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The Shadows of Non-Duality · Council of Kings

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  So what are the biggest problems with non-duality,
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  especially neo-advaita,
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  radical non-duality?
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  SPEAKER_00: Well,
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  SPEAKER_00: if I was going to be very succinct,
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  I would say a lot of radical non-duality can end up leading
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  into solipsism,
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  SPEAKER_00: nihilism,
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  SPEAKER_00: moral relativism,
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  SPEAKER_00: spiritual bypassing.
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  SPEAKER_00: Spiritual indifference,
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  SPEAKER_00: passivity,
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  SPEAKER_00: spiritual elitism,
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  SPEAKER_00: disembodiment,
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  SPEAKER_00: no sense of moral clarity,
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  SPEAKER_00: no sense of a universal standard by which wise,
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  SPEAKER_00: skillful,
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  SPEAKER_00: good,
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  SPEAKER_00: true,
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  SPEAKER_00: loving behavior can be measured.
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  SPEAKER_00: Um,
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  also the negation of relationship the negation of personhood
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  the negation of
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  meaning and value and purpose in life the negation of
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  individuality and family
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  SPEAKER_00: these are some of the biggest shadows and traps and failure modes that
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  are difficult to avoid if you're wading into the waters of
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  radical non duality and neoadvaita.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so I would really,
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  SPEAKER_00: really put out a word of caution to be careful in those waters,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: for some people that space can be liberating,
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  SPEAKER_00: at least temporarily,
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  SPEAKER_00: it can be kind of an anesthetic against a lot of the pain of the world,
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  SPEAKER_00: you can just tell yourself,
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  SPEAKER_00: There is no world.
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  SPEAKER_00: There is no body.
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  SPEAKER_00: There is no self.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's no one here.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is all emptiness.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is all empty space.
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  SPEAKER_00: And like anything that you deeply tell yourself and deeply internalize,
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  SPEAKER_00: those perspectives can become experiential for you.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I've gone deep into that on my own path.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I did find some liberating value there.
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  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, I also found myself being disconnected from
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  SPEAKER_00: Personhood From Groundedness From Earth From Incarnation From Family From
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  Fatherhood Husbandhood Family Life Service To Earth The Actual
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  Callings Of The
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  Earth At This Time The Way In Which Countless Children And
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  Innocent Beings Women
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  And Men Animals Are Being Mistreated Abused And Worse Much
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  Worse On The Planet At
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  SPEAKER_00: This Time
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  SPEAKER_00: Radical non-duality can become very solipsistic,
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  SPEAKER_00: very navel-gazy,
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  where you're just only endlessly focused on your own immediate
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  experience,
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  SPEAKER_00: and you're kind of denying the existence of God's creation,
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  SPEAKER_00: God's earth,
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  and God's other children who are suffering and who are calling
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  out for assistance.
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  SPEAKER_00: Again,
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  it can become very solipsistic very nihilistic you're denying
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  meaning and purpose
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  which can feel good on one level because it can feel like it's
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  a relinquishment of
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  all responsibility like oh there is no objective purpose or
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  meaning so I'm off the
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  hook I don't have to do anything I can just flow with
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  whatever's arising and let
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  myself be free and this is all already free and already
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  perfection now so there's
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  SPEAKER_00: nothing to do and no one to be you know that's a
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  that's a soothing spiritual lullaby that can feel pretty good
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  to the mind to
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  abdicate all responsibility the problem with it is is that it's
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  not true it's not
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  true that everything is perfect God is perfect there's
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  perfection in God and God is
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  with us in our heart of hearts and that perfection is always
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  available to tune into
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  SPEAKER_00: to rest as that grace and that completion but
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  SPEAKER_00: We are also, it's kind of like we're in two worlds simultaneously.
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  SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ said, my kingdom is not of this world.
