TJ Reeves

Abraham Maslow died before he could get a lot of people focused on the sixth step of the hierarchy of needs: the need for transcendence. For a few months I thought a lot about what that step would look like practically, but nothing stood out. Then I read a book about the relationship between vulnerability and attracting hot women called Models. The next morning I woke up with the realization that transcendence would be the entire hierarchy flipped upon itself, wherein one does the opposite of what they did to climb up the hierarchy. What you end up with is a roadmap to personal liberation. Essentially we find that people climb up the hierarchy, strengthening the ego and strengthening their external influence. At every step, it seems like that step is the most important thing in the world. At the top of what we typically think of as the hierarchy, one may realize that there is no where else to go unless one looks for something other than the self. The process of becoming more vulnerable and loving then takes place. By the end, one goes as far as even giving one's life fully to the world through action (Be careful: I'm not necessarily talking about martyring oneself!) Which answers what had confused me about transcendence: it's not like you totally stop doing whatever it is that you do in every day life -- its more about letting go of the attachment to perfection, outcomes, and the neediness for which you take actions. "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water." I made sure to include a special note about how enlightenment (a.k.a. non-dual awareness) is always available from the very beginning, although our concerns with other needs may cloud that fact. Even if one were to become enlightened at a 'lower' level on the hierarchy, one could still proceed forward in the dream-known-as-reality by learning how to work through each level and make a big impact. For example, Eckhart Tolle was pretty depressed before he had his enlightenment, but once he was enlightened he still had to figure out how to write millions of best-selling books -- and that takes a lot of courage. If you are wondering where you are on the map, ask yourself what you struggle with. Be honest about it. Look at what you get pissed off at. Look at what you judge others for. Finally, be careful not to confuse the map with the territory. It's not like you can stare at this and recognize your godly nature. There is a ton of experience to gain. I hope this helps you on your Hero's journey!

I have a new idea to implement the "learning = behavior change" video. Whenever Leo give us a "homework" assignment, we can each keep ourselves accountable by posting it here on the forum under threads titled Homework and whatever video it is. This is a nice, small behavioral change to get us started with applying his concepts. But really, that is just the start - learning will only occur with our next action after doing the homework. Post what it is that you got from the latest video as he'd asked you to do in the middle of the Learning = Behavior Change video. ------ Here was my response: Technically I haven’t learned anything from this latest video yet because I have yet to take 100% action. Doing this homework doesn’t count as taking action. The fact that “Learning = behavior change” is NOT the lesson from the video. The lesson is the new behavior that I take! Until I have exhibited some new behavior that incorporates that lesson, I cannot say I have learned anything. So I will say that learning on this video has occurred only when I take exhibit a new behavior that occurs as a result of some other lesson. See what I am saying? Again, I can officially say I learned something from this video If-and-only-if upon the next thing I research or experience or contemplate I: · Actively look for what type of behavioral change may occur because of the lesson · And take action on that lesson. ----- Let's get more specific to the homework itself: How will this information change my behavior? I will become more focused on applying lessons through behavior by constantly asking whether information changes behavior. From now on, I am not allowed to binge on lessons without writing direct action plans for each lesson and finding direct ways to implement through things like 30-day challenges or my hour-long Deep Work sessions. at least one direct action plan per lesson using the four questions. no more just watching random youtube videos or reading random books without guidance for what's going on and what's getting applied. I want to write the following answer per lesson: In situation X, I will do concrete thing Y to achieve subgoal Z now with self-compassion. This new paradigm is great because it shortens my notes I used to write whole tomes that summarized the books i read now I can just answer the 4 questions, the concrete sentence, and be done with it. this is especially useful For Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality by Ken Wilber. That summary was going to take forever. what did I learn? Learning = Behavior change Disregard information that doesn't lead to behavior change. This takes out news, gossip, youtube junk, video games, etc. How did my behavior change? We will see! I think we could have a whole forum section called "Video homework" if @Leo Gura would make it so. What did I learn about myself? I actually do a pretty good job of this, but this lesson bears out what I had as an internal feel into what are now direct words to live by. When I get 'stuck' its because I haven't taken steps through a concrete action plan. Best quote: Real wisdom results in living a certain kind of life ----- Sidenote -- Mark Manson released a very similar article on this topic just a two days ago. Here’s what he had to say in an article titled ‘how to be a better learner’: Memory works based on relevance. We’re selfish creatures by nature and we only remember what our brain has deemed important to our own lives. You can learn the coolest thing in the world, but if you don’t find a way to make it relevant to you and your well-being in some way, your brain will conveniently forget it. If you want to remember information, then you need to stop and take a second to ask yourself, “How is this relevant to me?” or “How can I apply this in my life?” You basically have to get personal with it. And if you’re not willing to get personal or think about your own life critically in that way, then most of the information you consume will just wash away. ------ Post your homework below and the new behaviors that will result.

To understand 2017, you must understand the years before that. 2014 - SURVIVE It was the year that I had athletics ripped away from my life It was the year that I saw my parents get divorced It was the year that I had my grades plummet, at the time ruining what I thought were my chances for a good career It was the year that I broke up with, at the time, the love of my life It was the year that I thought life was meaningless, the world was meaningless, and that I was meaningless It was the year I almost killed myself 2015 - WAKE UP It was the year that I began following actualized.org. It was the year that I invested in the reading list It was the year that I invested in the life purpose course It was the year that I began to watch every single video I could. It was the year that I was getting ready to finish college and began experimenting with my own business ideas It was the year that I was just beginning to wake up to a better life. 2016 - NAIL YOUR VISION It was the year that I truly began to explore the nature of consciousness. It was the year that I experimented with psilocybin, LSD, DMT, and several monster doses of 5-meo DMT It was the year that I created a 5-meo-DMT neurofeedback protocol It was the year that I studied under zen masters like Brad Warner, Doshin Roshi, and Peter Ralston It was the year that I discovered who I really was on an existential level (THAT) It was the year that I recognized the importance of personal values. It was the year that I began to understand the nature of true contemplation. It was the year that I began to figure out a real vision for my life beyond just money or power It was the year that I began writing my thoughts down religiously It was the year that I began to realize that its possible to have abiding, joy and love for oneself -- and truly grasp what that feels like. 2017 - PLANT THE SEEDS It was the year that I earned better life by embodying my self-derived philosophies It was the year that I got comfortable with Not Knowing. It was the year that I doubled down on the importance of taking 100% responsibility It was the year that I got a perfect score on the MCAT after 550 hours of study It was the year that I competed on American Ninja Warrior and Broken Skull Challenge It was the year that I worked as a photographer then a cognitive neuroscientist and now a professional videographer It was the year that I began seeing out of the eyes of yellow, then turquoise, and now Coral It was the year that I cleaned my room each morning, slayed my dragons each night, and saved the girl in the long run. It was the year that I began dating a turquoise woman (and my fucking god it's so much better than dating someone at lower level.) It was the year that I began waking up everyday excited to know that I could die that day It was the year that I realized that life = happiness It was the year that I realized that love = a behavioral commitment to raising the quality of a being, no matter what and for no particular reason It was the year that I quit sugar It was the year that I quit the porn, masturbation, orgasm cycle It was the year that I quit sleeping in It was the year that I finally understood what 'take 100% responsibility' meant on an existential level. It was the year that I finally became 100% financially independent. It was the year that I realized that ultimately everything we do is an attempt to recreate joy in our lives as an expression of love for our life, the people around us, and the world itself. It was the year that I realized that all work, all development, all things come down to simply loving oneself unconditionally and seeing yourself, the world, and everyone as perfect yet still able to get better. Perfection is a process of improvement, not an end goal. It was the year that I realized that there's no proof, no contemplation, no lover, no teacher, no exercise, no psychedelic, no practice, no accomplishment, no thing at all that can make you love yourself or show you why you love yourself because unconditional love is unconditional. It was the year that I realized that nothing can take away the fire of unconditional love that lies at my very core because everything that would try to take away that fire would just be more of that fire itself. It was the year that I realized that this is not some teaching and that any explanation of the above is useless, as seeing, feeling, and being the fire that burns is an experiential thing that goes beyond all talk and all philosophy yet is available at all times. It was the year that I realized that that is enlightenment. That conscious existentence is itself just a ride meant to show you the strength of that fire and that such existence is enlightenment thus everything you have ever consciously experienced is itself enlightenment and the entire universal consciousness of all things possible in all times in all possible realms is enlightenment. It was the year where I stopped trying to become enlightened because I AM. (Then again, if you're on this forum I can basically guarantee that you're not mentally ready enough to appreciate what it means to stop trying. So don't listen to 99.999% of the fools who parrot the words 'stop trying to become enlightened' --- It's only through all of the trying and all of the struggle that you'll even begin appreciate why it is that there's nothing to try for when it comes to loving yourself and the world for being perfect yet capable of getting better. So give it your best, do absolutely everything you can, and then you'll get that all you have to do is see that you've been perfect this whole time. To skip straight to the end ruins the fun; there's no shortcuts when there is no path.) It was the year that it became normal for me to cry out of pure joy while living everyday life. It was the year that I could truly say I no longer need actualized.org although its nice to visit every once in a while. What about 2018? The theme for this new year: DON'T TRY. EXECUTE. So thanks, @Leo Gura P.S. I'd like to chat with you about some very interesting ideas I had regarding spiral dynamics levels past turquoise. I genuinely believe I can help you with the new level, as its part of my own life purpose to get a minimum of 100 men and women to Coral before I die. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person on the planet who could help you with this, as no one else understands enough about spiral dynamics and is high enough to help you. P.P.S. for anyone else curious The difference between Turquoise and Coral has a lot to do with facing death everyday through some form of BODYMIND practice like martial arts, big wave surfing, or extreme hiking, That is, whereas Turquoise faces death form the perspective of the MIND BODY as by psychedelics or meditation, coral level people face it in a "physical" sense from the perspective of the BODYMIND. So whereas I might place Ramana Maharshi at Turquoise, I would place Bruce Lee at Coral because Bruce Lee can understand everything RM is talking about regarding consciousness, but RM won't recognize everything Bruce Lee might talk about regarding moving his body toward an opponent. Both have experienced death from the MINDBODY perspective (deep meditation), but Bruce practices death from the BODYMIND perspective (a rear-naked chokehold, for example) and thus Bruce is at a higher level. Moreover, the levels past Coral are bad ass versions of the lower tier levels, but they can only be accessed once one gets down to the physical embodiment of one's philosophy as by Coral level thinking. I know you know that, but the actual vision of what it looks like is the key here and that is what I'd like to talk to you about over Skype (there are body language nuances that I won't be able to convey through text).

