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hey leo here for actualised org and in this episode I'm gonna be talking about how comprehension has many degrees and the importance of deriving truth for yourself [Music] you things can be grasped at many different levels of depth it's important to understand that to really understand that and what I mean by things is truths principles insights lessons teachings advice and even facts it's one thing to hear one of these things being spoken to you or deliver to you or taught to you or to read it in a book and it's a totally different thing to really really really comprehend it in its full significance and that's what this whole episode is about it might seem like it's a basic point but actually it's a critical point it's foundational to you being able to get the results that are possible from this work and I see that a lot of people are not getting this point so be very careful here not to overlook the obvious this point right here affects everything that you will ever learn in your life you say you understand but the question is to what degree do you understand it's not enough to understand what is being told to you you have to understand much deeper than that there are many levels to this stuff any piece of sufficiently deep wisdom will have many many many levels to it even though it might seem simple on the surface but looks can be deceiving and you might hear the exact same teaching spoken over and over again by different people by different masters by different Yogi's by different teachers and the problem with that is that hearing it isn't enough and it's not an issue of memorization some people try to desperately take notes as though that is what really counts that's not what really counts what counts is have you grasped all the layers and facets and interconnections and ramifications of this insight or this truth or this principle or this this piece of advice that you're being given how deeply has it affected your life have you bothered to actually use your mind to trace through all the ramifications of it all the corollaries have you bothered to actually grasp the significance of what is being told to you that's what's really important and what is required to do that is contemplation you have to contemplate these ideas for yourself you have to chew them for a good long time sometimes for for days for weeks for years to really understand how profound they are and not just to understand how profound the are but to have this insight do work for you in your life for it to transform you a lot of people they're not getting traction with these ideas that's the problem and you can spend years just kind of like reading self-help books but your mind is not getting traction and that's what I want to help you with here today so let's go through some examples that's the best way to illustrate this lesson for example you've probably heard that people's opinions of you are irrelevant haven't you heard that by now if you are into self-help and you probably agree with that and you probably believe that and if I told you that right now you'd say yes of course leo so let's move on to the next thing and yet in reality what's going on in your life maybe your entire life is shaped by people's opinions of you so in point of fact it's not irrelevant in your life and yet when you're told this simple truth that people's opinions of you are irrelevant you don't get it you see you think you get it but you don't get it because you've never seriously contemplated it you've never really thought about it and because you're not thinking about it because you're not taking this idea seriously you're not getting traction with it you're not letting it transform your life because if you sit there and you think about it over and over again for months just this one simple idea that people's opinions of you are irrelevant and you you trace all the consequences all the ramifications and you see the significance of this and just how much you are at the effect of other people's opinions that's gonna transform you and you might say well leo yeah I know that I've heard that before but I'm still I still have social anxiety and I'm still worried what people think about I still care I don't know how to stop that's because you're too preoccupied with getting a solution rather than with actually investigating the lesson you don't really want to investigate the lesson because your mind is lazy and I don't blame you my mind is lazy too all our minds are lazy but you have to push past that and really chew these ideas because if you really chew this idea you're becoming conscious of something which is different from hearing a thing to become conscious of something is well it's like almost like deriving a mathematical proof you're seeing the inner workings of the inner mechanics the logic of it and as you see that something changes in you that otherwise wouldn't change just by being told the ultimate conclusion here's another example is you've probably heard that language creates your reality and if I told you if I told you that in passing in one of my episodes you would say oh yeah leo that that's interesting that kind of makes sense to me but how deeply do you grasp that because that's a significant statement you have to take these statements seriously so when you hear a statement like this you should say wow that that's a pretty big claim language creates reality in what way is that true is that really true and if it's true what does that really mean I mean just how much of my reality is created by language let me investigate this let me actually see how this thing works that's what you got to do and you got to dig into it you got a content and see where that takes you but most people when they hear that they just say oh yeah of course and then just go on they missed it it just goes in one ear and out the other you see no traction happen there because if you really got the the significance of just what this means that language creates reality Wow that's a that's a huge thing that's not an insignificant thing so the first thing you should realize is if this is true it's really