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Bird of Purpose (poetic song about Life Purpose) https://suno.com/song/d9a71ba3-af1a-46d3-8def-6cb8956c81a0?sh=tljhDV7eohqeEsbz (Verse 1) I looked up into golden skies, Chasing wings I couldn’t find. The faster I moved, the further you flew, A shadow in the morning light. (Chorus) But when I stopped, when I stood still, The sky grew quiet, the world stood still. You seldom seek what you will find — It comes with peace, not chasing time. No cage, no net, no need to claim, The bird of purpose knew my name. (Verse 2) I listened close, the forest breathed, A silence spoke what I believed. Not in the chase, but in the stay, The bird came near and did not stray. (Bridge) Bird of purpose, you've taught me well, No louder song than the quiet spell. You're more than feathers gliding free, You're the voice that's always been in me. (Final Chorus) And when I stopped, when I stood still, The sky grew wide, the air grew still. You seldom seek what you will find — It lives inside, not far behind. No cage, no net, no need to claim, The bird of purpose bears my name. (Outro / Transformation) And now I dream, and now I rise, I am the bird that fills the skies. I choose the path, I shape the flame, My wings are thought, my soul the frame. Imagination lifts me high — No longer seeking — I now fly. Created with some help of AI. Could not generate anything I was really satisfied with but it's still neat. I just wanted to express in some way the experience I had. I often place an image or work of art at the top of my journal entries and noticed something interesting. When I first bought the Life Purpose Course at the beginning of the Covid Pandemic I used this image in my journal entry: I felt it nicely symbolized me trying to find and chase after my "Life Purpose." Today I was writing in my journal about the projects I was working on and again reflecting on my Life Purpose. I named the entry "Becoming" and looked for a fitting piece of art for the word. I found this: And then I realized it was very similar to the other image. Except now in the artwork there isn't the element of "chasing" and more "observing" and "listening" and "playing with." Just a funny coincidence but I thought it was nice to vibe with the symbolism for a bit and this then inspired me to write this song "Bird of Purpose."

