Emerald

I suppose that is true that it is ultimately one voice in the end. But I definitely experienced it as two loud clashing voices fighting constantly and violently against one another. I was strangely in awe of the fact that I was wanting to make everything so positive and hopeful and pleasant for everyone and everything and at the same exact time I wanted to burn everyone's houses down and kill everyone in the most painful way possible. It was like watching a volatile chemical reaction happen inside of me that I would normally hide from myself. But I was watching it like a child would watch fireworks. It was like watching the dance of good and evil. But these were just small when zoomed out from. The voice of wisdom was a deep kind of knowing. It didn't really come as a thought. It showed itself to me as something that I had always had but had not known that I had. A deep satisfaction of all drives to seek new knowledge or skillsets, as I always had. I already knew that it was all already there. There was no need to seek any more knowledge to make myself some way or to come to some point of knowing this or that thing to satisfy my seeking drive.

I came from the perspective of identifying strongly with the positive voice. So, my conscious actions were always well-intentioned. In fact, my big problem was that I identified to strongly with the positive voice, and didn't want to see the negative voice in me. I had no awareness of it. Goodness was (and still is to some degree) one of my strongest identifications. But the negative found it's way to covertly influence my behaviors. So, some people may identify or give expression to the negative voice, and end up doing terrible destructive things. But identifying with the good voice, doesn't really do much better. It was more a realization that neither voice was me, so I could watch both without judgment or discomfort. And with that level of awareness, neither voice had a sway over me. But the ability to separate from these warring voices allowed me to hear a much quieter voice: the voice of wisdom.

I had two experiences of ego transcendence, where it was basically like a zooming out from the self concept. And I had no fear or need for myself or reality to be anything other than what it is. So, I was able to notice and be aware of a lot more things about reality that I would normally be insulated from by various coping mechanisms. One thing that I noticed that I was previously unaware of is that I had one internal voice that I would normally identify as "me" that wanted only good things for everyone. This voice wanted everything to be at peace and wonderful for me and everyone else and the Earth. Then there was another voice that I was not yet aware of. It was a very negative voice that wanted to destroy everything. It gave me flashes of murderous fantasies and imagined through all sort of different destructive scenarios where I would tear myself or others apart. But in that state of awareness, I was just the observer of these two voices. I was normally afraid and hiding from the negative voice. So, I didn't feel comfortable hearing it. But I knew it had always been there and I know it still is. It's good to realize that you are not that voice. But you must try to find room for that voice to become heard, as this is what helps integrate the negative voice into consciousness where it will cease to have a negative impact on your actions. Also, I'm sure that everyone has both of these inner voices. Perhaps people who've worked on their self structures have reintegrated their negative voice to the point where it has no negative influence on behaviors. But a strong ego that's helpful could be hiding those destructive impulses as well. They may have a lot of ugliness that stirs around in other ways that simply doesn't brandish itself in the arena of performance and personal success.

I can relate to your feeling quite a bit. It feels like life has been a series of small enchantments that give way to disenchantments... and after nearly 28 years of my life, it feels like there are few enchantments left. But one thing that helps me keep going is in my knowledge of the fact that the enchantment and kiss of innocence never actually goes away. It gets obscured by ideas and mental frameworks, but the candle flame never actually goes out. So, like @Prabhaker said, you should look for the thing that blocks this light out from your conscious awareness and try to remove the barriers. Once the barrier is not there, the now-unconscious light of wonderment that may now be a distant memory, will effortlessly float to the surface of your conscious mind. It's like liquid or gas or even light: it always fills the space where there is no resistance or blockage. So, you must realize that something has caused you to be insulated from the experience of wonderment. Then let go of that thing through some form of inner work. To make an analogy, imagine that as a curious child you go around trying to experience the textures of the world. So, you touch things with your hands: a kitten is soft and fluffy, wood is hard and rough, water is wet and cool, etc. Then you got burned a few times maybe or got a splinter or two, so you decided to wear an oven mit to keep your hands safe. And you wore the oven mit so long that you forgot it was an oven mit and mistook it for your actual hand. So, because you're not aware that you're wearing an oven mit, you're puzzled as to why kittens are n longer soft and fluffy, and wood is no longer hard and rough, and water is no longer wet and cool. It all seems like the same feeling. Everything feels like the inside of an oven mit. Trying to think positively in this metaphor is akin to putting another oven mit on top of the old one, but the new one is fashioned to look like a human hand. Getting burnt in this metaphor is the whatever stimulus caused you to create a defense mechanism in the first place.

