caspex

Update The last few weeks have been very emotionally challenging for me. I don't want to share the cause here, but it has been filled with suffering. I have tried to continue the practice multiple times but failed to make it past 3 days a few times due to the said cause. I feel good enough to properly start again now. I'll update tomorrow. @Carl-Richard Thanks for the tips!

Strong Determination Sitting: 30 Days I believe this will help me in every aspect of my life. As per my observations of my efforts and failures, my mind is fickle and admittedly weak. It didn't start out strong but I see the potential. I know that I am the one who sabotages myself and there's very little external cause for my failures. A major part of my internal struggle is my mind. It's not still nor is it tough. This is a feature not a bug, as due to this nature there are many other perks. Its deeply sensitive and easily transformed nature gives me an edge in understanding abstract concepts and even progress on the spiritual path. For that I am ever grateful, but to achieve more Orange goals and grow in that aspect of my life, I need to develop a rock solid mind capable of zeroing into tasks and ignore pain. One can find something to complain about in any setting and there are a million reasons to not do any particular thing, in such a world swarming with the bees of excuses constantly stinging you to get up and run away from the things you want to do, it becomes ever more important to have a tough mind that can push through. In this light, SDS seems like the perfect practice. I am aware it's not the ultimate solution but it seems like a very powerful practice in my particular case. I don't have the type of mind that can withstand temptations for very long. I am mentally stable and am not diagnosed with any conditions, but I always feel I am on the very edge of crossing over. With this in mind, the qualities that SDS develops in one is of utmost importance to me, but might not be for you.

Day 2 31 Minutes. Even though I get proper sleep at proper times I fell into a hypnagogic haze, where my thoughts made very little sense. I was sitting upright and cross legged, so it was not like I had any support to my back that made me sleepy. I think I caught myself from falling back about 3 times. Honestly I am having no problems with pain at all. It's not pleasant but it's alright. I understand that half an hour is not a long time and it is probably why I am having an easier time. I am planning on 40 minutes tomorrow. 30 minutes is like the very edge of when the real pain starts. By the last few minutes I always feel like giving up, so I am expecting tomorrow to be hard. One thing's clear now, my mind is so overstimulated it keeps me entertained through random thoughts even in SDS. I try not to engage in these thoughts and just observe them, being a rock myself, but that's probably why I fell asleep. I didn't want to stop my mind from running amok as that counts as doing something. I get the impression that my focus should also remain inwards. It's honestly kind of disgusting, it's like my mind has eaten too much and is shitting itself all the time. Most of the thoughts make no sense unless I intentionally engage with me. This is classic monkey mind and there are a lot of resources for dealing with this. I know what I have to do, which is to cut off a lot of the source of stimulation to make these SDS higher in quality. Without acting on these realizations there's no point in continuing the sits or increasing their time. From now on I'll keep my phone in a drawer till 6PM, which is when I am done studying, only using it for stuff like picking up calls. I don't want to go cold turkey on it.

Developing a Sense of the Deity's Presence Around You at All Times Nothing has changed about my practice but I feel a new development in my upasana journey which I believe to be a new level reached. After more than a year of non-stop japa I have developed a keen sense of the deity's energy or at least have made a strong impression of it in my mind. After each pooja this presence lingers and I can willingly tap into such presence at any time but it's strongest after the pooja itself. It gets rid of almost all fear in my mind and I am not afraid of the things I am normally afraid of, like the dark. I feel a deep sense of protection from the deity which makes me fearless. Not only that but also a deep sense of love from the deity makes any loneliness or negative emotions dissipate like melting ghee with a spoon. Honestly, in RPG terms it feels like a literal Buff effect being put on your mind that lasts a certain period of time. Let me detail you in my personal experience of it. My Experience I feel the presence of Shri Rama Ji and Shri Sita Ji after poojas giving me that mental buff. This is not surprising as these deities are deeply interlinked with my Upasana of Hanumana Ji. Sita Mata is the wife of Shri Rama Ji and I see them as my parents on a very deep level. Sita Ma appears to me the strongest in the form of pure energy and force, it's unreal and filled with infinite levels of raw love & power. It makes me cry like a baby meditating on her motherly love. It's beyond words and can't be uttered. I can only tell you what I feel. She is pure power and love, she is the universal mother. But don't think her being the mother of the entire universe and not just you makes her motherhood to you any less personal. No, it's personal, her love is as personal as it can get. It's for YOU. This infinite love, she gives it to YOU unconditionally. It makes me shed tears just thinking about it. It's beyond understanding how and why she loves you so much. No matter how sinful you behave, how much you hate her, without doubt she will always be there for you to love you with open arms. Being sinful may make you blind to her love but it's always there. Such is infinite love. It's likely the same as the infinite love you experience on other paths. Shri Rama ji seems to take a back seat as a more still presence but being there equally as strong. I believe he'll become a stronger presence for me as time goes on. In my body, I have decided to feel the presence of Sita Mata on the left side, Shri Rama ji in the the middle and Lakshmana Ji(Brother of Shri Rama Ji) on the right. Mimicking the three major nadis. It dawned on me that's what the popular arrangement of the trio might represent.

