Why does Leo seem so certain?

[Scholar]

I have this question that keeps boggling my mind. It seems like with the model of the brain and subjective reality you can explain all of the enlightenment experiences that people have. The fact that losing the ego leads to the mind identifying with all the content it is producing is quite obvious from a "simulation" point of view. And of course it would be the most joyful experience the mind could possibly produce, because it is a limitless expansion, which is all that the human mind is striving for.

I don't understand though how one can trust the mind with the judgement that the truth is that "I am god, god is all there is", because this is clearly the judgement it makes. It immediately takes the new experience, or the newly generated subjective reality, and claims that NOW it knows the truth. Now it knows that ego was illusion, that all form is illusion. Though, it still claims that it is nothingness, it still creates a concept, a map. Without the map in fact it wouldn't even have a reason to be joyful, because it didn't realize anything, all that changes is the experience. As enlightened people claim themselves, they have always been nothingness, but yet they enjoy "knowing" it. And I have this feeling that the knowing is actually another delusion, because it is just more identification. Shouldn't the true realization just be not knowing, to such a degree that one would actually cease to exist completely? So much so that no concepts will follow?

Or is Leo actually dead inside right now, and all the words he is speaking are delusional anyways? Because all concepts must be. I don't know, but it seems like Leo even though he pretends to be skeptical, he actually just believes it. "Direct experience = reality", but that's just another concept, how does he know that it's true?

I don't know if I'm commiting Zen-devilry, but it just makes me more skeptical of Leo's judgement. It's even worse because what I say has to be illusion too, so it cannot be true, that would mean that nothing can be true is actually not true, and that would be paradoxical.

 

I guess what I am saying is that what if the ego gets attached to the experience of "god"? From having had boundaries it just extends itself throughout the entirety of consciousness, so that all experiences are identified as "me". "Oh I'm infinity, I am god! I am all enlightened people!", why is Leo so certain that this conceptual claim is true instead of "Oh, I am my mind, and my mind is all of my reality, all experience is me". It's so weird because from Leo's perspective his claim is actually absolutely true, like from my perspective all of my reality is a product of my mind, so  of course it is all me. The delusion comes in the assumption that the mind is reality, and not just illusion. So the "Oh my GOD, I AM INFINITY" is actually the delusional ego claiming it's own illusion as itself. Sure, you are "infinity", but infinity is just another illusion. So you are not actually infinity, you are nothing at all, and to actually realize that would be to have no experience at all, meaning true death, no joy, no nothing.

But then again non-dual teaching does say that there is no difference between nothing and illusion. I'm so confused, and I do not want to be deluded with fairy tales, even if it is direct experience for me. Right now it is direct experience to me that I exist, so why wouldn't my mind be capable of creating the delusion that I am the absolute, as an actual reality?

Edited January 25, 2018 by Scholar

[Joseph Maynor]

Strong desire to know conceptually for whatever reason.  We all have this too.  But many of us see the trap in it as well.  Don’t identify with thoughts and beliefs as facts, that’s the error.  It’s clinging to conceptual knowing that is the source of this kind of trap.  Now, his motive and reasons for wanting to take this approach is unclear to me.  

Edited January 25, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Elephant]

This is judged by your level of consciusness. I don't think it matters if you understand it or not. Don't get so attatched to the "meaning" of infinity. Notice instead how your mind bullshits the concept of infinity all the time. and notice your egoic reacition towards that. Why does infinity have to have a meaning for you? Why are you attatching yourself so much to it? Just notice the whole lying thought-process your mind makes up. Try going meta.

[Joseph Maynor]

4 minutes ago, Elephant said:

This is judged by your level of consciusness. I don't think it matters if you understand it or not. Don't get so attatched to the "meaning" of infinity. Notice instead how your mind bullshits the concept of infinity all the time. and notice your egoic reacition towards that. Why does infinity have to have a meaning for you? Why are you attatching yourself so much to it? Just notice the whole lying thought-process your mind makes up. Try going meta.

There are no levels of consciousness.  

Edited January 25, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[zazed]

You can never know if someone is enlightened, unless you are able to peer inside their mind and experience what they are experiencing.

In my opinion the mind does not go away, the ego does not go away. These are constructs of this being, identity, in our lifetime, part of our illusion. What happens is a shifting of focus of identity. This is called resting as infinite awareness, and at that moment the mind can utter the illogical words "I am God"
Its wrong, but its really the mind realizing that the inherent nature of all is this God, or infinite awareness, or everyone being one. Which causes the mind to identify itself as that infinite awareness.
When you are able to fully identify as this God being, when the curtains have been fully opened, it does not matter that ego thinks it is itself this God.
God does not diminish in power or glory if I think i am God. I cannot reduce what is the ultimate reality, by assuming its identity, it just is.
Once you pass that threshold, your thoughts or speech are irrelevant.

It's sad that people bicker about such wordings or details.
What is spoken is always from the mind or ego. And as such can be misinterpreted or quoted out of context.
Infinite awareness does not speak. It watches you speak, and thinks nothing of it.

