No-self is way more than just an insight. No-self actually requires loss of a sense of self.
Imagine that you simply forgot the self is even a thing. That's would be true realization of no-self. Right now you are just holding no-self as an idea.
Notice, a coffee table cannot even conjure up the idea of a self. That's true no-self. What is a self anyway?

Rather than trying to respond or comfort someone, just get good at listening to them and asking clarifying questions that deepen understanding.
Set your intention to simply see his POV, rather than trying to get something out of him. If you do this genuinely he should start to feel validated. This requires openmindedness, curiosity, coming from a place of not-knowing, and dropping your assumptions and expectations.
The issue for you will be that you are very emotionally reactive, and if he is too, you two will trigger each other and that won't be sustainable. An emotionally reactive man is a rather weak man and that's gonna create problems in the masculine/feminine dynamic.

1) You should get good at talking about mundane stuff with girls. Rarely will a girl give you much intellectual challenge. That's not really her function.
2) If you value deep intelligent conversations then you should emphasize that when screening girls. Some girls are deeper while most are shallow as a puddle.
3) Most girls will be more interested in people than in things and ideas. This is how girls gotta be to be good mothers. So to some extent you just learn to accept it.

1) The way you're asking for the date is not optimal.
First of all, never call it a "date".
Next, you should build a bit of connection before you ask her out. Not too much connection, but something a bit clever and funny is nice. Get her used to responding to you and interested in you.
Next, you should make the request as low-compliance as possible. "Let's grab a coffee sometime this week." Don't mention a specific date/time. Wait til she responds before specifying that.
Next, it is crucial that you discuss and seed the coffee date when you are getting her phone number in-person. You must tell her that you two will get a coffee together later that week and ask her what her schedule is like, when she's busy and when she's free. Get her to agree in-person. This increase your date rate a lot. All the work is done in-person, not via text.
2) Even if you ask for the date optimally, many girls will just ignore (which means decline). Don't take is personally. Most girls will decline.

Raw perception is of course interpreted and assembled into a kind of augemented reality by the ego mind. But it would be best to distinguish that from belief.

Yes, but it needs to get recontextualized for you. See video on Recontextualization.
False.
Absolute Truth includes motion and change.
That's not how you find Absolute Truth. Both states and A amd B are Abaolute Truth, the problem is just you are not recognizing it.
Watch my videos:
What Is Truth?
And, Relative vs Absolute Truth.
Truth is simply all raw experience of any kind.

Meh... fuck logic.
Transcending logic does not mean you lose the ability to use it for practical things.

It's not enough to contemplate, you need a significant state change.
You can get so present and conscious that all your problems and even sense of other will melt away as the mental fictions that they are.
This requires very high consciousness. It doesn't makes sense from within material consciousness because you are imagining the future too powerfully to see it as imaginary.

The point is to enjoy the process. You will never reach some destination where everything will be happily ever after. Drop that notion. And stop making excuses not to talk to girls.
Love life. Do things you love, not because you are aping some YTber.
Also, don't discount your huge progress so easily. You're 22. You're basically a child.
And stop envying those dumb girls. Their lives are awful. Appreciate what you have built in your life and never throw it away for some dumb girl.

Yeah, that's a big struggle for us introverts. Extroverts have a much easier time just talking random bullshit.
Here are a few tips:
Talk about yourself. Talk about your ideas and feelings. Ask less questions, make more statements. Tell little stories from your life. Talk about topical stuff from the news. Read a bit of news before you go out. Or pop-culture news. Make up some assumptions about them like, "You look like you're from California". It doesn't have to make any sense or be accurate. Make observational comments: "Your dress reminds me of Pocahontas."

I am very sensitive to noise. I use cheap foam earplugs much of the day in my house to get total silence. Eliminate airplane noise, car noise, biker noise, distractions, lawnmowers, leaf-blowers, etc. Perfect for meditation, contemplation, and work. I've worn them for years.
Foam earplugs work best. Buy a giant box of them.

You're really limiting yourself and missing out. You can have crazy orgasms from just penetration. Clit orgasms are far more limited.
Not only is it possible, it's the norm.

The reason you're not getting laid is that you're not leading. Leading is critical for the end-result.
If you want serious results with women you have to learn to lead like a fucking boss.
Learning to lead and handle logistics is one of the hardest parts of game to learn. It requires so much failure and practice. It cannot be learned as theory. It's pure practice.

