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@Ivan Dimi I don’t disagree with you that consciousness work has value, This is obvious to you because you’ve already realized this. From my observations, some environments are more conducive for certain explorations. A lot of explorations are perceived as impractical and a waste of time. Environment and context has an effect on that. If I am working with a group of refugees that are filled with anxiety, discussing the value of quantum theory relative to personal transcendence is not practical and won’t go over very well. Helping them learn English, how to get around town, how to shop for food, where to buy the cheapest diapers etc. will resonate more strongly with them. And I’m talking about likelihoods. A person immersed in ISIS can have realizations, yet they are generally relative to their baseline conscious level. As well, the likelihood of big realizations would be lower. Your the odds of transmitting yellow-level realizations to an ISIS member is lower than than someone in a yoga group. Yet it’s also relative. I would consider a red-to-blue awakening as significant as an orange-to-green awakening. I see Maslow’s theory as an integrated whole, rather than distinct categories. No one is in one category 100% of the time. Yet life conditions do impact access. Last semester, a student’s father got gravely ill with kidney failure. The students family was in another country. The student was extremely worried about her father. It was the week before finals and the student wanted to take her finals before flying home. Her family got outraged and said as a woman she shouldn’t even be in college, she should be a homemaker. They told her she didn’t really love her father and not to come home. The student had a nervous breakdown and came to my office in tears, contemplating suicide. . . This is not a good environment to whip out some Rupert Spira videos on transpersonal nonduality. This was an environment to address situations at the personal level and problem solve.

So I'm 19 and I have only been in two different relationships. This is because I met the girl I am with now since I was in 7th grade (She was a year below me). We were just friends probably the first year of knowing each other before we ended up "dating". She has always had a hard life, I remember walking to her house from my friends house around this time and she lived in a four bedroom house with her grandmother, four brothers, two sisters, and her uncle and his son (both adults paying no bills). After awhile of being on again off again being kids, I'd say around 9th grade, we got in a more serious relationship (no games being played, no talking to other people, etc.) This was a fun time, I was working a lot after school and on the weekends and I was able to get dropped off at her house after work to see her a lot more then my mom would drive me (since my mom always had to go both ways she never had a ride). More backstory on her before I move on because it gets a bit ridiculous, her mom and dad have always been in and out of her life, her dad was a drug addict and her mom was an alcoholic and they would always do good together till they fucked up together. They have been broken up as long as I have known her now, her dad is remarried with a very successful (and narcissistic) women. Her grandmother has always taken care of her and all her siblings (a few siblings living elsewhere). Her grandmother was old and sick though, eventually she died in 2017. Then less then a year later her step sister attempted suicide, was in the hospital for a month and then died. This stuff was obviously very hard for her and I made sure to do the best I could to help her every step of the way. When her grandmother died her dad and stepmom showed up to take them all to live with them in PA. Anyone could have guessed it wasn’t going to last, bringing in six kids and they already had two of their own. Eventually her stepmom got to a point where she was so mad at her dad that she kicked him and all his kids out. This meant they all had to find different places to go so they didn’t end up in the system, which also meant she was coming to live with me around the middle of 2018. I have too admit this terrified me at first. I had three brothers and a dysfunctional mom and step dad at the time who always had money problems. This was when I was in 12th grade, just started doing co - op at school which meant I worked for an electrical company for two weeks and went to school for two weeks all year. I was always a saver, bought myself my first car at 16 knowing nobody was gonna do it for me. I am an apprentice now for the same residential electric company making 15$ an hour and going into my 3rd year of school this year for that (I got to skip the first year because I took it in high school). So anyway, I was terrified of her moving in just because we are so young and that's such a big step for a relationship, it's not like we had an extra bedroom for her either. I hated her being there for awhile, but eventually I got over it and made the most out of it. She got a job at a restaurant down the street from my house shortly after moving in, bought her own car and is still working there today. We have gotten really close and I am definitely in love with her, she is my best friend no doubt. Around about a year of her living with me, her mom passed away from drinking too much after taking pain medication. Her mom was getting her life together and building a good relationship with her awhile before this, when she got hit by a car (this is why she fell back down again). So this hit rose hard, I think it's been over a year now and I don't think she has made much progress with how she feels about it. She has always had depression issues and I always accepted that about her because of her life and what she's been through. We don't really argue much, and when we have it was usually from me saying the wrong thing. I got into personal development around the middle of 12th grade, just reading books and making budgets and listening to Dave Ramsey thinking I was the shit, but still my goal was always just to better myself. Because of this eventually I found Leo. Leo was literally a gold mine in my eyes, exactly who I was looking for. This also lead me into the trap of binging all his content (which had lots of benefits too) and then projecting everything I learned onto other people. So when she would get upset about something, eventually I started spouting things at her that Leo said, that I thought might help. This always turned her being upset into her being mad at me and threatening to end the relationship because I wasn't giving her the love she needed and being a dick about her problems. About two months ago I had an LSD trip (yes I do them safely) where I learned a lot about happiness and love. I basically taught myself what happiness really is, and that if I want to truly be loving I have to love everyone regardless of who they are or how I feel about them. I had the phrase "love everyone" come up in my mind all day for about two weeks after that. This helped me to see through my ego a bit the next time we argued and I realized what I was doing wrong and decided that no matter how many times she tells me I need to give her more love, to just accept it and do it. I believe this has ended the cycle of arguing, but not her being upset. Now she seems to be getting worse with her depression. She isn't like this all the time, we actually talk about it together like it’s a state that she gets to. But if you asked her when she's in this "state" she would say she's in it all the time and it is still there whenever she is feeling good (like laughing with me hanging out or having a good day at work). She says she has a huge struggle to get herself to do anything at all even though she hardly misses a day at work, she's about to start college this year and she does meal prep with me every Sunday. She doesn't seem to be interested in personal development, when I talk about her doing something like reading a book I think would help her or watching Leo she'll say, "I'm trying but you know this is really hard for me" or "I am doing it but I can't stay consistent because of my depression". She has done a couple things towards it like taking notes about habits and motivation, but not much towards putting it into action. We both vape, I quit about 6 months ago for 4 months and then I backslid a lot when my mom and stepdad split up. I also smoke weed a good bit, but she will only smoke before bed some nights. She's into spiritual stuff, she will meditate with me if I do it when she's around, but wont bring it up on her own, she understands a lot of what I talk about with her but doesn't see the practicality of it even though I've explained countless times how so much of it has helped me and my own mental space. We still live at my moms house with my brothers, trying to get through the hard parts of live to eventually buy a house. This state she gets into can last for a week or two sometimes, her happier states being much shorter. School just started and she's already super overwhelmed with it and wants to quit, she goes back and forth on her happiness with her job, the love I give her is now shunned at times when she is feeling worse. She describes her head space as something that nothing can help, and as time goes on less and less things seem to help (even me). She can't control it, she feels so anxious that her thoughts are racing. She has been to therapy a few times before when she was younger and she says that it is not for her, she hates the idea of it. It seems to me like this anxiety stops her from pushing forward so many of her ambitious goals and causes so much fear. She hates driving long distances because of it, she spent her last year of high school doing it online because she was so anxious there everyday, I don’t even think she would keep the room clean at all if I didn't expect her to keep it certain way (clean freak). Anyway I guess my question is what should I do? The last thing I want to hear is to break up with her for my own sake or something like that…. I really want her to get through this, she is a great person and when she is not in this negative state she is my favorite person to be around. She say's her thoughts are so negative she wont even share a lot of them out loud and tells me she wants to die frequently when she's in this state. I don't believe she takes it serious enough to actually try something, but I'm scared that’s where it is heading.

