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ACIM bringing out my past trauma with religion into consciousness I haven't been doing ACIM workbook exercises for a long time and instead decided to read the textbook chapters/theory. Due to Christian langauge and themes in it, it unexpectedly triggered or uncovered trauma or fears I had. Because I was a religious Muslim in the past and all that, it seems I have a lot of left over fears. What I still have embedded in my psyche is a punitive and fearful worldview of god. Afraid that god will strike me down for sin. Afraid of being luciferean in my thinking lest god strike inflict vengeance. Made me then realise that any notion of sin or karma engenders fear. You think you have sinned against god, and hence you see the world as a form of vengeance which will strike you at any moment. You walk around thinking the world always has strings attached, which is further elaboration of seeing the world as a place of vengeance. Because in the unconscious is shame about your very own existence and you don't think you're worthy to exist. Funnily enough, the material in ACIM is about undoing exactly that, and I initially projecting all of that onto ACIM. This is all described pretty well in this thing I found. https://facim.org/the-fear-of-god-and-compassion-for-others-part-1/ -- I was also afraid of being dragged into another belief system by reading all this due to all the phrasing, since I had been harmed by belief systems in the past And then I realised a more general fear I had A general fear of mythology, images, stories, beliefs. Fear of being confused, being lost, fear of my own mind and fear of chaos. The strange terminology of "Father", "Son", "Holy Spirit", etc made me all scared whilst reading, untill I saw this other quote in the book. Made me realise that fear of defilement or of dirtying oneself is ultimately falsehood. Which is a fear that you've killed god. Fear being the opposite of love. And then I thought about how hard it is to overcome fear in practice. But I can't bring myself to abandon fear, I tell myself, because there's a purpose to it surely, etc. The world is that harsh. To be fully loving is metaphysical suicide --- I'm not sure what emotion/state is worse than shame in its pure/abstract form. Since shame is the inherent hatred of one's own existence, and that entails self destruction and suicidality eventually

@Endangered-EGO It doesn't matter what I say, so long as I sing with inflection that makes you feel I'll convey some inner truth or vast reflection. But I've said nothing so far, and I can keep it up for as long as it takes, and it don't matter who you are, If I'm doing my job then it's your resolve that breaks. Because the hook brings you back, I ain't tellin' you no lie. The hook brings you back, on that you can rely. There is something amiss, I am being insincere. In fact I don't mean any of this, still my confession draws you near. To confuse the issue I refer, to familiar heroes from long ago. No matter how much Peter loved her, what made the Pan refuse to grow was that the hook brings you back, I ain't tellin' you no lie. The hook brings you back, on that you can rely. Suck it in suck it in suck it in, If you're Rin Tin Tin or Anne Boleyn. Make a desperate move or else you'll win and then begin to see what you're doing to me, this MTV is not for free, It's so PC it's killing me, so desperately I sing to thee of love. Sure, but also of rage and hate and pain and fear of self, and I can't keep these feelings on the shelf. I've tried, well no in fact I lied, could be financial suicide but I've got too much pride inside to hide or slide, I'll do as I'll decide and let it ride until I've died and only then shall I abide this tide of catchy little tunes, of hip three minute ditties. I wanna bust all your balloons, I wanna burn all your cities to the ground. I've found I will not mess around unless I play then hey, I will go on all day. Hear what I say, I have a prayer to pray, that's really all this was, and when I'm feeling stuck and need a buck I don't rely on luck because the hook brings you back, I ain't tellin' you no lie. The hook brings you back, on that, you can rely. John Popper, waf harmonisist.

