Leo Gura

Compare the size of a fresh apricot to a dried one.

That's all very natural. Students emulate teachers until they are finally ready to leave the nest and embark on their own. It might take 5 or 10 years for that to happen. But it will happen if you go deep enough into the work. You will become your own authority figure, grounded deeply in yourself as God. Don't expect that to happen in your 20's. Maybe around your mid-30's that will start to happen. It takes a long time for a man to find his grounding in life. It's a slow maturation process, like a finely aged wine.

I would not use them. The whole point of the trip is to face whatever comes up. If your protocol is sound, you shouldn't need them. But then again, if you're the sort of person who might freak out and do something dangerous like jump off a 20 story balcony, then you might want to have some laying around. But even just having them around will change your trip. Your tripping will be sloppy because in the back of your mind you will know that if things get serious you can escape. This can lead you to second guessing yourself and treating tripping too lightly. There's an important aspect of tripping where you know that once you've taken the substance, that's it -- you're all in. There's no escape. This helps the surrender process. It also helps you to think twice before tripping because you understand the gravity of the situation. This is no toy or joke. I would rather not have an escape hatch. But that's me. You might be different. To me, a large part of the growth I get from tripping is the seriousness of it. It's not a toy to me. And of course I learned this lesson the hard way: by going through some rough trips in the beginning. But I'm glad I did.

There is a deeper reason.

Inspiring story man! Keep rocking it. You're doing great for your age. Your desire and intention for awakening & love is the most important thing. As long as you keep that desire stoked in your heart, you will find your way. It just won't be a linear path. Life will have all sorts of twists and turns in store for you. When you find something that's truly important to you in life, latch onto it like a python and don't let go until life relents and gives you what you most desire. The beginning is the hardest part. It will get easier.

I don't know. You'll have to experiment.

There are no Yellow cities. Green is the best you'll find, and even that is asking for too much from a city in the 21st century. 1) You can teach those things in most major US or European cities with no problem and plenty of eager customers. 2) Remember, part of your job is to help uplift people who are not yet at Yellow. It's too easy to work with Yellow and above people. The real work is helping people get to Yellow. Remember, Jesus did not say: "Let me see which city I can move to to find the most advanced people." He worked with whoever was around. The whole point of being Yellow is that you're able to work with Tier 1 people. An angle doesn't say: "Let me find the richest, more elite, and most advanced people to help. Fuck the rest of em." As Yellow and above, part of your burden to bear is that you will be misunderstood a lot.

Those are all generally good ideas. It's just a matter of sorting out the details and setting priorities.

Actually, this is false! Experience is not experience. The very notion of experience is dualistic and corrupted by ego. There is truly no such thing as experience. What you consider experience is a conceptual fabrication. What's really there is not experience but Being. This is not just a semantic difference. On this hinges everything. Right now you are confused, mistaking Absolute Truth for this thing you invented and call "experience." In this way you are maintaining the fantasy that you were born. Your very life depends on not properly understanding what experience is. Your mind will not allow you understand what I am saying here. Because if you understood what I'm saying here your entire reality would collapse and you'd have a mental breakdown. You assume you are a biological creature inside a physical space having experiences. This is false. You have imagined: biology, space, time, experience, and your self. Enlightenment is NOT a subjective experience. Enlightenment is the realization of Absolute Truth. At the moment of enlightenment you literally stop being a biological creature in a physical space. Because in that moment you realize that all of that is imaginary. You literally break out of "physical reality". For the first time you see reality as it truly is. You escape The Matrix. Imagine that your whole life has been lived inside a cartoon. And then one day you realize: "OH MY GOD! I am just a cartoon character!!!!" This means that all of science was part of the cartoon. So you cannot use science at that point to ground yourself any more. You realize that science is a hallucination. Don't underestimate how radical this is. It is as serious as getting shot in the head. You are going to perceive it as extremely threatening.

