I know people who play chess for 8-10 years and they still have the same rating. And this is a guy who plays everyday because he has a boring job so he has the time to play it.
More and more I’m understanding that 10k rule is bullshit. Time you put into something is a factor but it is one of the least important factors. Mastery, deliberate practice, and systematic learning is fundamental.
For example I got into boxing a half year ago and I’m already a better boxer than most people there. Same with chess, dancing and other things I’m practicing. It is just that coaching will only bring you so far. A coach can’t do the learning for you. Only make a program for you. And although I follow the same boxing program as other I’m making leaps because I know how the brain-body works. One has to be in alpha brain waves to learn. There are special meditation techniques that get you there. And that combined with visualization exercises and self knowledge (self reflection) is killing.
For me coaching is overrated too. Although I had good coaches (my current boxing coach for example is an olympic medalist) and therapists, they are just not up to date with the latest mind-body science. They are basically applying the 10 k rule and hope for the best but as I said there are people who throw years and years at a skill like that guy I was talking about who plays chess everyday and his rating has been the same.
I tapped into all kinds of teachings but Joe Dispenza’s stuff is insane. I’m surprised it is not on Leo’s book list. Instead he has some esoteric books on there that he doesn’t even believe in himself.
Be careful. That's not true.
There are some jobs that pay a lot and require zero education or skill.
For example, I once met a merchant marine. He worked for 6 months a year on shipping container ships. It pays a lot of money, a high full year's salary for 6 months of work. And it requires no education. They train you for free on the job. This guy was saving tons of money and traveling all around the world and only working 6 months out of the year.
You can find stuff like that if you bother to do deep research as I said.
Nonsense.
It is possible to have 1000x more consciousness than a typical human.
A human's consciousness is like that of an ant from God's perspective.
If you accessed Alien Consciousness you would be so amazed and terrified you would shit yourself. I still have shit stains on my carpet from it.
I get headaches from vape pens. It's caused by the e-liquid. It's not healthy for you.
Try vaping it without the pen and see if you still get headaches.
With that said, chronic use of 5-MeO-DMT can definitely result in damage to your system and brain. That's not just a myth. So be careful. Don't overdo it.
Hard to say. Less than people might think. Blue religion runs deep in such places.
It's easy to get a veneer of Orange and Green, but her core may be very Blue and you will be fooled until deep into the relationship.
It's really hard to advance solidly beyond Orange and Green. In any country. But especially in the 3rd world.
But you won't remember it.
Think of it this way, you were already tortured in another life before this one. But that has no bearing on this life.
The problem is that by mentally imagining all this suffering you create suffering for yourself when you don't have to be suffering now.
Suffering will definitely happen to you, the key is to not worry about it much. Enjoy the good times while they last. They won't last forever.
Also, stop filling your mind with toxic images which then loop around in endless nightmares. As you purify your mind your nightmares will stop.
Then how come something like 50% of scientific studies fail to replicate? Lack of rigor within science.
And the problem with this notion of "rigor" is that it's very much subjective and biased. I could argue that ignoring evidence of the paranormal is lack of rigor on the part of materialists like Dave.
The problem is that Dave claims to be rigorous but he isn't. If he was truly rigorous he would not be a materialist.
Science defines rigor in a circular manner as whatever aligns with its dogmas.
Lol
Look at your paranoia.
If Bill Gates wanted to be a power-hungry psychopath, he could easily do so given his resources, and his work and influence would look very different. He could easily be a tyrant or a James Bond villian.
But here is a guy who devoted the remainder of his life to helping mankind, and you call him a psychopath. That's like spitting in God's face.
You can question the capitalist political system which under-taxes billionaires, but when a billionaire acts for the benefit of powerless people, don't bite his hand. People are not bad for being billionaires. It's how they use their money and power after they get it that matters.
Bill Gates warned about coronavirus some years ago. While you were at home watching Netflix and jerking off, he was working hard to make sure your mom doesn't die of a pandemic. Yet he is the psychopath. Lol
If Bill Gates wanted to, he could have supermodels riding his dick 365 days of the year and feeding him grapes. Yet he works every day to help under-developed countries fight diseases. Think about that.
@Ether
it is true what he says, pretty much ALL of us are mind-absent when eating, not even acknowledging how lucky we are to eat that certain thing. Usually just staring at our blue flashing screens and shoving stuff into our stomachs. We need to eat mindful.
