Binary Encoded Sunset

Take a look at the lyrics on this thing (available in the link). Second tier thinking? What say you? https://soundcloud.com/cryostorm/the-illusion-grand-demo?si=0af2088446a24d6483a2fec63fd06fd6&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing&fbclid=IwAR3alTrnnqvHxmq2oZDWKXf9HhNKdrY31seeb5aZF6cR3qxIS8raaPHCCb0

Isn't the consensus of the evidence decided by a whole bunch of random doctors and based upon particular test conditions? What about variables which may not have been factored in? I'm not disagreeing with the consensus that you provided but I'm not sure it's particularly rigorous or even scientific for some random doctor or medical autodidact to declare anything "end of story".

A good article about the pitfalls of this territory: https://medium.com/the-abs-tract-organization/the-hypermodern-highway-to-hell-1d3a6441b540

Just wanted more people to focus on this subject! Good intro video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yxg2_6_YLs&t=219s Amazing article that will take you deep here: https://medium.com/complexicated-assemblage/we-are-almost-completely-hyperreal-a8828bec88ba Cut to the gooey centre here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs

A short gem examining self as simulacra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHG-pneRkX4

More gold for you... Simulacra (Movie) Dir. Theo Tagholm Today abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. Simulacra explores the hyperreal. https://www.asff.co.uk/simulacra/

Been a while since I checked into the forum! Hope you're well. Great article here. Worth a share on your blog perhaps https://medium.com/complexicated-assemblage/we-are-almost-completely-hyperreal-a8828bec88ba

"During the 20th century alone, the population in the world has grown from 1.65 billion to 6 billion." If the statistics from the following link are remotely accurate, need I say more? http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ Even in the welcome event that the rapid & exponential growth of the human race slows down a little (but not too much of course), the issue you're raising seems less with the population & more to do with the quality of the population & their ability to adequately fill the positions you appear concerned will become vacant. I think you'll find there are many people who are struggling to find suitable jobs, some of whom are over qualified & that doesn't seem likely to change any time soon. That & the huge rate at which the lower stages are repreducing leaves us questioning the future beneficial conditions of a concerning percentage of certain western culltures. A decrease in poulation growth may give us more time to focus on the development of the existing population & even if it were to decrease by HALF (which I highly doubt because we're horny & love cute things), we'd still have a bigger world population than we did 40 years ago. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't see it.

I might just be being partially ignorant & flippant about this because I'm responding after a rare night out, a bit drunk without doing any research, but based on my supposedly existing knowledge... what's the issue? 1, What makes this specifically an orange problem? Commy China's authoritarian state seems more of a blend of blue, an ever developing taste of orange & a little too much red for comfort (atleast it would seem so from the not so distant past last I checked). Anyone from any SD tier can choose not to have children for a variety of reasons. 2, In a nation that may have (or have had) problems with birth rates & overpopulation (I don't know the present statistics but that's the gist I've developed), why would there be a problem with a smaller, potentially more focussed generation? Personally, I wouldn't encourage there to be less asians in the world because I'm prone to a touch of yellow fever & appreciative of many aspects of various asian cultures, but in a more objective view... less people, more to go around, less noise & clutter, less consumption thus less pollution (bad for the economy, good for the environment... not very orange... more green), &... & wait for it... 3, With less of a population problem, & the recognition of a more pressing need to amplify the numbers of the asian persuasion, they could lift the one kiddo per household rule, freeing up the pro choice & making it easier for loving families to adorn their homes with more farting, burping, bundles of joy... Hooorayyy!!!! No? *(looks around awkwardly)* if anything, that would lead to a granting of more legal freedoms. 4, I realise it's not just China etc that Elon was mentioning... Europe too to some extent... potentially. I'm in the UK & have you seen the rate that our most typical demographics spit out their progenies & plonk 'em onto a metaphorical lifestyle conveyor belt toward TV dinners & the road to pre-teen binge drinking? It's everywhere. I wouldn't advocate depopulation or a strict authoritarian state at all but dayuumnn son... the conditions are potentially scary. Someone please bring on AQAL's upper right quadrant & pick this apart with some factos. P.S. What a beautiful signature you have @Barna

After a day spent studying advanced occult literature & having some cool epiphanies which were alot more interesting than the following contribution, this popped into my head & made me giggle so I thought I'd share it here. Enjoy! There once was a boy with a scar on his forehead. He had the potential to be a great sorceror but had lived under the stairs with his wicked aunt & uncle ever since the untimely passing of his parents. One day, after serveral bizarre occurences, a rotund giant of a man with a beard came to his rescue. "You're a Wizard Harry" said the man. "I'm a what?" replied the boy. Mumon style explanation: "Are you an ordinary guy pretending to be a wizard or a wizard pretending to be an ordinary guy? If you answer wizard, what mind games you play! If you claim to be Tom, Dick or Harry, you surely believe in the magic of nonsense!"

