electroBeam

Deciding to become enlightened, is like deciding to live on a new planet that you have no idea about. It could be isolated, baron, extreme conditions, unhabitable or it could be a beautiful utopia with trees, forests, oxygen, food, etc If you decide to go onto the new planet, you may die, or you may be in the most beautiful place in the world. BUT if you decide to not take the chance to go to this new planet, then its guaranteed that you will never be on a heavenly planet. In the past, humanity has had to take risks to get to great places, taking the risk to travel to the US, Australia, etc. And for one person in society, like you, you will have to do the same with enlightenment

Hi Rahul, are you talking about Leo's self acceptance video? Because I've actually have gotten like no/poor results from doing it, after a week, I've seen no payoffs.

@99th_monkey Why would anyone choose to wake up then? If it doesn't give you anything? Why choose to pursue enlightenment instead of cutting your arm with a knife? If both give the same benefits? And how can you just 'wake up'. That's like say just get 1000000 dollars, then become rich.

@jjer94 I've heard this pathless path stuff before -> gateless gate(Buddhists), you can't seek enlightenment, you just have to realize what you already are (Eckart Tolle), there is no way of becoming enlightened(Alan Watts) But if we take your advice, and say that there is no path to enlightenment, then why meditate at all? Sure it may seem more realistic to say that its a pathless path, and that you can't really do anything to get enlightened because free will doesn't exist(once you've become aware of that fact), but to someone who hasn't realized that yet(me and OP) telling someone on the internet that they shouldn't meditate because everyone is different can potentially stop them from 'realizing' their true self. This idea that you shouldn't meditate because there's no path in the first place is just an impractical overview in my opinion. Factually speaking, if you don't meditate you will have a much lower chance of getting oops realizing enlightenment. It takes work to get realize your true self, without doing the work, you will end up like everyone else who doesn't meditate, not enlightened.

@Leo Gura surely there are some situations where the problem is the girl and not you... such as when your values don't align with the girl, or when the girl falls into the categories you described in your red flag video

If you keep meditating, even after 10 years there's a chance that you will gain some insights, or even enlightenment. If you stop meditating it is GUARANTEED that you will never gain any insights, and will NEVER reach enlightenment. Also I just want to point out some Wisdom I heard from Alan Watts. Now if an 8 year old child told you that you should expect this that and the other after 1 month of meditation, would you listen to that child? NO. Because that child knows nothing about meditation! Now remember that you know about as much about meditation as the average 8 year old, so why are you taking advice about what you should expect and what you shouldn't from yourself? I started meditating about a month and a half ago, I started AT 30 minutes, and have consistently been meditating every day. I also haven't achieved any insights. so you aren't the only one.

When talking to someone, and they reject you, how do you overcome it? I don't just limit this to sexuality, but in business interviews, asking someone if you can join their group, when you are marketing(door knocking) and get rejected when someone doesn't like your product or services? Etc. How do you not get discouraged enough to continue doing the process that led to the rejection? For example asking for a girl's phone number/for sex, or going to investors to get some money for your business?

4 hours a day of netti netti

@Mal maybe ive already seen the video?

@Mal "real women watch you and laugh", so the 'fake' women who I'm using my techniques on are cyborgs? It sounds so inspirational and benevolent to exclaim 'just be yourself' to attract women into your life But unfortunately in the real world, sometimes who you truely are is someone whose nerdy, someone who is physically unattractive, boring(or just finds interests in things that the majority of women don't). You might feel majestic and self righteous in 'being yourself', but that's only because you haven't been rejected enough to realize that being yourself sometimes isn't enough. We are all machines, really, every one of us, and while it seems a little robotic, we can all learn to appeal to people's natural instincts through learning PUA techniques. Please tell me 1 person who didn't use PUA to get girls? Just one. There aren't many. Probably because it has a low chance of success. Even Leo used PUA techniques to get laid, and have a lasting relationship.

@Mal Absorbing and taking the whole thing in may be counter productive, of course I don't believe any principles or propositions made by the PUA community, but their techniques are very useful.

