West

Can't forget Ralston! With Leo as the interviewer here:

Regarding pain, have you tried cold showers? That's my latest addition to my spiritual practices, a 3 minute cold shower in the morning! I find it very challenging to have high awareness in that situation, but it's a great spiritual workout. Out of curiosity, what kind of action are you taking? Life purpose, meditation or something else?

Wow! As a formerly active guitar player I gotta say, that guitar playing sounds amazing! I was jolted awake by the tenacity and energy of the "I'm a believer" intro. This is very inspiring. Kudos for having the balls to share it with everyone.

Yesss, beautiful! Love that. When I think about death, I don't really know if I'm afraid to be dead. What does scare me however is the potential pain and suffering that could happen during death. Like, being burned alive? Nope, I'll pass. I mean, it won't matter once I'm dead, but I would definitely be afraid if I knew that I'd suffer before I died. This is one thing that I'm both stoked and scared about when it comes to lucid dreaming; one of my greatest interests lately. It's a great way to confront death. A classic way to get out of a lucid dream is to die in the dream. Also, sleep paralysis? Nightmares? Shit, if you can stay fully present and non-dual during that, then you're pretty enlightened! I'm just picking up lucid dreaming again, but I'm pretty sure I'll have some bad dreams in the mix. Dear god, please save my soul...

Hello! The hair loss doesn't sound so good. Not sure if it's the vegan thing or something else. It's not my intention to make you change your diet, I will just share an alternative that you can consider trying out. It's called the bulletproof diet. It's similar to paleo and keto, but removes some additional 'suspect' foods and encourages some days with more carbohydrates to keep your hormones in check. You don't have to do the 'bulletproof coffee' thing (I don't), and you don't have to buy the things the creator of the diet sells; just go with the basic foods that you get at your grocery stores. Here's the infographic: Good luck

This is a topic that I'm focusing a lot of my consciousness work on at the moment. Peter Ralston is my go-to guy for contemplations about pain; he could sit through a drilling of his tooth without anesthesia without suffering from the pain. Actually, I think he said he barely felt it, which is weird. I think that your advice to accept the pain is good advice if followed, but that it's very unlikely that you actually will accept it without prior consciousness work on the matter. In my experience, I can try to accept pain when I stub my toe, and it helps. However, I can also see that without meditation I would suffer more, and that with more meditation I will suffer less.

I just got into lucid dreaming again. I'm currently doing a lot of reality checks daily, just in case I'm dreaming. I really encourage you to use this gift of yours. With lucid dreaming, sleep is all of a sudden turned into an opportunity every night to do the impossible! I mean, people pay millions to go for a trip into space, and here we have the chance to do this and much more incredible things for free. So indeed, what can you do in a lucid dream? Practicing skills: You can choose a skill you would like to improve upon and practice during your sleep. Physical skills are perfect for this; climbing, any sport, playing an instrument. When you have the opportunity to practice something in a dream, take bigger risks. This will open your mind to new levels of skill, and you won't be at risk; if you die you simply wake up. Just please make sure that you are actually dreaming. Hedonic pleasures: This one is a classic. If you eat a healthy diet that restricts certain things that taste amazing (such as croissants dipped in chocolate or some crazy shit like that), you can eat to your heart's content. When you wake up you'll be as slim as ever, and in my experience (I've done this once) the psychological craving is satisfied. I don't recommend this if it's something that will trigger an addiction that will spill over into real life (like smoking or drinking). Spirituality: It can be used for deep spiritual work because you realize first hand that your experience is entirely constructed by your mind. Stephen Laberge is an expert on lucid dreaming and its uses for spirituality, so I'll let him do the talking.

Oh shit! It took me a couple of days to realize this.The feeling of not knowing (that I've experienced during meditation) is actually exactly the same feeling as the magical feeling. It's just so incredible when I see through the content of my thoughts and really see that I in fact don't know anything about the relative world for sure. It's the ultimate stress reliever, I stop worrying about so many things.

Hey, that Matt Kahn video was great stuff! I hadn't heard of him before. I haven't considered much what he calls the feminine side of awakening, which is to surrender to the will of the universe and let it work through you. Just... so simple, but it feels right too. I can relate to your feelings about the exams. While I like the subjects that we have, doing exams is kind of a chore. I have a list of projects that I would like to start, but I feel like that time would be better spent at exam prep. In my experience motivation increases after the exams if I have projects planned for the holidays. It's an explosion of freedom! About your doubts about what you want to do in the future, have you taken Leo's life purpose course? I took it some months ago, and it was very helpful for figuring out my life purpose (as advertised). Perhaps that could be a cool project for your summer break?

