aurum

@Epikur Haven’t watched any of Owen’s content in a while. I was worried he might have gone some sort of 2020 conspiracy or alt-right rabbit hole. It seems like his message is more or less the same it has been for a long time, with just some details changed. It’s good to see.

Yeah I can’t say I find any appeal to completely turning off all thought forever. My sense is that is not the best life, or at least not what I came here to do. And perhaps it’s not even possible. I’ve never met anyone who no longer has thought. But at the same time, there definitely has been tremendous benefit for me in learning to silence the mind at times. Otherwise you just drive yourself crazy with anxiety. There’s no space. Form needs balance with formlessness. In terms of creativity, I find they go hand in hand. Yes, you need thought for creativity. But no, excessive thinking also does not help. Excessive thinking usually blocks creativity cause you’re too anxious.

It’s powerful regardless of what you want to call it. Taking mdma made me feel love, whole and complete for one of the first times in my life. In a sense I suppose that makes it dangerous. You might think that state was only achievable with mdma, and of course it’s not. But I personally never abused it. It really just made me realize how much better I could feel about life.

For me, you finding things funny > than you being funny. I like girls who laugh a lot. It doesn’t need to be over the top, but you should be able to generally find humor in things.

@Focus Shift It’s great that you want people to collaborate. I agree with you, I want to see more collaboration as well. One of the barriers I’ve seen to that happening is that Us vs Them thinking motivates the general population. Thus, political leaders often learn either consciously or unconsciously that they need to divide people if they are to effective. Us vs Them thinking also begets more Us vs Them thinking. The more I think libertarians are the enemy, the more I’m motivated to engage in divisive behavior. And the more the libertarians then feel justified in doing the same. So you get caught in a negative loop that requires a jump in consciousness / Love to break. Such a jump is usually culturally self-emergent. But we can help it along by doing conscious work and setting an example.

If she’s really mentally unstable I would not have her do any psychedelics. She probably needs something more basic to ground her first, like a yoga class.

@Illusory Self Did you ever try improv comedy? I took a class in it. It’s super challenging for those of us who have anxiety (everyone) but extremely rewarding as well. It’s not my zone of genius, but it definitely can be a path of not only social confidence, but even spiritual development. You really have to learn how to let go and trust.

No that’s not the point. If you’ve been graduated for a long time, than you probably should not do that. But that’s besides the point. I am not saying whether your reasons are true or not. Only that your mind retroactively generates them based on how you’re feeling. And then the more you think that way, the worse you feel, which pulls you into a negative spiral. Thus, the “what-ifs” are interchangeable. And if you felt a different way, your mind would spin a different story to match that feeling. Which then can pull you into a positive spiral. Ignore what you should or shouldn’t do for now. Ignore all mental stories and go into the feeling itself. Get curious about. Where is it? What does it feel like? What does it remind you of? Can you remember feeling like that in the past? The more mindfulness you bring to how you’re feeling, the more over time you can create a new pattern. The mindfulness creates the space necessary to think a different thought and make new choices.

Sure I get it. There is a lot of that in frats. My deeper point is that you want to separate the reason your mind is spinning for being anxious from the actual feeling. The “reasons” are interchangeable. The feeling is the constant. Someone who is anxious or afraid can always find a million reasons why that is the case. Endless reasons really. Oh I can feel it. I think that’s why I have a tendency to be hard on you in my posts.

