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  2. Most earnest teachers will tell the student the final step is to discard and abandon the teacher. Integrate the teaching and then leave it. Else you make it another part of your conditioning or attachment. All ground has to go, in the end. It goes both ways - for teacher and student.
  3. If true, then it's fair to say it's a cult run by a narcissist. One could say that C*nn*r M*rphy also had an awakening, albeit aided by psychedelics. But that was obviously not enlightenment. Many such cases. Mind can create red herrings out of anything.
  4. @Leo Gura I would like to see you make a video about Bentinho one day, I think it would be interesting
  5. Oldest trick in the spiritual playbook.
  6. Yesterday
  7. That would mean you would have to know what it feels like to be in woman's body No judgement at all. You do not have to define yourself in any way. You do not have to conform to any external standards set by society. Although, I do understand the difficulty in going against the grain. When you fly in the face of expectations, life can be harder, as you challenge others notions of what it means to be 'such and such' just by existing. It's a them thing, not a you thing. I have met many men who express similar sentiment to yourself. What does it mean to you, to have 'fun like a woman?'

  8. Video, audio & book Journal

    Emptiness-one replied to Emptiness-one's topic in Self-Actualization Journals

    The Enlightened Self - A Description Of Your Existential Nature This is about cultivating a conceptual framework to move forward The one that thinks it lives inside the skull, the humunculous. What is the true self? Pure transparent empty awareness Presence is another term Another term is spirit. Spirit in the old languages means breathe, air or wind. You are the container of all of existence, it's like an unboundaried container. It has no shape form or physical location.
  9. The testimonie is pretty condemning. The "Sexual Healer" Claim: Massaro told her he could never be monogamous because he had connections with women he needed to help, often ending in sex because he claimed to be a "sexual healer" [13:54]. Healing through Sex: He convinced her that she needed to be "fucked" in front of another woman (Corey) to be healed [20:54]. He referred to this as a form of "spiritual transmission" [21:50]. The "Magic Penis": He explicitly told women his penis had "healing properties" [21:50]. Post-Sex "Healing": After the act, he would tell the woman she was now "healed," which Jacqueline noted was essentially a way for him to stop "tormenting" her for a period of time [23:27]. The alien "nourishment" excuse: He claimed that because he was an "alien," certain female body types were "nourishing for his soul" like a "baby's bottle," which he used to justify only "healing" beautiful women [25:07]. The Negative Entity Accusation: After she left, he told the community that a "negative entity" had entered his body through her decision to fear him and that he "almost died" because of her [34:26]. The Financial Drain: Jacqueline gave him hundreds of thousands of dollars, which he spent within two or three months on suits, fireworks, and hotels while dating other women [30:15]. The "Gift" Letter: To avoid taxes and legal scrutiny, he made her sign a letter stating the money was a "gift" [17:04]. Tests of Devotion: In a restaurant, he demanded she take off her shirt to prove her love and devotion. When she refused, he told her she had "failed this test of love" [18:31].

  10. What is some music you like?

    StyxNStone replied to itsadistraction's topic in Off-Topic: Pop-Culture, Entertainment, Fun

