lmfao

I'm feeling the need to journal today because I'm frustrated as hell. For the last 6 months, I've had a habit of meditated every day. I've probably missed something like 21 days in that period (just a guess). I've had a very good exercise routine for the past 3 weeks, and an OK exercise routine which started just before 2018. Despite all the efforts I've made, I'm still depressed as fuck. I meditated for 70 mins today, and went for an intense run.... and I'm still empty. What's the point of living if life's this shit. Nothing feels worth it. I don't enjoy anything anymore. My improvements in mindfulness mean very little to me right now. I wake up in the mornings feeling absolutely drained and lethargic. I take a shower, and somehow force myself to meditate. Even if I become more mindful, and get closer to the present moment, there's an insurmountable amount of negativity locked inside of me. I'm tired of nothing I do working. It's as though intense exercise moves my happiness level from -9999 to -9998. Even if I sort of get into a flow state, it dissipates quickly after exercise finishes and I'm back to my normal self. I've experienced multiple deep mystical states, and I know that there exists so much to be tapped into but I don't give a shit because it's out of my reach. I've been deluding myself with this self actualization bullshit. Just because my negativity is the result of a neurotic ego doesn't mean that anything going to happen to fix this ego. I just want to kill myself at this point.

@universe the question "why?" is meaningless/unanswerable. Everything in reality just is what it is. I've often wondered to myself "what is time?". What is the present moment, I wonder. Is it a still snapshot of time? An infinitesimal small point of time? Is it just appropriate to call "now", "all that there is"? If the time is an illusion, and the past and future don't exist (which you can start to feel through meditation), then how can my present moment experience change it all? If all of reality is the present moment, then how can things be in flux and be dynamic? Or is flux an illusion? I guess the only thing slightly different about what I ponder, is that I'm asking "What is now?" rather than "Why is now?".

@Outer the other topic that Pluck created, "Leo has no clothes" was another copy and paste, of something "Lance Everett" wrote on Quora. I replied to that original post https://www.quora.com/Is-Leo-Gura’s-Actualized-org-a-scam/answer/Lance-Everett-3/comment/57590422 I'm pretty sure Pluck is a troll. I'm just whining right now cuz I'm annoyed I wasted time replying to "her". Plucks supposed Birthday is on 01/01/1990. This is fishy. Whenever I made fake age accounts in the past, I always wrote my age as 01/01/xxxx. Pretty sure Lance Everett is a boy. Lance Everett used to go by the name "Connor" (Frankston?) and had a male profile picture, I'm pretty sure.

@Pluck Are you someone who left an answer on "Is Leo Gura's Actualized.org a scam?" on Quora? I left a comment on the answer you left, https://www.quora.com/Is-Leo-Gura’s-Actualized-org-a-scam/answer/Lance-Everett-3/comment/57590422 , although my views since then have changed a bit. I still haven't a clue about Quantum Mechanics. Some of your criticism here seems to be geared towards Leo's followers mainly. What do you mean by "commentary" here? Do you just mean youtube comments and actualized.org activity? You seem to have a problem with the "anti-rationalist" views Leo spouts. If you've watched and listened to Leo, you would know that Leo sees very well how rationalism is useful but Leo is saying that rationalism has its limits. To say that rationalism has its limits is not to say that we accept whatever dogma is fed to us (as narrow minded religious folk might), it is to say we've opened our minds to experiencing truths which are beyond conceptualization and abstractions. Truths which you must reach through consciousness work. You can still use logic to navigate your way through life, whilst also not being a slave to it. All logical statements are based on logically baseless assumptions, and so logic defeats itself in this way. We can still maintain out logical faculties and see though manipulation tactics. You rant about how Leo is a narcissistic and repeat this point many times, although you seem to provide no evidence. You say that this is a psychotic opinion to hold because what you think Leo means is different what Leo means. You then later talk about how there is the Hindu idea that we are all God, and you seem to have no problems with this idea. If you have no problems with that idea, then why do you hate Leo for saying "I am God"? To copy and paste what I wrote on Quora " When he says “I am God” I believe he's referring to the fact that through mystical experiences (I've felt this before through meditation) you can get in touch with your consciousness to the point that you realise that your entire experience “just is”, and you can't figure out why it is the way it is. I'm not explaining it very well so I'll elaborate. For example, the thoughts that pop into your mind just pop into your mind without “you” doing anything (you can't think a thought before you think it). You feel that everything just is the way it is, and from the perspective of your own consciousness, there is no cause and it all feels magical. It's like there's this thing in reality that keeps it all magically working. All your thoughts, experiences, actions and feelings seem to come out of a void which you can't explain. Your entire reality comes out of this void. I believe he refers to this thing in reality (although I think this is something beyond verbal communication) as “absolute infinity” or “God”, and it is possible to be in consciously aware and in touch with “God” as it flows through you. " Again, you're making all these claims about narcissism. Many people do consciousness work and come across spiritual truths. Just because people have different standards of truth from you doesn't make them mentally ill or mentally disturbed. I will agree with you that for spirituality, people must look out for manipulation. I think you're just misrepresenting and jumping to conclusions about Leo's views on rationality simply because there exist many people out there who manipulate and abuse people by making people throw out their critical faculties. I see little abuse or manipulation from Leo, I mostly see someone who's encouraging open minded inquiry into the true nature of reality. This stuff about enlightenment and becoming infinite is something you can experience through meditation (idk about the witches thing lol). You don't have to take Leo's word for it. I believe these things, doesn't mean I'm schizoaffective. Again, that's such an absurd claim. There is a lot of bullshit in New Age spirituality, but you seem to just be unjustifiably projecting all that shit onto Leo. I mean the word "infinite" is a woo-woo word, but you must see through your prejudices. Again, I would cite a section of my quora comment which I showed above. To be honest, I feel like I've wasted some time replying to this emotionally charged essay of yours.

