Search the Community

Habits that I have used, personally? Is that what you’re asking? I hope i don’t get complete off track here. I’m at a place of serious growth and transformation right now. I changed careers in June and thought my life and reality would change bc my circumstances did and I learned quickly otherwise. I was super frustrated and looking for answers when I stumbled upon leo, among others. Ok... just trying to give some background. Habits that I personally stick to include: an exercise regimen 5 days a week (I’ve lost 17 lbs and feel great) I meditate every day. I read one hour a day or more. I changed my diet, (nothing major, just eating real food and zero fast food) I stopped looking at porn (oddly enough this was the hardest thing of all) then I have a set of habits I incorporated at my work to increase productivity. That mostly includes incorporating routines and time blocking my tasks. Lastly, perhaps more to your point, when I need to relax, or take that mental break, I watch videos like a fiend. Almost to a fault, really. But I’m not necessarily just doing mental masturbation and I’m careful to make sure I don’t get in a trap. Like I said, I’m in a phase of transformation and growth right now and I use YouTube and audiobooks to learn. I dive in and try to pull nuggets of wisdom that I can use to change my mind and my life. I’m a drummer, so I play drums to relax too. That was probably way too long and tmi. But. If you’re a self actualizer, you don’t want to fall in a trap of incorporating habits that do not harmonize with your life purpose. That’s all I’m saying.

I don't want to be certain about anyone's enlightenment, including whatever hell that happened to me because the word 'enlightenment' doesn't really have a single definition. "The fact that Sadhguru's way of expressing does not resonate means nothing." - Actually, it resonated with me before I went through a transformation .. I didn't resonate with me after that. Because, I could see him in a totally different way after the transformation. This time there was nothing to lose. Let me repeat what I said in one of my posts: One thing that always makes me smile whenever someone objects to any criticism I have about him is this: The response would be exactly similar to how I myself would have responded a few years ago.. Read this first: https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-think-of-Sadhguru-Jaggi-Vasudev/answer/Shanmugam-P-12 You said 'Plus we don't know what happens in deepest levels of realization and understanding'... First, you don't know what is going to happen to you, what kind of mindset you have and what you will think about Sadhguru after 13 years.. I didn't know that either, 13 years before... And trust me, I would have said the same thing that you just said in your reply.. Anyway, I appreciate that you consider all the possibilities, as you said "There could be several reasons. One - He is in more deeper understanding than you. Two - yes you are right. Three - you are wrong about your " Enlightenment".. Some people dont even do that, they just cling to one possibility. Anyway, I know it is very hard to convince someone who thinks Sadhguru is speaking the truth... People couldn't convince me either, 5 years before...

Point taken. I had a similar experience with acne, years of treatment with a burning cream did nothing and my doctor insisted my poor diet and lack of exercise/fresh air had nothing to do with it. A few weeks ago I stopped taking my SSRIs and other meds against my doctor's recommendations. I wanted to stop supressing whatever depressed emotions I had buried away and clear out my subconscious. Since stopping them I've felt way better, more like myself. More neurotic and my emotions have a lot more variability to them but the ups feel incredible and when I'm down it's much easier to be with myself and cry out a ton of garbage that's been haunting me for years. I'm getting off topic here, but what does @Leo Gura recommend for the more powerful emotional healing techniques? I meditate and follow the self acceptance visualization daily. I'm also following a program called Transformation Mastery by RSD Julien which has helped me release emotions (mostly crying) at times but I've yet to have any breakthroughs or discover whatever my core wound/trauma/whatever is causing a scarcity paradigm is. Got any practical videos or techniques to look into? Thank ya!

