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I just made a post about this. You go through suffering so you understand that living in duality is not normal. It's an illusion, the mind controls everything by the threat of suffering and illusory feeling of bliss when you dance how you were conditioned to dance. If you go through all of the dukka nanas up to equanimity, it's clear that this duality is utterly hopeless and there's nothing for you to even be 1% blissfull about. There's no happiness in the mind, there's just the threat of suffering, and that threat collapses once you realise that. At least for a while. Read my post or just read https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/30-the-progress-of-insight/5-dissolution-entrance-to-the-dark-night/

Many of the most enjoyable things in life - to read and write, meditate, drink wine and laugh with a good friend, enjoy the bliss of mother earth - you can have without being Barack Obama. Obama doesn't have anything over you except perhaps a nicer bed (and even that you can buy), more sycophants around, and many history books written about him (many of them negative). He also needs to stop for a damn selfie everywhere he goes. Do you really want to be Obama?

(Reposting because it was in bad need of a re-edit. I wrote the original summary, so I'm referring to my own work, not someone else's, lol.) 476. Summary: "Understanding & Coping With Nihilism” TLDR version: -People think nihilism is depressing, apathetic, and negative, but it isn’t. It's False Nihilism that says life is meaningless so why bother, just be destructive. Destroying something out of spite is attaching negative meaning to it. That’s not meaningless, that’s meaning. -True Nihilism recognizes that because life is meaningless, value is not absolute, but based on your survival agenda. Because value is arbitrary, you are free to question everything you’ve been programmed with. This cleans your slate and lets you build consciously, on a foundation that’s true to you. You get to question and deconstruct everything you know, because it’s all arbitrary anyway. -This is emotionally difficult and confusing to the ego, but it will lead to your authentic purpose and even awakening to God consciousness. -During this nihilistic funk, learn a variety of perspectives to figure out what you want. Cross reference them, Steel-man them. -You will create consciously instead of carrying out some inauthentic, default programming like an ideological robot. You will align with love/passion, and live a life of purpose that’s based on what you truly value and who you chose to be. -Your authentic purpose is your love for life expressed uniquely through you, free of the distortions of social conditioning, helping others to awaken to the truth of consciousness/infinite love/God. -When you're under the illusion that one thing is better or objectively more meaningful than another, you will always suffer because you will seek the better and resent the worse. -If you commit to realizing the Absolute Truth that nothing is better or more meaningful than anything else, you’ll discover that all things are wondrous, good and created by love and consciousness. (ep: Good Intentions II) That frees you up to joyfully explore life and let go of your attachments. _________________________________________________________________ Summary for "Understanding & Coping With Nihilism" “In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God.” — St. John of the Cross -What is Nihilism? Which parts of nihilism are true? Which are false? How does it fit with personal development work? What are its limitations and strengths? Society Tends to View Nihilism Very Negatively Dictionary definitions: “The rejection of all religious and moral principles in the belief that life is meaningless.” “Extreme skepticism, maintaining that nothing in the world has a real existence.” “A world view that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless.” “A doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths.” -Nietzsche's saw Nihilism as a way to clear away all false narratives and religious systems. It wasn't just about destroying all values. It was about creating a clearing on top of which one can build an authentic life, based on one’s true values instead of social conditioning. -How do you know something is true for you unless you derive it for yourself, from first principles? People are attached to society’s programming (religion, science, norms, values, morality, etc). They overlook its limits and problems (inequality, hatred, judgment, violence, etc). -Saying that things should be destroyed because they’re meaningless doesn’t make sense. If something has no meaning, how can it be “bad.” If it’s not “bad,” why would you want to destroy it? To actively destroy something out of spite is to attach a negative meaning to it. That's an extra step the mind has to take. That’s not neutral or meaningless or nihilistic. Nihilism at the turn of the century Nietzsche wrote during the late 1800s, when Judeo-Christian values were starting to unravel (11:35). Spiral Dynamics’ Stage Blue Christian culture was being challenged. Nietzsche was at the forefront of Stage Orange. Refresher on Spiral Dynamics: Stage Blue = Religious. Traditional. Rule based. God-fearing. Stage Orange = Materialistic. Success-oriented. Capitalist. Scientific. Stage Green = Inclusive. Compassionate. Diverse. New Age Hippies. (This part of the episode has been glossed over somewhat) -Many of the axioms, assumptions and frameworks that existed for hundreds of thousands of years started to be questioned. (language, logic, mathematics, science, physics, gender roles, political systems, God, etc) Some people claimed all this change would unravel society and lead to war, disaster and many monstrosities. You could say this is the backdrop against which World War I and World War II occurred. With all this change in this new directionless nihilistic world, how could society best move forward? After a period of nihilism and questioning Stage Blue, we have Stage Orange (materialist, scientific, capitalistic worldview). -With the materialism of Stage Orange comes a pragmatic approach to reality (25:20). The problem with Orange is if there's no higher order values, no God and anything is allowed. That leads to a hollow existence. Life is just about material acquisition, personal comfort and carnal pleasure. Losing spirituality leads to a lack of direction, and because of that society could become very dysfunctional. -With post-modernism, we start to question the idea of an objective reality, that science is the one true explanation for what reality is. After all, scientists are biased in determining what’s worth studying. It cherry picks data and how to interpret and frame that data. Stage Green emerges in the 1950s and 1960s. Nihilism, Feeling Lost and Aperspectival Madness -Stage Green is very difficult on you psychologically and emotionally because you feel lost (32:00). If there’s no objective truth, how do you know which perspectives are beneficial and which are toxic? -Aperspectival madness. If all moral systems are just constructions, programming and social conditioning. If all views are just partial, limited ways of interacting with reality, how do you know which views are the most valid? -Leo went through a phase of being a complete relativist in his teens. He