ChimpBrain

Damn, I just made a post about this in another thread, only you were way more thorough. Props to you, good explanation. My vote is Kim = red, Trump = orange. Like you said, 2 complementary stages.

He strongly relates to, praises, and befriends leaders (dictators) from countries that are somewhere in the range of blue/red on the spiral dynamics ladder, while scolding, insulting, and cutting ties with leaders from progressive democracies that are somewhere in the neighborhood of green/yellow. This should act as a clue in regard to his level of "development" or "consciousness" IMHO.

I've never taken anything that was completely side effect free, but as far as I can tell the side effects are very short term. Like 48hrs or so of feeling kind of weak in my body and a little brain fog from the crappy sleep I get after taking a psychedelic. I'm referring to mushrooms and LSD here mainly. DMT and MDMA didn't cause this poor sleep, or at least not as dramatically. The side effects you get from a psychedelic trip are 99% positive. The negative side effects are similar to what you'd experience after getting only a few hours of sleep. If you're a beginner, mushrooms are probably the safest place to start IMHO. They're shorter acting and a little less overwhelming in my experience.

I'm a peasant when it comes to the inner work, but not when it comes to women, so take my advice with a grain of salt. It seems like you have 3 options - 1) work on letting go of the importance you're placing on whether or not women are attracted to you. This is easier said than done if you're going to be around women in every day life. A few hundred million years of evolution molding you into a reproduction machine isn't easy to ignore lol. 2) work on becoming more attractive if you decide you won't be happy without a partner. This could take many forms, physical, financial, personality, confidence, etc. 3) do both of these simultaneously. This one seems to be the hardest IMO because you're essentially striving in contradictory directions. This one MAY be where you're currently at, you'd know that better than me, obviously.

Makes sense. I've bought several of the paper books from the list but never finish them. Between running my own business, wife, kid, gym, yoga, meditation, etc, the only time I have for a paper book is laying in bed right before I go to sleep and I usually make it through about 1/2 a page before I'm knodding off lol

Awesome! I always end up with a few new audible listens when you update the list.

I'll list a few things I've done that helped me personally. Turn off all notifications, turn phone screen setting to black & white, don't take phone with me into the bathroom, don't take my phone to the table for meals, and put kindle books on my phone so when I am on it I'm less tempted by IG or Twitter and more likely to spend that time reading something worthwhile.

I've suggested Leo as a guest to several prominent Podcasters like Joe, Duncan Trussell, Aubrey Marcus, Cory Allen, etc. I'd love to see him on any of their shows. That said, I think Twitter is the way to make our voice heard, not through his manager who handles his comedy dates and has nothing to do with the podcast. I think the best way to reach out to Joe's podcast is tweeting Jamie @jamievernon. Joe has too many followers and too much Twitter traffic for us to even make a dent, Jaime on the other hand... Edit - another option would be to post about Leo or his material on Rogan's forum http://forums.joerogan.net/register.php?do=signup

Try "Lying" by Sam Harris instead, it's a far better book on the topic of honesty.

@Shanmugam check out Sam's podcast, also called Waking Up. It's great.

No one is claiming he is an enlightened master and that we should all bow at his feet. I'm only claiming that the book, and what he's doing in general by promoting meditation, spirituality, and thinking more deeply about your cultural biases, has value. Especially to a certain segment of the population (his core audience) whose very rational, Western, atheist, overconfident, etc.. He's playing a crucial role as a stepping stone to higher levels of consciousness (assuming you're below where he's at), or at least he did for me. He helped lead me to you after all Speaking of his never experiencing God, I've always been discouraged by hearing how much time he spent in India on silent retreat with what should've been very worthwhile teachers, and never attained full enlightenment. I guess his "karma" is what it is for this incarnation though and I shouldn't think his experience applies to me in any way.

Lol that's Ben Stiller! Someone was being a little cheeky when they made this. It IS a real quote by Sam, but the context is important. I think you're oversimplifying/misrepresenting a bit, but I love you anyway. @ShanmugamI've read the book, I think it's great. Several years ago it was one of the keys to helping me go from being a borderline militant atheist to exploring spirituality with an open mind.

