Pharion

@MsNobody the top one is really beautiful

Day six and seven. I got the Kriya yoga book and read everything up to the second lesson. I plan to begin implementing it to replace or supplement my meditation habit. I was tired on day seven and didn't meditate, but I thought this was okay because I'm in the midst of encoeprating yoga so it is changing anyway. Hopefully that decisions turns out to be okay. I did a couple 40 minute sessions, which were mostly very gruelling but satisfying to get thru, Durinf my mediation so far I'm probably so immersed in thinking or "monkey mind" that I forget what I'm supposed to be doing a good 85% of the time, then another 12% is me actively fighting other limited success to clear my mind and just focus on breathe / present moment. Then 3% is being in an actual state of thoughtlessness, this ussualy only comes in few second bursts before slipping back into thinking, but there were a few times in my more recent sessions where I was able to go maybe 20-30 seconds of "no mind" which was pretty cool, and a good motivation to keep going. I suppose if I keep going the former states will decrease and the latter increase, but right now the muscle that is my mind is still quite weak from years of constant stimulation and media, but I'm building my strength through this practice. I've kept my consistent wake time of 6:30 ever day, and although I was close to going back to sleep on some days and calling it quits, I haven't done that yet. this weekenend I was able to spend a few solid hours writing and finished the second chapter of the novel I'm writing, I'm eager to keep doing that when I have time, and have something to show for my time instead of the normal YouTube binge that I would do most weekends.

Here are the habits I'm going to work on every day. -20 mins of strong consciousness sitting (meditation without moving at all) Not watching internet videos or social media -go to bed at 9:30 every night. If I can keep these goals I'll be very happy about it. Hopefully posting this will keep me accountable and remembering to do this stuff. I'll post how today went, tommorow.

Ok, so i get (atleast on a conceptual level) that I live always in the present moment. But, eventually that present moment will end when I die. So ive noticed that despite having external clocks that appear to objectively measure time, my experience of it is that it ebs and flows faster or slower in relation to the clock based on your state of mind and events happening. So the idea that im proposing is: you can literally extend or shorten your "life time" based on your mind set and activities. Considering that reality is contained within experience, not the other way around, I consider present moment experience a better indicator of time than a clock.

Day five Still going strong, although I went to bed late this day. I have my kriya yoga book now and I intend to begin using it soon.

Im looking for the opinion of someone who is advanced in non dualism and spirituality and has the authority to judge this. So, I got into philosophy and politics around the same time and since then ive delved deep into dozens of hours of theory, books, debates, self reflection etc. to form my own beliefs about politics, philosophy and morality. Here are my essential moral beleifs. -Universality. I see an action as good if it would benefit the world for everyone to do it. Put simply, act in a way that does not hinder other people while benefiting you, or the golden rule "treat others as you would be treated" (not exactly the same as universality, but close. -Non initiation of force. Coupled with universality, I think any forceful interaction (done by a human) is wrong. Including taxation, including arresting people for drug possession, hate speech etc. and including hitting your children / significant other because they got on your nerves. -Voluntarism. People can do what ever they want, voluntarily. I have no problem with communist societies existing as long as every member chose to join it, what im not okay with is mandatory rules being forced on people. Of course if you break a rule people can voluntarily choose to not interact with you or help you, thats fine, and if you hurt someone they can defend themselves from you. Philisophically I happiness is basically the ultimate goal of all people. It's hard wired into us, and I don't even think this point is debatable because I would define happiness as "the positive feeling which all other actions are aimed at." I'm not into hedonism. Just because happiness is the ultimate goal, doesn't mean you should blindly and stupidly pursue it right now at the cost of others. Moral principles should be followed with discipline to guide us to long term, sustainable happiness that doesn't rely on harming others. Im serious about my beliefs, I'm fully vegan. I try to always tell the truth, and im successful with that, and I genuinely try to be a good and selfless person. I don't think people who violate these principles are evil necessarily, I just see that there are better and worse ways of acting as a human. What I want to know "individualism" is inherently wrong because there are no individuals? or, (given my ignorance) are my values consistent with the higher level truths that I have yet to understand? I'm always willing to change my beliefs when im presented with new evidence, and I'd like to hear from some people. If I were to pin my my beleifs on the spiral dynamics stages I guess id say thier smack in the middle of orange and green but I could be wrong.

