Can Leo's videos be harmful?

[Shin]

You cannot do anything in this line of work without hurting people, because at the foundation of this work lies that we have to face our hidden fears and struggles that we don't want to see.

Those who will face them will experience what it is to be really alive, those who don't will go deeper in hell untill they don't have a choice but to face their demons, or die of old age regretting they didn't.

This may seem very negative, but that's the harsh reality,

[Emerald]

I think that any time a spiritual teacher says anything, it can lead to negative consequences for a lot of people. 

So, even though Leo says a whole bunch of times to not just blindly believe what he says, the mind almost does this unconsciously. And then, if a person is unaware of this, they'll be stuck in that trap until they do become aware.

But this is part of the path. And now that you realize this, you can throw away all the beliefs and move forward.

There is a story called "The Parable of the Raft", and the main idea is that you need a raft to cross the river, but once you've crossed the river, the raft becomes a hinderance.

So, if anyone gets attached to any particular spiritual ideas or teachings, this can be like holding onto the raft even though you don't need it.

So, right now, the trick is to explore anxieties about letting go of beliefs that were unconsciously picked up from Leo's content. And to change those ideas from beliefs to tools that can be either picked up or set down.

But this is not really an issue with Leo in particular, even if he does tend toward an intellectual approach and may create more of this belief-effect for that reason. You would have eventually come to the same conclusion about any teachings that you've learned. 

And this is good. It shows progress, even if it feels like going backwards and losing things.

[Aaron p]

15 hours ago, Ethan_05 said:

I purposely stopped watching Leo's videos for a few months because I realized that Leo's content was having a bad influence on me. Not in the sense that what he's talking about is dangerous, but you have to admit Leo is a very persuasive guy, and his content was making me fall custom to developing new belief systems around Nonduality and my worldview was conceptually switching to nonduality even though that's not possible, but my worldview was shifting to a false, conceptual view of nonduality.

People are probably going to reply with how developing ideologies and new belief systems is the wrong way to go about it, and I know. But do you guys think that many people that comment on Leo's videos and most talk in this forum are extremely influenced by leo's views and don't yet have a solid spiritual understanding so they bicker back in forth over their enlightenment ideologies, or what they think about spiral dynamics, etc. etc. etc. I doubt than nearly any spiral dynamics posts were being written before leo made those videos on them.

Not trying to like confront people, just curious to think about when viewing the path and how much work we have to put in on our own instead of creating beliefs and what can happen when we don't have spiritual experience but follow our ego's agenda down the spiritual path. (I personally haven't had any major spiritual experiences, just a few short glimpses.)

There always has to be some ideological thinking with everything at the start...otherwise you wouldn't meditate. Everyone needs a little faith, like a scientist has faith that he will find the result.

[Ethan_05]

1 hour ago, Truth Addict said:

@Ethan_05 if you feel like you are being indoctrinated with ideas unconsciously, then that would only mean that you haven't been practising enough (quality or quantity).

You can't (and definitely shouldn't) learn spirituality only through theory.

What needs to happen is that you have to become more skeptical and mindful, so that you don't fall into the trap of ideology. An open-mind is not a blindly-believing-mind, a healthy open-mind holds assumptions and verify or deny them through the following process:

1) Research and information collecting.

2) Wholisic understanding of the theory and the requirements for practice, also risks and side effects.

3) Inspection, meditation, contemplation, inquiry, etc... All of these will increase your awareness.

4) Experiencing and looking for actual results.

5) Learning what works best for you, what and when and where and why and how to utilise your learning to get better results.

_____

It's basically science being done by yourself on yourself. And you can't skip steps.

I hope I didn't go off-track.

@Truth Addict  Holy shit that was a good answer. I appreciate it

I agree, in my anecdotal experience I realize that if i'm not always going deeper and deeper into contemplation most importantly and being skeptical and yet open-minded I fall back into comfortable habits of theorizing and trying to conceptually understand spirituality instead of experientially understanding because the latter is extremely uncomfortable, but seems to be the much more rewarding path in the end.

And I also agree that research and information collecting is extremely important. Reading a variety of different books, especially ones not on leo's list is what I've committed to doing in order to train my open-mindedness and skepticism yet not avoiding practice and direct experience.

[Ethan_05]

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

So, even though Leo says a whole bunch of times to not just blindly believe what he says, the mind almost does this unconsciously. And then, if a person is unaware of this, they'll be stuck in that trap until they do become aware.

But this is not really an issue with Leo in particular, even if he does tend toward an intellectual approach and may create more of this belief-effect for that reason. You would have eventually come to the same conclusion about any teachings that you've learned. 

