Alex K

@Loreena the thing is, there is nothing obvious except our being and senses afaik - everything else needs dedicated contemplation. Otherwise, we will be lost in cul de sacs of the path.

@Nahm I understand monkey mind would be always there, enlightenment is a detachement from it. Continued expansion just for a heck of it seems to be highly self obsessed and unconcsious activity, as an addiction. I understand that if one wants something, this is a desire. And desires bring suffering. Attaining pleasure is removing suffering, so these wants are to be got rid of. I guess life needs to start feeling empty and rotten or I'll feel severe lack. I will contemplate it and arrive at some truth and will act on it hopefully)

@Loreena Reading your post, I come to think that in the end it is really a game of patience. Once your current mind issue is resolved, time will surface next one for you to feel, become aware of, contemplate, act and resolve. And it does not matter what is a "kind" of issue as kinds are artificial human concepts as well. To work my friends!

@Loreena @Mat Pav Thanks for coming in. I am couple years into self actualizing. I feel that I have less and less neuroticism nowadays as I actively investigate my emotions, thoughts and disfunctional world views. I know that you would do something only if you really want it. My question is why would you want anything but pleasure? When you say something like "Pleasure is a thin arbitrary coating on a whole rich world beneath" it sounds a bit shalow. Why is it so? What is a deep rational argument here? I agree with this pitch emotionaly and it kinda sounds true, but this is not enough to build your life around it. So I want some explanation why not pursuing pleasure. Self actualization actualy gives you pleasure. Its just a high level learning or being or contribution pleasure according to Leo. So my question is what is there beyond pleasure which is realistically to want or to pursue? Why are people pursuing anything? Self actualization looks as a highly egoic pursuit to me - someone fed you stories about how grand your life would be, your ego mindlessly bought it and went on for years without experience or understanding why is this needed. Now I think its finally time for me to watch basic latest Leo vids on self actualization purpose)= To start exploring the topic is to rewatch some vids I deem relevant. https://www.actualized.org/articles/a-vision-for-the-self-actualized-life https://www.actualized.org/articles/the-3-levels-of-personal-development-work https://www.actualized.org/articles/low-quality-vs-high-quality-consciousness https://www.actualized.org/articles/the-grand-model-of-psychological-evolution https://www.actualized.org/articles/how-to-unleash-your-ambition https://www.actualized.org/articles/paradoxes-of-personal-development https://www.actualized.org/articles/halloween-special-2014 https://www.actualized.org/articles/understanding-the-authentic-self https://www.actualized.org/articles/state-of-the-union-01 https://www.actualized.org/articles/staying-hungry https://www.actualized.org/articles/personal-development-plan https://www.actualized.org/articles/how-to-motivate-yourself https://www.actualized.org/articles/how-to-find-your-passion https://www.actualized.org/articles/true-vision https://www.actualized.org/articles/dream-life https://www.actualized.org/articles/cause-and-purpose https://www.actualized.org/articles/what-should-i-do-with-my-life https://www.actualized.org/articles/self-actualization

@Epiphany_Inspired just go to some computer guys to fix your glitches. Then install open office and be happy.

I think I still do not accept reailty in that I am responsible for everything. I watched some videos on programmers work in Israel. And it awoken panic in me akin to my last Germany experience. I woke up with dread and panic from a dream regarding all this in the morning. I fear loosing a job and not getting a new one because of my lack of mastery in programming. I've had my morning meditation filled with this thoughts. I need to remove my ignorance. I need to understand that being responsible for absolutely everything in me, with me and around me is a nature of reality. I listened to "Doing the emotionally hard thing" video on my way to work, because it is highly relevant to not accepting the responsibility for everything. The rest of the way I've meditated/contemplated on this, observing powerfull fears coming in sporadeous gusts and the surface layer of my resistance to this reality. I cryed a bit a couple of times. I need to keep this work going. This persisting on being ignorant is an active drag on my actualization and happiness. I need it worked out. I do not seem to have a victim mentality. I just do not accept or assume full responsibility and I have giant fears and panics over this, especially regarding loosing a job and not being able go get a new one and not being able to provide for myself and my family. Intuition spark gave me an idea that maybe I had a past trauma or childhood vow to not take responsibility, maybe on occasion of not being able to do anything with some problem - I'll tread the work minding the idea.

