Sash

I never felt like I belonged in society. I was the kid that looked at my culture and strongly disapproved of what I saw at every level. I just knew that we weren't living with wisdom in mind. Nobody around me was genuinely concerned about living a profound life, or making that possible for others. I had to scour the library and the internet and that journey has led me here today. These past few years have been difficult. I got bombarded with the concept of self-actualization at a young age, though I was more than eager to lap up the knowledge and profound truth that was available to me as a high school student consuming Leo's content. But things have changed. I'm at a point now where I owe it to Leo and more importantly, to myself to stop consuming his content, because frankly what he is talking about is something I know I am not ready for (not counting his most recent upload ;). I have to be a creator. I feel like I'm at a stage in my personal development where I am no longer capable of explaining my inner experience to others. I know this might sound like I'm bragging but there comes a point where you cannot explain what you're doing or what happens to you when you meditate to others, no matter how much you might want to just be able to box up the experiences and give them away. My yoga is good. My meditation is improving. I have a strong devotion to the Hindu deity Shiva that is not logical but is 100% effective. My body is elastic like rubber. I am chaste like a nun and have no intention of breaking my celibacy anytime soon. My health is not bulletproof but I am making the necessary changes to my diet. I have a purpose that is multidimensional; it is a moment to moment purpose and a lifetime legacy: share the wisdom and information necessary to live a profound life. My big wordly dream that I want to see accomplished in the next 15 years? Creating a media outlet for the modern sage. Society does not encourage you to grapple with existence and become larger than life. This is something that has to change, and that starts with culture. It starts with our media and the content that we consume. People need to feel safe enough to break away from society. There is the misconception that if you reject any part of society your only option is to take a flight to South Asia and lose all your social and professional credibility. This is dangerous black and white thinking. My family is terrified that I will do this. My message is that a sage's life does not have to be the cold life of a renunciate, although such a life is remarkably resistant to the adhesion of the plastic confetti glamour that gets paraded around in society today. Confetti is pretty while it's in the air but it sure is a bitch to clean up when it hits the ground. A sage can walk through all that shit and not a single piece of confetti will be found stuck to their person. Being a sage means being a remarkably flexible being; performing acts of broad-minded compassion with a ruthless tenacity, a tenacity fueled by a cosmic love that surprise really exists. It means that you can wear a suit to work and chant Hare Krishna between zoom meetings. It is the loosening of all labels and all assumptions. It does not ask that you take up an oath and join a monastic order, only that you are true to yourself and reality as you know and don't know it. It is a life of zero distractions committed to the pursuit of truth and room must be carved out in society for the multidimensional individual in pursuit of such an endeavor. Anything less is unacceptable.

