QandC

I've lately become more conscious and aware about the way my ego acts (aka. "me"). I have become aware of the way I can manipulate people to get what I want, unconsciously, how I can lie to myself, how I can hurt others with or without intention, and also my behaviour in everyday life which is negative. I've really struggled with questions of value and what it means to be a good person, but now when I can see my ego more clearly and the "darker" side of me, I'm becoming more skeptical about this being a path to letting go of the ego, and perhaps becoming a stronger ego? Since I want to become a better person and focus less on my own growth, because I feel as if it is dirty, I feel guilty and it is something I cannot live with anymore, I want to fully transcend into a larger circle of concerns. I don't know if this is a full transition into another level of the spiral or if it's just a way for my ego to grow even more. I want to leave my egoic behaviours obviously to feel better about myself and also for others. Why would we want to do something if it doesn't make us feel better, right? But at the same time I wonder, what if this is just another egoic act? It's a sort of paradox. Is wanting to become a more lovable person and to be selfless just another devilry? Perhaps the ego wants to protect itself from the feelings of guilt and therefore it just fights for its own survival? Maybe the real transition is when the ego fully stops caring about it's own benefits and rather the benefits of others? Or maybe this is a "first step of the way"?

Alignment Just got back to Sweden. The contrast is always big but my goal is to make the contrast lesser and lesser. I don't want there to be any contrast or any transition really. I'm not there yet, but I guess in maybe a year I'll be so used to the transition that there will be no contrast anymore. Anyways, a lot of work to do this time so let's get to it. Next update I'll be listing my goals and purpose over the upcoming 2,5 months.

What's been going on lately? These days I've mostly been posting about random questions and thoughts in my mind. My life ain't that exciting always tbh. but right now i.e this is what I'm working mostly on: • Studying online marketing (during the fall I will engage more in this as well as Instagram, seems like an interesting marketing source) • Listening to religious debates and different point of views, trying to find a sort of common factor • Back to Sweden in 4 days! • Writing a lot on Be Your Own Coach and Conversion, as well as working a little bit on the website. These are long term projects for now, no rush. But I want to try and publish B.Y.O.C in Sweden or Europe during the fall More updates to come...

The name of goodness Why do we really want to be good? Is it for other people, for ourselves, for society? What actually makes a good person? I've contemplated a lot about these questions lately. I feel as if good is extremely relative and subjective, but still it is attached to the collective. There can be no separation from that. Whenever you are good there is a catch to it, and it's in the external we really show it, if we get accepted in this external we are good, if not we are bad. Whatever we feel for ourselves is co-dependant on the external too

What make one point more true than the other? This is a question which bothers me every single day. There is not a single day I go without me thinking about this. I cannot stand seeing two different views without knowing what makes one thing more true than the other. I know they are both perspectives and hold some truth to them, but how can they accept each other fully? How can they see from each other's perspectives, combine them, accept and come to a reasonable solution and agreement? In ~1-2 years I'm gonna start writing a book called The Transcendence which will explore just this question of perspectives, transcending perspectives.

Feeling of Guilt Today I did my Toastmasters speech about emotions. Specifically controlling emotions and gaining awareness around them instead of being overwhelmed by them. All good. Anyways, what I wanted to write about today is Guilt. I have experienced feeling a lot of guilt in my life. I don't know where it comes from, maybe stupid things I did in my childhood. Those feelings still linger and come back from time to time. Especially if I don't do what I promised myself to do. Or especially if I break someone's expectation about me, it's the worst feeling. Also in being in a relationship I can sometimes feel guilt if I feel as if I'm being a bad influence or going stuff which are not productive and "conscious". I get the urge of immediately wanting to take a shower and clean the entire house. I feel physically relieved afterwards, for example if I did something which I consider bad I stuff myself with vitamin pills and vegetables and then start vacuum cleaning the house, cleaning out my closet and taking a shower. Afterwards I feel a bit healed again and can "start over". This is an extremely toxic feeling, does not come often and I do not really suffer from it that much but it is still there and something I have to start working on soon...

