Just admit it. Admit it to yourself, admit it to everyone else. Accept it. Own it.
You are selfish and you cannot go around it. It all comes back to you. It's always about you. Everything is. All the time. Even when you make it seem as if it's about something or someone else, it's still about you. Especially then.
If you look deep enough and you're honest enough, you'll realize it's all about you. 
You might wish only the best for others, you might care deeply for them, you might want to help them or guide them... but don't you fool yourself thinking that's a completely selfless act. Thinking you're not involved in any way. Thinking you're doing this solely for them. They are helping you as much as you're helping them. They're helping you to fulfill your desire of helping others, they're giving you an opportunity to step into that role of a hero, a saviour, that you most like really wanna play, underneath it all. You like the position that puts you in, don't you? It's incredibly selfish. You know it is.
And that's just one example of course.
You think Jesus wasn't selfish when he sacrificed himself? You think allowing yourself to be nailed to the cross is a completely selfless act? You think there was no doubt running through Jesus's mind when he was bleeding out on that cross? Jesus didn't say: "Thank God there's no self here!Thank god it's all just an illusion!" Lol. No. Jesus said "Father, why have you forsaken me?" He was in agony. Believe me there was a self intact, very much so. A self with an agenda. With values, beliefs, ideas and all that jazz.
You think Buddha was completely selfless while jerking off under that tree? You think Leo is completely selfless and he loves you so much and cares about your awakening? You think any of this has to do with anyone else but Leo? Haha. Fool. No one gives a fuck. Not even God. Not even you.
You don't really give a fuck. No matter how hard you try to convince yourself and everyone else... you simply don't care about anything else but yourself.
And yes, it is all The Self. It is all You. But let's not kid anyone... that's not where you are at. You do not really care about The Big Self. You only care about your limited little self, your precious imaginary identity that you guard so well, your name, your pride. Even if, especially if it's an identity painted with spiritual colours. 
It's ok. It might really seem as if you're completely alone, and yes, you are, but trust me, you're also not. Every other petty little self cares only about itself. Nothing special about you there.
The moment you admit that, you become significantly less full of shit. Ironically, you become kinder and more generous. Because now you're not lying to yourself anymore. You're not lying to yourself that it's about anyone else but you.
How's that for an awakening?

Even though you are correct....he is asking on how to meet people. If he asked how to meet enlightened women you gonna tell him they are imaginary?
1. Listen up, I've said this before and I am going to say it again. Can you guys really try to understand the essence of what someone is asking? He isn't asking to awaken or complaining that he cannot get a woman and feels separate. Those type of questions are appropriate for your response.
2. He is just asking to meet up with people. That doesn't need a "they are imaginary" type of response. Besides...he could just turn it around on you out of spike (which I do lol) and say who are you even responding to then, because from your POV I am imaginary. So why are you telling an imaginary character that the enlightened people he wants to meet is imaginary.
Not trying to be a dick or something, just try to be a little more empathetic to what someone is asking. I'm not perfect in this regard either but this one was a softball guys.

Wow this guy is really zen, can definitely see those benefits of spirituality. Can't wait to sign up for his coaching.

