Elzhi

The only reason I'm writing this stuff is because I have an ego and desire some sort of significance to my own existence. You caught me, I admit it. None of what I'm saying has any point. Because reality is infinite, everything is as it should be. You are perfect, I'm perfect. There's nothing to change or improve. You're not better than the masses for seeking out enlightenment. Everyone on this website who talks about "enlightenment" is full of shit. Including me. I'm just a dog barking, like U.G always says

STOP ASKING GURUS TO TELL YOU WHAT TO DO. THEY DON'T KNOW ANY BETTER THAN YOU. CONTINUE LIVING OR THROW YOURSELF OFF A CLIFF. IT'S ALL THE SAME.

When I said that what happens to you under psychedelics is hell, I mean that in every sense of the world. This is the "hell" that they talk about in the bible. Those who have sinned, i.e anyone who has an ego, will experience incredible pain at varying degrees depending on how deeply identified they are with ego. Those who refuse to surrender, burn for eternity. But eternity is the now. This is eternity. You either go to hell when your body dies and you "see god" i.e realize you are consciousness or you can see it now. Remember the story of Adam and Eve? Why was Eve cast out of the garden? because she ate from the tree of knowledge and realized she was naked i.e she developed an ego, a self image. Satan, sin, ego, is all the same thing. All that shit about "let there be light" (consiousness is the "light" that lights experience, god being everywhere (energy/consiousness), and so on. All biblical tales are allegorical but all true. The ideas where just too complex to be conveyed directly to the masses. Jesus was enlightened; fully disidentified with his body. How else was he able to endure such great pain? He loved everyone because he knew that everyone else was essentially empty space just like him (a hologram), none better or worse than him. He could very well have "arisen" again "three days later" in some other universe or whatever.

Another thing I've been wondering about is where I go from here? Is it worth it to keep playing the game? Is my ego deluding me into not aspiring to enlightenment? From what Jed Mckenna says about abiding non-dual awareness it sounds kinda shitty, especially the process. I would have to burn every bridge with my family, my friends, etc. Or maybe not. Who knows. That was his path, maybe not necessarily mine. What's for certain is that there is no resurrecting the character once I've reached 'done'.

Maybe I feel like my life ended back in July because I more or less "beat the game" or saw everything I wanted to see. I've gotten most of the clothes I want and have a good grasp on how to get laid. What else is there?

I'm now fairly convinced that I'm in a computer simulation. Like a very very detailed version of the Sims and it makes sense when I think about it, especially after having experienced what happened on saturday. I think on some level I figured this out when I had similar episodes back in high school when I smoked weed. I figured out that I was a character because after having gotten really high, I could finally see my character. I could introspect for the first time. I was finally outside looking in rather than being stuck inside looking out. From that point, my personality drastically changed and people took notice. It happened because I saw my character and didn't like it. I knew, equipped with the proper knowledge (especially in the internet age) I could rewrite my character to be someone I liked a lot more or at least someone who I thought was cool. Someone cooler, more aloof, more attractive, etc. I did it. For some time I've thought that I'm a sociopath and it's quite possible that this is the case. I'm seeing it again now, but I also know that I'm not enlightened and this shift in perspective isn't the same as 'abiding non-dual awareness'. I still have an ego and perhaps it might cause me to lose sight of my newlyfound perspective over time. I've felt like an actor for the longest time. The issue is that I've gotten too caught up in my role. I've gotten too attached. With that being said, keeping myself at a mental distance from the character I'm playing would be incredibly difficult and therefore there may be no option other than to disidentify with the character entirely, i.e. 'abiding non-dual awareness'. I've got the non-duality part down somewhat but the abiding part is the real challenge. How would I maintain that I'm an actor and not get to caught up with the character? I guess I should just continuously make life out to be a big joke, which it is. I'm just a avatar in a highly advanced RPG.