If the title of the thread caught your attention then this discussion is for you

A Return to Love – My Story Continued This morning I was reading Gabby Bernstein’s book May Cause Miracles. Gabby defines a miracle as a moment in which we choose love instead of fear. The premise of the book is that each day, for 40 days, there is an affirmation and a journal prompt to follow that will eventually lead to a transformation in perception. At 8:30 a.m. I was setting an hourly reminder for today’s affirmation on my phone: “I believe in miracles”. The second I was finished, my boyfriend walked into the room and handed me his phone with a grim expression on his face, “It’s your sister” he said, staring at me. It was an unusual time to call and I immediately thought this can’t be good. When I lifted the phone up to say hello, my sister blurted out that my grandma, the one who has been living with us for years, had passed away. She was crying and I could hear my mother crying hysterically in the background. After the phone call, I thought back to the time about a month ago when I was in my “manic” phase and I felt a shift in my grandmother’s energy. This was a day or two before I went to the mental hospital. I went home and visited grandma, who had just gotten back from the hospital after falling and breaking her wrist, and I could feel something was radically different about her. For example, I had just moved out with my boyfriend and she remembered that I was home alone a lot, so she said that she was going to get me a poodle as a house-warming present. This was strange because only a few weeks before she had forgotten altogether that I had a boyfriend of 5 years. Not only that, she seemed incredibly calm and peaceful, which was uncharacteristic of her. I think only by having such a radical change in my own intuition and energy could I recognize that she was going through almost the same thing, and that realization shook me to my core. She had let go of the misery she was holding onto for her entire life, and I could clearly see it. After my talk with grandma that night, I walked into the kitchen and told my mom I needed to speak with her. I hesitated, but I told her that I didn’t think grandma has much time left and that she should call relatives over to see her. She looked at me wide-eyed and asked why I thought that. I told her that I just knew, I could feel it, and I started crying. My mom told me she had a similar feeling but wasn’t sure if it was true. Since my mom believes I’m “gifted” she listened to my advice and called all of our relatives the following day. So today I was thinking about the affirmation “I believe in miracles” and how it relates to my grandmother’s death, given the uncanny timing and background of the situation. Birth is considered a miracle, your perception is radically changed then, so death must be a miracle also, right? According to Gabby’s definition, I would say so. I believe my grandma’s ego had finally died about a month before her actual death. My sister kept saying things like “she’s been so nice, it’s weird”, “I think that fall knocked some sense into her”. I think what happened to her was a miracle. She had finally given up the perception she had been holding onto for so long. She was so thoroughly reminded of her own mortality after that fall and hospital stay that it changed her perception of life, and she was finally at a somber peace. From this experience, I have new motivation for doing this work, I don’t want to wait until I’m 83 years old and ready to die before I finally make peace with the world as it is.

A lot of people and the desteni community rely on self- forgiveness to attain self realization. Everyday you try to notice your reactions and analyze them after with putting them into writing. You analyze your reaction, write about it, state that you forgivee yourself and then make as self-correction statement. I don't see anybody talking about this on this forum. So I Will just make a thread about it. The act of forgiving yourself out loud, speaking has a physical effect on the body. It actually alters your DNA. When you notice a reaction coming to the surface, forgive yourself out loud like mentioned above. Also Put everything into writing. This is how you do proper self-forgiveness. @MiracleMan You can learn how to do self-forgiveness properly with this free course http://lite.desteniiprocess.com/ They also have forums, blogs and other advanced courses to go deeper. Valentin Rozman studied personal development and spirituality for 20 years and he told in one of his videos that those tools triggered the biggest transformation in his self. http://desteniradio.blogspot.si/2016/11/desteni-radio-3-what-is-self-forgiveness.html http://desteni.org/ http://desteniiprocess.com/ https://eqafe.com/ http://destonians.com/ I have just copied an pasted this fro ma reply I did in the past. This is from yesterday. Also copy paste.

Of course it feels damn wrong to the ego. You're not grasping that we are talking about a radically different mode of living here. After enlightenment, life as you know it is gone. Reality has literally ceased to exist, you are dead inside. Like REALLY! Imagine that! You are a zombie inside and you will NEVER return to the old you! Someone could rape you, and you wouldn't care, because you've already died! Try to imagine that radical of a transformation. Imagine yourself not being human any more, but still appearing human to others from the outside. They will think you're a human, but you will know you're not. I have done it before, and I will do it again. There is nothing better than death. We are dealing with highly counter-intuitive stuff here. It utterly boggles the mind. It is totally unbelievable until you arrive there. It's such a deep mindfuck, the realization of it alone is enough to kill you. P.S. They are two separate things, but once you've become it, you have no more need to judge it. The judging is what you do to distract from becoming it. The sooner your stop judging, the sooner you will become it.

