Pav

@khalifa Nothing neurotic about being interested in the world, it's an inherently fascinating place! There's a lot of value in abstract knowledge, so long as you recognise it as the map and not the territory itself. I'll upload them somewhere and message it to you when I get home.

@khalifa It's some very fascinating stuff. Each one of Leo's questions goes very deep. I have found that it can taking years of study before being able to comprehend how vast a question is. If this is a topic that interests you I could send you a couple of lectures on neuroscience and reason?

@khalifa How does reasoning function? What are its foundations? What must happen in the brain to achieve rationality? ie. how can our brains take perceptions of "two-ness" and abstract that to give concepts of infinity, imaginary numbers, calculus? How is this related to mathematics? What are the foundations of mathematics? How can the brain take these abstractions and apply them to other cognitive processes, such as time (ie counting)? Is abstraction a way for separate areas of the brain to share information with one another (ie taking the visual perception of "two-ness" and relating that to our perception of time)? How is language related to reasoning and abstraction? In what way can rationality be related to computation? In what ways are brains similar to computers, in what ways are the different? Are our brains mere data handlers like computers, or is something different going on? What is happening at a first hand experiential level when you reason? How involved is feeling/emotion? What are the factors that influence your reasoning? How can two people arrive at different conclusions with the same evidence? Is reason applied before or after making your judgement? What is the process that allows you to begin from a few assumptions to arrive at a conclusion? Are there different types of logical systems? Is it possible for it to be proven decisively that rationality has its limitation? ie what does logic have to say about its own limitations?

@khalifa All of those answers are complete cop outs. You have not even begun to investigate them. As an example; here you have provided an essentially meaningless statement. You have not explained what rationality is at all, nor explored it's validity, or its limits. This is a question I have been interested in recently, just to begin to gain some understanding has require extensive experiential observation, and the study of neuroscience, logic, mathematics, linguistics, symbols, epistemology, psychology, and computation/algorithms. Explore much deeper. Really examine those questions intensively. They are all much more fascinating and much profounder than you can currently comprehend.

Melatonin will certainly help you lucid dream. It is the neurotransmitter involved in regulating your circadian rhythms, and it is able to cross the blood-brain barrier. Taking melatonin will make your dreams much more vivid.

Because this isn't the case. The ego causes a great deal of suffering and distorts your perception of reality. The egoic individual is incapable of reaching the higher states of consciousness; gratitude, absolute acceptance, unconditional love, ect.

"What we must say rather is that they [self-actualising people] can take the frailties and sins, weaknesses, and evils of human nature in the same unquestioning spirit with which one accepts the characteristics of nature. One does not complain about water because it is wet, or about rocks because they are hard, or about trees because they are green. As children look out upon the world with wide, uncritical, undemanding, innocent eyes, simply noting and observing what is the case, without either arguing the matter or demanding that it be otherwise, so do self-actualising people tend to look upon human nature in themselves and in others." - A. H. Maslow

Masculine and feminine are mere abstractions of the mind. A false dichotomy perpetuated by culture. I would focus on discovering your authentic nature, rather than how to become XYZ.

It sounds like you're very attached to success. If happiness and fulfilment are your goals, my suggestion would be to slow right down. Leo has a great video on this topic, it helped my our a lot;

Is there are point to listening to music or watching a nice sunset? Do children play for some ulterior purpose? The best things in life are pointless. Your whole life can be like this, if only you'll stop using the present moment for some means other than itself.

It seems strange how some people seem so certain about the enlightenment status of another's mind. How can you tell? One would think that after studying many mystics you would investigate it for your self. Of cause, if he were enlightened he wouldn't have mentioned it in his books, since they were reports of his scientific studies.

Have ever stop and thought about what it means for there to be other people? There are other consciousnesses!! Outside of your own. You can communicate with them, share stories, share ideas, share experiences! That's magical! That's incredible! Realising this inherent beauty in each and every individual, what sense does it make to treat anyone with anything but love and compassion? And yet.. we don't. We completely take for granted the fact that other people exist. We ignore how much of a miracle that it. Worse than that, we just see them as tools. We just use them in ways which we think will benefit ourselves. What the fucking fuck?

Do you wear pants while shooting your videos?

Aldous Huxley is an example of someone who was a remarkable writer and a mystic.

In essence, the deficit-motivated man is far more dependent upon other people than is the man who is predominantly growth-motivated. He is more "interested," more needful, more attached, more desirous. This dependency colors and limits interpersonal relation. To see people primarily as need-gratifiers or as sources of supple is an abstractive act. They are seen not as wholes, as complicated, unique individuals, but rather from the point of view of usefulness. What in them is not related to the perceiver's needs is either overlooked altogether, or else bores, irritates, or threatens. This parallels our relations with cow, horses, and sheep, as well as waiters, taxicab drivers, porter, policemen or others whom we use. Fully disinterested, desireless, objective and holistic perception of another human being becomes possible only when nothing is needed from him, only when he is not needed. Idiographic, aesthetic perception of the whole person is far more possible for self-actualising people (or in moments of self-actualisation), and furthermore approval, admiration, and love are based less upon gratitude for usefulness and more upon the objective, intrinsic qualities of the perceived person. He is admired for objectively admirable qualities rather than because he flatters or praises. He is loved because he is love-worthy rather than because he gives out love. - A.H Maslow

Perhaps you could try accepting your sexual desires and experiencing them fully instead of trying to resist them? Sexual desire are very natural, you will never be able to successfully repress them, it just won't work. When repressing, in essence all you are doing is denying their reality. They will still be their under the surface, only they will manifest themselves as neurosis. It is your resistance to the desires which is causing the neurotic thoughts, not the desires themselves. Once you completely accept them you will be able to enjoy it for what it is.

