Emerald

Careful with these mindsets. They are attachments and therefore barriers to enlightenment. It taints your intentions for enlightenment, because you want something from enlightenment that's out in the future. It is a desire for things to be otherwise and a non-acceptance of the current reality. Since enlightenment and unconditional acceptance/love go hand in hand, wanting reality to be some other way and making enlightenment into a means for that desired reality come to fruition is a stumbling block. You have to want whatever is... exactly as it is. So, talking about missions and the like, really gets you off track. Reality is perfect and needs no improvement. Any grand scheme to improve reality is based in the ego-consciousness paradigm. This is not to say you can't have preference... just don't take them too seriously. The world doesn't need saviors.

Thank you!

Rali and I did a collaboration video last night, which we'll both post at some point this week. The way he describes his experiences, I believe - in light of my own experiences, however limited- that he is enlightened and has a lot of great things to say. I think his critiques of Leo are valid, though I know he appreciates Leo's work. My view is that Leo in necessarily riding blind, as is anyone who is seeking enlightenment. So, he's doing his best. But he gets a bit over-confident and gets lost in his own ideas about enlightenment. It's understandable, but maybe not optimal for someone who has so many subscribers. Either way, I really enjoy Leo's channel. That said, I think his idealism and his natural tendency toward hierarchical thinking gets in the way.

I learned about the permanence of death when I was three and smashed a small frog. I thought that resurrection was possible since I had seen shows where people had been resuscitated from drowning, so I was really shocked and upset when my mom told me that we couldn't bring the frog back to life. But my first really memorable anxiety about death was when I was 4 or 5. My sister and I had gone to a youth group at a church in my hometown. I felt weird there the whole time as I wasn't used to going to church, despite the fact that we were only doing arts and crafts and things like that. I disliked it being there very much because I didn't like the feel of it. So, at some point during the week there was also a congregation where the youth pastor would talk to us about things. And one story really disturbed me. He said that- paraphrased from memory- "you have to make sure that you let Jesus into your heart when he knocks. You never know if you're going to wake up the next morning. So, if Jesus knocks on your heart in the night and it's time to go, before you die, let him in." So, I didn't sleep well that night. I wondered what it would feel like if Jesus knocked on my heart and if that would kill me. Then, what if I went to hell because I didn't know how to let Jesus into my heart, as I imagined this scenario literally and not figuratively. What if I wasn't good enough to go to heaven and I had to be with the devil for all of eternity? What if I mix things up? I was terrified that Jesus would come in the night. But I think I was already scared of death before this.

I have occasionally experienced brief bouts of depersonalization while looking in the mirror. Like "Holy crap... is that really me... this is who I'll be for the rest of my life... and this is what I happen to look like... and my name is Emerald... weird... and I'll never be someone else?" It's a very interesting phenomenon.

Although there are certainly some regressive things relative to spirituality in the past and there has been a lot of devaluing and disenfranchisement of women, there is truth in the idea of the masculine and feminine principle, yang and yin respectively. And it truly isn't just men making it up... even though people often use it socially to disenfranchise women. These polar energies can be found in every living and non-living system and supersede but imbue human gender. Everyone has a unique signature inborn and though there is a strong correlation to gender, we can see that everyone is different as nature is never black and white. When I had my awakening experiences, and zoomed out from the particular self that I thought myself to be more things were allowed into my experience because I no longer had a sense of self to protect. So, I was okay with accepting all parts of myself and no fear of inferiority, and the feeling that came over me was a thick pervasive feeling that I immediately recognized as femininity. Given that I was raised in a place that valued the masculine over the feminine, I had been repressing and denying my femininity for years and instead allowing only my masculine side to flourish. I thought of it as an impediment and weakness to be feminine as I saw it as something of a limitation. But this was an overwhelmingly empowering feeling as all social concepts of femininity as weakness fell away, and I was really myself then. Prior to this, I always thought masculinity and femininity were just social constructs but they're much deeper than that. So, in my experience, masculinity and femininity are real but are often socially used to keep women down. So, I always sense this othering that happens in these types of conversations and I really hate it. But to ignore the idea altogether isn't helpful either, even though it can be painful given the social baggage that often comes along with it.

