Consilience

Day 12 - No Porn/No PMO Day 6 - Bed by 10pm Sun-Thur/ Bed by 11pm Fri-Sat Today I was productive as fuck. One of my most driven Saturdays in a while.... A lot of moving pieces are occurring in my life right now. A lot of seeds were planted today. And so the path continues. I scheduled an air bnb and registered for an online meditation retreat. Long story short, l couldn't get the time off for work if it was a solo meditation retreat, but since it's an official one, I'm able to get the time off. In hindsight, I think doing my first meditation retreat solo would have been too much, too much of a risk for failure. I'm both excited and extremely intimidated at the prospect of the retreat.

Day 11 - No Porn/No PMO Day 5 - Bed by 10pm Sun-Thur/ Bed by 11pm Fri-Sat I didn't make it to bed in time last night which made me realize... I didn't really have a good strategy for weekends. Honestly, I'm not too concerned with being strict about the 10pm bedtime on non work days. However, just for the sake of keeping a healthy sleep schedule and embracing the powerful benefits of consistent, rhythmic sleep, I'm keeping my limit at 11pm on weekends. Unfortunately I did not hit this target last night, but I only resolved to commit to this target this morning. Because sleep isn't really an "addiction" in the sense that PMO/Porn is, I'm not bothering with resetting the counter. I'm simply not counting last night. However, if I start consistently missing days and staying up late, I'll reset the counter. For now, I find this to be a balanced approach. I'll update my journal on schedule tonight.

Day 10 - No Porn/No PMO Day 5 - Bed by 10pm It's 10:03.. #Balance. I has the most powerful orgasm in years today with nothing but my imagination. It was incredible. I then went on to have an amazing creative breakthrough. As I write, I recall a really interesting saying, "Acta non verba."

30 days for me and I didn't feel any difference. For workout recovery nutrition, sleep, hydration, prehab, and a solid training program are all going to be the most impactful imo. Used to be way into bodybuilding/powerlifting and these variables always reigned supreme. I was getting phenomenal results back in the day despite constantly pmo’ing and having sex with my girlfriend at the time. Maybe it has made a difference for op.

Does it feel healthy suppressing your sexual energy and desire? What’s the distinction between sexual transmutation and sexual repression? Do you really need 1/2’s worth of semen retention to conquer your goals, attract women, and become successful?

Have you tried looking into breathwork? IME it can be really helpful for unblocking emotions. I'm glad to hear you're seeing a professional though

Day 9 - No Porn/No PMO Day 4 - Bed by 10pm Not much to say today. Today was silent, unimaginative. Things are just moving.

@Lyubov @Jennjenn ?? Have either of you researched her history as a prosecutor in California? How is this a good decision?

Day 8 - No Porn/No PMO Day 3 - Bed by 10pm Today I was presented with two competing motivations. I had this massive urge to play video games, but I remember an intention I'd written down this morning which was to workout after work. I'm proud to say I chose to workout. - I can't figure out what exactly is going on behind the scenes, but I feel like I'm really changing, transforming. In all honestly, I'm extremely dissatisfied with how my last YouTube video turned out. While in a certain sense it was a huge victory, it proved to me my own talent and abilities for videos, on the other, it flopped on the algorithm. More than that though... There's something missing in my channel, throughout its entirety. I can't quite figure out what it is, but whatever "it" is, is moving in the background of my experience, almost like an echo. You hear it, but it sounds faint, subtle, and not quite there unless you're really paying attention. A line I stumbled into today: "Taking Rebellion seriously is never a bad idea, but rebellion without intention is always dangerous." Perhaps it is true intent that my channel is missing. I mean, yes talking about deep spiritual matters is great, but what is my true intent behind speaking? What is the overarching context behind each and every video, each and every word I've spoken on camera? In all honesty.... I don't know if I can give a clear answer. And perhaps that's where this issue is. My vision, intention, presence has felt scattered, and disjointed. The last video I made was EXACTLY the style I'd like the capture, for the first time since I made the channel I'd finally captured the physical aesthetics of the videos, but my internal psychology was still amiss. As we know though, god speaks through silence. To know my Self requires a deep surrender, and inner silence. For now I patiently wait.