significant maybe it's not true which is why it's worth thinking about just to double-check you don't want to take it on blind faith that what you're being told is what it is you don't know so first you gotta just verify it that's why you contemplate is to verify these things for yourself does it make sense does it pass muster does it hold water how does it actually work is the next step and then tracing out all the cons what does this mean what does that mean for my relationships what does that mean for my career what does it mean for my notions of what reality is and what does that mean for physics what does that mean for science what does that mean for philosophy what does that mean for thinking there's a lot to ponder there here's another example you've probably heard this one before I've talked about it before the map is not the territory now that's a really profound statement and most people they hear it and they think it's kind of cute and interesting and then they put into their back pocket and they forget about it but to really understand that the map is not the territory is just so ridiculously significant and the consequences of it they they permeate throughout all human culture everything that human beings put their hands on is is corrupted by this problem of not understanding that the map is not the territory but that requires contemplation on your part to see that and then for you that statement will become a very important piece of wisdom now you will keep with you and you will use for the rest of your life and it'll make a very big difference in the quality of your life from now and then it's gonna snowball for years and decades until the end and it's gonna have huge ramifications for you but not if you don't contemplate it not if you don't take it seriously not if you don't trace through those consequences as you would with the mathematical proof here's another example for you the Buddha devoted over 40 years of his life teaching basically two things what is suffering and how to extinguish it and he said very simply that all suffering comes from clinging to impermanent objects sounds simple enough right but do you grasp the significance of what he said all suffering that should already ring alarm bells in your mind when you hear something like that all suffering is caused by blank that sounds like it's pretty important doesn't it after all isn't that why you're here is because you don't want to suffer isn't that the the ultimate scenario that you could invent envision in your life is that you will have a life with no more suffering isn't that what you really want so that's pretty goddamn important right if someone is giving you a solution to every single problem that you have in life in one statement that sounds like that's worthy of some contemplation on your part and not just to say oh yeah of course of course of course and then just move on move on to the next thing no no no it's not move on to the next thing it's like spend 10 years contemplating this chew it to get all the juice out of it because this thing contains a lot of juice here's another example all fear is a concept about the future how's that for a powerful insight and that's actually one that I learned from Peter Ralston and what this means is that you literally cannot experience fear unless you have an image of the future in your mind that's what fear is sounds pretty significant doesn't it that's not just an idea that you put in the back of your pocket or something that you just believe that's something to be deeply contemplated and investigated is that really true and if it is what does that really mean for your life and what would it mean if you actually mastered this one and sigh just this one insight if you actually mastered this what would this mean for your life is it possible that you can eliminate all fear by understanding this one insight deeply enough and then what would you need to contemplate how much would you need to contemplate to really to get the to the bottom of it to really see the inner workings of how your fear works how its generated here's another example for you I've said in the past in certain episodes that I consider meditation to be the number one personal development habit the most important that you can put into place in your life is leverage so when you hear someone like me saying something like that that's worthy of contemplation that's worthy not just of going and doing it like a monkey because I told you to no that's not what I'm saying I'm saying before you even go and do it just contemplate the significance of this why is it true is it actually true what does this really mean how come it's true what will it mean for me if I actually put this habit into place in my life you see the reason you struggle with putting a meditation habit into place in your life is not because you're busy or because it's hard or because you're lazy or whatever it's because your mind hasn't actually penetrated the truth of of this statement you don't see the significance of it and you never will so long as you just listen to people talking about it without tracing through the steps yourself contemplating it yourself here's another example for you know self and non-duality this is a really deep can of worms to grasp the significance of no self and non-duality is really a feat and I'm not even talking about to actually become enlightened I'm just saying to conceptually grasp the significance of it and its ramifications and what it really means people don't get it I mean I I keep talking about these concepts and ideas for years now but people still don't get it they think they get it they think they know what enlightenment is but they don't they don't grasp the significance of what no self what does it really mean that there is no self that's a very significant statement not said lightly that's a ridiculously significant statement this has ramifications for everything for science for philosophy like for physics for everything every single aspect of your life is affected by this statement if it's true and non-duality what does it mean to say that that reality is not dual to grasp the significance