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My brother sent me this over text . Interesting ideas... "Implications of Cathar Beliefs" The idea that human beings were sparks of light trapped in tunics of material flesh had a number of logical consequences: Procreative sex was bad, since conception would result in another soul being trapped. For this reason, normal sex between man and wife was as bad as any other procreative sex. Marriage was worthless, while contraception was regarded with approval. Also, there was no reason to condemn any form of non-procreative sex. The less one had to do with evil (ie material) things, the better. Eating animals, or animal products, was particularly abhorred, though fish were allowed (as they were thought to reproduce asexually and were not therefore able to imprison a soul). The sooner we can shed this tunic of flesh, the sooner our souls could be free to fly like a spark of light back to heaven, the realm of the good God. There was therefore no reason to discourage suicide. There was not any reason to regard men as better than women. The important part, the soul, was the same. Only the vile material body was different. Since material objects were creations of the Bad God, it was absurd to imagine that they could be of any virtue. So, for example, jewels, money, relics, the Eucharist, reproductions of the cross, and church buildings were of no value whatsoever. Similarly the Catholic teaching about resurrection of the body was absurd. The very idea of a physical body in heaven was ridiculous. Further, it was not plausible that the Good God would send anyone from his realm into the evil material world of the Bad God. Jesus must therefore have been a sort of phantom, looking like a man but in fact immaterial. Anyone who attached great value to material things was at best mistaken and at worst a disciple of the Bad God. It was no secret that the Pope was the richest man in Europe. Cardinals, bishops and priests lived in great luxury and dressed in gorgeous robes. Worse, the Roman Church encouraged the worship of material objects such as the relics of saints. And worse yet it venerated the cross - not only a material object but also an instrument of torture. There was no escaping the logical conclusion. Roman Catholics were worshipping the wrong God - the God of Evil who had created this world. The behaviour of devout Catholics seemed to confirm this conclusion. Carthars referred to the Roman Church as the Church of Wolves.

By truth, I meant all realities. There are enlightened people and normal people. Bodies, thoughts, feelings and senses are still there in present moment. But for enlightened people, they know them with awareness (therefore no consequences because every after one thought or sense, awareness cut the further thought generations) but others not. By middle path, I meant one doesn't have go wild (ex: suicide) because body, mind, & senses are illusion. Also one doesn't have to be too sensitive about what one knows. Hard to explain because if I put the wrong word, you'll be misunderstood.

THIS POST IS HIGHLY GRAPHIC AND USES SEXUAL REFERENCES TO GET THE POINT ACROSS. I would like to try and use contemplation and self-inquiry to see why a person would want to hook up on the first date/give head/jerk off etc... For example (and this can work for a either guy/girl/trans etc... but I will be mainly using guy/girl because it's just easier formatting wise): Example 1 Guy and Girl are done with the date. They are both in the car together. Guy: I had so much fun tonight! Thanks for letting me take you out on a date. Girl: Of course, thank you for taking me. I had a great time at dinner. Guy: You are totally welcome. Girl: You know... I think you are totally cute and fun. I would love to give you a blowjob in my apartment if you are up for it? No pun intended of course. Pause. Guy: You know I love getting head and I think you are really cute as well. May I ask you, besides me being cute and all, why you want to give me head? Girl: I'm looking to have more sexual experiences and I'm not really looking for anything serious at the moment. I just want to have fun and be more open with my sexuality. Guy: You know, I just got out of a serious relationship and I'm actually on the same page as you! I too am looking to have more sexual experiences and have fun. Girl: Great, well come on over and we can talk more and have some fun. End. Example 2 Guy and Girl are done with the date. They are both in the car together. Guy: I had so much fun tonight! Thanks for letting me take you out on a date. Girl: Of course, thank you for taking me. I had a great time at dinner. Guy: You are totally welcome. Girl: You know... I think you are totally cute and fun. I would love to give you a blowjob in my apartment if you are up for it? No pun intended of course. Pause. Guy: You know I love getting head and I think you are really cute as well. May I ask you, besides me being cute and all, why you want to give me head? Girl: Well to be completely open and honest, I've been extremely depressed the past few months and I've been having a lot of family trouble, my sister just committed suicide and my dad past away last year and it's just been to much. I want to use your cock to get over it. Guy: I am so sorry to hear that all of that has happened to you and I can relate as my brother also committed suicide and my dad also past away last year. I'm actually trying to improve myself but I don't want to use sex or sexual activities to cover up my pain. I'm sorry but I don't want for you to give me a blowjob because you are trying to get over your personal problems. It just doesn't feel right to me. Girl: I understand and thank you for your honesty. Would you like to meet again for drink or dinner so we can get to know each other better? Guy: Of course! End. So please notice that the roles can be reversed with the guy having the issues and the girl saying no. In Example 1 there was honest and clear communication between both parties of what they wanted to do. The terms were talked about and action was implemented. In Example 2 I switched both people's lives by introducing some sort of great external pain that each person was having. This in turn, proposed sexual activity not because the girl wanted to explore and have fun but to cover up the pain and harm of this "external conflict". If you've done a lot of personal development work you will know that approaching sex or sexual activities from this perspective is damaging and often leaves both parties confused, misunderstood, and hurt. Further more, I wish individuals talked like this more often with each other as it lays out goals, wants, needs, and problems. The parties involved can't help but come up with a solution. I try and practice this every chance I get as it makes me more open and aware of my motivations, my purpose, and my wants and needs and it also lets the other person know what I want and where I stand. This is why contemplation and self inquiry is so powerful when you do this with yourself and others. Your beliefs, assumptions, and conclusions about you and the world fall away and it becomes about you (in a non-ego way) and your experiences leaving every possibility open, including being honest about what you want and how you want it. -------------------------------- Shaved and Grooming Examples: Example 1 Guy and Girl are done with the date. They are both in the car together. Guy: I had so much fun tonight! Thanks for letting me take you out on a date. Girl: Of course, thank you for taking me. I had a great time at dinner. Guy: You are totally welcome. Girl: You know... I think you are totally cute and fun. I'm just looking to have fun, nothing serious. I would love to give you a blowjob in my apartment if you are up for it? No pun intended of course. But I only like fully shaved cock's. I don't like hairy cock's. Guy: You know I feel the same way! Not about the cock's of course, about you! You are so cute and fun and I would love for you to give me a blowjob. Girl: Great! Well come on up! Guy: I would love to but I don't like shaving down there. I like my hair down there and I don't want to change for anyone. Girl: I see. Well since we are both on the same page about us just having fun and not anything serious then we can end it here. Guy: I agree. I just think we are on different paths in life and I can't seem to comprise with you. It was amazing meeting you though. I had such a great time. Girl: Me too! Wish you all the best. End. Example 2 Guy and Girl are done with the date. They are both in the car together. Guy: I had so much fun tonight! Thanks for letting me take you out on a date. Girl: Of course, thank you for taking me. I had a great time at dinner. Guy: You are totally welcome. Girl: You know... I think you are totally cute and fun. I'm just looking to have fun, nothing serious. I would love to give you a blowjob in my apartment if you are up for it? No pun intended of course. But I only like fully shaved cock's. I don't like hairy cock's. Guy: I feel the exact same way! I too am just looking to have fun. And I have a fully shaved cock! What perfect timing! Girl: Come on up! End. In Example 1 we showed that people have different preferences when it comes to what they like. If you don't like something, even if it's grooming habits you have a right to say "sorry! this isn't going to work out because of "x". And take note, the guy and girl are on different paths because of one's liking for a hairy penis vs. not a hairy penis. In Example 2 we showed that these individuals are in fact on the same page with each other. Even if the guys cock is hairy he would still shave it because he likes doing it and he has found someone that like that grooming habit of his. We so often try to change other people or try and "fix" them but know that this is just a reflection of your own insecurities and problems that you have and are projecting on other people. Further more, I believe the term "slut" is just a term we made up because we are afraid of open and honest communication with each other. It's just a belief though so don't take it to seriously. All these examples are way to show how enlightenment and the practice of mediation can be used to be open and honest with what we want and our needs for ourselves. Thanks for reading if you got this far.

