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Transformation process is accessed via diverse means. If your purpose is to return to who you really are, it is more about letting go or releasing the adopted patterns that dominate your experience. Of course, you can always transform by adopting new patters, which may or may not be useful for your self agenda, but that transformation will be shallow. You are already you, but we hide this from ourselves and others because we want to manipulate reality to fit our agenda and ideals. You don't have to move a finger to be who you already are. However, we engage in so many activities (thought & behavior patterns) that conceal or hide the real you. The process of bringing all patterns to our cognition - becoming conscious of our unconscious aspect of mind - is the ultimate and deep transformation most "seekers" really strive to. For example, when you become conscious of your aversion from certain activities or specific other because you fear them for some reason, you can let go of this aversion and experience or confront the situation as it is. There are multiple and diverse aspects to the subconscious mind, and bringing all of it to the light of Consciousness is serious work (which I highly recommend).

They can provide powerful insights into self and mind, which facilitates transformation of the individual. They can also reveal deeply buried subconscious material that you hide from your self because you don't want to confront with. They can provoke powerful ego death, which will reveal your true identity. They can also encourage creativity, connection to other and environment, clarity of thought and perception, forgiveness, compassion, and many other traits that are inherent to your nature but are buried under the plethora of concept you regard as your self. They are not magic pill, definitely. Truth and insights which gleaned under the effects of psychedelics must be assimilated in day to day life by you. Even though many psychonauts claim that psychedelics transformed their life, it is rarely the case. Mostly, even after amazing trips, the mind will reassemble back to its prior architecture. Unless the trip is integrated via letting go of old patterns, psychological treatment, contemplation and meditation - it will remain as experience. A mind opening experience, perhaps, but not a life transforming one. Permanent and healthy transformation comes about through persistent process, not the temporary experience activated by the absorption of external molecular structures. This is not to say, that you cannot create a positive and persistent transformation right now, "off the bat". It is actually possible, but this possibility is rarely accessed.

@DocWatts Thanks again for your response, I appreciate you taking the time to help me out. I've been reading a summary of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions online and I can literally feel how powerful what it's saying but haven't fully realised it if you understand me. It's points like these especially: Something like a paradigm is a prerequisite to perception itself (recall G. H. Mead's concept of a predisposition, or the dictum it takes a meaning to catch a meaning). What people see depends both on what they look at and on what their previous visual-conceptual experience has taught them to see. This difference in view resembles a gestalt shift, a perceptual transformation—"what were ducks in the scientist's world before the revolution are rabbits afterward." It's making me want to instigate one of these "gestalt shifts". It's interesting because I had a few mystical experiences a couple of years ago when I was tripping that felt like paradigm shifts but it's clear from my behaviour that I'm still operating from the materialist paradigm. I still treat people as fundamentally separate and external to me even though when I had direct experiences that I was everything and it was all my own mind. I've since read a lot of Ken Wilber's stuff and specifically the "Wilber-Combs lattice" which made the distinction between the awakening and the interpretation of it but, still, it's mad that I experienced effectively supernatural shit and then still ended up living how I was before after a few months. I guess that's the pull of homeostasis.

