zazed

It is also about loving yourself. From a oneness perspective there is no distinction between people, so there is no longer a reason to be a dick and to put yourself ahead of others. On the other hand, there is also no reason to put yourself behind other people. If you can see objectively in life situations, what has to happen, you can make it happen without swinging to one or the other extreme. IF something is right, you can fight for it. If it is just a neurotic tendency to always be right, you can let it go. When you are right about something, or deserve something, you can make people listen to you one way or another. However, you are right in a way. Sociopaths do often have more success. This is because they work to destroy people's reputation, resort to backstabbing, and lie or oversell their own value. They come across very certain, arrogant to us who can see, and can always bullshit their way out of difficult situations. Sadly, many people are blind to this, or misunderstand such sociopaths, and because of this they do climb the corporate ladder faster. They also have zero fear or doubt about their imagined value, and this gives them great confidence in everything they say. Confidence is attractive to people, even if it is not earned. You could say people can not easily sense if confidence is earned, and tend to trust the skills of confident people often. (If he is that sure, he must be good at it) One thing i noticed, is such people will often get people to follow them even. And because they are so pushy and aggressive, passive people tend to do their best to be on the aggressive people's good side. They do this unconsciously, but looking at it objectively, it does remove you from the persons cross-hairs (less backstabbing is a plus, if it's your back). Perhaps this is the easiest way to deal with it. In a situation where a lot of passive people are surrounding a sociopath, going against him might even prove to be career-suicide. Since the only person who will dare to disagree, will be you, and people will side with him, since you cannot give them anything(safety) in return. Reality sometimes sucks, and life is not always fair. If you have no morals, walk over people, destroy people's sanity even, then yes, you can make more worldly gains in many corporate situations. This level of sociopath cannot be gotten on will, and i wouldn't even know how to act like this. Sociopaths are not really happy, they are not really sad either. It seems to me, they don't really think like this, in a way they are more like machines than man, in that they seem to do no self-reflection on their actions, and have zero guilt. Once in a while, there will be a leader who notices this in higher positions, and then they are often pushed back. Corporate culture can help with this. Good leaders in a company is important for this, and they are not always available. When the sociopath is the leader, become his friend, or leave.

@AleksM Fair enough. I guess my monkey just likes to go more straight to the point, rather than having all sorts of practices. This is a dualistic idea/concept in its own, so not really relevant. I just sit and allow thoughts to fade out, and really just do nothing, without trying to do nothing. Like not touching anything mentally, a quiet relaxing into it. I become, I am. If you are happy with your practices, and it works for you, then good for you.

Perhaps we are just limited by language here, and i am just misunderstanding your intentions/meanings. Sometimes i think you know what you are talking about, other times it seems just totally besides the point. Why? How? This is a strange belief of the mind. This is true, words are from the mind, they cannot describe enlightenment. That which creates words cannot become enlightened anyway. The moment you speak, write or think about enlightenment, duality is created. Who exactly is doing al this stuff? Is that you really? But who is doing things, who is imagining things? Who is being effortless, or who is using effort? Is that really the big you? Is the big you ever doing anything, aside from being (alive)? Is the big you even seeing, or is it aware of a monkey's sight creating seeing? If you do all that stuff and think it has much value for reaching enlightenment, you are just a monkey thinking it is aware of itself. Its not wrong for the monkey to do stuff, or to have fun in life, or to do activities that puts it in a mental state of bliss or calm or unity. But it has little to do with enlightenment, its more about manufacturing pleasurable feelings/thoughts to be aware of. What enlightenment is, is disidentification with the monkey, and awakening to the true self that is watching the monkey run around in life. It is the realization, that we are actually the entire world the monkey is running around in. It does not really matter one bit what the monkey is doing after that, from an enlightenment perspective. And there is more than one monkey running around in this existence. From a perspective of the monkey's life, regarding, money, success and the monkey's emotions, the monkey can still work to better itself. It can perhaps even become aware it is just a dream, while trying to be a good dream. But this is more an indirect result of enlightenment, rather than enlightenment itself, and it can be done without enlightenment entirely. This is why all those activities are just mental exercises and irrelevant. The monkey can never become anything more than a monkey, it cannot become enlightenment. You cannot be enlightened as a human being, because you are not a human being. But we were never really the human being to begin with, we are that which is aware, consciousness, one.