thought neutrality was the closest to truth. He didn’t realize as a teen that there are higher quality ways of looking at things and not every side is equally valid. Later he started to question everything and became very skeptical. After all, if you take even one thing on faith, it can open you up to deep epistemic error. Why Nihilism Gets Viewed Negatively Nihilism Undermines the Ego (39:33) -Meaning and value are not found in the outer world. The ego constructs meaning and value in order to survive and orient itself. eg: Science doesn't prove anything is valuable or meaningful. Strictly speaking, all science does is measure and predict stuff. It tells you where the moon will be next year, but doesn't tell you if the moon is good or bad. -Your survival needs will override any philosophical considerations of nihilism. Humans are caught in an existential bind for survival. You have deep instincts from a billion years of evolution. You are biased against deconstructing meaning. Society is in the Business of Constructing a Civilization (41:55) -Constructions are very useful for survival. Society has a bias and the ego hates when its constructions are questioned. Western civilization is a house of cards built on an unquestioned foundation of axioms and assumptions (metaphysical, epistemic, religious, theological, scientific, linguistic, etc). eg: Money. If everyone saw money as just pieces of paper it would destroy the economy. -Western civilization would rather go with a useful falsehood than the truth. Most people aren't interested in knowing the dollar is imaginary. They just want to use the dollar to buy food. -When your attitude is very selfish, that opens you to all sorts of falsehoods, fantasies, constructions and illusions. These “useful falsehoods” get piled on. You get so lost in all the bs you forget it was just a construction from the beginning. -Dis-illusion: the loss of illusion (46:20). Nihilism leads to disillusionment. Deconstructing the foundations of your mind will lead to an existential crisis. The ego doesn't like this. eg: Why would a scientist who’s invested 40 years into his PhD work do a serious deconstruction of science or academia? How would he will feel if he realized the entire foundation of science and academia is built on illusions, fictions and constructions? -The mind has an infinite capacity for denial and rationalization. It’s interested in survival, not truth. You’re playing ego games, but you think you're being rational and truthful. This stops you from doing a serious investigation into the foundations of your mind and reality. What Nihilism Gets Right 1. Life Has No Meaning and Purpose (50:40) -Because all value is created by the ego, things only have meaning relative to your ego's survival. Meaning and purpose are based on ego and identity. What's meaningful to one person will not be meaningful to another. Buddha is meaningful to Buddhists, but not so much to Christians. In the Catholic Church eating a wafer/eucharist is meaningful. To a Buddhist, or scientist it has nothing to do with being spiritual. The moon has huge value to NASA and very little value to your dog, no matter how much he enjoys howling at it. -If everything is meaningless, why should a good life be any more meaningful than a bad life? After all, some people like to suffer! This means you’re free to pick whatever life purpose you want. 2. All Morality is Relative -There is no “good” without an ego. Morality is based on value, meaning and purpose. All the atrocities of human history were justified as “good” because it helped the perpetrators. -How can something be “bad” if you don't care what happens to you? If you didn't care about being tortured, then it wouldn't be bad. People think that badness is “baked into” the torture. “Badness” is just your reaction to fear, hatred or the pain it causes. Why should pain be bad? If you didn't have pain in your life you'd be dead. -Saying that “death is bad” implies a bias towards life. If life is meaningless, why should you value life over death? You can't have life without death, so if you condemn death then you also condemn life. Everything finite dies. The only thing that doesn't die is the infinite, but the infinite isn't alive to begin with. The infinite includes both life and death. It doesn't distinguish between the two. It also doesn't value one over the other. -If you think you're being rational or scientific by holding these beliefs, you just haven’t thought through them. Science has no opinion. In fact, science would tell you that pain and suffering are useful because it’s how we evolved. 3. All of Reality is Relative There is no objective, external world (59:35). Not just at the cultural level, but the ontological and metaphysical level. You are hallucinating physical reality. (Leo has other videos on this) 4. Reality Cannot Be Known in the Way Humans Try to Know It The universe is infinite and your knowledge is always partial and limited. Your models are just partial perspectives and you will never get the full perspective by acquiring more and more knowledge (Epistemic Nihilism). 5. All Beliefs are Ultimately Untrue (Leo has other videos on this) What Nihilism gets Wrong 1. Nihilism Gives Meaninglessness a Negative Meaning (1:01:48) -Meaningless means the absence of meaning, not the presence of negative or positive meaning. False “lower-case” nihilism: Surface level nihilism that doesn’t go far enough. Says life is meaninglessness and thus “bad.” Can lead to depression, cynicism. Giving meaninglessness a negative meaning is self-contradicting. True “upper-case” Nihilism: Deep nihilism that deconstructs your ego and worldview, so you can create your life and values from a clean slate. -If hearing that “the world is meaningless” means something to you, that's not meaninglessness that's meaning. If you truly realized that life is meaningless, you couldn't be depressed about it. If you're using that as a reason to destroy or be lazy, that’s giving it negative meaning. -False nihilism is just toxic ego. That’s why people intuit that nihilism is maladaptive. You don't want to live in the world as a toxic, false nihilist. If you're angsty and turning into a misanthrope, you need to recognize this not true nihilism. You’re attaching negative meanings and that is ego. It’s also less functional than the ego of those who construct illusions and houses of cards. -You need to take your Nihilism deep enough so it goes full circle into True Nihilism which deconstructs all your illusions. 