A beautiful life is the manifestation of your inner beauty and inner strength. Work on your inner kingdom. The outer kingdom will be made for you.
The Soil
The soil holds the vision for your life and the potential for the best version of yourself. It can change with new seasons of life, so neither it has to be perfect, nor it is set in stone.
Go crazy to come up with your highest vision for yourself and your life.
The Seeds
The seeds are your intentions. When you’re unaware of your intentions, it’s easy to fall into the traps of addictive/unproductive/distracting thoughts and behaviors. When you’re conscious, you plant the seeds according to your vision.
Set loving, positive, and deliberate intentions each day to your claim your responsibility as the creator of your reality.
The Water
Watering the seeds is nurturing them by acting or imagining. When the water comes from a pure source (your Higher Self), the seeds that are true to you will grow. The seeds that don’t grow aren’t meant to grow, so you’ve got to let them go.
Focus on watering the roots of the plants that grow.
The Weeds
Weeds are the distractions that drain your time, energy and attention as they create useless drama in your life.
Cut them off and raise your standards to tolerate only what is beautiful or useful in your garden.
The Sun
Sunlight is faith. The universe conspires to manifest the life you desire if stay loyal to your vision.
Trust the process and remember that all things come in perfect timing.
The Plants
Plants are the manifestations of your intentions. If you keep your intentions pure, the plants will grow strong and thrive even in difficult times.
Take good care of your manifestations to further grow and nurture them.
The Fruits
Fruits are the gifts of your manifestations that you can use to celebrate and be grateful for. Each fruit also comes with a seed that you can use to grow your garden.
Focus on the roots and the fruits will be ready to harvest at the right time. Enjoy and share them with others.

Since this is a very male-dominated forum, I figured I would put a few bits of advice on here for a woman looking to find her match.
1. Work on yourself psychologically - (Number One Advice!!!) You will only ever find a man who mirrors your Shadow until you integrate it, so integrate your Shadow so that you won't attract or be attracted to it in real life. Work on getting rid of any self-esteem issues and codependent tendencies especially, as these tend to attract abusive men. 
2. Know and respect your own boundaries - This means knowing what you do and don't want and knowing what your dealbreakers are. You don't have any ability to change anyone. But you can be firm about what you want and sort anyone who doesn't fit.
3. Make your relationship decisions with an 80/20 heart to mind ratio - Most relationship decisions should be made by following your emotions, instincts, and intuition as this will always bring you to who mirrors you (either mirroring your shadow or your personality). But you should also keep the mind around to keep sight on your boundaries and dealbreakers. But avoid letting the mind create huge lists of traits that you require a partner to possess. The mind will sort everyone if you let it lead over the heart. 
4. Adopt the "I am the prize" mindset in dating - Never chase anyone or compete for anyone's attention, no matter how much you care about him. The man should be the one reaching out 75% of the time as he is the one winning you over, not the other way around. The egg does not chase the sperm. 
5. Be friendly and social with a network of people who are cut from the same cloth as you - Have a strong social network with many acquaintances, friends, and very close friends. This is the best way to meet a partner. Honestly... this bit of advice should be number one for both men and women! It's the best way to meet someone.
6. Never date a guy who is outside your social network - This one might seem extreme to many people because of us living in a very atomized society. But it's super important! The advice here is, if you haven't known and interacted with a guy platonically for at least a month or two, then don't go out with that guy... not even on a 30 minute coffee date. If your relationship to a man starts out on a romantic/sexual foot, it doesn't give enough platonic time to develop a proper attraction or bond. It's also a red flag because he probably starts off on that foot with many women. Also, full stop, don't do dating apps. Dating apps blunt the intuition... which is your best tool in dating. 
7. Nothing lukewarm - Only form relationships with men who you feel very strongly about. Let your intuition show you who you like. 
8. Develop your own unique style - When you have your own style, of course, do it for yourself. But a perk of having a unique style is that you'll tend to attract men of similar tastes. Also, it tends to repel the men who don't share your tastes. 
9. Don't try too hard - Be yourself and meet people. And if a man strikes your fancy, then don't overthink it. Interact with him casually and playfully but don't come on too strong. 
10. Look out for red flags - A lot of this has to do with numbers 1 and 2, so begin there first. But also watch out for red flags that indicate that a given man is unkind or has weak character. For example, things like not having a job, being rude to waitstaff, making jokes at other's expense. 
11. Know your green flags - Know which positive qualities you require in a partner. (For example - kindness, respect, hard-working, discipline, etc.) 
12. Be in your Yin energy - Similar to number 4. Be in your Yin energy, which means focusing towards being, receptivity, warmth, creativity, intuition, etc. This will not only attract men in general... it will also attract compatible men who appreciate your unique Yin energy. 
Edit: One last piece of advice...
You must understand that love is blind and that there is a chance you will fall in love with any man you spend a considerable amount of time with. And once that deeper bond happens, it will be difficult to sever the attraction. So, be sure that you only spend a lot of time around men of strong character. If you're hanging out with violent criminals, you'll likely fall for a violent criminal. If you're hanging out with immature men, you'll likely fall for an immature man. If you're hanging out with good men, you'll likely fall for a good man. 

