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I would have bought it, but I've gotten RSD products in the past. They're pretty good, but Leo's content is much higher quality, and mostly free. If you look at all the previews for the transformation mastery program, there's really nothing than isn't rehashing some of the stuff Actualized.org covers. Except here you get the information in greater depth for no cost. For instance, the Life Purpose Course and Book List are probably the highest quality products I've ever bought, and they're much cheaper (not counting the cost of actually buying the books). I've spent about $3,000 dollars this year on books and personal development courses alone, and Leo's free videos provide more value than anything I've got so far. Julien's self-help channel is still pretty good though, and I recommend it as another source. He has a unique point of view. I'd say you're probably better off buying and reading the books he's covered on his channel than buy his course. Of course, if cash is no issue, go ahead a spend it, but I doubt there's much you couldn't find for free. I've learned the meditation, contemplation, and self-inquiry will get you more results for inner growth than anything else (in my experience). You just gotta buckle down and do the work instead of looking for a new spin.

Thoughts on this? https://julienhimself.com/self-help/

Sex is just an opportunity for a higher transformation of life energy. As far as it goes it is alright, but when sex becomes the whole, when it becomes the sole outlet for life energy, then it becomes destructive. It can only be the means, not the end. And means are meaningful only when the ends are achieved. The moment sex becomes the end, the spiritual dimension is lost. If your energies are needed somewhere else, somewhere more blissful, sex will disappear. It is not that the energy is sublimated; it is not that you have done something to it. Rather, a new way toward greater bliss has opened for you and automatically, spontaneously, the energy begins to flow toward the new door. This is so automatic, so spontaneous, that no positive action against sex is needed. Whenever you are doing anything against any energy it is negative. The real, positive action is not even connected with sex but is concerned with meditation. You will not even know that sex has gone. It has simply been absorbed by the new. The reason why sex is so important to religious seekers is because it is so nonvoluntary, so compelling, so natural. It has become a criterion to know whether the life energy in a particular person has reached the divine. We cannot know directly that someone has encountered the divine. We can know directly that someone has transcended sex because we are acquainted with sex. Sex is so compulsive, so nonvoluntary, it is so great a force, that it cannot be transcended until someone has achieved the divine. You will encounter something so blissful that sex will become irrelevant and it will subside by itself. Now your energy will no longer flow in that direction. Energy always flows towards bliss. Because bliss appears in sex, energy flows toward it, but if you seek more bliss — a bliss that transcends sex, that goes beyond sex, a bliss that is more fulfilling, deeper, greater — then, by itself, energy will stop flowing towards sex. Go beyond, because still greater bliss awaits you. The journey must continue. This does not mean that by dropping sex one will achieve the divine. The reverse is a fallacy. Anything done negatively with sex will not transform the energy. On the contrary, it will create a conflict within you that will be destructive.

Yoga is discipline. It is an effort on your part to change yourself. Many other things have to be understood. Yoga is not a therapy. In the West many psychological therapies are prevalent now, and many western psychologists think that yoga is also a therapy. It is not! It is a discipline. And what is the difference? This is the difference: a therapy is needed if you are ill, a therapy is needed if you are diseased, a therapy is needed if you are pathological. A discipline is needed even when you are healthy. Really, when you are healthy only a discipline can help then. It is not for pathological cases. Yoga is for those who are completely healthy as far as medical science is concerned, normal. They are not schizophrenic; they are not mad they are not neurotic. They are normal people, healthy people with no particular pathology. Still, they become aware that whatsoever is called normality is futile, whatsoever is called health is of no use. Something more is needed, something greater is needed, something holier and whole is needed. Therapies are for ill people. Therapies can help you to come to yoga, but yoga is not a therapy. Yoga is for a higher order of health, a different order of health – a different type of being and wholeness. Therapy can, at the most, make you adjusted. Freud says we cannot do more. We can make you an adjusted, normal member of the society – but if the society itself is pathological, then? And it is! The society itself is ill. A therapy can make you normal in the sense that you are adjusted to the society, but the society itself is ill! Yoga is not therapy; yoga is not trying in any way to make you adjusted to the society. If you want to define yoga in terms of adjustment, then it is not adjustment with the society, but it is adjustment with existence itself. It is adjustment with the divine! If your mind has come to realize that whatsoever you have been doing up to now was just senseless, it was a nightmare at the worst or a beautiful dream at the best then the path of discipline opens before you. Patanjali takes it for granted that you are interested in yoga, not as a hope, but as a discipline, as a transformation right here and now.