I wonder what is with all the software engineers here I'm a rather good Java developer, with more than 10 years experience. When i program i am always in a state of flow. Rather than being more aware, it is actually a total dissolution of self, of humanity even. Since it is object oriented, huge geometrical building blocks fill my brain, and i am rearranging structures in my head as i type the code. There is no thought or effort, it all just flows out of my fingers. It is the best thing in the world. But i do not know if it has a lot to do with enlightenment. It's why i said, you have become awakened to the self. You experience and see the distinction between consciousness and mind/ego. It allows you to see the mechanics of the emotions, the automatic behaviorism, that your body/brain is involved in. That you can do it 24/7 is very good. Now you can start really seeing how the mind/body/brain work, and start to let it all go. Somehow, your mind has convinced yourself this starting state is enlightenment. However it is far further than most people will ever get in life. So... , so far, so good. Until you begin with a whole list of things we should do. It's always a red alert, if we have to do stuff. Stuff about soundwaves. Crystals. Light Language activation. Altering your DNA trough sound and vibration. These are all beliefs. Constructs of the mind, thoughts. All of this is are thought projections, dreams. It is stuff to hide behind, to give the ego/mind something to attach to, rather than letting it all go. To be, you just need to be. I am that i am. Not all those extra things you drag into it. You are making the simplest thing in the world (enlightenment), seem like some sort of thing you can gain by doing stuff with your mind/body. When all you need to do is be. Enlightenment is so simple, people cannot do it, because the ego doesn't accept such empty simplicity. To be enlightened, you don't need to do more stuff with your mind, you need to do a lot less. You don't even need to constantly be aware of the breath, this is just a tool to allow your mind to empty and become what you truly are, being itself, existence. It doesn't really matter much to me. But for yourself, don't stop yet and dig deeper, because there is a lot more to find out still. You have just seen the ox's tail, as zen monks would say

Thanks for sharing, although a bit long You have awakened to the distinction between the actual self and thoughts. You have seen there is an ego, perhaps not yet exactly what it is. This is an amazing tool on the journey. It is not "enlightenment", but appreciating the value of this insight is important. It is a big step that should not be brushed away, and i myself once thought it WAS enlightenment. Until i saw more, and realized i am standing at the bottom of the grand-canyon and just opened my eyes, I still have to start my metaphorical climb. But at least we are no longer blind. At first sight, there is too much belief, ideas, projections in your experience. Projecting concepts creates feelings of whatever you want, it is another layer of ego which is hidden still to you. Using imagination to visualize during mindfulness creates these illusions. You should be like water, and flow without effort into it. Let the mind not create anything in this space, because all it creates is from this world and a kind of veil over the true self. Become life without effort of any kind, without any mind-projections, without any expectations or concepts. Remember, beliefs are just thoughts, they are mind stories. Its easy to imagine yourself into a blissful mental state, and think you've found the truth. But you are still just telling a story. Feelings are created easily trough visualization, and all visualizations are hidden thought stories. Or perhaps you are enlightened, who can say for sure...

You can't let go about wanting to let go. Your desire to let go, is probably what is blocking you to let go. By placing so much focus upon your tendency to repress your emotions, you over analyze the emotions also when there is room to let go. Can you try to just be as you are, and let go about monitoring your emotions either way. Don't work to let them go, don't work to let them in. Like a child, don't pay attention to it and the child will play on its own sooner or later. Let life just happen, it's easy and hard because it cannot be thought, you have to do nothing really. Perhaps this is too spiritual an answer, and not what you are searching for?

