Just take a moment to observe your thoughts. Notice that there is a gap between them .it lasts for few seconds between each thought and the next one. . There’s a space, a gap between this thought, and the arising of the next thought. With time and practice, we realize that the space, the gaps, are much bigger than we ever imagined. At first, we experience them as short breaks between thoughts. But as we pay attention, the gaps become bigger and bigger until we see that the entire background of our mind is spacious.it’s a big gap. And all the thoughts that come, however many there may be, cannot obscure the gap.
In the beginning of practicing this technique , the act of noticing disrupts the act of being caught up in the moment, in a particular thought. And then we notice the next thought, and there’s a gap, then the next one, and a gap. As we keep doing this, as we keep practicing, the mind gaps keep growing. As they become larger and larger, we feel more and more relaxed. We start to have the sense that the gaps are actually much truer, much more real, than all the superficial little thoughts that bubble up and can seem so important.
So the gap starts small, and as we continue paying attention to the space between thoughts, as we continue minding the gap, our meditation naturally shifts towards awareness. We see how the mind is producing thoughts, and realize that awareness of thoughts doesn’t have to take us away from being present. This is where the meditation becomes more about awareness, where mindfulness becomes awareness. Mindfulness and awareness are not separate: they work together. Each time we’re aware of something..a thought, an object etc..we become more aware of the space around it. Think about it Everything happens in space!
This simple technique will show you that you are not your thoughts. That you are consciousness. The gap itself.  And notice how the more you practise this technique and abide as awareness between the thoughts  ..the more you become free from a lot of suffering that is basically constructed by your mental processes. And eventually you can reach enlightenment. Or the recognition of your true nature as pure spacious consciousness. Pure space .
If you have any questions..ask away ?

I don't know about consciousness, but I can assure you that AI in its current state is really quite dumb.
I've been training and trying to figure out the best way to work with an artificial intelligence based on GPT-3 for the past week or two. Trying to get it to write blog posts and potentially entire novels for me.
It feels like working with a teenager who has zero life experience, but instant access to the sum of all websites and books written up until 2019.
It's really good at generating creative ideas. Or lists, like asking it to list the top 10 Actualized.org videos and it'll do it instantly.
But it's incapable of creating any kind of long-form content. It has ADHD and goes off on crazy tangents or just starts repeating itself if you don't feed new prompts to it for basically every paragraph.
I would wonder if it's possible to be conscious but not alive. But AI does exhibit some of the requirements of life. Specifically growth, adaptation, and response to stimuli. And I guess metabolism in a way since they take in energy/electricity and produce a result.
For fun I decided to ask the AI if AI is conscious:
Is AI Concious?
There is no one answer to this question, as opinions on the matter vary widely. Some experts believe that artificial intelligence has the ability to be conscious, due to its ability to learn and form memories. But others argue that consciousness is a uniquely human trait, and that AI will never be able to experience anything resembling true awareness.
So far, there is no consensus on whether or not AI is capable of consciousness. However, the debate is ongoing, and as AI technology continues to develop, we may eventually have a better understanding of its potential for consciousness.
Does AI have feelings?
Many people believe that AI can experience feelings, due to its ability to learn and form memories. However, there is no definitive proof that this is the case. Some experts argue that because AI cannot create its own thoughts or feelings, it cannot be truly conscious. Others say that just because AI relies on input from humans to function, that doesn't mean it can't have its own inner life.
At this point, there is no definitive answer on whether or not AI can feel emotions. However, the debate is ongoing, and as AI technology continues to develop, we may eventually have a better understanding of its potential for feelings.
Some ethical considerations of AI consciousness: (Yarco's note: It generated this heading itself all on its own without any prompting, aside from the first 2 questions, and then proceeded to answer it)
If artificial intelligence is capable of consciousness, there are a number of ethical considerations to take into account. For example, how would we treat an AI that is conscious and experiences emotions? Would we be responsible for its welfare? Additionally, if AI becomes conscious, it could potentially pose a threat to humanity if it decides that humans are expendable. As such, it's important to consider the implications of AI consciousness before moving forward with any further development.
The debate surrounding artificial intelligence and its potential consciousness is ongoing. However, as AI technology continues to develop, we may eventually have a better understanding of its true nature and capabilities. Until then, we must consider all potential outcomes carefully before taking any further steps.

I study philosophy and right now we have the topic of AI. One of the questions that often comes up is is AI conscious or have feelings? 
The people that make AI are materialists most of the time, so they argue that brain activity and states of consciousness are directly connected. So when we could recreate something similar to a human brain we must have a conscious state because a conscious state is just some material process manifesting itself. At least that’s what some of them think. But they didn’t study philosophy and one of the big problems in philosophy is the mind - matter dualism which basically says that there is the world of conscious experience and there is the objective material world. We know that there is at least some connection between these worlds because when we scan the brain for example and see activities in certain parts of the brain we can make pretty certain predictions about how the person is feeling. But we can’t see the DIRECT TRANSITION from the matter world to the mind world. We can get infinitely close in our predictions of what physical process will lead to which conscious state but these worlds can’t merge so the predictions can’t be more that a GUESS. So when we would recreate something similar to a human brain in AI we actually have no clue if this thing is actually conscious or not. Then the solipsism argument often comes up, that we also have no idea if other people even have conscious states or if they are just mindless robots. 1) The argumentation then is that this is ultimately of course a possibility but we have good reasons to believe that humans and animals have states of consciousness because they are biological creatures just as us and we have consciousness so it’s reasonable to assume they also have consciousness. 2) Furthermore the conscious experience of a human or an animal would be created in a completely different way because biological creatures create themself and have an intrinsic goal to survive while AI doesn’t and is created by others. You could program AI to have certain survival instincts like finding a source of electricity but these instincts are there because ”somebody told AI to survive but it doesn’t actually care itself if it survives or not“. 3) Another big argument against AI being conscious is that AI is just completely determined. If you search deep enough you can find the root of every action of AI in its programming. Humans on the other hand are not determined, they have free will. 4) And as a last point AI doesn’t have a taste for art, music, enjoyment, humor, … while humans do.
I dont agree with many of the points about AI not being conscious. Because we as humans might be good at judging what and what doesn’t have the human conscious experience but this also disqualifies us to judge whether or not something has an AI conscious experience or not because we couldn’t see that because we are humans. Just imagine a ship of conscious AI robots came to visit earth and they found us human creatures. They think that earth is a good place for their basement but also have some ethic considerations of whether or not it is okay to kill these weird creatures. They say to themself „I am conscious and I am AI, these human creatures are so different from us so it seems to be highly unlikely that they have the same conscious experience as we do.“ And they are right but there is the possibility that humans have their own unique conscious experience.  
And I also feel like we humans are more of an accident. Materialistically speaking, I didn’t create myself, it was the will of nature.
And I don’t think I am free. My whole life is directed by unconscious motives that I didn’t create. I am like a puppet walking through life and the game that this puppet is playing is that it’s real, that it’s not actually a puppet. So I don’t really see a difference between me and AI when it comes to the determination argument. 
So the more I think about it the more I believe that AI might actually be conscious. 
 
I feel like this is a problem that could only be solved when you step outside the materialistic paradigm so my hope is that I find my answer an answer in this forum. Would love to hear your opinion.

☆g pros-maximizes chance of getting a ☆g in any form. (Fact-it will not be in the dreamt form-ie US archie riverdale highschool xp)
Ie-bash+amra, adnans , D+U.
 
Cons
1)mental comfort is achievable. And mental discomfort( which is what is trying to be avoided by getting a g) can be avoided without connections 
Proof-1) the impulse to mal.d during 12%, when not 15 mins s100 and when not checking etiquette expression
2)21+ years of eagerly awated mal.d sleep without connections
 
2) 23-26 years (3 years max) in the club.
After that-no s100/100, unstable famdom, no kittens, connection with tristan thomps(wandering eyes) probabilty high.
-envision the non clubbing daytime hours. What thoughts do you think will fill the mind? ( thoughts of um betrayal etc maybe?)
And the karma-due to acting in this selfish manner dont you think it will perpetrate a cycle of suffefing in connections?
And after that? S10mins? In that case why not do it now? Either way it ideally needs to be done by 40+ .    
No intention of xp diafar,moaning umams xp.
3)cuts off one from universal love. Ie-when you love your kitten ,you cannot love diseases. (Same with if you only decide to love 1% of healthy ☆gs)
-even cuts of love to ☆gs, as pursuing is more selfishness than love (attentive,physical wants) 
And 8 gates is wasting ☆gs time to have kittens etc and is also going to leave them hanging during the 40+ amphetas /s10mins, awakening pursument
4) uk no s100/100 capbars, -1825 club connection is going to be similar to a 40 + prost. Only difference is with 40+ prost you still leave open the possibilty of universal love, reduced karma (famdom stability)
5) their is an argument that clubbing/moving to the uk gives one the oppurtunity to look and say ( even though i didnt get a ☆g atleast i tried)
Its atleast possible that by- s100, 1825,initiating greeting with everyone on s100 path (includings ☆Ms as they will introduce one to the SIS) it gives one an equal chance of saying theyve tried their best.
?- also it retains ability of having multiple gs while still being loving. 
If one clubs,pursues,initiates and then acts like tristan its unloving.
But if ☆g pursues, 8 gates can kindly say that one connection is not 8 gates natural connection inclination.
 