of that is just just just conceptually just let's begin with just conceptually is very important because you start off just understanding is come so then you got to move on to direct experience we'll get to that but let's just start conceptually a lot of people don't even get the conceptual part right non-duality that means that every single duality that you know like cause and effect good and bad self and other existence and non-existence life and death and any other duality you can think of that is non dual that there actually is no duality that they are one that all these distinctions are one think that through think what that man that really means if that's true see just the contemplation of this one thing right here can transform your whole life but you have to actually contemplate it it won't change your life just to go read it about it in a book I mean that's helpful too but I'm trying to point you towards deepening your comprehension of these ideas how about the example of success not being equivalent to growth that's a very significant statement something that I've shot episodes about in the past and people here that like I could be coaching someone and I have coached people on the phone and stuff on skype and we would talk about this sort of concept and people who are very business oriented career oriented success oriented people and I would talk to them about this but then you know they hear it but it just goes in one ear and out the other they're like oh yeah leo of course I get that but I still have this problem I should have this problem I'm still I'm still frustrated I'm still not happy I'm still doing it up because you're pursuing success and success is not growth you see but these people they don't contemplate they don't really think about it they don't draw that because the connections together which is what the problem was with the first example the example about your opinions others people's opinions of you being irrelevant people know that intellectually but it's not working in their life because they haven't actually made the connections that requires work and they don't do that work because they assume that oh well if I just know it shouldn't that be enough and then they say well Leo either your advice and whatever you're saying these these principles they don't really work what good does it do me just to believe that people's opinions of me don't matter when in fact I get anxiety and fear and all this other sort of stuff what good does it do me because you haven't really contemplated it that's the problem if you did you would stop being at the effect of it but you have it so you just think you have and therefore you're still the effect of it here's another example good and bad do not exist it's a very simple statement and many people would agree with that on the surface I mean a lot of people would disagree with me so that's one step down I'm not even gonna get into that here but even those people who do agree with me they'll say oh well yeah of course Lia yeah that makes that makes sense but do you realize how significant it is to say this that there is no good and bad if there is no good and bad then what the are you complaining about in your life why are you suffering why do you have opinions about things why do you criticize people why do you get angry what are you angry about if nothing is good and bad what are you angry about oh well see now when it really gets to the nitty-gritty of your life all the sudden you don't really believe that nothing is good and bad that's a philosophical belief that you hold because in reality when something happens to you someone pisses in your soup then all of a sudden you start to believe in good and bad really quickly all your ideals fly out the window when someone scratches your car when someone calls you a bad name when someone insults you online when someone trolls you when someone cheats on you all of a sudden now you get all hot and bothered by these things why is that because deep down you actually believe that there is good and bad and that's because you haven't really chewed this idea deeply enough yet to really realize that there is no good and bad and that's one of the whole tricks to this work is that it's really easy just to believe things and to think you've got it just because you believe it or just because you agree with it and that's not nearly gonna be good enough to get the results that you want to get so you have to be careful that what I'm speaking I speak about a lot of topics I say a lot of things I give you a lot of insights and it's very easy to agree with them I mean a lot of people disagree with them so they don't even get to the point of agreement okay that's a problem in itself but I'm saying that even the people that do agree watch out that's a trap right there and you start to believe it and then that's another trap and I say something like you have no free will then people start to believe that and that becomes a huge trap because see you still actually act like you have free will you've never actually experienced no free will you don't really know what that truth is pointing to to you is an idea and you buy into that idea and you start to believe it and then you've actually set yourself backwards because see now there's now there's this weird thing going on in your mind where deep down in reality when you're behaving in your everyday life you actually behave as though you have free will that's why you're frustrated with yourself because you want to control reality and you're frustrated with the fact that you don't have control over reality and that frustrates you because you believe you should have control of a reality see if you actually understood that you have zero control over reality and you really got that you directly experience that there would be no problem because you don't have control you don't need control and there's no problem with that you're not fighting for control the problem happens is when you have a belief that there is no free will but then deep down and really you have an even deeper subconscious sort of belief which actually says yeah but I should be controlling