Leo's Blog Discussion Mega-Thread

[gambler]

Just now, Rishabh R said:

@gambler If Leo beats us while we memorize his stuff then there would be no learning but rather forcing the teachings on us.

Good point. 

[Rishabh R]

1 minute ago, RendHeaven said:

Not necessarily.

I can overcome fears by "forcing" myself to square up where my "authentic" self would rather flee.

Other people can also help me do this by "forcing" me - for example my male buddies coercing me into approaching the girl I like.

Force IS compatible with authenticity. But it may not be compatible with "authentic learning."

The key word is learning.

Why can't I beat you into learning? So far - your answer is: "you can't beat me into learning because authentic learning can't be forced" - which is a total circular argument.

I agree with you on the principle but we're not showing our work.

I'm asking a deeper question - let me phrase it to you this way - how is the domain of TRUTH independent from and greater than the human domain of coercion? Why does human coercion inevitably fail when it tries to contain the TRUTH?

As per last question. Answer - Because teachings must be realized not thrust upon. If one realized the teaching them it would be brute force memorization not learning.

[Rishabh R]

2 minutes ago, gambler said:

Good point. 

Thanks. I am contemplating while writing the answers.

Edited Monday at 08:49 AM by Rishabh R

[RendHeaven]

12 minutes ago, gambler said:

The truth shouldn’t be something that people develop a bias against because of their disdain to it stemming from its association with their traumatic experiences. This is because you cannot rely on your feelings to get to the truth. All that will do is obstruct you from the truth. So the truth shouldn’t be associated with perverted practices like inflicting harm on a person since the value of truth is beneficial to you. 

"Shouldn't be" is a loaded term, but for the most part your words seem correct.

How does the same teaching become inherently less truthful the moment it introduces traumatic association bias as a method?

i.e. Let's say Leo's teachings are represented as "LT". Traumatic association bias is represented as "TAB."

Why is LT+TAB < LT?

This is not entirely obvious, because LT (leo's teachings) remain constant. Which means that everything he says is still the same in both cases. Both teachings should be equally true, since his words remain the same.

And yet, by introducing truamatic association bias into his teaching methods, the entire teaching literally becomes LESS TRUE even when the words spoken are identical!

This tells us that learning or discovering THE TRUTH is a function of mind that runs deeper than the domain of words and language. You can say all the technically correct words and still be so unaligned with truth. We must then wonder, what is the medium by which we align to truth, if not language?

You said: "you cannot rely on your feelings to get to the truth. All that will do is obstruct you from the truth"

What then, CAN we rely on? What is our truth seeking north-star?

I'm leaving this open-ended on purpose to encourage hopefully diverse flexible answers from different people. There are no right answers here... or is there? I guess we'll find out.

But notice how I would not ever be able to take this attitude if I were beat into cognitive submission from a young age...

[RendHeaven]

27 minutes ago, Rishabh R said:

As per last question. Answer - Because teachings must be realized not thrust upon.

I agree. How are realized answers qualitatively different from thrust-upon answers?

Do you think you can spell out the difference for yourself?

For example, Realized answers:

• self-derived
• felt understanding
• etc. etc. etc.

VS thrust-upon answers:

• absorbed from others
• thought-based understanding
• etc. etc. etc.

There should be hundreds of subtle distinctions here...

If you find the energy to think this through, compare the final list and ask yourself why is beating a child mechanically incompatible with the "realized" list? Why can't I beat you into self-derivation? Why can't I beat you into felt understanding? This seems intuitively obvious but try to spell out why.

Now wonder, what can I do for you to encourage self-derivation? What can I do for you to encourage felt understanding? Maybe make a new list:

Discouraging self-derivation:

• Beating/forcing you
• Memorization
• Judging you against a standard
• etc. etc. etc.

Encouraging:

• Holding space/allowing for individuality
• Originality
• ...?
• ...?
• ...?
• etc. etc. etc.

