How deluded Leo is ?

[Shin]

10 minutes ago, purerogue said:

Only thing that left me with question after video was where does mind come in in all of this design, why people have to be so deluded. 

They wouldn't take their character seriously if they didn't.

A good movie consist of actors that are completely lost in their character !

[purerogue]

1 minute ago, Shin said:

They wouldn't take their character seriously if they didn't.

A good movie consist of actors that are completely lost in their character !

But you do not need all mind suffering to make you lost in character.

[Shin]

2 minutes ago, purerogue said:

But you do not need all mind suffering to make you lost in character.

You don't need to, but it makes the character even more real, for himself.

[purerogue]

12 minutes ago, Shin said:

You don't need to, but it makes the character even more real, for himself.

That's really weak explanation. 

[Shin]

10 minutes ago, purerogue said:

That's really weak explanation. 

How ?

I personally was way more into "Shin" when I thought his problems wasn't self created.

[purerogue]

5 minutes ago, Shin said:

How ?

I personally was way more into "Shin" when I thought his problems wasn't self created.

I am pretty sure you were no less immersed in him when you had good days. 

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, purerogue said:

Only thing that left me with question after video was where does mind come in in all of this design, why people have to be so deluded. 

Survival, survival, survival! Mind = a survival machine.

We'll be talking about the fundamental importance of survival soon in upcoming episodes. Lots of profound and practical new episodes on the way.

[legendary]

@Leo Gura in the video, you said that a very small fraction of the 'woke' spiritual masters are actually liberated.

Do you have a certain litmus test for the masters you meet to gauge whether they are not fully woke or whether they are and are just underselling enlightenment?

Can you name a contemporary master or two so that we can see what you are pointing to?

Every spiritual teacher I have met claimed that they were fully enlightened, even the ones who later were caught in a sex scandal or something equivalent. A few of them had a radiant presence and exuded love. But I'd like to know what you think.

Cheers!

[Leo Gura]

@legendary That is very difficult to assess in practice, especially if you haven't had multiple awakenings yourself.

The challenge is that different minds talk about awakening in different ways, so just because two people talk different and emphasize different things does not necessarily mean their level of awakening is different.

To be totally honest, I don't know anyone else's level of awakening. I only know what levels I have experienced. The rest is my speculations.

It is possible to try to guess a person's levels of awakening by asking them various questions about the nature of reality. Depending on how they answer these questions you might catch some clues about how awake they really are. But again, you're still just guessing. You don't really know. It could just be a failure to communicate. Many awake people are just poor communicators.

Some questions I like to ask people to determine how awake they are:

• Why is there something rather than nothing?
• What is God?
• How does God create?
• What is your true nature?
• What is non-existence?
• What is Truth?
• What is Infinity?
• What is Consciousness?
• What is Love?
• Have you become conscious of infinite intelligence?
• What is the deepest thing you've become conscious of?
• Do other people exist?
• etc.

If they are not able to answer these questions clearly and satisfactorily, then I consider that they are not fully awake. Although it might just be that they don't want to answer such questions. It can be hard to tell.

To me the highest teaching must affirm: 1) You are God, 2) Total nonduality, 3) Infinity & Nothingness

Teachings which cannot answer the question of why there is something rather than nothing are incomplete in my opinion. Because I have clearly answered this question for myself. So I know it can be done. Teachings which try to emphasize emptiness or formlessness over form are also incomplete in my opinion since they fail to fully comprehend that form and formlessness are identical. Teachings which claim there is no God are also suspect. Since you can clearly recognize that you are God. I am also suspicious of teachings which never talk about absolute Love or which deny Love as an Absolute. I am also suspicious of teachings which do not ever mention the energetic aspects of awakening. I am super suspicious of any teachings which claims that enlightenment is binary and has no degrees. To me this is clearly false as my experience says otherwise.

If someone cannot explain clearly what God is, why God is, and how God works, they are not fully awake in my opinion. Since I have been able to understand all that for myself. It can clearly be done. And not as theory, belief, or speculation. You can be totally conscious of how God works.

Of course you can also evaluate a person's demeanor, energy, and vibe. But this can also be misleading. It can be hard to tell whether you are projecting your own ideas onto them.

So in practice the best thing you can do is not to get married to any one teacher or teaching. Keep looking for deeper and deeper teachings and you will probably keep finding them. And also remember, just because someone isn't fully awaken doesn't mean you can't learn a lot from them. So don't get too perfectionistic trying to find the perfect teacher. The most awake people are often poor teachers. Teaching ability is not at all the same as degree of awakening. The best teachers will likely be less awake than the most awakened people: precisely because they spend a lot time teaching! In the same way that the best mathematicians are not the best math teachers.