@Leo Gura I didn't know that, we used to buy them in the Netherlands in smart shops. A quick drive over the border in my school days We ate them, followed by some OJ

Some science for those interested... LSD and Psylcobin are DMT deviations. DMT is a molecule that exists naturally in low doses within the body. Attach some extra branches to it, and you get LSD. Attach branches to another side you get Psylcobin. So its not strange there are similarities in the way they work, since they attach to the same receptors in the brain. Their shape is slightly different tho, because of the extra branches, so their effects differ a tiny little bit. http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/worth-the-trip-psychedelics-as-an-emerging-tool-for-psychotherapy/ The LD50 for all these things is well known, and its impossible to poison yourself on these above. For shrooms, you would need to 17kg or 37pounds of fresh shrooms if you weigh 60kg, which is, kinda impossible to consume https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin#Toxicity Ayahuasca is a blend of DMT and a Mono oxidase amine inhibitor. The mono oxidase amine enzyme within your digestive system destroys DMT and makes it inactive. Taking an MOA inhibitor blocks the destructive enzyme and allows you to digest DMT into your bloodstream. The inhibitor also makes certain food dangerous to eat, and poisonous. Because the MOA enzyme actually is intended mainly to destroys these "poisons" in foods making them safe to eat. This makes it slightly more dangerous than smoking DMT, or taking LSD/Shrooms. All of these things are as such very similar in their effects. Thanks for the video. Magic mushrooms taste disgusting and rotten by the way, and taking that much would make me very nauseous due to flavor alone. They are not at all like any mushrooms you know for cooking.

Everyone is a copycat, everyone is a wannabe. This is because the human personality is formed through education and experience over many years. You place importance on unimportant things. The one placing the importance is not even you. What exactly is the problem you are trying to solve, how is this a problem for you? You are overthinking it, and overvaluing the power of thought. You can know things without thought, think of a sunset, describe a sunset, or watch a sunset. Yes it is. It gives rise to various problems. It is not without reason many "buddha's" isolate themselves from the world. On the other hand, I never said "nothing matters" in this extreme and absurd way. What most people describe as being unauthentic is people trying to hard usually. Someone who is a people-pleaser, who does not really speak his mind, but he says what he thinks you want him to say. Such a person is not living in the Now. He is living in the projected future of what he may gain by being unauthentic. Most people are unauthentic to actually be better liked. Leo has a good video on this, called "How to stop caring about what other people think". In essence, it all boils down to non-dual enlightenment, like everything in this world . Live in the Now, be pure consciousness in this present moment. Then there is no expectation or worry for the future opinion of others, there is only the joy of what is happening now. And thus you can act freely and be authentic as yourself. So to be authentic, you need to stop overthinking it, and just be. When everything comes natural, then you will be authentic.

Who follows this way, what of these thoughts is you, if half of them are influenced by others? It is an important realization, that your thoughts are not you. What your body does when walking around is not so important really. You can only accept what is, influences included. What does it even matter, why would you care? You can see it as proof of the non dual consciousness. Perception, or awareness is the source and your true self, these thoughts and opinions are just manifestations of life or being. Your physical body is just a manifestation of life. Following your own way, does not mean ignoring everything outside of you. Perhaps, being influenced, is the way and the path. What else is there, when every bite of food and every breath of air influences and changes your physical body and mood. One can only accept this, and go forward unencumbered. TLDR : You are overthinking it. Thinking is often not helpful and not required to be. And also, is this a question for people's opinion you have here, or a challenge for us to prove something regarding these statements?

