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hey this is Leo for actualised org and in this episode I'm going to be talking about becoming a Zen devil the dangers of half-assing enlightenment for a while now I've wanted to address this problem and the dangers that I see with neo-advaita neo advisor what is this exactly well it's this tendency in the West especially especially in modern times to basically say oK we've got this thing called non-duality great so let's take a look at all these different traditions we've got Christian non-duality Islamic non duality the Buddhist non duality Hindu non duality that's what advising you invited is I mean regular advisor is is just basically a school of Indian non duality so what happens is that people see that and they say well there's all this bad stuff with religion there's all this kind of traditional ritualistic stuff all these beliefs and dogmas so you know we're very advanced here in the West so what we're going to do in our infinite wisdom is we're going to take the techniques and strip all the spiritual traditions of any adornments or any belief systems and just take the techniques so we'll take for example advaita vedanta we'll strip it of all its cultural baggage we'll bring it to the west and now we'll just teach a very direct method for enlightenment and what could possibly go wrong with that this is a tendency that we see here in the West in America and in Europe and generally speaking I'm kind of of two opinions about this trend I think that in a sense it's good because some of the traditional baggage that comes with these techniques and core teachings about non duality is quite frankly outdated and unnecessary but it can lead to problems there are dangers and that's what I'm going to talk about here so before we get to that though I want to really set this point drive this point home by talking about Mount Hiei the founding of Mount Hiei in Japan this is one of the most hardcore non-dual school rules and traditions that exists and it still exists today even though it was founded over a thousand years ago so here's a little back story about Mount Hiei this is where you find the marathon monks of Mount Hiei if you've heard me talking about that before in my strong determination sitting video so Mount Hiei is a mountain near Kyoto the ancient capital of Japan and back when Zen was first getting started and there were multiple schools of Zen there was a guy by the name of Saito who was one of the first people who wanted to found a monastic order on the mountain of he a he was a very upstanding principled guy and he was very serious and very scholarly so what he actually did to ensure that the Japanese have a Zen tradition is he actually traveled by ship on a perilous journey all the way to China this was in 800 AD roughly speaking he traveled to China he spent years in China learning from the greatest Shan masters learning about Buddhism learning about Taoism learning about the Chinese forms of Zen gathering hundreds if not thousands of scriptures reading them translating them understanding them and then bring them all back to UM to Kyoto in Japan and then starting his school in Mount he he actually died before the school was really built but after him then he had students who took on the the lineage and they founded Mount Hiei with many hundreds of temples there where they practice to send very hardcore so what I want to do is I want to read to you an excerpt from a book that mentions the history about here because this is very illuminating and this really drives the point home about Zen devilry so here it is quote temples began to conduct trade and establish commercial concerns to increase the size of their Treasuries each large temple functioned as more or less an independent entity and engage large numbers of assistant priests and lay brothers to maintain and protect their establishment attracted by the promise of free food and lodging the ranks of the temple aides and lay workers were rapidly infiltrated by vagabonds brigands and eventually mercenaries contrary to the strict injunctions of sideshow who is dead by this point horses cattle and weapons were now provisioned on Mount Hiei and each monastic faction on the mountain organised its own militia justifying such Armed Forces is absolutely necessary to protect Buddhism from its enemies as each faction strove to improve his fortunes and consolidate his position conflicts arose between rival gangs and attacks and violent reprisals became commonplace buildings were constantly being torched and the entire mountain turned into one large camp there were disputes over territorial claims funds selection of officials and even fights over who had precedence in bathing in the monastic bathhouses during the turbulent medieval period some of the abbot's were in office only a day or two before being ousted by one fashion or another Hiei Marauders took on the temple armies and ruthlessly attacked any new Buddhist sect that dared to attempt to establish itself even though nearly all the leaders of these new schools were originally the same Hiei monks they turned on their form rad comrades-in-arms and burned every one of their sects temples in Kyoto to the ground in the process slaughtering every adherent they could lay their hands on the new Sheren sect in Kyoto never recovered from that blow by the middle of the 15th century an internal corruption of he a the first training site in Japan to have banned alcohol in all sexual activity was now overrun