Markus

You may not be afraid of them but Leo certainly is He's stated numerous times he doesn't like them at all.

Takes wisdom to see that though, doesn't it. Another thing is, even when you intellectually understand it, you'll start seeing it on new and new levels. And it'll really start making sense how every time you create a self you cause yourself suffering. The more you'll see it, the less you'll do it over time. So keep being mindful of that all throughout the day. P.S. These new ranks on this forum haha. "Butt Monkey"

@Leo Gura I'm sympathetic to your concerns as well as the concerns of forum members who don't want it shut down. I imagine the problem can be greatly mitigated with stricter rules and a warning followed by temporary bans for breaking them. A permanent ban for trolls and people whose content is not only not substantive but simply toxic. I think a place for discussing the ideas presented on Actualized.org in some form is of tremendous value. You're a creative person, I'm sure you can come up with something stricter without shutting shit down completely. Cheers.

I recently watched some of Johnny Soporno's stuff, intro to seductive reasoning 101 (4 parts on Youtube). He's in an open relationship. In any case, I think he has an interesting perspective to listen to and he seems a pretty content person.

Leo talks about the problems with a competition mindset. Swimming excellently for the sake of swimming excellently is something different I suppose.

If your mind is clear, sure. I just fall asleep or get into a pre-sleep state. The way I recognize that is if my thoughts become nonsensical.

Didn't notice until you pointed out!

There's no ideal. Do what works for you.

@Mondsee The "I don't know how to reject people" part. Say it because it might give him a bit of a more holistic understanding of the situation, thus less anger and hurt and more compassion. It's not guaranteed. You want to give him at least a chance of understanding that you aren't a goddess sitting on a pedestal denying a peasant an access to 'the pussy' but a human, an equal, someone who has problems just like him.

The poetic title is telling you this one is a must-read! May 25th, June 10th, June 19th. 2017. If you think these weren't awakenings you can call them whateverdafucks. I'll spare you and me the details and communicate what I actually find interesting. All three follow the same basic plot. I'm asleep, having a really fucked up nightmare. It deals with me losing my mind & going insane. The world becomes so unbearable and incomprehensible that I just surrender to it. Fuck this shit - if you're gonna destroy me - do it! I wake up all freaked out. Then, as the strong emotions die down, I notice something's different. There's no fixation anywhere in my body - I'm not sure where the fuck I went. Life plays like a movie. I take action along with the whole universe. Thoughts pretty much don't arise - they're pointless. The afterglow in the following day is having a relaxed body, a relatively quiet mind, and a focus on sensory experience rather than thought. Simple actions are just taken, not thought about. The ego arises and spins some bullshit, but then I remember - why the fuck would I care what it says. I'm more honest, because who am I protecting exactly when I lie? This doesn't seem to me to be just some Kundadlini shit, rather genuine awakenings or at least glimpses. Rali told me that based on my description. The ego took a blow each time. I had these awakenings while practicing immersing myself in my sensory experience whenever I remember, without a really strict formal meditation. I'd do the same thing sitting formally for perhaps an hour, and maybe walk for 30 minutes. Some days less, rarely more. I've been seeking for two years, starting shortly after Leo's first enlightenment video. I've done probably about 400 hours of self-inquiry and 400 hours of meditation in that time, sometimes having a daily formal practice of 3-4 hours and sometimes nothing. Pretty pathetic that I still haven't been able to install a daily constant meditation habit after all this time. But hey, at least these awakenings. Sensory immersion in daily life is a concept strongly emphasized by Rali from Naked Reality, and it's probably helped me the most. You can meditate on the cushion but if you take nothing back to daily life, good luck getting anywhere. Takeaways. 1) Bringing mindfulness into everything you do is really, really important. It'll make your progress much better. 2) Dreams can be a great catalyst for awakening - they can create scenarios so much more terrible than life (hopefully) will, putting you in a position where surrender is the only option left. Isn't it awesome when you can bring what you've learned in meditation into something as unconscious and dumb as a non-lucid dream? 3) Enlightenment and transformation really are distinct. When Peter Ralston says something, you better listen. The awakenings haven't made me a better socializer, they haven't made me drop any of my bad habits, they haven't made me more productive. They've made me give less of a fuck - which can actually be counterproductive at first. I reach for a sip of lemonade without guilt because guilt is fucking stupid. Yet it gives me terrible gas - the lemonade, not the guilt. It's practically stupid yet there's no egoic motivation to stop me. Enlightenment builds a powerful FOUNDATION for transformation, which I recommend you use if you want transformation. But transformation is hard work. Enlightenment is easy - it just happens, given the right conditions, creating which is perhaps not so easy. 4) Don't stress over the importance of awakenings. Just keep doing your consciousness work. Bonus question to you out there: Do any of you think, like I do, that reading informative text written in simple sentences is more enjoyable than reading eloquently phrased, complex sentences? This is Markus and I'm signing off, click the like button, post me your comments down below, and come check out the Actualized.org for....wait WHAT?

