ValiantSalvatore

@Joseph Maynor I like the explanation although I "believe" that most of that I noticed somehow subconsciously even if that is even possible I don't know. I tried this technique It is similar to what she explains at the end. Where she says that sound appears in the back of one's head, this goes a little further. I am still new to the technique so, I can't notice the field where thoughts and vision do arise that good yet, but it does seem to occur in these areas. IMO @SOUL Thanks, I see this now more clearly!

@ajasatya I read your 21 days before enlightenment journal and I am quite curious now. Why do you think open relationships are for lazy and undisciplined people would it not be possible to master or to get a hold of one's sexual energy or unstable sexual urges, so that you could live in an open relationship that is stable. So, there are clear rules and boundaries that all participants accept and follow? Or they all have some sort of training or are training together? @Shin I am always wondering why monks decide to stay in a monastery or live in celibacy, sometimes I can comprehend that there is nothing special about sex and that it is just done mostly for pleasure in our society, then I wonder why people do tantra yoga ( just googled a bit about it ) or perhaps some other disciplines. I did not try it yet. So, I don't know. Would it not be possible to share that with multiple people or is there a holding capacity for sexual energy? I can certainly understand the no control and let's just f* around part lol.

@Joseph Maynor Okay, thanks for the feedback, this sounds very good. I can see in a sense how culture intervenes with rank, hierachies, authorities. I can see the culture, but I have no clue what reality is lol. I will keep out an eye for that and learn more from books in time. Alright, I am just wondering now, even if the need disapears do these primal instinctual patterns still happen ? Even when you realize that you are not different from everybody else etc(are enlightend), are parts of your brain still active and regulating these primal instincutal patterns or do you just function on a different "level", meaning that different brain regions are interacting more marginalizing/ostracizing the more instinctual parts or older more primal parts of ones brain ? I don't know how legit this question is since there are studies that show brain changes through meditation, yet I don't know what parts of the brain and how it changes and how far one could go even if science can't prove / detect some potential changes ?

@DocHoliday I wanted to mention many aspects that include hierachies,rank, status etc. Like Ken Wilbers' Integral Map, Spiral Dynamics and psychedelics, dominance hierachies and or simply everyday life with my example of race, which also could include as you said economy, education, politics etc. I was hoping that any of these observations or insights have some truths or could trigger some insights for others. I was not sure where I was going with this. Yet, I wanted to question if there is a way to become completely free of rank, status etc. Or if even someone is free here on this forum or interacts with people who are free, so they could see the potential of becoming free of rank, status etc and eloborate on that. I don't know if it is possible but when I look at people who are enlightend it is so different from the usual state of consciousness, especially after taking psychedelics. Yes, I noticed that one could become more free of the status game by stoping judgement inwhich meditation has helped me a lot. Yet, to which degree can you be free ? Are you still influenced by some aspects when you are enlightend ? I am still new to most of these subjects I have a good to decent overview - by listening to Shizen Youngs the Science of Enlightenment (1998 Edition), Ken Wilbers Kosmic Consciousness and a couple of books from Alan Watts and Eckhart Tolle. To how day to day life can look like when you keep working on let's say consciousness. Now I am reading about and hearing about the dominance hierachie, some part of our brain keeping track of where we are on the social ladder, how we compete for rank etc. And I can see clearly how we tend to behave like animals sometimes when we compete for rank(like bonobos and chimpanzes do), so is a meditation master an enlightend person or a certain stage of consciousness free of that?

@Soulbass Thx for the reply, I will keep that in mind. The idea with an excel file and delegating tasks is important. I can't tell how it is in the "real world", yet, it is difficult to meet up with students besides in the acutal class, since everyone has different priorities on what to do with their free time. Sparse meetings are a good thing, it was difficult though for this project. I think I learned a lot in the end, especially the pratical implications, yet what is more difficult imo is dealing with people with different aspects or just different personality traits and levels of "development" refering to either spiral dynamics or the integral map, in case you are familiar and could elaborate on the difference that can occur that would be awesome!. I still do not understand these maps 100%, yet they help to navigate and understand problems between individuals and groups (also in groups), value conflicts for instance or just differences in perspective. Our professor even talked about the critical path line .. in marketing management, I messed up as a "leader" in this group project now matriarchy went loose lol. That was definitely an eye opener and I want to learn and read more about these subjects. I will definitely try out the cpm/cpl and see , delegate tasks and setting deadlines was important we did not that and went way to "laissez faire" into the project.

