To Leo And Others: On Life Purpose And Mastery Over Nonduality

[Beyond Words]

Leo, your life purpose course is excellent! A couple months after implementing your advice I'm already making more money doing what I enjoy (programming) than I'd have ever expected. 100% worth it.

I have some questions though:

• Can nonduality be a domain of mastery? If so, what kind of life purpose can mastery over nonduality lead to (meditation teacher, for example)?
• What fields can one create big breakthroughs and innovate by mastering nonduality?
• When you interviewed Peter Ralston, he mentioned that more people would be enlightened if they were more open minded and contemplated. Is there any fundamental reason why one couldn't create a technology that would modify humans to have more of those qualities (through gene editing for example) so that we could get almost everyone enlightened? If there are ways, what fields would be best to investigate to create these technologies? The quickedt catalyst for this path seems to be psychedelics, and very few do them let alone for spirituality.

@Leo Gura

Edited May 24, 2017 by Beyond Words
Summoning Leo the Lord :D

[ajasatya]

1 hour ago, Beyond Words said:

• Can nonduality be a domain of mastery? If so, what kind of life purpose can mastery over nonduality lead to (meditation teacher, for example)?
• What fields can one create big breakthroughs and innovate by mastering nonduality?

mastering nonduality leaded me to true peace of mind. everything i do in my life comes from that state. every thought, word and action. every decision, including not to think. my mind is steady and everything in my life have flourished.

• i'm WAY more tender. all my relationships have improved. my sexual life has tremendous quality and i'm being able to heal my parents (slowly).
• i can focus on my professional tasks (mathematics) and inspiration comes naturally and with ease.

1 hour ago, Beyond Words said:

• When you interviewed Peter Ralston, he mentioned that more people would be enlightened if they were more open minded and contemplated. Is there any fundamental reason why one couldn't create a technology that would modify humans to have more of those qualities (through gene editing for example) so that we could get almost everyone enlightened? If there are ways, what fields would be best to investigate to create these technologies? The quickedt catalyst for this path seems to be psychedelics, and very few do them let alone for spirituality.

nobody can be led to enlightenment. one has to follow his very own intuition by using his suffering as his fuel. there's no other way.

[The White Belt]

@ajasatya Is this a claim to enlightenment? or by mastering, do you mean being in the process of mastery?

[ajasatya]

1 hour ago, The White Belt said:

@ajasatya Is this a claim to enlightenment? or by mastering, do you mean being in the process of mastery?

yes, this is a claim to enlightenment. but be careful: most people think that enlightenment makes them special.
i am saying that i am completely healed and that i'm grateful for the life that i have right now.

the guy wants to know what enlightenment entails. and i'm saying that enlightenment entails true happiness.

[Shin]

Quote

yes, this is a claim to enlightenment. but be careful: most people think that enlightenment makes them special.

This is exactly why it's important to realize ourselves, because you can easily trick yourself into thinking you want to be a spiritual guide of sort.
Right now you may think spirituality is the only thing that makes sense, but that is probably because you are in the process of waking up, not because you necessarily want to make it a career.
BUT, IT CAN ALSO BE A TRICK from your mind into not aligning to your life purpose, while waiting for you to realize that you're already enligthened !

The only way to really know if you're highly undecided after many life purpose course is either to have total faith and just follow your intuition, or to realize what you really are.
Which is funny in a way, because both of these options are highly interconnected

Edited May 24, 2017 by Shin

[spinc]

@Beyond Words

Non-duality could probably be a domain of mastery if you actually mastered it (but is it the case?).

I think that Leo's "domain of mastery" concept concerns things you're already comfortable with right now (but correct me if I'm wrong).

I'm also puzzled by this question of facilitating the access to spirituality via (bio)technology. As of today, maybe communication (videos, movies, games...) is more important than pure technology in order to spread the taste for enlightment, and make it eventually trendy.

On 24/05/2017 at 2:42 PM, Beyond Words said:

A couple months after implementing your advice I'm already making more money doing what I enjoy (programming) than I'd have ever expected.

@Leo Gura

In some previous post, I believe that you mentioned that you wanted to pursue a scientific career.
I now see that you also have created a business! Awesome! What is it about? Do you still plan to follow an academic path?

[Leo Gura]

@Beyond Words Here is your answer in one man: http://isha.sadhguru.org/mystic/

[Beyond Words]

@ajasatya How long did it take for you to master nonduality? At what point did you feel like you've mastered nonduality?

