electroBeam

thanks, you've just given me an idea of what project I'm going to work on over the summer: A video game that helps people meditate.

labeling someone as orange, putting them into a box with a label called 'orange', is the most orange thing I've seen in yrs.

@Azrael Nice love the idea of doing little things everyday to push yourself out of your comfort zone, and being inspiried by others, maybe even using each other's challenges to help us grow. Didn't you take 5 meo ages ago though? Wouldn't that experience make you feel like the most high self esteem dude on here? My ways of pushing myself out of my comfort zone is a little esoteric and creepy/disturbing I'm guessing. Since I was a kid, I've had this huge fear of not being able to accept everything the way that it is. So I've set it up upon myself to do things that I, and society at large, deems wrong or bad, to a limit. 1. I really judge assholes. I hate people who believe that they are entitled to more privileges than the rest of the population, and who believe that their egos are the most important things on the planet. So What I did a couple of months ago, is went into a queue at McDonalds, and when it was my turn to order, I waited in the line pretending to decide to order something, for about 3 minutes. Then after that, asked the woman if I could get a big mac for 1 dollar cheaper. My brain made me feel like total shit while doing this exercise. It couldn't stop judging me. But after doing it, and seeing what empirically happened, it made me realize how flimsy my judgments are, and how groundless they are. 2. I always judge guys who can't take a hint while dating, or asking a girl out. So I decided to be that guy for a girl a kind of liked, just to see if my judgments could hold up to scrutiny. Now of course, you do have to be careful of sexual harassment accusations, so you do need to be mindful of when to stop while doing these challenges, but despite that, doing challenges like these really helps you to be able to accept yourself, and your true being to the max. After doing exercises like these, you're able to be yourself freely, because you're ok with being literally anything society can deem you as. You can be an asshole, a dude who can't take a hint, a creep, the black sheep, the weirdo, the boring one, the autistic one, the one everybody hates, and you wont even judge yourself for it, because you are really ok with it after embodying these awful traits yourself, and seeing that all of those traits are just beliefs. I felt disgusting while doing the challenge, but when you see yourself doing it in the real world, you develop a tight appreciation for how god really is accepting your behavior, and the behavior of others, 100% the way.

You're video for this week should be an infield approach on a girl, flirting to her in Sanskrit. Honestly though, you're bullshitting about the Sanskrit part hahahaha. There are no girls who know sanskrit in a strip club.

@30secs lets go little bitch.

I beg to differ. I'm more successful at getting dates when I'm not really into the girl/she's not that attractive or my type. And so are my friends who do cold approach with me. And if you wait around for a sign, I highly doubt you will get much dates. In my experience, men have to be network marketers and convince the girl to give us their numbers and go on dates, otherwise they are just too lazy to say yes.

Hey guys, I have a very strange problem, and i believe some others have this problem as well: I genuinely dont like talking to people. I mean I just genuinely can't be bothered talking to people. And i wouldnt, if i didnt force myelf to. 1. The present moment is fun, but when you talk to someone, you have to leave the present moment and and go into the weird world of whatever the other person is percieving and believing in. 2. Its generally boring. The topics that come up are boring as hell. 3. Its mentally painful. Having to think about the stuff youre talking about is a chore. 4. Talking to people doesnt feel in alignment with one's values. Anyone have some ways of changing this? Its very hard to resolve.

@Prabhaker Well its probably wise not to ruin people's lives then?

Does that ultimately make someone happy though? Acting in that kind of way? That's sounds like an act that would induce bad karma. morals are based on a dualistic worldview, but isn't there a correlation between ruining someone's life and getting bad karma?

@Leo Gura I don't think its black and white. Like a computer program if enlightened then you.contains_morals = false else you.contains_morals = true Surely having a natural desire to be moralistic is possible. Like enlightened people still have beliefs about things, and they do carry them out. Life is a game, but that doesn't mean every enlightened person all of a sudden stops playing it, once they realize it. If you realize the car in GTA 5 is just pixels on the screen, that doesn't mean you'll all of a sudden stop playing it and thinking its a car. And compassion is real. Really morals are just (at least originally) based on a way of dealing with one's natural tendencies for empathy and compassion.

