Gavalanche

@Arman Thanks for the words of encouragement! Sorry, I'm only seeing your message now, but it's still most welcome! Glad to hear everything balanced out for you eventually. It does sound like you went through something eerily similar! Must have been difficult with less info available / no-one to talk to. Although I've probably been dealing with too much information to sift through and still hard to talk to many people about it! Anyway, thanks for the advice!

I've been going through a very difficult awakening of sorts and have been trying various things to become more stable. I might seem to be improving only to get worse again a few days later - and I wasn't sure what I was doing wrong. It might have been down to things like yoga and meditation. I found this girl Kelly's advice quite helpful - in which she says grounding is key and common advice like meditating and yoga, is not as suitable for us already dealing with this influx of energy - in that practices like this actually charge us up energetically even more and can prolong and intensify our symptoms. I've found her videos quite helpful - I've also been working my way through a short course on her site called Grounded Awakenings. The other advice I got from elsewhere, which I followed up on was to see a Herbalist - in that our nervous system and body in general can need a lot of support during this time. So I've been taking a herbal tincture thing 3 times a day, recently and it seems to be helping. I'm no expert though, so there probably is merit to meditating (I've found it hard to bring myself to Stop meditating actually!) and yoga during all this, if you know what you're doing. If you don't really know what you're doing or what's going on (like me) and are generally just struggling to make it through each day - then taking the girl in the video's advice might be helpful. Good luck!

Thanks for all the information. EFT tapping was recently recommended to me and I have been looking into it. Pretty much everything you said corroborates (and even expands upon) what it is and how it possibly works. I take it as a vote of confidence! I recently (inadvertently) triggered some sort of awakening process (kundalini? - I'm really not sure) after trying ayahuasca for the first (and last!) time, in an attempt to gain some clarity on my life direction. In this state where my whole system seems to be getting flooded with extra energy - it is extremely ungrounding and the whole thing has been quite hellish, from feeling like I've been losing my mind, to just completely unmanagable and overwhelming emotions. I believe a lot of suppressed stuff is being driven to the surface. I was very naive and didn't really understand the magnitude of the physical and energetic components of spirituality - my whole mind/body system has been in complete turmoil for months. It was recommended to me that traditional advice to ease such an experience such as yoga, meditation and use of crystals (not so sure on that one) will actually make things even more uncomfortable because they are charging your energy even more, when you're already overloaded, leading to even more ungroundedness - which causes its own plethora of issues. Anyway EFT Tapping was highly recommended as a way to deal with and release all the stuff coming up, because it is a very grounded and efficient method that can be used on pretty much any issue (apparently). This really resonates with my recent experiences and some tough lessons I've learned. I was getting way too ahead of myself and focusing purely on meditation, absorbing all sorts of information on spirituality, while finding it harder and harder to deal with some of the more day to day aspects of life. I'm actually quite concerned now that a lot of people might be following Leo and other Youtube teachers and all this material and shooting straight for Enlightenment and other advanced stages of development, without growing their roots first - I think this could be what leads to all the spiritual horror stories and things like depersonalisation and such (which I've had the misfortune of dealing with). I would also say now (after learning the hard way) to stay away from psychedelics unless you are very grounded! In hindsight, I think myself and probably about 90% of the people watching the youtube videos probably think they are way more stable / advanced / have a more mature ego than they actually have, so any disclaimers and such probably fly over our heads. I thought that because I had been meditating fairly regularly for a few years and had saved up a good bit of money, that I was ready for some of this stuff, but it was quite the rude awakening I was in for. With working and day to day responsibilities, I (and imagine many others) only have a certain amount of time to dedicate to studying all the material - we end up watching a video on "Have an Ego Death experience", "How to have an OBE" or "Open your 3rd Eye right now!" - with no idea of the dangers of what we might be opening ourselves up to, psychological or otherwise. These were my personal learnings anyway, for where I am at.

