Emerald

Shankaran Pilai, you will definitely die if you walk into traffic or drink poison. It's just the way the illusion of duality works. Don't expect for yourself (as the creator) to undermine the consistency of your illusion's rules just for the sake of confirming your ego's intellectual beliefs about how the world should be. You (God) doesn't change its creation for the whims and wishes of the ego. So, if you walk off a cliff, it would be foolish to expect yourself to float. Plus, why would you want to float anyway? There's nothing any cooler or more magical about it than walking or taking a breath. It's all a huge miracle. Are the laws of physics not good enough for you that there needs to be some sort of exception made? There was a Buddhist parable about a student and a master. The student came in to have tea with the master in the traditional tea bowls, which are cupped in both hands when they are used for drinking. The tea bowls the master provided were very thin. So, when the student picked it up to take a drink, the bowl shattered in his hands. The student said, "That tea bowl was too thin." And the master said, "No, the tea bowl was just as it should be. You gripped it too hard." Now, in any other situation the student would have a good point. But since the master was using it as a teaching tool for learning the Zen way of being, there is an important message being conveyed. The message is that, we must adapt to the circumstances of life as opposed to expecting life to conform to our expectations. This is the way to flow with life.

There is nothing morally wrong with it. I would imagine that doing it with awareness can also give you insight into the nature of reality, if you treat it as a meditation. However, a lot of people are addicted to it and feel spent afterward because it takes a lot of energy. Many men try to refrain from ejaculation because they're trying to send the energy, that they would normally use for orgasm, upward for 'higher' purposes like intellectual or spiritual work. You can look into spiritual practices such as Tantra and Alchemy which talk about transmuting sexual energy to more exalted energetic expressions.

I bought it, and I definitely recommend it. It's hard to find good self-help books and this will help you avoid buying books that aren't great quality books. A lot of self-help books are pretty meh.

@Will From the dualistic perspective, a whole litany of negative things do exist. So, from that perspective, abuse does exist, suffering does exist, negative things do exist, etc. They exist within the illusion of duality as perceived by the mind. And no one alive can fully avoid this perspective and still be alive. Even enlightened people, still need to be able to function from this perspective if they want to continue to exist. So, the mind is wired to deal with situations by using judgments based on instinct and past experience to avoid negative situations and go toward positive situations. There is nothing wrong with this. It's just the way that the mechanism works, and it's the reason why we're able to survive in the first place. If we didn't have this, we'd just walk right into the lion's den to be "one" with the lions in a literal way. Resisting the way the mind-mechanism works is just another form of resistance toward one aspect of reality and setting it aside from all other aspects of reality. It's a way of saying this aspect of reality is not valid and it must be changed because it is not reflective of what I believe about "love" and "oneness". I have to make the mind fit the mold of my ideas about reality. However, if you try to practice the idea that you're entertaining in any kind of real way that doesn't cut any corners, you will die within the day. You will walk out into traffic because you'll see everything as one and there being no negative. So, walking out into traffic is no worse than walking on the sidewalk. You will drink your bathroom cleaner because it's really no worse than drinking water. And from the ultimate perspective, you will be absolutely correct on all accounts. Your pain and death will all just be part of the illusion and everything will still be "one" and "love." But was it really worth it to be so correct? Maybe it would be better to be wise instead.

