lmfao

@TheAvatarState The thing is, Im still gonna consume theory which is instructions based for consciousness work. Ie kriya yoga techniques, perhaps even new meditation techniques. At the end of the day, even though all these techniques are just gimmicks we use to increase our awareness they work. But you'll never reach the high states of awareness till you realise its all a gimmick, quite paradoxical. The thing I've found is that everyone has their own idiosyncratic way of describing things, and this applies to non duality. Many of the individual words I use in my sentences in regards to abstract topics each have an idiosyncratic pattern of emotional connotations I have about the word and images I have in mind when using the word, which is a reason communication is so difficult. The images and connotations you have about some words cannot be satisfactorily verbally distilled. You cannot telepathically show the images, feelings and intuitions you have. But our mouths will keep chatting in an attempt to bypass this, which is partially why there exists so much theory for non-duality. But is talking so bad? It amazes me how much we manage to talk past each other in debates and discussions of topics, partially due to this. When it comes to highly abstract topics, the person writing the sentences often has a million things they want to say and they're struggling to find an articulate way to cohesively communicate their thoughts. I've noticed that if Im reading a piece of text on an abstract topic which contains a lot of vague and technical words/jargon, I cannot understand one sentence in isolation. I have to read several sentence, the whole paragraph, before I know the context of each word and where the author was coming from when they were constructing those sentences in the way that they chose.

@TheAvatarState Nah ur right they're all saying the same thing. It's something so obvious that it gets overlooked.

@Anton Rogachevski LOL I must have found 10 ways to type the exact same shit on the internet on this topic, I swear to christ.

@IVONNE I'll make an intellectual argument for no free will. Think of the universe as just a single system consisting of matter, energy and various particles which are constantly changing form through space and time in accordance to "the laws of physics". You as a biological organism are simply an expression of the universe. These laws may partially be deterministic and partially indeterministic, but the exact degree to which the laws are deterministic/indeterministic doesn't really change whether we have free will or not. In a deterministic universe, the same initial conditions always lead to same result. To give you an example, if I have perfect knowledge about the forces that will act upon a coin during a coin flip I can with 100% certainty predict what the result of the coin flip will be. But for indeterministic events (which may be present in our universe), the same initial conditions don't yield the same results all the time. There is then an element of pure randomness in the universe. Consider the atoms and chemicals in a human brain making decisions. In a deterministic point of view of the universe, every feature of your personality and every feature of your life was inevitable and could be fully predicted from the knowledge of the exact state of the universe billions of years ago. Your whole life is following a script. Event A necessitates that Event B happens, which necessitates Event C , which also necessitates that Event D happens, and so on. Linear cause and effect, albeit the universe having trillions upon trillions of variables our human minds cant ever hope fully fathom. Let's suppose the atoms in your brain are following indeterministic laws of physics. In what sense do random dice rolls imply free will? Whether the universe is random or is following a script, or a mixture of both, neither imply the existence of free will and moral culpability. Inherent to the idea of "free will" that most people have is that free will makes a person good or bad. When I drop a tennis ball in the air, it falls down due to the laws of physics. There is no moral culpability you can assign to the tennis ball, the tennis ball could not have "chosen" to do something else. If I make a decision to commit a crime, that decision is a result of the atoms in my brain following the laws of physics in the exact same way as a tennis ball falling through air. I am no more morally culpable than a tennis ball. But don't let this train of thought make you think that you're some poor puppet who's been destined to be unwillingly strung along into suffering. What this is instead pointing to is that you are the entire universe and are one with it. @RichardY Having a high IQ can perhaps be likened to having a sharp knife. It's a useful tool that is used to fulfil the agenda you give it, the knife in of in itself is neither "good" or "bad".

I have a family history of mental illness and psychosis, and so I've been doing a bit of googling around psychedelics. My auntie had schizophrenia, so did her son, my uncle seems to have lost touch with reality but I don't know what condition he has. Meeting my cousin makes me feel sad, since I remember what he used to be like. So I'm just trying to be careful with all of this. From what it seems, psychedelics were not associated with an increased risk of mental illness according to most sources. So is the idea that psychedelics and the such cause mental illness just a myth?

@kieranperez Do you have any sort of substance/behavioural addictions? Because those are the main reasons I end up miserable.

@Outer Thanks for the advice man. I don't need a drug to surface up emotional baggage and neurosis anyway, meditation and mindfulness gets that job done. I'm still considering microdosing at some point (probably in 7 years or something at 25 when your brain is supposed to have fully developed). Ideally I'd see for myself if safe low dosing has any good effects for me personally, regardless of what some studies have concluded.

