Dan Arnautu

@Loreena He talked in Russian in one of his videos (can't remember which one though) in order to prove that language is entirely arbitrary and that without knowing a language, it's words will sound just like a bunch of gibberish to you, with no logical or any other kind of sense at all.

@Visionary Lots of weird emotions that I need to be mindful of right now, including fear. Lately, I was always in a tense state, like having a constant fear of my surroundings for some reason. Yesterday I was listening to some deep spiritual stuff on the internet and suddenly a terror came over me. I felt my pulse doubling in speed and almost pumping out of my chest. It felt like something set me on fire and I could not stop it. I REALLY, REALLY felt that that was the moment I was going to die. Maybe I wasn't, but I had experienced that kind of terror only once in the past, and that was when I almost had an ego death. Awakening is no child's play. I thought I was not going to survive that moment. Then I started to breathe very deeply and look into the feeling. It felt like a ball of spinning energy the size of my whole torso. I handled the whole experience fairly well, but I got the gist that my mind does not like being fed all this spiritual stuff and it may have been a signal to stop "hurting it". After that, I went on with my day. Be careful if you wish for enlightenment right now. You are in for a whole new level of suffering. It gets much worse before it gets better. The only other experiences I had aside from all of this were some spiritual insights on weed.

Sure, go on.

@Leo Gura You said that you previously had a marketing business, although I see that your overall marketing for actualized.org is pretty light weight. the internal linking on the articles seems to be light no social media marketing that I can see few to no collaborations not that much marketing for your courses aside from recommending them in a few of your videos barely any graphic design no sponsorships and cross promoting products with other content creators etc. I could find a dozen more things that are pretty standard in the current digital marketing landscape that you don't seem to waste time on or don't seem to delegate. Why are you not marketing yourself more, when you have such high quality content? I know that high consciousness stuff is very hard to market, but still, there are a lot of things you could easily add in your marketing plan with a pretty high ROI. You could easily hire someone to do all of these things for you, based on the level you are at with your business right now. I won't lie, I am also asking this question for myself as I am kind of turning into a jack of all trades when I see that I have very little money to start a business and need to learn to do all the things myself at least at a decent level (sales, marketing, seo, programming, creating content, learning more about my craft etc).

@Jordan wang A swimming career is good, if you want to see if you can surpass the previous limits set in the sport, but the problem with it is that, unlike in other careers, you can't remain at peak performance forever. Your body ages. This will most likely make you switch careers early. After you are no longer fit for competitions, you will need to either: go into another industry, become a coach for other swimmers yourself or start some kind of swimwear company or thing of the sorts. Think long and hard before you make any big decision. A decision of this magnitude will keep make you need to become commited to that decision usually for very long periods of time.

@Leo Gura Yea, that is most likely true. "The way to hell is paved with good intentions."

@electroBeam No need to spiritually twist words. You know I wasn't talking on an existential level.

Not necessarily. I haven't experienced that even though I never had a long term relationship. If you see yourself being single as a problem, people can't do anything but agree with you. Maybe, but I can't say sex in lucid dreams is just like real sex. Relationships don't have to be egoic. And even though they can be, you can still learn from them. "3 failed relationships in as many years have a much higher chance to trigger an awakening than living for 3 years in a cave, meditating ." - Eckhart Tolle

@electroBeam A real relationship is still better than dreaming about having sex, wouldn't you think so?

Not so much about the exercises as it is about the habits. If you instill a lot of good habits, happiness will be anyway generated with or without your will. But still, let's do an exercise. Flip the coin on it's head. What can I do to not feel happy at all? What can I do to put myself in the most depressed state possible? Well, let's see: Eat poorly and don't work out. This way you won't have energy to do anything, you will have poor posture, aches and pains everywhere and most likely nobody will want to date you. Complain and blame and criticize and judge everything around you Create rules that you need to follow in order to be happy. e.g "I won't let myself be happy until I pass my exam tomorrow or until I get into a good college." Don't learn anything Let life blow you from left to right however it pleases because you don't know how anything works and thus you can't take control of anything in your life --> fear, turmoil Try to fill your inner void with different addictions Don't meditate Always believe what your mind tells you Care about what other people think of you etc. The list could be endless, but can you see the fact that all the items listed above include either bad or good habits? The more bad habits you have, the unhappier you are and the more good habits you have and bad habits you eliminate, the happier your are. Make a list of your own, according to the question above, and start to act upon the reverse of what it says. Good luck.

