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It's still doable. You need a job, get a job at McDonalds, get any job, you need to earn a living so you can buy certain essential things. Good clothes, good perfume, good food. You can't expect a women to get close to you without these things. Get books that you're passionate about, it could be self help, it could be about virgins like you. Start digging your head into reading material, it's good for you. enjoy it. Find a career path. Pay a professional counselor(see why you need money?) to help you figure what kind of a career you can make yourself. You need to get your head straight. Pay for therapy. Find a gym so you can get those feel good hormones, so you can get testosterone, this will boost your performance and drive for life. It will make you also want to get better food to get higher and better nutrition. Good luck. If all else fails, go to a monestary instead of suicide. Monks have been recorded to be able to instantly create bliss, to off record levels of bliss, such rapture and love on command is not something science understand. So if it comes down to it, just go and do that, what've you got to lose. Better than suicide imo.

Many of my own profound meditation-induced experiences were determination sitting too. For some reason the experience is profoundly deepened by simply letting go of your normal responses and suffering through it until your ego naturally dissolves. At some point all the pain is gone and only profound bliss remains. It's a powerful meditation method, at least in my experience. I think the longest one I did was about two hours.

@Loving Radiance I say that because it's the least distinct one apart from sahasrara. You have always felt comfort, pleasure, joy and love which are expressions of the first 4 chakras. They are more tangable. @itachi uchiha ksf is alsmoast too intence for me. It has me shaking and losing control. How I understand it, it's not about pleasure but rather to increase your prana to then use in more gentle practices to create bliss, comfort, pleasure, joy, love and/or awareness. How long it lasts depends on a lot of factors, a day maybe? The amount of wellbeing you get from a chakra can be calculated by prana amount*chakra openness. If you have a lot of prana but a closed chakra it can actually create intense suffering. If you have an open chakra but little prana then it will feel nice but not overwhelmingly so. But also prana helps you open your chakras, and allows you to go into depths that are normally unavailable. Open chakra + lots of prana = bliss bomb Nothing that I've experienced through energy work compares to 5-meo, but if you have a full-blown kundalini awakening then maybe you could get to that level. Energetic practices has changed how psychedelics work on me, it's more energetic now.

feel deeper. Push yourself out of your social comfort zone it forces you to feel deeper. Let yourself get upset, angry, sad, happy, and everything in between. Allow yourself to feel like total shit or total bliss. Yes you can read books to arm you with tools to employ feeling deeper into emotions. But also keep in mind that understanding emotions can only happen on a feeling level. And until you feel them you don't really understand them. Emotional intelligence is just this: how aware are you of your own emotions and the emotions of others. The most accurate understanding happens at the level of being. You don't need to will being in touch with the emotions of others. If you become fully involved with your own being emotionally you will naturally feel deeper into all other beings.

once i've had a dream/vision first it was hell that i went trough, i came out slowly on the other side and then there was only me and bliss i realised that i've created everything for "fun" for the lack of a better term then i was horny and wanted to fuuu* and then i realised that i'm always only f'n myself, which was funny

God is eternal. It can only destroy itself via illusion. But it's only horrifying to the ego mind. Because pure Infinity is Infinite Bliss and Infinite Love and Infinite Intelligence....I'm not glorifying it as some special state because your current state of consciousness is also Love and Bliss if you can realize that the ego mind causes its own suffering via its own selflessness. So as your consciousness increases you will find that you are perfectly happy in your current state of consciousness so there is no need for thoughts of death as if it was "some better place". This is an illusion spun by your ego.

Lightly assign a time to that entertainment for letting go of everything. Maybe 30 minutes. And in that 30 mins, let go as deep as can be. Even if you’re watching something, or playing a video game… let the body go completely. Deeper & deeper into the muscles, ligaments, tendons, etc. I find this to be almost equivalent to having just slept eight hours or not worked all day. The ‘five inner bodies’ model of Vippassana are very on point here. When the ‘inner bodies’ are let go, it is very much felt, and it is very deep relaxation / great feeling, and ultimately bliss such that working and not working and any entwinement with creative or not creative actually fall away. That might sound woo woo or out there, but sharing from direct experience and much inspection of this as of late. To create what I prefer to create on the project I’m on means physical labor (painting, drywalling, sanding walls, etc, etc) to the tune of twelve to fourteen hours a day, every day. Two or three times a day I sit and allow an ‘ultimate let go’ of all the ‘bodies’ and am rejuvenated. Without this, I don’t think I’d last even eight hours, and I don’t think I’d be enjoying it all nearly as much. There are some singular insights which come to bat in regard to ‘the changeover’… the going from working a job to whatever else, and the overlap ‘in between’… Use a dreamboard. No “thinker thinking”, simply, thoughts arising. Receiving thoughts & insights specific to what you desire and the way from Source, rather than ‘figuring anything out’ / ‘voluntary thinking’. Fist thing every morning, before any engagement with anything - connect / bring to mindfulness - that experience is one whole. This one whole experience, or, What Is… is morphing, becoming, the one whole experience you desire. Much like the trying to see if the light in the refrigerator is still on when you’ve closed the door, this morphing is unseen, but can be deduced, and thus it can be realized that you are steering it, you are at the helm, always. Thinking this what is is becoming what is desired is like, an ok feeling. Believing it is feels a bit more interesting. But knowing it is and can not possibly be any other way is ineffable.

It sounds like you are going after states, not for the Truth. There is no such a thing as "God state", because God doesn't exist, it is existence. In other words, God is not distinct from any thing. So sorry, I have no idea what you talk about when you say by living in some god head state. As a human being you can have a very different variety of states, for sure. But those are all functions of self and mind. Self and mind are not God, but they are manifestations of "it" so fundamentally there is no separation. So, it doesn't matter whether your self is in a state of suffering or flow, or some love state. Self is not separated from God. If "God" was a function of state or experience, then it wouldn't be the Truth. It would be just another thing in existence, relative to some other things which are not god. I don't mean that going after states isn't good or beneficial. On the contrary: improving your state of being is important for us all. I love being in the flow state. But a state of being is not the nature of being, and many many fall prey to the delusion that God is hiding in some mystical state. God is every state of being. I think this is especially common among Psychonauts. The substance nukes self or mind so deeply that you are temporarily freed from being inside a conceptual self that drains your being and lower your state. And boom, you go from emotional deficiency into some blissful state of peace/flow/love, and mistake the state for the Truth. Classic trap. If you want to permanently change your state, than lose, loosen or change the self you created. Self transformation is no easy task at all, especially if you want the "high" states of being. You will have to sacrifice a lot of what you built as your self for this. And shedding deep beliefs and assumptions about you or reality is not easy at all. And you don't remember that you crafted your self from scratch, because your were to busy in creating it, so how could you? Consider that if you want constant emotional abundance and being in flow or bliss, you would actually have to give a up all the things that bind you into your current self and state of being. And this could be everything that you hold dear as a self.

