Beyond Words

@Leo Gura Doesn't it make sense to lie (in the forms that are defined in Radical Honesty) to build monetary wealth that is necessary to build a business around a life purpose (recall your path of IM to then building Actualized.org)? Try being 100% truthful during an important business negotiation while the other party will inevitably lie as much as they need to benefit their side. You'll be missing out on a ton of money that would take you a decade to make while the liar will make the same amount in a year (and will have 9 years for self-actualization). The system leads people to deceitful endeavors.

You have to wonder what kind of friends would not be okay with someone not drinking. From my experience, they are toxic people who despite having good qualities, in the long term are not necessarily inclined towards a high consciousness lifestyle. But if you know how to calibrate with them, they can be great friends. I'd at least stay friends until you can switch up your social circle to people who share more of your values.

@Leo Gura The video makes it pretty clear that they're talking about 5-MeO-DMT. It's in the video description and discussed throughout the video (see images). The video, saying that 5-MeO-DMT doesn't have a lethal dose, being seen by 1M+ people, can get people killed for sure. Of course 5-MeO-DMT can be lethal - I was being sarcastic in the title. Apologies for not making that more clear.

Said by a man on Vice's documentary on 5-MeO seen by 1M+ people... uh oh I wonder how they're still alive. Disclaimer - Just to be clear, you certainly CAN overdose on 5-MeO-DMT. The video is false. Please do extensive research before engaging with these substances.

Is it more productive to visualize long-term or short-term goals? Short-Term: Visualizing closing an important deal this week for your company. Long-Term: Visualizing your company being at its peak - the end goal. I do both but don't know how productive it is to also do short-term visualizations, if ultimately one of the points of a vision is for the subconscious to help take care of the short-term outcomes/how-tos.

@Leo Gura Yes. I'm working in a tech startup now and I swear most of the programmers I work with are the least conscious people I've ever met. But what's the solution to people like me who can get into a flow state while doing math and programming? Transitioning the world to sustainable energy or creating new art with deep learning algorithms seem to have a conscious impact. I guess outsourcing the grunt work may be a solution.

@Leo Gura Mastery takes 10,000+ hours no doubt. @ajasatya 's results and how he achieved them just interested me. The real purpose of this thread was more to ask you and others who are considerably more experienced in consciousness work, to evaluate potential ways to accelerate the advent of collective enlightenment through technology. I tried LSD and it got me meditating for 2 years now. These catalysts are great, if people actually used them, let alone for spirituality. Some examples of what I mean include LSD and 5-MEO-DMT. Potential tech could be stuff like a brain computer interface to help with self inquiry etc or CRISPR gene editing tech to, for example, get people to be more naturally contemplative (although I'm not sure yet how society would react to using such tech). I'm just dedicating my life to this so I want to know if at some fundamental level this is a fruitless endeavor.

@ajasatya wow! If I understood correctly, you've reached enlightenment after a year of 24/7 mindfulness practice? I will do the 24/7 mindfilness thing too then. Can I start this like any other habit (e.g. doing it and waiting 60 days until I start another habit), or do you think it is better to wait longer before starting another habit (say like 90 days)? It just seems like integrating this practice may take a lot more willpower than conventional habits.

@ajasatya How long did it take for you to master nonduality? At what point did you feel like you've mastered nonduality? Has mastering nonduality negatively affected your relationship to mathematics in any way? As one masters nonduality, I would assume that one would become averse to mathematics because mathematics is "just" comprised of arbitrary concepts (incredibly useful concepts, though). I sometimes have a hard time engaging in learning programming because I know that everything I'm learning has no significance outside of programming. To me, it's again just layers of arbitrary concepts. After discovering the idea of enlightenment, the whole field of knowledge, to me, appears tainted with an aura of fakeness and illusion. @spinc A domain of mastery is what you're choosing to spend 10,000 hours on. You can master anything given enough time, regardless of how comfortable you feel with the domain right now. I don't run my own business (yet), but I'm involved in a startup. I will go to university to study mathematics and computer science, but will also be quick to drop out if I can't align the course with my goals. Being an autodidact, learning from books, mentors and doing seems a lot faster. But no university makes 60k/yr per student telling them to learn on their own, so of course most people don't go the autodidact route straight out of high school. @Leo Gura The work that he and you are doing is incredible no doubt. Many people would be enlightened if they were open minded enough and applied the advice you both teach. But most people hardly let themselves hear the advice, let alone start meditating for 10,000 hours. As @spinc worded it well, I'm asking if there's anything you've learned that would make the idea of facilitating the access to spirituality via biotechnology impossible. From what I understand, 5-MeO-DMT forces the ego to shut down. That leads me to believe that there are other biological "tricks" that could be developed.

