Major Discussion Of Actualized.org Teachings & The Future

[LastThursday]

@Leo Gura your response to @SoonHei's death has been the correct one and timely and I commend you for being open and listening too. My heart goes out @SoonHei's family.

I watched your videos nearly from the start and have personally gained a huge amount from them. I came to the forum much later but I've grown to like the anything goes nature of it. As you say, it's a place to hang out. Where else can I talk about consciousness, leaving home, give advice about relationships, read about building a business, solipsism and the dreaded free will? And to be in the presence of so many enlightened masters, all in one place? Nowehere else, that's the answer. I could even investigate politics if I could bring myself to do it. And amazingly I've started a journalling habit for the first time in my life.

Enough simping.

Some questions:

How do you square the circle then? Do you still want this place to be somewhere to hang out, or does it or should it serve a different purpose? How do you have a carefree, free-for-all forum without many rules, but maintain civility and decent behaviour, and have reasonable standards and less bullshit? Especially as the number of forum members expands. Does it need more moderators? Does it need stricter and more rules? Is the very structure of the forum at fault for low standards (if there are any)? How do you get over the churn of people on the forum, most of them newcommers who need proper guidance in what you're teaching? What about the inexperience of the early twenty somethings making up the large majority of members here?

I've noticed myself naturally slowly moving away from the forum over time, mostly because I seem to have exhausted a lot of the subjects that interest me on here. I'd like to progress in "the work", but the forum is not the place to do it maybe it never was. In that sense the forum serves its purpose well: as a stepping stone to higher things and for learning the lingo.

Some of the things that disturb me about the forum is some of the casual bullying, harrassment, and stories of racism between members, and some amount of implied misogyny too, and the rudeness and extreme lack of empathy shown at times. I hope this kind of thing is taken extremely seriously and dealt with quickly in future, and there's solid system in place for it. Personally, thankfully, I haven't been at the receiving end of any of it and nor should anybody be.

 

 

[AuthenticSelf]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

But the irony is that authoritarian rule, when done properly, yields to a better overall result.

Made me think of this video, which pretty convincingly, shows that Star Trek Federation is an authoritarian regime: 

 

[Sempiternity]

@LastThursday  Beautifully said. 

[LastThursday]

@Sempiternity thanks!

Edited May 21, 2021 by LastThursday

[Ivan Dimi]

@Leo Gura

Hi Leo

Here my very honest feedback after following you almost from the very beginning.

From my perspective your content is not dangerous at all, for me there is zero harmful content whatsoever. BUT (there is a huge but) I was and am (Thank God) all that time at a very good place in my life (having good health, amazing wife and great life purpose). Thanks to your teachings I could improve and go deeper in all directions: spiritually, creatively, philosophically and can´t be more thankful for that! But my starting position was & is a very solid, healthy one. Besides being 34 I already formed my character and do not follow you from a lower place, but rather seeing you as much much more spiritually developed buddy (from who I can learn a lot) and not as the type of cult guru (like maybe lots of people see you, if you like it or not). At the same time, I can see why some of your teachings can be dangerous for more unstable personalities, or even youngsters that have not mastered the basics of life now. They cannot fully incorporate your teachings and use some small fragments as shortcuts to escape the misery of life. The problem comes from the paradox that you are on the one hand very popular (with over 1Mio subscribers almost mainstream), on the other hand your teachings are in parts mega advanced & deep (contrary to anything mainstream).  Is like teaching quantum physics to bunch of kids that can´t do basic math right now. So my suggestion for you is to create simultaneously different levels of content (basic self-help, medium , advanced stuff, and super advanced stuff) and label it very clearly accordantly to the level. For example, the episode ´ Life Advice For Young People ´ is super practical and cant harm anybody for sure, but I can see why other episodes in that direction of ´Life is imaginary´ and ´you don’t really exist´ can be misunderstood. Maybe you should start with huge warning this very advanced episodes.

[WonderSeeker]

@Leo Gura Been a viewer and have been doing various practices that I learned from you for about 18 months.

Maybe this is just a style/personality thing, but I've found your character to be quite cold and brutal at times. There are pros to this, such as your  straightforwardness, bluntness, and coherence. However, having an advanced truth presented to me in such a way would throw me off emotionally sometimes (chest would contract, etc.). I'm a feely person (INFP), so I'd have to wrestle with what you said through bodily contractions, which is of course fine because I'm watching at my own risk. But in the big-picture, I often just didn't perceive an expressive emotional understanding from you toward your viewers.

I think that it would be great if you could integrate a sort of emotional empathy into your teachings that you project when you talk about these things, to the extent that you can without having to 'try' to communicate in a way that's not you. I feel as though by integrating both sides: brutal honesty with loving-compassion, an audience comprised of such diverse operating systems would appreciate that. 

