The Biases Of Leo:

[bejapuskas]

30 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You guys need to understand that I will not be bending over backwards to suit each one of your tastes and personal needs. Lower your expectations for what Actualized.org is. The expectations are getting way out of hand.

It does not necessarily require more time from you. Your videos are amazing these days, I actually watch them. It just takes to replace each comment of yours that justifies objectifying of women with a more well rounded one that considers both perspectives. This forum is becoming locker room talk.

[Proserpina]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

That will always be the case. Get used to it.

You guys need to understand that I will not be bending over backwards to suit each one of your tastes and personal needs. Lower your expectations for what Actualized.org is. The expectations are getting way out of hand.

In terms of the subforum, It wouldn't take much effort. There are plenty of people who would be happy to moderate and keep it running. A spacet for all things stage green (and the feminine side of the spiral specifically). Aren't we trying to help everyone up to green from orange anyway? Not yellow to turquoise. Orange to green. Why not have a space dedicated to it? 

Edited May 24, 2021 by Proserpina

[Spiral Wizard]

6 hours ago, herghly said:

I don't wanna hijack this thread.  Who are good teachers the teach maximizing the results?

Depends on what results you want. Here are some great examples:

• Paul Chek
• Aaron Abke
• Aubrey Marcus
• Dr. Joe Dispenza 

[Zion]

Here's some flaws & biases in Leo’s teachings to take note of. To maybe not take too seriously:

These may also be possible biases amongst everyone: He does not take into account experiences that he refuses to try because of his biased perspective. 

“I’m not going to try ____, therefore I don’t know what _____ will do for my psyche or how it will affect my teachings, way of life, & other biases.” 

EX: "I will try one form of abstention, being fasting. However I will not try certain abstentions or ideas, because of my personal biases."

 

Because of these examples of bias, how can anyone truly know anything with certainty? 

Edited May 24, 2021 by Zion

[Forestluv]

@bejapuskas Thank you for speaking up about the Dating/Sexuality/Relationship subforum. You had mentioned @Ananta We were the only mods moderating it for a while and we put a lot of time and effort into it. We got a lot of crap for trying to tone down the sexual objectification of women and crude disparaging comments. We received lots of disgusting PMs, but we didn't back down. Ananta got it worse than I since she is female. For a while, we were PMing each other nearly daily and I can verify that she got a lot of awful crap thrown at her. I appreciate her efforts and I'm impressed with how long she could tolerate it. Unfortunately, we didn't get any support in our efforts and we couldn't stomach it any longer alone. 

And yes, she was very good at tracking down repeat trolls hiding behind multiple accounts. She had great intuition for it.  We were like teammates tracking them down. 

[Ananta]

15 hours ago, bejapuskas said:

Like you literally have your best moderators leaving, because of their gender. Ananta was the most efficient person to avoid spam on this forum after probably you. She is gone now, because the insecure guys could not appreciate her, because she was such a good moderator, that they did not even realize that there were spammers here because she banned them so quickly. 

 

2 hours ago, Forestluv said:

Ananta got it worse than I since she is female. For a while, we were PMing each other nearly daily and I can verify that she got a lot of awful crap thrown at her. I appreciate her efforts and I'm impressed with how long she could tolerate it.

Thank you both, I appreciate it! ? ?

[XYZ]

One that occurred to me recently while thinking about the recent suicide: Leo gives you the impression that death = infinite unconditional love-bliss, complete understanding, total onenss and all the other facets of enlightenment. Though he clearly and overtly discourages his viewers from doing any physical harm to themselves, some will inevitably jump to that conclusion, thinking themselves to be so fed up with life, or such a spiritual badass that they can take a short cut and jump straight to enlightenment by suicide. The bias of course being that Leo and everyone else alive reading this are alive. Whatever levels of consciousness are reached, that consciousnes also resides in a living human body looking through physical eyes. What if maybe, possibly, perhaps, "enlightenment" as anyone can conceive of it from the human perspective, is only possible for incarnated beings. What if those who have died before reaching that level of consciousness in their lifetime do not become instantly "enlightened" upon death, and instead, will return in physical form for as many lifetimes as it takes before that self-realization unfolds while alive? I can't claim to know, point is that having mystical experiences of any sort, while giving you sharable insights into reality, doesn't necessarily mean you know what would happen (in the proximate sense) after anyone else becomes physically dead for real, permanently.

