Joseph Maynor

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.

Money brings options. But, if you have an excellent philosophy/spirituality you're better off than someone who is a billionaire. That said, I know the benefits that money brings -- basically freedom to do whatever you want for better or for worse. However, someone who is extremely developed throughout their whole life can do poverty in a way that exceeds the billionaire. I totally understand the "forest dweller" in Indian culture. That happens here in the U.S. too when people retire and move to the remote desert. When your spirituality and practice is keen, you don't really need much that costs a lot of money. Books don't cost a lot of money. Sure, you could travel all around the world and consume so many things if you have money. But often that brings misery too because you don't know how to be content without that deep stimulation all the time, which can ruin your mental and physical health. Even if you have money, you always have the option of practicing frugality. I think it's important not to glorify or romanticize poverty however. It's not fun for most people who are in it at all and a hard life. I'm talking more about the highest-consciousness person who practices frugality and does poverty as a kind of life philosophy -- as a choice. You can imagine someone who has a billion dollars living like a frugal monk, practicing a minimal life for spiritual reasons: to keep themselves healthy and focused on their own self-help, and to help others which is where the true value of life is anyway.

@Aware Wolf I walked from my hotel to Parhanganj where you live and back a few times. I walked to that New Dehli metro station many times. I distinctly recall walking down this street (see the first link below). It was so India in my mind. I loved all the street vendors and the people watching. It was one of my most memorable walks when I was there. All I did when I was in Dehli in 2019 was walk around as much as possible. I did other memorable walks too in Old Dehli like that area/neighborhood around the Red Fort. I walked all the way there and back one day from my hotel, and the security guards at the front of the hotel (whom I built a friendly relationship with) thought I was crazy when I returned for doing that. This was like the last full day I was there and I had the experience to do such a trek by foot. I made sure I brought plenty of water with me to stay hydrated. But I did it, and it was amazing just getting out there and walking around on foot as dangerous as that could be; I wanted to do it. By the way, you can take the metro to the Red Fort (see second link below) and I don't recommend walking there by yourself unless you're really prepared and an advanced traveler. The metro (subway) in Dehli is top notch and goes everywhere around Dehli. That metro system took me a while to figure out though, but once I did, I was able to go many places especially the second half of the second week I was there. I kept getting lost at first and it took me a while to figure out how to get back in the direction I wanted to go. Once I figured out how to use the metro station in New Dehli as a base, that made it easier for me to use that metro with confidence because I knew how to walk to and from that station to my hotel. The metro station at New Dehli is adjacent to the New Dehli train station -- they're literally right next to each other. The New Dehli train station is what you use to go to other cities in India but there are probably better options for the beginner traveler than that. It's something to explore though. I'm just trying to help Westerners who go to Dehli with a few tips from my experience there. You could take a train to Varanasi if you wanted to from Dehli at that New Dehli train station to many other places/cities in India. But you gotta be careful too because it's a little sketchy around there, and make sure you know who to buy your train tickets from in advance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paharganj#/media/File:Cheh_Tuti_Chowk_or_Six_Tuti_Chowk,_Main_Bazar,_Paharganj.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Fort#/media/File:Delhi_fort.jpg

@Aware Wolf When I was at the travel agency where the "friendly local" took me to they wanted to give me some chai tea and I refused, and they kind of gave me some shit for that because they said it's Indian hospitality. I don't regret that though because when you take food or drink from someone like that you don't know what's in it. I knew that place was shady as soon as I walked in there. The whole sales pitch the guy was giving me when they sat me down just rang all kinds of alarm bells in me. It's a gut feel. I feel bad if I'm emphasizing too much of the negative or being overly paranoid, but I want to help people who go to Dehli stay safe if they read my writings here. Many Westerners go to Dehli to do the Golden Triangle tour and so on. What I learned though is at the Metropolitan Hotel where I stayed, they had a dedicated person who could arrange for you to go to the Taj Mahal and Jaipur that kind of stuff, so you can arrange all that at your hotel. One thing I noticed about Dehli is they have some very nice hotels. They're like sanctuaries/palaces. Great high speed Internet too. You'll feel like the Buddha exiting your palace when you exit your hotel for the first time. I'm not kidding. This is part of the India experience. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Triangle_(India)