That episode on Derrida's deconstruction was exactly what I needed. After studying everything I can find on the subject, I've found it to bolster my practise in manifold ways. I like to use the enso symbol as a visual reminder of all the meaning attached... (or lack thereof) in the sense of negative theology. A symbol as it were to refresh the experiential field & become an immediate "laughter button" when intentionally triggered but since this episode, my further studies into Derrida have since allowed that visual symbol to utterly deconstruct whatever topic I have in mind & "BAM" I visually flash myself the enso symbol & watch deconstruction ensue... my body relaxes in ways it usually doesn't without meditative focussed intention & a huge amount of release occurs in my body... but everything is reconstructed simultaneously for what it is... illusion or no. This was exactly what I needed.... a finger to the moon toward a genuine systematic understanding of meaning. I described it earlier (for my own experience) in the context of "seeing the wood through the trees"... If you wanna see the wood through the trees, you can annihilate the forest but then you've got the empty space which is very impractical for communicative purposes. (as a metaphor for human communication)... When all meaning is eradicated, you have pretty pictures & an impractical loss of those facets (impossible to cummunicate) but via true & integral deconstruction, you don't neeeeeeed to remove the trees from the wood to appreciate the vista... As each element is deconstructed, you see through that metaphorical wood without the need to remove the trees... if that makes sense. It now occurs to me that the best thing I can do in my development is to master Wilber's AQAL map but with a transcend & include approach to deconstruction... (I haven't looked into this fully yet but I think that when Wilber mentions "post-postmodernism" he is suggesting exactly what Leo meant in the last video [& David R. Loy's incredibly summative paper] that Derrida's deconstruction halted at thought (or linguistics) & didn't take the deconstruction of "hard phenomena" (e.g the objectifying of momentary subjective phenomena) into account... & that by deconstructing each facet regardless of it's structure, then leaving it where it is (not that you can remove such things without denial) ...we can understand these phenomenon (even those illusory) for what they are without the need to remove those facets of experience.

Etherial pearl, vivid & blue kissing the absence with such fleeting luminosity What madness do you beckon? Uncertain how to conjure you Beyond the horizon flickers an effulgent sea It's no way I reckon I wrote that Haiku about one of the more bizarre & inexplicable phenomenon I frequently encounter which is typically known as "the blue pearl". A blue dot or spec of light that just pops up in my visual field at random times throughout the day. Just a flicker as if someone swiftly triggered a laser beam of the deepest blue or indigo. It's size can vary but is typically small & it's in no way a bother, on the contrary - I consider it beautiful! There doesn't seem to be a lot of information about this out there but it is experienced by various people. Some people call it "seeing the essence of the soul" which I'm personally not too keen on because I tend to consider the soul as the ego rather than the grand non-dual phenomenon that one could call "spirit" but semantics aside, I can see why it would be considered this way. Some have referred to it as an opening of astral vision. The third eye literally opening. There was a fun description from a cheeky little occult comic called "The Psychonaut Field Manual" (available as a free PDF) which advised that focussing on it would allow you to harness it & keep it going for longer periods of time until you develop the muscle to a point where your astral visualisations actually appear vividly including whatever "entities" may happen to be present. Of course if these are all thought forms & the astral plain is essentially the subtle material of thoughts or dreams which I tend to consider that it is, then yes, I suppose you would be seeing & creating whatever entities in whatever forms may be lurking on the subtle plain. It occurs to me that without great discipline, this could be terrrifying & would thus require great discipline/ knowledge/ experience to be integrated safely. However, if this is the case - how very, very cool! One Yogi wrote about how the blue pearl opened during meditation, how it engulfed him & took him to new worlds. Awesome huh? I'd very much like to know what (if any) experiences people have had with the blue pearl/ blue dot/ blue angel or whatever else it has been called because so far, all I've got experientially is this delightful luminous dot flashing up occasionally & rousing my curiosity.

