InfinitePotential

I have read just a little bit of it, and it looked to me like there were plenty of practices to be done on shadow work. Like journaling about what you like and dislike about others, and how you yourself may have these qualities. If you're not liking it, check out EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique).... It's not purely for shadow work, but it's an amazing tool to optimize your emotional health. It deals with acknowledging negative emotions, pains, issues, etc, as well as parts of your self you may tend to suppress or resist (your shadow side), bringing them to mind, and releasing the unhealthy aspects of them. A great analogy for EFT is that we are all blocks of marble, with beauty and excellence hidden underneath (like Michaelangelo's David), and all we must do is chisel away at the parts of ourselves that we've picked up through bad programming and past experiences, and that don't serve us. And upon doing that our true, authentic, most healthy and empowered selves are revealed. Here's a great intro to EFT that's specifically Shadow Work (this guy has a ton of videos on all kinds of things you might be dealing with)... just follow along and tap where he taps and repeat what he says (and feel the words): Now just doing that above 8 minute exercise isn't going to fully integrate your shadow side. But doing it does bring some immediate relief from negative emotions, and perhaps more importantly can bring to your attention deeper issues and root causes of any negative feelings and emotions, so that you can work on those too. Also sounds like Leo is gonna release a shadow episode sometime relatively soon so I'll be very excited to check that one out.

For those interested in leaving their bodies (naturally and drug free even!) and experiencing all of the benefits of doing so. This video makes it sound very easy to leave your body. It largely seems to be about timing and intention. A few principles / instructions stated in the video: Don’t interpret your experience in one way or another. I.e. don’t call it an astral projection, dream, lucid dream, hallucination, reality, visiting spiritual realms, experience in your brain, etc. Just experience it. Go to sleep with intention to leave your body that night, and to appear in front of your mirror, then eat something, then do your personal goal. Your goal could be to access some information, or to travel somewhere, or to speak to a dead relative, or to have fun, etc etc. Anything. Set an alarm for about 5-6 hours later, and 2-3 hours before you would normally get up. Wake up, get out of bed, and do something for anywhere from 5-60 minutes (could be an excellent time for some meditation or yoga). When going back to bed, tell yourself with intention “I’m going to wake up and try to leave my body”. You should wake up within about 60-90 minutes more or less (you always do but aren’t aware of this). Keep your body perfectly still (helpful but not necessary... i.e. don’t give up just cause you moved), and try a number of techniques for a minute or two. Most of the techniques are basically “moving your body, without moving your body”. You can levitate, if that doesn’t work “stand up without moving a muscle”, if that doesn’t work “roll over without moving a muscle” etc. Appear in front of the mirror closest to where you’re sleeping. Eat something. Fulfill your personal goal. I’m in no way experienced in this. I’ve only tried this half heartedly for only a few nights but can tell it has some serious potential. Each night I am getting closer and closer to leaving my body. Last night, despite not being under the best circumstances at all, I felt the most unbelievable sensation of... basically the outline of my body beginning to lean up and leave my body (as well as a loud high pitched ringing in my head). It felt literally like I was leaving my body, leaning up and just about to separate entirely. Almost as if there was a body inside my body, and the first body was leaving the second. But the first was ghost like. I stopped myself short of leaving entirely (as I have a few times), probably out of fear and from freaking out. It’s definitely a bit scary, but lots of things are when you first start. Can’t wait to keep trying. Anyways hope it helps some people. Would also love to hear about anyone’s experiences with OBEs and astral projection!

Okay I’m gonna settle this age-old debate once and for all....: I don’t have free will..... but I DO have Free Willy On VHS specifically. But just my two cents, who we think we are doesn’t have free will. What we really are does have free will. Like in a dream, you’re just helplessly going from one happening to the next, completely unaware that you’re dreaming. But when you realize you’re dreaming, some control is gained. Not by the dream character, but by the mind outside the dream. Of course, nondualism, so also the opposite of everything I just said.

If it sounds like something you’d be interested in, try eating extremely low carb and high fat (a ketogenic diet). It kills your appetite (not in a bad way) because your body gets really really efficient at burning its own stored fat (as opposed to depending on regular incoming glycogen). You can go hours and hours without eating, skip meals and feel fine. Makes you lose fat nearly effortlessly, the only effort being that you have to not eat some of the foods you might want to (keepIng them out of the house helps). But after two or so weeks, you might begin to prefer the euphoric feeling it provides over the quick high of sweets.

