VictorB02

@DrewNows Yes its a def mind F*CK! And no I haven't, I will look into him! @Salvijus Hehe, for real tho, I was like damnnnn this is legit... That one resonated deep with me too!

@SoonHei Of course! Its a great book I recommend you read it, its a compilation of some of his best teachings!

@PsiloPutty @outlandish @TheAvatarState Thank you all. I will def do half a tab and see how it feels!

Next weekend I will be having my first LSD trip. I have only done mushrooms as far as psychedelics go, and I have purchased a testing kit to make sure the LSD is pure. A couple of questions I have a more practical: Whats a good beginner dose in your opinion? Is one tab a certain amount of ug? What are your favorite things to do while tripping on acid?

@Serotoninluv @SgtPepper @Bluebird @Strikr Thank you all, I will be posting a trip report sometime next week, look out for it to see how it goes!

@Serotoninluv Thank you, my source said each tab is 300 ug, so half a tab for first time? or a little less than half?

These are my personal favorites for tripping:

I made a Meditation Retreat report that I will be posting on YouTube. Would it be ok for me to post the link here? Or would that be considered “self promotion”? What factors determine “self promotion”? How come we can post links to other videos but if it’s our own it’s considered “self promotion”? if it is considered self promotion, can we have a separate spot in the forum for people who want to check other users work out, and to post our own videos,reports,etc...? If a moderator or Leo could reply with a confirmed answer that would be great. Thanks!

@lmfao The Art of Meditation video is also mind blowing, I have seen that before. I will watch the improvement one tonight!

It is absolutely amazing. My favorite part is around the end where he talks about blame and praise being one in the same.

@SoonHei I agree with you 100%

In my perspective, It is, what it is Make peace with that, or don't. It's up to you.

@Sahil Pandit Thank you so much!

Hello forum, Early in 2019 I will be attending my first 10-day Vipassana Retreat, and in preparation for this retreat I will be doing 3-4 of my own mini retreats 1-4 days in length in my own home. I was wondering what your tips are on setting up retreats alone, things like: How much time each day doing various techniques like mindfulness meditating / self inquiring / do nothing technique? When you wake up / go to bed? Do you keep a journal or keep it completely free of any distractions? etc. Thank you for any replies!

How did it go?@John Iverson

Background info: I have a group of "friends" in my graduating class that I have kinda been on and off with ever since 4th grade (on & off as in there has been times when we were younger that they would almost shun me? And I could feel the whole group of them have something against me). Although we were "cool" this past year, I've never really hung out with them on my free time, and none of them really take the time to reach out to me and talk to me, but when we run into each other, they seem all happy and what not to see me. (Acting fake?) The point of this post: I am in a group chat on Snapchat with this same group of friends. We all graduated last year, and everyone is back for thanksgiving break. 6 of them (the main 6 that always hang out) all got together to go rent out a cabin together, and they keep sending videos to the group chat of them partying and laughing, Knowing that the other 2 members of the group chat, me and my (ironically) best friend are not with them. I can't help but feel they are doing it on purpose, like sort of a subliminal "F*** you", But I know better than to assume. The dilemma: I have this deep urge to leave the group chat, but snapchat has a notification for all the members when someone leaves, so If I leave, they will definitely know. I am facing a dilemma because on one hand I don't want to leave and have them think I'm mad at them (I don't want to do something that makes any interaction in the world awkward) And on the other hand I want to just leave because I'm getting real sick of being apart of the group, when I don't even talk to any of them, and they keep hanging out together and sending snaps of them hanging to the chat (knowing me and my best friend will see) My Question for the forum: What would you do if you were in my situation? Is it right of me to just leave? Or should I just stay and not care that they keep sending snaps? Any response will be much appreciated. Thanks

@bejapuskas yasss I’m with you

@bejapuskas Yes. I agree. You can always love, even if it involves me leaving the chat. @SgtPepper It is the point of the app, but usually you send things like that privately to the people you are with, not to people who aren't even there. But really, it doesn't really matter at all. After deleting the app, I see how ridiculous this is in the grand scheme @Nathan99 I have deleted every single social media app besides snapchat because I like the memory feature it has where you can save video memories easily to the cloud. Maybe I will find another way to save my memories and just delete it al together. @bejapuskas Thank you. I have actually tried the whole "im pissed at you guys and want you to know it" thing and I can say that it is a bad option. I choose to respond with love this time, all while respecting my boundaries and what I value. I actually have two best friends who will always be there to support me, and a girlfriend who I have been with for 4 years, so Im in no way isolating myself completely.

@111111 @Wyze @Salvijus @bejapuskas @Elisabeth @Enizeo @fewrocker I want to thank you all so much for your amazing replies. After contemplating all of your replies, and looking deep within to what I intuitively felt, I decided to leave. I figure that it is the best thing for me, and as many as you said, that group chat was only holding back and keeping me being my lower self. As for me now: I will look into the source of the issue in the first place, and why the videos they sent triggered something deep within me (maybe unsure of myself, fear of exclusion?). Thank you all again for helping me out. This forum is really an invaluable resource.

