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It's a pretty basic component of human nature to go into cognitive dissonance whenever one takes actions that are against their own values. And people who care about animals but also contribute to their suffering and death through their lifestyle choices on a purely voluntary basis, have a variety of different ways to deal with that cognitive dissonance... which involves coming up with all sorts of defenses... often ones that they don't believe in themselves. And they will quickly abandon a defense once it doesn't work and try to find another to hide behind. Here are some common defenses that non-Vegans with Vegan values give to square the circle in their own mind... "Veganism is unhealthy." "But plants are also alive! And yet, you're fine with eating them! So, Vegans are hypocrites." "Existing as a human being harms the environment. So, going Vegan is self-negation tantamount to suicide." "Some people need to eat meat to survive because of food scarcity!" (employed by people who aren't dealing with food scarcity) "Veganism is an insult to traditional culture." "But how will we grow enough plants to feed everyone?" (This one is my favorite because 80% of crops are grown to feed livestock... and it takes 16 lbs of grain to produce one pound of beef. And as soon as people realize that this argument is in favor of Veganism because Veganism requires fewer crops to be grown compared to an omnivorous diet), they immediately ditch their concern about "How will we grow enough plants.") "The Bible says it's okay to eat meat." "It's unnatural not to eat animals." "Human beings are superior to animals, so eating them is justified." "Animals shouldn't have the exact same rights as humans." (when the argument is that animal life should be prioritized over human pleasure... not that animals should have the same rights) "The same number of animals will die whether I eat them or not." (This appeal to futility was my justification prior to going Vegan.) "But what about field deaths?" (when more field deaths happen because 80% of crops are grown to feed livestock) "Domesticated animals would go extinct if we didn't breed them for food." "Domesticated animals would over-populate if we didn't kill them for food." "Humans are at the top of the food chain. And animals' purpose for existence is to be eaten by humans." "Other animals, like lions, also eat meat. So, why don't you have a problem with lions eating meat when you do have a problem with humans eating meat." "I only eat grass-fed livestock. So, I'm not being cruel." "I only eat halal meat. So, I'm not being cruel." "Vegans are just trying to virtue signal and be superior. So, Veganism isn't anything to be taken seriously." "Veganism is for rich people." "You will never save all the animals. So, what's the point in trying?" "One person going Vegan won't make a difference." These are really common anti-Vegan arguments that all Vegans hear ad-infinitum. The trick is to realize that the people who are arguing with you don't disagree with you.... they disagree with their own actions. And they're scrambling to find a good defense to quiet the cognitive dissonance. If you were really interested in questioning the philosophy of Veganism, then you should at least understand how people react to it.

Yes, it has. The Israeli state is one of the few instances I know of where terrorism actually worked out in the group's favor. But it does not seem to work well for Arabs. Imagine if you were just a peaceful civilian living in Gaza last year. You would hate Hamas. No matter how bad things were before Oct 7th, they are way worse now. It is a mistake to attack a more powerful and shameless opponent in a barbaric way because they will take it out on your people. That's what Israel did. Fair or unfair, it is how psychology and politics works. The bottom line is that when you are weak you are not in a position to dictate terms, and suicide missions will not make you strong.

@Ulax not so convinced. There is literally no excuse for ignorance today if you are an average class citizen with credit card and a high school education at the very least and you know some basic English and some basic information about how to use your phone lol. Look at us ..I mean followers of Leo's work..we are humans ..we are flesh and blood ..we are not from Mars. We are not smarter than the vegetables sellers or the barber .let alone the doctors and professors in universities. Why the fuck do you watch Leo's content? Why do you read books and learn about mystical traditions and awakening and simulation theory and SD etc...? Go to the grocery store and strike up a random conversation with a random hommie ..this dude is literally dumber than a chair . You ask him few questions you will start to contemplate suicide from the degree of naiveness .it's mind-bogglingly puzzling .

"I am attempting to give them the energy they need at the time" - I will add also, I only give out when I feel/perceive/see I am being asked too. Oh, you mean regarding control? My signature is approaching through the lens of empowering one to take action when they can - they make the choice to control their action and do the thing, instead of procrastinating and avoiding. This doesn't mean you can always control the outcome, more that your actions - which are within your control - give you a measure of influence than can empower. Not so much absolute control but more... the power to influence. 'I think because I view others actions as their responsibility, and their conduct outside my control, I do not feel my manipulations are ever negative.' Quoting myself above, I phrased totally wrong - or did not preface it enough. My intentions are always positive with manipulation. I just feel ultimately I cannot control others actions, only steer. I consider withholding things others shouldn't know also a form of manipulation. IE a spiritual truth that might not be right for the person to hear yet. Some things are blatant - Steering someone away from suicide or harm to anyone. However I do admit in this process, it is my judgement based on personal beliefs that inspire the manipulation - and this can have ego, arrogance and all the traps of human failings. You cannot see what you cannot see etc

You know exactly what I mean .I wrote it in plain English. Why does the universe not disappear completely from existing right now ? Nevermind I do know the answer which is that the universe is infinite so it has no where to go. Seems like we are stuck forever. you can suicide yourself a million times but this is not super Mario this is infinite Mario. The question about masturbation is more confusing 😂.