2. You can't derive an ‘Ought’ from an ‘Is’ -Reality could be completely meaningless and you could still enjoy it (1:05:25). To say that “reality is meaningless” does not mean you ought to do something about it, like destroy an institution or commit suicide. eg: You could be a total nihilist and still enjoy sunbathing in Hawaii with beautiful women, or gazing into the ocean eyes of an Adonis, an exemplar of the Divine Masculine, over a candlelit dinner at sunset, after a day of snorkelling off a glass bottom boat surrounded by cute baby seals, while indulging in fresh roasted macadamia nuts drenched in chocolate, after riding a hot air balloon over a safe but bubbling volcano, flocked by singing doves, and then Mr. Ocean Eyes gets down on one knee and says, “FlyingLotus, you could make me the happiest man in the world by”—sorry, where was I? Yeah, anyway, those things are perfectly compatible with nihilism, meaninglessness and whatever. (It’s not pathetic. It’s a good song!) -Nihilism completely frees you up to be any way you want. The question is: what do you really want? Now if destruction genuinely makes you feel good, I guess you could go for it, but does it make you feel good? Is that really what you want? You might say, "no, that's part of the game. You ought to destroy the system, man.” But, why is destruction better than creation? Shouldn’t nihilism leave you in a neutral position? -The real problem is you’re confused about what you want. If you cleared that up you would be very careful in what you destroy. Certain things need to be questioned and reformed, like corrupt social institutions. However, the desire to take a wrecking ball to everything is a dead end. 3. Nihilism Doesn't Complete the Deconstruction of the Ego into Awakening and God Realization -Skepticism is often misused. False skepticism happens when nihilism is used to destroy everything outside of you, but it's not turned in towards you. -True skepticism is also skeptical of itself. It takes the wrecking ball of nihilism and skepticism and swings it at yourself. It deconstructs your giant ego before you go deconstructing institutions, social systems, science, religion, etc. -Most nihilists Leo runs into have a giant nihilistic ego. Nihilism becomes their ego and identity, but they're not conscious of that. They are contradicting themselves, because when the nihilism gets so deep, the nihilism has to destroy itself too, but most nihilists won’t do that because it’s too threatening for the ego. -The ego co-ops nihilism, which becomes very dysfunctional. Nihilism as a survival strategy in life won’t work out well for you. 4. Nihilism is Stuck at the Level of Concept -It’s not actualized into deconstructing your ego, which leads to true awakening. Mostly nihilism is a belief or philosophy. 5. Nihilism isn’t Political -If you think government is evil, you're not being a proper nihilist. It shouldn’t necessarily lead to anarchy. 6. Nihilism overlooks what happens when you reach the bottom of nihilism -If you go all the way down the rabbit hole of nihilism, you eventually awaken to the absolute. Everything loses meaning, but then you go through the dark night of the soul and the ego dies. Then you awaken to God. -Consciousness is the only real thing. Nihilism is missing the very soul and heart of reality. You are God. God is everything. God is beauty, love, divinity, spirit, goodness, truth, consciousness, all as absolutes. -The paradox of meaninglessness is that when it completely collapses you discover infinite love and absolute goodness, which is everything (1:11:47). Then you’ll realize all those stupid nihilistic beliefs, all those philosophers you read, were all deluded. “I was just using nihilism as a defence mechanism against the realization of what I am as God, as infinite love.” -Then you're no longer depressed. You no longer want to destroy at that point. You fall so in love with yourself and reality that you actually rediscover a higher purpose. Your higher purpose is to help mankind awaken, not because you have to, not because someone told you to, but simply because that's what God would do. That's what consciousness does. Consciousness is a Self-Awakening System -Everything that happens within consciousness is just a means to help consciousness awaken to itself (1:13:00). When you relinquish your selfish needs you lose yourself, then you become a force of the universe for its own awakening. There's a million ways you could do that (art, teaching, engineering, science, politics, etc). Then your life takes on the highest and deepest meaning. -You realize that all meaning is a construction, but awakening is not a construction. The universe awakening to itself is an absolute. So what the nihilist is overlooking is the the existence of the absolute. Many scientific, atheistic and rational people just can't open their minds to the possibility of the existence of an absolute truth. -Consider that you're wrong and that absolute truth does actually exist. This is it. You're in absolute truth right now you just don't realize. Criticisms of Nihilism from Above and from Below Criticism of Nihilism from Below: Fear-based, ego-based, shadow-based. Nihilism will lead to an inability to function in the world. Relativity will lead to total chaos. Society will fall apart without traditional values. The criticism is a defence mechanism from deconstructing the ego. Criticisms of Nihilism from Above: Nihilism is self-defeating and conceptual. When you go all the way with nihilism, you realize something deeper: infinite consciousness, love and God. Before you Critique Nihilism, First Acknowledge its Truths Everything is absolutely groundless and relative. The world is inherently devoid of meaning. All value is self-biased. The trick is that applies to nihilism too. You gotta do the self-reflection, complete the strange loop and realize that your nihilism eats its own tail. The Real Problem with Nihilism: It Doesn't Go Far Enough -You need to take nihilism past ideas and into embodied practice. The ego loves to neuter things that can change your life by turning them into mere ideas or philosophy. -A mystic is just a nihilist who went all the way, who took it from philosophy to embodiment. Spirituality is Nihilism -Spirituality and nihilism are not opposed to each other. Spirituality is just nihilism actualized (1:20:10). -All your attachments were programmed into your mind. It’s all social conditioning (ego, religion, culture, identity, etc). You didn't sit down and choose them consciously. This includes “objective” stuff like science and materialism. Your consciousness is hindered by social conditioning. -Nihilism lets you wipe the slate clean. It allows you to deconstruct the value of everything. From that clean slate you can develop your own meaning in life, your own purpose, your own system of values. You can’t be satisfied in life and inauthentic at the same time. -It's paradoxical, by questioning and deconstructing everything, you will become truly, deeply spiritual. That will make you more spiritual than anyone who professes to be spiritual under the social conditioning model. You will become very authentic, very grounded, strong as an individual and powerful as a leader. -“But values are still meaningless constructions!” Yes, but when you realize you’re in a dream, there's nothing to do but play. Ask yourself: How would I play the game if I was totally free and unattached? If I wasn't coming from neediness, attachment or fear? How do I want to manifest my love in the world, according to my own personal preferences? -You can have preferences but they don’t have to be absolutes. You also don’t have to force them on others. -Knowing that reality is an illusion is the greatest gift, because there's nothing to fear. Construct whatever meanings you want and be honest with yourself that you're constructing them. Construct consciously rather than unconsciously. Becoming Superman -Humans take their own constructions so seriously when it’s mostly ?. -The Superman is living completely from his or her own authentic inner core (1:26:25). His inner motivations run far deeper than anything that society can program. (Nietzsche's Ubermensch) -These are superhuman capacities: infinite intelligence, deep consciousness, living