Whether this whole tariff scenario is just a opening gambit to gain leverage for negotiations, or is here to stay - the following is a great article on what keeping these tariffs in place means, and what it entails to bring back manufacturing to America: https://x.com/molson_hart/status/1908940952908996984?s=46&t=DuLUbFRQFGpB8oo7PwRglQ ”On April 2nd, 2025, our president announced major new taxes on imports from foreign countries (“tariffs”), ranging from 10% to 49%. The stated goal is to bring manufacturing back to the United States and to “make America wealthy again”. These tariffs will not work. In fact, they may even do the opposite, fail to bring manufacturing back and make America poorer in the process. This article gives the 14 reasons why this is the case, how the United States could bring manufacturing back if it were serious about doing so, and what will ultimately happen with this wrongheaded policy I’ve been in the manufacturing industry for 15 years. I’ve manufactured in the USA and in China. I worked in a factory in China. I speak and read Chinese. I’ve purchased millions of dollars worth of goods from the US and China, but also Vietnam, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Cambodia. I’ve also visited many factories in Mexico and consider myself a student of how countries rise and fall. In other words, unlike many who have voiced an opinion on this topic, I know what I am talking about. And that’s why I felt compelled to write this article. I had to do it. I’m a first generation American and I love my country and it pains me to see it hurtling at high speed towards an economic brick wall. This article is an attempt to hit the brakes. The 14 Reasons Why these Tariffs Will Not Bring Manufacturing Back 1. They’re not high enough A tariff is a tax on an imported product. For example, when Apple imports an iPhone that was made in China it declares to the United States government what it paid to make that product overseas. Let’s say it’s $100. When there is a 54% tariff, Apple pays $100 to the manufacturer in China and $54 to the US government when importing. In this simplified example, an iPhone used to cost Apple $100, but it now costs $154. For every dollar Apple spends, Apple needs to make profit. So Apple sells iPhones to stores for double what it pays for them. And stores sell iPhones to consumers like you and me for double what it pays for them, as well. Before the tariffs, prices looked like this: Apple bought iPhones it designed for $100 Apple sold iPhones for $200 to stores Stores sold iPhones to you and me for $400 After the tariffs, prices look like this: Apple bought iPhones for $154 ($100 + $54 in import taxes) Apple sells those iPhones for $308 (double what it paid) Stores sell those iPhones to you and me for $616 (double what they paid) Now that you know what a tariff is, let me tell to you why they aren’t high enough to bring manufacturing back to the United States. In short, manufacturing in the United States is so expensive and our supply chain (we’ll explain that next) is so bad that making that iPhone in the United States without that 54% tariff, would still cost more than in China with 54% tariff. Since it still costs less to make the iPhone in China, both Apple and consumers would prefer it be made there, so it will, and not in the USA. 2. America’s industrial supply chain for many products is weak. Think of a supply chain as a company’s ability to get the components it needs to build a finished product. Suppose you wanted to build and sell wooden furniture. You’re going to need wood, nails, glue, etc. Otherwise you can’t do it. If you want to build an iPhone you need to procure a glass screen, shaped metal, and numerous internal electronic components. Now you might be thinking, “what do you mean America has a weak supply chain?” I’ve built furniture, I’ve assembled a computer. I can get everything I want at Home Depot and at Amazon. That’s because America has an amazing consumer supply chain, one of the best, if not the best in the world, but this is totally different from having an industrial supply chain. When you’re operating a furniture factory, you need an industrial quantity of wood, more wood than any Home Depot near you has in store. And you need it fast and cheap. It turns out that the United States has a good supply chain for wood, which is why, despite higher wages, we export chopsticks to China. We have abundant cheap wood in the forests of the Northern United States. But if you decided to move that chopstick factory to desert Saudi Arabia, you would not succeed, because their supply chain for wood is poor; there simply aren’t any trees for 1,000s of miles. When it comes to the iPhone, all the factories which make the needed components are in Asia, which is one reason why, even with a 54% tariff, it’s cheaper to assemble that iPhone in China than in the United States. It’s cheaper and faster to get those components from nearby factories in Asia than it is to get them from the US, which, because said factories no longer exist here, has to buy these components from Asia anyways. Supply chains sound complicated, but aren’t. If you can’t get the components you need at a reasonable price and timeline to build a finished product, it doesn’t matter what the tariffs are, you have to import it, because you can’t build it locally. 3. We don’t know how to make it Apple knows how to build an iPhone, but may not know how to make the individual components. It may seem trivial to make that glass that separates your finger from the electronic engineering that powers your ability to access the internet, but it’s difficult. The world buys semiconductors from Taiwan, not just because its relatively expensive (but more expensive than China) labor and excellent supply chain, but because they know how to make the best semiconductors in the world. Even with infinite money, we cannot duplicate that, because we lack the knowhow. A 54% tariff does not solve that problem. We still need to buy semiconductors from Taiwan, which is perhaps why the administration put in an exception for semiconductors, because we need them and because we can’t make them without their help. This is a problem which applies to more than just semiconductors. We have forgotten how to make products people wrongly consider to be basic, too. My company makes educational toys from plastic called Brain Flakes. To make Brain Flakes, you melt plastic and force it into shaped metal molds. Were we to import the machines and molds needed to do this, it would work for a little while, but as soon as one of those molds broke, we’d be in trouble, because there are almost no moldmakers left in the United States. The people who knew how to build and repair molds have either passed away or are long retired. In the event of a problem, we’d have to order a new mold from China or send ours back, shutting down production for months. People trivialize the complexity and difficulty of manufacturing when it’s really hard. And if we don’t know how to make something, it doesn’t matter what the tariff is. It won’t get made in America. 5. The effective cost of labor in the United States is higher than it looks Most people think that the reason why we make products in China instead of the United States is cheaper labor. That’s true, but it’s not the whole story. Frankly, the whole story is hard to read. People are not machines, they are not numbers on a spreadsheet or inputs into a manufacturing cost formula. I respect everyone who works hard and the people I have worked with over the years, and I want Americans to live better, happier lives. Chinese manufacturing labor isn’t just cheaper. It’s better. In China, there are no people who are too fat to work. The workers don’t storm off midshift, never to return to their job. You don’t have people who insist on being paid in cash so that they can keep their disability payments, while they do acrobatics on the factory floor that the non-disabled workers cannot do. Chinese workers much less likely to physically attack each other and their manager. They don’t take 30 minute bathroom breaks on company time. They don’t often quit because their out-of-state mother of their children discovered their new job and now receives 60% of their wages as child support. They don’t disappear because they’ve gone on meth benders. And they don’t fall asleep on a box midshift because their pay from yesterday got converted into pills. And they can do their times tables. To manufacture, you need to be able to consistently and accurately multiply 7 times 9 and read in English, and a disturbingly large portion of the American workforce cannot do that. Chinese workers work longer hours more happily and they’re physically faster with their hands; they can do things that American labor can’t. It’s years of accumulated skill, but it’s also a culture that is oriented around hard work and education that the United States no longer has. Sadly, what I describe above are not theoretical situations. These are things that I have experienced or seen with my own eyes. It’s fixable, but the American workforce needs great improvement in order to compete with the world’s, even with tariffs. So yes, Chinese wages are lower, but there many countries with wages lower than China’s. It’s the work ethic, knowhow, commitment, combined with top notch infrastructure, that makes China the most powerful manufacturing country in the world today. 6. We don’t have the infrastructure to manufacture The inputs to manufacturing are not just materials, labor, and knowhow. You need infrastructure like electricity and good roads for transportation, too. Since the year 2000, US electricity generation per person has been flat. In China, over the same time period, it has increased 400%. China generates over twice as much electricity person today as the United States. Why? Manufacturing. To run the machines which make the products we use, you need electricity, a lot of it. We already have electricity instability in this country. Without the construction of huge amounts of new energy infrastructure, like nuclear power plants, we cannot meaningfully increase our manufacturing output. And it would put huge stress on our roads and create lots more dangerous traffic. When we import finished goods from foreign countries, a truck delivers them from the port or the airport to distribution centers, stores, and where we live and work. When you start manufacturing, every single component, from factory to factory, needs to be moved, increasing the number of trucks on the road many times. Paving more roads, modernizing our seaports, improving our airports, speeding up our train terminals, and building power plants in the costliest nation in the world to build is a huge undertaking that people are not appreciating when they say “well, we’ll just make it in America”. 7. Made in America will take time. We placed a $50,000 order with our supplier overseas before the election in November 2024. At the time of ordering, there were no import taxes on the goods. By the time it arrived, a 20% tariff had been applied and we had a surprise bill for $10,000. It can easily take 180 days for many products to go from order, to on your doorstep and this tariff policy seems not to understand that. It takes at least, in the most favorable of jurisdictions, 2 years (if you can get the permits) to build a factory in the United States. I know because I’ve done it. From there, it can take 6 months to a year for it to become efficient. It can take months for products to come off the assembly lines. All this ignores all the infrastructure that will need to be built (new roads, new power plants, etc.) to service the new factory. By the time “made in America” has begun, we will be electing a new president. 8. Uncertainty and complexity around the tariffs To start manufacturing in the United States, a company needs to make a large investment. They will need to buy new machinery and if no existing building is suitable, they will need to construct a new building. These things cost money, a lot, in fact. And significantly more in the USA, than they do in other countries. In exchange for this risk, there must be some reward. If that reward is uncertain, no one will do it. Within the past month, the president put a 25% tariff on Mexico, and then got rid of it, only to apply it again, and then get rid of it a second time. Then, last week, he was expected to apply new tariffs to Mexico, but didn’t. If you’re building a new factory in the United States, your investment will alternate between maybe it will work, and catastrophic loss according to which way the tariffs and the wind blows. No one is building factories right now, and no one is renting them, because there is no certainty that any of these tariffs will last. How do I know? I built a factory in Austin, Texas in an industrial area. I cut its rent 40% two weeks ago and I can’t get a lick of interest from industrial renters. The tariffs have frozen business activity because no one wants to take a big risk dependent on a policy that may change next week. Even further, the tariffs are confusing, poorly communicated, and complex. Today, if you want to import something from China, you need to add the original import duty, plus a 20% “fentanyl tariff”, plus a 34% “reciprocal tariff”, and an additional 25% “Venezuelan oil” tariff, should it be determined that China is buying Venezualan oil. The problem is there is no list of countries which are importing Venezuelan oil provided by the White House, so you don’t know if you do or don’t need to add that 25% and you also don’t know when any of these tariffs will go into effect because of unclear language. As such, you can’t calculate your costs, either with certainty or accuracy, therefore, not only do you not build a factory in the United States, you cease all business activity, the type of thing that can cause a recession, if not worse. For the past month, as someone who runs a business in this industry, I have spent a huge portion of my time just trying to keep up with the constant changes, instead of running my business. 9. Most Americans are going to hate manufacturing Americans want less crime, good schools for their kids, and inexpensive healthcare. They don’t want to be sewing shirts. The people most excited about this new tariff policy tend to be those who’ve never actually made anything, because if you have, you’d know how hard the work is. When I first went to China as a naive 24 year old, I told my supplier I was going to “work a day in his factory!” I lasted 4 hours. It was freezing cold, middle of winter, I had to crouch on a small stool, hunched over, assembling little parts with my fingers at 1/4 the speed of the women next to me. My back hurt, my fingers hurt. It was horrible. That’s a lot of manufacturing. And enjoy the blackouts, the dangerous trucks on the road, the additional pollution, etc. Be careful what you wish for America. Doing office work and selling ideas and assets is a lot easier than making actual things. 10. The labor does not exist to make good products There are over a billion people in China making stuff. As of right now there are 12 million people looking for work in the United States (4% unemployment). Ignoring for a moment the comparative inefficiency of labor and the billions of people making products outside of China, where are the people that are going to do these jobs? Do you simply say “make America great again” 3 times and they will appear with the skills needed to do the work? And where are the managers to manage these people? One of the reasons why manufacturing has declined in the United States is a brain drain towards sectors that make more money. Are people who make money on the stock market, in real estate, in venture capital, and in startups going to start sewing shirts? It’s completely and totally unrealistic to assume that people will move from superficially high productivity sectors driven by US Dollar strength to products that are low on the value chain. The United States is trying to bring back the jobs that China doesn’t even want. They have policies to reduce low value manufacturing, yet we are applying tariffs to bring it back. It’s incomprehensible. 11. Automation will not save us. Most people think that the reason why American manufacturing is not competitive is labor costs. Most people think this can be solved by automation. They’re wrong. First, China, on a yearly basis installs 7x as many industrial robots as we do in the United States. Second, Chinese robots are cheaper. Third, most of today’s manufacturing done by people cannot be automated. If it could, it would have already been done so, by China, which, again, has increasingly high labor costs relative to the rest of the world. The robots you see on social media doing backflips are, today, mostly for show and unreliable off camera. They are not useful in industrial environments where, if a humanoid robot can do it, an industrial machine which is specialized in the task can do it even better. For example, instead of having a humanoid robot doing a repetitive task such as carrying a boxes from one station to another, you can simply set up a cheaper, faster conveyor belt. Said another way, the printer in your office, is cheaper and more efficient than both a human and a humanoid robot with a pen, hand drawing each letter. It’s unlikely that American ingenuity will be able to counter the flood of Chinese industrial robots which is coming. The first commercially electrical vehicle was designed and built in the United States, but today China is dominating electric vehicle manufacturing across the world. Industrial robots will likely be the same story. 12. Robots and overseas factory workers don’t file lawsuits, but Americans do I probably should not have written this article. Not only will I be attacked for being unpatriotic, but what I have written here makes me susceptible to employment lawsuits. For the record, I don’t use a person’s origin to determine whether or not they will do good work. I just look at the person and what they’re capable of. Doing otherwise is bad business because there are talented people everywhere. America has an extremely litigious business environment, both in terms of regulation and employment lawsuits. Excessive regulation and an inefficient court system will stifle those with the courage to make in this country. 13. Enforcement of the tariffs will be uneven and manipulated Imagine two companies which import goods into the United States. One is based in China, while the other is based in the United States. They both lie about the value of their goods so that they have to pay less tariffs. What happens to the China company? Perhaps they lose a shipment when it’s seized by the US government for cheating, but they won’t pay additional fines because they’re in China, where they’re impervious to the US legal system. What happens to the USA company? Owners go to prison. Who do you think is going to cheat more on tariffs, the China or the US company? Exactly. So, in other words, paradoxically, the policies which are designed to help Americans, will hurt them more than the competition these policies are designed to punish. 14. The tariff policies are structured in the wrong way Why didn’t the jobs come back in 2018 when we initiated our last trade war? We applied tariffs, why didn’t it work? Instead of making America great, we made Vietnam great. When the United States applied tariffs to China, it shifted huge amounts of manufacturing to Vietnam, which did not have tariffs applied to it. Vietnam, which has a labor force that is a lot more like China’s than the United States’, was able to use its proximity to China for its supply chain and over the past 7 or so years, slowly developed its own. With Vietnamese wages even lower than Chinese wages, instead of the jobs coming to the United States, they just went to Vietnam instead. We’re about to make the same mistake again, in a different way. Let’s go back to that last example, the China based and the US based companies which were importing goods into the United States. That US based importer could’ve been a manufacturer. Instead of finished iPhones, perhaps they were importing the glass screens because those could not be found in the USA, for final assembly. Our government applied tariffs to finished goods and components equally. I’ll say that again. They applied the same tax to the components that you need to make things in America that they did to finished goods that were made outside of America. Manufacturing works on a lag. To make and sell in America, first you must get the raw materials and components. These tariffs will bankrupt manufacturers before it multiplies them because they need to pay tariffs on the import components that they assemble into finished products. And it gets worse. They put tariffs on machines. So if you want to start a factory in the United States, all the machinery you need which is not made here, is now significantly more expensive. You may have heard that there is a chronic shortage of transformers needed for power transmission in the United States. Tariffed that too. It gets even worse. There is no duty drawback for exporting. In the past, even in the United States, if you imported something and then exported it, the tariff you paid on the import would be refunded to you. They got rid of that so we’re not even incentivizing exports to the countries that we are trying to achieve trade parity with. Tariffs are applied to the costs of the goods. The way we’ve structured these tariffs, factories in China which import into the United States will pay lower tariffs than American importers, because the Chinese factory will be able to declare the value of the goods at their cost, while the American importer will pay the cost the factory charges them, which is of course higher than the factory’s cost. Worse still. With a few exceptions like steel and semiconductors, the tariffs were applied to all products, ranging from things that we will never realistically make like our Tiger hart stuffed animals to things that don’t even grow in the continental USA, like coffee. Call me crazy, but if we’re going to make products in America, we could use some really cheap coffee, but no, they tariffed it! Our educational engineering toy Brain Flakes, also got tariffed. How is the next generation supposed to build a manufacturing powerhouse if it cannot afford products that will develop its engineering ability? It’s like our goal was to make education and raising children more expensive. Not only did we put tariffs on the things that would help us make this transformation, we didn’t put higher tariffs on things that hurt us like processed food which makes us tired and fat or fentanyl precursors which kill us. The stated goal of many of our tariffs was to stop the import of fentanyl. 2 milligrams of fentanyl will kill an adult. A grain of rice is 65 milligrams. How do you stop that stuff from coming in? It’s basically microscopic. Maybe we could do what every other country has done and focus on the demand, instead of the supply, ideally starting with the fentanyl den near my house which keeps my children indoors or in our backyard instead of playing in the neighborhood. It’s frustrating to see our great country take on an unrealistic goal like transforming our economy, when so many basic problems should be fixed first. Michael Jordan sucked at baseball America is the greatest economic power of all time. We’ve got the most talented people in the world and we have a multi-century legacy of achieving what so many other countries could not. Michael Jordan is arguably the greatest basketball player of all time, perhaps even the greatest athlete of all time. He played baseball in his youth. What happened when he switched from basketball to baseball? He went from being an MVP champion to being a middling player in the minor leagues. 2 years later, he was back to playing basketball. And that’s exactly what’s going to happen to us. My prediction for what will happen with the tariffs This is probably the worst economic policy I’ve ever seen. Maybe it’s just an opening negotiating position. Maybe it’s designed to crash the economy, lower interest rates, and then refinance the debt. I don’t know. But if you take it at face value, there is no way that this policy will bring manufacturing back to the United States and “make America wealthy again”. Again, if anything, it’ll do the opposite; it’ll make us much poorer. Many are saying that this tariff policy is the “end of globalization”. I don’t think so. Unless this policy is quickly changed, this is the end of America’s participation in globalization. If we had enacted these policies in 2017 or 2018, they stood a much stronger chance of being successful. That was before Covid. China was much weaker economically and militarily then. They’ve been preparing 8 years for this moment and they are ready. China trades much less with the United States as a percent of its total exports today than it did 8 years ago, and as such is much less susceptible to punishing tariffs from the United States today than it was back then. Chinese made cars, particularly electric vehicles, are taking the world by storm, without the United States. Go to Mexico to Thailand to Germany and you will see Chinese made electric vehicles on the streets. And they’re good, sometimes even better than US made cars, and not just on a per dollar basis, but simply better quality. That is what is going to happen to the United States. Globalization will continue without us if these policies continue unchanged. That said, I think the tariffs will be changed. There’s no way we continue to place a 46% tariff on Vietnam when 8 years ago we nudged American companies to put all their production there. Most likely, this policy will continue another round of the same type of investment; rather than replacing made in China with made in the USA, we’ll replace it with made in Vietnam, Mexico, etc. Finally, in the process of doing this, regardless of whether or not we reverse the policies, we will have a recession. There isn’t time to build US factories, nor is it realistic or likely to occur, and American importers don’t have the money to pay for the goods they import. People are predicting inflation in the cost of goods, but we can just as easily have deflation from economic turmoil. The policy is a disaster, how could it be done better? And what’s the point of this anyways? The 3 reasons why we want to actually bring manufacturing back 1. It makes our country stronger. If a foreign country can cut off your supply of essentials such as food, semiconductors, or antibiotics you’re beholden to that country. The United States must have large flexible capacity in these areas. 2. It makes it easier to innovate. When the factory floor is down the hall, instead of 30 hours of travel away, it’s easier to make improvements and invent. We need to have manufacturing of high value goods, like drones, robots, and military equipment that are necessary for our economic future and safety. It will be difficult for us to apply artificial intelligence to manufacturing if we’re not doing it here. 3. People can simplistically be divided into three buckets: those of verbal intelligence, those of mathematical intelligence, and those of spatial intelligence. Without a vibrant manufacturing industry, those with the latter type of intelligence cannot fulfill their potential. This is one reason why so many men drop out, smoke weed, and play video games; they aren’t built for office jobs and would excel at manufacturing, but those jobs either don’t exist or pay poorly. How to actually bring manufacturing back Every country that has gone on a brilliant run of manufacturing first established the right conditions and then proceeded slowly. We’re doing the opposite right now, proceeding fast with the wrong conditions. First, the United States must fix basic problems which reduce the effectiveness of our labor. For example, everyone needs to be able to graduate with the ability to do basic mathematics. American healthcare is way too expensive and it needs to be fixed if the United States wants to be competitive with global labor. I’m not saying healthcare should be socialized or switched to a completely private system, but whatever we’re doing now clearly is not working, and it needs to be fixed. We need to make Americans healthy again. Many people are too obese to work. Crime and drugs. It needs to stop. And to sew, we must first repair the social fabric. From Covid lockdowns to the millions of people who streamed over our border, efforts must be made to repair society. Manufacturing and economic transformations are hard, particularly the way in which we’re doing it. Patriotism and unity are required to tolerate hardship, and we seem to be at all-time lows for those right now. Let’s focus on America’s strengths in high end manufacturing, agriculture, and innovation instead of applying tariffs to all countries and products blindly. We should be taxing automated drones for agriculture at 300% to encourage their manufacture here, instead of applying the same blanket tariff of 54% to that that we apply to t-shirts. The changes in the policies needed are obvious. Tax finished products higher than components. Let exporters refund their import duties. Enforce the tariffs against foreign companies more strenuously than we do against US importers. If American companies want to sell in China, they must incorporate their, register capital, and name a person to be a legal representative. To sell in Europe, we must register for their tax system and nominate a legal representative. For Europeans and Chinese to sell in the United States, none of this is needed, nor do federal taxes need to be paid. We can level the playing field without causing massive harm to our economy by adopting policies like these which cause foreign companies to pay the taxes domestic ones pay. And if we want to apply tariffs, do it slowly. Instead of saying that products will be tariffed at 100% tomorrow, say they’ll be 25% next year, 50% after that, 75% after that, and 100% in year four. And then make it a law instead of a presidential decree so that there is certainty so people feel comfortable taking the risks necessary to make in America. Sadly, a lot of the knowhow to make products is outside of this country. Grant manufacturing visas, not for labor, but for knowhow. Make it easy for foreign countries to teach us how they do waht they do best. Conclusion and final thoughts I care about this country and the people in it. I hope we change our mind on this policy before it’s too late. Because if we don’t, it might break the country. And, really, this country needs to be fixed.”