I have it too in terms of self actualization and higher levels of consciousness, but mine seems to go in peaks and valleys of 2-3 weeks so something as simple as taking a cold shower or working out doesn't change anything. I already workout and meditate outside daily anyway. The only progress I've made in this regard is that now I'm more aware of when I'm backsliding than I used to be. I haven't found a way to keep it from happening, but now I can watch it as it happens.

Bought it. Read 12-15 of them. Would recommend. Nothing pisses me off more than buying a book and spending the time to read half of it only to realize that it sucks and I'm not going to finish it. I haven't had that problem with any of Leo's recommendations.

Adyashanti, Mooji, Rupert Spira, Ram Dass, Jack Kornfield, Aubrey Marcus

That 35 isn't nearly as far away as I think it is, and that I'd better grow up and stop relying on my parents so much. Also to cool it on the drugs and alcohol.

Writing out your thoughts helps you find out in more detail what you really think/feel. That's why Journaling can be so helpful. The forum can serve the same purpose.

Meditation in my backyard listening to the birds. It makes me happy and improves the whole rest of my day.

If you're looking for ways to decrease your usage, turn off all notifications except text messages, remove any apps that you can just as easily use on your lap/desktop (FB & Twitter being prime examples), and turn your phone color setting to greyscale. https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/480240/adventures-in-grayscale/

From my own perspective it seems to be happening pretty clearly right now in "the West". I remember an Eckhart quote that went something like "a major shift in human consciousness is happening right now because it HAS to happen right now". I don't any direct experience with non-western cultures though unfortunately, which make up the majority of the world.

Last weekend my wife and I spent 3 days in Austin at the first ever "Love: practice makes the master" retreat with Aubrey Marcus and Christine Hassler. Aubrey is a regular guest on Joe Rogan's podcast, a well known psychonaut, and owner of Onnit. Christine has also been on Rogan's show but is less well known than Aubrey, maybe bc she specializes in women. There were around 25 people total, a lot of couples, but also some people who are in relationships but their partner didn't come, and several who were single. The first day focused on self love, the second on romantic love, and the third on community. All in all it was a very difficult and uncomfortable experience but I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go . A few things it did for me are - made me much more comfortable speaking in front of a group, made me much more open with strangers about my feelings, opened a line of communication between my wife and I like we've never had before (been together for 7yrs), made me realize how important and moving prolonged eye contact with higher consciousness individuals can be, and just a kind of general opening of the heart feeling. We both left there on cloud 9 and during the 5hr drive home had some of the most open and meaningful conversations we ever had. I should note that we didn't go to this because we were having problems, we're just both big fans of the teachers and knew we'd gain something from it. Also I wanted to mention, the first night we did a shamanic breathing exercise and my consciousness left my body for a few minutes, so that was cool. All in all I have to give this retreat a 9/10, although I've never done anything like it before and have nothing to judge against. It was well worth the money and time spent. If they ever do another one we'll likely go again.

I second this request.

I didn't notice an improvement in focus. It could be because that wasn't at all my goal though. At the time I was trying to achieve the opposite of becoming more productive. I was trying to reduce stress and anxiety in my life by working less, spending more time in nature, focusing on more family time, not taking life so seriously, etc. I'd been working 70-80hrs a week for about 4 years straight trying to build my business and better focus was the last thing on my mind.

I microdosed mushrooms and LSD once a week on Sundays last spring for about 2-3 months straight. I'd alternate, mushrooms one week and LSD the next. As far as dosage goes I went for barely perceptible, like 0.75g of mushrooms or 1/6th of a hit of acid. It seemed to help me stay in touch with what's really important in life, not get too stressed about work, care less about the thing that person said last week that's been bugging me, etc. Frankly I just felt happier in general. I restarted the regimen as of last Saturday and hope to continue it once a week for a few months again. I'm not sure why I stopped tbh other than that my mushrooms got too old and lost potency lol.

Mine is almost entirely dependent on my level of work stress. The more overwhelmed I feel, the more I rush to the next moment and the less present I am.