Leo Gura

Yes, fear is a major obstacle. How did I overcome the fear? By doing so much psychedelics so many times that eventually I gradually acclimated to it. If you hold spiders and snakes in your hands enough times eventually you will stop being afraid of them. But the first few times you hold a spider it is scary. If feels like your entire visual field is recontextualized as God. Everything you see glows with God's radiance. That's what you're after. You don't need to think your way to it, just trust that it will eventually happen to you. Well, this is where psychedelics are so useful. If you can get even one short glimpse of God on a psychedelic then you will have a target to aim at and look forward to. I use my psychedelics memories to motivate me to work towards higher states. But also I'm now conscious enough of God that I can get motivation from just appreciating its beauty, and then aiming for more of that beauty. Really, the motivation is Beauty. Try switching your motivation from Truth to Beauty. It's about the Beauty of Consciousness. That's what you're really after.

@shree That's why I've stopped using the enlightenment word. It's hard to know what people mean by it exactly. They seem to use it in different ways while acting as if there is only one binary state called enlightenment. I do not subscribe to this view of Consciousness. From what I gather, mostly what they mean is loss of the sense of an ego self. The no-self realization. But to me that is just a small aspect of Awakening. Keep in mind that people can use these terms in different ways. So you always want to drill the user of the word down on what exactly they mean by it. Don't assume. Force them to spell out the phenomenology of that they mean. What does enlightenment feel like for them? That will give you a better idea.

Basically no. No particular state is required for that. That's mostly a function of time. Time has a healing quality as you simply forget the setback.

This thread is a collection of short illustrative examples of low and high perspectives of all sorts. But do not just post anything here. We are looking for short, potent, clear examples that convey a view in nutshell form. We are also trying to illustrate specific features of views that make them low or high, such as demonization, strawmnning, projection, pig-headedness, etc. Only post exceptional examples which illustrate a point. Be selective about what you post. Less is more. Don't post long videos that meander without a point. Think of this like clips you would show your child to teach about low vs high worldviews. Your child is not going to watch a 30 minute video for this. Be selective!

Body plays a role. But just relaxation is not enough the radically change your state to the levels requires for Awakening. Of course tension in the body is not a good thing, and you should work on that, but that will not change your state significantly.

Yes. That's why many trips may be needed before breaking through to God. The trips are cleaning up emotional baggage before the really deep metaphysical stuff can appear. The mind may need to reach a certain level of internal conceptual clarity before higher states open up. But not always. A higher state could still also just blindside an unprepared mind. That's what a bad trip usually is. Yes, hardcore retreats will be required then. Therapy-type of work. Shadow work. Deconstructing your beliefs and ideology. Basic self-help. Yes, contemplation work is important to lay the intellectual foundation. Awakening/God is not the only objective. You also need to just make other kinds of sense of yourself, your world, other people, and reality. Not everything is about seeing God. A lot of useful inner work can be done without God.

Consciousness comes in degrees, like a volume knob. You can have more or less volume. But volume is not the only quality of sound. Sounds cannot be mapped to volume alone, but all sounds must have some degree of volume. Higher and lower refers to the volume of consciousness. No. But at high volume the ego dissolves. Ego exists at low volumes. Ego is a low volume phenomenon. Like a rat that lives in the basement. The rat does not like to live up on the rooftop.

No. Consciousness cannot be mapped to any linear model. There are higher and lower states, but states differ much more than just by degree of high or low.

Indeed. To be precise, I mean a range of states. Awakening is not one state, it is a vast range of states. Psychedelics. You can. Psychedelics are not effective for some people due to genetic factors. The psychedelic can change your state but doesn't necessarily elevate you into the Awakened state range. This may require finding the right type of psychedelic, which most people are unwilling to do. Some people have such a low baseline state that even psychedelics are not enough, or require very high doses. Some people's minds are so confused and murky that it takes many iterations of psychedelics to clear up the confusion, emotional baggage, trauma, wrong beliefs, ideology, etc. Your state can be stuck at low due to trauma, emotional baggage, fear, or ideological attachment. So that stuff needs to be worked out before one is able to access higher states. Do not underestimate the huge role genetics plays in one's state. State is predominately genetic.

The way I define my terms, unconsciousness is a state of consciousness, just like zero volume is the state of a dial volume knob.

You are always in some state of consciousness. Examples of different states include: Default waking Deep dreamless sleep Dreaming Drunk High on weed Dizzy Sleepy Sick with fever Enraged Depressed Anxious Manic Etc

There is definitely BS on New Age channels. You gotta be selective about it. A lot of credible research has been done on remote viewing and ESP. Check out the work of Dean Radin and others. I will not supply you with studies. Go and make the effort to find it. This is not a topic where I will spoon feed you stuff. Either you are serious enough to put in the effort to research it, or you are not.

@Clarence I understand your point. I was trying to underscore the goofiness vibe of this issue. Politics is all about striking the right vibe. There are serious vibe problems with the trans issue. For example, tampon dispensers in men's bathrooms is a huge vibe problem. And I feel that leftists do not appreciate this vibe problem enough. And then snowflakery on this matter makes leftists very vulnerable to exploitation by right wingers. I understand leftists just want minorities to be respected. But this will not happen so easily. Whether you like it or not, "chicks with dicks" is how much of the voting public sees the trans issue.

Indeed, you will discover that all your ideas about reality are shit. Which is why he doesn't want to look.

Bottom? Market is likely to go much lower next quarter as Trump's chaos impacts earnings. The effects of Trump have not impacted earnings yet. That rain-cloud is on the horizon. Don't be a greedy sucker. Protect your capital.

I once had a coaching client who made six-figures as a pro online poker player. But it was a grueling full-time job. He spent 10 hours a day at the PC playing and it was so tiring he hired me to coach him how to transition out of it. He became a personal gym trainer instead. It's possible, but it requires serious skill and it's not glamorous. It's a grinding job.

Socialism and weird gender stuff IS bad framing. But it's more than that. It's bad framing because it is also bad utopian policy. People don't want utopian dreams. They want practical survival stuff. Again this goes back to the simple principle of: read the room. Leave the goofy shit at the door. Drag shows for kids, or men having periods, or defund the police are examples of goofy shit. People don't like weird and goofy, they like classic Coke. Leftists are like New Coke with pumpkin spice.

Yes. Hence stop freaking them out with woke socialist crap.

That's sorta my position. Not conversative in the regressive sense, but in the grounded, pragmatic, realistic sense. Stop wasting energy on silly utopian ideas like chicks with dicks being equal in sports to women, or socialism, or endless immigration, or endless deficit spending. That shit is killing the Dems. These are impractical positions that will never succeed.

You can do some of that. But you cannot talk a man out of his level of development. It is much either to talk someone down into low development than up into high development. The devil whispering in your ear has more force than the angel. Because his words tickle the devil within.

Number is division.

@Emerald You can't bluster nor bull your way through lack of human development. This isn't merely a PR or leadership problem. This is fundamentally a problem of lack of education, intelligence, and development. And that will not be fixed with any kind of clever political manuvering. Humans severely lack intelligence and development. Which is why leftists will continue to lose and conservatives continue to win.

Of course

My ass is not that phat.

@Thought Art Yeah, Mishlove has a great channel. I will share it on the blog soon.