5-MeO will help someone move from the unexperienced questioning of Yellow to the experienced understanding of Turquoise. Absolute Truth goes beyond all philosophy, all description, and all conversation - and 5-MeO shows you that real quick. But the more important thing about 5-MeO was the disappointment I felt from realizing that it does jack shit for helping you get to the next level of life. That is, its most useful aspect was the feeling of 'okay, so I've gone to the ends of the Kosmos within and I still have all this bullshit to take care of -- let's stop fucking around with drugs and lets do something with our lives.' I kept denying the fact that no normal person understands the importance of 5-MeO because, to them, its just another kid taking drugs except now that kid has a huge spiritual ego who thinks it makes him a superhuman god and all he has to show for it is repeating the phrase "you don't understand -- it's infinite, you're infinite, we're infinite! It's all a Cosmic game!' And look, I get that they're largely unawakened and don't understand the history of psychedelics in personal development, but they do have a point - if you're useless before 5-MeO, you're still useless after 5-MeO unless you take total responsibility Another way to put it is that, I realized that the difference between Turquoise and Coral is the difference between talking Truth (using one's voice as a way to inspire people at higher levels who already get it anyway) vs embodying Truth (using one's life to inspire people at all levels). As Frank Zane might put it, making one's outside as beautiful as one's inside and vice versa. Again, 5-MeO will get someone to want to talk Truth -- but the only people who will understand what you're saying already understand what you are saying. Embodying Truth physically will inspire Truth in people at all levels. How many people on this forum need several years of study before they even begin to understand Eckhart Tolle? Mooji? Ramana Maharshi? It's not that what these guys are saying is wrong per se, but why is it that it takes so many people so many years to get it? They use the wrong medium, as talk is useless when it comes to Truth. How many people on this forum need several seconds to understand Bruce Lee? Ido Portal? Rickson Gracie? Laird Hamilton? For these guys living their life is itself a form of True Art - an expression of Truth meant to inspire others. Anyone who watches 5 seconds of these guys feels inspired in the same way that it might take the so-called spiritual masters 5 hours (if you buy their $600 DVD set). Thats the difference. The fact that first question you ask after reading the above list is the role of 5-meo, and not the role of any of the other things I did shows me you are asking the wrong damn questions. Ask about the role of discipline. Ask about the role of accountability. Ask about the role of quitting my addictions. Ask about the role of finding a reality check mirror. Ask about the importance of death as a physical practice. Psychedelics, NDEs, Holotropic Breathing - those forms of death are for babies. If 5-MeO got me to where I'm at, then I would stop everything I'm doing, start selling 5-MeO and become the richest man to have ever lived in all times. The MINDBODYSOUL will unlock its true potential only when pushed to its fucking limit in a real life situation that requires complex action for a simple solution, from one's own volition. It makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective, as animals only have to put in as much energy as necessary. Of course you don't know enlightenment or ultimate power because you of course don't need it. you don't need enlightenment to sit around answering forum questions. you don't need enlightenment to make videos. you don't need enlightenment to fill out forms at a desk all day. So why the fuck unlock that power? What makes Ralston different from other teachers is not his ability to pontificate about nothing, but the fact that he participated in bloodsport of his own volition. I'm talking about pushing yourself to the type of death that no one can question, from all angles, from one's own volition. Most people can easily question psychedelic death. Most people can question holotropic breathe death. And most NDEs come as a result of an accident or someone making a mistake. No one can question a rear-naked choke. No one can question drowning in a 50-ft wave. No one can question climbing Mt. Everest Shirtless - you chose that shit. I am one of the few people who've tried both forms of death approach and I can tell you that there is a huge difference that goes beyond all philosophy, all argument, and all discussion - just fucking do it and you will see. But as long as one sits there searching for an answer by isolating oneself or sitting around staring at a wall or imbibing yet another psychedelic, there's really no reason for the body to unlock itself. I will know you got unstuck the moment you start showing your self outside, moving, interacting, doing, and not just talking in your videos. I will know you got unstuck the moment we see you physically tackling your fears and getting yourself into the shape of a warrior. I will know you got unstuck the moment you stop treating physical play like just another thing and you start emphasizing it as one of the ultimate foundations of human development. Until then, you shall remain stuck. Worse, your life purpose will be capped off at level turquoise, which sucks because the world really doesn't need yet another turquoise mouth-yapper. And I say that in the most loving way because I feel genuinely helped by you and now I genuinely want to help you. There's literally no one else who is going to tell you that because no one else is aware enough and cares enough. So, for Everyone reading this, here's the shit that I did with my life that is way more important than 5-meo ever will be: Quitting the PMO cycle Quitting Sugar Quitting all drugs, all alcohol, all junk entertainment Exploring new exercise regimens, culminating in the following schedule Monday - Powerlifting Tuesday - Jiu Jitsu Wednesday - Acroyoga Thursday - Capoeira Friday - Calisthenics & Sprints Saturday - Hiking Committing to wake up before 9 AM every morning like an adult Writing quality works. Not just journaling. Not just sketching ideas. Not just writing stream-of-conscisouness articles. Making something that might become a perennial hit every time you sit down to write. Notice that my upvotes per post on this forum is the highest out of anyone with more than 100 posts - even Leo himself. That's not a coincidence. Quality writing is quality thinking - the process of editing for good and bad sentences is itself editing for good and bad ideas. Put it this way, I wouldn't tackle a difficult mathematics problem without writing down the variables on paper. So, why would contemplating a life problem be any different? Life's problems have far more variables than mathematics problems. Write down your best ideas on the nature of love, the nature of life, the nature of consciousness. Edit them so that no one can touch your arguments when it comes to communication - then you will see that no one can touch you when it comes to dominating life. Reading quality material, not random listicles Cultivating quality relationships, excising any and all people who hold me back from higher potential. Making sure my top 5 people will leave legacies - anyone that you know will not leave a legacy must be excised, no exceptions if you don't have 5 people like this in your life, find them. Your lack of people to trust is not a sign that you're an enlightened genius, but a sign that you're a boring asshole. Only you can stop you from being an asshole. So stop letting yourself be so lonely - start being the type of person who provides so much value, others come along. For real, the isolation I see around here is unacceptable bullshit. Wake up and provide value. Period. Getting a reality-check mirror - someone interested in self-actualization at my same level who could help me iron out self-derived principles Refusing to date anyone who does not meet the Trinity rule If I see myself as badass as Neo, then I will only date someone as badass as Trinity. If I am not as badass as Neo, then I will make sure I am so that I am ready for my trinity. Taking 100% responsibility for my life Writing down a vision for what could go right in my life as well as a vision for the chaos and misery that will ensue if I don't take action. Do this stuff before taking 5-MeO and you will be ready to take 5-MeO. Do this stuff after 5-MeO and you will unlock the most amazing life imaginable. 5-MeO is an excuse to say you've gone as far as possible with psychedelics so you can move on with your life. Because if that couldn't save you, then life really is all about taking ownership. But it will be the direct proof of this fact that will help you. So, to be clear, I highly highly recommend people take 5-MeO. Just don't think it will ever replace the other stuff.

Realize that PMO is the highest correlative sign of depression besides maybe literally attempting suicide. That is, more than almost anything else, the more you PMO the more depressed you are. So, as you do anything to stop PMO, you end up doing something to prevent depression. Seriously, you need to understand this because its important: STOP PMO AND YOU STOP MOST OF DEPRESSION. PMO might not cause depression, or it might not be depression, but it's one of the biggest check engine lights you might have. So, set stopping PMO as a high priority and don't let anything get in the way of that. Moreover, you can't follow actualized.org if you don't take responsibility for your life. Period. But letting PMO stop you shows a major sign of irresponsibility. You're letting your dick take over your life. It's pathetic. I mean, how do you expect to change your life and change the world if you can't even take responsibility for your own dick? So, make a commitment. Envision the life that’s possible and then envision what happens when you don’t take action. Then, when urges pop up, just find new shit to do with yourself. Also check out Improvement Pill's work on the topic on YouTube. He has a whole thing called the Tamed course that's fantastic. Also Check out the book the 4 tendencies.

Find what's beautiful, and you'll find what's true. Find what's true, and you'll find what's beautiful. Even for what you think might be ugly at first. Tenacious D once wrote a song called Tribute. In the song, they describe having played the best song in the world but forgetting the lyrics. Now, they can only pay homage to the song, and hope to listen to the greatest song again. This is what spirituality is like, except with the Absolute truth. The reason no one can tell you the absolute truth or even describe the absolute truth is the closest you will ever come is the act of witnessing and feeling pure divine beauty - a sign of the underlying Truth that connects all. Do not think that enlightenment is an event that happens once and never again. The question is: Do you see the beauty now? Can you find the underlying connection now? Are you aware of the great song in the world - the song of life - right now? So make no mistake - I can not, will not, should not ever purport to tell you the absolute Truth. No one can. Not even Jesus. Anyone who does is a false prophet. No word, no painting, no book, no drug, no meditation can either. Those are even falser prophets. The only thing Thing that is the Truth is The Truth. But at least Beauty will point you in the right direction. Will you choose to pay attention to the Beauty of the Truth in everything and the Truth of Beauty in Everything? That is up to you.

Cloud Atlas is a 3-hour long Epic that spans 500 centuries and weaves together the lives of infinite souls represented by the same actors in different roles as they tell one on going story. Written and Directed by Lana Wachowski (of the Matrix fame), it is a truly daring project. Some people hated it. Some people loved it. I for one loved it for its exploration of love, time, and Being. Fair warning, only watch this movie if you're interested in deep truth - it is not for the masses. Here are a few profound quotes from the movie. On Belief (and MindFucks as described by @Leo Gura): "Belief, like fear or love, is a force to be understood as we understand the Theory of Relativity and Principles of Uncertainty: phenomenon that determine the course of our lives. Yesterday, my life was headed in one direction. Today, it is headed in another. Yesterday I believed that I would never have done what I did today. These forces that often remake time and space, that can shape and alter who we imagine ourselves to be, begin long before we are born and continue after we perish. Our lives and our choices, like quantum trajectories, are understood moment to moment. At each point of intersection, each encounter suggests a new potential direction." On Taking A Stand for Personal Values in a 'meaningless', 'infinite' world: (Villain - ego - challenging protagonist): There is a natural order to this world, and those who try to upend it do not fare well. This movement will never survive; if you join them, you and your entire family will be shunned. At best, you will exist a pariah to be spat at and beaten-at worst, to be lynched or crucified. And for what? For what? No matter what you do it will never amount to anything more than a single drop in a limitless ocean. (Protagonist): What is an ocean but a multitude of drops? On interconnectedness in the Now: Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others. Past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. On the Nature of Oneness: I climb the steps of the Scott Monument every morning and all becomes clear. Wish I could make you see this brightness. Don't worry, all is well. All is so perfectly, damnably well. I understand now that boundaries between noise and music are conventions. All boundaries are conventions, waiting to be transcended. One may transcend any convention if only one can first conceive of doing so. Moments like this, I can feel your heart beating as clearly as I feel my own, and I know that separation is an illusion. My life extends far beyond the limitations of me. On Absolute vs. Relative Truth: Archivist: On behalf of my Ministry and the future of Unanimity, I want to thank you for the final interview. Remember, this isn't an interrogation or trial. Your version of the truth is all that matters. Sonmi-451: Truth is singular. Its "versions" are mistruths. On Karma and Knowing Thyself: Sonmi-451: To be is to be perceived. And so to know thyself is only possible through the eyes of the other. The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and deeds that go on apportioning themselves throughout all time. On Taking Action when you feel that you only have shit options: You have to do whatever you can't not do. On Understanding History: Javier: What are you reading? Luisa Rey: Old letters. Javier: Why do you keep reading them? Luisa Rey: I don't know. Just trying to understand why we keep making the same mistakes... over and over.