presence. Unlike finite algorithms or social programming. Nihilism and the Hero’s Journey -Nihilism is the belly of the whale in the Hero’s Journey (1:30:20). People invent distractions and excuses to avoid it. Don’t fear it, go through it! -The belly of the whale is the lowest point in the journey. It's your deepest turning inwards to figure out if you have what it takes to defeat your deepest obstacle. The key to victory isn’t a magic sword, it’s your heart and spirit. Is your soul steeled enough to face your deepest inner weaknesses? -The Hero’s Journey is a metaphor for God realization. The hero breaks through to infinite love, brings back the holy grail to his villagers and helps them drink from the cup of infinite love. - You have to be careful because you can go through the journey in a dysfunctional way and end up killing yourself. Being a hero is more difficult than living in mediocrity, going to your nine-to-five job. (ep: Dangers of Spiritual Work) Nihilism is Nothing -The tragedy for the false nihilist is they never realize that God is nothing. God is an infinite, loving nothing. -The Godhead’s Nothing is an infinite shapeshifter with no shape. An eraser that can erase itself. Nothing is not non-existence. Nothing exists. Non-existence does not exist. There’s no such thing as non-existence because there's only existence/consciousness. eg: The Holy Spirit. Consciousness. Nirvana. Shunyata. Teotl. Fana. Shiva. The Groundless Ground. Mu. The Tao. The Force. -If your worldview is as true as you believe, deconstruction can't harm it. Why are you so threatened by nothing? It takes enormous humility to question everything you know. -The devil co-opts spiritual truths to put on a facade of spiritual work. It’s the ego, scared of losing itself and all of its constructions. (ep: What is the Devil) Some of the biggest devils portray themselves as the most spiritual. Practical Tips The problem is you can't find yourself unless you lose yourself first (1:45:20). So, how do you deal with the relativity, neutrality and multi-perspectivalism of the nihilistic process? 1. Distinguish Between Relative truth and Absolute truth -Science, religion, culture, etc may not be Absolutely True, but they can be true about some things (Relative Truth). (ep: Relative vs Absolute Truth) eg: The absolute truth is that all is One, but the relative truth is that the US has a two party system and you can only vote for one. So, which is more aligned with your values? -I still have preferences even though God loves everything equally. I may want a passionate life, but not because it's absolutely true or God is forcing me. Wanting a passionate life is valid, in and of itself. -Leo has many episodes on Absolute Truth. The Structure of Reality episode is a good one among many good ones. 2. Know that your Preferences and Biases Aren’t Objective Truths -If you admit they’re relative, you don’t have to play defensive games anymore. Being honest about your preferences and selfishness stops you from grounding it in a made up story that pretends to be “objective” (genetics, science, religion). You’re freed from ideology. eg: “I’m Christian because I was born in Texas where Christianity is popular and I enjoy Jesus because I know him better than other gods.” versus “People who don’t believe in Jesus are bound for hell.” 3. Study Lots of Perspectives -Do a lot of studying during your nihilistic funk. Date around without marrying the first perspective you meet. This could last 2-5 years. (books, videos, retreats, teachers, traditions, etc.) -Not all will be equally good or bad. You’ll have biases. You will be confused and that's okay! You can play them off each other and cross reference them. 4. Distinguish Between Lower Quality vs Higher Quality Perspectives 5. Don’t Get Stuck in Neutral or the Default -Not choosing is a choice. Life is an existential bind where you must act, you must choose. You can’t align with perfect neutrality. -You’re Not a Blank Slate. You have a default position no matter what because of social programming. If you don’t choose, that is what will run the show. 6. What you Want is the Good Life. -Watch Leo’s episode on The Point of Life. It's really good, especially if you care about Life Purpose. -Be the excited kid with millions of lego pieces. Experiment with building many things. Get inspired by different legos and other people’s unique creations. Follow Your Bliss. Don’t be the bitter kid with only 100 pieces, who builds what everyone else builds, who is close-minded about which pieces to use, who debates and hates creations and creators that are different. 7. Embrace Confusion -Trust the process. Don’t view confusion as negative. Your ego is scared of uncertainty. (ep: How to Deal with Confusion) -Play with ideas, play with life, have fun ?. Verify different perspectives for yourself. You’re building your own epistemology from scratch by questioning everything. It’s a very healthy thing to do. Signs that a Perspective is Higher or Lower -The big difference is selfishness vs. selflessness (2:05:55) . Lower Perspectives: Selfish. Based in fear, hatred, judgment, violence. Us vs Them. Uses emotion, dogma and ideology to demonize the other side. Close-minded, clings to attachments. Doesn’t take in new information. Tries to monopolize other perspectives. Ignores other perspectives, “All other perspectives are stupid. Just focus on my perspective.” Unaware that it’s subjective, that it’s just a perspective. Thinks it represents “reality." Also rejects parts of reality that don’t confirm its biases. Higher Perspectives: Selfless, courageous, loving. Open minded, curious, playful, interested in exploring more perspectives. Nuanced and sophisticated. Intellectually honest and rigourous. Systemic, meta and holistic. Self-aware. Higher perspectives are aware they are a subjective perspective among many. Non-monopolistic. Doesn’t claim to be the only valid perspective. Inclusive. Higher perspectives understand and include the Lower perspectives, but not vice versa. Higher perspectives can Steel Man lower perspectives. Lower perspectives cannot steel man higher perspectives. Find the Good in All Perspectives. Try to Steel Man Different Perspectives It’s the opposite of a Straw Man. Steel Man: Challenging your opponent’s best argument. Watch for how a perspective tries to lock you in. -Do they let you study other perspectives? For example, the scientific community will discredit you for studying the paranormal, new age or religion. Fear vs Love If a perspective is coming from fear, it's false. If it’s coming from love it's true (2:12:45). That’s because truth is Love, there's just many degrees of love/truth. If you commit to the path of raising your consciousness, you can discover the Absolute Truth that nothing is better or more meaningful than anything else, because all things are wondrous, good and created by love and consciousness. (ep: Good Intentions II) When you are under the illusion that one thing is better or objectively more meaningful than another, you will always suffer because you will seek the better and resent the worse. Love is its own reward. Surrender to love, beauty and truth. Live your life like it’s a work of art. Work towards that love with courage and purpose. Your authentic purpose is just your love for life expressed uniquely through you, free of the distortions of social conditioning.