One more thing I’ll say here and then I’ll stand down from posting for a while. I wanted to say this in my last post but I didn’t have time. A gifted spiritual enlightenment teacher realizes that everyone is different and everyone goes through ideological and non-ideological moments on their path. This is why it’s best to advise people one-on-one. Because when something is put in general language in a hierarchy of levels, this can actually stunt someone’s growth on their path because now they feel like they’re doing something wrong. If you have someone who needs to go through that more ideological stage and you have someone saying you should dump that — that’s teaching from where you’re at not where the person you’re trying to help is at. I feel like whatever I’ve done myself on my path, that’s good, even the spiritual ego part. This is why I don’t hold myself out as a professional spiritual enlightenment teacher because that just like any other line of work requires a cultivated perspective that I know I don’t always exemplify myself.

@Space4This I don't know about higher from an objective perspective and I'm reluctant to use that word in that way. I was speaking from my own relative perspective because I know where I've been and where I am now. I see your point and agree with you. That's sort of what I was saying. If I wasn't responding to someone in a philosophical debate I would never talk about spiritual enlightenment unless I were trying to help someone on the path which I've done too. So yeah, if you got it you got it and don't need to convince yourself or others that you got it.

@Space4This You can do that if it helps. All we're really doing on here is sharing our own perspectives.

I've had awakenings too but you rarely hear me talk about them or put them into words. My ego is not wearing spirituality like a robe. I let my awakenings inform my conduct. I'm very sensitive to spiritual ego now. You can see the difference in how I act now versus how I acted on Actualized from 2017-2019 when I was more of a spiritual ego. What I'm saying is you come to a point on the path where you take the spiritual robe off if that makes sense. That's a higher stage on the path. But of course I don't say that unless I have to -- and then it's only from my experience that I can say that because I've been at that ideological stage.

I'll give you a great example to show you why it's ideology. Notice in these videos how Leo is connecting up his experience on psychedelics with philosophical ideas. He can't just have the experience, he has to connect up his ideology with the experience. But he had these ideas before the trip! He's re-contextualizing what he's experiencing with what he already wants to believe. He's just reinforcing and repeating what he already wants to believe. He has these ideas that are structuring his trip if that makes sense and I don't think he realizes that. He had already constructed much of this ideology/philosophy all the way back to these two prior videos. This is 100% philosophy in these 2 videos. This is metaphysics which is a branch of philosophy.

I'm going to make a general comment here. Sometimes it ain't right to burst someone's bubble. If someone is attached to some kind of ideology whether religious or spiritual or some kind of life philosophy that they think is all that -- It's like, let them have that. Again it comes down to right speech. But once somebody starts trying to get philosophical and starts to argue about truth, that's where you don't get to make up all the rules anymore. You choose to enter into that debate, and that's where you're going to pay the price of being criticized. I'm perfectly fine with letting people believe whatever they want. But once they start wanting to claim that it's truth and enter into that kind of debate, then that's where I become Socrates and will challenge someone just like I do to myself. I've been trained to do it both in law and in philosophy. But it's not like I'm walking around bursting people's bubbles just to do that. I realize that all of us have comforting beliefs and ideologies that we cherish that may not have any reason to support them and I'm cool with allowing that. But I'm not going to let someone try to enter into philosophy and be dogmatic about it because I value philosophy and once you go there I go there too. This is where I think Leo Gura errs because he wants to enter into philosophy and talk about truth. Well, there you have it! If you love truth, you're gonna say, let's debate that like philosophers. But he doesn't want to do that, so that's the rub. He wants to use philosophy without the dialectic/discourse/debate that comes with philosophy if that makes sense. It's like, no, as soon as you go there you can no longer be a dogmatist. If you want to be immune from debate don't claim it's truth, just say it's what you believe and you're not interested in debating. Dogmatists are not well received in philosophy.

