-
Content count
2,875 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Everything posted by lmfao
-
lmfao replied to Leo Gura's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
The universe created Stewie for the purpose of Stewie creating the universe. Not sure if it's a strangeloop, but it's a circular chain of causation beyond logic. -
I meditated for 90 minutes today to make up for the fact I didn't meditate yesterday. And honestly, I had completely monkey mind for 60-70 minutes. It wasn't till the end that I was "in the zone". Lately, my diet has been shit and my sleeping pattern has been all over the place. I'm in this repeating pattern of mindfulness peaks and mindfulness troughs. Whenever my mindfullness drops I submit to my addictions. I think this is because I have very little drive to do anything productive. I'm in Summer Holidays, and I've spent most of my time in these holidays by watching television shows and browsing the Internet. I need to find new habits. These bad habits slowly suck away my mindfullnrss throughout the day.
-
lmfao replied to lmfao's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
@Leo Gura true. -
This guy made a great video critiquing the hardcore rationalist view of religion that many people like Sam Harris propagate. I watched the whole thing just now and I think he articulated very well what many critics of Sam Harris do not articulate well.
-
lmfao replied to lmfao's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
One thing I will say though is that there is something of value in what Sam Harris says, in my view. The guy in this video takes the position that it's people and their pre-existing filtration system of reality that determines how a religion is interpreted. It is people who shape ideology. And whilst I agree with this guy for the most part, I think there is something to be said about the fact that ideology can shape people. Brainwashing and psychological conditioning are significant phenomena. -
Is anyone here very experienced with holotropic breathing? I've never done it, and I'm a little excited and nervous at the same time to start it. What I want to know is, how effective is the technique? Do you feel like you have really cleansed yourself significantly from taking up the practice? I want to hear what my realistic expectations should, although I should still go into the practice openminded-ly with no expectations.
-
@Sea I personally haven't take it. My dad's a psychiatrist, but I'm far from being knowledgeable when it comes to psychiatry. I take another SSRI called citilopram for depression/anxiety and so I think my experience is comparable to you in some ways. I've been taking the drug for roughly 6 months now. When it comes to antidepressants, I think that they are the right option for some people when their mental state is in real dissaray and misery. I was almost suicidal over half a year ago, and I was quite miserable. I had this thing a few times where I would hyperventilate for 40 minutes straight whilst crying. I would punch mattresses and scream to myself. For someone who has a very low chance of pulling themselves back up from their feet, psychiatric drugs are a good crutch. If I hadn't taken citilopram who knows what kind of emotional wreck I'd be in now. That being said, the psychiatric drug won't cure you and so you absolutely must take other action to relieve any depressive and obsessive issues you have, whether or not you decide to take fluoxetine. You must try to drastically rewire your brain. Whether or not you decide to take fluoxetine, you gotta exercise a lot, quit your addictions, eat healthy and do consciousness work. If you do decide to take fluoxetine, you can try getting off of it later when your life is back together.
