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Green is still a very egocentric stage, although a little higher in consciousness than the lower stages. Green will often pay lip service to concepts like love but green is not yet capable of authentic love (except in rare situations) and you will often notice this hypocracy in green since it is preoccupied with fighting with the lower stages, and often does so from a place of anger. Green will often (not always, each stage can manifest in different ways depending on the person's personally, experiences, ect.) create spiritual egos which revolve around projecting a veneer of spiritual practice and climbing the status hierarchies of their spiritual community. They do not partake in spiritual practices for the sake of finding Truth, they do so to maintain a certain ego, green is not yet open minded in this regard, they are unlikely to consider evidence which disconfirms their spiritual practices and will likely see it as an attack to their ego and will use all the same ego-preservation tactics as the lower stages. I believe there is a qualitative difference in consciousness between tier 1 and tier 2. That is Being vs ego-deficiency perception. Maslow's Toward a Psychology of Being does an excellent job of detailing this difference.

Yellow is where radical open mindedness begins to develop. They are starting to become more interested in the truth rather than what serves their ego. They see that no one theory holds the absolute truth and that all perspectives have some degree (even if very minuscule) of truth to them. Yellow is also the stage at which life is starting to be approached from a place of Being rather than ego. So they can be motivated by curiosity, love, compassion, passion, appreciation of beauty, the desire for truth for it's own sake. They are capable of loving others without needing anything in return. They are able to truly enjoy life and they live more authentically. Tire 1 on the other hand are very egocentric stages and are motivated by egoic deficiency (ie. security, status, comfort, competition, defending/propagating ideologies, tribalism, neurotic impulses, ect.).

It seems that the struggle for survival is a big factor, people are too focused on chasing financial security and pursuing societal ideals to be concerned with real growth. Maslow found that you only have two option in life, to move forward into growth or to regress into security and comfort. There is also the fact that the vast majority of people haven't even heard of self-actualisation.

Bring it back I say. To be honest I found the rep system to be a pretty decent indicator of post quality most of the time. I don't want to spend much of my time on internet forums so I don't have any desires to sift through dozens of post to find a good one. I'll probably just end up judging what's worth reading by how familiar the poster is to me, which is much worse than how individual posts ranked. Also, how am I supposed to get my social validation now? Don't get that rush anymore.

I'd like to invite you to contemplate what you would do if you were a being of infinite power, infinite intelligence and infinite creative potential. I'd suggest that eventually, after living out your greatest fantasies, having sex with the hottest people, ect. you will begin to get bored. And so the idea will arise "perhaps it would be interesting to forget that I'm God". So you would create a world inhabited with a variety of people, all with their unique personalities and stories, but most importantly they that all believe that they actually are human beings (their ego) and nothing greater. So you see, the veil which keeps you from the Truth is there for a reason; so that you can convincingly act out the role you are playing (a sort of willful suspension of disbelief). Now, it just so happens that for some people the game is "find out who I really am," and it is indeed a hell of a game. Though, for most people this is not the game for them, not everyone needs to see the Truth and that is all right.

Nothing. Everything seems to have pieced together to bring to where I am today, and I am enjoying the show.

Because the world is fucking interesting. Take a look around you, this whole thing is bloody incredible, even the mere fact that it is happening at all. This is the problem, you are too ignorant of your own ignorance, you are veiling yourself to the mystery of what's around you.

For me it was my first LSD trip. Before that I had built an ego around being a rational, scientifically minded person and believed the science was the ultimate arbiter of truth and all that sort of thing. LSD forced me to see through all of that in an instant. I had always had a sincere need to understand the world, and so after seeing that there was something to them, I decided to continue exploring psychedelics even though my first trip was a pretty bad one. About a year later Leo begins talking about enlightenment, this was the first time I had come across any good information on the topic so it really helped me to understand what was going on with the psychedelic experience and help me to move further along the path.

