Word count:5953
hey this is Leo for actualised org and in this episode I'm going to be talking about a very important concept that I call radical open-mindedness I'm going to take you through a live exercise to open up your mind and show you how to break free of dogma right off the bat I need to give you a warning this is an advanced episode for very open-minded people and it's going to be extremely threatening to you to most of you but nevertheless let's begin I want you to think about the following analogy think about this you are an adult and you got mercury fillings in your teeth when you were younger and now you've been living with these mercury fillings for the last 30 or 40 years and what you now discover and what they've discovered is that mercury fillings actually leak mercury into your body and slowly poison and toxify your body so you discover this and now you're in kind of a bind because now what you do need to go to the dentist you need to go through a expensive troublesome very serious procedure where they have to go and rip out all the fillings very carefully and delicately and expertly from your teeth to get out the mercury without getting the mercury leaking even more into your tissues and this is a scary procedure to go through it's a big decision to make and if you get all these toxins out of your teeth put in ordinary fillings ceramic fillings and finally you can be healthy and get rid of all the toxicity that's in your body so this is actually something that happens to people nowadays if you were unfortunate enough to get mercury fillings this is something that you might want to consider but the analogy here is that the same thing has actually happened with your mind but you don't really know it and I'm going to make you aware of it right now see what's happened is that just like mercury fillings society without you knowing it as you were growing up has clogged up your mind with a bond with a bunch of beliefs dogmas and theories about how the world works which are now severely limiting what's possible for you in your personal development it's limiting you in your career it's limiting you in your relationships it's limiting you in what you think you can accomplish in life and most importantly is that it's limiting you from doing the most advanced personal development work that's possible which is spiritual work and what I call enlightenment work here's something you got to really understand is a degree the degree to which your mind is open is the degree to which you have true freedom in your life and most people's minds are not open you don't even have a clue yet what true open mindedness really means and this is another example here common theme that I'm outlining in much of my material of a counterintuitive move that needs to be made in personal development what's the counter to to move here well what most people try to do is they try to no they go through life acquiring knowing or knowledge and they try to become more and more certain as they get older the counterintuitive move and if you really want to advance far in your development you have to make this move is to let go of knowing and to get into a true state of not knowing profound not knowing this is a very special state that almost nobody talks about that almost nobody knows about and it's extremely counterintuitive you might wonder well Leo why would I want to not know not knowing seems to be like a weak state knowing is the strong state I want to convince you and open up your mind to the possibility that actually not knowing is an extremely powerful state and we're going to do that here with a really in-depth live exercise the rare thing is to find people who truly don't know because what happens that people think they know but actually they don't know and what happens that they fool themselves with a false certainty religious people do this rational people do this scientifically minded people do this everybody almost everybody does this you need to really work deep on yourself you need to go in there and extract all the [ __ ] from your mind just like those mercury fillings before you can truly get into a state of not knowing a state of true not knowing is extremely rare and it's very difficult and also very threatening and scary to stay in that state for some very profound reasons which perhaps I'll get into as we go on I had a really profound experience this summer where I really tapped into a state of true not knowing and there's a big difference between not knowing simply as a language game like paying lip service and just saying oh yeah I don't know there's like oh yeah I'm kind of skeptical yeah I I leave some room open to my mind for some new possibility that's fake not knowing then there's actual not knowing a state that you've probably never experienced in your life but you actually sit there and you really don't know things that most people think they know for example you don't know what reality is you don't know what existence is you don't know how the world works you don't know what life is you don't know what other person is you question who you are to such a profound level like what happened with me is that your sense of identity actually dissolves and you can have profile own mystical transforming experiences enlightenment experiences when you get into this deep state of not knowing it's a very powerful and very profound state so you might wonder why do we why do we want to open ourselves up wealth for one thing this is very very helpful if you're trying to do any kind of enlightenment work if you're doing any self inquiry work true not knowing is extremely powerful also with this radical open-mindedness it frees you up frees up your mind from concepts beliefs and dogmas that really hold you back in life hold you back from going out there and cheating your full potential finding your authentic self in life pursuing your life purpose and understanding reality at very profound levels very very profound levels and lastly it really opens you up to some very advanced work very advanced work and as I go on with actualize that we're going to release more content I'll be covering much more advanced topics and to even listen and even comprehend some of the topics I'll be talking about you're going to need a radical degree of open-mindedness so I wanted what I want to do here is I want to take you through a guided visualization it's going to be