I have had a bad relationship with my sister for a very long time. It goes back to our dysfunctional childhood in which my father showed favoritism toward me for being a boy. He started telling these stories about how I was the one who would break the cycle of criminal life and how I gave my grandpa hope when he saw the good in me. During this time my mother wanted me to have empathy for my sisters for their position, but there was not the same emphasis on empathy when speaking to my sisters. This is a common bias in how boys are raised in that they are talked to about compassion and empathy more than girls because it is assumed that boys are less compassionate. The girls needed to understand my position because I myself was conflicted about my father because my love for him led me to enabling his criminal behaviors. This is the trauma that my sister has begun to weaponize against me as a means of getting revenge for me telling our cousin that my sisters didn't like his behavior at the renaissance festival and that they were mad at him. Unfortunately, my sister appears to have a chronic deficit of empathy. She would lash out at me over very minor issues to the point that I would cry. She would make excuses about her performative outrage claiming either that I was overly sensitive or that she was on her period. Whenever I tried to express that she had hurt me, she would refuse to self-reflect and immediately find any way to frame me as a hypocrite. She would mention the past favors she did for me, implying that I was ungrateful despite all the harm she was causing me. She would tell me that I was inconsiderate for many things including risking myself to save my mother's life from my abusive step-father while protecting my younger siblings in an environment that was far too dangerous. She would place logically impossible expectations on me such as being more open while not being too honest. She simply could not handle criticism because her ego was far too fragile. She would ask me how I felt, yet I constantly felt unsafe because I was walking at eggshells, and I would inevitably fuck up again anyway. Every interaction with her led me to getting paralyzed because I would understand that anything I say would be weaponized against me and lead to a worse outcome. Nevertheless, if I stayed silent, she would call me childish for not being able to handle conflict. She would intentionally place out of reach standards on me while looking for reasons to get offended so that she would keep me in a position of perpetually out of reach approval. She would not only weaponize my trauma against me, but also demand I take 100% responsibility rather than being so one-sided only to capitalize on the situation should I apologize in an effort to humiliate me. I felt trapped in this awful relationship for about 8 years. I am still terrified to see her. When she is present I start having anxiety attacks, I lose my balance, my heart races, I get trouble breathing, I start having muscle spasms, and I feel deeply angry and powerless as she makes seemingly benign comments which were implicitly targeting my trauma. I noticed how my vulnerability was now being used against me and she had no remorse. She would then manipulate the rest of the family into gaslighting me as they treated me like I was the problem. They would insist that I be the one to apologize even when I clearly did nothing wrong. They would make all kinds of incorrect assumptions about how I think and they would project their behavioral problems onto me. My sister would consistently reverse victim and offender, causing me to be blamed unfairly constantly. I would have nightmares about my sister, including sleep paralysis episodes in which I could hear her and she sounded angry. I felt terrified in those nightmares. I tried to explain that she had a pattern of behavior that I did not like. When I would bring up examples of her behaviors, she and my family would tell me that that was in the past and I need to let it go. They would insist that I be more forgiving even though it was impossible for me to feel emotionally safe in her presence. They would tell me that I need to spend more time downstairs and socialize more. On top of that my therapists would tell me that I was the problem because I kept ruminating on bad situations with my sister and would not let them go even though these were symptoms of severe trauma. Therapists are often terrible because they are hyperspecialized, leading them to pathologizing trauma responses. The result is that I was given ineffective anti-psychotic medicine which damaged my liver, and I am still trying to get help recovering from this. My medical insurance has complicated this though. My family repeatedly insisted that all of this was normal family conflict and it was okay to have little tiffs, even if they involved mom threatening suicide. They insisted that I needed to go to therapy for depression, but my sister decided she didn't want to go as she insisted I needed to. I wrote a message to some of my family members explaining the situation. So far it seems that my cousin is the only one that understands me. I have sent the message to my grandma, mother, and younger siblings as well. My younger brother might understand the situation because he is aware of my older sister's behaviors and how she reacts when you say something negative about her. I haven't told my other grandma yet. She also thinks I need to just let go of the past even though the presence of my sister was making me feel suicidal because of the intense emotional reactions it caused. My family is ignorant of my trauma responses, so they treat them as if they were moral failings, proving that I was the problem and my sister was doing everything just right. Sometimes I wanted to cut myself in response to these intense feelings. I was trapped in a toxic family dynamic which the others were blind to, and I was the only one trying to work on myself and improve myself. I tried the book list on this website, the life purpose course, and so many different things, but it just was not enough. I was hoping that emotional mastery would help me to overcome the constant torture in my mind which kept me locked into a traumatic thought pattern. Once again others would tell me that my thinking was the problem and I needed to focus on something else. My experience with mental health has demonstrated to me how stupid the average human being is. Not even the therapists could be trusted because I had done enough research and self-education to objectively know better than them. So many people make all the wrong assumptions about me and it makes it hard to communicate with people. Too often do people overestimate their intelligence and their capacity to help as well as their moral character. There is a bit of a paradox because I tend to think of myself as objectively more intelligent than the average person, but I am aware of the potential problem that could come with this. There is some trauma around this as well because my family treated me like I was stupid. I understand that my profound suffering has strengthened my empathy for the suffering of others. I recognize the mental torture that seems beyond our control no matter how hard we try to make it stop. I used to think it was my fault, but actually it was PTSD. I have been struggling to love myself all my life, but I have found that I love myself even more when I extend the love to others. It was kind of like the dream I had back in high school. I jumped into a black abyss of deep suffering with unwavering faith that I would return to the light stronger. Through this journey I have come to realize that I am the light and it is love which makes me stronger while giving others the strength they need. Originally, I saw Jesus in the dream, but I still have no interest in being a Christian. In fact I am even more repulsed by it because my therapists made me pray when I objected to the practice. I do not want to make people miss love by trying to make them be Christians who clearly have no idea what love even is. From my point of view it looks like moral posturing in which they pretend to be selfless and loving when they are not. I tried forgiving my sister, but I simply could not do it. I tried Leo's forgiveness exercise, but it did not work because Leo said that they did not hurt me intentionally. In my case, it was far too obvious that my sister wanted to hurt me because she was emotionally abusive without any remorse or respect for my boundaries. I simply could not forgive her no matter how hard I tried and even as the family told me that I was in the wrong for not being more forgiving and letting things go. I have found a method of forgiveness that works now that I am away from my sister. Rather than framing forgiveness within a psychological or interpersonal viewpoint, I framed it as more of an existential viewpoint. I struggled with a deeply dysfunctional situation for my entire life and I used whatever I could leverage best to help me be able to love myself. In my case I chose truth, intelligence, and goodness. I did however devalue relationships in favor of a "higher purpose." Meanwhile, my sister chose power, control, and manipulation. She chose a survival strategy which shaped her into a covertly abusive narcissist who enjoys having power over others, and therefore cannot find genuine love for them. She will act like she loves me until the second she gets angry and decides to weaponize my trauma against me. I don't want to forgive her in the sense of wanting to be within 50 miles of her because of how good she is as a human being, but I do forgive her in the sense that she is existentially limited by whatever she can best leverage as a survival strategy even if it leads to intentionally harming others. I don't expect her to recover from her condition, not only because of my experience with her, but also because her chances of recovery from narcissism are not good statistically. She is too psychologically resistant to self-reflection because it would be too painful for her to realize how terribly she has been treating others and getting away with it all her life. I now feel a deep sense of love for myself because I chose love, truth, and goodness. Of course I was limited in my understanding of these things and I had to make a lot of mistakes in the process. It kind of makes me want to cry because of how fucking awesome I am. I initially used these values to compensate my self-worth problems, but I now see the incredible being I have become because I chose love over hate, truth over lies, and good over evil. From my point of view it would not have been intelligent to not be committed to truth because if I intentionally lie to myself all my life then everything I believe is probably wrong. Therefore truth and intelligence were closely related to each other, although my understanding of intelligence was as something that would make me feel good about myself. I now realize that it would be incredibly fucking intelligent if this entire process throughout my entire life was designed to lead me to realize that the universe is very fucking intelligent. I still need to stay the fuck away from my sister as I continue to look for ways to navigate this situation. I find it very hard to be in her presence. I will also need a fuck ton of trauma therapy, no matter how much my family tells me I don't need it. It is actually not a good idea to trust my family at all because they don't understand me in the slightest. I also see how deeply ignorant people were on this forum including myself as I struggled to figure all of this stuff out. I hope you guys find this helpful.