ACIM bringing out my past trauma with religion into consciousness I haven't been doing ACIM workbook exercises for a long time and instead decided to read the textbook chapters/theory. Due to Christian langauge and themes in it, it unexpectedly triggered or uncovered trauma or fears I had. Because I was a religious Muslim in the past and all that, it seems I have a lot of left over fears. What I still have embedded in my psyche is a punitive and fearful worldview of god. Afraid that god will strike me down for sin. Afraid of being luciferean in my thinking lest god strike inflict vengeance. Made me then realise that any notion of sin or karma engenders fear. You think you have sinned against god, and hence you see the world as a form of vengeance which will strike you at any moment. You walk around thinking the world always has strings attached, which is further elaboration of seeing the world as a place of vengeance. Because in the unconscious is shame about your very own existence and you don't think you're worthy to exist. Funnily enough, the material in ACIM is about undoing exactly that, and I initially projecting all of that onto ACIM. This is all described pretty well in this thing I found. https://facim.org/the-fear-of-god-and-compassion-for-others-part-1/ -- I was also afraid of being dragged into another belief system by reading all this due to all the phrasing, since I had been harmed by belief systems in the past And then I realised a more general fear I had A general fear of mythology, images, stories, beliefs. Fear of being confused, being lost, fear of my own mind and fear of chaos. The strange terminology of "Father", "Son", "Holy Spirit", etc made me all scared whilst reading, untill I saw this other quote in the book. Made me realise that fear of defilement or of dirtying oneself is ultimately falsehood. Which is a fear that you've killed god. Fear being the opposite of love. And then I thought about how hard it is to overcome fear in practice. But I can't bring myself to abandon fear, I tell myself, because there's a purpose to it surely, etc. The world is that harsh. To be fully loving is metaphysical suicide --- I'm not sure what emotion/state is worse than shame in its pure/abstract form. Since shame is the inherent hatred of one's own existence, and that entails self destruction and suicidality eventually

@Endangered-EGO It doesn't matter what I say, so long as I sing with inflection that makes you feel I'll convey some inner truth or vast reflection. But I've said nothing so far, and I can keep it up for as long as it takes, and it don't matter who you are, If I'm doing my job then it's your resolve that breaks. Because the hook brings you back, I ain't tellin' you no lie. The hook brings you back, on that you can rely. There is something amiss, I am being insincere. In fact I don't mean any of this, still my confession draws you near. To confuse the issue I refer, to familiar heroes from long ago. No matter how much Peter loved her, what made the Pan refuse to grow was that the hook brings you back, I ain't tellin' you no lie. The hook brings you back, on that you can rely. Suck it in suck it in suck it in, If you're Rin Tin Tin or Anne Boleyn. Make a desperate move or else you'll win and then begin to see what you're doing to me, this MTV is not for free, It's so PC it's killing me, so desperately I sing to thee of love. Sure, but also of rage and hate and pain and fear of self, and I can't keep these feelings on the shelf. I've tried, well no in fact I lied, could be financial suicide but I've got too much pride inside to hide or slide, I'll do as I'll decide and let it ride until I've died and only then shall I abide this tide of catchy little tunes, of hip three minute ditties. I wanna bust all your balloons, I wanna burn all your cities to the ground. I've found I will not mess around unless I play then hey, I will go on all day. Hear what I say, I have a prayer to pray, that's really all this was, and when I'm feeling stuck and need a buck I don't rely on luck because the hook brings you back, I ain't tellin' you no lie. The hook brings you back, on that, you can rely. John Popper, waf harmonisist.