Yeah a lot of guys become myopic, and just soley focus on the WHAT rather than the WHY. But I think that experiencing life and not worrying about the consequences is a MUCH better option, then not experiencing life, so that you don't get any consequences at all. Yes people are zombies now, but how can you blame them? As Alan Watts said, for you to improve, you need to improve youself, so someone who lacks the improvement you desire is tasked with improving that part of you. How can you improve? This is why sometimes I treat Leo as gospell, because I believe someone with more wisdom then me would have a better idea at knowing what is best for me, then I do. For me personally, the only reason why I'm pursuing Pickup is because I don't want to be left behind in the sex game, and also because Leo basically told us in one of his videos for college students to pursue sexual endeavours, other than that I hate picking up chicks in the club, clubs are sleezy, unheigenic, alcohol lowers your awareness, your sleeping pattern gets screwed over. And then you have the issues of dealing with guys who get angry because they chick your after hes also after. For something people do every week, its not that enjoyable. But because I trust Leo's insights, I will continue to go clubbing purely for self improvement.

I'm pretty much in the same position as you are And in my opinion, you should DEFINITELY do pickup. There are going to be times in life where you will HAVE TO do things that you DON'T want to endure and do, along with working long hours, solving family issues, pickup will be another one of those things. Yes its going to be emotionally challenging, but at the end of the day, there will be a time in your life where you will die, and on your death bed you aren't going to be regretting all of the horrible embarresment you endured picking up chicks, the times a girl said "fuck off!" to you at a club, the time you completely made a fool of yourself in bed. You will be regretting the fact that you didn't try to sleep with anyone at all. So stop worrying about how much you don't want to do pick up, and like a snow plower, plow through those negative experiences and DO PICKUP

Yes Sometimes 'talking shit' about people can decrease or lower their reputation, and therefore virtually increasing yours.

So I've started meditating(been doing it for 3 days), I'm just curious about how you guys are measuring your progress. How do you guys know if your technique is a 'high yield' technique? Or if its ineffective? And I also wanted to ask, how much improvement have you guys made since meditating? How long have you been meditating and what sort of interesting or helpful stuff are you guys noticing/ experiencing from meditation?

for me, I would probably run around naked if it wasn't illegal. In other words, have very little care about clothing

Here is an article about, how following your passion is not the only consideration for finding your 'dream job'. Studies have shown that your interests and passions change remarkably over time, and following your passion now might encourage you to miss great opportunities for getting a successful job that you love. Do you agree? do your passions change over time? And if so, how can we find our life purpose, if our interests are unreliable?

"I have to be persistent in spiritual enlightenment"? who has to be persistent in spiritual enlightenment? Its weird realizing that you are not the human you think you are But its even weirder and stranger thinking that you would be a human at all. Like why a human? Why not a bat, a rock, a ball, or a coffee table?

Yeah the thing I don't get about that video is, how can one be passionate about any job? How can you just 'bring' your passion with you anywhere? Mike talked about how he initially wanted to be a plumber. If you can be passionate about anything, could Mike mike have just figured out a way to love being a plumber? And also Mike says follow opportunities, not passion, but isn't Mike's biography a contradiction to that advice? I mean not only did he not become a plumber, which was in high demand at that time, as it is now, but he also decided to make is own documentary series, which is in quite short demand. He also talks about a psychiatrist who quit his job to be a septic tank cleaner, because he wasn't passionate about being a psychiatrist anymore. But us humans have the ability to be passionate about anything, couldn't that specific individual just be happy being a psychiatrist, and learn to love it?

Hi, I'm a 19 year old individual who has been dealing with shyness and social anxiety for as long as i can remember, and have been trying to deal with it for about 6 years now, and have had no real success. I am naturally an awkward person, who have views and opinions that are not normal, an this tends reduce my ability to hold rapport/a connection with other people easily. I have been bullied in the past; involving being embarrassed, excluded, excessively teased, physically assaulted, and other things which unfortunately affect my thinking patterns today. While I haven't noticed this before, my fear that the past will become a reality again(my negative experiences) are holding me back from self actualizing, and solving this problem in the first place. I wish to freely and confidently speak and socialize to other people without thinking the following: - I'm really nerdy, they aren't going to like me, why am I even talking to them - Oh no, his/her facial expressions just changed to a frown, does that mean he is judging me? Or thinking that I am weird - Oh no she isn't smiling anymore, is she finding me boring? - I don't know what to say to this person, no I can't talk about what I find interesting, I'm nerdy, he/she is going to judge me for it, then I will be embarrassed, I hate embarrassment, I remember it from high school, I can't go back to that. - Oh no I can't say that, that will make the convo awkward - Oh wow I'm being so boring because I don't know what to say. - Oh no don't say anything stupid! Remember what happened last time you did that? you got kicked out of your friends group, and had no one to talk to at lunch times I hate socializing. Its a very painful experience for me, and has been for at least since I was in primary school. I have had some good experiences with 1 or 2 close friends, but really I don't find it fun, because of how badly I judge myself and psychoanalyze the other person I am talking to. I do push myself(and have been for a while) to go out there and talk to others, but my mind is paralyzed with all of the negativity that it makes up on the spot. I can't seem to shake this. How do I break out of this? When you go up to talk to someone, and you can't think of anything funny to say, or the conversation becomes awkward, or you screw up some how, how do you train yourself to not beat up yourself, and decrease you self esteem to the point that you find it even harder to get out and socialize the second time? What are some ways to become confident? I have tried sentence stems, visualizations, but no luck on anything else. What are some ways to actually become more interesting? Thankyou

