Monster Energy

The truth feels unbearable not because it’s complex, but because it asks nothing of us, no improvement, no escape, no better version, just the quiet recognition that what’s already here is enough. Simplicity feels threatening when you’re invested in becoming someone else.

This is true

What’s disappointing isn’t that Matt has limits. Everyone does. It’s that those limits are rarely acknowledged. Confidence fills the space where humility could be. Sharpness replaces openness. And sometimes, condescension replaces understanding. Which is why it’s tempting to imagine a real conversation, not a debate, between Matt Dillahunty and Leo Gura. Not about God. Not about religion. But about epistemology itself. About whether scientific materialism is a method or a metaphysics. About whether skepticism can quietly turn into dogma. About whether consciousness is something to be explained away or something explanation already presupposes. Matt would bring rigor. Leo would bring discomfort. And if either of them were willing to genuinely slow down, the result could be far more interesting than another victory lap over bad arguments. Until then, Matt remains what he’s always been. Exceptionally good at telling us what not to believe, and far less curious about why his own worldview feels so unquestionably right. And maybe that’s the final irony. The man who built a career on skepticism might benefit most from turning it inward.

The metaphor sneaks in a hierarchy too easily. Blindness suggests a defect, and disagreement isn’t one. The problem isn’t that some people lack experiences. It’s that experiences don’t come with built-in authority. Mystical insight can illuminate, but it can also mislead. What’s interesting isn’t convincing anyone that “colors exist,” but asking why we assume vision is the only valid way of knowing in the first place.

It may not sound good, because it removes the narrator we’re used to trusting. But experience doesn’t disappear when the story stops, it finally becomes clear.

Yes. Improvement itself isn’t the issue. The problem begins when improvement becomes a way of rejecting oneself. When satisfaction is already present, action can be playful rather than compulsive. That’s the difference between movement as expression and movement as escape.

I think we’re talking past each other because “journey” does a lot of rhetorical work that experience itself never asked for. Yes, experience can grow more intricate. Perception can sharpen, new modes can open, the world can feel richer, stranger, more alive. None of that is in dispute. What I’m questioning is the implication that this increasing complexity points toward something, rather than simply unfolding. Calling it a journey suggests distance, progress, a future arrival. But nothing in experience actually moves. What changes is the story we tell about where we stand. When I say realization is available now, I don’t mean that nothing develops. I mean that development doesn’t accumulate into a final state. If awakening is infinite, then “arrival” is a metaphor that never quite cashes out. What eventually loosens its grip isn’t ignorance slowly defeated by effort. It’s the quieter assumption that something essential is missing and must be reached through time. So yes, we might agree on the destination, if we insist on using that language. I just don’t think anyone ever gets there. I think they notice they were never on the road.

Australia is amazing. Sun, beaches… and animals that look like they were designed to end the human species.

Funny how ‘salvation’ always means cutting something out instead of seeing it clearly. Maybe the wound isn’t desire. Maybe it’s pretending purity fixes it.

There’s a particular kind of person who feels alive in a way that’s hard to categorize. Not charismatic in the obvious sense. Not dominant. Not performing. Just… settled. Being around them doesn’t create excitement so much as it removes noise. The room feels quieter, even if nothing literally changes. People reach for strange language to describe this. “Vampire energy” is a common one. Not because anyone thinks vampires are real, but because metaphors step in when ordinary categories fail. What’s being pointed at isn’t darkness or immortality. It’s something more mundane and more unsettling. Coherence. What we usually call magnetism isn’t intensity, confidence, or raw drive. It’s the absence of inner friction. Nothing is being suppressed. Nothing is being compulsively chased. There’s no ongoing internal negotiation about whether desire is appropriate, dangerous, or meaningful. Attention isn’t split. The vampire metaphor is useful precisely because it exaggerates this quality. A being that doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t moralize its own impulses. Doesn’t leak energy through self-monitoring or second-guessing. Desire moves, action follows, and nothing is spent arguing with itself along the way. Humans, of course, do the opposite. We experience desire and immediately step outside of it. We analyze it, judge it, resist it, romanticize it, or try to optimize it. Attention fragments. Energy fragments with it. Desire isn’t the problem. The problem is living in permanent internal commentary. This is why certain people feel strangely attractive without trying to be. It isn’t discipline. It isn’t restraint. And it certainly isn’t that they possess some rare substance called “more energy.” What they have is undivided attention. Their system isn’t fighting itself. Presence creates coherence. Coherence creates vitality. Vitality is what we tend to mislabel as mystery or power. The mistake happens when we encounter this aliveness and assume it originates externally. From a body, a face, a presence, a relationship. So the mind turns outward, chasing energy through forms, images, and experiences. But the outer world never supplies energy. It only reflects what’s already online internally. Peace doesn’t come from eliminating desire. It comes from desire without inner war. When that conflict quiets, the world stops glowing so aggressively. Not because it becomes less beautiful, but because it’s no longer being used as a battery. Magnetism appears then. Not as an achievement. Not as an identity. As a side effect.