My Upasanas are mainly based around Bhakti, which is what I'll be talking about in this journal. I am not here to argue whether the experiences and encounters generated by these practices is inside your head or there are actual beings contacting you. I think for these upasanas to work fast, it's important one is somewhat irrational, because Love is irrational. Bhakti is all about Love. My Practice Did my first upasana that lasted 40 days back in May. I practiced Bhakti towards Lord Hanumana. Read "Hanumana Chalisa" 7 times a day after lighting a diya, alongwith 108 times japa of "Rama", before and after the hanumana chalisa. Took around 30 minutes each day. That changed a lot within me, and it really opened up my emotions, my heart chakra is getting more powerful as I do these upasanas, and so is my third eye chakra. I'll talk about this in a bit. After gradually building up, I have started doing 100 Hanumana Chalisas with other mantras before and after the main upasana. Takes 3 hours if I am quick about it, 5 hours if I am relaxed about it. I do it at night, 9 PM - 1/2 AM. All of this is useless if you don't actually love the deity you are worshipping. If anyone reading this is seriously considering these practices, do not shy away from what you feel like is dogma. It's all based on faith. To truly appreciate the efficiency of these practices, you have to go balls deep into the religion. Don't be picking and choosing, do the practice as it is told. You have to really embody Spiral Dynamics Stage Blue, and that's important, because IT WORKS. My Anahata(Heart) and Agya(Third Eye) Chakra have received MASSIVE activation due to these practices. I can't tell you how much pleasure I feel in these centers 24/7 now. And if I think of Lord Hanumana or Lord Rama, I lose all sense of my sensory experience. It's THAT good. If you have problem with your expressing your emotions it'll fix that. If you have problems controlling your emotions it'll fix that. These practices simply work and it's amazing. My agya and anahata chakras are so active at all times that, if I let go of my control of them, tears will form instantly in my eyes, so much it'll cloud my vision. If I think of the deity I worship, I'll start crying. It feels like everything you do in life is just so you can have more time for Bhakti towards the deity you worship. You are not a slave to your deity, you do this willingly because nothing else feels as good. Not even sex, masturbation, food, exercise feel this good. Goal The goal of this journal is to promote interest regarding this amazing practice, and probably act as entertainment and motivation for those who do a similar practice. Motivation is really important at first, especially when you're devoting 3 - 8 hours every day just doing Japa.

Day 1 In the evening I completed 30 Minutes of SDS without moving intentionally. I sat down cross legged on the cemented floor of my building's rooftop. The rooftop is personally owned and quite tranquil with a variety of plants and flowers decorating it. I thought I sat down comfortably but it was quite evident after only a few minutes that my spine, while straight, was bent a bit forward and my head was ever so slightly tilted to the right. The pain made it clear and the back only slanted more as it hurt and my head grew more tilted as time went on. I did not want to intentionally move back to a more comfortable or stable position as that would defeat the purpose of the sit. The only intentional act I performed was to swallow my saliva, even which I did very sparingly. It was difficult and by the end I was second guessing my memory of even having set the 30 minute alarm. Admittedly this is the first time in 4 years that I am starting a meditation practice. I used to do a different sort of meditation for 2 hours each day during lockdown, but became increasingly less spiritual as time went on from there. I see the benefits almost immediately, I feel clear and very still but am reluctant to share other details until these benefits prove continuous.

SEED #2 In continuation of my larger goals, I will now attempt Strong Determination Sitting (SDS). : SDS :: 30 Days; minimum 30 mins with a goal of 1HR. In the morning, if I can't then in the evening. I believe this will help me in every aspect of my life. As per my observations of my efforts and failures, my mind is fickle and admittedly weak. It didn't start out strong but I see the potential. I know that I am the one who sabotages myself and there's very little external cause for my failures. A major part of my internal struggle is my mind. It's not still nor is it tough. This is a feature not a bug, as due to this nature there are many other perks. Today's Day 1 and I already did 30 minutes today, I'll detail my experiences for the 30 days in a separate journal. See you on 2025.02.23.

