Psychedics are not required.
However, I must be honest with you guys. Most of you are so lost in your minds and so unserious about doing concentration practices and/or yoga, that you will never grasp the deepest things I talk about without psychedelics. The psychedelics are recommended because you are not motivated enough to do the manual legwork.
If you refuse the psychedelic path, you must work your ass off doing concentration practices and yoga.
This dabbling bullshit does not work and you will waste years of time.
Spirituality is the most hardcore pursuit that man can undertake. Start treating it as such. It will be worth it.
Or just forget about spirituality and do basic self-help. You need to be very clear with your intent. What do you want? Do you really want Truth? If you do you should be willing to sell your mother into slavery to get it.

The key to confidence is massive personal experience. You must sink 1000s of hours into those things you wish to be confident about.

I hear what you're saying. But I just wonder, when the Nazi's were coming to power in the 30's, what would you have proposed?
The trick is that when you negotiate with fundamentalists they take and take and take and give nothing in return.
I'm curious how you would negotiate with conservatives in America. Obama tried to appease them and it didn't work. They still smeared him as a socialist and undermined him at every turn.
How would you deal with Trump and his evangelical base? You think they are going to negotiate with you and give any ground to stage Green? Would you advocate not to put pressure on the migrant concentration camps at the US border & on Trump?
Vocal outrage can be an effective tool for social evolution as most people are complacent and unaware of what's really happening in society. The outrage can make people aware of the issue.
I have read Elza Maalouf's book.
I am really curious how you negotiate with people who precisely do not want rise above their worldview? Sometimes I feel like Integral Theory is too naive and idealistic about how ruthless politics can be.
What do you consider the solution to Trump? Is it better to elect a centrist Democrat or a far left one like Bernie Sanders who will put pressure on the corporate domination of US politics and drive hard towards Green?
I feel like Obama's approach towards the conservatives was somewhat stage Yellow, yet it did not work out so well because the conservatives just took advantage of of his moderation and willingness to compromise.
When one side is acting like a devil, what do you do according to Spiral Dynamics? Because the devil is certainly clever enough to take advantage of a moderate Spiral Dynamics approach.

Yes, they are mostly Purple in their cognitive development.
You have to be nuanced here and distinguish various developmental lines: moral, interpersonal, political, cognitive, spiritual, and so forth. While their spiritual line could be advanced, their other lines can be very low.
Those tribes are not all rainbows and butterflies. They will rape you and boil your skull for dinner if you are from the wrong tribe. Tribal warfare is a notorious problem.

You have no idea yet how true that is.
You are God after all. There is no one here but you. You personally created the entire universe, including your human persona. If you fully realized this, you'd be dead (as a human).
You literally created your own hands.

@Ampresus Become friendly with her social circle in a chill, casual way. Tell them a funny story or something like that. Or ask them some opinion opener like, "Hey girls, I need your opinion on something..." and then think some interesting topic to ask them about like: "Does it count as cheating if my friend has a girlfriend but he's texting other girls?"
Something gossipy like that is good.
Then you can focus more on chatting her up individually. "Hey girl, you look like the biggest troublemaker of this bunch. It's the quiet ones which are the biggest troublemakers. Hey, has anyone told you yet how beautiful I am? ;)"
The biggest secret for attracting girls is simply to learn to be more social. Practice starting random conversations with strangers.
It's hella hard to build attraction through social media. Your odds will be much higher in person where you can charm her a bit with words. And it will build better charming skills for you.
In school girls most get attracted to the guys with the most social status. Being a loner is not helping your cause. It'd be better if you built a circle of your own friends. This shows you're a somebody. Then your odds will improve.

@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.

The Bible is the work of corrupt devils.
Jesus did not write The Bible.
There is nothing which is not in God's mind. How can God be unlimited and all-powerful yet overlook some occurance? You make a mockery of God by thinking this way.
EVERYTHING is God's design. Not one hair has been overlooked.
God designed individuals to have a portion of its Will. So that you as an individual may experience what it's like to be a creator. God does not interfer with an individual's exercise of will. That would violate the whole design and purpose of life. God's will is that you act however you will. And so it is. If you will to act like a devil, God will love you no matter what. But other people may hate you. Thus what you call "evil" is pseudo-created. It only exists within people's judgments of you. And your own judgments of you. God does not judge. God is pure Love.
An all-intelligent being will never judge itself. Because judgment is lack of understanding. To judge is to deny Truth, and God is Truth. Since God is all there is, if it were to judge anything in existence it would be judging itself, which would be falsehood and delusion.
You would have God be deluded? Haha! No, friend, the delusion is with you.
Judge not lest ye be judged.

