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[Music] you understanding authority the deep problem of authority what is Authority most people have never seriously thought about what authority is or how it comes to be and actually Authority is a much trickier notion than many people assume notice that you rely on Authority all the time but you don't actually understand how it works but you will by the end of this episode as long as you keep an open mind and really really accept some of the radical things I'm going to say here because the true origin of authority is so radical that you're not gonna want to believe it but before we get to that let's sort of frame the the question or the issue what do we mean by authority here authority simply is the power or Trust that you place into other people or things in society and you rely on these things or people in whom you place this trust to be a source of truth or knowledge or reality for you in fact what you're doing not knowing really what you're doing is that you're you're placing or rather you're using these people and things as anchors to ground your own sense of reality without which you'd be completely lost but how do you know who to trust should you trust the Bible should you trust the Koran should you trust scientists which scientists should you trust should you trust the biologists the chemists the physicists the astrophysicists the quantum physicist which quantum physicists should you trust there's a lot of them they disagree with each other should you trust your elementary school teachers or your middle school teachers or your university professors which culture should you trust should you trust Western culture Eastern culture Indian culture American culture European culture African culture and even more importantly by what criteria are you going to determine who to trust really think about this from a very fundamental level think about it from the level of like you are born into this world and you have no understanding or knowledge of anything you don't know the difference between up and down and you certainly don't know the difference between truth and falsehood and you certainly don't know who you can trust and who you can't trust people just assume that these things are Givens and that these are easy questions to answer not at all so who are you gonna trust how do you know that you can trust for example your university professor about the things he's teaching you you see the problem here is that you're gonna say something along the lines of well I can trust my university professor because of da-da-da-da-da but how do you know you can trust that you see and then trust that and trust that and trust that you see you have an infinite regress problem because any authority fear that you cite we can always question them and then ask ourselves well by what authority is that authority figure an authority figure and you see this creates a really tricky problem in fact it creates a vicious circle because it's begging the question all the time so if you say for example that we can trust MIT scientists how do you know that well because in school you were taught that scientists generally tell you the truth but how do you know that was true how do you know what they told you in school was true well because my parents told me that I should go to school and listen to the teachers there okay but how do you know that your parents were correct you see eventually what the mine does that sort of surrenders and says well it's probably just right I mean why go into all this toxic skepticism I mean leo we just have to add some point we just have to accept that some stuff is just a given and that's where you get yourself into a lot of trouble because what you're doing there is that you're giving authority to a thing or to a person or to an institution without being conscious that you're doing so and I want to make you more conscious to this now here's where it gets really radical you know I talked about non-duality a lot if you've been listening to my content so you need to have some basic understanding of non-duality in order for this episode to make sense so I'm assuming that you understand it so here's something though that you don't understand about non-duality yet there's a lot of radical implications to non-duality that people don't understand until they get really deep into non-duality so here's one of them if non-duality is true like I say and everything is one that's what none well it means it means that you can't draw a boundary between anything because all boundaries are in a sense arbitrary and relative then what that means is that there is no difference between you and other and other person another being which means that ultimately when you connect all the dots there can be no authority but yourself you are the only authority in existence that's utterly profound and life-changing to understand because most people do not act as though they understand this because they actually they're not conscious of it because they actually believe that there are higher authority figures in the universe than them that they can listen to and look to for truth and guidance and advice and what I'm telling you is actually there ain't no such thing there is only you there is only you again it's very easy to overlook the significance of what I'm saying here so we're gonna go into it in some detail to make sure that you get it this is very radical stuff when you really get it it's gonna freak you out this is going to utterly mind [ __ ] you all authority whatsoever is your authority ultimately the deepest authority you hold is the claim that you exist so if I ask you do you exist you will of course say yes Lee of course I exist but how do you know that under whose authority are you claiming that you exist under your own of course you're not asking me if you exist you're not asking a scientist you're not asking Albert Einstein whether you exist or not you're not even asking your parents whether you exist you are asking yourself now this is such a fundamental question that most people would say well Lia there's no alternative to saying that I exist so of course I exist because Here I am so I mean what's the big deal no you're not getting it you are telling yourself that you exist and you're actually believing that that's not a given that's not obvious consider the possibility that if you did not tell yourself that you exist the universe would not know that you exist you exist because you say you exist and for no other reason now of course you're in such a tricky position here in life because you have to survive once you've already committed yourself to them to the to the position that you exist that now of course you can't even consider that you might not exist that doesn't even seem like a plausible position to you well this is where we have to really open your mind here so what I'm telling you is that all authority ultimately comes from you and that there can be no other Authority because there actually is no other but you so not only are you the arbiter of whether you exist or not but also beyond that you are the arbiter of all other truth in the universe you control what is true because and here's where it's very radical stay with me you are God and you created yourself and you created the entire universe and you created all others and you are the truth with a capital T now you're not conscious of how you created yourself the universe and all others that's a question for another day we can't get into that here but you in fact did create yourself and the universe and all others you just don't know how you did it yet well that's that's something we got to work on but since you did that since you are God and since you are one because God is one there can't be two gods because God is infinite and you are infinite there is no one you can turn to to ask whether it's true that you are God because you're God think about this from God's point of view let's say just imagine that there was a God and let's just imagine for now that the God wasn't you but just the the kind of classic Christian God of the guy sitting up in the clouds who separate from you so if there was such an entity how would this entity know that it existed man it's not so not so easy as you think you know most Christians just assume that well God would know that it's God would it would it though how would it know that who would it turn to to verify that it's God what if God was doubtful what if God