When you meditate, stop manipulating your experiences in any way. Just sit and accept everything as it is.
Do you see that on a meta-level, what's happening right now with you, is that the ego believes it can control this process. It's trying really hard to be a good meditator. It thinks it can stop mental images from arising. It thinks that mental images are somehow undesirable.
All of this is of course ludicrous because the ego doesn't exist and has no control. The manipulations are just additional layers of delusion of which you have no control.
Whenever you notice the urge to control something in your meditation, just drop the need. Soon you will enter a kind of very deep, calm flow state and you'll actually start smiling because you're finally accepting reality exactly as it is = happiness.

It's actually every simple:
Step #1: Any time you experience a negative feeling of any time in relation to any circumstance << That's your demon arising right there.
Step #2: Become aware or mindful of this arising in present time.
Step #3: Watch it closely while at the same time loving it to death. Don't fight it. Accept it and love it to death.
You can also use a journal to write out your inner demons and work with them that way. Or you can do therapy or life coaching.

@FunBun Emotions are very tricky. What's required is mindfulness practice over them, and also getting to the bottom of why you feel the need to emote in those ways. See, those emotions are how the ego-self survives. So who you are results in those emotions getting acted out. Changing who you are will change those emotions and vice versa.
Psychedelics are one of the most powerful tools for showing you a way past all that egotistical acting out. See, right now you don't even know what it means to be free of it. So it will be very tricky to stop acting out.
You need to become deeply conscious that you are "doing" emotions as a means of ego survival. The emotions are there to keep the ego intact. The whole process is ruthlessly efficient and very tricky to stop because it is a matter of life and death from your POV.
To change those emotions you will have to REALLY change. To become like a whole new person.
How you define yourself is what then gets emoted. Take a look at how anger, fear, judgment, guilt, jealousy, etc. are serving to maintain your self-definition, your self-image, your persona. How would you have to change your self-image such that your habitual angers, fears, judgments, and guilt no longer needed to arise?
What are all those emotions defending?
This is a big can of worms which will take some serious work to sort out. But it's worth it.

The trouble with that approach is that it's sourced from a deep neurosis. You're basically in conflict with yourself, disowning parts of your psyche, and trying to bull your way through towards some idealized future which -- even if it comes -- will be deeply disappointing because you will one day realize that you whored yourself out for success. If you use this approach, you will become the stereotypical businessman who makes a killing on Wallstreet and then hangs himself one day from the ceiling fan.
All your achievements in life are ultimately pointless and produce very temporary doses of satisfaction because of hedonic adaptation. What you need to do is to learn how to derive joy from being, not from doing.
A good approach for you would be to do almost the exact opposite of what you suggest. Which means, practice self-compassion, self-acceptance, and a slow relaxed, easy-going pace. Learn to enjoy life rather than enjoying some idealized future.
All that said, I don't mean that you don't take action. You still take action. But from a place of self-acceptance rather than a place of lack, as you're doing now.
This is another one of those counter-intuitive moves I always talk about.

@MM1988 Notice how egoic your perspective is. Just the fact that you are evaluating the fairness of life based on how much sex you do or do not get, is absurd. As if the universe cares about how much sexual pleasure you receive. No one cares about that but you. It's got zero importance at all in the big picture.
Also notice how you assume that if you don't have sex, then some other guy will have sex instead of you. This is a horribly warped and biased way of looking at things. Most of the time when sex doesn't happen is has nothing at all to do with another guy stealing that sex. Sex fails to happen for many reasons, many of them valid. A lot of times sex fails to happen because it was not supposed to happen, because the chemistry was missing, because you two were not a good match for each other, or simply because the logistics and timing was bad.
Nobody owes you sex. And nobody is competing with you for sex. Drop these toxic mindsets.
Relate to the whole woman. Right now you are relating to the sex.
The valid way of looking at things is: "Sexual pleasure has zero importance. If it happens, great. If not, oh well, I got important shit to do."

