WonderSeeker

Gut feelings are the same as intuition. You're intuiting something about yourself that you previously weren't conscious of. This is good! Best of luck in creating the circumstances you want.

Hey man, I understand how you feel. When you're new to dating, you have no idea wtf you're doing. I've been there. In time, you'll realize the game is actually quite simple and it's best to just do what feels natural. This is a fine response. It's honest. But if you really want to feel confident, the best way to go is to hire a coach. I really like Jad T Jones who I'm getting direct coaching from. He has some good YT vids if you're looking for some tips.

@Preety_India That's a wise move you won't regret! @Natasha That's awesome! I really want to do the LP course but just spent some good money on dating coaching (trying not to spend too much at once). Money management is a super-important topic; I was pleased to this this post.

@Natasha In the long term I'd say you can save a great deal by setting aside money for investment and putting it all into self-help courses now which transform your physical and mental health to such a degree that you can't help but make high-awareness money decisions in the future. Spend now and save later is my philosophy at the moment; I'll let you know how it's working in 5-10 years !

You're damned if you speak, and damned if you don't! Society is very judgmental, so play the game however you want. For me, I try to frame knowledge to those who are ignorant in ways that still mostly agrees with their worldview. Usually when I have a rough sense of how somebody operates, I'll pass these high-level, "crazy" concepts through a few filters so that I don't freak them out.

Loving What Is (Byron Katie) is probably the best I've read so far. It teaches you how to investigate your thinking patterns and see your thoughts for what they really are. Powerful stuff. If you want to learn meditation techniques and theory, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha (Daniel Ingram) is a fantastic textbook-style behemoth of a book. It took me months to read, but was worth it. And of course, The Religion of Tomorrow (Ken Wilber) is a must-read for being "the most authentic, enlightened version of yourself"! The most inspiring book I've ever read in my life. It covers basically everything from spirituality to psychology.

Ferdinand Beck has a really helpful and well-researched nutrition guide on how to go vegan on his website Vegains. https://www.vegains.org I like that his guide actually teaches you the importance of eating whole foods, as opposed to solely processed vegan food, which isn't healthy. Very easy to digest and put into practice for those of you who are on the fence about changing diets. This source may also be helpful to those of you who want to combine good fitness with plant-based eating.

@cetus I appreciate the recommendation! I actually read his post the other day. Very informing. @seeking_brilliance Thank you for sharing!

You may very well be in that phase. I'm currently in it and like you, it was all fun and games until things went down-hill fast. If you're in the Dark Night, then brace for impact as "No-Self" may radically deepen. It sounds like you were recently in the Arising & Passing Away stage, which precedes the Dark Night. In that stage you tend to feel blissful, joyous, hyper-sexual, etc. I'm not trying to downplay whatever happened to you, but that 'awakening' you experienced was probably not an actual awakening. The A&P is notorious for making new students think they've become enlightened. Feel free to PM me and we can discuss Dark Night insights! It's much harder to go it alone.

I did that prior to making my post and found some answers, although the threads were a bit old and didn't really address what I was specifically asking. Thank you though!

The reasoning they gave for the outage seems fishy. One outage, 200 million without power. Geez!

@Eph75 You made a lot of good points there! Without a doubt Green must become the COG first. As an American I'm seeing feedback for this in our political system (albeit with some regressions into unhealthy Blue as well). I think that unhinged Orange is leading to my generation's strong identification with Green, plus an Orange shadow. Perhaps helping this generation overcome its shadow elements is more important than throwing Tier Two values at it. After all, you can't drive a race car if it is in dire need of repair. Also, there is no rush to this "flip." It will happen regardless. Still, I think it's going to be fun engineering it!

