Joseph Maynor

Nevada has a terrible law when it comes to sexual matters. Nevada is notorious for loose laws. But legality does not equal morality. if someone moves to Nevada to take advantage of these loose laws, that could be interpreted as messed up. It depends on the context and the person. Everything needs to be seen and taken as a whole when we judge someone or something. Nevada is kind of a lawless place, which has pros and cons. I enjoy Las Vegas and travel there often. But what good laws do in the form of the Leviathan (as Thomas Hobbes realized, see video below) -- is protect the public/the collective from the predatory individual. The U.S. State of Nevada Consent Law: https://www.shouselaw.com/nv/defense/nrs/200-364-age-of-consent/ https://www.shouselaw.com/nv/defense/legal-defenses/consent/ https://grassodefense.com/las-vegas-age-consent-laws/#:~:text=The age of consent in Nevada is 16.,age of consent is higher. Philosopher Thomas Hobbes on dealing with the issue of how the rational collective might curtail the selfish individual:

Hey Rob. I appreciate your posts. One thing I want to add that I think rankles people is when someone holds themselves out as a spiritual enlightenment teacher as their day job, and then acts in ways that seem to discredit that. But in this case Leo is hurting his own professional reputation most of all. Unless someone wants to argue that teaching guys pick-up artistry techniques (and using them) to get sex is right in line with who/what a professional spiritual enlightenment teacher is or should be doing. Especially in a person who claims to be the greatest spiritual teacher ever (Leo has said this many times) and claims countless "total awakenings". But when you're in business you don't get to decide, it's your market that decides. So, if you radically reframe yourself within a profession you run the risk of moving outside of your market who expects certain things/behaviors from any professional. If I were to sell someone a course on how to get spiritually enlightened ("realize you are God") and to become "completely omniscient" for $1,000 which Leo has floated (see his video below), I would be looking for certain signs that person is qualified as an expert in that field. I suggest people watch the below videos. There is a cringe here as you admitted (I'm not trying to put words in your mouth) -- there's scam radar frankly going off from my perspective, and I think going down that rabbit hole is useful for people to understand what's going on here. If someone is running around manipulating women, how do I know that person is not trying to manipulate me?

@Faith Great post. Lots to consider. Yeah, there's an aspect of ourselves that never changes. I remember asking my dad when I was in college studying philosophy if at his age (I think he was in his late 50's) whether he still felt like the same person and he said yes. There's an aspect of ourselves that never changes. I don't know how I feel about Rupert Spira, but I take everything a bit at a time. I give everyone the benefit of the doubt at first, unless evidence emerges to advise me otherwise. I feel like there are pros and cons and strengths and weaknesses to every perspective including my own. This is why interpersonal development work is important and necessary for personal development work.

@Aware Wolf I remember when Leo released his very first video on spiritual enlightenment. This is very instructive to watch if you want to understand where Leo started in all this in 2015. Notice how conceptual he is in this video -- it's exceedingly conceptual/intellectual. It's very black and white too. He's "talking around" spiritual enlightenment a lot and he confidently assumes he has the "one right answer" even at this early stage in his path. He makes himself out to be the expert even though he is still young on the path. It's the same person/personality throughout all the changes of clothing. We're all like this too.

This is the elephant in the room the issue you raise. It shows the dangers of the use of psychedelics on the path. I've used many psychedelics myself, but I never came to the kinds of conclusions Leo has. Psychedelics are just one tool on the path. There are many other tools. You must remain humble, exploratory, open, and patient to gather them as they emerge over time. Everybody wants a fast enlightenment. Obviously, that's what someone is going to try to sell you too who knows something about sales and marketing. It's a category mistake ultimately. Sadhguru calls this "mortgaging your sense". You could also call it commodifying spiritual enlightenment to make money. Some of these structural issues must be seen like someone's need to earn a living in the "field" of spiritual enlightenment, and how that structures many things down the chain including the behaviors we see from individuals, and so on. The desire to sell a magic pill to people to become spiritually enlightened is totally foreseeable and totally shallow in hindsight. But young people, or people young on the path, are going to be influenced by these things without understanding some of the larger structures at work, and without having the experience to know. I don't think Leo himself knew. He was basically documenting his own spiritual enlightenment journey until he decided to coronate himself as the "one right" teacher. Again, the problem with the student shape-shifting into the teacher based on their own authority. That can be problematic as we know via the benefit of hindsight. I appreciated the two below videos from our friend Rob. I've done DMT, LSD, Psilocybin Mushrooms, Salvia Divinorum, many times, but haven't done 5-MEO-DMT. I just want to say what I've experienced and what I haven't to be honest because I understand/foresee my own bias.