You can pick up all the flowers, but you can’t stop the spring.” - Pablo Neruda Background I have been using ayahuasca for 8 months, and my life has pretty much turned from water to wine. Actually, it has turned from shit to wine, you know? Seriously… I was such a kid before I started taking. And I don’t mean this is a good thing by no means. I was extremely immature and unaware of how Nature works. Sorry to break it to you, but Nature is much more powerful than you will ever be. Your stupid ego will never come close to the true Power of Mother Nature. For this trip specifically, I set the intention of at some point during the trip imagine all areas of my life individually and visualize how can I improve each area. In other words, I decided to face all the negative situations in my life during the trip so that when I got out of it, my subconscious mind would have the right programs (or better: an update to my subconscious mind). Hehe… The theme of the ceremony was very religious in my opinion. Since it was on the Dead’s Day, the collective intention was: rescue souls from the purgatory. I understand what they mean by those “lost souls.” The thing is, these entities (which the indigenous call obsessors) are not outside but inside. After all, all of our ancestors are still alive in us. We cannot exist without the past. So the ticket for human ride includes all the Karma of previous generations. And guess what? We are our ancestors, but we don’t remember it. But…. anyway…. I wanted to avoid looking at my shadow during the trip, but that didn’t work…. Before the Trip In ayahuasca ceremonies, the people who are going to take it are usually extremely fearful and anxious. This is normal when you are not experienced with the Medicine (which is how ayahuasca is also called). However, as Leo puts on a video, your state of mind before taking any psychedelic interfere in the trip itself. So… What I decided to do was very simple: I decided to practice self-amusement. So I was basically making jokes with my friends, talking a lot with other people, and helping the shamans out. I also practiced Reiki in several people. My main idea was to release my energy before the trip. And it worked. The Trip Itself I made a huge mistake: I wanted to stay by the fire. However, it was VERY cold. When the effects of ayahuasca kicked in, I felt as if I had pnemounia. I was in a bad trip. I felt very bad. I was trying to surf through the trip, but I simply had to pull myself out of the “Force” (which is how they call when you are under the effect of ayahuasca). You have to find the most comfort spot when you are using psychedelics, guys…. Anyway, I summoned strength to go inside (even though I was tripping balls), and I decided to simply rest. I felt like I had a huge fever. The coldness from the air plus the fire caused a horrible reaction in my body. So I simply came to the grips that I was going to fuck up the trip and waste it…. A part of me thought: “The lost souls are attacking me.” This, in a way, is true. Because I felt HORRIBLE. I could feel how human beings have lived for millenia. All the comfort we have in modern society is so awesome… I also remembered what Osho said about talking about spirituality in Ethiopia. No…. First we need to take care of our basic needs… However, after some point I got better and was actually able to explore my Inner Universe Heheh… 5 Insights When you are extremely bored in your house, just distract yourself I often get hits of utter boredom in my house specially at around 7 PM… I get tense and I am not even able to browse the web, or watch a stupid movie…. Cause I get sooo bad… I simply do things SO RUSHLY. Seriously… sometimes I browse the web in such a neurotic way. Anyway… during the trip, I was picturing myself in my house when I am veeeery bored. When I was doing that, I was resisting diving deep into the feeling of boredom and loneliness and meaninglessness… However… I decided to go all the way through. What came was: simply consciously distract yourself when you are going through a storm of negative and dense emotions. Idk, call a friend, decide to watch South Park… and simply give 0 fucks about how spiritual you are. Haha… So… when bored and tensed, do not overwhelm yourself with more. Relax your body and wait for the storm to pass. This strategy is similar to what Leo talks about in the Masculine vs Feminine video. Women usually like to talk their ways through problem, while men usually like to numb themselves. I am heavily influenced by feminine energy because I grew up with my mom and sister alone. And that has definitely not worked. So… let us move the other way around. Yes… I am telling you to distract yourself. Because, really, to me consciously distracting yourself is nothing less and nothing more than practicing relaxation. You do not have to use 100% of your energy. Actually, you should never use more than 75% of your energy, even if your anxiety is telling you: “YOU SHOULD RUSH!!!!!!!!!” No. Nothing special is supposed to happen. Self-Amusement: The Key to Overcoming People-Pleasing I often forget