Hello, I am currently working with two people from my university for a group project. Which involves creating and editing a video project to a certain topic, which in this case colors. I rarely have problems working in groups and getting a long with people especially almost never, also I never thought about that group dynamics exist. Which one of our professor who likes to talk more about things that seem quite abstract to everyday life, yet are quite important rather than talking about the topic of the lesson lol. Explained, for instance, that you are only a group when you are more than 2 people otherwise it is a "dyad" and first, when you are three people, the group is considered a group. So, there are different roles, the only ones I remember and try to keep in mind while interacting beside being mindful and non-judging -> listening and observing without interpreting and seeking first to understand than to be understood. Let's say there is the leader, follower and the deputy head / second representative ( basically second leader) and the second leader has the task to play the devil's advocate. To challenge group consensus and to bring forth arguments that counteract/refute the ideas of other with reasonable/sensible arguments. That's what I remember from the professor he just mentioned it on the side. I never really had trouble in group projects or doing activities in a group, since I am always looking how to contribute and I played a lot of team sports when younger, so you are used when someone is not as good or just does mistakes and learns or is simply better or has higher expectations of his teammates and you have to tell him, to calm down and not to take things as seriously ( for instance in practice) . The same counts for video games when you play a video game which involves an assessable and manageable amount of people, you can see how easily people get "tilted" or start denying frustration or just do not care anymore and start "trolling" and giving up or are overcompetitive and start flaming and calling names, putting fault upon other peoples mistakes for losing a game, instead of oneself. I read the book "How to make friends and influence people" and try to abide by the principles listed there, for instance when you criticize someone else first name a mistake of your own or first call out something positive that you like about a specific thing let's say the color of a picture and then what you do not like about it, for instance, the way the picture was drawn or smth. like that. When I try to bring forth an argument or an idea which I think is good and I receive critique, I see how it fits into the bigger picture and if the critique does not add something valuable to the idea then it is perfectly fine to not implement it, yet to integrate both idea and critique would be ideal as long as it works out and adds value to the project (In the book it is explained how to do that, fundamentally you say yes and incorporate the critique into the idea). So, if been working now with people from different cultures in different cultures, which is maybe not as common, yet more common compared with earlier times. And yes people where frustrated with me at one point, since they compared me to people who where working there for some time and they had time to get used to the work and I felt bad when I did a mistake I ( quite naive lol ) reported it to the supervisor and asked for feedback if it was possible in that case. In case there is feedback to report back to me, people appreciated the effort, if not it was just annoying and you should just not do it again. There is also not much more a person can say in that situation or not ? Besides that, I never had trouble with people sometimes people set themselves up for instance when I worked in China my supervisor (a very nice girl/women / enter political correct stuff) was supposed to do something, which if I remember correctly I should do, yet could not do because I was the only one who had not such a harsh accent when talking eng and so I received a new task and had to call customers in the U.S, besides some stuff that I needed to do on a daily basis. Well, she wanted to blame me ( at least that's how it sounded since I did not speak Chinese only rudimentary and they tend to avoid confrontations since, the culture likes to be not as direct as Europeans or westerners, which is shocking for them sometimes, how direct we can be and how indirect and passive-aggressive people from the east can behave (notice can) ) and the boss was quite upset with her she cried at the end, yet came back with a smile a very genuine smile which was surprising to me. Admitting through her facial gesture that she made the mistake. IDK Why I am telling this now, lol, or remember this, yet it illustrates the point of how difficult communication etc. or working as a group can be. People have been quite passive-aggressive with me not calling me out on mistakes or just ignoring when there is something wrong and I do not even realize it, I just tend to live in my head a lot and I finish work quite quickly, so they want to put more work upon me. So, what do you do? You slow down to not work as crazy ( the office in China was just ridiculous they voluntarily stayed longer 1 - 2 h a couple of times a week and one guy had a 2-3h subway/bus ride homework started from 09:00 to 18:30 with 1h and 30min break) as some of them did, it was just to exhausting and people will pill up work upon you. The French intern did the same, so I did not feel that bad and we chatted a lot which a lot of people in the office did. (Average life in an office I guess) So, now in this group in the university people started to ignore ideas or suggestions from me (we are in total 3) and I did not leave a good impression since I felt quite down because of family-related manners and they kinda accepted it, since I explained to them what happened in my family what I did not intend to do as long as things where working out. Since I was postponing a deadline, overestimating how much effort it will take, since I was doing the raw fundament of the editing/script and when something is already done, the creative process is facilitated and you can just work with a good to decent template and make it better, yet creating the template etc. in the first place is also quite difficult. Why I am saying it like this is because I did an internship in a postproduction company and the "head of sound" had all the creative freedom and the other sound engineers had to the technical work mostly. So, people do not really value "the work in the background" and only highlight and praise the "creative part" which is mostly a bit easier and not as tedious. (They also organized the people we need to record the project with, yet I was not able to have an impact there since, nobody talked to me what they were going to do, and they live together so they can talk and organize things quite effectively, even when I live 2 min away.) Now it is similar and I am in quite a new situation since I was always the youngest, so I always did the work and followed and look to contribute and now I am the oldest in the group and just by observing the "group dynamic" it is difficult to tell who leads, and I am not used to it , yet I felt at one moment I was the leader because, they where scared of making decisions, I am working together with two girls, which is quite pleasent, yet at the same time difficult. They are quite young and you can just tell by communicating, they do not want to take blame and want to be right and project that onto me ( did a lot of shadow work on that and I just argue about the basic truth I perceive, so people interpret that as maybe arrogant or self-opinionated and maybe bossy), so when I make a suggestion which I always start as a "can you/we do this task etc or who wants to do this and this" (open questions and suggestions no commandos), they say "Yes, but" that is basically like a fuck you, since you do not consider the other's viewpoint, which I try to include of course not always 100% successfully. Also, they get worked up really fast and I have no clue what to do about that, if the situation is right I try to de-escalate it with humor. Yet, this group or one person in the group feels very toxic, and I had to contemplate if I am not the toxic one, now I am just confused. Since they both seem not to react to any suggestions and they do not really incorporate me and do not notice that the group dynamic has shifted from me being "the supervisor" to me being just another follower now and it feels like the other girls just does not want to do the work / wanting to be the supervisor, even though she could because she is quite competent, because she feels stupid that she does all the work. Yet, everyone feels the same in the group and nobody wanted to meet up before when I suggested it or someone else. To talk about the project which helps a lot to clarify ideas etc, we did it at the beginning now, everyone takes his time as "sooo important" even though they should have enough time I am also able to to take out time out of my schedule to meet up. Yet, at the end, it is regarded to meet up as somehow unnecessary since we can chat and type. Sure this is an experience and teaches me a lot, especially since I've been reading about the difference between man and women (biologically, culturally and also the conditioning culture has done to women, how these differences occurred and how the two different sexes operate and how they develop differently morally, so both have a different focus on emphasises in group work and in general relationships and values) Where can I find some good ressources online explaining stuff like this ?( watched Leo's video how to deal with toxic people and I also have the booklist, so I bought a book from there and read a bit not to much till now..) I only worked with 2 level-headed people and it was, so nice everyone had the freedom to pursue what someone wants in their free time, yet at the same time everyone was reliable and when a mistake was done, it was just corrected in the group and when someone was missing that was also okay, but I won't go into detail because we where 4 people during that semester and the dynamic was different and is different with 4 ppl especially meeting up. And me and the other level headed person did most of the correction. What are some good ways to learn how to deal with group projects? Which criteria are important for dealing with people in a group or to keep up a good atmosphere? How can I deal with people who are younger than me and tend to be quite emotional or disagreeing and argumentative? I surely stand my ground, yet at one point it is difficult to make people realize that they are stuck in their way of thinking and you have to make sure you are also not stuck. So, what are some good ways to gain perspective and to make sure you are not stuck in your way of thinking?