wasn't sure whether it's God what if God had to like scratch his head and say to himself wait a minute I'm God but I can't be God that's crazy for me to say that I'm God Who am I to say that I'm God that's very nauseous take an egotistical after all what if I'm not God let me go let me go ask let me go ask somebody whether I'm actually God surely somebody must know if I'm God or not after all if I'm God someone should be able to tell me that I'm God surely there must be a book where it is written that I am God otherwise I can't know that I'm God I mean what if I'm deluding myself you see this is the reality of what it would be like for God to come to know itself see people just take it for granted that well if there was God God would just know itself automatically and there would be no problems it doesn't work that way and the reason I'm framing it this way is because you are it you how do you think you were born you created yourself you just aren't conscious of it yet because you're in denial that you're God because you think it's egotistical or narcissistic to think that you're God and you think that if you were God you would surely know it but surely there must be that first time when God realizes that it is God well what I'm telling you is that that first time is right now for you right here this is the discussion we're having you are God in denial that you are God and there's nobody you can ask because what it means to be God is that you're everything when you're everything who can you ask can you ask me you can't ask me cuz I'm you I'm a projection of your own mind you can't ask your science teacher because your science teacher is your own imagination you can't ask your parents because you imagined your parents you can't look it up in a book because you invented and written wrote all books so who are you gonna ask you see the deep existential problem here if you are everything if you are the truth with a capital T what it means to be the truth is that it's impossible for the truth to turn towards anything else other than itself to know that it is the truth because if it was to turn towards something else that would already be an act of delusion because the truth would have to think well that's something else is something separate for me which can help me to figure out myself but that means you're not realizing that that thing is also you which means you're not in the highest truth to be in the highest truth is to be in a state of total non duality in oneness which means that there cannot be anything that you go to or turn to to reflect yourself there cannot be any process of gathering evidence or reason or logic because reason logic and gathering evidence and all proof is already you you are it so if you're not conscious that that is what God is then you ain't conscious that you're God so in fact you are the ultimate authority as God is because you are alone and you are one all authority stems from you all Authority is projected out from you and imagined by you including all authority figures the only way that anything has authority for you as a human right now you're imagining that you're a human is because you have seeded it your authority but you have done so unconsciously in a state of delusion you are not taking responsibility for your true authority as a creator of your entire world life and experience you offload this responsibility onto others because it's way too much responsibility to accept that you are the ultimate and only authority and that you cannot discover truth aside from your own self what I'm saying is that if you say that some source is true or credible you are in fact creating that so very practically in the human realm we've got things like Nobel Prizes phd's doctorate doctorates diplomas credentials none of this has any value or meaning or significance or authority in and of itself other than the authority that you give it so here's how Authority really works you start out life with 100% absolute authority then you unconsciously give that authority to parents teachers adults politicians leaders celebrities scientists people with Nobel Prizes PhDs institutions governments cultures and so on and so forth you make various judgments about who you can trust and who you can't trust and in doing so you are actually projecting your authority in an unconscious way and then denying that that authority came from you so for example you might listen to some Nobel Prize scientists tell you something and then you will say well that that's a very trustworthy person look look at how credible that is he's so truthful what he says must be true and when I tell you are you conscious that you are the one who is giving the truth power to him you will say no because you'll say that no Leo he's a he's a scientist he's very well-respected and he's got a bunch of Nobel Prizes and PhDs and all of this and and the community respects them and science is a credible industry or a credible epistemic process and therefore that's why it's the truth it's not the truth because I say it's the truth Leo it's the truth because it actually is the truth and what I'm telling you is that that's wrong you're wrong what you had to do was first give your own authority to all of these things like the method of science to school to university to Nobel Prizes to all of this you have to give your authority to it and then it gets kind of reflected back at you as though it's being given or rained down upon you it trickles down upon you when really you are the one from whom it trickles see this gets a little bit more obvious when we start talking about religious examples which we'll get to in a second but before we get to that let me give you some more examples so for example all research studies all scientific experiments all data all evidence all interpretations and all analysis is only true if you give it authority and truth what Liat what how can that be possible I mean a scientific experiment demonstrates the truth a mathematical proof demonstrates the truth I'm not projecting the truth into it the truth is there and I'm just discovering it wrong wrong you're not conscious of how you're giving it the truth how you're giving it authority who gets to say whether this particular scientific experiment was valid you do you not the scientist of course the scientists can also say whether it's valid or not he can have an opinion about it but ultimately it's your opinion about it that matters the most because who says whether that scientists opinion of that scientific research study is valid only you can decide that nobody else can decide that who gets to decide what counts as evidence in the end only you who gets to decide whether a particular interpretation or analysis of a situation is correct in the end only you who gets to decide what counts as data only you this is a little bit more obvious in religious examples so for example we've got religions we've got holy books we've got scriptures we've got gurus priests rabbis Imams politicians and kings and in the past these all the politicians and kings and and priests all of this was mixed together now we have a little more separation of church and state than we used to but for thousands of years this was all mixed together and in fact actually science was also mixed into this and philosophy and universities they were all mixed into this universities were religious schools that's what they were originally don't forget that so you see who determines whether a religion is credible and valid you only you you could say only up a weekend we can take measurements and we can scientifically debunk certain aspects of the Bible only if you give your consent to those debunking efforts who determines whether the debunkers are actually valid or not only you which is precisely why if you haven't noticed yet people around the world believe such crazy things there are so many different worldviews and beliefs and religions and scientific theories and conspiracy theories and just political theories just God knows how many ideologies and cults and all this how is any of this possible it's possible precisely because people are not aware that whatever they give their authority to becomes an actual Authority in their life they're imagining it and the reason that's happening is because you have the ultimate authority within you you get to say what's true you might say well leo but but nobody can can deny and contest an obvious truth like that the Sun is shining in the morning when you