I wouldn't worry too much unless you notice it worsening or intensifying from your use of 5 MEO. Do exercise caution and be sure to space out your experiences quite a bit though. If it were me, I would even set a limit on how many times I plan to do it over the course of the next several years. But that's just my personal advice. But I see things in a grainy way too. This is especially evident when it's dark. I think that might just be the way that vision is.

This reminds me of when I was in labor with my daughter. This was over five years ago before I knew anything about meditation too. The contraction would be so overwhelmingly painful, so I would focus on it trying to find little moments of relief. Then I would fall asleep for a few moments during the downtimes between contractions and wake back up and do the same thing. It was like the pain was forcing me to focus and pay attention to my body.

I'll definitely have to check that out. I've gotten recommendations to look into Alan Watts quite a bit, so I'll have to take the time to do so. Thank you.

Thank you for subscribing! I definitely have a strong interest in human sexuality. I think there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding female sexuality particularly since we tend to culturally view sex through a masculine lens. So, when young women are learning about their bodies and about sex, there are a lot of misconceptions, blindspots, and false assumptions/ideas as we culturally tend to view sex in a masculine linear fashion. But sex from the female perspective isn't very linear. Orgasm is necessary but doesn't necessarily equal satisfaction in the way it does to a man. So sex approached in the "get her to the finish line" way is normally not very satisfying for a woman. So, I might share more information on the topic in the future. But I'm a substitute teacher now though, so I tend to shy away from videos directly on the topics of sex or anything that could potentially get me fired.

@Leo Gura Do you plan on doing any more videos related to psychedelics anytime soon, or are the informational videos that you already have on your channel all you plan to post for now?

Maybe you feel like your attachment to this trigger is going to benefit you in some way, so it's hard to let go of. Like you're going to be able to "figure it out" one day and everything will be miraculously better and there will be some emotional payoff or feeling of redemption. Or maybe that you'll get better of the person, or group of people, who wronged you and get to feel redemption through that scenario playing out. Or perhaps you can't accept the way that society is that enables these types of things to happen. Maybe you want reality to be so that these things can never happen, which is valid to an extent but you will never have this problem solved this way. Also, if you do all these processes in hopes of making things better or different, that part of yourself feels judged and will resist because it's not being given unconditional love and acceptance. Like if you're becoming aware of these aspects of yourself in hopes that they will change, then this is not unconditional love and acceptance. But if you're becoming aware of these aspects of yourself simply to be aware of them, then you can learn to accept them. But you have to first become aware of your desire to change yourself and to be able to even make space and accept this desire to change unconditionally.

Hmm. That's interesting. I sometimes get unpleasant urges and thoughts that come up. But never nails scratching on the chalkboard. But it sounds like it would be an annoying one.

Hello all! I am looking to join a couple more forums in hopes of passively promoting and growing my Youtube channel by reaching a wider audience, as well as informing future video topics. I have gotten quite a few viewers from my interactions on here and I have grown a lot through my interactions, so I've decided that I should branch out to a few more. But I don't know which forums to choose that would be the most beneficial. Sorting through them and deciding which ones to invest time in, is difficult. Most that I come across aren't as user-friendly of involved as this forum. So, if any of you know of forums relative to the following topics, I would really appreciate it. Thank you! Enlightenment General Spirituality and Consciousness Work (meditation, chakras, new age-ish topics, etc.) Natural Altered States of Consciousness (OBE, Lucid dreaming, etc.) Jungian Psychology/Depth Psychology/Archetypal Frameworks (i.e. Alchemy) Self-Improvement/Positive Psychology/Growth Healing from Trauma Philosophy Self-knowledge Cultivating Creativity

I would be inclined to think that most women are naturally like this as this is what I've experienced. However, some women may be naturally more masculine in this way and get attractions in a way that men generally do. So, there can be exceptions to the rule, where a woman naturally feels more detached. She could also be repressing her emotions due to negative past experiences and culturally conditioned cynicism. I used to be this way (and I still have some of these tendencies) because of the way I was treated for expressing strong emotions as a child. I had always been a highly sensitive and easy to excite child, but people took this a reason to dismiss me, call me annoying, make fun of me, see me as weak/incompetent, or keep me from things. So, many young girls decide that being "like a girl" isn't for them because of the poor treatment and people always trying to make belittle and discourage them from things that their male peers are not discouraged from. So, putting away emotions becomes a deeply ingrained habit pretty early on for many. Luckily for me, some parts of my sensitivity were impossible to hide so the facade broke apart quite a bit when I turned 20. But I would wager, that even though this problem is common, there are many women who are not afflicted by it and still in touch with their emotions is a very strong way.

