tatsumaru

I recently gave TM a try and it felt enjoyable and easygoing. As you might now the guidelines for practicing TM require the student to use a clock to measure the length of the meditation precisely. 30 seconds are allocated at the beginning for relaxation, then 20 minutes for meditation and finally 90 seconds for easing back into the non-meditative state. The clock should not use an alarm, instead the one meditating should slightly open their eyes to check on the time every now and then. The thing is using a clock to meditate feels very artificial and forced and unintuitive. I can't imagine a Yogi in the Himalayas meditating in deep trance and having a clock right next to him making sure he's measuring his meditation correctly in Newtonian time. I asked my TM instructor if an experienced practitioner could ditch the clock and he said no and that the clock is important. What do you think? Can TM be done without a clock successfully?

Infinity is man-manufactured fiction. You can try to impose it on direct experience as much as you want, but mathematics will never become truth. There can be no infinity without the Aristotelian nonsense of Oneness. The French Mathematician Henri Poincare said "Geometry is not true, it is advantageous.". It's not my trying to understand it that's creating the falsehood. It's your trying to convince the heart that the fiction of the intellect is absolute reality. Shantideva wrote, “Relative and absolute, These the two truths are declared to be. The absolute is not within the reach of intellect, For the intellect is grounded in the relative.” Let go of the intellect and then I will listen to what you have to say.

Infinity is another voguish belief topic among the object-ive minded. Theories of infinite space, time, and quantity are just object-ive math. Definitions of infinity are related or relative to the concept of immeasurability in space, time, or quantity. However, if there is no space, time, or quantity, as implied by Prajnaparamita, and quantum cosmology, then there is no infinity. How can there be infinity if there's no space? There's a difference between lazy nihilism and authentic free thinking. Regarding Elon Musk, as the Oracle told Neo, "We are all here to do, what we are all here to do". Everyone who is expressing the authentic self at least a little bit, contributes to the evolution of humankind and consciousness.

Hey, I am looking to connect with my higher self in order to understand where my inspirations, values and passions in life come from. Please share some proven methods to accomplish that. I am not interested in the psychedelic route. Thanks. Cheers.

When did I claim that it couldn't be done without psychedelics. I basically said that I want to that exactly. This is good I really resonate with this message even though I think Esther is a fraud, some of the things she channeled rang immensely true. Is this similar to what you mean:

I think this whole "no-self" notion has gone a little bit too far particularly due to teachers who became overly obsessed with nihilism. Here's a Buddhist fable that might clear some of your confusion: Tathāgata is a subject that the majority of Buddhists stay far away from, and non-Buddhists, with the exception of some Taoists, ever farther. Tathāgata was the term that Sakyamuni referred to himself as, instead of the pronouns me, I or myself. Tathāgata is the Buddha that most Buddhists, those on the Long Paths, don’t want to discuss. “Those who cannot accept that the Tathāgata is eternal, cause misery” - Mahaparinirvana Sutra. What? How can Buddha say that; didn’t he say everything is impermanent? The Buddha said the Self is “indestructible like a diamond” - Mahaparinirvana Sutra. No way! The Buddha said there was no self. “I will now show you the nature which is not produced and not extinguished” -Shurangama Sutra. Buddha said that “Buddha Nature [the Tathāgata] is the True Self and like a diamond, for example, it cannot be destroyed” Dharmaksema. Yes, Buddha taught impermanence, suffering, Emptiness, non-self for child-like students; yet on the day of Parinirvana, the Tathāgata taught eternity, happiness, and the Self, saying , “now, when his students have overcome the sickness of false views and possess a healthy, more mature appetite, he can teach them the Tathāgatagarbha.” “Those who hold the theory of non-self are injurers of the Buddhist doctrines, they are given up to the dualistic views of being and non-being; they are to be ejected by the convocation of the Bhikshus and are never to be spoken to” - Lankavatara Sutra 765. So why did Sakyamuni Buddha speak of non-being? He told a story of a woman with an ailing infant. The sickness of that child requires that it temporarily desist from drinking its mother’s milk while the medicine which has been administered to it is assimilated. To facilitate this, the mother smears her breasts with a bitter substance, and this deters the infant from suckling at his mother’s breasts. But after the medicine has been absorbed, the child can drink the health-bestowing mother’s milk to his heart’s content – although at first he is hesitant and fearful of doing so. This relates to the doctrine of non-Self, Emptiness (which many commentators on Buddhism equate with “non-substantialism” or “non-essentialism”) and Self: when his students are still spiritually “sick”, the Buddha gives them the bitter medicine of “non-Self” and Emptiness; but when they have progressed into greater health and maturity, he teaches them the reality of the Tathagatagarbha. A commentator mentions how early in this sutra the Buddha has to reprimand his enthusiastic “non-Self”-championing monks who “repeatedly meditate upon the idea that there is no Self” for being perverse in their understanding of Dharma and wrong-headedly applying the teaching of non-Self where its writ does not run – to the real Self. “As when a garment is cleansed of its dirt, or when gold is removed from its impurities, they are not destroyed but remain as they are; so is the skandha self freed from its defilements”- Lankavatara Sutra 756. The clearest definition of Tathāgata (and the most important mantra for those on the Direct Path) is this: Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!

