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While I agree you shouldn't guilt yourself over feeling pain, this pain can be a wonderful guide. Those headaches are not forever gone for me, but it indicates me whether I'm actually connected with feeling and truth or just pretending. Whenever I feel it again, I can just stop and let go of the thoughts that are causing it. The more I let go the less I feel it. Accepting that this pain is an indicator of unawakening can be difficult it we want to continue to believe we are awake. I think it's best just to accept we aren't awake and not feeling bad over that fact. After all we can't wake up if we assume we are already awake. That doesn't mean we "lose" the realizations we make, we simply get lost into other new thought stories, that need to be let go as well. In the end you are on your own path and you'll figure out what will be true for you. At first for me Nahm's idea of the headache "not being real" seemed like wishful thinking. But then after realizing that pain is a thought, the idea of a pain being unavoidable is ridiculous.

@Nahm You probably already knew this but... I'm happy to say I was wrong! No more headaches on shrooms for me

Yes, you can live in a way that is totally aligned with karma or feeling. Every decision you make can feel great and have "no karmic consequences". The only thing separating you from this life without suffering is the idea that there's something between you and it. But by desiring it, you are creating a separation by you and it and you feel the pain of not having it.

Here you talk about "natural" behavior. Yet, the behaviors that are defined by nature are selected through natural selection. How do you define a "natural" way for the mosquito to act? The way that leads it to feed itself and produce good offsprings. Whatever is "natural" to do for humans, it will lead to their survival and their reproduction. In the thousands of years in which we evolved from monkey to human, being social was a huge thing. In fact, if you didn't fit in and were left out, you were basically dead. Wanting to stay alive, according to our definition, is more "natural" than wanting the truth at all cost, so we are willing to sacrifice this truth if we can fit in. This ability to lie, pretend or make-believe may seem like a negative, a flaw but it's something pretty much every kid practices from a young age because it's a natural thing to learn and do. (Kids love to pretend they are a princess/super-hero/you-name-it, they basically practice playing roles). It happened to be an important aspect of social survival so it's a behavior that got adopted and became "natural". You might think that having an organism develop an ability that end up hurting them in some other way for the sake of survival is "unnatural" but then if you look at nature, such types of flaws are everywhere. This is because natural selection leads to the creation of organisms which are designed to survive, rather than any other metric you could compare organisms with.

Very true. Thanks <3

Despite all the suffering that it causes, I keep feeling compelled to escape the present moment. Times and times again I have experienced the peacefulness and wonderfulness of the present moment and at other times the suffering of escapism through various forms. This past experience doesn't seem to matter when I'm confronted with the choice to face or to escape. Escaping is 9 times out of 10 the selected route. I'm at this point where I know for sure that I can be present, even right now and that there's nothing to be found in escaping that moment, but still I keep escaping it. I know exactly what to stop doing, and I know to stop doing that would bring me peace. Somehow I'm still unwilling to do it. I feel discouraged because everytime I take a step forward, become aware I then end up taking 3 steps backward shortly after. I could steer myself in the good direction tonight, but the idea that tomorrow I'll just screw it all up again is insanely discouraging. "Time" is a thought. "Tomorrow" is a thought. But I care about being awake tomorrow, and the day after. Is my drive to escape really a survival drive that I can't do nothing about? Or is there a deep misconception within me that compels me to do what's wrong. I wish there would be such a belief for me to see but I just don't see it. Perhaps there's a simple belief of "a me that tries to escape"? None of those considerations leads anywhere. It does feel like that the source of my struggle is the doubt of me staying awake. I just don't believe it. No matter how often I'll wake up I'll follow by crashing down shortly after. No matter how fancy or ordinary the awakening is, I always end up backsliding and it turns out I'm more often low than high.

