A Critique Of Actualized.org And Leo Gura

[Derek White]

A Critique Of Actualized.org And Leo Gura

 

The intention of this critique is to make people aware of some of Leo’s limitations. It might save people time and unnecessary suffering. It is not meant to invalidate or insult Actualized.org or Leo. I think Leo is a great teacher in many ways, this is just healthy criticism. Please take it lightly. Since Leo likes to criticize everyone else, I thought why not do it to him this time.

It’s worth mentioning that I’ve personally never taken any psychedelics and I don’t consider myself some advanced spiritual person either. Some might consider this critique incomplete - which is fair. I have been watching Leo and other teachers for a long time. Nevertheless, I think it can still be helpful for people to read this. If anything, it can be an exercise in open-mindedness. 

It’s important to note that I will only be critiquing Leo on his more core and central teaching. So don’t expect much on minutia like his dating advice or politics. Although these thing can be important to some people, and you are free to level your own critiques on him, small or big, below this post, I personally won’t be focusing much on this.

So sit back and let’s being…

 

Freedom from understanding

 

This one is a little confusing and long but the most important. Stick with me please.

 

Basically, Leo takes psychedelics and shares his findings on YouTube.

 

Why am I telling you this? 

I am telling you this because there are things he doesn’t explicitly tell you:

What Leo does is pursuit of understanding. It is an endless process. There is no end to it. You can keep on accumulating new experiences and making your understanding better and better. Understanding is a limited process rooted in the ego-mind.

So during his psychedelic trip he has an experience of God. We can say he is in a higher state of consciousness. Once it is over, he comes back to his normal state of consciousness. The experience is stored in the form of memory which gets interpreted and communicated by the ego-mind. The memory isn’t reliable because it can’t be stored. Understanding is a limited thing, whereas Truth is unlimited it can’t be bound to such things.

So here’s what you need to know:

Most people don’t need to do what Leo does. Leo is like a scientist. It’s his profession and passion to have new experiences and create new mental models. This pays his bills.

Truth is beyond understanding. Truth is something living, it doesn’t come from a memory of a trip.

Understanding (and experience) is only needed to answer a few basic questions, beyond it you don’t need it. Questions like, “Who am I?”, “What is thought?”, “What is the limitation of thought?” Basically to quiet the mind and satisfy your curiosity. To become free from this as well.

The point of spirituality is freedom, but people get stuck in this cycle of accumulating experiences and gathering knowledge. They never become free from understanding itself. You have to use your understanding to get free from understanding.

Getting more understanding will not change you. Your personality will remain the same. Your habits and patterns will remain the same. Your base level of consciousness will remain the same. You will remain an idiot. (If anything too many fixed ideas you got from your trips might make your ego swell and make it hard for you to look at life afresh.)

You might regret wasting this time on understanding. It’s endless. It’s the same as exploring the physical world. You can keep exploring it deeper and deeper and arrive at new conclusions each time. Your time might be better spent on any number of things.

It’s important to tell you that it will not get rid of suffering either, in case that’s why you are following Leo. 

It’s important to tell you this because people have attached unrealistic expectations about this. If you’re an average person with a job and a career, you don’t need to do this. In fact this might not even be spirituality for you, it’s like a weird game of documenting peak experiences. He might say he made this clear to people, but I say he doesn't explicitly tell you this. Most people don't need this and they don't know they don't need it, they are lost and Leo doesn't help them out.

 

Lack of balance

 

Leo likes to talk about balance, but how balanced is his spirituality? 

How balanced is his self-help? It is overly intellectual (as he himself admits). 

All he’s trying to do is get peak spiritual experiences. He has completely neglected raising his base level of consciousness. As far as you know he is not doing anything to raise it. He inspires others to do the same.

 

Arrogance, ego and the forum

 

If you had asked me about Leo’s ego a year ago, I would have ignored it as minutia, but now I increasingly feel it is becoming a problem.

After an awakening his ego becomes inflated for several weeks. Every time he gets an awakening you can bet it will be like this.

You know something other people don’t. So what? What’s the big deal? What’s there to be proud about? You don’t even know it after the trip. I don’t see the point of inflating your ego.

 

Trap of solipsism 

“But it’s not ego, he’s trying to communicate solipsism. That’s why he says he is the best and the only one awakened.”

No, no. If he was he wouldn’t say it like that. It would be a matter of fact statement. Anybody with some awareness can tell that what he is saying coming from ego. He thinks there’s no one he can learn from. There can be no characters in the dream more knowledgeable and aware as him. Yet he continues to be in the dream. He thinks he is the most advanced, not because of solipsism, he actually thinks that. (For anyone that thinks otherwise, you can simply use the search function and look what he said in the past.) (I'm not saying solipsism is not true.)

 

It’s a one way conversation with him. There’s nothing you can say to him that will get through to him. There’s really no point talking to him anymore. It’s a misapplication of solipsism. 

 

“He’s just being authentic.” 

Being authentic doesn’t mean doing whatever comes to your mind. “I feel like murdering someone, so I will murder someone.” That’s not authentic. Again, I think it comes under a trap of solipsism.

 

“The other teachers are not as good”

He doesn’t know about other teachers’ methods.

Leo doesn’t know about all these things, he has never learned from an actual Yogi, Tantric, or a Buddhist monk from the places these traditions originate from. He has never gone too deep into this. He’s not qualified to talk about it.

He doesn’t know about devotion, about chakras, energy, and many other things. 

It might be because he has an autoimmune disorder which prevents him from exploring other methods fully. That’s why he likes psychedelics so much. They’re quick and easy. 

“Buddhism will never get you there.”

Sadhguru said Buddhism is a long, drawn out process. He said Buddhist masters tell you it will take you 12 life times of sadhana to become enlightened. Buddhism in the east, the actual Buddhism, makes it clear. It doesn’t give you false expectations.

"But re-incarnation and all that isn't real."

Just like everything else. The walls in your house, your ego-mind, your body, and your psychedelics. How do you know it's not as real as radio waves?

"But these teachers are genetic freaks! We can't be like them."