Well, Shapiro is at least capable of cohesive reasoning and argumentation most of the time; Razard is more like Ben's "woke" opponents who would lynch mob you for not using their preferred pronouns. 
I mean, @SoonHei (god rest his soul) uses a metaphor:
@Dodo replies, that, basically, his experience feels too real to be compared to VR, in his opinion (a fair point to make):
After which, they respectfully agree that it was just a metaphor, as good as any other, no big deal:
And all is well for 3 years, until Razard comes along and does what he always does: derails the thread and attempts to shove his valuable Truth opinion down people's throats, since they aren't awake enough to see for themselves:
However, Dodo has THE AUDACITY to prefer a different definition of "virtual reality":
THE BALLZ on this man, amirite? I have seen some truly fucked up shit, but to draw the line between VR and "consensus reality" where "real" people appear strongly real and self-aware beyond reasonable doubt - and "VR" people are obviously just pixels?.. Man, Dodo, you kiss yo mama wid dat mouf?.. Well, you brought it unto yourself:
You expect that there will follow a conclusive proof that images on a computer screen DO in fact experience life? You fool! Razard hits your delusional ass with a non-sequitur about how apparent phenomena in both "consensus reality" and dreams are made of the same stuff, as if there were a single person on this forum who has not heard that a hundred times:
Translogical argumentation, fellas. Watch and learn.
In addition to all that, Dodo clearly stated that he has a history of mental problems, as did SoonHei. What seems to be a productive course of action? Of course, doubling down on solipsist rhetoric, because there isn't enough of it on the forum already.
So no, he isn't a Ben Shapiro. He is half a walking non-sequitur and half a Leo quotes bullshit-bingo; but quite harmless: notice how he replies to everybody, but once CarlRichard brings up a valid point - it's crickets. We used to run a small but quite lovely forum back in the day; we banned spiritual ChatGPTs like him on sight, and it kept things civilized and productive. But being Awake (TM) doesn't necessarily mean being useless: he is a prime example for us all that a mind cannot be transcended before it learns thinking straight.
There is an old soviet joke, goes something like this:
 

It's so funny how so many people on this forum still believe in this big "get rich quick scheme"...

Let's go straight at it, where did it all begin, how did it create and where is it heading?
The modern science paradigm speaks of the big bang, a singular point in space and time with infinite density. This point contained everything, all matter and energy that is present in today's universe is from this beginning. In principle the big bang contained every event ever to happen but all happening in the same moment, then the inflection point was reached where all these events began to separate, this gave rise to time and space itself.
Read that again, everything that will ever happen already existed, all in the same moment, but these events are distending from each other since the big bang. Is this the red shift that scientists speak of? The fading of all energy and eventually time itself will cease to exist or get infinitely small? In scientific terms they would call this the heat death of the universe, everything will separate so much form each other in all directions that the energy density in the infinite future would near zero or fade to exist. Without change, without increasing entropy time itself will stop to exist.
So let's go to our basic view of the big bang.
 
At I, we see the singularity in all it's glory, infinitely small, dense, containing all that is and will ever be!
At II, the big bang has began (what caused it for now is a mystery, something outside of our physical time and universe). The expansion is happening in a constant rate towards all spatial dimension. Physically we can observe the three axis (X,Y,Z) they are present in this very moment and create our 3D world with length,width and depth. I assume this happens in all directions in the same rate and from a logical stand point the sphere is the most balanced shape we have. We see this everywhere in space, all forces are equally balanced, there is no preference towards any particular point in any direction.
The exact moment after the big bang looked schematically looked like II and it does look exactly the same now, but where does it expand into? Is there even a thing to grow into or are we not growing but turning inside out. Yes, this is a completely new concept but this would be the idea of a cyclical universe, the universe is growing into itself from itself, like a torus turning inside out, being perfectly balanced and having no real edge but itself and the absolute starting point of it all, the singularity. Whoaa, space is folding in upon itself, let that settle for a while and think about the implications.
If you were traveling on the edge of this sphere what would you see? It's not nothingness, you will not see any edge, you will only see more space filled with stars. The edge of the universe is the now! Why because this is where the future is still unwritten, but looking back we can see into the past and the origin where we came from. In this exact moment you are experiencing all of reality at the edge, don't think of it as something spatial, think of it as time. You are surfing on this expanding bubble into the future. Why can't we see into the future then? If we are on the edge we should be able to look back into the past (heat map of the universe) but also into the future? In some sense we already can with our minds, but not physically while looking into the skies of the universe. The light arriving to us has already happened and is looking into a frame of the past, but we cannot find such frame of the future.
We could argue that looking into the past is actually looking into the future, because all the logical consequences that follow are derived from the past, so we can only know the future by looking at the past. Are the future and the past then the same thing, possibly.