My flow of consciousness writing this morning. A bit refined but still raw. California, here we go again. Another sleepless night. It is time for me to write on a night like this. I do enjoy the tempo of writing on a keyboard. It is, all things considered, a much faster writing process. There is a shorter time between what I think and what gets typed down, so that makes these free consciousness writing a lot more smooth. I've tried to master the art of language as best as I can, but I obviously still have a lot more to learn about words and the best ways to use them. Words are like tools. It really depends on how you use them. Sometimes, there are complex points that are required just to make simple truths more evident. In that case, the skill of communication is an underrated one. If you could just reduce the amount of "latency" between something you are trying to say and something that you actually say, then that would make a whole world of a difference in the way that you carry yourself and present yourself to the world. I've always felt like keeping up an appearance has been a pretty big part of my life. I try to be the kind of person that I think people ought to be in this day and age. Curious. Optimistic. Healthy. Sober. I've tried, and failed, but I've also succeeded at times. My only regret is that most of the things that I really meant were heard by no one. Most of the time they were just ideas shelved away in some journal, never to be rediscovered again. I think that all adolescents need time by themselves, especially early in the morning. If one has a penchant for writing, then they ought to write during those pre-dawn hours where it feels as though one's mind is just a bit closer to the heart of things. That's when the magic happens. For example, right now. I'm really just typing away and not really knowing where anything is going to end up. But that's the fun of the whole thing right? It's like driving down a big stretch of country road that you've never been on before. It's a thrill in and of itself. Plus, there's no one on the road to bother you, not at 4:09 in the morning. It's just a clean empty road and the sun hasn't even come out yet, but the road and the mystery of what lies ahead is just so intriguing that you feel totally awake at the wheel. If you're not, even for a second, well, you might just lose your way. I think that my night time writing is to be appreciated, but writing at dawn is a whole nother ball game. It prepares your creative mind for the rest of the day. Just blurting out your thoughts onto something tangible, something that is cohesive, it sets you up to think in the same fashion with whatever else you encounter for the rest of the day. You start to bend the rules that you set for yourself yesterday. You are forced to make your fingers churn out something new. You must be unpredictable on the keyboard so you can be spontaneous in life. There is not a single day in which this should not be experienced by everyone. You should be able to harness the power of your mind. You ought to make your mind your friend and follow it, knowing that it will be by your side and not against you, even when the going is the toughest. You ought to make yourself anew. I've been writing for a long time now, and if you had to ask me how long, on a deeper level I would say I've been writing my whole life… and then some. I know that there is something primal in me that wants to convey a message to the world, in the hopes that it will inspire, invigorate, and heal much of the damage that we have caused and been victim to. A great deal of suffering stems from misunderstanding. Clarity of language could be a simple but effective antidote. I would argue that actually all suffering is just tangled up chains and chains of misunderstanding, all linking together to make you forget what the hell its all chaining up anyway. I don't want to lose my life, but I do waste my essence. This is a problem for me. I have many addictions. I am not the pure saintly being I aspire to be. But the fact that I actually aspire to be that way shows me that I am, at least inevitably, worthy of it. Why would I set myself up for something I am not destined for? Why would I approach a door unless I know I can open it? It is the same thing with everything. For example, soccer tryouts in high school. Maybe I wasn't going to the soccer tryout to join the team. Maybe I was going to the soccer tryout to realize that soccer wasn't my thing. Maybe I just had to realize that actually, there were many things I thought I was that I was really just pretending to be. And maybe all it took to be authentic was to just have a bit of faith. Maybe all it ever took was to just flow with life. To just let things come out unfiltered and raw, like fresh honey. Pouring out of me are these words and these thoughts. Some of them are like the wannabe thoughts of someone I admire, someone I look up to. But that is what I have. I am a learner. A lot of the ideas I have have been borrowed. I don't necessarily wear them as my own opinions and ideas. I just see them as benchmarks. Benchmarks that really speak more about the perspective they were forged from than an actual metric to gauge how my life is going. You see, wisdom is wisdom only if it is yours. Real wisdom doesn't seek to be everywhere and all the time. Real wisdom has to be wooed. It has to be challenged to stand up to the test of deceit, and emerge victorious. That is the hallmark of truth. That which cannot not be. And that which is will always prevail over that which cannot be, simply because it is. And now here I guess I'm just regurgitating some of those eastern philosophies, but really, these eastern philosophies are a part of me now, whether I like it or not. And I have to say that for the most part I do like it, because for the most part I have been seeking it. I am really just receiving what I have been seeking. I've sought wisdom, maybe not always consciously, but in the back of my mind always, there's been the question of what it means to live well. What does it mean to be righteous? What does it mean to be noble? Why should one aspire to these things other than it makes one feel pleased to do righteous and noble things? It's not to say that there aren't pleasures that come with doing the right thing, but I feel that truth should go beyond how it makes you feel. There isn’t that depth of understanding in me yet I guess. And for that I expect I will have to suffer. And I will suffer, continue to suffer, as I have done my whole life, living a lie that I never cared to question or challenge. I can't have that. Not for long, at least. Truth is truth because no matter how hard you try you can't run from it, you can't manipulate it, you can't corrupt it, you can only depend on it. You can only look to it for compassion. You can only grow from it and feel relieved in the process. That is truth to me. So, going on now. Let's talk about some simpler things. Let's talk about responsibilities. I was thinking today that I ought to focus more of my time on learning skills and building a kind of portfolio for myself as a virtual designer. I was thinking yesterday and today about all these different ways I could use my talent for curating learning, and I got to thinking about a way to make language learning a lot more engaging using the capabilities of VR and AR technology. These methods really do provide a lot of possibility in the way that humans will learn and develop themselves in the future, and I really hope that these possibilities are explored with the keen fascination and interest that they deserve, because human well-being will ultimately depend on how we see ourselves. It will depend on how we relate ourselves to the world we live in. To build a healthy society is to build it with inclusion in mind. The future ought to boast a culture of pure individuality. We ought to embrace our complex human selves, and go against the grain of dogma and tradition. We ought to live in a society totally devoid of judgement, where anybody is free to learn that which is most redeeming in the world. We just don't have that right now. We live in a world where it's expected that tomorrow will be just like yesterday, when really we should create a world that recognizes that every single moment is a new one. We ought to seek the highest, the most profound, and we should acknowledge that really, that's all we've been doing. All we have ever done is seeking something deep, something meaningful, something that restores a sense of humanity in oneself. Idealism is not naivete. What is humanity, you ask? To me, humanity is about being totally engaged while being totally vulnerable. It is about living each and every moment to the best of your ability. And we consider this to be noble because we are like David only that we don't really know how big Goliath really is,. We just see a shadow of Goliath, we don't really see a physical, finite form that we can size up and prepare for. The unknown is our greatest bane and our greatest muse. All of life is really just geared seeing what the experience is of a limited being in a limitless universe. How do you respond to infinity? How do you respond to perceived finity? Do you cower and hide and cry, or do you choose to stand and put your best foot forward through it all? I really do think that politics and the core curriculum so to speak that comes with modern society, ought to amuse themselves just a bit more with these existential questions, because really, they make up the bedrock of life. Sure it's a lot of layers deep but that's precisely what makes it so foundational. And if you then choose to stand on that bedrock, then what kind of a life would you be choosing? A life aligned with truth of course. Unshakeable love. But I don't know that for sure. At least not yet. For now I just have my reason.