[Sempiternity]

Maybe there could be another section of the forum just for the most dedicated to the path? One for amateurs who are just starting out in their journey. A place where they can ask the basics, discuss things at that level, and get advice from more experienced peoples. And another for those who more advanced on the path, who can discuss the deepest depths of Nonduality/God-Consciousness/Love/Infinity with others at that same level. Think of it like school. Would you have people in grades 6 -12 in the same class, discussing the same subjects, with the peoples in Masters and Doctorate programs? Of course not. It neither benefits those at the 6-12 stage, nor the people at the Masters stage of education. The only way a University Masters class works, for the Professor to be able to teach topics at that level, is if everyone in that class has the same level of education and understanding. And those at the 6-12 stage of education can get confused and frustrated by the Masters class subject matter, potentially hindering their development at the stage that they are at. What if there was a Actualized.org Masters class forum, where people had to earn admittance, through their applied dedication to their spiritual path. And if they display tendencies that don't meet the standard set for that forum, instead of banning them, they simply get put back into the general audience forum. And, as they grow, if they so desire, they can apply again. Isn't Actualized.org an education of a subject matter, in this case Nonduality/God-Consciousness/Love/Infinity? Why shouldn't it operate like an education system, with tiers, instead of all lumped together? Any education system where all levels of education/understanding/knowledge are all lumped together, would run into major issues. 

[Vittorio]

13 hours ago, Preety_India said:

I don't agree with this. This is too superficial way of looking at it imo. 

There are people who talk here and I have seen tremendous growth in them through years of interacting here.

Interacting here has ton of benefits in learning new things.

 

I am one of the people Leo is talking about. I have experienced and uncovered so much stuff on my own that you cannot even imagine

I've done psychedelics trips, lucid dreams, I habe hundreds of pages written in my journal about metaphysic, existential questions, nonduality, relationships, mindsets and so on, I read books and so on.

I simply do not have time to share All this info or to help people around on this forum. Either I do my work or I keep posting here. No time for both.

Edited May 21, 2021 by Vittorio

[ll Ontology ll]

@AdeptusPsychonautica  bro just focus on self awareness. Seriously nothing is going to happen. Take a breath. Focus on creating productive stuff for your channel. Good luck.

Edited May 21, 2021 by ll Ontology ll

[Vittorio]

Leo, I sincerely wouldn't worry too much about what's happening now, even if you have all the reasons to be concerned and I understand this forum is part of your life purpose and so you care a lot about it.

This is the kind of shitstorm that happens from time to time to all spiritual/self-help teachers (e. G., Teal Swan, RSD Julien and RSD Tyler).

This will pass too somehow and this will make you and Actualized stronger.

I understand you are getting a bit defensive by making clear you don't promote physical harm and other means of "bad" spirituality to advance in its own development.

But be aware of this: just by looking at the fact that you released a ton of videos about all possible topics, at the fact you offer a life purpose course to find your passions and live a more passionate and authentic life and even a forum where people can exchange their opinions fleerly, it's clear that you're promoting a good life, you're not a cult leader and you never promoted ending your life abruptly and harm yourself.

You can only control what you say and you post out there. You cannot control who is gonna watch your videos and what they will do after that.

This is not your responsibility and there is not much you can do.

You can surely address some of the biggest misconceptions in another video (even if you did one already, it seems this is not enough), but, in the end, you cannot foresee any possibility.

As I said, this shitstorm will pass and it will be all good again.

Keep your head up. I know it shook you up and you feel to be walking on a thin line, but you're not responsible for the guy's death and you absolutely did the best you could do in all these years.

You know how the ego work. If it wants to misinterpretate something, it will do it.

So, no need to be sorry.

I owe you a lot Leo, much more than you can imagine. Please keep up the good work.

[ivankiss]

Hey @Leo Gura, a question comes to mind...

Would you find it contradictory to your core teachings if I was to post on this sub about the healing aspect of awakening? Specifically; pointing out how healing one's heart can and does lead to incredibly profound realizations and deep awakenings? Do you mind me emphasizing more often in the future the emotional aspect of being, or God - if you will..? In a polite, respectful manner - that is.

I am aligning with that 'path' in my own journey; so it would be only natural to speak of it. I trust there are many members here who would find the information valuable. 

Would that be cool with you?

[sphinx]

19 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

But yes, this thread is very much about feedback and I will certainly use the lessons here to make future decisions about how to best structure my teachings and how to deal with people in general.
(...)

My first responsibility is to make sure that my teachings are correctly understood and not misunderstood. So that's the purpose behind what I'm doing now. I see way to much misunderstanding and that frustrates me.

Maybe my feedback won't be very helpful. But I want to say, that there are many people who work on themselves day after day, becoming a better version of themselves, getting closer to God - in large part due to your work.

