undeather

The end stage of syphilis is called neurosyphillis and is defintiely correlated with hallucinations and possible altered states. Didnt know about that brain tumor thing though, pretty intersting!

Jay Alvarrez (6.6 Million Followers) shared it on his Instagram - thats easy 100k+ views just from people klicking on the link

There is an argument to be made, that Nietzsche became enlightened in his later years - The mainstream story is that he suffered from Syphillis which eventually drove him mad - but he was a seeker! This video was an interesting turning point for me:

By asking questions like what is death, you will inevitably get some deductive statement of what it "must be like" based on experiential data and the usual vedantic epistemics underlying such assumption. I will let you in on something: Noone here knows exactly. If you study the great mystics and their "take" on death, none of it adds up. I mean just look at it: Krishnamurti takes the vedantic view, says there is no rebirth. Sri Aurobindo, Yogananda, Sadghguru and many more claim to remember past lives - there is also a subtle body/"soul" that "looks" for a new body after death. There are even very accurate descriptions of how that work exactly. Thomas Campbell has his own weird "theory" And so on...as long as it doesnt contradict non-dualism, its worth considering! Let the mystery stay the mystery. Consciousness is way more complex and mysterious than we are capeable of processing. You can get a gnostic sense of what it will be in peak states (i.e psychodelic states), but its impossible to take with you into this highly constrained meatsuit of ours.

Bald guy once tellin me he is god and shit, wanting me to buy his book list and life purpose course - complete nuthead lol. So now that the obvious joke is out of the way, here is my scammer moment: In late 2014 there was this company called VEMMA which sold some sort of "healthy energy drink" and just got big in my city. You know back then, terms like "Ponzi scheme" or "multi level marketing" wasnt known to the greater public, including me. I remember one night, my best friend was calling me to announce our future financial independence. He didnt tell me a lot, just to come to certain house adress the next day at 5 PM. So because I was curious what this stuff was all about I followed through. When I arrived at that adress the next day, there was freaking Lamborghini parked in front of the house, which added to the WTF factor. I entered the building and found myself with around 10 other people in this living-roomesque place - my friend and some other old acquintances included. Suddenly this very good looking, well deressed, bambi-eyed guy entered the room - he one of those faces you just trust from the first moment you see him. He greeted everyone in a very salesmanesque way, then started his presentation. To this day, I am still baffled with what this guy did to us. I am not from the naive side,.I had a father who really tried to instil in me some common sense when it comes to that stuff. But hell, there was just something abot that person and his way of conveying the message - that flipped some deep rooted switches in our cognitive-emotional apperatus. He basically told us we will all get rich, we can all get a nice car, passive income, health, jet set lifestyle and a hot girl or boyfriend . When I think about the pure transcript, it sounds like something you could base a parody on - literally unbelieveable that anyone with some working intelligence could every fall for it - but he didnt make IT FEEL that way. It all felt incredibly real and just one signature away. Your dream life, everything you ever wanted - right there and within ones reach. Now, what signature you might ask? Well, to get "into" this whole thing - you had to buy the starter package - which was like 750€. It included several boxes of this "healthy energy" drink plus some DVD's with selling strategies. Our job then was to recruit new people and so on. 9/10 people signed the deal. BAM. Only after the whole thing was over and we got back home, this reality distortion field was slowly getting weaker. We started to get back to the real world - making some calculations, doing some online research about this company etc. Finally realizing the fraudulent nature of that whole project. Long story short: It was a pyramid-scheme. I have had some friends who tried to make it work - but of course, no one made any real money with it. As for me, after realizing that I just threw this money out of the window - I wanted to get refund. It wasnt possible. They used some sort of legal grey zone to not make refunds possible. Well, I was angry. But nowadays I am still amazed by this guys charisma. He could have been using that for doing good as well.