Day 7 - No PMO/Porn Day 2 - Bed by 10pm Today I felt really good. I slept in without an alarm and woke up at 6:30. I find that when I allow my body to naturally awaken without caffeine I end up feeling better later on in the day. It's a subtle shift in experience, but once the awareness of it is there, it's hard to ignore. My mind feels smoother, more in harmony with itself, and more clear without caffeine. The mornings are more challenging without a doubt. It usually takes me full 3 hours to be fully awake, possibly longer, but overall the rest of the day goes much better if I can abstain from even the tiniest amount of caffeine. This morning I woke up, did yoga, took a shower, meditate, and worked. I felt great almost the whole day. I'm reading a book called "Permission to Feel" by Marc Brackett, only 25ish pages in, but so far it's really good. It's about emotions and our relationship with them, how to understand them more deeply. It seems like a SD stage Orange/Green with hints of yellow type of book, which I think is help. Dude has a Ph.D. but speaks the language of someone who has seen through the limitations of rationality and logic, while also acknowledging their utility. The theme of this next phase of 2020:

All of these are very good points

What is existence, but you? You are the most fundamental, the cornerstone, the unfalsifiable nature of your own experience. Here's an interesting distinction - Who you are is you. What you are is absolutely nothing. What is God? What is infinity? What is reality? What is the present moment? If one can contemplate these from the space of who and what you are, you will go beyond no-self. Is it "more productive" to contemplate such matters? This question can only exist, have any meaning, or value at all relative to a self.

Peter Ralston is great. Really funny dude too.

Day 6 - No PMO/Porn Day 1 - Bed by 10pm It felt time to reintroduce a new habit in the process of transforming my mind. I've realized sleep is the number key for a successful day. If I don't get enough sleep, the rest of the day is pretty much shot. As such, this will be the next habit I'm integrating starting tonight. Namaste actualizers. You all inspire me, truly.

The 5 principles course from The Natural Lifestyles is amazing so far. Just started while Im still I’m lockdown and even though I cant test out the material yet, the community’s results are there, the infield videos are there, and my intuition tells me Ive stumbled into something great. Not sure how much longer the course will be open, but their YouTube channel is a great resource as well.

Ive found full no fap to be a form of psychological repression which was turning into a shadow element of the mind. Moreover, I realized I didn’t need no fap to achieve my goals. Imagine how many successful people WERENT on no fap. It’s unnecessary and represses one’s sexual self and energy. Porn on the other hand is very unhealthy imo. Watching even without masturbation is damaging to the mind.

Thank you These kind of comments really help me stay motivated. Day 5 - Got out and shot some today. Updated my YouTube channel's cover art to a badass picture of a Mountain I took... At least I think it's badass haha. I previously had another picture on the channel, but one of the insights I had from my most recent mushroom trip was the previous background's "vibration" was out of alignment with the vision of the channel. Literally it just felt vibrationally "off" which to my sober self now sounds new age as Fuck, but I've learned to trust the wisdom of the mushrooms, in all their twistedness. A vision of a Mountain appeared mid trip, and so today's main objective was to manifest this reality, which was accomplished I also cleaned a lot which felt good. My living space has felt obese from clutter, most of the clutter isn't even mine, but thankfully we're making progress fam.

Day 4 - Didn't journal yesterday, but I honestly just didn't have much I felt like sharing Another day on the journey. I'll update for day 5 later tonight.