@username according to that particular Buddhist Cosmology, yes but I find the idea of any realm being more "divine" than another a tall order when all of non-duality & it's inherent duality could be considered divine. I may be getting confused or not distinguishing properly between the multiple yet singular realm of dreams & an additional astral realm but in terms of spatial dimensions, from a phenomenological perspective, any space we encounter on any plane is a space that we can encounter & any imaginable plane can be recreated via lucid dream, & we could even call that a divine realm. The idea that an astral plane is not divine confuses me because nothing can be more divine than anyygthing else as far as I'm aware & that's why i take these cosmologies with a pinch of salt because no doubt they could be recreated & visited in lucid dreamland/ then given whatever names, meanings & suggested locations that whoever is describing them wants to apply. Unless we can weigh that map to the experiential territory & flesh out the rest with correlatory info as a tentative hypothesis. Granted, I haven't looked very far into the the concept of Red, White, Blue , Gold, or Green Celestial realms so I should probably do that before speaking about them but that's my starting position. Thanks, I'll look further in that direction.

@username Thank you, Jan Esmann offers an attractive explanaton! No, I haven't entered or been swallowed by it although I see it regularly & have noticed that it's more likely to appear if I'm thinking about it & intuitively decide to move toward the experience of seeing it as remembered if that makes sense. This isn't something that typically shows up for me during meditation but simply & vividly during day to day activities. I regularly experience colourful hazes during meditation, typically violet/ purple. Occasionally red if I'm ever in poor condition. Once during a particularly deep meditation involving the channeling of arousal, I disappeared & merged entirely with light - total white oblivion - was breathtaking but only managed that once. Wasn't exactly a blue infinity & there were no blue phenomenon... knowing what we do about the colours & white light leads me to think that "blue infinity" could be a substrate of "white infinity" but any kind of infinity being substrate to another infinity is a tough notion to digest. The colour of oblivion aside, that's a somewhat different description to the one from "The Psychonaut Field Manual". As much as I find the idea of becoming a "Siddha" & attaining a position in blue infinity seductive albeit temporarily, the concept of working on your ability to harness it for years as a "control your own hallucination" tool seem less grandiose & could probably also be used to create a visual day-trip to "blue infinity" so both could potentially be possible in that sense... of course yes, it could just be a basic visual or even some kind of result of a mental electrical overload.. but if it is a portal to astral sight in waking consciousness, then I can understand why some people would say that it contains the whole of being within it, because the ability to see your visualisation as if it were real would allow you to view any imaginable possibility!

Yeah, it's certainly easy to fall off the practise wagon when you have a day job & people you might not want to rock the boat with reality wise around you. I was dragged out of body during sleep paralysis once after I had woken from a lucid dream by a "shadow person" which I fondly think of as what some people might call a Djinn... & ended up going on a vivid inter-dimensional journey which seemed different to typical lucid dreams I've had in many senses & seemed as real as daily life (albeit the contents were unusual) but I did wake up from it as if a lucid dream was over. I've not had the experience of leaving my body, exploring & returning to it, so if astral projection is indeed a totally different phenomena, perhaps "activation of the merkaba" would be required for generating that astral body that is able to project beyond the "material". There may be a correlation there in my experience in the sense that I don't feel that I have had a "merkaba activation" experience & have never had a distinctive astral projection experience wherre I have left, explored the "flipside" of the waking world & returned to it. Perhaps the merkaba is exclusively for astral projection. If you've had an astral projection experience, did you feel that counter rotaing energy whirl before or after?

The first thing I thought of when I saw the title of this post was the Merkaba. I put a bit of time into studying that a while back. Seems to be like an energetic geometry for the development of the "light body", "astral body" or "subtle body", however you wanna address that. Whilst I haven't experienced the sensation of such obvious counter rotations personally, If I had, I would consider this evidence of the Mekaba. You would seem to have had a subtle energy experience of your body, for which there would be a geometrical shape. This is clearly described by Shinzen Young's 'Five ways to know yourself' primer. I'd be on the look out for an increase in lucid dream/ astral projection experiences in the future & would perhaps take this tme to learn more about about inducing & maintaining those kind of experiences as that is what the development of a light body as a "mystical chariot of ascension" would likely be used for (or whatever other descriptions people commonly ascribe to the word merkaba). I like the name "residual self image" for lucid dreams personally but perhaps there's a difference between the lucid dream body & an astral body that can be developed for astral projection via the merkaba. I have not had experiences that yet indicate a difference between lucid dreaming & astral projection but that could of course change.