Have thought of this and it’s a no brained for me. I’d immediately plan and go on a vacation / meditation retreat and take it from there. Then probably continue working on producing music. Then ask the genie for infinite wishes.

This resonates with me af. I've had a sudden feeling of everything disappearing (quite a few times), as well as having "always being where I was the whole time". Like eternally so. Space was seen through, and I had the sensation of having always been where I was. My life and what was going on at that time was just one of an infinite number of other moments I had already experience "previously", all occurring here (and "now"). And I've had a feeling of completely losing myself, dissolving into my experience (which was actually very blissful and not so bad... more just like "wow!!!!!"), and then have had a sort of... well from my memory what I would call a brilliant white light taking over my entire visual field and field of awareness, which at the time I resisted. Anyways, yes this stuff can be scary af... like horrifying, existential terror. But I think with more and more exposure, you get more comfortable (as with all scary things). May as well practice accepting it now and die before you die. And have faith that letting go entirely will be for the best. Enlightened masters seem to be doing pretty alright. Also it might help to exude positive emotions before during and after meditating. I especially like to start meditations with feeling love from my heart center. Spend some time feeling love as deeply as you can, for yourself, others, and all of existence, exactly as it is (even your resistance to going deeper... love and accept that too). And when you start getting sucked down the nondual black hole, try to feel that love... that's my strategy going forward! Good luck.

Completely agree with a lot of these replies, including the resistance stuff and the “observer + object” stage. Another strategy, perhaps after some time focusing on breath, dispassionately labeling sensations and becoming grounded, is to become completely disinterested in all experience. You are clearly realizing the limitations of it — it’s all just content. It’s like, the next thought you have isn’t going to figure everything out for you, the next experience you have isn’t going to satisfy and fulfill you. Take a break from being caught up in your experience, your life story and circumstances, and completely relax your focus and attention and don’t place it on anything in particular. There’s a time for analytical thinking and planning, and for focus and effort but now is not the time. Just sit there and be. And once you notice you’re caught up in an aspect of your experience, clenching and contracting your awareness on it, relax your attention (kind of like a muscle), gently ignore it and have an attitude of thanks but no thanks, right now I am not interested in anything at all. I have no wants or desires, there’s nothing to do but just sit here and effortlessly be.

Agreed, and even muscle testing “authorities” like Hawkins and Ramaji disagreed on some LOCs, iirc. It would be sick though to have a go to, foolproof method for making decisions, knowing what’s true and false, etc. But maybe that would take a lot of the fun out of things.

Perhaps try concentrating on different objects. Have you been closing your eyes during this concentration work? I’ve had meditations that felt super unfocused, but when I opened my eyes I became much more present. Maybe focusing on an object in your visual field and appreciating the raw existence of it? You can at times experience an immediate shift in awareness when you do this. Or the entire visual field itself. Also binaural beats and isochronic tones are great.

Seems reasonable. I mean, you’d have to muscle test whether or not muscle testing is valid. And then you’d have to muscle test whether or not muscle testing whether or not muscle testing is valid is valid, ad infinitum. Also there’s the potential for other causes of your muscles going weak... for example fatigued muscles from muscle testing. Perhaps it’s a skill that can be cultivated somewhat, but that some people are naturally better at than others. Like how some are more intuitive, psychic, etc. I tried it out for a while but would too often get different results on the same question. And I can confirm that it does not work for determining the outcome of a coin flip (although if I had a larger sample size I suspect I might find that the effect was very small but very statistically significant).

These LOCs seem low. Of course, the concept of LOC is a bit far fetched. We couldn’t say “Eckhart Tolle is LOC level X”, as if Eckhart Tolle is some permanent entity with objective qualities. I think talking about LOC levels of books and teachings is more relevant tbh. That aside, I’d be very interested in hearing Leo’s take on using muscle testing for any and all practical purposes. Perhaps on an episode.

Check out EFT (emotional freedom technique) Tapping. Someone posted about it recently on the forum and I’ve been trying it and absolutely loving it. It’s bringing up issues I didn’t even realize were weighing me down. Amazing, much needed therapy. That video is specifically about your shadow side, but more generally, you tap on an issue, could be a problem, negative emotion, physical pain, etc, and that brings up underlying causes of that issue that you’re suppressing and ignoring that can be worked on. With full honesty and openness you allow aspects of yourself to be unveiled and fully love, accept, appreciate, forgive them, etc. And if necessary, you let them go, or else have them manifest in a more healthy way.