Hi, medical doctor here. Dont worry, get the vaccine. There are no known interactions between Retinol and vaccine function. Also, you are talking about topical retinol creme - which is less of a problem than the systemic (oral) form. The reason why you shouldnt take it while pregnant is because Vitamin A in extremely high doses is known to be teratogenic. Thats why you shouldnt eat liver or take unregulated vitamins while pregnant. Take care

Been practicing medidation for around 7 years now. Started with simple mindfulness-techniques and then some transcendental approaches I started experimenting with "weirder" techniques around 2 years ago - for me, its just way more fun that way. That includes: - Chanting - Pranayamas - Dharanas - Chakra Sadhanas

Your post is a symptom of your life lacking sovereignty. Do you see that? This is the NUMBER ONE REASON why people are stuck in their life, because they are literally unable to step out of their own conditioning. This is an infantile state of mind and to make any real progress at all, I would advise you to take a deeper look at this. You will always encounter contaradicting views on a variety of topics, including of course: Covid and the vaccines. The first thing you have to understand: A certain amount of uncertainty is going to be a lifelong companion. You will never have all the variables necessary to make sense of something in a complete and absolute certain way. Now, lets look at at some of the shit you just wrote - I will not give you answers because I want you to train your thinking. What set of data are the positive effects based on? (keyword: studies) What set of data are those negtaive "ideas and theories" based on? If you worry about the potential side effects, where exactly is the hypothesis derived from? Are those claims already debunked? Can you steelman those claims? What makes a source more trustable than others? All the shit David Icke has been talking about in the last 2 years - how much of it actually came out to be true? Whats his track record of making true predictions? For example: Icke said, at the very beginning of the pandemic, that Covid is not a virus, but cellular exosomes (cell-debris basically) that are the direct aftermath of 5G radiation damaging our tissue. This is obvious bullcrap, because Covid spread over many countries or regions that dont even have normal cellphone signal. There are many studies correlating the sars-CoV2 infection (NOT the vaccine) with Semen impairment Here is one: https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/36/6/1520/6125160 Here is one that looks at the vaccines and semen quality: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2781360 Now, could this studies be "fake" or part of some evil plan of some secret kabal? Yes, there is a chance. How likely is this? Do you really think all those doctors and PHD's would take the vaccine if they had such doubts? The reason why shit like that gets so much attention is because people lack sensemaking capabilites in a world that is getting overflowed with unsorted information. There is definitely nuance when it comes to vaccines, not everything is great about them - there is certainly valid arguments against mass vaccination, especially involving kids. Yet most claims made by those "free thinkers" are batshit crazy and just plain wrong.

True, my bad! Its from Daniel Schmachtenberger

If you want to follow the weirdness, there was a book written about this guy by a gentlemen called Kosta Danaos. The book is called "The magus of Java", you can find it on Amazon. Danaos travelled to find this Qi-master after watching the same report you just shared in the 90's. He found and trained with him for years. Personally, I remain agnostic towards his claims. The book sometimes reads like a Dragonball Z episode - but I remain open to the possibilities that this might exist. To me, it sounds like Siddhis on steroids if it were true. Around a year ago I also came across this podcast with the author and I have to admit, he seems like reasonable guy and my bullshit detector couldnt find anything suspicious. Make yourself a picture:

