live virtuously, do serious philosophy, or engage in good politics. If your highest values are beauty or creativity or whatever you value, chasing pure understanding will inevitably undermine them. There are real trade-offs. I'd be surprised if you'd deny that.

You are correct that in the end things hinge on one's values, and there is no objectively correct set of values. My values are not objectively best, nor would I ever claim that. However, one's choice of values matters a lot in terms of where you'll end up.

Actualized.org is about a certain set of values which are designed to take one to very high places. If you disagree with the values you can find other teaching with others priorities. But, your understanding of God will suffer for it. If you don't care about understanding God, then fair enough. There is nothing I can say to make you care. And yes, there are tradeoffs. Your social life will take a hit. Your career may take a hit. Your family may take a hit. Those are some of the costs, and most people will not want to make those tradeoffs.

But, then they lose the right to speak about God because they know not what they say. If you select your family over Truth, then you lose the right to speak about Truth because your ideas about it will be corrupt.

Any value prioritzed over truth will lead to corruption. This must be the case and people like Jordan do not understand this.

It is not true that placing beauty or love over truth will lead to the same place. It will not. It must end in corruption.

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it's hard to say whether someone “gets” God or not.

Not as hard as you make it sound.

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Those who move on from the pursuit of pure understanding aren’t necessarily lost - they may have reached some profound threshold in their own development and begun exploring new directions

I suggest something deeper is at play. They never even understood the import of pure understanding.

They are lost, but it is their right to be lost.

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So what I’m really getting at is epistemology - how we read and interpret philosophers. I know you gravitate toward thinkers who dwell explicitly in metaphysics, but someone writing literary criticism, or making art, or crafting narrative, might be doing equally profound philosophical work.

No, they aren't.

They are doing much less profound work. But you are right that that's not wrong per se. They just don't know what they are missing.

Yes, philosophers can have smaller aims than God and there is utility to those smaller aims. For example, Vlad Vexler is a great political philosopher but totally clueless about God. Is he wrong? Not really. But also, he cannot even imagine what he's missing. I would never criticize him about his lack of understanding of God because he doesn't pretend to know. Jordan Hall presents Christianity is a valid path towards God. This is where I must come in to say that that is an advanced self-deception.

The reason I exist is to tell people what they're missing, because they don't even know. If a Christian knew how much he was missing, he would drop Christianity immediately. But the mind is so closed that it will never know.

You sorta just have to trust me that something huge is being missed.  But of course you cannot know whether I'm right or wrong. In the end, no matter which teaching you follow, you have to trust that it will lead you somewhere higher than other teachings. There's no way around this problem.

Christainity makes certain claims. I make alternative claims. Who is more right? Only you can figure that out.

Edited Thursday at 01:25 AM by Leo Gura

[Terell Kirby]

8 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

If a Christian knew how much he was missing, he would drop Christianity immediately.

Same goes for humans and human-ness 

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, Terell Kirby said:

Same goes for humans and human-ness 

It's pretty hard to drop humanness. Much easier to drop Christianity.

[puporing]

On 3/25/2025 at 1:12 PM, Eskilon said:

Leo's post was to show people here how Christianity no matter how sofisticated will not lead to god-realization

This is simply false, but you cannot verify it either if you keep holding this belief in your mind and following the group-think here.

Your mind simply cannot ever reach where Christ was by holding this belief that it is not real/of God. It is a self-reinforcing loop.

Edited Thursday at 01:53 AM by puporing

[Terell Kirby]

34 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It's pretty hard to drop humanness. Much easier to drop Christianity.

Cost of Christ identity- 2 peanuts

Cost of God- Mega trillions 

[puporing]

1 minute ago, Terell Kirby said:

Cost of Christ identity Ego Identity- 2 peanuts

Cost of God- Mega trillions 

 

[Thought Art]

18 minutes ago, puporing said:

 

Christ = Ego

[puporing]

2 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

Christ = Ego

One of the many tricks you keep playing on yourselves.

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

Christ = Ego

It's not necessarily ego. It can be a kind of mystical experience.

You can have a mystical experience of anything.

You can have a profound, life-change mystical experience of a rat. It is unreal? No. It is a delusion? No. It's just one manifestion of God.

If all love are rats, God will communicate to you through rats. God will construct a rat paradise for you, where you can swim through an ocean of rats until your heart is full.

Edited Thursday at 02:20 AM by Leo Gura

[Thought Art]

@Leo Gura Yeah, because people who never heard of Christ are known to have Christ awakenings... Right.

When you awaken, or have mystical experience your data base is often mixed into it. That's a tangent or aspect of your ego.

If Christ wasn't a part of your data base, why would you have that?

Also, there are degrees of awakening.

God is infinite.

Christ, is finite aspect of collective and individual ego.

Now, it's all God. That fine! Like, you can't escape that Christ is God. Rat is God. 

I am the second coming of Rat.

Edited Thursday at 02:22 AM by Thought Art

[Leo Gura]

Just now, Thought Art said:

@Leo Gura Yeah because people who never heard of Christ are known to have Christ awakenings... Right.

God will use English to communicate insights to you not because English is some special God-language but because that's the only way into your limited mind.

[puporing]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It's just one manifestion of God.

Well, it's not equal to "rat awakening" or other aspects. It is simply more conscious than everything else. Or I wouldn't be sitting here constantly fighting you guys over it. 

[Thought Art]

@Leo Gura Yeah? I've never had God speak to me personally. My mystical experiences tend to be... more direct.

Mystical experiences are laden with Ego, unless you completely and utterly break through. For example, DMT experiences are far beyond Christ. I can't put DMT into words. But, it's earth shattering when the whole universe folds in on itself and recognizes it's imagining the entire room and starts folding in and out and around into aztec masks and shapes in Hyper HD.

Total non-dual infinity and complete understanding is beyond Christ.

Ever reach that nasty little paradox that you don't exist? Damn.

But, sure there are many mystical experiences for Christians, or any religion. God speaks your language. But those are low level awakenings in my opinion. Awakenings in a dress. That is aspects of ego.

Ken Wilbur speaks of this in "Finding Radial Wholeness". You can have mystical experiences of nature, christ, etc. These are genuine awakenings. But they aren't the highest awakening, like "Pure Taste" or other non-dual states. They aren't God consciousness.

I am humble, I've had awakenings but I am still integrating and developing a deeper maturity and mastery of my consciousness. I know there is still a lot for me to understand. I am really just getting started.

Edited Thursday at 02:31 AM by Thought Art

[Leo Gura]

2 minutes ago, puporing said:

Well, it's not equal to "rat awakening" or other aspects. It is simply more conscious than everything else. Or I wouldn't be sitting here constantly fighting you guys over it. 

Have you had rat awakening?

Maybe rat awakening is tops 

[puporing]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

Have you had rat awakening?

Maybe rat awakening is tops 

Not so much rats, more cats I would say. Cats are pretty close to me.

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

@Leo Gura Yeah? I've never had God speak to me personally. My mystical experiences tend to be... more direct.

But your insights and understanding of God still comes to you in English.

Even when you think, "Oh my God!" on your DMT peak, that's God communicating to you in English.

3 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

But, that's ego. 

Not necessarily. It could just be a medium of communication. Sound needs a medium to reach your ears.