What is Leo's main shtick really about? Psychonautics vs. Spirituality

[Nilsi]

10 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I think awakening is well-defined, and that you can follow the pointers that teachers throw at you, and that you can experience great results by doing so. So on the contrary, I believe that there is someone to teach this to: someone who has not yet seen the pointers and who are interested in following them.

That's absurd though. There is no one to awaken but yourself. 

If you want to become a spiritual guru and live your life that way, that's cool, but don't fool yourself into believing there is actually some other that can be awake. 

I hear you and I guess there is something to be said about keeping this knowledge alive, but that's really just a nice gesture and not about awakening itself.

The problem is that you can not have it both ways; either you're God or you're not, so it's a bit schizo to spend your life talking and teaching about God.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Nilsi

[Devin]

9 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

That's absurd though. There is no one to awaken but yourself. 

If you want to become a spiritual guru and live your life that way, that's cool, but don't fool yourself into believing there is actually some other that can be awake. 

I hear you and I guess there is something to be said about keeping this knowledge alive, but that's really just a nice gesture and not about awakening itself.

Your concept that God can only be conscious of itself or not and if it's conscious we don't exist;  falls on its face when you also say God is infinite and infinite possibilities

You're not speaking of enlightenment, you're speaking of logic

Edited September 30, 2022 by Devin

[Nilsi]

Just now, Devin said:

Your concept that God can only be conscious of itself or not and if it's conscious we don't exist;  falls on its face when you also say God is infinite and infinite possibilities

Infinite possibilities, yet only one God. 

[Devin]

Just now, Nilsi said:

Infinite possibilities, yet only one God. 

So, God can be conscious of itself AND create/imagine us

[Carl-Richard]

13 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

That's absurd though. There is no one to awaken but yourself. 

If you want to become a spiritual guru and live your life that way, that's cool, but don't fool yourself into believing there is actually some other that can be awake. 

Well, I think you're doing the non-dual Jedi mind trick of levitating the conversation out of the relative domain and into the absolute domain, which is a silly thing to do. When we're talking about teaching, spiritual practice, taking psychedelics, walking the path vs. having walked the path, etc., we're talking about the relative domain.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[Nilsi]

2 minutes ago, Devin said:

You're not speaking of enlightenment, you're speaking of logic

I don't even know what enlightenment means.

[Devin]

Just now, Nilsi said:

I don't even know what enlightenment means.

It means truly thinking for yourself

[amanen]

Just now, Nilsi said:

I don't even know what enlightenment means.

I think enlightenment could be very easy to define: Realization that 'I am God'. 

[Nilsi]

1 minute ago, Carl-Richard said:

Well, I think you're doing the non-dual Jedi mind trick of levitating the conversation out of the relative domain and into the absolute domain, which is a silly thing to do. When we're talking about teaching, spiritual practice, taking psychedelics, walking the path vs. having experiences, etc., we're talking about the relative domain.

I know I'm doing the magic trick here, but I have to if we're seriously talking about awakening. We can talk about spirituality and all that jazz and I find that wonderful and worthwhile to pursue, but God is beyond all of that. 

[Devin]

Just now, Nilsi said:

I know I'm doing the magic trick here, but I have to if we're seriously talking about awakening. We can talk about spirituality and all that jazz and I find that wonderful and worthwhile to pursue, but God is beyond all of that. 

To me that doesn't matter, you wanna say you're not awake, I'm not awake that's fine, but the problem is saying God can't be conscious of itself and create

[Nilsi]

Just now, Devin said:

but the problem is saying God can't be conscious of itself and create

I'm not saying that. God can be conscious of itself, but that's the end of the dream. 

[Carl-Richard]

Just now, Nilsi said:

I know I'm doing the magic trick here, but I have to if we're seriously talking about awakening. We can talk about spirituality and all that jazz and I find that wonderful and worthwhile to pursue, but God is beyond all of that. 

I think in this context, "nobody is awake" is only interesting if it's a relative statement. If it's an absolute statement, it's redundant. Of course from an absolute perspective, nobody is awake, because there is nobody to be awake; there is no person, only God, etc. That's not very interesting though.

[Devin]

4 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

I'm not saying that. God can be conscious of itself, but that's the end of the dream. 

That falls flat on its face if it's "infinite possibilities"

You're saying awake or dreaming; that's not infinity

Edited September 30, 2022 by Devin

[Nilsi]

6 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I think in this context, "nobody is awake" is only interesting if it's a relative statement. If it's an absolute statement, it's redundant. Of course from an absolute perspective, nobody is awake, because there is nobody to be awake; there is no person, only God, etc. That's not very interesting though.

It may not be very interesting, but it's the truth. I'm not interested in talking about this either, I just thought I'd jump in and clarify the misunderstanding. If you talk about awakening in any relative way, you are actually just bullshitting yourself and that's the problem with all those gurus.

