Consilience

@Emerald Well we can agree to disagree. Ive had wonderful results doing calibrated cold approaches where sexual intent was established within the first few seconds. Wonderful in terms of the receptivity of the women involved. There are ways to be non-creepy, calibrated, and non-manipulative where both parties feel better at the end whether the exchange ends in a number exchange or not. So I find it interesting you think its boring if a guy approaches you with sexual intent; It sounds like this is your personal preference or the guys that have approached you havent done it well. Also there’s a very high percentage of successful relationships that start via online dating which is of course sexual from the beginning. Perhaps your advice would work for women but guaranteed it wont work for men. And let me reemphasize, if a man is sexually interested in a woman and is hiding those feelings behind friendship, this is about as incongruent with masculine energy as you can get. If a man is pretending to only be interested as friends, this is literally lying to the woman with a hidden agenda that they’ll somehow convince her to have sex with him if only he warms her up after enough time. Not only is this NOT how women operate in the real world, this is male manipulation at its finest. This is why Im suggesting friendship isnt an option. And so as a guy, I would warn women to screen out these types of men given that I know what the headspace of a guy willing to do that is because I used to be that guy. I 100% agree that women need time and space to develop feelings. A lot of time and space at times. However, to think this must happen within the context of a platonic relationship is just more space for manipulation and hidden agendas, mainly on the end of the guy. A high value male simply would assume the girl isnt interested and because they are high value, they’d just move on. All Im saying is be careful with this mindset. If you found the right guy, I doubt you’d need a couple of months pretending to be friends. Overall great list though. I would simply suggest continue to contemplate and consider this specific point. Or not.

As one deepens in their meditation practice, even a microdose can start facilitating ego death like states where oneness is undeniable. Don't underestimate the power and utility of a microdose, especially with bridging and integrating these profoundly altered psychedelic states with the mundane, sober state.

You "cope" with it through finishing the work. Become enlightened. Yeah this one is probably one of the most mind fucking episodes of Actualized.org and difficult to integrate. How does one finish the work? Hardcore meditation/ manual spiritual practice. Strong determination sitting is particularly powerful because it begins a total rewiring of the conscious mind's relationship with pain into God's relationship with pain, which is that pain is no problem, hence it's actuality, particularly the brutal examples in human history. A deep purification of mind is the only way to truly cope with what this episode points to.

I can see how this may apply to the majority of men who start the initial interactions with a sexual intent, but trust me when I say if a man doesn't establish a romantic intent with a woman they're interested in from the get go, there are two huge issues. 1) The likelihood of a woman placing you into the friendzone is exponentially higher. There are ways with slowly ramping up attraction without starting out as friends. A first date is going to have A LOT of opportunity for platonic development, it would be attraction suicide if a man came in to a first date raging with sexual intent, constantly trying to physically escalate, etc. While it is possible for a man to build the attraction of someone they've established platonic relationships with, the odds are VERY unlikely. 2) This is even more important - If a man is physically attracted to a woman and isn't honest about that attraction, this is extremely beta. Your strategy seems to be geared towards attracting a man. This issue is that men know within the first couple of minutes, for sure within the first interaction/hangout whether they're attracted to a woman. So if you, as a woman, are going after a man who you've established a platonic relationship with, either a) He's basically been lying about not having any attraction for you which is a huge red flag; you want a man who is HONEST, authentic, vulnerable, and un-apologetic about their attraction and sexuality. b) He wasn't very attracted to you in the first place, otherwise he wouldn't have let things play out as "friends." A man with a strong masculine presence won't accept the friendzone if he's attracted to a woman. If she's not into him sexually, s'all good, but friendship is not an option. To comprise into friendship would be dis-owning one's sexual interest and would be a direct lack of congruency. If that man is only in it for sex, possibly yes. But as a man who is high value, not dangerous, and not only interested in meaningless sex, a woman would be losing out with me if she followed this advice, and to her detriment. That may sound quite conceded, but it is what it is. "I am the prize" afterall. Besides, there are plenty of high value woman who would not only NOT have an issue with things starting out romantically, but would appreciate the fact that the man isn't going to hide their attraction. It's quite attractive for women for a man to not hide their intent. The masculine purser mode is more about chasing after goals, their life purpose. Feminine energy is more about the pursuit and creation of relationships, family, and all of that jazz. A man who is overly concerned with this type of pursuit I would argue is more in their feminine which is very unattractive. A woman will start dropping signs when she's ready to move into a formal relationship. A man should pursue of course, but I would vehemently disagree with the idea that 1) woman like men to chase them (every woman I've "chased" has either strung me along, or it's killed the polarity and therefore attraction. Many many many anecdotes confirm this is not just me) 2) it's a masculine role to chase/pursue after relationships. Just because a woman is doing the same amount or even a higher percentage of the pursuing does not mean she'll automatically question the man's interest. Giving a high quality man this amount of space is a recipe for letting him go, because for better or worse, there is an abundance of women out there who have no issues actively pursuing men who reciprocate that pursuit with facilitating dates, romance, and a love story. A high quality man living in an abundance of woman, looking for that high quality woman, will not be tripping out over the aloof woman. He'll be too busy living his life purpose and getting hit up by enthusiastic high quality women to keep up that level of effort. Or he'll move on and find a woman who's more enthusiastic.

