Another Critique on Actualized.org

[roar]

1 hour ago, How to be wise said:

Leo's teachings are too advanced for most of you to fathom.  How about you guys try and directly experience what he's telling you. If you're not interested in deep deep nonduality then you should probably stop watching his videos and go do something else. But please don't criticise him when you have no direct experience to back you up. 

Why learn about deep deep nonduality from teachers that are deeply entrenched in duality? LMAO indeed

[Pramit]

2 hours ago, roar said:

Actualized.org is in dire need of a serious zen bitch slap.  Most of you guys are still kids in this day and age.  But the forum is a great resource for studying millennial cult behavior. 

LOL that would be good/interesting. 

Edited December 7, 2019 by Pramit

[Preety_India]

Just now, Bill W said:

Not disagreeing with the sentiments of your post. I agree, it's worth trying to experience something directly than to rely on hearsay.

However, this talk of direct experience, as if it is the Gold Standard. Direct experience has to be processed by the mind first. Your so called "direct experience" will have been modified in an instant to reflect your individual beliefs and expectations. Direct experience is subject to huge in-built bias that you cannot escape. It doesn't make direct experience worthless or not valuable, but equally, something isn't of high value just because it's "direct" experience.

To top it all off, how do we know it's a direct experience to begin with other than taking the words of the speaker at face value. 

[roar]

Hubris is diluted with age and experience.  You've come a long way, Leo.  Don't let your arrogance fuk it up for you.  Maybe you should try some weed.  It would round you off a bit.

Edited December 7, 2019 by roar

[skywords]

Quote

something isn't of high value just because it's "direct" experience. 

From my point of view, "enlightenment" means that EVERYTHING is of high value.  I believe that when one's heart and mind are fully open, one becomes fully engaged with whatever is before one.  Such FULL ENGAGEMENT is the experience of "enlightenment."  Does that make sense?  I'm not trying to be "right," I'm trying to be understood.

[LfcCharlie4]

@How to be wise Yeah they're deep but if your just after Non-Duality teachings I hate to break it to you there's much better teachers out there. 

 I'm not debating Leo's teachings go very deep, but just take a look around here, how many people are actually awakened lol, see a lot of trip reports but not many permanent enlightenment/ awakening/ full self-realization reports. Not shitting on the forum, I think it's a great area for discussion, but Leo simply isn't the only non-duality teacher who goes deep, and there's many better than him imo. 

 I mean the person in your DP is probably a much better place to start. Think of the great masters like Ramana and Nisgardatta and in more modern terms Rupert, Francis Lucille and Ramaji and potentially tens if not hundreds more are better at this. 

Again, I'm not shitting on Leo, he's incredibly young and has positioned himself as a teacher probably too early before he was even remotely awake, and there's thousands of young people with no clue about this getting incredibly confused, it's a hard situation for him, incredibly hard. 

But, I don't think it's as simple as 'you don't get these teachings,' plenty of teahcers go just as deep, and have had much more time to truly embody their awakenings and aren't teaching from insight alone. 

I also strongly disagree with his main recommendation being Psychedelics especially when talking to a very young audience, yes they can give incredible insights but to deny the risks is very naive. 

Again, I have great respect for Leo and his teachings, certain videos have helped me a lot, but he's far from perfect especially as a 'Spiritual Teacher.' 

[zeroISinfinity]

@Pramit @electroBeam

Zen stick or magical stick. You choose. 

Great walls of texts filled mind and Heart barelly beating. 

Lol Leo far from good spiritual teacher. Leo teaches Absolute Truth and Leo's videos are your True Self Hahaha. OMG donkeys everywhere. 

Edited December 7, 2019 by zeroISinfinity

[Nak Khid]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I study 100s of sources and do my own thing.

I have no interest in being loyal to anyone.

You could meet some without having to commit to loyalty. "Guru" implies the Hindu type. You could meet some of them or the other types of spiritual teachers.   I'm saying this because meeting them i person  has that dynamic of communication that you can't get online.   It might be fun. You could video it.  

[LfcCharlie4]

@Nak Khid  I agree, you can have teachers and learn from people, without being loyal and worshipping them.

[zeroISinfinity]

Get a dog. Best life coach there is. Or observe kids or be a babysitter you Will learn a lot. 

Don't worship anyone or anything, love yourself and everything else. 

 

[Bill W]

1 hour ago, zeroISinfinity said:

@Pramit @electroBeam

Zen stick or magical stick. You choose. 

Great walls of texts filled mind and Heart barelly beating. 

Lol Leo far from good spiritual teacher. Leo teaches Absolute Truth and Leo's videos are your True Self Hahaha. OMG donkeys everywhere. 

You are talking in riddles my friend. Not sure if it's a language barrier for you or you intend to write this way?