Be more mindful that you're using mindfulness mindlessly
I think you've defined mindfulness too narrowly, as something associated with focusing on your breath. When in fact it's much broader than that. You gotta be careful not to become a mindless meditation machine.
Try practicing mindfulness without focusing on your breath, and while doing activities such as light chores, house work, cleaning, showering, driving, watching TV, and even talking to people. This will push your mindfulness abilities outside of their currently constricted pigeon-hole.
And when in comes to doing practical thinking/planning, allow yourself to get into it and to flow. In pursuing mindfulness we tend to swing our pendulum too much to one side and demonize all thinking as evil. Thinking is not evil. This needs to better integrated in you. Thinking is useful in proper proportions and situations.
The only thinking that's really problematic is the I-thinking. That is, thinking about the me, me, me, me! all the time.

This is a problem of lack of authentic relating. The next time you relate to a human being, try to do it from a place of 100% genuineness. Only say exactly what you think and feel and not some polite bullshit. Then when you say "I'm sorry" it will be coming from an authentic sense of feeling sorry, and not just empty words, or even worse, lies.
In general, try to clean up your language so that whenever you say some words, you really mean them. << That's a great self-improvement exercise. You could turn it into a 30 day challenge. It will grow you a lot.
Re-watch my How You Lie video. It's addressing this very point. What you're basically doing right now with people is lying. And it makes you feel hollow inside.

There are a lot of weird state-experiences that can happen during meditation. You could have life-like hallucinations of giant spiders crawling around you, or of Jesus coming to bless you, or the Buddha, or people's faces can start to warp and distort, or you may see bright lights, or images of demons, or total blackness, or an explosion of energy in your head, etc.
All of that is called Makyo in the Zen tradition. Literally it means, "abode of the devil". It's all a distraction from truth. It makes you feel like you're making progress or gaining some deep spiritual insight when in fact you're identifying and getting lost in sensory phenomena. It's the devil playing tricks on you, testing to see if you're wise enough to distinguish between truth and illusion.
The important thing to remember is that enlightenment is NOT a state! It is not an emotion. It is not a sensory experience. It is not a high. It is not some blissful light, or any other thing you can imagine. Everything you can perceive or imagine is guaranteed to NOT be enlightenment.
Enlightenment is the Truth! It is what you are! You are it ALWAYS! You cannot ever not be it. You're IT right freaking now as you're reading this sentence. No special state is required. Truth is ALWAYS present. In fact, it's the ONLY thing that's present. It cannot EVER be lost. You already are enlightened! (You just don't know it.)
The only problem is that your mind doesn't know what to do with this. The mind only knows how to conceptualize. The mind only knows illusion. It cannot know truth no matter how hard it tries because truth isn't something that's known, it is BEING itself, and it is not an object. Absolute Truth is indescribable and unimaginable. It has no shape. It is not even an "it". It transcends even existence and non-existence. Absolute Truth is ETERNAL -- it NEVER changes. Ever!
Instead of trying to attain a grandiose meditative state (and I've been guilty of this myself A LOT), try relaxing your body and mind and focus on genuinely wondering, "Who am I really if I'm not the body?" or "What is true independent of all phenomena?" or "What is it that's aware of all of reality?"
Hint: don't neglect the possibility that you may literally be nothing at all
Ask yourself, "What is the only 'thing' that could be ETERNAL, untouchable, and indestructible?"
Also make a distinction in your experience between meditation and self-inquiry. Lean more towards self-inquiry vs meditation if you wanna get enlightened faster.

There is an important difference.
Firstly, let's make sure we're on the same page as to what contemplation means. Contemplation in the context of enlightenment work is equivalent to self-inquiry. Don't let the word contemplation fool you. It does NOT mean: sit there and think about stuff. << That is NOT contemplation, and that will not get you enlightened. Contemplation really means: directly experience your true nature right now! Focus deeply on only question: Who am I? or What am I? And probe it experientially for 30 to 60 minutes like a laser beam, never wavering.
Meditation is sitting down and literally doing nothing. Letting go of all control and letting your monkey mind run as you observe it. There is no goal in meditation. You just sit and accept reality exactly as it is, no matter what is happening. Meditation is helpful for enlightenment work, but it's not as direct as self-inquiry/contemplation.
 