-
I just wanted to talk about where I am in relation to the Spiral Dynamics model and why I feel/think it doesn't work fully (at least for me). I'll just give a little background so you can get a taste of where I'm coming from when I talk about how I feel about Spiral Dynamics. I have an emotionally and slightly physically abusive mother. She has a few autistic traits, and she has learnt/developed a lack of empathy in her upbringing. She was raised in a middle-class third world country. She is extremely manipulative in her relationships with friends as well as her relationship with my dad. She is controlling, and irresponsibly spends money. She lies a lot. Many of my family members from her side of the family (uncles + aunts) have numerous mental health issues: bipolar, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and etc. I don't know what her upbringing was really like, she doesn't answer the questions I ask her about it. I think I'm slightly autistic as well (not hugely however) and combined with my upbringing, I have naturally low levels of empathy. I can become a tad too callous sometimes since I've had to be callous in dealing with my mother. A year ago when I was 16 I was definitely orange. Now I'm at a point where I feel as though I see through the problems with orange. I don't like the metaphysics they have, and I'm into spirituality. I'm not too concerned with material success. I just want to enjoy the process of exploring maths and physics, as far as my life purpose is concerned. Despite the fact that I feel I've outgrown orange in many ways, I don't feel a strong connection to green. I never have and probably never will experience green in the way Leo described it. I like to help people, but I do it without too much emotional investment. From meditation I've learnt to integrate and let my emotions express themselves, but even then I think I'm neurotyoically deviant and so I have issues in trying to make sense of spiral dynamics. Green seems to emphasise an emotional connection with people in that sense that "your pain is my pain". Green's state of being seems to be one where you are constantly feeding off of the subtle emotional cues of others in order to make sense of reality. But I cannot do this. When I reach deep higher consciousness states from meditation, my emotions will come to life more, but the healthy expression of my emotions doesn't match green. I feel love for people, but it's a different type of love. I love them because they are a part of reality. And so it is that one of the reasons I think Spiral Dynamics is flawed is that it works of the premise that all humans are similar enough such that they are capable of fully expressing each stage. But this is not the case. There is neurodiversity. What is healthy for one person can be unhealthy for another person. Trying to evolve myself to green almost seems like I would be having to act completely inauthentic. Maybe my understanding of green and spiral dynamics is false. But I've written what I think based upon how Leo described Green and based upon what I think to be real life examples of how it typically manifests. I've talked more about my problems with spiral dynamics here And so it is that for personal development, I should just forget about Spiral Dynamics and just continue pursuing enlightenment. And to be enlightened, you drop all concepts about reality, and that includes spiral dynamics.
-
I'm having this problem where I'll reach deep non-dual states but then I'll slip out of them later in the day. I meditated for 70 minutes today, and after meditating I watched the England vs Columbia match. That took over 2 hours, and by the time it was over my mindfulness was gone. But not all is lost, since I'm getting quicker at entering non-dual states of being. When meditating today, I realized that I don't know anything. But when I tried to truly accept this feeling I had, my thoughts were going crazy and all over the place. You have to face the fact that the past doesn't really exist and face the fact that your models of the world are ultimately groundless. It's easy to say "reality is groundless" when talking to someone, but it's a completely different thing to emotionally have to deal with the fact when you confront it in consciousness work. But one thing I'm confused in trying to understand is why our mindfulness fluctuates. Why is an enlightened person enlightened and an unenlightened person unenlightened? What is the true nature of "thought", of "awareness" and of "mindfulness"? What is the precise difference between being aware and not being aware? What's the difference between being mindful of thought versus being lost in thought? It's probably impossible to nail this question down. I cant logically distinguish these things, even after repeatedly reaching non-dual states. When you reach a non-dual state, there is only "being". But even if I don't understand what's going on, that's fine. I'll just keep meditating and trying to pay attention to the present moment.
-
lmfao replied to luismatos's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
@luismatos @luismatos I personally sit like this (I drew this picture a long time ago). It's not well drawn, but you get the idea. My legs aren't on top of each other. The toes on my left foot will be roughly pointing towards the knee joint on my right leg. -
lmfao replied to luismatos's topic in Spirituality, Consciousness, Awakening, Mysticism, Meditation, God
@luismatos how is it that your legs scream with pain from sitting straight in a chair for 30 mins? Do you sit in a chair normally? If this is genuinely the case then you might have some sort of medical issue. If this issue is addressed you can probably meditate for longer. -
@tsuki @molosku @Samra @Dan Arnautu @EtagnwoGood advice!
-
@Leo Gura ?
-
@JohnLeyo Whenever a goal is set, it should be set in a way such that progression towards that goal is something you can enjoy. Be mindful of and enjoy the process of reaching your goal. Attainment and happiness doesn't come from the sole attainment of your goal, unless your goal is to be more happy. From meditation, you learn that in life, all you have and all you will ever have is this present moment. Once you reach a non-dual state, you see that the only thing to do is just let life flow and observe the present moment. In this sense, you can feel all human activities to just be games. And if you're gonna play a game, play the game that your "highest self" enjoys. Most people have natural inclinations towards a particular field of mastery. Why/how it is these inclinations arise, who really knows. If you reach a non-dual state, you will start to feel creativity and intuition colour your work so that working becomes fun.
