StarStruck

I think it has to do with spiral dynamics and paradigms. If you have higher consciousness you don’t react to it but if you are on the same paradigm you get a paradigm lock. That is why religious people from different sects hate each other for example.

Gold

I did an IQ test for a job application a while back. My IQ is above average for an European. They said I could do a masters. My experience with myself is that I’m a slow learner. I have a motivation/self discipline problem. I’m trying to let go of that identity but my experience says otherwise. Usually I get stuck in the monkey mind who reminds me of my failures while learning. I’m kind of struggling how to deal with this. Meditation helped me and I made progress with calming my hyper active brain but what should be my game plan? Just accept who I am as a Buddhist would? That is the first step. Last couple of weeks I suffered emotionally because of my not so good productivity.

@Thought Art I will try that app out. pomodoro is great. It is only thanks to this technique that I get something done. :))

He changed a lot in the past years. I would like to take a seminar with him but it costs an arm and a leg to get in. ?

This video is a gem: I’m kind of confused right now which might a be a good thing. Trying to figure out why I should do something if I’m truly in the now and enlightened. I reached those higher states of the now and I didn’t have intention to do something.

In his last video he gives away a lot about his personal life. At least what is going to do for the coming months.

I think it is key to move forward but if you move so slow that it almost looks like you are not making progress it is not good.

I saw there was no summary of this video How to do it? Self-inquiry is extremely simple (and therefore extremely difficult): Step 1: Sit down in a quiet place Step 2: Create a possibility in your mind that you do not actually know who or what you are. Step 3: Ask yourself, "Who or what am I?" Step 4: Genuinely wonder what you could be other than a body/mind. Probe your direct experience for answers. Discard all verbal or rational answers. Try to burn through all your beliefs, assumptions, and images of who you are. Drop all of them over time. Step 5: Enlightenment spontaneously dawns after tens or hundreds of thousands of times of asking the question. That's basically all there is to it. But of course, in practice, it will feel 1000x more complicated and more challenging. Van <https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/1040-self-enquiry-how-to/> Self inquiry is about looking past your false self and see your true self Self inquiry = Observe observation itself = meditation Satori = breakthrough You do self inquiry because you think you are in your head and you are actually not there. When you see you are not what you think you are, you will break out of your prison The sensor is not you, the sensor is everywhere What you are You are not your hand, your body, your brain. You are the consciousness You are not all those physical things, you are the thing that is aware of that. You think you are the one who perceives things? No, that is the subject self. Not the objective true you. True self has no properties; especially no physical or mental Be aware of Avoid speculation and conceptualization Be aware that observation trumps conceptualization Creating duality instead become aware of form/formless, mundane and divine, and material/immaterial(spiritual) Start separating formless from the form, concentrate on the formless and then merge formless with form Answer you are seeking is not a verbal answer Exercise: find your deepest sense of who you are (inside your psyche) Pre self inquiry = stare at your finger for 5 minutes and then do the actual self inquiry Put your awareness on your hand, then the couch, then put awareness on your consciousness. Do it with your empty mind; feel what it is Put your focus on the emptiness Calm down so clouds go away so you see the stars Separate form from formless so you won't be absorbed by suffering Think of physical/emotional pain: and ask yourself who is experiencing it? Your answer is wrong, that is your false self! First disassociate and then put things together to reintegrate the form and formless. You need to do both self inquiry(finding yourself) and meditation (concentration)

He has some good points here and there but you have to dig through the shit. I mean he is a successful guy for a reason. I find his accent fake but funny at the same time. Nobody talks like that.

I made the edit.

Couple of people from RSD were coached by Leo a while back and that lead to that actualized rant video about pickup. Owen understands his public. If Owen started preaching Leo’s level of content he wouldn’t have a business to run. He is incrementally changing his business model from pickup to self improvement. It is silly to compare RSD to Actualized dot org. They are preaching to a different public. RSD is more hands on and getting stuff like in stage orange/green. People who need practical advice getting stuff done fit in well with RSD teachings.

I think I might have ADD and the pomodoro technique helped me. Use a metronome with a ticking sound to empty your mind. If you have a busy mind a metronome sound is a life saver.

I think I might have ADD and the pomodoro technique helped me. Use a metronome with a ticking sound to empty your mind. If you have a busy mind a metronome sound is a life saver.

For enlightenment deindentifying with the ego (and the products of it) is key. For meditating it is key to accept everything and let everything be. Aren't these two practises in conflict with each other? I'm kind of struggling with this question.

This kind of reminds me about one of Leo’s videos where he said you first need to accept the duality (recognizing it) before you can let the duality go.

@Villager Albert there is a whole movement called NoFap, started by young guys. Apparently it is an epidemic.

Too much masturbation can cause problems too.

This book is recommended: The Social Skills Guidebook: Manage Shyness, Improve Your Conversations, and Make Friends, Without Giving Up Who You Are

Perhaps you already read it in this thread but I picked IT consultancy. I want to specialize myself in the broader field of IT and business. Programming is part of this "big picture" understanding of IT. The reason why I want to learn programming on the side is to differentiate myself and get insights which will be useful when talking about it and writing about it. Also if I have the basics down of programming (in 10-15 year life span), it will be easier to switch over to programming(if I chose so). And you are right, skills and exp in programming is more important than a degree, but it is a pro to have an IT related background. This is my game plan.

Same with ADD. I did some research on it and the only valuable thing to do (in my perspective) is to use CBT. Try to google on ADD ADHD CBT.

Thanks for the heads up. Becoming a good software developer is long term project for me. Like on a 10-15 years plan. I also see it as a hobby. Some people say I'm wasting my time because as an IT consultant I won't need software developing skills. There is probably some truth in that but it doesn't hurt to have some knowledge about programming. By the way, I picked IT consultancy. I'm two months into my study. From what I hear from students who chose software development is that their workload is much more intenser. I can't talk about what is more or less stressful once you graduate and start working.

I’m following couple of YouTube channels on self development. I have a hard time categorizing my notes and keeping track of which videos I watched and which not. Most don’t have a signature like an episode number. I don’t want to rewatch videos because of opportunity costs. I was thinking about creating a system based on date of upload + name of the video and keeping track in excel. Do you guys do something similar to this? There are so many videos. It is easy to lose track.

How do you guys deal with them? Do you compress them? Or just categorize them and leave it like that? It is hard to categorize because some topics overflow and it is hard to keep it neat. I’m using Evernote by the way.

Is it actually possible to smell fear without being influenced by other people directly? Obviously one can “smell” fear when we see people in fear but today I could feel the fear in the air. It could be a figment of my imagination or that 10ug of lsd I took. Scientist say that brains (feelings) emanate energy. Science is not developed enough to catch fear in the air but is it possible for humans to catch fear in the air?