486. Summary: Satisfaction Meditation - How To Make Meditation Enjoyable! This episode gives you a practice you can use to apply the insights from The Root Solution To People Pleasing & Loneliness. (Summary is here.) It’s a very simple, but effective meditation technique that’s somewhat counter-intuitive. It helps answer… “But Leo, how do I practice becoming satisfied by myself? How do I embody not needing any kind of external validation? How do I apply the wisdom that chasing dopamine hits is a bad strategy for happiness?” The point of the Satisfaction Meditation is to take back control of your reward mechanism. Currently, your happiness usually depends on rewards from someone else (love, praise, attention, etc) or some external event (a promotion, lots of money, a hot date, no lineups at the DMV.) With the Satisfaction Meditation, we want to develop a practice of just sitting, being and not doing anything. Just basking in satisfaction. It’s the idea of just basking in the present moment and being deeply satisfied with it. That’s it. It’s literally that simple. There are two potential traps. First, you have to practice it. Second, your mind doesn't like feeling satisfied with “just existing and being, duuuude.” Your mind wants to do things and fantasize about stuff. It has ambitions, fears, problems that it wants to fixate on endlessly. All of that robs you of your natural joy. The Satisfaction Meditation Meditation starts at 3:22. It will take 10 minutes. Set aside all distractions and take a comfy seat. Sit with your eyes open. Relax your muscles. Now, you’re just going to sit there. Don’t try to manipulate or control anything in your experience. Don’t try to stop your thoughts or achieve a mystical experience. Just sit there and be fully satisfied. Allow yourself to be satisfied with the present. Keep gently nudging yourself to be satisfied with the Now, with just this moment. Notice if there's a positive, joyful feeling in your body. Maybe it’s a feeling of comfort. Enjoy the feeling, but don’t hinge your satisfaction on it. If you sit long enough you might start feeling uncomfortable and you still want to be fundamentally satisfied. That’s It! Think you can you do that? Normally your mind wants to fixate on the future or the past because that’s where your problems exist. You then lose touch with the beauty, calm and peace that’s present, in the moment, because it's not relevant to your survival plans. We usually take the present moment for granted. So, you might notice a subtle shift as you bring your awareness into the now. Proactively start to appreciate and enjoy your direct experience. Keep nudging yourself to feel satisfied with it. (The present is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present ??) Enjoyable Meditation?? The enjoyment from the Satisfaction Meditation doesn’t feel like ecstatic, dopamine-fuelled pleasure. It feels like relaxing into the moment. “Ahhh ?, it’s nice to just sit here and be peaceful. It’s nice not needing to chase an outcome or solve some problem. Ahhhhhh ⛱️.” So basically, you’re going to find satisfaction with being and existing. During this period of 10, 20 (or 60, 90 ?) minutes you’re just going to focus on being satisfied. If you practice this frequently you’ll notice a subtle shift. Before when you meditated you didn't really enjoy it, but now when you meditate you actually enjoy it! It’s not a chore, or a grind! The Satisfaction Meditation can create a positive feedback loop, because the satisfaction will start to build on itself. ⁍ Focusing on feeling satisfied in the present moment…helps you… ⁍ Realize you actually are satisfied…which creates a… ⁍ Feeling of satisfaction about being satisfied and your ability to recognize it. (“Wow! Leo’s weird meditation actually works!!”)…which causes an… ⁍ Increase in satisfaction that builds up that feeling even more…which helps with… ⁍ Focusing on feeling satisfied in the present moment… …So just continue to sit there, and become ever more deeply satisfied… -After that, it’s a matter of staying in the sweet spot of satisfaction for as long as you can. Try to keep your awareness there. -The Satisfaction Meditation shows you that being satisfied and happy is something you get to do right now. Happiness is not something you have to chase after! If you really practice it intensely, it can turn into deep joy, bliss and love. You can become so satisfied with just sitting in the present moment, not needing anything, that it brings tears to your eyes. -You can make this a formal sit down practice that you do everyday or a few times a week. Or, you can turn this into an entire week-long meditation retreat, where you’re just sitting, being satisfied and not doing anything else. The Sneaky Ego-Mind -Warning: your ego-mind will start to get sneaky… “Psssst…hey you…sitting there doing nothing…your to-do list ain’t getting any shorter…" “Wouldn't this moment be better if you had some drugs, or sex, or chocolate? Or friends? Or a mystical experience? Or a mystical, drug fuelled, sexperience with friends? Or at least a yummmy nummmy cookie…?” -You have to let go of those fantasies and just savour what’s right here in the present moment. Stop trying to chase for a better experience. Your mind is going to imagine all sorts of “better” scenarios. For now, focus on the present. You can spend the rest of your non-meditation time chasing goals and doing stuff. “But Leo, what if I can't be satisfied in the moment? That hottie ghosted me! I got a parking ticket! I have a project due tomorrow! I’ve got bills to pay, kids to feed, a hottie to resent and stalk on instagram. I needs me some enlightenment, pronto!” -Well, the challenge is to try. Your mind might resist and come up with excuses, at first. You have to notice that those are tricks of your mind. You have to just let those go. (ep: The Power of Letting Go) Let go of needing things to be different. Allow yourself to be satisfied with what's here right now. Focus on that satisfaction. Enjoy it. -This meditation is powerful because the whole point is to be happy right now. Other meditations are such a chore that they become difficult to practice consistently. They’re a frustrating means to some future happiness or enlightenment, which becomes counterproductive. Instead of dreading meditation, you’ll look forward to it because you get to just sit and be happy for 30-60 mins! It’s the same reason you sit down to play ?Ghost of Tsushima? isn’t it? Spirituality Is Not Supposed To Be A Grind -If you're just grinding through meditation, that's a signal you're doing it wrong. It’s hard to reach mystical states through meditation when you don't enjoy the process. It takes hundreds, sometimes thousands of hours of just sitting and being present in order to reach that. How do you plan on keeping that up if you don’t enjoy it? Reframe how you think about your meditation practice so that you can bask in the enjoyment. Whether it’s the Do Nothing technique or Neti Neti or just counting your breaths, enjoy the process. That’s crucial. -Making spirituality all about productivity and attaining some idealized future to avoid the present is a corruption of what spirituality is truly about. If your spiritual practice isn't aligned with joy and a satisfaction with existence, then there's something deeply askew. You could also broaden that lesson out to the entire process of self-actualization and personal development and even your career or life purpose as well. People Pleasing and Loneliness “But Leo, how does being satisfied with nothing connect to people pleasing and loneliness?” -People pleasing happens because you need others to fill you with love. You're not satisfied with things the way they are, so you do a lot of work to get praise and approval from others. It becomes an addiction. On top of that, you’re never fully satisfied even when you do get their validation. The afterglow of praise doesn’t last very long and it doesn't deeply fulfill you. If you're not fundamentally happy, you'll probably doubt or criticize their praise. “She didn’t really have a good time. She was just being polite.” “Okay, he complimented my hair, but what about my outfit? He probably just wants to get laid.” And so forth. -Loneliness happens when you imagine that the present moment could be improved by having more people around you, or people to talk to, be intimate with, share experiences with and so forth. It’s similar to people pleasing in that way. The solution is to ground yourself in being satisfied with existence, by strengthening your Satisfaction Muscle. That why you do the Satisfaction Meditation! You'll notice that you don’t feel lonely while you're doing the Satisfaction Meditation, because you're satisfied with existence itself. You don't need anyone else or anything more. You’re alone, but you're not lonely. Developing the deep capacity for satisfaction helps you to be non-needy and detached. It will augment the joy you do get from relationships. -This isn’t a license to become a recluse. This doesn’t mean you never socialize or be intimate with other people. That would be a mistake. You should cultivate relationships, just not while you’re meditating. Your Satisfaction Muscle -The Satisfaction Meditation will help you build your Satisfaction Muscle, which is your ability to appreciate and be happy with the moment just as it is. The effect of building your Satisfaction Muscle will spillover into other areas of your life. You will become happier, because you’ll be the source of happiness itself. It’s the kind of joy that most people overlook, because it's not a sharp peak in pleasure. It's not like a drug high or an orgasm. It's a very steady, even keeled contentment. It’s mild at first, but you can train it to levels of deep pleasure. The satisfaction can even turn into ecstatic levels of joy and bliss. Ultimately it can even turn into love. Why love? Because, you’ll start to fall in love with existence itself. That’s the rock bottom of this practice. Just a love of being conscious of being conscious of the eternal Now. With enough practice, you’ll start experiencing mystical states and even some satoris. Awakenings will happen as you sit there. You’ve stopped chasing them, but they’ll start happening because you've fully surrendered to the present moment. -As you build up your Satisfaction Muscle , you can go out into the world and apply the Satisfaction Meditation to everyday situations, like filing paperwork, grocery shopping, waiting in line at the DMV, etc. Usually you’d be irritated while sitting in traffic, but instead you can let go of your impatience and turn that into a Satisfaction Meditation. Also, when you go for a walk in the park, you can really be there and enjoy the beauty that’s all around you instead of being stuck in your head. Spirituality & Embracing The Now -Spirituality is the ability to cultivate your love for existence itself and be satisfied with whatever IS. It’s about developing an appreciation and satisfaction with the present that will carry over into every moment of your life. -Ordinarily we ignore the present moment as we go about surviving in the world. We get distracted trying to solve some problem or chase some goal, just to improve how existence feels. That can lead to anxiety and worry. Instead, practice being happy right now, for no good reason. Isn't that how you imagine you’d be if you were awakened? Think of it like this: If you can just sit and allow yourself to be content, do you even need enlightenment? Do you really need mystical experiences? What more do you want, but satisfaction? Why not short circuit all of that and go straight to the satisfaction? -You’re chasing these experiences because you believe they will satisfy you. What if you don't need to jump through all these hoops? The present moment is Absolute Truth. It’s God. Love. Spirit. Consciousness. Nirvana. Shunyata. Teotl. Fana. Shiva. The Groundless Ground. Mu. The Tao. The Force. It’s right here, right now. It’s just a matter of developing the ability to become conscious of it. The Trap of Chasing Enlightenment "But Leo, if I'm just sitting here satisfied and that’s the bulk of my meditation, will I ever reach enlightenment? Where's my awakening? I wanna be wise goddamn it!!” -No meditation can guarantee you will become enlightened. If you’ve been doing a lot of pushing during meditation for months and years, and you’re still not enlightened, maybe you need to try something new? Don’t fixate on achieving some mystical state or becoming enlightened while you meditate. If you have that attitude, even at the back of your mind, you're not doing it right. It’s important you let that attachment go. Just be satisfied with the present moment. You’re chasing some future fantasy, which is not what awakening is about. The anxiety of pushing for a result is sabotaging your ability to be present. -You might do this especially if you’ve attained crazy high peaks of consciousness through psychedelics. You can override that impatience by focusing on being satisfied with what is. Meditation is its own end, and in this case, meditation is about savouring satisfaction. ⦿ What you really want is to be more present. If you’re constantly trying to achieve a mystical experience, you’re distracted by anticipating some future result. That takes you out of the present moment. Worrying and anticipating are future oriented fantasies. It distracts you from your practice and becomes counter-productive. ⦿ Chasing becomes frustrating. With a chasing mindset, meditation can feel like a waste if you don’t “achieve enlightenment in 30 minutes.” You might even shame yourself, which creates a negative association to your meditation practice. The meditation becomes another means to an end, when it should be the end itself. If you're chasing some fantasy state with meditation, that ensures you're never going to be satisfied with most of your meditations. ⦿ Chasing happiness makes you unhappy. Unhappiness is imagining there’s something you should have, but don’t have, and that having it is the only way to become happy. This ensures you'll be unhappy until you get that thing, and even if you do get it you’ll only be happy for a moment. -True happiness is nothing more than being satisfied with exactly what is happening right here, right now, whatever that might be. That's the root of happiness. So, the counter-intuitive move here is to short circuit that whole process. To say, “why can't I be satisfied right now?” and then actually practice that. -Turn this into a quasi-challenge for yourself. How satisfied can I be with nothing special? How satisfied can I be with raw existence as it is, without needing to change anything? Satisfaction and Productivity The Satisfaction Meditation is harder than it sounds, because we often don't allow ourselves to be “happy for no reason.” “But Leo, being happy is going to rob me of my motivation! If I can be happy doing nothing, then why would I keep working on Wall Street or on my business or chasing millions of babes and dollars…?” One could argue that being satisfied is counterproductive to survival. Counterintuitively, that’s a good thing that you actually want. First, being happy makes you smarter, more resilient, more observant and more capable in a multitude of ways, which makes it easier to achieve goals. Happiness actually fuels success. It’s not the other way around. (Shawn Achor has a lot of good books and lectures about this subject. ) Second, if you’re honest, has any of that activity ever made you truly satisfied? No. It's just put you on an endless treadmill of chasing chasing chasing. If you keep that up you’re going to waste your whole life chasing stuff and never being satisfied. Dopamine tricks your mind into the fantasy that attaining some goal will complete you. It’s common to fixate on the chase and overestimate how fulfilling money, sex, and approval will be. It happens to everyone, even the most logical among us ?. -Focusing on satisfaction doesn’t mean you’re going to sit on your ass and do nothing for the rest of your life. You should develop a strong work ethic, a life purpose and meaningful relationships. You most likely need them to feel deeply satisfied with life. So don't be a slouch. You can do all those things, but that needs to be the icing on the cake, not the cake itself. The cake is the Satisfaction Meditation and other practices that develop that muscle. A stronger Satisfaction