@Viking I'm going to define materialism as the belief that reality is composed of matter and energy configurations distributed across space, and these configurations change through time (although matter is scientifically proven to be a form of energy, and idk if "space-time" will be proven to be "energy"). My definition is probably sloppy but you get the essence of what I mean. I have two main reasons for not accepting the materialist paradigm: one is intellectual, the other is experiential but these two reasons are linked. In order to state anything about reality, you have to operate on unprovable axioms. Axioms about logic, axioms about how to interpret the contents of your consciousness (the contents of your consciousness include everything about your current experience: sights, sounds, thoughts you have and etc). You can paradoxically use logic to defeat the validity of logic. Logically speaking, all statements are based on logically baseless assumptions. To give you an example, someone takes it as an axiom that the memories and thoughts they have about past are real and true, they take it as an axiom that there exist other consciousnesses and that solipsism isn't true, they take it as an axiom that logic can be used to assert anything true about reality. I believe that the closest thing you can get to truth is to do consciousness work and synchronize your awareness with the present moment. Pay attention to the present moment. Whatever is in your consciousness, don't put a label on it. See it for what it really is. It is a mistake to confuse our symbols for the world for the world itself, and this is a why concepts fail to grasp reality. I'll end with an Alan Watts quote. Skip to 1:56 in the video, you will only get the point if you hear the audio [I'm telling to skip forward Cuz this video is a somewhat disjoint compilation of things Alan watts has said. Can't find the full lecture. I hate the music ? on these videos as well lol]

I love that theres another thread about chakras lol ?

@CreamCat I have found there to be no short cuts whatsoever in this regard. Consciousness work is the main way to go, even if the process is tedious. @ajasatya suggested that you have serious deadlines. But I'm someone who's been so lazy and so unmotivated that all serious deadlines do is promote an unhealthy cycle of procrastination and cramming. I feel like I almost have PTSD from the stressful deadlines I've crammed for when it comes to high school. But consciousness work isn't the only thing you can do. For trying to "self actualize" yourself, it's best to use all tools at your disposal. And what I mean by this is is that you adopt Western self improvement techniques in addition to "Eastern" spirituality. This is the strategy in mind that I have. Western self improvement stuff would revolve around forcing yourself to get shit done and chasing success. You make changes in your life such that your ego is distracted with various healthy and "productive" activities. You're doing what you can to minimise suffering despite having a strong ego. But from my experience, mainstream Western self improvement doesn't work for people like me whose psyches are deeply entrenched in the gutter. But by meditating alone you'll make improvements, and find the will power and equanimity to implement stuff that Western self improvement emphasises (exercising, emotional intelligence, career success, losing weight, getting a romantic partner and etc). Through concuousness work you adress the root cause. Although much of western self improvement stuff encourages you to "accept yourself", you are not properly guided with how to deal with your negative thinking. So from a spiral dynamics point of view, western self improvement is orange and does have green as well.

I've often heard people talking about Chakras on this forum here and there. My question is, why do people believe in such a thing? Do you believe in them metaphorically? Is there any sort of utility in believing in Chakras which allows you to accelerate self development? Do you believe in Chakras because of an experience you've had?

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@Brittany

The responses I have received are pointing towards Carl Jung. I have noticed popular psychology creating a victim mentality of "poor little me" being tortured by the universe. The idea of the "shadow" seems like a good one.