walk outside no one can deny the existence of the Sun wrong of course you can deny the existence of the Sun you can say that the Sun is a hallucination you could say that you're in a dream right now the Sun is just like a simulation in a matrix for example you're a brain-in-a-vat you're just hallucinating the the Sun there isn't really a Sun all right so see you always have the the last say because in the end who gets to determine what is a hallucination who gets to determine what is reality and fiction who gets to determine what is imagination and what is truth and what is delusion you you and nobody else can do it start to take acceptance of this start to take ownership and responsibility for what you're doing because you've been making this up your whole life and you don't want to admit it here's an example for you that's sort of radical Albert Einstein is a creation of your own mind that you imagined you've never met Albert Einstein you have no idea if you actually lived you're imagining Albert Einstein and as you did so you told yourself that this guy is a really smart important scientist and that he discovered some important truths about physics and therefore he should be looked up to after all he's one of the most genius scientists of all time you imagine that entire story see but in order to pull this off in order to hold Albert Einstein as an authority to cite him as an authority figure for your arguments about reality you had to deny that you actually made him up and made him an authority you have no idea whether Albert Einstein actually advanced truthful ideas you haven't deeply studied Albert Einstein you haven't studied his his theories of general relativity you don't really understand what what he talked about you imagine that you do you believe it you have faith in it and therefore it's an authority for you and you use it to anchor your worldview you see you do this of course not only with Albert Einstein but in a hundred different ways with various scientists religious leaders gurus spiritual teachers parents educators politicians leaders you name it this helps you to create a sense of reality because see why do you do this because if you do this and you're not conscious that you're doing it then what you can do is you can create the illusion of an independent source of truth you can then say oh but I read it in the book and therefore it must be true because I trust that book or you know Albert Einstein wouldn't be lying to me there's no way he could be wrong because he was he was tested you know his theories were tested by other scientists but how do you know that because you read it in a book somewhere because you you listen to it in some YouTube video you see so now you're giving authority to YouTube videos into books but how do you know that that YouTube video or that book that you read in elementary school was correct you don't it's faith we're talking about faith here what I'm saying is that 99% of your entire worldview and everything you believe is held on blind faith but of course you don't like to admit that especially if your scientifically minded you hate to admit this because you want to differentiate yourself from the religious people so you think that you have some leg up on them and that you don't use faith to build your worldview well you're completely deluded in this respect that's what I'm trying to show you in reality there are no sources of truth independent of you you are the ultimate source you divide yourself to create a sense of other and a sense of reality let's take a look at various domains here where this issue of authority comes up welcome tickly at religion science politics and then spirituality so it's easiest to understand this within religion because most people understand that religions are full of dogma and myths and fairy tales and falsehoods this is obvious to most people so of course there's still plenty people in the world probably 50% of people in the world who still don't understand this but but okay those of us who are beyond that we do so what's the classic problem with a religious fundamentalist like a a fundamentalist Muslim or Christian the problem is that you start to argue with them about the existence of God or something and you tell them like well okay so how do you know that God exists and they'll say well because the Bible says so okay but how do you know that the Bible is true well because the Bible is the Word of God but how do you know that it's true that it's the Word of God because God created it but how do you know God created it because the Bible says it so it turns into a vicious circle very quickly and you know those of us who are more scientifically minded we see through that very fast the religious person of course can't see through that because they're locked in their paradigm and they're not understanding that they are the one who are giving authority to this holy book all holy books work this way whether it's the Bible or the Quran or the the Torah or the Vedas or the Bhagavad Gita or anything you might say well Leah but the bhagavad-gita you know this is a classic spiritual text which has been around for thousands of years and it has been validated by the best gurus and teachers around do you see what you just did there you did that and in doing so you gave all those people and that that holy text all of your authority because how do you actually know that the Bhagavad Gita is true and that all of these holy teachers and and traditions were correct you don't know we just assume so you just have faith in it and to have faith in something is identical to saying that you gave it your authority see so a person who has faith in God has given their authority to an image of God in their mind that's all they've done now of course they're gonna deny this and go say no no Leo Leo God has actual authority so I'm actually giving my authority to the proper source which is actual God and what I'm telling you is that no you're full of [ __ ] you're imagining that you're doing that actually you're engaging in idol worship you're not giving true authority to the actual God because the actual God is you not an image in your mind not a belief not some bearded man in the sky nor a holy book you you if you want to give true authority to God realize that you are the ultimate source of all of existence then you'll realize that you are God and then your authority will be placed in the right place but until then you're just playing games you're deluded you're not conscious of what you're doing how about the area of science and universities in academia well here's we're going one step more advanced than religion with religion it was pretty obvious what I just explained to most people but with science just people resist this because they've been so conditioned to think that science is the opposite of religion and now science doesn't rely on faith but actually science has the exact same authority problem as religion atheists are in denial about this they think that well no Leo Authority surely Oh in science we do have authority we have our Nobel Prize winners and PhDs and so forth but that is backed up by empirical evidence and studies so in this respect it's different than religion it's not like just believing in the Pope you know the Pope says something and people just believe that they're the Pope is infallible but a scientist a scientist is fallible and people don't just believe scientists blindly you clearly haven't studied the history of science you have a myth of how science works that's not how science really works science is completely preoccupied with this issue of authority it is the lifeblood of science his authority every scientist devotes his whole career to protecting and defending his integrity and his authority making sure he doesn't make mistakes why is he so careful about this why is he so careful about getting published in the most respected research journals and getting cited the most compared to all of his colleagues why do they care so much about Nobel Prizes and and research grants and working for the most prestigious universities precisely because it's not about the truth it's a status game it's a game for authority it's a social construction the way science works is that you need to build a consensus amongst your peers that means they need to accept your ideas if they don't accept your ideas you're banned from the club of science even if your ideas are true true the second area within science authority and