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  Christ's kingdom is pointing us toward that all-pervading world
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  of God that's
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  SPEAKER_00: always with us,
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  SPEAKER_00: and that is completion,
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  SPEAKER_00: wholeness,
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  SPEAKER_00: perfection,
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  SPEAKER_00: endless grace,
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  SPEAKER_00: and revelation.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we are simultaneously in that world,
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  SPEAKER_00: in some sense,
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  SPEAKER_00: in our deepest spirit and essence,
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  SPEAKER_00: and we are in
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  SPEAKER_00: This world of God's creation,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is a world that has deviated,
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  SPEAKER_00: that has fallen significantly from aligning with the true pattern,
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  SPEAKER_00: the true way of love and grace.
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  SPEAKER_00: We have deviated immensely.
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  SPEAKER_00: When you really feel the gap of how far we are from true,
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  SPEAKER_00: divine,
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  SPEAKER_00: all-encompassing,
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  SPEAKER_00: universal love on this planet,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's heartbreaking.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's heart-shattering.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's devastating.
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  and so it's no wonder that many people will utilize any number
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  of spiritual
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  anesthetics to try to avoid feeling that grief you know
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  commonly as well nowadays
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  are these new age views that oh anything that feels bad is is
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  untrue and what feels
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  good is what is true so just yeah forget any thoughts or
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  feelings that make you
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  feel bad and just go toward what makes you feel good or oh
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  you're just creating
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  SPEAKER_00: your reality anyway
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  SPEAKER_00: This is all a projection.
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  SPEAKER_00: So just create what feels good.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just create what feels epic and ignore the rest.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know, again, it's understandable why people go for that stuff.
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  SPEAKER_00: Kind of, again, is a spiritual anesthetic, spiritual bypassing.
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  SPEAKER_00: The issue with it, again, is that it's not true.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not true.
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  SPEAKER_00: This world is real.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're here.
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  SPEAKER_00: We have bodies.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are embodied beings and beings are suffering here.
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  children are suffering animals are suffering women are
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  suffering men are suffering
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  there's immense suffering here and there's an immensity of
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  suffering calling out to
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  be met by love and care and integrity and honor and honesty and
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  dignity and truth
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  and service and yeah attempting to spiritually bypass that or
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  kind of deny that or
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  SPEAKER_00: negate that is
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  I would say you know a form of of devilry or a demonic hypnosis
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  you know not to not
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  to be overly condemning because again I understand why people
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  are lured into these
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  types of of snares and ways of thinking and I myself spent a
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  lot of time in some of
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  SPEAKER_00: these more subtle traps but yeah just plain and simple I do
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  think that there are nefarious forces that essentially want to
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  preserve the status
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  SPEAKER_00: quo and that feed upon humanity's fear and suffering.
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  SPEAKER_00: And those forces want you to believe that
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  oh yeah there's no world there's no body there's no one here
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  there's nothing to do
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  there's no one to be this is all perfection I can just project
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  my perfect epic
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  reality and I don't have to live in anyone else's reality I
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  don't know what's going
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  on in their reality oh they shouldn't have manifested that if
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  they're experiencing
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  difficulty you know once you see it you can't unsee it you
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  start to see how a lot
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  of these spiritual ideas are basically narcissistic fantasies
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  that are just
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  SPEAKER_00: And so essentially
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  The biggest problems with non-duality relate to these ways in
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  which it can lead to
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  SPEAKER_00: this spiritual bypassing and this dissociation,
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  SPEAKER_00: derealization.
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  SPEAKER_00: And even though it can feel liberating or anesthetizing for many people,
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  SPEAKER_00: it also leads many people into a lot of suffering itself.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because again, it's not true.
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  People get into these solipsistic,
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  nihilistic pigeonholes where they feel like
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  I don't even know if my own family is real I don't know if
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  anything exists outside
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  myself everything is meaningless everything is purposeless
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  everything is valueless
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  everything is completely relativized so all perspectives are
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  equal there's no up or
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  down there's no higher or lower there's no more true or less
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  true and then you just
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  end up you know a lot of people end up in a swampland of
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  nihilism and solipsism and
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  SPEAKER_00: relativism that's
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  not really helping them,
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  not helping anyone else,
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  and can be quite terrifying.