A week has passed. I apparently have no attitude to a rigid challendge. I'm learning about the jew mentality, can sum up what I've learned as "Do useful things all day long, do not care about anything, be nice to like-acting and -minded people and polite/indifferent/cold to lazy-asses. Do not whine, do not exibit self pity, do not be jealous of others, be happy and polite. Want more and good stuff and life, accept other people accomplishments and stive to benefit from them, use them to grow and offer more stuff to the world." This looks highly healthy and materialistic/pragmatic. I want some of that! Currently I guess I have a lot of self pity which I think stands in a way of working hard. I think self pity is a psychological part of self preservation instinct and needs contemplation and analysis to be weeded out. I think when I had lots of past traumas generating emotions, Self pity was a more or less legit way to limit overall stress on my mind, but now it has no use. And second component, Laziness is a problem for me as well. A very simple situative lazyiness. For this Leo has some good vids, maybe it's time for them.

Hello everyone. So I have this problem of habitually eating for pleasure for as long as I remember. I was already fat at 5 years old. I've lost 20 kg 4 years ago. But after clinical depression episode it is back on. I'm fighting it for a year already. But always I start eating sugar, junk and overeating again in just a few days. I've started okay eating nice food and only when hungry on tuesday. And yesterday - a bucket of icecream came along. I meditate daily and I see that being fat is bad for me. It's hard to sit crosslegged. My legs and spine hurt after workday. My energy is low. My mood swings when I do not treat myself with food (addiction). I can develop worse deseases like diabeties, hypertention and whatnot. I can't go sattvic which helps with meditation and enlightenment. I just sort of switch off all my awareness automatically, my body goes straight to aсquiring and consuming food. All my arguments for healthy choices are disсarded at the moment of binging. People say that one covers him with fat to protect his tender mind from harsh reality. From my self observation it looks almost like a state of conciousness like awakeness, sleeping and this binging state. Maybe it is that well ingrained in my brain structures? I try to search for that resistance to the reality which makes me want to cover myself with fat. I try to search for neurotic complexes (vasanas), any deep emotions of hurt or anything. Maybe I need to take solid 20-30-60 minutes a day for this soulsearching? Maybe I'm just too soft and lazy? What to do then? I can't concentrate like it is said in Leos video on being a victim. I just don't know how to put this informtaion of his into action. Maybe this means I do not want enough? How should I want enough? Should I teach and teahc myself again and againa all the horrors of fat and all the vitues of good diet? Or is this futile and something else should work? Maybe I need a strategic approach? Maybe I need a dedicated journal with game plan and work on it daily? I know for a fact that I can loose weight, I want it, I know how in terms of correct food and exercise. But on beliefs level I catch myself loosing faith that I would ever do this. I wonder what can I do.

@Sri McDonald Trump Maharaj @YaNanNallari @Elisabeth @Elisabeth @clytaemnestra @Nahm @spinderella To whom it may concern. Since this topic started, I've had some breakthroughs with my post traumas and I feel like I'm naturally starting to eat better, eat less crap. However, I feel that support is a very good thing, very warm and nice. Thanks for your support! - Regarding the Healing meditation video - a very nice one. I actually assured myself that I will always be here, helping, supporting, encouraging, understanding myself thus I will never be alone - while working on a nasty trauma - in a self dialog mode of a inner child and a "therapist" or a "grown up one" or a "rational/strong one", a "deffending one". That was and could be needed again to heal myself and it is remarkably similar to the basic instruction "You are enough" from the meditation, but much deeper I believe. ---------------- Currently my understanding is that I overeat when I'm tired and I still need to do something like some work or home things. For that I currently devised an excercise to contemplate stuff as per Leos vid. But I would not contempalte relationship, I contemplate Tiredness and Rest. Remarkably I start seeing just how little do I know about these too mundanest things!

I would of course want dignity in all the situations. But to get it, I would need to change the world at large. But that is not within my grasp. So what I would do with this? I would try to become at peace with reality. I can do this in multiple distinct ways and by combining them together, one of which is ensuring an emergency plan in case everything else fails.

Yeah, sorry I've misunderstood you. Yes, world is not fare. And we all want good to happen to us, but it does not so we strive to wrap our minds around this somehow. Self development/spirituality/etc can provide a lot of interesting and fullfilling things which will help you grow and would potentially alleviate your suffering in case of a bitter end partially or altogether. You can pursue it in depth as is offered here or go on with your life and be prepared as you are, no worries.

Leo mentions paradoxes a lot, but regards them as exercises for us and as temporary corks. Do not agree with me. "Human concept" is not a paradox, it is literally something that only exists in communication between humans and only human thoughts and emotions give it substance, it comes to life through human societal coexistence, it is a cultural thing, it is an error of our minds. In this literal sense, one can remove dignity as a belief, as a concept, as a source of emotions, thoughts, concerns and suffering from his mind completely through actualization. Then no matter how much my mind is destroyed - dignity is nowhere to be found in it. And by humans I mean Egoes.

