Are Trolls Real?

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, Juan Cruz Giusto said:

@Leo Gura Maybe. But also, maybe, it's just the case that I don't like your way of explaining the world... Many spiritual masters don't talk about the matter in this way and I just prefer their descriptions... Nothing personal though.

A) Many spiritual master DO talk about it in this way.

B) Those who don't, often don't because they know if they did, your ego would have exactly the same negative reaction exhibited in this thread.

Do you guys understand why spiritual masters aren't direct with you? Why they play coy? Why this stuff is kept esoteric and secret? Because you will burn them at the stake as witches if they told you the truth of what they know. Not to mention that you wouldn't attend their retreats, buy their books, or fawn over them like an Ekhart Tolle groupie.

The Truth, as it turns out, is a very radical and threatening thing. Yes! Even to YOU!

There is a big difference between understanding nothing and understanding Nothing.

[Juan Cruz Giusto]

23 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The only difference is that you're conscious that the substance of everything is nothing.

It's definitely not a nothing we can conceive of... 

"The Nothing that I refer to has no opposite; it is the nebulous source." "

"The world of objects is limited, Nothingness is not."

"Absolute Nothingness, on the other hand, is limitless, pregnant with infinite potential."

Those are all quotes from God is Nothingness. 

Obviously our reality is an illusion, in reality is Nothingness or Nothing. Okay, this is in an Absolute way. But to say that trolls are as real as the tree is non-sense. One is conceptual, imaginary or what have you and the other one has an existence outside of the personal mind. Just because they are the same in the Absolute sense doesn't make them the same in the relative one. The exist in different levels...

So, are Trolls real? In Absolute Nothingness, as real as I am. In the world of objects, yes, as a conceptual activity.

 

 

Edited August 17, 2017 by Juan Cruz Giusto

[Joseph Maynor]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

A) Many spiritual master DO talk about it in this way.

B) Those who don't, often don't because they know if they did, your ego would have exactly the same negative reaction exhibited in this thread.

Do you guys understand why spiritual masters aren't direct with you? Why they play coy? Why this stuff is kept esoteric and secret? Because you will burn them at the stake as witches if they told you the truth of what they know. Not to mention that you wouldn't attend their retreats, buy their books, or fawn over them like an Ekhart Tolle groupie.

The Truth, as it turns out, is a very radical and threatening thing. Yes! To even to YOU!

There is a big difference between understanding nothing and understanding Nothing.

I also think it's good to have people think through the stuff for themselves too or else they just take the scaffolding and turn it into beliefs.  So, it is tricky when you give people scaffolding and they don't know how to treat it.  I can see how a master would be cautious about that because beliefs are the very thing that need to be put into question.  I appreciate the scaffolding though.  But it takes a certain kind of awareness to not turn the scaffolding into hundreds of new beliefs clung to for dear life -- which can set a person far away from non-dual being.

[Key Elements]

9 hours ago, Juan Cruz Giusto said:

They exist in different levels.

Well, in a sense, yes. There is the Absolute Truth which is the nothingness / everythingness. And then, there is earth phenomenon which is life as we know it. Then, there are different layers/levels of heaven and hell phenomena. It's funny how sometimes the different phenomena intermingle.  Maybe that's why they're talking about trolls.

Troll phenomenon:

Let me add, life is a school. Leo's blog talks about it. Looks like we better graduate from this life first. Don't forget to factor in karma.

[Guest username]

I have some questions:

1) It seems there's an assumption with many people in this thread that a hallucination can't be self-consistent or have rules. Why is that the case? 

2) How do we know trolls(or other entities) are a conceptual construct, as many suggest? How do we know psychedelic experiences aren't actually allowing us to percieve different aspects of reality that can't be percieved with the means (ordinary states of consciousness, lab equipment, etc.)? 

I am not taking any side or arguing for any case, but I'm curious how people know/think what they do and what they are talking on these matters with such certainty.

 

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I also think it's good to have people think through the stuff for themselves too or else they just take the scaffolding and turn it into beliefs.  So, it is tricky when you give people scaffolding and they don't know how to treat it.  I can see how a master would be cautious about that because beliefs are the very thing that need to be put into question.  I appreciate the scaffolding though.  But it takes a certain kind of awareness to not turn the scaffolding into hundreds of new beliefs clung to for dear life -- which can set a person far away from non-dual being.

Yes, for course, a master would never talk about Trolls, cause you'd call him fucking crazy. Masters withhold a lot. But that is not my style. I like to spill the beans and let people deal with it. I like to be provocative.

Calling it "nothing" gets one reaction out of people. Usually a nonchalant reaction. (Because the signficance hasn't been registered yet.)