My morning ritual at the moment is waking up, doing self-hypnosis for 5 minutes, doing exercises from the six pillars of self-esteem for 15 minutes and writing this journal for 15 minutes. Then I usually go to my morning training which I have four times a week in my school. Yesterday I took a cold shower and after that did a 90 minute walk which felt just amazing. I felt totally fulfilled and whole, like there was nothing I needed. I finished The willpower instinct yesterday and started listening to Transformation mastery be Julien Blanc. I will still have to take notes from The willpower instinct but right now I have to focus on my exams and don't have time for that. I often get temptations during the exam week to just go and spend all my time doing personal development and reading books. There are thoughts in my head which say something like "School doesn't even matter. After all it it is just a system designed to make you conform to societal norms and get you to go to work as soon as possible so it's useless and you should just focus on what matters." I'm not quite sure if I should believe these thoughts or not. Most times apart from exam week I listen to them and don't give a damn about school but when it's exam week I'm not quite sure if I should believe them or not. Overall I really don't know how big of an importance school plays in my life. But I think I will at least spend some time studying and not totally neglect school just to be safe. I meditated for one hour and ate 2200 calories.

where is the problem? your annoyance is the essence of your transformation, the proof that your entire being is paying very attention to the ego and it's chit-chatting. you are a thousand miles in front of people who don't even notice their ego. attention is as powerful as a nuclear reactor, nothing can last under your attention. you're already doing perfect, as you keep paying attention to the ego, as you keep being annoyed with it, it will be deconstructed. but the ego is an immense thing, you are taking on the pain of an entire civilization, the ego is not something that's part of you. don't expect the ego to disappear overnight, have respect for it, almost everyone on the planet is under it's influence, and many generations were....what you're doing is absolutely amazing, so be patient, be appreciative. be grateful that you're annoyed with the ego, the annoyance itself is the healing process, there's nothing more to do, just sit back and watch it fall like a desert slowing losing its grains of sand , your annoyance is the wind blowing them away

