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Well, considering how @Leo Gura has mentioned that he's writing a book (which I'll be first in line for as soon as it comes out), I might as well get more of my own stuff out there so no one thinks I'm copying. Also, I can't emphasize how much writing helps. In particular, writing basically eliminates the monkey mind 'problem' by giving your mind a rubik's cube to solve -- how to describe whatever it is you want to describe. Anyway, here's another section: How to use this book - The Nature of Enlightenment “The most profound insights arise from questioning the overlooked obvious” – Peter Ralston 260 BC - Hiero’s new crown pleased him. To celebrate his long climb to the top of royalty, he’d appointed a goldsmith to make him the most beautiful wreath ever as a message to everyone else. After weeks of work, the goldsmith produced a masterpiece - a wreath truly worthy of the gods. Indeed, it seemed no mortal man could have produced such a wreath. The commoners began rumors that the king’s wreath was not made out of gold, but silver, which is much easier to work with. Heiro could not stand such scandal. He might as well have been a king without a crown. So, he held a public trial for the Goldsmith and the crown. If the crown was made out of gold, the Goldsmith would be awarded with even greater money than before and Heiro would look like a just, benevolent ruler. If not, the Goldsmith would be tortured in front of the city as a warning to anyone who tried to mess with royalty. The goldsmith’s talent ran in the family, as exemplified by his cousin Archimedes. Not only did Archimedes use calculus to prove the area of the circle 2,000 years before the actual invention of calculus, but he also invented hydrostatics and the compound pulley. For this reason, Archimedes was the first person the goldsmith went to for help. “I have two days before they kill me!” the goldsmith cried to Archimedes, “I don’t know how to prove to the king that the crown is made out of gold other than destroying it and showing him the insides. But I can’t destroy my life’s work – we all know the gods would punish me for doing so! Then again, I don’t want to die for my masterpiece, either!” Archimedes got to work immediately. Prior experience told him that gold and silver had different weights at the same overall size. If he could figure out the size of the crown, then he could compare it to the a known amount of pure gold of the same size to tell if it was real. But there was a problem: up to that point in history, no one could figure out how to measure the volume of an object with an irregular shape. I mean just look at the thing - do you sacrifice accuracy by using a big ruler, or do you waste time by using a tiny ruler, one which will still contain inaccuracies? Archimedes spent all day and night trying to come up with solution to this issue. Alas, nothing worked. Dejected, Archimedes went to take what he knew was to be his final bath before the king killed his cousin and then killed him for helping a traitor like his cousin. As he stepped into the bath, Archimedes noticed that the water level rose. As he got his whole body in, it approached the top of the bath itself. And when he placed his arm in the water, some of it splashed out the sides. At that moment, insight struck him: the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. "Eureka! Eureka! (I found it! I found it!)" Proclaimed Archimedes. Eager to share his discovery, Archimedes leapt out of his bathtub and ran through the streets of Syracuse naked telling everyone of his discovery. ---- Most people think of this Eureka moment as happening in an instant. This is only partially true. See, Insights transcend the term “slow” and “fast,” existing in an nigh-unknowable plane of hidden mystical awareness. Insights are partially “slow” because they usually need time to incubate. Like Archimedes, you need: · Previous experiences that give you lessons · Time spent concentrating and contemplating over a topic · And a little bit of mental relaxation for ideas to float in. But once you build the correct scaffolding, insights seem to come out of nowhere and they do so almost instantly. The key is to recognize that this is different from thinking. Thinking usually involves a step by step series of problem solving. That takes too long. Direct Insight - involves an actual recognition of something. When you open your mind to the new possibilities, there’s a sudden shift in perspective where that which didn’t seem to exist suddenly exists. Again, the truth is that nothing changes: you simply realize that which was always there in the first place. Archimedes didn’t invent the fact that you can measure density using water, he discovered a fact that was always there. The same is true for enlightenment. Except you probably don’t realize that yet. In particular, you think you can’t become enlightened or haven’t already had Enlightments. This is because of shit marketing tactics and the natural human tendency to not investigate things on ones own with open-mindedness. See, like Archimedes, you too will be partially tempted to run around naked telling everyone of the Absolute Truth. Its just too obvious and too amazing not to. On the other hand, the answer is so simple, you’re not going to want to say anything. After meditating for 42 days and realizing enlightenment, Siddartha said “I truly attained nothing from complete, unexcelled Enlightenment,” Immediately afterwards, Siddartha, now the Buddha, went off to the mountains to live alone. He figured there was just no way anyone would get it if he talked about what it is he ‘got’ because there was just nothing to say. After a while, however, people started begging him for help. They’d heard of his enlightenment and wanted a piece of it for themselves. He refused to budge. One day, someone pointed out that if he were to help, then eventually, someone would ‘get it.’ With the hope that just someone somewhere might get it, he began teaching. His first teaching consisted of sitting silently while he stared at the crowd. This continued for a few years, much to everyone’s frustration. His second teaching consisted of telling everyone that he was not a teacher, no one should quote him, and that nothing he was about to say was actually true. This continued for a few years, much to everyone’s frustration. His third teaching consisted of telling everyone to stop relying on teachers and to see the truth for themselves. This continued for a few years, much to everyone’s frustration. After a while, he gave up on that and started alluding to regular sensory experiences to try to point out what’s up with reality. Now everyone was happy. Unlike the density of an object, the Absolute Truth cannot be spoken. At best, the Absolute Truth can be pointed to with analogies and stories. When egos run upon these stories its up to them to see what’s being pointed to on their own. And the problem with that is that egos exist in almost direct opposition to the truth: you are immortal, infinite, and omnipotent; the ego convinces you that you are mortal, finite, and of limited potential. Moreover, the only way for you to ‘get that you’re immortal is that the ego has to go away long enough for you to see that yes, you really are immortal. To the ego, going away equates to death. That is, in all seriousness, to become immortal you have to die. You can see how this could create problems. Mainly, one faces the question of how to convince people to go on an inward journey even though they think they have a bunch of stuff going on outside themselves. The next question is how you are going to get them to kill what-they-think-of-as-themselves without having them literally take a knife and slit their wrists. Intro to Marketing 101: You tell them it’s more worth their time than anything else. You tell them enlightenment is this grandiose thing filled with extra universes and heavenly figures and eternal bliss. You tell them that its some near impossible journey only taken by heroes, legends, and gods and that they are brave for starting such a journey. You tell them that it costs no money and that by even beginning to ask about enlightenment, it’s their destiny to attain it. Oops, my bad. I got ahead of myself. That’s not marketing 101. That’s Intro to Marketing 100: fucking lie to them. Tell them something that’s true, but not really. Tell them just enough that they feel happy enough to spread the word, but just enough that everyone else can accept easily. Don’t tell them the whole truth because the whole fucking truth cannot actually be told. Turn the Truth into a meme. Make it something that follows the SUCCES model of making lessons stick: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, and Storied. Don’t make people think too hard – their own biology prevents them from doing so. Tell them that Jesus died on the cross for you to tell you that you are a child of God. The Buddha sat under a tree to figure out that when he became enlightened, everyone became enlightened because he is the same as everyone anyway. Krishna has your back as long as you focus on doing you and becoming the best person you can. Yes, it's true, but no, it's not at all what you think it actually is because the truth is far more nuanced yet simple at the same time. Think about it: for basically everything in life, we need previous experiences and understandings before we can accept new experiences and understandings, but for the Absolute Truth, we must find something that rests on absolutely no prior experience or understanding for it is that which is prior to all experiences and understandings. Most people can barely get past the first layer of questioning themselves when you ask them why they do the things they do. Forget the second layer. And Fuck the third layer, that one’s impossible. Enlightenment, on the other hand, literally requires coming up with the answer to an infinite regression of questions. Do you really think people are going to do sit down and do this for no reason? And yet what’s Absolutely Hilarious – the Kosmic Joke - is that everyone can do it. I mean it. I really mean it. I really really mean it. That’s what drives some enlightened people insane. They can’t help but do something to let everyone know what’s up. Put it this way: a few months ago, I went to watch my 5-year-old cousin play T-ball. In case you didn’t know (or otherwise didn’t have a childhood growing up cough), T-ball is a form of baseball where, instead of having people throw the ball at the batter, the ball would sit on a mount, absolutely motionless and easily available to knock out of the park. It’s supposed to be so easy, even a 5-year-old kid could do it. To my amusement, the kids would take a swing and totally miss. Sometimes, they’d line up to bat looking in the wrong direction, as if they were going to hit the ball into the fence behind them. It was the cutest thing ever. You too would think to yourself how is this possible? But you couldn’t run onto the field and play T-ball for them. They have to figure it out on their own. This is the feeling I get when it comes to discussions about nature of enlightenment. Its like Humanity has basically been stuck in a 10,000 year old Abbott and Costello Who’s on first skit that mixes the words you, nothing, truth, infinity, god, allah, the higgs boson field, the universe, simulation theory, consciousness, and " " (wordless expression). Everyone’s talking about the same thing, but every time someone kind of gets it, they proceed to get mad at everyone else for being 'wrong,' even though they’re basically just as wrong and just as right. Human nature is basically a process of spiraling from one description to the other, flipping off the other descriptions until you realize that they're all capital-I 'It' masking itself through words. ----- We’ve all had insights. And so, part of us gets why Archimedes ran around naked. We also know that when we have insights they kind of just strike us out of nowhere. In particular, we have to try really really hard and then, just let go and take a nice bath to clear your mind. Now I want you to imagine that you can have an insight into the biggest questions of life. If you’re not sure what questions those are, let me get you started: 1. What is consciousness? 2. Does God exist? 3. Is our universe real? Are we in a simulation? 4. Do we have free will? 5. What is the universe made of? 6. What is Truth? How do I know what is right or wrong? 7. Why is there something rather than nothing? 8. How do we stop ourselves and the universe around us from dying? (Foreshadow: How do you prevent the 2nd law of thermodynamics from taking us over?) 9. How did life begin? 10. Are we alone in the universe? Both us as individuals and humans as a species? 11. What makes us human? Why? 12. Why do we dream? 13. Can you really experience anything objectively? 14. Why is there stuff? 15. Are there other universes? 16. Why is math so accurate? What are numbers? 17. What is at the bottom of a black hole? 18. Is time travel possible? 19. What will be the fate of our species? Our universe? 20. Why is the universe so exquisitely balanced such that life can exist? 21. Is there life after death? 22. What is the meaning of life? 23. What is beauty? 24. What am I supposed to do with my life? This is the type of stuff that enlightenment refers to. I’m not exaggerating. You can answer all of these with the same insight: The Absolute Truth = Consciousness = You = Pure Awareness = Absolute Infinity = Pure Imagination = The Universe = God = Nothing = Everything = All = Zero/Zero = “ “ (there is no actual word for it) So without further ado, here’s what enlightenment is: Enlightenment is insight to the Absolute Truth. It is direct consciousness of what-is as-it-is for-itself as-itself. It is insight into that which is Absolutely True about the nature of reality, the nature of the self, and the nature of existence. Here are other clarifications: · It is NOT something that happens only once -- You can keep having insights that go deeper and deeper into the same subject: Absolute truth, the same way you can view a diamond form many angles. · It is NOT strictly Either-or -- Although yes, the insight itself is either-or, you may have different glimpses of insight at different moments such that you awaken more to the truth just like you get better at using the multiplication table once you understand it and begin to apply it in new ways. · It is NOT the same as personal transformation -- The truth specifically does not change and transformation is, by definition, change. What happens is that the truth allows you to have a significantly easier time changing your behavioral patterns. · It is NOT impossible -- If anything its pretty easy once you set up the proper mental and physical systems for attaining insight. You can definitely do it! And once you know what to generally look for, insights will start coming by the boat load. · It is NOT 'eternal bliss, no matter what' -- Sorry kid, you’re always going to have problems as long as you live the life of a human. Thats just what we do - make up problems for ourselves. In fact, trying to go for eternal bliss will probably just cause more suffering. As Rick Sanchez once said, "you want to *burp* rip that band-aid off now. You'll thank me later" · It is NOT Something you perceive, in particular it must involve some out-of-this-world emotional, sensational, or physical experience; nope, the world basically stays the same. -- Put it this way: intuitively grasping the Pythagorean theorem makes math more beautiful, but its not like your paper flew out of the room and turn into an angel. (Sidenote: I admit however, that if you saw your paper fly out of the room and turn into an angel, it would probably make enlightenment easier.) · It is NOT unavailable to you now -- Enlightenment is always and only available NOW. Stop waiting for it to happen in the future. Enlightenment is available at any point, and at any time the way insight is always available to Archimedes. Open your mind up to possibilities and allow for impossibilities. It will be almost like an "aha!" moment, but it won't actually require thinking other than focused contemplation mixed with some looseness from psychedelics or simple relaxation. What we're looking for requires recognition, which seems like thinking, but it's an entirely different mode of perception. Its like when you cross your eyes to look at one of those 3D puzzles and boom it just pops out: reality is neither matter nor hallucination - it just kind of is and it is all and you are its source and you are all and you are everyone and everyone is all which means that it is no one person except that it is all one person. Trust me, that last sentence will make sense as soon as you 'get it.' Maybe this section of this book will make you ‘get it’. Maybe another section will. Maybe it will take a re-reading. Maybe, you’ll get it while taking a bath 60 years down the line. Be ready. Be aware. Be open. Enlightenment will mean the end of your journey. You’ll be done. You’ll just know. Pure and simple. You’ll understand why it is that some of the things that have been marketed to you the way that they’ve been marketed to you. That is, you’ll begin to see that them as partially true, and in some cases, totally possible accounts of reality. You’ll to see them as partially wrong, and in some cases, totally impossible accounts of reality. Heaven Exists, but it’s not what you think of. The Gates of Heaven Exist too, but the Gate is a Gateless Gate. The implications of the existence of absolute truth as nothing but pure indistinct imagination are so crazy, yet elegant, so chaotic, yet simple it will blow your fucking mind. Enlightenment will also mean the beginning of your journey. You’ll find yourself on your knees, trying to pick up pieces of your mind back up off the floor from having been blown to bits. This will take the rest of your lifetime. And If you’re at all curious like me, your first enlightenment will just make you want to have more enlightenments. Everyone knows that One answer begets five more questions. This is just as true for The One Answer. Enlightenment will also mean that that there is no beginning – there is no end. Life itself becomes this never-ending series of insights to be had about the same thing - you. Everywhere you look at becomes a series of clues, all pointing to final puzzle piece that restarts the whole puzzle - Everything. Except that the puzzle is infinitely big and infinitely small and infinitely long and infinitely wide and so it doesn’t even have a final piece - Nothing. As you might imagine, this makes every day inexplicably exciting and full of wonder of some greater force – God. ----- Archimedes didn’t stop working on mathematics after helping his cousin. He began wondering about the nature of circles, for he intuited that circles held a view of the Absolute Truth. While he worked on this problem over the next few years, the Roman Empire toppled the Greek Empire. Archimedes barely noticed as his house got stripped away and the Romans forced him to live on the streets. It didn’t matter if he was Greek or Roman – that stuff was all relative. It only mattered that he find the Absolute Truth. One day, a high-ranking Roman soldier came up to Archimedes as he sat on the road drawing circles. The soldier commanded him to make way for the passing Roman guard. But Archimedes, in the middle of solving a problem involving circles, refused to budge. The soldier grew enraged – for what reason does this poor old Greek commoner disobey his commands? “Nothing,” Archimedes replied, “Don’t disturb my circles.” The soldier promptly ran through Archimedes with his sword. Archimedes had good reason to not move. ---- The Main Point: Enlightenment = insight to the nature of nature itself. No more, no less. Focus, relax, boom.