So it just didn't occur to these genetic freaks that other people can never advance spiritually like them. These supposedly genetic freaks who are juggernauts of awareness, just didn't realize other people are not like them. It slipped their attention. Obviously if these people are so aware they know what they are doing and what others are capable of. I've seen videos and testimonies of people who go to these people. People's lives have changed for the better. Obviously not all the people who benefit make a YouTube channel and say exactly the same things Leo says. People are private.

 

Being offensive and outrageous 

I am embarrassed to share that I watch actualized.org with anybody. With post titles like, brains don’t exists and pedophilia is love. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Leo has no regard for how others might perceive his loyal followers when he does things like this.

It’s coming from ego. The way he’s going about saying it is dumb. You don’t need to do all this to make your point. It’s unappealing, that’s why people move away from you and he feels they are moving away because they don’t understand his point. 

“Look at this video of a murder taking place. This is love guys! Look at this! Why are you going away? Surely you’re not as awake as me! I’m the most awakened person on the planet!”

 

Future

I think in the future, it is possible, Leo will eventually develop occult powers with the use of psychedelics. And his ego will be even more inflated. It will become even more ugly. This is all a consequence of not neglecting his base level of consciousness. 

 

Forum

The forum is not a great place. Partly because Leo himself sets the precedence on how to communicate here and he himself breaks his own rules and name calls people. Even when he’s not name calling you directly, that’s what he’s trying to do indirectly. He’s so snarky too. Other than that he’s doing some version of “everything is a dream”, “this is just a figment of your dream.” 

“It’s the internet” No. They look at Leo’s writing style and get inspired. 

The quality of the forum is quite low. Some members with mental illnesses should’ve been reached out and told to take care of themselves before posting again. There are posts which are quite low, like “why I hate men/women” or some other thing like that. Some members should’ve been kicked out a long time ago but Leo seemed to have a soft-corner for them. There are people who have shown no progress (or even regression) and have been on the forum for a long time.

For e.g, take Nahm’s example. He should’ve been stopped a long time ago. I come on the forum occasionally and even I noticed he was misleading members on the forum whether he meant to do it or not. And I have seen long term members being lost and no one corrects them. 

This is important ‘cause there have been incidents of suicide and people ending up in mental hospitals among Leo’s audience. It’s not far fetched to call what he does irresponsible. 

 

Better self-help teachers

 

In a sense you can’t even call what Leo does self help anymore. Over the years, he has become more interested in sharing his awakening from his trips than actually understanding his audience’s problems and solving them. 90% of the time he’s just describing his awakening and it’s not of much use because you cannot get to that point by just listening to him. Just do the psychedelics in the way Leo say, there’s no point listening to him except for entertainment.

I think, there are better more balanced self-help teachers out there. Those who don’t focus on journalling and intellectualizing too much. Intellectualizing is the number one trap today, people just sit and home and try to think through their problems instead of taking action. So that’s why I think it’s a big limitation of Leo. There is Sandeep Maheshwari for example who has a good balance of self-help and spirituality. His content is not in English however. 

And for what we know Leo is not a very productive person either. His life might be worse than most people’s for what we knew (partially because of his autoimmune disease). I don’t he’s the ideal person to teach a balanced self-help.

For e.g. take the difference between Sadhguru and Leo on concentration. Concentration is one of the most important things you need to become successful spiritually and materially.

Leo has a video on concentration titled: Concentration vs Meditation - How To Develop Concentration. I’m sure everyone has seen it multiple times so I won’t talk about it.

Now look at what Sadhguru says about concentration: he says don’t try to concentrate. Trying to concentrate is torture and you won’t be able to sustain it. Instead be involved in whatever you are doing and focus will naturally come. Not attached, not detached, but involved. Like you are involved while playing a sport. To meditate is to be involved. Involvement brings attention, and attention brings clarity. Personally this had changed my life. Here’s one article by him: https://isha.sadhguru.org/in/en/wisdom/article/key-to-staying-focused

I think Sadhguru knows much more about attention, concentration, focus, alertness, and the overall mind than Leo. 

 

Other minutia

 

If I were to say something else I would just say that Leo has a slight bias toward the “western” way of life and has wrong assumptions about people from other places. The lifestyle of the “west” isn’t all that great. 

 

They End

 

I may edit this post later for spelling and grammatical errors, or if I want to add something to it. 

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by Derek White

[OBEler]

@Derek White that was a Solid critique. I share that he has no clue how deep other people/gurus are awakened in the background. 

I dont understand why you see Leo as too intellectual. I see it more the opposite, he is doing the practice. Look at all his experiments, retreats and so on. And thats exploration/understanding on a very practical level

 

By the way through his practical exploration he discovered 5 meo Malt and made it popular. There are many people now who prefer malt over classic 5 meo dmt thanks to his discovery. This alone should show you how deep his practical work goes. 

Edited October 22, 2022 by OBEler

[Epikur]

@Derek White

On the matter of concentration you are dead wrong. Your way is tried a lot of times and because it failed people use meditation as it works much better. Doing what you love ends up in playing videogames and ends up becoming an addict. 

 

[Derek White]

1 hour ago, OBEler said:

I dont understand why you see Leo as too intellectual. I see it more the opposite, he is doing the practice. Look at all his experiments, retreats and so on. And thats exploration/understanding on a very practical level

He experiments with psychedelics (He went to some solo retreats but idk of any initiations by a master or following anyone in particular). See the Freedom from understanding section. Other schools are not as focused on understanding, they are much more experiential. They focus on improving your awareness, rather than more accurate ideas in your head about reality. To them it doesn't matter what you think about reality. It's the difference between being in truth vs remembering truth (experienced on a trip). But even then what he does is endless (it's like science). People need to know that you need freedom from this endless pursuit as well. Like... incorporating new experiences into your worldview is itself an intellectual activity... many people would say it's not even spirituality. It's more like satisfying your curiosity, which is endless like lust. This is my best attempt at explaining this. 

Even in self-help, he emphasizes so much on reading, contemplation, and journaling. Others people are not as thought-oriented. 