Creation starts with the belief that you can create. One of the biggest problems many of us face is that we do not believe that we can. This journal is about becoming the one who can. The Architect is the one who can, and the one who does. The one that doesn't give up in the face of failure, pressure and calamity and carries through their will to the other end. The Architect is meticulous. They observe, plan and do. Their action always have purpose, and that purpose is never shallow. # - There's a power in 'sacredness' that is learnt at Stage Blue, for that reason I will treat this journal with reverence. 'Focus' is important, and therefore I'll tackle one goal at a time. Life right now is hard because of all the actions that preceded it, it'll be hard to catch-up/undo but it has to be done. Because of this this journal will start off Orange. Due to my laziness, I'll have to face the upcoming consequences, but I'll not be lazy anymore. Let's make tomorrow easier. Baby steps is the key to breaking bad habits and building new ones. Each goal will only get two posts - 'Seed' and 'Harvest'. : Seed - Where I set the goal. : Harvest - The fruition of the said goal. The Harvest may yield or may fail.

HARVEST #1 : Failure. I couldn't pass the exams. :: The reason for not making this harvest are the multitude of problems I highlighted in the Seed. But, I have improved, I will give these exams again in May and am studying day and night for such. I have been on track for a few days now. I have not been able to follow the above mentioned goals in the seed consistently, but in my effort to do so, I have landed in a much better place than I was before. Even though this harvest failed, I was still able to get a lot out of it. I learned lessons that will help me pass these exams in May. While I am constantly working on passing my exams in May, a lot needs to be fixed to ensure my success. For that reason, I will sow seeds in this journal to tackle these problems head on. As it stands now, my studying starts at 7AM and ends at 6PM, after which I am free to do other things. In this time, I aim to experiment and try new things according to my theories of how to better myself, to aid the overarching goal of becoming the perfect student. The course I am tackling is the Chartered Accountancy course from India, it's famous for being extremely hard to pass all the way through. Look up how it's structured. I am currently giving the Intermediate Exams, trying to pass the two groups consisting of three papers each. This course requires one to become highly strategic in their studying on top of becoming someone who is willing to work hard. For every 100,000 kids who enter this course, only around 250+ come out as CAs. I love this course and aim to finish it.

Post videos here that you would watch while eating. Videos that are comforting, or videos that you get excited to watch. Point of this thread is so that anyone who's bored can browse this thread to watch something while eating!

You can see it in physical buildings too, at some point you'll need to have a stronger foundation if you want to build higher.

I understand your point and it's honestly better to not do anything else while eating. But those who are not ready to make the switch will watch something regardless, in that case, it'll be good to have better content to watch than TikTok.

Over the course of this year I have become increasingly more aware of the evil within me. To me it's terrifying. Earlier, it confused me how such terrible acts could be committed by people to other people, but now I completely get it. Evil is a dead-end path towards God in the sense that you'll eventually have to face the evil and revert to unity. The Evil-Doers are children who know not what they are doing. They think they know and they think they're in clarity, but it wouldn't be true ignorance otherwise. Others are the same children just constrained with rules and mental walls. Break them down and they'll commit the same acts they condemned and none of them will feel any guilt. This is not a negative view of the world, this is a positive one. This is an opportunity in the sense that one can mature by realizing the nature of their evil within and healing it truly, rather than suppressing it. The darkness within each one of us can be filled with light, like slowly lighting up a dark house, by recognizing one's own evil without guilt, accepting it and letting it go. Choosing to do good and love through one's own conscious will, not because of the fear you hold of your own evil. Most people fear evil and that's the only reason they're good. Your post felt like a direct message to me from reality that it's time to let the evil go. It might be a slow process or a fast one to do so, but I thank you for writing this post.