Life is psychedelic Last days I've made a greater connection with my gf, coming closer is a bit like losing yourself more and more. It feels good not caring about yourself all the time but about someone else. However, might this also just be an egoic thing? As if I'm caring for some possession rather than another human being, unconditionally? I'm trying to understand. I know overwhelming emotions are not good for us like Osho said once, emotions can blind man just like alcohol, we can become drunk with emotions which leaves us lost and confused. I feel like I have it under control though. Rationality is always a good grounding. One thing I've realized lately is that life is very psychedelic. I've tried many psychedelics before and had cool experiences. It feels like you really see how beautiful and amazing life is when you take psychedelics. But I always wondered, why can I not see that when I'm in my "normal state of mind"? Why can we not enjoy life and the depth of it when sober? However lately I've taken a closer look at life and if you really look closely, life is truly amazing. The fact that I can even experience all of this is awesome. The colours, people, sounds, everything... everything is a part of reality and reality is amazing. It does not even need to be psychedelic, it just is what it is and if you cannot see the beauty of that, you are missing what life is truly about.

Today I was in an argument with a special person in my life, we are living together at the moment and we have gotten into many arguments. However, out of love, we always try to learn about why we argue to try to solve it for the next potential argument. This time the argument lasted around 6 hours. The greatest realization we had together was that we both always try to make the other person submit. I have always been a person who try to have the "upper hand" in any social relationship with the purpose of making the other submit. Especially in romantic relationships because this is what I'm used to. However this time it is simply not possible because this person tries to do the exact same thing. In this fight we both gained awareness of what we were doing and from this a great sense of peace arose. I realized that perhaps my way of always trying to be dominant is not what is the best. I am not weak just because I show emotions/'weakness' and submit, not trying to protect my ego. It came to a point where this person also realized the main problem. Together we agreed that we should both work on this problem of our ego. Not trying to defend our own opinions and think they are the most true. They can be wrong and by letting them go it will leave a great peace as well. Me and her are basically the same, and I think the greatest purpose of our relationship is to grow together, let go of the person we think we are and realize what actually is. I think relationships might be a great way for consciousness and enlightenment work. You get to analyze your "self" from another perspective. It hurts like crazy but wow are the realisations big and effective.

Stop the dominance of people In an argument with a special person I realized the greater core of my ego always trying to dominate others and make them submissive. I realized this lies in the value I see in always being above someone else. The argument basically worked like a therapy session and both me and the person came to a great understanding of each other. Took 6 hours but man was it necessary and healthy...

Routine really makes results Lately in my work and hobbies etc. I've noticed that the subconscious routine we install for ourselves is what will create results. However there is a certain limit to how much result it can create for us. I think that we should never stop trying to switch, adapt and compromise our routines for the benefits we are seeking. If we stop changing everything will stagnate. This is a very orange-stage thinking to "Always be growing", but think about it, we have to handle ourselves in our everyday life as well. There is something we can learn from every stage. What it truly means to grow is ultimately expanding out of growth with the realisation of leaving the ego etc but before then, let's try to make the best out of our external life too?

How Do We Communicate? I've always wondered what the best way of communication is. For me, it feels as if the more I am myself, the more people have something against me. It almost feels as if my ego is too big and tries to take too much space in a social environment. It's as if I always have to be the center of attention, even though this is never my (at least conscious) intention. I think it might be something subconscious from my childhood, but still, in my conscious mind I never try to seek attention. I always just express myself the way that I want with opinions etc. without filtering. If this is an effect from meditation I do not know, but I do not see anything wrong with it. Why does one have to filter to adapt? This has been a fear of mine, to start filtering because of my earlier years where I always filtered and could never express myself... but still to be an effective communicator, we have to be able to see the other perspective as well. I'm gonna try and sh*t up more in social settings etc., be more of a listener and accept what people say, try to see their point of view instead of always giving my input to the situation. Perhaps I need to let go of control. Counterintuitively that's how we gain more control.