Hey Guys. Thank you so much for the Tips and support ... I am just looking in to all your responses now. UPDATE : I currently seem to be fluctuating between OK/acceptable quality sleep (about 7 Hours+) every day & then not ok sleep the next day (E.g I typically will sleep ok on day 1, then only sleep 5 hours the next day, waking up prematurely around 5AM this is the current typical pattern). I am going to try and PUSH for a solution ... I really don't want this shit anymore. I can't take it. Conclusion : I will try melatonin and looking in to the other responses. I will also get an MRI scan if I can. It just seems like Mri would be mysterious and hard to do maybe not, but health care systems are always "busy", I feel like i'll never get appointments. Also I drink caffiene most days, sometimes with coffee sometimes just tea or geen tea. But I never drink after half 11. I eat dark chocolate every morning and normally have some coffee or tea about 9-11:30 And sometimes I sleep fine with caffiene and can't sleep even without caffiene. But they say caffiene effects you for "9 Hours" ... Could it be that I just should consume NO CAFFIENE ever, even dark chocolate, because maybe it effects me for a lot longer ? As for "PTSD" > I'm really not sure if I qualify or not. I was Beet up fairly badly last year, but the doctor said after that I had no serious physical conditions. I also had a "traumatic experience" on LSD at a festival 2.5 years ago. It was a very very bad dark trip with intense anxiety that felt like it lasted a longg time. Again I doubt that this qualifies. @Ananta You say you "had insomnia for 15 years" > Do you mean that you just suffered for 15 years and it ruined your life ... or that you had it but the prescription solved the problem so you were still happy and functional ? Do Presciption drugs for insomnia usually have bad side effects ? And thank you .. i'll try melatonin Also does anyone think CBD could be a viable solution ? (It's quite expensive and hard to access in my country, but i've heard good things) I've heard leo talk about heavy metal detox. Maybe that could be a reason ? (In august - september I was eating tinned tuna every day, i've stopped now but maybe that didn't help) I just hope it's not a sever neurological problem, I see no reason to live if this is true. I will probably commit suicide if I find out I have a sever brain problem

Nice, lol, compare him to Jones who urged hundreds of his followers to drink cyanide-laced punch in what he called a "revolutionary suicide", killing 918 ppl. Very dramatic. I won't be drinking any laced punch any time soon. Sorry to disappoint. ?

Actualizing in a Psych Ward Part 4: I am Here, I am Present Despite the shocking circumstance I have been placed in, I have tried to remain as present as possible. I found being present and in the moment a necessity especially given my anxiety, both about being in the psych ward and what I need to do after. Every time I caught my mind wandering into a spiral of what am I going to do about school, I tried to bring myself back to the present moment. There isn't anything that is school related I could do right at that moment. I didn't have access to any of my materials, a computer, internet, or means to contact my professors. There is no use in worrying about it right now. The only thing thinking about this will do is that it will take me away from the now and into a state of anxiety and helplessness. It's counterproductive and irresponsible when it comes to getting better to say the least. I also tried to journal about my thoughts and feelings during my time in the ward since it is a lot to process. A lot of the content of those entries have been summarized in the previous posts. While it is a lot to process and a lot of that processing can be dealt with by being present, after being in the psych ward for five days, I still needed time to let out all of my emotions regarding the situation. I feel that there is only so much you can process when your primary objective is to survive. Sometimes you get so caught up in surviving and saving your ass that you don't have enough time or energy to take everything in. And that's fine. After anything like this it's important to keep yourself in check and be gentle with yourself for a while. During that time I decided to meditate as much as possible and to note down any of my insights. I have explained some of them including my own shadow work and my evaluation of the mental health system I was dropped into. There will be more to come in future sections. This video does explain pretty well about how the place was like. While I didn't have the experience of being tied up and given medication against my will, it felt as if I was being punished for having issues rather than getting help. There is a lot of critiques that can be made in how we approach mental health and suicidal tendencies. It is definitely an over kill for a large chunk of the people who have a lot of issues with depression. In this video I believe she does say that after people get released from the psych ward, there is a period of about 3 months where that person is at more risk of suicide and self harm. Given my experience I can see how that can be the case. While I didn't have the urge to do anything reckless upon leaving, I felt really shaken up by the experience to where I decided to take time off of school. There is no way I can makeup 2 tests, 2 3 hour long discussions, and a term paper in a state like this. Again, it's a lot to process. Going off of the stats of how people feel for about 3 months after the visit, I think it is absolutely insane to be put in a facility for wanting to kill yourself only to want to kill yourself more after the stay!?!?!?! That makes for not only an ineffective system but a counterproductive one.

Yeah it’s practically suicide to not love yourself enough to meditate for at least 20 minutes a day.