Introduction: This trip begin going over surface level (deep in their own way) psychological material, but quickly transitioned into a powerful awakening into the nature of Self-Love. The first phase of the trip was quite painful and fearful. It was like the mushrooms were surging all of my negativity and insecurities, making me acknowledge them all at once in a twisted incoherent kind of way. It was not pleasant at all. Set: To understand how to love myself, to understand Self-Love Setting: My House Themes that emerged: - Transcending Success and Failure - My Psychological Shadow - Meditation as a Sacred Space - Interconnected Metta - Infinite Self-Love Transcending Success and Failure One of the most powerful insecurities I have is that my work will never be acknowledged or really impactful for humanity. I fear that all of the hours I put into the pursuit of my life purpose is will result in nothing more than a failure on all accounts. I’m terrified of having to work a corporate job the rest of my life just to stay afloat barely paying off my student loans and affording the ever-rising cost of living. I recently went through a pretty big mental shift with making YouTube videos, and spent a metric fuckton of time on this new style of video, exploring my creativity, trying new things and really pouring my heart into its creation. Yet after posting the video, it barely got over 50 views, a complete failure as far as YouTube is concerned. But I learned something on this trip. Success and failure do not mean anything from the perspective of God. Every intention I create to love myself and those around me, every action I take that works towards raising the consciousness of humanity is playing a role. Even though I cannot always see, feel, or understand how the impact my presence and energy gives the world, my influence is there. Every action is completely interconnected with the whole. Every cause is an effect, every effect is a cause. My being where I am is completely dependent on the rest of the universe, and yet being where I am is why the universe is the way it is at all. I don’t really know how to describe this other than that the actions I take form casual chains which irreducibly connect with the rest of humanity and the entire universe. The most powerful way I can influence this world is with my mind, with the purity and honesty of my intention, which is to help the world become more consciousness, more loving, more aligned with Truth. It does not matter at all whether I am successful with my ultimate goals, whether my karma is the remain a wage slave for the rest of my life. What matters is that I travel within, and do everything in my power to spread compassion and kindness into those around me. The rest must be left to God and I have to work towards understanding that all is exactly as it is, no less, no more, pure absolute perfection. This insight is difficult to accept as a self because it goes against the desires for success, fame, happiness, security, the joy of working towards what you love. Sometimes life isn’t meant to be famous or impact for the world, but these scales of influence are only valid relative to the perspective of ego. From the perspective of God, the actions and intentions I set are what move the cosmos, not the magnitude of what one individual lifetime achieves. My Psychological Shadow As I mentioned, my intention was to explore what true absolute Self-Love was really all about. I realized that these aspects of my mind which are hedonistic, selfish, cruel, angry, attached to various outcomes are not something to be denied. To transcend these shadow elements of the mind isn’t to simply ignore and suppress the energy that exists. I’ve been journaling a lot about my journey to let go of my addiction to PMO and porn, and one of the insights I had on this trip was that I’ve been suppressing my sexual self by attempting this whole no fap thing. I saw how unhealthy it was to not honor that authentic biological element of the mind. As long as there exists an authentic desire to explore sexual energy, the suppression of masturbation and orgasm is just that – suppression. All this does is turns an element of the mind into a psychological shadow which will warp one’s relationship with orgasm, sex, and self-pleasure. Similarly, this can be said for all shadow elements of the mind. The way to transcend these elements is not through distraction, or willful suppression. Instead it’s through acceptance and love. This is extremely challenging to pull off, but for example, when you feel a surge of anger or anxiety arising it’s not your job to try and get rid of these feelings through will power. Your job is to honor these feelings as being valid and ok. This doesn't mean you need to act on them, as in the case of anger it can be quite destructive. Instead, it means you can feel them fully and send as much love to them as possible through a position of meta observation, recognizing you are the witness to these emotional states, not them in and of themselves. In the case of masturbation, I can honor this sexual energy. But see, when I’m perpetually ignoring and trying to rid myself of the energy, there is no transcendence. Quite frankly, I don’t need 90 day’s worth of accumulated sexual energy to work towards my goals. This is a misunderstanding of effort, focus, and achieving flow states. Perhaps some of the no fapstranauts need the 90 days, I definitely do not. It turned into suppression no different than if I had been suppressing anger, which I’ve done in the past. Overall this experience felt incredibly healing and loving towards my sexual self and health, as well as a more mature relationship with the shadow elements of my own mind. In the case of sex, porn is a problem for sure, but masturbation is an opportunity for self-connection and exploring one’s sexual energy. This can be done in a healthy or unhealthy way. In the case of other shadow elements, when I find myself angry or lazy, for example, sending myself love and awareness is not only the first step towards healing these dysfunctions, but is the foundation. If I am not sending myself love even in my moments of disappointment, I will be able to self-actualize. Meditation as a Sacred Space During the trip, I tried listening to music, but literally anything I listened to whether it was healing frequencies or really calm music was just irritating and anxiety inducing. I decided to just turn all music and sound off and sit in silence. I was just laying down on my floor staring up at the ceiling, completely present and in the now. I began meditating in a savasana position for what felt like hours. I was literally just staring up into the ceiling being the present moment. I realized that this state I’d entered into felt sacred. Not necessarily that it was special… Or particularly important… But the stillness, the presence, the silence all felt sacred somehow. The significance I give to the psychedelic state is the same significance I should give meditation. Both are deeply intertwined and while each produce different states of consciousness, both amplify the consciousness directly, producing a space of connectivity with the true Self. Essentially, I’ve been underestimating the importance and role meditation plays with the pursuit of enlightenment... I don’t know what else to say other than even when meditation is boring, makes you feel worse, and otherwise feels like a complete waste of time, it is not. It gives the mind the space needed to vomit up its excessive energy and be at peace with both itself and with the true Self. Moreover, I’ve since stopped trying to produce states in meditation. I felt a very powerful intuitive pull to continue using a simple do nothing/surrender approach. All striving and chasing for a particular meditative state is honestly useless. This state chasing is antithetical towards reaching a state of true inner peace, which is very twisty and paradoxical. For a long time I was pursuing the techniques outlined in The Mind Illuminated, which I do not regret at all and feel was huge contributor towards my mind’s development, but even this system has to be let go of. The states of boredom and suffering are working in the same way that these meditations induced bliss states are working. I think a concentration practice is good for beginners, but eventually this all needs to be let go of. At least for me it does. Overall, meditation is the path towards the Self and regarding it as anything less than is a misunderstanding of its sacred nature. Interconnected Metta This is where things got incredibly deep, heart wrenchingly deep. While I was staring into the ceiling, a mantra for a loving kindness meditation came into awareness, “May all beings be free from suffering. May all beings be free from ill will. May all beings be filled with loving kindness. May all beings be truly happy.” I finally understood the true power of these words. As the words spoke, I had visions of thousands and thousands of monks, yogis, enlightened masters from various times, perhaps across various realities beyond this particular Universe (this is what it “felt” like, an extremely cosmic state), who spent their lives pursuing liberation yet chose to stay behind to help the rest of the world awaken, those who took the path of the Bodhisattva, which is defined in Mahayana Buddhism as “a person who is able to reach nirvana but delays doing so out of compassion in order to save suffering beings.” I felt the sacrifice these types of beings created within themselves, the overwhelming compassion and love they possessed for all sentient beings. I was overcome with a heart crushing amount of humility as I metaphorically sat in the eyes of these beings, these true masters. Their intentions where so powerful, their hearts so full of love that this intention for all beings to reach nirvana (be free of suffering) carried into my life. In that moment, I realized that because these enlightened masters are none of other than myself, this intention was an intention I was setting and had already set for myself across life times. As I sit in the present moment, this intention for love and awakening rests inside of consciousness. Literally, this intention transcends their individual lives and ripples into the lives of all beings including mine. I’ve never felt more love in my life and the mind fuck was that it was love for myself, outside of myself, but from myself. The opportunity to pursue this work is a privilege and I honestly feel humbled at the degrees of love capable of consciousness and awakened beings. I feel embarrassed at how much compassion and love they have for me despite not being able to reciprocate in any meaningful degree. Moving forward I will be making the practice of metta a much higher priority. Sending this love towards strangers that I meet and have next to no interaction with, as well as those already in my life. Infinite Self-Love So in this moment of feeling a sense of separation with enlightened masters and myself, the duality collapsed into total oneness. I was pure love. Pure, empty, void, nothingness which I knew was none other than Self-Love. I was so loving that all forms of experience were permitted. My mind and heart reacted in such a way that might come across as feelings of bliss and human egoic love, but these were merely reactions to the metaphysical nature of what true Self-Love is all about which is a total and utter surrender to reality. On the one hand, I ask from the bottom of my heart “May all beings be free of suffering,” but on the other, I know that even this is a part of what it means to love myself. The paradox that I want nothing more than for the world to awaken, but that in its state of ignorance I love just as much. These trials and tribulations of suffering, the lives of those who have been tortured, raped, molested, are not wasted or a mistake. My own suffering is not a mistake. They are merely reflections of what it means to truly love myself in all its totality and to admit this truth is one of the hardest parts of the spiritual journey. I am crying right now as I write this, but there is no other way to sugar coat it. Self-love is the total infinite surrender of the mind in all its dissecting and attachment with the surrendering of the heart to infinite love for all manifestations of consciousness. There is only perfection, there is only you. I got up off my floor and went to my back deck to be with a tree. My body somehow was spontaneously able to enter into a full lotus without a meditation cushion and zero pain. I just sat with this infinite love for all things. In that moment there was nothing else to pursue or discover, only oneness, only consciousness, only love. I sat with myself staring into the yard, the sun was setting and shining on my face, streaming off the surrounding nature. I remember being absorbed in the silence, listening to the wind blow and grass rustle as they gently whispered, reminding, “This life is just a beat in the heart of God.”