I too, grew confused about the relationship between Life Purpose and Enlightenment work, but here's a nice summary of what I've realized. To begin, lets look at three propositions: Enlightenment work represents development of one's inner life (INNER development), not observable by anyone other than one on the inside -- its working on how you feel about the work and how you look at the world. Life purpose work represents development of one's outer life (OUTER development), observable by anyone 'on the outside' (Yes, I get that 'there is no outside,' but bear with me here. I use this term in the regular everyday sense - the way that you can't see my experience of the color red but you can see me practicing kickboxing). Anyway life purpose work is about the tangible stuff I take from the world and the tangible stuff I give to the world (art, science, words, videos, volunteering, etc.) Both Enlightenment Work (INNER development) and Life Purpose Work (OUTER development) have elements of Purification (Taking Away stuff) and Increasing Complexity/Power (Adding stuff). No part of is completely detached from any other part. Life is about all of these aspects of development. You cannot have one without the other, although they are separate focuses or views. It is like talking about North, South, East and West. I cannot have North without South or East without West. But looking Eastward gives me not much information about West and looking northward doesn't give me information about south. Then again, at the highest levels, all four views come together when you go to the highest levels, the way that if i went east all the way, it would connect with west on a globe and if i went far enough north, i would begin to go south. So if I wanted to have the greatest levels of Outer development, I would have to have had the greatest levels of inner development. If I want to give more to the world, i have to stop taking away so much from the world. If I'm the type of person with true awakening then I am the time person who doesn't take in the things that I know I don't want. So, what we have is a grid of four quadrants of getting your shit together. Waking Up - Inner Enlightenment work by taking away attachment to untruth Growing Up - Inner Enlightenment work by adding mental complexity/the ability to take on multiple perspectives Cleaning Up - Outer Life Purpose work by taking away attachment to addictions Showing Up - Outer Life Purpose work by adding techniques of mastery so that we express our highest values Each of these quadrants has its own line of development through transcending and including previous levels. These quadrants are all connected, yet they develop independently. Which is to say the following: A highly developed human would go as far as possible in all four quadrants of personal development. they would feel awakened, look awakened, act awakened, and talk awakened But just because you're good at one level of development, doesn't 100% mean you're good at all of them. for evidence, look at anyone in Tim Ferris's Podcast There is increasing levels correlation between all four quadrants as one develops to the highest level in any one quadrant that is, to really show up in life like a Leonardo Da Vinci or Bruce lee, you have to have gotten your shit together We often might only pay attention to people who are really good at any one level, thinking that that is the way to live, but often it is only a focus on one quadrant Again, The problem is that people only spend time focused on one quadrant and one quadrant only, thinking that that is the be-all end all. This is why so much of self-help might conflict. More over, our society only looks at the quadrant of Showing Up as a form of success. As mentioned before, since it does correlate at higher levels, Showing success is a small form of evidence of overall development, but its not the whole picture. Do not create a duality between life purpose and enlightenment. They are one, not two, as are all things - hence non-duality. Also, Do not create a duality between purifying your life through non-action and adding more to your life through action. Moreover, I cannot tell you, no one can tell you @Dan94 what life might look like when all four quadrants are developed to their highest level FOR YOU. This is part of why the tao that can be spoken is not the true tao. Leonardo Da Vinci is nothing like Bruce Lee is nothing like Joe Rogan is nothing Like Peter Ralston other than that they all hang out in Being Cognition (and technically they are all the same awareness!). It is in this sense that we all follow our own path. Furthermore, all of this is mental justification for chilling the fuck out and hanging out in Being Cognition while observing stuff. Being cognition is the sense that the world is perfect as is and that everything is seen as an end-itself or a subject for-itself instead of an object for an end goal. The common repose of being cognition is that you could die in that moment and that it would be the perfect ending to your movie. We have all felt this way at some point in our lives, and it always feels like everything in our lives lead to that moment at that moment. When you feel like you have woken up, grown up, cleaned up, and showed up sufficiently you will allow yourself to hang out in being cognition. Other wise, you will probably trick yourself into going back to deficiency cognition, where the world is basically a rat-race hell. So it is that: Enlightenment work is life purpose work viewed form the outside. Taking away subtle addictions is the other side of adding mental/physical power. And that all of this is just so that you can allow yourself to step into Being Cognition - but from the very beginning you could simply hang out in being cognition and that is itself all that's necessary to do all four. The systemic strategy, then is to allow yourself to go into Being Cognition (by developing curiosity after dropping Knowing) and through your own curiosity develop yourself on any of the quadrants as your intuition pulls you from a sense of wanting to know and wanting to get better (PLAYing) not needing to know and not needing to get better (SEEKing). This is Not Knowing In Action. If you're wondering what it looks like to allow yourself to access being cognition and develop yourself in all four quadrants look no further than Bruce Lee, Leonardo Da Vinci, Plato, Wim Hof, Peter Ralston, and Joe Rogan. Those guys have their inner life developed and their outer life developed as well, all while allowing themselves to hang out in Being Cognition all the time. Simply Work Diligently, Patiently, Persistently, and Playfully to Realize the Truth - that there's nothing more than simply working Diligently, Patiently, Persistently, and Playfully to Realize the Truth - that there's nothing more than.... Love, TJ P.S. people wonder what Spiral Dynamics Coral Level looks like, it is everything I described above. Coral = all four quadrants of getting your shit together combine and you allow yourself to hang out in being cognition 24/7 (although being cognition is available from the get go) @Leo Gura let me know what you think of this proposition.

The brain isn't as simple as poking a needle into it to destroy memories. Scientists have been on a search for a one-to-one correlation between memories and brain cells and they have yet to find it. They found one instance of a cell that fired only when shown images of Jennifer Aniston and it made a huge splash in the literature. But that is not the only cell that responds to images of her, thus it still doesn't count as one-to-one functioning. Indeed, it takes up to 50 to 60% of all brain cells to get damaged before someone even begins to notice the symptoms of something like alzheimer's. Imagine if your computer got 50% damaged before you noticed something was wrong! And yet, scientists everywhere continue to use this stupid 'brain-as-computer' analogy - there's no fucking computer that works this way! Moreover, I even wrote a post where I demonstrated clear evidence of a man who's brain had 90% of his brain gone and yet he lived a normal, healthy life. It seems that the brain doesn't even come close to working like what you described. Instead, it seems to be holographic. That is: 1 - every part contains functions, memories and aspects of every other part. 2 - It works by shining a light onto reality to recover a 3D image. So stop thinking of yourself as this limited little consciousness produced by a mass of jelly in a calcified water-bag worth about $20 at the Ace-Hardware store for 99% of it and $160 for 100% of it. Scientists like Daniel Dennett love to rub themselves over this delusion, but it's simply not the case. Instead, realize that Capital-C consciousness is analogous to the combination of a holographic card, a laser light, and a holographic projection. Your brain, instead of creating consciousness, is better described as a way to anchor or tune into conscious percepts. Another way to think of it is that a radio doesn't create radio waves and it doesn't create music, instead it taps into radio waves to play music from a specific frequency. You don't create consciousness and you don't create your perceived life, you tap into consciousness and play out your life at your own frequency. So how are you not your brain? first off, you are the perceiver, the act of perceiving, and that which is perceived. Without any one of these nothing would exist and its basically incoherent to say otherwise. The brain is only within the category of that which is perceived. At best, it is only 1/3 of the necessary components of existence. So describing yourself as the brain leaves out other important aspects of you. Again, you are the whole of perceiver, perception, perceived. This is what is meant by transcending the limited view of yourself. Second off, you are confusing the brain's correlations to consciousness with creation of consciousness. Correlation is not causation! So consider that the same way that if I destroy a radio, radio waves - and thus music - don't cease to exist ... then if I destroy a brain, consciousness and thus the music of consciousness don't necessarily cease to exist. And yet, a radio's functions correlate with music. In this way, what the brain does is kind of filter and limit consciousness down to one small, distinct perspective. destroying the brain simply means going back to an unfiltered, unlimited consciousness that is completely non distinct perspective. It would be so non distinct that any description of it would simply not come close to describing it... and yet it would be the capital T Truth. So you ask would a person be enlightened if they destroyed their brain? DUDE WAKE UP: ENLIGHTENMENT IS SPECIFICALLY WHEN YOU "DESTROY" YOUR BRAIN AND GO BACK TO UNLIMITED CONSCIOUSNESS.