I suggest staying away from faces in general when it comes to tattoos. They can come up really, really bad. Just do a google search for baby tattoos or portrait tattoos. Freaky stuff. Rarely do I see a good one. But if you find a really good tattoo artist whom you believe with all your hear can make it look good, then go right ahead. But still, I would not do it even with the best tattoo artist in the world at my disposal. But that is just my opinion.

From my perspective, the problem may be that: You did not give her an orgasm (don't underestimate how big of a factor this can be) You did not adress her irritation the next day. You did not ask her what the problem actually was. You saw minor clues when she did not want to cuddle. The irritation then snowballed. Most girls will be honest with you if you offer them the space and room to be honest (meaning you should be willing to take the whole truth, even if it may hurt your ego). The irritation and upsetness could have been just a test to see if you would crumble under her pressure. Women want to feel secure and it's in their nature to test their man to see if he is actually unshakeable or not. If her mood freaked you out, you failed her test, and now she can't trust you anymore to be her man. Your masculinity can fade away real fast in her eyes if you show signs of insecurity and lack of centeredness and purpose. You did not adress what the issue was even after the whole situation had passed before trying to get back with her again. You acted like nothing had happened. After the fuck up, you started pursuing her which lowered her attraction toward you even more. From the meme she posted the situation is very clear. You damn right fucked up, but you don't know where. Some of things you did wrong include one or more of the above, but the girl knows best. There are slim chances to get her back with her at this point in my opinion, but here is what I suggest you do. Call her, ask her where you fucked up, why, and how she felt when you did that and never act like that again. Do this without expecting her to get back with you. At least you will gain some intel and feedback on your actions, and can prevent future mistakes. Good luck, mate!

@Jhonny Careful! You can easily become addicted to that. Put your efforts into a real relationships instead.

So instead of cardio I would like to maybe take an hour and walk more outside while listening to an audiobook. Some of the greatest selections that I've listened to until now are: Total Recall by Arnold Scwarzenegger The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene Please don't recommend books that have exercises in them. That would defeat the whole purpose. Can't wait to hear your favorite ones!