Yes, this is called the Upper Limiting problem. You actually do have an upper limit for how much happiness you allow yourself to feel in a given day/week. Anything over that limit feels uncomfortable and even scary. Because fundamentally you haven't developed your psyche enough to open yourself up to being penetrated by love. Deep down the ego FEARS love and it fears life.
What to do?
Gradually practice expanding your ability to feel love and joy. Be very mindful of those moments when you have more love than you can handle. And stretch yourself a bit to stomach just a little bit more than the last time. Tell yourself, "I have the courage to open myself to more joy and more love."
Being happy is actually like a muscle. If you haven't used it for a long time, it's very weak. You gotta flex it gradually over the weeks and months and years to build it up to the point where you can wear a shit-eating grin on your face all day long for absolutely no reason. << That's not easy to develop to. You gotta really work out many of our inner demons.

@bmcnicho Sounds like you are right where you ought to be given your age and lack of life experience. I was/am very anti-conformist like you. Nothing wrong with that. It's just a part of your personality. It might mean you should be a leader, a boss, a solo artist, or just off doing your own thing. This is great. In this case you will have to build yourself up and lead yourself a lot before others start to follow you.
Don't be afraid to carve your own path in life. Maybe consider starting a business within a field you are passionate or curious about.
A traditional cookie-cutter college major or job is probably not right for you. You need something more custom, more your own.
Autistic is also okay. Just part of your personality type. You just need to find a career/purpose which leverages that.
The best way to pursue truth is via yoga, contemplation, philosophy, self-inquiry, and/or psychedelics. So I would build experience will all the above and see how that feels for you. If you really value truth you should love all that.
Try to think about what kind of career would be most aligned with your personality and the value of truth. It's basically that simple. Don't beat around the bush. Nail your top value.

One of the things that I find myself struggling with again and again is not necessarily facing the emptiness of being but the loneliness that tries to creep back in when I start to realize how few people are able to relate with the importance of solitude and doing the inner work. That's why I really appreciate this video: 
This is exactly the challenge that I face now. I don't have a large family. I'm not married. I don't have any kids. I don't have a significant other. Don't need one. I use social media sparingly. I'm a former programmer. I now work 20 hours per week in the mental health field and spend the rest of my time working on myself (by myself) as much as possible. I live a very minimalist life and have discovered a great deal of internal wealth in the process. But to be honest, even though I have made peace with solitude and practice facing the emptiness daily and practice experiencing being, there are times when I want to connect with others who are further along in the process. In person, that's looking less likely by the day. Online, maybe. I know there are some. They are hard to find. That neediness to connect with others that I'm observing in myself is counter to embracing the emptiness of being, and it comes and it goes, but it returns. I've started drastically limiting my social media use. It has become depressing to see how many people are completely offline inwardly as they immerse themselves online outwardly in non-stop dick and fart jokes or airy fairy spiritual memes. I know that sounds like a judgmental thing to say but that's how it feels. The more I work on myself, the more I feel less of a connection on those deeper levels with others, and I know that's part of the process, but Leo's right, it does get lonely. I'm not trying to condescend. I know it's fear that they are dealing with and that they are so terrified of sitting alone with themselves that they distract themselves endlessly and never begin to look inward. I was like that for a long time. I still need some distraction too but it does get lonely when you realize that there are very few who can appreciate the importance of solitude. It's a total paradox, but I actually feel less alone when I'm all alone than I do when I'm interacting with people who are operating on low consciousness levels which is almost everyone I know with the exception of just a couple of people who I have run into online. Can anyone relate?