Leo, your life purpose course is excellent! A couple months after implementing your advice I'm already making more money doing what I enjoy (programming) than I'd have ever expected. 100% worth it. I have some questions though: Can nonduality be a domain of mastery? If so, what kind of life purpose can mastery over nonduality lead to (meditation teacher, for example)? What fields can one create big breakthroughs and innovate by mastering nonduality? When you interviewed Peter Ralston, he mentioned that more people would be enlightened if they were more open minded and contemplated. Is there any fundamental reason why one couldn't create a technology that would modify humans to have more of those qualities (through gene editing for example) so that we could get almost everyone enlightened? If there are ways, what fields would be best to investigate to create these technologies? The quickedt catalyst for this path seems to be psychedelics, and very few do them let alone for spirituality. @Leo Gura

How can adancements in artificial intelligence, gene editing or any practical technology help contribute to getting most humans open to and pursuing enlightenment? What stepping stone can help people without having had enlightenment experiences get to become open to becoming enlightened? Let's cut the shit. VERY FEW will get an enlightenment experience let alone will try a psychedelic to generate one. Having had, by accident, a glimpse of enlightenment, I know I would've never been open at all to the possibility of the absolute truth. I will become enlightened. What can I (and others) do with the rest of our lives to bring forth the advent of an enlightened society? What should I read? Do? Who to meet? I'm already working on this full time but I'd like a more experienced perspective as I'm only 19. If anything, I think the process behind 5-MeO could be turned into a medical procedure, an operation or something so people are open to it. I'm looking for something to create that would appear as an "illusion" but would reveal the truth. A product/service that accelerates how many people are enlightened. Please cover this. Only the human race depends on this. PS yes I've done your course and am reading your book list.

Around 2 months in the "do nothing" technique during my latest meditation session I was almost flung off my chair. My body suddenly flung to the side as if I was kicked in the torso. I was completely still and aware when it happened, but I didn't cause the moment. What is this phenomenon? Is it the ego trying to physically stop me from meditating? I've been meditating daily for 1.5 - 2yrs. I guess this counts as one of the "side-effects" of meditation.

@Leo Gura The questions I ask are almost always conscious. I didn't mean my monkey mind endlessly produces questions. Kind of like what an interviewer would do.

Remember those 8 year olds (including, at some point, you) who keep asking questions about everything? I keep doing it all the time. If the world ended, I would keep asking questions. Asking questions is the one thing that comes to mind when asked "What can no one stop you from doing?" I'm looking for ways to combine my love for logic (e.g. doing Math and programming) with asking endless questions. Any ideas?

Hold up. Are you suggesting there exists the possibility of such a technology? Is there no existential / other reason why such technology can't actually produce enlightenment? If this tech existed, what breakthroughs need to happen? Would this work? Create general-purpose AI. Interpret brain activity with AI. AI discovers all forms of self-deception and informs human. Human becomes more conscious and is forced to make corrections in light of abundant truth. Everyone's enlightened. Including Trump. More seriously, Would advancing gene editing help? E.g. use it to modify human genes to increase their predisposition to becoming enlightened? OR invent an operation that permanently changes the brain the way 5-MeO-DMT does (e.g. make the ego suppression process permanent)? Or do both? So what am I asking? Current methods (meditation, self-inquiry, 5-MeO-DMT) are effective after the person is convinced that enlightenment is worth it, and therefore does the work until enlightenment and beyond. There has to be a way (through science or any means) to get people closer to that tipping point where the work they do towards enlightenment convinces them to go all the way. Actualized.org would definitely count towards this. Either way I've committed my life to making enlightenment the norm. My question is, what research / breakthroughs / investigations would that entail? Researching psychedelics, gene editing, machine learning, neuroscience, psychology? Or if you don't know the answer, what research / methodology would lead to knowing what to research to achieve this?