At My Rope's End Today's been rough. I hardly got enough sleep but a new energy is moving through me. I scrambled to withdraw money from my accounts, whatever left of it I had. For the entire afternoon, it was as if all the financial institutions I was a member of no longer saw me fit to do business with. I tried to transfer the few dollars I had around, just so that I could get 20 dollars to buy a used keyboard I was planning on reselling for maybe 15 dollars profit. I pull up to the drive-in ATM, the only one in my area that will take my card. Anxiously, I slide my Bank of America debit card into the ATM, hoping for relief. What I get instead is a rude beep. My debit card, containing more than 90% of my liquid assets, had just been eaten. Furious, I slammed my hand against the steering wheel. I had finally reached my rope's end. My dreams, my hopes, my aspirations of abundance all threatened to unravel themselves in that moment. I felt my inner child yelling at me, telling me that this wasn't the life he had wanted for me. My ambition was thoroughly challenged today, and now I must respond. I finally arrived at a decision, a decision that would redeem all of my life's experiences up until this point. I had to commit to becoming a professional writer. I must be bigger than I was today, and I know I can do that if I stand on the shoulders of my biggest strength: my ability to craft a story. Life was telling me this for years. I didn't listen. The chaos and the friction I experienced today was my wake-up call. Luckily, I was attentive enough not to ignore it. My words must breathe. Or else, they will die. And so begins my rude awakening into mastery. Wish me luck.

Some Thoughts on Initiation In the moments where I'm very relaxed, it's like I can feel the level of vibrancy in my body, and how my thoughts are directly conjuring chains of stored emotions. From my perspective, they are chains of bondage. I can't really be free if I am relying on past emotions to determine the next best course of action. I've found body awareness to be a useful technique for me while practicing self-inquiry. As I get better at noticing the subtleties of this awareness, I have noticed that in its own way it does respond to the thoughts. To read about the mind-body connection is one thing but to experience and appreciate the possibility that it is is another. You can use your body as mind! Body and mind are not two things. They are the same thing. The intelligence does not just stop at the brain. Intelligence is what you are, and you still don't know where you are, let alone what you are.

Straightening myself out.. To be honest with you, I'd probably be dead if it weren't for principles. Currently reading Robert Greene's Mastery. 10,000 hours seems pretty daunting. I thought that once I got my purpose down and figured out what skills I needed to make it real, I'd magically start doing the thing. It's too big of a commitment for my ego, who's never really wanted to sit down and say, "Okay, I'm going to do this and I'm going to be this person." I think I've indulged myself too freely on being a spectator. Don't get me wrong, I have made quite a lot of progress working my way up the spiral, but in terms of real-world skills, the kind that I'm painfully aware I'm lacking, I ain't got shit. So, for the love of discipline, I went ahead and drafted a routine. Feel free to draw inspiration from it! I tried out the routine today and hit about 30% of it. I plan on slowly building that up, not expecting the change to be easy. I'm a big believer in making forced laughter the very first thing you do each day. It makes it easier to get up, and it leaves you feeling pretty optimistic for the rest of the day. Also, I changed the title of my journal because I thought that the last one sounded a little pretentious, this one is far more accurate.

I recently received initiation into a practice known as Shambhavi Mahamudra. It's a series of kriya yoga techniques done twice daily. With this practice, I feel a strong need to keep it a secret in my personal life. One reason is that I like keeping these gems for myself, and another is that I just want to see the results do the talking.

I spoke with an astrologer last week. I had paid him $50 out of a genuine curiosity to see what he had to say. My intention was to listen to what he had to say while being as open-minded and yet as detached as possible. I'm realizing now how difficult that actually is. Since that meeting, I've just been catching myself thinking about all of the things he said, and wondering if me focusing on what he had to say was actually making it more likely that those things would happen. I feel like I had one of those eerie epiphanies yesterday where you suddenly feel like you're a lot older than you really are, almost like you've stepped into a new life. It's that feeling of not knowing what's ahead, but knowing that you don't want to look back. I'm taking a poetry class this semester. There's this girl in my class. And I find myself feeling like I have to change for the class, for the girl, for this new life, for people. It's a distraction. It's illusion. I tell myself. Just focus on finding your voice.