I really appreciate your delicacy and attentiveness in sharing your thoughts, encouraging to validate them. Talking about concrete indications and tips, without vague allegories.

• An Advanced Explanation Of God-Realization
• Guided Exercise For Realizing You Are God
• What Is Actuality? - Distinguish Direct Experience vs Concept

These videos are mind-blowing... Presented in a safe, clear manner. Thank you for these and please more

[Loving Radiance]

14 hours ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

Yoo that looks sick! How did you get the dark mode going? I hate to be looking at this bright white all the time... 

There are add-ons for this. I can recommend "Dark Reader".

[Globalcollective]

15 hours ago, Brivido said:

I have been reading a lot of comments the past few days, before making up my mind about what has happened. The main issue seems to be that the majority of people that critique and misinterpret Leo's work are not able to distinguish between Absolute Truth and relative truth. 

This doesn't make much sense to me, because I have always been able to make such a distinction, but the people that come on this forum have various level of development and I can see how a newbie might misunderstand a True spiritual principle like "All fears are illusion". My suggestion is to make a video or a post about the topic of Absolut Truth and relative truth and pin it at the top of the forum, so that it is clearly stated that they are two different things.

I have noticed another problem with the spiritual community in general. Spiritual people tend to become crazy and forget how to behave like a normal human being. The main issue is that on the spiritual path you might see things out of this world and if your mind is not malleable enough you might go insane. I wish that people would be able to have a mystical experience or chat with an alien on Friday and then be able to go to work at the office on Monday, as if nothing special as happened. A video along the line of "How not to lose your mind while on the spiritual path" is much needed.

Again, some people on this forum have been studying non-duality for years and others are completely new to the path. In my opinion, it has to be stressed more that studying the map of the non-dual territory actually matters, otherwise you might crash hard. Leo, you used to do that in the past way more, now you are promoting psychedelics. Which is fine to me, but promoting psychedelics to a newbie might have negative repercussions. I think you should make clear that before getting serious with psychedelics a newbie should have a clear understanding of non-duality. Personally, before trying any kind of psychedelic I have studied non-duality for five years or even more, and those five years of study have helped me a lot making sense of what I have experienced during my psychedelics session and staying a functional human being.

I hope this post is going to help somehow @Leo Gura

@Florian totally agree with this post, I got deep into this path the exact same time Leo did so I was almost following along with his own development and having say 6 years of nonduality and meditation training helps alot before taking psychedelics. If someome new finds his most recent work its prob to much for them to take.  You need alot of grounding before you can integrate this and not loose your mind. 

[BipolarGrowth]

46 minutes ago, ivankiss said:

Hey @Leo Gura, a question comes to mind...

Would you find it contradictory to your core teachings if I was to post on this sub about the healing aspect of awakening? Specifically; pointing out how healing one's heart can and does lead to incredibly profound realizations and deep awakenings? Do you mind me emphasizing more often in the future the emotional aspect of being, or God - if you will..? In a polite, respectful manner - that is.

I am aligning with that 'path' in my own journey; so it would be only natural to speak of it. I trust there are many members here who would find the information valuable. 

Would that be cool with you?

I would personally love to see more of this. I don’t see how this contradicts with his teachings, but I’m not the man himself. 

[SpiritualAwakening]

@Leo Gura I think you could focus more on integration and embodiment, waking up from the gut.

[BipolarGrowth]

1 hour ago, Sempiternity said:

Maybe there could be another section of the forum just for the most dedicated to the path? One for amateurs who are just starting out in their journey. A place where they can ask the basics, discuss things at that level, and get advice from more experienced peoples. And another for those who more advanced on the path, who can discuss the deepest depths of Nonduality/God-Consciousness/Love/Infinity with others at that same level. Think of it like school. Would you have people in grades 6 -12 in the same class, discussing the same subjects, with the peoples in Masters and Doctorate programs? Of course not. It neither benefits those at the 6-12 stage, nor the people at the Masters stage of education. The only way a University Masters class works, for the Professor to be able to teach topics at that level, is if everyone in that class has the same level of education and understanding. And those at the 6-12 stage of education can get confused and frustrated by the Masters class subject matter, potentially hindering their development at the stage that they are at. What if there was a Actualized.org Masters class forum, where people had to earn admittance, through their applied dedication to their spiritual path. And if they display tendencies that don't meet the standard set for that forum, instead of banning them, they simply get put back into the general audience forum. And, as they grow, if they so desire, they can apply again. Isn't Actualized.org an education of a subject matter, in this case Nonduality/God-Consciousness/Love/Infinity? Why shouldn't it operate like an education system, with tiers, instead of all lumped together? Any education system where all levels of education/understanding/knowledge are all lumped together, would run into major issues. 