It's important to be honest and call a spade a spade. If someone is being abusive, don't be afraid to point this out and call it what it is. There is no need to muddy the waters of practical functioning, just to live by higher wisdom. And also don't feel like you should tolerate the abuse or enable a person to abuse another person. The abuser should not be entitled to a degree of acceptance in a way that deprives their victim of peace in life. Their actions should be stopped, if at all possible. However, you should also practice compassion for this abusive individual and not make the mistake of flushing them down the toilet or invalidating their existence. You should still be able to recognize them as part of yourself and part of love/God/oneness/etc. Also, don't expect them to change their behavior. Most times, compassion and understanding will do little to impact the way someone else acts, anyway. Just accept them as they are and the fact that those types of things happen without needing it to change. This is unconditional love. But you should remove yourself from a harmful situation. It's not your job to be on the cross for someone else's sins, so to speak. But (and this part is really important for you to understand) also don't forget to accept and recognize your own negative emotions relative to these harmful acts. Your negative emotions are also a part of love/God/oneness. So, to ignore, invalidate, or over-ride your negative emotions relative to abusive actions for the sake of accepting the person, misses your entire intention of accepting all as one. This is why I said you were engaging in spiritual bypassing in an earlier post. You seem to make the mistake of thinking your repulsions and negative feelings toward the actions of others are invalid or antithetical to the recognition of love and oneness. And so you seem to ignore them as less valid than the intellectual truth that you learned about oneness. But your emotional repulsions are exactly the thing that you want to accept unconditionally because they are reality itself. So, they are also part of oneness and need unconditional acceptance. But also because it will help you realize what you don't want and it will help you navigate your way through life more skillfully. They are there for a practical function in decision making. And if you actually realize the Truth of oneness in an experiential way and see other as self and self as other, and recognize the non-necessity of suffering. Then you naturally won't want to suffer and won't want others to suffer either. So, you will naturally try to take actions to reduce suffering for all parties involved. And sometimes, tough love and justice are necessary when addressing the actions of wrong-doers. So, it's important to let go of the non-dual dogma that is obscuring reality from you. If you haven't experienced it, you can't intellectually figure out what wisdom is. Wisdom is like an infinite river that changes from moment to moment. A wise action in one moment, can be a foolish action in the next. So, the insight "all is one" might function in some situations... but definitely not all situations. My advice is to stop trying to get reality to fit with your beliefs regarding love, abundance, and lack. Reality doesn't fit into these ideas at all.

This is why it's important to be able to embrace paradoxes. Yes, "all is one" and "all is love" is true. However, if we behave in an outwardly accepting way toward "evil" actions, it will simply enable all sorts of ills. So, we have to be able to say, "I'm not tolerating any behaviors that contribute to pain and suffering in myself or others." And for a society to function properly, there should be consequences for actions that cause harm. Now, modern justice systems are not the most conscious systems. However, justice can be done in a conscious way that focuses more on maintaining social health and preserving human dignity. We're just too "punishment" focused now, so we treat wrong-doers in a manner that we will likely one day see as very barbaric. However, you can still recognize and accept that "evil" and "evil-doers" are still part of love and that they are part of yourself. And you can still practice compassion toward them in realizing that their birth as themselves was arbitrary and that all actions are innocent in the end, even if they cause tremendous amounts of suffering. You could just as easily be living their exact life, and you don't know what compels them to behave in the way that they do. It's probably a very hard life. So, you have the right-ish idea about recognizing that all is perfect, love, and God. But recognition doesn't mean complacency or enabling unhealthy and harmful behaviors and social patterns to take root. There is no need to cause or enable unnecessary suffering. So, it's foolish to do so based on the idea that "sometimes suffering is supposed to happen." That's true that suffering does often happen. But there is no need to put your hand on a hot stove and leave it there. Avoiding the burn is just as "one" as experiencing the burn. So, why not avoid the burn if you can choose to? But if you really feel like you want to experience the burn based on some ideological understanding of oneness and love, then you can. You'll just find out the hard way... the way that I had to after my experiences of ego-transcendence and the remembering of the insights from that state of being.

I never said that mass murderers do their acts from greed. I said that they do so in search of positive emotions of pleasure and to escape a sense of numbness. Or maybe they feel like power is a good stand-in for happiness. But greed is also made of love. Everything is. So, it's not that "Behind every mass murderer is a beautiful creation of love and joy, locked in false belief." It's that "Every mass murderer with all their greed and evil deeds are still an inextricable part of love." It's not that there is a need to show the loving "good self" that's locked under the false belief. The false belief is also love. The bad self is also love. The murdering happens from and in love. The murderer is love. The victim is love. The murder weapon is love. The place the murder occurred in is love. Every disgruntled emotion felt by the murderer is love. Every anguished cry from the victim is love. All the suffering and joy in the world is also love. There is literally nothing that isn't.