I do believe it was the result the spiritual work I had done previously. Ever since I took my first psychedelic I feel as if there was some sort of opening up in my psyche and ever since then I have found my self heading further down the spiritual path. Psychedelics will almost always induce some degree of ego death, though to have the full unveiling on your first trip would be very rare. After my first trip I found myself rebuilding my ego, while at the same time I could see that there was something profoundly significant to the psychedelic experience. Ever since I was a kid, I have always had this desire to know, a certain curiosity about the world (ie. how did it all come into existence? what is consciousness? what is death? ect.). It was this curiosity which led me to explore the psychedelic state further, even after the uncomfortable experience I had on my first LSD trip. I have met many people who have a bad experience on a psychedelics (ie. the ego resisting its death) and then commit to never taking a psychedelic ever again. They heard the call to adventure, but refused to leave the house. Enlightenment is really not for the majority of people. It is only for those who want to Truth above all else, who are willing to sacrifice everything for it (since it is your ego (ie. you) that is the veil to the Truth; enlightenment = death, most people want survival and ego enhancement, not their own death!). A genuine desire to know is the most important facet to spiritual work, if you are sincere in your search for Truth you will inevitably find yourself down the right path, though psychedelics will massively accelerate your search.

10th Sep, 2017 I directly experienced God, Him, The Absolute, The Void, The Hole, The Singularity, Nothingness, The Infinite, The Godhead, The Supreme, The Grand Architect, Source, Truth. Lately I have been longing to get out of the city and away from all of its egoism and to spend some more time in nature. Last week I had a dream where I was driving along a road through a forest. I decided I wanted to get out and ride my bike on the bright green grass. I failed to slow down enough when pulling off the road so my car slid across the grass; I managed to keep control of the car and stop. I drove a little down the road, down a hill and park behind a car at the side of the road. My dad is in the car. I ask him if this is the road that leads back to Melbourne, apparently it was not and that I should have turned onto a road further back. I decided that I was going to continue on this road instead of going back to the city, but first spend some time in the forest around me which made me feel warm, at peace, and nostalgic. I can remember in the dream looking at a GPS map of my location. It was directly north of Melbourne and on a road that travelled west-east. A few days after the dream I saw a post on Reddit displaying pictures of the snow at Mt Macedon. It looked beautiful and I had only ever seen snow one when I was a kid, so I looked up the location of Mt Macedon, it was north-west of Melbourne and not very far away. It wasn’t in the exact location of the place in my dream, but quiet close. This Saturday I made the trip out to Mt Macedon, I had set myself two goals for this journey which were to spend some more time in nature, away from the heavily egoic city, and to see the snow (the snow had cleared up by the time I got there). The road there went along the top of a mountain with a drop and then more mountains on either side. It was a beautiful drive; exactly what I longed for. I parked at the top of Mt Macedon and decided to take some mushrooms, I ate ten (Psilocybe Subaeruginosa) with many small mushrooms, a few medium sized, and no large, so what was supposed to be a fairly mild to moderate dose. I was hiking down a trail when I started to come up. I noticed profoundly the silence of the forest and rapidly became more and more aware of The Void. I had never been so enveloped in Nothingness before, I (my ego) was dying; I was scared. Luckily I was quiet educated about ego death and knew not overreact. I turned back and headed toward the top of the mountain. Suddenly I became overwhelmed by symbolism, not only mentally but in the physical environment as well. I felt as if every fundamental question I ever had (ie. Who am I? What is the universe? Why does anything exist at all? What is consciousness?) was leading up to this point. It became clear to me that I was lost; spiritually lost. The fact that I now found myself in a forest with no one else in sight and no trace of civilisation was representative of that. I kept repeating in my mind ‘I’m so lost, I’m so lost’. For the past few years I have found myself on the spiritual path. I was now on a path heading up a mountain which at its peak housed the Memorial Cross; a monument in the form of a massive cross. I made my way back to the car park trying as hard as I could to hold my consciousness intact; I thought I was about to go hyper-dimensional (the DMT-like hallucinogenic experience) which I was not prepared for. I pleaded ‘I don’t want to go, please don’t take me, I want to stay here’. After a while I realised I wasn’t going anywhere, I took a look around and realised that my ordinary reality was still here and I was in fact not tripping all that strongly (tripping in the usual sense as in visual and auditory hallucination, headspace, ect.). What had happened was that I had been unveiled. I could see God, the source of all things. I had direct consciousness. I was no longer a person. My reaction was ‘I see. I SEE.’ While I am not a Christian (and was even a militant atheist at one point); the most natural word for what I saw was God. God is not a person as we think of it in the Christian sense. God is a Singularity yet simultaneously a Void. God is Infinite yet Nothing. I could see that this Singularity was the Source of my existence and of the world I see around me. The world around me was being “spewed out” of this Hole. I saw that I am that Hole. This is my True Self unveiled. Nature, the trees around me, other people, society, my own identity, the fact that I am a person, time and space are all manifestations of The Hole. This life, this reality is just one limitation within the greater Infinity, for The Infinite contains every limitation. What would you do if you were God; an all powerful Singularity that can do anything, be anything? Perhaps you would create a beautiful landscape with nature and trees and animals and set limitations or laws to this little world you’ve created. Perhaps you would create people to amuse you with all sorts of drama and antics. But maybe after a few trillion years you begin to get a little bored and you get the idea ‘maybe it’ll be exciting to forget that I’m God for a while’. This is by far God’s greatest trick; you have actually managed to fool yourself into believing that you’re not God. Amazing. Truly incredible. People are God playing ‘I’m not God’. This is the great cosmic joke. I was deeply impressed, I could do nothing more than applaud. To be completely convince this whole time that I was just this little ego while in fact being God; truly impressive. I want to see that trick again for sure. I realised that everything around me was all my doing, I was creating it. The bench I was sitting on, the trees around me were all my manifestations. The birds flew by; I was doing that. When I looked at people all I could see was me, they are all God. You are me. You are God, you are creating it all and you don’t even know it. We are all God and don’t realise it. A very peculiar shift in approach towards other people occurs when you have this realisation. Seeing that they are all God, it is as if you are role playing with yourself. People are the masks you put on, but underneath the mask you see God; behind the act you feel the underlying connectedness, an underlying love. I made my way over to the viewing area. The view was sublime. I spent some time basking in the magnificence of what the Singularity has architected. I then headed over to the massive cross monument. The plaque read ‘To the glory of God’. I find it amusing; God pretends He is not God and builds monuments to worship Himself. I inspected the view around this part of the mountain, I could see Melbourne in the distance, it was cloudy where I was, though in the distance there was a break in the clouds so sunrays shone down on the city. I thought to myself ‘what a wonderful little gem’. The spiritual quest is a search for yourself; a search for God. Many times I have experienced some degree of ego death since embarking on the spiritual path and over time the death got progressively deeper. Now I know that the ego goes much deeper than I initially expected. The ego is your whole life; the mere fact that you’re a human being. The vast majority of the contents of our lives are distractions from our true selves (including many of the things our egos pretend are spiritual; the ego is remarkably resilient, each time we experience a partial ego death the ego redefines itself, moving up a “spiritual” level, turning your spiritual answers into the new ego). Way back in the furthest recesses of our minds is the sneaking suspicion that there is more to us; this is the catalyst for the spiritual quest. The ego will do anything to distract us from following this intuition. The high ego density of the cities makes distraction inevitable, this is why nature and isolation are important in the spiritual quest; you are further away from the system which is constantly reinforcing your ego, you are cut off from the endless stream of distractions which is keeping you from your true nature. With this revelation, I no longer had any more questions. All of my spiritual questions had been answered. What is there left to do now? Well, perhaps I could continue being human, live out a human existence and partake in the act. Birth and Death do not exist. They are nothing. There is nowhere you could possibly go. The Void likes to manifest itself as a personality in a physical world and thoroughly convince itself that it is this identity and that it needs to survive. This has been going on for an eternity. ‘For the time it take for a bird to wear away a mountain by dropping a scarf on it every 10000 years; that’s how long this has been going on for’. Though, even this analogy is inaccurate, since the Singularity is both timeless and spaceless. Everything and Nothing are all contained within an instant. I must stress that I am trying to speak as literally as I am capable of. There is no metaphor intended in my writing here. Words cannot do justice, for The Absolute is truly ineffable. A day has already pasted since my revelation and already I am well and truly veiled again. My experience of The Godhead is now a fading memory. I am not sure why a relatively small dose of mushrooms caused me to unveil. I have taken mushrooms dozens of times, often at much higher doses, and have never experienced anything like this. The last time I did mushroom I had a much stronger trip than what would be expected for the does. I became hyper-dimensional on what should have been a strong, but grounded in reality, trip, and so did my friends whom I took them with. I intuit that whatever is happening to me with the mushroom is contagious; that if I take the mushrooms with someone else they too will unveil The Godhead. It’s a shame, I really liked mushrooms but now I don’t believe I can ever use them in the same way I used to. Interestingly, the other psychedelics I have used recently (ie. DMT and 2C-B) have not produced an awakening of this sort.

