Uncomfortable feelings around women

[Mandy]

@Eothasian ☺️👍

[Jonas Long]

7 minutes ago, Mandy said:

@Lester Retsel If you could make a living doing anything you wanted to do, what would you do? 

End capitalism/the patriarchy so we all didn't need to do shady things to "earn" a "living" and just live.

[Mandy]

@Lester Retsel Amen to that. 👍But what shady things do you you need to do to make a living, and is it true that we are required to do shady things to live well? Trading, bartering, creating and supporting each other's art is something we want to keep on doing, isn't it?

[Eothasian]

19 minutes ago, Mandy said:

@Eothasian ☺️👍

Ahoi Mandy

[Jonas Long]

@Mandy its all too easy to be a charlatan hocking "spirituality" in this climate, in fact, it is very VERY difficult to earn money via spiritual teachings and remain ethical and in it for the right reasons, very few can do this, and it is INCREDIBLY easy to pose as a guru and exploit peoples need to connect to spirituality combined with most people's absolute ignorance in that area.  

[Jonas Long]

@Mandy as soon as money and your personal livelihood becomes a factor in your role as a spiritual teacher, you are in it for shady reasons, you can no longer appear fallible, you aren't genuinely open to what the truth might be because you need to stand behind what you've already sold people as the truth.  It's just as easy to fool yourself into thinking you're legit and doing it for the "right reasons" and westerners are fairly new to this whole dynamic, and we are more profit oriented from being raised in our society.  In Eastern cultures these grifters have been around forever so people learn to be wary of them and all the pitfalls sooner, and it STILL happens there constantly.  

[Jonas Long]

@Mandy look at people like leo gura and those who generally take on that role in this cultur.  Total business opportunists.  The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance.  And NEVER trust a white dude who calls himself "nahm" or some shit....that's soon going to be seen as tacky obsolete, and offensive as minstrel shows of the '20s.

[Mandy]

@Lester Retsel I remember being super conflicted about paying $20 a month for Eckhart Tolle TV. 😂 It was well worth it though.

 

People paying money only for material stuff is destroying the earth, and is the materialist paradigm. Spirituality is not a "thing" someone can sell, however, money is only a means of exchanging energy. To put too much value on money is to believe in limitation and materialism and to short change oneself. I don't go to my massage therapist and not pay her. Just like she works out tensions in my muscles that benefit me later when I'm not even thinking of her or what I paid her, talking to a life coach can work out tensions in beliefs and mindsets. In either case, did I gain anything for it? No. It's well worth the money in my experience and opinion. I used to think massages were a total waste of money but then I was in pain. 😆 My friend told me it was the best money you could spend and guess what? She was right. 

 

I share your values in that I do wish this kind of healing to be easily accessible for everyone, however, if everyone keeps on doing jobs they don't like that are a "fair way" of making a living, no one is going to be offering the most important work at all. People will be working in factories and then selling what they make, or processing it later as garbage for landfills. Or doing paperwork to prevent endless liability issues, or being lawyers to enforce them. If people really want spirituality to be easily accessible and more valued, the best way is to donate, and support it and value it ourselves even if it's presented to us for free. And if we want to making a living, or live abundantly doing what we love (whether that looks like cash flow or looks some other way), we will cheer on those that are doing that as well. Often our triggering or judging of others who have the balls to charge for something is us sneakily not allowing ourselves to feel worthy of our own dreams. 

 

I do believe that spirituality should also be free. As a Mom I'm really used to doing stuff for people for free. 😂 However, I think there's a time and a place to do that and that also this is time to truly start to value less tangible things than we may have been brought up to value. Which might mean actually being willing to pay for a massage, a session or even truly valuing your own time and your own gifts. I think that's just an effect of realizing that you aren't a material thing. I think we are in the stage of awkward growing pains regarding this. And that's ok. 

 

1 hour ago, Lester Retsel said:

 And NEVER trust a white dude who calls himself "nahm" or some shit....that's soon going to be seen as tacky obsolete, and offensive as minstrel shows of the '20s.

Meaning is an ever evolving thing, isn't it? Forum screen names are meant to be silly. Real ones are just as silly. Is your last name really your first name spelled backwards? 

 

[Phil]

2 hours ago, Lester Retsel said:

@Phil whatever "nahm" sounds like a bunch of semantics to me.  I do trust my sense of people, I am a fairly intuitive person, and the sense I get very clearly from you is of a shifty eyed charlatan, and it seems I'm not the only one... we can't all be "projecting'...if enough people are seeing the same dirt on your screen, you gotta wonder if it's really them and not you, at some point, or don't, i have no investment here.   

