Truth

a weak ego is almost directly focused on it's exterior. a stronger ego is a lot less focused on it's exterior and more open. but again it's still ego, and it's still focused on it's exterior.

Consciousness. Especially in the moment when someone or something triggers you or effects you. Notice the thoughts and interpretations going on in your mind and you'll see it for yourself.

Science.

@Visitor Haha well you can't really argue with that, you weren't actually there and never experienced it, but you can read about it or hear about it in detailed accounts.

I agree with @ajasatya if you want more concepts and labels keep doing what you’re doing. If you want truth and to truly grasp the significance, grounding it in direct experience it will reveal everything you want to know and without it you'll just be lost in concepts. And that's really the strategy for understanding anything. Especially deep concepts. We’re just pointing at truth with concepts for you to directly experience it.

Yep. This is why we're doing thousands of hours of deep contemplation and self inquiry work. To find out who and what we are existentially. Leo has a good video on the true self that I think could clear a lot of things up for you. The Enlightened (or authentic) Self - A Description of Your Existential Nature

The Authentic Self isn't referring to your self image or self concept it's your true nature --> awareness, consciousness, it's beyond YOU. meaning it's beyond your logical, rational, sound thinking, if you still believe you are your thoughts you're gonna run into some problems with this one. Living authentically means living from your true nature. Not your thoughts.

@Vladimir I didnt intend for it to come off as harsh, I'm just saying its easy to create an amazing 20-30-40 year vision and talk and be self righteous towards anyone who disagrees with it or even has something to say about it. Its another thing to be doing the things necisary and facing the harsh realities to actually manifest it. I want that vision too. But the reality is there's a lot of inner work I gotta do to manifest something like that, and that alone will probably take me 10-15 years. If you just expect people to be on board you're in for a very rude awakening to the complex systems at work that will prevent you from getting there. A systems thinker would recognize that aserting your vision to everyone and telling them to get on board is just not gonna work.

From the Latin word illuminatus, meaning enlightened or illuminated. I'm all for your post but to me its all talk. Your either already working towards it or your just talking a bunch of shit. Also this is a direct quote from the Illuminati website --> "The Illuminati is an elite organization of world leaders, business authorities, innovators, artists, and other influential members of this planet. Our coalition unites influencers of all political, religious, and geographical backgrounds to further the prosperity of the human species as a whole." Sound familiar?

Illuminati here we come.

Salt Lake City, UT

Im kinda with @guest on this one, I take notes on every video, but its purely focused on things I dont understand on top of journaling to understand it, so it wouldn't include everything he says.

I consider ego to be the antithesis of love, compassion and understanding. Which is why even with all it's back lashing and destructive ways, there's more than enough room for me to impart compassion, humility and autonomy to all it's intrusive qualities.

It looks as though you've missed the shadow work aspect of this process. Are you questioning that feeling? Where its coming from? What you think it could be? Journaling about it? Coming up with some explanations? Then finding solutions and understandings? To weed it out this is necessary. An amazing resource from here on the forum about shadow work

@Nahm yep :), when talking on here I feel like nothing more than a mirror to others and myself. People would find their answers if they just asked themselves self honestly and left their ego at the door. Not discounting tons of perspectives of course, which is one of the reasons that this forum can be valuable.

you're missing the point, I already said everything is as it should be including you and me. My judgements don't imply anything. I'm not squabbling about the tenable truths of reality itself. I'm confabulating about my notions of "suffering" and "Misfortunes" "I" see in "others" and the world, and "misunderstandings" I see in the world. See what I'm saying? As for being on the path, well, that's not something I can really communicate to you, anything I say would be an under emphasized apogee of the absolute infinitude of what's possible for the fulfillment of this entity. But I will say that you wouldn't be having motivation, drive, or confusion issues at all if you took this journey on for real. challenging our beliefs and ideals is just the beginning. For me now talking on this forum is nothing more than just an exponent exposing illusions haha.

You're too lost in existentialism. There are real world problems. War, crime, problems in education, terrorism, not even going into all the internal issues people have, there's a lot of issues that are incredibly overlooked, misunderstood and not even recognized or acknowledged as an issue at all. There's a huge difference in maintaining the status quo vs advancing society and ourselves. Yes, existentially, everything is perfect and just as it's meant to be. but when it comes to real world problems it sounds like you're using existential insights as an excuse to not do anything. You're right motivation is tricky. You just gotta look at yourself and be honest and ask -- do I really care to help others? have an impact on the world? live up to my highest possibilities in life? and if your answer no or even a "eh" then you gotta ask yourself again. then what do I REALLY care about honestly? and there you'll have a clue to your true motivations. and from what I see you just want to be comfortable and safe, which is fine. but you're limiting yourself massively, and I recommend you get on the self actualization journey and live up to the peak of human capability. "If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you'll be unhappy for the rest of your life." - Abraham Maslow

@Will Its not about fixing the world. Its about helping the world live up to its absolute full potential. Aspiring to something greater than it currently is. Its hard to create that drive because most don't care about living up to their full potential. They just want to get all their problems fixed til their life is nice and comfortable. Why would you want to live up to your full potential when you've got everything you want right? See the difference there? It can be a real struggle to get motivated if you can't see what's possible for humanity or for yourself.

Knowing the full truth about ourselves, I don't just mean existentially, but literally, capacities, strengths, limits, weaknesses, true essence and personality. Being able to distinguish between the imaginary and the real in one's Self.

We're not here to fix addictions for the sake of fixing addictions, that would be missing the point. We're after living up to our highest potential, self actualization. So this idea of neurotic mindfulness, awareness seeking including the other addictions only exists because they themselves are antithetical to living up to one's full potential in life. It's like negative motivation. Always solving problems never aspiring to something greater. So if your addictions are not helping you do that then that should notify you that it's a cause for concern.

I'll give another perspective, another good reason is for their lack of acknowledgement of themselves being hurt. so instead of looking at themselves they lash out and project onto others. pointing out and vilifying all their flaws and things such as this creating a lot of self sabotaging behavior, negative karma and backfiring, making it even worse and worse over time.

People take it too seriously and make it complicated because a majority of people are coming from a deficiency of some kind, it's not exactly simple for the newbies to see the beauty in being, that takes time and effort or “work”. But they've gotta start somewhere, but yes taking a more wholehearted approach would be a lot less neurotic in one's incentive to meditate and will also help them go further in the long run.

Its a very good step to start getting that bullshit out of your mind. If you had what they had you'd be Happy. If you dont have what they have you can't be happy. Notice the interpretation going on there. This is turning you into the victim of your external circumstances. You're not taking full resposibility and letting others dictate your happiness and with that they've actually got you by the balls, check Leos video on victim mentality for more insights and understanding to start slowly weeding out this issue.

Ah yes, the good old argumentation and debating game. Try not to demonize this video while watching it.

Ah yes, the good old begging the question and justification game.