BLISS Everything about you is how I'd wanna be Your freedom comes naturally Everything about you resonates happiness Now I won't settle for less Give me All the peace and joy in your mind Everything about you pains my envying Your soul can't hate anything Everything about you is so easy to love They're watching you from above Give me All the peace and joy in your mind I want the peace and joy in your mind Give me the peace and joy in your mind Everything about you resonates happiness Now I won't settle for less Give me all the peace and joy in your mind I want the peace and joy in your mind Give me the peace and joy in your mind

1) Let go of chasing after bliss. Focus on deepening your comprehension of Truth, regardless of how it feels. Don't be driven by positive feelings because they don't always come. 2) Explore other psychedelics you have not yet tried. Don't get stuck on one psychedelic.

it begins with a daily sitting practice. Practice being aware of the breath. In doing that, many things will come up. Thoughts, emotions, resistance, pleasure, pain etc. Just return to the practice, again and again. Kindly but firmly. Then you begin to practice while doing your daily life. While walking, while running, working, cleaning, etc. Returning to the practice again and again. This will train you to be more conscious throughout your day so that you are able to feel more as you go through your life rather than thinking all the time compulsively. Once your thoughts start to wind down a bit your feelings will be more pronounced. When you take an action, if it is in accordance with Reality, you will feel bliss. If it is not in accordance with Reality, you will feel misery. This ability to feel whether what you are doing is in accordance is called your 'third eye'. Once you're able to feel the feelings, you will be able to see The Way. The Way is not to the left or to the right, it is in the middle.

Week 11 Recovering a Sense of Autonomy The Zen of Sports "exercise: the act of bringing into play or realizing in action." Most blocked creatives are cerebral beings. We think of what we want to do but can't. Early in recovery, we next think of all the things we want to do but don't. In order to effect a real recovery, the creative needs to move out of her/his head and into the body. Creativity requires action and part of that action must be physical. This step requires acceptance. It is one of the pitfalls of westerners adopting eastern mediation to bliss out and render ourselves high but dysfunctional. We lose our grounding, and with it, our capacity to act in the world– we render ourselves unconscious in a new way. Exercise combats dysfunctional spirituality. Walking is a moving meditation. Any act of motion that puts you into The Now is a moving meditation. They help us to stop spinning. 20 minutes a day is sufficient. The goal is to connect to a world outside of us, to lose the obsessive self-focus of self-exploration and simply, explore. When the self is focused on other, the self often comes into more accurate focus. the fitness of your spirit sets the tone for the day. move for perspective. Rhythmic repetitive action transfers the locus of the brain's energy from logic to the artistic hemisphere. It is there that inspiration breaks through the constrains of logic. You find answers in movement. movement gives you a sense of not only motion, but also the motion of God through you and through the universe. Exercise teaches the rewards of process. It teaches the sense of satisfaction over small tasks well done. Learned creative patience has to do with connecting to a sense of universal creativity. When your mind shuts off– through focused movement– the rationality switches off. Art is not rational, it's magical. Focused movement reduces you to feeling. Moments of intense feeling teaches you to be aware of other moments in your life when they occur. As an artist, walking offers sensory saturation; in a sense, insight follows from sight. Gather visual delight as if you are gathering nuts and berries. We learn by going where we have to go. Doing what we have to do. Exercise often takes us from self-pity to self-respect; from questions to answers and stagnation to inspiration. We learn that we are stronger than we thought when we move. We learn new perspective. Building Your Artistic Altar It is easier to tap into your inner resources when you have a centering ritual– like morning pages. Morning pages are a meditation. A spiritual room or corner helps facilitate centering rituals. Fill your spiritual corner with pictures or things that make you happy– an artist's altar should be a sensory experience. Some examples of small rituals, self-devised, could be: burning incense as you say (or write) your affirmations dancing to music lighting a candle while you do your morning pages holding a rock while you do breath-work etc. tactile, physical techniques enhance spiritual growth. the artistic child speaks the language of the soul: music, dance, scent, shells.. your artistic altar should be fun, even silly.

