nistake

- Hatha yoga - Learn a musical instrument and/or start making music - Learn to dance (obviously you'll need to find a place) - Art / Writing / Photography

Do you guys know any book that is about authenticity? I mean, authentic behaviour in your everyday life, authenticity with your partner, authentic humour, etc? I know that Leo has a video about this subject but I'd still like to read a proper book about it. I've checked the book list but I didn't find anything that is specified in authenticity.

Psst, hey kid, Wanna buy some enlightenment?

Good to hear man! I also started contemplating (with a journal) a few days ago. I really need to make it a habit!

This video is a really great example of this

Solid post.

You're gonna like Leo's booklist. Although it's not free, it's worth it. It's really a great list filled with awesome books. https://www.actualized.org/books

Or are we dancer? (Sorry, had to)

1. Started meditating 2. Committed to self-improvement 3. Started reading everyday 4. Improved my habits and implemented new ones (exercise, sleep, etc) 5. Started practising making emotionally difficult decisions

I was in the same shoes a while ago. I thought my friends hindered my 'spiritual progress' and I believed they only cared about silly material things. After some time, I realized that friendships were really important, especially when you're still young and sort of carefree. So, I learned to accept them as they are (not in a degrading sense) and I try to appriciate their perspectives on certain things. Moreover, spiritual progress and having fun with friends once in a while are not mutually exclusive (of course I'm not talking about hardcore enlightenment pursuing). Keep your good habits, meditate everyday and have fun with your friends, don't neglect them.

Do you guys think that certain human characteristics and qualities are wired intro the brain from the moment of birth? For example, my cousin has a son and he's like 3-4 years old and already really talkitive and likes to be the center of the attention. My cousin isn't like that and her husband is quite introverted. So it got me thinking. Where did that little boy get this kind of behaviour? When I was a child, I remember that I wasn't like that at all. I've been always a quiet kid. I'm not saying this is a problem, I'm just wondering where I got that quiet/shy behaviour from? (Of course, I'm not ruling out the possibility of parenting, influences of other kids, etc). Another example is Leo. He said in one of his videos that he was an introvert by nature. What's your opinion?

@Leo Gura Well yeah, that's the plan in the future, but right now I'm working on some basic self-development stuff. I don't want to get ahead of myself Anyway, thanks for the answers!

@Leo Gura Is there any way to find out what personality trait comes from primordial personality and from ego?

Yup. They don't fuck around. Females straight up bite off the male's head in the beginning of the act.

The other day I was reading an article about the black widow spiders on Wikipedia. They have a behaviour called "sexual cannibalism". If you look at this behaviour from the ego's perspective, it's the absolute worst thing ever. You meet a female, you mate and after or during the act, the female murders you and eats you just because she's hungry. And yet, for them it's the natural order of things. Neither 'good' nor 'bad'. Just the way things are.

Morning: - Getting up early (5am) - Few minutes of hatha yoga exercises (not always) - Cold shower - 40 minutes of Kriya Afternoon: - 5 minutes of affirmation - 10 minutes of visualization Evening: - 10 minutes of mindfulness meditation (labeling) - About 20 minutes of reading in bed

Currenty I work for a smallish company as an aspiring engineer and we work with a 3D CAD software to make parts and assemblies. What you said is exactly the reason why I like my job. It's awesome to design and create a new thing out of 'nothing'. Especially when the workshop people actually build it irl and I can see it live

Your ego's reaction when enlightenment occurs:

@luckieluuke Yeah, I understand where you're coming from. At first, you have no choice but to believe it genuinely and trust that the results will come. Kriya is especially tricky because it works with prana, chakras, different kind of energies, etc. Personally, I don't have this problem because the book is quite convincing (at least for me) and my mind is really still after every session. That's how I know it's working for me.

Been doing Kriya for 2 monhts and as I read these reports, I'm curious if I'm ever gonna have a mystical experience. And yes, I do know that I should be patient and Kriya is not about fleeting experiences, but still.

Well, I guess I fell into that trap a while ago. I have some issues related to self-confidence and self-esteem (they stem from my childhood and my teenage years). When I discovered this whole personal development stuff, I started working on my problems but I quickly switched to meditation, consciousness work, self-inquiry, etc without solving the core issues. Now, I realized this and I "went back" to the main issues, but I still like to read about nonduality, practise Kriya yoga, do daily meditations. I guess I can do both, but I need to find some middle ground. What do you think?

What's your opinion about spiritual bypassing?

How 'bout this one?

Pretty good video

I also suffer from self-esteem and self-confidence issues. I started reading six pillars of self-esteem, but for some reason, it didn't work for me. I don't really like the sentence completion exercises. After that, I started contemplating why I have these issues and I tried to find the root cause. What I realized was that I had these issues because of lack of father image (parenting issues, long story), mild social anxiety, and when I was a kid, I was always worried about what other people think of me. To the degree that I spent most of my childhood and teenage years in my room playing video games, because that was my safe zone and nobody could judge me in there. Nowadays, I've been experimenting with a few things. I realized that I needed to go out of my comfort zone. What I do is that I always look for a small challange that requires me to go out of the comfort zone. Even a random small thing will do. Chatting up a coworker that I've never talked to before, taking up a hobby that I wanted to do a long time, smiling on random people on the street, etc. These may not seem as some sort of powerful self-esteem/self-confidence techniques, but I think babystepping is a good idea when one is trying to fix something as huge as self-esteem. Just a random personal example: I just started to take up skating as a hobby. When I was a teenager, I had always admired the skater guys because they looked so cool doing neat tricks and just rolling down the street. However, I never started it because I had nobody to skate with and I didn't want to do it alone because the usual "what are peope gonna think about me skating alone?" story. A few days ago, I remebered this from my past and said to myself: "Fuck it, I'm gonna buy a skateboard and I'll start skating alone even if I'm 29 years old and have nobody to roll with". When I got the board, I went out and just started skating on the street and in empty parking lots. I quite enjoyed it (even tho I suck at it atm) and when I got home afterwards, I felt good because I realized that I needed to live my own reality and to do the things I really want (even if it's just a small hobby). I'm not sure how this'll work on the long run and my post may not even be helpful to you but I hope you'll find a way to fix your issues.