I resonate with the following The Lone wolf The quitter The person with low self-esteem The perfectionist I try to get past these by working on myself everyday. For example I'm trying to work on not being a quitter by pushing myself a little more and believing that if I can do this, I can also do that.... so far it's helping. Although breaking out of these modes of behavior requires intense discipline and self transformation. @Joseph Maynor Btw the labels are really cool.. Perfect description of different personalities.

I've been thinking about this subject a bit over the last day and have some slightly off topic thoughts about the subject of healing itself, and of pursuing various modalities. More specifically for people who are seeking to heal difficulties in their life. I hope it isn't minded if I share my perspective in this thread for fun as well as personal processing: If memory serves, I have heard a few times that specific or overt focus on chakras isn't always a good idea. I think it is because if one doesn't quite know what they're doing then sometimes at best it may be a bit clumsy, and at worst it can cause imbalance, disturbances. etc. Some pursue chakra healing in order to alleviate certain life circumstances and may wish to focus on 'clearing' a particular energy center. The risk is that this may come without awareness that their subject has its corresponding imprints throughout the entire energetic column that would ideally unravel in its own elegant way, as opposed to our desire to really push through it. Sudden releases of energy into 'unrefined' centers can be strenuous both physically and to the psyche. Not to say that I think working with energy or chakras is invalid; rather perhaps it can be a very useful paradigm for some, and a distraction for others. I'll elaborate on why. It's fascinating to explore just what healing actually is. At one level it is useful to examine it as part of cause and effect, but often in my experience it seems to be occurring completely of its own volition in accordance with a divine intelligence. Effective healing seems to be less about doing and more about releasing control to allow that intelligence to flow. My understanding is that reiki doesn't require a lifetime of study or extensive knowledge of the energetic system, on the contrary it can be learned relatively quickly, even intuitively. This is ideal, after all; how could the mind work with such profound and complex levels of energetic orchestration? it cannot, but it can release itself to allow the higher intelligence/energy to guide the practitioner and do what it intends to do. This allowing is the principle of Yin (the feminine, the receptive, flowing, pregnant, awareness,) Therefore I think it can be said that if you are guided to any practice via your heart/intuition (yin) then I would say that it's going to be useful for you. Trouble arises, however, when we are more forcefully seeking healing as a result of our ego (ego as manifestation of Yang: the masculine, the creative, the penetrative) trying to lead and make healing 'happen'. When yang tries to lead, chaos ensues. This trouble occurs because the practice of healing is undertaken via the ego's apparent attempt to escape suffering. Attempting healing out of 'neediness' or other negative emotions creates a counter force which leads to self sabotage and lack of progress. The ego says it wants to heal and change but careful examination of its underlying dynamics reveals that this is impossible. The mind cannot change or transform anything, though it believes that it can. Its only true aim is to survive and perpetuate its programming, which is the very antithesis of the transformation we're after. In our attempt to escape suffering, we create more of it. Yang tries to create the effects of yin through feats of exhausting and destructive effort. This is why it's important to surrender and release our emotions and attachments on subjects that we wish to heal so that yang may give way to yin. This is experienced as the release of tightness, increased energy and softness, being okay with the outcomes, forgiveness, allowing ourselves to breathe. For as long as we are clenched tightly to our problems, we are resisting our own transformation. The illusion of the ego is that it thinks it can do the healing, and that healing needs to occur in the first place. The entirety of our Unconscious psyche (Yin!) is imprinted in the energetic system and we refer to it as blockages. And when we assume we are blocked, we assume we need healing and that then we will return to balance. In practice, when the unconscious is integrated (kundalini as manifestation of yang flowing in its receiving of yin) it is not just a return to normalcy, but the birth of something far greater. This union is the birther of worlds. The process is more akin to the metamorphosis of a butterfly, rather than of the closing of a wound. Can this be said to be healing? Not hardly! The glamour of certain healing practices is that it allows our ego's to juice our narratives and problems. The key to circumventing the tricks of monkey mind is to surrender our attachments and emotions to god/the universe/consciousness. The ego repulses at the idea of surrender because it thinks it means being passive, not doing anything, resignation, not having things change. In actuality, surrendering and releasing our attachments and emotions is ideally a very proactive mechanism. It doesn't even mean that we don't pursue healing modalities, only that it is done with more effortlessness, trust and enjoyment as a result of courage and willingness to let go of our grief, guilt, desire for change, and other emotions on the subject. Paradoxically when we release our wanting things to be different is when things really start to change. I can attest to this. ok, glad I wrote that because it's been bouncing around in my brain

@Sidi 1. Make a real commitment to yourself to go straight after school whether you have your licence, catch a bus or walk there (good cardio) etc it will be a great outlet from school and you can make a real life transformation in the next few weeks. 2. A good workout routine to follow is Monday: Chest/Triceps, Tuesday: Back/Biceps, Wednesday: Legs/Abs, Thurday: Shouders, Friday: Biceps/Triceps Weekend: Rest. 3. Get a nutrition app such as MyFitnessPal or Lifesum where you can track what you eat to get leaner and set goals accordingly. All the best consistency is the most important thing when it comes to health and fitness.

