It's smart to improve one's self-image first before trying to totally transcend it.
Most of you guys would benefit from some basic self-esteem and self-image work.
A weak self-image is too insecure to allow itself to be transcended.
Transcending the self-image is the highest stage of Maslow's pyramid.

Firstly that's untrue. A lot of Blue and Orange people follow me for example.
You can train yourself to become a Spiral Wizard and bridge builder.
Secondly, demonstration is more important than preaching. Look at Gandhi, Buddha, Jesus, MLK, etc. They helped stage Blue and lower people.
Do not wait for people to rise to your level, lead them there.
You don't have to lead everyone. Lead those who will listen. At least 25% of people will listen with an open mind. Learn to appeal to peoples inner goodness, love, and higher self. Inspire them!

It's important to distinguish learning facts and memorizing stuff from learning wisdom and core principles.
These are two very different pursuits.
Learning facts and memorizing stuff is rather pointless and can even be counter-productive.
Wisdom, however, is never forgotten. Deep understanding is permanent.

@TheThingy When you get really serious about this work, solo is the only way to go.
You don't need anyone. You don't need a shaman. You ARE the shaman. You ARE GOD! And all the answers are inside of you.
You will never grow faster or deeper than doing a solo retreat. Here is where you truly confront yourself. This is how all the most advanced yogis do it.
Want to grow more in 1 month than you have in 10 years? Take 30 days off for a solo retreat. Add in psychedelics and BAM! There is no faster way to grow yourself.

Not either/or but both.

@mandyjw Firstly, you can do both.
Secondly, if everyone took your attitude we'd be living in Nazi Germany or worse.
If you care about human life, your worldview must be GLOBAL! Mankind's greatest challenges are GLOBAL. This cannot be resolved by just focusing on your local community. That's what got us into so much trouble that we're in today.
This planet will be destroyed if we don't adopt a global perspective immediately.

Well, most of the best meditation techniques were developed by the most advanced sages of mankind. They were exceptionally gifted and highly functional (for the most part).
But that doesn't mean that a dysfunctional person can't benefit from Vipasanna. That would be a misguided conclusion.
Yeah, lots could be said about that. Books could be written about that, and have. There are many books written by people who went through long periods of recovery and healing before ultimately awakening.
I would definitely suggest doing more basic self-help work. Tackling advanced metaphysical topics for dysfunctional people wouldn't be too effective I imagine.
Going from dysfunctional to functional is actually a very good approach. Traditionally, dysfunctional people were not even allowed to get initiated into yoga, for example, because you need to have your shit together to do yoga properly. There are qualifications for serious spiritual seekers for good reason. Spirituality is not for slobs and rubes. Spirituality requires high maturity and innate wisdom. Otherwise it get corrupted into evil.
But this doesn't mean you can't have some kind of mild spiritual practice while you're doing basic self-help / healing. You can. Just don't expect it to take to the highest levels of insight.
Yes, developing a spiritual connection is a big part of the answer. But also developing that connection properly is not easy. It requires serious commitment and work. Which many dysfunctional people are unable to muster. But again, don't take this on as a limiting belief. No one is stopping you but yourself.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle for a dysfunctional person is that he/she will simply be unable to tolerate the stark brutality of the Truth which spirituality reveals. Which is why they are dysfunctional in the first place. Weak people cannot handle hearing the Truth. They have all sorts of twisted defense mechanisms to deny it all day long.
Developing a genuine desire for raw truth is essential to spiritual work.

Sounds like your neediness spooked her away. Or she just wasn't that into you. Sometimes a girl will lose attraction for you after the first date because she doesn't quite resonate with your style.
But if you did 3 whole dates and made out a bunch of times, clearly she was into it. A girl will not make out with you unless she is interested in sleeping with you.
In fact, my rule of thumb is, if a girl is willing to go on a first date with you at all, she's already accepted that you are fuckable. She would never agree to go on a date with a guy she thought was unfuckable.
So ALWAYS assume it's ON at day 1! Never doubt whether she wants to sleep with you. Always assume YES! Just maybe not on the first date. But by date 3 you should definitely close it. Of course if she tells you No! then you stop.
If a girl is into you she responda to texts quickly and eagerly. Often within minutes. Days between texts is a horrible sign. 3 day+ between texts and she might as well be dead.
Girls will NEVER reject a guy explicitly. They will always just delay and ignore or come up with lame excuses. You have to get good at reading between the lines and suss out when she is wasting your time with endless delay tactics.

