Search the Community

you came onto this world as a baby, crying your heart out, laughing your heart out. radiating a purity beyond this world a jewel of innocence and light, then you grow up and toke on the pains of this world. status starts to matter, distinction appears, confrontation, conflict, superiority, inferiority,fear...you were sub-merged in negative energy and its qualities. But that was your choice as a spiritual being, to learn and to grow from all this. Now that we're trying to rise let's take a look at the mind. Imagine someone, running. That person is running along a track. And you keep shouting things at that person. As the person turns left you shout : ''I'm gonna turn to the left now.'' As you see the person getting tired you shout : ''I'm starting to feel tired''. As you see the sun going down in the far distance you shout : ''the sun is going down now.'' That person starts to identify with your voice, your narrative. When the person is starting to doubt you, you do everything you can to maintain your existence. So now the person is interested in spirituality and is in a feeling state of investigation towards you. You cannot betray yourself, you have to play along even if you don't want the person to investigate you. you have to narrate his investigation otherwise it will be obvious you are a foreign existence to that person. So you shout : ''hmm, am I real, is this voice I'm hearing real?'' ''is the mind real?'' You start playing along. For the sake of maintaining your existence you play the part. You're an incredible actor. But you do well to steer the person in thinking you're real, at every chance you have, you strike with absolute intent. When the person feels sad or rejected you shout : ''no one likes me, they don't truly love me, I'm all alone'' The more a person feels disconnected from their surrounding the more they retract inside, they share less with others, they stifle their real selves and turn to your for identity. You feed them your garbage : ''I shouldn't show my real emotions otherwise I'll get hurt, I'll act friendly with this person,I'll use them, but with this person I'll try to control them. I shouldn't do that. I'll get hurt. That person is bad. That thing is bad. Those people are bad. I'm bad, unworthy but he's even more unworthy'' And as time goes, the narrative isn't the one adapting itself to the person. It's the person adapting itself to the narrative. The narrative needs conflict and distinction and will feed it to you in masses because in happiness, in bliss there is never any thinking. there is being. love is connection, it's freedom, it's space, to feel free and home wherever you are,to feel united with everything, it's expansion The mind is fear, it's contraction, it's distinction, it's crippling, it's crimping, it's retraction. intelligence is not absolute, it's a gradient, love is of higher intelligence and fear is of lower intelligence. Just as you have higher levels inside yourself you you also have lower levels. Fear is the pathway to lower intelligence while love is the path to higher intelligence. with this we can start deconstructing the mind as we understand it's purpose. If you are completely happy and fulfilled you will not be thinking most of the time, as you are too busy enjoying yourself. So the mind needs war, needs conflict to exist, so that you can start planning your ''defense''. And it will do everything it can to make you believe you're in a war with your own world, just so that it can survive. The less you know, the less you believe you can do, the more you feel like you're lacking control and resources, the more you feel like you need to gain control and resources, the more aggressive and violent you become. that's why the mind is of lower intelligence and of negative energy. It is not only that, it is a gateway to more of that. That's how people spiral out of control in murder, rape, war...they spiritually descent. It cannot embody love because it is not intelligent enough to do so. and when it does it's merely playing along. to make your mind think positive is to literally destroy it, which is why it's so hard to hold positive thoughts. Fear is the manifestation of negative energy, which leads to lower intelligence, less understanding, makes you believe in lack of control,and leads you downright to conflict and pain. Love is the manifestation of positive energy, higher intelligence and understanding. leads you upright to divinity That's why I say that intelligence is not static. You can higher or lower your intelligence at will depending on which energy you try to tune into. it's your choice there's no such thing as IQ scores in my book. they're merely a construct of the mind to bring division and confusion, making you believe your intelligence is static. Now to crack down on the mind is to see it's vulnerabilities. the cracks in the shields. The mind is of fear and cannot coexist with love so all it's vulnerabilities will show up when confronted to love. Have you ever heard you mind say ''we should kill that person or I wish that person would die'' and then you'd feel in your heart something completely different, you'd almost feel guilt and shock for that thought? Or if your mind constantly makes you feel rejected and you get tired of it at some point, tired of your own mind. That's what happens in depression, people's mind go haywire and it starts becoming very obvious that the mind is not working in their favor 'anymore'. The mind didn't go ''sick'', it was always sick, it merely stopped trying to hide its negative intent and be so subtle about it, as it grew stronger it just downright spiraled out of control. The ''ascension'' of the mind always ends in death, either suicide or murder. It is pure negative energy. The mind cannot co-exist with love. As you try to make yourself believe you're worthy of self-love, of divine ascension, of enlightenment, it will do everything it can to make you doubt it's possible or to make you feel unworthy. the mind cannot co-exist with higher intelligence. You think when you do math in your head, that your mind is helping you. No it's merely narrating what's already happening.On the contrary it's slow your abilities down to a crisp. You are able to do math instantly and effortlessly at higher levels of spirituality. Einstein said his greatest discoveries came ''out of nowhere'' upon himself.that they came to him as flashes of insight. As many other great scientists. As many great artists. We know that creativity is higher intelligence itself. Could anyone every think himself into painting something like leonardo davinci? Think yourself into making music like your favorite music artist? the proof is right in front of our eyes, our mind cannot and will never grasp concepts of higher intelligence. whether it's math,or science,or art, when you think the mind serves a purpose it's merely an illusion. Einstein theories came ''upon'' him because his mind couldn't grasp the concepts of it and make a narrative for it. They didn't come out of nowhere, they came out of himself, but the absence of the narrative, the vulnerability of the mind showed. The mind cannot make a narrative for what it doesn't understand. Which is why as you grow spiritually , your mind will automatically stop because your intelligence, your perspective, your actions will be completely incomprehensible to it. and if you want to grow, understand that fear in any form absolutely feeds the mind while love feeds your soul. To love is to expand, to understand, to feel free, there's nothing to fear if you understand everything, but to understand you must first love edit: I also have an exercise for you to show you directly in experience how slow and unintelligent the mind is compared to yourself. Try to walk,not automatically, but with thoughts. Plan your every move.Your every step.Plan the movement of your muscles. ''Move quadriceps, lift knee, lift knee, lift foot to the right, shift core....'' Sounds like madness right?Well try it and feel for yourself, how inept the mind is and how incredibly intelligent you are without it. How ungodly slow would it be to walk using your mind? That is what is going on with all of us. Walking our lives using our minds. It is incredibly slow and unintelligent, you can feel the immense difference for yourself in this exercise if you try it. Carefully planning our decisions and feelings, to ''plan'' is to breakdown your native intelligence to breadcrumps. How would you go through life if you stop using your mind for everything and just let yourself flow, the same way you flow when you walk? Your speed would be a thousand times higher...as your awareness is faster, your intelligence magnified to unimaginable heights, time slows down as you become aware of everything. That is being in the present moment, to not think, to not use your mind, is to accelerate, and to slow down everything, to transcend time itself , to be free of all conflict, and be launched into blissful eternity