Name: Jevin Singh Randhawa Age: 18 Gender: Male Location: Surrey,Canada Occupation: Student Marital Status: Single Kids: No Hobbies: Weightlifting,Meditation,Self Development,Mathematics,Physics,Coding,Philosophy, Combat Sports,Walking my Dogs The summer of 2014 is really when things went awry, Anxiety and Depression arising. Moving in 2015, severe depression going into Psychosis (Had lost my mind), getting on NoFap is truly what transformed me, as on the brink of suicide I stubbornly resisted giving up on becoming an Engineer, soon hospitalized as I had to deal with a new challenge of being a pedophile/rapist (P-OCD). So I made a plan to go to a close university compound that was situated in just smash a building with a baseball bat and just jump out, with the help of my doctor, we (Mostly she), Have pushed through. As NoFap was what somehow gave me such strength, I can remember sitting in the waiting room for my psychosis doctor as my Therapist cheerly said "Hello Jevin!! :D" (Due to NoFap's sexual aura or whatever) I went into the bathroom and jerked it as I knew I was on the last line, and the rest was history. Did not really get into self-development until I began watching Elliot Hulse (He was like the father I never had, without any due disrespect to my father) obsessively, as for several months he took me under his wing as my mentor watching his Youtube Videos. Now realize that I have some sort of mission as Twain remarks “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” Personal challenges I've overcome: Fearless + Confident Eviscerating a variety of mental ilnesses : Anxiety, Severe Depression, Psychosis, POCD (And not raping woman, or my nephews [Trust me I'd shoot myself before that happened]) Ruthless Self-Discipline, ability to instill habits Ease of Socializing, putting on a mask to take on many roles What I'm working on now: Finding Life Purpose, Die in the History Books, Becoming World Class (Or die in the pursuit of [This really is my biggest focus in life]) Financial Independence Becoming a Natural with Woman Spiritual Enlightenment ( And eventually releasing the kundalini serpent) 180lbs at 9% Body Fat Giving back to those in need, and making massive social impact, possibly fixing world issues Reaching the absolute pinnacle of self-actualizing Discover the secrets of the world Go through physical,mental and spiritual torture to become the strongest version of myself and save the world (Turquoise Stage)

My answers are in bold @TruthSeeker I was in a mental hospital for some time due to some panic attacks and other some psychotic episode. I meet people there that made me change my opinion about a guy who murder, rape or did some other bad thing, I really now think that they are not guilty really. hehehe... Same thing about people who commit suicide. One of the guys I met, he told me, he had problems with violence. When something happened inside of him, he got so angry he couldn't stop and he could kill someone when that happened. That's not his will to do it, there's something on the environment, on the way they were educated, etc that makes them act that way. You say something about that. I used to think like you before, that everything that they say (I heard it mostly from psychologists and psychiatric doctors) that a rapist or murdered is not really guilty and I though "bullshit", he must go to jail. Basically I've repeated this many times but Ill say it again. Every person's freewill is limited to certain cases...it could be that this guy who got so angry didn't have free will to do CERTAIN things but there for sure were things that he could have chosen to do or not to do. Each person is different each person has a certain POINT that they are struggling with..anything above that point is out of their free will and anything below that point is also out of their free will...only the things that lie within that point are in their free will. Believe me that this is not about wanting not to take responsibility and wanting to do bad things so we are not guilty. Nothing farther from the truth. But think about this, when someones commits a murder, he goes to jail and if he makes crazy things they send him to solitary confinement. It is proved that people in isolation go crazier, we as human beings need interaction with other to be sane mentally. Now I think that people need to be treated, in jail they get worse. I'm not trying to convince you about free will, just my point of view. I am always open to any new idea so, maybe I can be wrong. Its wrong because its black and white thinking. There is free will or there isnt. Its not black and white...there are certain decisions that are within our free will ND CERTAIN THINGS that are out of our free will.

