Jamie Universe

@okulele yesterday there was suffering, tomorrow there will be suffering. Don't make today your suffering. If you care, help. But worrying about everything, isn't the action that's solving it.

here's the definition of trust: firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. so by definition, we can never trust anything 100%, except maybe enlightenment.. idk. But I wanted to bring this up to talk about trusting in techniques / sources / information. Because I feel like I'm constantly finding out that something I trusted is wrong in some way. I think in Leo's video about understanding big picture understanding he talks about not taking positions and finding as much information as possible, and there's also his video about researching. I've kind of developed this paranoia that the stuff I do will end up not working out, or something obscure and random will fuck me over. So I guess what I wanted to know, what makes you trust stuff? What do you do to make sure you don't fuck everything up by deluding yourself? Or is this even a problem for you (<-- has most stuff you've trusted ended up being true or working out.)

Name: Anonymous Age: 16 Gender: Male Location: California, USA Occupation: High school Marital status: Single Kids: No Hobbies: enlightenment, miscellaneous personal development techniques, art(performing/music/drawing/etc.), dealing with my problems, nature, excessive TV watching, Dancing for the sake of feeling beauty not actually being good.. I had depression sort of bad, and was sort of suicidal around 7th grade. I didn't have the willpower to do it but I just wanted it to stop and end. The cause of that depression could be several things, during that time I played video games every possible second and nothing else was even considered, I also (and maybe still am?) had something similar to some schizophrenic delusions, I believed that the people around me were apart of some secret society (to a certain extent). This was around when I was maybe 13 years old, I realize my sexual/romantic interest in guys, which is just more of societies shit that I have to deal with now being gay. It could've also been caused by some sort of philosophical-induced belief. I also had a ton of miscellaneous problems, I would constantly get erections in public, and for whatever reason my cock is really sensitive, literally doesn't even have to be anything sexual that triggers it. And I had a guy friend who I played video games with a lot, and people considered us BFF's but I realized after a while that he was a jerk (to me a lot). And this anger somehow translated into sexual attraction. (this is 8th grade now). And it wasn't a mental option for me to leave that group with him, so I was kind of just stuck with him with my feelings, this hate, and almost pretending to like him all this time. This was also a very hard year. The beginning of high school was still rough, but I would consider this to be the year I dealt with my shit. I left the friend group with that friend, and texted him telling him that he was a jerk (leaving out the gay part), and then never talking to him to this day. Also I had a problem, because I had sexual attraction to children, and this was rough because society looks at 'those' people as monsters, and so naturally I looked at myself the same way, only recently did I have a huge face palm and realized that the children that I was attracted to, were within a general 4-6 year radius of my age, and adults marry within that range (and bigger gaps) it natural, and even if it turns out not to be natural, I'm not unconfident that I can't deal with it. This year I also talked to a counselor telling her all my problems, and I almost went to a therapist, but looking at my life so far I decided not to and to deal with this shit on my own. I also suffered from lack of purpose during these times, because of my excessive time wasting. This year, (which is almost over) I felt dealt mainly with being gay. For whatever reason halfway through the year, some thing in my mind clicked, and I realized and felt all the social impacts of being gay, I become extremely nervous, I almost had a panic attack when someone came in to talk about LGBTQ club or something, which immediately resulted in me taking action, I told a friend, which was very awkward and emotionally exhausting, but she was accepting, despite it being such a hard task, it was easy for me to do, because I knew what the alternative was, and it was not good. And then recently I just told another friend (who is pansexual). And then one morning I had an incident, where my dad was texting in a family group chat and said "I hope you have a good gay" and then my mom texted back with "I hope you have a good gay to!" which gave me a fucking seizure, note that I just woke up early in the morning, literally the night before I told my other friend I was gay (the pansexual one). And now this!! HAHHA... I didn't know if this was some sick way of telling me "Hey btw we know your gay" and so I responded with "..." and walked downstairs, and she seemed totally normal, and I was trying to figure out the entire time whether or not she knew, it took me a while to realize that it was just an grammar mistake and my mom was making fun of my dad, because apparently mentioning 'gay' is funny to her. But despite the onslaught of crap, this year I've actually been really happy, I found Leo somewhere around the end of 8th grade, I think I was looking up for a video on laziness or something, and eventually got lucky enough to find Leo, in which case I would feel doomed if I hadn't stumbled across him. I would probably be worshipping him at this point if he didn't tell us not to. But now? I mean, I still face problems obviously. I haven't told my parents that I'm gay yet, I worry about that, but I have my plans to tell them. and otherwise I have tools that most of the people around me don't, knowledge that they (probably) don't have, and I feel lucky to have something work for me. My confidence is pretty amazing, after that one morning with my parents texting, it really put it into perspective that random shit happens. There's still more problems which I didn't go into, but these are typically the biggest. (Also sorry I kind of jumped around a lot). Personal challenges I've overcome - Dealing with depression solo - Dealing with insanity solo - Dealing with social bullshit (a lot of it) - getting over self-image - Meditation habit - less laziness What I'm working on now - Shamanic breathing - Meditation - Enlightenment (but going to be more serious after high school) - mastering the social terrain and wasteland that is high school - Getting over my laziness or excessive wasting of time - becoming a better student