I don't doubt it. I have nothing against psychedelics. I just want to produce the connection from within so I can understand it. Otherwise is like taking an antidepressant. It helps but you never really understand why you were depressed in the first place and there is no real spiritual progress. I have never heard of anyone achieving connection with higher self through meditation except for fables.

I check my email 40-50 times a day to get that dopamine hit. I don't use a smartphone only a PC so I check my email via an email client (Thunderbird). I don't get that many emails but for whatever reason I am addicted to checking my email. I also use a messenger (Telegram) that I check 20-30 times a day as well. I don't get many messages there either but again the same problem. I want to clarify that I don't get any notifications anywhere at all so that's not the issue. I do have an ADD-type personality so these pitfalls are more dangerous for me. I am not looking for a band-aid solution but some fundamental change that can help me improve my behavior on a core level. Any ideas/tips/suggestions/coaches/books? Thanks.

"I am the universe." - Leo Gura A Buddha said, identifying with anything, even the universe at large, is an ego illusion. To gnow oneself, knowledge has no place. "Everything is infinite." - Leo Gura How can there be infinity without space? "It's one" - Leo Gura There's no One without a many. One belongs to the world of duality. "The Tao gives birth to One, One gives birth to Yin/Yang." This is what happens when you want reality to be about God and Oneness. "My feeling is that this world was created to help those in the illusional Oneness of Brahmaland to Wake-up,...because once there, in the Oneness of Brahmaland,...it's very difficult to realize Reality." - V. Be very careful of this "You are God" talk. Have you even seen a God? It's easy to be God when you make your own definition of what God is, but that's just mental gymnastics. When you find God ask him if he's you and you are him, otherwise it is just a fairytale. Really? What is toxic about being separate from God?

Hello, I am interested in stopping porn and masturbation for good. The problem is when I don't masturbate the urge to have sex becomes so strong that I can't think straight, I can't work on my business, I can't concentrate all I feel is I want to have sex. If I don't masturbate it gets stronger and stronger. The longest I've gone without masturbation is around 18 days and it was hell. I don't believe in NOFAP through willpower. I have heard that Taoists and Yogis have ways to deal with their sexual desires and that is what I am interested in. I believe semen has potential and that simply wasting it in the trash bin is a form of ignorance that I want to correct. In fact even watching porn in my opinion is a waste of time. I don't currently have a girlfriend so I would like to switch off the need for sex while I am not in a relationship and turn it on back again when there is a possibility for procreation. I know there are people who've done NOFAP for a very long time, but I also know that this is a whole identity for them and they are exercising willpower all the time to maintain this record so for me this is not a fulfilling way of life. Are there any solutions to this?

Hey, I read a ton of books on all kinds of stuff from chemistry to product management. I am just naturally curious. However I feel that I forget some of the books I read and that seems like a waste because it's like I spent the time reading the book but then 6 months later I am not sure exactly what it said. Sometimes I get self-conscious that I don't have a good memory. I suffer from insomnia which also interferes with memory retention, but I can't do anything about that. What can I do to keep more of that information in my head? Any ideas?