Has mastering nonduality negatively affected your relationship to mathematics in any way? As one masters nonduality, I would assume that one would become averse to mathematics because mathematics is "just" comprised of arbitrary concepts (incredibly useful concepts, though).

I sometimes have a hard time engaging in learning programming because I know that everything I'm learning has no significance outside of programming. To me, it's again just layers of arbitrary concepts.  After discovering the idea of enlightenment, the whole field of knowledge, to me, appears tainted with an aura of fakeness and illusion.

 

@spinc A domain of mastery is what you're choosing to spend 10,000 hours on. You can master anything given enough time, regardless of how comfortable you feel with the domain right now.

I don't run my own business (yet), but I'm involved in a startup. I will go to university to study mathematics and computer science, but will also be quick to drop out if I can't align the course with my goals. Being an autodidact, learning from books, mentors and doing seems a lot faster. But no university makes 60k/yr per student telling them to learn on their own, so of course most people don't go the autodidact route straight out of high school.

 

@Leo Gura The work that he and you are doing is incredible no doubt. Many people would be enlightened if they were open minded enough and applied the advice you both teach. But most people hardly let themselves hear the advice, let alone start meditating for 10,000 hours.

As @spinc worded it well, I'm asking if there's anything you've learned that would make the idea of facilitating the access to spirituality via biotechnology impossible. From what I understand, 5-MeO-DMT forces the ego to shut down. That leads me to believe that there are other biological "tricks" that could be developed.

[Scholar]

@Beyond Words

I'm currently reading Mastery by George Leonard, as far as I can tell your definition of mastery differs from what is explained in that book. You don't really master a domain, any domain, you simply become a master of that domain. That means that you have learned to make the path a part of your being, not to have learned absolutely everything about the path. The path is endless, there is no final destination. Mastery is not something you achieve, it's something you become.

As I see it, the thought of achieving mastery is the very problem of climactic anticipation that is contrary to mastery. As long as you meditate to become enlightened, you have not mastered meditation. To master meditation, you need to meditate for the very sake of meditation, and nothing else. Are you capable of meditating every single day for absolutely no reason and benefit, but simply for the same of meditation? You have to become a meditator, not a seeker for enlightenment. Otherwise, once you achieve enlightenment, you'll be done with it. You will not have mastered non-duality, because you have not made non-duality a part of yourself. It'll simply be a nice treat, and from there you will do whatever you want. Whatever you want will not be non-duality anymore, because all you wanted was to achieve it.

I think this is where it becomes difficult to judge what would happen if we just "gave" everyone enlightenment.

Take martial arts for example:

To become a master of any martial art, you need to appreciate doing martial art, martial art needs to become part of your being. To achieve that, you need to develope discipline, patience, humbleness, self-control, consciousness and so on.

Now, if we had a machine that could make everyone a perfect martial artist, what would happen? A master in martial arts will not go around and pick fights with anyone, because mastery required him to develope as a human being. If you get someone to the destination without him having to take the path, he will not be a master, he will simply have aquired a skill. A skill that will be completely worthless because it was effortless to achieve, and furthermore a skill that can now be abused.

A master of non-duality is not someone who is enlightened. A master of non-duality  is someone who made non-duality part of his being, of his behaviour, his thought, his actions, his morals, his entire life. His life is becoming enlightenment, not about enlightenment.

This is the difference between a random schmuck achieving enlightenment and someone like Sadhguru making it his entire life. Enlightenment will not make you a better person, fully appreciating and understanding enlightenment in it's fundaments will. This applies to any path there is. You can be the greatest musician in the world and not have mastered it in any shape or form. Mastery is no skill, skill is a consequence of mastery.

 

The quick fix will probably create more chaos than harmony. You cannot create a soldier simply by giving someone a uniform and weapon. To create a soldier, you need to transform a human being into a soldier. There needs to be a fundamental change, that change will become the soldier.

Enlightenment is the weapon, and the soldier is a master of non-duality. To become a soldier, he has to shoot a weapon at some point, but notice that even if the soldier loses his weapon on the battlefield, it does not mean that he ceases to be a soldier. He infact can use his fist as weapons, if it came to the worst. On the other hand a random person can carry a weapon at all times and not be a soldier for one moment.

