TheAvatarState

You think you have a point here, but there's actually none at all. Leo has talked about this extensively in many of his videos. The self-deception occurs when you evaluate a people from your own, wildly different perspective. For instance, the same argument can be made against Muhammad. The culture was vastly different back then. Not only that, the vast majority of Aztec people were not enlightened or knew about this high level of non dualism. Thousands of Aztec people were sacrificed for the inauguration of the Templo Mayor under a tyrannical emperor. Like any spiritual tradition, it can easily be corrupted to do the Devil's work.

Yeah, what a tragic story, if you actually look up his life. Not really sure why you'd consider the highest-scoring IQ man an "authority" on anything, but of course you're welcome to.

@IVONNE well it sounds like I don't know the whole story... serotonin is a moderator and I don't think he reports people for nothing, nor would he actually need to. Not that I want to know, of course, that's not my issue. What do you mean by this? Are you saying your whole class knows they don't have free will? I don't buy that, this isn't common knowledge. And what's with the 1% having money and 99% struggling? This isn't related to the issue of free will at all, so was there more context that I'm missing behind that question to the class?

What's the difference between artificial and not artificial? You only see the baseline sober state of consciousness as "natural" because you take it for granted. This distinction you drew is itself artificial, and it falls at the slightest bit of questioning. I just said you'll turn into a "schizo" if you stop sleeping, what's artificial about that? So you're AT LEAST open to the possibility that your very own sleeping state has validity and is not "artificial." Well, that's a starting point.

Wait, did I miss the part where people were mean? I don't see it.

LSD, mushrooms. That's all you need for your first couple handfuls of trips.

@Alexop Whatever "genes" or "metabolic disorders" people believe they have, guess what? It's caused by their diet and lifestyle! Ta-da!

What changes? One way to put it is that you zoom out and start looking at things holistically. You start taking other perspectives seriously. A lot of changes can be summed up to this one principle.

You're doing the right practices, keep going.

I highly recommend the show Avatar: the Last Airbender. I know what you're going to say, yes it's a "kid's show," but it's so much more than that! It's an animated fantasy epic that was inspired by and steeped in Eastern spiritual teachings. Here's a more in-depth review I made, I think it could be just what you're looking for: As for actual movies: Blade Runner 2049, The Fountain, Interstellar, Cloud Atlas, Ex Machina, 2001 a space odyssey, the Holy Mountain, Jodorowski's Dune (Definitely watch this in anticipation for Dune in 2020!), and the Tree of Life. Edit: oh, The Truman Show, and Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.

Therein lies the root of the issue, and your paradigm block in understanding this. You take the sober state as the baseline, objective state of reality, and consider any deviation from that to be inconsequential or "unreal." Did you forget that you have spent 1/3 of your life in a radically different state of consciousness called sleep? And if you didn't, your body would literally start breaking down to the point of you hallucinating in your waking, sober state? You see, this state we call "sober" is quite a fragile concept. All of these CHEMICALS and all these FACTORS have to be just right for us to experience this, and in general our bodies do this so well that we take it for granted. Your sober state is nothing more than a highly regulated soup of chemicals, and to think that's somehow "objective" or the only way it could be is preposterous! It's nothing more than "consensus" reality. This sober state is very functional, serves its purpose, but there are other states of consciousness that open the doors to mystical experiences. It would be wise for your own personal growth not to immediately discount them.

@UDT Yeah, wonderful book! Some deep wisdom in there (Marcus was stage yellow for sure), but it's not a guide for enlightenment lol. That's an entirely different thing.

@How to be wise Yes, it's interesting. Don't believe the math in that numberphile video though, it's incorrect (just look at the wiki link and other debunking videos on youtube). The answer is correct, but not in the simplistic way they showed, and not like you think. The y intercept on the graph on the wiki page is -1/12, and the area under the curve is also -1/12. Apparently these aren't by accident... It's definitely pointing to something. It looks like this infinite set is involved in computing the Casimir Effect in quantum field theory, which has applications in nanotechnology and potentially traversing wormholes.

@Belay kelemework Satan IS real, and non duality tells us he's not separate from you!

Nothing about this is True. Remember that mathematics is a man-made concept.

@F A B Yes, you create your reality. One that took me by surprise (this is from a Leo video), is to visualize yourself in the bedroom as the opposite sex. Surrender to getting fucked if you're a man, and do the fucking if you're a woman. Visualize it clearly. A lot of feelings and emotions can come up, but realize that neither modes are "bad" and that's there's beauty to both.

@Rigel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqr98O8QT3M

@Rilles he thought your play was serious. To be fair, it's sometimes difficult to pick up those signals over the internet I know I'm often misunderstood

You are literally the devil. So am I. It is a capacity of everyone, related to separation, caused the ego. Recognize that you have the very same mechanics in your ego that caused people like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc, to do what they did. I suggest you watch Leo's 3-part self-deception series for more clarity on the specific mechanics.

Leo trolling us ???

@dimitri have you ever watched Inception? You can use certain "tells" like trying to read text or look at a clock. Yes, when you realize you are the God of your personal dreamworld, your dream turns lucid.

