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Self-actualization is not possible without great hormones. I replace all of them. I am a medical student and replace ALL of my hormones. my energy levels went from the 5th percentile to the 95th percentile. In early twenties my life was starting to go down the gutter. My life started to fall apart in every domain, basically at the brink of suicide. I was severely depressed. At one point I considered suicide. I found out that multiple of my hormones were very low. I started multiple hormone replacement. Whereas before my life was a nightmare, it has been a dream ever since. I have been doing this for some years now. I started to dream again. I found purpose. Something I want to contribute. Now I also have the energy, mood and health to keep working on my dreams, to enjoy working on my dreams. If you are interested I wrote about my story here. How my life went to shits and how multiple hormone replacement gradually turned it around. My dream is to live in a world where no one is held back from living an at least decent life the way I was. Even though not my fault, it is my life. And thus my responsibility. Without accepting and acting on that I just don´t know where I would be today. For sure I wouldn´t be writing this. Biological vitality is the single most important condition in my life. In your life. Vitality determines to a large extent the way our lives turn out, not just our outer lives, but our inner lives as well.I experienced how a reduction in biological vitality can send you on a relentless downward spiral. The stronger the decrease in your vitality the steeper the slope. In its wake over months to years my life, the only life I can be sure of having, went to shits. Many people are unsuspecting. Unaware of these invisible forces exerting their power relentlessly every single day. "Living life to the fullest" is just not possible without great hormones.:Life is like poker—you can get a good hand, play it perfectly, but still end up with a bad outcome. A great vitality is the ass in your poker game of life. Even with an immaculate vitality you can screw up the game, but chances are you do so much less likely. The two most important factors determining your vitality are genetics and hormones, the latter you can negotiate. Why do I post all this? Trying to provide value: My purpose is to raise awareness. People need to know that there are biological shackles many of us carry. Shackles which make it much harder to live a life we like. Because it does just cost me a little time but perhaps can help others out a lot. Had I known what I know now, it would have saved me lots of money, happiness, effort, researching, experimenting. And suffering. What I take. But what works for me might not work for others. Everyone is different, but the target range I aim for is in the upper tertile of the youthful reference range. Just falling somewhere within the reference range is not “optimal”. The reference range covers 95% of the population. Certainly more than 5% of the population have hormones bad enough to warrant intervention. TRT: Test Cyp (50mg subQ 2x/week), HcG (250iu subQ 2x/week), anastrozole (0.25mg 1x/week), dutasteride 0.5mg 1x/week (as my androgens are high I don´t need the DHT). cortisol: cortisone acetate (20mg/d HC equivalent) (split into 4 daily doses) thyroid: 1.5 grains NDT GH: 1 iu genotropin pfizer (aiming for IGF1 of 250) prebed fludrocortisone 01.mg/d morning melatonin: 0.25mg sublingual prebed Other stuff I do: keto/paleo, HIIT, weekly rapamycin, a bunch of supplements (all of them together less worth than a slight alteration in hormones), some exercise every day, sleep around 6h (wake up refreshed without alarm -before HRT I needed 8+). You can´t outdrug/outbiohack/outlifestyle a bad hormonal profile. For more practical stuff I wrote a guide Here. It took 1000s of hours to figure out. Hopefully some of you will find value in it. Many of you guys will say that I am screwing myself. Well, to them I say that I am aware that this is uncharted territory. I am aware of the risks. But to me the cost-benefit analysis is a no-brainer. If I had to, I would sign a contract to rather live 10 more years with my new vitality and then die instead of living to one hundred with the dreadful state I was in before. Life is about filling time and not passing it. What does this mean for you? My guess is that around 1-2 out of 5 of you has a hormonal imbalance/deficiency severe enough to warrant intervention. Hormones have an INSANE connection to depression. Unfortunately they are VERY neglected. If you have been depressed for a long time it might be worth looking into your hormones. ANY hormone deficiency (GH/IGF1, sex hormones, thyroid, cortisol) will cause brain fog, subpar cognition, lethargy, anhedonia, low motivation, low mood -> all of which over time evolve into depression. Certainly you don´t have the necessary energy/mood/motivation/health to be improving yourself to the best of your ability. Please consider getting a blood test done. The risk and opportunity cost of not doing it is huge.

@blankisomeone Many a poetic, emotional and thoughtful people have committed suicide. If you felt your life was reaching an end or conclusion, anyone would become existential and emotional. Often times the people who are most disturbed and in suffering are the most existential and romantic. (Careful not to draw an arrow of causality there) You see, there's one big romance all humans invariably have. And that's the ego. Deep down, we are in love with our life story and our own journey. We don't find anything as interesting as ourselves. And this is universally a source of emotion, poetic ramblings, etc.

Teachers are in the dream. There isn’t actually a dream though. Any “enlightened” teacher is only appearing to teach. There are no teachers. Ramana never taught anything. Have you ever performed self inquiry to its end? Just how many people do you think went through that ordeal? Not many. Anyone who actually did it was going to do it anyway, even if via literal suicide by gunshot to the head, which people do all the time. God would never stop the rape of a child, because there is only infinite everything. Infinity doesn’t just put things into perspective, it destroys any pretense of separation.

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.

Oh, they are perhaps even better for that purpose. You can use psychedelics to accomplish some crazy deep healing of psychological trauma and wounds. Not long ago I had this crazy experience where I became my own father and healed some deep baggage from my childhood which simply would not be possible otherwise or through any kind of talk therapy. I never had a lot of trauma so I mostly don't use psychedelics for that. But many people would benefit enormously from it. It could save hundreds of thousands of people from depression, rage, self-hate, abuse, and suicide. Once you're able to access states of infinite love, the healing potential for psychological trauma is unmatched. If psychedelics were widely available, talk therapists would be out of a job. So would gurus.