18 minutes ago, Epikur said:

Doing what you love ends up in playing videogames and ends up becoming an addict. 

That's attachment not involvement. 

Edited October 22, 2022 by Derek White

[Loba]

Not bad, I see some of your points.  I agree with Leo's personality being kind of rough around the edges and it has not improved.  Even I have worked on my own personality over the years and don't see him doing this, in fact - I find it odd as I grow, I seem to soften up a bit, or at least am making the effort to because my awakenings have lead me to the conclusion that moving energy "up" is a worthwhile thing - for myself and others and so I feel more mindful about negativity.  I think it will take one to two years to fully embody, but I have noticed my aggression, my need to be right, to argue has been going down as I move closer to what I consider to be my "death", I want to be emotionally decent before I go.  When you look death in the face, you realize how unimportant some things are and what you miss out on - things like this.

When I see Leo's arrogance, this tells me he has not really faced these things, as when you do - it softens you.  You realize that you're not some "super special gift" to the world or that people need to be a certain way, or even that the world needs to be a certain way - but that everything unravels for a reason... I guess... even me writing then, the onus on me is to accept all of it completely... but I feel like I could get through somehow.  Leo, sometimes your attitude is really off the mark, when it comes to empathy and understanding people and relating to them.  Like, your image on your instagram of some woman's fluids on your jeans... just... why?  You know?  You tout yourself as a high quality guy but you're doing weird stuff like this, you sometimes treat your forum audience with what almost feels to be contempt at times.

Another thing is that you have these awakenings, and these are things that I started off with - much of them, and have been holding onto in the face of being told they are wrong, only to see other people come to similar conclusions.  Like... these people follow you and their mainstream spirituality like... mindlessly.  A lot really do, and it is unsettling because then they take their ignorance and try to mold my own work into it and I can guarantee that a lot of people have not gone as deep in certain subsets of this than I have.  And then you come out with some flippant new awakening and suddenly everyone is now "open" to this.  It just makes me realize how you really have to hold on tightly to your internal compass with these things, because even so called truth seekers will try to corrupt it if they can.

As far as mental illness goes - there is a lot of ablism on this forum.  In spirituality in general, so I don't agree with your sentiments there.  The fact is a lot of people have mental illness.  If you don't have it you won't understand how linked the two are.  Like peanut butter and jelly.  I feel protective for people who struggle with their mental health, as someone who is afflicted as well, and I don't think someone should be removed just for being different.  If it is clear that they struggle with something and are actively showing symptoms, reaching out to them could be of benefit but "culling" members based on something they have no control over isn't right.  People with mental issues should be protected and loved.  I also feel odd about Leo's newfound discovery of "insanity" because I don't think just one night in the trenches really can give you an accurate understanding of what it is like to not be neurotypical.  

I think - he just needs to take more care - perhaps of himself first...

A good rule of thumb is that if you're doing your practice right - no matter which road you take, it should be leading you towards resolution, completion within yourself, acceptance, and Love - and these are things that should ideally be able to replicate in the real world.  Not just talk about them, but make those active changes to the personality.
My instincts tell me that something is not right.  Something feels manic... or not fully digested.  All over the place.  I have a good eye for that stuff.  He'll fluff it off, but I think that maybe humility might be his best bet.  Be humble enough to reach out if you get stuck.  Be humble enough to know that in the grand scheme of things, you're one in billions.  I work with strong energies and learn a lot about the spiritual planes - authentically - and this is due to not allowing my ego to get in the way.  I know my place, so to speak.  I have a job to do, I am not some special person.  It's just like being a plumber or an electrician.  When you take this route into spirituality, this will keep you level.  You can also get shut out of some very miraculous experiences if you are prideful.  There are things within our reality that require selflessness to access, and if you get too hot headed, you'll just be removed from it completely.

I would like to see him finally meet a genuine spirit from the other side.  Not one that he turns into himself, but something with its own agency that comes to him with its brand of knowledge.  He would see how little control a human has over things, and that it isn't him who is a teacher of the ages, but the shamans who get their information directly from these true teachers that have lucked out.  A spirit, an entity, can really get into the psychology and soul of a human being - it knows just what to say, what to show you, when and where and why - and it will unravel for you in a way that is tailored to your unique psychology.  A teacher - much less a human - can't do this.  But most people are shut out from this as they are told such things don't even exist.

Now that I have gotten a critique out of the way, I must say - I love Leo.  I want him to be the best person that he can be and I don't write this with any ill will or malice or anything like that.  It's just that if some of your high level awakenings are literally the very first thing that I encountered.  If you get into paranormal things, into anything in such a way, you need to make sure you are as humble as you can be.  If you are working with beings, they will move you away from arrogance and suicide and into love and self acceptance.  If you're moving in the opposite direction, I would look into why this is happening.  Maybe try reaching out to see if you can find yourself a spirit guide on the other side?

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by Loba

[spiritual memes]

Yeah, I agree with all of these. My main critique is just the overall vibe that Leo and many of his followers give off. For someone who preaches infinite love, he and followers don't really radiate it. Instead he has a vibe of 'everyone else is so stupid and mediocre except me'.

He claims spiritual teachers aren't awake and yet they radiate a million times more love than him. I don't doubt that he's higher levels of awakenings through psychedelics but he doesn't embody the love he realized, then there's not much point to it. Instead of telling us how awakened he is, he should show us through action and not words.

[Ulax]

I think there were numerous useful points you made here. I don't feel competent enough to speak on the non-duality points you made in terms of whether Leo's claims are accurate or not. The way I tend to see it is that when it comes to non-duality these days Leo behaves more like a philosopher than a mentor. It seems to me like he is concerned with gaining more and more insight, and just sharing that insight.

However, it seems to me that he has already made quite a lot of content on non-duality. Both in terms of based on his own conclusions, and also the teachings of numerous others, i.e. neti-neti.

I agree with you regarding Leo's style of communication on the platform. I think he is repeatedly abusive in many of his communications and I feel upset that it continues.