@TruthSeeker I was in a mental hospital for some time due to some panic attacks and other some psychotic episode. I meet people there that made me change my opinion about a guy who murder, rape or did some other bad thing, I really now think that they are not guilty really. hehehe... Same thing about people who commit suicide. One of the guys I met, he told me, he had problems with violence. When something happened inside of him, he got so angry he couldn't stop and he could kill someone when that happened. That's not his will to do it, there's something on the environment, on the way they were educated, etc that makes them act that way. You say something about that. I used to think like you before, that everything that they say (I heard it mostly from psychologists and psychiatric doctors) that a rapist or murdered is not really guilty and I though "bullshit", he must go to jail. Believe me that this is not about wanting not to take responsibility and wanting to do bad things so we are not guilty. Nothing farther from the truth. But think about this, when someones commits a murder, he goes to jail and if he makes crazy things they send him to solitary confinement. It is proved that people in isolation go crazier, we as human beings need interaction with other to be sane mentally. Now I think that people need to be treated, in jail they get worse. I'm not trying to convince you about free will, just my point of view. I am always open to any new idea so, maybe I can be wrong.

Hi @Pamela Zamora, nice to meet you. Thank you very much for sharing your story. I hear you saying you fear that he might be a danger to himself or others. If you are saying you are seriously concerned he could commit suicide I would call the appropriate authorities. Depending on where you live they can get him an assessment to determine if in fact he is a danger to himself or to others. (My law enforcement and emergency service training is coming out here. ) @Ayla is correct, you can't make him come back and do" the right thing". What is the "right thing" for him? I understand this feeling. I have a son in prison. Prison is not a nice place. I worry about my kid. Is that a reasonable thing to have a concern over? It must be or I wouldn't feel concerned. I have to accept I have no control over his safety at all. Some days I do better with that than others. Your dad is in a manic phase and his conduct will be high risk/impulsive/potentially self destructive or violent? It sounds like a valid concern based upon your past direct experience? If he does not have conduct bad enough to merit you getting him professional intervention? Now you focus on you and protecting you from his actions. Its also alright to admit a family member is toxic for you at the moment and allow them to walk their own path and set firm boundaries so your paths don't intersect. Real or not real? It certainly feels real when your life is in chaos due to allowing some of his actions into you life; and you can choose to dismiss the guilty thoughts and focus on your own wellness and growth. (Also easier said than done at times. ) Its challenging at first when we are used to taking responsibility for someone else, to focus just on ourselves and allow then to take responsibility for themselves. Just asking the questions you are now? You are on the path to making that shift for yourself. I wish you the best and I hope your father can get some help. In the interim I suggest radical acceptance of what is. If that means grieving the loss of what you hoped for your dad? That's okay too.

Yes, practicing death-awareness, i.e. Memento Mori, is probably the simplest, most effective method for becoming disillusioned. That doesn't mean kill yourself; it just means exposing yourself regularly to the notion of death. You can do that by hanging out in cemeteries, looking down from steep cliffs, convening with pictures of dead people, thinking about how you will end up dying, and countless other ways. "We've homogenized our lives by hiding the parts we're afraid of, and in so doing, we've removed all sense of urgency from life. We have taken death out of life and that allows us to live unconsciously. Death never left, of course, we've just turned away from it, pretended it wasn't there. If we wish to awaken - and that's a mighty big if - then we must welcome death back into our lives. Death is our personal Zen Master, our source of power, our path to lucidity, but we have to stop running from it in a blind panic. We need only stop and turn around and there it is, inches away, staring at us with unblinking gaze, finger poised, every second of our lives. That finger is the one true thing in the dream state, and it will, for a fact, come down. Maybe all this sounds morbid or depressing to you. Maybe you think death is the opposite of life, or that all this death-awareness stuff translates into the end of happiness and good times, but this is not the case. Death isn't morbid, fear is morbid. Death doesn't oppose life, fear opposes life. To close your eyes to death is to close them to life; what could be more morbid than that? From your perspective, death and suicide are horrific and unthinkable. From my perspective, they are empowering and life-affirming, and I would look at any person that doesn't have an open honest relationship with these subjects as themselves nine parts dead." --Jed McKenna

I don’t agree that we should eliminate the ego. The goal should be to develop a strong and healthy ego. The word “ego” is Latin and simply means “I” or “me.” So strictly speaking, we do not only have an ego – we are egos. The ego is our whole person, including our body. Ego is personal identity. The important question is what kind of ego we should have, not whether to have one or not. To say “I have no ego” is to say “ego have no ego” and that is obviously a contradiction. The only way to kill the ego is to commit suicide. Some people use the word ego to describe a false personality, as if ego by definition is something false or faked. You can have a false or faked ego, but you can also have a genuine ego. The ego can make us want to brag, or lie to protect us from embarrassment, or create the need to always be right, etc. But this is the result of a weak ego, not a strong and harmonious one. A weak ego feels inferior and need to compensate with bragging while a strong ego have no such need. A weak ego needs validation, thus the need to always be right. A weak ego need others agreement (support) while a strong and harmonious ego can easily accept disagreement. A strong ego is self-supportive and independent and is not easily affected by what other people do or say. A so-called “big” ego is inflated; it´s empty on the inside. A strong and harmonious ego have no need to be “big” or “loud” or “bragging,” etc. The ego should be like a diamond; strong and beautiful. ............. Relevant article by Phillip J Watt: The Ego is Not the Enemy http://themindunleashed.org/2015/07/the-ego-is-not-the-enemy.html “Ultimately, the aim should be to have a healthy, functional, content and loving ego which explores the ‘spirit’ of life. Expand it. Empower it. Enlighten it. It should also have a balanced attachment to itself, which means it should be attached in ways that is practical for its existence but not attached in ways that reinforces the pain and suffering of itself and others.”

