“Great wisdom looks like stupidity”
Personal development work is not the same; there is a spectrum with 3 main levels. Therefore, there are different techniques for the different levels. The 3 levels are:
1.       Newbies: Is coming from a deep deficiency in his life. He has holes in himself that need to be filled with money, relationships, business, fitness, his mood, etc. And he really needs tangible results since he doesn’t like his life. He usually blames the external environment for his situation (he feels like a victim). He is looking for solutions in the external world (money, relationships, etc.); he doesn’t care about internal solutions.

He is negatively motivated; he is not here for the great stuff (life purpose, contributing to society, expanding consciousness); he is coming from a place of pain and he only wants to remove this pain. He is not interested in changing his sense of self and identity. He is focused on Outer Growth, not Inner.

He is not interested in Truth for its sake and doesn’t care about what reality is. If he is interested in Truth is because it serves his sense of identity. He takes his mind seriously and thinks that his thoughts matter (he didn’t make the distinction between thought and awareness).

He is lost in theory and doesn’t try to experience the stuff Leo talks about. They need to understand that everything is grounded in direct experience.

He resists taking action. (if you don’t take action after listening to an advanced piece of wisdom it will be counterproductive).

The newbie is unaware of the ego and how deceptive it is. He is also unaware of his closed mindedness. He is not aware of his own social distortion. He doesn’t care and neglects spirituality. He is really impatient. They want free stuff and doesn’t want to buy courses, books or seminars. He has narrow focus (he only thinks about money and sex) and doesn’t care about philosophy, psychology, science, history, etc.
 
He cannot go from the abstract to the concrete (he cannot create actual action steps to take the advice). He thinks in terms of black and white and tend to make the teaching about the teacher.
 
He falls into the trap of simplicity: He thinks that advanced truths are really complicated when in reality they are quite simple. The newbie hasn’t experience the shock of how little he knows about reality.
 
2.       Intermediate: A combination of the Newbie and the Advanced stages.
 
3.       Advanced: It is radical open-mindedness and being grounded in reality. He rejects all social norms. He does a lot of practice and implementation (he takes massive action) and this action is inwardly directed (meditating, contemplating, doing shadow work, introspecting, doing self-inquiry); and this is literally working for thousands of hours sitting alone in your couch.
 
He accepts and realize that all problems are internal and are created by them. There is a focus on Truth vs goals, he wants to know what reality is by direct experience. They focus on awareness since they recognize that thoughts will not create the growth they are looking for.
 
They need to have a couple of years of meditation/self-inquiry under his belt. After 2 years of daily meditation practice you finally start to have some insights and epiphanies about the power of awareness vs thoughts.
 
Advanced work includes self-inquiry and questioning of the ego. You need to question what you are, why you are motivated to do the things you do, why you create the emotions you have, etc. Also, the advanced student rejects success and the need to meet his needs. He is not here for success anymore; he realized that success is hollow. He recognized that success will never get him to where he wants to be in life. This doesn’t mean that he stopped going to work and became a monk. He still pursues relative degrees of success but he no longer clings to the newbie ideal that success is the ultimate goal. Perhaps he wants a girlfriend but he doesn’t care that much since he has bigger things in his life; he has different priorities.
 
He made personal development a lifelong commitment; it is done for its own sake so he becomes quite patient; he looks 10 years down the road. The advance student makes serious study about personal development material (he studies philosophy, history, religion, science, spirituality, epistemology).
 
He is aware that the deepest work is the most emotionally challenging work and he embraces the pain since he knows that the worst moments are the moments in which he grows the most. He recognizes that his web of beliefs is holding him back so he is able to question it.
 
He is able to handle confusion and paradox.
Advice for Newbies
-          It is okay to be a newbie.
-          If you are a newbie, focus on satisfying your deepest needs first. Pursue some success in your life and go have some sex. Burn through your desires.
-          Focus on installing habits
o   Meditation
o   Exercise
o   Healthy food
o   Contemplation
o   Visualization
o   Affirmation
-          Cut distractions off your life
-          Be careful with advanced topic, don’t focus on them too much.
-          Be much more open-minded
-          Realize that personal development is a very deep path and will take you all your life.
-          Get excited about the advanced work, YOU NEED BOTH.
-          Even though there are people who are really enlightened, they don’t know about business. YOU NEED EVERY TYPE OF ADVICE, from regular advice to advanced advice.
-          There is nothing wrong with pursuing enlightenment and learning to have great sex or handle a business.
-          Don’t confuse pursuing enlightenment with a complete abandonment of life. You have to be detached from sex, money, relationships but that doesn’t mean that you no longer enjoy them, it means that you enjoy them fully because you don’t need them!
-          You can become a millionaire, or a sex god but don’t get attached to it and don’t use it as an excuse to discover your true nature.
GO AND ENJOY LIFE, BUT DO IT IN A CONSCIOUS WAY SO YOU CAN REALLY REALLY ENJOY IT.
In a few years, if you don’t keep growing you will not understand nothing about what Leo is taking. DO THE HOMEWORK!
You should be inspired by the possibilities!!! The deepest wisdom is incredibly joyful!!!

“The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.”
The pre-mortem technique is a process in which you analyze and study the different things that can go wrong when you start a project (personal stuff too!).
How does it work? You select a specific project. Now, before you start the project, you imagine to yourself that your project has failed spectacularly. After visualizing that, you list every cause of failure that you can foresee (you have to be realistic). Include psychological and external causes of failure. After having the list, organize them by the level of risk. What you do now is to brainstorm specific solution for all the causes. YOU DO ALL OF THIS BEFORE YOU GET STARTED.
Do it with all your goals!
Most of your obstacles will be related to your psychology!
Areas of Application
-          Business
-          Quitting your job
-          Your entire career
-          Your Life Purpose
-          Your next year
-          Losing weight
-          Your entire life
-          Enlightenment
-          Learn a new hobby
-          Relationships and Pick Up
-          Travelling abroad
Spend 1 hour per project using the worksheet.

Money problems are not economic problems, there are first and foremost psychological problems (there are many ways that you can have problems with money). More cash will not solve the problem; the problem is in the mind. Money is very emotional.
Your relationship with money is primarily shaped by your family’s relationship with money when you were growing up and you adopted most of your beliefs towards money in your childhood, largely unconsciously.
External obstacles tend to be illusions and there are not the real problems. If you get the inner game right, you will get the outer stuff handled. Money is an entire domain of life and requires lots of work and know.
Psychological aspects that create problems with money:
-          Fears
-          Emotional Spending: people spending their money irrationally
-          Emotional Saving: you are hyper vigilant
-          Limiting beliefs (ask where these beliefs came from): Notice how these beliefs are going to stop you from making money. Most of your beliefs are not true!
o   The economy is not good enough
o   Corporations are stealing all the money
o   I cannot make money in my field
o   Competition is too fierce
o   I cannot start a business because I don’t have enough capital
o   Money is hard to make
o   Money is evil
o   Business is anti-spiritual
-          Playing the victim: You make excuses because you are scared
-          Procrastination
-          Materialism: Thinking that money will lead to fulfillment and it will solve all your problems
-          Improperly earning money
-          Improperly prioritizing money: People often put money way too high in their value list
-          Improperly investing money
-          Lack of long term strategy
-          Lack of discipline and habits
-          Lack of knowledge and education
-          Avoiding and ignoring money
What does heathy money psychology look like: You are fully aware of the trap of materialism and you understand that it doesn’t work at all; you will never be fulfilled by having money and none of your other problems in life will be solved by having money. You also identified the emotional triggers and hot bottoms you have with respect to money. Also, you are not ideological about money and you don’t hold money as good or as evil, you dropped many of your beliefs about money and you hold it as neutral. Also, you are aware of the money traps that were constructed by society (shopping, credit cards, mortgages, pyramid schemes, bad investments) and you are not tempted to get into these traps. You have an abundance mindset; you hold it as a win-win situation. You take a 100% responsibility for your money situation. You are also using and investing money strategically, mostly in yourself and you are taking a long term view. Lastly, you took the time to position yourself in life so money is a byproduct of your deepest passion.
Instead of going crazy to make money, first turn inwards and start to observe your money habits and where is your income coming from, which are your motivations? Apply awareness to your problems and beliefs. After that, decide you are going to master this domain of your life. Then, you need to do the research about money. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS LIFE PURPOSE! If you take care of the foundations, the other part is going to resolve alone; avoid the trap of just going for cash, that is never going to work. You will need to be creative if you want to implement your life purpose, there is no easy solution!
 HEALTHY MONEY SITUATION = PROPER PSYCHOLOGY + LIFE PURPOSE

Real entrepreneurship is creating something from scratch. Business is psychologically very tricky and counterintuitive.
5 Errors
1-      You are not practical enough about the marketplace reality: When you come up with a business idea you don’t have your feet on earth. You need to be more practical and less attached to your dreams. You need to pay more attention to sales and marketing. THE HARDEST PART OF BUSINESS IS NOT CREATING YOUR DREAM PRODUCT, IS MARKETING IT. The hard part of business is getting eyeballs.            

You need to have a strategy about how you are gonna reach your customers (Go to market). You also need a strategy about how to maintain and acquire the customers and you have to think a lot about it and test it! You need to study your cashflow! TEST YOUR BUSINESS MODEL EARLY.
 