[Leo Gura]

48 minutes ago, Nak Khid said:

You could meet some without having to commit to loyalty. "Guru" implies the Hindu type. You could meet some of them or the other types of spiritual teachers.   I'm saying this because meeting them i person  has that dynamic of communication that you can't get online.   It might be fun. You could video it.  

How do you know I haven't?

You guys make a lot of assumptions bout me.

[Nak Khid]

mysterious

Edited December 7, 2019 by Nak Khid

[cetus]

O.K did everybody get their 2 cents in? Sweet- time to lock it.

[Leo Gura]

I'm unlocking this so you guys can voice your critiques.

No problems with non-toxic critiques here. You can critique me as you like.

[electroBeam]

Sure, if you want to believe that I made this critique because I just mentally masturbated all day, or because I hate Leo, that's fine, you can believe whatever you want. 

As I said in the original post, this isn't me attacking Leo, "this is an authentic account of me purging the actualized.org belief system built up over time, along with all of the errors and shortcomings of this particular perspective". Don't get too caught up in such an account, it's just a perspective. Of course Leo has great teachings(as said at the bottom of my post).

Of course, most people on here don't resonate with the critique and so they jump to the conclusion that mental masturbation is at play. If only they know meditation doesn't rid you of the paradigm. If you're chasing enlightenment, or are trying to be more spiritual, because you believe something special about it, you're in the paradigm, you just don't know it. Even if you do the work, your mind will twist the interpretations of the insights, awakenings to fit it. And thats why I said at the bottom that I'm now looking to live in a place without spiritual words and concepts for a while. 

And I do listen to other teachers of course, what I forgot to mention was this really wasn't a critique of actualized.org alone, it was a critique of the new age movement as a whole, specialising in Leo's videos. I'm critiquing the west's complete bastardisation of spirituality to make it it's own little island in the sea of life, because the West are a bunch of over enthusiastic, over excited, content driven, dramatic bunch of people. Even if they have insights, people don't get/are not aware of how much their belief system shapes those insights and awakenings - clearly.

But again, I'm just saying what I see, and what makes me feel a lot better and relieved, if you disagree with me you have every right to.

Edited December 7, 2019 by electroBeam

[zeroISinfinity]

It is Just awesome. Unleash the ego kid. 

But I Just can't not anymore. Lets try it. It literally became impossible to judge criticize even from place of Having fun. 

Thanks ♥️

 

[VeganAwake]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

I'm unlocking this so you guys can voice your critiques.

No problems with non-toxic critiques here. You can critique me as you like.

It was just too funny not to post this here ❤....its all in fun ?

 

[Bill W]

I can't get past his wig 

[VeganAwake]

20 hours ago, electroBeam said:

Yep you read the title, its another cringe worthy critique on actualized.org.............. or if you're a brainwashed, adamant actualized.org follower, its another 'great insight!' or if you've been brainwashed by actualized.org's dogmas to the point of no return, its an 'ego backlash', a 'projection' of actualized.org, 'devilry', someone who hasn't gone 'full circle yet' hahahaha, someone who hasn't become a mod yet and therefore doesn't know what he's talking about. 

Because lets face it, what Leo preaches in his videos, how Leo and his followers sometimes act on this forum are 2 very different things. 

An ego backlash was meant to describe someone whose ego has overly distorted their reality after a spiritual experience, but in reality is that always how its used here? Or rather is an ego backlash a term someone uses when they have genuine critiques of certain dogmas of actualized.org, and people don't like that so they cover it up with that term?

Projection was meant to describe someone who distorts the words someone says based on their biases and beliefs, but is that also how this term is always used? Or rather is it used when someone is exposing the biases and devilry of a particular user's, or group of user's beliefs, and that user or group doesn't like it and so throws the 'projection' card?

devilry was meant to describe the illusory nature of the mind, but in reality, at least part of the time, its used to enforce a dogma of actualized.org, which is that non duality is BETTER than duality.

 

Disclaimer

These critiques are generalisations, and therefore are inaccurate by default. For if they were accurate, it would take 200 pages to write.

What's written here is not designed to persuade users one way or another, for if it was designed to persuade users, I would be falling into the trap of 'trying to be right' which is another unhealthy trait this forum sometimes has. So don't expect to get persuaded. And even if I did, the dogmas of actualized.org is so dense that plenty of egos here would find a way to twist the terminology of Leo's preachings to 'prove' I'm wrong. Rather this is an account of someone who is purging the belief system built up from Actualized.org as a whole, from his current perspective, with all of the egoic errors and shortcomings that perspective may hold. It feels right for me to give an authentic account of what I believe actualized.org is, and because its authentic I think this is something of value to share. Not to debate over though.

Also these critiques will have no evidence to support them, for firstly I am not trying to convince anyone of anything, and secondly providing evidence would give people the opportunity to distort that evidence to their, or actualized.org's mega ego's agenda and cause a debate, especially in such a hot topic like this one. I would rather people call me a liar than get into such a debate.

