Max_V

@Shin Yep, you’re right. It can literally feels as though ‘you’ are dying. When you are still identified with ego it can be scary as hell.

Other than going to school and certain gatherings to meet new people, what is a good list of things one can do to improve their social skills and decrease the contraction that is felt in the body and mind when there is a social situation at hand. I am trying the 'Always talk to people when the opportunity presents itself" strategy but with this ingrained fear I have, I cannot always bring myself to do it. There is just too much resistance and fear that arises. I've already worked a ton on this problem with a psychologist and shadow work but it seems I've hit a wall. And also: I have been going out my comfort zone every day as practice. Going to school, talking to people I do not know, talking to girls. Will my social skills decrease if I have less social interactions for a week?

@Shiva That's awesome man! I've always had a deep connection with animals. Doesn't matter if it's a cow or my beloved pet hamster . I've become quite aware of the fact that I've just been unconsciously eating whatever comes on my plate without realising the horror some of these animals went through. It doesn't matter if nature intended for us to eat meat or not, when you see how chickens and pigs are being used as some collection of objects that give meat it just turns my stomach. The first reason for me trying vegetarianism is to experiment with finding a diet that is in line with consciousness work. But definitely this animal suffering is giving me another push in the back to actually stop eating meat all together.

@BjarkeT Alright. I don't know if I know the perfect definition for this but I will give my best shot. As I understand now, shadow work is the unraveling of one's underlying problems and limiting beliefs that hold you back in life. It's basically taking a look at your 'shadow' and healing it.

@Shin I've been trying to become mindful 24/7 so fully feeling emotions will be something that I'm going to practice day to day. It's amazing how much 'Awareness alone is curative' works. Thanks for the advice!

@BjarkeT I have been integrating @Martin123 's shadow guide into my commonplace book so that I can practice it and embody it. I feel like this could help a lot with releasing these emotions that are stuck in my body, there is this intuition haha. Thanks for your advice. I will check 'how to permanently solve problems' as I have watched the negative emotions one multiple times

@BobbyLowell Ye I've learned my lesson with trying to be perfectionistic in the sense of what girls -specifically- think of me. Just letting loose, not caring and being authentic is what feels best to me and also what causes most attraction.

Stop wanting them to change. This stuff happens beneath the surface. When you see things working good for you and see the results of your personal development, of course, how can you not want to help and tell people about this. The problem is, unless they have a very open mind, in general people are very closed to this kind of work. When you have the constant attitude of 'I'm the more developed person' this will colour your vision and every time you look at someone ithere will be this belief, meaning and value attached to them. Rather than seeing them from a Being perspective (The way that they actually are) you are seeing them through that judgement that you have already made up about them. (Watch Leo's video on Being perspective vs Deficiency perspective if you want to know more about this) which then alters the way you see them. Learn to see them in the exact way of them appearing to you. Be mindful of your emotional reactions of things they say, and be caring and compassionate towards them. Radiate that love that you are cultivating on your personal development journey. Who knows, it might affect them in such a way that they start to change in front of your eyes I have the same thing with my younger brother, he is 13 now and is very much into the toxic kind of habits and behaviour that you are talking about. What I do is try to look beyond his pretence and love him with all my heart. Not because I want to fix him or 'make him better' , but because I love him. He is the little troublemaker I grew up with so I want to give him all the love and care before we become more distant and I get my own place.

@realname I quite like it just saving on the cloud. If my macbook ever crashes there won't be any lost files.

@Joyboy I use Onenote now on macbook. What should be the benefits other than it looking cool?

I think one the most important tips that Leo gave in his advice for high school/ college students is: “Study not for the getting good grades or a certificate, Study for the sake of knowledge and learning how certain areas of life work” Why this is so profound is, I would always ‘study’ one hour and then after that I would be free to do self actualization and ‘have fun’ and do work that grows me and gets me excited When you change studying for grades to studying for the sake of knowledge, you add school work to the self actualization process because you are just learning another part of life!

Do you have an every day practice of yoga ? If so, what type of yoga do you practice and what yoga do you recommend for people interested in consciousness-work? Thanks

@Leo Gura I have different kinds of yoga centres but most of them are focussed on increasing strength of the body and such. I will look around. Maybe somewhere further there is a place with different kinds. Which kind of yoga is the one I should go for? Kundalini or Kriya, Hatha ?

Watch this video

@Leo Gura Could you actually practice yoga on your own without any guidance?

@RawJudah Thanks for your comment. I have lowered my wheat intake by a ton. In the future I will probably cut it out completely but right now I will keep some bread in my diet. @Michael569 Will check it out, thank you

@see_on_see I agree with what you are saying except for the fact that they are coming from different places. Adyashanti, Rupert Spira, Eckhart Tolle, Peter Ralston All westeners. All enlightened teachers who just explored their experience rigorously. (Except for Eckhart maybe, he's a different case)

@see_on_see It could certainly be. I'm not denying any of that. But I do think that a path without psychedelics is possible. So many enlightened teachers have never touched a psychedelic in their life and still have the depth of understanding that they have. As far as I understand, Truth is not something that you can only access with psychedelics. Psychedelics are simply a tool to help make the process of recognition faster. I might try 5-meo at some time in my life since I'm very passionate about pursuing Truth. If there is any tool out there that could assist me, I'm very open to try. But I just don't feel like it's the right time for me in my life to do this. I first want to see how much my current practices and inquiry can take me. When I'm a little older and more responsible in the sense that I can make decisions more mindfully I will definitely consider looking into it.

To remotivate yourself, visualize how much growth and positive change this can bring toyour life. Listen to other people and what their experience with the benefits of meditation is like. That can give you a taste of what it can lead to. This worked for me to commit to it 100%

I encourage you to go stand in front of a mirror after self inquiry and look at your face. I just had an opening of awareness when I did this. After having done the inquiry and then actually looking at what you believe you are, can make you suddenly disidentify from the belief of you being the body. It’s pretty amazing. I was right there being absolutely nothing for 1 1/2 second. It was freaky as hell.

@Telepresent Well it's basically so that included with passing high school you have to make a project around 25 pages and 10 chapters. You choose if you want the project to be with English or Math, Physics,etc. So I chose a combination of English and math. It doesn't have to fit any criteria basically. You choose what you want it to be about, it's something you set up all by yourself although your counsellor assists you by guiding the project and giving you advice.

For my high school exams project I chose Infinity to be my subject. I was thinking of reviewing certain perspectives, science, religion, math and then also Leo's videos were something I thought I could get some inspiration from. The problem here is, how much of the inquiry should I include. I know what happens when you discuss enlightenment type of topics with people who are closed to this work so I'm kind of troubled with what to include and what to not include. I know this forum is not for helping people do their school work but I was wondering if some of you guys could give some opinions on this.

@Martin123 It’s hard to digest for the body since bread is calorie dense ,so your body requires more energy to process it. Which makes you feel groggy.

@Shiva Ye it's very hard to get wheat out of my diet since it's like the only thing I eat that has somewhat more calories in them. So instead of cutting it completely out of my diet (for now) I only eat whole grain bread from the bakery down my street. This bread feels pretty fresh. When you compare it to say, pre cut bread from the super market, it tastes amazing and it doesn't feel like you are eating junk food.

@Natasha Yes, I'm not very knowledgable about psychedelics but as far as I understand they can be used as a tool to speed up the process. The road without psychedelics could take longer but it will eventually result in the same