Agreed. If a woman was "giving me space" to pursue 75% of the time I would just assume she wasn't interested and move on to a more enthusiastic woman. Mainly because every woman I've been involved with where the dynamic has shifted to this type of polarity, I've essentially pursued her out of my life. Not all pickup is like this. Real pickup is about teaching a man how to be vulnerable, authentic, and non-apologetic about their sexuality with a woman. There are ways to do it without playing games or being manipulative, and women respond very well to these types of approaches.

Horribly advice for a man to follow. Men be warned - if you’re doing 75% of the initiation, she’s going to lose attraction. I also disagree about not starting out on a romantic foot and only dating men in your social circle. So many counter examples of successful relationships starting out romantically AND being outside social circles. Other than those, pretty great list.

Ego = a deep perceptual entanglement of Mental images + Mental talk + Emotions + Uncognized/subconscious emotional positions (beliefs) + physical body sensations + physical sights as the body/face + physical sounds (voice) This is what vipassana meditation is all about, untangling this complex web is self referencing perception that gives rise to the sense of self. Or self inquiry, which is recognizing how each of these different forms cannot be that enduring, immutable self, as each and every one of these is constantly changing and is being witnessed by consciousness, and therefore not the whole in and of themselves.

This

This isnt how the story goes. It was only when he started taking care of the body did he finally awaken, the middle way.

Fucking beautiful insight man. Love it. Also... 10/10 profile picture.

This. @Javfly33 The most powerful thing you could do is just start grounding these ideas into direct experience via meditation. Of course that's my opinion, projection, but all these posts as of late have been incredibly conceptual, it seems. Can you sit with yourself for hours on end? Has the surface level of mind so fully seen the imaginative quality of reality's depths that it can rest in Being with complete ease, unity, harmony, tranquility, equanimity, and actually enjoy it? Because when you truly see the utter God like nature of reality, all of these non-dualistic, solipsistic ideas just evaporate as non-problems, they're seen to have never even been problems and one drops all ideas that there's anywhere to go, anything to do, and no problems to be had other than one's misunderstanding of the present moment. How do we know if we're misunderstanding the present moment? The degree to which we start suffering as we sit in silence, stillness, and meditation.

They may be all egoic projections, but of course this misses the point that ALL egoic perceptions originate from Absolute Truth, God is exactly what is appearing in any and all moments

There are different types of concentration. For example, there's khanikasamadhi which is distinct from the more generic, single pointed concentration most regard as "concentration." "In the early twentieth century, the Burmese master Mahasi Sayadaw realized that momentary concentration (khanikasamadhi) on whatever spontaneously comes or calls could be as powerful as sustained concentration on one thing. This insight allowed him to develop a distinctive way to do mindfulness practice. At the time, this method was referred to as “the Burmese method of satipatthana,” but nowadays, it is simply called “noting.” Noting is currently perhaps the most popular approach to mindfulness both in the East and the West. But when Mahasi first started teaching it, it generated considerable controversy. Some masters from Thailand and Sri Lanka claimed that “noting whatever arises” is indistinguishable from a scattered, wandering state of mind. Mahasi pointed out (and quite correctly in my opinion) that momentary concentration is key. To “note” an experience entails more than just labeling it. Whether you use labels or not, to note a sensory event implies that you attempt to tangibly taste a momentary state of high focus upon that sensory event. This skill is especially useful for staying deep during complex daily activities." - The Science of Enlightenment, Shinzen Young Concentration is attending to whatever one is attending to in a moment with recognition that attention is placed on that object. We're ALWAYS concentrating on something, however most people lack the clarity around where their attention is placed. An example of clarity could be you're able to pick apart the strands of a complex emotion. Rather than just feeling a general sense of "anxiety" perhaps we are able to break apart that emotion into it's aggregates of "Fear" + "Nervousness" + "Resistance to the fear and nervousness" = This feeling of "Anxiousness." Whereas concentration in this example would be just attending to the feeling of anxiousness. Another example would be meditating on the feeling of being a separate self. In addition to concentrating on the sense of "me" we might have the clarity to completely experience self referential mental imagery of the face/body, the physical sensations of the body, the emotional sensations of the body, and the subtle, background mental talk that reference this apparent self. In this sense, we're now starting to clearly see what the self is comprised of in real time rather than just following a generic instruction set of "meditate on the self." Sensory clarity is quite literally untangling our perceptive experience into is constituents such that we're able to experience them more completely and fully without other perceptive experiences interfering. Overtime, this leads to our perceptive field breaking apart into a spacious flow where we're able to detect the arising and passing of the different flavors of perception. This is also what psychedelics do when things get wavy, spacious and empty. We've chemically induced an incredibly heightened sense of sensory clarity through the amplification of perception and the dragging of attention into the present moment. Hope this provides some context.