I take 100% responsibility for living in a culture where the Colombine school shootings happened. I now choose to open my awareness up to as many diverse perspepectives as possible on on murder suicide psychology. And on school bullying. I take responsibility for living in a country where the government has become so entangled with secrecy and power structures that much of the public is very skeptical about what really happened at 911. I take responsibility for not knowing what the country I live in had or had not been doing to deprive other cultures of lifes necesities and respect. I vow to hear brothers and sisters from many cultures speak their truth on this. I vow to listen to as many fresh perspectives on the subject as possible. I take responsibility for my perspective and vow to share it, and I also vow to grow my perspective. I also vow to stand confidently in my growing perspective when it comes time to making decisions. I also will not be afraid to change my mind occasionally, and to really consider how it is that I am interpreting my sources of information, and how it is that I am spreading information myself.

Yes, I was talking about depression/suicide in the context of enlightenment and existential inquiry. The ego can successfully threaten suicide when it recognizes it's own need to die, THAT'S how crafty it is. It's like, I have to die before I die, I can't let that happen so I'll just kill myself. LOL! ... the emotional mastery is a kind of pseudo-mastery that you can only get by letting go, by jumping in to the ocean - so to speak, instead of listening to people on board for tips and techniques to try to gain control over yourself. ... but you have to take that with a little nuance, as I said, I don't know you and where you're at.

@Marc Schinkel Thanks for sharing. You are right, fear is always involved in depression. If I say I fear depression it´s like saying I fear a state of fear. Different people fear different things but when it comes to the point of suicide you can definitely average it out by saying fear of staying alive (vs the one of dying). I agree. On making a deal... Yes, the last time I experienced this I told myself that I have to keep trying until I get 25 and if things aren´t better until then I can still commit suicide (now of course I am far from thinking that I should ever stop trying). So, I think I get what you´re saying. It´s the "stay alive to see what else is going to happen" because we´ll die sometime anyways mentality. You know... Very suitable for fuckups who are like: What ELSE could happen? It can only get better if I keep trying, can´t it? hehe How interesting. Both Smythe and Adyashanti (I didn´t know these before so thank you for introducing them) say stuff like "you wouldn´t want this if you knew what it was", sort of like saying that you don´t want to be enlightened? I don´t know if I got this correctly but I think that it´s a thing to have faced the fear of death, overcome it at least for a while but having chosen to stay alive that gets us closer to surrendering to mystical experience because we are at the point where it is okay for us to let the ego die. In fact, before I had the best selfless, effortless, divine feeling of my life in my semester studying abroad I had a deep episode of depression. Even though in my case it´s a mixture of fear and me just somewhat shutting down completely. So there might be also something with reaching limits of sensory input/overstimulation thing playing in as well... It´s a little hard to talk about all this because there are all these terms by western psychology to categorize people into syndromes and disorders and neuro types and what so not to find some explanation of why we behave the way we do. I do believe though that everyone can benefit from some kind of meditation (and there are quite a lot) or other spiritual/more philosophical practises and as I expand my knowledge, psychedelics. So whatever triggers us into the fear can be faced by working on emotional mastery.

