LastThursday

This always confuses me: If we agree that words and language (including non-verbal communication) are not the things they represent, just merely pointers to things they (might) represent - how do we: 1. Convey, explain, convince people that spirituality exists and is worth pursuing? 2. Know that my spirituality is the same as your spirituality - and if it's not, then what exactly is it that we're doing, when we do "spirituality"?

@arlin in my experience doing NLP on yourself is hard. It requires high levels of self awareness, because you have to apply the techniques and be aware of your responses at the same time. I would say that having someone do NLP to you is far more effective. Your unconscious is very powerful but it works very differently from your concious everyday mind. It likes a good story, even if it doesn't make sense. It likes reward more than punishment. It's language is emotions and instinct and associations between things. It works by intent and gut feeling and lucky guesses. And it will bypass your concious mind if it has to - it's sneaky. So if you want to learn how to speak to you unconcious then you need to know it's language first. Nowadays I literally speak to my unconcious, and it will respond. But it doesn't always do what I want! It's like a fickle spoilt child.

@milii it's natural to be jealous sometimes. Sometimes other people have what you want really badly. But your jealousy is holding you back from getting what you want, don't you see? It takes emotional energy and hard work to keep being jealous all the time. It's so much better to use that energy to improve your life instead. One day other people can be jealous of you? No?

Stand your ground and say "no" when it's important to you even if you feel uneasy about it. That's you being authentic. But also concede sometimes and say "yes" when you need to - even if you feel uneasy about it. There's strength in doing both.

If they look and behave like humans, they will have an electronic self (ego). Otherwise they will easily be found out and treated like second class citizens or worse, abused. Survival breeds a "self".

I've had some experience in it, although I haven't used it professionally. As a rough technical outline it's made up the following areas: Specific use of language to induce change in a person (hypnotism, therapy type questions, reframing exercises etc). Watching body language (eye movements etc) to create rapport and improve communication. Using tactile or auditory stimuli to induce multiple 'states' in order to produce new (positive) behaviour. A theory of how stimulus - response works, in order to understand how to change (negative) behaviours The traditional uses are to cure phobias, anxiety, lack of confidence, quiting smoking, fear of public speaking and many other things. It's not scientifically proven, but hey. I would say it was fairly similar to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Personally it has helped me get over a lot of anxiety I used to suffer from. If you want more depth, start on Wikipedia. Then get hold of the books Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton Erickson and Frogs Into Princes. But the self help sections of bookstores will generally have one or two books on it.

That one. I'm not saying it's a big addiction as such - I have it myself. But it's creating some suffering or some negativity at least, that's why you're posting?

Jump off a cliff and then tell me as your falling to your death (of the body) whether you falling is still a story. And don’t give me a slick little nondual rationalization. Yes, in the Absolute there is no one to die and no one falling and no ground. In yet you will still fall until you hit the ground. I don't care. Stop projecting. Which way is down?

@Giulio Bevilacqua you only have two options: Make a decision and change now Don't make a decision now and carry on the same If you want to stop the suffering all you have to do is choose one. Looks like at the moment you've chosen the second one - and there's nothing wrong with that - it will all turn out ok anyway.

@rnd why not actually do the work and break the addiction?

That's just a theory - just simpler than Newton's.

Acceptance is a beginning. But a hungry animal once fed will still be hungry again later (addiction). It's more effective to find alternative (spiritual) nourishment as you don't have to go hunt for it and it fills the belly more.

Ok: Is getting married and starting a family going to interfere with my spiritual work? What do I do if my future spouse is not on-board? Thanks!

It's not going to help but it's both. Life is both meaningful and meaningless. As long as you have the urge to eat and sleep and breathe, there is meaning - those are meaningful things. If you keep thinking about it, there are a million meaningful things in your life. some more than others. Being on this forum is meaningful. Hold on to those things. But the real you, deep inside knows that it really is meaningless, and this can make you feel there is no ground beneath you. When you stop and think about it, everything in your experience is so fantastical and nonsensical. It's just a jumble of light and hard stuff and emotions and experiences and memories and rules and funny creatures with four limbs and teeth and eyes and hair. None of it makes any sense, because there is no sense to it! It's random and abritrary. You have to embody both sides of the story to be really actualised. And it's hard work.

For the sake of balance: You even imagine that you are God. The caveat of course being that divine imagination is also Absolute Truth.

