Difference between awakening and turquoise?

[Leo Gura]

12 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

But what if you were trying to analyse Jesus's values for a school assignment. And completely forget about the mysticism aspects of him (or completely deny them if you're an academic). 

Well, then you'd be a fool. As I said in my Spiral videos, Spiral Dynamics is not a model for exceptional people. It is modeled on normies and averages.

Every scientific model has its limits.

Don't go applying Spiral Dynamics to the top 0.001% of God-realized beings.

Quote

He must have some values right?

His values were probably Purple/Blueish -- which were the values of his culture and era.

If I had to guess, ancient mystics (even if they were very advanced) had values similar to their local culture.

Buddha was not some feminist, pro LGBTQ+ guy.

Looked at from today's era, such ancient mystics would probably seem like crude religious conservatives, even though they are enlightened.

[electroBeam]

11 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Looked at from today's era, such ancient mystics would probably seem like crude religious conservatives, even though they are enlightened.

As you said, it depends on your level of consciousness.

You can think of it as 2 parallel universes going on at once. From one perspective, Jesus is a crude neanderthal. From another, he is operating at a level where he is actually using his understanding of timelessness, eternity, infinite love etc to live a good life and help others. Which is extremely beyond crude. And its not like the 2nd perspective builds on top of the 1st. Its like an optical illusion, where the both exist at the same time. The first perspective is no truer than the 2nd. 

Which is why I don't really get the value of going up the ladder of spiral dynamics, when it breaks down anyway through meditation. And the new perspective or life you have after it breaks down is so much more cooler than going up a stage. 

 

[Leo Gura]

10 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

Which is why I don't really get the value of going up the ladder of spiral dynamics, when it breaks down anyway through meditation.

But the whole point is that it doesn't break away.

If you're a racist, sexist, homophobe, and transphobe, you will still be that after enlightenment -- since those are values you picked up from your culture.

The bottom line is this: even if you awaken, your mental programming will still largely reflect your culture. Awakening does not change your entire mental programming.

Zen monks in 1940's supported authoritarian, fascist Japanese nationalism. Exactly as you'd expect. They would also be sexist, patriarchal, homophobic, transphobic, anti-democratic, anti-globalist, climate change deniers, dogmatic, etc.

[tsuki]

Newtonian mechanics break down at high velocities, but we still use it for a lot of important stuff.
I would be incredibly surprised to see an individual that is completely off the charts with regard to SD.

Even if I saw one, it SD would still be mostly correct 99,99% of the time.

Models are relative, not absolute.

Edited August 11, 2020 by tsuki

[electroBeam]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Zen monks in 1940's supported authoritarian, fascist Japanese nationalism. Exactly as you'd expect. They would also be sexist, patriarchal, homophobic, transphobic, anti-democratic, anti-globalist, dogmatic, etc.

But what's confusing is there are some enlightened people who are just so deep in enlightenment that they just can't comprehend being racist.

Like Bashar. He's so high in the sky, talking about aliens and stuff, that I don't think he can even comprehend being racist. Or capitalist. He's broken down and deconstructed his paradigm so much that he doesn't comprehend the basis of racism. Because his worldview is so broken and deconstructed.

Same with other teachers. Like adyshanti and sadhuguru and matt khan. 

And this goes with my experience aswell, if you contemplate enough as part of your spiritual journey, and just keep deconstructing, you forget how to be racist. Because you've deconstructed race as part of your spiritual process of shedding ego. 

I'm aware that there are spiritual teachers who are racist, and maintain their social programming, but somehow it doesn't happen with all teachers. 

[electroBeam]

1 minute ago, tsuki said:

Newtonian mechanics break down at high velocities, but we still use it for a lot of important stuff.
I would be incredibly surprised to see an individual that is completely off the charts with regard to SD.

Even if I saw one, it SD would still be mostly correct 99,99% of the time.

Models are relative, not absolute.

Yeah but whether Newtonian mechanics is important is relative to your worldview. Newtonian mechanics is completely useless for shamans or reiki healers. And whether newtonian mechanics are 'real' is totally dependent on your perspective. Some perspectives see newtonian mechanics as valid, while others don't. 