How the heck do I know? Assuming one knows that the ego is an illusion and to know it deeply not cognitively what do you think? To give an example there is a video from Eckhart Tolle assuming you know him if not you can look him up, he is definitely free of ego lol. Where he talks about taking acid and it had no effect on him.

Hello, I will keep the title short since I am not quite sure what I am going to write about. Currently, I am quite confused about which direction I am heading in life. I feel this is the right path and I can also see or contemplate why it is worth it. This is already confusing since I am thinking, that people think I have a concept of self-actualization which I do have. So, I am just trying to explain the current concept I have about self-actualization because I am not sure if the concept is let's say healthy and or even if I have a concept at all. So, first of all my notion of self-actualization would include Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs especially "being cognition" I downloaded the Audiobook. A psychology of being from Abraham Maslow. (Spoiler Alert twofold) Where he talks about "being cognition" and "deficit cognition". Leo also has a video about it which I have watched in the past. I like it how in the book he explains which situations in life occur that include or contain "being cognition" and yeah, obviously that you can experience them and he talks about recognizing these situations and that "deficit cognition" occurs in the first 5 stages. Because you depend on them you need a group of friends, shelter, sleep, sex, recognition, and respect, food, water, a creative outlet/fulling ones potential or dreams becoming a sound engineer a lawyer or a writer. Yet, being cognition does not depend on any of these, yet at the same time depends on the first previous 5 stages to be fulfilled. Being cognition includes doing things just for the sake of doing the thing itself. I love the analogy in this case from Allan Watts - Why do you want to learn another language to get a job? Or to tell people oh look I speak XXX languages? No, you do it because you enjoy talking to French people for example or to Spanish people, so you do it for the sake itself. This could also be considered intrinsic motivation so, here a different experience that I had. While I was listening to the Audiobook I always remembered how it was as a child riding a bike to a destined destination and simply enjoying riding the bike, there was no purpose, no arriving, just the pure experience till thought kicked in. The same while I was listening to the Audiobook from Abraham Maslow I was sitting on a metal bench in autumn, at a train station waiting for my next train to get back home from uni. As I was sitting there and listening to the Audiobook the sky was simply so beautiful and the light shining through the station ( it was open in the cold) had a very peculiar pattern which I had never seen before. I was so amazed by it, yet I simply took the moment as it is. It is similar to the state of flow for me, yet does not have this mellow drive to achieve something quality, which I would equate with the feeling of flow. To summarize my notion of self-actualization currently would entail for me to achieve complete satisfaction with "deficiency needs" and to turn my highest "deficiency need" let's say (not stating my goal here ) becoming a doctor and to help people become healthy again and to lead my team with compassion, to give my example a little bit more finesse. And to see my occupation or the activity that earns me a living ( to give a neutral concept) as a thing that I am doing for itself. So, let's keep the concept that I am having of self-actualization here like this. In the book he continues to talk about how to achieve that and that not many people ( 1 in 10000) do so, he goes on with that the concept is not very valid since there are not many people who checked the validity of the hierarchy of needs if I remember correctly and that a child needs safety to expand his zone of comfort and to test his courage to overcome obstacles and that he/she is not able to do it when certain safety precautions I am just going to say are not meet, this all depends on the development of the chilld / individual person/adult etc. Yet, take this information with a grain of salt it has been some time since I listened to the Audiobook and I only listened to it once or twice. Excuse me for telling personal stories all the time here, I want to explain my current viewpoint or perspective on "stuff". That's why I want to tell the story.I did an internship in London for 2 months during the summer semester break ( I am from Germany ) in a small company. During that time I started to get back to training since I had a knee surgery this year and was finally feeling fit enough to get fit again, I also went vegan since I wanted to try it out ,and while talking to a good friend of mine, and knowing that my aunt is also vegan, I was quite confident to test it out and went cold turkey ,and I am vegan still, since mid August now. It feels quite energizing to live like this and also I have more energy than usual, I felt that I could go out for a jog two times. I did not go to a doctor yet, to check if I am missing any vitamins or we and I keep procrastinating to do it bla bla. ( I do not even know if I can do this here in ger for free I should though) I had the opportunity to talk to a zen master (online during my stay in London) which I did, not very sure what to ask, so he lead the conversation he mostly talked about creating an infrastructure that helps to foster my meditation habit ( which I am doing now for 2 1/2 years missed 2-4 days) and that people at my age ( 23) are quite confused about life its direction and what is love, who am I , what role do I play in the world etc. I was not sure what to take from this, since I "knew" some of the stuff he talks about. Yet, what I really liked was that he talks about being young and old, that you have a lot of energy and time when you are young and that all of that contracts when you are old, yet