https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252/ref=sr_1_1?crid=N7BVD44FJEBN&dchild=1&keywords=the+artists+way&qid=1625941121&sprefix=the+artist%2Caps%2C199&sr=8-1 I found this book while looking for a guide to releasing creative blocks. It's called The Artist's Way, written by an author and playwright named Julia Cameron. It was recognized as a bible for releasing creative blocks during the nineties, as Cameron would work as a coach to many budding artists, holding creativity workshops and such. Her philosophy offers a more nurturing approach to creativity. I can see it fitting very well with practices like introspection and meditation, which are mentioned in the book. I tend to be either very forceful or very inert with my creativity and it seems as though this book offers a more balanced approach. This book has practical advice; practical strategies for setting up daily encounters with your creative side, but there is also a lot of deep concepts, like common traps that artists face. Cameron says that we are all artists in one way or another, it's just a matter of addressing and healing the fears, distractions, and other illusions that blind us to our inner artist. In it, you will find simple practices and exercises. The main one being the daily habit of waking up and flow writing, one that I've started implementing myself. It's like taking a cold shower for creativity, and works even if you don't write or enjoy writing at all. Besides, it's not about writing better, it's about learning to see how you are creative. I hope this will help you as it has helped me. Let me share some insightful quotes here. "How do you know if you are creatively blocked? Jealousy is an excellent clue." "Fledgling artists may be encouraged to be art teachers or to specialize in crafts with the handicapped. Young writers may be pushed toward lawyering, a talky, wordy profession, or into medical school because they’re so smart. And so the child who is himself a born story-teller may be converted into a gifted therapist who gets his stories secondhand." "Morning pages will teach you that your mood doesn’t really matter. Some of the best creative work gets done on the days when you feel that everything you’re doing is just plain junk. The morning pages will teach you to stop judging and just let yourself write. So what if you’re tired, crabby, distracted, stressed? Your artist is a child and it needs to be fed. Morning pages feed your artist child. So write your morning pages." "As a rule of thumb, shadow artists judge themselves harshly, beating themselves for years over the fact that they have not acted on their dreams. This cruelty only reinforces their status as shadow artists. Remember, it takes nurturing to make an artist. Shadow artists did not receive sufficient nurturing. They blame themselves for not acting fearlessly anyhow."

Love finding unique masters of their craft like this guy. What's incredible is that no one sees his paintings and thinks, "Oh, did you do that in Microsoft Excel?".

SPEND AS MUCH TIME AS YOU CAN MASTERING Human-Centered Design, Leading a team of software engineers, persuasion speech, and businesss and marketing!!!!!1\SPEND AS MUCH TIME AS YOU CAN MASTERING Human-Centered Design, Leading a team of software engineers, persuasion speech, and businesss and marketing!!!!!1 SPEND AS MUCH TIME AS YOU CAN MASTERING Human-Centered Design, Leading a team of software engineers, persuasion speech, and businesss and marketing!!!!!1

I think that all men could benefit from learning about what divine masculine is. I know I could. I grew up not really knowing how to feel about being male. I was sometimes shamed by my own sister, a staunch supporter of the feminist movement when I was younger. I would often question what men have to give to the world, aside from a dick and balls. Chances are if you ask a random woman on the street what a man is good for, she would probably say sex or at the very least, "security". I know masculinity is deeper than that. So what is divine masculinity? What is masculinity at its highest form?

@Preety_India @Eternity Thanks guys. Really inspiring answers.

I highly recommend a book called Quantum Leadership: New Consciousness in Business. It talks about the evolution of business models over time and how higher consciousness business execs envision the future of their company. There are examples of how large corporations like Nike and Starbucks have tried to adopt a more conscious model, and there are examples of smaller organizations and non profits doing the same. I think you'll find that it echoes Spiral Dynamics quite nicely.

Dehydrated thoughts Definitely took way too much armodafinil today. I feel like a floating head. Did some yoga and realized that I couldn't feel into my body, but I had more endurance. My headstand was a lot longer. I lied down to rest and tried to feel into my body but it wasn't really working. Eventually I did feel something in my chest, a feeling that I interpreted as mistrust, a fear of God. It's the accumulation of all the times I got backstabbed or misled by something that seemed to be love at first, and then turned out to be something else. It's just another cluster of old programming that I need to let go.