@Beeman Your very question it itself a direct experience. So you're begging the question. You're using direct experience to ask whether you can trust direct experience.
Name one thing which is not a direct experience. You can't.
Direct experience is actually prior to trust.

I just want to caution you guys once again of the extraordinary subtly and depth of this work.
There is no more advanced work for human beings than this. So watch your step. Don't think you can just barge in here, watch a few videos, and figure out all of life. Not. So. Fast! There are traps! Thousands of traps.
If you want very deep understanding you better be ready for some very deep and careful study.
You're not going to appreciate the things I talk about unless you read at least 100 books. But even that is still just the beginning of this journey. There is no deeper or more challenging human endeavor than holistic, stage Turquoise+ spirituality.
But also none as rewarding.

It takes some practice before your videos will be release worthy.
Make like 50 videos just for yourself. Just for practice and experimentation. So there is no pressure to publish them.
Then you'll be much better.
A writter doesn't release his first 50 pieces of writting, nor does an artist. It takes a lot of practice in any field to reach the point where your work is ready for public release.
With making videos it's actually easier than with music, writting, or painting. Those all requires many years of practice to release anything decent.

@d0ornokey I don’t but I see it as work on yourself. mat8800 shared this on one of my earlier threads: 
Shadows can develop by denying, repressing or not accepting the reality of past pains. 
1. Acknowledge the complete truth of the pain. Let yourself feel the emotions. When this happens, you can identify the source of the shadows.
2. Accept the reality of the past. This includes forgiveness.
3. Once you acknowledge and accept, you can finally let go.
4. The shadow's influence will be gone.
 

@Nivsch It's hopeless trying to convince such people (strong right-wing Blue) because they will always project their own biases onto you or the model you're presenting. Because they are not aware of how their mind is working backwards from their conclusions. Their dogmatic position is that right-wing is superior to left-wing. This is held as an absolute. And they have no interest in questioning that. So their mind will do all sorts of mental gymnastics to have that look true for them. They will cherry-pick evidence and use whatever rationalizations are available in order to generate their conclusion.
Of course left-wingers also do this to some extent because this is not a left vs right thing, but a fundamental mechanic of the ego-mind. But right-wingers do it a lot more precisely because they are less cognitively developed on average. Of course you are never going to be able to convince them of this, precisely because they are not open to it.
There is no cure for closedmindness.
"The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will contract." — Oliver Wendell Holms
If everyone could be convinced of their bigotry and closedmindedness, half the world's problems would be solved overnight. The whole trick is that people are in denial about it. And what's worse they are in denial that they are in denial. That's just the nature of ignorance. It cannot help being ignorant.
It is also almost always the case that such right-wingers have a very poor understanding of history. Right-wingers do not have an accurate historical understanding of Hitler, Stalin, nationalism, white supremacy, Marxism, capitalism, racism, civil rights, slavery, feminism, The Constitution, etc, and government in general. They are not interested in deeply exploring these issues other than as a way of justifying their pre-existing dogmas.
Because the whole point of being a right-winger is that you have some position which you wish to defend out of a sense of fear of losing it. You have some position which you hold as absolute which is actually merely relative. This makes genuine inquiry virtually impossible. Such reactive egoic motives corrupt all inquiry towards truth.
But good luck convincing a Blue/Orange right-winger of any of this.
Of course the left-wing in also not immune. But still better.

Guys, it's not complicated. The instructions are clearly laid out in the books. All you have to do it follow them and practice. Everything will fall into place with a bit of practice. When in doubt, re-read that part of the book.
You should not be here asking how to find a chakra. It's clearly explained in the books. If you can't follow that instruction how will a forum post help you?

@emind What you're missing is love. 
Contemplate this: Why shouldn't you be happy that your ex is having sex? She is experiencing love and joy. Your spiritual growth is to realize that by loving her for getting love, you actualize your own love. And thereby everyone loves everyone else.
Don't underestimate the power of this. Your job in this life is to love everything until it hurts. Practice generatimg love on her behalf.
If you cannot feel love for those who are happy, that's a sign of how much growing up you've got to do.
Love her and love yourself. Then from this loving place find a new girlfriend. Remember: You can love people without having sex with them or even seeing them.
The key to love is that it is an unlimited resource. You don't need to hoard it or trade it or hold it back in reserve because your truest nature is Infinite Love!
Think abundance, not scarcity.
Fear is just a lack of love.
Ta-da!