2-      You are not experimental enough: You need to be creative and highly clever (strategic creativity). You will need to try dozens of solutions until you get one that will work. You need to be more flexible and more adaptable than your problems. You need to find your unique strength that will help you leverage your business! Which is your key differentiator?
 
3-      Not taking enough action: You need to work towards the idea, you need to move your ass! You need a rapid speed of implementation! You need to be testing your business model every single day!
 
4-      Lack of self-governance: You need to be capable of motivating yourself in the long term. You need to work consistently.

A good product is not enough; you need an awesome product! You need to realize that some products are not marketable.
 
5-      Getting lost in materialism and success: You need to be running your business with consciousness and awareness. You need to do business without losing your soul (a responsible business, a visionary business, a leader business, a business that shows the world what is possible, a business that takes the process and refines it, a conscious business). The secret is TO REALLY BELIEVE IN YOUR CAUSE. The purpose of business is not to make money, is to promote a cause, to raise awareness in the world. The businesses that are going to survive in the long term are the conscious businesses.

The joy you get from a money making low conscious business is pale in comparison to the joy you will get with a business that really generates an impact. The world can change its destiny depending on which business you decide to start!
 
You need to balance success and awareness!
 
Understand that business is a jungle and you have to be tough. If you want to achieve your dreams, you need to be strategic and practical.
 
Action Steps
1-      Do tons of research and become a master of your marketplace. Learn everything you need to know about your customers.
2-      Test out any idea that you have in some form. Create a prototype and test your ideas. Be open to any path that the idea can take.
3-      Look for things that have practical value for people. Look for the actual problems that people have in their lives. YOU SHOULD BE HAVING THOUSANDS OF IDEAS!
4-      Prove at least 1 marketing strategy.
5-      Prove your cashflow and generate a SALE!
6-      Work on cultivating self-governance.
TO CREATE A GREAT BUSINESS, YO

This one question always keeps coming back to me so I thought I'd ask on the forum.
From my understanding of epistemology, everything perceived outside of direct experience is a story.
For example, I have never experienced the earth being round, I've only experienced it being flat. I personally assume that the earth is round because I believe that science has shown us that it's round, but if i dig deeper, then I know that this is just a story I believe. In truth, it could be flat, it could be round, I can't really say.
The reason I ask is that we discuss epistemology on this forum but also there are instances where conspiracy theories are shunned. Now I know that all of this is a distraction from spiritual work but I am asking because I want to know what is correct epistemologically. I can believe that the earth is round, I can believe that the earth is flat. From my direct experience, the earth is flat, so I feel like it would be further from the truth for me to believe the earth is round because that is a belief rather than direct experience, I only choose to believe the earth is round because it sounds rather plausible. But at the end of the day it's the same as a religious person believing in an anthropomorphic god.
Here's another example. In my direct experience I've probably ever seen maybe 10,000 people over my life. Science says there are around 7 billion. Epistemologically, (if I understand it correctly) direct experience is  king compared to stories or beliefs. Which one is more true in this case? Is it true to say that I have only seen ~10,000 people but I choose to believe that there may be more?
I think I might be misunderstanding a part of what Leo says but this point has been coming back to me over and over as a source of confusion.

I was only talking about pre-sex communications. Once you have sex with her, then you can text her more seriously.
You must distinguish between pre-sex and post-sex behaviors. They are very different.
Pre-sex, while you're dating, there must be some gaming going on. After she falls in love with you, you can cut the gaming.
You don't need to manipulate her too much via text. The key is not to display neediness and desperation. The biggest mistake made with pre-sex texting is that the guy fucks it up by trying to say too much, trying to be too edgy/cocky/funny. Trying to attract her via text doesn't work. So actually my advice is to not game girls via text. Use texting mostly to handle dating logistics laced with bits of humor.
Make your texts totally non-needy and unimportant. Don't be sending her long letters via text. Never try to logically convince her of meeting you. All that crap will blow you out very fast.
Here are good kinds of texts pre-sex:
Hey gurl, let's grab a coffee. Coffee! Lets go Saw this shirt at Walmart and thought it would be perfect for you [insert pic of ugly shirt] Meow... Moo Hey dork Let's hang out When you free this week? Let's do something this week How's the recovery going? (from last night's club/bar) You're the weirdest gurl I met last night. I want to build you a mansion out of Legos and stock it with exotic baby animals. Reading a book Chillin by the pool Making juice Clipping my toe nails, thought you should know Trimming my nose hair, thought you should know Going to club XXXXX tonight. You? You remind me of a dog I just saw You seem great and all but I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with you. I bet you snore like a pig. I want to stick a scorpion in your pants Hope this isn't too forward but I mailed you this basket of puppies [insert pic of basket of puppies] A few of them might arrive dead, I was too cheap to swing for overnight shipping That kind of stuff. Keep it lite and chill. Zero investment is key.
This is the extent of pre-sex texting.
NEVER, EVER get sexual via text unless you've already had sex with her a few times. It comes off way too creepy and needy. Act like you don't care about sex.

There are things that you really want deep inside but you don’t realize yet. The problem with your goals and desires is that you don’t question why you pursue them.
If you want to be a strategic thinker and your wants are incorrect, your whole strategy is wrong (you could be working towards something that is completely misguided). If you want to be a strategic thinker you need to really contemplate your desires and realize if they are really authentic.
This list is the ultimate list for your personal development goals.
The 10 Things
1-      Existence to feel magical again the way it felt to you when you were first born: Now, you are taking reality for granted and you see it as boring and mundane. You don’t realize that you are alive in a world of magic. You cannot see reality with the eyes of a child.
 
2-      You want thing to be completely effortless in your life: You want everything just to flow and happen naturally.
 
3-      You want to be authentic: You want to act, speak and behave authentic and spontaneously. You want to be playful! You don’t want to be inside your head, you want to be in the present moment all the time, without worries.
 
4-      You want a dispassionate mind: A mind that does not cling nor need anything, a detached mind. Realize that this doesn’t mean to be unemotional or logical, a dispassionate mind is the one that doesn’t cling or need anything. You want a mind that treats everything in reality as equal; a equanimous mind.

You want to be unattached to any ideology, with no beliefs to defend and totally open-minded.
 
5-      You want to be fully sober: You want to be fully conscious, aware and lucid. You want to be so conscious that everything for you is moving in slow motion (you need to do lots of meditation and self-inquiry). You want to look upon reality without having a single thought when looking at reality.
 
6-      You want to be nobody: You don’t want to be x or y person; you want to have 0 identity. The goal of the game is to get rid of your identity. You want to be the way you were when you were a child.
 
7-      You want Samadhi: Is a state in which you merge with the object that you are perceiving. Is a state where you become the object that you are perceiving. It need a lot of meditation and it feels much better than an orgasm.
 
8-      You want Truth: You want Truth at all costs. You are actually pursuing survival, thriving and success. Deep down inside, you want a life committed to Truth. The Truth will cure you.
 
9-      You want to be a benevolent force in the world: You just want to be a force of compassion, giving, contribution, good. You want to be coming from a place of contribution to society and humanity. How to be a force of benevolence? Find your LIFE PURPOSE! You should spend your time thinking about how you can be a benevolent force in the world. Your life should become a gift giving machine.
 
10-   You want a simple natural lifestyle: Your current lifestyle is full of distractions and pollution (internet, TV, social media, smartphones, computers, partying, clubs, drugs, alcohol, shopping, buying, being busy, getting involved with relationships, workaholism).

You should be eating healthier, being more in nature, doing less shit and just being. You should have a free and relaxed schedule.
You don’t want:
-          Pleasure
-          Money
-          Success
-          Sex
-          Relationships
-          Reputation
-          Self-Actualization
Will you be wise enough to realize this? People are so lost that they don’t even realize that they are lost.

A big thank you Leo for that one. I've requested it I guess 2.5 years ago. It was well worth the wait! Probably as important as your "most shocking truth you'll ever hear" video. Yes, the people concentrate on the no-self and think that they already know what love is... To me, love is easier to get you to no-self than the other way around. Practice it every day, like going to the gym, you'll get instant results! By expending love outwardly,  the fear based inner dialogue vanishes and you become the infinite.
 
What is Love ? 
 
“Real love is to love them that hate you.” Mahatma Gandhi
“Accustomed long to contemplating love and compassion and I have forgotten all differences between others and myself” Milarepa
 
What you think love is, is what you got from your culture, if you are a scientist or atheist, love is a romantic or sentimental emotion.
But love is more fundamental than maths and physics.
The universe is a giant mind, it has capacity to love. Love is a universal property. Just like intelligence, love is a facet of the absolute. Truth, consciousness and love are the three components of the trinity of the absolute, in hindouisme Sat Chit Ananda. It is really one thing, but you can discover them individually or collectively. Enlightenment is having the insight of no-self, but not only, you have to feel infinite love too.
Of course you can have those emotions that are love based but what is love on the metaphysical level?
Truth is love. Why is truth not neutral? Consciousness, intelligence and love are not accidental by-products of the evolutionary process. They are qualities of the univers. You are not in the universe, you are the universe.
Love is infinite and unlimited. but the ego is in the way. Love is absolute acceptance of everything, it is to love all reality without exceptions, not being able to imagine what evil is, considering it as an impossibility. You don’t know what evil is anymore, you love everything so much, there is no more room left for evil to exist, because you have love the evil to death, you are conscience of the beauty of creation. It is the surrender of the self, the dissolution of all boundaries. The beauty of dissolving into infinity is greatest peace and bliss that you can imagine. Death is love, God is love. God meaning the univers or reality.
 