I vastly prefer handwriting to typing. Buuut like anything, it's not entirely black and white. For me, I handwrite because my inner artist will draw small pictograms alongside my wording for emphasis. (Not to mention, I have a bunch of gel pens and a sketch notebook, which makes the act of writing a pleasure in itself.) However, the disadvantage of handwriting is that it is a slow process. Typing is lightning fast comparatively, which in turn increases you chances of getting everything that you thought down without forgetting much detail. Sometimes I have a million insights at once and by the time I've written a couple of them down, I already forgot the rest. Cheers!

DISCUSSION: How to spread Tier Two ideas In his book The Religion of Tomorrow, Ken Wilber states that stage transformations are marked by a sudden influx of the new stages' values when at least 10% of the population identifies with that stage. Notable examples include the Enlightenment in Europe (blue to orange) and the 1960s in America (orange to green). He goes on to say that some time within the next 10 to 20 years, we will see this happen as 'we' move into yellow. With that said, I'm wondering just how we will get there. In what social settings will yellow values get the most attention and spread the fastest? My intuition tells me that there isn't a straightforward answer. A corollary question is What is the most effective way to spread Tier Two ideas? Thinking specifically, comedy is a potential arena for this, as comics draw large audiences and are massively influential. Then again, I've yet to see a comedian that appears to have transcended green. (Please link something if you think you've found a yellow comedian!)

@Tarzan I'm reading through Ingram's descriptions of the Dark Night every day; they're really good! It's just difficult to pin things down since it's my first time going through it. It feels as though awareness is lagging behind experience, if that makes any sense. Very up and down, like a roller-coaster. Heh.

Hi all! So... this is what it's like? After a bright and energetic A&P, which lasted from September to early November, I find myself in the infamous Dark Night stages of meditation. Luckily, no extreme emotional stuff has arisen (yet). For those wondering, words I'd use to describe it are creepy, empty, haunted, strange, disappearing, dying, and dissatisfactory. It's kind of like the embodiment of the word "Halloween." The following are recurring themes. First, I keep envisioning scenarios about me or other people getting killed or hurt in gruesome ways. (These thoughts aren't scary or bad, just a bit jarring.) Next, the amount of rapture as contrasted with normal practice is off-the-charts, with spatial and light/color distortions being the most common. I've also been having these random insight dumps, but am having trouble integrating them. Lucid dreaming and resentment of others for no good reason have become common. The feeling of 'no-self' is stronger than ever. For those of you seasoned meditators, what advice do you have for these stages? Are there ways in which I can speed-up the Dark Night, or should I just continue my practice like normal? Is there anything in particular I should be doing or "looking for?" Thank you!

I plan to take it for travel next summer (USA to Mongolia). Still voted "I don't know" because I still don't know anything about it. Plan to research it when it's made official.

Just know that you are making valuable progress by actually doing the exercise! Most people are too lazy to even give it a shot. In the beginning, it will feel like nothing is changing, and your mind will, in a biased way, only see the negatives. Keep going! It also may help to learn some more theory - there are some great books out there for this thing.

@Preety_India Congrats! I never had the thought that things were difficult for you behind the scenes. You present yourself as really knowledgable and articulate in your points. See you 'round!

Like this?

That's a nice way to think about it. Of course, thinking about it isn't the main objective!

I haven't watched much of him, but this OSHO segment is gold. Clearly he was a master on more than one cushion!

@Conscious life Nice thread! It sounds like we share some similar traps. My traps: arrogance (thinking I know when I've no fucking idea), trying to get others to do self-actualization (this is a time-waster in most cases), boasting about the joys that come out of self-actualization and spiritual work to others who don't want to hear it, and assuming life is meaningless (felt this way when I watched Leo's advanced spiritual videos too early in my development, but luckily broke out of this mindset recently). Note: For those that are in the "life is meaningless" trap right now, I think a good way to break out of it is to have a love for something (like your life-purpose) that outweighs your fear of an idea (like nihilism).

@Lyubov , @Preety_India , I can see it.

Having it would be too much pressure. It's too much! I'd figure out how to stow it away for a couple of decades as fast as I can so I can focus on continuing to grow myself. Buuut first I'd pay-off my student loans.