Snader

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Posts posted by Snader

  1. Posted

    Very good question, it is indeed tricky to find proper balance. There are big difference in which activities or states of being people define to be about survival and what is more connected to their spirit. Also the labels of survival and spirit often have different meanings, so this is generally hard subject to discuss.

    I personally have my moments when I'm "in the zone", locked into some specific task/(s) that are serving my survival, for example when I'm working or playing video games. I also have moments when I'm totally in the opposite end, for example going for a retreat or sitting in silence meditating.

    Anyway, most of my life I would say is some form of mixture, where those "two different worlds" play together. I take as much as I can from my deepest realizations to my mondaying everyday life. This can be for example a tendency to consciously be kinder and more compassionate towards others or stopping to breath and enjoy a beautiful scenery while heading home at the end of the day. I also often try to be more present when doing simple tasks such as eating or cleaning the house.

    Of course it's not that easy and there are moments when I would want to renounce material life and dive into divine while my petty human life requires attention. There are also moments when I would like to focus on some practical stuff such as having fun and socializing, while the sense of meaninglessness tries to creep in, making it hard to enjoy and be present. Sometimes I do the ''wrong thing'' purposefully, for example if I realize I have a deep biological need for it.

    I believe it's these hard controversial moments where we grow and become more holistically mature. We must acknowledge the reality of human survival and the fact that it is hard to live truthfully and enjoy life on a deep level while being internally and externally bound to selfishness and ignorance. It seems like a skill that can be developed. I myself aim for balance by combining those two worlds to some extent, while also being understanding and forgiving to myself when I lose grip and get lost in either of the ends for a while. We always learn from those moments, if we pay attention.

  2. Posted · Edited by Snader

    On 7.2.2025 at 5:57 AM, 112233 said:

    I'm aware everyone's journey can look wildly different. If any of yous have moved past this stage of development, I'd love to hear anecdotes of how that came about for you personally.

    I have pretty much dumbed the labels or "spiritual theory" such as God Awakening, Transcendence, Absolute Love, etc. Through different practices I gain insights and experience awakenings, but I try not to label them too much, even though they often have a certain kind of theme or flavor in them, for example infinity, love, oneness, or many simultaneously.

    I've had crazy enough experiences to be convinced that not everything real and truthful can be understood in how we conventionally try to understand as human beings. Therefor I have also let go of the need to understand.

    I'd say stopping the need to understand has counter-intuitively enabled me to gain understanding. I basically just aim to gently raise my consciousness while living pretty normal life and slowly more and more stuff start making sense and the puzzle getting solved piece by piece, of course in a way I can't perfectly put into words. I think it's important to take your time and not force understanding.

    If I had the need to understand everything, make sense of everything or label all my experiences right away, I would probably lose my mind.

    Making the journey super personal and keeping it mainly separate from my social life and social identity has also helped a lot. I don't have pressure to communicate my experiences to others so I can kind of "keep the data in its purest form". This although comes with a cost of loneliness and lack of "spiritual connection" to others.

  4. Posted · Edited by Snader

    11 hours ago, Hardkill said:

    Even the times when I've watched some R-rated movies with my parents, my mom has rationalized it as being okay. She's been like "It's okay. They weren't really doing that much..." or "Oh, come on, they didn't show their penis or their vagina...." or "Oh, the sex is not real at all..."

    So, why is all of that considered normal, but watching porn with friends, siblings, or other members of your family is considered not normal?

    I don't know about you but for me watching any sex scenes with family isn't okay. When I'm invested in a movie on emotional level and a sex scene comes up, to me many emotions may pop up, as sex to me means more than something mechanical that could be rationalized away.

    The awkwardness comes from everyone working their ass off to act cool or covering their emotions with jokes and humor. Of course in certain company those jokes help you to not make the situation socially awkward, which to many is way more important than emotional authenticity.

    Maybe some parents have educated their children to have a healthy sex-emotion relationship so that those scenes can be watched without any awkwardness or acts of emotional defence, but I think it's rare.

