r0ckyreed

The realization that you are God is all you need. Everything is infinite beauty, infinitely perfect, infinitely divine, and a reflection of yourself. What is so astonishing is that one could take the magic of reality for granted, and thus, not see the magic. It blows my mind how unaware most people are. I find it amazing how even I, myself, having knowing this and experiencing it, can easily slip back into unawareness of the magic, where I take the miracle of existence for granted. That should be enough to interest your friends. You don’t need a crash course. It is better if it comes from you than some video. To answer your question though, The Book of Not Knowing and Leo’s video on Life is a Maze will be sufficient.

After beating the game Life is Strange (one of the best game I have ever played by the way), it got me thinking about chaos theory and the butterfly effect. Every small choice leads to huge outcomes such as a butterfly flapping its wings could create a hurricane across the world (hypothetically speaking). If you have played the video game, Life is Strange you will know what I am talking about. This has led me to feel so much gratitude towards life. It made me appreciate being a human and not having any superpowers. If you were to ask me what superpowers I would have wanted, I would have said time manipulation, but after playing that game, I experienced the total beauty and perfection of reality. It is so amazing that life supports all types of organisms all in balance and harmony. What do you all think of Chaos Theory?

If you don’t have time to read thoroughly, read the bottom part and my questions in bold. I have been meditating since 2018. The main benefits I have gained from meditation are calmness, responsiveness, and a sense of control over my emotions. I have noticed that it has helped me to focus more on the positive and not be dragged by negative thoughts. However, after meditating for long periods of time, I have noticed that my memory has decreased since I have been meditating for long periods of time (more than 20 minutes a day). I have also noticed that it can be hard to visualize things and be creative because I’m so used to bringing my attention back to the present moment. But there was also times for meditation has helped me to be more creative as well but not nearly enough. I think a big part of memory is thinking and thought rehearsal. When you meditate for long periods of time your mind shuts down which I found it good for being at peace with the present moment but meditation alone does not help you to be able to think deeper. Contemplation and deep thinking is some thing that has to be developed as another skill aside from meditation. I have come to the conclusion that long periods of meditation is actually worse for you and your personal development than if you were to spend that time contemplating present moment. Don’t get me wrong meditation is a very powerful skill that has been helpful as part of my emotional mastery quest, but I think that counting your breaths alone, labels, mantras, etc. for a long period of time can actually be detrimental to your cognitive, intellectual m, and creative functions of your mind. If all you do is silence your mind, then how can you ever explore it fully and know how to use it deliberately? When I meditate now, I only do it for short periods like 10 minute sits to still my mind to the present moment. After that, I start to use my mind to contemplate existential and personal topics that fascinate me, topics that I have been avoiding, and topics that I deeply fear. Meditation is a good reminder to be aware of the present moment. It has helped me to gain more self-awareness and observation skills in general of both the external and internal worlds. However, I love to think. My thoughts are rarely negative at all. I think a lot of people meditate to silence negative thinking, but what they don’t realize is that they are also silencing positive and potentially creative thinking as well. I love using my imagination. I love thinking deeply about life. I find much more creativity, inspiration, and insight from that than from 4 hours of sitting trying to bring thoughts back to my breath or repeating a mantra. I honestly feel like long-term meditation has made me dumb in some ways and also more aware of the now as well. I have found it difficult to think and visualize because I am so used to bringing it back to my breath. I have realized that mindwandering and daydreaming are so important and crucial to creativity. If you suppress that through long-term meditation, you will see the consequences. With all this in mind, what do you think? Why would anyone really want to silence their mind or have No-Mind? Edit: The deepest insights I have ever attained came from deep contemplations and asking questions. I guess contemplation could be technically called analytical meditation if you want to be technical about that. When I refer to meditation, I am talking about non-analytical forms of it such as anapanasati, do-nothing, vipassana, etc.

