fopylo

Practicing the do nothing technique, I am noticing myself becoming more free of expectations, but it hit me in a very subtle way that inspired me to write that. I was busy listening to an outro song of a series I like and it all sounded and looked fresh, almost as if I'm hearing it for the first time, didn't expect the rest of the music in my head. I stayed open to the unfolding of the moment. This could also allow me to enjoy it more and flow with it. I still remembered the song in the back of my head obviously, but it's as though I didn't let it confine me (?), if that makes sense... It was pretty nice and I felt more immersed. I let myself become more immersed. Because I practice becoming immersed with the void

I'm happy this is not the case. The dude might be very wise but he is also quite deluded and out of this world a bit. And quite boring to listen to him say the same shit

He said in one comment that he is between yellow and turquoise

@Mason Riggle Do you consider acting from resistance as "being yourself"? You could say that resistance is a blockage from a more true authentic you, therefore you're not actually being yourself. But you could also say that currently you're acting exactly in accordance to how you're supposed to, whatever the case is - Me acting out from resistance would be me being myself in the sense that I'm acting out from the resistance I created for myself. They both sound quite true but I resonate more with the idea that resistance is the blockage to the truer you. Both ideas probably lead to the same place in the absolute. But I find the second idea kind of pointless as for helping navigating the relative domain. I find that acknowledging your resistance/suppression of a more authentic version of yourself will help guide you into a direction of freeing yourself. I would rather be myself fully. For me to adopt your idea to affect my life, I'd need to really raise my consciousness to very high degrees.

Hey Danny thanks for sharing. Even though I'm not 37, I've also faced most of my life the issue of always being behind everyone. behind puberty growth, behind socially, behind with success (the last 2 are huge for me since they kept following me even when I felt like I'm finally managing to "ride" my life again that it pulled me back down). Counterintuitively, what helped me was practicing loving being where I am right now. Easier said than done and very vague, I know. For that, I'd suggest the Do-Nothing meditation as it helps to accept whatever is the case. Not to force yourself to accept because it is an annoying situation, but rather because it is really ok as it is. Sit with this feeling of your situation. Bask in it. From this point you might want to make some decisions for your life - not because of complaining about how life sucks, but from a place of feeling so damn good to be by yourself with yourself that you're like "damn, life is so good, what can I pursue?" All of those pursuits of things is a fucking game, a very fun and exciting game. And at the end of the game (or after you decide to take a break) you come back to yourself - The ever place of feeling good. You just need to slowly realize you are this existence in order to play the game. The Do Nothing meditation is what is personally helping me the best. Also, even after all of that. Find the uniqueness in all of that. Like, dude, you are the only person in the world that shares your story and all your life events until now. Despite your fantasies of how you wanted things to be, you are still experiencing a unique life, like literally. But the more you are stuck in those exact fantasies, the less you'll see that. Basically everything is really working in your favor by default, perfectly. All that is required from you is to see it more and more. It is a process. I'm also working on this process since I also deal with this. Good luck man

Sick! Too bad I'm leaving to my 6 months of camp exactly on this date...

@JayySur totally agree!

I am currently overseas with my family in Greece, and every time that we walk outside for a short trip, it's always my father at the front, then my younger brother, then me and then mom. What quite annoys me is that I am rarely after my father, as if my brother has some magical ways to just get in the second spot always, he's not even acting like a bully or anything. Now before you start laughing at this and call it "childish", I can tell you it's a bit deeper, it obviously hurts me and makes me resent reality. I think I have a belief that I can't be behind and be a follower. It makes me sick. It makes me sick to see how my brother is always next to my father and they know what's going on, where we're going and all of that. I'm so sick and frustrated from this neurotic behavior that I dissociate and don't pay attention to what's going on and the plans and all that. Escaping reality and going to my mind where I knit-pick things to hate. I'm sick of being a follower. How can I expect to be a leader in my life? I am totally clueless. It deeply disturbs me, perhaps because I know deep down I came here to be a leader

It's been a long time since I've read a self-help book, and for good reason. The amount of emotional labor I go through for just one book, the amount of mental dissonance, resistance, perfectionism is very overwhelming. I started not long ago to read "The Way Of The Superior Man", and it already taught me some new stuff and gave me some insights. So I'm still trying to find an effective way to read books so that it is flowing, that I retain what I learned and that I own the understanding. So here are some examples of my neurosis: I always check how many pages the next segment that I'm about to read has. Once I highlight some part in a segment, I feel I need to underline at least one thing in every segment (I mean on every sub-chapter, and chapter of course). It also causes me to get stuck on parts and think whether I should highlight or not. Both of those causes are easily cutting my flow. I don't take notes because I don't really know how and when. I'm reading a physical copy on my desk. How the hell am I supposed to write on a journal while reading. This will be so super fucking slow and I will understand less because I'm not in that flow. Back when I used to read through Kindle on my laptop I could easily take notes on the place, but even then I was kind of picky, making sure what I write sounds good, for good reason - I'm gonna look at it later. The consequences that arise are of too many highlights (not exaggeratedly), too many notes, and then of course I won't review it because I just overwhelmed myself. @Leo Gura You mentioned in your video about how to increase your results from self help (or the video introduction to your book-list) that you take notes with a digital journal. What journal do you use exactly? And how do you make sure you don't overwhelm yourself with information to review later? The more I read, I also worry that I won't hold all the knowledge in, especially in highly rated books like this one