It's not that Orange or even Red can't feel love or empathy. They can. The issue is the level of sophistication these emotions, the level of self-awareness, their depth, and their extent.
For example, Red and Orange will feel love, but that love will be very limited -- their circle of concern does not extend very far. It only applies to their family, close friends, and their nation. And even so, selfishness will limit that love even within family. Red and Orange will also treat love as "merely an emotion". Their love will not have an existential aspect. Their love will not be universal. They will not understand how deep love goes or the power of love. They will deny that love is an Absolute or a property of the universe. They will value money and sex over love. They will mistake love with sexual desire or material possession. They will be so stuck in their left-brain that they will think that logic is superior to love. Their hearts will be closed. They will not have a "Teotlized heart". Whereas a Green person will understand the importance of love more. The Green person has some opening of the heart. But Green still does not comprehend love as an Absolute. Green still does not understand what love is. Green's love is still not fully universal. Green loves to hate Blue & Orange. Whereas at Turquoise love becomes an Absolute -- finally, it becomes totally universal. Finally the constant judgment and criticism and hatred are purified in the light of consciousness. Love is no longer something you do, it's something you ARE. Now you have a Teotlized heart which embraces all of Creation. At this point, your love is so great you are incapable of seeing evil, enemies, or wrongdoing. All sense of "other" starts to disappear. Everywhere you look you only see your Self, you only see Goodness, you only see Love. Your love becomes not about having or receiving but about giving. You love while simultaneously being detached from the objects of your love. Your capacity to love increases exponentially and the depth of your love goes through the roof. Your love becomes unconstrained by ego.
This is not just about feeling an emotion. This is about changing your entire attitude towards and understanding of reality. As you understand reality deeper (at higher Spiral stages) your emotions will change. How you see the world affects what your emotions are doing because emotions reflect your needs and values. As you move up the Spiral your needs and values change.
Practicing unconditional love is a great way to develop emotionally no matter what stage of the Spiral you're at. You can always love a lot more, a lot deeper. So when it doubt, love more! This one approach can transform your whole life.
Emotional development is probably the most important of all developmental lines. Because emotions dictate your whole life. Emotions are more powerful than cognition. Which is why all advertising, marketing, and politics is played at the level of emotion. To get someone to do something you must trigger them emotionally. Logic is cheap.

Hey guys, this morning I took 3 grams of homegrown shrooms (I later redosed) steeped in lemon and grapefruit juice (highly recommended method of administration).
Here is how it went:
The first part of the trip took place sitting (after redosing I lied down). The shrooms took a good 30 minutes to come on. Then there were some minor insights:
Ecology. Everything you do leaves a footprint. If you create garbage and throw it away it does not simply disappear. Note to self: Be even more mindful of your effect on the environment.
  Bees are great. My grandpa got a couple of hives and the honey is awesome. But bees are in danger. We might want to save them (not for the honey but for the environment). Note to self: Vote for stage green (not orange) if there’s no yellow.
  Truth is scaleable. Reality is fractal. For a truth to be true it has to be true at the smallest and biggest scale. Otherwise it’s only partial (kinda self evident kinda not). 45 minutes in it got a lil bit crazier...
I had the sense that I was in dialogue with “something”. Some higher intelligence. It was basically (and I mean literally) opening up my head and looking inside. It was checking if “the medium” was “ready”... if it was purified enough. Then there was a stream of light shooting inside the top of my open head. The usual stuff…
Then the insight occured to me… or rather was communicated to me via “dialogue”:
"Your path is the one of energy and purification."
All my trips suddenly made sense. There was always energetic stuff going on. Chakras opening up. Me performing exorcistic poses (bending in majorly messed up shapes).
I was so thankful for this insight (now as I write this even more).
Energy = Spiritual practise (Kriya Yoga and meditation).
Purification = Going through live consciously (and also practise). You gotta let life wash away the ego. Step by step: Act right. From Truth. It’s always been my path. Now it’s articulated and clear.
Another insight was that if you’re serious about this work…
You got to start FROM SCRATCH. Think for your fucking self. From the ground up. Take NOTHING for granted. No ideology. No ground to stand on. Just your direct experience. I also got this over the last weeks as I took time out to think in the evenings. For YEARS I have outsourced my thinking because I thought that everything is basically thought out… that I won’t come up with anything new. What. A. Blunder.
On that note: Not knowing is a way of life. You either know for real (aka a deep sense of truth) or you don’t know. And if you don’t know (which is most of the time) you’re better off being quiet and open. The state of not knowing is THE ONLY place where true insight can come from.
After that period I opened my eyes and felt pretty much sober. No visuals just a lil bit of wonkyness. So I decided to redose. I got me another gram of mostly caps (more psilocybin), steeped them in grapefruit juice and downed that thing.
Now the party started...
I noticed that because "I" pretty much desintegrated. My body was evaporating. I was melting into the ground and becoming the room. This was pretty rad I have to admit. However there was still a sense of commentary left (inner voice). After I reassembled the ego came in and wanted to do it again and re-create the experience. So there is still deeper to go here and I’m all about it. It was physical death. I could taste it. And it was beautiful.
 