Muscle will improve all those other domains of life. -Something fundamentally different needs to happen. So when are you going to wise up and realize that's not going to work? When you truly “get it” you’ll actually start practicing the Satisfaction Meditation consistently. Instant Gratification Culture -For most people, their Satisfaction Muscle is feeble because we live in a culture of instant gratification. It’s filled with social media, viral content, video games, loot boxes, tv & movies, fast food, porn and engineers in Silicon Valley using the most seductive bait to trigger those dopamine hits as fast and as frequently as possible. It’s a trick of your mind to think that chasing instant gratification and excitement is a wise and sustainable lifestyle. That’s what you realize after wasting years partying, drinking, masturbating, sexing people, taking drugs, having caviar in fancy cars. You end up crashing into dissatisfaction. -Those dopamine peaks never last no matter how enjoyable. That’s why you can finish one video game and still go searching for the next one, because no single video game has ever satisfied you. There's not enough money you can get on Wall Street or the casino to make those dopamine peaks sustainable. That’s why you need a root solution to the problem of unhappiness, otherwise you're always going to be unhappy. Two Different Reward Systems (Harvard trained physician Dr. K has an excellent explanation of dopamine at Healthy Gamer. Some of the following details about dopamine come from him.) -Dopamine chasing is ultimately unfulfilling because it has to do with wanting pleasure, not experiencing pleasure. When you do something rewarding the brain releases dopamine to reinforce that behavior by motivating you to want more of it. Dopamine does not cause the feeling or receiving of pleasure. Basically, wanting and enjoying happen in different parts of the brain. -Also, Dopamine isn’t “bad.” If you have too little dopamine you’ll be totally unmotivated. It just has to be properly balanced and not constantly chased as a lifestyle. -Your brain has two different reward circuits: the Dopamine Circuit and the Satisfaction Circuit. The Dopamine Circuit rewards you for sharp, positive changes in your survival situation, like stumbling on a hundred dollar bill, eating candy or playing a video game. It’s a very short lasting reward. When you get a dopamine spike you feel very happy for a few minutes, an hour, maybe even a day, then you drop back down to your default state. High Dopamine Activities: People pleasing. Partying. Winning the lottery. Watching TV. Eating a greasy cheeseburger. A promotion at work. Finding a new romantic partner. Taking drugs. Chris Evans musical tribute videos, etc. Because it triggers wanting instead of pleasure, you can get hit after hit and still feel compelled to chase more dopamine delivery systems (food, Netflix, video games, etc.) After all, if dopamine caused pleasure directly, you wouldn’t need to keep chasing more pleasure because you’d already be experiencing pleasure. The Satisfaction Circuit is rooted in the prefrontal cortex instead of dopamine spikes. The Prefrontal Cortex is the part of the brain that’s in charge of discipline, wisdom and all the qualities of the higher self. When you practice the Satisfaction Meditation, you’re strengthening the reward circuit of your Higher Self. (ep: Low vs High Quality Consciousness). It raises your baseline for happiness and consciousness. The Prefrontal Cortex also contains the pineal gland and/or third eye and receives dopamine through the mesocortical pathway. People with a strong Mesocortical Pathway have excellent willpower, vision, motivation and long term planning (among other positive qualities). One of the ways to develop that is through meditation. -No wonder most people are dissatisfied with life! Nobody taught them the difference between the dopamine circuit and satisfaction circuit. If you're not convinced of the benefits of strengthening the Satisfaction circuit, try spending the next 5 or 10 years desperately chasing those dopamine peaks. You'll realize it doesn't work. Some More Info on Dopamine • Dopamine release is about reinforcing a behavior through wanting. It’s a carrot on a stick. Trainers will hold up a carrot on a stick in front of a donkey and the donkey will keep chasing it forever and ever, never reaching the carrot. • Dopamine problems hurt your ability to delay gratification because it inhibits the part of the brain that’s involved in cost-benefit analysis. It makes instant gratification much more tempting, so you end up constantly making choices that are low reward for low effort. • Dopamine Exhaustion makes activities that promote your health and well-being a lot less enjoyable ?. Dopamine Tolerance eventually leads to Dopamine Exhaustion, where you have a vastly diminished ability to enjoy simple things. Reading a book or going for a walk becomes boring, because your body’s used to much higher amounts of dopamine than a book or walk provide. • If you do it long enough, you’ll end up creating a war between what you should do versus what you’re tempted to do to get that quick, easy dopamine hit. Thing is, you don’t actually want the donut or video game. It’s not as pleasurable as you imagine. Your dopamine is just throwing up false flares. • Dopamine chasing reinforces behaviors that aren’t even fun! You keep indulging in something even though it’s more numbing than enjoyable. (That’s a sign you really need a dopamine detox to reset your levels.) • It can take anywhere between three weeks to three months to go through a full dopamine detox. • Having said that, dopamine is necessary. You just need to regulate it properly. If you have too little you’ll be totally unmotivated, but you also shouldn't turn dopamine chasing into a lifestyle. • Most of us have gotten addicted to dopamine hits, even if we're not doing drugs. What’s worse, your brain builds a tolerance to dopamine, so the more hits you chase the bigger amount you need to get the same effect. Double Unhappiness If you don't cultivate your Satisfaction Muscle your mindset can get so bad that you’ll still be unhappy in beautiful, extraordinary situations. Maybe you’ve experienced that first hand. You’re sitting on a mountaintop with the love of your life, watching the sunset, admiring the scatter of twilight across the horizon. You’ve spent all day hiking up the mountain just to arrive at the perfect time and it's only going to last a few minutes. The weather is perfect, the location is perfect, the sunset is perfect, the person you’re with is perfect, but you're still not happy ?. You know the situation is perfect and that you should be happy, but you're not. That’s a double dose of unhappiness, because you’re unhappy, and you’re unhappy that you're unhappy. You may even start wondering, “If I can't be happy when the stars are aligned, what chance do I have of being happy at all, ever, period? What if nothing makes me happy? What if I’m doomed to be sad forever?” That’s when a lot of people get depressed or even suicidal. That’s because nothing can make you truly happy other than yourself. The only long term solution is to train your Satisfaction Muscle to the point where you're satisfied with existence itself. Stop Living Life By the Numbers Stop living your life for some arbitrary numerical metric, like dollars in your bank account, or cars in your garage, or the number on your bathroom scale, or even number of books you've read. That can get very dysfunctional. Numbers on a spreadsheet won't satisfy you in the ultimate scheme of things (even if you’re a mathematician!) Leo used to have a demanding, results obsessed mindset where he quantified everything. His attitude was to just grind through work, suck up any suffering and achieve the result. It was a very left-brained, unhealthy, dysfunctional, stage orange approach to life. It was toxic, unsustainable, and it didn’t lead to satisfaction. The Problems with Grinding 1) It’s based in being “not good enough.” “But Leo, I’ve got so many things to do and I’m already behind in life. I’ve got to become spiritual, confident, fearless, more loving, nicer to people who secretly irritate me, or just better all around. Do you know how hard it is to navigate reality when you’re not perfect, like those people on Instagram…” You have an idealized image that you feel you must live up to in order to be “good enough.” Problem is, if you feel bad about failing to live up to that, you’ll be too demoralized to take consistent, long-term action. 2) It’s unsustainable. You might be below your ideal target for years because it takes time to build skill. It’s unsustainable to spend all that time feeling demoralized and not enough. 3) It makes you cut corners in practice. When you don’t enjoy practicing, you can get sloppy. If you’re just grinding through, you’ll cut corners so you can get it over with and do something that you truly enjoy. 4) It stops you from entering a flow state. A flow state happens when you lose all sense of yourself in an activity. It becomes effortless, like you have the creative force of the universe backing up your actions. The thing is, flow comes from freeing yourself up, not from trying to finish things quickly. 5) Grinding changes “I want to” into “I have to.” If your practice is demoralizing, unsustainable, toxic and unenjoyable, it’ll feel like such a drag that you have to force yourself to do it. You might forget why you wanted to accomplish the goal in the first place. (Teal Swan has an excellent episode about this: “Have to…The Philosophy that Will Ruin Your Life”) 6) The most effective motivation “moves towards” something inspiring, not just “away from” something negative. Leo has an excellent episode about this: Positive vs Negative Motivation. It’s one of his best about life purpose and motivation. It’s based on the excellent book “The Path of Least Resistance” by Robert Fritz. Leo’s Reading Example When Leo first got into personal development 10 years ago, he wanted to develop himself as quickly as possible: “Let me achieve as much as I can, as fast as I can, to hell with how it feels!” Leo had a mountain of books to read. He figured if he could master speed reading he could read ten times as many books. So he got a speed reading book and started going through the exercises everyday. After a month of tedious grinding, his practice became so unpleasant it was actually counterproductive. He realized he would rather read at a normal, enjoyable pace than speed read through books, worrying about whether he understood or remembered the material correctly. His boredom, worry and attachment to the outcome of speed-reading was stopping him from entering a good flow of absorbing the book’s information. Nowadays, Leo reads pretty slowly but enjoys himself and focuses on absorbing the contents of the book. (Considering how long and dense his book list is he can’t be that slow at reading.) So, it doesn't matter how fast you read, because the point is not to read X number of books. The point is to enjoy yourself. If you end up reading half as many books, but enjoy them twice as much, it’s even more of a win. So, you can read a book in an enjoyable way, or in a grinding, unpleasant way. The better way is to enjoy the process so that you keep doing it without burning out. Enjoy your career or business. Enjoy your relationships and enjoy watching yourself grow mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Watching Actualized.org Episodes Another example of slowing down to be more effective is watching Actualized.org episodes. There’s at least two different ways to watch them: 1) You can binge a ton of episodes. “But Leo, I’ve stumbled upon this gold mine of information! I need to get through these big, meaty, complicated episodes as fast as possible. I’ll just binge watch 500 episodes with a pot of coffee, some modafinil, a stack of legal pads for notes, an even bigger stack of armodafinil, and that eyeball machine from A Clockwork Orange…then I’ll be wise!!” 2) Or you can slow down and enjoy the process. When you watch Leo’s videos, find a sustainable pace that you can enjoy, instead of binging so many they become a blur. Maybe you only watch one video a week instead of one a day. In the long run you’ll watch a lot more episodes if you enjoy the process. Also, if you take time to pause and contemplate what’s being said, you'll get more benefit by concentrating on fewer episodes in a deeper way. When you slow down and get into the rhythm of an activity, you enter a flow state and lose all sense of yourself. Whatever you're doing becomes effortless when you're in flow, because you’re not putting stressful demands and distracting expectations on yourself. Flow comes from trying to do things freely, instead of trying to do things well. Deeply Contemplate Happiness -You need to deeply contemplate happiness. If you can't clearly articulate what happiness is, how can you ever be happy? Happiness is not a belief or an ideology. It's not enough for you to just believe what Leo says about happiness. You have to actually derive, for yourself, what happiness is. -You figure it out through contemplation and direct experience. This will help you to distinguish between authentic happiness and dopamine peaks of pleasure. When you’re happy, notice what’s causing it. When you’re unhappy, also notice what’s causing it. Another way to frame the question is: What if there's a form of happiness that doesn’t create a downward shift into dissatisfaction after it ends? -If you do the Satisfaction Meditation enough, maybe you'll discover it’s pointing you towards authentic happiness, to a type of pleasure that doesn’t create suffering. Don’t mistake dopamine peaks for authentic happiness. They're not. Those dopamine peaks actually create suffering. This distinction is crucial. Life Purpose and Happiness -The happiness you get from your Life Purpose is different than the dopamine spikes of a video game. When you find your life purpose and align with it, it triggers a different reward mechanism, similar to the Satisfaction Meditation. Instead of dopamine swings, it leads to a deep contentment with life. Bliss and joy can be reached this way. “But Leo, the contentment from LP won’t be permanent either!” Of course it won't. But there’s a difference between getting attached to satisfaction and enjoying satisfaction while it’s here. This does not mean you cannot meditate on the feeling of satisfaction itself. In fact, doing so is how you escape suffering. eg: People misunderstand Buddhism’s non-attachment and impermanence as “life is suffering, nihilistic and empty” or “this is why Buddhists can’t have nice things.” However, the Buddhist notion of suffering and impermanence basically means that chasing material conditions and positive states is dissatisfying because it never lasts. So you’re guaranteed to suffer. clip: Lose Attachments to Gain Infinite Love (9 mins) -Appreciating bliss and satisfaction in the here and now is a far better way to live than chasing dopamine hits, which is what most people are doing. Think of it this way: In every moment you can either be satisfied or dissatisfied. Which will you be? Applying Insights: From Abstract to Concrete -You need to develop practical techniques for implementing all the high level, big picture, abstract ideas that Leo talks about. In this episode you got a very tangible practice. A lot of episodes don’t and won’t provide that. -You need to take ownership of your own personal development. You won’t build muscle by trying to get Leo to lift the weights for you. That goes for all self-help teachers, books, courses and insights. -To get the most value out of Actualized.org watch out for two traps: listening idly and not taking action. You can’t just listen distractedly as you cook or do laundry, unless you’re totally new to this content and have trouble focusing. You could start there, but to get results you need to focus. -No matter what level you’re at in your spiritual journey, you must take effective action to get results. You need to develop the ability to take any insight and ask: “How do I turn this abstract idea into something I can implement in my life?” “How can I practice this wisdom and embody it?” -For every profound insight you get, brainstorm different methods to apply it. See which ones work and which ones don’t. That’s where your results will come from!