@Hardkill Speaking as one of those ex-frat guys, yes it definitely helps with meeting girls. But it’s still not a guarantee of anything. For one thing, frats usually have a subjective hierarchy in terms of how “cool” they are perceived on campus. Many of them are middle / bottom tier frats that barely throw parties. It’s just like a group of 20-30 guys that hang out. But even if you join one of the “top” frats that throw the biggest, coolest parties, it still doesn’t mean you automatically will meet a girl. There were guys in my fraternity who did really well for themselves, and guys who did not. You still have to have the skills. You still have to lead. You still have to know how to be fun. You still have to be social. You still have confidence. A fraternity can help you develop those things, but it in itself is not magic. If you really don’t want to join a fraternity, then don’t. There are endless ways to meet a girl you like. But you should have at least some way in which you are getting a lot of socializing in. Some of those stupid things can be a lot of fun. Maybe try it. As far as time, you are always sacrificing time in some way in order to date. There is not getting around that. It only matters if it’s worth it to you. What I’ve noticed from your posts is that you tend to “what-if?” a lot. It feels like an endless game of whack-a-mole. Knock down one fear / objection, and another one comes up. Consider: the answer to your post is irrelevant because there will always be another question. Ask yourself “Am I afraid? If so, what am I afraid of? And where does it come from? How is it affecting my behavior?” Get curious about your fear.

You definitely might have some good genetics. But you’re also getting your “beginner gains” right now. Eventually you’ll start hitting diminishing returns and it will get harder and harder to progress. You’ll get there if you keep working on it. Try a push up progression, like doing push ups on your knees at first. Then eventually go to full. If you just want to be normal healthy then you don’t need hours and hours of cardio. In fact I wouldn’t recommend it anyway. You definitely want to be doing some cardio though. Look into HIIT (high intensity interval training). It’s basically cardio but much shorter and less boring. You can also mix up your steady-state cardio, e.g 10 min jog, 10min bike, 10min row. Getting outside can help too. I would not do that if your goal is to stay small. Whoever gave you that advice I’d say gave you poor direction. 1-5 reps is where you build strength, but not so much endurance or muscle. Building muscle is where the size comes in and you start to look bigger. Powerlifters tend to stay in this rep range because they want to maximize strength. 10-20 reps you’re really getting into hypertrophy, which is where you’ll build more muscle and endurance, but less strength. Bodybuilders tend to stick somewhere in this range since their goal is to look big. Could be more mental than anything else. Weightlifting is not purely physical. How you feel that day matters to a degree. That sounds frustrating to me. I’d have a lot of anger / resentment towards my mom for something like that.

@Tudo step one would be to stop leading girls on who you’re not interested in. Become aware if there’s a sense a validation that you may get from doing so, i.e “wow she wanted me so badly, I’m cool”.

I would suggest that there is little ultimate difference between the end goal of what Eckhart Tolle teaches and what IFS teaches. It’s just a different conceptual framework and somewhat of a different path to get there.

@PenguinPablo you can work this job for awhile, but if it’s that exploitative, at some point I’d start making an exit strategy. So step one would be to figure out what you rather be doing than this job. Leo’s LP course might help with that. Step two would be to leverage the financial resources you are bringing in to start your new project, whatever that may be. Basically be strategic about the money you are bringing in. Any business you start is likely going to require a decent amount of startup capital. So I would make wise decisions with your spending.

@Tristan12 I can’t imagine it’s a problem with the camera. I have a cheaper Canon model and it gives me no issues as far as audio. Probably it is your mic or the way you are recording. Some microphones pick up only noise from in front of them while others pick up noise in more of a 360 degree way. If you have a 360 mic that is very sensitive then you could be picking up minor sounds that you only really hear once recorded.

To me, it sounds like Law of Attraction 101. Life is a mental mirror. You’re perpetually focused on people not bothering you, so of course that’s what shows up in your experience. But when you’re open, you’re not focused on that negative outcome anymore. So people leave you alone.

No one has all their needs met. That’s correct. You network with people near to you in terms of development and build together. Generally you will not be able to meet or network with people who are extremely wealthy or famous. And if you try to hack your way up the social ladder, you’ll generally not see much results. Some people may even exploit that desire. There are exceptions. One of my friends throws these crazy mastermind dinners with very successful people in Miami. I’ve been to one of these dinners, and I was easily the least objectively successful person there. But I still got to meet everyone, explain to people what I do and got some cool connections out of it. So sometimes you get can opportunities like that. But generally what I would recommend is to work on building something real and of value. That could be a skill, a business, a social media following, whatever. It’s a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg scenario, because obviously it can be challenging to do this if you have no connections or resources. So go slow. Eventually it starts to snowball. The more value you offer, the more people want to associate with you, the more opportunities you get, the more value you can bring. So network as much as you can. But also, build the foundation and work up from there over time. It might take years. But the more you build that snowball, the more momentum it gets.