Name: James Age: 25 Gender: Male Location: UK Occupation: Guitarist/ Vocalist/ Sound Engineer/ Music Producer/ Songwriter Marital Status: Dating Kids: I'd like to be a father one day Hobbies: Enlightenment, meditation, personal development, reading, learning, nature, all kinds of music related things, home cooking, quality entertainment, adventures, exploring! I had a bit of a turbulent & somewhat lonely childhood but found solace in making music. I founded a band and achieved a little bit of success pretty quickly. I'd finally flown that broken nest & made a start of realising that rockstar dream. I moved in with my first love & became domesticated, worked in a carehome, built up a little home recording studio & everything seemed pretty sweet. After 3 years, we parted amicably but in a certain amount of romantic sorrow, I cast myself to the winds of fate. I became complacent & enjoyed being lost - becoming the whiskey swilling life & soul of any party, dabbling in armchair psychology whilst sharpening my micro expression & body language skills. I pissed off a few people by trying to help them conquer their fears ineptly by opening them up through studies of cold reading. I eventually ended up getting rejected from a relationship for the first time & I did everything to win her back from writing a huge romantic rock ballad to poetry but the more I tried, the more my confidence wore away until I became a shadow of my former self. Like a ghost, I'd watch the world go by - understanding it but not feeling part of it, losing more & more friends as I faded further away into gloom & alcoholism. I rested on my laurels & the band started fizzling out (although I did a couple of tours with another band I joined around this time). I eventually found Leo's "how not to be jealous video whilst trying to find a whitty retort to a friend on facebook. I got hooked! I self actualized my way back to "former glory" then all of a sudden after learning how to meditate & having enlightenment explained to me - my world crashed in one week. Booom - accelerated learning, synchronicity - samadhi, disidentification - hours of strong determination sitting meditation - this weary rational agnostic became a sprit junkie & discovered OBE, a realm of dreams, falling in love with everything - a second run at childhood! Tears of joy. Years of the "rock n' roll" lifestyle became a year of living in semi-isolation like a monk! I studied, wrote & meditated for hours on end, amassing endless notes. A year of nothing passed faster than any other year of my life! Sooo errr - back to the drawing board & back to the world now! Personal challenges I've overcome: Lack of confidence Used to be very shy, introverted, and socially awkward Started a band & achieved most of my initial ambitions very early Cleaned up my diet - avoiding unnatural ingredients & processed meats as much as possible Started weightlifting Many, many insecurities, fears & illusions. What I'm working on now: I will be deepening insight & enlightenment forever Making good connections & relationships Working on improving my health & diet Working on being more authentic in relating to others in ways that are both honest & mutually rewarding. Working on trying to find a way to combine my abilities to earn a living, innovate & truly make a difference in the world. To synchronise with the laws of nature absolutely. To be fun, funny & entertaining to enhance my ability to educate, inspire & enlighten. "give a little & you get it back - it goes around like that." -Minus The Bear

This band was one of the biggest influences on my own music. I didn't understand it fully but it just clicked with me as a kid - I had no idea how significant the lyrics would be until discovering actualized.org. I felt a great affinity with the "singer" & strangely enough recently discovered we share the same birthday! After finding real peace through meditation - I lost my attachment to heavy music & genuinely wondered if I should continue with it at all. It was like my rock as a youth. I dedicated my life to it! I still have an album ready to roll so I spent a while re-establishing an acceptance of excitement. I began to genuinely question if it was healthy & wholesome to propagate extreme music - something I would never have dreamed of questioning & at some point it looked pretty bleak but I eventually came full circle. Life itself is a kind of art. Art is wonderful. Music is pure vibration & well - what better way of turning base metal into gold, inviting people to face their fears or shine light on a little darkness with a tongue-in-cheek & often provocative art form? Or in other cases, to share great messages with those who might need it. It seemed senseless to abandon a skill I've become proficient in - in the name of attachment to formlessness. (Although I've been developing a greater appreciation of jazz - classical & particularly shakuhachi flute music as of late!). Silence I'm a fan of too - although silence is not really a thing.

