Leo Gura

@Edvard High consciousness people are not gonna go to Mars, because the people in charge of the mission are themselves not conscious enough to realize the importance of that.

@Edvard You cannot escape the consciousness problem. Going to Mars will not solve anything. All your consciousness problems will come with you. If humanity cannot make on this planet, it certainly won't make it on Mars. I'm not saying he has to become an enlightenment teacher. But he would benefit from becoming enlightened himself. That would give him a proper sense of priorities and recontextualize all his technological striving. It would also make him happy. What is the point of changing the whole world if you cannot be happy? Sacrificing one's own happiness is NOT a solution. It's ignorance. If even a billionaire cannot be happy and pursue consciousness, what hope does that give the rest of the world? It says we're all screwed. Given his power, he could have a massive impact on the world's collective consciousness if he first became conscious himself. All this just goes to show the depth of the consciousness problem. It's VERY deep.

@Vladimir The mind is an obstacle to itself. The mind is an obstacle to consciousness and human well-being. You're the one who brought up the idea of using systems thinking to solve problems. I'm saying the problem you are trying to solve may be made worse by more thinking. The mind is not evil or nor should it be totally eliminated. The mind is tool. It just has to become a servant of consciousness, or it becomes a cancer. Consider this: If you stopped thinking entirely, your experience of life would become infinitely better.

A) You cannot accept something you're not conscious of. His "sacrifice" is out of ignorance. B) He would be able to help humanity more if he first made himself consciousness of what consciousness is. C) What humanity needs most is not more technology, but consciousness! We have enough technology to all live happily forever. What we lack is the consciousness necessary to do so. Technology without consciousness is the greatest existential threat to humanity. So he may very well end up killing us all. That's what happens when you put the cart before the horse. I don't want to sound like I'm criticizing him or that he's a bad guy. He's not a bad guy. He's doing the best he knows. He's just not conscious of the bigger picture and how he's robbing himself of joy. Jesus wasn't kidding when he said: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." That's the case here. When you have 15 billion dollars, it's extremely hard to give up that kind of power. You become its slave.

That's right. But you don't actually experience that yet. It's just an idea to you at this point so you need to bridge that gap. Might take you a while. But also on another level, the self is still there after enlightenment in the sense that you still act in certain ways. And even after enlightenment, you will still engage in improvement of your actions. Bad habits will still be there to be improved.

@Vladimir Hate to rain on your parade, but you cannot fundamentally change the mind using the mind. Mind is the problem. So the more you think, the worse your problems will get. It's sorta like you're trying to boil out impurities from water. But by boiling it, you only concentrate the impurities. You will become depressed and possibly even mentally unstable/insane if you try to think your way out of thinking. The solution is to stop thinking, and practice mindfulness/consciousness. It's a very counter-intuitive solution which the mind refuses to accept. The reason those mushrooms worked so well for you, is because they got you out of your mind.

Classic workaholic, addicted to success and progress, but lacking consciousness. Addiction to success isn't about getting more money. It's about addiction to more, more, more... He's a hamster in a wheel and doesn't even know it. The proper move for him would be to quit all his businesses and go live in a Zen monastery for 10 years. Then he'd understand what's up. But that's almost impossible for him to do at this point. Because he's so invested in his work and the identity he's created for himself. The media's idolization of him isn't helping. It just feeds into his identity even more. Can you imagine how psychologically difficult it is for him to abandon everything he's worked to hard to build? The problem here is really simple: don't confuse success, progress, wealth, or contribution to mankind with happiness, consciousness, or growth. Sounds like this would be obvious enough that such a smart guy as Musk would get it. But it takes real self-honesty and awareness to grasp the significance of something so obvious and counter-intuitive.

I hear it's mostly just mantra meditation. You can do it yourself free. Select a mantra like: ahh-loom-bar-dee-dum And repeat it a million times very mindfully. There are many books available which can supply you with mantra ideas. But really, any nonsense sounds should work. The Hare Krishna mantra is a classic one. Google it.

Generally speaking, ANY fear you've got, you cannot keep sweeping under the rug in this whole self-actualization process. You're gonna have to tackle it head on at some point. The sooner the better. So if you have fears about socialization or relationships, it's a good idea to work through those, rather going into isolation. Isolation can be misused by the ego just like any other tool. Isolation can be used as an escape from all sorts of issues like relationship problems, business problems, etc. In isolation, it's easy to get lazy and start to devolve into a goblin-like creature talking to himself.

