Consilience

You’re assuming there exists an external world outside of direct experience. This is the mind believing its own stories and fantasies. There is no Trump until there is an awareness of Trump, literally.

Day 12 - Very interesting day. Just for the sake of integrity and transparency, I ended up watching porn today which strictly speaking breaks one of the rules. However due to the circumstances I won't be resetting my timer. I did not masturbate, nor even touch myself though which is a huge win. These types of mistakes are normally the kind that are disastrous. I'm about to leave my home to see a comet that is only in orbit once every 6500 years. Either later tonight or tomorrow at some point I will explain what happened, what was learned, and why I won't be resetting my days. All I can say is after really looking in with a very critical and compassionate eye, I do genuinely feel it's best not to reset. Anyways that's all for now. PS. Meditation was lit again. Not quite as lit as yesterday, but still lit.

Thank you

This is fairly normal during zazen which is sitting and doing nothing while facing a wall. Pretty interesting stuff.

Do you work full time in addition to pursuing this life purpose?

I feel this. My main motivation with meditation is taking extreme ownership of my well being. I want to understand what it must be like to sit and do nothing and be totally at peace with myself, totally and utterly content with nothing else but the fact that I exist. Most of my meditation work up to this point has not been this. However, after a lot of work, I would say I'm starting to find and understand this peace experientially, and more regularly. I feel like this level of practice is possible for everyone, including you. What I don't know, however, is what type of effort is going to be required, nor what types of meditation techniques you'll respond to best. Today was a huge breakthrough, a huge glimpse into what is possible with going down this meditation path. In fact, a 45 minute mini orgasm is more than a glimpse imo. I don't expect this type of thing to stablize for awhile, but I can imagine when I'm in my 40s with 20 years of meditation experience under my belt, who knows what it'll be like. I've only seriously been meditating for 2.5 years, but it's been 2.5 years with meditating 1 hour per day for 95% of the days. I don't mind at all. I've been practicing with the do nothing technique (zazen in zen, shikantaza in japanese zen translation, choiceless awareness technique in the TMI model, complete surrender based on Ramana Maharshi's teachings), however because I've spent months of using the TMI breath based techniques for months now, my attention is extremely stable, I generate significantly less thoughts during meditation practice, and my awareness of thoughts is A LOT higher. I think these 3 qualities of mind played a huge role. These 3 qualities of mind are cultivated and stabilized over time using a concentration, samatha based practice. At least that's what's *supposed* to happen. So I go into the session with these 3 things pretty much within the first minute, except they're all more significant than normal, especially the awareness of mind. Interestingly, as the pleasure was building I would have random monkey mind thoughts like we all do when we meditate. Yet this time my mind was extremely aware of ANY thoughts that were passing and effortless and automatically dropped all attention from them. Thoughts became these extremely minor events which disappeared as quickly as they came in. So I'm left in this hyper aware state where my peripheral awareness (awareness of the bodily senses) began to build and build and build. As this building took place, that's when I started to feel the pleasurable energy start to pulsate up through my root and into my head and 3rd eye. I would say during the climax (feeling 10% of an orgasm, possibly more) I was feeling a release in the 3rd eye and crown chakra area. And it was just that, energy going up through my body on inhalations, and then perfuse out into an auric field which felt like an extension of my body senses. With my eyes closed, my body didnt have a particular shape or form, it felt like this ambiguous pulsating energy field with a very dense core, which I could identify as the spine if attention wandered to the center. The energy rhythmically went up and out of the spine, recycling back through the body. It felt like it was its own form of intelligence with a will of its own, but not quite kundalini which I've also experienced. It felt subtler than kundalini but who knows. With this energy stuff, it's all kind of the same thing at some point. I want to emphasize though, this was a state of total surrender. There was no effort, or will, or anything trying to get more of or cling to what was going on. Just