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@kray Going out solo is always just harder. Best option is just to start talking to people ASAP and make some friends. You're not going to stop those thoughts otherwise.

The course is definitely real. I remember them promoting it with Layla Martin: Skip to the end to hear them mention it.

No, this is bullshit. These stretches and poses are completely unnecessary and not healthy for you. There really is no such thing as "safe" full lotus. "Safe" full lotus essentially just means you have way over-externally rotated your hips. Yogis do not understand biomechanics.

I don't have kids but I'd be open to it if I met the right person. My sense is that it would help round out my development. Kids are definitely a distraction from spiritual work, but I've also already had a lot of success in the spiritual domain. Not having kids at this point leaves me feeling a bit lopsided. There's also an argument to be made about having kids being important to society. I don't think about it in terms of an "investment" when I'm older or anything like that. Although that probably is true.

He makes some fair western critiques. But he also obviously has a pro-islam bias.

Indeed. Such a corruption of Integral Theory.

@Magnanimous don't do full lotus. Horrible for your body, does nothing to improve consciousness.

Center for Integral Wisdom defending Gafni: https://worldphilosophyandreligion.org/evolving-public-culture/ciw-statement/ Note: this was in 2016

The most obvious proof is that it's based on faith. No one seriously interesting in truth-seeking would accept that.

@eTorro Leo basically just did a whole video on this topic: Personally, I'd recommend leaving religion behind for anyone who is a serious seeker. I spent about two years deconstructing the religion I grew up with and have never looked back. I don't regret it for a second. It is a more challenging way to live though in some respects. Spirituality requires great sacrifice. And if you're new to spiritual work, the reality is that you don't really understand what those costs are. You don't understand yet what you're asking for or where this leads. What you probably understand if you're a serious seeker is that you care about Truth. You want to know what is true. You want to live a life that is truthful. Well, what are you willing to give up for Truth? This is a very serious question one can only answer for themselves.

boo ice cream

I see Leo is dropping his Aubrey Marcus response video This was episode was a good reminder for me. I've been doing so much survival lately that my "doing nothing" time has mostly slowly slipped away. Keeping it all balanced is a challenge in of itself. Thankfully, I will have a lot of free time coming up. The insights over the next year or so should be insane. I'm aiming to fit in multiple retreats.

You surrender to not-knowing what you're going to say and trusting yourself to figure it out in the moment. Talking about literally anything is preferable to nothing. Just force yourself to speak words. I opened one of my ex-girlfriends by talking about the wall she was standing next to. There was nothing particularly interesting about the wall, nor did I plan that in anyway. I'm not sure what I said even made sense. As long as the vibe is relatively good, you'll get away with it. You can study lines to get a sense of what works. But you want to get to a place where you forget about all that. All pre-memorized lines are a constraint on your intelligence. Generally speaking, avoid talking about "things" too much. And instead focus on talking about you and her.

Pickup is not about homosexuality. That's just absurd. Pickup exists because men want to have sex with women. Yes, some PUAs have emotional and ego issues. But that's not the reason pickup exists. Every guy is doing some version of pickup, it's just a question of how healthy it is.

Only a small minority of guys who get into pickup ever sleep with 100s of women. The vast majority couldn't even do that if they tried.

Yes, but also what are you? What is "me" made out of? The ontology question is absolutely deep and extremely serious. Realization of the ontological nature of reality should leave a person shell-shocked, if they haven't realized that already. It's not just contrast to materialism. Consciousness is a great word. It describes it very well. That's only meaningful if someone has understood the ontological ground first. Which almost no one has. Most spiritual people are playing energy-games and doing little to no actual ontology.

Yes that sounds right. If you have some extra sensitivity, that's interesting. Maybe it's even useful. But are you conscious of what it is you're sensitive to? What is energy, ontologically? Animals are sensitive to all sorts of phenomena humans are not sensitive to. But they are not conscious.

It's both.

Yes, it's divine self-deception. God deceives itself. I'm not joking, but that is essentially the cosmic joke of waking up.

Do not make health your #1 priority unless you have a condition that requires it. Take care of your health, but then forget about it and move onto higher things.

I'd say that's accurate. Any energetic experiences do not appear to have any sort of directionality. And relaxation feels more mental / emotional than physical. I once had a bliss experience during a Strong Determination Sitting, where I was in pretty significant physical pain. No. The only thing releasing sexual energy does is affect my sex drive. If I'm releasing a lot, then my sex drive goes down. If I retain, then usually my sex drive feels a lot more "primed". Nothing else really changes. It's analogous to eating a meal. If I just ate a meal, I'm probably not going to be hungry for a little while. But that's about the extent it affects me. There's not much of a noticable spillover effect to other areas of my life.

Because you don't know that yet.

I did salvia in college a couple times with friends. It was definitely strange, but nothing traumatic or scary about it. Just some college kids getting high and laughing about it. I'm guessing our doses were relatively low. We smoked it, but I was never good at holding an inhale of smoke that long anyway.

Relaxation, yes. That was one of things that hooked me in my early 20s on meditation. After my first month of consistent meditation, I had such an intense experience of relaxation that it rolled into essentially total bliss. I felt like I had taken MDMA. The afterglow lasted for about a week. Years later, I did a 10-day Vispassana retreat where I also had some interesting bliss experiences. I also unlocked some sort of energetic buzzing at the base of the right side of my neck. Afterwards, the buzzing in this spot would often reactivate when I did energy work, or sometimes just spontaneously. At one point when I was being very consistent with my practice, it would reactivate daily. I could essentially turn it on and off at will. Also around this time, I would occassionally wake up in the middle of the night to my spine spasming, almost like I was having a non-sexual orgasm. It was not as pleasant though. So yes, I've experienced relaxation, buzzing, tingling, etc. But I would not use terms like "unwinding", "shooting out the top of my head" or anything like this. I would just caution against judging awakening from any physical feats or interesting energetic experiences. Physical feats are more dream-content and may be misleading. What's essential is understanding of reality. You could cut my leg off and my understanding of reality would not change at all, even though my physical health and vitality would be diminished.

I do not experience transmutation in any meaningfully, noticeable way. My motivation towards everything else in life stays the same. It’s only my sex drive that is affected. Experiment for yourself. Your experience could be different.