FindingPeace

Of course, why wouldn't enlightenment be possible. I have personal experience with this very issue. In fact, doing the work towards enlightenment will actually help to reduce your OC behaviours as you become more aware and less identified with thoughts. OCD comes from thinking. So meditation and consciousness work will significantly improve your OCD by reducing your neurotic thinking. Incidentally, you can overcome your OC behaviours in far less than 5-7 years. If you really want it, you can stop it almost instantly. It's not the ritualistic behaviours that you stop, it's the discomfort of not performing actions that you need to confront. Learn to not be controlled by that and the behaviours will stop by themselves. And it isn't that hard to confront that uncomfortable feeling. You just have to want it enough. See how much suffering and damage it is doing to your life.

What is the definition of 'good looking' and 'bad looking' and who wrote it? You just are what you are and you look the way that you look. However you look, there are people who will like it, and the are people who wont. That is the same for everyone. So who are you trying to please? There are already people who like how you look, and probably did when you yourself didn't. In any case, the only person that needs to be accepting of your body shape, is you. Get that down and it won't matter what you think that anyone else thinks. This, incidentally, is what is really going on. It's not that other people do or don't like how you look, it's about you projecting how you think you look on to others. How you think that they see you, not how they really see you. Ultimately, how you look isn't so important as how you are as a person from inside. It is personality that is attractive to people, moreso than physical appearance. And strangely, physical attractiveness can be a function of personality. People can be seen as more physically attractive when they have an attractive personality. And a good way to become more attrative is to gain self-confidence and self-acceptance. This alone will make a huge difference to how you see yourself and how others will see you. How do you do all this? Stop evaluating yourself against some arbitrary 'specification'. And be ok with whatever is. However you are, be ok with it. Stop judging and criticising it. And also stop judging and criticising others. Because anything you judge in other people is someothing you will judge in yourself. Be more accepting of reality, and less critical and judgmental of it. Allow things to be as you find them. The purpose of life is not to go around evaluating everything and everyone and labelling things as 'good' or 'bad'. It's to be accepting and ok with whatever is, as it is. Also, realise that there is no such thing as 'good' or 'bad'. These are purely subjective manifestations of your self-agenda. The ego labels things that serve it as 'good' and things that serve against it as 'bad'.

Attractive traits in women: Passionate about life Curiosity and desire to explore life and to grow and self-develop Openminded Takes responsibility for themselves and their life - independent Takes care of their psychological and physical health Non-critical and non-judgmental Emotionally stable Not needy or insecure - comfortable and confident with themselves Accepting of people as they find them

How can you be so sure of this? People may not go out in to the world and act out the themes from their video games, but that doesn't mean that these games are not, subtly, influencing their psyche. Encouraging a certain attitude towards reality that, in subtle, insideous, ways will be manifested in negative and innapropriate ways. All media/movies/games etc have an effect on the human mind. It may not be as obvious as copying what is seen, but it could be significant nonetheless. It affects people's attitude which will ultimately manifest itself in the way they ultimately behave. Incidentally, you have to ask why people are interested in such games in the first place. We all agree that violence is an unwelcome phenomenon in the world yet people seek to pursue in a 'fantasy' way through video games. So there must be an inherent interest in violence within that person. Providing them with a game to indulge in this behaviour only reinforces the mindset.

Life is the experience that you are having right now. And that experience is as real as real can be for you. Everything that is not being experienced right now (memories, thoughts of past and future, beliefs etc) is not life - it is an illusion, a fiction. Your life is your present moment conscious experience.

This might be a crazy idea but have you tried talking to her about this and asking her what might work? You say that you have this wonderful close connection with this girl. But you are unable to be open and honest enough to talk about something like this which is clearly important to you. Communication is the key here. Communicate with her. It isn't for anyone else to tell you how you may or may not be able to pleasure this girl. Only she can help you with that. If you can't be open about this with her, then it's only a matter of time before other issues crop up that you fail to communicate about. Also, you are projecting this need to pleasure her. It doesn't sound as though she isn't enjoying sex. It is you that is assuming that it could be 'better' for her. Again, only she can tell you this. She might be perfectly ok with things as they are.