Wanted to share a few of my recent illustrations that have a sort of spiritual undertone. Looks like the quality of the image is reduced quite a lot in the upload process but its not too bad.
This one below is called 'Being vs Doing' and it was for an editorial article talking about how we should spend more time Being and less time doing during covid lockdown:

This piece was called 'Drifter'. It's open to interpretation

This is called 'Garden of Redemption'. It depicts an angelic spiritual being who has descended into a hell realm to save those who have lost their way.

For those of you who are struggling with finding your life purpose or knowing what you want to do in life I think this video will really help you.
In the video Jack Conte (the CEO of Patreon) talks about all of his projects that he started and failed at. 
He tried dozens of things over many years, different music projects, animation, music videos, youtube videos, podcasts etc.
The main lesson that he is communicating is to try lots of different things/projects until one of them works. Don't expect your first idea to be the one and only thing you do for the next 10 years.  Experimentation is the key! 
I'd really recommend watching the whole video.
 
 

I just wrote this above. But I'm telling you that hot girls are usually not treated well. They are usually treated exploitatively and interchangeably. And both men and women tend to resent very attractive women.
Your best bet for being treated well as a woman (attractive or not attractive) is to have a lot of self-respect and boundaries... and to have a lot of things going for yourself. You have to be self-possessed if you want respect.
You 100% get treated better and with more respect with the latter in comparison to just the former. And I do mean in society at large.
I can tell you (and most women could tell you) from personal experience that basic respect and human dignity is WAY better than the princess treatment... because the princess treatment comes with some pretty gnarly strings attached. 

If your goal is to lose weight you need to make permanent changes to your daily diet.
If you forever eliminate the wrong foods from your diet, you will never have to worry about gaining weight ever again. And you don't have to starve.
Cleaning up your diet is THE KEY to permanent and effortless weight loss.
When you start eating healthy food and forever banish junk food, cravings become less of a thing.
Overeating healthy whole food is basically impossible. Eat as much as you like.
But bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, etc is not healthy food. Cut all that shit out. If you want to lose weight, cut out all grains and starches.

@ginger28 Nothing will get a girl to dump you faster than lack of leadership, indecisiveness, and insecurity, which forces her to be the leader.
Tisk, tisk.
You gotta get your shit together and take charge of the situation. You lead she follows.

I've been compiling a list of Stage Green (or higher) communities ranging from eco villages to spiritual ashrams. Please add any to the list and share about your experiences.
 
Tamera Peace Project, Portugal 
Mooji Ashram, Portugal 
Findhorn, UK
Auroville, India
Osho Ashram, Poona, India
Amma Ashram, Southern India
Sadhguru Ashram, India
Plum Village, France
InanItah, Nicaragua 
Momentum Collective, Central America
Hridaya Yoga, France & Mexico
Hridaya Family, San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico
Refugio Terraza de la Tierra, Oaxaca, Mexico
Tribal Village, Lake Atitlan, Guatemala 
Krishna Village, Australia 
Osho Risk, Denmark
Karme-Choling, VT
Monastic Academy, VT
Possibility Alliance, Maine
Dancing Rabbit Eco Village, Missouri 
Ananda Village, Nevada City, CA
The Abode of the Message, NY
Yogaville, Virginia 
Sivananda Ashram, Bahamas
Angsbacka, Sweden 
Future Thinkers Smart Village, Canada 
Anuttara Ashram, Canada 
Sadhguru Ashram, Tennessee 
Arcosanti, Arizona
Lama Foundation, New Mexico 
Osho Afros, Greece
Punta Mona Center, Costa Rica
Finca Mia, Costa Rica
PachaMama, Costa Rica
Shunyamurti Sat Yoga Ashram, Costa Rica