Certainly cynicism is possible if a woman has had bad experiences. Maybe it is difficult to find a woman who still experiences these strong emotions due to the nature of our society. For me, however, I still get all starry eyed when I get a crush, even though I'm married and don't act on my crushes. But culture looks down upon feeling and expressing strong emotions (for both genders) as it is seen as feminine and weak. We culturally prefer stoicism and being dispassionate. So, everyone gets conditioned into reacting in a nonchalant way and adopting the IDGAF attitude. This becomes a habit of blunting out emotions and numbs us out to them. It's why our culture is so off the hinges and unconscious in many ways, because we habitually ignore emotions and consider this ignorance to be a strength. So, I would say that it's a sign of psychological health if a woman (who naturally is femininely oriented in this way- as some women naturally orient in a masculine way) can experience these intense emotions without ignoring them because of past experiences of being looked down upon for being feminine, past negative experiences with men, and social conditionings toward stoicism.

I saw the same videos and thought the same thing. He even uses the tagline "Master Your Life".

The guy just lights me up emotionally and it's basically the highlight of my day, just to be around him. And also, he's always on my mind at most points during the day. It's unmistakable when I have a crush. I think most women are this way. That's why women are always talking about the guys they like to their friends. All other guys are just friends or acquaintances... not good or bad. Not unattractive or attractive. Not unworthy. They just aren't THAT guy that has the sparkles around him. I think men generally have a general attraction to women and if a woman they find pretty is interested in them, they can devil up deeper emotional feelings if she's interested in a relationship. For women, (if they're like I am) the deep attraction has to be there already and it comes on quite randomly like a Cupid's Arrow. The problem here is that many men believe that women are attracted to men in the same way that men are attracted to women. So, they try to improve themselves and put on a facade because they believe women are attracted to attractive traits and not whole entire people, because men are attracted to attractive traits as opposed to the whole person, at least initially. In the initial stages of attraction, to a woman a man is more than the sum of his parts. In the initial stages of attraction, to a man a woman is exactly the sum of her parts. So, when a woman is unattracted to them or rejects them the first thought is "What's wrong with me?" "For what REASON doesn't she like me?" "How do I make it so that she is attracted to me?" But there is no reason there because it's a completely emotionally based thing... and quite random. It like bubbles up from the subconscious mind at the onset of the attraction. Now women have the same problem but opposite. Women largely believe (up until reality smacks us in the face and sometimes after) that men are attracted to women in the same way women are attracted to men. So, let's say that I'm attracted to "Jimmy" (made up name :p). So, the sun rises and sets by Jimmy. It's Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy. Then, Jimmy comes onto me and we get into some sort of romantic altercation. So, I feel like a million bucks because Jimmy seems to feel the same way about me that I do about him. And it's going to be AWESOME! But no!!! Jimmy just thought I had a nice figure and felt horny. He wants nothing more to do with me the next day. And of course, the next day I'm crushed to bits and feel used. Anyway, if I'm attracted to someone, there could be a smarter, more handsome, more driven, more (fill in the blank) guy, but this guy won't steal my attention away from the one that I'm already attracted to. That said, I do have dealbreakers. There have been times when a man who has the sparkles has lost the sparkles. But there has never been a single trait that a man had to cause the sparkles in the first place.

During my second "enlightenment experience", I believe that I experienced what you're describing. I have always identified as a good person. But during that experience, I didn't care about this identification. So, I was able to allow myself to perceive many thoughts that I would normally ignore because of emotional discomfort. So, I experienced that I had these two different voices that were at war with one another. There was one voice that wanted all good things and wanted everything to end happily and sunshine an rainbows and all that. There was another voice that was the opposite. It was giving me all kinds of destructive urges and thoughts. It even gave me an image of myself pushing my thumbs into someone's eyes. But none of this bothered me and I was able to just observe them without identifying with them. It was like watching an explosion from afar. It was amazing and volatile and beautful.