Thanks. Still trying to be as clear as possible. Thanks for your feedback and support. Throughout my life, my mind has pretty much always been good master. Logic, rationality, and the intellect have been my superpowers that have set me apart from most of my peers throughout school. I was fortunate to have the wisdom to learn from others mistakes and to weigh the pros and cons of any endeavor. In terms of existential thinking, I have been naturally contemplating since I was very young. At around age 4, I remember questioning the religious God and how the religious God could create itself. You are right. I was using meditation so intensively like a whole that I stopped thinking for a while. I was actually convinced by other Buddhist and spiritual teachers that thinking is dangerous and not thinking is good. But that is an ignorant position to hold as I see now. Actuality is important, but imagination is part of actuality. It is easy to dismiss the value of thoughts as being fantasy or whatever, but if I am always in actuality and suppressing thoughts, I will be dumber by that. Intellectual understanding, knowledge, and wisdom is something I value. Meditation is good for connecting to the intuition but I feel like a big part of reality is missing if that is all I focus on. Meditation alone is not holistic enough to attain the deepest understanding of reality. Took me 4 years to realize that. I agree. You cannot survive without thought. Knowledge is limited without it as well. My bullshit detector has also been activated as well. Maybe I am missing something or not, but I feel like a whole world is lost without thought.

I agree! Appreciate your insights. Yeah. I want to learn more how I can function with a silent mind. This is a growing area for me for sure.

I totally see that. One of my big fears is to lose my intellectual, cognitive, memory aspects of my mind. I know that this is of course a fear to work on and transcend whenever I am ready. I already noticed slight memory decreases in part because I was trying to have no-mind throughout my day. This helped me realize how important thought is to survival, memory, imagination, intellect, etc. Of course, it is also good to learn to silence it as well but for me I am not striving for long-term silence. Yeah. This happens to me all the time. After sitting for 5-10 minutes of counting breaths, mantra, or whatever I am doing in meditation, I always get fascinating and creative thoughts that I think come “purposely” to stop me from meditating. It almost makes me just want to switch to analytical meditation (A.K.A contemplation). Whenever I do try to bring my awareness back to my breath over and over again, I tend to forget those thoughts. It is like trying to recall a dream. If I don’t engage with it and write it down soon, it will be forgotten. Yeah. I totally get that. I am very attached to creative intellectual work. It is kind of like my love for life. Thinking, imagination, and contemplation are what I love most about life. However, I also aspire to become a sage and be highly spiritually developed, which to me is more about having the highest possible understanding, strong intellect, wisdom, and emotional mastery. At this point in my life, I think it is important to focus more on my strengths such as contemplation and developing my thinking mind, while also spending some time each day meditating. I think a new rule for me is that if I meditate for 20 minutes, I will contemplate for 20 minutes. I meditated for one hour days for about 30 days back in 2021. My mistake was not also balancing contemplative practices with meditation. If I neglect time for deep, existential thinking, then this part of my psyche will lose its strength as I have noticed. All of those sound good lol. That is part of my issue. I have a lot of things I want to work towards that require contrasting approaches. I definitely appreciate this feedback on being more clear about what I want out of life and when it comes to spirituality. The greatest insights I have attained came from contemplation. The greatest peace for me came through meditation. I guess I am just looking at it too dualistically. The 5 main things that I really want are: 1. Spirituality A. Gain the highest wisdom and levels of understanding possible through natural means at this point (no psychedelics right now). In addition, I want a deep spiritual connection to reality such that I see infinite beauty even in a dog turd. B. This means I need to carve more time to be in solitude to contemplate and meditate. My goal is at least one solid hour during the week days to go for nature walks, bring a journal, and contemplate. 2. Education A. Gain highest knowledge I can about life. Become life-long learner, which means to read a lot of books, personal research/study, and writing, journaling and reflection. B. This means I need to let go of or spend less time on video games, movies, media, and technology in general. 3. Health A. Being able to attain the greatest fitness, health, and strength possible. B. This means to maintain a good diet and cut out the junk food I eat. This also means exercising more often. 4. Career A. Having a career that is alignment with my spirit and life calling. I want my career, life calling, etc. to be centered around my contribution to nature. I want to work and be active outdoors and not be inactive indoors in some office. 5. Financial freedom A. Being able to have “enough” money to where I can have the freedom to not worry about money and be able to have the freedom to travel. Thanks so much. I have a better idea of what I need to do now! I got a lot of work to do lol. I guess meditation will be my guide to not be so overwhelmed with what I want to accomplish.

