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hey this is Leo for actualised org and in this video I'm going to be talking about spiritual enlightenment part 2 where we're going to go deep on understanding the truth of no self in this video we're continuing on talking about spiritual alignment if you did not watch my first video called spiritual alignment you should definitely go and watch that because that introduces you to a lot of the fundamental concepts which I won't be going into here here we're going deeper and deeper and where we left part one is that we basically were talking about the truth of no self and we were saying that this notion that we have in society that there is a self to a life the self that experiences all of life that this does not exist that this is in fact a illusion and that it's possible to extract yourself out from this illusion and actually then live in the truth and that this is a very profound shift the most profound shift that you can have as a human being this is where the deepest most powerful psychology work happens is right here and we also said in that video that you're gonna be doing a empirical investigation to discover this truth for yourself you're not just going to go and believe in it so now what I want to do is I want to help you to actually start doing the looking and before you can even start doing the looking you have to start to understand some basic distinctions so this video is going to be all about laying the groundwork and some very interesting and fascinating distinctions is going to go very very deep this is going to blow your mind some of this stuff so stick around there's three fundamental questions that we are concerned with in doing this investigation question number one is Who am I question number two is what is the truth and question number three is what is reality or another word for reality is existence so what is reality what is existence these are the three most fundamental metaphysical kind of questions that you could possibly ask and scientists and philosophers have been asking these questions for thousands of years and they've been coming up with all sorts of interesting answers and having all sorts of interesting debates but there's actually something that's very very profound that many of them missed which is that their theories and their debates are not the fact and that in fact it's possible to answer these questions conclusively through an empirical investigation which many people assume cannot be done now you might think about well Leo the question Who am I I know what that is that's pretty obvious right is it obvious on this thing here on this body I'm this being I'm this consciousness well let's take a look at that question is it really that obvious have you actually sat down and looked really looked for the answer to that question or do you just believe what others told you or do you just have your own opinions about who you think you should be that turns out to be very critical distinction what you have right now is you have a lot of opinions you have a lot of beliefs and you have a lot of stories that other people have told you but you have not actually sat down and looked and the reason you haven't is because you've assumed and all of us have assumed that all well it's obvious I mean it's so obvious we wouldn't why would we even need to sit down and look why would I waste my time on this but interestingly it turns out that it's not obvious at all and this veneer of obviousness is actually hiding something very powerful and deep and profound the most profound truth that you can find out as a human being it's hidden under many many layers of obviousness obvious turns out to be a smokescreen so let's start to look a little bit deeper and question some of this obvious news so if we take your current beliefs that you are the body this thing standing here talking or sitting on the other on the other end of the screen that's what conventionally we consider ourselves so if this is me you got to wonder okay so let's really think about this so my hand right this is me too right so my hand and all this basically everything inside the envelope of the skin is me okay so that means that what what happens if I take my hand and I cut off my fingers am I still me and you think about your like well I don't really I dunno I mean yeah I can lose my fingers and people have lost their fingers they're still themselves nothing really fundamental about me is going to change if I lose my fingers okay so um interesting well what if I cut off my arms and my legs would I still be me and you think about really hmm well people have actually had amputations and they still seem to be themselves so I know I'd still be me if I lost all those so then the fundamental me that I think that I am isn't contained within the hands or the legs interesting okay then you ask yourself well what if I got a heart transplant and on somebody somebody else's heart went into my heart what I still be me and you think about your like mmm yeah actually I would still probably be me so then you start wondering well what would have to really change to change the fundamental mean not the superficial me but the fundamental mean I would have to change to change that and you say well I'm the mind I'm inside the head I'm sitting here behind the eyes my thoughts my mind my mental uh activities that's what's really mean more so than the interesting interesting so even right now just through the simple investigation we've already basically dis identified you with most of your body commonly you say oh I'm the body but are you really the body we've already had this identified you with a lot of the body only the mind now when we get into the mind we can question even further so the mind what part of the mind are you what if we cut part of your brain out are you still going to be yourself now you might wonder and say well I'm not quite so sure not so clear to say if you cut out enough my brain I probably won't be myself anymore maybe I'll lose a part of myself interesting but then even inside the brain and really we're talking about the mind because you don't know the brain you only know the mind you know kind of the software components what you know through your consciousness so now from within your mind you're looking around and what are you inside your consciousness are you the thoughts that you're having is that what you say is you so when you have thoughts about being hungry when you have thoughts about going to the bathroom when you have thoughts about your girlfriend or your boyfriend are those thoughts literally you you probably say mmm no those things aren't me I'm the one thinking those things