@Forza21 I think what Leo misses is he thinks his finite consciousness is Brahman. So when he hears Atman = Brahman he takes it that way. But what that really means is the underlying consciousness behind all finite consciousness/finite beings is God or the Self. The human's mind is not the Self. And someone please correct me here if I'm wrong. Basically Advaita Vedanta makes room for all consciousness containing beings because all of them share in God or the Self. This is not solipsism. Solipsism would be assuming that your finite consciousness is God and then assuming everything else is a part of you. That's not what Advaita Vedanta is saying. Advaita Vedanta makes space for other conscious beings to exist. I'm glad so many of you are into Advaita Vedanta. Isn't it wonderful! The art too.

If you look at some questionable spiritual teachers, they were that way before they got into spiritual enlightenment. They were that same guy or gal just now in different clothes, spiritual clothes. It's amazing how much we don't change, but we bullshit ourselves and others by manipulating appearances. I'm pretty much the same guy I was before I got into any of this stuff too. I think we think somehow a person can change dramatically/drastically just because they changed a suit of clothes. It's not so easy to change your personality. I think this is one of the keys to understanding spiritual bypassing. Just because your awareness is enhanced doesn't mean that you're going to be able to modify your conduct so easily. Think of all the times you knew you should do something but could never bring yourself to do it. We all have deep habitual behavioral patterns that control us. We hate to think this way though and want to believe if we change our suit of clothes that we can change our actions. But then you realize -- nothing has changed.

We're all balancing a tightrope between our own finite perspective and also serving the whole or the infinite perspective. You just don't see that in everybody due to the selected information that passes online. People can feign a kind of perfection nowadays because nobody can see them in all their being-in-the-world. So we lie! We conceal. We abstract. We present the best side of ourselves -- what we think will get us ahead or a cookie. We pretend, we front. We're not honest, and it really exists on a spectrum and has a lot to do with how developed you are (on some level); how independent of money you are, and how good you are, which depends on many factors not decided by "you" alone. Schopenhauer was onto this issue of "will" driving things from an absolute perspective. Those of you who are interested in exploring this should check out the below video. You can see how many of the existentialists were reacting to the issues that Schopenhauer raised that didn't go away/die in the West.

@Iesu Because the laziest and least-aware people are going to take "there is no definition in any dictionary for the word gullible" as a fact and internalize that. For that reason alone I would not transfer that meme in seriousness, but I might do it to make a point, which I give Leo the benefit of the doubt of doing. But that meme that there is no definition of gullible minimizes/suppresses awareness of the the concept/word "gullible." It suppresses/represses it. It was a red flag for me and I'm not sure what to make of it. You might not want gullible people to know what "gullible" means. Think about it! I'm not saying Leo is doing this though. I see many things, and this is just something I noticed and wanted to share. If I wanted to scam or con you I wouldn't want you to look up the word "gullible" in any dictionary, online or otherwise. That would not be in my interest. "Gullible" means "easily duped or cheated".

@Iesu His newest video is good too. He's growing a lot and is already very developed too. He has teachings that I've never seen anywhere else. I enjoy relating with him. The second video is Lewis Waller's newest video on YouTube star Mr. Beast which gets into the topic of business in postmodernity which we've got to understand to make sense of the bigger picture of things. I enjoy relating with him as well and have learned much from his work.

@Aware Wolf It's gotta be a joke on Leo's part. That's too funny.

@Aware Wolf I say let people decide what they want to do. If they want to do the Golden Triangle, which many Westerners do, I'm sure there are ways to safely do that. I try not to dictate taste to others from my own perspective. I had a blast in Dehli. Taste is subjective, and it depends on who you are and where you're coming from. If someone were to come to San Francisco where I live and rave about Fisherman's Wharf I would probably inwardly scoff. But I live here, so my perspective is influenced by that. But people who don't live here are so excited about Fisherman's Wharf that I wouldn't tell them to avoid it.

There is no one right dictionary. The purpose of any dictionary is to elucidate how words are used. The idea that gullible is not in any dictionary is ludicrous. I hate to burst a bubble here. This is like a joke gone viral.

@Aware Wolf I was unable to search the Oxford dictionary online, but I found the Cambridge online definition. gullible adjective US /ˈɡʌl.ə.bəl/ UK /ˈɡʌl.ə.bəl/ easily deceived or tricked, and too willing to believe everything that other people say: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/gullible

❤️ I carefully read and appreciate your insights as well.

I don't get this about Leo Gura's new video on "How to Avoid Being Scammed." He said in this video "gullible" is not in any dictionary. The quote at the beginning of the video is "Did you know that the word gullible cannot be found in any dictionary". This is a clearly false statement. It's in my dictionary. I have a Merriam-Westers Dictionary (2004) (one of those smaller hand-sized versions). It defines "gullible" as "adj. easily duped or cheated." Adj. means adjective which a modifier to a noun or a pronoun. E.g., a gullible person, a gullible me. I don't understand why Leo would say "gullible" is not in any dictionary. That raises a red flag and I'm just not sure what to make of this false statement included by Leo at the beginning of the video. Source: See quote at beginning of video.