@Mal Thankyou Mal for the good advice, I kind of know what you are talking about because I've been practicing neti neti for 1 hour per day for the last 3 weeks or so. Even though I have an intuitive sense that trying to seek approval is building up a complete fiction in my mind, that doesn't stop my ego from causing negative emotions lol! So I urgently need a way to control it/distance myself from the feelings. I have dreams of becoming successful in my business, and I know that people skills are required for it, so it would be beneficial to have techniques to improve those. That's really what my questions are aiming at, gaining those. Sure 'I'(or maybe more accurately, pain occurs in experience) feel a lot of pain talking to people, bloody ego is broken! But the concern is more to do with the anxiety preventing myself being able to communicate effectively and grow EQ to start a business. I strongly appreciate your advice, and will continue to look at your posts to direct me, but I am autistic, I need to find a way to develop people skills, and unfortunately meditation cannot give that to me

@Mal I've watch 3/4 of his videos. This might come as a suprise to you, but with all due respect, Leo isnt the god of the universe, with advice that works with everyone. If I apply exactly what Leo tells us to do, and be authentic, and not care what others think because they are 'figments of peoples'' imagination(which arguments don't help the irrational mind anyway), I will be ostracised in the same way I was in the past.... that doesn't help. In fact for the last 6 months I have been following that exact advice, and using visualizations to support me, and what is the result of me being authentic and sticking up for myself? Being kicked out of 2 clubs, because the certain individuals didn't like my opinion. This actually cut off opportunites to socialize with other people I've read 'how to win friends and influence people' and apply those techniques every day, and suddely after watching Leo's video back in august 2 years ago, I find out that his approach to life is nearly the opposite to what is in that book. Let me know how you go when you have a boss that's an ass, but your going to be authentic because Leo told you to and get fired because the boss doesn't welcome other opinions...

You need to be a generalist with a sprinkle of specialist. mainly focus on 'one area' that you particularly like, but also be PROFICIENT or slightly less in other related areas(or unrelated like personal development). Like what Leo said, its both. I don't think you can be a master at everything, but at the same time, being a master of one, and not knowing anything else will put you at an extreme disadvantage. I'm not even sure what being a 'master' of something really is. It seems like a loose subjective social construct that changes its definition depending on the times we live in, so to even assume that it is only possible to master 1 thing is shaky in itself.

Whenever I meditate, especially doing self inquiry, I experience EXTREME frustration. Not a little frustration, I mean to the point where sometimes I need to stop meditating because the frustration is so intense, that I cannot concentrate any-more. A good example is Leo's latest video. When trying to find 'me' or kind of trying to examine the self, the act of even looking brings a lot of frustration. For me personally, this is because the self disappears as soon as you look(its like a troll that teases you, and runs away as soon as you start to chase it). Its like the pot at the end of the rainbow, you just cant get to it. This makes me highly frustrated, and this is a big issue because it really distracts me from concentrating. I had to pause the video multiple times to just give myself time to relax. If I'm frustrated, I cannot possibly look or seek for the higher self, its like trying to find a crashed boat in a wavy sea. Are there any ways to overcome this? Anything I can tell myself to calm myself down? Or maybe any activity I can do to stop this annoying behaviour? Thankyou!

So as the title states, I'm extremely boring especially when talking to women. When on a date, I tend to not know what to say, and have trouble trying to figure out what catches her attention. I struggle with using emotional language, and often talk very logically. My life isnt very fun either, and often when I go out to social events its usually just out to boring stuff like the movies, no real opportunity for generating a great story to tell. What cool techniques are there to help develop your creativity and intrigue factor? What sort of stuff do women find interesting? When talking to women, what stuff tends to catch their attention on a date? When you notice that a women is getting bored, what should you do? Pretend to fall over to catch her attention? Panic? Tell her you have lots of money? Thanks guys