Sounds like you had a pretty profound trip, now comes the hard part; integrating what you learnt into everyday life. From your description it sounds like you took DMT in the form of changa.

The ego does not understand that enlightenment means its literal death, the ego cannot grasp what The Godhead truly is. The ego wants some achievement, some realisation, or some state that it can use to feel special. After accidentally seeing The Godhead I realised that my whole spiritual path up until that point was just a distraction of my ego, and there is nothing wrong that. The ego is your entire life and the fact that you're a human being. Self-actualise, meditate, do spiritual things and enjoy your life. There is no real need become enlightened, you will realise your true self in due time. The one who is meditating is The Godhead manifesting it self as an ego.

Psychedelics will increase communication from the unconscious mind, because of this they can be exceptional tools for spiritual or psychological growth when used correctly. Mushrooms can be quiet confrontational teachers in that they tend to force upon you what you need to see, though not necessarily what your ego wants to see. If this happens it is important to approach whatever comes up with complete non-resistance, accept the experience as it is. When the ego is shown something it does not want to see or if it feels like it's threatened or even dying it will create great resistance to the experience and try to change it or make it go away, it is this resistance which can cause a bad trip.

"We have to create culture, don't watch TV, don't read magazines, don't even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you're giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told 'no', we're unimportant, we're peripheral. 'Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.' And then you're a player, you don't want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world." - Terrence McKenna

Logic is a house of cards. When you trace back your reasoning you will find one of two things; either your reasoning circles back around itself, or you reach a position which you hold to be true without any rational justification. Reason is a useful tool, make use of it when you need to, but realise that it alone is inadequate for understanding the universe or indeed yourself.