But you see, you're still talking about justifications and I am not. It was not my intention to get meat-eaters to justify why they eat meat or to say that they're not justified in doing so. Nor was it my intention to argue anyone out of their behaviors. My point was that justifications can be used to emotionally bypass a situation. If a person can watch animals be killed on a farm and/or participate in that industry itself, and feel okay with their actions, then that is where they'e at. But most people can't honestly do this. So, a justification such as "humans have evolved to be able to consume meat." can be used to ignore the less comfortable reality of what actually happens to animals. For example, my mother is a meat eater who never so much as considered Vegetarianism. The other day she was invited to a hog roast event, and there was a picture on the invite of a fully roasted pig with an apple in its mouth. She was really uncomfortable about it and thought it was disgusting to do such a thing and that it almost looked like a dog laying there. She said this to me, knowing that I'm Vegan, and probably expecting for me to be just as outraged as she is. I was not. I'm already aware of the uncomfortable realities, so the image was not shocking to me as it was to her. But she was truly disturbed.

I respect your opinion. But I still feel that this misses the point of my post. My point is that it's easy for people to bypass an emotional awareness of how you really feel about any given topic, if we use the rational mind to justify certain actions. It's kind of like cutting corners to awareness. People can justify just about any action if they can come up with a rational justification for said action. And they can use it to block out how they actually feel about a situation. For example, when engaged in war, a soldier must be able to justify killing if they want to be able to do the job properly. Yet, most soldiers are opposed to killing in the majority of situation. So, they need to simplify their awareness of the situation, and blot out deeper levels of emotional truth. So, they choose a mental framework that isn't true but is effective at helping them kill others. They separate the world into friend and enemy, and the enemy is someone you kill. So, understand that my post are not about Veganism particularly, but about how the human psyche tends toward rationalizing away uncomfortable truths.

Ultimately, nothing is good or bad, so eating meat is not "bad" in an absolute sense. But I was specifically addressing your point about killing plants and killing animals being conferable. I was saying to be aware that this can be used to overlook emotionally uncomfortable aspects of reality, which could cause a dimming in your level of self-awareness. So, if you use this justification, it could potentially cover up the emotions that you really feel about the situation since you would be less likely to explore if further as you've already come to a satisfactory conclusion. So, understand that my post isn't really about discouraging meat eating (though I would like it if people didn't consume meat). My post is about being careful about coming to satisfactory conclusions regarding a particular matter while not diving deeper into the emotions that underlie it. It's about awareness.

I think you misunderstood the point of my post. The intention of my post was to get you to consider that you might be using the objective Truth "both animals and plants are alive, and killing either is still killing" to unconsciously avoid the awareness of what your personal emotional experience is relative to the knowledge of what killing an animal entails. Also, it may keep you from facing ugly truths about reality in tangible ways too. Human beings are pros at emotional bypassing when it comes to things that go against their values or things that they feel uncomfortable about. I was not meaning for you to feel like you have to justify your behavior in any way or calling your character into question. But it is my suspicion that you may be deceiving yourself.

To be honest, he reminds me a bit of how I was right after my experiences. I really went crazy. So, this is why I don't really think he's enlightened but that he had a Satori or Samadhi experience, and it went to his head.

I want you to be really honest. Do you really feel like killing plants is the same as killing animals? Or is this just easy to say as a technicality to justify a behavior that you have a hard time reconciling with your values? I'm not judging you for eating meat or anything like that. But I think that this is an argument based more in deflection than the actual honest emotional experience of the experience of killing and/or consuming a living creature. The former is an easy abstraction based in an objective truth that enables a person to skirt awareness of a painful reality. This ability to skirt awareness of the issue is compounded by the fact that most people get their meat pre-cut in little packages. The sense of being-ness is stripped from the presentation. The latter is much more difficult to be aware of on the emotional level and as a subjective truth. Could you slice up a live pig the way you slice up a stalk of celery? If the answer is yes, no judgment. (Most people who can probably grew up on a farm or as a hunter.) But I suspect that, for most, the answer is no. Becoming aware of emotions is the biggest part of expanding the awareness, and less so becoming knowledgeable of more abstract higher truths.