Entry 12 Bowen Therapy So, my mom not long ago got certified as a Bowen Therapist. For those of you that don't know, Bowen Therapy typically involves gentle rolling motions along the muscles, tendons, and fascia. The therapy's distinctive features are the minimal nature of the physical intervention and pauses incorporated in the treatment. They just give the muscles and tendons a stimuli that sort of triggers the body to "repair itself". I don't know if what I experience is a placebo effect or not, but I personally found that Bowen Therapy helped me with the release of some energy blockages and muscle knots, and I also found that at least for me, it is a good method of relaxation or even meditation (because of the long pauses between interventions). Anyway, while I was away in Bucharest for college, my mom kind of transformed my room into an office or therapy room, with a massage bed and all. She kind of did the same with the living room, just so she could work on multiple clients at once. I have no problem with that, but right now, as I'm gonna be here all summer, it's kind of irritating to have to get up and move to her bed in order to sleep when she has a client at 7:00 or 8:00 A.M. Granted, I do ask her for money from time to time, and I can't complain because the money probably comes from the therapy sessions and she also does some interventions on me once or twice per week while I am here. A funny thing that started happening to me yesterday and that usually happens to me 1 day after a therapy session is that my muscles start to contract spontaneously (from my calves to my palm flexors, traps, hips, shoulders, neck etc.). Yesterday, my left palm's flexor muscle, right under the pinky finger and together WITH the pinky finger started having constant spasms for about 3-4 hours. It looked like I had Parkinson's disease (knock on wood), lol. My mom told me that what I am experiencing are just the muscles rearranging themselves and healing. I don't really care if what she says is true or not. This thing is still freaky AF, haha. Working on My Personal Website A close friend who happens to also be a programmer started helping me a few days ago with my website. He helped me save a ton of money with the website hosting and back end dev overall (a thing I am no specialist in). I am now officially hosting my website on a UK server through 5wire Hosting. I really can't recommend this service enough as it is 5 times cheaper than most web design platform packages that come with hosting or even 5 times cheaper than only the hosting service. The payment was easy and I experienced no major problems with the setup. I soon after installed Wordpress on the server, created a professional e-mail, got access to my cpanel and wp-admin page in order to edit the website and all that is need to do now is to, well ..... design the actual website. The web design part is no biggie for me though. I had designed at least 5 websites before, although not from scratch, but with various different builders, from Wordpress to Wix and Ukit. It shouldn't be that much of a hassle for me to create this website, although I am once again thinking of redefining it's purpose and figuring out how to use the new builder that my website theme comes with. All of these may take some time, but I know it's all gonna be worth it in the end. Guitar Student Success This programmer friend that I've have been talking seems to also be passionate about music. Just before he left Manchester for vacation here, he asked me to help him with choosing an electric guitar. In the end, he purchased the guitar that I guided him towards. While he is on vacation here and until his guitar arrives, I started helping him with some problem areas he had on the guitar like his palm muting, alternate picking, hand synchronization and rhythm. Yesterday I taught him how to play a simple, but awesome solo. He was more than pleased with my guidance but he is still doubtful of his own potential and rate of progress. I found that the best approach in these type of cases is to praise every little sign of progress. Some people may be progressing very fast, but they may not see it and still have a very negative self talk in their head - and once the gremlin in their head turns against them, it is very hard to help them from the outside. A lot of times, as a teacher, people may not doubt your capability to provide extraordinary results for your students, but they may doubt their own potential to achieve success. That's why it is your responsibility as a teacher to make them create a big and compelling vision for themselves and show them that they CAN and WILL get where they want to go if they follow what you tell them to do. Most people think that teaching is just about regurgitating information. But a really good teacher goes beyond that. Students may not always need you as a teacher (as in: a person that passes on information), but they may need you as a coach or a mentor. A good teacher know when to fulfill each role and adjusts accordingly. Sometimes the student might feel blue or might lack any sense of direction. Teaching him one more scale shape on the guitar won't help him progress on his musical journey. Addressing the issue at hand will.

Hi there! My name is Dan, and I am here to bring you with me on the journey of wiping the slate clean and remodeling myself from scratch. Whether it is in my career, social life, health or spiritual life, I am here to show you what I have learned until now, what I'm working on and where I'm going. I think you will be able to find valuable golden nuggets of information here regardless of your current life situation, age, way of thinking etc. as this will be an all encompassing journal of how I strive to achieve mastery in all the facets of my life worth mastering. The journal will be split into 7 topics, 1 for each day of the week, just so I can bring you the most value and just so I can go into details on each topic. THE WEEKLY STRUCTURE OF THE JOURNAL Monday | Fitness/Nutrition My journey towards achieving my maximum muscular potential Tuesday | Spirituality Entries on my meditation practice, my mental state, mood, emotional labour I encounter etc. Wednesday | Career/Business Entries on how my music career is evolving and making a transition towards entrepreneurship Thursday | Storytime Here I share lessons I've learned from past events, bad or not, and emphasize how they may help you Friday | Habits Entries on instilling good habits, getting rid of bad ones and applying different self-help concepts into everyday life Saturday | Student Life Entries on my life as a philosophy undergrad and as a student in general (lessons, insights, benefits, struggles etc.) Sunday | Wrap-up of the week I will try my best to be consistent with the journal. I know that the entries can take as little as 10 minutes to write if I wanted to, but I am still caught in the trap of perfectionism. I usually prefer not to post at all if it's not a quality entry. I'll see. Maybe on the more busy days I will just write in a stream of thought manner on the topic at hand. This journal may naturally evolve and change. Maybe at some point I will add things like ”quote of the day” or things of the sort. Who knows? Feel free to give a like, post a comment or ask me questions. This would be a great source of motivation for me to keep being consistent with the journal and share more valuable information with you.