 

[Himanshu]

Leo and his teachings are also very biased towards the conceptual/cerebral approach and largely ignores the emotional and physical. In Yoga terms, that would be an overemphasis on Gnana yoga(Contemplation) and ignoring Bhakti yoga (devotion), hatha yoga (Physical grounding), and Kriya Yoga (raising energy and releasing energetic blocks). 

Part of the reason is the medium. He cannot be teaching healing in an online video. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but this approach doesn't work for everyone. Different paths work for different individuals for different purposes.

You have to find what works for you - which Leo emphasizes a lot - but often missed in practice by people who watch his content and see him as an authority. A majority of people watching Leo are susceptible 15-25 years old who haven't even got the basics of their life together. 

 

Edited May 25, 2021 by Himanshu

[bejapuskas]

@Himanshu  What do you mean by healing and not being able to teach it in an online video? Do you think Leo could facilitate healing better if he was not so patriarchical?

[Himanshu]

@bejapuskas Healing emotional or energetic blockages. These can't be done en masse through a YouTube video.  

I think Leo is making the best of his gifts. He has grown into mature masculinity, which is rare and easy to misunderstand. And we need more people to adopt mature, integrated masculinity - who take responsibility, create a vision, and lead. 

He is more integrated than most, and I don't think he's suppressing feminine per se. It seems to me that he either just doesn't have access to the feminine archetype as yet, or consciously chooses to maintain the masculine persona to keep leading Actualized.org. This massive project of his has to be branded and marketed appropriately to have the most impact and to avoid corruption - and he is a smart guy. 

That said, could Leo facilitate healing better if he was more feminine? Probably. But done prematurely, that could also be a waste of his greatest gifts. 

[Himanshu]

Also, Leo's approach is mostly anti-social and undermines the value of healthy relationships and feedback.

This attracts loners, and leaves a lot of people vulnerable to making stupid mistakes because they are lost in their mind and cannot distinguish sharply between truth and fiction. 

He once mentioned that Actualized.org is made by INTPs for INTPs. Introverted Thinking (INTP's dominant function) is constantly separating truth from falsehood. When Leo says that he has a different kind of mind and he enjoy deconstructions - that's part of it. 

IT DOESN'T WORK FOR EVERYONE. But so many people are blind enough to follow anyone who seems like authority and they waste years of their life and make ridiculous mistakes because they are learning from someone who thinks and communicates in fundamentally different way than they do. 

Don't do what Leo tells you to do.. Do what he has done. Understand yourself and pick your teachers accordingly. (There is a reason why, it seems that, Leo got a lot from Ralston - who is otherwise very little known.) Leo went out to find the teachers tha align with his approach to this work. That's the key. 

[bejapuskas]

16 hours ago, Himanshu said:

@bejapuskas Healing emotional or energetic blockages. These can't be done en masse through a YouTube video.  

I think Leo is making the best of his gifts. He has grown into mature masculinity, which is rare and easy to misunderstand. And we need more people to adopt mature, integrated masculinity - who take responsibility, create a vision, and lead. 

He is more integrated than most, and I don't think he's suppressing feminine per se. It seems to me that he either just doesn't have access to the feminine archetype as yet, or consciously chooses to maintain the masculine persona to keep leading Actualized.org. This massive project of his has to be branded and marketed appropriately to have the most impact and to avoid corruption - and he is a smart guy. 

That said, could Leo facilitate healing better if he was more feminine? Probably. But done prematurely, that could also be a waste of his greatest gifts. 

@Himanshu  Yeah he might not be suppressing his feminine, his feminine seems fine. His leadership style definitely has been beneficial for this forum and he cares a lot about protecting us from falling for cult leaders, encountering spam etc. He does this very well, he learns from other people's mistakes in a way that almost nobody can. 

I don't really know what you mean by becoming more feminine prematurely being a hindrance to his gifts.

What I honestly think is, that insecure guys need stage orange pickup advice to balance out their stage blue bullshit idea of what being nice to a girl means. They have to throw that out of the window and realize that girls, just like guys, can be materialistic and many of them want sex and probably can get even more horny than guys. And Leo does that a lot, his teaching are very feminist (equality of genders, not supremacy of women over men) in the way he analyzes JP or in the way he is passionate about giving his girl multiple orgasms. He teaches people to work on themselves instead of focusing on the other person as well, which is probably the best thing you can tell someone.

