Byun Sean

@UnjigorjigorGreat point about the whole "You are God" shtick. I actually went through a dysfuntion where my ego thought it was God and denied the existence of other sentient beings. Thus, my ego projected itself onto everyone else showing up in reality is "everyone is my ego" which looks the same as "everyone is God". I think this is why the great mystics mostly never talk about you being God because it can cause all sorts of issues. Better to work with the divine in 2nd or 3rd person realities before owning the 1st person realization for oneself. All are important, but I think people should be aware of dysfunctions like these that can occur.

Yeah the mind is rough on us when we try to change any aspect of our life. My best strategy for change I have found is definitely patient, non-perfectionist, slow and steady change with positive motivation. Most people only fuel themselves with negative motivation and thus, only do the things that if they don't do, they will be deeply punished for. I'll give you a concrete example of what I would do. Say I want to implement a meditation habit. And I eventually want to meditate for 1 hour every single day. I'm not gonna be able to just start meditating 1 hour a day if my nervous system and body is used to no meditation per day. I would first start with something small and doable like 20 minutes a day. I would try to hit every day. But if I miss like a day or two, no worries. Then the following week if you feel ready, try to miss only one day or no days. Then you slowly work your way up toward permanent change. The key here is to not put so much resistance and fear of backsliding. When you hold that fear very strongly, your ego feels a strong need to control the situation. This creates a lot of internal resistance making it very difficult for you to actually make long lasting change. -Think about all the positive benefits and what the habit would do to change your life in the long term and let that fuel you. If the habit is truly worth it to you, you shouldn't need to boss yourself around and say "I HAVE TO DO THIS". This is the best strat thats worked in my experience. Just patient, gradual change, with the intention of showing up and trying my best, even if its not perfect. Say I backslide. Ok I'll make adjustments and give it another shot next week.

Hey Alissa, if your interested Leo's videos: Self deception 1-3 and Self Bias are great at explaining this particular phenomenon We are biased towards ourselves and use all these shady self defense mechanisms because we have big fat egos and we are engaged in surviving them. In order to survive, we need to justify all of our survival strategies are moral and for good, otherwise we couldn't be here. The ego doesn't care about Truth. It only cares about survival no matter what. Damn the costs. If you want to transcend these mechanisms for good, awakening is necessary

My Personal Favorites. Enjoy -reading is a fantastic one: don't just read something that will improve your life as well. Those are good. But also read books that you are just curious about the subject for the sake of learning about that thing. -spending time with quality people -contemplating/ reflecting on life -Try to explore life a bit and find something your passionate about like writing, or photography, or art, or music etc. Once you find that one thing you really want to sink hours into and see value and joy in, you'll naturally gravitate toward that -doing nothing can actually be a profound experience sometimes. Especially if your lifestyle is fast-paced and involves a lot of stimulation on the nervous system like eating lots of different types of foods, electronics, multitasking, using the mind a lot etc. -meditation is a fantastic habit -Think about doing something just for the sake of doing it rather than having to get something out of the experience. Like if your gonna read, don't just read for what the content in the book can do to improve your life. Read for the sake of the joy of reading! Of course, in the beginning, reading might seem difficult for the mind to adjust to and be a pain in the ass. But as you read more and more, it becomes a flow experience more effortlessly. But reading is just one example. -Reflecting on past memories and how far you've come on your journey can be inspiring and fun. I played this pc game called starcraft 2 at a really high level for a few years. Long story short I got really passionate about the game and involved in the community. Despite it being just a video game, I learned profound life lessons about myself and the world. I overcame challenges and broke through many of my inner demons in the effort to climb the ladder rankings in that game. After I had outgrown the game and decided it was time to move on, I made a gigantic montage of all my favorite moments in my favorite pro matches with my favorite music in the background. I'm really into video editing so making the thing was just such an expression of pure love and joy and creativity for me. now whenever I watch the video again, every time I smile and laugh at all of those good times. Often times I even tear up in joy.

Holy crap man I can't even imagine what your going through. It must be difficult. Is there anyway you can get professional help like anything? Just know theres always a light at the end of every tunnel. Reality changes pretty fast so I'm confident you can and you will get yourself out of this one. Meditation works but you gotta sort out more important life issues first. Meditation takes a certain discipline and a lot of time to bear fruits. If I were you I would seek out any help from family, professional help/advice. Just anything you can get. Love yourself as much as possible during this process. This stuff your going through is not easy and acknowledge to yourself you are doing your best. Your amazing just for making it this far. You made it this far, your gonna make it out of this situation, whatever it takes. 5-10 years from now your gonna look back on this memory in nostalgia on how you made it through this hard time and you will have an inspiring story to tell loved ones. Hang in there man. You are much more than you know.

@LfcCharlie4great work mate! Thanks for sharing your experiences. Did you realize infinite love while meditating or was it like a big bang or what was it like?

In my opinion, don't have kids if it's for the reasons that you fear being alone and have no one to help and support you. Especially if your into this work and personal development, you will grow yourself to meet all your needs effortlessly in time. Have kids if you find joy in it. If your heart wants it. If you genuinely would love growing, raising, and relating to a new life. The choice to have or not have kids is yours. I just think if you choose to have kids out of fear, you will regret it. If you choose to consciously out of love, no regrets

I'd say an effective approach would be to pursue building your social skills, friendships, and relationships while at the same time doing a small meditation practice on the side. Your small meditation practice can make you less reactive and better in relationships. But I don't think meditating will solve all your problems like most people think. It's a common trap people fall into. It's just one area of personal development. Not a 'solve all your life problems' pill you take.