The following are questions I find commonly useful in helping people gain greater insight into their unique life path and dharma. Inquiring into all these questions still won’t tell you what to do. And insofar as what you most want does get clearer, you may still not know how to get there. But at least you will have deepened your relationship with yourself, which will lead to more awareness and integrity, that will inform where your next choices come from. Increased awareness, clarity, and love…moves one’s path in unpredictable but profound ways. That lead to continued opportunity for greater awareness, clarity, and love…and with that, a life of deepening meaningfulness. *Note: I am not claiming this is the “true” meaning of the word Dharma in Sanskrit, or how any particular Hindu or Buddhist person or group is using it. From my life of experience and study in various of these traditions and texts…this is how I understand it. Capacities If my financial needs were already met for the rest of my life, what would I do? If I had the wealth of Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, what would I do with my life and resources? If I was going to go back to school, what would I study? If I could download skills matrix style, what would the top few most desired be? If I was a lot more confident/ less fearful, what would I do and how would I be differently? If I was meaningfully smarter than I currently am? If I had much better discipline? If I was better with people (more understanding, charismatic, empathetic, patient, etc.)? If I had better emotional regulation? If my main character deficits were resolved? If I had the right team and people supporting me? If my life started over with a clean slate (no previous commitments, baggage, etc.)? Then ask “why” to your answers to each of these questions, until coming to something that feels fundamental. Values Who are you most inspired by (that you personally know or figures from history)? What about them inspires you? Who do you respect the most? What about them? What virtues would you most want to increase in yourself? Why those ones? What types of behavior and people bother you the most? What issues in the world upset you the most? What do you see as most deeply wrong with or off in the world? What do you find the most beauty in? What are you most moved by? Who would you be the most proud to have been looking back at your life? What news stories about the world would you be most positively moved to see? What would you spend your time working on if you could succeed but no one would ever know that you did it? What few qualities would you most want to increase in everyone if you could? What would you sacrifice personal benefit for? What is more important to you than your own life? What is sacred to you? What does sacred mean? What are you devoted to? What does devotion mean? What is the basis of meaningfulness? What are you loyal to? What does loyalty mean? What would be an adequate reason to violate a loyalty? What do you feel shame or guilt about? If all your personal desires were already met, what would you then desire or care about? Then ask “why” to your answers to each of these questions, until coming to something that feels fundamental. Propensities What am I naturally good at? What seems to come easy to me? (Looking at strengths and aptitudes more than specific skills.) What types of activities do I feel replenished by? What am I willing to do even if it taxes me? What do I enjoy doing for its own sake, independent of producing results or getting acknowledgement? What is my attention repeatedly called to? What can I not not pay attention to? What am I intrinsically fascinated by? Passionate about? Where have I felt the most pride/satisfaction related to something I did? When have I felt most fully alive? What have been the greatest difficulties/pains in my life? ______________________________________________________ Dharma, the way I hold it*, roughly means: the path of right action; the path of greatest integrity; the path (of choices) that don’t create suffering and optimally helps heal it; the path that leads towards increasing wholeness, consciousness, health, and quality of life for all. This relates to the concepts/words in english of mission, purpose, ethics, virtue, character, integrity, vocation, the good life, self-actualization and transcendence…but is not fully contained in any of them separately. (The fact that there is no word or phrase for this in the English language is telling.) There are principles of dharma that are universally true. And there is unique dharma – what is right action for me specifically in this situation, factoring my unique orientation, capacities, commitments – my unique life path. This concept is not deterministic – there is no algorithm that can compute what right choice is for you. This concept of dharma does not seek to reduce choice (to rules, ie causation), but to help inform and empower the reality and meaningfulness of choice – the internal considerations that inform your own sovereign choice making, aligned with your own deepest values, understanding, and sense of meaningfulness. Dharma involves your being, your doing, and your becoming. Who and how are you being, moment to moment? How connected are you to your own being, to your love, to the clarity of your principles and values…and how is that informing how you perceive and express in each situation? What are you doing and where is that doing coming from, and in service to what? How are you growing and developing, in both your being and your capacity to do? As such, our dharma is a continuous unfolding. It has at least as much to do with how we relate to uncertainty as it does to what we feel certain of. Unlike the way we often think of vocation, dharma includes how you show up to all the little things, not just what you choose as your primary focuses. And it can change at different times in your life: while raising kids and once they are grown…when you are called to focus on study, then on the application of what was learned, etc. This is an ongoing and unending inquiry. (If it wasn’t, you would be an automata.) The questions above can help provide insight into one’s unique path. The first set of questions explore increasing one’s sense of capacity and possibility in various ways and seeing what new ideas arise when not burdened by various limitations. The first question is about having your own freedom of time. The second is about having more choice making capacity in the form of money. How then would I choose? The third and fourth explore where one feels limited by skills. And which skills seem most meaningfully enabling? And so on. Increasing one’s sense of agency can clarify what our agency wants to be in service to. (Noticing which of the questions gives the greatest insights or sense of empowerment will give insight into where one feels most limited currently.) The second set of questions explore what one cares about, values, respects, loves, and finds meaningful. Who one most deeply wants to be, and what one wants their life to be in service of. This is the center of this inquiry. The third set of questions explore one’s native propensities, intrinsic motivations, and what their life experiences have conditioned in them. Our unique life experiences have developed in us certain sensitivities, insights, capacities, orientations…that are a part of our path of right action. Living dharmicly means living in greater alignment with one’s own values and desires, which means being more self aware and self authoring. Which naturally means our actions are less influenced by extrinsic motive and more from intrinsic motive. It is worth contemplating how our personal issues and our gifts relate to each other. How our traumas relate to our dharma. Often traumas lead to destructive patterns that limit the fullest expression of our dharma. Simultaneously, they often sensitize us to certain things and develop in us certain insights or capacities that become central to what is ours to give. Notice both what gifts your traumas have given you…and where the remnants of trauma still limit the fullest expression of your gifts. Deepening our dharma and healing our karma co-inform each other. It also helps to inquire into what is not dharma. The following questions can be helpful: Where am I being reactive rather than creative? Where are my goals the result of compensations to old wounds? (Proving that I’m enough, proving something to parents or a parental archetype projected on the world, seeking validation externally, proving we aren’t like our parents, etc.) Where am I still running the programs of my childhood (early models of success, of who I am, of what I’m capable of, of what’s meaningful…) What of the things I did last month will I remember and feel good about on my deathbed? Which will I wish I had done differently? How do I factor that into planning my next month? Where is fear influencing my choices? Where are there incongruences in my self, between my values and my actions…between some desires and other desires…between my habits and the expression of my highest vision…? Where is my sense of limited capacity constraining what I focus on? Where am I acting out of reaction, habit, or unconsciousness? Where do I feel trapped by past choices (loyalties, commitments, debts, investments, etc.)? Where are lack of self worth or self trust keeping me from showing up in greater service to what I care about? Where is credit seeking or image management influencing how I’m choosing? What do I do that I wouldn’t want to be fully honest about? What parts of my life would not engender the respect of those whom I respect the most? Where is my success occurring at the expense of others? Where does my life feel imbalanced? What do I do because I’m good at it but don’t really like it or care about it deeply?