The confusion is, we don't interact with an infinite awareness of God when talking to an enlightened person.
We are talking to an ego that has seen a bright light. And that bright light who once thought he was an ego is now released from that limited perspective.

 

 

[Scholar]

Hm, maybe Leo is just not yet at the "final stages" of enlightenment? Isn't it supposed to go somewhat like that:

I am person

I am

I

Nothingness

So maybe he is at the I stage where he percieves everything as him, so the divinity/god stage of "I"? The next step would then be to truly get rid of the I all together until no actions are taken like some buddhist monks and yogis? I don't know, but I remember someone having said something of that sort.

 

And Leo would probably know about this so... what am I thinking. 

Edited January 25, 2018 by Scholar

[Dodo]

@Scholar New video is up! I'm watching  

[Scholar]

1 hour ago, Dodo said:

@Scholar New video is up! I'm watching  

Yeah I watched it too now, it definitely put my mind to rest about the objections and questions I had!

Edited January 25, 2018 by Scholar

[Leo Gura]

Consciousness of the Absolute is beyond the mind. You're not being asked to trust the mind at that point. In fact, you're conscious there is no mind.

Skepticism takes you to the very edge of the mind, then you go into direct nondual experience, which is beyond mind, beyond concepts, beyond doubt, beyond skepticism.

The Absolute is the end result of skepticism. Skepticism goes full-circle into absolute knowing that everything is unknown being.

No, "OMG, I'M GOD, I'M INFINITY!" is not ego. That's the Absolute. To the outside observer, of course, they cannot tell the difference.

[SOUL]

You are accurate in part, well, just one aspect and not really as you intended but close enough that you may understand more from it.  It's really quite a significant revelation and I may have only realized it because of my own personal autodidact path to awakening.

14 hours ago, Scholar said:

It immediately takes the new experience, or the newly generated subjective reality, and claims that NOW it knows the truth

Because the 'absolute' in it's absolute form is so formless it appears as 'nothing' even though it is anything but nothing, it's the fullness of everything and missing nothing so it has no distinctions to observe in the same way that absolute nothing appears but is absolutely inverted. How one gets to be aware of it's authentic nature is through it's reflection in our consciousness from our personal experience.

This is why no two descriptions of it from different people will ever be exactly the same, similar yes especially if they share common personal experience but it's revelation is as individual as each of us are. Even the way it reflects in us revealing it's nature appears to transform as we evolve mirroring our growth, it's our changing that creates this appearance of change, not it's changing.

This is why I avoid describing the exact details as much as I can, I realize it's such a personal revelation only I will fully appreciate it and it may only serve to confuse others without their own awareness of the absolute.

Does that make any sense?

Edited January 26, 2018 by SOUL

[JustinS]

You know you're dead when you're walking around the block feeling like this. 

 

 

[tecladocasio]

@Mighty Mouse What if enlightment is just a cause of a different activity of the neurons of the brain ? What if all this meditation is just ''brain training'' ? You can't say there's no level of conciousness , a ''buddha'' is one that ''see clearly'' , how you say is not what you experience ? Seems like you just don't know what you are talking and just assuming things in a way that maybe just you understand

[tecladocasio]

@Mighty Mouse why you don't consider what i said ? 

[tecladocasio]

@Mighty Mouse Not what i meant , but ok . I don't know if enlightment is just a ''brain  activity'' , but i don't discart this possibility , what's the point in assuming something that i don't know right now ?

[lens]

@tecladocasio love is also a brain activity, so is suffering, so is being tired, or excited, or brave, or afraid, if by your logic anything that's just a brain activity is "just a brain activity" (as in an illusion )why wouldn't any of them be an illusion? labeling something as "it's just a..." doesn't actually adress the issue of what it is and prevents you from going even deeper.

 

What is pain? oh it's just a chemical reaction,

yeah tell that to yourself when you stub your toe next time, see what "revelation" you will get.

 

enlightment is not about feeling good or all powerful, it's about the truth. When they say "i'm god, i am all there is" it takes time to understand, don't get stuck on thinking what it means when you haven't gotten there yet, when it arrives then go full skeptical, question everything, and even if you end up being wrong in the end, ask yourself, what is the thing that is being wrong?

 

 

 

[tecladocasio]

@lens I don't know if you read my post , but i didn't affirm that anything t is a brain activity and that you can't go deeper into meditation, i just put the question . Yeah I can say that this pain is just a chemical reaction , doens't really help , but neither saying that it is a illusion . But don't make sense for me believing in something that i don't know , i can be interested and investigate , but one thing doesn't exclude the other .

[Nahm]

18 hours ago, Scholar said:

I have this question that keeps boggling my mind. It seems like with the model of the brain and subjective reality you can explain all of the enlightenment experiences that people have. The fact that losing the ego leads to the mind identifying with all the content it is producing is quite obvious from a "simulation" point of view. And of course it would be the most joyful experience the mind could possibly produce, because it is a limitless expansion, which is all that the human mind is striving for.

