Tim R

@Consilience Thanks mate

I think Nahm means the latter... Fast, but don't overdo it. And after fasting, don't overdo it. Backlash is the result of overdoing it, so when you overdo it with fasting, you are provoking a backlash. So actually, the backlash isn't the real problem, the real problem is the overdoing it in the first place. Since you're anticipating the backlash, you're conscious of it and it doesn't have as much might. Just take it easy.

I'd like to show you a little exercise which you can easily implement into your day to day life, it doesn't take much effort and can be a lot of fun too This exercise aims at developing gratitude, consideration and mindfulness. I've learned this from the traditions of the Zen Sangha ("Sangha" means Buddhist community of monks etc.), although I think other Buddhist schools do the same thing. Before you eat or drink, become aware of your food in the following ways: whatever you have on your plate, it gave its life for yours. It died so you may live. Whether it may be some plant or some animal, it gave its life to you. Literally. Is there any greater gift? Think of the many, many ways the universe worked out to provide for your food to be on your plate. Some fruits and vegetables? They had to grow. A plant had to grow. And where did the plant come from? Well there's the earth. And what is earth made from? Other plants of course, who died and are now soil. Then there's water. Where has the water been? it has been on the planet for billions of years, providing life to every being that has ever lived, every plant, every dinosaur, every human, everyone. Then there's the sun. Without the sun there would be no food. No plants can grow without light. No animals can live without eating plants or other animals. And there's the atmosphere of the earth, preventing deadly UV radiation to kill plants and animals. There's the farmer who had to take care of the plants. There's the people who worked together to get those fruits to the grocery store. There's society, working together in order to allow you to enjoy your food in times of peace. There's.... You can go on forever, in every direction. And suddenly you find, that the whole universe must be considered. Literally, everything that ever happened lead to you being able to eat and drink your food and water. And even if you eat only one blueberry while making Leo's blueberry smoothie or whatever, the whole universe is contained in that one blueberry. The whole universe gave itself, completely, to create this one berry. Can you even begin to fathom how unbelievably great of a gift that is? And it is a gift! for you! If that doesn't make you tear up in gratefulness for one single blueberry, you haven't understood. Or when you drink a cup of tea. "The whole universe is contained in that last drop of tea in your cup" (this is something I read in "The Book of Tea"). Are you going to waste it carelessly? Or are you going to honor it by being grateful and mindful, in consideration of every being that gave its life and everything that ever happened, all for this one last drop of tea? And don't forget, one day you are going to give yourself to every other being too. No giving without receiving. No receiving without giving. Can you also recognize that this is Love and Selflessness? It is the embodiment of "I give myself to you. I am selflessness. I am Love."

@CBDinfused That which is, is the way it is. And therefore can't be any other way. A = A ; Reality = Reality ; Being = Being ; That which is = That which is This "principle" is actually extremely simple. Which is why it is so difficult to understand it. You think that reality could be any other way than it is now. But it can't, because the moment it is something else, it is the way it is. Existence is Truth. Because it is what it is, no matter what it is. So whatever existence can become, it always is. Notice, that your question assumes that reality is some-way, i.e. some-how. It isn't. Reality is actually no-way and no-how. Because then you could pin it down. Have you noticed that you can't? Reality can't be captured in any concept, it always escapes. This is called "Shunyata" in Sanskrit. "Void". No-thing. No some-thing. No some-how. That is what Lao-Tse means by saying "the Dao (the way/the how) which can be uttered is not the eternal Dao". Basically what you have to do, is drop the desire for any explanation for why reality = reality. Because the question is actually meaningless. Which is why the answer is tautological and from a logical point of view completely meaningless too. The answer lies in the experience itself. You won't find it on this forum. I can't give it to you and neither can Leo. Nobody can. You must find out for yourself. Again, you experience what you experience because A =A. The answer to your question is not a philosophical answer, it's a no-thought answer. It's insight into the nature of being, which won't come from discursive thought. What is the answer to a meaningless question? Well that's the whole game with Zen Koans. No-answer.

@JosephKnecht Impossible

A plan for feeling good? Did somebody say @Nahm? @roopepa Sounds really good What's your current situation like? Are you feeling good now? Just asking because it's important to be realistic with expectations to prevent disappointment. Trying to have everything at once would very likely just fail and make you miserable

@CBDinfused What are you asking then?

It doesn't "need" to exist, there's nothing which could in any way "compel" it to exist. It is existence. There isn't "something rather than nothing". Something is nothing, literally. "Nothing" is the most stable state you could imagine. Which is why reality is nothing. This question still assumes that there's a past in which consciousness did exist. Which is not the case. "Infinity" doesn't mean "to go on for ever" it means "beyond time", i.e. "outside of"/"not bound by" time (and everything else). Nothing. There's no "your experience". There's no you to experience any "other", which you call "reality". There's just experiencing, which itself is nothing. Death = Birth.

I think a mystic is someone who makes it his life task to deepen the mystical state of consciousness. Deepen, not attain. Because one who hasn't yet attained the mystical experience (for example a novice monk or some other person on the path) can't be considered a mystic, for he doesn't even know what a mystical experience actually is. So a mystic is someone who embodies enlightenment. It's (relatively) easy to just have Satori, but then get back into ordinary everyday life and more or less forget about it. Such a person I wouldn't consider a mystic either, because he doesn't anymore bear any deep relation to the mystical. But say some Zen master or great Yogi who works every day to deepen and embody his Satori/Samadhi in everyday life is someone who I would call a true mystic.