What is worth doing and what isn't worth doing depends totally on what kind of person you are and what your goal in life is. People dedicate their lives to many things, for example some find gaming a waste of time (especially on self-help forums like this), while others make a career out of it. For the first person there are a set of different values and priorities, that's why he or she might find gaming a distraction from those values, for example if the said person finds value in studying and taking courses or maintaining high grades in a university setting. Then gaming will mean distraction and loss of valuable time that could've been used for studying. For the second person, if he or she games more, that's just more experience for his or her gaming career, so it's a win for them. So you see, it totally depends what your likes, dislikes, values and principles in life are. And even if the person is pursuing a different goal than becoming a professional gamer or a professional beatboxer, like you mentioned, or a singer.. doing things even for fun can have value in it. Like you see many professional people in all areas of life, some of them will take up a hobby like an instrument, singing, beatboxing, gaming, sports, etc. Because we are human, not work-robots or money-making machines, in the end. Things can be valuable for different reasons. Sometimes just as raw and basic value like part of survival (you're gaming after a long day of work to ease stress, or else you'd go insane or even commit suicide, without something to calm you and take the stress away), other times as complex as providing value for society in various ways or leaving behind knowledge for the coming ages (for people spending hours a days on Quora, forums, blogs/vlogs, people making free courses, people who share their knowledge, people who volunteer as listeners to people in emotional crisis). Or taking walks in nature for your well-being. Or making art for therapeutic purposes, or just because you simply like it. There's no need to be always a serious reason behind the things you do. Things you enjoy doing are usually not a waste of time. It's helpful to know the deep reasons behind your actions if you want to hold yourself accountable and to not lose time on less important things when there needs to be more focus on the important ones. Most of the things you do will be survival related, but that's okay. It still helps to be conscious of them. And other times things you do will be for purely the sake of happiness it brings. High values are usually: responsibility, discipline, perfection, ambition, hard-work. But you can also find value in recreational activities and connection with others, that's why people sing, dance and create art without making money from it. If every time you beatboxed you had to do it for money, would it have the same value and meaning to you? Some things cannot be measured by money and they're still valuable. For example if you want a good relationship, you might invest money in it (relationship therapy, gifts, vacations, traveling, creating a home for you two), but the relationship itself doesn't have a monetary value. Your girlfriend won't have a price because she is not an object. And you cannot buy a relationship, it just doesn't work that way. Nor does the relationship bring money to you (or at least it shouldn't), yet you find value in going out on dates. Neither can you buy health. You can buy things to improve your health, but most things to maintain your health are free, like exercise and good sleep. You cannot buy sleep, you cannot buy health if you destroyed it with smoking or fast food. Health doesn't have a monetary price, yet it's very valuable, if not the most valuable thing. Health is not money, yet you pursue activities to maintain your health. You cannot buy reputation, yet it is valuable and you make actions to be viewed as a good person. You cannot buy talent, but it has value. Friends are not money, yet you may find value in friendship. And so on... Yes, you need a career and you need to make a living, but you cannot base your whole life on only pursuing money. Maybe you're in a phase of life when you are working towards a career and that's why now money and success is the most important thing. Being financially independent is a very fundamental thing and you should work towards it very early in life. Just don't neglect other things you find valuable either. Because you'll never be happy by only pursuing money and fame. And the best way to earn money is through your passions, but only if they are realistic. So I think pursuing your passions, working towards financial independence and hanging out with friends, having a relationship, etc. and hobbies are all worth pursuing. And things that are unrealistic, are bad to your reputation, or your health or are making you lazy are not worth pursuing.

If you are in fact free from suffering, ignore this: Enlightenment = shame so intense that it dissolves into cosmic suicide. Insanely terrible. But how can “you” know what’s true if there is no you? “Tricky” as Leo says, doesn’t cut it. Experience is delusion? Is delusion bad? Of course not. Because neither is death. There is only “is.” What is liberation? And for whom? There is only happiness. Maybe I’m coming from a different perspective. For me, sadness is the most transcendent form of happiness. Literally, I’m weird. Unless somehow the actual emotion of sadness has been completely hidden from me. I love nothing more than sadness, and also gratitude. What could be more beautiful than sadness?

No, but they are more enlightened then someone higher up the spiral. Enlightenment is basically just returning to where you began. So in my opinion the spiral starts at enlightenment and as you go up you are getting further away from enlightenment, but ultimately circling around back to enlightenment. I suspect that is why people become enlightened period. I don't think any human has actually gone all the way up the spiral and come back to enlightenment yet. The people who become enlightened are because they fall so low on the spiral by some freak accident they flip to the other side. For example Eckhart Tolle talked about how he was basically on the verge of suicide from the meaningless and apathy he felt when his experience happened. True apathy is the lowest a human can go, if you go lower then it you may find out you don't exist at all. That could also be why meditation and silencing the mind leads to enlightenment, because you are almost tricking yourself into not existing by not thinking. Stage blue or stage red people can seem primitive but a lot of the time they are actually more connected to the stillness and acceptance than say a stage orange or green person from what I've seen.

Suicide was created by ego for long term survival. Since we are conscious enough to understand that now, and at present have enough technology within and outside to overcome suffering, suicide should no longer be an option.

Depends on what you mean by enlightened states. Jhana 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and the unfabricated (nirvana; end of time) might aptly be called enlightened states. Unity consciousness, when experienced, will pretty much invariably be assumed to be the goal of the spiritual path when it is made lasting (it pretty much never lasts). Same with jhana 3 and higher, oftentimes. What I mean by enlightenment is the complete collapse of the real sense of here/there, now/then, I/you, distance, good/bad, personal doer-ship, and reality in any sense whatsoever, to the point where it is inconceivable that any self that is separate from everything could "come back," because it's recognized it wasn't actually ever there -- the only thing that seems to be able to bring this about is absolute egoic suicide. Perhaps there is a pleasant path that somehow leads to it, but it would only be pleasant by virtue of doing extremely pleasant things in meditation, etc. The enlightenment would happen completely in spite of the pleasantness. The pleasantness only serving to make the process less painful. I can imagine some may not only get enlightened pain free, but filled with bliss -- that would be due to profound meditation skill. No idea if it's true though. And of course, no one gets enlightenment.

The premise of this thread is a complete misunderstanding. Near-enlightenment is like a lucid dream, but instead of running around excitedly, there's just a role and there's the absolute obviousness that anything behind that role (a person) is completely full of shit, because there is no person. Ever felt a peculiar trustworthiness and unthreatened-ness when spending time around someone who seems to experience shame a lot? It's because they are nearer to enlightenment than the average person. Enlightenment, for many, is when that feeling of being full of shit gets so all-encompassing it completely collapses. Basically cosmic suicide. No person would seek enlightenment if they knew what is was. It's the utterly complete end of good and bad, and the beginning of "is." Sound good? It actually will to some. It did to me. It actually makes sense superficially that "the end of good and bad" could somehow be "good" but of course, that's a most obvious contradiction and impossibility. I'd recommend love and consciousness. I would never recommend enlightenment. Not that enlightenment is bad, it's just not good, and therefore it's both pointless to recommend, and just altogether pointless. Nothing changes.