Jesus said: I took my stand in the midst of the world and in flesh I appeared to them. I found them all drunk, I found none of them athirst. And my soul was afflicted for the sons of men, because they are blind in their heart and they do not see that empty they have come into the world, and empty they seek to go out of the world again. But now they are drunk. When they have shaken off their wine, then they will repent. Jesus said: If the flesh has come into existence because of the spirit, it is a marvel; but if the spirit has come into existence because of the body, it is a marvel of marvels. But i marvel at how this great wealth has made its home in this poverty. Jesus never renounced the world, he was standing in the midst of us all. He was not an escapist; he moved in the marketplace, he lived with the crowd. He talked to prostitutes, laborers, farmers, fishermen. He didn't go out of the world, he remained here amidst you. He knew the world better than anybody who has escaped from it. It is no wonder that Christ's message became so powerful. I TOOK MY STAND IN THE MIDST OF THE WORLD AND IN FLESH I APPEARED TO THEM. And he was not a spirit. Many masters go on continuously visiting you in their spirits. Buddha still knocks at your door, but in the spirit. And if you cannot see a person who has come in the flesh, how can you recognize Buddha? Jesus says: I appeared in the flesh to them -- I was in the body, they could see me, they could hear me, they could feel me, but still they missed. They missed because... I FOUND THEM ALL DRUNK. They were not there really, no consciousness at all. I knocked at their doors, but they were not at home. If Jesus comes to your home and knocks, will you be there to receive him? You will be somewhere else; you are never at home. You go on wandering all over the world, except to your home. Where is your home? Inside you, where the center of consciousness is, is your home. You are never there, because only in deep meditation are you there. And when you are deep in meditation you can recognize Jesus immediately -- whether he comes in the body or bodiless makes no difference. If you are at home you will recognize the knock. But if you are not at home, what can be done? Jesus will knock and you will not be there. That is the meaning of the word drunk: not at home. Jesus said: I FOUND THEM ALL DRUNK; I FOUND NONE OF THEM ATHIRST. This has to be understood, a very delicate point: if you are drunk with this world, you cannot be thirsty for the other. If you are drunk with ordinary alcohol, with ordinary wine, you cannot be thirsty for the divine wine -- impossible! When a man is not drunk with this world, a thirst arises. And that thirst cannot be fulfilled by anything that belongs to this world. Only the unknown can fulfill it, only the invisible can fulfill it. So Jesus says a very contradictory thing: I FOUND THEM ALL DRUNK; I FOUND NONE OF THEM ATHIRST. Nobody was thirsty because they thought they had already found the key, the treasure, the kingdom. So then there was no search.This world and its wine can give you only temporary relief, can give you only temporary gaps of forgetfulness. I FOUND THEM ALL DRUNK; I FOUND NONE OF THEM ATHIRST. AND MY SOUL WAS AFFLICTED FOR THE SONS OF MEN, BECAUSE THEY ARE BLIND IN THEIR HEART AND THEY DO NOT SEE THAT EMPTY THEY HAVE COME INTO THE WORLD, AND EMPTY THEY SEEK TO GO OUT OF THE WORLD AGAIN. AND MY SOUL WAS AFFLICTED.... You cannot understand what suffering happens to a Jesus or a Buddha when he looks at you, drunk with this world, not thirsty at all for the divine, for the truth; living in lies, and believing in lies as if they were truths -- and missing for nothing, missing all for nothing. Then it happens that the smallest things can become barriers. AND MY SOUL WAS AFFLICTED FOR THE SONS OF MEN, BECAUSE THEY ARE BLIND IN THEIR HEART, AND THEY DO NOT SEE THAT EMPTY THEY HAVE COME INTO THE WORLD, AND EMPTY THEY SEEK TO GO OUT OF THE WORLD AGAIN. Empty you have come, but not exactly empty: filled with desires. Empty you will go, but not exactly empty: again filled with desires. But desires are dreams -- you remain empty -- they have nothing substantial in them. You are born empty, and then you move in the world and accumulate things, just believing that these things will give you a fulfillment. You remain empty. Death snatches everything, you move again into the grave, again empty. ... BECAUSE THEY ARE BLIND IN THEIR HEARTS AND DO NOT SEE THAT EMPTY THEY HAVE COME INTO THE WORLD, AND EMPTY THEY SEEK TO GO OUT OF THE WORLD AGAIN. Only the heart can see how empty you are! What have you gained? What maturity, what growth has happened to you? What ecstasy has come to you? -- no benediction yet? The whole past has been a rotten thing. And in the future you are going to repeat the past: what else can you do? This is the affliction of a Jesus, of a Buddha. He feels miserable for you. BUT NOW THEY ARE DRUNK. WHEN THEY HAVE SHAKEN OFF THEIR WINE, THEN THEY WILL REPENT. This is about you. Don't think 'they' -- they means you: when you are shaken out of your drunkenness, you will repent. This word repent became very meaningful. Repentance is beautiful if it comes through the heart, if you realize that, "Yes, Jesus is right, we have wasted our lives." This is unique to Christianity. If you repent totally, if it comes from the heart, if you cry and weep, if your whole being feels and repents that you have been wasting God's given opportunity -- you have not been grateful, you have misbehaved, you have mistreated your own being... you feel the sin. This is the sin! -- not that you have murdered somebody or that you have stolen; that is nothing. Those are minor sins which are born out of this original sin: that you have been drunk. You open your eyes, your heart is filled with repentance, and then a scream, a cry, comes out of your being. There is no need for words, you need not say to God, "I repent, forgive me." No need. Your whole being becomes a repentance. Suddenly, you are cleansed of all the past. This is one of the most secret keys Jesus delivered to the world. It is one of the oldest keys. But understand what repentance is. Just saying the words won't do, and saying them halfheartedly won't do. When your whole being repents, your whole being throbs and you feel it in every pore, every fiber, that you have done wrong, and you have done wrong because you have been drunk and now you repent -- suddenly there is a transformation. The past disappears and the projection of the future from the past disappears; you are thrown to here and now, you are thrown to your own being. And for the first time you feel the inner nothingness. It is not empty negatively, it is just that the temple is so vast, like space.... You are forgiven, Jesus says, you are forgiven if you repent. BUT NOW THEY ARE DRUNK. WHEN THEY HAVE SHAKEN OFF THEIR WINE, THEN THEY WILL REPENT. JESUS SAID: IF THE FLESH HAS COME INTO EXISTENCE BECAUSE OF THE SPIRIT, IT IS A MARVEL; BUT IF THE SPIRIT HAS COME INTO EXISTENCE BECAUSE OF THE BODY, IT IS A MARVEL OF MARVELS. I think Karl Marx missed this! I wonder what he would have thought if he had come to these saying of Jesus. Jesus says: ... FLESH HAS COME INTO EXISTENCE BECAUSE OF THE SPIRIT... as all religions say -- God created the world. That means flesh has come out of the spirit, matter has come out of the mind; consciousness is the source, the world is just a byproduct. Then, Jesus says: ... IT IS A MARVEL -- it is a mystery. BUT IF THE SPIRIT HAS COME INTO EXISTENCE BECAUSE OF THE BODY... as atheists say, materialists say, Karl Marx, Charvak and others say.... Marx says that consciousness is a byproduct of matter. This is what all atheists say, that the world is not created out of the spirit, but the spirit is just a 'by-phenomenon', an epiphenomenon of matter; it comes out of matter, it is just a byproduct. Then Jesus says: ... IF THE SPIRIT HAS COME INTO EXISTENCE BECAUSE OF THE BODY, IT IS A MARVEL OF MARVELS. The first is just a marvel: that God created the world. But the second is a marvel of marvels -- if the world created God. To believe the first is difficult; to believe the second is almost impossible. It is possible that the lower is born out of the higher, just as a man can paint a picture. We can say the painting has come from the painter, it is a marvel, a beautiful painting. But if somebody says the painter has come out of the painting, it is a marvel of marvels. How can spirit come out of matter if it is not already there? How can a flower come if it is not already in the seed? But Jesus says, anyway, both are marvels. But the third thing is the greatest marvel, and that third thing is: I MARVEL AT HOW THIS GREAT WEALTH HAS MADE ITS HOME IN THIS POVERTY. You are poor, a beggar, because you are always desiring, always asking to be given more. Desire is begging, and a desiring mind is a beggar's mind. You may be an emperor, it makes no difference -- you just become a big beggar, that's all, a great beggar, that's all. But you go on demanding. Jesus says this is the marvel of all marvels: ... HOW THIS GREAT WEALTH -- of divine beingness, of divinity of God -- HAS MADE ITS HOME IN SUCH POVERTY. Drunken people, asleep, poor, begging continuously all their lives; asking for ugly things, fighting for ugly things, obsessed with disease and illness -- and God has made it his temple, and God has made it his abode, his abode in you! Jesus says this is the best -- impossible, incomprehensible -- mystery. Marvel of all marvels! Nothing can transcend this. This is the affliction of a Buddha, of a Jesus: looking at you -- emperors, who have the kingdom of God, begging; asking for worthless things, wasting your time, your life, energy, opportunity. Repent! Look at what you have been doing. It will look so foolish, you will not even be able to believe that you have been doing this. The whole thing will look nonsense! Look at what you have been doing with your life, look at what you have done to yourself. You are just a ruin, and the ruin is growing every day. In the end you will be just a ruin, totally ruined. And in your begging heart, in your begging mind, there lives the king, the supreme. This is a marvel!