with drunkards sodomites rapists and [ __ ] and finally in 5th 1871 a battalion of 25,000 of the Emperor's troops unleashed a furious assault on the mountain fortress in key a torching all the buildings and massacring the inmates the conflagration lit up the sky for three days and three nights and the ashes of some three thousand temples blanketed the capital and quote that's from John Stevens's books from John Stephens book the marathon monks of Mount Hiei where he goes into a lot of depth about this incredible history of Zen and this specific form of them found on this mountain now why do I mention this well because take a look what's going on take a look at the meta picture these guys here these were not just random guys just doing some fluffy form of spiritualities or serious practitioners they were very serious about becoming enlightened and some of them were enlightened and yet look at the chaos and carnage that resulted on that mountain what this demonstrates is a lack of understanding of history human psychology and systems thinking and this is just one of the traps that can happen to you on this path of non-duality see people think when I teach non-duality sometimes I hear this and I'm in fact I'm I'm noticing this trend of people who follow me are espousing this very simplistic notion of enlightenment as though there's just this one insight there's just one existential insight to be had and then BAM as soon as I have that insight then that's it that's the end of seeking that's the end of illusion that's the end of everything that's the end of personal development there's no more need to improve myself there's no more need to learn there's no more need to do any of this kind of stuff and that is just like BAM it's just that simple but that's a very simplistic notion of enlightenment what I want to point out to you is that enlightenment is a little bit more nuanced than that and in fact if you have any common sense you should expect it to be a little more nuanced than that because if it was just that damn simple then we wouldn't have all the complexity nuance and richness that we find in all the various mystical traditions around the world some of these schools are very elaborate almost Byzantine in their rituals in their prescriptions in their practices and their techniques in their teachings in their theory in their concepts of cosmology in the world now you might think that oh well all of that is just tradition and Dogma and we don't need any of that but then that actually leads you to the opposite end of the negative spectrum so I hear you you want to move away from the dogma and the tradition okay but then if you swing your pendulum too much to the other side then you get the Zen devil and this is where people think that all okay so there's just one monolithic enlightenment experience and then once I have that that means no more values no more principles no more passion no more pursuit of mastery no more goals no more purpose no more vision no more career no more business no more relationships no more pursuit of excellence no more education no more hard work no more thinking no more planning no more strategizing no more caring and if you are interpreting non-duality in that fashion ah that's a very naive understanding of non-duality if you take a look and you do a broader survey of the history and the various mystical traditions as I encourage you to do then what you will see is that the greatest masters have very strong principles very strong values enormous passion a to mastery a commitment to excellence they're very hardworking they make plans and goals they don't just sit around on their ass they're not lazy they're not slobs they're not slovenly they conduct business they engage the world they care about society they care about ecology they care about relationships and in general they're very caring individuals enlightenment doesn't make you less caring it should make you more caring otherwise what you're doing is you're doing enlightenment in the Zen devil way and really an individual who thinks like this this kind of simplistic notion enlightenment to me it shows that they've never been face-to-face with a great master and I can understand that great masters can be hard to find but you know what they do exist right now in the 21st century you can find them and I found various ones and I've been face to face with them it's one thing to read about enlightenment in a book somewhere it's another thing to actually be in front of a master because this thing this non-duality thing is not a book learning thing it's embodied and it's not even you sitting on a meditation cushion and having some amazing brilliant insights into the nature of reality I mean it is that but it's a lot more than just that and you can only sense that and appreciate it when you meet a great master face to face it's a remarkable thing I mean could you imagine if you've read anything about zen and zen temples and how strict the zen tradition is could you imagine that you're a monk in a zen temple and you've been there you've been on the cushion working towards enlightenment and then all the sudden you have a big breakthrough enlightenment experience and then the next day you know they ring the gong to wake up at 4:00 a.m. to meditate you only sleep for like four to five hours every night it's a pretty grueling schedule and your meta dating long hours then you're working in the kitchen and then you're you're cleaning the temple and doing all this stuff could you