Leo Gura

@Emerald Good work!

Kriya yoga Also you might want to consider EEG brain training / neurofeedback therapy. It can be very effective for ADHD. Find a local provider. Search Yelp for something like this near you: https://www.yelp.com/biz/sierra-eeg-neurofeedback-therapy-grass-valley Binaural beats can also be helpful to jump start your meditation.

My pleasure

They don't care how much sex you have, nor will they ever know. But what they do care about is that you have some value as a man. To a woman, value in a man is his survival value to her. A valuable man usually acts confident, witty, easy-going, leader in his pack of friends, outgoing, charismatic, takes initiative, knows what he wants, passionate about his life, has a clear sense of direction in life, has a decent job, a results-maker, the boss, etc. The girl needs to feel that YOU are the prize. If you feel that she is the prize, she's basically out of your league and she knows it and so she won't get attracted to you. Guys who are surrounded by lots of friends, who are the hub of their social network, have high value to a girl. She will find such a guy much more attractive than a loner because girls are social creatures and love to leech off social networks. That's a big part of their survival strategy. To get the hottest girls you need to build a lot of social value. It's a full-time job. Having lots of friends who are girls are a great way to get girls interested in you. That's like the epitome of social proof. The more hot girls are around, the more will flock to you. Just like earning money. Winner takes all, loser ends up getting scraps. Being famous is the best way to have social value. Which is why rockstars, DJ's, and celebrities get laid the most. Girls love a guy who has some solid social status which everyone recognizes. With all that said, you don't need any social value to get a girl. It's mostly only necessary if you want to land the hottest girls, the top 5%. Ordinary girls will settle for much less. To attract an ordinary girl all you need is some confidence, humor, and decent conversation skills. All of which can be trained up.

@LaucherJunge If a girl is running off to see other guys something is very wrong. She's not really attracted to you. Sounds like you did something to lose her attraction, or you never had it to begin with. Are you actually having sex with her? Or is this some kind of Platonic relationship?

Don't call this depression. An existential crisis is not depression. These are classic signs of waking up. You are not going to wake up without facing nihilism head-on.

How do you enjoy a movie? You know it's not real yet you enjoy it anyway. How do you enjoy a video game? You know it's not real yet you enjoy it anyway. What you don't realize yet is that BEING is superior to meaning. Stop needing meaning. Enjoy being. You need to become conscious that you are assigning negative meaning to meaninglessness. You are not conscious of this yet. Take responsibility over the fact that you create meaning. And create whatever you want. Sadness is something you are unwittingly creating. It is not a given to be sad. You must do it.

@cetus56 That would be a problem. You saying you have that?

@cetus56 Do some research into alternative healing modalities. It's a very big field with lots of potential solutions that you'll never hear from your doctor. Some of it can be life-saving stuff. Alternative medicine books have been written on virtually every ailment known to man. Just do a quick Amazon or Google search. Like so: "alternative treatments for MS" "natural healing MS book" Replace "MS" with whatever ailment you have.

And I label Western doctors BS. Of course we should be open to the possibility that what the OP is describing is not kundalini but something else. Perhaps some kind of disease or other kind of dysfunction. The human mind/body is a very complex machine which can become broken in thousands of subtle ways. Diagnosing all these ways is not trivial, sometimes taking years of investigation and trail and error. Chronic health conditions can be a real nuisance. I've been dealing with several of my own, and it's not easy.

@Aaron p Be mindful of the stories you make up about me. Nobody here really knows me. What you're relating to when you think of me is your own self, not the actual me. Notice this. Any ideas you have of me being a good or bad person or whatever... it's ALL your own stuff! Makes you wonder... Have you ever related to an actual human being in your entire life? Or was it always your own self you were relating to? Projecting your own ideas and needs onto them? Investigate that. Any meaning your attribute to me or my work is your own projection, serving your ego in some way. In truth, my work is literally meaningness.

@corndjorn Mind is a concept. Body is also a concept. Past and future are concepts. Most things humans know are concepts.

@corndjorn You're acting as though someone here is instructing you to avoid stuff. No one said to avoid anything. You are arguing against your own self. Why are you associating psychedelics with some kind of avoidance?? You might as well go to a Zen temple and complain to them that meditation is a form of avoidance. As a general rule of thumb: You are creating whatever results you are getting.