This inquiry can branch out forever. We can contemplate the results of our list and ask interesting questions like - "Is originality always a virtue? Is it necessarily a truth-seeking north-star? What about people who follow their "originality" and end up in realms of falsehood? How do we correct for that? Do we enforce cognitive guardrails to keep the anarchy of originality in check? But then how is that any better than forcing you to arrive at predetermined answers?

Might be useful to pause and self-reflect here. What's actually happening here? Are we learning? Are we beginning to approach truth by the mere act of reflexive contemplation?

The punchline of course, is that all of this is only possible because we were not beat into cognitive submission...

[gambler]

38 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

"Shouldn't be" is a loaded term, but for the most part your words seem correct.

How does the same teaching become inherently less truthful the moment it introduces traumatic association bias as a method?

i.e. Let's say Leo's teachings are represented as "LT". Traumatic association bias is represented as "TAB."

Why is LT+TAB < LT?

This is not entirely obvious, because LT (leo's teachings) remain constant. Which means that everything he says is still the same in both cases. Both teachings should be equally true, since his words remain the same.

And yet, by introducing truamatic association bias into his teaching methods, the entire teaching literally becomes LESS TRUE even when the words spoken are identical!

This tells us that learning or discovering THE TRUTH is a function of mind that runs deeper than the domain of words and language. You can say all the technically correct words and still be so unaligned with truth. We must then wonder, what is the medium by which we align to truth, if not language?

You said: "you cannot rely on your feelings to get to the truth. All that will do is obstruct you from the truth"

What then, CAN we rely on? What is our truth seeking north-star?

I'm leaving this open-ended on purpose to encourage hopefully diverse flexible answers from different people. There are no right answers here... or is there? I guess we'll find out.

But notice how I would not ever be able to take this attitude if I were beat into cognitive submission from a young age...

Maybe I should’ve used emotions rather than feelings. I just realized I don’t even know the distinction between the two words. But if emotions constitute things like disdain, then using personal disdain for a person or situation doesn’t mean the thing that was attempted to be taught is untrue. 

I have disdain for this person or situation therefore what was being taught must be wrong isn’t a logical claim.

But the reason why it would make Actualized a lower perspective is because Leo, through his actions, is most likely signaling that he believes in the value of using force to conform others into what he wants or into his way of thinking. If true, then there is no wiggle room for Leo to be wrong on making the child do what Leo wants, the method itself, or his teachings. By embracing rigidity as it pertains to his teachings, he is beginning to constrict his teachings into what he believes is best. This new value that Leo seemingly has embraced goes against the core values in his teachings and he has put himself in a self-contradictory position. His teachings are contradictory at best, or at worst becoming constricted to his wants which leaves no wiggle room for him being wrong.  
 

As for the truth seeking star, you can use your intuitive feelings. You can even use your feelings of disgust, but all those feeling have to go through a logical filter to arrive at a truth or falsehood. It can’t simply be I hate you for what you did therefore what you were trying to teach me must be wrong. The truthfulness of what was being taught needs to be assessed free of bias. But you’re right in that, sometimes what we have a bias against, turns out to be false even when assessed without the bias. I’m guessing the next thing you’ll ask me is why is logic good at assessing the truth? 

Edited Monday at 09:54 AM by gambler

[Rishabh R]

29 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

How are realized answers qualitatively different from thrust-upon answers?

1 hour ago, RendHeaven said:

 

Realized answers are of high quality , are love connected whereas thrust upon answers are of non- acceptance of what is . - Which is force.

Love contemplating with both of you . Let's continue.

As per the list - Because it is not understanding and to understand is to love.

Edited Monday at 10:10 AM by Rishabh R

[gambler]

55 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

But notice how I would not ever be able to take this attitude if I were beat into cognitive submission from a young age...

Underrated insight. I can definitely appreciate the problems that this causes. 