interesting so already we've said that you're not even all of your thoughts according to your model now you're only certain types of mental phenomenon maybe you're the one who's behind the thoughts who's thinking the thoughts who's seeing the thoughts so to speak are interesting and we can take that even further back what in your conscious experience is actually experiencing thoughts who is thinking thoughts the thoughts think other thoughts or is there some sort of entity that creates thoughts what is the entity that's creating thoughts are you a thought at all or are you something totally different from a thought are you some sort of entity what are you actually some people say well I'm the soul on the spirit if you say that then what is the soul in what is the spirit in here you have to be very careful because you have a lot of preconceived notions and beliefs that have been fed to you by society people telling you what a soul in a spirit is but the question is remember we're doing an empirical investigation that means we're using first hand direct experience we're not taking anyone's word for it what am i if I look for myself what am I can I actually see myself can I experience myself am i my self image so the things I think about myself for example if I think of myself as a great husband if I think of myself as a great girlfriend if I think of myself as a great parent or a child or a great student or a great business person is that actually mean what happens if I eliminate that thought does that mean that some part of me is lost or do I still remain now I'm saying and asking all these questions not so that you can come up with new theories and so that you can say okay let me start theorizing cool possibilities no what I'm saying is I'm saying you don't really know who you are but you believe so firmly that you do isn't that interesting isn't it interesting that you like to come up with a bunch of theories about who you think you might be and you don't really spend a lot of time actually looking at the evidence of who you are instead of looking at the evidence you'd much rather come up with a bunch of theories we've already got a very rich history of philosophy with theories theories upon theories upon theories so let's not go that direction instead let's go the unorthodox direction let's go to the looking direction where we want to see firsthand from the inside what the truth is there's a second question so this is the first question about Who am I the other question that I pose to you is what is reality in existence this is a very very fascinating question and a lot of people get really caught up on this one too because they also have a lot of preconceived notions and theories and beliefs and religious dogma about what existence is and scientific dogma too but if you really think about it you don't know what existence is and the model that you presently have existence makes no sense and here's what I want to show you is that your current model makes no sense so let's take the most basic model the scientific model we say that there was a big bang and then before the big bang there was supposedly no space there wasn't even a vacuum because a vacuum is still extended in time and in space there was no time and no space before the Big Bang then the Big Bang happened this is creating the kind of matrix of reality in which we live this created breadth and depth and with energy and matter and time and this stuff expanded and currently the universe is still expanding and in fact the expansion is accelerating we're not quite sure where it's going to go maybe it's going to all collapse into a Big Crunch or maybe it's going to keep expanding forever we're not quite clear the question though is what is the most fundamental ultimate existence so if we say that occur entrie ality came from the Big Bang what was before the Big Bang was it nothingness or was it something if it was something what was it if you say it was nothing that's an interesting consideration most people don't like to say that it was nothing most people like to say you can't have something come out of nothing and so that something had to come out of something else so where did it come out of well we might say okay well it really might be that existence came out of nowhere how do we know that something has to come out of something else can it be the case that something comes out of nothing and you might say well that violates the laws of physics you can't get energy from nowhere but see it's very interesting because we only have one example of existence people like to make assumptions about how existence has to work but notice that we are operating on only one point of data which is our own single existence we don't know any other existences at least I don't I only know one existence so that means that it's a very problematic to start making assumptions about how existence came about from being inside the existence and only knowing one existence it's kind of like having a single sample point in a scientific study if you have a single sample point you can't make any conclusions or predictions or set any trends how do you know that existence can't come out of nowhere how do you know that has to come out of somewhere you say well I look around me and I see that everything comes out of something else well but you're inside of existence our question isn't about inside the existence our question is about existence itself you can think of existence kinda like a bubble so inside the bubble sure we have these rules but what are the rules outside the bubble are they the same rules or are they different rules now you might say well they're the same rules how do you know they're the same rules have you been outside the bubble have you seen other bubbles or have you always been inside the bubble and only know what's inside the bubble we can't say we don't know now someone might say well Leo you know a better theory instead of saying that existence can out of nowhere is that he came out of somewhere so this bubble what if this bubble is inside another bubble which is inside another bubble inside another bubble and so there's always something outside of it that is couched in so what if our universe is kind of analogous to a molecule in a human body some like you'll thinks that it's this cool thing and after all a molecule is actually very big compared to let's say a subatomic particle molecule is huge it's composed of I don't even know how many tons and tons of subatomic particles but relative to the human being the molecule is so tiny we can't even see it you can't even see it in a microscope it's so tiny so what if the universe was like that what if we're like just a little molecule