 With regards to the forum, I think you are looking at the forum through a stage green lens. I have repeatedly been conflicted about whether to continue using the forum or follow the channel on multiple occasions. However, I believe I am of a greater understanding of why the platform is as it is. I think its because actualized.org is designed to be a stage yellow content provider, not stage green. And to be effective the actualized content will need to appeal to people at all sorts of different stages, i.e. red, blue, orange, and so people will be attracted to the forum from various different levels of consciousness. A stage green platform, to my mind, would cater really well to stage green folks. However, I don't think it would be so useful when it comes to drawing in lower stage people. For example, the why I hate men/ women debate wouldn't, to my mind, make sense in a stage green forum, but it does in a yellow one because if you cancel out those debates the people from that level of consciousness, to my mind, will end up leaving. Now, whether the forum actually manages to effective do spiral wizardry to get folks up stages of consciousness I think is a different matter. I think the Leo and the mod team tend to drop the ball when it comes to that.

Regarding other minutia, and how the lifestyle of the west isn't that great. I think that is a stage green perspective you are holding there. To my mind, its important to get healthy integration of all the stages of the spiral. If you go to india I imagine you will find lots of beautiful spirituality over there. However, I also imagine next to the ashram you will find people dying in the streets. The west, to my mind, has serious limits. However, to my mind, in most cases, the political structuring and level of society is significantly higher in consciousness in western countries. To my mind not integrating the lower stages like orange will leave a person or society in a very precarious position and they will suffer greatly for it. On the personal level, Green self help is fab until you, i.e., get a bill for your mum's cancer treatment that you cannot afford, or you can't afford the rent, and your close family dynamic lacks boundaries and emotional incest occurs. All the stages have something one can learn from imo.

[OBEler]

1 hour ago, Derek White said:

He experiments with psychedelics (He went to some solo retreats but idk of any initiations by a master or following anyone in particular). See the Freedom from understanding section. Other schools are not as focused on understanding, they are much more experiential. They focus on improving your awareness, rather than more accurate ideas in your head about reality. To them it doesn't matter what you think about reality. It's the difference between being in truth vs remembering truth (experienced on a trip). But even then what he does is endless (it's like science). People need to know that you need freedom from this endless pursuit as well. Like... incorporating new experiences into your worldview is itself an intellectual activity... many people would say it's not even spirituality. It's more like satisfying your curiosity, which is endless like lust. This is my best attempt at explaining this. 

Even in self-help, he emphasizes so much on reading, contemplation, and journaling. Others people are not as thought-oriented. 

That's attachment not involvement. 

See, I get your point but I think understanding things through exploring all kinds of different consciousness states instead of just focusing on improving your awareness goes much much much deeper.  In the end you can improve your awareness much deeper with enough understanding how consciousness works.

It's like you compare an user who works with a SAP program (normal Guru) with  an full stack developer (Leo) which programmed the whole SAP Program for all users. The first one can focus on using the Software and can be a Master in using it. He has a very narrow and limited view with almost no understanding how this all works. The last one, the programmer, needs a lot of understanding to get results, but he can go beyond the SAP program, he can create anything whatever you imagine and finds the solution if the program doesnt work. I hope this analogy helps

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by OBEler

[Derek White]

2 hours ago, OBEler said:

I get your point but I think understanding things through exploring all kinds of different consciousness states instead of just focusing on improving your awareness goes much much much deeper. 

But how do you know he has experienced different states of consciousness? He’s only experienced them on psychedelics. He hasn’t gone seriously into yoga, tantra, etc. Maybe those produce different states. Maybe all the states Leo has experienced come under the category of psychedelic states, and a whole different category of states exist elsewhere which are more profound. (The reason I say this because he hasn’t experienced the stuff these other people talk about)

It’s not just about awareness alone, does he know about devotion? Does he know about Ramakrishna Paramahansa and his path? What happens if you are devoted to a goddess, does he know? That’s why I say it’s intellectual compared to others. Yogis, tantriks, what they say is completely different. 

2 hours ago, OBEler said:

It's like you compare an user who works with a SAP program (normal Guru) with  an full stack developer (Leo) which programmed the whole SAP Program for all users. The first one can focus on using the Software and can be a Master in using it. He has a very narrow and limited view with almost no understanding how this all works. The last one, the programmer, needs a lot of understanding to get results, but he can go beyond the SAP program, he can create anything whatever you imagine and finds the solution if the program doesnt work. I hope this analogy helps

There’s an assumption here that gurus have a very narrow and limited view of spirituality. It could be the opposite.

Take Sadhguru for example, he has travelled, talked to, and explored spiritual traditions around the world lol, Native American, European, Greek, Middle-eastern, Indian, Tibetan, Zen, you name it. I am sure he has met people who have done all kinds of psychedelics (even in India people do them and he’s met Native Americans who do them). He even has experience with occultists. Compared to him Leo has sat at one place and done psychedelics. So, who’s the SAP worker and who’s the programmer here? 

 

[aurum]

Fair critique. Now here’s my critique of some of your critiques. It’s not full scope but it should be sufficient.

7 hours ago, Derek White said:

What Leo does is pursuit of understanding. It is an endless process. There is no end to it. You can keep on accumulating new experiences and making your understanding better and better. Understanding is a limited process rooted in the ego-mind.

1) Understanding the relative domain is limitless. But consider that you actually can understand absolute truth totally. And consider that understanding can also come from a place of beyond standard ego-mind

2) The limitless nature of infinity / reality is not a problem or reason to not seek understanding. In fact, I would argue it’s the infinite nature of understanding that makes it interesting at all. If life was finite you’d just traverse the whole thing and be done. Just don’t get attached to the idea of getting it all done.

7 hours ago, Derek White said:

So during his psychedelic trip he has an experience of God. We can say he is in a higher state of consciousness. Once it is over, he comes back to his normal state of consciousness. The experience is stored in the form of memory which gets interpreted and communicated by the ego-mind. The memory isn’t reliable because it can’t be stored. Understanding is a limited thing, whereas Truth is unlimited it can’t be bound to such things.