a bit long it's going to be maybe about 20 minutes long or so so what I want you to do is I want you to prepare yourself get involved here actually take this concept and this material very seriously because it's very serious this is a very very important topic it seems kind of esoteric and abstract and philosophical it's very practical you're going to start to see the benefits of this after you go through it so go ahead and take a comfortable seat sit with your back up straight put yourself into a comfortable relaxed position and we're going to get going what I want you to do is I want you to close your eyes ideally throughout the next 20 minutes or so as I take you through point by point the various things I'm going to want you to think about and imagine and I want you to really get into it and take the things I say seriously they will have a transformative effect on your mind if you do alright so go ahead and get ready and close your eyes what I'd like you to do is to get first of all into the present moment and the way that you can do that is by getting in touch with the direct experiences that are happening to you right now get in touch with what you're seeing with your eyes closed get in touch with the feelings and sensations in your body and with the sounds that you're hearing including the sound of my voice get very present to what's going on in your body right now take a nice deep breath in and as you exhale relax your body and get even more into the present moment and focus your attention on the sound of my voice good keep breathing at a relaxed pace and open your mind to some of these new possibilities that I'm going to present to you the first thing I want you to do is to acknowledge to yourself then 99% of your knowledge and all the things you think you know about life and how the world works and is structured is second-hand knowledge this means that this is knowledge that you did not directly experience in any way and that you take completely on faith from other human beings through word of mouth and what's called hearsay in a court of law we would call this hearsay evidence what are some examples let me list and I want you to really acknowledge to yourself as I run down this list that you take these things completely on faith first is that the earth is round you actually have no direct experience of this you take this completely on faith that viruses cause diseases the big bang theory that matter is composed of subatomic particles evolution that organisms evolved and species morph this is something you take on here say that the earth is four billion years old whatever you might think that Jesus said or the Buddha said or Mohammad said or any other prophet or sage has said all of this you don't know that they actually said you don't actually know what these individuals said you don't even know if these individuals truly existed acknowledge that to yourself right now acknowledge to yourself that you don't know if you are your parents biological child unless you've done DNA testing you don't actually know this acknowledge yourself that you may not be related to your brother or sister you don't really know if you're related to them in fact interesting experience about a year ago where after 30 years my mom finally told and she called me up on the phone one day and she just said oh you know by the way your brother your brother is actually only your half-brother blew my mind blew my mind it was kind of a Lika Luke I am your father type of moment completely blew my mind I had no idea that he was it my full brother so acknowledge yourself these possibilities and many more but this is the list that we'll start with good keep present and keep your eyes closed and we'll keep going there's a lot of other stuff I want you to acknowledge and to ponder acknowledge that you picture reality using models which you yourself actually know are not correct what do I mean by this here's some examples in chemistry we think of molecules as the ball and stick models that were shown but this is not what chemicals actually are but you when you actually think about chemicals you think of them as ball and stick models most likely this is a model of reality which is actually false and we know it's false but nevertheless this is how you view reality here's another example you think of atoms as orbiting tiny particles even though you probably know that atoms are not actually particles their probability fields yet you still think of them as tiny little round particles another example is that planets you think of planets as being perfectly round when you think of the earth or you think about the moon or you think about Mars you think of them as spheres but in fact a planet is not a sphere it's it optical and even then it's not a perfect ellipse because it's got mountains it's got terrain so when you think of it as a sphere that's a that's an approximation a model that you have but you know if you look closely that this model is not accurate here's another example you think of time is absolute even though we know better we know the time is relativistic when you look out at the sunset you think of the Sun as setting and orbiting the Earth you don't think of the earth as rotating you think of the Sun as moving through the sky you think that the Sun is orbiting the Earth even though you know this isn't true yet this shapes your world view this shapes how you actually see reality when you sit in a chair and you're perfectly motionless you actually believe for a moment that your body is in perfect stillness and is motionless but in fact we know better we know that the body is attached to the planet and the planet is rotating at some ridiculously high speed thousands of miles per second and that the solar system is rotating even faster in the galaxy so your body even though it seems motionless and you think you're sitting still is actually moving at perhaps hundreds of thousands of miles per second yet you actually sit there believing that you're motionless when an object follows to the floor you think of the object is falling down even though we know that there is no such thing as up and down the object is falling towards the center of the earth it's not falling down but you don't think of it that way if we put you in a room and we somehow positioned you upside down in that room you would think that you're upside down in a room and you would want to become