Differences between liberation and god realization

[Flyboy]

@Adamq8 I totally get what you're saying, and don't get me wrong, I really appreciate a lot of Leo's work.  But I have watched hundreds of his videos at this point, and also branched out to many other teachers.  I've read many of the best books.  I've made up my own mind and I've done/am doing the practices.  Many thanks to Leo for getting me started on this journey! 

All of this has led me, however, to realize that Leo is limited in his approach and is missing, in my opinion, something important.  While his teaching is conceptually juicy and appealing, I think it is important to point out these limitations for anyone who is truly interested in pursuing this work themselves.  It took a lot of learning before I had the confidence to challenge him directly.  But my own journey is progressing, the layers are shedding, and I'm starting to see first-hand what the meditators are talking about.  Psychedelics are transcendent, to be sure, but there's no replacement for it being true for you now.  I want people to find this peace, not just a really good high and a memory.

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, Flyboy said:

I disagree.  I think the term liberation is most often used to describe the end of the insight path, which very specifically means when the knot of perception is unraveled and the nonduality of the 6 senses is undeniable in every single moment (4th path in Buddhism, Rigpa in Dzogchen, etc). 

It is almost always characterized by an irreversible and permanent change in perception.  This is a very deep level of realization that transcends the lower levels of: I AM, I AM EVERYTHING, and I AM NOTHING.  It is when reality "syncs" when all filters finally dissolve, leaving only what is.  These filters and fabrications are still active on psychedelic trips, sorry to say, and in full force when you return.  "God-realization" is still standing on a ground.

What you're calling God-realization is in the I AM EVERYTHING stage

No, God is beyond all that.

Impossible to explain it to you. But it just is. There is nothing higher than God and you will not reach it through Buddhism or Vipassana.

All the Buddhist stages are still imaginary, including their enlightenments.

People doing Vipassana was still playing games. God is not Vipassana.

A Buddhist does not actually understand what God is. It's so obvious.

[The0Self]

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

@The0Self you cannot falsify solipsism can you? 

Also... There is nothing resembling solipsism in apparent liberation or god realization. In liberation, there is just in-love-ness, for no one, with the unknown, which miraculously appears to be. God realization seems to be a resemblance of a non-state (time evaporates into eternity which has no time) that leads to a state with an immeasurably vast apparent benefit. Liberation on the other hand is not some state that can be attained, and there’s nothing which can be compared with it, since there is literally nothing else.

[dearleo123]

@Leo Gura

Dont you see how anyone that has done more Vispassana than you (excluding psyches) can make the same claim, I.e. it's more than what you have?  That it is simply impossible to explain to someone that hasn't reached something beyond the god-realization, despite you claiming there's nothing beyond it? 

You cannot claim that since there's no objective, hell even subjective, measurement of your insight being higher than that of others. All due respects man, you've never gone far enough with normal meditation, in fact you became frustrated with it, and instead chose another way, be it better or worse. And since it brought better 'insights' (or let's can them what they are, spiritual highs), you shut down anyone that disputes your point of view. As such, you cannot make such definite clams as your comparison to begin with is flawed. 

Any argument you make can be counterargued with a simple statement that you simply haven't reached deep enough levels of insight. Since you yourself claim that awakenings are infinite, it is within the realms of possibility that you have simply not woken up enough to realise this is just another ego realizaiton that it pretends it is not which is what most Buddhists claim, hell it even is what Buddha himself stated with his denial of Atman. 

 

Anything else are numerous forms of gaslighting, which the highly suggestive members of your forums will take as fact, which will further shape their further psychedelic trips and insights gained from thereof. You cannot simply say 'experience for yourself', since that very experience will be biased by your conviction of what that experience entails due to the position of authority you find yourself in at this forum. I'm not claiming you're doing it out of maliciousness, I think you ultimately mean well, but it is a subtle form of brainwashing and suggestivity, and instead is another ego game that you laugh off with a dismissal of not reaching god levels of awakening yet. There's little to no compassion, empathy for other beings (I forgot, ThErE iS nO OtHeR), because you continue down the same road of reducing arguments down to a single statement, thus:

Reality is all an elephant. Anyone that disagrees is simply ignorant of being an elephant, despite elephants being all there is. Any argument anyone makes that disputes such claims is simply an elephant doing his utmost to pretend he is not in fact an elephant and can himself verify himself to be an elephant provided he takes a substance whilst previously acknowledging the teachings that he is an elephant. 

