So, what is the higher priority - honesty or selflessness?

[WorknMan]

I got to thinking about this after watching Leo's latest post-retreat video and reading the notes from his blog, as honesty and selflessness seem to be incompatible at times. Like, say you have someone in your life (maybe even a spouse or close relative) that you really don't want in your life anymore, but you fear that telling them how you really feel might cause them a great amount of emotional turmoil, esp. if they're already emotionally unstable as is.

So, what if you tell them and they go jump off a bridge or step in front of traffic? Or even worse, go on a murder spree. Is that really a win for the greater good? Being that honest certainly doesn't seem like a selfless act, leading me to believe that sometimes, you have to choose between the two.

[OrpheusNovum]

Honesty is always straightforward. Selflessness can be deceptive. Go for honesty.

[Leo Gura]

@WorknMan You are misunderstanding selflessness.

Selflessness and honesty go hand in hand.

The conflict is between honesty and selfishness.

The reason you lie is due to fear and selfishness. You do not lie out of selflessness.

If you were truly selfless you would never need to lie.

[kieranperez]

@Leo Gura does REAL honesty and the growth that comes from becoming increasingly more honest only become possible through massive increases in consciousness (of what’s really true - on the relative, personal, psychological, Absolute, emotional sides)? 

Personally I REALLY struggle with integrity and lying. This became APPARENT in my first psychedelic trip on LSD just a couple days ago where authenticity really began to truly flourish. I’ve read Blanton’s stuff and also Ralston’s on honesty and I’ve tried applying it but I feel like my capacity to communicate authentically and truthfully is always stunted and limited by my own involvement and attachment to my ego. 

Like you alluded to in your recent “Becoming God” video, it became apparent to my core, not as talk through a book or self-help video that I agreed with on a conceptual level, that honesty isn’t just about what you say. It’s in the way I walk, my tonality, how I hold myself, etc. 

However, that’s always of course stunted by my own ego and my attachment to its character traits, habitual behaviors and emotional responses, my own shadow, my self deceptions, etc. 

Could you elaborate a bit on this? And also how honesty can really effect one’s survival (not as conceptual identity but in “the real world”... you know what I mean).

I feel like there’s A LOT to be said about this because as far as I’m concerned, honesty seems to have the potential to be a truly powerful spiritual practice in it of itself.

Edited April 1, 2019 by kieranperez

[Leo Gura]

@kieranperez I will do videos on Honesty, Integrity, and Authenticity in the future.

There's a lot to say about them.

Yes, a weak self will struggle a lot to be honest, integrous, and authentic because it is too fearful. It basically can't because it is not conscious of its own true nature. Ego is a house of cards cemented with lies.

But even so, you can push your comfort zone and be more honest. This alone will grow you. But yeah, to get a massive gain in this domain you must have some awakenings to your true nature and Absolute Truth.

How can you be authentic and honest when you don't know what is true and what is false, what is authentic and what is inauthentic?

Psychedelics are wonderful for this topic. They will make you honest by beating you into submission.

[Doobz]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

How can you be authentic and honest when you don't know what is true and what is false, what is authentic and what is inauthentic?

I hope I understand what you're saying here Leo but I struggle with this a lot. People close to me are like "what's you're opinion on this?" when my opinion is generally "there's two sides to every story, everyone feels just as justified in their own argument as the person with the counter argument. Let them have their opinion and try not to let it affect you". 

I don't know what's true or false because there's two sides to every story and to weed out what's ego driven or emotionally driven is hard to separate from something that's been ingrained from culture. To find what's authentic vs. inauthentic has opened my eyes, once you find what your authentic opinion or view is then it doesn't matter what others say.

As I read this I was scouring the internet for a book on discovering your authentic self. 

Is there any suggestions from anyone or if there's one on the book list, what category is this under?

 

[kieranperez]

@Leo Gura I totally agree. I think your video on “Understanding Awareness” really underscores this topic well. Its so hard to even maintain honesty without falling back into one’s own egoic habits (projections, judgments, criticizing, withholding, exaggerating, downright lying, etc.) due to one’s limited capacity for mindfulness and getting trapped in the mind rather than staying present and just reporting. 

There’s also the trick of how you emotionally relate your communications to others. 

For example: if I’m angry at say my boss, I’m actually hurt. However, if I come at my boss and say “I’m hurt,” I can say the words “I feel hurt from what you said back there,” but I can still be holding on to the anger in my body, my tone, etc. so really... I’m not actually being honest. Because I can recognize ‘ah! I feel hurt!’ But that doesn’t reliquish the deception of anger and break down that barrier because in some way or another I’m still holding on to it. 

Its so tricky.

Especially if you throw Love into the mix. Really, any time I guess your not communicating from a place of Love and Truth, I feel like, at the bottommost core you’re still lying and withholding. 

Edited April 1, 2019 by kieranperez

[XYZ]

Honesty, or rather authenticity. 

Because it's possible to be authentically selfish, and/or honest about being selfish.

And to ever transcend selfishness, you'd need to first be acutely aware of the extent of your own selfishness, and without any sugar-coating it: I am absolutely positively selfish as fuck, and my whole experience of life is filtered through ego.

But I don't think one can be selfishly honest, because the self-centered perspective always distorts the Truth. Selfish honestly is just bullshitting.

 

[kieranperez]

2 minutes ago, XYZ said:

authentically selfish

At the core, selfishness and authenticity are incompatible. When you awaken Love, you’ll understand that Love as your true nature and being anchored in that truth (assuming you’ve purged a lot of your shadow) and embody it, cannot keep up one’s own selfishness.  

[Leo Gura]

59 minutes ago, Doobz said:

I hope I understand what you're saying here Leo but I struggle with this a lot. People close to me are like "what's you're opinion on this?" when my opinion is generally "there's two sides to every story, everyone feels just as justified in their own argument as the person with the counter argument. Let them have their opinion and try not to let it affect you". 

I don't know what's true or false because there's two sides to every story and to weed out what's ego driven or emotionally driven is hard to separate from something that's been ingrained from culture. To find what's authentic vs. inauthentic has opened my eyes, once you find what your authentic opinion or view is then it doesn't matter what others say.

As I read this I was scouring the internet for a book on discovering your authentic self. 

Is there any suggestions from anyone or if there's one on the book list, what category is this under?

What I am talking about goes much deeper than that.

I'm not just talking about figuring out your opinions on issues, like whether you should vote for liberals or conservatives.

What you'll discover is that virtually no cultural programming you have is authentic. It's just random stuff your mind picked up. To become authentic you need to really turn inward and disconnect from culture and people. Doing solo retreats you start to see what authentic is.

Not even your identification with being a biological organism is authentic.

When you get super-authentic you will look in the mirror not even view that body as being who you truly are.

To become authentic you must peel back layer after layer after layer of false identities which you have constructed throughout your life. There are many layers to peel back. Peeling them back is challenging because your physical, emotional, and social survival depends on them. Without them you would be lost. Which needs to happen in order for you to really find yourself.

But hey, start wherever you can. Most of you will have to start by peeling back the psychological and social layers. Look at all the mask your wear around other people. Look at all the manipulating and lying you do. Then there will be the existential layers.