 

What’s being said is there aren’t separate selves. The reply is that there is, and Phil is a separate self / charlatan. That is the ‘shooting the messenger’, projecting, othering, from where the message is heard. The ‘dirt’ is the belief in separate selves, the truth of this belief is not yet heard, and the ‘dirt’ / belief is being projected. The message may very well be interpreted as semantical, and that interpretation can be inspected more deeply (if interested). 

2 hours ago, Lester Retsel said:

@Phil so....is THAT how you justify taking peoples money? You'd be "othering" if you perceived it as something other than yourself giving money to yourself?  Well...."othering" can certainly save "your" ass from getting ripped off, that's for sure, so, maybe it's not such a bad thing really....

Same with the sessions. ‘Taking of people’s money’ is an interpretation. There is an offering of a service (online sessions $150/90 mins). 

[Mandy]

1 hour ago, Lester Retsel said:

@Mandy look at people like leo gura and those who generally take on that role in this cultur.  Total business opportunists.  The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance.  

Does Leo actually have any interest in really working with people though? No. He engineers a hands-off system. If anyone has any issue, they are control/alt/deleted. 

 

The constant vigilance isn't suspicion of others, it's suspicion of your own thought. If someone is doing something you see as shitty, and your focus on it feels shitty, then use it to define and clarify what you DO want to do. Shitting on shit just makes more shit. 

 

What do YOU want, that these judgements and suspicions are clouding? I suspect you wanna be a youtuber and a life coach. That's fucking awesome if so. Is that ok with you? Are your own desires ok with you? 

[Phil]

11 minutes ago, Mandy said:

The constant vigilance isn't suspicion of others, it's suspicion of your own thought.

Nicely said!

[Jonas Long]

@Mandy look at Phil spouting his meaningless semantic all-too familiar jargon as justification for taking peoples money.  I've seen people talking about how they felt they were ripped off by Phil, they were vulnerable, wanted something he seemed to be promising, and failed to deliver upon.  The amount he is charging is ridiculous, even for a mental health professional, which he clearly isn't.  Hell no I don't want to be a life coach.  I make videos that are talking about my own interests, I make it clear I do not consider myself a teacher.  Selling art or massage is one thing, doing what Phil does is a scam anyone can do it, there is no special training, it's all reiterated textbook jargon, you can use nonduality to bamboozle people sooooo easily.  Reading what he writes reminds me of the Clinton trail quote "that depends on what the meaning of "is" is"... all these charlatans are actually the biggest obstacle there is for sincere seekers.  I can read energy, Phil is a shady mofo.  Sorry, that's how I see it.  

[Jonas Long]

Just now, Phil said:

Nicely said!

Same difference isn't it?  We're all connected via thought... but when money is exchanged that's when the boundaries between us actually have meaning because you are giving your own resources away. 

[Jonas Long]

24 minutes ago, Phil said:

What’s being said is there aren’t separate selves. The reply is that there is, and Phil is a separate self / charlatan. That is the ‘shooting the messenger’, projecting, othering, from where the message is heard. The ‘dirt’ is the belief in separate selves, the truth of this belief is not yet heard, and the ‘dirt’ / belief is being projected. The message may very well be interpreted as semantical, and that interpretation can be inspected more deeply (if interested). 

Same with the sessions. ‘Taking of people’s money’ is an interpretation. There is an offering of a service (online sessions $150/90 mins). 

Taking peoples money is not an interpretation you slippery shit.  It is a very clearly defined and objective in our reality.  You ripped kids off.  That may be an interpretation but it's one a lot can agree on.

[Jonas Long]

29 minutes ago, Mandy said:

@Lester Retsel I remember being super conflicted about paying $20 a month for Eckhart Tolle TV. 😂 It was well worth it though.

 

People paying money only for material stuff is destroying the earth, and is the materialist paradigm. Spirituality is not a "thing" someone can sell, however, money is only a means of exchanging energy. To put too much value on money is to believe in limitation and materialism and to short change oneself. I don't go to my massage therapist and not pay her. Just like she works out tensions in my muscles that benefit me later when I'm not even thinking of her or what I paid her, talking to a life coach can work out tensions in beliefs and mindsets. In either case, did I gain anything for it? No. It's well worth the money in my experience and opinion. I used to think massages were a total waste of money but then I was in pain. 😆 My friend told me it was the best money you could spend and guess what? She was right. 

 

I share your values in that I do wish this kind of healing to be easily accessible for everyone, however, if everyone keeps on doing jobs they don't like that are a "fair way" of making a living, no one is going to be offering the most important work at all. People will be working in factories and then selling what they make, or processing it later as garbage for landfills. Or doing paperwork to prevent endless liability issues, or being lawyers to enforce them. If people really want spirituality to be easily accessible and more valued, the best way is to donate, and support it and value it ourselves even if it's presented to us for free. And if we want to making a living, or live abundantly doing what we love (whether that looks like cash flow or looks some other way), we will cheer on those that are doing that as well. Often our triggering or judging of others who have the balls to charge for something is us sneakily not allowing ourselves to feel worthy of our own dreams. 

