In which way do Jim Newman/Tony Parsons and Rupert Spira talk about the same thing?

[mandyjw]

12 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

This is context-dependent and relativistic.

Yes, cause and effect is a dualistic notion. From the absolute perspective cause & effect chains are infinite.

But that is a misleading conflation of the absolute and relative domains. When a student asks a Neo-Advaitan teacher about what he can do to become enlightened, saying, "There's nothing you can do because you're already enlightened and cause & effect does not exist" is a foolish answer because obviously the student's question is coming from the relative domain. In the relative domain there is much you can do, like stick some 5-MeO-DMT up your ass.

To me there's a difference in what I'm hearing there when they say that, what I hear is "you're completely free to delve into whatever practice you want or to fully embrace life however you want, so be completely honest with yourself about what you want and why you want it." 

For example, some people are NOT free to stick 5-MeO up their asses, so to them you create an elite club that has dues to pay. Some don't even react to it when they do. They are either destined to have this freedom at this time or not. Or some people can't meditate as well as others, some people are raising families or living in third world countries, etc, etc. In my opinion this is not a club but so completely, utterly inclusive that our individual selves are not, and this is available to everyone, because there's nothing any one of us can individually do.

I mean, just think about how interconnected we are. All these opinions and thoughts shared here are all formed by bouncing these thoughts and positions off one another and seeing how they stick, taking what we resonate with and reacting against what we don't. We're all like molecules just flying around all willy nilly.

Edited September 15, 2020 by mandyjw

[Ones]

Leo you would do many of us a favor by inviting Jim Newman to a debate. I would love hearing both perspectives going in at each other, and it would be very interesting to see what could be derived by the conversation. It would be groundbreaking, a neo-advaitan being challenged by a seasoned spiritual seeker/achiever. 

[Corpus]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Since you are God, you are defining everything, always. So what's your point?

Chill, boss. (!!)

[arlin]

Neo advaitan are too narrow obsessed with "there is nothing to do, there is only what's happening" "there is no message, this is not a teaching" and then pride themselves for "oh look how radical this is, this is radical.".

Enlightenment is always radical.

but to say that you have nothing to teach is in and on itself a duality. 

You can't escape duality in this life. So they are deluding themselves in a sense.

Like wtf is stupid to say just nothing has to be done. Maybe it's true for you that had the realization, but not for others who are asleep. They still have to realize that. 

You are not going to become enlightened by sitting on the fkin couch all day.

Duality is important, it's the game we are playing here apparently. Don't dismiss it. 

[mandyjw]

Neo-advaita seeks to completely clear the slate. It's almost destructive in a way, if you look at it through a narrow lens of judgement. It's the eraser the artist uses when they fuck something up. The eraser destroys hard work from one perspective, but really it paves the way for a mistake to become a valuable lesson. It's instrumental in allowing the finished piece to be what was envisioned by the artist in the first place. 

[Dodo]

In the meditation your pointings are very Neo-advaitan. You say: "Let go of trying to become enlightened or to have any other kind of "meditative experience"., the meditative experience is always the case. Every experience is a meditative experience, because meditation is simply what is - surrender yourself completely to what is. Surrender the mind and surrender the body" @Leo Gura 

And I get that this is a practice in itself in the beginning and to undertake meditating to this guidance is not neo-advaitan, but the pointings themself are. 

PS: When you say in this meditation "This is all there is, there's nothing else" would you now respond to your old self that there is more and to stick 5meo up your but?  

Edited September 15, 2020 by Dodo

[allislove]

@Ellenier 

They talk about the same thing but from different angles. All these spiritual teachers share some pointers to Truth which may be helpful for spiritual seekers to realize yourself. Different pointers may be helpful or not at all, depending on a seeker. Take what is resonating with you in the current moment, take what feels good for you.

3 hours ago, Ellenier said:

They rather criticize each other, as if the other approach didn't work out.

They are just biased to some extent as everyone else.  
Personally, psychedelic is the best tool for rising open-mindedness.

[Leo Gura]

31 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

so to them you create an elite club that has dues to pay.

The opposite is the case. THEY create an elite club of 1 in million people who got enlightened through sheer good fortune, and they expect that same good fortune to carry over to everyone else.

Well, good luck with that. You'll need it.

My approach is far more non-elitist. Any fool can stick 5-MeO-DMT up his ass and experience awakening. You don't even have to sit through my satsangs or kiss my ass.

[Leo Gura]

36 minutes ago, Ones said:

Leo you would do many of us a favor by inviting Jim Newman to a debate. I would love hearing both perspectives going in at each other, and it would be very interesting to see what could be derived by the conversation. It would be groundbreaking, a neo-advaitan being challenged by a seasoned spiritual seeker/achiever. 

I don't debate people. There is nothing to debate. Truth is never a matter of debate.

Do the practices, or don't.

24 minutes ago, Dodo said:

In the meditation your pointings are very Neo-advaitan. You say: "Let go of trying to become enlightened or to have any other kind of "meditative experience"., the meditative experience is always the case. Every experience is a meditative experience, because meditation is simply what is - surrender yourself completely to what is. Surrender the mind and surrender the body" @Leo Gura 

That's basically the do-nothing technique. It's a good technique. But you won't reach the highest levels of consciousness with it. Not unless you're supernaturally gifted from birth with special brain chemistry.

The present moment is not all there is. You need to change your state of consciousness. Your present state of consciousness NOT God-consciousness.

Your state of consciousness is absolutely crucial.

Quote

PS: When you say in this meditation "This is all there is, there's nothing else" would you now respond to your old self that there is more and to stick 5meo up your but?  

There is a million things more to consciousness than sitting and being present.