Yes, a way to live can definitely follow from enlightenment(s). That is essentially the whole book i'm writing is about. (except not -- it's actually a book about nothing) It is true that the solution is to follow your intuition. The hard part is in separating intuition from egoic confusion, however. Here's an excerpt from the section called Neo-Advaitan Confusion and another section on Core Values. ----- “If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.” – Abraham Maslow Some people think that connecting to Pure Being means literally doing nothing – especially nothing to help themselves. Maybe they listened to Eckhert Tolle’s Power of Now. Or maybe they want to “go with the flow,” because they saw it on a Bruce Lee poster and think that trying to do anything is a problem. Do not confuse the fact that you already are the truth with meaning that there’s nothing to do and nowhere to go. That is bullshit. I have never, ever met or heard of anyone who does absolutely nothing 100% of the time (that’s not dead or a vegetable.) Enlightened masters still do stuff: · Jesus sacrificed himself for his own reasons · Peter Ralston writes, teaches, and Kicks people in the face for his own reasons · Siddhartha Guatama talked to people about their problems for his own reasons it's not like they said "oh I'm enlightened now, fuck it there's nothing to do." Indeed, they're enlightenment specifically helped them take action. (Although one must be careful to separate enlightenment from transformation!) What we conventionally think of as us is actually a pattern of behaviors and stories exhibited by a seemingly constrained the universe itself. The ‘real’ us doesn’t even exist in the spacetime continuum. What’s important about that fact is that no one behavioral pattern is you because all behavioral patterns exist within spacetime. So, there’s no reason to identify with any one behavioral patterns. If you smoke, then no, it’s not Absolutely True that “you are smoker”– so, you don’t have to judge yourself so harshly for smoking and you don’t have to accept it as capital-T True that you will always “be” a smoker “no matter what.” Moreover, if you can correctly identify your unhelpful patterns, you can begin to change them to more helpful ones. Wakeful people have set strong behavioral systems in their life to help them follow their core values. As a result, they access pure being with less and less effort until it approaches becomes zero mental effort. So yes – there’s nothing we “have to” do, in a sense the only thing you have to “be” is yourself. But no – there’s plenty of work left; the life you’ve been living up to now is nowhere close to what your actual self is about. And even more no - there are internal pulls toward higher values that still pull one toward living up to their greatest potential. Unless you wake up every morning and have absolutely no struggle whatsoever to live your deepest values in-and-of-themselves every single moment of every single day to such an extent that you literally don’t care if you die at any moment because life is that good, then no, you’re not there yet. It’s easy for people to run around claiming that they’re enlightened just because they “understand” that there is no self. Its not like we can hop into their mind to see if they're lying. But look at what they do. Look at what they concern themselves about behaviorally. Look at what they stand for. Look at how they handle conflict. In particular, ask if that their actions connect to their deepest, most transcendent values 24/7 365. If not, then sucks-to-suck: they're probably not nearly as ‘enlightened’ as you might think. Enlightenment does not equal transformation, but it most certainly will help. ---- The Main Point: Balance theory with practice. Someone who truly ‘gets it’ will access pure being as much as possible. Their actions will reflect that fact, as they constantly live their core values for they'll realize that there's not much else to do anyway. ---- What are the cores value? The core values serve as internal "stars" for navigation. Or to put it another way, if you look deeply enough, the core values will feel like magnets that pull you in the appropriate direction. In truth, the core values do not "exist" in the "real" world. They are inexplicable and irreducible, only understandable from pure intuition. But who cares if they're "real"? Life is a game and the fun is in trying. You will never embody any core value perfectly, but the pursuit of our core values automatically helps us transcend life's distractions and remove our conditions-for-happiness. Thus, the main byproduct of our core values is Pure Being and Pure Happiness. It’s unnecessary to reinvent the wheel when it comes to figuring out what’s valuable. You are human and the core values are common to all humans, so you can perfectly well look at other humans to figure out your own core values. The following list comes from my own personal insights as well as research from Abraham Maslow, who called them Being Values. If you don’t believe me, good! I don’t want you to believe anything I say – I want you to investigate each idea for yourself. It’s through the investigation that you will help yourself aim at each value with laser focus. A person in Pure Being cognition will a life in accordance to the following core values: 1. 100% responsibility ---- “When we become responsible for our own values, we no longer have to struggle to make the world conform to our needs, rather we can adapt our own values to fit the circumstances that confront us in the world.” – William James “There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.” ― Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning --- Taking 100% responsibility for everything that happens to you in life is the cornerstone of all personal development. It’s the well-spring for self-sufficiency and self-efficacy. No matter what happens, you always have a choice in how to respond. You have a response – ability. Specifically, taking responsibility means choosing to forego distractions in favor of solutions and figuring out how to transcend your conditions for happiness. Other words: autonomy; independence; not-needing-other-than-itself-in-order-to-be-itself; self-determining; environment-transcendence; separateness; living by its own laws 2. Truth, Wisdom, Curiosity, and Exploration ---- “The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.” – Albert Einstein, ---- We all have an inner pull to find out what’s true: a willingness to see what lies in the unknown, an openness to insight and the discipline to put insight to use. Indeed, the pursuit of truth is by far the most powerful journey a human can take. To go on this journey, take it as a given that you’re at least partially wrong about life and work to make yourself less wrong. Keep exploring until you finish. Then, when you think you’re finished, take it as a sign that you have gone the wrong way, for you’re never finished. Other words: honesty; reality; nakedness; simplicity; richness; oughtness; beauty; pure, clean and unadulterated; completeness; essentiality 3. Aliveness, Richness, Beauty --- “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting.”-- Ralph Waldo Emerson --- We are each pulled toward having complete experiences of the world. We want to not feel “used to” the “mundane” objects of reality. We want to look into our lover’s eyes for the ten-thousandth-time the way we did for the first time. We want to find, observe, and appreciate beauty. We want to look in awe at what’s possible for the world of color, smell, and taste. And we have a pull to feel fully functional – connected to both our animal intellect and human intellect. I think this is the magic behind movies – they suck you into the experience completely so that there is no thought – only observance. I also think this is the reason some people do things like Cocaine – they want to feel the buzz of total pure sensory experience. The final note is that part of pursuing aliveness, richness, and beauty is the motivation to go out to nature. Wakeful people love going to nature. Other words: process; non-deadness; spontaneity; self-regulation; full-functioning; differentiation, complexity; intricacy; rightness; form; aliveness; simplicity; richness; wholeness; perfection; completion; uniqueness; 4. Simplicity, Space, Orderliness, Elegance ---- “In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.” -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow --- Life is simple, but we insist in making it complicated. Simplicity in this case refers to taking out the unnecessary junk from out lives – our schedules, our rooms, and our psyches. Space refers to space in our schedule to remain flexible. It also means having time to breathe and relax. Keeping things orderly, without becoming neurotic about it, contributes to a person’s mental health and well-being. A clean room is a clean mind. And in mathematics, a theorem exhibits elegance if it is surprisingly simple yet effective and constructive; similarly, a computer program or algorithm is elegant if it uses a small amount of code to great effect. Similarly, some of the greatest personal wisdom has elegance to it. Finding elegance in your understanding is a sign of growth. Embodying elegance in our lives is the ultimate form of mastery. Other words: honesty; nakedness; essentiality; abstract, essential, skeletal structure; minimalism 5. Authenticity – Vulnerability - Worthiness --- “The closer you stay to emotional authenticity and people, character authenticity, the less you can go wrong. That's how I feel now, no matter what you're doing.” - David O. Russell --- Authenticity is all about being real. Genuine, not an imitation. It means cultivating the courage to be imperfect, to set boundaries, and to allow ourselves to be vulnerable; It means exercising the compassion that comes from knowing that we are all made of strength and struggle; And it means nurturing the connection and sense of belonging that can only happen when we believe that we are enough. Emotional richness comes from authenticity and vulnerability, for we have to allow ourselves to open up to whatever may come. Other words: realness; openness; genuineness; emotional availability; 6. Benevolence, Justice, and Empathy --- “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson --- We want our work and our lives to raise the lives of our brethren. We all want to know we help. We don’t even care if others know, we just want to know that we do. Justice is about keeping the world in karmic balance. It goes beyond tit for tat. It also goes beyond doing unto others what you’d like to have done to you. Justice is ultimately about creating a better world through fairness. Empathy has four key elements o To be able to see the world as others see it. o To be nonjudgmental o To understand another person’s feelings o To communicate your understanding of that person’s feelings Remember: the natural, happy state of the human is a giving one. Other words: fairness; orderliness; lawfulness; "oughtness; rightness; desirability; oughtness; honesty; goodness 7. Wholeness – Direct Connection - Integration – Relative Perspective --- “You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.” – Alan Watts --- The truth is that we are not separate from the universe, we are the universe. Our greatest suffering comes from forgetting this fact. Wholeness refers to making a direct connection to universal oneness. We want to feel connected to our fellow man, our fellow woman, our pets, the trees, and the stars themselves. Achieving this connection simply feels better than anything else. It is the purest form of pure being. This is why we value sex so much. For most people, sex is the closest they will ever come to the ultimate connection. Integration means alignment of mind, body, and spirit. It also means taking imbalanced parts of our psyche and re-balancing them. Black and white thinking, or dichotomy thinking, lies at the root of many struggles. The universe is filled with paradoxes, and we want to become comfortable with those paradoxes. 8. Mastery -> excellence, effortlessness, and challenge ---- “A man cannot understand the art he is studying if he only looks for the end result without taking the time to delve deeply into the reasoning of the study.” ― Miyamoto Musashi --- We want to put forward work that we can genuinely feel proud of. We want to make music with just the right rhythm. We want our paintings to have just the right amount of color. And we want to enjoy the process of creating that work. We don’t want to strain to take the steps in the right direction. We want our work to flow out of us like nothing. Then again, we also want challenge. We don’t want to feel bored. We want to constantly grow our skills and grow our abilities. If we set a world record, fine – what’s more important is to set a personal record. Finally, we want to finish. We want to actually complete things instead of leaving them hanging. No one likes to quit if they know they can finish. To quote Robert Greene, “Think of it this way: There are two kinds of failure. The first comes from never trying out your ideas because you are afraid, or because you are waiting for the perfect time. This kind of failure you can never learn from, and such timidity will destroy you.” “The second kind comes from a bold and venturesome spirit. If you fail in this way, the hit that you take to your reputation is greatly outweighed by what you learn. Repeated failure will toughen your spirit and show you with absolute clarity how things must be done.” Other words: ease; lack of strain, striving or difficulty; grace; perfect, beautiful functioning; necessity; just-right-ness; just-so-ness; inevitability; suitability; justice; completeness; "oughtness" 9. Dispassion, Equanimity, and Nonneediness --- “What humans require in our ascent is purpose and realism. Purpose, you could say, is like passion with boundaries. Realism is detachment and perspective.” – Ryan Holiday --- We want mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in difficult situations. We pursue coolness in our society as a false way of approaching this peace. We want the ability to let the pain flow through our bodies and purpose flow through our actions. We want to not need anything. We actually want to give up the plucky level of passion shown by amateurs and take up the stoic dispassion of professionals. We don’t want our hearts dragged this way and that by the random external forces. To quote Ryan Holiday, “passion typically masks a weakness. Its breathlessness and impetuousness and franticness are poor substitutes for discipline, for mastery, for strength and purpose and perseverance. You need to be able to spot this in others and in yourself, because while the origins of passion may be earnest and good, its effects are comical and then monstrous.” Put simply, we want emotional discipline. Other words: composure, calm, level-headedness, self-possession, coolheadedness, presence of mind; serenity, tranquility, phlegm, imperturbability, equilibrium; poise, assurance, self-confidence, aplomb, sangfroid, nerve 10. Telos -> purpose, progress, completion --- “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” -- Friedrich Nietzsche “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” ― Viktor E. Frankl --- We want transcendent meaning without having to delude ourselves. We want the ups and downs of our days to add up to something bigger. We want to have a story that counts. We want to have some action, some drama, some romance, and some comedy in our lives. We want to have goals to aim for, a path to walk, and feedback for that path. Ultimately, we want a vocation – a calling, summons, or strong inclination to a particular state or course of action with an almost religious zeal. We don’t want to just work for work’s sake: we want work to become part of us in the best of ways. Other words: necessity; just-right-ness; just-so-ness; inevitability; suitability; justice; completeness; "oughtness"; ending; finality; justice; "it's finished"; fulfillment; finis and telos; destiny; fate; feedback; meaning 11. Playfulness-Creativity-Uniqueness ---- “The opposite of play is not work — it’s depression.” - Brian Sutton-Smith ---- Play is something done for its own sake. It’s voluntary, it’s pleasurable, it offers a sense of engagement, it takes you out of time, and the act itself is more important than the outcome. The fact is that none of us must take life so seriously. I don’t care if you’re the president of a major country, an open-heart surgeon, or a kindergartener: Play is part of the healthy human experience. Period. Play doesn’t just give us mental rest, it also grows our level of genius and self-efficacy. This is why many mammals play – it the most fertile ground for practice and mastery. It is through play that the lion cub becomes an elite hunter. Similarly, it is through play that the apprentice becomes an elite master. One form of play is creativity. Specifically, creativity means playing with in the unknown as you bring skills or ideas together in a novel manner. We all have a pull toward creativity, but shame may cover up that influence. Do not let this happen to you – it would mean giving up your godly power. Let it be known that you are god essentially because you have (better yet are) the power of imagination. There is nothing else in the known universe that has the ability to pull things from imagination other than the universe itself. The universe needs you to create and express your unique perspective. Other words: fun; joy; amusement; gaiety; humor; exuberance; effortlessness; idiosyncrasy; individuality; non-comparability; novelty 12. Unconditional Happiness --- “Unconditional happiness is the highest technique.” – Michael Singer --- It’s simple: if you value your true self, then you must value unconditional happiness. Why? Our true nature is unconditional happiness. The unconditional happiness that is our true nature is always there, no matter whether good or bad things are happening - it's the essence of what and who we are. We are universal observers and we love everything we observe! This happiness has no reason for it. It simply is. Everything else is just dress up or an excuse to allow ourselves to feel what’s already been there. Denying the possibility of unconditional happiness is a sign of delusion; a sign of denial of reality; a sign that you're playing yourself. As such, let it be known that we are all deluded at times. And that is why we must keep reminding ourselves of unconditional happiness as a virtue. Other words: self-transcendence; nirvana; heaven; pure being; pure joy 13. Death ---- “Death never takes a wise man by surprise; he is always ready to go.” – Jean de la Fontaine ---- This is about as counterintuitive as humanly possible – I mean, our entire intuition is to go move away from death, is it not? Don’t think that valuing death means literally putting your life at risk 24/7 a lå the flying Wallandas or Travis Pastrana. Although, if that’s how you want to live, more power to you. Instead, valuing death more is about recognizing that the option to not-live is always near and that death gives life some much needed urgency. It’s about being thankful for the chance to be alive and the chance to take everything in through the wonderful window of perception that is you. It’s also about coming to terms with your legacy and not living with regret. Ultimately, valuing death means becoming friends with the all-consuming Nothingness that permeates the universe. Are you unsure of what core values you value the most? Death will help you get that straightened out real quick – just think about what you’d like to do if today was your last day, this year was your last year, or the next five years are the last chance you’d have with your parents. Here are the main points to consider about death: Death is inevitable Everyone has to die; your lifespan is decreasing continuously; the amount of time you have for spiritual practice is small The uncertainty of the time of death human life-expectancy is uncertain; there are many causes of death; the human body is very fragile The fact that only spiritual practice can help you at the time of death your loved ones cannot help; your possessions and enjoyments cannot help; your own body cannot help Other words: making peace, pre-mortem, life-as-a-preparation, becoming friends with nothingness, knowing that this too shall pass --- The Main Point: Live a life of Responsibility, Truth, Freshness, Simplicity, Benevolance, Vulnerability, Wholeness, Master, Telos, Equanimity, Playfulness, Unconditional Happiness, and the embrace of death – watch your happiness skyrocket, for free. ---- One last point about the core values: do not confuse them with morals. They are simply what a person in the healthiest mental state will naturally pursue. They're what happens when you give a person time, room, space, energy, and time to do whatever they'd like however they'd like for as long as they'd like. Again, they're called core values because you feel them at your core and they're nice to live up to in-and-of-themselves.

