lmfao

@Someone here It can feel like you perceive yourself to absolute nothingness, so you're then immortal. There is nothingness and there will never not be nothingness. I remember being convinced of the immortality of my true nature with the depth of the experience. But that state of consciousness has faded from me in the present. I shouldn't go extrapolating meaning from that so readily, it's better for progress if I don't conceptualise with it and dig deeper since I'm not in that state right now.

@Thewritersunion well its on audible if that works for you. It's a very thick book and read, you'll probably want to skim through certain parts or speed read it, so I don't know what audio books are like for that. The audio book is 30 hours 17 mins long. Maybe you can convince your parents or whatever to subscribe to audible or use birthday money to buy the book.

Brief description of my material conditions is in order, so as to describe the familial dynamics. I'm about to finish my second year at university. I'm roughly 20 right now. I'm the youngest of a few children. My parents are pakistani, muslim immigrants. Since term time at university ended for the year, earlier than usual due to corona, I'm living back at home with my family for the summer holidays. Whilst I could write a long list of different things and annoyances, one has to consider the magnitude of things in the bigger picture and think about priorities, whether those priorities be spiritual, emotional and physical. Cost-Payoff analysis type shit, albeit I'm sure if I finished reading radical honesty I would have a lot to radically change and reconsider about my entire approach to life So I'm just focusing on my relation with my father right now. I'm raised in the west, he's raised in pakistan. A lot of polarity in regards to our upbringing, worldview. I'm 20, he's in his mid 60's. Large age gap. He's religious, conservative, a traditionalist. He's the tribal chief of the family, the alpha. Now whilst he is the leader of the family and all that, you hearing that alone might paint an unfair distorted image. Relative to other pakistani men I've seen, he's quite open minded, understanding. He has exceptionally good emotional/social intelligence. He's suffered emotional abuse at the hands of my mom for many years now for half his life. Relative to other Pakistanis he's liberal, even if at the very core of him he's religious and traditional in his own affairs. I am one of those affairs however. One point. I feel like I can notice things about him that the rest of the family are in denial about or because they are sheep-like, and more brainwashed in general by the matrix of culture. I feel like I'm watching a slippery, cunning snake in action with him. Not because he's "malicious", but precisely because he can't see or appreciate his own cunning, which makes it all the more annoying. Whilst making this post, I've deliberated on how to best communicate and summarise the multitude of experiences, subtlety of annoyance, the history, but it's difficult. But fuck it, we don't have time for an autobiography here ----- Okay. So. One thing about the household, we do favours for our dad. We sometimes do favours for each other. We all do this thing where we call for each other across the house. Just calling for each other loudly with our voices. We all do it for different reasons, some cool, some toxic, some urgent, etc. Here's what annoys me about my dad. I can be in the opposite side of the house, he'll yell your name and expect you to just go to him, and to do what favour he asks you. He masquerades as being diplomatic, but it isn't. You have to go to him, you have to do the favour. Of course you might say no but he'll display silent disappointment and silent frustration any trained eye can smell from a mile away, almost like a spoilt child. But he's subtle about it. Or apparently it has to be subtle because everyone in this god damn house is so fucking crazy they can't detect it. I'm fucking on the autistic spectrum and even I can see it. His tone is never really chilled, he never really sees you as an equal. And that's what pisses me off. He can never just ask you something from an equal power dynamic. He's the patriarch. Parents have control over their children. The way he calls you to do favours. I'm not some fucking servant for some Mafia boss. I wouldn't mind helping, doing chores and shit if he just didn't always permeate this dynamic he cant fucking see he's creating. I have contextualised my services to him as permission to cohabitate for rent (a view which he would find depressing because, he wants to be a loving family) , but I can't even make it that because at least your boss treats you like an adult and not as some person they can treat as a mule and make their life decisions for. He'll call my other sibling from across the house, say "Hey X, why dont you take @lmfao for a such and such today" when he never fucking even asked me if I wanted to do that in the first place. So many times he's forced me and coerced me into doing shit in my entire life. Coerced me into cutting my hair when I never wanted to. My family gaslighting me as a dirty and unkempt slob. So why I made this topic. I want to raise these issues with him, but I don't know how to do so. I see so much about how he is subtly idk how I can bring it up without it appearing like I'm some rebellious hippie. He's an old man, how the fuck am I supposed to talk sense into him. Yet as a career, he's always talking to mentally disturbed psychiatric patients, always manages to navigate and understand other people, has a large social circle, yet can't fucking see what he's doing. Ugh, I need to finish reading radical honesty and get my shit together.