Disclaimer: I understand that the following criticisms, objections, and opinions are just projections of my and the collective shadow and that all of this is untenable. Even if @vanish is a troll and didn't actually kill himself, my heavy emotional reaction is real and the lessons learned from this - maybe hypothetical - situation still hold true. For those of you who are unaware, @vanish posted some radical things on this forum - hopefully so far. He holds/held the view that awakening may only come from physical death, aka suicide. He wrote about living a life-threatening lifestyle - being in the dark, only drinking water for multiple weeks. He went into a bath full of ice almost killing himself which he announced earlier as killing "him"self. On March 26th, he wrote about the two lifestyles - self-development and self-destruction - and two days later he wrote a post saying that after he finished writing this post he is gonna shoot himself. Alot of people - including myself - started following him after this - he hasn't been online ever since. Now, I hate to say this but from an absolute perspective, every choice is equal. Fundamentally there is no difference between saving 100 lives and torturing yourself and committing suicide. I was shocked that even though I may grasp this on an intellectual level but not an emotional level - and I won't until my psychological death as @vanish would put it. The wording used by @Leo Gura and other spiritual teachers can be very easily misinterpreted: Because Leo didn't react until @vanish mentioned taking his life and almost complimented him for fasting and almost dying in that ice bath, many people accused him of talking @vanish to suicide. I would argue against this on some level; any symbol could be a trigger for any action. In theory, you could train a person to rape anyone if you say the word "peanuts". But Leo - also everybody who encouraged him, everybody who remained passive including me and for that matter everybody -, still, how the fuck didn't you stop him earlier? He was seriously playing with his health; he could have died from that ice bath. I want to discuss this issue - I think others may be also worried about this. @vanish, if you are reading this, come back and say "it was just a prank, bro!". What can we do about this? How to prevent or limit such misinterpretations in the future?

