aurum

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Posts posted by aurum

  2. Posted

    You do not need to abandon your whole life to pursue enlightenment. However, I have found that people tend to "unplug" from everything at a certain points in their journey. The solitude seems necessary so that you're able to disconnect other people's opinions and really contemplate. 

    If you don't feel the desire to firebomb your life and do nothing but meditate and pursue enlightenment, don't. You're not going to be able to force yourself into it. If the time comes when that's necessary, you'll know.

  3. Posted · Edited by aurum

    Focus is just the label we give to concentration of the mind. You can increase your ability to focus. I'd suggest reading a book called Focus by Daniel Goleman and maybe The Shallows by Nicholas Carr. But I really wonder how much of people's inability to focus is because they have some sort of "problem" that needs to be fixed and how much of it is that they're doing things that they have no motivation to be doing.

  4. Posted

    10 hours ago, Sarah Marie said:

    @aurum Actually exactly what you are explaining. It has 5 steps in how to turn you pain into the most powerful productive personal growth. I feel Without this happening I wouldn't have grown to the extent I have. It teaches you your patterns and how to become conscious of the unconscious messages you had. 

    Man, I should have written a book! xD

    That sounds awesome though. I'd love to check it out.

  5. Posted

    The rational answer as @Neo pointed out is that your brain loves patterns. Once you've got some sort of belief, it will block out counter evidence and focus on what confirms the already established belief.

    That being said, Enlightened people will often talk about navigating the world through flow and recognizing patterns. They do this because they've surrendered "personal will" and instead are just moving where life seems to be taking them. When you do this, in the end, things tend to work out with perfection.

  6. Posted · Edited by aurum

    This might be a male-biased opinion, but I've found that breakups can be incredibly powerful in terms of personal growth. If it's really bad, basically your entire life goes up in flames. And from that wreckage you're forced to come back a more highly evolved person, capable of doing things you never would have done before.

    Usually it can take at least a couple of months, if not years though that you can look back and go "oh wow, I'm so glad that happened. What was I thinking doing X / being with Y kind of person?" And then everything is alright again.

    What kind of advice did this book give?

  8. Posted

    17 hours ago, davidpuralocura said:

    i know a really hot girl that wants to go out with me(shes fun but i dont like that she smokes)

    but i met another one that is not soo hot but we have more in common

    im not doing step 2 i am lasy and just wait for women to come to me(bad thing)

    but for these 2 things what would you say

    I'd say do step 2 and then decide.

  9. Posted

    @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.

  10. Posted

    2 hours ago, cirkussmile said:

    Very good question. Where to go but I have think I have my ideas. But clubs doesn't seems to be the place. Don't know why I assume that :)

    Clubs, bars, shopping malls, restaurants, street corners, whatever. It's going to depend on your personality and unique situation.

    For many guys, they want a place where they have some anonymity because they are going to face a lot of rejections. Plus, I don't consider meeting one woman a week at your job "a lot". So clubs and bars are great because you're going to meet a lot of people but none of them are going to remember you unless you make the effort. This is more of the "hardcore" route, which is mostly what I did. Benefits also include massive social experience and having a ton of fun. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, especially if you're a shy person. Trial by fire.

    However, that may be something you're genuinely not interested in. Don't rationalize not doing it out of fear, but if you HONESTLY feel like your time would be spent better elsewhere, go for it. You don't have to listen to me.

    As far as books, @reez pretty much nailed the classics. You can go MUCH deeper than that though if you wish.

  11. Posted

    On 9/24/2016 at 4:02 AM, cirkussmile said:

    Thank you for sharing!

    I'm clear on all steps but step 2. I'm taking action at least 1 day a week and plan for more in a near future. I have plenty of time to experiment but still novice how it all works because I didn't have to figure it unitil lately. 

    Do someone have any books or other resources that can be inspiring?

     

    What exactly are you unclear about?

  14. Posted

    1 hour ago, Neo said:

    OK, yes but above we are talking about "achieving enlightenment" so we are not talking about the end point which is impossible to describe but the process, the kind of step on from meditation techniques.?@aurum

    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.

  15. Posted

    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.

  18. Posted

    3 hours ago, Neo said:

    Why is this? Why is there a kind of "veiled" truth?

    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.

  19. Posted

    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!