Why do you want an OBE? What technique are you using? How long have your sessions been lately?

Thank you so much ? That’s the most heart felt compliment Ive received in a bit. Love the username btw. ?

@ardacigin Amazing man ? Would love to hear how a 3-4 hour SDS sit goes. And thank you for the guru viking link! The online retreats were much more powerful than I would have imagined. Somehow the shared intentionality of the fellow retreat goers transcends space.. lol. You can feel the collectivity of the group even over zoom. Also the most powerful part about onlines are that you’re fully integrated in your home environment, which translates REALLY well with integrating the retreat back into daily life. Ill send you some links for Shinzen’s retreats. Not sure how often he’ll be doing onlines now that the pandemic is more under control, but Ive heard him say he’ll keep doing them because they scale so well, are just as powerful as normal residentials, and allow people who don’t have as much money full access. Super stocked to hear about how your first retreat goes, whenever that may be! Thank you again for such a high quality post. Always love your Actualized forum content. ?

@Javfly33 Nothing in my post contradicts with non duality.

@Javfly33 @molosku ? ^ We're all already tripping balls!

Lol definitely appreciate this reply. @iboughtleosbooklist The best way to converse with your mom about Leo's teachings are not by talking to her about it, but by fully embodying this stuff through your presence, through your being. This can be achieved with serious meditation, contemplation, reflection, and self-actualization work. That teaches way more than 'weird' non-dual philosophy talk, albeit much more subtly. Of course this forum is a great place to get it all out through language

This is amazing. Thank you for sharing your practice updates and showing this community what is possible with deep practice. I remember watching a video of Peter Ralston where he said he can go from a normal state into ecstatic bliss within seconds and at the time, I just couldn't understand how this would be humanly possible. I fell into the "he must be spiritually gifted" trap which of course is total bs. I mean yeah he may be gifted but getting to this phase of practice is not as hard as people tend to think, it just requires a commitment most people don't have and requires one to deconstruct their beliefs around what is possible with the natural sober state, something this community struggles with collectively. Just a slight update on my own progress, yes I'm entering into this type of territory as well. Every time I sit down to practice, within seconds I'm either feeling bliss or perception is breaking apart into a fluid interplay of form and formlessness. I've started breaking into the arising and passing phase of vipassana practice where my moment by moment detection skills are piercing into the dynamics of how reality is unfolding at the smallest resolutions of time possible such that perception is experienced as spacious, almost holographic, ephemeral, etc. If we think of how psychedelics make everything seem fluid and wavy, that's exactly how I experience perception every time I formally practice, and sometimes I'll spontaneously fall into that during just everyday life. I'm not quite where you are in terms of the pleasure production. I've spent a significant portion of the last 6 months practicing within a serious dry-insight/shikantaza context but have recently gotten back into jhana practice and to my surprise, I'm able to very easily enter into AT LEAST a light jhana's 1-3, and I believe because of the insight practice 4-7 come quite naturally and I dare say, easily. Jhana 8 is still a mystery to me though; I had a glimpse of it during a meditation retreat but it's absurdly subtle. Right now I'm working on stabilizing and amplifying jhana's 1-3 and playing with 4-7. The last big breakthrough I've been having with practice is that I'm starting to directly experience absolute infinity. I honestly have no words nor really understand how to put this into language... But the present moment is infinite. The formless void, the underlying context out of which perception arises and passes back into moment by moment is infinite. This is interesting. Because I've been working in the Unified Mindfulness rather than TMI model for awhile now, I haven't emphasized introspective awareness. When I maintain the overall mindfulness using the See Hear Feel noting technique, I can enter into the spacious fluidity of A&P while in daily life, without having to have direct mindfulness over the mind. Sometimes no formal technique is required and the mind just slips into it. Very interesting the parallels and differences between these models of mindfulness. Just out of curiosity: Have you gone on any meditation retreats? I actually ended up doing 3 online retreats (8, 11, 9 days respectively) with Shinzen over the pandemic and each one skyrocketed my practice to new depths. Are you still doing 2 hours daily practice? I'm currently doing 2 hours most days, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more.