I suspect that he probably did have some type of spiritual experience and an awakening. But to my perception, he seems to use it to add to his self concept. He seems to enjoy being different. So, no doubt that he's a seeker and I'll buy he had some kind of experience. But I don't see him as being enlightened. Or if he is, his mental framework has quite a ways to go before it catches up with being compatible with his enlightenment. Also, he may be experiencing some form of mental illness as this can be an unintended consequence of certain spiritual practices if done in excess or if the person is not ready for such an expansion.

Actually, this is a common misconception. I spend about the same amount in groceries as I did before and I'm the only Vegan in my family unit. Only now instead of dairy products, I get dairy substitutes (soy/almond/cashew milk) which are conferable in price. Instead of meat, I get beans/more fruits and vegetables, and occasionally meat substitutes. Otherwise, grains stay the same. My family still eats meat, but if they didn't this would take away quite a bit from the grocery bill. So, there are fancy/trendy Vegan diets that can be quite expensive. But a basic Vegan diet can be done at the same price or potentially cheaper.

I'm Vegan for ethical reasons. I wanted to have an agreement between my values and my behavior. I had considered doing it for health reasons in years prior, and always talked myself out of it on those grounds. I really don't know if Veganism is truly the optimal diet from a health perspective, as there are so many ideas about what human beings are supposed to eat. So I know that I'd always be second guessing my choice, and cheating on it left and right. So, there was never a compelling enough reason for me to refrain when I looked at it from the health perspective. But I have found that I've experienced a generally better feeling in my body since I went Vegan. I definitely feel lighter in my body. Though I can't say for certain that it's because of the Veganism as my sugar intake has lowered significantly since then as well. I was always all about chocolate... and I still am. However, most chocolate contains dairy or eggs in it. So, now I eat significantly less chocolate and sugary stuff in general. This was an unintended perk of my Veganism. I also eat a lot more fruits and vegetables to make up for the loss of certain foods that I no longer eat. On the downside, when I first went Vegan, there was a definite slump of energy in the evening hours. I still sometimes feel this way if I forget to take my vitamins for a few days in a row. But overall, throughout the day I felt lighter and more alert.

I'm Vegan, myself, but as I read through the thread, I feel that your approach to heartening more people toward Veganism is counter-productive. Number one, if you criticize or shame people for their behavior, it is a normal human reaction to clamp down tighter and identify in a stronger way with the behaviors being criticized. Number two, there is no such thing as right or wrong in the absolute sense as reality is empty of meaning until the human mind places meaning upon it. So, no one can say objectively that eating meat/consuming dairy (or literally anything else) is wrong with no room for varying opinions. So, even thought killing animals objectively causes pain for the animal, people can still justify this behavior by creating some exception in their mind. We see human beings do this type of thing all the time during war and other such situations. So, saying that something is objectively ethically wrong is not true because ethics are inherently subjective. So, people really mold their own meanings and they can always remold them to fit their own comfort zones. Number three, I would suspect that the majority of people already have Vegan values. If I had to put a percentage on it, I'd say at least 60% truly believe that animals should be treated compassionately. Most people couldn't be able to watch what goes on in the meat and dairy industry and feel nothing about it... let alone be able to participate in the killing itself. So, it's likely that the people who have Vegan values, yet still continue to consume meat and dairy, do so because they realized as a child that refraining would not stop the situation from happening. This is painful and was part of my Vegan transition process that was very difficult to endure. Because it was making me aware of things that I felt more comfortable being unaware of. So, this is why you'll always see a lot of defensiveness if you try to convert people over to a Vegan diet. Because there is a deep and hidden guilt and an unconscious feeling of powerlessness. There's just an uncomfortable bump in awareness that comes along with the whole thing. So, you will not be able to get to people by using guilt or brashness as this will just compound the discomfort that's already there. When I was transitioning Vegan, I was talking to this guy on my channel who was gung-ho about Veganism. And even though he was the one that encouraged me to just let go of it (I was already Vegetarian), he had a shaming way about it that almost made me want to forget the whole thing. It added even more discomfort to my transition process, even though I know it was not his intention. So, these are just some things to keep in mind. I think Veganism is a great thing, and it makes sense to not consume products that cause pain and death if we can get our needs met in other ways. It also makes sense to have an agreement between inward values and outward actions. But you have to understand that being condescending will do the exact opposite of what you're intended goal is. It will just add another layer of repression. Vegans must realize that we are representatives of certain aspects of the collective shadow of humanity, so there will be a lot of resistance and just a general dislike coming our way. And this is just the way that things are right now, as this is the place that humanity is at. The best way to deal with resistance effectively is to loosen instead of stiffen. Try to punch a stiff board, and the board will break and your fist will bleed. Try to punch a tissue, and the tissue is still intact and present and the fist is unharmed. I'm confident that as humanity evolves, more and more people will go Vegan. Though I don't think the percentage of Vegans will ever exceed 40% of society, this pattern will eventually create the demand for the scientific community to step in and create genetically identical meat and dairy products that are cheaply produced in a lab without needing to raise and kill animals for it. Once this happens and the price is low enough, it's only a matter of time before the cruel practices become obsolete. But this is just my guess and hope as to how it will come to be in the future.