  5. Posted

    2 hours ago, TheEnigma said:

    But almost anyone can always use a more money, more comforts, more power etc.

    When you become conscious of the fact that you don't really need more of those things and start consciously controlling your action around your desires, your greediness starts to reduce. So we might say greediness = unconsciousness.

    After all it's just a label. In a way we will always be greedy as human beings, as long as we are alive. Where you draw the line is subjective, and is determined by your perspective, values, culture, personality and other stuff that make you who you are.

  6. Posted

    2 hours ago, Porphyry Fedotov said:

    Speaking from personal experience, I also found that solitude regarding psychedelics is the best option. Even the presence of just one sober person next to you makes your trip less deep and more shallow, as if his current level of consciousness keeping you more sober as well.

    Kastaneda btw wrote about similar stuff explaining how humans keep each other's level of consciousness relatively the same during everyday interactions. It's akin to diffusion but in a woo-woo kind of way

    Yeah, no doubt. But for many that shallowness can also function as a damper to keep the experience from going too deep too fast. 

  7. Posted

    On 28.10.2024 at 7:14 PM, Leo Gura said:

    I reject these shaman fictions.

    I have done enough DMT that any more could kill me. Drinking shaman sludge is completely unnecessary.

    Although solitude and purity of substance is optimal for pursuing truth with psychedelics, but isn't it a bit crude to completely talk down the ceremonial way of doing psychedelics? It's not the way for you, but it might be for many.

    Not everyone are highly introverted, independent and conscious.

    Many young people doing psychedelics drive themselves too deep to an existential crisis and cynicism that they will find it hard to operate in life. For many it might be best to have this social component to their tripping, at first at least.

    I think it's the solitude in the process that usually breaks people, and it seem to have a lot to do with personality. Some seem to need to have people around, until they might come to a point of realizing they don't need them. 

    You have your way and you want to push people to do it that way too, but as role model I think it would be reasonable for you to be more supportive to other ways of doing things.

  8. Posted · Edited by Snader

    I get it. It's frustrating to see people (like Leo) labeling complex phenomenon or action as a stage of development, while you know it's not that simple.

    And it never is that simple. It's just a useful tool to give a rough estimate of the situation and when it comes to SD the estimation is pretty damn accurate and inclusive, giving a surprisingly truthful framework to look at it. Feel free to make a more useful model, it's definitely possible to do and will be done some day by someone.

    Using the SD framework it is always big picture and from there you have many ways to go deeper and many perspectives to approach from. As I've done that, I've noticed the SD framework holding its ground over and over again.

    It works great when you try to understand why societal stuff happen and why people do what they do - and as always, in a very big picture scale.

  9. Posted

    Most people only think about money, validation and prestige when doing career choices and they don’t see how it’s coming to bite them in the ass. You should work to get out of that prison of thinking about what others think, in the end that’s absolutely meaningless and it’s going to serve nobody, not even you.

    There are many aspects to consider. For example what kind of social environment is the profession most likely to put you in, what values are connected to the subject, what type of job opportunities does it open, how does the subject support your development? It’s wiser to get clear on the big lines and then let the process take you from there.

    Your understanding of sociology is most likely wrong and that’s because sociology can’t relly be defined one particular way. It really is a multidiciplinary field and when it’s done well, it becomes like magic. It really seeks to consider multiple perspectives in its truth-seeking efforts, which makes it one of the most truthful fields of science. 

    There are so many different subfields and subsubfield that you would most likely not even study sociology per se, but find your own niche where you use your strengths and areas of interest. For example combining sociology with math and statistics is one valid option and it nicely amalgamates social topics with ”hard sciences”. I’ve also seen a Master’s program based on urban planning, where you put physics, biology and sociology together and you can select a study module that weights the subject you like the most.

    You need to make your own way and stop making your decisions based on what Ben Shapiro or anybody else says. 