This is the moment! Close your eyes and encounter the unconscious. When there is no face in the mirror, just close the eyes. This is the most significant moment: close the eyes, look inside, and you will face the unconscious. You will be naked, completely naked - as you are; all deceptions will fall. This is your reality, but society has created so many layers in order that you will not be aware of it. And once you know yourself in your nakedness, your total nakedness, you will begin to be a different person. Then you cannot deceive yourself; now you know what you are. Unless you know what you are you can never be transformed. Only this naked reality can be transformed. And, really, just the will to transform it will effect the transformation. As you are, you cannot transform yourself. You can change one false face to another false face - but these are not really transformations. Transformation means becoming that which you really are. The moment you face the unconscious, encounter the unconscious, you are face to face with your reality, with your authentic being. The false societal being is not there: your name is not there, your form is not there, your face is not there. Only the naked reality of your nature is there, and with this naked reality transformation is possible.

Yoga is a science. It is just an accident that Hindus discovered it. It is not Hindu. It is a pure mathematics of the inner being. So a Mohammedan can be a yogi, a Christian can be a yogi, a Jain, a Buddhhist can be a yogi. Yoga is pure science, and Patanjali is the greatest name as far as the world of Yoga is concerned. For the first time in the history of humanity, this man brought religion to the state of a science: he made religion a science, bare laws; no belief is needed. Yoga has nothing as far as belief is concerned. Yoga doesn’t say to believe in anything; Yoga says experience. Just as science says experiment, Yoga says experience. Experiment and experience are both the same; their directions are different. Experiment means something you can do outside; experience means something you can do inside. Experience is an inside experiment. Yoga is existential, experiential, experimental. No belief is required, no faith is needed...only the courage to experience. Yoga is not belief. That’s why it is difficult, arduous, and sometimes it seems impossible. It is an existential approach. You will come to the truth, not through belief but through your own experience, through your own realization. That means you will have to be totally changed. Your viewpoints, your way of life, your mind, your psyche has to be shattered completely as it is. Something new has to be created. Only with that new will you come in contact with reality. Yoga is not a philosophy. It is not a religion. It is not something you can think about. It is something you will have to be; thinking won’t do.Yoga is concerned with your total being, with your roots. It is not philosophical. So with Patanjali we will not be thinking, speculating. With Patanjali we will be trying to know the ultimate laws of being: the laws of its transformation