Just suffer through it and don't entertain any thoughts of suicide. You will come out fine in a few weeks. It's just a temporary chemical low. It will lift rather quickly.

Stage blue on gender: This culture has turned its back on Jesus. This is what we were warned about in 2 Timothy, where people are unholy and ungrateful in the end times. Where "men can be women" and "women can be men". God gave you a body that was perfectly designed for you and your soul. This generation is idolatary; it's created a religion from this gender theory - did you know that the founder of gender theory caused two brothers to commit suicide? - and they say it's about compassion, but really they just hate God. They only want to spite him. So sad, Jesus better be coming soon.

Good points, but I have to disagree with the above ones. Unless we are saying that ISIS suicide bombers are spiritual masters. They sure are confident.

I am not able to cope any longer, to sweep my emotions under the rug and keep the appearance of calmness in order to not hurt or please people and to go through the next work-week and upcoming text for English next week, which I need to study for today, tomorrow, and in Sunday, through the force of my own will, my body patterns, emotions, and mental focus and sharpness is wearing me down and tiring me too much for me being able to do it through force and reasoning and boasting myself as an earlier and through pure force of will. I need to discuss with someone my thoughts and emotions that have been plaguing me and suicidal imaginations and thoughts about my current life situation , my imagined and felt mother's connection with me and my imagined feelings of her feelings that she went through when she committed suicide and the similar behavior patterns, emotional patterns and reasoning and thought patterns that I notice sometimes, and now more oftenly within myself and that I display that I share with her in that regard and I can't discuss it with my family. I couldn because I need to keep a calm and collected veneer for them in order for me to not upset them and hurt them and I don't know currently what friends I would be able to discuss this with without it being too much for them and I don't know if I can afford to see a therapist again in my current sensitive life circumstances, not so much financial but familial wise. ( When several times now I feel a sudden surge of fear or was in a panicked mode, also from some thoughts and emotions that I had and I couldn't let go off of myself and my current life situation and family circumstances I went into and sat to meditate no my grandfather's bed, where my mother at the time, also when she was staying here in my grandparents home, was situated and lied on when she committed suicide in 2006. when I was 7., I felt an urge and impulse to go into that room that is in dark and lie down or sit down to meditate because I couldnt keep myslef collected and my body calm, and not nervous when I sat down to finish studying of chapters for my in English at Monday. I had thoughts and emotions of my mother that surfaced up about her final hours and thoughts and feelings during them on that bed and my and family's and wider relatives resulting life trajectory from that event. There were mixed feelings and thoughts of grudge towards my mother from reasoning that she was responsible for the lacks in my upbringing for not being there and to teach me herself the strength, calm and endurance that she had when she was healthy and very succesful in her carreer and life, for deciding to move back to Serbia where people and life seem to much more difficult to deal with than in Canada and that I would have more of a sense of security for my future, job security not dependent on social connections and skills, which I currently l feel I severly lack her now due to my own huge wasted proportion of time in addictions, faults, missed experiences and opportunties in working on, cultivating and keeping social connections and relationships with people I felt at moments hared a similiarity with in terms of my life situation, interests, skills or personality, that I didn't work during my adolescent years and my 20's that most kids my age have been taught,clearned and mastered up until this point and have adapted to the rules of adult world here and know how to effectively and rationally deal with them in order to move forward in life and for putting me in the life situation that I am in currentlly now with my father and feelings that I want to escape this and join her and that I somehow need to muster the strength and endurance to meet the demands and challenges ahead that are in front of me). Sorry for the grammar errors, I am writing this in a pretty desperate state just to get some things out of me that I have been sweeping under the rug and were unable to emotionally and reasonably open up to anyone in an adequate way in order to not just complain to anyone as an excuse to avoid work and challenges in life that I have to do and that is in front of me going ahead. I will write more clearly in the future once I reasonably start to manage and articulate all these things and thought, emotinal and survival patterns that have been a heavy toll on me over this and last week, sorry for not being able to currently correct it now my whole body tense up and my mind can't really cope with it when I tried to do it. I felt I needed to talk to someone, who can show me some compassion and understand me slightly about my thoughts and emotions, because I was unable today to no longer sweep it under the rug and keep my will and reasoning ability with people, situations and demands from reality in check, I felt and thought at moments, when I sat down to meditate for 20 minutes in my grandafther's room an hour ago, that I wanted to escape all of this by ending myself as an easier, less painful and less demanding route, and had thoughts and emotions come up about being willing to reincarnate as a bug or some other animal, but then feelings of guilt of not betraying the people that rely on me and some blurry memory from my childhood some short time after my mother commited suicide of me at 7. or 8. year's old answering to my father who asked me: ''If I would kill myself now, son, would you kill yourself with me." and answering to him: ,,No dad, I don't know about you but I want to live life.'' which caused me to wimper a bit and shed a tear afterwards when I rembered it, but at the same time led me to encourage myself in my head to not give up and to face what's ahead of me. Sorry for writing in this manner I couldn't keep my thoughts and emotions clear, and was slightly unable and unwilling to invest mental focus and labor to write this more clearly and conscisely for people who read it to understand better, sorry for the succumbing to selfishness in that regard. Thank's to anyone who is willing to have a conversation with me and willing to listen to my problems.

