Consilience

And yet in the end, the polar opposites collapse into one. To self actualize is to transcend your egoic, selfish, low consciousness behaviors. To self transcend is to self actualize into who you always were.

It’s completely relative. What works for one my not work for another. Some my most intense and profound states if being have occured after smoking weed, which isnt even a real psychedelic. And then being able to integrate those experiences has, without a shadow of a doubt, helped along the spiritual journey. Don’t become dogmatic yo~ Edit: Maybe you’re right though. I view psychedelics as tools along the journey. Not the end result, I guess you could say.

No they arent. Eventually you become conscious of the fact that laziness, comfort, and unhealthy foods are all addictions that create suffering. Caring about health acts as a way to counter these addictions similar to how meditation counters the addiction we have to thinking. Furthermore, one realizes that pleasure is itself completely relative and that you can find just as much and even more pleasure with healtht habits like eating well and exercise than being inactive and eating like shit. Good health provides so much more than a prolonged life. It increases overall energy levels, helps the immune system, helps emotional processing/stability, helps with body awareness/control and depending on how hard you push yourself, it can teach you a lot about pain, and suffering. It also provides a lot of functionality in life in terms of how strong or how much endurance you have for certain activities. My overall point- while death can certainly be a motivator, the benefits of valueing one’s health are much more than the quantity of life lived. We gotta think in terms of quality. This was an imteresting question though. Thanks for asking

To answer your thread title's question - you can't. In fact, you thinking there are other conscious beings is a concept. A rational concept that has evidence to support it, but a completely impossible question to prove. And any answer you have to this question will fundamentally be a belief.

Absolutely not. Im not sure I would have ever gotten onto the spiritual journey had it not been for finding lofi hip hop/chillhop music. Some music can be distracting sure, but it’s all relative

Maybe a better question would have been what is fatigue? It’s been really confusing lately about what the hell sleep is for, and why energy seems to ebb and flow based on things like sleep, diet, exercise, and even mediation. But if it’s just a thought, does that mean one could transcend it completely?

What is exhaustion, from the perspective of enlightenment?

Again I must say, the zen devilary on this particular topic is astounding. Especially by so many of you who claim to be spiritual or empathetic. Future generations will look back on this point in history and be blown away by the lack of compassion or effort. Not only is the meat and diary industry filled with suffering, they’re also literally destroying our planet.

Those studies are epidemiological studies looking at broad groups without examining the details of the individual. Simply stated, the studies are bullshit with poor design if you’re looking at whether eating a vegan diet can be as healthy as a omnivore diet. Many vegans are uneducated on which micronutrients they need to properly thrive and end up being lazy with their nutrition - as a result they arent as healthy as they should or could be. These are the same types of studies being done which show a link between red meat and heart disease, not accounting for whether their population has other confounding variables like high body fat level, bmi, or overall daily calorie intake.

True the state of academia is a mess but this does not mean we dont have a solid foundation of which nutrients are necessary for human health and which foods contain these nutrients. We have that knowledge and actually, when one over educates themselves on nutitrition (relative to a four year degree which I have) you’ll start to see where so many of the mistakes in acedemia are being made. Also self experimentation with tracking calories, protein, carbohydrates, fat and micronutrients and how these nutrients affect athletic performance will yield an incredible amount of knowledge and intuition regarding nutrition, which I have done (I powerlift and weight train.) Not to sound pompous, but I also have a degree in kinesiology/exercise science so my background on this topic is pretty damn extensive. Meat contains micronutrients yes, and it contains an extremely high level of essentiam amino acids, and contains just an overall abundance of protein, yes. In fact, as a vegan and a dude with a nutrition and kinesiology degree, I will agree meat can be incredibly healthy. Evolution has designed our metabolisms to process and benefit from eating meat. So the question becomes, is eating meat necessary? The answer is no. It is not necessary for good health and nor is it necessary for athletic performance, muscle growth, or strength adaptations. Im throwing the ball back in your court - do legitimate research and you’ll find the necessary knowledge and foods needed to be a healthy vegan, even if you have aspirations such as bodybuilding or powerlifting. Ive been a vegan for over a year now and it’s the healthiest Ive ever been.