Just watched the movie Turning Red and it helped me understand this paradox more. I gotta learn to embrace both like yin yang. I tend to go all in on one thing. It is about learning to accept all the parts of myself. There is no unity in thinking without quietude. How I incorporate this practically is another journey to walk.

I do that a lot lol (answering my own questions) I mainly want to hear other perspectives to see what I may be missing. I use mindfulness meditation (as outlined in The Mind Illuminated book, which if you don’t know is a form of following your breath and bringing mindwandering back to it) and I use do-nothing a lot along with Leo’s tips on Satisfaction Meditation. That’s all I use. In contemplation, I focus on answering one question such as “what fascinates me most about life? What is time? What is reality? Am I on track with my life purpose, etc.?” That makes it hard for me to meditate because I hardly have any negative thoughts but that doesn’t mean I am always cheery and happy. Meditation is helpful in those cases to see the beauty in nature, but when I get there, my ADHD, hyperactivity, creativity, and passions can interfere. I like being active and long meditation sits are not for me. I don’t use enlightenment for the purposes of awakening or some other goal. Rather, I see it as a space and time to reflect, contemplate, and just be with myself and reality. Yeah. I agree. I want to learn how to experience more frequent quietude while also not compromising the intellect. I would rather have the music of my thoughts to play than for them to be out of practice or worse, silent forever. I see some power in being able to sit and listen to reality through an empty mind, but I feel like at this point in my life, I am still trying to look for answers related to personal life. I also value imagination and contemplation to great lengths. I meditate mainly to train my ability for happiness in accepting reality as it is. One thing that stood out to me was from watching the show called the Good Place where a Monk meditated since he was young and has a low IQ because he stopped learning. That episode from the Good Place confirmed my doubts that meditation is not as holistic as we may think it is. You can reach great levels of stillness, emptiness, no-mind, and be able to sit your ass for 2 days straight, but the intellect, understanding, cognitive abilities, and wisdom can still be underdeveloped. My life purpose is centered around understanding, being intelligent and wise. Contemplation along with personal research appears to be my main modes and techniques towards this domain of mastery. Meditation in the form of quieting the mind appears to be a small part in my life and life purpose. What do you all think?

On another level, you can think of it this way, if you don’t think, you will be dead real soon. You are stuck in this game. You can either learn to think consciously or unconsciously. Brief periods of silence can be helpful to think deeper and creatively, but I have found the long-term silence leads to memory and cognitive problems because our minds need stimulation and repetition like a muscle. Taking a rest from running can help you run better marathons, but too much rest and you lose your ability to run marathons. Same with the mind and thinking. You get my point.

What is something you really want to become a master in over the course of your life? Edit: I personally am struggling with clarity in my life. I know I want to master philosophy (epistemology) to the best I can, I am just not sure how I can turn that into a livelihood/career, which is a main problem I am trying to overcome.

What do you desire the most? What do you fear the most? Why? Be specific! When responding to these questions, think about what it all boils down to. Does all desire boil down to love, happiness, and peace of mind? Does all fear boil down to death? What is the root of fear and desire? What do you desire and what do you fear at the most fundamental level and why?

What kind of lifestyle would you need to have to attain mastery in your domain? How would the mastery lifestyle differ from your lifestyle now? Why? List specific behaviors and habits that you will need to do as well as what you will need to let go of and sacrifice. For me it is waking up earlier, which means going to bed earlier. Reading books every day for at least half an hour. This means I will need to sacrifice not spending so much time on technology and entertainment. Remembering my dreams - dream journaling. Means that I sacrifice using my smart phone first thing when I get up. Remembering my life and important lessons - journaling. This means that no matter how things pan out, I commit to writing about how I feel and my memories of what I want to remember and reflect on. My most important memories and lessons go in my journal, all else is trivial. Contemplating and meditating every day for at least half an hour in solitude to start. This means that I sacrifice time spent on the pleasure of distraction such as entertainment. Technology has killed my discipline. There is a reason for meditation - to take back control and discipline over distractions. Living a healthy lifestyle, which means to do eat healthy and do push-ups, pull-ups, and running every day. Think of exercise as a meditation. Reframe everything to be a meditation. How is my lifestyle now different? I am busy with work and find excuses to be mediocre. I find excuses to slack off and chose comfort over mastery. I am watching TV, I meditate and contemplate not as much recently because of schoolwork. I have often chosen Netflix over meditation. Why? Because I believe Netflix offers more entertainment and happiness? Because I enjoy it more? Maybe. But sometimes training the mind through discomfort can be more enjoyable. Meditation is a way of looking inwards and that is a skill and an investment that will continue to benefit me later in life. Technology is just a distraction and a pleasure trap. I trade short pleasures over mastery. What if I didn’t? Why do I want this lifestyle of mastery? Because I want to be different. Look around. How is what I am doing any different? How can I be a leader if I cannot even lead my own mind? A leader stands out because they are masters of themselves and they represent an ideal and lifestyle that is greater than themselves. On my imaginary deathbed, I will regret not giving it my all and not following my passions. How can a leader lead without passion? What do I want to lead people towards? Passion. The entire universe is made out of passion. Living a passionate life for me is to jump out of bed being completely exhilarated and high on life such that no fire needs to be lit under my ass because I am the Fire!!! A leader leads through Fire!! That Fire spreads and impacts people. I just got to be more clear about what is my Fire that I want to spread to the world.