@Thewritersunion Have you looked into or heard of Ken Wilber's book "The Religion of Tomorrow"? I've only started it, but in it he gives his theory of a tier 3. He's upgraded or modified spiral dynamics.

Just gonna write an update post my situation here. I almost got into another mini situation and conflict in regards to family issues, but then for some reason I just paused and got bored of following the same patterns over and over again in my mind. I think my outlook on things has changed a bit. One problem I have present in this relationship that came to light in my problem with people in other relationships is having too high expectations. Being idealistic. I've usually defaulted to assuming all sorts of negative things when my idealistic expectations aren't met. I have often thought about, why can't X change their ways, why can't Y just ..... and etc. After throwing myself at this sort of conflict so many times, attempt after attempt to open myself however I could in the pain, I'm only just started to see a little beyond that way ---- So whilst I did have an argument today, and did fall into the same pattern for at least a few minutes, I changed a bit. Rather than just being upset and and distraught and whatever for the rest of the day, I'm just left with a positive/nice feeling of not-knowing. It's the kind of awe/intrigue where your eyes are just wide open and watching the world. After so many attempts and falling in the same pattern of negativity, I just felt bored of engaging things the same way. It's just a good feeling of satisfaction. Don't get me wrong, I'm still stuck in hell and am in the pattern in a sense, with this accumulated karma still hanging over my head. But just a little bit of progress is good. Because for so, so long I tried the approach of "radical honesty" from Brad Blanton, also contemplating what emotional honesty with self and others means, felt so shit from it, but kept going on. And finally there's been some change. Honesty and vulnerability is shit and sucks. Don't let anyone sell you otherwise. It's just the least shit.

A lot of the time when I do kriya yoga and meditate, my change in perception is too drastically different from my default consciousness that I get scared and run away. And so I never maintain a consistent or daily meditation practice. My mind just panics because the contrast is way too huge. Like going from normal, completely egoic consciousness to more "empty" consciousness which sees self and all of reality as unreal. Like the jump is just too huge! Any advice or thoughts? What I find so weird is that, I've realised in the past before that the reason I don't meditate as much is because I get scared from seeing this. But then I will shortly forget this insight I had about why I don't commit to meditation as much, and get absorbed in distraction of my life and addictions. So to cope with this distress, my mind erases from my memory states of consciousness like this and thoughts I had whilst having them. And Maya and my default consciousness mask this whole realisation or awakening experience as if it never happened. The jump is just so huge that I worry about going mad despite not actually going mad, but the worry about going mad will make you mad. I don't know lol. The mind going a bit wild here feels like an involuntary reflex/reaction (but isn't this true about emotions and the mind in general), but it is nonetheless something I have to just not turn away from and watch. I shall remember this is a narrative. Maybe I'm simply neurotic or aren't cut out for this, I don't know. Or maybe that's an excuse to run away from truth. ------------------------ I think Leo shooting a video on insanity and dissociation is a good idea, especially in relation to enlightenment or the search for it. It would be a further elaboration on the dark side of spiritual work. I'm certain that modern medicine's conceptualisation of certain cases of insanity and dissociation is off the mark.

The plant would have to want to enlighten in the first place and I don't see that happening.