@Will If suffering is unnecessary, why would you consciously choose it? It isn't like it's any more divine, beautiful, or perfect than any other thing. Everything is perfect from the ultimate perspective, so why not choose something functional and healthy from the finite perspective? The finite perspective is not invalid or even less valid than the ultimate perspective. You are not required to choose dysfunction just because it sounds like it jibes more with higher wisdom. I'm afraid that you're engaging in spiritual bypassing and you're going to talk yourself into believing that you should stay in negative situations or create negative situations in your life because you expect yourself to be unconditionally accepting because "Everything is divine and perfect." However, if you do that, you're just going to end up with a lot of issues that will rob you of your peace. Don't expect yourself to have the equanimity of a Yogi that's practiced for 30 years while still having the foolishness to remain in a bad situation on the basis of some intellectual understanding of the truth. But emotions are always what motivate actions, from large to small. For example, a child eats candy because they want the feeling of enjoying the taste. Someone who hates their job, goes to work because they want the feeling of financial stability that their paycheck give them. A philanthropist donates to good causes because other people's happiness makes them feel happy and they like the feeling of contribution. A serial murderer kills people to feel pleasure or as an escape from numbness. A person decides to be in a dysfunctional relationship because they crave the emotions that the relationship gives them. A consciously or unconsciously dishonest seeker seeks enlightenment because they want to have the status of being enlightened and to feel more novel/important/wise than others. Or a seeker seeks enlightenment because they want the emotions that enlightenment and its byproduct convey. A person who is trying to live by higher wisdom in all situations does so because they either want to feel good about themselves for being wise or they hope that it will bring them closer to enlightenment (either the emotions related to "wise" status as mentioned above or the emotions relating to enlightenment itself). But it's a trap. It won't do this. It's a cul de sac on the path.

@Will In my view, being wise and what I call "spiritually mature" is about being able to determine which paradigm is most effective for proper functioning and expansion in a given situation. So, it means being able to hold higher truths such as "All is one." at the same time as using practical truths such as "I am a separate person and it's important for me to set proper boundaries and to respect myself." which seems to contradict one another. The opposite of what I call spiritual maturity is to always reach for top shelf truths for all situations even when it puts you in a precarious situation that makes happiness, fulfillment, and peace impossible or nearly impossible. Understand that, at the root of all human action (including enlightenment seeking) is the pursuit of positive emotions. So, understand that enduring unnecessary emotional suffering simply for the sake of maintaining a relationship is very foolish because you got into the relationship to feel positive emotions in the first place. At that point, you've become attached to a means to get your desired emotions that won't produce to you the emotions that you want. Now, you could feel positive independent of the situation, but this is a lot to expect of yourself. And chances are, if you were in a place where you could feel positive emotions unconditionally, then you would probably leave the harmful situation rather unceremoniously and put yourself in a situation that didn't have as much struggle and had more benefit for you and the other person. So, I understand what you're saying, but I do think would be foolish to live in the way that you're talking about. I was in a dysfunctional relationship for four years and I suffered immensely for it. And I stayed because I thought that I was helping him with his demons and loving him unconditionally. But this wasn't so. I was actually enabling him by accepting him and all his demons unconditionally simply because I didn't want to see him hurting. I was so attached to the relationship that I couldn't see how much harm I was doing to myself... and ultimately to him too. So, my advice is to avoid dysfunctional relationships because it doesn't really do anyone any good. It's a waste of time and energy, and there's no need to make yourself suffer just to live by some insight from higher wisdom. Let your emotions as experienced in the moment (and not your remembered intellectual knowledge of insights from higher wisdom) lead you.