I'm into this personal development thing so that I can get rid of my neuroses and "become enlightened". As far as getting enlightened go, I feel that I need to just keep doing consciousness work. Removing neuroses will make enlightenment easier. Can psychology theory be used as a handy indicator or as a handy shortcut for removing my neuroses? [Deep down I know that there are no shortcuts lol] Can I do something to remove neuroses without meditating? Am I asking questions I already know the answer to deep down? When I'm deep into a nondual state, my neuroses are gone, but I want to see if I can I use other tools to tackle these problems as well. I thought about this today because I was in a state where I was just a tiny bit more mindful than I normally am. I noticed to myself "I am anxious" and despite the fact that being anxious was illogical, I couldn't get my emotions to align with the logic. I can acknowledge that I'm feeling anxious, but with low levels of mindfulness my awareness will become sedated and lost in thought. And so my question is, what areas of psychology are "best" to study for improving myself? Which psychologists are best? Which theories are very good? I've got the booklist as well so I wouldn't mind any advice in regards to books from there.

@solr Jordan Peterson is quite the intelligent psychologist. I found some of his university psychology lectures to be interesting and his lectures aren't usually loaded with jargon, which means he's easy to follow. If you want to learn a few things within psychology in a fun/interesting way, his youtube lectures are the way to go. I've been listening to stuff from this playlist, although there are others. For me, his lectures on the "Big Five Aspects scale" are quite memorable. The Big Five Aspects scale is a model for describing and measuring personality. In this model, there are five dimensions of measurement: Agreeableness, conscientiousness, Extroversion, Openness to Experience and Neuroticism. It provides a nice way of conceptualizing personality. These 5 traits are things you can observe in the people around you, and can be used to explain why people behave in different ways. Each trait has two sub components, e.g. conscientiousness is composed of orderliness and industriousness. In his conscientiousness lecture in this playlist he talks about how conscientiousness predicts political orientation and life success, and how racial prejudice and avoidance of your "out group" may in part be an evolutionary adaptation (of course he isn't morally justifying this). This is because unfamiliar groups of people can carry pathogens which can kill you. For example, when Europeans came over to meet the Native Americans it is estimated that 90% of Native Americans were killed from pathogens that Europeans were carrying. He speculates that racial prejudice can be the result of "orderliness" going out of control in order to avoid infection. He talks about Hitler in general as well as example of orderliness taken to extremes, and he talks about how Hitler in his speeches and writings would describe Jews using words related to medical disease. As you've obviously seen from the responses in this thread, Jordan Peterson is more well known for his political stances. And when Jordan Peterson engages in conversation around politics, he explains his world view and people like to debate his world view. I personally find his political stuff less interesting. Although I do find some his interpretations of the Bible to be sort of interesting.

I've set myself the goal of finishing reading this interesting maths book, "Set Theory and Logic" by Robert Stoll, by the end of August as it would be relevant to my Life Purpose. I know I can do it, it's just that I lack the drive and discipline. I find the term "Life Purpose" to be very funny when I think about it. It makes the random shit we do on a daily basis sound deadly serious.

I meditated for 70 mind today, and I'm probably going to meditate again today. I'm in this very strange pattern which I haven't dealt with. By the end of my meditation session, I'll feel blissful and anxiety free. However, shortly after I'll feel empty and depressed. I will proceed to distract myself with Internet, video games, TV and tasty food. However I will notice the underlying emptiness and meditate again. And the cycle repeats with me feeling empty and depressed shortly after. But I can see why this is happening. The lifetime of unconsciousness which I have cultivated is far too habitual to be broken with just a little meditation. I have to go all the way with consciousness practice and seriously try to quit my addictions, is what my gut is telling me.

@SpyAquamarine I care for birthdays in so far as much as I get free stuff. Getting free stuff is nice, whatever the reason, although I won't care if I was was to get no presents. Presents are a welcome bonus to a day that would otherwise be a presentless day. Another thing which I like about birthdays is that they are often an excuse to go out for a meal and have a good time. I dont genuinely care about the concept of a birthday, but I do like the positive things that can accompany a birthdays. I have a similar attitude towards other holidays and celebrations (Christmas, Eid, Easter and etc). Right now I'm 17. When I was younger, and even now to a degree, I wished there was something inherently meaningful about the day your were born. I found the idea of star signs cool [I'm a Leo]. But when I got older I started to see that there was nothing observationally special about birthdays. Horrorscopes are so obviously vague and constructed in a way so that they can apply to anyone. Calendars are just human constructs, and there seems to be very little significance to the position of the Earth in its orbit around the sun at the moment you left your mother's womb. And yeah, I hate having to remember people's birthdays too. How is this related to self actualization again lol?

Read the question I asked very carefully. Forum guidelines ban "Asking how to source drugs, psychedelic or otherwise". I'm asking where can I learn how to source psychedelics. What websites do you use for psychedelic research? Where should I go if I want to learn more about psychedelics?

@astrokeen I don't want to specify too much, but West Midlands. Not a city.

The population in my town is somewhat disproportionately fat and old. There are a significant number of Christians in my area, some of whom would be quite traditional. People in Britain aren't very religious as a whole however. Overall I think that I could say 10% Green, 15% blue and 75% orange for my area.