Some people have the mistaken understanding that suffering is not contingent on 'Truth'. Or even no-self.
Then, the following sentence might be too radical for you: If you are suffering even in the subtlest of forms, you are not accessing the truth.
In other words: if you are sitting bored in God-Head in a psychedelic session, thinking you are so above this puny no-self insight - accessing so much depth and richness of consciousness - Well, think again!
The slightest bit of craving produces suffering. And suffering reinforces self-perception. As long as there is even a taint of self-clinging, you don't truly have the insight into no-self. You are in duality. You don't have access to this 'absolute truth' many people are so extremely sure is the case.
Without no-self as a basis, 'God consciousness' is already tainted by the illusion of suffering. And you need to go back to the drawing board and question what aspect of the truth do you REALLY understand. And what part of it is still filled with illusions of the mind.
Don't underestimate the core insights. Keep practicing and before exploring the rich constructs of the mind, make sure you know the big picture deeply and clearly.
----
Much love,
Arda
The problem with this view is that all your so-called enlightened teachers will suffer if you hit them over the head with a hammer.
So you are setting a virtually impossible standard for anyone to meet. By this standard no one knows Truth, no one knows God, no one is awake. And this is false. Awakening and Truth-realization is independent of suffering. You can realize no-self and still suffer.
If you doubt this, think of Christ on the Cross. You think he didn't suffer? Don't kid yourself.
So are you going to deny Christ awakening and truth because he suffered?
You see how silly this gets?
Of course if you suffer easily that shows that there is much more work you could do on yourself. But it doesn't invalidate any awakenings or realizations you've had.
Suffering is part of Absolute Truth. And just because you're not suffering also doesn't mean you're consciousness of the highest truths. This conflation of suffering and moral purity with awakening or truth is very problematic for students in this work. It creates a lot of wrong expectations which will never get met. Stop thinking that awakening or God-realization will make you macho, stoic, infallible, and morally perfect. It won't. Consciousness of Truth is just that, nothing more. You could still be addicted to whatever. If you don't think awakened people have addictions and cravings, you're kidding yourself.
What's not wise is setting up simplistic litmus tests for consciousness of Truth. Like, for example, you are not conscious of Truth unless you can sit still cross-legged for 4 hours without flinching. This is a human-made litmus test which says nothing about one's consciousness of Truth. Truth is not testable by any such litmus test. All it takes to be conscious of Truth is to be conscious of Truth. Nothing more. If you are conscious of Truth but cannot sit still for more than 1 minute, you are still conscious of Truth. You just haven't trained your mind and body to meet some spiritual ideal you have set for yourself.
I suffer plenty. But it doesn't make my awakenings any less real or valid.
@Nemo28 Yes, there is an answer but it's so radical you won't understand it.
You are the obstacle to understanding this.
In truth you ARE looking through the eyes of all being simutaneously. One of whom is this human you think you are now. To be a human precisely means that you are only looking through one set of eyes.
To look through the eyes of all humans does not mean you get to compare all their experiences. It means precisely that you are cut off in your own little private world. A trilion private worlds.
It works just like an online mutliplayer game.
You are me writing this comment. But you are so fully me that you don't even know you're you! Because you are fully me! You are so fully me that you have no memory of ever having been you! And vice versa.
Ta-da!
The mistake you're making is that you are imagining being me while still retaining elements of you. No, you have to fully forget yourself. In other words, you must die. Still want to be me?
Let me try to answer your questions as brief as possible. That is challenging, because the Mahamudra system is technically very complex with many stages. I like to compare Zen/Theravada to cutting a tree with an axe, while Mahamudra is something like a forest harvester: The axe was available already in stone-age and worked, robust and slow. The forest harvester needs precise handling and thorough understanding & training, but is waaay faster.
Anyway, lets try the impossible at least roughly. Here is my main thread of the explanation on Mahamudra in the Pointing out the Great Way style (Daniel Brown, 600 page book, around 200-300 pages on the juicy main-practice-stages of Mahamudra).
To give you an idea/feeling (not really possible to do in brief, but I try): The description of two main steps:
Stage 1 of 4, Skill of Recognition
Stage 3 of 4, Yoga of One Taste (One Taste = Nondual)
Lets start with Stage 1 of 4, Skill of Recognition
It is a "High-Speed-Search-Task into Nature of thoughts, into the "Unfindability/Emptiness" of thoughts. They evaporate when looking into their nature.