Hitler and the Nazi regime were the biggest group of spineless pussies ever. And I don’t just say that because of their racism and hatred, their actual character was slimy and inefficient. It’s one thing to be ethnocentric, but it’s another to be ethnocentric AND a spineless pussy. I watched a documentary on their inner circle and it’s full of backstabbing, lying and cowardice. They would have no integrity not just towards their enemies but to each other and were quick to screw one another over for benefit. The best example of this is how so many of them fled or committed suicide once their precious regime crumbled. None of them faced the consequences or stood by their message. They even threw each other under the bus. Biggest group of pussies to exist.

@LostSoul They said they could potentially help tramautized people due to the gentle progressive administration but that they pose a heavy risk: It can bring lots of traumas to the surface even with microdoses and if patients self-administer via vape pen, they have no facilitator or therapatis to work the challenges with, hence there have been already suicide deaths for destabilization because of this happening. They also mentioned shameless marketing techniques that targetted psychologically vulnerable people with the "magic pill" to all their problems, although potentially true, they did not give further information or support, but left the consumer to its own fate after buying the pen. My position is that, psychedelics are never the stand-alone solution to trauma, professional/serious work is. If you want to accelarate that ongoing process, then psychedelics and in particular 5meos are a great catalyst. Although psychologically traumatized individuals will have to be extra mindful if they self-administer without a tripsitter/facilitator/therapist as things can go south quickly. There's also potential for abuse and inner work bypassing as well.

How do you guys go about processing a friend's suicide?

Cindy was a kind person to me. She was always happy to see me. It seemed that she had a genuine smile and laugh whenever I was with her. I was told that she loved me to death. I cannot recall her ever saying or doing anything cruel to me. Cindy was my father's girlfriend. When I would visit them, they would act as if everything was fine. They were happy to see me as we played videogames, board games, and watched movies. I was aware of my father's criminal activity, but I was in a complex situation with my mother and her boyfriend as well. Sometimes the facade would slip. My father and Cindy would get into fights. I then discovered that dad was grabbing and hitting Cindy and calling her a "stupid f****** b****." I realized that dad and Cindy were like mom and Mike. I saw similar behavior like pawning to pay the bills and the use of some kind of opioid pain med along with domestic violence. Dad was also a drug dealer who would steal cash from partners and family despite his belief that he could keep his criminal behavior separate from his family. As I struggled with being caught between my mother and Mike and my father and his gang, I later discovered that Cindy was taking medication for depression and anxiety. I never discussed this with Cindy because I was worried about getting away from mom and Mike while ensuring the safety of my younger siblings. I underestimated how deeply she was suffering because she always seemed happy when I was with her, but she was likely faking it. Cindy eventually died by mixing alcohol with medication, causing her to go to sleep and not wake up. My family framed the incident as if it were an accident or a mistake. I am now realizing that this situation was likely a suicide. My family never talked much about this, so I didn't know it was something like this. Apparently family silence is common in this issue. Upon realizing this, I felt a grim sense of emptiness. I wondered if she ever knew what I was going through. I myself was struggling with suicidal thoughts and behaviors and I would continue with that for years. Because of my struggle, I would now be in a better position to understand her and support her in whatever way I could. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to help her because neither of us told the other about our depression and suicidal thoughts. By this point I already understood that when those close to us die by suicide, it increases the risk factor of suicide for others close to them. For me it seems to be having the opposite effect. This situation makes me want to not kill myself. As far as I could see there was nothing wrong with Cindy and she seemed like a decent human being to me. I wouldn't want her to die like this while suffering so deeply. I would have at least wanted a chance to understand how she felt and what she was going through. However, she wore a convincing mask and it didn't occur to me that she was in this position. If she had known how deeply I was suffering, I wonder how she would have responded. Unfortunately, it is far too late for such wishes and if only thoughts. It seems to be a common psychological phenomenon where it is easy to offer compassion to a friend but not to yourself. Cindy was probably like that as she showed happiness and love on the outside but she probably hated life on the inside. It is easy and natural for me to give such people compassion, yet I tend to treat myself like I'm awful. The reason this realization makes me not want to kill myself is because I see myself as someone similar to Cindy. Like her, I am worthy of love and receiving help. I don't want to end up repeating her actions without giving others the chance to offer compassion. I tend to connect very well with people who are in this kind of deep suffering like me. It feels like Cindy's love for me and her death would be for nothing if I did the same to myself. Perhaps those suffering deeply from depression and suicidal thoughts may respond to it by acting as good of a person as they can. This is a survival strategy that is intended to restore a sense of self worth through morality and being good, therefore justifying a person's existence despite deep suffering. I do this as well and this behavior may be more common than I think. It is close to the root of how I try to find some grand life purpose for myself that helps the maximum number of people in the hopes of being good and therefore justifying my existence. Therefore, attachment to morality is a trauma response, and those suffering deeply may act very kind because of their empathy and compassion for those in deep suffering. This seems to be part of why I am confused about things like life purpose as those with depression are prone to nihilism. I hope my experience has helped you guys somehow. May Cindy rest in peace and may I avoid the same mistake she made.