Enough to break even in your expenses, cover your retirement, and also cover a few recreational things on occasion. If you have kids make sure you bestow on them a real motivation to make their own money instead of just giving them money. People only do things when there's a real motivation there. You don't need as much money as you think you do. If you practice frugality and carefully buy selected things and trips, you can do that with a modest income. I think you should try to cover all expenses after age 65 before then so you can retire if you want to. Squirrel away some money beyond just breaking even a bit at a time. Making lots of money comes with a price because you've got to earn that, you've got to devote all your energy to that. That might be too high a price to pay. You're not going to be able to take that money with you when you die. If you work from home as an independent contractor you can write off your home office space and take other tax deductions. So you can really whittle down your expenses and invest a surplus a little bit every quarter and therefore not need to make big money in order to do everything you want/need to do in life. Avoid loans and if you have a credit card, pay it off every month and don't exceed like 20% of your credit limit because it will negatively impact your credit score. Buy your own home and pay off the mortgage (if any) so you can own it free and clear that way you remove any monthly mortgage payment or rent from your expenses ledger. You'll have to pay annual property tax but you can write that off on your taxes. Make sure you're paying into social security so you have that income stream after age 65. If you're paying the self-employment tax as an independent contractor you're paying into social security. Start a retirement account with a financial investor. I use a company called Principal Funds for this purpose.

Someone could open a booklist thread on here which will draw books from everyone.

I go by feeling too. I have my own accountability system. I can't be structured like that. I just keep a to do list and I have a checklist of daily things that I try to do. I'll show you my entire method below. The task list gets revised every week and started over. Ditto for the weekly accountability log. You don't have to keep any records either. Every week just revise the accountability log and task list. I keep a page that I revise every week and then update the template if I do things or not. Sometimes I don't do things and I'm ok with that too. Of course, I make sure I do my job for money very well because that's what I do for money and want to provide excellent service. In the legal profession I have to keep my time in 6 minute increments so when I'm working on a legal task I do have a very structured mentality regarding timekeeping. I try to let stuff shift around though and not cling too much to a rigid schedule because my personality will buck that off. I need variety and a bit of chaos to keep things interesting for me. I know people that have a different personality than me that do prefer a very structured, unchanging schedule and they do that very well. JM DAILY ACTION ACCOUNTABILITY CHECKLIST 1. Course of study 2. Prep for JM, Dev Work, Int Mastery Video 3. Prep for APC Video 4. Work for financial responsibility (paralegal) 5. Errands/chores/non-work tasks 6. Practice/play trumpet 7. Exercise 8. Strict diet 9. Addiction management/social media addiction 10. Spend time outside/in public/hike around in nature JM Weekly Accountability Log -- Note checklist items completed Mon Tue Wed Thu 4/7/22 -- No record Fri 4/8/22 -- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Sat 4/9/22 -- Sun 4/10/22 -- JM Weekly Task List (add completion date) -- tasks identified by numbers only for privacy 1. 4/6/22 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 4/8/22 9. 4/6/22 10. 4/8/22 11. 4/8/22 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. One of the things I realized and I'm not taking anything away from structuring or that kind of self-help is that we're not computers. You hear people use this word programming and that kind of stuff. That's all based on an analogy that we either are computers or like computers. That said, I still study that kind of self-help too because it's influential energetically on me.

I've seen him change a little bit though in his recent posts on here. Sometimes people just need be shown a little love and their attitude changes. All they want is to be accepted. The masculine has a tendency to want to dominate you into getting love from you. That attitude I think is more prevalent on Leo Gura's forum so he's just imitating that model. I think he started off trying to defend Leo, which I understand because he loves Leo and sees Leo as the source of his development, his teacher. But I think after a while he started to realize just like myself that we're all basically doing the same thing -- working on development work. I feel a little bad about trying to dominate him myself and teach him as if I'm superior to him. That sets up a kind of vicious cycle. I give him credit for trying to bring me out of that at times in the discussion. I think he could really find a place here to relax and continue to do his work and take influence from us and from Actualized. I sense that he is conflicted about Leo and that he wants to explore more on his own. On Actualized he works for Leo, on here he can just be a fellow member without the pressure of needing to defend Leo. I think there are pros and cons of being a moderator because you can no longer relax due to needing to always be vigilant to protect. And if you're a protector or a fighter like myself -- I work in the legal field -- you can be reactive at times. This is one of the reasons I don't like to consider myself a spiritual enlightenment teacher because I know I can be a bit too reactive at times. So I think he has an opportunity to interact with very developed people here as on Actualized and continue to explore his own work and help others. I get the sense he has a deep need to want to help others which is great in a person and will continue to be refined due to influences and receiving love. I get the feeling he's not used to receiving much love for his attempts to help people which I think he really wants to do deep down. I also think we're all at different spiral stages which makes it complicated if you don't see and appreciate the entire spiral and how each of the stages differ because we're not all speaking the same language. For example I had a tendency to want to teach him Mauve but if he's at Coral it's best to teach him Teal not Mauve. You can't force someone to jump into Zen who is into Advaita Vedanta -- that's too big of a jump. So the teacher has to be more conscious than myself in how they approach a particular person if they want to really spur them to grow.