I would say that there are few people who are enlightened, but far less that have mastered non-duality. Just as there are countless of people who can fight, there are very few who have mastered any given martial art. 

In this entire context even using the word mastered seems quite silly, because mastery is a path. You can be on the path of mastery right now, and you can spend your entire life on that path. You will not ever have mastered anything, you will simply continue the path of mastery, or not.

A little bit of that problem I see in Leo, and really anyone who is using psychedelics to achieve enlightenment. It really makes it easier, a lot. And that is the reason why you will not fully understand it. Give someone 5-MeO-DMT and he will not have a clue what the hell is going on. Before you take 5-MeO-DMT I'd recommend to become someone who loves to meditate and self-inquire. Once you do, meditation and self-inquiry will not become about enlightenment, but about meditation and self-inquiry. Then you will have a much better time learning it, and once you will be enlightened, you will have a far better understanding of what it even is that is happening. It's very much like someone just suddenly becoming a picasso. That person will not have appreciated the complexity of drawing a simple line, because he never had to draw thousands and thousands of lines. There will be no difference to him, he will not see the subtlety. The same goes for psychedelics. It's a boom, a quick fix. I don't know Leo, but maybe if he was honest with himself he would see that he takes these psychedelics because he is impatient? If simply being enlightened is a goal then that's not a problem, but if he wants to understand enlightenment more fully then he will need to go the hard, long path. It might even be too late now, because he already had the expiriences. He might not be capable of going back to less consciousness states, and thus might not ever see the mechanics unfolding as the mind becomes more conscious? I do not know, but that would be something to comtemplate on, especially because Leo's path is so young.

 You will not even be able to fully appreciate the destination if you are not aware of the complexity of the path. A simple breath, a simple thought, or even a bird twitching in the trees can be revealed to have infinite complexity. For you, a bird twitching in the trees is simply a bird twitching in the trees. The one who has spend thousands of hours focusing on the twitching of birds in the trees, will know that every single twitch is absolutely unique. He will know the differences, the qualities, the complexities of tweeting, and he will recognize that he will never appreciate the full, infinite complexity of even that simple thing.

 

Why I wrote this post:

I am currently in a mood to write something, and that's what I did. I enjoy writing about what I have learned, even though I know that what I have learned might not be correct. What I wrote I did out of a feeling to wanting to correct someone elses assumptions. I still feel the need to share my knowledge, and I do not spend enough time implementing it. I value my opinions too much and care too much about expressing them. I actively looked for an oppurtinity to teach someone even though I am not yet knowledgable or wise enough to do so.

I also feel a need to challenge Leo, to have him confront my ideas.

Edited May 28, 2017 by Scholar

[ajasatya]

5 hours ago, Beyond Words said:

How long did it take for you to master nonduality? At what point did you feel like you've mastered nonduality?

less than 1 year. in the beginning i would practice mindfulness intentionally 24/7. it required a lot of effort to stay present. but after a few months, the practice started to live in me and i wasn't doing it anymore. it was doing me. and it became completely effortless until this very moment.

5 hours ago, Beyond Words said:

Has mastering nonduality negatively affected your relationship to mathematics in any way? As one masters nonduality, I would assume that one would become averse to mathematics because mathematics is "just" comprised of arbitrary concepts (incredibly useful concepts, though).

I sometimes have a hard time engaging in learning programming because I know that everything I'm learning has no significance outside of programming. To me, it's again just layers of arbitrary concepts.  After discovering the idea of enlightenment, the whole field of knowledge, to me, appears tainted with an aura of fakeness and illusion.

be careful not to fool yourself for an enlightened one works happily for his own living. i am a mathematician and i could be anything else. chop wood, carry water.

be more sincere towards what you want. and by being sincere i mean go for it. if you want to live like a monk then do it. if you want to program then do it. as long as you don't practice any kind of violence, mastering nonduality has nothing to do with the role you play. it's exactly the opposite: knowing that you're not the role you play.

when a man embodies truth, the result is the practice of all virtues. ask yourself if you're not letting yourself be filled with laziness.

[Beyond Words]

@ajasatya wow! If I understood correctly, you've reached enlightenment after a year of 24/7 mindfulness practice?

I will do the 24/7 mindfilness thing too then. Can I start this like any other habit (e.g. doing it and waiting 60 days until I start another habit), or do you think it is better to wait longer before starting another habit (say like 90 days)? It just seems like integrating this practice may take a lot more willpower than conventional habits.