Quotes: Reality is a mirror reflecting your inner world. "Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi Jaguaralen - SPIEGEL (Lyrics) [English translation] If you stop fighting, it is the victory over war. Never aggressive again, filter the negative energies and shape them on the beat into this positive symphony. Peaceful and loving this G like E.T., just wanted to let you know that good melodies still exist. Rest in peace to sugar, nicotine and caffeine, unfold the energy. Life is the best game, the soul of a rap MC, forgive my enemies for everyone in the Galaxy and the joy shines through the vicious circle, anger, remorse, suffering, it begins a new time and it shines white, completely free, no expensive price. Yeah, so so deep, born MC, make rap back again to poetry. And the mirror breaks in the love of light. (2x) And the hero left his village and climbed up to the love choir. Embarked on a journey to the answer of life and therefore entered the greatest martial art. On this path he always carries in his conscience this life is a maze with obstacles. They will come and try to deceive the hero, but he knows he will find himself forever. So he drinks from the tree of knowledge, makes the dream disappear, including the thousand voices extinguished in the smoke. Oneness, wisdom, freedom, it begins and flows through his spirit. Birth and death, limited lifetime, but his bliss radiates from eternity. From infinity to zero... YOU ARE THIS HERO! And the mirror breaks in the love of light. (2x) The wars in the world are a mirror of ourselves, because man is blind, but in the heart a child. Yes, change is possible, from the twilight like a phoenix. It took me so long to realize... this is not about me, this is about the WE! And the mirror breaks in the love of light. (2x) ♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪ Have a nice day!