credibility is primary which is why scientists are so obsessed with it in such unhealthy ways and this of course corrupts the endeavor of science and academia and university how do you know that all the stuff in university that you were taught was true did you verify any of it for yourself of course not you verified less than 1% of everything you learn at university and if you go to verify a lot of it you'll discover that it's false but of course you never bother to do it because you just assume that it's not worthwhile to do and that is true actually this problem of believing in the Pope that religion suffers from science suffers from exactly this same problem and if you look at the history of science you'll see this exact same problem this is what Thomas Kuhn talked about in his his famous book revolutions within science and where he coined that the notion of a paradigm go check out my episode called how paradigms work for more on that the other area that's important to cover here is politics now today we've sort of separated politics from religion a lot we've separated politics from philosophy a lot and and we're very cynical about politics these days but in the past hundreds of years ago thousands of years ago politics and government was the ultimate source of authority and it was wedded with religion and with philosophy and even with notions of science and truth all of it was wedded together such that the monarch or the dictator was divinely anointed and his proclamations were the highest authority and truth and people just accepted that and believed it so what changed between that thousands of years ago let's say in ancient Egypt we might imagine or or or even in Europe you know in the medieval times the the kings and monarchs were divinely anointed they were actually the sons of gods sometimes they were even called gods you see so how was that possible back then but it's not possible today no American president can get elected today proclaiming himself to be God isn't that interesting what changed well what changed is that we stopped giving our authority to those people that's what changed and the reason that change was possible was because you or we all of us collectively and you of course individually are responsible for who we give our authority to which person which leader which institution which epistemic system which paradigm which ideology and so on and this is why throughout history you see different cultures you know the pendulum swings from one ideology to another ideology politically religiously and from and in other ways and the reason that is possible is because we have control over what we call authoritative we're projecting the authority into it the authority is not baked into anything is what I'm saying and finally we get to the most trickiest domain which is the problem of authority within within spirituality and non-duality so I specifically separated spirituality from religion because spirituality is more sophisticated it's much more tricky so here's the problem you might have agreed with everything I said up to this point because you fancy yourself you know an intermediate level spiritual practitioner and you've been following various teachers on YouTube you've been self inquiring you've been meditating you've been listening to gurus and so forth and you think you understand what's really going on but you're still deluding yourself because now you've just created new authority figures out of these who is it for you at heart all a have Mooji Rupert Spira Sadhguru you know I can name a list that goes on forever of such people your favorite gurus and teachers and enlightened masters or if it's not individual people that it's its entire schools so maybe for you it's Zen for you as Buddhism for you it's yoga for you it's a Kriya yoga for you it's hatha yoga for you it's some other thing you know for you it's channeling some alien entity for you it's Bashar for you it's um-hmm Christ or Buddha Mahavira osho or some book like I said the Bhagavad Gita or some Zen book or someone you know Patanjali yoga sutras whatever it is all of this is still the same thing you're projecting your authority into your gurus and into your spiritual schools see cuz how do you know that Zen is true how do you know the Buddha was the most enlightened how do you know Christ was was truthful and enlightened you don't know you have no idea it's it's pure speculation and faith on your part and you are not conscious all the while you're doing this you're not conscious that you are imagining that thing or that person and you are creating a false idol and that you are projecting your authority into that person which is precisely the thing which is keeping you from fully awakening to yourself as God how are you gonna awaken to yourself as God when you think that Sadhguru is something that is real and truthful and above you an authority figure above you who knows more than you if you think Sadhguru knows more than you that means you're not conscious that you're God you're not conscious that you're the absolute truth because Sadhguru is one step removed from you being the absolute truth you are the truth the truth not something you know the truth is something you are there can be no intermediary whatsoever between you and the truth no guru only you all gurus are your own imagination you've imagined them all including Christ Buddha and anyone else and if you don't realize this you ain't fully awake and that's precisely the thing that's keeping you from fully awakening you see this goes deep it's very tricky there's a lot of ways in which you deny your own authority is God and the biggest reason you do this is because you want to act humble see it's like awliya but i but what you're saying here is so narcissistic and egotistical i need to worship my guru and i need you know I need to respect my guru coz he knows more than me he has more experience than me as long as you believe that as long as you imagine that you're stuck experience is right here nobody can get you closer to your own experience of existence but you you're in it you're in existence you are existence and yet you're looking for some other human [ __ ] being to tell you that you exist and what you actually are you need some guru to tell you that you're God you need me to tell you that you're God it's a [ __ ] absurdity what you're doing the only one who can tell you that your God is you by [ __ ] realizing that that's what you are not by me telling you common folk fine authority figure is very appealing and of course it all starts with childhood why do we find authority figures so appealing because it creates a sense of objective grounded reality for us when we come into this world we know nothing we understand nothing we're completely lost and helpless and we need somehow to orient ourselves and to start to distinguish truth from falsehood otherwise we [ __ ] die or [ __ ] if we don't do this so we find ourselves immediately upon entry into this world in a very precarious situation we need to start to distinguish truth from fiction quickly to stay alive but in our haste to survive who we of course end up shooting ourselves in the foot because we give our authority to all these other figures who are supposed to help us to survive you know you give your authority to your mom and to your dad when you're young and you sort of just trust that you know your mom and your dad they know more than you they can help you to live in you know dangerous situations you let them handle stuff and then when you get into school you also start to just buy into that idea that well in school the teacher knows more than me and in university the professor knows more than me and at my first job my boss knows more than me and when I'm entering spirituality my guru of course knows more than me there's some truth in that because you do enter the world ignorant but when it comes to the most fundamental truths you can't get those from people you have to get them from your own self because the truth is that all those other people are actually aspects of your own self and so this whole growing up process that we do as children and teens is we create a false sense of security by anchoring our reality into Christianity or Buddhism or science or atheism or philosophy or skepticism or rationality or logic or chasing Nobel Prizes or whatever it might be and this is very appealing because then you don't have to struggle to figure out reality making sense of reality becomes so