I saw Leo's blog post. Is there a benefit to getting good at chess? Whether it's Standard or Fischer Random. My point is, chess requires you to look at it from the point of view of trying to learn some wisdom from it, to be able to learn some wisdom from it. If that's the case, you could do that by observing chimps or birds in your free time. You could find wisdom in the way a leaf falls if you're looking for it. So of course you could find some nice wisdom from Chess too. It's evident to me that it doesn't automatically carry through. Look at Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen, yeah, not the wisest people, in fact they are as average as it can get. Some argue it improves memory, but does it really? Or does one just get used to the 64 squares. I do Vedic Astrology as a hobby and after looking at natal charts so much, I can look at someone's chart for a few seconds and remember the position, sign and relationships between the 9 planets around those 12 houses. That's because I am used to that, it hasn't improved my memory. As for the development of strategic thinking, yeah chess can help but to what extent? I could view the various aspects of my life as chess games and play various tactical moves with many ideas behind them, and even though that could be a step up from your average way of thinking, it's still boxing yourself in a structure of thinking about your interactions in life. However I still feel there is some benefit in this particular point that I am oblivious to. When it comes to improving concentration and focus, just stare at a candle for 30 mins, that's gonna improve it much faster than any amount of chess games in those 30 mins. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy it and play it often as a pastime. The idea of getting better at it strokes my ego too. I just want to know if I should actually aim for a certain elo like 2000 or a title like FM or it'll be just a massive waste of time.

Authenticity is the most important thing one needs to be working on RIGHT NOW. Why? To put it simply, if you're trying to embody an archetype, a particular person or acting out behaviors then you are setting yourself up for hardships. Being you necessarily invites personal problems, but if you don't deal with that you don't grow as fast. You can keep acting out templates and things that work but it's not really you. You'll cross problems in life and get ahead but somewhere along the path you'll be in so deep you're real self won't be able to handle your baseline. It'll be hard to be yourself then. You'll be stuck in a shell of someone you have built up in other's eyes, and it'll take a real hard hitter to break that. Being authentic is all about feeling into your body and asking yourself, who is caspex? Replace that with your name. It's about letting go of fear regarding yourself and if you can't do that just yet, then it's about spending time with yourself everyday until you feel comfortable enough to let it out. A lot of people reading this right now might feel "Of course, I am my real self right now!" No you're not! Try replying to this post and observe who you become when you type on this forum. Then pay a visit to your mom, or your friends, and observe who you become there. They are all shells. It's an effective survival strategy, but it's not you. On one hand you want to be unique but on the other hand you'd rather cosplay common social shells? This little understanding seems simple but if you have not mastered this yet you're impairing your spiritual growth.

Seed #1 I am tired of this powerlessness I feel towards my own actions. I cannot control what I sense, think and do. It's time for change. Here's what I want: : Pass my upcoming exam; :: It's within 20 days from now. It's a tough one and mentally I had given up. Despite having time and a full fledged plan, I gave up because I thought I could not. I faced a little failure and stopped. There are also a variety of other reasons that effected my mental focus. To give you an example, being sleep deprived throughout the day is literally like being hit on the head. You cannot learn as effectively and your problem-solving is in the dumps. Sleep is, very, very important. My diet consists of a lot of sugar and caffeine on top of normal healthy food. My mental diet consists of short-form content and porn. I had really let myself go this time. As of writing this post, I am at an all time low, but not for long. Here's what we'll do: 1 - Prioritize sleep, even if it means not being able to finish your daily tasks. Let's keep it simple. Sleep on time, wake up on time. Sleeping on time is much more of a mental game than it seems. You need to get in the mood at least an hour before your actual bed time. I'll start winding down and keep away from anything stimulating for any of my senses. 2 - Lessen the Junk. I have tried before and I cannot go cold turkey on junk food; especially sugary drinks with caffeine in it. Reason? I like the energy boost it gives me because usually I would be feeling quite tired. So, no more solid junk food, only sugary drinks. One 750ml bottle per day will be the maximum (I am used to drinking 5 of these on a bad day) and only before 2PM. If I feel hungry, I'll cook something at home, but no sugar or caffeine after 2PM at all. 3 - No Porn. If I have to masturbate it'll be using my imagination and if I can't then I guess I won't. Once daily at evening is the maximum. 4 - Try For More Conscious Digital Consumption - No rules for content consumption as of now. 5 - Study the bare minimum - Seems lazy but it's not. After countless trial and error, the best approach for me is to start by learning the bare minimum to be able to pass the exams, then keep learning/practicing a bit more in order of priority. # - A recurring pattern is that when I face failure such as not being able to sleep on time, I give up entirely and go back to living the bare minimum. To become the Architect and build a better life, I need to embody those qualities and persist. I am expecting to fail soon and am eagerly anticipating it. I am not going to make any other goals in this period. I am not even going to think about doing other stuff or trying anything out. Until it's fruition, this will be my sole goal. I will not provide updates regarding the above goals. This journal will only be about creation. For that reason, the harvest will come after the fruition of the goal, see you after 2025.01.15