Thanks Leo, great stuff as always. I'm excited to see this new specialization and focus on "psychedelic awakening". Regarding what everyone is talking about, IMO the psychedelics help to open your mind and give insights, but the work is in the following days integrating and meditating on what you learned. This doesnt need to turn into "psychedelics vs meditation" In Leos pov meditation is a "waste of time" because he is solely focused on God realization. i meditate everyday to find more joy in simply existing in sober plain reality, no matter what i've realized or am conscious of. I don't meditate for God realization, that is where psychedleics can come in. The two balance each other out. Psychedelics can also heal you on a deeper level than possible through meditation, they work on your subconscious. Im doing a 2 week ayahuasca retreat in peru in about a month, solely for the deep healing body and mind benefits, and with that hopefully some God awakenings. But my main goal is and always will be; bliss, here and now, sober, while doing nothing. <3

@levani What was previously believed to be “a body “ is infinite intelligence (actual wisdom). You could say this is fully realized when you let go of the ‘inner bodies’ to the most subtle (love-bliss).

these are from a playlist of mine ive entitled "bliss-chill"

Finally awakened, jeez that was a tough journey. So the tail end of it was, I started getting existential terror again. Which is what I got a lot back in mid 2020, yet this time it felt like another awakening, but it was a bit scary because i was feeling like the external world didn't exist, which freaked me out a bit. I also started forgetting time, what day it was and the date all sober, which again was a bit scary. It all started because i had figured out a way of dieting and also reducing my reliance on sex all with my mind. Instead of eating healthy food, I just started imagining eating healthy food. Instead of having sex I just started imagining that I was having sex. After doing this for a while, I couldn't tell the difference between my imagination and the external world, which scared me a bit because i felt like the external world was disappearing. Then I started getting this feeling that everything in the external world is my imagination and that the 2 aren't separate. So me imagining im eating a chocolate = me eating a chocolate in the external world. Which made the external world feel like a dream even more then it was. I also started getting a very strong sense that all the people in my life don't exist. They are empty surfaces. Which again freaked me out a bit. So if they are empty surfaces, then whose the one controlling those surfaces? Me or Universal Love. So the entire existence started feeling really really small because it was only me and Universal Love. I mistakenly started thinking that Universal Love was a magnificent woman energy who would manifest as different girls i liked, and people I spent time with, and that this magnificent woman energy was pretending to not know who she was and pretending to be other people, but deep down knew she was universal love energy/me. So all the people in my life just started seeming like the same universal love woman that im in love with/trying to get to, which again made things feel really small because its just me and her the entire time. Then all of a sudden the external world shattered and decomposed/deconstructed into feelings only. At the end of the day, the external world is a bunch of feelings, once you take the outer surfaces away. That kinda made me feel like eyes were a conspiracy theory, you can't see anything, just feel energy. These feelings took on the persona of different machine elves for a while, to help me understand the vast array of feelings and how they intertwine and work which gave me clarity even though machine elves was just more imagination. I get this on trips all the time, instead of the world being made of atoms, its made of fractals and machine elves all talking to each other, and them talking to each other is the different feelings you feel or different energy. Then finally the machine elves disappeared and feeling just decomposed into... feelings haha. I lost my desire to figure out what death was, and what happens when you die, because for me now, the desire to figure out what death is, is just feelings, which means its got nothing to do with figuring out death at all. Besides, death relies on the existence of the external world, death doesn't make sense when the external world shatters. Its just feelings doing things. Riding a bike is just feelings, getting shot in the head and reincarnating into different forms is just feelings, can use machine elves as a meditation aid to help you keep conscious of the feelings, but its just feelings. And its just feelings or another way of saying it, just understanding, pure understanding, pure abstract, external worldless, surfaceless, concreteless, conceptless, agendaless, egoless, understanding. Or pure love, whatever floats ya boat. Love doesn't resonate with me personally. So what happens when you die? The answer is inside the question, the question decomposes into feeling/understanding when you remove concepts and the external world and everything almost, and that's death too, feeling/understanding, like everything. The thing is, the deepest understanding is pure abstract feeling, so anything other then that is less deep, lool. And this experience has taught me that, all of my psychedelic trips were trying to tell me this and i just didn't get the message, but also that the key to a good life is to feel it. That's it, that's literally as deep as it gets. And it does get deeper and deeper and deeper, but it gets deeper through feeling more and more and more. I was kinda worried that if I didn't understand death in this lifetime, that i would suffer in the next lifetime, so i kept going hardcore at seeking what death was, little did I know that pursuing that quest was literally the realization of my worst fear/concern. HA! You can avoid suffering in your next lifetime, and do stuff like transfer prana to your next life to help you there, etc, but it comes from listening to feeling and getting good at dealing with feeling then it does any other way. This was an exceptionally long journey, 6 years about, and at the end of the day the answer was the simplest thing ever, yet radical radical stuff, crazy experiences, insanity, massive explosions of horror and bliss was all needed to finally accept and be this truth, because if i didn't go through all that crap, I would of been asking "what if..." "what if feeling isnt the answer" "what if its this instead" "what if its that instead" and then i would of drifted off, it takes a massively long and brutal journey to finally be satisfied with something so simple and to say "ah nah its definitely this, because i tried that, and that and this and the other and those don't work because..." And the other cool thing too is... have you noticed no matter how deep your realization, how high your psychedelic dose is, that its all just feeling? HA! Not shit Sherlock. I'm kinda satisfied now with the realization that God/the universe/consciousness is a sneaky beast who gives you the answers when you stop seeking them. Who gives you everything you want when you stop asking for them, who gives you all the understanding in the world when you stop trying to encapsulate her in an insight or an awakening experience! And you just let her be.

@The0Self Hmm that's a good point. See the thing is. When I stop seeking, it's like so what. If I'm just present without seeking energy, this isn't satisfying. It feels like I'm just playing a waiting game sometimes. Like I'm aware of my own presence. But it's not peaceful or joyful or anything. So it just seems like i'm waiting for the presence of myself to turn into bliss and clarity Also, but what about conscious intention and goals? Do you have any directionality or control over what happens?

I hear you. Nice response. I'll check it out, I remember a few years ago I used to whisper gabriel and I'd get a wave of bliss, I always wondered if it was related to archangel gabriel. I like to judge the validity of stuff based on the vibration/presence of the people advocating for it, and I get a sense that you are speaking honestly.

I just made a post about this. You go through suffering so you understand that living in duality is not normal. It's an illusion, the mind controls everything by the threat of suffering and illusory feeling of bliss when you dance how you were conditioned to dance. If you go through all of the dukka nanas up to equanimity, it's clear that this duality is utterly hopeless and there's nothing for you to even be 1% blissfull about. There's no happiness in the mind, there's just the threat of suffering, and that threat collapses once you realise that. At least for a while. Read my post or just read https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/30-the-progress-of-insight/5-dissolution-entrance-to-the-dark-night/

Many of the most enjoyable things in life - to read and write, meditate, drink wine and laugh with a good friend, enjoy the bliss of mother earth - you can have without being Barack Obama. Obama doesn't have anything over you except perhaps a nicer bed (and even that you can buy), more sycophants around, and many history books written about him (many of them negative). He also needs to stop for a damn selfie everywhere he goes. Do you really want to be Obama?