Also, in the unlikely event people do get persuaded by the stuff here, its not meant to be used as ammo to further corrupt Leo's preachings, or as an excuse to fall into unhealthy habits such as being lazy, procrastinating, being vicious. Nor should it be used to slander Leo in any way. It should definitely not be used to prove another side is right, such as Rational Wiki.

I expect this post to get locked, or severely criticised(assuming people read it), for if it didn't, I wouldn't be highlighting valuable critiques, I would somehow still be conforming to the dogmas of actualized.org. This should feel wrong for most people, because anything that goes against their belief system should feel wrong. And therefore I should look like a devil to most people on this forum.

The Critique

These critiques are not categorised, they are in line with the stream of thought coming out of my mind.

Some Spiritual Dogmas of What is Preached in Leo's Videos

The Seriousness of Pursuing Enlightenment is Toxic Enlightenment here is taken too seriously. There is too much enthusiasm, passion and desire for enlightenment. This causes actualized.org followers to put massive amounts of focus, time and energy on thinking about enlightenment concepts, talking about enlightenment concepts, dreaming and desiring enlightenment concepts (even though they think they are desiring enlightenment because they are not aware that there is a difference between the concept of enlightenment and enlightenment itself).

Too much passion and desire and energy around spirituality leads to actualized.org followers subtly believing the concepts without experiencing them(because they are too passionate about spirituality to not drop those beliefs), leading them to misinterpret or have the wrong ideas about what the concepts are actually pointing to..... or even worse, having a spiritual experience and then subtly misinterpreting that experience to reaffirm their incorrect and absurd notions of what they THINK not KNOW what the spiritual concept is pointing to.

Too much passion, desire and energy around spirituality leads to actualized.org followers dismissing elements of life that are not deemed 'spiritual'. What's deemed spiritual is completely relative and arbitrary, but actualized.org followers are unaware of this. Some believe everything Leo talks about (and possibly other spiritual teachers) is spiritual, while everything else, like arguing with your mum, is not. This leads to focusing on life very narrowly, not appreciating, accepting and enjoying the non spiritual elements of life. And even if they are, some are only appreciating those elements of life because they have labelled those parts of life as 'spiritual' so long as they apply Leo's teachings to those non spiritual elements of life. Whenever you label something as spiritual, you are assigning constraints on those particular elements of life unknowingly. You are assigning Leo's teachings, Leo's attitudes and values (which are purely arbitrary beliefs), your standards of what spiritual is, how you must behave in front of it, etc. To those elements of life, effectively limiting your liberation. For most people on this forum, suggesting to them that they should try to live a happy, loving, joyful life, 'unspiritual' life(a life with no spirituality whatsoever), would automatically be rejected because they have developed a spiritual ego around being spiritual.

How are these 2 toxic points sustained by Actualized.orgs's Preachings?

Multiple things, here are a few:

This passion is sustained by Actualized.org's teaching style. Actualized.org's teaching style is highly captivating, getting people sucked and in love with his content. He uses key words like 'profound', 'shocking'. Uses rational words like 'results', 'success' to describe spiritual content, which causes laymen to misinterpret them and get overly passionate about those misinterpretations. 

Elitism in Spirituality

One of Actualized.org's dogmas is projecting elitism into life. Firstly he's created a duality between what's 'spiritual' and what's 'not spiritual'. Then he's created an entire belief system around what constitutes as being 'spiritual' and 'non spiritual'. Then he's projected an elitist 'pedestal', where he places 'spirituality' way above 'non spirituality'. This belief system runs very deep and would take pages to outline, but we all know what it is because we follow him. He uses words 'high conscious' vs 'low conscious' to create a duality between superior activities, beliefs and people vs inferior ones. He specifically indoctrinates his followers to believe that 'spiritual', 'high conscious' activities, beliefs and people are better, superior, more intelligent, survive better, etc. To 'low conscious', 'unspiritual' people. Making actualized.org's followers egos try to avoid the 'unspiritual' stuff because they fear being inferior to a group of people. They have a fear of developing low self esteem from being low conscious - very very fucked up and twisted. He projects this in a multitude of ways: he implies that unspiritual people are 'monkeys', 'apes', are low on the yogic chakra system(implying the yogic chakra system is a measure of superiority), low vs high on spiral dynamics(again spiral dynamics is implying a scale of superiority). He pushes us to go up the spiral, chakra system, so that we can become more superior.