Sorry for late reply. Just wanted to clarify - I masturbate not so much because I am addicted to porn but because if I don't my libido becomes stronger and stronger to a point where it's so distracting that I become a complete mess. I don't mind masturbating every now and then and possibly not to porn, but I'd like to decrease the frequency significantly. For example from 2x/day to 2x/week or something. How can I deal with the excess libido? And please don't tell me to do pushups.

I am addicted to TV shows. Whenever I have some free time that I can use to develop my life, read cool books and do meaningful work I default to either watching TV shows or napping. One of the main reasons is that I suffer from insomnia and chronic fatigue, and so I maintain a pretty low-energy status and I think because of it my brain defaults to energy conserving activities. In fact when I sleep better I read more and have better impulse control. Yet I think that's only 50% of the problem. I think there are the other 50% which are just pure addiction. The reason is that TV shows are a type of mental masturbation that tricks the brain into believing that your life is interesting because the story in the show is interesting. You get instant gratification - just press play and your brain gets positive feedback. I have a bunch of cool projects I want to work on and dozens of books that I've been meaning to read, but I just can't motivate myself to start doing it. Even when I read I take too many breaks to either watch TV shows or something stupid. There's one more big problem too - because I am an introvert and also because of my health issues I practically don't have any social life and I don't have any friends at all and I almost never go out. TV shows fool my brain into believing that I am not completely alone. So when I read books or work on projects that feeling of loneliness starts to creep in and to distract me from my work so I start watching TV shows to suppress it again. What can I do? I just want to read my books and do meaningful work so I can make progress with my goals. Thank you.

I second that. I used to be INTP a couple years ago. Eventually as I was becoming more and more aware I realized the T was caused by environmental influence and education and was unnatural. Eventually I became INFP and I feel that I am still transitioning towards INFJ. In fact I think that MBTI status might correspond to the level of psychological evolution you possess aka everyone at a certain threshold is a certain MBTI type somewhat similar to the spiral dynamics model. We know that thought is a very limited and limiting faculty compared to feelings so why would you choose to prioritize thought once you've become aware of the feeling universe?

It seems to me that essentially what you are asking here is "How do I know what's true?" aka "What can I truly trust?". As the oracle said "It is a pickle, no doubt about it..." This pursuit of truth has puzzled most western philosophers, led countless people to commit suicide or become paranoid and resulted in a ton of weird literature without much to offer for all that effort in return. And yet the answer was always there within you hiding in plain sight. Let's see if I can help you notice the little bugger that's been causing all that needless suffering. First a bit of context is needed... There exists a parallel world of words that was created by you and resides in your memory that your ego's been using to play tricks on you. Words are just noises that you store in your memory warehouse for the purposes of communicating your experiences. They are not really our world, they are just useful. The only reason we are asking a question like "How do I know this glass really exists?" is because we have created the concept of glass in the first place. What you are referring to as a glass is actually just you experiencing something that's denser at that location. The glass is no more separate from its environment than your hair is separate from your head. Why is this important? Because understanding this collapses the whole need to answer the question of whether the glass is real or not, because there was never a glass to begin with. This in turn frees you from doubting your senses because your senses never really told you there was a glass there, that was just a belief you were taught to tell yourself, and the price of every belief is doubt. Doubt is really just a reminder that this is something you made up in your mind. So the first thing to do to free yourself from this issue is to ask yourself - are you having doubts about your experiences or about the stories that you are running in your head regarding those experiences? Very quickly you will realize that doubting experiences doesn't make sense because even doubting your experiences is an experience. Doubt belongs to the parallel world of beliefs. Truth however is to be found within the real world of experience... Next time you have some feeling become aware of that feeling, don't distract yourself with thoughts. Then observe what's the difference between feeling a feeling and thinking about a feeling. This will restore the proper split between the real world of experience and the parallel world of concepts which is just your own creation. As you pay more and more attention to your feelings, observe how certain experiences don't make sense to you and feel meaningless and how other experiences make sense to you and feel meaningful and attract you. This is your inner compass. It's always been there for you but you were taught to ignore or suppress it by the collective ego. The ego tries to convince your heart (which btw is impossible) that this may not feel meaningful now but it will start making sense once some bs goal is reached. Once you reach that goal, there might be a slight sense of accomplishment but essentially it won't change anything - that's why a lot of people when they get rich - they become more depressed because they have no more stories left to fool themselves with and the unaddressed existential crisis that was suppressed for a lifetime finally starts to re-surface again at full power. The reason why the ego is doing that is because it maintains itself through struggle if there's no struggle it will be gone, so it better try to convince you that struggling makes sense. It better try to convince you to doubt your heart... And finally the key... You say "since our minds are so malleable and under great external influence." In order for somebody to be in integrity he or she needs to know who he or she is, because integrity is to be true to one's self. The unaware person is indeed volatile for they don't have any standard to be in integrity with. Yesterday it was trendy to become a doctor, the unaware person signed up at the medical university. The day after that someone said software engineering is the best career to have, a bunch of unaware people started signing up for that. Only to realize they hate it and they suck at it too. Our minds are not really malleable or under great external influence because feelings are not choices. You can't be convinced to feel love or happiness, I dare you to try it. What you can be convinced to do is to ignore your feelings because you are the captain of your ship, the feelings are there to guide you. Now I bet you won't date a person you aren't attracted to, right? It never works out. So why "date" any other thing in life that you are not attracted to? Realize that attraction is not a choice and you will reclaim your trusty inner compass again. After that - follow your inspiration without hesitation or you will end following your hesitation without inspiration. Cheers.

