5driedgrams

Good morning friends! I've been implementing this practice in my daily life and am so glad I did. Every morning I repeat the words "I am going to die someday, and that day could be today". Doing so helps set the tone for the day and I behave accordingly. It's done wonder for my relationships and my inner peace. If need be, I will remind myself of these words when I am getting emotional (usually during an argument with my girlfriend... we bicker sometimes) I take a deep breath and come back down to earth and I realize that I am being petty and I ask forgiveness and move forward. If I'm in my head about something... swimming in negative thoughts, I will say "If I died today, would I regret wasting this time being upset by this?" It has served me so well since I started doing it. I basically wanted to open a dialogue and see if anyone else has been utilizing this incredibly useful practice! I'm certain that many of us have been using it and I just wanna hear about other people benefitting from it! I'm still pretty new at this and have only deeply meditated on this once, but I do keep it in mind throughout the day and it reminds me to do my best at work, to do any task at once and with vigor, to love unconditionally, to help others, to be nice, to not take anything personally, and to chill the F out lol Please share any videos or literature on the subject to help me or others benefit even more from it. Have a great day!

A joke I like is that the best time to meditate is when you'll actually do it! But I really really like to get up early and start my day with meditation as it starts the day off on the right foot with a mind at peace. Then i'll set the intention for the day and do my affirmations. I'll go through my day and at the days end I like to meditate again or reflect and contemplate or all of the above, provided I'm not too sleepy

I draw on coffee cups for when my girlfriend comes to my workplace and gets coffee. Notice the Buddha holding a coffee cup I also like to draw people having sex

@Empty lol what a question <3 I look forward to sinking into that this evening!

I don't know much about the life purpose course but I'm wondering if you purchased it, maybe it would pique your interest and you would end up making time for it! You could always come back to it when you have time if it doesn't enthrall you id imagine. Sounds like you have a lot of ambition either way!

In my experience, gently gliding my fingers AROUND the nipples for a little while builds arousal, and then eventually touching/gently pinching the nipples finally satisfies that desire that you built up by running your fingers around them. That build-up is important. Same with oral sex and even intercourse. Don't jump to the main course! Savor every bite of the appetizer! Since every woman is different, you're going to have to find out if that's something she really likes. I know pinching a nipple can help a woman reach an orgasm during oral sex if I'm having trouble getting her there with just my mouth. I've also had girls like having their boobs squeezed pretty hard when having rough sex, so its all about the woman and the set and setting. Check youtube! Also, NOTHING beats communicating with your partner about exactly what they like. I like to mention this to a new partner before the heat of the moment. That I want to know exactly what they like so I can give it to them. that open communication during the heat of the moment can really strengthen the connection youre having and can even turn into dirty talk etc. Good luck! give the boobies love

@Sukhpaal Yes I love this topic!! It has been swimming in my head a lot lately. I recently admitted that I don't yet know what real love is. I only know my ego's concept of real love... which is a kind of "love" that fortifies my ego's existence. My ego's idea of love is a love that showers me with attention all the time and never stops validating me. Now I don't quite yet know what real love is, but I can imagine that real love will not feed your ego all the time. maybe just a little to make you feel good but real love will let you sit and feel the ego's hunger for validation, and someone who is seeking to understand and experience real love will let themselves sit with the discomfort of the ego crying out for validation. Real love might be uncomfortable to the not-yet-awakened. I have experienced a lot of suffering in my recent relationships because of the expectations I place on my girlfriends, and I'm finally accepting that I might not have been receiving real love. More importantly, I had not been GIVING real love! So I continue the endeavor of understanding how to give and receive real love. Thank you for posting this!