imagine that they ring the gong at 4:00 a.m. everyone's getting up and you're like now you know guys I like it got enlightened last night why should I be waking up at 4 a.m. wake it up at 4 a.m. I mean that's for the unenlightened people I'm enlightened so I'm going to sleep in till like noon and then I'm going to wake up I'm gonna go eat whatever I want them to order a pizza drink some soda maybe we can get some vodka in here you know then I'm gonna go I think I'm gonna go go out maybe go hit on some girls you know it doesn't matter after all I've realized all this is just an illusion so I can play the game however I want can you imagine that kind of insolence in a Zen temple what would they do to you they would beat you they would physically beat you and throw you out of the temple or could you imagine that you become enlightened then you come to your master you say ok that's it I'm enlightened now so no more I don't need to meditate anymore don't need to do anything anymore the master would probably slap you in the face if you said that or could you imagine coming up to your master and saying oh yeah I had I had this most amazing enlightenment experience I don't need to study anymore I don't need to read the books I don't need to read the scriptures I don't need to care about any of that kind of stuff again he would slap you in the face in fact you wouldn't even get that far because when you're face to face with the great master just the way he looks at you it's like a a wolf looking at a rabbit alright you are in no position to espouse this sort of philosophy of nothing matters anymore there's no further to go there's no more room for growth values go out the window I can just be slobbing Lee and lazy you know I'm walking through the Zen temple and I'm I'm smoking a cigarette and then I'm just going to throw that cigarette into the air into their sand garden can you imagine that they would beat for that they would beat you and kick you out now someone might say but leo all this stuff you know yeah it might be true but you're talking about Zen Zen is after all a religion it's very strict and ritualized and it seems like what you're doing here is you're you're idolizing you're talking about these masters as though they're these like you're putting them on a pedestal like they're these super enlightened people that we can never to be no yes it's true that in Zen there is ritual and there is dogma and there's religious elements and there's tradition and you know what I'm one of the most anti traditional guys you'll find out there I don't really like tradition for traditions sake but I've studied enough I see enough of the big picture of how mysticism works that I can see that there's wisdom in tradition not all tradition is just tradition for traditions sake there's actually a lot of very deep wisdom embedded in it so when you throw out all tradition the way neo invited tends to do and all you do is you go for the most straight direct method for existential insights okay that's great I like that idea but you can't throw out the other important stuff like strong principles ethics having a good character emotional development and so forth otherwise you're going to become a Zen devil and you're going to lead to a lot of chaos and damage that's what's going to happen these masters I don't put them on a pedestal um I don't subscribe to any one master but what I do do is I recognize skill and excellence wherever I see it whether I'm watching an amazing movie by some amazing director or I'm reading an amazing book or I'm looking at an amazing piece of art I can recognize the excellence there that doesn't mean I need to put the person on some sort of pedestal as above me in any existential sense but I do see that man this guy has really gone to some remarkable lengths to master this field and that's amazing and there's something valuable there whether it's non-duality or any other kind of field right this is just uh caring about excellence and caring about mastery here's an important distinction that I want you to make small non-duality versus big non-duality you might say well leo how can there be two non dualities after all it's just non duality how come you're subdividing it here's what practically tends to happen is that when people first learn about non duality and they have a few non-dual experiences they get cocky and what they do is they pit non-duality against duality and so what this does is this creates a new higher level of duality veiled as non duality as you would expect you know someone who doesn't have a lot of maturity and a lot of depth of experience and mastery they might be able to play a good game of tennis or they might be be able to beat you at martial arts but they're not masterful at it and also they've got the subtle signs of cockiness so small non-duality is a sort of non-duality that pits itself against other schools of non-duality so there's rivalry there's nitpicking and criticizing there's a tendency to weaponize the lessons that you learn and then try to use them against others to make others feel inferior and to make yourself feel superior and it's also a separation it's not a full integration yet of the duel and the non-dual so to appreciate this you understand what big non-duality looks like and it's really hard to understand big non duality unless you actually see it embodied in the master this is what the master is about big non duality it's humble it's deeply humble it understands and integrates non-duality and duality