Joseph Maynor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Age_of_Earth

Album cover: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mjzpkBFjpYU/VbMLcxNp-lI/AAAAAAAAFDw/KvbttjQTn9Q/s1600/Free%2BElectric%2BSound%2Bcover.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_in_Malaysian_Pale

We're here to grok the subtle distinction between Mind and reality, and to explore reality fully.

What inspired you at an early age to make your life big and to become passionate about Life Purpose later on. When did you see that you needed to go rogue and design your own career and realize how powerful and necessary this strategy is in life for some people. Not everyone falls into the available career cubbyholes we have in our society. And most of us simply were raised with big gaps in our educations, due to our families, etc. It is pretty bold to create your own career. How come I missed this and you figured this out? Did someone or something influence you that I didn't get? What did you figure out that I missed? Why did I miss it? I'm a smart dude too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubycon_(album)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Michel_Jarre

@outlandish Trying to conceptualize Enlightenment and then clinging to that like it's the truth is a trap. Look inside. That's where reality is. You'll see yourself grow. That is the real meat of enlightenment, not some conceptual labeling. The labeling is window-dressing, not the meat of the matter. The meat of the matter is your growth. That is ongoing, no? Growth is not discrete, although we can conceptualize it that way. The Mind has all kinds of fancy things to say about reality, but reality just is. The Conceptual Voice is like a dialog box on top of reality, but it doesn't effect reality one whit. The Mind likes concepts, so don't get sucked into its reality. It doesn't authentically want you to anyway, it's just you gotta build awareness to convince and remind the Mind of that. When you build enough awareness, the Mind cannibalizes the Ego for you. Enlightenment might be thought of as this cannibalization process, although that's just more slapping labels on reality. Reality laughs at our little labels. The Mind is addicted to feeling like it knows something conceptually about reality. This is useful in certain contexts, but in Enlightenment we gotta be mindful that conceptualization of the truth is NEVER the truth. All concepts are projections of the Mind on top of reality, but these projections are like that dialog box I mentioned, not inherent to the reality itself. You gotta know when you're in a dialog box and when you aren't. That's keen awareness, or a piece of it. Seeing stuff like that in the moment becomes like seeing through a young child's attempt to perform a magic-trick -- and what differentiates the adult from the child is increased awareness. So, seeing is believing! You can't unsee certain things. That's how awareness snowballs for you once you start to cultivate it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainticket

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amon_Düül_II

You might end up pretty rich Leo. Your work is an arsenal for growth.

Listening to music.

You better believe it! It feels amazing. Growth. Your problems start to disappear. Where doing nothing leads you to getting everything.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loveless_(album)

You wanna get to the point where you are always meditating, always mindful, always keenly aware. Do some self-inquiry work and psychedelics (safely) if you can. Enlightenment is being able to see through the Mind and make the distinction between Mind and being in real-time in the moment. When you can do this, you don't really have to do any work anymore. All you gotta do is just be keenly aware. It's analogous to the way that an adult sees the world versus the way that a child sees the world. The adult sees through all the illusions that trap the child. When you get a shift, you'll know it. Enlightenment is a series of shifts. It's like you get a buildup to a climax, and then when you least expect it, reality gives you a paradoxical shift where all your values flip and you have to pick up the pieces and learn a new perspective. I've had at least 3 of these shifts over the last year, more likely 4, but I want to be cautious. But then, to call these shifts is misleading too -- because I can see how enlightenment is a progression too. You become more and more enlightened as the Ego begins to weaken and you begin to see all the traps when they arise in the moment. As your awareness grows and deepens, that's what begats your growth. So, meditation is not gonna cut it, and you might want to start working on other things. Still meditate, but don't think that that is gonna get you where you want to be on its own. PILLARS OF ENLIGHTENMENT (REALITY EXPLORING REALITY FULLY) 1. Daily Meditation Habit (Microscope on the Mind) 2. Non-Dual Theory (Scaffolding to orient the Mind to favor awareness over the Ego) 3. Psychedelics (Exploring inner-being) 4. Self-Inquiry (Realizing no-Self fully) 5. External World-Inquiry (Realizing no-World fully) 6. Cosmopolitanism/ World Travel (Exploring outer-being, world cultures through travel, learning other tongues) 7. Education (Exploring world ideas and history leading to reliable knowledge and wisdom) 8. Cultivation of the Authentic-Self (Maslow's Pyramid, Life Purpose, Self-Actualization, Self-Transcendence) 9. Spirituality (Reconnecting to being the Watcher and purifying away illusions) 10. Cultivation of the Body (Nurture and fortify the Body, it's your constant companion) 11. Exploration of Art (Exploring non-linguistic ideas and patterns of ideas, exploring linguistic arts like poetry and fiction) 12. Life Practice (Perfecting your strengths in a way that makes you feel good/proud, eradicating weaknesses if authentically desired) 13. Being Good (Being a source of love and inspiration to others rather than not doing this, assisting others) 14. Authentic Relationships (Where you realize and perfect the idea that we are all One)

