Daneel

The same way you let go of anything else. Relax, see the fear in your mind, don't react to it or think about it, don't feed it, don't hold it back, don't expect anything, just be aware of it. Don't remember which video that was now.

So I tried meditating about 20min per day as Leo suggested somewhere, and had a few insights into why I do things the way I do, not really looking for enlightenment just some peace of mind. After only about a week I had a sort of out-of-body experience. The way I would describe it is, my sense of self was outside my head. I had extreme awareness of everything, heartbeat, bloodflow, skin sensation, my ego felt very small and pathetic, and it felt intensily real and true, and of course it was. Being a materialistic and not very spiritual person I was grateful I did not hallucinate anything or feel as if I was flying off to save the world. It was kinda cool, I did feel fear but thankfully another one of Leo's videos dealt with that beautifully. Over the next few days, my ego or whatever was desperately trying to make sense of this experience, usually in religious terms and it felt as if my brain was getting some serious rewiring work done. I was just watching it thinking wtf is this idiot doing in my head? It didn't seem like I was going insane, more like the opposite. I'm the type of guy who mostly lives inside my head, and I have a very good storyteller in there. It's never bothered me before but I would like to change that now. I have a very very different perspective on things.

I did deal with the feelings once I had the time back at home. Then I tried meditating just to relax and try to feel happier. It worked well beyond expectations, and I ended up blacking out and having an experience that reminded me of my first one, though much briefer. Pure divine love and happiness, to the point I felt it was too much and backed out. So it seems I've experienced both heaven and hell on the same day. It's like your intuitive mind is trying to understand itself. I think it came to the point where it realized it is not one thing. I had some kind of internal dialogue today about the nature of enlightenment and if I really want it. I do want to know the truth, but if this would simply lead me to some state where I don't care about anything anymore then what is the point? Either way it gets kinda distracting when these types of things keep happening to you while trying to hold down a normal job.

Today I got into this pretty awesome flow state at work while doing some especially boring stuff, that I managed to maintain for a long time, by focusing on trying to be aware of as much as possible. Then I ended up in some hellish place in my mind where everything was painful to touch, like picking at an open wound. Lucky it did not last long, made me feel completely miserable for a few hours. Yeah I screwed up my head.

My first thoughts when I watched some of his videos but he introduced a lot of interesting ideas too. And after this experience some of those things sound a lot less crazy. I noticed how through this experience I was removing a lot of fears and crap from my mind, and I'm still doing that. Though my issues with motivation and living inside my head seem a lot harder to solve.

I'm getting more and more back to normal now. Sometimes I still get into that perceptive state of mind while riding my bike to work. I had one brief moment while making dinner where it seemed as if I was watching myself doing things rather than being in control, though I did not feel anything special. I don't have the motivation to spend the 20 whatever years it would take to find out, more than I have the motivation for much else. I doubt the world is going to last 20 years and that opinion hasn't changed. The light is mostly a faint memory now, trying to find it again mostly ends in misery. But I can deal with that now at least.

My own judgements I think?

No, not really the type of thing I would do. I got a diagnosis for autism in my 30's. The thing about autism is that it takes a lot more effort to interact socially, and it is not as intuitive, intrinsically enjoyable or motivational as it seems to be for most people. We develop something like acting skills in order to deal with life, and this gets exhausting. That perceptive/being state of mind was so amazing partially because it allowed me to break out of that for a while, and sometimes made me feel like I could interact more naturally. Some of my usual avoidant behaviors, those I can recognise were due to fear, I can now deal with better. I had this conversation today where by the time I had come up with a response to his first question he had already gone three questions past that (ADHD-type salesperson). I realise that's because he fears the silence, and when he doesn't get a response immediately he just keeps talking to deal with it.

I don't think so, but I was kinda odd since I was born. Didn't want to play with other kids, and that never really changed. It's not that I disliked people, I just never liked dealing with people, and that's not a new insight. Always found it difficult to express myself or figure out what I feel about something. Mostly felt that people were fake or incomprehensible. At least that last part makes a lot more sense now.

That force would be the "light" in "enlightenment" yeah. My not very spiritual mind had some issues dealing with ideas like this. I remember one description of it as (don't know if this was from Leo) that it's the feeling we all have as children, that eventually gets covered up as our ego develops and we forget about it. That's a pseudo-scientific explanation for it that my mind could more easily accept. I like this light and would like to keep it.

At some point it felt like every cell in my body was having an orgasm. I thought you would have needed drugs for something like this, but no.

No shit. I really should not have done this on my own. But where do you get an emergency buddhist? I seem to have my head back together for now.

This morning I felt briefly like I was going insane, like nothing was real. I started touching things and telling my mind what was real and not. Until I realised that the feeling of what is real is itself not real. That seems to have solved the problem. I also get the feeling that I really should not have done this on my own.

So, I have this colleague who acts like a spiral dynamics stage red much of the time. He's impulsive, manipulative, calls everyone else an idiot, bullies and talks crap about everyone as if he's mentally stuck in elementary school, takes pleasure in hurting people by his own admission etc... he's not always like that, but way too often. He's in his late 20's and is quite intelligent, and that's the main reason anyone would respect him and keep him employed. He knows on some level that this behaviour really doesn't serve him and mostly gets him in trouble. But his level of thinking is far from sophisticated, he rationalizes his behaviour in childish ways, says things like "I'm just evil". He's not incapable of remorse or shame and it's obviously something he struggles with. I was watching Leo's videos on Youtube and it really helped put words to some things, I do sympathize with him a bit and recognise that behaviour in myself as a child. The last bully I knew in school I shoved into a locker a couple times until he gave up, but I'm not that impulsive anymore and I'm not sure that would work as well this time. I can't be arsed looking for a better job, so I'm trying to figure out a constructive way of telling him to grow up. Any ideas?