Leo Gura

It's very very unlikely to make you enlightened. The #1 requirement for enlightenment is laser focus for hours on end. There is a good reason why the most enlightened sages were hermits and recluses. "Human stuff" is a giant distraction. Nothing wrong with building deep relationships, but it will get you mired deep in human stuff when you want to be delving into metaphysical stuff. You can also do both, by scheduling 10-day solo retreats throughout the year. This way you can have relationships without going full-monk, but you can also get some of that monk experience. This is probably the ideal for most people, unless you're really drawn to go full-monk. Anyhow, all those humans are none other than yourself. There is no one here but you. God is forever alone.

@Quicksilver How about enjoying the show? It's like you're standing in front of a great Van Gogh painting and saying, "So what do I do with it?"

The point is, unless someone told you stages of development are a thing, you would never know about them no matter how enlightened you got. You will never encounter a developmental stage during meditation.

@Solace You can spew that sweet neo-Advaita talk all you want, but development is still a thing. And it does not happen automagically. We develop ourselves only if we do. Development does not imply an I.

@Charlotte Tell him to come try some 5-MeO. Then he will truely see things

@VioletFlame Look, sometimes you just have toxic family which you must distance yourself from. Don't try to be too cozy with your family. Go create your own life. If your family will disown you for dating someone you love, fuck them. They don't really love you then. You don't have to hate them. Just create some distance. You have the right to live however you want.

The distinction is very simple: Addictive, yes or no? If yes, do not use. I do not condone caffeine for this reason. I would never recommend an addictive or harmful substance like ketamine, antidepressants, or opioids.

@How to be wise I don't give much importance to it but the context of this thread is a kundini experience so... If you're doing energetic practices it is important to understand.

@Aimblack It resides everywhere, but especially in the navel. The navel is the centerpoint of the entire body so it has some special signifigance.

@Elysian Kriya yoga has various tapping and visualization exercises for the front and back of the navel chakra to gently open it up. Do not be ignorant about kundalini. Read the books on my book list about it.

Don't throw away the canoe before you've finished crossing the river. Surrendering the desire for enlightenment should be the very last thing you surrender, just as enlightenment happens. If you are not yet enlightened as fuck, you are getting ahead of your skiis.

@Solace There is a need for both. Development is not awakening and awakening is not development.

Western values aren't superior. You can reach high stages of the Spiral under different value systems. There can be stage Turquoise Islam or Hinduism or Japanese values. To think that Western culture is superior to Hindu culture is brazenly ignorant and self-biased. A person could only hold that position because they have not studied Hindu culture. Hindu culture is extremely advanced in certain ways, like spiritually. A 6th grader is not superior to a 2nd grader. They are just at different levels of growth. One had a head start. Don't mistake that for superiority. All superiority is relative anyways. Superior according to who? Superior towards what end? You can't really talk someone out of ignorance. They must outgrow it by experiencing new perspectives and experiences which shatter their limited enthocentric worldview. A great way to become Green is through travel to exotic non-Western countries. Watch some Anthony Bourdain.

You are treating it as a means to another end, while I am talking about being a bricklayer as its own end. Imagine you laid bricks for the rest of your life. Not to advance to some other position, but just because you loved the art of laying bricks. Obviously bricklaying is not YOUR LP since you want to do big picture stuff, but that is not clear for OP. The ultimate question isn't about means but ends. Where do you want to end up?

In practice Orange is still not far enough out of Blue. Orange will have a sense of superiority and insensitivity. For example, the US Constitution was a stage Orange document crafted by stage Orange elites, but it still tolerated slavery. Folks like Sam Harris or JP still hold a sort of sense of "Western culture and values are superior" which is not quite racism, but it is still a subtle sense of superiority and self-bias. Orange still doesn't grasp the full extent of relativity. Orange still believes in objective external truths. As if there is one way the world is.

@Jcent I've tried something similar to it but I did not get your kind of explosive results. For me it was far more subtle.

Mostly Blue and below, and some Orange. Green transcends identification with one's race, realizing that all races have equal merit.

@kieranperez 23? You are still a baby. You've got plenty of time to iron all that out. Have hope. But get to work.

@Socrates 300ug can be difficult to handle regardless of where you are. Even 150ug can kick your ass. So watch out. Sounds to me like you're asking for a bad trip because your attitude towards this substance is way too light. 300ug outdoors can go really wrong. This doesn't mean it will go wrong every time, but it certainly CAN go very wrong unless you are extremely careful and know what you are doing. If you do it a dozen times, I can almost guarantee something will go wrong. So watch out. You are playing with a loaded gun.

@How to be wise There is no limit. You can become conscious of pretty much anything permanently. But it will take a lot of focused work in most cases. Of course your neurology will be a limit a lot of times, but you can change your neurology both through external and internal means (like psychedelics and diet or yoga and long meditation sits). The point is that spiritual practice of any kind rewires your brain. Psychedelics and meditation ultimately do the same thing, one is just more short-acting while the other is more long-acting. Psychedelics are also more powerful because they can change your neurology is crazy ways, but the effects are rarely permanent (which is actually a good thing) otherwise you could really damage yourself with a bad trip.

Should be fixed now.

@cle103 Just keep at it. Eventually you will break through. There's not much of a trick to it other than brute force. Psychedelics help enormously with this issue. Once you've died a few times, death stops being a big deal. The ego just goes quietly. But not at first. At first it makes a big drama out of it. Eventually you will discover that all fear is illusion. Especially the fear of death.

@1x0 That's right, there is a trade-off between being a technician versus being a big picture thinker. Project leads do very little actual coding. So you have to decide what you want out of life: Do you love coding so much that you want to be a master hands-on coder, or do you love other things more, like management, big picture thinking, business strategy, etc? In that case, you must surrender your desire for hands-on coding. It's sort of the difference between being a bricklayer and an architect. If you love to lay bricks you shouldn't become an architect. There is no right or wrong answer. It is perfectly acceptable to just enjoy the art and science of coding or bricklaying. It's not always better to be a project lead. You can just be a master coder. Then again, coding can be quite dehumanizing and a waste of life. Do you really want to be sitting behind a computer screen for 12 hours per day? Is there something more fun and valuable that you could be doing? Does the world really need another code monkey? Or could your creative talents be put to better use? But it's not just about getting more money for your time. You must enjoy the thing you're doing. So if coding is what you genuinely most enjoy, then do that. The trick is, there are probably other things you enjoy more but haven't discovered yet. So then your task would be to discover that. Personally I don't enjoy management so I avoid positions where I have to manage lots of people. I would rather be working independently, doing my art. But that's me. Some people love to work in groups and manage others. It all depends on your personality type.

Psychedelics + Nootropics + Kriya yoga Kriya yoga is very effective at shutting down the monkey mind through brute physical force. Also, if you have the money, EEG neurofeedback training. You can find a center near you that offers hourly sessions. It's great for ADD. Just 5 to 15 sessions can make a lasting impact.

@cle103 In other words: https://www.actualized.org/insights/enlightenment-retreat-fail