Woah It's funny. When I had (what I consider to be) my first glimpse of oneness on psilocybin mushrooms, I felt in my heart that my whole life would suddenly go through a drastic change, partly because of the tremendous ecstacy I now know is possible to experience in life, and mostly because of the incredible freedom that comes with realizing that as consciousness, you cannot die. And yet, 11 months later, I can't say that life has been a total joyride of purpose, meaning, and constant winning. I just got up from my daily meditation. Today I tried being aware of any negative emotions held in my body as sensations, and really feeling into them to allow the process of letting go. This has been one of the most practical and tangible meditation techniques I've tried so far, almost scarily so. I'm realizing in these sessions that I'm still holding on to and validating a wide array of limiting beliefs. These beliefs appear to be: - Manifesting in my body as uncomfortable sensations - Related to the subtle body's energy centers - Contributing to physical and emotional disease There seems to be a cluster of these sensations along the lumbar region, which I intuit as a manifestation of all the guilt, grief, and depressive thinking I've allowed to accumulate so far in my life. There's enough negativity there to give me a mild backache throughout the day, and give my spine a slight unnatural curve. I know the backache is related to these emotions because they coincide with each other. Another hotspot for bad vibes has been my throat center, which makes sense because I've had a fear of expressing myself that I can date back to my elementary school days, when I felt like I had to act a certain way to fit in and didn't want to seem like a geek who liked to write poems and be philosophical because that was the opposite of what the "cool" kids were doing. Lastly, there's the dread in my stomach. It's where I've stuffed all my worst fears in the hopes they would never surface. The dread I feel is the fear that my fears are coming true. It's a hollow feeling that tells me that it's over; that I've lost the game of life in the most pathetic way: never even starting. These are all caged demons that I know I have to starve out, but it's like I keep sliding them heaps of food, and what's worse is that I enjoy doing it. That's what makes letting go so difficult. You don't realize how attached you are to the very things that hold you back. Ain't that a bitch? Aftereffects "The content of fear may be intense and gripping, so much so that it overwhelms us completely. But when we look beyond that content at the fear itself, what do we find? Pure energy, energy which, if we focus on it directly, will begin to reveal its real nature. Then, instead of filling us with agitation, the energy of fear can actually lead us to a state of exhilaration, or intense concentration, or love." —Ancient Hindu Scripture When you know that your darkest emotions can eventually be conquered, that's when the shift happens. It's when you know that there is something beyond your worst fears inside you that you find the strength to overcome them. And make no mistake about it. That something is love. I felt into my heart, just a few inches above where the dread was in my stomach. That's where I found this love, a love that would be willing to be born again and again just to face this fear. It's a cause for rejoice if you ask me.

@mw711 You raise some good questions. For me I've found that simply telling others I'm going to do something raises the chances of me actually doing that thing. Of course, it would be more efficient if I could just make promises to myself and keep them, but I haven't been so great at that in the past. Maybe I should work on that first. Regardless, I still think it can be valuable to surround yourself with peers with similar goals.

Hey, this is Sash. Creating this thread for all the younger people on this forum to meet and talk about their personal growth, their visions for the future, and to create peer to peer accountability. I think that this is an element that's been missing in my own life: that I'm not really meeting people who have a big-picture comprehension of personal development, lots of ambition, sustainable and holistic thinking, and a deep passion and appreciation for life. If you're one of the younger members on this forum (I'm 19 myself) and you feel like, after having been exposed to the possibility of self-actualization, it made you feel vastly more alone in this world, maybe sharing your story on this thread is the right thing for you. A few things about me: - INFP who values self-expression, creativity, and poetry, helping humans realize they are complex works of art, not the clumsy bags of meat they think they are right now. - My mission statement is to create highly interactive games for self-understanding and cooperation. I want people to see the human hidden deep inside themselves, so that they can see it in others that much more easily. - Good at coming up with ideas, poor at taking action - Enneagram type 4/5 - Wants to make society value introspection and take it seriously - Highest values are curiosity, intelligent design, and dignity. At the highest level that's wondering if reality is really perfect, then seeing that it really is, and finally living/dying in that knowing. - Empath who tries to bring out the human in everything - Loves to speak, write, wander, teach, and uplift