Calling all of reality a hallucination gets a totally different reaction out of people. Usually one of "What the fuck???!!!! Nooooooo!!!!!!!!!"

They both mean exactly the same thing. But the problem is, it takes a long time for people to make all the interconnections and trace out the absolutely mindblowing consequences of nonduality. Yes, it's all a hallucination. How else could you transcend death? How else could you attain eternal peace? Only by realizing all is hallucination. If there was anything real, you would be a slave to it. There could be no liberation.

The word "hallucination" is actually very precise. A hallucination is defined as an appearance without substance. That's what everything is, appearance with nothing behind it. That is mysticism 101. Or idealism 101.

If it is palatable, it's because you're still steeped in the naive realist paradigm. It's a really hard one to shake.

Of course the ultimate nature of reality isn't even a hallucination. It would be most accurate to call it: undefined. But "hallucination" gives a better sense of what it feels like. Of course all words are merely metaphors. Each one of you could have different metaphors you favor.

[Key Elements]

@Leo Gura ok...cool Trolls. 

So, if we die, do you want to become Absolute Infinity or Troll?  lol

Just a thought, ok?

[electroBeam]

4 hours ago, Maxx said:

There are countless examples. He would put his hands into a campfire and say: "Hey look, it is just a hallucination. Nothing happens to the hand." Or he would jump off a skyscraper saying "So what? It is just a hallucination anyway."

im aware that pacman is a hallucination, but that doesnt mean people go " oh pacman is a hallucination! im going to run into the ghosts because it doesnt matter"

[Lord Bwyra]

16 hours ago, Real Eyes said:

The problem here is that this is a completely groundless belief based off of nothing but your own hunch.  You have no way of knowing if somebody like the Buddha, or Jesus, or whoever was enlightened.  A more rational view would be to not take either side of the argument.  But to state matter-of-factly that there is no such thing as permanent enlightenment is a logical fallacy.

Please explain to me how not being convinced of something being true is a logical fallacy.

I also don't think Lord of The Rings is true besides being a cool story with some good morality lessons thrown in.

Are you gonna tell me that the rational approach is to not deny LOTR as true nor false because there's no way to know?

Does not the burden of proof lie on those making the extraordinary claims?

In this case "permanently englightenment" being as extraordinary as it gets.

So do you (or anyone) have any proof that this kind of permanent mental state or shift exists? Or do you just have some new age best selling authors like Echart Tolle saying he was really depressed and then saw some light and felt completely free, sat on a bench for 2 years and wrote The Power of Now?

Or could it be that he was suicidal and financially broke and just came up with a cool idea for a business?

How do you decide which is true?

Maybe you saw him give a talk or met him. Maybe he radiated with such charisma that you thought there's something special there. I have never felt that from anyone besides just some people who are really kind like my dog.

I think this is just some hero worship thing and why people go crazy when they see Brad Pitt or teenagers screaming at a Justin Bieber concert.

But don't forget that there are people who can pretend to be other people and get awards for it, it's called professional acting.

There are also people in this world who are extremely intelligent at manipulating others. Some even start religions like L Ron Hubbard and make billions in the process. That's all business too.

And there are drugs you can take to make you appear as anything you want. How do we know all these spiritual gurus weren't just on some good psychedelics every time they were around people?

Were they ever tested?

Yes in india, they did some bullshit  blood tests on some gurus but this is as valid as that guy who went to study eskimoes and decided that because their teeth were bad, our modern diet is bad... lol (Weston Price).

He turned that into a successful business too.

Because if all you have is some "i once knew this guy who knew this guy like hundreds of years ago" + a few thousand years of history, bad translations and some guys talking about it on the internet, sorry but you're gonna have to do better. None of that is evidence.

Wouldn't be accepted in court or in any scientific peer-reviewed study.

Every time I take LSD i always have this point where I say to myself "so this is what those spiritual books are talking about".

And then the trip wears off and it's back to the daily grind

Again, I do think one can behave in enlightened ways, acts of kindness, love, empathy, etc. But that's all.

Buddha, Jesus, those have come to resemble the part within all of us that is living in a harmonious way with reality. But the men behind those avatars were just regular guys who jerked off, got angry and took drugs to feel better. Behind the scenes that is. Yet they were great business men. We all have to pay the bills right?

But most of these so-called enlightened gurus don't even do that. They just hide away in their castles and release some books and courses now and then meanwhile, people on the internet squabble about who is enlightened and who is not. It would be so easy for any of them to face the media and say, study me. Take me apart. They don't. None ever do that.