A good way to think about life, is to take life as a love simulator, where the goal is to be the most loving humain being possible, becoming conscious of the beauty of creation. This is the most difficult thing to do. But why is there so much bad stuff going on in that simulation? Because the goal of the simulation is to love everything, even the bad stuff, like a computer game where there are obstacles in the way, you got to be at ease with them. That is the most difficult thing to do because the obstacles are actually to get completely over yourself, surrender yourself, die to the truth and then you can die happy and peacefully.
Love cannot be purchase, their is no magic pill solution, you have to develop your capacity to love but also to the hard stuff. Most people love to love the easy stuff, like food family, people who love them etc… what about the rest?  That what fulfills you..
 
Here is an exercice to open the heart chakra:
Imagine something you love and magnify, expend out that feeling onto all of reality. Transmute that narrow love into universal love for all of existence for the privilege of being able to be here conscious and alive. Expend it out of your chest, like your are a fountain of love.
 
Love means practice, you need to trigger it on command, you are a creator of love, don’t wait to get it from external sources. The true test of your love is the ability to love evil and all the stuff that is against you, so that your love is unconditional. To love is to be not judgmental. The universe loves itself unconditionally, you got to align with that love.
Spirituality is the art of love. It is a set of practices and concept which helps you to increase your capacity to love with the ultimate aim to get to an infinite capacity to love. That is true spirituality!
Loving stuff that serves the ego’s agenda is what most people experience as what love is. The ego only knows how to love conditionally. The ego is always afraid of dissolving the bounderies of the separation it has created towards the infinite. You or your ego feels confortable being small and finite.
 
The opposite of love is: egotism, narcissism, fear, hate, judgment, unconsciousness, violence, intolerance, manipulation, tribalism, exploitation, ignorance, close-mindedness and division. You can’t love if you are preoccupied with food, status, sex, survival, success ideology, politics, money, addiction, drugs, religions or logic. Nobody wants to give up his ideology because we think we are right. That is what is in the way of being all loving. The religious people loves to hate the atheists and vice versa, white people loves to hate the black people and vices versa, christians-muslim, republicans-democrats and so on.
 
What is hate? In a sense hate is not the opposite of love, as love is actually everything. How to account for hate and evil then? It is simply excessive love of the self, the ego. Hate is a form of love. 
Love can have different aspect like water, the solid form would be hate, the liquid form the egoic love, and gaseous form would be the unconditional, divine love.
You love your family conditionally which means you love them because they serve you in certain ways. Every evil person acts out of love. Hitler acted out of love towards his ego. Hitler’s ego and Germany’s national ego which created this division between them and the world. Like a total narcissist. 
Because the ego is so fragmented, it is not able to love itself fully. A person who hates is incapable of loving himself, he denies and suppressed other parts of himself and then projects those out to the outside world. By rejecting the truth of unity in existence, a racist has to reject and demonize the people outside, and unconsciously, he also hates himself. 
What part of yourself do you deny or suppress, what part of your body of your personality don’t you like?
We need to rise above the survival game of outcompeting the other, and being willing to die if necessary.
The ego or the devil flips everything around. The ego or the devil convinces himself that by hating others, that he is actually doing good. And the devil has infiltrated all major religions, so that a lot religious people think that to hate others, non believers or else, is good and that to love their tribe is the point of religion.
Closed minded, opinionated, judgmental, superficial, addicted, needy, ideological, success oriented, arrogant, and fearful people cannot love.
 
Love in spiral dynamics:
Stage purple: tribal form of love, they love their tribe would fight for defending their tribe
Stage red: A twisted, a narcissistic form of love, which takes the form of violence, conquest, dictatorship, punishment, vengeance, power, which is not the opposite of love
Stage blue: The orthodox & religious state. Love your country, ethnicity, community, a love to hate evil and evil doers, following rules, law and order, idol worship, the man in the sky, a love for one religion, not all religions
Stage orange: Love of rationality, science, IQ, analysis, materialism, liberty, individuality, achievement and success, fun, money, sex, fame, libertarians…
Stage green: Love for all people, animals, races, cultures, femininity, environment, community, social justice, willingness to sacrifice for the community. Green sees the importance of loving oneself
Stage yellow: diversity of knowledge and system thinking, open mindedness
Stage turquoise: Love all beings, the entire ecosystem, you understand that you are God, you have the power of true unconditional love, you are able to love suffering, ignorance, evil, unconditional love, you love ego, illusion and Maya, you’ve experienced the truth and you love that global community.
 
To move from one stage to another:
-Do the exercice to open the heart chakra, visualise your self being more loving, fill yourself with love as you would do with a mindful relaxation exercice, feel more love. 
-Suffering, strong determination sitting, solo meditation retreats, psychedelics including bad trips, facing your fears, every fear you have is roadblock towards you being infinitely loving, and the ultimate fear being the fear of death. 
-Practice acceptance, non judgment and surrendering, being more kind, giving, caring and vulnerable, especially being vulnerable will help tremendously, build unconditional self-love, love your body entirely, feel love in difficult times like when someone hurt you, study role models like Gandhi, Christ, Zen masters and many others.
 
Being more loving doesn’t mean everything will go your way or that you will even stay alive, yes you can get hurt (Gandhi was beaten down). Allow yourself to cry.
When some people have a dense level of love, which means that they hate, they are going to hate you for your love. Your love becomes a threat to them! A lot of loving leaders got murdered that way. As an orthodox, you don’t want to admit that love and evil, God and the devil are actually the same thing. Your orthodox religion is corrupted by the devil. You were told not to worship idols, that the kingdom of heaven is within, to love your neighbor as yourself… what do think that means? 
 
Make sure when you love, you never do it because you have to or because you should.
You have to genuinely love reality, you don’t fake that. Be careful with the “fake it until you make it” approach, as long you have a sens of ego, you are not able to love unconditionally, the ego is by definition a division. The ego wants to build a protective castle and in doing so, you separate yourself from the world. You have to surrender all ideologies, beliefs, religion and beliefs in God, that is the cost. 
 
You can burn the candle from both end: 
-Pursue awakening on hand (self-enquirery, yoga, meditation, contemplation)   
-Practice to be more loving
-Practice to have a real smile vs a fake one. Practice make yourself feel the joy and happiness.
-Practice compassion.
-Total acceptance for the ignorance of mankind. Evil is always created by ignorance.
-Understanding that hatred is a form of love
 
A common person use 5% of their love. You want to transform the quality of your life? Tap into love! You can’t really do it because you are too weak, narcissist, scared, selfish, left brained, wrapped up in ideologies, opinions, judgments, fighting for social justice, as that race, for that religions, you have ennemies.
To be a powerful leader, you got to be a powerful lover, otherwise you become a tyrant and hated.
Love requires the greatest courage, it is something you have to work for. There needs to be a commitment to transform yourself as a more loving person.
Loving people have a great sense of purpose in their life, they don’t get abused and have strong boundaries so that they don’t let the egotism of others drag them down. To be loving you need to be up-lifting.
 
Your homework assignment: Look at how and why your love is conditional, look how you cherrypick. Make a list of your fears that are holding you back to be more loving with this person, with that situation, political matter… Why aren’t you able to love more? What are you afraid of? Is it the fear of what others think of you? When you see how much conditional your love is, you will start to see opportunities to turn that around.

Self-Deception part 1/2/3
 
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself. And you are the easiest person to fool.” Richard Feynman
“Self deception covers it’s own track”  Daniel Goleman
 
Your mind is inherently self-deceptive. 
René Descartes’s saying “I think therefore I Am” means that the fact that I’m doubting means that there has to be someone who is doubting. He came to the conclusion that it was not possible to live in a matrix or that some evil demons had the power over the human’s mind, as the demon in question would still have someone to deceive.
The one thing that almost no philosopher takes seriously is that the mind is inherently a self-deception machine. The whole point of self deception is that you don’t take it seriously, otherwise it wouldn’t be a successful self-deception. Your own mind is the evil demon, the self-deception is utterly total. All there is to this game called life is self-deception within self-deception within self-deception… We don’t need science-fiction scenarios like Descartes or that the world could be a simulation, the mind has complete power over you. The number one biggest mistake in life is to believe that your own mind can be trusted. That is epistemology, how do you know that what you know is reliable.
The mind will take every opportunity to deceive you. Your mind wants to construct a reality without you being aware that you construct it. You are your own conspiracy theory. The mind can construct an unbreakable illusion that goes all the way to the existential level. When you think you are controlling it, it is actually the one that is controlling you. You don’t need to worry about other people trick you but the only way that they can trick you is because you trick yourself. 
Ask yourself: Can I trust my own mind? Am I deceiving myself? And listen carefully for the answer. The whole problem is that the process is circular.
How did something come out of nothing? How is creation possible at all? Things can come into being only through one mechanism, deception! How does God (reality) create the world? Through self-deception. Why would God need to deceive itself? God creates infinite forms through deception, . God or reality deceives itself. This one thing can take on many forms only by tricking itself into thinking that it’s limited and finite, rather than infinite. Deception becomes the mechanism of creation. Reality must deceive itself to come into existence. This is how you and the universe came into existence. You whole body and mind is made out of self-deception. At least that’s what you get if you stop thinking that reality is objective.
The greatest self-deceptions are believing that you are real, important and must survive. Descartes doubted everything but he couldn’t doubt the Self. The minds needs self-deception for creation, on top of that is build the entire web of lies that is, the rest of your life.
Consider that lies are actually much more useful than truth in many situation as the mind likes to flip everything on its head. People lie to get what they want. As long as you are alive, all your attention goes to staying alive. What if there is something beyond living and staying alive. But the mind’s job is not to keep the body alive the way people think, but to keep the idea of “you” alive. People think that the idea of you resides in the body, but the idea of is more fundamental than your body, all kind of things can happen to it, and this is the reason why people mutilate themselves for spiritual reasons, as the body is just another idea, the idea of you. The “you” is not a body, it is a conglomeration of conceptual ideas. 
Becoming a martyr is not a selfless act, it’s completely selfish, they have some idea of them where martyr-ship plays into, how they will live in the memories of there followers and fans, and live on in the afterlife is more important than staying physically alive. So surviving is not about the body, it’s about surviving the idea of you.
 