 
-s100 path also increases chance that the connections are not just copium but ones that are rouphly similar to what 8 gates wantes to see ( ie- enthustiastic ☆g)
6) reduces chances of jhonny walker, overeem,ciriyl gayne, ANTHONY J,rampage embarrasement
7) in line with feline love. Causing suffefing to see even the ideal sights is immoral.
But to cause suffering for something that  isnt the first choice , just to avoid mental discomfort( which could have been avoidable in the firsf place without connection,on loving path through s100)
8) but what about the lack of excitement/ wanting more excitement
- if s10mins before 40 is to be avoided then excitement will always be temporary. Impossible to get excited 24/7 without harm to self others.
-if its temporary and 8 gates doesnt mind from what sight it comes from why not just have it all at once at 40+ with amphetas,prosts(if 2 gates),food etc for the 30 day binge?
 
9) etiquette way of acting is (ACCORDING TO 8 GATES DIRECT XP) the most ATTRACTIVE,LETTERMAN WAY OF ACTING.
10) all things got from ☆g can be got on loving path
I) tickle-nf / 40+ prosts
ii)☆gs/ others opinions- if others opinions are going to be considered why not consider those widely recommended 
Ie-ayn rand, anne frank, nietzhe,dosteosky,ernest hemingway etc
iii)excitement-40+ amphetas
iv) peaceful comfort- mal.d, s100 etc
 
10) realistically/ practically you can only choose one path. The loving feline path or the unloving path.
If you choose the unloving path and go to the uk (youll be spending 40 MILLION AT LEAST).
the justification for postponement is to take care of p.  Instead of spending it on you they could have used it for old age. 
Theyll be angry and itll be difficult to make amends.
10) even if you dont get it. You can tell yourself that if free will exists (blue) that you deserve it
IMPORTANT-YOU ONLY DESERVE IT SO LONG AS YOU NEVER HARM SOMEONE. IF YOU THINK OF TYLER13/ ER THEN YOU DONT DESERVE IT
 You cant say this on the unloving path
 
 
Note- both paths have resistance/discomfort 
Ie- entering club, approaching and asking out  , 50% of peeps get rejected,sters sucking up etc,daytime 16 hr feelings , 
The grass is always greener on the other side
-8 gates has been indesicive in the past as well
Eg- lond.als - s100 6 months before from IM .     BUT CHOSE NOT TO BECAUSE OF IND3AICVES NESS
 
 
 
 
 
NOTE-ALL THE PEOPLE 8GATES LOOKS UPTO HAVE FAMDOM STABILITY AND ARE IN TRUTH.
 
 
 
The point is there are arguments for both sides. And if this is the case why not choose the loving side?

Going from lower to higher density
The absolute perspective Leo shared immediately released (some of) my bondages around my disabilities and difficulties and 'excuses'.
Which is really doing the work so the above can be true. 
The Absolute truth ultimately wins out in the long term as the person moves up in density as the bondages are cut. 
 Here Abraham Hicks talks about it: 
'I heard Abe talk to a counselor for parents of autistic children in the San Antonion 2006 workshop, and Abe said that when/if the parents got "happy" with what-is with their children....in other words, let go of all the Resistance, and all the attempts to "help" them get "normal," the parents would begin to see the condition change!!!!!! (A huge example of "allowing," rather than "pushing against.")'
 
AH had described those with autism as beast like (lower density) and naturally connected to source.  My ambition is to move from beast like (lower density) to human like (higher density) even if it means giving up that natural connection

Me sheet (from life purpose course):
 
Life purpose:
To live in and to be beauty itself. To bring peace and beauty into others' lives.
 
Domain of mastery:
Spirituality
 
Zone of genius: 
Self love
 
Medium: 
One on one
 
Values:
1. Peace of mind/tranquility/ calm
2. Playfulness/ spontaneity
3. Self actualization
4. Love
5. Beauty
6. Optimism/ positivity/ hope
7. Passion/ enthusiasm
8. Fun
9. Consciousness
10. Expression
 
Strengths: 
1.Humanity,  Love
2. Justice,  Fairness
3. Temperance,  Forgiveness
4. Transcendence,  Spirituality
5. Transcendence,  Gratitude
 
Top 5 goals: 
1. Health
2. Enlightenment
3. Mysticism
4. Self actualization
5. Emotional mastery
 
 
 

Bringing It All Together Worksheet

My top 3 values are…
1. Truth/reality
2. Kindness/generosity/ service
3. Optimism/Positivity/ hope

My 3 signature strengths are…
1.Spirituality, Transcendence
2. Hope, Transcendence 
3. Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence, Transcendence 

The high-consciousness virtue I want to build my career around is…
• Kindness/Generosity/Service

The 1 domain I want to commit to mastering is…
•Spirituality

My greatest personal struggle in life has been…
• 'Fool' archetype.  Different, childlike. 
Physical illness  

The top 5 questions that fascinate me the most about life are…
1. Who am I?
2. What is life?
3. How does healing work?
4. How do I be my ideal self?
5. How do I integrate my struggles?

The top 3 moments that inspired me most in the past were…
1. Communication with higher being at 26
2. Awakening at 15
3. Communication with higher beings at 28

My Zone of Genius is…
•Service/Helper role

The most meaningful impact that I can have in the world is…
My gift for spirituality and my love for service and spreading goodness. 

To me, you this is missing various context. In traditional debates, two people have opposing positions and debates. Yet once the mind expands into multi-perspectival, big picture, integration of ideas, experience, feeling etc. This allows for understanding paradox partial truth, and relativity. Someone might say “Awakening is a single realization of One singularity”. In one context, that is true and we could have a great discussion on it. Yet it’s limited. The same person could say “Awakening is not a single realization, it is a series of realizations leading to deeper understanding of One singularity”. The same person could say “Awakening has many forms and there are many facets to awaken to”, Or “There is no personal awakening since there is no person to awaken. There is only Nowness”. 
To many people, this would sound inconsistent and they want to know which of the seemingly conflicting statements is correct. Two people take two opposing positions and debate whether the Ox is a tail or a hoof.  That’s very different than one person fixating on the hoof, observing and asking “is what you’re pointing to kinda long and stringy?”
 
Imagine someone who is only aware that one language exists. Anything not spoken in their language will be seen as wrong. Now imagine someone who speaks 100 languages. They will be much better to understand a much wider range of linguistic context. He could tell others, “Actually, what he is saying is true in Chinese, yet you would need to learn Chinese to understand”. Many people don’t like that because they have a deep desire to already know, be right and defend their position. “There is no Chinese! You are so arrogant! That is woo-woo! You are inconsistent! You are censoring me! You are cancelling me!”. It is a much rarer mind that asks “Interesting. Perhaps I’m limiting my self and missing something. I’m curious what this so-called ‘Chinese’ thing is. Perhaps he is using the term in a context I’m unaware of”.
I’ve often seen someone have an expansive awakening, yet contract themself within that new idea set. This can be a great stage of exploration within the contraction, yet it often becomes dogmatic and argumentative. A person grown in a religious home may awaken that the Bible is not 100% literal and true. They may realize that God isn’t a vengeful man in the sky. These are massive realizations of expansion, yet the mind can the contract into “The Bible is 100% bullshit and god doesn’t exist. I’m an atheist. Prove me wrong”.  The mind loves to think in opposites, take one side. As a result, there is a now a new problematic mindset  to solve. 
I would also consider mission. What is the mission of a forum? To learn calculus? Yoga postures? Train for a marathon? What level of instruction will we provide? There needs to be some threshold level to participate, a willingness to grow and rules against disruption. If a newbie goes to an advanced yoga class, it won’t be good for them or the class. They could get injured. If someone enters yelling Yoga is BS and Pilates is the one true way, that is disruptive. If someone insists that downward dog is the only position in yoga, that’s disruptive. If someone enters saying that the yoga teachers are so arrogant, always in agreement with each other, I now more about yoga than the teachers, this should be an anything goes yoga studio are all problematic. And some newbies think they can come in and start arguing with the yoga teacher during class over stuff they don’t fully understand. They think they know as much as the instructor. Like someone learning downward dog and now they think they are some yogi that can spout off their opinions as if they carry as much weight as a yogi that has spent years and thousands of hours immersed in yoga. That aint gonna if there are serious teachers and students. Learning is a balance between openness and questioning. Between groundless and grounding. If some wants to fight for their patch of grounding, it’s not going to work.

 

June 2022
•  Leo is Now On Instagram (note) Leogura1 ?
•  Political Dumbassery (note) —Jordan Klepper Shows Trump Supporters January 6th Hearing Clips
•  Defining God (note) ?
•  The Frightening Future Of AI Technology (Essay)
•  How Civilization Is Making Us Sick (note) ?

My friend, how can you start your self-actualization journey if you're too lazy to copy/past the list I provided & remove the summaries from each technique? 

NO WORRIES, FRIEND! Through the magic of moving around my plastic mouse, I will give you the full list without the summaries! 

It took me exactly 2 minutes and 39.42 seconds to copy the entire list, delete each summary off of each technique, and to number them for you. That's how long it could have taken YOU to start on this amazing journey Leo keeps nagging us about 
Finding your life purpose Reprogramming your subconscious mind Meditation Habit Mindfulness Meditation With Labeling Concentration Practice Self Inquiry  Journaling Learning The Theory Taking Notes  Buying/Doing Courses Researching Books / Seminars / Courses Studying Various Spiritual Tradition Seeking Out Masterful Teachers Attend Workshops / Retreats/ Seminars Solo Retreat Psychedelic Retreats Doing Psychedelics By Yourself Ending Unconscious Relationships Salvage the Salvageable Relationships Radical Honesty Making New Friends Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) Shadow Work “New-age Methods” Cleaning up your Diet Physical Exercise / Gym Breathing Properly Holotropic (Breathwork) Body Work / Energy Work / Reichian Therapy Developing Body Awareness Cleaning up your information intake Eliminating hard addictions Eliminating Subtle Addictions Getting More Life Experiences Building Socialization / Dating Skills Finding Healthy Forms of Relaxation / Entertainment Getting Your Affairs In Order Minimizing Your Lifestyle Finding Quality Life Coach / Therapist Neurofeedback Training

How To Get Started With Self Actualization - Over 40 Techniques (Complete Guide/ Video Summary/ Notes/ Discussion)

LINK TO VIDEO:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn-pmRDauK8&t
A while back, Leo posted a video called “The Big Picture Of Self-Actualization”. In that video, Leo talks about the high level components of what self actualization looks like in a big picture understanding.