What I do not like though and I do not know how this would be a sign of him postponing his feminine side awakening for later is, that he basically never speaks up for people whose voices are not heard. Instead, he supports the majority of people in the dating section who are stage blue/orange insecure men without much experience. The pickup mentality is good in the way that it shows you that you can become more lovable, more dateable, fuckable etc... That's all fine.

But if you take that to the extreme, you might become somebody who always thinks there is a chance that the other person will start liking them, and that is just not true, some people will NEVER be attracted to you. And forcing somebody too much is very very immature and toxic. It is that what we call objectification of women, because it does not take into account the feelings of the other person, usually a girl. These guys then start thinking that the lack of communication and honesty is something good, because being hyper-orange macho is what's good, and that's still stage blue linear thinking and it does not help anyone. And this is perhaps true if your goal is to have bunch of one night stands. (although I am not judgemental of one night stands, I think they are totally fine and I myself would be up for one with a person when single) But it is not true if you want to have bunch of one night stands that do not cause serious psychological damage to a person/people or if you want to have any kind of long term relationship. And I am not judging this from the stage blue moralistic repressed religious perspective, which says that one night stands lead to psychological damage always, because I don't think that's true and neither is there sufficient scientific evidence for this claim. Actually some researches say that it does not have an effect. 

When it is consensual though! And this is where Leo Gura falls extremely short. Because he teaches how to overcome sexual shame, he teaches developed political ideologies, he teaches how to increase confidence perhaps and how to work on youself, but he never mentions consent. Although he often lists rape as one of his examples of "devilry". There have been cases in which members have described having non-consensual sex and nobody called them out on it. It is horrible. Can you imagine how uncomfortable it can be to be naked in front of a stranger and having their hands touch your genitalia? It can feel pleasurable, but you might also realize last minute or last second, that you do not feel comfortable. And in that case you say stop. And the other person should not say: I've gone so far, let's just non-consensually masturbate this person. I don't care, they will enjoy it, because they are horny fucks. No. And this can happen to guys just as easily as girls, please let go of the idea that guys enjoy rape that some of you here still believe.

I am just very concerned that Leo does such a good job at teaching so many things, yet he cannot support women and queer people on this forum and he cannot teach consent. He instead continues to support objectification of women and non-consensual sex and basically never ever supports people who try to do so. If he spent less time writing sexualizing comments, he could spend that time calling out rapists and letting people know that we do not welcome this here. So it does not actually require less effort. I am not even asking Leo to change his video content here.

Also, I am not advocating for nice guys here, because I think nice guys have a lot to learn and even though their idea of consent might be more holy in their mind than in the mind of an Incel, (which is banned on this forum, but still extant in the form of unlabeled sexism) their idea of what is good in a romantic or sexual interaction comes from their ideological beliefs that are not based on listening to and communicating with their partner or a person they are interested in. It is essentially imagining what's good and projecting that onto other people while suppressing desires, which is extremely toxic. 

I don't want to hold a grudge on Leo and never forgive him, I am very open to supporting him in his future efforts to not support sexism. I would never call it out as hypocritical. I think it is sad that people here are afraid of stage green and they get offended by stage green. One can know that something has become an issue when somebody gets offended by somebody talking about rape being bad. Sure, transcend, go into Absolute Goodness and all that, but being neutral in relationships and politics is not possible and it is not highly conscious behavior.

[Scholar]

17 hours ago, Himanshu said:

Don't do what Leo tells you to do.. Do what he has done. Understand yourself and pick your teachers accordingly. (There is a reason why, it seems that, Leo got a lot from Ralston - who is otherwise very little known.) Leo went out to find the teachers tha align with his approach to this work. That's the key. 

This is actually a huge trap in my opinion. Leo has these huge blindspots precisely because he went for everything that confirmed his already present biases (in terms of valuing his intellectualism so much). In a natural way he has created a personal philosophy of devaluing everything that contradicts his biases and valuing everything that confirm his biases. His concepts of devilry are very much centered around this, how they are applied is not at all objective. It will change depending on what he is trying to justify.

Interestingly he will make it appear that these are some sort of objective values, that actually his way is the better way. He gives off this energy aswell, but if you push him, he will recognize, intellectually not energetically nor emotionally, that actually it's just his personal biases and that other ways are just as valid. This doesn't actually mean anything because it's just an intellectual admission, but still for him it is enough, because it he does not value other aspects as much.