right-side up this would be a very real phenomenon for you'd really want to be on right-side up even though you know if you're very careful that there's no such thing as right side up or upside down these are just local coordinate conventions that we've adopted on earth in space there's no such thing when you look out into the night sky and you marvel at the Stars you think the Stars actually exist like they're physical objects out right now in space somewhere even though you know better if you're very careful you know that it takes millions of years for light to travel these vast distances between the earth and the Stars you're looking at in fact it takes so long that most of those stars that you're looking at don't even exist anymore they've exploded there's nothing there and yet you believe when you're looking up in the night sky that they're actually stars out there beyond which you actually think that the stars or stars would in fact when you look at a star very likely what you're looking at is you're looking at a galaxy and not a star you think of it as a star but actually it's a galaxy that contains millions or billions of other stars but you don't acknowledge this to yourself when you're looking at the night sky even though you know better so what I want you to acknowledge here is that you have a model of reality even if you think it's very scientific and accurate and that this model is complete fiction as these examples show now what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to recall how many times people have been wrong throughout history if you're a student of history there's a long track record of ridiculous errors that humanity is made there's a trend here here's some basic examples the earth is flat just a few thousand years ago most people believed that this was the case that the earth is at the center of the universe five hundred years ago most people believe that this is the case the witch trials that were held in Europe and in North America just hundreds of years ago and how silly and misguided they look now these wish trials that blacks are less intelligent than whites how silly does that look now when just two or three hundred years ago that was considered common knowledge Euclidean versus non Euclidean geometry if you've studied this topic then you know how long scientists were about some principles in Euclidean geometry and the discovery of non Euclidean geometry time is being absolute just four hundred years ago we actually believe that time was absolute Newton believed it now we know that's not the case just several hundred years ago scientists actually believed that moving faster than 50 miles per hour would make the human body explode this was during the railroad era when railroad trains were starting to go faster and faster people were afraid to get on those fast railroads because they didn't know if the human body could handle that kind of velocity seems laughable now but this was a real concern for scientists back then just a couple hundred years ago people believed that lifting over 500 pounds for human beings impossible they believed that it was a biological limit of the human body that he could not lift over 500 pounds until that record was broken just a hundred years ago it was believed that communication through air wireless communication is impossible in fact the inventor of wireless communication the radio Marconi he was nearly put into an asain asylum when he announced that he discovered radio wave communication just 100 years ago it was believed that flight was impossible just 20 or 30 years ago it was believed that human that computers would never be able to beat man at playing chess just sixty or seventy years ago it was believed that the four-minute mile was impossible and just ten years ago it was believed by many people that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction so I want you to think about this is just a tiny list the tip of the iceberg I want you to really acknowledge that humanity has made many blunders in its knowledge of how reality works and what truth is this trend I want you to use this trend to open your mind at the possibility that there could still be other things right now that you hold is true which are actually false that you could be very certain about something but nevertheless it can be false and you might never know about it open your mind to that possibility good stay with me let's keep going keep your eyes closed stay in the present moment I want you to acknowledge now that the culture you grew up in has imprinted your mind with norms and values and beliefs of which you are unconscious imagine for example if you were born in the Middle East what kind of values and beliefs would you have how would you look at the world differently how would your religious views be different how would your political views be different how would your views about women be different or homosexuality or drinking alcohol really imagine that and then imagine if you were born in an African tribe if you grew up in an African tribe with no technology no modern schooling if you live in a tribe of 50 people out in the wilderness in a hut and you hunted gazelles and lions with spears and bows and arrows and you were married to your cousin or to your sister imagine how different your values would be imagine how different your knowledge of the world would be how different your world view would be if you were raised in an African tribe now imagine that you were born in North Korea and you've never been outside of North Korea in your entire life imagine what you would believe about government how your views of history and philosophy and science and religion would be different imagine how your world view would be different imagine how radically different your values and your lifestyle would be now imagine if you were born 10,000 years ago in Aboriginal Australia you are an Aborigine living in Australia ten thousand years ago before the advent of Agriculture think about what you would believe about reality how was your worldview be different than it is right now how would your values be different how would your political leanings be different how would your religion be different what would you think life in the world actually are if you were an Aboriginal living in Australia ten thousand years ago how would you relate differently to people and now imagine and I'm just going to