pure energy that felt like it was being released because the mind's lack of interference and a build up of awareness. I believe psychedelics have made my meditation sessions way more energetic. Ive tripped just about once every 2 weeks for the past year (currently taking some time off for integration purposes) and with all of the emotional releases I've had, my body feels like it has clearer energy channels. I know this may sound new age, but it's the only way I can describe it. My body feels like it has more internal clarity of the senses, my awareness can penetrate more deeply into subtle forms of energy. I've found that healing my psychological traumas and attachments opens up my awareness of body wherein I'm more able to generate happier and lighter emotions. The most powerful healing tool I've used is psyches and hatha yoga. It's worth mentioning I've also been doing daily hatha yoga since the whole COVID lockdown so perhaps this is playing a role as well. However, what I'd also like to mention is that meditating 1 hour per day REALLY starts to pay off at around the 2 year mark. There's something significant about an entire hour that just has never felt replicable with other times. Even though psyches have indeed played a role with opening me up to deeper levels of bodily awareness, I still thing 80+% of my meditation results come from meditation. Specifically, a meditation system that has worked directly on building concentration and quitting the mind (insert TMI plug). I do not find similar releases of tension in deep meditation as I do in deep trips. Trips have gone REALLY fucking deep into the core of my being at levels meditation simply cannot. I cannot say with confidence I could have healed at the same rate using meditation as I have with psyches. And in this way, I believe psychedelics have played a huge role with my general well being on a day to day basis. Yet just as important is meditation. Meditation seems to breakdown more surface level tensions like anxiety, depression, apathy, frustration, anger. Meditation helps break down and dissolve the tension we feel on a day to day basis. Psychedelics help breakdown emotions and traumas that exist on the level of souls and reincarnation, or even childhood memories we no longer can even feel. For example, I remember one of my biggest unknown traumas I was carrying around with me was not understanding my diabetes. It was this general sense of "why me" that I didn't even know I carried. But when I traveled back to my birth on LSD and saw so clearly that this decision for diabetes was autonomous and by choice, I somehow understood all of it. This was a huge emotional and energetic release. Meditation has never done anything close to this. But let me flip the coin and explain what meditation has done that psychedelics haven't - The amount of beauty I see in the world, the amount of compassion I hold for strangers, the love I feel for all beings, the daily gratitude I feel for my body, or my ability to ride out waves of negativity like diabetic fatigue, depression, apathy (these are my most common) has all been a result of my meditation more than psychedelics. It's like the world of the mundane is slowly being infused with what a peak state of a psychedelic shows. Whereas the psychedelic can show you the love of god, it will not let you keep it. Meditation is the tool for embodiment. Psychedelics are the tool for awakenings. If you find that it's hard to release tension without external tools, you should look into hatha yoga. I don't think Leo emphasizes enough the mind - body connection. Your body is literally holding onto all sorts of deep emotional baggage. I've found this physical yoga to be an extremely powerful addition to my spiritual work. In fact, I could probably write another long ass post explaining the relationship between the physical muscle releases in yoga, meditation and psychedelics. But I've already written a novel. My biggest piece of advice would be don't underestimate what you'd be capable of by seriously committing to meditation practice, 1 hour per day, over a lifetime. It's a slow grueling process, but the changes are enduring. Meditation is the most powerful psychedelic integration tool I've found. It's also the most powerful sober tool I've found as well. You've gotta learn to concentrate the mind though. Which is why I push TMI so much, because I know it's what works for me. Others say kriya is great, but I've never responded very well to it. TMI and the do nothing technique are my go to's and these days I've been doing the do nothing almost exclusively AFTER my mind has reached a stable enough level. I know this was a lot, but the word vomit helped me contextualize my own shit so... I hope it helps haha. Seriously, don't underestimate yourself or what you're capable of doing in the long run.