Check out perfecthealthdiet.com, whole30.com, marksdailyApple.com. Basically, for most people in this current time-space.... a “paleo” diet is the optimal choice. It’s tough to argue with the logic.... humans are animals and inherented their genes from ancestors, who evolved to thrive in a particular environment (that of a hunter gatherer), eating wild plants and animals (and not ding dongs and cheez puffs). Focus on high quality, Whole Foods. Get some ultra nutrient rich foods like organ meats, egg yolk, bone broth, shellfish, seaweed, “superfood” fruits and vegetables, etc. Focus on meals over snacks for the most part. If particularly unhealthy or overweight, consider trying a ketogenic diet (sticking to paleo foods). Consider throwing in some fasting. Do all of the other healthy things (stay active, manage stress, experience positive emotions, high quality sleep, learn to breathe optimally, etc).

@Nahm @NoSelfSelf I mean that what we think we want and what would actually most benefit us can be two radically different things. I could easily say, write a book about how to get rich quick (it sure seems to me like that is something I’d be most interested in), but then would be left unfulfilled and unhappy! Leo’s “10 important things you don’t know you want” video comes to mind. People often don’t really know what it is that they want. I would argue though that in the end, how to be as happy as possible, and feel the best possible emotions would be the most interesting read for me. Are you intending to write a book? Please keep us posted!

In af on this. Have seen about this for a long time and it always seemed like something that could work, but I've never really tried it. Tried it a bunch yesterday and it felt great. On top of that, I woke up at night feeling unusual anxiety and worry... Clearly these are negative emotions being released! (Right?) Anways, thanks for the share and inspiration!

Want to enjoy the deep, mystical sleep of our ancestors? Turn your lights off at dusk. Has anyone tried anything like this? It’s resonating very much with me. I’ve tried it two nights, doing yoga and meditating briefly, 20-30 minutes, and each time had crazy dreams afterwards (although that’s not very unusual). Nothing super transcendental, and I was a bit unfocused during these two attempts. But it makes perfect sense that this would be highly effective, as melatonin is highest in the middle of the night, and mystical experiences seem to happen more naturally during this time. And our ancestors were likely a lot more in touch with their "spiritual" side, having far less distractions and being more connected with nature. The book Becoming Supernatural theorizes that performing certain yoga techniques (basically Kriya Supreme Fire, though not named as such in the book), especially in the middle of the night, can cause melatonin to be converted to more… exotic chemicals… (DMT) in your pineal gland, to cause one to have intense mystical, out of body, reality shattering, transcendental experiences. I’m eager to give this a try. Unfortunately, I’m a different person with different motivations in the middle of the night / early morning than before bed, so it may take some willpower to make this a habit.

A book that explains what I SHOULD most want from a book, and delivers it!

Huge fan of Between The Buried and Me. They have lots of spiritual themes, talking about cutting off pieces of yourself til what's left is real, "am i me?" "I wonder if i'm alive", talking about how life is a dream etc etc. One of my favorite songs of there's, Obfuscation: From the simple idea of Change Blindness, our minds are not as they seem An entire existence revolving around what we can’t acknowledge From the simple idea of Change Blindness, our minds are not as they seem, as they seem A brain malfunction we’ll never admit as defeat, defeat... A constant determination to find truths, to find truths… to find reason... To find reason... to find truths... to find comfort An unspoken religion in being the all dominant, all dominant, all dominant... This is what we call a brain This is what we call a brain This is what we call a brain This is what we call a brain... a brain This step will allow, allow the universe to run its course We have a short ticket and a lot is in hiding... so let’s take in what we can for now Just like here on Earth, a notion we do comprehend Hide what “others” can’t understand The universe is the biggest, biggest threat... overachiever that commands attention Brute force of hysterical, hysterical reasonings... There will always be a Marfa Close one eye Step to the side Close one eye Step to the side As humans, we could never be content with knowing all Yet we can’t be content with the fact that our brains will never know A mental surgery... a never-ending journey... a technological drawback Pushing us further from our natural minds There will always exist a Kryptos Even things created by other humans should be considered In the experiment of an entire species of understanding A magician’s pure joy... A mind bend for the common folk... Follow the straight line... A full house watching what we can’t see The ultimate deceiver... Close one eye Step to the side Step to the side We will always be part of the great misdirect... stepping in and stepping out We will always be part of the great misdirect... mirrors and Obfuscation I started listening to this band before getting into spirituality, and tbh could understand about 2% of their lyrics. Then when learning more I'd start picking up on the meanings of many of their songs. I believe this song is about how we are deceiving ourselves into seeing Reality in a certain way, obfuscating Truth, and as long as we are looking at things in the same way we'll do so forever, constantly in pursuit of truths when we need to close one eye, step to the side, and look at things in a totally different way. Might be a bit of a stretch, the lyrics are pretty abstract, but it might be right. Either way the guitar licks from 2:48 to 3:26 goes hard affff as does the rest of the song, especially up to that point.