Kundalini is a popular, albeit misunderstood topic. For those interested, here is a chapter from "Kundalini Tantra" by Swami Satyananda Saraswati. It describes 10 methods for awakening Kundalini, including the use of herbs, which may be of special interest to the community here. Chapter 5 Methods of Awakening According to the tantras, kundalini can be awakened by various methods which can be practiced individually or in combination. However, the first method cannot be practiced, because it is awakening by birth. Of course, it is too late for most of us to take advantage of this particular method, but some of us may be instrumental in producing children who have awakened kundalinis. Awakening by birth By a favourable birth, if your parents were highly evolved, you can have an awakened kundalion. It is also possible to be born with an awakened sushumna, ida or pingala nadi. This means that from the time of birth your higher faculties will be operating either partially or fully. If a child comes with partial awakening, he is called a saint, and if he comes with full illumination, he is known as an incarnation, avatara or son of God. If one is born with an awakened kundalini, his experiences are very much under control. They take place in him right from the beginning in a natural way, so he never feels that something extraordinary is happening to him. A child with an awakened kundalini has clarity of vision, a high quality of thinking and a sublime philosophy. His attitude of life is somewhat unusual as he has total detachment. To him, his parents were only his means of creation, and therefore he is unable to accept the normal social relationship with them. Although he may live with them, he feels as if he were just a guest. Such a child exhibits a very matured behaviour and he does not react emotionally with anything in life. As he grows he becomes aware of his mission and purpose in life. Many of us may wish to give birth to a yogi or an enlightened child but it is not such a simple matter. Every marriage or union of parents cannot produce a yogi, even if the man and woman practice yoga morning and night. It is only under certain circumstances that a higher being can be produced. In order to usher a highly evolved soul into this world, one has first to transform one's gross desires into spiritual aspirations. It is very difficult to convince people of the west that a child can be born in an enlightened state, because they have the moral attitudes of a particular religion deeply ingrained in their minds and their faith. For them, the union between a man and a woman is sin. If you explain to them that a yogi can be produced as a result of the sexual union, they say, "No! How can a yogi be born out of sin?" It is possible that у new generation of supermen will be produced in this way. Through the practices of yoga you can transform the quality of your genes. If genes can produce artists, scientists, inventors and intellectual geniuses, then why not awakened kundalinis? You have to transform the quality of your sperm or ova by firstly transforming your whole consciousness. Neither drugs nor diet will transform your genes, but if you change your consciousness, you can then effect the elements of the body and ultimately change the quality of the sperm and ova. Then you will have children with awakened kundalinis. They will become the yogis and spiritual masters of the house who set things right for you. They will say, "Mummy, you are not the physical body." "Pара, drinking is no good." Those of you who enter married life should go into it keeping in mind that the purpose is not just pleasure, or to produce offspring, but to create a genius. All over the world, people who marry for progeny should try for higher quality children. Mantra The second method of awakening kundalini is through steady regular practice of mantra. This is a very powerful, smooth and risk-free method, but of course it is a sadhana which requires time and a lot of patience. First you need to get a suitable mantra from a guru who knows yoga and tantra, and who can guide you through your sadhana. When you practise the mantra incessantly, it develops in you the vision of a higher force and enables you to live amidst the sensualities of life with indifference to them. When you throw a pebble into a still lake, it produces circular ripples. In the same way, when you repeat a mantra over and over again, the sound force gathers momentum and creates vibrations in the ocean of the mind. When you repeat the mantra millions and billions of times, it permeates every part of your brain and purifies your whole physical, mental and emotional body. The mantra must be chanted loudly, softly, on the mental plane and on the psychic plane. By practising it at these four levels, kundalini awakens methodically and systematically. You can also use the mantra by repeating it mentally in coordination with the breath or you can sing it aloud in the form of kirtan. This creates a great potential in mooladhara and awakening takes place. Closely related to mantra yoga is the awakening through sound or music - nada yoga. Here the sounds are the bija mantras and the music consists of particular melodies corresponding to particular chakras. This is a most tender and absorbing way of awakening. Tapasya The third method of awakening is tapasya, which means the performance of austerities. Tapasya is a means of purification, a burning or setting on fire so that a process of elimination is created, not in the physical body, but in the mental and emotional bodies. Through this process the mind, the emotions and the whole personality are cleansed of all the dirt, complexes and patterns of behavior that cause pain and suffering. Tapasya is an act of purification. It should not be misunderstood to involve standing naked in cold water or snow, or observing foolish and meaningless austerities. When you want to eliminate a bad habit, the more you want to get rid of it, the more powerful it becomes. When you abandon it in the waking state, it appears in dreams, and when you stop those dreams, it expresses itself in your behavior or manifests in disease. This particular habit must be destroyed at its psychic root, not only at the conscious level. The samskara and vasana must be eliminated by some form of tapasya. Tapasya is a psychological or psycho-emotional process through which the aspirant tries to set in motion a process of metabolism that will eradicate the habits that create weakness and obstruct the awakening of willpower. 'I must do this but I can't.' Why does this difference between resolution and implementation arise in the mind of the aspirant? Why is it so great? It is due to a deficiency of will; and that weakness, that distance or barrier between resolution and execution can be removed through regular and repeated practice of tapasya. Then the willpower makes a decision once and the matter is finished. This strength of will is the fruit of tapasya. The psychology of austerity plays a very important part in the awakening of man's latent power. It is not well understood by modern man who has unfortunately accepted that man lives for 'the pleasure principle', as propounded by Freud and his disciples. The psychology of austerity is very sound and certainly not abnormal. When the senses are satisfied by the objective pleasures, by the comforts and luxuries, the brain and nervous system become weak and the consciousness and energy undergo a process of regression. It is in this situation that the method of austerity is one of the most powerful and sometimes explosive methods of awakening. Here the manifestations are tremendous and the aspirant has to face his lower instincts in the beginning. He confronts a lot of temptations and the assaults of the satanic and tamasic forces. All the evil or negative samskaras or karmas of many, many incarnations rise to the surface. Sometimes fear manifests very powerfully or attachment to the world comes with a great force. In some people, sexual fantasies haunt the mind for days together, while others become lean and thin, or even sick. At this juncture, siddhis can appear. One develops extrasensory perceptions, he can read the minds of others, he can suppress others by a thought, or his own thoughts materialize. In the beginning, black forces manifest and all these siddhis are negative or of a lower quality. Tapasya is a very, very powerful method of awakening which everybody cannot handle. Awakening through herbs The fourth method of awakening is through the use of specific herbs. In Sanskrit this is called aushadhi, and it should not be interpreted as meaning drugs like marijuana, LSD, etc. Aushadhi is the most powerful and rapid method of awakening but it is not for all and very few people know about it. There are herbs which can transform the nature of the body and its elements and bring about either partial or full awakening, but they should never be used without a guru or qualified guide. This is because certain herbs selectively awaken ida or pingala and others can suppress both these nadis and quickly lead one to the mental asylum. For this reason, aushadhi is a very risky and unreliable method. In the ancient vedic texts of India, there are references to a substance called soma. Soma was a juice extracted from a creeper which was picked on special days of the dark lunar fortnight. It was placed in an earthen pitcher and buried underground until the full moon. Then it was removed and the juice was extracted and taken. This induced visions, experiences and an awakening of higher consciousness. The Persians knew another drink, homa, which may have been the same as soma. In Brazil and some of the African countries, people used hallucinogenic mushrooms and in the Himalayan regions marijuana or hashish were taken with the thought that they might provide a shortcut in arousing spiritual awakening. From time to time, in different parts of the world, other things were also discovered and used, some being very mild in effect and others being very concentrated. With the help of the correct herbs, purified aspirants were able to visualize divine beings, holy rivers, mountains, sacred places, holy men and so on. When the effects of the herbs were more concentrated, they could separate the self from the body and travel astrally. Of course it was often illusory, but sometimes it was a real experience as well. People were able to enter a state of samadhi and awaken their kundalini. In this particular field of awakening, the sexual instinct was completely eliminated. Therefore, many aspirants preferred this method and have been trying to discover the appropriate herbs for many centuries. With aushadhi awakening the body becomes still and quiet, the metabolism slows and the temperature drops. As a result of this, the nerve reflexes function differently and in most cases the aushadhi awakening is a permanent one. However, the aushadhi method of awakening is no longer practiced because it was misused by the ordinary people who were neither prepared, competent nor qualified. As a result, knowledge of the herbs was withdrawn and today it is a closely guarded secret. Everyone is craving kundalini awakening, but few people have the discipline and mental, emotional, physical and nervious preparation required to avoid damage to the brain and tissues. So, although no one is teaching the aushadhi method of awakening today, its knowledge has been transmitted from generation to generation through the guru/disciple tradition. Perhaps some day, when the nature of man changes and we find better intellectual, physical and mental responses, the science may again be revealed. Raja yoga The fifth method of inducing awakening is through raja yoga and the development of an equipoised mind. This is the total merging of individual consciousness with superconsciousness. It occurs by a sequental process of concentration, meditation and communion; experience of union with the absolute or supreme. All the practices of raja yoga, preceded by hatha yoga, bring about very durable experiences, but they can lead to a state of complete depression, in which you do not feel like doing anything. The raja yoga method is very difficult for most people as it requires time, patience, discipline and perseverance. Concentration of mind is one of the most difficult things for modern man to achieve. It cannot be undertaken before the mind has been stabilized, the karmas deactivated and the emotions purified through karma and bhakti yogas. It is the nature of the mind to remain active all the time, and this constitutes a very real danger for the people of our time, because when we try to concentrate the mind we create a split. Therefore, most of us should only practice concentration up to a certain point. Following the awakening through raja yoga, changes take place in the aspirant. He may transcend hunger and all his addictions or habits. The sensualities of life are no longer appealing, hunger and the sexual urge diminish and detachment develops spontaneously. Raja yoga brings about a slow transformation of consciousness. Pranayama The sixth method of awakening kundalini is through pranayama. When a sufficiently prepared aspirant practises pranayama in a calm, cool and quiet environment, preferably at a high altitude, with a diet only sufficient to maintain life, the awakening of kundalini takes place like an explosition. In fact, the awakening is so rapid that kundalini ascends to sahasrara immediately. Pranayama is not only a breathing exercise or a means to increase prana in the body; it is a powerful method of creating yogic fire to heat the kundalini and awaken it. However, if it is practiced without sufficient preparation, this will not occur because the generated heat will not be directed to the proper centers. Therefore, jalandhara, uddiyana and moola bandhas are practiced to lock the prana in and force it up to the frontal brain. When pranayama is practised correctly, the mind is automatically conquered. However, the effects of pranayama are not that simple to manage. It creates extra heat in the body, it awakens some of the centers in the brain and it can hinder the production of sperm and testosterone. Pranayama may also lower the temperature of the inner body and even bring down the rate of respiration and alter the brain waves. Unless you have practised the shatkarmas first and purified the body to a degree, when these changes take place, you may not be able to handle them. There are two important ways of awakening kundalini - one is the direct method and the other is the indirect. Pranayama is the direct method. The experiences it brings about are explosive and results are attained very quickly. Expansion is rapid and the mind attains quick metamorphosis. However, this form of kundalini awakening is always accompanied by certain experiences, and for one who is not sufficiently prepared mentally, philosophically, physically and emotionally, these experiences can be terrifying. Therefore, although the path of pranayama is a jetset method, it is drastic and is considered to be a very difficult one that everybody cannot manage. Kriya yoga The seventh method of inducing awakening is kriya yoga. It is the most simple and practical way for modern day man as it does not require confrontation with the mind. Sattvic people may be able to awaken kundalini through raja yoga, but those who have a tumultuous, noisy, rajasic mind will not succeed this way. They will only develop more tensions, guilt and complexes, and may even become schizophrenic. For such people kriya yoga is by far the best and most effective system. When you practise kriya yoga, kundalini doesn't wake up with force, nor does it awaken like a satellite or as a vision or experience. It wakes up like a noble queen. Before getting up she will open her eyes, then close them again for a while. Then she'll open her eyes again, look here and there, turn to the right and left, then pull the sheet up over her head and doze. After some time she will again stretch her body and open her eyes, then doze for a while. Each time she stretches and looks around she says, 'Hmmm'. This is what happens in kriya yoga awakening. Sometimes you feel very grand and sometimes you don't feel quite right. Sometimes you pay too much attention to the things of life and sometimes you think everything is useless. Sometimes you eat extravagantly and sometimes you don't eat for days together. Sometimes you have sleepless nights and at other times you do nothing but sleep and sleep. All these signs of awakening and reversion, awakening and reversion keep coming every now and then. Kriya yoga does not create an explosive awakening. However, it can bring visions and other very mild and controllable experiences. Tantric initiation This eighth method of awakening kundalini through tantric initiation is a very secret topic. Only those people who have transcended passions, and who understand the two principles of nature, Shiva and Shakti, are entitled to this initiation. It is not meant for those who have urges lurking within them or for those who have a need for physical contact. With the guidance of a guru, this is the quickest possible way to awaken kundalini. There are no extraordinary experiences or feelings and there's no neurosis; everything seems quite normal, but at the same time, without your knowledge, awakening is taking place. Transformation takes place and your awareness expands, but you don't know it. In this particular system, awakening and arriving at sahasrara are the same event. It takes just three seconds. However, who is qualified for this path? Few people in this world have completely transcended the sexual urge and overcome their passions. Shaktipat The ninth method of awakening is performed by the guru. It is called shaktipat. The awakening is instant, but it is only a glimpse, not a permanent event. When the guru creates this awakening you experience samadhi. You can practise all forms of pranayama and all asanas, mudras and bandhas without having learned them or prepared for them. All the mantras are revealed to you and you know the scriptures from within. Changes take place in the physical body in an instant. The skin becomes very soft, the eyes glow and the body emits a particular aroma which is neither agreeable nor disagreeable. This shaktipat is conducted in the physical presence or from a distance. It can be transmitted by touch, by a handkerchief, a mala, a flower, a fruit or anything edible, depending on the system the guru has mastered. It can even be transmitted by letter, telegram or telephone. It is very difficult to say who is qualified for this awakening. You may have lived the life of a renunciate for fifty years, but still you may not get it. You may be just an ordinary person, living a non-spiritual life, eating all kinds of rubbish foods, but the guru may give you shaktipat. Your eligibility for shaktipat does not depend on your social or immediate conduct, but on the point of evolution you have reached. There is a point in evolution beyond which shaktipat becomes effective, but this evolution is not intellectual, emotional, social or religious. It is a spiritual evolution which has nothing to do with the way you live, eat, behave or think, because generally we do these things, not because of our evolvement, but according to the way we have been brought up and educated. Self-surrender We have discussed the nine established methods of awakening kundalini, but there is a tenth way - don't aspire for awakening. Let it happen if it happens: "I am not responsible for the awakening, nature is accomplishing everything. I accept what comes to me." This is known as the path of self-surrender, and in this path, if you have a strong enough belief that your kundalini will indeed awaken, twenty thousand years can pass in the twinkling of an eye and kundalini will awaken instantly. Effects of the different methods of awakening When the awakening of kundalini takes place, scientific observations have revealed different effects. Those who have awakened kundafini from birth do not register any emotional changes. They are like blocks of wood. Those who have awakened kundalini through pranayama have a great quantum of electrical charges in the spinal column and throughout the body, and momentarily they could manifest schizophrenically. Karma yoga and bhakti yoga are considered comparatively safe and mild methods of awakening, but the tantric methods are more scientific than the non-tantric methods, because in tantra there is no scope for suppression or dispersion of energy. In non-tantric methods there is antagonism - one mind wants it and the same mind is saying no. You suppress your thoughts, you want to enjoy, but at the same time you think "No, it is bad." I am not criticizing non-tantric methods. They are the mild methods which do not bring you any trouble. They are just like beer - you drink a little bit and nothing happens, drink four to ten glasses and not much will happen. But tantric methods are like LSD, you have a little and it takes you right out. If something is wrong, it is wrong; if something is right, it is right. If you want to read more, the book is available on Amazon: https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B01FAZ9PXW&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_FDS0YT6KECKJQ6SCHTNP

I think I see what you are hitting onto. I have gone through interesting transformation in pickup, where first I entered as a super weak, unconfident guys and thanks to going out and studying pickup I improved greatly but I also noticed that my relationship to woman became quite dark and I started developing some narcissistic tendencies and I had to pull back a bit and focus on healing myself. I suppose I had shadows around woman from past experiences of feeling left out and unwanted and my ego was overcompensation of low self confidence? I am not clear here yet, since I am still in the process (and possible about to return back to approaching since I still crave experiences and want to develop more). It sometimes feels like going full circle hehe.

