WeCome1

I believe @RMQualtrough has pointed out the very core of the paradigm shift that is so hard to "get" quite elegantly:

Yes, absolutely sure. It was in a video lecture I saw some years ago, can't remember exactly which. If I manage to find it I'll send it to you.

One of the words Tantra uses to describe Brahman is "Abhinava": abhi (always/ever) + nava (new/fresh). I wonder, why might that be?.. You should really try some spirituality one day, you might like it.

It's been real quiet in here for the last 8 days...

@Schizophonia IMHO, "Love" is the capacity to appreciate something - be it separate phenomena or life as a whole; the more you grow, the more you come to appreciate new aspects, intricacies, connections, beauty; as well as appreciate things you previously didn't - and to do so to an ever greater degree of depth, which probably doesn't have any upper limit. On a bad day, you just drink your cup of tea mechanically, without any enjoyment; on a good day - you enjoy it a whole lot; a tea sommelier is probably capable of even more subtle degrees of enjoyment; Leo on the peak of his trip - even more so; a saint - even more... and on and on it goes. As for the "Self-" part, it's probably to do with the fact that nothing else exists; in which case the "Self-Love" is simply a more metaphysical spin on [just] "Love". To summarize, it's learning to enjoy and make the most of what reality has to offer: it's an "all you can eat buffet" here - so it's up to you how much of it you are capable to process. As for the popular counter-examples like war, torture and rape - the point is not in "enjoying" them, but precisely appreciating them for what they are, how they came about, what's their place in the grand scheme of things, and how exquisitely balanced the whole setup is. Which is a step in the direction of realizing "how God allows such horrors if it's, supposedly, pure Love?" Something like that.

Here you go.

Wellp, we'll just have to agree to disagree on that. I did not mean my previous post as an offence or a personal attack on anybody - I've just seen some next level discipline, competence and dedication in this domain and the tangible results it brings - as well as the danger. Yet here we are, enabling BojackHorseman, who is obviously clueless about all of this, to "just take it slow". Oh well, everybody needs a hobby, I suppose.

Nope. Once again: everything that's "safe" - is placebo, and so isn't worth the time at all; and everything that "works" - is such a Russian roulette that the risk/return ratio also makes it not worth the time; if it gave the guys I mentioned above a hard time - then nobody on this forum simply doesn't stand a chance in case things go south. Besides, it was always beyond my comprehension why tf would anybody even bother with magic - when Self-realization path is known and widely available - I mean, it is literally trading a mountain of gold for seashells. So, you see, any way you spin it - it's a waste of time.

Oh boy have I waited for this topic to come up. Basically, there are two types of ritualistic magic - one is placebo and the other one is that works. And, as soon as you come across anything that even remotely appears to work - you fucking STOP right this very second and never come back to this again, okay? Way back in the day, I used to be in a group of extremely dedicated practitioners who took Carlos Castaneda's work as a literal manual (which it is, but that's besides the point). During those years, I got to know all kinds of weird people who practiced the second kind of magic (traditional folk magic, shamanism, occult, you name it) as well as guys with some really impressive supernatural abilities which I've witnessed first-hand. The most important thing I learned from those interactions is that this stuff never comes for free. There is very little "impressive" magic stuff that you can do using only "your own" resources, and those usually drain very quickly, and your health/psyche gets damaged. What is usually the case is that you ask some external forces/entities to "do the work" or "lend you energy", in which case sky is the limit. BUT what folks rarely take into account is that those forces and entities are 1) predatory and 2) several orders of magnitude more intelligent and cunning than you can process. They are basically "energetic loan sharks" - and people enter into implicit contracts with them simply by practicing the rituals, and never read the fine print. There is all sorts of inorganic "wildlife" living around us "ready to help" or just passively feeding of the energy we are wasting. So, what happens when you become "indebted" to those guys? Well, I've seen a guy's body getting possessed not by one, not by two, but by NINE entities simultaneously (they interacted with his family and went to the uni, while he himself was taking a backseat - and nobody noticed for some weeks). Another guy was tortured in his sleep for more than a year every single time - and it was one of the best lucid dreamers I've come across, but still couldn't do shit about that. Another one's body aged for 10-15 years in a span of a week and got a heart disease. Never mind all those "witches" who wanted to see the future to help people and are now cursed with the Cassandra's complex, I've known like three of those. Man, I could probably write a book on this topic. So, basically - DON'T. Ritualistic magic is like a shitty closed-source software: it will own your ass and you will not even know it. Yeah, ultimately it's all just You/God playing pranks on itself, but good luck doing the liberation practices when "the relative you" is grabbed by the balls...

You don't say?.. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/life-expectancy-globally-since-1770.svg

Nah, it really isn't, I just bought a Vedic cookbook from local Krishnaites and experimented with replacing/removing the diary products; that, and the supplements. Never ever felt unsatiated or lacking energy. Then again, people tend to say that I eat "too little", oh well, people say a lot of things. Cronometer averaged at about 2200 Kcal, but that was only a month or so worth of data, so I'm not sure if it's representative in any way. I was mostly concerned with aminoacids and minerals as a beginner vegan enthusiast. I don't know what to say, man. I mean, it's usually something like 40% carbs (potatoes, pasta, rice etc) + 30% some kind of a stew with legumes and what not + 30% fresh salad. I can thoroughly recommend the cookbook, though - Krishnaites know what they're doing when it comes to healthy and delicious cooking: Адираджа Дас - Ведическое Кулинарное Искусство; it's available to download for free online. I'd like to once again stress the importance of not being fanatical about your eating schedule (or even strict veganism from the very start, but that's a whole another can of worms). If 1 meal seems to not be working, 2 smaller ones with a 4h interval are still pretty good.

I've adhered to OMAD in the past for approximately 2 years, mostly vegetarian, but there was a purely vegan period - and it worked just fine; now it's either 2 meals or 1 + some fruits instead of a lunch (I never eat breakfast). The only potential downside I see is that OMAD can conflict with your workout schedule - I hear that the common advice is to load up after the training; but I don't work out, so. Other than that, yeah, exactly like you said: lightness, clarity and focus most of the day. You don't have to adhere to OMAD schedule religiously to benefit from it.

What hate are you talking about? Weren't you the one who started accusing me of inability to read after I merely pointed out that a functionally identical thread exists? Be careful with your projections.