Xonas Pitfall

You don't escape thoughts, you just make them beautiful enough that you no longer want to!

RedTree!

One of the realizations I had after my trips was this: I used to think God was something out there - like some divine object I'd see or some presence that would reach out to me, or I’d somehow reach out to it. But that thinking is flawed. If God is truly omnipotent and omnipresent, then God has to be here, right now, always. So I started asking myself - what’s the one thing that has been with me through my entire life? It’s not my room or environment - those always change. It’s not my body - even my hands and skin have changed and aged. It’s not my personality - that evolves constantly. It’s not my thoughts - they come and go. The only thing that’s been constant is that sense of being. The “you-ness.” The awareness. The background observer that’s experienced every single moment of my life. And when you look closely, that presence has all the qualities we associate with God: always here, always aware, untouched by time. Not saying that other things aren't God, too. But the most direct, purest access to God is that.

It's pure awareness. It's hard to explain unless you've had a direct experience (usually on psychedelics). Imagine your entire current reality - everything you see, hear, feel, and think. Notice how all of it is contained within your perception? That container - the one that holds the present moment - is consciousness. It's awareness. It's absolute purity. It's nothingness. It's God. Think of it like this: if I wanted to build a container to hold a ball, what kind of container would it be? Probably round, maybe flexible, maybe firm enough to support the ball's weight. Now, imagine I want to hold water - I'd need a watertight vessel. For fire, maybe a lantern or a fireproof bowl. To hold sound, I’d need a space that could echo or absorb vibration. Now think bigger - what kind of container could hold anything? Not just one object, but infinite objects. Not just things, but time, space, experience, emotion - the entire reality you're perceiving right now. That container would have to be absolutely formless yet capable of taking any form. It would have to be infinitely adaptable, unbounded, and ever-present. That container - the one that is always there, holding your experience no matter what it is - is awareness. It's the ultimate observer. It's God. The most direct access to God is through your mind, through your perception. Strip away everything around you - your surroundings, your thoughts, even your sense of self. Just focus on the raw ability to perceive, to witness, to simply be aware. That silent observer behind it all - the one that's just there, holding every experience - that pure experiencer is God.

Tc! Tc! Tcch, tcch, tcch

Psst... psst... psst 🥛🧶🐈

I've noticed that speaking in a childlike, unfiltered, and cartoonish way often snaps me into a more playful mindset. Simple, silly expressions like “Yum!”, “Yay!”, “Wow!”, or “Hmm?” work wonders. Wordplay and puns also light up that playful spark. Adopting a cheeky, mischievous attitude adds to it, too. Letting your inner trickster out to play...

Maybe one day we’ll develop better systems that can punish greed, selfishness, and manipulation more immediately. But for now, someone can go their whole life being self-serving, narcissistic, and manipulative - and face little to no consequences. In fact, those traits can often lead to success. Narcissism isn’t “wrong” in a moral sense - in many environments, it’s the best survival strategy. If you're overly altruistic, selfless, or focused on fairness, you might actually suffer more. You can see this in nature: predatory, aggressive animals often dominate their ecosystems. They thrive by doing what works, not by following any concept of “morality.” This applies to human systems, too. Imagine a team-based online game. If one player finds a way to cheat - to aim better, move faster, gain an unfair edge - they’ll likely win more, have more fun, receive prizes, even become famous. If they die before the system collapses, they never feel the fallout of their actions. So in their lifetime, from a purely self-interested view, they "won." But if more players follow their example, eventually the game becomes broken. No one enjoys it anymore, and the entire system collapses. This is the flaw in many systems: corruption is often individually beneficial in the short term, and only becomes a collective problem when it scales. Until that tipping point, the incentive to act selfishly remains strong. That’s why corruption is... a feature, not a bug! You see this pattern everywhere today: from wealthy nations exploiting immigrant labor, corporations ignoring their environmental impact, to men resisting gender equality. When you're benefiting from an unequal system, fairness feels like a loss. Until the oppressed push back or the consequences begin to directly impact the oppressors, this pattern tends to continue unchecked. This isn’t really about moral “karma” - it’s just action and consequence. People overeat until they get sick, stay unproductive until they can’t pay rent, or rely on their parents while wasting time and numbing their brains with video games. It’s all the same principle: consequences always show up eventually. Sometimes they land on you directly, other times they ripple out and impact those around you. And sometimes, the effects are so long-term they only hit people you'll never meet in the future, which raises the question: why care at all? In many cases, people are just hoping they can get away with it. And sometimes, they do. Although I do think it's a worthwhile question to ask whether the psychology of such people is truly fulfilling and happy. I suppose one intuitively hopes their inner life is miserable, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case at all ¯\ _(ツ)_/¯ Not sure what you guys think, but I am sometimes curious about that... 🤔