All you need is keen awareness.

I didn't get deep enlightenment until I had that ego-death experience on psychedelics. After that, my enlightenment entered a new level, So instead of gradual and instantaneous, enlightenment is more like a stair-step ascent with a series of plateaus that are transcended one after the other. And you are on one of those plateaus now. If you grow, you will make a discontinuous leap to the next plateau up -- the next stair-step up, assuming there is one. After all, awareness requires exploration and knowledge as well as observation. The more inner and outer exploration you do, the more you feed that growth engine which might deepen your enlightenment and pop it up a notch or two from where you're at. Travel and experiencing different cultures, peoples, folkways, lands, art, letters, and ideas is food for enlightenment too, not just inner work. The inner-outer distinction is illusory, so we wanna be mystics of the world not mystics hiding away under a rock. Hiding away from external reality is a trap. You wanna engage with reality fully.

Experiencing the feelings you want to be feeling, making the money you want to be making, having the kinds of relationships you want to be having, feeling free, productive, like you are contributing to the world, healthy, respected, admired even by your peers. Being able to own your own home, save for retirement, and travel when you want to, to explore all of the nooks and crannies of experience this life has, both inner and outer. Sampling the best that recreation has to offer in life, including sampling nice food and spoiling yourself on occasion. Having a career that actually is an expression of you that you can be proud of and look back on your life's work-product with a proud smile on your face. To be able to deal honestly with other people so you can live guilt free and free from having any kind of bad reputation or ill repute. Having passion for your life and being excited by your life. Jumping out of bed in the morning because you're doing exactly what you want to be doing and you're on fire about it. You're jacked up; not on drugs, but by your work. Your work has become an extension of your strengths -- and you get paid very well or at least fairly for what you do. That's the kind of life you want to live. It's called a "charged life," as Leo says. To design your life to be able to genuinely say that you did it "my way" -- you didn't just slug around and sleepwalk through this cornucopia of a life we were given. That would be sad, right? Think about it. It's like traveling to Paris but staying in your hotel room the entire time. No! You explored every inch of reality, both the inner and the outer, and every space betwixt and between. You were the explorer! -- reality getting to know itself fully. That's a nice meta-vision. Watch:

Nah. Strong AI is impossible. But AI will continue to develop and continue to mimic human thinking. There are things about being Human that cannot be designed. It's like asking a bat to explain its sonar hearing to you. It can't.

I would get the degree. Education is important and you will beat yourself up the rest of your life if you don't get that degree. That's important. The degree is a capstone to your education, at least symbolically. I am proud of my degree, and sometimes I have nightmares of failing out of school, etc. Then I wake up and realize that I have a degree and smile. It's is wild what the Ego does when the Body sleeps.

I look at the news, but it's a dirty habit that I want to break. I figure if it is important enough, I'll find out about it anyway, so I don't need to bathe in it directly. I let other people do that for me, and then they come tell me about it. Get a web browser blocker like "Blocksite" to block those sites from your computer. It works. Just don't turn it off. Even if you turn it off, it's still a reminder that clues in your awareness to the issue. Over time, you can wean yourself off the News. It's a distraction.

The only sure way to know is to see if anyone has actually done it. And how much theory did they have? That's a question too, because it's not just meditation -- there's a lot of theory in enlightenment work too. Imagine someone having no access to theory and just meditating attaining enlightenment? Again, the only sure way to know is to see if anyone has actually done it. Otherwise we're just speculating.