which is a component of something much much larger many made constructed out of many many universes could that be the case well if that's the case then where did all that come from so let's say that it's a bubble inside a bubble inside a bubble where did the biggest bubble come from you're really not answering the question you're just delaying it for a little bit you see you haven't answered the question if you say that the universe is in a bigger bubble then you haven't accounted for the ultimate truth of existence because then how did the most outer bubble come into being where did it come from did it always exist did it come out of nowhere did it come out of another bubble now you might say it always existed okay interesting but we don't know if that's true you might also say came out of nowhere which is where we're back to you know something come out of nothing or you could say that there's an infinite chain of bubbles and that there's this bubble on top bubble until the bubble it just goes to infinity that would be pretty pretty cool and interesting and kind of counterintuitive you might say well Leo God created the universe God created existence well that doesn't solve anything because what is where did God come from now you say well God God existed always so then basically you're saying that God is the outermost bubble that always existed so it doesn't really matter if you have a mystical supernatural explanation like you've got God or if you say that it was just like you know mmm physics and all this kind of stuff you know bubbles which don't include any kind of deities in it it really doesn't matter what the actual mechanics of the explanation are because the fundamental part and problem of this whole thing is that you don't actually explain what existence is by citing God you explain nothing all you're saying is that there's a bubble that always existed where where did this bubble come from God is like a bubble so where did he come from did he always exist did he come off out of nowhere or again is he containing something bigger which would just push the question back further unless you said that it was an infinity thing so which of those is it or maybe it's something that we haven't even thought about here it's fascinating my point here is that you don't really know what existence is I want to give you three distinctions now three distinctions that are very important in our discussion here and they all are basic different flavors of the same thing so the first distinction is the one that was introduced by Immanuel Kant who was a philosopher back in the was it the 1700s I believe in Europe and what he said is he was looking at Rene Descartes he was looking at David Humes work and he was basically trying to synthesize two different strands in philosophy one was called rationalism the other one was called empiricism and basically he came up with this distinction that says okay look here's how reality is we've got something called phenomenon which are the sensations of reality the stuff that we know directly as human beings colors taste sounds this kind of stuff this is what empiricism talks about empirical meaning sensory and then we have something called the new mental world and new bhana are the things that are behind the sensations behind the phenomenon so I'm actually going to use an example here with an orange take a look at this orange and we might say okay so the phenomenon of the orange is the the roundness of it and the orange color and also yet the smell that it has a zesty smell and the taste and everything else that we can perceive about it now what is the noumenon the new minute is the stuff that the orange is actually made of because we don't actually think that the orange amount of the color orange it's not actually made up of the the zesty smell it's made out of something some sort of matter or you know whatever something we can't see so that's the phenomenon newman a distinction and what Kant said is that we can know phenomenon but we can never know newman uh because how would we access it we also we always have the layer of perception that we have to go through it's like a filter so we can never get to the Newman ah because we have to go through phenomenon interesting distinction the next distinction is the matter qualia distinction and this is kind of like a scientific paradigm which says that things are created of matter or if you want you could call it energy matter energy these are like the subatomic particles that make up this this orange but then there's also the accounting of the orange phenomenally and that we call qualia qualia is the stuff that we perceive about the orange so for example we think that the orange is made up of cells and those cells are made up of molecules and atoms but we don't see any of that what we see is we see the orange color and we have certain smell to it and it has a certain feel to it these experiences but these experiences the color orange for example right now the color orange is not made up of atoms it's something else it's a perception so this is the matter perception distinction and one of the very fascinating questions in philosophy of science and philosophy of mind is what are qualia made out of our qualia I may not have matter or not and if not what the hell are they and then we have the third distinction which is the inner outer world distinction you might have heard me talking about this in other videos in other contexts where I talk about that conventionally we think of there's the inner world that we have of our feelings and sensations that our thoughts and our moods and our emotions and then the outer world of hard physical matter and energy and physical laws it's kind of like the inner world the physical laws don't work the physical laws only work in the outer world and the inner world is all filled with qualia and the outer world is filled with matter so all these three are like flavors of the phenomena Neumann a distinction that Kant was talking about there turns out to be a very important distinction and it's important to talk about these because the question ultimately becomes who do you think you are and the thing that you think you are where does it exist does it exist in the outer world or does exist in the inner world and also which world is more real is the outer world more dependent on the inner world or is the inner world more dependent on the outer world and you might say well leo the inner world perceptions these are all dependent on matter is that true though is that really true have you really thought about that which world is couched in which world it's not immediately obvious if you think about it I want you to introduce a further