Entry 96 | "The Third Possibility" Theory: When dealing with paradoxes, there is usually a clash between two possibilities. Often, the truth lies in a third possibility. Applying it: Try to identify the key assumptions that ground both possibilities on either side of the paradox. The third possibility arises when those key assumptions are called into questioning. This is a trend that I have noticed whenever certain paradoxes tease me. In one of my earlier journal entries, I asked myself the question "am I growing or not?" On the back of this question were two possibilities. Either I was growing on a personal and spiritual level, or I wasn't. The question puzzled me because it felt like I was growing from the inside, but the consequences of my actions with the rest of the flatmates proved to be damaging. Evidently, this question was ticking in my subconscious mind because the answer appeared to me as I was walking home from one of the musical shows. But it wasn't a straight-forward answer. It took the form of asking the right questions, uncovering any assumptions, and seeking out what I like to call the "third possibility." A very easy example of this would be to describe something as "neutral," rather than an opinionated "good" or "bad." So on my walk home, the question entered my head "what is growth?" The question got me wondering, eventually driving me to dig deeper: "what are the key assumptions that I have about growth?" This question was much easier to answer. My reasoning was that in order for something to grow, it must be assumed that there is only one object, thing, or person in the growth process. It is also assumed that this object/thing/person undergoes a transformation over a period of time. And when it is transformed, it is considered the same object/thing/person as it was before transformation took place. Because of my previous encounters with the paradoxes of time and of the self, I recognised that these assumptions were flawed. There is only such a thing as the present moment, as the past and future exist as a concept in the mind. So therefore, how can something possibly grow over a time period if there is only ever the present moment? Also, who is to say that an object/thing/person exists in the first place? I remember hearing a puzzle from Vsauce: if Person A and Person B swapped each cell in their bodies one at a time, at what point would Person A become Person B? This creates a paradox in itself. But to those of us who have received direct experience of the True Self, we know that there is no "self" inside our bodies. Hell, they're not even our bodies. They just are bodies! And they are changing all of the time. Returning back to the subject of growth, the "third possibility" presented itself to me: "what if there is no such thing as growth?" This makes personal development and self-actualisation work laughable! But at the same time, it feels so undeniably true compared to the previous two possibilities. Also, this third possibility has created a significant amount of peace within. It has stopped the neurotic need to constantly be "growing." Likewise, it has stopped the criticism for the instances where it appears that I'm not "growing." The main lesson behind this third possibility (which seems to be quite common in my experience) is to just chill out. Be less neurotic. Life just is what it is. Don't get caught up with these conceptual ideas such as growth because that is not the reality. When you can sit back and laugh at how you've been chasing your tail and creating unnecessary suffering for yourself, you know you've hit something good! The "third possibility" is usually the answer behind a paradox. Not that I have solved every single paradox in existence, nor do I actually know whether or not this method is a guaranteed paradox solver. But it has helped me to understand the concepts of growth, time, morality, the self, emotions, thoughts, and even the most fundamental senses of sight, sound, and sensation. The "third possibility" wI'll not necessarily be the same for every paradox. But it will always call into questioning the assumptions that you take for granted. All it takes is the open-mindedness and, in some cases, the courage to accept that the third possibility may well be the truth. Pick of the day:

@100rockets Enlightenment happens, you can't force it. If you are in a hurry, it will never happen. If you have infinite patience, it can happen, right now. Osho Dynamic meditation a jet-speed method for inner transformation, for creating a space. Osho Dynamic meditation is a fast, intense and thorough way to break old, ingrained patterns in the body-mind.

@ajasatya Thanks a lot for your kind and genuine response. I will try heart and soul to follow your directions. I've been practicing mindfulness through meditation (1 hour, 5/6 times a week) for about 6 months. The only realization and 1st hand experience I've had is understanding how much I am unnecessarily suffering all throughout the day and how it all stems from my thinking patterns, decisions, interpretation and response. And the surprising thing is, it is all considered "normal and healthy" in everyone around me. Also I am not interested in building a spiritual life for explosive sensations, temporary highs anymore. I want permanent transformation and life mastery 24/7. Thanks again for your kind reply. I think the value you are providing here is immeasurable. If I can really develop permanent goodwill, then any goodness that will come through me, will be due to a sincere contribution you made today. I wish you all the richness of life. Take care you good sir.

Go study Walter Russel!! His ideas have been sort of rejected by todays science but his whole theory is based on polarity, transformation and how energy propogates. Watch some videos on youtube, hes truely a genius. The secret of light is probably one of his best books. I think his theories are the most fitting regarding all the subjects we discuss here. More people need to look into this! @Leo Gura if you have already, check his work out its high quality stuff!

Man feels meaningless, empty, hollow within, and wants to fill it, stuff it. The effort to fill it somehow is greed. That effort is bound to fail for the simple reason because whatsoever you accumulate remains on the outside; it cannot reach within you. And the problem is within and the solution you are seeking is without. For example, you are feeling meaningless inside you and you are trying to fill it by money. It is a stupid effort, unconscious effort, not seeing a simple point: that money can be gathered, accumulated, but it will pile up around you. You can have mountains of money around you… there have been people with mountains of money. Greed is the unintelligent man’s effort to make his life meaningful. But remember my emphasis: unintelligent man’s effort. No quantitative change can really transform your life. You can have millions of dollars or trillions of dollars; it is not going to change. It is only looking in the direction of quantity. What you really need is a qualitative transformation of your being. You need your life to become full of light. You need some inner richness; outer richness is not going to help. In fact, it will make you more aware of your inner poverty by contrast. And if you have one million dollars and nothing has happened, how can you hope that by having two million dollars it is going to happen? If one million dollars have not given you anything, two million dollars are not going to give you anything. If one million dollars have given you something of inner joy, of inner splendor, then of course two million dollars will make it twice; it will become more. But people never think about it. They go on rushing almost unconsciously, asking the same again and again, more and more. Greed means a desire for more without seeing the total futility of it. If less is not giving you anything, then it is not going to happen by having more of the same. Greed is unacquaintance with oneself. Greed is because you have never looked within yourself, and you feel empty and you go on making all kinds of efforts to fill that emptiness. It cannot be filled. Experience it and you will be surprised: that emptiness looks only empty from the outside; when you go inside it, it is a fullness of its own kind. It is not empty at all; it is vast, it is infinite. It has a tremendous beauty of silence, purity. And then you will not look at it as emptiness in a negative sense; you will start feeling a positive well-being in it. It is spaciousness, not emptiness. It is roominess, not emptiness.