Most enlightened people I know are ones who strongly live up to their values. Even in the Buddhist texts. For example, the 5 precepts, or idolizing enlightened people who are compassionate, compared to enlightened people who aren't. You can be moralistic and enlightened. That's very possible. Anything is possible.

You still have fears worries and anxieties, but you don't identify with them. It's not like the ego disappears. It's still there, worrying and doing its thing, but who cares? We love how it does that. Worrying and being afraid is fun.

Yeah but the illusion is still real. Just because its essence isn't real, doesn't mean its appearance is. rape itself is an appearance, like everything, but appearances are still real and important. And don't think you can step outside the stream of appearances. Your desires are appearances, your feelings about things are appearances, your dislike to rape someone is still a very real appearance. You're a slave to appearances, even after realizing their true nature. Your body has inbuilt desires that just pop out of no where which control your entire life. And thank god the 'real world' exists. Thankgod all of this bullshit exists, because if it didn't, god wouldn't exist. For god to exists, he needs a complement, i.e. bullshit. Its just an existential fact, as Lao Tzu says A window is only useful because of the emptiness it contains. God only exists because of the bullshit that he produced.

@The Universe its as useful as moving your arms around are for enlightenment. Its just a natural part of the body's processes like anything else. Its useful for a noob, because it really destroys your worldview, but after that its just a toy - for fun, or something to do to feel good. Its beautiful

@The Universe it's an An eye opener for a noob A distraction for a novice A natural occurance and expression of your form for an expert

@username I went through the exact same realization after doing Adyshanti's guided meditation. Good luck.

The secret of secrets by Osho. This book is amazing. Not only does it teach you how to meditate, but it shows you a technique that is specifically designed for people who have a severe case of Monkey mind. He says specifically that the mind is dynamic, and teaches you how to calm those fluctuations down specifically.

@Loreena you're a nobody @Shin inside is a social construct contrived by the government to convince us that the earth is round so that we would always feel hollow inside.

@Leo Gura But how do you convince people to work in your team with those type of values? I've been in the startup industry for a while. Investors only care about money. Employers only care about 'being big time' and being successful and famous and everybody loving them. And then you might say go find some spiritual high consciousness hippies to join your business And then what you find is that they are so hippy, that they can't be fucked making a business. The only way to do this is to somehow persuade greedy business people into doing a business of high values, by somehow getting a well meaning goal, and painting it with flashy dollar symbols, in hope of tricking everyone into thinking its going to make them rich, when its not.

The system we live in, is solely based building capital through money. It's not a very holistic and integrated system. In fact, it's based on separating one's attributes of wealth and success, with each other. Its not a system designed for the wellbeing of the environment, harmony, and being sustainable. But imagine if some one, probably a sage, ended the vicious cycle. What would the world look like? What would the new system be? And how would the sage end the cycle, and still pay his bills? Does anyone have any research on any societies that actually did have a system more holistic than ours? That would be a great read if anyone does.

Hey guys. I'm struggling with a very difficult issue I have in social situations. When I go cold approach at a bar and try and mingle with the other groups, I get negative responses from individuals about my company in being in that group. The responses I usually get involve: - the group isn't interested in what I am talking about -> but how can I figure this out? Because even asking the entire group questions like "what do you study" seems boring. - I struggle to find something interesting or funny to say. Authentically I don't have anything interesting to say in a lot of the situations, and when I try to find something to say, as Alan Watts states, it just makes my creativity even worse. - I have a fear that the thing I'm going to say, is going to be annoying, or boring, or obvious, and therefore decrease my likeablility in the group. - I always feel disconnected while cold approaching a new group, because for starters, the group already finds you annoying to just randomly join their group anyway, but also because the group tends to talk about their past experiences together, and things they are interested in, that I have no idea of. This makes it entirely difficult to join in on conversations, because you have no idea on what they are talking about. You can ask them generic questions about those experiences, but the responses are always lacking. I understand that a lot of the above comes from low self esteem and a requirement of inner work, but what are some materialistic PD style theory I can look up to rectify or reduce the external outcome of the situation? Thanks!