Everyone's advice here is super sound and I'm glad everyone is taking the time to give these thought-out responses. This was a big problem of mine in high school and I wish I had this platform to reach out through at the time. This particular piece of advice as well as @ajasatya 's are the very first step to overcoming this issue in my opinion. It is also the most daunting. To go against the path of negativity your mind instinctually takes. To the "newbie" this might sound like bullshit, you might say "well if other people would love me more I would love myself more!" oh how cute the newbie mind is. It is the exact opposite. There have got to be countless useful videos on youtube for how to practice self-love and self- acceptance. Leo has made some videos on the subjects! I see this is your second post. PLEASE STAY!!!! You have a great place to be honest and be completely unapologetically you here. It can be really hard to admit these types of things to personal friends in the real world. Admitting these things is the first step to correcting and/or alleviating them! Good luck! Work hard! You got this

Well then you've got your work cut out for you if your interest is really piqued. I was in a relationship with a girl who was not at all into either as well. The relationship inevitably ended. Hopefully she will start getting into it! Psychedelics is a much harder endeavor to open someone up to. Maybe if you have some friends who are into psychs you could spend a night at one of their houses. It's definitely a wise idea to be with someone who has some experience with them, as even a gram can be overwhelming (especially if it is a specific kind of hallucinogenic mushroom). Do research and be safe!

@Paan Good morning! (at least it's morning where I am ) Leo has talked at length about this and I'm excited to hear what he has to say on the subject, but you can get some insight in the meantime with this video This can be applied to the use of mushrooms and other various psychedelics. MDMA has some potential for breakthroughs in empathy and has been used for PTSD and marriage counseling, but I personally stick to mushrooms as a tool to progress in the path to enlightenment and self-actualization. Short answer is no, they are not necessary, and the question of "is it a lot harder to get these deep insights without the use of psychedelics" is very dependent on who you're asking. In the above video he says "the only way you can know for sure is by trying it yourself." When I was 18 I had my first mushroom experience. I had no idea what I was in for. I thought id see some cool colors and things might be more funny to me. My favorite way to explain the psychedelic experience is by saying "its like seeing the world and everything in it for the first time all over again". I experienced the love I have for my family and friends as if I'd never really experienced it before. I wept. Nowadays, my use of psychedelics is geared towards unconditional love and true happiness. It's easy to say that a life of service to others is the key to happiness, its easy to say you believe that because the Buddha said it, but a recent psychedelic experience of mine helped me TRULY KNOW this. I wept at the realization of this. It all became so clear. My argument is that I could spend years (decades even) striving to truly attain these realizations, and if there are tools available to help me speed up that process, I'm going to use them. They are not for everyone, the only way you can know is by taking the leap yourself. If you are interesting in procuring these substances, you could go to a music festival and find them pretty easily. You could learn about the deep web and make a purchase accordingly. You can also grow your own mushrooms if youre so inclined ( I am ) I do not advocate any of these I'm just sayin they can be done These are just my personal ruminations on the subject and I am excited to hear what anyone/everyone else has to say! One of my favorite topics! [EDIT] 5 meo dmt is no joke and if you have only experimented with MDMA I would suggest a gram of mushrooms to get a feel for the psychedelic experience. This is definitely something you want to "test the waters" with before diving right in. Weed also gives you very little (I'd say none at all) insight into psychedelics.

@Max_V Sometimes when I want to create art on paper, I draw mandalas. I can just let the art happen on its own (well... with the help of a mathematical compass for perfect circles lol) it doesn't have to be envisioned completely in my mind beforehand, I just doodle designs and just let it happen. I create art to take a break from reality, or to cope with it, im not sure. It just makes me feel better when im sad, and I have something to show for my time spent. <3