distinction and this is getting into the real meat of doing spiritual alignment work so you have to really understand this distinction well to be able to understand spiritual alignment and this is the concept of conceptualizations consider three three types of entities one is the thing as it actually is the Newman ax that thought was talking about too is the sensations of that thing and the perceptions of it so if we have this orange then we've got the actual real orange the thing that we can't even see that's responsible for all the sensations so we've got that whatever it is we don't know it's kind of like a question mark then of course we have the sensations of the orange the phenomena of the orange it's here that's kind of one level higher we have direct access to that and then we have one level higher what's one level higher one level higher is concepts concepts is the things we think about the orange here we have actually the way in which we usually interact with the orange even the label orange it's an orange it's an object that's already a certain attitude that I take towards it that's the human mind projecting onto the orange certain things certain labels certain attributes certain opinions that I have about a certain beliefs certain relationships in which I am with this orange so the difference between the perceptions and the concept is that the perceptions are just raw perceptions without any of my biases or opinions about it the conceptual orange is a lot of my opinions about it so for example I might love oranges I might hate oranges I might be disgusted by this by the side of an orange when I look at an orange I might have some thoughts and memories about oranges I might get hungry I might start to salivate I might want to throw it at somebody there might be a million different attitudes I'd take towards this orange I might start dreaming of other oranges and even interestingly when you take the orange away and you put it behind your back and you don't see the orange there at all in your mind you can still in the orange so right now you're not seeing the orange I'm not looking at it either behind my back but we can still imagine the orange imagine it right now you have a mental picture of the orange what is that that's a concept you also have a vocal story in your mind that you're hearing which says something like I'm thinking of an orange that is an orange this images of an orange an orange is a type of fruit so that's where we get into the really tricky aspects of being a human being is that we think that we live here or here but actually we live from this domain over here which is the domain of concepts and we overlay all these concepts on top of sensations and then we tell ourselves that all of this is actually the truth the ultimate question wrong the noumenon the thing that is the noumenon and this gets us into a lot of trouble we're talking about oranges and that's not really pertinent to our psychology the question though is what are you within this framework when you think about yourself you the person I'm pointing out right now you nod your head right now nod your head yeah you're nodding your head so that thing that you think you are what is it on this model it is a concept is it a perception or is it the actual Newman Ultherapy very objectively self honestly what you're going to admit is that it's a concept you as a concept it's not even a perception you think it's a perception but it's actually a concept overlaid on a perception with further concepts behind it telling it that it's not a concept very interesting what are you really then if you are not a concept and you're not a perception what would be the real you the new middle you hmm interesting I've never asked that question before of myself have I I could come up with a bunch of theories but how would I really know what I really am you might say well Leo that's not possible is not possible to know the best we can do as con said is we can just know the phenomenal so sure maybe what you're saying is like there's some you know deeper part of me the real me behind the perceptions and I can never know that so that's just something now we can't speculate let's not speculate about that stuff let's not be speculative let's just stick to the stuff that we can touch see smell hear and think about but what if it was actually possible actually possible to know the real thing would that be freaky or what will that blow your mind if that was actually a fact that you could know yourself well it is how can this be the case I'll get to that in a little bit what I want to do now is I want to tell you about another very important concept which is what I call the voice the voice is primarily what makes concepts happen in your mind what is the voice the voice is the internal talk and languaging that's happening all the time throughout your day right now as you're sitting there watching this video you're talking to yourself you're having opinions you're agreeing with me you're disagreeing with me you have certain beliefs that come up certain objections comments criticisms opinions whatever and it's literally like a little voice inside your head saying stuff like oh that's a great point that's interesting oh I never thought about this Oh Noah leo you're wrong and so the voice talks and talks and talks and talks and there are two aspects to the voice one is the words the way it sounds and two is images so what we're talking about here is thoughts the voice is responsible for your thoughts the voice is basically your thoughts and thoughts come in two flavors words and images images are think about the orange right now you've got an image of the orange that's a thought say the word orange in your mind right now that's also a thought of the orange so there's two different ways in which you can create a thought and access it and a lot of times there are both operating at the same time you might be imagining and thinking about it at the same time this is what allows concepts to happen is the voice comes in there and create them now it's interesting that you've never sat down and really looked at what the voice actually is you might have some opinions about what the voice is and why it's there and who's talking but have you actually sat down and looked very deeply very objectively at what the voice actually is who's creating the voice and who's listening to the voice is the pertinent question see the way it works is that your voice talks all the time it talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and it creates a web of concepts which it then calls reality and it also creates a self-image the self image is the image of yourself and ideas about who you think you are