Disclaimer: 2C-B is considered a research chemical, meaning very little research has been done on this substance and its long term health effects are currently unknown. Preparation: The preparation of 2C-B poses an initial challenge in that dosages required are too small (15 to 25mg range) to be accurately measured on standard milligram scales. Every milligram counts with 2C-B, an increase of just a few mg can significantly increase the drug’s hallucinatory effect. Since I don’t have access to laboratory scales I decided to dose volumetrically. A larger amount of 2C-B powder can be measure accurately enough on regular milligram scales and then dissolved in a known amount of solvent (three parts distilled water, one part unflavoured vodka to prevent bacterial grow in long term storage). A 10ml syringe can be used to measure the dosage of the 2C-B solution, since it is an accurate instrument and easy to obtain. I measured of 6.8ml of a 2.5mg/ml solution of 2C-B, so a dose of ~17mg. The solution was mixed in 250ml of orange juice and consumed orally. I have heard reports that 2C-B has a horrifically bitter taste, though at these dilutions it could not be tasted and thus turned out to be a surprisingly easy drug to consume. Report, reflections, revelations: Lately I have been experimenting with the empathogens; MDMA was nice, although nothing groundbreaking, MDA I found to be rather underwhelming. I had taken these in party settings and feel that such a setting undermines the potential of these empathogens, so I decided on conducting my next test alone, in a quieter, more introspective setting. I was entering the state library when the drug began to take its effect. I had planned on reading Walt Disney’s biography for the first part of the trip, although the book was not in its usual location on the shelf when I checked. In hindsight this turned out to be a blessing in disguise since I was limited to reading one of the books I had brought with me; Carl Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections was decided upon. Jung’s life, his ideas, stories of his patients, and his relationship to Freud enthralled me. I felt an intense love for Jung and I felt as if our personalities resonated. What a marvellous character! I greatly admire his intellectual honestly, humility, and light-hearted nature. Previously the empathogens had caused me to feel a strong attachment to one particular person, in this instance not only was Carl Jung that person but he also reminded me of a close friend of mind and so I felt strong love for him too. I figured my unconscious mind must hold an association between Jung and my friend, perhaps because it was him who introduced me to Jung’s work. A few revelations about personality and relationships were had during the peak of the experience, although I struggled to articulate them at the time, thus I was not able to hold them in memory in an easily conceptualisable form, although I am sure my unconscious has not forgotten. 2C-B is not only an empathogen but also an entheogen, so while I was reading the autobiography I was very much tripping. The pages changed colour a few times, my peripheral vision was lined with colours; yellow, pink, blue, green; I could feel colours in my mouth, and the letters on the page got up to all sorts of antics making it slightly more challenging to read them. I believe 2C-B’s unique entheo-empathogenic quality is what makes it rather exceptional as a tool for introspection. Communication from the unconscious is still enhanced and you will still reflect upon your life with new understanding as you would with, say, mushrooms, only it is delivered in a very pleasant (lovely I would even say!) manner. Unconscious contents can be rashly forced into the conscious mind under mushrooms which, if the entheogen-taker’s ego is not ready or willing to take it up may result in great resistance and even cause the much fabled bad-trip. 2C-B’s empathogenic quality diminishes any egoic guard, thus making for smooth delivery. For the past few months of my life I have been deeply engrossed in research and introspection over the question of which direction I will take my life. Having recently graduated from university I have felt much pressure to conform to a version of the standard societal narrative by acquaintances, friends and family (not consciously of course), however, intuitively I feel a subtle but powerful urge to create something of value for others using my own creative talents. I have so far kept quiet about future plans since I was still quite uncertain and conversations over the last few months would have yielded different answers to the question ‘what are you going to do now?’ I have been taking Leo’s Life Purpose course and have found it to be remarkably helpful, exactly what I need at this stage in my life, and have decided upon a life purpose; to share insights into the nature of the human psyche. Despite this there has still been conflict between parts of my psyche; while I feel the intuitive tug of my higher self pulling me in this direction, the conscious egoic monkey chatter will often over shadow it with coercions to conform, worries of finances and social status, and plane doubt about whether anyone will care for what I have to say. 2C-B cemented my life purpose to me, it showed me that this is what was important to focus my energy on and to keep myself from getting too distracted. It also helped me to realise that I did not want to keep closed up about such matters, that I want to be one hundred percent open about my life. Inauthenticity takes a great toll on psychological health. In the days leading up to my trip I had been contemplating the practicalities of how to pursue my path. Through the entheo-empathic experience and Jung’s story it struck me that I was to return to university to study to become a psychologist while simultaneously working on my creative works and sharing them with the public. Through my personal development I have cultivated a profound appreciation for the beauty of the world around us which, when I look around me it seem very few others have. I would like to help others to see the magic that is around them and to guide them on their journey of self-actualisation and self-transcendence. The entheo-empathic experience is unique to 2C-B among the psychoactive substances which I’ve tried. It may be described as MDMA in psychedelic form, although it does not appear that you can obtain this experience by combining MDMA with one of the classic psychedelics. When MDMA and mushrooms are combined they synergise to give a trip of a distinctly different quality to mushrooms alone, but also distinctly different from the empathic experience. It is interesting that entheogens have their own unique qualities, and that synergistic entheogen combos should also have their own characters. There may exist in the collective unconscious archetypes of the entheogens; ayahuasca is often described as an earthly mother figure, smoked DMT as inter-dimensional machine elves, LSD as analytic, mushrooms and peyote as wise teachers. The 5-HT2A serotonin receptor is represented in the literature as being responsible for the psychedelic state, however we also know that psychedelic compounds activate many other serotonin receptors as well, DMT for instance, has an even higher binding affinity for the 5-HT1A receptor. Perhaps the drug’s unique affinities for the many different serotonin receptor types triggers its specific archetype in the mind and gives the trip its qualities. The ideal 2C-B trip would involve reading, thinking, and writing. The entheo-empathic experience is superb for the enhancement of creative insight. The unconscious mind has an advantage over the conscious mind in that it possesses the ability to process thousands of pieces of information at once while conscious thought is restricted to an entirely linear, logical thought sequence. This is why creative insight is often described as arising from a place beyond oneself. The psychedelic aspect of 2C-B will increase communication from the unconscious while the empathic element decreases egoic resistance to ideas and causes them to flow effortlessly. While in this creative state I had a strong drive to write down all of my insights, what a shame I had no writing utensils with me! 2C-B is the empathogen which resonates most with my personality and I can certainly see potential for its use as a tool for spiritual and psychological growth