In this post, I'm going to help you figure out why the moment-to-moment experience of your daily life, activities and behaviors have seen no improvements or changes after years of meditation. Then I'll provide you with a technique you can practice in formal sessions and bring it to daily life. This transformation requires deliberate daily practice and effort. You won't find much value here if you are looking for magic tricks. ---- Contrary to common understanding, meditation is not actually about cultivating exclusive attention (concentration) to a particular object. That is one aspect of the practice you can do for the development of certain skills. That's it. A more central part of meditation is the development of metacognitive awareness, equanimity, joy and their sub-skill - whole body awareness. We'll focus on these aspects and try to spread the concentration muscle to the whole body with breath sensations. But before we get to that, we need to understand why this is important. Ask most meditators and they will mostly tell you that it is about generating focus to a particular object. Rather than approaching the practice from a narrowing of attention, let's start with a more solid foundation. As you contract attention to an object in daily life, it collapses awareness of everything else. When you are watching Game of Thrones, the unconscious mind system doesn't see much value in projecting the sensations of the couch and the feeling of hedonic comfort that currently lies in your posture. It bypasses and filters all that information to make your life simpler. It is easier to focus on Game of Thrones that way. Well, it looks that way at least. See, regardless of whether you naturally filter these sensations or not, the unconscious mind needs to project something to the conscious awareness. Unless you are mindful in the process, what you are going to experience will be annoyance, boredom, striving, grasping and discontent. All of these mental reactions have a deeper source you can completely yank out after years of practice BUT first, you need to develop the skills which will enable you to do that. Our default option was to bypass and filter as much information unrelated to the task at hand. Well, let's practice not doing that and allow more sensory information to be generated in the entirety of mind and body. Instead of collapsing awareness with concentration, let's strengthen it. ---- Experiencing the Whole Body with the Breath: Very-Lite Jhana System It’s possible to become an advanced meditator by just focusing over and over on the breath at the nose and ignoring subtle distractions until they fade away, but that can take a very long time. Learning to enhance awareness each time it collapses can be a torturous process. Experiencing the whole body with the breath is a faster and more enjoyable method that makes it much easier to completely ignore distractions. This practice involves clearly defining then gradually expanding the scope of your attention until it includes sensations related to breath throughout the entire body all at once. Make sure that you are not dealing with lots of sleepiness or dullness prior to engaging in this practice. Try to remain as alert as possible. Fortunately, this process will enhance energy levels and develop conscious power in the long term. The method itself builds on the body-scanning practice you learned in Stage 5 in Culadasa's book 'The Mind Illuminated'. 1- Just as with the body scan, you first direct your attention to the breath at the abdomen. Then, making sure that peripheral awareness of the breath at the abdomen doesn’t fade, you shift your attention to a particular body part, such as your hand. Define your scope of attention to include that area only. Then further refine your scope to include only the breath sensations in the hand. Ignore all other sensations by excluding them completely from attention, but let them remain in peripheral awareness. Next, move to another body part, perhaps the forearm, and do the same thing. Each moment of attention should include a very strong intention to focus clearly on breath-related sensations and to exclude everything else. What is important in this process is to enhance awareness of hedonic feelings. Even if you focus on breath sensations in a particular location, that will either feel pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. There is no other option. So, let's add a flair of vibrancy, joy and pleasure to the process. 2- As you experience (and generate) changing and flickering sensations to various parts of your body, smile physically and try to experience the exact same sensations as more pleasurable and exciting. You don't want dryness to pervade your mind and body. Serene, changing and pleasurable breath related sensations are starting to be experiened in arms, legs, forearms,head. In each in-breath and our-breath. 3- You are not constricting attention to the breath at the nose just yet. Keep the awareness open and after you are comfortable with this process, try to feel changing and pleasant sensations in the whole body. Not in particular locations. Feel it more holistic as the awareness and pleasantness spreads to the whole body along with clear changing sensations in various parts of the body. You will lose some of the resolution power from before but this time the object is the entire mind and whole body. This process is going to train conscious power to the next tier of strength. 4- Finally, bring the attention to the breath at the tip of the bose WHILE continuing to experience the whole body, pleasure and changing sensations in various parts of the body. Now you are also investigating in-breath and out-breath while step 3 activates at full force. This will add another layer of training for your conscious power circuits. Make sure you don't lose joyfulness, pleasure, relaxed ease and happiness in any of instructions. Awareness of mental states is a key part of mindfulness and can't be discarded. When feelings of annoyance, impatience etc arises, re-generate some ease with smiling and relaxation of tense muscles. --- Do this practice everyday in formal sessions. But how am I going to bring it to my actual life? You are going to intend to bring this whole body open awareness while watching Game of Thrones, playing the piano, and eating. When you fail and get obsessively focused on an activity, strengthen the whole body awareness again and re-train your mind to maintain it while doing these activities. In all activities, this awareness can be practiced. There are no exceptions apart from sleep states. Whenever you feel things are so hard and require so much effort, just remember the ease and pleasure in whole body awareness and try to replicate that mental state again as you are washing the dishes. ---- Hope this helps. I suggest doing this system of training for 30-60 days straight. With many hours of formal and informal deliberate practice per day. (2-6 hours) Then the results will speak for themselves. Much love, Arda

Being in fear but not in suffering, hating others without hurting anyone, creating through destruction, being attached to your body with no pain yet be fully alive just like children or teens can be, being attached to your thoughts without them hurting you or anything, I don't want to go too far because it's ban'able but yeah I think because so many spiritualists either seem to rely on drugs or rely on old traditions they have never understood creativity, they're using the term imagination as actually unmagination which is cool but of course they are scared of real imagination which creativity is because they could create new horrors, I believe one part of the endgame of this reality is to truly incorporate this, aka real love through real contradiction and real paradox, I'm childish so I'm just expressing my disappointment at how love is used to actually mean escape through transformation of evil(which is one good way) rather than the type of creativity I'm pointing at which would actually fully embody it, so tldr suffering without suffering and if you want real madness suffering through bliss(don't go there), pain is pain so you don't need to go there.

Nice, yeah I don't like describing my trips in terms of ego death because I always had a sense of existence, but maybe an ego transformation. No I don't. I can feel the exact same resistances that were dissolved present every day, like a cracking and popping of my third eye, but I can't have a full liberation like that sober. Although I'm getting close and increasing my understanding over time

vr chat is a game that you can pretty much do everything you want, you can choose or make any avatar you want and go to any world that you want. anyone can upload any avatar and any world to this game, the game rely on 100% users content ,it is somewhat a metaverse game which it is life in digital reality. of course it is a game and there are lots of dark sides to it. a lot of people using it as escape from real life but if you have your values in mind you can get lots of value from this game. i am talking here about the opportunities that you can get in this thread. i think that this game is exeptionaly good for people that are not cisgender, also for people that really want a certain look. presonaly as a genderfluid this game enables me to feel me, i never felt so in line with gender in my life, trying to manipulates my gender in irl is pretty hard job , in this game it takes one click to be whoever you want to be. it is really hard to describe the liberation that this option gives me , i can like my irl look more beacuse i have this abillity to transform and i can satisfy my need for this transformation. the next part is getting better at socializing and getting rid of social anxiety. i found that my socializing skills are way better beacuse of this game, i am just used to be in mood , i am not desparate for people , i can just be myself and be in the right mood. if you are usually just not socializing for a long time you can find youreself in a hard time for being in the mood and then maybe feel like it is just not for you even if it is not true , this game can help for those kind of problems. for social anxiety it can help mainly beacuse the social interaction situations rate and the social situations rate is so big that you find yourself dealing with alot of situations and you can practice being in social situations , getting rid of social anxiety is mainly practice . also you can get people to enteract with you pretty fast and you dont need to be active for that , you even not need to talk. ofcurse it is better that you will but if you dont someone will talk with you, unlike in real life that it might not happend. also there are lots of people in this game with social anxiety so getting support is easy. there are many more options in this game, i might make more posts about those parts and maybe tutorials if some people will gain interest in this game. i am hoping that this post is understandable, i am writing it a bit late.

Clarity, focus and action. Healing Trauma: A Journey of the Past, Present and Future. Learning Mandarin Chinese. Getting on track with lifes purpose. Practicing Yoga. Being a yoga instructor. Being an English conversational skills instructor. Socialization and dating beautiful women. Focus needs to happen, action needs to happen, the hiearchy of needs needs to be met and transformation needs to occur. There are two other journals for the first two bullet points, they deserve their own journals and I am excited about those journals. This journal will be used to for the other 5 bullet points, this is where the focus needs to be at this stage in the transformation. What will it look like in practice...?... we will have to wait and see.