to enjoy myself in life. I take everything so seriously. I take my ideas seriously. I take people seriously. And really… I am fucking tired of fighting social anxiety, shyness, or however you want to call it. This is just a stupid label I have accepted as truth when I was 12. “Oh…! People are telling me that I am shy. Ok… that means I am shy... “ BAM! I believed in a silly idea and that has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, it is so natural to have moments that you are shy… but at least in Brazil, people always point out when you are quiet. “Oh what happened????? Why are you so quiet today???” Fuck you. Haha… it is as if I am all shitted, and someone farts at me thinking that the situation will get better… Anyway… do not focus on the reaction of people… the key point is: are you enjoying yourself? If others want to share happiness with you, great! If not, fuck'em -- life goes on. I feel like self-amusement should be one of my top 10 values. It is so fun… Small Strategic Changes I don’t want to change all my life around. Instead, I want to change strategic things, and I allow myself to relax afterwards. A successful person and you basically do the same things, but there are specific actions successful people do that yield 80% of their success. Examples: > Define my Top 10 Values > Open up my voice (my throat is always tense and my voice is always concentrated on my chest area. > Set priorities Regarding instilling new small daily habits: discipline your inner child a tiny bit everyday, and then let your innocence play. Finish. Period. Accept Hell Accept chaos. You do not need to throw away anything. The Universe knows what it is doing. So even if you are going through hell, realize that it is part of the purification process. If you can be with the chaos and the emotional discomfort with equanimity, it is just a matter of time before you see yourself feeling in Heaven. Life is tricky… it works a lot with contrasts. For example, give a big grin. A huge and forced smile as much as you can. Ok. Now, go the other way around. Totally sad and notice that your mouth goes go all the way down. In other words, a huge smile and a huge frown coexist. The happy face cannot exist without the sad face. Btw - one of the minor insights I had was to allow myself to make more facial expressions, even if they are “negative.” So really frown my eyebrows and lift my them up when I feel like, I am secretly scared of getting facial expressions... Just STICK To This Path Leo usually says that at the end of his videos. Now I understand why he talks so much about that. Your transformation will be totally beyond you. In fact, you will notice that you stop existing after you have clean yourself from all the shit you have build up ever since you were a child. When you empty yourself, Nature starts working through you. Simple as that. So, in a way, just focus on immersing yourself so that your subconscious mind learn through “osmosis.” That is why is so important to have a community of real friends who are more experienced practitioners. Just by being in the presence of some individuals, you learn things on an energetic level. Anyway, the greatest mistake you could do is take yourself too seriously and worry too much about how you are feeling now, today. Do not focus so much on the present moment. Focus more on your vision. So you change your self-talk: How You Can Change Your Self-Talk >>>>>>> When you change yourself truly, when Nature enters you; you simply feel good. You do not have to prove that you are feeling good. You simply have released your pent up energy, and now you are allowing Nature to work through you. You become a channel of “Divine Will” (as Matt Kahn puts it). Remember: awareness alone is curative. You ain't need to do anything. At some point it will become so obvious that a bad behavior is doing you harm, but you got to be willing to allow yourself to make mistakes. Otherwise, you break the cycle. And you become a slave of your bad habits. Why? Because you repressed them, and when they come back... they come in nastier forms. So... don't hold yourself back. Leo said in a video: We learn by fucking up. That is pretty much true. I am planning to write a trip report of a ceremony I went 4 months ago that I simply embarrassed the shit out of me and basically destroyed the ritual for everyone. I got kicked out from that place, but at least I experienced what it is like to be completely rejected and criticized. Hehe... If I keep doing all the shit I am doing, I am set for good... Cold showers, ayahuasca ceremonies, daily habit of affirmation, meditation group, Tai Chi, prioritize my work, participate in volunteer programs for children, and cultivate good friendships. I have built momentum to do so much shit... I am set for good. Haha It is just a matter of time… My next adventure to practice radical action will be taking Kambô, a venom poison that cleanses your whole body. I will write a report of it when I take it (this week or the other). “You can pick up all the flowers, but you can’t stop the spring.” - Pablo Neruda