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  SPEAKER_00: You can just feel like you're in a lonely void.
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  SPEAKER_00: And thankfully, again, that's not the truth.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's not the truth of our condition.
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  That's not the truth of our reality as revealed through Jesus
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  Christ and through
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  SPEAKER_00: other prophets,
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  SPEAKER_00: saints,
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  SPEAKER_00: theologians,
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  SPEAKER_00: great
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  Fathers and Mothers of the Church and also true saints and
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  prophets and sages of
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  SPEAKER_00: other traditions and other streams of wisdom.
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  SPEAKER_00: The truth is that God's creation is real.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is real.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're really here.
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  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps in a profound sense, God is even more real than this world.
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  This world is real and God is ultimate reality and is also
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  always with us and all
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  pervading and is here and can be felt through the heart and can
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  increasingly
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  pervade this world and absorb this world and transfigure and
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  sanctify this world
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  and that is what we're truly called to do by the true Lord of
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  love is to become
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  SPEAKER_00: transparent to His love,
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  SPEAKER_00: to His grace
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  and to allow that universal love to shine forth to love thy
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  enemies to forgive them
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  father for they know not what they do to show true love grace
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  and mercy to all
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  beings and to be upright men of honor women of honor good
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  people who are human who
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  are people who acknowledge that we are people we are persons
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  and we have an
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  SPEAKER_00: honorable
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  We have sacred duties to be of service and to be loving,
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  to be good people.
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  SPEAKER_00: And of course, again, we're human.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're going to miss the mark.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're going to deviate.
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  SPEAKER_00: But Christianity gives us this capacity to repent,
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  SPEAKER_00: to repeatedly return to God and say,
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  SPEAKER_00: have mercy on me,
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  SPEAKER_00: Father.
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  SPEAKER_00: Help me straighten my path.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know, I offer everything up to you.
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  SPEAKER_00: Bates111 Council of Kings
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  of God's love and you know I'm embracing that lifelong journey
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  I'm certainly far
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  from perfect I'm I'm a sinner and yeah I'm just speaking
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  honestly about my
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  SPEAKER_00: experience and I repent regularly and I find it very very meaningful
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  SPEAKER_00: And very powerful to lay it all down at the feet of the Lord and say,
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  SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus Christ,
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  SPEAKER_00: have mercy on me,
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  SPEAKER_00: a sinner.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's when we approach God with that contrite heart,
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  with that contrite heart and that true humility that we can
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  feel true grace and
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  SPEAKER_00: true mercy raining down upon us and washing us clean,
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  SPEAKER_00: washing us clean.
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  SPEAKER_00: So,
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  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
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  I just felt inspired to make a short video clarifying the
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  biggest problems with a
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  SPEAKER_00: lot of radical non-duality and neo-advaita teachings.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I hope this is a valuable invitation for you,
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  SPEAKER_00: my friend,
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  SPEAKER_00: to follow the true way of love,
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  SPEAKER_00: the way of love,
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  SPEAKER_00: of truth,
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  SPEAKER_00: of grace,
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  SPEAKER_00: of honor,
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  SPEAKER_00: of wisdom.
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  and to understand that there really is a true way there is a
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  logos there is a
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  through line in this world of love that we are called toward
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  this life is not
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  random it's not meaningless it's not purposeless it's not
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  valueless it is God is
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  the ultimate value the ultimate purpose the ultimate meaning in
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  an absolute sense
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  SPEAKER_00: and we are literally invited
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  to participate in that and to bring that forth and we have free
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  will so we're free
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  to deviate and explore other possibilities but that exploration
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  is always going to
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  teach us that nothing truly fulfills our hearts like God's love
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  because that's our
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  true birthright and true home and that that is the truth of
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  reality so you can
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  search you can look for other things but when you find the
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  truth in my from my
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  SPEAKER_00: humble
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  Perspective you're going to find God's love you're going to
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  realize that's the
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  truth so thank you for listening my friends much love to you
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  amen peace hallelujah
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  SPEAKER_00: be well God loves you I love you peace be with you