@Martin123 it is, but the socialist/left wing reaction to people being racist is synonymous to religious nuns slapping little kids for eating a candy bar, instead of loving them, and being kind to them, and showing them how the divisiveness is causing havoc in their lives. We are all ok with showing absolute kindness, and standing in unity whenever a terrorist attack happens, because we are all loving people, but whenever we encounter a conservative, we attack more aggressively than a bulldog does with a stranger. Infact, a loving kind left wing socialist, was reported in the news as to have tried to attempt to assassinate Donald trump. What's concerning is that, the individuals who identify with left wing politics largely aren't authentically loving and kind of the inside, they are charlatans, and that sort of deception is ruining our response to people who genuinely do believe that the pigment of one's skin makes someone different. Its similar to on here, how people pretend that the world is one, and they pretend that they know the world is one, when they actually don't. @eskwire An asshole doesn't choose to be an asshole. Its his brain chemistry. And you're not going to make him a better person by telling him to keep his racist intentions to himself, otherwise we will embarrass you, you're going to do it by convincing him that hes causing harm to himself. Because if you embarress him, he's still going to be racist, but sneakily.

@OnceMore Hey dude I have an amazing solution to your problem: Give explanations that are: - not serious - funny basically give explanations that give off a post modernist scent to it. Example: "Son, why the fuck are you waking up so early for?" "Mum, I have to confess, I think I'm in love. There's this bird outside, and it chirps at 5am every morning, and I just can't get enough of it" "What????" (as if you're schizophrenic) "Yeah mum, I've been hiding it from you all my life, but I'm into parrots, you know their wings are so sexy" Mum walks away in shock. To your friends: "Dude you never hang out with us late at night anymore" "I know, I'm such a horrible person. Hopefully the gods will punish me for such a criminal act" "haha... yeah but seriously, why aren't you hanging out with us anymore" "Look, the real reason is. Actually its a pretty boring reason, nevermind" "What is it?? You have to tell me now" "Well, no its nothing... I'm just afraid of the dark ok" "haha you're afraid of the dark, what a pussy" "Yeah I am. But in all seriousness, I just want to wake up early every night. I know it sounds absolutely crazy to you, but I'm weird, you know that, and I just want to keep being my weird self and waking up early. Go have fun though, you don't need me" EDIT: I sleep sitting down, I meditate for 2 hours every day, I have cold showers, I do a bunch of crazy things, and when my friends and family ask me about it, I just laugh it off and call myself crazy. Works like a charm.

idk, a massive, bulky comet smashing into the earth at 1000000 miles and hour produced amazing men like Socrates, Gandhi, an amazing mathematics system, and actualized.org

Great point! I make that mistake in romantic cold approaches too. Finding that out is the part where I get stuck. Because people usually are disinterested in talking to you about themselves. I'm talking about situations like university pub crawls. The common link between us is that we both go to the same university, but even that isn't good enough in 99% of cases(although the American international students are the best. Americans are great, they'll talk to anyone, infact I think cold approach is embedded in their culture). hahaha a group in a bar, sitting around a small round table, talking about meditation and the Buddha. This problem isn't just limited to me cold approaching new groups. Say there's a group of 10 people, and I know 1 of them(pretty well) the isolation is still there, because that entire group will all be close to each other somehow, and I'll usually be the odd one out, and trying to somehow come up with stuff while they are all talking about how Joe got drunk real bad 2 weeks ago is hard. Or they may be talking about some music band that I have no idea of, or something else. But people make friends, so I must be doing something wrong. I think I'm not good at small talk, but there's no resources out there for improving it. Good point. Though sometimes I run into the same problems stated above, even interacting with people in these clubs and societies. Do you think that another possibility is that I don't have enough general knowledge? Thanks!