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I look at compassion as a possible byproduct of Enlightenment. If you say "I want to be a more compassionate person, so let ME become Enlightened", you're still coming at it from an egoic perspective. Enlightenment is Truth Realization. Everything else is speculation.

@Frogfucius @Progress Let me see if I can reconcile these two pieces of advice. @Frogfucius is right. You want awareness over you actions and your thoughts, and eventually that will lead to a dissolving of your behavior patterns. But @Progress is right as well. You need to take external action as well. Call me ant-spiritual, but I don't believe sitting in a room and meditating is going to cure you of your shyness. It's just not a practical. Rather, you should go out and socialize. You should go and put yourself in uncomfortable situations. But do it consciously. Observe yourself while you're doing this. When do you start to feel the shyness come on? What thoughts are going through your head? What are the consequences of these actions? You don't need to beat yourself up or hate yourself to do this. You just need motivation and an understanding of why you're doing it. I also agree that self-acceptance exercises and meditation AS A SUPPLEMENT can be immensely valuable. But no, I don't buy that it's the only thing that's necessary.

From the video, it sounds like you didn't "break through". Leo said lower doses will often only cause panic attacks. I'm not looking down on you. I've had an awakening experience and resisted it the whole way as well. But I still really want to try this drug to see how it compares and if I can deepen my own understanding.

Amazing thread congratulations man!

Fair enough. I misunderstood the question. But this can be answered too. The fact that someone is Enlightened does not necessarily mean they are going to teach the same way as another Enlightened being. Once you get into studying "enlightenment techniques", we're back into the world of dualistic thinking. And so we're going to have these kinds of problems because everyone has their own perspective just like anything else. When Leo says, "enlightenment is random", he doesn't literally mean that there isn't a process people usually go through. There is no such thing as random, only our limited capacity to understand cause and effect. So techniques of course can play an important role.

I have no idea if I've ever gotten to ego = 0 but I've definitely had some intense experiences. For instance, I can remember the first time I got REALLY PRESENT after doing meditation for awhile. It was like the first time I'd ever actually been happy. I walked around for like 2 hours in this blissed out state, really crazy. Because ego can only survive in mental fairy tale land, presence is like a reduction in ego. You're not really "thinking", you're kind of just aware. And so you experience what IS when you don't place labels or judgments or any kind.

It's because what is trying to be communicated can't inherently be done through words. Imagine that you were trying to describe the sun to someone who had been in doors their entire life. So enlightened people have to resort to analogies, metaphors and incomplete statements of knowledge in order to get you going down the right path. But eventually, the hope is you say "fuck all that" and you experience it FOR YOURSELF. If you honestly break down most non-duality books, it's all the same shit at the core. The perceived contradictions come from the LIMITS OF HUMAN RATIONALITY, not the message itself.

You've missed the nuance of what Leo has been talking about since the beginning of his Enlightenment series then. It's not as simple as "Leo takes substance, Leo becomes God". No. I'd suggest re-watching his Enlightenment series from the start and then reading some books about non-duality. Here is the first video to get you started: Good luck!

If you want to succeed in grasping enlightenment theory, you're going to have to understand some very nuanced and subtle truths. Read between the lines. What are both Eckhart and Leo word's pointing at? Keep learning, everyone is saying the same thing.

Emotions are good, it means you're not just theorizing. I describe this part of my journey as my "boiling phase". Once it's over, things will be very different.

Of course they're not required for Enlightenment. There is no hard and fast rules or requirements in this game. That being said, let's not be naive enough to assume that a relationship automatically puts you farther away from enlightenment either. If God is waking up in you, it can use anything. Universal intelligence is incredible.

I'd read Crush it! by Gary Vaynerchuck for a great intro on these kind of questions. Essentially, you need to find a passion (sounds like for you programming and math) and run with that. Don't worry about getting the overall specifics right, those things will tend to work themselves out as long as you just keep hammering away at whatever drives you deep down. But generally, you want to start some sort of blog, product and community similar to how Leo did here at Actualized.org and then just keep making it better. Don't be afraid to change when necessary, but also don't think that just because it's been a year and you're not a millionaire that you'll a failure. That's simply not true, these things take time, and they take more time than most people would admit. That's where the passion comes in. You've got to love what you're doing to push through the times when it seems pointless.

I've found life purpose and enlightenment very complimentary. How can you really know what you want to do with your life when you're still asleep?

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One distinction you have to make with science is the difference between USEFUL and TRUTH. Evolution as a model is extremely ACCURATE. It can model reality in such a way that we can navigate with extreme efficiency. Same thing with mathematics, physics and all the other sciences. They've been shown over and over that their model is USEFUL. But is it actually TRUE? Is there really such a thing as the number "2"? Or is the number "2" something the human mind has invented, and because it's so USEFUL and ingrained in our everyday life that people have forgotten that there's no such thing?

The best method is one that works for you. Experiment, find something you like, and then hammer it like it's life or death.

Pickup was great for me while I was into it. Currently in a relationship with a girl I would never have "gotten" before pickup. In fact, we met when I was doing Game with a wing one night at a bar. It inspired to take up self-development because of the whole idea that attraction is not what you do, but who you are. I figured if this is what I needed to do to get laid, fine. I never would have done that otherwise, and holy shit what a mistake that would have been. I shudder to think how my life would have turned out if I hadn't found self-dev. So follow your intuition. I know people here are generally against pickup because it seems egotistical / manipulative, but that's not how I see it. If you understand spirituality, than you understand that anything can be a spiritual practice, even picking up girls. It depends how you go about it.

Do you actually have a passion for personal training itself, or do you just love working out? Those are two very different things. The best advice I can give you is be creative. You're going to have to be strategic and manufacture this ideal dream setup. And it's going to take time. For instance, I love to read, write and meditate. Okay, how can I monetize these habits? By starting a book review blog and a youtube channel for meditation. People will pay me to do book reviews for them. That was my solution. Your solution might look very different depending on your situation. How can you incorporate all these things you love into your life? Keep in mind not everything you do has to be your career.

Enlightenment is not a high level of consciousness...sounds like what you might have experienced is Union.

You're welcome

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The Law of Attraction is a model of the world, no different than any scientific model. It's both accurate and useful to a certain degree to navigate the world, but at the end of the day it isn't Truth. Don't get caught up in the spirituality hype around it, Enlightenment means that ALL BELIEFS WILL GO. That includes a belief in the Law of Attraction.

Don't freak out if you feel behind in personal development work. Realize that Leo has been doing this for years and years, so it's natural that you feel behind. You're not. At 20 I never even heard of any of these kind of ideas. The best advice I can give you is follow your intution. Resist the urge for everything to "logically make sense", the universe is very crafty about how it puts us in the situations we need even if we don't know it cause our human perspective is so limited.

That's great, but do you desire absolute truth? If what you want is to be a better person, you're missing the point of enlightenment work. That's a by product of honest inquiry/contemplation.

I've found it happens pretty naturally. It has to be a genuine release, you can't force it.