The fact of the matter is the human body does not Need meat or diary to survive. I actually have a degree in Nutritional sciences and I am a vegan myself. You can supplement all the necessary micronutrients from other sources. And get plenty of protein from plants. I see so much zen devilery in this particular topic and so many sneaky justifications for why eating meat is not a problem. If you were truly enlightened, The amount of compassion that you have for all living beings would outweigh this selfish desire to consume their flesh. Face it, those of you talking about this nihilism bullshit are just addicted to meat and dairy and can’t face this truth. All of society is addicted to meat and diary and as a result billions of creatures suffer and die every single year to feed this addiction. Billions. There is nothing gained by eating meat other than pleasure unless there is a medical necessity. Once you see through the threads of this desire, and you realize it’s source stems from your indoctrination as a child growing up eating meat and dairy, it’s much easier to let go of. Until then, be mindful of how many justifications you create to eat meat. And yes, bringing up absolute truth and nihilism is a justification and the irony is that all of you bring up that point don’t see it. If nothing matters, then neither does your addiction to the suffering of other creatures - so perhaps have a little goddamn empathy

Sshhh brown bear sshhh

+1 Anyone who starts talking about nihilism/meaninglessness Im going to call brown bear

Yes indeed. I cringe hearing the excuses so many meat eaters make, especially the ones claiming to be spiritual. But on the other hand, life and suffering go hand in hand. It’s been a consistent theme across time and is not limited to this generation of humans and animals. Everything is as it should be; there are no mistakes in the actuality of reality. This phase, this cycle must pass as well.

I think you would need to find multi-disciplinary teachers so that 1 teacher has the ability to teach multiple topics. Researching scalable customization is a great idea as well. Keep us posted on how this process goes!

Great post man. Thank you for sharing this

Can you truly "be" with your family if you attached to them? If they answer is no - if you loved them, would you not want to fully "be" with them? Isn't that what it is to truly love someone? I don't necessarily have my own answers to these questions, but they may help you contemplate this topic.

To be honest sometimes it feels like by not talking about it Im not being fully honest with others. It sorta feels like Im in on a secret that everyone else in the room is unaware of ?

Why are you drawing a distinction between that which is witnessed and the real self? Also this was a wonderful video! Thank you for sharing

So it’s the planning ahead aspect... Contemplate what planning actually is then. It’s not necessarily living as though there is a future. It could also be processing a possibility, one possibility out of infinity. Afterall, life/form is impermanent. Thinking about the future is really just the conceptualization of form that hasn’t actually manifested outside of the mind. “Planning” is like witnessing just another form of reality within the domain of mind and need not have anything to do with seperating from now. In fact, the concept of future is literally only available right now. The future does not exist because all is happening now but form is impermanent and may take an infinite number of forms. “Planning” too is one such form reality can take but it happens now. So basically, I disagree that planning necessarily means you are living in the illusion of a future. You have to first understand the existential nature of “planning” and then the illusion will begin to crack. Planning is witnessing potential form manifest inside of the mind RIGHT NOW. It is egoic, but all acts of survival and really any action at all is egoic. But watching the ego unfold and survive does not necessarily mean one is caught in the illusion of a seperate self just as planning does not necessarily mean one is caught in the illusion of time. This magy be difficult to understand but maybe try. Life purpose and enlightenment dont contradict anymore than actively surviving as a body/not committing suicide and enlightenment. Nor does planning. Enligtenment is understanding the absolute nature of what a “plan” is or what the “future” is or what “survival” is. Just because these concepts play out, it does not mean one is caught in their illusory nature. Not really how else to describe it. Just watch the act of planning, the act of life purpose, the act of survival from a metta perspective. Any form could potentiate into direct experience and none of it need to seperate one from the truth.

Alright. Imagine that voice/force directing someone towards a life purpose and enlightenment both. It's not an egoic thing, it's an effortlessly flowing through life without resistance thing, just as it takes zero effort to not commit suicide.

@How to be wise a pretty direct question here, but oh well - what’s stopping you from committing suicide? I hope this isn’t taken to be offensive or anything; it’s a very genuine question.

That’s an assumption though. How could you know what non-dual consciousness is like unless you’ve had the direct experience? Maybe love is just the best word to describe the state itself, rather than being a literal definition. Idk.

@Mikael89 how would you even know this? Have you reached the deepest states of non-dual consciousness? Genuinely curious

This 100%