Just to let you know beforehand - this post is written by hardcore full-time seeker - 14 hours of consciousness work daily for past 5 years with 150 psychedelic GOD awakenings and Infinite Love awakenings on 5-MeO-DMT and others. I do not expect any advice from you for my situation - because I came to conclusion that no advice of the "internet gurus" has ever worked for me. I wrote this post just so you could show some empathy to people like me - seekers who are STUCK in the middle, in the dead zone - between the Matrix and Liberation. And being stuck in the middle of those two for years/lifetime creates MORE suffering than average human life spent as an average unconscious Joe. My life is actually worse than Leo's life according to his health video in his Insights Blog (https://www.actualized.org/insights/my-health-situation) . I am in pain, experiencing many psychological and physical illnesses since my childhood. Everybody should realize that Life is massive Suffering even after many awakenings. Like many of you, I came into the spirituality because I wanted to ease my suffering AND have less thoughts OR at least stop being identified with them AND be "immune" to pain AND to know my true nature AND to experience experience Unconditional Love in everyday life - not just in psychedelic trips. 5 years of hardcore spirituality later, my suffering has actually increased AND number of thoughts has actually increased AND identification with thoughts is pretty much the same AND my sensitivity to pain has dramatically increased AND I have had only 2 sober spontaneous experiences of Unconditional Love which lasted only 1 minute. After many of my temporary awakenings I came to conclusion that I am the GOD IDIOT, here's why: My life in a nutshell: 0.006 % Gods Divine Love 1 % pleasure from orgasm, eating 99 % suffering in boredom/meaninglessness, suffering from thoughts, personality disorders, anxiety, depression, inner-conflicts, needs, desires, pain, work, insomnia, extreme noise sensitivity etc. I am a God Idiot because after 5 years of full time consciousness work I was not able to cure any of my disorders. I am powerless god. Hopeless God. God is LIMITED idiot because he can't switch off useless "pain signals" in the body. OF COURSE pain signals were useful in caveman days, but nowadays they have outlived their usefulness YET there is NO WAY to turn them off (I am a highly sensitive person - I feel pain 5x stronger than average human) The GOD is RENDERING this creation and that is pretty much the ONLY thing that's doing great! God is UNLIMITED when it comes to rendering stuff. Rendering feelings etc... Rendering this colorful 4D scene. BRAVO! He is doing that perfectly. His mechanism of "no-mechanism" is PERFECT. But the scene is full of suffering. The Mind is actually Alpha version pre-realesed too early and most of human perspectives are in suffering mode thanks to shitloads of inner conflicts created by inner beings/thoughts or "external" stimuli. God is the biggest idiot out there - Since in this day and age more than 98% of human perspectives are led by ego-identity and for most of them THERE IS NO WAY OUT (remember - I have tried to get out for 5 years full-time) There's NO WAY OUT because there are infinite lives... So suicide is not an option - my idiotic creation is made the way that I will be always reborn into suffering again and again. Life IS. And this statement implies suffering in it. NO WAY OUT. Life is and always will be. Whatever IS - is prone to suffer. I am a God idiot - because THERE IS NO "SAFETY VALVE" Impermanence is actually not "SAFETY VALVE", it's not a positive feature like Leo said in impermanence video. Impermanence IS an "error", because God is idiot who wasn't capable of creating creation with 100 percent SOBER divine love without colors, feelings, thoughts and without the need for using psychedelics to remember himself in trip just for few seconds. OF COURSE I used to be a 5-MeO-HERO who experienced Gods Divine Love 150 times on psychedelic only to forget it few minutes later. Why? Because this Creation is created by Me God Idiot, who is NOT IN CONTROL of making use of those divine insights into everyday reality ... Remember there is no control and no one in control. And no one in control of liberating from suffering into "awakened state" !!! It's based on pure luck... It is a lottery. The Grand God Idiot's Lottery! That's why there are actually life-long seekers who seeks liberation from suffering but how many actually get liberated? How many of the seekers get enlightened? 3 percent? So this hell creation is punishment for myself. Why? Just cause! I do not know... God is idiot because there is NO WARRANTY that evolution will make humans more happy. What if people 5000 years ago were a lot more happy than today's industrial society? There is no warranty for better future. YES there are channeled books from higher beings in higher dimensions who say that there is some thing called ascension and in 1000000 years you will ascend higher or whatever, but what if that is just a dogma? You can't be sure of that. I am LIMITED crippled God because I have NO CONTROL over the creation - I can't "dream" stuff or positive emotions into existence and maintain them 24/7 and I am very VERY limited in manipulating reality - maybe even totally powerless - because I have no control over my thoughts, hormones, disorders, life experiences, brain chemicals etc... LoA people are proof of that. Under any LoA video on youtube there are comments like: I can manifest ANYTHING!!! - yeah right, those "omnipotent" fools who say they can manifest anything only to find out they have a tumor year later and die. I have personally known 2 of those people. To intelligent person it's obvious that they can only manifest themselves stuff like cars and money, which is normal part of life and working hard. No need to call that woo-woo Law Of Attraction. All of them say you are God and can manifest anything - so why their life is suffering? Why are they still working at McDonald's? Why they have incurable illnesses? Why those fools don't make themselves live up to 200 years of age full of wealth and health? Or feed all starving children in Africa. Or heal ALL corona patients in one day ... They're a joke. And anyone who believes that "You are Creator of your own reality" is a joke. You have very limited - I would say Zero control over the reality. Just contemplate "What is a decision" and observe your experience carefully. I am a GOD IDIOT because I have Zero control over my thoughts. I have ZERO control of: WHAT my next thought gonna be WHEN my next thought gonna be AND I have ZERO control of decision made based on thought content. I am God idiot because my alpha-version buggy Mind (thoughts) is prone to be stuck in loops of negative thinking FULL OF INTERNAL CONFLICTS between inner archetypes. Not just thought loops. I know people stuck in depressive, anxiety, OCD loops for their whole life. No techniques or medications work for them. I am God idiot who is not in control of his "level of vibration" ... God is idiot because his creation is CHAOS. Chaos implies suffering. Some say that reality is not suffering, but my interpretation of reality creates suffering. Oh man believe me I HAVE TRIED... Full-time... God is limited idiot because any psychedelic or other "peak experience" won't last more than few minutes AND there's a tolerance or harmful addiction or basically "The higher you fly, the harder you fall". In conclusion - Experiences of God's divine love actually made my everyday life more miserable - they showed me something I'm incapable to experience on sober daily basis. My 5-MeO Omnipotence experiences are totally useless AND those experiences gave me a false hopes / false HEALING hopes for my illnesses... Nothing good came out of them... BTW I wanted to teach spirituality... Like Leo, I wanted to wake people up from their illusions... Praising 5-MeO as well. Like Leo I have read almost all spiritual books under the sun. Like Leo - I became "Insight Hunter" ... Only to find out later that insights/peak psychedelic experiences actually made my life worse. Revealing "secrets" of existence is making everyday life "negatively" meaningless. YES - meaninglessness that I experience is not neutral, it's negative. Massive contemplative lifestyle stripped my life of compulsory illusions. Human NEEDS his illusions to live normal life... To be able to relate to other people in the matrix, to be social... To enjoy entertainment in the matrix... You won't be happy watching a movie constantly being reminded it's staged... I realized that stripping illusions off reality is actually fools way to live a life. I, like many, am a depressed spiritual loner full of head knowledge and spiritual ego. That's why most of philosophers were unhappy. And because only 3 % of seekers get liberated - average seeker gets actually stuck "in the middle"... I as a God am incapable of surrendering the ego identity... Believe me, I have tried... Shitloads of times... But of course surrender isn't something you could do willingly. I am still waiting for some paradigm-shattering insight or whatever... Til now no luck... OF COURSE this post is full of limiting beliefs. OF COURSE this could be understood as a victim mentality thinking. But realize - I am doing my best... Full time... Everybody is doing their best. I have tried everything... So please do not spit any pseudo-advises like "practice acceptance" or other BS... Your words have no use in some Gods perspectives like This One that is writing this useless post. You won't help me and you won't cure Leo's thyroid illness. OF COURSE reality is 100% imagination and I have tried to make a massive leap and transform this imagination into positive one by brute-force OR at least manifest "accepted imagination" to see creation as accepted/neutral. Did not work. Many "souls" are in the "massive suffering mode" multiple lives in a row. Just read this book: "Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian L. Weiss" ... It's about a woman who tapped into her past lives and 95 out of 100 her past lives were FULL OF suffering and illnesses... BTW in her past lives she has been a monk in monastery many times. Being monk is useless in therms of "progress" or whatever. So, I hope you finally understand. You can enlighten yourself however you want in this life, in your next life thanks to memory wipe out + upbringing by egoic parents and egoic society you will fall back to illusion again. You will suffer in your next life in spite of your awakenings in this life. I am DELUDED LIMITED CRIPPLED GOD. Totally lost in his creation. NO WAY OUT for 99,999 percent of people including me. Gods creation is Hell Realm - This Colorful Creation is Hell Realm. Thanks for your time. You will experience my life someday. Don't worry "internet gurus" :-D tl;dr: Have compassion for suffering of others. And just 2 more quotes for you:

There are a lot of bad reasons to be anti-lockdown and against mandatory masking. Conspiracy theories, bad science, "muh freedoms", etc etc. However, I feel like there could be some reasonable logic behind the thinking of some people who are opposed too. Unicef warns lockdown could kill more than Covid-19 as model predicts 1.2 million child deaths There's some good evidence to suggest that more people will commit suicide or die of an overdose as a result of covid lockdowns than from covid itself. The world economy got basically shut down for months, many businesses are still recovering or already went bankrupt. A deeper recession or even depression possibly looming when it all catches up with us. It's certainly hard to put a value on human life, but I feel like at some point we must, when it threatens to bring our economy to its knees to accomodate. 20%+ increase in domestic violence in most places during lockdown Depriving kids of a year or more of their childhood General quality of life decrease and isolation for everyone else in lockdown. Interruption to regular hobbies, activities, etc. I feel like it's a very Stage Green thing to do everything in our power to try and save everyone. People make emotional appeals saying that it's selfish to not wear a mask for other people's sake, you're killing grandmas, etc. Shaming people into it. But I feel like a Stage Yellow person might look at the bigger picture. It's unreasonable to think that we can save everyone. So we should take a utilitarian approach and maximize the happiness and well-being for as many people as possible. The elderly and immunocompromised are going to get an unfair deal either way... but it seems far easier to quarantine the old and sick in their homes and let everyone else go about their lives, instead of trying to quarantine the entire population. The old and sick will already have poor quality of life regardless, but now we're negatively impacting the lives of all young healthy people too in an attempt to save a few more of them. I think this is a pretty logical and rational position to take, and it shouldn't be too controversial. But when I try to explain this to people, they basically call me a sociopath. I'm curious what people here think. I'm open-minded to the fact that I might be wrong about this, and interested to hear any opposing viewpoints.

@LossIf you like the life purpose course by Gura might be the very thing you need at this time, just to get your attention focused on that 1 thing. Again, if you take that path my advice is don't make it into a big deal, rather just make a deal with yourself that you're going to stick with it through the high's and low's and at the sacrifice of other things. But at the same time, acting like a suicide bomber or a high school shooter when it comes to your life purpose has real measurable positive effects when it comes to achieving the results you want in life. So its a paradox, there's this absoluteness to it and then there's this complete non-attachment, but if you imagine that dynamic as a mixing of shades of black and white there's a unique geometry to it that you don't want to mess too much with, its easy to miss it, but once you understand it and recognise it for what it is, you can use that kind of powerful force in your endeavour basically like no other

1. I mean I don't know the specifics of Biden's policies, but the fact that Trump still has not proposed an alternative to Obamacare after 3 years is a pretty clear indictment for me that he is not very smart policy-wise. 2. The performance of US economy was strong before the lockdown if you look at the stock market for sure. But be aware that while his tax cuts (which benefited the super rich for the most part) did help to boost the employment rates, the US historical data show that drastic cuts in taxes only work for a short period of time before the economic fatigue kicks in, and fundamental problems such as lack of funding to poor communities and public schools start to appear. And I am sure most people would not have blamed Trump for the GDP going down because of COVID. 3. I don't think I understand your point here. 4. Well his peace treaties might turn out well or not, but I think that getting out of the Iran deal is pretty stupid to say the least, and not very peaceful of him. 5. There is not any signs that the Democrats can do anything to the 2nd amendment. It's a political suicide if they try to touch that. At most, they might try to pass policies like better gun training or more strict background checks on a federal level. 6. I get what you mean by school choice, but the underlying problem here is that public schools are not getting the funds that they need. 7. Well as someone who grew up in China, I can assure you that most people do not even have the time to think about attacking other countries because life is busy. They are just happy that the country is stable enough to have a decent life. Sure, most chinese want to have a more cultural impact in the world (soft power), but hardly any of them are plotting the destruction of the rest of the world. Obviously, we all have to be vigilant against the CCP, but international politics is a lot more complicated than simply us versus them. 8.That is a really stretched argument to start with (fallacy of false correlations, and it is also funny that Trump inherited the booming economy of the Obama's administration and actually made it worse in many respects. 9. If by big tech censorship you mean banning conspiracy groups like Q then I don't know what to say. A reminder that these tech companies are private corporations who have absolute control over what are posted on their platforms. Last thing: And of course mainstream media reporting in general is biased because they are pushing certain narratives, but you have to also see through the hypocrisy of Fox News and far-right alternative medias. If you can't do that, then you are just as hypocritical as the medias you don't like.