After reading that passage, I took a break in order to digest things a bit and laid back on my bed. After a few minutes, I stopped thinking completely and had this momentary experience where I felt "locked outside of my own body". My eyes were perceiving the hand and arm laying in front of my body but I didn't feel as though the hand was mind. It scared me, but I also realized that this isn't the first time this has happened. This happened before in highschool when I was high, but I thought it was just the drugs back then. I've been dead sober for several months now, possibly a year. There's no possible influence of drugs this time around. When it happened, I couldn't help but frantically scramble to figure out who was controlling my body at that moment, if anyone. It also made me suspect even more that the life might really be a computer simulation which is what. I've always pondered the infinite nature of reality. It just goes on and on forever and no one seems to pay it much attention, but there are clues everywhere. I recall an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where Robert inquired aloud as to who created God if God created us and so on. He was ignored completely. I also recall a song called Oxygene Pt.4 which I first heard in grand theft auto 4 at the end of which a robotic voice says "Do you ever wonder who created your character and why your life is a computer simulation?" I don't take that as evidence that automatically reinforces my suspicion but it's interesting nonetheless. I resonate a lot with Frank Yang's idea that I resonate with certain things because they're from the void. You can just sense it. No self is that truth that is in such plain sight that it's actually astonishing that most people don't know this. But they can't. How could they? The don't want to know. Their minds are proactively shielding them from the infinite at every turn. I just came back from the gym. Much of the time I was scared to even look at my own face. I'm becoming estranged from my own body. Who is this creature in the mirror who stares back at me? I was scared once more when I got back. I feel like I've stumbled upon some forbidden knowledge and some unknown force will punish me for this.

I'm reading Spiritual Enlightenment the Damnest Thing by Jed Mckenna and this passage made me take a pause This is a conversation Jed is having w/ Julie during an interview ------------------------------------------------- "What is left when all context is dropped? What is left when you remove church, job, relationships, hobbies and everything else? More layers? Nature? Nurture? Perinatal Influences?Past life influences? Okay, but what's beyond those? That's the process, stripping away layer after layer, like an onion untill all that's left is..." "But an onion is only layers." "So is ego--self--only layers. Remove all the layers and no self is left." "And no self is true self?" "There is no true self, but yeah, that's the general idea." "Then...then...then who am I talking to?" "You'd do better to wonder what you're referring to when you say 'I'. Or who's referring to 'I'. Or who's wondering who's referring to 'I'. And so on." ------------------------------------------------- I almost want to cry right now. I can see this as another angle of the same realization. It's a conversation that a costume is having with another costume with NO ONE underneath either costume which is a pretty frightening revelation. It's like air attempting to converse with air. It doesn't even make any logical sense. It's beyond reasoning. Just cementing even further that the costume is a separate entity. When I'm having a conversation with another person, I'm not really having a conversation with another person. I'm conversing with a costume consisting of a series of differing garments, that were weaved together out of nothing. The costume arises from a series of influences that arise from other influences with nothing underneath. How can something arise out of nothing? How can air wear a costume? Is the costume even there?

It's difficult to know which guru to believe. Is enlightenment really this astonishing cosmic event? or have I already achieved enlightenment by the mere fact that I understand that I am not the ego. Is it as simple as "we are already enlightened?" I have no clue. Everything seems so paradoxical and confusing.

The part where Jed Mckenna mentions the part about having to move forward because you can't stay where you are didn't make sense to me before and I may have even overlooked it. I also failed to understand what he meant when he said that enlightenment isn't achieved by desire. It's only in a near psychotic frenzy where you truly seek it out. It's at that point where as he says "...it's either forward or parish." I understand this now because I'm stuck at a point in my life where I feel as though I'm already dead. For some strange reason, I feel like I died back in July of this year after returning home from a pickup seminar. I already was on the verge of quitting pickup but after that event it was as though I had seen everything there was to be seen. That goes for life in general. I've felt like a walking deadman for quite some time now. I don't know where to go from here or whether life is worth even living. That's why my mission has become enlightenment because I can't continue to go on living if I remain stationary within the current paradigm. I can't settle for anything less than a complete disidentification with the ego.

Watching this video five or six months ago, I really didn't understand what this video was about. I thought I did but I didn't truly understand it the same way I do now.