both you see it's got both of them because big non-duality is so non-dual that even the dual stuff the mundane stuff that a small non-dual person would poopoo it embraces it because it sees that the good and the evil in the world even though it's not existentially true it's still there it's still a part of the world on a practical level it's also generous big non-duality you don't see a big non duality practitioner going out there and waging ideological Crusades or nitpicking or criticizing other teachers whether they're of the non-dual tradition or even of the dual tradition a big non duality individual will take a look at techniques and methods that have nothing to do with non duality just maybe some basic self-help techniques and he might say oh you know what yeah I can see a room for that I can see a place for therapy therapy could be useful I can see a place for working on your career and I can see a place for working on your bad habits is kind of a basic generic self-help type stuff I can see a place for that all of that lays the groundwork and prepares you and introduces you to the deeper spiritual work or as a small new small non-dual individual will say oh no all that's nonsense all of its illusion everything's illusion just go straight for enlightenment not realizing that some people can't go straight for enlightenment it might take them a decade to work themselves up to that see so big non duality is much more inclusive it's less competitive and this might have been the key difference that led to the the chaos on Mount Hiei versus there not being any chaos there right had the people they are truly been embodying big a new ality which is a rare thing takes a lot of years of mastery if they really embody that then maybe that chaos could have been avoided so I keep talking about the Zen devil this is a phenomenon and in Zen it's called Zen Tama TEM MA and it's defined as one who has the experience of Satori or enlightenment but has done no scholarly study of the literature that's a Zen devil they also have a concept called wild Fox Zen or yakko Zen Y ako yakko's n this is the opposite end of the spectrum so on this end we have someone who sits and meditates all day but doesn't expand his broader knowledge of the world that's Zen devil and that leads to chaos and problems and on this end we have the wild Fox Zen which is someone who does the opposite someone who only reads the books and knows the theory of Zen but has no practice and has it had any the insights and this also leads to a lot of problems and so ideally what you want is you want to walk right in the middle of those two and both of those extremes are going to lead to problems right so when I hear people saying oh leo you know after enlighten I don't need to study anymore I need to do personal development anymore to me that's ridiculous that shows me that that person's going to become a Zen devil and all the chaos that comes with being a Zen devil is going to come out from that it's going to be a half-assed enlightenment if you still doubt me just use common sense here common sense will tell us that we have something called a 10,000 hour rule the 10,000 hour rule says that to master any field of human being needs to invest at least 10,000 hours into that field if not more I don't care if you're talking about golf art music running a business becoming a successful politician or non-duality all of it requires you to obey the 10,000 hour rule for mastery now ask yourself just using very basic common sense why would non duality be an exception to this rule why is it special what I want to suggest is that it's not special and that in fact the field of non-duality is the most serious field to master it requires even more than the 10,000 hour rule to really master and embody it otherwise how do you explain why virtually all the greatest masters of non-duality no matter what tradition they're from have over 10,000 hours of training how else do you explain why every mystical tradition for the last 5000 years whether it be Christian Buddhist Hindu Kaaba list or Islamic that all of them have extremely hard core training disciplines these guys would make an Olympic athlete training schedule look amateur that's how hard they go at it Yogi's and monks and nuns and sages have been training for decades dozens of hours a day a dozen hours a day for decades right they've really been working on this and they have some very hardcore and brutal training techniques if you doubt that go read up on the marathon monks of Mount Hiei what they do seems impossible what they do seem superhuman why do they go through all that is it just because they are masochists and they enjoy torturing and flagellating themselves is that why they do it is it just because of religious tradition is it just dogma is that why they do it or could it be that there's something very valuable at the end of that mastery road and that that's why they do it and that there really is a lot of stuff to learn about non-duality beyond merely having a few enlightenment insights could that be the case hmm interesting to think about you might wonder well Leo what more could there be to non-duality or to spirituality than just some enlightenment experiences there's a lot more a lot more first of all there's different depths of enlightenment and there's a whole spectrum and variety of different enlightenment experiences so you might think like walking leo yeah I can see how you know developing some good character and developing compassion and love