After that there were more insights into the nature of reality...
God is the ultimate shapeshifter. It can literally create any-fucking-thing it wants. I got a vision of a mirror where there was nothing. Then it made “poof” and there was a sparrow. Not only a sparrow but a fat sparrow. I was awestruck.

 
I got such a deep sense that reality is just pure and utter magic. The craziest things exist around us and we take them for granted. Like a sparrow. How could you make this thing crazier? It flies, it has feathers and you can eat it (just kidding).
It’s all an expression of infinity. Every single being. I mean look at it. Look at the feathers. Such perfect detail. This beauty. Simply marvelous.
 
After that I really connected to the men in my family.
I was so thankful for my grandpas and the way they shaped me. I cried alot at this point. I also realized that I inherited some anger from one of them. It’s kind of interesting how that works: When he lashes out you gotta take cover. His son (my father) has also some of it but not as much. And I also have a little bit remaining. I suspect it’s still from World War 2 and the collective trauma of Germany (where I'm from). Here the shrooms suggested that I look deeper into some of Gabor Matés work.
 
But wait there’s still more…
I went into deep introspection what the “highest form” of a human would look like. Is it the “CEO lifestyle”? Is it a nice house and family? Nope. It’s what’s insight that counts. You can still appreciate a Lamborghini for its craftsmanship and you might get one. But don’t let it define you.
 
Discipline is BS.
That was interesting. I’ve always been pretty disciplined. But I also got the vision of an entrepreneur who is super disciplined. He works alot... Trains alot. He got it all. Except the inside is missing. When you truly surrender control to Life you need no discipline. Let it evolve. Let it grow. And when life decides to rip it all down… let it. Cause it will build something new. No need to beat yourself up for not going hard enough. It’s the journey. Literally. What I got from this is that I need to surrender neurotic discipline even more.
 
All in all I just realized how fucking green I am.
It’s my operating system. I also felt like I did a good job integrating orange and that I’m pretty yellow in some capacities. On the other hand I have some inhibitions of going fully yellow. I LOVE systems thinking but I resist systematizing and thinking everything to death (which is my remaining judgement against yellow).  
 
These are some more personal insights... 
How do you build your business?
Do you build it around a pile of hot air… around a self-invented mess of some sort (which most do)... or do you take Truth and wrap a business around it so it can shine through and infuse everything you do? 
You gotta think it through. Will it be an embodiment of Truth or Shit?
Like what is your title? CEO? I found that to be whack AF. I’d rather be the Head of Magic and Engineering lol.
 
The Polish Drunkard and the cynic Native American... 
That was also a funny one: My psyche pretty much has two extremes. And I got this literal vision: A fat polish guy who’s so drunk he's speaking in tongues… swinging his dick around and having fun… and on the other hand a skinny native American who’s just shaking his head. I could not make this shit up lol.
 
True Authenticity. 
I got a strong sense of who I am authentically as a person:
I don’t own alot (by design) but it’s still a bit chaotic. And I like it exactly like this. I LOVE plants. I LOVE animals. I also like humans (especially children). A couple months ago I watched the Harry Potter prequel. The film was okay… but the main character… he’s so weird, so querky… THAT’S ME lol!
I am an explorer. I like a bit of creative chaos. I’m a bit awkward. I love to be creative. I’m curious.
Also in regards to dating I had the vision of me coming out of the office seeing a beautiful women and wanting to talk to her. Then I stumble and in this way get her attention by accident... Life will give you what you want if you just let it. You just gotta own it! Be authentically awkward (note to self).
 