     

  11. Posted · Edited by Snader

    11 hours ago, Forestluv said:

    For example, I've brought in meditation exercises into my classes. This raised some eyebrows in my department, yet I explained to them the importance of self awareness, social awareness and meta-cognition in the bigger-picture of learning. . . I also have an exercise using Zener cards to integrate concepts like: direct experience, intuition, energetics, unique abilites as well as science components, such as statistical analysis of the data we gather. I got some pushback at first, yet I framed it with buzzwords like "hands-on", "experiential learning", "engagement" to teach statistical tests. Then my collogues thought it was brilliant (since I didn't believe in the "whoo, whoo" stuff. . . I'd also like to add things like shamanic breathing and chanting - yet having had the guts to yet (as well, most students are receptive). . .

    That's very impressive. It must take plenty of courage and of course skill to pull that off in the limits of academic tolerance -- generally speaking. I've been to a lecture of this one very open-minded sociologist who constantly tried to take things to a deeper and more holistic sphere but clearly backed off as he noticed rolling eyes and received questions that he couldn't answer in a way that wouldn't make people roll their eyes even more. I put a little crumbs of outside the box thinking in my final essey and was glad to see that he recognized it in a positive way.

    11 hours ago, Forestluv said:

    I also have an exercise using Zener cards to integrate concepts like: direct experience, intuition, energetics, unique abilites as well as science components, such as statistical analysis of the data we gather.

    I'm very curious how you actually do that. Wish I could attend those classes.

    11 hours ago, Forestluv said:

    I got some pushback at first, yet I framed it with buzzwords like "hands-on", "experiential learning", "engagement" to teach statistical tests.

    I'm not a teacher, but I often try to open some of my relatively open-minded friends' minds and it's funny how I also need to present some ideas with such buzzwords just to lead them a bit deeper without compromising their openness. It's crazy how I can often feel the level of other persons' tolerance and sense how the level changes as I change the way I articulate. I hope to improve that skill for the future as I see myself doing teaching in one form or another.

    11 hours ago, Forestluv said:

    I'd also like to add things like shamanic breathing and chanting - yet having had the guts to yet (as well, most students are receptive)

    Interesting. Anchoring that to something familiar like Wim Hoff for example, could make people welcome it with less prejudice.

    11 hours ago, Forestluv said:

    Lastly, I feel the need to hold back on explorations of consciousness. I feel comfortable speaking about things like lucid dreaming and flow states of consciousness, yet I still need to speak about psychedelics from a relatively shallow level. I've done over 150 trips and my level of understanding of psychedelics and various conscious states is equal to, or higher, than my level of science understanding. I'm one of the few people with a high level of expertise in both psychedelic/conscious states as well as science. One of few people that could integrate direct experience, psychological dynamics, mysticism, creativity, nonduality, neuroscience, genetics, evolution, social science, energetics, critical thinking, empathy and on and on. I can do this to some extent, yet I have to hold back.

    I can only imagine how hard it might be to have that rare capability that you are restricted to use. I think it's also a special skill to understand that fact and hold back. Life keeps changing all the time and something that makes people's eyes roll today might be warmly welcomed in 10 years. Although for example Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert were bold and ready to take risks, I still think they didn't have that skill, which is understandable as they couldn't quite anticipate how people will react and how their works would be framed as. Now we know better and know to be more careful.

    11 hours ago, Forestluv said:

    -- With that said, there are a small percentage of students that really connect with me and I have a big impact on them. A few students have unique skills of metacognition, systems thinking etc and felt like they never fit it. I'm the first one that can see this and "speak their language". Stuff they thought was a disorder, yet I get excited and say "That's a thing!!! I've known people in Zen Centers that spent years trying to attain that". . . They take every one of my classes, come to my office to chat about things that are "out there" that they can't speak to anyone else about. . . A couple years ago, I started a group called "Transcend and Integrate". It's a select group by invitation only for students with certain abilities. We meet in a secluded location and have a free flow conversation about things not discussed or revealed with "normal" people. . . For about 1% of my students, I have a deep life-changing impact on them - such as discovering core aspects of their nature / ability. . . This is so rewarding to me, that it balances out a lot of headaches.