life something's wrong here see because you haven't really contemplated no freewill you don't really know what that means you don't know the full consequences of it here's another example manipulation corrupts relationships that's a very in statement and people could hear that like I could be coaching someone over the phone about how they're manipulating people and how they're manipulating their relationship and in general how they're manipulating all of life the whole problem of manipulation and they'll hear Don say oh yeah Leo of course but but how do I get what I want yeah Leo that's all well and good but then how do I become happy no you don't send you're manipulating that's the problem yeah but Leo how do I become happy you're manipulating that's the problem contemplate this contemplate what manipulation means and look inside your relationship and look at how you're manipulating inside your relationship and how that's corrupting every relationship that you're in and here's the final example you can tap into infinite intelligence with your mind you know that you can do that that's possible that's a very significant thing you're being told that you can tap into infinite intelligence infinite creativity and you can use this to create your life to create art to create inventions to create businesses to to do so many things you can tap into this intelligence you can tap into this intelligence to to tell you everything you need to live a ridiculously powerful and joyful life you can tap into that intelligence but then if I say that to you and you just hear it in some episode it's like yeah leo ok good but then like so what do I do with that how's that gonna help me how's it gonna help me get laid or how is that gonna help me when I'm suffering and I'm lonely and I'm depressed how's that gonna help me right see because what you need to do is he to sit down and spend months contemplating the significant of the fact that you have a mind that's able to tap into infinite intelligence and that this is a resource that you have barely ever used in your life but that you can learn to use but that requires contemplation how do you contemplate I have entire episodes about that so I won't go into it here just very simply the way you contemplate is you take a topic or a question or a statement and you sit there and you think about it and you just ask yourself questions contemplation is nothing more than asking questions of a topic so for example you could say non-duality what does that really mean and you could sit there for an hour at four hours every day for hours just contemplating what does non-duality really mean and what are the consequences of that and you see you're just asking questions it's like okay that's the consequence what's other consequence and what's other consequence and what would it mean if I if I was fully living a lined with Nandu out what would that mean for my life what does that mean for my relationships and yadda yadda yadda so you just continue like that and so on for all the other statements that I said and it's just a tip of the iceberg almost every video I I talk about there's some kind of juicy insight at least one probably a dozen or more that you could spend months years contemplating like this so this opens up the field and this this work is about going deep it's not about new it's not about getting new ideas it's not about amassing a giant collection of new fancy ideas it's not about quantity it's not about more more and more be careful with those traps it's not about more and more advanced and complex mental masturbatory sort of theories and models about the word it's not about that it's about going deep with the simple stuff it's about really grasping the fundamentals of of your psyche of reality of how human beings were things like that let me talk to you now about the levels of understanding there are different levels of comprehension that are possible and these levels they sort of go through stages there's a progression it's a rather linear progression this is just something I sort of identified for myself thinking about this topic so the first stage is that you just hear about an idea and now because you've heard about it now you know it's a thing like okay I've heard about enlightenment I know it's a thing before I heard about it I didn't even know as a thing or it's like I've heard about psychedelics now I know it's a thing before I really didn't then from there you move on to step number two which is properly understanding the concept so you hear about the idea that there's no free will okay then you move on to step number two is that you you actually properly understand the concept as it's being communicated to you being very careful not to misinterpret it and this is where a lot of people go wrong on step number two most people don't even get to the point of properly understanding the concept never mind having a direct experience or some profound enlightenment experience or anything like that just start by understanding the concept without misinterpreting it that's that's a challenge it could take you a couple of years with a deep concept like non-duality it could take you well it took me a good three or four years of of research reading tons of dozens of books going to seminars going to workshops going to retreats doing all sorts of crazy and then after and the thinking about it for many many hours practicing self inquiry for hundreds maybe even a thousand hours after all of that only then did I start to actually fully wrap my mind around the concept without misunderstanding it that's um is actually a big achievement for a topic like non-duality where that particular topic is is it extra hard to properly understand consensus there's so many traps and it's such an antique conceptual sort of topic but there are other smaller topics where you don't need to spend that much time now much effort just understand it conceptually but still you know very easy to misunderstand something like no free will or it's very mean is easy to misunderstand like a concept like happiness for example then you move on to step number three which is actually not just