-
@Revolutionary Think I came across Leo by typing "how to overcome addiction" into YouTube. When I was 15 and watched the video I was surprised because it was one of the few instances I was exposed to genuine profundity.
-
And so it is I realise that my addictive behaviour mirrors that of a compulsive gambler. I will search and scroll on the Internet repeatedly, searching for something to give the next "hit". It's as though I'm at a slot machine. With every new video I watch or every new web page I click, I'm not gaurenteed to find something good. But it's the hope that something good will come that hooks me on to the behaviour.
-
A film maker called Louis Theroux makes a documentary in Las Vagas where he follows around compulsive/regular gamblers. This guy doesn't like to insert in his own opinion too much in these documentaries, he prefers to just observe people and lightly poke them with questions. You can get an idea of what the industry of gambling is like. The people he follows are addicts, and most of them are in complete and utter denial about it. There's this elderly woman in particular who has lost $4000000 in 7 years. If you're gonna waste your time with television, this documentary is pretty good. I found it interesting, and it's given me a feel for the gambling industry. Casinos just want to make money, in a nutshell. They will employ long term and short term strategies for this. The odds are stacked against you. People have all sorts of emotional systems triggered, and they become hardcore addicts. The psychological manipulation is not covert at all. It is by "abusing" the human psyche that these gambling companies make money. Dopaminergic circuits are being targeted in the most blatantly obvious ways. And even though I don't gamble, I can relate to the people involved in gambling very well. Anyone who's an addict can relate to other addicts.
-
I posted something in a separate topic that I could/should have just posted here.
-
A film maker called Louis Theroux makes a documentary in Las Vagas where he follows around compulsive/regular gamblers. This guy doesn't like to insert in his own opinion too much in these documentaries, he prefers to just observe people and lightly poke them with questions. You can get an idea of what the industry of gambling is like. The people he follows are addicts, and most of them are in complete and utter denial about it. There's this elderly woman in particular who has lost $4000000 in 7 years. If you're gonna waste your time with television, this documentary is pretty good. I found it interesting, and it's given me a feel for the gambling industry. Casinos just want to make money, in a nutshell. They will employ long term and short term strategies for this. The odds are stacked against you. People have all sorts of emotional systems triggered, and they become hardcore addicts. The psychological manipulation is not covert at all. It is by "abusing" the human psyche that these gambling companies make money. Dopaminergic circuits are being targeted in the most blatantly obvious ways. And even though I don't gamble, I can relate to the people involved in gambling very well. Anyone who's an addict can relate to other addicts. And so it is I realise that my addictive behaviour mirrors that of a compulsive gambler. I will search and scroll on the Internet repeatedly, searching for something to give the next "hit". It's as though I'm at a slot machine. With every new video I watch or every new web page I click, I'm not gaurenteed to find something good. But it's the hope that something good will come that hooks me on to the behaviour
-
@Hallo_Leo An alive cockroach scares you more than a dead one, right? This is probably unhygienic, but it could get you to face your fears. Kill a cockroach and just touch the carcass (e.g poke it with your hands) . When I was a kid I was absolutely scared of spiders, and wouldn't dream of touching them. But if you can get used to touching something, I think your fear of it can start to dissapate. And since the cockroach will be dead, you won't have to worry about it moving or doing surprise movements. After that, try touching alive cockroaches. Try to be very rational, and get it through to your subconscious mind than there is nothing to be afraid of. This is easier said than done. After all, cockroaches can't really harm you at all. As with all things in life, mindfulness helps.
-
Well I'm just gonna post some nice tunes, idk/̶i̶d̶c̶ if they're epic or what. Hellsing Opening Theme: Requiem Aranea : Mirai Nikki Opening 1: Mozart - Lacrimosa: As a bonus, this song is good for building up hype. It's cooler to listen to if you've seen the show where it comes from:
-
@ULFBERHT "The Book of Not Knowing" by Peter Ralston is great. I've only read a few chapters, and I regret that I haven't read more of it in my spare time.
-
@SpaceCowboy ?