? Good analysis of being specific and concrete.

At whose will? Next question: After you identify what you want to master in your lifetime, how are you going to do it? What is your plan? How are you going to turn your mastery into a life purpose to make you money and a livelihood?

I am sure that whatever it is you feel is taboo, I have definitely heard “worse” as my job is mental health counseling. I am not the one to judge because that is low conscious and my vision is to rise above what everyone does. But please don’t feel pressured to share with anyone if you feel you aren’t ready. One of my deepest principles in life is to do the opposite of what everyone is not willing to do to grow. What do you want to manifest in your life? What is your top choice? Why? What kind of speaking do you want to master? What topics do you want to speak about? How do you want to impact people and the world? Why? As they say, “shoot for the moon and if you miss, at least you will land on a star.” It is better to take the shot and act on every opportunity you can. Interesting choice for things to master. I think friendship can definitely be underestimated. What does mastering friendship look like to you? How does this domain of mastery connect to your life purpose?

Good and interesting choices y’all! This is something that I notice. The things I want to master are intangible and are self-centered like being omniscient about reality for instance and being physically and mentally fit. This makes it difficult to build a life purpose around because society is constructed where the tangible is more important and more valued than the intangible. Nobody cares how omniscient I am or how fit I am if I cannot make it into something tangible and valuable for them. I find this hard to do with my interest in philosophy, meditation, and contemplation. Edit: Maybe after watching Leo’s Scamming video, I may have some ideas now on how to make the intangible more tangible and “useful.”

Nice. What is that? How did you find it?

I never understood this answer. Fearing fear is fearing to feel. There is nothing wrong with the emotion of fear, it is how we use it. Fear is one of the most powerful emotions we have that can motivate us and enhance us to succeed, if used in a conscious manner. The pit scene from the Dark Knight Rises (Batman Movie) is a great example of how useful the emotion of fear is.

I appreciate your perspective. For me, true potential is not about achievement, but more about being all that I can be. We all have unique gifts, skills, and talents. True potential is using gifts, skills, and talents in my life and to follow my heart. As with regret, if I did not follow my heart and dreams, if I lived my entire life the way I did not want to live it, then I would experience regret. One of my biggest fears is being too scared to take risks and follow my heart. Another fear is to also lose my comforts that I have now and to suffer. So, I am kind of in a bind lol. I do not really regret anything in my life so far because I still believe that I have time because I am still young (25). But I have dreams to travel to national parks this summer, and I would be mad at the opportunities I let slip by. I believe that regret can be a choice and a matter of perspective, but I also think that it is an emotion that happens to us in association with us seeing the opportunities we missed in life. To a certain degree, it is a choice, but on another level, it does not seem to be if one lives their entire life realizing that they were climbing up the wrong latter. All emotions are valid, it is just what we do with them that matters. I see regret as a sign that I am capable of more than I realize, and I let myself and opportunities pass away. I resonate with this.