and how you behave so any notions that you have right now about your nature your true nature those are all part of your self image and there's something which is created by voice now the question is can we break out of this self image if the self image is all concepts then what is the actual self when you get rid of the concepts and get rid of the self image what's the real self not the M of the self now you might say well Leo we can't get rid of concepts in fact concepts are good we don't want to get rid of concepts well keep your mind open what if concepts are actually a smokescreen that prevent you from seeing something very very very real which is the Newman --all you and now comes the crux of the matter when you say that you're the body and when you say that you're the mind and when you say that you're your thoughts or the one perceiving your thoughts what actually is that is that a physical fact a physical reality or is that a conceptual reality the identification you have with your body and I'm not being literal I'm being very serious and very I mean I'm not being figured if I'm being very literal here so when I say identification with your body that means that when I cut you with a knife you recoil and you experience pain and emotional distress why is that because you believe that I'm actually injuring you I'm not just entering a body I'm injuring your body I'm injuring you when I tell you a mean nasty comment like you're stupid and ugly and smelly and you're never going to get a good relationship then you take that personally because you identify with being a certain way you have a certain self-image you want to be handsome and attractive and sexy and certain other qualities so you are threatened now the question is what is being threatened could it actually be the case that the identification you have with your body is conceptually constructed by the voice and that as the voice constructs it you believe it automatically you never question the voice and so you identify with your body now you say well leo but I actually am my body you're telling me I'm not my body sounds like a a far-fetched theory a philosophy of some kind I am the body look I'm the body it's real it's a fact what are you stupid who's saying that is the voice saying this is the voice telling you that you are your body that you really think that you're the body that you're fascial is that real or is that the voice constructing stories now you might say well leo but the voice why is the voice false why is not the voice true you're telling me that my voice is false what a my voice is true maybe but consider that the voice can come up with a lot of different concepts that are not factually true for example think about Santa Claus Santa Claus is a contract of the voice is Santa Claus real no think about a horse with two heads on it got that image is that real or is that just a story in your mind think about yourself right now sipping on a pina colada sitting on a tropical island enjoying the warm Sun you've got that image what is that is that a concept or is that reality are you actually sitting on a beach or is that just a figment of your imagination now those seem like simple cases of imagination but now the question is what about you yourself what about your identification with your body could it be that your identification with your body and your self-image that these are just as fictional as you imagining right now that you're sitting on a tropical beach sipping a piña colada and don't be so quick to say no because actually it turns out that it is exactly this and when you start to appreciate and understand this whoa you get this Wow a moment like oh well if that's the case then what could be outside of the voice what could be outside the self-image what could I actually be if in fact let's just consider as a hypothetical that the voice could be wrong and the voice could just be imagining things and that is the mother of all questions that is the deepest question you can ask yourself in your life that is the deepest question to which you can find an answer in life is to ask yourself what am i outside of the voice and the answer turns out to be very very profound and not at all what you expect I want to go a little bit more about talking a little bit more about the voice get you a little better understanding of the voice because this is so critical to starting to do this work you might wonder well Leo how does the voice actually construct the self if you're saying that my sense of self is constructed by the voice how does this actually happen and it's actually a very very simple process and I want to imitate to you right now how the self is constructed in your own mind I'm going to do a literal imitation I want to be talking but this talking think of it as the voice inside your head talking this is how it talks it says something like this I am over here this is me I'm leo I'm speaking right now I'm having thoughts I'm thinking look at this oh look I'm thinking I'm thinking Leo Leo me yes me I Here I am I think therefore I am could this not actually be me but look it's me how could it not be me I'm really me you can't deny that this is me I'm thinking who's thinking this stuff I am this is me I'm leo I'm hungry I want a better job I want more money I have these goals I'm afraid of that thing I'm afraid of this thing I get angry for this reason I get angry for that reason right now I'm feeling happy right now I'm feeling sad right now I'm feeling angry damn it why did that guy tell me that damn it why can't she just do what I wanted to do and on and on and on it goes like that so your whole existence if you start paying attention to it very carefully is this it's a voice in your head talking talking talking talking image image image image image and certain talk and images have the label I in it and this label I it's just accepted by you as being you what if it wasn't what if it was an arbitrary label what if it was a confusion of the mind if we got rid of all that stuff somehow and all that was left was the real you what would that real you be that's the question also notice that not only do you speak to yourself but you have images of yourself so right now as you sit there you might say well leo okay sure I mean the voice it talks and yes we label stuff and this is somewhat you know a human activity that we do we're labeling reality but I mean still if I get rid of all that I'm still the body right you're saying I'm not the body I but I mean I feel like I'm the body I can feel the body I can see the body Here I am but who's telling you that the things that are being felt and being seen are you after all you're also seeing other objects you're sitting you're