The White Belt

You stopped what you were mastering to free up time to work on yourself, but now you are looking for something else to master which is going to take up that time once again? I think you seek something more relevant to your growth right? All I can say is explore, explore, explore. All those things you thought about as a hobbie, do them. For a month at a time. Keep taking notes and after about 6 months, choose one. Let me give you a big insight that will save you a lot of confusion though. When you find it, you will still doubt it, you'll never find a 100% percent perfect fit. You'll be confused about whether or not it is it. No Angels will come from the heavens and congratulate you for finding it. You will still have resistance, you will be scared by the huge challenge you see ahead of you and you'll still have times when you want to quit. Yeah it's exciting but nobody tells you that your mind will still be in doubt and try to keep changing it. So look out for that.

@Max_V why did you quit trying to master it?

@Max_V Phew. Good on you for not attacking me for saying that. I thought you might be resistant to admitting that. It's like Leo said, but add this to it "Life isn't about what you do, but how you do it". The process is everything. Do it all level-headedly, with awareness. You can learn so much by building muscle; - learn about resistance - learn discipline - learn about when you're ready to quit - learn about whether or not it makes you arrogant - learn about whether or not you feel more fulfilled in the process - learn about the body and nutrition - observe how thoughts change when you lift a weight. Do you see what I'm getting at here? Do it with a self-actualisation mindset/bigger picture and then no, it isn't egoic. The flip side of this is that you want to pump iron so you can scare of other guys, get big booty babes, take loads of selfies for Instagram and look at yourself in the mirror for 30 minutes at a time. Choose one.

Look up Frank Yang. Serial meditator and self-inquirer. Also takes 5-MeO and he is shredded. Do what YOU want to do man! Stop trying to get it validated by this forum.

Put in ----> Get out. This is true LOA IMO

@Max_V Yesss. I'm pretty sure the original interview was done when Willow was just 14, too.

Non-duality, life purpose, self-actualization are the staples of these kids' lives. https://blavity.com/10-reasons-why-jaden-and-willow-smith-are-aliens/

@Nahm I know! But also very impressive!

Sometimes when I have a profound thought, or here a mystic or someone other say something profound, or when I meditate/contemplate, my torso suddenly jolts, very quickly, like a little electrical shock. Sometimes if it's a big one, my arms swing up too. It's totally out of my control. Does anybody get this, or know what it is?

@Nahm Thanks dude! Hahaha. This comes from the philosophy of treating everything as if I were a total beginner. Always! Have you read 'Mastery'? Somewhere near the end of the book George Leonard details that the master and founder of Judo, who was the most advanced black belt in the sport, had people dress him in a white belt when he was dead in his coffin, because he knew that he was going to enter death as a total beginner. I love that!

@AleksM Thank you so much, man!

@Charlotte Awesome stuff. More than welcome :-) funnily enough, I just purchased another copy today to give to a co-worker for Christmas.

I've been meditating and practicing mindfulness for 1-2 years now. The first year was pretty on/off, but the second year i haven't missed a single day of meditation and mindfulness has been pretty consistent. Sometimes i'm really proud of myself, what i've done and the changes i've seen within myself. I used to be super ignorant. I thought I knew it all. My concentration was sucky and I'd have a new hobby every few weeks and did no PD. Now because the change is so radical, and it's hard for me to imagine the old me, that he even existed, maybe I think my consciousness is higher than it actually is. See on the day to day I see people acting very unconsciously, but then I see the same behaviors in me and I think maybe I haven't gone as far as I think. You see I forget things a lot... I work in a coffee shop and often i'll start to make a drink and forget what i'm even making. Whereas my co-worker knows all of the regular customer's drinks before they ask, I don't - Even if they come in every single day. Where as I start projects and within a month my ego is desperately trying to find excuses to quit (mostly 'spiritual bypassing' type excuses), I see people seemingly being able to stick to something for years. These people that I know do little or no consciousness work. So should I mentally set myself further back than what I seem to award myself? And say that to even get to the normal intelligent persons level of consciousness, even when they don't do consciousness work, I need to keep at it and work hard?

@Leo Gura Haaaaahahaha!

@Azrael Thank you man. Just read your posts on this thread. Very good stuff. Do you have a blog or a YouTube channel or anything I could follow?

You only just had mushrooms a few days ago right? Shouldn't you take time to integrate that trip firstly? The time in between trips seems way too short in my opinion!

@realname More spirituality books than anything. Osho, Eckhart Tolle etc.

For years i've been going round like some sort of hungry rabid academic. Buying book after book. Half reading some whilst moving on to the other. Injecting the KNAWLEDGE into my veins like heroin. I buy many books. Some of them I don't even read. Lot's are to be read still, but I get interested in another topic and move onto buying the next book. It never occurred to me that i'm just drinking in shallow concepts with out taking time to flesh them out and contemplate the main point. I'm just left with supericial mental masturbation. Leo's video 'Comprehension has many degrees' made me realise this. I knew it to a point but it deepened it. I don't like wasting time which is why i try to get through so many. How do I reconcile this? How should I read a book? How long should I spend on a book? How can I organise and contemplate the main points? Over what period of time should i contemplate one man point? A week? A month per important concept? Anything else you can think of? How do you guys do it? P.S Tai Lopez reads a book a day! Loooooooool. What a waste.

Why do people take everything he says so seriously. He was obviously kidding!

@Charlotte Amazing! Good on you. Yes, like the other guys are saying. Contemplate the information deeply and try to see it happening all around and within you. :-)

People often talk about this concept; They can't wait so much that they can't down the years. It's their time to unwind, to slow down, to finally be happy, to finally take time for themselves, to enjoy the life they've worked so hard for. I'm talking of course about: Retirement. Hehehehehe. But they haven't realised yet, that no matter where you are, the habits of the mind persist. Whether you are working, retired, on holiday, taking a time. The old habits go on and on and on, and they can't stop it. They might even die just as they retire! Many people after retirement miss their jobs and go back part-time, because they can't do nothing. They have to keep going on and on in circles of neurosis and deep suffering. Deep unconsciousness is convincing yourself time after time that you are happy until you finally die.

Additional: Read 'The power of now' by Eckhart Tolle.

1. Practice mindfulness. Especially planned on set activities. E.G When you are walking, when you are brushing your teeth etc. 2. Meditation every day, start with 10 minutes. 3. Buy a CBT book and DIY. I recommend CBT for dummies. Find on Amazon. 4. Be patient! You're on a journey, and believe it or not the suffering is necessary for your growth. LOVE YOU

Also I should add aswell that the purpose of my OP was to say that if you put happiness over THERE, once you get over there you are gonna' put it over THERE again. Yeah there are probably happy retired people, but if they don't have any practices of present moment awareness, then it's doubtful that they are.

I wasn't making such a one-size-fits-all statement. Convincing yourself that you are happy doesn't make it so. The key word is convinced. You wouldn't need to do such a thing if it's genuine. Think of a couple that are always getting into fights and folly. You ask them if they are happy and watch them get all defensive as they try to tell you they are happy. The belief 'I am happy' just keeps people afloat. If a sudden change came that meant you couldn't like. All the authentically happy people would remain and the rest of them would kill themselves and that would prove that convincing yourself you are happy vs being happy is so so qualitatively different.