I recently had a quite hefty dispute with Huberman on Twitter - it was on his episode about hormones, especially DHT, hairloss and the indications/risks of DHT-conversion-blocking agents like Finasteride. It became increasingly clear to me that Huberman, besides being the head of a neurosceince-department in Stanford, often operates on a pretty low level of scientific epistemiology. I have seen him completely misunderstanding simple implications of the research he is citing, referencing dogshit studies with underpowered design and no explanatory power and even get basic things about medicine/physiology completeöy wrong. 

This does not mean that the information he presents on his podcast is necessarily wrong or bad - in fact, I would even argue that in the great scheme of health infleuncers, he is one of the more sane and trustful voices (the bar is extremely low to begin with). I have made the same observations with Dr. Sincalir and his research about longevity - he became quite the laughing stock on med-twitter because of his opinions about Reservatol recently. He also was terribly wrong about Metformin as longevity agent.

Here is a pretty decent episode about Huberman's failures: 
https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/andrew-huberman-forest-bathing-in-negative-ions

Hey guys! I'm gonna upload all the video summaries I have at the moment and will be uploading more of them as I watch them! Needless to say that is a summaries made by me and not transcripts nor Leo's summaries. Probably you will find some of my comments and ideas in them; I enjoy feedback of any type so feel free to comment

Yeah, to be clear - I dont blame anyone following these health influencers. 
In fact, I get it! It sounds legit, most of them have credentials, it's motivational, it's non-conformist, it's cool, there is a community around it - and after all, some people clearly imrpove their health in the process. 

The thing is, once you actually start reading into the source material and become somewhat of a professional as well, you realise how absurd most of their claims are. They speak under this smokescreen of scientific rigor, but once you actually start to examine each claim with the evidence provided, you quickly realise how much of a bullshit fiesta it actually is. Claims for or against a specific diet are either  built on an extremely fragile line of evidence or made up completely. What to do and what to avoid is stated with such a delusional level of confidence but no real substance at all. Some even sell their overpriced and usually completely shitty supplements to their clueless customers. It makes me angry, because people don't realise the real extent of the shitshow.

Not everything is bad, you obviously need to look at each claim on it's own. And hey, if this is what it needs for someone on a standard american/ultraprocessed junk diet to switch to a more healthy option - then that's great. The problem is that there is so much dishonesty and bulshittery involved - it muddies the information landscape so nobody really can think straight anymore. Just look on all the social media platforms - it's diet wars - vegans vs. carnivores vs. keto vs. paleo....of course people get confused. And those influencers you mentioned are at the epicenter of this sensemaking crisis. Just look at this forum for example - the majority of posts about nutrition & health are regurgitated phrases/videos or podcasts from famous health influencers. "Oatmeal bad" - "Cholesterol good" - "Insulin spikes scary" - "Carbs kill you". This is not truth - this is a NPC mindset of uncritically repeating catchphrases you heard in a 10 minute Dr. Berg video. I would not care as much if this wasn't such a crucial topic. People will die earlier beacuse of this and that's terrible. Enough ranting!

bed 7pm, sleep til 3am, meditation til 7, outside til 11, work til 3, play til 7

The idea to rise your arms probably has arisen either as 1. an attempt to find a flaw in the theory or 2. to test the theory and dig deeper into it out of curiosity. 
1. There could've been egoic resistance to accept opposing person's views. So ego out of fear not to be seen as weak/wrong and "less knowledgeable" makes an attempt to find a flaw in the subject just so it wouldn't need to accept the opposing views and could maintain its position and identity that it is used to. And that way we can see how a seemingly innocent action was actually motivated by resistence to accept something and behind resistance there will be fear always. 
Ooooorrrr
2. The seemingly innocent action could also boil down all the way to love. Perhaps there was a genuine curiosity and interest to expand the understanding of the subject. A genuine thirst to know more. And to explore it further. And the idea to rise arms was just an extention of a genuine desire to know more. Then it is driven by pure uncorrupted desire of the heart. (love).  
One thing's for sure. Nobody can perform an action without a motivating factor being there first. And there are only two motivating factors. Love and fear. But the actual proof why it is so would be quite difficult to write it down and would probably be very long. Maybe some day. 

