Leo Gura

@InfinitePotential The easiest way to test it would be to have 5 different people give their rating of someone like Eckhart Tolle. I would bet a lot of money that all 5 numbers will come out different. But I have not tried it. If you have a bunch of friends, you could try it.

As this post demonstrates, this muscle testing seems way too flaky and subjective to serve as a reliable measure of truth. The biggest dangers with it is, once you accept it, you're all-in, and it can really distort your entire worldview because you take the numbers seriously and think you can know everything this way. I thought a lot about adopting it, but ultimately decided that it is too epistemicly risky. It is more powerful to admit that you don't know than pulling numbers out of your ass and convincing yourself that you know something you don't.

Awesome! Will have to come back and read this more thoroughly. Definitely want to go.

@Callum Milner Lol You have turned Hawkin's work into self-delusion. I warned you in the review not to take LOC too seriously.

And to those reading this who might now be scared of doing Vipassana or meditation -- just remember that the things described in this thread are very rare. This is not a reason to avoid serious spiritual practice. Nor is this a condemnation of Vipassana. You just have to know where to turn to if complications arise. Whenever you're dealing large numbers of people -- tens of thousands -- rare complications will always arise. Even routine surgery and medications have like 1:100 or 1:1000 serious complications.

Excellent video! This is the solution. @Gryner Do your research and try to find a mentor who has first-hand experience with these kinds of experiences. You should read the Youtube comments under that TED talk psychosis video. They will give you some hope. Going to a Holotropic Breathwork retreat might also be very useful for you.

Psychedelics are clinically proven treatments for depression. What you have to understand about depression is that it is self-created. You can get depressed about anything if you put your mind to it. It's all about how you're interpreting reality. Psychedelics tend to deconstruct reality. This can make you depressed if you are attached to various fantasies, illusions, and neurotic ways of living. Your prioritzation of work performance over truth and fulfillment is problematic. That's the wrong approach to life. And psychedelics will rudely awaken you to this point. Which might make you feel depressed if you have built an entire lifestyle and identity around it. Remeber, sometimes to grow you must pass through a dip. Growth is rarely always up, up, up.

@CroMagna Sounds like your criteria for selecting a career are extremely shallow. But if you really want to do it: Lynda.com PHP & MySQL are two the most versatile and well-paid web skills. A good web developer needs to know HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, and Linux web servers.

Of course not. That misses the point.

Not a true psychedelic, but people often like to think of it as one and tell themselves they're using it as one. It's important to distinguish between recreational and non-recreational uses of substances. I do not encourage recreation usage. These substances are to be used for metaphysical investigation. Which means you trip hard and deep, rarely. As opposed to mild pleasure highs every other day. Pot also affects people differently. Some people report more psychedelic effects.

@Gryner Sorry to hear of your suffering. What you're describing is definitely highly unusual. Although not unprecedented. The human mind is a very complex thing. Not all human minds are alike. Some people are much more spiritually attuned and have access to psychic and paranormal realms that very few other people can access. Of course some people are also mentally unstable. Something like what you're describing is pretty rare. You could be legit mentally unstable. Or, you could just be very paranormally attuned and you're discovering this realm for the first time in your life and it comes as a shock and your rational mind does not yet know how to navigate these realms. You could also be repressing some kind of deep past trauma like abuse, molestation, rape, death in the family, etc. If I were you I'd read up a lot more on other people who've had similar experiences. Don't expect quality answers from most Western doctors / scientists. They will just think you're crazy. You need to research transpersonal psychology, psychic stuff, the work of Stan Grof, New Age books, etc. You will probably find some answers there. There are paranormally gifted people you could find who can help you understand what is going on with you. Try searching for some in your area through Yelp.com Don't be to quick to judge this experience a negative. It might turn out to be a blessing in disguise, a gateway to a whole new dimension of reality and the beginning of a powerful life purpose. Do a google search for "vipassana psychosis" and other similar phrases that might describe your experience. You also want to be very careful and precise in describing what happened to you so you and others don't jump to the wrong conclusions. For example, some of my deepest psychedelic trips on 5-MeO-DMT were so deep, with insights about the nature of reality so profound, that if I did not have a rock solid theoretical foundation, I could definitely see myself feeling like I went insane. If most ordinary people were exposed to such insights point-blank with no preparation they would start to lose their grip on reality in a negative, dysfunctional way. You could also read books on psychosis to see what that means and how it works. Make sure you read a diversity of books from different perspectives, not just the standard Western academic perspective. Your ultimate intention should be to figure out what happened to you and why. P.S. Traditionally, many shamans in native tribal cultures develop their abilities after a traumatic psychotic break. So fear not. You are not alone.

@FredFred Start with something lighter, like 1g of mushrooms or 120ug of LSD. 5-MeO will freak you the fuck out if you've never done psychedelics. You will not know the difference between life and death on it.