Hey, I don't really get how people who have read Jed McKenna books are still excited about this enlightenment stuff. For those who haven't read it, he clearly points out that: -enlightenment a painful "process" -is not about finding some cool truth, but the destroying of all illusion until only truth is left -is as radical as committing suicide -is life negative, pointless and should only be pursued by those who have no other options -has nothing to do with becoming a better person, becoming happier or raising consciousness -has nothing to do with love, compassion, bliss or heaven on earth I'll let the guy speak for himself because his analogies are ingenious: "Well, I wouldn't want to give the impression that it's almost pointless. It's perfectly pointless. Awakening to your true nature is like dying; it's a certainty, inevitable. You're going to get there no matter what you do, so why rush? Enjoy your life, it's free. Cosmic Consciousness and Altered States and Universal Mind are names of rides in this vast and fascinating dualistic amusement park. So are Poverty and Disease and Despair. Enlightenment though, is not another ride. Enlightenment means leaving the park altogether, but why leave the park? In the park you can be a saint or a yogi or a billionaire or a world leader or a warlord. Be good, be evil. Happiness, misery, bliss, agony, victory, defeat, it's all here. What's the big rush? When the time comes to leave the park you'll know and you'll go, but there's certainly nothing to be gained by it." "From the U-Rex perspective, "I say, U-Rex is obviously real reality and C-Rex is obviously ridiculous. Also, C-Rex has no upside. There's nothing in its favor, it doesn't go anywhere. Truth is a booby-prize. It doesn't do any good or make anything better. It doesn't provide meaning, it strips meaning away. It takes all the amusement out of the amusement park; no meaning, no significance to anything, no reason to get out of bed in the morning. C-Rex brings nothing to the table, whereas U-Rex creates the illusion of meaning. We must have the context U-Rex provides. Even though it's false, it's still context." "So the lie is better than the truth, you are saying." "Sure. The truth might set you free, but then you find yourself standing in an endless parking lot outside the amusement park wondering why you're out, and how to get back in. Truth has nothing to recommend it except that it's true. U-Rex has everything to recommend it except that it's false." "Me, I don't think so. I know Maya pretty well and i don't see her ever losing more than the occasional stray. A species-wide transformation is a pretty idea, but we have little cause for optimism and plenty for pessimism. It's nice to think we could elevate ourselves, and it's fun to dabble in theoretical scenarios, but the reality is that man will never evolve or transcend or develop beyond his past and present level. If that sounds like a bad thing to us, if Maya sounds like a force of evil, if the terms by which man lives on this planet seem to oppressive or restrictive, then we might do well to take a step back and reevaluate the situation. Where are we? What is this place? Is it a prison to be despised or an amusement park to be enjoyed? Is ego a hideous affliction? Or is it simply the vehicle that allows us to come out and play? When the choice is between no-self and false-self, false-self start looking pretty good and despising and demonizing it starts to seem pretty ungrateful." This demonizing of ego, which i see a lot here, seems to me very ironically, just an ego game Now sure he is exaggerating a bit, there are other perspectives and Jed McKenna is off course not the ultimate authority on enlightenment(although i have little doubt that he is enlightened), and i'm sure Truth can be a very great thing for people, but i really doubt whether enlightenment is something desirable for everyone, when the enlightened guy himself states that it's life-negative.

All the words and explanations in the world will not result in so-called "enlightenment". Are you pursuing an idea, or a concept of "enlightenment"? It is just a word. What you are looking for is a realization - not the word - but the actual event. Is there a method? Well, we can develop/design methods based on actual realizations, but then we run into words and interpretations and so on. In every case, one has to attend to watching, and practising mindful behaviour as often as possible throughout every day. One must approach this with seriousness. How badly do you want it? One Zen example often mentioned is the allegory of shoving a person's head under water until they panic for air, and then letting their head up for air and then saying something like "When you want it as badly as you wanted air just now". Just practising techniques and carrying out certain routines is not sufficient by itself. You must want it badly enough so that your intention and behaviour in every aspect of your life demonstrates your dedication to meeting with truth. It is here before us. Will we attend to it? Those who have eyes to see ... and ears to hear ... you know ... that sort of thing. Of course there have been seemingly spontaneous cases of "awakening". But there is much behind those happenings. Tolle spoke of his childhood and the problems his parents had and what state it left him in; then his desire to find out the truth - so he went to university where most people and he also believed, the truth could be found; then his disappointment, that after all his higher education, he had still not found the truth he was seeking; then during his doctorate year he had such a great depression he wanted to commit suicide (a thought he had entertained even during childhood); then as all this built up to a peek, a sudden insight dawned on him. "I cannot live any longer with myself". "There must be two of me. I and myself". What was this all about, he wondered. He seems to have entered a deep mode of self-enquiry - it activated his subconscious mind. He fell asleep exhausted and awoke the next morning to a different view of the world. Then he stopped attending university and spent time on park benches and went to various places to find out what had happened to him. He researched and learned more and more. As most awakened people will tell you, it is an ongoing process. The first instance of awakening is a huge change of world view in terms of what is reality as compared to apparent reality. But the awakening process continues and matures. I hope this adds light to some of the matters under discussion here and elsewhere. joy

Wow@Life with joe , you've certainly seen some dark places. I'm glad you've done well. My own father commit suicide when I was 21. This reduced me to a very low point; I felt worthless, and as an example, I didn't have sex or get any employment for the following 5 years. I hid in solitude. However, through that I have grown into a very skilled painter, and can create art that I would never have dreamed for myself. The last couple of years I have been tackling a lot of my neuroses, and growing in many other areas. My vision has awakened, so to speak. I am pursuing financial independence, in a way that feeds my vision, and that I believe in. I'm undoubtedly the happiest I've ever been. I've begun to see the low points in life as beautiful opportunity, to grow.