Una perspectiva nihilista se adopta para justificar la propia falta de acción. Existe un sesgo arraigado en tus deseos y preferencias motivando el pensar de esta manera. Te preguntas y dudas sobre por qué hacer algo en lugar de por qué no, esperando encontrar una razón, un motivo o un significado inherente que te mueva a la acción, como si éstos se encontraran bajo las rocas. De lo contrario, te mantienes vago y complaciente, gratificando tus impulsos inmediatos, evitando cualquier tipo de confrontación y trabajo duro. El nihilismo te mantiene cómodo en tu inconsciencia, en tu pasividad y en tu actitud derrotista.
En su naturaleza, ésta disposición es más ego, más comportamiento inconsciente. Pregúntate por qué decides adoptarla, si es que lo haces. Otro factor importante es no darse cuenta de que uno ha decidido adoptar tal mentalidad deliberadamente en algún momento. Actuar nihilista es una actividad tuya que puedes dejar de hacer. Esto conlleva volverte consciente experiencialmente de la raíz de la acción en sí. Otra opción es simplemente reconocer que eso es algo que quieres experimentar ya que lo estás haciendo, y por ende mejor disfrutar de ella. Disfrútalo, quieres experimentarlo.
Lo que no se reconoce dentro de esta disposición es que ¡tomar el no-significado como negativo es significativo aún! Estás dándole a ese hecho un significado negativo. Escuchar la proposición de que la vida está libre de significado requiere oírla como tal; ¡si está libre de significado no puede ser negativo! Podría decirse que la realidad transciende el significado. La vida, tu vida, es un folio en blanco esperando a que tú mismo construyas el significado que quieras. Recomiendo que éste sea constructivo y empoderador para ti. Podría ser, como ejemplos poderosos, descubrir la verdad, entender todo, transcender tu yo, dominar la vida, dominar un par de habilidades. Claramente, crear algo --cualquier cosa-- requiere ser responsable de realizarlo; ser la fuente del significado de tu vida, es decir, que nada ni nadie va a hacerlo por ti, sino que depende enteramente de ti.
Por el mismo motivo por el que los niños juegan, la razón principal detrás de tus acciones puede ser simplemente disfrutar del acto y del proceso de jugar al juego en sí; el hacer algo, cualquier cosa, con atención y presencia plenas, con disfrute, sensibilidad y excelencia, hasta que tu madre te llama para cenar.
Como todo juego, cuando todo está dicho y hecho, es libre de propósito final que vaya a traerte una sensación de compleción idealizada. La vida en sí es como un juego, cuyo propósito reside en jugar con todo tu ser y en dominar el juego, en entender todos sus componentes y en jugar a ganar, para al final volver a guardar las piezas del juego en la caja.
De lo contrario, disfruta de tu no-significado, ya que es significativo para ti.

We know that there is no relationship between waking up and growing up, otherwise every spiritual teacher would have been Turquoise which is not the reality.
What drive current and last century spiritual teachers to grow up to Turquoise?
Sadhguru, Osho, Mooji, Shinzen Young
Osho can definitely pass as yellow seeing his personal library, truly inspiring.
Shinzen Young too.
But what about Mooji ? He was a typical green before his awakening. Sadhguru the way he tells his awaking story he seems like he was a typical business owner stage Orange guy "me and tears were impossible" - Sadhguru. 
Anyone sees/have any insight on this? 

He is philosophizing all of his experiences and creating some kind of metaphysical framework out of it. Very hard to see, I only noticed when I myself became enlightened. Any person who is enlightened will see it immediately, as did Ralston. He will probably deny it if you ask him because that is what he has to tell himself to keep that game going, now he says there is such a thing as "Absolute Concepts." (paraphrasing from what I remember)

If you want to see the difference between Leo and an actual enlightened person, it is perfectly exemplified in the exchange between Leo and Ralston in his newsletter:

https://mcusercontent.com/8a146e2bfe98efdd8c326d97a/files/08332a98-370d-44da-86ff-2c04a3ff1858/CHNL_Summer_2020.pdf?mc_cid=f12b90ff1c&mc_eid=3667cfd58d
Mysticism and enlightenment often get conflated with philosophy it seems.