I don't understand though how one can trust the mind with the judgement that the truth is that "I am god, god is all there is", because this is clearly the judgement it makes. It immediately takes the new experience, or the newly generated subjective reality, and claims that NOW it knows the truth. Now it knows that ego was illusion, that all form is illusion. Though, it still claims that it is nothingness, it still creates a concept, a map. Without the map in fact it wouldn't even have a reason to be joyful, because it didn't realize anything, all that changes is the experience. As enlightened people claim themselves, they have always been nothingness, but yet they enjoy "knowing" it. And I have this feeling that the knowing is actually another delusion, because it is just more identification. Shouldn't the true realization just be not knowing, to such a degree that one would actually cease to exist completely? So much so that no concepts will follow?

Or is Leo actually dead inside right now, and all the words he is speaking are delusional anyways? Because all concepts must be. I don't know, but it seems like Leo even though he pretends to be skeptical, he actually just believes it. "Direct experience = reality", but that's just another concept, how does he know that it's true?

I don't know if I'm commiting Zen-devilry, but it just makes me more skeptical of Leo's judgement. It's even worse because what I say has to be illusion too, so it cannot be true, that would mean that nothing can be true is actually not true, and that would be paradoxical.

 

I guess what I am saying is that what if the ego gets attached to the experience of "god"? From having had boundaries it just extends itself throughout the entirety of consciousness, so that all experiences are identified as "me". "Oh I'm infinity, I am god! I am all enlightened people!", why is Leo so certain that this conceptual claim is true instead of "Oh, I am my mind, and my mind is all of my reality, all experience is me". It's so weird because from Leo's perspective his claim is actually absolutely true, like from my perspective all of my reality is a product of my mind, so  of course it is all me. The delusion comes in the assumption that the mind is reality, and not just illusion. So the "Oh my GOD, I AM INFINITY" is actually the delusional ego claiming it's own illusion as itself. Sure, you are "infinity", but infinity is just another illusion.

So you are not actually infinity, you are nothing at all, and to actually realize that would be to have no experience at all, meaning true death, no joy, no nothing.

That’s your idea of true death. You haven’t experienced it yet, in part, because you’re holding this belief, directly related to holding enlightenment to be only a concept. Both are not accurate, and support and enable the deception of the other.

 

But then again non-dual teaching does say that there is no difference between nothing and illusion. I'm so confused, and I do not want to be deluded with fairy tales, even if it is direct experience for me. Right now it is direct experience to me that I exist, so why wouldn't my mind be capable of creating the delusion that I am the absolute, as an actual reality?

This is likely to trigger some ill emotion, to me that’s good - cause you can be aware of it, which clears it up, and then feels great, but if you’re not interested right now, just ignore my comment here, but......your mind IS totally capable of creating the delusion that you are the absolute! That’s the level of mindfuckery the mind itself conducts! 

“No difference between nothing & illuion”  I would consider, ‘physical reality’ is made of atoms. Atoms are empty. Your mind will hang on to that .0000000000001% of atoms that are not empty. The battle to be won there, is to simply do 4 or 5 google searches into what that .00000000001% is. You’ll arrive at a mind blowing conclusion.

why do you think you exist? 

 

[lens]

@tecladocasioI know, you said 

"I don't know if enlightment is just a ''brain  activity'' , but i don't discart this possibility"                                                             

that's me saying that it doesn't make a difference if it is or it isn't. You said it yourself, one thing doesn't exclude the other, so what is the problem?

Again i'm not saying believe, on the opposite, question it.

Edited January 26, 2018 by lens

[Nahm]

Imagine taking one big step backwards, but your body, brain, and mind stayed where you were standing. Only consciousness took a step back. And then it see’s literally what the fuck is going on here, from outside / behind the entire human experience you were used to. Then you step ‘back in’, and see everything for what it always actually was. Every memory, every thought pattern, every preference, every idea, is know ‘seen’ very different. It’s the oldest, most engrained memories and concepts that are then seen to be the most facinating. Or, what you most knew to be true, was not true, and so now it’s mind blowing. 

[zazed]

@Mighty Mouse Experience is an English word, people often use it. It can be used in many ways, to convey many meanings.
You are using the world itself out of context to prove a point, creating an argument about something i did not even say.
Where did i say: "enlightenment is an experience?"

Enlightenment is not the experience i was talking about.
But a person still has many experiences, and when you are enlightened, the way you experience the world shifts.
You cannot experience what another person is experiencing, as in how they see life, talk, feel think. So you cannot evaluate how that all was impacted by enlightenment. Because of this, you can not measure the change in his experience that enlightenment creates.

You can only interact with external circumstances. You can only interact with your own hearing, seeing, smelling, touching, feeling.
You see Leo's video, and make assumptions based on what you experience alone. It is your own experience that is being judged by yourself. Not Leo's, never even Leo's, because you cannot have Leo's experience, ever.

We are all trapped in our own mind world, to judge another is to judge your own experience of another. It may be totally false, or it may approximate the truth, but there is always distance from the other.