Self-deception is not only about enlightenment… Most of things you love in life are self-deceptions: money, wealth, ownership, security, laws & right, religion, history, movies, porn, time, language, confidence, fame, power, what’s good and bad, meaning and purpose, ideologies, science, family, corporations, nations, equality, rank status, culture, video games… 
-Ownership: a piece of paper saying that you own your house or your dog is just ridiculous
-Security: The more power you think you acquire, the more insecure you become. The most insecure people are dictators. This is why they have the biggest arsenal to begin with.
-Human rights:  There is nothing holding this laws but human consensus, an invention to make yourself more secure
-Movies, novels, porn are all virtual simulations
-Family: You have convinced yourself that there is a special connection between people based on some genetic similarity. You got to treat them in a special way, rather than the way that you treat other human beings. There is no more connection between you and your mother than between you and a coffee table as it is all one thing. There is nothing special about your family, that is just an illusion that the mind creates because it is an important component of you staying alive.
-Nations & corporations: Are both completely fabricated identities, the border of the country is an imaginary line.
-Equality, fairness: Reality is what it is, you want equality for your pragmatic agenda, so you get a better life for yourself
 
Even the sources of knowledge are also serving the pragmatic survival agenda.
Are corrupted by self-deception: Logic, reason, science and mathematics, philosophy, psychology and medicine, history, economics, business, personal development, religion, spirituality and non-duality. The process of talking about self-deceptions is itself riddled in self-deceptions.
You actually don’t want the truth, you want to be wrapped up in the illusion, knowledge itself is part of the self-deception.
There are 2 types of knowledge: Conventional knowledge what you get from school and university. That is not too dangerous for the mind… And then there is self-knowledge, the meta knowledge, about the mechanism of how knowledge works, epistemology. The mind is careful to withhold all meta-knowledge from you, the mechanism of knowledge itself.
Society is an entire self-deception.
 
What are the evidence that self-deception is real?
-You have double standards, you criticize others but not yourself for example, for cutting people off in traffic, you don’t insult yourself when you do it 
-Have you also noticed that people believe a lot of crazy stuff in the world, they are all crazy, or self deceived but you. You notice that in others but not in yourself. Don’t try to fix others, worry about yourself, as you focus outward you are not focussing inward and therefore the mind accomplish its objective of distracting you. 
-The way humans treat evil. Evil is just selfishness. To be alive is to be evil. You deny it and pretend to be that good upstanding moral person. Everybody is just as evil as you are but you just want to push your own agenda. The only reason why you think nazis are evil is because they are threatening your agenda. 
There is nothing wrong with all this, but this is what it is to be alive.
 
Most of human history is about one group of people ruling over another group of people. A generation later we think we are better than they were as if we were immune to the self-deception of the previous generation. And if we don’t run into the previous self-deception, we run into a new one even deeper, thinking we are finally at the top and have reached perfection, we figured reality out, we know the truth.
The question is, can you see your own self-deceptions? By judging others, you are falling into the trap of self-deception. 
Reason itself is the chief tool of self-deception. Reasons are used to justified your self-agenda. The reason why rationalists like to argue about people who are faith-based is precisely because they are ignorant of the faith that they ground their reason in. Reason itself is based on faith. This is a problem of conflict of interests, self-bias and lack of honesty. Reason will only make this worse. You can’t think your way out of this problem. It’s a slow process. Your entire mind/body will revolt against the truth, against self-reflecting and noticing it’s own self-deceptions. Every time you try to change yourself, you fall back. The mind is helping you to maintain your self. Every one has their own pace, with their own problem. You have to turn inwards to find and face your inner demons. The mind hates this process a lot. Everybody denies that he is the devil, that is the nature of the mind.
You can jailbreak your own mind. But the mind knows all its own attempt to jailbreak itself and it can easily stop those. It’s like to play chess with yourself. But it is possible as the final leap will come from outside of your mind, that would be enlightenment, that is not going to come from you. But even after enlightenment the mind will still be there.
 
In a nutshell, the mind is trying to prevent self-reflection because everything is an illusion. You are God deceiving itself into thinking that it’s not God but that it’s you, a finite being. Why would God Trick himself? Because he can.
 
The solution to self-deception is self-reflections, it means questioning everything you hold as certain, about yourself and the world. What all personal growth boils down to is going from a place of maximum self-deception to a place of minimum self-deception, the more you do that, the less suffering you’ll have in your life.
By believing that you are a separate entity you have the ability to experience and to discover how beautiful and amazing reality is.
 
Self-Deception part 2 - 60+ Self-Deception Mechanisms
 
“Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself” Ludwig Wittgenstein
“Thought is always saying that thought didn’t do it” David Bohm
 
Recap: The mind is a self-deceptive engine because without illusion nothing can exist, reality must be dreamed into being. This dream needs to be sustained it is so through self-deception. It is not in the mind’s interest to look inside at the machinery constructing the dream. The dream is maintained through a lack of self-awareness and self-reflection. You can have the idea to jailbreak the mind and to see what reality is like, outside of the dream.
 
To be alive is to be selfish. It’s convenient to deceive yourself before you actually deceive other people, once you deceived yourself, that let’s you get away with a lot of selfish stuff. Would you think a coucou bird would survive by not kicking the other eggs of the nest of another bird if it has some sense morality? Human beings are social creatures, we live in large groups, we need a sense of morality, but nevertheless, we don’t want to be too honest with each other and ourselves and so we are some of the most deceptive creatures that exist. We need to be deceiving and at the same doing as if nothing is going on. What better way to this by deceiving yourself in the process. Think of how sneaky you can be when you don’t even know that you are being sneaky. It’s a work of genius, it’s mind-blowing! 
 
