Peter Ralston on psychedelics

[Display_Name]

5 minutes ago, Pookie said:

Everyone has their biases and hence reasons, so I wouldn't say it's limited awareness, which Ralston could say the same thing about those who disagree with him on this subject, and he wouldn't be any more or less correct than they. 

Yes, in other words limited awareness (perspective)

anyway, there’s no ralston and no students to begin with, sooo

goodnight

Edited November 28, 2020 by Display_Name

[Yali]

Are you spiritually talented @Leo Gura ?

[Preety_India]

5 minutes ago, Yali said:

Are you spiritually talented @Leo Gura ?

Isn't it obvious that Leo is spiritually talented. All of his achievements so far with Actualized.org and you still are skeptical of Leo's talents. 

Of course he is spiritually talented. Look at his insight blog. 

What more do you want? 

 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Preety_India

[electroBeam]

2 hours ago, Arzola said:

Horses**t. This is the talent mindset.

As far as we know, he worked his ass off and was seriously committed. All this “being born with X or Y” is nonsense.

Was Da Vinci born artistically-gifted? Was Buddha already spiritually-mature in past lives? Was Mozart a musical genius because he was born as a piano master?

Great justification for most people so that we feel better about ourselves.

“Natural” talents are just highly developed skills that people attribute as being inborn or genetic. Or do they occur without the investment, effort, etc. into them?

Forestluv already commented on the relative truth behind spiritual talent but i wanted to comment more on a sociological level.

I totally get the feeling good aspect of spiritual talent. Spiritual talent might make some feel like they are better then others on an egoic level which is obviously a problem and where i think most of your reaction is sourced from.

Yet it stops feeling like you're better then others when you take a more unitive identification to reality, and acknowledge you are every human on the planet, and the current human you're living through now is temporary and impermanent. Then you'd be hoping that everyone is spiritually talented or that spiritual talent is infinite rather than finite. Because for sake of argument, you might reincarnate into the most unspiritually talented person on the planet in your next life if it is finite. Spiritual talent actually becomes a bitter pill to swallow then some feel good egoic mechanism once you grasp the finite ness of it.

From a unitive perspective it actually becomes deeply selfish to not take the acknowledgement of spiritual talent seriously, because you're neglecting the unique needs and unequal challenges of others. Its like a billionaire saying capitalism is the way to go because everyone is equal. Well no not everyone is equal because of racism, class, genetic illnesses, genetic predispositions, etc. And by saying everyone is equal you are selfishly denying the actual unequalness of what others go through and therefore prevent true means of attempting to make things equal(like curbing racism, implementing aspects of socialism, etc). In a similar way but not acknowledging spiritual talent, you dismiss the unequal challenges of less spiritually talented people and therefore prevent opportunities to help make spirituality more equal(like adding psychedelics)

Acknowledging spiritual talent is actually an empathetic mechanism.

[UnbornTao]

@electroBeam Or either we become deeply conscious, or not, and all this chatting is us jerking off.  

Edited November 28, 2020 by Arzola

[electroBeam]

17 minutes ago, Arzola said:

@electroBeam Or either we become deeply conscious, or not, and all this chatting is us jerking off.  

Or maybe trying to become deeply conscious, instead of enjoying the game, is just a spiritual rebranded form of the hedonic treadmill

[How to be wise]

@Leo Gura If it’s about genetics, then why don’t we see any of their family members with similar abilities. I know of no spiritual teacher who has an enlightened relative.

[UnbornTao]

@How to be wise Good point.

[Rinne]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Coming soon: Conner Murphy gives a thumbprint of LSD to his horse and rides it naked into the sunset in pursuit of infinite money and women. LIVE STREAM

lmaoooo

[Forestluv]

3 hours ago, Arzola said:

That’s the healing or transformational aspect. I didn’t dismiss that part. And I think Ralston doesn’t, either.

What is doubtful is that they — psychedelics — produce consciousness.

Spiritual awakening is a form of healing. Contraction in ego mind is very unhealthy to the mind and body. 

Psychedelics can expand the mind and increase awareness. I would consider that a form of consciousness "production". 

Yet it is context-dependent on the person. Psychedelics will have different effects depending on one's baseline level of consciousness and prior conditioning.

[Forestluv]

3 hours ago, electroBeam said:

This isnt a spiritual talent thing, this is an awakening thing. Awakenings change your paradigm as radically as reincarnation. Nahm keeps saying "The infinite cannot know the finite" and that is a good saying. You cant wake up and still remember what its like before awakening. Its not how it works. You literally reincarnated.

These are creative stories and there are a lot of creative stories we can create about "spirit talents", "awakening", and the mechanics of how it works. These can be useful and practical at the human level. I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm saying there are other stories and creations. 

In the story I'm creating, I say there are various awakenings and degree of awakenings. We could also call these awakenings "realizations". We could call the a tuna sandwich, I don't care about the word - the words are just pointers. So one form of tuna sandwich, errr I mean awakening, would be revealing of "the witness". The detached awareness witnessing of thoughts, sensations and perceptions. When I was in a buddhist sanghas, I never had this awakening. I was often discussed at the sangha and I meditated my ass of trying to realize it. I tried to figure it out. Never got it. I watched newbies come in and realize this within months and all the sangha members nodding there heads in approval "yes, yes Stacey. That's it. You got it". I watched newbies come in and have all sorts of realizations that I never had. . . So they question becomes, what would you attribute my failure to? Was I unlucky? Did I not try hard enough? Did I try too hard? Did prior conditioning prevent me? I think it's fair to say that I wasn't spiritually talented. For some reason, it just didn't happen in my mind. It was like I studied and practiced, yet could never realize and speak the language. 