@OceanJjb Hello OceanJjb, I am 48, in 5 months 49. I have divorced two times. My second marriage lasted 9 years. When I got pregnant of his child, his behavior towards me changed completely. First he was that loving husband, and suddenly he was that evil narcissistic creature. I suffered physical en mental abuse on a daily basis. My alcohol consumption took on a whole other level, and every day I was drunk. Giving my husband additional justification why I deserved to be punished. Nobody was aware of this situation, his demon came out when we were just the two of us. After 7 years of marriage I was convinced that my only way out was suicide. But then something happened that changed my perception completely. On my 39the birthday I was diagnosed with AD(H)D. From that moment on, I stopped being the victim, and 3 weeks later I joined A.A. Me being sober and now defending myself verbally, I became useless to my husband. I didn’t fear him anymore. A few months later, my husband left me, already on the hunt to cash his next prey. Now, ten years later, I enjoy the love and company of my 3 wonderful boys. I am in a loving relationship (for almost 8 years) with a man who adores me. He is 8 older than me. And I have a successful carrier. Now why am I telling you my story? Because it is a school example of how miserable life can be, if we choose not to take our responsibility for our own life and our own happiness. We all have our demons from past experiences. But it is our personal choose how we deal with them in the present. Demons feed on fear. You overcome fear with love! If you want your demons to leave you in peace, you have to love yourself, your life. Nobody else but you is in charge of your life. So, if you are not happy with your current situation, move your ass, stop existing and start living!! I am grateful that I stopped choosing the easy way. Meaning: staying in my comfort zone by means of playing the victim, and blaming all my shortcomings, drinking and mistakes on my husband. OceanJjb, I care about you. I tell you my story, because I hope to open your eyes. If I didn’t care, I would be sleeping by now. In Belgium its 01:30 in the morning. Take care!

Well you could say you should try to use limited resources because most industries destroy the earth to make what you're buying. I mean kids have been caught working in Apple factories and the pay is obviously crumbs and plus the multiple suicides made apple put suicide nets up. And you're just going to keep buying a new iPhone every year when the old ones work perfectly fine? But that will just make them more mad. What approaches have you tried?

This is basic thing to understand I believe. I don't know how to answer this question, but I think that it's a very good place to start your own enquiry, SA or whatever. By trying to dissect this question you will actually need to look at your early life and see why you do things the way you do. Basically any question can become a star with these five rules (probably we can boil them down but we can always do it later): inward - think for myself aka I am my own judge and I don't give a fuck about Eckhart Tolle/<put any guru/person you are looking up to here> because his words are not designed to help me, he just spewing his opinions and he is in no way superior to me. I don't care about what any teacher say because it's my life and CLOCK IS TICKING radical fucking honesty! the only thing I have is mine awareness no matter where I am and what I will achieve - sights, sounds, smell, taste, thoughts, emotions, feelings spirit of a warrior - I can die doing this and so the fuck what, I am going to do this anyway no matter what until I will get sense of it all question all the rules! Now having that we can do simple example: "I have an iPhone. Ok. Why do I have an iPhone? (start of SA)" Now I could easily spent a few minutes/hours in order to answer this simple question, no matter how many influences in my decision I include and describe blah. I could go on to let's say my affluenza syndrome or something like that. I believe this is not important at all and totally missing the point of SA because you don't have enough energy in order to make this process effortless so to speak! As I'm fleshing this out for myself here, I come to this conclusion - the point is to find the question/concept/topic/thought/emotion in us we actually fear of losing (attachment), which is also currently present in our lives and which is genuinely pissing us (insight) off so we will be able to achieve leverage point where we will go fight or flight and say "fuck it, if I'm bullshiting myself here I'm going to consider the following": change put myself on the line put my relationship on the line quit my job go for the whale! commit suicide (why the hell live fake life where I'm spending 20 hours on thinking about stuff and not experiencing it?/I can die any moment, why not pull the trigger? etc.) live in supermarket dumpster and fight with rats for scraps (stolen from Mckenna ;)) say to my mother/father/brother/sister/spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/friend 1/friend 2/... what I honestly think about them telling people about what I think about myself send out message to every girl/men I tried to date how I manipulated her/him - for example used abundance in order to get them and don't care here about repercussions and our "safe zone" I can always come back to go to super dark forest at night after watching horror movie while knowing that awareness is mine, universe is doing stuff for me so it can show actual hologram of a demon which will try to kill me blah anything else which will release enough energy in order to make our fearful inner child to jump of the cliff and release the teller/imagined controlled entity which believes that exists IMPORTANT - you gotta consider these things seriously. That means like you would really decided to do them without actually doing them So some can be on paper (you can write down what you would say to your friends without sending letters) and some you can actually do (going into the dark forest or saying how you were inauthentic towards someone). What actually comes out of it is out of your control because we cannot know if we can control ourselves. This is going to make it more serious. And of course I don't want anyone to commit an actual suicide! It's just stuff for grown ups. Now as you probably see writing this stuff is very useful to me! It's also a form of spiritual autolysis. I needed to think about my own life and where I can make progress and improve processes I'm implementing. That's why I found recently that being on any forums and spewing out opinions in concise manner might be very helpful. On the other hand it probably won't be helpful to you because it's my perspective and yours is completely different (see the rules)! Edited 16 minutes ago by mkieblesz I have to say by direct observation and experience thus far, by doing that self inquiry on why I did certain things and formulated certain belief structures, I could as you say, see why I defaulted to certain behavior patterns. Basically any question can become a star with these five rules (probably we can boil them down but we can always do it later): inward - think for myself aka I am my own judge and I don't give a fuck about Eckhart Tolle/<put any guru/person you are looking up to here> because his words are not designed to help me, he just spewing his opinions and he is in no way superior to me. I don't care about what any teacher say because it's my life and CLOCK IS TICKING radical fucking honesty! the only thing I have is mine awareness no matter where I am and what I will achieve - sights, sounds, smell, taste, thoughts, emotions, feelings spirit of a warrior - I can die doing this and so the fuck what, I am going to do this anyway no matter what until I will get sense of it all question all the rules! I wholly concur with you there. So I did this over the weekend. I thought I am literally creating my own sit and spin tring to create some literary genius work for external validation to attain validation for pain which in fact I then have to admit is for punishment on some level of those I feel wronged me. So writing, which was fun and healing became work. It became stress which meant not healing, which meant failure. I really had some core things going on related to being taught: ordinary = bad Average = disappointing Mistakes are punished Objectification Wanting was being selfish and selfish was bad. Anything less than perfection is bad. So I can't just write for me; I have to be Proust or I'm a bad writer. Talk about setting oneself up for failure. I still actually have to laugh when I really see how silly it all is. If I died tomorrow who cares I don't have a book published or that I wasn't Proust? It won't matter to me, but here I am like its the only solution to happiness. Therein lies the issue. Literally LIES. I used to do this type of sharing on Facebook and it was for healing and then others resonated with it. Then it became interconnected with my ex and animation, Facebook became a part of the triggers versus now a place of refuge with friends. This forum has actually helped me more in the past two days than most of the social media I've been engaged in for the past six months with the exception of one platform which just forces you to feel. That platform however is not interactive so I don't get feedback and there is not engagement so it serves a different function. Now that last thing you said? I don't get. I over personalize so I always try to put myself in the shoes of the other individual. I suspect however the flaw in my thinking is that I have also brought my compassion and empathy to the equation as assumptive which may wholly be lacking in the other individual. That's a boundary issue and not learning healthy boundaries due to early child hood sexual abuse. I do however find the views of others helpful which is why I like interactive threads like this versus just only expository journalism or poetry. I don't like to talk or write at as much as I like to interact with, thus learning becomes cooperative by sharing our experience and observations. So no, I don't see that in the rules equation but perhaps that means I am questioning the rules?LOL