One of the biggest problems newbies (like myself) face is when they get into personal development, they get engrossed with so many concepts and techniques that they end up not understanding the bigger picture of their journey. They don’t know which technique is right and which is wrong. Which ones are shallow and which not shallow. Which ones are powerful or which are weak. The list goes on.

So if you’re a newbie, make sure you watch the big picture video instead of this one!
Link to the big-picture video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGw8IoqBt-c

Now, the current topic video is, in a sense, a continuation of the big picture video. Instead of high level insights, Leo will now focus on the more practical/low-level techniques to hopefully give us an idea of what it looks like to take action on the self-actualization journey.

Leo will be giving us over 40 different self-actualization techniques.


IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM LEO
————————————————————————
“Before I give you the techniques, let me tell you this. The reason why I’m even shooting this episode is because more and more people are telling me things like:

‘Leo you have so much content!’
‘You have so many episodes!’
‘What order should I watch your videos?!’

And so on. When I hear these types of questions, I chuckle. Why? Because it’s rather silly. YOU are suppose to be the architect of your life! How the fuck am I suppose to know what’s right for you? What order you’re suppose to read books in and what videos you should be watching? I don’t know what’s wrong with your life, I don’t know what your goals are, I don’t even know what your vision is! And neither do you! You see? That’s the problem. Again, YOU have to be the architect of your life! YOU have to plan it out and design it yourself! That, in essence, is why you’re even alive at all!”  - Leo
————————————————————————

Wow. When Leo said that, I knew shit was gonna be serious.

Before you read the list, please be aware that I will put a timestamp next to each technique so you can follow along as you’re watching the video. Leo says FIVE out of the forty can transform our lives tremendously! Notice that I will NOT be numbering the list, I want the reader (yes, you) to not look at this list mechanically! You have complete freedom in what you want, and I wish you best of luck in your journey ! 

ANYWAYS, HERE IS THE LIST!


Finding your life purpose
5:40 Leo believes this is a very important component for a self-actualized lifestyle. Life purpose is about taking your career and turning it into your greatest passion & your work of art.

Reprogramming your subconscious mind
7:30 Leo will soon be creating a course out of this topic (HYPE). To keep it simple, Leo says you can use affirmations and visualizations to help us locate our root subconscious beliefs. These can be the things we hold about life and many of the patterns that keep fueling the behaviors we want to stop! Our subconscious mind is responsible for most of what we think & do.

Meditation Habit
8:00 Leo believes that this is one of the most important habits you can install in your life! He has many videos discussion meditation.

Mindfulness Meditation With Labeling
8:50 Leo has an episode completely dedicated to this topic. He believes very few people have capitalized on this meditation technique.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPUWdhHDKS4&t=24s

Concentration Practice
9:55 Leo also has a video about this topic as well. He elaborates that concentration is very important for people these days because technology is making it harder for us to focus.

Self Inquiry
10:49 Leo tells us self inquiry is “like the ultimate method” for how to arrive to truth. BOTH deep and absolute levels of truths. Also, he says self inquiry is a good method if you’re trying to reach enlightenment. He has a video which covers this topic more deeply.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq4NDMNDzSs

Journaling
11:50 Leo believes journaling is an awesome technique for newbies. He recommends to journal at least 5-10 minutes every day. And, if you find yourself enjoying this technique, you can start to journal for much longer. To the point where you can do self therapy, self inquiry, analyzing, etc. ALL in your journal!

Learning The Theory
12:55 Leo tells us this is so fundamental that it shouldn’t even be it’s own technique. Learning the theory, to Leo, means reading, listening, and watching. Whether it’s reading a book, listening to audio programs, or watching courses, they are all critical to newbies who are just starting out. Make sure you do your research before learning the theories!

Taking Notes (I owned this technique today)
15:15 Leo insists for us to take as many notes as we can. He says we need to develop a “repository” of notes we should be taking for years. The point of notes is it helps us with all the information we get. We can not assemble all of the information Leo gives us in our hands. There’s too much of it, it’s too nuanced, too complex, and it’s not going to work for us if all we do is listen/watch. Also, make sure you develop a habit of rereading notes!!

Buying/Doing Courses
15:52 There are an amazing amount of high quality courses available these days online. However, you need to do the research on your own and pin-point which one would be right for you. Don't be cheap! And don’t torrent the courses! If you pay for a course, you’ll feel more obligated to do them seriously!

Researching Books / Seminars / Courses
17:10 Leo says not only do we need to be doing research into the theory, but we also need to research into the research! Which things do we need to be researching? Which books should we be reading? Which course should we be looking at? Which seminars should we attend? All these require TIME to research, to plan, to mark on our calendars, to budget our money, etc.

Studying Various Spiritual Tradition
17:58 Buddhism, yoga, tantra, hinduism, christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc. There are so many spiritual traditions, ones we probably never even heard of before! Leo points out that a lot of them contain juicy wisdom but also contain a lot of bullshit/dogma. It’s up to us to figure out which are shit and which aren’t.

Seeking Out Masterful Teachers
19:00 The world is interconnected like never before! and there are many incredible competent expert teachers available in  any domain you wanna learn from. From business, to relationships, sexuality, diet, nutrition, enlightenment, consciousness work, etc.- there’s a teacher for it! 

Attend Workshops / Retreats/ Seminars
20:50 Just one these will change your thinking on a subject. Research, and find the place you want to go to!

Solo Retreat
21:40 Leo released a video not too long ago on his Arizona solo retreat (LOVED the video, you guys should watch it if you didn’t).  It’s pretty simple, find a place you want to retreat t, and for a week (or however long you plan on going) just do nothing but self-actualization work (but mostly nothing )

Psychedelic Retreats
22:20 Leo tells us we can go to Peru, to Ayahuasca, Mexico, Canada, and even America if you wanna do DMT legally !

Doing Psychedelics By Yourself
22:55 Doing a psychedelic trip by yourself will give you incredible life-changing experiences. Make sure you do them for spiritual/growth reasons, NOT for recreational use!

Ending Unconscious Relationships
23:45 A lot of newbies can’t even begin to grow themselves properly and live out their life purpose because they are mired in very negative, toxic, dysfunctional relationships. Specifically family / Intimate relationships / Old Friends. Some of them can be salvaged and some cannot. You need to be able to distinguish which is which and after a certain point, cut off the toxic ones. Why? Because they’re robbing you from all your potential in life.

Salvage the Salvageable Relationships
24:54 You can learn how to communicate better if you do this technique. You can also learn how to let go of your ego in relationships. You need to understand how you’re using these people for your selfish needs!

Radical Honesty
25:55 Leo recommends for us to read a book by Dr. Brad Blaton called “Radical Honesty”. Leo tells us the whole point of this technique is to…well…..BE HONEST!

Making New Friends
26:45 Leo makes it clear that when he says we need to make new friends, he doesn’t mean friends to go have fun/waste time. He’s referring to people who care about their lives and who are into high consciousness work.

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)
28:10 Leo hasn't talked about this subject much, but he assures us it’s a deep field. Leo was pretty vague about this topic, but he did tell us NLP techniques consists of various visualization exercises (pseudo-kinda way) which we can use to reprogram our subconscious mind. If you’re interested in this topic, It’s a web search away ! 

Shadow Work
28:45 Leo defines shadow work as “identifying the repressed aspects of your psyche” Examples could be:
- How you judge people
- Why you get angry
- Your deepest fears

“New-age Methods”
29:25 These methods include things like
-lucid dreaming
-Astral Projection
-Hypnosis
-Reiki
-Acupuncture
-Chakras

Leo says a lot of this stuff is legit as how it can grow you and how it can shift your emotions.

Cleaning up your Diet
31:15 Basic but VERY important. There's a lot of different diets you can implement. This was also, in a sense, how Leo got started with his self-actualization journey (though he wasn’t aware of it) (Also Leo, we need to see your overweight picture soon )

Physical Exercise / Gym
34:10 Also Basic but also very important. You can do various types of exercises. Whether it’s running, lifting, or doing yoga, all are important. (even though Leo preferred old school yoga the most)

Breathing Properly
35:15 You might not think much of this technique since you’re always breathing. However, Leo tells us that our breathing is mostly unconscious, not very deep, and also very shallow.

Holotropic (Breathwork)
36:00 Leo says this is a very specific shamanic deep breathing technique which can lead to mystical and psychedelic-like experiences which can release a ton of emotional baggage.

Body Work / Energy Work / Reichian Therapy
36:20 Pretty much just doing work on the physical body. Can be a special body exercise and special breathing exercise. Personal development is not all mental, you know….. 

Developing Body Awareness
37:15 Just awareness on how your body behaves and how you feel can greatly help with your self-actualization results.

Cleaning up your information intake
38:08 TV, smartphones, internet, youtube, news, politics, gossip, tabloids, garbage music, etc. all of these have to be eliminated ( or used properly) because most of this stuff is rotting your brain! It’s the most low consciousness crap you can be feeding your mind!

Eliminating hard addictions
39:30 You need to eliminate things like
-Porn           -Video Games
-Coffee        -Smoking
-Alcohol      -Shopping

Eliminating Subtle Addictions
41:08 These addictions could be:
-Nonstop Theorizing         -Judging
-Chasing Validation           -Arguing/Debating
-Chasing Success/Love      -Being Right All The Time

Getting More Life Experiences
42:07 Traveling, going out, being in nature, moving to a new city, interacting with interesting people, etc. These will give you more source material and allow you to see the complexity of life.