What we call 'life' is a gradual suicide, only few people are able to know what life is. That's what Jesus says when he says, "Let the dead bury their dead."

My parents forced my brother to suicide, my mother ruined my life. I gathered courage to go back consciously and found insights which have made me unburdened.

I was meditating today until I burst out in tears (sometimes I burst out in a laugh attack-you never know with crazy people like me... Who seriously think they will become a sage one day. heheh... oh man...). And then continued meditation because I am a disciplined person... And then swapped all plans of the day because I am not a disciplined person... To journal about depression- no taboos . What is depression? The period of time you spend until facing the options of 1. overcoming your fear of feeling and accepting what is to feel/accept, understanding and growing from whichever events/beliefs/thoughts triggered it OR 2. Spiralling down some sort of addiction to carry on OR 3. Committing suicide/dying. It´s that period of time you spend until you finally find some empathy for yourself and others or... Don´t. The destination of depression is either birth of new reasons to try and live or staying with your old reasons and eventually taking those to the grave... Depression is a consequence of bad balance, bad self care and the belief that you have no power over your emotions. It is a victim mentality and a perspective far, far away from Truth... I fear depression. Why? I´ve been there. I hate it. I was making a list about what I hate about depression and then wondered if there is anything I love about depression. Weird thought with interesting results... What I hate about depression your thoughts being a Mary-go round without much variety, reinforcing and dancing around the same shitty memories, beliefs, emotions and possible futures. your entire energy being wasted on neurotic monkey mind until exhaustion and collapse the "freeze up" out of hopelessness, fear and victim mentality making you to either attend the movie played in your head or having to escape that through sleep (Or like... Staring at the sealing to the point of thoughtlessness...? :S) your attention span decreasing day by day until you can´t focus for 2 minutes straight anymore... the lack of drive to do anything feeling too tired to do anything. Even watching some video, listening to music, eating food, taking a shower, brushing your teeth... Okay, even in my worst of days I still visited the bathroom though... hehe... Being dizzy because of starvation and oversleeping on the way to the bathroom... Googling what the best way to commit suicide is but not having the motivation to get up and buy the utensils for that and also feeling too tired to write a goodbye letter to the very few people you don´t want to get upset about your death (´cause you know... It´s a bad and cowardice thing... Maybe not towards death... But towards life ) Remembering being like 16-17 years old and complaining in your dairy (nowhere else-I mean I was probably the only one who hided the fact that I wanted to die ) that society doesn´t allow you to die. The loss of a sense of time (sometimes even space). Knowing that it would take people (even people I consider close to me) a lot of time to notice that I am dead so that the poor housekeeper would have problems getting your room back into a human friendly place but also re-renting it to someone in the knowing that a decomposing body was its last inhabitant. when you decide you want to feel better and even though your normally insatiable curiosity has ended up like your in general eradicated personality, you use your last strength to click on some documentary (short videos aren´t suited ´cause auto-play is annoying and always clicking on new stuff too tiring when you are dead depressed) and force yourself to watch that... then watching documentaries for 5 hours. At some point noticing you fell asleep and it´s like 3 o´clock in the morning or something like that. then feeling guilt about having watched documentaries for for 5 hours... knowing that the world will not just not love you this way or for having been this way, no, not even like you but probably even get mad at your disfunctionality (okay, I admit most part of it will stay in apathy). Asking yourself: Do you even WANT to live?! Do you even WANT to be happy?! And getting no answer... the loss of stamina and physical strength... (hooow UN-attractive and baaad... Sooo bad for health...ts-ts-ts...). Remembering that stupid promise of the last big melt down that you would never get in some state like this again. The binge or overeating after re-establishing eating despite the absence of real appetite since some part of you has lost the trust that you will feed yourself in regular timespans... Knowing that you have the following options to explain yourself for your absence and unproductivity during this period of time in case you come up with a way to survive it: 1. Pretend as if you were okay all the time and you just slacked off carelessly and lazyly because you are irresponsible so that he/she will have their stupid explanation, can negatively judge on you and leave you alone. 2. Tell them you were suffering from some sort of illness and lie up some crap. 3. Tell them you were not feeling well in the hope they will get the point... 4. Tell them you were depressed in the hope they would believe you without further questions, pity or that disbelieving face that looks like it´s saying: Wining, lazy piece of shit with a Greek surname. 5. Tell them your life story in an understandable way (minimal duration 5 hours), dispite having no hope they would actually understand much. 6. Avoid anything that might require you have to explain yourself (yea that´s so me... Creates social anxiety since it makes you choreograph each move and word of a conversation because god forbid they find out you are not a lovable piece of sunshine producing rainbows, riding on a unicorn and leaving smiles wherever it goes (excuse my hyperbolic talk but I have to make fun of myself sometimes...). I could continue but I think... I think I really don´t want to go to that place again. Like EVER. So, I have to get this function out of the system. Like forever. And EVER. And EVER...