I would encourage to go differently about it. The reason for why transformation is difficult is because of how much information we are absorbing on a daily basis. Our mind is so thick and dense with information, and the more information, the more difficult it becomes to channel the right stuff into the body. Hypnosis back in the 19s, was a lot more powerful than now. Partially because there was no internet and a lot less information that we consume. The activity of the mind was a lot less and the body was a lot more in tune. I would connect back to that sense of letting go of needing information and just searching for a good somatic therapist and trust the process intuitively. You have probably studied a lot of concepts already, and have a lot of knowledge. If you would go explore this subject through online information, that can be a trap, because the information is very much presented in a way that is not specific to you, a lot of it gets filtered out subconsciously because you feel like it does not apply to you. How would it feel to just let go of the need to understand this, and just go find a somatic therapist? In worst case, you do not resonate with it. Go to 10 different somatic therapists though and stick with the one that resonates with you the most. I do not know the quality of somatic therapists in your country, choose well.

Identifying it as a matter of Care is the core of it. The majority of human beings haven't developed to the point that the exploitation of other human beings is a matter of serious concern if it's not happening directly in front of them, so it's not surprising that concern for non-human animals isn't even on the radar for most folks. To get to that point, someone has to develop where Care is extended to beings that one has no investment in. That's a big ask for most people, as it involves deconstructing the sorts of ego-defense mechanisms that allow us to benefit from the exploitation of others without paying the emotional and spiritual costs that that entails. Societal structures puts the suffering and exploitation that make contemporary consumer society possible behind high walls, where one has to go out of their way and be highly motivated to even begin grappling with these sorts of ethical concerns in a serious way. Yet I suspect that even if somehow visiting a factory farm was a requirement for being 'allowed' to consume meat, even in this scenario most people would continue to do so because it's not enough just to show people things, there has to be an Internal Transformation for any real change.

I put this somewhere else but I thought it was good stuff so I am putting it here too. We tend to want to be free. We tend to want freedom. We tend to want to be able to run and play and when there are walls, we may feel stuck and confined within those walls. The inner critic points out the walls, defines them for us, tells us they are there. Walls are like boundaries, limits; we are trying to push the boundaries/limits all the time as much as we can. When we are at a job, and we may feel stuck with all the codes, rule following, timelines, budgets, norms, etc. (Or if we are doing our own thing, we may feel stuck with not having the right skills, tools, support or fear of not making enough money). We start to push what we can do and see if we can get away with it. If the job is free enough to allow us to run around and do our thing, we are happy. If the job is letting us explore our potential and push the limits, we are happy. If the job tells us no you can't do this or that, we are upset, we get bored/angry/frustrated. The inner critic is a blessing and a curse. By pointing out problems, walls, questions, it allows for potential, growth, change/transformation, new perspectives. There are almost always good things to find in any situation, almost always things to question, almost always things to improve on, almost always some things that are free enough to be turned/shifted despite others seemingly stuck in place and un-moveable. The inner critic's focus may be in a negative way, a skeptical way (you can't do this, that isn't possible, you don't have the skill/personality, this is bad, you don't belong, you shouldn't forgive, are you crazy?, this is going to be bad, you are not cool/smart enough, etc.). I think the inner critic could be trying to accomplish more potential, growth, and curiosity if we use it that way. It could also tend to drown in misery, suffering, sadness, anxiety, regret, guilt, shame, hopelessness, annoyance, blame, etc. if we use it that way. Either way, it is pointing out ideas/information to us and how we react to that can make a difference. In a way, the stronger the inner critic, the more we can notice, the more information/ideas we can work with, the more potential, the more things we may find we need to tweak, the more complex we can become, the more mastery we can achieve. However, also the stronger the inner critic, the more walls/problems we may say are there. If one's main focus is being internally peaceful and taking their own responsibility for their inner peace regardless of what is going on in the "external" and beyond their control, they may have a more peaceful, transformative, healing, hopeful relationship with the inner critic; whereas if one feels like they cannot control their inner feelings and lets whatever happens outside impact their inside, they may not realize the healing and transformative potential/power of the inner critic and just drown in it. I guess one thing is using feedback (whether from others or from ourselves) for growth/curiosity/learning instead of using it as a victim/blame/fight/hide can make a difference. But to use it for growth/curiosity/learning takes lots of patience, calmness, and willingness to engage/interact/understand and sometimes the easy route can be to just react in a negative way (but that is actually the hard route because it may be easy in the immediate but hard for anything beyond the immediate). One's peers, therapist, friends, etc. could all be criticizing a situation but one could realize there is so much more to it (and more potential) and they were just criticizing it because of the limited information one was giving them and because they are just focusing on the walls and not the potential/good. Learning to not judge stuff from what it did in the past and see that stuff is constantly changing all the time.. (but that is tricky though because the past can be a helpful indicator of what is to come; but also not necessarily).... Everything is super tricky... (I think a bunch of this, I was inspired by listening to a podcast from yesterday haha and I was wanting to tie all of it together.) .... But again, so many ways to think about that topic. What's yours trying to accomplish? I guess another one I was thinking of was when we were in school and we had to sit still and weren't allowed to speak or interact with the other kids and were told we had to pay attention to the teacher and do the assignment, sure sometimes we felt engaged and interested and explored that. Sometimes we did not though. So what did we do?? We went to the internal imagination and daydreamed. We left the classroom and were in some other place, engaged and interested and explored that. Or with a website, if one gets censored/shut down, one may find other ways to release their message/perspective. (Again, pushing the limits). But with the inner critic, we either believe, yes the walls are there and we have to comply (yes I have to comply with what my teachers/parents/government says and I will be a good girl/boy and do everything they say... or, no actually I can push the limits and question everything..) Do we believe the walls are there or do we think we can push them - if we believe the walls are there, are we depressed that they are there or are we curious about why they are there.. There is the balance though of walls being helpful versus being limiting...

This pisses me off to no end. Whenever I look for transformation pics of skinny dudes into muscular dudes a whole fuck ton of them are just the same body under different lightning conditions or angles

Having two girls in my rotation at the moment The girl I'm talking about I will be meeting at a party on friday. Another girl, who's phone number I got, I will be having a coffee date next week. To the outsider it sounds like I'm doing good. Trust me, I will fuck this up. I just care too much lol. For me results don't matter, I care about growth, and letting go of neediness, bad conditioning, to become whole (being). I just fucked up too much so I decided to focus on myself. It is not going as quick as I want, but I know I can't force this process. It is a matter of development of consciousness; and consciousness can't be pushed. I really have to accept so I can let go which is very counterintuitive to my nature. Perhaps I should stack up on meditation because I really don't feel good about my socialization: I can't enjoy the fruits of my labor because my inner game has a hard time catching up with my outer game. The bottom is... I do get the theory, it is just hard to live it, to be it. I'm a perfectionist so perhaps I expect too much from myself considering my problematic background, I have to be smart about it and baby step my transformation and paradigm shift.

