High Quality Resources - Question To Leo and the forum

[docs20]

Hey guys I recently watched @Leo Guravideo 

 I still have a question on it though.
As often watching Leo's video I intuitively and rationally feel that there is so much radical truth in there and that everything, even if it looks absurd and counterintuitive still makes sense... but... I have troubles then living from this kind of new for prospective. Like I had this question of authority before, for example when learning pick-up or by studying other sources or by self-reflecting.
But still this question holds...
From being radically open-minded, skeptical, and putting the authority on me as God, like still how do I distinguish an high quality resource from not so good ones, how should I decide where to learn from? Radically speaking, why even from Leo? 
Like for example, Leo, what were your criteria for selecting the best ones, for example the best books, the ones on the list, by coming from this totally open-minded position? 

The problem of what information to believe in or to try and execute seems so hard to answer in this day and age where basically everyone, especially on the internet, seems to have the ultimate truth... and we are 7 billions on the planet

It is so liberating to feel that basically I can choose basically whatever I want to put my authority onto, but still I don't want to lose my mind and go and believe something that it is acutally untrue in the physical world

Edited January 17, 2020 by docs20

[Leo Gura]

You're right that you DO have to distinguish between good and bad resources, teachings, teachers, etc.

This is a deep epistemic problem which ultimately roots in the problem of distinguishing truth from falsehood. How do you know what is true vs what is false? If you had an easy answer to that, you'd be awake and you wouldn't need to ask the question. The whole challenge of life is that when you enter it, you start from ground zero with no idea how to distinguish truth from falsehood. So then an epistemic journey begins. Through a combination of life experience, contemplation, research, intuition, wisdom, and trial & error you slowly learn to sort out truth from falsehood. Of course most people don't do this. They just blindly accept whatever their culture tells them. But in our work here, the whole point is to undertake a serious epistemic inquiry and derive the truth for yourself.

It's like putting together a puzzle or solving a criminal conspiracy. You have to investigate carefully and cross-reference everything.

I addressed this process in this video:

https://www.actualized.org/articles/how-to-develop-big-picture-understanding

Anything anyone tells you about what is true vs what is false, you cannot know if it is true or false because that would be to beg the question. Which is why a direct personal inquiry is required. The only way you can know if what I'm telling you is true and a good teaching is by investigating and validating it for yourself.

But if you want to jump straight to the answer, the highest teachings in the universe will emphasize a few key things:

• Direct experience is king
• Consciousness is the key to everything
• Love is the highest truth
• Selflessness is the greatest power
• You are God, You are All
• Reality is ONE & infinite
• Death is an illusion
• Don't get stuck in any one belief system. All belief systems are relative and incomplete.

Of course, you don't know if the above is true or false unless you personally validate it. But I promise you that if you work at it, in 10 to 20 years from now, you can validate all the above beyond any doubt. But again, you don't know if that's true unless you actually do it.

The purpose of your life is to go on this grand epistemic journey, the end result of which -- if you do it very carefully -- is Truth with a capital T. And by that point you become the guru and people come to you for advice. But you also cannot really help them because you know the only way for them to know what you know is to go through the long and personal process you went through. Truth is simply too big to be told.

[Forestluv]

1 hour ago, docs20 said:

From being radically open-minded, skeptical, and putting the authority on me as God, like still how do I distinguish a high quality resource from not so good ones, how should I decide where to learn from? 

The problem of what information to believe in or to try and execute seems so hard to answer in this day and age where basically everyone, especially on the internet, seems to have the ultimate truth... and we are 7 billions on the planet

Just a few observations appearing in my mind. . . 

For me, context is a factor. For example, are we talking about people/teachers of car mechanics, learning Spanish or the nature of reality? If we are talking about an authority on learning Spanish, I would look at their experience teaching, their online reviews and would speak with the person to see if their teaching style resonates with me. Yet existential questions are different for me. Religious people, scientists, mystics and others all may express different expressions of truth and reality. It's much easier to distinguish a high quality Spanish teacher than it is a high conscious existential teacher. 

My level of discernment is proportional to my level of development and clarity. There are things have haven't been in tune with because I wasn't at that level of development yet. What you wrote about intuition and rationale is a key, ime. You can develop your intuition to which there is a knowing of itself with no knower. For me, rationale in the form of "figuring it out" is a deterrent. Yet rationale in the form of structural support is helpful.