Writing is "low-conscious"? You are labelling thing in terms of degrees of "consciousness" as if you would be somehow improved by doing them. This is more arbitrary abstraction of the ego. Same with you labelling of "chimp-game" (What does this even mean? Why would you base your life around what a chimp does not do?) Do you love to write? Does writing bring you joy? If so, shut up and do it.. Or don't, it's all good either way.

What ever it is you love and enjoy doing? Why label some activities as higher consciousness? As if you would somehow be improved by doing them? Allow yourself to do what you will do and sit back and enjoy the show.

@cetus56 It is incorrect to say that America is a materialistic country. America is very anti-material. It is a highly abstractive culture. It is a culture which confuses money for actual wealth. One that rapes the planet to produce an ever increasing amount of junk which no body wants. The average American buys things for the power and prestige which they are perceived to represent, not because they love the material. If America was a materialistic culture people would be buying only things only made from the finest materials by master craftsmen. They would sit on gold plated toilet seats. They would actually cherish and spend time enjoying their material. They would come home to have orgies with beautiful people. They would care about the material of the natural world. We don't find this. The average American consumes shoddy plastic junk which he/she never uses, and comes home to sit absorbed in a screen for hours on end. The American doesn't care for material.

It's so magical that anything exists at all. I'm literally here in tears, I can't believe it all, that I had this opportunity just to exist. Why me? Why do I deserve this privilege? I never did anything worthy of this beauty. I cannot keep living like this. I cannot live for myself. I must dedicate my life to something greater. To values beyond this petty ego. I don't know what I'm going to do. I know that no matter what I contribute that I can never possibly repay this debt.

It sounds like you're trying to be detached. Stop trying to be attached but also stop trying not to be attached, what's left? Let go of any attempt to control your mind or body. The feeling of control was an illusion, which you can come to realise through enough awareness. Allow your mind and body to function spontaneously, without resisting anything that's going on. If you are feeling happy, feel happy. If you are feeling depressed, feel depressed (the emotion it self is just another experience, it is your resistance to the emotion which creates the neurosis). If you are enjoying sex, enjoy sex. Ultimately you want to unconditionally accept the world and your mind for exactly as they are. When you give up the feeling on control (and stop trying not to control), you will find that your body/mind functions effortlessly. You will still have desires, you will still have values, you will still enjoy life, and you will still form loving friendships (although you will realise how petty many of the things were you once valued). Through my study of the human psyche, I have come to believe that the human unconscious is inherently wise and inherently good. The ego has been programmed into people through the way they were raised, as a result of this illusion of control their conscious mind is constantly fighting with their unconscious, they are constantly resisting what's going on. This disunity of their psyche leads to neurosis, and many other problems.

A self-actualising person is in no way a narcissist. If fact, they are quite the opposite, they are much more loving people, in that they need less love but are more able to give love. The average person views the world from a state of deficiency, as such will see people in terms of their usefulness in satiating their egoic lack (they see people as tools, as means to an end, rather than as people!), ie as a validation, money, or security providers, or for the pick-up community seeing women only as sex providers. Dependency colours their perception of others, they only see in people what is relevant to their own egos agenda, while ignoring or even being threatened by that which has no relevance to them. Self-actualising people are much more internally grounded, much more independent of others, and do not need them or anything from them. Through this desireless perception, self-actualising people are able to view others wholly; they can love them because they find them inherently lovable, rather than for what they can gain; they admire them simply for traits which they find inherently admirable; they see people as the unique individuals that they are. I would go as far as to say that authentic love of another person is only possible when nothing is needed from them (this may be difficult to grasp if you are too used to a deficiency/ego-orientated type of love, true love is more like the desireless admiration a mother can have for their newly born baby, or the unconditional, omnibenevolent love proclaimed by many mystics). I doubt there is a single self-actualising person in the pick-up community, I wouldn't look to them for self-actualisation advice. That whole game looks built on egoic deficiency, which at best can only provide a short hit of excitement/relief but will most often cause neurosis and suffering. If psychological health is your goal, I suggest cultivating this state of Being which self-actualising and mystical people live from and finding authentic values to live for which go beyond your mere self.

I came to this realisation last night. I have been studying some eastern religions/philosophies (Taoism, Zen Buddhism) recently and I have noticed that the the states of liberation that these religions attempt to teach are strikingly similar to what Maslow called Being-perception. As an example; I remember from a lecture by Alan Watts he says [Paraphrasing here] that after liberation they may then enter back into society and act which every role they like, only now the see through the illusion. This sounds similar to where Maslow talks of the "second naivety" of self-actualising people. This is where self-actualising people live from the Being realm, however they don't revert back to the mind of a child, they instead still know the Deficiency realm only now they may selectively choose when to use it as the situation sees fit. I glanced back at Maslow's original description of self-actualising people in Motivation and Personality, and found that the description matched what I expected from someone who was liberated; ie universal acceptance, resolution of all dichotomies, the ability to perceive reality more objectively/concretely, the ability to see thoughts/concepts/rubrisisations for what they really are without getting so attached, "getting out of their own way" allowing them selves to function spontaneously/effortlessly, the ability to freshly appreciated the everyday life as if it were experienced for the first time, the ability to see past their own ego and devote themselves to a course greater than themselves, ect. I seems that western psychologists (Maslow, Jung), Taoism, Zen, Hinduism, the teachings of Jesus, are all alluding to the same fundamental state of Being only verbalised in different ways.

Everybody has had moments of transcendence (when watching a beautiful sunset, while totally absorbed in your work, or while admiring someone you love), nearly the whole first decade of their lives was spent egoless. The hard part is not to slip back into the ego-orientated, deficiency perception when thing aren't going your way. To see through the illusion in everyday life, and to get out of your own way to allow your authentic nature to act spontaneously/effortlessly.