Hey Guys. Thank you so much for the Tips and support ... I am just looking in to all your responses now. UPDATE : I currently seem to be fluctuating between OK/acceptable quality sleep (about 7 Hours+) every day & then not ok sleep the next day (E.g I typically will sleep ok on day 1, then only sleep 5 hours the next day, waking up prematurely around 5AM this is the current typical pattern). I am going to try and PUSH for a solution ... I really don't want this shit anymore. I can't take it. Conclusion : I will try melatonin and looking in to the other responses. I will also get an MRI scan if I can. It just seems like Mri would be mysterious and hard to do maybe not, but health care systems are always "busy", I feel like i'll never get appointments. Also I drink caffiene most days, sometimes with coffee sometimes just tea or geen tea. But I never drink after half 11. I eat dark chocolate every morning and normally have some coffee or tea about 9-11:30 And sometimes I sleep fine with caffiene and can't sleep even without caffiene. But they say caffiene effects you for "9 Hours" ... Could it be that I just should consume NO CAFFIENE ever, even dark chocolate, because maybe it effects me for a lot longer ? As for "PTSD" > I'm really not sure if I qualify or not. I was Beet up fairly badly last year, but the doctor said after that I had no serious physical conditions. I also had a "traumatic experience" on LSD at a festival 2.5 years ago. It was a very very bad dark trip with intense anxiety that felt like it lasted a longg time. Again I doubt that this qualifies. @Ananta You say you "had insomnia for 15 years" > Do you mean that you just suffered for 15 years and it ruined your life ... or that you had it but the prescription solved the problem so you were still happy and functional ? Do Presciption drugs for insomnia usually have bad side effects ? And thank you .. i'll try melatonin Also does anyone think CBD could be a viable solution ? (It's quite expensive and hard to access in my country, but i've heard good things) I've heard leo talk about heavy metal detox. Maybe that could be a reason ? (In august - september I was eating tinned tuna every day, i've stopped now but maybe that didn't help) I just hope it's not a sever neurological problem, I see no reason to live if this is true. I will probably commit suicide if I find out I have a sever brain problem

Nice, lol, compare him to Jones who urged hundreds of his followers to drink cyanide-laced punch in what he called a "revolutionary suicide", killing 918 ppl. Very dramatic. I won't be drinking any laced punch any time soon. Sorry to disappoint. ?

Actualizing in a Psych Ward Part 4: I am Here, I am Present Despite the shocking circumstance I have been placed in, I have tried to remain as present as possible. I found being present and in the moment a necessity especially given my anxiety, both about being in the psych ward and what I need to do after. Every time I caught my mind wandering into a spiral of what am I going to do about school, I tried to bring myself back to the present moment. There isn't anything that is school related I could do right at that moment. I didn't have access to any of my materials, a computer, internet, or means to contact my professors. There is no use in worrying about it right now. The only thing thinking about this will do is that it will take me away from the now and into a state of anxiety and helplessness. It's counterproductive and irresponsible when it comes to getting better to say the least. I also tried to journal about my thoughts and feelings during my time in the ward since it is a lot to process. A lot of the content of those entries have been summarized in the previous posts. While it is a lot to process and a lot of that processing can be dealt with by being present, after being in the psych ward for five days, I still needed time to let out all of my emotions regarding the situation. I feel that there is only so much you can process when your primary objective is to survive. Sometimes you get so caught up in surviving and saving your ass that you don't have enough time or energy to take everything in. And that's fine. After anything like this it's important to keep yourself in check and be gentle with yourself for a while. During that time I decided to meditate as much as possible and to note down any of my insights. I have explained some of them including my own shadow work and my evaluation of the mental health system I was dropped into. There will be more to come in future sections. This video does explain pretty well about how the place was like. While I didn't have the experience of being tied up and given medication against my will, it felt as if I was being punished for having issues rather than getting help. There is a lot of critiques that can be made in how we approach mental health and suicidal tendencies. It is definitely an over kill for a large chunk of the people who have a lot of issues with depression. In this video I believe she does say that after people get released from the psych ward, there is a period of about 3 months where that person is at more risk of suicide and self harm. Given my experience I can see how that can be the case. While I didn't have the urge to do anything reckless upon leaving, I felt really shaken up by the experience to where I decided to take time off of school. There is no way I can makeup 2 tests, 2 3 hour long discussions, and a term paper in a state like this. Again, it's a lot to process. Going off of the stats of how people feel for about 3 months after the visit, I think it is absolutely insane to be put in a facility for wanting to kill yourself only to want to kill yourself more after the stay!?!?!?! That makes for not only an ineffective system but a counterproductive one.

Yeah it’s practically suicide to not love yourself enough to meditate for at least 20 minutes a day.

Just suffer through it and don't entertain any thoughts of suicide. You will come out fine in a few weeks. It's just a temporary chemical low. It will lift rather quickly.

Stage blue on gender: This culture has turned its back on Jesus. This is what we were warned about in 2 Timothy, where people are unholy and ungrateful in the end times. Where "men can be women" and "women can be men". God gave you a body that was perfectly designed for you and your soul. This generation is idolatary; it's created a religion from this gender theory - did you know that the founder of gender theory caused two brothers to commit suicide? - and they say it's about compassion, but really they just hate God. They only want to spite him. So sad, Jesus better be coming soon.

Good points, but I have to disagree with the above ones. Unless we are saying that ISIS suicide bombers are spiritual masters. They sure are confident.

