beaucoup

A while back Leo posted a blog post about Quentin Tarantino, explaining that he was a perfect example of someone who intuitively nailed the concept of life purpose in his life. I remember finding it very inspiring and interesting and wanted to collect a few examples of similar people. Therefore I thought it would be interesting and helpful to create a thread where we collectively collect examples of such people. So if someone comes to your mind who is a great example of what a truly purposeful and passionate life looks like, please feel free to share them here. Much love to y‘all n stay healthy!

"Nobody intends to build a wall", said East German leader Walter Ulbricht before the Wall was built.

What kind of growth are you talking about? How is that measured, now? What or who grows from where to where? And how is growth different from any other change? Havent you changed? Left behind what? And why behind? What will ultimately tell you whats true: the words of someone whose words you're giving authority to or your own experience, now? How do you know the content is amazing if you feel "left behind"? Wouldnt that mean that you dont actually "get" the content and could therefore not tell if its amazing or not? And what do you mean by the Truth? If you want an honest suggestion: drop all mental ressources like watching leos videos, reading spiritual book or whatever for a few months. Dont watch anything related to self-help or spirituality, dont read any of it (and dont read any other stuff aswell). And just look for yourself. Also, im not really expecting you to awnser those questions to me, but i would suggest you check for yourself. With love, Felix.

Thats true, but the wealth that is not being consumed or spent really has no value. Thinking it does is one major misunderstanding about money and wealth. Imagine you have 10 million in your bank account: what good will they do you if you never spend em?

I'm not into american politics but i dont think this is true. What is taxed by funding a UBI through VAT is basically consumption. The more you consume, the more taxes you pay. The genius thing about this system is that it recognizes one seldomly understood thing about money: that money has no value, if it is not spended. Which is why i think it's much smarter to tax consumption than to tax income or profits - because as i said: money has no inherent value when it is not exchanged for other usable goods. Ideally i would even go so far and say it would be the best option to only have a VAT, and no other tax. Might seem radical, but think it thorugh. Also this VAT would probably have to be much higher than 10%, coming close to 50% i guess - which wouldnt make prices higher though, because all other taxes which are currently payed and therefore make prices higher already, would be eliminated. Very difficult subject to describe in a few words, but here in germany there are some very smart yellow-typish thinkers on the subject of UBI. Learning about UBI changed my whole understanding of economics.

@Shin i think it'd be a cool idea to use the socratic method, in other words, never introduce any concept or any belief or anything by yourself, but just ask questions, with the only instruction being that he should only focus on his direct experience.

I'm not too informed on the topic. But have you heard of the concept of receptor saturation? It means that at a certain dose, more of a substance doesn't intensify the effects but only prolongs them. Maybe it's something worth checking out. I know that it is said that LSD reaches recpetor saturation at approximately a dose of 1 mg.

I have to admit that a lot of my seeking and my pursuit of enlightenment is largely a future-directed attempt of escaping something, although I oftentimes honestly don't know what I'm escaping - and so I wonder: what is it that I really want to accomplish? What is it that I'm trying to escape? Or sometimes the inquiry is just as simple as, where's the problem? And even if i don't know, I assume that many seekers would actually have to admit that they are in one form or another just attempting to escape their suffering. But i'm not sure. @Faceless btw, I really enjoy your contributions on this forum.

Thanks for the responses everyone! @Keanu Actually those are exactly the kinds of concerns I was talking about, especially the one with the holes in your aura. Yet, I'm still skeptical about it. How do these energy healers you've talked to know about the damage psychedelics can cause? Have they had clients who were psychedelic users, or even experienced them themselves? And also, I'm a novice to energy fields and just starting to get into yoga, therefore, what really is an aura? And how is it effected if there is a hole in it? Dont wanna sound close-minded, It's just something I have no personal experience of, therefore the skepticism.

@Nahm If i was to relate it to an organ or something I'd say I was referring to the brain, or the nervous system respectively, yet I wasn't really talking about physical damage in the common sense - rather energetic problems. Here is a comment from Leo that he posted in the 5-Meo megathread a while back that expresses these concerns quite well. What is your take on that, regarding your own personal experience with psychedelics?

Ever since I first heard of psychedelics in a spiritual context and then finally took one myself for the first time, I believed in their potential as a spiritual catalyst and so on. Lately though, I've been coming across some concerns regarding the energetic effects of psychedelics. The main one being that most psychedelics are so energetically powerful that they have the ability to overwhelm the energetic system of the body and therefore damage it. Now, with this post I just intend to gather some opinions. Do you guys think there are energetic dangers to taking psychedelics? If yes, do you think that particular substances are more or less dangerous in this regard - and what do you think about 5-Meo in this context? And lastly - if you think there are energetic 'dangers' - what in your opinion would be the practical consequence of that? Not taking them at all, taking them in small doses, doing other energetic practices to open the system, or maybe just babystepping the dosages even more drastically?

Yeah, I microdosed for a period of 2 months last year - although I did it with 1P-LSD. Look up James Fadiman - he's the leading authority on microdosing. Considering how much: a microdose is usually about 10% of a recreational standarddose - so in the case of LSD it would be somewhere between 5-20 mcg. For me personally 7mcg seemed to be my sweetspot. Considering how often: it is said that it's best to leave at least 2 off-days between dosing days. So day one you dose, day 2 and 3 you don't. Do's and don'ts: Be extra careful when driving. Also I would suggest you only take a microdose on special days - not on ur regular workday. For example I used to take them on days where some kind of unusual activity or event was planned that did not really require me to function or perform at my highest level. And I would also suggest you take them with the intent of staying mindful all day and using the enhanced cognitive and emotional sensitivity and the increased creativity for therapeutic or spiritual purposes. And just don't overdo it - still treat the substance with respect.

@solr You might wanna check out Byron Katie's "The Work". It really helps to uncover all your evil ways and false projections.

So, this is just meant to be a list of things that we kinda tend to believe in, even though they are merely fictional concepts we have agreed upon. In my experience, defragmenting those kind of concepts can be very useful to become more aware of the illusory nature of thoughts in general. So I just thought i'd compile it real quick and I would be very interested in what kind of illusions you come up with that you have personally seen through. Let's go: seconds, minutes, hours, days and years: we seem to live by these ideas, for exmaple in the year 2018, yet they are just thoughts. countries and cities: for example, what is New York City? well, it doesn't actually exist, just a name we give to a collection of consistent appearances. friendships, relationships, marriage and family: i suppose a marriage can feel very real when you're in it, but these are quite obviously just agreements. the spiritual path: being on it can easily become a part of ones idendity, yet it's basically just memories and visions of the future put in a larger context. objects like cars, trees etc.: what is a car? is it its pieces, its motor? is it the whole thing? if so, seen from with perspective? basically, also just a concept. personality: ones personality is really just an idea of being something stable and somewhat real, when in reality there is only behavior. other people/egos: this is one i've just theoretically seen through, but it's very interesting how everytime you see a human being your mind immediately creates some kind of concept to represent this being, and you usually equip this imaginary entity with some kind of responsibility. songs, books, movies: each of those is basically something that does not exist in the entirity that we attribute to it. This list could probably be as long as a dictionary, but I hope that this was intersting and insightful for some of you.

@MisterMan You might be interested in the Model for Awakening by Lyn Hunsted from the Temple of Authentic Divinity. http://www.templeofauthenticdivinity.com/model-for/ It gives an idea on how metta-meditation fits in with other spiritual practices, even with psychedelics - and what role it can play in Awakening.