Yes

Calling a shift in perspective a ‘journey’ gives it narrative weight, not ontological depth. The distance feels real because change feels real, but nothing is being moved toward. Only the story of where you stand is changing.

The ‘beyond’ you’re pointing to is a shift in perspective, not an ontological elsewhere. What changes isn’t reality, but the story of who is located where inside it

Experience is what’s left when the story shuts up.

You wrote many insightful things, but I can’t address every point because it wouldn’t land well. Deep, high-level consciousness responses require a lot of lived experience and clear logic. I want it to feel engaging to read, not like generic spiritual commentary. I’ll do my best. I prefer responding briefly and clearly. Saying a lot with few words has its own kind of gravity and attraction. So let’s do it that way. Of course no finite perspective can “exhaust infinity.” That’s not the point. The mistake is assuming that because infinity is inexhaustible, it must therefore exist as a metaphysically separate “beyond.” That inference does not follow. Inexhaustibility does not imply ontological exteriority. The field of experience can feel boundless precisely because it is the expression of infinity, not a fragment reflecting something elsewhere. Infinity does not need to hide behind the field to remain mysterious. Mystery is intrinsic to it. When the search relaxes, nothing closes. Inquiry doesn’t end. Life doesn’t flatten. What ends is the compulsion to posit an external horizon in order to preserve meaning. The assumption that meaning, love, or relationship require a metaphysical other is itself a subtle form of lack. Distinction does not disappear when unity is realized. What disappears is the belief that distinction must be grounded in separation. Relationship continues, but it’s no longer driven by need, fear, or metaphysical anxiety. So the issue is not whether infinity is inexhaustible. It is. The issue is whether that inexhaustibility requires a “beyond.” From direct realization, it does not. Infinity is fully present as this, without remainder, without ceiling, and without an outside. That’s not a closure claim. It’s the absence of projection.

🎙️ Moderator “Tonight we have Leo Gura from Actualized.org and Matt Dillahunty from The Atheist Experience. Topic: Is consciousness fundamental, or is it a product of the brain?” 🧠 Leo Gura “Let me start by saying something that will already sound insane to you, Matt. Consciousness is not in the brain. The brain is in consciousness.” (The audience laughs nervously.) 🧩 Matt Dillahunty “Okay — cool. That’s poetic. Now let’s do the boring part: how do you know that’s true?” 🧠 Leo “By direct experience. Not belief. Not faith. I mean direct realization — the same way you know pain exists when you feel it.” 🧩 Matt “And here’s where we immediately diverge. Because personal experience is not evidence of an external claim about reality.” 🧠 Leo “That depends on what you think reality is. You’re assuming an external, objective world first — and then asking consciousness to justify itself inside that framework.” 🧩 Matt “Because that framework works. It predicts. It builds planes. It cures disease. Your framework gives me… YouTube monologues.” (The audience laughs louder.) 🧠 Leo (smiling) “And yet, every single plane, equation, and disease cure appears inside consciousness. Science never escapes it — it presupposes it.” 🧩 Matt “Sure. Consciousness is required to experience reality. That doesn’t make it ontologically fundamental.” 🧠 Leo “Here’s the trap you’re in, Matt. You think you’re standing outside the system, evaluating it rationally. But reason itself is a tool inside consciousness.” 🧩 Matt “And here’s the trap you’re in. You’re taking an internal experience and inflating it into a metaphysical truth without a falsification method.” 🧠 Leo “Falsification only applies after consciousness is assumed. You’re asking consciousness to prove itself using tools that depend on it.” 🧩 Matt (pauses) “…Okay. That’s clever. But clever doesn’t equal correct.” 🧠 Leo “Agreed. Which is why I don’t ask you to believe me. I ask you to look.” 🧩 Matt “And I’ll look the moment you show me a method that doesn’t collapse into ‘trust me bro, I meditated really hard.’” 🧠 Leo “The method is radical self-inquiry. But it requires something you don’t like.” 🧩 Matt “Let me guess. Letting go of skepticism.” 🧠 Leo “No. Letting go of the assumption that skepticism itself is neutral.” (The room goes quiet.) 🧩 Matt “…That’s actually fair. Skepticism does have priors.” 🧠 Leo “And mysticism has rigor — just not the kind you’re trained to recognize.” 🧩 Matt “Then maybe the real disagreement isn’t about God or consciousness. Maybe it’s about what counts as knowledge.” 🧠 Leo “Exactly.” 🎙️ Moderator “So… are you two actually closer than you thought?” 🧩 Matt (half-smiling) “I still think he’s wrong.” 🧠 Leo (laughing) “And I still think you’re God pretending not to be.” 🧩 Matt “Hard pass.” (The audience explodes.) 🔥 Why this would go viral Leo attacks foundational assumptions, not surface arguments Matt defends epistemic discipline, not dogma Neither is stupid Neither fully wins And both force the audience to think at a deeper level