seeing people you're seeing me you're seeing a table you're seeing a car you're seeing a tree you're seeing the Sun but you don't identify with those question is why not you're seeing them to identifying with them you're seeing them just like you're seeing the body now you might say well Leo I don't feel a car I don't feel the tree inside of a tree I only feel inside myself but what if the things that are being felt inside yourself inside yourself aren't actually yourself they're just being felt in the same way that a tree is being seen and the car is being seen and a bird squawking is being heard have you ever thought about that have you ever opened your mind to that possibility seriously what you're going to discover that you have an image of who you are you have a literal self image in your mind a picture so right now you're sitting there and when I tell you about you and I point at you you might get a flash of you sitting there as though there was a camera behind the body your head and looking down at you like from the third-person in fact you might have an image right now of the back of your head because you don't see the back of your head but you have an image of it so think of the back of your head right now now the question is that thing you're thinking about is that reality or is that a concept the back of your head is that a real entity or is that a story in your mind right now look right now right in the moment go come up with another theory don't hope with another story because you just get sucked into more stories instead actually look at what is the back of your head what is it metaphysically speaking what is it extant existentially you can actually sit and look and ask yourself okay so what is the back of my head what is that oh that's a image and it's a word back of my head it's a thought now if you go and you run to the mirror and take a look at in the mirror at the back of your head now it becomes real but until then it's a thought what if the thing that you think you are was the same way it was just a thought so the voice likes to say I am the body I am thoughts I am the voice the voice likes to say I am the one that's perceiving life I'm over here everything else is over there I'm looking at those things I'm also in control of my body and I'm control of my mouth and I'm in control of my thoughts and the voice very sneakily says the following to all of the above is obvious it's obviously this way it can't be any other way obvious right not quite so fast why don't we stop and detain the voice and ask it a couple of questions why are we trusting the voice so blindly who's telling you that you can trust the voice is it the voice are you listening to the voice telling you that you should trust the voice and who's actually listening to the voice is the voice listening to itself or is there an entity listening to the voice and what is the voice really if we break it down and we ask ourselves existentially what is the voice constructed out of and what if the voice is wrong what if the things the voice says are arbitrary and aren't actually connected and welded to reality in the way that we think what if what the voice does is just label stuff what if the voice is like a label maker creating label after label after label including the label that all labels are true and that all labels are real that's the tricky ultimate label and it creates the eye label and it also creates the eye is real label and then it creates the eye is really really really really real label and then it says the eye is actually true and then it says everything above is true and it's like a label machine that keeps spitting out label after label after label but it will it cleverly nests one little label in another label and it kind of interconnects them in where the labels start to take on a life of their own and what that creates is that creates the sense of you the sense of self all these labels and it's a giant smokescreen and this is a smokescreen that you've never really sat down and seriously questioned and looked into to find where does the ultimate truth of this lead if I get rid of all the labels where does it altom utley go is it a genius how your voice operates is it ingenious how its constructed that it believes itself it's kind of like the ultimate spin doctor believing his own [ __ ] that's what your self is like that's what your false self is when you can get rid of all that you can ask yourself the question then what is the real self and that's a very very deep thing and notice that if you get rid of this the labels then how can you even speak of the real self you can't speak of it through the voice because then it just come emboldened the voice and it creates more labels so it would have to be a totally different way of accessing the real self rather than through labeling the mechanism that you're used to the mechanism of labeling this is how the sciences work a lot of the sciences the theoretical parts of science work this way this is how religions work this is how philosophy works this is how ordinary everyday thinking works so pretty much 99.9% of our lives our label eyes and we don't really have much experience with how to access reality without labels and because of this we assume that the only way is through labels and that the best we can do is through labels but what if there was another way you just weren't really proficient with it yet and it would take you some learning and experience to develop this new sixth sense you might say would that be interesting well in fact that is the case and you can develop something called mindfulness or awareness or consciousness and through an expansion of your consciousness you can see more and more of the truth and ultimately it's not even a seeing of it it turns into a being of it which is a really interesting possibility let's go back to this model of conceptualization right we said there's the things in themselves there's the perceptions and then there's the concepts well you might say okay Lia I know how to get rid of the concepts let's say I silence my voice then I get two perceptions I can just perceive the world without thinking or talking about it or imagining things about it and therefore I have perceptions but then how do I get to the actual thing from perceptions how do I go from perceptions to the thing itself is that possible how can that be possible it seems ridiculous well remember when we're talking about the inner and outer world who told you that there's an inner and outer world is that a perception is that the thing in itself or is that another concept what if the inner and outerworld distinction was a concept and we could break that concept what would we have