Not sure what to make of the fact that I went from browsing Actualized.org content, to watching the latest episode of Rick & Morty, then a 3 minute video of Dan Harmon discussing the philosophy of the show, then googling if Dan Harmon was enlightened, then finding myself back on Actualized.org looking at this thread Thanks for the resources!

Not sure how I didn't come across this thread before! I've been thinking a lot about the combination of these two for a while now, in regards to my own life purpose. It's definitely a tricky line to walk, as games have the capacity to engross and consume people entirely, but I like to think they can be a positive force. They are after all, a medium which can combine many other media and create powerful experiences. Like Liam and Vibivub mentioned, those games come to mind for me too. The company that made Journey have a few other games, that break the mold too - notably "Flower" - they're definitely pushing the medium forward from an artistic point of view. For me Shadow of the Colossus probably counts as a spiritual experience, or at least very emotionally stirring. The music plays a big part. Another favourite of mine in recent times has been "Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons". It's a shorter game, that plays like a very-moving fairytale :') If you're still interested in making games, (and haven't done so already) some game engines to start looking at would be maybe GameMaker Studio or Unity, especially if you wanted to incorporate your own physics knowledge. Actually deep, practical understanding of physics is quite rare in the games industry (i've been working as a games developer / engineer for the past 5 or so years). If you could transfer that knowledge into some programming or practical applications, it might be your ticket in the door at a studio somewhere, where you could learn more about the whole industry and process of making games.

I truly hope to get there someday. Thanks Leo!

So, I get that there's no real "Good" or "Bad" and that morality is pretty much a cultural, subjective phenomenon... However, I seem to keep coming across the notion that; while on one hand it doesn't matter what anyone does, ultimately, really the only way you can do "good" in the world is by becoming more conscious. I've heard Leo allude to this in many instances; like saying in the rant on morality vid, that without morality, he's actually more moral (by society's definition) (apologies if I'm mis-remembering exactly what he said). Why is that the case? Also in the "What it means to be a Real Hero" vid, he mentions that the true heroes are the saints and sages. I've watched a few times and must still be missing something... why is it the case that the saints and sages are the true heroes, if there is no good and bad? What is it about them that makes them heroic and how are they helping? Don't get me wrong, I'm interested in this because I love everything about heroism and witnessing any sort of heroic act is usually what brings me to tears, instead of typical sad scenes in films / TV shows etc. I've always felt like the compassionate ones are the ones we should be trying to emulate, as opposed to the "successful" business types and so on. The main metric I go by is suffering - even if there's no good or bad, I still ideally want to reduce suffering in the world. I guess I'm just wondering if there is any sort of universal truth behind that approach or is it just a personal preference of certain people? Along the same lines, why is unconsciousness deemed "bad" (or less desirable) and consciousness "good" (or more desirable) - by spiritual folks who also acknowledge that good and bad don't exist? What's the metric for the desirability? For example, if a philanthropic business man uses his money to cover some sick kid's life saving surgery and a seasoned mystic does the same thing - one is coming from a place of lower consciousness and the other from higher consciousness - why is low conscious guy's behaviour considered less "good" than the other's? (Slightly contrived example) I feel like the world needs more consciousness, but is it true that it does, or is it merely subjective preference? Why does pursuing and attaining more consciousness / becoming enlightened, make one heroic? Why is it so much more beneficial to the world? Is the ego capable of performing any heroic acts, or do all acts of compassion come from the higher self? Sorry for all the questions. I feel like this topic is close to my heart and deeply connected to my life purpose. If I knew exactly why following the spiritual path is the way to do the greatest good / become a true hero - I think I'd have an easier time following it with more drive and intention. Thanks!

Sorry, I just felt compelled to say something on the foundational topic that is, the chopping off of tips of dicks There are medical reasons why this can be beneficial / necessary. I can attest to this as I had to have it done later in life. Not saying you should go about it willy-nilly mind you, no pun intended

Sounds a bit like this Eckhart video I stumbled across yesterday. Not talking about AI, mind you - more about the planet stepping in if we get out of hand and ending humanity in non-violent way.