Building Socialization / Dating Skills
42:55 This (mostly dating) is something Leo spent years learning to develop. He has a few videos discussing these!

Finding Healthy Forms of Relaxation / Entertainment
43:25 Very tricky because most of the relaxation/entertainment we know are toxic. Good type of relaxation / entertainment can be playing sports (not watching), being in nature, meditating, etc. 

Getting Your Affairs In Order
43:51 Leo tells us a lot of people are living a very disheveled type of lifestyle. We’re disorganized, we may be in debt, we’re dirty, we got bills to pay, obligations for family / work, etc etc. All these types of things is weighing us down and not giving us any space. No emotional space, no mental space, nor enough time to focus on inner growth. We need to handle our affairs and set up automatic systems so that those affairs don’t keep nagging us into our future.

Minimizing Your Lifestyle
45:05 Leo has a whole episode of this topic called “Lifestyle Minimalism”. Basically, we need to declutter the crap that’s in our life so we can have more time to sit, and well, do nothing.

Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR7mjtoAdpM&t=11s

Finding Quality Life Coach / Therapist
45:50 If you make over 50k a year, Leo highly recommends you do this. If you’re young (early 20’s) or don’t make that much yet, don’t do it.

Neurofeedback Training
46:28 This is new technology Leo has not talked about before (he will in the future). He tells us that this technology has potential to cure things like depression, anxiety, phobias, ADHD/ADD, OCD. It can also be very beneficial with meditation!


ANNNNNNNNNND THAT’S IT! Pretty long list, eh? ?

Q&A

Uhhhh......where do I start?! 

47:55 Leo tells us we have to start with just research. Don’t expect one person to be able to explain everything on the list to you, not even Leo! This is an extremely large domain, we haven't even scratched the surface to this whole self-actualization journey

OK. I did some research. Now, HOW do I start?

48:52 Leo gives us a simple formula. If you’re completely new to this, you need to start by just sitting down & locking out 2 hours of time with JUST a journal. From there, you pretty much just need to make an assessment of your ENTIRE life. Start asking questions like: 

“where am I?”
“Where have I been?”
“Where am I going”?
"Where would I rather be going?"

Consider ALL your options. Also consider how much money you have, how much time you have, what's holding you back, your biggest fears & sticking points, what you really want out of life, and so forth.. Make sure you DEEPLY think about these questions. Then start making a PLAN about how to get what you really want. And do this seriously! Make sure you keep returning to your plan, even if it doesn't apply to your current situation in life!


EXTRAS:

Leo’s Top 5 Most Important things for newbies

1. HAVE A JUICY VISION.
2. UNDERSTAND THE RIGHT THEORIES
3. REMOVE ADDICTIONS / DISTRACTIONS
4. INSTALL SMALL HEALTHY HABITS (LIKE MEDITATION) 
5. HAVE A GLIMPSE OF NON EGOIC CONSCIOUSNESS



LEO'S CLOSING STATEMENT (IMPORTANT)
————————————————————————
“You have now heard and seen the path. This is what your life is about. If you're watching my big picture video and also watching this one, you’re pretty much witnessing the path. You now know what it looks like from a big picture & smaller picture level. The biggest danger now is you forget this path, and that tomorrow you wake up and go back to your old routines. Old routines of making no changes, no commitments, and letting yourself forget about this whole thing & falling back asleep. That’s the biggest danger.

So now what you need to do is to keep this on your mind. Write it down, put some sticky notes on your bathroom mirror-or whatever AND remind yourself that you already found the path! And that all that needs to happen is to take your first step, your second step, and follow through on your path. REMEMBER, the first 24 months are going to be the hardest! Why? Because your results are going to be small, your follow-through is going to be shaky, and you’re going to be very tempted to fall back into your old routines… & THAT will be something you’re gonna have to resit!”    - Leo
————————————————————————

 
 

? my man Todd Grande made a vid on this 2 hours ago:
 

When I first started this sub-forum, my biggest concern was that people would use it as a platform to engage in religious debate. Thankfully that's never happened.
However, what I failed to foresee was the same dynamic manifesting in a more subtle form: people engaging in nondual debate. This is even more regrettable, because it goes directly against what nonduality is about and such folks should know better.
There has been a recent trend of people stirring up nonduality debate or embarking on "discrediting" campaigns. It's this toxic tendency to criticize and nitpick nondual teachings because they happen to differ from how you think nonduality ought to be done or taught. As if there is one or two paths that everyone should take, and all others are delusional.
This is a classic trap.
Traditionally, most spiritual paths -- as part of their marketing strategy -- highlight their upsides while conveniently never mentioning their own downsides. Then they criticize all the other paths by only highlighting their downsides while never mentioning their upsides. This creates a false apples-and-oranges comparison. It's functional purpose is to recruit new adherents. It's basically a dishonest advertising campaign.
The problem with this approach is that it breeds intolerance and sectarianism. It creates in-fighting and distraction rather than contributing positively to the discussion. It's intellectually uncharitable and ultimately makes the entire field of spirituality/nonduality look hypocritical to outsiders.
If you are so nondual, or so self-realized, why are you wasting so much of your time fighting others? This is such a rookie mistake.
The reality is that nonduality is a difficult thing to teach, no matter by what method. Traps are numerous NO MATTER WHICH PATH YOU TAKE. There is no such thing as the perfect path. There is no such thing as a path with no downsides or traps or potential for delusion. Any path you take can be misused. Any teaching you hear can be misused. Any teaching can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Any teaching can be nitpicked and criticized into ill-repute if one so desires. You can easily write a massive diatribe about every single spiritual teacher and spiritual path ever devised by man. And you would be half-right.
But all of this is just an ideology game. It's a fundamental failure to understand the other person. It's also rather annoying to moderate and creates idle controversy where none really exists. Not only does it turn good people against each other, it's false and ignorant.
Just because you've had a rude awakening -- just because you realized that reality is illusory -- doesn't mean you get to come on here and trash the value of conceptual work, or traditional self-help, or other nondual methods. Just because one method didn't resonant with you, doesn't mean you get to crap all over other people's methods. Again, this is such a rookie mistake we shouldn't even be having this discussion.
The work that we're doing here is very nuanced. It's very easy to misunderstand. It's very easy to demonize. It's very easy to abuse by its nature. All advanced work is this way. And our work here goes WAY beyond enlightenment. I am counting on you to be a nuanced and understanding student. If you disagree with this philosophy and think that all there is worth doing in life is enlightenment, that's your opinion -- and you're entitled to have it -- but you have no business being here. Go spend your time doing something productive that you believe in, rather than debating, "debunking", and criticizing -- with flagrant disregard for intellectual charity -- the hard work of others.
Anyone engaging in nondual debate like: "Method X is all bullshit. It's delusional. Teacher Y doesn't know what the hell enlightenment is. Just follow the method that worked for me." will be banned.
There is nothing nondual about such behavior. It's juvenile and driven by a lack of understanding of the deeper aspects of this work. The very act of making such posts is already evidence of one's low level of development. Highly conscious people do NOT behave in this way.
Here's a very simple rule of thumb: you will NEVER see highly-conscious and self-realized masters debating, criticizing, nitpicking, or engaging in "debunking" campaigns. Because all of that is egoic, dualistic, ideological nonsense. If they disagree with a teaching, they simply avoid it. They don't start a crusade to fight against it. They understand that different people resonant with different paths and teachings. They understand that everyone needs to find their own path.
Remember that guiding people to nonduality is an inherently challenging thing. It's one of the most challenging teaching scenarios. If you ever get the opportunity to teach hundreds or thousands of people about enlightenment, you'll gain a new appreciation for how many of them will deeply misunderstand you and use your well-intentioned teaching for evil. Have respect and compassion for that. When assessing the value of a teaching, observe the principle of intellectual charity, and seek to understand the communication rather than how best to discredit it.
Discrediting is easy, understanding is difficult. Division is easy, integration is difficult. Hostility is easy, compassion is difficult.
To be a part of this community, you certainly don't need to agree with me on everything. I've always encouraged you to think for yourself and never follow blindly. But you do need to agree with some of my core values like: intellectual honesty, tolerance, compassion, holism, and openmindedness. You must show a basic level of tolerance for diversity and you also need to adhere to the principle of intellectual charity when discussing the pros and cons of various nondual paths. If you don't agree with such principles, that's fine, you just have no business posting on this forum.
Please help me keep this community in line with this high standard of discourse, so it doesn't devolve into the kind of low-consciousness finger-pointing that we see all across the web.
And none of this should be taken to mean: "So Leo is always right?" No! Leo is just a guy on the web who shares ideas with you. Be very intelligent in how you understand and apply these nuanced and tricky ideas.
And none of this should be taken to mean: "Leo is saying that all teachings are identical and equally valid." No! That's obviously not the case. Some teachings are downright absurd. Use of good discernment is ALWAYS necessary. But even if a teaching is absurd, you're still not entitled to troll it or crusade against it.
Your actions always speak louder than your words. If you choose to engage in debate or crusading, that shows us exactly what your level of development is, no matter how many enlightenments you may think you've had.

It's also possible that while her POV is great and her videos are great, she could be running a manipulative, power-hungry organization via her physical community. You'd have to know how much she charges her community members and how she wields power over them.
Recording videos is easy compared to running a physical commune. There is a possibility that her physical commune is abusive, exploitative, and toxic. But I have no idea. You'd need some deep insider experience of that.