The deception goes like this: You think you know things that you really do not know. Everytime you have a firm position on anything, you open yourself up to self-deception.
Here a a list of the different mechanism:
-Thinking that you got reality figured out
-Believing that reality is an objective thing, that facts exits independently from interpretation
-Assuming that self-deception is not a significant factor in your life, underestimating it
-Thinking that you can dismiss and avoid metaphysics
-Conceptualization, confusing the map for the territory, distinguish between a concept and direct experience, separate your thoughts from sensory perceptions.
-Language and labeling, by putting names and labels, we believe that we know more about an object than we really do. Science and academics love to use complicated language. Labels contain a large number of connections and meanings of other concepts. That is forming networks in your mind of meanings and that creates all sorts of aberrance in your mind that are difficult to escape.
-Beliefs and hearsay, science is a highly beliefs based system, big bang etc, believing that this is not a belief, is a belief as well. Did you actually check the facts for yourself? Contemplation, meditation, this is raw experience. 99% of what you hold to be true is just beliefs.
-Judging the correctness of your worldview based on how cohesive it feels, but how do you differentiate one world view from another? You will pick the one that you grew up in, the closest to your personal preference, that will feel cohesive.
-The unwillingness to admit that “you don’t know”. We have always good explanations for everything but you don’t actually know much. Not knowing implies that we are stupid or that there is something wrong with us.
-Childhood imprinting and indoctrination, the mind will believe whatever its environment leads it to believe, especially religious or atheist & metaphysical beliefs.
-The need for contrast in order for the human mind to grasp something, the mind requires contrast to be conscious of things. By traveling you get the contrast of the different cultures. You take oxygen for granted because there is no contrast. If you don’t have any contrast to reality, then whatever you are experiencing seems like reality
-Assumptions, we make assumptions without being conscious that they are assumptions and build a web of beliefs around it.
-Self evidence or “a priori” truths, truth that or so obvious that they don’t need further investigations, like 1+1=2, but you are absolutely clueless.
-Emotions (what puts you into motions), the mind doesn’t manipulate you through logic and reasons but through emotions, and they one of the hardest thing to master. If your mind wanted to trick you, hide something from you, it would hide it behind a wall of fear, like the fear of death. The mind uses fear, anger, boredom to make you avoid self-reflection and they are extremely effective. Did you notice that reason and logic doesn’t help much when you are afraid of snakes or heights. Emotions are the minds primary way of controlling you. All notions of truth, morality, kindness, love fly out the window when you are angry, depressed and fearful.
-Not being conscious of your own ego reactions. Science doesn’t like to admit the entire influence of psychology and emotions upon the entire reasoning process, that would mean the entire process is corrupt, they’d like to believe that reason is the primary process, but it is the secondary process. Psychology, emotions and ego are the primary process. The mind hides all this to fulfill its agenda
-Projection is demonizing other people through denying that the problem comes from you. Look how evil and selfish terrorists are… you’d better look at yourself.
-Distractions (episode The ego’s favorite defense mechanism)
-Crusading, morality, atheist, science… distracting from self-reflection
-Addictions drugs, porn, food etc, are obvious but it’s more subtle when your addiction is overthinking, daydreaming, judging & criticizing, resenting people for their success…
-Believing that science has or will figure it all out
-Having pet theories, scientific like evolution or the big bang, even in politics or religion, you want them to be true. People give their theory a special treatment.
-Confirmation bias, cherrypicking evidence, narrative making. The minds tends to assume a thing and then cherrypick the confirming kind of evidences to bolster this narrative
-Underestimating paradigms, not being able to recognize that you are trap inside a paradigm
-Taking basic things for granted, like existence, life, money, matter, energy, space, time, government…. we don’t question them very deeply.
-Question begging, reasoning in a circle, it’s posing a question, answering it and assuming the thing you’re trying to investigate. Obvious with religious people, but it’s also a big problem in philosophy and science. Try to question a scientific person if the brain is actually real. They would say how can it not be real? We just open a skull and see there is a brain. But to open a skull and to see that there is a brain is not a proof, that is begging the question. Those neurons, as you are looking at them, where are they located? Are the neurons located in another brain? In the universe… how do you know there is a universe? Because that’s in your brain, in your mind. It is circular logic. You construct an entire reality from question begging.
-Judgement, criticism name calling
-Close-mindedness
-New Age bias, a particular form of closed-mindedness
-Dismissing the occult, mystical and paranormal phenomena
-Blaming, scapegoating, demonizing
-Playing victim
-Arguing and debating
-False skepticism and debunking
-Human species bias, taking the human perspective as though it were universal and the only one. Even maths, physics and science are a human specific way of understanding reality. There is no such thing as universal knowledge.
There is also no such thing as peace on earth, even if everybody would get enlightened. When we build another city we don’t care of how much insects and animals are killed in the process, life is inherently destructive. To have life you have to have death, evil and selfishness
-Dismissing all of this by saying it’s just philosophy
-Pleading that nobody knows the truth so that you can continue your life as it was.
-Cultural preferences. Ask yourself is your culture really the best one? Why do I think it’s the best one, could that be completely arbitrary, could I be imprinted? Cultures are collective egos
 
Knowing about self-deception doesn’t make you immune to it, it’s like walking in a minefield, you can’t avoid them all. Watch yourself as it is happening
 
Self-Deception Part 3
“Enmeshed, entangled, you can still get out unless, poor fool, you stand in your own way.” Lucretius
“It’s a trap!” Admiral Ackbar, The Return of the Jedi 
List goes on:
 
-Ignoring one’s own conflict of interest which includes the following subtopics: 
a) double standards; Science never proved that there is such a thing as an external world, do most scientists except to even question it? No because it’s part of the dogma of the scientific paradigm. So they are very harsh on the new age people, but the rationalist or the scientist don’t have conclusive proof that the universe is rational, do you have any proof that the Self exists, why do they believe in a Self? It’s just taken for granted and then a double standards is applied. To the mind it’s just reality. Same problem applies to spiritual groups. The loyalty of the person that belongs to one particular traditions or school, the school will come first, that’s the new ego that’s being defended. There is no objective comparison of which technic for enlightenment are actually the best. 
b) self-justification and excuse making; 
c) backward rationalization, confabulation; When the is rationalizing, it can rationalize anything it wants, like a good attorney defending a rapist or a corrupt politician
d) wanting or needing a thing to be true;
-Unwilling to make self-investigation; If you do research you got to be open to the fact that your mind could be change
-Assuming rigid dualistic categories or distinctions. Science vs religion, bad vs good, matter vs energy, light being a particle or a wave and so on.
-Being over logical and rational, it doesn’t help for not being fooled by your own mind at all.
-Thinking bias, taking thinking as the best way to understand reality
-Analysis bias, like braking matter, fragmentation, looking what composes matter and thinking that you understand reality that way. Emergent phenomenon is the fact that, arranging some pieces together doesn’t produce the whole, phenomenon that the sum of the whole is greater than its individual parts.
-Impossibility bias; assuming that your intuition about what is possible or impossible is right, but the future always surprises us. Give a phone to a man of the middle age…
-Mistaking truth with provability; The domain of things that are true is much larger than the domain of things that are provable.
-Expecting the truth to be thrust upon you and proven to you overwhelmingly against your own resistance, no, you have to meet the truth half way
-Assuming that reality is simple, intuitive and obvious
-Black and white thinking. After hearing about self-deception you might think that everything what is going on with you, is a self deception, that would be just more self-deception! No, the whole point of self deception is that is subtle, not like black and white, not everything is self deception, you have genuine motivations, desires and values within you, you have to investigate what is true or self-deceptive. Otherwise you convince yourself to complete inaction. Jailbreaking the mind requires nuances.
-Paradox bias, avoiding paradox, avoiding the weird or strange facets of reality.
-Taking your knowledge as obvious. A lot of people had to die hundreds of years ago for us now being able to take our knowledge as obvious
-Mindfuck bias, not expecting a reversal and in a trend, underestimating the possibility of mindfucks, reality is not linear
-Pragmatic bias, to only care about things that obviously seem useful. Saying “if it’s not useful why shall we care about it?” The stuff that is useful to you is the stuff that directly serves your ego. Some stuff can be not useful but nevertheless true. What if life is more than success or technology, don’t confuse these with truth. It’s not because something is successful doesn’t mean it’s true. A lot of technology are build based on Newtonian mechanics, but we know it’s technically wrong, still, it is useful.
-Underestimating the influence of business, marketing and culture in influencing your worldview, beliefs and desires
-Authority and credentials, trusting in experts and authorities in science but also in interpreting reality
-Morality bias, people who are very attached to their moral, comparing to and then dismissing wisdom because of your own moral standards, morality doesn’t come first
-Political ramification bias, same as the morality bias but with political ideology
-Historical meta-narratives, believing that the history of human beings is like we were taught in school. Human used to be quiet conscious before the age of agriculture, they were not savages, they made some profound discoveries just using their consciousness, they had good knowledge of plant and animal life, how to manipulate stones, constructing monuments. We ,might still be living in dark ages only technologize.
-Tribalism; racism, nationalism, political infighting, partisanship, spiritual groups
-Groupthink, when you surrender your mind to a group of people.
-Assuming that everyone has the same brain chemistry, that everyone has the same access to reality, that reality is the same for every one
-Preoccupation for the self-deceptions of other people, worry about your own self-deceptions, fix yourself, don’t point your finger at others, use other’s self-deceptions to recognize that you have probably the same self-deceptions.
-Talking and knowing versus embodying a wisdom
-Thinking when you are at the end of the journey, believing you have the upper hand on a situation, that is useably when the situation has the upper hand on you.
-Being arrogant, feel it as it happens, recognize how this arrogance hold you from enjoying life
 
To see a mechanism within you, doesn’t mean that you can just drop it, it’s a work in progress.

Hey guys! I'm gonna upload all the video summaries I have at the moment and will be uploading more of them as I watch them! Needless to say that is a summaries made by me and not transcripts nor Leo's summaries. Probably you will find some of my comments and ideas in them; I enjoy feedback of any type so feel free to comment

The Enlightened Self
 
What are you existentially? You think you are the body and the mind but that is not a correct answer. You are not a human being, you are just a story. The ”You” that you believe you are is just a story.
The no self tells you that the self you believe you are is an illusion. When Leo says that there is No Self he doesn’t mean that you don’t exist, what he really mean is that the ego you believe you are is an illusion but there is still a Self but is RADICALLY DIFFERENT. The Self cannot be explained rationally.
You exist as Nothingness. Nothingness exist and it’s the only permanent thing that exist and doesn’t change.
Tip for Self-Inquiry: When doing it, don’t hang up on the idea that the self doesn’t exist. Drop the notion that you don’t exist and start looking for your True Self. Think like you actually exist but in a way you don’t yet know. If you are not the human body or mind, what are you?
True Self: Pure transparent empty awareness/consciousness/presence/spirit.
 You are not an object, you are empty space that allows stuff to emerge and appear. You are the container of space and time.
Features of Awareness:
·         I am pure presence, rock solid presence.
·         It is just there
·         You can shake it
·         All the attention go to the stuff that are happening within it
·         It shines light on everything else. It appears to be hidden but it is everywhere.
·         It is like the light. It is very difficult to get light get brightened by itself. How can awareness be aware of itself?
·         No shape
·         No location
·         No time
·         Eternal
·         Infinite (it’s everything)
The paradox is that you are Nothing and Everything at the same time. Everything happens in Nothingness. You cannot think the way through this since the mind works with things, and you are Nothing. You cannot create a mental preview of Enlightenment.
The paradoxical things is that this is not hidden. It is not located anywhere.
You must do self inquiry. Tips
-          Don’t try to feel or think yourself
-          Don’t try to locate yourself
-          Don’t try to experience yourself
-          Think that you are not a human being
-          You are not an object, you are in a completely different domain
-          Nothing is hidden, everything is at plane sight. You are enlightened, but you are not aware of it
 