conceptually understanding a thing but tracing all of its ramifications and seeing the significance of it still conceptually so you don't just know what non-duality is but then you start to start to fathom like oh oh oh well if this is true this is a huge thing this is a really big thing if this is true I got a really start to take it seriously if it's true maybe I don't know yet if it's true but if it is oh boy cuz that would mean this and this and this and that and this this would change and that will change all of society would change and oh ok see then you start to get it still conceptually but you start to see the significance then you move on to step number four which is you actually start to get your initial glimpses of this truth happening in your direct experience and that's a big big leap that most people never even get to most people never get to Stage four and when you do it's a real eye-opener because you're like oh oh that's what they were talking oh yeah that's what they were talking about oh it's different than I thought it was what are they talking about it's not like they were saying it's different it's so different it's like it's oh it's like it's actual it's actual it's not an i Oh see it works like that and usually what you discover is that a lot of the stuff that they told you about this thing that now you discovered because you've directly experience it's like wait a minute what were those guys smoked and this is not how it really is it's different and then other times you discover no it's actually exactly as they told you and then from that you move on to step five which is starting to see these glimpses intermittently on a regular basis occasionally they're still kind of rare but you you get multiple glimpses and I'm not just talking about non-duality or in Lyman here by the way I'm talking about any insight so an insight for example that like manipulation corrupts relationships that would be a more basic insight right so what you would see there and Step five is you would see that oh I'm manipulating here and I'm manipulating there and here and there and there and here oh okay I'm manipulating and then you see the consequences of your manipulations like oh yeah this manipulation has led to this argument that led to this fight that led to this breakup that led to this that led to that oh and then at least am i suffering and then I'm suffering because I'm manipulate and I see as I'm actually texting oh I'm manipulating as I'm texting oh I see it's not just an idea and then that happens to you occasionally you don't see it all the time just occasionally cuz you're still mostly asleep mostly unconscious and then finally you move on to step six which is where you start to see this stuff constantly you become constantly conscious of it to the point where it's difficult to not see anymore and that's the ultimate stage and at this stage you also start seeing the full ramifications not just in theory but in practice so there's a sort of flowering effect that takes place where you really grasp this nugget but then this nugget is not just an isolated nugget it is interwoven with everything else in your life and everything to shift in subtle ways at this stage you also become very aware of all the traps in this process you become aware of all the the mechanisms that exist which caused you to go fall back asleep to become unconscious and to to stop recognizing it and you're able to bring yourself out of these traps maybe you fall into a trap once in a while but still you're able to recognize are you falling into a trap you've become unconscious you were able to wake yourself up a little bit and also you're you're getting better and better at avoiding the traps entirely so you can sort of foresee the trap about to happen like you're about to manipulate someone and you're like oh I'm gonna manipulate okay let me just drop it that's a trap you see or maybe you're about to manipulate or maybe even you did manipulate you're starting to manipulate and and then you notice your justifications about how oh it's okay if I manipulate this in this in this situation it's actually better if I let myself in a bit see you start to see that justification come up and you're like oh that's also a trap see that's a justification that is pushing me to continue to manipulate even though I know I'm not supposed to manipulate because it causes me suffering oh okay I see that that's that's one trap and usually with traps there's like two sides to a trap you can swing your pendulum too much in this direction or in this direction so it's like oh yeah I'm like I'm supposed to be honest like let's say maybe you're working on honesty it's like okay I should be honest so one trap is lying but then the opposite trap of that is being too honest brutally honest or honest in a sort of inconsiderate manner see those are like two ends of the spectrum there and so you're gonna swing your pendulum sort of back and forth and back and forth and then as you get to this this the six stage you're gonna you're gonna see that the dangers of both ends of that trap and finally still in this sixth stage which you're ultimately get gonna get to is you're gonna get to an understanding of why the mechanism that you're exploring is inevitable why it's absolutely necessary why reality couldn't really be any other way than the way that it is so at first in the first stage is gonna be very judgmental about all this stuff like manipulating maybe you're gonna you're gonna be working on your manipulation let's say then you're gonna get to a stage where you get a little bit better about not manipulating but then what's gonna happen you're gonna judge other people from manipulating and you like oh how dare they manipulate and then you're gonna get this whole thing about like oh we should end all the manipulation in the world because manipulation is bad and evil and all this so you'll fall into that trap but eventually you'll work through that and then eventually you get to the very end you understand the whole thing you will also understand why it exists if I may use this verbiage you will understand why God created it and why it