Conveying spiritual insights on an internet forum or through any media at all is limited by the nature of our language and mediated through very crude human cognitive processing capabilities. It doesnt matter what you say - people are going to misinterpret it. Thats why direct experiencene is king. Now I have been here on this forum since late February 2016 and I have had my fair deal of issues with Leo. I remember many moments where he was obviously wrong about a given topic, but couldnt bring himself to change his point of view. There is a lot of pride and ego in his teachings, and even though he might deny this, it totally comes across that way. That said, the reason why I still watch his videos is because they are usually very profound and ....true. Its rarely the case that I disagree with what he says and thats the point: He did his work - he didnt pull that shit out of his ass. Now just from watching some videos from that adeptus guy, he is just nowhere close that level. He has a very basic understanding of things and this directly mirrored in his criticism.

"If you awaken from this illusion and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death (or shall I say death implies life?), you can feel yourself – not as a stranger in the world, not as something here on probation, not as something that has arrived here by fluke - but you can begin to feel your own existence as absolutely fundamental. I am not trying to sell you on this idea in the sense of converting you to it, I want you to play with it. I want you to think of its possibilities, I am not trying to prove it. I am just putting it forward as a possibility of life to think about. So then, let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream you wanted to dream, and that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time, or any length of time you wanted to have. And you would, naturally, as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each you would say “Well that was pretty great. But now let’s have a surprise, let’s have a dream which isn’t under control, where something is gonna happen to me that I don’t know what it's gonna be." And you would dig that and would come out of that and you would say “Wow that was a close shave, wasn’t it?”. Then you would get more and more adventurous and you would make further- and further-out gambles what you would dream. And finally, you would dream where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today. That would be within the infinite multiplicity of choices you would have. Of playing that you weren't God, because the whole nature of the godhead, according to this idea, is to play that he is not. So in this idea then, everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality, not God in a politically kingly sense, but god in the sense of being the self, the deep-down basic whatever there is. And you are all that, only you are pretending you are not." - Some wise guy with an alcohol problem