@ZZZZ True, I think I made this post out of paranoia honestly, I think some part of me thinks I'm going to go through life faced with obstacles and not going to be able to overcome them. I'll work on my paranoia instead.

Here's a text conversation Friend: Also (friend 2) wanted me to tell you that she thinks your gay, don't ask me why she wanted me to tell you that Me: Lmao And I'm bisexual but mostly gay, and I've told 2 people, a counselor and 1 friend more recently. I'm not out yet, and I'm dead on the inside. What should I do?

Basically I meditated for 25 minutes and I kind of felt my ear get kind of numb during the end, and my hearing felt kind of blocked up, so with a swabbed my ear with a ear swab and there was a tiny bit of blood. Eventually it stopped, and I can't say I'm too surprised because I get random body pains a lot, and they pretty much always go away. But any ideas? I remember Leo saying that the ego can screw around with your body, and even make you sick, I've personally felt phantom pains a ton from meditation, which can be really annoying. I also looked up diseases/injuries related to ear bleeding, and some of them or less severe and some are more severe, I guess I'm not worried because it stopped, and I'm used to the randomness. I was lying down pretty still, so I'm trying meditation with my back up straight now.

appearances are fooling. Would a sweet guy do something so egoic as too yell at you over the phone blaming you for his problems? Also as far as I understand you think Its your fault for his families problems. Which is absolutely not true, and the whole thing about "who's responsible" is basically the ego trying to spread blame. Because you can blame it on someone, for example you feel guilty because it feels like you somehow contributed to this mess, but notice that he calls you when he's mad, meaning another perhaps more responsible person, would've accepted that his brother was a rapist, and wouldn't even consider blaming it on the victim. Your guilt ends when you either realize it wasn't your fault or you make yourself closure. Just think it through, and if that's doesn't help and it continues, talk to someone about it, or see a therapist or something. Honestly though I think it will naturally just go away.

@Shakazulu @Lovecraft Yea it just depends, just think it through.

It happens to me occasionally where I just focus on some aspect of my life or my present moment and find it really weird and awesome. It can be the most random stuff.

@Lynnel I've had stomach pains, where I breath in my stomach to much, I'm not sure but it feels almost like I'm straining, because I can make it go away almost away if I don't breath as deeply. However I tried to keep breathing at that deep rate for a little while and it didn't seem to get worse necessarily, so idk tread carefully.

that's sounds fucking awesome, good luck!

haha! Leo's not here to stop us from procrastinating, so hurry and post as many memes as possible! (but also meditate and etc.)

@Applejuice It sounds like by your logic, we should just kill ourselves since we will be put into a non-duality state of being. Maybe you should adjust your plan slightly, instead of having children, adopt one. This way, you can forget about the ethical part of it, since that child already exists and your already helping it, and also if you have a desire for a child, this fixes it. Plus not also to mention over-population.

@egoless I agree, I've become way to dependent on him without doing enough effort on my side, its about time I got off my ass.

Working off of what @anaj said sounded like a moment of clarity of a almost bad decision. If your constantly making mistakes, maybe just tell yourself to be more conscious of any significant decisions, maybe put a reminder somewhere. Otherwise you could do a pre-mortem for your life or for your bad habits.

