I like some Leo's ideas, but I still feel he's shady

[brugluiz]

4 minutes ago, outlandish said:

@brugluiz You raise some very good points, but calling Leo "shady" is a bit harsh. Clickbaity title worked though! 

He's got a lot to offer, pretty remarkable and unique teacher really - Leo goes deep! But his vibe isn't going to work with everyone all the time. As with any teacher/leader, it's important to not put him on too much of a pedestal, and just learn what you find useful from him, what fits, and don't expect him to be the one all encompassing teacher that is perfect in every way for what you need.

I think in the end, you are your own perfect teacher is yourself. It sounds cliche or pithy, but it's really true. No one knows your situation better than yourself. Great teachers like Leo can only help point you along your way. Sounds like you don't have any problems with that, obviously you're thinking independently here

Thank you for the answer, @outlandish.

It's important to understand that I'm not calling Leo "shady". It's just a feeling I had and I don't always trust my feelings.

I got it. If we put Leo on a pedestal, we start to separate ourselves from him.

[Consept]

Yeah it's an interesting one, I definitely get the vibe op is talking about. I don't think it's an issue unless Leo's vids are all you're watching, which he himself wouldn't recommend. 

When I watch Mooji, Sadhguru and others there does seem to be a warmth about them, but Leo's style is different, but they may resonate more with certain people and may put off certain people, but there are tons of teachers out there and I think the best thing is to absorb as much info as you can. For me Leo is great at getting the information across but his presence is not yet at the stage of Mooji yet, but that's ok, Mooji may not have as much practical info as Leo. 

So the main thing is take what you need from every teacher in your life but dont expect one to give you all the info 

[Athena]

I find it funny how leo, teal and Eckhart always laugh mid sentence , almost like "this shit is too simple it's hilarious" 

[Samra]

Teachings are the important part, not the teacher. Real Teachers are vehicles of knowledge and truth. When someone points at the moon, one should look at the moon, not the pointing finger. Some people are trying hard to learn about Leo as a person. But I think you should respect his privacy and instead focus on yourselves. Learn what you can from the class. It's like you are following your high school teacher or university professor around after school. It's weird and creepy.

[Leo Gura]

Teachers have different styles. This is why its good to study hundreds of different perspectives. Each one will expose you to some new facet that the other ones didn't.

Teachers place different emphasis on things due to their unique personality, cultural background, path through life, and even their gender or level of testosterone.

Never expect one teacher to explain everything to you. It just isn't possible.

In a sense, finding a teacher who you resonant with perfectly is bad because then you will tend to blindly accept what he/she says without thinking for yourself or considering other sources.

Focus more on grasping what is being taught in your direct experience rather than daydreaming about or judging the teacher.

The teacher you resonate with very much depends on what your particular needs are at this moment in time. In a few years, as your needs change, so will your teachers -- if you don't commit yourself to worshiping just one.

My teachings are definitely not complete, and definitely contain some mistakes and shadow. This is not a problem so long as you think for yourself, make use many sources, and do your reading. Just listening to me is not enough to succeed in this work.

[Middleway]

Congratualations on your learning progress, I have also learnt a lot of things from Leo's videos eventhough I'm a buddhist, I would say that a lot of his teachings are quite similar to what I used to learn through my religion like; everything is nothing, love, hate, pain, depression and happiness is all just temporary and you could not hold on anything in your life (even your life), life is really nothing and if you can understand that, your ego and all burdens in life will fade away and you will also be more concious. However the way Leo teaches is very powerful and convincing in changing my behavior/thinking (and maybe yours too). I would say that you can still enjoy life as usual, the thing is now you have more awareness and that's a good thing, however you may try to think and act moderately as you are still in a stage of a normal person life (not a monk) and not fully into 100% enlightenment way as Leo or other monks/practioners, the ways they practice may lead to nirvana stage, if they can really cut all the needs in life and be fully enlightened. However for normal people, it's very very hard to reach that, maybe just having a good self awareness is good enough to lead a good and useful life. Now you are in a higher level of being, you may adopt the new life styles or find friends who are equally or close in term of enlightenment or intelligence (in understanding truths) and that would also help. 

[fluidmonolith]

3 hours ago, Feel Good said:

An enlightenment teacher should be perfect. Have no issues with neediness or arrogance. 

We're supposed to judge the teachers because we expect high standards. As soon as you stop holding enlightenment teachers to a high standard then you're lost. 

Western people can't have it both ways. We can't try to adopt the real traditional enlightenment of hard-core masters and at the same time expect mediocre wannabes to show us how to get there. 

I think the point is that the masters can't show us how to get there. We can only show ourselves (but gathering information from others is perfectly fine too, and probably speeds up the process by lifetimes!). Imperfections in the teacher aren't equivalent to invalidity of the teaching. 

It may be accurate to watch Leo's videos and think to yourself at times "Leo is being arrogant here", or "Leo seems really unloving and distant here". But who cares? Only the ego. We can gain insight from the successful and the failures alike, if we are willing to ignore the ego telling us "this guy is dumber than me, why should I listen to anything he says?". The more we can shut down the ego, even if just temporarily, the more we can learn from even mundane sources. Because the real teacher in self development isn't an external expert, it's you.

 

[cirkussmile]

Good thread!

This is progress for everyone here. 

Cosmic love

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, Feel Good said:

An enlightenment teacher should be perfect. Have no issues with neediness or arrogance. 