Everyone Has Intuition, Even You All of God’s children are endowed with the highest intelligence: intuition, the all-knowing wisdom of the soul. Intuition is that power of Spirit inherited by the soul by which truth is perceived directly, without the medium of any other faculty. Intuition is soul guidance, appearing naturally in man during those instants when his mind is calm. Nearly everyone has had the experience of an inexplicably correct “hunch” or has transferred his thoughts accurately to another person. Every man has the power of intuition, as he has the power of thought. As thought can be cultivated, so intuition can be developed. In intuition we are in tune with Reality — with the world of Bliss, with the “unity in diversity,” with the inner laws governing the spiritual world, with God. …but it needs to be developed: In the life of every person, two forces of knowledge are operative from birth: (1) the power of human reason, along with its satellites of sensation, perception, conception, and so forth; (2) the power of intuition. The former is developed through social institutions and interactions. The latter usually remains uncultured, undeveloped, because of want of proper guidance and methods of training. So long as one’s intuition remains undeveloped, he is guided mainly by the limited understanding of mortal intelligence, with only occasional promptings of intuitive wisdom. Thus he engages in some good actions, but also in many wrong actions, and acquires many bad habits. Through the operation of the law of cause and effect, or karma, he finds himself following helplessly his own self-created destiny, which often leads to misery. A life can be successful, healthy, and complete — balanced with wisdom and happiness — when activity is guided by God’s inner, intuitive direction. The only way to know and to live in truth is to develop the power of intuition. Then you will see that life has a meaning, and that no matter what you are doing the inner voice is guiding you. While animals are guided primarily by instinct, and ordinary man is guided by his ego, the yogi who is united to the Self is guided by the soul. This intuitive power can be developed by learning the step-by-step methods of scientific deepest meditation that lead to Self-realization. Qualities of Intuition It is distinct from senses, thoughts, and intellect… “Intuition manifests in the calm consciousness as feeling, perceived mostly through the heart. When such feeling comes, you receive through it a definite sense of right direction and unshakable conviction.” The senses and mind are the outer doors through which knowledge percolates into the consciousness. Human knowledge filters in through the senses and is interpreted by the mind. If the senses err in perception, the conclusion drawn by the understanding of that data is also incorrect. A white gossamer cloth fluttering in the distance may look like a ghost, and a superstitious person believes that it is a ghost; but closer observation reveals the error of that conclusion. The senses and understanding are easily deluded because they cannot grasp the real nature, the essential character and substance, of created things. Man’s highest faculty is not reason but intuition: apprehension of knowledge derived immediately and spontaneously from the soul, not from the fallible agency of the senses or of reason. Intuition comes from within; thought, from without. Intuition gives a face-to-face view of Reality; thought gives an indirect view of it. Intuition, by a strange sympathy, sees Reality in its totality, while thought chops it up into parts. …and yet it includes feeling Beyond the senses and intellect, intuition manifests in the calm consciousness as feeling, perceived mostly through the heart. When such feeling comes in meditation, you receive through it a definite sense of right direction and unshakable conviction. Increasingly you will be able to recognize and follow this intuition. That doesn’t mean you give up reason. Calm impartial reason can also lead to intuition. Use common sense. But remember that arrogant or emotional reasoning leads to misconceptions and mistakes. “Pure reason and pure feeling both have intuitive qualities. Pure feeling sees as clearly as pure reason.” Pure reason and pure feeling both have intuitive qualities. Pure feeling sees as clearly as pure reason. Most women have a keenly developed intuition. Only when they become unduly excited do they lose their intuitive powers. Pure reason is also intuitive, if this power is sufficiently developed. Otherwise, should the premise be wrong, the conclusion will be wrong also. Sooner or later, every man who reasons clearly will develop true intuition, which never errs. You must feel as well as think; if you do not have feeling along with your thoughts, you will not always be successful in reaching the right conclusion. Feeling is an expression of intuition, the repository of all knowledge. Feeling and thought, or reason, must be balanced; only then does the divine image of God within you, the soul, manifest its full nature. Hence Yoga teaches one how to balance his powers of reason and feeling. One who does not have both equally is not a fully developed person. The harmonious balance of reason and feeling leads to intuitive perception and the ability to know what is Truth. Achieving this balance, men and women become gods. Consequences of Undeveloped Intuition Ignorance of what you really are: Undeveloped intuition is a crystal placed before the soul, producing a double image. The soul itself is the real image; the reflection is unreal — the ego or pseudosoul. The more undeveloped the intuition is, the more distorted the ego image will be. When human life is guided by this false identity, which is brought about by the presence of undeveloped intuition, it is subject to all the limitations and false notions of delusion. A chaotic existence of error and its consequences is therefore inevitable. “Anyone seeking success would accomplish more if he concentrated upon increasing the receptive quality of his brain cells, instead of depending just on books and college work for his progress.” When a man is identified with his body, he feels nothing more than the sensations of sight, smell, taste, touch, sound, weight, and movement....God sent man to earth to be entertained by the bodily dreams, not to obscure his consciousness of immortality by being identified with the body. If one can for a sufficient length of time remain unidentified with thoughts and sensations, and without being unconscious, he will know through the development of intuition the nature of the soul. “I am not the breath; I am not the body, neither bones nor flesh. I am not the mind or feeling. I am That which is behind the breath, body, mind, and feeling.” When you go beyond the consciousness of this world, knowing that you are not the body or the mind, and yet aware as never before that you exist — that divine consciousness is what you are. You are That in which is rooted everything in the universe. The advanced student should meditate deeply until his thoughts become dissolved into intuition. In the lake of intuition, free from the waves of thought, the yogi can see the unruffled reflection of the moon of the soul. Undeveloped intuition brings errors in judgment and wrong decisions. . . Errors in judgment are a result of not having developed intuition. Most of you have had the feeling that you could be great, and do great things; but because you have lacked intuitive power, that potential has, for the most part, remained dormant. Since the judgment of your mind is conditioned by the information fed to it by the senses, if your senses become deluded you may think a person is wonderful without knowing what he truly is inside. You may think you have found your soul mate, so you enter into matrimony; and then end up in the divorce court. But intuition will never make such a mistake. It will not look at the magnetic power of the eyes or at the attractive face or personality of a person, but will feel and perceive accurately in the heart what that person is really like. . . .while developed intuition brings success in life: To progress and to avoid the misery of mistakes, you have to find what is the truth in everything. This is possible only if you develop your intuition. That is the practical truth of the matter. That is why I am asking you to cultivate and use intuitive power in everything. In your relationships with others, in your business, in your married life, in every part of your life, intuition is essential. By not developing the faculty of intuition, you make wrong decisions, pick up the wrong business associates, and get caught up in wrong personal relationships. There is always uncertainty in depending only on the material ways of success. But the intuitive way of success is different. Intuitive perception can never be wrong. It comes by an inner sensitivity, a feeling by which you know in advance whether or not you are going to succeed by following your determined course. Many people, lacking intuition, put a lot of money into financial prospects that do not produce anything, and consequently they lose everything. I have been successful in every decision I have made through intuitive power. It never fails. The scientific man or the businessman or anyone seeking success would accomplish more if he concentrated upon increasing the receptive quality of his brain cells, instead of depending just on books and college work for his progress. The world starts with books and outside methods, but you should start by increasing the receptivity of your intuition. In you lies the infinite seat of all knowledge. Ways to Develop Intuition First develop common sense. . . Intuitive wisdom, though transcending ordinary knowledge, does not make one otherworldly or impractical; it is the parent of common sense, which is simply intuitional reaction to one’s environment. . . . then add some research and deliberate practice to set the stage for intuitional guidance: Learn all you can about your goal and the practical steps needed to achieve it. Whether you are investing your money, starting a business, changing your occupation, after you have investigated, compared, and applied your intelligence to the limit, don't rush headlong into it. When your reason and investigation points to one thing, then meditate and pray to to your inner God. In inner silence, ask your higher self if it is all right to go ahead. If you meditate deeply and earnestly and find that something is turning you from it, don’t do it. But if you have an irresistible positive impulse, and you meditate and pray and go on meditating and this impulse still persists, then go ahead. Your request for guidance must be sincere, so that whatever impulse you feel will be from God and not mere reinforcement of your own flawed desire. That is the way I developed the practical application of my intuition. Before starting any endeavor, I sit in meditative silence in my room and go on expanding that power in my mind. Then I throw the concentrated light of my mind on what I want to accomplish. “Only when restless thoughts cease can one hear the voice of God communicating through the silence of intuition....In the devotee’s silence God’s silence ceases.” Always ask your inner God - the True you - to guide you. If your ego is blind and has a strong voice, it may drown out intuition and mislead you. But if you seek only to please The Universe by your efforts to do something worthwhile, He will guide your footsteps from error to good. Meditation is the surest way. . . The surest way to liberate the expression of intuition is by meditation, early in the morning and before going to bed at night. Whenever you want to solve a problem intuitively, first go into deep meditation or silence, as you have been taught in the Lessons. Don’t think of your problems during meditation. Meditate until you feel that a sense of calmness fills the inner recesses of your body — until a divine happiness fills the inner recesses of soul — and breath becomes calm and quiet. Then concentrate simultaneously at the point between the eyebrows (Christ Consciousness Center) and the heart. Lastly, ask God to direct your intuition, so that you may know what you should do about your problems. The clear-thinking man should be distinguished from the man who thinks too much....Intuition manifests only in calmness; in the undeveloped man, it only occasionally peeps in through the loopholes of leisure periods of the active mind and restless senses. The clear-thinking individual does not allow intellect to overrule intuition; by his patient calmness, he permits the full play of intuition in guiding him to right determinations. To attain a higher state of consciousness and divine perception, it is necessary through meditation to withdraw the mind from its continual restless activity. In that interiorized state, spiritual sensitivity, or intuition, awakens. An advanced Kriya Yogi, who in samadhi meditation has withdrawn his consciousness and life force from the realm of the gross body and senses, enters that inner world of wisdom revelations. He becomes aware of the seven sacred altars of Spirit in the spine and brain, and receives all knowledge emanating from them. Thus in tune with truth through intuitive soul-perception, he knows invariably the correct guidance for all aspects of his spiritual and materially dutiful conduct. Let me be clear about something: the goal of yoga science is to calm the mind, that without distortion it may hear the infallible counsel of the Inner Voice. God speaks to you through your intuition. . . Spirit does not necessarily talk through the lips of a form in a vision, or a materialized human body, but may intimate words of wisdom through the medium of the devotee’s awakened intuition. God may counsel a devotee by assuming the form of a saint, but usually He adopts the simple method of speaking through the devotee’s own intuitive perception. God’s voice is silence. Only when restless thoughts cease can one hear the voice of God communicating through the silence of intuition. That is God’s means of expression. In the devotee’s silence God’s silence ceases. No devotee should be satisfied until he has sufficiently developed his intuition — by impartial introspection and deep meditation, as in Kriya Yoga — to experience the communion of soul and Spirit. If a devotee meditates intensely for at least short periods every day, and has longer periods of three or four hours of deep meditation once or twice a week, he will find his intuition becoming sufficiently superfine to realize unendingly the dialogue of blissful wisdom exchanged between the soul and God. He will know the interiorized state of communion in which his soul “talks” to God and receives His responses, not with the utterances of any human language, but through wordless intuitional exchanges. Real Religion Is Based Upon Intuition All bona fide revealed religions of the world are based on intuitive knowledge. Each has an exoteric or outer particularity, and an esoteric or inner core. The exoteric aspect is the public image, and includes moral precepts and a body of doctrines, dogmas, dissertations, rules, and customs to guide the general populace of its followers. The esoteric aspect includes methods that focus on actual communion of the soul with God. The exoteric aspect is for the many; the esoteric is for the ardent few. It is the esoteric aspect of religion that leads to intuition, the firsthand knowledge of Reality. Intellectual discourses about the Creator will not give you God. But by seeking Him within, making the effort every day, you will find Him. The way to God is not through the intellect, but through intuition. Ordinary human beings, studying and working with material life, are circumscribed in their understanding by their sense perceptions and rationalizing intelligence. With undeveloped intuition, their limited power of intellectuality cannot truly comprehend matters of the spirit even when such truth is expounded to them. Though colossal intellects and famous theologians may be well read about the soul, they may nevertheless understand little about it! On the other hand, even illiterates given to deep meditation will be able clearly to describe the nature of the soul from their own direct experience. Intuition bridges the chasm between intellectual knowledge of the soul and actual realization of the divine Self. Intellectual giants, masters of many languages, veritable walking libraries of knowledge and deductive philosophy, but who are devoid of the help of clear-eyed intuition, have a deluded intelligence — functional on the plane of relativity, but obstructive to divine wisdom. It is by intuition that God can be realized in all His aspects. We have no sense that can reveal knowledge of Him; the senses give knowledge only of His manifestations. No thought or inference can enable us to know Him as He truly is, for thought cannot go beyond the data of the senses; it can only arrange and interpret the impressions of the senses. “God is beyond mind and intellect…His true nature can be felt only through the soul’s power of intuition.” God is beyond mind and intellect…His true nature can be felt only through the soul’s power of intuition. We must find His consciousness through the superconscious mind — the nucleus of mind and intelligence. His infinite nature is revealed to man through the intuitive superconsciousness of the soul. The joy felt in meditation reveals the presence of Eternal Joy spread over all creation. The light seen in meditation is the astral light from which our tangible creation is made. Beholding this light, one feels a unity with all things. Intuition Produces True Wisdom, the Antidote to Kosmic Delusion Man is so drunk with delusion, it obliterates his true perception so that the darkness of his ignorance cannot apprehend the light of God vibrating everywhere. Both cosmic delusion (maya) and individual illusion or ignorance (avidya) work together to thus obscure and confound the soul’s inherent intuitive sense of God’s omnipresence. In meditation this darkness of sensory dependence goes away and intuition prevails, revealing oneself as light in the magnitude of a whole universe of light. When man is settled in that inner kingdom of divine consciousness, the awakened intuitive perception of the soul pierces the veils of matter, life energy, and consciousness and uncovers the God-essence in the heart of all things. When by meditation and devotional practice of divine teachings the soul’s intuition begins to guide the development of intelligence, it is then that delusion instead of wisdom is doomed to destruction. The Transcendent Vision This life is a master novel, written by you as God, and man would go crazy if he tried to understand it by reason alone. That is why I tell you to meditate more. Enlarge the magic cup of your intuition and then you will be able to hold the ocean of infinite wisdom. The devotee who transcends the myopia of body consciousness sees with the superior vision of divine intuition, and resolves all formerly incomprehensible dualities in the ecstatic perception of creation as Beauty and Joy. How expressively the Gita extols this truth: “adorned with countless celestial robes and garlands and ornaments” — the stars are His crown jewels; the earth His footstool; the lightning, thunder, storms, and cataclysms the flash of His accoutrements and snap of His cloak as He dances in joy the whirling rhythms of creation, preservation, destruction. Everything in the objective world is an added decoration to beautify the cosmic garment of God; behind all these is the hidden Divine Reality. Meditate with patience and persistence. In the gathering calmness, you will enter the realm of soul intuition. Throughout the ages, those beings who attained enlightenment were those who had recourse to this inner world of God-communion. Jesus said: “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” * Go within the Self, closing the door of the senses and their involvement with the restless world, and God - the real you - will reveal to you all His wonders. adapted from an article found in Self-Realization Magazine, fall 2011

Doesn't this sound really spiritual? Dude, 'Waiting room', especially given the context of the whole album, is about as blunt about the capital-T truth as an allegory could be. 'Spirituality' is just about removing one's emotional blocks to realize that the stuff discussed in Waiting room is True. You might say - oh no but how do you know that this is the capital T-Truth. I say oh yes, how else could it be?! I've posted a number of times about this shit but yes, this is the enlightened truth in a nutshell. There is nothing else to realize. If God's omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, how exactly would he not know you're whole life? Who else was doing everything in your life? Who else saw everything you know to have seen? What else could we build other than God if he's omnipresent? It's 'the Devil' inside - the ego - that refuses to recognize that there is no boundary between self and god. In fact, the whole process of spirituality can be defined as un-realizing everything un-true - which is everything else - and getting used to this Truth. That's the fundamental process in god's training program known as the human life matrix. As the album begins, open your mind. open your mind. o-pen-your-mind. But its' not enough to just listen to the song or read my words. You have to actually live life with the perspective that you are God learning and interacting with other versions of God learning and interacting with you to one day become God. Do this for a number of years and it will be obvious that there is no other way. It's like having a pair of glasses that make everything beautiful and clear. Again, the truth is always there, you, me, we all just refuse to see it and feel it 100% of the time - so we suffer infinite lives until we do. Stop the suffering NOW. See the Truth NOW. Wake up! And if you haven't listened to the rest of the album, in order, definitely try to do so. The whole thing is woke as fuck.

I just found one of the coolest web-apps ever. Cube.gif is an experiment visualizing gifs as 3D cubes by encoding animation time as another spatial dimension. We can then slice the gif cube using a plane, projecting the data back into two dimensions and producing images that capture multiple frames of the original animation. Using the app kind of helps me visualize higher levels of reality. Mainly, it helps me see reality as one frozen block of absolutely infinite conscious potential. So take this 3d gif block and then add sounds, tastes, touches, thoughts, emotions. Then instead of imagining a 2d gif getting played back, make it 3d. This by the way, is how Einstein thought up general relativity. For, the way a line is an infinite series of 0 dimensional points smoothed together, the way a square is an infinite series of 1 dimensional lines smoothed together, the way a cube is an infinite series of 2 dimensional squares smoothed together, the 4d is an infinite series of cubes smoothed together. Notice how by moving the plane in a certain direction, 'movement' appears in the block. Anyway, our soul is itself that which penetrates the block using a form of existence known as the now - a made up plane to help us see things "moving" frame by frame. We make up and are time as a way to experience and manipulate the world. Depending on the angle that you penetrate the block you would have a totally different experience - one of Me, one of you, one of George W. Bush, etc. That would literally be the only difference - the perceived angle of the space-time penetration. Apart from that, it is exactly the same being penetrating the universe. To anchor in a certain plane of perspective, a brain or other nervous system might be used. In this way the brain would not be a generator of the block, just an anchor for a plane to cut through the block. Now make shit a little crazier. Instead of having a frozen block with everything determined already, instead take the block and add different timelines of potential. Infinite choices at any point, where the block can split off. Imagine so many choices that every possibility gets exhausted. So much so, that the terms predetermined vs at random are useless because literally every possibility gets realized at least once. Then imagine the aforementioned plane of existence going through one angle, then another, realizing every single possibility. Each time the plane goes through, the block "disappears" - its back to nothingness before going through another go around to figure out the block. The plane would forget entirely about the previous experience before returning again. That is, every time the plane passes through, it would have no recollection of its previous go around. No plane penetration, no block. This is our infinite soul. It's the perceiver (the plane), the perception (the slicing), and all the infinite configurations of the perceived. The plane would pass over everything you see. The thing that you are encompasses everything and everyone you see. The plane would not be able to exist without the block either, by the way. For without penetration of the block, it would have nothing to perceive, including itself. I hope you can now begin to have a small little window into the craziness of the meaning behind total non distinction. An absolutely infinite block of every possible percept pasted together - its useless to describe unless you come up with some type of little window to describe it. And that's what we are, a little window to describe it.