yeah sure that should be part of the non-dual path but you're not saying that there's actually like different degrees of enlightenment are you that wouldn't make any sense after all we're talking about non duality non-duality just this one thing it's one monolithic thing um and what I'm telling you is yes developing character is important but even beyond that if you don't take on the full mastery path you're not going to have the deepest levels of consciousness and existential understanding you will not your enlightenment will be shallow existentially speaking not even speaking practically you will not really understand what reality is all about that's highly likely it's very rare that somebody becomes fully enlightened in one moment just like BAM it happened that's it I'm fully enlightened all right let's go home and watch cartoons and eat pizza we're done here that's extremely rare extremely rare I don't even know if it ever has happened like that sometimes in the myths if you go back in your eat thousand-year-old myths you might read examples of that happening but if you like a little bit deeper it doesn't tend to happen that way doesn't seem that way right the Buddha spent spent six or seven years within rigorous training and practice to get to the point where he did have his enlightenment and even that I don't know did he really have a full enlightenment in one go or then did he spend many years uhm deepening it keep your mind open to that possibility also keep your mind open to the possibility that there are other insights that aren't perhaps as earth-shaking as a full enlightenment into the nature of who you are and what reality is but there it might be other more minor insights which are still very important and relevant and very interesting and fascinating and worth your while to have I'll talk more about that in the future but for now keep your mind open to it so if all you do is you go for this one monolithic enlightenment thing you find out what you are but then you're missing all these are the minor insights that would be a shame also what more there is to enlightenment is emotional mastery this is a huge component in fact probably the biggest component of enlightenment is not the having of an Enlightenment insight but then the bringing it down and letting it transform your entire mind structure and your emotional reactions and patterns changing all of that that takes a lot of time and a lot of work and it doesn't happen spontaneously and automatically the way that naively some people expect this is probably one of the biggest traps that creates Zen Devils and all their chaos is they think that just because they saw something that now oh I'm a master and that's it there's nothing more to do and then they run amok in the real world then you have all sorts of problems like they become greedy power-hungry leads to sexual abuse to stealing to all sorts of unethical behavior because they haven't really mastered their Shadowside they haven't done any shadow work they've dismissed psychology as unimportant because they've made the mistake of thinking that oh now that I've experienced the transcended absolute truth and I've transcended my mind that that solves all the problems but it doesn't because you know what you have to come back into your mind your mind has to integrate and bring back down to earth this very lofty existential insight and then you're back in everyday world and your mind it doesn't change instantly you have a brain in here all those neurons have to rewire and that's in some cases a way harder than just breaking through to enlightenment what more there is to enlightenment is unconditional love and the cultivation of that love in all situations that's extremely um difficult to do and that takes much more additional work relationships are another facet of enlightenment learning how to have enlightened relationships with people the bad patterns that you learn throughout your entire childhood and adulthood until you became enlightened those bad habits in your relationships will carry over and they will still remain even after you've become enlightened so you're gonna have to work on your relationships you want to have successful ones ones where you don't abuse and manipulate people take advantage of them and so forth if you want to have a marriage if you want to have a girlfriend or a boyfriend you want to make that work if you want to have good relations with your children you have to work on all that also all your other negative bad habits your drinking habit your prescription medication habit your bad eating habit especially in Western society we have all these negative habits so one of the real dangers of neo-advaita is that you forget about this and you have a breakthrough into existential truth and then you come back and because you in a very toxic Western culture all these bad habits you had they're still there you can transcend the mind but the mind still will run the body um you see and those patterns of how your mind runs the body those could be very negative and destructive also what more there is to enlightenment is education there's a lot to learn about the world sure you could be inlined about the ultimate truth of God and existence but then you're ignorant about a great many things you can't point to Pakistan on the map or you don't know about politics or you go voting for the wrong president and then that leads to a nuclear holocaust right education does matter that's important everything that you try to do in the