Hello to all of you guys! I can provide some help to this forum and motivate myself into taking more action in my own life by doing that as well. I struggled to understand what spiritual autolysis is and couldn't wrap my head around this concept at all. I tried to do it but it was just as you guys described. As I progress my opinion will probably change but this is what I see now. Full clarity came after watching Leo Pickup Rant video. This is actually why I'm here in the first place. Yes, I was PUA with success and hopes to be successful in it as well in anything else. After I understood how inauthentic I was with my desires towards women I just bursted open. I had emotional breakdown which last to this day, though since a few days I see myself falling back to old ways with new understanding and permanent changes in my way of thinking and seeing things. This is simple conclusion I came to: you can't do spiritual autolysis without spending your discontent. Dissecting sentences to see all premises and falsify them etc. is a joke. This will never get you anywhere. You will be just spinning your wheels like meditation does for many. What's important is to find that one question, which will expose your inauthenticity in actions you are going to do/did/are doing. Basically what occupies your awareness most of the time. For me it was growth, business, dating and relationships, friends, family, travelling, masculinity, spirituality, hobbies and more and more. Now I had very specific goals for each of those and I was attaining them consistently. I'm moving forward, upward spiral etc etc and it's is all good, until this moment. Until the moment where I realize that I was bullshiting myself for the reason why I want to do those things. This is really PAINFUL. It's like spotting your spouse cheating, although I never was cheated on but can imagine. You see it very clearly. Sooooo many hours wasted watching videos, going to clubs, working on stuff to actualize, build business, calendars, The Secret Weapon, plans, scheduled dates, dreams etc. And why? <place for your spiritual autolysis > SA is a way to expose this inauthentic behavior, not only in us but in EVERYONE. Every person you look up to, including beloved gurus. You destroy them. Totally break up with them until you feel alone. Until you see reality of things - that the only thing we really have is your awareness. The only thing. No matter where you will be, no matter how many people you will meet, not matter how greatly you will self-actualize the only thing you will have is your awareness. And everything is UTTERLY POINTLESS. You do that until you will see that what you wrote seems obvious. You will notice that you are much more present and acting totally different. For me I stopped noticing differences between people and they all seemed ignorant etc. And now I see different perspective and a lot of what I wrote, even if I still agree with it, is totally over the line. Now my perspective is richer and the question becomes obsolete. Now I move on and waiting for the next pile of shit to appear and will do the same thing, the same thing on and on until I am done. I don't believe it will lead to my enlightenment but to simply happy life - Spiritual Adulthood as Mckenna say it. IMPORTANT NOTE: I believe in order to do SA properly you need to have very sophisticated intellectual framework because otherwise you won't find out what question to ask and how to make it obsolete. You need to exert so amount of energy that your life can go to ruin. You need to put yourself into situations seriously like being homeless, going to india, committing suicide etc. That type of thinking cuts through layers of delusion deeper so you can remove them faster. I also encourage to read Spiritually Incorrect where this process is more exposed (I read that few days ago). Edited 16 minutes ago by mkieblesz As a poet I have to agree. Most of the authentic work I do is just that, writing about my in-authenticity. It IS painful to be mindful, aware, flowing as one within the Universal flow and then "Whack" here's a nasty little mirror image of your intentions that are impure. "Ouch", small ego death. That said, that pain seems much easier to cope with than the avoidance of it. I have found my social media sites are like a glaring mirror for those very inauthenticities in addition to my writing. Every writer always knows you are writing to you as much as you may think you are writing to someone else so read backwards. LOL It actually hit me this weekend...why am I doing all this? Why am I building this virtual reality sit and spin life when I could be having fun, creating in my real life space. Where did I lose me? When did my inner toddler start ruling my adult? I had to examine some unpleasant truths, but now I can choose to bring those into my awareness and work to correct them. Today I was able to radically change my behavior. When I woke up at three rather than going to social media I went to Coursera and the creativity class. I wrote. I went back to sleep. Than I came here rather than going to social media. I may read a book, I may write, I may ignore social media all day today. To whom do I owe what, when and and why? I really agree it does seem to feel like a growing up process. Perhaps trauma gets us stuck in a early development cognition pattern? Any thoughts?