Against wise words, I decided to try smoke MJ for 2 weeks daily. In this post I will describe what happened to me mentally, and also insights I had while smoking MJ. Outline: The First Week 7 insights I had during the first week The Second Week After Stopping My Final Verdict The First Week The first week was filled with various insights I had while under the influence of cannabis. I would say that this was the most constructive time I have ever used cannabis. It was absolutely amazing the insights that I came up with while high. First Insight: Balance of Time Life is about complete balance. And within that balance we need to find time for ourselves to truly self actualize. You cannot truly self actualize until you find the time for yourself equal to or more so then the time you spend at work, school, or with friends. Second Insight: Power of Meditation I realized that while high that Meditation has greatly changed me, and I didn't even realize it. A few weeks back I went to the dentist to get a tooth pulled without being put to sleep. Any other time in my life I would have woke up that day with extreme anxiety and paranoia about the pain of getting a tooth pulled. But I had such the opposite response because of meditation that I didn't even realize how chill I was with getting a tooth pulled from my head while I was awake. Third Insight: Everything is Relative Everything is relative to us. We say that skyscrapers are tall, huge, and big, and we also say that Chihuahua's are small little dogs. But to something smaller to a Chihuahua, lets say an ant, it perceives the Chihuahua as huge, big, and tall. And following the knowledge of oneness and non duality, this makes perfect sense because you can go infinitely small and infinitely big. Nothing is actually and definitively anything. It is what it is because human's perceive it as such, and label it as such. Fourth Insight: Way More Helpful at Home I live at home and realized while high that I am way more helpful to my parents around the house and chores while I am high. I figure this is normal ego resistance while sober that doesn't seem to be there while I am high. Fifth Insight: The Hardest Pill to Swallow About Life The hardest pill to swallow about life is that you will die. You only get one life. It would be a complete waste to do anything but try to make life as amazing as possible for the short time you're here. You won't make it amazing by coming home from your 9-5 and watching an episode of The Office. Sixth Insight: Surrender Surrender is the basis by which you are happy or not in life. You have to surrender to reality, or the present moment, to be happy. This doesn't mean you give up. It means you surrender to the fact that things are the way they are and you have to do something about it to solve the problem if you have one. No amount of worrying or thinking will help you, if not, it will make it worse. You have to surrender and "let it be". Seventh Insight: One Moment I realized very deeply that it has been one continuous moment since the Big Bang (or what ever was before then) and there has been no stop, pause, or glitch. It literally has all been one thing this whole time. I know a lot of these are common knowledge to the community, but when I realized these while high, they were realized very very deeply, and to their core. Second Week After the first successful week of having various insights and thoughts while high, I noticed that things started to change. I started to get urges more and more frequently to smoke weed, even when I actually didn't want to. I found Mary Jane wrapping her tentacles around me once more. What followed was a week of addictive, pointless, and depressing use of Cannabis that I could have saw coming. There was 0 insights from this week, and I also felt like crap. I noticed that my mindfulness and awareness had seemingly disappeared. I was forgetting things and could not focus for the life of me while meditating or doing affirmations. Then I decided to stop 4 days ago. After Stopping: Just days after stopping, I felt clarity and mindfulness flow back into my life more quickly then I thought that it would. I also feel completely better and more optimistic after stopping. My Final Verdict: To me, weed is strong, very strong. In the sense that it can make you addicted without you even realizing it. Even to someone (me) who considers themselves on the self actualization path, and very mindful, I fell prey to this trap. With that being said. Cannabis has an absolutely amazing ability of connecting you to divine creativity and love. If used correctly, this plant can do amazing things.

I live in Idaho, arguably the center of sportsman and hunting in our country. I have grown up hunting, my dad is a game warden, hunts, his grandpa hunted, all my friends hunt. Least to say, it is the norm around here. As I have evolved more and more through the spiral dynamics stages, and after watching Leos video "The Radical Implications of Oneness" I have finally come to the conclusion that I am done hunting. Not that I think it is wrong, not that I think humans need to stop hunting, but because I don't find any place in me anymore where I want to go and take an animals life. I just simply do not want to. I went duck hunting earlier this year and killed a limit of 7 ducks and I just could not rid myself of the feeling of "What was the point in me doing this? I don't even eat the duck meat, I just cook it and give it to my dogs." But then I tell myself something like "Well our ancestors have been doing it for blah blah blah" And I usually ignore my intuition, but not anymore. My question is: What would be the best way explain to lower spiral dynamic staged people (especially friends and family) that I don't want to hunt anymore, because, well, they will want an explanation, and I'm of course not going to say "It's wrong" and I also don't want to be vague and say "I am just not feeling it anymore" Any ideas would help, thanks.

@Salvijus I agree that "f you" can be a great way to say this. .@Joseph Maynor thank you @Viking I suppose its possible although I don't think its necessarily "wrong" I just don't see the point of it. My greatest fear while taking the Life Purpose Course was "the fear of saying no" So I am sissy when it comes to saying no. I actually said no earlier today to going hunting tomorrow with my dad, I got shit, he was pissed, but damn did I feel great after saying that

@SgtPepper Thank you for you advice.

@Nahm For sure @Serotoninluv for sure. I think my best friend is a big influence in my weed smoking. I told him I was done for 7 months and he seemed chill with it which is good. @Leo Gura I'm sure there would be radical differences @Rilles I have had these some of these insights while sober, its more that I comprehended them at a very deep and enhanced level while high

@PsiloPutty Great question! I have been smoking for the past 4 years and probably smoked 60-70% of that time. So a lot. From here on out I plan to not smoke until at least next summer. (6-7 months) where I will re-evaluate. This was a test to see if its possible for me to smoke and do what I want to do with Personal Development. I'm glad with the clear results.