Everything the site says it'll cover. I've taken it.

I think this is the first time I've legitimately asked for advice or input on this forum. My feelings about whether this will pay off are mixed - I may get genuinely insightful replies or some cliches from people who don't really know what they're talking about in practice. Why do I think many people on this forum give advice on stuff they shouldn't be giving advice about? Because I do it myself. It strokes my ego. It's quite human I think. Anyways. I feel an urge to connect with other human beings. At least a part of it is trying to fill a void inside me - and I know it won't help do that, only connecting to being can. That said, I feel frustrated about the pettiness of human communication. We crack jokes, we play cards, we watch stupid shit on Youtube and giggle like idiots. Whenever I happen to be in a social situation involving a group of people, pretty much all interaction seems superficial and worthless. Genuine sharing of thought and emotion seems very rare, yet it's something I crave. All my best social moments have only involved one person besides myself. So I think making individual friends rather than chit-chatting in groups is a good strategic move for me. I have some questions in the next paragraphs. Is the urge to connect with people on a deeper level just chasing something that can never be fulfilled? Is it just pure egotism to prefer or value "deep" conversation topics over small talk, humor and chit-chat? How do I go about pursuing deeper connections with people since basically everybody's built a wall of one height or another to hide their true personality? Is this pursuit worthwhile or am I better off accepting that socializing will always involve a large amount of bullshit and games? It seems to me that all I really and truly want to do with other people is cuddle, fuck, and have honest, vulnerable interactions. Everything else - I'd rather be alone.

@Arkandeus Cool perspective to have. Essentially, I'm complaining about others' behavior (which I cannot change) and not taking full responsibility for my own actions towards others.

@Truth Thanks for the insightful reply. So much valuable stuff here. I think people and physical discomfort are my two last major stumbling blocks. After 2 awakenings or at least glimpses, it's the deep-rooted stuff that still gets to me. I do have a fear of loneliness and abandonment, as well as an overwhelming need to be loved by someone. Thoughts keep telling me being alone somehow devalues things, even though many of my most joyful moments have been alone. I crave female attention due to self-esteem issues. All worth introspecting into. I spent 3 days at a friend's for his birthday and I think it gave me some valuable lessons. Self-expression is a pure joy when it comes unconditionally, without expecting any kind of reaction from others. Connection is about emotion rather than content. I spoke one-on-one with a friend of a friend who also has existential interests, he seems to be quite invested in a lot of spiritual make-believe so a lot of the stuff he said didn't make much sense to me. But I expressed myself and he did himself, and it was a beautiful few hours, as we were connecting. I felt free and uninhibited. Neither of us really cared if the other got or agreed with anything. Also, a lot of us have a tremendous fear of intimacy and vulnerability. That's why we talk about chicken shit, bull shit and elephant shit, as Fritz Perls put it. Intimacy is something we desire and fear at the same time. Also, a lot of people (I would emphasize my generation) have poor social skills in general. The takeaways? I can only influence my own way of holding things. I could be more honest and vulnerable. I could express more curiosity. I could be a better listener. I could develop better social skills to pursue my preferred types of interacting with people. And accept the results. It is on me to express and pursue my desires and intentions with people. Nobody owes it to me to share themselves. It's on me. And If I don't click with someone, I gotta move on. Entertaining "What ifs" is bullshit. I've got to accept the consequences of having high standards. Looking for something authentic inevitably means weeding through a lot of people, cutting out a lot of people. Just a matter of psychological development in today's society - a lot of people don't really want honesty and intimacy as their ego can't handle it. But I intuit it's worth it. Cheers.

@Truth Which is exactly why I don't do much of it. But regardless, it seems like a crappy icing, much like video games. It's not horrible but at the same time, it doesn't really attract me because I think life has more enjoyable spices to offer, in addition to the cake of the inner work. I enjoy playfulness and humor, and find that's one of the easier things I like about socializing. I think truly connecting with people is something everybody wants to do but is afraid to do, so most social interactions end up as small talk (if even that) and playing stupid games. With the people I occasionally hang out with, there's a lot of silence, watching videos and whatnot. Interestingly enough, staring silently at each other feels better than the talking, a lot of the time. The issue for me is most of the time, we're not even communicating. We rarely talk about anything related to one another, even our interests. What's the point of being around people when it doesn't add anything enjoyable on top of being alone? I can sit by a camp fire, watch videos, eat, and take a sauna alone and be happier than when I'm doing it with others around. Because all they contribute is some nothing-saying drivel about stuff I can't even relate to.