[RendHeaven]

29 minutes ago, gambler said:

By embracing rigidity as it pertains to his teachings, he is beginning to constrict his teachings into what he believes is best. This new value that Leo seemingly has embraced goes against the core values in his teachings and he has put himself in a self-contradictory position. His teachings are contradictory at best, or at worst becoming constricted to his wants which leaves no wiggle room for him being wrong.  

This is great. There is something inherently false about rigidity.

The most elegant explanation I can offer is as follows:

At higher consciousness you realize You Are Infinity (regardless of higher or lower consciousness).

You are All. All is Infinity. You are Consciousness. Consciousness = Infinity. Truth is what is. Truth = Infinity.

So for an ideology to explicitly deny exploration or to say that contrarian thinking is "off limits" is anti-Infinity, therefore anti-Truth.

But it's not so simple. Because for someone who hasn't recognized Infinity yet, they are not able to leverage this kind of slam-dunk reasoning.

The trick is how do we falsify rigidity without invoking the "get-out-of-jail-free-card of Infinity?"

There is a delicious epistemic mechanism here where from a position of ignorance, you can only falsify rigidity by daring to go beyond it, forging into the unknown, and looking back at the prison from which you emerged.

But a rigid worldview is DESIGNED to prevent this opportunity for falsification! It is an enslavement mechanism which pretends to be looking out for its captives: "You shouldn't think beyond the confines of this box, because all the wrong stuff is out there! We already have all the truth here!"

But how can you know that without going outside the box? Haha but it wouldn't occur to you to contemplate since all you've ever known is stuff within the box telling you to stay there without exploring. Delicious.

46 minutes ago, gambler said:

As for the truth seeking star, you can use your intuitive feelings. You can even use your feelings of disgust, but all those feeling have to go through a logical filter to arrive at a truth or falsehood. It can’t simply be I hate you for what you did therefore what you were trying to teach me must be wrong. The truthfulness of what was being taught needs to be assessed free of bias. But you’re right in that, sometimes what we have a bias against, turns out to be false even when assessed without the bias. I’m guessing the next thing you’ll ask me is why is logic good at assessing the truth? 

Bias is so key.

I'm curious to hear how you determine whether or not you are being biased.

How do you know when you are being biased vs unbiased?

[RendHeaven]

34 minutes ago, Rishabh R said:

Realized answers are of high quality , are love connected whereas thrust upon answers are of non- acceptance of what is . - Which is force.

Love contemplating with both of you . Let's continue.

As per the list - Because it is not understanding and to understand is to love.

So in short:

Authentic realizations and answers are born of Acceptance/Love, therefore lead to genuine understanding.

Forced/thrust-upon answers are necessarily anti-acceptance (otherwise there would be no need to force them), therefore anti-understanding.

...

Is this distinction something you ideologically absorbed from a teaching like Actualized.org?

Or did you Realize this insight for yourself during contemplation? How do you know the difference?

After all, the moment Leo hands you an insight such as "Acceptance of what is = Love," it's very tempting to just adopt this theory because it just sounds so intuitively correct. But a lot of false concepts sound and feel intuitively correct.

For example, to this day we treat "space" as a static empty void, a sort of linear immovable independent container in which objects reside.

But Einstein’s general relativity showed over 100 years ago that space itself is a dynamic, warping "fabric" which responds to mass and energy (i.e. it is interdependent, nonlinear, flexible, relative - the exact opposite of our intuitions!)

It took a herculean feat of human cognition to break free of and challenge Newtonian dogma (Einstein of course had brilliant mentors that were already paving the path).

Essentially all I'm saying is that no matter how intuitively true something sounds or feels, you still cannot take it on faith. It has to be tested somehow.

So I'm curious in what ways you have tested this notion of Acceptance and Love leading to understanding, because it does smell an awful lot like regurgitated Leo rhetoric. But that's not a bad thing per se, because maybe it's still true! But how would we know?

[gambler]

7 hours ago, RendHeaven said:

I'm curious to hear how you determine whether or not you are being biased.

How do you know when you are being biased vs unbiased?

