aurum

Because you don't know that yet.

I did salvia in college a couple times with friends. It was definitely strange, but nothing traumatic or scary about it. Just some college kids getting high and laughing about it. I'm guessing our doses were relatively low. We smoked it, but I was never good at holding an inhale of smoke that long anyway.

Relaxation, yes. That was one of things that hooked me in my early 20s on meditation. After my first month of consistent meditation, I had such an intense experience of relaxation that it rolled into essentially total bliss. I felt like I had taken MDMA. The afterglow lasted for about a week. Years later, I did a 10-day Vispassana retreat where I also had some interesting bliss experiences. I also unlocked some sort of energetic buzzing at the base of the right side of my neck. Afterwards, the buzzing in this spot would often reactivate when I did energy work, or sometimes just spontaneously. At one point when I was being very consistent with my practice, it would reactivate daily. I could essentially turn it on and off at will. Also around this time, I would occassionally wake up in the middle of the night to my spine spasming, almost like I was having a non-sexual orgasm. It was not as pleasant though. So yes, I've experienced relaxation, buzzing, tingling, etc. But I would not use terms like "unwinding", "shooting out the top of my head" or anything like this. I would just caution against judging awakening from any physical feats or interesting energetic experiences. Physical feats are more dream-content and may be misleading. What's essential is understanding of reality. You could cut my leg off and my understanding of reality would not change at all, even though my physical health and vitality would be diminished.

I do not experience transmutation in any meaningfully, noticeable way. My motivation towards everything else in life stays the same. It’s only my sex drive that is affected. Experiment for yourself. Your experience could be different.

Commonalities are good, but that's just part of how you create a connection. There's much more to it.

It is not rare at all. Understanding feels available to me at almost all times, if I choose. Very self-sustaining. Sometimes I do get distracted and lose awareness though. I'm not sure what you mean exactly by running up against a threshold or state-maximizing. Explain?

I prefer the definition of awakened state I used as moment to moment understanding. I think it's more accurate.

4 dates? How long have you known this person?

It still doesn't seem effective. I'm going to assume by "awakened state" you do not mean existing as pure, formless, Godhead. Because there's no way you're making that your baseline state. If by awakened state you mean a moment by moment understanding of what this is, what your reality is, then yes I'm made much progress in that area. My clarity is better than it's ever been. It's so obvious what reality is and how it couldn't be anything else. This is pure consciousness. That said, I still think my understanding could be deepened. So I'm not claiming any sort of end state.

I've done years of all that. Some of the practices seem to have an energetic effect, depending on how you want to define energy. I think transmissions are mostly BS though. I'll believe it has that effect for you. But that's just not my experience. I've easily done over a thousand hours of meditation and that's also not my experience. I do not get any sense of unwinding energy. And that has not seemed to hamper my awakening at all.

I read vibes from teachers. I would not say I have experiences of "subtle energy". Shaktipat from Esmann does nothing for me. No effect.

I notice nothing from watching Jan Esmann.

If you're having sex, it doesn't matter at all. Just have sex when you want and forget about it otherwise. It only matters if you're single and looking to meet someone. In that case, I find it's good to cut down since too much ejaculation can diminish some of your motivation. You'll pass up opportunities you shouldn't.

How'd you do it? Good work.

He's been doing IFS for years now. Nothing new there.

@mac99 what you experienced was your true nature. Which is indeed a powerful experience. If you want to know about the purpose to life, I’d focus on figuring out what exactly that was you briefly experienced in the weight room. You got a glimpse of something, but there’s much more.

Do you know that's true?

In the what?

Wait till Bryan realizes he wasn't born and can't die. That'll be a laugh.

It's not that I automatically think it's trivial. I agree that if guys have genuine bad habits, you might benefit from nofap. It's more so that I think the benefits are overstated. Especially if you're already relatively healthy. For a guy with decent habits, nofap is not going to do much. It'll probably make you somewhat hornier. You're not going to see some superhuman increase in energy, confidence or magnetism. If someone disagrees with me, you're more than welcome to run your n=1 experiment and report your results. I've experimented over the years and this is my conclusion. It's overrated, but potentially powerful if you're in a bad way.

NoFap is good for increasing your motivation to get laid and maybe unwiring serious porn addiction problem. But that’s about it.

Those things are very much related. What other reason do you think there is for anger? All anger is about protection and asserting oneself.

No offense but you probably don’t have the requisite experience to appreciate what I’m saying. It’s a nuanced point. Context matters. Yes, obviously being stoic, funny, non-attached can also be attractive at times.

I agree with that. My dad had some anger issues so I have a bit of familiarity. I still think you're downplaying the actuality vs potential aspect though.

Only potential?? I agree that anger is not always attractive. It can be socially damaging, immature, out of control or otherwise problematic. But it is not just potential that women are attracted to.