Leo Gura

Hence you make a mushroom tea or alcohol extract. Don't eat the actual mushroom flesh. It contains toxins.

@The White Belt The mind always creates resistance when you try to make big positive changes to your life. This is normal. I always experience resistance when I start a big important self-help course. Just try as best you can to push through it and maintain consistency. Over time, the mind will quiet down. The trick is to not let the whining get you to quit a good thing. Remember, that you also don't need to be 100% perfect in doing the course. 80% is good enough. 80% is enough to change your life. Don't feel bad about finding your life purpose. It's really a necessary component of a conscious life. Even if you got enlightenment tomorrow, you would still want to develop a conscious way of making a living. So by doing this work now, you are helping yourself become conscious, and then in the future take the ultimate step to enlightenment. Don't feel guilty for walking a comprehensive spiritual path. Just make sure you don't get trapped in success to the point where you neglect enlightenment. Anything you can do to make your life more conscious is a great thing. Whether it's cleaning up your diet, relationships, career, friendships, or whatever. That is NOT wasted effort. That's all great stuff which is part of the comprehensive spiritual path. Sure, it's not directly related to enlightenment, but you gotta start with getting the basics in place or you will be unable to sustain enlightenment. Remember, that if you're still young -- like in your 20's -- you've got plenty of time to pace yourself and address many aspects of your life. Just don't take that as license to slack off and watch TV.

Suffering, suffering, suffering

I once dated Tony Robbin's copy writer. She wrote all of his sales copy and got paid very well for it. She knew him very well and many other self-help gurus for whom she also wrote most of their sales copy. She confided in me that she wished Tony Robbins would retire, because he's so over-worked all the time. He's addicted to success. I don't like to gossip, but when you learn of these kinds of behind-the-scenes stories, the illusion starts to unravel. You hit the nail on the head: if you were really unconditionally happy, would you care about success? And would you devote your life to getting other people to become successful, or unconditionally happy? Notice, that every human being who is truly capable of unconditional happiness, does not teach success, she teaches spirituality. Because success is a second-rate substitute for spirituality. Success is what you pursue when you are spiritually clueless.

This whole topic is way too gossipy. Just keep in mind, conscious people do not gossip or stalk people. There surely is such a thing as consciousness of Absolute reality. I've experienced it, as have dozens of people I know. And it explains EVERYTHING, like Jed says. Whatever his personal foibles might be, his talk about the nature of enlightenment is quite accurate. If you doubt it, snort 30mg of 5-meo and all your doubts will be laid to rest once and for all.

No, they are not irrelevant. Your body's cycles are tied with the sun and moon. Even if you are asleep, when the sun rises, your body knows it. The most effective times to meditate are 30 mins before and after sunrise and sunset.

@nexusoflife Good work. Your mind was clearly prepared. But 5g for a first-time trip is way too much. That would freak most people totally out. Should have started with 1-2g. Be careful in the future with such high doses. You will get your ass kicked.

AL-LAD is best newbie psychedelic I've tried.

@Shan The longer the better, but not so long that you get sloppy with your mindfulness. I find it's like pushing weights at the gym. You gradually need to build yourself up to the higher weights.

When Sam realizes that he's dogmatic, he will immediately understand why everyone else he argues with is. The irony is that he commits the very sin he chastises others for. P.S. That quote was meant to make fun of the absurdity of what he's doing. He is the kind of guy who a Zen master would slap across the face for spouting his logic. He makes a fine Zen Devil. The fundamental problem is, he hasn't experienced the blinding radiance of God.

This is not a place to grind your axe. You are lost in externals. Notice that you are neglecting to work on yourself. All the energy you put into chasing Jed could have been put into developing yourself. Who cares about Jed McKenna?

@Edvard Enlightenment is the best life purpose there is. Just don't confuse enlightenment with laziness. It's exactly the opposite. If enlightenment is your life purpose, you want to be the most disciplined mo-fo on the planet. Don't forget, that monkhood is a very legit path. If you're serious about enlightenment as life purpose. You can go become a monk tomorrow, if you dare. But this is not a path for the weak-hearted, or weak-willed.

@Snick Well of course he doesn't consider it a religion.

@username It's definitely an issue. A few times a week is okay, more or less. But not daily. That's way too much. Even twice a week can be problematic if you're trying to build up Kundalini. I'm not sure how old you are. But in the end, I think you just gotta overpower it with higher wisdom. The cravings should subside after a few weeks of no fap. If that's possible for you, then that's your karma, and you'll have to burn through it (by jerking off 10 times a day, or whatever). And you will of course pay the price for that. What I see in people who are spiritually-inclined, is that their desire for Truth and wisdom is just much stronger than their desire for sex. They can still desire sex A LOT, but they are able to keep it in their pants. If you value sex over Truth, that's gonna be a real uphill battle. A strong meditation or yoga practice will definitely make you hornier. And constantly blowing your load is a misuse of that energy. There are techniques for semen retention. But if you're jerking off 10 times a day, you've got a more basic compulsion problem. Your dick should be bleeding at that point. My testosterone level is quite good, and I never needed to jerk off that much.

@Visionary Don't forget, it is you. You're like a shadow who saw the groundhog and tried to run away.