Thought I’d do something a bit different and simply post my well wishes to all of you on the spiritual path. I am sure many you can relate to the various emotions of happiness, joy, confusion, fear, nihilism, frustration, bliss (most likely missing 100+ emotions) that come along with taking this journey. I see many of you post some of your breakthroughs as well as down points. All of it is inspiring to say the least, we are embarking upon on something that is beyond the human realm, a task that only a few of us who lived to have ever awakened to the nature of God. For those of you who are struggling, and still working with the dark night of the soul, be kind to yourself..and know that whatever pain that is involved in this will be worth it in the end. There is a reason why much suffering happens to achieve awakening, and that’s because God realization will literally absolve all suffering you incurred..no matter what amount. So with this, I send my love and encouragement to you all. When you reach your awakening, we will unite as one in the same ??❤️. Best of luck.

Have you watched this one? : Also maybe dive into strong determination meditation (adhitthana): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhiṭṭhāna Also maybe do ayahuasca, if possible in your country. This is my advice. You will find that returning to love does not make you weak. On the contrary, you will find a strength that only a few people in this world possess. Looking your naked self straight in the eyes is true bravery. integrating these aspects in your life has been so important and brave of you. Already a step on the way into letting go of ego. Seems to me like you are very much on your way to untangle yourself off from delusion. If you have been hiding in a macho masculinity and stage red, it has been brave of you to let go of this, integrating aspects like calm, peace, and passive in your life. Maybe it is time now for you to dive into the aspects of this path, that are definitely not "pussy" in the ordinary sense of the word, but very much pussy in the actual sense. Contemplate what a pussy is, in fact, able to do. You yourself, with all your demons and all your bliss and beauty, were made from pussy. God is pussy - as someone above my comment correctly put it. It's so beautiful how you put this word in the title without understanding its true meaning. Spirituality will make you a pussy, hahaha, the strongest force on earth. you stupid man No, seriously. You are doing good I believe. Keep going.

I'm hesitant to advise on this, but intuitively, I'd have to say you're still not "all-in." A way to rectify this, it seems, is simply to get really good at meditation (to the point of manifesting bliss on demand, which interestingly is almost a direct result of calming the attention's tendency to wander or even waver), and then read Rob Burbea's Seeing That Frees.

My first mystical experience was when I was about 10. It happened while I was asleep, like a dream. But this was no dream. There was no "I" and nothing was actually experienced. "I" was simply one with the void. There was no light, but also perfect light. It was pure bliss. When I woke up and went to school, I had no idea what to make of it or how to even attempt to put words around it. For years I never even tried. Eastern mysticism and psychedelic experiences are the closest I could find that talked about such things. As an adult I've taken a lot of LSD, mushrooms and even 5MeO-DMT and NOTHING I have experienced since comes close. I don't know how it happened, or even what happened. Grace is all I can think of. But that experience was so indelible it has never left me 45 years later.

For me MDMA is like being showered with love and LSD is like bathing in love. The states of bliss I feel on MDMA feel somewhat fleeting, like they are coming at me and leaving me, whereas with LSD it feels like the gates of love are opening inside me and I realize the love is there, always available. The Love I have felt on LSD is quite different to the MDMA love. 100x more powerful, with a cleaner feel to it. I'm not sure if it is as "reliable" though, I'm just basing this off of my last LSD trip, which was really my first proper dose with it. Mdma is great to do with other people in a calm setting, especially to work on emotional issues or to connect with someone deeper. LSD is like a 10 hour highly intensive consciousness retreat, face to face with reality, insight after insight just pulsing out of you.