@Empty You would already have a hard enough time to spread non-duality in the West. People aren't open-minded to it and they see no reason for why they should be interested in it. I think the most common route taken for someone who starts trying consciousness work practices is that someone who is suffering immensely in life looks towards self improvement advice, and stumbles upon meditation/yoga. Well that was my route. People can get on board with the idea of improving themselves. It is later that they will discover that the notion they've held throughout their life of self improvement is different to the type of self improvement that you get from consciousness work practices, and it will be a pleasant surprise. I've been raised in a Muslim family and I've visited Pakistan a lot and I've also interacted with many Muslim immigrants in a Western Country. I don't know what Muslim country you are in and so I don't know what society like there is exactly like. But I can talk about my experience with Pakistani Muslim communities. I'm about to make lots of generalizations, but it's appropriate for understand what the overarching trend. Most Muslims believe in a fundamentalist interpretation of the Quran, and it is drilled into them that they must believe that there exists a singular deity separate from them who created them and this singular deity has imposed laws for mankind to follow. The greatest sin you can commit in Islam is Shirk, which is to associate any partners to Allah. Disbelief in God is Shirk. To consider yourself to be God, or to be one with God and reality, would be shirk. It is because of the belief that Shirk is the ultimate evil in Islam that Muslims look down on Christianity. Christians claim Jesus to be the son of God. This is blasphemous, as God has no partners. You are not at the status of God. The word "Islam" means surrender. You are to surrender to the will of a God who is above you and who is completely separate from you. And so it is that teaching people that all is one, that they are one with God, that good and evil don't exist, that their beliefs about reality are groundless, would be seen as blasphemy. People are indoctrinated with religion from a young age. They cannot see outside of their box. Their psyche has melded and become one with the box. To many of them, the thought that their world view was wrong never crossed their minds. It would be completely mind shattering if their religion was proved false to them. I entered an existential crisis when it hit me that I had been deluding myself with religion. It is because of this that many Muslims are obsessed with orthodoxy. My way is the right way. If you are going to spread any theory to them, it better fit in with their already established worldview on religion. Spreading non-daulity in real life is risky. Even if you were to avoid spreading the theory, and just encourage meditation and yoga in a secular way, you could possibly be accused of being a heretic. Because meditation and yoga are hindu and buddhist practices, they might see you as someone opening the doors to something blasphemous. That being said, I think that you will probably be fine spreading these practices so long as you keep religion out of it. Put it across as something secular and unrelated to religion. If you ask people to question their beliefs about God,religion and reality you're going to be met with animosity. But it depends on the exact country you are in. I think you have a better chance of spreading meditation rather than yoga. And as a user previously mentioned, spreading non-duality online is probably a good idea if you're into that. Freedom of religion and freedom of speech in Muslim countries is non-existent in many ways. I see Muslims societies taking a slow but steady path away from blue and towards orange. This change will be slow however. I think it will take at least take another 100 years before western liberal attitudes (towards religion,sex,equality and etc) become mainstream in Muslim countries. Perhaps I'm wrong, but this is honestly what my guess is. Some countries will rise up the spiral dynamics hierarchy faster than others.

@EddyC For me personally, meditation has made me more creative and spontaneous. Reading and trying to prove formulas for myself when studying maths and physics is creativity for me. After meditating my thinking is a lot more sharper, and although I can't exactly explain how, I get the feeling that my intuition for the subjects I'm studying is greatly strengthened. There have been times however where I think that meditation has had the effect of shedding away my old personality and habits to a degree, and I become a blank person who is boring to talk to, because I don't feel the need to say anything. I just want to enjoy the present moment and do my own thing alone. But perhaps this is just me being an introvert.

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@Sea well yellow is hard to find. The fame and popularity of a person is partially determined by the degree to which they resonate with a large number of people. For instance, if you're at yellow but everyone else is at orange, you're going to find it harder to resonate with people then an orange person trying to resonate with other orange people. I'm not sure if this is just an assumption of mine, but I hold the belief that the wisest people in any situation are more likely to just be quiet and carefully observe. The smartest people I've met have always been the most quiet and humble. After all, excessively talking and debating with other people often doesn't lead anywhere, and so it is perhaps that wise people just avoid doing so. And so it will be hard to find examples of wisdom being explicitly exhibited.

And in some sense I'm feeling solipsistic, but it's a negative sort of solipsism (other people are objects in your consciousness after all). Everything feels hallow and pointless.

I'm in the aftermath of a 90 minute meditation session. Near the end of the session, I felt like my body was jolted and I suddenly felt wide awake despite feeling sleepy before. Right now my mind is feeling bored and feelings of sadness are arising. But since I was just practicing mindfulness, I can partially see through the thoughts creating this. I'm just not going to get lost in the thoughts, even the thoughts which tell me that my thoughts are bad.