  11. PowerWash Simulator 2 + audiobook
  12. @Wilhelm44 I have been following his teachings for a long while, I have seen people come and go and most people aren´t speaking out, because of the NDA signed. For example Allison never spoke out and I even tried to dm her asking whats up with the whole Bentinho situation, but most of the people that left kept silent. Also Jocelyne is kind of moving on in silence around all of this. She commented on this youtube video and when you look at the comment section, you see how she wants this to be removed from the internet as it was a painful period for her. She seems to have moved on. Neither is she taking part of this insta@guru serie. I think that its quite obvious that Bentinho is doing some weird stuff, even if he had an awakening, he is then a zen devil or he is just straight up a psychopath. I have seen too many of his videos that I can tell you there is atleast something very very off with him, listen to one of his videos and listen how he talks with so much arrogance and almost like he looks down on you when he is talking, he belittles people, interupts them, shout at them, makes fun of them and you could say "belittling peoples ego", but even if that was the case, we are still ego, we are still human, that doesn't mean we have to withstand his endless commentary in the name of spirituality. Like your just a stupid student and he is the holier then thou guru. And as many popes, priests etc. who have portrayed themself as holier then thou, have done behind the scenes allot of weird stuff, due to all of this suppression. Now things coming out about Deepak aswell, makes me not trust any of these gurus. You got to rely on your own path and not be too dependent on teachers, as they are flawed, just as every human is flawed. Also makes you rethink the real value of enlightenment teachings, because there are allot of issues with learning and especially teaching nonduality, its a topic that needs to be treated very carefully with the realisation that there are endless ways this can do harm for both students and teachers. Starting with the supression of the human side and only thinking that consciousness matters, what easily leads to supression and then coming out in either the epstein files like Deepak Chopra or being a rapist like Bentinho, well, that is not really a role model if you think about it hahaha.
  13. I notice a lot of misconceptions when it comes to empathy and compassion for child sex offenders. I have a different perspective from most for several reasons. Firstly, my father was involved with a gang of child sex traffickers and I was one of the victims. Secondly, I have done a lot of research on criminology which is directly relevant to empathy and compassion for child sex offenders of all kinds. Thirdly, pedophilia is a subtype of preferential offenders which is disproportionately likely to have multiple victims. Most child molesters are not pedophiles and they have a diverse set of motives and psychological problems that lead to this kind of behavior without being inhuman monsters. Fourthly, empathy and compassion for perpetrators or victims cannot be cleanly separated for reasons I will explain. the core reason is that to vilify love and compassion for perpetrators is to indirectly shame child victims who cover for the parents that abuse them due to loving them, such that they feel their love makes them unacceptable and unworthy of life to the point of needing to kill themselves. Finally, empathy is not an excuse for harm. At minimum, cognitive empathy is necessary to inform prevention of violence and enable the protection of child victims by understanding what circumstances lead to victimization. You don't have to have warm feelings toward child molesters and you are allowed to be outraged at the harm they cause. Relevant to this discussion is my past thread on deconstructing monster narratives. In this thread, I mentioned incest perpetrators and parents who sexually offend against their own children. From the perspective of the parental perpetrator, they live in a distorted moral reality in which this type of love is appropriate for their child. They have all kinds of ideas about how this isn't harmful because harm comes from discovery rather than from the act. Sometimes they rationalize this behavior with cultural relativism, arguing that some cultures allowed incest, meaning the behavior isn't actually bad. The parent does not grasp the harm caused to the child because if they did then they would not be able to live with themselves, therefore the incest perpetrator must believe that the behavior is acceptable and the child can meaningfully consent. This pattern is common in parental offenders who are living a criminal lifestyle which corrupts their sense of what kind of love is appropriate, similar to what happened with my father. To clarify, most parental offenders are not pedophiles, but rather they are situational offenders who falsely believe that this kind of love is appropriate, which is technically distinct from pedophiles who are sexually attracted to children rather than having a distorted familial bond with inappropriate forms of love in it. Given my research into criminology, this closely matches my father's behavior and actions while being relevant to recovery. This gets very unsettling and disturbing, but it is true nevertheless. My father showed several distorted means of attempting to bond and connect with me. Firstly, he was afraid of me thinking of him as a bad person, as