(Reposting because it was in bad need of a re-edit. I wrote the original summary, so I'm referring to my own work, not someone else's, lol.) 476. Summary: "Understanding & Coping With Nihilism” TLDR version: -People think nihilism is depressing, apathetic, and negative, but it isn’t. It's False Nihilism that says life is meaningless so why bother, just be destructive. Destroying something out of spite is attaching negative meaning to it. That’s not meaningless, that’s meaning. -True Nihilism recognizes that because life is meaningless, value is not absolute, but based on your survival agenda. Because value is arbitrary, you are free to question everything you’ve been programmed with. This cleans your slate and lets you build consciously, on a foundation that’s true to you. You get to question and deconstruct everything you know, because it’s all arbitrary anyway. -This is emotionally difficult and confusing to the ego, but it will lead to your authentic purpose and even awakening to God consciousness. -During this nihilistic funk, learn a variety of perspectives to figure out what you want. Cross reference them, Steel-man them. -You will create consciously instead of carrying out some inauthentic, default programming like an ideological robot. You will align with love/passion, and live a life of purpose that’s based on what you truly value and who you chose to be. -Your authentic purpose is your love for life expressed uniquely through you, free of the distortions of social conditioning, helping others to awaken to the truth of consciousness/infinite love/God. -When you're under the illusion that one thing is better or objectively more meaningful than another, you will always suffer because you will seek the better and resent the worse. -If you commit to realizing the Absolute Truth that nothing is better or more meaningful than anything else, you’ll discover that all things are wondrous, good and created by love and consciousness. (ep: Good Intentions II) That frees you up to joyfully explore life and let go of your attachments. _________________________________________________________________ Summary for "Understanding & Coping With Nihilism" “In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God.” — St. John of the Cross -What is Nihilism? Which parts of nihilism are true? Which are false? How does it fit with personal development work? What are its limitations and strengths? Society Tends to View Nihilism Very Negatively Dictionary definitions: “The rejection of all religious and moral principles in the belief that life is meaningless.” “Extreme skepticism, maintaining that nothing in the world has a real existence.” “A world view that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless.” “A doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths.” -Nietzsche's saw Nihilism as a way to clear away all false narratives and religious systems. It wasn't just about destroying all values. It was about creating a clearing on top of which one can build an authentic life, based on one’s true values instead of social conditioning. -How do you know something is true for you unless you derive it for yourself, from first principles? People are attached to society’s programming (religion, science, norms, values, morality, etc). They overlook its limits and problems (inequality, hatred, judgment, violence, etc). -Saying that things should be destroyed because they’re meaningless doesn’t make sense. If something has no meaning, how can it be “bad.” If it’s not “bad,” why would you want to destroy it? To actively destroy something out of spite is to attach a negative meaning to it. That's an extra step the mind has to take. That’s not neutral or meaningless or nihilistic. Nihilism at the turn of the century Nietzsche wrote during the late 1800s, when Judeo-Christian values were starting to unravel (11:35). Spiral Dynamics’ Stage Blue Christian culture was being challenged. Nietzsche was at the forefront of Stage Orange. Refresher on Spiral Dynamics: Stage Blue = Religious. Traditional. Rule based. God-fearing. Stage Orange = Materialistic. Success-oriented. Capitalist. Scientific. Stage Green = Inclusive. Compassionate. Diverse. New Age Hippies. (This part of the episode has been glossed over somewhat) -Many of the axioms, assumptions and frameworks that existed for hundreds of thousands of years started to be questioned. (language, logic, mathematics, science, physics, gender roles, political systems, God, etc) Some people claimed all this change would unravel society and lead to war, disaster and many monstrosities. You could say this is the backdrop against which World War I and World War II occurred. With all this change in this new directionless nihilistic world, how could society best move forward? After a period of nihilism and questioning Stage Blue, we have Stage Orange (materialist, scientific, capitalistic worldview). -With the materialism of Stage Orange comes a pragmatic approach to reality (25:20). The problem with Orange is if there's no higher order values, no God and anything is allowed. That leads to a hollow existence. Life is just about material acquisition, personal comfort and carnal pleasure. Losing spirituality leads to a lack of direction, and because of that society could become very dysfunctional. -With post-modernism, we start to question the idea of an objective reality, that science is the one true explanation for what reality is. After all, scientists are biased in determining what’s worth studying. It cherry picks data and how to interpret and frame that data. Stage Green emerges in the 1950s and 1960s. Nihilism, Feeling Lost and Aperspectival Madness -Stage Green is very difficult on you psychologically and emotionally because you feel lost (32:00). If there’s no objective truth, how do you know which perspectives are beneficial and which are toxic? -Aperspectival madness. If all moral systems are just constructions, programming and social conditioning. If all views are just partial, limited ways of interacting with reality, how do you know which views are the most valid? -Leo went through a phase of being a complete relativist in his teens. He thought neutrality was the closest to truth. He didn’t realize as a teen that there are higher quality ways of looking at things and not every side is equally valid. Later he started to question everything and became very skeptical. After all, if you take even one thing on faith, it can open you up to deep epistemic error. Why Nihilism Gets Viewed Negatively Nihilism Undermines the Ego (39:33) -Meaning and value are not found in the outer world. The ego constructs meaning and value in order to survive and orient itself. eg: Science doesn't prove anything is valuable or meaningful. Strictly speaking, all science does is measure and predict stuff. It tells you where the moon will be next year, but doesn't tell you if the moon is good or bad. -Your survival needs will override any philosophical considerations of nihilism. Humans are caught in an existential bind for survival. You have deep instincts from a billion years of evolution. You are biased against deconstructing meaning. Society is in the Business of Constructing a Civilization (41:55) -Constructions are very useful for survival. Society has a bias and the ego hates when its constructions are questioned. Western civilization is a house of cards built on an unquestioned foundation of axioms and assumptions (metaphysical, epistemic, religious, theological, scientific, linguistic, etc). eg: Money. If everyone saw money as just pieces of paper it would destroy the economy. -Western civilization would rather go with a useful falsehood than the truth. Most people aren't interested in knowing the dollar is imaginary. They just want to use the dollar to buy food. -When your attitude is very selfish, that opens you to all sorts of falsehoods, fantasies, constructions and illusions. These “useful falsehoods” get piled on. You get so lost in all the bs you forget it was just a construction from the beginning. -Dis-illusion: the loss of illusion (46:20). Nihilism leads to disillusionment. Deconstructing the foundations of your mind will lead to an existential crisis. The ego doesn't like this. eg: Why would a scientist who’s invested 40 years into his PhD work do a serious deconstruction of science or academia? How would he will feel if he realized the entire foundation of science and academia is built on illusions, fictions and constructions? -The mind has an infinite capacity for denial and rationalization. It’s interested in survival, not truth. You’re playing ego games, but you think you're being rational and truthful. This stops you from doing a serious investigation into the foundations of your mind and reality. What Nihilism Gets Right 1. Life Has No Meaning and Purpose (50:40) -Because all value is created by the ego, things only have meaning relative to your ego's survival. Meaning and purpose are based on ego and identity. What's meaningful to one person will not be meaningful to another. Buddha is meaningful to Buddhists, but not so much to Christians. In the Catholic Church eating a wafer/eucharist is meaningful. To a Buddhist, or scientist it has nothing to do with being spiritual. The moon has huge value to NASA and very little value to your dog, no matter how much he enjoys howling at it. -If everything is meaningless, why should a good life be any more meaningful than a bad life? After all, some people like to suffer! This means you’re free to pick whatever life purpose you want. 2. All Morality is Relative -There is no “good” without an ego. Morality is based on value, meaning and purpose. All the atrocities of human history were justified as “good” because it helped the perpetrators. -How can something be “bad” if you don't care what happens to you? If you didn't care about being tortured, then it wouldn't be bad. People think that badness is “baked into” the torture. “Badness” is just your reaction to fear, hatred or the pain it causes. Why should pain be bad? If you didn't have pain in your life you'd be dead. -Saying that “death is bad” implies a bias towards life. If life is meaningless, why should you value life over death? You can't have life without death, so if you condemn death then you also condemn life. Everything finite dies. The only thing that doesn't die is the infinite, but the infinite isn't alive to begin with. The infinite includes both life and death. It doesn't distinguish between the two. It also doesn't value one over the other. -If you think you're being rational or scientific by holding these beliefs, you just haven’t thought through them. Science has no opinion. In fact, science would tell you that pain and suffering are useful because it’s how we evolved. 3. All of Reality is Relative There is no objective, external world (59:35). Not just at the cultural level, but the ontological and metaphysical level. You are hallucinating physical reality. (Leo has other videos on this) 4. Reality Cannot Be Known in the Way Humans Try to Know It The universe is infinite and your knowledge is always partial and limited. Your models are just partial perspectives and you will never get the full perspective by acquiring more and more knowledge (Epistemic Nihilism). 5. All Beliefs are Ultimately Untrue (Leo has other videos on this) What Nihilism gets Wrong 1. Nihilism Gives Meaninglessness a Negative Meaning (1:01:48) -Meaningless means the absence of meaning, not the presence of negative or positive meaning. False “lower-case” nihilism: Surface level nihilism that doesn’t go far enough. Says life is meaninglessness and thus “bad.” Can lead to depression, cynicism. Giving meaninglessness a negative meaning is self-contradicting. True “upper-case” Nihilism: Deep nihilism that deconstructs your ego and worldview, so you can create your life and values from a clean slate. -If hearing that “the world is meaningless” means something to you, that's not meaninglessness that's meaning. If you truly realized that life is meaningless, you couldn't be depressed about it. If you're using that as a reason to destroy or be lazy, that’s giving it negative meaning. -False nihilism is just toxic ego. That’s why people intuit that nihilism is maladaptive. You don't want to live in the world as a toxic, false nihilist. If you're angsty and turning into a misanthrope, you need to recognize this not true nihilism. You’re attaching negative meanings and that is ego. It’s also less functional than the ego of those who construct illusions and houses of cards. -You need to take your Nihilism deep enough so it goes full circle into True Nihilism which deconstructs all your illusions. 2. You can't derive an ‘Ought’ from an ‘Is’ -Reality could be completely meaningless and you could still enjoy it (1:05:25). To say that “reality is meaningless” does not mean you ought to do something about it, like destroy an institution or commit suicide. eg: You could be a total nihilist and still enjoy sunbathing in Hawaii with beautiful women, or gazing into the ocean eyes of an Adonis, an exemplar of the Divine Masculine, over a candlelit dinner at sunset, after a day of snorkelling off a glass bottom boat surrounded by cute baby seals, while indulging in fresh roasted macadamia nuts drenched in chocolate, after riding a hot air balloon over a safe but bubbling volcano, flocked by singing doves, and then Mr. Ocean Eyes gets down on one knee and says, “FlyingLotus, you could make me the happiest man in the world by”—sorry, where was I? Yeah, anyway, those things are perfectly compatible with nihilism, meaninglessness and whatever. (It’s not pathetic. It’s a good song!) -Nihilism completely frees you up to be any way you want. The question is: what do you really want? Now if destruction genuinely makes you feel good, I guess you could go for it, but does it make you feel good? Is that really what you want? You might say, "no, that's part of the game. You ought to destroy the system, man.” But, why is destruction better than creation? Shouldn’t nihilism leave you in a neutral position? -The real problem is you’re confused about what you want. If you cleared that up you would be very careful in what you destroy. Certain things need to be questioned and reformed, like corrupt social institutions. However, the desire to take a wrecking ball to everything is a dead end. 3. Nihilism Doesn't Complete the Deconstruction of the Ego into Awakening and God Realization -Skepticism is often misused. False skepticism happens when nihilism is used to destroy everything outside of you, but it's not turned in towards you. -True skepticism is also skeptical of itself. It takes the wrecking ball of nihilism and skepticism and swings it at yourself. It deconstructs your giant ego before you go deconstructing institutions, social systems, science, religion, etc. -Most nihilists Leo runs into have a giant nihilistic ego. Nihilism becomes their ego and identity, but they're not conscious of that. They are contradicting themselves, because when the nihilism gets so deep, the nihilism has to destroy itself too, but most nihilists won’t do that because it’s too threatening for the ego. -The ego co-ops nihilism, which becomes very dysfunctional. Nihilism as a survival strategy in life won’t work out well for you. 4. Nihilism is Stuck at the Level of Concept -It’s not actualized into deconstructing your ego, which leads to true awakening. Mostly nihilism is a belief or philosophy. 