Fake Growth vs Real Growth
 
It is very easy to deceive yourself in personal development and think that you are improving when in reality you are not fixing the deepest issues.
The first years of personal development you think that you need a solution and you picture how the solution is gonna look like; this is not a realistic scenario. Most of your motivations in your first years of self-help are external (you are looking for external solutions). In reality, when you experience real growth is that an issue becomes a non-issue (you transcend it). Solutions are internal, not external; you stop caring about your different problems and you let go. THE KEY IS EMOTIONAL RELEASE.
How do you tell the difference? You get a permanent release of the issue; you don’t overcompensate for the issue, you stop obsession about the issue. You don’t need defensiveness anymore. You let go of the need itself. True growth does not need willpower. You need to look at your emotional responses to different scenarios.
Ask yourself
-          if you are less reactive
-          if you are giving less of a fuck
-          if you are less needy in some specific area
-          Are you calmer in …
-          Do you don’t think obsessively in some specific area of your life?
Fake growth mascaraed as real growth. Fake growth is success and achievement. Stop looking for external fixes, they don’t focus on the deep issue. Getting more money, more girlfriends or more cars do not solve the real issue; the real issue is inside and that is where the real work has to happen.
Examples:
§  If you are insecure about women but you find a girlfriend, it is a mascaraed for your insecurities. No real growth has happened, it was all only an achievement.
§  A guy who is insecure about money but all of a sudden he becomes rich. This doesn’t fix the root issue about money.
§  A boy who is a loser but then learns how to pick up girls. Now he is a great PUA. On the surface it seems that he done it but in the inside he still thinks he is uncool; that is the real thing that has to be fixed.
§  A person who is depressed but has child as a distraction. She didn’t look inside to discover what is happening is her mind.
Your problems need to unwire from your mind, THIS IS REAL GROWTH. Achievements are not real growth. ASK WHY ALWAYS, THAT WILL REVEAL YOUR DEEP PROBLEM.
Put your mind on your life and see in which areas of your life you are masking the real work with fake success and achievement. Are you confusing success and achievement with growth? GROWTH IS INTERNAL, SUCCESS IS EXTERNAL. Real growth is much harder than success. Real growth is about releasing your needs internally.
You need to do the real work and don’t get distracted by the shiny objects. You will someday realize that you haven’t changed, you only changed the external circumstances. You will need to change. It is super difficult to change the self since the self doesn’t want to change.
YOU CANNOT GET REAL GROWTH WITHOUT CHANGING YOURSELF. If you do this real work you will reach a point that you see yourself in the mirror and you are not going to be able to recognize yourself anymore since you changed a lot. The way you presently are is reinforcing all the stuff you don’t like about reality. If you want real change you will need to change yourself. All the crap of your life is caused by who you are, not the external surroundings.
The hard thing is that when you start doing real work there is no one that will praise you. People don’t you to change.
What kind of vision do you need to have to change yourself entirely? What do you really care about? What is your vision? It can be tied to your Life Purpose, to help people in the world, etc.
Take care and don’t buy fake growth.

I see a chronic problem on this sub-forum, which is young males who complain about lack of success with women and failing to take responsibility for their situation.
The #1 rule of all growth and personal development is taking 100% responsibility for your situation. I know how hard that can be when you're struggling with women/sex. It feels very much like life is treating you unfairly and that it's the women's fault. Let me tell you right now: this is a total ILLUSION! It's not the women. It's not society. It's not post-modernists. It's not the Marxists. It's not the feminists. It's YOU!
This is not me blaming you. This is simply how all personal development works. Whatever problem you have in life you must begin by getting honest with yourself how you created it. Sometimes this is difficult to accept. It's much easier to blame someone else, or even blame yourself (for being too ugly or too short or too introverted). I am not suggesting you blame yourself. Rather, take ownership of the fact that you are the creator of your life. Whatever is missing in your life, you can correct, but only if you stop blaming yourself and others.
Be very mindful of how your ego-mind creates narratives which justify your sense of lack, brokenness, or inability to attract women. All of these narratives, justification, rationalizations, logic, "facts", scientific studies, proofs, etc are sneakily fabricated by your own mind! Your own mind is the enemy! Watch it like a hawk. Your mind will try to come up with reasons and excuses for why your life is unfair and how success with women is impossible. This is all horseshit! Do not believe your own mind here. Your mind is clouded by fear, insecurity, and neediness. That is totally normal and understandable, but you cannot resolve your problems from such a place. From such a place your problems will get worse as you start to blame the world and solidify your victim worldview with cherry-picked evidence, "science", and "logic". Be extra suspicious of "logic" and "science" here. There is nothing logical or scientific about your victim attitude or lack of success with women. It's purely about meeting the survival needs of your ego. Sex is a very powerful survival need which will drive your mind towards all manner of mental gymnastics to ensure that you get it, or at least feel better for not getting it.
There's good news and bad news. The good news is: Your looks are NOT the problem! The bad news is: your personality, attitude, and mindset are terrible! The good news is, it's possible to change that. The bad news is, it won't be easy and you will resist it like the devil that you are.
So what's the solution? Take ownership of your problem and commit to resolving it. For this you need faith and confidence in your ability to self-actualize. You must have enough hope and vision to see yourself get much better with attracting women. This is NOT a pipe dream or fuzzy thinking. The reality is that any man can become 100x better at attracting women if he really takes ownership of the matter. Yes, it takes serious work. But it's also highly worth it. Imagine that within 3 years you're able to attract pretty women and feel confident about yourself when it comes to dating. Isn't that worth the effort? It sure is. This is not a fantasy. I've done it, many men have done it, and so can you! Your looks are NOT the bottleneck, your mindset is.
So what do you do after you've established this vision? You must do lots of research to educate yourself about how dating actually work (not how you think it works). Find videos, find books, buy online courses, hire a coach, take a bootcamp, take a workshop, etc. There are literally hundreds of excellent resources available online these days. Most of them are legit, not scams. Study them hard and then get into the field. Start talking to women. Start approaching women. Start flirting with women. Start being much more social.
If you struggle attracting women I can tell you right now what your top problems are. It's not lack of money, looks, muscles, car, height, or dick size. Remember, attraction and dating is EXTREMELY counter-intuitive. It's works exactly the opposite of how you initially think.
Your top problems are:
You live in your mancave and never go out! You must go out into social spaces where real women hang out. You spend WAY too much time online, indoors You spend WAY too much time on Youtube, Netflix, and playing video games You work too much You are never around cute single women You never start conversations with strangers You have terrible body language due to lack of experience You are not comfortable doing small-talk and being emotional and random in conversations You are far too logical You approach zero women on a regular basis You are terrified of approaching a women who you find attractive, talking yourself out of every approach You have terrible eye contact, you don't smile, and you don't project your voice properly You are crippled by fear and tongue-tied You are unable to start and sustain an interesting conversation with a human being You are disconnected from your body, your heart, your feelings, your emotions You have terrible self-image issues. You hate yourself, you hate how you look, you judge yourself way too harshly. You judge yourself just as harshly as you judge women. You have a bad sense of dress style and you don't groom yourself well You have no experience with physically touching women in a non-creepy way. You don't know how to rapidly physically escalate on a women without creeping her out. You don't know how women think or what they truly value in a man You don't know how to flirt and be authentic You are trying to be masculine in all the wrong ways -- fake masculinity You are needy, needy, needy You are terribly inexperienced You have no sense of passion or purpose in life, which robs you of confidence and masculine vitality Your attitude sucks: you whine, complain, bitch, moan, blame, and are so negative You think you understand life, reality, and how attraction works -- you don't! So work on fixing all of that before you go blaming women. All of the above can be deliberately worked on and fixed.
You need to learn how to be a real man. Being a real man has nothing to do with big muscles, big dick, or a fast car. A real man is grounded on the INSIDE. It's ALL about inner game! You need to cultivate that confidence. It doesn't come naturally. You must build it!
80% of getting good with women is just actually being much more social. You need to deliberately re-structure your life so that you're automatically being more social. So that you're going out every weekend. So that you're bumping into new people constantly. So that you're making new friends all the time. This kind of re-structuring is very doable. You just have to be willing to change your lifestyle.
And stop watching or listening to any of the following:
Jordan Peterson, MGTOW, RedPill, Incel material/forums/reddit All of that is cancer of the mind. It's reinforcing your victim mindset and robbing you of your ability to change yourself.
I've been where you are. I know it's tough. But hang in there, hold your vision, have hope, get to work, and things will dramatically improve for you. You will become a new person by the end of this journey and you will be so proud of yourself. You will become a real man, not some whiny JP fanboy.
The #1 thing a real man does is take 100% responsibility for all his problems. A real man NEVER blames anyone, and certainly not women or feminism. A real man is a feminist. A real man fearlessly works on himself.
So start right there! Start by fixing that.