When children ask me those fundamental metaphysical questions which come so readily to their minds -- “Where did the world come from?” “Why did God make the world?” “Where was I before I was born?” “Where do people go when they die?” -- again and again I have found that they seem to be satisfied with a simple and very ancient story, which goes something like this: “There was never a time when the world began, because it goes round and round like a circle, and there is no place on a circle where it begins. Look at my watch, which tells the time; it goes round, and so the world repeats itself again and again. But just as the hour-hand of the watch goes up to twelve and down to six, so, too, there is day and night, waking and sleeping, living and dying, summer and winter. You can’t have any one of these without the other, because you wouldn’t be able to know what black is without white, or white unless side-by-side with black. “In the same way, there are times when the world is, and times when it isn’t, for if the world went on and on without rest for ever and ever, it would get horribly tired of itself. It comes and it goes. Now you see it; now you don’t. So because it doesn’t get tired of itself, it always comes back again after it disappears. It’s like your breath: it goes in and out, in and out, and if you try to hold it in all the time you feel terrible. It’s also like the game of hide-and-seek, because it’s always fun to find new ways of hiding, and to seek for someone who doesn’t always hide in the same place. “God also likes to play hide-and-seek, but because there is nothing outside of God, he has no one but himself to play with. But he gets over this difficulty by pretending that he is not himself. This is his way of hiding from himself. He pretends that he is you and I and all the people in the world, all the animals, all the plants, all the rocks, and all the stars. In this way he has strange and wonderful adventures, some of which are terrible and frightening. But these are just like bad dreams, for when he wakes up they will disappear. “Now when God plays hide and pretends that he is you and I, he does it so well that it takes him a long time to remember where and how he hid himself. But that’s the whole fun of it -- just what he wanted to do. He doesn’t want to find himself too quickly, for that would spoil the game. That is why it is so difficult for you and me to find out that we are God in disguise, pretending not to be himself. But when the game has gone on long enough, all of us will wake up, stop pretending, and remember that we are all one single Self -- the God who is all that there is and who lives for ever and ever. “Of course you must remember that God isn’t shaped like a person. People have skins and there is always something outside our skins. If there weren’t, we wouldn’t know the difference between what is inside and outside our bodies. But God has no skin and no shape because there isn’t any outside to him. The inside and outside of God are the same. And though I have been talking about God as ‘he’ and not ‘she,’ God isn’t a man or a woman. I didn’t say ‘it’ because we usually say ‘it’ for things that aren’t alive. “God is the Self of the world, but you can’t see God for the same reason that, without a mirror, you can’t see your own eyes, and you certainly can’t bite your own teeth or look inside your head. Your self is that cleverly hidden because it is God hiding. “You may ask why God sometimes hides in the form of horrible people, or pretends to be people who suffer great disease and pain. Remember, first, that he isn’t really doing this to anyone but himself. Remember, too, that in almost all the stories you enjoy there have to be bad people as well as good people, for the thrill of the tale is to find out how the good people will get the better of the bad. It’s the same as when we play cards. At the beginning of the game we shuffle them all into a mess, which is like the bad things in the world, but the point of the game is to put the mess into good order, and the one who does it best is the winner. Then we shuffle the cards once more and play again, and so it goes with the world.”

The following excerpts are taken from this article at Skeptic Meditations.com, a website written by a man who lived as a monk for 14 years. I highly recommend you read the article in full, because there is a ton of juicy information in it. Think of the following the next time you think “If I lived in a monastery I’d be happy and peaceful praying and meditating all the time.” "Monks’ Ashram Weekday Schedule The typical weekday schedule of an SRF (Self Realization Fellowship) monk consisted of: 6:00 a.m. Gong rings, arise for private meditation in your bedroom 7:00 Group meditation in Monk’s Chapel 8:00 Vegetarian Breakfast served in Monk’s Dining Room (Silence) 8:30-12:00 Office work in Monk’s assigned department 12:00-12:30 p.m. Meditation (Silence) 12:00-1:00 Vegetarian Lunch served in Monk’s Dining room (Silence) 1:00-4:30 Office work (continued) 4:30-5:30 Recreation (group or individual physical fitness) 6:00-7:00 Group meditation in Monk’s Chapel 7:00-7:30 Vegetarian Dinner served in Monk’s Dining Room (Silence) 9:00 Private meditation 10:00 Lights Out (Silence) Everyday there was a strict rule of silence–no talking or noise–between 10 p.m. to 8 a.m., and during all meals and meditations and all day Sundays. [Read my post Ashram Silence.] During my first 5-7 years inside the ashram, I was quite self-disciplined in forcing myself to get up by six in the morning. and in following the monastic vows and rules of the Order. Later, after 10 years or so, I realized that the monks who lasted that long or longer inside this cloistered system had managed to carve out their own routines. When a monk felt reasonably secure in his seniority or status in the ashram he can take liberties with his schedule; whereas the younger, newer monks feel the need to follow all the rules and vows or they may be reprimanded, or worse, asked to leave the Order. Fear often motivated monks to follow the weekly routine." ------ "Is living in a monastery a happy peaceful affair of praying and meditating all the time? Monastic routine–including praying and meditating–is founded on the ideals of increasingly handing over control to unchallengeable authorities. These authorities propagate the virtues of renunciation and self-sacrifice. Presumably followers are required to sacrifice their selfish impulses to attain the superior or higher states of selflessness, enlightenment, samadhi and so on. In short, a follower’s concerns with their own interests becomes the source of their own problems. Self-centeredness (ego) becomes the villain to be sacrificed, slain, destroyed. Once one’s self-trust is undermined its fairly easy to allow oneself to be manipulated and controlled by authority. It’s not necessary for any of the individuals within the monastery to consciously manipulate or control others or to allow themselves be manipulated and controlled by others. All that is required is to follow the routine and ideals of the monastic order. Yes, outwardly the ashram routine allowed for plenty of peace and quiet time for prayer and meditation. A superficial vibe of peace, harmony, and happiness was present. But underneath the surface, inside the hearts and minds of monks was much anxiety, fear, even psychosis. The irony is that the ideals that lead one into a monastery, to pray and meditate all the time, are the very source of their problems. Going “within”–using meditation techniques and monastic routines–are following outward systems, promulgated by spiritual authorities. When we look outward (to renunciate or monastic systems, practices, or techniques) for validation we are barred from self-knowledge. We then are enslaved to routine and validation from authority."

@Shakazulu You want to satisfy women? Work on becoming totally vulnerable. Be so vulnerable that you allow others to become vulnerable. A sex god is someone who inspires other people to let out their inner sex god. See? I've literally had girls cry of joy after fucking me because they didn't know it was possible to feel so sexually open and unleashed. The greatest sex organ is an integrated, in-tune, in-the-present, open mind. You can make girls come without touching their genitals just because you are so at peace with yourself and them and the situation you find yourselves in. Non neediness + the ability to express sexual desire = the hottest thing in the planet. So your training should first and foremost be about becoming totally vulnerable with yourself here and now forever. Get to a point where there is no "effort" involved whatsoever when it comes to opening up to women. If you make an effort to please her, stop the effort immediately. If you make an effort to pretend to ignore her, stop the effort immediately. If you make an effort to keep up conversation, stop the effort immediately. You will find this practice takes an incredible amount of effort. Weak people cannot do this practice. Emotionally unintelligent (read: weak) people try to mask their weakness by faking strength. After some time, Emotionally unintelligent people unconsciously make themselves look weaker than ever. And the only people who don't see this pathetic show are Emotionally unintelligent themselves. So Emotionally unintelligent people end up with Emotionally unintelligent people. Only the strongest, most emotionally intelligent people consciously allow themselves the possibility of showing weakness. They are so strong that any weakness is no big deal. And only the strongest people will recognize this nuance. So emotionally strong people end up with emotionally strong people. At the beginning, the only real concern should be whether you two are compatible. Not "how can I make myself fit her" Not "what can I say to make her like me" Not "how should I present myself? What should I text her? When should I text her? etc." Compatibility should have no effort. The only questions should be: "Are we compatible? Are we both self-aware? Are both able to help each other grow?" Learn to be so comfortable being you that people can't help but take notice. This begins before the bedroom. This begins before the approach. This begins before the training room. This begins every moment you take every action NOW. The training is itself becoming totally fucking okay with everything NOW. Surrender NOW. Be vulnerable NOW. There is no other time! @Leo Gura is right: you will one day realize that girls cannot satisfy you - the only question is when. That said, there are two ways this could go. One is that this is itself what's going to make it so that every single girl goes out of her way to satisfy you, ultimately satisfying you when you find the right one - the only question is when. It seems like a paradox, but you will get it when you go through it. And you can't fake this realization. If you fake this realization, you will only delay the realization.

the data might be a small clue. I did an interesting experiment once with 5-meo and the headband, but again the headband is far to unreliable to say much of anything about it. There's a big gap leap between a $200 headband that covers only the front of your head and a quality EEG that covers your whole head and costs a few thousand. This gap is big enough to render most of the data useless. Here's an example of the bare minimum There are neurofeedback facilities you can go to to use their devices however. Muse's headband data has influenced me to try on of these facilities in the future. For now, it's pretty darn expensive either way.