Cause of Suffering WE VERY OFTEN FEEL THAT WE CREATE OUR OWN SUFFERINGS. IN SPITE OF THIS, WHY DO WE CONTINUE CREATING THEM? AND WHEN AND HOW DOES ONE STOP CREATING ONE'S OWN SUFFERING? The first thing, and very basic to be understood, is that whenever you say WE VERY OFTEN FEEL THAT WE CREATE OUR OWN SUFFERING, this is not the case. You never really feel that you are the creator of your own suffering. You may think so, because you have been taught so; because for centuries and centuries teachers have been teaching that you are the creator of your own suffering and no one else is responsible. You have heard these things, you have read these things. They have become your blood and bone, they have become your unconscious conditionings, so sometimes you repeat like a parrot WE CREATE OUR OWN SUFFERING. But this is not your feeling, this is not your realization, because if you realize it, then the other thing is impossible. Then you cannot say, IN SPITE OF THIS, WHY DO WE CONTINUE CREATING IT? If you really feel, and if it is your own feeling that you are the creator of your own suffering, any moment you can stop -- unless you want to create it, unless you enjoy it, unless you are a masochist. Then everything is okay, then there is no question. If you say, `I enjoy my suffering,' then it is okay; you can go on creating it. But if you say, `I suffer and I want to go beyond it. I want to stop it completely -- and I understand that I am the creator,' then you are wrong. You don't understand it. Socrates is reported to have said that knowledge is virtue. And there has been a long discussion for these two thousand years over whether Socrates is right or wrong -- knowledge is virtue. Socrates says that once you know something, you cannot do contrary to it. If you know that anger is suffering, you cannot be angry. This is what Socrates means -- knowledge is virtue. You cannot say, `I know anger is bad; still I move in it. What to do about it now?' Socrates says that the first thing is wrong. You don't know that anger is bad; that's why you go on moving in it. If you know, you cannot move in it. How can you move against your own knowledge? I know that if I put my hand in the fire it is going to be painful. If I know, I cannot put my hand in. But if somebody else has told me, if I have heard through the tradition, if I have read in the scriptures that fire burns, and I have not known fire, and I have not known any similar experience, only then can I put my hand into fire -- and that too only once. Can you conceive it? That you have put your hand into fire and you have been burned and you have suffered, and again you go and ask, `I know that fire burns, but in spite of it I go on putting my hand into the fire. What to do about it?' Who will believe that you know? And what type of knowledge is this? If your own experience of suffering and burning cannot stop you, nothing is going to stop you. Now there is no possibility, because the last possibility has been missed. But no one can miss it; that is impossible. Socrates is right, and all those who have know, they will agree with Socrates -- that agreement has a very deep point in it. Once you know.... But remember -- the knowledge must be yours. A borrowed knowledge won't do; borrowed knowledge is useless. Unless it is your own experience, it is not going to change you. Others' experiences are of no help. You have heard that you are the creator of your own suffering, but this is just in the mind. It has not entered your being, it is not your own knowledge. So when you are discussing, you can discuss about it cerebrally, but when the actual phenomenon happens, you will forget, and you will behave in the way you know, not in the way others know. When you are at ease, cool, collected, silently discussing anger, you can say it is poison, it is a disease, evil. But when someone makes you angry then a complete change occurs. Not it is not an intellectual discussion, now you are involved. And the moment you are involved, you become angry. Later on again, retrospectively, when you again get cool, the memory will come back, your mind will again start functioning, and you will say, `That was wrong. It was not good of me to do that. I know anger is wrong.' Who is this `I'? -- just intellect, just the superficial mind. You don't know -- because when someone pushes you into anger, you throw this mind away. It is useful as far as discussion is concerned, but when a real situation arises, only the real knowledge will help. When there is no situation, you can go on. Even in a discussion the real situation can arise. The other can go on contradicting you so much that you become angry and then you will forget. Real knowledge means that which has happened to you. You have not heard about it, not read about it, you have not collected information about it -- it is your own experience. And then there is no question, because after that you cannot go against it. Not that you will have to make an effort not to go against it; simply you cannot go against it. How can I? When I know this is a wall and I want to go out of this room, how can I try to pass through the wall? I know this is a wall, so I will search for the door. Only a blink man will try to go out through the wall. I have got eyes. I see what is a wall and what is a door. But if I try to enter the wall and tell you, `I know very well where the door is, and I know this to be a wall, but in spite of this, how can I stop myself from trying to enter the wall?' then that means that as far as I am concerned that door looks false. Others have told me that it is the door, but as far as I am concerned, I know that door is false. And others have told me that this is a wall, but as far as I see, I see the door here in this wall, and that is why I try. In this situation you have to make a clearcut distinction between what you know and what you have gathered as knowledge. Don't rely on information. From the greatest source -- even if you collect from the greatest source -- information is information. Even if a Buddha says it to you, it is not your own, and it is not going to help you in any way. But you can remain thinking that it is your knowledge, and this misunderstanding will waste your energy, time and life. The basic thing is not to ask what to do so that suffering is not created. The basic thing is to know that you are the creator of your suffering. Next time whenever a real situation arises and you are in suffering, remember to find out whether you are the cause of it. And if you can find out that you are the cause of it, the suffering will disappear, and the same suffering will not appear again -- impossible. But don't deceive yourself. You can -- that's why I say it. When you are suffering you can say, `Yes, I know I have created this suffering,' but deep down you know that someone else has created it. Your wife has created it, your husband has created it, someone else has created it, and this is simply a consolation because you cannot do anything. You console yourself: `No one has created it, I have created it myself, and by and by I will stop it.' But knowledge is instant transformation; there is no `by and by.' If you understand that you have created it, it will drop immediately. And it is not going to come up again. If it comes again, it means the understanding has not gone deep. So there is no need to find out what to do, and how to stop. The only need is to go deep and to find out who is really the cause of it. If others are the cause then it cannot be stopped, because you cannot change the whole world. If you are the cause, only then can it be stopped. That's why I insist that only religion can lead humanity towards non-suffering. Nothing else can lead, because everyone else believes that the suffering is caused by others; only religion says that suffering is caused by you. So religion makes you the master of your destiny. You are the cause of your suffering, hence you can be the cause of your bliss. - Osho - The Book of Secrets, discourses on Vigyan Bhairav Tantra

@hinawashi The Argo is still the Argo The ship is only separated by our perceptions. I mean, yeah, the original components have changed, but, consider the boundaries we create in an ultimately unified universe, there's only a boundary there because we created it. Once the ship started to restore it's "original" or "warn out" pieces that's when we decided (or created the boundary) that it was no longer the ship, and we forgot that the entire universe is a unity. The new pieces are the old pieces. they were never separate from each other. So the ship still remains as it's original identity just newer and more robust From this perspective you could say that the transformation was already there or already occurring or already occurred. It just depends on how you look at it, and whatever you decide on is mostly likely "where" or "when" it will be.

So the dynamic journal is the way to go. Sounds like a good plan. Life is indeed like living on the seven seas like a pirate. Grab your eyepatch, pegleg, musket and cutlass, and loot and plunder your way up from deckswabber to captain. Ever hear about the Argo paradox? When Jason first set sail with his band of swashbucklers, he built the Argo from new materials but as he sailed from port to port part of the ship got old and was replaced until all parts were eventually replaced with new parts. So some peoples argue that the Argo at the end isn't the real Argo anymore but an entirely different ship altogether. If that's true, then when did the Argo become a different ship? Is it when the first piece is replaced or when the last piece is replaced, or some halfway point in the middle? Or is it possible that no matter how many pieces were replaced, the Argo is still the Argo? It's the same problem with life. We all know that we've transformed when we look back at our past lives, but we cannot define the precise moment in time when the transformation took place.

It is said again and again that being aware is enough for transformation. How does it work? It is a significant question, because if you are aware of your cancer, the cancer will not be cured by just being aware of it – that is true. But as far as psychological transformations are concerned, the moment you are aware of them they disappear – because they do not exist as realities, they exist only as illusions. You have seen a ghost standing in the dark: now you bring light, and you say there is nobody. Just the shape of the tree was giving you the false impression that somebody was standing there. The ghost has disappeared, because in the first place the ghost was not there. Awareness helps, brings transformation, because the illusions that you are suffering from are not realities. If you become aware of a rock, the rock is not going to disappear. But if you become aware of the ego, the ego is going to disappear, because the ego is not a reality. If you become aware, fear is going to disappear, because fear is not a reality. If you become aware, death is going to disappear, because death is a lie, it is not a reality. Awareness functions in two ways. One: if something is real and you become aware of it, it becomes tremendously beautiful, it becomes psychedelic, it becomes very colorful. If it is unreal, it disappears. If it is real, it becomes more real; if it is unreal, it becomes absolutely unreal. Awareness is a light. If you bring light into the dark room, darkness will disappear, but the paintings on the wall will appear. When the room was dark, the paintings were not there; although they were there, you could not have seen them – for you they were not there and darkness was there. When you bring light, darkness is there no more and the paintings have appeared. Something disappears when you become aware, and something appears. Death disappears, deathlessness appears. The ego disappears, egolessness appears. You disappear as a separate entity: God appears. God means, “I am no longer separate.” “Was you ever in love, Dusty?” asked Walker Long of old Dusty Rhodes one day as they were picking up and putting them down on a railroad right-of-way. “Yeah, once when I was a young squirt, I was in love,” answered old Dusty. “Well, you never did get married, did you?” pursued Walker Long. “Nope, I never did marry,” vouchsafed old Dusty. “How did that happen?” “Well, it was like this. The gal I was in love with wouldn’t marry me when I was drunk, and I wouldn’t marry her when I was sober.” Awareness has its own ways. If you are aware, you will not be able to do many things you have been doing up till now, and you will be able to do many things you have never thought of doing before. If you are aware, you cannot be angry, because anger can exist only in a state of unawareness: that is a prerequisite for anger to exist. If you are aware, anger is impossible and compassion becomes a natural outcome: the same energy that was becoming anger becomes compassion. If you are aware, sex disappears and love arises: the same energy that was becoming sexuality through unawareness takes on a new manifestation of love through awareness. As far as psychological transformation is concerned, awareness is enough, analysis is not needed. That is the difference between Eastern and Western psychology: Western psychology is too concerned with analysis. In the East, for five thousand years psychology has existed; it is the most ancient science in the East. But its concern is totally different; it is not at all interested in analyzing, the whole thing seems to be unnecessary. And now Western psychology is also becoming aware of the fact that analysis leads nowhere. Have you ever come across a person who is totally analyzed? Even Sigmund Freud was not. Nobody can be totally analyzed. You can analyze one dream, but another day another dream arises. You can go on analyzing – people go to the analyst for years, but dreams don’t disappear, they go on coming; analysis does not make them disappear. But in the East we know the art of making them disappear. So who bothers? It is as if you see a ghost in the dark – there is no ghost, just the form of the tree – and you start analyzing. You never come close to the tree, you never bring light; you start analyzing the form from far away. You can go on analyzing: nothing is going to happen out of that analysis. Eastern psychology says: Light a candle, bring the candle to the place, and first see whether the ghost exists at all. If the ghost does not exist, then why bother? Why many, many years of analysis? The analyzed goes on pouring out rubbish, and the analyst goes on dissecting, analyzing, labeling and categorizing the rubbish. Much work goes on, and all futile, much ado about nothing. Western psychology is based on analysis, Eastern psychology is based on awareness. Just watch. There is no need to analyze. Become more and more intensely alert. And if you are aware of a problem, half the problem is already solved just by becoming aware of it. Just a slight awareness of the problem, and half the problem is already solved, because you have taken some energy out of it: that energy has become awareness. Become more aware, and the problem becomes dissolved. Chunk by chunk, the problem disappears as you become aware, because you are pulling back energy which you had been pouring into the problem – that was creating the problem. You are taking your energy back, you are not cooperating any more. You were the creator of the problem: you have taken your energy back. -OSHO From Unio Mystica, V.2, chapter 15

"I just want money though, I really don't care about creating a network of contacts and starting a business, just so I can get money. To me that just seems like too much work for money. I don't know maybe I am just rationalizing not challenging my current identity, but I really would just like spending my time mediating and being a guy who doesn't have a job but can still have money when I want it." ^This is what I see when I read what you wrote. If you don't want sex, fine. Just admit you don't want it and you're not willing to do what it takes. But this idea that you shouldn't have to work, challenge your comfort zone or change yourself in order to get sex is ridiculous. And maybe you could argue that the raw pleasure you get from sex isn't worth all the struggle it would take to get there. But truthfully that's only a small benefit you can get from learning Game. When done right, the real benefit is the growth you get as a person. The fact that you will have to confront deep rooted fears night after night makes Game a healing process for guys who are growing up with this pain point. And that's really just the start. Does that mean you have to learn Game? Of course not, there's many ways to do what I just said. But if you want sex AND you want personal transformation, Game can be a powerful way to grow.