Thank you all for so many amazing replies! I look forward to experimenting with the techniques & methods that people have recommended. I also would like to apologise for such a late reply to my own thread. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @Fran11 1. I plan to do a deep exploration of the world of energy work, thanks! Any advice on places to start? Books, meta-sources? 2. Do you have any practical advice for dis-identifying with the I-thought? Would it look something like a mindfulness-based 'if-then' habit, i.e.: thought arises, such as a pre-verbal judgement or something with the word 'me'/'I' in it, & as soon as I notice it, I think this thought: 'this is not me/this is just an impersonal phenomena' & try to notice that e.g. by forcing myself to feel more like a listener of it rather than the active participant in thinking it? If my interpretation is misguided, how would it look like to dis-identify from the I-thought, moment-to-moment? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @Moksha I will investigate all of these. I loved your explanation of Karma Yoga, it's about time I included more of this than just basic morality practices. Makes sense that if I'm going to do anything, it might as well be what I would do if I was identified with the whole. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- @RedLine Not yet. I'm brainstorming methods & trying to predict which will be the most effective. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @RendHeaven Firstly, thank you so much for this amazing reply & for taking the time to point out so much of the self-deception going on in my current thinking. I have only ever had one ego-death/enlightenment experience on psychedelics, which was terrifying, so I am still a novice in this area. I like this idea of personifying the psychedelics. In my next trip, I will take on the attitude that I am dealing with an alive teacher, as opposed to my previous/current more materialistic approach, where I only consider them as inanimate chemicals causing changes to my brain for the purpose of assisting me with MY motives, exactly like you said. No doubt, if I took such an attitude to learning with a human master, they probably wouldn't want to work with me at all. Makes me wonder if this old attitude contributed to me having such a challenging trip. I have contemplated this on many occasions since my first ego-death experience. Sometimes I like to do a thought experiment where I imagine that someone has a gun to my head & is about to pull the trigger. I try to make it as vivid as possible, to try to convince myself that it's really happening, then I try to accept my fate or imagine what I might actually do in this situation. Sometimes I think I can accept it, but usually, if I'm self-honest, I'm shit-scared & would try to do anything I could to escape physical death. I would never commit suicide (kill the body). What have you realized from contemplating this yourself? But how will I be able to make progress if I'm distracted by my thinking? Surely the rejection of certain parts of reality is necessary for any of this to work? Isn't doing this the lesser of two self-deceptions, with thinking/monkey-mind being the greater? Further, isn't the thinking that I wish to silence, ITSELF a form of self-rejection/rejection of the present-moment? When my mind is silent & I am in deep jhana, it feels like I can appreciate [everything] far more than when I am following along with some train of thought about the past or future, solving my problems, etc. I understand that I am acting hypocritical & unenlightened by choosing to silence the mind at the expense of other phenomena, but isn't this the lesser of two evils? You're 100% correct here, I am in pain & I see enlightenment as a way out, this is my main/strongest motivation in this work. Me no like suffering! P.s. Yes, the lords of the earth & sky bit was intended as comedic. Finally: What do you suggest I do instead? What has worked well for you? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @electroBeam What happened when you tried this? Do you have any theories as to what went wrong/why it didn't work? What's your story, Mr. Beam? Also, what do you do now instead that's more effective? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @SirVladimir Very cool reply & thanks for the headsup. It's true, I do goal-ify enlightenment probably more than I should. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @Jonty I like this practice too, very relaxing

Some of these questions may not be worth answering, or may not be general enough, or only warrant short answers, or have already been answered and it's been too long since I re-watched The Dangers of Spiritual Work, or I didn't watch it closely enough. 1. What is Hell? Is it just causing a bunch of suffering for yourself in life and never waking up? Is it downgrading all of infinity into a joke on you by committing suicide or something? Is it some fiery place you go if you were a "terrible person"? or just a silly dogmatic belief? Cultural control mechanism? Helpful metaphor? What is Hell actualized? 2. Why me? Why do I, in this incarnation, have to literally be the next Christ and embody a life purpose to save the world / run for president / martyr for justice? (not me mikelyons, but just the "me" as whoever is asking this question, about what they think, they may be the only one who can do in this life to save creation/changetheworld) Is that just me being unwilling to quit whining? Is imagining life purpose that seems insurmountable or maybe is impossible just one of the dangers of spiritual work when you're not developed enough? 3. Is suicide only culturally disallowed? Is there any truth to society's aversion to it? Is having the courage to actualize life purpose the only real argument against it? Or is that also illusory and it's no better than any argument for or against anything? If infinity is infinite doesn't it include my suicide anyway? Infinite suicides? (no danger intended)

20 year old male here. 1 month ago one of my best friends from high school who I've known since I was 11 committed suicide. He was like a brother to me, so many good memories. School ended in 2018 for me, and we didn't stay in much contact with each other since then. We met a handful of times though, and every time I met him it was still great and amazing. My last proper encounter with him was a video call I had with him in June, for 3-4 hours. I ended up messaging him 2-3 days before he went missing and committed suicide, but the message was just me acknowledging that I saw him chilling on Spotify ( his account was online) and it was a very brief exchange. I regret not saying more or starting a conversation, and I regret not having been in contact with him more since school ended. He loved music a lot, was one of or his main hobby. Through his Spotify profile I can see the last few songs he probably ever listened to before killing himself. It haunts me in a way and makes me emotional. Thinking about his death, I feel very physically sick in my stomach and chest, sometimes cry. Today I managed to open myself a little more to the feeling in an honest/direct manner, turns out I have a lot of suppressed and conflicting emotions. I want to "move on" but I don't know what moving on means. And then I feel like if I "move on" too quickly, I would have killed or suppressed an important part of me. I'm also a hurt child throwing a tantrum, I want others to know the depth of my pain. Hence this thread. Any similar experiences here?

I am completely clouded by my emotions. My partner has complained about how I don't fully listen, and how I react emotionally when they try to speak objectively with me. This, although not at all a big deal, has been incredibly difficult, and has felt almost impossible for me to accept. I continue to deny and say, "that's not me", or cry profusely when they bring it up or get frustrated. This has a deeper meaning to my ego, as my partner has compared the behavior to his mother, which has lead him to wanting to commit suicide. Although he's admitted I am not to that extremity, it feels almost impossible for me to accept this criticism without an emotional reaction. I want to be nothing like his mother, however, the more emotionally attached I get, the less objective I become, therefore I play more into the behavior he despises. It also cycles back as it makes me incredibly worried when talking to him, (for fear of me not paying attention happening again) further clouding my head and making it more difficult to pay attention. I am also extremely attached to the beginning of our relationship, which he cites as me never behaving in this way before, and was actually one of the reasons we bonded in the first place (he enjoyed my objectivity, logical thinking, detachment from emotions clouding my thoughts, and how easy it was to talk and reason to me). This, ironically, makes me cry even more - as I feel I've completely lost that part of me, or he'll never see me in that light again. Or even worse, even if I do change the behavior, he'll always see me as an emotional wreck who can't handle objective conversation. I've brought up these concerns with him before, and he has stated that the more I repeat the positive behavior (listening more, not crying), the faster it'll all go away. He always reaffirms with me that I can fix this behavior, that it can all be a memory and won't impact my current character. But, this has been hard for my ego to believe - it always wants to tell me that I'm inadequate, not enough, and I've completely ruined everything. And I believe it. I'm just struggling with what exactly I need to do to stop this behavior. I was locked in my home with my very emotional, anxiety-run family for 6 months (they feared covid-19 to the point of self-quarantine), 2 months ago, I left to live with my father, out of being driven to near insanity. We both believe this lowered my IQ substantially, and made me way more emotional and irrational. Now, I'm still having trouble thinking clearly, or even narrowing down what exactly is bothering me. It feels my thoughts are behind a dim cloud. My rational feels completely obliterated, and I'm having trouble accepting this situation without attaching it to "you make him suicidal, you're too stupid to talk to, you've completely ruined everything.." etc. I can't accept the situation logically, without destroying myself and making myself miserable in the process. I compare myself to his ex's, to my past self, I think of false positives like "if I wear this shirt, I'll be more like my past self". I'm completely illogical. Even if I start to work on it, my mind will tell me "his ex never had to do this, you're so pathetic, he'll never love you like he loved her". If anyone has any tips on this, I would be really happy to hear. This behavior and cycle has been going on for about a year, and I'm sick of it. It's been making both of us miserable. I just really want to be able to accept that I'm a person who has made him miserable, without attaching it to feelings of inadequacy, never being enough, and always being stained by this past. Thank you so much.