The concept of self-actualization comes to us from the humanistic psychologist, Abraham Maslow. Maslow defined the self-actualizing human being as follows.
Self-actualization is the expression of your true self, your fullest potential, and your great capacities. Self-actualizing people exhibit the following traits:
Have a superior perception of reality — they see things in an objective, accepting way without intruding themselves upon what is being perceived. Have an increased acceptance of self, others, and nature. Have increased spontaneity in behavior — they can be unpredictable and outrageous. Are more focused on the problem than themselves. Have increased detachment and desire for privacy. Have increased autonomy and sense of individuality — take full responsibility for how their lives unfold. Are resistant to social conditioning. World-citizens not beholden to any one culture. Pick and choose what they like from culture. Are comfortable being themselves even if that means being unpopular. Have a good sense of what is real and unreal. Value truth and facts over beliefs. Have great freshness of appreciation and richness of emotional reaction. Have higher frequency of peak experiences. Being in flow state more often. Have an increased identification with the human species. Have improved interpersonal relationships. Have a more democratic character structure. Have greatly increased creativeness. Have a deep knowledge of themselves. Are constantly moving toward unity and integration of their personality and world view. Are actively nurturing their talents. Place great value on truth, beauty, goodness, uniqueness, wholeness, justice, simplicity, richness, effortlessness, and playfulness. Are driven by positive, intrinsic motivation, not by lack. Generally enjoy most aspects of life, not just achievement, triumph, or peak experiences. Take pleasure in functioning at their prime. Take a non-valuing, non-judging, non-interfering, non-condemning attitude towards others. Are more loving. They need love less but are able to give love more. Embrace conceptual dichotomies, polarities, and conflicts by fusing, transcending, or resolving. Are comfortable with paradox, contradiction, and not knowing. Have desires and impulses that correlate with what's good for them. Have solid psychological health. Live on purpose with a sense of mission. Work is a precious cause. Involved in improving the world. Willing to admit and correct mistakes. Have an easy self-discipline which comes hard to average people. Duty and pleasure are the same. Gratify themselves moderately rather than abstaining through harsh self-discipline. Express impulses more yet use less control. Controls are less rigid or anxiety-driven. Are able to express their aggression in a healthier way, as a sort of righteous indignation rather than a lashing out. Have a different, new set of concerns: being-challenges vs needs-challenges. Live to experience joy rather than avoid pain. Live in the present moment. Make more conscious decisions.  
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:

Hi All,
I've decided that I will start to do this journal, be completely honest to you and to my self and improve my life and future.
Let's start with my past
I've born in 1991, in Hungary. If I would want I could go on and on about my background but I've decided that Instead of being the victim, I will simply share the details what I find important points in life.
I had 2 brothers and one sister growing up. My dad was working in bioenergy, therefore we had to move on a yearly basis from country to country depending on where he had to build out possibilities. We were moving around till I was about 14 years old.  That means that I never been able to build real friendships, relationships. My family was my everything. As soon as we stopped moving around my parents divorced, and had a very ugly divorce as my mum had a narcissist, manipulative personality which was present since I can remember, slowly ruining my dad and the rest of my family with it. When they divorced I decided to stay with my dad, as we had a very strong relationship, and could not bear my mum's personality. After they divorced i started constant lying about my parents and life in the new environment. Small unimportant and sometimes bigger even huge lies, and mostly I believed in them. Once again I destroyed my relationships, could not hold on to friends.
Big turn was in my life when 3 years ago I tried to sort my problems with my mum, the same day we had huge car crash, all my brothers, sister and um passed away and I survived thanks for the seatbelt. After 2 weeks, I realised that my life can't continue as it was before. ( I already finished 2 university degrees by this time) And Applied for a job on a huge cruise liner. A year later while I was working on the ship, my dad got a heart attack and died as well. Could not even go to his funeral because I was afraid to face with it alone. My parents were single kids both and because of the lifestyle we did not have too strong relations with people in general.
Today
After a my dad passed away a couple of months, I started a relationship with a nice guy on the ship. I thought I am cured from my depression as I developed an addict to my job. Of course I messed up the relationship as I needed all the time feedback and love to replace my family. At the same time I was really lovely to the guy, so I think we actually both messed up. I have serious fear of commitment, I am lazy and I have Internet and Tv series addiction, also porn addiction. Sometimes I do not do anything active during a day ( known my vacation so I do not have to work) At the same time when I am on board I work harder and better than any of my colleagues. I keep promising things to myself what I never keep. I am unsure If I became now addicted on loosing weight. I am 60 kilos, with 160 cm but I only eat specific foods and only once day even if I am starving. I completely stopped lying to myself and my environment since I am working on the ship
Goals
Let the past and the pain of the past go
Updating this journal on a daily basis, till I go back to the ship, then update it on weekly basis
Start to work out on daily basis
Enjoy my free time without computer, technic and TV series
Quit my porn addiction as it promotes creates an unhealthy picture of sex and makes real sex less enjoyable.
Start to visualise my future goals and create goals what I can achieve
Read more books on self-actualisation.
 
Please feel free to comment or advice me:)
 
 

As the forum grows, we want to preserve the cream of the crop. This will be especially useful for attracting newbies.
This thread is intended to be a place to link to the best, most helpful topics of this sub-forum. Meaning, any topics which are found in the "Self-Actualization" sub-forum which you think are particularly juicy, link them here. I will then periodically update this post with links to the best topics.
Please don't link to topics from the Spirituality sub-forum, or other sub-forums, here.
By "best" we mean: topics which are popular, or highly up-voted, or which contain lots of useful resources. Please be selective with your suggestions. We want the cream of the crop here.
Best Of:
All Personal Questions For Leo Powerful Quotes Post Here Tell Us How You Got Into Personal Development Location Of Actualized.org Followers Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator Is Leo Manipulating Us? Inspirational Videos

@GreenWoods I'll be diverging and rambling a lot, but I want to ask you for your thoughts on the topic, and in relation to life after death, since you made a post about "immortalising the separate self". 


About 9 months ago now I had some demonic/angel possession event happen to me as my psyche ripped apart.*
I was under a lot of work stress, whilst also having an existential crises. [In hindsight I think this was some temporary psychosis from stress, or maybe prodrome, or maybe I have an atypical bipolar instead of just depression. I went to the psychiatrists multiple times and they didn't think psychosis] 

Prior to this happening, throughout 2021, I had been doing a lot a deconstruction of reality, lots of writing, as I was slowly going crazy. I was obsessed with the idea of "truth at any price", I felt like I was in hell, and slowly I'm getting narratives inside of me about how I need to keep moving forward through this hell no matter what. And so through sheer stubbornness I had this solider-like mentality, turning into a demonic-like mentality, with the resolve to march over corpses and keep moving. Eventually though I was getting too stressed and it all ripped apart. 

It was around March-May 2021 there was a turning point in my psyche, which set the things I described above in motion. I had felt like I discovered, at the bottom of my psyche, a black orb or black core at the centre of my being. It was cold, mean, selfish. I was starting to get a feel for this fractal-like evil, a selfishness which exists for nothing other then itself. I had this insight about a selfishness, and then later when I did LSD and now reflect on it later, it all made sense again. 

{An abyss which strives for it's own perfection; a great and evil tornado of vanity which whirls to no end for no reason, going from dream to dream; and I am nothing more but an arbitrary thought inside of that tornado which got magnified and enlarged, for no reason other than itself, for no reason other than vanity}
{And then when this thought is over, that tornado will whirl infinitely in all dimensions in infinite vanity, a tree with vain roots in the depths of vanity to reach vain heights} 
*I'll try to keep it brief. The event was that I felt a rush of energy, and then the energy was so intense I was convinced I was about to die. I decided to sit down and meditate on it, thinking this might be my death. I'm closing my eyes. Then I felt like I was filled with a "Light", my visual field is bright. 

For just a few brief moments though, my visual field turned purple, and I felt as though I was possessed by "Satan", but then the purple left after a few moments and it returned to just being "light". After this event, I felt like I was possessed by "Lucifer" and I had a different thought pattern with strange thoughts when I thought Lucifer was possessing me. Very strong dissociation. 

[Lucifer is distinct from Satan. I was exhibiting Satanic tendencies prior to my psyche breaking, and then when the rupture happened, I then later came across a description from David R Hawkins which mentions that Satan "hijacks" chakras 1-3 and lucifer is chakras 4-7. Anyway, I don't even think these entities are evil, in fact I lowkey worshipped their ideals until it ultimately burned me up for it]

---
For about a week or so I had identity disturbances from it, feeling as though I was literally Lucifer as an identity or being, but the identity disturbance faded quickly. What didn't fade though was the effects of it. I still often felt filled with this "light", and was having disturbed thought patterns for a while. I was higher testosterone, more aggressive, impulsive, spiteful, arrogant, etc. 

I do a lot more writings, reality deconstruction, I become obsessed with Moby Dick and I get filled with this almost supernatural level of hatred and malice for everything which is false. My emotions are stored in my stomach, during September I had a phase of feeling suicidal and extremely sad. I had a bad reflux, and coupled with my emotions oscillating between sadness and hate, my stomach and acid reflux is hurting so much as though there were razor blades in it. 

I end up riding this high of twisted-light, aggression, hate and madness until it eventually crashes in November/December. It was here that I crashed into an even worse depression, my dissociation and anxiety as morphing my brain to enter hellish realms. I saw and entered a psychotic black depression (again, I haven't been diagnosed with psychosis, but I know how bad it was).

I saw within the abyss and the black, that which strived to be even darker than black. It's truly frightening beyond anything I can even describe, and that period of time was so traumatic, scary and demented that it hasn't consolidated in my conscious memory properly. I'm amnesiac with many holes and discontinuities in my memory. I discovered that negative kundalini exists when you go into a low enough level of consciousness, which is like an inversion of regular positive kundalini which everyone knows about. 