The human is born weak, tiny, and unsure - just a little baby! Baby feels hungry, so baby crawls around looking for food. Not much food out there, but baby loves stuff with lots of energy - high calorie, sugary goodness! Yum! Yum! Yum! The babies who loved that stuff survived better and passed on their hungry-for-sugar genes. Yay! Years go by... and now, humans make the infinite candy machine. And McDonald's! Baby is so happy! So many fries! So much ice cream! Baby eats and eats and eats! Baby is worshipping the candy machine leader! But uh-oh... baby gets pimples. Baby gets diabetes. Baby gets sick... and dies. Lots of babies eat junk food. Lots of babies get sick. Lots of babies die. Now babies get smart. They stop worshipping the candy machine. They find a new hero - the high-fiber, high-protein chicken god! Broccoli priest! Sweet potato warrior! Babies feel good again. Fewer babies die! But time passes... New babies are born. They forget what the old babies learned. They look at the candy machine again and think... "YUM! What were those other babies even talking about?!" And the babies eat. And the babies get pimples. And the babies get diabetes. And the babies die. And the loop begins again, and again, and again! To Infinity!

Do you think there are more pragmatic ways these challenges could be addressed or mitigated? Not necessarily by being more ruthless, but perhaps through a different kind of appeal or strategy?

Thank you! I’m still learning about politics and trying to understand different perspectives. I wanted to post this question to hear what others think and hopefully get a more objective viewpoint.

To summarize the video: The Right is focused on politics, The Left, especially the online/far-left, is focused on internal purity and social status games. Politics is the pursuit of political power - winning elections, getting people to vote for your candidate, and using that power to implement policy. The Right in America practices this directly. Their main concern is gaining political power, and everything is oriented around that goal. Because of this, the Right doesn't focus on “purity testing”, except in the context of voting - i.e., "will you vote for our candidate or not?" In contrast, the online Left doesn’t seem interested in electoral success. While it looks like politics and uses political language, it’s actually functioning more like a social group or identity club. The goal isn’t to win elections, but to reinforce belonging within a certain group by signaling the right beliefs and values. This is what some critics have referred to as social signaling, not politics in the traditional sense. This explains a long-observed dynamic: People can easily “switch” from Left to Right publicly ("Why I Left the Left") and be welcomed by the Right, But the reverse (“Why I Left the Right”) rarely happens because the Left won’t accept them back. If you ever supported the wrong person or said something wrong years ago, you’re permanently impure in the eyes of some on the Left. The Right is more forgiving because its main goal is gaining political power, not maintaining moral purity within the group. The Left (online or far-left) has a different goal, which is maintaining ideological consistency and in-group cohesion, often at the cost of political effectiveness. Destiny does clarify he disagrees with how the Right uses power, as authoritarian and dangerous. However, it's also acknowledged that the Right wields social power more effectively, because it’s directed toward a clear political purpose (elections and legislation), rather than social virtue-signaling without electoral impact. They also point out the strange tenacity of right-wing voters - for example, many believe the 2020 election was rigged, yet they still show up and vote, which is baffling but politically effective. The Left needs to be more politically oriented and ruthless in cutting out those who aren’t interested in political outcomes. They advocate for a more pragmatic and electoral-focused Left, rather than one obsessed with internal purity and social status games. @Leo Gura This conclusion struck me as particularly interesting, and it raises a question: what might be the underlying cause of this trend, assuming it’s true? There’s no obvious reason why one side would feel more compelled to advocate so passionately, but it still seems to happen.

Radical self-responsibility and awareness Clearly define your values and what you want from this life. Not sure what that is yet? Then you need experience. A lot of it. Go out, try things, and self-reflect. Explore widely. As you reflect, practice open-mindedness. Don’t judge the things that genuinely interest or excite you. Take note of them. Be cautious of your ego and self-deception. Become deeply aware of both the good and evil in the world and within yourself. You’ll lie to yourself sometimes without even realizing it. Keep cycling through experience and reflection until your direction becomes clearer. Once you know what you want, pursue it with unreasonable persistence. Iterate so many times that failure becomes almost impossible. For what you can’t control, practice acceptance and gratitude. For what you can control, practice personal responsibility. Apply this principle to every area of your life, and you can build a truly beautiful existence on this earth!