Could this be love? Something myself have wondered about lately...

The Joy of Writing I don't think I've ever really addressed to myself how much I enjoy writing. Whenever I write it feels like I enter a different state of consciousness where I lose myself and enter just pure creative happiness. It's a feeling so difficult to explain, but I feel like I'm in my essence. Same when I do Judo. I mostly think the real happiness comes from losing Myself.

Deep talks I've always found it so much easier to have deep conversations with women. I don't really know why, but I think it's because they are sometimes more empathetic, compassionate and better listeners. Many people say women talk more than men but I get the feeling that they are actually better listeners. They seem more openminded and seem to understand me better. I guess I've always connected better with women than men, and I somehow always reveal more about me to them than I've ever done with a man. One girl in particular right now who I can talk about anything with, every time I'm with her we can talk for hours feeling like 5 minutes, and it feels like I've cleansed my entire mind. Like a therapeutical talk session, it's also the same for her. A relationship where both people can open themselves up 100% and accepting each other is the best type of relationship, and then you can define it however you want. I've never been a fan of labels. What you create with another person is what matters, not what you call it.

Telepathic Dreams The transition from being awake to dreaming is starting to freak me out. Lately I've had really strange dreams and yesterday when transitioning to sleep I started to have dreams where it felt like I could communicate with someone through my mind. I could hear what the person was thinking and feeling as if we were the same person. Without control I sat up and said "I can control you even when I sleep" out loud, fully aware but still no control. Really bizarre experience...

Storing insights How do insights work? Why are they so relative? Is an insight emotional or logical? I think an insight is both logical and emotional. It's the combination of the two which creates the insight. Let's say you're in a certain state. A vulnerable state where all you think about is your own survival and suddenly you feel very grateful about life – you realise how important everything in your life is. But then after you go out of this state and return to your normal well-being, you might have the insight intellectually because you wrote it down somewhere, but the actual feeling is gone. You cannot appreciate your life as much as you did in that weak state of mind simply because you have reset your standard. I call this the Concept of Standards. It means we adapt ourselves to everything very fast. Everything becomes a new standard. That's why it's so difficult to compare happiness based on external factors. How do we actually store them then? Is there a way to go about experiencing an insight you've 'forgotten' emotionally? Perhaps it's all relative and we should accept this. Trying to cling to both ideas as well as emotions is only a cause of suffering. Just like comparing two world-views is from each perspective. I guess we need to find certain trigger points which could activate the insights. What could you do to put yourself in that state of mind again? That could lead to the insight. Unless it will physically hurt you, I think it's an idea worth while investigating. What do you think?

It's okay to slack sometimes... I'm starting to feel better, almost like a human being again lol. These 2 last days were horrible, seriously. It throws all consciousness work and personal development out the window. Survival is the primary objective when sick like that and there's nothing to be ashamed of. A lesson to be learned is that we need to appreciate our health even more. I hope I can learn a lot from this experience and start to appreciate being at a neutral. I haven't skipped a day of meditation for almost 2 years now but yesterday I didn't even find the motivation to meditate, that tells me something was seriously wrong. But you know what? That's okay. No one is there to judge me but myself. There isn't some written rule in the universe telling me I have to. I think I did the greatest meditation trying to appreciate a normal healthy life while shivering in my bed for 4 hours hallucinating. I wonder how an enlightened person is when really sick, do they suffer as much? Or do they separate themselves from it, not judging it etc...?