What do I do? he talks about how it is his freedom and he knows this is better for him and he has endured years, that is sound logically. but man.. he is one of my best friends since 5 years, he comes from a very abusive and controlling family that is ruining his life. I am very emotionally intelligent and good at communicating emotions, understanding and listening to people, which is why I am usually the "therapist friend" and why he told me. He has been suicidal ever since I knew him, I have tried all the advice in the book. Should I tell his father? Even though his father is one of the main reasons for his misery, extremely manipulative and controlling. If I let him do it, I would feel guilty my whole life. If I try to stop him... I am not sure how that will work. I love him very dearly.

The problem is that to fix your life and get your shit together takes years, however everyday you're struggling with strong sexual urges, the dating sexual market require men to be at their best, even sometimes setting unrealistic standards, and mainstream society doesn't give you much option when it comes to fulfilling sexual desires. And waiting to fix your life while not having sex can be really demotivating, frustrating, can lead to addictions, dysfunctions, bad habits to medicate the pain, depression and even suicide. So my question is how ?

Because slavery had to do with the economic interests of the rich and powerful... and the rich and powerful were using their power to impose their own "narratives of normal" onto society. And they had created many narratives for why slavery was normal, right, good, and justified that the populace bought into despite very few white people having enough money to have slaves. To appeal to liberal types of the time, they basically said that black people couldn't govern themselves properly because they were inferior and uncivilized and needed their white masters to take care of them. To appeal to traditional conservative types, they needed to emphasize the superiority of their culture and people over the enslaved people's culture and people. And they could always appeal to poor white people who wanted to feel like they weren't on the very bottom of the social hierarchy... who could imagine that the power of the white ruling elite would rub off onto them. And I'm sure that abolitionists were framed as a bunch of screeching abnormal Quaker SJWs whose anti-slavery views were so extreme that it would be political suicide for any serious politician at the time. But you don't make any changes like this by conceding to the framing of slave owners and normalizing these viewpoints. You remain steadfast until the only acceptable and serious position in society is that "Slavery is bad" and that anyone who doesn't agree is a crazy stupid racist weirdo who's probably just bitter because they smell bad and women are creeped out by them. That's how you wield power. You don't play defense... and you don't meet weirdos and crazies in the middle. Instead, you give them a disgusted look like you're smelling something bad and say, "You don't ACTUALLY think that way. Do you?" And if they say yes, you laugh at them like you're suprised and you believe they're joking and like they can't possibly be serious. Then, when they say they're serious, you press them... and you make them have to defend the indefensible. You make them play defense and you pose your point of view as the "duh" position.

If people are so malleable, then why did it take a bloody Civil War to free African Americans from slavery? Why did it require one of the largest and most effective civil rights movements in U.S. history just to secure women the right to vote? Why did it take yet another herculean effort—along with the traumatic loss of many innocent lives—to finally end Jim Crow laws through the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century? And why did so many gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer people suffer, face violence, die by suicide, or endure unnecessary death and suffering from AIDS during the decades-long fight for LGBTQ+ rights—before mainstream acceptance and the eventual legalization of gay marriage in the mid-2010s? Democrats obviously shouldn't normalize Nazism or Trump-like rhetoric. Hell, even most Republicans don't normalize Nazism.

Absolutely agree. The Democratic Party’s survival depends on embracing real economic populism—not just culture war deflections. Fixing income inequality, busting monopolies, and breaking corporate capture should be non-negotiables. But taxing the bottom 80% is political suicide and morally backward. The wealth is at the top. That’s where the pressure belongs. Can Dems be pushed left? Not without grassroots fire and public clarity. The establishment, like Schumer, has long been tethered to Wall Street. They fear Sanders-style populism because it threatens their donor class. But that’s exactly the battle line—people power vs corporate power. And it’s one worth drawing clearly.