I would like to share something written by my guru's guru, Yogeshwar Muni. Many knew him as Charles Berner, the originator of the Enlightenment Intensive retreat, but what not everyone knows is that he went on to be an accomplished yogi. After having many peak experiences to only face a dead end, his guru, Swami Kripalu, gave him the key to achieving God realization. This is a rare path, and I would like to share an introduction to that here. Chapter 1 Introduction to Natural Yoga In the Western world it is not considered very important to be guided by the heart. We would all like to be more able to love and be loved, but we have learned to trust our heads. We have been educated, not only in our educational system, but also in our society as a whole to use our heads. It has brought us a certain degree of material success, but it has not succeeded in giving us the happiness, the peace, the consciousness, and the love that we all want. The teaching of Natural Yoga is the way of natural union with God. From my spiritual teacher Master Kripalvananda, I learned a method of opening my heart, a method of surrender. This is not to say that knowledge is a bad thing, because it is not. But it is not enough; nor is just opening your heart. We are so much more advanced in our heads than in our hearts. What we need is to learn to open the heart and surrender. But surrender to what? In Natural Yoga one surrenders only to the Truth. Another name for the Truth is God. God is the Absolute; the Absolute is Perfection; and Perfection is Truth. Natural Yoga is about knowing God not just intellectually, but consciously and directly; it is about surrender to God. It is necessary to re-release the energy captured by the closed heart. The heart, in turn, has been captured by the mind; and the mind controls it. It is not possible to figure out how to re-release or to liberate the life energy that has been entrapped. The more you use your will to make it happen, the more life energy gets captured. But when the heart is re-opened, the mind loses its grip on the previously captured energy, and life begins to flow again. If you surrender to anything and everything, your life becomes a complete waste. Your desires run wild and you run into incredible difficulties. In Natural Yoga, by surrendering to God, by surrendering to the Truth, the suppressed energy is released and transformed. Then liberation is achieved. Once you surrender the body, feelings and mind to God, the purification process begins. But the ego resists it. It says, “Oh, no, you don’t. This surrender business is not for me!” If you have a lot of toxins in your body, there will be a strong reaction. If you are sickly, overweight, use drugs, smoke cigarettes, or drink coffee or alcohol, the body will react very strongly and make it very difficult for you to continue surrendering. If you sincerely want to do Natural Meditation, you need to work through these difficulties and prepare for the process of full surrender, of completely giving over your body, feelings and mind to God. Then as you continue to surrender, your mind begins to purify spontaneously. There are four ways to awaken or liberate the life energy. One of them is by physical exercise; another is by understanding the Truth; the third is through devotion; and the fourth is through the transmission of divine energy form teacher to student. If you do a lot of exercise, stop using drugs and eat a pure diet, your body will become purer. And when it purifies, the life energy will be liberated. My life energy was liberated by understanding the Truth. I had a realization of the Truth of life. As a result, the life energy in my body went “whoooosh.” I rolled all over the floor and acted crazy. I didn’t know what to do with it! I tried to figure out what it was all about. For years I tried to find out what to do with it and how to handle it. I did not succeed until I met Master Kripalvananda, affectionately called Kripalu. He is the only one I ever met who really knew what to do with the vital energy. He was a great yogi from the great tradition of Natural Yoga. Something led me to his feet. He had the knowledge, method, and power to transform the life energy; and he could teach and transmit it to others. And finally, if you devote yourself to whatever is divine to you and open your heart and serve it, through great love, your life energy will be liberated In Natural Yoga, the life energy is awakened through the transmission of divine energy from teacher to student. The transference is a gift of life energy from the teacher to the student. The great advantage of transmission of divine energy from teacher to student is that you know what is happening; you how it has come about; and you know you have someone to guide you. Once the divine energy is transferred, the rest happens spontaneously and automatically as you continue to surrender. 1. You begin to treat people better, not because you are forcing yourself, but just because you want to. 2. The body performs purifying actions, moving spontaneously into yoga postures whether you have ever heard of them or not. The postures occur in the exact way necessary for your body to purify. 3. The life energy becomes restrained and elevated. 4. The attention withdraws from the senses. 5. You go into deep concentration. 6. You go into spontaneous meditation. 7. You go into equanimity or union with God. This does not happen in two or three seconds; it takes a while. It may take days, weeks, months or years; but it happens according to the grace of God and Truth, according to the wisdom of the divine energy that guides you. The process of Natural Yoga proceeds according to your degree of surrender, the previous work that you have done in this life and others, and the wisdom of your spiritual teacher. Divine union is the ultimate outcome of Natural Yoga. Your own true, divine nature comes into union with God or Truth. Natural Yoga brings not only bliss, but also consciousness, Truth, health and happiness. It brings natural humility and saintly behavior. Impurities are transformed into Divine Love for others. Eventually a complete and permanent transformation of one’s human nature takes place. This is a long-term project; yet it is the promise of Natural Yoga. Chapter 2 Surrender The key to Natural Yoga is surrender. By surrendering in meditation you achieve union with God or Truth. There are many names and ways of thinking about the Ultimate. Choose the way that has meaning for you, then surrender and go into union with it. Natural Yoga is natural union, a union that happens naturally without the use of willful direction or guidance. Natural Meditation means following the natural path, the path that is automatic and spontaneous. But this can only come through surrender. This is why surrender is the key. Without surrender, the will is involved. When the will is involved, nothing happens naturally. There are a lot of advantages to meditating naturally. You might say that surrender is “letting it be.” Letting things be the way they are, is a form of surrender. The dictionary defines surrender as the opposite of victory; surrender is yielding or giving in. It implies being forced to give in, to give in against your will. In Natural Yoga surrender means giving in by your own choice and letting the will of something other than you have its way. In Natural Yoga, you not only surrender, but you also surrender to the Truth; you surrender to Perfection; you surrender to the Absolute; you surrender to the Ultimate. You surrender to the cosmic finality. Call it whatever you like. You don’t just surrender. You surrender to an Ultimate. You have the choice to surrender or not. In Natural Yoga you choose to give in to the Divine. This is the key principle of Natural Yoga. You don’t need to know anything else. Everything else supports this key principle. So you need to understand it well. It is not easy to surrender, but it is the key to spiritual growth. If you surrender to the Divine, then automatically and spontaneously, you are on the path to the Truth, to the feet of the Lord, to Divine Love, without having to plan, to know, to force or to concern yourself in any way. The difficulty is that when you choose to surrender, there is a reaction. Therefore, you can only surrender to a certain degree. If you could surrender to the Truth totally, all at once, you would experience the Truth and you would have complete union with the Truth. Some people refuse to surrender at all. They say, “I’m using my will and that’s it. I’m not surrendering at all!” A few have surrendered totally. We call them God. Most of us are in between with some degree of surrender. When you have a reaction to surrender, don’t stop surrendering. Simply surrender more. Even if you don’t want to, go ahead and do it anyway. Perhaps you pull back your surrender to some degree. But if you do surrender, a little bit of purification takes place. Not only do concerns go away, but also the body and the mind purify to some degree. So when you surrender that much again, the reaction is not so strong. And as you continue, your capacity to surrender grows deeper and deeper because the reactions are less. It would take a lifetime to sort out the best way to have a supremely happy life, achieve complete liberation, attain absolute freedom, and reach total union with God. By the time I found Natural Yoga, my life had been spent trying to work this out. I had assembled about fifty different, quite excellent methods of dealing with the body and mind, like massage, Polarity Therapy, Rolfing, Feldenkreis, Hatha Yoga, breath restraint, good diet, Gestalt Therapy, Mind Clearing, Emotional Trauma Release, praying to God, and many others. I was trying to design an assessment method to test every person who came to our spiritual growth center and then direct them to the techniques they needed. I had an elaborate plan worked out with a marvelous testing system so that each person’s plan could be adjusted to just the combination they needed and varied as their needs changed. I was excited by all of this and was beginning to make some sense out of it even though it was a fairly complex subject. Then one day I met my beloved spiritual teacher, Kripalu. He taught me Natural Meditation. With Natural Yoga all you have to do is surrender to God. And the perfect thing happens to you at just the right time with the correct intensity to do exactly what is necessary for you whether it be in your mind, your body or your feelings. It brings about the exact degree of purification you need. And then the process continues naturally without any need to ask questions or make plans! What a relief! What a Godsend! Unfortunately not everyone can surrender to God. First of all, many have not found God. Others have no absolute anywhere in their life. It’s difficult for them to find anything to surrender to. Secondly, many are so impure and toxified that if they do surrender even a little bit, their ego can’t stand it. They clamp their will down with all their might. These people must find Truth, through some other method, through Enlightenment Intensives, for example. They need techniques to remove their mental and communicative obstacles. Once their minds become purer as a result of techniques such as the Enlightenment Intensive, then surrender is possible for them. For those who are ready, for those who have prepared themselves, the path of Natural Yoga is open. Natural Yoga is an option if they so choose! Many have had deep experiences of God, Truth or Divine Love. But these experiences fade with time. All willful techniques are limited because you can only know God in a surrendered state. As soon as the will is re-activated by arising desire, the deep experience lost. Many people are sincerely driven time and time again into the realm of peak experiences only to fall back again when desire arises. Some have sought experiences using drugs, only to crash again. Taking drugs is certainly willful; and you cannot willfully maintain union. Only in the state of surrender to the Truth can the Ultimate goal be continually experienced. It’s a gradual process. Where willful techniques leave off, surrender begins. This is not to say that willful techniques have no value. They do! It is necessary for almost everyone to participate in them to get themselves to the place where they can surrender meaningfully to the Truth. To do Natural Yoga, one must be able to surrender and let the will another be done. It is God who is the doer in Natural Yoga. In Natural Yoga you release the body from willful acts. You allow the life energy in the body to do what it wants instead of willfully trying to do something. If your body gets tired, let it fall over or just collapse on the floor. Once the body rests for awhile, it wants to move again. Whereas ordinary meditation uses the will, in Natural Yoga you let the life energy, guided by the divine, move the body in whatever way it sees fit. Do not try to concentrate your mind or attention on any particular thing. In willful meditation you concentrate on one subject or willfully try to maintain a state of openness. In the case of Natural Yoga, you let the attention go wherever it wants. It might go onto anything. You surrender the control of your attention to the divine and letting it do what it wants. The divine directs the energy that guides the attention. It will go where it needs to go in order for you to make the most rapid progress in your meditation. Meditation may not always be what you want; and often, it is not. Sometimes it is boring. Sometimes it does seemingly pointless things like the grocery list. But that is what needs to be done. The energy is trying to release your attention from the “grocery list” so it can go on to other things. You say, “Oh, I shouldn’t be thinking about the grocery list; so I’m not going to think about it. I should be thinking about God.” You are using your will. It is all very well to think about God; but if you are using your will to direct your attention, then you are defeating the method of natural union with God. If you surrender your attention to God, the life energy in the body and mind will be guided appropriately. In meditation you go through what you need to go through. No one has to tell you anything. God is the only therapist. If you have God or the Truth as your therapist, you can not do better. The only fee God wants is surrender to Him. You can say Her if you prefer. The Goddess is Truth. Truth is the way things actually are no matter what perspective you take. You just let meditation happen whatever way it wants. Let His will be done, not yours. Surrender, then, is to choose to let God, the Truth, or whatever you want to call it, guide your body, feelings, and mind, your thoughts and attention. You will be lead you through the most fascinating, exciting, sometimes boring and even terrifying journey to to union with the Truth. By surrendering to the life energy, the body can naturally go through what it needs to go through in Natural Yoga. It does not become tired. The mind goes through what it needs to go through so it does not become stuck or frustrated trying to control the attention. And the feelings can flow when they are ready; when they are not ready, nothing happens. So just let it be. One can do many hours of Natural Yoga over long periods of months and years. The serious aspirant can devote his or her whole life to this activity. Four to eight hours a day spent in meditation is not unusual for a serious practitioner of Natural Yoga. Generally, the energy in meditation moves a lot at first, then slows down to nothing and the aspirant goes into yogic sleep. You may think that you should be alert and busy. Your will tells you, “I think I should be awake, active and busy.” And there is God’s will. Sleep is coming on naturally. If you have truly surrendered, you let sleep come. If a hand wants to move, let it move. Whatever happens let it happen! There is only one condition, surrender your body, mind and feelings to the Truth,. If you have done that, there is no error. Whatever occurs, including sleep or anything else, happens properly and automatically. Why doesn’t everybody do Natural Yoga? It’s so easy! I mentioned the obstacle of reaction. Many people are attached to the ego; that is, their ego wants to be in charge. It wants to be the doer and wants to cause things to happen. “If I do this, then I want that result. And I want the fruits of my actions.” Following the ego is the ordinary Western way of proceeding. It is also the Oriental way of proceeding to some extent. When you willfully act, God responds to a degree, if you have acted ethically. You can get bound to the ego and get stuck in the role of the doer. You are the one who is doing it, rather than surrendering. Following the ego can only take you so far. But most people are not ready to give up the role of “doership.” They are not ready to go on to Natural Yoga. God is the doer of all things. Imagine a slave master who has many slaves and who wants to build himself a nice house. He sits up on his dais and says, “Slave, you come over here and you carry these stones. And you slaves there, you pile them up. And you mix the mortar. And you design it. Come on, jump!” And they start jumping and carrying stones and they build the palace. When the palace is finished, the slave master invites his neighbor over. And he says, “Look! See the palace I built! See what I did!” The slave master is the ego and the slaves are God. God is the doer of all things that appear in the form of nature. God in the form of nature does all things. The ego sits back and says, “Look what I’m doing! See what I did!” The ego thinks it is the doer. But the ego does not create anything; it does nothing! The body is part of nature; the mind, feelings and thoughts are part of nature. The entire physical universe is part of nature. All that happens is done by God working in and through nature. Surrender releases the divine energy that makes everything work. The divine energy is what guides your body, mind and feelings in Natural Yoga. If you are strongly identified with doership, surrender will not occur. But you can give up the ego and say, “God, I surrender to you.” It would be like the slave master saying, “Slave, I surrender to you. I realize that you have been doing the work anyway and I’ve just been taking credit for it.” It is not just a matter of stopping what you were doing; it is a matter of realizing that you never were and are not the doer. God in the form of nature does all things. The act of surrender is simply the gradual realization of the Truth. As long as you are attached to the fruits of action, you are held in a trap. You hold on to the idea that you are the doer. “I did it. I worked all day. I want my pay.” So if you are attached to the fruits, you are automatically the doer. But it is not true. The fruits do not belong to you. They are all God’s. You are not the doer. God does it all. So what are you? You are the one who either surrenders to that fact, or resists it. You are the one who can make the choice. You can either surrender to the natural way which brings about union with Truth or you can fight it, saying, “No! No! No! I’m going to do it the way I want!” Sometimes people feel that if they decide to stop doing something, nothing will happen. They think that not doing anything is surrender. This is not true. They think, “I won’t think any thought; I won’t move a finger; I won’t breathe.” There is a very simple way to test this. “ Well since I’m the breather, I’ll stop breathing.” But it is not you who starts breathing again because it was not you who was breathing in the first place. God in the form of nature is causing the body to breathe, not you. And in the same way, nature causes the brain to think, the hunger to come, the sexual urge to arise. All these things happen by the will of nature. Thus it is the ego that stops people from doing Natural Meditation. Everyone has an ego. However, if you can just yield some of your doership, some of your attachment to the fruits of action, then you can open the door to Natural Yoga. Natural Yoga liberates you from both pleasure and pain. You protest, “Wait a minute, don’t you take my pleasure away! I’ll put up with some pain as long as I get some pleasure.” By surrendering to the Truth, you gradually get over the suffering of pain and the enjoyment of pleasure. In life, pain is the payment, pleasure is the reward. It is the fruit. Getting caught in this endless cycle of pain and pleasure is ordinary human life. An individual who wants liberation seeks to transcend this cycle. A practitioner of Natural Yoga, instead of pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain, seeks only union with Truth, perfect awareness of the way things really are. He or she becomes more and more detached. Both pleasure and pain become the same. A sincere meditator seeks pure consciousness of the way it is. The ‘way it is’ is often called ‘That’ in yogic scripture. Pure consciousness of ‘That’ is bliss. Pure consciousness of the “way it is” (‘that’) may be called direct knowledge. When you have direct knowledge of ‘That’ which is true, you are in bliss. This is union with God. A liberated individual having transcended pleasure and pain comes to know God directly. If someone just talks to you about Truth, it tends to be dry. If someone just talks about God, you may feel belittled. But when you are the one that ends up knowing the Truth directly, you are in the state of bliss. Bliss is not the same as pleasure. Bliss is pure consciousness of Truth. The state you are in when you go into union is bliss. Bliss is not the titillation of a nerve ending; that is pleasure. If that nerve is not titillated, then it is painful. “Oh I feel so lonesome and left out. I feel depressed and hurt.” This happens because the nerve fiber did not get its electrical stimulus. But if you have pure consciousness of God or Truth, it is bliss. It is union with God. How do you to reach bliss? By the realizing that you are not the doer. By surrendering to the Truth. This leads to pure consciousness of the Truth and you have bliss. I speak not from theory, but from experience that this is the case. Surrender even in the early stages of the process of union with God, leads to bliss and to God. By the grace of my spiritual teacher it has happened to me. I can say that direct knowledge of Truth is God, beyond doubt, beyond certainty. There are many schools of thought, many religions and teachers who teach surrender to God in the form of the divine energy. The Christians on the day of the Pentecost were invested with the Holy Spirit which is the same thing as divine energy. They spoke in tongues and rolled on the floor, called out to God, cried, and laughed with joy. The purification had begun. The Holy Spirit had descended upon them. Chi is another name for the divine energy. Tai Chi tries directs this energy. The name is ‘Orgone’ to the Reichians. They permit the energy to flow and to surrender to it. These are all steps in the right direction. They are all excellent techniques. In Natural Mediation, we deal with the same energy. In yogic tradition, the guru gives Shaktipat initiation awakening the divine energy in his or her students. My spiritual teacher has provided us with a broad perspective of the spiritual growth process based on his experience in Natural Yoga. He practiced ten hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year for over thirty years. His life was Natural Yoga. He understood and practiced Natural Yoga in the context of ancient scripture. He was taught by his teacher, Lord Lakulisha, who achieved divine body through Natural Yoga. Natural Yoga has a history of thousands of years of sincere meditators experimenting, going up blind alleys, finding the way and then staying on course. They continued until they achieved the highest state of union with God, the development of the divine body, and the fulfillment of life. There are many names for this meditation. When I was in India, Swami Kripalvananda called me back into his room and wrote something his chalkboard in Hindi. I had to ask the translator to come back. Kripalu wrote, “The name of this yoga is love.” I did not know what he meant at the time. Now I have a good idea. Love and surrender are the same. One’s most outstanding quality is love. And God is love. So when you surrender to God, to Perfection, to Truth, you love Him so He can love you. This is what leads to union. Without love none of it is possible. Love does not mean surrendering to people’s personalities, weaknesses, inabilities, failures, or impurities. You surrender to the Divine, the Divine that is everywhere and in everything. You should not surrender to imperfections, disease, insanity and false knowledge. Surrender only to the Divine Truth which is in the heart of everyone. This is the act of love. Kripalu told me that for thousands of years, it has been the custom in India when greeting or parting to say, “Victory to God!” Jai Bhagawan If you like to read the remaining parts of his small book, you can find it here: http://www.naturalmeditation.net/Design/nmdocument.html