practical mundane world requires knowledge technical skills and understanding and you're not going to solve that problem by just experiencing existential absolute truth what else is important is being a good citizen and also community is very important it's possible that you become enlightened but then you're not a good citizen and you don't give a [ __ ] about the community and then your community turns into the kind of hellhole that Mount Hiei became where everyone is running around raping each other right or you're not contributing to the community or you're not caring about the community all these things are important things to say that all I'm enlightened and I'm living in this dream everything is an illusion so [ __ ] the community I don't give a [ __ ] about the community that just shows you how little enlightenment you actually embody on a day to day basis having an ethical career is important to just because you're enlightened and then you're working at a slaughterhouse or you're working on Wall Street or you're working in politics or you're working somewhere else where you're causing a lot of damage to the ecology to the community to your society the world this is not cool this is not cool you're going to want to have a career where you're contributing in a positive conscious manner to the world and helping the world and your community raise its level of consciousness you're going to want that and if you're missing that component that's going to create suffering for you and also it's just not going to be part of a real commitment to non-duality you see a commitment to non-duality is not just to no non-duality it's to embody it transcending your culture is also going to be an important part just because you're enlightened does not mean you've transcended your culture there can be a lot of negative nasty things about your culture will you which you can still be perpetuating for example if you live in a racist culture then you might still be an enlightened racist now that might sound paradoxically leo how can one be an enlightened racist but actually think about it these racist tendencies have been programmed into your brain physically programmed from your birth for twenty thirty forty fifty years then you become enlightened you see existential truth but those again those bad habits and that programming is still in there that needs to be unwired it's not going to happen spontaneously of its own see you have to make an effort and also there's many limitations to culture so it's not just like racism but you might become an ideological Crusader where now you think that your culture is the best culture because let's say you use your cultural techniques to become enlightened then you try to force every other culture to transform and to buy into your culture otherwise you attack and you criticize them that could certainly be um something that happens to you if you don't engage in this effort to become more multicultural more worldly more cosmopolitan in your understanding of all the different mystical as I talked about last week transcending of various ideologies is also very important just because your light does not mean you don't have ideological biases and dogmas and letting those go again that can be tricky what more is there to enlightenment there's your physical health taking care of your physical body making sure it's well nourished making sure you're getting the right nutrition and exercise there's developing good character morals and ethics matter there's ecology concern for the environment concern for the globe concern for other beings that are not human for animals for plant life and so forth there's also spiritual powers that one can develop there's actually a lot more to spirituality than just non duality and I'll talk specifically about that in the future but there's all sorts of interesting spiritual powers and various phenomenon that you can experience you can use to help heal people to help teach people better to help to understand people and so forth some people go really down a deep down that rabbit hole and lastly I would say there's understanding I would say that understanding is even more important than enlightenment because yeah you can have this one insight into the absolute nature of things and that of course get to a lot of understanding about the world that's important but there's more to understanding than just that it's hard for me to express how much uhm richer and more enjoyable the insights that I have had the existential insight that I had had when I can put them into a broader perspective in context in my understanding of business society history humanity evolution science cosmology physics biology physiology you know putting all that stuff together is so much more rich than just having a direct insight into who and what you are I mean that's important don't get me wrong that's important but there's more to understanding than just that there's a bigger perspective here for you to have so what I want to do now is I want to quote you from another book which drives this point home about the importance of psychology in pursuing non-duality it says quote post Satori practice for ha cooing and ha cooing was one of the Reviver zuv the rinzai zen school so for Hakka Wien post Satori practice meant finally ceasing to be preoccupied with his own personal condition and attainment and to devote himself in his practice to helping and teaching others finally at long last he realized that true enlightenment is a matter of endless