The level of misconceptions about Chakra’s and Kundalini is unreal. Let’s get something straight: what you all are calling a “Kundalini awakening” is not Kundalini—it’s a nervous-system twitch. Those spontaneous movements you’re experiencing—spine undulations, limb jerks, or whatever—aren’t divine energy awakening. They’re just your nerves being overstimulated. It’s bioelectric activity triggering muscular contractions, no different from what happens when you slap a TENS machine onto your back. It feels weird, maybe euphoric, but it’s basic somatic discharge, not some cosmic serpent awakening. This kind of reaction can easily be triggered by yoga, qigong, breathwork, meditation—basically anything that stirs up body-energy. The Taoists calls it: Zifagong. It’s totally natural, and has nothing to do with Kundalini. These movements are as spiritually significant as a fart—they come, they pass, and they mean your system is warming up, not awakening the cosmos. Real Kundalini is not a TikTok trend or a weekend psychedelic retreat, or the product of commercialized yoga routines and generic chanting. It’s a profound and extremely rare spiritual ignition that only a few people on earth managed to accomplish, virtually nobody online has actually undergone, no matter how flowy their language or dramatic their stories. If you had genuinely awakened just one chakra alone, just the root chakra, your life would already be undergoing terrifying, radical transformation. You wouldn’t be talking about it casually—you’d be barely holding onto reality, or beginning to bend it with your intent. A truly awakened chakra begins to unleash levels of energy that can destabilize your entire identity, flood your body with primal force, and grant access to abilities that defy reality—and that’s just the foundation. So no, your shaky spine and tingly euphoria aren’t proof of awakening. They’re a side-effect of energy circulation—not transcendence, just your body stretching its legs for the first time. Don’t blindly listen to what everyone says. Go study classical and traditional yogic sources and authentic, documented cases—Kundalini awakening is super rare, extremely powerful and life transforming, nothing like what most people think it is.

This is an article I wrote, called Blindness. It tries to explain why people don't change and can't change. Blindness is the absence of independent thinking. Almost every human is blind. They are just animals acting out their social conditioning. They lack independent thinking. The average person lives his life, has values, makes decisions, almost entirely based on how they were conditioned growing up. By conditioning I mean what they learned from the environment, their parents, teachers, authorities, and in general what was "normal" in their eyes. That becomes their only reality. That is unconsciousness. That is absence of independent thinking. That limited reality is all they see. Outside that there's blindness. For a fuller picture, add to conditioning a flavor of genetic personality, and life experiences, that in most cases are just little dots of light in a sea of blindness. Far from enough to have enough context to spark independent thinking. Social conditioning is not the same in everybody. Here, again, we have a mix between genetics and upbringing. We may see more and less mature perspectives, or more and less naive people, or more and less people able to interpret certain situations. What remains common though, is that all those people remain limited by their conditioning. Children of entrepreneurs much more often become entrepreneurs. And it's not about the money, it's about blindness. Children of employees were conditioned to believe that entrepreneurship is impossible, in most cases. Why would you pursue something impossible? A person who was conditioned to believe that a needy "nice guy" behavior is attractive, will only have that tool at his disposal, and even though it will keep not working, he'll still persist and suffer, over and over again. In the face of suffering, the blind person reflexively, like an animal, tries to find a way out. But he's blind, he can't see. Just like if you put a cat in a box next to a lever, he doesn't know what a lever is, and so he'll start experimenting randomly, jumping around, scratching everything, until, by chance, he moves the lever and makes progress. But he never understands why he made progress. One step forward is just one data point. One dot of light. How many do you need for the full picture? For actual sight? The average person only sees within his conditioning boundaries. If life's problems are solvable within the boundaries, then everything's great. But when it's not enough, when the tools given by your conditioning don't solve the problem, then it's chaos. Then it's the "cat in the box" situation: Blindness. But the blind mind does not think or see that it's blind. Otherwise he'd quickly find a way to stop being blind (by learning, contemplating, introspecting). The thought of blindness implies a meta-perspective that would make that kind of blindness almost impossible. That's the problem of self-deception! Let's see what it's like to be blind. Blindness is synonym with unconsciousness. To understand the blind person, which is almost everybody in the world, you need to see them like an animal. Not in the sense that they have the intellect or the worth of an animal. But in the sense that their behaviors, values, life decisions, are all unconscious reactions that are the result of the interaction between conditioning, genetic personality and circumstances. The poor blind is a complete victim to his conditioning. His life is just the sum of those reactions, of which he almost never made a conscious one. It's most fascinating to see the blind person when faced with a challenge where the solution is outside the person's conditioning. For example, when a "nice guy" can't attract women, no matter how hard he tries. How is it possible that "nice guys" can often remain such for all their lives? The answer is simple. They're blind! They're the cat in the box! The difference is that attraction is much more complicated than a lever. That's why the cat gets out the box, but the nice guy doesn't get laid. See, even the recognition that the nice guy approach is problematic requires sight in the first place. It requires the ability to see the flawed conditioning from outside. But by definition, the blind when outside his conditioning... is blind. This is how the blind thinks: What is happiness? It depends on what I was conditioned to believe it is. What is a healthy relationship? It depends on what I was conditioned to believe it is. How do you know if you're happy? I just compare my current situation to my conditioning. Does this reflect the reality of most people? I think so. A final point: What about the people who make progress? After all, people seem to mature as they age. They learn lessons, they change. Doesn't this go against the idea of conditioning and blindness? First, progress in those situations is extremely slow. Any experience contradicting your conditioning is just a little dot of light into the 360 view of blindness. A lot of experience is required to become seriously effective, unless someone straight up teaches you how to do things right. But that's not really in your power. Even when those people learn lessons (and this tends to end in their 20s or 30s, when they set up a normal life, just as they were conditioned to), the lessons are extremely specific and isolated. Not enough to gain enough clarity over the whole situation, which is what's required to solve the problem for good. It's true that self-help has made millions change. But remember that not everybody is aware of self-help. If your conditioning didn't teach you about self-help, or the idea of improvement, you either stumble upon it by chance, or you remain the same all your life. Once again, victims of conditioning! What's the solution to blindness then? It's what we have here. It's becoming aware of it. Leo's epistemology playlist is a superpower for this reason. It is the antidote to blindness. The real solution to blindness is when you start what I call a flywheel effect: when you see blindness in action, you now seek to understand and learn, until you're not blind anymore. Your area of sight has expanded. New area of blindness? Repeat, and again, expansion. It's a flywheel effect because unlike blind people, which are stuck for life, you are constantly expanding your area of sight, more and more, understanding more and more, thinking independently more and more. Remember I defined blindenss as the absence of independent thinking. It's a meta-mechanism that instead of reacting to blindness, it sees it from the outside, and then dissolves it. PS - I was "blind" all my life. Actually, I was more blind than normal. I was extremely blind. Extremely naive. I lived this transformation first-hand only recently (3 years). I am in the rare position of remembering how it was to be extremely blind. I have countless stories of my blind life. 95% of them are too painful to share. Self-help, and especially Leo's work, changed my life. It's insane how the same person can change so much over 3 years. If I weren't blind this much and for this long, I wouldn't believe it could be possible.

In my opinion, this forum is biased towards intellectual paths to God, so most here don’t really understand it (including me). Christianity works through the heart. Christian theology doesn’t transform anyone. It’s a mystical transformation involving a relationship with God. People who adopt Christianity and live through their minds turn it into something that is judgmental and intolerant. But, Jesus warned about this: “look for the beam in your eye before looking at the spec is someone else’s eye”. The Hindu saint Ramakrishna became a Christian for a time in order to verify if it could lead to enlightenment and he verified that is was a valid path.

Returning home from overseas travels in my 20's with no money after a lot of partying, my parents sent me to a week long transformation workshop. One of the processes caused a proper kundalini awakening. During the break i went to sit outside on the grass in the sun. My whole body was vibrating, like i had taken ecstacy or something. And every time i blinked my eyes i literally experienced myself creating the universe anew. Sold. I was in.

Close to 4 hours with this one! Great work @Leo Gura Some of the most important insights from the video i took notes on: Nature of Existence and Falsifiability: Existence trumps whatever logical proof that explain away some aspect of existence There is no difference what is defined as rational vs irrational in that they both occur in Existence. Giant assumption by science: What is considered true should be falsifiable via empirical testing Science holding the delusion that Existence itself can be falsified by empirical testing Some notes on Intelligence Intelligence as a function of Consciousness (what is Intelligent is High on the Consciousness Spectrum). Intelligence as something acquired by particular minds who have gone through deep transformation A human grasping a particular proof is often contingent upon their level of ego development, spiritual cognition (not IQ). Defining God Science assumes that if God were real, it should be identified in material existence (ex: black holes). Misses that material existence (including science/logical proofs), are second order Proof of God lies in the Field of Consciousness that is all of Existence (that is first order-even deeper than first order). God is like an orgasm-you cant prove it, one has to have a direct consciousness/experience of it Subjectivity vs. Objectivity (Relativity) Science assumes objectivity is more fundamental than subjectivity Objective vs. Subjective is colored with human cultural bias, social consensus (science does not acknowledge this) What is considered objective is actually subjective-scientific dogma fails to be sufficiently relativistic Proof itself as relativistic- context dependent, conceptual, socially constructed, linguistic Absolute Subjectivity as a pointer to God, transcends empiricism and logical proof More Assumptions of Science Reality is Bottom Up (Not Top Down) Death is an objective fact of life That physical objects exists outside of subjective experience Everything that is true about reality should have an explanation that can be validated by science That anything in Reality is impossible at all (places artificial limits on what is possible for Consciousness). That the laws of physics apply to God That you are not God ! (this one tickles me).