So..In the past few months I have been depressed and highly anxious.But,since I started to meditate daily my depression lifted up,and now I'm anxious about my future or I'm being negative only when I'm really tired(don't really know why).Other than that,my life is going pretty well(I mean..mediocre).My grades are improving,I'm not that anxious anymore when I'm called on in class,and I am socializing better. The point is..Even though I'm not depressed anymore,life still not seems that exciting.When I try to improve myself trough learning programming or socializing(these are the things that I know I should be doing more) I often ask myself..Why am I doing this?And then I realize that I don't have a solid reason for doing them.I mean..I like programming,but I don't see myself doing that for the rest of my life,at least now.And socializing..I do that because I think it will keep me far from depression,and it also raises my spirit when I am down..As you can see,it is about me..Just to summarize..I don't really have much motivation or solid reasons for doing something. Now I think that having a purpose would change my life drastically (in a positive way).I would finally wake up in the morning excited,because it is a new day and I might do amazing stuff,or have fun with friends..But the thing is I can't find it.You might say, "well buy Leo's course"..For reasons not worth mentioning I can't,but there is a way I could gather money and buy it... The thing is...I don't have motivation to put in the effort to do so.I don't have motivation/solid reasons for improving my life,get a girlfriend,socialize more,study harder,etc..And I don't know why.There is something missing.. When I was a kid,I liked waking up in the morning,and I was enjoying my day..(when I was going to school,but I remember times when I was a kid when life seemed very dull).. Anyways...My question is the following:How can I get motivated to improve my life?How can I wake up in the morning excited,even though I don't have a purpose yet?How can I add more zest to my life? Remember when I said I could gather money and buy Leo's course?Well,it would be a good step in the right direction,but that doesn't seems exciting..The idea of finding my purpose doesn't seems exciting to me,and I do not know why. And one more last point..You might ask how I managed to force myself to break out of depression if I still don't have a sense of direction/purpose?I didn't did it for me,I did it for my parents..I was having suicidal thoughts and I realized if I was one day to commit suicide one day,my family would suffer a lot..And I didn't wanted that..(please, don't telle things like "well,find your purpose and improve yourself for your parents if that was a good reason for stop being depressed"..This still doesn't seems motivating to me).