One of the things about the Russia-Ukraine thing, which I have read like zero about and have not been following, is that if the people just didn't follow the orders, it wouldn't happen because there wouldn't be anything to make it happen. But, because people do follow the orders, it does. The more who go in to help fight = more death/destruction. You are kinda better off staying out as one less person involved. With the USA-Middle East thing, the USA was basically Russia and the Middle East was basically Ukraine - so for people in the USA to be like, oh we pity Ukraine, well why didn't you pity the Middle East when your country, the USA, was there for like 20 years? However, I also know nothing about that as well and so maybe I shouldn't be talking. If the USA was only in the Middle East for Oil, well maybe Russia is doing the same - for some resource. The large countries are a danger to the small countries.... a bully trying to eat someone else's cake ... I was talking with a peer today and she said that she has been an EMT and is having to go to therapy because a 5 year old died in her hands. I told her that I too have dealt with death from Civil Engineering. The difference is the EMT's work to prevent death and the Civil Engineers actively cause it. I quit my job over the caused death that Civil Engineers create. Death is weird and yeah I think I am not enlightened enough at my current stage to think about it differently. I think that with Civil Engineering, either you are low conscious and don't feel bad about the death you are causing, or are even unaware of it; you are medium conscious and aware of the death you are causing and you feel bad about it; or you are high conscious and see everything not as death but as a transformation from one to another, or (ah idk). I guess it is hard to find beauty in killing animals/bugs/trees - at least for me. ... I am wondering if I need to take a break from the books I have been reading and just finish the book I started writing.. but I am also wondering if I need to get a professional editor or just use some peers... I have kinda quit caring about it. I have another book idea as well.... I was also thinking it would be cool to make wild art and wild videos - or like digital art videos... There are some really good ones. ... I feel like people are partly controlled through the media. If people quit watching the media, they may not be controlled as easily. It is a coin toss on whether to watch it. Watch it and you may experience stress/worry/anger. Don't watch it and you may feel carefree and at ease. However, the people who watch it may get more info - but that info could be lies and they could be highly deceived. It can be hard to tell who to trust. If something is important enough, someone else who is obsessed with the news will tell you, a peer once said.