This is post will be about the second principle: intention. The previous post was about presence. Let's remind ourselves what the 5 principles are: Presence Intention Collaboration frame Entitlement Self-entertainment This, I believe, is the second most vital principle—deeply intertwined with presence. For consciousness is the fertile soil where intentions take root. Here it goes: --- **Long Summary: The Clarity of Intention ** The **Clarity of Intention ** revolves around aligning one’s energy, presence, and actions with a focused, purposeful mindset rooted in the present moment. This principle emphasizes the interplay between **cause and effect**, **power vs. force**, and the necessity of **presence** as foundational to manifesting outcomes. Below is a synthesized breakdown of the core ideas, catalysts, and practical applications: --- ### **Core Principles** 1. **Presence Precedes Intention** - To set intentions effectively, one must first cultivate **presence** (being fully grounded in the "now"). Presence silences the survival brain (neocortex) and activates the midbrain (emotional/social center), enabling collaborative energy. - Presence acts as an antidote to social conditioning and resistance. Practices like mantras (e.g., "Ohm"), Eckhart Tolle’s "bell" exercise, or shouting "Hey!" recalibrate focus to the present. - Mirror Neurons: Your emotional state (e.g., confidence) triggers mirrored responses in others. - Strengthens prefrontal regulation, reducing amygdala hijacks (fear responses). - Neuroplasticity: Daily intent-setting rewires neural pathways from survival-mode to creation-mode. 2. **Cause vs. Effect** - **Cause**: Focus on **process** (actions within your control) rather than outcomes (effects). This aligns with Stoic philosophy, where wisdom lies in directing energy toward what you can influence (your thoughts, emotions, actions). - **Effect**: Fixating on results (e.g., approval, validation) surrenders power to external forces, breeding fear or attachment. - **Power vs. Force**: - **Power (LOC500+)** arises from collaborative, giving energy—sharing emotions without expectation (e.g., humor, joy). It operates from love (LOC540) and acceptance(LOC350). - **Force** stems from fear-based intentions (shame, guilt, control) and competitive energy, trapping individuals in lower Levels of Consciousness (LOC < 200). 3. **Intentions Shape Reality** - Intentions set in the present moment act as causes that ripple into effects. For example: - A clear intent to "share energy" (vs. "impress") shifts interactions from logic to emotional resonance. - Ambiguous intentions create confusion; clarity (e.g., "I want connection") magnetizes aligned outcomes. - **Feminine Energy Analogy**: Like the universe, women respond to clear, unattached intent. Express desire, then release attachment to how it manifests. 4. **Emotional Uncoupling** - Separate **emotions** from **content**: What you say matters less than the energy behind it. Girls prioritize emotional resonance (playfulness, confidence) over logical content. - Train the "inner child" to prioritize silliness, spontaneity, and emotional flow over structured conversation. --- ### **Catalysts for Alignment** 1. **Be the Cause, Not the Effect** - **Exercise**: Shout "Hi, I’m in your head!" to silence overthinking and project outward energy. This shifts focus from self-doubt (effect) to assertive presence (cause). - **Having an intention is being at the cause, not the effect of life. Steps: Shout "Hey!" internally or externally to silence mental chatter. Transition to a soft, grounded tone: "I’m sharing with you." Feel energy flow outward—visualize a laser beam connecting your heart to theirs. 2. **Congruence** - Align words, thoughts, and actions with intent. Inconsistency breeds distrust; congruence builds authenticity and respect. - Example: Leading in relationships/sex requires embodying masculine archetypes (Lover, Warrior, King, Magician) with unwavering intent. - **Physical Grounding: Feel your feet on the earth, breathe deeply into the diaphragm, and visualize roots extending from your body into the ground. 3. **Letting Go of Attachment/Resistance** - Release subconscious blocks (e.g., fear of judgment, past trauma) that sabotage intent. Use visualization or affirmations to "put gas on, brakes off." - **Sensory Overload Reset: Shout "Hey!" or clap loudly to shock the mind into the present. This disrupts the neocortex’s overanalysis, forcing a shift to instinctual awareness. Subconscious Block Removal Shadow Work: Journal about hidden fears (e.g., "I’m unworthy of love") and reframe them as empowering truths ("I am enough"). Gas-On, Brakes-Off Visualization: Imagine driving toward a goal with no obstacles—feel the freedom of full-throttle intent. --- ### **Practical Applications** 1. **Social Dynamics & Relationships** - **Internal Metrics**: Measure success by confidence, genuine interest, and self-amusement—not external validation. - **Communication Keys**: - Eye contact, physical proximity, playful tonality (30% louder than normal), and light touch. - Lead interactions by projecting high-LOC energy (e.g., humor, curiosity). 2. **Overcoming Procrastination & Fear** - **Subconscious Blocks**: Address hidden resistance (e.g., "I don’t want a GF because she’ll judge my living situation"). Replace avoidance with **strong intent**. - **Mirror Neurons**: Your internal state influences others. Enter interactions with the energy you wish to receive (e.g., confidence → reciprocated attraction). 3. **Stoic Alignment** - **Dichotomy of Control**: Focus on intentions/actions (within control) rather than outcomes (outside control). This builds resilience and reduces anxiety. --- ### **Exercises for Mastery** 1. **Intention Anchoring** - Use "Ohm" or deep breathing to achieve presence. Follow with the "Hey!" exercise to project energy outward. 2. **Emotional Flow Practice** - Describe mundane activities (e.g., driving) with exaggerated emotion to uncouple words from feelings. 3. **Promotion vs. Prevention Orientation** - Frame intentions as "moving toward" (e.g., "I want joy") rather than "avoiding" (e.g., "I don’t want rejection"). --- ### **Integration with Broader Philosophies** - **Joe Dispenza’s Heart-Brain Connection**: Clear intention paired with elevated emotion (self-amusement) accelerates manifestation. - **Stoic Virtues**: Wisdom (recognizing controllable vs. uncontrollable) and courage (acting despite fear) underpin effective intention-setting. - **Power vs. Force (David Hawkins)**: Ascending from lower LOCs (shame, apathy) to higher states (love, joy) requires releasing survival-brain dominance. --- II. The Architecture of Power vs. Force 1. Power (LOC500+): Collaborative Energy Power is the art of giving without expectation. It flows from: Self-Amusement: Playfulness detached from outcomes (e.g., teasing without fear of rejection). Group Alpha Waves: Synchronizing with collective energy (e.g., leading a group laugh). Masculine Archetypes: Embodying the King (leadership), Warrior (boundaries), Lover (passion), and Magician (transformation). 2. Force (LOC<200): Competitive Energy Force is fear masked as action. It manifests as: Neediness: Over-investing in others’ opinions (e.g., altering behavior to impress). Survival Brain Hijacks: Fight/flight responses (e.g., aggression or withdrawal during rejection). Attachment to Results: Obsessing over "winning" a date vs. enjoying the interaction. 3. Ascending the LOC Scale Release Lower LOCs: Let go of shame (LOC20), guilt (LOC30), and apathy (LOC50) through forgiveness rituals. Anchor Higher LOCs: Practice gratitude (LOC540) and unconditional love (LOC500) via daily journaling or meditation. --- 1. Social Mastery: The Keys to Magnetic Communication Eye Contact & Smiling: "Windows to the soul"—hold gaze 70% of the time to project confidence. Proximity: Stand within half a meter to build intimacy without crowding. Tonality: Speak 30% louder than normal; infuse warmth into your voice. Verbal Flirtation: Use playful statements ("You’re trouble, aren’t you?") to signal interest. Touch: Light, intentional contact (e.g., hand graze) to escalate connection. 2. Sexual Leadership: Embodying the Masculine Cause Pre-Sex Framing: Set intent verbally ("I want to explore us") and non-verbally (dominant eye contact). During Sex: Lead rhythmically—sync breath, movement, and energy. Avoid asking ("Is this okay?") and instead observe her responses. Post-Sex Integration: Cuddle with presence; avoid post-achievement detachment. 3. Overcoming Procrastination: The Power of Strong Intent Fear vs. Vision: Fear-Based Loop: "If I fail, I’ll be rejected" → paralysis. Vision-Based Loop: "I’ll grow regardless" → action. --- ### **Final Takeaway** Clarity of intention is the linchpin of personal power. By anchoring in presence, uncoupling emotions from outcomes, and aligning actions with collaborative energy (not force), individuals transcend survival-mode patterns. Whether in social dynamics, relationships, or self-mastery, **being the cause**—rooted in the now—unlocks flow, authenticity, and magnetism. As Owen Cook emphasizes: "Don’t give energy to effects; radiate it from your cause."

@integral I don’t remember the exact prompts but I just played around with it, feeding it the spiral dynamics model and getting it to craft a poetic song about a man navigating through each of the stages. I wanted it to feel like a journey of transformation. I also got the colors to reflect through the environment for a more realistic touch, like an orange sun, green hills, and turquoise waves. The style was intended to mirror the lyrics, starting intense and chaotic, then gradually shifting to a more peaceful and harmonious tone as the character progresses. The genres are all stated in the SoundCloud, for this song its a blend of lyrical folk, spoken word poetry, and existential ballad, with ambient poetics.

Spirituality in (New) Assassin’s Creed: Shadows Assassin’s Creed Shadows integrates spiritual undertones, particularly in the interaction between Christianity and Buddhism, through its two protagonists, Yasuke and Naoe. Their contrasting worldviews influence the game’s themes of duty, wisdom, and morality. 1. Yasuke and Naoe: Christian Samurai & Buddhist Assassin Yasuke: A powerful black samurai, historically inspired, who represents Christian ideals of duty and justice. Naoe: A stealth-focused ninja whose worldview is shaped by Buddhist influences like detachment and adaptability. Contrasting Philosophies: Their interactions highlight different approaches to morality and selfhood, reflecting a blend of Eastern and Western spiritual principles. 2. Spiritual Themes and Virtues The Self & Identity: The game explores personal transformation through the characters’ choices. Wisdom & Integrity: Yasuke’s direct approach contrasts with Naoe’s introspective and strategic mindset. Benevolence & Duty: The narrative presents moral dilemmas where characters must balance mercy and justice. 3. Religious Symbolism & Setting Temples and Shrines: The world features Buddhist temples and other spiritual sites. Sacred Texts & Teachings: Side quests involve historical artifacts and knowledge. Philosophical Dialogue: Conversations reflect on honor, fate, and the nature of power. While Assassin’s Creed Shadows does not explicitly merge Christianity and Buddhism, it presents their coexistence through its characters and world, encouraging players to consider different perspectives on morality and purpose, which I think is pretty dope. ...sliiiiiiightly tempted to buy it.