I have deep respect for your work as a whole, but I recommend humility and compassion, which you do sorely lack. You can fuck up lives man, from past anecdotes, you already have. And you refuse to confront that fact and instead continue to parrot the same old irreducible story.

Wake up Leo. You're in your own dreamworld, and its sad. Majority of the forum will disagree, but speaking from experience, irreducible realisation of oneness is yet another illusion. You cannot let that go because that's what keeps you going. Someday you'll have to. And then chickens will come home to roost

[Leo Gura]

9 minutes ago, dearleo123 said:

Dont you see how anyone that has done more Vispassana than you (excluding psyches) can make the same claim, I.e. it's more than what you have?  That it is simply impossible to explain to someone that hasn't reached something beyond the god-realization, despite you claiming there's nothing beyond it? 

People can make whatever claims they want. And I can claim they are wrong.

There is no way to prove complete omniscience to you. Either you have it or you don't.

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You cannot claim that since there's no objective, hell even subjective, measurement of your insight being higher than that of others.

You are the sole measure in the universe. That's what God is.

God's self-understanding is Absolute.

Stop looking for any outside measures. You cannot realize God that way.

Quote

All due respects man, you've never gone far enough with normal meditation, in fact you became frustrated with it, and instead chose another way, be it better or worse.

I got frustrated with meditation because it is bullshit. It's not God-realization.

You won't reach it through meditation.

Quote

And since it brought better 'insights' (or let's can them what they are, spiritual highs), you shut down anyone that disputes your point of view. As such, you cannot make such definite clams as your comparison to begin with is flawed. 

Omniscience allows me.

But you don't understand what that is because you haven't accessed it.

I'm not shutting you down, I'm just telling you you're not conscious of yourself as God. But you could be.

[dearleo123]

5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

People can make whatever claims they want. And I can claim they are wrong.

There is no way to prove complete omniscience to you. Either you have it or you don't.

You are the sole measure in the universe. That's what God is.

God's self-understanding is Absolute.

Stop looking for any outside measures. You cannot realize God that way.

I got frustrated with meditation because it is bullshit. It's not God-realization.

You won't reach it through meditation.

Omniscience allows me.

But you don't understand what that is because you haven't accessed it.

I'm not shutting you down, I'm just telling you you're not conscious of yourself as God. But you could be.

BUT LEO

 

You have not actually answered anything. You again repeat the same thing, treating it as truth because. In the same way, attained Buddhists can say your omniscience is incomplete. 

You're not truly awakened, you do not understand

But you could be 

See how this gaslight-like this sounds?  Complete omniscience and the feeling of complete omniscience are two separate things. Many a master have found liberation through meditation alone, and yet you claim there are higher levels. Kindly demonstrate these levels higher than that of awakened masters through something other than talking about how you've reached levels higher than that of awakened masters. 

You're stuck in realizaton and you refuse to let it go, treating it as something supreme. Me, and many others, are telling you to just let it go, there's nothing there to realize. You continue to frantically grasp at a realization, treating is as an absolute, while there is no absolute at all. This absolute stubbornness at absolute is precisely what keeps you from reaching the absolute, which is not hidden many awakenings away, as you claimed, but is found whenever the heck you want. 

That's it. There's no hack, no cheat, no catch, no bullshit excuse. No state to attain, no realization to get. You're playing ego games without realizing it, your ego is hidden beneath omniscience and god realisation. Let that zen devil out and stop forcing your own truths onto others, rather integrate them and move on.

You continue to advise to keep your mind open, yet yours remains stubbornly shut and stuck.

[Leo Gura]

Opening your mind to falsehood is no virtue.

If you don't want to grasp what I'm saying, then so be it. Suit yourself.

It's obvious to me you aren't conscious that you're God. And no clever thing you say will change that. You cannot weasle you way out of this with words.

[dearleo123]

@Leo Gura I've grasped it allright, I've been there, I've experienced it. Backatcha brother. We both refuse to accept each others pov, but whilst you continue searching for an ultimate awakening (of which there's an infinite amounts, so you'll never be satisfied) I'm gonna go and have a nice cup of jasmine tea in my garden and enjoy the caress of the wind at my back and the sunset at my front.