Now that I finally figured out what was "the big problem" at the time, I can look back and figure out what went wrong. The problem was a belief in a "me that is stressed out by life circumstances", those life circumstances being "trying to launch my first business and having no guarantee it will work". I'm no longer stressed out by this idea because I no longer believe in a self that is stressed out by it and so I no longer act in an according way. I tried many of the options you mentionned. First I took a tab of LSD (unlike the usual 3 tabs) and did a very meditation intensive trip (3-4 hours of sitting) to figure out what was wrong. You can call me stubborn, but even this didn't cut it. I ended up not feeling so bad, but I didn't "figure out" what was believed. This trip was a useful contemplation of pain, but I didn't figure out anything about where that pain was coming from. I also tried talking about this topic to different friends. But to each of them the circumstances I'm going through would also be stressful, so my (wrong) perspective wasn't challenged. I just got validation that "things are the way I think they are" and so this pain I feel is "unfair". It's very ironic to say now that I see what I was believing but at the time, this idea of "circumstances being stressful and there's nothing I can do about it but sustain the stress" was believable. From the day I received your message, I implemented concentration medtiation as a daily practice. Some days went great and almost lead to insight but I must admit that very early I started believing that "it's no different that the regular meditation I've been doing and so it won't change anything". Don't get me wrong, this was very good advice but the "new" aspect of concentration meditation is now gone and so the only benefits I can have from it now is very long-term. I do try to breathe and put concentration on my senses at random times of the day but this practice is also subject of the idea of "not working". When I already am holding a belief for like 2 weeks, just doing that every 30 minutes seems pointless. I admit that this is just a belief however and there can be value in this practice. This idea of it "not working" has been challenged with meditation and contemplation in the last weeks were I was fooled with my self-belief, but it never went past that. It felt "slightly better" to no longer believe that "I can't get unstuck" but it didn't "unstick me". But overall, I ended up stumbling onto what the belief was and so I'm doing quite good now, despite this seemingly negative thread. What I want ask you about however is not any specific issue or belief I might have, but this entire systemic problem of self-mind believing in stuff. Truth is, I didn't figure ou what the problematic belief was through meditation nor contemplation, I fell on it pretty randomly. This makes me "doubt" the entire practice that are supposed to help me in the first place. I guess my big question is, on a fundamental level, why do meditation work? Doesn't it work from the assumption of a mind that needs to be trained to attain peace and thus can't attain it right now? Perhaps indeed meditation doesn't work from this assumption, only I do. Why do sometimes I am able to stop thinking and reach peace while at other times it is seemingly impossible? Why do massive insights come randomly rather than come when I'm having an empty mind with meditation? The top insights I got were from thinking. When I meditate and I do good, it's not like a huge amount of good perspectives just pop up. My head is just seemingly empty, it feels good but it doesn't necessarily challenge perspectives. Let me list my biggest insights with what I was doing with them: "Maximum productivity is only reached when I feel at best" : Thinking on my first tab of LSD "I am nothing" : Just found out randomly in the middle of my sleep after 2 months without psychedelics "The life problem I have been struggling with is I assumed I had a reason to be ashamed" : When feeling ashamed on LSD because of the undercooked burgers I made "What I thought I was ashamed of was my body" : In a bath during a very difficult LSD trip where I thought I was physically dead Now this isn't a LSD propaganda thread but despite all of this, since 2.5 years ago, I'm meditating at least 30 minutes a day, sometimes up to 60 minutes. How come no insight ever came during that time? Those big insights didn't come in a moment of crazy discipline and intense meditation. I was doing random stuff and they just struck me. At last, even if you have no answer. Even if there's no way to tell when insights will come and why, I see how I could just accept that they are random, that's just the way they are and there's nothing I can do about it. But this feels like bullshit. I lack some understanding and this meta-understanding might help me dodge all the issues I am trying to solve case-by-case. With all of this, my life and emotional state is a huge roller coaster. Feel awesome, feel terrible, feel awesome, feel terrible. Sometimes I miss the old days of pre no-self where the highs were as high but the lows weren't as lows. PS: I apologize for the big rant. I think the solution is simple: I start from a point of awakening (even if it's temporary) and feel my way through life as a way to avoid believing (new) unwanted ideas. Practices help getting better at the latter. That would mean the real work starts now and not when I'm down again.

If doing a thing feels bad to you and you do it anyway, there might be downsides to doing that thing. But I don't think meat in itself contains any substance that would hinder your spiritual development.

With all due respect, I find that trying to focus on what I want while simultaneously holding a belief of incapacity doesn't work. I find myself "fishing" for this belief whenever I feel bad and it still feels like quite a battle. In the end the belief is often found, leading to a day or 2 of high productivity and happiness, (basically always) followed by a crash as I adopt a new limiting belief. The belief is alway "new" but I don't doubt that I will never run out of beliefs like this. How do you get yourself to stop feeling bad when you don't see the bad perspective that makes the bad feeling? What if "what you want" when feeling bad is to escape? It may be silly but it was done, so it was wanted wasn't it?

But there is no "real me" behind this flesh body. When I'm in a lucid dream I can feel my real body, I don't just "know" it's there. There is nothing other than what is perceived that exists. Consciousness is all there is. The observer is an idea.

Agree it's a great video and it's refreshing to see the Leo echo chamber being broken down a bit. I think spiritual communities where one doesn't have the ultimate say on what is considered "true" for the community is healthier.

Then what's the difference between knowing and assuming? Does seeing automatically means that there is an eye? That being said you didn't answer the question. Thankfully we got many people shouting the answer If "I" is not a thing then there is nothing beyond senses, and so "I exists = nothing exists" which is no different from "nothing doesn't exists". If you think "I am god" but forget that "I = nothing", then I believe it is a deeply egoic statement. That was my point, sorry for the back and forth

Ok then, this "you" that is beyond senses, what is it exactly? What is it's nature? Is it a thing just like an apple or a tree?

