Edvard

@Nahm Maybe so, and in a way it makes most sense after all, we are unsignificant even within the content of the illusion... so, I just wonder what does it matter? What matters is consciousness in its content, right? This is the content. There is suffering and happiness, and it makes ultimately sense that it doesn't exist, but exist at the same time, because why is there something instead of nothing? Because there is nothing, or only awareness, experience. All that makes sense, but what I'm trying to understand is how anyone can know anything based on experience alone. What I also wonder is that by reality being an illusion, does that mean that other illusory organisms don't feel anything - that it's just something I think, and that it's all just a dream? It can't be that, because everyone here cares about suffering, meaning that you in practice can say that other conscious beings exist? Which leads me back to saying, what matters is consciousness in its content. If we think we exist, why isn't that good enough to say that we exist? To me that is just as valid as saying that we don't exist. Saying that we don't exist is also an idea, created by the ego?

@Leo Gura If there was a mandatory military service in your country and you were ordered to serve, and if you disobeyed you would go to jail, what would you do? And if you did the service, and later your country was attacked, meaning you would be ordered to fight. What would you then do?

So it must be between the lines somewhere, in other words, it seems. So a little success is good, and a «need», you say. Is the point that happiness should be maximized by doing good by your life purpose until you make an income that will support you for your life, and then stop going further, rather pursuing enlightenment in the end? Or that you should work less, giving you more time to just be? Is it even possible for you to explain this so I can understand it? At least you understand that I don't understand, solely by reading my words, so what would a person that understands it say, do you think?

I guess the root issue here is happiness, and that Leo is saying that if you're not happy, you're unconscious, and automatically a bad effect on the world? I'm thinking, can you interpret this to be a little of a Zen Devil mindset, when happiness is what matters, at all cost? I.e.: think about you having lots of children, until you realise that you're just a hamster on a wheel, you regret it, and leave them starving wanting to become enlightened. Is this even comparable?

What about life purpose, what about you telling me to accept drudgery. A funny thing is that you in a video even pointed out these two examples (among some others) of life purposes (this was what I recall you saying, approximately): * Maybe your life purpose is to build a city at the bottom of the ocean, and presented that as an openminded example, but no problem. * Maybe you want to make a city on Mars? (No problem there either) (Hope it's not too much content) So if Musk wanted this purpose for his life, watching you videos in his teens, he would take your suggestion but at the same time couldn't listen to what you're saying about how negative the proper life style in order to fulfill that goal is. The way he lives his life is totally in line with this purpose, and now you're saying it's bad? (Of course, you made these videos couple of years ago, though, don't know how much you've changed your mind about this since then)

@Leo Gura But how do you know that Musk is addicted to success? To me it seems like he has created a vision for himself, he really wants to do good, and he doesn't care about money, at least that was his intention. If you read my earlier post, I wrote about him in his young 20's selling paypal for $300M to eBay. He could live off of that his hole life. Instead, he decided to risk EVERYTHING in what he even himself and others thought would most likely fail, and he would spend his LAST PENNY on it. Many times he has talked about it on television, the importance of going for your business idea, pointing out that people are too AFRAID to lose all their money, saying like, "you're not gonna starve to death". If you have read his life story (I don't know if you have), I have read a 400 page book about him, you can't ultimately say that success is what drives him. He has since childhood wanted to make a big impact to the world. Of course, you can't know for sure what his intentions are, you can't read his mind, but saying that Musk is egoic, and that egotism is his problem, to me is just hard to be true. Maybe deluded, maybe thinking about his reputation a little (although, why? He's not stupid, and he can retire and live happily now, he thinks we live in a simulation after all, so reputation is his problem?), but you have no way of knowing that? Is he more egoic than the other silicon valley CEOs who retired after a big win, and didn't want to make a good contribution to the world? OK, there is a lesson about egotism for a lot of business people that Musk may seem like, and maybe there is a lesson to learn about how Musk chooses to live his life, but I don't agree that it is because of Musk's EGO. That just makes zero sense if you have read about him and know his life. Sure, some ego he probably has, like everyone elso who aren't enlightened, but his problem in terms of his purpose is not about him wanting success for success itself, but simply for wanting to reach his goal. How is he chasing success? He doesn't personally want money or success, or don't you believe that?