Nothing else to do, nothing to gain. That's where true peace lies. I do sincerely hope you'll move past this hurdle, integrate your experiences and teach that too. Because you've helped many a people, including me, in many a subject. But right now, no offence intended, it's a bit like the blind leading the blind, and its frankly sad to see. 

[impulse9]

Personally I oscillate between fully accepting Leo's absolute God thing and dismissing it as the ramblings of a psychedelically inflated spiritual ego.

Can't really decide which is it. Maybe it's a superposition of both. Personally I think reality is infinitely mysterious, and therefore God can always just keep adding dimensions of mystery until your perception simply explodes.

I think Leo should try edible cannabis, in a certain way it's a more spiritual experience than any "true" psychedelic.  Grounds you like a mfer.

[Leilani]

@dearleo123 Thank you thank you thank you!!! This is exactly my point @Leo Gura I really do understand where you are at I was lucky enough to have a very loving relationship with my boyfriend who was kind of anchoring me but I was stuck for so long I kept saying but I am almost there, I almost have it, trying to understand and get what cant actually be understood is a trap in sense. its right here. I kept thinking I was going to get there and then there and then more I get what you are talking about I felt like I held the candle to existence and if I didn't hold on everything was going to go. I then just said fuck it I am going to go there the whole universe can disappear and guess what it didn't. I was still here no matter how hard I tried I was still here. I lost so much during that time. My relationships are so screwed and you are causing so much potential danger to very vulnerable people. What led me to seek truth was major and I mean major suffering. Multiple rapes by different people an abusive father who I had to be removed from just so much pain and my mind was already pretty messed up. A lot of people reach this route through suffering and want an escape. I let go of my loved ones and attachments to them I didn't care anymore and yet I was still here. 

here is some poetry that I wrote after a bit more integration:

I just had an experience that I feel I need to share. I know that when you hear you are alone you feel a lot of fear but I want you to know that that means you are only getting it with your mind, your ego, your human self etc. It would almost be better to say you are not alone for the sake of the mind to understand. But at the same time there are no "others" Where as you feel a heart break when you hear things like you are alone and the story's of others is just a story it's really the opposite feeling of a broken heart. When you "die" it feels the opposite of alone yet again there are no "others" there are not two meaning these are story's being made up for experience. When you hear this you FEEL the real beauty of what Jesus did. He became human and went through all of that suffering for "us" for you for the all. You know how suffering feels You did that also, You experienced that nightmare (no not you mind, not the human self). You beautiful selfless love. But guess what None of the bad stuff ever happened. You aren't touched by this at the same time you are completely whole untouchable perfect and free. You still feel compassion and honor this experience though when you feel it with your "soul". This is where we come too experience every experience possible and it's damn hard there is so much pain, suffering and seperation. It's absoustly heroic of us to do this. It's so damn beautiful. When you see that love shine through this heartbroken place THAT is what you call God. It would be better to say love is God. God really isn't the best word for it. I hope you can feel this message. I see you. I love you. Come home and see this. It's so beautiful. I promise you there is NO fear in this. None. The minute you feel fear you aren't getting it. Please understand that and feel this. Love became you! You are so special that love became you! Just so you could feel sperate and lonely and scared and less than, so you could experience Not being love not out of fear of being Love/God but because it is love and love just does "this". LOVE became you out of LOVE. It's a gift to be YOU it doesn't have to include suffering. This "life" this story, this experience is sacred. It's so sacred. The mind will not get it. It has to be felt and the feeling is the opposite of fear. It's feels as if your heart came back together for this first time and you didn't realize how fucking broken it had been. Eternity and a moment all at once. Don't be afraid of eternity either it's the same as just a moment.

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, dearleo123 said:

so you'll never be satisfied

I have reached a Love so profound that it is infinitely satisfying.

God is infinite satisfaction. I exist eternally as Love.  I am endlessly in Love with myself. Join me if you want.

Your peace is an imaginary state you invented to keep yourself from realizing that you are God. Your peace is sleep, not Awakening.

