How to not misunderstand Leo’s Spiritual Teachings

[Anirban657]

I have been following Leo since 2015 and I have watched hundreds of his videos and got immense help from his videos. But I almost always misunderstand his spiritual teachings.

For example the notion of “Nothingness” is not easy to understand. I don’t seem to understand it at all. At one point I thought it means total annihilation of existence and total black darkness of the physical world. And I know it’s not what I think. It can’t be anything I think. I have to experience it by actually doing the consciousness self-actualization work. 
 

How to not misunderstand Leo’s advanced spiritual teachings?

[Leo Gura]

Psychedelics

[noticeom]

You'll only misunderstand by trying to understand. Just take it into consideration without believing or denying.

You answered your own question. You have to do the work and experience it for yourself. Just do that and stop conceptualizing. The mind cannot conceptualize absolute truth.

[impulse9]

Leo talks about a lot of extremely advanced concepts and it's very easy to misunderstand them especially if you're early into spirituality. What you do is stop thinking, and meditate and contemplate on what you learn. You will very quickly discover that a single teaching (not just Leo's, but any advanced spiritual teaching) can easily have 100s of facets, each one of them completely distinct and unique. Sometimes you will hear the same exact teaching 10 years later and you will find completely new meanings in it, ones that you never would or even could consider back when you first attempted to understand that specific teaching. How? Because these teachings cover the entire surface of experience, as long as it's true it must work in all contexts. Remember that the highest truth is ineffable and requires direct experience. All these teachings are just pointing at truth but they are not the truth itself.

[Tim R]

5 hours ago, Anirban657 said:

How to not misunderstand Leo’s advanced spiritual teachings?

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Psychedelics

That answer is a bit too simplistic.

Psychedelics alone will not make you understand advanced concepts if you don't have a solid background of practices like meditation or contemplation going. Just taking psychedelics and listening to Leo telling you things like "this bubble is all of existence and you are all alone as God" will freak you the fuck out and can lead to serious problems. Or that you are imagining everything. To an unprepared mind, this will be like a sledgehammer to the head.

This is not to say that they can't show you temporarily what Leo means, they can. Just don't rely too heavily on them. 

[Eren Eeager]

@Anirban657 You need to see it for yourself to understand it. You need the experience. No matter how much I told u about the color red, if you never saw it before, you will not understand what I describe for you. The same goes for spiritual teachings. To understand spirituality, you need a higher state of consciousness, anything else is just mental masturbation.

[OBEler]

@Tim R So you mean if I don't do spiritual exercises at all and know all these hardcore claims like everything is imagined and I am all alone in this bubble and then do psychedelics, then this will lead to delusion and misunderstanding because I already formed a concept and search in the psychedelic experience for it or do you mean the truth will be too shocking without a still mind?

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, Tim R said:

That answer is a bit too simplistic.

Don't misunderstand the answer

[JayySur]

How badly do you want to understand the spiritual teachings? 

Is it simple curiosity or something you’re yearning to discover?

[SQAAD]

There is always gonna be some misunderstanding.

[Carl-Richard]

That's easy: differentiate between the relative and The Absolute.

[Tim R]

8 hours ago, OBEler said:

@Tim R So you mean if I don't do spiritual exercises at all and know all these hardcore claims like everything is imagined and I am all alone in this bubble and then do psychedelics, then this will lead to delusion and misunderstanding because I already formed a concept and search in the psychedelic experience for it or do you mean the truth will be too shocking without a still mind?

@OBEler No, it doesn't have to lead to delusions, but it could. You need a proper foundation if you want to have your reality torn to pieces. Something you can rely on to help you come back, at least in the beginning. In the end, you will "lose your mind", but hopefully because you let it go, instead of it being taken from you by forces you don't understand. 

There are enough insights you can reach in the sober state that will leave you absolutely mind-blown, they're so shocking and radical, you wouldn't believe it. Try getting there without psychedelics first an see how you react (this is only my suggestion). 

Seeing truth without a still mind can lead to problems, yes. That's for example how Solipsism works. It's a projection and a misunderstanding of the insight that you are the external world. A prepared mind (maybe) sees that you aren't only inside the bubble, but that the bubble is also inside you. The mind will immediately try to make sense of what is happening and it can't. And that can lead to delusion. 

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Don't misunderstand the answer

I don't, but a complex question like from OP might require more than a one word explanation??‍♂️ not everything can be explained simply, right?

[Ry4n]

12 hours ago, Tim R said:

Just taking psychedelics and listening to Leo telling you things like "this bubble is all of existence and you are all alone as God" will freak you the fuck out and can lead to serious problems.

Yep, since you’re more suggestible in that state this is arguably brain washing.

Confirmation bias is real.

[tsuki]

Nothingness is impossible to understand. Understanding is a process that occurs with the mind, which is relative. Nothingness is not relative. This is another name for the Absolute.

Again: it is not possible to understand it. You can make beliefs about it, you can partially represent the experience of it, but it is not it.

[AndylizedAAY]

@tsuki Leo has said that using the mind to understand the mind doesn't work but don't just take his word for it either. There's probably something higher I'm unaware of. Using the mind to understand Nothingness also applies here. Btw, how do I use a box of text to respond to? I can even just use the part of what you said about the mind in which understanding occurs with. If Leo is against with just having beliefs, are you saying that he is deluded? He's still falable, but just as Tim R said, don't make such simple answers which applies with the relative and the Absolute (although you do have to start somewhere with phychadelics and make sure not to spend too much time with perfecting your personal development before taking them). 

[Nahm]

22 hours ago, Anirban657 said:

How to not misunderstand Leo’s advanced spiritual teachings?

Understanding / misunderstanding someone else is the wrong lens, and you’re thinking in double negatives. You’re also assuming someone else does understand and you don’t. Focus instead on what you actually want to understand, until you do. It might, and might not, have anything at all to do with anyone else. 

[tsuki]

2 hours ago, AndylizedAAY said:

how do I use a box of text to respond to?

Click the "quote" button beneath a post that you want to respond to.

2 hours ago, AndylizedAAY said:

If Leo is against with just having beliefs, are you saying that he is deluded?

I have no idea how this question relates to what I wrote. Knowledge is a form of belief. The only difference is that it is useful in terms of survival and relative pursuits. I don't understand how it would imply that I'm saying that he's deluded.

[AndylizedAAY]

4 hours ago, tsuki said:

 

Again: it is not possible to understand it. You can make beliefs about it, you can partially represent the experience of it, but it is not it.

I thought that your defense was that Leo only has beliefs. 

[AndylizedAAY]

1 hour ago, tsuki said:

 

 Knowledge is a form of belief. The only difference is that it is useful in terms of survival and relative pursuits. 

But you can just want to know something for Truth's own sake. 

[tsuki]

2 hours ago, AndylizedAAY said:

I thought that your defense was that Leo only has beliefs. 

I am really not concerned what Leo has, or has not. 

2 hours ago, AndylizedAAY said:

But you can just want to know something for Truth's own sake. 

Nothingness cannot be an object of knowledge.