God is both beyond it, but also IT.
Who created possible and impossible? God!
Anything which you can think of or experience is a creation. It had to be created or there would be nothing there. So if it was created, who created it? God/You did!
And who created God? God created itself of course! How can God do that? Because God hasn't yet created possible or impossible, so it wasn't limited in any way. So it could do crazy mind-bending stuff like creating itself. That's what unlimitedness allows. It's TOTAL FREEDOM! A lack of all boundaries, definitions, or rules.
God is not bound by rules because the rules had to be created by it. God is prior to all rules, but at the same time, God is all the rules! Because God is inseparable from its creation. Whatever God creates, it is being. God's creation is God's body, so to speak. Without this "body" God exists as pure formlessness. God's body is the whole universe. God's body is constantly morphing and changing, creating the illusion of movement and life.
Ta-da!

This is, personally, the most foundational and inspiring video of all! Hope uou enjoy Leo's video and my summary of it!
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Very few people have an accurate big picture understanding of life and reality. The secret for this is having the right epistemic foundation.
Success in any endeavor is not a matter of knowing the trick, it is about the structure and how you approach the entire problem.
When you seek understanding/truth, you need to be aware of the role of your own psychology in this process. Also, you need to realize the limits of reason and that there is stuff outside of it.
Lessons from epistemology:
·         The first position that every human being is in when they come alive, is that we don’t know what’s true (you need to take this seriously!). This is the first starting point. You need to come from a place of humbleness since you don’t know what will be true or false.
·         Literally, anything is possible (you need to be open to every field, subject and study). You have to be open to every possibility and admit that you don’t know where the research can lead you. Everything is worth the investigation.
·         Self-deception is the number one enemy to developing big picture understanding. Be aware of your personal biases. You should only worry about your own personal biases.
·         Every position has hidden assumptions behind it. These assumptions define the position/perspective. You need to become aware of this assumptions and question them. If you get them wrong or aren’t clear about them, all your other reasonings are going to be on a rotten foundation.
·         All perspectives are partial. The biggest trap is to get caught up in a perspective. All perspectives are only partial truths. There are going to be other aspects that you ignore. One way to avoid this problem is to study many perspectives and to be impartial to the perspectives. You need to explore them all.
·         A model is not reality. Thinking about reality is not reality. While models can be useful, you cannot substitute them for reality itself. For example: Science is so good manipulating reality that we think that they’ve got reality figured out.
·         Your web of beliefs is like a representation of reality and it is under constrained. You have core beliefs/facts which are explained in different ways and perspectives.
·         Foundationalism (the idea that you can take some theory you have about reality and you can come up with a fundamental truth) is false.
·         Rationality is far too limited to use it as your only tool to explore/understand reality. Reality goes far beyond rationality since it is a subset of reality.
·         Paradox is good. When you encounter a paradox in your attempts to understand the world, you have to embrace it. Reality at its very core is paradoxical. Also, paradoxes are signs that you are trying to rationalize everything.
·         Direct experience is the truest thing you’ve got.
·         There is a huge spectrum of possible direct experiences. You need to constantly investigate and look for new experiences (change cities, cultures, try psychedelics, study history and experience life).
·         The practical level still matters. Don’t get lost into theory. The reason we are studying all of this stuff is so we can be more effective in our lives, happier, successful and move forward. If this investigation is not helping you do that, you are losing yourself in theory. In the short run you may be discovering some things that fucks you up a little bit but in the long run your life should be improving big time.
·         The best position to take is no position at all. You should not have nothing to defend. You should only care about what is true, whatever that might be. What you should care the most is understanding what life is and which is the best way to live it.
·         Seek understanding rather than truth. You should be interested in developing understanding (business, science, personal development, health, spiritual development, etc.).
·         Seek holism in whatever you are studying and investigating instead of focusing on some niche thing. YOUR GOAL IS TO UNDERSTAND ALL OF LIFE AND HOW YOU SHOULD BE LIVING YOUR LIFE.
·         Argumentation, debates and justifications are just tools of the ego and don’t serve truth-finding.
Use the axioms below as principles!
The big question is: Which is the best method for understanding reality? There are different approaches:
1.       The default position (going with the flow): This is what will happen if you don’t do nothing in respect. This is the case for 99.9% of people on earth. You don’t question life very deeply since they believe they already know the big picture (which was obviously absorbed from mainstream culture). These people hardly understand anything (why they aren’t happy, successful, productive, why they are angry, people-pleasing, why there is a debate between science and religion, etc.). They think that happiness will come from relationships, money and then they will retire and live a really comfy life).
 
2.       The academic approach: It is a narrow approach in which you choose a field and specialize in it. This approach is not going to be really useful if you want to develop a really great life. A great example is a scientist that is not fulfilled or happy.
 
3.       Pick one spiritual tradition and stick to it in a very focused way: These people don’t realize that each tradition is a partial truth and it is based on specific assumptions. It is only a way a of looking at the world. Maybe it helps you reach enlightenment but even if it works, you will only develop a sectarian way of looking at the world. You will have a narrow and limited understanding of the world.
 
4.       Strictly stick to your direct experience: You don’t read any books, study or listen to master because the only thing you know for sure is direct experience. The problem here that the number one danger is self-deception. When you lock yourself in a room for 10 years, you will get lost in the labyrinth of your own mind; you will end up tricking yourself. If you are only going to stick to your direct experience, you have to assume that you will be the most self-honest and motivated human being. You are assuming that you will discover all of reality by yourself only and without any help.
 
5.       Studying lots of perspectives from lots of sources: Read all the books, watch all the videos, listen to all the gurus and then I’m going to have the biggest picture. The problem with this approach is that if you only do that and you don’t have the direct experiences, you will not get far; you will get caught up in the theories.
Each of these methods by themselves won’t work. But there is a 6th approach (Leo’s approach). There isn’t a method to get the biggest picture. A lot of attention to details and a vigilant attitude is required if you want to successfully navigate this path.
6.       You fully commit to understanding vs position taking. I’m going to be very mindful of how I debate and argue my position and every time I do that, I will stop. I’m going to be very mindful when defending any ideas of reality, myself, the world and so forth and when I do that, I will cut that off. Also, I’m going to see past the difference between the perspectives and get beyond the terminologies; I will go to the root of what these teachings are pointing at with the intent of experience it in my own life. I will not nitpick sources, assuming that the things that masters/gurus are teaching me are usually a partial truth. I’m going to put the burden on myself to understand all of these perspectives. I’m going to study from 100s of sources and combine them with my direct experience. I will create hypotheses and test them in my life. I will do this until I’m dead, I will not stand by any position. I will cross-reference from many different perspectives. I’m going to check all my conclusions with my intuition. You are going to find that Truth stands out after all this process. You use the theory to come up with a model, but then you go out and direct experience it! And also you are careful about the minor discrepancies, which you will follow up.
 
a.       You hold everything as provisional, you don’t have any favorites and you don’t cling to anything.
b.       You also have to be open to be very wrong. But at the same time you need to have a positive outlook. This positive outlook is that understanding is possible. That there is something larger that you can understand about reality and that will have practical value. You have to trust that it will be worth it in the end.
c.       Also, you don’t have to become loyal to anyone’s teaching.  
d.       Also, reality can be absurd and counter-intuitive.
e.       Furthermore, don’t worry that much about lack of utility. But remember, you need to see the bigger picture and take into account the long term!!! Many of the things you will learn will get results in 10, 20 and 30 years! It might take you 5 years for the foundations to create results!
f.        Another element is emphasis on wisdom and growth vs theory. Utility is important because wisdom and growth needs to be occurring as you are going to this process. This process should be improving the quality of your life.
g.       Moreover, you will have to use meta-sources. You will study from people who studied form many perspectives.
h.       There is way more to reality than it meets the eye. The bigger picture will be much bigger than you imagined! Also, it is going to be an ever-evolving process.
The value of developing this bigger picture is really tough to articulate. It is going to be delicious on an intellectual level; it is going to be very satisfying and fulfilling. And it is going to be very practical. You will live your life in this amazing way and people will look at you amazed!
“We are like sailors who must rebuild their ship on the open sea, never able to dismantle it in dry-dock and to reconstruct it there out of the best materials. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.” Otto Neurath
This process of rearranging our web of beliefs is a constant process. You can never take your “ship” and go to the shore. There is no shore to go, there is no safe place. There is no assumption that you can rely on. The key here is to construct a healthy ship by standing on one plank to fix the other, so on and so forth. But you can never take for granted that everything in your ship is fixed because there is always a part that can destroy your whole ship. Your web of beliefs has to be in constant and perpetual construction. AND THIS REQUIRES EFFORT AND VIGILANCE IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE! The question is: Can you envision the value in this? Are you willing to commit to these principles and watch yourself as a hawk?
Objections:
-          Wont doing this research lead to stuff like researching stupid things like UFOs? Yes, it will. That is the nature if research. You will not know what is worthwhile to investigate and what is not.
 
-          But, where do you draw the line? You don’t know where to draw the line. That is your position. You are going to have to go to some dead-ends but it will be worth it in the long-term.
 
-          Is there a risk believing everything? This risk is there no matter what. You might think that just by sticking with mainstream culture, it is safe. But it is not. The difference is that when you believe the stupid things that everyone believes in, you don’t feel as stupid.
 
-          Is what you are talking about relativism? No, you are not taking every perspective equally. You are going to decide which perspectives are truer.
 
-          Why bother with all this? Nobody knows the Truth! There will be a snowball effect as you do this work year over year. This effects will add up to create an amazing life that you would ever imagine.
 