Good. Good. Start noticing how irrational all fear is. Even though your rational mind knows your fears, it still is succumbed by them in the same way you are entranced by your dreams at night. The best time to contemplate fear is when you fear. Same with desire. Fear is the opposite of desire. We desire life and fear death. We desire what makes us feel more alive and we fear what makes us feel more dead. That is what it boils down to. There are so many things that I fear, and they are all linked to death. Even though I rationally know that death is imaginary, that life is a dream, I still fear death. I still fear the end of all illusion that I know of. Even though I say all emotions are irrational, I believe that our emotional mind is more intelligent than our rational mind.

What I mean by a true potential is to give it your all and not have any regrets. Live life to the fullest and have the highest level of mastery that you can possibly have on your deathbed.

I am going to argue that all of your desires ultimately boil down to giving you happiness and peace of mind. And all fear is the fear of loss and death, your own egoic annihilation is the biggest one. Why chase love, knowledge, success? What does it give you? Peace of mind and happiness? And what you fear is losing happiness and life itself?

Good answers. I desire Truth, Love, and total confidence. I want to know as much as I can about reality, and I want the deepest Love and connection to it. I want total freedom. To know reality and fall in love with it. My ultimate desire is freedom and adventure, which means doing the most with my freedom to get me the deepest truth, love, and confidence. What I fear is pain, losing my abilities and strengths, and to not live up to my full potential and fulfill my dreams. I guess it all boils down to my fear of death or my fear of not being/feeling free. My biggest fear probably has to be not living up to my potential. Life to me has become a way to prepare to die in peace when all I desire is extinguished if that is possible and my full potential has been actualized. The roots of it all my be to feel important. I desire something because I think it is important and I fear because I think it is important and matters.

Hello. I recently looked at an old post by Shaun below. Here is a quote from the thread by Leo that I wish to analyze more and how it relates to the problem of mind. So everything is one being and all projection of duality is delusion, and we are all the same being running through infinite selves, experiencing different aspects of God. So God essentially imagines that it subdivides it's own mind in the same way that humans subdivide territories, countries, states, etc. and as a result, there are infinite bubbles of experience, which collapses into ONE bubble of experience that holds infinite experiences or facets of God, as God imagines. Like Leo said, it is like one server that holds all the multiplayer gamers. The same being is looking through the same eyes. From Leo's Perception video, he also compared Consciousness to a sponge and all the bubbles on the sponge as us egos. Here is my issue. When we say God is subdividing itself to experience various aspects of God, I realize that I am imagining all other bubbles of experiences and subdivisions. I know that my human imagination is limited, and I only experience reality from my own direct first person experience right now as typing this message for another aspect of God to read. I am imagining my audience or readers but that does not mean that they do not exist when the Typer of this message right now is focused on typing this message. The Typer and the Reader are the same being from Leo's quote and from non-duality, but what does this actually entail because the only thing I experience in my perceptual bubble is my ego and not any other ego, but yet other egos (even if they are imaginary in nature) still have their own internal world and thoughts (even if they are imagined by nothingness or emptiness, which is the same generator that is creating my thoughts and these words you are reading right now). I know that I am imagining your egos internal world from the Typer's or from r0ckyreed's point of view, and you are actually experiencing your point of view right now and imagining r0ckyreed's. So we have a duality of actuality vs. imagination of the actuality is that Consciousness or God is focused on being the r0ckyreed Typer, which is imagining the Reader (whoever the hell you are). I do not see how this duality can fully collapse because even though the same Being or Consciousness is Typing and Reading this message, there are still differences in experience. For instance, right now in my experience, Consciousness has always been focused on the first experience of the ego of r0ckyreed, a human being, who then is imagining consciousness to also be behind the eyes of other humans that I interact with. Here is the problem. Right now, I see a bed, a drawer, a desk, I am imagining the voices of other humans, and there appears to be only this bubble of experience. But I know that I as God have infinite other bubbles that this bubble of r0ckyreed does not have access to. The bubble of r0ckyreed is imagining r0ckyreed and is imagining all other bubbles. But this does not mean that the perceptual bubble of Leo Gura (even if I am imagining it in the bubble of r0ckyreed) does not exist or any other human that I interact with. Another issue is that what makes a human have a perceptual bubble of experience but not a chair? When I look at other objects that I have been taught to call human, I know that humans are not just objects but also subjects that I believe are located behind the eyes (hence, they have a perceptual bubble that is being imagined by my perceptual bubble, and my perceptual bubble is behind also imagined by my and their perceptual bubble). But a chair, a desk, a table, an apple do not appear to have any internal world or perceptual bubble of experience. I mean where would it be located? With a human being, their soul is the empty nothingness that I experience as being behind their eyes or in their brain. What is having this perceptual bubble of experience? Does a brain also have a perceptual bubble? If it does, then how is it different from a chair or something else that is artificial or even natural? For instance, I can experience cutting up a rats brain and the rat's behaviors changing. I can also suspect that their inner world will also change even if I am imagining it. But what makes a perceptual bubble vs. No perceptual bubble? What makes an object have a mind vs. not having a mind? A dog, turtle, human, whale, shark are what I consider to have minds or internal experiences that I do not have access to but am imagining, while a desk, shoe, toy, iPhone, house, etc. do not have internal experiences or perceptual bubbles. Is it having a nervous system that makes objects have internal experiences, minds, and perceptual bubbles? This seems to be the case; however, what about the consciousness of plants and trees that allegedly do not have nervous systems? I would argue that some plants could have inner worlds or bubbles, but their bubbles are vastly different from the human experience. It is like trying to imagine what an experience of a bat is like from a human perspective. The reason why I think plants could have their own bubbles is because there is evidence that suggests that plants always grow towards the sun. Even when researchers tilt the plant sideways, the plant changes its course of growth to grow sideways to face the sun. See the intelligence of that? How would the plant know to grow sideways to face the sun if there was not some sort of awareness? Let's also tie this into our immune system, nervous system and cells that make up the human body. Our immune systems, cells, etc. have their own intelligence too like a plant. Our immune systems seem to have a consciousness of which cells are "good and bad." It has an intelligence of their own. I think of our cells like plants in that they grow and they die, and they have an intelligence of their own. Our body is like a garden for many bacteria and cells who then also contribute to preserving the life of the garden (body) itself. This runs into a strange loop of if cells, plants, etc. do not have perceptual bubbles of their own, then how do they contribute and give rise to our current perceptual bubble? Without a body, there can be no experience, especially that of an organism. If there can be an experience without a body, then what would the experience be experiencing? These all my thoughts and contemplations so far. Have fun answering these mysteries that I do not think our human minds can ever solve because the finite human mind can never grasp the infinite nature of reality. It may be able to implicitly understand that reality is infinite, but a finite mind cannot become infinite while still living and surviving as a human. To become infinite is to die as the finite self that God is focused on. At least, this is my current perspective right now that I hope will change as I continue to grow (as the plant I am ), and I am open to and encourage all contemplations on these various subjects. Thank you!