much easier when you can create a few authority figures who you can just listen to this saves you so much time and energy so much hassle so much frustration it means you don't have to think for yourself it means you don't have to struggle with doubt it means you don't have to self-reflect seriously it means you don't have to really self inquire you don't have to face challenging at existential questions because your culture just gives you all the answers and you just accept them as truth it means you don't have to explore alternative perspectives and ideologies and points of view people find this very appealing especially people in spiral dynamics stage purple red blue and orange each one of them posits its own authority figures so for example sage purple person will will cite the tribe and the tribal culture as the authority figure and tradition heritage sage stage blue people for example will cite their civilization in their ethnicity as the source of ultimate authority and their Bible their holy book and their and their religion stage orange people will will evolve beyond that and they will cite as authority figures mmm reason logic mathematics and science and then you know you can keep evolving beyond all that each time you're ascending and you're transcending these various authority figures until ultimately get to the highest levels and you realize that the only authority figure the entire time has been you taking different forms projecting itself through different forms now let me address one objection here but Leo so do you expect me now to personally verify every little bit of information I mean this is impossible don't I have to rely on experts and authorities and people who know more than me I mean I don't know everything yes you don't know everything and that's exactly what I'm saying you can't verify all information the fact the matter is is that the epistemic situation we find ourselves in as humans is that we're in an unknown world and we have to survive and it's a life-and-death game and we are always dealing with imperfect information highly imperfect information there's much less that we know then that we don't know in all circumstances no matter what we're doing in a relationship in school in science in the laboratory in politics and governments in your family life in your work in your business there's so much you don't know and so you're constantly afraid and so you're looking for a sense of security in and you need information to help you to survive and to be effective and successful in all these different domains so of course it's natural that you turn to books into experts and you need to practically do that for purposes of survival but what I want you to understand is that there's different ways of going about that there's the way that most people do it which is just blindly accepting everything and not doing any serious self-reflection or existential investigation and then there's the other way which is that yes you can use those sources of course of course read books and so forth but there are certain aspects of your understanding of reality which cannot be outsourced to anybody and cannot be trusted to anybody not to the most enlightened guru can you trust this it's your job to figure that part out to verify it and these are the topics of who are you what is the world what is God what is the purpose of life these sorts of big questions these are the ones that you can't just outsource and you can't just go read up in some holy book or get from some scientist or prove with some research study these are the ones you personally need to roll up your sleeves and get involved with see and it's also about a certain attitude that you need to take most people's epistemic attitude towards life is that uh well the truth is just easy to understand whatever is true is just what my culture tells me and there's nothing interesting or radical to discover that kind of arrogant attitude is exactly what I'm trying to steer you away from the proper attitude is one where you are fully appreciative of how little you know and how precarious all of your knowledge is and just how blind and how faith-based all of your beliefs are and how just how precarious your entire worldview is how easily it can crumble house is a house of cards really held together it was snot that's what your worldview is and that the slightest little poke or prod or question asked in the right way will destroy your entire worldview see most people are in denial about that they spend all their time defending the little snot constructed house of cards rather than questioning it seriously which is what we're doing here with actualized org so it's it's a very different epistemic attitude that I'm sharing with you here 99% of people do not think for themselves please notice this I hope you have noticed this in your several decades of living in this life if you've lived to your 20s or 30s by now I hope you have noticed that 99% of people do not think for themselves including you they just blindly accept the thinking of others now there's a little trap here that people fall into when they get into spiritual work in spirituality commonly they're sort of a disparagement of thinking and you might fall into the trap of thing that well thinking is bad I should stop thinking before you go that far first realize the basics the basics is that actually thinking is good what's bad is having others think for you that's what's really dangerous independent critical thinking that's amazing that's great you need more of that before you stop thinking to attain nirvana first start thinking critically for yourself for the first time in your life because you haven't been doing up to this point and in fact most people pursuing nirvana they ain't actually thinking properly they're trying to stop thinking before they learn how to stop how to start thinking what's bad are simplistic linear black-and-white ways of thinking absolutist ways of thinking that's what's truly dangerous 99% of people do not think what they do is they follow they pair it and they eight check yourself isn't it true that 99% of everything you think on a daily basis isn't something that you originally developed or derived for yourself but actually something that you got from following somebody else and then parroting them and aping them isn't that what you're doing with me you're sitting there scribbling your little notes in your notepad trying to write down all the wisdom I give you but in the end all you're doing is you're just parroting and aping me and then you wonder why nothing is changing in your life of course not you think you can take the highest wisdom of the universe and you can just parrot it and ape it and you think you're gonna get the results and benefits of it get the [ __ ] out of here who are you kidding it doesn't work like that you have to work for this wisdom you have to derive it for yourself it has to be totally owned by you look at some case studies here of how people give away their authority so think of the fundamentalist Muslim or Christian think about how they give away their authority to their religion to their priests to their holy books to their various icons and rituals think about how much time and energy they devote to that and that they waste and as they're doing all of that they're overlooking the most obvious thing which is that all that Islam and Christianity is pointing you towards is that you are God you are you don't need to open a [ __ ] Bible you don't need to go to church you don't need to pray you don't need to put on a cross you don't need to do this you don't need to you know pull out your prayer rug five times a day and face Mecca and make pilgrimage and all this you don't need any of that as long as you realize that your God and as long as you don't realize that your God or that your Allah none of that other stuff will substitute for it which is why religious people are actually so evil and practice in theory they're the nicest most loving most spiritual people in practice they're the most closed-minded ignorant deluded ungodlike people that walk the earth isn't that true of course it is how about with and of course they deny it see so if you tell a fundamentalist Muslim a Christian that he is the one who is giving authority to the Bible and to the to the prayer and to the cross and to all these religious symbols he's gonna deny it he's gonna say no Leo it's it's Islam is the one true faith I mean I'm not I'm not doing it it's