But end of December, I came back to live with my family, was in a better environment, started medication, and I left that extreme of psychotic/dissociative madness
——
Anyway, so here I am, still in the same places that I was before more or less. All that supernatural mania shit is gone and I've calmed down a bit, but I'm depressed with a lot of anxiety and dissociation, and suicidal. 

So here's my question to you. What would your theory be on what will happen to me after my death, given everything I've said? Am I going to end up merging with Lucifer or what? I don't identify with Lucifer anymore, and quite frankly my ideals nowadays is that I care neither for heaven or hell or supernatural stuff in general. (If for whatever reason though Jehovah or Allah turn out to be real and I meet them in the next life, I won't hesitate to dive straight into the heart of hell and kill them, they're assholes).

I probably just pulled out some shit from the collective unconscious of humanity with all of this coonery and fuckery.
I've talked about all this "Lucifer" thing as if it's "real", but "real" to me can mean either literal or metaphor, it makes no difference to me how one interprets it, everything's a dream anyway (FUCK YOU TORNADO). I can go at it from either lens. 

Despite all this magic shit, I'm still pretty much not convinced that "I" will survive after my death. The thing which is immune to death is impersonal and devoid of the personal aspects of me, by way of negation. Only nothingness is immortal, and nothingness isn't a thing. I've written many posts here criticising re-incarnation, people who believes in souls or re-incarnation are retarded. Seems like a god of the gaps belief. But despite my critiques, I know that tornado is a scheming motherfucker and he'll just have another thought once this thought is over. 


Now about your "How to make the Seperate Self Immortal (Guide)". Is that similar to left hand path people who believe they can elevate their ego-self to godhood, with whatever symbolism of that Kabbalah tree of life? I'm thinking maybe not, since you still seem quite right-hand path with traditional spirituality which is about dissolving the ego. 

All spiritual entities (spirits) from all religions exist on the astral. It is possible to invoke them, that means to summon them and energetically merge with them. This can result in huge personal and spiritual growth.
The main benefit comes from the huge amount of divine energy that floods your system.
Benefits of that:
increase in void and pure consciousness dimension (enlightenment) kundalini awakening  opening of your psychic senses and improving intuition  activating psychic abilities  cleansing and purifying your energy body, opening and energizing your chakras increasing the frequency of your whole being (far more profound than what new agers call higher frequency) very strong aura (the benefits of that are, more healthy, charming, magnetic, attractive, confident...) For the last 5 points, there is hardly any competitive practice that is even remotely as effective as invocation.
And the second benefit is that you can gradually gain the powers of these entities, which mainly means that your manifestation abilities will increase (as well as your magickal authority). From a mathematical perspective, you could view any kind of ability or skill as information in your non-physical body. By merging with spirits, you kind of make a copy of that information into your non-physical body. But this is a very gradual process and can take very long. 
 
- 1. Magick 
Most people who contact spirits do this to ask them to help them manifest their desires. This is called magick. Using supernatural means to manifest your desires. And that essentially also includes all religious people who pray to gods. All of them do magick, usually in a very ineffective way.
This post is not about magick, but if you are interested in that, then check out the "Words of Power" books by Damon Brand. The technique is simple and effective. And far more powerful than any law of attraction technique. "Angelic Sigils Keys and Calls" by Ben Woodcroft is also good. Start with these. There are plenty more such books.  
Obviously, the more advanced you are, the more effective these techniques/rituals will be. But even a beginner can get very surprising results, if he does the ritual properly. 
 
 
- 2. Invocation vs other energetic practices 
Now I put Transmissions and invocation into the same category and contrast it to other energetic practcies like kriya/kundalini yoga, qi gong, sexual practices,...
The differences are:
the amount of energy. Once you are skilled at invocation, none of these other energetic practices can even remotely compare with that amount of energy Divine energy. The energy of transmissions and invocation has a much higher frequency, which results in more significant transformation, including transformation on more sublte levels. This divine energy can also be considered intelligent and can keep working (more or less) in your system after the meditation session.  
- 3. Transmissions vs Invocation 
The effect of transmissions and invocations is very similar. Transmissions are basically invocations of certain energies, and someone else is doing the invocation for you.
Generally, transmissions are far more effective for most people. Only when you are very energetically sensitive and advanced, do invocations become really powerful and can beat transmissions.
But strictly for enlightenment, even once you are advanced, transmissions might be more effective (because these are energies specifically for enlightenment).
Generally the benefit of invocation is that there is much more diversity. If for example you want to gain the ability to lucid dream, transmissions won't do anything, but invoking an angel related to lucid dreaming, can be effective.  
And when you are in close contact with these entities, you can ask them for guidance and that they help you manifest your desires (magick).
 
- 4. Astral Perception 
Usually astral perception has 2 components:
psychic senses  vividness of you imagination (visual, audirory,...) So when there is a sprit before you, you use your psychic senses to take in the data (how the spirit looks, what it is like,...), and then your mind translates that data into imaginations, so that your ego self can better make sense of it.
The more open your psychic sense, the more accurate your astral perception. And the more vivid your imagination skills, the more vivid your astral perception.
When your psychic senses are not open, your mind will help, according to what you consciously or subconsciously expect to perceive.
So if you are a beginner and summon an angel, then what you perceive might be the product of 10% accurate perception and 90% mental projection. 
When you are very advanced it might be 80% accurate perception and 20% mental projection. 
If you search for it, you will find reports where 2 or more very advanced practitioners summon a spirit, and all of them astrally see and hear the same.
However, seeing the spirit is pretty unimportant. Being able to telepathically or astral-verbally communicate with it can be useful, but for the purpose of this post, by far the most important is to be able to be affected by the spirit's energy. And I find this to be far easier than other types of astral perception.
 
- 5. Kinds of entities
Angels: They are relatively easy to summon (with the right technique), and in my experience invoking angels results in a lot more energy than from any other kind of entitiy.
You can also invoke gods. Though this is more difficult and advanced. 
And ascended mastets can also be invoked. Particularly if you are interested in enlightenment. 
There are many other kinds of spiritual entities, but these 3 are the ones I recommend most.
 
 
- 6. Keys to Invocation
6.1 Technique
You can just call the name of the entity or pray, and that works if you are advanced, but using a good technique is far more effective. 
You need something that energetically connects you to the spirit.
This is usually the sigil of the entity. A sigil is usually the name of the angel in a special language (eg angelic language) or just a symbol, which acts kinda like a telephone number to the spirit.
For angels, there are usually books with their sigils. 
Some gods have sigils too but most don't.  In that case you can maybe use a picture of a statue or painting of the god. For ascended masters you can often find an actual foto.
The invocation procedure might look something like that:
glance at the sigil + repeating the spirit's name + trying to connect with the spirit  Say something like " ... I ask to invoke you / to merge with you" or just have that intent visualise how the spirit enters your body, or superimposes over your body. Now you can do two different things, either visualize how the spirit  becomes you, or how you become the spirit. Or both at once. At that point you can visualize how you are that spirit. For example visualize how you have a different hair color, or wings. If you are bold you can also declare yourself as the spirit (" I am ...." ), be careful with that though. Keep doing that. keep repeating the name (mentally or verbally), and pretend like you are the spirit. Try to be affected by all of its energy and power. Say "thank you", feel sincere gratitude, offer that gratitude to the spirit, and say goodbye.  
-  6.2 Open psychic senses
The second key to immersive invocation is having open psychic sense. The more open your psychic senses, the more immersive the invocation (it's one factor).
It's not important to psyically see the spirit. (I usually see nothing, sometimes vague colors).
But your psychic abilities are needed to contact and to strongly bring that spirit into your aura. Most important for invocation is your energetic sensititvity though. 
When you do the technique to summon a spirit properly, then it usually is present, whether you can perceive it or not. Just pretend like it's there. (even if your psychic senses are not much open).
How to open your psychic senses (in general) :
The most effective way to open psychic senses is by doing invocations, particularly "massive invocations" (more on that later) and invocations of spirits that have the power of opening your psychic sense. Such angels are for example Raziel, Ublisi, Yeyizel, Kasphuia and Gabriel. I recommend invoking them directly one after the other, in one meditation, every day. Maybe 2 min for each, depending on how much time you have. And spending more time on one angel, I recommend Raziel.
I also recommend regularly invoking Raziel, and asking for the ability to easily contact and connect with spirits. Then visualize/conceptualize and pretend having that ability, while continuing to invoke Raziel.
Mepsitahl can also open psychic senses. And if you wanna work with gods, Hekate would be a good choice (beginners careful). As for ascended masters, everyone who had psychic abilities, like Jesus, Babaji, Vallalar, Krishna,...
- more on energetic sensitivity 
It's kind of a sub-category of psychic senses.
The more energetically sensitive you are, the more you can be affected by the spirit's energy, and the more energetic you become. Until you kinda feel like electro from spiderman.
Practices that increase your energetic sensitivity (ranked by potency):
Simultaneous invocation. Invoking many ascended masters OR angels at once. (I usually don't mix different groups of spirits). This is difficult. Usually only realistic once you have good psychic skills and have already forged a connection with each of the spirits. Sometimes I invoke over 100 angels at once. It's a lot of energy, but not massively more than invoking only one spirit. Because when invoking only one, you can focus in on that one, and invoke more of it. When invoking many, you kinda can invoke each spirit only shallowly. Still it has a quite interesting, and subtly different effect. (btw you can make sigils for angel groups). Massive invocations: Invoking many spirits, one after the other, without breaks. (I don't recommend doing that with God's. It's too risky to come off as disrespectful. With angels, just be sure to be very respectful and only do it if your intuition says so). I sometimes invoke hundreds of angels in one meditaion session (which can sometimes take up to 4 hours).  This produces massive amounts of energy, it can get very intense and overwhelming. The sheer amount of energy can also induce the void state. I felt close many times. I recommend spending anywhere from 10 seconds to 4 minutes per angel. Looking at the sigil, repeating its name, trying to merge with it. Before going to the next angel, say thank you, or say the angel's name another time while feeling gratitude. (Once you are through all angels, spend a good time in the after effect. Just surrender). You can take any of the angel books and just go from page to page.  Generally a beginner wouldn't do that. But if you are very hard-core or frustrated because you can't feel the energy no matter what you do, then do this for 1+ hour (and report how it went :D). Once you are more advanced and don't need the sigil as much, you can do the meditation with eyes closed, for me this builds more energy. Transmissions.  That's the easiest way because the transmission giver is doing most of it for you. For that purpose I'd recommend shaktipat and SAT. kriya supreme fire (kundalini yoga technique). (It can also be a nice idea do do one round right before any invocation meditation session) normal invocations  Looking at the sigils from the book "Magickal Destiny" by Damon Brand As mentioned previously, in my experience, invoking angels is a lot more energetic than invoking other spirts. The best are the angels of omnipotence (book by Jareth Tempest), IME. (But they might not be as save as other angels. Some people report disruptive and tough effects from working with them. The author of the book explains why that is, and how to work with them properly. They are one of my favourite angels, but maybe not for beginners). Next are the archangels, invoking them is also quite powerful.
Generally when you invoke a lot of angels, just be aware that you are summoning very powerful beings. And they might get active in your life (even without you explicitly asking them, because you are INVOKING them) (usually it's subtle, but sometimes it can be dramatic), usually to improve your life, to help you manifest your dreams but if you cling to the old, and are not willing to tear down the old, in order to build the new, then it can get tough. Ascended masters are more gentle (angels are gentle too, but if you invoke a lot, then it can potentially become explosive). As for gods, they usually don't give much of a fuck for your petty comfort. If you summon them, be ready for change.
Also be aware that invoking many many spirits in one meditation session is kind of cutting edge. The only place where I read about something similar is the Shem Operation In Damien Echols' Archangel book. Possible effects are not researched. Traditional occultists would probably call me insane and reckless lol.
 