Did 2 hours straight of complex meta learning today. That's the easy part, reading shit that makes u FEEL like a genius, BUT Learning = Multi - Step Process & real learning is about personal transformation, not absorbing information once. But how do I actually remember it, internalize it, get it to change my behavior & utimately become the knowledge as well as ruthless apply it? And how do I avoid the self deception mechanism of over conceptualization & addiction to knowledge, over thinking VS Action 90-95% action & direct experience, this is how life should be anyway. I dunno, these questions somewhat represent an art form, like a golf swing or balancing on ice skates, I probably just gradually get better (or I don't if I don't have awareness & intention then I'll just stay mediocre, awareness is everything ultimately, I do believe awareness heals all wounds, but it takes time to get the compound interest from it(. Reading about meta - learning, but the mind just wants irony & not doing anything meta with that information & just go read something else, like a leaky bath tub & it can't fill up, can't catch the water cos it keeps leaking out & u keep the water going but nothing sticks. Made that mistake many times before, fuck that. Ruthless Application & cognitive & psychological humility forever, my mind always wants to take the lazy addictive path. Read book> Assimilate > Double check I assimilated > connect dots > Reflective questions > Rapid Implementation plan > Implement > record results > Feedback > Iteration. Scientific method is pretty powerful applied to self help > observation, technique experiment feedback iteration, & observe variables). I Read couple hours & then did some responsibilities for an hour or 2, then I got back into a fucking rut, had a little chocolate, was DURPING around, obsessing over food & distraction, listened to some owen cook, then a Leo clip about asking questions, had to remind myself Then I googled about being in a rut, & boom I was sorta outa the rut > Make goals & focus on them > This primes delayed gratification & there's a silent power to Anticipation, Anticipation is energizing Reminder of techniques to implement /Increase consistency : G cal schedulling on micro & macro Goal Setting Across every domain (micro & macro) - (small + big picture) Plans Pre mortem Pre schedulling / Time blocking basically every day for the entire week Sunday life architect day (TOMORROW WILL I DO IT) Goals > Vision Board > Visualization (I realized more powerful than just visualization alone, intensifies & specifies the focus of the visualization session)

I'll be spending my next 5 hours in building an entire timeline of events. What are the events that happened in the past 18-20 days. January 29..I get Covid I suddenly catch Covid after barely recovering from another flu just a week before. Leo is not making videos anymore in the first week of February. This is the post where users begin to vent. leo-why-is-there-no-new-videos I'm suffering Covid in the first week of February and it's really bad. I cannot even breathe, high fever. On February 7, a member here slides into my dm and tells me that he needs to talk to me. I tell I'm extremely ill and I need my time. I try to avoid conversations with people because my condition is awful. My brain is totally inflamed and I couldn't move at all.. I was feeling paralyzed and sick. Thanks Covid. Another important detail is that I wasn't vaccinated. I keep drinking juices like guava,orange, pomegranate and paracetamol to recover. But the recovery is super slow.. - Feb 10 By February 10 I'm completely immersed in taking care of myself. I'm hopeful. I also make a thread. this-is-so-funny-you-gotta-watch-this I'm trying to keep my spirits up. -Feb 12 I am focusing on political news. I learn about the Ottawa Protests. I'm scared. I don't know what to make of it. This is the first time I see the validity of the right wing. My foray into politics begins. I write about the orange beret. I also make a thread about the Ottawa protests. These protests are going to be a significant event in my life in terms of cognitive shift. This is thread on the Ottawa Protests. trucker-protests-in-ottawa - Feb 13 - I start the Orange beret. This is the beginning of distrust with the forum. I'm disappointed in someone as I realize they are racist in a closeted way. I make this post out of deep disappointment realizing that racism is always going to exist one way or another and disadvantaged people will always face racism whether they like it or not. why-does-racism-exist -Feb 14 is Valentines day. My mother threw a bottle at me. I felt suicidal after that. I'm still suffering Covid. Leo uploads a video on Solipsism and immediately within hours takes it down. Members on the forum are confused by Leo's sudden and abrupt decision. This is the post where he states that. taking-down-solipsism-video - Feb 15. I'm just recovering from Covid 19. My covid symptoms began on somewhere around January 29 and continued till February 14 after which recovery begins. At the same time Leo releases Solipsism video. - Feb 16, Leo Gura makes a post on banning certain users. This was the post. following-users-banned - Feb 16, 2022. Leo Gura makes a post strict enforcement. This is the post. more-stringent-enforcement-is-coming The post/thread ends abruptly on February 19. This thread causes many users to lose interest in the forum and forum population suddenly declines significantly. - Feb 17 many users have left by this time. Forum looks weird and empty. Awkward. In the same thread about stringent enforcement I also made a post about authoritarian users.. - Feb 18/ 19 I make a post on February 14 of putting a gun to my head after my mother had thrown a bottle at me. This is the post. I have to get the post locked by February 16. I-feel-like-putting-a-gun-to-my-head Me and my husband are married the same month in the second week of February. I announce my marriage on February 17. - Feb 18 is my happy day. But I'm still extremely nervous because of whatever happened between me and my mom. I suffer multiple panic attacks through the day and zero sleep. My system is totally spiralling out of control as a result of my altercation with my mother. It completely traumatizes me. - Feb 18 Someone predicts a bad situation between Ukraine and Russia. This is the post do-you-think-putin-will-start-a-war Fears of a war begin. - Feb 19 I'm still contemplating whether I want to be on the forum. - Feb 20 I'm thinking that I should not be on the forum. Russia Ukraine War begins on February 20. I don't receive any information or news until a few days later. - Feb 21 spl day. I wear a green gown. My husband is with me for the whole day. Nahm was demoted on February 21, my D day. I'm very upset by whatever is revealed. I also realize that day that mods aren't as perfect as I thought and I couldn't trust mods anymore. Its also the day I make this post on how to love myself. In the days between February 14 when my mother threw a bottle at me and February 21 the d day, I realize that the only thing that can save me is Self love. how-to-love-myself This realization had previously come on February 18 when I make this post in the meditation section. you-have-to-go-through-intense-fear-to-experience-love This is my most valuable insight (and also my most valuable post) on this forum of all the 4 years I spent here. This came to me after 4 years of struggle. Both threads were extremely valuable. - Feb 22.. I argue with Adeptus Psychonautica about why he constantly criticizes Leo. This is the post why-not-use-a-paywall-to-improve-the-quality-of-this-forum - Feb 23 People begin to predict the possibility of WW3 because of Russian tension with Ukraine. These are the posts. ww3-how-bad-is-the-ukrain-situation russia-ukraine-war -Feb 24 I'm trying to assess the Ukraine situation. I feel very awful. I can't believe the possibility of WW3. My mom constantly tells me that WW3 is a real possibility. I shut her down. I'm too pissed. I just can't think straight anymore. I can't make sense of world events. It's turning my world upside down. I immediately grab resources on WW2 and what I discover will change my life forever. I discover the Holodomor situation and I'm totally terrified how this was never brought to the public in history textbooks. I'm very upset. I suffer intense panic attacks after reading about it. I spend the next few days immersed into learning about the WW2 situation. And it's very tragic and frightening to even contemplate on. -Feb 25 I'm still reading about WW2. -Feb 26 I'm still reading about WW2. This is one of the most traumatizing events in my life. I spend the whole night terrified and crying in the bathroom (even feeling self destructive and screaming because I can't take it), I am constantly getting in and out of the bathroom because I'm suffering panic attacks and I'm going insane. I just cannot deal with learning all the cruelty during WW2. This is a significant event and day in my life because now I understand how the world works and how sad and bad humanity really is. I'm screaming and it hurts. -Feb 27 I try my best to recover from all the panic attacks and the awful feelings I felt. I try to get some rest and not think too much about it. But it's still in the back of my head. I have reached 1944 in terms of reading about WW2. Still not there yet. -Feb 28 Anxiety is down and I'm feeling better. Yet I'm still reading and following through WW2. I have reached 1945 and 1947. I cannot read anymore because every time I read I suffer anxiety and have to constantly turn away from reading. It is so bad. -Feb 28 John Paul incident. I feel stressed out after the argument. I decide that I don't want the forum anymore or that I should not open ask anymore questions in the forum and simply focus on helping people. I end the journal Feb 23 - Feb 28 successfully following through with it. I start a new journal titled March 1- March 8 but I'm not able to follow through and I will need to abandon the concept of weekly journals about a week later from March 1, disappointing because I thought it would work but I become seriously ill again. - March 1 I suffer leg injury from a fall in the bathroom. It's over for me for the next few days. I walk with the help of a stick. Trying to relax as much as possible right now. It's March 1. I need to fill my orange beret journal. Juicy birdy insights. I also have my Zegglife trademark logo ready. This is my brand and I'm proud of my brand. This is the logo I create or take from the internet. It's a willow tree. This becomes the symbol for my holistic life and purpose. On March 1 I come up with the concept of the Emperor Archetype who I call Emperor Olaf inspired by how people can live happily under a benevolent king/Emperor who won't be tyrannical like Putin. While being bedridden due to leg injury I also start my new YouTube channel called Zegglife. - March 2.. Lot of suggestions are submitted to the forum. I start the journal 'Upgrading my Political Knowledge.' I start a journal on March 3 about favorable interactions on the forum to avoid arguments. interactions-on-this-forum - March 3 John Paul leaves. -March 3 I learn about Russia and Britain in WW2. I am lying on the floor crying and thinking how could this even be possible. I am going through a cathartic process. I can't imagine that these people are Christian. The soldiers are Christian. How could they rape women? I can't imagine this. This is an Abrahamic religion. I'm terrified. I decide it's time to abandon Christianity. The God of Abraham cannot be a good God. I make up my mind. I abandon Christianity on March 3. I make a thread on it. im-abandoning-christianity - March 4 I start the journal 'My Religious Transformation' - March 5 I start the journal 'The Roman(magnum opus).' This is my journal entry on that day. "I'm so happy right now. Extremely happy. I no longer need Christianity although I still like the teachings of Christ. Now I have the religion of Deihism that fixes my spiritual issues. ⚖️... This is the temporary symbol, the balance" That day I invent my own religion and name it Deihism. - March 6 I start a journal 'Everyday people' to document the struggles and victories of everyday people. - March 7 I start a journal on Christianity. I want to explore both Judaism and Christianity and learn more from these religions. On March 7, I discover a channel with an extremely feminine woman and I'm very impressed with that. And I decide to explore femininity in more depth. So I start threads on femininity. One thread titled "What do guys on this forum consider as feminine?" what-do-guys-on-this-forum-consider-as-feminine I go deeper into concepts on March 7. I realize that I'm unable to complete the weekly journal March 1 - March 8 because of my mental health struggles due to various issues including the war. So I abandon that journal. I start a new journal March 7. It includes many useful insights that I arrive at on that day. On March 7 I write this entry in my journal - " I'm unable to follow the old format. So today is March 7 and I don't want to put an end date on my journal. I just want to keep tracking as long as I want. All my thoughts, emotions and actions and insights are going to be here. This liberates me from a time constraint. " I also realize that Kamala Harris has a very feminine smile and is a good role model. I want to see this woman's smile everyday. It's kinda uplifting. She looks like a cool mother figure to me. - March 8 I write a curious comment in my journal " I'm so fed up with bias." The comment is inspired by the thread "What do guys on this forum consider as feminine?" especially by this comment what-do-guys-on-this-forum-consider-as-feminine I kinda get tired of arguing on the forum and fall asleep. I wake up feeling better and then I write my wonderful insight here Insight I also start the journal 'I don't think I'm very feminine on the same day. - March 9 I start the journal 'How must we be as a nation.' I also want to apply the example of a nation to life. I start the journal 'driftwood' and it explores general thoughts. Drifting mind. By March 9 I realize how important femininity is to my Iife. - March 10 I have understood that femininity helps me more than anything. I only want to be surrounded by feminine women and feminine men. That way I stay safe. And I feel much better and energized with femininity. I feel aggressed upon by masculinity. I can't take it anymore. I'm changing everything in my life for the better and I want to have a fresh start in my life using feminine principles. Masculinity is harmful to me. It caused me permanent damage. Feminists in this regard can be damaging to women. I also made threads on cultivating femininity.