The key to successful relationship is being content in the presence of solitude in the first place. If you require other people to feel whole, you will always suffer once they all leave you. 
That being said, socialising can be very beneficial but also very toxic. I'd rather be alone than hang out with people who socialise to elevate their "social hierarchy status", polish their ego, boast, talk shit and generally waste time. Listen to your own intuition instead of other people out there. 
You don't really need many people in your life but it can be contributing to have a like minded person or two in your life. Seeking  friends should not be random like we did in highs school by becoming friends with people who sit next to us but very picky and deliberate action ( as dicki-sh as that sounds). You want people who grow you and challenge you, you want people who will hold you accountable and give you critical but constructive feedback. You don't need fake, pretenders who will complements you and stick a knife in your back as soon as you turn around. 
As per the ladies, well again listen to your intuition again. It definitely has its benefits to experiment with sexual partners and it is also a pleasant distraction but you don't want to make it a priority ever. 
Just make sure you do not justify your solitude to give yourself a reason for self pity  because that will damage your mental and physical health and make you very miserable person. 

1) Make plans to move out from your parents house.
2) Start practicing approaching girls and flirting with them. Learn some basic pickup/attraction theory.
Yes, well, there is always an inverse relationship between being powerful and being loved. It's hard to have both. The more points you allocate into selfishness the less people will like you, but the better your survival odds. The more points you allocate into selflessness, the more people will love you, but at the cost of your survival.
It example actually goes against you. Nothing bad happened to Trump from that incident. Which shows you where the true power lies.
Yes, there was a bit of social outrage, but largely that outrage is irrelevant.
See, a strong man doesn't give much of a fuck about others not liking him or being offended by him.
People will revere you when you sacrifice your survival for them.
In practice, masculinity is HIGHLY valued and respected and rewarded by society. Just don't go so toxic with it that you piss off a horde of SJWs. In practice, as a man, you can get away with some much that it's actually shocking if you try it. In most cases you actually can get away with grabbing women by the pussy. I just don't recommend doing that unless you're sure she wants you to.

Counter-intuitively yes. Lot of pickup actually teaches you how to be more expressive like a girl. To flow more with your feelings. Most guys are so stuck in their heads they are disconnected from their feelings. Feelings are not just feminine, they are also masculine.
You will attract way more girls by being emotionally expressive than you will by being stoic.
It's similar to how you talk to children or dogs. You adopt an over-emotionalized, playful attitude. You don't treat the interaction seriously. Likewise when attracting women. Treat women like children when trying to flirt with them.
Watch videos of men flirting with women.

I wanted to share some insights I had about being a people pleaser. 
In 2019 I've met a monk. He guided retreaters in a Vipassana center. I didn't like him at first. I was used to "spiritual" people in the occident being noticeable nice. And he was kinda rough, always neutral.
Two years later, I've never forgotten him and after all, his love strikes me still, on different levels every time. What I've learned from here is that true love is deeply rooted and the act of deliberately trying to show it is already losing a little bit of it. The focus should be on simply loving and not showing. And love ultimately is, for me, an intrinsic and deep wish of good to others. I experienced this on him. It's almost an awakening experience to feel it, since he loves me, not because I'm Barbara, or because I was a retreatant, or because I'm human. Actually reminds me also about what I really am. Everything. You, Leo, God.
Lately, I've been working on stop being a people pleaser and this thought, among some others, helped me a lot. "Love" or kindness is what I think I'm showing when pleasing others above me, but love is wishing them the best. I strongly believe that the best way to help others is to work on yourself. So, being a people pleaser is looking at the world in a scarce and attached way, imagining that others need anything more than your inner work. So fix your perception of what love is and people pleasing will go away  
What do you think?

I always feel a bit odd answering questions like these because I feel like I'm working with a different, fairly distinct idea of what intelligence is. Of course, there is this notion of different types of intelligence now, and you may have (based on Howard Gardner's work, as mentioned at the bottom of this image.)


What is the barometer or metric for your understanding of what intelligence is? (And on what basis do you accept this to be truth, and why?) Maybe these are basic and overly obvious questions, but it's important to ask to think about the meaning of what is often taken for granted.
I myself have always gravitated towards the SPARK in people. It's less about being super cultivated or polished intellectually (although I absolutely do appreciate that) or like... gratuitous cleverness, or wearing the garb of societal intelligence, but is like the soul of intelligence and it can express itself in a more cerebral way, or say creatively. People who have high “EQ” usually strike me as being more overt in presenting their "spark".
It is highly attractive when someone is well developed across the board, but then that tends to come with a lot of emotional baggage that people just don't get. Or just a certain level of weirdness, at other times. Personally, I don't just want the good stuff. I want ALL of that stuff (inconvenient or not).