Not ego-backlash but ego is the root cause of depression. More accurately, the ego-mind is constantly evaluating, judging, and assigning meaning to reality. Depression is one of these meanings which you are creating but you are not conscious that you are creating it. It happen automatically in you because your level of consciousness is quite low. Try this experiment: sit comfortably at home and do not think a single thought about the future or the past. Be fully present. Strip all meaning from reality. Can you still feel depressed? Keep doing this until you realize that depression is something YOU ARE DOING! It is not happening to you! All negative emotions are something you create. Negativity is never found in the "external world". It arises out of how your ego-mind assigns meaning to external things based on its survival needs. You might say, "But Leo, what if I get cancer? Cancer caused me to be depressed!" No! The meaning YOU ASSIGN to cancer causes you to be depressed. And it possible to train yourself to stop assigning meaning to things. Consciousness and mindfulness helps with depression. But you must actually do it. And the catch-22 is, if you're depressed, you probably don't want to do it, nor do you want to believe what I'm saying.

@Emerald What you're missing is that attraction is not a rational choice. See, you're evaluating this whole situation theoretically, which is not at all how it works in real life. In real life, if a well-dressed, nice-looking guy with a big smile, confidence, and swagger stopped you while you were walking down the street and told you he found you attractive and had a fun conversation with you, all of your logic would fly out the window. It doesn't matter if he's "using a pickup line" on 100 other girls. A good approach is a good approach. The line is irrelevant. The words never matter. It's all in the tone and body language. You would be flattered, your self-esteem would be boosted, and maybe you'd get attracted to him. Attraction is never a guarantee. Often the chemistry just doesn't happen. But attraction is not something you logically decide upon. It happens near-instantly based on deep subconscious cues. Attraction happens within 5 minutes. Within 5 minutes the girl determines and demonstrates whether she's willing to sleep with the guy. The rest is just comfort-building. But she is not conscious of any of this. It all happens automatically. What you're not factoring into your theory is that that guy could actually attract you! If you're being fake polite, etc. that means he hasn't succeeded in attracting you. You've succeeding in rejecting him. His job was to bust through your automatic knee-jerk defense mechanism. He must do that through charm, confidence, and humor, not through meeting any logical criteria you have. Obviously if you're already married with a kid, you are much less open to approaches. But consider if you were single. (BTW, if the guy knows what he's doing, he'll check your finger for a wedding ring before even approaching you). Attraction is a very counter-intuitive thing. Be careful underestimating it or logically analyzing it. There is zero logic in attraction. It does not happen based on any rational standards that you may think you have. Which is precisely why girls easily get attracted to scrubs who abuse them, and yet the girl only gets more attracted! And even if an approach is a nuisance, this cannot be avoided because the guy has to approach the girl because the girl will almost never approach the guy. Yes, the girl incurs the cost of a creepy approach. On the other hand, the girl is freed of the hell that is approaching. You girls have no idea what it takes to make a natural approach or to be rejected dozen times in a row. You should be thankful you don't have to do it. It is the guy's job to approach and the girl's job to screen him for quality. That is how human mating works. Not unlike the courtship rituals of birds. Part of the cost of being a hot girl is that you will get approach a lot. That's both a blessing and curse. And you're not going to change that. Guys are wired to approach you. And you're wired to screen them. The thing with approaching is that it's not supposed to work 95% of the time. 5% is all it takes for love to happen It is just like sales. And sales works precisely because people buy.

Oh yeah? Point to it. Have you ever actually contemplated: What is the mind? Where is the mind? Does mind even exist?

Ultimately there is no such thing as the subconscious mind. That is a conceptual abstraction. What is real is present in your direct experience right now, and at all times. But more practically-speaking, yes, you can basically become conscious of anything that is "running" you. But that is WAY beyond enlightenment and will take you decades of serious work. Very very very few spiritual masters have done this. Emotional self-mastery is much harder than enlightenment. I never said it was a useless tool. I said it has a major downside in my mind due to its addiction potential and dulling stoning effects. It's too easily overused, becoming a chronic thing people do. It becomes recreational all to easily. I don't see the point in it when there are better options available like LSD, mushrooms, or 5-MeO-DMT. Edible pot is probably better than smoked pot for spiritual growth purposes. Although I'm not experienced with pot. It never appealed to me. The trio of mushrooms, LSD, and 5-MeO-DMT will transform your entire life forever if used properly.

@corndjorn Awakening and enlightenment are identical terms (at least on this forum). Yes, there are many degrees of wokeness and many degrees of embodiment and mastery. Yes, there is much left to master and become conscious of even after a deep awakening. "Full enlightenment" is virtually a fantasy and no method promises it. To become fully conscious of your entire emotional system and subconscious mind is a very tall order to fill. But even here, I think psychedelics can be helpful as you can use them to become more conscious of all aspects of yourself. Of course psychedelics will not do all the work for you if you're shooting for "full enlightenment". You'll need to spend THOUSANDS of hours in contemplation and self-study to achieve that. If psychedelics cause you to get lost in ego, that's something you're doing. It doesn't have to be that way. I use psychedelics quite sparingly. For every 1 trip I do hundreds of hours of meditation, integration, contemplation, and study. So there is no problem. If you're just tripping balls every week and doing no other spiritual work, yeah, that could become problematic.