http://www.tailopez.com/books

Entry 11 | Leo's Book List, Catching Up With Old Friends and The Pursuit of The Driver's License Today I just bought Leo's book list and it's mindblowing. I sat for a few hours looking through the selections in awe, reading and listening to the reviews - basically just being just all around hyped about how I am going to further skyrocket my growth. A lot of the books from the list I have read already, but I think they do deserve a re-read. There are definitely some hidden gems in the list that I would not have found elsewhere in a million years and that makes me just more glad that I had bought the list. My thought process right now is that whenever I encounter a problem on a specific aspect of life, let's say dating, I can just go to the dating section of the booklist and find out from the book reviews which book may adress my current problem at the time. Also, now I know which ones are the most profound and life transforming or the "you NEED to read this before you die" kind of books. With this intel, I can get to dive into them ASAP. Although, the first book choices will still be made depending on what issues I am currently facing. I recommend this list to everyone. It is definitely worth much more than what I paid for it, at least in my opinion. I got back into my hometown about one week ago. Here I got to meet some of my old childhood friends again. Even though I like Bucharest for the opportunities it presents, I also enjoy the quiet time in my hometown and the chance to catch up with my old friends. It really brings me back to my roots. My mood is much better right now. One friend specifically came to visit me for about 2 weeks. I get to go to the gym with him while he is here and, I gotta say, it's nice to have (even a temporary) gym partner once again. I also get to teach him how to play the guitar until the end of his stay here. I briefly wrote in a previous entry about how I would like to sell my current Gaming PC and buy a Macbook Pro laptop (for many different reasons). This guy I was talking about is kind of an Apple junkie, meaning he has a lot of Apple products, including a Macbook Pro that he did not bother to sell until I asked him about it. I am actually writing this post from that Macbook right now, as he offered me a 2 week trial period to see if I like it or not. I still did not get to sell my own PC, but this guy told me that if I am gonna be 100% decided on the purchase of the Macbook by the end of the trial period, he is going to keep it for me until I get all the money I need to make the actual purchase. I think I am already sold out on it to be honest. The laptop works like charm and I can definitely say that it's all I ever needed and wanted for my work to blossom. The last thing that I wanna talk about is my driver's license. I started working to get it last summer, but before I got to take the exams, I already needed to go back to college and postpone the exam towards the summer of this year. Unfortunately, I need to remake all the documents that are needed for the driver's license folder as their expiration dat is due next week. I need to make another medical record and take all the physical and psychological tests again. I am not even in the slightest mood for that right now, but you gotta do what you gotta do, right? Also, I need to learn all the theory once again in order to pass the theoretical test by the 18th of July (less than three weeks from now), and it's not gonna be easy. Although, I strongly believe that I am gonna get through. This was Dan. I'm signing out! Have a great day!

@CarlosV Take a gap year if you are not clear enough on what you want to do. Nothing bad about it. What is bad though is trying figure out what you want to do WHILE IN COLLEGE, on your parents money and things like that. You need to do a lot of introspection. We can't tell you what to choose. We also don't know you and thus we can only give you blind advice. Take a week off with no internet or other distractions and define your goals, strengths, weaknesses etc. Assess yourself. Take some personality tests to get more info about how you function. Also, read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Drop-Out-Get-Schooled-Thinking/dp/099744102X The author does not try to bring arguments for not going to college. This book is meant to get you more clarity on your path. I would consider it a must read for you. Good luck!