Whether someone is off the charts or not is completely dependent on your perspective and what you decide to dream up. You can project whatever you want. For some, Padmasambhava or Jesus may be on the charts, for others he's not. I personally don't recognise Padmasambhava as being on the charts based on his story and life. I see him as being completely undefined SD wise. 

[Leo Gura]

10 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

Like Bashar. He's so high in the sky, talking about aliens and stuff, that I don't think he can even comprehend being racist. Or capitalist. He's broken down and deconstructed his paradigm so much that he doesn't comprehend the basis of racism. Because his worldview is so broken and deconstructed.

Same with other teachers. Like adyshanti and sadhuguru and matt khan.

Again, you cite highly exceptional people, and they are all post-modern people.

The reason Bashar, Adayshanti, Matt Khan, etc. aren't racist is simply because they are modern folks who grew up in a stage Green culture.

If they grew up in the colonial South, I'm pretty sure they'd be racist.

And Sadhguru clearly has some pro-Hindu biases. As you'd expect given that India is so stage Blue.

But it's basically impossible to be a spiritual guru today and not be at least stage Green. People would laugh at you.

Can you imagine Sadhguru sitting up there and:

Quote

"Blacks and women have no low IQ, isn't it?

Yes or no?"

 

[electroBeam]

@Leo Gura Yeah ok, they probably got it from culture, never thought of that.

Bashar though is definitely different hahaha. I can't imagine him saying Derek Chauvin is an awful guy for shooting that black guy. I think he would look at the scenario and a big "I cannot compute..." would happen. 

[tsuki]

14 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

Yeah but whether Newtonian mechanics is important is relative to your worldview. Newtonian mechanics is completely useless for shamans or reiki healers. And whether newtonian mechanics are 'real' is totally dependent on your perspective. Some perspectives see newtonian mechanics as valid, while others don't. 

What is a "shaman", or a "reiki healer"? It is a person that chooses to perform a certain profession. A "reiki healer" may have no benefit from learning Newtonian mechanics, but a person may be interested in it to transform himself into something different (an Engineer, let's say). When you apply this kind of reasoning to SD you will see that climbing it is a choice that the person has to make. It is, by no measure, an absolute and it will, or will not, resonate with some people. Regardless of what Leo's marketing tells you, there is no shame in not being interested in it.

Usefulness is relative to your personal way of surviving.

14 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

Whether someone is off the charts or not is completely dependent on your perspective and what you decide to dream up. You can project whatever you want.

Sorry, I don't understand these two sentences. They seem to contradict each other to me.

14 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

For some, Padmasambhava or Jesus may be on the charts, for others he's not. I personally don't recognise Padmasambhava as being on the charts based on his story and life. I see him as being completely undefined SD wise. 

Good for you!

Edited August 11, 2020 by tsuki

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

I can't imagine him saying Derek Chauvin is an awful guy for shooting that black guy.

Yeah, sure.

But there is a lot more to one's worldview than something as obvious as racism or sexism. Awakening has a more direct impact on one's tolerance of others than it does on other aspects of one's worldview.

If you really want to test a mystic's level of Spiral development, ask him his opinions on how to fix capitalism or if he would vote for a socialist.

You might be surprised that your favorite guru is actually a neoliberal hack, because he hasn't deeply contemplated the structural problems with capitalism, for example.

A good way to test a guru's level of Tier 2 understanding is to ask him about systemic global issues and how he would resolve them. Stuff like poverty, climate change, factory farming, water shortages, Wall Street, banking, systemic racism, taxation, etc.

[electroBeam]

8 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

A good way to test a guru's level of Tier 2 understanding is to ask him about systemic global issues and how he would resolve them. Stuff like poverty, climate change, factory farming, water shortages, Wall Street, banking, systemic racism, taxation, etc.