assume here that you're a westerner and perhaps you have Christian leanings now imagine if you're a Christian now let's say imagine what it would be like to be a Christian in Europe 1,000 years ago think about how radically different your beliefs and values would be even though you're still a Christian and you're still let's say a white European if you are one now how radically different it would be if you lived a thousand years ago in Christian Europe in the medieval times in the Middle Ages Christianity 1000 years ago was completely different than Christianity today completely different think about how differently you would approach your family politics abortion homosexuality your worldview the Bible other religions all of these attitudes would be completely different 1000 years ago even if you were still a Christian good what I really want you to acknowledge right now from pondering some of these examples is that the culture and society and time in which you grow up shapes your values and worldview in profoundly radical ways and you are generally completely unconscious of this influence in your life you do not normally acknowledge it but acknowledge it now and especially acknowledge that you have no say and no control over this factor what culture what country you grew up in what political system you're growing up under what family structure you're growing up under what time in human civilization you're alive in these are all factors outside of your control and yet they profoundly influence what you believe and how you see the world your entire understanding of life and reality is wedded to your culture good now I want to take you through some other considerations I'm going to pose some questions to you and I really want you to think deeply about these questions stay in the present moment keep your eyes closed and really open your mind to some of these possibilities firstly think about this is it likely that mainstream culture society and science might be biased might they have a political bias a financial bias and ego bias and just flat-out ignorant or groupthink bias is that likely answer to yourself in your own mind yes or no and also consider the ramifications of your answer next consider the following have you ever clung to a position in an argument or a debate even after you realized that you were wrong think of a time in your life where this happened to you next have you ever been completely certain about something but later you found out that you were wrong like you were really sure it was true but then a few years later you found out you were wrong you were so certain it couldn't be wrong at all but still you found out you were wrong think of a time when that habit in your life you can probably think of one next think about this is it likely that out of all the beliefs that you hold some of them might be wrong answer yes or no in your own mind next have you ever used logic to reason out a sound conclusion only later to discover that it was nevertheless wrong due to a false premise next is it likely that other individuals including yourself might hold an egotistical self agenda which skews how you see and interpret the world is that likely yes or no have you noticed before your own egotistical self agenda in dealing with people and in acquiring knowledge next I want you to bring to mind someone you've known personally who was completely certain about something but it was obvious to you that this person was wrong in their belief and now can you see that you yourself might also easily fall into this exact same trap acknowledge to yourself next that no matter how certain you feel that you are about a opinion or a belief you hold you could be in error and think about the ramifications of that next acknowledge that the mind has a tendency to deceive and to lie to itself are you aware of this are you aware that you deceive yourself and that you would lie to yourself acknowledge that you do also acknowledge to yourself that valid logic by itself proves nothing because a valid conclusion requires valid premises how often do you tout valid logic as justifying your beliefs are you acknowledging that your logic could be valid but your premises could still be invalid therefore your conclusion is invalid and now we're going to go really deep what all this is leading up to I want you to acknowledge that you can be mistaken about the most fundamental aspects of reality you can be mistaken about time-space existence cosmology religion God and even who you think you are as a identity all these most fundamental things that we think we know about reality that all these and especially these we can be wrong about open your mind to that possibility like really open your mind to that possibility also acknowledged that there's no reason why the human intuition should be correct about things like time-space existence cosmology God religion or even your notion of self that our intuition to be completely wrong about these things because our intuition wasn't designed to understand these things acknowledge that is a real possibility acknowledge that the biggest likelihood for self-deception occurs when you ignore the possibility of self-deception occurring really think about this the biggest likelihood for self-deception occurs when you ignore the possibility of self-deception occurring most people ignore the possibility that they are deceiving themselves also acknowledged that when you don't know something you don't know that you don't know it that's a bit mind-boggling let me say it again really think this through when you don't know something you don't know that you don't know it which means that you can be totally absolutely certain that you know it and still be wrong and lastly for those of you who have done self inquiry work or what I call enlightenment work if you try to look into the true nature of your own being and who you are if you've done that kind of work then I want you to acknowledge right now that you haven't been able to locate yourself and that you don't actually know who or what you are as an entity or as a being good so those are all the things I wanted you to ponder what should have happened as you were entertaining all these possibilities is that your mind should have been opening and a state of not-knowing should have been dawning on you and all your beliefs about how the world is and what is right and what is wrong and what