it is what it is it's you know it's Muhammad and it's all on and it's Jesus Christ you know it's them there it's not it's not me it's them this is how twisted and fucked-up it is his how do you help a person like this how do you save a person like this you can't you can't and the reason you can't save a person like this is precisely because they are God that's the irony of it that's the paradox it's precisely because you are God that if you believe with your full heart that Christianity in Christ is the one true Messiah that will be true for you until such time that you stop believing that and nobody and I mean nobody will be able to disprove you or to convince you otherwise why is that precisely because you are the ultimate authority so whatever you give your ultimate authority to will be that for you whether you realize it or not so the only way that one of these fundamentalist Muslims or Christians will ever discover the mistake that they've been making is through physical death you see they have to physically die to realize that that they were denying that they were God you know it would be nicer if they could figure it out earlier you know they could live a much better life but for many people that's how it is worshipping of icons and deities a lot of people especially in the east in India especially and they love their various deities and icons and avatars that they worship you're imagining all those and you're giving all of those authority and by the way notice anything that you give authority to the only reason you give authority to it is simply because you grew up with it and it was the only alternative that was offered to you which is precisely why if you grew up in the Middle East you will be a Muslim and if you grow up in some Christian nation you will be a Christian and if you grow up in India you will be a Hindu and you will believe it you ain't do what anything sophisticated by being a Muslim or a Christian or Hindu you're being a robot you're being a Sambi you're just doing whatever everyone around you is doing and you don't even explore the alternatives of course there's rare exceptions but for the most part this is how it works now let's move on to science as case studies here let's consider the scientific materialist rationalist atheist reductionist positivist bunch of terms which all describe the same type of person I'm talking about the Sam Harris type of person so this person is equally creating sources of authority there's just a different flavor different flavors they're more scientific they're more rational they're more materialist it's more about citing studies and and so forth but essentially the same [ __ ] is going on you haven't actually verified these studies haven't done these studies you haven't done any serious science you don't even know what science is you pretend to be a champion of science you haven't you haven't bothered to contemplate the nature of science at all you have no idea the epistemology that is at the root of science and so so yeah you're doing the same thing and you're a denial about it of course totally in denial about it how about the skeptic in the D bunker as a case study these are often the same type of people as I was just describing same thing the skeptic and the D bunker has sources of authority that they use for their debunking in their skepticism that's the the twisted perverted irony of modern skepticism go check out my episode called uh true versus false skepticism where I go to that a lot of depth how about the example of the Zen student and his master I've met people like this in real life who are Zen students devoted to their Zen master and they listen to everything a Zen master says and they follow his every word hang on his every word worship Him but they ain't [ __ ] enlightened they don't know that their God it's easy to tell you see they're too busy worshipping the master and following the master to actually question the master seriously so even in what you might think of as the most pure of spiritual schools like Zen it's one of the purest and least corrupt ones this problem is still enormous Lee prevalent the problem of authority and if it's not your Zen master then it's the Buddha you pray to the Buddha or you wish to become the Buddha well actually if you want to become the Buddha that's actually pretty good if you realize that that you can become the Buddha see the problem is that people pursue the Buddha but they still have a there's still a hair of separation so they might think that they can become a Buddha but they don't understand that they are the Buddha you aren't a Buddha you are the [ __ ] Buddha the original Buddha is what you are and if you don't realize that then you ain't enlightened like the Buddha you can actually reach a distinct point in your consciousness will you where you will realize that you are the actual [ __ ] Buddha but how many people have gotten there not very many precisely because they're too busy worshiping the Buddha which is why you know and then they tell you when you meet the Buddha you kill the Buddha that's what that means of course same problem with in yoga and and following various Hindu your gurus it's actually an especially big problem within Hindu spirituality and yoga because for them they especially emphasize the path of devotion to the Guru I'm very critical of this path of devotion to the Guru not because you can never awaken through this process not because you can't gain valuable insights and wisdoms from the Guru of course you can of course you can but it's very dangerous because most people who follow a guru never fully take back their authority especially if you don't just follow and listen to a guru you know there's a distinction between just following a listening guru and then actually devoting yourself to a guru like living with him and like kissing his feet you know some people are into that [ __ ] so it's those people who are following the path of devotion that I'm most worried about like they will never ever fully realize that they are God because for them to do that is to admit that they imagine their own guru how are they going to ever admit that to themselves when they are committed to worshiping his ass it ain't gonna happen so while gurus are our cool people and you can learn a lot from them you can listen to them you can read their books and watch their videos just you know be careful to keep keep a distance and realize that you are giving them your authority how about the case study of an insane psychopath like literally a mentally deranged person who lives in his own reality have you noticed that you can't get through to such a person that person is the lost cause he has to be locked up and you know you have to be careful around him because you might [ __ ] stab you with a fork in the back while you're trying to feed him dinner or something because he's lost in his own reality why can't you get through this person precisely because he's given his own authority to some mental constructions that he's created some psychopathic schizophrenic you know delusional world that he inhabits he's given us so much authority that he's stuck he's paved himself into a mental corner and it's very hard to break through to these people of course it's possible it's possible to always reform somebody but you know some of these people really are like lost causes and the reason that is is because he's God imagining himself to be a psychopath and if God wants to be a psychopath God will be a psychopath full [ __ ] bore like God's not [ __ ] around he'll be a psychopath to the death and then after he dies he'll realize oh yeah I was just pretending to be a psychopath I mean it's hilarious but it's also tragic and brutal at the same time or consider the case study of someone like Alex Jones uh uh really deranged conspiracy theorist you know just listen to him talk listen to way he believes his own [ __ ] you can tell first of all you can tell that he probably has some mental illness but secondly and that's on top of his enormous ego and narcissism and relatively low level spiral dynamics development but uh but you could just tell like he is so committed to giving his sphere conspiracy theories via his own authority as God that they're true for him they're true for him and you're not gonna you're not gonna get through to him he's the lost cause this is why open-mindedness is something that I preach and that is so important because open- is the antidote to getting locked in to