happiness increases XXX times. I never thought about being old and not having the energy or let's state that differently. I am now way more aware that I am having tonnes of energy and a mass amount of time which I am most of the time-wasting still, and that I am aware now almost daily that things root (sorry for potentially offending the age group most likely not present on the forum) away, also my grandma is sick and we have someone in our house who cares for her, so I am seeing her condition now since two years or so. Still, not able to find a profound insight or the "great" motivation that propels me forward and to do something for my family. During my time in London, I hated and loved the city for various reasons. One theme that is currently still present in my life is feeling confined and I listened to David Deidas' book "The way of superior men" and he talks about female and masculine energy and that feeling confined and wanting to penetrate or to permeate "something" is a typical masculine energy theme. So, good I have the knowledge to a degree and now it is all about purpose. I did not even want to write this post, because it is somehow redundant, yet here I am stuck on the opportunity cost. I am going to fast forward this I am so done this is the fourth attempt now sitting here for two hours, somehow deleting my text randomly which just fits perfectly into the pattern I am stuck in right now. Ever since I came back from London to Germany, did a meditation retreat, was industrious in general doing homework reading, educating myself and trying out psychedelics for the first time same goes for the meditation retreat. I somehow end up self-destructing or sabotaging myself and my close friends do this too, especially for the last two years, there was so much good and bad. Yet, most of the bad part was somehow me sabotaging myself. Like currently I am sitting here writing a post on a forum where I know nobody personally, only since I feel and think, especially think that I am not able to relate to people anymore since I am soo deep which I do not even think. I just notice by my and their (comparing myself to the students here or rather keeping them in contrast since I do not actively compare as much) behavior with the background knowledge I accumulated over the past two years being to China for 6 months, reading books, progressing spiritually, getting my shit together, various internships one in London one in Germany, and do stuff for university, trying psychedelics, doing my first meditation retreat and did one consecutively this month and I have quite good marks or a grade. Yet, still, there is so much more potential that I have not used because I am wasting so much time doing petty things, playing video games, browsing on booptube , WhatsApp , not being able to create a bed routine since two years, because I hate routine and yes I watched the video going full circle and I listened to Alan Watts a billion times and he talks about this theme in a very funny way, that I really enjoy and love paradox now. Like this, I wrote this article or this paragraph 4 times not sure where I was heading and at the fourth time, I see that pattern that I want to talk about, sabotaging myself, since I had no clue wtf I am going to write about as the title already suggest. Yet, at the same time, I am just lost again. I really wanted to talk about my experience with psychedelics and the meditation retreat, yet my experience which I wrote down here being deleted 4 times and sitting here for almost two hours to write this post is just ludicrous. I am trying it again now, I did two meditation retreats over two separate weekends one in October and one now in December during November I tried psychedelics (AL-LAD ) so, I can imagine people understanding that I am confused. First, the meditation retreat in October was quite good since it grounded my practice and I was able to understand the practice better and to explore new themes. Trying AL-LAD in November was very very cool, I took 150 Microgram with the first trip and meditated one hour b4 also. journaling what the experience should be about and did a meditation intention sit for 20 min about what the trip should be about. The experience was not what I imagined it to be, I imagined having a breakthrough or insights, I did have some insights which I am most likely still subconsciously implementing by progressing with spiritual work keeping up with meditation and the second meditation retreat, following the AL-Lad experience a couple of weeks later. So, I did all that to make sure it was for spiritual purposes and not for or even for self-actualization purposes in terms of growing in spiritual dimension and not for a recreational purpose / one. In the end the experience ended up to be somehow both, a recreational one and a spiritual one which was, in the end, the best thing that could happen to a beginner IMO. ( I used to know some ppl who abused drugs). I was sitting there listening to music and had the idea ( as I said not going to repeat everything that got lost by hitting strg z and being a good hearted random clumsy fool which is a good description of my current state, about how much I informed myself about psychedelics) to talk play a video game with friends to make the onset pleasant and to not be suddenly zoned out and have a horror trip. Which I, later on, could contemplate in that state easily happening because you are so subtly influenced by everything it is freaking insane. Just changing music or the sounds of the video game and the emotions even in the video game was amazing how it altered my experience or I was just tripping lol. I felt at one moment since I did not want to talk to my friends during the trip, because I knew I was going to talk about it and it would fk me up in the end so I did not, while we were playing the video game. I just felt so much like my friend, I kinda wrote like him and just had a very very deep experience of what would it like to be him if he is in a very good mood and had a very pleasant empathic experience of me being him... So, as we chatted I could