1) Important for me to get coached? Or for me to coach others? I could def benefit from being coached. You're never gonna run out of stuff to get coached on. 2) No. It's something I've done on and off. I have enough stuff to integrate from my weekly studies and practices. 3) Coaching is helpful in a way that's different from just reading or meditating. It gets you a new perspective on your problems. Coaching is pricey, so you generally won't do it for long periods of time. You usually do it to overcome a specific roadblock in your life. Plus it takes up time. So your schedule needs to accommodate it. I will probably get more coaching in the future. It's a good thing no matter what level you're at. You don't really outgrow it. In the same way that Tiger Woods still gets golf coaching. And Floyd Mayweather still gets boxing coaching. Just look at those folks' lives. They probably suck. Which tells you everything you need to know. It's very hard to read too much or meditate too much. Unless you're caught in mental masturbation, in which case, dial back on the reading and do more practicing. Meditation you can do for 12 hours a day, and it would still not be too much. A group of people is not necessary. Special guidance is not necessary either. Books ARE special guidance. Of course it's helpful to do workshop and retreats, and interact with advanced teachers. Try to do at least 1 or 2 different workshops per year. Success is not my priority. I've already got plenty of success. More becomes a trap. See video: Successful People Are Not Happy. Marketing is like a neverending sand pit. You can keep doing it until you're dead. But it never fulfills. So it's ultimately a waste of time unless you specifically need to do it to get by, or you care about influencing tons of people. Focusing on your work single-mindedly and getting in the flow of work is of course the best way to do it. But hard these days, with so many distractions available. It takes a lot of discipline and building good habits. I basically exited my old business and was moving into professional coaching. So there wasn't really much of an option. Sharing deep ideas was something I've always wanted to do. I am that! I don't really convince people. People gravitate towards what they're ready to hear. But I do spend a lot of time thinking about how best to explain and articulate my ideas in a persuasive way. Most human minds are persuaded with good, clear explanations. That was the original purpose of reason and rhetoric. That's how the ancient Greeks and Romans used philosophy and rhetoric. When the truth is laid out very simply and clearly, people tend to grasp it. Socrates is a good example to study. I call and message pretty much every week. I visit them for Xmas once a year usually. No, I don't really worry about my family worrying about me. I basically don't. I'm not really a fan of Russian culture. Nor any culture for that matter. Even though I can appreciate cultures around the world, Russian culture -- to me -- is one of the lamest cultures around. Their cuisine, media, philosophy, religion, and literature sucks for the most part. At least it's not my cup of tea. 1) Not certain 2) The videos ARE that book Unknown I've never completely squashed my limitations. Many limitations still exist. I deal with them every day. You don't wait to remove your limitation to find your LP. You find your LP in the midst of all your crippling limitations. Doing pickup was an important part of my growth curve, but I never did it just to "chase women". It was a way to build socialization skills, understand how the opposite sex works, and I was interested in the self-actualization aspects of it most of all. No one path is ever all-important. It's like water running down a mountain, if one avenue is blocked, it will always find another way. So if I'd never done pickup, I think I still would have stumbled into self-actualization and enlightenment, but just in a different way. There were much deeper forces at play than pickup.

@Lorcan You could invent your own techniques, but also watch out because you don't really know how effective they will be. You might end up wasting a lot of your time reinventing the wheel. Classic spiritual practices have generally been refined and evolved over hundreds of years to be highly effective. So you'd be safer choosing one from the many orthodox method available. I would avoid music. You're overstimulated as it is if you know what Dark Souls is

Nice! Cool to see that Ayahusca goes that deep. Those crazy shamans.

Yeah.... if you're gonna do psychedelics, it's worth doing the really classic ones: shrooms, LSD, DMT, etc. and not the "legal high" ones because they tend to be so inconsistent and produce lots of bad trips. I would stay away from call kinds of seeds and other gimmicky psychedelics. What you want is your substance to be as pure as humanly possible. 99% pure is the aim. That's one easy factor you can control which will significantly reduce bad trips and increase profound trips. 99% pure 5-MeO or 2-CB or LSD is pure magic. It's so pure you can feel it purifying your soul.

@Shan Many alpha males are of course very insecure deep down. Which is why they need to act macho, get angered easily, call each other faggots and pussies, take steroids, spend way too much time at the gym, etc. The entire spiritual journey for a masculine man is about learning how to integrate feminine qualities so as to transcend both. Use of dominance and authority is anti-spiritual. A conscious person doesn't need or want to manipulate reality in that way. Jesus' or Gandhi's turn-the-other-cheek attitude shows us the power of love over force. If you notice, even the most alpha of alpha males eventually gets taken out. You cannot win through force, because there's always a larger force around to kick your ass. So it's not sustainable. It's like an unlubricated engine which must burn itself out through its own inner friction. Yes, consciousness will make you "a pussy" in the conventional sense. But it will also make you realize how silly that cultural standard is. And that real power has nothing to do with how deep your voice is or how large your biceps are.

@Bewusstsein Lots of practice.

So... no enlightenment? Just a bunch of chimpery?

@username Just go further. All labels are pointers. Don't value the pointers over the insights and experiences.

Confucius say: "When you go fishing, bring dynamite"

@username Of course it's progress.

There is no purpose in debating the effectiveness of yoga. It clearly works. The only question is which kind you wanna do.

So then what do you care about?

Kinda silly to worship yourself. But hey, plenty of people do it.

@Joseph Maynor One enlightenment is just the tip of the iceberg. Chances are you'll still be quite clueless after that first enlightenment. Don't expect to become some kind of Ekhart Tolle or Ramana Maharshi. Ain't gonna happen like that.

@soh If the impact you're making doesn't make you cry, it's not your life purpose. Helping people should be that important to you if you want to be a life coach. Keep looking. Just because you can be good at something, doesn't make it your LP. Put aside all consideration of, "But I need to make a living." << that has nothing to do with life purpose. That is an external condition. You can worry about that after you've found your purpose.

@MiracleMan Not enlightened, but of course you start out without a you If you try to think back, sometime around age 2-3 you created the concept of a you vs other. You probably can't remember. Because there was no you before then.