couldn't be any other way and why it's perfect exactly the way it is you will see that not only will you see that in ordinary situations but you would also see it with evil stuff that normally people would never ever admit is inevitable or is necessary or is is perfect like you will look at rape you will look at war you will look at genocide you will look at theft you will look at line you will look at politicians you will look at at corruption in Washington you will look at all this stuff and eventually go to a point well where you will understand why it's necessary and that gives you peace so you can't be at peace so long as you're fighting the world and you're gonna be fighting the world so long as you believe that things are well that they could be otherwise and again be careful not to misinterpret what I'm saying here I'm not saying that rape couldn't be otherwise in the sense that you couldn't stop doing it it's not what I'm saying nor am i saying that it shouldn't be punished I'm not saying any of those things if be very careful here I'm saying you will understand why it exists and you will come to peace with it I think that's that's one of the deepest levels of understanding you can get to and that's the level of understanding that most people when they're at the early stages they don't even want to hear it that this is a possibility even the possibility of such a thing on certain topics for certain people is such an outrageous statement that it sounds like heresy it sounds like insanity it sounds like criminality that's what it sounds like so usually people who get to this stage they they keep it to themselves they cook they don't go around talking about it very much on TV and stuff like that you don't see people coming around and saying oh rape is inevitable and therefore everything is perfect and reality is fine and we don't even do anything you know you don't hear them talking like that but deep down they're at peace with the evils of the world and all the other that usually disturbs them and disturbs other people so those are levels now these levels I mean they're not clearly delineated in reality I just made up these levels I gave them numberings I just made this whole thing up right so this is just my way of categorizing every categorization scheme is just a human invention so don't get the mistake that these levels are somehow itched into stone by God they're not let's talk about some of the obstacles to understanding so throughout this process of moving up these stages or down these stages however you want to think of it you're gonna have the following obstacles closed-mindedness that's huge and is especially huge at the early stages judgments that's also huge you're gonna be judging yourself and other people in situations and and ideas you're gonna be extremely judgmental and opinionated and that's gonna be a huge obstacle for you to deepening your understanding arrogance is gonna become an obstacle as well you're gonna feel like you already know this stuff or that you're a more advanced than this you're already beyond this and and you know better than the GNAT teacher and you know better than this person you know better than that advice given there you know you know everything and you will have to be deeply humbled and that's gonna be a painful process for you to to realize how arrogant you were and how how just how stupid your arrogance is that's gonna be a painful process if you choose to push through it further and further but many people stop there because it's it's too painful they don't want to go through the emotional labor that complacency will be a big obstacle you will just think oh yeah I got it I got it leo non-duality yeah I got it I got it what's next this sort of complacency or even like yeah Leo I've traced through the consequence of so what this sort of complacency laziness will become a big obstacle especially in the in in that critical transition between understanding of thing conceptually and then moving on to stage four where you actually start to get glimpses of the direct experiences because the difference between between this the conceptual stage and the direct experience stage is that you need to put in work and most people are so lazy that they're not gonna put in the work and by work I mean a lot of times just mental work the work of contemplation why don't you contemplate more because you're lazy you don't want to you just want to believe you just want to be given the answer you just want the conclusions of other people's contemplations you don't want to contemplate anything for yourself you don't want to actually go through a mathematical proof you just want a trick to get the answer that's laziness and believing will be a huge obstacle there will be a strong tendency just to say okay Leo I got it I gotta believe you I'm just gonna trust you I got it I know you're right I just know you're right okay I got it that's good enough but it's not good enough that does nothing for you believing me not believing me agreeing with me not agree it doesn't matter it doesn't matter not when we're talking about going and using these ideas to transform your life that's the biggest mistake that happens with all religious traditions the biggest mistake is that people mistake having a direct experience of something like God with a belief and they think that well I believe that it's good enough I mean the direct experience yeah I know I could have one I know it's gonna take a long time so I'll just I'll just believe it it's not good enough Lee I mean I'm gonna die anyways and I'm gonna I'll get there eventually anyways so I'll just believe it as if that's gonna help you or like with morality this is a big problem with morality people start to believe in morality and they say well well I mean Leo the greatest sages and mystics they have all come down and they told us that we need to not lie and not cheat and not kill and not in animals and all this sort of stuff so I'm just gonna I believe them it sounds like what they're saying sounds good and it sounds right so I'm just gonna believe them I'm just gonna do what they what they say what's wrong with that after