INTRO. I took LSD yesterday, and I'm integrating the insights today. Here's what I learned. Disclaimer: These insights are from my perspective. They're not absolute. But I think a lot of you will resonate. KNOW THYSELF. An hour after popping the tab, I didn't know who I was. Literally, I did not know. There was nothing to define me. I was nothing, had nothing, and everything was leftover. I felt like I had arrived, which is the feeling I've been looking for my entire life without realizing. Death didn't matter, because the distinction between death and life didn't apply. When there's nothing to hold onto, what dies? I laughed and cried. "Thank you for my life" cannot even come close to the level of gratitude I felt. ACCEPT THYSELF. I agree with Freud when he says that societies are fundamentally neurotic. Civilization is full of "should's". It needs to be in order for things to run smoothly. We forget, however, that humans are animals, and to moralize an animal is to cage it. The zookeeper, the thing that keeps the human animal in its cage, is often called the ego or the lower self. I like to call it the Guardian. The human animal has no knowledge of death, but the Guardian does. He thinks he has the animal's best interests in mind by protecting it from the Darkness, by keeping it in a cage, by not allowing it to get hurt. Sure, he allows the animal to survive, but he doesn't allow it to live. The human animal has a primal urge to connect. To share. To give freely without taking. To feel. To be naked and vulnerable. To have wild and crazy sex. To look someone in the eye and acknowledge that they're here together on a leaky boat in a shoreless sea. I realized that my Guardian has been using spiritual ideas to deny these things. Leo has revolutionized my life; I thank him dearly. But his prioritizing of spirituality/truth has also convinced me that spending time with friends is useless. That connecting with other people is a waste of time. That I should instead work endlessly on self-actualization alone. Stack that on top of the spiritual purification idea, that sex is somehow bad, that you shouldn't feel anger or sadness. Then watch all of those Rupert Spira/Mooji videos to see how peaceful they look, and then to try to be that way all the time. It's ironic how I've used the very tools for uncaging the human animal, to cage it even more. I've been isolating myself. Avoiding social interaction. Reading books for mental masturbation. Masturbating to porn, using one hand to block the view of my other hand. This is the Guardian, sedating the caged animal before it gets stir-crazy again. For as long as I can remember, I've had little to no circulation from my waist downwards. Cold feet. Premature ejaculation. Constipation issues. It's like the bottom half of my body's been lifeless and I've been "full of shit." But once the LSD kicked in, the Guardian was obliterated, and the human animal escaped its cage. Circulation came back to my bottom half. I could actually breathe again for the first time in years. I felt relaxed. I felt my primal urge to connect, to give freely, to be horny and beastly. I was alive! When this happened, I started growling and walking around on all fours. I did somersaults, something I only did in my childhood. I took all my clothes off and went in an ice bath. I laughed and cried and smiled. I took a walk outside and laughed that I had to wear clothes. I felt like a chimpanzee in a tuxedo. Looking at other humans was the most fascinating spectacle. This place is just a massive costume party. I realized that I take my costume way too seriously. Leo talks a lot about holism, about accounting for all of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Now I see the value in that. Focus too much on spirituality, and it becomes a sedative for the caged human animal. FORGIVE THYSELF. This bit is more personal, but I figure I'd share. In my journal, I mentioned that my friend killed himself a couple years ago. What I didn't mention was that I felt it was my fault. No matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise, I felt guilty. I recently discovered that this guilt runs deeper than his suicide. It's been a constant theme all throughout my life. "You don't deserve to be alive. There's something wrong with you. Go away and hide. You're defective. You don't deserve anyone's time and attention." At some point in the trip, this guilt hit me like a freight train. I was writhing on my bed, sobbing like a child. I couldn't stop saying, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" Here's the weird part. I split into two personalities. There was that one, the child, and there was the mother. The mother let the child sob while she comforted him. I put my hand on my leg and started rubbing it with my thumb, the way my mom used to do it. "It's okay, it's okay." the mother said. Then, something snapped. I forgave myself. The tears washed the guilt away. It felt nice to not need anyone else but me to... LOVE THYSELF. That's right. I said it. I'm not a new agey kind of guy, and I think it's an overused word. But now I understand the meaning of "self-love." It can't be half-assed. It can't be faked. It can't be put into an affirmation. You need to feel it in your innermost being. It's easy to forget. Civilization conditioned us to believe that love comes from outside sources. We spend all of this time seeking a girlfriend/boyfriend, achievement, success, enlightenment, and other things because we think they will provide us with the love we so desperately need. But these are finite resources, and as with anything finite, we fight to keep them. We get competitive, greedy, self-centered in order to keep the love we think comes from these sources. The masses of men lead lives of quiet desperation because they believe love is scarce. But we are all sadly mistaken. After I forgave myself, love was gushing out of me like an unclogged hose. It was endless. I loved my body, my legs, my personality. I loved my voice, my hair, my dick. The love couldn't contain itself. I loved the bed I was lying on, the ceiling, the sheets. I loved the trees outside, the sky, the water. Then I realized...wait for it...ALL is love. There's no difference between life and love. Go ahead. Laugh it up. Then I realized that the only obstruction to this abundance of love was...wait for it. Fear. We accept the love we think we deserve. Fear is the Guardian. When the Guardian is obliterated, love remains. Thus, in a paradoxical sort of way, love = death = life = God. In the state of love, every second is an extra second. A privilege, not a right. Life is a heavenly epilogue to a melodramatic farce. Life is God's masturbatorium. God just wants to jerk Himself off with his own love. All you want to do, is share it. There was so much love to give that I didn't know what to do with myself. So I took that walk outside, called my brother for once (I don't normally reach out to people). I complimented a girl in a shop. I looked all of the passers-by in the eye, hoping that they would at least receive some of the love I was trying to share. Most of the time, they looked away in a split second. But it didn't matter to me. I didn't need anyone to love me. I WAS love itself. OTHER NOTES. LSD is a very cerebral psychedelic. There weren't as many visualizations as shrooms. I was mostly in my head. I consider myself fairly creative, but this drug multiplies your creative capacity by 1000. I couldn't stop writing and talking. Insights were spewing out of me at a million miles an hour. LSD is an opportunity to ask yourself deep questions, especially about your psychological issues. Here's a sample of some of the questions I asked myself: What do I want? Why do I isolate myself? What purpose does my constipation serve? What am I so afraid of? And so on. You ever see the movie Limitless, with Bradley Cooper? It kind of felt like that. The trip lasted more than twelve hours. I popped the tab at 10 AM, and I was still tripping at 1 in the morning. The Guardian is back. Circulation to my bottom half is cut off again. But at least now I know what I can work towards. This song was the theme to my trip. I listened to it more than 15 times: OUTRO. If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Words can only do so much justice. I can write for hours about this trip and it would have 1/100th of the impact compared to actually taking LSD. My suggestion? Give it a try. Just know what you're getting into. Do the research. Be meticulous. And, most importantly, enjoy. Cheers, Brett