Cons of enlightenment? You'll no longer be the most special person on the planet. You can't reflect on how badass you are because you don't give a fuck about anything. Life will become extra ordinary. Duh it's not good for "you", because it'll erase you.

15 minutes meditating means 1425 minutes not meditating. The point of sitting down to meditate is it being a catalyst for bringing more mindfulness and awareness into the rest of your life. Start off easy, 15 is fine but you want to gradually get to 30 and 60. Yes, 60 is a whole other level compared to 15. When I started about two years ago and went from 20 to 60, I noticed quite a difference. Gradually you'll also become capable of immersing yourself in sensory experience in everyday activities, which is ultimately the point of meditating: stopping misuse of the mind and focusing on what's relevant to the situation.

Here's what you wanna bite the bullet on: 1. You don't have to be a good person. 2. Everybody is responsible for their own emotions. 3. Place happiness above everything else. Some further contemplation into these people-pleasing tendencies would be appropriate. As for happiness, it's always a choice between happiness and something else. As soon as you place that something above it, you create a condition, you create (the potential for) suffering. Because as long as that condition isn't met, you don't allow yourself to be happy. Unconditional happiness means you're happy regardless of what happens. If you get diagnosed with rectal cancer tomorrow, you're happy. If there's a nuclear war, you're happy. If everybody hates you, you're happy.

The longer you wait with telling him the truth, the more it's going to hurt him. So text him: "I have to confess to something. I have no romantic or sexual interest in you what so ever. I only gave you my number because I am afraid of rejecting people. Sorry for leading you on." Is he going to like this? Hell no. It's better than any alternative.

@Ramu Re-read the forum guidelines.

This is PROFOUND. Morality summed up in two paragraphs.

What degeneracy! America used to be about competition and exploitation! With this today's youth, it's going to hell in a handbasket.

Be brutally honest with yourself. If you don't wanna change, don't fucking change. If you do wanna change, do something else.

@Shin I'm life, I'm everything, nothing ultimately matters, the self is an illusion, all that good shit. Yes. But don't become the guy that sneaks that in into relative discussions. You know what I mean.

I was reading an age-old thread with a similar topic which didn't really pick up steam. But I think this topic is a fucking fun idea. After all, learning from failure is an useful tool. And if you manage to learn something from other people's failures - great. I'll use my own experiences as well as things I've observed or concluded. So, I'll start the list off with a few powerful tips on how to fail at life. 1. Never, ever meditate. Because if you do, you might start to see the world in a whole different light and realize the way you're living your life is retarded. So don't do it. After all, if you want to fuck up, it's easiest to do if you don't realize you're fucking up. 2. Don't develop any conscious habits. Habits are boring. You want to be free to do whatever you want. Doesn't that sound awesome? So from now on, give in to any impulse that arises. Want to eat potato chips? Watch porn? Do it. After all, you're doing what you want, and that's guaranteed to make you happy, isn't it? 3. Fall obsessively in love with the idea of one specific person. You want to spot this one person that's just the personification of perfection. Your soulmate. The only person who could ever make you happy. It's also great if they don't feel the same way. Because love is something you have to fight for. Befriend them and do everything you can to please them, but never tell them your true feelings. Engage in needy behavior to the point where they become absolutely and utterly disgusted with you and tell you they don't want to see you or talk to you any more. After they do that, confess that you've been in love with them the whole time. Express your love so strongly that they have no choice but to see how foolish they've been and that the love of their life has been right under the nose for all that time. 4. Don't exercise. Exercise is hard. Why would you do something that's hard? You'll feel miserable while doing it, and our goal is to be happy instead. The solution? Self-acceptance. Show yourself some love. If you want to lay on the couch binge-watching Game of Thrones and eating Oreo cookies, kindly treat yourself. 5. Always eat in front of the TV. Eating's great, so why not make it even greater by watching TV at the same time. Life is short. Live it to the fullest. Maximize pleasure. If you get up from the couch after 4 hours and feel stuffed and drowsy, get back on the couch and have a few drinks. They'll make you feel better, and lull you to sleep. 6. Never strategize. Don't write down any plans or goals. Those will limit your freedom by stripping you of the choice to do anything else. If something would really need to be done, it would get done. It's okay. 7. Entertain the hope it'll all work out in the end. You'll find your perfect girlfriend or boyfriend. You'll be healthy and beautiful. You'll be a millionaire. You'll be the most amazing person who ever lived and everyone will be jealous of you. One day. Life is long so take it easy. There's still time. You can start taking action next January. And now I'm expecting your contributions. I'm sure there's a lot more to being a failure and dying miserable & full of regret. What are your tips?