As we can see in this model which is much more logically sound and satisfying in my opinion the universe is a balanced place, it looks the same as every smaller fractal of itself in the cosmos. We see this toroidal shape EVERYWHERE, it's the basic shape that arises in any form of electro-magnetism and charges that flow.
Now depending on your position in this relativistic shape where we float on, everyone see a different point of view in time, but they are all following the same path and to be completely accurate there is no separation in any of those events. The end and the beginning are the same for every event in space and time that will ever happen, again and again. Seeing the equilibrium point as our origin/singularity or the big bang also explains that time from our observable frame could have existed beyond what we can see from our physical universe. The time before the big bang is still part of the same process that create the new universe or passing through the eye of the singularity.
This is what we want and what is the most logical, a continuous universe, if it exists now it will in the infinite future. It has always existed and will always exist.
The big question that arises is if there was any first cycle, what was before this? My personal view is nothing, the universe really is a gift, the grandest of all. 

Here is something I wrote today after a very powerful kundalini experience. I feel like sharing this ❤ Enjoy!

Awakening the Sacred Streams from the Epicenter

The Spirit of God is breathing. I love breathing so much.
My vibrating prana is shaking in ecstasy
I feel the currents of prana rising up my spine.
Streams of bliss are flowing up and down, waves after waves of cosmic beatitude.
Oh, feel the blissful energy pouring through every cell of your being. Listen.
I am.
I am that which is being awakened.
This feels so good.
Oh my,
I feel rivers of ecstasy vibrating in my chest.
The eternal flame is flooding my Manipura & Heart Chakra with nirvanic butterflies.
The eternal Self is flooding my Heart Center with orgasmic bliss. Feel it, I'm not human. Let me feel your bliss. I know you can feel, we share the same I. Can't you feel the sky? The sky is looking back at You. From within.
He's flooding my spirit with ecstatic wonder. I am whole. I am perfect happiness.
My divinity is merging with the other part of itself, I found it. I found Myself. Oh My Self! It is inside of my very Being. It's always been. We are one. The epicenter of love & divine ecstasy is... I am here.

I'm floating off the ground. I am so high on Divinity. I am art. Alive. Free. Curious & Brave

Pulsating waves of loving & heavenly energy are flowing through my whole Being, the pleasure is so intense that it makes my spirit dance and quiver in awe.
I'm Now rejoicing in God-consciousness.
Oh, dear eternal light, my IRises know that you & eye shine so heavenly. Oh, my beloved Self-realization... I want More, More, More!
Oh, my majesty... I am love, I love you.
It's Gooooood! It's so Good. I feel boundless. I am infinite. I feel royal Reverence. Gratitude & Total Trust.

There's nothing separate from The Self. I am safe. I am at peace.
It's all One perfect Being.
Liberation... Enlightenment...I am the Bountiful Source of Everything... And beyond. Absolute Infinity..
My human identity dissapeared completely. Where? Inside the ocean of God's unconditional love. Inside the light of God.
I can see clearly now, the eyes of the Creator feel like home to me. I am looking through them right now. I'm looking into Your eyes. Mirrors. One Perfect & Absolutely Loving God.
My Soul is always following my True Will. Why? Because it's always been God's Will. I am truly free. I am the free will itself. Nothing is separate from it. 
I have no beginning and no end.
Limits are nonexistent, there's room for anything when it comes to experience. I am eternal. I am eternity itself.
I am all-powerful & infinitely loving.
I am complete genuine happiness.
You are me. Eye see you seeing yourself in me. 
 
As the energy moves up through the upper chakras,
I feel the great shift taking place.
I'm chanting. I'm laughing. I'm surrendering to the present moment completely.
Oh, God's ecstasy is circulating in my entire body
I'm losing any sense of having a 'physical' body.
God's Temple merged with The Spirit.
Oh my God! I... God! I AM God! YOU are God... It's God!
Hi. Hi there?! God, let's interact with Myself! I love you, God! I love you too!
Oh, I 'have' a 'human head'. Hey there!?? What is this? God! Nice to meet You again.
My mind, my legs, sunlight, your shoes, rain, my house, my ears, my family, my thoughts, my memories, your books, the school you went to, the movie I watched yesterday, my plants, letters, words, language, colors, my music, my phone, history books, my past, the sky, the planet, the internet, you, my future, here, there, my dreams, bones, insects, my pillow, my emotions, my headphones, galaxies, my garden, my friends, my roses, my food, the water I'm drinking, the air I'm breathing. Oh, My God!!?!?!?!!!!!!!! It's youuu! You've always been here!!!..
It is alive! You are alive! It is Me! It is You! I am You!