Okay, good! I'm glad you're actually saying that. Obviously, the Democratic Party isn’t going to become the party of Bernie Sanders or AOC anytime soon, and we’ll have to wait until 2026 or 2028 to see how significant a shift they actually make toward economic populism. Still, it’s encouraging that the party does seem to be heading in that direction. And just because a majority of people voted for Trump and his hyper-capitalistic MAGA agenda in 2024 and America is still so attached to toxic stage Orange doesn’t mean the Democratic Party should throw up its hands and say, “Alright, we give up on progressivism and economic populism because apparently the American people don’t want that. We get it now—the era of big government is over, and from now on, we’re going to give bipartisan legitimacy to the economic philosophy of Trump and the MAGA Republicans,” much like how Bill Clinton’s “Third Way” politics in the ’90s essentially triangulated Reaganomics. So then, is the larger point you’ve been making that even if Democrats run on a more “progressive” and economically populist agenda in the coming years, those efforts would still be trapped within a deeper, systemic stage of development—namely, neoliberal capitalism? That would be political suicide for Democratic party. Yes, we would need to do that to make something like Medicare for All (M4A) work, but of course we know that most Americans are never going to go for that for the foreseeable future.

Well my "Holy Bible" is my NDE page that I follow over 10years and it's most scientific as it can be and it's very rigorous, and God is so complex, there is everything there, karma, past lifes, life reviews, Holy Trinity, Christians dies and they discover that reincarnation is real, total atheists and suicide victims got unconditional love from God, aliens, there are also darker and horrible realms everything that you can imagine or not. But that is what God is. Everything. But I ground myself in this reality with Christian mysticism and Buddhism, my point is, for me karma is just another word for God nothing else, every religion has its flaws, but for Buddism and reincarnation is for me most fascinating thing is how they find next Dalai Lama, next Rinponche, next Tulchu, they developed the system over centuries and they literally find a babies (like finding a needle in a haystack) out of nowhere, and present them with objects from past life real and fake and they choose correctly 100% of time, there must be something in it.....maybe I'm off topic sorry.... Just my two cents.....

There’s just something magical about New York bands that carry a distinctly European aesthetic sensibility. Almost all my favorites fall into that category: Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, Sonic Youth, Suicide, Talking Heads, etc. That blend of raw American Prometheanism with European art-school cool, intellectualism, and a touch of decadence always produces something special.

It was so weird, the weirdest place in the universe, the last thing/place you could imagine. udgdguduziui2929229%%ùù....... LSD did that to me too, but it was less of an ego death. They wouldn't even really want me to vape CBD imagine if they stumble upon my posts with my tobacco pipe, my psychedelic experiences, with testosterone, and my perverted jokes 😂 But God, on a non-dual level, has no agenda; All this ventance is egotistical; Ultimately, we "want" "well-being," "enjoyment," "happiness," and by extension, "to avoid" "suffering." So I don't see the point of wanting to escape, because there's no point beyond that; There's simply nothing. Is it even possible to have a non-dual experience? Whether by committing suicide or by dropping enough 5 MeO DMT? If there's always a conscious experience, then there's always an ego clutch. Does "non-dual experience" even make sense? Anyway, I compulsively wrote this, maybe it's impertinent, I don't know. "I" "will" "eat" "a" "chips" "bag" Mhhh...