Knowledge has its uses, it is not absolutely useless. But if you are going inwards it becomes more and more useless; the deeper you go the more useless it is. If you are going outwards, the farther you go into the world the more useful it becomes. The world respects the knowledgeable person. It needs experts; it needs all kinds of people carrying information, knowledge, expertise. But in the inner world the question does not arise: in the inner world the same knowledge becomes a hindrance. That which is useful in the outside world becomes a barrier to the inner. It is a bridge to the world; it is a barrier to the inner exploration. Those who are explorers of their subjectivity, it is utterly useless. There, something else is needed: not knowledge but wisdom. Knowledge is information; wisdom is transformation. Knowledge is borrowed; wisdom is your own. Knowledge is ego-fulfilling; wisdom happens only when the ego is dropped, utterly dropped, totally dropped. Knowledge gives you the feeling that you are higher than others; it is a certain kind of power, just like money. Knowledge is power. So if you have a postgraduate degree you feel better than those who don’t have postgraduate degrees. If you have a Ph.D. you feel a little more egoistic. If you carry a D. Litt. of course you become very special. If you have many degrees, then you start feeling that you are not an ordinary person.

Religion is not ritual. It is not something that you do. It is something that you become. So there is always a possibility of a false religion existing somewhere in the society. False religion is when the inner transformation has been substituted by outer ritual. Then you go on doing things and those things will become a deep-rooted habit with you, but nothing is achieved. People go to the church and the temple, and they repeat the same prayers again and again. Nothing is happening to them. Somewhere on the way they have missed; somewhere on the way they have lost the real coin — and they have substituted it by a false coin. Remember this, that the real, authentic religion is concerned with the being, not with the doing. It has nothing to do with your outer way of life. It has something to do with your center. Of course, when the center changes, the periphery follows; your outer life also changes. But the reverse is not true: you can change the periphery — the center will not change. And you win live the life of a hypocrite, a life of hypocrisy. You will have a different periphery from the center, not only different but just the opposite, the very contrary. And you will be split in two. Religion is not ritual. Remember that. Religion is an inner consciousness, an inner awakening. Many things on the surface will change, but the change must occur within you first. The true religion is existential. Buddha lived it, Jesus lived it -- but remember, Jesus was not a Christian and Buddha was not a Buddhist, he had never heard of the word. The truly religious people have been simply religious, they have not been dogmatic. It has always happened to only a few people and then it disappears from the earth because the intellectuals immediately grab it and they start making beautiful ideologies out of it -- neat and clean, logical. In that very effort they destroy its beauty. They create philosophies, and religion disappears. ISIS talks about Jihad. It is very easy to die for religion but very difficult to live for it. Actually, it is always easy to die for some cause. All that is needed is a kind of madness. Dying happens in a moment, so even a single moment of insanity is quite enough. But to live, awareness and wakefulness are essential. Only those who live for religion know religion. Those who martyr themselves for religion do not know it at all. You cannot understand Jesus through a priest. He himself has not known. He has read, he has thought, he has contemplated, he has speculated, philosophized. Yes, he has a very cultivated mind, he knows the scripture; but to know the scripture is not to know Jesus. To know Jesus you will have to know your innermost nothingness. Without knowing it you cannot make anybody else acquainted with Jesus. Repressing your desires and destroying your desires is not the way of celibacy, because if you repress your desires you will remain hung-up with them. Repression can never bring freedom. Repression makes you a slave. Repress anything, and that will become your master. So the so-called celibates in the monasteries are continuously obsessed with sex.

@Prabhaker What you refer to is a little bit inaccurate as it depicts only the Hinayana and sutrayana path of buddhism, the path of renunciation. But this is not the only path that exists within buddhism. Actually, there are three principal paths or methods of teachings, none being more perfect or effective than another. In fact, all are really precious. 1) The path of renunciation (that you talk about) : The sutra teachings of the buddha, the four noble truths. The basic principle is that, to bring an end to th suddering, it is necessary to renounce or abstain from carrying actions that produce negative karma. By observing rules/ precepts and guarding one's body/speech/ mind, one's mind rests more easilly in concentration and mindfulness is more easilly guarded all day. (Imagine if you had to follow 252 rules how mindful you would be of your actions, words, thoughts). The conduct is not the goal, nor is the renunciation. This is just a tool for wisdom to develop more easilly, and reaching a state where you realize that there was nothing to renounce. In fact, a thai monk, Ajahn Chah, used to say : "I'm always talking about things to develop and things to give up, but, really, there's nothing to develop and nothing to give up" 2) The path of transformation The path of transformation can be found in tantric teachings and are based on the knowledge and application of energy. In Vajrayana or secret mantra, for example, nothing is to be renounced, and it is considered a violation to discard anything. (In vajrayana, one must recognize every thought to be the display of wisdom, every sound to be the sound of mantra, and all form to be the display of deities). If anger arises, for example, instead of blocking the anger by seeing the negative consequences of it as in the path of renunciation, the tantric practionner uses its energy as a means for transformation by visualizing himself as transformed into a wrathful form of deity. Much harder to do, and much more dangerous, but if done well, brings tremendous insights. 3) The path of self-liberation In atiyoga, or the dzogchen path, there is nothing to renounce or to transform. Easy, one can say, but if one does not have sufficient capacity, this self liberation will not bring real results and it is then advised that one should use whatever method is suited to the situation until one has acquired deep knowledge of self-liberation. In fact, many accomplished 'buddhist' yogis had a wife, children, a regular job and did not renounce anything of this life. Therefore, any spiritual practice cannot be defined by such dichotomy and all teachings meet at one point. They are tools to reach this meeting point where tools are not needed anymore and teachings can be discarded. So we cannot make hasty judgements about how it looks from the outside.