@Tim R Thanks dude. I'll watch those two videos probably Yeah. What makes me hate myself is that I'm not even always doing spiritual work, but I still react like this to just small exposures. Thoughts about being weak and etc. But it is what it is. My mind is usually always in tension about suffering or in negativity, thinking about these things, so perhaps in a way all this negativity becomes the fuel for deep experiences when doing this work. So if that's so, I shouldn't hate myself for being weak. It's just that for a large portion of time in the day, issues like motivation and self improvement issues are always on my mind when I'm thinking and so in a way that's the invisible work I do. And then meditation or yoga is like an ignition or rapid explosion of all that I've karmically accumulated. Or that could be a fancy story I just typed. Whatever the case, these particulars don't matter.

@BjarkeT So you're thinking, deciding whether to go chess. You're wavering. Is it that you want to want to do one of the options that you've decided is better, but you can't get your heart behind it? And so it is then that you think that doing something you can't get your heart behind will make you miserable? But then you wonder if there's the possibility you can see beyond the misery and deconstruct it. Such situations like this, it's tough. The mind will fluctuate, you may decide something 1 minute but change your mind the next if the tension is that much. All you can do is not hate yourself for fluctuating and go with it. Let the pressurised gas expand.

@BipolarGrowth The making sense of it would be seeing what motivated me to have that thought.

Monday 07/09/2020 21:16 Just finished kriya yoga and meditation at the end. Hadn't done it in 3 days so it was good to do. But I felt a little something by the end when I was doing concentration. I think I realise one reason that I don't meditate regularly. I enter a strange state of consciousness, panic and want to forget about it almost. But I can't and shan't turn back. But my mind just panics at feeling certain things too deeply. That reality is unreal, or that I am a story, it's a lot to take in. Rather, my mind is going crazy just because the jump in consciousness between meditation and normal waking state is too much.

Good link. May I also recommend on this similar topic, "breakthrough speed reading " by Peter Kump. I've only done some of the chapters but it's pretty good. There are exercises and drills.

@Leo Gura Have you succeeded at changing your "permanent" state? When it comes to this brain chemistry stuff, are you quite fatalistic with it or optimistic? So neurology and brain chemistry, can this be meaningfully altered permanently? I've never been conscious of this God or everything is imagination and love stuff. My high states of consciousness have involved no-self (realising very strongly that there's nobody here but me in the most extreme case, temporarily finding my own reflection almost a stranger) , very rarely love + creation but those states have been lost to me in recent times for whatever reason. Which is maybe why I'm so confused. Maybe you've seen whacky stuff where you see God literally imagining the law of physics, I would have no clue. Now laws of physics, that's materialism, brain chemistry, psychedelics. I find it weird though that despite materialism being relative, it supposedly controls your ability to be awake and see through materialism. A seemingly logical mind fuck.

@Arzack BRUH THIS ENGLISH DUB SUCKS, I CAN'T BRO. But yeah, films a non-dual masterpiece

The End of Evangelion film.