@corndjorn You just aren't using psychedelics properly. Not the right ones, in the right ways, with the right intentions. Psychedelics are very nuanced things. There is an art and a science to taking them which requires careful attention to master. A few trips is not anywhere near enough to figure psychedelics out. If you haven't taken 30+ trips in the proper ways, you won't really understand psychedelics. Psychedelics must also be combined with existential inquiry. Also, keep in mind that people have different brain types and personality types. Maybe psychedelics are not so effective for you, but for others like me, they are undeniably effective. So be careful not to over-universalize your personal limited experiences. It is a fact that psychedelics transform peoples lives. Just maybe not yours. Then again, I'm willing to bet you've never done a breakthrough 5-MeO-DMT trip.

@Just the mage Given that you've had this for many years now, your case seems special. I would recommend you find a yogi who's experienced in kundalini awakening and tell him your story. He should have some good advice for you. I also recommend you read some good books about kundalini awakening. There are exercises and practices for dealing with blockages and for venting the excess energy. I am no expert on kundalini, but from what I understand you need to get the energy out of your system with physical practices. You're not supposed to bottle it up. It has to work through and out of your system. Exercises that might help you: dancing, speaking in tongues, screaming, shaking your body, Osho's dynamic meditation, physical exercise, jumping, Hatha yoga, hitting a punching bag, etc. I would look for physical ways to vent that energy which feel best for you. If what you're describing really is kundalini activation, Western doctors are not going to help you, as they're clueless about it. In fact, they will probably give you harmful solutions. So go find a yogi.

He's got that backwards, religion is a kind of ideology. Ideology is not a kind of religion. Liberalism is not a religion, it is an ideology.

Content alone is never enough. The reason you're not succeeding is because you're trying to enter markets which are already heavily saturated. Business requires that you find new fertile ground. There are only so many YT spiritual teachers that the world needs. I was successful on YT not because of my content but because I was on there early, before it blew up, and I had significant marketing skills. My content is NOT what makes me successful or popular. Business success has almost nothing to do with content. It's about marketing strategy. You need to take some marketing courses. Your approach might have worked 10 years ago, but not today in those fields. Blogging is almost impossible to enter these days. Even when I started Actualized.org, blogging was basically dead to new entrants. You need to be more original than that. In business, a new field is only open for so long. After that, it closes. You cannot start a new Facebook today, or a new Google, or a new Microsoft, or a new car company. Those markets are saturated and monopolized already. You must find new markets.

"Listen, I'm flattered you like me, but I'm just not interested." Don't go into justifications. You don't need to justify anything. Just tell him you are not interested. That's enough. As a side note: you being 26 and never dating is a sign of dysfunction. Don't wait to make yourself perfect before you date. Part of the reason you may be depressed is that you're too closed off from people. Dating will make you grow a lot, so consider doing it. Not necessarily with this guy, but some other guy you like.

@Jed Vassallo You've clearly never gamed. Stopping a woman randomly in the daytime with a genuine direct approach makes her day. It makes her feel great. Imagine how you'd feel if a hot girl approached you at the supermarket and told you that she's attracted to you. You'd feel awesome even if you never took her up on the offer. You'd feel like king for the day. Go to a mall, stop any random woman and tell her that you just thought she was beautiful, and she will be so happy. Obviously don't lie about it, it must be genuine. You've also clearly never gamed. I didn't say that was the end of the conversation, I said that's the opener. From there you use cheeky conversation to build attraction. Stopping a woman cold on the street and being genuine with her about your feelings about her is extremely rare. It builds instant attraction and it makes you stand out from everyone else. I am not talking about a pickup line, I am talking about genuinely expressing yourself. This also makes her day. She will feel great the rest of the day even if she declines your offer for a date/coffee/phone number. The words you say to a woman almost never matter. What matters is how you carry yourself and the tone you take. Most attractive women will have boyfriends, but you'll never know until you try. Every street approach ends with an invitation to an instant coffee date, and failing that, a phone number. The biggest issue here is that you don't have the balls or skill to pull off such a direct and genuine approach, nor the skills to carry the conversation, nor the skill to close it. If you find a woman attractive, hiding your feelings about it to try to weasel your way into her pants is weak. She will smell your manipulations. Hot women like men who are clear and decisive about what they want. When a woman makes you feel something, you don't hide, you be direct about it, the way a strong man would. That in itself builds massive attraction. Women only hate being approached when you are being creepy, insecure, or obnoxiously cat-calling her.

@FredFred Doses below 15mg will be disappointing. Things start getting good around 20mg.