There are many aspects to the human psyche some of which are conscious and the majority unconscious. Psychological good health may be achieved through the maturation and integration of these different parts of yourself. The ego is perhaps the loudest and very often takes the form of monkey chatter in the regular everyday state of consciousness. The goal of the ego is to maintain self preservation, it's concerned with security, comfort, and social status. When you worry about your finances or alter the way you behave in social setting to make people like you, that is the ego. Your sense of separation with the world, feelings of incompleteness, and any images or beliefs you hold of yourself are also constructs of the ego. As @eputkonen has pointed out, the ego also has its unconscious components, limiting beliefs are an example of this (which can be made conscious through introspection). The ego strongly alters your perception of reality in ways most are not aware of (ie. when one sees people as tools, rubrisised in terms of their usefulness, rather than seen as the unique and whole individuals that they are), it is possible to dissolve the egoic filters and achieve a more objective perception of reality, Maslow called this Being-perception. Due to the illusory nature of egoic constructs often simply placing your awareness on them is enough to disillude them. The unconscious mind is the source of creativity. The conscious mind is limited to logical, linear thought, while the unconscious mind has the remarkable ability to process thousands of things all together. This is why creative insight is often described as coming from beyond oneself. The anima/animus are aspects of the unconscious that I see many people have trouble integrating. The anima being the female aspect of a man's psyche and animus is the male aspect of a woman's psyche. Psychological health cannot occur when the anima/animus are not matured and integrated. Disintegration of the anima or animus can manifest into external problems such as a toxic view of the opposite sex (ie seeing women only as sex objects, or seeing men only for their utility), inability to form relationships with the opposite sex, lack of acceptance over one's own sex, inability to form relationships with the same sex, repeated forming of toxic relationship, ect. Another aspect of the unconscious is what I call the higher self. This is the part of you which strives to do good in the world, to be a decent human being, to value truth, beauty, consciousness, and goodness above your own ego-centered desires. It is the source of the drive toward self-actualisation and self-transcendence. The higher self is experienced much more intuitively than the ego, in regular consciousness it can be experienced as a subtle intuitive 'pull', which can very easily be drowned out by the egoic monkey mind, thus why meditation is so important in self-actualisation, to calm your mind and become more aware of your intuitive drives. Self sabotage is the result of incongruence in your psyche, it can come from the ego, as is the case with limiting beliefs, though it may also stem from other areas of the psyche. Someone who has achieve the outward success that our culture values may be plagued with depression and feelings of meaninglessness. This is the result of an incongruence in this persons actions and their authentic desires. While this person may have succeeded in achieving their egoic aims (most of which were indoctrinated by their society, a collective ego), they know intuitively that they are not reaching their full potential, not living their own path, and not living authentically.