The following is a testimony about my personal experience with male resentment, extreme ideologies, bad epistemology, and how the love for Truth can save you from it. It started out as a reply to Leo in another thread about male resentment. I want to add before I begin, if you are 30+, you have no idea how bad the ideological and epistemological nature is of young people. It's breaking down rates you wouldn't believe. People younger than 20 are even worse, I've heard. (im 25) virtually none of them subscribe to the vanilla liberal worldview anymore. You're a loser if you do. all the "cool kids" basically believe in anti-institutional, radical rhetoric, which often has a more far-right flair to it than far-left. All the kids are listening and watching Adin Ross and the like, who are a direct pipeline to Trumpism and other forms of hate. This is all in part thanks to a true failure of the liberal hegemony, with their lies, propaganda, capitalism, zionism and hyper competitive society, without any forms of shared epistemology or spirituality. They as the elites have failed the masses. And the masses, dumb, selfish and rat-like as they are still, do recognize when the elites have failed them, subconsciously. They recognize that the level of bullshit of the liberals has reached a critical point and they're no longer capable or worthy of ruling. And they are correct in that regard; just look at the Democrat party in the US; They're not even fighting Trump, who is literally doing all kinds of fascist things and takeovers as we speak. The liberals are so cucked to capital and their own nepotism, they have ENTIRELY lost the connection to the masses. But of course they are not solely to blame. The rise of radical falsehood, the breaking down of epistemology through the internet and its bad actors. So much of our collective mental structure is being destroyed. Again, if you're above a certain age, you have no idea whats coming. People of my age are already fucked in the head and like I said, the people who are like 10 years younger than me, I.E. generation Alpha, are completely batshit insane. Not all of them of course, but a lot more than you think. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ @Leo Gura said, in response to my question about whether his stance is that women have it easier than men in life: Yeah, I agree, from my experience. I thought your post implicitly agreed with OPs sentiment that men have it harder in absolute terms. Even though I went through a lot of resentment, I realized that sex for women is not their challenge. Their challenge is being more dependent than men are on other people, always being at risk of danger, being more emotionally volatile, and being at risk of the men they are dependant on leaving them. In hindsight I wonder how I could have been so juvenile to think so selfishly. I think it's the sheer cope with the pain of being unloved, and having to accept a lonely and sexless life, that in combination of being confronted with sick and extreme ideologies that are readily found and normalized on the regular internet nowadays, spread by people who want to rile you up and exploit you for fame and cash, can send you spiraling in very dark ways and twist your mind into ways you'd never seen yourself in before. What saved me was in part my curiosity and love for truth. Even though I went far in some rabbitholes like incel, far right, and even jihadi ideologies, I was always still curious about other points of view and other ideologies. I started studying other worldviews like leftism, communism, liberalism, world history, and how all these worldviews collide and/or differ at points. Also, no matter how deep I went in the maelstrom of hate and resentment, the core of my being was yet always aware that what I was doing was not right, and more importantly not true. I always had my deepest intuition telling me that any ideology, any thought system or worldview that was based on bias and emotion is blatantly not true. It may sound juvenile to you, but when you're on the verge of suicide, ridden with resentment and hate for yourself but also the world, it's a lot harder to fight the devil and his ideologies. Sometimes it felt like, "okay, I'm going to kill myself", and I would feel the deepest sense in my bones that I would go to hell afterwards. Especially this thought is what drew me to the jihadi ideology in the latter part of my "dark arc" , since it confirms my intuition that suicide would mean hell, but provides the alternative of fighting for the state and religion, and if you die for it it's a VIP ticket to heaven, with all of the women you'd ever want. Again, I know it sounds juvenile as fuck, but I was actively fighting my suicidal ideation with it. It was demonic ideals vs demonic ideals. Ever since I've accepted and commited to that i'll never again sacrifice truth for anything, even if it means killing myself, I feel like I've been freed from ideology and ideological hate. I still feel the remnants of it, and sometimes I still say vile things online out of impulse, which I am ashamed to say. But knowing I have love for Truth, and refrain from falling into obvious bullshit, I feel a lot better about myself I guess. Even though I'm stlil a completely broken man, even if I die, at least I will die having said, "God is Truth". I remember during my most tumultuous times, not knowing what God is, but knowing that Consciousness is eternal, being so afraid and so fed up, thinking about death, hell and the afterlife, and pain throughout my entire day, almost going insane, I said to myself at a point, "Truth is my God because Truth is God. No matter my fears, Truth is my God and I place all my faith in that, no matter what happens to me or what I will do." Because even when I don't know God, or know the Truth, I know that God is Truth, because that is the only thing it can be. Even if you know nothing, the Truth is there, and falsehood is bound to vanish, and the Truth remains. Ironically, that is a quote from the Quran. It filled me with delight that after all this, Leo started sharing quotes about Truth and the love for Truth, confirming my intuitions. Not that it would have mattered, since I already made my commitment, and realized how deep something like committing to Truth really is. It literally means the death of all your bullshit and ego games if you truly commit to it, and might even mean physical death. But it still was soothing seeing an epic seeker like Leo basically coming to the same conclusions. The last thing that I'd say is that, ironically, my delving into radical ideologies did have a self-redeeming quality to it, because I went so deep into it that I so to say, "came out of the other end". What I mean by that is actually something quite profound. I will elaborate: I was so deep into it that I was basically ready to kill people. If you rile yourself up this bad, you basically come to a point where you either do that stuff, or don't, realize the horrible nature of yourself, let it all go, knowing it's all bullshit and morally abhorrent. Contrast this with what I have seen a friend of me, one of my best friends that I have known since elementary, going through. He is truly stuck in far-right ideology, but not in the furthest ends of the kind. He follows people like Sam Hyde, extremely sneaky figures who sneak in their antisemitism and radical, hateful thought, in a cynical comical fashion. They somehow rationalize their views with being capable with morals, because they don't outright advocate for the holocaust, yet still dogwhistle all the time and basically change your worldview into thinking jews run the world and all that stuff. Candace owens comes to mind, a sneaky rat who isn't a blatant outspoken nazi, but still spouts the same rhetoric. The hate is very much there in those figures, but shrouded under veils of normalcy; fooling the follower into rationalizing the hate, internalizing it, and never coming to the conclusion that you've become a horrible person. Looking at my friend and hearing what he often shares with me and my friends it's obvious he really believes in Jewish world domination and the like. It makes my stomach turn, and makes me ashamed of myself, since I also shared those memes and jokes with him in a time we were both vulnerable. But because I'm just a more extreme person, both in my evilness and goodness, that I came out of the other end, I realized how evil I was and also how Good real truth and real epistemology is. I saw through that I never really believed in all the crap with my real mind, but only because I was in so much turmoil I was basically taken over by the hate and bullshit. It hurts to see my friend, who is very high-iq, being turned in a far-right ideologue, even though we both came from liberal, well off parents, he even more than I. I don't know what kind of trauma he went through to have to latch onto this hate for the West, and to do so not in a far-leftist way but in a far-right way. I used to envy him in elementary school, because he got with the girl that I was in love with but rejected me. I always thought that I was special, that I was rightful to be hateful, more than other people. Now I see my delusion. I don't know what to do honestly. I'm thinking of, for the love of Truth and him, just aggressively try to wake him up by calling out his bullshit, giving evidence why Sam Hyde is a nazi and that it's not just liberal propaganda that he is (he literally believes that, it's honestly baffling how such a high iq person can have such a bad epistemology). Even though it might end our friendship, it's the best thing I can do. TL:DR; Falsehood is everywhere, the ego loves falsehood because of pain and emotions, God is Truth, and the love for Truth should be held onto, no matter what it means for your ego and your life.