Inspired by Leo's latest video about art, I finally decided to make a video of myself dancing in martial arts type of style. I've been thinking about all the elements that could enhance the video like clothing, accessories, environment, music and of course most importantly dance moves. I know I can do some good moves when I get into the pumped up state but I've never tried recording them before so I'm not sure what it will look like. Though this doesn't matter that much, I truly enjoy practicing martial arts and dancing outdoors, so it's more about me enjoying the process of flowing with the music and feeling one with nature and all surrounding environment, I feel like I'm at a peak of my performance and feel very alive in those moments. This morning, I'm going to drive down Mission Beach, take a micro dose of mushrooms 0.2g, pick a gorgeous looking background and see what kind of video I can come up with, this is going to be just a trial run though, no music, since I'm still waiting for the outdoor speaker to come in. I'm going to be playing around with the wide angle lens and seeing what the best positioning would be for dance type of video and hopefully can get the lighting right. This morning, I was thinking about how I can incorporate symbols into my videos so that people would remember to actually take action on things I'm teaching them. I think what we're lacking these days is not information, but rather an efficient way of learning, organizing and storing that information inside of our minds. I think a "learning system upgrade" is necessary which should start with the foundation of how humans understand reality. At it's most basic are 5 senses, visual being the most important. Symbols, including shapes and colors is what makes up all our visual world, beyond that is the meaning we assign to these basics objects with language. Understanding what the basics symbols are like space, dot, circle, square, triangle, vertical line, horizontal line and learning what they have been associated with can give us a good understanding about the world around us. Since we're immersed in these symbols they can be like constant reminders on the important information we're learning so that we remember to take action. Square is a mental model of reality with limits and boundaries, circle is the source (the canvas), dot is the content within the source (paintings inside the canvas), triangle can be a symbol of body, mind and spirit and remind us to work on all three to have balance in our lives and make the three create a powerful synergistic effect which is what the triangle represents. Similarly colors - black is the color of mastery (martial arts belts), blue is the color of quality of consciousness, the heavens (people couldn't see the color blue until certain time in history, and now people are asleep, not realizing their are divine creators and how powerful their minds truly are). Yellow is the color of joy, happiness, willpower, personal power which we are all the positive feelings we can be reminded of when the sun is shining. White can be a color of purity and enlightment. Green is the color of nature - growth, renewal, transformation, change, creativity, variety, intelligence. Trees are constant reminders of not only the color green, but also "systems thinking" and how we are all connected with nature in a symbiotic relationship. Trees are also like vertical lines, reaching out to heavens which is a symbol for materialistic striving to reunite with the divine, and this is basically what Actualized.org work is all about - raising the quality of consciousness and getting closer to our divinity. So there is a lot of ideas to incorporate symbols, basic shapes and colors and I'm coming up with more and more ideas everyday, there is plenty of other more complex symbols that I'm learning about from the Signs and Symbols Source book and I'm beginning to feel like a mage who is starting to acquire ancient knowledge and power and then learning how to wield these spells and powers to create a new Universe.

very good. i like the approach that mentions suffering as the fuel for transformation. it's very realistic.

@Not a shaolin monk Sex is beautiful, sexuality ugly. And the difference has to be understood. Sex is a natural phenomenon; sexuality is unnatural, abnormal and pathological. When sex becomes cerebral, when sex enters into your head, it becomes sexuality. Now, the head is not the center for sex. That is getting into a confusion, it is getting upside-down, it is getting deranged. Sex is not the function of the head. But when sex enters in through the head it becomes sexuality. Then you THINK about sex, then you fantasize about sex. And the more you think, the more you fantasize about it, the more you will get into trouble. Then nothing real will ever satisfy you, because there is no limitation on fantasy, and reality IS limited. For example, if you start thinking too much about sex you can create beautiful women, women which exist only in your fantasy; you will never find them anywhere in the world. Or men: you will never come across them. No real woman or man will ever satisfy you, because of the fantasy. No real man or woman can fulfill your expectations of fantasy. Fantasy is fantasy; it is a dream. You can fantasize a woman who does not perspire, whose body has no body smell. You can fantasize a woman who is always sweet and never bitter. You can fantasize a woman who is always loving and warm and welcoming and never nags you and is never angry, never throws pillows at you. You can fantasize a woman who never ages, who remains always stuck at eighteen years of age — who is always fresh, always young, always beautiful, never falls ill, never makes any demands on you, never betrays you, never looks at any other man with longing, with desire. You can fantasize to no limit, but you will not find this woman anywhere. Now you have created a problem: you are no more naturally attuned to your sex. Nature is perfectly capable of being fulfilled, but fantasy cannot be fulfilled. You may find your woman in girly magazines, in pornographic books, but you will not find her in reality. And whosoever you do find in reality will fall short. That is the problem the West is facing; it has fantasized too much about sex. The West has become sexual through fantasy, the East has become sexual through repression. Both have become sexual and both have lost the natural capacities of enjoying sex. Both have become pathological, through different routes. The West has become pathological by fantasizing sex to be the ultimate goal of life, and the East has become pathological by thinking that sex is the ultimate barrier between God and man. Sex is neither. Neither is it the ultimate goal nor the ultimate barrier. Sex is a simple phenomenon like hunger or thirst; there is nothing more to it. It is not what the Eastern mind has been thinking about it. The Eastern mind is too afraid of sex. Out of fear, sex has moved into the head; through the door of fear it has entered into the head. So the Eastern so-called saints are simply fantasizing about sex, because they have repressed it. And that which you repress goes on coming up again and again. It cannot be destroyed; nothing can ever be destroyed by repression. Repression makes sex pathological sexuality. This is one extreme. The West has moved to another extreme. The other extreme is, fantasize about it. Sex is all, everything else is secondary, so have as much sex as you can. You cannot really have too much sex, there are limitations to the body. But you can fantasize as much as you want, there is no limitation to it. So pornography exists, blue films exist, girly magazines exist. And people are being fed on these illusory mirages. Then no real woman, no real man, will ever satisfy you. These are both pathological states. Sexuality is pathological, whether you come to it through fear or greed does not matter. The East has become ill through fear, the West has become ill through greed. Greed and fear are two aspects of the same coin. So on the surface it looks very different, as if the Eat and the West are poles apart. They are not. Those who know, those who can see, they can see that it is the same foolishness, the same stupidity. They have arrived at the same stupidity from different doors, that is true, but they have entered into the same place. And both have to be awakened, and both have to be made more enlightened about sex. Don’t make much fuss about sex EITHER way. That is the first fundamental. If you want sex to become love, the first fundamental is: accept sex as an absolutely natural phenomenon. Don’t bring your metaphysics to it, don’t bring your religion to it. It has nothing to do with religion or metaphysics, it is a simple fact of life. It is a way that life reproduces itself. It is as simple as the trees bringing flowers and fruits: you don’t condemn the flowers. Flowers are sex energy; it is through the flowers that the tree is sending its seeds, its potentiality, to reproduce other trees. When a peacock dances you don’t condemn it. But the dance is sex; it is to attract the female. When the cuckoo calls you don’t condemn it; it is sex. The cuckoo is simply declaring, “I am ready.” The cuckoo is simply calling forth the woman. The sound, the beautiful sound, is just a seduction; it is courtship. If you watch life you will be surprised. The whole of life is through sex. Life reproduces itself through sex, it is a natural phenomenon. Don’t drag unnecessary rationalizations into it. This is the first thing to be understood if you ever want any transformation of sex energy. The first thing is: don’t deny it, don’t reject it, don’t repress it. Don’t be too greedy about it, don’t think that this is all — this is not. There is much more to life. And sex is beautiful, yet there is still much more to life. Sex is only the foundation, it is not the whole temple. Repressed, it becomes sexuality. Fantasized, it becomes sexuality. One is an Eastern way of transforming sex into pathology, the other is a Western way. But nobody, either in the East or in the West, accepts that sex is a simple natural phenomenon. Neither the saints nor the sinners, nobody accepts sex to be a simple natural phenomenon. Both are obsessed with it, hence I say both are not different. Sex accepted, respected, lived, becomes love. Just as I was saying to you the other day, when sadness is there, accept it: it is you. Don’t say, “I am sad.” Say, “I am sadness.” Don’t say, “I have sadness” — it is as if you are separate and sadness is something that you have. Simply say, “I am sadness.” In that moment there is no division between you and what you call sadness. In that moment you ARE sadness. The next moment you may be peace, and still the next moment you may be joy. Life is change. Life knows only one thing as permanent, and that is change. Only change is unchanging; everything else changes except change. That means only change has eternity. It is a continuum; you are not a fixed thing. And it is good that you are not fixed, otherwise you would have been a thing, a commodity in the marketplace. You are a no-thing. You are not a fixed phenomenon; you are a constant opening, you are change. One moment there is sadness, and the river takes a turn. Another moment there is joy, and the river takes still another turn and there is peace. And it goes on and on. The moment has to be accepted in its totality: it is you. When there is sex, there is sex: it is you. Don’t say, “I have a sexual desire.” That is a way of dividing yourself, that is a way of creating a split. If you have a sexual desire then there are two possibilities. If you are against it repress it: that is the Eastern way of becoming mad, insane and pathological. The other way is, “I have the sex desire: how to enhance it? How to make it more intense? How to enjoy it to the optimum?” That is the way of greed, the Western way. But the end is the same, the end-product is the same: both become obsessed with it. Just let it be, whatsoever it is. It is you. You don’t have a sex desire; if you have a sex desire then something can be done to the sex desire. If you are it, nothing can be done about it, because there is nobody else to do anything: you ARE it. This has to become the meditation of all my sannyasins: you are it, there is no division. Just see the beauty of it. When there is no division there is no conflict. When there is no division there is no fear, no greed. It is division that brings fear and greed. Greed and fear are your interpretations of the division, but the division is first and then come your interpretations. The sex desire is there, you take it as something separate that is happening to you. It is like a thing in your hands: now you have to decide whether you want more or less of it, as if it is something of which you can have more or less. It is as it is; there is no more, no less. Simply live it, be it, love it. This is your moment, this is the truth of the moment. And never compare, because one moment ago it was not there. So don’t start comparing, because comparison again brings a split. Next moment it may be gone again. Don’t compare. Life is change. That’s what Buddha said: Life is change. That’s what Heraclitus said: You cannot step in the same river twice. Life, the river, is constantly moving. Deep down you want life to be static. Why? Because with a static and dormant life you will be more safe, more secure. But life is not dormant, only death is dormant. Life is dynamic, flowing — the more flowing it is, the more alive you are. Life is not a stagnant pool, it is a river. It is the Ganges, coming from the Himalayas, going to the ocean, coming from the heights, going to the depths. And again from the ocean the Ganges will evaporate from the depths to the heights, and again the clouds will gather on the Himalayas and again the river will be born. It is a beautiful perfect circle. That’s how you move. Each moment has to be accepted as it is, with no condemnation, with no evaluation. And when you can accept sex as natural, it stops being cerebral. It drops from the head, it goes to the sex center where it belongs. If sex remains in the sex center it is beautiful. If it goes to the head it is ugly. Eating is beautiful. You are hungry and you eat and it is needed; it is nourishment. But then there are two types of people. A few people eat too much: eating too much means the head has entered into it. When you are eating, the body is always sane. The body always says to you, “Stop now.” It immediately gives you an indication, a signal: “It is enough, now stop! No more is needed, my needs are fulfilled.” But the head says, “It is so tasty, it is so delicious — have one plate more.” It is the head, it is not the body. The body is recoiling, the body is saying, “No!” The body is always sane. And this is one of the fundamentals I would like to tell you about. Down the ages, your so-called saints have been telling you that the body is your enemy. It is not; the body is always your friend. If there is some enemy it is the head, never the body. The body is always sane. Watch it. I am not talking philosophy, I am simply stating a fact. See for yourself: if you are ill the body says, “Don’t eat.” But the head says, “If you don’t eat you will become weak. So many vitamins are absolutely needed; you will become pale, you will not be strong.” This is the head. The body is saying, “You are ill, and to eat will be unnecessarily burdening the system. The system needs rest; it is better not to eat.” And that’s what animals do. No animal will eat when he is ill; he simply stops eating. That’s what children do, no children will eat. But grown-ups will force them: they will say, “Eat, otherwise you will become ill, you will become more weak. You need it.” They force them. You can see small children crying and their mothers forcing them: “Eat a little more.” It is the head that creates the trouble. And then there are people who will fast when there is no need for fasting. The body is hungry, but if you ar a Jaina and the PARUSHANA, your religious days, have come, you have to fast. The body is hungry and the body wants food, but you cannot eat because unfortunately you are a Jaina and the religious days are there and if you eat you will be thrown into hellfire. It is the head interfering. The body says, “Eat,” but unfortunately you are a Mohammedan and it is the month of RAMADAN and you have to fast. Now this is the head interfering. The head interferes in two ways: either it makes you indulgent or it makes you repressive. Again, one is the Eastern way, another is the Western way. Eat more than is needed: this is indulgence. Don’t eat when the body needs food: this is fasting, this is repression. It is always the head that interferes. It interferes in your food, it interferes in your sex, it interferes in your sleep, it goes on interfering in everything! Remember the Zen master, the great Zen master, Bokuju. Somebody asked him, “What is your discipline?” He said, “No discipline at all. When I feel hungry I eat, and when I feel sleepy I sleep. And no other discipline.” The man said, “But this is what we all do.” And Bokuju said, “No. It is very rare to find a person who does it, because one who does it becomes a buddha. Only a buddha can do it truly.” You don’t eat according to the needs of the body, you don’t sleep according to the needs of the body. You go on imposing your head needs on the body. That interference makes everything pathological. That’s how sex is disturbed and becomes sexuality. If sex is accepted, respected, lived, it becomes love. The way is: first sexuality has to come back to sex. Directly, there is no way, no route; from sexuality to love there is no route. There is simply no route, nothing can be done about it. From sexuality to love there is no route, because sexuality is in the head, and love is a heart phenomenon. From sexuality come back to the sex center. From sex to love there is a direct route; they are bridged. In fact nothing needs to be done. Just live your sex moments with utter joy, silence, peacefulness, with celebration. Live your sex moments meditatively, and meditation transforms sex into love. Not only does sex become love: one day it becomes prayer, worship. It goes higher and higher. The highest form is prayer, the lowest form is sex. Between the two is love, love is the bridge. And sexuality is abnormal, it is pathological, it is ill. So whether you have chosen a path of being pathological like the Eastern people or like the Western people, it doesn’t matter. Accept your life a sit is, and let the acceptance be as total as possible. When you don’t fight with yourself your energy starts falling into a subtle harmony. And that harmony brings you t love. And when the harmony becomes more and more refined, it brings you to prayer. And unless sex has become prayer, remember, the goal has not been achieved. Source – Osho Book “Unio Mystica, Vol 1″