I'm going to paste what I wrote to myself in my journal today, because I can't think of what else to say or ask other than to just put it out there and see the response _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A lot of my shadow is sexual in nature. Sex itself, alongside the possible things that are possibly underneath the surface of these sexual forces, is very strange thing for me. My inclination towards this domain of reality from a very young age makes me reverent of the existence of alien and unknown qualities in nature. "karma", "the collective unconscious", these are different labels for desires, situations, that I myself don't feel I created more so I was thrown into. When I was 5 I discovered the adult channels on television. I would use the TV when I was alone at night. I felt drawn to the scantily clad women but I didn't know why. Not too soon after I connected a few dots, realised the concept of attraction. So I watched late night adult channels for a while to myself. When I was 6 I would use google to try and search for naked girls, although I didn't know porn existed and so I would just go on google images and search what my brain could think of "Hot naked ladies", something like that. ----- There's one thing I'm genuinely confused about from the details I do remember. Because whatever way I slice it, this event seems absurd, and perhaps concerning. This has gotten me unsettled, but I don't know if I'm paranoid. Okay so this is set when I'm 5 years old. I'm in school, in class. All of us kids in the class would sit down on the ground whilst the teacher, who was female, would read some book and we listen. Now whilst everyone would sit directly in front of the teacher, facing her, I would sit around the side of the teacher. A bit to the side, and even a bit behind perhaps. But anyway, whilst the teacher was reading, I'd look up her skirt! My head was directly beneath her skirt, peeking!!!! And it was all the time. I remember the colour of her socks and what they looked like, seeing her legs. It's possible that I even touched her socks, but I can't be sure and I don't know, my memory is just so hazy trying to remember this. And this was a frequent occasion. I'd do it every time she's reading and gathers us. I THINK I WOULD FIDGET AROUND, LOOK UNDER HER SKIRT, AND NOBODY NOTICED OR CARED. Which I find strange. Maybe she knew but didn't care? I have no clue. I think it might have literally been the case that, everyones eyes were glued on the teachers face and nobody was looking at me, and I was behind the teacher at such a weird angle that nobody saw or knew what I was doing. Just assuming I was fidgeting a bit but was listening like the rest of them. ---- Anyway. Back on track. When I was 12 I discovered pornography. Am addicted to that till this day, being 20 years old now. All my jock male friends in school would mingle with females, but I had it instilled in me that having females as friends was a sin. You're told growing up that you shouldn't look at a female you're not married to for any nanosecond longer than is necessary. You feel like you neither fit in with your home culture or the west. This alienation lasted for years after I knew I wasnt Muslim and is probably a main factor of my depression. I had a crush back in high school, and that person still remains a symbol in the various images that pops in my head. I remember having an insight not too long ago about how a problem I was having came back to the feelings I had for this girl, many many years ago. My porn tastes became extreme and escalated. Sadistic, domination and worse . I've only confided in 1 person about the full extent of my problem. Despite extreme tastes, my use of porn isn't that that much. I've only masturbated once in the past 3 days, for example. But I go through periods of time of masturbating daily.

@meow_meow Kriya Secrets Revealed by J C Stevens

What is there to say with these things. Someone is claiming enlightenment. An Instagram model at that. Like come on. Absolute, "states vs enlightenment", that topic can be discussed separately. I would reccomend reading jed mckenna, Peter Ralston and Leo for different opinions. Jed Mckenna talks about this very directly, and almost makes it a core point in his book. Some people call a particular seeing that one's true nature is nothing and immortal, the one and only enlightenment. But isnt there depth to which this is seen? The stability and depth of the realisation. And could there be other facets of consciousness? Expose yourself

@meow_meow Also dude, bear in mind that Sadhguru is a speaker for normies. Therefore it's in his motive to value heavily his listeners egoic comfort. Uncovering the shadow has always been a part of this process, but since Sadhguru is marketing this product where spirituality=bliss, he only sells you one side of the story.

@meow_meow if you were to talk to Sadhguru, he would tell you that kundalini practices without proper instruction or guidance is a risky thing. Some people think that this kundalini is a tangible force that needs to be scientifically balanced with careful care. Therefore knowledge about the supposed mechanisms of kundalini, or at the very least, knowledge which has been supposedly tested to avoid potential negatives when practiced, is seen as essential. So the kundalini is seen as an alchemical/scientific force to be skillful with. The same way a pottery artist has to be precise, exact, with how they apply newtonian force to shape wet clay in the precisely desired form and shape. But I don't know if these people are right. Kundalini might not have the same level of existence of let's say, this table in front of me. The approach I've taken it to just find a good book with some guidance and don't skip steps. Follow these people's advice for what the proper method is. Although, to be honest, I might just mess with that and not keep this approach and attitude in the future.

@Gesundheit haha not anymore lol. But when I was 12 or so I'd search for Islamic answers on the Internet to certain questions of what is or isn't allowed, and I would be left trying to make sense of or debunk these hardcore fundamentalists who seem to have invaded the online landscape.