I'm a guy, who has seen a lot of guys and girls in my 30ish years of life. This is what i would tell my younger self, if i could go back in time Most Woman looking for especially a long term partner, have a man-child filter. It basically means, you have to be a man, period. You have to be grown-up. This means mentally, you need to be a strong and confident man. This does not imply physical strength. It also definitively does not imply any form of aggression. It implies a high level assertiveness in life. Example, how do you treat a waiter, how do you check into a hotel room, etc.... With a group of male only friends, do you let other people do the talking to strangers when stuff needs to be arranged (group vacations for example)? There is always that one guy who will do all the talking, arranges the tickets, talks to the cabbie, etc... That guy is the leader, and he has confidence, and a girl most often. At a bar, will you signal the waiter and make sure everyone has a drink, or will you let your "leader" do it for you? It's many small things like this that show you can handle the world. You need to be a guy that can take action when needed. Let's be honest, if you cannot take good care of yourself, you cannot take care of her. And, how you approach her is the ultimate test of your confidence. Don't mistake the above for being a chauvinist and like choosing what she has to drink or eat. No, you ask her if she wants to order, then you make sure the waiter get's there asap, so she can order what she wants. Don't make her signal, don't make her ask for the check, don't make her go to the cash register. Doing it from time to time with just dudes, or solo, teaches you assertiveness in a "safe" situation. Physical appearance can help you feel confident about yourself, so it's a good idea to lift some weights if you need a boost. It's healthy anyway, so it's always good for you to get some muscle. I've seen many less confident guys get buffed and find some self-esteem in that, whatever works for you embrace it (such is life). But aside from confidence, you also need some humor. Especially if you can laugh with yourself, humor is a sign of intelligence. Humor about yourself is a sign of humility and in general, it shows you are not an arrogant guy. Arrogance and confidence are very different things. TLDR If you lack confidence, the girls will think you are a kid that can't take care of himself. Few girls want to date a man-child, which is what most man lacking confidence are, in their eyes. This is hard to read, if you are a manchild (i was, perhaps still am), but it's reality...

@cetus56 i didn't read that story, fair enough.

i can give you clarity. Everything anyone can teach you, can be simple condensed: "You are" That is it, end of teaching, if you understand this one phrase deeply, you are enlightened. Or watch a similar no bullshit guy, spend about 40m of non bullshit description:

Using the pm system to start a cult, is wrong i suppose. But i regret not being invited, because I would've joined him for shits and giggles. Seems like some fun role-playing to do On the forum, he had strange idea's, but he was never really offensive to me. At worst, i found him entertaining. I will miss him, for his weird and colorful posts. For me, it was not insane what he was saying, it was artful and beautifully abstract and bizarre. And for that i enjoyed reading it. But it was the right call, with all the information regarding him starting a cult.

I love you too my friend!

Who trained what, and who was aware of the training? If you are not training, do you dissapear? If you are not feeling anything do you dissapear? When you dream, do you not wake up and remember these dreams, you were aware while dreaming, but not "in control". Consciousness makes it different from a machine, nothing else. You can look at it like this, if you like machine analogies: Your brain and body are like an antenna, a receiver and a transmitter at the same time. The brain and body and thoughts are not you at all, they are a machine as you say. YES, even your thoughts are not really you, and just a function of the machine. Then what you are, is that which is "connected" to the machine from the outside. You are the one that is experiencing the machine. Sadly, somehow you have come to identify as the machine, and so there is only the machine and its needs/desires. You will realize, that no matter what the machine does. You are aware of it. When the machine thinks about the past, you are aware of the thoughts. When it thinks of the future, you are aware of the thoughts. But in reality, you do not visit past or future. You never exist outside of your current experience. If you look inside, and go "searching" for "me", you will find nothing. Thoughts may popup, various feelings, sights, sounds, and then there is this presence, or space, where it all is "known" by consciousness. It can be "felt", by letting go. Letting go means no effort. It means to stop caring about your thoughts, not to fight them. Its easier to let go, if you realize they are not your thoughts you are aware of, but created based on some trigger inside the machine. If you let yourself slide into this acceptance, you will see what awareness really is, perhaps only for a few seconds. You will realize, you can just be. You don't need to do anything really. What is now, is what is now, it exists. You exist as consciousness, whatever state the body is in at that point, you are aware of it.