I search because my "enlightenment experiences" were the only time I ever truly loved myself or anything else. It was a complete release of all suffering and I was whole again. It was like I went sane for a short time. So, I seek enlightenment primarily as an escape from the dull suffering and insanity of life under the ego-consciousness paradigm. But this mindset is probably one of the reasons that I'm not "there" yet.

Trust me. There are women out there that would be interested in someone like you. They're maybe less common to come across because your interests and values are a little less common, but they're around. Your feeling of inferiority is only a thought and emotion within your own awareness. You wouldn't feel that way about yourself if you were someone else looking from the outside. It's the identification that's the problem. I assure you that the idea that you're uninteresting and all those other things are just more ego lies. The ego traffics in self-congratulatory thoughts and self-deprecating thoughts. So, one moment it might say "Look at all these low consciousness people around. Why can't people just be more aware (like me- secretly whispered and quickly repressed and forgotten)." The next moment it might say "I'm so different from everyone else. I'm such a social disaster. I'm like a child in a grown up body." It's always creating the separation and identification and these kinds of statements strengthen the ego attachment. But I would buck the idea of alpha male altogether, as opposed to rewriting the definition of an alpha male. Whether an alpha male is the chest-thumping strong-man or the one who's in tune with the nature of his being, It's only extra baggage once an identification forms, because you want something from it. It's just another potential attachment that will become more and more difficult to let go of as time passes. Even the idea of becoming authentic could become an attachment. But the very nature of seeking enlightenment is that seeking enlightenment is an egoic thing. It comes when someone is so unhappy with how things are that they can't stand it anymore. The happy and content don't seek happiness or contentment. Those free of ego don't seek to be free of ego. So, the ego in all its discontentment searches to add value to the self through self-actualization endeavors. Then, in the inevitable failing to add value to the self (as neither self nor value are real), there is a search for truth. It's only when you let go of searching and the idea that you're inadequate that you can actually finally be where you've always been. This is enlightenment. It's only the ego and belief in its self-deceptions that clouds this from view. From this standpoint, you can see there is nothing wrong. You are not worthless or worthy. You are not significant or insignificant. You just are. And your being has un-shaking validity regardless of whether anyone else sees it or not. So much so that no concept could contain it. But in the mean time, admit to your ego. Let it do what it does without resistance or judgment. There's nothing wrong there. Just observe it like a science experiment. Try to notice as much as you can without identifying with what you notice. Imagine if you identified with a thunderstorm and were constantly judging it for the rain and the lightning and the dark clouds because you didn't want to be identified with them and you labeled them wrong or bad. You can't stop the ego any more than you can stop a thunderstorm. You have an equal amount of control over either. The only difference is that the ego is an internally based natural process and the thunderstorm is an externally based natural process. But the distinction between internal and external itself is false. So, treat the internal goings-on in a detached way, just as you would viewing a sunset or any other natural phenomenon.

If you're trying to attract a lot of women and have a lot of sex, you'll need to be self-confident and fit the stereotype of the alpha. You can pick up a lot of women looking primarily for attention and a sense of worth through use of their attractiveness and sexuality. The sexual interactions between men trying to fit into the masculine ideal and women trying to fit into the feminine ideal, are primarily based on the confirmation of value and worth. Both sides are trying to mitigate the effects of a deep feeling of baseline inferiority and using the attraction of a person that resembles the opposite ideal to convince themselves that they are indeed worthwhile. If you go down this path, you must become the mirror for a woman's desirability and she must become a mirror for your power. But this is not the game to play for those seeking self-realization. Plus, it becomes as boring and redundant as masturbation after a handful of experiences. If you're looking for a woman, you just need to be yourself and at that point it's a gamble. As a woman, it's quite uncommon that I find myself genuinely attracted to a man. But when I do get attracted to a man, I'm completely over the moon for him. But it's never because of any particular quality he has. It's simply because he is who he is. I like the whole person because that person makes me feel a certain way. Certainly, there are traits that are deal-breakers. But there are NO traits for me that are deal-makers. So, if no women are interested in you, it's because women tend to orient themselves in a platonic way to every other man but the one that they really really like. And they also tend to put on a platonic facade to the man that they do like. For her, if she's like me, rejection from the man she likes is a big blow, because she probably only likes that one guy and she likes him a lot. It's not as though she could just approach another one that was just as good. So, hiding attraction is very common for women.