Only God can be awake and there is only one God. If you can put 1 + 1 together, that's all there is to say about this.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Nilsi

[Carl-Richard]

10 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

It may not be very interesting, but it's the truth. I'm not interested in talking about this either, I just thought I'd jump in and clarify the misunderstanding.

It's what's interesting in the context of this topic which puts into question what Leo really means when he says "none of your gurus are awake" (unless he is indeed only doing the mind trick, which he isn't btw, because he is making that judgement based on the content of their teaching, which is relative stuff).

 

10 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

If you talk about awakening in any relative way, you are actually just bullshitting yourself and that's the problem with all those gurus.

Teaching itself is a relative thing. You can never deliver the absolute to someone, hence pointers. Do you have a problem with teaching as an activity? What is the problem exactly?

Edited September 30, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[Nilsi]

21 minutes ago, Devin said:

11 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

It's what's interesting in the context of this topic which puts into question what Leo really means when he says "none of your gurus are awake" (unless he is indeed only doing the mind trick, which he isn't btw, because he is making that judgement based on the content of their teaching, which is relative stuff).

 

I don't think it's about the content, that would be silly. He is doing the mind trick as far as I'm concerned. That's how I would do it at least and I don't see a way around this, but this whole Ralston thing was quite bizarre, so maybe I'm wrong.

11 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Teaching itself is a relative thing. You can never deliver the absolute to someone, hence pointers. Do you have a problem with teaching as an activity? What is the problem exactly?

I have no issue with teaching, but why do you have to teach the one thing that can not be taught lol. It's just funny to me. Someone has to do it I guess, but it's still comical.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Nilsi

[Carl-Richard]

2 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

I don't think it's about the content, that would be silly. He is doing the mind trick as far as I'm concerned.

The content he has issues with has to do with the lack of psychedelics.

 

2 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

I have no issue with teaching, but why do you have to teach the one thing that can not be taught lol. It's just funny to me. Someone has to do it I guess, but it's still comical.

You do it because of the love you feel and the compassion for other people's suffering.

[Nilsi]

10 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

The content he has issues with has to do with the lack of psychedelics.

10 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

You do it because of the love you feel and the compassion for other people's suffering.

 

Why does he champion Ralston then? Doesn't make sense to me. I have no idea how deep the psychedelic rabbit hole goes, but there is still only one God and I'm not sure that changes as you awaken more deeply lol.

Maybe I'm a bit myopic right now, but it still seems not genuine somehow.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Nilsi

[thisintegrated]

It's all the same thing in the end, so a distinction isn't strictly necessary.  It's only useful when talking about practicalities.

A peak experience on drugs is the same thing you seek through spiritual growth.  The goal of spirituality is to live in an acid trip 24/7, and taking drugs is good for that.

How do you grow spiritually?  You have experiences that shape your thinking, and that's what drugs do.  Integration happens from repeated exposure and acceptance of experience, drugs simply increase the rate at which you're exposed to experiences.

 

Perhaps you meant that Leo seems to have a good awareness of reality, yet doesn't seem very loving/spiritual like Sadhguru?  I think that's mostly just personality/culture and lack of integration.  The most spiritual, awake, loving person can be an asshole stock trader or whatever.  The reason Sadhguru seems so happy and loving isn't because he's "spiritual" or "advanced", he's just a random eccentric guy from an extremely ESFx culture.

 

On 28/09/2022 at 3:57 AM, Carl-Richard said:

The reason I'm characterizing Leo's main shtick as "psychonautics" rather than "spirituality" is because of the emphasis on "having the experiences" vs. "integrating them"; states vs. growth. The reason I think psychonautics is largely distinct from spirituality, is that if a state is not properly integrated into yourself and made into a platform for organic growth, then it's either forgotten or outsourced to the intellect. When given the option between intellect or integration, the former is the less spiritual option.

What's your point exactly?  That Leo should focus more on spiritual growth rather than psychonautics?  Or that most of the psychonauts/INxJs on the forum haven't integrated anything?  There isn't really any direct way of doing spiritual work.  If you're living life then that's as spiritual as it gets.  Taking a shit is as spiritual as meditating, doing self enquiry, or doing chakra work.  You can't really isolate "spirituality", only random "non-spiritual" stuff like drugs, or anything really.  But besides general "experiences", drugs are one of the few "meta" things you can focus on, so spiritual communities sometimes make that their focal point.  How else can people talk about spirituality?  Talking about their fears/feelings?  Talking about yoga?  Well all that is fine, but drugs and altered-state-of-consciousness experiences that can provide God-level insights are a more direct and interesting way to explore and discuss spirituality.

[Leo Gura]

Awakening is not a binary thing. There are many awake states of consciousness with many degrees and facets. Hence you have all this confusion and debate.