@Gurunext Ego gives you nothing but illusion. The power that comes from the ego is only illusory. What do you mean with "Ego Death Experience: Simply the opposite of being"? pure being is the result of the disappearance of the ego; The ego veils being with false beliefs. "Ego Death is simply suicide" Yes! that's exactly what we are here for. Complete annihilation of the false. We don't "kill" anything that's true, but only that which was never true in the first place

(What you about to read are my collection of beliefs I've worked hard to put together, to understand life. Mostly it's a programmer's/creator's point of view which I find to be the most accurate one. There are plenty of statements which might not be true, but probably have to be to fit into the story) Introduction to reality: Ego is You. You came to existence because it was useful for Source to make a split. This is permanent. Source wants to grow and you are fully connected to that process whether you know it or not (your feelings will make sure you do the work). Source will keep you in a "detached ego form" but will let you experience things (as a reward, mostly called "heaven") depending on how much value you bring in growth "Mining World" in which you live right now. There should also be "hell" as well if you have been knowingly harming the growth process - not sure how it works though. "Heaven" should be about rewarding you with anything you want. Maybe whatever you will come up with. But also there should be ways to experience what Source already has created. So it's possible that your life will be observed countless times - just like a video - by other "travelers". It looks like a wonderful system and overall it has to work perfectly (no room for error) to work at all. Problem with Ego death: As I've mentioned - Ego can't be destroyed anymore. It's good enough in a state that it is and will serve Source in one way or the other. Source wants to keep the identity of - "management system / God". But what about the experience? (Note that I haven't experienced anything "drug-induced" or what could be called as "near death experience - NDE". Simply collected the data.) Let's start with NDEs: It looks like people go to the state of "choice". They want to leave "Mining World", but because they are presented with the "choice" Source will try to convince "to continue the work". To do that Source can only use "current relationships" and "potential" - possibly only the knowledge you already know. But I am still wondering about "people's extra perception" - It doesn't make sense that Source would allow that. There is a way to predict the future through patterns and so far I found no reason to believe in other means, even "special dreams". Otherwise you can somehow ask for the Source some pretty powerful things simply by threatening with "Ego Death". Ego Death Experience: Simply the opposite of being - You refuse to Grow. "Ego Death" (commonly by Leo is described more as..) "forgetting being" because of all the other Ego's that exist - which is actually not Ego death - but Lust. So the Source will quickly remind you of how things work and that you have to have your own collection of experience. While actual Ego Death is simply suicide. And obviously this is ridiculous - of-course you would want to avoid it. Should you have a way to completely give up Ego? Source WILL take a lot of Ego powers from you if you will do something like this. But no matter how much power you lose Source will keep the "Ego Origin" - the idea that creating you was still a good idea. Most importantly Feel free to play with my ideas :3 (Instead of trying to attack them or take them too seriously)

Thank you for the no-bullshit reply! If it were not clear from my topic, I consider myself an artist, and I am fully open to the possibility that I suck at marketing despite investing energy and learning and practicing. One part of what I feel is limiting me in this aspect is a notion that Oscar Wilde expresses the following way: "A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to to do with the fact that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman." I suppose it is possible that I am extending this principle into the realm of marketing where it may not apply, but it often feels like the very things that make my art genuine and unique are that things that differentiate it from the norms and wants of mainstream culture. This leaves me with the choice of either watering down my art and becoming a craftsman or seeking out the minority that could appreciate its value appropriately to justify a reasonably high price. I would obviously opt for the latter but how does one even go about achieving that pragmatically? Over the years I've accumulated a decent following of over 10k people on my Facebook page taking photos of mostly alternative girls, but unlike Suicide Girls my work is focused more so on portraits and aesthetics rather than nudity. This is obviously a significantly less viable source of income with everyone interested in working with me playing the "it's free exposure" card, including major magazines. I've had photos of mine with thousands of likes and/or becoming editor's choice at virtually all of the photo-sharing sites, including National Geographic's platform, yet when it comes to print sales the numbers tell a completely different story. I don't want to be another artist crybaby about it, I'm determined to get better, not bitter, hence my interest in joining the forum. I am certain I still have a bunch of limiting beliefs as well as an ego I'm unconsciously protecting so your input and suggestions are all very welcome. Thank you once again!

