Shane Hanlon

Hey man, I'm sorry you had to go through all that. <3 On the positive side, it seems like the worst is behind you!! Thank you for sharing. It is helpful to understand what is going on in the minds of conspiracy theorists. And it makes me so grateful for my ability to decipher them. And that I grew up in a family that didn't force religion on me. I am lucky enough to have a mother that doesn't think I am going to be punished for eternity because I am not involved in her religion. I love you and I am so happy that you are on the path toward a happier existence. One step at a time <3

I feel like we as a collective might benefit from retiring the beta alpha labels. They just seem to confuse people. Being more conscious gives you more access to understanding reality and your self. Typically this also includes letting go of self-doubt and self-consciousness people harbor within themselves. Ultimately learn to become more conscious for its own sake. And if you're worried about being a "beta", learn to socialize with men and women more effectively. But they are disparate pursuits.

The more people on the planet, the more lives you are able to touch with your wisdom and love.

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I have learned many practices over the years. I respect and see the merit in every practice. However, I feel like I am ready to go as deep as I can with my practice. I have heard many people give the advice that you should choose one and stick with it. Some people even go as far as to say that mixing practices can be dangerous. Is there a most effective practice? Is it actually subjective which practice will be best for you? If so how do I figure that out? Is it dangerous to do two practices simultaneously? Practices I've learned and my experience: - Concentration practice (focus on breath) - Learned from books and was the first practice I tried. - Vipassana practice (deconstructing sensations) - Been to 5 Goenka style retreats - Zen practice (sit and do nothing) - some experience trying it in daily sittings - Pure being practice (just be) - Learned from Adyashanti and Kundalini exposed, practiced a decent amount in daily sittings. - Self-inquiry (Awareness on the sense of self) - Learned from Ramana Maharishi books and Ramaji book, Practiced in daily sittings. - A Course in Miracles - Haven't really given it a serious go, but seems interesting. - Different Yoga techniques - Sorry I know I am lumping a ton of different practices together here. I just haven't studied or attempted these enough to be able to differentiate them.

@Oeaohoo Do you have any suggested resources to get a better idea of what you are talking about? Ideally not too time intensive, so I will actually do the learning.

This is so valid. Thanks for your perspective!

It didn't seem like this was his problem. He was already deeply into psychedelics and meditation. Then he felt it wasn't working for him and felt like he was getting signs to look towards Christianity. I do think this could have been a problem of his. He was into all of the shiny things in nonduality/spirituality without seemingly having an understanding of them.

LOL

Ya I think that makes the most sense. How do we help people who struggle with this kind of thing?

Why is there a disconnect between highly trained meditators and God-Realization? And also why is there no discourse between proponents of God-Realization and highly trained meditators?

Ya fair enough. I have always just taken the test from https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test without thinking about anything else. Ya could be. Could some parts of us change and others not? It doesn't seem totally out of the realm of possibility that someone could genuinely transform parts of themselves over their lives.

This is particularly interesting to me since I have taken the Myers Briggs test at different points in my life. The results have changed significantly over time. The first time I took the test was as a sophomore in high school (over 10 years ago.) My result was ENTJ. That felt very accurate to me at the time. Then I took it again a few years later (around 2015) a few different times and got ENTP. Similar but a sizable difference. Since then I have done a ton of spiritual and development work. I have a whole new way of making sense of the world. A year ago I took the test again and got INFJ. I also feel it does a great job of representing me now.

I've found Earthling Ed to be the most compassionate example of a veganism advocate. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVRrGAcUc7cblUzOhI1KfFg

I have before for a few weeks to see what all of the no-fap hype was about. Maybe my experience is atypical or I didn't do it for long enough, but all I felt was pent-up aggression and more sexual thoughts than usual. Huh, I understand what you mean. YouTube always takes my time like that. I guess I'm lucky, I've never had a problem being addicted to porn.

Serious Question What makes porn inherently bad?

I've read both spiral dynamics books and searched the internet for the actual studies that make up spiral dynamics. I can't find them. Does anyone know where to look?

Ya this is true. YES DEFINITELY SOCIAL CIRCLE. Only cold approach girls on campus if you are already quite socially skilled. Otherwise, you could end up having the opposite effect and creeping out girls who will then tell their friends. focus on making strong friendships and you will end up finding sexual partners as a byproduct of strong relationships. but again, If you are socially attuned and skilled it can be an amazing thing and an easy way to grow a social circle.

One thing I keep seeing in this thread, is people trying to lump Elon musk into a spiral dynamics category to either worship him or dismiss him. Remember, spiral dynamics is a generalized model, not truth. It is also more nuanced than "Elon is *insert special color here*". Different parts of people can be yellow and turquoise while other parts are red and blue. It is missing the point to learn spiral dynamics just to judge others on their high or low "ranking". I think Elon Musk bought twitter to completely change it. In order to totally change it, he has to tear down the excesses before he can resculpt it in his own way. Kind of like restarting in pottery. He is making a mess right now, But that can be ok. We are all tempted to judge events and people based on our limited perspective. Whether Elon musk fails or not, it is clear that at least some part of him wants to do something good for mankind. His methods are wonky, but I tend to think we should give people the benefit of the doubt.

Firstly, Congratulations! These 10 day retreats have enriched my life. I hope they do the same for you The main thing is to give it your all and don't leave. There will be moments where all you want to do is leave. There is always one or two people that leave every time I go. Don't let it be you. It's essentially impossible to recreate these 10day retreats on your own. I attempted to do it over quarantine, but It didn't yield nearly the same benefits of actually being there with people cooking for you, guiding you, and meditating along side you. Utilize this time and you will come out the other side with a whole new peace and perspective on what meditation can do for you. Also as a side note my first retreat I didn't follow their instructions because I thought I knew better. The technique they teach is powerful. Make sure to follow their instructions as best you can while you are there. Good luck and enjoy

It's a cult when you dogmatically believe and follow the leader. If you have insights for yourself and they happen to align with others that is different. Could be one or the other depending on the person.

I have gone through the same troubles. I have also installed DFtube. That is a great extension. But for me it also wasn't always enough. For me the other most high impact thing I've done was to delete all of my YouTube accounts. That way YouTube cannot use it's machine learning recommendations on me. It's the perfect recommendations that keep me on YouTube for 3 hours when I only wanted to watch one video. When I got rid of the great recommendations, I get a lot of videos I don't care about at all in my feed. So I have no compulsion to deactivate DFtube. YouTube turns into a search engine like google. I only go there if I want to watch something in particular and I stay a much shorter time because I have DFtube and the videos I've been recommended I don't care about. It was very difficult for me to delete my YouTube accounts. I have posted so many videos that are precious to me and have so many playlists that I cared about. But I did it and it has helped.

I do design/development. Could help if you need it.