What happened before you were alive? And what happens every night between loosing consciousness and dreaming/waking up again?

Yes, I know exactly what you're getting at. I had the same realisation a while ago. To sum it up in simple terms it's this: your life exists in a single moment in time. This moment. The present moment. This is all there is. The past doesn't exist, the future is only a projection of the past. It doesn't exist. All that exists is here and now in this moment. Your life is taking place in this present moment. All that is real for you is what you are experiencing right now, in this moment. Ultimately, every moment is the same. Every moment becomes a memory. Every memory is a vague recollection of the facts about an experience you once had that doesn't exist now. Your life exists only as a continuous experience of the present moment. It has no beginning or end. Just the 'now'.

'Reality' is a subjective experience. It is merely a projection of our own cognitive processes. A self-fulfilling prophecy. Thoughts may affect our own subjective experience of reality but reality itself just 'is'. Our thoughts are a function of reality. It's like asking if the function of reality affects itself. It's a recursive paradox. This question is assuming a dualistic view that a thought is somehow separate from 'reality'.

A very profound insight. I had this very insight a while ago. Essentially you're right. But what are we distracting ourselves from? Fundamentally it's the feeling of 'emptiness' that people have when they are doing nothing. A distraction from just 'being' and a compulsive urge to be 'doing' instead. This is where meditation comes in to it's own by helping you become more appreciative towards the beauty of doing nothing and becomming less attached to the 'doing'. But, we can't all just sit around all day doing nothing. Well, we can, but we don't have to. Follow your authentic desires and intuition. Do whatever feels natural to you. This can take time to see and understand. But by unplugging from the hedonic, 'busy' world of distractions, and doing regular meditation, authentic desires will start to reveal themselves.

It sounds like you are either a perfectionist or have a fear of failure. Or both. You are judging a missed day of revision as 'failure' or a 'mistake'. And you fundamentally struggle with accepting that you make mistakes. You then feel as though, since you 'make a mistake' or failed in some way that you are going to fail in the long run. If you miss a day of revision, so what? Accept that you missed it. Then, when you start revising again, carry on as normal. Just because you do something once, or twice, or however many times, doesn't make it 'something'. A day's missed revision means nothing. It's now in the past. What you do from here can be whatever you want. You can miss another day, or you can start revising again. This fear of making mistakes tends to come from this idealized self-image that "I do not make mistakes". So when you do, which you will because you are human like the rest of us, you feel like you have ultimately failed and that the self-image is no longer true. If it isn't true then the belief becomes "I made a mistake, so therefore I will again". And so self-doubt begins. Fundamentally there is a lack of self-acceptance here. People get too caught up in this belief that 'mistake'=bad. There's really no such thing as failure. Just experience. And every experience is an opportunity to learn and improve. We can often learn more from mistakes and failure than when we get everything 'right' all the time. But, like I said, the way to look at it is this: so you did something you deem as a failure or mistake. It is now in the past. It has no bearing on the future. What you do from here on can be whatever you want. So accept the things that have already happened and now move on. Become more accepting of the choices and actions you take even if you feel that they are wrong. Realise that you can make new choices and take new actions from any point, and move forward.