It sounds like your friend might have issues with self-love. It's likely that he feels like he needs to be #1 to be worthy of love. So, his competitive nature comes from the fact that every time he sees an opportunity fro competition, he takes it. Because only then, can he get his self-esteem fix. I'm a very competitive person, so I know the cycle firsthand. It's like chasing a carrot on a stick and ever so occasionally someone throws me a bit of Parsnips to appease me. But I never get the carrot... just the imitation. It sounds like you have a similar but less intense version of what your friend has that gets triggered only when he gets competitive with you. My advice is to work hard at doing what you're doing. Share with him whichever advice you feel comfortable with sharing with him. Don't feel compelled to tell him everything, but still give him a few pointers here and there. Be happy with your successes. And try to be happy for his successes or at least to accept them, even if he becomes more successful than you. And be aware of your emotions and what you're really after with regard to your business goals. Truly, all rivers lead to the same source. In any endeavor that anyone ever undertakes, they are seeking to feel positive emotions. So, if you're happy, then there's no competition that needs to be won. And we all realize that a happiness competition sounds silly. So, you should understand that your friend's success can't detract from your happiness unless you let it.

Everything is beautiful and perfect: the good, the bad, and the ugly. However, some people will make your life much harder to be in a relationship with them. It's much better to be with a psychologically healthy partner.

I've noticed these social patterns too in many young women. However, I can also tell you that there are many non-dysfunctional young women too. However, you maybe just aren't attracted to the non-dysfunctional women and just overlook them. I'm not saying that non-dysfuctional women are unattractive. Or that dysfunctional women are attractive. What I am saying is that people tend to see people as attractive only if they feel like they are a worthy partner to them. If someone feels (consciously or unconsciously) like they are not worthy of a particular person's partnership, they will unconsciously weed them out of their potential dating pool and not see approachable attractiveness in them. So, it could be the case that psychological health just isn't that attractive to you, if you have struggled with issues of inferiority or low self esteem yourself. I'm not sure if this is the case. But it is one explanation for why you run into a lot of dysfunctional women. So, my recommendation is to discover why you attract or are attracted to dysfunctional women, and to work on that. You'll eventually develop healthier attractions and healthier women will be more attracted to you too.

I have had many out of body experiences, and I know that it's possible to have them during meditation. So, I wouldn't doubt that it could happen during a satori experience. Though, I'm not sure if it's a literal "out of body" thing, even though that's exactly what it's like. It makes more sense to me that a person may be tuning into a different dimensional aspect of themselves, and interacting with a different dimensional aspect of reality. It would also make sense to me if it's a very realistic hallucination. I don't know about his metal claim or the "aging 20 years" claim though. But I wouldn't worry about OBEs. I've probably had at least 50 of them, and I've never had it effect anything in my waking life that I know of.

There are subtle colors everywhere. Nothing is only one color.

You basically have a semi-conscious thought process that talks you out of making good decisions. I didn't have this problem with Veganism because I committed to it completely. So, I gave myself no wiggle room to talk myself out of it, and now it's just the way that I eat. I've been Vegan for a year. However, I still have this thought process when it comes to doing the dishes. I tell myself "I should do the dishes every day." But then, I rationalize it away. I say, "There are only a few dishes in the sink, I'll wait until tomorrow." Then, by the next day, I always have an overwhelmingly large amount of dishes to do. So, my kitchen is always very stressful to clean. So, I recommend adopting Veganism as an identification (temporarily), even if it's your first day as a Vegan. You will be less likely to eat things that are non-Vegan because it will feel dishonest to you, given that you call yourself a Vegan. It will help solidify your commitment. If you tell others it will also give you more incentive not to talk yourself out of it. Also, I can relate to the feeling of powerlessness too. That was one of the toughest emotions that I had to transition through when I went Vegan. However, that's all part of the process of becoming more aware. It's all part of personal growth. You're becoming aware of why you became okay with eating meat (and other animal products) in the first place. Most people have Vegan values and don't want for animals to suffer, but feel utterly powerless to make any kind of change in this issue. So, as children, we sort of resign ourselves to eating things that cause others to suffer. And this is also why it's difficult to transition because the emotion of powerlessness against something so heavy comes back up into the conscious mind, instead of remaining buried in the unconscious mind. So, the reintegration process is pretty brutal for those transitioning to Veganism.

So, what is your life purpose?