all I mean why do I need to go and do all the stuff the Buddha did to get to the same answers that he already gave me in a book I'll just read the book and I'll just get those answers I'll just believe them good enough right and the answer of course is not even close not even close believing a thing doesn't doesn't show you why it's true and it often has the exact opposite effect because what happens is that you put a thin veneer of fake belief on top but underneath is your actual all your behavior patterns that are hardwired into your subconscious mind and those are usually the exact opposite of your noble flimsy little veneer of of ideals and beliefs so while you might believe as an ideal that lying and cheating and stealing and killing is bad and all this sort of stuff but then in practice your entire psyche is functioning completely the opposite and now you've created this this rift inside of you or psyche you have these ideals and beliefs here that are very noble but then in your life you behave like a animal and then you have to go through these mental gymnastics to justify all this stuff and make sense of it and it's just it's a big mess and it really holds you back and then you feel guilty about it you thought you start to hide it from yourself and from other people you start to lie about it so that just that just doubles your sin right there in these videos I talk a lot about my conclusions a lot of the stuff that I share is conclusions from my own investigations and of course a lot of stuff that I've read from other people and learned from other teachers so by no means am i originating all these ideas myself but if I'm not originating them still I'm doing some work to piece them together in my mind so you don't need to originate every single idea that's not what I'm saying but you do need to to work at it to put the pieces together and to try to work towards directly experiencing the thing that's being pointed at by the teachings by the words you need to follow the words and the concepts to the thing being pointed to and that is an active process that's the difference between hearing a truth and deriving a truth for yourself and this is a ridiculously important point that you take on is the attitude in life and especially with this work and everything that I teach the attitude should be that you are gonna take ownership of deriving these things for yourself in exactly the same way that you would if you want it to be a good math student you're not gonna get A's in math class well actually maybe you can you actually could you could get a's in math class just by shuffling symbols around and getting good at shuffling symbols but my point is is that you're not gonna have an actual deep understanding of mathematics without going through the process of going through the proofs and seeing the mechanics and the logic of it for yourself it's not going to be enough just to to hear a teacher talking about it you have to go through it and see why it's true in the same way that the original inventors of those mathematical concepts derived those math how did they invent it they didn't pull it out of their ass they they had to go through the process they had to trace the truth with their mind and that's what you have to do here and if you just go and you look up the answers in the back of the book or you take the answers that I told you which is the equivalent of that you are doing yourself a great disservice because the transformation the thing you want from listening to this is gotten not from listening to me but from listening to me and then going and deriving it for yourself and tracing the truth with your own mind for yourself which is why if you ever wonder why or Zen teachers such and they speak in riddles and they don't tell me the answers that I want to hear this is why because of this problem and this problem becomes especially problematic when it comes to consciousness work and enlightenment work because to be given the answer is almost the greatest disservice because as soon as they give you the answer you think you've got the answer you think you understand when really you don't understand and then you these answers fill your mind and then that actually is like a step backwards even though to you it seems like it's a step forwards the problem is that people are lazy and that nobody wants to derive anything for themselves and that's why religion is so prevalent and that's why morality is so prevalent because they just don't want to derive it for themselves they don't understand the significance of this entire topic that I have spent an hour here now almost now we're talking about so the reason I'm belaboring this point talking about it in such great length is because it's a very very big trap and don't think that you have to be a religious nutcase to fall into this trap you will fall into this trap regardless you might be the most intelligent person in the world the most well-meaning person in the world you start to get into a little bit deeper consciousness work and you will fall into this trap many many many times which is why I'm stressing it so much here imagine being a lion who never hunts imagine a line who just sits ad at a cafe under the table and just begs for scraps from people what kind of line would you be if you took on that kind of attitude towards life you would be a lion because you wouldn't learn how to hunt and that's exactly the situation here for a human being our power is not with our with our claws and our teeth it's not with our animal-like hunting abilities it's with your mind we are conceptual creatures and we live or die by the concepts in our mind and how we learn to use our mind and all the ways in which the mind can be easily misused and the biggest problem is that people get lazy about it they don't realize this they start to take this stuff for granted society these days makes it very easy to take to take concepts like these for granted because they aren't strictly necessary you can survive without them you'll just survive and you'll have a very ordinary mediocre existence and you'll suffer a lot you won't even know why but but if you really