I don't reckon gore videos are good for this sort of thing. I don't think they're helpful or important. But I'm not saying that you shouldn't do it. Gore videos are mostly like watching a mindless horror event. Putting aside the gore videos involving intentional violence, with murder and suicide. Maybe it invokes something positive from you when you watch someone dying in an accident going about their day to day life. Doesn't really invoke that in me. There isn't any emotionality and sentiment to a gore video. Maybe if it was a documentary or news report combined, talking about who the person was and giving it context, I think it would be meaningful. Otherwise you're just seeing blood and violence (accidental violence) where there's no soft emotional impact to it. It's just a gross video.

@blankisomeone Many a poetic, emotional and thoughtful people have committed suicide. If you felt your life was reaching an end or conclusion, anyone would become existential and emotional. Often times the people who are most disturbed and in suffering are the most existential and romantic. (Careful not to draw an arrow of causality there) You see, there's one big romance all humans invariably have. And that's the ego. Deep down, we are in love with our life story and our own journey. We don't find anything as interesting as ourselves. And this is universally a source of emotion, poetic ramblings, etc.

Teachers are in the dream. There isn’t actually a dream though. Any “enlightened” teacher is only appearing to teach. There are no teachers. Ramana never taught anything. Have you ever performed self inquiry to its end? Just how many people do you think went through that ordeal? Not many. Anyone who actually did it was going to do it anyway, even if via literal suicide by gunshot to the head, which people do all the time. God would never stop the rape of a child, because there is only infinite everything. Infinity doesn’t just put things into perspective, it destroys any pretense of separation.