You can literally google "Delloite interview questions" and find endless material Everything else can be found on youtube https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+to+master+an+interview https://www.monsterindia.com/career-advice/deloitte-interview-questions-here-s-what-to-expect-and-how-to-handle-your-interview-at-deloitte-8101.html https://www2.deloitte.com/ca/en/pages/careers/articles/five-interview-questions.html

I respect him a lot for this Interview. It seems to me that in his old days, he becomes more open to the radical truths. For those of you who dont know Bernardo Kastrup, he is one of the most clear headed intellectuals promoting Idealism, which is basically advaita vedanta for westeners (not quite the same, but still very similar at the core). I would advise anyone, regardless of your personal journey, to read his books and watch his interviews. Its pretty interesting because I dont think many skeptics would engage in such Interview with Kastrup. I couldnt imagine a Richard Dawkins, Dennet or even Harris to have the same quality of Interaction with him. Definitely worth watching.

Lets consider the limited capabilities of language to describe the ineffable. There are many layers do this and you are talking about the most radical, most absolute truth. There is a place for individuality you can become concious of, even though it disappears when you go deep enough - but still, lets keep it nuanced.

Is a wave in the ocean 100% wave ,100% ocean, or both? Therein lies your answer

Is a hammer necessary to build a house? Space answered that one pretty well. What I want to add is the following: Do some inquiry on the nature of hallucinations. Then look at your question again. Also, if you dont already know this: https://thethirdwave.co/psychedelics/ - great site for psychodelic information!

Well, thats something you could easily test for yourself Here is some important literature on that - read that book and then test the hypothesis with direct experience. Us telling you is pretty useless because it will remain in the domain of second hand knowledge.

The vaccine works, thats safe to say at this moment. Here is what I can tell you about the safety. I work as a medical doctor in a pretty big hospital. Myself, almost everyone I work with and everyone I truly care about is vaccinated. Noone I personally know, no patient I have seen in the last 3-4 months had any serious side effects from the vaccine. I know of cases who had anaphylactic reactions after the shot, but those are vanishingly rare. The worst "side effect" I have personally witnessed was a young man with a very slight case of myocarditis which didnt cause any irreverseble damage. There is no epidemic of vaccine side effects, thats bullshit. Now, every medical intervention is intrinsically coupled with certain level of risk. There is a real chance that you can die from taking cough syrup. The chance that you will get in contact with Covid in the next few years is almost 100%. If you are a healthy young human being with no prior health conditions, the cahnce of dying from covid is very, very, very low. On the other hand, I have seen young, super healthy individuals getting really weird complications from it. Long story short: - In my opinion, if you are an adult - get the vaccine since its propably the more secure path.

I love him as an actor, but I would have never guessed that... Its not even superficial spirituality (as mainstream is usually plagued with) - he has noticeable depth and nuance in his views

MD here Got vaccinated 1 month ago with AstraZeneca - first shot caused incredibly strong reaction and knocked me out for 2 days! Second shot was better. Vaccines seem to be quite safe - have seen 1 really bad adverse effect in a patient so far (sinus vein thrombosis and pulmunary artery embolism) Have seen a lot of nocebo effects who turned out to be nothing at all in mostly young teachers who got the shot. No medical intervention is 100% safe. Yet as much as we know at the moment, it seems to be more safe to get vaccinated than getting covid. I have seen several young patients (18-30) who have suffer from severe post covid syndrome (One can barely walk because difficulties with breathing) The thing I am really worried about is that high vaccination levels combined with the fact that those vaccines all target the same part of the virus (spike protein) might elevate the evolutionary pressure to such an extent that we have vacc-immune types of this Coronavirus by May.