I once did two and a half months of no fap and decided to end it because there was no longer any point I was expecting it to drastically improve my life but all I did was obsess about sex in between completing tasks I got over my guilt about masturbating a long time ago. That's what the real issue was You're a human being. Human beings have needs. I also realized that a lot of my excessive libido was trapped in ego, meaning I was so horny because of an unrealistic expectation of what sex actually felt like. Once I started doing pickup, and started getting laid, my sex drive evened out a lot Sex isn't really that great, especially if you're someone who masturbates constantly and to pornography at that I'm more okay with it now because I proved to myself that I have the self control to quit Go with what your body feels, try to live in the present and don't judge yourself

Who am I? To some extent, I still identify with the body. I fear that demons will come and attack me in the middle of the night. Why? I've had many nightmares about demons and once had what was supposedly a psychotic break during which I saw the eyes of demons. Does that make them real? Not at all. There is no proof that demons exist. There is less proof for the existence of demons than there is for the existence of me as a separate self and I don't even exist. If that is so, then who is the one who fears demons? The bodymind does. I am not the bodymind. I am presence so what do I have to fear? I fear the experience of pain occuring on the stage of my awareness. But awareness cannot feel pain. Awareness is intangible. I fear death. Who is the one who fears death? If I am awareness, then can I experience death? I don't really know for certain. I guess awareness may be extinguished at some point. Was awarness ever born? If I was not aware prior to the age of three then, where did awareness arise out of? I still feel as though I am the bodymind because I am tethered to the bodymind and cannot take on the direct experience of another person. However, even in the absence of thought, and the senses, I am still present. I am presence. I think that the fear of experiencing pain is what causes me to hold to the ego and the bodymind even though I am neither of those things. Is there a further stage to enlightenment, I don't know. Everything is untrue so even the idea of enlightenment may not be real. The idea that I might someway permanently shift me perspective and begin identifying instead with awareness as opposed to the bodymind may be false. There's no real way of know whether enlightenment even exists either. There's no way of knowing whether I've experienced it or not either. I might already be enlightened. Why do I believe that I am not enlightened? I believe this because the description of enlightenment that the gurus have presented to me suggests that I have not acheived enlightenment, but how can I know for certain. I can't. All beliefs are false. That is a belief which means that the belief that all beliefs are false is neither true nor false. There's no way of knowing for certain. It's a never-ending cycle. Or is it? I believe that I am a nice person. Is this true? For one thing, I am not a person. I am awareness. How do I know that I am awareness? I think this because I believe awareness is the the only irreducible aspect of reality, if that makes any sense. I that true? There's no real way of knowing. Perhaps certain things are beyond human comprehension. This is highly probable but neither true nor untrue. And I ask "Am I nice?" Who is the one who is nice? I am depressed and suicidal. Am I depressed and suicidal right now? No. Who is the one who is depressed. Who feels suicidal? The self. But if I am not the self, then what does it matter? Criticizing others and being judgemental is bad. Why do I think this? Society has told me this is the case. However is this true? No. There is no way of of saying objectively whether anything is good or bad. These are merely societally-imposed labels. I feel bad when I think in critical and judgmental ways because society has convinced me that I should not. This is moralizing. It's neither good nor bad. It simply is. Feeling weak and worthless is bad. Why? There's no real reason why. It's a displeasing emotion but who is the one who ascribes these values to it? Some people actually enjoy pain and feel as though pain is good. So if the ego perceives pain as being negative yet some people don't then there's no way of objectively saying whether pain is good or bad. These are subjective value judgments. Pain, worthlessness, weakness, happiness, depression are all just part of a spectrum of sensations. They are merely sensations. No value can be ascribed to them. Being self-hating and having low self-esteem is bad. Again, this is bad for whom? the self. I am not the self so long as I choose not to identify with it. It's better to make the decision to identify with awareness itself. I want to become enlightened. Who is I? Awareness cannot become enlightened seeing as it is awareness. If so then who wants to become enlightened? There is no one to enlighten. This whole time I've been trying to get rid of the self but the self was never there to begin with so what is there to get rid of? There is still the belief that enlightenment is some sort of cosmic event, based on what I've heard from Leo and other people. Do I know this for certain? Not at all. Enlightenment could be a very simple realization or a highly profound shift. Those in themselves are also subjective value judgments Working at Walgreens makes me inferior or lesser to other people with more professional or demanding jobs. Working at Walgreens is bad because my mother sees it that way. Society sees it that way. This is yet another value subjective value judgement. Are people who don't work at convenience stores better than me? Only if I believe that to be true. It's merely a choice. Thinking people are ugly being disgusted by people or hating people for being ugly and stupid is bad. Is this true? Not at all. It's a decision you make whether or not to believe that this is the case.