the delusions and mesmerism z' of your own mind if you want to discover that you are God you better be very [ __ ] open-minded otherwise you're gonna get hung up on one of these ideologies you're gonna give all your authority way when you give all your authority way how can you recollect it to recollect your authority is to recollect it to recall it to remember what you are that you are the source of the entire universe that you're imagining the whole thing that's what recollection means spiritual it's a spiritual term so what I'm saying is that whatever source you say is credible becomes credible to you whatever worldview you say is credible becomes credible to you whatever you hold reality to be becomes that way for you because you are the creator of all of reality by ceding authority unconsciously to others you paint yourself into a corner in your own mind and you get paradigm locked and then you're unable to reach the highest levels of truth consciousness love and life I want you to notice that all worldviews are viciously circular and self-reinforcing especially those which are based in gross egotism like look for example at what Alex Jones is doing because he's basing his worldview in gross egotism in fear hatred judgment and so forth to low level of consciousness all of his conspiracy theories are viciously circular they reinforce themselves as they must because that's the only way you can construct your own little bubble of reality and that's exactly what the devil does the devil is God constructing a bubble reality within the larger hole of God you see it's like a cancer within the body of God a cancer arises of this sort of runaway effect of just mechanical procreation and proliferation which becomes a sort of a runaway chain reaction effect which ends up destroying the entire system of course you can't really destroy God because God is infinite but you can destroy aspects parts of God like you can destroy the planet you can destroy planet Earth with devilry and that's exactly we're talking about devil right here so devilry in its essence what is devilry devilry is the denial that you are God and that's exactly what the Christian tradition teaches you is that Lucifer is the fallen angel who separated himself from God and said that he wants to he would rather rule in Hell than serve in heaven isn't that what the myth says isn't that what you're doing isn't that what you're doing by projecting your authority onto others to accept that you are God you would have to start to serve God which is what you're terrified of because you want your own egoic self agenda to be the thing that's being served which is why you don't want to accept that you're a god because if you accept it and realize that your god your whole life would change much of your devilry would be expunged in the light of God because you would take back responsibility you would walk delicately on the grass making sure that you don't injure every blade of grass and flour that's growing there because you're conscious you're so conscious that it's all you that you created it it's your creation you love it see but you don't want that you want to just [ __ ] [ __ ] around like a devil Trane's around like a devil and be oblivious to your own creation other than what serves you as little human being so here are some action steps for taking back your authority first realize that all authority must come from you it all flows from you so try to actually trace back all the authority figures that you believe in trace them all back to you whether it's a scientific study or a PhD or some government official or some religious leader trace it back to you actually trace back in your own past go through your memories and try to remember those moments in your life in your childhood in your youth where you gave your authority unwittingly to these different sources because you did do that secondly become conscious of how you see your authority to others what I mean by this is not just in the abstract I mean on a daily basis you're giving your authority to various teachers and people in books and leaders and so forth you have to keep being conscious of it not just once but like over and over and over again every week every month until you start to really accept it see for what it is thirdly take responsibility and ownership of this whole process you're doing it fourthly start thinking for yourself start deriving your own answers and conclusions rather than asking me or somebody else for the answers fifthly take responsibility for delivering yourself to the truth don't expect anyone to give you the truth it's your job to discover the truth only you can discover the truth understand this nobody and nothing can prove the truth to you because the truth is what you are discovering the truth is your life's work don't you dare try to outsource this to anybody else not even to a truth realized guru especially not true a truth realized guru and lastly get to a point in your life where you actually directly become conscious that you're a god this is very important because everything I said here you will not be able to implement and actualize until the day that you actually finally discover that you are God not as something that I said not as a belief not as a theory not as a speculation but as the absolute truth you need to have that moment of Epiphany to master your life you must figure it out for yourself books videos audios teachings are nice but they will never be able to do the work for you at some point you must cut the umbilical cord and you must go into a free fall into a state of groundlessness where you feel completely lost and alone and here you might start to feel like you're going insane like you're losing your grip on reality it might seem to you like you don't know what what's real anymore that's exactly where you need to go expect that that's where you will go you will reach that point and in the end once you bust through even that in the end you will finally realize that you are God you have always been God there is nothing but you here there is no other I have always been you I am just a projection of you and no one will be able to validate any of this for you do not look to me do not look to your guru do not look to a book to validate that you are God if you are looking for validation that you are God you're still not conscious that your gut only God can know fully that it is God because it's the only thing that's here and because it's infinite it needs infinite consciousness and intelligence to realize this by looking for external validation you are not tapping into infinite consciousness and intelligence you are actually mesmerized by your imagination of an other and you are unconsciously projecting your authority into that other such that external validation is even possible when you are fully in a non dual absolute truth God consciousness state there will be no possibility of external validation because internal and external will cease to exist and proof will be a laughable notion evidence science all of these will be fictions and imaginations utter silliness you will laugh at ever having taken them seriously your knowledge of yourself will be self-illuminating self knowing self validating absolute you will have absolute self knowledge absolute self understanding total omniscience because the truth is that there's nothing external to you and it will feel like you're inside of a black hole you will feel all alone and it will be simultaneously the greatest thing you've ever discovered the most beautiful truth that could ever be shared and in that moment you will also realize the tragedy that it can never be shared with anyone because you're all alone and all others are just something you imagine and in the end the whole world may tell you that you've gone crazy but you need to be so deeply conscious and grounded in the truth that that doesn't faze you at all because you know what you are now if you don't fully take back your own authority you will then compromise with ignorance you will look for others to validate you and you will not be stable II grounded in the absolute and you will be compromising with Devils remember that truth is not a popular consensus truth is not the midpoint of all opinions truth is what you are you must come to your own conclusions and yet at the same time I must warn you that you must also be open to constructive feedback and you must be willing to reevaluate your beliefs and ideas and worldviews and you