Recommitting to the Path One of the most profound disciplines that I've been experimenting with lately is semen retention, or the practice of Bhramacarya, as it is known in the Vedic philosophy. When I reflect on the ways in which my life is so drastically different from what it was a year ago, I can't help but to accredit much of the newfound energy, success, and overall life stability to this basic non-action. While I did just have a relapse yesterday, there is no doubt in my mind that much of the inner transformations that have occurred or are beginning to manifest for me in my outward reality, is because I chose to respect and ally with this very potent life force within me. What I Learned from a 14 Day Stretch I've been meditating as a discipline on and off for about three years now, but none of the benefits were being integrated into my life until I decided to become a Bhramacari. What I noticed after three days was that I had an extra jolt of aliveness and a very noticeable vibrancy to my very being. As I increase in my body awareness, I noticed that my prana, or life energies, could be more readily sensed and manipulated at will. On top of my daily hatha yoga routine, I've employed a basic kriya meditation, which I took from Sadhguru. This simple breathing into the root chakra and breathing out of the third eye chakra leaves a noticeable electric feeling along my spinal column, and I know that the extra energy coming from the base of my spine is a direct effect of the stored energy inherent in my own semen. Try not thinking about/doing PMO for a few days, and you will feel a kind of "gripping sensation" or a "pull" happening in the same place as your perineum, between the anus and genitals. When I notice this sensation happening, I know that this is a very raw form of energy buildup that I can direct to the other chakras and throughout the body. The more I study the science of yoga, the more I am conscious of this raw energy and its capabilities. This is the same energy that I would habitually release in the past, but now it has become a tremendous asset to my health and spiritual progression. The semen is really like fuel for prana; it's actually a subtle form of energy known by yogis as ojas, the same energy that is found in pure blood, honey, and ghee or clarified butter. Besides being a very healing kind of substance, ojas can be converted into prana through transmutative practices such as kriya meditation and hatha yoga. 10 Benefits I Noticed A fire in my balls that gets me out of the house and on the chase for the wonder of existence; a lust for life. Animals love to be around me. About a week after semen retention, I kept encountering an abundance of rabbits, squirrels, and sometimes cats in my backyard every so often. Girls I've just met speak to me as if they've known me for years. Groundedness and people magnetism. I might be in a hall at school or at a park meditating, and feel for some reason that I should pick a particular spot and root myself there, like a tree. Even if I am there alone or if there are only a few people around, after some time I find that there are more people around than when I first got there. I find myself in seemingly random situations that, upon reflection, I realize happened to propel me to find that next piece of information, that next important person, or that next opportunity to help me progress in my life and in my purpose. A few weeks ago I had just met this girl, when she suggested that I go with her to get registered to vote. In the office where I registered, I received a pamphlet about a volunteer opportunity that was suited to my talents and the skills that I want to learn. I find it difficult to sit around and waste my life. I hardly play video games anymore, when I used to play about 4 hours a day habitually a year ago. People are more receptive to my ideas, more trusting in my plans, and more eager to come along in my daily adventures. I appreciate my friends more. My skin is colorful and has a special glow to it. As I look at my hands now, having relapsed yesterday, they look pale, dry, and almost dead compared to how they looked during that 2 week period. Facial symmetry and depth of voice. I took a picture of myself every day during these 2 weeks, and you can clearly see that my cheekbones and jawline became sharper, my neck got slightly thicker, and my eyes, brow, mouth, and ears got straighter and more symmetrical. The quality and shine of my hair also improved greatly. More and better sex. Both the depth and quantity of the sex I've had these past few weeks has been unprecedented. Mind you, this is coming from a guy who essentially spent most of last year in a victim/hermit mode where I was quite literally afraid to go outside and at the same time wondering why I was invisible. This last point is something of a blessing and a curse, as the only time I really ejaculate these days is when I fail to control myself in bed. Still, I am trying to learn how to integrate sexuality with this practice, and working to gain a greater agency over my reproductive muscles so that this does not happen.

The Love Story behind my Life Purpose I fell in love with words at a young age, and the ability to convert my deepest emotions into readable ink or audible speech. It's crazy to think about how vastly different my relationship to my life purpose is now, after having spent over a year in deep contemplation and reflection. After inquiring for some hundreds of hours, in and between meditations, in my journal, in commute, and in my emotional responses to life's "ordinary" events, my sense of life purpose has gotten sharper and sharper. I can say with more confidence now, that my life purpose is to lead the direction of innovation in media and society towards greater awareness of life's most fundamental mechanics, communicating patterns and connections that provide deeper understanding and the unfoldment our higher selves at a mass level. But I can't lie to you. I am struggling. I'm a 19 year old kid, who's spent far too long selling myself short, and this dream is so small in the ways that it shows up in my life right now, but I'm trying my best to be grateful as often as I can. I'm taking a class in public speaking, where I have the opportunity to learn from a professor who's been teaching this skill for over 30 years. I've also been blessed with numerous intangible advantages in my quest to understand myself and my own emotions, one of them being the wealth of insights I've received from Leo alone. My intellect is sharper, my sense of agency is larger, and my heart is more open. I've even had vivid inner visions from time to time during psychedelic trips, that seem to encourage this purpose in some way. At times, I see myself on stage giving keynotes about the wonder that is human nature, and how understanding it might hold the key for mass level harmonization. Semen retention, a weapon for massive action I cannot see a way in front of me; how to approach this purpose; how to be the person that this purpose would require me to be; but I am committing to living in the most love that I am possible, and that includes the most loving gift that I can give to myself: the constant unfolding of my deepest dreams, desires, and authentic self. It includes, for me personally, the practice of bhramacarya, or semen retention, which has given me a completely new inner wellspring of energy and drive. I marked my commitment with this drastic decision to preserve the life fluid, which represents creation itself, and contains the soul power of a man's some unnumbered amount of unborn children, and the wisdom of his lifeline. In the past 14 days since I made that decision, I've noticed that my skin has gotten more radiant, my motivation to win is stronger, and people seem to be more drawn to me. At times I've felt as though I had a magical charm, and that people would simply bend to my will. Girls are more willing to follow me around. I'm more grounded, relaxed, and I've put a higher priority on myself and what I want from moment to moment. In the past 14 days, I've experienced a remarkable boost in terms of life purpose clarity, and that sense of being the hero of my own epic. These feelings are inexplicably powerful weapons. If you are seeking that push to really own being the hero, I would highly recommend taking on the responsibility of preserving your sexual energy, regardless if you are a man or a woman. This isn't simply about strict abstinence from ejaculation, but the refraining of spending excessive time and energy in the physical or mental pursuit of sex. Of course, the man experiences a different range of new qualities than a woman would, but regardless, this can be a wonderful opportunity to further flower yourself. For me, it feels as though there is a ball of light getting larger in my perineum, pushing me to give to the world. I hope you consider giving it a shot. Thanks for reading.