Machine Elves are a Terence McKenna thing. As much as I love the guy (see my signature), I never read much into his ramblings (for lack of a better word) about machine elves. Here is a YouTube video of McKenna explaining his "Self-Transforming Machine Elves" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH4UdX2D5sY I have read The Teachings of Don Juan and just grabbed his second book A Separate Reality over the weekend! Found it at my local flea market from a lady named "Willow" who sells all kinds of cool metaphysical stuff lol. Thanks Willow! I also wanted to comment that during my first DMT experience, I found myself sitting at the feet of a giant African warrior (as best as I can describe) tall and skinny wearing an ovalish (almost alien head-shaped) mask with iridescent tribal designs covering it. The giant placed his hands on his knees and squatted down and leaned in as if to get a better look at me. As he brought his masked face closer to mine, I saw other little tribal warriors hiding behind the designs in the mask, popping their heads up to show themselves and for them to get a better look at me. I felt like they were his children. Must've been "take your child to work day" in dimension-transcending African warrior spirit guide land! What a concept! I must say that these visions might have been influenced by the music I was listening to during this experience, which was Shpongle, who have a world music mixed with psytrance sound. Every song is a masterpiece, but I digress. I love the concept of your chamber of solitude! it's great to have a dedicated space for tripping and/or meditation (which are synonymous to me nowadays) I took 52.8 FRESH grams (equivalent to 5.28 dried grams) on Saturday and let go so much that I couldn't control my bladder. It was so "bothersome" (more like demanding of my attention) That I wished I knew how to put a catheter in myself lol. I laid in my bed for the majority of my experience with a bucket next to my bed and got naked and would just sit up and let my body rid itself of the toxins through my urine ( my urine was cloudy and yellow) I would sit up every ten-fifteen min a pee just a little bit, over and over and over again. After this experience I decided to give serious attention to learning how to make tincture, as I believe the mushroom tissue was giving me these negative side effects, and not the psilocybin/psilocin itself. Anyway, without turning this into a trip report, I just wanted to put my speculative two cents in that I've seen entities on mushrooms and DMT and that alone is enough for me to be open to the idea that they are "real" (define that word as you will) I love you guys

Following! Great idea for a post/thread!

@TJ Reeves I love when you post. This has been happening to me a lot lately! It happens a lot while driving. I teared up a few weeks ago driving through a forest at sunrise. I teared up when listening to the words of a song I hadn't heard in a while. I teared up looking at my girlfriend last week (she is an angel that I am working toward deserving). I teared up laying in my bed so grateful that I have a place of my own that I share with family and friends. I tear up at insightful passages of books. Now these are experiences that are easy to understand getting teary-eyed about, but I know that I have teared up/choked up at some of the more "unordinary" ones. I'll have to edit this post if I can recall some of them. Thank you for this post and all your posts! They are always easy to read and written as if it were a class assignment... maybe it is

Yes! And the award for most underrated ROA goes to...!

I was really excited for this response and it delivered!

When (ultimately futilely) attempting to explain the psychedelic experience to someone who has never taken part, I often use the analogy "It is like seeing the world for the first time again". After a profound psychedelic experience (mushrooms are my psychedelic of choice) ordinary life can be filled with novelty. I look forward to waking up and going to work, and this is not a false sense of enthusiasm for life. This is a genuine feeling of being blessed with a new day and the opportunity to help people and to meet each challenge with zest and optimism. It is a genuine welcoming of change and growth. Praise be to the Mushrooms Gods for lifting the veil of illusion and monotony! lol

Great advice and great book recommendation! I'm guilty of attempting energy work/ kundalini yoga without the guidance of a teacher. My girlfriend advised against it for this exact reason. It's a shame that this type of thing isn't an innate skill/ innate knowledge, but it isn't. Time to find a teacher! We will thank ourselves for doing so.

LOVE IT!

@Prabhaker Loved it! Needed it! Thank you!

Better hope your partner is ready to hear something like that lol. BOTH SIDES definitely need to understand the cycle! In all honesty, if you or your partner is not ready to hear that, then you or your partner might not be ready for an inter-dependent relationship. Which there is nothing wrong with. Shit I might not even be ready for an inter-dependent relationship despite studying inter-dependence and striving to attain an inter-dependent relationship. The ego has strong roots in me. I would probably take that personally if my girlfriend said it to me, so I'd have to stay super mindful that we are working through our dysfunctions and that the ego is gonna tell me that its way is THE way. It is important to remember that real love will tell you something you might not want to hear (assuming your behaviors and motives are still rooted in ego like mine) but will benefit you if you don't take it personally. Real love lovingly calls out unhealthy behaviors for the greater good. Real love accepts getting called out and trusts that it is out of love and concern. I'm basically just saying this to myself cuz I need to hear it lol. Anyway, I loved your outline of the system of codependency and your advice on how to disrupt it!