must still turn to experts for outside perspective not so that they can validate you but just because they can expose you to new ways of looking at the world you need to be conscious that even though yes you are God you still have blind spots you might wonder well Leo how can God have blind spots isn't this a contradiction no it's not a contradiction God contains all limitations within it and it's precisely because God's mental power the power of imagination is so infinite that it can trap itself into various corners and dead ends as it constructs this infinite labyrinth of reality and it explores all these different dreams and nightmares and delusions so God can delude itself which is precisely where you find yourself right now you are God deluded so just remember that others can help you to see your blind spots so in this sense others are important even though others are you others can show you new ways of looking at the world that you never even thought were possible so there is value in relationship there is value in learning from experts and teachers and gurus and there is value you know falling in love with somebody and having them show you know a new way of looking at the world their way of looking at the world there is value in exploring different religions and Sciences and different epistemic schemes and different paradigms so this is all in line with what I was telling you about open-mindedness make sure you keep yourself open because just because you are God doesn't mean you can't be a [ __ ] up at the same time doesn't mean you can't be arrogant doesn't mean you can't be closed-minded doesn't mean you can't make mistakes doesn't mean you can't be wrong also don't misunderstand me I'm not telling you that other is somehow bad or wrong or inherently untrustworthy I'm making a meta point here I'm trying to point you to the fact that author is you realize that other is you so I'm not telling you to distrust all others that would be a mistake to interpret what I'm saying that way also understand that society is built upon false Authority Authority is very useful for survival it gets you power money fame and sex which are basically all of your most basic survival needs so there is enormous survival pressures upon people and institutions to create and erect erect false fronts of authority and to hoard Authority and to play various manipulative political games to place themselves on top of the hierarchy so that they are the authority figure because if you can if you can appear as an authority figure within society and get a bunch of people to believe you man you've got your survival taken care of you're gonna have all your sex needs taken care of all your financial needs and basically anything else you want will come from that so this is the game that mankind has been playing for thousands of years this is a very dangerous game leads to a lot of suffering and unnecessary war and violence and so forth so this problem of authority that we've been talking about contributes to self-deception it's one of the self deception mechanisms that I talked about in my three-part miniseries called self assumption mechanisms so go check that out if you haven't already it's one of my most powerful series you can deceive yourself by placing authority in religion holy books sighs or any other thing but you can also deceive yourself by placing authority too much and exclusively within your self now here's where total tricky because now I'm talking about the ego self see there's a difference between placing authority within you as God versus you as the human ego so a lot of Devils will misuse this whole conversation here and they will say this to themselves it was aa leave so Leo's saying I don't need to trust anybody all those gurus are all full of [ __ ] all experts are [ __ ] I'm I'm the ultimate authority that means that whatever I believe is true and all about conspiracy theories I knew they were right I knew they were true and then you just go off on that and then you become an Alex Jones figure if you do that you see so I'm not telling you to do that be careful placing authority in your ego is one of the worst things you can do that's even more dangerous than placing authority in some guru so this is where it's tricky and there's no easy way to determine you know what is ego and what is God that's tricky it'll take you years of practice to be able to distinguish those two if you want a simple rule of thumb God is your highest feeling of love and ego is your fear judgment and hatred so that's a little simple rule for you it's a very good rule but even with love you can easily deceive yourself a lot of times the ego will co-opt love and it will think that it's actually following the love of God when actually it just being egotistical and wrapping yourself in a cloak of love which is conditional and sort of quasi spiritual but not actual genuine divine love so be careful with that see my episode what is love for more on that love is the deep topic there's many ways that you can deceive yourself with love so yeah so be careful be careful with where you place your authority don't place it in others but also don't place it in your ego otherwise you're gonna become an ideologue or a cult leader or a psychopath or some unn self-reflective narcissist you know some Trump like figure that's what happens when you place ultimate authority in your own ego you get Donald Trump so don't do that so yes you are God talking to yourself right now but also be careful because even though you are God talking to yourself that doesn't mean that everything coming out of your mouth is valid the point is that God can dilute itself not only can it that's mostly what it does when it's in human form so be careful just because every guru is God and you talking to yourself doesn't mean that every guru is telling you valid things so make sure that you cross-reference different gurus cross-reference high-quality sources this is one of my most important sort of secret methods that I use to make sure that I don't delude myself is that I study literally hundreds of diverse sources which helped me to spot my own blind spots and even then I'm I'm still fallible I still make mistakes there can be no foolproof formula for arriving at the truth because consciousness of a vast infinite thing and there are so many ways that it can trick itself and get wrapped up in itself various vortices of delusion that occur within consciousness so watch out you must always stay vigilant against self-deception and that's what I'll leave you with all right if you liked the video make sure you click the like button for me that helps out spreads the message and come check out actualize that work that's my website you'll find my blog there you'll find my book list speaking of high quality sources over 200 of some of the best books that I've ever read compiled for you and reviewed the life purpose course and the forum and that the last thing I'll say is this you might wonder you probably have watching all these videos Leo do you ever doubt yourself what if you're deluded Leo what if all of actualized Org is just one giant delusion and you're misleading yourself and all these other people all of your talk about God what if this is just a cult yeah how do you explain that it's nobody there's just no way to communicate it you see I've become conscious that I'm God and I become conscious that everything is my own creation and so I've taken back my full authority and from your point of view I look like a deluded psychopath or a narcissistic cult leader for for saying this but the irony of it is that it's the absolute truth but you'll never know because I'm speaking to you from inside the black hole that you have not yet entered when you enter this black hole for yourself you will discover exactly what I told you but of course at that precise moment you will also discover that I'm imaginary and that there's only you and that now you will find yourself in the exact same position where I was speaking from where you have access to the absolute truth you know for a 100% certainty that you are God and that you have invented everything and that you are the only source of authority in the universe and that there's nobody else you can turn to you will know that and you will want to share this truth with other people but you'll realize that you can't and then you'll understand my position and that's the twisted beauty and paradox of reality that is infinite consciousness you