It seems to me that essentially what you are asking here is "How do I know what's true?" aka "What can I truly trust?". As the oracle said "It is a pickle, no doubt about it..." This pursuit of truth has puzzled most western philosophers, led countless people to commit suicide or become paranoid and resulted in a ton of weird literature without much to offer for all that effort in return. And yet the answer was always there within you hiding in plain sight. Let's see if I can help you notice the little bugger that's been causing all that needless suffering. First a bit of context is needed... There exists a parallel world of words that was created by you and resides in your memory that your ego's been using to play tricks on you. Words are just noises that you store in your memory warehouse for the purposes of communicating your experiences. They are not really our world, they are just useful. The only reason we are asking a question like "How do I know this glass really exists?" is because we have created the concept of glass in the first place. What you are referring to as a glass is actually just you experiencing something that's denser at that location. The glass is no more separate from its environment than your hair is separate from your head. Why is this important? Because understanding this collapses the whole need to answer the question of whether the glass is real or not, because there was never a glass to begin with. This in turn frees you from doubting your senses because your senses never really told you there was a glass there, that was just a belief you were taught to tell yourself, and the price of every belief is doubt. Doubt is really just a reminder that this is something you made up in your mind. So the first thing to do to free yourself from this issue is to ask yourself - are you having doubts about your experiences or about the stories that you are running in your head regarding those experiences? Very quickly you will realize that doubting experiences doesn't make sense because even doubting your experiences is an experience. Doubt belongs to the parallel world of beliefs. Truth however is to be found within the real world of experience... Next time you have some feeling become aware of that feeling, don't distract yourself with thoughts. Then observe what's the difference between feeling a feeling and thinking about a feeling. This will restore the proper split between the real world of experience and the parallel world of concepts which is just your own creation. As you pay more and more attention to your feelings, observe how certain experiences don't make sense to you and feel meaningless and how other experiences make sense to you and feel meaningful and attract you. This is your inner compass. It's always been there for you but you were taught to ignore or suppress it by the collective ego. The ego tries to convince your heart (which btw is impossible) that this may not feel meaningful now but it will start making sense once some bs goal is reached. Once you reach that goal, there might be a slight sense of accomplishment but essentially it won't change anything - that's why a lot of people when they get rich - they become more depressed because they have no more stories left to fool themselves with and the unaddressed existential crisis that was suppressed for a lifetime finally starts to re-surface again at full power. The reason why the ego is doing that is because it maintains itself through struggle if there's no struggle it will be gone, so it better try to convince you that struggling makes sense. It better try to convince you to doubt your heart... And finally the key... You say "since our minds are so malleable and under great external influence." In order for somebody to be in integrity he or she needs to know who he or she is, because integrity is to be true to one's self. The unaware person is indeed volatile for they don't have any standard to be in integrity with. Yesterday it was trendy to become a doctor, the unaware person signed up at the medical university. The day after that someone said software engineering is the best career to have, a bunch of unaware people started signing up for that. Only to realize they hate it and they suck at it too. Our minds are not really malleable or under great external influence because feelings are not choices. You can't be convinced to feel love or happiness, I dare you to try it. What you can be convinced to do is to ignore your feelings because you are the captain of your ship, the feelings are there to guide you. Now I bet you won't date a person you aren't attracted to, right? It never works out. So why "date" any other thing in life that you are not attracted to? Realize that attraction is not a choice and you will reclaim your trusty inner compass again. After that - follow your inspiration without hesitation or you will end following your hesitation without inspiration. Cheers.

Oh, they are perhaps even better for that purpose. You can use psychedelics to accomplish some crazy deep healing of psychological trauma and wounds. Not long ago I had this crazy experience where I became my own father and healed some deep baggage from my childhood which simply would not be possible otherwise or through any kind of talk therapy. I never had a lot of trauma so I mostly don't use psychedelics for that. But many people would benefit enormously from it. It could save hundreds of thousands of people from depression, rage, self-hate, abuse, and suicide. Once you're able to access states of infinite love, the healing potential for psychological trauma is unmatched. If psychedelics were widely available, talk therapists would be out of a job. So would gurus.