practice and compassionate functioning and not something that occurs once and for all in one great moment on the cushion non-duality especially as it's developed in 21st century America runs the risk of emotional bypass of imagining that deep-seated emotional problems and character pathology can be washed away solely by sufficiently deep realization without ever having to engage psychological problems directly not only did realization fail to heal deep divisions in our character more and more it looked as if for many people and in particular for many Zen teachers practiced opened up bigger and bigger splits between an idealized compassionate self and the shadow self where split off and denied sexual competitive and narcissistic fantasies held sway and quote and that's from a book called nothing is hidden by Barry maggot so here he talks about some of the pitfalls of being Oh we focused on just the non-dual aspects of this path a lot of people don't realize that being a good person is separate from enlightenment and you might say well leo why should i be a good person after all good and bad is just duality it's just an illusion app but see again this is a small non dual way of thinking a large non dual way of thinking understands that yes good and bad are relative they may not be existentially true but nevertheless that doesn't mean they aren't important because non duality includes duality in it see otherwise by your logic why do anything why wake up in the morning why tie your shoelaces why drink water why eat food why wipe your ass after you take a crap and for that matter why become enlightened in the first place why I mean it's all just an illusion doesn't matter does it matter that you became in line - no doesn't matter enlightenment says it doesn't matter that you became enlightened but that's not what you actually act like you don't really have a choice in the matter unless you kill yourself you know if you want to become enlightened kill yourself okay fine but otherwise you're still alive in this world you're still here until you're dead and you have to choose how you're going to act you're going to act one way or another you could sit at home with your shoelaces untied with your ass unwiped eating Cheetos watching reruns of Seinfeld something like that you could do that but again I could pose that question back to you why why do that why not tie your shoelaces why not wipe your ass why not put down the bag of Cheetos and why not get up off your ass off the couch and go do something good for the world why not there's no reason not to just as there is no reason to do it reason is a function of the mind and existence is beyond that the fact is that there are no reasons nevertheless values and principles still matter this is the paradox of non-duality yes existentially speaking values are arbitrary and there is no good and evil but there's also the practical level don't get so enlightened or so caught up with non duality that you forget about the practical trivial level where it does matter how you act it does matter how you think it does matter what values and principles you hold and this is not moralizing someone might say but Leo you've ranted in the past about not moralizing and how there are no shoulds and now it seems like you're telling me that I should be this good upstanding saintly person why should I do that there's no reason why you should if you don't want to be a good standing upstanding person a decent human being I'm not going to be here standing here convincing you that you're wrong or that you're evil you're not that's your choice you can do that if you want to but you know what true goodness doesn't come from obligation or from reasons why you should be good it comes spontaneously just from the fact that you understand that this is what up high consciousness being does and that's different from moralization I'm not telling you you should be anyway I'm telling you you have the option to do whatever you want in life you can play the game however you want so the question is how will you choose to play the game once you've realized that it is just a game and remember that karma still applies still have consequences if you say that nothing matters does that mean that you're okay with me raping your grandma you cool with that if I rape your grandma or maybe you're not that cool with that maybe you don't like that idea if you don't like that idea then maybe you should have a rule or should have a principle that says that raping people that's something that's low consciousness that I don't want to do I'm not going to do it and then hopefully other people won't do it and then you know what hey all of a sudden we had a social contract a social contract where now all of a sudden we can have a decent community of people who aren't worried about everybody raping each other see because your actions have consequences they have consequences and if you sit on the couch eating your Cheetos that's going to have consequences so no matter what you do there will be consequences see this is why these sort of mystical non dual teachings have been kept secret for centuries and they have been esoteric one of the reasons why is because it's been done to prevent abuse people who do a sloppy form of non-duality can easily become Zen Devils can abuse it to do all sorts of evil and harm and in fact they can become extremely dangerous once they become enlightened and yet they still have weak values and little compassion for other people they they can then