Leo Gura

You can discuss disorders, it's just not our main focus. You won't be banned. I would think it's a legit disorder, although much over-diagnosed and over-medicated. Poor diet probably has much to do with it.

I wouldn't frame this as one vs the other. Self-mastery is the path. Self transcendence is the last leg of the path. If you work towards self-mastery with earnestness for a long time, self-transcendence will naturally happen.

Two very simple things: Go out and put yourself into social situations A LOT. Talk about YOURSELF! Stop asking questions. Just blabbermouth about yourself to people like a narcissist about the most stupid and mundane things. You'll see people open up very fast. Example: "I was brushing my teeth this morning and noticed that I haven't washed my bath towels in over a month." << Random conversation started. The biggest things holding back most guys is that we think conversations have to be logical and make sense. Well, they don't! The best conversation starters are total nonsense. Practice with store clerks at the mall in department stores. You are NOT going to logically figure this out. You need to actually push yourself in front of people and do it. Trust that your brain will figure out the details. It always does with time.

I would go to college, if only for the girls! But if don't care about girls (or guys) and you are fiercely self-motivated, the go do your own thing. Just remember that making a living in the real world all by yourself without a safety net is FUCKING HARD! The business world will beat you to the ground over and over and over again.

Well... the fact is that life does NOT have purpose. But you can set an artificial purpose for your life if you want to make things more interesting and less mediocre. As Hume famously said, "You can't derive an ought from an is." Which basically means, that there are no SHOULDS. Reality is however it is, and there are no shoulds for what you should do about it. All those shoulds are just artificial constraints. Just drop them all and do whatever the hell you want. Do whatever will make you most fulfilled. You don't need some deep metaphysical justification for this.

If you're serious about making this your purpose and career, don't be cheap with it. $10,000 is not a lot of money to invest in a career. Find a way to save up the money. How are you gonna realistically raise the psyche of the human race if you can't put together $10k?

Two great suggestions above. Changing family is like pulling teeth.

What would you do if you had $100 million dollars and didn't care about money at all any more? Take money out of the decision. Money clouds your vision.

1) I like to share deep insights with people. 2) At this point, very little. My life is mostly centered around my work and purpose. Fun for me is either doing my work, doing nothing, taking a long road trip, being out in nature, hanging out with a girl. As far as cheap low-grade entertainment goes: I'll play a video game once in a while I'll watch some funny political commentary from the Daily Show or Stephen Colbert I'll browse tech news websites like The Verge

People I admire from history include: Marcus Aurelius Various Greek philosophers David Hume Gandhi The Buddha Da Vinci People I admire from modern times: Various yogis and enlightened folks Responsible business leaders like the founders of Google Eben Pagan Barack Obama And hundreds of other people who I can't even recall because there are so many.

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you Yes, it was a lot of effort.

It varies, sometime morning, sometimes late at night. The only rule I have is that I never miss a day. I sit cross-legged on my couch with pillows and cushions. Not full-lotus or even half-lotus. Worst? The oldest ones.

1) Yes, I love to learn about science, history, philosophy, and other stuff. 2) All-out focused on learning, and planning my future career in video game design. 3) Zero experience with girls. I took a vow in early highschool not to distract myself with the opposite sex or with friends. They were a huge waste of time in my mind. 4) Supernatural? No. Aliens probably do, but not like UFOs and Martians. 5) I don't care about them at all. A big distraction. 6) The fact that reality exists at all and that I am alive inside it. 7) Every upset and negative emotion and dissatisfaction with life is a complete fiction. The mind creates problems out of thin air. External situations are truly irrelevant to happiness. 8) No, but my Mom has some photos that I will have to scan at some point.

From my research I think a mostly-vegetarian (as close to raw as possible) diet is most healthy. So that's why I'm moving in that direction. There are ethical and environment concerns as well, but my first concern is my own health. Don't know about food combining.

I don't have public playlists. There are hundreds of songs I like.

There is a whole domain within spirituality which we might call the "powers realm". It's all the occult stuff like astral projection, healing, extra-sensory perception, channeling other entities, etc. I don't have much experience with that domain other than to suspect that it's fun and interesting, but also infested with fantastical thinking and illusions. And that there is a deeper realm. As the Zen tradition or any seriously enlightened person will tell you: ignore all that shit and go straight for the Truth without any detours or power-trips. Then if you still want, you can come back and play wizard. I might be too closedminded about this though. I'd have to do more personal dabbling in wizardry to know for sure.

I like music that's either moody or has strong melody. So mostly: pop, some alternative rock, chillout, dance, club. I don't select music by genre or artist. I cherrypick individual songs that I happen to like and ignore the rest. I don't follow musicians or listen to their entire albums because most of the stuff in the album I will not like.

Yes, that's what I'd hope you'd be doing.

There's nothing irrational about saying that reality is arational. Rational people simply don't like to hear it. Rationality CAN'T cover everything. If it could, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The rational person has to come to a point where he sees the limits and self-defeating nature of rationality. Unfortunately this rarely happens because for the rationalist, rationality is God. The ultimate false assumption at the center of his knowledge graph. Rationality has no contact whatsoever with direct empirical data. It's a purely conceptual conclusion.

Something like that.

I define it as when you realize that you are not the body/mind. A more strict definition that I also like is: permanent non-dual awareness.

Most enlightened people are quite ordinary and you would not know from the outside that they are special in any way. Plus they are humble, so they don't go around shouting, "Look at me! I'm enlightened!!!!!" In today's age there are MANY enlightened people. Thousands of them. Maybe even tens of thousands. They just aren't flashy, rich, or powerful, so they have little influence on mainstream society.

As your awareness rises, lucid dreaming becomes more likely from what I understand. So consider it a byproduct of your heavy consciousness work.

The most fundamental step -- as I happen to talk about in this week's video -- is to commit to a slow, steady life-long study of this field: self-mastery. Then you just make sure to stay calm, patient, and consistent with your studies. And eventually, EVERYTHING will transform. But it will take some struggle at first and it will be slow-going at first. Just stay calm and carry on. You probably should avoid my deeper videos for now (like the enlightenment videos). Stick to the more practical stuff that will improve your current daily existence until you get deeper into it.

People can lucid dream by accident, but you won't get very far with it unless you become committed to mastering it (just like anything else in life). Enlightenment is not at all necessary for lucid dreaming. It's much easier.