This is all just philosophy. All of us expressing our ideas, trying to outwit each other. Saying things like "cmon guys, this is basic shit" never takes a discussion anywhere. What are we supposed to say "oh sorry master, forgot... yeah, okay yes yes back to the advanced stuff".  lol

There's no ego or self in philosophy. It's just ideas being dissected and trying to make sense of the world with logic and reason. The problem is that none of us are philosophers so it's all a bit pointless. But we do have experts trained in this stuff for 10 years. And of course scientific studies that we can check on to see what we do actually know besides some guy who is good with words on the internet.

Spirituality is all ego bullshit subjective wuuwuu new age nonsense meant for people who are obsessed with their own egos. It's a dangerous path. Zero productive value to society, humanity or planet earth.

Taking drugs is not spirituality, it's just playing with one's brain chemistry without all the growth needed to get to those states in a more natural way that involves community, service and often times some not so pleasant activity (eg. yoga).

And I know some clever people can now disprove everything anyone says and just call it hallucination or some bullshit. That's just cowardly.

It's really easy to think that enlightenment is real when you take drugs.

It's just a trip.
Entertainment.

Nothing more, nothing less.

*************


I have to admit, I really have a huge problem with people who claim to believe shit that they clearly don't. And then say things like it doesn't matter what I believe. Or that it's all a hallucination and that every word means the same as every other word.

Then why use words at all?

Just live in a cave.

Stop using all this technology created by science and capitalism and artists and innovators. If anyone is enlightened, it's those guys.
Stop practising morality since everything means everything and nothing and blablablaaa...

What have your spiritual salesman heroes produced?

Why don't you practice what you claim to believe in?


Until you do, it's just words and bullshit and psychedelic trip stories and people trying outwit each other by saying my god is better than your god. This has been going on since humans left the jungle. And people die for it.

It's a dangerous path.


There are some great thinkers out there researching this stuff professionally. For example this book that's coming out next year.


****

Would be cool if we can somehow have this kind of conversation so that we are figuring this shit out together. Everyone is just spewing their own nonsense at each other. It feels like war. Fear and greed and violence.

I'm gonna go meditate now and go back to not knowing anything and seeing what happens when I do that.

Spiritual Kindergarten

[Bas]

There are a lot of long essays in this thread where people share mostly their experience of what they read or heard somewhere..

The point isn't whether trolls are 'real' or not or that someone calls egoic consciousness a hallucination. The point is how much it upsets you when someone makes such a statement; it shows attachment. Sometimes a lot of it.

Leo's approach I feel is very masculine, direct, and humorous. I like that most of the time, Leo made me love getting upset! Sometimes however there are periods where I need a more Matt Kahn approach for example, I think that's ok. And sometimes I like to find new spiritual teachers just to see if they can upset me because they share a view that conflicts with my idea of how spirituality or reality or enlightenment should be like.

This work is about undoing your tight grip on the beliefs you think up; letting go; surrender.. whatever. It's not about having the right belief. (Of course some beliefs are more 'helpful' than others.) This feeling in your tummy of being upset is a good guide, it takes some humbleness to accept that your tummy is some times more wise than the almighty brain though! 

[RichardY]

Is this kind of like Shallow Hal or Toy Story? Maybe something like Jungian Archetypes. It's not just the "word" or the "game" Troll or even God. But an actual embodiment of a living personality within and without a person. The Beatles and Steve Jobs were kind of successful or Socrates and his Daemon(or Troll). I guess the dynamic plays out at more local levels, flying witchdoctors. "When the Cat is away the Mice will play."

[Little Plant]

BTW: We have trolls in Denmark, but the troll population is larger in Iceland and Lapland. The Shaman Organization of Denmark write a whole lot about it on their webpage.

Small troll figures (Gjøl-troll) like these are widely popular in Danish history and pop-culture and is being sold as High End Consumer Products as well. Trolls have rich history and they still do. Why? Because they have existed and they still do. 

A Danish self-proclaimed troll-expert Henrik Jensen say they come out at night, and other cultures have similar underground beings as well. 

WE KNOW SO LITTLE about all the beings we are sharing this Earth with. But it's gonna demand much more consciousness and respect for Truth than the western culture is at right now, to be able to come in contact with these beings.. 

 

[Real Eyes]

7 hours ago, Lord Bwyra said:

Please explain to me how not being convinced of something being true is a logical fallacy.
 

This is different than what you said the first time.  I don't think you should be convinced of something being true until you experience it.  But you should also not claim it is "total bullshit" either, unless you somehow have unrestricted access to the minds of all the alleged enlightened people that have ever lived.

