Toby

I guess Eckhart Tolle did ACIM before his awakening and still likes and quotes it. Also David Hawkins liked it very much. There are better books out there but it is nevertheless a good pointing.

What is your sense about yourself? How does it feel?

@Leo Gura If you don't find it remotely funny, just delete it.

I'm not so sure how to interpret this. I more lean towards "thinking" that the ocean is the "I am", but I'm not so sure about that.

Actually I had a sense of that quite often (I never did any psychedelics, weed or any of that stuff). But I guess or feel that life or the world is "just" like a small bubble or in my image I would often refer to it as like a table-tennis ball within an ocean. The ocean is awareness. The ball is everything that appears (world, bodies, the universe). But actually again, there is no real separation. And also it is also good not to cling to images because they might represent a lot of truth but maybe they just represent one aspect of it.

A teacher that helped me very much with this "issue" (he speaks quite a lot of this connection-thing from both perspectives: Awareness and the nervous-system):

Don't buy into the pickup-narrative. Talk to who you want to talk to and who is receptive of you. And then look for connection with the woman and not results.

https://beingwithoutself.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/tenoxpics.pdf

It's a matter of practising. putting in your time and learning strategies. And, don't demand too much from you, because no matter what you do, there will always be people for whom it is way easier than for you. And to get the best grades it is also about speed. Get old exams and do the tasks in it over and over again and go from there what you need to know.

It's hard to answer because most spiritual teachers could easily be called "philosopher" as well. From those that are more seen as philosophers... I like e.g. Ken Wilber and Plotinus.

Don't get attached to non-attachment as well.

I don't like either one very much.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00V6C24DW/ Of course you can do it also without the music but it is very supportive with music from my experience. If I were to do the meditation I would just get the Mp3s and cut out 50% out of every track and also do just 30 minutes. But I am not able to do the meditation because it would be a "little" bit too loud for my neighbours. I did it within a group over 10 years ago 3 times a week in the morning for 4-5 weeks. And it was 30 minutes.

Yeah, something like that.

The instructor played the offical music and then just shortened each phase by 50%. @Hardik jain But only do the dynamic meditation if it feels right. There are a lot of alternatives.

I did it like some time ago and it was shortened to 30 minutes overall by the instructor. It did work really well that way. Maybe you can get the offical music and then just shorten the different tracks/phases.

More likely than not most of the girls had other dudes in their pipeline/rotation as well. So they weren't really hurt by anyone.

One teacher, if I understood him correctly, said that meditation at night is easier because the collective mind energy is more quiet and peaceful (because most people are sleeping at that time I guess).

Be aware of people who try to do some guilt tripping on you when in fact you did nothing wrong. Don't fall for this.

Go to a good acupuncture doctor/practitioner. It helped me several times a great deal regarding tinnitus (it didn't go away but was decreased by 90%). It also might be good for relaxation and sleeping. And also, when you are more relaxed you tend not to give tinnutus that much attention. It's there but it's not a problem anymore.

It's a really wide topic and not easy to get answers. One thing that is important though is to distinguish between the preference and actual crimes. The media often mixes that up. Pedophilia = sexual or romantic/emotional preference towards children by adults. There are primary pedophiles and secondary pedophiles (whose primary attraction are adults). The percentage of people that have some attraction to children (not primary) are actually very high. I don't know the numbers but afaik there were studies done on this and I guess the numbers were like 25% or so. Crimes done to children = rape, sexual abuse, murder, physical abuse and so on. The perpetrator might be a pedophile but often is not. They might easily be a sadist or people who cannot control their impulses or people that use children as a substitute. The reasons might be genetic conditioning or upbringing or even abuse done to them. It is also important to look at ones society/culture, because e.g. the prophet Mohammed married a ten year old girl or so, greeks abused underage boys and both were considered "normal" in their society. It's insane how much society actually shapes the view on a subject. I consider our society more evolved regarding the view/law that children under 14 are not able to consent having sex with an adult.