Look into a specific aspect of your life where you suspect yourself to be holding limiting beliefs. Examine the situation closely, map it. Try to create a "high resolution" description of the situation and all its aspects. And then ask yourself why you think in certain ways about various aspects of the situation. By investigating your thoughts and beliefs thoroughly you will find out that in most cases they weren't grounded in anything, they were nothing but a fiction. What are the reasons for your particular thoughts about the situation? Where do they originate? Are they even your own thoughts or just something you adopted from someone else? Maybe something from the past which still influences you you? What are those thoughts creating for you? Are they serving you in any way or are they making things more difficult / fearful for you? Can you change those thoughts? In what ways? And what would happen if you'd do so?

I don't know.. And I didn't ask any question. And I feel so free, so untroubled, so "aahhhh" and hieve a sigh of relief. I don't know. This is what I was looking for. Leaning out the window, I look at the night. And I just don't know. What it is, who I am, none of it matters. The question is gone. The problem solved. And I thought there was something to find out, something to get No? it's all right here

You say it as though "not letting yourself get exploited" is somehow the opposite of loving yourself... Loving yourself is not letting others exploit you. Being selfless is saying "no" to yourself or others when it is necessary to do so..

Why would you even want to eliminate your sexual desires?? No Fap doesn't do very much, at least after a certain time. All it does is raising your testosterone levels within the first few days and after around 1 week they return back to normal No Fap is about masturbation, not sex

Lol he doesn't even have children

But why does a dream need anchors? When I dream in sleep and something seriously weird happens, most of the time I don't even question the logical or metaphysical validity of what happened. Why then should this dream have to be convincing? Why set up "explanations" like brains and earths and whatnot?

I think the brain functions as some sort of mechanism/method for (re-)arranging the contents within consciousness. If we think of consciousness as something like a mirror which has no qualities on its own and is therefore able to contain/create every possible quality, the brain would be something like a grid / lens / prism which "overlays" itself on the mirror without changing anything about the mirror itself, but enables consciousness / the mirror to look at all the content in different ways. Which is of course how psychedelics / neurotransmitters work, they "unlock" different functions / structures of the brain, i. e. rearrange/change the grid / lens / prism and thereby change they content of consciousness. Taking psychedelics doesn't change consciousness itself, it only changes the contents. Consciousness is absolutely and completely untouchable. Imagine this mirror would exude white light to create a visual domain of being. The brain would be like a very, very complicated prism, which doesn't fundamentally change anything about the white light itself, but simply rearranges it in an extremely complicated way. And yet, all of it, including the brain, is an illusion. You could say the brain is that which creates the illusion in the first place. And since the nature of illusions is illusory in and of itself, the brain creates itself. Therefore of course, it was never even real. The prism is the mirror. The white light, pretending to be a prism. Maya is Brahman, but Brahman is not Maya.

I am much, much more than only that. The question of "are you a biological machine" assumes that "I" = body. And yes, I am the body, but I'm a lot more.

Look to this day For it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course Lie all the verities and realities of your existence. The bliss of growth, The glory of action, The splendour of achievement Are but experiences of time. For yesterday is but a dream And tomorrow is only a vision. And today well-lived, makes Yesterday a dream of happiness And every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well then to this day Such is the salutation to the dawn! Kalidasa

It's not really only a materialist approach to Tolle, but a stage Orange approach in general. He doesn't understand the first thing about what Tolle teaches. Especially as a "mental health counselor" he should know better how valuable Tolle's teachings can be to some people. I gotta say, I don't like this Todd Grande. The whole concept of his channel is based on nothing but judging people and project his own views on them, which is just shallow. He derives his authority from pop psychology (mind you; he's not a psychologist) and a PhD in his title, which gives the impression that he's a clinical psychologist or something like that. Oh god just wait until he finds out about Leo??

Nihilism is what I would call a "pseudo-philosophy". Because if you draw the final nihilistic conclusion you'll find that nihilism itself doesn't matter. This is what Leo calls "going full circle". So one must be very careful when flirting with Nihilism, because if you're going to be a nihilist, you must push through all the way, otherwise you're going to be stuck in a dreadful, meaningless, dead universe devoid of any meaning - which isn't a problem per se, the real problem here is the mind, because the mind craves for meaning like mad. The mind is a meaning-generating machine which after having constructed meaning, denies having done so. So what happens when you have pushed through nihilism? Where are you after having gone full circle with this philosophy? In Daoism, the universe / nature / the Dao is regarded to be "purposeless". One of the great Daoist sages was a man by the name of "Zhuangzi". And Zhuangzi was exemplary in embodying the idea of "purposelessness". I've just finished reading a book, "Sayings and parables of Zhuangzi", which contains a story about a crooked tree. Huizi said to Zhuangzi: “This old tree is so crooked and rough that it is useless for lumber. In the same way, your teachings have no practical use.” Zhuangzi replied: “This tree may be useless as lumber, but you could rest in the gentle shade of its big branches or admire its rustic character. It only seems useless to you because you want to turn it into something else and don't know how to appreciate it for what it is. My teachings are like this.” Nihilism is only a problem when you looking for meaning and purpose in the world. You've created the problem. Become like Zhuangzi and see the universe for how it is: purposeless. And then enjoy it

Those lyrics are so good. Paired with a dope beat... damn I like this song

Wow, I've never thought about it in that way... good stuff

If you're bored, don't run away from it. Let it function as the void from which ideas can spring.

@isabel My first instinct would be to tell you that the ego is a thought, attachment, i.e. identification. But I feel that this is already saying too much. The ego is not even a thought

@Fadl Lol you're going to absolutely crush me, I'm at around 1000 I have never learned any tactics or openings or whatever, so...