This is why you build state by approaching a lot.
First 10 approaches of the night are just a warm up to build your state. You must discipline yourself to approach 20-30 sets a night. No excuses. Your state and mood will build until you're on fire. The key is to approach even when you don't feel like it. Just approach and let sets blow up in your face. And then approach some more. And don't be picky about who you approach.

Atoms are filled with 100s of various subatomic particles.
Standard model has over 200 particles in it.

Formed reality is the imagination of differences. You create "reality" by holding one thing as distinct from another. These are divisions in consciousness your mind is making, even though you are not yet conscious of how your mind is doing this. This is otherwise known as dreaming.
It's not complicated.

Hi All,
First up, I'm not trying to tell you what you shouldn't do, all I want to do is post a warning based on my experience with Holotropic/Shamanic Breathing. I hope that you take heed of this advice and don't go through the intense involuntary healing that I have been through in the last 3 years.
I had a strong desire for the spiritual path and had been meditating for 4 years, sometimes up to 4 hours per day but normally at least 1.5 hours. I felt pretty good and had no existing psychiatric issues (that I was aware of.....)
In early 2019, I felt I was ready to speed up the process as I wanted to progress spiritually and felt like I wasn't getting anywhere.
So I started Shamanic/Holotropic/Breath of Fire (It has many names). I started on 2 minutes and gradually worked up to 30 to 40 minutes per day over the course of many months. I was still meditating but not for as long as I had been. Everything was fine for many weeks without issues. I felt good and felt normal both physical and mentally. 
Then, one week I started to feel off, it is hard to describe but I just didn't feel right. Felt really tired and unhappy (I am normally a care free happy person). I immediately stopped the breathwork but continued to meditate.
About 1 week after I stopped the breathing practices completely I was still feeling tired and just not right mentally. Then one day I was sitting is lotus posture and I suddenly felt really anxious for no reason and this incredibly uncomfortable energy started surging through me. I did not know at the time it was energy as I had never really felt it before but it was really uncomfortable. I couldn't sit still and I felt really anxious from the excess energy. I had no idea what was going on and ended up in hospital, I started screaming in hospital for no reason and almost had to be sedated (I am normally never like this, normally one of the most chilled out people around me). Anyway I was released a few hours later when the energy calmed down a bit. 
For the next 6 months this energy was with me all day everyday (even though I ceased all spiritual practices). I had trouble sleeping (I normally sleep like a baby). I felt extremely fatigued (I thought I had chronic fatigue) and could hardly get out of bed for weeks. I was close to panic attacks all the time. I was so scared and had no idea what was going on. I had to quit my job as I couldn't really function. Luckily I was financially prepared for this. It was only after I reached out to three meditation teachers who could "read my energy" were they able to advise I had awakened Kundalini. Kundalini was moving through my physical and subtle body cleaning out past traumas. Boy was it hard. You don't realize what lies in your subconscious until you open it haha.
I then had a relatively stable period of 12 months with no symptoms and felt pretty good. I thought Kundalini had become dormant but now I know she was still active in the background. I then started doing something similar to straw breathing just to try and calm my system. I felt great for a few months. But then boom without any warning again I went from feeling great to these massive surges of energy running through me that still haven't really integrated fully with my system even after 7 months of no spiritual exercises. 
The negative impacts of my healing have been the following:
- Intense suicidal depression (Never really been depressed at all in my life until I awoke Kundalini). Almost ended up in a psych ward a couple of times. The only things. Mostly when the energy surges were moving through my chest and heart area. 
- Intense ADHD, couldn't sit still almost all day for many months. (Never had ADHD before, I am normally more sloth like haha)
- Intense sensitivity to people, unable to be around some people.
- Intense weird mental states, hard to describe but they aren't very comfortable.
- Insomnia. This was really bad in the first healing period but not so much the second, still not sleeping as much as I need to but it has improved. 
- Intense sensitivity to fasting and certain supplements. Fasting and magnesium amplifies the energy and it feels very uncomfortable.
Positive impacts (a lot less than the negative ones so far.....)
- When I close my eyes my body mostly disappears. I don't feel it at all the only thing I feel is the energy moving against blockages.
- Body gradually feeling less and less like "me". A little bit scary.
- Can feel expansion of aura around me. 
- Small periods of intense bliss. This can almost be a negative impact if too intense. 
- Small periods of seeing intense beauty in even the most simple things.
- Heightened intuition.
- Synchronicities at times. Not all the time but occasionally.
- One 5 minute period where all my thoughts just stopped. My head was clear, this was very cool. Only had it once though.
- Greater understanding of subtle energy in general. The two laws that you must always apply for safe use of it. 
 
