The problem with radical open-mindedness

[Someone here]

It's a very foundational component of Leo's teachings. One cannot be following Leo's work without being radically open-minded. Also I found it's the key to successful contemplation and unlocking deep truths and insights.  However I discovered there is a huge problem.. The mind is fundamentally afraid of being open.. The mind has a natural tendency to be closed off from radical ideas or new possibilities. Because being closed minded is what grounds your sense of reality. You look at the world through a specific lense and you assume a bunch of things about the world that are basically unquestionable. You do this to survive. You can't survive if you assume that you know nothing and you're equally open to any information. As soon as you start entertaining new ideas and open your mind to change your entire worldview.. You start to feel like you are losing a part of what grounds your reality. This can be noticed for example with  religious people who are so attached to their beliefs.. and then they discover that religion is just bullshit and there is no sky daddy up there taking care of you.. Yeah that might send them to an existential crisis.
My question is what is the limit of open mindedness? Can one be open minded to literally anything? Is that how you reach truth? But what you notice is if you are Infinitely open minded.. You will just end up knowing nothing and not able to know a thing.  There must be a balance. But where do we draw the line?

Can you open your mind to the following possibilities :

1 that you have no brain or any internal organs. Literally. After all have you ever seen them? 
2 that you are the only conscious being in the entire universe and everyone else are just figments of your mind.
3 that Leo is an alien not a human.
4 that your mom got born out of a chicken.(that's an example from Leo's open-mindedness video lol).
5 that the world ceases to exist as soon you stop looking and gets rendered once again when you look again . Like a video game.
5that the flying spaghetti monster is real. He created this world. And he will punish you if you don't worship him in this life.
6 that the entire world that you can see through the media is not real.
7 that their might be a space Kangaroo standing behind you your entire life but you couldn't see him cuz he turns with you
.
Can you honestly open your mind and entertain such ideas?  Notice the emotional  reaction against some of these ideas. and notice that you can't actually disprove any of them with 100% certainty.
You can't open your mind to these possibilities not because they are false(you don't know that) or because they are stupid lol.. But because they will threaten your sense of reality and everything you thought you know about the world might get thrown out the window. It's like you have to be close minded to survive . What would happen if you become infinitely open minded?

Edited October 29, 2020 by Someone here

[Shmurda]

I think infinite open mindedness is how we should define the absolute since it is both intelligent, self creating and without limitation (as far as we can tell). 

If a human becomes as open minded as they can possibly be, then as you said, they realise they know nothing. This insight is part of the awakening process and can create turmoil for the thinking mind. However, at that stage one hopefully has stopped believing that any truth is to be found in thought and so they shouldn't be too phased by this realisation. 

One common trap I fell into was thinking that I had realised I know nothing. On closer inspection this is still an attempt at knowing. 

[No Self]

Intuitively, it feels like a short-cut is to call into question the root assumptions of one's sense of self - being separate, being finite, etc. This leads to a naturally meditative state rather than mental mayhem - but there seems to be a fine line between the two.

For practical purposes, there is always some sort of 'walled garden' in a given ego's psychology. I remember Neale Donald Walsch used the example that one should replace one brick at a time in a house rather than knocking the whole thing over.

Some people believe in spirit guides, and some of them believe in animal spirit guides. The space kangaroo is plausible from this perspective...

[Corpus]

43 minutes ago, Someone here said:

 

Can you open your mind to the following possibilities :

1 that you have no brain or any internal organs. Literally. After all have you ever seen them? 
 

Have you ever considered becoming a senior executive in the UKs NHS? You could cut down the waiting list dramatically, but you might have a few complaints to deal with.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Corpus

[commie]

I don't know that my "reality" has any "ground" or feels like anything other than my state of consciousness.