A fruit-based diet is very powerful. I’ve noticed that it becomes much easier to resist impulses on it as well. I did a fruit diet for a month and it was fantastic. Desire, however, is truly difficult to resist. You really have to be present and have a clear direction. But you should never fight it, because resistance only makes the impulse stronger. Instead, don’t react to it. When there’s no reaction, it loses its power and eventually disappears. I also appreciate that you were willing to share something personal with me. I’m genuinely glad that you’re thinking long-term rather than choosing short-term pleasure that slowly destroys you both spiritually and biologically. Porn was the hardest addiction for me to overcome, and I’m deeply grateful that I’ve become free from it.

Glad to hear that🌟

Do I know why? Yes. Do I care? No. Is that paradoxical? Probably. What’s interesting is how insight barely gets discussed, while how it was written becomes the main event.

I’m not making a metaphysical claim that multiple headsets are impossible. I’m pointing to something more basic. All claims, single-player or multiplayer, appear inside the same field of experience. You never step outside that field to verify an external “server.” You only imagine one. So epistemically, both models are equal. The difference isn’t logic, it’s where infinity is placed. Either infinity is deferred outward, beyond, others, server, or it’s recognized as already present as the very capacity for experience itself. As for ego, it can inflate in either direction. Wanting to dissolve into a greater whole can be ego. Wanting to be the whole can be ego. The tell isn’t the concept, it’s whether the sense of lack disappears. When the need for a beyond drops, not because it’s disproven but because it’s unnecessary, the search naturally relaxes. That’s all I’m pointing at. Not a belief. A noticing.

Thank you! It really wasn’t easy to complete two weeks, since I was very toxic for the majority of my life, but I was clean enough to make it that far. I wish you good luck on your journey. NoFap, however, I would dare to say is almost on the same level as dry fasting, except that dry fasting is the fastest way to reach clarity, while NoFap takes longer. For example, one week of dry fasting can feel like 50 to 100 days of NoFap. There are so many similarities between these two that many people are not aware of. Both are needed to feel reborn. You can never truly feel clean if you do dry fasting but ignore NoFap. It will never work. The three best things for well-being are dry fasting, NoFap, and presence. Nothing beats this in my opinion, and anyone who truly understands existence and nature should agree.

Leo, I appreciate everything you have done for your audience. I also understand why debating others is not really your thing. But as someone with such a high level of consciousness, you surely understand that most people are not there to listen, but to win for their own biased side. I believe you can withstand these triggers well, because you understand the psychology behind it. But you should not forget that even if the other person is not listening and does not truly hear you, what you say and do in communication is never in vain. The viewers, on the other hand, gain a great benefit, because they do not feel as deeply attacked by you, since the words are not directed at them, but at the person in front of you. I truly hope that this year you receive more attention and respect for your work.

That was a good comment, a lot of wisdom was shared. For me, I’m not seriously chasing states anymore. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve done dry fasting, and in my view I’ve reached a state that can’t really go higher within a human form. Of course, I still value maintaining a high and stable baseline. What I’ve noticed is that these foods and drinks don’t drastically affect my state, which is why I choose not to eliminate them completely. Because my body is very clean, it seems to handle toxins much more easily. And the beautiful thing, as you probably know, is that when the body becomes this clean, all dependencies fall away and you can no longer become a slave to anything. This happens automatically, not as a conscious choice.

I know

Mentioning that people lack strong understanding and then quoting a Bible verse isn’t very wise. It’s not a good combination, and people won’t read it as intelligent. Instead, it comes across as someone who thinks they’re saying something profound, while actually lowering the quality of the message. Be more attentive to this going forward, or don’t.