@Sincerity listen ,kid ..don't even get me started. I'm only playing with you. If I went down on you for real I will be banned from the entire Internet not just this forum. What have you done to realize any truth about existence? I was literally a millimetres away from killing myself. I joined so many online support communities and said that I'm suicidal and I experience suicidal thoughts 24/7 . I also visited a therapist and took SSRI’S and all that ...it didn't work back then .. but thank goodness I'm well now. I went to hell five times while you were sitting in your mom's basement jerking off. Humble request..dust yourself off and try to grasp what I mean by nobody knows Jack shit . Will the sun shine tomorrow? If I go to bed is there a garuntee that I will wake up tomorrow? What if I go to hell when I die ? Is the world still there when I close my eyes ?etc and those kind of thoughts have been explored and trust me you do not want to hear the answer. I will stop here because the conversation is spiralling waaaaaay out of control and I don't want to be the reason of your suicide tonight.

What does a Solipsist thinks about that? Can a Solipsist kill himself?

@integral Regarding my personal approach to knowledge, I identify primarily as a skeptic and rationalist. My tendency is to rigorously question beliefs, established paradigms, and even the methods we use to determine what's "known." Ironically, this skepticism extends to my own current methods – I remain critical even of my own critical approach. Despite this rationalist leaning, I've had experiences under psychedelics that felt profoundly, undeniably true – more real than everyday reality. However, when I examine recent scientific studies on psychedelics, I'm struck by findings concerning effects like intense "noetic" feelings (the sense of deep insight) and altered prediction processing in the brain. Research suggests these neurological effects might create the feeling of encountering the Absolute, rather than revealing an objective truth. Based on reports I've reviewed on this topic, this implies we should be cautious about accepting psychedelic experiences as direct conduits to reliable insights, as the potential for illusion might outweigh the potential for discovering truth. This raises the fundamental question: what is truth? For me, truth represents a core quality of reality itself. The more truthful a concept or understanding is, the more coherent it is with the actual workings of reality. Truth allows for accurate predictions and a deeper comprehension of systems. Essentially, the more truth you grasp, the more accurate your mental "map" of reality becomes. So, how do we distinguish truth from falsehood? By testing our ideas against reality. I understand that some perspectives view science critically, perhaps seeing it as flawed, corrupt, or dogmatic. However, it's hard to deny that the scientific method provides a powerful way to uncover truths about the material world. Therefore, I find significant value in relying on science, particularly when dealing with well-documented research backed by reasonable tests and predictive power. Yet, I'm not entirely confined by science either. I recognize it's also a specific framework, a particular "box" for understanding. This leaves me in a complex position: I can't fully trust the profound, subjective insights from altered states like psychedelic experiences if they lack predictive validation, nor can I solely rely on the scientific framework, acknowledging its inherent limitations. What's the resolution? For me, it's embracing epistemic humility: acknowledging the vastness of what we don't know, and perhaps cannot know. Even with my own significant spiritual insights (experiences related to solipsism, God-realization, omniscience, etc.), I resist labeling them as Absolute Truths unless they demonstrate some form of predictability or testable coherence with reality. Furthermore, the very nature of spiritual awakenings seems subjective; each individual experiences them uniquely. This reinforces the idea that personal absolutes are perhaps best kept personal, rather than presented as universal facts. To be clear: I feel a strong personal certainty about the nature of God, the fundamental reality of consciousness, and the all-encompassing nature of Truth. However, I believe that any attempt to point to this Truth, to explain it, or to build fixed beliefs and concepts around it, inevitably introduces distortion and falsehood. Trying to capture the Absolute in rigid definitions feels like a form of "epistemic suicide." PS. if you have some time in your hand, take a look into this report on psychedelics: https://x.com/i/grok/share/m49i280mxTxL8iK06gS5LdKxL

I hear it very often that people encounter Jesus. It is often just before an attempt to suicide or some emotional crises. I don’t judge them and there is probably some truth to it. They usually find unconditional love but it comes with a lot of spiritual baggage and dogmas. Today I encountered a lady who experienced that. And at the core she was very nice but she was kind of rigid when it came down to her beliefs about original sin and Jesus as the sole savior. I was thinking why do Muslims never encounter their prophet? Or Buddhist ? Only certain Christians seem to encounter their savior? Which is peculiar.