Nothing in science is fundamentally 'real'. Science is really just a conceptual framework, a model, that we use to describe reality and the way in which reality appears to operate. It's a model. We can't see atoms. We can't say for sure that such a thing really exists. All we can do is make a hypothesis that atomic particles exist and then find way that seems to support this theory. We don't see subatomic particles. We see the effects of something that we assume to be these particles. If it fits our model, then we accept it as 'truth'. Until that model is questioned and someone comes along and tries to prove it otherwise. It's like the old argument that light is sometimes a particle, sometimes a wave. As if it needs to 'fit' one of these definitions. But the definition itself is a man-made concept. Particles and waves are just human concepts. They aren't 'real'. Mabe light is neither of these things. Maybe we just haven't created a concept that fits the behaviour of light yet. We don't have a nice simple model that works for all situations. We can sit and ponder how reality works for eternity. But we will never truly know. The best we can do is model it t the point that we can use these models to maniputlate reality to our advantage. Something the science allows us to do quite well. Fundamentally, the thing I find the funniest is that humans actually believe that we have the mental capacity to actually understand how reality works. As if, if we spend long enough researching it, we can truly reach a point of actually knowing. I find that somewhat arrogant and egotistical (which is what makes us human after all). We can never truly see reality for what it is, because, fundamentally, we are a part of it. We seem to forget that. We are reality, trying to investigate itself in to how it works. I find that funny. But fundamentally we can only perceive reality through the limitations of our senses, congnition and reasoning. So anything outside of these things will be impossible to comprehend. Reality is a subjective experience. Yet we treat it like it is absolute. Like we are separate from it. We are not. We effectively create reality in our minds, as a projection of our own sensory input and conceptual thinking.

I couldn't agree more. And I think it's far worse than just an addiction. Many people are actually dependent on their phones and being in constant contact with everything. It's sad. And it's only getting worse as industry and commerce continue to feed in to it. People are only becomming more detached from reality. Phones and earphones. I can't help feeling that it's only making the human mind ever more dysfunctional and neurotic.

Noone is 'attacking' you. You are perceiving their actions as an attack because, fundamentally, it is you that is insecure about something - whether that's being unemployed or whatever. You feel you have weaknesses and as such are sensitive to them. People aren't attacking you, it is you that is attacking you. Exactly this. So become more accepting of your own 'insecurities', and more confident about holding them. Doing this will actually stop these things being weaknesses or insecurities. It's only you that is projecting that label on to them. If you think it is other peope, think again. In order for you to be offended by what others think or say, you are fundamentally believing them, or they are just confirming something you believe about yourself. It doesn't matter what others think or say. Or what they believe about you. What matters is what you think about you. Correct that, and you will find that you will no longer be triggered by the thoughts and actions of others.

Yes.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayEoiU5MOg4 seriously, it might be hard to do but if you don't do it, you will suffer in the long run.

I would strongly suggest not putting time limits or expectations on to this. In fact, be more accepting that this process takes time. As much time as it takes. By imposing time expectations on to it you may become dissapointed and less accepting of the accepting process. It's almost a contradiction to impose an expectation on to an exercise concerned with acceptance. After all, how do you know how long it will take?

Psychopaths have emotions. What they don't have is empathy. But as others have said, you can't supress emotions. But you can learn to acknowledge them and detach from reacting to them. The only way you will have less emotions is by having less emotional triggers. Whilst you can't stop emotions, you can reduce the frequency with which you experience them, Often they are triggered in response to a thought or a context, like a situation. And the kind and intensity of the emotion depends largely on how that situation or trigger serves your self-agenda. If it serves you, you feel a positive emotion, if it takes from you you may feel a negative emotion. So the key is to change the way you perceive situations such that you are less reactive to them. To do that, you need to understand why you are reactive to them in the first place.

Facebook can actually be quite a dangerous 'tool'. And it's having quite a serious negative psychological impact on people, particularly younger people. In this age of social media people are compulisvely comparing themselves to the rest of the world and evaluating themselves against it, because it is so easy to do. Some people derive their sense of self-worth from these comparisons and the feedback they get from their own posts. The danger is that people often only portray what they want to portray on social media. It's a very narrow glimpse in to people's lives and psychological states. Too often people are portrying 'false' lives, often very positive lives, in the attempt to 'look good' in the eyes of others. Of course others then mey feel inadequate in response, and so the game is played.. I have seen people post their 'idyllic' lives, only to discover that they actually have a very shitty life with everything falling around them. I have seen teenages end up needing councilling because they have lost all self-worth in the face of the 'lives' portrayed on the likes of facebook. Like media in general, most of it is biased and even fraudulent. People's naive beliefs in what they see or read lead to many of society's problems. Facebook has good, honest uses, if used in a responsible manner. Unfortunately, it isn't most of the time. It's just another ego platform. And fundamentally, the need to nose in to other people's lives is an issue in itself that social media isn't helping with. We should all be concerned with creating our own lives, not prying in to the lives of others for our own 'entertainment' or judgment.