Headache from hell Yesterday for some reason I got an extreme headache out of this world. Something I've never experienced before. I then got a fever and a stomach ache, I was in my bed for over 12 hours and I felt like I was literally dying. It was one of the most painful physical sensations I've ever been through. Along with the heat in my house, it was pure torture. I didn't have the motivation to go outside either until the night after to buy some stuff to eat. In a situation like this it's quite interesting to see how the mind reacts. Suddenly it becomes so grateful for just being at a normal state of health, and it becomes very compassionate towards everything as well, that's how I felt. Luckily now I've gotten a bit better, about to install AC in my house as well, but damn... that day was f*cking horrible.

Fighting heat So right now in Korea it's extremely warm, and it's almost an obligation to have AirCondition installed. I move around every month through Airbnb because I don't like staying at one place for too long, but boy do I wish I'd stay this time. The new apartment I moved into has no aircondition, the place is basically not possible to live in. I'll have to be here for around 25 days before Sweden again. However, there is something I've noticed with this, which is that even though it's an absolute hell living inside of here, it makes me do shit. Seriously, it leaves me no time to rest and procrastinate, because all I want to do is to escape from the house so my meditation sessions are more focused and all my other routines gets done perfectly in the morning. Also the only place for me to work is at a Starbucks nearby with AC and so when I sit there the only purpose is to work. 6 hours straight with a lunch break, and I finish around 2 pm. and have the rest of the day off. At my old place I just spread out the work during the day and it didn't really allow me to use any rest of the day to "live" other than when I went to judo practice. I guess destiny is teaching me a lesson right now. Sometimes the external forces us to take a certain action wether we want to or not. This time it might be for my own benefit. We always have to look at the positive side of things, I always do it through the law of polarity, which is that if something bad happens there is always an equal amount of goodness in the situation somewhere. Always difficult to break comfort zone though, but I know in the end it always becomes my new comfort zone and it will be fine. Cheers.

Anotha' day, anotha' dolla'. No not really, but kind of. I moved to a different place today in Seoul. Whenever I live in Korea I switch apartment each month in order to not get too comfortable. Every time I move I "reset" my mind in a way it seems. Kind of occupied my day along with an external problem I faced. A question I keep asking myself is. How do we value problems? What is a greater problem than something else? Is it all relative? Is it about emotions or logic reasoning?

Regular day, nothing special. I might not update this journal every single day, perhaps every other day or if something out of the ordinary happens. But to be honest, any day should be just as special as the other one. There are always many insights which can come, and there is always something new to be learned right? Saw this video today, I like watching Richard Dawkins "confronting" people outside of his paradigm. Somehow I want to agree more with Richard but I also know about relativism. If something works for someone and that person is helping others in their own way, what's the problem really? What is this urge to "prove" everything? Isn't proof also just another paradigm? I think it might be.

Woke up today early after ~4h of sleep. Sometimes I just wake up extremely refreshed for some reason, and kinda fuzzy/happy but I know then later during the day I'll be extremely tired anyways. Meditated and continued writing on B.Y.O.C. Found an interesting article about a social experiment where people are making choices and that kind of defines their personality types. They are supposed to choose between Door #1 and Door #2. Door 1 is leading to an exit, where you just continue your day as usual, and Door 2 is leading to an unknown place. People who choose door 1 are more safety-minded apparently and want to be more secure about knowing, not taking any risk. People who choose door 2 are a bit more adventurous perhaps. I wrote about this experiment in my section of "Choice" in the book. It's good to have some experiments too it makes the book more colourful in a way. It's important to actually mention the source though so it doesn't seem like your own idea. I have been thinking about that with own ideas/using other peoples ideas and so on... where do we actually draw the line of what is our idea and what is someone else's? In my opinion I think none of our ideas are ours. Everything we are and learn and say and think and do comes from external happenings in the past, right? I don't think we have free will in that case. Like Descartes said "I think therefore I am", but really isn't it more like "I am, therefore I think"? Because You being starts first and then you think based on everything you've been through. All of our ideas are coming from other people. Just like our language isn't ours uniquely, it comes from everyone around us, and so must our ideas? That's just my opinion... but probably not mine originally, lol! Anyways, which door would you choose? (https://www.theverge.com/ad/16217980/the-choice-social-experiment-in-making-decisions)