What about myself do I believe makes me inferior or superior to others? Being tall makes me feel superior to others. Why? Being tall makes me feel as though I have an advantage in terms of survival and mating choices. Is this true? Perhaps. Being tall never automatically got me sex and doesn't mean that I can't get beaten up by someone shorter than I am. Most of the guys I know that are good with women are shorter than me. Sometimes by a lot. I guess being tall doesn't really mean shit. Eating healthy and working out makes me feel superior to others. Why? Eating healthy means that I will most likely live longer, and will appear more attractive to the opposite sex. Yet this is not guaranteed. Also, most people that I know who are successful with women hardly watch what they eat at all. It doesn't really matter in the end because I'll die someday one way or another. Does it really make a difference if I die today or tomorrow? Probably not. The only real value in upholding my appearance is monetary gain through modeling and gaining approval/inciting envy in others. Everyone wants approval. Why do I want approval? To feel good about myself. To know that I matter. I want to know that all of the work I've invested in upholding my appearance means something. This is why I feel an attachment to it. Inciting envy in others also makes me feel significant even though its a fleeting, dirty high. Whether I'm good looking or not, doesn't really matter. I can't keep my looks when I die. Being attractive won't save me from the void either. It serves no purpose aside from monetary gain and personal gratification. Looks mean nothing I feel superior to people who don't speak proper english. Why? Because that means that they are likely to be of a lower class which means I most likely outrank them socially. I am also more likely to be accepted by the ruling class (white people) and therefore am more likely to be successful (whatever that means). Is this true? Being skilled academically doesn't automatically translate to real world success. Having superior language skills does put me in a better position to succeed than those who aren't like me but it means nothing without taking action. Am I actually superior to these people or did my influences and upbringing simply put me in a better position to succeed than them? No one is superior to anyone else. Some people have certain DNA and certain influences that grants them advantages. I'm no better than the next man. I feel inferior to white people sometimes because they once enslaved my people and they are the ruling class in the united states. There's always been an underlying sense of inferiority within me? Why? Media has brainwashed me into thinking that white people are superior and also disliking my own people certain ways. More accurately people who convey low-status through they're mannerisms and speech. I hate stupid people and I feel guilty for it because I feel as though I should accept everyone equally. Is this true? No this is moralizing. Perhaps I'm not really racist, I'm classist. I hate on those who don't talk or act in the same way I do because they fail to meet my arbitrary, societally-imposed standards. I could have been one of them though. I'm not better than them. I feel guilty and afraid when I speak around other black people who don't speak english as well as me or talk differently. Speaking proper english, deep down, I believed is uncool which makes me uncool by default. I'm also afraid of be called white because of how I talk. Talking like an uneducated street hoodlum doesn't make me cool or uncool. The whole concept of what is cool and what isn't is subjective. My manner of speaking is no better or worse than anyone elses. Some people have the charisma which makes what they say sound cool but that really it. I'm not any better or worse than these street hoodlums. Having charisma doesn't make me better or worse than another person either. It's only a social tool. nothing more.

What is true? it is true that I am not the body What else is true? I am not enlightened. How do I know this is true? I don't meet the criteria for what qualifies as being enlightened as dictated by other people who have experienced it. How do I know they're enlightened? Their story matches the stories others have told about enlightenment. I cannot know definitively whether anyone is enlightened or not without taking over their consciousness. Everyone could be lying. Who are these people? Are they even people? Do they even exist. There's no way of knowing. Are these people truly enlightened or are they simply mentally ill? What if mental illness is a form of enlightenment? Who's to say? Does enlightenment even exist if I haven't truly experienced it? What if I'm already enlightened? No one could tell me otherwise. There are degrees to enlightenment, perhaps. Am I alive even now? How do I know this? What if God was real and this is heaven. What if this is hell? There's no way of knowing. I am the watcher, the perceiver. How do I know this? I am not the body. I am the one who exists. The "I am-ness". What am I perceiving? The computer screen that sits in front of the body. But if there's no way of knowing what's real, then how do I know that the computer even exists? If the creature shuts its eyes, then the screen is no longer visible. Beyond that, there's no definitive way of knowing what is real and what isn't. Even reality itself could be another dream. But if I can't be certain that the screen exists, then what am I perceiving? Am I even perceiving anything? What is there without the bodily senses? If the body cannot hear, taste, smell, touch, or see? There is still the "I am-ness" but it can no longer see, hear, taste, smell, touch. All there is is presence. The I. Then reality is homogenous. There would be no way of differentiating between land forms, buildings, sensations, people, places, things. It's all the same. There's no difference between anything. I am a bundle of atoms, no different from the next man, a cat, a tree, a building, a mountain. I don't even know definitively whether I am a bundle of atoms or not because that's a scientific concept. If I am presence then can I die? Other people are also supposedly presence but there's no real way of knowing because without the bodily senses, there would be no way of knowing that other people even exist. If others can not be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched, how would I experience their presence, let alone the creature's? Maybe I am really alone on an island in the middle of nowhere. If the creature isn't real either then...my entire existence is a lifetime of being forcibly tethered to the experience of a random creature which I am not, for no reason at all. Why would anyone want this? Nothing means anything.