Very cool journal! Have you given a lower-carb diet a try? Such as a ketogenic diet or paleo. I currently eat a ketogenic diet (high fat, low carb, moderate protein) and I feel less hunger and more focused. Perhaps something you can play around with.

Yesss, a life-long learner! I love to study a variety of things. Astronomy, archeology, the deep ocean, spirituality... all very mysterious and exciting stuff. I'm getting Peter Ralston's latest book delivered in a few days.

I just meditated some more about the Now in my meditation session today. It feels weird that my mind insists that the past and the future exists, but the only thing that I experience is now. Also, the now seems dynamic; everything is moving. However, how can movement exist in a timeless space? It's a paradox, but it probably just takes awareness and time before a solid, juicy insight appears.

The feeling that everything is magical is something I remember from when I was a kid, but has since faded away. I think everybody knows the feeling. It's like a combination of wonder and happiness. Things seem fresh and exciting. I love that feeling, and I want to find out how to experience it on a regular basis, because I feel like this is a deep need. I think there could be a connection between the magical feeling and nostalgia. Sometimes I feel nostalgic for old games that I played when I was a kid. The times that I've tried playing them again years later, the memories of the game are triggered and I get those same feelings for perhaps 20 minutes, depending on how long ago since I played. However, after those initial minutes I am in full grown-up mode, looking for the most effective and efficient ways to succeed at the game, while not feeling the magic. If I try to mess around like I did when I was a kid, I still don't get that feeling. It feels like it isn't the game itself that I'm craving, but the feeling that everything is magical. The same thing can happen if I'm re-watching series or movies that I watched when I was younger. When I re-watch a film after many years, I can suddenly see the bad image quality and that it's all acted. Being outside is kind of like that too for me. When I went out in nature as a kid, things seemed magical and alive. If I go out in nature now (especially if I didn't meditate earlier) it's mostly thoughts spinning around instead of enjoying the moment. It takes time for my mind to calm down, but when it does I kind of naturally seep into that feeling again. I'm not out in nature that much though. Perhaps we grow used to the content of our world? "I've walked in forests hundreds of times", "I know how movies work now; they don't surprise me anymore". Perhaps it doesn't matter whether you are thinking like a kid or a grown-up, but that it matters whether you believe thought that says "I've already experienced this before". I have also glimpsed the feeling during meditation. I experienced it once when contemplating "Does the future or past really exist?". I couldn't find any future or past, and I stayed with that for a few minutes until I got this feeling that existence really is a mystery, and I don't know a thing about it. That made it magical. I think I've lost that feeling in my everyday life because as I've grown older I have assumed that I know things about the world. Actually, check out this meditation/contemplation for experiencing the Now: Be aware of the thoughts that appear in your mind. Say to yourself "I will trust my direct experience, and only that." Don't believe your thoughts just because they tell you stuff repeatedly. Contemplate: When do these thoughts appear? The thoughts about what you are going to do in 5 minutes, when do they appear? Do they prove the existence of a future? The thoughts about what you were doing just 10 seconds ago, when do they appear? Do they prove the existence of a past that existed 10 seconds ago, or is that just your mind strongly insisting so? Think of a historical event that happened long ago. Do you know anything about this event except from the thoughts that are currently appearing in your mind? Do these thoughts prove the existence of this past, or is that just your mind insisting on it? Repeat until the magic happens. (Some of the questions seem to be pointing to a 'correct' answer, but it's just to provide some guidance.) Do you long for this feeling? Do you think that most of humanity do? Have you found a way to get that feeling back? My best bet for getting the feeling back is meditation (especially about time, perhaps) because it has worked before. Now that I realize that, I kind of feel like meditating.

That sounds like a great idea!

@electroBeam Great to hear you found something that's working for you! I think it's important to get the basics of the theory down first though, so you have a rough idea as to what most women find attractive in a man. Also, watching and analyzing full-length infield videos is something I have found immensely helpful. Just to actually see how attraction works in the real world. While watching an infield clip recently I tried to guess what they would do next. Would they say something random, would they tease her, would they give her a compliment? If I did something different, could that still have worked? I try to develop my intuition like that; to get a feel of the situation and what I can do with it.