Baul

The best route to enlightenment is via the teachings of Jacob Frank, an 18th-century religious leader who proclaimed to be the reincarnation of Sabbatai Zevi. Jacob Frank recommended homosexual orgies in excrement to achieve states of enlightenment spoken of by spiritual gurus such as the Buddha and Adyashanti. If you want to discover the strange loop and the infinite nature of everything, just indulge in an orgy of excrement. Also, put 5-MeO-DMT into the mix for guaranteed, permanent states of enlightenment and oneness. How far are you willing to go to become enlightened? Do not impose conditions upon yourself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankism

I took an IQ test, and I got a 104. The Mensa practice exam can be taken at https://www.us.mensa.org/ . The price is 18$. It gives a rough estimate as to what you would score on the official exam. I scored a raw score of 51 which equates to an IQ score of about 104. This indicates that I possess an average intelligence, which I am more or less content with. There is little, if anything, that I can do to augment my IQ. IQ is something that is not largely subject to environmental influence, as most modern scientific studies have disproved the assumption that it is. In layman's terms, it cannot be altered greatly overtime. I would be more than happy to see some papers and/or clinical trials demonstrating that IQ in fact can be greatly altered overtime, but alas, there are none. IQ is a massive predictor of generalized success in life, as we now live in a society which is becoming increasingly more reliant on intelligence in order to function. A 104 IQ barres me from performing at certain, socially respectable occupations at an acceptable level, such as a lawyer, doctor, physicist, accountant, etc. I would be an excellent data clerk according to this exam. Due to the Dunning–Kruger effect, people have difficulty admitting their own limitations in terms of intelligence (especially online, where IQs tend to be largely inflated and joked around upon). IQ should be seriously considered and talked about in society, as it's effects on the overall operation of the individual and society at large are vastly understated. Charles Murray and Sam Harris discuss IQ and it's effects on society: Jordan Peterson on IQ and it's relationship to job prospects: Your question might be how is IQ relevant to self-actualization? Well, apart from luck, intelligence plays a central role in your capacity to make well-informed decisions in your life, as well your capacity for self-reflection in many cases. Your beliefs, apart from your culture, are a consequence of intelligence. Your intelligence (or lack thereof) may force you to abandon certain pursuits in life, as your baseline performance would be largely predetermined by your intelligence. On one hand, a knowledge of one's IQ can definitely be interpreted as a limiting belief (provided that one's IQ is subpar), but on the other hand, a knowledge of one's IQ can help one understand why certain insurmountable intellectual difficulties arise (e.g., irrespective of how much effort one devotes to a particular intellectual activity, he cannot improve.) My point is that baseline intelligence (IQ) occupies a significant role in one's self-actualization journey, as it's a quality that you will use over and over again. You are applying your intelligence consistently, almost everywhere on your journey. Your knowledge of your own intellectual limitations may be valuable in evaluating and paving your own purpose in life (knowing which pursuits to abandon, etc). The development of awareness as well, serves as a valuable construction in one's self-actualization journey, but my suggestion is that it is only possible given a baseline level of intelligence. A mentally handicapped person will have a variety of difficulties self-actualizing. This subject is largely arguable, so I welcome any opinions. @Leo Gura

@Outer I got a 135 on iqtest.dk, just took it.

@Fidelio The one I took is completely culturally unbiased. Most tests aim and succeed at being culturally unbiased.

@Leo Gura I understand that legitimizing IQ can be considered a self-limiting belief, and that the reality of intelligence is not static yet dynamic but we use a variety of static metrics to outline our path in self-actualization, why should IQ be ridiculed and excluded when as a static it has been proven to be useful in determining many aspects of self-actualization? I'm just saying it may be an effective metric in determining your life purpose, aside from just having your creative passions determine your purpose.

Any opinions on ibogaine and 5-meo-dmt used in conjunction with one another, along with the standard spiritual routines of meditation and contemplation?

Overkill as in it would work? What do you mean by it?

@quantum Adopt self-inquiry as a mindset, or in other words, have it become your nature. Let it consume you, and ultimately make that urgency define you. Afterwards, recognize that you are doing this only for your own sake, not anyone else's, and that no one else will bring you to where you want to go except you. You'll know your self-inquiry practice has taken off when you incrementally being seeking less and less guidance from others (including your own mind). You will progressively feel an increasing comfort in your unknowing of the contents of experience. Keep going further after that, as the comfort is a distraction. Do not settle for anything that is said by anything in your experience (including your mind). Live your life while doing so. Also, don't misconstrue what self-inquiry is. You're not really "inquiring" about anything, you are looking in your experience for something that is definite. If you have be told to believe this, then you're not really being productive with your self-inquiry.

@ChimpBrain, there was no mention of a higher dosage by any of the info sites.