@MiracleMan spiritual liberation REQUIRES discipline and mental training. improved ability to focus is the true transformation here. the rest is just a big dance of beliefs. get REAL. find a sangha where you live and practice with them religiously. by "religiously" i mean assiduously. practice with your heart for MONTHS. stop fucking around.

@Buba perhaps abandoning your current live and joining a Buddhist community in South-East Asia would be transformation. I know how cliche this sounds. But I'm not talking about the eat-prey-love bullcrap. I' talking about re-discovering your true humanity, learning to enjoy the tiniest things like refilling a water bucket from well and feeling the grass on your bare feet or collecting wood for the fire. Spending next 5 years of your life there in exchange for work you would get served food and spend most of your days in silent meditation, house chores or some kind of spiritual practice. Personally at this stage, I could not imagine doing that but if I felt suicidal and that my life just couldn't get any worse, perhaps I would consider leaving everything behind. Just a suggestion...there are stories of people who have done that and returned completely changed, i love with life.

I've mulled over this one recently. Do you know people who get stuck on it despite doing it consciously? Ofc, you can't verify if they are being conscious, but from what I've seen, I haven't really encountered addicts who seem/ claim apply awareness to their addictions consistently. This seems like a key distinction in my own experience, as well. Before I was really able to make progress on my addictions, it was all done compulsively, and I wasn't really able to observe the unsatisfactoriness and just how underwhelming the feeling was in the present moment. The story in my head and the associated thoughts and feelings were being reinforced rather than observed and deconstructed. Also, there's the component of using addictions as a numbing agent or outlet from emotional labor. It's almost universal among addicts I've encountered. Whenever I've tried to help a friend of mine break out of an addiction by turning inward, they relapse almost as soon as the work gets too deep for their comfort. Also, not having experienced non-duality earlier on had a pretty big role as well, as I had no alternative to really challenge addicting activities as the greatest pleasures in life. Prior to residing in no-self for an extended period of time, the notion that anything could rival, much less surpass, romantic love or personal achievement in terms of producing happiness, was laughable. That ties into another big distinction. At the risk of oversimplifying the matter, I've seen a choice in two different mindsets that will make or break you in transcending a behavior: 1) This feels good, but it's not ultimately fulfilling. Hmmm.... I JUST NEED MORE! (More extreme experiences of same/ quantity, etc.) Example: Having sex with that hot girl was fun, but I'm still not truly happy. If only I could do that all the time. Let me chase more girls/ hotter girls/ more extreme situations! Example: Damn, making one million dollars didn't solve my problems. I guess I just to go out and make even more money. Remarks: It's clear to see that this approach is practically inexhaustible and keeps one stuck like a hamster on a wheel. 2) This feels good, but it's not ultimately fulfilling. This isn't going to work. Maybe I should try a different approach to fulfillment. Example: You've noticed that experiences are inherently unsatisfactory and impermanent. Now you start looking at what lies beyond experience, if lucky enough, you encounter non-duality. This isn't to say that non-duality is a panacea for addictions, but I think it makes a big difference in personal transformation.

@Charlotte It's different depending on which stage if the journey you are in. For me, right now, there is a bodily transformation which is resurfacing alot of emotional energy that has been stored in the body over the years.

the phenomenom thought is part of Reality just like sound and light. they have no origin because Reality is a field of continuous impermanence so everything you name is actually a beginless/endless process of transformation rather than a "thing". ego is another "thing".

@Jacobsen To be unconscious of your actions, your thoughts, your feelings creates your dark night of the soul. The definition of mysticism is the transformation of the dark night of the soul into a light night of the soul.

@Joseph Maynor Born is just a phase of transformation, like death. We are not instantly born neither do we die in one go. It's all a gradual process, meaning parts of us die. If we die piece by piece then are we really who we think we are? In short, we are not a single entity, all our cells die and refresh every 7 years. Death is an illusion, we are already being reborn and dying every moment.

@zenjen There is a similarity between psychosis and spiritual awakening symptoms. Traditional psychotherapy and psychiatry has no theoretical framework to understand and diagnose properly any condition connected with spiritual awakening. They can diagnose as psychotic a patient that is experiencing a powerful and important transformation as a consequence of awakening. The only field of Western psychology that deals with this field and can fully understand it is transpersonal psychology. Don't seek support from conventional psychiatrists ! Their view of the human psyche is very limited . The phases of powerful transformation that come after sudden opening to spiritual experiences are called spiritual emergency or spiritual crisis in transpersonal psychology. I am currently in this phase. What I did at the time was that I combined a Vipassana retreat with Holotropic breathwork and two radical honesty workshops right afterwards. My level of consciousness grew incredibly in a very short time and i had a few mystical experiences. Since then I have been releasing tons of stuck emotions and have had a lot of symptoms that by conventional psychology would have been diagnosed as psychotic. It is really a very powerful healing process that has to be supported . You can find support here http://spiritualemergence.info . If you want to read in depth about this there is a whole chapter in the book " integral psychology" by Brant Cortright.

@Joseph Maynor Sure. The truth is about what already is, what is already so. So it doesn't change anything for you, because its already true whether we are conscious of it or not. So nothing has to change in your experience for the truth to already be the case. To put it another way the truth doesn't provide you with anything you don't already have. On the other hand transformation is a proccess that occurs over time. Changing your experience, changing your self experience, your mind, the context in which reality is held and so on. All this stuff has to be changed deliberately. That is to say the truth can provide the consciousness in which to change these things but one has to do that for themselves. For example if you have a enlightenment experience, some things might fall away, some assumptions & beliefs for example, but chances are, after that is over you will go back into the exact same self experience and way of experiencing life you did before the enlightenment. And also the knowing and memory of what you found out during that enlightenment. It may change the way you hold yourself now, and your view of reality but generally speaking your life will be pretty much the same. But the more & more conscious you become, with ever deepening enlightenments the more your ability to completely transform your way of experiencing life becomes. That is to say someone who has had their first enlightenment or two is not gona experience a completely transformed way of life like the Buddha, that takes time with a ever deepening consciousness of experience & self ect. So you can see from this that if you want a completely transformed way of life, with complete freedom, no suffering, to be able to transcend self survival, transform your emotions, the way you relate to others, the wisdom you have, your ability to see the non dual nature of life and so on. Will take a deliberate effort on your part, deep investigation, into your own experience, to be able to change the form of your experience. Enlightenment is the realisation of The nature of your experience, the isness of experience, but does not change the experience. Isness & change are two different things. That's not to say though that your experience won't change in some way after very deep enlightenments.