Maybe Osho was philosophical to a degree, I don't know, but he did not deny his own partaking in that, that misses the point. He is simply saying it has nothing to do with God or "religion" as he defines it. Osho might make poetry, but that does not mean he believes it will help you reach God.

You are not completely correct. He was a business man, but he also had read a shit-ton of books while doing his English degree, spent all days in the library, and only attended college so his family doesn't interrupt him sitting in the library without getting a degree. 
He had been also some kind of a socialist activist as a student, something like that.
And then... he became Enlightened, yes, but mastered his public persona and yoga workshop skills for decades before hitting the mainstream.

Hey everyone,
About a year ago, I made a rather arcane video essay on the topic of “How David Bohm influenced Paul Feyerabend’s philosophy of science”.
It was a small project, the main purpose of which was to find out whether I would even find creating these kinds of videos enjoyable (in the spirit of the principle of “making small bets”), but also, to learn the basics of video editing, and to practice writing in English, which is my second language. I consider it a success insofar as I learned a lot during the process, and there seem to have been at least a few people who enjoyed what I made in spite of the extremely niche topic and my rudimentary video editing and English speaking skills.
I was apprehensive at first, but I thought it would be good idea to share it with you guys on the forum for a few reasons. Firstly, because I think there might be a few people here who would actually be interested in the topic, and could take something away from the video. Secondly, I am often quite fearful of sharing my creations with others for fear of being judged, so making it public in this way is a way seems like exactly the thing to do if I wanted to overcome this. Pretty sure I would have shared it way sooner if I wasn't such a chicken.
And thirdly, of course, I am quite happy to hear your feedback, as well as discuss in this thread any of the topics that I touched upon in the essay. If you are a fan of Leo’s work, I am sure you will find some of this stuff familiar.
I hope you find some value in the video and I am very much looking forward to your replies.
Thanks
Benjamin

In my previous post I talked about integrating Purple (+60 practical ideas to implement it).
Read it before this one.
Its impossible to integrate red without purple.
Goes DEEP:
 
In this one I rant about red.
Its going to resonate with men for most part.
Feedback is welcome.
Lets go.
 
RED:
What is red?
Everything that resonates with:
-Risk. Action. Hero. Warrior. Fight. Blood. Adrenaline

Red is about:
-Challenging your body for the sake of doing it, almost in a masochistic way. Feel alive. Take RISKS. Warrior mentality.
-Expressing your SEXUAL ENERGY in healthy ways. 
-Having clear BOUNDARIES & consequences when crossed; so you can fully stick to your blue principles.
-Thinking less. Take ACTION.
-Start thinking how you can life a HEROIC life. How can you flirt with death?
 
 
PRACTICAL STEPS:
 
- Stop talking about ‘masculinity'. Talk about MANLINESS.


- Think of all your DEEPEST (legal) SEXUAL KINKY FANTASIES. Make them REAL.
STOP - watching -  porn as a mean to satisfy your these fantasies.
Follow this rule: 'Im only going to watch porn videos that I had put into practice before in real life'
Ex: If you haven't done a threesome, don't watch threesome videos.  GO do a threesome in REAL life!)
 
-Learn about BDSM, and implement it.
 
-Ravish your woman.
Slap her, spit on her, choke her, piss on her (CONSENSUAL! Don’t be stupid!)
She has to genuinely enjoy this even more than you do.
Can you reach a point where she begs you to do it?
Is she getting more pleasure out of this than you do?
 
-Approach that girl in the club conveying your masculine sexual energy. Go for a ONS (sober) with talking as little as possible.
Just pure physical, energetic, polarizing, raw, visceral attraction.
Be proud of that sexual 'conquest'
 
-Eye contact. Even to the point were is uncomfortable.
-Don't smile if its not sincere.
 