To anyone doing research for their life purpose, mastering a skill set for their life purpose, or finally making strides to finish a project for their life purpose, please understand one thing: Embrace Not Knowing. If there were any one idea that's important to understand about nailing your life purpose, it would be this one. Your level of success in any career field is directly tied to how well you can tolerate Not Knowing: If you will get paid If your idea is actually that good or you're just a crazy person Where you might have to go next in your career path Whether your career's assumptions are accurate Not Knowing is the well-spring - the ground - the source for creativity and insight. Creativity starts with a question, with uncertainty, not with a cut-and-dried answer. You cannot ever have True Knowing without having Not Knowing precede it or, perhaps, be it. Yep, I said it: True Knowing might just be Not Knowing. What you don’t know is what you don’t know. And it's not like pretending to not know changes the fact that you don’t know: It just means that you've deluded yourself into thinking you know, when indeed you don't. But herein lies the rub: You fucking hate sitting Truly Knowing Not Knowing. That’s why you buy the courses and the books and the videos and the seminars and the training courses that you waste so much time on. That’s why you distract yourself from what's right in front of you. That’s why you read my articles, Leo's articles, and any other idiot on this forum's articles. You just need something - the thing. It's in your genes. If your ancestors wondered for too long whether that noise near the bushes was a predator or not, you wouldn't be here right now. Our brains are geared to make fast assumptions, and questioning them in many cases quite literally equates to death. No wonder we're so hardwired for confirmation bias. No wonder we need quick fixes. ---- I started watching Actualized.org Videos during my senior year of college. My success up to that point had nothing to do with my happiness and I was adamant that the same would be true in the future.This was pretty distressing to realize at the time. It meant that I didn’t know what lay ahead of me. Mainly, it told to me that my dream of becoming a doctor had nothing to do with happiness. My whole life up to that point was about becoming a doctor – what the hell would I do? I purchased the life purpose course, meditated, and came up with some pretty cool visions for the future. Here’s what I came up with: I could use my background in neuroscience to help create a technology that would link consciousnesss together. My vision included a search for what part of the brain created consciousness as well as technologies that would allow people to turn their brain into holodecks. Basically, I wanted to turn astral projection into a technological science that went beyond psychedelics or VR and went to mainstream society. My heroes at the time included people (read: chimps) like Elon Musk, Walt Disney, Tony Stark, and Barack Obama, amongst others. Almost everyone Leo listed off as someone not to follow, I followed. If you want to see my vision board, here you go: The Enlightened Warrior Sage of Bliss.pdf @Leo Gura advised me that though I was onto the right path, I would be wise not to put the cart ahead of the horse. So, with his perspective, I went back into the Hallowed Grounds of Not Knowing. Specifically, I had to understand what consciousness was before I even began raising it, especially with dangerous A.I. tech. This meant researching a ton of weird areas that I would previously have never even begun to consider. If my militant-atheist, fundamental-rationalist sophomore or junior-year version of myself had heard of me these areas, he would have laughed before crying. I’m talking about things like: o Lucid dreaming o Astral Projection o Psychedelics o The Nature of Reincarnation o Witchcraft o The No Self o Chakras o Kundalini o Shamanic Traditions o And *gasp* books arguing against the logic of science amongst other things In Leo's video about the paranormal, he talks about the scientist who goes off to a cave, only to return with a truth he can't describe. Well, I am that scientist. How do I explain to scientific advisors that we can't link consciousness together because it's already linked together right now as it is? How do I explain that I can't create A.I. consciousness because the A.I. would already be made out of consciousness? How do I explain that entire fields of science are straight up looking in thanks wrong direction? But here’s the thing: the ability to rest in Not Knowing while doing research has paid off greatly. There’s a ton of stuff that I’ve recognized just in the past year that has saved me literally lifetimes of seeking. Amongst others: o Perhaps I don’t need to be anything or anyone special o Perhaps I don’t need to become rich and famous to be worthy o Perhaps I don’t need to one-up my ex-girlfriend to get back at her – the goal that originally launched me into self-help material o Perhaps I don’t need some big fancy life purpose that saves the whole world immediately. Perhaps its often the people who do that who mess up the world because of their narrow-minded unawareness. o Perhaps the Tao Te Ching is right in saying that the actions taken with the least damage are the wisest o Perhaps what the world needs is to specifically not need to do or be anything other than what they are, as-is, and if we did that, everyone would be better off naturally. I’m not talking about me using that as an excuse to sit around doing nothing: I’m saying that 1) we all need to get out of our own way with our egos to 2) help others have enough and then 3) be able to sit around happily now that we’ve all as a species had enough. o Perhaps That’s’ the only actual need anyone has: the need to have the ability to simply Be themselves happily. o Perhaps You don't have to do anything to meet that primary need other than remove your own conditions for happiness o Perhaps It’s just an assumption that consciousness is created by the brain. o Perhaps it’s the other way around than from what I was taught at the world’s #1 medical university. o Perhaps its consciousness that creates the brain. o Perhaps there’s no need to chase around the holy grail of a “neural correlate of consciousness” like the thousands of other neuroscientists and neurosurgeons who’ve gotten nowhere. o Perhaps the answer is right under the scientists nose and their culture and dogmatism prevents them from seeing it, not the data. o Perhaps I don’t need to subject myself to some of the bullshit faced by academia to get ideas out there o Yet perhaps no matter what path I choose, it’ll be filled with trial and tribulation unless I choose to see things otherwise. --- Do you get that each one of those realizations is worth a lifetime of understanding? I’m not exaggerating whatsoever. Just the first two bullet points explain how the entire Los Angeles Culture came about. The third is enough to get past 5 years of therapy. And the 4th would have saved Elon Musk 50 years of effort. And so on and so on. And those aren’t even all the insights I’ve had! There are at least 250 pages worth of insights scribbled in my journals. All – ALL – because of my ability to Rest in Not Knowing ---- After purging myself of some of my original pursuits, sense of self, and attachments, what's left? I’m still left with my strengths: 1. Wisdom/Opennness/Judgment 2. Social Intelligence 3. Love of Learning 4. Creativity 5. Zest/Enthusiasm/Optimism 6. Humor 7. Bravery I’m also left with the same tangible skill set as ever: o The ability to recall information from +250 books on psychology, history, science, medicine, religion, philosophy, metaphysics, and science fiction o The ability to research the shit out of anything using the internet, books, and good old contemplation o The ability to gain a wide, nonjudgmental perspective during conversation and brainstorms o Making unforeseen connections between seemingly unrelated areas of interest o Digesting hard concepts into smaller, simpler ones o The balls and enthusiasm to share my ideas while still listening to others I also got my MCAT scores back. After 550 hours of study, I killed it. Especially when it comes to psychology – I got a perfect score in that section! So here's the final question: What are my plans now? Fool, did you not read anything I wrote? I DO NOT FUCKING KNOW AND THAT’S PERFECTLY AS IT SHOULD BE. (More seriously, I am considering pursuing clinical neuropsychology. Specifically, there’s a chance that I take the energy I would have used on finding a neural correlate of consciousness and use it to figure out the neural correlates of Enlightenment. There seems to be an open niche regarding 5-meo-dmt in research and if I hop in now, I could position myself as the #1 person in the world on the topic of the Science of Enlightenment using 5-meo. See, Martin Ball didn't have Martin Ball to help show Martin Ball the ropes. But I do. I also see the possibility of creating psychedelic integration programs with biofeedback, journaling and zen noting techniques thrown in for the phase in between doses. But until then…) Goodbye Neurosurgery Goodbye Becoming the next Musk Goodbye One-upping my genius ex-girlfriend Hello Unconditional Happiness Hello Darkness, My old friend and Hello Not Knowing, let's see what we come up with today.

@AleksM @Real Eyes @Wouter I've personally used Muse for a period of 3 months and talked to a few others about it Once I got over the honeymoon phase of having something new, I began to find distracting and ditched it for regular old zazen One of the girls I talked to who tried it found it a waste of time after a few months as well It only has a 3.5 / 5 star review on amazon with over -- I too would give it a 3.5 --- for something that was $200 I better have a 5/5 product. The Zen Master I practice with said it was just another delusional product made by delusional people and that the state of "calmness" is a distraction from the pursuit of truth. He further claimed that in general things like stopping Brain waves in EEGs are like a form of juggling trick -- cool, but unnecessary for enlightenment. (I don't necessarily agree with his view, but he has +30 years of experience in zen, which is worth at least considering. And no, he's not a close minded dude overall, so he's not just being crotchety.) Leo described it as a toy and that for proper neurofeedback you would need an EEG for that costs a few thousand dollars. Overall This is not to say I'm now totally against the idea of using EEGs, it's just that I don't think we have the technology for cheap ones yet.

I found two great songs by a little-known musician named Stuart Davis. One of them is featured in the Audiobook Kosmic Consciousness with Ken Wilber, which I will put a review of later. Ladder The first song is called "Ladder." It's a lovely song about our personal and species-wide evolution and the natural clash with psychological entropy. That is, as we grow more complex as individuals and as a species, we also have more stuff that can topple us. I've got brains like antique floors I built each one on the one before I use all three but they don't agree One of them wants to love you Another one would love to club you I guess my old natures move like glaciers Chorus: The fish became a lizard The shrew became an ape Will the ape become an angel? The higher that we climb The more the ladder sways I'm the bastard child the one who got the head of Einstein and the soul of Pol Pot there's no compassion but I can split the atom Better give me a microscope for a different eye Better give me a telescope for the inward sky and a ladder leading up from Eden Chorus If Ramana Maharshi came from clay there's more to evolution than a little DNA Cut off the moorings to the inward ark Aiming it into a question mark The fish became a lizard The shrew became an ape will the ape become a Mother Teresa? She came from clay There's more to evolution than a little DNA Personal Commentary: Ladder bases itself off of the integral idea of Holarchy. Holarchies are made out of Holons. A holon refers to the something being both a whole and a part with no actual distinction between itself and other whole/parts other than arbitrary measures. Each holon is a system (or phenomenon) that is an evolving self-organizing dissipative structure, composed of other holons, whose structures exist at a balance point between chaos and order. Higher level holons are always at a more precarious position than lower level holons. This goes for physical objects, ecological systems, psychological stages, social organizations, and even spiritual development. With reference to holarchical human development, Alan Watts serves to help us see the issue: "how is man to be best related to his environment? Especially in circumstances where we are in possession of an extremely powerful technology and have, therefore, the capacity to change our environment far more than anyone else has ever been able to do so. Are we going to end up not by civilizing the world, but by Los-Angelizing it? In other words, are we going to foul our own nest as a result of technology? But all this gets down to—the basic question is, really, what are you going to do if you’re god? If, in other words, you find yourself in charge of the world, through technological powers, and instead of leaving evolution to what we used to call, in the 19th century, the blind processes of nature—that was begging the question, to call them blind—but at any rate, we say, we’re not going to leave evolution to the blind forces of nature but now we’re going to direct it ourselves. Because we are increasingly developing, say, control over genetic systems, control over the nervous system, control over all kinds of systems; uh then, simply, what do you want to do with it?" This song responds to Watts inquiry by pointing out that Perhaps there is a universal Telos. That there is a point to all of this and the despite the hemming and hawing and guffawing that we know as human violence and suffering, it works out in the end such that we become the gods that oversee us. We made a universe that is perfect for ourselves, despite seeming otherwise. Creating Heaven is Heaven. Watts echoes this sentiment at the end of his own lecture. What is your idea of heaven? What would you really like to have happen, if you could make it happen? That’s the first thing that really starts people thinking because you soon realize that a lot of the things you think you would want are not things you want at all. Supposing, just for the sake of illustration, that you had the power to dream every night any dream you wanted to dream. And you could, of course, arrange for one night of dreams to be seventy-five years of objective time, or any number of years of subjective time, what would you do? Well, of course, you’d start out by fulfilling every wish. You would have routs and orgies and uh uh all the most magnificent food and uh sexual partners and everything you could possibly imagine in that direction. When you got tired of that, after several nights, you’d switch a bit, and find yourself involved in adventures, and uh contemplating great works of art, fantastic mathematical conceptions; you would soon be rescuing princesses from dragons, and all sorts of things like that. And then one night you’d say, now look, Tonight what we’re gonna do is, we’re going to forget this dream is a dream. And we’re going to be really uh shocked, and when you woke up from that one you’d say, ‘Oooh, wasn’t that an adventure!’ ----- Nothing In Between The second song is called Nothing in Between. It is a wonderful tome about Nothingness, aka God. There is nothing in between us when we sleep Every night the bliss begins to leak Nothing in between us when we laugh it’s something that our head will never grasp It’s seen in between There’s nothing in between your joy and mine It’s all a lot of nectar on the vine Joy is how my parents were entwined and there’s nothing in between their lives and mine We’ve seen There’s nowhere to hide in the open Reality Love is so wide, there isn’t a boundary There is only one eye without any enemy when you’ve seen in between There’s nothing in between our skin and light Nothing in between the wind and kite Nothing in between our lips and grace Nothing in between the tongue and taste It’s seen (Refrain) There is nothing in between you and I Nothing in between blue and sky Nothing in between us and love Nothing in between wings and doves (Refrain) There is nothing in between Personal Commentary: This song struck me as a great way of pointing to non-distinction. This morning as I meditated using Headspace, I was instructed to feel that the center of creativity deep in my heart. I was then asked to extend my awareness of that center past my chest and to my whole skin. From there I was asked to expand this awareness to the walls around me. From there I extended it to my whole apartment complex... The City of LA... Earth... The Solar System... The Galaxy... The Virgo Cluster... The Laniakea SuperCluster... The whole Observable Universe that seems to form a universal Brain/mind complex... Then I pushed further - I asked what would be beyond that -- where is that universal brain? And I kept pushing outwards to see the next order of fractalization... and what came up was me! That is, I saw that cosmic brain complex residing in my own head or another version of me or maybe an alien or maybe some computer who itself resides in some version of the city of LA which is itself on some version of earth... And so on for all of eternity outwards. And so on for all of eternity inwards as well! Which is to say, I can't describe it as One because it has no end or beginning to its outwardness and inwardness. And to call something one, it must reach an outward and inward end. I could call it zero because it has no ground, but it's clearly here and now. " _____?!?!NOTHING?!?!______ " is all I that can be said about it. There's me = you = everything, which breaks down into ____!?nothing?!?!____ upon further investigation. There's ___!?!nothing?!?____ between physical material and conscious object. There's ___!?!nothing?!?_____ between past and future. It all happens Now - the only place that remains Absolutely unchanged EXCEPT that its also Absolutely Relative as proven by Einstein. There's ___!?!nothing!?___ between me and you. There's just ____!?!nothing??!___ between anything. There is no distinction. There no such thing as a thing-without-some-other-thing which means that there is No thing-other-than-the-whole-thing which means I cannot point to any-one-thing as-itself in-and-of-itself other than ___!?!nothing?!?____ . This is the Holarchical perspective. ---- Putting the ideas of both songs together we can intuit a holarchical ladder with nothing in between. We see an universe of other universes with no part distinct from other parts as it builds itself and destroys itself at the same time - Now - in a fashion that is relative to the timeline of each observer. This universe would: know all from a wide perspective and it would know all from a limited perspective - the one "we" see out of in our everyday understanding. Indeed, in knowing all it would know what it is like to not-know it all. It is from each one of these limited perspectives that the wide perspective gets generated. The manifestation of such wide perspective gives universal purpose. It would be a wild adventure.