Not to boast or anything, just for another perspective, I got onto this path in college, dropped out of college, had 2 jobs (a very stressful startup part time and a very stressful full time job) for 3 years straight, and did this path hardcore. Then realised my college and 2 jobs and everyone around me was me. And if it wasn't for my job, my spiritual path wouldn't have taken off, because it was the experience of my very stressful job, breaking up with my long term GF, which pulled the inner demons out of me. I nearly committed suicide 3 times after dropping out of college, 1 time my startup nearly failed, girlfriend broke up with me, and I lost my job(was living by myself because parents were disappointed that I dropped out of college and kicked me out). A day after that experience, I had a huge awakening, and was very very receptive to a whole new way of looking at the world, and also to a certain new teaching that the mod above exposed me to. There's no better opportunity to really see what hidden karma you have inside of you then to go through demoralisation, ridicule, nearly loosing your job, depression, anxiety and loads of fear. This path has never been a separate thing to my career or relationships, and I've never understood why people see it that way, maybe there's a very good reason for it, but your career (if it really pushes you) just compliments your practices and helps you deconstruct yourself. If I didn't have a very stressful life, I'm over 9000% sure my spiritual journey would have been 3 years behind it is now. Because I wouldn't have had the opportunity to really test what I'm made of.

We need a better way to differentiate between the vegan diet with vegan ethical position. Its a source of confusion. Can we think of another way to define the ethical position? Ok by this definition i am a vegan who eats meat. Im honestly genuinely asking, is there a shadow here? How passionate are you on these talking points and how much do you want this? I fully agree with what you are morally saying, but this cant be used as a focal point guiding this inquiry. We need to examine all facets independently. We established the ethical facet, now lets tackle the rest, really openly with out baggage from the other facets. Then we can weight and compare each facet and explore realistic solutions. This feels like im suspected of committing a crime and being asked to prove my innocence. In an ideal world eating animals is a against the law? I understand the perspective... but this is a mistake, the other facets will reveal this. Was vegan for 10 years, got really sick (not saying it was the fault of the diet), was forced to start eating meat, the alternative was suicide. We would not be having this conversation if meat was illegal. Maybe there was a way to avoid this but i did not fined it, specifically because Health Care has become a business. A important facet to be explored! The logic works only if this premise holds true: The vegan diet is completely effortlessly tolerated for 99.9% of people. The premise is wrong. It becomes clear when we really dig into it. The space is complex with many shades of grey. From a vegan ethical position it would mean sacrificed health for many people. A trade off. Maybe this is something you agree with, minimizing suffering overall. But i disagree. Ideally we grow meat in lab or some other sciency solution, but we shouldn't rely on this.