No, it's not conscious. It's a lack of consciousness. It's self-bias, closemindedness, ego, and just how Stage Blue cognition works.
He is genuine in his beliefs. Basically all people are genuine in their ignorance.
From Ben Shaprio's POV, he's helping the world be a better place, he's acting from love -- like all people. But since his self-awareness is quite low, his love ends up being very selfish and partial. It's not really his fault. All evil is simply lack of consciousness. Which is why evil doesn't really exist. It is just misdirected love.
Here you must distinguish between the intelligence required to think within the box of society vs the intelligence of truly original thinking.
To earn a law degree you don't need to do any original thinking, you just need to be very good at following the rules and orders that society has laid out for you. You need to be a good soldier. Which is what Stage Blue excels at. Stage Blue is great at being meticulously conformist. If you need to hire someone to make sure that concentration camps operate like well-oiled machines, you hire a nice conformist boy like Ben Shaprio to manage it for you. He will do it without asking any questions. This was in fact how Nazi Germany was run.
Nothing strange about it. Every political position can be criticized from above or below, not just left vs right. You can be anti-interventionist from above or below. For example, you could believe that it's wrong to start a war in the Middle East because they are low-life savages who don't even deserve to fight the noble white man. But such anti-interventionism is further from Stage Green anti-interventionism than wanting to invade the Middle East to steal their oil. One would first have to evolve in consciousness just to see the Middle East as a worthwhile place to steal oil from, and only then one might evolve further in consciousness to actually care about the lives and interests of Middle Easterners as much as white lives and interests.
You can be opposed to war for the wrong reasons. What matters most is not the fact that you oppose war, but what level of consciousness you're seeing the situation from. You might oppose war because you're to fearful of getting drafted. But that is a selfish perspective which is very different from opposing war because you're conscious of the suffering it would cause the "enemy".
The true problem with the Middle East wars is not that it hurts America's interests, but that it creates suffering for innocent and powerless people in the Middle East. It's like kicking a wounded dog and blaming the dog.

@Paul-from-France Shapiro believes in objective morality and shoulds/shouldnts based on his religious programming and believes everyone should follow HIS programming. His religion programs peoples beliefs on culture, abortion, drugs, sexuality, etc and he follows his programming dutifully. People at the same stage will obviously agree with him.
Green believes everyone's morality, culture, shoulds and shouldnts are equally "good" with equal outcomes  (except the ones that disagree with theirs). 
Yellow believes that they should develop their own subjective morality based on their own subjective values, treat others with kindness and accept that others will follow their own path, even if it is destructive. Yellow doesnt project subjective shoulds and shouldnts onto others. Yellow does not believe in objective morality but acknowledges that different beliefs lead to different outcomes (everyone's beliefs are NOT equal in value).

Some other things I came across:

https://www.integralpsychology.org/integral-relationships.html
https://www.integralpsychology.org/uploads/1/5/3/0/15300482/compatibility_matrix.pdf

Found this a while ago, but haven't looked much into it.
couples line of development

from: https://drtomhabib.com/a-couples-line-of-development-t
and https://thewisdomfactory.net/intimate-couples-becoming-2nd-tier-explorers-with-tom-habib-ph-d/

Of course
Of course. And I don't say you should isolate yourselves.
I don't deny the social connection needs. I have them myself.
What I said was, I try not to burden others with my emotional problems. But, hey, I'm a crazy guy. I know how much you girls (and guys) love to offload your emotions onto others as a coping mechanism If that survival strategy works for you, have at it, but don't expect me to partake in such games. Believe it or not it is possible to socialize with others without using them as emotional tampons. But hey, that's just my masculine POV, I'm sure you feel differently about it. I was just throwing some crazy ideas around.

It stings like a bitch for a week. You feel it and go on with life. It helps a lot when you have built a good life for yourself centered around a life purpose and personal dev. Otherwise you will wallow in despair and depression because you got nothing else going for you.
When you are proactive about building a good life for yourself and doing spiritual work, you need other people less and less to complete you. To the extent that your life is not well put together, the loss of people in your life will lead to huge catastrophe and deep suffering -- because you use these people as emotional crutches to avoid doing serious work. If you take this work deep enough, you will not need anyone for your happiness.

