Leo's Work Is Becoming Dangerous

[mandyjw]

@Annoynymous Oh sorry. I thought this was a forum for discussing Lifetime movies. 

[Annoynymous]

@mandyjw wouldn't be bad if it were a forum like that 

[petar8p]

@Bridge to Infinity Why did you thought your criticism would pass on his forum? 

[JunkyJu]

No one is responsible for anyone but themselves.  Nothing is 100% and there will always be outliers.  

[Byun Sean]

I think the biggest thing to note here is how serious this work is and how difficult it can be for people where Leo is presenting these ego-threatening teachings on a culturally "casual" site like youtube.

When one stumbles across a youtube video, they won't expect this quality of work and teaching on the same site as prank videos, skateboarding cat videos, etc. 

What they expect is precisely casual armchair philosophy. Like 99 percent of people have NO idea what spirituality actually is and how deep it goes. People just see meditation for example as a simple way to 'calm the mind'.

Leo is also like one of the first that I've seen to build a large community presenting this caliber of spiritual teaching. It seems like he's one of the first one's if not the first one online to actually do it successfully. 

[Eph75]

20 hours ago, Commodent said:

The problem is, I have never seen Leo openly admit to this responsibility. Quite the contrary, really. People in here are in general very eager to put all the responsibility on the receiver, which in a sense is a true sentiment but also denies the other side of the coin. Leo HAS a responsibility, and by denying that fact we are doing Leo and this community a huge disservice. 

The responsibility goes as far as doing what you do with as much clarity as you can to avoid unnecessary misinterpretation and suffering. If you were to take responsibility over everyone fully understanding what you are trying to relay - or - responsibility over how someone may misuse the information you are relaying, then you are best of shutting down and not speaking to anyone ever again.

We're living in a world where we point fingers at everyone and everything, do anything to shift personal responsibility onto others, this being one of those situations.

A lot of the content is more straight forward than it might seem, that is, once you understand it, and when you understand it you also see that there's a veil of mysticism upheld around it all. And with all honesty, the videos would be rather boring to watch if they were as pragmatic and as factual as they could be. While this mysticism does force you to bake your own noodle until you are able to wrap your mind around it by yourself, which also happen to be the most powerful method of learning - instead of blindly accepting and regurgitation conceptualization, it does leave a lot of room for whatever unhealthy misinterpretation the viewers can make up for themselves.

For someone that is on this journey for spiritual growth, this works very well. For someone that has some form/-s of mental illnesses who try to look for something that makes him/her feel better, these people are likely to misinterpret this stuff just as much as they have misinterpreted life in general, which is what got them into their psychological mess in the first place. It's a bit like Russian roulette.

Personally I do think that I have great responsibility that extends beyond "me", responsibility in the form that I need to choose my path, my actions and interactions with others in such a way that I do what I can to help remove or ease confusion and suffering in the whole. But I don't assume responsibility for what other people choose to do as a result, ultimately we are responsible only for our own person and actions.

[Commodent]

1 hour ago, Eph75 said:

We're living in a world where we point fingers at everyone and everything, do anything to shift personal responsibility onto others, this being one of those situations.

And I think this is why it is so easy to get stuck on one end of the polarity. People seem to think that either they have all the responsibility, or some other person does. But what people seem to have a hard time understanding is that we all have a mutual responsibility. Nobody are exempt from responsibility. Not me, not you, not that guy. 

All I'm saying is that exclusively putting all the responsibility on yourself can prevent you from seeing the situation clearly. Life is a complex design of interacting forces, and by refusing to accept that external forces might have affected you negatively you are in my view failing to see the situation as it is. It's just another way for ego to preserve itself. You are dynamic and constantly under influence.

Failure to see this is often demonstrated by a lack of compassion. If you are of the mindset that whatever happens to you is 100% your fault, you will naturally project that attitude onto others. I think this is a natural consequence of any dogma. How many times have I not seen people suffer in here, only to have this responsibility shtick slapped in their face and their suffering coldly denied? How we treat others really is a reflection of how we treat ourselves. So if we fail to see the validity of our own blame, anger, pain and suffering, we will by default fail to see the validity of it in others. We will not be able to emphatize, but will instead try to correct it. So in my experience this idea of 100% responsibility is in a twisted sort of way oftentimes used as a way of not taking responsibility for other people's lack of responsibility. Because it's easy to just say "take responsibility" without putting ourselves into their point of view, thus allowing ourselves to stay "above" them and not having to face that same suffering within ourselves.

I think what this boils down to is that 100% responsibility is ultimately a dualistic notion, and that clinging to it will bring lots of suffering since it is at odds with reality itself. 

[Unjigorjigor]

I think the danger is a manifestation of repressed "stuff" in each of us that surface the further we progress. Shadow work basically. I think a mistake we make is we jump in to things too soon and we aren't ready for it. Some people are trying to fill holes or escape and they happen upon spiritual things, but they don't go step by step and they go without guidance. Leo's channel has a "foundations for self-actualization" playlist but will you go through that? Or just jump into his latest post? To use a biblical analogy, you need to first desire milk if you are new to spiritual things. You are still a baby. But, "solid food belongs to those who are of full age, who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." (Hebrews 5:14). 

Another example, one danger I see often here is people talking about being God. It's too soon for a lot of people to speak this way, and it stinks of ego. You must have a relationship with the divine as being something you desire, from there, you must work on dying. When your ego is gone you will join with the All, and not anytime before that. Saying you're God or believing you're God might be the thing that ruins you and probably is... (Leo has quite a popular YouTube channel and this forum is quite busy, but don't forget that it is always only a few who come to know and to see...)

Talking about you're God yet you've just begun realising there's more to life than the physical? You're vulnerable like that. Demons will bully you...

The truth is the same whether you're beginning or experienced, but some things belong to the experienced and some things belong to the beginner. Some of you need to join a religion and do your shadow work in a community of faith within an organised environment. We are not all mystics and yet nonduality is a mystical teaching. The greatest teachers spoke in mysteries specifically to hide the truth from those who are not at all prepared for them. We need to measure our capacities and not alone. Even people who aren't spiritual are very important to us; they're full of ego which is great, if our heads are in the clouds because of enlightenment.

 

 

[Byun Sean]

@UnjigorjigorGreat point about the whole "You are God" shtick.

I actually went through a dysfuntion where my ego thought it was God and denied the existence of other sentient beings. Thus, my ego projected itself onto everyone else showing up in reality is "everyone is my ego" which looks the same as "everyone is God".

I think this is why the great mystics mostly never talk about you being God because it can cause all sorts of issues. Better to work with the divine in 2nd or 3rd person realities before owning the 1st person realization for oneself. All are important, but I think people should be aware of dysfunctions like these that can occur.

 

[Bill W]

@Unjigorjigor Great post. Makes sense to me.

[Inliytened1]

@Unjigorjigor yes - until one awakens the statement You are God can be misleading.  One must be careful not to take it as a belief.  When one awakens that have had a mystical shift in consciousness from the part to the whole (from the finger to the hand).  So they are conscious that they are being the finger and the whole hand simultaneously.  (Non-dual awareness).  But they are also conscious that from their current perspective they are the finger.   

And until one awakens all they are conscious of is the finger.