@Haumea2018 yeah that's true, best to approach every situation as novel but it is useful to have guiding principles in mind so as to orient yourself to each situation. Otherwise the situation would be constantly overwhelming and we would spend the whole deciding which pair of socks to wear haha

This is a false dichotomy. They can each do as they see fit, without criminalizing the other's behavior. This would the best solution.

The Dark Knight, Jordan Peterson, Stephan Molyeneux. Steve Jobs, Alex Honnold, and ofc Leo (I mean how can you not be inspired by his vegatable soup am I right?) i'm sure theres more who i'm not thinking of RN.

@saffron No man. Use those tools that you were given by being in america to self actualize, and help the world in a way that is authentic to you. Joining the military is going to force you to conform, and either have a stage blue mentality or suppress your real thoughts. You have so many unique skills, and so much potential to offer the world and to enjoy life and awaken yourself, dont squander that in a noble but misguided quest. I respect that very much, but it really is misguided and i dont say than in a way to belittle you, or make you feel silly or anything. Ask yourself, can you self actualize by joining the military? is joining the military condusive to enlightenment and spiritual growth, is it the best thing you can do with your unique talents and perspective with the time you have on this earth? I think you will find the answers to be no (hey maybe im wrong) but seriously ask yourself those questions. TLDR: please no!

@Strikr Ah man I would of loved that when I was into dubstep. Now I'm more of a metal guy, but i can still appreciate some good dubstep!

Day four More resistance. Arguing with family my new schedule, but I was prepared for this to happen from Leo's video about homeostasis, so I handled myself well enough. Hopefully when i keep sticking to this, the people around me will accept it as the new normal for me soon enough. The more I actualize, the farther away I feel in development from my group of friends. They are unquestionably a "pulling down" force, although I still have a lot of fun and companionship with them, and it occasionally gives me a space for creative expression (more in the past than now) as they would play a role playing game which i essential made. Im exceedingly grateful to have had that opportunity, it has been one of the richest experiences of my life and an opportunity to design games and see my friends enjoy playing it with me. Anyway, I can tell that the more serious i get about this the more ill have to choose between them and my personal work, and the more different I will become from them. It's one of those tests on the heroes journey as I see it, and I know already that I intend to place my journey as a higher priority. During meditation i slipped from an anxious monkey into a more sedated one, but it still did not leave. Right now I feel that im not really getting into my meditation as thier is alot of turmoil in my life right now, but I am more establishing it as a habit, something I do everyday, and when the dust from this has settled I can work on my monkey mind with more focus. The internet addiction problem has surprisingly not been too hard to deal with, i feel more anxious than usual because im cutting off my "drug of choice" which normally serves to sedate my mind and put me into a zombie like state of "calm" but iv'e been replacing that with music, audiobooks, A.O videos, and this forum which i know sort of miss the point of clearing my head but it's a big step in the right direction atleast. I haven't felt any "cravings" for youtube really, which is good because I know it's not really desirable in the first place and this is just confirming that. Im not really loosing anything of value here.

@Serotoninluv Indeed, good advise. I'ts very tempting (especially the more evidence you have that they are true) to centre your whole life emotionally around them, I've been tempted so much do that, but if imagine a life of being say a vegan advocate I can see how much inner turmoil and conflict that stirs up. It's ego fuel. So what I'm getting is that sure, have beliefs, but don't get emotionally invested in them. I see a lot of vegans doing that actually as an example, and they are just creating turmoil and ego growth in thier life where they don't have to in terms of changing beliefs I've always been pretty good about not getting dogmatic, and accepting new evidence to change my beliefs. I remember one weekend mocking how silly libertarians were with my dad, and then two weeks later I had made a 180 after listening to some speakers and debates and thinking about it a lot.