Blissfulness is ecstasy without excitement , it is not not happiness. If you are not blissful, then you need spiritual transformation.

If you are intrinsically spiritual then you don't need to do special exercises, but if you are miserable than you need transformation. You can start with the body, if you find it difficult to start with the mind. Everybody can't start transformation by doing nothing, philosophizing, contemplation.

@Shanmugam 29 If any one should wish to get the kingdom for himself, and to effect this by what he does, I see that he will not succeed. The kingdom is a spirit-like thing, and cannot be got by active doing. He who would so win it destroys it; he who would hold it in his grasp loses it. The course and nature of things is such that What was in front is now behind; What warmed anon we freezing find. Strength is of weakness oft the spoil; The store in ruins mocks our toil. Hence the sage puts away excessive effort, extravagance, and easy indulgence. 37 The Tao in its regular course does nothing (for the sake of doing it), and so there is nothing which it does not do. If princes and kings were able to maintain it, all things would of themselves be transformed by them. If this transformation became to me an object of desire, I would express the desire by the nameless simplicity. Simplicity without a name Is free from all external aim. With no desire, at rest and still, All things go right as of their will. 56 He who knows (the Tao) does not (care to) speak (about it); he who is (ever ready to) speak about it does not know it. He (who knows it) will keep his mouth shut and close the portals (of his nostrils). He will blunt his sharp points and unravel the complications of things; he will attemper his brightness, and bring himself into agreement with the obscurity (of others). This is called 'the Mysterious Agreement.' (Such an one) cannot be treated familiarly or distantly; he is beyond all consideration of profit or injury; of nobility or meanness:--he is the noblest man under heaven.

@Ilya You can go into meditation just by sitting, but then be just sitting; do not do anything else. If you can be just sitting, it becomes meditation. Be completely in the sitting; nonmovement should be your only movement. In fact, the word Zen comes from the word zazen, which means, just sitting, doing nothing. If you can just sit, doing nothing with your body and nothing with your mind, it becomes meditation; but it is difficult. You can sit very easily when you are doing something else but the moment you are just sitting and doing nothing, it becomes a problem. Every fiber of the body begins to move inside; every vein, every muscle, begins to move. You will begin to feel a subtle trembling; you will be aware of many points in the body of which you have never been aware before. And the more you try to just sit, the more movement you will feel inside you. So sitting can be used only if you have done other things first. You can just walk, that is easier. You can just dance, that is even easier. And after you have been doing other things that are easier, then you can sit. Sitting in a buddha posture is the last thing to do really; it should never be done in the beginning. Only after you have begun to feel identified totally with movement can you begin to feel totally identified with nonmovement. So I never tell people to begin with just sitting. Begin from where beginning is easy, otherwise you will begin to feel many things unnecessarily ¯ things that are not there. If you begin with sitting, you will feel much disturbance inside. The more you try to just sit, the more disturbance will be felt; you will become aware only of your insane mind and nothing else. It will create depression, you will feel frustrated. You will not feel blissful; rather, you will begin to feel that you are insane. And sometimes you may really go insane. If you make a sincere effort to 'just sit,' you may really go insane. Only because people do not really try sincerely does insanity not happen more often. With a sitting posture you begin to know so much madness inside you that if you are sincere and continue it, you may really go insane. It has happened before, so many times; so I never suggest anything that can create frustration, depression, sadness ¯ anything that will allow you to be too aware of your insanity. You may not be ready to be aware of all the insanity that is inside you; you must be allowed to get to know certain things gradually. Knowledge is not always good; it must unfold itself slowly as your capacity to absorb it grows. I begin with your insanity, not with a sitting posture; I allow your insanity. If you dance madly, the opposite happens within you. With a mad dance, you begin to be aware of a silent point within you; with sitting silently, you begin to be aware of madness. The opposite is always the point of awareness. With your dancing madly, chaotically, with crying, with chaotic breathing, I allow your madness. Then you begin to be aware of a subtle point, a deep point inside you that is silent and still, in contrast to the madness on the periphery. You will feel very blissful; at your center there is an inner silence. But if you are just sitting, then the inner one is the mad one; you are silent on the outside, but inside you are mad. If you begin with something active ¯ something positive, alive, moving ¯ it will be better; then you will begin to feel an inner stillness growing. The more it grows, the more it will be possible for you to use a sitting posture or a lying posture ¯ the more silent meditation will be possible. But by then things will be different, totally different. A meditation technique that begins with movement, action, helps you in other ways, also. It becomes a catharsis. When you are just sitting, you are frustrated; your mind wants to move and you are just sitting. Every muscle turns, every nerve turns. You are trying to force something upon yourself that is not natural for you; then you have divided yourself into the one who is forcing and the one who is being forced. And really, the part that is being forced and suppressed is the more authentic part; it is a more major part of your mind than the part that is suppressing, and the major part is bound to win. That which you are suppressing is really to be thrown, not suppressed. It has become an accumulation within you because you have been constantly suppressing it. The whole upbringing, the civilization, the education, is suppressive. You have been suppressing much that could have been thrown very easily with a different education, with a more conscious education, with a more aware parenthood. With a better awareness of the inner mechanism of the mind, the culture could have allowed you to throw many things. For example, when a child is angry we tell him, 'Do not be angry.' He begins to suppress anger. By and by, what was a momentary happening becomes permanent. Now he will not act angry, but he will remain angry. We have accumulated so much anger from what were just momentary things; no one can be angry continuously unless anger has been suppressed. Anger is a momentary thing that comes and goes: if it is expressed, then you are no longer angry. So with me, I would allow the child to be angry more authentically. Be angry, but be deep in it; do not suppress it. Of course, there will be problems. If we say, 'Be angry,' then you are going to be angry with someone. But a child can be molded; he can be given a pillow and told, 'Be angry with the pillow. Be violent with the pillow.' From the very beginning, a child can be brought up in a way in which the anger is just deviated. Some object can be given to him: he can go on throwing the object until his anger goes. Within minutes, within seconds, he will have dissipated his anger and there will be no accumulation of it. You have accumulated anger, sex, violence, greed, everything! Now this accumulation is a madness within you. It is there, inside you. If you begin with any suppressive meditation ¯ for example, with just sitting ¯ you are suppressing all of this, you are not allowing it to be released. So I begin with a catharsis. First, let the suppressions be thrown into the air; and when you can throw your anger into the air, you have become mature. If I cannot be loving alone, if I can be loving only with someone I love, then, really, I am not mature yet. Then I am depending on someone even to be loving; someone must be there, then I can be loving. Then that loving can only be a very superficial thing; it is not my nature. If I am alone in the room I am not loving at all, so the loving quality has not gone deep; it has not become a part of my being. You become more and more mature when you are less and less dependent. If you can be angry alone, you are more mature. You do not need any object to be angry. So I make a catharsis in the beginning a must. You must throw everything into the sky, into the open space, without being conscious of any object. Be angry without the person with whom you would like to be angry. Weep without finding any cause; laugh, just laugh, without anything to laugh at. Then you can just throw the whole accumulated thing ¯ you can just throw it. And once you know the way, you are unburdened of the whole past. Within moments you can be unburdened of the whole life ¯ of lives even. If you are ready to throw everything, if you can allow your madness to come out, within moments there is a deep cleansing. Now you are cleansed: fresh, innocent ¯ you are a child again. Now, in your innocence, sitting meditation can be done ¯ just sitting, or just lying or anything ¯ because now there is no mad one inside to disturb the sitting. Cleansing must be the first thing ¯ a catharsis ¯ otherwise, with breathing exercises, with just sitting, with practicing asanas, yogic postures, you are just suppressing something. And a very strange thing happens: when you have allowed everything to be thrown out, sitting will just happen, asanas will just happen ¯ it will be spontaneous. You may not have known anything about yoga asanas but you begin to do them. Now these postures are authentic, real. They bring much transformation inside your body because now the body itself is doing them, you are not forcing them. For example, when someone has thrown many things out, he may begin to try to stand on his head. He may have never learned to do shirshasan, the headstand, but now his whole body is trying to do it. This is a very inner thing now; it comes from his inner body wisdom, not from his mind's intellectual, cerebral information. If his body insists, 'Go and stand on your head!' and he allows it, he will feel very refreshed, very changed by it. You may do any posture, but I allow these postures only when they come by themselves. Someone can sit down and be silent in siddhasan or in any other posture, but this siddhasan is something quite different; the quality differs. He is trying to be silent in sitting ¯ but this is a happening, there is no suppression, there is no effort; it is just how your body feels. Your total being feels to sit. In this sitting there is no divided mind, no suppression. This sitting becomes a flowering. You must have seen statues of Buddha sitting on a flower, a lotus flower. The lotus is just symbolic; it is symbolic of what is happening inside Buddha. When 'just sitting' happens from the inside, you feel just like the opening of a flower. Nothing is being suppressed from the outside; rather, there is a growth, an opening from the inside; something inside opens and flowers. You can imitate Buddha's posture, but you cannot imitate the flower. You can sit completely buddhalike ¯ even more buddhalike than Buddha ¯ but the inside flowering will not be there. It cannot be imitated. You can use tricks. You can use breathing rhythms that can force you to be still, to suppress your mind. Breath can be used very suppressively because with every rhythm of breath a particular mood arises in your mind. Not that other moods disappear; they just go into hiding. You can force anything on yourself. If you want to be angry, just breathe the rhythm that happens in anger. Actors do it, when they want to express anger they change their breathing rhythm; the breathing rhythm must become the same as when there is anger. By making the rhythm fast they begin to feel anger, the anger part of the mind comes up. So breathing rhythm can be used to suppress the mind, to suppress anything in the mind. But it is not good, it is not a flowering. The other way is better; when your mind changes and then, as a consequence, your breath changes; the change comes first from the mind. So I use breathing rhythm as a sign. A person who remains at ease with himself constantly remains in the same breathing rhythm; it never changes because of the mind. It will change because of the body ¯ if you are running it will change ¯ but it never changes because of the mind. So tantra has used many, many breathing rhythms as secret keys. They even allow sexual intercourse as a meditation, but they allow it only when your breathing rhythm remains constant in intercourse, otherwise not. If the mind is involved, then the breathing rhythm cannot remain the same, and if the breathing rhythm remains the same, the mind is not involved at all. If the mind is not involved even in such a deep biological thing as sexual intercourse, then the mind will not be involved in anything else. But you can force. You can sit and force a particular rhythm on your body, you can create a fallacious buddhalike posture, but you will just be dead. You will become dull, stupid. It has happened to so many monks, so many sadhus; they just become stupid. Their eyes have no light of intelligence; their faces are just idiotic, with no inner light, no inner flame. Because they are so afraid of any inner movement, they have suppressed everything ¯ including intelligence. Intelligence is a movement, one of the most subtle movements, so if all inner movement is suppressed, intelligence will be affected. Awareness is not a static thing. Awareness, too, is movement ¯ a dynamic flow. So if you start from the outside, if you force yourself to sit like a statue, you are killing much. First be concerned with catharsis, with cleaning out your mind, throwing everything out, so that you become empty and vacant ¯ just a passage for something from the beyond to enter. Then sitting becomes helpful, silence becomes helpful, but not before. To me, silence in itself is not something worthwhile. You can create a silence that is a dead silence. Silence must be alive, dynamic. If you 'create' silence, you will become more stupid, more dull, more dead; but this is easier in a way, and so many people are doing it now. The whole culture is so suppressive that it is easier to suppress yourself still more. Then you do not have to take any risks, then you do not have to take a jump. People come to me and say, 'Tell us a meditation technique that we can practice silently.' Why this fear? Everyone has a madhouse inside and still they say, 'Tell us a technique that we can do silently.' With a silent technique you can only become more and more mad ¯ silently ¯ and nothing else. The doors of your madhouse must be opened! Don't be afraid of what others will say. A person who is concerned about what others think can never go inward. He will be too busy worrying about what others are saying, what they are thinking. If you just sit silently, closing your eyes, everything will be okay; your wife or your husband will say that you have become a very good person. Everyone wants you to be dead; even mothers want their children to be dead ¯ obedient, silent. The whole society wants you to be dead. So-called good men are really dead men. So don't be concerned with what others think, don't be concerned about the image that others may have of you. Begin with catharsis and then something good can flower within you. It will have a different quality, a different beauty, altogether different; it will be authentic. When silence comes to you, when it descends on you, it is not a false thing. You have not been cultivating it; it comes to you; it happens to you. You begin to feel it growing inside you just like a mother begins to feel a child growing. A deep silence is growing inside you; you become pregnant with it. Only then is there transformation; otherwise it is just self-deception. And one can deceive oneself for lives and lives ¯ the capacity to do so is infinite. Osho, Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy , Talk #5