Great! Personal experience is key in this work. The videos are just concepts.

Sounds like the opposite of good. Quit that shit, since you're not able to use it in moderation. This is not how psychedelics are to be used.

@Geromekevin Those explanations and models of the mind you are sharing with me are like 1st grade math compared to the college level calculus I am working with. All of that is basically nonsense. It does not give a proper account of ego or consciousness at all. You are accusing me of being biased when really it seems more like you see me that way because you have not yet seriously investigated your own biases. Scott is not to be taken seriously at all. He's trapped in a stage Orange paradigm. The fact that he is enamoured with Trump's persuasion ability shows you how weak and short-sighted Scott's value system is. Being enamoured with Trump's ability to persuade is like being enamoured with Hannibal Lecter's skill at eating people. Just because I don't take such nonsense seriously don't confuse that with closedmindness. You brought a knife to a gun fight here, son When you become very conscious you will easily see through all of this kind of egoic pseudo-intellectualism. A lot of people get the bright idea to try to school me when it would be much wiser to take a seat and listen very carefully to what is being said. Very advanced stuff is being said that very few human beings on Earth understand.

@Emanyalpsid The explanations on that website are very materialistic and dualistic. I don't see a proper explanation there of what the universe or reality is. There is no physical universe. That is just a concept. The universe did not originate from nothing, it is nothing. There is also no such thing as perception. There is also no such thing as consciousness inside a body. Consciousness is not dependent on reality. Reality and consciousness are identical. Seems like you may have realized no-self, but not the Absolute nature of reality. There are many depths of enlightenment and nonduality, so be careful.

@Ar_Senses This strange loopiness is only a feature of the symbolic mind. In the ultimate sense, there is only one substance, one thing in existence, so it is incapable of pointing at itself because it is itself! Ultimately there is only Being. All symbols collapse into Being. A snake eating its tail ultimately just turns into a dimensionless dot. You are the universe trying to point at itself without realizing that pointing is impossible because when you are the whole universe anything you point to is you and anything you point with is also you! What you are overlooking is Being! Direct Being! Being cannot be known symbolically. You must BE it. You must realize that all knowledge and thought is a 2nd order phenomenon, the foundation of which is Being. A 2nd order phenomenon cannot grasp 1st order phenomenon. Just like an image on an LCD screen cannot grasp a pixel because it is made out pixels! An image cannot know pixels because it IS pixels!

Confucius say, to learn courage, place hand in front of crocodile.

Be however you want. Self-actualizing is not about being some particular way. It is about growing more and more conscious of yourself.

@Serotoninluv Right, because when the sense of self dissolves, survival becomes irrelevant because you are conscious of your immortality. In other words, a dead man can't die and has nothing to lose or fear.

@Hafiz Don't wait, make it happen! You are God after all. Making shit happen is part of the movie! If the hero in the movie just sits around patiently waiting, nothing will happen. See? It will then just be a boring movie of a dude sitting around waiting. This paradox arises because you are both the watcher of the movie and the actor in the movie. You must learn to act, but in a detached way. Which is tricky and takes some practice. It's a newbie mistake to interpret no-free-will as an excuse for inaction and laziness. What no-free-will really means is that hard work happens without free will. It does NOT mean: don't do hard work or don't put in any effort. Effort is very necessary. Just realize, that effort is not really coming from the ego but from God/Spirit/Infinite Intelligence working through you. Become a channel for Infinite Intelligence and it will make you work hard to do its bidding. But it will be an enjoyable, free-flowing kind of work.

Yup! Which is why it's scary. Nonduality means that all distinctions are arbitrary, including the distinction between life and death, reality and fantasy. What's left is the Groundless Ground, The Void, The Infinite, The Absolute, The Godhead -- which is totally indistinct.

Yes, of course! What you're missing is the distinction between thinking vs being. Thought != Being Thought of being != Being The whole point of neti neti is to stop all thought. Once all thoughts die down, whatever is left, is pure being. Whatever your true nature is, you are it prior to thought. The actuality of what you are is a constant. But holding that as a thought is not it. What are you when you are not thinking about yourself? Don't think the answer!!! BE it! P.S. Yes, you can be conscious of Infinity in your sleep. Happens to me occasionally. It's really cool. You exist as an infinite singularity.

You can't. Therein lies the whole puzzle of life. You don't know what you don't know. Which is why it's so important to stay openminded and humble. And to seek out alternative perspectives. You could always be wrong. Yesterday's insight is tomorrow's delusion. A genuine commitment to truth at all costs is also very important. Just through radical self-honesty you can cut through 99% of fantasies and illusions. Most people do not set the intention to be self-honest.

@Malelekakis Exercise increases sleep quota.