43 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Can you open your mind to the following possibilities :

1 that you have no brain or any internal organs. Literally. After all have you ever seen them? 
2 that you are the only conscious being in the entire universe and everyone else are just figments of your mind.
3 that Leo is an alien not a human.
4 that your mom got born out of a chicken.(that's an example from Leo's open-mindedness video lol).
5 that the world ceases to exist as soon you stop looking and gets rendered once again when you look again . Like a video game.
5that the flying spaghetti monster is real. He created this world. And he will punish you if you don't worship him in this life.
6 that the entire world that you can see through the media is not real.
7 that their might be a space Kangaroo standing behind you your entire life but you couldn't see him cuz he turns with you
.
Can you honestly open your mind and entertain such ideas?  Notice the emotional  reaction against some of these ideas. and notice that you can't actually disprove any of them with 100% certainty.

4, 5b and 7 are ridiculous. I don't need to disprove them, only laugh them off. Still, I can easily entertain 5b. 7, not so much (in part because it wouldn't be hard to disprove unless that being was incorporeal).

As to the other ideas, what's the problem with them exactly? You only have to act as if these ideas were unfounded or simply to ignore them because you've got better things to do than ponder them. And there are so many ideas we don't take seriously in order to live our lives...

[Leo Gura]

You adopt radical openmindedness while simultaneously doing serious reasearch, consuming quality sources of info, reading, doing practices, and testing everything.

Radical openmindedness is not a license to adopt a bunch of untested New Age beliefs. You test ruthlessly, as is the spirit of science.

[Gesundheit]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

My question is what is the limit of open mindedness?

Ego.

Attachment.

Fear.

Identity.

Thought.

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

You can't survive if you assume that you know nothing and you're equally open to any information.

All of the limitations listed above cannot survive without a ground of illusion. Open-mindedness is the eradication of all grounds. But physical survival is something else entirely, and it's not dependent on ego survival. So, it is possible to survive in complete not-knowing and full open-mindedness. It just takes a freaking huge amount of courage. It is possible to stop surviving from fear and to move into fearlessness, but it's very, very difficult.

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

There must be a balance. But where do we draw the line?

There isn't, really. Unless you already know everything, which is exactly the opposite of what is the case, then you can never define a balance point.

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

What would happen if you become infinitely open minded?

You'd stop identifying with fear, which will make you invincible.

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, Shmurda said:

One common trap I fell into was thinking that I had realised I know nothing. On closer inspection this is still an attempt at knowing. 

Knowing nothing is still knowing?! ?

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, commie said:

4, 5b and 7 are ridiculous. I don't need to disprove them, only laugh them off.

Sure bro ridiculous af. Go ahead and disprove them lol. you can't disprove them. You only react this way as a defence mechanism. "oh just stupid ideas they can't be true" as I said you cannot open your mind to them because you've got survival to worry about and a whole imaginary construct of what's "ridiculous" and what's "not ridiculous" to defend. 

 

1 hour ago, commie said:

And there are so many ideas we don't take seriously in order to live our lives. 

Exactly! You don't take them seriously to "live your life". Survival is of a higher priority than truth. 

[commie]

Tea is a higher priority than truth.

12 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Sure bro ridiculous af. Go ahead and disprove them lol. you can't disprove them. You only react this way as a defence mechanism. "oh just stupid ideas they can't be true" as I said you cannot open your mind to them because you've got survival to worry about and a whole imaginary construct of what's "ridiculous" and what's "not ridiculous" to defend.

You're projecting. Such a sad display too... have no you joy?

And WTF is that "bro" about? Mind your dirty, wet tongue!

Edited October 29, 2020 by commie
making sure I'm not mistaken for a truther

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

You adopt radical openmindedness while simultaneously doing serious reasearch, consuming quality sources of info, reading, doing practices, and testing everything.

Radical openmindedness is not a license to adopt a bunch of untested New Age beliefs. You test ruthlessly, as is the spirit of science.

So testing is the key. You also said to ground your open-mindedness in direct experience. You can't be open minded to something that goes against your direct experience. 