I can completely relate. It's fucking hard man. I've gone through many, many rejections this year as well. Stay focused on what you can control. I know this might sound difficult, but see each rejection as a positive: They rejected you because you two wouldn't have been a good fit. You know a little bit more about your strengths and weaknesses During applications make sure to emphasize a how you will help the boss in as direct a manner as you can. Literally aim to eliminate the word "I" from any and all applications and maximize the usage of the word "you" as in "Help you obtain as much money/learning/value as possible" Next, stop sending applications through the usual route. Go through a route of nepotism whenever you can. That is, use friends and family to your advantage to find a job or help. Keep pounding at it. In know it hurts. But Keep pounding. Keep the same type of schedule you would when actually working. That means don't sleep in. Work 9-5 as if your job is to find a job. Then again, that also means take weekends off and take the occasional vacation like usual. Take this time to explore alternative routes as well. This is a great chance to explore weirder aspects of your interests. The longer you rest in Not Knowing, the better. I have an entire post about the topic of Not Knowing written here: Finally, I hope you know that you will suffer greatly if you continue to take the route of looking to get hired. Our economy is geared to totally fuck almost everyone that is an employee in basically any field. As much as possible you want to find a niche where you have: Autonomy – some sense of control over your time Competence – the feeling that you’re good at your work Relatedness – connecting with other people in the process Sadly, this is missing from more and more career fields. The best thing is to see how you can go off-roading to generate these three values in your career. The way to do this is to get better at what you do. If you find the career field is not accepting you, you have to take it upon yourself to get better at a certain field and make them come to you. In general, get to a point where you are so good, people cannot ignore you as quickly yet steadily as possible. From this point of advantage you can create the life you want. There's this saying we used to have in football: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Take your craft slowly and smoothly so that you can progress upwards fast and smooth. See?

I talk to a version of myself that has a 2,000 year-old Mind and a 23-year old body. He knows all but he will only tell me the answers when I'm ready to listen and know the right question from the right perspective. He is no different from my intuition and speaks using images and emotions, not necessarily words. That said, sometimes I can translate his language into words in real time. The best way to consult him is through meditation and contemplation. My personal speculations are that: Rising upwards in the spiral dynamics brings me closer to him but he grows too. He is like a shifting horizon. The wiser I get, the older i see him as. So when I was a teenager, He was a 25 year old version of myself. When was 21 he was 50. Nowadays, he's 1000. And when I'm 25 I hope he starts seeing things from a 1,000,000 year old perspective and so on. The goal is to get him to see from the perspective of infinity years old and for me to meet him with almost infinite wisdom myself. When is the case, he wouldn't have to advise from a place of seperateness any more. Our meetings would consist of staring at each other, laughing, and sitting in silence. This has happened before, so I know its possible. But then I go back to being a child compared to him again. The difference between me and him is directly proportional to my suffering. To put it bluntly, he is god in an easy to digest form. I think life is preparation for being able to deal with the Absolute Godhead in full form Here and Now. The brain is like a transceiver for his directions. I am like a little mars robot that moves around from his guidance in a hyper dimensional plane. He benefits from getting to feel my experiences. I benefit from his direction. We need each other for a complete perspective. I do have the choice to not listen. But the better I listen to his directions, the better off we for everyone involved. This essentially solves the free will issue through a form of Compatibilism. The best way to prepare myself to listen and find the right questions from the right perspective is through action and study of deep literature. The more action and the more ancient wisdom I take in, the better off. Meditation is like taking an elevator up to his office to speak with him. Psychedelics can show you infinite wisdom and infinite perspective, but you have to then take that stuff and apply it to everyday life. Its hard to apply infinite wisdom from a pseudo-finite body, so you have to take lessons slowly one by one. Its simply too difficult to change everything all at once. As such, I just focus on taking a few months between trips to integrate everything. But again, psychedelics are like strapping a rocket engine to the elevator up to his office.