This has not been my experience of being a person nor has it been my experience of observing people. Can you clarify what you mean by men not having any femininity to them and vice versa? If you don't mean particular traits relative to the masculine and feminine, what do you mean? Something that I've noticed in people that stands out more readily than in the average person, is that we can often find many men and women who fall more toward the contrapositive side of the polarity relative to their gender. Most people fall more toward the same polarity as their gender (e.g. men are more masculine/women are more feminine), but there are plenty of exceptions on this spectrum. There are men who are overwhelmingly feminine and women who are overwhelmingly masculine. And this is something that they can't even pretend to not be. Their looks may even reflect a non-traditional degree of masculinity and femininity. Some women have broad shoulders, are tall, and grow facial hair. Some men are short and dainty with big eyes. And this is just the outward look without yet looking at behaviors. For example, if we look at the archetypal feminine gay man, I can't see how you would say that there is no femininity in him. The very way a man like this speaks and moves is undeniably feminine to my perception. Can you clarify how a man who I see as so clearly being more feminine, has no femininity to him simply because he is male? Also, I've noticed that people who are more androgynous are very creative people with a lot of interesting ideas and a fully developed personalities. Many artists, writers, and poets are very androgynous. It is often men who cling to ideas of traditional masculinity and women who cling to ideas of traditional femininity who are very dull and trapped by their identifications. They end up painting themselves into boxes because they adhere to rules and social conscriptions about how they should behave relative to their gender. Like I would say that I'm definitely a more feminine person, myself. But I've always had a love affair with my masculine side. I would not want to make some rule against being able to have that part of myself. That would be a major repression and loss of vitality to my life.

I have found the opposite to be true. If a woman tries to be only woman or if a man tries to be only man, then they are going to miss out on huge parts of themselves and reality. The masculine polarity is all about movement/transformation without substance. The feminine polarity is all about substance without movement/transformation. We need both to even exist. A man is not made by sperm alone nor a woman by egg alone. Human beings are highly androgynous by nature as we both contain the masculine and feminine. It is only our social customs that makes us want to polarize our gender in the first place. And likewise, it is our social customs now that make us want to ignore the existence of masculinity and femininity. It's only when we can own both sides of the polarity that naturally occur in each individual that we can truly be alive in the fullest sense. It is the masculine/feminine polarity that creates life itself. Without both aspects of ourselves, we become dead and inert.

I just bought the blender from the video like a week or so ago. It's funny to see it popping up in a Leo video. It is a really good blender with razor sharp blades. I didn't expect this and ended up getting a small cut on my finger when I was washing it. So be careful. But, it's definitely a good investment. I got mine on sale for like $70, when industrial blenders are normally between $100 and $300. I think Vitamix blenders are even $500 or more. So, if anyone's looking to make an investment, I recommend looking it up on Amazon to see if they're still on sale.