Day three was again rough. Meditation was more of a token gesture than anything, but I've found recently that I actually want the peace and disconnection that good meditation brings, so maybe I'm going to go for more than just 20 mins on some days. Things are hard rn, but I'm going to just stick to these new habits and weather the storm. If I do, things will improve eventually. School is so demoralizing, and I've been skipping out more because I crave more peace and control rather than the busy stressful environment that isnt even productive. I can see myself evolving more into stage green now, I used to almost worship productive and be really hard on myself to almost abuse my body to be as productive as possible. Now, I care less about that. The main thing I want is just tims to be at peace and be able to healthily express my emotions and have bonding and healthy relationships with people. I'm also. being more open about my emotions to people.

I'm Intersted I'm doing this, but my current situation doesn't fit with this program. 2 months from now I'll give it a go. Also does someone want to explain in detail or link to something that explains this "transmutation process"?

Reading these replies have been emotionally challenging for my ego, but I think that's a good thing. I'm going to try to keep delving deeper and let my beliefs burn until their is nothing left. It's funny because I started with realizing I was nihilist, it was scary and horrible so I began my quest into philosophy looking for meaning, and now it's looking like things may go full circle. After realizing that I didn't believe anything was true and than searching hard for meaning and believing I'd found it, looks like thats the end. First I deconstructed all the beliefs taught to me by society, then I constructed my own, and now you guys are telling me to deconstruct those! And thats what im going to do, to quote Pearl Jam "It's evolution, baby!" I I honestly used to believe everything Leo says about beliefs like "Killing is not wrong, nothing is right or wrong!" Except is scared the shit out of me, and I couldn't accept it. I dont believe that now, and maybe it's going to full circle. For those saying I just listened to other peoples beliefs and adopted those, no. I've constructed my own philosophy from the very foundation up. It might resemble other people's sure, but it is authentically me.

@Shroomdoctor I couldn't have said it better myself. JP might not be as advanced into spirituality as Leo, but he is essentially trying to help people do the same thing as Leo is - help people get thier lives together! He helped me immensely in my early stages and eventually I moved on to actualized.org but that was like a stepping stone and without JP I wouldn't have had the foundation to understand any of this or find it accessible. And yes, I think Leo is just not well informed into politics which is fine he's doing plenty of other important things, but the radical left, and even much of the normal "left" Is absolutely not stage green, it's akin to taking a glimpse at modern Christian as saying they are stage green for following Jesus.

@RichardY dude. His message is for young guys to take responsibility, self actualize and not be depressed. That's it. Maybe he says stuff on the side too that u can debate over but that's essentially why he's famous and his main thing. It's not not that controversial. Without JPs lectures helping me get on track and care about my inner life I probably wouldn't even be here knowing this forum existed.

@Leo Gura I think your close by saying that universities are like that because they are stage green, but I would actually say that most of what goes on is stage blue mentality. Here me out on this. In the same way that religion is a lower consciousness interpretation of spiritual teachings, I think many of the students and teachers in western universitities have taken stage green ideas and made it into a rigid, dogmatic ideology. the people JP and I are talking about hate opposing opinions, are prejudiced and spiteful towards "oppressors" who have done nothing to harm them, and blindly have total faith in their collective ideologies and will demonize anyone who doesn't conform. Ironically, much of modern day "progressivism" is actually being dons by people who have a stage blue mentality, and create the rise of groups like antifa who will try to beat and intimadate people who have different beliefs. If it is stage green mentality, it's a very toxic and hateful form of it, but I really think it's just stage blue mentality people getting dogmatic and righteous about progressive ideals. You say racism is a stage blue marker, I can tell you that many of the "progressive" ppl in university are out and out racist and hateful to white people.