I sought help from a few teachers, tried a few practices to help calm the energy and ground me but in the end the main thing is time as the energy integrates with your body and mind, this can only happen so fast and takes time. Acupressure helped a bit and also something called White Light Protection Visualization which you can find on the Kundalini subreddit. One respected Kundalini teacher had me try all sorts of herbs and exercises that seemed to do nothing or make it worse. So I have come to the conclusion that very few people actually are able to teach this sort of stuff if you have a spontaneous K awakening.
I share this in the hopes that others healing journeys won't be so intense and involuntary as mine. 
I also want to thank all those have helped me in this journey so far, those seen and those unseen. Especially for helping me to keep my second job and family.
 
Good links:
https://www.reddit.com/r/kundalini/ - IMO the White Light Protection visualization should be done by everyone everyday. 
https://www.taraspringett.com/kundalini/healing-kundalini-symptoms-book/ - Some good info in this book.
 
TLDR:
Shamanic/Holotropic Breathing awakened my Kundalini without warning and gave me what is called Kundalini syndrome. I went through hell on earth as I was healing for the next 6 months then I went through A relatively stable period of 12 months and then the last 7 months have been by far the most difficult. Still healing from my past at a rate that is far from comfortable.
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks for sharing. Sorry that happened to you, but it is a pretty common thing for those doing hardcore spiritual work. I have a book on my book reviews list about Kundalini syndrome, how to deal with it, and how to avoid it.
Yes, lot of intense breathing can trigger it. Which is why Kriya yoga was invented, to slow down the breathing and to active the kundalini in a more stable, gradual, and healthy manner. If you decide to return to spiritual practice, Kriya yoga is what you're missing.

It's not so complicated. A belief is something you hold as true of reality which isn't strictly part of your direct experience.
For example, you believe the Earth is round. We can test that you believe this because if I started saying the Earth is flat, you would disagree and start to argue on the grounds that that is false.
So a belief is a sort of truth claim about something which isn't part of your direct experience.
Beliefs don't have to come from other, they can come from yourself. You generate many beliefs on your own based on assumptions, speculation, guess-work, and sense-making.

The problem with this view is that all your so-called enlightened teachers will suffer if you hit them over the head with a hammer.
So you are setting a virtually impossible standard for anyone to meet. By this standard no one knows Truth, no one knows God, no one is awake. And this is false. Awakening and Truth-realization is independent of suffering. You can realize no-self and still suffer.
If you doubt this, think of Christ on the Cross. You think he didn't suffer? Don't kid yourself.
So are you going to deny Christ awakening and truth because he suffered?
You see how silly this gets?
Of course if you suffer easily that shows that there is much more work you could do on yourself. But it doesn't invalidate any awakenings or realizations you've had.
Suffering is part of Absolute Truth. And just because you're not suffering also doesn't mean you're consciousness of the highest truths. This conflation of suffering and moral purity with awakening or truth is very problematic for students in this work. It creates a lot of wrong expectations which will never get met. Stop thinking that awakening or God-realization will make you macho, stoic, infallible, and morally perfect. It won't. Consciousness of Truth is just that, nothing more. You could still be addicted to whatever. If you don't think awakened people have addictions and cravings, you're kidding yourself.
What's not wise is setting up simplistic litmus tests for consciousness of Truth. Like, for example, you are not conscious of Truth unless you can sit still cross-legged for 4 hours without flinching. This is a human-made litmus test which says nothing about one's consciousness of Truth. Truth is not testable by any such litmus test. All it takes to be conscious of Truth is to be conscious of Truth. Nothing more. If you are conscious of Truth but cannot sit still for more than 1 minute, you are still conscious of Truth. You just haven't trained your mind and body to meet some spiritual ideal you have set for yourself.
I suffer plenty. But it doesn't make my awakenings any less real or valid.

You should be aware that my teachings are always evolving. This is the nature of empirical investigation.
How come you don't get depressed and cry contradiction when a new scientific discovery is made? Think about it. Understanding reality is a lot more difficult than anyone imagines. If you think you can do it flawlessly, you're in for a rude awakening.
I have also warned you guys that I am not immune from self-deception and that I am always having higher awakenings.
My videos document my process of figuring out the ultimate nature of reality. This is what the process looks like.