@Kshantivadin Looks like a good general outline to me. One thing I’ll add is that building solid friendships requires Win/Win scenarios. It’s not enough that you just provide value to them or they just provide value to you. Both those configurations are unstable and won’t last long-tern. Really you need to both be adding value to each other. And value is of course very subject. Intimacy could be considered a form of value. Good conversation could be value. Business contacts could be value. Anything you care about is value. So I would define what needs you are looking to be fulfilled. And then when you meet people, look for ways they might meet one or more of your needs. It’s okay for one person to not be all things to you and not meet all your needs. They don’t need to be your best friend and your party buddy and your business partner and your lover and and and… Ticking just one box can potentially be enough. “This is the person I talk to when I have a bad day” or “this is the person I talk about consciousness with” or “this is the guy I party with”. Doing that takes the pressure off of people having to be perfect in order for them to be in your life. And it increases the optionality you have for meeting your needs. In my experience, the more each party values the needs being met, the stronger the friendship. It really just becomes obvious that you should spend time together. From there, maintaining your social circle is like being a gardner. If you just grow a bunch a plants but then don’t tend to them on a regular basis, they eventually die. That’s also your friendships. And some plants need more regular tending to than others. But the key is seeing these relationships are alive, evolving entities, rather than just static, fixed things.

Nothing is ultimately antithetical to spiritual development. We will continue to use the technology we have developed unconsciously for some time. Humanity is maturing. Tech like social media, robots, AI and VR are very new. We do not understand the full implications and Right Use of all our technology yet. That takes experience and will continue to evolve.

What specifically about what I said did you find extreme?

Yeah I’ve found the same. Obviously a good channel by definition is able to “get out of the way”. But in my experience it’s never 100%. Even to use a specific language already implies a certain distortion from the original vibrations. The way I’ve heard it described, it’s more like a third entity is created. Which is mix of the channel and that which is being channeled. I wouldn’t doubt that our urban environments are not the healthiest. Surely they affect us in a myriad of ways, some perhaps unconscious to us. But it seems a stretch to me to suggest they are a catalyst for homosexuality. If there is a link, I’m not seeing it.

Not a good look for Ra on this one. I’m pretty sure homosexuality is not caused by urban cities distorting our aura. Definitely calls into question what biases the channeler might have had.

I’d recommend by actually becoming a man of value. It’s not really a limiting belief if you’re say, a 20 year old kid with nothing to offer, that a model “10” likely won’t be interested in you. She probably won’t, and that’s how it should be. But you CAN develop yourself over the years to where you are bringing a ton of value to the table. And part of the value includes working on your inner confidence and self-esteem. That itself is value. But the tangibles don’t hurt either.

Interesting that you interpreted what I said as potentially extreme feminism. I would like to see the differences between men and women honored. I would also like to see the medicine and wisdom of the feminine brought online in the collective.

Yes and no. At lower level of development, guilt/fear/shame are indeed power tools of the Social Matrix to influence and control behavior. They do create order in society to a certain extent. And awakening does require letting go of a lot of traditional morality, which is socially constructed and relative. However, at a higher level of development, what keeps a person from being a "devil" is not fear/shame/guilt. It's consciousness. It's an awareness of Oneness and of Love. If you were woke enough to accept that you were the only conscious entity in existence, there would be so much Love pouring out of you that devilry would be essentially nonexistent in your behavior. It would not even be a consideration. Of course you would still have to survive as a human, which requires a certain amount of selfishness. But that’s not really the devilry we are mostly concerned with. That's the power of moving up the vibrational scale. You enter a new world with new rules. Notice that all the greatest mystics / saints / sages were revered for their Love, not devilry. You cannot know Truth and be a devil.