ironic as that may sound. Because of this he needed to change the standard of what it meant to be loveable and desirable. He was so embedded in criminal life that he had no realistic exit without permanent life imprisonment. Therefore, he attempted to recast his behavior as gangster and badass such that he would seem desirable. This included boasting about his exploits of all kinds including death threats, drug deals, prostitution, and his relationship with my grandpa who he claimed had extensive involvement in his crimes. My moral conscience was threatening to him such that he both wanted to change my perspective and part of him seems to have convinced himself that this was cool or an appropriate form of connection. The first incident involved my unwanted participation in drug deals. I was clearly heavy and upset with what had occurred, but my father cheerfully told me to "lighten up." He insisted that I was badass like him, but the violation of my values could not be ignored when I felt intense guilt and shame in response to these situations. I knew my father had done something wrong, but I never had the courage to tell anybody at least in part because I loved him. He also showed several patterns of grooming in that he wanted to keep the nature of our relationship a secret from others while using a lot of positive reinforcement. My father also showed apparently genuine love in response to a situation with my mother and stepfather who were drug addicts. He appeared to both want my safety and to exploit my need for safety to get out of paying child support by using me to get dirt on Mom. This included his reminders that he was involved with a violent gang that would be willing to kill my stepfather, as if I could count on them for protection when in reality I was terrified of them and my father as well. I couldn't say these things to my father or other family members as doing so would jeopardize me further. The outcome is that parental perpetrators commonly don't realize the harm they are causing their children due to their implicit theory that a child would openly complain if they were unhappy. Similar to incest cases, the victim often appears to silently accept this kind of behavior due to coercive control which shares parallels with my case. I detailed the trafficking incident in a separate document. The FBI expressed interest in my explanation of the evidence and how it connects to broader patterns in organized crime that often goes undetected. They said I do need a Bachelor's degree though to work in higher positions. I can post it in this thread too if necessary, but the necessary snippet is in the other thread for more context and evidentiary standards for these situations. In terms of fathers who traffic their children out of love, this gets very fucked up, confusing, and disturbing. However, it matches my findings in criminology and maps onto all of the other patterns of my father. Part of why people join gangs is out of a sense of belonging that is being filled with a criminal group. Therefore, from this point of view, treating a child as if they belong to the gang is held as a form appropriate connection and love. This can include initiation through child prostitution in which the father is proud and excited for what is happening to his child. I was really baffled as to why my father was happy over all of this. The overarching pattern in parental sex offenders is that they generally do not realize the harm they caused and they see their behavior as loving. They have a distorted sense of reality in which everything is perfectly fine such that their map of reality has the child's reality completely backwards as the child's behavior is interpreted through the distorted framework. This is often relevant for victims in recovery who feel that their feelings of love make them unacceptable. One the inside as I stayed silent, my logic was as follows. By following this victim logic, it often leads victims of parental sex offenders to suicide. 1. My father did something unacceptable. 2. I silently accepted my father's unacceptable behavior. 3. My acceptance of that which is unacceptable makes me unacceptable. 4. Therefore, I am unacceptable. This line of reasoning is often tied to survivor's guilt such as "I should have turned my father into the police" (who in reality were corrupt and possibly complicit) or "I should have protected others from my father" (even though I couldn't protect myself). These are the surface level should statements that victims use to blame themselves, but the deeper should is "It is wrong for me to love my father because of his actions, therefore I should cut myself off from love to prevent love from enabling harm." (therefore I should kill myself.) This is a common pattern in how victims of child sexual abuse think and it often leads to suicide because they feel that their love is unacceptable and they should remove themselves from love forever as a consequence. The belief is that if a child molester is unlovable, and your parent is a child molester, and you love your parent, and loving someone is supposed to be unlovable makes you unlovable, then the victim is unlovable. This is why it is important that we don't demonize compassion and love for perpetrators as it is connected directly into the victim logic leading to suicide. children often stay quiet and cover for abusers as a consequence of loving them in the secret relationship the perpetrator established through grooming. There is also an important distinction between "accepting" as in endorsing or consenting to my father's behavior, and "accepting" as in having a freeze response as a survival instinct and therefore incurring the cost of my father's actions. The alternative frame for victims would be as follows. 