The Voices There are lots of voices in my head, as I'm sure there are in yours. But I'm not exactly sure if the thoughts in my head are just ordinary anymore. These days, they seem to come more often from the me outside of me. For the last 6 weeks, I've been regularly maintaining a meditative state throughout my waking day. Despite eating like a pig, I have managed to make my mind more pleasant, by filling it with only happy, positive, or grateful thoughts. It's like a box of light now. But this is not where my "auditory hallucinations" or whatever you can call these very deep, inner hearings, come from. I hear them from somewhere even higher in the body: the crown. I think this is the reason I'm not so afraid of what these "hearings" say; because they feel as though they are coming from a pure place, instead of the hectic chaos that is below it, an body that's inflamed like a fire at the moment. And from all these different sensations that one would experience while meditating and going very deep, is this much larger, purer, more honest voice that just wants you to wake up. And as what feels like a gentle rain falls on the top of your head, you are called to dissolve further. And that's why I trust it.

Vices I want to be honest about my vices. I've been taking a deeper look at them lately, and I find that they can be useful indicators of your shadow side when they are examined right to the core. I want to share with you what I found from examining mine. As of now, my vices are: Sleeping too late, sometimes not sleeping at all Not wanting to get out of bed in the morning Spending too much time playing video games Addiction to nicotine Dependence on cannabis for creativity At face value, these just seem like bad habits, but they became vices when they started to gradually poison my self-image at a deep and fundamental level. It started with video games, which was an activity that truly fascinated me as a child, but now I feel But what is so interesting is these vices all feed the same illusion, or block, that prevents me from moving past my old-self image as someone who is impulsive, lazy, dumb, and stuck in a pit of guilt. In fact, these five vices all perpetuate this false self-image, because after doing them, I feel lazy and guilty, and I stay trapped in that. And these emotions ripple out into so many areas of my life, stifling me from taking healthy and consistent action, creating and maintaining healthy relationships, and in general, just being comfortable in my own skin. It made me realize that my ego was very cleverly selecting these activities because it knows that all of them tempt me to over indulgence, and then to that old guilt, despair, and at very negative levels, self-loathing. And this makes sense because the ego is terrified of a more liberating and forgiving self-image that might destroy the old one that it is so attached to, and has "suffered so much" to create and defend. And I can connect this now with some of the earliest limiting beliefs I ever developed, namely that too much pleasure is evil and that my most authentic self is not capable of being creative, of enjoying the creative process, or of enjoying any steady, long-term, and meaningful form of work. I know that at a greater level of perception, these vices will dissipate, be re-framed and reintegrated, and no longer limit my well-being. But I know that this is going to take time. For now I have a lot of work to do with building a more whole image of myself and the world, especially one that allows for a healthy pursuit of and enjoyment of pleasure. In my commonplace book, I have made it an experiment to observe and record my emotional state and self-image and how it changes through these vices. I aim to start by observing the guilt and negative thoughts as they arise when I indulge myself, and repeatedly attempting to let it go. At an energetic perspective, this could mean a block in the second energy center, which functions well when you embrace life's pleasures without guilt and with complete self-acceptance. From a place where these vices no longer trigger and prolong negative thought loops, I can decide with greater clarity if I am truly willing to let go of them or not. On a more practical level, I want to start taking small chunks of the time that I previously spent on these vices, and use it for more creative purpose like research related to my life purpose, exercise, meditation, and time spent learning useful things. How I'm doing Other than that, I would say that I am physically, mentally, and emotionally healthier than ever. I have some great habits, but I aim to be more consistent with them, and more importantly, to learn how to derive more pleasure from those habits than I do from the ones that do not serve me. I've learned a great deal of powerful techniques for influencing the subconscious in the past few months, and I will see if I can use these to to let go of these limiting beliefs and begin to trust in and value healthier and more holistic beliefs. As for my life purpose, I feel that I am getting more clarity as time goes on, and I am noticing that I am finding myself pulled toward doing things that I am naturally gifted in. Feeling especially familiar with my purpose, and having a better understanding of the kind of work that suits me, I recall that a few months ago I had a desire to work in a creative and innovative role, that I wanted to be under the mentorship of someone who could help me discover my strengths and talents, and that I wanted to use my strength of communication using the medium of words, and that I wanted to be involved in a company or organization that produces educational content and tools for social benefit and for self-understanding. Oddly enough, some time later, my sister sends me a link to apply for a copywriting/marketing internship for an organization that uses games to promote harmony within quarantined households. Immediately, I knew that this was no consequence. The head of this project would work closely with me, and while I wouldn't call it a mentorship in the traditional sense, she gave me the courage to try the things that I was drawn to and excited about, and continues to provide valuable feedback on my strengths and weaknesses, in addition to what I am observing on my own. It was a struggle for me to rise to the challenge of giving value to this project at first, but as I did my work with a feeling of gratitude and felt worthy of my role, I found myself slowly shifting to work that suited me better and better. Last week, I was asked to edit a script for a skit that belonged in one of the games, and while I resisted it at first and put it off, when I finally sat down to do it, I found myself losing track of time, just writing funny and clever dialogue. Through that experience, I reconnected to my love of words and storytelling, and my desire to express and teach the patterns of human nature in a way that is fun and intuitive. It also opened my mind to the possibility of someday leading my own company/organization that blends performance art and the technology of the future (two of my deep fascinations) to expand people's awareness of life and nature, and help guide them to healthy and conscious living. Although I am not crystal clear and definite about what my dream career looks like (right now I am , I am optimistic that I am on the path to discovering that, and that I am capable of integrating all of my life's experiences to my purpose. And I've noticed some awesome surprise side effects since then, like increased energy, random spurts of abnormally coherent and imaginative thinking, vibrant skin, and as a man, a sense of groundedness, mission, and meaning. What can I say? Thank you, LEO! I'll try to write more on this thread, mainly for the clarity and storytelling practice I get from it. If you read through this, I would suggest that you make a habit of making distinctions between activities that serve you, and those that do not. There is a great lesson behind every little thing you do.