@Leo Gura You mentioned in your newest video that you recommend a 30mg dose of 5-MeO-DMT for an effective experience, yet I have seen on other info sites (such as erowid and dmtnexus) that the maximum recommended dosage is about 20mg. Is this a discrepancy?

Has anyone read/did the work that the book provides? I'm currently using a PDF to follow the book and I'm finding it frustrating. I don't find the instructions as clear as I want them to be. Does anyone have any experience with this book? Has it worked?

Above is a little primer to Wim Hof and his method. Is it a legitimate practice? Are the benefits real? Does anyone in this community have any experience with Wim Hof's Method?

I suggest you follow @Leo Gura's advice and get it out of your system. I think I've surpassed the need for an extensive social life simply because I have been there and while there, engaged in some reflection on how I felt about it. If you have to need to do it, I suggest you do it (unless it involves physically harming yourself and/or other people).

@JevinR Not necessarily. However, it won't even matter if I'm self-actualized by that point.

I think the question itself is irrelevant to my own personal development -- in other words, a complete non-issue.

After a second failed attempt at performing the Neti Neti inquiry method, I've discovered something extraordinarily critical, if not totally imperative, to successfully performing this work. I have discovered that any beliefs, prior knowledge and/or convictions about reality that you hold (whether they be dictated to you in a science lecture by an esteemed professor, or by your parents, or by religious teachers, or by books, or by enlightenment gurus/lectures given by spiritual teachers, or even by Leo himself) must be completely extinguished and recognized as potential malarkey the second the work commences. You have to disregard everything, or completely unlearn everything. You have to admit to yourself that you don't know anything about anything authentically. If this admission is performed authentically, your awareness opens up and curiosity will naturally lead the way and the work itself (in the inquiry process after a question is asked, your mind should not be pointing to a belief or an idea that you may already hold. If you see an affirmation to a belief/an idea you have, arising to a question you have heard in your awareness (in presence), you have failed). The millisecond you recognize these affirmations, you have failed, as all affirmations are genuine to you whether you choose to see them that way or not. You must be genuinely curious and admittedly, dumb about everything. You must be extremely honest with yourself in this work. Also, I've realized that the more you do the work, the harder it becomes, because you have an expectation already set up for yourself in the work, including the future sequence of steps in inquiry (for example, in replaying Leo's Neti Neti video for every new inquiry session, you have a subconscious expectation of what's going to be said and done, which diverts your awareness to your thoughts about the experience and not to the experience itself). If you already have the logical answers known, either consciously or subconsciously, it is extremely difficult to not refer to them in your awareness when the questions are asked instead of searching for them. However, you must search for them. Knowing this, I somewhat regreat soaking up all of that knowledge that now seems to be regressing my awareness work. This is all I have to say. Now forget about everything I said, and just do the work. No, but seriously. This is all bullshit -- everything that's been said. And everything that Leo said is bullshit, and everything else that anyone else has ever said for that matter.

Does neurolinguistic programming work? I don't know if I should invest time into studying and doing it. I am simultaneously performing consciousness work (meditation/self-inquiry) as well as exploring other fields of personal development. NLP hasn't been mentioned in Leo's videos at all. I came across a friend who claims it works, but I don't know what to think of it. To those who have had some experience with it, what can you say? Is it worth pursuing?

Isn't enlightenment work just extreme empiricism, just on the opposite end of the spectrum from extreme rationality? You are totally enveloped in your sense-experience and are searching for You or the observer of experience within experience itself (knowledge of You). This is a practice of empiricism, is it not?

@Leo Gura, it takes me "of" empiricism, or "to" empiricism? You're suggesting I drop definitions and all beliefs and systems of how the world operates (on a rational basis), but definitively what we are practicing is extreme empiricism, which is not entirely right -- in most cases, it is wrong. How can we effectively rely on an entirely empirical mind for investigating reality, practically speaking? Most of the modern world as we know it, is built on cumulative knowledge which has been acquired rationally, not empirically...it seems like stunted perception. Which we do not see, does not exist? What we do not sense, does not exist? Is this right? I can't see how it's right....I'm trying. I can't see how people would be able to schedule anything or do anything. Is this viewpoint only necessary for consciousness work?

Yes.

"You" is killed and everything becomes clear. You stop asking questions. If you do ask questions, you ask them for the sake of asking them, not for the sake of knowing the answers to them. You understand that existence cannot have answers and that there are no questions. Your senses become hypersensitive and everything becomes super hollow, like your body, sights, sounds, feelings, thoughts and everything else that you perceive in existence. Nothing really bothers "You" anymore. You realize that you are life and death and everything that is here and now. "You" essentially disappears, as if it never even was. It is the beginning of eternity, and the seeing of the infinite. You recognize the awareness behind everything or the "emptiness", and the emptiness around you and that the emptiness is you, because there is nothing else. It is everywhere and everything. It is...you.

Because you are not enlightened.