    That's at the core of what I expected to hear (at best) when I originally asked you about integrating the two "sides" of life. Correct me if I'm wrong, but by what you've said it sound to me like that is the pinnacle or at least one of the sweetest fruits that have resulted from the integration of your career (the social mind) and your personal abilities and tendencies (the side of you alone in the forest).

    The fact that you bring your talent into an environment where it's not generally expected to be effective, leading to recognition of other people's hidden or suppressed talents, is astonishing to me. It's also soothing and inspiring to hear that there is room (or that room can be made) for deeper inquiry even in an academic setting.

    11 hours ago, Forestluv said:

    -- When I started teaching, I wasn't aware of my "thing". If you know yours, I would be mindful of how that fits with the environment. For example, one of my core components is integration. I work at a liberal college that prides it's identity on "multidisciplinary". Yet it's at a very surface level. For example, "inter-disciplinary" to my colleagues and administrators are taking set of required courses in various disciplines. Yet psychology is in one building and just talks in a  psychology box, Religious studies is another building and speaks within a religion box, Biology in another building, etc. . . That is a surface level of integration. It would be like having a guitar player in one building, a piano player in another building, a drummer in another building and calling it an integrated jazz band. . . Deeper integration is having all the instruments playing together to yield emergent properties. . . Zooming Out and being contracted in an area has value, yet so does Zooming Out and synthesizing. I'm the only one that is really good at this in my department, which is good and bad. On the good side, I'm "that guy" my colleagues come to for questions and help. I've helped them create new course materials and to look at things from different perspectives. I like contributing in that way. 

    My university -- especially my faculty -- also has this strong marketing of multidisciplinarity. It's mostly like you described: there is a possibility to choose plenty of courses from many other faculties. Some teachers seem to be seriously trying to integrate that idea into their teaching, while the mass courses are still far from that.

    Anyway in the discipline I'm in there is this mutual understanding that we cannot come to any absolute truths or all-explaining explanations. In the research it is always emphasized how the output is only explaining a little part of the phenomenon while more truthful picture requires a broader range of perspectives and methods that need to be integrated together. That's what I really like. 

  12. Posted

    19 hours ago, questionreality said:

    That's a very difficult one to balance imo. I went super abstract for some years as I was genuinely curious about many things(and used a ton of psychedelics as well during that time period). When I burned a lot of that through and got the fulfilment in that, I understood that I missed the social aspect and needed to integrate it, and kind of come out of that bubble. Now I find that whenever I need to go abstract, it is available, but now I enjoy relating to people a lot more, it's just more fun.

    Interesting. Do you think that phase of curiosity and psychedelics has somehow affected your ability (in good or bad) to relate to other people and be social in general? 

  13. Posted

    Thanks a lot for taking the time to give such a thorough answer. I really appreciate it.

    Plenty of thoughts and few additional questions popped up and I kind of spit them out as they came.

    1 hour ago, Forestluv said:

    For example, imagine someone that engages most of their day with co-workers, family, friends, social media etc. Even when they aren't directly interacting socially, there is still social entanglement within the mind. Someone may want to get away and go for walk in nature, yet their mindspace is engaged with thoughts / feelings of their social system. Thoughts / feelings of interactions with co-workers, friends, family, partner, children etc.  They may have brief moments of freedom outside that social mind, yet that is just scratching the surface.

    Oh yeah, I've had times like that, where I've had to struggle to get myself back "in touch" with myself and reality. It's like the fumes of social life following you wherever you go. Following your example of walking in nature: even as a person who has always loved spending time in nature and has plenty of experience from nature's healing capabilities, the mind occupied by the social content and survival can have such a strong grip that fighting it at the moment is impossible, even if you have some intuition of awareness of what's going on.

    Those moments have been common in times of big chance and chaos. Reflecting back, it comes down to the clearness of the sides as you say. The sides have been unclear, so there hasn't been possibility for disengagement.