Given that you’ve never taken psychedelics, any beliefs that you have about psychedelics are heresay and based on zero experience.

This doesn’t automatically mean you are wrong. But you may want to consider that you’re talking out of your league on this one.

7 hours ago, Derek White said:

The point of spirituality is freedom, but people get stuck in this cycle of accumulating experiences and gathering knowledge. They never become free from understanding itself. You have to use your understanding to get free from understanding.

Getting more understanding will not change you. Your personality will remain the same. Your habits and patterns will remain the same. Your base level of consciousness will remain the same. You will remain an idiot. (If anything too many fixed ideas you got from your trips might make your ego swell and make it hard for you to look at life afresh.)

You might regret wasting this time on understanding. It’s endless. It’s the same as exploring the physical world. You can keep exploring it deeper and deeper and arrive at new conclusions each time. Your time might be better spent on any number of things.

 

The only way you change anything about yourself is through properly understanding it.

What is a better use of your time than understanding God and the deepest questions of the universe?

If you want to criticize understanding, don’t be surprised when you are mistaken about all sorts of things. Including spirituality.

To even appreciate going beyond the ego-mind requires tremendous effort, dedication, and yes, understanding.

7 hours ago, Derek White said:

All he’s trying to do is get peak spiritual experiences. He has completely neglected raising his base level of consciousness. As far as you know he is not doing anything to raise it. He inspires others to do the same.

As far as you know, he is raising it. He has talked about raising your base many times in the past. You also are missing how these peak experiences can permanently affect someone’s psyche, even if the “trip” itself is temporary.

One bad experience of getting bitten by a dog is enough to make most people avoid dogs for the rest of their life. What might a peak experience of becoming God do for them?

7 hours ago, Derek White said:

If you had asked me about Leo’s ego a year ago, I would have ignored it as minutia, but now I increasingly feel it is becoming a problem.

After an awakening his ego becomes inflated for several weeks. Every time he gets an awakening you can bet it will be like this.

You know something other people don’t. So what? What’s the big deal? What’s there to be proud about? You don’t even know it after the trip. I don’t see the point of inflating your ego.

Yes, Leo can come off as arrogant and kind of a prick at times. I’ll grant that one. And he has admitted he is working on that.

But also, God-realization is pretty radical. And Leo is showing it to us in real time. That’s pretty rare and is going to be a pretty gnarly process.

Don’t just judge people on their worst moments.

 

[OBEler]

5 hours ago, Derek White said:

But how do you know he has experienced different states of consciousness? He’s only experienced them on psychedelics. He hasn’t gone seriously into yoga, tantra, etc. Maybe those produce different states. Maybe all the states Leo has experienced come under the category of psychedelic states, and a whole different category of states exist elsewhere which are more profound. (The reason I say this because he hasn’t experienced the stuff these other people talk about)

It’s not just about awareness alone, does he know about devotion? Does he know about Ramakrishna Paramahansa and his path? What happens if you are devoted to a goddess, does he know? That’s why I say it’s intellectual compared to others. Yogis, tantriks, what they say is completely different. 

There’s an assumption here that gurus have a very narrow and limited view of spirituality. It could be the opposite.

Take Sadhguru for example, he has travelled, talked to, and explored spiritual traditions around the world lol, Native American, European, Greek, Middle-eastern, Indian, Tibetan, Zen, you name it. I am sure he has met people who have done all kinds of psychedelics (even in India people do them and he’s met Native Americans who do them). He even has experience with occultists. Compared to him Leo has sat at one place and done psychedelics. So, who’s the SAP worker and who’s the programmer here? 

 

@Derek WhiteIWhite  

I talk about normal gurus. Sadghuru is definitively not a normal guru. 

Yeah, but you have to see that these are also just assumptions you make. Maybe these different states of consciousness of these yogis are limited and not so deep as taking psychedelics? Just be open minded to this or try 5 meo and see for yourself. 

It's like you say there is the SAP user who also explored other programs like Excel, powerpoint, where the full Stack Programer dont know these programs. But the programer has such a deep understanding , he could create any of the programs the user works with and beyound. He can create programs the User cannot even imagine. Because the user is limited in his view even if he explored many programs. 

Edited October 23, 2022 by OBEler

[Zion]

One of the very significant things I notice myself, is that Leo seems to be getting bored, annoyed, & a bit sad. As though his perspective isn't getting enough validation or appreciation from people other than himself. And with each video, he hopes to inspire & change the world to a point to where he gets the feeling of "Finally, people see what I'm talking about. Finally the world will understand itself better & be on a faster path to love & truth." Thats how I gage his persona right now as it pertains to his lifestyle & overall teachings.

I see Leo as someone who is just in slight sadness & anguish because he is living in a society/culture/world that doesn't encourage the things he preaches to the degree he cares about. It is because of this, that perhaps he is annoyed & yet still trying to push through to lead by example to show his perspective of reality. It is this idea that I theorize Leo is holding onto & he's aware of the downsides it comes with, given the implications of his teachings. I think he makes content to create, what he sees to be, a legacy of understanding understanding for the world. And that is what gives him motivation, what inspires his discipline, what keeps his habits in place.

Given this theory, I think he's losing appreciation/care for the previous understandings he's had of the world, such that, it's creating annoyance & arrogance in him. Annoyance & arrogance that the previous understanding he had of reality are no longer worth his time to participate in being a part of. With that, why would he preach anything but his newfound understandings? I'm not sure how true any of this is, he may be cruisin through life, just loving every second of it. Who knows. Only Leo.

With regards to your critique, I see a lot of what you're talking about. Personally, I think his teachings still bring immense value to the world & inspire people to think very differently than they would otherwise about life, which is so valuable & crucial for healthy change in our modern world. While I don't think all his videos are that effective or necessarily mature as of lately, that does not mean they aren't. They just aren't to me, or you, etc. So long as he puts out new teachings, I will be enticed to hear his perspective, as not many think to the degree he does about a given situation. It is when he correlates his reasoning & methods of practice to his "newfound awakening", his biased perspective, or his "new state of consciousness", that I don't always put my time into & rather; take with a grain of salt. He has tidbits of wisdom, & that is where his inspiration lies within me. I don't watch him as often anymore, as he does come off as though he doesn't want to keep doing this profession. Either way I'm grateful for his perspective. It will be very different for everyone else. It is clear he has biases, everyone sees his biases in different ways, such that what I see to be a bias, you don't & vise versa. 