interestingly what we would have is we would have a merging of perceptions and the things in themselves they would merge into one this disappears this and this merge into one and become reality itself and then where are you in this whole paradigm well the you that you think you were the concepts this can also be dissolved so when you are dissolved and the inner outer the stay to dissolve what happens these two things merge you merge with them and the thing is one and now this is the brilliance of this the beauty of it is that you don't perceive the truth anymore you are it you are the truth you are physically it and it is one thing it's not partitioned into I'm here he's over there she's over there is one deep deep deep deep this goes very very deep the problem though is going to be pretty difficult for you to dissolve your notions of the inner outer distinction and is going to be very very difficult for you to dissolve your notions of you yourself because you like to think of yourself as a distinct entity from everything else well this is not true but even when you save yourself okay let me see this Leo I want to see it I want to go along with you how can I actually see it well the problem is that you've been living for 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 years of your life in this mass delusion you've constructed your entire life is a is a lie constructed around yourself so if what you really want is you want to get this merger of perception and being and you want to be the thing itself and you want to see the truth itself you want to be the truth itself if you want that then what you have to do is you have to undertake a a very serious deep systemic disillusion of yourself and your life and this is not something that most people are willing to do because the voice will come up with a thousand really good excuses and reasons for why you shouldn't do this and because you know nothing but to believe your voice you're going to believe everything it says so the voice will lie to itself and believe itself and keep itself stuck and this is the condition of 99.9 nine nine nine nine nine nine percent of the human race they're stuck in this delusion you might wonder well leo what about the the inner outer world distinction and you're telling me how can we get rid of this inner outer world distinction doesn't there have to be somebody that's perceiving the thing so for example look we've got this orange right so we've got that orange I'm seeing the orange someone has to see the orange right what are you telling me when you say inner and outer merge you're telling me that the orange exists and there's no one seeing the orange where am I in this whole thing and that's a very good question is where are you in this whole thing what if there was no you in this whole thing would you be willing to accept that what if after doing this deep deep deep investigation you discover that oh [ __ ] I'm not a part of this thing at all I'm not a part of reality could that be a realization you could have could you stomach that well you're going to have to because that ends up being the truth but it's very interesting that we assume part of what the voice says the voice says if there's a perception there has to be a perceiver and if I'm seeing this orange already look the assumption is there I'm seeing this orange it's not possible for there to be an orange and the orange to be seen without a seat but have you really questioned that in fact if you sit down a question that you'll discover that the perceiver perception distinction is not possible it makes no sense if you really dig deep why does it not make sense well think about it like this all right like you've got the orange right so you're saying okay I have to be here to see the orange so if you're seeing the orange my question for you is who is seeing you are you seeing yourself or is there another entity that sees you because your claim is that well Leo you can't just have an orange that sees itself that's ridiculous so someone has to see it so if someone has to see it then who's seeing that something does that someone who's seeing the some thing this is someone see itself if the if the someone sees itself then there exists in reality things that can see themselves so basically what you're claiming is not any different fundamentally from what I'm claiming if I claim that the orange sees itself and you claim that no the orange is seen by me but then I see myself basically what you're doing is you're taking you're taking it one step back but in the end you still are seeing yourself which is kind of weird how can anything see itself I don't know we only have this one reality kans things see themselves in reality or can't they what do we have to compare with it might sound like ridiculous well nothing can see itself but then how are you seeing yourself you might say well Leo no there's someone inside me that's seeing me but then who's seeing that someone trace it all the way back trace it back not in your theories but in actual reality trace it back and see who's actually seeing you we're going to discover that there's not anyone seeing you because there's not a you what they're all all the only thing that there is is just external reality you might say and so you are like it you are part of it you are being it and it is being you and these these two things merge like we were saying so perceivers are not possible if you really think about that model of perceivers and perceptions it's not possible once you've got is you just got a world of options now you might ask well where do perceptions come from how can this be well look this goes back to the question of what is reality and how do you know how reality should be see people get very confused by this they make this very big mistake by saying well but this is ridiculous it's as outrageous reality can't be this way but if you think about it reality look around reality reality is like magic it's not any different than magic the fact that things exist is miraculous we don't even know why that why does existence exist we don't know what actually is existence we don't know have we compared our existence to a hundred other existences to see if it's a crazy existence or a normal existence no there's only one existence that we know of so this being the case what do our intuitions about existence tell us do they tell us much do they really mean much they don't mean much in the same way that the intuition of an ant doesn't really say much about physics or reality or nature or anything else the ant has a very limited brain which is capable of very limited understanding in a very limited context because it evolved for that particular purpose now