[Leo Gura]

Lol, you ain't gonna master shit in 1 year. Least of all nonduality.

[ajasatya]

14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Lol, you ain't gonna master shit in 1 year. Least of all nonduality.

why would you tell people they can't do something? how is that inspiring? the guy is motivated to engage in a 24/7 mindfulness practice so let him master his own life. when people ask for help, it's usually because they already have enough people around them saying stuff like you just said.

[ajasatya]

1 hour ago, Beyond Words said:

@ajasatya wow! If I understood correctly, you've reached enlightenment after a year of 24/7 mindfulness practice?

I will do the 24/7 mindfilness thing too then. Can I start this like any other habit (e.g. doing it and waiting 60 days until I start another habit), or do you think it is better to wait longer before starting another habit (say like 90 days)? It just seems like integrating this practice may take a lot more willpower than conventional habits.

yes it's extremely challenging. but it's also extremely exciting because you're doing it for your own health.

i recommend (because thats how i began) finding a sangha to practice with. for me it was every monday at 8pm. then mondays became the best day of the week. and then i carried the practice with me throughout the day. so choose one day of the week and organize yourself in a way that you won't miss it. constancy is more important than spending many hours in one meditation session every month.

[stevegan928]

@ajasatya so did you start the 24 hour mindfulness on only mondays? 

after reading your post i was thinking a good way of doing this would be to start trying half a day a week, then next week a whole day, then 2 days ect until you're doing it 24/7. or at least having the 24/7 intention because i'd imagine it'd be extremely hard to not get distracted by something and become unconscious at many points throughout the day. considering it happens to me even in stillness.   

[ajasatya]

@stevegan928 no. on mondays i started to practice zazen in a sangha only at night. then, after a few weeks, i started to remember the intention to practice meditation in random moments. these moments became more and more frequent so i started to meditate while doing other things. and then there was one point where the meditative state was my natural state and i was able to reach celibacy very easily.

[Leo Gura]

On 5/28/2017 at 2:37 PM, ajasatya said:

why would you tell people they can't do something? how is that inspiring? the guy is motivated to engage in a 24/7 mindfulness practice so let him master his own life. when people ask for help, it's usually because they already have enough people around them saying stuff like you just said.

Because it's setting a stupid expectation based on arrogance and delusion, promoting further arrogance and delusion.

You can practice mindfulness 24/7 all you want, but don't tell yourself you're gonna master this field in 1 year, or even 10 years. You won't! Not even close.

23 hours ago, Fidelio said:

How does one master something that is innately them already? How long does it take a cat to master being a cat? Does a flower need to practice blooming? Kittens hit the ground running and flowers just bloom--there is no mastery involved. There is no mastery required for us things which walk on two legs and make funny noises either. We were just too clever for our own good and forgot who we were, and now we just need to remember...

Don't get cute here. You master it by doing, not by bullshitting yourself with cute neo-Advaita phrases about cats and blooming flowers. When someone comes and rapes your mother, let's see what tune you sing then. Let's see how enlightened you are then.

You have no idea yet how much work it will take.

You are a human being, not a cat. Cats aren't doing mastery. If you want to be a slob and sleep for 75% of the day, follow the cat's example.

[Shin]

Leo is probably tricking all of you right now.

If he isn't, it's still good negative feedback :3

 

 

 

Edited May 30, 2017 by Shin

[Leo Gura]

Do it your way. But the proof will be in the pudding. You've been warned.

Look at all these Zen devils in the making... sigh...

[Beyond Words]

@Leo Gura Mastery takes 10,000+ hours no doubt. @ajasatya 's results and how he achieved them just interested me.

The real purpose of this thread was more to ask you and others who are considerably more experienced in consciousness work, to evaluate potential ways to accelerate the advent of collective enlightenment through technology.

I tried LSD and it got me meditating for 2 years now. These catalysts are great, if people actually used them, let alone for spirituality.

Some examples of what I mean include LSD and 5-MEO-DMT. Potential tech could be stuff like a brain computer interface to help with self inquiry etc or CRISPR gene editing tech to, for example, get people to be more naturally contemplative (although I'm not sure yet how society would react to using such tech).

I'm just dedicating my life to this so I want to know if at some fundamental level this is a fruitless endeavor.