vladorion

I'd go for psychotherapy rather than psychology. Having a degree in psychology is pretty much useless if you want to help people. Your head will be full of theory and models with pretty much zero practical knowledge and techniques. A good therapist is someone who walked the path of healing him/herself and acquired different tools along the way. So they know how to help others. There are many different therapy/healing modalities out there worth exploring. Almost none of them require you to have a formal education.

He's not giving away anything. By "giving away" he's actually making way more money. Those donations are just investments that don't look like investments on the surface.

Agree. He actually admits that donating money to health organization has yielded a 20-to-1 return. It's just business investments that are called donations.

You don't seem to understand what identification is. Being an object IS identification with an object. Identification is not merely a conscious belief that you're something. It goes much deeper than that. Being a page in a book IS a subjective self identity. Without identification, there's no being anything in particular.

He seems pretty happy about the pandemic.

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Losing your current identity completely and getting a new identity of an inanimate object (like a page in a book) is not ego death. It's ego shapeshifting. There's still identification, but with something else. Whether it's more potent than serotonergic psychedelics is irrelevant because it simply doesn't have effects that are in any way similar to those of serotonergic psychedelics. Potency doesn't mean much apart from the effects. In ego death there is no sense of being anything. Leo is not some ultimate truth on every topic as you seem to believe. He also seems to use terms like ego death, god consciousness etc. for all kinds of mindfucking experiences, which kinda makes these terms meaningless. I have my own experience to go by and I've read many salvia trip reports and most of them have the same common themes. I 100% agree with Leo though not to fuck with salvia. It's not a good substance.

I don't agree that what you experience on salvia is ego death. On salvia, ego simply completely identifies with objects that it usually doesn't identify with. Being a page in a book or a piece of furniture is still a very limited existence, I'd argue more limited than being a human. It's like a downgrade from an experience of being a human to being inert matter. In my experience, there's even more suffering in such a state, but since you're so unconscious you only become aware of the fact when you start coming back.

Reminded me of this

No. I think his awakening is legit, I don't know if it's enlightenment though. And even if I believe someone is enlightened, doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to put them on a pedestal. I'm not into guru worshipping any more. I personally watched Frank's videos for entertainment purposes, not so much to get anything practical out of it. I don't view him as a teacher. The dude is just filming his spiritual journey as it happens and sharing it with the world, don't see anything wrong with that. Also, don't see anything wrong with claiming enlightenment if you genuinely believe it. Problems begin when people start worshipping those whom they believe to be enlightened like they're above them. My standard it just the feeling I get when I see a person. To me that's a much better indicator of someone's level of spiritual progress than knowing how much they've meditated or how many retreats they went on. The latter is like judging someone's progress in the gym by learning about how much they work out and when they've started. I'm not denying that most people claiming to be enlightened are probably not, and it's unclear what exactly the term means. To me it's a matter of, do I resonate with this person, does his/her experience seem genuine, would I want to be like that etc.

Saying that entities do not exist is like saying people do not exist. It's true from a higher perspective, but you still lock your house at night.

I don't think anyone should be put on the pedestal, regardless of their enlightenment. The fact that he gets talked about and people believe his experience is genuine doesn't mean he gets put on the pedestal. That stuff matters generally, but is not necessarily applicable to everyone in the same way. That's why I think it's incorrect to judge someone's experience by where they come from or how much they've meditated.

Lots of assumptions here. #1 - The time frame one has participated in this stuff matters. Is it true? There are people who meditate their whole lives and don't get anywhere and there are those who go to 1 satsang and have an awakening. Which one is more awake? #2 - Meditation tends to not enlighten people in a short period of time. Again, everyone is different. #3 - Where you come from matters. Does it? Wayne Liquorman did coke for 20 years before he went to India, met his teacher and got awakened. Does that mean his awakening is not real?

Simply being social won't cure your social anxiety; it can help you learn to suppress it and act as if you don't have it. Unless you do some trauma therapy / emotional processing in conjunction with it. Even guys that approached women 10,000 times still get approach anxiety. They just got good at ignoring it.

If you have someone there who's worried about you, things might not go well.

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Sounds like someone who had an awakening and had a hard time integrating it rather than someone who's enlightened. He's a good author though. Sounding dramatic sells books.

You judge people who eat animals and then you judge yourself for judging those people, which doesn't help. I think it would help to forgive yourself for being judgemental.

There are specialists out there that are good, but those are rare. You won't find them by googling "psychotherapy". Talk therapy in general is bs and doesn't lead anywhere. A therapist should be skilled in a technique or various techniques that help you to get to the root of your issues. Almost every session should have a tangible result. Working on your mental issues by yourself is also possible, if you have the right tools. So I don't see why people with issues shouldn't go on this forum. This forum is not just for people who're going straight for enlightenment, as far as I'm concerned. Some people need healing and preparation.

I still don't understand where you got the idea from and why you believe it.

What's this idea based on? If Buddha could awaken any spiritual seeker, why would he prescribe a teaching and a practice for awakening?

Before meeting Ramana, Papaji practiced mantra recitation for 20 years. He had had spiritual experiences where Krishna would come to him and they would talk etc. He was one of those people that Ramana likened to very dry wood - very easy to start a fire with. Gurus can't awaken you if you're not ready to be awakened.

Ego is not personality. It's a thought about self that is believed to be the actual self.

Work with a therapist, if your financial situation allows. But not just any therapist; most of them are useless and don't have any working techniques. Weirdly, techniques that work are not that popular. And stuff that's popular doesn't work. Below are some modalities that do work for releasing trauma, better than psychedelics or breathwork. RPT (reference point therapy or rapid personal transformation) Systemic / family constellations WHH (Whole hearted healing) Shamanic soul retrieval

The search doesn't promise benefits for the ego. Pretty much every teacher says, "you" are not gonna get anything out of it.