Leo Gura

@SelfPeace I gotta admit a dirty secret: I've always simply intuited -- without any justification or reasonable cause -- that reality was fundamentally irrational and paradoxical, and could not be grasped or modeled. This was my only philosophical position. In my mind, it has to be this way, because it's silly to expect a subset to model the superset. A subset cannot reach beyond itself. If a mind could logically understand reality, reality wouldn't be worth very much. Godel's incompleteness theorem sorta puts a nail in the coffin of the rationalist agenda IMO. Philosophers have been vigorously trying to rationalize reality for the last 2000 years, and they've failed pretty miserably. To me, rationality is itself irrational. It can't help but collapse in on itself at its core. Because it was born out of irrationality. Rationality had to be created, along with time, space, matter, energy, and everything else. We cannot take rationality as a given or fundamental.

@SelfPeace I have imagined offering him 30mg of 5-meo. I would even help him take it and film his reaction. But I doubt he'd be open to it. And I certainly don't want to debate over it as a hypothetical. I'm not a fan of the academic style of philosophy. It lacks soul. But good luck convincing it of that on logical grounds.

Not really a fan of Sam's debating approach to life. He seems to like to debate everything and everybody. Which doesn't strike me as very conscious, although he is very articulate and logical. When one's consciousness becomes deep enough, the debating attitude should stop IMO. I challenge him to 30mg of 5-meo. If he wants to come over, we can film him do it and film his reaction. That's as objective a test as it gets, without getting into endless debating. The problem with the left brain is that can argue it's way into or out of anything. Like a lawyer. The right brain is needed to reign it in, otherwise it runs amok. Access to Absolute Truth is not possible via the left brain, but via the right.

SDS and Do-Nothing ARE mindfulness practices.

@Zaid Yes, that's how it tends to unfold. Keep at it. Keep at it. Keep at it, until something pops.

Congratulations on becoming a dick.

@BeginnerActualizer I don't engage in video games almost at all any more. For me video games were my art, like painting. It was about creating beautiful things and being creative. I might even make some video games at some point. But they wouldn't be mainstream commercial products. More artsy. Nothing is inherently evil. Entertainment does have value when not overused. And all artistic pursuits are valid so long as you feel that it's art that you're doing and you're passionate about it. One of the reasons I got out of video games is because I felt most games were too shallow and commercial, and it's not easy making artsy games and surviving in that industry. The work practices of the industry are also extremely unhealthy and consciousness-destroying. If I ever return to making video games, it would be 100% on my terms. The reason I started my first business was because I was so disgusted by not having 100% creative autonomy over my work. When I comes to my work, I'm a total control freak.

@Extreme Z7 Indeed, my bad

4g dried is a pretty strong dose. Although it's possible to go much higher. 4g can easily kick your ass.

Everyone's prime directive is to be raising the quality of their consciousness. That's what human life is about. The life purpose, as talked about in the course, is about how do you want to contribute to humanity? What do you want your life's work to be? Personal development is something you'll be doing anyway. The question you should be asking yourself is what kind of career will be aligned with your deepest values? Otherwise you'll be stuck working at Starbucks your whole life. If you love personal development or consciousness work, then that probably means your career should be somehow related to that. But now you gotta think through the details. Plan it out. What value can you offer the world?

@Arielle Enlightenment puts you MORE in touch with the human condition, not less. You cannot even fathom or appreciate the human condition until you've awoken from it at least once. If anything can super-charge your creativity, it's enlightenment. Every artist should become enlightened, if only to improve their art. The biggest thing that gets in the way of great art is ego. It's interesting that artistic-types are the ones you tend to love psychedelics. Psychedelics are like raw divine inspiration.

Were they dried 12g?