they can use their new non-dual insights to justify any kind of actions whatsoever they can rape somebody they can murder somebody they can raise an army of Crusaders and go conquering other religions they can start their own religion you know they can do all sorts of stuff that has led to a lot of damage in the past that leads to a lot of suffering and you are not truly enlightened until you can have compassion for the suffering that everyone around you is experiencing you might say well I'm in light now I don't suffer anymore you might not suffer anymore but how about that little kid who's not enlightened yet and you see him suffering how about your mom who will never maybe be enlightened and you see her suffering how about your community they as a whole might not be enlightened for another ten thousand years and yet you see them suffering and as a part of non-duality you see that all these things are not separate from you they are you they're literally you your mom that little kid that community that you're a part of even the community you're not a part of it's all you do you have compassion for all that are you going to lead your life in an ecological sustainable manner or are you going to be a zen devil I do not want to create Zen Devils with my work all of my work everything I teach should never be interpreted as a weapon to be used against other people other traditions other religions other ideologies other non-dual teachers family members friends co-workers [ __ ] evil people none of this that I'm saying is to be used against them it's only to be used to embody non-duality in your own life to take responsibility for everything to live a conscious life to strive for that to have values and principles that are in line with higher consciousness that's what I want this work used for because man if history has taught us anything it's just how easy it is to take this work and to twist it around because the ego loves to twist stuff around you twist it around you become a Zen devil you backwards rationalize why you're not a Zen devil and then you go out there and run amok in the world and it's even more sad when enlightened person does that you would think that only unenlightened people could behave that way No what history shows us is that even very enlightened people can behave that way very enlightened people can be [ __ ] can be rapists can be cult leaders so keep that in mind and don't become a Zen devil and also don't dismiss the the value of common sense and goodness I would much rather be surrounded by a group of common sense and decent human beings who know nothing at all about enlightenment then a bunch of people who are all enlightened but have no common sense and no goodness inside of them all right so there is work for you to do here even if you're not enlightened yet and sometimes people think like well leo so you're talking about this lofty enlightenment thing and it seems like all this other work that I'm doing is just a waste it's just a waste why should I work on this part of my life why should I care about my relationships because all I need to do is just reach for enlightenment and then I got it all and that's a fallacy it's not going to happen that way the psychological work you're doing now the very basic personal development stuff taking care of your finances take care your relationships working on your career finding your life purpose rearranging your values that you're clear about those that's all very good stuff and if you're a kind of person who already has caring and compassion inside of them even though you're not inlined yet that's awesome that's great enlightenment can take that to the next level but still build up that goodness in that compassion with within and practice it on a daily level you don't need to wait till you're enlightened until you practice it you can start practicing it now and you're going to start to see the rewards and payoffs now not later it's going to help you with your sufferings can help you with your emotions it's going to help you with the success it's going to help you with the people you attract in your life and so forth so the bottom line is that this is a nuanced topic and there are many traps here very many traps and the traps are found on both sides there's this extreme here and there's that extreme there you got to find that perfect balance in between that's why true masters are so rare because most people get seduced into one trap or another and never walk that narrow road long enough to really see the full fruition of non-duality which is what I want for you so that's it I'm signing off post me your comments down below please click the like button also for me share this up so the friend and lastly come check out my newsletter right here at actualised org sign up to the newsletter and just stay tuned with all the updates that I'll be sending out every single week as I release new content and I help you to navigate all the various traps and I'm not helping you to navigate these traps from the standpoint of like I'm the master I know everything no it's from the standpoint of I'm on this journey with you I'm walking the path I'm seeing all these traps some of these traps I fall into myself sometimes I can do a wild fox Zen I'm aware of that trap I can fall into that trap sometimes I can be a bit of a Zen devil too I'm aware of that trap so as I'm seeing these traps I love sharing them with you because it'll it'll help you to walk that path so stay tuned for more and I'll see you soon you