I don't reckon gore videos are good for this sort of thing. I don't think they're helpful or important. But I'm not saying that you shouldn't do it. Gore videos are mostly like watching a mindless horror event. Putting aside the gore videos involving intentional violence, with murder and suicide. Maybe it invokes something positive from you when you watch someone dying in an accident going about their day to day life. Doesn't really invoke that in me. There isn't any emotionality and sentiment to a gore video. Maybe if it was a documentary or news report combined, talking about who the person was and giving it context, I think it would be meaningful. Otherwise you're just seeing blood and violence (accidental violence) where there's no soft emotional impact to it. It's just a gross video.

Self-actualization is not possible without great hormones. I replace all of them. I am a medical student and replace ALL of my hormones. my energy levels went from the 5th percentile to the 95th percentile. In early twenties my life was starting to go down the gutter. My life started to fall apart in every domain, basically at the brink of suicide. I was severely depressed. At one point I considered suicide. I found out that multiple of my hormones were very low. I started multiple hormone replacement. Whereas before my life was a nightmare, it has been a dream ever since. I have been doing this for some years now. I started to dream again. I found purpose. Something I want to contribute. Now I also have the energy, mood and health to keep working on my dreams, to enjoy working on my dreams. If you are interested I wrote about my story here. How my life went to shits and how multiple hormone replacement gradually turned it around. My dream is to live in a world where no one is held back from living an at least decent life the way I was. Even though not my fault, it is my life. And thus my responsibility. Without accepting and acting on that I just don´t know where I would be today. For sure I wouldn´t be writing this. Biological vitality is the single most important condition in my life. In your life. Vitality determines to a large extent the way our lives turn out, not just our outer lives, but our inner lives as well.I experienced how a reduction in biological vitality can send you on a relentless downward spiral. The stronger the decrease in your vitality the steeper the slope. In its wake over months to years my life, the only life I can be sure of having, went to shits. Many people are unsuspecting. Unaware of these invisible forces exerting their power relentlessly every single day. "Living life to the fullest" is just not possible without great hormones.:Life is like poker—you can get a good hand, play it perfectly, but still end up with a bad outcome. A great vitality is the ass in your poker game of life. Even with an immaculate vitality you can screw up the game, but chances are you do so much less likely. The two most important factors determining your vitality are genetics and hormones, the latter you can negotiate. Why do I post all this? Trying to provide value: My purpose is to raise awareness. People need to know that there are biological shackles many of us carry. Shackles which make it much harder to live a life we like. Because it does just cost me a little time but perhaps can help others out a lot. Had I known what I know now, it would have saved me lots of money, happiness, effort, researching, experimenting. And suffering. What I take. But what works for me might not work for others. Everyone is different, but the target range I aim for is in the upper tertile of the youthful reference range. Just falling somewhere within the reference range is not “optimal”. The reference range covers 95% of the population. Certainly more than 5% of the population have hormones bad enough to warrant intervention. TRT: Test Cyp (50mg subQ 2x/week), HcG (250iu subQ 2x/week), anastrozole (0.25mg 1x/week), dutasteride 0.5mg 1x/week (as my androgens are high I don´t need the DHT). cortisol: cortisone acetate (20mg/d HC equivalent) (split into 4 daily doses) thyroid: 1.5 grains NDT GH: 1 iu genotropin pfizer (aiming for IGF1 of 250) prebed fludrocortisone 01.mg/d morning melatonin: 0.25mg sublingual prebed Other stuff I do: keto/paleo, HIIT, weekly rapamycin, a bunch of supplements (all of them together less worth than a slight alteration in hormones), some exercise every day, sleep around 6h (wake up refreshed without alarm -before HRT I needed 8+). You can´t outdrug/outbiohack/outlifestyle a bad hormonal profile. For more practical stuff I wrote a guide Here. It took 1000s of hours to figure out. Hopefully some of you will find value in it. Many of you guys will say that I am screwing myself. Well, to them I say that I am aware that this is uncharted territory. I am aware of the risks. But to me the cost-benefit analysis is a no-brainer. If I had to, I would sign a contract to rather live 10 more years with my new vitality and then die instead of living to one hundred with the dreadful state I was in before. Life is about filling time and not passing it. What does this mean for you? My guess is that around 1-2 out of 5 of you has a hormonal imbalance/deficiency severe enough to warrant intervention. Hormones have an INSANE connection to depression. Unfortunately they are VERY neglected. If you have been depressed for a long time it might be worth looking into your hormones. ANY hormone deficiency (GH/IGF1, sex hormones, thyroid, cortisol) will cause brain fog, subpar cognition, lethargy, anhedonia, low motivation, low mood -> all of which over time evolve into depression. Certainly you don´t have the necessary energy/mood/motivation/health to be improving yourself to the best of your ability. Please consider getting a blood test done. The risk and opportunity cost of not doing it is huge.

@blankisomeone Many a poetic, emotional and thoughtful people have committed suicide. If you felt your life was reaching an end or conclusion, anyone would become existential and emotional. Often times the people who are most disturbed and in suffering are the most existential and romantic. (Careful not to draw an arrow of causality there) You see, there's one big romance all humans invariably have. And that's the ego. Deep down, we are in love with our life story and our own journey. We don't find anything as interesting as ourselves. And this is universally a source of emotion, poetic ramblings, etc.

Teachers are in the dream. There isn’t actually a dream though. Any “enlightened” teacher is only appearing to teach. There are no teachers. Ramana never taught anything. Have you ever performed self inquiry to its end? Just how many people do you think went through that ordeal? Not many. Anyone who actually did it was going to do it anyway, even if via literal suicide by gunshot to the head, which people do all the time. God would never stop the rape of a child, because there is only infinite everything. Infinity doesn’t just put things into perspective, it destroys any pretense of separation.