I don’t think I’m always aware of when I’m being biased. Sometimes I’m aware that I’m biased but I think my biases are good. Other times I know I’m biased, and my biases are bad. 
 

How I’m aware of my biases is from realizing what I’m attached to as well as being made aware of what other people believe.
 

Some attachments that are the strongest I believe are good to have a bias for when assessed for its value. Like having a bias for order. But paradoxically, while I believe this is a good bias to have, being too attached can wreak havoc. To overcome the bias, I can look at past and current events as case studies to learn from. I can contemplate why certain elements within my biases for order is no longer feasible and needs to be discarded. But really what the catalyst is isn’t these things first, it is thanks to the fact that I can learn from what others are communicating with me and assessing the truthfulness of their claims.
 

The portion of my biases that are bad, are made aware to me, again mostly from learning from others, through self-reflection and being open enough to understand where they came from. Like I do have an in-group bias. While I’m aware of it, I acknowledge that I also might not always be aware of when I let it get the best of my judgement. 
 

So I’ve touched upon emotional attachment, lack of contemplation or awareness of other perspectives, lack of relevant data or information/knowledge, not being open-minded, and lack of self reflection into why you hold certain views, as indicators of bias.
 

But I think a good one (indicator of bias) that also relates to me, is I start from a place of belief, or favoritism for something, and then I work my way backwards. Rather than approaching it from a ‘blank state’ and seeing where the evidence leads (lacking evidence is another good indicator of bias too). 

Edited Monday at 05:59 PM by gambler

[Rishabh R]

40 minutes ago, RendHeaven said:

 

Is this distinction something you ideologically absorbed from a teaching like Actualized.org?

No. I have tried acceptance. Incidents from my life - When I am suffering I try accepting my suffering and it paradoxically stops the suffering .

I have tried it more than 25 times and as per my experience even though positive thinking is important but acceptance is a more advanced way to overcome suffering.

[UnbornTao]

Quote

And the Lord said, 'Let there be Parmesano,' and there was Parmesano. 

And He saw that it was grated, and it was good.

(Genesis 1:3)

 

Edited Tuesday at 01:21 PM by UnbornTao

[Thought Art]

 

Edited Monday at 02:35 PM by Thought Art

[ryandesreu]

14 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@Yimpa @ryandesreu

A stick beating for the two of you for being deliberately dense.

Don't be mad because I can teach your teachings without beatings. 😆

[Yimpa]

https://www.actualized.org/insights/the-making-of-the-abyss

Lesson: Genuine hard workers don’t expect anything erect in their honor—they’re busy immersed in building something that stands the test of time, driven by passionate hands-on effort and flow. Their work touches you so deeply that you’re left with no choice but to also take pride in the work that you’re meant to pursue.

[Yimpa]

 

[LambdaDelta]

"The Bibi Files" was awesome. Besides Trump, I can hardly recall seeing such self-biased people in my life. Everything clicks into place now.

What a power couple, huh. Plus the chronically online son whose mind has been terminally infected with ideology, it's like observing the process of turning a human into a robot.

In one of the recordings someone complained about the media not being "fair and balanced", a callback to "what the Devil calls 'fair and balanced' is precisely not fair and balanced". God's being lazy and reusing parts of the script.

 

[Leo Gura]

47 minutes ago, LambdaDelta said:

Plus the chronically online son whose mind has been terminally infected with ideology

Yeah, that was just sad.

Netanyahu's son is a brainwashed Zionist troll.

Shows you the real cost of this whole Israel project.

Netanyahu's son makes Netanyahu look like a reasonable moderate.

Edited yesterday at 12:37 AM by Leo Gura

[The Blind Sage]

@Leo Gura
The slideshow you posted is incredibly useful.
There's plenty of topics you've previously covered that will take decades to deepen my understanding of...I used to go back and skim through the content to review. It didn't work very well because the lectures are so long, you either end up skipping important parts or speeding up the video so much you don't process it very well. I ended up making my own notes

Having the notes you make your talks off of for all episodes would be amazing