[dearleo123]

@Leo Gura from the amount of 'I did this/ I attained that' in your rely, all I sense is spiritual narcisissim and ego in the guise of wisdom to keep anyone questioning at a distance of one up manship. You've yet again used the same argument that you yourself created, where any dispute or solution alternate to yours is god hiding from god. The more likely option is that you've suffered a psychotic break during one of 5meo experiences (which with the intensity of experience, is nothing to be ashamed of) and your mind continued to fill in all the blanks with the positive aspects of neural annealing as the only way forward. You've yourself said you're not yet enlightened, you've still got work to do and attachments to get rid of. That will continue to run your spiritual treadmill until you finally let that final desire to know go, and its the hardest one there is - until then, you'll stay in the dreamworld, continue with dissociative psychic experiences and treat them as gospel whilst deluding yourself from the enlightenment of reality and awakening from the dreamworld. 

The fact you refuse to even question your beliefs in the slightest makes me almost certain of psychosis and instead, yet again, repeat the same claims with no further argument and a seemingly harmless yet deeply gas lighting 'join me if you want' which implies there is some ultimate form to attain. Enlightenment is our primary basic human state and not some godly power. You're doing a great deal of damage to many spiritual seekers and will continue to do so until you widen up, humble up, and at least consider, just consider, that there may be more to reality than what you've discovered.

Until then, you will continue preaching what you preach and hurt people, some of whom will blindly follow you. For awakening, I see no compassion or love for individual in you so let me be clear - You've mistaken the stars reflected on the surface of the lake at night for the heavens.

[Leilani]

@Leo Gura I found that love too my dear, can you see that from the poetry I wrote trying to describe it? But it gets even better. You don't have to let go of any of this and you were never meant too.  ❤️

Edited October 2, 2021 by Leilani

[VeganAwake]

Liberation is recognizing the very one seeking liberation isn't real.

It has nothing to do with a new righteous self-proclaimed identification as this or that.

And that recognition doesn't matter at all because no one acquires anything..... no one becomes enlightened and reaps the apparent benefits.

Its the end of those illusory needs. ❤

 

 

[The0Self]

1 hour ago, VeganAwake said:

Liberation is recognizing the very one seeking liberation isn't real.

It has nothing to do with a new righteous self-proclaimed identification as this or that.

And that recognition doesn't matter at all because no one acquires anything..... no one becomes enlightened and reaps the apparent benefits.

Its the end of those illusory needs. ❤

 

 

^^ ? 

When self sees a thought, it deals with it.

When no one is left, the (same exact) thought has no need to be dealt with, and it’s insignificant... it’s just what’s (already) happening — well, appearing to happen... it is and is not. And there’s nothing else, either.

So to speak, if it could be done (though it can’t, because there’s no one), the “best” way to keep liberation (what’s already happening...) at bay would be to wait for it to happen.

There, not there.

Higher and lower are not two — total story of course, but it points to the unexpected. Invitation/suggestion to nothing to feel that already all there is, is boundless perfection without comparison... which is “at the same time” (time is only apparent) utterly ordinary and not an altered state (any personal experience).

Edited October 2, 2021 by The0Self

[Consilience]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I have reached a Love so profound that it is infinitely satisfying.

God is infinite satisfaction. I exist eternally as Love.  I am endlessly in Love with myself. Join me if you want.

Your peace is an imaginary state you invented to keep yourself from realizing that you are God. Your peace is sleep, not Awakening.

But you're also still looking for deeper awakenings, higher God Realizations, the hamster wheel continues. 

I'm not even trying to be critical or cheeky here, but why don't you see the wisdom of seeking God-Realization as a quality of this present moment? This moment, AS IT IS, *IS* a perfect expression of God and God's Love. Do you disagree with this?

This is where something like vipassana becomes deeply pragmatic for God-realization. Because the parts of the mind that are pretending like this moment, in all of its infinite delusions and unconsciousness, are not god is just egoic bullshit. Paradoxically, this unconsciousness is just as much IT as the deepest psychedelic awakening. 

And disagreeing with this "This moment, AS IT IS, *IS* a perfect expression of God and God's Love." is a recipe to never truly, fully, utterly be God-Realized. 

[Diogenes]

Leo is achieving higher states than almost all historical masters precisely because he’s using so much psychedelics. That’s evident just based on the nature of his insights, which are deeper than most. This is about as shocking as the fact that athletes now can be much bigger because of steroids. 

But his baseline consciousness may not as high as others. There’s no contradiction here. 

There is no “actual path to permanent realization”. Meditation, yoga, Buddhism, etc., doesn’t work and this is proven just by the fact that we’ve been doing all these things for thousands of years and no one is enlightened. 