Day 11 - Didn't meet all of my previous intentions. I was hit with a massive wave of fatigue after work today that I attribute to my diabetes. I'm not really sure what causes these things. They happen kind of sporadically and don't track with any variables I've been able to observe. Nutrition, sleep, exercise, meditation, yoga can all be on point and sometimes I'll still just crash. I've learned to be gentle with my self though, and not rush. Things are changing, I feel the progress on my path. Today's meditation was absurd. I meditated 10 minutes before work (do nothing) just to clear my head which felt fairly normal. And then after work I did another 45 minutes (do nothing) which was absurd. It was 45 minutes of non stop pleasure, moving anywhere between I'd say 3-10% of what the climax of an orgasm was. It felt like I could feel sexual energy pulsating up my spine and out of my body like a wave. I don't really have much conceptual knowledge of what auras are or anything like that, but it felt like the sexual energy was breathing into an energy field outlining my body while meditating, and just circling back through my root chakra. As the energy was moving, it was just non stop pleasure. I don't think I've ever had a more pleasurable meditation session in my life, I mean it was like a non stop orgasm, spontaneous feelings of bliss, happiness, joy and pleasure. It's almost unbelieveable except that I experienced it. Leo had a blog post not too long ago talking about Yogi's and Monks being like heroine addicts, except they could produce the pleasure themselves. This is how it felt. I was going to go for a full hour, but the pleasure got overwhelming and so I just got up and then went for a long walk which served as another form of meditation. Today was kind of tough though. After that meditation session I spent the evening fantasizing about sex, and all the things I wish I could be doing with a woman. Women I wouldn't normally find attractive were sexually beautiful at the park. And when I got home, the fantasies continued. On another unrelated note listen to this music if you want to feel agape:

After enough inner work you’ll get to a point where your sober state produces more pleasure than alcohol, and even a buzz detracts from this pleasure more than it gives.

Beautiful

Day 10 - Today was such a beautiful day. I ended smoking a little weed, and working a video outline for my next YouTube video. Even though I've generally been trying to just not do any drugs, today was too good of a day. Sometimes when I smoke weed it feels very grounding and radiant, it feels like magic. There's a distinction between smoking to just chase pleasure and smoking to feel connected. Today it felt like I was connecting, and I feel very grateful for it. However, I went on ahead and threw out the rest of my weed. I realized I'm really feeling done with the stuff. With COVID going on I really have no desire to enter into dispensaries and now that I have literally no more weed, there won't be anything left to smoke. I can tell I'm taking this PMO stuff way more seriously this time. I feel it. I feel the ego reacting more than it ever has, almost like a squirming energy that really wants to self sabotage in anyway it can. But I love that it's a challenge. The openness and social pressure is extremely powerful. I'm grateful I've been journaling this process and I'm grateful for anyone who happens to read. I hope you can gain some value from it on your own path to mastering the masculine energy inside of you. Nightly Intentions for tomorrow: Cold shower Meditate 1 hour Hatha yoga youtube video Fold clothes Workout Drink 80oz of water 1+ hour life purpose work

@herghly Thank you

You don’t actually know Buddhism. You’d need to live and breath monastic life for a solid amount of time to understand it. All anyone on this forum has of buddhism is more accurately an interpretation of what thousands and thousands of hours of meditation does to the mind or one’s understanding of reality.

Day 9 - Really starting to feel the positive effects. My work ethic was crazy high today even though I felt like dog shit upon waking up. I didn't even get out of bed until 11am. Yet then I saw how I was operating from a specific negative context and generating my negative emotions out of a lack of patience and compassion for where my life is at. Once I was able to see clearly how much I was resisting my present situation, I dropped this unconscious seeking via surrender, upon which I was able to really tap into positive emotions. Within a very short time frame, I was able to totally transform my state into positivity and begin doing very productive work. My confidence levels and focus are really sharp right now too, which I attribute to the semen retention. Victories today: 1 hour of meditation Hatha yoga Cold shower 1.5 hours of life purpose work Laundry Cleaned my living space 1.5 hour workout Filed my taxes (been way procrastinating that one lol) No weed No caffeine (the pull felt strong today I assume because I felt so awful after waking up) I was also really ruminating about my last LSD trip. I listened to this mix during the peak: During this phase of the trip I had entered into infant consciousness. A state of literal not knowing of anything. The world felt faint, and distant, almost like an unfamiliar echo. I remember feeling quite melancholy though, like I knew that I'd forgotten my life, my loved ones and that they weren't ever coming back. I wonder if this is what death is like? I mean, how many friendships, memories and moments has The Self experienced and totally and utterly forgotten? In this state I'm in right now those lifetimes and moments are not real whatsoever. I remember feeling like I wanted a mother figure during this phase of the trip, but there was no one at all, my mind completely blank, empty, and open. And then I met my soul and saw the future. It was fucking nuts.