@Leo Gura What color is your crocodile hot witch girlfriend?

@PurpleTree Unless you plan to live completely off the grid, making food, generating electricity, and defending yourself from wild animals in the jungle, then some level of social cooperation is essential for survival. Society, while far from perfect, is still what supports us. Yes, it could be much better, but it beats the alternative of being a naked man alone in the woods with no WiFi and a lion eyeing you for lunch!

@UnbornTao You're welcome!

solipsism The view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist. "Solipsism is an idealist thesis because ‘Only my mind exists’ entails ‘Only minds exist’" If you accept Oneness, God, Infinity, or Singularity, then by extension, you're also accepting the idea of a Singular Self - one consciousness, one being. You can call it the Self, or "Higher Self", or "No-Self" (if you're defining self in terms of the ego). Either way, it's just a matter of preference and language. Whether you’re dissolving the ego into the whole or naming the whole as the true Self, the essence remains the same. It’s all one, and how you label it depends on your point of view. Solipsism is true. The absence of ego is the absence of selfishness, "No-Self" or Selflessness - and in that absence, what remains is love. So you can just as easily call it Love instead of Self. The absence of bias and limitations reveals purity, truth, and realness - so you could also call it Truth or Reality instead of Self. All of it points to the same essence. Solipsism is just one philosophy for describing it. Ultimately, it’s infinity expressing itself in different terms!

“Twin Flames” is a term often used to describe a connection where both people deeply trigger one another in ways that catalyze growth. The cliché example might be a shy, anxious, people-pleasing “good girl” with an avoidant, rebellious “bad boy”... or a BPD drawn to an NPD, or a dependent personality entangled with a narcissist or sociopath. But it can also be more subtle, like a hyper-responsible, clean-freak eldest daughter meeting a laid-back, carefree youngest sibling. These aren’t rigid stereotypes, but you get the idea. Pairings like these can be powerful for self-awareness and growth because they highlight each other's blind spots. But more often than not, both people are too stuck in their patterns to give the relationship the breathing room needed for actual transformation. For example, a chronic people-pleaser might never learn to set boundaries or stop overgiving, so the narcissistic partner never faces the consequences of their actions or grows from them. And on the flip side, the narcissist may never learn to truly attune, give, or show up for someone else. The dynamic stays stuck and eventually breaks. These types of relationships only work if both people are self-aware and willing to put in real effort. Without that, it’s just pain and wasted time, especially for the more attached partner. If someone doesn’t care enough to reach out, show interest, or take accountability, please don’t wrap it up in spiritual delusion. That’s not a twin flame. Real twin flame dynamics involve mutual triggering and growth. If it’s one-sided, that’s not it. Also, sometimes the person isn’t even “avoidant,” they’re just not that into you. It’s harsh, but true. A lot of people will casually flirt, hook up, or talk without ever feeling the depth the other person does - and that mismatch can send someone down a spiral. While we are at it, be careful as well not to label someone as 'avoidant' just to soften the blow. Sometimes people aren't struggling with attachment issues - they're just careless, selfish, or plain inconsiderate. You had a real, intimate connection, and he ghosted you without a word. That’s not a psychological pattern - that’s being a cu**. Really sorry that happened to you, you don't deserve any of it. This dynamic is backed by a classic psychological experiment by B.F. Skinner, the founder of operant conditioning. In one of his most famous studies, he placed mice (and later pigeons) in what's now called a "Skinner Box," where they could press a lever to receive food. When the food was given consistently, the animals would press the lever only when they were hungry. But when the reward was given randomly or intermittently, the animals became obsessed. They would press the lever compulsively, ignoring sleep, food, and even basic survival needs. This pattern is called intermittent reinforcement, and it's been shown to be the most addictive reward schedule. This same principle explains why gambling is so powerful - and also why toxic relationships can feel like a drug. When love, attention, or validation is offered unpredictably, your brain becomes wired to chase it, hoping for the next hit. Just like those mice, we can find ourselves fixated, neglecting everything else in life for the chance of that emotional payoff. Sound familiar? Often, the people we become most obsessed with are the ones who are unavailable or uninterested, simply because the reward is uncertain. If they liked us right away, or if they never engaged with us at all, we wouldn’t be limerent or obsessed in the first place. What I’d suggest for you is to look into the concept of limerence. Right now, I don’t think it’s helpful to dive too deeply into spiritual concepts, as they can sometimes worsen the delusion and intensify the limerence (as you saw in the thread), things can get pretty wild. What you really need is exposure to more people, so you can hopefully find a mutual connection. Your brain is simply addicted to the intensity of love and connection it once felt, and it’s craving more of it, especially in a way that feels safe this time. It is possible to find someone who feels right and truly reciprocates your energy. When that happens, you’ll be shocked at how quickly the obsession can dissolve, or even just fade into a strange, distant memory. Alternatively, time can help too, but it’s a slower and less predictable path. One positive thing about these kinds of experiences is that they can give you valuable insight into what you want and don’t want in a partner. Now you have more information about the kind of connection you’re looking for. Ask yourself: What genuinely drew me to him in the beginning, before all the avoidance and mixed signals started? Was there a real attraction from the start, or did the inconsistency make me more obsessed over time? What were some red flags I overlooked that seem obvious in hindsight? Reflecting on these can help you better understand your patterns and preferences moving forward. Good Luck, I believe in you. Spiritual hugs!