Does this mean you can prepare for the next life? And if you become fully enlightened, will you forget that in the next life, so it will be an infinite cycle of pain, misery and hapiness through all possible conscious states, whether it's through an alien or a tree? Do you get these kinds of insights from this experience?

@Leo Gura Or maybe I'm caviling too much... ;). People scold me from that sometimes. I just wanted to get to the bottom of whatever lesson you can learn within what we talk about. It's my life purpose, after all. If I spot some seemingly important hole in an argument, I feel a need to understand it deeply. You just seem so sure about everyone. You go right on: «classic workaholic.....». It's fine, but if I'm gonna change my mind about someone I've admired for a long time, I have to go deep with it, from different angles, don't you think? I'm starting to see it, though... and I do think an Elon Musk lifestyle is stressful, and not that nice, but that's sort of what I have admired about him too. All that he's been through. He's had and has a tough and uncomfortable life. I never really thought that money and success made him fulfilled, but his purpose. Now, I guess the lesson is that you should spend more time being conscious before changing the world, and that's what you view as important. What stage do you think Musk is at, orange or green (I would guess green)?

His plan.

Firstly, Elon Musk plans it to be so that everyone who wants can go, aiming for a ticket cost of eventually $200K, if things go well. I don't know, but my impression is that the least conscious people tend to be the slowest to realize that there is any reason to escape Earth, and religious fundamentalists doubtfully will be the first to leave Earth. So I would expect a population on Mars to consist of only orange+ stage people. Not perfect, but at least humanity survives, and gets a chance to continue its history and develop its consciousness. Who knows what the future will bring, and there is really no definite answer. The point is that at some point, the Earth will be unlivable, so having a backup plan seems reasonable to me. Of course, this could have negative effects on lots of things, but when you see how fast technology is accelerating, along with global warming, bacteria resistence, AI, who knows how much time we have? Maybe it's too late. That doesn't mean we should give up Earth, but I think humanity is determined to explore other worlds and eventually star systems out there. So we can't stop this, so what if high conscious people help it instead, making this going more smoothly? As you have said, any society goes through the different stages of consciousness. The future of humanity, it being on Earth or on other planets, will be a better version of us. If Earth turns out to be doomed, and we don't leave, humanity will go extinct - and that may be fine to some. But if you don't want that... well, what other option is there but leaving?

The importance of what? Consciousness? So Elon Musk definitely doesn't understand the importance of that? Well, there certainly are worse people than him. He seems like a decent starting point on a new planet.

@Leo Gura If a high consciousness group of people go to Mars, I guess, and at least human consciousness will survive longer, giving it a chance to develop further. Anyway, the alternative is to stay here and die here, so why not try, if going to another planet is the only option? It's die or escape. Sure, there will be some problems, can't deny that. But what's the option if you can't do anything about the people who are destroying the planet you live on? But I have to agree that it's definitely preferable to raise consciousness first, if possible.

Sort of nasty to know I have to go through all the misery and pain throughout evolution and history... don't you think? (So by all means, enjoy the present...)

Yes, but the Earth won't survive long with today's level of consciousness, will it? So by creating civilizations on other planets, at least we ensure humanity to survive, when saving this planet may (or may not) be too late. Someone else, like you, are suited for dealing with raising consciousness, and hopefully humanity gets a high enough consciousness in time, so going to Mars won't be necessary... Is this going well, looking at the world as a whole, would you say?