It seems to me that essentially what you are asking here is "How do I know what's true?" aka "What can I truly trust?". As the oracle said "It is a pickle, no doubt about it..." This pursuit of truth has puzzled most western philosophers, led countless people to commit suicide or become paranoid and resulted in a ton of weird literature without much to offer for all that effort in return. And yet the answer was always there within you hiding in plain sight. Let's see if I can help you notice the little bugger that's been causing all that needless suffering. First a bit of context is needed... There exists a parallel world of words that was created by you and resides in your memory that your ego's been using to play tricks on you. Words are just noises that you store in your memory warehouse for the purposes of communicating your experiences. They are not really our world, they are just useful. The only reason we are asking a question like "How do I know this glass really exists?" is because we have created the concept of glass in the first place. What you are referring to as a glass is actually just you experiencing something that's denser at that location. The glass is no more separate from its environment than your hair is separate from your head. Why is this important? Because understanding this collapses the whole need to answer the question of whether the glass is real or not, because there was never a glass to begin with. This in turn frees you from doubting your senses because your senses never really told you there was a glass there, that was just a belief you were taught to tell yourself, and the price of every belief is doubt. Doubt is really just a reminder that this is something you made up in your mind. So the first thing to do to free yourself from this issue is to ask yourself - are you having doubts about your experiences or about the stories that you are running in your head regarding those experiences? Very quickly you will realize that doubting experiences doesn't make sense because even doubting your experiences is an experience. Doubt belongs to the parallel world of beliefs. Truth however is to be found within the real world of experience... Next time you have some feeling become aware of that feeling, don't distract yourself with thoughts. Then observe what's the difference between feeling a feeling and thinking about a feeling. This will restore the proper split between the real world of experience and the parallel world of concepts which is just your own creation. As you pay more and more attention to your feelings, observe how certain experiences don't make sense to you and feel meaningless and how other experiences make sense to you and feel meaningful and attract you. This is your inner compass. It's always been there for you but you were taught to ignore or suppress it by the collective ego. The ego tries to convince your heart (which btw is impossible) that this may not feel meaningful now but it will start making sense once some bs goal is reached. Once you reach that goal, there might be a slight sense of accomplishment but essentially it won't change anything - that's why a lot of people when they get rich - they become more depressed because they have no more stories left to fool themselves with and the unaddressed existential crisis that was suppressed for a lifetime finally starts to re-surface again at full power. The reason why the ego is doing that is because it maintains itself through struggle if there's no struggle it will be gone, so it better try to convince you that struggling makes sense. It better try to convince you to doubt your heart... And finally the key... You say "since our minds are so malleable and under great external influence." In order for somebody to be in integrity he or she needs to know who he or she is, because integrity is to be true to one's self. The unaware person is indeed volatile for they don't have any standard to be in integrity with. Yesterday it was trendy to become a doctor, the unaware person signed up at the medical university. The day after that someone said software engineering is the best career to have, a bunch of unaware people started signing up for that. Only to realize they hate it and they suck at it too. Our minds are not really malleable or under great external influence because feelings are not choices. You can't be convinced to feel love or happiness, I dare you to try it. What you can be convinced to do is to ignore your feelings because you are the captain of your ship, the feelings are there to guide you. Now I bet you won't date a person you aren't attracted to, right? It never works out. So why "date" any other thing in life that you are not attracted to? Realize that attraction is not a choice and you will reclaim your trusty inner compass again. After that - follow your inspiration without hesitation or you will end following your hesitation without inspiration. Cheers.

Oh, they are perhaps even better for that purpose. You can use psychedelics to accomplish some crazy deep healing of psychological trauma and wounds. Not long ago I had this crazy experience where I became my own father and healed some deep baggage from my childhood which simply would not be possible otherwise or through any kind of talk therapy. I never had a lot of trauma so I mostly don't use psychedelics for that. But many people would benefit enormously from it. It could save hundreds of thousands of people from depression, rage, self-hate, abuse, and suicide. Once you're able to access states of infinite love, the healing potential for psychological trauma is unmatched. If psychedelics were widely available, talk therapists would be out of a job. So would gurus.