[Little Plant]

@Lord Bwyra @Heart of Space @Maxx

 

https://www.actualized.org/insights/rethinking-hallucination 

 

Be aware of the NAIVE PARADIGME you are believing so firmly in

Rethink hallucionation, if not possible then NO WORRIES it will be OBVIOUS at one point maYBE NOT - UP TO YOU 

[Lord Bwyra]

@Real Eyes Fair enough. But I honestly do remain skeptical of the anti-rationalist viewpoint which is really a tautology as I tried to explain earlier (ie. to comprehend anything or make sense of so-called intuitive experience requires some sort of analytical reasoning to decipher meaning from.

@Little Plant I honestly have no idea what you are talking about. Perhaps it's time to lay off the bong for a bit bro.

[Joseph Maynor]

Yeah.  You gotta watch out for the positive claims in non-duality because anything said in language is not the Truth.  So, when people make positive claims about non-duality I always cringe a little.  It sounds a little dirty to my ears.  Because you can say you only take the beliefs as scaffolding, but the ego really does form a spiritual identity or spiritual ego that we gotta acknowledge and look into.  I've been worried about this issue for a while.  Sure, enlightenment is great at destroying beliefs, but it doesn't do much to advance beliefs.  No beliefs follow from non-duality.  That seems to be the doctrine, yet to be consistent even this claim would have to eat itself.  I get solace and results from practicing the yin aspects of enlightenment in my life though, and they counterbalance my more masculine yang qualities.  Even if enlightenment is flawed it would still be worth it to explore it because you look at reality more than you ever would otherwise.

Edited August 18, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Heart of Space]

18 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It doesn't matter what I believe.

I've experienced nonduality.

But, do you experience it now?  No?  You experienced it on drugs, right?  Yep.

I'm just curious when you're going to have the realization that psychedelics simply just make you into a temporarily insane person that misinterprets reality.  The misinterpretation is usually heavily influenced by what idea's you surround yourself with, which happens to be existential spirituality.  

I've seen it before Leo, tons of times.  Experienced it too.  Just don't be too disappointed when you're tripping one day and you realize that you're just really, really high and you're not actually experiencing what you think you are.  It tends to be a disappointing moment for most people, it was for me years ago.  

When it happens, just remember that even though there's a lot of wu wu bullshit, there's still a lot of important work to do in spirituality.  It's got a lot of profoundly beneficial aspects to it in a pragmatic sense.  

Edited August 18, 2017 by Heart of Space

[Little Plant]

@Lord Bwyra I know you don't.  Ima girl and I don't smoke bongs, was that meant to be offensive? try again. 

[Heart of Space]

1 hour ago, Little Plant said:

@Lord Bwyra @Heart of Space @Maxx

 

https://www.actualized.org/insights/rethinking-hallucination 

 

Be aware of the NAIVE PARADIGME you are believing so firmly in

Rethink hallucionation, if not possible then NO WORRIES it will be OBVIOUS at one point maYBE NOT - UP TO YOU 

No, no.  I'm not believing firmly in shite, baby cakes.  

Leo and others are affirming with seemingly 100 percent certainty that there is no external reality and it's all a complete hallucination.  Now, I think after it's been explained further the issue with the word was partly semantic.  But, what I still have an issue with is the fact that there is a consistent, deterministic reality that is corroborated by experience over and over countless times.  This is evidence of an external world in some form, even if it is not as it appears directly to our senses.  I don't claim to know if there is an external world, but I'm very open to the possibility.  I'm only against the position that completely disregards any possibility of a consistent  external reality in any form.  It's coming across as a bit dogmatic.  

[Real Eyes]

16 minutes ago, Heart of Space said:

But, do you experience it now?  No?  You experienced it on drugs, right?  Yep.

I'm just curious when you're going to have the realization that psychedelics simply just make you into a temporarily insane person that misinterprets reality.  The misinterpretation is usually heavily influenced by what idea's you surround yourself with, which happens to be existential spirituality.  

I've seen it before Leo, tons of times.  Experienced it too.  Just don't be too disappointed when you're tripping one day and you realize that you're just really, really high and you're not actually experiencing what you think you are.  It tends to be a disappointing moment for most people, it was for me years ago.  

When it happens, just remember that even though there's a lot of wu wu bullshit, there's still a lot of important work to do in spirituality.  It's got a lot of profoundly beneficial aspects to it in a pragmatic sense.  

I haven't read Rick Strassman's "The Spirit Molecule" yet, but I recall hearing that participants in the study with no knowledge of what to expect reported similar visions etc.  Perhaps somebody who has read it can chime in.  If this is indeed the case, that is some evidence against your claim here of there being nothing substantive to these visions. Not decisive evidence, but evidence nonetheless. 

And if you refute the validity of this line of thought by saying that maybe their shared culture is the reason they had similar experiences, I can't really buy that, because there are countless things they could be thinking of as part of the shared culture, why would this handful of things repeatedly come up in visions?