Thank you everyone

This for sure. Let the work speak for itself through your actions, through your presence. Doing your own inner work and allowing your family to be is all you can do to change them.

Day 3 - I didn't finish journaling about the trip yet. Today was "good," there was a nice after glow in the morning. However, as the day progressed I began kind of getting depressed. My mind and senses just felt a little burned after such an intense trip yesterday. Sometimes this happens, but I'm usually good the next day. 0 urges to masturbate or watch porn. Literally feel 0 negative effects from the masturbation too. I'm just gonna keep it to no more than 1x per week and go from there. I plan on writing up a lot of the details of this dynamic in my trip report.

@Zigzag Idiot Thank you Yeh I think I may have over done it. I'll just kind of let the dust settle... We've been friends for close to 2 years so I'm just hoping I didn't Fuck it up too badly. She's been kind of cold recently so probably came across as quite needy. Oh well. But yes I don't feel as nearly as divided about my sexual energy... It feels really liberating.

Nightly intentions: Morning yoga 1 hour of meditation Write trip report Workout Clean Trek out to get a shot for my YouTube cover art

Day 2 - It was a fucking day. I jerked off, tripped on 3g of mushrooms, woke up to infinite self love, healed my relationship with masturbation, tried to call a girl I sent a dirty text to which long story short ended up probably coming across as misogynistic, I tried to call said girl, but realized I was still tripping in the middle of leaving a voicemail, and then spent an hour trying to write a text message to "fix'" the situation. A train wreck on all accounts. Moral of the story - Mushrooms man...