What is worth doing and what isn't worth doing depends totally on what kind of person you are and what your goal in life is. People dedicate their lives to many things, for example some find gaming a waste of time (especially on self-help forums like this), while others make a career out of it. For the first person there are a set of different values and priorities, that's why he or she might find gaming a distraction from those values, for example if the said person finds value in studying and taking courses or maintaining high grades in a university setting. Then gaming will mean distraction and loss of valuable time that could've been used for studying. For the second person, if he or she games more, that's just more experience for his or her gaming career, so it's a win for them. So you see, it totally depends what your likes, dislikes, values and principles in life are. And even if the person is pursuing a different goal than becoming a professional gamer or a professional beatboxer, like you mentioned, or a singer.. doing things even for fun can have value in it. Like you see many professional people in all areas of life, some of them will take up a hobby like an instrument, singing, beatboxing, gaming, sports, etc. Because we are human, not work-robots or money-making machines, in the end. Things can be valuable for different reasons. Sometimes just as raw and basic value like part of survival (you're gaming after a long day of work to ease stress, or else you'd go insane or even commit suicide, without something to calm you and take the stress away), other times as complex as providing value for society in various ways or leaving behind knowledge for the coming ages (for people spending hours a days on Quora, forums, blogs/vlogs, people making free courses, people who share their knowledge, people who volunteer as listeners to people in emotional crisis). Or taking walks in nature for your well-being. Or making art for therapeutic purposes, or just because you simply like it. There's no need to be always a serious reason behind the things you do. Things you enjoy doing are usually not a waste of time. It's helpful to know the deep reasons behind your actions if you want to hold yourself accountable and to not lose time on less important things when there needs to be more focus on the important ones. Most of the things you do will be survival related, but that's okay. It still helps to be conscious of them. And other times things you do will be for purely the sake of happiness it brings. High values are usually: responsibility, discipline, perfection, ambition, hard-work. But you can also find value in recreational activities and connection with others, that's why people sing, dance and create art without making money from it. If every time you beatboxed you had to do it for money, would it have the same value and meaning to you? Some things cannot be measured by money and they're still valuable. For example if you want a good relationship, you might invest money in it (relationship therapy, gifts, vacations, traveling, creating a home for you two), but the relationship itself doesn't have a monetary value. Your girlfriend won't have a price because she is not an object. And you cannot buy a relationship, it just doesn't work that way. Nor does the relationship bring money to you (or at least it shouldn't), yet you find value in going out on dates. Neither can you buy health. You can buy things to improve your health, but most things to maintain your health are free, like exercise and good sleep. You cannot buy sleep, you cannot buy health if you destroyed it with smoking or fast food. Health doesn't have a monetary price, yet it's very valuable, if not the most valuable thing. Health is not money, yet you pursue activities to maintain your health. You cannot buy reputation, yet it is valuable and you make actions to be viewed as a good person. You cannot buy talent, but it has value. Friends are not money, yet you may find value in friendship. And so on... Yes, you need a career and you need to make a living, but you cannot base your whole life on only pursuing money. Maybe you're in a phase of life when you are working towards a career and that's why now money and success is the most important thing. Being financially independent is a very fundamental thing and you should work towards it very early in life. Just don't neglect other things you find valuable either. Because you'll never be happy by only pursuing money and fame. And the best way to earn money is through your passions, but only if they are realistic. So I think pursuing your passions, working towards financial independence and hanging out with friends, having a relationship, etc. and hobbies are all worth pursuing. And things that are unrealistic, are bad to your reputation, or your health or are making you lazy are not worth pursuing.

If you are in fact free from suffering, ignore this: Enlightenment = shame so intense that it dissolves into cosmic suicide. Insanely terrible. But how can “you” know what’s true if there is no you? “Tricky” as Leo says, doesn’t cut it. Experience is delusion? Is delusion bad? Of course not. Because neither is death. There is only “is.” What is liberation? And for whom? There is only happiness. Maybe I’m coming from a different perspective. For me, sadness is the most transcendent form of happiness. Literally, I’m weird. Unless somehow the actual emotion of sadness has been completely hidden from me. I love nothing more than sadness, and also gratitude. What could be more beautiful than sadness?

No, but they are more enlightened then someone higher up the spiral. Enlightenment is basically just returning to where you began. So in my opinion the spiral starts at enlightenment and as you go up you are getting further away from enlightenment, but ultimately circling around back to enlightenment. I suspect that is why people become enlightened period. I don't think any human has actually gone all the way up the spiral and come back to enlightenment yet. The people who become enlightened are because they fall so low on the spiral by some freak accident they flip to the other side. For example Eckhart Tolle talked about how he was basically on the verge of suicide from the meaningless and apathy he felt when his experience happened. True apathy is the lowest a human can go, if you go lower then it you may find out you don't exist at all. That could also be why meditation and silencing the mind leads to enlightenment, because you are almost tricking yourself into not existing by not thinking. Stage blue or stage red people can seem primitive but a lot of the time they are actually more connected to the stillness and acceptance than say a stage orange or green person from what I've seen.

Suicide was created by ego for long term survival. Since we are conscious enough to understand that now, and at present have enough technology within and outside to overcome suffering, suicide should no longer be an option.

Depends on what you mean by enlightened states. Jhana 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and the unfabricated (nirvana; end of time) might aptly be called enlightened states. Unity consciousness, when experienced, will pretty much invariably be assumed to be the goal of the spiritual path when it is made lasting (it pretty much never lasts). Same with jhana 3 and higher, oftentimes. What I mean by enlightenment is the complete collapse of the real sense of here/there, now/then, I/you, distance, good/bad, personal doer-ship, and reality in any sense whatsoever, to the point where it is inconceivable that any self that is separate from everything could "come back," because it's recognized it wasn't actually ever there -- the only thing that seems to be able to bring this about is absolute egoic suicide. Perhaps there is a pleasant path that somehow leads to it, but it would only be pleasant by virtue of doing extremely pleasant things in meditation, etc. The enlightenment would happen completely in spite of the pleasantness. The pleasantness only serving to make the process less painful. I can imagine some may not only get enlightened pain free, but filled with bliss -- that would be due to profound meditation skill. No idea if it's true though. And of course, no one gets enlightenment.

The premise of this thread is a complete misunderstanding. Near-enlightenment is like a lucid dream, but instead of running around excitedly, there's just a role and there's the absolute obviousness that anything behind that role (a person) is completely full of shit, because there is no person. Ever felt a peculiar trustworthiness and unthreatened-ness when spending time around someone who seems to experience shame a lot? It's because they are nearer to enlightenment than the average person. Enlightenment, for many, is when that feeling of being full of shit gets so all-encompassing it completely collapses. Basically cosmic suicide. No person would seek enlightenment if they knew what is was. It's the utterly complete end of good and bad, and the beginning of "is." Sound good? It actually will to some. It did to me. It actually makes sense superficially that "the end of good and bad" could somehow be "good" but of course, that's a most obvious contradiction and impossibility. I'd recommend love and consciousness. I would never recommend enlightenment. Not that enlightenment is bad, it's just not good, and therefore it's both pointless to recommend, and just altogether pointless. Nothing changes.