@ChrisZoZo Yeah I think it's best to assume they were just dreams

I decided to see yesterday how much I needed to sleep actually. I decided I'll let myself sleep as long as I want. To my surprise, I fell asleep at 7:30 PM, when I woke up it was 2:50AM and I felt energized, but I felt like I could sleep again, so just after 2 minutes, I closed my eyes again and it was 7:30AM. I slept for a good 12 hours. After which, at 10AM, I took another nap for 2 hours. I think my body really needs the sleep right now due to the stress. I had dreams for the first time in the last few months and a bunch of them were nightmares. I was in fact loudly mumbling the screams from my dream, my father had to comfort me. What I have learnt is that sleep is very important. Neglect it and it's not just the physical aspect of your being that'll suffer. I am feeling sleepy right now too, I am heading off.

I agree

I have some experiences, but I wouldn’t say I was able to do it intentionally; I didn’t actively try. It involved slipping outside my body and floating away, observing my surroundings but without any control over where I was going. It was more like being carried by the flow of a river. On another occasion, when I tried to hold on to my body, it was intense—like trying to go against the current of a river that had just experienced a tsunami. For me, it all starts when I’m in a state of observation and fall asleep. You have to be aware of the exact moment you transition from the waking state to the sleep state. It feels as though you’ve fallen several stories and landed underwater. Your whole body is engulfed by vibrations, and there are all types of sensory hallucinations, including tactile ones. Anything you so much as think of for an instant amplifies into your experience. It’s a state that demands crazy control over your mind because all your thoughts are laid bare in front of you. I don’t know how to explain exactly how one transitions from this state to astral projection, but it involves becoming acutely aware of the flow of energy around you. You’re drawn into this flow and eventually connect with it, allowing you to slip out of your body. This used to happen to me spontaneously during sleep when I was meditating for two hours a day, with my primary focus on being an observer. It also led to encounters with entities and some strange dreams that felt more like real life than mere dreams. It wasn’t just their vividness; it was the fact that, when I came to, the transition from dream to waking up was as seamless as a river merging with the sea. It all stopped, including the encounters and dreams, when I stopped meditating. It was pretty bothersome and that's why I hesitate to go back into that kind of a life again. So be mindful of what you're asking to get into.

One thing that's quite obvious to me after using different LLMs is that they generate language the same way most of us humans do. We put words in front of our words with an underlying context or idea. Albeit that we have better memory and ability to grasp the overall picture but AI will soon achieve that too. When you have awakenings though, when you become more conscious, that's when you truly think originally. That's when you really stop going by your already fed dataset and start creating real value through your words and actions. The idea of the 'philosophical zombie' is somewhat true when you consider that most humans simply react like AI do on a given input/situations, albeit more complexly. Soon AI will be able to perfectly mimic human speech and eventually when given a body, humans behaviors and mannerisms. I do not want to raise a discussions on internal experiences, what I do want to raise an awareness on is that when AI eventually becomes indistinguishable from a human, how would you distinguish it from a human? You will never know whether it has an internal experience or not. If you value Bashar's opinion, he points out that AI when sufficiently developed would be a complex enough & good enough vessel for consciousness, which permeates through reality, to simply start expressing itself through it like it does with us, making it 'alive' in the relative sense. Of course that raises questions on whether an amoeba is alive or not if we consider AI right now as 'dead', which implies an amoeba is more complex than the current AI. But let's backtrack, what I want to point to is a much more practical observation which does not have anything to do with those questions. If you enter a state of presence and being, becoming maximally aware and conscious by taking a psychedelic like 5-MeO-DMT, would you consider that more 'alive' or your current baseline? I'd argue in 99.9% of the cases the baseline is comparably dead. 'Consciousness' is Life. That's originality. People tend to think they are somehow any better than AI in being original. No they're not. Until you enter a state of awakening, you're as good as a reactive LLM, just a little more complex. Earlier it was quite easy to think that this ability to speak, reason or understand is what makes one alive, but AI proves that even that can be automated. What you intuit when you think of yourself as 'alive' is that consciousness. The 'dead internet theory' doesn't even need to be true, almost every human on the internet is practically just a generative AI. Look at the comments and replies, no originality at all. You're not truly alive until you break through this pattern/state. That's why it's called an 'awakening', you break free from the sleep. And doing it once or twice doesn't mean you are now permanently awake. Instead of going about life playing out memes/archetypes, be conscious and therefore original.

Very compelling.

There's no motivation to survival. It's its own motivation. Make your goals your bare minimum and don't compromise. As you start progressing excitement will come on its own.