This is the first principle/pillar of the five pillars. First principle is presence/being in the now. In my opinion the most important pillar for social interactions aka being able to be present and not flip into unconscious behavior or being in a derp state. Disclaimer: these notes include my own insights and it is mashed up with other theory. ___________ ### **I. The Science and Philosophy of Presence** 1. **Defining Presence: Beyond the Buzzword** - **Neurological Basis**: Presence correlates with alpha brain waves (relaxed focus) and reduced activity in the default mode network (responsible for self-referential thought). Studies link mindfulness to increased gray matter density in the prefrontal cortex. - **Philosophical Roots**: Echoes Buddhist "Sati" (mindfulness), Stoic "Amor Fati" (love of fate), and Heidegger’s "Being-in-the-World." 2. **Levels of Consciousness (LOC): A Hierarchical Map** - **LOC 0-100 (Shame/Guilt)**: Survival-driven, external blame. *Example*: Chronic self-criticism after social mishaps. - **LOC 200-300 (Courage/Neutrality)**: Action-oriented but outcome-dependent. *Example*: Networking to "get" contacts vs. connecting authentically. - **LOC 400-600 (Love/Joy)**: Process-focused, intrinsically motivated. *Example*: Creating art for self-expression, not applause. - **LOC 700+ (Enlightenment)**: Egoless flow, unity with the present. *Example*: Athletes in "the zone," mystic meditators. 3. **The Paradox of Time** - **Past Trauma**: Stored as somatic imprints (e.g., tightened shoulders from childhood stress). Release via body scans or bioenergetic exercises. - **Future Anxiety**: Counteract with "Future Self Journaling"—write letters from your 80-year-old self advising gratitude for the present. --- ### **II. Letting Go: From Theory to Embodied Practice** 1. **The Four Layers of Release** - **Physical**: Shaking practices (e.g., Qigong tremors) to discharge stored tension. - **Emotional**: "Voice Dialogue" therapy—role-play suppressed emotions (e.g., anger as a roaring lion). - **Mental**: Cognitive defusion techniques (e.g., labeling thoughts as "just stories"). - **Spiritual**: Surrender rituals (e.g., burning written fears in a ceremonial fire). 2. **Case Study: Overcoming Social Anxiety** - **Symptom**: Overthinking conversations, fearing judgment. - **Prescription**: - *Pre-Interaction*: 5-minute "box breathing" (4-4-4-4) to anchor in the body. - *Mid-Interaction*: Focus on the other person’s left eye (reduces self-monitoring). - *Post-Interaction*: Write down three things you appreciated about the exchange. 3. **The Art of Non-Attachment in Relationships** - **Taoist Wisdom**: "A tight grip spills water; an open palm holds it." - **Modern Application**: - *Dating*: Plan dates around activities you’d enjoy alone (e.g., hiking, painting). - *Conflict*: Use "And/Also" language instead of "But" (e.g., "I hear you, *and* I feel…"). --- ### **III. Frame Mastery: Architecting Your Reality** 1. **The Four Pillars of Unbreakable Frame** - **1. Self-Validation**: Daily affirmations rooted in core values (e.g., "I am enough because I choose growth over comfort"). - **2. Boundary Enforcement**: The "3-Strike Rule"—politely exit interactions that drain energy after three red flags. - **3. Energy Sovereignty**: Visualize an energy shield (e.g., golden light) during stressful encounters. - **4. Contextual Flexibility**: Adapt frames situationally (e.g., playful with friends, assertive in negotiations). 2. **Historical Frames: Lessons from Leaders** - **Nelson Mandela**: Framed prison as a "masterclass in patience," transforming victimhood into legacy. - **Frida Kahlo**: Turned physical pain into artistic power, owning her uniqueness unapologetically. 3. **The Dark Side of Frame** - **Narcissism vs. Healthy Frame**: - *Narcissism*: Demands others’ submission; fragile ego. - *Healthy Frame*: Invites collaboration; secure self-worth. --- ### **IV. Social Alchemy: Transforming Interactions into Gold** 1. **The Charisma Spectrum** - **Type 1: Warmth** - *Tactic*: Mirroring body language + active listening cues ("Tell me more"). - **Type 2: Authority** - *Tactic*: Strategic pauses + downward palm gestures during speeches. - **Type 3: Playfulness** - *Tactic*: Absurd hypotheticals (e.g., "If you were a pizza topping, what would you be?"). 2. **The Social Hierarchy Reimagined** - **Old Paradigm**: Linear status (wealth, looks, titles). - **New Paradigm**: Radial influence (authenticity, empathy, vision). *Example*: Greta Thunberg’s climate activism. 3. **Advanced Flirting Dynamics** - **Psychological Looping**: - *Step 1*: Reflect their emotion ("You seem curious about…"). - *Step 2*: Add playful intrigue ("Most people miss that, but you…"). - *Step 3*: Release tension with humor ("…though I might be making this up!"). --- ### **V. Spiritual Engineering: Merging Science and Soul** 1. **Kundalini and LOC Synergy** - **Energetic Anatomy**: - *Root Chakra (LOC 200)*: Safety rituals (e.g., grounding barefoot on earth). - *Heart Chakra (LOC 500)*: Loving-kindness meditations for strangers. - **Awakening Safely**: Combine breathwork (Wim Hof) with trauma-informed therapy. 2. **The God Paradox** - **Atheist Approach**: "God" as a metaphor for the universe’s self-organizing intelligence. - **Theist Practice**: Daily "cosmic gratitude" (thanking stardust in your body). 3. **Death as the Ultimate Teacher** - **Mortality Practices**: - *Obituary Drafting*: Write your ideal legacy, then reverse-engineer daily habits. - *Graveyard Walks*: Reflect on ephemerality to prioritize meaningful action. --- ### **VI. Systems for Lifelong Mastery** 1. **The 12-Week Transformation Cycle** - **Weeks 1-4**: Presence Foundations (meditation, breathwork, journaling). - **Weeks 5-8**: Frame Construction (boundary drills, value clarification). - **Weeks 9-12**: Social Integration (authentic networking, conflict role-plays). 2. **Tech-Enhanced Growth** - **Apps**: - *Focus*: Forest (anti-procrastination). - *Emotional Tracking*: Daylio (mood-LOC correlation analysis). - **Biofeedback**: Muse headbands for real-time meditation metrics. 3. **Nutritional Consciousness** - **LOC-Boosting Foods**: - *High LOC*: Dark chocolate (joy), turmeric (anti-inflammatory clarity). - *Low LOC Triggers*: Processed sugar (energy crashes), alcohol (false confidence). --- ### **VII. The Shadow Work Companion** 1. **Confronting the "Dark Self"** - **Jungian Integration**: - *Step 1*: Identify recurring shadows (e.g., jealousy as unexpressed ambition). - *Step 2*: Dialogue via journaling ("Dear Jealousy, what do you need?"). - *Step 3*: Alchemize into strength (e.g., competitive sports for jealousy). 2. **Addiction Alchemy** - **Pattern Interrupts**: Replace cravings with "upward spiral" actions (e.g., push-ups for dopamine). - **Sacred Vice Redefinition**: Reframe "vices" as rituals (e.g., mindful coffee sipping vs. frantic chugging). 3. **The Forgiveness Protocol** - **Ho’oponopoo Ritual**: Hawaiian practice of repeating, "I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you," to self and others. --- ### **VIII. The Legacy Blueprint** 1. **Mentorship Dynamics** - **Finding Mentors**: Offer value first (e.g., research assistance, social media promotion). - **Being a Mentor**: Teach via Socratic questioning ("What’s one step you’re avoiding?"). 2. **Artistic Immortality** - **Create Timeless Work**: Balance trend-awareness with eternal themes (love, death, growth). - **The 100-Year Test**: Ask, "Will this matter in a century?" to filter trivial pursuits. 3. **Ecological Consciousness** - **LOC for the Planet**: - *Individual*: Reduce waste, support regenerative agriculture. - *Collective*: Advocate for policies merging economic and ecological logic. --- ### **IX. Frequently Contemplated Questions (FCQs)** 1. **"What if I relapse into old patterns?"** - **Answer**: Progress isn’t linear. Use relapses as data points—note triggers (e.g., stress, fatigue) and adjust systems. 2. **"How to handle toxic people without guilt?"** - **Answer**: Set boundaries compassionately. Example script: "I care about you, but I need space to honor my growth." 3. **"Can wealth and spirituality coexist?"** - **Answer**: Yes—if wealth fuels purpose (e.g., funding charities) and doesn’t dilute presence (e.g., mindful spending). --- ### **X. The Grand Synthesis: Living as a Modern Sage** 1. **Daily Rituals of the Masters** - **5 AM Protocol**: Hydration → Breathwork → Gratitude → Cold Shower → Deep Work. - **Digital Sunset**: Screen-free hour before bed with candlelit reading. 2. **The 10-Year Vision** - **Physical**: Vitality through functional fitness (e.g., yoga, primal movement). - **Mental**: Multidisciplinary mastery (learn one new language/skill annually). - **Spiritual**: Annual vision quests (solo wilderness retreats). 3. **Final Invitation** - **Become a Legacy Architect**: Every choice today is a brick in the monument of your life. - **Mantra for Eternity**: *"I am not a drop in the ocean—* *I am the ocean in a drop."* — Rumi, remixed for the modern seeker. --- VII. The Ultimate Mindset Shifts From Scarcity to Abundance False Abundance: Find richness in the present (e.g., savor small joys). True Abundance: Trust that releasing attachment creates a "vacuum" for opportunities. Death as Liberation Memento Mori: Let mortality fuel urgency—"Die for your dreams" rather than selling out for comfort. Hell as Purification: Embrace pain as a forge for spiritual growth. The Winner Effect Self-Fulfilling Cycle: Small wins build confidence, attracting larger successes. Exercise: "Shoot joy" into your body daily (e.g., dance, affirmations). --- To become an "alphamale" (or aligned individual): Anchor in Presence: Master the now through breath, body, and meditation. Radiate Energy: Be the sun, not a black hole—give without need. Own Your Frame: Lead with authenticity, screen for mutual growth, and let go of control. Embrace the Journey: Life is a dance of paradoxes—surrender to thrive, release to gain, die to live. Final Mantra: "Your cup runneth over when you stop trying to fill it."

Chapter 3: The Crisis and Expansion of Reality Itself SECTION 7 Neo-Platonism — the Synthesis of Greek and Eastern Traditions Neoplatonism is a philosophical system that emerged in the 3rd century CE, building upon the teachings of Plato and integrating elements from various traditions, including Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and Eastern philosophies. It represents a significant development in the history of Western thought, aiming to provide a comprehensive understanding of the universe, the nature of reality, and the human soul's place within it. The central Neo-Platonic philosophers, beginning with Plotinus, sought to provide a detailed account of the cosmos — explaining its origin, its unfolding or development, and its eventual end. Core Principles of Neoplatonism At the heart of Neoplatonism lies the concept of a single, ultimate source of all existence, often referred to as "the One" or "the Good." This principle is characterized by absolute simplicity and transcendence, existing beyond all categories of being and non-being. From the One emanates the rest of reality in a hierarchical order: The One (The Good): The highest, ineffable source of all existence, beyond comprehension and description. Nous (Divine Mind or Intellect): The first emanation from the One, representing divine intelligence and containing the perfect forms or archetypes of all things. World Soul: Emanating from the Nous, the World Soul is the animating principle of the universe, giving rise to individual souls and the material world. Material World: The lowest level of reality, where forms are instantiated in matter, often seen as a shadow or imitation of the higher, intelligible realms. This hierarchical structure explains the process of creation and the relationship between the immaterial and material aspects of the universe. The Human Soul and Its Ascent Neoplatonism places significant emphasis on the human soul's journey. According to this philosophy, souls originate from the higher, intelligible realm but become entangled in the material world. The ultimate goal of human life is to achieve henosis, or union with the One, which involves a process of purification and intellectual contemplation. By transcending the distractions of the material world and turning inward, individuals can ascend through the levels of reality, reconnecting with their divine source. Bridging the Western and Eastern Conceptual Divide One of the most significant ways in which Neoplatonism contributes to the expansion of the concept of reality itself is through its synthesis of Western philosophical traditions with Eastern mystical thought. This blending of traditions does not merely merge two different systems, but it redefines and expands the scope of reality to encompass both rational, structured forms of understanding and mystical, experiential paths to ultimate knowledge. In its synthesis, Neoplatonism takes the Greek rationality of Plato, which emphasized the existence of a hierarchical system of being with the Forms at its core, and integrates it with Eastern philosophies, particularly the mystical traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, where the ultimate goal is the union of the individual soul with the divine. This fusion is not just an intellectual exercise but a transformation of the way reality is understood. The synthesis of Eastern and Western thought further expands the concept of reality by integrating experiential and mystical paths with rational, intellectual structures. Eastern traditions, such as those found in Hinduism and Buddhism, emphasize a direct, personal connection with the divine and the journey of the soul toward ultimate unity. In Hinduism, for instance, the idea of moksha (liberation) represents the soul’s return to the ultimate reality — Brahman. Similarly, Buddhism teaches the transcendence of the individual self to achieve union with nirvana, a state beyond ordinary perception. Neoplatonism takes this mystical ascent and blends it with Greek philosophy’s focus on the intellectual pursuit of the good and the true. Plotinus, for example, speaks of an ascent of the soul that begins in the material world and progresses through intellectual contemplation of the Forms, culminating in an intuitive union with the One. This ascent mirrors the Eastern idea of the soul's return to the divine, but within a framework that also values intellectual discipline and philosophical reasoning. In this way, Neoplatonism expands the scope of reality by merging rational knowledge with mystical experience and by framing the journey of the soul in both philosophical and spiritual terms. The integration of intellectual and mystical elements allows the concept of reality to be larger and more inclusive — not simply an intellectual exercise about what is real, but also a spiritual practice of becoming one with reality itself. Expanding the Concept of Knowledge and the Divine The integration of these traditions also expands our understanding of knowledge and the divine. Where earlier Greek thought, particularly in the work of Plato, focused on the intellectual ascent to the Forms (ideal, unchanging truths), Neoplatonism places greater emphasis on the unity between the intellect and the mystical. By combining Plato’s rationalism with Eastern mysticism, Neoplatonism argues that the true knowledge of reality comes not only through intellectual analysis and reasoning, but through direct experience with the divine, a knowledge that transcends both the material world and rational thought. This expansion of the concept of knowledge is seen in how Neoplatonists view the process of illumination — a term frequently used in mystical traditions. In Neoplatonism, the philosopher must undergo a direct mystical union with the divine, which allows them to perceive reality in its purest form, bypassing the limitations of sensory perception and rational thought. By introducing this dual approach to knowledge, Neoplatonism suggests that reality itself is best understood not as something to be studied externally, but as a personal and transcendent experience, one that transcends the mere intellectual grasp of reality and embraces a deeper, spiritual understanding.