interactions-on-this-forum uplifting-songs-for-everyday i-dont-think-im-very-feminine my-religious-transformation christianity the-romanmagnum-opus educated-and-informed-take everyday-people upgrading-my-political-knowledge how-must-we-be-as-a-nation driftwood march-9 .

Look into hermetics. Hermetic Seal of Light (Quintessence) This symbol, often referred to as the synthesis of alchemy or the Hermetic Seal, hearkens back to ancient Pythagorean philosophy, wherein the square, circle, the and the triangle are the emblems of the material body, the soul, and the spirit, the three elements believed to be necessary for alchemical transformation. Alchemically, these are Mercury, Salt, and Sulfur. In Atalanta Fugiens, the alchemical text illustrated below, it is written, “Make of man and woman a circle; thence a square; thence a triangle; form a circle, and you will have the Philosopher’s Stone,” a hidden geometrical formula for creating an octave and a golden rectangle. http://symboldictionary.net/?p=1107

So I abandoned Christianity. It's sad. I suffered temporary shock but I'm recovering. Now my focus is on Roman pagan religions (images of flowers and fountains in my head) and I'm eyeing Ancient Egypt. Those were the glorious days. People rejoiced in their Gods, prayed for rain. Those were the happy days. Who says the Romans didn't flourish? Who says the Egyptians weren't happy?

On depression and suicidal thoughts, and the tools to process them which lead to empowerment In summer I already wrote in On depressive periods and current state how depression is the loop of believing thoughts & emotional states to be true and thus going deeper in self-referential thoughts which again result in a more depressive emotional reaction. Thoughts are usually about oneself not being good, authentic, productive, loving, full with energy and life, inspired, intelligent, in control, at ease, helping society, self-caring, a good friend, lover, mate, coworker, boss, child or parent and so on. Depressive thoughts hurt, and when they are believed they hurt more by causing more depressive states and behaviors. It is being in victim state to one’s thoughts and emotions because “they are happening to me”. Distraction in that state is a pain killer which makes the pain stronger after the distraction is turned off. Also, distraction can be used for getting a dopamine spike, so that’s also a way breaking the loop can be more difficult. It’s because distraction can become a toxic habit. Suicidal thoughts arise from feeling without life, inspiration, meaning and spiritual connectedness & richness. They could bring it on an existential level with shadow work on death (which is a great tool for expansion), but suicidal thoughts are coming from an avoidance of life. Ironic how it’s avoiding life which expresses itself in the energy of feeling without life. Suicidal thoughts are a clear pointer that this feeling state doesn’t resonate. Powerlessness and victim state don’t allow that recognition because one is too deep in the story to recognize one plays the character in the script. Victim state is being identified with the story. The core of not feeling good is authentic. All falsehood around that (beliefs, identity, thoughts) is constructed and derives its legitimacy from this knowing of not feeling good. And again, this knowing is twisted in the story so that any touching of the core makes one believe the story because one assumes them to be true. From New Year’s till end of February I was in a more depressive state. It was during that time that I got to therapy (depression wasn’t the initiator to go there, it was being instable from seeing everything as unreal). Of course, getting a prescription and taking antidepressants can make one feel better to make transformation happen. I didn’t want to take them because I knew the real transformation lies in behavior change, emotional mastery and having a social network of communal support. Right now I am feeling good and in my power. Interestingly, when I wrote about depressive periods in the summer I thought to be done. I see right now how I am still not done although I like to believe there is a clear line between depression and no depression. I see how it is a process. I recognize what I can do to increase my consciousness and awareness of emotions and thoughts: It’s deepening my sense of presence which is the ground for life to bloom. A closer connection to source renders reality more clearly and informs me with a richer and more tangible sense of power to create reality. There is something I read from Bruce Lyon yesterday: He says power is not external but the divine source within. And love is the willingness to reach for that power and to express it. When depression veils source and covers up love, it is then hardly possible to live from it. The fog of depression lets memory sail away even when there was a strong connection to power in the past. Meditation increases presence. Meditation is returning to the breath or point of concentration no matter what thoughts come up and what emotions develop as reactions to these thoughts. Thoughts like not being able to meditate or being bad at it cause frustration, anger, rage, sadness, powerlessness, envy, jealousy and so on. When emotions are felt & let go and when thoughts are recognized as such & dispelled there comes clarity. It then becomes laughable that thoughts are ever believed to be true. The knowing of presence empowers one to choose what already resonates and is true. This includes seeing through beliefs about identity i.e., what one believes to be. Memory goes away in depression. It might feel like becoming dumb because simple things like having written something or taking pills just aren’t clear. Things from yesterday feel like a distant dream and thus it feels like living the same day because there is no clear and tangible past. Journaling helps in healing the thinking ability. I already wrote it in the summer that contemplative journaling combined with emotional journaling help. And I forgot it because I didn’t read it because of feeling powerless and thus the mind being full with fog or because of being distracted. Journaling is self-therapy. Reflection heals the mind because it is used for anything else than being concerned with self-referential stories and emotions. Lack of energy is there when one is caught up in the depression loop. Looking at the loop with journaling helps getting a healthy distance whereas before one couldn’t see the forest for the trees. A healthy distance is a balance of yin and yang. The loop is felt and yet the distance doesn’t let one be drained of energy. How could I slip back? Well, it’s about not meditating and journaling. With them there is awareness, understanding and compassion for one’s habits. It looks like this for me: When distraction is a habit and there is no healthy distance to recognize oneself, it then is automatic to get frustrated about the fact that distraction doesn’t make the pain away. It is felt that one still hurts. A thought about distraction being of no use is believed. Frustration arises. Frustration is avoided by going into distraction. Pent up frustration leads to anger and hate and so on. There is a general shrinking of feeling capability because the so called negative emotions are avoided to be felt. The smaller capability leads to being less connected to oneself and this is then continued in the loop. And yet, I also see that this is a beautiful story.

@Ryan_047 Usually there is alot more going on inside of us that manifests in the form of loneliness. Observing it it is one part of the equation. Doing the deeper inner work and overall Self transformation are the other parts of the equation. It won't happen in one insight.

@SwiftQuill It doesn't sound like cheesy bullshit bro. Sounds legit. @catcat69123 Now that's transformation.