 

I do believe that spirituality should also be free. As a Mom I'm really used to doing stuff for people for free. 😂 However, I think there's a time and a place to do that and that also this is time to truly start to value less tangible things than we may have been brought up to value. Which might mean actually being willing to pay for a massage, a session or even truly valuing your own time and your own gifts. I think that's just an effect of realizing that you aren't a material thing. I think we are in the stage of awkward growing pains regarding this. And that's ok. 

 

Meaning is an ever evolving thing, isn't it? Forum screen names are meant to be silly. Real ones are just as silly. Is your last name really your first name spelled backwards? 

 

Yeah screen names are silly...but it's different when you are obviously borrowing a word from a different culture for the purpose of sounding "spiritual" or something like that, that's what cultural appropriation is, and it ALWAYS eventually looks ugly and embarrassing in hindsight.  

[Jonas Long]

@Mandy a lot of people THINK leo is great and is helping them and others....people think that about Phil....people thought that about Charles Manson... people don't always recognize when they are being harmed and if fact operate under the assumption that they are being helped when just the opposite is whats really going on.  Cults are prevalent because people ARE starving for spirituality, and are often DESPERATE for it, don't know where exactly to turn for it, have no radar for who is legit and who isn't, are easily manipulated, naive(especially online) etc. 

[Jonas Long]

@Phil I bet you'd be keen on making use of the idea of "separate selves" if one of those "separate selves" harmed you or someone you love...that nondual mysticism would drop away REAL fast, don't pretend you'd be all "oh its really me who hurt me or my loved one"

[Jonas Long]

@Phil whyd you give me a "warning"? Wasn't that just your interpretation of me insulting "you" who isn't even a "separate self" anway? Are you "othering" me??

[Mandy]

@Lester RetselI have a very, very different experience is all I can say.

 

Be honest about something. Something draws you here. Sorta like the first time I saw Eckhart on a screen and was livid and screamed at my dad to turn that shit off, then ended up having my life transformed and life long questions answered by The Power of Now. Sometimes we are drawn to stuff because we are attracted and other times we are drawn to it because it's like a train wreck, and we can't help an explosive reaction, but drawn we are. There's something there for you. Something healing, something earth shattering, something you want. I'd suggest turning to that, to what you really want. If you don't, it's ok. It'll pop up in some other form, some way, through another name, somewhere, cause all of this is you. Come the fuck home Lester. 

 

7 minutes ago, Lester Retsel said:

Yeah screen names are silly...but it's different when you are obviously borrowing a word from a different culture for the purpose of sounding "spiritual" or something like that, that's what cultural appropriation is, and it ALWAYS eventually looks ugly and embarrassing in hindsight.  

I guess I'll throw away this beautifully locally made Native American sweetgrass basket on my shelf then that I traded my art for at an art show because I don't want to offend anyone as a white lady with an Indian basket. There's a lot of dumb reasons not to enjoy art. Or people. Or life. Or culture. Better to not get caught up in that though.

7 minutes ago, Lester Retsel said:

@Mandy a lot of people THINK leo is great and is helping them and others....people think that about Phil....people thought that about Charles Manson... people don't always recognize when they are being harmed and if fact operate under the assumption that they are being helped when just the opposite is whats really going on.  Cults are prevalent because people ARE starving for spirituality, and are often DESPERATE for it, don't know where exactly to turn for it, have no radar for who is legit and who isn't, are easily manipulated, naive(especially online) etc. 

People can have very mixed experiences. Christianity soothes the fear of death. It also destroys lives. It's all about turning toward what you want. Some people don't do that. No fear of death, cool! Healing miracles and the knowledge that we can too, cool! Judgement of homosexuals, no thanks. If we'd stop making the message about "the man" how well we'd do. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jonas Long]

@Mandy honestly the only thing that keeps bringing me back to this forum are when people leave comments on my videos to investigate Phil's shadiness.  Literally every time i came here it was by the request of someone who had concerns.  And I do think those concerns were valid after looking into it.  Then when I get into it with someone here, it's a useful tool to practice verbalizing my objections, making my own values known and vocal, the possibility of someone here reading them and maybe offering them a different pov outside of this echo chamber.  Phil's type and his rhetoric are utterly familiar to me but others can be easily taken in by it.  I've gotten feedback from people thanking me for helping them snap out of Leo's clutches, and pointing out things they've overlooked, so I do think I'm providing value as a matter of fact.