@Giulio Bevilacqua they feel like super shit gets worse and more painful every time. Feel like the trip is starting again all over again, Body burning into my bed, Instead of into the floor but this time in super slow motion like it'll never stop. which happened so quickly my first time. Although after talking to martin for 2 hours, He suggested i'd read his books, there were techniques of how i could handle them and make it easier on me, And i did to them it did feel better at times, But sometimes it just became way too much to handle, that it would result in a severe panic attack. I'd have to stop, And say something insane like, I'm sorry i cannot love you and let go right now (to keep my self sane), Please leave me alone and stop whatever it is your trying to show me, dear mother, I just can't process it right now. It's not always the same, there were various different effects that i mostly forgotten, but some were like time zooming i would describe it as that, Felt like my body was going back and forth consciousness way too infinity fast it was annoying, Stuck in time for long periods of time. Felt like years that when i'm back to my body i forget that i'm even human takes me awhile to figure out, that i'm this character, and i start crying when i realize what just happened and i'm still in this hell hole. Way more weird side effects that were happening on the months i already forgot most of them, but this was 2 years ago first 4-8months mostly, Later on it was just the burning sensation re-occurring most commonly melting into bed. @Breakingthewall Yeah i can feel it in my body, I've aged rapidly, Feel very stressed. (increased tinnitus which are very unbearable at times makes me feel suicidal. Yet not sure if that's a longterm side effect from nootropic/supplements which was influenced by self actualizing) @ZzzleepingBear Just wanted to experience Infinity since i wanted to find more deeper meaning in life. I wanted to feel the bliss of being one with god, The ones always fascinated me. Before doing 5meo, I used to follow abraham hicks in a mad way where i really thought i was god and i am manifesting creating stuff, Felt super happy with my life compared to now, Was crazy enough to even walk down a road not caring to see right or left if cars would hit me since i've felt invisible. I still wanted more, Was curious to see my self as infinity. Went for it and i got destroyed, Didn't feel like i was god at all, it felt like, i would die right now, and i'd never be alive ever again. Plus the amount of terror I've faced felt so unreal, It felt like infinite terror. Which kept scaring me since i'm not in control and life is just so scary and terrible that I'm so powerless getting my soul/energy raped over and over. While i could do nothing to counter it or make it stop. I felt super fearful at that moment. From a high thinking i'm all that before doing it and i'd just go to a fun trip. To a destroyed PTSD like state lasting for quite awhile. I still feel better these days panic attacks and trips stopped now. Took it almost 2 years to recover. from that. Just vibrations and random worry is bothering me giving me an uneasy mind. Note before abraham hicks, I've been very hardcore at self actualizing. I've listened to all leo's videos over and over cycled between them at least 3 times each video. Since i used to talk 1-2 hour walks daily for years, with earphones It was enough to cover his content more than once. Bought his life purpose course, Bought his self help books. Listened to lots of self help books that were on audio on my walks, Listened to spirituality ones like jed mckenna from what i can remember and whatever was available from them. Would listen to sadhguru/rupert spira/adyashanti/mooji/infinite waters/teal swan/lester levesen/alan watts/ etc etc various spiritual teachers and lots of spiritual content, I'd binge through. I'd meditate for hours. Sometimes minutes. I used to love meditating, Now these days they just feel super scary. But eventually i felt everything was fine the moment i found abrham hicks, which just made my mentality feel way better, never worried, so happy everyday, felt so good about myself and life and my existence finally, Never have been so happy in my life it was quite insane, Thinking i'm so awesome/amazing god created everything around me with such amazing placebo effect, Which made my ego so good about being the ultimate selfish human being out there. I was always fortunate even with my crazy acts so i never doubted i'm not god. But psychedelics were a common discussion on the forum. So reading those posts made me feel like maybe i should check it out for fun and see what I've created. So it was a brutal awakening to feel the highest high of my ego life shattered to the lowest low. Quite a shock. Even ibogaine for 72hours straight wasn't as bad as 5meo. At least on ibogiane i was on a high of appreciating everything on life. Didn't need more of an answer. (I did ibogaine around 2 weeks ago before the 5meo. (Note these 2 were the only psychedelics i took. I know i'm pretty crazy just going for the top 2 crazy psychs out there that i could find. But this is how serious i was about self improvement/infinity and finding more) I've worked so hard during my self actualization that eventually letting go of it was the best thing, I did I let go of improvement, I became so selfish that it just made me happy not caring much about anything or anyone, I'd just love having fun at every moment what could i do to have more fun all the time, And I'd just give myself all the love and priority over everything. It was such an amazing deluded state to be in for me compared to all the people pleasing that I've done in my life with no one appreciating me or all the work i've done. I've had messed up experiences where I was always under credited, people would leech of me my work. And just argue and make things harder for me even though i'm clearly being a doormat, Yet the power abuse wouldn't stop. So finally making all that stop felt so much better. But nope not for all, Here comes 5meo, Hello mr.ego, Think you control everything? Well guess what here's infinite terror. Not so powerful now are you? I'm sorry please leave me alone. make it stop.. Sometimes I wonder if I'm deluded about infinity. (I'd practice a lot of magic like acts, where i try to control reality in the past as well, My techniques were mainly Will/Intent/magicka besides LOA, I feel like LOA is weak sauce compared to them. And yet i can't control shit. I can't bend life/dream to be the way i want it to be. ) This question goes to the whole forum. Please kindly participate, I would like to read all of your answers. When it comes to manifesting what we want, I'm just wondering why do we all have so many limitations where it doesn't seem like life is infinite and rather we're always stuck within physical limitations of this dream? As much as i believe life is a dream it should bend to our wants. Yet it doesn't do that like it does in a dream. I could answer myself saying oh well life is infinite so clearly you are experiencing a more limited version of a physical plane field with very low lee way/priority of it going the way you want it to. What's your answer? I hate mine. I want more power over this shitty dream already. I'm genuinely salty, Life is supposed to be the way you want it to be, and not the other way around. fun is my cherry pick, Yet it seems quite painful with lots of unwanted suffering, That i believe i never signed up for, What is this shit. Give me a break.

Certainly no unhappiness, in a way. No saying no to or looking away from what arises. It is bliss, really, but it was always that way -- I can't explain that.

Yes it's possible but it's not at all enlightenment because it is still a state, it is still an object although a quite subtle one. Technically you don't even need meditation, but you do need the ability to concentrate intensely. Intense yet relaxed focus turned inward leads to bliss. Done over a certain period of time you are able to be like that all the time, even right after waking up in the morning. You can try it out even if you are not able to concentrate intensely, you will see some results that will motivate you to train this ability. (this is just one route to this)

As if that would need fixing. But I know what you mean. I still recommend meditation occasionally because of how happy it made me, but it was just a more comfortable prison. Nothing wrong with a more comfortable prison though! I told myself the reason I did the meditation was for truth seeking, not fulfilment seeking. Which in a way actually did sort of seem to work out. But it leads nowhere, because the whole time everything was equally whole and complete -- I would've never guessed that was even possible. How can realizing I'm God be equally as fulfilling as taking a shit? Well, it is only self who thinks one is better. Just for example, as soon as I could manifest as much bliss as I wanted, I basically had no need to use it. Quite surprising.

i guess my confusion is here: i think that by increasing consciousness i will automatically increase the "feeling" of happiness/love/bliss but this isn't entirely true is it

You should have posted this when you called someone your soulmate. Surprised Pikachu face. Oh wait!!!!!!!! Something might be itching you, just in case. When someone is experiencing utter bliss, there's always cynicism coming from unexpected corners and this post is probably the prime example of that. Haha..