Sallekhana OR Santhara OR Prayopavesa is not in Hinduism, it is in Jainism. Jainism is the most ascetic religion in the world. Jaina monks torture themselves so much that one wonders if they are insane. The idea of committing santhara, suicide, by not eating or drinking, is nothing but a very long process of self-torture. Your life here should be the days of meditation, love, compassion, friendliness, playfulness, laughter; and if you can do that, you will be rewarded by a conscious death. You cannot manage to die consciously without a long, meditative, conscious life. Only a conscious life is rewarded with conscious death — it is a reward, but only to the conscious man.

Hello @One, if you are saying that you are not depressed, than be aware, because statisticly speaking - people who are depressed are not commiting suicides. Those are people who are not depressed. They have a clear mind to do such a bad desicion. It would be pity to lose live just because you fit into the stats, woldnt it be? Another statistics say, that in these days it is more plausible to die because of suicide, than because of murder. That means you are your bigest enemy. This forum is all about how to became your bigges friend, so to speak. Head up! And go to nature, that will help. Love, Delinkaaaa

There are people who have lost their all hopes and finding life meaningless. There are people who are ready to suicide or are on their death bed. Can they choose path of enlightenment ?

@SC GM Ain't nothing "reasonable" or "logical" about your life. 99% of everything you do is emotional. Including any considerations of suicide. The problem is that you don't have sufficient awareness yet of just how powerfully your emotions control you. You are like a puppet of your emotions. And you are never going to change that with logic. Logic is the backwards rationalization you make for your emotional prejudices.

After struggling today with my consciousness work, I felt disappointed in myself for not meeting my expectations. However, I was shocked at the compassion I had for myself. One year ago, I would have been toxically self-critical and would have identified as a failure. I was honestly shocked at how much better I handled this that I would have one year ago. I just realized, I've been following Actualized.org for over one year now. I had just been rejected by my first romantic love interest, and I was contemplating suicide back then. I noticed today was how this place really gives me hope. Knowing that I don't need to chase after unattainable materialistic goals to get the best life is probably what saved me from total and utter despair. Before Actualized.org, I had given up hope because I realized how ludicrous it was to aspire to certain things. I had done some deep introspection in High School and reasoned that the only way to truly get the most out of life would be to be God. I literally set that as my long term vision and planned on banking my whole life on transhumanism and the hope the science would master everything. I thought biological immortality and complete manipulation of reality would be the optimal situation. When I slowly became more aware of the inherent limitations of rationality, logic, and science, I entered deep depression and turned to pathetic hedonism as the best life strategy. I got into pick up, watched Leo's videos on how to attract women, and funny enough found that he was into the same philosophical/ intellectual topics that I was. I never even considered spirituality as a path to truth until I found that a person with a similar personality and history was serious about it. I didn't think it would lead anywhere but I gave it a shot. A year later. I've been doing this work consistently and I just have so much more hope. It's tough to believe at times that I actually can do something to create the best life for myself and my lack of talent, good looks, etc. isn't really an issue. By raising my consciousness, I feel so much more secure, as if God himself is embracing me and letting me know that no matter what happens, it will all be okay. You just have to wake up and see that is the case for yourself. I shed a literal tear of joy writing this.

The more intelligent you are, the more the idea will be coming again and again: Why go on living? For what? For this same rut? Only a very very mediocre person can go on living. Otherwise, one day or other, the idea arises: "What am I doing here? If this is the way life goes, I have lived for forty years repeating the same thing, I may live forty years more, repeating the same things again - then what? This is the beginning of intelligence, although not the end. And by committing suicide, nothing is changed. You will be born again, and the whole nonsense will start, from ABC. That is pointless. When you are thinking of suicide, that simply says you are thinking that this life that you have lived up to now is not worth living. But there are possibilities in it which you have not tried yet. I say to you: This life can become a great joy. It became a great joy to Krishna, it became a great ecstasy to Christ, it became a jubilation to Buddha. The life that you have lived is not the only alternative. It can be lived in a thousand and one ways - there are other ways to live it. You may have lived a life without love. Why not try love? You may have lived a life obsessed with money. Why not live a life unobsessed with money? You may have lived a life which hankers to possess. Now live a life which is not worried about possessing anything. You may have lived a life of respectability - you may have always been considering what people think about you, what their opinion is. There is a life to live without bothering what others are thinking about you; there is a life to live individually and rebelliously. There is a life to live which is of adventure and not of social conformity. There is a life of meditation, of God, of search, of going within. You may have lived an outside life, chasing this and chasing that. There can be another life of not chasing anything, but sitting silently, disappearing within your being. A life of interiority. And you will be surprised - the whole idea of suicide will disappear, and you will stumble upon a life which is eternal.