These are great questions. It's actually a complex and multi-faceted topic, and can be confusing to talk about. So, I want to clarify a handful of different ideas that relate to this topic. Yang: The primordial energy that is the opposite of Yin energy. It is one half of the binary code that creates all of reality. The nature of this energy is concerned with doing, expansion, ideals, ideas, and all things spiritual and non-material. It is related to the elements air and fire, as it has no substance on its own but is concerned with transforming substances. It has an implicit tie to the masculine principle. This supersedes human gender and is inherent to all living and non-living systems. A system isn't truly a system without it. Yin: The primordial energy that is the opposite of Yang energy. It is the other half of the binary code that creates all of reality. The nature of this energy is concerned wit being, contraction, reality prior to interpretation, and all things related to matter and materiality. It is pure substance with no movement or transformation. It is simply being. It has an implicit tie to the feminine principle. This supersedes human gender and is inherent to all living and non-living systems. A system isn't truly a system without it. The masculine principle: All expressions that are an expression of Yang energy as is generally recognized across unrelated cultures and in esoteric texts. Human beings have always associated this to men and masculinity because it is the closest humanity-related metaphor that relates to these traits and ideas. Men as a group generally express more of these traits as they tend to have more Yang energy. But this is not always the case. Some examples of this can be found in similarities in polytheistic religions. You will often find sky gods and Earth goddesses in most cultures. There are a few that have it the other way around, but those are exceptions. There are also human traits, strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies that are part of the masculine principle. But the principle isn't real like the energy is. It's just a comprehensive framework for understanding the many expressions of Yang... as Yang is a subtle energy. This also supersedes human gender as it contains both human and non-human aspects. The feminine principle: All expressions that are an expression of Yin energy as it is generally recognized across unrelated cultures and in esoteric texts. Human beings have always associated this to women and femininity because it is the closest humanity-related metaphor that relates to these traits and ideas. Women as a group generally express more of these traits as they tend to have more Yin energy. But this is not always the case. Another example of the feminine and masculine principle can be found in the Hindu Goddess Durga. She is representative of the interplay of Yin and Yang in the universe. She has the body of a Goddess and represents being and the energy source of all life. But she has many arms which are each an arm of a male God. And they hold his weapon of choice. So she also represents doing and particularity. Durga is meant to represent the workings of how being and doing work together in all things. There are also human traits, strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies that are part of the feminine principle. But the principle isn't real like the energy is. It's just a comprehensive framework for understanding the many expressions of Yin... as Yin is a subtle energy. This also supersedes human gender as it contains both human and non-human aspects. Masculinity: All traits ascribed to manhood within a particular culture. This is limited to human gender and is often frequently solely socially constructed and may not even have a tie to Yang. Sometimes it will be a true expression of Yang. But other times, it is just social understandings about what relates most to manhood. For example, in America in the 1700s it was considered manly to where powdered wigs and face powder. But we may see it as very feminine or just plain weird. Social understandings of masculinity often get in the way of a person's ability to truly be in touch with and express Yang energy. Femininity: All traits ascribed to womanhood within a particular culture. This is limited to human gender and is often frequently solely socially constructed and may not even have a tie to Yin. Sometimes it will be a true expression of Yin. But other times, it is just social understandings about what relates most to womanhood. For example, wearing make-up in most modern cultures is considered feminine. But it was considered masculine in many societies as it was used as war paint. Gender: Human beings are always androgynous in varying degrees because Yin and Yang are required to create life. No man is made from sperm alone, nor any woman made from an egg alone. The interplay of Yin and Yang energy creates life itself and it creates the human personality. And the Yin/Yang signature is pre-conditioned and immutable, and finds expression through socially constructed means. To close yourself off to one or the other energy because of ideas of how a man or woman should be is one of the biggest barriers to authenticity and truly thriving as a whole human being. It stifles your life energy to repress Yin or Yang from your awareness. Most of the time, men will have a higher degree of Yang relative to Yin energy and vice versa for women. But there are as many types of Yin/Yang signatures as there are individual humans. So, the man=Yang and woman=Yin idea is very over-simplified. We're all a lot more complex than that. Edit: So, to answer you question, the reason why we relate these things to maleness and femaleness is because the energies of Yang and Yin 'feel' man-like and woman-like. When I experienced ego transcendence, I was able to pick up on feminine energy, and it felt feminine. So, male-energy and female-energy (generally speaking) are just the most similar human expression to Yang and Yin. So, it's used as a quasi-metaphor for understanding... but it also has a real similarity because you can experience Yang when experiencing someone with a masculine personality and you can experience Yin when experiencing someone with a feminine personality, regardless of gender.

Go ahead and share your views on this...