When meditating, observe if you are trying to convince yourself of this idea. Do you use any mistep as confirmation that you have a "serious monkey mind"? I'd recommend looking for that when meditating or contemplating. What you describe here is hearing the sound "as it is" rather than what it means for you. Ralston describes this distinction in depth if that interests you. You are doing a great job. I don't think there's anything to worry about, you are on the right path.

What exactly is beyond senses? How do you know you exist if it's not something you can sense?

What's the differece between knowing and thinking you know?

No disagreement then.

I don't have any problem with this perspetive per say. But are you using it to say that higher degree of consciousness/more exposure leads to a rigid view of how spirituality should be, or the reverse? I'm sorry if it came accross that way. I'm really mostly asking for a clarification here, which is, what is being concluded? Your perspective is clear enough, it's just what you are concluding that is still not clear to me. That beind said I apologize for criticizing your perspective. The only reason I did critize it is that I see many ways in which one can use this perspective to screw themselves over. (I can't be at peace right now because I lack exposure to infinity, or I lack degree of consciousness or whatever). But sure those pitfalls of your perspectice are projected, so my bad.

What are you exactly saying is relative to one's expose to infinity? The aforementioned close-mindedness on the limits of spirituality? I'm not sure if you are saying "Leo is close minded because he hasn't had enough exposure to infinity" or "You don't see why Leo is talking about those limits because of the lack of exposure to infinity." In any case, I doubt this entire relationship of how openminded or not you are depending on your exposure to infinity. This is a conceptualization of a mind defined by a degree of exposure to a thing (even if you say infinity is nothing, it is used as a concept in this context). I think the only thing limiting open-mindedness is thinking you know.

I came to realize this more directly lately. Just the idea that "what I think is a threat to my body doesn't matter because " can feel" wasn't enough for me. But after realizing that the body is never damaged without pain (or almost, since in its design it has nerves basically everywhere), there's no need to worry about "unconscious damage". That is I no longer need to avoid looking at every light I see because of fear of retinal damage. (Yeah I really had that ). At least I was convinced of this idea, that there is no damage without hurting but then I had this conversation with a friend, and they were like, what about cancer? It's true, if you have cancer you won't just "feel" it. At least it's unclear. Likewise, if you smoke and it hurts your lungs, do you feel the pain? The body is great but it doesn't seem flawless. I'm doing progress toward letting go of the protection of my body to feeling and I see that this idea of "a me that can be damaged without pain" has been put in place for social survival. The idea of me can be "diminished" without pain, so thinking I am this idea lead me to think I could be damaged without pain. I must admit caring about unconscious damage to my body was not really problematic compared to caring about "damage to my identity", which was a huge waste of time. I'm not free from the former though, hence this post. This fear of "unconscious damage" doesn't seem like a thing only I have. Leo talks about heavy metals you could consume and I mean, I get him, I get spooked too by things that could damage my body. Would I feel it though if I had too much mercury? It's hard to tell. It is worth to not care about those things and possibly die younger for the sake of living a carefree life? Possibly, but I'm definitely not there yet.

I agree, but I would add that there is no "disruption" if there is no reaction to what is said to be disruptive. The fact we react to "disruptive people" reveals much more about us than it reveals about them.

All I'm saying is that what took me out of my "rationalistic spree" back then was getting debunked by @Forestluv. Only after that I was able to see that I was full of shit and willing to introspect. But it took him to play my own game and beat me to it for me to see. I don't blame Leo for not being willing to deal with those types though. It's a lot of energy to help just one person.

Up to you but, 2 years ago I was like this too. I ended up learning despite all my projections, arguments and suppressed negativity. Is he the problem or is our reaction to him the problem?

Explaining is a skill that can be developped. Understanding something doesn't mean you can teach it, nor does it mean you have a reason to explain it to others. You say they lack real understanding. How do you know? If you judge their understanding to how well they explain, well surely your perspective on their understanding is quite limited. On top of that, what you are attacking here is a strawman of a stereotype you constructed. Anyone considering themselves a "spiritual person" is already quite phony. If you met an actually spiritual person you wouldn't notice it. People who brand themselves as "spiritual" are not doing spirituality, they are developing a spiritual ego.

Being honest, the real reason for the "why" is to justify the idea that "I need a girlfriend" because the purpose of the body is survival and reproduction and thus the body will never let me feel good (and thus be happy) if I don't reproduce. I know that's a fallacy, but I don't see it. I still believe that fallacy and I suffer from that. Thank you for guiding me toward deconstructing the why. I wish I could see things the way you do but I'll have to get there first