Everything is dictated by your state of consciousness. And you current state of consciousness is nowhere high enough to look past all possible suffering. Even a decade of meditation will not be enough to access the states of consciousness you would need to overlook all suffering.
All sorts of things are theoretically possible. It's possible to do a triple back flip while juggling 3 razor sharp knives. The question is, how much work are you willing to do to train yourself to do it?
You can certainly make a lot of progress to reduce your mental suffering and anxiety. But it will still require a ton of training and work.
And this should not be conflated with pure consciousness.
It is a technical mistake to conflate these two things. Which is what this whole discussion is doing.
Make a distinction between awakened consciousness vs training the human mind/body to respond or behave in certain ways that you might find desirable.

Acquiring power requires desiring power. The most conscious people have no desire for power. The same applies to the highest levels of wealth and sex.

@DefinitelyNotARobot Good! You are recognizing the depth of the epistemic problem. You are seeing the truth in this case: which is that you really don't know/understand. This is a good starting point. You have to wonder, Is any understanding possible at all? Maybe not, but also maybe yes. After all, you do understand how to open a door. So maybe you can understand some deep stuff.
You can start here: What can you say is absolutely true for you? And keep contemplating that question.
Hint: Rather than trying to have the answers quickly, focus on asking good questions to yourself and observing the process of consciousness which struggles with the questions. Be patient and enjoy contemplating reality rather than trying to reach some imagined end.
Also huge hint: Contemplate on psychedelics. You will save yourself 30 years.