“Truth is a pathless land” - J Krishnamurti

Jed McKenna talks about how all spiritual teachers have been complete failures because they have never enlightened anyone, including the revered Ramana Maharshi. He says ego picks the teacher nice to ego to lull us back to sleep, not wake us up. If the Buddha had enlightened anyone, no one would still be quoting the Buddha because there’d be generations of successors that would’ve all reached the same level. Eckhart Tolle sold millions of books but where is this new army of enlightened “Tolles” creating this “New Earth”, haha? The other teachers don’t want to help you. They just want you to like them.

If Leo is misleading and damaging spiritual seekers, what’s everyone else doing? Leading them to enlightenment? Lol.

“A teacher of awakening who was fully committed to the complete and total success of each and every student would be an unthinkable monster.” - Jed McKenna

UG Krishnamurti says stuff like “meditation is violence against the mind”. The truth is, meditation is the state of mind AFTER enlightenment, not the way to achieve enlightenment. Meditation is trying to achieve enlightenment through sheer force, in a violent way, UG is right. In fact, one is much more likely to waste their lives meditating and have delusional awakenings and delusional progress than on psychedelics, which is taking a powerful drug that obviously changes your state of consciousness. 

True liberation, by definition I would think, must be the end. Once you are liberated, nothing else to do. God/infinite love might be the “highest state”, I agree with Leo, but like all things, the mind becomes acclimated to it over time so it’s no longer interesting. God/infinite love, after all, is only interesting because we’ve been separated so long, right? So for me, the true end is when you forget about everything and just enjoy your life as a human animal doing whatever you do moment to moment without ever questioning again why you’re doing it. Like you put your Tesla on full self driving mode and you just go along for the ride. You no longer do, it just does itself. What else can liberation be but a permanent state of “wu Wei”?

But there’s no reason why Leo should stop looking for deeper awakenings if he’s still interested. When you’re truly over it, it falls away itself. There comes a point where you realize you’ve always been god/infinite love, so there was no mystery in the first place, no enlightenment, no profound realizations/insights that you didn’t already know, and that you’re here in the first place just so you can experience and enjoy being a human animal.

[Consilience]

11 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

“Truth is a pathless land” - J Krishnamurti

And only a fool wouldn't walk to pathless path. Real results from meditation occur when it's seen that no one is meditating, meditation is occurring spontaneously, and all of life is meditation. Don't bullshit yourself into thinking there's nothing to do, there most certainly is.

If you don't meditate you're fucked. If you do meditate, maybe you're fucked too, but at least you're living a RADICALLY happier life than most. And when you realize there was no one ever meditating, liberation. Which meditation focused on insight will deliver. Not sure where you're getting the idea that there are no enlightened beings from these traditional spiritual lineages such as Zen, Buddhism, Advaita, Sufism,... There are countless examples. 

[impulse9]

4 minutes ago, Consilience said:

If you don't meditate you're fucked.

Truer words have rarely been spoken.

[Diogenes]

50 minutes ago, Consilience said:

And only a fool wouldn't walk to pathless path. Real results from meditation occur when it's seen that no one is meditating, meditation is occurring spontaneously, and all of life is meditation. Don't bullshit yourself into thinking there's nothing to do, there most certainly is.

If you don't meditate you're fucked. If you do meditate, maybe you're fucked too, but at least you're living a RADICALLY happier life than most. And when you realize there was no one ever meditating, liberation. Which meditation focused on insight will deliver. Not sure where you're getting the idea that there are no enlightened beings from these traditional spiritual lineages such as Zen, Buddhism, Advaita, Sufism,... There are countless examples. 

Before I first did psychedelics over a decade ago, I couldn’t meditate. I sat there but it never felt I was really doing it right.

On psychedelics, I had insight into the nature of thought and language. Once I deconstructed both, over the next months, thoughts themselves began to feel more unreal and slowly faded away into the background. Now I can meditate effortlessly for as long as I want. It’s not even “meditation” or any activity. I just sometimes sit there and chill without any thoughts. It’s just doing nothing.

The point is, I got to that point by having insights into thought and language, not just spend years “trying” to meditate.

Also, there’s been very few fully enlightened people. If enlightenment is the unprogrammed state, or natural state, or unconditioned state, as gurus have referred to it, then all traditions are just conditioning that lead you away from enlightenment. Huang Po says the true dharma is no dharma.