Reflections on Leo's God Consciousness claims by spiritual teacher

[tuckerwphotography]

Came across this Medium article by a spiritual teacher named Roger Thisdell who maps Leo's God Consciousness claims as Stage 3 out of 4, saying he experienced what Leo is pointing to but is not the end of the journey. Curious what @Leo Gura take on this is. Note that he says he is a fan of Leo and appreciates his content, so his critique appears to be coming from a thoughtful place...

https://medium.com/@rogerthis/identity-god-and-open-individualism-88c185258bfc

"Experiencing God (and a message to Leo Gura)

Stage 3 ‘Big Mind’ is when open individualism is most likely to begin to intuitively feel right. This is also when talks of being God come out of people’s mouths and (as in terms of (1)) they phenomenologically perceive the sense of ‘I’ in everything they experience. While they (in terms of (2)) may conceptually infer there is just one thing, one being, call it ‘God’. “God is everything. I am everything.” Because the understanding of moving from (1)to (2) (from experience to conjecture) is often lost on people, all kinds of wacky metaphysical beliefs come about — supposedly self-validating by higher consciousness or direct cosmic download.

While at stage 3, if you inject some metta into your experience space, you come to see what people mean when they say: “God is everywhere and all loving” or even: “God is love”. Having the feeling of being everything in your experience is like you don’t feel separate from anything, thus there is a deep intimacy with the world which construes love. You feel like you are the body, the thoughts, the emotions, the trees, the hills on the horizon, the air in between all of it, the sky and the awareness field which contains all these things. However, going from the experience of feeling identical to everything you are aware of to “I am everything (even that which I’m not currently aware of) and therefore I am God/the universe” requires an unfounded leap — which I admittedly made at some point.

I remember an incredibly stark moment I had when I was in stage 3, where ‘being God’ felt like the most real thing (I can sympathise a lot with where Leo Gura is coming from — though I think he’s lacking some phenomenological discernment). Because at stage 3 the sense of ‘I’ is so prevalent, due to it being perceived everywhere in experience, I was investigating this quality a great deal. I was trying to distil the sense of ‘I’down to its rawest form. “Yes, I feel identical to the trees and the sky and other people, but what is that common element that can be found in all these things which I call ‘I’?” After whittling away all the other unnecessary phenomenological baggage piled onto this ‘I’, I arrived at a clear perception of ‘I’ in its rawest form. The ‘I’ I call the epistemic agent, the pure sense of a knower of experience.

It became obvious that once the epistemic agent was singled out in experience that this perception of ‘I’ can only manifest in one way. What I mean by this is unlike with milk where the formula can be tainted slightly and result in versions of milk with slightly different colours, or tastes, or smells and yet they are all still versions of milk, it is impossible for the epistemic agent to have a slightly different perceptual ‘flavour’ to it other than it does. This is because the qualia recipe only consists of one ingredient and if that’s missing or different then it’s not the epistemic agent (the rawest sense of ‘I am’). Once I clocked this, I realised that all iterations of ‘I’wherever and whenever, in all beings at all times, experience the sense of ‘I am’ exactly the same way. Then, and I remember this moment so clearly, it hit me: “if God or the universe is self-aware — which it is just by dint of me being of the universe and self-aware — and has an experience of ‘I-ness’, then my experience of ‘I-ness’ in this relative body is the same as God’s and through a sharing of experience there is a direct link and so… Oh my god, I am God!”

(I am not suggesting that this line of reasoning is sound. It was simply the series of steps I went through which brought upon this profound experience).

Again, the numerically versus qualitatively identical distinction could be parsed, however there is a way to get around this, for when you remove the sense of time and space from the equation then that difference collapses. To say that something is qualitatively identical to something else, but not numerically identical doesn’t make sense if two things can’t be differentiated by existing in separate moments of time or space. So in my “Oh my god, I am God!” epiphany, the sense of time and space had been shunned from attention and numerical identity was presumed.

I can imagine that someone has this epiphany moment as I did, but then when they return to a more ‘timey/spacey’ existence they retain credence in the belief that they are God and not just a single, distinct instance of experience of ‘I’ (which would be more of an empty individualist thought). They do this because they are basing their beliefs off of a very profound mind moment, even if the majority of their waking hours don’t suggest the same message.

[I want to add a disclaimer before this next part and express appreciation towards Leo Gura and his channel, Actualized.org. I think it’s an amazing channel and I have learnt a lot from him. I highly recommend people check him out. So don’t take this next part as a slight against him. He’s got some great content!]

Now, if I could tell Leo Gura one thing it would be this: “Profundity does not equate to truth.” Just because something felt so real and epic, does not mean that experience is giving you the most accurate representation of greater reality. Truth be told at stage 3 I didn’t have anywhere near the attentional clarity, precision of view, and metacognitive abilities that came later; and so while I was having all these profound experiences I was not totally clued into the subtle ways I was manipulating my experience and was biased to certain perspectives while overlooking certain presumptive views that became clearer to me later on."

Edited December 31, 2022 by tuckerwphotography

[How to be wise]

@tuckerwphotography When Leo says God, he isn’t talking about a concept. Yes, God is a concept, but you need a concept to communicate something. What he’s actually talking about can’t be put into words, so God is the best way he can describe it. Don’t confuse the concept of God for the actual thing. The real thing can’t be communicated!