@zazed Kundalini does lead to spiritual enlightenment. Also, from what I read, it isn't Kundalini itself that makes a person feel unpleasant. It is our unconscious thoughts and ideas that we have been carrying in us. Kundalini forces you to work through these issues and I can imagine it is scary for anyone who doesn't know what Kundalini is and it happening to them. Also it seems some people have an initial Kundalini awakening or self realization and then followed by Kundalini syndrome. In my case, I have had no self realization but am working with Kundalini syndrome which I didn't fully admit to myself that was happening for a while because it just seems so surreal. Also, I had the why would it happen to me thought. As we all assume or know, there is no me. Here are some examples from Tara Springett's book Enlightenment through the Path of Kundalini regarding your quality of life question. Benefits of Kundalini include bliss, ecstacy and rapture, easiest way to imagine bliss is to think of ecstatic sensation of an orgasm. Bliss in head feels like heavenly pleasure. Bliss in throat feels more joyful, Bliss in heart like deep love, Bliss in solar plexus fills us with a sensation of deepest peace, Bliss at the naval feels like the overflowing joy you would feel if your dreams were suddenly fulfilled. Creativity forces are strongly stimulated. Kundalini can be used for spiritual healing and enhanced resistance to disease. These are gifts that usually need to be developed. She says it makes you more beautiful and sexually attractive. You will have more energy and a more youthful appearance. Deeper insight and intuition and intelligence. Liberation from ego. Freedom from our personal past. Freedom from the need to protect our ego. Freedom to be whatever and whoever you want to be. Power and supernatural power. Transformation of ordinary reality into paradise. Enlightenment. My personal story: It is impacting everything right now. This past year was and is really hard for my husband and me. That part doesn't feel great at the moment but I get confused if I am judging or blaming or basically if its just all my ego. I do feel love and bliss in my head. It literally does feel like an orgasm in my head. And I feel it is my heart and throat and now I am trying to open my solar plexis chakra. It is just recently changing the way I act in a more positive direction. I feel like I just want to go up to everyone who I shut out and say I am so sorry, do you need help with anything? I am becoming more conscious of how I listen to people, how much my life can affect someone else. I always thought I felt compassion for other people, but this compassion that is still developing for others is a little different. Kundalini forces you to do the self actualization part of enlightenment because it is part of enlightenment. I have quit drinking entirely. I used to smoke weed weekly but I don't do that anymore. I was pretty depressed before starting this path and now even though I have some days where I feel sad and maybe depressed, I have days where I am happy the WHOLE day. I haven't had that since teenage years. I'm 32. I didn't like myself AT ALL and now I am learning how to be my best friend. I don't know how to gauge the personality change yet. I feel like it will probably change but I still feel like myself. So far, no real benefit from the third eye in my daily life. Just interesting. Kundalini is different for different people. I think I am having a pretty good experience with it. We will see though. I am seeing a therapist and reading and trying to keep up with it. Just started yoga. Meditation and knowing when not to do a meditation. You have to eat healthy. If you don't you feel it. I do not know what is to come. Keep on asking and that is totally okay if you are skeptical. I was an atheist before this and I sometimes just cannot believe what is going on.

What is the YOLO mindset about ? To my knowledge, YOLO is an acronym that represents "You only live once". This attitude towards living life would usually pertain to reckless and mindless behaviour done based on the assumption that you have 'one life to live'. However, there are fundamentally two sides to everything and YOLO can be seen from two perspectives; 1. Destructive(Foolish) 2. Constructive(Wise) The destructive perspective, of course, concerns the foolish and reckless endangerment of oneself and other persons. Activities including raving, orgies, mind masturbation etc. This YOLO perspective feels great in the short term with devastating effects in the long term. Fundamentally, this perspective is extremely insidious to health of the individual in all aspects. On the other, the constructive YOLO concerns fundamentally self-development. Activities of course, include creative work, self transformation etc. Long term fulfillment is the major benefit of this perspective on life, in the short term you will feel the most emotional obstacles but if you make the effort to push past them ... fulfillment is always awaiting.

@Hardkill I don't know but I feel my crown chakra going mental when I watch it or a super sayan transformation

@Joseph Maynor The "heightened Awareness" or flame of attention gives one the freedom to see in real time what is really occurring in ones life. The "auto correct" as you say, is a result of clarity and intelligence. If something is seen as inappropriate or unnecessary then naturally we will stop doing it. If we become conscious that we are creating the anger that we feel when someone cuts us off, or the anxiety that we feel in a social setting, then we have the freedom to stop creating these unnecessary limitations in our experience. awareness is distracted a lot for someone who has no interest in these things, for the one who has the fire of discovery & inquiry in there heart then there consciousness will increase, its inevitable. Direct consciousness will not change anything in experience, but gives one the Freedom to change anything in experience. Don't confuse consciousness with transformation. The relationship between "awareness & dream" is that they are not 2 things. Consciousness and objective existence are the same thing & share the same place. So you can see how one effects the other.