@Sarah_Flagg Wow Sarah, a medium huh? I'd really like to know more about that. I've been pretty far out there but still, as far as I can understand, connection with the dead would be more in the sense of a thought form or as the Tibetan Buddhists call it "Tulpa". Is that not just a residual thought? A sort of intuitive thinking based on available information? Sorry, I digress, I'd like to know more about this & any potential validation of mediums. Back on the topic of reincarnation. In theory - whilst our physical bodies can be destroyed, science says that energy is "immortal". If we are fundamentally energy, then yes, we continue to exist somewhere in some form. If all is one & we are none, then existence is an ever changing deathless sculpture of interweaving order from chaos (perhaps like an ocean of fractals - ok less theory - more directness). Having seen my "residual self image" almost as realistically as I can look down upon my body & see it now in a lucid dream then maintained the same "frame of perception" but in another body & supposedly other dimension (so I waas told) in that astral experience, I like to think that yes, perhaps that residual self image can travel on past the body. I know it can in the "realm of dreams". You hear of great Buddhist masters & Yogi's deciding when to go & leaving their bodies "just like that" supposedly having died of cardiac arrest. The stories of people's outer body experiences all link up very nicely to perhaps add some weight to the notion that some perception of "spirit", energy or consciousness - whatever - can travel beyond. In a universe full of polarity, I like to think that in life there is death so in death one might reasonably theorise there could be life! But, from the direct experience of no self - It seems that metaphor for the unborn - or deathless - that we die alive when the ego is trancended & are reborn when we return to it through attachment. That these could be past lives. From a perspective of oneness, it seems apparent that there is life in death either way because we are every part of this experience. One person is part of all life. When that person dies, all life - that both sort of "is & is not" that person still continues... although that raises the question of the validity of objectivity from our subjective experience.

Cool thread. I'll try to update this when I find videos that are worth sharing. Would be great if we can get a library of links to some really high quality big think cinema! Imagining 10 Dimensions This is like the motherload of thought experiments! Rob Bryanton provides an imaginative thought experiment for imagining the dimensions before & beyond whatever dimension we are or aren't directly experiencing (the 4th or 5th according to this!) Fantastical theory or not, it's one hell of a thing to wrap your head around if that's what floats your boat! Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds This four part series may be a bit "out there" for some or touch alot upon religious concepts but it helps tie some really cool stuff together. Watch with scepticism! The first installment, "Akasha" is alot more abstract than the rest so if the first episode doesn't impress you, try skipping to the second before you give up! Quantum Theory Documentary You don't need to be a scientific genius to find this awesome. This is some serious food for thought, especially for those who love unravelling the riddles of "as above so below".

Crushing your model of reality once you have a pretty solid grasp on it is going to be emotionally unpleasant. Your memory of the original model isn't so much "crushed" more than it is simply sculpted & rearranged but all of the emotional attachments you have to anything "outside" of that routine will be surfacing as you go against it. By trying to move beyond your current homeostasis - that straight & narrow cycle that your current model has kept you on - you will probably be uprooting alot of "negative" emotions. By going against the grain of what you have learned or believe is "right" in an effort to expand, you're venturing into the conceptual territory you may believe is "wrong", counterproductive - and/ or simply have uncomfortable emotions attached to thoughts that you previously deemed unacceptable. Thoughts that oppose your current state of homeostasis. These kinds of emotional attachments or judgements seem to be created & reinforced when we absorb contrary information & choose to accept one thing over another. For example, I might have a belief that I must love everyone & everything - that the concept of hate is unacceptable. I might have alot of resistance & "unpleasant" emotions attached to the concept of hate. I could end up in a situation where I'm trapped around someone so abnoxious & aggressive that it becomes very difficult not to think resentful thoughts about that person. As that person hurts you & people around you, you are emotionally triggered so you decide to use this as an opportunity to learn, grow & reconcile with that concept. You start understanding & releasing your resistance to the concept of hatred etc. In doing this, you allow yourself to think "negative" thoughts & encounter all of the "negative" emotions you have attached to them. It stings like hell & the more you seem to do it, the more you resist the pain & the worse it gets. You feel like trying to expand your paradigm of positive thinking was a mistake - that you should never have started thinking these thoughts in the first place to try making them "less negative". By then trying to return to thinking only positive thoughts, you resist the negative emotions & thoughts you have been observing on that subject & therefore make them worse. At the very least, you'll feel that same sting when you encounter similar experiences (or decide to try to revisit those concepts or memories). Resisting those thoughts only encourages them to metastasise within you. Once you're already feeling those emotions, try sinking into them. Accepting them all the way down. Try locating the source of that pain & feeling it out. Find out where it comes from & let it surface so you don't have to keep running from that concept, emotion or scenario. Doing this can be really unpleasant. Like opening pandora's box & feeling a flood of emotional pain - but if you feel it out, locate the route of that pain, what it's attached to, why you were responsible & reframe it once the emotions have been fully felt & released - then, you won't have to keep running from it. You will no longer negate that concept & thus it will no longer be a negative thought. Now you can return to your ideal routine - your optimal state of homeostasis with that "old wound" healed. That concept will no longer affect you negatively. It's like when you're feeling sad - in my experience, the worst thing you can do when you're feeling sad is resist the way you feel. I like to think of joy & despair like the north & south poles of a globe. (North meets south > south meets north) & thus if you sink into your sorrow instead of resisting it, you will fall out of the bottom of despair & find yourself at the top of joy! Disclaimer - this works for me! I'm not encouraging you to try making yourself depressed or to work against your positive outlook. Just that if you do find yourself in a sorrowful state - like overcoming a fear of the dark - accepting the inevitability of night & learning to observe the beauty of it's contrast helps the time pass until the sun rises. EDIT: Sorry, I missed the second page of comments when I wrote this reply & I realise it may be a bit much in this case but I hope I've provided something useful nonetheless!