Fun. Co-creating. 
Why limit thinking to need based perspectives? Why not experience what you want? 
A ‘ruined life’ is always up to the liver of it. It’s perspectival. The having of a relationship does not dictate that it is work or sacrifice. That’s always up to you just like it is now. Nothing is known about experience, without the experience. 
You can be crazy happy alone, not alone, in a relationship, or not. If it’s wanted, have one. If it’s not, don’t. You can be in a relationship, and still spend time alone anytime you want to. This is really about one’s attachment or not to thought, not to actual objects / people. That factor is the same for every individuation, wether in a relationship or not. A solid case could be made it’s far easier to learn this through the very experience, like everything else. 
Don’t have kids with that attitude. No argument there.  
If you allow it. 
Most people deflect, project, and assume their thought of something is pretty much the same as the experience. Most people are stuck in their past / attached to thoughts. But most people have nothing to do with you. 
Yes. A relationship is definitely not for you at this point in your life. Given your current outlook and who that would attract, you’d be miserable. Self-love, then reconsider if you even are wanting to. If you even want to.
Compare experience, not thoughts about it. 

That's a tall order to fill. Not just for a man, but for any human.
What you're asking for is a highly developed, conscious, selfless man. Which is gonna be as rare as a highly developed, conscious, selfless woman. Basically, you want to be date God
See... on the one hand you want a man who not manipulative, yet on the other hand you want a man who's really good at survival and a provider. These two things are inversely related. A "strong" man is often the most manipulative and deceptive. That's how he gets his strength in a low-consciousness society. And a weak man is probably not gonna make you wet. So it's a delicate balancing act.
And here's the ultimate kicker: if you ever sleep with a man who's that God-like, and if you ever break up with him, it will be the most painful, heartbreaking event of your life. Because you know you'll probably never meet someone that good again. So be careful what you wish for. Just because a man is good or Godly does not guarantee he will not break up with you at some point for any number of legit reasons which have nothing to do with him cheating or being an asshole.
There is a deeper problem you're hitting up against here, which is this: every great thing comes to an end, and the greater the thing is, the sadder its end will be. You can't escape this. This is the existential suffering that the Buddha taught. Relationships are bound to be painful. There is no such thing as a perfect relationship without any pain. Relationships are like a rollercoaster, so enjoy the thrill while it lasts.
The better the man, the bigger the problem.
Any kind of attachment will necessarily create suffering. Such is life.

@Itsokimok Distill your traumas. Use one paper sheet for each of them. Ask the following questions:
What happened? Who participated? Why did those who did it did it? Why does it affect my life now? What are the circumstances in which the trauma manifests nowadays? How would I act if it wasn't because of the trauma? Then, you act from the answers you find on 6. You will feel a lot of resistance in the beginning but every time you act differently from how you would normally act, it's a victory. You become stronger and stronger and your confidence grows. In a few years, you won't be scared of your memories anymore.
Do it for each trauma. Do the work. Go gather the paper sheets and get your hands dirty for real.

As a guy it's pretty to easy to tell if a girl likes you for your personality or your money. Don't buy her anything for the first 6 months and see if she sticks around. If she really likes you, she will.
Is there a risk of getting cheated on? Always. So what? Be such an awesome person that your mate would never dare cheating on you. Problem solved.

In my opinion this is one of Leo's most underrated video's:
In this video Leo introduces us to his personal knowledge management system. He closes by emphazising the importance of figuring the "how to build one for myself" part on our own. I agree that blindly copying someone else's system isn't an effective way of building one's Commonplace Book, but at the same time I wanted more information on the topic. So I did some searching and found someone truly remarkable. The guy's name is Tiago Forte and his speciality is "Building A Second Brain" (other phrase for Commonplace Book). Very yellow. He has an awesome blog, densly packed with goodness. Highly recommended for everyone trying to get the most out of their learning/ personal knowledge management! Great for building one's digital productivity infrastructure in general.
Here is a great post to start & gain an overview of his teachings: https://praxis.fortelabs.co/the-digital-productivity-pyramid/ 
 

Blue vs Green again:
The conservative girl is unable to wrap her mind around the idea that gender is a relative mental construct. So to her the idea of something other than the traditional, black & white man/woman roles does not compute and seems absurd.
Blue REALLY struggles with issues of relativity. They just don't stomach relativity because to them the world is absolutely as their beliefs say.
This is also a good example of how the mind projects. The conservative girl's mind thinks that it can make others look foolish when really it is projecting its own foolishness as a denial mechanism so that she doesn't have to deeply question the groundless distinctions that make up her worldview.
But also notice how stage Green (the TYT hosts) are also unable to understand where this conservative girl is coming from. They just think she's a fool, when really, her mind is simply not yet fathoming the relative nature of reality.