Whenever you are in doubt, just ask 5-MeO-DMT and it will tell you the truth -- assuming you're ready to stomach it. It will not lie to you. Your mind might lie. But 5-MeO does not. Every answer you want is there. You just have to dig it out a bit, which can take time. I will trust 5-MeO-DMT over any living master. Direct experience is king.

[legendary]

17 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

So in practice the best thing you can do is not to get married to any one teacher or teaching. Keep looking for deeper and deeper teachings and you will probably keep finding them. And also remember, just because someone isn't fully awaken doesn't mean you can't learn a lot from them. So don't get too perfectionistic trying to find the perfect teacher.

@Leo Gura thanks for answering. I agree with you.

Is it possible that there are literally infinite degrees of awakening, and that there is no end to it?

Or are you sure that there is a stage where you will have learnt and embodied everything, resulting in liberation?

 

[Leo Gura]

@legendary Personally I feel there is an end to it. But that end sits at the bottom of a very deep well, so very few people have reached it. But I could be wrong.

Of course minor insights about life have no end. Those and science are infinite. There is an infinite amount of personal development -style insights.

Liberation does not require learning about everything. Learning never ends, but liberation I think has some end-point. You could be liberated but still learning new stuff every day about the world. It's important to distinguish those.

If you define liberation as totally knowledge of everything, then that seems impossible.

[bejapuskas]

@Leo Gura  How can you be sure, that you are not just trying to be more Enlightened than others, trying to be right in the conversations about God, rather than helping others reach God? (btw I am excited about your growth and I think you've done a lot of progress, I just wanna question.)

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, bejapuskas said:

@Leo Gura  How can you be sure, that you are not just trying to be more Enlightened than others, trying to be right in the conversations about God, rather than helping others reach God? (btw I am excited about your growth and I think you've done a lot of progress, I just wanna question.)

What I'm saying aligns with the best spiritual traditions. Almost all of them talk about degrees of awakening. So it's not an ego thing. I don't really care about being more awakened than someone else. I just care about not missing some important insight which I might easily overlook if I wasn't careful and comprehensive. I would rather err on the side of comprehensiveness. Because I can't anticipate everything I don't know. I always leave room in my epistemology for surprises and big reversals. All that's really required is radical openmindedness. Don't close down your mind even after an awakening. Keep being curious. Keep learning. Keep reading. Keep hearing other points of view. You just never know what you might discover.

[electroBeam]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Survival, survival, survival! Mind = a survival machine.

We'll be talking about the fundamental importance of survival soon in upcoming episodes. Lots of profound and practical new episodes on the way.

did God create survival? 

[mandyjw]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Survival, survival, survival! Mind = a survival machine.

We'll be talking about the fundamental importance of survival soon in upcoming episodes. Lots of profound and practical new episodes on the way.

How is complete and total ego death and enlightenment not the same as physical death. Don't you need some semblance of ego or sense of separateness to survive as a form? 

[electroBeam]

27 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

What I'm saying aligns with the best spiritual traditions. Almost all of them talk about degrees of awakening. So it's not an ego thing. I don't really care about being more awakened than someone else. I just care about not missing some important insight which I might easily overlook if I wasn't careful and comprehensive. I would rather err on the side of comprehensiveness. Because I can't anticipate everything I don't know. I always leave room in my epistemology for surprises and big reversals. All that's really required is radical openmindedness. Don't close down your mind even after an awakening. Keep being curious. Keep learning. Keep reading. Keep hearing other points of view. You just never know what you might discover.

where did you learn your techniques on critical thinking and taking advantage of knowledge and information for the sake of Truth rather than just blindly believing it? How do you critically think? This is something you seem to do that very few teacher do. 

[bejapuskas]

23 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

What I'm saying aligns with the best spiritual traditions. Almost all of them talk about degrees of awakening. So it's not an ego thing. I don't really care about being more awakened than someone else. I just care about not missing some important insight which I might easily overlook if I wasn't careful and comprehensive. I would rather err on the side of comprehensiveness. Because I can't anticipate everything I don't know. I always leave room in my epistemology for surprises and big reversals. All that's really required is radical openmindedness. Don't close down your mind even after an awakening. Keep being curious. Keep learning. Keep reading. Keep hearing other points of view. You just never know what you might discover.

Is it possible, that your vigilancy is keeping you away from real surrendering to God?

[Richard Alpert]

Dualist, zen-devil, cerebral narcissist.

This will not end up nicely i would assume.

 

[Leo Gura]

46 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

where did you learn your techniques on critical thinking and taking advantage of knowledge and information for the sake of Truth rather than just blindly believing it? How do you critically think? This is something you seem to do that very few teacher do. 

That's a very deep topic.

I address some of it here:

 

[mandyjw]

@David Hammond

But you don't stay in your vehicle when you get to your destination. 

Oh good! I finally made it to the Grand Canyon! I'll just stay in the car.