1. My father did something harmful. 2. I accepted the harm because of my desire for love. 3. The situation was logically acceptable by virtue of the fact that is was accepted. 4. Therefore I did not accept anything that was unacceptable. 5. Therefore I am acceptable by virtue of the fact that I exist and I desire to love and be loved. 6. None of this is an excuse for harm. The core point to this connects to spirituality in several important ways. Firstly, ego is not defined just by an individual human being. The ego is relational and defined relative to other. Therefore, demonizing other beings who inform the ego identity translates into demonizing oneself, as the relational nature of ego makes self and other entangled in ways that cannot be cleanly separated. In my case, hating my father translates into hating myself because he isn't actually separate from me. The same logic applies to all human beings, animals, and objects in the universe as all of them are ultimately part of me. In that sense, I am the universe and everything in it. Self is defined relative to other within the universe and the distinction is untenable. At the same time from another point of view I am the universe experiencing itself from the point of view of a human being within the domain of separateness which itself is illusory and not separate from unity. Leo takes this further by saying that I literally created the universe, not just that everything is connected. Oneness is deeper than just connectedness as would be the case for the relational nature of ego in which self and other cannot be cleanly separated. Either way, there is ultimately no difference between loving self and other though. This is also crucial for forgiveness which applies even in some extreme severe cases. 1. My father hurt me to some extent out of ignorance in that he could not distinguish the harm caused from implicit theories linked to the distorted alternative reality. 2. My father hurt me out of weakness and fear such as his fear of being caught leading to threats of disownment combined with his inability to exit the criminal lifestyle without permanent imprisonment. 3. My father hurt me out of selfishness. (no shit) 4. My father hurt me out of a need for love from his son which he sought through criminal exploitation framed as inclusion, protection, belonging, and bad ass gangster identity while being severely traumatic to his son. 5. My father hurt me out of a lack of consciousness in that his dense ego was prone to severe distortions and self-deceptions such that it could spin entirely alternate realities in which the behavior was good and justified. In the end of all of this, I hope you can see why empathy, love, and compassion for perpetrators ultimately ties back in to empathy for victims as the two cannot actually be cleanly separated due to the nature of ego, self, and other. Additionally, there is more complex information in terms of cognitive empathy for sex offenders that can be used to inform prevention. This includes situational / opportunistic offenders which are the most common, grievance based offenders such as intimate partners who rape and murder their victims, and preferential offenders which includes pedophiles who impact a disproportionate amount of victims as well as sadistic serial rapists / killers and zoophiles who rape animals believing it is an appropriate form of love. By understanding the different types of offenders and the psychological backgrounds, then at minimum it can be used to inform prevention, especially sense social isolation and feeling like an outsider in society is a common problem for criminals who might seek belonging from gangs instead. This is a big topic for discussion, but it is important for correcting the conflation between pedophiles and child sex offenders. The truth is more nuanced, and the truth is necessary for there to be any meaningful love as without truth, any love expressed is ultimately based on falsehood. In that sense it is like loving nothing. This was kind of heavy for me to type, but I hope you find value in this kind of work. In my case it also relates to abuse from my sister who likes to weaponize my trauma around my father against me by insisting he was "loving and caring like a father" while knowing the harm he caused me. Forgiveness in this context does weaken my sister's ability to weaponize this trauma. Perhaps the next question would be in regards to child sex traffickers who are not the child's parent and who instead kidnap other children at airports to take them to the wrong plane, leading to a gang who turns them into sex slaves for profit. This empathy and love for offenders could be expanded on that front, but it seems more difficult in some ways. I have a hard time with sadistic offenders especially who torture their victims for sexual pleasure, including children which creates an alternative sexual motive for the assault aside from pedophilia.
  14. Why not? It would make for a more conscious business than what most people are doing.
  15. The Masculine which is the "I" has to respect himself first. But this can be and often is flawed too. This is a development issue.
  16. I hope there will be more european retreats in the future! Dont feel quite ready for it yet.