Obviously, these kinds of strong claims are hard to give a definitive yes or no to. But in terms of publicly available "commercial" material, he’s definitely one of the best. His delivery of spirituality and truth is so much more direct, with far less fluff, obscurity, or unnecessary circling around the point. We can never know if *the most*, but certainly one of the best out there. Or, at least that I've found by far!

+ Bump for Curiosity!

Universal importance could be thought of as patterns or structures that remain invariant across all conscious agents. For example, survival, self-preservation, or the tendency to minimize suffering might be considered “universally important” in any system that is aware and limited. Personal importance is filtered through an individual's particular mind, memory, experiences, and goals. What is important to you may be completely irrelevant to someone else, even though both of you operate under similar constraints (like time, energy, attention). I don’t think personal importance ever truly breaks away from universal importance. It just becomes more complex, abstract, or in some cases, deeply distorted. A helpful analogy is computing. At the lowest level, all computers operate on the same simple universal principle: ones and zeros, basic binary calculations, and logic gates. That’s the universal foundation. But as more layers are built on top, you get sophisticated applications that seem totally unrelated to binary math. Photoshop, for instance, is used for editing images, and its purpose seems worlds apart from basic computational logic. Or take an AI in a self-driving car – it's scanning environments, making decisions, and navigating real-world traffic. But underneath it all, it’s still just built on the same logic gate systems, running instructions. Of course, no one says Photoshop’s "value or function" is in computing numbers – we say it’s for creating digital art. That’s the point. In the same way, you could say humans operate from a few fundamental "universal preferences" – survival, avoidance of suffering, pursuit of comfort, pleasure, and ego preservation. But over time, these simple drives evolved into incredibly complex behaviors, shaped by society, language, identity, trauma, and culture. So we end up with things like: Someone thinks they need to break their bones to become a few inches taller just to hit 6ft on Tinder, thinking that’s what it takes to be loved now. That’s today’s version of a mating strategy. Someone decides the best way to survive is to become a quant, staring at tiny candlesticks and charts all day. Hunting’s been replaced by tracking pixels on a screen. Someone feels so much pain or emptiness that their only way to stop the suffering is to end their life, not running from danger, but from their mind. Someone gets so wrapped up and brainwashed in a belief system, a sense of group identity, and purpose that they blow themselves up for it. All of these are still expressions of the same core motivations - they’re just processed through incredibly sophisticated and sometimes warped systems of meaning. So, personal importance is never separate from universal importance. It’s just the same principles dressed in layers of thought, emotion, and experience so intricate that the original foundation is hard to see. Just think about how insanely far we've drifted from basic human-animal behavior - the survival instincts are still there, but they've evolved into these complex, layered, almost unrecognizable strategies. The way we try to survive now is so sophisticated that it barely resembles anything natural anymore. At least that's how I think of it, but I'm very open to being wrong! Can we generalize the point of divergence? It’s hard to pinpoint a precise “moment” where importance becomes personal. But it generally begins as soon as a conscious agent starts forming preferences or developing a model of reality tied to its own identity and history. That moment might look like: the first time a system has to choose between two actions based on expected outcomes for itself, and not purely based on external physical laws. This is such a hard thing to know, because when we're kids, we're basically just running on instincts and genetics without any self-awareness, little brainless zombies. Maybe one day we'll develop more advanced psychological tools that can map or predict these early tendencies, but for now, not even close. All we have are personal memories of what we were naturally drawn to as children, often without realizing why. It's one of the areas I'm especially curious about, too. I really love your question! Hmm... Whether the universal structure of importance can be separated from other universal structures really depends on what you mean by "universal." If you’re talking about universals within humans, then yes. There are universal value structures that apply to ants, water currents, aliens, games, computers, and even inanimate objects. Since all of these are limited in some way and grouped by shared patterns, we can identify universal values within those limits. But if you mean the "ultimate" or absolute (like God or infinity), then no. There aren’t separate universal structures because infinity includes everything. You can’t have another absolute infinity outside the original. It would simply include that other absolute infinity within itself. As an infinite entity, it "absorbs" anything outside of it instantly, making it self-defining and all-encompassing.