The nature of every emerging thought/concept, emerging out of Infinite Consciousness/Absolute Reality): And the nature of thoughts is its unfindability: Thoughts have no location, they are "made"/essence out of Infinite Consciousness. Thoughts dissolve when looking into their nature (Aware Empty Infinite Consciousness). One can never "find" a thought. They dissolve when looking into their essence. They move within onself, and dissolve when looking into them And that process/phenomenon is used.
and with that cutting off (=Trekchö), since its nature is empty Infinite Consciousness/Suchness. Consciousness literally stops the thought then.
At one point when one is fast enough, one sees the order of emergence IN the Infinite Mind is
Understanding or just some other cause
Thought emergence (fully formed, fully emerging in mili-seconds, but not yet "elaborated-out" over several seconds)
being elaborated out over a part of a second to several seconds)
And step 3 doesn't happen then. It is cut off. THAT is was brings Awakened States (nondual, boundless, basically if done fast enough. The thought "capsules" start emerging faster and faster then, 10-20 thoughts capsules per second+, and at some point Awareness stays "on top" of even that. That is where the magic starts (Nonduality begins developing, and the mindstream can get silent, bliss starts flowing. A very discrete and "hard" psychological process).
And that happens in the beginning phases still on the pillow, but can also happen very much in daily life when intensive thought activity is not necessary. Later, it becomes also possible with sophisticated intellectual/creative thinking, when Awareness has become strong enough to stay lucid THROUGH the thought-elaboration. No longer hypnotized, the creative/intellectual happening within oneself on auto-pilot. Awakened Awareness and its Infinite Intelligence tends to take over, the separate-self/ego gets out of the way. That makes it also much more effective, since the ego/separte-self tended to act as a filter. From this Awakenened Awareness all intelligence and creativity comes from anyway, that is why creativity is so highly valued and pleasurable. This Awakened Awareness is the source of bliss anyway....
So, then the next step described in this post (Stage 2, see link above, jumped due to the specific question of Leo for "daily" practice:
Stage 3 of 4, Yoga of One Taste. One Taste = Nondual boundless consciousness. Getting that into daily life. When enough proficiency of creating lucid states with this High-Speed-Cutoff is generated, the Awareness/Lucidity doesn't get lost when thinking. It stays. And with it the Awakened States. And then daily life starts getting nondual, especially if no academic thinking is necessary (still large parts of the day). With academic style thinking/creative thinking, it takes more Lucidity/Training, but is doable.
2nd TOPIC OF THIS POST: God-Realization in your words, or "You become conscious of God as an Infinite Mind dreaming up reality."
And this (Yoga of One Taste) brings us then to the "base camp of Full Enlightenment", the "jumping platform" where Full Enlightenment can happen (some of which main aspects you refer to with God Realization): Stage 4, Yoga of Nonmeditation. I have written elsewhere about it, see link above. The Nondual Stages of Yoga of One Taste would get confirmed in other traditions (Zen for example) as Enlightenment/Satori/Kensho. But not Great/Full Enlightenment, or God-Realization in your wording. That is an "accident", for which Stage 3&4 make accident-prone.
I agree with you that Emptiness/Void is neither God Realization nor Full Enlightenment, where also that "You become conscious of God as an Infinite Mind dreaming up reality" is realized. I am starting more to understand why you emphasize that in your language/system of experience, and I agree on the importance of it. In Zen, there is a differentiation between just shallower Enlightenments (Kenshos, Satoris) into the empty nature of all appearance, or into emptiness. The separte-self can still be very alive then.
The Full Enlightenment on the other side, the total dissolution of the separate-self, leaves one with exactly that realization: "You become conscious of God as an Infinite Mind dreaming up reality." Although there is no more you, nor God, but Reality itself becoming consciousness OF itself IMAGINING itself as all there ever could be.
This Enlightenment is probably between 10-50 less common than the real thing of Full Enlightenment. Probably that is why you are so annoyed with the large majority of Buddhist Enlightenments (either contemporarily claimed or described in literature).
Let me give you four examples of that differentiation (I could give many more, but that would blast the post. Ok, I admit, its already blasted and way too long... forgive me).