@aryberry That's not what I meant there. I meant ego is tricky in this way. When someone see's someone who has recently shed their ego, the peace of mind is obvious. When someone sees someone who shed their ego long ago, and has been living the life they have been choosing, and are fulfilled and content and living in the now, it can appear to to someone else who believes in their own enlightenment, but has not created their reality, that the person has never undergone any processes or transformation to begin with.

From time to time, unconscious emotions – anger, fear, hate, jealousy, greed, lust, cowardice, etc, run our life. Or it might be more appropriate to say they ruin our life. They are unconscious because they take possession of us often for no rational reason, or with a strength that is out of proportion to the situation that provoked them. For sex, for anger, for greed, unawareness is a basic requirement. If you repress sex you will become angry; the whole energy that was becoming sex will become anger. If you repress anger too you will become greedy; the whole energy that was becoming anger will become greedy. If you repress greed too, arises ego, pride. That’s why you will find the most crystallized egos in the monks and the nuns. You will not find such crystallized egos anywhere else. The more a person renounces, the more he represses, the more egoistic he becomes. They have done impossible things!” Now a great ‘I’ arises, the ego becomes strengthened. The transformation can happen only if first you accept your natural being. Whatsoever is natural is good. Yes, more is possible, but the more will be possible only if you accept your nature with totality — if you welcome it, if you have no guilt about it. To be guilty, to feel guilty, is to be irreligious. In the past you have been told just the opposite: Feel guilty and you are religious. I say to you: Feel guilty and you will never be religious. Drop all guilt! A non-repressed person becomes a non-egoist; he cannot carry the ego. There is no prop to support it. He becomes humble, he becomes simple, he becomes ordinary, he has no claim — he knows he is nothing.

It is a growth: a growth of your total living, out of your total living. Meditation is not something that can be added to you as you are. It can come to you only through a basic transformation, a mutation. It is a flowering, a growth. Growth is always out of the total; it is not an addition. You must grow toward meditation. This total flowering of the personality must be understood correctly. Otherwise one can play games with oneself; one can occupy oneself with mental tricks. And there are so many tricks! Not only can you be fooled by them, not only will you not gain anything, but in a real sense you will be harmed. The very attitude that there is some trick to meditation – to conceive of meditation in terms of method – is basically wrong. And when one begins to play with mental tricks, the very quality of the mind begins to deteriorate. Meditation comes to you. It always comes; you cannot bring it. But one has to be in search of it, because only when you are in search will you be open to it, vulnerable to it. You are a host to it. Meditation is a guest. You can invite it and wait for it. It comes to everybody who is ready, who is open and seeking.

Yoga’s emphasis on celibacy is not because it is against sex: it is simply making a different use of it, a positive use of sex energy. So yoga works on energy directly, it does not worry about awareness. It says that as the energy increases, you will start becoming more aware. Yoga means that now there is no hope, now there is no future, now there are no desires. So many become interested, but very few enter because your interest may be just because of your mind. Total despair is needed.Become totally hopeless – no future, no hope. Difficult. Needs courage to face the real. But such a moment comes to everyone, some time or other. A moment comes to every human being when he feels total hopelessness. Absolute meaninglessness happens to him. When he becomes aware that whatsoever he is doing is useless, wheresoever he is going, he is going to nowhere, all life is meaningless – suddenly hopes drop, future drops, and for the first time you are in tune with the present, for the first time you are face to face with reality. Unless this moment comes to you... You can go on doing asanas, postures; that is not yoga. Yoga is an inward turning. It is a total about-turn. When you are not moving into the future, not moving toward the past, then you start moving within yourself – because your being is here and now, it is not in the future. You are present here and now, you can enter this reality. Most of the Indians are hypocrites. It is very difficult to repress sexual energy for a person who is living a life in which he is well adjusted in society. If you repress sex you will become angry; the whole energy that was becoming sex will become anger. And it is better to be sexual than to be angry. In sex at least there is something of love; in anger there is only pure violence and nothing else. If sex is repressed, the person becomes violent — either to others he will be violent, or to himself. These are the two possibilities: either he will become a sadist and will torture others, or he will become a masochist and will torture himself. But torture he will. You repress sex, anger bubbles up; you repress anger.The moment you repress anger you become greedy. Mahavira taught non-violence, and the result has been that all the followers of Mahavira became the most greedy people in the world. Repression is not the way: transformation is the way. Don’t repress anything. If sexuality is there, don’t repress it otherwise you will create a new complexity — which will be more difficult to tackle. And if you repress anger, greed is even more difficult then, and if you repress greed, arises ego, pride, which is the most difficult thing to drop. Meditation is way of transforming sexual energy.