@MsNobody Yeah I've seen bird box, it was decent. Yeah the more grounded you are the better, small doses ftw. @Serotoninluv Thanks for the advice. I'd probably wait till I'm 25 or something till I do anything serious. Microdosing sounds nice.

@TheAvatarState Yeah if I do try anything then I guess I should go low doses.

@Wisebaxter I just read, do some coursework or do maths when I'm taking it. I've used it before playing competitive video games as well, for fun.

THIS MAN SPEAKS TOO MUCH SENSE ITS CRAZY. It didn't know it was physically possible for a politician to be so transparent and straight forward.

Suffering is a strange thing. If I enter a high consciousness state I might think/feel that suffering doesn't really exist. From this perspective I'll think that suffering is merely a collection of thoughts which are neither good or bad, and that this even applies to the times when ive been in the worst pits of suffering. But when my consciousness "falls from grace" suffering feels so real again. The whole thing is odd. @AlphaAbundance I think that when it comes to describing the rock bottom levels of consciousness, saying that you'll be reincarnated (e.g. as Spiderman or as an ant) is too much although many people on this forum would likely disagree with me.

Good question. What are some of taboo words you're thinking of? What kind? When it comes to some words like shit and fuck I find it hard to see why such words are held in such a negative regard. I've heard them spoken so many times that they've assimilated into my vocabulary and aren't dirty anymore ( unless someone says "fuck you"). At the end of the day, certain words have just been conditioned to be bad. Some religious people are just prudes. I'm trying to just not get triggered by other people getting triggered. After all, me getting triggered is just a sign of hypocrisy. On a slight tangent, I think understanding why words like nigga, nig***, coon, fa***** and etc are hated is a lot is easier to understand. Those words just loaded with history and emotion, so I just stay away from them. Even though the word nigga has made it into the normal vocabulary for many people, theres a lot of controversy when someone uses the word even when they use the word in a non-hateful way. I've noticed that there's a number of people out there who are very sensitive to language, jokes and the slightest of hyperboles. Everyone (me included) has certain words or sentences they find repulsive and disgusting. It's human nature. But when I come across the small proportion of people who are easily triggered by the most minuscule things, I'm just surprised. Surprised that people with such thin skin have functioned in the world. But a thin skin can act as a defensive mechanism, and it especially works well when you have a group of people who will give you (what is often moral) validation when you get easily triggered. People across different societies and time periods have always been triggered by language, but what language they get triggered by changes. Some people take life and various artificial concepts too seriously, and one of the manifestations of this is being thin skinned in the way that both religious people and SJW's are.

I've come across plenty of blue folk into astrology. The only blue folk who abhor astrology are staunch fundamentalist christians/muslims, and they aren't the full demographic of blue. Astrology is a present in many cultures. Like Nagma said its also maybe a stage purple thing. I remember posting this meme and Leo said that the belief astrology is delusional is delusional lol I'll be happy if theres something to astrology, why not eh.

I've taken a total of 12 tablets of armodafinil over the past 2-3 months. It's quite interesting really. Most of my experiences with armodafinil have been non optimal because I've sort of assumed before taking it that armodafnil will make me less sleepy or tired. Armodafnil doesn't really make me less sleepy, it just makes me more focused and engaged with things. Funnily enough, like you I started doing some cleaning after taking the drug for the first time. I took half a pill of armodafinil 2 hours ago. I can tell its kicked it, but the drug hasn't made me any less sleepy or tired. It's just made me more focused. It doesnt make me less sleepy but it would make it harder for me to fall asleep, if that makes sense. The drug gives me mild headaches lol so im actually quite reluctant to use it often. But theres a place for it in my life, I think. I remember taking an eight of a pill a few times, so shit like that I can do often without noticeable headaches. If I had to describe it, its like theres a very subtle neutral energy coursing through your entire body when on the drug. I have like 50+ tablets left or so, its probably gonna last me a while.

