A retreat will not raise your baseline consciousness, but they are educational.

Tucker has always been a clown since the first time I saw him on CNN back in 2001. And nothing has fundamentally changed.

The solution to self-deception is not-knowing.

No. Not thinking is not thinking.
But all of these so-called enlightened people think. And they think poorly.
Ralston is very enlightened, but he still thinks, "Psychedelics don't raise consciousness" and "Love is just a human emotion".
Ramaji still thinks, "I can map consciousness on a scale from 1 to 1000".
So much for no-mind and not-knowing.
All these motherfuckers think stupid thoughts.

God does not care what your ego cares about.
To exist as an ant is very intelligent. Just not from your egoic POV.
You are not appreciating how selfless God is and how selfish you are. That's why you fail to understand God.
You don't get it: God has nothing to lose. There is no cost to God because it has no self and no death.

@ElvisN If you find absolutely nothing fascinating or interesting about reality, it's impossible to help you.
It takes extraordinary arrogance, blindness, and ingratitude, not to find all aspects of reality deeply fascinating.
A miracle is happening all around you every minute and all you can do is shrug your shoulders and say, "Meh".

They can be, depending on how deeply you pursue them.
But if you're just dabbling in those things then it won't be enough, it won't be very meaningful because it's such a weak, shallow, self-absorbed purpose.
What is the point of all your reading of books? What will you do with it? Just sit there looking at your toilet? That's not inspiring.
See, if you were reading books in order to help mankind colonize Mars, that would be deeply meaningful and inspiring.

Of course. Because your life has no meaning. You haven't created anything worth getting up for.
When you find something meaningful to work towards you will leap out of bed. You will be unable to sleep. You will wake up 3hrs early excited to get to work.

You have to pick a domain of mastery that aligns with your passion and your strengths.
You don't just try to master something randomly.
You can't master any random field, but you can master a handful that suit your strengths and passions. The trick is finding that perfect fit. Which is what my Life Purpose Course is about.

Look, every atom in the universe reacts to every other.
Culture wars are like a pinball bouncing around the machine. There's reactionary behavior all around.
The right-wing is always reacting to progress. That's been happening since the beginning of humankind.
500,000 years ago there was some right-wing caveman reacting against not being allowed to rape his own mother.

My genetics is a factor, but also I've done so much philosophical work, like 15 years worth.
Psychedelics work on most people. Most people just don't apply them seriously. They trip for fun a few times in their life. I turned psychedelica into a hardcare existential practice.
What hippie has done over 40 different  psychedelics over 500 times, combined with 15 years of deep contemplation?

Such nonsense.
These people are self-deception incarnate.

I struggle every day to find books worth reading. Most books I start I have to quit because they are just not worth the time.
These days when I find one great new book it feels like Christmas morning to me.

@Schahin That is not a doorknob, that is a human/God dreaming it is a doorknob.

Hippies were not doing serious epistemic or ontological work, they were just chasing spiritual group-think and that is still common today. That's the whole New Age movement.
Also, some of those hippies did go into serious spiritual work, so it didn't fail. Very few people are serious about anything.

Ralston's greatest weakness is that he has isolated himself from everyone else. He lives in his own world and does not study or take ideas from others. His own mind/life/consciousness is very powerful but it then becomes its own island, so anything that exists outside that island is like it doesn't even exist. He does not listen to anyone but himself and that leads to blindness. He is too dismissive of the spiritual experiences of others, acting like they have nothing to contribute. He is not willing to learn from others.

Of course you can. Just replace coffee with DMT. That's exactly how it works.
Btw, self-inquiry is just coffee.
Ralston acts like his retreats are not coffee but DMT is. But both are. There is no fundamental difference between attending a Ralston retreat vs smoking DMT. Only the DMT is more direct and powerful.
If Ralston's students had access to DMT Ralston would be out of a job.

The high quality of Ralston's work is precisely what makes it so deceptive. You will be so seduced by the quality that you will completely overlook the falsehoods in it.
I don't expect any of Ralston's students to be intelligent enough to spot the falsehoods. It's extremely tricky. It took me years to understand where he is wrong and I was only able to do it because I took enough psychedelics to kill an elephant.

On the other hand, it is great that this issue forces you guys to test this matter for yourselves rather than believing either one of us.
I don't want you to believe me, I want you to test if psychedelics raise consciousness. This is a simple empirical test.

Ralston is doubly wrong. Not only do drugs absolutely raise consciousness, no sober effort of any kind can raise your consciousness as much as drugs can.
It is not just that drugs can, it is that those who haven't taken drugs can't even imagine what drugs can do.
I have seen Ralston's students. None of them are conscious of what I have become conscious of and they never will be.
Self-inquiry is a joke.
Ain't nobody at Ralston's workshops conscious to the level of DMT. Nobody!!! Stop this BS.
It is hard for me to even recommend Ralston any more because of how wrong and dogmatic he is on this issue. He is misleading all of his students about psychedelics.
One breakthrough DMT trip is worth 10 Ralston workshops.

This is false.
You are not appreciating how genetically different humans are and how much this matters in life. Life is totally different for people just based on a few different genes.
The great liberal delusion is that humans are all equal.

6000 books, Lol. There don't exist 2000 books worth reading.

It’s very clear to me that all my life I’ve been running away from loneliness. I think 99.99% of the people do it as well. All activities that we do as humans are just distractions, even the most elaborated ones like pursuing your life purpose or going on retreats with other people. Everything is designed to keep you away from loneliness. 
But what is it that we are running from actually ? Today, when I was walking in the park in the late evening with no soul around me I tried to feel deeply how it feels and it didn’t feel good. The way it feels to me is like scary emptiness and numbness covered in overwhelming craving for companionship or distraction. 
It recently hit me that my life purpose is to face loneliness, the rest is just a distraction from this main thing.
The question is what it takes to actually face it and get completely comfy with it ?
It’s also very clear to me that most of enlightened gurus haven’t transcended this, otherwise why would they be teaching ? 
 

You need to experiment.
Make one short film just to see how it feels and how you like it. Do some photography and see how you feel about it. And run other experiments.
Do not wait for classes to teach you how to do these things. Whatever you are passionate about, start doing it today on your own.
When I was your age I was doing a dozen different things: making video games, making art, building RC cars, making explosives, doing philosophy, creating Ebay businesses, building websites, writing fiction, etc.
You gotta forget the doubt and just take lots of action. Don't overthink your passions, just start doing them.

Yes! Humans are ants. There is nothing you can do to change that.
DMT shows you things no human is meant to see. Which is why it is outlawed.
Your parents told you not to do drugs. Now you understand why.