I think the biggest thing to note here is how serious this work is and how difficult it can be for people where Leo is presenting these ego-threatening teachings on a culturally "casual" site like youtube. When one stumbles across a youtube video, they won't expect this quality of work and teaching on the same site as prank videos, skateboarding cat videos, etc. What they expect is precisely casual armchair philosophy. Like 99 percent of people have NO idea what spirituality actually is and how deep it goes. People just see meditation for example as a simple way to 'calm the mind'. Leo is also like one of the first that I've seen to build a large community presenting this caliber of spiritual teaching. It seems like he's one of the first one's if not the first one online to actually do it successfully.

get out of there man. HUGE BLOOD red flag if they cheat on you and say something like that. If I were you I would thank the person for the relationship and get the hell out of there. She doesn't love you and value you for who you are. Only what she can get out of the relationship. Spend a little while working on yourself by yourself. If you stay in this relationship it will only get more dysfunctional.

I think the problem he is having is his insights are getting so far out there and radical that it is getting harder and harder to release videos since his depth of consciousness and understanding of reality is going TOO far away from the traditional materialist paradigm that most of the planet operates under. He is probably hard at work on himself doing consciousness work or preparing courses. Either way he's given us thousands of hours of work to do by ourselves.

ask yourself what would someone who loved themselves do? Listen to your hearts answer and go do that. Remember it's a brief life and it's yours. how do you want to look back on your life in the next 20-30-40 years etc? Think about that. That will help you make your decision.

he has free audio downloads on his website of all of his videos if you just make an account I think

I'd say don't sweat it. just do whatever feels right to you. Society tells us you need a relationship and you need to have a social life otherwise there is something wrong with you but its not true for all of us. We all have different needs and were all meeting different desires with different personality types, life situations, different stages of development, etc. in my journey the same happened to me. Sex and the need for companionship are lower order desires and in time you will find these higher being level desires much more fulfilling. Nothing wrong with relationship or not. Just a matter of what stage of growth your at.

the optimal sleep timing will be different for everyone. You gotta find where that sweet spot is for you where you can get a full charge in as little time possible. One trick I use, is exercise a lot and sleep + wake up with an alarm 30-60 minutes earlier every single day For instance: say you sleep right now at 3 am and wake up at 11am. You want to sleep at 12am and wake up at 8am. I would exercise a lot and then set an alarm for 10:30 am while getting into bed at like 2:00am so my eyes are getting adjusted to the schedule as well. Then 10:00 am alarm getting in bed 1:30 am the next night 930 100 900 1230 830/800 12 If you use coffee or eat a lot it can mess up the process. Stick to your normal eating habits and expect mild depression or temporary poor cognitive performance while trying to shift your sleep schedule. Remember to turn off electronics and bright lights at least 30 minutes before you intend to sleep and try not to eat 4 or less hours before you sleep. Its a gradual process and its not always easy, but is 4-5 days of transition worth an amazing nights sleep every other night once you get on schedule? Hell ya dude

How do you know your not missing anything? After all hundreds of saints and sages have only gone part of the way thinking they woke up completely. What makes you any different? Where is the crossing point between only partial awakening and full liberation and how do you know that?

your gonna fall off and quit if you take that approach. Do just a few exercises a day but do them every single day no matter what. 10 times is unsustainable.

Bite that bullet and surrender to the possibility that you may not live up to the expectations of your parents. You are doing your best. It is neurotic and foolish to think you should do more than your best. Why do you want to do well in school? If pleasing your parents is the only reason why the hell do you need to do well in school? If I were you. I would create a vision. Imagine how trying hard in school will affect your understanding of life, your work ethic, etc. try in school for the learning. If you get a C while learning a lot so be it. Will you remember 20 years from now what you got in high school Spanish? I don't think so. Look at how older people talk about their high school days. "I stressed out way to much and should have enjoyed my school days more instead of worrying about grades all the time."

the strongest way imo is to get out there and practice socializing over and over again with the mindset that you are growing

@electroBeam This entire post just screams ignorance and a lack of doing the work yourself. All of the critiques you listed will be resolved when you actually understand the work rather than taking actualized.org as your only source of learning. Most of the things you critique about you have no idea what they even are. Any problem you have with a teacher or guru is actually your own problem. They are just spouting their teaching and walking their walk. How you use that is completely up to you.

I think it is definitely harder for some people than others. No doubt we are not all equal when it comes to our spot in the path. But hey, theres nothing really better to do in life. Awakening is the most fulfilling thing. Might as well get started. You are basically God realizing deeper and deeper layers of yourself like an onion remembering the magnificence of what you are. It isn't an on and off switch like most people think about awakening. Even if you try and get only 10 percent of the way there lets say; you will still live a way more fulfilled life than if you hadn't tried at all. And of course you can always come back for another round and try to awaken again

Yes systems thinking as a very valuable way of looking at the world. Leo’s bookli Once you develop the ability to view the world as a set of complex systems, you stop blaming other people or singular causes and are able to track the root of problems. This can apply to your own life as well. Like you said, you can look at your diet as a system, your relationships as systems, the human mind as a system etc. it’s by no means the ‘best’ or only way of looking at the world but it is a powerful way

Yes systems thinking as a very valuable way of looking at the world. Leo’s booklist has some books on systems thinking, he has some videos. spiral dynamics is a useful system to study as well. Although, make sure you are ready to learn it. It is a higher level personal development skill that takes a lot of effort and practice to develop relative to ordinary self-help. I personally tried to learn systems thinking pretty early on in my journey as well and i couldn’t wrap my mind Round it. Not even close. I had to come back after a year or so of growth to learn the skill again and then I got it

You already are THE shapeshifter. You just don't remember that you are yet.