[Shawn Philips]

I love Leo's spiritual advice, but I hate his extreme political leftism that he shows off in this forum, so I pick the info that ressonates with me and discard the bullshit. Zero problems.

The problem becomes when the reader has no critical spirit and swallows everything.

[Leo Gura]

Feedback noted. I will try to communicate better.

But there is a method to the madness.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Leo Gura

[How to be wise]

@Lila9 There’s a difference between personality and level of development. Stage turquoise isn’t always affiliative and diplomatic in nature. They can be pragmatic and analytical, like Leo is. 

[Vido]

On 10/22/2022 at 4:38 PM, Derek White said:

re are better more balanced self-help teachers out there. Those who don’t focus on journalling and intellectualizing too much. Intellectualizing is the number one trap today, people just sit and home and try to think through their problems instead of taking action. So that’s why I think it’s a big limitation of Leo. There is Sandeep Maheshwari for example who has a good balance of self-help and spirituality. His content is not in English however. 

And for what we know Leo is not a very productive person either. His life might be worse than most people’s for what we knew (partially because of his autoimmune disease). I don’t he’s the ideal person to teach a balanced self-help.

For e.g. take the difference between Sadhguru and Leo on concentration. Concentration is one of the most important things you need to become successful spiritually and materially.

Leo has a video on concentration titled: Concentration vs Meditation - How To Develop Concentration. I’m sure everyone has seen it multiple times so I won’t talk about it.

Now look at what Sadhguru says about concentration: he says don’t try to concentrate. Trying to concentrate is torture and you won’t be able to sustain it. Instead be involved in whatever you are doing and focus will naturally come. Not attached, not detached, but involved. Like you are involved while playing a sport. To meditate is to be involved. Involvement brings attention, and attention brings clarity. Personally this had changed my life. Here’s one article by him: https://isha.sadhguru.org/in/en/wisdom/article/key-to-staying-focused

I think Sadhguru knows much more about attention, concentration, focus, alertness, and the overall mind than Leo. 

 

Other minutia

 

If I were to say something else I would just say that Leo has a slight bias toward the “western” way of life and has wrong assumptions about people from other places. The lifestyle of the “west” isn’t all that great. 

 

They End

 

I may edit this post later for spelling and grammatical errors, or if I want to add something to it. 

 

Edited Saturday at 05:33 PM by Derek White

Super Controversial take here, if spirituality is like comedy, it's at the knock-knock joke phase of comedy. 

BUT HOW? Well, most spiritual teachers in the past have spent a lot of time in pursuit of the desire for freedom. Nothing wrong with that, however, there is nothing new under the sun for many many years. Their solution to life is to sit in the cave and become enlightened. Why not delight in being human?

Only since the 1950s, spirituality has taken a more dynamic approach to life with people like Alan Watts, Ram Dass, Terence McKenna, etc. However, even their form of spirituality lacks a style that is more apt for today's society where people earn money and provide True Value while doing so by expressing the soul.

I don't feel spirituality is bad, however, after a point, it has to develop more than just a knock-knock joke. You have to be creative, and invest time in your own jokes that are funny and smart, that is authentic to your expression, etc. That requires a different style of thinking, experimentation and creativity. 

Another analogy is following a recipe is a different skill compared to creating a new recipe that's amazing. That's what differentiates a home cook and a 5 star chef. 

Leo doesn't teach how to get enlightened IMO, he teaches the philosophies one needs to have that you can mix with your own creative effort to create a custom method that a tailored for you. 

If I have to use a suit analogy, there is a difference between going to suit supply and buying a well-fitted suit vs learning how to tailor and make your own suit that's unique, creative, authentic and also well-fitted. 

This is not to take Leo's side, however, what I noticed with Leo is that he is very unattached to any particular perspective, a kinda cocky, mad scientist experimenting in a fucking realm of the unknown. You kinda need to be cocky to create balance in this world filled with cookie-cutter spiritual self-help shit. 

If people are like monkey, fucking parrot HIM, ewww, that's fucking disgusting and a disgrace to the work of Leo itself. After all, his entire videos are structured to build your character, not fucking copy him.

I hope the people who copy Leo, get fucked by life. The only thing I'm upset about is that he's not doing more stupid things so that others copy that and have life fuck them hard. 

That's my take. Hopefully, in future, others have their own style to reaching enlightenment and not stick to the knock knock cookie cutter solution that already exists.

We are artists in the realm of abstract creating our own artwork from a blank canvas, not monkeys copying other monkeys.

[Charlotte]

On 22/10/2022 at 9:38 PM, Derek White said:

Freedom from understanding

 

I love this.??

I agree with you regarding the vibe around this place, that is one of the main reasons why I didn't want to come around here anymore, I felt there were just a bunch of mini Leos running around parroting his words and spiritually bypassing any disagreements when faced. It literally felt cult-like. Also, there were people unqualified people giving (not sure if there still is) advice to people that needed professional help, watching people who had never studied any form of clinical psychology in their entire lives made me cringe. As for Leo, yes I also feel the arrogant vibe from him and the gas-lighting comments, however, I personally could overlook that knowing he still had/has unfinished work within himself, and focus on the main overarching themes and golden nuggets he was pointing to, he did mention that himself regarding other teachers, ignore the minutia and focus on the point they're trying to get across. Anyways, good to see people going against the grain on here finally and calling out some of these issues, hopefully with the result of drastic improvements. 