relate so much and he knew because I am generally a very empathic person or can be. (Infj) He is the polar opposite ESTP and I just had a blast experiencing what it would like to be him and playing the video game... as I said recreational and spiritual if you want to say it like that. Going further into the trip I stopped playing videos games, listening to music looked out the window, and watched a video from Leo, checking my visuals and all potential experiences one could have with this substance. Visuals where pretty much non-present, to non-existent as my second trip in that month revealed. So, going on to the second trip I took 300 Microgram, besides the empathic effect and feeling very present in the body, there was just nothing happening even with the spiritual preparation. I did not meditate directly before that, yet did my daily routine of meditating when I wake up after taking a shower and later that day took the substance sometime. This time I could feel my body even stronger and visual were present I checked it a couple of times, by looking at a poster in my room which has some ripples and these ripples were melting into each other and not, showing me how easily perception could be fooled. While looking at one of Leo's video I saw his head and arms having a sort of blurry train ( of a comet just googled that word) in his body movements in the video. That's that for visuals and they kept occurring, I looked out of the window and could see the stars and not see them because there was a big cloud and in reality I knew I should not be able to see them since the cloud was too dense, yet somehow I just perceived the stars to be there and not and I thought about the trip report of AL-LAD which I most likely watched later on, that the mind reflects on itself during that time and that this state I was in actuallly is similar to good meditation session ( as a beginner) yet, the not the same the experience just seemed differently altered. What I want to say is that I realized that the mind reflects on itself while looking at the clouded sky and seeing and not seeing stars, I realized that my mind is reflecting on itself and I thought about the phenomenon in psychology of projecting one's emotions, fears, problems or let's say issues onto other people and now today I am realizing more and more how I am and other people are doing it to me and others. It has just become so apparent, and I also just realize this so apparently as I am writing this post ( hope this sentence makes sense lol.) It is just sort of ubiquitous in my perception now not unconscious. Maybe subconsciously if there is a difference between the two concepts. The next thing that occurred during that trip and I also want to emphasize that I realize now how much more value I could get out of this if I would read more books about psychology and some more specific spiritual themes like non-duality or so, since I have a big picture understand of listening to Shinzen Youngs work , Eckhart Tolle, Alan Watts, Jiddu Krishnamurti a little and a bit of Deepak Chopra. ( All Audiobooks) So.. to get back to topic as the next thing that occurred is, that I was padding ( not petting xD) my cat and I somehow thought about how nice he is not scratching me because he always lays his paw onto my lips or eyes and I sometimes pretend to eat his paw and he only pulls out his claws softly, to slightly "massage" me. I thought how conscious is this entity is there a scale? How can he recognize that he does not want to scratch me and does he realize that he is doing it? Then I thought how limited he is in his form and that is state of being is way clearer than mine, yet at the same time so reactive to outside forces and also in alignment with them. Yet, the thought that was still lingering in my mind was how limited he is as a form or entity, trapped in a body of a cat I am just going to say it like this. And this now has been present in my daily life contemplating how limited and fragile human beings are, especially on a mental and emotional level, even ranking them with Ken Wilbers integral map, which stage I am talking to and how to relate to them and yes I am categorizing people , yet not mistaken it for their true identity. So, I can't do more with this information since I did not dive deep enough into the topics integral dynamics I am just going to call it ( I am typing now for 3h ) and all the information around that, Spiral Dynamics, Kohlberg's theory of moral development, Piaget even more interesting for me now Jane lovinger I believe was her name and how women develop differently from men morally, and that they have been measured erroneously and hence scored lower. There is just so much to learn and so much that I do not know it is insane and what is annoying to me is that I am just not doing enough to reach this level of understanding and that I do not have a life purpose or that I have one yet, it is too weak. So, I wanted to buy the life purpose course next year and read more about systems thinking after finishing books about how to deal with people and reading more about the male and female difference, since they are related or at least in the books that I am reading the two seemingly different topics are related. This is a hell of a lot to read and anyone who went through this thank you just for reading and paying attention or trying to understand or even to reply, which I am not expecting to this post. I am wrapping this up by saying that this post helped me clarify somethings, which I was not able to clarify in my journal like the pattern of sabotaging being so present that I have to find a way out of it since I am not doing anything productive since 6 weeks relating to university and projects ( language learning + online courses) . Any sort of feedback is appreciated even if it just states stop bitching and do even more. I could write more yet, my head is so full of thoughts that I can't really come to a sensible conclusion or wrap up at the end. Hope this helps ? Here a picture of how I kinda felt or expected to feel while trying AL-LAD, this is my potato. Peace

