Self-Deception - Part 2
By Leo Gura - January 22, 2018 | 8 Comments
A list of over 60 common self-deception mechanisms
Andrea says: When born there is no one existing and therefore there are no others and no objects. The new born has a body with a heart and brain that are responsible for its survival. The new born carries basic tasks such as pooing, pissing and vomiting. It cannot do more. It does not have a sense of self, it does not give any meaning to emotions and sense perceptions. It is One. It does not have the concept and distinction of separation. From its point of view Reality is One and there are no perspectives.
The change happen when it connect that for its survival it depend to others. The self starts to be created together with its existence and its life. It becomes he or she. From now on, everything is acquired, learnt. It is about knowledge, not about being. It is all a construction, like a dream, an illusion, an interpretation, a distinction, a separation. With time, an entity is formed with his personality, personal history, family, friends, social live, interest, hobbies and so on. And this illusion can happen through a well defined and ingenious mechanism: self-deception. Mind, emotions, sense perceptions are self-deceptive mechanisms that literally create an entity through language, inner dialogue, concepts, memory. Once the self is formed, separation occurs and the world and others come to existence.
Ultimately these tools do not exist, they are illusions themselves, filters through which look at reality. They do not represent Reality as it is, but something that has been created. It is an activity, something we learn and do. All is relative, even the most dogmatic truth, such as 2 plus 2 equal 4 is relative. Because it implies relationship, distinction, concept, it implies existence of something. Nothing exists unless you deliberately create a self. Then all the rest exist as a consequence. Eliminating the self, the other vanish as well. That is why spiritual teachers say, die before dying.
This understanding has to be the ground from which start living this illusory game called life. The ground to create a conscious self.
clem says: Thanks for sharing your insights Andrea
Mirror mirror, on the wall…………When I was a child I went into a House of Mirrors at an amusement park. Standing in front of the different mirrors, my body shape would change and cause me laugh at my visual distortions. As a teen, many hours were spent looking at my mirrored image to check out my body, clothes and hair styles. This practice of gazing at my mirrored image continued into adulthood with more introspection and questions of motives; like “whats wrong with you?,” and “is that a gray hair?” Now in my old age my mirror image appears more superficial. I am looking less at my body and deeper into my eyes and asking, “who are you?” Contemplating these 60 concepts of self deception helps me to sort through specific topics of inquiry. Slowly but surely the image of who I “think” I am is dissolving into nothingness.
I am the discerning mirror, I am the images, I am the reality. I am!
Be well
Jeni says: Just fascinating listening to this, along with part one. Can’t wait for part three! I laughed out loud and rolled my eyes…all the usual stuff I go through listening to Leo as I recognise in myself so many aspects he’s referring to. After 3 years of following Leo, it’s indescribable to finally have that feeling that ‘things are sinking in’, and more often than not have an understanding of what’s being presented. In the early days I gave myself headaches I’d be shaking my head so much, either through defensiveness or plainly and simply just not having a clue what he was talking about. I urge newcomers to stick with Leo. My life has opened up because of actualized.org and I cherish, and relish, every new clip that comes along! Thank you Leo.
Hristo says: Great episode Leo!
I would like to mention one thing about the language – you talk about it around the 24 minute that could be very interesting for you. The problem that you describe with one label carrying on a whole network of related concepts is exactly one of the main problems of OOP – object-oriented programming. It’s the most popular programming style and it works by building datastructures out of other datastructures and so on. Here is an interesting quote from Joe Armstrong, inventor of Erlang:
The problem with object-oriented languages is they’ve got all this implicit environment that they carry around with them. You wanted a banana but what you got was a gorilla holding the banana and the entire jungle.
I am in the computer science field and have been following your work for some time including the life purpose course and I have to say I have really noticed the problems that you describe. When you learn how to create proper abstraction and build structures to create amazing products, you start to progressively lose understanding of what reality is, because the mind just starts to do things automatically if done frequently.
It’s great to see there is a third part to this series and I just love when you talk about epistemology.
kyle says: Hey Leo I saw last video and this video so your saying that were suppose to like the evil we are we think ever thing is bad and evil so there for but that’s an illusion because are mind wants things and that thing is u I am kinda tripping out from this so there nothing bad fuck everyone right Leo it’s just u and nothing else no one cares about other people way of life u gotta not say it’s bad because your suppose to do it and your suppose to be happy and enjoy doing it I only bin doing haf a year and it’s tripping me out today I feel happy today
Max Gron says: Because I was a very different super-original teenager (Dad said I can’t be that different to others but we were nothing alike, I was very different, very quirky), it’s different for me my beliefs in Jupiter because school coordinator Bob Muir introduced me to Jupiter and I saw it and its four little moons under a telescope, therefore there’s belief involved but there’s also direct experience (Bob Muir’s a scientific-minded person, is it a surprise he raised me an atheist?).
Max Gron says: As a lover of science, I think science is true and I don’t need spiritual teacher’s and guru’s old wive’s tales, I changed my value system, into beige, it’s about the senses. I chose sorcery over established belief. My worldviews have already changed and they’re wrong, I was sciency and heathen in the first place. It’s probably more fun if I was quirky and a Luciferian to invite the devil here, you have no idea what the devil is, Leo, he’s a red beast with horns who’s in charge of knowledge and individualism and truth, but having watched your video of how to know what’s true normality and knowing/experiencing it for the first time might be true (you’re either a Luciferian or you’re normal, you can’t be both).