Attack and Suppression of Duality

Duality is considered inferior to non duality. Multiple critiques on rationality, western science, etc. Have been made. While critiques on these topics are valid, Actualized.org has critiqued them from his 'elitist' perspective (mentioned above). This enforces the notion that western science, rationality, is below, inferior to spirituality. This is a dogma, and its wrong. Just because scientists are wrong about Truth, this does not make scientists or science inferior. It just makes them wrong. They are as spiritual, beautiful and superior as any of us are. And besides whether they are wrong or right, science itself, as looked at as a creation of God, is not more wrong than any of Actualized.org 's spiritual dogmas that he makes in his videos, not just the ones where he's aware that its a story, even the one's he's not aware of. They are 2 sides of the same coin: duality and non duality, and neither one is more True than the other. This makes any claims he makes about some aspect of duality being superior or more true than non duality as completely dogmatic. His claim that 'Self-Love' is a higher teaching to 'warp teleportation machines' is wrong. They are both as high as each other, again duality and non duality are 2 sides of the same coin. Having such a mindset causes the problems mentioned above, but also creates an artificial spiritual ego which separates you from reality. It reduces your ability to appreciate duality and makes you opinionated about spiritual concepts, and causes you to debate and fight over non duality vs duality, which is absurd.

Elitism In The Forum

The elitist beliefs have had an impact on the way the forum works. Moderator's views are appreciated and taken seriously much more than non moderator's views, because moderators are 'high conscious' while everyone else is 'low conscious'. Followers have an urge to be Right (I don't need examples for this, surely). Because if they are not Right, they will be deemed by others as being 'low conscious', inferior, not as intelligent, not on the same page and are below everyone, below in spiral dynamics, etc. Which means egos are afraid of getting low self esteem if they are disapproved by the others (especially moderators) on here. This re-enforces and ensures actualized.org's dogmas are kept and not changed (unless Leo makes a new video then all of the dogmas switch to that, completely independent of critical thinking of the followers). If users do begin to disagree with the dogmas of the group too seriously(like winterknight) they will be controlled by being given warning points, being banned, etc. To ensure that posts are encouraged to fall in the line of dogmas of actualized.org, posts that showcase the dogmas are put as 'Featured', which re-enforces the dogmas by other actualized.org followers and encourages them make posts like that. If you want to see how these are dogmas, just look at how the beliefs of the forum changes based on what video Leo makes.

Dogmas and Collective Spiritual Ego is Reinforced by Repetitively Using Terminology, Sometimes in a Corrupt way.

Words that Leo preach in his preachings are repetitively used in actualized.org to reinforce the dogmas of the group. Its important to note that most, if any, of actualized.org followers have not experienced what the words are pointing to, and so repeating these words in the forum creates a dogmatic belief system. A lot of the words Leo uses are unique to this belief system, and are not found outside of it. 

Some words that are used:

1. ego backlash

2. projection

3. devilry

4. Going full circle: actualized.org followers use this term to describe things which have nothing to do with going full circle, or have nothing to do with Leo's original intention he wrote in his infinite insights blog. Reinforcing a dogma and distorting reality. 

5. Love: lots of times used out of context to describe beliefs and dogmas

6. vibrations

7. Creative Intelligence

etc etc etc. 

 

The Path After This Purge

This path, the actualized.org path, is finally doing me more harm then good. The more I study and practice what's here, the more suffering, delusion I go through. This belief system fundamentally doesn't serve me anymore. I'm now on the lookout for a teacher or teachings which takes the beliefs of spirituality much less seriously, laughs and enjoys life, lives a normal life rather than a 'spiritual' life, and including spirituality as part of that 'normal' life rather than the other way around, has a very minimalist lifestyle, lacks opinion (especially heavy ones), lacks talking about spirituality that much, appreciates and enjoys duality.

the way of meditation comes to mind.

 

Final Notes

Am I saying that actualized.org hasn't helped me at all and is a cult? Of course not. Infact, because of how theoretical it is, its helped me a lot. Back when I started, I was an atheist, and as an atheist I needed a teaching like this. I looked at 'the way of meditation' as being boring, because the spiritual concepts were too boring, its taken me 3-5 years to get to the point where I'm sick of such a teaching like this. 

Actualized.org nails a lot of teachings on the head, and that's why its able to be so dogmatic. Because people get complacent and start to trust actualized.org because its teachers are TOO accurate and TOO good. So in a way its a high quality teaching.

 

But its not right for me anymore, so now after 3-5 years, I'm finally leaving, to go find a 'boring' teacher that just wants to enjoy life, and doesn't take spirituality too seriously. 

 

 

You want some advanced stuff... here you go pal ...it took me two-and-a-half years to find someone this enlightened and it is all due to Leo's actualized.org videos in which I would have never have found this material  and had multiple Awakenings prior watching Leo's videos...

 Everything is here for a reason it's time for us to be grateful ❤

There won't even be a you left... Merry Christmas ?

PS  me and Leo are going to Burning Man together in a few years so take that....

Edited December 7, 2019 by VeganAwake