5. Nihilism isn’t Political -If you think government is evil, you're not being a proper nihilist. It shouldn’t necessarily lead to anarchy. 6. Nihilism overlooks what happens when you reach the bottom of nihilism -If you go all the way down the rabbit hole of nihilism, you eventually awaken to the absolute. Everything loses meaning, but then you go through the dark night of the soul and the ego dies. Then you awaken to God. -Consciousness is the only real thing. Nihilism is missing the very soul and heart of reality. You are God. God is everything. God is beauty, love, divinity, spirit, goodness, truth, consciousness, all as absolutes. -The paradox of meaninglessness is that when it completely collapses you discover infinite love and absolute goodness, which is everything (1:11:47). Then you’ll realize all those stupid nihilistic beliefs, all those philosophers you read, were all deluded. “I was just using nihilism as a defence mechanism against the realization of what I am as God, as infinite love.” -Then you're no longer depressed. You no longer want to destroy at that point. You fall so in love with yourself and reality that you actually rediscover a higher purpose. Your higher purpose is to help mankind awaken, not because you have to, not because someone told you to, but simply because that's what God would do. That's what consciousness does. Consciousness is a Self-Awakening System -Everything that happens within consciousness is just a means to help consciousness awaken to itself (1:13:00). When you relinquish your selfish needs you lose yourself, then you become a force of the universe for its own awakening. There's a million ways you could do that (art, teaching, engineering, science, politics, etc). Then your life takes on the highest and deepest meaning. -You realize that all meaning is a construction, but awakening is not a construction. The universe awakening to itself is an absolute. So what the nihilist is overlooking is the the existence of the absolute. Many scientific, atheistic and rational people just can't open their minds to the possibility of the existence of an absolute truth. -Consider that you're wrong and that absolute truth does actually exist. This is it. You're in absolute truth right now you just don't realize. Criticisms of Nihilism from Above and from Below Criticism of Nihilism from Below: Fear-based, ego-based, shadow-based. Nihilism will lead to an inability to function in the world. Relativity will lead to total chaos. Society will fall apart without traditional values. The criticism is a defence mechanism from deconstructing the ego. Criticisms of Nihilism from Above: Nihilism is self-defeating and conceptual. When you go all the way with nihilism, you realize something deeper: infinite consciousness, love and God. Before you Critique Nihilism, First Acknowledge its Truths Everything is absolutely groundless and relative. The world is inherently devoid of meaning. All value is self-biased. The trick is that applies to nihilism too. You gotta do the self-reflection, complete the strange loop and realize that your nihilism eats its own tail. The Real Problem with Nihilism: It Doesn't Go Far Enough -You need to take nihilism past ideas and into embodied practice. The ego loves to neuter things that can change your life by turning them into mere ideas or philosophy. -A mystic is just a nihilist who went all the way, who took it from philosophy to embodiment. Spirituality is Nihilism -Spirituality and nihilism are not opposed to each other. Spirituality is just nihilism actualized (1:20:10). -All your attachments were programmed into your mind. It’s all social conditioning (ego, religion, culture, identity, etc). You didn't sit down and choose them consciously. This includes “objective” stuff like science and materialism. Your consciousness is hindered by social conditioning. -Nihilism lets you wipe the slate clean. It allows you to deconstruct the value of everything. From that clean slate you can develop your own meaning in life, your own purpose, your own system of values. You can’t be satisfied in life and inauthentic at the same time. -It's paradoxical, by questioning and deconstructing everything, you will become truly, deeply spiritual. That will make you more spiritual than anyone who professes to be spiritual under the social conditioning model. You will become very authentic, very grounded, strong as an individual and powerful as a leader. -“But values are still meaningless constructions!” Yes, but when you realize you’re in a dream, there's nothing to do but play. Ask yourself: How would I play the game if I was totally free and unattached? If I wasn't coming from neediness, attachment or fear? How do I want to manifest my love in the world, according to my own personal preferences? -You can have preferences but they don’t have to be absolutes. You also don’t have to force them on others. -Knowing that reality is an illusion is the greatest gift, because there's nothing to fear. Construct whatever meanings you want and be honest with yourself that you're constructing them. Construct consciously rather than unconsciously. Becoming Superman -Humans take their own constructions so seriously when it’s mostly ?. -The Superman is living completely from his or her own authentic inner core (1:26:25). His inner motivations run far deeper than anything that society can program. (Nietzsche's Ubermensch) -These are superhuman capacities: infinite intelligence, deep consciousness, living presence. Unlike finite algorithms or social programming. Nihilism and the Hero’s Journey -Nihilism is the belly of the whale in the Hero’s Journey (1:30:20). People invent distractions and excuses to avoid it. Don’t fear it, go through it! -The belly of the whale is the lowest point in the journey. It's your deepest turning inwards to figure out if you have what it takes to defeat your deepest obstacle. The key to victory isn’t a magic sword, it’s your heart and spirit. Is your soul steeled enough to face your deepest inner weaknesses? -The Hero’s Journey is a metaphor for God realization. The hero breaks through to infinite love, brings back the holy grail to his villagers and helps them drink from the cup of infinite love. - You have to be careful because you can go through the journey in a dysfunctional way and end up killing yourself. Being a hero is more difficult than living in mediocrity, going to your nine-to-five job. (ep: Dangers of Spiritual Work) Nihilism is Nothing -The tragedy for the false nihilist is they never realize that God is nothing. God is an infinite, loving nothing. -The Godhead’s Nothing is an infinite shapeshifter with no shape. An eraser that can erase itself. Nothing is not non-existence. Nothing exists. Non-existence does not exist. There’s no such thing as non-existence because there's only existence/consciousness. eg: The Holy Spirit. Consciousness. Nirvana. Shunyata. Teotl. Fana. Shiva. The Groundless Ground. Mu. The Tao. The Force. -If your worldview is as true as you believe, deconstruction can't harm it. Why are you so threatened by nothing? It takes enormous humility to question everything you know. -The devil co-opts spiritual truths to put on a facade of spiritual work. It’s the ego, scared of losing itself and all of its constructions. (ep: What is the Devil) Some of the biggest devils portray themselves as the most spiritual. Practical Tips The problem is you can't find yourself unless you lose yourself first (1:45:20). So, how do you deal with the relativity, neutrality and multi-perspectivalism of the nihilistic process? 1. Distinguish Between Relative truth and Absolute truth -Science, religion, culture, etc may not be Absolutely True, but they can be true about some things (Relative Truth). (ep: Relative vs Absolute Truth) eg: The absolute truth is that all is One, but the relative truth is that the US has a two party system and you can only vote for one. So, which is more aligned with your values? -I still have preferences even though God loves everything equally. I may want a passionate life, but not because it's absolutely true or God is forcing me. Wanting a passionate life is valid, in and of itself. -Leo has many episodes on Absolute Truth. The Structure of Reality episode is a good one among many good ones. 2. Know that your Preferences and Biases Aren’t Objective Truths -If you admit they’re relative, you don’t have to play defensive games anymore. Being honest about your preferences and selfishness stops you from grounding it in a made up story that pretends to be “objective” (genetics, science, religion). You’re freed from ideology. eg: “I’m Christian because I was born in Texas where Christianity is popular and I enjoy Jesus because I know him better than other gods.” versus “People who don’t believe in Jesus are bound for hell.” 3. Study Lots of Perspectives -Do a lot of studying during your nihilistic funk. Date around without marrying the first perspective you meet. This could last 2-5 years. (books, videos, retreats, teachers, traditions, etc.) -Not all will be equally good or bad. You’ll have biases. You will be confused and that's okay! You can play them off each other and cross reference them. 4. Distinguish Between Lower Quality vs Higher Quality Perspectives 5. Don’t Get Stuck in Neutral or the Default -Not choosing is a choice. Life is an existential bind where you must act, you must choose. You can’t align with perfect neutrality. -You’re Not a Blank Slate. You have a default position no matter what because of social programming. If you don’t choose, that is what will run the show. 6. What you Want is the Good Life. -Watch Leo’s episode on The Point of Life. It's really good, especially if you care about Life Purpose. -Be the excited kid with millions of lego pieces. Experiment with building many things. Get inspired by different legos and other people’s unique creations. Follow Your Bliss. Don’t be the bitter kid with only 100 pieces, who builds what everyone else builds, who is close-minded about which pieces to use, who debates and hates creations and creators that are different. 7. Embrace Confusion -Trust the process. Don’t view confusion as negative. Your ego is scared of uncertainty. (ep: How to Deal with Confusion) -Play with ideas, play with life, have fun ?. Verify different perspectives for yourself. You’re building your own epistemology from scratch by questioning everything. It’s a very healthy thing to do. Signs that a Perspective is Higher or Lower -The big difference is selfishness vs. selflessness (2:05:55) . Lower Perspectives: Selfish. Based in fear, hatred, judgment, violence. Us vs Them. Uses emotion, dogma and ideology to demonize the other side. Close-minded, clings to attachments. Doesn’t take in new information. Tries to monopolize other perspectives. Ignores other perspectives, “All other perspectives are stupid. Just focus on my perspective.” Unaware that it’s subjective, that it’s just a perspective. Thinks it represents “reality." Also rejects parts of reality that don’t confirm its biases. Higher Perspectives: Selfless, courageous, loving. Open minded, curious, playful, interested in exploring more perspectives. Nuanced and sophisticated. Intellectually honest and rigourous. Systemic, meta and holistic. Self-aware. Higher perspectives are aware they are a subjective perspective among many. Non-monopolistic. Doesn’t claim to be the only valid perspective. Inclusive. Higher perspectives understand and include the Lower perspectives, but not vice versa. Higher perspectives can Steel Man lower perspectives. Lower perspectives cannot steel man higher perspectives. Find the Good in All Perspectives. Try to Steel Man Different Perspectives It’s the opposite of a Straw Man. Steel Man: Challenging your opponent’s best argument. Watch for how a perspective tries to lock you in. -Do they let you study other perspectives? For example, the scientific community will discredit you for studying the paranormal, new age or religion. Fear vs Love If a perspective is coming from fear, it's false. If it’s coming from love it's true (2:12:45). That’s because truth is Love, there's just many degrees of love/truth. If you commit to the path of raising your consciousness, you can discover the Absolute Truth that nothing is better or more meaningful than anything else, because all things are wondrous, good and created by love and consciousness. (ep: Good Intentions II) When you are under the illusion that one thing is better or objectively more meaningful than another, you will always suffer because you will seek the better and resent the worse. Love is its own reward. Surrender to love, beauty and truth. Live your life like it’s a work of art. Work towards that love with courage and purpose. Your authentic purpose is just your love for life expressed uniquely through you, free of the distortions of social conditioning.