I appreciate that. I would disagree and say it is ideology. I've studied world philosophy and majored in philosophy at UCLA. I teach philosophy on my channel and have done spiritual work for many years now.

@Aware Wolf I stayed at the Metropolitan Hotel. I do recommend the Met. I'm sure you know it or at least where it is. I was right where you're at. I took the metro (subway) everywhere which was nice. I know that train station you're talking about in New Dehli. Connaught Place was cool and within walking distance as you know. I walked to the India Gate (see image below) from my hotel and back. I met so many cool people in that hotel from all over the world coming to India. Many of those people were into spirituality. The food was phenomenal. It's hard to come back home and eat what we have here after that. The variety and tastiness of the food was amazing. I walked all over that little area around the Metropolitan Hotel and then explored using the metro system. The Hindu temples were cool. I had never seen a Hindu temple before, so that was incredible to me with all the Hindu avatars on pristine display. The first thing I got wrapped up in when I arrived is I got taken to a travel agency by a friendly local, and I just walked out of there. My scam radar is very keen because I've traveled to many countries. As soon as I got out of that airport and I got swarmed by the taxi drivers I knew what I was in for. I knew in advance how to take the metro (subway) to my hotel. But they were pushy. Earbuds are a good trick that way you can pretend you can't hear when someone approaches you. It's weird to see groups of very young children begging on the side of the road with no adult in sight. If they see you, they'll run up to you. I had to be very careful and vigilant wherever I went. I made sure I was not walking around after dark for the most part. This is kind of messed up, but maybe not. I saw a group of very desperate looking young women with babies begging together at Connaught Place, so I gave one of the women some money and I told her to share it with the other women and she took it all for herself. And then when I walked away, the other women started to follow me and they wouldn't give up until I gave them each money. When I say didn't give up I mean that. I felt bad. This was at the end of my trip so I needed to get rid of my Indian money anyway. But they got that money, I'll give that to them. They had persistence. I was ready to just walk away and eat a nice dinner but I gave them the money instead. It definitely was not how I thought India would be. But it was too. Like you said very paradoxical. The longer I was there the more I knew how to navigate things and not stick out like a tourist. You learn how to say no. No thank you, I'm good, I'm cool. And you learn how to not trust anyone who comes up to you acting all friendly. That's what threw me for a loop was the use of friendliness as a baiting tactic. You'll think, aw, this is cool, a nice local wants to show me around, and you'll feel like they're your friend, then you realize they're gonna take you around to shops and tourist agencies where they get a cut or a commission.

I've been to Dehli. I was there for 2 weeks in 2019. Dehli is a big city where New Dehli is just part of it. Dehli is very spiritual and rewarding, but you also have to watch out of because there's a lot of scammers and people trying to get money out of you there too. You'll stick out like a sore thumb if you're not Indian. People will approach you and test you, and sometimes you'll have to say no many times before they give up. But I must say despite this, I had a kind of spiritual awakening when I was there. It's all encompassing in a way with all kinds of different people, animals, weird motor vehicle contraptions, oxes pulling carts, old men navigating these bicycles with huge carts jammed full of stuff, cows and wild monkeys in the most random places. It's like a sea of life of every kind with so much diversity of every kind. And the sites are just gorgeous. I would say it's intermediate level travel where you can't just go there naively. It's a totally different place with different rules and different mentalities. Not everyone in India is how we tend to think. And I think that was one of the greatest things about me going there because I had this romanticized picture of India before I went there. You'll feel like a stranger in a strange land, but if you can meet some people who are safe and keep your wits about you when you're walking around you'll be ok. Be careful of anyone who comes up to you and says they know you or recognize you and they're a Buddhist to get you to trust them. It's like that. I had a few scam attempts put on me. They didn't get anything out of me. One guy told me he was driving me to a festival and took me to a shop and I immediately knew and left and then walked back to my hotel. They're gonna want your money. I did give money to some people that I chose to give it to. Friendliness can be used to get your guard down and then you'll realize this person is going to try to take you somewhere to get you to spend money. So, be careful of anyone who walks up to you and tries to make small talk. That'll get you right away because you'll think it's just someone trying to be nice to you. After you've been there for a while you'll get this and they'll leave you alone -- although I did have one guy follow me and try to engage me and I could sense his motives, so I just ran across the street because he was an old man and I knew I could get away. That said, some of the Indians in my hotel were some of the nicest guys and gals I've ever met -- and they were constantly giving me free food and deserts because they liked me. They would send desserts up to my room for no reason for free just because I would talk with them about many things. Dehli is like a place of polar opposites all engaging and disengaging like one giant chaotic yet ordered system. Just being there will shift things around for you. It's a transformative experience kind of like doing a psychedelic.

