Question about Leos latest Video

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Krzysztof said:

I'm a bit afraid

Exactly

You are afraid of Infinite Love.

That's why you're alive. To overcome that limitation. If you fail to do so within 80 or so years. God will have mercy on you and kill you despite all your protestations. You will kick and scream but eventually you'll die.

[4201]

8 hours ago, Serotoninluv said:

@4201 The video was not a criticism of you. It was a playful poke at Leo and Meta-Man’s interaction. I thought you might find it humorous. 

Thanks for sharing your personal views. I was unaware of that dynamic and I will adjust my communication accordingly.

Hahaha, then it's quite ironic how I took it so defensively, I apologize for that.

Call me blind but I don't see how this applies to Leo and Meta-Man's interaction. If the girl in the video was saying "I can't get rid of my biases" instead of "look at this beautiful tree" would the brown guy's words still be considered foolish? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Leo's statements on biases in this thread seem to be quite absolute. Who is confusing absolute and relative here?

[Leo Gura]

@4201 If you had no biases, you'd be dead.

How is this difficult to understand?

Are you biased against Covid-19? I dare you to go lick a sick person.

[GabeN]

for some reason i'm reminded of ths episode: 

 

 

[Forestluv]

@4201 It was more abstraction than literal. Trying to explicitly and literally describe it loses the essence. . .  In a more literal sense, can you name one thing in life that isn’t a bias? To do so, you would need to create an external, objective, universal “thing”. And that itself is a form of bias. 

 

[4201]

2 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

@4201 It was more abstraction than literal. Trying to explicitly and literally describe it loses the essence. . .  In a more literal sense, can you name one thing in life that isn’t a bias? To do so, you would need to create an external, objective, universal “thing”. And that itself is a form of bias. 

Sure, all "things" are creations of the mind as a mean for survival and therefore biased toward self. Yet "I" is not a thing but awareness of things.

I don't think we disagree here, I just don't get why Meta-Man was met with what I perceived as a negative emotional reaction when pointing out something that is not at all irrelevant to this topic.

Sure, the exact words Leo use are not incorrect. "You cannot be unbiased" is equivalent to "the mind cannot touch enlightment". But in-between the lines I feel some sense of defeatism. "You just can't be unbiased unless you're dead dude". Even if the literal words do not communicate this defeatism, the will to convince others of that statement by itself communicate much more. Truth is that it doesn't matter. Fussing about 0-bias being unreachable is a distraction from adopting a mentality that propels further in seeing our own biases.

My perception of what Meta-Man was doing is offering an alternative way of seeing the same thing, but without the negative/defeatist connotation. Of course that's just what I see, someone else can look at this situation and think he was trying to pick up a fight. I am inclined to believe what determines which perception we get is our own bias.

[Forestluv]

8 minutes ago, 4201 said:

Sure, all "things" are creations of the mind as a mean for survival and therefore biased toward self. Yet "I" is not a thing but awareness of things.

“I” is a bias. ”not a thing” is a bias. “Awareness of things” is a bias. 

10 minutes ago, 4201 said:

But in-between the lines I feel some sense of defeatism. "You just can't be unbiased unless you're dead dude". Even if the literal words do not communicate this defeatism, the will to convince others of that statement by itself communicate much more.

Of course the self would feel some sense of defeatism. Defeatism is akin to surrender, and that is the price the self must pay to realize the deeper truths. A mind oriented toward personal development, personal empowerment and personal well-being will not resonate with truths outside the parameters of personal development, empowerment and well-being. There’s nothing wrong with that, yet it’s limiting. At the personal level, it’s important to be clear on honest about one’s orientation. If I think “I seek Truth for Truth’s sake” because I like that identity . . .all sorts of distortion, misinterpretations and confusion will arise because I am perceiving through a personal lens. For the deeper levels of clarity to be revealed, all that needs to be surrender - which will feel like defeatism to the person. Yet again, there is nothing wrong with pursuing personal goals, empowerment, well-being etc. It can be a very loving thing to do for the mind and body - it’s just a different orientation. 

17 minutes ago, 4201 said:

Truth is that it doesn't matter. Fussing about 0-bias being unreachable is a distraction from adopting a mentality that propels further in seeing our own biases.

This reflects the two different orientations. And again, I’m not saying one is better than another.  . . 

One orientation is “The truth (relative to my personal development) is that it doesn’t matter. Fussing about an absolute is a distraction from my personal development and becoming a person with less bias”. This can be true at a personal level, although even that would be relative to the type of personality. For example, I know I will never be a old medal Olympic marathon runner. Yet that doesn’t give me a sense of defeatism and de-motivation. I have a passion for marathon running and try to reach my personal potential. 