The question is what is to happen when lots of people would get it? http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Articles/kabbalah/Creation/creation.html Here it looks to me that there should be some kind of ascension, it says "repairing of the world". Maybe like a man coming back from a long coma but for the whole of the universe? Are there any sources on what could multiple enlightened people come up with if working together in groups like scientists? Or is this experiential understanding all that there is? Maybe such people where never put together and having all their material needs met so that they can focus on further self study? Clearly enlightened people continue on living as usual people, they do not get frozen for the rest of their lifes with this Nothing is not Nothing revelation. But this should be the fringe where something mystical is happening, and it's not. As for example when we discover superconductivity, objects start flying on their own. So why there seems not to be any practical implications of enlightenment in the world? Only some enlightened people left some texts so that if someone were to have enough of an open mind and zeal, he could reach what they've reached. I haven't read the Jew scriptures, but here are some people with knowledge I understand. If their in-scripture view of the world is one of an enlightened human and should be taken literaly, is there anything else profound in there, which should be taken literally and which shows next steps after mass enlightenment? All this people with knowledge of a Nothingness could not possible think only about making the world a more harmonious, prosperous place, it's literally ridiculous. As are my sixteenth-assed attempts at grasping all this.

@AstralProjection I was ready to exit few years ago. I guess there is no such thing as dignity, it is a human concept. Reality is harsh and not giving a damn about anything. I am to become just like reality so that human concepts would not bother me. Anything that comes just comes than.

@Revolutionary Think my advice to you would be to not regard Leo content as interesting, but to use it to start rigorously actualizing yourself asap. Start a meditation habbit to get over yourself a bit. Then start methodically looking and improving your stuff. Regarding your passion I believe you could benefit from some legwork like: - getting in touch with already present school related organizations, looking into what you can do for them - becoming a mentor for some school and bringing what you want to kids - getting any licenses or diplomas so that school board lets you in on their kids - maybe becoming a teacher at some progressive school - Etc. Etc. Etc This all gives you perspective, knowledge - foundation to contemplate deeper, and some weight with your large audience speeches. Btw, getting to high mastery level at something is a well regarded topic here and a one of self actualization. So please do post a link to your best craft for our evaluation, just do not pitch anything and you ll be fine. You can also make a self actualization journal, post your stuff and add specific people as @users. Best of luck!

I think you have some serious multiple past traumas and you should heal them. This not being able to plainly be clearly suggests you suffer huge emotinal baggage. God, I really give this same advice everywhere )=

Failure a.k.a. premature death.

All examples are building resistance to some stuff like adversity or using body mechanics effectively. If you starve when/and feel good there is nothing chaotic about it, all as planned. If you have a stable job and do art project on side there is nothing chaotic. If you remove dirt from your mind it's just sweeping, nothing black swany about it. Antifragilty idea seems to me to be breaking laws of entropy. Planned calculated chaos is not chaos. Real life hydra would crumble under excessive heads weight. Leo style Nothingness hydra would be everything and not giving a flying f about fragility. Only some people are truly in their comfort zone - we call it enlightenment. For other souls, tormented as they are, its immoral to call them being comfortable. Imho.

@OBEler Maybe Leo means self inquiry, not meditation. I too do not see how a "do nothing" could be sloppy if you sit straight and monkey wonders as it pleases.

So last weekend I've at least partly broken my neurosis regarding fear of death and self pity on suffering and death. I felt free enough from emotional pressure to look around a bit. From a random thread here I've picked up a book "The Road Less Traveled". I've read first chapter on discipline. I'd looked at my non-emotional problems in life and concluded that in large part they come from a lack of discipline. I'm a 28 year old with a discipline level of a 3-5 year old kid and this would simply not do anymore. I've outlined basic exercises to train my discipline from this chapter and some Leo insights and so forth. I proclaim a 30 days discipline challendge: - Two 30+ sits - first thing in the morning and one before bed no excuses - as a one disciplined practice exercise. - Time during the day should be preallocated in pairs of work-leisure to foster delayed gratifictaion. Work time could be 30-60 or more minutes. Leisure time could be 5-10 or more minutes. Leisure types: fap, youtube, serfing including actualized forum random threads, playing video games, chatting and talking, resting comfortably. - Calling my problems mine and taking calculated ratio of responsibility for them. - Think of a direct willpower usage exercise because this mechanism is rusty in me. My mantra for the challendge: Life is difficult. Life is a series of problems. Do I want to moan about them or solve them? - Unhook from media and overstimulation. I think in 6-12 month I could develop a decent level of discipline and that would help me greatly in each aspect of my life.