Logic is Sam Harris' religion

@2000 If you're doing your practices, there will be all sorts of emotional highs and lows. Just keep doing you practices and really emphasize MINDFULNESS of the emotions. Try to become the passive witness of them. Especially the really negative stuff. So you sit there and observe, "Oh yeah... my mind is acting really pissed off right now.... Okay... I guess that's what it wants to do... Let me observe where this goes... Kinda interesting... Do I want to feel pissed off? No? Then why am I making it happen? How silly..." Massive, massive mindfulness! Over and over and over again, because there will be lots of forgetfulness in you.

@wingsofwax Sounds like you have an issue with control. The do-nothing technique would be good for you. You gotta learn to fully let go. Mindfulness of the breath is a very distinct thing from deep breathing. It's hard at first to just watch without manipulating it. Ego loves to manipulate everything.

I'm seeing too much nonsense on this sub-forum. Too much speculation, too much gossip, too much ego stroking, too much distraction, too many pointless questions. This is not the place for such nonsense. Your biggest obstacle on this path -- if you really care about spirituality -- is your monkey mind's limitless ability to distract you from the real work. The purpose of this forum is to share high quality information, personal experiences, resources, and seek solid guidance in a serious way. Not to shoot the shit about your fantasies of enlightenment, philosophizing, dicking around, taking sides, getting offended, and doing everything BUT working towards enlightenment. Without naming names, I'm noticing certain members here are just engaging in mental masturbation, over and over again, month after month. Some of that is tolerable, especially if you're new here, but I expect more from you. Realize your nonsense and put a lid on it. It's one thing to distract yourself with your monkey mind, but then you also start to distract others who might be seriously into this work. So whatever nonsense happened in the past, leave it in the past, and from now on be much more mindful of what you post. Make sure it has a good reason for being posted, not just verbal diarrhea. And cut the gossip about people, gurus, teachers, and other forum members. Cut the gossip entirely. This work has nothing to do with any personality or person. Before talking about enlightenment, do the work! Show us you're reading, practicing, meditating, self-inquiry, and seriously trying -- not just blabbermouthing. Nobody really cares about your opinions about enlightenment. Folks who continue to blabbermouth, will get warning points and bans. And if the forum continues to engage in such behavior as a whole, the entire thing will just be shut down. I would rather shut it down than see it turn into a mental masturbatorium. Please help keep this sub-forum on-point. In the future, warning points will be given for the following kinds of offenses: Gossiping Creating drama Speculating about enlightenment, opinionizing Arguing/debating Pointless topics/questions If you have nothing valuable or experientially-grounded to say, then best not to say anything at all. If you have legitimate insights or questions from your practice which you'd like to talk about, that perfectly fine.

Excellent trip report.

The key is to realize that "other people are so happy" is an optical illusion. They aren't happy at all. They just seem that way on the surface. Even if they have Brad Pitt's good looks, 5 hot girlfriends, and 5 Ferrari's parked in their mansion's 5-car garage. It's all surface. Look beneath the surface and such people are in really bad shape. If you're gonna envy someone, at least make sure they've got the thing you think they got. Try envying a masterful yogi -- he's got everything you ever wanted. P.S. It also sounds like you're equating self-help with lots of thinking and analyzing. This can be a big trap. You need to be more active in how you do it. Try doing a more physical form of self-help like yoga, breathing techniques, massage, Tai Chi, etc, so you get out of your head. The deepest growth happens when you're out of your head and NOT analyzing.

Yes, of course stuff like that will happen. That's the spiritual growth process at work. Your energy body is changing, your physical body is changing, your mind is changing, your beliefs are changing, etc. Kundalini energy is rising. This is very complex topic. It's not just about what's going on in your brain. There are subtle spiritual bodies at work in this process. This process is not just psychological or physical, it's deepest roots are existential and spiritual. Yoga, Buddhism, Tantra, and Daoism talk a lot about this. I touch on this topic in my Dark Side Of Meditation video. A lot of weird stuff can happen when your Kundalini starts to rise from meditation/yoga, ranging from the annoying and frustrating to full blown paranormal. If you feel yourself losing control of your life, then you might ease off on the meditation for a while and do more physical exercises to ground yourself. Otherwise, proceed and trust the process, but also listen to your body and intuition. A book about the nervous system is not going to be very helpful for this stuff. You want to look for books on Kundalini, Qi, chakras, energy work, etc. Western science doesn't understand this stuff almost at all. Because it only happens to serious meditators and it's non-physical in nature.

I have already seriously considered shutting it down. Not only the forum, but all of the comments sections and even all of Actualized.org.

Brian Johnson's Philosopher's Notes have a lot of great books. Especially on health and nutrition, and basic self-help. https://www.optimize.me/philosophersnotes/the-books/ I'll be adding more unique and rare books to my list in the future. Books for serious spiritual practitioners, and other deep topics. I want my list to be unique. Books you would normally never hear about.

@The Monk Just look around. Everything that exists is BEing. That's what it does. It BEs. But the magic of being is lost on you because you're deeply mired in a conceptual matrix. Your mind slices and dices and projects upon the raw being which is there, turning it into fantasy. To become really conscious of being is an amazing thing. As an exercise, try picking up an object like a pen, and just observing it closely in your hands as though you're seeing for the first time. Forget that it's a pen, or that's it has the human function "to write", and just observe it lovingly and curiously, like a baby. If you do that for a few minutes, you'll start to get in touch with the magic of being. Although not fully, because to fully contact being, you have to get rid of the self/observer, so that you literally become the pen.