The0Self

If you have a decent amount of muscle mass (if you don't lift, you probably don't, but since you're a male you might), then your calorie needs fluctuate wildly with your level of general light movement throughout the day. And the more muscle you have, the more this fluctuation effect is prominent. You can think of daily life with high-performance muscle on your frame, like driving a supercar as your daily driver around town -- you're gonna have terrible gas mileage... Which is why strength training (if complete; pushing such as overhead barbell press, pulling such as chins, and leg movements such as deadlifts; not wasting time with single joint movements) and muscle gain (maximized with 3-4x/wk multiple sets of 5-15 reps per set barbell/strength training and 120g protein per day) is utterly by far the most effective fat-loss engine, assuming one isn't at total rest all day long. For instance, even if your day consists of 1. just leisurely walking in a circle while reading a book, vs 2. sitting still at a desk without fidgeting, that could be a calorie expenditure differential of 1500 if you're strong and trained -- if not trained at all, then it might be more like a 400 calorie differential. The effect of extra muscle is enormous. You can't separate caloric needs from daily activity level -- and again, this is extremely more prominent the more strength-trained you are.

@Michael569 I have done some experimentation to see what does give me more bowel movements, I just didn’t stick with it — maybe I’m just ignorant of the benefits of having 2+ bowel movements per day. Here were my general findings: My intake of insoluble fiber is pretty much directly correlated with frequency of bowel movements. So yeah the lentils make sense ? ! Black beans, lentils, and various high-insoluble-fiber foods were incredible... hell, even Frosted Mini Wheats cereal had a noticeable effect! That cereal actually had like 7 grams insoluble per serving — basically almost as much as black beans. And soluble fiber had the exact opposite correlation. Seems to oppose insoluble fiber. Just did some quick research and it seems split peas are at the top of the list for highest insoluble/soluble fiber ratio. With lentils pretty high up there as well. Also two things, besides soluble fiber, give me noticeably less regularity: creatine monohydrate, and any multi-vitamin/mineral supplement (I generally use Pure Encapsulations)... strangely, but that’s what I noticed, in a way that cannot be ignored. Almost every time I’d take creatine I’d end up skipping a day of bowel movement. And continued use was associated with a marked decrease in regularity. Strange. Speaking of which... Another strange/idiosyncratic supplement reaction I noted was with both taurine and any racemic vitamin E supplement (i.e. dl-alpha tocopherol; unnatural in this case; now I would only ever take d-alpha tocopherol, gamma/mixed tocotrienols, or seeds... if for some reason I needed extra vit. E) — almost if not every single time I’d take either one of those two, I’d get a break out of at least one or two zits... and my skin was almost always totally clear otherwise. I haven’t seen any notion of a trend of anyone else talking about that reaction to those — on Reddit; etc; anywhere I’ve seen. I wonder what could be going on there? And also, sufficient and extra magnesium intake seemed to noticeably trend toward more bowel movement regularity. I wonder if calcium would have the opposite effect — or perhaps the calcium/phosphate ratio, or maybe even the calcium/magnesium ratio. The taurine blemish reaction thing seems a bit strange to me simply since, like silymarin (Milk Thistle), taurine can effectively increase bile flow, and silymarin seems rather efficacious for acne prevention and treatment... So from that one might think taurine would at least not cause acne! ?

First make sure you're getting plenty of protein (bare minimum 60-80g per day; preferably 80-120g) and B vitamins -> Then add sulfur-rich nutrients, methionine, and nrf2 activators such as broccoli -> Then finally, assuming one is having at least one bowel movement a day, choleretics 4x a day: taurine, glycine, milk thistle (silymarin), and phosphatidylcholine -- taken together, for increased bile flow.