In every moment of your life there is one fundamental decision we consistently make. People think it's, how will I use my time? No. It's how will I use my energy against time? Energy is the fundamental currency. From the CIA figuring out how to harvest the energy of people being addicted to big events like Christmas or energy concentration points whether in the negative or positive, like Elon Musk, so they can use it for one of their controlled wacky experiments or an old lady crossing the road with her little pug (breed of dog) in the safest way in the midst of heavy traffic without getting rattled... Regardless, life throws us curve balls and that's going to put us on edge. In those moments, we need to decide right then and there if it's a challenge we can get out of because it does not serve our life goals, or choose it, and act like we choose it, so that our decision-making power remains in our hands, rather than with the thing that's thrown us the curveball. Because that's likely what it wants. Whether you're dodging existential collapse or navigating systems rigged against you as what it feels like for you right now. Sometimes the most high-value move is not to resist the system head-on but to move quietly through its blindspots, calm on the outside, radical in your direction empowered by your decision to OWN the challenge at hand so it does not own you. You don’t need approval. You need trajectory. Externally, opportunities will come and opportunities will go in our life. In every moment though, the decision remains the same. Internally, we are continually given the opportunity to determine, how will we use our energy? Will our ego use it? Our mental addictions to negativity? Our addictions to false positives and false negatives, or just patterns of unproductive thinking? And what will be the "legal clauses" governing that allocation of energy? To the extent we are not choosing our challenges, our challenges will be a struggle, instead of us having the opportunity to bring the struggle to the challenge, thereby changing the power differential. Sometimes, that struggle looks like building a new identity shell. Sometimes, it’s about masking transformation with “normalcy,” walking toward a new country, a new system, a new self, while remaining energetically untouchable. There's been a PSYOP on saying that power is 'evil' or that power 'corrupts' (rather than noticing that its just corrupt people that get drawn into those positions externally) and that's trickled down into deluding self-conceptions of power on the internal level. Many people have lost the truth that our energy is to be treated as literal power that to the extent we cannot intelligently order in our alignment with the universe, we will get unintelligent results. Look around you. It explains... Absolutely everything from the Sistine Chapel to people torching Tesla factories and Tesla trucks along with Germany saying "Up-Yours" to Elon as they make a strategic geopolitical stance (Germany previously was the biggest producer of Tesla vehicles by the way through Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg, that's now I guess just... a Byte or less?). Pattern = Giving your power away here ironically, gives your power away to structures that likely do not serve your interest. Where it is not truly connective, genuinely well thought through altruism is the only place that deserves this sentiment from you or any one of us. Even if the struggle is to our bodies, it's not about hating our bodies or being in opposition to them. Your goal may be as simple as fighting a negative impulse you have through your heart with a more resilient loving energy. That energy becomes your exit strategy, your invisibility cloak, your defiance without destruction. Because what starts to happen if you don't go inside your awareness and rearrange the intelligent order of your 'I' in the context of the differential between present power (internal (includes control) /external), energy and challenge? You'll start to dissociate from your 'I', what do you think happens when most people go through traumatic experiences? Dissociation. Depersonalisation. There's a pattern here. We don't want that for you, you must affirm to yourself in your own way the challenges you're going to own fully and intelligently. Stay in complete contact with your truest 'I'. And mean it as if everything that will be important to you in the future, relied upon this moment in your life right now and the intelligent decisions you will make from here in alignment with that reality. Which it will and it does. Make choice your power and you will make power, your choice. Choose your challenge, whether I'm on a deserted island or I've been thrown out of a plane in high altitude, that's the dignity that'll preserve your sovereignty and what will be your own imperturbability. Good luck is good will. Feel free to openly converse @Never_give_up, as they say the power is within, however in this breath that's better understood as the power within is only as good as we're using it to define the struggle we choose to bring the challenges in the external. Get your pen and paper out, figuratively/literally.

Hi forum people. Took me way more time to bounce back from & make sense of what happened to me than I was expecting. I am still piecing this together actually. Anyhow, I’ll break down my report in 3 parts: Retreat, Post-retreat ego backlash & snapping out of ego backlash. Retreat: It was pretty difficult. Extra difficult. In fact I wasn’t able to do the full 7 days. I did 4 days. First two days I was only playing pretend. I thought I was doing serious work but I wasn’t. I was being intellectual. Trying to formulate what it is I was seeking into linguistic constructs. That was valuable in a way but I still felt lacking & fundamentally unsatisfied with what my mind was coming up with. I went over my values & solidified them. That was good. Day one felt like good old rest & recovery more than deep inner work. I had small clues where I would get inspired by one of my intellectualisations & where I would crack a tear but my mind was so dense that I wasn’t able to go into it fully & get a good taste of it. Ex. I started balling when I asked myself “what do I want?” & came up with “I want to see beauty everywhere, all the time.” Which made me realize how far from that vision I am. How much I am not embodying it at all in my day to day. That was sad but fleeting. Day 3 I started to experience pretty intense withdrawal symptoms & suffering. I started to get kundalini activations at night & I had a very hard time to handle them. As soon as I laid down it would explode & get stuck in the gut, heart, throat & forehead. I tried to let go & allow it to happen but I wasn’t able to. The only way I could manage it is either shake like I am having a seizure or squeeze every muscle I know while flooding my system with rage. Didn’t sleep more than 40min at a time that night. I was thinking of my insights from the first two days & realized it’s all stuff I was already thinking. Thoughts I’ve been thinking for a long time. Thoughts that formed in light of change of consciousness using psychedelics. Thoughts that point to an actual change in state. Thoughts that are not that state. I felt like a rat spinning in a hamster wheel. See what I really want is transformation at the level of state but it feels like there’s a gigantic mountain of suffering in front of it. Becoming that means that the way I am right now will cease to be & I am terrified to let it go. Day 4 I suffered more & had a low dose mushrooms trip. At this point I pretty much stopped trying to inquire & contemplate. I was suffering. My mind was just spewing nonsense so I just decided to do absolutely nothing about it. I would cry & then close my apathetic shell again. Took the mushrooms pretty early I had periods of inspiration where all my visions of this fully alive being I would be if I dropped all of my pretending were right here & were me. But then I would close up, look back up on it from memory & feel like I was still faking & pretending because I am not like this. I am a dysfunctional, addicted, unwise, flawed human. My mind just would not be satisfied. It all felt pointless. I wasn’t resolving anything. Too much suffering. I gave up. I needed something to stand in the way. A distraction. A numbing agent. A vice. That’s the retreat part. It sounds pretty awful when I read it back but there is a silver lining. I’ll write it later in the rest of my report. I have a school assignment due in 2 hrs I gotta go.

Chapter 2: The Origin and Evolution of the Concept — REALITY ITSELF SECTION 8 Empedocles and the Shift to Pluralism As philosophy’s inquiry into Reality Itself continued to evolve, a significant transformation took place — moving from the search for a single fundamental principle to the recognition that reality might consist of multiple interacting elements. This transition is best exemplified in the thought of Empedocles, whose philosophy serves as a synthesis of the perspectives that preceded him. From Singular Arche to Pluralistic Reality The earliest Greek philosophers, particularly the Milesians, sought to reduce reality to a single arche — water (Thales), the apeiron (Anaximander), or air (Anaximenes). Even Heraclitus, who emphasized flux, saw fire as the fundamental element, while Parmenides and the Eleatics rejected change altogether, insisting that reality was singular, unchanging, and eternal. Empedocles, however, introduced a pluralistic framework, arguing that reality could not be reduced to a single principle but instead consisted of four eternal and unchangeable elements — earth, water, air, and fire. This marks a crucial step in the evolution of Reality Itself as a philosophical concept. No longer was reality understood in terms of a singular, underlying unity; rather, it was now conceived as a structured interplay of multiple, coexisting principles. Bridging the Divide Between Change and Permanence Empedocles' theory also addressed a major philosophical divide — the problem of change: The Eleatics (especially Parmenides) denied the possibility of real change, arguing that all change is an illusion. The Heracliteans, on the other hand, saw change as fundamental, claiming that nothing remains the same. Empedocles found a middle ground: while the four elements themselves remain eternal, the world we perceive is in a constant state of recombination due to two opposing cosmic forces — Love and Strife. Love brings elements together, creating harmony, while Strife drives them apart, leading to decay and transformation. This explanation preserved the unchanging nature of the fundamental elements while still allowing for observable change in the world of appearances. This contribution was monumental in the development of the concept of Reality Itself. Instead of viewing reality as either absolute unity or endless flux, Empedocles demonstrated that reality could have both stable and dynamic components. A New Philosophical Approach: Process and Structure Empedocles’ work also reflects a shift in philosophical focus. Whereas the Milesians were primarily concerned with identifying what reality is made of, Empedocles broadened the inquiry to include how reality functions. This move — from substance to process — would later influence thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle, who sought to explain both the structure of reality and the mechanisms governing it. Empedocles stands at a critical juncture in the history of philosophy. His pluralistic model expanded the philosophical investigation of reality by: Challenging monistic views and proposing a multi-element framework. Reframing the problem of change — recognizing that change is real but governed by structured forces. Shifting philosophy from a focus on substance to a focus on process, setting the stage for later metaphysical developments. The Expanding Complexity of Reality Itself With Empedocles, the concept of Reality Itself grew more complex. No longer was reality viewed as a singular entity or an unknowable flux; instead, it became a structured yet dynamic system, shaped by multiple eternal elements and governed by universal principles. His philosophy represents an important stage in the broader intellectual journey — one that moves further away from reality as a fact and deeper into the conceptual exploration of Reality Itself.

The Teachings of the Tsan-tung-chi — The Triplex Unity The Tsan-tung-chi’s view of the universe is similar to that of classical Taoism. It regards the Tao as the origin of all things and the primordial energy of the Tao as the source of life. As nature renews itself by following the principles of the Tao, mortals, too, can renew themselves and attain immortality by living in accordance with these principles. The most important principle in the process of creation and renewal is the copulation of yin and yang. The concrete manifestation of yin and yang is water and fire; thus, knowing how to use fire and water and when to apply heat and when to cool are crucial to cultivating energy and renewing life. Life is renewed when impurities in the body are purged. Similarly, a pill or elixir of immortality is created when the appropriate substances are refined and compounded. Tempered by heat and purified by the rising vapor of water exposed to fire, the alchemist is said to be reborn in the cauldron and embraced by the Breath of the Tao. Success in the alchemical endeavor depends on the quality of the furnace, the bellows, and the cauldron. A good furnace is needed to provide fires that are hot enough for tempering the ingredients; efficient bellows are required to produce accurate temperatures at different stages of refining; and a leak-proof cauldron is needed to contain the substances after they have been purified. In external alchemy, these items refer to laboratory equipment, but in internal alchemy, furnace, bellows, and cauldron have physiological equivalents. The furnace generates yang fire, or vital energy, and it is driven by the yin power of water or generative energy. Using the bellows is applying the breath to fan the inner fire to produce the heat necessary for transforming vital energy into vapor (ch’i). The cauldron is the location in the body where energy is refined and collected. When the impurities are burned off, the golden pill, or the elixir of immortality, emerges. In Taoist alchemy, the elixir is also called the sacred fetus, because, like a fetus in a womb, to mature it has to be incubated for a period of time. Thus, when the Tsan-tung-chi speaks of water and fire, heating and cooling, building the furnace, positioning the cauldron, and applying the bellows, it is simultaneously describing the processes of external and internal alchemy. The early alchemists did not neglect the importance of stilling the mind and dissolving desire. Parts of the Tsan-tung-chi describe meditation-like techniques. For example, it states, “Nourish yourself internally. In peace, stillness, and complete emptiness, the hidden light of the origin will glow to illuminate the entire body.” The Tsan-tung-chi also contains references suggesting that sexual techniques might have been used, together with nonsexual methods, in the gathering and transformation of internal energy. Consider the following statements: “When ch’ien [sky, or male] moves, it becomes erect. The vapor spreads as the generative energy flows. When k’un [earth, or female] is still, it contracts, becoming the furnace in the lodge of the Tao. Apply firmness, then withdraw. Transform it into softness to provide stimulation.” It is therefore not surprising that the Tsan-tung-chi is considered by Taoists to be the ancestor of all alchemical texts. Internal and external alchemy, sexual and nonsexual techniques, are all presented together in this alchemical classic, suggesting that the early alchemists saw no conflict in these methods of seeking immortality.

Here what i've come to in my contemplation of these two minds: Features of the atheist materialist mind: turning outwards, believing in a external objective reality, scientific worldview, authority to science, believes the universe is physical, no God, only believes in what science has demonstrated to be the case, believes himself to be a human, believes in rigid categories of evil vs good, man vs woman, man vs machine, human vs animal, mind vs matter..., sees progress in terms of technological innovation, believes that religion, spirituality and mysticism to be non sense and unscientific fairy tales, sees animals as inferior to human beings and deserving of exploitation for the betterment of mankind, sees the universe as static, physical and independent of the mind, the world seems cold and foreign, this mind is very much alienated from the world, represses emotions, sees nature as a tool for exploitation, promote mastery over the world through science and technology. Features of the mystical psychedelic mind: turning inwards, grounded in direct experience and consciousness, conscious that the physical universe is God's imagination, takes epistemology and metaphysics seriously, questioning and deconstructing of one's mind, conscious of the self as God, non dual, sees science as a dream, sees animals as unique expressions of God's divine beauty and consciousness with a rich inner world and experience, sees reality as a fluid field of consciousness where the boundary between physical and mental or imaginary is broken down, and whatever one is conscious of is what's true, and where one merge in absolute bliss and ecstasy, experience emotions with mindfulness and mastery, embedded in nature, sees nature as a vehicle for higher emotions, consciousness and truths, nature mysticism, sees imagination as reality, promote inner wisdom and transformation, takes not knowing seriously.