The deepest states I've entered on psychedelics have involved me unlearning pretty much all of my human knowledge, thus language and thus writing. There is a divine "not knowing" that takes place and I'm left with pure present moment being and experience. Trying to write from such a state is utterly impossible, I'm too present, time is no longer even real. And since writing and language require a past and future (sentences operate with a beginning and end, as well as words) no writing is possible. I honestly don't know what Leo means by omniscience.

Day 8 - No real urges today at all and honestly not a whole lot to report! Today was a good restful day. Beautiful weather, I had a really solid meditation session, life felt good.

@Jai @wesyasz Thank you both, I really appreciate it. Jai that's really impressive, and inspiring to hear a success from someone on the other side.

Day 7 - Had more sex dreams last night, but the intensity was less extreme. Overall pretty basic day tbh. I ended up not microdosing though as when I woke up, I honestly didn't feel too shitty or depleted. It's like now that I got the backlash energy out, I was good. Overall though I'm feeling pretty tired from the work week. I did a little bit of work on life purpose, but not as much as I have been. I don't have too much left to say other than I'm feeling pretty decent about the first week being done. I can only guess I'll continue to have surges and regressions as the sexual energy builds, but so far I haven't faced anything new. The journey continues.

The journey changes you. What is the point of traveling across the world if you’re just going to return home?

Day 6 - I had absurdly intense and vivid sexual dreams last night... I had a super hot shower. I skipped my morning meditation to sleep an extra hour. Meditated for 13 minutes on a break. After work I took my vape pen out and got high. It was a lower body day with kettle bells, which was harder than normal. All day I've absolutely craved high dopamine, high pleasure stimulus. I also worked over an hour on Life Purpose and had a lot of creative insights. Immediately after the first hit I realized something about myself, and this pmo habit. This habit is literally at the bedrock of my subconscious mind. I don't think I've ever truly decided to quit until I opened up on this journal about it. It's like as long as I didn't have to admit I was a porn addict to anyone else, it was okay. Yet on some level, I'm still that 12 year old boy who discovered porn for the first time and had the most intense orgasm of his life. This addiction has vicious routes. Experientially, it's almost like by pressing down on the throttle on an issue so deeply rooted in the subconscious mind, I'm leaking willpower and motivation away from the other habits I've built. I'm also going to probably take a microdose of mushrooms tomorrow, just for health purposes. I find they can be quite healing after an aggressive backlash. Overall this backlash feels like a really good sign. A sign that things are truly shifting in the mind. I will continue to march forward with keeping my already built habits and lack of drug use as the storm of this thing builds. Ancillary insight I had as well - Progress in the coming century is not going to be a function of how much information we know as a species, or the accelerating pace of technological advancement. Instead, it will be a function of how deeply we know ourselves collectively, individually, and eventually, metaphysically.