I feel like I am disconnected from my higher self. The insights are only dripping excruciatingly slowly and my sense of purpose is dwindling. I am constantly changing goals and my confidence in what I want to do with my life is almost non-existent. I just want to connect with my higher self at full bandwidth and express that into this dimension - WHAT IS BLOCKING ME??? I lack conviction, purpose, passion and instead I spend my days in apathy, boredom, doubt and waiting to die. I am tired of watching TV shows, doing meaningless soul-sucking jobs and uncertainty. I say 15 years is enough! Where did my self go? What is this empty shell that I am? Where is my essence? I need it badly.

This is going to be my last reply to you because this is clearly red/blue level thinking, and I am not interested in investing energy in this direction. You seem to be very invested in the whole notion of effort/brute forcing/"elbow grease"/self-development possibly due to sunk cost and an identity has developed around all those concepts. Effort is simply a measure of ignorance. The fact that you are relying on straw men arguments (i.e. "Good luck sitting at home waiting" when no such thing was suggested or implied) only proves that you are not here to help, but instead to promote your identity, which as I said is not yet interesting to me. Maybe in another life, until then keep up the hard work. Yes, I've thought about that a lot. I guess I just have a ton of ideas and I don't know which one to pick. They all seem equally important to me and I would like to experience all of them, so I bounce back and forth. It's not so much about making mistakes - that is fine - what bothers me most is not picking the optimal route and losing tempo because of it. Keep in mind that the Dalai Lama (according to his own words) is not enlightened nor has a wish to be. Also I bet his oracle relies pretty heavily on his intuition. Yes, what Waken wrote was helpful, one of my spiritual mentors back in the days has suggested the same quote from Bashar to me. I certainly trust excitement and joy as a compass in life. My apathy is born of not knowing which joy to follow rather than not having any joys to follow.

I don't agree with that at all. That's just low-consciousness PUA thinking. You don't need to develop anything - attraction is not a choice. You can't learn who you are you can only remove what's blocking you from expressing it. Everything is connected and is whole, therefore brute forcing is a symptom of unconsciousness. Just because I haven't found the most natural way of identifying where the perfect partner is located doesn't mean life is brute force. It seems to me that you are too identified with that "going out of your comfort zone" rah-rah stuff. "Any experience" is not equal to "direct experience" so please don't encourage a casino lifestyle. There's a lot of truth to that and I have already been paying close attention to what excites me but I am not sure if it not being a career or a big project is fine. That implies that your career could be something that doesn't excite you (possible but not a life worth living) or somehow discounts the fact that you need resources to survive. So maybe I want to go and read Leonardo Da Vinci's biography now but tomorrow I need to go back to my meaningless job and do that for 50 hours so I can get another couple of hours to read my book? No - unless my career is what I want to do then life will pass me by, 70 years will be over soon, and little to nothing will be uncovered.