This seems like a worthwhile thing to consider/explore. 
+1

[caelanb]

I have listened to your video on how on Gender being a social construct and want to say there is a problem with the definition of science, which leads to false conclusions of what science can and cannot do. Science does not only 'measure or record data' as said in the video, that is only a small but necessary part of science. With that definition it is obvious that you cannot do much, such as make categorize male and female based on empirical investigation of what each is. Science constitutes the scientific method; creating a hypothesis, doing the experiment that will test the hypothesis (measuring all the data), and getting to a conclusion to the hypothesis that was predicted, then publishing it (which is not necessary). This is what science entails (however, different methods of these steps can be used to make a study better or worse). And through this, one is doing science, which is way more than just measuring data.

So, from this inaccurate definition of science, it is easy to say that science cannot 'prove' the existence of a male of female (or anything really), because apparently that is not what science does. Actually you can, it is what science does. Through the process of the scientific method; A female has a vagina, a male has a penis; Take measurements/observations; and conclude.

That's my main problem with the video; an inaccurate definition of science, which allows one say to falsely say that science cannot prove anything. Please correct me if I have misunderstood something.

20 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

No material experience at all would continue. It's effectively death, for real. You don't cease to exist, you become an infinitely conscious singularity.

Also, when the above is what happens when you reach Mahasamadhi, why would anyone want to go there? Because as you said love is all of the physical stuff that exists, so if dying is leaving love, it seems counterproductive to want to reach that. Is the infinitely conscious singularity something different from the love that you say is physical reality. Thx

 

 

[StarStruck]

@Leo Gura in the past I brought up the dangers of mental illnesses/childhood trauma and psychedelics. You shrugged it under the table and you said you give multiple warnings in your videos and people can google and research stuff before taking it. You yourself don't have any mental illnesses so it was hard for you to empathize what I was talking about. I think now you understand my point.

In your recent videos you said you give warnings but these were obviously not enough. People are UNCONSCIOUS of their own mental illnesses and childhood trauma so just giving them "warnings" is  like telling a blind person to stop at a red light.

Perhaps you should make some specific videos on trauma healing with help of psychedelics: that is actually practical for most people and would make their life better. People come here and they think enlightenment is the magic pill while being deeply mentally ill. That is the problem.

Edited May 22, 2021 by StarStruck

[Elisabeth]

This is super interesting and captivating, lots of valuable comments in this thread. 

I'm deeply sorry for the family of the deceased! Also, sending Leo some basic human compassion - he seems to be handling the fallout and evaluating responsibility just fine, but I imagine it must be emotionally difficult too.

I'm one of the people coming into spirituality from a place of depression (though not suicidal level) and anxiety, my core interests in personal development have been emotions, relationships, trauma healing. I'm greatful to Leo for introducing me to some philosophy and spirituality too . My progress is slow, I've been following since forever (2016), and awakening is still over my head. 

It would never occur to me to take Leo's teachings as promoting suicide. For me, they are fascinating! But I understand that spiritual concepts and experience can lead to confusion in some people. I've never personally experienced much of it just from listening - ideas on their own aren't very threatening to me. Experience is a different thing and can be deeply unsettling. In terms of dealing with the dangers of spiritual teachings, I'm happy and grateful to have people around me who have been part of i.e. the holotropic breathwork community. They are my guide as much as Leo is, and they help me balance some of Leo's bias.  

As for grievances, I've expressed my opinion on several topics in the past - the old relationship videos, the pick-up line of the forum, the repeated bashing of science and religion (which I'm sick and tired off) and other unnecessary repetition, the political commentary. Some videos on Leo's side-interests or newly developing interests just don't have the quality of his core spiritual and philosophical content. (On the other hand, from my area of expertise, I very much appreciate the quantum mechanics series! ) I've also recently expressed concern whether Leo has enough feedback from (or rather, shared investigation with) high-quality intellectuals in the social/politics domain, and I've been called insane  

Leo, this may be a false impression, but it often seems from your videos like you don't talk about your insights and your journey to anyone at all. I'm just always so happy to hear you mention being at a retreat and talking to the teacher, or similar. We may be all imaginary or all one (I don't know what I'm talking about here), but in the relative domain, people need to relate to people as close to their level as possible. I don't think the forum is enough feedback for you. 

If there was some distinction between content for newbies and content for long-time viewers in the future, I would appreciate it.

Lastly, I'm organizing a students' personal development group at my faculty. I've struggled with my conscience on whether I can recommend actualized.org as a source of advice. So far I decided I can't. I'm not actually sure it would have a net positive effect on the students' lives if they started to dive into spirituality and psychedelics. It's a hard decision though, between authenticity and caution (coupled with fear). 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Elisabeth