- Challenge your body:
 
-Wake up at 6am and go for a run outside in the cold, or for a swim in the sea. Or sprint until you are nauseous.
Just for the sake of it. Is painful, is uncomfortable but you are a beast, and you love it.
 
-Go to martial arts classes.
Master at least 3 moves (ex:  jab-straight right hand; jab-low kick; near choke; 1 takedown).
Learn how to dodge punches.
You don’t really need more than that to be confident enough for handling a threatening situation.
 
-Fast for +48h. Feel how adaptable and strong your body is. Enjoy the hunger.
Fuck this society standards of eating 3 times a day. You are a warrior. You don’t need that.
 
-Confront people when they cross your boundaries (verbally).
 
-Go for a walk in a poor dangerous neighborhood (go with a lot of cash in your wallet if you dare).
 
-Write down a list of boundaries you have, and the consecuences when somebody crosses them.
Spend a full day contemplating and introspecting on that.
 
-You propably aren’t psycho enough.
Go 10% more psycho. Care less about what people think. You still will be caring too much anyways.
Satisfy your needs.

-Pump your chest like a Silverback Gorilla. Hard! Moan.
-Look at yourself in the mirror and bark like a fucking pitbull!
Feel the animal energy moving through your body.
Awaken that savage energy within you.
 
-Ask yourself:
''Am I willing to die for something?’'
''If I have to give my life for a cause, what would it be?''
''For what cause will I go to jail, or fast for a full month?''
 
-
 
RED is not about doing illegal things, fighting people or even violence.       Is about ASSERTIVENESS.
It's about:
Are you willing to fight if necessary?
Are you afraid of confrontation or violence?
 
Take the example of Gandhi:
Is he red?
Of course not. His philosophy is non-violence.
But he had healthy red. 
-He wasn’t afraid of flirting with death, (he fasted for 3 weeks).
-He wasn’t afraid of taking a beating.
-He wasn’t afraid of spending time in jail (and maybe getting fucked in the ass)
 
If he hadn’t integrated healthy read, maybe he wouldn’t stick to his principles.
He had deep solid boundaries and wasn’t afraid of the consequences for sticking to them (deep suffering, death).
 
All of your cool nice little blue values mean shit if you are not willing to draw a line in the sand and deal with the consecuences

 
Another great example is David Deida.
He is a healthy green man. But listen when he talks about ravishing your woman. Thats healthy red integrated.
You can’t ravish a woman if you are not connected with that deep visceral passion.

Is that mix of:
Capacity for aggression / Being unapologetic about your dark desires   +   Deep love
Is like they say: Fuck her ass hard; and then read her poetry.
Red + Green 
This a hell of a combo. Dark gentleman.
This is what makes women fall deeply in love with you. Even ‘turquoise’ women love men with healthy red.

 
—
 

Coming back to TJ Reeves post that caused controversy talking about being Coral, and wanting to teach Leo about it.
He talked about Bruce Lee, Ido Portal or Laird Hamilton being coral (and he himself) because they put their physical life at risk.
Those guys are green with healthy red integrated.
Admirable, but not coral. 
An inspiration. For sure, but not sage levels.
Just healthy red integrated. ‘I don’t care about death’ attitude. Great healthy examples.
 
 
PROBLEMS with SKIPPING red

As I stated in my Purple post:
-You will become a laughable SJW
-You will become a sad lonely incel
-You will become a stage blue religious racist hating blacks and muslims
-You will become a slave of society, media, culture, your boss and your own emotions and impulses
 
Weak. No backbone. Scared.
Too much feminine compassion ('welcome refugees!', until they start raping and stabbing people in record numbers. Hello Sweden...)
Having climate anxiety. My God... what a bitch you are.
 
Ungrateful of your privileges.
You will moralize 'underveloped' people/cultures/countries, not understanding their situation, but thats because you were lucky enough for being born in a healthy family in a 1st world country.
You don't feel powerful, so you give shit to others.
 
 
Now, for a HEALTHIER integration, try the opposite of this macho-mindset I listed in the beginning.