That's it! 
Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing. 
- Cheers

After watching just the pathetic bad attitude of many on this forum about girls, i decided to go out and approach as many girls as possible to see what they are like. This is something which i never do, so relax a bit because this is going to be fun for you, lol. The rules before i went out:
- no drinking;
- approaching alone, no wingman;
- try to spend as much time as possible with strangers;
- no pickup lines, authentic conversations.
When i was in the bar, the most difficult thing to do when looking back was the first approach. I just went to do it annyway, which quite surprised me. The conversation was pretty sollid and she laughed a lot, but she had a boyfriend. The following 5 approaches where just like this, everybody had a boyfriend, lol. What also was verry funny to me was when i did the approaches, almost always, the girlfriends of the girl i approach in that instant grap there phone. The girls i approached thus far, where all nice and enjoyed my company. But i wanted to go to another bar to change things. 
The following two approaches in the line-up before the entrance i can just say where the most awkward social experiences i ever had. I asked a girl if she was enjoing her night, she looked me straight into the eyes and then turned away her body. I just didnt experience for her anymore. I was just dumpstruck. The girlfriend of the girl then turned arround and said that i was to nice and must be a fucking dickhead in order to be more attractive. The guys in the line-up just laughed me out, but i didnt give a damn fuck. Went in the bar and approached 2-3 girls, 2 of them where blowouts. The third was a pretty sollid approach but she had a lot of social value so after a while she just ignored me because there where also other guys. What i also found funny was the effect my approaches had on other guys. When you see me rocking it there are no excuses left i gues.
Then i switched bars again and approached 4-5 girls, 2 of them went pretty good and there was physical contact. But one of the girls i approached was 15, so then i stoped. But the other girl liked me untill i said that i went out alone, lol. From that point on the conversation went downhills and the stoped touching me. 
This was my night out, much learned here. In conclusion i can say that my objective was met, but i suck shit in flirting. Like really. If i didnt do a lot of spiritual practices i would have been depressed now because there is much work to do. But im happy i did it annyway, and i will go out at least 1 time a weak to practise this. 
You will here from me in the future, more epic rapports comming?.

Step 2 is not necessary. She will get attracted anyway
P.S. One of the best guys I know is a 5'2" Pakistani guy. He gets girls like crazy. He is a shark. When he approaches I am in awe. Cause he just feels fully entitled to the girl. Like a king. Girls either love it or they slap him across the face. But either way he gets laid.
When it comes to getting girls, a delusional sense of self-confidence and self-love is a must. You have to trick your own mind into believing that any girl would be lucky to sleep with you, and every girl wants you. And you have to be able to handle rejection like a used car salesmen. Any rejection is her loss, her foolishness, because you are obviously the prize.

I don't do pickup much any more.
I have no problem with flirting with girls per se. My complaint was the ideology that many PUAs adopt and their stage Orange attitude towards sex and life.
Flirting with girls is not necessarily at odds with long-term relationships or emotional investment. There is no relationship without flirting.
All dating is a sort of manipulation and getting your own needs met, even if you never do pickup.
99% of relationships of any kind are just you trying to getting your own needs met. You don't really care about anyone "as they really are", you care about how they can fit into your life and serve your needs.
Dating and flirtation is a skillset. All skillsets are a set of "tricks" in that sense. If you want to get good around women you need to learn the rules of how that works. Pickup teaches some of those rules of attraction. How you then use them is up to you.
Good pickup is not really about controlling girls. It's about controlling yourself.
Controlling people is not something I recommend. You can become much more attractive and confident without having to control women.
Rather than thinking of pickup as stuff you do to the woman, think of it as changing your own inner game and how you view women. Think of it as becoming a stronger, more authentic man.
There are many versions of pickup. Some of it is very dysfunctional, some of it is great. You have to learn to sort the wheat from the chaff.
As a man, dialing in your own inner game is great stuff. Learning to be charismatic, bold, and authentically expressive is great stuff. Elimimating various kinds of limiting beliefs about women is great stuff. Gaining lots of experience talking to women is great stuff.
You have to remember, most women are very social and flirt and socialize non-stop. To them it is like breathing air. They develop a lot of this experience naturally in a way that many nerdy guys do not. Which is why many guys require extra training in a way that women do not. Guys have responsibilities with initating the flirt which women do not.
And in the end all dating and relationship is a distraction from awakening.
Dating is a survival function. Dating is brutal whether you do pickup or not. People are very selfish in relationships by default. Women are also very selfish when selecting mates. Reproduction is a ruthless game which people tend to be in denial about.