And this is good. It shows progress, even if it feels like going backwards and losing things.

@Emerald  Most definitely, some people replied to my question with "Well don't believe what he's saying just get what's true" but I think deeper down I was wondering and questioning whether this process is even conscious. I feel like I unconsciously fall into this trap and this is why I'm so skeptical and not wanting to fall into the trap again with watching more of his video.

It's important to have the realization directly that you're committing these basic epistemic fallacies that have been talked about for probably 1,000+ years especially in western philosophy but then to act on this and go deep within experience as well.

Thanks!

[Ethan_05]

@Shin the question is how do we understand before we're conscious that this path is worth going down? 

Edited February 1, 2019 by Ethan_05

[ivory]

Part of the problem lies in how much information you ingest. You do have to validate the information you receive, so if you receive a lot of information in a short period of time, then you're going to be spinning your wheels trying to validate everything. It's just not possible. What happens incidentally, is that you start believing the content you ingest. Therefore, the answer is to limit the amount of information you take in. More is definitely not better in this case. I still find myself falling into the trap of reading and watching too much content from time to time and then I have to do an information purge which is not fun at all. Content is addicting. Leo's videos are roughly two hours long. If you are watching each video every week, it's way too much information to take in. As for reading, a paragraph or two a day is plenty. That way it gives you time to verify ideas in your own experience.

[Ethan_05]

@ivory I agree. I'm always battling the balance between too much content, not enough content and what content is right.

You just have to accept that you're never going to be able to go through even 0.01% of all books, video, etc. which means that discernment is a must. 

Another trap I found is that I take in way too much content and then I don't want to do an "information purge" as you call it and that's the point when I fall back into comfort.

I disagree a little on the idea that a paragraph or two a day is plenty, while that may be the case if you're reading scripture or deep content on the topic of like enlightenment or consciousness, but there's also a lot of valuable content that isn't as deep which could be read thoroughly and be valuable if you read 100+ pages/day.

Your thoughts?

[Shin]

53 minutes ago, Ethan_05 said:

@Shin the question is how do we understand before we're conscious that this path is worth going down? 

You either were rock bottom and had no choice but to try, got lucky and had a mystical experience so deep that you can't ignore it, or you have innate wisdom/deep curiosity.

Edited February 1, 2019 by Shin

[ivory]

21 minutes ago, Ethan_05 said:

Another trap I found is that I take in way too much content and then I don't want to do an "information purge" as you call it and that's the point when I fall back into comfort.

In my experience, an information purge is only really necessary when you become confused. I'm not sure how you would fall back into comfort though. The information purge is a painful process, but if you don't do it, your mind just gets all out of whack.

 

19 minutes ago, Ethan_05 said:

I disagree a little on the idea that a paragraph or two a day is plenty, while that may be the case if you're reading scripture or deep content on the topic of like enlightenment or consciousness, but there's also a lot of valuable content that isn't as deep which could be read thoroughly and be valuable if you read 100+ pages/day.

You are totally right. Deep content requires slow reading. Other types of books don't really apply.

[Anton Rogachevski]

@TheAvatarState @Nahm

Thank you dear friends.

[Aaron p]

On 2/1/2019 at 4:49 AM, Ethan_05 said:

I purposely stopped watching Leo's videos for a few months because I realized that Leo's content was having a bad influence on me. Not in the sense that what he's talking about is dangerous, but you have to admit Leo is a very persuasive guy, and his content was making me fall custom to developing new belief systems around Nonduality and my worldview was conceptually switching to nonduality even though that's not possible, but my worldview was shifting to a false, conceptual view of nonduality.

People are probably going to reply with how developing ideologies and new belief systems is the wrong way to go about it, and I know. But do you guys think that many people that comment on Leo's videos and most talk in this forum are extremely influenced by leo's views and don't yet have a solid spiritual understanding so they bicker back in forth over their enlightenment ideologies, or what they think about spiral dynamics, etc. etc. etc. I doubt than nearly any spiral dynamics posts were being written before leo made those videos on them.

Not trying to like confront people, just curious to think about when viewing the path and how much work we have to put in on our own instead of creating beliefs and what can happen when we don't have spiritual experience but follow our ego's agenda down the spiritual path. (I personally haven't had any major spiritual experiences, just a few short glimpses.)

There always has to be some ideological thinking with everything at the start...otherwise you wouldn't meditate. Everyone needs a little faith, like a scientist has faith that he will find the result. 

And from my understanding, enlightenment doesent illiminate ideological thinking, it just exposes it. Once exposed, you look past it with a quiet mind.