In a sense, yes. It's all about unyielding passion for unfiltered reality, calling upon unseen powerful forces that come to your aid. All your desire must be concentrated down to one single point -- that's what drives you to awaken. But first, it's important to point out: The goal of self inquiry is not about getting rid of a self. It's not even about finding out clearly that there is no self... It's about a shift in identity, which takes the process the rest of the way. That first awakening is very much not no-self or abiding nondual awareness -- it's universal Self. With that said, the universal Self or knower, which must be clarified with self inquiry for awakening to happen, was actually accessible the whole time... it just was almost impossible to see without having exhausted the objective looking... ALMOST impossible... The truth is, it's already all there is to any experience -- illuminating it. It's what you are. It's knowing without any objective knowing. However, any thought (that which appears to be other than me; that which I am aware of) will distract from this, and so... With simple reference to anything and everything that appears to me: It's not reality -- it's something of which I am aware. The thought-overlay is not just thoughts in your head -- it's anything that appears to you... The illusory inner-world screen pervades all of experience without your knowledge, making reality seem as other than it is. Seeking, by definition, means "if I'm aware of it, it's not what I'm looking for" (if what you're aware of is what you're looking for, then you wouldn't be seeking now would you?), so just bring that out in the open and apply it to self inquiry -- whatever I am aware of, it's not me / not what I'm looking for. Instead of allowing doership-effort to waste energy by putting all its energy into hiding itself, just bring it out in the sunlight and allow it to authentically do what it's programmed to do -- if I'm aware of it, it's not what I'm looking for; take the effort away from doership in the world, and apply it either to looking for what is aware (rest in the knowing requiring no object; not the same as focusing on it, because if you're focusing on it you're aware of it, and if you're aware of it then it's not you), or to relaxing all voluntary effort other than the effort to do just that i.e. release any effort when you notice it (if something is already happening, stopping it voluntarily would be an example of an effort that you should release when you notice it).

Yep! This is very important to realize. Every time blood levels fall, it redistributes heavy metals. The only way around this, or at least to mitigate it, is to let blood levels fall less often -- in other words, by doing longer rounds. The break even healing/damage ratio occurs at a round duration of 72 hours. But 1-2 weeks for a round would mean you only let blood levels fall for a few hours out of a whole week or two of chelating. Cutler has talked about that on onibasu, but he also says DMSA rounds should not exceed 2 weeks, though ALA can be taken longer.

They're kind of world's apart, in a way. 1st Jhana: attention gets so steady and mindfulness is so bright that the mind's opposing tasks are stilled, and so energetic bliss pervades, and the attention then gets absorbed in the bliss and breakneck exhilarating pleasure takes off with extreme intensity (1st Jhana begins) 2nd: mind moves away from the exhilaration and the underlying happiness is prominent, which can actually make the exhilaration even more intense, but with the higher level of samadhi relative to 1st Jhana, the focus is the happiness and not the exhilaration 3: the exhilaration/rapture is completely let go of and all that's left is happiness divested of rapture -- an extremely serene condition 4: the extremely fulfilling pleasant happiness is let go of, for the even more subtle and serene pure equanimity (which persists in the later jhanas) 5: materiality is let go of for the more subtle boundless space 6: space is let go of for the more subtle boundless consciousness 7: vast boundless consciousness is let go of for the more subtle perception of no-thing-ness 8: subtle perception of no-thing-ness is let go of for the most subtle -- the imaginary boundary between something and nothing; neither perception nor non-perception Nirvana: cessation; the end of time In the vast majority of cases, this is simply beyond the scope of psychedelics.

7g But LSD-25 is better for consciousness work imo

Damn, really? I've always had one bowel movement a day, and continue to do so. Excepts for years ago when I was on painkillers, it was more like every 2-3 days.

There are no "negative emotions," which is why I put it in quotes. The core of every so-called "negative emotion" is fear of non-being -- particularly this is the case with shame, which is only possible when the illusion of separation is active. The shame-defense prevents us from looking back and seeing that there is no subject / no true self. But what we label "anger" and even "jealousy" can be observed in non-human animals that don't have the illusion of separation / self-consciousness, which is the only reason I called them "natural emotions."

No. https://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/MCTB+Boundless+Consciousness,+The+Sixth+Jhana

By increasing bile flow. You can do this by taking taurine, glycine, milk thistle (silymarin), and phosphatidylcholine, together, preferably on an empty stomach, several times a day (preferably 4). This will also deplete copper levels, which is usually not a bad thing, and can easily be replenished with some nuts. Probably takes a couple weeks.

You're welcome. The 6th jhana is a more intense mystical state than The Witness, which has other names -- boundless consciousness; watcher state; Witnessing; the vastness of awareness (Rob Burbea); the spacious mind (Akilesh) -- and is the culmination of self inquiry. The 6th jhana pretty much requires retreats and lots of careful samadhi and insight practice. The Witness results from self inquiry: How do I know that I am? The thing you're looking for (which is already here but objects seemingly distract from it), which will take you to boundless consciousness (The Witness), is pure knowing without any knowing of anything -- any thing; anything other than itself... Self-knowing without any need for an object to confirm it. Though it can spontaneously appear in noting practice, as well as from steadily seeing everything through a kind of not-self lens. You could say that self inquiry works by blasting the seeking energy with pure authenticity. How's that? Well, in self inquiry, you're looking for what is aware; the subject... so nothing that you see objectively is what you're looking for -- "If I'm aware of it, it's not what I'm looking for." Well, isn't that exactly what seeking itself is?.. If I'm aware of it, it's not what I'm looking for? By definition, that's how seeking works -- after all, if what you're aware of is what you're looking for, you wouldn't be seeking, right? The nature of seeking is often untruthful because it often hides the fact that its modus operandi is always "If I'm aware of it, it's not what I'm looking for" and so by exposing it by actually playing out its true nature vividly, it short circuits it, in a sense. Until awakening (or temporarily with The Witness), it is impossible to be without effort -- self inquiry (or surrender) just moves that effort away from where it's applied toward hiding itself, and toward a place where it doesn't affect anything, so to speak.