Yeah that's development completely unrelated to awakening IMO. The awakened had to surrender so much, that such questions would probably feel like asking "what's the best way to swing a golf club"

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

Yeah that's development completely unrelated to awakening IMO. The awakened had to surrender so much, that such questions would probably feel like asking "what's the best way to swing a golf club"

But these are still issues even awakened people perpetuate.

You can be awakened and yet still contribute to the exploitations of a capitalist system. Someone like Osho is a good example. He was stuck in Orange in some ways with his Rolls Royces.

We can't just adopt an attitude of: "Well, he's awake so nothing else matters."

Social issues do matter. If you're awake in a corrupt society, and you're not doing something to correct that, something isn't quite right about you. Sitting by while Nazis take over your town says something about the kind of person you are.

[Display_Name]

I agree it always seemed to me Leo had a hard on for anti materialism radical open-minded magicks and mysticism at that time and threw it into turquoise, when not particularly relevant to the actual essence of turquoise.

I disagree with there being no correlation with awakening. You seem to be throwing all “enlightened” people into one pot. Let’s remember there’s multiple facets and multiple stages, and hold full enlightenment to a higher standard. Peak consciousness and unity experiences are filtered yes. Hence purple shamans and blue mystics. But full liberation involves seeing all standpoints, beliefs and mind content as fabricated and empty - the kind of deconstruction that doesn’t just happen and stick with a peak experience, imo this results in fundamental upwards movement on the spiral, quite fkin quickly too.

I’m perplexed though, that you’ve been on this forum for so long, and accept and understand spiral dynamics well enough to make this post, but still evaluate yourself at blue. Can you elaborate?

Edited August 11, 2020 by Display_Name

[electroBeam]

10 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Social issues do matter. If you're awake in a corrupt society, and you're not doing something to correct that, something isn't quite right about you. Sitting by while Nazis take over your town says something about the kind of person you are.

That's an extreme example but

12 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You can be awakened and yet still contribute to the exploitations of a capitalist system. Someone like Osho is a good example. He was stuck in Orange in some ways with his Rolls Royces.

Very easily Osho could not have been aware of the complexities of capitalism, because it take study to see it unlike mysticism. Its not just obvious by walking in the streets. And you can still be deeply loving and deeply unaware of those hidden complexities. 

But I think you're saying that you should study those complexities otherwise there's something not quite right about you. Yeah really not sure about that. Got nothing to add to the discussion at this point because im not sure. 

I feel like ultimately mysticism and direct experience is prior to intellectual understandings of the complexities of capitalism, and direct experience and mysticism is prior because capitalism is imaginary and not true, so I value the former more. But that may change in the future if I ever get to post awakening and decide to ride the ox a certain way. Or maybe not. 

I think infinite love has a component here, you feel a desire to heal the world because of infinite love, and that may feed into wanting to stop nazis taking over your land. But that feeling is totally dependent on whether you're educated enough to know the problems in the first place. Infinite love doesn't guarantee that you'll automagically feel an urge to reduce capitalism. Only if you somehow become aware of it (which to become aware of that stuff you need to do worldly things like reading books and talking to people, not meditation or awakening work). 

16 minutes ago, Display_Name said:

I’m perplexed though, that you’ve been on this forum for so long, and accept and understand spiral dynamics well enough to make this post, but still evaluate yourself at blue. Can you elaborate?

The discussion with me and Leo gives a great explanation. 

There's lots of mystical stuff happening in my experience on a daily basis, but spiral dynamics wise, I find I'm closest to blue/orange, although due to how deconstructed my worldview is, I don't really resonate with any particular stage on the spiral. 

I resonate very very well with the experiences of the accounts of Jesus, Chogyam Trungpa, zen teachers and shamans. Very timeless, eternal, non linear. And those teachers are blue. I don't resonate much with green teachers like Matt Khan, Adyshanti, mooji, etc. My spiritual style is very aggressive like Peter Ralstone. So that's why I generally peg myself as blue. Its hard to peg myself without comparing myself to the experiences of teachers, because on a daily basis, my perspective isn't very worldly. Its very timeless, eternal, magical/mystical, etc. 