It has no real answer. This one seems to have many answers or contemplations especially. A Koan is something to think about, to loosen your mind. Like a logical virus for your brain, as they use in some movies to destroy an evil AI computer One might look at it like this: If the well is enlightenment, and the open eyed man is the seeker. Then enlightenment is as effortless as falling into a well, and you might say, it didn't even require the man to be open-eyed to fall in. One can elaborate: The well was always there, and the man was not looking for something else. So enlightenment is finding that which you are NOT looking for, and falling in. Perhaps, if he was looking harder, he would have seen the well, and not fall into enlightenment at all! But then i am just reformulating my limited knowledge on non-duality to match the Koan, which is meaningless really. It is an answer that satisfies the mind, as @cetus56 warned about.

I've suffered from it a lot (2h sleep, no matter how tired I got). Insomnia is immensely and horribly boring, so boring that you are happy when you can finally get out of bed in the morning and start your day. Meditation helps somewhat, to make it more bearable. I do not know or think it helped me in any way. Recently, learning about non-duality, acceptance, and not identifying with my thoughts all the time, seems to have solved it somewhat.

I'm a big fan of Paul. He cuts straight to it in a no-bullshit abstract way. If i'm not mistaken, i think you originally even pointed me to his video's a couple months ago, on which i defended my meditation practices (which Paul seemed to belittle at first). Many thanks for sharing this treasure.

I have been reading it, it is good yes Stoicism is fascinating, Leo also recommended this book in some video.

I would say to a dude friend like so : "Look, your a good friend and i love you, but i'm really not interested in Christianity anymore. I respect your faith and wouldn't force my beliefs upon you, unless you're interested. In the same way i would appreciated it if you respected my faith and did not try to force Christianity on me. Can we just not talk about this stuff anymore, and just have some fun with other stuff/topics." If that wouldn't work, i would just ignore the dude and stop contacting him. Because a person who cannot respect my choices and who i am, is not really a friend after all. Mind you, it also depends on you: Sometimes i will go into a philosophical discussion with people, that can become quite heated. At this point the discussion is the end-game here, and there is no conversion going on, its just a mental exercise for fun for both parties. This is ok, because both parties consented to this discussion between faiths. It's not ok if its forced upon you and it's disturbing your happiness.

Mushrooms are rather soft and a good entry point. I was not blown away by my shroom experience, and they taste really horrible and disgusting. On shrooms, I was mentally myself, but i saw stuff in my vision melt, like crystal clear as if it was real. It was strange, but there was no drunkenness or highness as with other drugs. I could read fine, i was visiting a forum then and replying to some post, but the text was melting down the screen as i read it. The visions didn't mean anything to me, it was just mildly entertaining, and i could still read the melting text as it was going down. It was a totally mundane forum post, nothing spiritual, and it was to the point for those reading it, nothing strange to it. Some things were very exaggerated, there was this dude eating near me, and it was disgusting. The guy grew in size and became monstrous, the smell of his pasta was disgusting and overpowering everything, and the sound of his smacking and swallowing was like a music concert so loud. It was the most disgusting thing i ever experienced, so i put on some mp3 music and closed my eyes for a while. I knew it was exaggerated by the drug, but it was so real, like sober-real, the grotesqueness of his eating, it made me sick to my stomach until i had some music (goa music works well for psychedelics). I had fractals, like the images you see about psychedelics on the internet. when i closed my eyes and listened to music, mostly following the sound of the music. But i can have that when sober to, like when meditating, so it was not so surprising. For me, i remembered mostly that for me mushrooms have almost zero impact on my thinking. It's like i'm still me, but stuff around isn't as i'm used to. Weed or alcohol alter my senses and thoughts in various ways. But with mushrooms, I just see and hear stuff, like it is really there, and i'm fully sober and normally thinking and in control. I did not do lots of it, nor did i try LSD or DMT, so it may be that my dose was just very low, i'm not an experienced psychonaut. I'd say try it, its not so intense, try a low dose, see how it feels. On the other hand, i do not believe psychedelics really give spiritual insight. It's more just entertaining sounds/visions. Perhaps stronger doses, or doing it in a spiritual setting can make a difference there, i never tried that, it was in my college years long ago. If you can do it with a trusted friend, do that. Do NOT do it with a lot of people around, or with people you don't trust, it will be too distracting. Make sure you are relaxed and not stressed. Because I once had a bad trip on LSA, were i was certain my heart stopped beating, because i couldn't feel it anymore, so i panicked, thinking i was dying and was not feeling so well all night. In the morning i felt like a million bucks tho, but probably because i survived my imagined death