That's fair enough to say. Certainly the polarities of Yin and Yang can be noticed in all living and non-living systems, including individuals. And it can be noticed that women as a group tend to be more Yin in nature, despite there being many individual exceptions. It just sounded like you (or someone else as I didn't go back and read the posts I was reacting to) were saying that a woman's enlightenment comes from loving a man who is enlightened... like enlightenment through osmosis. Which honestly seems a bit silly to think it would work that way. Also, there was a strong paternalistic and simultaneous patronizing/sacralizing tone to the post about a woman becoming a mistress and not a master. Like it was saying something positive and uplifting about women but in a way that disenfranchises women and clips their wings through the use of identification with the feminine principle itself. This sacralization/denigration is a social pattern that I've experienced all throughout my life since childhood, and it has always irked me. It's not a wonder that so many women (and men alike) are actively repressing their feminine side. No one wants to be pinioned by it. But one thing that I read regarding the feminine principle has stuck with me as a good piece of wisdom: Never identify directly with the Goddess. To identify with Yin itself at the expense of Yang is incredibly dangerous and crazy-making as identifying with the feminine principle is self-negating. But not self-negating in terms of self-transcendence... but moreso a repression of the ego and all aspects of the particular self. When this happens life becomes like a chess game with no king. There is no direction, no understanding, and even everyday tasks become impossible. Life becomes like a prison. Since the Yang is the particular and the changing and the Yin is the general and the unchanging, everyday life necessitates Yang to function well. So, the masculine principle is like a really efficient vehicle for survival and all the goings on of the world. The feminine principle is being and existing. So, both are needed for proper functioning. But of course these principles even ebb and flow back and forth between the physical and non-physical. The masculine is the spiritual and the feminine is the material. But the feminine is being and the masculine is the particularities of the content within being. But all this is an understanding that springs from the vantage point of duality. Enlightenment is perception beyond the illusions and false dichotomies of duality. This includes the dichotomy of masculine/feminine, male/female, or yin/yang. If we look at our first-hand awareness of reality, there is nothing particularly masculine or feminine about what we're perceiving beyond our interpretations of and thoughts about our emotions. Our visual field is not masculine or feminine, neither are our other sensory fields. The content of our thoughts might reflect ideas of masculinity or femininity or identifications with these principles but thoughts themselves are not masculine or feminine. Now, when I had my experiences of ego transcendence (for want of a better term), this state felt unmistakably feminine. And I had always since wondered if that transcendent state was inherently feminine or if it was repressed femininity coming to the surface. But if I look at the experience I had just become more aware and allowing of the sensations of the body. So, perhaps the content of my emotions were feminine by my interpretation. It's difficult to say.

It's important to keep in mind that Leo's target audience is predominantly male. There are plenty of women interested in spirituality and enlightenment as well. It's odd to me that a couple of the people on this thread think women are so different than men, and there is this simultaneous tone of denigration and sacralization to the whole thing. Like women are these sacrificing angels far higher than any man and who abide in love and reach enlightenment in a completely different way... but are also incapable because they are not men. It makes me roll my eyes because being a woman who is a whole person, it feels silly to have such a stereotype placed over top of me. I see the human animal as primarily the same. We eat the same way. We sleep the same way. We shit the same way. And we probably get enlightened the same way. Certainly, there are general differences that can be noticed. But if we look really honestly at real men and women and not at polar sexual ideals, we find that men and women are 98% the same even if we like to focus on and exaggerate our very subtle differences.

If you consider that every desire roots from a deeper desire to feel positive emotions or avoid negative emotions, ask yourself which emotion you are after that keeps you attached to this other girl. Do you feel like it would say something about your personal worth? Or do you feel like you'll be able to feel some novel way from achieving the desired relationship to this girl. Then, as you become aware of what you want, you can start to see how external circumstances can't bring you the emotional fulfillment that you're seeking from this girl. No external circumstance has an inherent emotional value and emotions are internally created. So, you can allow yourself to feel that way without the aid of external circumstances going the way you want them to.