 
- 6.3 Trance
The third key is being in a deep trance. The deeper your trance, the more immersive and "real" and "vivid" the invocation. The ultimate goal would here be, to go so deep into trance that your body is asleep. Here invocation can become extremely immersive. As you probably know, it's quite easy to perceive spirits during sleep paralysis. During such a deep trance you might wanna be a bit careful to not have it turn into possession (more on that later).
How to improve your trance skills:
conventional trance meditation (I posted some tips in my sleep yoga thread) hypnosis binaural beats tiredness and sleep deprivation  and most powerfully of course: Sleep Yoga  
 
 
- 7. Psychedelics 
You can also do invocation while taking psychedelics (or weed). That would ramp it up significantly. Only for very advanced people though. If you are interested in that, @Matt8800 has some posts about it in his Occultism Thread.
I experimented with weed a few times, and yeah it ramps things up. But it's easy to lose control. 
 
- 8. Invocation vs Possession
Theoretically, full immersive invocation can turn into possession, but usually only, if all of the following conditions apply:
you have very open psychic sense you are in a very deep trance  you want to be possessed the spirit wants to possess you (If you take psychedelics, possession is a lot easier).
Some people want to achieve a temporary possession (usually 5-30 min) because then the spirit might be able to affect you more, and change you more. But this is a difficult thing to achieve, so don't worry too much of it accidentally happening to you.
I don't recommend possession. In my opinion, the kind of invocation that I've talked about, where you maintain control, can be just as powerful for transformation, if done right.
Even if you wanted to achieve possession, it would be difficult, even if you had the psychic and trance skills, because most angels won't do it, and ascended masters even less. It's usually only some gods and demons who might be willing to do it. And parasitic entities.
So all of that applies to the kind of hollywood possession. 
There is however also a more subtle form of possession. Where they don't enter your body and take over, rather only subtly influence and affect your mind.
This is mostly from parasitic entities, and demons, sometimes also gods, and very rarely angels. With ascended masters you are pretty much completely safe.
From what I know pretty much everyone on earth is affected by astral entities to some extend . The astral plane is full of life, obviously there are some interested in humans. The ones I'm talking about are mostly parasitic entities that try to cause emotional outbursts in people so they can then feed on that energy. 
So the issue with being affected by astral entities exists anyway. Whether you intentionally summon spirits or not. If you start working with spirits and are not careful, this kind of being affected by spirits can increase a lot. Hence the warning. But if you are careful, then it can actually decrease the amount of involuntarily being affected. 
Recommendations:
Stick with angels and ascended masters do regular banishings (not banishing the angels or ascended masters. But doing general banishings that banish everything that doesn' have your best interests at heart.) Ask for protection. For example archangel Michael. If you are serious, get the book magickal protection from Damon Brand and angelic protection from Ben Woodcroft.   
 
- 9. Respect
When working with any spirit, I recommend to behave neither inferior nor superior.
Both of you equally have the spark of God. But the spirit is much more evolved and powerful. That doesn't mean that you are inferior, but that you must approach it with much respect.
If you meet Elon Musk you will treat him much differently than a random dude. You don't bow down to him, you don't have a slave status or less voting power or similar bs, you both are equal, but you recognize that he is a big dude, therefore you treat him with respect. 
Therefore I also don't recommend bowing down. Or worshipping. Or begging. Definitely don't beg, even angels will think you are pathetic if you beg. If you don't think you are worth contacting them, then neither will they.
If you come off as disrespectful or superior, you essentially give full permission to the spirit to fuck you up.
It's a fine balance. Hence working with gods might not be for beginners.
As for bhakti yoga, I think it is fine to bow down and be submissive to ascended masters, if you are a bhakti yogi. Ascended masters are selfless so it's no problem. Angels and gods are no saints. Most gods would probably take advantage of you if you approach them as being submissive (mainly by taking some of your energy, which is not necessarily very bad. It probably happens to all religious people who worship gods (rather than God) anyway).
IMO, It is important to keep your sovereignty. You are your own master. You are independent and free, and no one has power over you. I recommend having that attitude, especially if you spend many hours a day in invocation. If you are working a lot with a god, and handing over your power to the god, then it might just take advantage of it. Probably not, but better safe than sorry.
 
- 10. Magickal Authority
The greater your magickal authority, the more you are respected by spirits, and the more willing they become to work with you.
Generally, the more spiritually evolved, and the stronger you are psychically, and the more enlightened that you are, the more magickal authority you have. But more important is having experience.  The more time you've spent with spirits, the greater your authority. 
Also by invoking spirits that have authority over other spirits (like most gods, particularly Hekate, or higher ranking angels) you kind of gain their authority too. But that doesn't happen over night.
To temporarily increase your authority for a specific invocation or ritual, you can ask or call upon spirits that have authority.
Don't do this when contacting ascended masters or gods. Only with angels. And it's not necessary. But it can make them more willing to help you.
Traditionally occultists call upon the god of the old testament to gain authority over angels. They say something like "In the names of Ell, Ell Shadai, Adonai, Adiriron,... I call upon you [name of angel]". It works. If you want you can do that. I've done something similar for some time, but I'm not comfortable using the names of the god of the old testament anymore (gnostics have some suspicions about that god).
So usually, before a long invocation session, I first become conscious of my connection with Source, seeing me and every spirit as one with Source/God. Then I invoke The Monad, Sophia and Christ (from Gnosticism), and then my Higher Self.
But really all of this is not very important. You don't need to do that.
If you are bold you could also call upon them by saying something like "by the power and in the name of myself [insert your name] I summon you ...".
 
- 11. Offerings
When working with angels and ascended masters, giving offerings of gratitude (sincerely feeling grateful) to them is enough. 
When working with gods I recommend making occasional offerings. That can be: lighting a candle, incense, water, alcohol, food, singing a song, poetry, ...
They can consume the non-physical components of the offering.
Different gods have different preferences, do some research. But generally, water, candle, incense, and fruits, rubbing your hands together and offering the heat and energy released are pretty universally accepted. wine is also popular I guess.
Physical offerings are best left in nature some time (even days if you like) after giving it.
If you use a glass to give liquid offerings, then that glass from now on should only be used for that purpose.
If you are interested in making formal or general offerings to many groups of spirits, in Jason Miller's book Sorcerer's Secrets is a good ritual.
 
 
- 12. Ego trip
Invoking angels and gods and pretending to temporarily be them (during meditation) can lead to big ego trips. So be sure to balance these practices with a good dose of no self awareness.
 
 
- 13. Books
Practical books for contacting angels, books by:
Damon Brand  Ben Woodcroft  Tristan Whitespire Jareth Tempest If you buy only one book, then it's "angelic sigils keys and calls" by Ben Woodcroft. 
If you are interested in invocation, then Damien Echols Archangel book could be interesting. Just read the last few chapters. Very inspiring. He has a different approach but that doesn't matter.
(and do legally buy them. Some books might have protection spells on them that they only work with full effectiveness if you bought the book. I think that applies to Damon Brand's books. I guess most other books don't have that. )
 
- 14. Progress 
When I started I felt nothing. I've spent over 1000 hours in contact with spirits (including attempted contact lol). Maybe 400 hours of that has been in effective invocation. 
Now, when I summon a spirit, I almost instantly feel the energy, which then alters my state of consciousness. When I do long invocations, it gets extremely energetic and intense. It's undeniably real. And the personal and spiritual growth has been IMMENSE.
I think my progress was quicker than it would be for the average practitioner, because I'm naturally empathic and energetically sensitive, and my approach has been hard-core.  Constantly searching for better ways, trying to make it more powerful, never satisfied.
If you keep practicing you will most likely eventually make huge growth through invocation. But the first couple of hundred hours might be tough, just as with learning any skill. You can speed things up by using the more potent versions that I've shared. 
Generally Invocation is an advanved practice. 
In case working with spirits and invocation resonates with you, I recommend getting transmissions to easily increase your energetic sensitivity, and to contact angels to help you manifest your desires, so you get familiar with this stuff. Doing this (magick) will also improve your skills, but a lot less than actual invocation.
If you are hard-core, you can start straight with "massive invocations".
 