Disclaimer: This is an essay I wrote a coupple of years ago - its an attempt to unite the notions of "being" and "becoming". Its an issue that took me quite a long time to work thorugh and I know that a lot of people struggle with it as well. You will notice that the language/writing used in this essay may seem sloppy from time to time. Its because its originally derived from loosely bound ideas and concepts rather than anything written down. Over the years I have shared this ideas with many people and the feedback was overwhelmingly positve. Thus I decided to share this with you guys. Enjoy ___________________________________________________________ To be or to become? On presence & purpose in life Many times in my life I asked myself this question: Why do anything? Why struggle? Why work on myself? Why face rejection? Why be someone? After all, isnt this just ego? If the ontological nature of my day to day reality is based on an illusion, what basis is there to do anything at all? Especially with all the potential suffering that comes with it. If all meaning is illusory, whats left to do? Is there even something like a free will or is this just pure theatre? What does "free will" even mean in the context of what I know? Why should I do anything else than meditating 24/7, trying to deepen the connection with the source? Is there a way to make sense of this? So I tried... We can be in a place where we flip flop between truths that both are self-evidently true and yet seem irreconsilable - or we can reconsile and live them both more fully simultaneously. In order to do the right thing we have to enter a plane of higher-dimensional sensemaking. Its how we understand the complexity of reality that really matters here. First of all lets introduce a model because I really think it will help with the understanding: I want to compare for a minute, roughly generelized, very oversimplified, a eastern model and western model of the nature of reality, meaning and spirituality. Obviously its simplified because first of all there are a lot of models and the delineation between them isnt clear at all. But lets say, with eastern I mean the kind of vedantic-buddhist primary interpretations, which are very "being" focused. We are using them as a reference for this particular dichotomy. You will notice in most interpretations of the Buddhist tradition, the focus is exclusively on being. In fact, "doing", that to say any chop wood-carry water like activity is just because it needs to be done, while everything else is focused on the being while doing it - which ultimately is the only thing that matters. One of the reasons why that becomes insightful, is that the Buddhists and the Hindus vedantic model of time is a circular one. They have this system of time called Kalpa or the Yugas, where the time and universe itself is believed to cycle through birth and death. These people watched nature very deeply . They saw seasons like spring and fall, they saw empires rise and fall, they saw people born and die, they saw relationships come together and fall apart - they just saw everything cycling. They saw cycles within cycles, days within months, within years, within galactic cycles. So because of that - if everything's cycling, nothing is actually going anywhere. There is no progress, it's just the wheel of time. So if you're trying to push something forward, you've bought into the illusion that you're going anywhere. They talk about this as Maya, illusion or samsara, the cycle of being. If it's just this illlusory wheel that isn't actually going anywhere, going further is fundamentally meaningless. The goal there becomes getting off the wheel, getting out of the concept of linear time completely, being able to access the eternal through the now. The idea of becoming, progress, or making the world better when the whole thing itself is illusory to begin with. It just means you bought into the illusion and you don't get the ultimate truth. Its the lived ontological quality of "now and complete" - in a way that doesn't have progress built in at all. Basically that's the kind of pure Zenith of a being model. You notice that happiness in that worldview is a model of contentment, serenity or fullness with what "is" right now. In fact, anything like passion or desire or excitement is called the cause of all suffering - because that means that you believe something good is in the future, so you sacrifice being in the moment for wanting something thats not "here". We all know how it works because it just leads you to getting all feverish and fucked up. When you get what you want, you aren't even that happy - you want something else while being anxious of losing it. Dont desire anything, dont have passion- they are for plenty of sound and fury leading to suffering and nothing - Be full and content now. It can sound boring, but of course the idea of boring, in that model, would be a mental trap. And that when you come into the fullness of being right now, you can access, and this is true, a state of serenity, that has a kind of blissfulness to it, that doesn't need you to do anything. But that's that model. And even though its true in some ssense it's also so far from TRUTH that it's actually infinitely off the bigger picture. Now the western model of time is basically originating in Judaism, greek philosophy and then of course modern science. Because the early Jews were very focused on history they were recording that they were actually noticing net change over time. There was clear evidence that new things were emerging that didn't exist before. So rather than focusing on the nature and seeing everything as cyclical, they were focused on the emergence of creations. They realized that adding stuff actually means going somewhere, which ultimately led to a more linear model of time. In their eyes, time was phenomologically real, actually going somewhere, which led to a dialectic of progress and a general focus on becoming rather than being. New implications arised – if there is progress, there has to be something like a beginning and an end. Maybe the beginning is the beginning of the universe in Genesis? Maybe the beginning is when you were born, maybe the end is heaven, right? There are different kinds of theological models and they can completely disagree with each other. Yet this dynamic unveils something else. if you think the universe is actually going somewhere, then adding to this evolving project is inherently meaningful. Also you and me, being a part of where it's going is inherently