I don't really get involved with suicidals anymore, especially in severe cases. I have seen through that too. I will be careful with what I say here on the topic because I don't want to offend anyone and who knows who's reading this. What I see is an energy transformation. Everything depends on the situation at hand. On the story behind it. Most of the times it just needs a release. Expression. Somewhere to go; it's compressed. When a person is really suicidal, they really don't talk about it. There's usually nothing to really say. Most suicidals want to live, they just don't know how. I can read or hear the story behind it and notice how they respond and tell how severe the issue is. Most times it's not and is just a way of expressing feelings and that alone may help with the situation in and of itself. When I say severe, I mean how severe the energy is compressed or contracted or how severe the feeling. If the story is mostly of comparison and comparing theirs to others and mostly about whose is more severe and who is suffering more and how no one knows what they're going through and mine is worse than yours and you just can't imaging the pain I'm going through and all that, that's the energy relieving itself. It was so compressed and had nowhere to go but to self-nihilate. Ever tried to open a jar. When you hit the bottom it released air within the bottle and makes it easier to open and when you open it, you hear the pressure releasing and it makes a pop. Something like that. No sense in trying to talk that person out of it or make suggestions because it's already doing it for itself or doing it on it's own by telling the stories. When there are no stories present and there are just feelings expressed, then it's a bit more in the infancy stage. I'll stop here and these are just my own analyses. Take everyone seriously and try to show compassion. I've seen how this can turn around once relieved and things turn out to be even better than before. They definitely don't need any non-dual teachings at this point or in these stages because non-duality cannot be applied and is not a reward system for someone to gain something from; if anything it's a loss.

I love your style Leo, it's like being pinned down or whipped with a stick. Maybe I'm a spiritual masochist, but suffering, transformation and hard work is welcomed and sometimes induced to an infrequent extreme amount. The suffering and hard work is surrendered too

@Adrian colby Amazing share ✨️ I didn't think I could contribute any criticism so I asked ChatGPT. I agree with points 1, 2, 3, and 5, and it lets me reflect how I am seeing things unholistic: This essay presents a well-structured critique of conspirituality and the so-called “Great Awakening,” but it has several blind spots that weaken its argument. Here are the key areas that need more scrutiny: 1. Oversimplification of the Demographics Involved The essay correctly identifies that marginalised and disillusioned individuals are particularly vulnerable to conspiracy movements, but it implies that their participation is largely due to a lack of education, critical thinking skills, and psychological stability. This overlooks the fact that many educated, middle-class, and even elite individuals have also been drawn into conspirituality. Intellectuals, doctors, and entrepreneurs have embraced these narratives, sometimes due to cognitive biases rather than pure ignorance. A deeper exploration of why educated individuals fall into these traps would strengthen the argument. 2. Reduction of Conspirituality to Psychological Deficiencies The essay heavily focuses on trauma, victim mentality, and a lack of psychological stability as key reasons why people embrace conspiracy-based spirituality. While these are contributing factors, it overlooks the larger existential crisis that modernity has created. The rapid technological, cultural, and economic changes in the world have destabilized traditional meaning structures, leaving people grasping for certainty. Many turn to conspirituality not just because of trauma but because they seek coherence in a chaotic world. This broader sociological perspective is missing. 3. Dismissing Political and Economic Factors Too Quickly Although the essay acknowledges political manipulation, it primarily attributes the rise of conspirituality to psychological and cognitive failings. However, many conspiritualists are responding to real issues—corporate overreach, governmental corruption, media manipulation, and global inequality. While their interpretations may be misguided, their underlying concerns are often valid. By failing to recognize this, the essay risks alienating readers who may resonate with aspects of the Great Awakening movement but disagree with its conclusions. 4. Lack of Self-Reflection on the Writer’s Own Biases The essay presents itself as a neutral, enlightened perspective but does not acknowledge its own position within the spectrum of spiritual discourse. While critiquing dualistic thinking, it subtly engages in it by positioning conspirituality as purely misguided while portraying its own structured awakening model as the correct path. A more balanced approach would acknowledge that all perspectives, including the writer’s own, are filtered through subjective experience. 5. No Concrete Solutions Beyond Individual Awakening The essay’s proposed solution is personal awakening through self-inquiry, mental deconstruction, and dissolving conditioned beliefs. While this is valuable, it does not address the larger systemic forces that contribute to conspirituality—economic instability, media propaganda, the role of social media algorithms, and the decline of traditional community structures. Without addressing these, individual transformation alone is unlikely to dismantle these movements on a large scale. 6. Overemphasis on “Transcending Belief” Without Acknowledging the Role of Belief While the essay emphasizes dissolving belief systems, it does not fully explore the human need for belief and meaning. Even those who claim to transcend belief still operate within mental models and narratives. A more nuanced approach would recognize that belief itself is not the problem—it’s unexamined belief that leads to manipulation. Conclusion The essay provides a strong critique of the Great Awakening movement but falls into the trap of reducing complex phenomena to psychological deficiencies rather than addressing the broader sociopolitical and existential factors at play. A more holistic approach would integrate perspectives from sociology, philosophy, and political theory, rather than relying primarily on spiritual psychology.

@Shodburrito To be fair, it is your handwriting, just AI-assisted calligraphy. And ironically, it's you who bypassed the philosophical content. My positions were laid out plainly. Would you like me to enumerate them, scientifically and systematically? I can, however let's not pretend you’re prepared for an actual lesson in disciplined reflection. My time, unlike your arguments, is invested, not outsourced. You’ve conflated tool usage with intellectual lineage. Philosophers refined each other’s thoughts through dialectic, discipline, and depth. You? You hit "submit." That’s not synthesis, that’s automation. You’ve outsourced the metabolic burn of actual cognition, but want the gains. And if effort is the gym of the mind, your intellectual waistline's showing. I’m not mocking, I’m inviting you to join the fight. I’m in the ring. Are you? Is emotional authenticity now taboo when it’s backed by reason and scientific basis? If your AI can't parse nuance in what I’m saying, maybe it’s not advanced, maybe it’s just parroting your projections. Real thinking integrates emotion, logic, and embodiment. You're using tech as a filter to mute discomfort, I use discomfort as fuel for insight. Yes, it is threatening. Not to my ego, rather to the arc of human potential. We’re watching civilization trend toward mass intellectual outsourcing, replacing effort with illusion. When someone starts worshipping AI’s output as their own, it’s not just lazy, it’s ontologically irresponsible. If that makes me a criminal in this era of synthetic cognition, then label me proudly guilty of philosophical rebellion. My insights were forged, not gifted. I didn’t stumble onto thought; I constructed it, brick by cognitive brick, under the weight of self-imposed challenge. I wasn’t born a genius. I architected myself into one. And I’d still take that over someone whose “thinking” was pre-chewed by a language model. Ironically, you’re arguing against a point I never made then feeding it into AI for emotional reinforcement. That’s not philosophy, that’s algorithmic ventriloquism. Real dialogue is self-reflective. Try feeding your own blindspots into the system and see what happens. If you used AI as a truth mirror rather than a digital echo chamber, you might find it disagrees with you, violently. This discussion is the perfect showcase of cognitive bypass. You didn’t just take the easy way, you paved over the difficult one with borrowed articulation. I’m not shaming that. I’m illuminating it. Because every shortcut taken at the level of effort becomes a longcut at the level of depth. Again, a projection. No one here is glorifying suffering, I’m differentiating between positive stress (growth-aligned tension) and negative stress (ego-fragmentation). The difference? Self-awareness. Which, ironically, is exactly what your AI usage circumvents. Your whole critique reads like a defense mechanism dressed in pseudo-insight. We’ve moved past the phase where your “post” even qualifies as a foundation for serious inquiry. This wasn’t a debate, it was a philosophical correction. My motives are clear. Not to win, rather, to build. And, Intervoidism+ (click here for introduction) is the structure. If that demands stress and discipline, then so be it. Comfort is not consciousness. The irony is as thick as the projection behind your critique. I'm not attached to suffering, I’m attached to what it reveals. I'm committed to truth, and truth, by nature, burns. You mistake my intensity for identity defense. It’s actually identity evolution forged through fire, not filtered through AI. Listen up, in today's world, there's a seductive narrative that personal growth should be seamless and devoid of struggle. This perspective, while comforting, overlooks the fundamental truth that meaningful development often arises from facing and overcoming challenges that most people don't even perceive until its too late. I don't want that for people, I want to see people on the forum seeing their challenges ahead and fighting them with the power I know they have and not clothing themselves in egoic delusions out of comfort and fear; self-empathic courage is what I want to see not towards me, I'm not the winner here, towards themselves as I'm invested in seeing others win. It's not about glorifying suffering it's about recognizing that discomfort can be a catalyst for profound transformation; and I don't need to recount all of my accomplishments to show myself as some kind of hero in reflection of that because the truth is, I wasn't always this way, I forged the carving I am and I want to be only endorsing of people's capacities to achieve the same level of self-authoring and even beyond to show what's possible with the human spirit. By shying away from these challenges shodburrito there is too much of a risk of stagnation, this isn't "outdated truisms at work", its scientific reasoning at its simplest. Proven by the way, following the very basic physics that's compounded the American astronauts deterioriation that have only recently come back to Earth after having spent 286 days stranded out in space. These four astronauts, Nick Hague, Sunita Williams, Barry Wilmore and Alexsandr Gorbunov now are all going through an extensive rehabilitation process for the impacts of prolonged exposure to the microgravity while in outer-space. Impacts which include but are not limited to, neurological impacts from disorientation to dizziness to poor coordination that leads to walking and spatial awareness difficulties with the vestibular system being thrown off, muscular and skeletal effects from muscle atrophy, bone density loss, joint instability, psychological effects from mild mental fatigue post-landing and the struggles of adapting to earth's stress and more, like they'll even have increased eye strain, blurry vision and more sensitive skin. That’s the wake-up call shodburrito, life has a physics. Whether it’s Newtonian, quantum, or existential, the framework doesn’t change, input determines outcome. You can’t escape the gravitational pull of effort. Just like those astronauts, even with all their intelligence, tech, and preparation had to pay the price of prolonged microgravity with their own bodies. Philosophy that ignores this principle isn’t wisdom, it’s ego-dressed laziness. And ego has no seat in real philosophy. Only physics does. I am only on the side of physics which doesn't exclude analyzing the long term impacts of disjointed egoic personal opinions that keeps people trapped in Plato's cave while preaching they're somehow on the same level of Aristotle and Einstein for using AI to construct and digitally send through their manifesto on sadly, what is their own personal neurosis. Which, very interestingly shodburitto, is simply AI being used to self-satisfy your own personal echo chamber there respectively, rather than enabling your personal development which only drives home my points that people should refrain from using AI at the very least on a personal development forum outside of ideation and enabling the positive direction of others. Look, while AI can process information and provide data-driven suggestions, it lacks the nuanced understanding that comes from lived experience. True wisdom emerges from personal reflection, critical thinking, and the courage to confront our own limitations, elements that cannot be outsourced to machines. Our identities shape how we perceive and react to the world around us and being aware of this influence can help us engage more objectively in discussions, reducing the likelihood of taking differing opinions as personal affronts, to this end I recommend the reader to engage in their life experiences for the meta-discernment of their belief in one direction over another. It'll only encourage a self-awareness which fosters more meaningful and less confrontational dialogues. A forum that needs drama is one that lacks substance, introspective ability needs to advance to the next level in this space, respectively, translating for the exchange of ideas without the interference of ego. Life's complexities rarely fit into binary categories so the notion that growth requires suffering or that ease equates to a lack of development presents a false dichotomy; there's a fundamental physics here that I stressed in my first comment which reflects this nuance. Embracing attention to detail to our perspectives will be the difference to having dysfunctional nuclear weapons for personal growth versus being a trained sniper that just gets the job done on identifying our own spaces for advancement. Balance needs to the church of prayer when it comes to philosophy where its emboldened by the physics that complements this emotional integration that follows, only resulting in an adaptability and open-mindedness that facilitates the creativity for all members to better proactively respond to the fastly changing modern world. In a time as well where empathy is being replaced by a victimhood that capitalism and 'technological progress' profits from being incentivised to encourage cultural norms that make people, groups, cultures, societies and even entire countries (aka TikTok psyop) weaker rather than stronger by responding to not only the physics of reality but being mentally developed enough to self-experiment on reality where they come to their own self-understanding of these realities, rather than having to be told on a random personal development forum. If this forum ever wants to earn the depth of my respect, and I’ve said this for years, it has to stop avoiding the real work and start building systems that respond to the actual social physics at play. Not theories. Not abstractions. Real, grounded feedback loops that mirror the truth of its users lived experience. What I keep seeing instead is either full-blown denial or the more insidious kind, polite dismissal disguised as maturity to downright delusion. That’s not growth. That’s avoidance with better posture. And the problems in this thread, sorry Shodburrito, aren’t isolated, they’re symptomatic of a deeper fracture running through the culture here. I’ll keep contributing, because I care more than I probably should. But I won’t pretend it’s my smartest investment. Whether this place evolves or decays will be up to how well it honors one thing, the immutable law that effort and integrity always obey the physics of life. Time will show whether this forum does too.