I've been emotionally attracted to girls before, I've had crushes. But at the same time I was sexually attracted to guys, and then emotionally attracted to guys (more crushes), and eventually my attraction for girls is more background noise. But I had girlfriend who I'm still sort of emotionally/sexually attracted too. I also remember while taking sex ed, that my instructor knew someone that changed sexual preference from something I don't know of, to being sexually attracted to thumbs or something. If changing sexuality is somehow necessary to you, then maybe you should delve into that world more-so. But at least my conclusion is that, random shit happens, and you should probably just accept it regardless.

@Thanatos13 I was going to post with a whole argument, but I realized it was useless, because if your on this path, and you continue to work and not rest here at this conclusion, then you will see it for yourself. Just keep working! If you rest at this conclusion and one lesson, then you aren't a very good truth-seeker, so keep working.

not %100 percent sure how ego-backlashes work, but with meditation ego-backlashes are typically temporary. but otherwise if you in your mind truly believe this true, try contemplating if its actually true, or rather what 'meaning' is. Changing the belief might change your daily emotional life.

@Karin12414Sounds good, I agree with @zoey101 but I personally suggest you do a pre-mortem as well, any random shit can happen. Though you don't have too.

@Enachescu Dragos No problem, I believe in you!

I wonder about this, because people associate feeling good or emotional honesty as a need, typically. And there are some who don't feel anything, and see it as a huge problem. Thoughts? I personally feel 'normal' a lot but then the occasional emotional moments (good and bad).

You'll learn isn't true, infact Leo doesn't promote killing yourself for the truth through suicide. It can occasionally happen where people will "kill themselves in the name of truth" but this is stupid in my opinion. Realize if anything has "should" or "I need to" in it, that pretty much means its dogma. For example "truth is the only thing that matters, and look how all these silly things distract me!" He's also done a video on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Which describe the need for sex and love, and if your smart you'll realize that working hard towards enlightenment will be hard if your not dealing with these other things in life, and that doesn't always mean "I need to satisfy my sexual need" but you need to deal with it responsibly somehow. I also chase emotions, but by practing do-nothing meditation, I've come to realize and accept that you won't always be feeling amazing. Which sounds shitty right? No, just realize that's there's two separate parts to it, you've got 'the need' and also the 'feel good' and your mind meshes those two together making "I need to feel good" but if you change the "I need" part by accepting you won't always feel good, then it will no longer tear you to shreds. that's sort of the theory anyway, but know that 'feeling good' is a material need, or in other words - a thing that exists that I need man this is just life, I know it probably seems unbearable and shitty, but your only in this life for who knows how long, and if there's a legitimate chance there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and coins along the way, then don't let the rain beat that hard on you that you want to quit. Contemplate, research, ask questions, just think. The rainy may be soggy and miserable, but you'll learn by looking up that its because of the rain, that the rainbow exists.

@thehero I was thinking the same thing, just because event x occurred after event y, doesn't mean y causes x to happen. Or rather just because you feel these things after surgery, doesn't mean surgery caused it.

@Ether So true, that worked for me and @Karin12414 judging by your posts already, you need to fucking stop this. I'm sorry but, fuck your brother, fuck how your parents take it. This is insane! your just to tired to take action because all of this is so exhausting, you say. You just want it to stop, but it won't stop. That's not a deep topic to contemplate on. I bet that's what you said the first time it happened, "well that shit happened, I just want it to stop and go away" but it came back, not to mention all the dis-honesty you've had with your whole family the entire time, on top of all this. Its not hard to realize you don't like this If you reply to this saying you Can't, or I'm just to tired, then take a moment to look inside yourself and realize your scared, you fear something happening, you may be able to get by in life without having your parents and brother's life broken, but it will only be at the expense of your own. And do remember, it was an action that he did, he knew was illegal, and would probably hurt the victim in one way or another. So what are you trying to spare him from? Himself? It will be bad, there's no doubt about that. But they will live, this isn't murder. I'm also done replying because I've been saying the same fucking thing over for a while now, and if you don't get it, or refuse it at all costs, then I've tried. Also sorry for being a douche, but it comes from a place of caring. Hope you figure this out, good luck