@Joseph Maynor Watched it already at least 4 times even while tripping loved Leos' head so much. It is not like I am not putting in work, I am yet not able to deal as good as I want to with emotional labor so I keep bouncing back and forth a lot, yet I feel that I am gaining momentum again. Will watch Leos' new video was occupied with a project for uni and "my" emotions lol. (first thing I did since 6 weeks for uni.) Texting is a horrible way to communicate too much interpretation and so many things to tell. IMO

@Joseph Maynor That's cool I am interested too. Wanted to go to the Netherlands and try it there, yet I do not know much about Mushrooms yet, for instance, if there are some different chemicals that could produce a "psychedelic experience" in the shrooms beside Psylocibin. I watched a video from Jordan Peterson where he talks about a study conducted by some researcher who had a good reputation in the scientific community, the researcher tested Psylocibins' effect in regards to the personality test OCEAN and people rose in the trait openness by one standard deviation after taking the substance. Here is the video in case you are interested he explains it in more detail. I also saw your post about LSD and your trip report I skimmed over it and I will read it and if not I will read it when I try out 1P-LSD or LSD :D.

@Joseph Maynor I'll take it into consideration, I am just scared of the law. They prosecuted me once because I downloaded a video game over tor. So, .. yeah lol if I ever know someone in real life I would most likely try it.

@Joseph Maynor I wanted to try 1P-LSD and some other stuff, potentially that is legal in Germany. Why ? 1P-LSD is supposed to turn into LSD when it is inside your body and even has stronger effects and a milder onset if I remember correctly.

Hello, I read sometime ago about the discussion here about Elon Musk. That he should work on his consciousness first, was the conclusion. I scanned through the post again and the root cause seems to be his ego or rather how he adresses the things that he is doing. So, I don't know what exactly he is doing if he is developing AI for example or if that is another company (OpenSource was the name I believe), I know that he is responsible for Space X and wants people to get to mars. Also, for Tesla. So, I posted a question in that post which has not been answered, questioning if there are examples that can show people who are highly conscious and successful. (Besides any author of spiritual books ) I was pondering whether or not it is possible to find work places, that are conscious or that foster the development of consciousness. Of course "I know " intellectually from hearing audio books that any activity can be done consciously, yet I have to say that this is not my reality (maybe slightly to a degree). So, I was just curious to find out, if there are any career paths , where people working in that industry are conscious, or that the structure of the company / career / job enables you to work with conscious people. The more I think about it , the more I believe that it does not matter in the end, yet in the meantime I am not enlightened or overly conscious, so besides doing meditation and (soon) going to attend retreats, I wanted to ask which career paths besides creating your own company, are facilitating / fostering the growth of consciousness. Note: Yes, I don't know what consciousness is , I know that it can't grow since you are it. Yet, it can become more apparent in your life through meditation and other contemplative practices. At least that is what I have experienced till now, emperically through travelling combined with a formal meditation practice. (It shines through the ego or creates some room that you don't even notice). I had the opportunity to talk to a zen master and besides the practial advice that he gave me ( creating a structure that will support the endeavour of pursuing enlightenment / meditation since no one is going to do that for you / support you), he talked about how life will unfold and that he was even unhappy for many , many , many many years. ( Which is fking scary to me). The more I think about this post. I believe people will say pursure your life purpose / find it / buy the course etc. Which of course paired with consciousness work , would be the ideal path to take. So, since I don't know what my life purpose is, I am just curious which career paths are ideal to pursure both ones life purpose and also consciousness work. Or to be more specific, which career path ideally has the most conscious people or which company has the most conscious people in your opinion. "Most conscious" is used relative here, since I can't gauge consciousness only oberserve and try to guess whether someone is conscious or not and most of the time you just notice it spontaneously and often times doing that I notice that this is unconscious behaviour ( the evaluation part). I am currently doing an internship in a post-production company and even though the people are nice I don't think this enviroment holds great potential for growth in consciousness. Eventhough it is a nice niche to work in, as a sound engineer , online editor etc. (I am at the reception , so I have to do all the crappy stuff lol.)