Not to assume that this is true but to consider this possibility. If everything is one thing, and that one thing is you, and that one thing is God, and God creates reality, then why would it be farfetched to assume that meditation contributes to the betterment of the world? Perhaps, all the issues of the world stem from your personal inner turmoil. Since meditation is meant to resolve inner turmoil, maybe meditation can have some effect on the resolution of outer turmoil as well. I'm not saying that this is true. But I am saying that it's just as much of a possibility as any other interpretation of reality. So, don't take for granted that inner work has no effect on the outer world. But I agree that outer work should be done in tandem with inner work because the opposite can be assumed as well. If we don't treat reality as dualistic, we can see that the well-being of the outer experience and the well-being of the inner experience are all one well-being. There is no inner and outer.

Just to clarify, when I said teacher, I didn't mean academic teacher. I meant a meditation facilitator or master, such as in Zen traditions. My advice was to find someone who could help guide a person with their practice, so that they don't aggravate psychological issues.

Meditative practices can parse the barrier between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. So, even in meditators without schizophrenia, meditation can cause hallucinations in daily life due to the subconscious projecting outward onto reality. Shinzen Young mentioned that he had an issue where he was seeing giant bugs everywhere for a few years, after 4 or 5 years of meditation. But it was okay, because he could tell that they were hallucinatory projections and just detached from them and greeted the issue with awareness and equanimity, just like any other occurrence. So, someone who has Schizophrenia may have more intense issues with this due to having a prone-ness to hallucination. Also, psychosis is a rare but possible symptom of meditation or any kind of spiritual practice. My advice would be to find a teacher who has worked with people with Schizophrenia, so that they can guid you and help prevent you from ending up in a negative place. I would not attempt meditative practice without a psychiatrist's okay and an experienced guide. Mostly, just make sure that you are very careful, if you should decide to try any spiritual practices.

I'm like 99.9999999999999% positive that it has nothing to do with your looks. It's been my experience that many men talk about how they want to date a 10. But most would be thrilled with a 6, and a decent percentage would go for a willing 3. So, if your perception is that you're at least average looking, then looks are unlikely to be a huge barrier to getting a normal amount of male attention. It's my perception (guys can correct me if I'm wrong) that the average man's main concerns when approaching women are, 1. How likely is it that she will like me? and 2. Is she going to be offended/mad/mean if I approach her? So, it's a possibility that men may look at you and either think, "She'd never say yes to me and/or a guy who cold approaches." or "She looks like she'd be offended if I approached her." It's often reasonably attractive but prudent seeming women don't get male attentions. A friend of mine from college was a cute girl (definitely at least a 7), but she never had a guy show interest in her until she was 22 or 23. And she was always perplexed as to why. She just gave off the good girl vibe and probably scared a lot of guys off.

I second this. @Thinh

Sure. You can show your friend my channel. Though, it may not resonate with him if he's not into self-help/spirituality/psychology. You may have to find something else that resonates a bit closer to where he is to get him moving in a more positive direction first before he's ready for deeper levels of development as you find in videos from myself, Leo, or other spiritual-based self-help authors/video makers. You may try someone like Tony Robbins first or someone focused more toward external success.

I do have issues with self-sabotage as well, though it's much better than it used to be. I was reading in the book "The Happiness Hypothesis" by Jonathan Haidt that the mind is like a rider on top of an elephant. So, the conscious mind is the rider and the subconscious mind is the elephant. So, even if the rider wants to do something, if the elephant isn't trained to listen to the rider, the rider won't be able to have control over the elephant due to the elephant's superior strength. So, to get control over the tendency to self-sabotage, the subconscious must be worked on via meditation and other forms of inner work to "train the elephant" to listen to the "rider." But if you want to both have control over your emotions and to not repress them, you have to go in the opposite direction of repression. So, instead of trying to block the emotions out of your experience, you let them hit you fully and without resistance. This is how you process through emotions. So, whenever you feel emotions, it's important to make a practice of allowing it and observing it mindfully. This will enable to you to have equanimity (akin to stoicism in appearence) and awareness of any emotion. But it's important to make a practice of dealing with emotions as they come up in an open way.

Oops. I just realized that we're way off the main thread topic. If you want to PM me, you can. But I don't want to get in trouble.