-Wear pink.
-Do feminine practices like yoga, tai chi, qigong..
-Watch rom-coms without being insecure. Understand why women love this.
-Get in touch with 'feminine emotions'
-Go to ballet performances
-Do he chores with pink gloves.  
-Wear an apron for cooking
As Leo said in a video:
A man brings a man into whatever he is doing.
The activity doesnt define the man, the man defines de activity.

If you get this right... man, your life will be great.
 
 
FINAL WORDS:


Red is about:
 
-LESS FEAR.  MORE ACTION.  TAKING THE RISK.
Get your backpack over the fence.
 
Orange will make a strategy, but orange can get paralysis through analysis.
Red is this voice in your head : ‘dude you already read 10 books this month, you are a bitch, go outside and talk to 10 girls; or do 10 cold calls NOW!’.
Is that father talking to you. Is that masculine compassion.
Dont get too confortable.
Face reality!
Commit first, figure out later.
 
 
- START YOUR HERO'S JOURNEY.  INSPIRE people. CHANGE THE COURSE OF HISTORY.
> Go watch Leo's video about the Hero's Journey.  BRUTAL video. (I watched it last week. Made me rethink my values and vision).
 
The thing is. The hero's journey starts with healthy red: 'fuck that. Lets go'!
You have to be willing to scape the tribe (purple). You have to be willing to die for the Holy Grail.
 
Nowadays, people go on a fake journey scaping the conforts of blue, and going into orange and some green.
Having casual sex, getting into a relationships, building a business, getting a 6pack, trying some drugs, traveling...  but that shit is EMPTY.


Without red, your vision is always going to be small.  Group-think infected.
The largest your vision, the higher the risk; the more healthy red you need.
Of course, you need blue and orange qualities, but first of all you need BALLS.  (Think of Gandhi)
And of course you also need green:
 
* Redirect that wild, aggressive energy into LOVE. * (Essence of healthy red from my POV)
With women.
With other men.
With your mission.
With the world.
With yourself.
 
Turn:
Fear into ACTION.
Logic into guts.
Passivity in to glory. 
Thinking into doing.
Safety into RISK.

You'll find the way.
 
Stop overthinking, stop theorizing, stop playing it safe.
Start fighting for a bigger cause. 
Be who you are, and let the chips fall where they may.
 
Redirect that wild aggressive energy into LOVE, and fill the world with it.
 
 
Much love
-k
 
 
 

Well most of the teachers out there are blatant frauds. Well they aren’t frauds in that they aren’t selling what some people apparently want (hope and camaraderie), they just usually aren’t telling you how to actually get laid virtually guaranteed (which is possible and in fact just having an honest conversation with a woman who respects you can clear it up for you in one afternoon). Just look at the girlfriends and wives of these teachers — now I’m not one to be shallow but hear me out… when your whole sales pitch is getting hot women, believe me if they could do it themselves they would show it, and they don’t. And there are a lot of cult followers of those people — and on this forum btw.
You’re taking yourself too seriously if you’re worried about this nonsense. If you’re interested in something, being yourself (plus being strong and kind, obviously, if you lack that, in which case that’s your problem go fix that) will indeed be attractive to some women, but obviously not every woman. Rejection happens all the time and it shouldn’t matter one single bit — if it does matter to you it will be a self fulfilling prophecy. If a woman doesn’t like what you say just calibrate after the fact and don’t let her get you to con yourself into thinking anything social or sexual is a big deal at all — that’s the real issue guys have. It’s where the idea of “state” and “warming up” comes from — anyone talking about either of those two things unironically is unaware of the actual game cheat code (defining your own value as unbreakably good enough for any girl right now just the way you fucking are).

From my personal perspective you underestimate the amount of effort and work that is put into those videos and Actualized in general. We barely see the surface of the work Leo does. Working in McDonalds is easier than creating your own path. Even check the platform we're now discussing in. It was created/designed/envisioned by Leo in some form and now there's hundreds of people on it.
Developing your life purpose out of nothing is the hardest thing to do, and if it was easy, you'd see everyone around you doing it rather than working and scrolling on their phones. 
Even the amount of mental discipline required to do it is underrated. You're not required to even think much doing burgers.
I'd question that.