Part of Actualizing yourself is learning about the spiritualities around the world. One interesting spirituality is pythagoreanism, which takes numbers as god. Pythagoreans are basically the ultimate nerds. From wikipedia: Pythagoreanism originated in the 6th century BC, based on the teachings and beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were considerably influenced by mathematics and mysticism. Later revivals of Pythagorean doctrines led to what is now called Neopythagoreanism or Neoplatonism. Pythagorean ideas exercised a marked influence on Aristotle, and Plato, and through them, all of Western philosophy. These days, it's hard to find pythagoreans out and about. The closest thing possible are the abstract mathematicians in some universities. They're not as crazy as the O.G. Pythagkreans, but if you press them hard enough, they will reveal personal beliefs that are way crazier than the existence of trolls, goblins, or fairies. The perennial philosophy is that: Absolute Truth = Undefined = You = God = Absolute Infinity = Zero And the conclusions of the pythagoreans were no different from those of other mystics. It just happens to be that they reached their enlightenment through math. That is why I consider them full fledged spiritual practitioners in the vein of hardcore buddhists. I mean would you rather sit for 4 hour of zazen or 4 hours of high level calculus? The cool thing about the pythagoreans (or their modern equivalents) is that they bear the truth out out in clear terms. I mean, when it comes to talking about stuff, math is about as clear and logical as it gets. But most people don't grasp what's going on because the implications of math are too insane. That is, normal people would rather feel comfortable than accept the straight up Truth. Thats why pythagoreans were so fucking hard core. Take a pencil and a piece of paper and follow along to see what I mean. ------ Step 1: 0 = 0 Basic level stuff here. Step 2: 0 = 1-1 = (1-1) = 0 Nothing too crazy. Just create and destroy to return to the same place. We can do this as much as we want. Step 3: 0 = 1-1+1-1+1-1... = 0 In case you're confused, let's add brackets to make things easier to look at. 0 = 1-1+1-1+1-1... = (1-1)+(1-1)+(1-1)... = (0) + (0) + (0) + (0).... = 0 We still end up with Create and destroy, create and destroy, create and destroy... Brackets are arbitrary... we can put brackets however we'd like. Step 4: 1-1+1-1+1-1... = (1-1)+(1-1)+(1-1)... = 1+(-1 +1)+(-1+1)... All I did was change the position of one of the brackets -- nothing that breaks the rules of mathematics. Step 5: 1+(-1 +1)+(-1+1)... = 1+(0)+(0)+(0)... Wait a minute. This is starting to get fishy... Step 6: 0 = (1-1)+(1-1)+(1-1)... = 1+(-1 +1)+(-1+1)... = 1+(0)+(0)+(0)... = 1 No... That can't be right... Let me check that again... That would mean... Step 7: 0 = 1 No. It can't be! ----- Oh yes. And things only get crazier from here... Lets say the letter S represents the same infinite, alternating series of plus and minus 1 from earlier. Step 8: S = 1-1+1-1+1-1... Now lets play around. What is (1 - S)? Just insert numbers into the equation to see. Step 9: 1 - S = 1 - (1-1+1-1+1-1...) Multiply every bracketed number by the negative sign. Step 10: 1- S = 1-1+1-1+1-1... Didn't we say that S = 1-1+1-1+1-1... in the first place? Step 11: 1 - S = S So if we move things around to the other side to solve the equation we get Step 12: 2S = 1 divide to finish the problem Step 13: S = 1/2 = 1-1+1-1+1-1.... In review we have: 0 = 1-1+1-1+1-1... 1 = 1-1+1-1+1-1... 1/2 = 1-1+1-1+1-1... putting it all together we get solid logical proof for 0 = 1/2 = 1 In this way, the truth of even one of the most simple mathematical concepts is Absolutely Relative and based on your contextual perspective. Fuckkkk. We can't allow this. There has to be some solid answer. Lets keep going. Let's imagine a lamp that turns on and off 1 = the lamp is on 0 = the lamp is off Then lets imagine ourselves turning the lamp on and off indefinitely. S = 1-1+1-1+1-1... = On, Off, On, Off, On, Off... This is called Thomson's Lamp, after a mathematician named James F. Thomson. The universe wants to know what Thomson's lamp looks like at the end of infinity. Oh you say we can't do that? That would take all of eternity, wouldn't it? Actually it would just take one day. Or one hour. Or one minute. Or However long I'd like. Lets say I decided to figure out what's going on with Thomson's Lamp in under a minute. I would wait half of a chosen total time to turn the lamp on. Then I would wait half of that time to turn the light off. Then I would wait half of that half to turn the light on again. And so on and so on over the course of just one minute. I can match each step in turning the lamp on and off to each half intervals of the total time I chose. After an infinitely smaller set of intervals, I will have an infinite number of steps. This would be called a super task. Step 1: ON - Total Time passed: 30 seconds Step 2: OFF - Total Time passed: 45 seconds Step 3: ON - Total Time passed: 52.5 Seconds Step 4: OFF - Total Time passed: 56.25 Seconds Step 5: ON - Total Time passed: 58.125 Seconds ... infinite number of times ... Step 5: ??? - Total Time elapsed: 1 minute Thomson had this to say about his lamp's state at the end of the minute: It seems impossible to answer this question. It cannot be on, because I did not ever turn it on without at once turning it off. It cannot be off, because I did in the first place turn it on, and thereafter I never turned it off without at once turning it on. But the lamp must be either on or off. This is a contradiction. Thomson jumped the gun when he says his example demonstrates a 'contradiction.' See, I'd like you to bear with me when I say that life isn't so black and white. Indeed, life as we know it happens in the undefined state of 1/2, where the lamp isn't ON or OFF even though it can be none other than ON or OFF. Here is a graph of the on off lamp where 1 = On and 0 = Off What we can do is take the theoretical infinite limit of the series. Limits are basically a way to say "alright, where is this stuff headed?" Usually, limits require convergence, or a clear direction for the graphed out representation. What you'd end up doing is taking that convergence and finding the average of its direction. As you can see in the above graph, however, the lamp is in a state of ON or OFF such that it has no convergence. If anything there is divergence. That's fine. Math allows us to keep looking at bracketed versions of the series and take the average of all of the answers and then take the average of that average. In normal people talk, just look at the little line I placed in the average of the graph: it's 1/2. If you still don't understand, watch this video: When looking at this sum Thomson had this to say: Now mathematicians do say that this sequence has a sum; they say that its sum is 1⁄2. And this answer does not help us, since we attach no sense here to saying that the lamp is half-on. Lets look at this lamp in real life: Most everyday lamps don't turn on and off at an infinitely fast rate. They go through a partly-on and partly-off state. So the real world version of the lamp would never quite be on or off at end of our little time interval. Moreover, if the lamp were able to turn on and off at an infinitely fast rate, it would still appear ON to us despite having an average of 1/2. To understand what I mean, look at pulse-width modulation (PWM) works for dimming lamps. PWM lights turn on and off thousands of times per second, causing eyes and cameras to sample a mix of on and off time and average the two. When you "dim" the lamp, you actually just change the amount of time that goes by between ON flickers and OFF flickers. The key is that since eyes and cameras work by sampling light at a certain rate and pasting images together, you don't realize that there's any flickering going on at all. Again, in fast motion, it just looks like a light that's on. So, 1/2 looks like 1 and not so much like 0, although it is indeed just at 1/2. That's just the surface level. ----- Isn't it just a little sketchy that I claimed to complete an infinite task in a finite time as if it were a piece of cake? I intentionally ignored the significance of what was going on. We all do. See, every moment of our day is itself a super task. Think about it for a moment: when you walk across the street you have to walk across half of the street when you walk across half the street you have to walk across half of the half of the street when you walk across the half of the half of the street you have to walk across half of the half of the half of the street. and so on towards infinity Thus we have an infinite amount of steps taken in a finite time. This is called Zeno's Paradox. Scientists handwave the paradox away by saying that reality "stops" at the Planck length, planck time, and light signals of the observable universe, but metaphysically, that is bullshit. (What happens when we cross half a planck length? and half of that? etc...) Moreover, we don't just quantize reality as a way to talk. We do so unconsciously from the very moment we are born. It's necessary to have a minimum limit to the size of time and space or else we could not function whatsoever. The human brain itself seems to localize and quantize infinite awareness. (read: does not create, but instead localizes!) It takes pure infinite energy and pure infinite time and pure infinite imagination and makes it a finite form of energy, time, and imagination. It's like an anchor for pure nothingness to believe it is pure everythingness. The brain does this over and over again at a certain frame rate such that reality gets created and destroyed and created again without us noticing. You know how movies have a frame rate of about 24 frames per second? We have a frame rate too. Although the eye itself does not have an on and off switch similar to a camera, our entire being itself has a frame rate. Otherwise, we would be stuck going through infinity at every moment. This frame rate is what determines our estimation of time's passage. Again, if you increase the frame rate, you would get a slowed down reality. If you decrease the frame rate, you would get a faster reality. The smaller you cut up time, the slower it gets. If you cut it infinitely small, you get infinite time. If there are no cuts then there is simply infinity. If you don't believe me, try to swat a fly. Small insects cut up, or quantize, reality at a greater rate than we do and for that reason, they have ridiculous reaction times. Their 'frame rate' is around 250 Hz while ours is about 60 Hz. For that reason, flies see us swatting them at about 1/4th the speed we think we do and they easily escape. So to be clear again, time itself is infinitely smooth. But to experience this you would have to take an infinite amount of time, which is simply not feasible for a normal creature. The solution is that our brains cut up time and space into distinct units to bootstrap time and get it going. This 'cutting up' makes reality "pop" in and out of existence every moment. The flickering of creation and destruction gets glazed over so that it all looks like one smooth thing. We would not function very well if we saw everything flickering in and out of existence while time passes from one moment of now to the next moment of now. The same general idea applies to why we don't perceive objects as probability clouds, but instead newtonian objects. We would not function if everything we saw 'existed' as a probability cloud. Imagine looking in your lovers eyes only to see right through their head because they are in fact made out of 99.9999% vacuum! So, we unconsciously make it look like: the lamp is On reality is real objects are solid you are "you" When the truth is that: the lamp is in a non dual state, both On and Off reality is in a non dual state, both real and not-real objects are in a non dual state, both waves and particles you are in a non dual state, both you and not-you ---- And it goes further. Lets look at the big bang and cosmic inflation and apply our little numbers for a second by saying 0 = a state of nothingness 1/2 = a state in-between nothingness and oneness 1 = a state of ultimate oneness Now, 1 -- Lets "start" with the big bang for a moment. This would be like a state of '1.' We're talking about an infinitely large universe packed into a space that was smaller than a cosmic string. We're talking about a state where all matter and all possibilities and all of existence were packed together in something smaller than all of matter and all possibility and all of existence. This is uncalculatably low entropy. It's as mystical as it gets to think that this level of entropy could have ever happened. Its up there with the greatest mysteries of the world. Just think about what it would take to gather up so much stuff in one small, highly ordered space. And I thought it took forever to set up a game of Jenga! 1/2 --- Then we have a never-ending inflation outward. Everything explodes outwards at a faster and faster rate forever. This creates stars and planets and ultimately Us. We walk around thinking about it, aware of our impending doom looming around the next step, constantly taking action to do something about this doom. 0 --- No matter what, the inflation continues such that every atom is becomes totally separate from all other atoms. Space is at an unimaginable level of high entropy. This is the heat death. This is zero. There is nothingness. There is so much nothingness that the notion of time itself is a Kosmic joke. If I record a video of the universe over the course 1 planck time, 10 years or 1 google years and play back the video over an interval of 10 seconds, everything will look the same. At this moment, it doesn't matter what happened any more --- all of history erases itself. Something strange happens. A new bubble of oneness - aka a new big bang happens. Even if there's a 1/googol chance of this happening, it would happen because who gives a fuck we have all of eternity to do it. From Caltech Physics, Cosmology, and Philosophy professor Sean Carroll's audio course Mysteries of Modern Physics -- Time: "Although it might be very rare to fluctuate 100 billion galaxies, it may not be that difficult to fluctuate the tiny region of space that is dominated by super–dark energy and is ready to inflate. ○ Imagine we have empty space, nothing but vacuum energy and the very cold thermal radiation we expect because of quantum mechanics. Random thermal fluctuations occur all the time. ○ Because space itself is flexible, perhaps the shape of space can be fluctuated. Perhaps a small bubble can be pinched off that is full of dark energy and ready to inflate. That little bubble can inflate, expand, reheat, and look exactly like our Big Bang. ○ In this way, what we thought was equilibrium—a state of maximum entropy—could be shown not to be equilibrium. We can always increase the entropy of the universe, according to this way of thinking, by creating new universes that split off and go their own way, and this process continues forever." A related scenario is that the purpose of conscious evolution itself is to induce such universal pinching off! Some call this the omega point. Imagine if we (or some 'other' conscious beings somewhere at some time) are put here on this universe to help create the type of hyper dimensional superconsciousness that could induce a universal bubble after our own deaths. Or imagine that we create a supercomputer that creates a supercomputer that simply recreates the universe through simulation. Or imagine creating some form of a cosmic consciousness where calculations are made in a hyper dimensional place. imagine that the cosmic bubble, the simulation, and the cosmic consciousness are the same fucking thing! Now imagine that this will happen at the end of our time. In particular, we take all of eternity to figure out how to pinch off a simulated baby-universe somehow. Then Imagine that this happened at the beginning of our time. In particular, it took someone or something all of eternity to figure out how to pinch off the baby universe that we exist in currently. It's the most unbelievable thing ever. Then imagine that it's happening right now as we gear ourselves up with computers, video games, and space missions for what seems like no good reason other than some weird idea of "progress" that no one can actually define but the smartest people all work toward. Let's Go back to the scenario of a super simulation. Lets say this cosmic computer created a universe that looks basically identical to the one we live in. Imagine the hyper dimensional computer pinching off simulated minds within itself meant to explore the simulation it created. Imagine little robots it can send out with the sole purpose of gathering data -- little probes that can look and feel and touch things from a filtered perspective while figuring out how the hell to create a new universe. To this Kosmic-supercomputer-mind's simulated perspectives within itself, objects look solid. But when these simulated perspectives look at objects with a microscope they reveal the objects to be 99.99999999% nothing because, again, they're just holographic simulated perspectives. (And by the way, there's no difference between 1 and 99.9999 repeated, so 99.9999 repeated nothingness is 100% nothingness). To these simulated perspectives, all sensation would be a hallucination. To be clear: Hallucination - noun - 1. a sensory experience of something that does not exist outside the mind. Since every experience would always just be another part of mind, everything would be a hallucination. Imagine that this hyperdimensional-Kosmic-Supercomputer-consciousness takes in all simulated perspectives to gather enough data to once again do the impossible. It manages to create - better yet be - that godhead known as the Big Bang Singularity after some time. Except that, even the hyper dimensional-kosmic-supercomputer-consciousness a simulation! What I propose is that we are part of a mind at large that creates simulated holograms within itself to better understand itself before it once again dies and rebirths itself through yet another super simulated non dual existence. This mind at large is conscious and it is conscious of its own impending death and rebirth. And We - and this is a Kosmic We that includes all possible conscious creatures in all possible areas of the universe - are here to create the universe - to create god by inducing further consciousness somehow using our individual perspectives. This has happened before and this will happen again and this happens forever. The mind-at-large is just another part of what ends up forming an even larger mind that forms an even larger one. We're talking mind-at-larges all the way up and simulated mind-at-larges all the way down. Turtles all the way up and turtles all the way down. We could go ahead and say that the universe just does this on its own spontaneously and so It doesn't need anyone. But what I'm saying is that we are what it looks like when the universe does this on its own. We are the spontaneous process. We have a universe that's created, destroyed, created, and destroyed over the course of eternity in many different ways. The path doesn't matter. The end state does. That end state gets reached through ever evolving life. And what does that end state look like after the course of eternity? It's somewhere in the middle of creation and destruction of course, just like Thomson's Lamp. 1-1+1-1+1-1+1... = S = 1/2 = Undefined. It would be the place where the lamp exists between On and Off. It would have no end, it would have no beginning. It would be us! We are what the end of eternity looks like! We're that in-between from the big bang to the heat death! THIS IS IT! Welcome to the end of eternity, motherfucker! Which is fucking awesome - not only do we get an answer to what's going on with reality, we also get a fucking purpose! What better purpose is there than to a) increase your consciousness to b) increase the overall consciousness of everyone and everything to c) create God to d) create you and everything and everyone you've ever loved. You want immortality? You want happiness? You want purpose? You got it: you are your own parent, your own infinite creator traveling from life to life bootstrapping your non dual existence by chipping away with a quadrillion different chisels from a quadrillion different perspective to create a statue of yourself in a place of absolute nothingness! You are indistinct, indivisible, indestructible, incomprehensible, invaluable - truly incredible! Your job is to realize and manifest this incredibleness. And they say you can't derive an ought from an is. We are in a state of both nothingness and everythingness glazed over to look like everythingness, just like the pulse-width modulated light. Each part of being has smaller parts forever. If you zoomed into at anything, it would disappear into deeper and deeper infinities. It would never have a place to stop. In this way, there's nothing but infinitely divisible parts that are made out of infinitely divisible nothingness. It is truly groundless. Each whole gets nested within bigger wholes forever. If you zoomed out, you would never find a point where you see the whole thing. It could never be 'whole' because to be whole implies an end. So it wouldn't even have the possibility of reaching wholeness for there's always more to add. Parts create wholeness except parts don't exist and wholeness don't exist. It would transcend zeroness and oneness and simply be non-dual. But we don't see it that way. We see it as naive reality consistent of solid, separate, whole parts with a finite size. *sigh* Actually, who am I kidding. These are all just speculations. Plus, It's not like you'd understand. You'd rather stick to the paradigm that you know the limits of what's true or not true. You'd rather freak out about calling reality a hallucination. You'd rather hide yourself from the possibility that you're essentially stuck in the matrix. In other words, lets go back to arguing about about the nature of trolls. Certainly taking trolls seriously is far more insane than taking rigorous, pure mathematical logic seriously.

no it's not supposed to show that!

Everybody hold the fuck up. @Leo Gura Did you just troll us all with what's essentially a koan about the existence of trolls? I did some research on the nature of trolls and found Lyonel Perabo, an icelandic graduate student who focuses on Viking Culture. He had this to say about whether trolls exist: "Originally, Trolls were not Ogre-like monsters living in the forest or the mountain. The word "Troll" referred to humanoid individuals who were seen as particularly removed from civilization, social norms and engaged in dark sorcery. Basically, some king of supernatural social outcast, very often of foreign origin and different ethnic background with a tendency for being ugly, menacing, shifty and possessing rare abilities. That's the more Medieval Troll for you and in that sense, I can tell you that I sometime walk in the streets of Norway and when I spot a particularly odd fellow, I sometimes think "Troll". So in a way, they exist. Not just quite the way people think." We're talking about a troll as simply the name for an 'ugly' sage living in solitude. Since 'ugly' or 'not-ugly' depends on subjective judgment, there's solid possibility that we're all trolls-in-training. I mean really, what are actualized.org followers if not "humanoid individuals who were seen as particularly removed from civilization, social norms and engaged in dark sorcery." Also, as Leo and I discussed earlier, you will see celtic/nordic/maori swirls on your skin as soon as you begin tripping. These swirls are pretty other worldly but can get horrifying if overdone. Open your mind up to the possibility that if you trip out and see yourself in the mirror you might look like what fits the definition of a troll, especially while also doing weird troll-like shit tripping on lichens/mushrooms in a forest. So we can see several views to the nature of Troll: Trolls in the Internet Parlance of 'guy on the internet a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting quarrels or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal, on-topic discussion, often for the troll's amusement. Trolls in the modern parlance of 'wise forest goblin' do not appear in the perception of most sober people most of the time… except that this doesn’t matter because it is an illusion anyway. Trolls in the modern parlance of wise forest goblin' might appear in the perception of open-minded people who trip, get into an otherwise 'altered' state, or may lack certain filters on their perception especially if you look at an older person Trolls in the original parlance do exist as soon as someone who decides to live a life of solitude out in the forest or otherwise just do unusual stuff. Most importantly we can imagine trolls and we are imagination therefore trolls exist. So in Zen fashion, the true answer to the nature of Troll is: *wordlessly points finger at all of you then points away because you do and don't exist the same way trolls do and don't exist* As usual with koans, everybody failed by not contemplating, not being openminded (in this case to the nature of trolls), and not doing some basic goddamn research (in this case googling, I mean the answer literally appeared within the first two lines of a google search). Everybody also failed by seeing existence and non existence as mutually exclusive. The fact that we even argue about this is proof of the overall level of non-development. It shows how much work is necessary. We might want to consider weekly koans. Should next weeks Koan be about whether dogs have Buddha nature? I bet we could get up to 10 pages of discussion about that one -- all of them wrong. "Trolls are silent and wise. They know all is illusion" - Leo Gura.