No problem. You have to contemplate and question every assumption you have. I used Jed McKenna’s Spiritual Autolysis method of trying to write down what is true and then dissecting that and your assumptions. I also used Leo Gura’s Actuality vs. Concept episode. Also, Descartes’ Cartesian doubt is another good technique that helped me. You eventually want to get to the point where you can contemplate in your head, so to speak. And you also want to be aware of the distinction between Actuality and imagination so that you don’t get lost inside your own mental maze of your own mind. It really comes down to: 1. Be fully present in the actuality of this moment. 2. Question and observe the actuality of Now and the concepts you add onto the actuality of Now. 3. Burn everything and see what is remains. Deconstruct all concepts and stories onto this moment such that you are left with Pure Truth or Actuality, which is another way of saying “reality as it is now.” But some people have different ways. Some prefer to meditate, use psychedelics, etc. But I have always preferred contemplation because it was always most natural to me throughout my life. Take skepticism and solipsism as far as you can go. Deconstruct yourself. But it takes a mature mind to be able to do that and go all the way. It feels like you are losing your mind because that’s exactly what you are doing lol. I’ll let you contemplate and figure that one out. Really observe this present moment deeply. Sit with the question, observe, and deconstruct. One of my top principles in life is “Do what most people are not willing to do, that is true greatness.” A deeper point is to be able to enjoy and do what you are not willing to do, that is excellence. Whatever you do, enjoy it, go all the way, and give it your all. To me, a good life comes down to two main things: 1. Did you enjoy it? 2. Did you give it your all and live up to your full potential? May the Force be with you. ?