I had a desire to write a story about an arcade snake. I love playing snake, but the game reminded me of something beyond just the game itself. And so I wrote about it. A little snake, just 1 pixel long, was doing some therapy work after years of bullying. The 1 pixel snake since he was a kid, loved tails, and seeing how big snake tails can get. He went to university to be a tailsman, where he learnt different methods for measuring different tail sizes of different snakes. Each assignment though, started getting more and more repetitive, and the snake lost interest. He went into more therapy work for his bullying. As he went into therapy work, he noticed a video on the internet from snakilized.org by a weird snake without any hair. This snake seemed to have a very long tail, and he made a video called the most shocking tail measuring technique you'll ever hear. He talked about this amazing possibility of growing your tail so long that it covers the entire universe(arcade game). But he said you have to play 'the game' called 'the snake game'. A game with a whole range of different levels, different gemstones you have to collect, different boss battles, weird levels that seem to twist and turn as you progress through them, different ways of knowing how long your tail is and how to get it longer, different ways to go faster or slower or manoeuvre around the game to get your tail longer faster. Wow, I've always been interested in tails, but never thought you could actually make your tail grow longer! That's university x1000! The hairless snake said "to grow your tail longer, you have to enter the first level and collect all the contemplation gemstones, there's a map that shows you where to get them, but be warned! Growing your tail longer is about collecting the contemplation gemstones, not about dreaming about how long your tail is on the map!" So the little snake went over to level 1, and collected his first gemstone. But his tail didn't grow any longer! So he went and collected the 2nd gemstone, but still his tail didn't even get an inch longer! Collected the third...4th...5th... his tail wasn't getting any longer. He looked at the map again to make sure he was collecting the right gemstones. Then he noticed there was a gemstone that looked like tail! And thought "Those must be the right gemstones!" So he went over to those gemstones and ate them... but again no longer tail. So he thought "what if I'm not meant to be eating them, but attaching them to my body!" So he went over and started attaching them to his body and it worked! His tail was getting longer, then he had an even cleverer idea "what if instead of going to each gemstone, I just cut them out on my map and stick them on my body! That way I don't have to walk over to them!" So then he went and cut out all the gemstones on the map and planted them on his body, his tail was getting very long now! Then he had another amazing idea to draw himself on the map and to draw his tail getting longer. Now he's figured out how to have a long tail! This works very well! He kept drawing and drawing and... "Slap!" The hairless snake smashed his map and all his planted tails on the ground. And just in a millisecond, the little snake was back to square one, same length tail. This left the little snake depressed because he really thought he had a long tail. "I warned you to not get caught in the map" the hairless snake said, but the little snake didn't listen. The little snake then slowly started collecting the meditation gemstones, with a depressed look on his face, because his tail wasn't growing longer at each gemstone collected. He wondered whether growing a long tail is for him, or whether he should just be like the other 1 pixel snakes. This gemstone collecting life is too hard. He stopped collecting gemstones for a while and went to the party levels, and career levels for a while. Then 1 morning he woke up, and noticed his tail was slightly longer. "OMG this is amazing!" The little snake thought, and just like that was back at the contemplation level to collect more gemstones. But there was a downside, each contemplation gemstone collected, the world started changing colours slightly. Everything seemed to get slightly more green. It was a bit disturbing, but the little snake ignored it. The hairless snake made a new video called "the dangers of collecting gemstones" where he talked about how the gemstones do make your tail grow longer, but they have awful side effects of changing the colour of the world a little bit and making it a bit fuzzy. The snake ignored the fuzziness, and kept growing his tail. His tail had a beautiful array of different aspects to it, a tail about vibrant looking trees, another about vibrant looking nature, another on less anger, and another on more peace. Each aspect was 1 cell or pixel long of his tail. Then the hairless snake introduced the little snake to something called duality and non duality. Non duality is when you can grow your tail by seeing how you can eat different aspects of the world, like the grass and trees, and turn those things into your tail. Duality is seeing how your tail is different to those things and can never be eaten. Apparently everything can be eaten, but that idea turned the little snake off, so he just focused on how the good things can be eaten like candy and the trees and the grass. The little snake didn't want to eat the mud and mush and algae and moss, and Trump, etc. who knows what that will do to his body and tail? The little snake went to level 2 and started eating the trees, but not everything else. His tail grew a bit longer but not much. He tried eating more and more trees and grass, but his tail only got slightly longer. He ate and ate and ate, more and more and more, but the tail didn't get much longer. The little snake started getting depressed, thinking that he wasn't spiritually talented enough to grow his tail any longer. The hairless snake said "you have to eat the moss too! Not just the stuff you like!" So then the little snake ate the moss, and BOOM! His stomach swelled up massively. The moss took over his stomach and gave him a massive stomach ache. The little snake got so angry at the hairless snake, saying that the hairless snake is making him go crazy and screwing up his life. But as the swelling went away, all of a sudden the snake's stomach grew tolerant to the moss, and the snake could eat all of it! By this time the little snake's tail was getting very long, now with different aspects of the world attached to it, like moss, algae, grass and trees, it was on its way to be infinitely long. Then the hairless snake introduced the little snake to more levels of the game. And each of these new levels had a different way of measuring how long your tail is. The first mega level was the no tail level, where you can measure the tail by how much space is inside it, then the infinity mega level, where you can measure the tail by how many atoms are in it, then a very cool level called the God measuring level, where you can measure the tail just by feeling it and being it, and then the Love level, where you can measure the tail by how much love you feel for it. The little snake ran to the no tail level, and tried to see how its tail had space in it. But... it was solid, not spacey at all! The little snake tried using a magnifying glass, but couldn't see any space in it. He then looked at the map for a no tail snake, and saw that the tail had all these holes in it, like a net. So the snake got a net and put it around his tail, but it was still solid. The snake ran up to the hairless snake and asked him how to get it done. The hairless snake said it cannot be communicated, so take psychedelics so that you can feel how its done. The snake then took some psychedelics, but then the psychedelics started cutting his tail. "Nooo!" Screamed the little snake "I've been working so hard to grow my tail so long, you can't just cut it off!". But the psychedelics kept going, cutting away at his tail, this is what's known in the arcade game as a "bad trip". After the psychedelics were taken, the snake got traumatised. The little snake again got very angry at the hairless snake "How could you make me take that! I nearly lost my tail!" Then very confusingly the hairless snake said "to progress onto the next level you need to loose some of your tail". The little snake got confused and so looked at his map again, and it didn't look like loosing his tail. But the little snake continued, trying to cut his tail to see what would happen, and at every cut his vision got horribly blurry and everything started going green. So he stopped, but then tried cutting again, and the same thing happened! So he gave up and just enjoyed himself in the career and relationship levels again. But then a pulse of energy went through his brain and started cutting his tail. He started freaking out, thinking he was going to loose his tail and loose his mind. He tried stopping the pulses but it didn't work. He ended up in the hospital fearful that he developed a bad disease. The doctors told him he was fine though, and so confusingly he left the hospital and walked home. But as soon as he left home, that massive pulse of energy came up again and started eating at his tail. He tried running back to the hospital, but it was too late. The energy went up and up, cutting away all of his tail. Just as the little snake was about to cry to death, the energy stopped, and surprisingly his tail was still there, but now it looked like a net shape! "Wow just like the map!" The little snake excitedly said. The snake tail was so empty that it covered all of the air of the video game. It became so large and the snake got so excited. The snake started feeling it, it was so close to having a tail the entire size of the video game itself. He just had to go through those couple of levels and then he's done. So he went through the infinity level, where he was tasked with eating every single atom in the game, not just the big objects like moss and algae. As he was eating all the atoms in the game, he started to notice, that he couldn't tell the difference between different objects anymore, because they were all atoms. And then a very scary experience happened, He saw his tail, and then saw the atoms that he was eating, and for a split second couldn't tell the difference between them because they were both the same colour... green! He freaked out because he nearly lost his entire tail. He went up to the hairless snake and asked him about his scary episode of nearly loosing his tail. The hairless snake said "don't worry about it, just focus on feeling". And so the little snake did, but as he did that, his tail started looking like the stuff he was eating even more. The little snake freaked out, worried that he was about to loose his entire tail if he keeps going. And all of the work he's built up to. He looks at his map, and tries to see his map happen in real life. He notices how his map has cool waves on it to signify the God level of tail. and he tries to see those waves as a way to ensure his tail doesn't disappear. And that keeps the tail in tact. He now can feel his tail and it feels just like what the map said. Lucky he didn't lose his tail and everything he's worked for and he just went a bit insane for a little while. Then the snake moves onto the love level, the final level before his tail encompasses the entire game. The love level is the level where you eat the light that the game emits. And so the little snake starts getting that light and eating it. But as he eats that energy, he again notices that the light is all green, everything he is eating is completely green. The little snake starts freaking out, because the little snake cannot tell what he's eating anymore. He can't even feel the food enter his mouth anymore. How is he going to grow his tail to the maximum length if he can't even feel the food enter his mouth anymore? The little snake goes to the hairless snake to tell him what's happening. He tells the hairless snake how everything he's eating is the same and he can't feel it enter his stomach anymore. The hairless snake says that its fine, and that its true, there are no differences. The little snake freaks out exclaiming "but how will I grow my tail to the size of the universe if I can't even eat anymore!" The hairless snake just says "That's all a story, don't listen and keep eating". The little snake starts thinking that this hairless snake is an idiot. Clearly if he can't eat anymore he can't grow his tail anymore. Then the hairless snake looks at all of the levels and the game and they all look like green light. The contemplation gemstones like like the eating chips gemstones, and level 4 looks like level 1. The game just looks like 1 big green wave of energy. The little snake starts to get depressed, he built his entire life around making a very long tail, the size of the universe, and now he can't even tell the difference between the different levels. The no tail level, God tail level, Love tail level, all look the same, and the contemplation gemstone looks like all the other gemstones, and all the food looks like the rest of the food, which looks like the levels, which looks like the gemstones. And then he looks at his tail, and his tail looks completely green, just like the entire level. The little snake gets deeply deeply depressed, because how he can't even tell the difference between the different aspects of his tail, like the peace part, and the vibrant trees part, and the no mind part, and the god consciousness part, it all looks like the level, and he can't even tell if he has a tail. What if he never had a tail before? And he just thought he had a tail? He realises that all of his tail was made up. He looks at his 1 pixel snake friends who didn't even start the game in the first place, and just noticed how his tail is the same length as theirs... 1 pixel. He starts regretting ever playing the game in the first place, just thinking it was a massive ego trip, and he's no better off then his 1 pixel friends. From being so depressed, he goes into his green house, into his green kitchen, gets his green knife, and as he is about to put his green knife in his body, he notices that his green knife is the same colour as his green body, and that committing suicide wouldn't do anything. He then sees how the entire universe is 1 big green tail, and that he cannot tell the difference between his body and the world. As if he had a green tail that was the size of the universe. Literally no distinctions. Absolutely no distinctions at all. EDIT: and then a few days later, the snake realised that he never went through the game, he was always the game itself, and he made the game just so he could fall in love with himself. ?????????????????????????????????????????????? the snake designed the game precisely to maximise the amount of love he could give to himself. All those tough times, all those wacky experiences, all the times he was lost but also the times that he was excited, motivated by progress, in awe, all those times was just so that he could fall in love with himself as much as possible, and all along he didn't go through those experiences, he was those experiences.