BLISS Everything about you is how I'd wanna be Your freedom comes naturally Everything about you resonates happiness Now I won't settle for less Give me All the peace and joy in your mind Everything about you pains my envying Your soul can't hate anything Everything about you is so easy to love They're watching you from above Give me All the peace and joy in your mind I want the peace and joy in your mind Give me the peace and joy in your mind Everything about you resonates happiness Now I won't settle for less Give me all the peace and joy in your mind I want the peace and joy in your mind Give me the peace and joy in your mind

1) Let go of chasing after bliss. Focus on deepening your comprehension of Truth, regardless of how it feels. Don't be driven by positive feelings because they don't always come. 2) Explore other psychedelics you have not yet tried. Don't get stuck on one psychedelic.

it begins with a daily sitting practice. Practice being aware of the breath. In doing that, many things will come up. Thoughts, emotions, resistance, pleasure, pain etc. Just return to the practice, again and again. Kindly but firmly. Then you begin to practice while doing your daily life. While walking, while running, working, cleaning, etc. Returning to the practice again and again. This will train you to be more conscious throughout your day so that you are able to feel more as you go through your life rather than thinking all the time compulsively. Once your thoughts start to wind down a bit your feelings will be more pronounced. When you take an action, if it is in accordance with Reality, you will feel bliss. If it is not in accordance with Reality, you will feel misery. This ability to feel whether what you are doing is in accordance is called your 'third eye'. Once you're able to feel the feelings, you will be able to see The Way. The Way is not to the left or to the right, it is in the middle.

Week 11 Recovering a Sense of Autonomy The Zen of Sports "exercise: the act of bringing into play or realizing in action." Most blocked creatives are cerebral beings. We think of what we want to do but can't. Early in recovery, we next think of all the things we want to do but don't. In order to effect a real recovery, the creative needs to move out of her/his head and into the body. Creativity requires action and part of that action must be physical. This step requires acceptance. It is one of the pitfalls of westerners adopting eastern mediation to bliss out and render ourselves high but dysfunctional. We lose our grounding, and with it, our capacity to act in the world– we render ourselves unconscious in a new way. Exercise combats dysfunctional spirituality. Walking is a moving meditation. Any act of motion that puts you into The Now is a moving meditation. They help us to stop spinning. 20 minutes a day is sufficient. The goal is to connect to a world outside of us, to lose the obsessive self-focus of self-exploration and simply, explore. When the self is focused on other, the self often comes into more accurate focus. the fitness of your spirit sets the tone for the day. move for perspective. Rhythmic repetitive action transfers the locus of the brain's energy from logic to the artistic hemisphere. It is there that inspiration breaks through the constrains of logic. You find answers in movement. movement gives you a sense of not only motion, but also the motion of God through you and through the universe. Exercise teaches the rewards of process. It teaches the sense of satisfaction over small tasks well done. Learned creative patience has to do with connecting to a sense of universal creativity. When your mind shuts off– through focused movement– the rationality switches off. Art is not rational, it's magical. Focused movement reduces you to feeling. Moments of intense feeling teaches you to be aware of other moments in your life when they occur. As an artist, walking offers sensory saturation; in a sense, insight follows from sight. Gather visual delight as if you are gathering nuts and berries. We learn by going where we have to go. Doing what we have to do. Exercise often takes us from self-pity to self-respect; from questions to answers and stagnation to inspiration. We learn that we are stronger than we thought when we move. We learn new perspective. Building Your Artistic Altar It is easier to tap into your inner resources when you have a centering ritual– like morning pages. Morning pages are a meditation. A spiritual room or corner helps facilitate centering rituals. Fill your spiritual corner with pictures or things that make you happy– an artist's altar should be a sensory experience. Some examples of small rituals, self-devised, could be: burning incense as you say (or write) your affirmations dancing to music lighting a candle while you do your morning pages holding a rock while you do breath-work etc. tactile, physical techniques enhance spiritual growth. the artistic child speaks the language of the soul: music, dance, scent, shells.. your artistic altar should be fun, even silly.

Thought I’d do something a bit different and simply post my well wishes to all of you on the spiritual path. I am sure many you can relate to the various emotions of happiness, joy, confusion, fear, nihilism, frustration, bliss (most likely missing 100+ emotions) that come along with taking this journey. I see many of you post some of your breakthroughs as well as down points. All of it is inspiring to say the least, we are embarking upon on something that is beyond the human realm, a task that only a few of us who lived to have ever awakened to the nature of God. For those of you who are struggling, and still working with the dark night of the soul, be kind to yourself..and know that whatever pain that is involved in this will be worth it in the end. There is a reason why much suffering happens to achieve awakening, and that’s because God realization will literally absolve all suffering you incurred..no matter what amount. So with this, I send my love and encouragement to you all. When you reach your awakening, we will unite as one in the same ??❤️. Best of luck.

Have you watched this one? : Also maybe dive into strong determination meditation (adhitthana): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhiṭṭhāna Also maybe do ayahuasca, if possible in your country. This is my advice. You will find that returning to love does not make you weak. On the contrary, you will find a strength that only a few people in this world possess. Looking your naked self straight in the eyes is true bravery. integrating these aspects in your life has been so important and brave of you. Already a step on the way into letting go of ego. Seems to me like you are very much on your way to untangle yourself off from delusion. If you have been hiding in a macho masculinity and stage red, it has been brave of you to let go of this, integrating aspects like calm, peace, and passive in your life. Maybe it is time now for you to dive into the aspects of this path, that are definitely not "pussy" in the ordinary sense of the word, but very much pussy in the actual sense. Contemplate what a pussy is, in fact, able to do. You yourself, with all your demons and all your bliss and beauty, were made from pussy. God is pussy - as someone above my comment correctly put it. It's so beautiful how you put this word in the title without understanding its true meaning. Spirituality will make you a pussy, hahaha, the strongest force on earth. you stupid man No, seriously. You are doing good I believe. Keep going.