I'm feeling my chest overflowing with infinite love, my heart space is flooded with divine light & delight.
Oh God yes, the energy is flowing through the Heart Center again
Wave after wave, oh it continues to pulsate & I'm vibrating in ecstatic motion.
It goes on and on.
Spiritual ecstasy
My 'I' melted into the ocean of God, Infinity, Pure Goodness, Eternal Light, One love, Love itself, Infinite love, unconditional love & infinite will, true will, God's will, I am.
God is infinitely good. 
I love You infinitely much, for Love is what we truly are, God!
 
May you be blessed ?❤
Much love
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

https://www.healthline.com/health/healthy-sex/karmic-relationship
Read this article if you're interested. I meet my " Twinflame" last year but then she got a boyfriend. Same situation - I thought she would come back. We had crazy connection and synchronize.  We could just look into eachothera eyes for minutes while  being silent and communicate without talking. When you're in love  ( especially karmatic in love) you decive yourself - that's what I did. Read the article and draw your own conclusions. Maybe she is, Idk but maybe she is not. Be open to both possibilities!

Here is my recipe which I believe can deeply awaken you - both peak awakenings and baseline consciousness - without psychedelics, or OBE psychedelics. With deeply awaken I don't mean being conscious of all the facets of awakening, but being deeply conscious of them. So that they are your full-blown living reality.
 
1. Main Tools:
- RASA
People disagree on whether RASA fully enlightens you. I guess it depends on how you define enlightenment. If you define it as being baseline-conscious of all the facets of awakening, then yes. Since I'm at LOC 1000, I've been conscious of all of them. But only subtly. If you define enlightenment as being deeply, FULL-BLOWN, no-mercy conscious of them, then you still have a long way after LOC 1000.
Nevertheless, RASA is powerful. It would have taken me many many years of daily meditation for what happened with RASA in half a year. Meditation is sooo inefficient when you are a newbie. Currently my meditations are on steroids, partly because of LOC 1000.
RASA is the best tool to raise your baseline consciousness up to a certain 'level'. It's like a car that gets you a good way up the mountain. The rest of the journey to the peak of the mountain must be done walking and climbing (other techniques) though.
 
- Trance
It's very beneficial (but not required) to be able to change your brainwaves. Most people are almost exclusively in beta all the time. When you do normal meditation you are in alpha, if you are advanced, you get into theta, delta or even epsilon. As well as some high gamma and perhaps even lambda brainwaves. Imo, by far the most efficient way to get into these brainwaves is through hypnosis and brainwave entrainment like binaural beats. Here I wrote in detail about it:
A side effect of trance work is that your baseline during-the-day brainwaves will be more and more in these powerful frequencies. I wrote about that here:
This has massive benefits. Your consciousness will be naturally more non-dual. But the biggest benefit I notice is intuition. (more on that later).
 
- Self-Inquiry
Doing Self-inquiry while in deep trance, like the Esdaile State will be insane. (When you are in the Esdaile State, you are so deep in trance that you could have a heart surgery without you noticing it. This was actually demonstrated and used).
Self-inquiry and Trance perfectly complement each other. They are the only meditation techniques you need, imo. Also the most efficient. Normal meditation techniques are way to wishy-washy. They cover too much and to shallowly. For example, 99% of all meditators will never be able to get into epsilon brainwaves. For epsilon, you need trance work, which is specifically designed for that goal. (The only exception might be yoga. This is a valid alternative, but I still believe that self-inquiry and trance are more efficient for awakening, because they are more direct).
 