Should be, but it isn't. We live in the real world, not some Buddhist fantasy.
This is a very dangerous misconception. By equating enlightenment with moral perfection and an impossiblity of shadow, you set yourself up to be a great Zen Devil, full of much shadow. Because once your enlightenment happens, you'll still have a TON of shadow issues left unresolved, but your fantasy of perfection will force you to deny this fact and so you will suppress these shadow issues even deeper, doubling the size of your shadow and become a half-enlightened devil.
Even the greatest most enlightened masters have shadows and pathologies.
Don't be a fool. Nothing in this work is automatic.
You have no idea what imperfections Ramana Maharshi had. You just have a fantasy of him in your mind. It's easy to appear to have no imperfections when living one's entire life in a cave. The real test comes when you live an active life, where you have leadership obligations, duties, money, fame, sex, luxury, family, children, business, politics, and other things to deal with. When a hot girl with big tits comes and rubs them on you, let's see how long your enlightenment lasts.

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

He's got so much self-esteem, 6 would be too much
@Pilgrim There is a deeper existential issue at work here beyond ordinary self-esteem. See, virtually every ego feels like it's not good enough. This is a deeper problem than it first seems. To be an ego is to constantly feel incomplete, inadequate, unlovable, and worthless.
That is solved by spiritual practice and consciousness work. You need to become conscious of how incompleteness, inadequacy, and being unlovable are part of the entire dynamic of being human. These things are the consequence of your deepest held beliefs about life. Those beliefs need to be questioned very deeply.
For example, who what is nobody loves you. Why is that bad or wrong? Why do you need love from others? Contemplate that seriously until you realize that you actually do not need love from others. This will feel counter-intuitive. There will be fear here that you must face head-on.
Sounds like you should have no problem finding a man as long as you are going out and socializing. Setting boundaries is a separate matter. To set decent boundaries you need to resolve your self-esteem issues.
You might also want to be more conscious of how you screen men. Get more clear about what you want in a man and what you don't want. Be honest about whether your ideal man is actually something you're attracted to. For example, you may say you want a sensitive empathetic man, but then in practice you actually get turned on by loud-mouthed charismatic assholes who would sell their own mothers a lemon car. Often what you get attracted to on the front end is not the ideal guy to be in a relationship with.
The man is not going to help you believe in yourself. You must do that on your own.

Not in the slightest.
But I did have a powerful vision for my life, I was very ambitious, and I was following my heart. Which is really all that matters.
You are young. You've got many years to put all of those things in place. Obviously don't waste time sitting around on your ass, but don't panic either.
Right now what you're missing is hope and faith in your vision.
Vision is useless if you don't have rock-solid faith in it. You need to train yourself to believe in it. Visualize it every day with a hopeful vibe. Do not visualize it pessimistically, negatively, full of fear. That is terrible. That is counter-productive.
Holding a big vision is not easy. It is scary. Your mind will not believe it is possible. I used all sorts of mind programming techniques to reinforce my vision and overcome various doubts. But the most important thing is HEART! You must have HEART! That is what carries you through everything. Your life purpose must be non-negotiable. You are doing it no matter what. There should be no option for failure because you already know there is nothing else you'd rather do.
There will hundreds of doubts in this journey. You have to really cultivate hope. Not in luck, but in your hard work. Your vision will get actualized through honest labor.
And remember, a big vision requires lots of patience. You don't need to be Buddha by next month. Recalibrate your exceptions and split your vision up into smaller chunks, so you are not evaluating your progress based on whether you are like Ralston or Buddha. That may not happen for 40 years. And that's okay, you don't need that to enjoy your life.

@Jcent It is wise, before you go breaking down a system, to learn the system from the inside.
Only a fool hastily disassembles a complex piece of machinery without first studying its inner workings.
A common problem with young revolutionaries is that they end up creating a worse system than the one they rail against because they underestimate the practical realities such a system must contend with.
Success requires striking a delicate balance between the old and the new, the status quo and the cutting edge, between the practical and ideal.
Otherwise you easily end up with something like a cult, a communist revolution, or Bioshock: a dystopian abomination.