@Loreena Just like people, and as silly as it sounds stones/crystals can absorb energy/emotions/feelings and actually need a break. Everything is made of energy, and has a vibration, and so do stones and crystals. I've had experiences where I've bought brand new necklaces and they broke shortly after because I didn't cleanse and take care of them. Last year, I had a malachite pendant that fell off my necklace in my car. It was the craziest thing, I swear on my life, this stone every time I tried to grab it, it went even further under my car seat! For REAL!! The good news is malachite is great for safe traveling, so I had no problem keeping it there! lol I'm sure it was because I had over used the pendant without cleansing it. Just the day before, I was a passenger in my friends car and he wasn't looking where he was going and almost crashed into another car...inches away. I was wearing that pendant when it happened....we should have been in an accident...I firmly believe the necklace was a big contributing factor to my safety! There are different ways to cleanse stones/crystals and clear their vibrations. (ex: washing them with running water, placing them in the sun light/moon light for 24 hours, sound therapy, sending reiki, etc.) https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-14887/how-to-clear-activate-store-your-crystals.html I'm no expert in crystals yet, but I have been told by a few crystal experts that you don't pick the crystals, they pick you. (A lot of people use crystal pendulums to choose their stones/crystals) But that wouldn't constitute a reason to have bad luck, or the drastic set of events that occurred for you. Crystals don't retaliate against people! I can tell you from personal experience and the Law of Attraction, that we can attract a cycle of bad luck to us by our feelings. I've had days where things go drastically wrong, with one turn of an event after another, and usually I'm in a really negative vibration (negative mood) the whole day, so I keep attracting more bad things. And the same has happened with good days...everything just goes right. I wish the Law of Attraction was a major topic on this forum. It sounds like I'll have to start a forum topic some time soon about Positive/Negative Energy and the Law of Attraction. The good thing about stones and crystals and their meanings is that it's so easy to look them up on the internet. I have a few books about crystals and their meanings but I haven't had the time to get reading all of them yet! I'm actually preparing to take another Reiki Certification class in early August, so I probably will be disappearing from this forum for the next few weeks very soon. So if you don't see me around replying, that's probably why. Here is a link here that shows a few crystals for good luck. I just typed into google "stones for good luck" and this was one of the sites that came up. http://www.energymuse.com/blog/crystals-for-good-luck/ This is one of the books I have at home that I need to read. There are so many stones, and they all have different abilities, and resonate with different chakras. I was told by my reiki instructor it takes quite some time to learn this stuff. Atleast for using "Crystal Reiki" it is an extensive set of courses. What's great is a lot of these books you can look up key phrases like "good luck", "wealth", "opening the third eye" etc. and they will point you to what stones to work with. http://meanings.crystalsandjewelry.com/labradorite/ Labradorite (also called Spectrolite sometimes) is a considered by mystics to be a stone of transformation and magic. It is said to clear, balance and protect the aura, as well as being an excellent stone for general protection. It is purported to help provide clarity and insight into your destiny, as well as attract success. It is used in metaphysics for dream recall, and finding ways to use dreams in daily life. Mystically, energies of stress and anxiety are said to be reduced by labradorite, possibly due to is energy of self-confidence. Labradorite is said to increase intuition, psychic development, esoteric wisdom, help with subconscious issues, and provide mental illumination. In crystal healing and folklore, Labradorite is said to help with eyes, sight, diagnosis, brain, digestion, metabolism, warts. Note that healing crystal meanings are spiritual supports to healing and are not prescriptions or healthcare information. Labradorite is associated with the solar plexus and brow chakras.

Hey Leo, Im new here and i only go into spirituality recently through Julien Himself's Transformation Mastery. There seems like so many different types of meditation - subconcious releases, emptying mind, and now like this enlightenment excercise where you focus on "what am i". Whats the right one.. which do i invest my time into?

I used to be convinced that no-fap, (particularly the act of retaining sexual fluids) was a definite route of increasing energy, confidence, happiness, health, radiance, etc etc etc... I experimented a lot when I was a bit younger and had interesting results. Personally however I can no longer be sure that the connection is as direct as I had assumed because in my experience, it is possible to create this level of transformation and MORE simply through intent - that is the power of belief. It is possible to transform from depression, mental fog, insecurity and low level functioning into very high states that are sustainable for moderate periods of time simply through a correctly or conveniently placed intention or belief. This can carry profound physiological changes alongside it. Therefore, it is difficult to state just how much of a correlation there is between not masturbating and the array of profound effects that people claim. Happiness is an internal birthright and it's possible that people are temporarily taking claim to it through this 'permission slip'. I also have noticed that not many high masters have gone in depth about the connection between well-being, energy and masturbation. I have a theory that it may be because people would take it as pejorative and it may create sexual tension/shame in people - and suppressing the sexual drive can cause unforeseen consequences. Or perhaps the connection is overblown entirely.

Self-development is similar to experimenting with what we eat in life. Some only eat-out, some only cook their own, and most do both. Self-development often requires much transformation from the norm. Those that do so are alchemists, they do a fair bit of cooking. I was once invited to a foundation meeting for the Alternative Sciences and Technologies Research Organisation (ASTRO). While people were gathering for the meeting I was wondering around listening to people sprouting all sorts of read knowledge but without any practical experiences. It was sad to see that only one man showed any experimentation, even though he lacked practical know-how. He came to the meeting to find that know-how but found none from the others. They could not relate to him what he needed to know. @Shane597 If you can help others, through your own experience, to become more practical with their self-development, then that would be the greatest way to help others.