Don't worry. You can always find ways to resolve emotional issues even if they are established in childhood. So, it can get better. One thing that's helped me is to recognize that I'm just part of an impersonal pattern. So, my issues were mainly with my mom, and I've carried a lot of anger toward her. However, I see now that she really didn't see herself as being in the wrong and even was able to convince herself that she has the best intentions for me. I also see that she is the way she is due to her upbringing, and that my grandparents are the way they are due to their upbringing, and so on and so on. Most people don't do intentionally malicious things. So, in seeing this, it's easier to give forgiveness on this level. Once you've let go to a certain degree, you can start to face the emotions head on with awareness. If you focus on how the body and mind work together to create the experience of trauma, you'll get new insights into why the trauma reaction is so tenacious in the first place. If you focus on the emotional reactions that arise in the body with full awareness, it will enable you to process through the most negative stored emotions.

I'm sorry to hear that.

If you don't mind my asking, was your mom very controlling and nit-picky/critical of you?

Thank you for the recommendation. But I'm not too interested personally in Yin and Yang from the relationship/attraction perspective as David Deida writes about. His perspective tends to be focused on creating a polarization of energy between two people to create attraction in relationships. Basically a man pushes his masculinity to the furthest pole, and the woman pushes her femininity to the furthest pole to create maximum attraction between the two halves as embodied by two people. My view is kind of the same but opposite from his. I focus more toward authenticity irrespective of human gender and integration of both Yin/Yang sides without consciously trying to control or polarize them. That way, without resistance, the natural inborn Yin and Yang can shine through in an individual's personality and react together to turn water into wine and brass into gold. The idea is basically to get in touch with your androgynous nature (as all people naturally contain a unique ratio of Yin and Yang from birth) and to create an alchemical attraction reaction within yourself and move toward wholeness and dynamism within yourself irrespective of relationship. Basically, I find it far more satisfying to be sex than to have sex. However, a caveat to my perspective is that you probably won't attract as many people. But you'll attract people that you're more compatible with on deeper levels based on your unique Yin/Yang ratio. So, even though it touches the topic of relationships, my focus tends to be on fixing internal repressions and artificially created imbalances in the individual and in the world. So, I like to look at this polarity in terms of large non-human systems as well. It helps me understand things better and find solutions. Wisdom is what I call the infinite river of divine knowledge that you can tap into when free from the constraints of ego. Intuition from this state can come as clear as a (voiceless) voice. But with the constraints of ego, intuition comes mainly through the lens of the emotions. So, cultivating emotional sensitivity will help you get in touch with wisdom via the intuition which will lead you in the direction of greatest expansion. This is true for relationship attractions as well. However, one caveat would be that it may lead you away from seeking relationship too. Either way, it will be a better feeling to follow what your intuition tells you, even if you think that things should be some other way.

@Emre A thought just came to me that I think might help you let go better. So, you have the ideas that in order to be authentic or good that you also have to be 100% original and uninfluenced by others. However, this is a common kind of misconception in modern culture. It means that even in believing this thought, you are being influenced by the ideas of others. So, the question is, are you going to just follow the crowd like that and continue believing what the others say and living by the rules and morals set by others, or are you going to truly be an individual?

