Joseph Maynor

If one is going to use language in that manner, I think it's also healthy to say everyone is not enlightened. We can do this: everyone is enlightened and everyone is not enlightened. It's that giving and taking away of both sides of the binary or duality -- that's just as useful as giving one end of the duality to the exclusion of the other end. There's an interplay between dualities that can be inhabited and then transcended (this is called a rupture of the duality). It's not just bestowing one side of a duality (or monality) to the exclusion to the other, i.e., everyone is enlightened OR everyone is not enlightened. Everyone is (this is a word too); however, whatever language is -- it's something entirely different from what language points to (also knows as the referent/reference of language). "Is" is a form of the verb "to be", but whatever "is" points to in "Everyone is" is its referent/reference. Reference has to do with metaphysics. Language has to do with syntax and semantics/meaning. The question of truth is how does semantics/meaning connect up with reference/whatever the language is pointing to in "reality". When we say "Everyone is enlightened" what we're doing is this "Enlightened, everyone". In this case "enlightened" is a noun modifying a pronoun which is made grammatical by inserting the linking verb "is" in between them.

I did 5-MeO-DMT for the first time a day or two ago just to see wtf Leo Gura has been yammering about for so long using all his terminology. Here's the trip report.

If you were awake Phil, you would see that feedback before anyone said it to you. You would acknowledge the egoic shadow side of things instead of pretending they don't apply to you. That's what I picked up on right away and said to myself -- this is why I can't be on anyone else's community for very long. Once I start to unpack the teacher and that doesn't go well, there's nowhere else for me to go but out. I'm not a huge fan of people who hold themselves out as spiritual teachers because I think it's pretending. The convoluted language is pretending too. If you have something to say to someone, you can always find a way to say it clearly. So, when someone seems to always speak with a kind of mumbo-jumbo that tells me (1) they don't know what they're talking about, (2) they really don't want you to know what they're talking about, or (3) they're trying to give themselves a superficial air of spiritual-ness. So, I see you and Leo Gura kind of playing the same game with the spiritual teacher schtick, and that's fine, but I'm not doing that in my work. I'm going to tell you why this is true. The secret to spiritual enlightenment is only to be found in you. Period. There's no teacher but you.

Quite the opposite in my judgment. And I'm being honest here. Someone who is awakened doesn't have deep shadow issues and blind spots. I might have blind spots, but I've been open about acknowledging them on here, to the extent I felt it was worth my time to be on here. In addition to this issue, some of the people on here just are not acting on the level, which is going to muddy any water they engage in. So, if that's your idea of spiritual discourse, you can keep it. I have other things I do with my spiritual work time that are much more effective for me than to spend all my time on the Internet quibbling with others over many things, although I enjoyed my time in this community. There's just a time for certain people to move on, including myself. I sensed that and I did it. I just wanted to post this to respond to you because you would take this kind of a crack at me if you could not thinking I would return to see it.

@Phil Anyway, I think my time here has been completed. Thanks all.

I think this thread is the buzz that's driving traffic to this site.

I gotta tell you Phil, this seems dodgy to me. You wanted to keep this thread open.

Notice where Joe Rogan says "They're believers and want to believe in nonsense." Timestamp 2' 40''.

@Ges Can you give us something to chew on? You make your point and then we'll chime in.

I would start a different thread for that. I think Phil wants to keep this tread focused on discussing Leo Gura and Actualized. A thread has a kind of life that can die if it gets too much into the rough. We should play in the center of the field to keep threads alive.

Let me try and help take the attention off me and bring it back to a point that I wanted to advance -- what's going on with most of this stuff is spiritual and philosophical entertainment and the lucrative business model behind this. This is explanatory in my opinion in a meta way. This explains Leo Gura's schtick and why it's popular. We can discuss me too -- but I think that's part of the problem with me is I draw attention away from the topic.

❤️ I'm ok. I've shared everything I wanted to in this thread. I was trying to be funny in my last posts but I was never a great comedian. I'll stick to philosophy where I'm talented. I'll still contribute on here. Steven Tyler is a hoot in that video though. I thought Joe Rogan laid out a nice case for why people are addicted to delusional claims as to what's true and why it's a big business. It's spiritual and philosophical entertainment. That's the connection I was trying to make/draw. I realize that for some my vibe on here might not be entirely welcome for many reasons past and present. I do know/understand my place very well in that sense. I have a lot of baggage, and carry a lot of baggage for others on here, that goes all the way back to my time on Actualized. Just seeing me on here I'm sure triggers most people who knew me from Actualized both pro and con.

True enough. I realize this too. Total waste of my time. And it doesn't feel good to me to engage this way. I'll find something better to do on here like focus on my mindfulness thread. I don't expect and never did expect him or her to change. Thank you. But engaging with you doesn't make me feel quite right either. I feel a kind of dismissal in you that makes me feel terrible -- especially the last part of what you said to me. This is how I used to feel on Actualized too on occasion and I really don't want to go back to feeling this way at all in my life if I can help it -- especially from some nameless, faceless avatar on the Internet.

This video explains why people are attracted to so called delusional claims and the lucrative business behind it.

How did you make that leap in logic?

I wouldn't expect you to. You're supposed to be "completely omniscient" though.

I have lot. I'm not well in that regard right now. I need to stop reading for a while. Those thought spirals are relentless. Let's call them voice spirals -- the inner voice that talks. Even if it's a thought it's preceded by a voice.

It's kinda shaming as well to call someone a devil. It's using shame for whatever reason or motive. This will be my last comment in this thread. I think it's good to make people feel good and encouraged as a teacher in my judgment. That's what works for me when I teach myself and others. It's about encouragement and getting someone to value a change even if it takes them a long time for things to circle around and they achieve it.

This can be very true. Today as I was doing some mindfulness meditation for hours I could see all the thought spirals going through my awareness.

Also be careful of anyone who calls other people devils and themselves God. There are devils and saints in this relative world no doubt. But if I’m going around calling other people devils that could very well be a shadow projection problem. I would only call certain people devils myself. I would not gloss that word to so many people use it frequently. It does fit certain very manipulative egotistical hard-headed people — the dark character people.

@Forza21 Yep, eventually, probably not at first though because they're very dense with a lot of terminology that I'm not yet ready to understand. I'm going to make videos on Advaita Vedanta. This is the book I'm going to start with though though when I do my videos: "Wisdom of Vedanta" by Swami Abhayananda https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-vedanta-Swami-Abhayananda/dp/149351640X

Get this. I printed out Shankara's writings a while back and this is what they look like -- just to show the detail in Advaita Vedanta if you really wanted to go deep. Shankara's Commentary of Eight Upanishads -- 903 pages Shankara's Commentary on the Bhagavad Gita -- 522 pages Shankara's Commentary on the Brahma Sutras (aka the Vedanta Sutras) -- 874 pages "The sage Adi Shankara's interpretation of the Brahmasutra (the Brahma Sutras) attempted to synthesize diverse and sometimes apparently conflicting teachings of the Upanishads by arguing, as John Koller states: 'that Brahman and Atman are, in some respects, different, but, at the deepest level, non-different (advaita), being identical.' This view of Vedanta, however, was not universal in Indic thought, and other commentators later held differing views. It is one of the foundational texts of the Vedānta school of Hindu philosophy." SOURCE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahma_Sutras

Welcome ❤️. I remember you.