Evolution is not a done deal. It is happening every minute of every day. You have evolved a mind so you can figure out how to adapt to ever changing environments. Problems are always part of adapting to new environments. Nothing new about this. It is a problem in and of itself to deny that digital technology is a part of nature. We cannot go back to live in the woods. That would actually be a regression. We must find ways to integrate our technological developments and to make them the new "natural". This obviously needs to be done in a balanced and healthy way. But denying the digital realm is itself pathological. Powerful new technology requires consciousness to use in a healthy & harmonious way.

This is covered in more detail in the Life Purpose Course. That's basically the point of the course.

She's certainly on point with her big picture. Love that!

I don't really buy this. Thoughts don't need a timeline to happen. A timeline is a thought. Clearly thoughts happen. Otherwise what is all this thinking we're doing? "So, thoughts don’t even happen." << that's a thought! LOL

Again, this is part true and part false. There is no such thing as "the natural way of doing things". Technology is always advancing. Technology is part of nature. You cannot undo technological advance. Digital reality will only grow stronger and stronger. VR socialization will soon be a big thing. Through VR socialization you will be able to make friends across the whole global, not just your local neighborhood. Digital actually allows us to transcend the limits of physicality. Think about it. That's why digital is to valuable. It's God-like. Socrates believed philosophy should not be written but only spoken because writing would corrupt the mind. Why did he believe this? Because writing was a new invention in his day and he was set in his ways.

The title of this thread.

@RendHeaven Also, the Greeks had many gods, but one ultimate God: Zeus Just like the Hindus have a bunch of different avatars, but one ultimate God: Shiva When you understand this quote, you will be awake. Consider it your Greek koan The Greeks were no fools. They were some wise-ass motherfuckers.

@RendHeaven

@RendHeaven Sure, if one is lost in thoughts then such a teaching is necessary. But then the pendulum swings to the opposite extreme where the spiritual seeker turns anti-intellectual, rejecting the mind entirely without realizing that God can speak directly through one's mind using thoughts, images, language, and even as entire manuscripts. Most people fail to appreciate that God knows all languages in the entire universe. God is using your mind to manifest itself. Since it is formless it needs a limited formed vehicle to express itself. Mind and speech is God. The only question is: How pure is the vehicle through which God speaks? How pure is your vehicle? How much is your ego getting in the way?

That's right. This thread contains a lot of people talking past one another. We have to be careful in how we define our terms and how we use different mental schemes to explain the unexplainable. I am not really contradicting Spira or Tolle. I'm just challenging folks here to see the other side of the coin: all thoughts happen now and only now. The problem is that thoughts are so sneaky they mesmerize you into an illusory conceptual world. This is what is meant when people say that thoughts take you out of the now. They don't actually take you out of the now because now is all there is. But subjectively they entrance you. It's like getting lost in a day dream. Also want to challenge people here to not dismiss thoughts or mind as bad. The Absolute Now can certainly contain thoughts. Otherwise how could thoughts exist??? Elimination of thought is not strictly necessary to be in the now. Newbies commonly get the wrong idea about thought and mind, as if it is an evil that must be eradicated. I wanted to challenge that.

That is part true and part false. Ultimately who is to say what is real and what isn't? We make up those definitions. Of course in person sociaizing is different. But as humanity evolves digital communication will become more and more common and robust. Even digital sex is getting common now. I've had deeper orgasms through text message than through physical sex. So don't dismiss the digital world as somehow inferior. It has its pros and cons, just like all mediums. Don't forget, physical reality is just one medium out of many. Digital reality is no less real than physical reality or imagination.

Hey there. Welcome! It's pretty rare, but there might be one or two folks. They just might not be very active here.

The whole point of true happiness is not to base it on mood. Imagine being happy even when you're in a bad mood. That's real happiness. And it's not easy to develop because our ideas of happiness are so mood based and survival based. Those ideas require deep deconstruction. You have to deeply grok that attachments to physical things and even emotional states always create suffering -- sometimes gross suffering, but sometimes very subtle suffering. This was a core teaching of the Buddha. And it's a very important point which people overlook. Outwitting suffering is something only a master can do. Suffering is extremely sneaky! Because it's central to your survival. You must literally transcend the entire survival drive to access true happiness. Awakening allows for superhuman levels of happiness.

@Consilience There basically is no serious meditation without serious concentration ability.