     

    2 hours ago, Forestluv said:

    I get three months off per year, and my mind engages in different spaces after disengaging from work for a couple months. As well, I've lived villages in central / south America for 1-3 month periods. I've gotten so disengaged that I'd forget what my previous "character life" was. Occasionally, a villager would ask "What do you do in life?" . . . it would take me a while to remember and put the story together - as if they were asking me about a movie I watched years ago

    Wow! I spend 3-5 days on a remote island 1-2 times per year. Those trips consist of contemplation and chilling in nature and usually a psychedelic trip with a moderate dose. After I come back home I often experience this moment when I confront something about my social life and it kind of snaps the system back on, after which it takes a while to get back on track of what's going on in my life. Like moving files from an old usb drive, I slowly gather the data that I had pretty much forgotten.

    It's nothing too crazy, doesn't take long to be "up to date". I can only imagine what 3 months could do.

     

    2 hours ago, Forestluv said:

    The teacher then got very annoyed and put more pressure on me to make a binary decision. I almost had a nervous breakdown. . . That week, I was pulled from the Advanced Program and put back with the "regular kids". I was also labeled as a kid who "had potential, yet doesn't apply himself".

    Damn, such a waste. It's sad that these things are not recognized. That example tells a lot about the education system and the way in which society creates work force like cattle.

    Are you pressured into making binary decisions in your current job? If yes, how do you manage with it?

     

    2 hours ago, Forestluv said:

    Another big barrier was being socially conditioned that my work must make a contribution to society. If not, I'm self-centered and there is something wrong with me. So whenever I got curious about things that weren't contributing to society, I would become hyper self-critical and repress it. . . It wasn't until my 40s that I realized I only have a moderate desire to engage in activities that directly contributes to the lives of others / society. My stronger desire is to explore imagination, concepts, creation new experiences - regardless of whether they have a purpose at the personal or societal level. What gives me deep meaning is when I integrate the too - for example, having insights and passing those on to my students.

    It's funny how this elucidates the contrast between two environments in different developmental stages. From my teens to early adulthood I was mostly surrounded by stage orange people. As can be expected, the atmosphere was pretty individualistic and for example all school choices were made according to individualistic endeavors. Some of those people are still in my life and they question me as I've made changes from an individualistic career path to one that is more about contributing. Today I'm in GREEN-yellow environment which sounds a lot like the one you described.

    Through my own development and mystical experiences I've learned the value of contribution and giving. I've engraved them into my value system so that I won't lose them in the moment of fear and pressure, as I intuit their power and the importance of lining ones' life with them. I started to become dogmatic, in a way that I couldn't allow myself any goals or purposes that weren't about improving the lives of others. Later I went through processes where I struggled with dark and depressing meaninglessness. Sorting that all out brought me to first acknowledge and then accept the fact that I don't need to do work that is directly improving peoples lives, in fact I realized I don't need to do a damn thing. After some time and integration I came to find purpose in pursuing career that suits my personal preferences and also fills the demands concerning morality and purpose.

     

    3 hours ago, Forestluv said:

    Another barrier are work constraints. I work as a science teacher and there are constraints being in a science department and within an academic institution.

    There's probably plenty of factors, but could you possibly name some main points?

    I ask this because I'm currently in a process of career change, pursuing an academic career, as I think I might've found a niche from the academic field that offers a great balance of benefits and compromises in areas that I've come to see important in terms of my long term development and general life quality. It is something that is also supporting my other endeavors for the far future. I'm asking this as a form of research while I still have some time to affect the education path, and because I feel like your perspective here would be unique.

     

  14. Posted · Edited by Snader

    19 hours ago, Forestluv said:

    I think everyone has some type of "superpower" and I've often joked that my superpower is pretty much useless at a personal level. Where my mind wants to explore and dwell doesn't give me any personal gain. It doesn't help pay the rent, it doesn't help me advance my career, it doesn't help getting shit done and being productive. Yet the benefit include insights, expansions, realizations, wonder, awe, curiosity. Most of those I'm unable to express to others, so it gets quite lonely. . . I live in a small town and work with people, yet in a sense my mindspace is usually "alone in the woods".

