Emerald

Enlightenment is the opposite of a conditioned state of mind. It is sought through removing assumptions that stem from our conditioning. So, it is an unconditioned state of being... the only unconditioned state of being.

Hello. I know that Leo has a video called "How to Deal with Strong Negative Emotions" that I think would be very helpful for you. So, definitely check that out. I just made a video about how to heal from trauma, where I talk about how emotional symptoms come up for the purpose of helping heal and reintegrate. All we have to do is accept the emotions and focus our awareness on them. So, I'll go ahead and post it here in case it's helpful.

I think that there's a deeper question to ask. The question is "What would be so bad if I weren't normal?" Now, on one hand, mental health is very important. So, if you have a particular reason to ask this other than just a hypothetical fear, then definitely address it. But on the other hand, when I've had this line of thinking in the past, I was worried about being perceived as abnormal. I was worried that others would see me as crazy and weird, and that I'd be some sort of social pariah. So, it was primarily a fear of not being able to fit in or be seen in the light that I'd like to be seen in. Also, fear of missing out on many social benefits because of my abnormality. It has been the source of much social anxiety for me. I think it stemmed from having a mentally challenged sister, and wondering at a young age if she realized... and if she didn't realize, then I could be disillusioned too. So, I always had this background fear.

Most definitely! I'm reading up on personas right now. Great stuff!

Thank you!

Thank you! It's a great point that the ego is a very naturally occurring collective illusion. So, it's difficult to see through it because everyone is so used to believing it and all of our habits and understandings are ingrained in that illusion.

From what I understand of enlightenment and the experiences that I've had, enlightenment has a lot to do with surrender, receptivity, being, wisdom, and allowing. These are all Yin qualities that are linked closely with the feminine principle. The opposite, Yang/masculine principle value are conquering, communication, doing, knowledge, and manipulation of the environment respectively. So, I would imagine that the techniques are similar for people of both sexes. But people who have a generally more feminine or Yin-based M.O. would probably have an easier time reaching enlightenment. But these are qualities that can be developed in every individual. Meditation and consciousness work in a nutshell is about cultivating Yin, in contrast to our general cultural conditioning of Yang which is dominant in our societies at this point in human development.

I have a Youtube channel that I would like to promote better to get more traffic to my channel. I've read a lot of internet sources and found a couple effective methods (ranking high in search through keyword and tags and promoting on Youtube and other place my target audience gathers). Any other advice that you could offer? Thanks.

I have experienced this too. It can be a rough transition because it's sort of like learning that Santa Claus doesn't exist to the power of ten. But it's good, because it will yield you more sobriety and happiness in life to live in a state of open-ness. Best of luck on your journey!

A good litmus test for enlightenment is to explore your feelings relative to dying and being forgotten. If you fully accept with full appreciation and love (and I mean fully, even if it were to happen at this very moment) that you will die and be forgotten (even if you were forgotten by your loved ones). This is the level of detachment I had during my experiences.. temporary though they were.

Unfortunately, I don't. My mom would, but I haven't studied hypnotherapy or self-hypnosis personally.

Seeing the parliament building from across the water at night was one of the most beautiful cityscapes I've ever seen. We didn't get a chance to go to any of the bath houses, when we went a few years ago but it's on the to-do list for the future. The bath houses actually come from the Turkish influence in Hungary since Turkey occupied Hungary for a reasonable chunk of time... if memory serves. The Buda castle is really pretty too.

Have you been to Budapest? My husband is originally from Szekesfehervar which is about an hour away from Budapest. It's a beautiful city.

@Huz88 I woke up last night at 4:30 to do an hour long sit. I got interrupted 34 minutes into it because my son woke up, so I didn't make it to the end. I didn't notice too much of a difference. Maybe I was a little sleepier and had the lurch that Shinzen Young was talking about a few times. But I usually sit at around 9:30 pm for an hour, so I tend to get sleepy during my sits because I try to go to bed by 11:00. I think I was a bit too close to being fully awake because I happened to accidentally fall asleep at the same time as the kids (9:00). So, I had already had 7.5 hours of sleep by the time I got up. So, I'll try again tonight at an earlier time like 3:00, so it's more in the middle of sleep.

Thank you!