Suicide is the desperate and paradoxical attempt to fully live, to release and free oneself of all suffering/hopelessness/despair/pain. In that sense it's the ultimate lie. And obviously because there is no such thing as death

Because I don't see the point. Your second statement doesn't make sense to me - life contains suffering, death would end it, it would seem logical to commit suicide.

I am not depressed. In theory, death is perfection - so why live?

@Hanski I can totally relate. This happened after a couple years of daily meditation and just a few weeks after a strong dose of psilocybin. I've noticed that it was highly due to the fact that I stopped meditating, taking more breaks/shortening my sit times for each day after. I fell into an endless loop of all hopelessness, fear, depression, and a feeling that even suicide wouldn't even make a difference. As soon as I read more about this "Dark Night of the Soul" I became more aware. Check out "End Of Your World" By Adyashanti (about post awakening and how to deal with life) I found it very relatable and helpful. I see it as a process of 'ego confusion' as if the ego realized it's own emptiness/essenseless and it's kinda thinking twice about things. As soon as I picked up my meditation practice, micro-dosed every few days, took ashwagandha here and there, most if not all have cleared away! I am confident in saying that after this "hurdle" life will become clairvoyant and evermore magical! Keep your head up and be aware.

Enlightenment and dealing with it As far as I understood Jeffery Martin there are 2 ways people react to the permanent non symbolic experience or enlightenment...( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azYF3EFpZ4g). 1. There are those who feel free and at the peak of pleasant and 2. Those who feel desperate, fall into deep depression and maybe even commit suicide. I guess that is why Leo once said something like: If you want to get enlightened and then kill yourself, then fine. We can´t know in which category we´ll fall, or do we?

What happened in Jonestown was absolutely Christian, but not even a single person in the world has talked about the fact that it was a Christian phenomenon, that Christianity was its background, that Jim Jones was a reverend, that he was a Christian priest, and the people who followed him simply followed according to the Christian ideology. Of course, they went to the very logical end. Jesus says to his people: ”After death there will be judgment day, and I will be there to pick my people. And only those who are with me will be saved; all others will be thrown into the eternal darkness of hell.” Reverend Jim Jones was continually teaching the BIBLE, Christianity, and of course he was teaching that real life begins after death. And if he convinced those fools, one thousand fools, it is nothing to be surprised at: they were all Christians. The gospel was Christian, and if he convinced them to die with him ... why wait for the judgment day? And on the judgment day there is going to be so much of a crowd – poor Jim Jones, how is he going to find his one thousand followers? It will be really difficult. The best way is: Jim Jones dies and with him his followers die. And they will reach the gates of heaven with God and Jesus Christ and all the apostles shouting, ”Alleluia!” This is far better, quicker. Other Christians have waited for two thousand years but the judgment day has not come yet. And if you read Jesus, his disciples asking again and again, ”When will the judgment day come?” and he says, ”Soon.” The whole indication is that it is going to happen within your life. Now, twenty centuries have passed; it has not happened. Nobody asks the pope, ”What about the judgment day? Jesus was saying, ‘Soon.’ What do you mean by ‘soon’?” At least it should be explained how many centuries, how many generations .... ”Soon” cannot be extended that much. But Christian bishops and cardinals and priests are comparing Osho with Jim Jones. In churches, sermons were delivered and it was said that Rajneeshpuram was going to become a second Jonestown. Now, who is going to say to these fools that this was the only place which cannot become Jonestown? The whole rest of the world can become – because Osho was not interested in the afterlife, he was only interested in life here, now. You will be surprised to know that in Jonestown, lovemaking among the members of the sect was not allowed. Celibacy was enforced. There were hard strict rules: the people were not allowed to go outside the commune, no contact with outsiders was allowed. They were living in isolation, they were all ascetics. And it is because of this asceticism that they were ready to commit suicide. Now people are searching for the causes. Somebody thinks that he hypnotized people, somebody thinks something else—a thousand and one reasons are being found. The simple reason is, he diverted their eros—that's all. And eros can be diverted very easily….just like in christian monasteries, where monks don't suicide but practice of homosexuality is well known.

battles are lost in the same spirit with which they are won. I cried last week. I do it a lot nowadays. What often happens is that something triggers a sad cry: for my friend's suicide, for my guilt, for life's vanity. But then, out of nowhere, I transition to a hysterical laugh-cry: for gratitude, for the love for everything, for being alive, for the big cosmic joke that is life. Strangely, I don't prefer one mode of crying over another. They're both beautiful and cathartic in their own ways. My man Walt Whitman once wrote that battles are lost in the same spirit with which they are won. I think I get what he means now.