- Do 2, 3,... 10 periods of 20 minutes a day. Hell, just do 3-4 periods of 15 minutes! - Check out that you actually mediate correctly. For example 20 minutes of SDS filled with deliberate thinking about sex or work obviously would not get a 20 YO healthy man anywhere, but 20 minutes of do nothing would. - Describe to yourself and for help to us, how exactly it is hard for you to meditate. Describe what results/changes do you feel in the last year of meditation.

@pluto what does it say concentration part could be like?

This is some thinking on the topic of paradigm of naive realism/physicalsim/nothing being behind the scenes/ one of the major paradigms in this weeks vid. This is based on the topic Well, real is that what is. Atoms do not exist - they are not real. But consciousness does - it is real. Consciousness is an oneness of everything, but each of us is a piece of this oneness, which became ignorant to the fact of oneness. My example is the following: 5 year old watches TV for the first time. I switch it off in a basement. Then switch on. For a 5 year old it stopped existing, then resumed. But me switching IS THE STUFF BEHIND THE SCENES for him - I am an example of finite hidden mechanism. But if everything is oneness and each of us is a pocket - than if we lift all the pocketing at once - there is nothing behind the scene because there is nothing but this self aware oneness. Now literally - is there a man who can tell how he experiences oneness without being on drugs at the moment? Can he know my thoughts? My thoughts are absolutely real - I hear them. If there is nothing hidden - guess my thoughts. If there is nothing hidden - guess my thought behind the writing in an unknown language. This text is just an explicit pointer to an explicit audio signal with explicit semantic. You can't guess my thoughts - they are hidden from you - how can you tell there is nothing else hidden but the feelings of others? Someone tells an example of math line. From here see two thoughts: - Infinite regress can bring you the answer just like infinite zero size points give you a line. - Math (and scienece) is something more than feelings. A scientist predicts reality at the same moment when usual human fails. What is it if not a hidden strucutre? Any lawfull prediction is a pointer at a hidden structure. If I cannot experience true oneness than there would always be the stuff behind the scenes for me. If everything is one, but I obviously experience it in other way, there is a mechanism for that narrowing - this mechanism is the stuff behind the scenes as well. Is it ego? But ego is described to be a fact of a semantic feeling, carrying the payload of us being this body, brain and whatnot. I do not really buy that this simplictic feeling can shut down my life feed with oneness, do you? If so - then why is it so easily shut? There should be a mechanism behind it. So than we do not even know what really is stopping us from being enlightened. But maybe concsiousness and oneness do not exist - maybe it is nothingness. But nothing is nothing. No thing. Here we have all this feelings, everchanging. So it is everythingness rather than nothingness. Do you call it nothingness to underline it's not being based off anything? Why everythingness can not be not based off anything? Sounds like thermodynamics paradigm talking in your naming conventions. If one (Like Leo just for example) reaches everythingness and stays there, wouldn't he merge all of us into it, elevate the universe? Have we had any fully realised humans? If so, they should've been omnipotent? Why we are not all elevated than? What is the behind the scenes mechanism which kept fully realised humans in the past from elevating the whole universe back into full nothingness? Okay, maybe it is the state-of-the-universe - maybe it is unchangeble, maybe there is nothing which could be changed at "will". If there is nothing changed at all by that people, than what is the worth of reaching that place? Maybe I should just reach unconditional happiness in a simple enlightenment and stop there? If we say success is not for true actualization. Then we say full realisation do not change anything. Why do it? If I'm happy unconditionally, I do not need happiness from this realisation, it won't bring me anything. Am I wrong somewhere in this strip? Where to go? Is this all just an in-logic paradigm masturbation, or does this have merit? Non euclidian geometry is still very much rational and logical. What exactly is post rationality? How can we judge if we are not toying ourselves when we lose probabilistic logical models of argument about axioms? What I mean here is very simple: human can break free from ego paradigm - and he becomes serene. We can see such people on youtube, even skype with them. But how do we judge our way is good when we talk higher things like this metaphysics? Is it a game of chance and daring of the spirit? Is it for the better? Leo has another video on loving the questions and getting couple of them through life. He tells us that living trying to answer them gives fulfillment. But isn't fulfillment useless under unconditional happiness? Btw, yesterday I've at least chipped a large chunk off my fear of death, so I now have a period of high motivation for actualization hence this text )=

God, how cool would it be if we could willingly speed up learning and brain change process for couple days like 10-100 fold? Otherwise all this countless insights are just forgotten after months of exercises.

@Consept Strong forms of meditation would wipe all that issues away in years. But it is much more synergetic, comfotable, easy and faster to meditate and in parallel do the psychotherapy on your own or with professional or good people help. Awareness and mindfullness gains from meditation would greatly speed up your psychotherapy. If the major part of neurotic stuff is gone and anxiety is still there, you'll have to balance powerfull self actualization techniques so that they do not burn you up.