significant. So then, just being in the moment is not that interesting. Becoming evermore in a universe that is itself becoming evermore, developing oneself to he highest capabilities is the thing to do. That means just being completely content in a way that has no drive is antithetical to what's purposeful. You do notice that their definition of happiness has a lot more to do with qualities like passion and excitement, rather the peace and contentment. If you were to look at this culture, there's a lot of singing, dancing, even partying - whereas more eastern philosophies tend to be a lot quieter. (I do realise the exceptions, yet in general this is true.) Now, some might argue that the eastern model sounds fundamentally bland and boring, which is not true. In fact, it‘s the kind of western bias that only the unexperienced would utter because they haven't dropped into that place of getting it. You might have had moments where you are just walking along a lake or a beautiful landside or during meditation - and you stop, and everything kind of stops. You just see sparkles on the water, there is no thinking about what's coming next - the moment is just full. Whats surprising is that it's more full, in a certain quality, than excitement about the future could ever be. It's about independence. A part of enlightenment in that model is being able to be fully with what „is“, no matter what. It doesnt matter matter what is happening, because everything that's happening is an illusion, right? It's all just changing and flexing - but the consciousness that's witnessing it is ever present. Realizing that the light is actually the light of consciousness - that's what waking up means in their context. Now, so if one wanted to bias from that direction, they could look at the western thing with all the singing, dancing, linearity of time and say: „Look how immature it is !!“ - It's excitement when things go well and disappointment when things don't go well. Look at how little sovereignty those people have, they're so affected by their environment, their circumstance - look at how they rush around trying to change their circumstances to make themselves happy - look at how attached they get to other people and how fucked up they are when things don't go the way they want. Look at how unhappy they are, when they lose something. Look at how when they get what they want - they're only happy for like 15 minutes, and then they want something else. There's like almost nothing of seeming enduring depth there. In the west the focus becomes purpose because purpose is a time bound concept, which unfolds chronologically. Evolution is a time bound concept. So if it‘s about evolving ourselves, evolving others, evolving the world around us - becoming more able to express more of the infinite potential through the finite, through time - then of course when you get what you wanted, you aren't just boringly happy about it. Because then you would stop becoming, when the goal is to be becoming forever. The goal is actually to be in the process of blossoming, that actually adds to the depth of what the universe is. The evolutionary „intelligence“ that brings subatomic particles together into particles and particles into higher order particles, into biology - the whole thing from the Big Bang on is what keeps organizing the universe towards more orderly complexity. You are "it" and the infinite blossoming into higher order potential of universe at the same time. You also have the ability to choose, in a way, that aligns yourself with that truth. And so, of course, when you get something, you're only happy for a moment because you're in the becoming. Whats important to understand is that it's actually the being in the becoming, which is is interesting. Its what many great philosophers called „the lure of becoming“ - because it's about becoming and it's also every moment! Now, what's interesting is, when you put these two together, you have a circular model of time and a linear one. Corresponding with the circular is being, with the linear is becoming - the circular is presence, the linear is purpose. The circular is contentment, serenity in the fullness of the now. The linear is passion, purpose and the promise of possibility. You notice that the circular model maps to seratonin and the linear model maps to dopamine which makes perfect sense. If you take MDMA, a seratonergic drug, you usually will become very in the moment, very sensory, very feeling, very in the fullness of everything being overwhelmingly beautiful right now, with almost no awareness of anything else. Contrary to that someone else takes a dopaminergic agent like Adderall or cocaine or whatever. They will became profoundly focused on what they want to create. All they want to do is being in the process of creating it. Well now we can also see the beauty and the crashes of both of those - what becomes more available or less available. We can see them in the ways of living. A lot of the Eastern practices are serotoninergic practices: being in the moment, breathing slow, being in nature, having all of your awareness at one point. On the western part you have it the other way around: create goals, achieve the goals, feel good that you achieve them, check them off, reinforce having goals, create more goals - those are dopaminergic practices. You also get addiction with that, which is mostly working on the dopaminergic axis. Now lets go back to the circular and linear model of time. If we embed those two on each other in a higher dimensional way, you get a spiral of time, which is a circle that isn't closing on itself. It's a circle that is actually moving along the line. So you might ask, are there even cycles now? Yes, there are cycles. And there is net change from one cycle to the next. Now as we look at the ecosystem we see that you've got spring and fall and spring and fall involved, things are born and die, the cyclical nature is there. Yet over the course of time, you look at the fossil record, there's evolution of new organisms that weren't there before, so there is net change over time. It's important to understand that there are cycles, because in ordert to proceed in your becoming, you need to have phases of activity and phases of rest, phases of going outward and phases of coming inward, phases of learning new things and then phases of applying that learning followed by phases of digesting. If you don't understand the cycles you'll feel like you're not making progress. Anyhow, I hope this makes much more sense now.