It tends to be ever-increasing. It doesn't make such sense for Albert Einstein to incarnate into a kangaroo. That would be a step down.
Consider the possibility that there are higher beings than humans that you can incarnate into after you've maxed out being human. Consider the possibility of an entire chain of beings which are not even physical or part of our universe  

Mystery Method is ridiculously out of date and cringy as hell.
Your best bet would be RSD videos.
Game without using routines or canned lines. You gotta be as natural as possible, so your game isn't game but your authentic personality on full display.

@Michael569 when it happened to me, i embraced it. i quit everything and got closer to nature. i started practicing yoga and learned a lot about permaculture. my circle of friends changed entirely.
it was a glorious journey, just as glorious as my current journey "back to society".
was it easy? nope... it required a huge amount of courage to do the first move. but i can't put in words how valuable it was.

If you could, you certianly couldn't explain how you do it via any conventional human paradigm of understanding.
It would be a level of connection to God-consciousness beyond anything words could convey.
I suspect it is possible. But only for exceptionally advanced yogis. You won't get there through self-inquiry.

@Lynnel It's tricky for sure. It's not merely a matter of belief. Belief is not what creates your body, for example, but your body IS a hallucination. So this process of creation is not as easy a beleiving whatever the hell you want and it appears.
But if you are tripping on psychedelics they open your mind up so much that you can literally imagine a devil and see it materialize before your eyes. But this is not just belief. It's the machinery of Universal Mind which spawns physical reality. You cannot access this machinery easily in ordinary states of human conscious. Because your sense of reality must be maintained to maintain your human life. Your mind works very hard to create a solid sense of "reality" otherwise the game of human life would be up.
Fear is pervasive due to the ego's survival function and your belief in death. Growing up is all about learning to master your fear and negative thinking.

Firstly, you CAN heal your body. Healing is an entire discipline. You can increase the heal rate of cancer through shear mind power. This has been proven by clinical science long ago. There exist clinics which teach how to heal cancer with mind power. And of course it works. Not 100%, but you'd be surprised how effective it can be.
There also exist millions of psychic healers who can help heal you. The shit Jesus did is not merely a myth! An exceptionally conscious mystic will have psychic superpowers that you can hardly believe. Of course it's not 100% perfect. Don't try to formalize it. You can't formalize psychic abilities within a materialist paradigm because they are immaterial and superconscious.
Secondly, since you are God, and you can create anything out of thin air, you created this human life where you get to experience limitation. You created limitation for yourself. You just forgot. So until you wake up you will be puzzled. After you wake up you will understand that you did this to yourself precisely because you have infinite power.
Thirdly, by becoming more conscious your ability to create using your mind will increase significantly. You will not get 100% freedom because for that you'd have to stop being human. To be human is to have certain limits. But right now you are nowhere near the limits of what the human mind/body can do.
Do not underestimate the power of the mind. The entire universe is mind-stuff. You just don't know how to access it. Humans are a very crude and underdeveloped species. And you are a very crude and underdeveloped human. So there's your answer.

Because society makes it easy, herding you into it like a sheep.
Now you are on your own.
You can actually learn much faster and deeper as an adult. But no one will motivate you. It's all on you.
In fact, since you are now trying to move beyond the center of gravity of your culture, they will actively drag you down and discourage you from trying.
So it's all on you twice over.
Plus you gotta pay your bills, so it's all on you thrice over.

EVERYONE is attracted to high consciousness beings, not just women.
Because God is the greatest thing you can be. And people flock to be near it like moths to a flame.
Deep down everyone craves love and consciousness.

Yeah, that's why self-employment is so hard and most people just cannot do it. Because it takes serious vision and self-discipline to be able to lead yourself. Most people are sheep who suck on the tit of society. They need a boss just to tell them when to wake up, otherwise they would become vegetables.
The self-determined life is not the easy life. The easy life is working at Starbucks for 40 years and then retiring without a single dream or deep thought about life.
You need to have a serous over-arching vision and purpose to your life if you're gonna go it alone. You need to be a fuckin boss on yourself.

It requires LOTS of mindfulness practice.
Consider taking a 10 day Vipasanna retreat. That will open your eyes to the power of body awareness in a way that you cannot presently imagine.
You could spend the next 10 years just sitting on a couch and feeling your body. And you'd still not feel everything there is to feel there. The body is a very complex and subtle organic technology. It's more intelligent than any Western science can imagine. Every cell in your body has its own innate intelligence.