Edited October 24, 2022 by Charlotte
posted too early

[Danioover9000]

@Derek White

On 2022-10-22 at 9:38 PM, Derek White said:

A Critique Of Actualized.org And Leo Gura

 

The intention of this critique is to make people aware of some of Leo’s limitations. It might save people time and unnecessary suffering. It is not meant to invalidate or insult Actualized.org or Leo. I think Leo is a great teacher in many ways, this is just healthy criticism. Please take it lightly. Since Leo likes to criticize everyone else, I thought why not do it to him this time.

It’s worth mentioning that I’ve personally never taken any psychedelics and I don’t consider myself some advanced spiritual person either. Some might consider this critique incomplete - which is fair. I have been watching Leo and other teachers for a long time. Nevertheless, I think it can still be helpful for people to read this. If anything, it can be an exercise in open-mindedness. 

It’s important to note that I will only be critiquing Leo on his more core and central teaching. So don’t expect much on minutia like his dating advice or politics. Although these thing can be important to some people, and you are free to level your own critiques on him, small or big, below this post, I personally won’t be focusing much on this.

So sit back and let’s being…

 

Freedom from understanding

 

This one is a little confusing and long but the most important. Stick with me please.

 

Basically, Leo takes psychedelics and shares his findings on YouTube.

 

Why am I telling you this? 

I am telling you this because there are things he doesn’t explicitly tell you:

What Leo does is pursuit of understanding. It is an endless process. There is no end to it. You can keep on accumulating new experiences and making your understanding better and better. Understanding is a limited process rooted in the ego-mind.

So during his psychedelic trip he has an experience of God. We can say he is in a higher state of consciousness. Once it is over, he comes back to his normal state of consciousness. The experience is stored in the form of memory which gets interpreted and communicated by the ego-mind. The memory isn’t reliable because it can’t be stored. Understanding is a limited thing, whereas Truth is unlimited it can’t be bound to such things.

So here’s what you need to know:

Most people don’t need to do what Leo does. Leo is like a scientist. It’s his profession and passion to have new experiences and create new mental models. This pays his bills.

Truth is beyond understanding. Truth is something living, it doesn’t come from a memory of a trip.

Understanding (and experience) is only needed to answer a few basic questions, beyond it you don’t need it. Questions like, “Who am I?”, “What is thought?”, “What is the limitation of thought?” Basically to quiet the mind and satisfy your curiosity. To become free from this as well.

The point of spirituality is freedom, but people get stuck in this cycle of accumulating experiences and gathering knowledge. They never become free from understanding itself. You have to use your understanding to get free from understanding.

Getting more understanding will not change you. Your personality will remain the same. Your habits and patterns will remain the same. Your base level of consciousness will remain the same. You will remain an idiot. (If anything too many fixed ideas you got from your trips might make your ego swell and make it hard for you to look at life afresh.)

You might regret wasting this time on understanding. It’s endless. It’s the same as exploring the physical world. You can keep exploring it deeper and deeper and arrive at new conclusions each time. Your time might be better spent on any number of things.

It’s important to tell you that it will not get rid of suffering either, in case that’s why you are following Leo. 

It’s important to tell you this because people have attached unrealistic expectations about this. If you’re an average person with a job and a career, you don’t need to do this. In fact this might not even be spirituality for you, it’s like a weird game of documenting peak experiences. He might say he made this clear to people, but I say he doesn't explicitly tell you this. Most people don't need this and they don't know they don't need it, they are lost and Leo doesn't help them out.

 

Lack of balance

 

Leo likes to talk about balance, but how balanced is his spirituality? 

How balanced is his self-help? It is overly intellectual (as he himself admits). 

All he’s trying to do is get peak spiritual experiences. He has completely neglected raising his base level of consciousness. As far as you know he is not doing anything to raise it. He inspires others to do the same.

 

Arrogance, ego and the forum

 

If you had asked me about Leo’s ego a year ago, I would have ignored it as minutia, but now I increasingly feel it is becoming a problem.

After an awakening his ego becomes inflated for several weeks. Every time he gets an awakening you can bet it will be like this.

You know something other people don’t. So what? What’s the big deal? What’s there to be proud about? You don’t even know it after the trip. I don’t see the point of inflating your ego.

 

Trap of solipsism 

“But it’s not ego, he’s trying to communicate solipsism. That’s why he says he is the best and the only one awakened.”

No, no. If he was he wouldn’t say it like that. It would be a matter of fact statement. Anybody with some awareness can tell that what he is saying coming from ego. He thinks there’s no one he can learn from. There can be no characters in the dream more knowledgeable and aware as him. Yet he continues to be in the dream. He thinks he is the most advanced, not because of solipsism, he actually thinks that. (For anyone that thinks otherwise, you can simply use the search function and look what he said in the past.) (I'm not saying solipsism is not true.)

 

It’s a one way conversation with him. There’s nothing you can say to him that will get through to him. There’s really no point talking to him anymore. It’s a misapplication of solipsism. 

 

“He’s just being authentic.” 

Being authentic doesn’t mean doing whatever comes to your mind. “I feel like murdering someone, so I will murder someone.” That’s not authentic. Again, I think it comes under a trap of solipsism.

 

“The other teachers are not as good”

He doesn’t know about other teachers’ methods.

Leo doesn’t know about all these things, he has never learned from an actual Yogi, Tantric, or a Buddhist monk from the places these traditions originate from. He has never gone too deep into this. He’s not qualified to talk about it.

He doesn’t know about devotion, about chakras, energy, and many other things. 

It might be because he has an autoimmune disorder which prevents him from exploring other methods fully. That’s why he likes psychedelics so much. They’re quick and easy. 

“Buddhism will never get you there.”

Sadhguru said Buddhism is a long, drawn out process. He said Buddhist masters tell you it will take you 12 life times of sadhana to become enlightened. Buddhism in the east, the actual Buddhism, makes it clear. It doesn’t give you false expectations.

"But re-incarnation and all that isn't real."

Just like everything else. The walls in your house, your ego-mind, your body, and your psychedelics. How do you know it's not as real as radio waves?

"But these teachers are genetic freaks! We can't be like them."