@TheAvatarState thanks for the tip same @Serotoninluv Yeah, manipulating the temperature around you can have the same control over you as manipulating what you can eat or drink. If you're deprived of water or food or are put in very extreme temperatures you'll suffer unless you are a buddha. Of course most of us dont find ourselves in those sort of extreme conditions. Yeah as for body awareness it seems I'm constantly straining some muscles in my body unconsciously. I'm always straining muscles in my face, stomach and legs. What applies to mindfulness in general applies to this situation. What prevents me from getting "better" is that I do not accept my unwillingness to accept the present moment. If my mind goes crazy with monkey mind I'll get annoyed about the fact that theres monkey mind instead of just being fine with there being monkey mind. I never would have started formal meditation rituals if I wasn't trying to escape anything yet it is my desire to escape something that holds me back. It's the double bind thats always there. How do you stop desire if you desire to stop desire? But once you "make it" past the double bind (even if its temporary) there are no words to say about the whole thing.

By weather, I mean basically just mean temperature. I'm always bothered whether a room is too cold or hot. A few weeks ago my heating was broke and I was wearing 5 layers and was still freezing and bothered by the whole thing. My heating is fixed now, but I remember being extremely bothered by the weather. I'm not sure whether its worth it for me to constantly intentionally exposing myself to cold weather. A great deal of the suffering that I was feeling in cold weather was due to me just not accepting the situation, and trying to force both my mind and environment to be different. Thats easier said than done though.

@K VIL watch the video if you're interested my nibba

@Surfingthewave I don't know how you retain the feeling. I have noticed that the reason that my attempts at increasing mindfullness and increasing awareness are unsuccessful is because I'm meditating with the intention of forcing awareness. I'm meditating with the belief that my current state of consciousness is horrible and unbearable, and I'm trying to get away from that. But it doesn't work.

Leo needs to start a transition into becoming a cooking channel.

@Eric Tarpall Action in the spirit of non-action my friend, its a beautiful thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei The thing is, for every waking moment of our lives existence/reality/(our consciousness) is in a state we did nothing to create. If the past and feature don't really exist, then all we live in is an uncaused present moment. I am just not "aware" of this fact most of the time. And the extent to which we are aware of this fact is the extent to which life and existence feels effortless and amazing.

@Ali123 I've used binaural beats a fair bit when meditating. If I use them, I sometimes just do ohm chanting simultaneously. For me personally, I think my meditation sessions are deeper without binaural beats. I've noticed that I am using these sounds sometimes as a crutch for meditation through these sounds giving my mind stimulation and hence a higher sense of "artificial" ease. I use theta waves often. I've even experimented with gamma when meditating. I sometimes listen to alpha waves when reading for example. After about 50 minutes I acutely feel irritated and bothered by the sounds and take off my headphones. It's a very cool thing though.

@Viking Drink green tea my dude. You'll get far less dependency symptoms and long term negative effects. The rule of thumb I have for a drug is that the less overt the change, the easier it is to use sensibly and frequently.

There are times when meditation seems to cause strong feelings of nihilism and meaninglessness to surface. Yesterday I did a guided meditation with chanting and etc, and felt great afterwards. However today for example though, I thought I'd do a 50 minute SDS since I haven't done strong determination sitting in a long time. I just closed my eyes, stayed still in a silent environment. The whole thing felt very emotionally draining. Shortly afterwards I felt extremely deflated, but now (1 hour afterwards) im feeling better but still low. The thing is, I'm heavily addicted to stimulation.I'm 18 right now, have been trying to implement a daily meditation habit for 11 months now or so now. At the very least I've probably missed 45% of days. My idea of how many days i've missed is very rough, I have no clue. I know that since the age of 11 or 12 I've used various forms of technology, and also food but to a smaller degree, to escape negative emotions. It's very deeply ingrained in me. I just seek more and more and more stimulation. If I'm doing coursework or something, I'll put something in the background on my laptop on youtube or another website. It doesn't matter if I'm paying attention to the background stimulation, the mere presence of it is something I seem to be addicted to and it puts me in a false sense of ease I guess. It's because of my addiction to stimulation that I've done many meditation sessions which are guided or I'll meditate with sounds in the background. I've been using stimulation as a crutch for meditation. If I cease the stimulation and push myself to meditate in a SDS, I'll feel negative afterwards. I cant tell if this negativity is a sign of purification or just a sign of me worsening things, you know? Everything feels bland. My existence is ultimately not going anywhere. I feel as though it's easy enough for me loosen my psychological structure, but doing so acutely exposes me to negative emotions. It's almost as though I go too deep with meditation and bite off more than I can chew. Anytime I meditate its like going from 0 to 100. How does one smoothly go straight from having their mind occupied with the mundane to confronting the foundations of reality? Like right now, I'm trying to mindful of this negative emotion in my stomach which seems to always be there. Whilst for a split second or so I'll see through the illusion of it, my awareness will get lost in Maya again. It feels like a very uphill process.