What are some things that you Actualizerz feel are good "mental/ physical/spiritual" preparations for intensive PD workshops, etc? I recently made a Mala for Meditation. One of the words I used in the mantra was *Transformation*. Within a week, there was a message in my inbox for a PD workshop with the same name! I ended up getting a bursary for the full $500 cost, and another bursary to cover my child care too!!! Incredible!!! I haven't had to conform, be in one spot, pay attention, etc...*full-time* in at least a decade! This is only a week, but it's a full, deep, intensive week! I feel like I'm having a PD growth spurt (similar to when I first began this a year and a half ago). Some of my beliefs, etc... can change on the drop of a dime, and I'm fantastically open. That said, I have a tendency to go overboard (like blacking out from sleep dep doing homework, etc). How can I go into this deeply, with full awareness, while at the same time, having this be gentle enough for me that I don't get totally overwhelmed. My motives are pure and true, I am prepared to release, travel into my dark corners, etc...Still, I have been (at least subconsciously) often more resistant and judgemental. How can I dive into this fully, to allow the ultimate blossoming to occur?

Iceland? Luxembourg? Rotterdam? I live on the west coast of BC...to me this is paradise....but home is where the heart is, anything is what you make of it, it's all about perception: is the cup half empty/ doomed, or is the cup half full/ ready for radical positive transformation?

I've been getting back into music making through guitar and electronic production and was seeing what some of the younger musicians were doing. I started watching this one lady's Indy electronic interviews and discussions she had on YouTube. I looked at her face & her I though her nose was very straight & odd. I figured maybe she was born like that. I didn't think much about it. Like with most beautiful women, the comment section was filled with typical one-track minded guys talking with their trousers warming their ankles. So as I went backwards in time on the videos & discussions to watch her creative process & the gear she used, just a few years ago, a place showed her apartment & "Holy Shit", it was like I was staring at an entirely different human being!!! The previous form of this human being was not as pretty as the one I'd been watching. However, after seeing the old version, I thought the new version looked entirely fake. After watching that video of her "before" face & then watching some afterwards, I could no longer listen to what she was saying. I was completely put off by the fact that the face I was looking at was a surgical creation...done for no reason than vanity. And also hearing in that last interview how the discussion went from music production to the dull world of money & business (the kind where you sign other artists & take a cut off the top or commission). I had to stop watching her & this transformative process from ugly, music producing person to beautiful, business/money-oriented person. I daresay I found it quite repulsive. At any rate, I recall Leo saying as one of his missions was to get us to improve ourselves in such a way that in 10 years time, we would no longer recognise ourselves! I can't think of any other more extreme measure in personal transformation than getting plastic surgery! I mean, once your face is altered, you're treated differently in the environment. For instance, in the above example, the woman went from no real comments about her looks in her normal form, to every guy wanting to fuck her & saying so in the comments section. Her looks "trumping" her talents by offering an improved illusion of flesh. It's not something I've normally seen with someone so young before either. But I was curious: does it work? If you get your face fucked with by the knife, wouldn't that lead to unrecognizable transformative effects? I'm sure there's a lot of risks, but you see shit-tons of people doing it. Like tattoos I guess. Anyone know anyone with positive plastic surgery effects to self-development? Maybe we should get nose jobs? hahaha.

An assignment at school has opened up a gate and now my brain is just flooded with ideas for exercises. You could say that those are like deliberate practice for information workers. If you've got any ideas for exercises, go ahead and post them here. If you've got any stories or experiences to report on the subject, I'm sure we'd be incredibly grateful. ------------------------------------------ I call them the KnowYourStuff exercises. Because if you don't know your stuff, you can't do them. The truth is, if you're really passionate about what you do, and if you're good enough, you'll accomplish them with ease. And, in fact, you'll be able to treat them like play. Some of these exercises are really fun and you can take the crazy to really high degrees. ------------------------------------------ Anyways, without further ado, here they are: The 4-Minute Conversion The 4-Hour Essay The 3-Circle Vision The 2-Step 3-Circle Vision The Top 3 of the Field Package The Crazy Scenarios The Paradox The MOST Inspiring Quote The One Terrible Aspect Procrastination Transformation Create your own exercises.