This is a construct of "awakening" and "spiritual talent". We could create many other constructs as well. 

[Timur]

12 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Commitment is not enough. No matter how much a donkey tries, it will never become God-realized.

I know people who were born enlightened and who have spiritual powers that you will never have even after a lifetime of practice. When it comes to spirituality, genetics is far more important than practice. This is what gurus never tell you, because it isn't so nice to hear.

But isn't it the same for everything else?

There are some people who are gifted in certain skills like engineering ( Nikola Tesla, maybe Elon Musk ), IT ( Bill Gates), Investing ( Soros, Trump) and esspecially physics ( Einstein, Feynman, Bohr). Those people are also the 0.00001 Per-cent of gifted people on this earth or maybe even of all the humans who ever existed.

 

Does this realization not further proof that the only thing you have to do in order to become super successful, is to find this one thing where you are super talented ( Caveat it does exist for you) ? And how do you find it? Trying out hundreds or maybe even thousands of things may take a whole lifetime. And then most people are already establishment in some way. The 28 year lawyer is unlikely to try new things out, outside his profession.

Edited November 28, 2020 by Timur

[Gesundheit]

@Leo Gura Your views on awakening here sound very materialistic.

[diamondpenguin]

Believe it or not every time you go to sleep you are debunking the existence of the universe. 

[Leo Gura]

11 hours ago, Yali said:

Are you spiritually talented @Leo Gura ?

Yes, in a certain way.

There are many different forms of spiritual talent and ability.

10 hours ago, How to be wise said:

@Leo Gura If it’s about genetics, then why don’t we see any of their family members with similar abilities. I know of no spiritual teacher who has an enlightened relative.

It's not so simple. And practices matters.

Most people never even learn about spirituality as a possibilty.

1 hour ago, Timur said:

But isn't it the same for everything else?

There are some people who are gifted in certain skills like engineering ( Nikola Tesla, maybe Elon Musk ), IT ( Bill Gates), Investing ( Soros, Trump) and esspecially physics ( Einstein, Feynman, Bohr). Those people are also the 0.00001 Per-cent of gifted people on this earth or maybe even of all the humans who ever existed.

Yes

Quote

Does this realization not further proof that the only thing you have to do in order to become super successful, is to find this one thing where you are super talented?

Yes, if you have such a super talent.

Quote

And how do you find it?

Life Purpose Course

Quote

Trying out hundreds or maybe even thousands of things may take a whole lifetime.

No, that's not required. Many super talented people are highly intuitive and passionate and know what they should be doing. Their heart naturally draws them to whatever they are talented in. They usually know their calling from a very early age. Mozart doesn't need to test 1000 things to know he loves music.

1 hour ago, Gesundheit said:

@Leo Gura Your views on awakening here sound very materialistic.

Realistic.

[tsuki]

According to Ralston, talent can be created.

[Gesundheit]

@Leo Gura I mean you make it sound like awakening is somehow a materialistic possession that we can acquire through certain methods. But I've heard it a couple of times from different teachers that there are no real methods for awakening. You either get it by grace, or you don't. What do you think about that?

11 minutes ago, tsuki said:

According to Ralston, talent can be created.

Doesn't creation require a certain amount of talent? 

[Timur]

47 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Many super talented people are highly intuitive and passionate and know what they should be doing. Their heart naturally draws them to whatever they are talented in. They usually know their calling from a very early age. Mozart doesn't need to test 1000 things to know he loves music.

Very well said!

Thank you for taking your time and answering my question.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, tsuki said:

According to Ralston, talent can be created.

Of course it can. But only within limits.

You will never get a donkey to understand calculus. Because he doesn't have the necessary hardware.

The problem here is that talented people take their talents for granted because they have no idea what it's like not to have their talents.

Someone born enlightened will not understand why everyone else is not enlightened and acting so stupid. This is not just a hypothetical. I've actually met people like this. It takes them a long time to learn that they are unique and different from everyone else. It is a big practical problem for them. They are like an alien among their own kind.

50 minutes ago, Gesundheit said:

@Leo Gura I mean you make it sound like awakening is somehow a materialistic possession that we can acquire through certain methods. But I've heard it a couple of times from different teachers that there are no real methods for awakening. You either get it by grace, or you don't. What do you think about that?

If sticking 5-MeO-DMT up your ass counts as grace, then I guess grace it is.

[tsuki]

I had a rough week and even more difficult weekend so I don't want to sound nitpicky but this whole notion of talent does not sound right to me. No donkey, or human for that matter, is ever going to be enlightened. It is God who wakes up from the donkey to itself. I don't know why donkeys don't meditate in caves and why we do, but each and every single one of us has a path to follow that is a unique expression of God. Some paths lead through donkeys and some lead through realization.

Comparing yourselves to others is only helpful if you want to see how diverse the world is. You will never be a Ralston and taking any path as normative with respect to enlightenment is a distraction.

Psychedelics may be a part of your path that lead you to realizing your godhood, but they don't produce it. Same as meditation. Techniques will never do it because they are merely a ladder or a scaffolding at best. The possibility to become conscious of any facet of truth, with enlightenment as a center of that, is prior to any invention. That is because you are the Absolute Truth that has forgotten itself.