  17. My meditation journal

    Thittato replied to Thittato's topic in Self-Actualization Journals

    A 2nd session of this 20 min vinyasa flow yoga program this evening. So nice!

  18. Axioms of Optimism

    Joseph Maynor replied to Ziran's topic in Personal Development -- [Main]

    Realize what a negative person does to slow everyone down to conform to their own comfort-zone. Listen to them, but don't let that energy cripple you too much. For some reason, other peoples' success bothers these people because they need to feel like they're winning with what they got, always.

  19. Finished the LP course

    Jannes replied to Jannes's topic in Self-Actualization Journals

  20. What's ironic in this is you spend most of your time coaching people.
  21. Begin a timebound challenge. You can pick the time-frame. Maybe 30 days for you. Plan this a kind of deep work exercise and commit to it. Try to get motivated to do this. See it as kind of a little chapter or challenge in your life that you can get inspired to get behind. You're not that far behind, but you need to motivate yourself to meet a goal.
  22. Hey man, I’m gonna answer you honestly, what you wrote doesn’t sound like a curiosity about reincarnation, it sounds like you’re exhausted and feel stuck in a life where you think you’re ‘less than’ others and hate your life, I get it. Those are just beliefs and interpretations, and they're doing way more damage than any actual limitation you might have. There are people with average or even below-average intelligence who build solid, meaningful lives because they focus on what they can control instead of labeling themselves and giving up. I get it, it can feel hopeless sometimes and your feelings are valid, but what's not valid is your interpretation of it and having that attitude/mindset. About ‘going to the next life’, nobody actually knows what happens after death. At least I don't know myself, and I don't think that's the right thing to think about right now. What’s real is this life, right now. And the fact that you’re here asking this means some part of you still wants things to be different, not just over. And that part matters. With enough understanding, better perspective, and time, people can completely change the way they see themselves and their life. This is not just lame motivational talk; it’s something you can actually observe. Your current story about yourself isn’t fixed. It’s something your mind built from past experiences, and it can be updated and changed. you can interpret things differently, see what lessons you learned, see what opportunities you have. But for that to happen, you need at least a bit of openness to the idea that things can improve. Not blind positivity, just enough optimism to stop reinforcing the idea that you’re stuck forever. Also, your self-worth being tied to past failures is a trap. Past outcomes don’t define what you’re capable of becoming and who you are. you can train yourself to not believe that. Here’s what’s not real: “My IQ completely determines whether my life is worth living.” “Because I’ve failed before, I’ll always fail.” “My current situation is permanent.” “There’s no way for me to feel better or build something meaningful.” “The only way out of this feeling is to leave this life.” "I suck and I'm not worthy" Here’s what is real: You don’t fully know what you’re capable of yet. yourself worth and self-esteem are flexible things and are not tied to past or present situations. Your mind is interpreting your life in a very harsh, fixed way. and that can change. People in similar or worse situations have found ways to build lives they don’t hate. (speaking from experience) You have some level of agency, even if it’s not absolute. Change is possible, but it starts with small shifts in perspective and action. You’re not the only one who has felt like this, even if it feels like it right now. If things feel this heavy, talking to someone in real life, even just one person, can help more than trying to solve everything alone in your head.
  23. Correct. You cannot even legally consume intoxicants. Bad girl!

  24. Whats the textures and shapes of DMT

    Joseph Maynor replied to kavaris's topic in Psychedelics

    These images seem too squarish to me in my experience with DMT. There's more motion involved too, nothing is static.

  25. Finished the LP course

    Jannes replied to Jannes's topic in Self-Actualization Journals

    I think there is an inner switch I can turn around from introverted to extroverted. Usually when someone wants something from me when I am in an introverted state I have a hard time to do it. I noticed however that when I consciously make a switch in my brain from inside to basking on the outside social world its much easier, even enjoyable for me. Curious how far that insight will bring me.
  26. I recently had some realizations similar to what Rupert Spira talks about. The general nonduality stuff that maybe a lot of people here find mundane compared to higher states of consciousness, Eternity, Awareness, Presence, Etc. Nothing actually happened really, just this profound peace, and these other facets that where obscured until I paid attention to them. But why is reality so beautiful? Every form fills me with mystery and awe, even the idea of a smelly dumpster is profound and miraculous and mysterious. Everything just drips with beauty, it feels fundamental to existence, not just an opinion. Every color and shape combination is just beautiful to me, whether it's people, clouds, stars, RAM, deodorant, candles, cracked roads, the bug bites on my thighs, etc. Why does everything seem so beautiful? What is Beauty?
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