Leo Gura

@AlwaysBeNice The issue is one of control. If you believe you're in control, that's the problem. The practical consequence of the no free will debate is surrendering your need to control life. Most people don't realize how much of their suffering stems from trying to control and manipulate life.

The problem with talking about the notion of "no free will" is that people either believe you, or they don't. Either way, it's just a belief, so they go on acting exactly as before: as if they have free will. Breaking this tendency of acting as though one is in control, is really hard. It basically requires enlightenment. The ego's whole function is to act as if it's in control. You can't think your way out of it. It requires a deep experiential surrender to life. But yes, it's good to be mindful of it in your daily practices. Just notice you're not really in control. Your body and mind have a life of their own.

@ParanoidAndroid He's more of a mystic than a classic Western philosopher. So yeah, he's worthwhile.

I find it of little value reading philosophers original works. Read a summary of their key ideas. Most of their ideas are quite bad and deeply misguided. You could spend a decade or more sifting through that dung pile and not come out of it any more developed than when you started.

Yes, that's called letting your dick run your life It does tend to be a problem if what you're after is consciousness. Eventually you will realize girls cannot satisfy you. The only question is, how many years will it take?

Yes, for some people it can happen rather quickly. Depends on many factors (or your karma as the Hindu's like to say). But also keep in mind, there might be more to your true nature you haven't yet realized, and you won't know how significance that difference in depth can be until after you hit it. This rabbit hole tends to go much deeper than people realize, even "enlightened" ones.

As the Buddha said, once you cross the river, throw away the raft. (But not before! So make sure you've actually crossed )

@severedfred Go to a retreat and take a dip in the pool of emptiness

@AlwaysBeNice You might as well be waiting for lighting to strike your head. Maybe it will spark some enlightenment

@Nervewracking It comes from the same place all creativity and evolution comes from.

Definitely the insights. Baseline level of awareness is a trickier thing. It requires consistent tripping to raise in my experience. Of course meditation raises it, but takes a long time (years). I pulled them out of my ass. But once you have some deep breakthroughs, you easily recognize just how long it would have taken you to get there "naturally". It ends up being a horribly long time. The thought comes to mind: "Not in a million years!" My experiences lead me to believe that spiritual masters are no ordinary human beings. They have brains/minds which are chemically and genetically tuned for enlightenment insights. Imagine a spiritual master as someone who naturally has 5-meo coursing through his brain all the time. That gives you an idea why enlightenment is so rare. Natural selection puts a lot of pressure on brains to be pragmatic and low-consciousness, with only a few managing to escape the bell curve. So to me, psychedelics just even the playing field. It's like you're trying to play basketball against a guy who's 7 feet tall.

@DrMobius Good work. But it's certainly possible with meditation and self-inquiry as well. It just requires some super-human effort.

@Extreme Z7 That's very good because it's concrete. Your second line is rather wordy and flowery. Boil it down to simple terms. What is the exact emotional impact you want your music to have on your audience? What is the most important feeling you want them to feel when hearing your music?

@Dan Arnautu What would you do if you had $100 million dollars? Do that now

No, they are not necessary. But you should be prepared to invest 1000s of hours in hardcore practice if you want to get anywhere close to the insights accessible on psychedelics. 1 solid trip done with proper protocol is equivalent to about 1 year of daily meditation practice for the average person. If we're talking 5-meo, 1 solid 5-meo trip is equivalent to 5 to 10 years of daily meditation practice for the average person. Those are rough estimates.

@Wes Thoughts See my video: Grasping The Illusory Nature Of Thought A concept is a thought. You'll need to become very mindful of what thoughts are (in your direct experience) before you can proceed further in this work. Note: it does not help to think about thoughts. You need to develop mindfulness/awareness over them. You have to step outside your thoughts, so to speak, dethroning them.

Of course the zebra runs away because his self-agenda is threatened. The point of emotions is to serve an automatic manipulation towards self-survival. When one becomes conscious, the need for unconscious manipulations falls away. If you like being a frightened zebra, you've got nothing to do. Just stay the way you are. But if you want to rise above animal behavior, you can do it, but it will require consciousness.

@5thPablo If you have no idea what it means, then what do you really got? The point of the life purpose is to give you a CLEAR sense of your goal. "I am going to the moon." << that is a clear purpose. Avoid vague abstract words like "love" and "passion". Use concert words which force you to decide what you're actually trying to do in life. "I spread love." << that's a BS purpose. It's so vague is means nothing. Keep working it. Keep asking yourself, "What am I really trying to accomplish in the world?"

@severedfred Yes, of course the life purpose is a thing which is discovered. The LP course helps you to lay the foundation for its discovery. You may not discover it fully amidst the course, but later on as you start enacting the process. Life purpose isn't just discovered once, it evolves a lot too. You start with a rough idea, and then you work that idea and it evolves in things you couldn't have anticipated a year before. But for that to happen, you have to start somewhere. It will not get discovered or evolve unless you're doing the work, laying the foundation. It's not about discovering it beforehand per se, it's about starting to take action which will bring about the discovery. Scientific breakthroughs happen to people who are in the lab doing their work. They don't happen to people sitting at home watching TV.

Meditation retreats are definitely no picnic. Get ready for the most painful week of your life (especially if you're a newbie). You will experience withdrawals as bad as a heroin junkie. But that's the Devil leaving your body

Why does Mario die in a video game when he gets hit in the head by a turtle shell? Does the turtle shell damage his brain?

@Joseph Maynor Ignore? Ignoring is what you currently do. What you could do instead is become conscious of how you're creating fear. (Hint: you are creating it!)

Of course, most people are lazy and unambitious. That's why they don't get anything done and have nothing to show in their lives: no money, no business, no career, no health, no consciousness, no knowledge, no skills, no taste, no nothing. If you wanna be ambitious, you gotta take everything into your own hands. Don't be waiting around for people to open doors for you. I try to make my work and my results as independent of other people as possible. Structure your whole life so that nothing holds you back but yourself. Don't wait on anyone. If you live far from beautiful women, pack your crap and move closer. I live 1.5 miles from the Las Vegas Strip. You could live even closer. I've had friends who live 200 yards from the best night club in the world Don't wait for opportunities to come to you, you come to them.

@Nervewracking That is actually an advantage. The biggest enemy to true contemplation is per-concieved ideas or beliefs you picked up from others. Sit and contemplate FROM SCRATCH! Ask yourself a question like, "What is life?" and just contemplate it for a solid hour. Notice how much you discover. All the answers a human being really needs are contained within. Not in books. Although books are still important.

@Joseph Maynor Images of the future which threaten the ego's agenda. Investigate your direct experience.