I always use an old not-in-service iPhone -- Timer; When Timer Ends: "Signal"

Not necessarily. Dogs get angry too. It's a natural emotion. Of course though, when there's inauthenticity while one is angry, there is suffering. Even jealousy in some situations could be considered a natural emotion. "Unnatural emotions," so to speak, such as shame, existential fear, and conscious-aversion, are classified as such because they're based on delusion. When suffering is dispelled, anxiety can (though it might not) still appear, but having anxiety won't. Same for depression. Anxiety and depression without the separation filter are resolved into body sensations and are not really even anxiety and depression anymore. Suffering and authenticity are inversely related. Enlightenment is complete authenticity. If you think about it, the self inquiry process is actually a sort of authenticity-blast so total that it causes a short circuit: For someone doing self inquiry, they just rest back into "how do I know that I am, without any object to confirm it?" If it's something you're aware of, it's not what you're looking for -- Which as you can see is actually just so authentically honest to the nature of the seeking energy, that it short circuits it... Because the modus operandi of the seeking setup at its core also is "if I'm aware of it, it's not what I'm looking for," so you're really just making the seeking energy a truth teller rather than an obscurer. Doing this allows you to take that energy and retract it from the world and into its source, so that the habit/mind-system is temporarily (eventually it must be continuous) no longer fueled/lived by a veiled seeking energy... then you stay in the pure self knowing; the ability to know, without the requirement to know -> boundless consciousness / spaciousness / vastness -> falling away of mental habits -> awakening -> path to the end of all suffering.

@RMQualtrough Waking up is like what’s happening is all there is for everyone, except there is no everyone, there’s just what’s happening, and nothing is even happening without mind, and there is no mind. There are no objects. And there’s even no need to be aware of objects for this to be exactly as it is.

Yeah that's definitely how some unity experiences can appear, but let me be more clear about what I'm talking about: It's as if the births of every character (who has ever lived or will ever live) collectively resolve into the Big Bang, and the deaths of every character resolve into the Big Crunch. More importantly, the same goes for the births and deaths (arising's and passing's) of every sensation. It's the experience of a more expanded ego or God-mind. Ketamine has a tendency to reveal it actually. But in the end, nothing arises or passes, and there's no real timeline, so it's not God-realization or enlightenment. But it's a very profound experience.

@RMQualtrough In this context, the knowing that requires no object, that I referred to, is just a practice tool that can take you to boundless consciousness, which is where awakening happens, clarity dawns, and doubts and delusion are dispelled momentarily. Then the path to liberation starts. The conceptual knowledge of the way reality is will always be understood relatively and misleadingly. The mind cannot get it, because there isn't a mind. Ignoring everything except for (really "including even" if it's anything discernible) the effortless, already-the-case knowing of being (or "knowing that knowing is possible"), and calling out anything discernible as merely thought (and therefore an outcropping of this pure knowing overlaying experience with a thought filter)... when done very steadily, will take you to boundless consciousness. Right before boundless consciousness opens up, generally what happens is a little maneuver where you just "wait for the next thought, without waiting," since waiting is another thought to be called out and ignored and seen as only the subject and therefore not seen objectively at all. The knowledge that you are is always present, but in order to see that it's not what you thought it was, it has to be abided in by no longer being distracted by anything else, so that it takes you to boundless consciousness, which sets the stage for awakening, which begins the path to liberation.