I am doing this journal because I get to be honest about myself. I can talk freely without any bullshit. So for opening this Forum, Thank you Leo. Let me tell you about myself a bit. I am a 19 Year Old living in the UK, currently studying at Sixth form in Year 13. Right now I should be in university but I retook year 12 since I failed all my exams the first time round. I barely got into Year 13 this time as well. I was only allowed in because no other college would take me in. You would think after experiencing 4 U's, I would fix up but no. Instead I got a D,U,D and an E. Honestly I felt shamed and disgusted. After results day I had considered Suicide many times but I never proceeded but I did do self harm once. My head was flooded with negative thoughts. I thought of myself as trash and worthless. Applying to University was a scary process because I had assumed all my Universities would reject me but to my surprise I got all 5 offers now I need to go from DDE to AAB. Earlier before my A-levels I thought myself to be a good student. I did everything and got better grades than I had expected for my GCSE. I have limited friends and I cannot speak to other people. When people come to my house, I hide in my room. I also tend to lie to my family a lot but I have no idea why I do that. As a young child I told everyone I wanted to do Medicine, made my parents happy, gave them the belief that I would do it but I didn't. I realised I wanted to do something else and after talking to my parents, I did however I feel guilt every time I look at my parents. Some stuff I do to improve myself: Reading Self Help book - As of now I am reading George Leonard's Mastery. I have had this book for about a month and its interesting but I lack consistency in doing things. Its something I want to improve on. Meditation - I have been doing this for roughly two weeks on and off. I cant decide on which method to use. Whether I use the technique in which I realise I am thinking of something and forget it or the Monkey chatter technique. Now the main reason I am writing this Journal is so that I can dedicate myself to learning just like the kids in South Korea. I know for a fact I wont be studying from 7am to 11Pm but I want to try. I want to do the best I can so that I can reach my target goal of AAB. I am not looking for perfect marks although that would be nice but I do want a minimum of 80% on every paper that I will do. No one thinks I can do it, there are already people talking behind my back about me getting 3 E's and I am not having it. As Goku said " I don't care if you're god, you don't get to tell me where my limits are." I only have to focus on Biology, Maths and Physics. Here in this journal I am going to record what I do so that I can hold myself accountable and if I slip up on the way, I hope you guys will help me. I only have 4 months to go. To summarise, My goals as of right now: Get my grades and prove every fucker wrong. Get to the Uni I want to go Get into the habit of doing things Regularly Meditate Every day for 20 mins Read a Self help book every two weeks Try the Korean Student lifestyle but live like Leo has advised.

I believe it could be the success of an deeply rooted unhappy ego. Here's some words I've written down some time ago, for purpose of potential use at music composition. No name: "It's either you or me There will be one death Or two Which will it be. Kill yourself. Or kill the thought of killing yourself. Either way is fine Either way is fine You will cease to exist." Mental Suicide: "Commit suicide In order to survive Kill your --- self If you want to live The suicidal person you are Needs to be killed Or it will take you with it"

Hello there fellow self actualizer, I know what you're talking about, cause i've felt the same before. That's kind of a byproduct of self actualizing, from what i understand about it up to now. What you're doing with self actualization and enlightenment work etc. is basically fighting against the grain of your comfortable ego. As leo explaines in his ´homeostasis´-video, your psyche is just as well a homeostatic system as basically any other system. And shaking up this static state can sometimes be very horrifying. In his book ´Spiritual Enlightenment - The most damdest thing´Jed mckenna calls this the 'autolysis' of the ego. You're burning your ´self´to the ground, basically comitting suicide. And thats f***ing hard. What I found helpful is changing your perspective a bit, in how you look at life and your ego all together. When were saying ego, were talking about this thing that doesn't exist. So that means that anything that is coming from something that doesn't exist, basically doesn't mean anything, so CAN not have any effect on our reality... if you are commited to apply this Idea. When it comes to life itself, when I think about life, it's usually in a very simple way. Life is meaningless. And life being meaningless is also meaningless, which kind of gives the whole thing an eary but cool touch. Like Leo sais 'life is meaningless and saying life is meaningless is also meaningless, so you can basically do anything you want'... I know im beating around the bush. What im trying to say is take it easy, what is of the future is of the future. So you don't know. I imaginge being happy/fullfilled must be pretty f***ing awesome. Don't get yourself caught up with worry about what may be or what may not be. what you know, you know and what you don't know, you don't know!