I'm not 100% sure what you mean. Do you mean that you agree with my thought of needing to develop more emotional sensitivity to gain more proficiency in reading the intuition? Or do you think that the issue is a different issue? I tend to view a lot of things in terms of Yin and Yang (feminine and masculine respectively). The ebb and flow of Yin and Yang is what creates the system-like nature of every living and non-living system, including individual people. It's been a helpful roadmap for me in addressing some of my internal imbalances and issues. I grew up in such a way that I valued Yang (masculine) at the expense of Yin (feminine). So, many of my issues were a reflection of this internal imbalance and repression of Yin. It's a very common repression in our society which is very Yang (masculine) oriented. So, this issue is even more common in men as men are punished extra for expressing Yin traits. So, understand that when I use the term "feminine" I don't mean "woman-like". When I say "feminine" I mean Yin. So, intuition is part of Yin (femininity), but everyone has intuition. It's just that, if a man or woman represses their Yin (feminine) side, they will have issues with being insulated from reading their intuition with clarity. So, to cultivate a relationship with your Yin side, you'll want to become more sensitive to your emotions which will allow you to read more nuance into the messages from the intuition. Imagine that your experience of reading your intuition right now is like petting a cat with an oven mit on. You can tell that you're petting a cat and can pick up on the major forms of the cat. You can even tell that the cat is smooth. But you're missing out on a lot of the subtler details of the experience. So, now imagine that you took the oven mit off and started petting the cat. It would feel totally different and you'd be observing a lot more subtle details of the experience of the cat. You would even be feeling some of the individual furs if you cultivated enough awareness and sensitivity. So, my thought is that currently you may not be experiencing your intuition at full stretch due to lack of cultivation of a relationship to your Yin side. So, currently you may only be able to rely on the intellect (Yang) to determine whether or not someone would make a good girlfriend for you based on having certain attributes. The Yang side is analytical and logical, so it will make all its decision based on numbers and rationality. And to the Yang side, attraction is very objective and the object of attraction will be determined based upon the sum of their parts. The Yin side is emotional, and will make its decision based on intuition. For the Yin side, the attraction is organic and subjective, and the subject of the attraction will be based on being greater than the sum of its parts. You need both to be able to make a good choice in partners. One without the other will lead to two different types of disasters. So, Leo's advice for relationship red flags is a good Yang metric to keep around to avoid negative relationships. Though I also advise not to be too nit-picky. Don't expect that there will be any perfect people. Just make sure that the person isn't going to weigh your life down. But in honesty, I don't see Leo as being very proficient in cultivating a relationship with Yin relative to his dating/relationship advice. He tends to fall very polarly on the Yang side. At least this is true when he was making more dating/relationship based videos. I don't know if he's changed since then in that regard.

The brain/mind computer/internet analogy isn't perfect. But you get the idea that the internet isn't located in your personal physical computer. Your physical computer just receives the internet. Now, like I said, the analogy isn't totally perfect as the computer is what allows the internet to exist which may not be the case for the brain and mind. But you can get the idea of how it's possible for brain and mind to be separate things. It's our assumption only that makes us think that the brain is the location of the mind. But if we examine that assumption, we'll see that it may not be the case. To answer you question about consciousness, it's important to be able to see reality as it is without any belief structures that you've learned. We can never truly know if anything is true beyond what we're experiencing in this very moment. This reality could be completely contrived to convince us that scientifically observable facts like "I have a brain." are true, when they may not be. You don't know if your brain exists if you're not experiencing it right now. You just believe it. You don't know if your car exists if you're not experiencing it right now. You don't know if any of your memories really happened, or if reality is tricking you into believing that they happened. That's not to say that these alternatives are true. All of these things may indeed continue to exist even if you're not experiencing them. But we have to realize that we don't actually know anything. This reality could be created for the entire purpose of misleading you individually. Or it could be a mutual reality where many people experience the same thing. But we'll never know. The main takeaway is to accept that you can't know. Then you can let go of searching for the answer once you truly accept that. But you'll probably have to tire yourself out first. Intellectualizing and trying to understand is an addictive thing. But I'm glad that you like my videos. Thank you for the kind words!

To give you an analogy: the brain is like the computer and the mind is like the internet. The internet is not in your physical computer, is it?

In order to be able to find a girl that you really connect with beyond the physical level, you have to cultivate a relationship with your own feminine side. The masculine side in all people can only see a woman (or man) as the sum of her (or his) parts. So, the only way that someone who operates solely under the aegis of the masculine side can be attracted to someone is in a physical way or by enumerating their accomplishments or strengths. But a man who has cultivated a relationship with his feminine side will have more emotional sensitivity and awareness which will give him the ability to read his intuition. Until you develop emotional sensitivity, you'll just be going around in your mind trying to make pieces fit intellectually. The intuition will tell you who you're really attracted to in a deep way.