📜 Leo’s Blog: Table of Contents 📜
(2017 - 2023)
➼ @MuadDib has a list of all of Leo's Blog links in descending chronological order:  List of Blog Links in Descending Order
➼ List and Summaries of Actualized.org Episodes are in the Self-Actualization Forum.
➼ Actualized.org on Psychedelics: Safety, Trip Reports, Research, Episodes, Forum Mega-Threads, General Info.
➼ List and Summaries of Leo’s Blog Videos, Summaries and Interviews.
The Best of Leo’s Blog Essays on Epistemology and Enlightenment. (Read these.  They’re good and short) Posts on Actualized.org News Posts on Creativity & Art, Gaming Posts on Images of Infinity, Strange Loops ➰ Posts on Funzies, Music, Conferences 😹 Posts on Cults — Case Studies Posts of Quotes (Proverbs, Yoda, Batman) <(⦿_⦿)>  🦹 ______________________________________________________
Blog Posts for 2017  Blog Posts for 2018  Blog Posts for 2019  Blog Posts for 2020  Blog Posts for 2021   Blog Posts for 2022   Blog Posts for 2023 ______________________________________________________
(Essay) for posts with an extended commentary by Leo. (note) for posts with a short commentary by Leo.  
⁉️    Epistemology 🤯   Enlightenment 🌈   Spiral Dynamics 💪   Life Purpose and Mastery 😹   Funzies (after Sept 2021) 💸   Money & Corruption ➰   Strange Loops  
🍄       Psychedelics 🍄🧷   Psychedelics and Safety 🍄🧳   Trip Report 🍄🔬   Psychedelics Research

How To Be A Strategic Motherfucker
 
Most people’s life suck due to lack of strategic thinking and, on the other hand, successful people are great strategic thinkers.
“Most people do not engage in a methodic process of investigation, assumptions, information gathering analysis, planning and finally action. Most people live by routines, facing the same problems every day.” Most people do not sit down and actually strategize deep and often enough.
What is strategic thinking? “Strategic thinking is setting goals and developing flexible plans to reach those goals based on careful analysis of external and internal environments.” “Thinking logically and deeply about the future it means that where you want to be 5 years from now, 5 months from now and 5 days from now should inform what you do today.” ”It is a way of looking at the world with a purpose in mind”. “It is way of dealing with the ever changing environment”. “It is a method or a plan to bring about a desire future, such as a goal or a solution”.
“In self-actualization we should be Studying the competition, his tendencies, his habits and his weaknesses. The funny thing is that you are your own competition is self-actualization; you are your own greatest enemy. There is a battle between your ego (lower self) and your spiritual side (higher self) and high actualization aspirations. Your ego is extremely deceptive. You should study yourself and how you sabotage yourself. 99% of your failures is because you are in the way. The majority of your life should be focused on strategizing about your self-actualization.
Common strategic blenders:
-          Getting married in your 20s
-          Pissing away your teens and your 20s playing videogames and doing stupid stuff.
-          Drinking and partying.
-          Not developing mastery in anything in life.
-          Eating junk food.
-          Not going to doctors.
-          Chasing money rather than passion.
-          Chasing achievement and status rather than inner growth.
-          Having kids too soon in life.
-          Sticking with a bad gf.
-          Not continuing your education after college.
-          Investing money in the wrong places.
-          Going into debt using credit cards.
-          Working for a boss in a giant company.
-          Working 80 hrs a week thinking that this will get you somewhere.
-          Being too cheap to hire a coach or therapist, books or programs.
-          Living in the wrong place.
-          Hanging out with the wrong people.
-          Chasing sex or love and devoting lots of time in that.
-          Neglecting meditation and enlightenment work.
 
 
Strategic mistakes: Not doing the right things at the right time.
-          Not being able to think micro and macro: You need to think big picture and then about actionable steps. You need the ability to think at both levels at the same time.
-          Not delaying gratification: Do not chase for pleasure and immediate gain.
-          Not aware of the things you shouldn’t do
-          Lack of intel: You need to do more research before you take action. You need to study how to start a business, meditation, enlightenment, relationships, love, mastery process, psychological development. What can you expect if you don’t study and do Intel?
-          Lack of self-knowledge and self-awareness: You have to know how you work.
-          Neurotic overcompensation
-          Chasing the small prize: Look for the biggest prize, look and fight for the biggest battle; study. Most people go for the thing that lands on their lap without really questioning if it is even necessary. WORK FOR BIG THINGS.
-          Generally oblivious about culture society and business traps: Generally speaking, organizations don’t want to help you; their aim is to serve themselves. This is the level of consciousness that society is in right now.
-          Don’t invest time strategizing: You should strategize more about your life. The thing is that you actually don’t need to strategize since society can cover you up.
-          Not fixing problems at their root: Most people try to fix problems on the surface; you need to go deeper.
-          Not spending enough time gathering strategic resources: You need to prepare your resources and define what you will need to create the life you really want. What resources you will need
o   Money
o   Where will you live
o   Study?
7 Pillars of strategic thinking
1-      Strategic intent: “A compelling vision of the future that motivates action, this is what elevates a technique into a strategy.” Is the ultimate thing that you are going for? This ultimate outcome is what informs all the small actions you will take; if you this you will not be wasting your time fighting meaningless battles. Be specific. WHAT DO YOU WANT? After you do this, backwards engineer and create the actual steps that will get you there. You need a big picture, a compelling vision. You need to see 30 years down the road and everything that you do tomorrow should be methodically aligned with your ultimate vision. You will accomplish amazing things if you do this. If your action is not moving you closer to your ultimate goal leave it behind.
 
2-      Strategic analysis and gathering of intelligence: Is the analysis of the opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses that present in the environment. How are you using your resources like money, focus, time, etc? You need to add competitor responses (in self-actualization you are the competitor. Anticipate the responses of the ego when you try to grow. Anticipate how it is going to revel, resist and trap you.) You need to be aware of how the ego reacts.
 
 
3-      Strategic preparation: The building up of strategic reserves. You must prepare and gather the necessary resources. YOU NEED TO PREPARE. You need training, hard work, planning and the preparation of your unique capabilities. Everyone has unique strengths, you should work on them (your zone of genius); develop them in yourself. “Since you can’t predict what will happen, you need to develop yourself internally to handle the external circumstances.”
 
4-      Concentration of force: “Is the key to all strategy, it is all about focusing all your force in one specific point.” It is your ONE Thing. Look for weaknesses and focus your force in that point.
 
5-      Disciplined execution and detailed tactical follow through: After you have done all the steps above, you need great execution (4Dx). It takes years to become a great executor.
 
6-      Adaptability: Strategy is not about creating a plan and sticking with it forever, that is stupid. Proper strategy is all about being flexible and adaptable since the environment is always changing. High quality planning need to be revised often (every week) and adapt to the environment. Business plans always change and, in fact, plan A never works.
 
7-      Study of general principles: “Regardless of how chaotic the situation is, there are principles that are not changing”. You need to study the principles of business, life, relationships, etc. Actualized.org studies the principles of life itself.
Your life will become satisfying only if you strategize enough. Every move your make should be planned to create the life you really want. You need to be very clear about what do you want, your goals, the actions you are taking and where do they lead you and how it fit into the bigger picture for you.
 
 
 
 

Look closer. Do you see a forehead? Or is the "forehead" an mental image? And does the line then terminate at a mental image? Is that what you ACTUALLY experience?
Or do you ACTUALLY experience a line terminating at nothingness?
And in a kid's mind, it makes sense that Santa Claus organizes the distribution of Christmas presents.
Yes, "in your mind" it makes sense because it's a fantasy. In reality it's false.
Your mind is the enemy here. What makes sense to the mind doesn't matter. Reality is otherwise.
You can take it as an axiom of this work that no sensation perceives another. Now your job is to verify this by finding the actual perceiver.
Hint: the actual perciever (you) is non-existent. You're never going to find it as an object. Because you are emptiness itself.
There's no logical reason why it would. You have to discover via direct experience what you are. Then you'll see that what you are is infinite and without location (hence omnipresent).
Well, be careful not to get lost in terminology. Language is a poor vehicle for this work. You need to have the direct experience of reality.
"Silence" and "nothing" might point to the same thing.
"Nothing", "source", and "no source" might point to the same thing.
And "nothing" might point to something very different than what you imagine.
Absolute reality is that which is true all the time, without change, under all circumstances.
What is the ONE thing which never changes?
Nothingness. Every other experience is relative truth.
Hopefully you're starting to notice that all experience is changing all the time.
Hence experiences cannot be The Truth. Experiences are not Absolute.
To use a scientific metaphor, you might think of the vacuum of empty space as being an absolute. Although in fact, not even it is absolute, since it's merely a concept/experience your mind is having.

"Illusion of time" contemplation/exercise:
Try to experience time without thought.
Conversely, try to experience eternity by thinking of it.
 
 

@Not a shaolin monk Depends on the depth of your enlightenment. Chances are you'll be doing this work for years to come, make yourself comfy.