is God and what is religion what's right and what's not right who's deluded who's deceived and so on and so forth all of these should have been shattered because the fact is that you don't know these things yet you go around pretending like you do and it doesn't matter whether you're religious or spiritual or scientific or logical or philosophical or intellectual it doesn't matter you do this you deceive yourself with a false sense of certainty so what I want you to do here is I want you to really acknowledge the deep ramifications of what we've gone through here this is some very deep stuff we're talking about we're basically questioning and undermining your entire worldview and all of your beliefs about life what I'm saying here is not light stuff I'm saying some heavy stuff here I'm basically trying to get you to agree with me that you could be deeply mistaken about all of this and also that you lied to yourself about the degree of certainty you have about this stuff what's true what's really true of yourself honest is that you're not really certain about these things but you pretend like you are and the more uncertain you are the more you're going to fight and defeat and your position and the more you're going to cling to your dogmas okay go ahead and open your eyes good welcome back so that's it those are some of the things I wanted you to think about now let me conclude by just saying some last words about what you should do with some of these ideas that presented to you here what do you do about this how do you actually use this radical open-mindedness and how do you take it further because we've just only shown you the tip of the iceberg here the first thing I want you to do is I want you to actually take time to deeply ponder all of these things that I told you re watch this episode over and over and over again and really think about each one of these points you could spend dozens of hours thinking about every single point I went through here and you would not even get one percent of how deep some of these ideas are you could spend years thinking about all this stuff and it would be very valuable for you to do so so start doing that think about it on your way to work in the car think about it when you're in your shower instead of thinking about all the petty [ __ ] you usually think about really ponder these points soak in the ramifications of some of these ideas secondly I want you to notice yourself trying to convince others of your beliefs and your dogmas notice when you do it become conscious of this because you do do it you do it at work you do with your friends you do it at the dinner table you do it with politics you do it with religion you're doing with everything just notice that you do that I also want you to notice that being in a state of not knowing or having no beliefs whatsoever is empowering it's very deeply powering it doesn't seem like it's going to be empowering when you first start but when you actually get them you get a taste of true not knowing it's very empowering and very liberating not having to replace your old belief with any other beliefs I want you to notice that true not knowing is not another belief it's not another position it's not another world view I'm not trying to get you to become a nihilist here or to become a cynic or a chronic skeptic those are all again positions and world views instead what I'm asking you to do is to basically hold no beliefs and not try to fill that void with any new beliefs or perspectives you're actually just sitting there totally open to any possibility without a preference for one possibility versus another without trying to make it come out this way or that way without having it be any way at all you're basically completely grounded in the present moment and the last thing I want you to start doing is I want you to start wondering why you cling to beliefs why do you cling to your beliefs so much what's going on there why are you so neurotic in the way that you defend your beliefs why are you so resistant to some of the things that I've introduced to you why do you have emotional reactions when people question your beliefs can you notice that it's neurotic and unhealthy psychologically unhealthy there's something very deep going on there I want you to just become curious about that like hmm what's going on there maybe I should investigate further and get to the bottom of it at one point my life okay good I hope you've enjoyed this taste of radical open-mindedness keep going with it what's going to have is that your mind is going to expand and open and then it's going to close back down then you're gonna have to push and push and push to open it up again and then again it's going to close back down and you have to push again to open it up and this will be a UH something that you have to keep working on over and over and over and over again in your life to get to a state where you can entertain some of the most deep personal development work principles that I want to share with you in the future so I hope you take this stuff seriously this is not just idle philosophy this will have a profound transformational effect on your life and if you keep going with it what I'll do is it'll lead to complete freedom and liberation this is this is an amazing thing liberation freedom of your mind in a jailbreak your mind you can experience profound mystical States and you can discover the truth of your own being other people's being and the nature of existence itself this truth is not going to be another belief or another position it's going to be something else totally entirely different so keep your mind open for that and stay tuned for more all right this is Leo I'm signing off go ahead post me comments down below please click the like button and like this video share it with a friend and finally come check out actualize that word right here it's my website I have a free newsletter a bunch of other good stuff I release new videos on self actualization topics as I go forward I will be releasing more in depth philosophical type topics that really make you wonder and question your entire worldview and what we're going to do is we're gonna basically reprogram your mind from the bottom up and I'm going to pull out all those mercury fillings and completely free you up to pursue some really amazing things I'm really excited about that so sign up stay with me and I'll see soon you