I've been making baby steps and modest gains toward all of my goals, but it's slow going in some areas. I have to focus more on creating a better quality product for my business. I'm a YouTuber and I have about 25 channel improvements that I still need to implement. I think my content is informative and helpful but I need better delivery, habits, production quality, scheduling, channel bumper, etc. to make it more professional looking and engaging. But my numbers are doing pretty good relative to where I was two months ago. I get 5 to 10 new subscribers every day in contrast to the 1 or 2 that I used to get. My diet, I switched to a plant-based diet. Now I want to focus on eating a lot more raw and creating interesting and healthy meals for my family and I. I have a morning routine that includes a Yoga practice and a night routine that incorporates an hour of meditation. So, I have a lot of puzzle pieces... I just have to bring them all together in a more cohesive way.

My mom is a certified hypnotist, and contrary to popular misconception hypnotherapists aren't controlling you. It's always you who either takes the suggestion or doesn't. The hypnotherapist only has as much control as you allow them to have.

I'll give this a try. I watched the video through again. I've done sits where it's been late and I've been sleepy. But I've never interrupted sleep for the sole purpose of meditating. So, it should be interesting.

What I've done is I've set up different categories to excel at in life (nutrition, exercise, lifestyle, parenthood, business, consciousness, social life, etc.) Then I think of specific ways that I want to excel in each of these domains. Then, I work out daily (or weekly and monthly if appropriate) routines for achieving my (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly) goals. I suggest starting with implementing one habit at a time before adding more habits. The habits are really where it's at. After a certain amount of time, habits get automatically wired into your brain. So, these good habits which are baby-steps to achieving your goals will add up and eventually exponentially multiply over time.

You may not be aware of this social pattern, but prostitutes are often forced into prostitution because of poverty, life circumstances, drug addiction, or even being directly forced into it through pimps who control them and their livelihood through the threat of violence. So, the life of a prostitute is often a very miserable one. I think many of the men who visit prostitutes aren't aware of the fact that many of the women (and men) are some of the most vulnerable individuals who are being exploited, and that they're contributing to that exploitation. So, I personally wouldn't do this because I think it would make you feel yucky in the long run. Since your self-esteem is already rocky, I wouldn't put myself if that situation. Leo did a video "Fake Growth v. Real Growth." This would be fake growth. I recommend first trying to hook up with a woman at a club who doesn't go to school with you. You don't even have to tell her that you're a virgin if you don't want to. Learn some pick up techniques, and try them out. Get over your shyness. That's the only reason why you haven't done it yet. I can almost guarantee you it's not your looks, your personality, or anything about your worth as an individual. It's just fear of rejection and low self-esteem... assuming that no woman would want you. So, it's a matter of approaching and being willing to be rejected. You'll eventually, and probably in short order, find someone who's interested in hooking up with you. You assume that none of the women that you know are interested in you. But be careful with this assumption. Women are discouraged from approaching and do their best not to let on that they're attracted to the guy they're attracted to. If you show no interest, they're unlikely to show you interest first. So, try casually flirting with one of your female friends first to see what her response is. If her response is positive, flirt a little more. If she matches your flirtiness, flirt a little more. If she steps back, you step back. But this would probably be a better recommendation for establishing a relationship and not just hooking up.

Sounds like the warrior archetype is active in you. These probably reflect something about you at a deep level. For me, leaders and fighters have never quite gotten to me at a deep level with the exception of those whose causes have stirred me. I would look up information on archetypes, which is a Jungian concept. Mal recommended "The Hero with 1000 faces" which relates to this. But there's a ton of other great books written on the warrior archetype as well.

@Zephyr Words.

Tai Lopez = Lame

Thank you for the advice. I have a lot of out of body experiences. So, I recognized the vibrations as the precursor to that. In the past month or so, it seems like a lot more prompts are showing up in my life to question "What is perceiving?" as opposed to directly diminishing ego. In fact, I've decided instead to resume trying to add value to myself through individuation, despite its evident absurdity in contrast to my ego-transcendence experiences years ago. When I had them, I decided afterward that I wanted to stop having an identity and did a lot of unwise things to try to undermine my identity. So, I gave up on many of my dreams to be the "most __________ person" despite it feeling very wrong to me. But perhaps the way out is through. So, I think your advice is spot on. I guess I just get antsy and want some external confirmation of my experiences. Thanks again!