iamnotahumanbeing

I'd say 'over planning' comes about from planning that; leads you to be neurotic and obsessed with sticking to the plan and/or takes exorbitant time away from execution. You might be in this situation... but you might not. Someone that goes into things guns ablazing without a clue of what he's doing isn't a good thing either. So it's just about balance... few have the ability to do this innately, so most must learn what that balance is over time. Counterintuitively, finding balance starts with imbalance. Hence why I'm all about getting out there and making mistakes. These are all very healthy attitudes! These combined with your ability to plan -- ??.

** I offer a perspective that does not have anything to do with data science ** You have the gift of being able to project into the future with a degree of discernment. This is a great skill to have, some people can't think about next week. Don't let this lead you down a narrow, rigid path of box-ticking and goal setting/achieving, though. The future doesn't exist and never will, so don't get too caught up in it. Life is far too complex and throws may too many curveballs for us to reliably and accurately plan for and forecast the future. Life is also not about ticking boxes either. Even if you succeed in points 1 - 4 perfectly, you likely won't arrive there totally fulfilled if you've been obsessing over 'achieving your goals' too much, because you would have had to trade something very dear to your heart - your humanity. There's nothing wrong with setting goals (big ones, and many of them) but it's the way we go about them that creates our experience of them, not the goals themselves. “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” - John Lennon. The path that we imagine will lead us to our vision is never the one that actually does. Any path you take is the right one so long as you're following your compass. The questions you have asked are all very good ones, and many people will have many different answers, but the thing that sucks is that the best answers will come only from you after you have already made the 'mistake' (I use that word lightly, it's not a mistake if you learn from it, it's a sharpening of your knife) and learned the lesson. I came across this definition in Wikipedia of maturity the other day - "...maturity is the ability to respond to the environment being aware of the correct time and location to behave and knowing when to act, according to the circumstances and the culture of the society one lives in.". Anyone can follow a step-by-step guide, but they'll probably end up somewhere they didn't intend on being. Be fluid and open to change, even if it means heading back the way you came. Go out there and do it. Screw up, burn out, realise you were wrong about X or Y wasn't what you thought it was going it be. It will be an incredible journey.

I just joined.

I am... we ought to scrape together the Sydney people on here and form some sort of group/network. The further I get in my self actualising journey the less people I have around me that I can speak about it with.

Last night I met someone who I found deeply attractive - emotionally and physically. This doesn’t happen often to the point that I would say that it is rare. I’m normally quite a confident and emotionally strong person, however in the presence of this person, I fell apart. Inner dialogues about me not being attractive enough, or funny enough, or charismatic enough started to arise - something that doesn’t happen at all around people I’m not emotionally and physically attracted to. I had a real feeling of intimidation that I don’t feel in normal interactions with people (including strangers or people I’ve just met). I would have thought, or would like to think that when you’re strongly attracted to someone, you’re able to pull out all the stops to impress them. While I wanted to do this, I couldn’t. I crumbled. I felt inadequate and undeserving. Feeling such a strong attraction toward someone is a very vulnerable thing for me to experience. I think this is because I am a) used to not being attracted to others (as I mentioned, it’s uncommon) and b) used to being the one that is found attractive. It’s very normal for me to meet someone who finds me attractive but me not find them attractive. This situation, however, was the complete opposite - I was uncontrollably attracted to this person and I wasn’t sure if/felt as though these feelings weren’t reciprocated - this was very scary for me and deeply uncomfortable. This has only happened about 3 or 4 times in my life, and hasn’t happened in close to 10 years, so it has really caught me off guard. I’m left dumbfounded as to what this reaction is, why it’s occurring and how I can work my way through it. A bit of backstory that is of relevance here... I had one of those cliche unrequited love situations in high school, but I actually found it quite traumatic and it took me a while to get through - maybe I still haven’t? Very open to anything anyone has to say about this i.e. similar experiences, other perspectives and recommendations on how I can explore this further.

I know there is no right or wrong here, but I wanted to open up a simple discussion about how we all meditate – either sitting up or laying down, and why? Personally, I meditate laying down most of the time because it’s a way I can find a position that produces the least amount of physical distraction. It took some practice to learn how to stay alert and not fall asleep, but now that is in no way a problem, and I find my meditation is so much deeper when laying down.

Has anyone had experience with Nitrous Oxide for spiritual purposes?

Does anyone else find conversions with people you meet/know deeply unsatisfying? I do. I’m wanting to meet people that I align with more - people that are on the self actualizing journey and/or Sprial Dynamics stage green or yellow and above. Does anyone have any advice on where to meet these types of people?

I did the affirmations for about a week and felt a life changing affect just from that ?

@ShaharA that’s great. You’ve inspired me to half my coffee intake, which I have been doing for a short while now. The next step for me is quitting all together.

Thanks for your thoughts guys I ended up trying it and was a little disappointed... Still, I did experience something that was completely foreign, utterly unexplainable, but at the same time, felt like it was everything and oddly, had a sense of familiarity.