Just to let you know beforehand - this post is written by hardcore full-time seeker - 14 hours of consciousness work daily for past 5 years with 150 psychedelic GOD awakenings and Infinite Love awakenings on 5-MeO-DMT and others. I do not expect any advice from you for my situation - because I came to conclusion that no advice of the "internet gurus" has ever worked for me. I wrote this post just so you could show some empathy to people like me - seekers who are STUCK in the middle, in the dead zone - between the Matrix and Liberation. And being stuck in the middle of those two for years/lifetime creates MORE suffering than average human life spent as an average unconscious Joe. My life is actually worse than Leo's life according to his health video in his Insights Blog (https://www.actualized.org/insights/my-health-situation) . I am in pain, experiencing many psychological and physical illnesses since my childhood. Everybody should realize that Life is massive Suffering even after many awakenings. Like many of you, I came into the spirituality because I wanted to ease my suffering AND have less thoughts OR at least stop being identified with them AND be "immune" to pain AND to know my true nature AND to experience experience Unconditional Love in everyday life - not just in psychedelic trips. 5 years of hardcore spirituality later, my suffering has actually increased AND number of thoughts has actually increased AND identification with thoughts is pretty much the same AND my sensitivity to pain has dramatically increased AND I have had only 2 sober spontaneous experiences of Unconditional Love which lasted only 1 minute. After many of my temporary awakenings I came to conclusion that I am the GOD IDIOT, here's why: My life in a nutshell: 0.006 % Gods Divine Love 1 % pleasure from orgasm, eating 99 % suffering in boredom/meaninglessness, suffering from thoughts, personality disorders, anxiety, depression, inner-conflicts, needs, desires, pain, work, insomnia, extreme noise sensitivity etc. I am a God Idiot because after 5 years of full time consciousness work I was not able to cure any of my disorders. I am powerless god. Hopeless God. God is LIMITED idiot because he can't switch off useless "pain signals" in the body. OF COURSE pain signals were useful in caveman days, but nowadays they have outlived their usefulness YET there is NO WAY to turn them off (I am a highly sensitive person - I feel pain 5x stronger than average human) The GOD is RENDERING this creation and that is pretty much the ONLY thing that's doing great! God is UNLIMITED when it comes to rendering stuff. Rendering feelings etc... Rendering this colorful 4D scene. BRAVO! He is doing that perfectly. His mechanism of "no-mechanism" is PERFECT. But the scene is full of suffering. The Mind is actually Alpha version pre-realesed too early and most of human perspectives are in suffering mode thanks to shitloads of inner conflicts created by inner beings/thoughts or "external" stimuli. God is the biggest idiot out there - Since in this day and age more than 98% of human perspectives are led by ego-identity and for most of them THERE IS NO WAY OUT (remember - I have tried to get out for 5 years full-time) There's NO WAY OUT because there are infinite lives... So suicide is not an option - my idiotic creation is made the way that I will be always reborn into suffering again and again. Life IS. And this statement implies suffering in it. NO WAY OUT. Life is and always will be. Whatever IS - is prone to suffer. I am a God idiot - because THERE IS NO "SAFETY VALVE" Impermanence is actually not "SAFETY VALVE", it's not a positive feature like Leo said in impermanence video. Impermanence IS an "error", because God is idiot who wasn't capable of creating creation with 100 percent SOBER divine love without colors, feelings, thoughts and without the need for using psychedelics to remember himself in trip just for few seconds. OF COURSE I used to be a 5-MeO-HERO who experienced Gods Divine Love 150 times on psychedelic only to forget it few minutes later. Why? Because this Creation is created by Me God Idiot, who is NOT IN CONTROL of making use of those divine insights into everyday reality ... Remember there is no control and no one in control. And no one in control of liberating from suffering into "awakened state" !!! It's based on pure luck... It is a lottery. The Grand God Idiot's Lottery! That's why there are actually life-long seekers who seeks liberation from suffering but how many actually get liberated? How many of the seekers get enlightened? 3 percent? So this hell creation is punishment for myself. Why? Just cause! I do not know... God is idiot because there is NO WARRANTY that evolution will make humans more happy. What if people 5000 years ago were a lot more happy than today's industrial society? There is no warranty for better future. YES there are channeled books from higher beings in higher dimensions who say that there is some thing called ascension and in 1000000 years you will ascend higher or whatever, but what if that is just a dogma? You can't be sure of that. I am LIMITED crippled God because I have NO CONTROL over the creation - I can't "dream" stuff or positive emotions into existence and maintain them 24/7 and I am very VERY limited in manipulating reality - maybe even totally powerless - because I have no control over my thoughts, hormones, disorders, life experiences, brain chemicals etc... LoA people are proof of that. Under any LoA video on youtube there are comments like: I can manifest ANYTHING!!! - yeah right, those "omnipotent" fools who say they can manifest anything only to find out they have a tumor year later and die. I have personally known 2 of those people. To intelligent person it's obvious that they can only manifest themselves stuff like cars and money, which is normal part of life and working hard. No need to call that woo-woo Law Of Attraction. All of them say you are God and can manifest anything - so why their life is suffering? Why are they still working at McDonald's? Why they have incurable illnesses? Why those fools don't make themselves live up to 200 years of age full of wealth and health? Or feed all starving children in Africa. Or heal ALL corona patients in one day ... They're a joke. And anyone who believes that "You are Creator of your own reality" is a joke. You have very limited - I would say Zero control over the reality. Just contemplate "What is a decision" and observe your experience carefully. I am a GOD IDIOT because I have Zero control over my thoughts. I have ZERO control of: WHAT my next thought gonna be WHEN my next thought gonna be AND I have ZERO control of decision made based on thought content. I am God idiot because my alpha-version buggy Mind (thoughts) is prone to be stuck in loops of negative thinking FULL OF INTERNAL CONFLICTS between inner archetypes. Not just thought loops. I know people stuck in depressive, anxiety, OCD loops for their whole life. No techniques or medications work for them. I am God idiot who is not in control of his "level of vibration" ... God is idiot because his creation is CHAOS. Chaos implies suffering. Some say that reality is not suffering, but my interpretation of reality creates suffering. Oh man believe me I HAVE TRIED... Full-time... God is limited idiot because any psychedelic or other "peak experience" won't last more than few minutes AND there's a tolerance or harmful addiction or basically "The higher you fly, the harder you fall". In conclusion - Experiences of God's divine love actually made my everyday life more miserable - they showed me something I'm incapable to experience on sober daily basis. My 5-MeO Omnipotence experiences are totally useless AND those experiences gave me a false hopes / false HEALING hopes for my illnesses... Nothing good came out of them... BTW I wanted to teach spirituality... Like Leo, I wanted to wake people up from their illusions... Praising 5-MeO as well. Like Leo I have read almost all spiritual books under the sun. Like Leo - I became "Insight Hunter" ... Only to find out later that insights/peak psychedelic experiences actually made my life worse. Revealing "secrets" of existence is making everyday life "negatively" meaningless. YES - meaninglessness that I experience is not neutral, it's negative. Massive contemplative lifestyle stripped my life of compulsory illusions. Human NEEDS his illusions to live normal life... To be able to relate to other people in the matrix, to be social... To enjoy entertainment in the matrix... You won't be happy watching a movie constantly being reminded it's staged... I realized that stripping illusions off reality is actually fools way to live a life. I, like many, am a depressed spiritual loner full of head knowledge and spiritual ego. That's why most of philosophers were unhappy. And because only 3 % of seekers get liberated - average seeker gets actually stuck "in the middle"... I as a God am incapable of surrendering the ego identity... Believe me, I have tried... Shitloads of times... But of course surrender isn't something you could do willingly. I am still waiting for some paradigm-shattering insight or whatever... Til now no luck... OF COURSE this post is full of limiting beliefs. OF COURSE this could be understood as a victim mentality thinking. But realize - I am doing my best... Full time... Everybody is doing their best. I have tried everything... So please do not spit any pseudo-advises like "practice acceptance" or other BS... Your words have no use in some Gods perspectives like This One that is writing this useless post. You won't help me and you won't cure Leo's thyroid illness. OF COURSE reality is 100% imagination and I have tried to make a massive leap and transform this imagination into positive one by brute-force OR at least manifest "accepted imagination" to see creation as accepted/neutral. Did not work. Many "souls" are in the "massive suffering mode" multiple lives in a row. Just read this book: "Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian L. Weiss" ... It's about a woman who tapped into her past lives and 95 out of 100 her past lives were FULL OF suffering and illnesses... BTW in her past lives she has been a monk in monastery many times. Being monk is useless in therms of "progress" or whatever. So, I hope you finally understand. You can enlighten yourself however you want in this life, in your next life thanks to memory wipe out + upbringing by egoic parents and egoic society you will fall back to illusion again. You will suffer in your next life in spite of your awakenings in this life. I am DELUDED LIMITED CRIPPLED GOD. Totally lost in his creation. NO WAY OUT for 99,999 percent of people including me. Gods creation is Hell Realm - This Colorful Creation is Hell Realm. Thanks for your time. You will experience my life someday. Don't worry "internet gurus" :-D tl;dr: Have compassion for suffering of others. And just 2 more quotes for you:

There are a lot of bad reasons to be anti-lockdown and against mandatory masking. Conspiracy theories, bad science, "muh freedoms", etc etc. However, I feel like there could be some reasonable logic behind the thinking of some people who are opposed too. Unicef warns lockdown could kill more than Covid-19 as model predicts 1.2 million child deaths There's some good evidence to suggest that more people will commit suicide or die of an overdose as a result of covid lockdowns than from covid itself. The world economy got basically shut down for months, many businesses are still recovering or already went bankrupt. A deeper recession or even depression possibly looming when it all catches up with us. It's certainly hard to put a value on human life, but I feel like at some point we must, when it threatens to bring our economy to its knees to accomodate. 20%+ increase in domestic violence in most places during lockdown Depriving kids of a year or more of their childhood General quality of life decrease and isolation for everyone else in lockdown. Interruption to regular hobbies, activities, etc. I feel like it's a very Stage Green thing to do everything in our power to try and save everyone. People make emotional appeals saying that it's selfish to not wear a mask for other people's sake, you're killing grandmas, etc. Shaming people into it. But I feel like a Stage Yellow person might look at the bigger picture. It's unreasonable to think that we can save everyone. So we should take a utilitarian approach and maximize the happiness and well-being for as many people as possible. The elderly and immunocompromised are going to get an unfair deal either way... but it seems far easier to quarantine the old and sick in their homes and let everyone else go about their lives, instead of trying to quarantine the entire population. The old and sick will already have poor quality of life regardless, but now we're negatively impacting the lives of all young healthy people too in an attempt to save a few more of them. I think this is a pretty logical and rational position to take, and it shouldn't be too controversial. But when I try to explain this to people, they basically call me a sociopath. I'm curious what people here think. I'm open-minded to the fact that I might be wrong about this, and interested to hear any opposing viewpoints.