Leo is an INTP, a logician like me. So I understand why he always calls something beautiful as utopia. In some ways Leo blocks himself from achieving Utopia because to him there is no pot of gold under the rainbow. Leo needs to suffer a glitch in the matrix moment to get a taste of bliss

@levani As far as what they feel like, The first time you enter jhana you might just think you're about to die. It is that intense. Entire field of awareness is filled with an insane level of exhilarating bliss. Turn away from the exhilaration and to the bliss and 2nd appears. Turn away from the exhilaration entirely and 3rd appears -- an incredibly serene state of chill bliss. Then turn away from the pleasant aspect of 3rd, moving toward 4th -- pure peace. Then abandoning materiality, then space, then turning toward the perception of nothing. I have no clue what 8th is like -- it's possible it's so ineffable I just don't know it when it's there.

Just thought I would share this here. I love the music, the talk from Ram Dass, the animations and you. <3 This piece of art is absolutely mesmerizing. Pure bliss the first time I listened to it on my bike roaming around in Copenhagen at night time. Try to meditate while listening to it. Save the whole album for your next deep trip. Headphones are perfect for it (or high volume good quality stereo speakers).

@Leo GuraRelative to your mid-to-late 20s, and after all of your self work, what proportion of your day do you spend in a state of peace and contentment as opposed to neuroticism, obsession, planning and doing, chasing the next thing, guilt and resentment, etc.? I guess if thoughts were a pendulum of negative to positive, how has your pendulum shifted over the last ten years? How about things like TV and the Internet? Are those less enjoyable or enticing than before, because the benefit they give you is far less than the bliss you can experience by just being, or do you spend only a small proportion of your time in those types of elevated states?

So I started meditation about 5 years ago because Leo recommended in a video, I was doing a sam harris guided meditation for years but it was kind of mechanical and I didn't really understand the path. I got serious about the path in the fall of 2019, started posting on the forum and experimenting with psychedelics' and saw enlightenment as something achievable for myself. I managed to have a peak experience after only a few solo psychedelic trips and that's what really opened me up. I was basically laying in my bed, and after a few hours of just listening to music and trying to process the complex emotions from the trip, I repeated a zgochen teaching I learned from Sam Harris, Look for yourself/ Be aware of being aware, and from repeating this I was able to quiet the mind and I had a sort of energetic unwinding, culminating in my attention going to the center of my head/behind the eyes and then my head kind of popped open/crown opened and I had an incredibly blissful and energizing experience. I realized that reality is all good, and I had never felt so incredible in my life. I've done probably 20-30 trips of LSD/shrooms since then but It was always a mystery to me how I reached this place so I've been kind of tracing my steps and trying to understand how i got there. Following that trip It was very rough. I was doing trips, but I couldn't reach that same place and i ended up getting really depressed and suicidal because I felt so hopeless that I couldn't reach that same place again. I thought my life would be forever transformed, but even though I knew about how good life could be, i just wasn't living from that place and it was awful. A big insight i got from my psychedelics' trips was I noticed that I would always get very horny on my good trips, and a lot of my trips involved overcoming deep nausea and vomitting. I actually can't look at a tab of LSD without gagging, and when I take psyche now there's a good chance I'll vomitt or experience severe nausea. But i also realized that the nausea can be sort of cleansed from your system if you go the root of the sensation. I've had experiences where I felt super nasuea on shrooms, and because I went deeper into the nausea and the sensations of headache in the head, I found a sort of energetic hotspot and when I felt into the hot spot it felt like the suffering/nausea got completely wiped from my system. Almost like a computer getting debugged. I've had stomach issues my whole life and I never really understood them, but I knew they were related to suffering and unhappiness. I never really bought into materialist paradigms around what causes stomach issues. Right now I can literally feel a discomfort in my stomach, but I haven't given too much attention to just loving my stomach sensations, but I will moving forward. I also realized that uncovering my sexuality was a big way to relieve suffering for myself. On my trips when I'd get very nauseous, I realized that one of the only things that worked to help alleivate the suffering, aside from vomitting, was to feel into my horniness and let it out. It's like being horny was the cure for my headaches haha, so it felt better to watch porn or something then just sit here in agony from the headache. I have to work on this too, my family is entirely sexually represeed, I was thinking the other day that I actually have never seen any sign of horniess from my mom or dad, and I actually thought my parents never had sex until I was like 20 and realized they probably did it in secret. I think the key here is just to create space for sexual feelings, and thens tart to love accept them as they arise. I also realized that my nasal congestion was related to my spiritual blockage. I am someone who always has kind of a stuffed nose, and I never cry. But on my good trips it literally feels like somoene is breaking my nose, which is probably my sinuses getting cleared out, and the end result is feeling way better and a full perceptual shift in how I view reality. I also noticed that vomitting helped clear my nose but so far I haven't cleared it fully without psychidelics. Interestingly, during my best trips my nasal passage become so clear it felt like I was breathing bliss clearly into my being from the entire univerise. It was like I had tubes flowing into my being from everywhere, and when I would breathe it was fully of bliss haha. Sorry it's disorganized but I just wanted to lay out as much as I could. Feel free to ask for clarification on any point

Real intimacy if you will, is indeed intoxicating. Practice, contemplate - play around with - you can get drunk anytime, anywhere, without anyone, without doing anything. Intimacy as a most unbelievable icing on that cake of youness. Let the mind fool you a bit on from where this ecstasy & bliss arise, but not too much. Lose yourself in it, yet know yourself as it.

@Marcel I'm not sure where my journal is going anymore I will see how it goes but on top of you guys I'm also going to send a thank you as well to all those that contributed in their own unique way... @SLuxy (I haven't watched the video but you reminded me to get more in touch with my intuition!) @SriSriJustinBieber (I'm certainly no bliss junky yet but you've shined the light!) @modmyth (loved learning from your experiences) @IAmReallyImportant (everyone deserves another chance, taken you off ignore I hope you are well) Thank you again everyone I wouldn't have been able to come this far without your support !