@Sheeba I wish I would've discovered my tendency for neediness when I was 19. I love seeing people your age on here. You seem to be off to a great start. I was and to some extent still am a slave to my neediness. I have yet to identify where it comes from. It is awesome that you view it as baggage. its quick sand and will suck you down into despair. It's also incredibly beneficial that you are not impatient with overcoming this, as I am impatient with damn near everything I aspire to improve about myself. It breeds a lot of suffering in my life. Leo has some videos on neediness and codependence. I'm sure there are plenty of youtube videos discussing neediness and codependence. I haven't really made correcting these behaviors in myself a top priority so I have no real practical advice off the top of my head, but please share whatever you find that helps you! I just wanted to say that it's great that you are interested in and are now actively pursuing self-actualization/ personal development and as long as you stay consistent you can master anything you want!

@Vladimir @aurum @Markus This is a great dialogue. I can agree with parts of what everyone is saying. I believe that emotional mastery and inner-work have helped me in my own "pick up" endeavors by cultivating true(ish) confidence and less fear of rejection. Less damage to my self esteem and less of a negative reaction to rejection. If a girl rejects me and insults me in the process, I can say "oh man that poor girl must really not like herself to be trying to put me down for showing interest in her." I also have to say that my pick up game is playful and gentle and not aggressive, but slightly assertive, so if I were to be met with an insult, I know that I was not too aggressive and that her reaction is all about her. I would also thank them (in my head) for showing me where theyre at in their life spiritually. There also isn't so much riding on picking up a girl if I'm coming from a place of playful aloof confidence, and I reach higher levels of that playful aloof confidence with my personal development work. I also agree that it is good to have tangible goals and it is very important to feel that sense of accomplishment when those goals are met. They don't necessarily have to be 100% dating and pick-up related. That's where Markus's self-investment and holistic approach come in. If I'm creating results and meeting goals at work and with my exercise regiment, my meditation, and my creative hobbies (music and art) the confidence that comes from reaching those goals spills over into other aspects of my life I.e. my dating life. ALSO it is good to have some goals met in your dating life! if for even just the experience and practice. Lastly I want to say that I am just expressing what works for me and how it works. If it sounds like my approach is coming from my ego's selfish desires and needs, I welcome being called out on it. xoxo

I've been wanting to learn about sacred geometry! Thank you for sharing this! Great starting point it seems!

Everyone is giving sound advice out of love and concern. Frank advice, but sound advice. It would be incredibly wise to try some other tryptamines at low doses before going to granddaddy Dimitri. You can experience ego death from mushrooms, although if your ego holds on for dear life (which, odds are it will) it can be excruciatingly terrifying. At least DMT will be over quicker. With no prior experience with other tryptamines you could scare yourself away from them altogether, gaining no lasting benefits, even if you experience ego death. Leo had said that you are not ready to make sense of it. Can your body physically take it? Yes. Can you physically experience ego death? Yes. But can you take that experience and make lasting use of it? Unfortunately probably not. This type of thing is hard (damn near impossible) to explain, but just keep in mind these people are telling you exactly what they would have told themselves if they were thinking of making the decisions you want to make in the beginning. Its kind of like never having played baseball and trying to hit a pitch from an MLB pitcher. You'll probably end up at the plate saying " fuck I wish I would've played some tee ball first" lol. Disclaimer: mushrooms are in all reality far from "tee ball". You can have some serious transformative experiences with them and I'd encourage you to safely try them first. Best of luck!