@RMQualtrough Reality as it appears to you is nothing other than nor separate from pure knowing. But reality as it naturally is does not appear to anyone, and it's this, and it's in no specific way. What's really being pointed to can only be seen directly, and this isn't going to happen without letting go of one's life as one knows it. It's not at all conceptual. The direct shift into unfiltered reality is the only way to see. How do you go about getting there? By seeing what's actually happening, and what's not actually happening -- with authenticity, vulnerability, surrender, and a relaxing of mental habits. Here's how: You have to spend time in boundless consciousness, and then it's out of your hands. But here's how you get to boundless consciousness... You catch hold of... let's call it I AM, and let it take you inward to boundlessness. Finding this can sometimes be tricky, but only because it's so simple... though it's difficult to hold it steadily without both meditative concentration/stillness/openness/skill and insight. How do I know that I am? If the objects change, it's clearly not any object that's responsible for the confirmation of existence. It doesn't even require that pointing it's so close. Many would say to just ask yourself who am I or simply use every object as a springboard to look back and find the subject, until no object remains, and there's just boundless consciousness... That's not a bad instruction, but it occurs to me the following is what I needed to hear when I wasn't getting it: The thing you're looking for (which is already here but objects seemingly distract from it), which will take you to boundless consciousness, is pure knowing without any knowing of anything -- any thing; anything other than itself... Self-knowing without any need for an object to confirm it. Meditation skill will help you steadily abide in that, and probably help you find it as well. That's the thing that takes you to what I'd call boundless consciousness... But what you call it isn't as important as knowing that it's the place where, after some time, awakening happens. And then the path to liberation starts. If you think you just aren't going to be skilled in meditation, this is a very fatalistic attitude. I would at least hold off on counting it all as lost until after you read The Mind Illuminated by Culadasa (the audiobook is fine but I highly recommend the physical book because the diagrams on how cessation/nirvana and the mind system works are crucial for someone who is not yet awake to even have a prayer of understanding the mind) and give it an authentic effort. I remember you saying something like you never experience love in your "awakenings" -- because of this I would recommend Metta, first and foremost. The illusory inner world you have actually overlays all of experience without your knowledge. Desire for freedom from delusion and authenticity is how you hack your way out of this illusion. All that's left is here without a center. Questions of why "their" "sights" are not available to "me" are seen to make absolutely no sense. If you still have an aversion to sitting meditation later on down the road, I would suggest that if you can't get over this hang-up, then how the fuck are you going to awaken to ultimate reality? But if by some "miracle," meditation truly just doesn't work for you, then maybe just stick one-pointedly with one koan such as Mu or "Who (is carrying this corpse around)?" and eventually merge with it, or just do self inquiry.

Plenty of good and bad and neutral, but I don't remember most of them. One I remember had the character of a past life experience. I was shot in the head outside some house that seemed to be far away from the rest of society (seemed to maybe be on or near mountains). As soon as I was hit, I immediately lost all motor control (in the dream) and went still and fell, and then started hearing a loud ringing and my vision became reddish-black and faded out. And then I woke up in bed sweating. It wasn't even that bad, though I'd imagine some would find it pretty scary, but nonetheless it's one that I remember.

It takes very steady attention that really just has to be trained in some way. Power of will is not enough -- well, it is, but only if the will is applied to training attention... whether directly and intentionally, or indirectly and serendipitously. Once you can attend to whatever object you want to, indefinitely, without any wavering, you will be able to enter samadhic states at-will quite easily. Culadasa's The Mind Illuminated is an astoundingly complete guide on this. Repeatedly watering the fields of the mind and the seeds of intention, with simple responsivity, until the harvest sprouts and blooms. ^^^ Whatever the process, that's what basically allows samadhi states to arise with any frequency. And of course TMI isn't the only way... Yearning for unfiltered reality, as the fuel for driving the vehicle of self inquiry -- that can do the same thing.

Basically as I said, yes. But if being with the girl, you feel good, that tells you right there that the feeling good comes from you (simply because you feel good). So what you've done is you've held "feeling good" hostage and you don't release it until certain conditions are met. You don't feel like a person who can feel good with nothing, and so you fabricate that identity by continuing to train yourself out of habit to only feel good when certain conditions are met. It's all about identity.

What you want is not the girl, what you want out of the girl is an "I am okay right now" token.

Life. But what's looking through your eyes is the Love I was talking about.

Unless the type of love in question is of the sort that is impossible to deny.

@Michael Jackson I haven’t watched the whole video, but so far it seems like clearly it’s a practical video, and therefore not prompting of your response here; not just dealing with the experience of absolute infinite love. Then it just wasn’t God realization or mystical union or a glimpse of absolute truth, but apart from that, total ego death isn’t an experience anyway. Genuine insight pretty much always feels like love. Ultimately, love is all there is to anything at all. Which of course means I’m not talking about personal love, which is a mere reflection of Agape/Truth. Love is absolute non-resistance. Truth as it is doesn’t resist itself. Suffering is resistance to truth, and is therefore illusory. It might be helpful to move your state and insight along before you do trips again. Perhaps by always ignoring all thought — which does not mean you change the thoughts in any way... this is very powerful. Then a trip might be able to blast you to the other side.