Day 5 - Victories: 1 hour of meditation Cold shower Nutrition was on point Took a walk 1 hour of life purpose work No caffeine No weed Drank 80 oz water I am very much looking forward to when this lockdown ends. One of my biggest goals is to improve with approaching and attracting women in person, not online. I personally feel that online dating is bullshit if you're a guy. As men, we are cursed and given the opportunity of approaching women. On the one hand, it sucks having to be the one to always be approaching and initiating the interaction. On the other hand, if we can overcome this fear, pretty much the entire world becomes an opportunity to meet a lover, and that is a world FULL of abundance. As a woman, you kind of are just stuck with what men either approach you, or gambling with online dating which in my opinion already creates a dynamic of men chasing women since women have nearly all the power in the online dating arena (chasing women never works). Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of men are too scared to approach beautiful women in person, myself included which means that if you can man the Fuck up, you've already set yourself apart from like 95% of men out there. A recent insight I had was that my fear of approaching women is rooted in the existential fear of "I am not enough." It's a fear that my existence at all is just not good enough and I will never live up to my own expectations or the expectations of others. Of course all of this is total bullshit, but the inner child wrestles with these emotions. As long as my emotional mind is framed in this belief structure, there will be a massive fear of approaching women. Unfortunately, having this insight is not enough to overcome it, meaning the next time I approach a beautiful woman there will still be fear. Yet, understanding the root of these thought stories is a powerful step towards overcoming and transcending this fear. I'm also seeing that insight into one's true nature is merely scratching the surface of the fear one holds. I've had God moments on psychedelics yet still get a fear based response from the mere idea of approaching a gorgeous woman. I think a good litmus test for how awake someone is is how much do they fear? Suffering is another good litmus test, but fear is an interesting one. As long as there is fear, there are false existential assumptions generating these stories. Having insight into the root of these fears is an important step, but I believe facing them face on is another effective tool for seeing their illusory nature. In this way, approaching women, approaching women you don't think you have any shot with at all, has the potential to be an extremely powerful spiritual practice. During the lockdown, I'm not worrying about this though. I live with an immunocompromised family member so the risks of COVID are quite large. So for now, more theory, more contemplation. When the lockdown lifts, its fucking game time though. In terms of the no pmo journey - Today during meditation I had more sexual fantasies than normal, and started fantasizing about masturbating. I can tell I'm starting to enter into the phase where more and more fantasies will be popping up. If it follows the previous patterns though, the urges will peak over the next 3-4 days, but I should then hit a flatline at about day 12 until about day 20. So far the journaling has been helping. The social pressure and pride of being able to succeed is a motivator, for better or worse. The social shame of failure is also motivating. Yet the vision of living a porn free life feels... unreal at this current stage. I cannot imagine what it must be like to spend a whole month not fantasizing about watching porn, not afraid of relapsing, and that is a genuinely deep motivator. Gonna go do some yoga and go to bed.

Thank you for such a positive and supportive message; it really speaks to me... Yes exactly. It's not about this habit being morally bad, just like playing video games isn't morally bad. But the vision of a life where we're not caught in a cycle of addiction and essentially becoming who we authentically want to be. This perspective on clarity is extremely important to remember as well. I really appreciate the support. I'm with you as well. <3

Day 4 - Today was odd. I felt particularly depressed and low energy. I REALLY wanted to smoke weed, which is odd. It felt like my mind was being starved of pleasure and was seeking any type of stimulus that would grant it dopamine. Happy to report I did not in fact smoke weed haha. However, I did drink a tiny amount of caffeine this morning which I was hyper mindful of, and how it could be my ego trying to justify repeating conditioned behavior, and perhaps in a sense that was what was happening, yet today it genuinely felt needed. I haven't felt this off in a while, but sometimes we all wake up and feel like absolute trash. It was around 1/4 the amount of a mug of coffee, this rest decaf. I've noticed that if I play into old behaviors such as drinking caffeine, playing video games, watching porn, smoking weed, the urge to do other high dopamine activities arises more strongly, as if they're all linked to the same neurological pathway of the mind. I'm going to remain hyper vigilant of the urge to drink caffeine for the reminder of this work week (weekends are easy not to feel a need) since the floodgate was mildly cracked. On the topic of pmo, still no big sexual impulses, which is typically how this timeline plays out. If this pattern follows I won't be hit with any major sexual urges until this day 6/7, and then from day 14 onward it will be a REAL struggle. If I've learned anything about this addiction it is that the ego is to never be underestimated.

Thank you for this perspective. Very insightful ??

Day 3 - Honestly not much I feel like reporting on today other than I was so distracted doing shit the thought of pmo'ing wasn't present at all. But day 3 is child's play. The climb continues.

Day 2 - Rules I didn't specify in above post: No normal masterbation and no porn without masterbation. Things I'm proud of myself for accomplishing today: Made my bed 1 hour of meditation Hatha Yoga outside in the sun Cold shower Ate adequate protein Did a microdosing workshop with my cities local Psychedelic Society Spent 4.5 hours on life purpose work I've been taking a break from making youtube videos recently in an attempt to really manifest another level of quality. Like a massive exponitial jump in quality. Ive been spending a large amount of time introspecting and researching on what kind of videos I want to create. It feels like my muse is being stoked and slowly building. Time will tell what it turns into.