I'm trying to build a strong foundation for learning before I completely immerse myself in all the books I want to read on my list. The reason is inefficient reading, learning, memorizing, understanding, comprehending and even thinking and I'm frustrated by it, so like a good programmer, I want to master the mind and optimize these learning systems before I move forward with "writing code" or reading books and understanding reality. So the books I recently finished reading are Systems Thinking, Unlimited Memory and Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, I also started reading How to Read a Book and Signs and Symbols Sourcebook. The first, most fundamental system that I want to redesign and optimize is the Thinking System, so I'm trying to apply Systems Thinking to Thinking System of the mind. All information is the obvious inflow into the system, which can be either external (text, audio, visuals - environment (nature, people, movies, pictures, symbols, colors, shapes)), or internal - memories, thoughts. Some of the outflow that the Thinking System creates are behavior (movement, emotions, reactions, verbal communication), reality, paradigm, self-image, memories (short term and long term) and other thoughts. I think the stock in this Thinking System would be "active thoughts", in a similar way how the CPU is processing information. There is also another component to "active thoughts" - conscious and sub-conscious, and to continue using the computer analogy, conscious thoughts would be an open program like "Adobe Photoshop" and sub-conscious thoughts would be like programs running in the background. Since we're concentrating on Thinking at this time, I think it's also important to be aware of the "link" between active thoughts, both conscious and sub-conscious and how they create other thoughts. Installing meditation software. So from this break down of the Thought System, we can already make some useful conclusions, for example: the more I become aware of sub-conscious thoughts, the more freedom I will have to choose what thoughts I want to add, subtract and what kind of links I want to create between those thoughts. (eg: I became aware that I was blaming my parents for bringing me up in a way that created a lot of judgement, critisizm and limited beliefs in me), by becoming mindful of those sub-conscious thoughts, I realized it wasn't my parents creating these negativities in my life anymore, but rather myself (I am my worst enemy). Another example is choosing how to link thoughts to other thoughts that I want: a thought about my parents suffering because of their alcoholism and negative lifestyle triggered (link) thoughts (or rather emotionally charged thoughts) of pity, guilt, and sadness. As I became aware of these negative links, I could further analyze all the reasons behind these negative thoughts triggered by my parents and I can now create new, positive thoughts (new links): compassion, unconditional love, understanding, motivation (healing myself will heal and help them). These are just a couple of examples of intervening (taking advantage of leverage points) within this system's internal information flows. Similarly, we can intervene in the external information flows: 1) unplugging from all toxic sources of information 2) establishing quality information flows which are as closely related to helping the system achieve it's goal (Leo's videos, books) 3) create new links in everyday objects in the environment (tree is a system, green is a color of nature, nature is creative, intelligent, diverse, sun is a symbol for - Stage Yellow systems thinking, it's the source of power (solar plexus chakra), yellow is a color of joy, happiness etc.) there are countless ways of how we can integrate everyday objects and nature and making them reminders for triggering emotions and thoughts that we want to trigger, instead of allowing our minds to create random associations (links) even if they are negative and don't serve our system's purpose. This is the reason I want to study Symbols and bought a book called Signs and Symbols Sourcebook which is already giving me a ton of ideas for more associations within the environment and more effective thinking, eg: space is a symbol for absolute infinity/god, dot is the symbol for beginning and end (the content within the absolute), vertical line is a symbol for physical body reaching for the reunion with the divine (spiritual development), trees are vertical so it can now be a constant reminder for enlightment. From the Systems Thinking, the best place to intervene is in the System Paradigm, this is what happened to me when I took 5g powdered mushrooms, just about four months ago, which completely shifted my whole view of reality and myself and the reason why I'm on an unstoppable hero's journey of transformation and personal growth right now. By applying the concepts from Thinking in Systems, we can look not only at the world's problems, but ourselves, and our minds as the most complex biological machines and start applying the concepts from the book to all the leverage points, redesigning and optimizing our systems to become super computers, super humans, sages, saints, geniuses, demigods!

The idea is to get to really be honest with yourself to see how your ego plays a role in your life. Mainly that it always seeks validation, because it is not valid, but just a story the mind has created to make sense of itself. The more validation it can gather the more energy it has to exploit itself and others for more validation. This energy (validity) is what I refer to as ego-energy or self-esteem. Esteem means 'respect and admiration'. How to get around this is to truly know and accept yourself (good and bad). Be your own judge, but be okay with yourself too, since nobody is perfect. In this way, by being true to yourself, and accepting it, you'll know that you are still okay, even without external validation. You may see yourself lower than a worm, but you will also know that this worm is still capable of loving, caring and true. From this, is where your okayness is centered/located. This transformation from basing your life on your fearful deceptive self to basing it on your loving true Self, is like building up enough self-esteem to a point of no longer needing it. You'll know when this becomes you for all that matters in life is to be true, genuine and real. You will value this above anything else, even relationships, even all the money in China (so to speak), and it all comes from within you.

Here I am. It's infinite. Haha. Do you understand? It is infinite! It's fucking infinite! You are the only thing that ever existed. You are Hitler, you are Jesus, you are a child playing in the sand. The ego structure is all a big infinite matrix. The more you try to deconstruct it, the bigger it gets. What does really matter? No matter what you're doing, you're doing correctly. You are in the matrix! I am the matrix. I am you. I am infinite compassion, infinite guilt, infinite shame, infinite hatred, infinite lives, infinite language, infinite porn. It's all the same thing. If you study computers, you will understand that you are exactly it. What holds all this web? Nothing and everything. Life is a fucking paradox. Infinite compassion or infinite hatred? The idea I have about my life and all my petty problems are joke because I am you. I am my dog. I am the dust. I am the worst criminal. On a different time and space. IT IS ALL A FUCKING CYCLE! HAHAHA It is infinite! It never ends whether you want it or not. Consciousness is infinite. We are all made of the same fabric. The petty that I have, you have also. The self-censorship within myself is present in all human beings. I am just a fucking cell. The strangest thing is that you cannot grasp this. It is as if trying to stop time. I don't know, I am just confused here. It all starts with the first step. All huge successes started with a first step. Do it imperfectly but start. This realization of our true nature requires tons of responsibility and at the same time zero responsibility. In a way, I am just a tiny cell of the Manifestation of consciousness. I don't have any fucking responsibility, and at the same time I know that the animals that are getting slaughtered are ME! All the children that ever felt hurt, abandoned, or rejected are actually myself. As I mention, it is infinite. I am you, remember? Haha. All this idea of "my" life seemed like a joke. Of course I will born again. I am infinite. INFINITE! HAHAHA. I am all that ever was. I am so grateful to Leo for all his hard work. I am so grateful for everybody who spend hours and hours on this forum and feel like you're destroying your life. All I can say is: it is infinite. Infinite births and deaths. Infinite situations. Infinite possibilities of the mind. Infinite lifetimes. You were Cleopatra. Haha. It is all one hahaha. Infinite judgements. Infinite shame. Infinite tension. Infinite relaxation. Infinite infinity. Hahaha! I feel so fucking inspired. I feel like I had a glimpse of who I really am. It's so crazy to see that this lifetime is just a cycle. YOU ARE AN ILLUSION. There is no one who is writing here. My cells are like cars on a busy avenue. There isn't much I can do except engage in consciousness. It fucking is infinte hahaha When you notice that, you will start laughing. This is all a fucking structure. The moment you brake it, a larger, harder structure emerges immediately. HAHAH it's infinite. All people you walked by today are actually you. You are your cat. You are me. I feel fucking amazing. A HUGE pressure was lifted off my shoulders. Sure, i will forget this insight infinite times, but it is there. No matter the situation, here you are. You are everything that ever existed. Just on a different space and time. You are literally your mom and dad. I am my ancestors. If we trace down to the start, there is only one. We are leaves of the same tree. Infinite leaves. You cannot die. What dies is the structure. BOOM! Gone. I keep repeating "it's infinite" as if my life depended on this. Ha. Having the insight of no-self, a natural feeling compassion arises. You simply get people. You are like, "oh, why i am going to judge this person if I am that?" I have been quite selfish lately, and that doesn't make much sense. To reach these higher stages, you have to face infinite fear. The bigger the fear, the bigger the expansion. We are composed of polarities. I had a very beautiful image in my mind in which i recalled a conversation i had with a close friend this week. i could see from his point of view. and i could also feel that he had the insight of interbeing. it was as if he was seeing and sensing everything that i was feeling because he is extremely developed and has gone through infinite hells haha. It is so fucking obvious haha. I am beginning to lose it. But... did I ever had it? Gone. "Make me one with everything." HAHA, i remembered that joke during the trip. haha. life IS a trip. infinite trips. haha. infinite hatred. infinite egos. infinite fear. infinite courage. infinite repetition because it is right under your nose and you don't see it haha. "You keep wanting wanting so much, why not want EVERYTHING?" Jack Kornfield it doesn't make much sense writing this name since he is me. HAHAHA. I can't stop laughing. It is all a fucking matrix, infinite structure. My mind simply cannot graps what I have experienced. I felt for all the highly schizophrenic folks out there (actually, in here (:P). Language is infinite. I have been a pretty lazy-ass guy, but to Existence this doesn't fucking matter. It is a never ending process. You = Buddha = Hitler = Leo = Donald Trump Can you see that these are only names? Do you grasp how shallow "names" and "dates" are? It is a joke to plan because all we have is the now. hHAaha. if you still have checkboxes to check before remembering who you TRULY are, well, the checkboxes are infinite. Haha. It is a dark hole. I am Christopher Hitchens HAHAHA. It is so hilarious. For most part I think, "dude, I am going crazy." Good. Awareness is beyond everything. Because it is fucking infinite. I want to program that into your mind. It is all infinite. Anyway, thanks to all the Buddhas, thanks to all my reflections I come across. Pure joy awaits you. And pure pain awaits you. Pure monkey mind. Everything I wrote is monkey mind. It is pointing to something greater. It is possible to escape the matrix? No, you're part of it. It is like a cell trying to rebel against all the trillion cells haha. haha. it is so beyond you. I want you to experience this. We are very priviliged to get the ultimate knowledge from all these amazing people out there - matt kahn, infinite waters, leo. People waste so much time with traditional dual ways of worshipping a God as if there were gonna be a "reward". It is like this, a drop of water remember that it is water. it's infinite, remember? i warn you: once you get this experience, your ego will quickly get bored. It will come up with infinite thoughts, judgements, projections. It's ok but realize all this monkey mind is like a never-ending hole. The more you engage in thinking, the more content is generated. simple as that. so what activities can you do that will bring you back into harmony? actually. everything is in harmony. The thing is, "other thoughts cannot deeply change other thoughts." The key is expand your awareness. And psychedelics are a HUGE time-saver (haha, time is an illusion). life is a trip. that's all I can say. hahah At some point I wanted to take more ayahuasca, but then I thought, "shit! i want take more of myself." it is as if i was in lack, lacking the proper clothes, lacking... always lacking... dude, remember to fry the big fish. things take care of themselves. it's hard to trust, but that's it. you have no control. but You have all control. i feel very humble. i feel like listening to people. it is all so beautiful. even lower conscious behaviors. they all stem from the desire to be happy. yet we don't pay attention to the results we're getting. anyway, that's it dude or girl. I feel in a way like just a matter of recognizing who you are. it's infinite fun. it's infinite seriousness. poles. positivity or negativity. We are included in everything. I feel like I am a cell telling to other cells that there is a bigger body we're part of. And this body is part of the cells of the world. And the world is a cell. Micro and macro. You are your heart!! Even though you don't pay attention to it, it is working 24/7. can you imagine that? it never fucking stops till you're gone. Haha. you'll be gone soon hahahha. me too i am the youngest, i am the oldest, i am the billionaire, i am the poorest, i am the saint, i am everything in between also. including yourself. hah. it is funny to send messages to your other selves. people, if you feel stuck, please consider trying psychedelics. i can understand why I have been going through hell. It is not possible to expand your awareness otherwise. haha. because it includes everything. well, as you can read, it is a real mind boggler haha. if you can let yourself go for a moment, it happens. you'll go, "OH MY GOD! that's fucking obvious." my desire is to be ok with being part of this matrix. and really, no matter what I do is absolutely correct. it never ends. you don't have to throw away anything. you don't need to get rid of your overthinking, your bad habits. haha. the idea that you have any control at all is an illusion. let us remember lavoisier (a.k.a., yourself), "nothing can be created. nothing can be destroyed. everything is transformed." transformation. you are a metamorphosis of your dad and mom ahaha. i am laughing so hard at myself right now because "i exist as i am. that is enough." you don't to change the world. when you change yourself, the world *which is you* transforms. there are the individual level and the collective level of awakening. I love this word. Awakening. You are the Buddha. Dude, how did we stayed for 42 days meditating under that Boddhi tree? to me, the message is clear: you have no control over anything. have you seen what happens when a person drops a bad habit? a brand-new arises. in most cases, it is even a worse one. we are so stuck in this vortex of endless information that we forget what is beyond all this. The Silent Observer. actually, there is no observer. got it? probably not because it is ungraspabble. everything i wrote here is being repeated over and over. maybe it is time to take a deep breath. and learn how to surf. i feel like the more I write, the farther the Truth goes. Words are endless. Unfortunately it is not possible to feel it through words -- but only through direct experience. So I applaud you for being on this forum, watching Leo's content, and really educating yourself what is possible. Haha, there's nothing left to say. I feel like everything else is secondary. i'm curious to see my upcoming days. haha. that's a lie. haha. correct less, do more. dude, i feel so stuck right now. again, i am lost in this maze. i feel like i am slowly conquering my insanity. i am first accepting the truth that there is nothing wrong with me. i am perfectly fine. trust

Some symbolism: The frog goes from a swimming sperm cell to a frog in a few months, representing rapid transformation Also, the toad goes into hibernation (representing going inwards) (And when Bashar was asked about Arizona as to what that place represents he said spiritual growth)