What is worth doing and what isn't worth doing depends totally on what kind of person you are and what your goal in life is. People dedicate their lives to many things, for example some find gaming a waste of time (especially on self-help forums like this), while others make a career out of it. For the first person there are a set of different values and priorities, that's why he or she might find gaming a distraction from those values, for example if the said person finds value in studying and taking courses or maintaining high grades in a university setting. Then gaming will mean distraction and loss of valuable time that could've been used for studying. For the second person, if he or she games more, that's just more experience for his or her gaming career, so it's a win for them. So you see, it totally depends what your likes, dislikes, values and principles in life are. And even if the person is pursuing a different goal than becoming a professional gamer or a professional beatboxer, like you mentioned, or a singer.. doing things even for fun can have value in it. Like you see many professional people in all areas of life, some of them will take up a hobby like an instrument, singing, beatboxing, gaming, sports, etc. Because we are human, not work-robots or money-making machines, in the end. Things can be valuable for different reasons. Sometimes just as raw and basic value like part of survival (you're gaming after a long day of work to ease stress, or else you'd go insane or even commit suicide, without something to calm you and take the stress away), other times as complex as providing value for society in various ways or leaving behind knowledge for the coming ages (for people spending hours a days on Quora, forums, blogs/vlogs, people making free courses, people who share their knowledge, people who volunteer as listeners to people in emotional crisis). Or taking walks in nature for your well-being. Or making art for therapeutic purposes, or just because you simply like it. There's no need to be always a serious reason behind the things you do. Things you enjoy doing are usually not a waste of time. It's helpful to know the deep reasons behind your actions if you want to hold yourself accountable and to not lose time on less important things when there needs to be more focus on the important ones. Most of the things you do will be survival related, but that's okay. It still helps to be conscious of them. And other times things you do will be for purely the sake of happiness it brings. High values are usually: responsibility, discipline, perfection, ambition, hard-work. But you can also find value in recreational activities and connection with others, that's why people sing, dance and create art without making money from it. If every time you beatboxed you had to do it for money, would it have the same value and meaning to you? Some things cannot be measured by money and they're still valuable. For example if you want a good relationship, you might invest money in it (relationship therapy, gifts, vacations, traveling, creating a home for you two), but the relationship itself doesn't have a monetary value. Your girlfriend won't have a price because she is not an object. And you cannot buy a relationship, it just doesn't work that way. Nor does the relationship bring money to you (or at least it shouldn't), yet you find value in going out on dates. Neither can you buy health. You can buy things to improve your health, but most things to maintain your health are free, like exercise and good sleep. You cannot buy sleep, you cannot buy health if you destroyed it with smoking or fast food. Health doesn't have a monetary price, yet it's very valuable, if not the most valuable thing. Health is not money, yet you pursue activities to maintain your health. You cannot buy reputation, yet it is valuable and you make actions to be viewed as a good person. You cannot buy talent, but it has value. Friends are not money, yet you may find value in friendship. And so on... Yes, you need a career and you need to make a living, but you cannot base your whole life on only pursuing money. Maybe you're in a phase of life when you are working towards a career and that's why now money and success is the most important thing. Being financially independent is a very fundamental thing and you should work towards it very early in life. Just don't neglect other things you find valuable either. Because you'll never be happy by only pursuing money and fame. And the best way to earn money is through your passions, but only if they are realistic. So I think pursuing your passions, working towards financial independence and hanging out with friends, having a relationship, etc. and hobbies are all worth pursuing. And things that are unrealistic, are bad to your reputation, or your health or are making you lazy are not worth pursuing.

If you are in fact free from suffering, ignore this: Enlightenment = shame so intense that it dissolves into cosmic suicide. Insanely terrible. But how can “you” know what’s true if there is no you? “Tricky” as Leo says, doesn’t cut it. Experience is delusion? Is delusion bad? Of course not. Because neither is death. There is only “is.” What is liberation? And for whom? There is only happiness. Maybe I’m coming from a different perspective. For me, sadness is the most transcendent form of happiness. Literally, I’m weird. Unless somehow the actual emotion of sadness has been completely hidden from me. I love nothing more than sadness, and also gratitude. What could be more beautiful than sadness?

No, but they are more enlightened then someone higher up the spiral. Enlightenment is basically just returning to where you began. So in my opinion the spiral starts at enlightenment and as you go up you are getting further away from enlightenment, but ultimately circling around back to enlightenment. I suspect that is why people become enlightened period. I don't think any human has actually gone all the way up the spiral and come back to enlightenment yet. The people who become enlightened are because they fall so low on the spiral by some freak accident they flip to the other side. For example Eckhart Tolle talked about how he was basically on the verge of suicide from the meaningless and apathy he felt when his experience happened. True apathy is the lowest a human can go, if you go lower then it you may find out you don't exist at all. That could also be why meditation and silencing the mind leads to enlightenment, because you are almost tricking yourself into not existing by not thinking. Stage blue or stage red people can seem primitive but a lot of the time they are actually more connected to the stillness and acceptance than say a stage orange or green person from what I've seen.

Suicide was created by ego for long term survival. Since we are conscious enough to understand that now, and at present have enough technology within and outside to overcome suffering, suicide should no longer be an option.