[Leo Gura]

This guy simply doesn't know what God is.

All of Buddhism is nonsense.

The God I speak of cannot be imagined by such people.

Stage 3 out of 4? Lol. Pure bullshit. Consciousness has no stages.

Truth is infinitely profound. I don't need to hype Truth up. It is infinitely epic all on its own.

His guy's "attentional clarity" and "precision of view" is NOT God-Realization and it will never understand God. He is lost in some Buddhist fantasy of enlightenment. Enlightenment is not God-Realization. Enlightenment is a fantasy.

Edited December 31, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Razard86]

57 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Consciousness has no stages.

 

Really wish people would realize this one. ^^^ 

[Kshantivadin]

14 hours ago, tuckerwphotography said:

Now, if I could tell Leo Gura one thing it would be this: “Profundity does not equate to truth.” Just because something felt so real and epic, does not mean that experience is giving you the most accurate representation of greater reality

He does have a great point 

[vladorion]

Quote

Stage 3 out of 4? Lol. Pure bullshit. Consciousness has no stages.

Stages of insight. He never said those were stages of consciousness.

[Hojo]

Why did he add leos video to use as a description of his own ideas.

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, vladorion said:

Stages of insight. He never said those were stages of consciousness.

There are no stages of insight either.

You can have insight in any order.

And no amount of insight will get you to the highest God-Realizations.

Edited January 1, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Federico del pueblo]

  @Leo Gura Leo I wish you a great 23!!!  You're me!!! Love ya!!!! 

[vladorion]

46 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

There are no stages of insight either.

You can have insight in any order.

And no amount of insight will get you to the highest God-Realizations.

Of course, there are exceptions, but generally people go through similar stages.

Sure, you can take a drug and have some advanced insights without first having the 'lower' kind of insight but then you just come down and can't integrate it. That's what a lot of people who do psychedelics experience. "Yesterday I felt I was god and today I'm the same poor little me."

No amount of psychedelic god-realizations will liberate you.

[Leo Gura]

@vladorion What good is your liberation? I look at your libetated people and they still have no clue what God is.

Edited January 1, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

Liberation is a fantasy. There is no such thing.

[Razard86]

20 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Liberation is a fantasy. There is no such thing.

Lol Leo is so brutal he just pulls the rug out from the dream. Lol. But yeah your dream at night is the same as your waking dream, and the same as a psychedelic trip. Once you really realize this....there is the realization that there is nothing to obtain or accomplish. Its literally a dream lol. You can call it a VR game if you want lol.

[vladorion]

56 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Liberation is a fantasy. There is no such thing.

Coming from a guy who thinks he can record himself transforming into an alien god for everyone to see.

Talk more about fantasy.

[Michal__]

Stages of insight refer only to meditation practice.

Which makes sense, because basically every meditation technique is just noticing what's not you (whether you're using object as an anchor or not ).

Stages of insight exist in meditation and there's a predictable sequence applicable for everybody.

If meditation isn't the only technique then yes, it would be redundant to think of stages of insight.

Edited January 1, 2023 by Michal__

[axiom]

3 hours ago, Razard86 said:

Lol Leo is so brutal he just pulls the rug out from the dream. Lol. But yeah your dream at night is the same as your waking dream, and the same as a psychedelic trip. Once you really realize this....there is the realization that there is nothing to obtain or accomplish. Its literally a dream lol. You can call it a VR game if you want lol.

The realisation that “there is nothing to obtain or accomplish” is the liberation that Leo denounces (as far as I can tell).

[ZenSwift]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

No amount of insight will get you to the highest God-Realizations.

What do you mean @Leo Gura? 

 

[Breakingthewall]

18 minutes ago, ZenSwift said:

What do you mean @Leo Gura? 

 

Lately is really difficult to understand Leo. He does not develop what he says, he only indicates how wrong others are. Before, he said that you could understand with your mind. If so, it could also be explained with the mind. but he doesn't, he tells you: if you want to know, wake up. my conclusion is that since his awakenings 4 years ago, he has made no progress. that was all. Why go deep into infinity? It doesn't matter a little or a lot. the goal is to fully awaken to make this life the best possible version. not to continue using drugs daily for fun. look at his attitude. what do you perceive? love?

But I'd like a lot to be wrong. 

[Illusory Self]

13 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Lately is really difficult to understand Leo. He does not develop what he says, he only indicates how wrong others are. Before, he said that you could understand with your mind. If so, it could also be explained with the mind. but he doesn't, he tells you: if you want to know, wake up. my conclusion is that since his awakenings 4 years ago, he has made no progress. that was all. Why go deep into infinity? It doesn't matter a little or a lot. the goal is to fully awaken to make this life the best possible version. not to continue using drugs daily for fun. look at his attitude. what do you perceive? love?

But I'd like a lot to be wrong. 

 Lol it’s incredibly obvious he’s spiritual by-passing

[Breakingthewall]

2 minutes ago, Illusory Self said:

 Lol it’s incredibly obvious he’s spiritual by-passing

what does that mean? could you develop?

Edit: i searched in google. Yeah, seems this

Edited January 1, 2023 by Breakingthewall