I have the same problem with this. I'm interested to hear how others overcome it. I can sit and self-enquire all I like, asking questions like "Who am I?". But no answer arises and no experience. I already have an intellectual understanding of the truth of no self. I often find that once I have an intellectual understanding of something, the 'experience' becomes difficult if not impossible to achieve. This applies also to experiences I have already had in the past, that came from sudden and profound realisations and enquiries. However, once the experience has happened and the 'knowledge' of this new truth is integrated, I seem to lose the ability to ever recreate the experience again. As though the intellectual knowledge inhibits a repeat of the enquiry that initially led to it. It's an interesting problem. The thing I now try is to use a different line of self-enquiry. Instead of "Who am I?" I try "Who am I not?".

That would depend on his motives and whether they are self-serving in some way. I think there is a huge misunderstanding about what 'selfishness' is. It is defined as 'lacking consideration for other people; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure.' The problem is that we tend to call any self-serving or self-interested action a 'selfish' action. An action that serves the 'self'. But not all selfish actions are inherently 'bad' or lacking in consideration for others. If I go and make myself a drink but not offer anyone else one, then I would be called 'selfish'. Yet, I have in no way hurt or taken away anything from another person. Just served my own self-interest. But not at the expense of another. The problem is that we class all self-serving actions as selfish and this creates all sorts of moral problem for people. Selfishness is not inherently 'greedy'. Nor is it inherently detrimental to others. It depends on the specific action, the motive that led to it and the effect it has on others.

How do you know that your time isn't short? How long do you expect to live? How can you be sure of that? Any one of us could die in the next 10 minutes. They real question to ask is: why are you so sure you have time in the first place?

"How can one really know his life purpose?" That assumes that life has a purpose in the first place. Many people spend their lives making their purpose the pursuit of a purpose.. In fact your 'purpose' in life will become very clear once you stop assigning value and 'purpose' to everything in reality.

Both sadness and joy are subjective experiences. They aren't actually real. If they were, they would be absolute and anything that provokes joy or sadness in one person would also provoke it in every other human. But this isn't the case. What brings joy or sadness to one person doesn't necessarily bring it to another. Therefore these things are only concepts. Abstractions. And they are relative to the 'context' that the perceiver is imposing on to them. They exist only in the eye of the beholder. So no, there is no joy, or sadness in the world. Only in the mind.

I think Leo is well aware of this fact. He's done an entire video on how to stop 'shoulding' and moralising. However his teaching style is necessary to provoke people in to action. I personally like his style. What I don't like are people that tiptoe around, giving softly-softly advice that avoids confronting the big issues such that people never actually see the issues they need to be confronting. But those of us that have been following his content for long enough know what he his really saying behind the apparent 'shoulding'. There is no need for anyone to take is personally or be offended by it. It's a necessary tool to 'wake' people up. He is only telling you what you could be doing if you want to improve the quality of your life.

There's a bit of confusion here. Make a distinction between a visualization and an affirmation. Visualizing is not necessarily creating a positive image about something. It is merely running through a 'simulation' in your mind about a particular situation. But rather than setting any expectations that things will actually work out the same way as your visualization, instead you are making assumptions about what may happen. This is ok as long as you remain aware that reality may not follow suit. Be ok with that an adapt to it. In fact, if you do visualizations, then incorporate potential outcomes in to it. A visualization is a way to prepare for a potential situation. Not a way of setting some expectation about it. Affirmations, on the other hand, are about reinforcing a positive attitude and perhaps an identity. This is a very different thing. But again, a positive affirmation is not setting an expectation. Just a 'goal', a possibility of what could be. As always though, avoid expectations and be prepared to be ok and adapt to whatever reality brings you. That, in the end, is the only way.