@Leo Gura What if he just accepts «sacrifying» his consciousness to help humanity, if that makes any sense? After all, if it turns out going to Mars is necessary to save humanity, how would that happen quickly enough if it wasn't for a person like Elon Musk? Of course, you could say it doesn't really matter, if you raise your consciousness enough to understand that the world is really an illusion (Musk seems to understand that we're pretty insignificant in terms of his simulation theory, though), but you're making a pretty big impact, if that matters at all. But, on the other hand, you can ask: what makes our species so important? Egoic consciousness, I may guess? The funny thing is, I share Musks purpose of helping making humanity multiplanitary, through knowledge in physics. Would you advice me to change my purpose, then? Every day I'm saying this for 5 minutes straight: "I'm thinking abstractly, making humanity multiplanitary". Then I do 5 mins of visualization... And what do you really mean when you're incouraging drudgery to reach one's goals (ref. Life Purpose Course)? When do you become a workaholic, and how do you even know that Musk is a workaholic just because he works so much? I guess I could sort of imagine it, when thinking about it though... It's probably not a self actualized life if it's all about work, but hey, here's an other quote I want to share from Musk: "Life has to be more than just solving problems".

@Mondsee Elon Musk has said "he likes Earth", and has many times talked about the importance of taking care of our home planet. While studying at college, he was wondering about what would be the most important areas for humanity in the coming future, and figured it would be internet, sustainable energy, and space exploration. He just figured he wanted to make a big progress to the world. He probably does have a noble purpose, and I would say nothing else makes sense to believe if you have studied his life. I mean, in his early twenties he sold paypal to eBay for more than $300 million dollars. Most "egoic" internet millionaires would at that point pretty much retire. But with this amount of money, Elon saw the opportunity to make progress in space, eventually making humanity multiplanitary, after seeing that nobody else had any plans for this. NASA wasn't saying anything about it on their web sites, this was in the early 2000s. So he figured, if humanity doesn't make sure to at some point leave the planet, we will eventually go extinct, either from natural or climate disasters or eventually the sun will soak up the Earth, and he thought that would be "incredibly sad". He has also stated that he had "sort of an existential crisis in his childhood, and concluded that the only thing that makes sense is doing good, if not, everything is meaningless". He has been reported to have a seemingly high ego at moments in his carreer, but in the end, Musk to me seems like a very humble person, just wanting the best for us all. He has several times said that he suspects the chance we not are in a simulation to be one in billions. What person with a big ego says that??

I'm gonna try it too!

@Arkandeus Yeah, but Leo's making some videos about slowing down, and not being busy. Musk works extremely much, and is said to eat his dinners while solving problems. I read a book about him, and he is said to have wished he didn't need to eat food, and if he could inject energy into his body otherwise he would prefer that rather than wasting time eating. Of course, this is also a lot of the reason he became as successful.

@Jordan wang You may not know exactly what you will use certain knowledge for, but we live in a complex world, where certain subjects are going to be essential no matter what, like English, history, philosophy, geography, and of course math and science. In the future you are probably, if not definitely going to have to apply advanced technology in any work. Understanding how these technologies work will require science, engineering and math skills, also math that seems unecessary now. And if you don't know what to become yet, what better way of figuring it out than understanding how the world works? In engineering, knowing math is not only extremely useful, but it also trains you mind, and makes you a problem solver. It creates new wireings in you brain to understand complex math problems. This is not a bad quality to have developed moving into the future. The future of business will probably require you to be extremely innovative, so nurture that skill, is my advice.

@Leo Gura What if there's no purpose that will make you cry, if you're that type of person? I recall you saying once that you then have to work on yourself to cry more often. I guess I'm a little like this, I very rarely cry. What kinds of exercises would you recommend?

@Leo Gura I think that when you make such statements about a person that you have throughout this thread, I would prefer you to elaborate a little more, especially when I think many here look up to Sam, including me, and it doesn't even seem you know all that much about him. He raised my consciosness, and I would never have heard of him if it wasn't for his speeches about free will (who else dares to talk openly about that being an illusion) and debates, which you didn't like him doing. He doesn't even debate for the sake of changing the opponents mind, but to make people think about the case, and he is more into conversation rather than debate. And, like others here, I would not have stumbled into you if it wasn't for him. Now, when it comes to rationality; what do you mean by that? Does rationality exclude openmindedness, is that the problem? Because I didn't know that. I look at you as rational, but openminded. I also think Sam Harris is openminded. What has he ever excluded? He has even said he doesn't know what to think about death. What he is against is not even religion in itself, but dogmas taken as truth unsupported by evidence. If someone hasn't experienced God, they can't KNOW God? However, if someone HAS experienced God, ok, but that's not what he argues. It's religion in terms of dogma, they can't all be right, or can they? Please, elaborate, Leo.