Amen!

Correct! It's inevitable. From a young age, we're fed all kinds of narratives about what matters and why being "important" is something to chase. Celebrities, the wealthy, and cultural icons are idolized, while living an ordinary life is often framed as something to avoid or be ashamed of. It makes sense that questioning your own value feels threatening. The ego craves an objective standard to measure itself against, something solid it can point to and say, "See, as long as I embody this, I matter. I’m worthy. I’m safe." It’s comforting to believe in that kind of certainty. Just like it’s comforting to believe in an all-knowing, all-loving creator who protects you and punishes those who hurt you, it's upsetting to imagine yourself as the one who might be harmful, evil, or deserving of punishment. The ego naturally resists that. It clings to a good image, so it often avoids questioning its motives or examining whether its intentions are good, pure, or free of selfishness. That’s why it’s much more common to see victim mentality, projection, and blame than honest self-reflection and personal responsibility. That’s also part of why religion can be so appealing. Why wrestle with your values and morality when you can adopt a ready-made framework that does the thinking for you? You get to blend in with the community, follow the script, and feel a sense of certainty. You don’t have to ask yourself if you’re actually good or not - the book already says you are, so that must be enough, right? Yes, I think this is why spirituality (or at least the kind we’re doing here) is so powerful. It's one of the first fields I’ve come across that actually makes this distinction (like Leo’s State of Consciousness blog post!). You can understand all of this conceptually and logically, but the real work is applying it to your day-to-day experience. In the relative "human" world, you cannot escape your judgment or the judgment of others. The way I usually navigate this is by recognizing that there are two layers of values we deal with. First, there are more "global" human values. These are helpful to be aware of, because they show up almost everywhere: Being seen as attractive, intelligent, independent, capable, and well put together Doing more good than harm is usually better for humanity overall Striving for your happiness and the happiness of those closest to you, while minimizing suffering Then, there are personal values. These are things you can only discover through direct experience. You have to live life, observe yourself, and slowly figure them out. Questions like: What are my talents and virtues? What moves me or inspires me? What is my style? What disgusts me? What kinds of people give me energy or drain me? What kind of conversations light me up? What is my purpose? What kind of impact do I wish to have? What environments make me feel most like myself? You find these by exposing yourself to a wide range of experiences, while passively observing and self-reflecting. Journaling helps a lot, too. Over time, you build a personal “value bank”, a sense of the things you naturally gravitate toward. For example, imagine if I asked you, "What makes you laugh?" And for the past six months, you had been consciously tracking every moment you laughed, even writing it down. You’d start to understand your sense of humor, the types of jokes that work for you, the comedians you love, and the people who bring out your creativity and playfulness. That’s valuable insight. It’s deeply personal, but incredibly useful. Leo’s course touches on these layers well, actually! Even though in the "Absolute God-state or the infinite singularity of love and beauty", everything is equally valuable, we still need to understand what makes us tick on the relative plane. We have to learn how to build a life that fits who we are. That begins with discovering our real values. This also means being careful not to let the outside world program us into adopting values that are not truly ours. One of the first ways to avoid that trap is by asking yourself, "What is value? What is importance?" (just as you are!) And not being afraid that asking those questions might somehow make you less valuable. Yes! I was just having fun with those words, sorry haha! There is definitely nuance between them, but meaning, worth, and value often overlap a lot. Usually, if you know what you value, you also understand what gives your life meaning. Most of the time, you find that thing worthwhile, purposeful, or connected to your sense of self-worth. We tend to use many of these words interchangeably or in similar ways, so I just wanted to point that out. Yes! What I meant is that since everything is ultimately Singularity, or One, or "God," trying to make something more important or valuable than something else creates separation. But that idea is more about metaphysics and less about the practical side of value discussed here, so it doesn’t matter as much for now!

Do you know what triggered it so much? Or what was the fantasy? Perhaps it's too private to ask, but thank you for sharing!