I apologize if I said or did anything that was over the line on here. I'm going through a tough time right now with some of my self help stuff. But then I feel like the collective uses me too in ways that my ego doesn't completely understand or want. So I have no regrets but my ego feels a little bad about fighting, but nobody likes to fight, but sometimes someone has to fight, and the collective needs someone to fight. So it's complicated. It's not just about you, it's also the whole working through you. The I (me) vs. collective duality has both an interplay and a rupture.

Haha. I meant Leo's ideology much more so than any person. Dave and Leo have the same view so it felt like Leo was here himself. I felt like -- why do we want Leo's ideology injected here when you can get it there. Maybe I was over the line but I felt that way when I wrote that. It's that rigid ideology said with such confidence that is so characteristic -- with the narcissistic overtones and disregard for reason and the relative. I say, if you want that, get it from the source not from one of his moderators who came on here. I honestly wish Dave well and hope he can fit in with this community. I know many of you and how different you are. Sometimes difference is good, we don't need to mix Coke and Pepsi together. But if all he wants to do is act like he does on there, I say go there. That's where it's at. If you're here, this is a different place, and most respectful people will tread carefully when they're not at home and in someone else's house.

@Aware Wolf Manson is notable because he deliberately used no self, no truth (except for his truth), preaching at his followers, psychedelic drugs, everything is one, claiming to protect the environment, claiming to be God, telling people that everything they've been taught is wrong. Manson was no hippie, yeah he had long hair, but his goal was to build a community around himself and use people. He manipulated hippies, mostly young women. Stage red manipulating stage green. I have a whole playlist on Manson but I won't post it here out of respect for Phil. Manson can be read like a playbook for others to follow who want to build a community around themselves in a similar way by manipulating young people.

The problem is you're bringing there here. People are here because they don't want to be there.

Why aren't you on Actualized? Did Leo Gura tell you come on here?

See. This is the narcissism. It's always someone else not you. You're stirring the pot here and should stop. You're the one. And we all need to realize this. Sometimes we can be too tolerant. You're getting off on this and it's not cool. He's a notoriously biased and sycophantic moderator on Actualized who came here to make a mockery out of this place and to stir up trouble.

You are desperate to force yourself to be a teacher. You need it for some reason. A true teacher doesn't ram things down. They set things out and let everyone come around to them on their own terms and timetable. A true teacher comes from a place of abundance and charity not a need to self-reinforce and self-aggrandize based on a deficiency need to one-up others. I can see a deep need/craving for significance in you. But you need to derive that by one-upping others. There's where you're starting off on the wrong foot.

You can't gaslight me. Folks, sometimes we just have to say no to manipulation. I know we want to be charitable, but that has its limits. We don't let an elephant run loose in a china shop.

I've been following you for a long time. I thought you were Leo Gura's sockpuppet account because you seem to parrot all Leo Gura's philosophical ideas about spiritual enlightenment.