How do I test the concept of "others are imaginary"? In my direct experience I can't for example undo or unimagine you. 

[Someone here]

@commie you are clearly just a troll bro.  Bro is not an insult btw bro. It's just an acronym for "brother" bro. 

Take care. Bro 

Edited October 29, 2020 by Someone here
Making sure I explained "bro"

[Shin]

2 hours ago, commie said:

I don't know that my "reality" has any "ground" or feels like anything other than my state of consciousness.

4, 5b and 7 are ridiculous. I don't need to disprove them, only laugh them off. Still, I can easily entertain 5b. 7, not so much (in part because it wouldn't be hard to disprove unless that being was incorporeal).

As to the other ideas, what's the problem with them exactly? You only have to act as if these ideas were unfounded or simply to ignore them because you've got better things to do than ponder them. And there are so many ideas we don't take seriously in order to live our lives...

If you're really open minded, you actually don't know if this is true or not  

Be more open minded

[VeganAwake]

"the greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, it's the illusion of knowledge"

The mind likes to put things in a box and check it off as being known, so it can move on to the next box to check off.

This quote points to: when you believe you already know something, the mind tends to subconsciously skip over it without inquiring deeply enough... this is why it's often said to become child like, as if looking at something for the first time.

This is why the middle path is so often referred to with Enlightenment work.

It's not about landing on one side or the other... staying emotionally neutral during deep introspection.

Open and grounded simultaneously sorting through the wheat and the chaff like Leo says...? ❤

[commie]

6 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Bro is not an insult btw bro. It's just an acronym for "brother" bro.

That is precisely the problem.

1 minute ago, Shin said:

If you're really open minded, you actually don't know if this is true or not

Did I say otherwise?

1 minute ago, Shin said:

Be more open minded

I don't want my brains to fall out when I bend over.

[Shin]

Just now, commie said:

That is precisely the problem.

Did I say otherwise?

I don't want my brains to fall out when I bend over.

You said those points are "ridiculous" and easy to disprove.

Hence you already have your opinion about them.

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, Gesundheit said:

Ego.

Attachment.

Fear.

Identity.

Thought.

True. 

 

1 hour ago, Gesundheit said:

But physical survival is something else entirely, and it's not dependent on ego survival. So, it is possible to survive in complete not-knowing and full open-mindedness. It just takes a freaking huge amount of courage. It is possible to stop surviving from fear and to move into fearlessness, but it's very, very difficult.

Good point. 

[mandyjw]

Open-mindedness is the same as truly being honest with yourself, and love. I was raised Christian but as a kid I realized that the belief in hell was impossible to continue with if I believed in a loving God. The two beliefs would not align, so I chose love and dropped the hell belief. That was just part of a string of letting go of more beliefs from religion in order to chose love. But religion left huge openings and questions in my psyche as well. It was neither help nor hindrance when compared with an atheist belief structure. I had different fears. The worst thing as a devout Christian is not physical death at all, it's the Devil that we psychologically equate as the driving force behind suffering itself. 

3 hours ago, Someone here said:

It's like you have to be close minded to survive . What would happen if you become infinitely open minded?

Your mind is already completely open. You don't have a mind, you are awareness. No one can tell you what will happen the openness is the question and the answer itself. 

[commie]

20 minutes ago, Shin said:

You said those points are "ridiculous" and easy to disprove.

Hence you already have your opinion about them.

No, I didn't. You're letting your mind run away with the silverware.

[Gesundheit]

I should mention that a lot of people claim enlightenment when they're in fact deluding themselves. Enlightenment is what I was describing, and it is incredibly difficult to achieve. A lot of people think they have conquered fear for good, but when you test them you will find that they're full of fears and attachments. It's also important to mention that by no means I am claiming enlightenment. I am still a pitiful fearful human being with a stupid deluded closed-mind. Full openness requires literally insane amount of courage. That's full enlightenment.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Gesundheit