Hey. So yesterday I did 300ug of LSD and I had an awakening. I feel very comfortable with calling it an awakening. It was MUCH more grand and epic than my previous experience on LSD (I guess it too was an awakening, but "smaller").
Maybe this will inspire someone. Here we go.
Death doesn't exist. This is the MOST radical insight I have ever had. And I understood it FULLY. Let me repeat: DEATH. IS. NOT. REAL. I completely understood I am Eternal and I literally can't die, ever. I am Consciousness. Even though there are "others" "dying" - in Ukraine, for example - yeah, this is part of the Dream. This is so fucking radical and I will NEVER be able to convey this to any of my friends, because they will just not get it. There is so much "background understanding" needed here, holy shit... I won't be trying.  I am Consciousness. I feel like I explored the Consciousness facet in this trip. I VIVIDLY remember my trip between states of Consciousness, it was fucking surreal. States is everything. The INFINITY of Consciousness and its states. I distinctly remember being put back in my regular state, it's like everything got denser (I can't describe it, this weird feeling) and I felt how my life story and all that shit was LITERALLY reattached to me at the end. God is Wisdom. Wisdom is Experience. Consciousness is Experience. So besides Consciousness, I also got deeply in touch with the Wisdom aspect of God and wisdom in general. Why is God Wisdom? Because WISDOM IS EXPERIENCE! God is Wisdom, because God is ALL that could ever be experienced. God knows all experience. More on wisdom: In general we'd say that wisdom is good judgement and acting on it, right? (that's one definition) Well, where does good judgement come from? Experience! A being is wise only after it has banged its head against the wall a thousand times. Maybe if you believe in reincarnation, it has banged its head in the previous life and now in this one it is wiser, because it knows it is not worth it. Well, God has banged its head against the wall an infinite amount of times. And another thing about this "not being worth it" - there is nothing objectively "wise", wisdom is a developed judgement when a being realizes from experience that it was acting against its own will and interests and then corrects itself. So wisdom is deeply tied to will. Yeah, sure, I'd like to binge-watch some TV show right now, but wait, it this REALLY my will, or is it a temporary desire? I have done this so many times. I have always felt shit after doing it. Is it really worth it? Do I really want to feel like this? And so a wise being learns to DISCIPLINE itself. Gosh, discipline, that's another thing I realized. More on that later. NOTHING MATTERS. I don't have to do anything here. There is no point, even though I wanted there to be. There is nothing meaningful I can do. It doesn't matter at all if I jump out the balcony right now (even though I'm not going to do it). NOTHING. MATTERS. These two words have never been so profound to me. I have a complete freedom. You don't realize that nothing matters until you see for yourself that NOTHING FUCKING MATTERS. A little tangent here for you about "nothing matters": I had to reconcile this for myself, so maybe it'll help you too. Look, even though absolutely nothing matters and you can spend your whole life here playing computer games and it wouldn't matter one bit (this would just be one Dream of God), consider if this is really your will. We're going back to wisdom here. It all comes down to this. Are you wise enough to "better yourself"? If you're not, you're not wise, and that's OKAY! Maybe you need to spend a 100 more lifetimes like this and living the consequences. Even though I am telling you this so nonchalantly, this is hard for me to accept, if I'm being honest. I feel like I'm not wise enough. And I feel like it's not very probable to speed this process of wisening up. I am scared of a life like this. I am scared of such experience. I am trying to be strong, but I'm breaking my own vows so often and it's making me lose hope I will break free anytime soon. But hey, I will try more and I will be working on accepting more... So yeah. The answer to the question "Why work on myself if nothing matters?" is that you most likely want a beautiful life. It's your will. But maybe you're not wise enough to honor this will.  Life is a Dream. In the Mind of God. Well, this dream is simply a specific state, but it's a good pointer. I saw this clearly. The point of Reality is to be itself. Pretty straightforward but incredibly profound. It's beautiful to realize this. I have asked myself: why am I dreaming this specific experience? Well, because, I guess. This experience is its own point. it's Experience. I AM. I AM, I AM, I AM! Leo mentioned the power of I AM in his video describing how awakening feels like. Well, that's exactly right. I'd say that I AM is perhaps the most profound pointer. I mean, it probably doesn't make much sense to a normie, but now that I understand this shit, it's just so so deep to me. I had an INCREDIBLY deep sense of not knowing. I had NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT THE HELL I AM. It was so funny to me HAHAHAHA. And the Consciousness was so slippery, I couldn't catch it! Leo mentioned this too in his video. The slippery nature of Consciousness. Many times I stopped and asked myself BUT WHAT AM I? WHAT AM I? And when I went deeper, some shift happened every time and the Consciousness slipped out of my fingers. It's like I had an infinitely slippery balloon and I tried to jump on it and engulf it but I just wasn't able to because it slipped right away! So I got in depth into the nature of wisdom, but also discipline, openness and maturity. In short, maturity is wisdom. Openness is also wisdom and maturity. Openness arises when you know YOU CAN'T DIE. That's when you can be truly open to experience. I can't die, so I can experience anything! And discipline arises out of wisdom, when a being understands that some things are not worth doing, some paths are not worth taking. The function of discipline is to keep a being ONE, whole. A wise being has to be whole, not scattered around. One direction - when I walk off my chosen path, when I temporarily change my direction, I bring myself back - that's discipline. And discipline is not an enemy - it's a friend. In unity, there is strength, and a wise being understands this. * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Some ending notes, I guess...
Even though I understood I am Reality, Consciousness, God, etc. I feel like I didn't have a proper "I am God" awakening. My experience here was GRAND and amazing, but it wasn't so deeply personal. I saw the nature of Consciousness. I understood a lot of things. But I didn't really get that personal, like I AM GOD! I just was God and experienced the other facets I mentioned.
Again, the most radical thing for me here is that death is not real. I was very clearly conscious how this is a dream and "death" is just a thought. It's such a good illusion. Brilliant design. But anyways, gosh, death is not true... holy shit.
Btw, now I understand why they call it "tripping". Yeah, a trip is a perfect description of this whole thing. I was taken on a wild, wild ride. And then I went back.
I had some funny situations during the trip. For example, my cat started attacking me (probably because I was staring at her with huge eyes) and I was dying of laughter when she did HAHAHAHAH. Also, at one time I opened Leo's video by mistake and I felt like he was talking directly to me. Like he was a guide showing me around awakening. Also some holy music was playing in the background because I opened a game (hollow knight) by mistake. This was such a fucking funny coincidence. I have no idea how it happened lol. Anyways, thank you Leo. When you were talking about me being the only being in existence (which I was conscious), I so badly wanted to tell you but Leo... WE are God! I felt so understood and I wanted to shared my Godliness so bad... I had this feeling multiple times - OMG, I am God.... so.... who do I share it with? It was such beautiful loneliness. I wasn't sad, but... I just wanted to share this beautiful gift with someone.
I don't know how I feel about this whole thing. I feel weird. It's awesome that death is not real. The trip was beautiful. The nature of Consciousness was fucking beautiful. I'd say I feel at peace. I am excited to discover more, but I'd also be okay with leaving the whole thing altogether and just living my life normally. I'm just so happy that I am Consciousness. I am not conscious of this right now, but I know I am and now I'm looking at my experience in a different way, I'd say. But again - I will be coming back for more 
I still have a LOT to say, but I think I'll end it here. To sum up, folks, you can discover the nature of Consciousness for yourselves. I'm wondering why I had this enormous privilage to get to know this. Some of my friends do psychedelics and they've never discovered any of this shit, just random insights and visuals and bullshit. Well, again, I'm lucky, I'm grateful, and again big thanks to you Leo for telling me what's possible. I'm staying humble, I will be trying to put my life more in order and wisen up a bit  I have a LOT of shit to work through, and a lot of questions. Even more than before the trip.
Adios!