Alright so today was nice, got to sleep finally and woke up at a reasonable time, so my schedule is kind of re-set. Hope it can last too. I won't be doing too much work tonight or too late into the night hopefully unless I get tempted. I did some writing during the day on Be Your Own Coach. I'm done with the second chapter, Choice, which is a part of the segment CONFUSION. Won't reveal too much but Choice is basically when you make the choice of solving a problem. Only problem is that it's a part of Confusion, since most problems first are solved irrationally, based on impulsive emotion. When I do writing I try to keep it to an hour MAXIMUM. Because if I go above that my creativity drops. It takes around 5-10 minutes for me to really get started and then it just goes up and up. Then I peak around 55 minutes to 1 hour and that's when I stop and write down ideas/questions for next day of writing. I find that the most effective. My strategy when I write is this: –> Follow chapter/segment-purpose of which I've written before even starting, so I follow a red line. –> Write in my script, every time I have further ideas (I always think ahead of myself I write it down in the document below what I'm currently writing. –> If I realise a pattern of how I'm writing or have questions/cool ideas for future chapters or the purpose/symbolism of the book and come up with a more understanding of what the book is about I write it down in another document, basically called "Ideas" –> After I'm done writing I go to my Key-note document where I keep the entire structure for the book like a mindmap and check what I'm done with and if I know further what it's gonna look like I add sections into it. –> Lastly what I do is to write in my Writing-Diary, basically my thoughts of what I did and so on, feelings about writing that specific day etc. I got this idea from a Swedish author I follow. It's a great way to keep track of your thought process when writing and to improve your creativity and writing/infrastructure of writing. I did my meditation today as well like usual. I do it in the morning. The RLS was way more calm today luckily. Watched a video about skepticism to science. I've lately gotten very interested in questioning science. Not through dogmatism or any religious beliefs, but rather through a very rational sense. This video might interest some people:

20/6: • Stayed up all night listening to Sam Harris podcasts and watching philosophical and religious debates from scientists/spiritual people. I find it kinda funny how they spend so much energy arguing clearly not seeing it’s all relative. Geez, just open your eyes instead and look at what’s real. Right here, now. How can we improve This instead of arguing? • Continued writing the conversion. I’m writing about the story of The Buddha, Saddharta. I write about historical/mythical stories and all of my other stories were based on living under shitty circunstances wanting something better, but this one takes the opposite route going from a kushy lifestyle wanting nothing. Funny contrast. • Meditation today was annoying since my RLS was annoying me. I think I might have restless leg syndrome. My bones starts crawling and itching and there’s a compulsion to move them, I cannot fight it. So I decided to do repetitive movements with them and it calmed me down. Also I was meditating and being aware while doing it. Don’t know, is it ruining my meditation or is it possible? I like to believe meditation is just about being aware, no matter what you do still or not. • Kind of worried about my speech tonight at Toastmasters. I wrote a 7-minute speech but haven’t practiced cus’ I dont like memorizing sentences, I think it’s a waste of time. I read the script a few times, memorize keywords and then improvise from there mostly. Or else I become too robotic. I’m inspired by the speeches from Osho, it feels so spontaneous and it has so much life to it • Coaching session with a friend, just practice, was my turn to get coached this time. We actually connected through this forum and have since then for almost a year talked every 1-2 weeks coaching each other. Really effective. • Sleep deprived practicing the speech a little, not too much • Held the speech, went great and spontaneous • Watched some scientific videos on consciousness combined with spirituality. I don’t understans why there always has to be a sort of war between the two. Even when you combine the two it’s not convincing. I guess experience is the only thing worth while, this cannot be intellectual knowledge. Time to pass out...

Ego calling ego bad? LOL!