 

Sure everyone has their strengths and their weaknesses and it is good to nurture your strengths, however it is easy to fall into this dynamic of falling completely out of balance, as is happening to Leo. So if there is a teachers that especially resonates with you, ask yourself whether or not this indicates some bias you have that might in the future bite you in the ass. This is very much a confirmation bias problem.

[Derek White]

Along with a conceptual understanding bias, Leo has a bias toward American/Western culture. 

Spiral Dynamics and his talks suggest other culture are something humans have evolved past or are inferior to Western culture; or that's what many people probably take away from his teachings. All his teaching are framed in a Christian vocabulary as well. I don't think Leo knows these other cultures too well since he hasn't lived among them. Many of these "primitive" people seems to live in harmony with nature, have sustainable life styles, have lives filled with meaning and purpose, have a deep spiritual tradition and a sense of community. Our modern Western culture seems to be filled with lack of purpose, nihilism, confusion, loneliness, unsustainable ways of living, and hedonism. It may be better in some areas, but I don't think I have enough confidence to say it's better overall. Sure, these other cultures may have less personal autonomy but they live sustainably, have a community, and don't live just for themselves. Who's to say which one is higher or lower? If anything we need to learn from them. 

[Guest EmptyVase]

@bejapuskas

I'm not too much of a forum-politics user, but a lot of things you mentioned crossed my mind too. Especially the way sexuality is treated here is quite immature sometimes. It'd be kinda sad watching the forum quality drop because some ways of childish thinking are being spread here. I'm all in for releasing the inner child, but not in an immature, of-puberty manner. Thank you for taking your responsibility as a mod serious and speaking up. Goes out to the other mods too. ??

[sethman]

On 5/27/2021 at 3:34 PM, sethman said:

@Zion "What are the personal biases shown throughout Leo's videos, if any?"

all teaching I would say are error, but when you invert them they become true. Leo is highly conscious but can't help you to get truth. 

his consciousness is high but his inability to make efforts to make pure understanding is Bad, intellectual weakness, irreligious approach towards spirituality, lack of Religiousness, demonizing science and religions, lack of moral code, incorrect Labeling of titles for videos, etc. 

I can all say he absued everthing. Science, Rationality, morality, consciousness, Religious traditions, technology, etc. 

he fully didn't understand the nature of reality and infinity, what he present is half truth, half truth is useless. 

he should delete all the videos from YouTube or remake them (update) them as new to correct words errors because it can corrupt mind, science, religion, tradition, etc and will consequence mental disability, the videos are use and through and are simply mental masterbation. but I would appreciate his effort, he opened my eyes a little bit. 

Example 

"why Rationality is wrong? "

Rationality isn't wrong but things disguised as Rationality or fake, weak Rationality. he can say fake Rationality instead of suggesting Rationality is wrong. irrationality is wrong. Reality is infinite Rational. from infinite Rationality Reason and emotion emanate as pair like husband and wife. from Reason and emotion, logic and intuition emanate as pair. the list goes and goes. 

another example would be 

why morality is wrong? 

morality isn't wrong! immorality is wrong, reality is infinite moral like a computer trillion code run to give a perfect output. even a computer or mobile device run a trillions bit of code of perfectly to give user experience, if one semi colon code missed the entire thing collapse. likewise Reality is infinite moral. People are obligated to control the small very part by themselves, but the rest done automatic. So in this conclusion reality is infinite moral. Leo speaks From the heart what he felt to be true, he must convert the teaching to scientific - Sprituality. so people can understand what he saying. 

Actualized.org as Spritual agency helps me to grow. but there so many limitations and errors in it to. 

 

[Raphael]

Leo has typical INTP issues.

[Elisabeth]

On 25/05/2021 at 8:19 PM, Himanshu said:

Leo's approach ... undermines the value of healthy relationships and feedback.

Thanks, well worded.

[UnbornTao]

10 hours ago, Raphael said:

Leo has typical INTP issues.

Which ones? INTP here.

[Zion]

Some other more obvious biases to note:

- A bias towards his own perspective

- A bias towards knowing

- A bias towards contextualization

- A bias towards "jailbreaking the mind"

- A bias towards relinquishing ego / selflessness

- A bias towards all

 

Of course these biases all depend on the question of: 

Does bias become null once ego is relinquished?