Son_Of_god is a Greek small streamer, X professional player of CS:GO that had a sudden turn to spirituality. But it seems more like a psychotic breakdown , so i took interest on his case because it is extremely uncommon to see something like that in my country. If anybody is interested in analyzing this and giving his opinion feel free to do so. How much of it is awakening and spiritual, and how much of it just psychological meltdown and other mental health issues. I trust the people of this Forum to provide usefull info and their opinion on this topic, this is just my curiosity, i do not know him personally or anything, but his transformation is indeed insane and u rarely see a person changing this much. So this is only for people who just might for whatever reason be curious about this and want to spend some time investigating, and if you do so tell me what you believe, i will provide a text note with me using chat gpt to try and find out what is going on with this person by tellin the AI every information i have , but warning, its extremely large. https://www.twitch.tv/the_holy_trinity123 This is his Twitch account were he goes live every night for 20-30 people preaching for hours, and has some interesting clips , and you can find links for his other media were u can see bizzare stuff, like his TIK TOK were maybe there are more videos uploaded than stars in the Universe. Son Of God.txt

try game transformation by Austin Summers and the ace formula

I'm copying a lot of this text from my personal trip reports, which is why it's framed as me talking to myself. Yesterday I was feeling really awful, in a lot of pain, and I was really suicidal. I made the decision that I’ve had enough. I can’t live this life anymore. This has gone too far and gotten absolutely ridiculous. I cannot keep putting myself through this hell of a life. It’s cruel, it’s awful, it doesn’t end - I’m done. I’m going to give up on this life, and do whatever I can to make myself kill myself. If the universe wants me to stay alive and do something with my life, then it can make that happen. It’s had plenty of opportunities to do that, but it still won’t. So I am going to kill myself, get rid of this life, and if the universe doesn’t stop me and change something about my life, then it’s not my fault. I’ve done everything I can. I decided to take MDMA. I usually only use it with other psychedelics for healing purposes, and I wouldn't let myself use it for any other reason because it can be addictive, but I didn't care at this point, I was planning on killing myself later that day, so I took it just for my own enjoyment. Noticing my fear of killing myself I plugged the MDMA, it came on gradually and reached its peak after about an hour. During this time I felt SO good. I was journalling on my laptop, listening to music, and I felt amazing. It made me think again that it’s so stupid that I have to live this life and suffer so much for so long, when I could just be in a state like this, feel so good and not be in any pain. I started to think about what I was going to do after this trip. I knew this good feeling wouldn’t last and eventually I was going to go back to being in a lot of pain, and I needed to kill myself. I was really afraid to do that though. I really wanted to kill myself, but the thought of actually doing it is so scary. I don’t know if leaving this life is the right decision, I don’t know how I’ll feel after I die and where I will go, I was so afraid of it all. Eventually I realized that all of this fear I have only hurts me. I really don’t need to be so afraid, not just of killing myself but of life in general. I could see that this fear is an illusion and it’s something I could let go of. You need to have the courage to lose your life. I am so afraid of suicide, of dying, of losing control, moving into the unknown, etc. You need to see that there is really nothing to fear, you will be okay. Giving up my control I realized that I needed to get to the edge of suicide and seriously consider killing myself, right then and there, to really confront my fear of death. I saw that if I had the courage to let go and let myself die, that the universe would take control. If I totally surrender and give up all control of my life, the universe/my higher self will be able to come through me and live my life for me, and Tristan won’t be here anymore to suffer from this life, so I won’t have to physically kill myself to get the relief that I want. See that you can totally give up control to the universe, totally surrender, totally let go, and you no longer need to think about what you need to do to heal and move forwards in your life. That’s not your problem anymore. By totally giving up control over my life, you let the universe come through you and take over. This is exactly what I want, because I am absolutely exhausted from trying to make things work in my life. Just give up and relax. Your only objective at this point is to fully let go of control, and do whatever feels good to you. The thought of healing, moving forwards with my life, starting to work and make money, all of these problems in my life, they don’t matter to me anymore. Forget about all of them. If you get into a position where your back is against the wall and you are forced to do something you don’t like (such as running out of money and being forced to work when I don’t want to) then you kill yourself, no questions asked. You’ve been through enough pain in your life, you’ve suffered enough, it’s not your responsibility to try to make things work anymore. You need to trust that if you fully let go, the universe will take care of you. I’ve been so deeply suicidal for so long, and tried so hard to kill myself, yet I am still here. I am not going to get into a situation where I actually end up killing myself, even if I totally give up control and don’t care about doing anything to make my life any better. What I need to do moving forwards At this point, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, because it is no longer your responsibility to move your life forwards and make things work for yourself. Do whatever makes you feel good and whatever you feel like doing at all times. If you get into a situation where your back is against the wall, then you can kill yourself. Don’t force yourself to keep going through pain and living this life if you don’t want to. If the universe wants things to work out for you, then it will make that happen. Stop worrying about the problems in your life, stop trying to make things work for yourself, because that is not my problem anymore, and it only causes me more suffering to keep stressing about my problems and trying to figure them out. Give up on your life as if you were going to kill yourself, focus on making yourself feel good, and let that help you surrender control more and more, until Tristan is gone and the universe/my higher self has fully taken over me. There is nothing else you have to do. How it feels surrendering to my higher self As I surrender more, the universe will be able to enter my being more. I noticed that as my higher self starts to enter me, it cannot co-exist in my being with all of the emotional issues I have. I can feel a lot of emotional pain coming to the surface to be released as my higher self enters me. I’m sure as I surrender more and more, this will give me the opportunity to heal, and maybe this was the way I was always meant to heal, and this is why healing has never worked for me in the past. I can feel that once all of my emotional pain gets released, I will naturally start to feel like working and moving forwards with my life, but I won’t be forcing myself to do that, and Tristan won’t be the one doing it at all. I can feel that as my higher self really starts to take control, and Tristan falls away, my entire life will be directed by it. Tristan won’t be the one teaching about emotional healing and helping people. The universe will be living through me, helping people directly, and Tristan will be gone. When I surrender and allow my higher self to take control, I can feel myself entering an altered state of consciousness. Life doesn’t feel like a physical reality anymore, it feels like I am walking around in a dream, in an imagination, a mind. I also feel like I am more intelligent and insightful than I was before. Insight comes to me much more easily. I can feel myself being pushed to stop thinking so much and start to feel a lot more. Feeling is how I access my higher self and get direction from it. I can feel a lot of my neurosis and dysfunctional behaviours falling away. My higher self is not weak or afraid, it will not let people push it around, and I can feel a lot of my neurosis being corrected just as a result of my higher self entering me. I really feel like my healing will come from establishing my connection to my higher self, and as I surrender to it, I will receive the love I need to help me heal. . . . My objective now after that trip is to keep working on getting to a point where I can fully surrender and let my higher self take over. I have a lot of fear and resistance within me that prevents me from surrendering, so it will take work to get to the point where I can fully let go. This morning, I went to take a shower, and I was thinking about everything that happened yesterday, thinking about how crazy it is that my higher self is starting to take over me, along with how connected I've felt to existential love lately, such as the episodes of craziness I've had recently after touching existential love. Thinking about all of this together made me really see how obvious that I am awakening and moving towards existential love. As I was thinking about this, I starting crying, and I started acting crazy again and getting into an altered state of consciousness. It was deeper than usual. It felt similar to a state I would get into on a psychedelic, even though I was fully sober. It was a lot more clear, stable and lucid than psychedelics, and it didn't have the blurry headspace they often have. I felt dis-identified with myself, and everything felt so beautiful and amazing. I kept crying and acting crazy, and later I played music and it was absolutely mesmerizing. I was was also looking at pictures of beautiful girls, and was in absolute awe of their beauty - it was just radiating off of them. After I got out of the shower, I plugged 5-MeO-DMT. I was already planning to do it earlier that day. It was a low dose as usual, but I got into quite a high consciousness state from it. My intention was to surrender as much as possible, because that's what I need to be working on, and I left human life quite a lot by doing that. Here's what I got from the trip: You keep thinking that when you take 5-MeO-DMT and awaken, that this is just some state you get into, but your normal human life is what’s real. That’s not the case at all. The awakened state is what’s real, and you’re fooling yourself if you think that it’s not. You think that you can take 5-MeO-DMT and awaken to God, Leo can do that, other people on this forum can do that, and that is just some state you get into, and then you come back to this normal human life and that is what’s real. You’re fooling yourself. There is nobody else to awaken to God but you. This is your dream, you are only imagining that other people exist. Because of this you need to stop giving other people so much authority. You’re giving away your power to an illusion. The only thing that matters is that I awaken and realize the truth of what I am. You think that Leo has this life purpose where he teaches people how to awaken on YouTube, and he has this forum where you can go and talk to other people about awakening, and get advice, but all of this is a massive bullshit story you are creating. There is no Leo, there is no “Leo’s life’s life purpose”, there is no forum, there is no other people to talk to about awakening. All of this is something you’re creating yourself to lead you to awakening. It’s all me. See how foolish it is to give all of it so much authority, when it’s not real, and I’m the one creating it. It’s fine if you want to go back to the forum and live your human life like normal, but you need to stop giving Leo/the forum/people on the forum so much authority. You’re being an idiot by doing this. My relationship with God/the universe/my higher self is the only thing that matters, it’s the only thing that is real, so I need to follow that and obey that no matter what anyone else says. Otherwise, you are giving your power away to an illusion, and you won’t awaken by doing that. (This really helps me to trust what I experienced on MDMA yesterday, that totally surrendering myself and letting my higher self take over is absolutely the right thing to do) I started to surrender deeper, and I could feel myself connecting deeper with this higher consciousness state. I started to cry really hard, and I realized that God is what I have always wanted. Like Leo said: “when you want x, what you really want is God”. However you will only experience God once you completely, 100% surrender, which is something I am still working towards. . . . I'm currently doing better and not feeling suicidal. What I experienced yesterday with MDMA really made me feel a lot better. It's clear that I am headed to some sort of awakening, that my human self is going to fall away and my higher self will take over. I have developed such a deep hatred towards human life because of how much pain I've gone through, and I want to leave this life so badly, but it seems like if I just surrender myself and let go, my higher self will take over, and Tristan won't have to be here living this life anymore. It's also nice to know that it's no longer my responsibility to solve my problems or direct my life in any way. I am so exhausted from doing that, because I try so hard to change my life and it never works, and it causes so much frustration and suffering. Knowing that I don't have to do anything anymore, that I can just let go and let my human self die without physically killing myself, this is a huge relief. This both gives me a reason to stay alive, and it shows me that I will likely undergo a huge transformation over the next few months, and it will result in my higher self living through me, living my life, and Tristan will no longer be here. I'm sure that's what all of this pain I've been going through for years has been leading me to. I'm sharing this post only because all of this makes me really happy, and I love sharing it with other people who are into spiritual work

The problem with Christianity is that the process of inner transformation (contemplative practices) is not widespread and is limited to monastics and students of monastics and their organizations like Contemplative Outreach and Center for Action and contemplation etc. Buddhism doesn't have that problem so the Buddhists are more "conscious" in that sense. These are just my opinions and I am willing to change them.