In my opinion you should not speed up the process, but go at a pace that you can maintain. You are more likely to actualize that way! The point is not to reach some lofty goal of Enlightenment or whatever. The point is to pay attention to the journey and expand your awareness, IN THE PRESENT MOMENT. Just keep watching the 5 year old videos if that is where you are, there is no shame in that. It is not a competition to keep up with Leo's output. In fact a lot of us on here could do with re/watching a lot of the older material - it really is gold. Me included.

Over thinking at bed time is something I really used to struggle with. It would easily take me 1-2 hours to get to sleep every night. I did two things which turned that around for me: 1. Gave up ALL caffeine. I eventually worked out that I'm highly intolerant to it, and it wasn't allowing me to sleep. 2. Every night. I religiously listened to a recording from Paul McKenna's Change Your Life In Seven Days. This was a kind of hypnotic style relaxation CD. I'd like to elaborate on those two points. Firstly, what you ingest during the day can greatly affect your state of mind and your ability to relax enough to get to sleep. It's very important that you experiment with your diet to see if any particular foods or drink is affecting your alertness at night. Of course this applies to other areas of your life and health in general. Second. It's important to train your mind/body that the bedroom is for one thing only: sleep (have sex somewhere else!). Your mind works by association and it does that very very well. If it associates lying in bed with thinking and ruminating, then you'll have trouble sleeping. You have to retrain the mind to associate bed with relaxation and sleep. The point with the hypnotic CD was that it was nearly impossible for me to think while I was listening to it. Apart from those two things, there are a million other things that can improve your sleep and ability to get to sleep. Here are some highlights: Block all blue light entering your eyes from about 8pm onwards (i.e. two hours at least before sleeping). This will shift your body clock. Ensure the bedroom is slightly cooler than other rooms. You will not sleep as easily if you're too warm. Take a shower if it helps you cool down before bed. Get bright sunlight or daylight as soon as you can after waking up. Talk a walk outside! Don't stay indoors in dark rooms. Again, this will shift your body clock. Do exercise (walking, running, gym whatever) very regularly several times a week. This will reduce your alertness in the evenings. Find time to do your 'thinking' during the day and not at night. Do your thinking at the same place and time each day. Good luck!

I was prescribed SSRI's at one point, but I just could not sleep on them, so stopped. However, my mood lifted slightly in the coming months, but I was not functioning at a 'normal' level a very long time. In the end I had enough and decided to self medicate and started with St John's Wort - after reading the literature that in some instances they were just as effective as SSRI's with less side effects. You don't need a prescription for it here in the UK. After about three weeks I noticed a marked improvement, especially in the mornings. I continued taking it with hardly any side effects - other than the morning after a bout of drinking the night before, where I would feel slightly euphoric or high, possibly due to a spike in serotonin levels. After nearly a year of continuous use, I decided to try stop to see what the effects were. I fairly rapidly noticed my mood drop, but nowhere near as bad as previous levels. Since then I've done a lot of work on myself and certain dark thoughts no longer bother me and I've improved my diet and exercise tremendously. I would say it helped me pull myself out of a dark hole.

There is nothing to do and nowhere to go. Just stop grasping and don't panic.

That's how you know you're making progress. At first nothing makes any sense or it's not even on your radar, then BOOM! It all clicks into place. All this work feels like just treading water, and sometimes like you're drowning. But actually slowly the tide is pulling you towards the shore.

Depends on who socialise with. But generally? No. I'd say 99% of socialising is surface level and low consciousness. Chimpery, to use someone's words...

Move to a place half way between the two? Anyway, 9000 euros over three years for travel seems like a lot. But you could probably get 20,000 euros per year in your first job. If you lived with your parents then, you could easily pay them back in a year or two.

An asshole is just someone who lacks empathy. But bear in mind psychopaths, narcissists and those on the autistic spectrum have the same problem. Speaking truth has nothing to do with empathy (on an everyday level). But you have to be careful that you're speaking the truth and not just your truth. In fact you're the worst person to judge if you're speaking truth (you could be very deluded). Obviously you can just not be an asshole by showing some empathy. Maybe your target is not ready for the truth?

@Giulio Bevilacqua pay your parents back AFTER university if necessary. Three or four years is not a long time. Make university a joy not a burden.

But there is a point. You just have to find it first. Once you do, life will 'come alive'. It does beg the question though. So what if life is a dream? What does that change exactly, why is it useful to know this?