Just be physically attractive and not off putting. If you have extra pounds, weight training plus enough protein plus eating less will increase your options by an enormous margin. And consider makeup — it won’t make you prettier but it will make you look more receptive and hot.

I'm confused about confusion. 
I'd always thought that confusion was about a thing not making sense or not hanging together. And that this lack of sense normally comes about through some sort of ambiguity - "Is it this or is it that? I'm confused.". Sometimes it's just through not seeing or understanding the connection between things. If TWO+FOUR=SEVEN, then that's confusing - but to resolve the confusion you just count the number of letters on the left.
It seems like the word confusion is also used to mean a lack of understanding or ignorance as you say. I personally would never use the word confusion for this, but the meaning of words drift over time, and I'm just stuck in the past.
Anyway, I'm not really sure what I'm trying to do here, other than argue about definitions. I'm confused and I'm proud 

Don't let your allegiance to a government get in the way of your ability to recognize human rights abuses and injustices.
Palestinians have been displaced, marginalized, and oppressed by the Israeli government for decades. And the Israeli government is using the Hamas terror attack to justify killing civilians and framing it as a defense, when it is actually collective punishment and genocide.
They bombed an entire refugee camp a few days ago to go after just one Hamas official. And that killed hundreds of innocent civilians. And the Israeli government has already killed over 3x as many Palestinian civilians as Hamas has killed Israeli civilians... and Israel is a country, so it should be held to higher standards regarding the rules of military engagement than a terrorist group.
But right now it's not being held to the international rules for military engagement. They're being given carte blanch to indiscriminately carpet bomb the Gaza Strip.
And while Hamas's terrorism is absolutely despicable, it's important not to conflate Hamas with the Palestinian people. Over half of the people in the Gaza Strip are children. So when the Israeli government is carpet bombing the Gaza Strip, they are killing MOSTLY children.
And make no mistake... these are war crimes.
Try to imagine if the shoe were on the other foot....
Let's imagine that there was a Jewish majority country. And then a handful of decades ago, Muslims who were fleeing oppression wanted to set up a Muslim homeland based off of some of the scriptures in the Quran.
Then, they went to that Jewish majority country and began ousting Jewish families from their homes and pushing them into smaller and smaller areas of land to live in abject poverty and oppression, so that they could set up a Muslim ethnostate. And the Jewish people in this ethnostate would be ruled by a totally different set of laws than the Muslim citizens.
Then, as typically happens in these situations where one people oppresses another people and a country is denied its sovereignty from another nation... a terrorist group takes power. And they become a shadow version of a military force in lieu of being able to protect themselves with a sovereign state military.
Then, this Jewish terrorist group (that represents a very small minority of Jewish people living in the region) commits a terrorist atrocity against the Muslim civilians living in the ethnostate.
And the Muslim ethnostate's government uses this atrocity as an opportunity to bomb all of the Jewish civilians by claiming that they're just going after the terrorists... they just so happen to kill 99.99% civilians. And in statements from the state's officials they even claim that there are no true Jewish civilians.
If the shoe were on the other foot... would you find that situation to be just?

Being bullied in school can fuck you up more than you realise, speaking from experience. It causes you to learn all sorts of coping mechanisms that affect you negatively for the rest of your life.
For example bullied kids often learn that not reacting is a good way to stop bullies from targeting them as much, so they learn to ignore problems instead of facing them head on.
Or they learn that self-expression/uniqueness = pain, so they learn to be shy and invisible.
Or you end up with crippling social anxiety because your lizard brain learns to associate all other people with pain.

From the Leo's blog 
 
 
You ask, 'How can we know the Infinite?' I answer, not by reason. It is the office of reason to distinguish and define. The Infinite, therefore, cannot be ranked among its objects. You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to reason, by entering into a state in which you are your finite self no longer, in which the Divine Essence is communicated to you. This is Ecstasy. It is the liberation of your mind from its finite consciousness."
-- Plotinus 
 
 
 

J. Krishnamurti having a talk with an unusually open minded Christian priest:
 

Unexpectedly great video on levels of consciousness, spiral dynamics, susan cook-Greuter's developmental levels models and AQAL by Ken wilder
 
He made this simplified chart too, overall probably some of the best consciousness video I've seen outside of Leo's work 
 
 

God is breathing. 
 