@Leo Gura Maybe not yet for him

@Logan I just read 2 segments from the book. Didn't exactly speed-read, but read with more flow and got stuck less. I was always ready with my highlighter to highlight stuff on the go. Didn't work precisely as planned, but it was much better. I did go back a few times just to highlight something I was still thinking about whether I should (in like the same paragraph or so. Not like going pages back and making changes. It was more flowing and allowed the decisions to be closed closer to the present moment. Yes. Usually 30 minutes Do Nothing every morning and then 30 minutes mindfulness towards night. Today I extended my Do Nothing to 1 hour. It was quite tough but I felt it did something to my brain. The Do Nothing meditation helps me develop higher sensitivity to seizing control over my attention, making it more enjoyable and natural to have my attention be free and flowing; and also becoming more authentic by basking in this void of freedom, authenticity. The mindfulness meditation helps me feel more the existence of what's happening in this reality, reality itself, by removing the filters on my sense perceptions. I also feel more open to reality, basically I feel I'm merging more with reality. The Do Nothing meditation gives me the flow I need to read, as well as the sensitivity when I try to seize my attention (it literally hurts. Good. Now flow > control, feels better.) I didn't see yet Leo's latest video

Do you have a youtube channel?

@Logan Thing is that the more I work around and engage with a specific idea, quote, paragraph, (basically, the more I analyze them) the more I get stuck in my head, become ocd and try to perfect it and neurosis kicks in. I need it to be quick and simple. That's why the technique that most resonated with me is speed-reading and highlighting. Although I still need to improve on that because I will get kind of ocd on this highlighting, and maybe I'm missing something by not taking notes (?)

@Eph75 I just came back from the trip. I must say it was one of the more neurotic trips I've been to, but this is no surprise. In fact, almost every single trip with my family I was neurotic. They had a monumental impact on building my neurosis, and that's why I really don't like being with them. So it's just that I haven't been on a trip with my family for a long time which made it feel like the hard neurosis just kicked in all of a sudden, shaking me a bit. But since the last time I've been with them over-seas I've been getting into lot's of spiritual work, meditation, introspection.. This time what I had more was awareness of this neurosis. I see myself deeper. And thankfully, I have this forum for cases like that. Who knows where I'd be wandering like a slave in his own suffering with a newbie worldview. But yeah, I'm actually relieved I got back home. Time to get back into the spiritual work. Time to get back to reading

@Eph75 hmm.. I'll look more into introspection

So that's kind of what I'm doing. I'm trying not to fall into this neurosis. I still do, obviously, just told you about it what, like 3 days ago? And the longer I am in this neurosis, the stronger it gets, the more I suffer because of the discrepancy between desired reality and what is, perfectly said. So then how do I get out of this loop?

@Eph75 I don't know what to do though. For the last 2 days or so I've still been neurotic, but these times I was at least more honest with myself that it's me who's causing that problem and I also became more aware of this identity, me, which feels threatened and ocd. Maybe. You like to play the game because the game is fun rather than to win. You are you and you are participating in the action of doing something you love rather than having yourself dependent on the outcome. Correct me if I'm wrong, although it still probably not help me get there. I'm pursuing self actualization to escape the suffering because I don't want to suffer in life and I've been dealing with bad shit in my life. But also I'm quite curious to know what's out there. Ever since I was a very young boy I was very curious and was kinda spiritual in the sense I wanted to deepen my understanding, connect back to something, know something, but never knew what, back then... Now I'm starting to suffer less and connecting more to the curiousity I had as a child, becoming more of a child, although still have my own sufferings. Totally. I've been also noticing how much suppression occurred during the early stages of my development, now realizing more and more. I've been suppressing stuff because I still judge quitely quite a bit. I am thinking of doing a few Shamanic Breathing exercises when I come back and before I start camp. I also want to add that in general when I'm in a group and there's at least one leader, maybe even two or three, then I quickly close myself in (not managing to really open myself up). Sort of giving up and escaping. I'm really ocd about and neurotic about those. Also, I am starting to feel like I have a limit to my growth, at least currently. No matter how much I try to push myself to grow, there'll always be that one spot where I decide it's too much for me and I will back off by telling myself that I'm not ready yet and I need more training (spiritual work) to get over those fears and limitations. It's like I'm always on never ending missions I'm creating for myself, deluding myself.