Day two. After waking up I noticed that I had a flare up of my eczema (something I get pretty much every winter) and some of the rash was on my face. I felt suddenly very uncomfortable in my own skin and I guess more or less had a panic attack. I didn't want to leave my room, so I told my mom how I was feeling and she made breakfast for me and I stayed home from school. I had a nap after a couple hours of still feeling really agitated, and when I woke up my mood was a lot better. After poking around on this forum for a while I decided to go to school after missing some of my classes. I've been a lot more open with telling people how I feel and being vulnerable which is uncaracteristic of me but I think it's a good change. I again caught myself automatically going to my phone a few times to watch videos, and I just let my fringer scroll the YouTube page until I was said to myself "alright, satisfied?" And closed it without clicking anything. I meditated with white noise right before bed because someone was making noise outside, and it was a pretty good session. I bassicly kept bringing my focus back to my breath over and over. My mind would wander into little stories a and slideshows and commentaries, and then I'd refocus on my breath and repeat over and over. It was fascinating too because my inner dialogue kept adapting moment by moment, I would re focus and then it would go "good job, you focused" and then is say to myself "no, that's dialogue too, and so what that, and so is this" It was a rlly intersting demonstration of how sneaky my mind can be, and while I guess you could say it "won" that one, I'm sure my power of awareness and focus will only get stronger if I keep excersising it. I got to bed slightly late, and I woke up an hour later for about an hour, but other than I was surprised and happy to see that I woke up to the alarm, improvement! Kind of. Anyway, still on track.

I can tell your not into stage orange by your depiction of it. I love many aspects of stage orange and i detest the fake, suit wearing work environment company BS, I would never willingly do that. Watch Leos video about it, and if you want to really understand it look at some "stage orange" people, I'd recommenced Stephan Molyeneux as he not only does a great job of explaining and embodying the stage orange mentality (hes a libertarian, and has many videos talking about world issues from a "stage orange" kind of perspective) but also he has a talk show with ppl where he acts as kind of a therapist and talks to them about thier lives to bassicly help them self actualize (although not in those words) which is more of a stage green thing focused on empathizing and helping people out. So yeah check him out, watch some more content about it. If you want to to apply it more directly in your personal life then try to focus on learning the business aspects of your life purpose, and try to really get serious about optimizing your strategy for marketing, creating an image, and bringing ur career to that next level. So if you want integrate stage orange, do that stuff, good luck to you.

Yeah I agree completely. My main physical hobbies are (have been) riding a push scooter (razor longboard scooter) around the city for fun or to get places, playing drums, and working out at the gym and ive noticed all them lift my mood pretty much every time I do them. I think excercise is not only healthy for the body but a great way to get your mind out a rut (negative thinking spiral) it helps you sleep better, feel better, and improves your mood and is just straight up fun if your exercising in a way you enjoy.

@kieranperez yeah those are some really good insights. I think societies move way way slower than individuals generally, so for me personally it's not like im forcing or reminding myself to be a good person and follow my principles, I just want to be and it comes naturally to do those things. Society is a different beast, you can only really influence it bit by bit to evolve, like Leo and us as a community are doing with Actualised.org, maybe we'll have a 0.5% influence on society to grow just a little bit, and that would be a big success!

@Serotoninluv Lol!

@Leo Gura maybe this deserves a new topic, but I wonder how Leo, or someone who agrees on his teachings would reconcile the idea that all beliefs are false / irrelevant with the usefulness of a system of beliefs IE the ideas in spiral dynamics. Again, this might be definition issue and I'll re state that my "beliefs" are not moral "shoulds"n the same way that stage blue beliefs are. They are merely obsersveration based general principles aimed with the goal of people not suffering unnecessarily.There is a difference between challenging the truth value of a belief like this, and challenging the idea of the validity of practical beliefs at all. In response to @kieranperez I can definitely see how after an enlightenment experience you may see far less importance in practical beliefs, but nevertheless we still need some kind of values and governmental structure if we wish to function as a society, and surely some methods will be more effective than others? Is this just one of those paradoxes that can't be logically solved?