Hmm, I feel like I integrate any insights that I download immediately. I am not always aware of ways to express those insights however. For example let's say I was taught by the cosmos that people are unique and relationship are not a number's game and it's about finding the right partner that together your relationship results in a harmonious frequency. It's not about marriage or fighting for your marriage or compromising or any of that garbage. Ok great - so I figured this out and ceased a relationship with a partner that wasn't harmonious for me and was pulling my frequency to lower levels (SD: from yellow to blue) - insight applied. Now what? How do we find the right partner? I already figured out it's not a number's game so that means it's not about brute force either - aka I shouldn't be seeking randomly on the off-chance that it happens somewhere - there should be some sort of guiding intuition that aids you and navigates you in life so that you don't have to waste your time with meaningless experiments? Where is this intuition? Where is this guide? Man I've been stuck in this rut for many years now, all I dream about is transformation and change. I am not sure if there's anything at all that I want to keep from my current life. The only thing I like from my life are the brief moments of cosmic insights that I get on very rare occasion.

I don't believe in crime as defined by law as laws are arbitrary abstractions which live in a parallel universe unrelated to reality. I am not saying that everything is acceptable, just that it is up to the heart to express what is acceptable. Rules are obviously fake. There are some consequences to not following socially established rules but they are also fake as in motivated by belief systems - Giordano Bruno was burned on the stake for telling the truth - Does it matter that he was a criminal according to some belief system? Therefore my question is whether these killers when feeling like killers and wanting to kill are expressing their authentic selves or their egos. Nature is also a serial killer but there is purpose there - recycling, transformation, evolution. With human killers I can't decide what's going on there. Certainly a lot of them feel troubled which seems to be a red flag. Authentic expression doesn't result in pain.

I keep wondering about the psychopathology behind the concept of normalcy and the tragedy this idea has brought on to the authenticity of humankind. Yes the authentic self is clearly a thing, yes people are all unique and each one with their unique path unfolding, and yet I can't comprehend whether a serial killer, as he kills for pleasure or validation, is expressing his true authentic self or a deformed ego. It seems pretty authentic to be honest - a lot of these people are non-conformists, believe rules are an illusion and start entertaining murderous fantasies from early childhood. On the other hand how can anyone who is authentic and heart-centric be driven to kill for pleasure? That is a crime against the higher Self and the Cosmos. There is this story about a brigand called Aṅgulimāla, who was also a serial killer and had a necklace made out of the fingers of his victims. One day he met the Buddha on the road and attempted to kill him, but couldn't reach him, no matter how much he tried chasing him. Impressed by this he became Buddha's student, realized the mistakes of his way, repented and asked for forgiveness of all the families of his victims and eventually realized enlightenment. All that being said - what do you think - can a desire for murder be authentic or is it a form of ignorance? Cheers.

Joanna Dennehy - Considered to come from a happy childhood. Karla Homolka - Nothing special in her childhood. Jeffrey Dahmer - Nothing special in his childhood. Stephen Griffiths - Not much info about early childhood, so not sure. Dennis Rader - nothing remarkable, His parents both worked long hours and he felt ignored. Grew up with three other brothers, none of which became a killer. Ted Bundy claims his parents took good care of him although there was some fighting between his parents who ended up divorcing, however that doesn't sound like a big deal.

I was wondering - why do some people who have discovered their purpose like Amy Winehouse and Anthony Bourdaine and Robin Williams etc get depressed and commit suicide anyway? Whats lacking there?

Actually there are a lot of serial killers who grew up in loving families and normal environments. They had brothers and sisters who turned out fine and those serial killers were like aliens in those families. While child abuse and harm can certainly contribute to the development of a psychopath I don't think that's the root cause.

Come on guys, more is needed.