1) Huang Po
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangbo_Xiyun
"One Mind
Huángbò's teaching centered on the concept of “mind” (Chinese: hsin), a central issue for Buddhism in China for the previous two centuries or more. He taught that mind cannot be sought by the mind. One of his most important sayings was “mind is the Buddha”. He said:
All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists [red by me]. The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient beings.[8]
He also said: To awaken suddenly to the fact that your own Mind is the Buddha [Nothing exists beside IT=God=Reality=True You], that there is nothing to be attained or a single action to be performed – this is the Supreme Way.[9]"
2) Yogachara school
https://integrallife.com/toward-fourth-turning-buddhism/
"The very notion of the “not-twoness” of Emptiness and Form opened the door, as we briefly mentioned, to other even “stronger” versions of nonduality or (metaphoric!) Wholeness, one of the most prominent being the Yogachara, introduced by the half‑brothers Asanga (more of a brilliant innovator) and Vasubandhu (more of an acute synthesizer). Another name for their school—Vijnaptimatra—is usually translated as “Mind-only” or “Representation-only.” The point here is that the “not-twoness” of Emptiness and Form allowed some philosopher-sages to come up with other terms for the “Form” that was seamlessly conjoined with ultimate Emptiness or Shunyata, one of them being “Mind” itself. The idea was that “Mind” itself was the same as Emptiness—the Yogachara philosophers were adamant that they were talking about the same “unqualifiable” Emptiness that Nagarjuna was, but by also referring to it as “Mind” they were giving (some would say metaphorically, some would say absolutely) a type of compass that would help relate ultimate Emptiness to an everyday reality everybody was aware of (such as, namely, the Mind). The Zen saying, “The everyday mind, just that is the Tao (ultimate Truth)” is a good example of this type of Yogachara thinking. And it showed clearly how one could “bring everything to the path,” starting with your own, simple, everyday awareness. This opened so many other doors—especially Tantra and Vajrayana—that it is referred to as “The Third Turning of the Wheel of Dharma.”
Buddhism has philosophically run a long way. Hinayana didn't even have the full Nondual Realization of Absolute Reality, Nagarjuna made Madyamaka (nothing can be said about Ultimate Reality). And where did it end? The philosophy all which pretty all sophisticated Tantric Buddhism system rely on? MIND-ONLY, Yogachara.
We need to at least differentiate the 2500 year system of Buddhism into these development steps. If not, we are fighting with a "fossil-philosophy"...
3) The Supreme Source, one of the main texts of Dzogchen (quite close to the Mahamudra above, Brown uses Dzogchen and Mahamudra elements together):
on which breathtaking beautiful absolute perpective you agreed:
There is gold in Buddhism, Full Enlightenment, God Realization. And tools to make it stable in daily life. The later systems of Tantric Buddhism, but also Mahayana, have at their philosophic core Yogachara or Madhyamaka (I have written on that elsewhere). These two qualifications of Ultimate Reality are in line with what you call God Realization.
4) In Zen 3 pillars of Zen, Kapleau:
Some quotes from that book:
"ROSHI: With a first enlightenment the realization of oneness is usually shallow. Yet if one has genuinely perceived, even though dimly, and continues to practice devotedly for five or ten more years, this inner vision will expand in depth and magnitude as one’s character acquires flexibility and purity."
The story of Bassui:
"You become conscious of God as an Infinite Mind dreaming up reality."
"This way is no other than the realization of your own Mind. Now what is this Mind? It is the true nature of all sentient beings, that which existed before our parents were born and hence before our own birth, and which presently exists, unchangeable and eternal. So it is called one’s Face before one’s parents were born. This Mind is intrinsically pure. When we are born it is not newly created, and when we die it does not perish. It has no distinction of male or female, nor has it any coloration of good or bad. It cannot be compared with anything, so it is called Buddha-nature. Yet countless thoughts issue from this Selfnature as waves arise in the ocean or as images are reflected in a mirror. To realize your own Mind you must first of all look into the source from which thoughts flow
And: Realization Emptiness, or Void, IS NOT YET FULL ENLIGHTENMENT:
"In this propitious state deepen and deepen the yearning, tirelessly, to the extreme. When the profound questioning penetrates to the very bottom, and that bottom is broken open, not the slightest doubt will remain that your own Mind is itself Buddha, the Void-universe. There will then be no anxiety about life or death, no truth to search for. In a dream you may stray and lose your way home. You ask someone to show you how to return or you pray to God or Buddhas to help you, but still you can’t get home. Once you rouse yourself from your dream-state, however, you find that you are in your own bed and realize that the only way you could have gotten home was to awaken yourself. This [kind of spiritual awakening] is called “return to the origin” or “rebirth in paradise.” It is the kind of inner realization that can be achieved with some training. Virtually all who like zazen and make an effort in practice, be they laypeople or monks, can experience to this degree. But even such [partial] awakening cannot be attained except through the practice of zazen. You would be making a serious error, however, were you to assume that this was true enlightenment in which there is no doubt about the nature of reality. You would be like one who having found copper gives up the desire for gold."