@starsofclay Okay, I will definitely try it out when I get the opportunity. I like formal meditation too. I can relate what you mean to power thinking, your mind tends to get impulses from everywhere and insights just drop in , in my case I just often forgot them lol.

@starsofclay I don't know if you meditate I used to smoke cigarettes and stopped(read a book + meditation helped me a lot to overcome addictive tendencies, I rarely play video games , rarely drink coffee , only internet is the "realest" addiction that I have) completely and before that stopped smoking weed. I did not smoke weed for about 2 and a half years. And I want to try it out again. I was in a similar state I always wanted to do it since I was bored and had nothing else to do. I don't know about you because you are doing something productive with it.@starsofclay @pluto Do you know somehow/someway how ancient civilizations used it ? @pluto I remember that I felt my body or just pain in my body quite intensely when I used to smoke. It felt like I took everything more personal- How did it help you personally ?

Who would be a great example for a person who has high consciousness and is also successful in terms of what the "real" world thinks success is? I can just imagine authors, writers or musicians someone who has the privilege of a lot of free time. Personally, the best example would be Eckhart Tolle for me or Deepak Chopra. I don't quite understand how being successful in life cannot be combined with a spiritual lifestyle only in terms of time available for a spiritual pursuit. I think it could slow the process of spiritual development down, yet also fuel it to a degree (living in a monastery or so is still way more effective). Are there also some people who realize that striving for success is just another illusion and they continue their business out of compassion or they just simply enjoy doing it? I bet there are even if they are rare. I cannot come up with a decent example. I googled and found this on Quora: (only read the first comment ) https://www.quora.com/Can-an-enlightened-being-become-successful-in-business

Hey, I just wanted to ask for some feedback on my practice and some insights on experience I had during the last two years and what they mean. I am doing Shinzen Youngs technique of See, Hear , Feel of course not perfectly. I just do see in , see out , hear in , hear out , feel in and feel out. For those familiar, I am not using note gone or somehow experiencing flow not sure how I can do that. Gone works yet I keep forgetting. For anyone interested here is a link to the practice, http://www.shinzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/SeeHearFeelIntroduction_ver1.8.pdf I am doing this now for 8 months or 10, not sure and before that, I was just experimenting around with various meditation techniques for a couple of months. Like just breathing /counting breath , do nothing , who am I , body scanning and maybe some others. For one time I was just starting at a cup asking who is the perceiver, who perceives this thought, who is that etc . Had a couple of non-relevant insights at least they did not seem to change anything externally maybe internally. For like 1 h and then went to work in a foreign country this was the heaviest load of cognitive dissonance I ever had lol. So, while traveling I had a strange state of "being" I was buying food at a shop and seat on a bench in the shop.While sitting down I just noticed a quite strong feeling of balance and equanimity. I was just so content with being at that place at that time or rather just doing something simple, like eating. I remembered during that time I was listening to Sam Harris - Waking up and there was a story of a girl who has been announced enlightened by one meditation teacher there. And she apparently was so blissed out and had no thoughts, yet during some occasion, she joined them traveling and they were sitting in a plane (Sam + other travelers + the enlightened woman) and one of them asked her if she really is so blissed out and asked her when was the last thought she had. She started to "think" and said hm I don't let me see, "oh this could be a thought " + " and this " + " and this" etc. etc. I don't remember what the Author said after that or what was the "moral of the story". To get back to the experience I remembered that story and immediately checked if there are thoughts and of course there were thoughts, yet still, there was this underlying feeling of equanimity and balance. Which held on for like 30 min or so, slowly disappearing. Another experience I had was Piti I believe it is called it felt like parts of my body are growing and it was very pleasant. Another experience was that I felt a vortex for a couple of seconds in my body, Can't really tell what that was but it was weird. And one time I actually felt like there was no self while doing nothing everything just disappeared for a couple of seconds this was at the beginning of my journey. Ok, so I don't know how relevant or useful this is for you guys and girls. Yet, if I could receive some feedback this would be quite nice. I am being very egotistical at the moment and it actually does not feel bad. Ego is supposed to be neither good or bad just ego. So, I guess I am maturing since I don't see things as black and white anymore? Also how to go deeper into the practice besides doing a retreat ( which would be optimal) or meditating longer ( yes does not guarantee that it will go deeper ) while meditating for one hour ?

@Spacious Yes, I have one. I used it quite often, yet now only once a week. Or whenever I feel the need to write smth. down. I bought a journal since I started meditation approximately and I used it consistently since then. I do some exercises out of books and shadow work once a week in the journal now.