Smh ... when I was a kid I was very depressed. For the past 5 years I have been living in bliss of creation . However my mom still worried that I might be depressed cause Some person she knows killed themself. I can’t explain to her that I can’t die and how I know that and also I can’t just be like yooooo bruh loooook at this looook how amazing I made this this this is heaven why would I wanna leave? I would just sound crazy. I’m so in love with my creation. It’s magnificent

Depends on what you mean by enlightened states. Jhana 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and the unfabricated (nirvana; end of time) might aptly be called enlightened states. Unity consciousness, when experienced, will pretty much invariably be assumed to be the goal of the spiritual path when it is made lasting (it pretty much never lasts). Same with jhana 3 and higher, oftentimes. What I mean by enlightenment is the complete collapse of the real sense of here/there, now/then, I/you, distance, good/bad, personal doer-ship, and reality in any sense whatsoever, to the point where it is inconceivable that any self that is separate from everything could "come back," because it's recognized it wasn't actually ever there -- the only thing that seems to be able to bring this about is absolute egoic suicide. Perhaps there is a pleasant path that somehow leads to it, but it would only be pleasant by virtue of doing extremely pleasant things in meditation, etc. The enlightenment would happen completely in spite of the pleasantness. The pleasantness only serving to make the process less painful. I can imagine some may not only get enlightened pain free, but filled with bliss -- that would be due to profound meditation skill. No idea if it's true though. And of course, no one gets enlightenment.

The premise of this thread is a complete misunderstanding. Near-enlightenment is like a lucid dream, but instead of running around excitedly, there's just a role and there's the absolute obviousness that anything behind that role (a person) is completely full of shit, because there is no person. Ever felt a peculiar trustworthiness and unthreatened-ness when spending time around someone who seems to experience shame a lot? It's because they are nearer to enlightenment than the average person. Enlightenment, for many, is when that feeling of being full of shit gets so all-encompassing it completely collapses. Basically cosmic suicide. No person would seek enlightenment if they knew what is was. It's the utterly complete end of good and bad, and the beginning of "is." Sound good? It actually will to some. It did to me. It actually makes sense superficially that "the end of good and bad" could somehow be "good" but of course, that's a most obvious contradiction and impossibility. I'd recommend love and consciousness. I would never recommend enlightenment. Not that enlightenment is bad, it's just not good, and therefore it's both pointless to recommend, and just altogether pointless. Nothing changes.

@LossIf you like the life purpose course by Gura might be the very thing you need at this time, just to get your attention focused on that 1 thing. Again, if you take that path my advice is don't make it into a big deal, rather just make a deal with yourself that you're going to stick with it through the high's and low's and at the sacrifice of other things. But at the same time, acting like a suicide bomber or a high school shooter when it comes to your life purpose has real measurable positive effects when it comes to achieving the results you want in life. So its a paradox, there's this absoluteness to it and then there's this complete non-attachment, but if you imagine that dynamic as a mixing of shades of black and white there's a unique geometry to it that you don't want to mess too much with, its easy to miss it, but once you understand it and recognise it for what it is, you can use that kind of powerful force in your endeavour basically like no other

1. I mean I don't know the specifics of Biden's policies, but the fact that Trump still has not proposed an alternative to Obamacare after 3 years is a pretty clear indictment for me that he is not very smart policy-wise. 2. The performance of US economy was strong before the lockdown if you look at the stock market for sure. But be aware that while his tax cuts (which benefited the super rich for the most part) did help to boost the employment rates, the US historical data show that drastic cuts in taxes only work for a short period of time before the economic fatigue kicks in, and fundamental problems such as lack of funding to poor communities and public schools start to appear. And I am sure most people would not have blamed Trump for the GDP going down because of COVID. 3. I don't think I understand your point here. 4. Well his peace treaties might turn out well or not, but I think that getting out of the Iran deal is pretty stupid to say the least, and not very peaceful of him. 5. There is not any signs that the Democrats can do anything to the 2nd amendment. It's a political suicide if they try to touch that. At most, they might try to pass policies like better gun training or more strict background checks on a federal level. 6. I get what you mean by school choice, but the underlying problem here is that public schools are not getting the funds that they need. 7. Well as someone who grew up in China, I can assure you that most people do not even have the time to think about attacking other countries because life is busy. They are just happy that the country is stable enough to have a decent life. Sure, most chinese want to have a more cultural impact in the world (soft power), but hardly any of them are plotting the destruction of the rest of the world. Obviously, we all have to be vigilant against the CCP, but international politics is a lot more complicated than simply us versus them. 8.That is a really stretched argument to start with (fallacy of false correlations, and it is also funny that Trump inherited the booming economy of the Obama's administration and actually made it worse in many respects. 9. If by big tech censorship you mean banning conspiracy groups like Q then I don't know what to say. A reminder that these tech companies are private corporations who have absolute control over what are posted on their platforms. Last thing: And of course mainstream media reporting in general is biased because they are pushing certain narratives, but you have to also see through the hypocrisy of Fox News and far-right alternative medias. If you can't do that, then you are just as hypocritical as the medias you don't like.