For example, a few years ago I traveled to the mountains of Peru to do an Ayahuasca retreat. One of the tribal members was an amazing musician. Yet there was something about him that was so attractive to me. Not in a sexual way. I didn't know what kind of way. I didn't know anything about intuition, frequencies, dimensions, LOA and that was probably a good thing because I didn't have a bunch of knowledge and filters. During the retreat, I wanted to be near him and I didn't know why. I sat near him at the ceremonies. I would see him sitting outside on a rock and would go and sit next to him. We didn't even speak to each other. I just sat in his presence. I have never met a person like this in my life. There was a resonance and a knowing that this is new and it is true. Yet I couldn't figure it out or make sense of it. I didn't want to. All that was needed was a little bit of rational framework so I didn't blow it off as "woo woo". . . Over the years, that essence kept re-appearing and pieces started coming together. I might be listening to a nonduality talk and something is said that re-activates that experience and there is a knowing of "yes, that's it". I would be sitting with someone and that essence would arise and there would be a "yes, this is it". 

It might be helpful to start getting in touch with this "knowing" of direct experience. For example, do you know when someone is speaking English? If someone told you, "No, that person is actually speaking Chinese". You would "know" this isn't true. You wouldn't need to seek evidence and proof. You know. . . Another example, think of a time in your life you reached "flow state". Perhaps you were playing a sport or a musical instrument. "You" and "time" dissolved and there was pure presence of the moment just happening - as if the musical instrument was playing itself. . . Now later, imagine someone describing what a "flow state" is and what happened to you. You can tell if he "knows". He may describe one of his flow states and there may be resonance. You might be like "Yes! That's it!". Another person might get into intellectual theory and tell you your "flow state" was not real - it was just a bunch of molecules in your brain. You might think "No, that's not quite it. I don't think this guy has ever experience a flow state". . . Last example: You have an innate knowing that Now is Now. You don't need any evidence that Now is Now. If you were listening to a nondual speaker trying to express the essence of "Nowness" in words, you might resonate and be like "yes". If someone else came to you and said "Actually, this isn't Now. You are not experiencing anything. You are a rock in a forest and you aren't perceiving anything right now". You "know" this isn't true due to a knowing that comes prior. You wouldn't need to seek evidence and proof that you are not a rock and nothing is happening. 

These are obvious examples, yet ime it's a somewhat similar sense of "knowing" as we evolve and direct experience is key. And the resonance gets stronger and stronger. Recently, someone on the forum posted an essay that Maslow wrote just before his death. He wrote about the essence of "full actualization". One of the things he wrote was that "full actualizers" can recognize other "full actualizers" immediately. It is as if truth recognizes itself and truth. It is direct. Interpretations and filters are extra steps.

Ime, as I evolved "higher" into new stuff, there was a degree of groundless and uncertainty. There may have been questions like "Is this what the buddhists were referring to as no mind?" or "was that experience I just had a collective consciousness?". And then there is integration and resonance that goes deeper and broader. I might read articles from scientists, psychologists, shamans, mystics and people on forums about what collective consciousness is. For me, there is an intuitive form of intuition and essence of attraction/yes-ness. It might just be one sentence in a rambling post or it might be some high conscious post that I can "sorta get" yet seems true. In particular, that that person "knows". . . Then the direct experience can deepen, expand and clarify as it reveals itself. This is a collection of both "inside" inputs and "outside" inputs. . . For example, in one of Leo's videos he talked about consciousness being what you identify as. One can walk in the forest and identify as a human being walking through a forest. Or one can identify as a forest. I immediately knew this. There was no thinking "Wait a minute, how do I know this is true? Maybe he is just making this up. Other people say different things". The knowing came prior to all that figuring. It is the knowing of what IS as it IS. That part of Leo's video helped give me clarity and structural support. Now, consciousness can flow from being a human in a forest to consciousness being the forest. How do I know this is "true"? Because it is what it is. Now, new deeper insights are being revealed all around me that deepen and expand this. There may be appearances in my own mind, through a raccoon, a falling leaf, the Heart Sutra, Maslow, dreams etc. . . And eventually, discussions in my mind about "true" vs "false" started to dissolve. Everything I have written here is both "true" and "false" in a relative sense - for my mind to hold an image of "true" there is also an imagine of "not true" to provide contrast. At a meta level, both of these images are Truth. 

I'm much more interested in existential truth, than surface level truth. Last week I took my car to the mechanic and he told me I needed a new exhaust system. Asking if this is "true" is a very different energetic orientation for me. I don't really care. I don't want to get ripped off, so I might ask him to show me why or I may get a second opinion. Yet this type of "truth" is dry and uninteresting to me. He seems like a trustworthy guy that knew what he was talking about, so I told him to go ahead and repair it. The question of whether it was true or not never appeared again. There are much deeper levels to explore.