Entry 10 | The Productivity Project I really want to get a grasp of how productivity works and to how much of an extent it can improve my life. I picked up some books on the subject and currently I started to work on the following things: Assessing the reasons I want to be productive Making productivity tie in with my core values, like: growth, balance, responsibility, autonomy, competency, wealth, wisdom and learning Clearing misconceptions about how productivity works Implementing some techniques like The Rule of 3 The rule of 3 basically tells you to pick 3 tasks that you want to get done by the end of the day and/or the end of the week Why 3? Because the number is high enough to include all high priority tasks and low enough to not put yourself in the position of tackling a daunting laundry list Identifying my high (those that have the highest return on investment) and low impact tasks (the opposite of the first ones) Finding out how to tie in meditation and mindfulness with productivity, or as the author says, finding out how to work at a pace between the monk and the stock trader How will I go about becoming more productive? I am going to: Waste less time Wake up earlier Go to the gym earlier Ingrain in my mind the fact that productivity is not about how much you work, but about how much you accomplish. Automate repetitive tasks Give a greater focus to High Impact Tasks Try to balance the 3 factors of productivity in my life: Time|Energy|Attention "Common sense isn't always common action. Just because you know something to be true, doesn't mean you'll act on it - but that is exactly what you need to do in order to become productive" - Chris Bayley

JOURNAL STRUCTURE UPDATE I think I was a little too ambitious with the journal structure. At first it seemed like it had a very good structure, but in practice, on some days I was not feeling like talking about a particular topic, and I thought that if I can not write what lingers on my mind in the moment and keep it for another day, what is the point of having a journal? I will give this journal a little bit more flexibility, which will help with the consistency and the quality of the entries. Also, I will substitute "days" with "entries", as I saw that I may not be able to put up an entry everyday. For example, yesterday I had to move back home, so did not have the chance to put up an entry. If I had put it up today with yesterday's date, it would have just thrown off the whole schedule. If it would keep going like this, I may be talking about something as if it happened today, when it actually happened 7 days ago. I don't like that. So, what is the new structure? Well, as I work on a ton of different stuff, there is a lot to talk about. I think entries might be more diffused and others might be more focused on a particular topic. I am gonna give free reign to whatever comes up in my head in the moment, and then adjust the structure as needed if it's too hectic. Or, I might just use one single concept around which all topics will revolve (e.g Problem-Solution or describing an experience and telling the insights learned from that experience).

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I accidentally stumbled upon the video below on youtube. Most people on the spiritual path don't doubt that Sadhguru is enlightened, but what is your opinion on the following statements? Basically, Sadhguru claims that having a piece of metal on your body, such as a ring or an anklet can prevent you from accidentally leaving your body during an intense samadhi experience or experience of ”oneness”. He also claims that he brought in the past someone back to their physical body by using his own energies in a very blunt way after that guy left his physical body unwillingly. This allegedly also put a tremendous toil on Sadhguru's body and made it age ”20 years in 8 months”, as he says. This might have seemed extremely far-fetched to me maybe about 1 year ago, but since then I had a couple samadhi experiences (melting only with the room I was in and feeling it entirely, but not with the whole universe, haha) and I know what it feels like. Should one be worried about these kinds of things when they do their spiritual practices? What are your thoughts on this? Leo's input would be also much appreciated on this post, as he seems to know some things about the guy and he has way more theoretical knowledge on spiritual experiences than I do.

That is and extremely good analogy. Thanks once again. If I decide to go deep with my spiritual practice maybe 5-10 years from now, I will definitely search for a guru though, haha. I don't like these kind of work accidents, lmao

I would lie if I were to say that I am not biased towards the teachings of Sadhguru, but the part with the aging seems fishy to me too. Actually, imo he actually looks younger than his age. Healthy skin, no wrinkles or bags under his eyes. I will suspend my judgement until I gather more data on the subject.