Alright. I just came home from a trip retreat, the transformation I went through is beyond words. I've done magic truffles a year ago, that was my introduction with psychedelics, it was a low dose with 2 friends. Just fun, nothing spiritual, nothing beyond human. This time I went for the Bufo Alvarius together with Ayahuasca, it a retreat out in the middle of the grasslands in Holland in a small farmers home. Beautiful and calm environment. The weekend started early on Friday with doing kambo, not that bad but not fun at all. In the afternoon we did a Bufo Alvarius (5-MeO-DMT) ceremony. They gave everyone a full dose first time. All Bufo was smoked. I passed out quite directly after inhaling, when I regained consciousness everything was quite beautiful and I was very aware. Apparently I was away for about 15 minutes and did all sort of shit without having any memory of it. Anyway.. afterward I felt a bit disappointed because I knew I missed the big '5meo experience'. Next day in the morning we did another round of Bufo. This time I got 1/3 of the dose of the day before, just enough to keep ego intact. I became COSMIC POWER!!!!!!! Energy sprayed out of my fingers, yet at the same time my entire body was gone and was the universe. All I did was being more open more open more open, GOD radiated through me. I was lying outside in the grass and all I felt doing was making snow angels and let IT completely eat me up. They laid me down on a mattress in the sun to let me enjoy and to come down, after half an hour I could do things again. What happened was impossible. No doubt. I cried a little. For the evening we had an ayahuasca ceremony planned. But before there was plenty of time for me to walk around on my own in nature and set things straight for as far that was possible. A little worry came up because of the ayahuasca, but I figured that if I just surrender and be open then ALL IS WELL. I felt really good and present like never before. At around 8pm we started with the Ayahuasca ceremony. I can make this long and detailed but I don't really feel like doing that. The ayahuasca experience was beautiful and 'trippy', it went really personal and a lot of life lessons were learned. However 'I' was always there.. just witnessing. And since I learned to be ok with everything it was just easy going. It wasn't that I was in control of what was going on but I just accepted everything and it wasn't really tough that way. After a few hours of that it came off a bit. I puked. I laughed. And laid back down in bed. Then it started. Quite quickly the 5-Meo 'experience' came back and hit me like a motherfucker. I was still in 'all open and accepting'-mode and I immediately realised that it just only begun. Maybe I can describe my first experience with the Bufo I had that morning as GOD giving me a hug. The firmest and most intimate hug ever. What happened now was that GOD got downloaded into me through my head and my heart. It was just endless energy, most of the time I was laying with hands and feet stretched out like a starfish just swimming in endless energy. I received life lesson after life lesson, no end, and I received it all with open arms and a smile. After some time it got a theme were I would experience something, then its opposite, and after that a realisation came that they were the same. Most of these things I learned in books or from youtube or something, but now I BECAME IT. Things like fear=love, I got crucified like Jesus (totally fine with it) and got covered in liquid love (best I can describe this is when you have warm water that's not too hot and when you put your finger in the water it has that temperature that you can't feel it, this blasted out of inside me and all over me, and I was totally endless). In between the 'lessons' I was vibrating spastically with my arms and legs just to get a little bit of a break. Another very profound lesson was that free will and no free will are the same. Every time I got presented a choice I choose surrender and every time I did this with ABSOLUTE conviction, no doubt was there. Oh man, so powerful... and much much more.. I write these down now very clumsily but remember I was all these things. What this was was literally IMPOSSIBLE!! I honestly have no idea how to integrate all this at the moment. I'm left quite horrified. Yet it switches with feeling absolutely complete and wonderful... I'm probably scared because I know that I have to face this even more deeply in the future. I will receive everything with complete openness because honestly, there is nothing else. But still.. I will probably update and put to words the actual insights I received clearly in more detail. Right know I feel like going out for a walk. When I read what I just wrote it looks all totally silly, I have no idea how to describe all this. Though I realise that only now I have had just a small little taste of what Leo talks about in his enlightenment videos and what all other spiritual teachers talk about as well. Please comment, especially if you have some tips for putting it all together after you had your first 5-MeO experience. Thank you thank you

@Sukhpaal It took me 6 months to feel this sudden transformation, so maybe I'm lucky compared to you? I don't know. I think it's more or less a phase that we would have to go through sooner or later. I do agree with you that this isn't the end of the road yet, and I still have plenty of other areas to work on, but at least I went through the very first bottleneck.