You need to deconstruct the part of your mind that desires being high while on retreat. The psychedelic will also interfere with the momentum you’re building on the retreat in addition to going against the integrity of the setting. Some of the most powerful work you'll ever do is sit with boredom, pain, total dis-ease and just accept that that’s what Being is manifesting at that moment. The fact that there’s a part of your mind so averse to sitting sober such that you’d break your vow and the rules of the retreat is a huge lesson, a teacher waiting for you to integrate. A more powerful approach, imo, would be to do the full 10 days completely dead ass sober, and on day 11 do a full dose of LSD.

Daily meditation started by bringing to mind what you feel grateful for. You'd be surprised how much you're actually grateful for, but that's existing in the uncognized parts of mind. Once you start giving space to that part of the mind, many examples will start to surface, a snowball like effect.

"And if you are one who wishes to offer the gifts of consciousness to others, it depends not on the speeches. Rather, live that which you wish to teach and in your inarticulate being, bursting with love, there is that which shall speak to those whom you wish to aid. Do not be seduced by the cleverness of the intellect, because you shall never talk someone into the Kingdom of Heaven. Be consciousness, share consciousness, let silence grow with your relationship as it will. And trust that that which is within you, which is moving through you from the Creator, shall touch and teach in ways that are too deep for words but are ever so much more powerful." -Q’uo -The Law Of One Because I'm on a LoO spree lol. You may find this excerpt resonates. I have personally found that we teach other's most by our presence first and foremost. If someone is naturally curious, they will ask and initiate discussion. To help those who have no interest in enlightenment, become enlightened. It starts by sharing presence, space, emptiness, non attachment, letting go. To answer your question, yes there is that desire to share. But what I've personally realized is the way the ego wants to share, through the intellect, is not how this stuff gets shared most effectively. The individual(s) you're wanting to share with must already be at a certain level of curiosity for language and concepts to penetrate effectively, otherwise your only option is through being.

"As you look out into what you call outer space, know that within you is the true reality of which outer space is only a picture. Your consciousness, my friends, is an incredible and infinite geography, peopled with an infinity of creatures equipped with the collective wisdom of eons of experience; for, my friends, within some part of your being, some deep and, for the most part, hidden part of your being you have all knowledge, all power, all compassion. It is as they were in files in a room to which you have lost the key. Do you wish, then, to explore outer space to repair the great damage of your society, or do you indeed think of it as hopeless? Take these attitudes away from the world, my friends, and turn them in to yourself, for you yourself are the great object on which to practice your own wisdom, on which to develop your own understanding. If you can solve those slums which exist within the topography of your consciousness, the slums in your cities will begin to take care of themselves. You say, “What can one person do?” We say to you: one person can work on one person, but that one person, my friends, is a hologram of all that there is. Your consciousness is all consciousness. Work on it, and you work on your race, your planet—the vibration that speaks for Earth. We offer you our love and our serenity and encourage you to seek those qualities in meditation. When you are upset, do not blame it upon little things which have occurred in the outer world: blame it on the lack of meditation. When you see your fellow man in a hostile manner, don’t blame it on his actions but on a lack of meditation. Your environment does not have to have any power over you, for all that there is is within you. The environment is only a shadow compared to the power of love within yourself. Meditation can unlock that power." I follow @the_law_of_one on instagram and this passage came up. Thought it was quite powerful. If you feel like you aren't getting results with meditation, you probably aren't meditating enough, probably haven't found a good teacher, probably not going on enough retreats, and probably not practicing in the background as you live life. There is a VAST possibility within the natural, sober state, no psychedelics needed. Psychedelics only amplify what is latently possibly within consciousness already. No amount of Neo Advaita arm chair non-duality will change the amount of inner peace, freedom from suffering, and intrinsic, durable, palpable happiness you do or don't feel. Sorry to get preachy. It's also paramount to realize that when we do this work on ourselves, when we purify our minds and grow in our level of consciousness, the work is not only for our benefit, but for the benefit of all sentient beings. We are all one. Your mind, your being is reflected back into and out of the world, literally. Very rarely do I interact with even serious meditators who understand the collective significance of this work, never mind those who don't meditate seriously. Keep up your daily practice, do yearly retreats, do micro hits, practice in the background! Thank you for your work, thank you for your practice. Namaste.

You'd be amazed... lol. The man you become by approaching 100s of girls will transform you into the man needed to have and keep that one dream girl.