Thank you! Perhaps I still struggle with ways to make consequences clear to people in ways that are encouraging rather than fear inspiring. Filling people with fear seems to just reinforce their conceptual ideals & invites them to go piss others off by telling them what is & isn't ok - which can be necessary but has it's downside without sounding equally encouraging & permissive. There's a time-space for everything! Either way, telling others what to do & not do will keep coming back to you - it's a little tedious!

This is an extremely complex & open ended topic. One that I have great difficulty explaining to people in a way that doesn't just make them think of nihilism. Morality as a concept is completely different to moral behaviour. If you were teaching a person to detach & live on autopilot you certainly wouldn't program their brains with "amoral" concepts or anything destructive - however, once enlightened, a person can deconstruct all concept of their moral concerns without much risk of amoral behaviour for various reasons. Once you are sensitive & insightful enough, your emotions & instincts become your guidance system yet you aren't identified with them & following them is optional - but wise. You recognise there is no you which makes feeling threatened much more difficult. Plus, you directly relate the rest of the world to yourself, so you understand that any harm you inflict on others is self destruction. We're capable of spinning anything in our mind to make it acceptable or humorous in concept yet in reality, the memory of how you suffered before... well, you just wouldn't want to inflict that on anyone. Even if someone pisses you off that badly. As I've been exploring the darker sides of humanity lately to find reconciliation with it, I've recently been in the presence of some seriously aggressive idiots & some pretty destructive thoughts have crossed my mind. Nonetheless, I have equal concern for the welfare of others as I have for mine & I know very well that I can teach them a lesson without "teaching them a lesson." There are hundreds of examples in nature of the passively vulnerable surviving unscathed. The victim asks to be victimised by a victim who is attacking to escape his victimhood. It is possible disarm him with compassionate indifference relative to his threats. A compassionate indifference which is reinforced by a lack of resistance to fear. A few weeks ago I shouted "shut up & listen" at a bunch of drunk guys who were fighting. One of them came over & punched me in the face. I went over to his group & asked him calmly why he did it. He apologised & shook my hand. They thought I was super cool & wanted to be friends - they were right! I did directly learn not to shout at people to stop fights though. Ultimately, as far as conduct is concerned I say learn, play, share, explore, make a movie of it! Do whatever, just don't make people suffer & try not to be abnoxious. No one likes that, not even abnoxious people. Respect people's wishes & appreciate where they are. If you're smart enough, you'll be able to prove alot without trying to prove anything. Encourage people! Make life easy for them! Line them up with a sure win wherever you can. If anything, demoralising has greatly improved my interactions with the world & made conversation of any nature with any person (as far as my knowledge permits) much more smooth & pleasurable. I like to find people's insecurities & gently expose them in a way that gets the recipient laughing or atleast comfortable. Because I don't hold onto any morals in concept does not mean I do not value moral behaviour or have ethical concern. Morality is wonderful in actuality but dangerous in theory & unfortunately many people are far from seperating theory from reality.