We're supposed to judge the teachers because we expect high standards.

Said the ego.

Good luck with that.

[exhale]

High standards is one thing, expecting a perfect human is quite another.  

 

[stevegan928]

11 hours ago, brugluiz said:

Even if you do not meditate, even if you do not take psychedelics, even if you didn't have mystical experiences, even if you did not grasp the meaning of reality, your opinion has a very important value for any being

I read this and in my head I heard Jordan Peterson say "Ha, no. WRONG." 

[stevegan928]

4 hours ago, Feel Good said:

An enlightenment teacher should be perfect. Have no issues with neediness or arrogance. 

We're supposed to judge the teachers because we expect high standards. As soon as you stop holding enlightenment teachers to a high standard then you're lost. 

Western people can't have it both ways. We can't try to adopt the real traditional enlightenment of hard-core masters and at the same time expect mediocre wannabes to show us how to get there. 

Yeah but Truth is just Truth and it has no outward appearance or "vibe"

Truth is. 

But hey if you really want high standards then you shouldn't even be learning from lousy humans. You should let plants be your teacher instead. And no I'm not telling you to do drugs, I'm suggesting you go outside, stand in front of a tree, and let it preach it's gospel to you. 

[Mafortu]

I visualized Leo facepalming at this thread so clearly, it made me believe I awoke some latent turquoise psychic powers 

[brugluiz]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Teachers have different styles. This is why its good to study hundreds of different perspectives. Each one will expose you to some new facet that the other ones didn't.

Teachers place different emphasis on things due to their unique personality, cultural background, path through life, and even their gender or level of testosterone.

Never expect one teacher to explain everything to you. It just isn't possible.

In a sense, finding a teacher who you resonant with perfectly is bad because then you will tend to blindly accept what he/she says without thinking for yourself or considering other sources.

Focus more on grasping what is being taught in your direct experience rather than daydreaming about or judging the teacher.

The teacher you resonate with very much depends on what your particular needs are at this moment in time. In a few years, as your needs change, so will your teachers -- if you don't commit yourself to worshiping just one.

My teachings are definitely not complete, and definitely contain some mistakes and shadow. This is not a problem so long as you think for yourself, make use many sources, and do your reading. Just listening to me is not enough to succeed in this work.

Thank you for the honest answer, Leo.

If I'm judging, I still have a lot of work to do. I still can't fully grasp what many Turquoise teachers say, but a lot of what you say is easy to understand, maybe that's why I'm still so attached to Actualized.org. Anyway, I think the same (due also to my life experience): the teacher won't explain me everything, he/she still has flaws and incomplete teachings and it's important to make use of many sources.

57 minutes ago, stevegan928 said:

I read this and in my head I heard Jordan Peterson say "Ha, no. WRONG." 

I didn't got it.

[Ayilton]

11 hours ago, Feel Good said:

Would you say Eckharts laugh is genuine (because he is construct aware), Teals laugh is self -congratulory and Leo's is just arrogance ? 

??????

[cirkussmile]

@Feel Good

Wow. You are exposing yourself big time here  

You know that enlightened masters don’t attack people and try to hit buttons to get a reaction. Don’t you?  

Wouldn't it be easier to not answer Joseph? After all, he is making good points with a great amount of True in them. 

 

 

[Nahm]

 

@brugluiz I’m saying, some might be missing the profundity of Leo’s method, the ‘role’, the perpetual sacrifice, the grace, he is. The level of compassion might be so ‘high’ that it is completely missed with any cynicism at all. That you have a realization of your own, in a reactive manor counter to what he teaches, is the gift he is giving you, is  the teaching.  

I mean, just try to comprehend the clarity one would have in selflessly being maya, for YOU. 

For fucking YOU.

 

[tsuki]

13 minutes ago, Feel Good said:

My response to him is healthy 

I'm willing to bet that he thinks that his response was healthy as well.
Isn't the willingness to admit your own folly a prerequisite of growth?

[Lynnel]

1 hour ago, Feel Good said:

[nonsense in process]

Turquoise development teacher nonsense in progress *

Don't forget he is turquoise ! Also an amazing self-development teacher ! How could you ?

44 minutes ago, cirkussmile said:

Wouldn't it be easier to not answer Joseph? After all, he is making good points with a great amount of True in them.

I mean I know Leo's policy is 98% percent of the forum is garbage and you have to skim trough to find the interesting things but I was always against encouraging excess mental masturbation. Like there is a healthy limit to this, in the same way green has to be intolerant of intolerance to promote tolerance, sometimes you have to moderate certains mental masturbation and for me 9 thousand posts and 8 (EIGHT) journals is a BIT too much. I could literary write three or four Phd's with the amount of time it took him to write all of those posts. 

You can produce a endless amount of information that sounds good clever and like some advanced teaching but is in truth without any consistency. This is self-evident for keyborad jockeys in pickup forums for instance : there is what works and then there are all those flashy absurd theories and techniques and this or that which no one needs and no one uses and people just post to feel clever.

Yeah you could ignore this issue on a personnal level you can just ignore him and do your work - but a lot of people may be easily misguided because it sounds clever or nice and that would make for a degrading community. You cannot grow as a community swimming in the waves of orange mental masturbation. Not gonna happen.

[RichardY]

@Leo Gura Yeah Leo! YEAH. Why aren't you divine!!!???