My Story: I was in a relationship for 3 years that I settled on a bit too early on in my dating adventures. I ended up cheating on her about 3 or 4 times because she was not everything I wanted in a partner. We began fighting like crazy and it eventually got physical (she threw a phone at me.) I never touched her but at that point everything began to break down. We had an odd relationship. Booze often lead to us in some crazy situations. I feel I am a man who is made for two women or multiple relationships intertwined. There were time where my girlfriend and I would f*ck with one of my friends (she'd only suck d*ck) turned me on though. Maybe this was my way of making my cheating "ok" because I gave her permission to play with others. I decided to join the Navy as a means of getting out of the relationship and also a much more stable financial future. I got out of bootcamp into A school (Navy Tech School) and thought maybe I could make it work. Even though I wanted out of the relationship I still loved her and proposed like an idiot. Literally two weeks later I run into a Navy girl who also had a fiancé and we both kind of clicked. Over the course of a night we ended up skinning dipping at a beach and f*cked all through the morning. I didn’t tell my Fiance for about a week. I canceled the wedding after the invitations were out. I was an idiot. I fell hard for the new girl and she ended up cheating on me almost having a threesome with two other guys. Only ended up f*cking one of them. I was completely destroyed. I had left my fiancé to be with this girl and karma turned around hit me with a brick. I left and went to go see my ex-fiance who was f*cking destroyed and we ended up hooking up again… she didn’t look good physically or emotionally. I remember at one time I had my father in Pensacola. I picked up a random girl from a bar and brought he back to my hotel room and we had sex. Then I proceeded to drunk drive back to my A school and pick up my other partner and brought her back to the hotel. Proceeded to have sex with her. For the next 6 months I hopped between both girls destroying them both emotionally as I destroyed myself and drank heavily. I was officially scum of the earth. I ended up getting the new girl pregnant and she had an abortion. I begged to be back with my ex-fiance in a drunk phone call that I later decided was a terrible idea the following morning. I ended up getting stationed in Norfolk, VA. The “new girl” tried to commit suicide after I left A school. My cell phone died as I talked to her sobbing in my car in Virginia as she swallowed a bottle of pills. She finally got out of the Navy. My ex-fiance coasted with me a little longer us hooking up here and there but has since moved on. I still keep light contact with the other girl but she is now married. My Thoughts: What did I learn… I think I learned nothing and everything honestly. The abortion. The Suicide. The Tears. The Drama. The Uncertainty. I still feel like scum. At the same time I enjoyed the drama of it all. I have 0 intention of doing anything like that to anyone ever again. I want true profound love with a woman or women. No more surface level or extremely toxic relationships. At the same time even though my life was a living hell it was the most profound roller coaster ride of my life. Just so much pain, love, sex, drugs, and profound longing. I have never felt so important to someone’s existence as I did in those relationships. I felt powerful… I felt bad… I felt good. I felt like a psycho honestly. I have since evolved. Albeit a little. I still love the attention of women… my drinking is no longer a problem. I can choose to drink rather than have to. I think I thrive on drama. My mind goes in 10,000 directions. It is best I stay in the present moment and radiate love in all it’s forms. Moral of the story leave people better than you found them. Karma is a b*tch.

I think self love plays a huge role in forgiveness. Without self love you may not find it worthwhile to forgive. Self love is so foundational to so many things. I remember watching an interview with Brene Brown and Oprah and they were discussing how rape victims can get over a one time event , but the thing that cripples them is that they believe that they are unworthy of love. Which is Brene Brown's definition of shame, The belief that you are unworthy of love. She also contends that shame is one of the major causes of violence, suicide, drug addiction, and more. So how do we love ourselves? How do we affirm that we are worthy of love just as we are? One way that has been working for me is a Kamal Ravikant style of affirmation. Where you just affirm over and over again "I love myself" for as long as you possibly can. It helps to put your hands on your chest when you do this. And I have to say that it actually works. I'm still a beginner to this practice, but the love flows and if feels really really good. But trust me when I say that I have much work to do in the area of forgiveness and self love All the best, - Colin

"These tiny enclosures, these boundaries and fences, have troubled man too much. In three thousand years, five thousand wars have been fought. In the past when they fought wars with bows and arrows it was okay, there was not much harm done; if a few people died there was no problem. But now war is total war. Now, it is the suicide of all of mankind. Now, the whole place can become a Hiroshima - any day, at any moment.. Consider the horror of such a war and think of how much energy is going into it. This same energy could fill the entire earth with greenery, could fill it with prosperity. For the first time man could dance absorbed in bliss, could sing songs of ecstasy, could follow the quest of meditation. But this will not happen. Your so-called patriots, these nationalists.." ~OSHO I don't think people's nationality matters to me more than their haircut. What does matter is if they're dogmatic in regard to any subject: religion, race, philosophy to the point of manifesting it to me by agression, placing judgement and trying to make me act against my will. Like some meme says: Belief is like penis - It's perfectly fine to have one and it's fine to be proud of it, but please don't whip it out in public and start waving it around. Waving might be not that harmful, but if I make a drawing and say it's a Mahomet or let's say the flag of my country - I may suffer physically, because in some person's perception I profaned sacred/national symbol of the virtue he/she sees in it. All these symbols are protected against criticism and making fun of one is judged by big part of the society as immoral, etc. That is double standard.

I believe actual suicide does kind of co relate. in terms of Eckhart tolle. The ego couldn't take it so it killed the mind form by himself. Where other most people who actually do suicide..... wants to protect their mind form.... so they kill the real body instead in order to protect the mind form (thoughts). the most scariest thing is... thoughts are left. Suicide is actually, I think, is the success of the ego.

While I completely see the validity of your sharing Leo, my new point of view in life is a bit different. I have practically lived in a Psy Hospital (Godmother was a Psychiatrist and took me with her all the time). I have seen people with depression all my life, starting with my ex husband who committed suicide, and with me actually ending up with a deeply traumatic depression that put me in (sometimes under) my bed for 8 moths... What scared the S*@T out of me is that I saw, both in my own practice and in my godmothers - people coming to us for years and years and years... I did not want to live my life like that! I think that at any level one is, if they had someone helping them to interrogate. to probe, to inquire, to really dig deep into 1. who is this "I" having the depression (is meant to alleviate the pressure of this happening to ME me me me me me.. who is this me? ) 2. what it actually feels like in their body as opposed to what they are thinking... (get the person in touch with their own trauma stored in their physical body and help them live it with no judgement ( words, labels, concepts, etc) Anyway... this is how I got myself out of it

WARNING: If you are sensitive to serious subjects, such as self harm, please consider discontinuing your participation in this thread. I had this kind of outrageous thought of enlightenment in relation to actual suicide. I am aware this might be a sensitive subject, however, I think challenging the fear of reasoning about serious things could lead to the apex of enrichment in one's personal development. So, if you've successfully managed to become enlightened, it seems as this is pretty close to actual suicide. I can only imagine that there is someone who went one step further in this quest. Anyone that have any reasonings concerning identity suicide in relation to physical suicide, and want to discuss, go ahead.