When the mechanical meat building that is you, recognises it's existential "mechanical meat buildingness" - that all thoughts are nothing but - thoughts & the voice in your head is just a malleable "thought form" which is clearly as 'fluid' as every other bit of material & this is directly experienced beyond concept - then you know you're enlightened. You know you're enlightened because it's the most incredible relief. A bit like looking through the mouth of a cave from the inside. Only all of a sudden, you are the cave - & the view... but paradoxically you see you're not any part of that in particular. Further "enlightenments" happen because from this incredibly grounding perspective you have a solid albeit still subjective reference to relate your experience to. You can weigh information against direct experience & connect the dots. Meaning is basically just pattern recognition so after direct experience of reality, the database or "knowledge graph" of everything you know has a platform from which to connect itself. I also really like how you can literally see lights in your head if you do enough meditation. Nothing makes you feel more "enlightened" than your mind's eye flickering at different speeds like a strobelight in the darkness as it appears to be eclipsed by the density of your thought-stream. Then things get really interesting when you get into the realm of lucid dreaming. It's like "I see that I'm no particular part of this experience but I literally appear to be in a holographic thought dimension here" or "the other side" as I like to call it. Which really leaves interesting questions about "the soul/ ego." Do you need this meat building or can your simply take your mental projection of you & traverse infinite worlds? I know you can experience that (see my profile's 'about me' section for a poetic explanation). I can't prove to you that I'm enlightened but I can tell you about my experiences & those that will have similar experiences will recognise the patterns & that's how we'll recognise each other. That or eye to eye transmission. Super cool - Imagine looking into another's eyes & "just knowing" the depths of which the other can see themselves in you. For a kid who just wanted to be understood all his life, the very thought of that beckons tears of joy. Enlightenment was the greatest relief. When I was young I always said "the saddest thing in the world to me is knowing I'll never be able to see the world through someone else's eyes." I was so relieved to discover I was wrong. It's as if reality is just an animated sculpture that views itself as a reflection through it's own organic "technology" & is comprised of various layers or "dimensions". If all matter is composed of energy & all equals energy & that is what people call "spirit" then anyone who has had a lucid dream/ outerbody experience has experienced a "spirit world". An enlightened person sees this & recognises the experience as an existential reality albeit a dream. Beyond this, the closest I got to "Nirvana" was being engulfed by white light during meditation once. It was so peaceful & relieving but my meditation timer went off & I returned to the room gasping for air... I like to think of that as a near death experience. I brought it on by getting aroused during seated meditation & it was the most peaceful I've ever felt - nothing but bright white. No body, no me - just brilliance. I know this might sound far fetched to some but hey, I'm just telling you what I've experienced! Before Leo's enlightenment videos, the closest I'd ever been to anything remotely spiritual was one terrifying lucid dream years back & I've no experience with hallucinogenic drugs beyond a bit of weed as a teen.

I guess you can do what you like provided you're aware of the consequences. I was a very lonely kid but I waited until I fell for someone before having sex for the first time (which took forming a band to achieve haha) I was 18. The first experience was kinda rubbish, I came almost instantly & would've been embarassed had I not been so cheerful about "getting laid" for the first time. That ended up in a beautiful 3 year relationship with very intimate multiple-orgasmic sex, my first apartment/ partnership & proper job - it also lead to my first heartbreak but we're still really good friends, in fact, I recently attended her wedding! I can't really get into the idea of sleeping with someone unless there's a connection there. The kind where your eyes fix & you intuitively register an attraction. Once a few years ago, I was drunk & a bit miserable on NYE & ended up having my first one night stand with someone who I didn't feel much of a connection with. It felt pretty empty but hey ho - another notch right? Man points right? Hmmmm... not sure it's my thing. Not all guys are just in it for the sex but it's up to you if an emotional connection is something you need. I wouldn't pick up anyone I don't feel a real spark & connection with but I love understanding the ins & outs of pick up. Here's a fun interaction I had at a bar this weekend: Girl: "Does anyone know how to cure hiccups?" Me: "Yeah, a german doctor taught me how to do this but you might not like it. I'm just gonna apply some pressure around your solar plexus, tell me if it hurts." Girl: "Solar plexus? Ouch... *pauses* wow, you really cured my hiccups, you're awesome!" Me: "Yeah, & I got to feel your chest so I guess we both win." She was into me after that! But I wasn't into her - so after politely accepting some uncomfortably flirty gratitude, I went somewhere else. I've only slept with about 7 people in total. 5 of which were relationships of varying depths & qualities. All of them had slept with more people than I! Except one or 2... I think!