Hello, I watched most of Leo's videos on how to stop judging yourself and how to stop comparing yourself to others. Are there any other techniques besides naming every negative judgment and positive judgment one had about others and self and upgrading your life? I am doing shadow work for about 3-4 month or 2-3 now and you automatically notice how you judge yourself or others doing the so called 3-2-1 process, which just shows you that, there are very subtle ways in which you judge others and yourself, and also how you create your self-image based on thoughts and emotions you identify with. For example, I used to be to and still am to a degree a person who idealizes one person but only in the context of "relationships" like she is the one, I only want her etc. This has drastically changed now and I can see how I am more nonchalant around the girls I idealized and other girls. It feels just freaking awesome since I am free of a concept most of the time and just more authentic. Just makes the interaction with the other person more enjoyable. I am also doing the unified mindfulness techniques from Shinzen Young hope this is the correct name (for the technique) and I participate in the Life Practice program. Unified mindfulness is basically mindfulness meditation with labeling if I am not mistaking. You just notice your thoughts, emotions, surroundings, feelings. Like you label your thoughts and when a thought pops up you say hear in. Then you label your feelings you have a strong emotion feel in, or you start to notice the darkness while your eyes are closed you label it see in. What I want to say here is that these techniques are quite effective in realizing how much you judge things and how to a degree judgment just occurs or is perpetuated by your mind and how you are able to notice it and stop the judgment immediately or rather take a break from it. Are there any techniques around there like visualizing or programming the subconscious on how to stop judging other people,? I feel I would benefit a lot from that. Since people around my age (early 20's) seem to be oblivious to the fact how much judgment and concepts they maintain about themselves and I can see that it is a fallacy and that I am somehow just very different from others. Still, this is a concept and if I go on it just would be a vicious circle and somehow someway I am holding myself back. Currently, I try to upgrade my confidence with one technique but I can't tell you much since I am just doing it for 4 days or so.

@Loreena Would love to talk about it and responding to your text fully, would take forever and exams are right around the corner and also doing some other stuff which consumes time. Feels like I am reverting back to stage orange, at least I am aware of it. ( And yes that is possible )

@egoeimai Easier said than done. Would love to and I am doing it to a degree where I can "observe" "judge" "compare" however you want to say that, that I am doing it not as often as others and I can tell when I am judging or others are judging. I like what Eckhart Tolle said about that. The real meaning of judgment is when you confuse the judgment with the identity of the other person. This not exactly what he said yet get's the point across. So, I can tell that I am at a point where I can tell it is a concept, yet this is very very subtle. I don't know how much judgment you faced in your life. I had to endure a lot in an ethnocentric community as a half white and black person. That's putting it nicely. (hope the terms I used are correct English is not my mother tongue)

@Erlend K Thanks, I will try meta meditation. I tried tonglen for a while which if I remember correctly was quite similar? Not sure,never mind thanks! I will try that.

@Nahm What would be a technique for cultivating self-love that you do? I am really looking for something specific and pragmatic, words won't help or a different perspective, sure it could but I would like to do something that will yield long-term results besides meditation. I read a decent amount of books and audiobooks about happiness and spirituality. And I am currently listening to Peter Ralston a book called "book of not knowing" which talks in chapter 14 about the process of identification and has very similar to the video of how to stop judgment from Leo. I just wanted to know what techniques are out there for helping to reduce judgment? Is cultivating self-love a good option? Boosting self-esteem? For instance, exercising is out of the option at the moment. Since my knee is still hurt I can do a little bit of running and train my body. Yet, soccer or anything fast paced is not possible. If that would be an option to reduce judgment.

Tbh, don't overcomplicate things. Balance is key here. If you think you are addicted to music turn of the radio while you are driving and listen to the sounds of your car, street and if you are lucky nature. That is a good test. Or don't use your headphones while walking, if you normally listen to music that way.

Hey, not sure if there has been a post like this before. How does an productive day look like for you ? Currently, I am studying and I am always scheduling my week in advance, each saturday or sunday. So, for example a typical Tuesday would look like this: wake up 6am take a shower and meditate till aprox. 7:30 - 45 (depending on how long I stay in bed ) breakfast before 8:00 lectures from 8:00 to 11:15 grab some food in the cafeteria relax till 12:30 or 13:00 Studying from 13:00 till 18:00 , different subject 45 min after 1 hour and 30 minutes take a break for 15 to 30 min. Grab food in between 18:00 relax , chat , etc 19:00 workout till 20:00 Shower grab some food or make some. 20:30 45 min learning chinese After that read and try to go to bed by 22:00. Yet, time-wise you can see that I am not capeable of sticking to the schedule 100%. Sometimes, I just get distracted for 15 mins and that for like 4- 6 times a day browsing the web, I hate this yet I also feel I need it as an extra break. Am I doing to much or is this just fine ? Ofc, I am not always working out and sometimes I have to do groupwork for some lectures, so that mostly takes the whole day since the other people don't do anything in advance and I also am not doing anything in advance. Nvm the last part. Curious to see how other people here structure their day, especially with a job. During internships I had trouble keeping up with hobbies like learning chinese under the week, since I was so worn out, from the whole day. Note: It is 22:48 here in germany.