Hey tatsumaru, Learning how to think is a very individual process - if you just want some books, than thats okay - its a necessary partm but be aware that this alone wont make you a good thinker. Its takes practice and a lot of feedback in my opinion - we are very easy to trick, especially by ourselves! First thing to know, bad thinking is a pandemic. There are not many good thinkers - Its rare. Extremely rare. By far the best meta-thinker I have encountered in the last coupple of years is a guy called "Daniel Schmachtenberger". I will link some relevant videos below - its relevant, because "sensemaking" and "how to think" are one of his biggest topics. It will give you a great starting point!

2 things 1) Yes, there definitely is a huge amount of blindfolded rationality in the stage orange paradigm, 2) Most spiritual communities suffer from the same issues, just on a different plane. I have seen members on this forum, self proclaimed stage yellow or above, arguing for flath earth and other dipshit conspiracies. If you cant even make sense of the simplest stuff, dont even try to go deeper- you are not ready. It seems like, that in this community, there is some kind of jungian shadow response when it comes to "rationality" - an allergic reaction to anything scientific. Being trans-rational, which means going beyond, doesnt have anything to do with being naive. Real second tier includes the ability the be hyperrational and materialistic on purpose - because sometimes, thats exactly what you want and need. Now to the quantum mysticism: Show some humility, unless you did the work. We know that some fathers of quantum mechanics showed mystical tendencies when asked about the interpretations of their findings. We also know that most phycisists today dont share this at all. The field evolved and we now know much more about quantum mechanics than we did in the times of Bohr, Heisenberg or Schrödinger. I am not saying that either interpretation is right or wrong - I dont know - and you (propably) dont know it either. If you are really honest, you propably dont know shit about QM besides some quasi explanation of the double-slit experiment or the collapse of the wave funciton. You dont understand the schrödinger equation or the copenhagen interpretation. Your ego might think you do, but you dont. So either you do the work and come up with an informed critique of the topic, or just let it be and focus on your stuff.