27 QUALITIES OF ALL SUCCESSFULL PEOPLE
1. Passionate
 a. Inspired on some level by life, almost on a spiritual level
2. Hardworking
 a. Abnormally hardworking
 b. Obsessive about how they work
 c. Almost workaholics
 d. Can’t stop doing work
 e. Strong work-ethic is absolutely necessary
 3. Extremely Persistent
 a. High tolerance for failure
 b. Don’t take failure personally, don’t get depressed by it
 c. They plow forward every single time until they get to there goal
 4. Iconoclastic
 a. Rule breakers, do not follow rules of the society, the organization, the family unit, the religious structure
 c. Flexible with the rules
 d. Able to think outside of box
 5. Clever
 a. Abnormally clever, than the bunch
 6. Manipulative
 a. Good at manipulating situations and people to get what they want past through (e.g. maybe good at manipulating bureaucracy, manipulating a government system, manipulating their family, manipulating their friends, manipulating people in their company, manipulating giant masses of crowds, the way that politicians sometimes do)
 b. Manipulation is a tool or tactic, not necessarily evil—it’s an ability some people have
 c. Need to be clever in your manipulations
 7. (Highly) Creative
 a. Highly creative people
 b. Not just in the artsy, imaginative, or poetic sense (although that’s a great attribute to have)
 c. Fundamentally, you can create stuff (the ability to create), not just in the arts, but anywhere, in business, or anywhere else
 d. Successful people are creative people—they create lots of stuff
 e. Creative people generate massive value (i.e. impact thousands or millions or even billions of people, with their work, or with their ideas, or with their ideas speeches, or with whatever). You need to generate massive quantities of value in today’s world in order to become successful
 8. (Strong) Training In Technical Skills
 a. Willing to train hard to develop their technical skills in whatever field they are trying to master and become successful at
 b. Deliberately, methodically practice a certain set of skills over and over and over again until you master it finally. They invest thousands of hours mastering technical skills
 c. Most people are mediocre because they have mediocre technical skills
 9. A Value In Excellence Above The Mediocre People
 a. They really want to do excellent work, they take pride in their work, they have this sense of being the best at what they do, or doing something really exceptionally well that gives them a certain joy, and a certain satisfaction above the mediocre person
 10. Vision
 a. Visionaries, they see a big bright picture of what the future should look like, for them, for their life, for their followers, for their business partners, for their customers; they see into the future. That’s a very powerful skill to develop
 11. Leaders
 a. Because they have this vision, they lead people, they’re fundamentally carving their own path through life, they are on the cutting edge of their field, and they’re not content just to be followers, they break off on their own and do it themselves, their own way, and that usually means some new unique way that hasn’t been done before
 12. Intuitive
 a. Intuitive, they know how to use their intuition
 b. They’re guided by their heart and by their gut, more than just by their logical mind, they’re right-brain thinkers, they’re holistic thinkers, they can take in and assess multiple variable in a kind of complex holistic way, and then they can get this kind of big picture of what need to be done, and sometimes it just comes as a gut feeling
 13. Decisive
 a. Quick, firm, and very crystal clear about what they want
 14. They Don’t Do What They Do Because Of The Money
 a. It’s not about the money
 b. Motivated because they want to impact the world, want to have a positive contribution to society, maybe because they’ve got a big ego and they’ve got a lot of pride, and they want to grow and expand and aggrandize that ego, which is not necessarily a very healthy drive, but that’s still that’s superior than being driven by money, alone.
 c. Most successful people love the work they do, they’re passionate about it, so it comes more or less comes naturally to them, not because of the money
 15. (Highly) Focused
 a. Able to select one field or domain and invest years of time and build up a lot experience in that one field
 b. Like a laser beam
 c. Mediocre people are like a diffused light bulb, shining in all different directions
 16. Ambitious
 a. Have a desire to be the best, to be at the top of your field, to be the one who accomplishes something really great and extraordinary
 b. Almost an ego thing (not necessarily the healthiest drive)
 c. You need that, to rise to the top
 17. Have a Rapid Speed of Implementation
 a. As soon as they hear an idea, or they have a great idea, they go off and immediately start to implement that idea
 b. Have a bias towards action, rather than sitting and thinking (paralysis by analysis)
 18. Opinionated
 a. Have firm and strong opinions because they have firm and strong values and beliefs because of course they are decisive
 19. Have A Spine
 a. Stand up for themselves and their values, and their beliefs, and their ideas
 20. Optimistic And Hopeful
 a. Fundamentally they believe in themselves, they believe that they can, and they believe that people around them can, and they believe that society can
 b. Different from depression—a lot of people are actually quite depressed, a lot of successful people kill themselves from depression
 21. Courageous
 a. Willing to act in the face of fear
 b. Don’t let the fear paralyze or stop them or scare them away
 22. Value Knowledge And Learning (In Some Capacity)
 a. It doesn’t necessarily need to be book smarts, it could be street smarts, it could be learning from your coworkers, or learning in a social environment, or learning from brute trial and error experience
 23. Willing To Endure The Cost And They’re Willing To Make Sacrifices To Get Success
 a. Willing to sacrifice fun, socializing, sex, partying, drinking, doing a lot of entertaining stuff as much, spending as much time with family; their relationships could suffer. They select success over all this other stuff
 24. Highly Self-Motivated (Intrinsically Motivated Versus Extrinsically Motivated)
 a. Fueled from the inside, nobody has to kick you in the ass to tell you what to do, you do it yourself, you kick yourself in the ass
 b. Can become a neurosis
 25. Longterm Thinkers
 a. To be successful you need to spend at least 5 or 10 years developing some sort of proficiency or excellence in some kind of field
 26. Pragmatic
 a. Practical, more so than idealogical or idealistic
 b. Willing to align to the realities of the marketplace, the realities of the political climate, the realities of the time you’re living, the realities of the organization you’re trying to create change in
 c. Willing to compromise certain elements of your ideology, compromise your integrity a little bit, in favor of pushing something through, not always will you get it your way, not always will the perfect scenario just materialize for you and this is exactly how it’s going to be; rarely do you get the “perfect” when you’re trying to achieve something big. Usually you have to cut corners and you have to make sacrifices there, and this requires a willingness to be practical versus idealogical
 27. Work For Themselves
 a. They’re fundamentally advancing their own agenda
 b. The best leaders are a little bit egotistical, a little bit narcissistic, and they’re a little bit selfish, and these qualities turn out to be effective when you’re trying to reach the top