I've struggled with overthinking a lot and it is definitely hard to be mindful when you're caught up in the midst of a bombardment of thoughts about anything and everything. From a meditation point of view, some guided meditations might be a good thing to try if you haven't already as it they actively give you something to focus on. As for the confusion, I'm probably not the man to be giving advice on that as I'm still quite confused myself. Leo's video on confusion is great so I'd recommend looking at that if you get the chance. For me, my deep confusion is only really starting to fade away since I started using Holosync for meditation. It seemed I was in need of a higher strength dose of meditation. You might need something like that to help snap you out of your current thought-patterns and see them for what they are. I've found that I get very confused when I feel like I have to make a decision about something IMMEDIATELY. When I can be a bit more patient with myself and give myself a longer period of time before "having to figure it out", that usually helps. Some other things I've heard people recommend for calming oneself down are supplements like Ashwagandha and of course the general advice about basically living cleanly - diet, sleep, exercise and getting out in nature.

Thanks for the sage wisdom Dingus! I really would do well to remember that, in particular. I've been prone to spin many an epically contrived yarn, in my time, about my potential future.

It kind of goes against the "focus on one thing and master it idea", but I think some of us might be just wired differently, more oriented towards piecing together the bigger picture and thus really wanting to explore many things, finding it extremely painful to limit ourselves to one avenue. I know I've struggled with this a lot and found some solace in the "multipotentialite" community (probably mentioned elsewhere on this forum somewhere). Emilie Wapnick runs this site: http://puttylike.com/ And just released this book (which I haven't read yet) https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Everything-Guide-Those/dp/0062566652 She also has a TedTalk floating around out there somewhere. It might be of some interest to people on this thread. Again, there are probably dangers and cop-outs to be wary of when thinking along these lines... I guess - lean heavily on strategic thinking and your intuition as best you can, when navigating these waters. Another perspective is one that Sadhguru talked about before - about how we're all craving more and more all the time and want to do everything and have everything - he says we're really yearning for infinity (i.e. our true selves). So, I have a suspicion that through deeper spiritual work, this need and want to study and learn and experience absolutely everything in the world on material level might start to fade away, to more sane levels. Also pretty sure I butchered what he actually said, so it might be worth trying to track down that video!

Thanks! I didn't know about that book. I read "Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing" and was fairly engrossed in it throughout, but became fairly ungrounded in my day-to-day life trying to go to work and so on! Would you recommend I finish out the Spiritual Enlightenment trilogy before taking a look at Dreamstate? Ah maybe I'll just get it and skip to the last few chapters My issue at the moment is trying to tell which messages I'm receiving are the authentic ones I should follow and which ones might just be an egoic thing. There a couple that feel pretty authentic, but unfortunately seem logistically opposed to each other and I can't act on both! As a alternate / joke suggestion for a video idea, maybe Leo could explain what the hell is going on in this thread:

I've read 'Letting Go" by David Hawkins and one of Leo's meditation videos is all about surrender. I can kind of get a sense of what it means to surrender in the context of a meditation session or some period of solitude when nothing is going on, but I've been running into some paradoxical stuff when it comes to trying to live my entire life this way. I'd love to some fresh perspectives on what is actually going on during this process and how to reconcile it with more day to day living; making large life decisions, intuition, preferences and free will. Does "surrendering to life", "taking your hand off the tiller", "following the tao" mean following your intuition and taking conscious action on it or being more passive and letting life move you around? (The latter is usually a definition of low consciousness behaviour as far as I can tell).

Yeah, it's more about: if I have the means, then maybe using some money to aid charities in alleviating starvation and supplying medicine for easily curable health issues, that I was thinking about, as opposed to thinking everyone in Africa is unhappy because they don't have all the stuff we have. It's a good point though - there are some depressing stories about people who try to "help" and actually end up making things worse