the human being is a little bit better but not much better and we very often forget this fact our brain can understand stuff but our intuition is shaped by very basic human everyday needs our brain evolved to take care of hunger sex shelter food and drinking and socialization that's basically all that our brain evolved to do and any kind of scientific understandings we have you know that's a little bonus that we get but let's not be so conceited and myopic as to assume that just because we don't have to gather food and wage a war and have some sex and do some clever socialization that now all the sudden we can intuitively grasp the nature of existence itself it's preposterous to assume this if it would existence was one way versus another way would either way be more crazy than the other isn't the current way existence is already crazy enough I mean things exist why would they exist in the first place it's already crazy if you take a look at nature if you take a look at astronomy cosmology it starts to blow your mind at how intricate and complex and also counterintuitive the universe is in fact the history of science and philosophy and mathematics has just been a a repeat again and again and again of human beings learning something thinking that it should be this way and then that getting all overthrown and us discovering oh wait a minute our intuitions were all wrong about this thing so the most basic example this is we believed intuitively we think that we live on a flat planet but actually we discover that we live on a round planet intuitively we believe that the Sun orbits around the earth the earth is at the center of the solar system and all the stars but then we discover that actually no we're just this little ball spinning around a giant Sun and this Sun is part of a cluster of stars and this cluster started as part of a giant galaxy called the Milky Way and that is part of many other galaxies and many other star systems and there's literally billions of stars in the Milky Way and then billions of Milky Way like galaxies throughout the whole universe and this is just the stuff that we can see through our telescopes and some of our radio equipment and stuff and our satellites this is not to even say what could possibly be outside of the Big Bang if anything or in some other dimension or whatever and if we go into the smaller end of scale of physics then we take a look at some atomic particles and then quarks and leptons and all the interesting stuff that goes on there particles and then we take a look at deeper and we start to get into string theory in quantum mechanics and their scientists have discovered that our intuitions completely fly out the window well even logic itself doesn't apply to certain situations within um within quantum mechanics so what who are we to say how reality has to be constructed is there a a reasonable logical way for reality to be and then some sort of crazy illogical way actually if you think about it it makes no sense because there's only one reality and everything else is couched within the reality so there's nobody to say how reality should or shouldn't be and the point of all this is just to say don't be so certain about what you believe about reality and what you believe is plausible versus implausible because your notions of plausibility are heavily swayed by your very limited human intuition and then the question becomes what is reality and what is you and what's very exciting to me about these questions is that these questions can be answered empirically not just philosophically I spent six years of my life doing very hardcore philosophy when I was in the in college and I got disenchanted with it because it turned into this big circle jerk everyone doing this big circle jerk in philosophy it's really quite disgusting and then I turned my back on philosophy for many many years but then when I heard this idea that it's actually possible for the internet'll rule to merge and for the perceptions and the truth to be one for phenomena and newman to become one when that's really possible as a possibility that is like oh then there might be a way to do what i wanted to do with philosophy in reality and that to me is the most profound discovery that I've made in my personal not mature is that this might be possible and it's worth pursuing a little bit further and it's worth asking yourself what am I Who am I really alright this is Leo I'm signing off post me your comments down below click the like button like this video share it with a friend if you would please and finally come sign up to my newsletter - lies down right here it's a free newsletter I release new videos on self-actualization topics usually but we're also going to be covering more deep spiritual enlightenment topics and I've got a lot more videos coming on how to now start to do this the investigation the empirical investigation here in this video we laid the groundwork next we're going to start to move into actually doing some exercises length some more ground we're going even deeper so it's all really exciting and cool and you can actually be able to sit down and start doing this stuff for yourself not just having to sit here and listen to me philosophize about it which really is not the proper way to do it but we have to start somewhere so this is the foundation that we start with and why do we want to do all this well because it turns out that all your psychological problems every block that you have in your life I don't care if it's in business in relationships with money with finding your passion in life with depression with anger problems literally anything anything that triggers you emotionally all of this stems from your false self because you believe in this voice that keep telling you that yourself is real you have all these problems if you get rid of this voice not only do you get some sort of insight into the nature of reality but you get a release from your own mental cage to own your own mental prison that you live in and all your drama all the petty [ __ ] of your life will go away which is another cool thing about this is that we're not just doing philosophy but we're doing very practical personal development as we do this to me this is so profound and so exciting the possibilities of this are incredible you could not imagine your wildest dreams that something like this is possible so for there to even be a chance of this as possible to me it's worth pursuing and so that's what I'm doing my own life and I encourage you to follow along with me on this journey discover for yourself and one day you may have this enlightenment and this release from your own mental prison alright go ahead sign up for all that you