-          Why not just pursue enlightenment and fuck all the rest? Until you become fully enlightened, you don’t know. Even if you become fully enlightened, you don’t know if there is any perspective you didn’t take into account. You don’t know if there is more practical stuff after enlightenment. You just don’t know. Moreover, enlightenment teaches you that everything you thought you knew about life was totally wrong!!! Don’t fall into the same trap again!

@Andreas Do lots of the techniques I have given you numerous times in the videos.
Meditation Journaling Reading Contemplation Shamanic breathing Psychedelics Solo retreats Visualization Body relaxation Keeping a commonplace book Etc You must start doing that shit to get results. Seriously!

@Dylan Page You are trying to understand enlightenment before enlightenment. If you could do that, you'd already be enlightened. So obviously that cannot work.
Enlightenment is a radical shift in consciousness in which you realize that you were never born and that your whole life was a dream.
You become so conscious that you awaken from life to realize it never happened and that you are actually formless, immortal, and God.
This is outside the realm of any kind of experience you've ever had. It's beyond "experiencing" altogether. It's beyond "life" as you know it. It's a totally new thing. And yet, it's not located anywhere else but right here, right now. Which is what makes it so bafflingly paradoxical.
What you're failing to account for in your reasoning is CONSCIOUSNESS! Your level of consciousness totally determines what you consider real, possible, and impossible. So there's just no way to get to enlightenment from where you presently are. And yet, it can still be done. It requires a radical leap in consciousness.
A good way to think of it is that you die and discover what lies on the other side of death. It's not anything you can imagine. It's a lot better than you can imagine.
Psychedelics make it much easier.

@Patrick Lynam I'm not really sure anyone offers MDMA assisted therapy since MDMA is illegal in most countries and a serious therapist would not want to risk it.
You can either do psychedelics on your own and that itself is the therapy.
Or you can consider doing psychedelics with a shaman like with Ayahuasca or toad venom or ibogaine clinics in Costa Rica, Canada, etc.
Traditional talk therapy certainly works, but nothing compares to the therapeutic power of psychedelics. You don't need a therapist to administer it. The psychedelic is 100x wiser than any silly therapist. The therapist is more of a distraction than of help during a trip. The psychedelic will show you everything you need to know about yourself and your issues if you come to it with a genuine intention. All that's required is that you want to know the TRUTH about your issue. That's all. The psychedelic will show you all the answers, as much as you're willing to stomach.
Just make sure you follow a proper tripping protocol. And start with small doses.
It's very smart to take charge of your own mental and psychological issues. No one can really sort you out but you. Which is why traditional talk therapy is so gradual. The answers are all inside you, if you'd only sit down with a notepad and introspect.
You can teach yourself how to diagnose and troubleshoot all of your own psychological problems.
Of course if you have the cash to burn, talk therapy could be good too. But you can't just rely on talk therapy to fix your life. Your life will require a lot deeper work to truly sort out. No talk therapist even understands how deep this work goes. So it's worth your time to learn how to self-help.

When traditional prayer works it's due to law of attraction and intention. Your intentions DO affect reality. Intention is very powrful when it is practiced consistently and consciously.
Whatever you intend with emotion and conviction will tend to become true. Because your will is a splinter off God's Will. You literally have the power of God within you. The more conscious you become the more of it you will be able to tap and manifest.
It's not a miracle. It's because you are God, and reality is a giant Mind.

@John Iverson Push-pull is a very delicate game. You shouldn't do it much over text or message. You must do it in-person. Text does not give you enough cues to know how the girl is reacting.
In a face-to-face conversation you can quickly apologize like: "I was just joking. I actually love you. I want you to have my babies." But you cannot do that via text. It looks too weird and creepy.
DO NOT try to attract women via text! It never works. Texts are purely for setting up a date and keeping in touch. Don't get overly cute via texts or you will lose many girls that way. Attraction must be built in-person. No amount of text game will compensate for shitting face-to-face game.
Sarcasm and self-deprecating humor also does not work well via texts. Because texts do not convey enough information.

@MM1988 There is skill and there are principles to dating, just like there is with golf, tennis, driving a car, or meditation.
You are framing what I said as "This is so inauthentic and artificial". But once you actually internalize the skill of proper texting, it will become authentic and natural.
Every skill you learned was at one point inauthentic and artificial, from mathematics to reading to writing to typing on the computer.
I am not saying you need to keep a file of canned text messages. Once you understand the principles of texting with a girl, you can generate an infinite number of spontaneous texts. Without learning this skill, your text messages will suck and you will lose girls by committing stupid mistakes which only years later will you understand why.
People expect to be good at sex and dating "naturally" without any deliberate practice. Because love is supposed to be "natural". This is a silly double-standard. Nowhere else in life do you adopt this attitude. If you want to be good at something you must train and recognize principles. Girls will appreciate it when you don't creep them out with your texts.

@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.

Personally, I am being pulled toward deeper realizations of the illusionary nature of self and to nonduality. Much of this thread reminds me of The Four Agreements in which an "unhealthy" illusionary self is replaced with a "healthy" illusionary self.
I also sense in the thread an underlying assumption that some actions are "better" than other actions. And most of those "better" actions are within the classic social framework of "success". That is: dedication, give 110% percent, achieve, dream big, reach your potential, do extraordinary things. I've found ambition and perseverance can be a major distraction to inner Truth. I've run over 50 marathons and ultramarathons. I've done IronMan triathlons. I know the dedication of training day in and out - 1-8hrs a day. I've pushed my limits to the point of hallucinations, loss of cognitive function and physical collapse in which I needed hospital care. The experiences shaped me, yet it did NOT reveal my inner truth. I've also pushed my limits mentally. I worked 12hrs a day for periods as I attained a phd in molecular biology. I persevered countless hours in the laboratory to answer a burning scientific question. I've published dozens of papers and have been featured on scientific journal covers. I've given international speeches. NONE of this revealed inner Truth. Most of it was a major distraction where I was chasing something. Based on self. Yet nothing could fill it. It was never enough. Deep down, I was trying to fulfill a self identity imposed upon me by my parents and society: of what is "good", of who I "should" be. Deep down, there was a yearning to be accepted and loved. I was often consumed with thoughts of what to do next, what will happen if XYZ occurs, what do other people think of me, how can I achieve. . . 
For me, deeper levels of awareness have NOT come from living a healthy lifestyle. They have NOT come from dedication and perseverance to achieve extraordinary things. When tied to my self identity, it's all a distraction. The realizations have come through cracks in my ego and self identity. For me, living a "healthy" life and achieving does not crack my ego and self identity. It can actually reinforce it. "I am a marathon runner", "I am a scholar", "I am dedicated", "I am blah blah blah". The cracks leading to glimpses of Truth have come during times I'm forced out of my self identity. For example, I've lived with native tribes in Central and South America. Also, meditation retreats (yet it is slow and subtle). And psychedelics have been a powerful tool. 
In the thread there also seems to be an underlying sense of free will of the little "you". There is no free will for "me". I am not making all these decisions and actions to do healthy activities and live a "meaningful" life. I am not the author of my thoughts and actions. It comes from some mysterious nothing or something that I don't understand. I don't get to receive credit or blame. . . For me, I am being pulled toward "just being" and letting that mysterious whatever flow without resistance. If that means hiking Everest naked, great. If that means dancing in my kitchen naked to disco music, great. The ideas that I "need" or "should" do certain things are limiting concepts.
While living in Peru, I met a man who fortuitously became wealthy. He has spent most of his life traveling around the world. He had no dedication, ambition or agenda. He was open and free. To travel where the energy takes him. To meet people and experience things as they surface into his life in the present moment. He was pensive and introspective. He had a depth of awareness and love. He is one of the most fascinating people I've ever met in my life. His perspective was outside of the limits of my own perspective. It poked cracks into my self identity.
A couple weeks ago, I frolicked with the most beautiful butterflies deep within a Belizean jungle. The present moment. The mysterious energy/consciousness flowing freely from one moment to the next. For me, that "just being" IS "doing something" with my life.

You need to immerse yourself more in the field and do a lot more research. As you do lots of research you will naturally start having new ideas, you will start seeing unfilled opportunities. It's very hard tobsee these opportunities without immersing yourself and lots of diverse source material.
The secret to creativity is lots of diverse source material.
You say you want to run seminars, but how many seminars have you attended yourself? If you attend 20 seminars I can guarantee you will have some good ideas about how to create some new kind of seminar.
The reason you are stuck is because you lack relevant experience. So go get more experience.

That's right, you lack a reference experience for what the label "Absolute Love" is pointing to.
That is okay. I only discovered this reference experience a few years ago at around age 31.
It cannot be gotten in your current state of consciousness. You need a radical change in state. Psychedelics are your best bet.
Next time you trip, set your intention to realize what Absolute Love is. At the beginning of your trip tell yourself, "Okay, now show me Absolute Love! What is Love? I am ready to know." If you set a firm intention and you really want to know, it will be shown to you. Mushrooms, LSD, DMT, 5-MeO, 2C-B, MDMA, etc can all show you this love. But you may have to purify yourself first before it is shown to you. You must be ready to surrender the ego to see it, since it is totally selfless.
If you really want to know, it will be shown to you. No doubt about it. It's not a matter of random luck. So keep your intention strong. Put your heart into it.
It sounds to me that you're close to realizing it. A few more deep trips might do the trick.