want to thrive and you want to get to your full potential in life then you need to learn how to hunt not with your claws but with your mind and the way you hunt with your mind is by contemplating by deriving these truths for yourself so how do you increase your degree of comprehension remember there's really two lessons that I want you to take away from this two high level lessons from this episode one is that there are many degrees of comprehension to every single insight which makes it very worthwhile to dig deeper into every single one and the second point that you got to derive some of these truths and insights for yourself and that that's also very worthwhile and that's in fact where most the growth lies so how do you increase the depth of comprehension as follows start taking ideas more seriously don't take them as mere philosophy or mere ideas ideas can be very powerful things start to seek out true understanding rather than results don't focus on results don't focus on fixing a particular problem you have seek to understand the situation to really understand it means that you you know how the mechanics of it come together and how they work and why they work so that's a that's a change in your attitude that's a change in your intentions to all of your problems in life most people they don't go into their problems with a desire for true understanding it's like why am i depressed well I don't care about that just fix my depression or just like why can't I get laid well I don't care about that let just help me get laid no no let's have you understand the situation the problem and also the solution from that you'll get everything else that you want and the next step is of course contemplation go watch my video about contemplation it teaches you how to contemplate and start contemplating on a regular basis and like I said contemplation is just ask yourself questions about a topic make sure that you're working the ramifications and the you're thinking about what a topic really means what are the consequences of it if it's true be careful about assuming that you've got it that you've figured it out usually with these sorts of topics if you think you've got it that's the first sign that you don't got it always assume that there is a deeper level a deeper degree of comprehension this becomes a huge trap for people especially people doing non-duality work they get a glimpse here or there and they think they got it no you don't got you don't got this thing goes a million miles deeper you've barely scratched the surface also start to interconnect everything start to look at things from the big-picture perspective from a holistic perspective start to see everything interconnected and start to separate out the trivial from the cosmically significant so when you're hearing somebody talk are teaching you something you're reading something in a book you should get very good at developing this skill of like wait a minute is this a cosmically a significant point or is this a trivial point and make sure you make that distinction and the cosmically significant points those are the ones you really want to put a lot of your energy and attention on so that's how you increase your degrees of comprehension remember that in this work derivation and contemplation are not optional things they are mandatory that's what the work involves that's why we call it work if you try to shortcut that then you're just not gonna see the kind of results that you hear people talking about that you hear me talking about that you see some other people talking about the deepest wisdom comes in tight simple packages which makes it deceptively simple which makes it very easy to be arrogant to say oh I got this I figured it out what you got to do is you got to you got to learn how to spot the wisdom how to spot these tight little packages and and then you got to get good unpacking them not as a chore but that this is actually this is actually this can be an enjoyable process this doesn't have to be a chore derivation doesn't have to be a chore that's the end if you liked this episode make sure you click that like button for me and come check out actualize that org this is my website check out my blog check out the forum come talk with people there get ideas get inspired get help get advice I'm on there a lot I answer lots of people's questions come look at my book list read the books on my book list check out the life purpose core she'll change your life and a final thing that I'll say is that I hope you understand how these videos are supposed to work they're supposed to work as follows these videos are desert which means that you spend your whole week doing your homework doing exercises working on yourself meditating contemplating reading books da da da da da doing all that stuff and then at the end of the week on Sunday you get your dessert you get some high-level just gushin commentary dissecting in some analysis that's what I do you get that for me and then that's cool that inspires you they get to some ideas gives you some new directions to go on and then next week you go and you follow up on that and you keep doing the stuff you've been doing before and then you build on that like that in the next week you get another piece of dessert which is the next episode so you see um be careful not to glut yourself with desert desert desert desert desert but no work no homework no follow-through that's going to be a problem if you do that you're gonna turn this work into a tool of the devil and that's very easy to do very easy to do religion is all about that is turning this work into a tool of the devil and how does that happen by just starting to believe stuff getting lazy and not deriving anything for yourself not tracing anything with your mind not actually transforming yourself just believing a bunch of and then you're still a devil on the inside just now with a little glossy coding veneer on the outside and now you think you're not the devil but actually this now this little veneer gives you just enough justification to be an even bigger devil than you were without it so watch out and stay with me for more in the future you