  21. Posted

    I recently got into a fantastic relationship with a girl after being single for a long time.  So I felt inspired to write this post and share with you my strategy for how I made this happen. Here are my rules for successfully choosing a girlfriend

    Step 1: Handle yourself first

    This cannot be understated, I see so many guys try to get into a relationship when they've yet to develop themselves at all as a man. They've got it all backwards. This doesn't mean that you need to become some ideal, fantasy of yourself. That's ego defense. But you should have a good amount of self-mastery. Learn how attraction works and how to spark it if you don't know how. Get on some sort of larger life purpose than dating. All this will set you up for an INTERDEPENDENT relationship as Steven Covey would say,

    Step 2: Meet lots of women

    I'm not saying you need to do pickup in a classic PUA sense. But you do need to put yourself in some sort of situation where you're meeting lots of different women and you'll able to date them. After all, that's what CHOICE means. You're CHOOSING HER from one of many. Otherwise, what are the odds that a women just chosen at random is going to be right for you? Essentially 0%.

    Step 3: Determine what kind of girl you want

    Now that you're meeting lots of women, you should start getting a clearer idea of what kind of woman you want. Certain traits will stick out for you. I can't tell you what those traits are, but I can give you some of the things I looked for in a woman personality-wise.

    First, she's comfortable with her sexuality. I have a high sex drive, so I'm just not going to get along with Sally the virgin from next door. She needs to want to fuck

    Second, she's into personal growth of some kind. I'm not saying she needs to as hardcore about it as me, but she should have goals she's working towards.

    Third, she's smart. Again, I don't need her to be able to debate the latest ideas relating to string theory. But overall she has awareness. Or maybe you could just call it "common sense".

    Fourth, she is respectful of my time. This is huge because I work all the god damn time at this point in my life. If she can't accept that to at least a certain degree, it's not going to happen.

    Fifth, she is social. I love people and so a woman who has no friends or doesn't like to socialize is an issue for me.

    These are some ideas to get you started. Feel free to steal them if you like them.

    Step 4: Get to know her

    If you've done the first three steps right, you should be at a point where although you have a very good idea of what kind of girlfriend you want, you have no NEED for one anymore. You're enjoying being on your purpose, dating different girls and being single in general. That's when you'll eventually meet her.

    Once you've met her, sex should probably come pretty quickly. You'll start to get to know her and realize you like her a lot. Keep getting to know her. Make sure the sexual chemistry is there. See if she's hitting the qualities you were looking for from Rule 3.

    I hate to take about relationships in terms of "power dynamics" because that's dysfunctional, but there is a reality that if you've done this all correctly, she will probably be far more interested in a relationship with you than you are with her at this point. It's not a "tactic" I'm suggesting you implement in order to manipulate her, it's just what is going to happen. She senses that you're a guy who not only has drive and is going somewhere in life, but you also aren't needy. When that happens, her inevitable response will be to chase because it's just an extremely rare thing for a girl to find that combination.

    Step 5: Let go of your single identity

    Once you have an idea that this might be a woman you want to get into a relationship with, you're going to have to deal with letting go of your identity of being "single". You'll probably even resist getting in a relationship and will do a lot of debating back and forth if this is something you want to do.

    I can't answer that for you, but your clue should be that you're starting to want to see her more than any other girls and imagining the two of you doing "relationship activities".

    Assuming it is, you're going to have to realize that your old beliefs about the benefits of being single are no longer serving you. They're holding you back now. Let it go. You'll never be perfect and neither will she. This requires self-acceptance.

    *Warning: this only works if you did the previous four steps correctly! Don't rationalize getting into a shitty, premature relationship simply because some girl likes you*

    Step 6: Stay on your purpose

    You've let your girl know that you want to make things official between you and her. Because you did the previous steps right, she will be very open to this. In fact she should be extremely happy. Congratulations!

    However, your job is not over. As a man, that purpose that you found in step 1 should still be top priority in your life. You'll want to spend a lot of time together as a new couple, and you should, but don't lose sight of that purpose. That drive is extremely important to keep your relationship happy and healthy. But if you've done the previous steps, it shouldn't be that hard to stay on track.

    The quality of girl you will be able to attract with this method will be directly proportional to the work you put into the first three steps. I'm sorry, but you're not getting Beyonce because you read a self-development book. Take those first three steps extremely seriously.

    And that's it. That's the full guide on getting a girlfriend THE RIGHT WAY. I don't care about what mainstream culture says about dating, mainstream relationships tend to be absolute trash. If you want to actually look at your girl and think "wow, she's amazing" and have her think the same thing about you, this is how you do it. Feel free to ask me any questions.

     

     

     

     

     

  24. Posted

    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.