I'm no expert, but I have been following actualized for som months now. Here's my advice: I think there are many things you can do without money, if you're not already doing it: - Start meditating, something that over time will make you content in any situation in life, try to train your mind focusing on the present moment. There is no rush. - Read books. Maybe you have access to free library? Knowledge is key, and there are probably plenty of books that can help you out in your situation. - Think long term. Look at the big picture. Based on the actions you take now, what will your life look like in 5 years? - Try to be creative, do what you think is best given your situation. Maybe working is not a bad strategy after all? If there are no other options, there are no other options. And be optimistic. You said you want to do random stuff. Then, do random stuff, maybe you'll find your life purpose. Build with lego, get some friends to dismantle a computer, if you were into that. And if you feel you can't get friends, well, maybe personal development is not a bad place to start? Watch Leo's videos i.e., and try to implement advice in your life, just listen to people. It could really help. I don't think going to university is a bad thing. As I said, knowledge is key to a successful career, also in business. At least, you have to develop a skill. Try to accept not having money now, it usually doesn't come before you have even developed a skill or gotten lucky. Result usually comes after years of work with whatever skill or competence you choose to develop. And going to university doesn't make it so you must do a 9-5 job until you're 60. And last but not least, try to be happy now. Find something you enjoy not for the sake of money, but for the sake of doing what you love, your niche, your life purpose. Enjoy the process. You don't seem to have a very unfortunate state of life compared to many other "successful" people.

I feel that enlightenment is the only thing that makes sense in the end, everything else creates unecessary homeostasis and is unpleasant. I know finding life purpose is a part of self-actualization, and I have almost finished the course. I landed on physics because of my curiosity about nature and passion for truth. On my value list I have "truth" second and "peace of mind" at first. Now when I have known about enlightenment, this list fits well with what my motivations are these days: I just feel that everything but enlightenment is secondary, and not worthy of getting up in the mornings for. Nothing else feels worthy of homeostasis and discomfort, at least not much, i.e creating a regular morning habit. My day and night cycle feels longer than 24 hrs, so once I get on track, my time for getting to sleep and waking up delays every night, until I have to be awake for more than 24 hours to feel tired enough to sleep in reasonable time again. And then I can't keep that routine. The problem is, I actually like it this way, essentially saying to myself, "if it just wasn't for that damn life purpose and becoming what I think will be self-actualized, I could sleep whenever I felt for it". But I work well when I am awake, meditating and doing enlightenment work, which comes naturally for me. I also read physics, preparing for starting a bachelor's degree at a university in 1,5 months (but as I said, that feels secondary, although it interests me). So maybe enlightenment (peace of mind) is my life purpose? And I should try to work as little as possible (just enough to live for). Just a speculation, I mean, I think I should try to be as honest as possible, coming up with any seemingly "far-fetched" idea. Maybe I should become a Buddhist monk or something? Any thoughts, anyone who feels sort of the same way?

@ajasatya I was of the assumption someone was wondering what low conscious behaviour is. It seemed to be suffering, so I brought up one form of suffering, thinking it's interesting that this could be true. Didn't mean to talk about responsibility.

@ajasatya Actually, @Leo Gura said in one of his videos in "medtation on steroids" that enlightened people do have that ability, pointing out an example of them being able to let a dentist do something that is generally very painful without anesthetics, and feeling no suffering. Also, in my meditation sessions where I feel a loss of self I also get a pain reduce. Not sure if that goes for anything, but maybe it does if having come far enough. He also said: Purification = pain*minfulness, while suffering = pain*resistance If dropping resistance to zero, in an incredible way, you will supposedly drop your pain level to zero, is what he claims. Still true, Leo? And does this apply when pushing in sports, i.e? Makes sense, but this will probably take som practice and understanding...