I think the value in Leo's talk about how your mind distorts reality is simply to draw your awareness to it and therefore help you be more conscious of the fact that you're often falsely interpreting reality through the lens of egoic judgement. The problem is that you're overthinking and reading too deeply into his teachings and attempting to apply it to things that it has no business being associated with. It's as if you're deliberately trying to confuse yourself lol. Don't overthink or try so hard to logicize it. Just think about how what Leo said can be applied practically to your day to day life. That goes for all esoteric teachings because people go too deeply into them and get lost in the rabbit hole. Just extract whatever value you can and move on

I'm RSDHouse on RSDNation, what's your handle?

Best part: "The real crime is you won't admit you're God. That's false modesty."

@Leo Gura I'm curious. What is your opinion on Jed Mckenna's books? He basically says that what you need to do instead is "spiritual autolysis" where you slowly start unraveling all beliefs. From a logical standpoint, it seems like perfectly sound reasoning, considering that the ego is really just a costume of beliefs that we all are wearing.

Also remember not to judge yourself for those times when you are stifled or not assertive. That's where that self-acceptance comes in. Don't beat yourself up, keep at it and remind yourself that you'll get there in time. Everything in self-development is a long term investment of little 1% gains that you make daily by sticking to the proper habits. Then over the course of a year it amasses tremendously. Trust that. Cheers

Some suggestions: 1. Start learning "pickup" and going out to public places in order to socialize (I recommend RSD material) 2. If that's not you're cup of tea, then you can do Toastmaster's, but honestly I can't recommend pickup enough 3. Start meditating daily. I found that a lot of my stifled-ness went away when I started meditating because it helps focus your mind. Really what's blocking you from expressing yourself is typically negative mental chatter and caring too much about what people think, i.e EGO. Meditation quiets the thinking mind and helps you control the way you think or not think at all. 4. Affirmations...? I've been experimenting with "Other people's opinions of me are worthless" and "I am independent of other people's positive or negative perceptions of me" and "I accept myself completely" etc. for a little over thirty days and strangely enough, the anxiety that I typically might feel even so much as stepping into an elevator has completely dissipated. The thing about affirmations though is that you have to be incredibly disciplined about them. I go through mine at least once in the morning and then again before bed, repeating them in aloud and then in my head. Also repeating them throughout the day helps reinforce the neural patterns tremendously. I can't say definitively whether they'll work for you or not, but it's definitely worth it, considering it's such a small longitudinal investment with a potentially huge payoff. I think they say it takes sixty-some days to rewire neural networks. Give it a shot. Cheers

Teal is awesome. I learned about her through RSD (Julien's channel) and have been following her since. I like a lot of the stuff she says and disagree with much of it also. Like the last dude said, you gotta FILTER. And that's with everything, including Leo's material. I especially liked her 'Future Self Work' video. It led me to get more serious about visualization and now before I make decisions, I think: "Would the future version of me that I envisioned be doing this?" It's a great mindset to have and it also cuts out a lot of 'idol worship'. I don't look up so much to other great men so much anymore. I look up to my future self more than anyone. Cheers

For all those of you who are familiar with the idea of reprogramming your own mind, what tools have you used in achieving this and what have you found to be the most effective? In my experience I've tried hypnosis, affirmations, EFT, positive thinking, etc. and I meditate daily which helps tremendously as well. Thoughts? Opinions?