     

    19 hours ago, questionreality said:

    I can totally relate, as I used to be a lot more abstract thinker myself in the past but decided that I didn't want to be "alone in the woods" as you say. 

    So it's really a choice that one has to make - either to live alone in the woods or to be part of the society. 

     

    Thanks for your conversation, it was an enjoyable read. I have something to ask you guys relating to the quotes above.

    What thoughts do you have on integrating the two "sides" of life, the more personal and isolated (was it a superpower or features of developmental stage) and the more practical side (was it a social image or a career) in a way that the need for restricting or splitting oneself diminishes? 

    To what extent do you think it is possible for example to have a money paying career in which you can use your gift of abstract thinking, wonder or curiosity, for example? If you don't mind sharing; what barriers do you see for that in your own life, considering society around you and your unique set of skills, experiences, personality, level of consciousness and general life situation (feel free to add other factors)?

     

  19. Posted

    1 hour ago, Ayham said:

    my school is also the best in the country so everyone is really great academically, and I am like one of the few bad ones.

    Don't worry about that. University is generally quite different from high school and you kinda get a fresh start once you start. If you get in, you will have roughly the same basis and from there it will be your attitude and motivation that will determine your competitiveness.

  20. Posted · Edited by Snader

    What's dangerous about testing and seeing if some specific thing is for you or not, is that you tend to give up and decide it's not for you when things get hard, especially if you are not very conscientious and diligent.

    Of course it's important to know that your future job will somewhat suit your personality and preferences, but those will usually sort themselves out if your motivation is strong enough.

    Developing life purpose is great, but even just getting your values clear and using them as a reference point will make a huge difference. Sure, sometimes we do need jump into unknown and hope for the best, but having some direction makes a huge difference.

    Making your parents happy might motivate enough to get you started and even into med school, but when things get nasty and you realize your parents' approval isn't everything, then you might be in trouble. It's really hard to get up in the morning with no reason.

    I wouldn't go to med school if I really didn't want it. It's an occupation that requires purpose for you to be good at it AND also happy. As a patient I've had experience from doctors who don't really care and it's not good for either of us.

    An extra year might be a valid option as it also gives you more time to find out what you really want and value. When I first applied to uni I didn't even know of all the different options and possibilities there are. Everyone in my circle was going to engineering or economics (due to ignorance or pressure from parents), so that was kinda everything I knew of. Only later after getting out of the bubble, I realized how many interesting options and subjects there are.

     

  22. Posted · Edited by Snader

    9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    This course is not about blowing your mind with uniqueness. It is about programming your mind for results.

    You already know too much. But you don't apply it.

    The way of the programming specifically could be mind-blowingly unique. 

  23. Posted

    Over the past years I’ve learned to appreciate how hard it is to REALLY embody wisdom and even basic self-help concepts consistently. What’s even more baffling to me is how shallow and black-and-white even ”more advanced” self-help material seems to be.

    Creating self-help material to a relatively more conscious audience is a challenge, but has potential for sure. I’m expecting the new course to be something new. Something out of the ordinary. Something that really puts stuff together in a unique way. 

     

  24. Posted

    I have this wake-up light alarm clock that can be tuned to play a certain radio channel when the alarm goes off. I use this one channel that plays chill music in the mornings with very little ads. Sometimes in between songs it plays few short lines of some random songs, as sort of self-advertising. One night while setting an alarm I had accidentally tuned up the volume, and in the morning when the alarm went off, the chorus of this song down below started playing as loud as fuck, exactly from the 1:20 mark. 

    So if you ever need to make sure you get up in the morning, use this and put it as loud as you can. It will make you shit your pants but you will STAND UP, I promise. You will start the day with brutal masculine aggression ready to tackle the day like a fucking David Goggins! Nothing can ruin your day - anymore.