Joel3102

Eat more fats! Avocado, olive oil, coconut oil high fat nuts, greek yogurt ect

My whole life I have pondered existential questions a crazy amount, and I'm pretty excited after learning about enlightenment that these questions CAN be answered, albeit not at the logical level. One thing that's playing on my mind all the time is can you genuinely have an insight into what another human/mind/organism actually is. I've experienced the absolute pure consciousness that I am, but I've been having trouble how this fits into billions of minds. Is it actually possible to have an enlightenment of what 'another' is? Another thing: Anybody experience ego death in the middle of the night? Sometimes, especially if I have been making breakthroughs in my meditation, I have been waking up in the middle of the night and a full on ego death state. I have no identity, and I completely exit the 'context' of conventional life to the point where it frightens the shit out of me. The notion that I was born into a world, and have an actual life becomes preposterous...I dunno must be something to do with transitioning from the dream state or deep sleep. Anyone else experience such mind-fuckery during mid night waking?

Why not keep using social media in moderation to keep in touch with your real friends, but cut out the posting that feeds your ego?

Check out Leo's videos on how to stop backsliding and how to be patient. Have you got a journalling habit? I journal every morning and night to keep track of my goals and habits and I write it down if I notice myself getting a bit complacent with a particular area. Just a way to help you be more conscious of the direction you're heading in.

I think I there is a distinction between compassion and empathy. The latter will make you sad but the former actually brings happiness. I'm no expert but this is my understanding.

One thing I've noticed is the more deep and focused my meditation is, the more my jaw tenses up and gets quite sore. It often extends to my neck as well. Anyone else experience this?

This recent talk on the blog and forum has led me to realise my meditation has been too mechanical and not done consciously enough for serious results. I was thinking of doing a daily rating system where I assess the quality of my meditation to keep track and look for any trends as well. Here are the criteria for good meditationI am thinking of, any others I should add? -alternates/wakefulness -focus -monkey mind (lack thereof) -bodily calmness

I'd say so. Has anyone noticed meditation messing with their sleep? I get the feeling my increased awareness levels actually make it harder for me to fall asleep. Last two weeks barely had a night of more than 6 hours sleep.

@Leo Gura Yeah good point... Didn't realise the irony there!. I'll have to work on getting rid of the need to mechanically conceptualise and compartmentalise these things.

@Leo Gura I have a weekend mindfulness retreat coming up, can you get much real progress from just one weekend? Want to do a 10-day but not possible for my schedule till the end of the year.

Similar experience here myself. I considered myself someone who "had DPD" after doing weed and LSD, which both completely fucked my model of reality forever. I realise now the suffering that it caused was that I clung and wanted back to my old conventional, materialist paradigm of reality. I would always be worrying if life is a dream or not. Ironically what's helped me more than anything is getting into spirituality and non duality via Actualized and learning that hey, yeah life is a dream and reality is not physical but....it's actually a beautiful thing. Now that I don't cling to my old paradigm "DP" never even crosses my mind. I'm planning on returning to psychedelics soon, mushrooms first at a low dose, as I think I will be more mature about it this time from my conceptual understanding and meditation. My advice would be don't identity with DP and stay away from those DP forums as they are cancer....

@Leo Gura Okay thanks. Yeah I've been doing 1 hour SDS a day with do nothing, but I think I'll be able to get more results if I add mindfullness while noting because I honestly feel like I go unconscious for most of the time.

@Leo Gura what is the benefit of noting in addition to just being mindful/noticing sensory experience?

Similar situation here. I used to look forward to fun social situations and getting pissed so much, but now I don't even crave that shit at all. Abstaining from booze isn't even hard anymore.

I used to be a social media addict. What I did was wrote a complex password down somewhere that I couldn't remember, and only login when I had to check up on the basics. So I've gone from someone who looked at Facebook 4 hours a day to less than 5 minutes. Sooo much better, more time to do more productive things. I also used this chrome add on which auto unfollows every person and unlikes every page, so you don't get sucked into the click-bait, shallow like-whory shit on the news feed. I think this approach is good because you still keep those few benefits of having a Facebook account, if it's the most convenient way of contacting someone, going to events, or being part of groups. But you eliminate its harmful aspects.

@Loreena Rupert Spira. Hands down my favourite non-dual teacher. This video is the latest on his channel, it actually gave me my first "a-ha" moment on the non existence of time.

Lol I've done about 100 hours. Already 1% of the way there! Also, SAND seems to have quite a lot of good videos.

I've been meditating 1-2 hours a day and seeing some results, but I'm still nowhere near where I'd like to be. If I go on a retreat or two, do you breakthrough permanently and maintain your new baseline with like an hour a day?

Hey guys, I've never done visualisation before and I'm just adding it to my morning routine. Currently I'm switching goals that I visualise daily for example: 1. Visualise myself being a gun at work 2. Visualise acing uni 3. Visualise confidence with women ect Is it okay to do a rotation like this, or is visualising a goal only effective when that particular goal is done daily?

Just keep going. I've been working on similar issues by meditating a lot, slowly doing more and more. Over the last month I've gotten much more in touch with being, although I still can't sit motionless for an hour. But I was heavily unconscious and addictive before, so I feel I have to work hard just to get to some people's baseline level of awareness. If you break your streak, don't fall into the trap of thinking "oh fuck it, I've already broken my streak so I may as well binge on porn/internet/food ect". I've fallen into that trap many times. You can minimise the damage.

I see Sam Harris as someone who's kind of got one foot in both camps. If you read his stuff on free will and the no self, he clearly sees the importance of direct experience. Like I remember an interview where he explains no free will and he argued it from a direct experience point of view rather than pure neuroscience. And he has studied and meditated with practitioners of Advaita Vedanta and so on. However he still defends the standard scientific, materialist, rationalist paradigm. He's made such a reputation in that camp that I doubt he'd allow himself to be ostracised by his academic mates for admitting non-dual truths even if he recognised them.

The Diet Myth

What does this have to do with spirituality or enlightenment?

Does she claim to be enlightened?

@Leo Gura Do you think you're going to cover bodywork/chakras and purification in the future? It's something I'd love to learn more about.