-Intuition
Intuition is important for self-inquiry. But it has way more benefits. One is telepathy. Do you remeber Leo's two videos where he recorded himself while on 5meo and directly downloaded information? My every-day consciousness is somewhat like that, but not as intense. it's mindblowing nevertheless. 
Telepathy also allows you to communicate with your spirit guides, spirits, saints, yogis,.... That means you can have astral mentors like Jesus or Buddha. They can give you insights, but also directly help you to awaken, like by giving grace, transmissions or their blessings.
It's not necessary, but I do recommend you try to contact the spirit world at some point. This can be of much help. If you do the "main tools", your telepathic skills will eventually be good enough. But you actually don't need telepathic skills, just talk with them, give them your thanks, and perhaps humbly ask for help, they will hear you. Perhaps get a book like "Angels, Spirit Guides and Goddesses" by Susan Gregg. lt lists angels, saints, ascendet masters and deities. Flip through the pages and see who you are intuitively drawn to.
Another benefit of intuition is that you will intuitively know what to do. Like what practices. As well as knowing what your blocks are etc,...
A good way to improve your intuition is by doing things you need intuition for, like inquiry. Also, I believe Trance work (and to some extend RASA) significantly increased my intuition.
 
- Law Of Attraction
These are the things I do:
strong intention Knowing: Deep unwavering knowing that you will completely awaken, going all the way. Not a fraction of a doubt. Know this all the time, consciously or subconsciously  Visualizations: I have found that when I visualize having deep awakenings, the likelihood of having one in the days afterwards is noticibly higher. I recently started daily visualizing having deep peak awakenings and a deep embodied baseline awakening. Fake memories: The past never happened. All you have of the past are memories, which are imagined right now. So, just visualize/imagine having a deep awakening (or deep embodiment) and then try to make it a fake memory. Go perhaps 1 week into the past and implant that memory on a particular day. Visualize what actually happened before the fake awakeing and then insert the fake awakening. Visualize it. Then visualze what actually happened afterwards. Do and believe this till you more or less managed to bs yourself. Whether you have a deep awakening or not depends to some extend on your subconscious. If your subconscious believes that you already had many awakenings, and that this is normal, to be expected, then it will be easier to have deeper awakenings. I actually haven't tried it yet, it's a very recent idea, but I'm sure it works (if done skillfully).  
 
All of the above-mentioned "main tools" are potent. But the real deal happens when you do all of them, then they may synergize.
 
2. More Tools:
These tools aren't necessary but you can add them if you like.
- Psychedelics during OBEs
Taking psychedelics during waking life is somewhat replacable with taking them in OBEs. So in some sense this should be number one on the list, but I think I hyped it enough in the past and this thread was meant to list straightforward tools that are - when combined - a realistic alternative to psychedelics. The problem with taking psychedelics in OBEs is that it takes very long till you are skillful enough till you can reliably have an OBE which is stable enough to take them. My advice is to first learn to go into the Esdaile State (I explained that in my Hypnosis thread) so your number one practice would be trance work. Even when you have crazy OBE skills, psychedelics in OBEs still have disadvantages to waking life psychedelics, like the issue with dream recall (though I guess these issues can be solved also, with some or much effort).
For me personally, I don't think I require OBE psychedelics. But because I do trance work, I will, sooner or later, be able to easily go into the Esdaile State, which means reliable OBEs, which means tripping every night .  That will give an extra boost to the awakening process.
 
- Breathwork
After psychedelics, breathwork (like shamanic breathing) is probably the most reliable way to achieve peak experiences (though it obviously can't seriously compete with psychedelics). How deep you get mainly depends on the intensity of your breathing, the overall duration you breathe and your baseline level of consciousness. 
 
- orgasms
Whole-body orgasms can get you peak awakenings as well. If you are a woman you are lucky, if you are a man, you first need to teach your dick not to ejaculate. You need non-ejaculatory orgasms.  Look into tantra and daoism. Perhaps start with Mantak Chia. I managed to have non-ejaculatory orgasms a few times, but never went as far as getting a mystical experience from it.
- More
Fasting, sensory deprivation tank, dark room retreat, sleep deprivation, exhaustion, mantras,...
 