That's good lol

Day 3: Energy: 3 Awareness: 4 Sexual thoughts/urges: 6 Self-esteem: 3 Social confidence: 3 Oof, this day was tough. Constant sexual thoughts. I probably thought about naked women for half the day. I just have to realize that I've been way too spoiled, stuffing myself with cake, so to speak, for most of my life with no effort. The gluttony has to stop. Fuck this is hard.

It's time, boys! I'm so FUCKING SICK of being controlled by these desires, so FUCKING SICK of draining my life force, so FUCKING SICK of this addiction! I recognize that if I want to move on in my spiritual journey, this has to go. This will surely be one of the hardest things I've ever done, but it's beyond time to step up to the occasion. I'm confident that by keeping this separate journal (please check out my other one where I share my thoughts and insights), it will keep me on track and hold me accountable. I'm so ready! Perhaps it's just coincidence, but today also happens to be my parent's 30th Anniversary, and they're having the time of their lives visiting New Zealand for 3 weeks! I'm really happy for them, but as I'm here in the States struggling with my own inner battles, about to pull my pants down to jerk it to some pixels on a screen depicting other people having fake, unenjoyable sex, I catch myself and stop... WHAT THE FUCK??? Here I am, trying my best to turn my life around in other areas, and I'm about to toss it all away for a few seconds of pleasure? Wake the fuck up, Kid!!! Now if I'm being honest with myself, I don't actually enjoy this habit anymore. I've experienced all there is to experience. I've spent thousands of hours searching for all kinds of porn, I've experimented with dozens of techniques and tricks, I've basically done it all (that I find attractive, that is). Like, there's literally nothing more to search for, nothing more to experience in this field. I've seen the best of the best. I'm a fucking connoisseur of this shit. And did it bring me any fulfillment, any happiness, any deep satisfaction? Of course, the answer is no. It was all an illusion. What I've been longing for, honestly, is an excuse or a reason or something external to make me quit. I get that that's not the right approach, but that has nevertheless been my state of mind. And that's where a lot of people are at, that's fundamentally what a neurosis is. If you're in that boat, I completely understand. It's terrible. I have had dozens of false starts at no fap over the years, but I have never had a streak longer than 2 weeks. Just think about that. I haven't gone longer than 2 weeks without fapping since I started fapping at age 12, over 10 years ago! And a good chunk of that, probably 4-5 years, it was a daily or twice daily habit... It's simply fucked up. It's really daunting to face that. I hope you can understand how difficult of a task it will be to stop. It doesn't matter what it is, if you do something for 10 years straight, it becomes part of you. This sickening mentality, awkwardness around girls, uneasiness in social situations, low self esteem-- it's practically baked into my DNA. But I'm going to do something amazing here. It's the most counter-intuitive move ever; it's the thing my ego never saw coming. I LOVE myself and my current situation. In fact, it's perfect. I NEEDED to go through all that to reach the lowest low, I NEEDED to experience what this was like! I can actually see that period of my life becoming extremely valuable in the future. Of course I don't recommend that you go out of your way to descend into Hell, but through that came this: a deep, fundamental understanding of the neuroses of addiction, pain, social awkwardness, loneliness, and mental suffering. I haven't suffered much physically (in fact my life has been quite cushy), but I can confidently say that I've suffered some of the darkest and most excruciating mental states one can get to. That isn't something you can read in a book. That's power. That's me taking full responsibility and flipping "woe is me" on its head. As the late and great Avatar Aang once said, "When you reach your lowest point, you are open to the greatest change." So what makes this attempt different? Well, for starters, this isn't an attempt. I can't explain it, but I know in my core that this is it. I would rather die than write a post like this and then not follow through. It's as simple as that. It's this deep knowing that this is the time. I'm smiling right now because it is beautiful... There is a calling here that's greater than myself. I don't really know what "flipped," perhaps it was reading other fine people's NoFap journals on here, maybe it was... I really don't know. But I want you to understand that this isn't some egoic reaction or split decision. I've been thinking about doing this for a long time. I've recognized this need to reboot my sexual energy. The time is now, and this was exactly how it was meant to be. I'm counting today as day 1. Actually, I haven't fapped in 3 days, but it would be cheating to count those... I'm leaning against using a 1-10 rating system of the days' difficulty, because it's a bad habit I used to rate a woman's attractiveness. Fuck that. I need to get away from that materialistic paradigm. Being a Yellow thinker, I'm sure I'll come up with a model I like eventually. For now, I'll say today was easy. Almost no sexual thoughts, and if there were, they were fleeting. I did not indulge in any fantasies. If you read all of that, then I'm deeply thankful because your thoughts and feelings have an affect in my journey. We are all connected, limited not by time nor space. Please send some good vibes! Wishing me luck is absolutely pointless.

I know you guys are always hungry for consciousness-raising content. I know I am! I recently discovered gaia.com, and it has some really great exclusive content! Last year I read a book called The Divine Matrix by Gregg Braden, and it was amazing and eye opening. Well, I just found out that he has his own video mini-series on Gaia called "Missing Links." I'm really enjoying it so far. Quickly browsing the rest of their content, it looks like there's a ton of great documentaries... so instead of watching that next Netflix series, give Gaia a try. Seems like a great community! It is a paid subscription, however, you can get the first two weeks for only $1 to see if you like it.