Or: Not yet Full Enlightenment-Realization.
"But even now repeatedly cast off what has been realized, turning back to the subject that realizes, that is, to the root bottom, and resolutely go on. Your Self-nature will then grow brighter and more transparent as your delusive feelings perish, like a gem gaining luster under repeated polishing, until at last it positively illumines the entire universe [infinite nondual mere appearance boundlessness of ones nondual limitless being then]."
"You must understand that anything appearing in your consciousness or seen by your eyes is an illusion [imagined], of no enduring reality. Hence you should neither fear nor be fascinated by such phenomena. If you keep your mind as empty as space, unstained by extraneous matters, no evil spirits can disturb you even on your deathbed. While engaged in zazen, however, keep none of this counsel in mind. You must only become the question “What is this Mind?” or “What is it that hears these sounds?” When you realize this Mind you will know that it is the very source of all Buddhas and sentient beings.
And that ends in Full Enlightenment:
"keep asking with all your strength, “What is it that hears?” Only when you have completely exhausted the questioning will the question burst; now you will feel like someone who has come back from the dead. This is true realization. You will see the Buddhas of all the universes face-to-face and the Dharma Ancestors past and present [they all have been expressions of this Infinite Mind of yours, of the only Reality there is or could be, dreaming up all these worlds]."
There is nothing else than: "You become conscious of God as an Infinite Mind dreaming up reality."
And that becomes stable in daily life when there is no longer a separate-self, but only Reality. God. True Nature. Whatever one wants to call "It" then...
And that Ultimate Reality is Impersonal Infinite Consciousness. "It" is both nothing/impersonal, but also everything there could be imagined. It is Reality itself. The True Core of each being.
As long as something of a remaining separate-self projected on it, its not stable in daily life. The remains of that separate-self will also "colour" all higher insights/realizations. Bliss doesn't flow yet full time, so the suffering will make the being continue and refine anything that is not conforming to this Ultimate Reality, ones True being.
Or according to Huang Po, The One [Infinite] Mind that dreams or imagines it all up all Reality.
Water by the River
PS: Ok, yours truly confesses: short is it not, the post.... But please don't hit me too hard, took some time to write, and I got plenty of other things to do also.
What you said was so hard for me to follow so I cannot agree or disagree.
I'm inclinded to say no.
1) I don't know what his position is. It is not clear from your quote.
2) Yes, Ralston and I have some major disagreements which will leave you scratching your head. But like I said before, you will get that quite often between spiritual teachers, so this is par for the course.
I would underscore that your experience is absolute reality. Have you ever encounted anything which is not your experience? I haven't. If you do, let me know.
Netanyahu and Trump is nothing alike. Trump is a buffoon, Netanyahu is a serious and thoughtful leader.
You don't have to like his policies to appreciate his leadership skill.
Physics has nothing to do with good writing.
Science fiction is not science. It's writing. Creative writing is a craft all on its own. Don't beat around the bush. Tackle it head-on if you wish to be successful.
Whatever physics you need you can learn from YT videos. Don't waste time. Get on with the work of writing. Everything else is distractions.
I've taken years of physics, engineering, and math. It's not gonna help you write a damn thing. The beauty of writing is you can start doing it right fucking now. Today. Don't wait for college.
That's about right.
Another big factor is extroversion. Even if you don't got top 20% looks, but you are naturally highly social, you will get laid plenty.
Getting laid is mostly a function of how much you socialize.
Taking psychedelics chronically will slowly derail your regular life. Yes, it causes demotivation because mundane life is irrelevant in the face of metaphysical consciousness.
If you want your motivation back stop taking psychedelics for a year and just work on your life. Motivation requires building up momentum by working every day for months and years.