You managed to see beauty in the world around you, this is an incredible thing which sadly few people possess. Pursue whichever path you like; live in a cave and meditate all day or go all out in the rat race; it doesn't really matter all too much which path you take, just don't let any egoic bullshit distract you too much from the magic that is all around you. You've been given this opportunity to experience life and it is incredible, beautiful, complete magic. This is what's truly important. Don't let life pass you by without ever having stopped to smell the roses.

Thanks for posting, it can be really helpful to read other peoples experiences, especially in the beginning stages of the journey.

Only after you label them as such.

Doesn't matter, both different symptoms of the same problem. The hedonist attempts to mask their sense of separation with stimulation. The ascetic reacts with the opposite, empowering themselves by acclimatising to pain and discomfort. Liberation is in true detachment.

The dichotomy between doing and being is a false one. You are always being, there is no way out of that. What people really have a problem with when talking about "doing" is the deficiency form of motivation used. The ego sees something it lacks or is deficient in and sets out to attain it using the promise of rewards and fear of punishments. Once the goal is achieved the motivation is satiated. This is the carrot and stick model of motivation. The problem with deficiency motivation is that it is only focused on achieving some end. The journey is not valued for its own sake, it is only viewed as a means to some other end, therefore the present moment is not enjoyed or fully lived. Becoming liberated will free you from this neurotic form of motivation. Does that mean you will then sit on the couch all day eating Cheetos? It's a possibility but chances are that probably won't appeal to you. Authentic motivations are still present even after enlightenment. Authentic motivations are different to deficiency motivation in that the activity itself is valued for its own sake, it is not just used as a means to an end but is an end in its own right. Authentic motivations cannot by satiated, in fact the more one gets the stronger the motivation grows. Here is a short list of some authentic motivations: - Fulfilment - Joy - Curiosity - Fascination - Love - Compassion - Appreciation of beauty - Growth - The desire to explore the richness of life

Self-Actualisation seems to be the most misunderstood concept among this community. Self-Actualisation does not mean ego propagation. Maslow found self-Actualising people to be much less ego-centred. He found that self-Actualisation is a bridge to self-Transcendence. Some characteristics he observed were: - A superior perception of reality - They showed authentic love rather than deficiency based love - They valued the higher values such as truth, beauty, and goodness - A profound acceptance of themselves, of others, and of nature - Increased spontaneity and autonomy - Fewer but far deeper interpersonal relationships - The capacity to appreciate again and again the basic goods of life, as if experienced for the first time - A higher frequency of peak experiences, including the mystical and aesthetic experience - A deep feeling of identification, sympathy, and affection for human beings in general - Authentic humility and respect for others - Lack of confusion in ethical matters - They were driven by what Maslow called Being-motivation, where they appreciate the activity itself for it's own sake, rather than deficiency/egoic motivation (ie. the carrot and stick) - Creativity/originality/inventiveness - Resistance to enculturation and maintaining a certain inner detachment to the culture they are immersed in - Resolution of dichotomies - They were focused on problems outside themselves, rather than ego-centred. - A desire for solitude In Maslow's words: "We are confronted with a difficult paradox when we attempt to describe the complex attitude toward the self or ego of the growth-oriented, self-actualising person. It is just this person, in whom ego-strength is at its height, who most easily forgets or transcends the ego, who can be most problem-centered, most self-forgetful, most spontaneous in his activities, most homonomous. In such people, absorption in perceiving, in doing, in enjoying, in creating can be very complete, very integrated and very pure. This ability to center upon the world rather than to be self-concious, egocentric and gratification-oriented becomes the more difficult the more need-deficits the person has. The more growth-motivated the person is the more problem-centered can he be, and the more he can leave self-conciousness behind him as he deals with the objective world."

A regular meditation habit. Keeping present is like building muscle, it needs to be trained and maintained.