Thank you all for so many amazing replies! I look forward to experimenting with the techniques & methods that people have recommended. I also would like to apologise for such a late reply to my own thread. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @Fran11 1. I plan to do a deep exploration of the world of energy work, thanks! Any advice on places to start? Books, meta-sources? 2. Do you have any practical advice for dis-identifying with the I-thought? Would it look something like a mindfulness-based 'if-then' habit, i.e.: thought arises, such as a pre-verbal judgement or something with the word 'me'/'I' in it, & as soon as I notice it, I think this thought: 'this is not me/this is just an impersonal phenomena' & try to notice that e.g. by forcing myself to feel more like a listener of it rather than the active participant in thinking it? If my interpretation is misguided, how would it look like to dis-identify from the I-thought, moment-to-moment? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @Moksha I will investigate all of these. I loved your explanation of Karma Yoga, it's about time I included more of this than just basic morality practices. Makes sense that if I'm going to do anything, it might as well be what I would do if I was identified with the whole. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- @RedLine Not yet. I'm brainstorming methods & trying to predict which will be the most effective. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @RendHeaven Firstly, thank you so much for this amazing reply & for taking the time to point out so much of the self-deception going on in my current thinking. I have only ever had one ego-death/enlightenment experience on psychedelics, which was terrifying, so I am still a novice in this area. I like this idea of personifying the psychedelics. In my next trip, I will take on the attitude that I am dealing with an alive teacher, as opposed to my previous/current more materialistic approach, where I only consider them as inanimate chemicals causing changes to my brain for the purpose of assisting me with MY motives, exactly like you said. No doubt, if I took such an attitude to learning with a human master, they probably wouldn't want to work with me at all. Makes me wonder if this old attitude contributed to me having such a challenging trip. I have contemplated this on many occasions since my first ego-death experience. Sometimes I like to do a thought experiment where I imagine that someone has a gun to my head & is about to pull the trigger. I try to make it as vivid as possible, to try to convince myself that it's really happening, then I try to accept my fate or imagine what I might actually do in this situation. Sometimes I think I can accept it, but usually, if I'm self-honest, I'm shit-scared & would try to do anything I could to escape physical death. I would never commit suicide (kill the body). What have you realized from contemplating this yourself? But how will I be able to make progress if I'm distracted by my thinking? Surely the rejection of certain parts of reality is necessary for any of this to work? Isn't doing this the lesser of two self-deceptions, with thinking/monkey-mind being the greater? Further, isn't the thinking that I wish to silence, ITSELF a form of self-rejection/rejection of the present-moment? When my mind is silent & I am in deep jhana, it feels like I can appreciate [everything] far more than when I am following along with some train of thought about the past or future, solving my problems, etc. I understand that I am acting hypocritical & unenlightened by choosing to silence the mind at the expense of other phenomena, but isn't this the lesser of two evils? You're 100% correct here, I am in pain & I see enlightenment as a way out, this is my main/strongest motivation in this work. Me no like suffering! P.s. Yes, the lords of the earth & sky bit was intended as comedic. Finally: What do you suggest I do instead? What has worked well for you? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @electroBeam What happened when you tried this? Do you have any theories as to what went wrong/why it didn't work? What's your story, Mr. Beam? Also, what do you do now instead that's more effective? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @SirVladimir Very cool reply & thanks for the headsup. It's true, I do goal-ify enlightenment probably more than I should. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @Jonty I like this practice too, very relaxing