@Matt23 Very interesting what you said. The goal is actually to get to this state of the things I described happening (like imagining my brother and father in front) and feeling secure and confident and self-loved. Yeah, I actually do feel quite crappy while being with the family because I'd rather spend that time being back home growing myself by myself without interference of family. I'm really scared of catching the virus there and being in isolation. I have 2 important parties I want to attend to which is way better than being stuck with family in Greece. Sorry, off topic. But how do I get to this state of simply not being bothered by such circumstances? It obviously doesn't work by just thinking about what you and Eph7 said. Evidently I did the opposite, forced myself to be in the state that I am, with an underlying dissatisfaction. I probably don't have any idea of what you guys are telling me, in the sense of how it feels like, experience-wise, since I'm still stuck where I am and my ideas about what you guys are telling me is quite false.

@Eph75 I got that you said that detachment is key (if I'm not mistaken). I am quite a lot in my mind with this deficiency need to be a leader, rather than just being. And when I believe to be Being actually it is a forced desire to be where I am, like you described in the beginning, in not a good place. But it is still hard not to think in terms of 'leader' and 'follower'. It's hard not to think about any terms. You need them for talking about them and becoming aware of them in order to want to become a leader I believe. Yeah so my brother is not really in his head, not the contemplative/thinking kind of person really. He is more easygoing and trying to find the fun in the experience. He really doesn't seem to be trying to be a leader, but rather engaging in the plans, thinking about what is being said, and making an offer/decision based on his own feel. You also talked about desires. How can a desire be a drive without including any emotional attachment to it? How does it work. Why shouldn't desire be an object to pursue, and instead just a phenomena to acknowledge? Won't it be most beneficial to go after the desire rather than suppressing it, or rather, letting go? Why desires are important, and what are their purpose? Could you elaborate on the last question?

@Leo Gura you said on a different thread that the only way you can become a billionaire is by stealing. You say billionaires a passionate about stealing or they're passionate about their thing and ignorant?

@Matt23 I like the idea you have of speed-reading and highlighting. I think it will work best for me. The chapters are like between 2-5 pages, so it's quite a hassle to take notes after each chapter. It's quite slow

@Eph75 Ok so let me understand. If I accept that following is ok then it will help get rid of neurotic thinking (that things should be differently, based on the idea that being a follower is not good, especially to people I don't want to feel behind), which will give me the space to think clearly, thus allowing myself to get involved and engaged in what's going on? But I can't be a follower for most of my life, it still sickens me a slight bit even if I try to approve of it. Eventually I want to be a leader. I won't consider my brother much of a leader as if he'd learnt it or something, but it seems he does have some skill like being part of the plans, also he plays video games and he leads his team, and also has a YouTube channel with almost 6k subscribers. Quite found his niche. Today I tried something new. So today I was focused on trying to be second in the row, I was like focused on the steps and all of those tiny things, really. Time wasted. My brother was just easy-ing through the walks, looking around and talking, and he naturally knew how to get to his spot. Ugh.. I had enough. I gave up. Maybe I sort of surrendered in this moment. Remembering Leo's most recent video, he talks about the importance of enjoying life by yourself for yourself without having to include others in your experience. I was following but I was trying to bask a bit in the mystery and magic of reality and got the feeling for a moment that I was enjoying it for myself. Trying to be the leader includes others in the equation, but once I took responsibility for this circuit of reward, I could get myself to feel more genuine happiness

Man I literally don't understand what you're saying, also on my other thread. Is it a joke? I can't understand then what you're saying, but I'm quite serious about understanding@blackchair

Leo's most recent video was quite amazing and made me think I should really be focusing on giving myself the rewards and own this system. From what I understood you can bask in your own solitude for raising inner fulfillment and so now you are detached from the rest of the activities in life because you know where you get your happiness from. Obviously I still have quite a bit to ingrain into my deep psyche to understand, but my main question is how can I raise my own fulfillment? @Leo Gura Is the method you suggested literally the "Do Nothing" technique? I want a simple way that I can raise this. Besides, by the time I manage to reap the fruit, I'll be suffering all the way. I think it could be better to address more short term solutions (while building the long term foundational).

When I get the flow of the reading it feels great and I'm just soaking in more and more, but then I always hit a point when I'm thinking to highlight since I haven't highlighted in a while or to highlight something profound that just caught my attention. The thing is that even getting stuck on just the profound this will draw my attention to contemplate it and distract me from soaking in the rest of the paragraph to get the overall sense of what it's trying to say. So should I keep myself from impulsively highlighting now and keep the flow and at the the end to highlight?