"When you really look for me,
you will see me instantly —
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath."
~Kabir

It is really crazy, I downloaded TikTok and was using it for a while, naturally the spiritual stuff started to come up. Every second dude was claiming to be enlightened talking shit about some ascension bullshit, being a starseed, tarot, conspiracies blahblahblah..... I almost went retarded watching this stuff. Although Leo claims they are not awake, the value of the traditional teachers such as Mooki, Ekhart Tolle, Ralston, Ram Dass etc.. simply cannot be understated because they are not stage green idiots claiming to be enlightened.

People seem to be getting into Kriya Yoga after my video, and lots of questions are coming up, so I thought it would be best to accumulate them all in one place.
Post all your Kriya Yoga questions and tips here.
Over time this should become a valuable resource for people. Similar to our monstrously large 5-MeO-DMT Mega-Thread.
Feel free to share your advice, tricks, and progress reports. If we have a lot people doing Kriya, it would be cool to see how many people start experiencing gains and mystical experiences, and how quickly. It would be awesome if we had like 100 people post a progress report after 3, 6, and 12 months of practice. In the name of pseudo-science

There are levels, reading fiction is sure an upgrade from movies, YouTube and those type of activities, it would sure immerse you, improve your attention span, make you get in flow, have real joy rather than dopamine spikes.

But there is more value in reading non fiction, maybe it doesn't get you to the same level of immersion, but it includes all others and more, you learn so much and understand more about the world.

If you are engaged in movies, tv shows, etc. I would say its a great upgrade, very worth it, but it is also a matter of value, how much do you value knowledge and understanding?

You can also balance it out, you can read a heavy non fiction book and a fiction book at the same time, you would specify time for the heavy non fiction book, and for the rest of the day you would read the fiction book whenever you feel like it.

Damn, sorry guys sometimes I can't help it and that inner marketer just comes out. Now that I have your attention, I was seeking some advice about life in general and spirituality. There are a lot of things I am trying to make sense of but struggling with and I would greatly value your input. (P.S I put the text through ChatGPT but only to make it a clearer as my writing was all over the place).
I've been pondering the whole deal about spiritual teachers and authority. So, I tried this thing that you might wanna check out too. I went on a YouTube marathon, checking out different teachers - some super advanced like Krishnamurti, Ram Dass, Mooji, Sadhguru, Ralston, and more. Then, I lurked around some 'stage green' friends (can't stand them for some reason) and even went through the comments of other YouTubers delving into the black pill and red pill stuff, and also random folks. What hit me was kinda disappointing: loads of what I call 'meatriders' in the comments. The top comments were often just blindly praising these folks, whether it was about someone like Tristan Tate talking nonsense or glorifying Sadhguru as the ultimate yogi. Made me think about the risk of blindly following these teachers and groups. It also made me question my own judgment and everybody else's.
So, in my own life, following Sadhguru and his yoga has brought amazing changes. It's seriously been life-altering for me. But to fully get into his teachings, I had to trust him in a kind of delusional way. He made certain Yantras, and I accessed them directly through some delusional devotional practices. Felt like I was becoming one of those people in the comments I've been critical of. But even though it felt weird, I gained a lot from these practices.
Here's the thing: if I hadn't put that level of trust in his teachings, I doubt I would've made as much progress. But then again, most teachers, like Leo, push for having no authority and seeking absolute understanding yourself while maintaining strong skepticism. So, how do I make sense of these two ideas? It's a tricky one because there are legit teachers and, well, not-so-legit ones, so it requires caution. But how do I tell the difference? And now that I've found success with Sadhguru's teachings, can I keep going and reach the deepest levels of consciousness? Trust is important here, if I did not trust Sadhguru, I would not have transformed, anytime I brought in my logical mind to contemplate, there was a reduction in efficacy especially in the devotional practices and Yantras. At the same time, this level of trust is blind, it really is and I wonder would it become inhibitory as I continue? All input welcome!!