Video games don't really make you violent (same as violent movies don't make you violent), but they DO lower your consciousness, same as TV. I don't think video games make people violent because they aren't murder simulators, they are GAMES. When you kill an elf in World of Warcraft, you don't do it with violent intent, you do it for fun as a role play. If you actually used games with the intent to hone your cruelty and anger, then they probably would help you become violent. But 99% of people don't play games that way. Most people play games just for fun, to escape reality. Video games are also different than visualization because in visualization you're actually flexing the mind, whereas in a video game you're just seeing violent images, which isn't the same as consciously generating them. But the bigger question is: Are video games harming your consciousness? And the answer is definitely YES! Not because of the violence factor, but because you're using it as an escape from reality. Video games are basically anti-mindfulness training. You're getting lost deeper in Maya as you play. And notice that every video game -- no matter how great -- ends with a sense of hollowness and lack of fulfillment. Which is what drives people to seek out the next great game, and the next great game, and the next, creating a cycle of addiction but never fulfillment.

The dream analogy is very good. That's basically how best to hold reality, as a dream. And you can wake from it, just like a dream.

Actualized.org has been upgraded to a new server. This server should be more reliable and 5 to 10 times faster. If you notice any bugs or errors, let me know. Otherwise, enjoy

Yeah, I love the barber shop one.

Yeah, it should be. We got 10x bandwidth increase and solid state hard drive.

@John Flores Correct. Except in a nonphysical reality, the body isn't as necessary as we assume.

Reminds me of this cool technology I found called Holophonic sound: http://www.acousticintegrity.com/acousticintegrity/Holophonics.html But you need to wear headphones for it to work. It's quite freaky!

There's a very deep structural problem here: Absolute Infinity = no limits You = a limit Now, what would happen to a limit if it become unlimited? Why might a limit not want to become unlimited?

That's a tricky assumption, stemming from the paradigm that self and other are real solid entities. Consider this: if everything in one (as nonduality suggests), there is no separation between you and other beings. In which case, it would be possible to have a direct consciousness of what another being is. Turns out it is possible to have direct consciousness of another. Because another is you. And you're both nothing. To accomplish this feat, you'd have to have an enlightenment experience on the question of: What is another? Enlightenment has many interesting facets. More than people first suspect.

@Key Elements Fair enough, just felt I needed to emphasize the potential trap some readers might fall into.

No, I said the brain does NOT render reality. The brain is part of the stuff rendered, obviously. I said nothing renders reality. << that's facing the mysticism head-on. Imagine a game like World of Warcraft running on a server, but the server isn't silicon-based, it's literally nothing. That's sorta like actual reality. If you object, "But how could that be?", notice: how could anything be? Notice that no way is any less mystical than another. And notice that reality doesn't need to obey the limits of your rational mind or human intuition, because reality is unlimited. It has infinite capability, and is therefore literally indistinguishable from magic.

@Key Elements That description of an enlightened person is a gross idealization. You will be sorely disappointed if that's what you expect. That is more like a description of Jesus than your typical enlightened guy. And even Jesus had his prickish moments. So be careful about filling your head with such ideals. Yes, enlightenment generally orients people towards happiness and humility and love and all that, but it's not guaranteed by any means, and it will takes decades of additional work to actualize that potential. It's very useful to make a sharp distinction between enlightenment and one's behavior, emotions, and level of development. You can treat these things almost like independent variables. In the same way that just because one knows calculus, doesn't make one nice or loving or humble or charming.

This question reminds me of a critic who was so outraged by George Berkeley's philosophical position that the external world does not exist -- the world being nothing more than an idea inside the mind of God -- that the guy kicked a rock at Berkeley, causing him to bleed, and said something along the lines of: "There! Proof of an external world!" The general problem with people who are stuck in a naive realist paradigm is that they are trying to judge other paradigms without first stepping outside their own. You cannot make a paradigm shift without leaving your old paradigm behind. You are correct in this way: using ordinary human consciousness, we cannot know for sure if there is or is not an external world. But when you experience Absolute consciousness, you'll realize that reality is not physical, because it is Absolute Infinity. And if you start to develop paranormal abilities like OBEs, and other sorts of spiritual powers, you'll see that reality is non-physical. Or just take a large dose of psychedelics. This stuff isn't theory. You can empirically verify what is being claimed for yourself. If you really care, verifying it is not that difficult.