And I don't really feel a strong repulsion to being blue either. Because I'm so detached from worldly things, and so immersed in bliss and a perspective that's very open and released, that there's no passion or dispassion towards my values. My values are sort of like just ordinary things I don't really think or care about, like dust on your desk. 

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

That's an extreme example but

Well, a lot of German intellectuals actually ended up joining the Nazi party back in the 1930's and 1940's.

Like Martin Heidegger. Which shows you that he wasn't such a great philosopher.

And the Zen monks of Japan supported Japanese fascism and nationalism in the same time period. Which shows you they weren't so great either.

The true mark of a great mystic is how well he supports Love for all people on all levels: socially, culturally, and economically.

Love is the ultimate measure.

[Display_Name]

13 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

although due to how deconstructed my worldview is, I don't really resonate with any particular stage

Well there you go! Deconstructing worldview is moving up the spiral! I don’t think you’re blue at all.

I also think it’s silly to evaluate yourself by comparing yourself to others, who you are yourself projecting. Also, Ralston is the total opposite of blue lol. He literally harps against blue in every second talk of his.

13 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

that there's no passion or dispassion towards my values. My values are sort of like just ordinary things I don't really think or care about

Again, not blue.

I think a far more accurate measure is how attached you are, and how much you believe in your mental content, in your fabrications. Which you seem to do far less than blue, orange, green. Imo you are tier 2.

 

Btw I updated my first post expanding on correlation between SD and awakening in case you missed it.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Display_Name

[Conscious life]

@Leo Gura it would be great if you present Ken wilber Sprial model, and others developmental models too from different field. 

[Display_Name]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

If you're a racist, sexist, homophobe, and transphobe, you will still be that after enlightenment -- since those are values you picked up from your culture.

The bottom line is this: even if you awaken, your mental programming will still largely reflect your culture. Awakening does not change your entire mental programming.

Here’s where I disagree with both of you.

Remaining belief in mental programming = not full enlightenment, plain and simple. 

This whole discussion stems from a muddied, unnuanced and low standard for enlightenment.

We need to agree on the terms and take multiple stages of enlightenment into account for this discussion to even make sense.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Display_Name

[Display_Name]

1 hour ago, electroBeam said:

Like Bashar. He's so high in the sky, talking about aliens and stuff, that I don't think he can even comprehend being racist. Or capitalist. He's broken down and deconstructed his paradigm so much that he doesn't comprehend the basis of racism. Because his worldview is so broken and deconstructed.

Same with other teachers. Like adyshanti and sadhuguru and matt khan. 

Adyashanti had an emotional, passionate talk on racism and BLM just a couple weeks ago, you can find it on his Youtube. Plus again, deconstructed worldview is equivalent to or atleast part of high spiral development, so if what you were saying were true, this would be speaking for their spiral development.

Again, you keep projecting and assuming all kinds of things about these teachers, placing them on the spiral according to the culture they came from and how lovey vs aggressive they teach. This is flawed.

I’d argue many of the teachers you confidently placed on blue and green, ARE actually turquoise. IF they are really fully enlightened, to the standard I hold full enlightenment, which includes deconstructed worldview and transcendence of fabrication.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Display_Name

[Leo Gura]

22 minutes ago, Display_Name said:

Here’s where I disagree with both of you.

Remaining belief in mental programming = not full enlightenment, plain and simple. 

This whole discussion stems from a muddied, unnuanced and low standard for enlightenment.

We need to agree on the terms and take multiple stages of enlightenment into account for this discussion to even make sense.

Except that's wrong.

The reality is that even if you set a very high standard for enlightenment, it will still be the case that you can have enlightened masters who subscribe to outdated, primitive, and false beliefs.

It's crucial to draw a line between enlightenment vs changing the contents of the mind. They are not equivalent. And if you ever equate them, you will be in for a rude awakening as you will be unable to explain why otherwise deeply enlightened people still end up believing and doing stupid shit.

This is the classic newbie mistake of over-idealizing enlightenment and gurus.

Enlightenment is NOT moral perfection. Nor is it a sophisticated understanding of worldly affairs. Nor is it a guarantee against errors in knowledge.