So it just didn't occur to these genetic freaks that other people can never advance spiritually like them. These supposedly genetic freaks who are juggernauts of awareness, just didn't realize other people are not like them. It slipped their attention. Obviously if these people are so aware they know what they are doing and what others are capable of. I've seen videos and testimonies of people who go to these people. People's lives have changed for the better. Obviously not all the people who benefit make a YouTube channel and say exactly the same things Leo says. People are private.

 

Being offensive and outrageous 

I am embarrassed to share that I watch actualized.org with anybody. With post titles like, brains don’t exists and pedophilia is love. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Leo has no regard for how others might perceive his loyal followers when he does things like this.

It’s coming from ego. The way he’s going about saying it is dumb. You don’t need to do all this to make your point. It’s unappealing, that’s why people move away from you and he feels they are moving away because they don’t understand his point. 

“Look at this video of a murder taking place. This is love guys! Look at this! Why are you going away? Surely you’re not as awake as me! I’m the most awakened person on the planet!”

 

Future

I think in the future, it is possible, Leo will eventually develop occult powers with the use of psychedelics. And his ego will be even more inflated. It will become even more ugly. This is all a consequence of not neglecting his base level of consciousness. 

 

Forum

The forum is not a great place. Partly because Leo himself sets the precedence on how to communicate here and he himself breaks his own rules and name calls people. Even when he’s not name calling you directly, that’s what he’s trying to do indirectly. He’s so snarky too. Other than that he’s doing some version of “everything is a dream”, “this is just a figment of your dream.” 

“It’s the internet” No. They look at Leo’s writing style and get inspired. 

The quality of the forum is quite low. Some members with mental illnesses should’ve been reached out and told to take care of themselves before posting again. There are posts which are quite low, like “why I hate men/women” or some other thing like that. Some members should’ve been kicked out a long time ago but Leo seemed to have a soft-corner for them. There are people who have shown no progress (or even regression) and have been on the forum for a long time.

For e.g, take Nahm’s example. He should’ve been stopped a long time ago. I come on the forum occasionally and even I noticed he was misleading members on the forum whether he meant to do it or not. And I have seen long term members being lost and no one corrects them. 

This is important ‘cause there have been incidents of suicide and people ending up in mental hospitals among Leo’s audience. It’s not far fetched to call what he does irresponsible. 

 

Better self-help teachers

 

In a sense you can’t even call what Leo does self help anymore. Over the years, he has become more interested in sharing his awakening from his trips than actually understanding his audience’s problems and solving them. 90% of the time he’s just describing his awakening and it’s not of much use because you cannot get to that point by just listening to him. Just do the psychedelics in the way Leo say, there’s no point listening to him except for entertainment.

I think, there are better more balanced self-help teachers out there. Those who don’t focus on journalling and intellectualizing too much. Intellectualizing is the number one trap today, people just sit and home and try to think through their problems instead of taking action. So that’s why I think it’s a big limitation of Leo. There is Sandeep Maheshwari for example who has a good balance of self-help and spirituality. His content is not in English however. 

And for what we know Leo is not a very productive person either. His life might be worse than most people’s for what we knew (partially because of his autoimmune disease). I don’t he’s the ideal person to teach a balanced self-help.

For e.g. take the difference between Sadhguru and Leo on concentration. Concentration is one of the most important things you need to become successful spiritually and materially.

Leo has a video on concentration titled: Concentration vs Meditation - How To Develop Concentration. I’m sure everyone has seen it multiple times so I won’t talk about it.

Now look at what Sadhguru says about concentration: he says don’t try to concentrate. Trying to concentrate is torture and you won’t be able to sustain it. Instead be involved in whatever you are doing and focus will naturally come. Not attached, not detached, but involved. Like you are involved while playing a sport. To meditate is to be involved. Involvement brings attention, and attention brings clarity. Personally this had changed my life. Here’s one article by him: https://isha.sadhguru.org/in/en/wisdom/article/key-to-staying-focused

I think Sadhguru knows much more about attention, concentration, focus, alertness, and the overall mind than Leo. 

 

Other minutia

 

If I were to say something else I would just say that Leo has a slight bias toward the “western” way of life and has wrong assumptions about people from other places. The lifestyle of the “west” isn’t all that great. 

 

They End

 

I may edit this post later for spelling and grammatical errors, or if I want to add something to it. 

 

   Overall, a good solid critique. However, it's going to be difficult critiquing the advanced forms of Leo's work as most of that is both a semantics issue and lack of experience issues, so at best the most productive the critique gets is on the basics of this work, and maybe safety protocols and that's that.

[StarStruck]

Leo is trying to reinvent the wheel and does a bad job at it. I mean there are already great consciousness models like Kaballah that explain what he explains but much clearer and structured. In Leo’s writing I see a lot of confusion. Today I read that he doesn’t even understand the difference between intelligence and wisdom. If he studied the existing esoterica this wouldn’t have happened. He could have build his work on good foundations instead of building his work on quick sand. Perhaps he is a good psychonaut but he isn’t a good teacher. He is stuck in quick sand and he is not aware of it; and he is taking dozens of feeble minds with him into the self proclaimed madness. 

Edited October 24, 2022 by StarStruck

[jimwell]

11 hours ago, Vido said:

I hope the people who copy Leo, get fucked by life. The only thing I'm upset about is that he's not doing more stupid things so that others copy that and have life fuck them hard. 

 Why being malicious?

Nothing to be upset about. Many members here imitate Leo, in words and actions.

But it never seriously crossed their minds they are just digging a deeper hole for themselves.

The differences between Leo and his followers are that Leo already has millions or hundreds of thousands in his bank account and has never experienced any form of mental illness or any serious form of trauma, while his followers are being inflicted with various forms of mental illnesses, trauma, and are having financial problems. Many also lack social skills or have never had a girlfriend their entire lives.

It's ok for Leo to shoot for the stars. It's foolish for his followers to try to do the same thing because for them, it's just spiritual bypassing. Leo's work is NOT for the majority of the population. That's the truth, whether acknowledged or not. 

Edited October 24, 2022 by jimwell
needed to include the incels and the socially awkward followers