Thanks for your input, guys. ??

Warning: further ignorance below... @Himanshu ,to me, AI at its core is really the continued advancement of stage orange. Along the way, technology has picked/is picking up pearls of wisdom from stage green and yellow, however, will always be grounded in stage orange until profit and commercialisation take a back seat (if ever that happens). Technology as we understand it today, to my mind, will always require a big dose of stage orange for the advancement to happen in the first place. The internet, in its embryonic stage or prior to the commercialisation of the internet, was indeed quite green/yellow. To this day, the internet can still provide such resources for users (for example, I heard some guy called Leo has some sort of forum out there somewhere), however to a large degree, the internet has become one big stage orange turd. The introduction of the GDPR is a sign (amongst others) that organisations have been exploiting people’s privacy, on a global scale, for profit and otherwise - pure stage orange. I’m not saying the whole internet is pure orange and I’m not saying technology has to be either. I am saying though, that in order for these to develop as they have been, they do need to be somewhat grounded in stage orange. For the internet and other technologies to develop onwards and upwards, the users, organisations and regulators that underpin it have to evolve first. From this standpoint, I still don’t see how technology (AI, cyborgs etc.) have anything to do with helping us transition to stage coral (even turquoise). Rather than the catalyst being ‘coral technology’ that will transition the people to coral, I would say it’s the coral people that will transition the technology to the same level. Take 2050 for example, Apple and Google, or other for-profit organisations, will probably still have the lion’s share of the AI landscape. It won’t be iPhones, but whatever it is, they’ll still be smashing us with adds and trying to get us to upgrade ever year in order to ‘enrich our lives’ - a slogan stage green, yellow, turquoise and coral people have probably been laughing at for years. Thoughts?

@Mezanti , they should have by now... have they not helped?

... I have no idea. Over to you Leo!

Note: I too, am speculating... @Rufus , I would agree that the 10 Ox Herding Pictures might give us an insight into stage coral. I'd say Spiral Dynamics and the 10 Ox Herding Pictures models sort of start to fuse together at stage turquoise and picture 3/4? @bejapuskas , what is enlightened blue/green? Sounds like an oxymoron to me. @Himanshu , I'm really not sure that Mars, machine learning and cyborgs have anything to do with people transitioning into stage coral. Are the enlightened masters waiting for their bionic arms to arrive before they can take their spiritual practice to the next level? In tier 1, we know that there is a theme of the pendulum swinging from individualistic thinking to community minded thinking. In tier 2, I believe a similar thing occurs, however it's more nuanced. I remember Leo talking about stage yellow being somewhat individualistic while at the same time, still having a community minded awareness and holistic thinking abilities. If yellow is individualistic, turquoise would be community minded. This would make coral individualistic. Again, I am speculating, but this might be similar to the Ox Herding Pictures around picture 7/8 ( I can't remember which one exactly) where the enlightened master starts to integrate back into society as if we was like everyone else - because he is. In a sense, coming full circle but with the knowledge and power attained by enlightenment.

Thanks @pluto . Can anyone report on how quitting coffee has affected their meditation or other spiritual practices? I have two strong shots of coffee per day, and would say am relatively easily effected by coffee. Thank you for your suggestions on alternate drinks to use to ween off.

@PT89 , I'm in Sydney! Have been meditating for about 4 years now and listening to Leo for about the same.

+1

Thanks @Davidess . You're right, it doesn't really answer my question, however he does touch on how an introvert is more inside themselves and an extrovert is more outside themselves, which is the beginning of what I would like to see explored. I wonder if introverts are naturally predisposed to finding consciousness work easier? Do introverts have an inherent connection or closer relationship with god? Do extroverts have a harder time questioning the materialist paradigm? In a recent video, Leo said that there is nothing of true value anyone can really offer you. As an introvert, I intuitively understand this, and it seems quite obvious to me. I told a friend of mine, who is very much an extrovert, and he said that that is the saddest and darkest thing he had ever heard.

I’m curious to know a bit more about the deeper meaning behind these fairly crude labels we put on people’s personality. It struck me the other day that introverts and extroverts may have an entirely different relationship to consciousness.

@Staples +1!!

@Leo Gura , got it - sorry!

@Setty , thanks for sharing. Do you think you could now be ‘better than ever’ without having had this weed experience?

In one of your videos in the Correcting the Stigma of Psychedelics mini series, you briefly touched on marijuana not being a psychedelic, and I got the impression you didn't regard the drug very highly. In a later video (not part of the psychedelics mini series) you mentioned the drug again briefly but in a much more favourable light, and from memory you likened it to a psychedelic. Having done some experimentation myself, I've had some incredible and profound insights that have had a meaningful impact on my everyday life. I personally really believe in it, but am curious to know what everyone else thinks. (PS I'm referring only to its use for practical spiritual and personal development)