[mandyjw]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The opposite is the case. THEY create an elite club of 1 in million people who got enlightened through sheer good fortune, and they expect that same good fortune to carry over to everyone else.

Well, good luck with that. You'll need it.

My approach is far more non-elitist. Any fool can stick 5-MeO-DMT up his ass and experience awakening.

See... feel these subtle pain points here... we're all just like the nerdy kid in school who still doesn't want to be left out. 

We don't need an approach at all. Any approach, any attainment, leaves people out. There aren't any people to leave out. We're still just resonating with those echos of the pain of being left out. The only reason being left out hurt at all was because we can never, ever truly be left out of... this. 

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

We don't need an approach at all. Any approach, any attainment, leaves people out.

You can take that position if you want, but that's not how I teach. I teach practical methods for ordinary people.

Neo-Advaita leaves out everyone who isn't lucky enough to get enlightened through doing nothing. Which is 99.999999% of the population.

By trying to not leave out some people, you end up leaving out all of them.

Telling an ordinary person to do nothing will never awaken them. And even if they get very lucky and do awaken, their awakening will be so weak that I don't even want to call it awakening.

[mandyjw]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

By trying to not leave out some people, you end up leaving out all of them.

True. But if you law of attraction style focus on love and inclusion, you don't even need attract the possibility of leaving out.

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Telling an ordinary person to do nothing will never awaken them. And even if they get very lucky and do awaken, their awakening will be so weak that I don't even want to call it awakening.

That's just it, it's up to you what you call it. You are the meaning maker, the exclusion maker, the cause and effect maker. You are God and so are They. 

[Leo Gura]

9 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

That's just it, it's up to you what you call it. You are the meaning maker, the exclusion maker, the cause and effect maker.

Cute, but God-consciousness it does not make.

Quote

You are God and so are They.

But they aren't conscious of what God is.

[Dodo]

42 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Not unless you're supernaturally gifted from birth with special brain chemistry.

The present moment is not all there is. 

Hang on... But in the present moment consciousness, brain only exists as a concept and sensation. You have a video on that also... ? 

It's only when we add the story of time and continuity that we can speak about birth and about brain and about being gifted in any way shape or form. In the present moment state of consciousness (if we look at this As the present moment rather than as the character in the present moment), we are already complete enlightened and perfectly still.

Now that does not mean that I can say this body and mind are enlightened. It's to say that the present moment is enlightened. 

You say something exists outside of the present, but I have no ditect experience over any such thing. Only concepts and ideas... I know most things thanks to your insights and those of other enlightened masters, so I am very confused now when you say this.

Not sure if it's just a tactic to get me to not be attached to the present moment conceptually or if you actually mean it.

PS: I am directly conscious of the fact that the bodymind /ego  writing these words is just as much enlightened as the words themselves - he is not. The person is an appearance inside of enlightened consciousness as much as these words are.

Edited September 15, 2020 by Dodo

[mandyjw]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Cute, but God-consciousness it does not make.

But they aren't conscious of what God is.

If you can be and they can't, that ain't God. Sometimes it's easier to say, there isn't a God. Then they can erase their ideas of God and be free to discover what it is they do not know. They don't need luck either, what you seek is seeking you in an infinitely wild variety of forms. Everyone on the universe is the luckiest little fucker alive. They are so lucky they are free to believe that they aren't lucky at all. 

[Adamq8]

36 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

If you can be and they can't, that ain't God. Sometimes it's easier to say, there isn't a God. Then they can erase their ideas of God and be free to discover what it is they do not know. They don't need luck either, what you seek is seeking you in an infinitely wild variety of forms. Everyone on the universe is the luckiest little fucker alive. They are so lucky they are free to believe that they aren't lucky at all. 

They ofcourse can become concious of GOD, everybody can.

And in my experience psychedelics do show what it is, tho you can't hold on to the whole experience hence a spiritual practice foundation is crucial. 

[mandyjw]

7 minutes ago, Adamq8 said:

They ofcourse can become concious of GOD, everybody can.

And in my experience psychedelics do show what it is, tho you can't hold on to the whole experience hence a spiritual practice foundation is crucial. 

Yeah, what you're pointing to the importance of here is balance. There are individuals who are unstable, creative, explosive, expressive, and they need grounding of the practices. Then there are intelligent, grounded individuals who really need a substance or an altering experience to open up the chaotic, creative part of themselves. Unfortunately we cannot prescribe anything for anyone because they only know their own needs by feeling and intuition. We can suggest things though. Lot of people have been helped by Leo's suggestion of psychedelics and he has pioneered and freed up the path quite a bit for his bravery of following his own intuition in this area. But the thing about intuition and feeling is things are never the same twice and landscape and the direction in which one needs to go is always changing. 

So we could just appreciate all the amazing "techniques" and non techniques, and all the amazing teachings and non-teachings out there.

Opposites with no opposition.

Perfect order in chaos. 

[mandyjw]

Ralston explains the core brilliance of Neo-Advaita beautifully here. It's not a revelation that apples do fall down, it's a revelation that they don't fall up.

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by mandyjw

[allislove]

27 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

There are individuals who are unstable, creative, explosive, expressive, and they need grounding of the practices. Then there are intelligent, grounded individuals who really need a substance or an altering experience to open up the chaotic, creative part of themselves.

I wouldn't make a distinction here without deep personal investigation. I would keep the "I don't know" position until then.

48 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

But the thing about intuition and feeling is things are never the same twice and landscape and the direction in which one needs to go is always changing.

Yes. Yet some things work better for the majority than others.

[Nahm]

5 hours ago, Ellenier said:

Do they actually talk about the same thing?

You can realize God, for you are. 

You can not realize God, for you are.