As well that orientation is very different from seeking Truth for Truth’s sake, regardless of the personal consequences. For example, what if discovering the truth means that I will actually become more self biased and my well-being will decrease. What if that is the truth? Someone oriented toward personal development will not enter that room to explore. Someone oriented toward discovering Truth for Truth’s sake, regardless of personal consequences, will enter that room to explore. Again, neither orientation is better or worse. Yet being unclear will cause fog, confusion and inner turmoil. 

[4201]

9 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

“I” is a bias. ”not a thing” is a bias. “Awareness of things” is a bias. 

The pointers may be biases but not the absence of thing they point to. The concept of a "not being a thing" is a concept but what it points to is not a thing. The word blue is not blue but what it points to is.

11 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

Of course the self would feel some sense of defeatism. Defeatism is akin to surrender, and that is the price the self must pay to realize the deeper truths.

Is enlightment really a transaction? Personally I would see it like the realization that there's no transaction to be done, no problem to solve, no worries to cling onto.

My experience with defeatism is that it arises when there's high expectations which we know won't be met. The ego says "I can't be at peace right now because things are not the way I want them to be". 

What the self feel is a matter of how the self thinks. No matter what you show me, even if it's the most horrible thing one could even possibly imagine, what the mind makes of it is not determined by what was revealed but by how the self reacted to what was revealed. 

I see where you are coming from with the empathy for Leo feeling defeatism after seeing crushing truths and I can feel that empathy as well. I just don't think this defeatism is any part of the truth that was revealed but rather a neurotic reaction to it.

24 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

A mind oriented toward personal development, personal empowerment and personal well-being will not resonate with truths outside the parameters of personal development, empowerment and well-being. There’s nothing wrong with that, yet it’s limiting. At the personal level, it’s important to be clear on honest about one’s orientation. If I think “I seek Truth for Truth’s sake” because I like that identity . . .all sorts of distortion, misinterpretations and confusion will arise because I am perceiving through a personal lens. For the deeper levels of clarity to be revealed, all that needs to be surrender - which will feel like defeatism to the person. Yet again, there is nothing wrong with pursuing personal goals, empowerment, well-being etc. It can be a very loving thing to do for the mind and body - it’s just a different orientation. 

This reflects the two different orientations. And again, I’m not saying one is better than another.  . . 

One orientation is “The truth (relative to my personal development) is that it doesn’t matter. Fussing about an absolute is a distraction from my personal development and becoming a person with less bias”. This can be true at a personal level, although even that would be relative to the type of personality. For example, I know I will never be a old medal Olympic marathon runner. Yet that doesn’t give me a sense of defeatism and de-motivation. I have a passion for marathon running and try to reach my personal potential. 

As well that orientation is very different from seeking Truth for Truth’s sake, regardless of the personal consequences. For example, what if discovering the truth means that I will actually become more self biased and my well-being will decrease. What if that is the truth? Someone oriented toward personal development will not enter that room to explore. Someone oriented toward discovering Truth for Truth’s sake, regardless of personal consequences, will enter that room to explore. Again, neither orientation is better or worse. Yet being unclear will cause fog, confusion and inner turmoil. 

I appreciate your analysis but my opinion is different. I do not think this distinction matters. One may assume that acting in a way to of reaching happiness avoids finding "hard truths" but the reality is that if you feel like shit, it's not the Truth's fault, it's your fault. For any negative feeling there must be negative reaction to something. Whenever I feel bad, I know I'm doing something bad, somehow somewhere. It might tell me exactly what to do but at least I know I got something to work on. So I don't think it matters why you are seeking Truth. For me I don't really think about why so much. I can generate a lot of reasons (rationalize) but honestly I don't know why I am seeking Truth. On a day to day basis, when I meditate I feel good and when I don't I feel bad.

[Forestluv]

@4201 To me you seem to have a particular orientation. What I’m expressing doesn’t resonate with you and you don’t seem to have interest exploring it. I’m not saying you have a wrong orientation. It’s fine as it is and I wish you well. 

[4201]

32 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

@4201 To me you seem to have a particular orientation. What I’m expressing doesn’t resonate with you and you don’t seem to have interest exploring it. I’m not saying you have a wrong orientation. It’s fine as it is and I wish you well. 

Fair. I'm not denying that I have a particular orientation (although perhaps I wish I had none), but I just don't think that having a different one justify letting negative emotional reactions fly under the radar. I wish you the best