Sat 05/09/2020 10:06 I've been in the grip of past images and sensations. Deja vu. I'm remembering one of my first "enlightenment experiences". When I was 16 or so I heard of meditation from Sam Harris. And for whatever reason, two of the first powerful experiences I had were when I was bored on the bus and paying attention to my breath. I wanted to see "where is my breath coming from?". It was probably my first realisation of no-self and no free will. Extremely random. I had no frame of reference or theory for what my experiences were since I was a stout atheist who grew up with islam. But I remember realising, I'm in control of nothing, and I don't know why anything is. I have no free will. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ My energetic state right now, my emotions, images, I feel like I'm in the past. This is likely due to my recently disturbed sleeping pattern. I've been fluctuating in and out of dissociation whilst awake. Right now, I'm not dissociated. I'm just hit by extremely, extremely hard deja vu. I feel like I'm 16 again, sleep deprived in the morning with a very particular flavour of subtle anxiety, wearing my white button shirt, sitting on the bus and going to psychiatric (work experience)/(internship). This very particular flavour of anxiety...it reminds me of a distant time. The time before my emotions became as they are now. I used to experience this flavour of anxiety very frequently. I experienced around the time my psychological issues were starting to converge into a turning point which eventually became depression. This combination of bad sleep and accidentally forgetting to take my SSRI meds for a couple of days, it did something. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I have a large shadow A lot of my shadow is sexual in nature. Sex itself, alongside the possible things that are possibly underneath the surface of these sexual forces, is very strange thing for me. My inclination towards this domain of reality from a very young age makes me reverent of the existence of alien and unknown qualities in nature. "karma", "the collective unconscious", these are different labels for desires, situations, that I myself don't feel I created more so I was thrown into. When I was 5 I discovered the adult channels on television. I would use the TV when I was alone at night. I felt drawn to the scantily clad women but I didn't know why. Not too soon after I connected a few dots, realised the concept of attraction. So I watched late night adult channels for a while to myself. When I was 6 I would use google to try and search for naked girls, although I didn't know porn existed and so I would just go on google images and search what my brain could think of "Hot naked ladies", something like that. ----- There's one thing I'm genuinely confused about from the details I do remember. Because whatever way I slice it, this event seems absurd, and perhaps concerning. This has gotten me unsettled, but I don't know if I'm paranoid. Okay so this is set when I'm 5 years old. I'm in school, in class. All of us kids in the class would sit down on the ground whilst the teacher, who was female, would read some book and we listen. Now whilst everyone would sit directly in front of the teacher, facing her, I would sit around the side of the teacher. A bit to the side, and even a bit behind perhaps. But anyway, whilst the teacher was reading, I'd look up her skirt! My head was directly beneath her skirt, peeking!!!! And it was all the time. I remember the colour of her socks and what they looked like, seeing her legs. It's possible that I even touched her socks, but I can't be sure and I don't know, my memory is just so hazy trying to remember this. And this was a frequent occasion. I'd do it every time she's reading and gathers us. I THINK I WOULD FIDGET AROUND, LOOK UNDER HER SKIRT, AND NOBODY NOTICED OR CARED. Which I find strange. Maybe she knew but didn't care? I have no clue. I think it might have literally been the case that, everyones eyes were glued on the teachers face and nobody was looking at me, and I was behind the teacher at such a weird angle that nobody saw or knew what I was doing. Just assuming I was fidgeting a bit but was listening like the rest of them. ---- Anyway. Back on track. When I was 12 I discovered pornography. Am addicted to that till this day, being 20 years old now. All my male friends in school would mingle with females, but I had it instilled in me that having females as friends was a sin. You're told growing up that you shouldn't look at a female you're not married to for any nanosecond longer than is necessary. You feel like you neither fit in with your home culture or the west. This alienation lasted for years after I knew I wasnt Muslim and is probably a main factor of my depression. I had a crush back in high school, and that person still remains a symbol in the various images that pops in my head. I remember having an insight not too long ago about how a problem I was having came back to the feelings I had for this girl, many many years ago. My porn tastes became extreme and escalated. Sadistic, domination and worse . I've only confided in 1 person about the full extent of my problem. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Anyway, I'm glad I wrote a mini biography for myself to reference.

... Only one way to find out?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/intensifies Know your meme bro

@Gohabsgo it's fine man. You can see "cultivating morality" as something which raises your consciousness. Perhaps if you value high consciousness you will value morality. Or maybe someone will give me a zen bitch slap and say I'm speaking nonsense.