Peter Russell has some great talks and free (or pay as much as you want) guided meditations on "Effortless Meditation". It's pretty much a different way of describing Do Nothing. When you see that you are actively trying to do something or putting in any effort, soften it and relax that effort. If you're trying to stop monkey mind, let go of trying to stop. Etc. Can provide immense relaxation gains. If you stop doing absolutely everything you're doing, cool stuff is gonna happen.

This video is epic. Emotional mastery 101

Just my two cents, but I would say that RELATIVELY speaking, there is nothing infinite. You couldn't point to an infinite object. But objectively speaking, going to the Absolute most fundamental nature of reality (like, wth is going on, how is there something rather than nothing), we could call it Infinite. It can't be pointed to, or grasped intellectually, or written down in a book, etc. As for the lower entropy thing, I have wanted to research this more. There is a christian and physicist Hugh Ross whom I believe has a similar viewpoint. Again, I think relatively speaking, you want to feel good and loving each other is the way to do that. But absolutely speaking, Reality is an infinite singularity of absolute nothingness that has Infinity couched within it, so to speak. And it can't be touched and nothing anyone seems to do will ever change that.... For example, humans would HATE for the world to end, and yet objectively speaking who's to say that what humans care about matters? It reminds me of how Jordan Peterson seems to think there is objective morality... yes certain behaviors and ethics are ingrained in our psychology from billions of years of evolution. But that's not objective. Objective is regardless of what any subjective view thinks.... So objectively any growth and entropy decrease and ultimate purpose / story to reality is already existent now. Perhaps from a relative, linear point of view we are destined to unite, link up the entire universe to form a single conscious system, all get enlightened etc. Though the popular theory in physics is heat death through increased entropy (til there is absolutely nothing happening in the universe.... perhaps a ripe condition for a new universe to emerge). Anyways, I disagree that there is nothing infinite. It makes less sense to me that there is some super large object that is just like "uh guess I exist now... let's go ahead and make stuff happen". It makes more sense that... well can't be put into words... but that Infinity necessarily exists. It couldn't have been any other way..... Of course whatever th is going on it's all pretty remarkable.

Here's a great video with Bruce Lipton and Tom Campbell: Joe Dispenza: Donald Hoffman: And here's a cool video on digital physics and idealism: Also you can check out stuff about the holographic universe, both the paranormal book and the hard physics (see Leonard Susskind videos), AND this sick video: Peter Russell: Fred Alan Wolf:

Just to answer the title of this post (with a question) How could consciousness be brain activity? How could squishy meat or tiny billiard balls or vibrating strings or wave potentials interact in such a way to create subjective experience? Research the hard problem of consciousness to at least cast some doubt that this immaterial experience of ours comes from physical processes. You could know everything about the physics of the color red, the wavelength and frequency, the physics of light, the mechanistic description of how light hits your eye and sends nerve signals to your brain to be interpreted as red, and on and on... but no physical description can accurately depict what the experience of seeing red feels like. There is at the very least a gap in our communication of what it feels like to be conscious, and what consciousness is. We can (more or less) physically describe the orbits of planets, the way a car works, how our liver filters toxins, etc. But no matter what we do, we can't describe the color red (and other subjective experiences) other than to give comparisons. For all we truly know, people could be having radically different experiences but are just always in agreement (for example, your red could look like my green and vice versa. We just always call apples red). The best we can do is correlate brain states with subjective experiences (these neurons fire together when the subject sees red), but that does not prove that that is what is causing the subject to see red of creating that experience. It could be the other way around, or it could just be that these things always happen together and are caused by something else. And even if you're utterly convinced consciousness is brain activity, where did that brain come from? And where did that come from? And that? And what is its substance? What grounds its existence? And how is there anything at all, and what is it that is?

Agree with this. I've used as a guideline only eating if I would be hungry enough to eat a meal of just steak and eggs. I could pretty much anytime endlessly munch of fruit and nuts and chocolate, etc. But to be willing to cook and eat something like steak and eggs I need to truly feel some hunger.