My purpose is to teach people the power of understanding. Plain and simple. The first step in breaking out of a prison is to realize you are in one. My purpose is to empower people by giving words to their suffering. Once you correctly identify the prison as a prison, you will suddenly be able to see the key. You won’t admit it, but it was there all along. My purpose is to restore humanity's long lost dignity. Free from the darkness, you now see that the real world is not what you thought it was. But you feel at ease in this new world, because some part of you knows that this Eden, and not the metal cage hidden underground, is your true home. My purpose is to restore faith in humanity. The possibilities are plenty, but never do they overwhelm, for every moment greets you with a sincerity that you have never known. Take its hand and it will joyfully take you to who you are. My purpose is to stoke mankind's desire to understand himself. Looking back, you see that it was actually the prison that was the greatest gift, a teacher cleverly disguised as pain. The illusion is what got you to see the truth, just as smoke reveals the wind that carries it. As tears of gratitude fall on the ground, you know you do not weep alone.

How do I let go? "Thoughts become things." I've been coming across this concept a lot lately. In the past month I've read and heard so many different interpretations of the Law of Attraction, and I think it's pretty interesting how so many different sources say the same thing, each in their own way. I've been trying to change my thoughts and have had some success, but what's been really interesting is that noticed that the practice alone of trying to change your thoughts shows you so much of your own inner shit. While practicing control of my conscious mind, I've come to realize that I still have many emotional blocks that I've stuffed deep down, and they're manifesting today as frustration, anger, destructive tendencies, lack of self-love, doubt, and fear. Some days I am like a cloud, everything that happens to me just goes through me, and some days I feel like a live wire, the slightest thing can make me boil with rage. I know that I have a lot to let go of before I can truly wake up to myself, but I'm not sure how.

The 3 Books a Day Diet I got this strategy from Tai Lopez (mostly stage orange guy, I know, but he's also kind of stage yellow based on how much he consumes information and integrates it into his life). Regardless, this is a pretty awesome way to get through lots of books in a short time, as well as optimizing them for their fullest effect. It's not just about reading three books a day, it's about what you read and at what time. Here's what I do. I'm currently reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill in the morning, Mastery by Robert Greene in the afternoon, and Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda before I go to bed. The trick with this strategy is to read an action-oriented book in the morning, preferably one about vision and principles; something abstract and long-term. In the afternoon, pick out a book that you can use as a benchmark to your progress, one that is more specific and process-oriented. Lastly, go to bed with a book that leaves you inspired as to what is possible, like a great biography. This is a super powerful way to optimize your reading habits.