The ego is just thought, especially disturbing thoughts, that you think are your identity. thought or ego is just a part of you. like your hand, or your feet. If you cut of your feet, you don't cease to exist, so you are not your feet. For the ego it's the same, but you can't really physically cut of your ego thoughts, so it's harder to realize this. Thought fighting thought is what OP warned about. If you think yourself around your thoughts, like battling some negative thought with positive affirmations. Then you are reinforcing the ego, as OP said: If you do this, then you are creating a story within yourself, that your imagined self is an observer. There actually is an observer, but it will never think a single thought. So your ego tells a story, the story it is actually the observer. This may bring the illusion of spiritual bliss even, and can greatly boost confidence, but it is a lie that will sooner or later break. This is why thought should never battle with mind. Unwelcome thought is irrelevant, it requires no address, it just is.

In the Netherlands, mushrooms can be bought in smart shops I believe. Online but also in brick and mortar stores. So there must be a large sample pool there at least (and neighboring countries, drug tourism ftw), and i've never heard much problems about it... Bringing weaponry to a mushroom trip is unwise, and unnecessary. It should be done in a safe location with trusted friends. I could imagine shooting myself doing the same, not because wanting to kill someone. But because a trigger is easily pulled, and i could get playful with all sorts of objects during a trip. Can imagine holding the gun, looking into the barrel, fingering the trigger, feeling the cold metal, out of pure fascination, not knowing it is a weapon even. It's probably better to do LSD or DMT, cause shrooms are disgusting, the most disgusting thing i've ever tasted in my life. And they upset my stomach. People assume intent, i didn't watch any videos... But it might be a dreadful accident on the guys side too, just plain stupidity of bringing a gun. Perhaps he wanted to shoot his love towards her, not fully realizing what he was doing really. Poor girl, my heart goes out to her family, this is a deeply sad story.

If the person is really enlightened, then he knows the ego never existed to begin with. The ego is the illusion of thought cycles looping constantly, and so creating an imagined self. Realizing this fully, the enlightened man doesn't even register the praise. The enlightened man is enlightened, because that is the only thing he can be. He has no desire for enlightenment, no reason for it. It just is, as life just is. Being is being, it never had an ego to begin with. The illusion that is ego, are no more than the thoughts that make up an imagined self, and all unenlightened people self-identify with that "construct". What most people think of as "me", or "I", isn't real. It's a biological machine, constantly generating random thoughts and opinions, and we think this is what we are. And what we truly are, has no human identity. Most people actually want their ego to become enlightened, but it can never be, because its not a "self". It's not an enemy to battle either, these are just thoughts our true self is are aware of. For me, this is also the "dark night of the soul". It's not so much a battle, but it is the dreaded acceptance of the realization that what most people call I, does not exist as a person, that this identity we've come to love and defend, is not a real "I". Because what we think of as "me", ceases to exist as an "I", and the only thing left is pure enlightened being. What we truly are, never had a single thought in its life, not a single idea, never said a single word, and it never will. We can only be it. Realization does bring "human" bliss, because the "ego" quiets down a bit, when there is acceptance that it is not I.