What about to eat vegetables? You need first deforest the earth, destroy a lot of animal wild life, transport the food, etc. The best solution to avoid that would be a collective suicide. In other hand, a chicken in a good ecological farm have a good life. Better than most of the humans. Eat, sleep, stay with anothers chickens, no worries. One day he dies...what to do? Not bad for a reincarnation. A fish the same, born to die, like all beings on the earth, but when he's living, I think he's enjoying every second, not like the poor sads humans, born to figth with the karma. Life is hard. When you, or me, are fighting to breathe in the bed of an hospital for weeks maybe we get jealous of the destiny of a fish. It's useless to protect the life, if I could choose, I'd prefer a world without medicine, without any security, where death is everywhere. Better than this world of naive lies, where people think that life should be preserved, and it's impossible. Life born to finish, and it's not sad. Sad is to try to avoid that

S.A.D. It started with looking at the grey sky and the lack of color and noticing how ugly everything is. I don't like the buildings here in this country, why is everything so flat and boring? Then I had a lot of anger come up from past events. I told my friends about who from my old high school I would like to go back to and beat up, and why. I was not yet aware of the cloud of negativity that had cast a shadow over my reality. Adding to that, my friends started to get snappy and I began to feel attacked by them. When I got out of the car, I realised what was happening. My head was just buzzing with dark thoughts. Dwelling on things people had recently said in the past days and getting unreasonably angry over them. Repeating scenarios over and over in my mind. No light. No hope. I impulsively drank the psilocybin tea I had left, thinking it would be a nice way to relax. Wrong. I took a shower, enjoying the warm water whilst at the same time having very morbid and bizarre insectscapes on the inside of my eyelids. I toweled off and collapsed on the bed. I felt absolutely hopeless. Alone. Desperate. It really is like staring into an abyss and realising it is bottomless. I desired to cling on to someone and hold them while I cried, but remembered the last time I tried that, and driving people away with my neediness and despair. So I put on sad music and cried by myself, like an adult, for hours. I eventually mentioned to my date what I was going through. She immediately offered to come have dinner at her place, and look at her daylight-therapy lamp together, which was really sweet. I felt like I'm a terrible person for using her, because I'm afraid she thinks we're exclusive, something I haven't addressed for too long. I manage to get myself there, red eyed but happy to see her. We have long conversation, laugh a lot, eat dinner, and have sex. I feel too weak to be on top, so we have a more slow and deep session, which felt very connected and intimate. She squirts buckets. I love that. She is not happy about the wet mattress. The next day I decide to immediately get myself one of those daylight lamps, and I succeed. I can't slip back into a season of depression, I just can't. When I woke up this morning, I felt this familiar pit of anxiety and hopelessness in my stomach. I turned off my alarm and set it for later. Turned it off again. Crept back into bed again. Why get up? There's no hope. Last week I felt optimistic about becoming an entrepreneur. Now it's like that was a person from a movie, and I can't even remember how they even imagined such a thing was possible. I have a strange urge to research morbid topics, like how suicide pills work and what's in them. Not because I'm having suicidal thoughts, to be clear, but just the sudden morbid curiosity is weird. I suppress that urge because giving in would most certainly make it worse. My whole body is vibrating with angst and all crumpled up. My posture is slouched, making myself small, hugging my arms around myself and hanging my head. My hands are sweating and shaking. I feel unreasonable doubt and anxiety about everything I do. I want to eat a healthy amount, but I just stuff myself to fill the anxiety pit. If I were to meet my date right now, I am not sure I would know what to say to her. I don't feel manly, or entertaining, or positive. I'm just a trembling vat of doom and gloom. Putting a smile on the outside would probably look creepy. Obviously, this can not continue. I've been though winter depressions all my life, and it took me a long time to recognize it for what it was. It makes me feel like everything I am doing with my life is pointless. Every time I quit studying it was during these months. Who knows what else got ruined by this radical reconfiguration of my emotions. I wanted to document it here, what it feels like. So I can refer back to it later, and remind myself to not take my state of happiness for granted. Because the weather can change. And all the health habits that I do, the supplements I take, the workouts, the things I don't eat - they seem silly sometimes, but I put them there to protect me. I will dedicate this week to cleaning up a LOT and getting back into my groove. Getting organised, getting exercise. Next week, I will be done with this. Protocol for the next month: Daylight lamp St. John's Wort supplements No more bread and processed food Lots of exercise Vitamin D, Copper and Zinc Make progress on main goal every day

That is really interesting. I’ve found there are actually animals that do commit suicide, but only from a hive mind, or you might say, collective standpoint. For example, there are insects that trigger their own organ failure, and like a caterpillar becomes a butterfly they melt into a substance which aids In the defense of the hive like fly paper. There’s even a parasite that takes over a host’s nervous system and then purposefully gets that animal eaten by it’s prey so it can infect an even bigger host, for the sake of the ‘collective’. Apparently humans are the only animal that can mistake a thought to be an individual self, and perception to be of individual animals. That made me wonder if creation, or, experience, would be better if humans just had hive mind. But honestly, hive mind sounds rather bland & boring. Maybe the ideal situation would be to both experience individually & experience individuals individually, but also have some kind of underlying hive mind bond or something going on too. That made me wonder if maybe the highest intelligence could be that underlying bond, experiencing being individuals, for the sake of the experiencing. If so, some kind of grounding like that would be nice because, I don’t know about you but this place is crazy. Then I wondered about the op and thought what if aliens aren’t visiting per se simply because they don’t want covid, or us eating them too. I am suspicious that the highest intelligence would have the experience, or, creation ‘itself’ in mind. I also suspect there is some sort of ‘underlying bond’ which could be ‘realized‘, and be the experience that is the apparent individuals which seem to have “hive mind”. Then of course I wondered what if aliens have “hive mind”. Again, this place is nuts. These are just some perspectives. Idk.