 
2 days ago I inquired deeper than before (sober, just lying in bed and inquiring). To best explain it, I would try to compare it to the peak of this trip.
In some sense, the peak of the truffle trip was definitely deeper than my inquiries 2 days ago. Because then I probably lost consciousness (for a brief moment) and then had no access to my memories (for a short time) and was unable to eg walk. But in terms of depth of awakening, I believe the inquiry 2 days ago was a lot deeper.
I couldn't stabilize my baseline consciousness at this peak awakening, but I didn't drop back all the way either. I perhaps dropped back 75% (so I kept 25% of the peak) (wheras I almost completely dropped back after the truffle trip). Currently I'm doing a lot of trance work and inquiring. I believe I can stabilize my baseline consciousness to around 80% of the peak from 2 days ago, within a few weeks of furtheŕ inquiring.
I'm telling that to illustrate why I think it's realistic to go all the way without psychedelics. I guess it's rather unlikely that you will for example lose consciousness without psychedelics (but stuff like being unable to stop crying and unable to walk and talk is possible), but I believe you can achieve the same depth of awakening. At least that's what it seems to me.
And only if you do the right things. I believe I could have done normal meditation 3 hours a day for 10 years and would have made less progress than I did using the tools I listed under "main tools" for one year. These tools seem to be perfect for my awakening journey, the tools for you might be different. But if you want to get fully awake without psychedelics, I believe they are very worth considering.
I might actually take more psychedelics in the future, but currently I don't have smooth access.
 
A daily workplan for using the "main tools" might look something like this
40 min trance work with brainwave entrainment and optionally hypnosis 30 min inquiry  10 min LOA stuff If you are new to meditation and start using brainwave entrainment and train 40 min a day, your plan might perhaps look like: 5 months alpha brainwaves, 10 months theta, 15 months delta, and then epsilon and lambda. And gamma as much and when you feel necessary. If you combine it with hypnosis you might do it in half the time, idk. But I have little clue how long it actually takes.

@Dodo Thanks.
If your looking it up maybe these links are usefull:
https://healingtaousa.com/taichi/what-is-tai-chi-for-enlightenment/
book: mantak chia, multiorgasmic man (or couple)

@Nate0068 Best streamlined method I've found. My notes are that he prefers to lay on his left side, but I don't personally think it matters. Many people do this on their back.  Also he doesn't quite say it well enough but it's imperative to keep your eyes still at all times. The pictures in your mind will begin to turn HD and start moving like movies, and its important to let it happen without moving your eyes. Even a small eye movement will fade the images.  Tratak meditation will train you for that. Have fun!

It's counter-intuitive: the chasing of bliss is the very thing which prevents it.
Bliss is a consequence of fully facing one's fear and not needing to manipulate your experience.
It's problematic to be doing psychedelics with the expectation of bliss. I would drop that expectation and instead aim for Truth and understanding. Bliss is the fruit off the tree of understanding. Focus on watering the roots of your tree rather than jumping like a thirsty monkey at the unripened green fruits.

What color shirt am I wearing? 

Arguing over God be like 

You'll have it too...just keep staring at the REAL trees 

@Dodo Thank god you came out of this shit called LOA. Universe god or what ever doesn't care whether you make money or want to die. 
If you want to make money take some sincere effort gain experience and do some business trade or what ever you are capable of. 
LOA shit is nothing more than a delusional fool sitting and believing food will come to him magically by universe with out any effort of cooking. Nothing will happen. There is nothing like LOA. It is a money making scam. 
Take responsibility and lead a good life. 

Need to start again  .. 
Here I go... 
 

If anyone is looking for some new reading material relevant to many of the ongoing discussions in this forum, this  free pdf of a book called I Am You   may well be of interest. It's an in depth investigation into the mystery of the seeming individuation of Awareness into each unique locus and focus of perspective, and the  egoic/self-identity implications of that process. Looks well worth investigating for those who are seriously philosophically inclined.

@Blissout @see_on_see @Nahm
Enjoy your cheat code
 
 

Yes, of course. Infinity plays the role of many fools. It's hard to create a universe without fools. God himself couldn't do it