The Unbound Mind
What’s the truth?
That an illusion has been pulled over our eyes. Like the cave allegory, we have watched these shadows dance our entire lives and have never seen the puppeteers or what’s outside this cave. The puppeteers are those who cast the illusions, knowingly. The cave is hell. And outside the cave represents real life and heaven, a life you can have when you can see through the illusions and begin to live without fear and desire.
The cave allegory?: https://web.sbu.edu/theology/bychkov/plato%20republic%207.pdf
The illusions are simply all Fear and Desire. I capitalize these two words for we must respect our enemy, if we are to defeat him. The Ego is simply a compilation of your accumulated fears, desires, and stories your mind has crafted around certain past events. The Ego also projects those stories onto the future, keeping you in constant angst and terror of the past repeating itself. Or, it keeps you afraid of what could happen based on what you’ve been told, such as, “If you don’t do X, you might die from Y.” This is essentially a program. “If then” statements set up a rule in your mind that if you don’t do one thing, then a “good” or “bad” thing will happen.
For example, “If you don’t brush your teeth everyday, then your teeth will turn black.” This is a program. Let’s break it down to see where Fear, Desire, agendas are intertwined into this single sentence.
If you don’t brush your teeth everyday, your teeth will turn BLACK. - The color black is a scary thing, especially if your teeth are normally white/yellow. It’s fearful on multiple levels:
Black teeth signifies death of your tooth, alludes to your death as well, and ostracization from society because black teeth isn’t respectable.
It implies your teeth need to be the opposite of black. Implications by definition are hidden, but your mind instantly sees it: your teeth must be WHITE to avoid all these horrible outcomes we listed in the above bullet. This White is better than Black or Clean is better than Dirty is a very old program dating back to biblical times, so your mind is like, “Yes, this must be true, for it’s been said for so long that we must be clean.” Think lepers in Jesus’ time. They were untouchable, dirty, diseased. Think of those who live in tents on the street today. Same thing, different time.
Let’s now look at the word “everyday”. If you don’t brush your teeth “everyday”. This is the the ultimate illusion of this If Then statement. It says you must brush “everyday” or else bad things will happen / good things won’t happen. The only way for illusions to take hold is for it to be somewhat true, and use other illusions to support it. Then it has enough to take a hold of your mind. Like a cobra bite, it just has to poke two holes in your leg, inject its poison, then that poison will spread through existing veins and eventually reach your heart and mind.
Step 1: The Bite: This “IF” statement creates a rule, “if this, then that will happen.” The word “IF” is the poke; the bite of the cobra. And the mind invites this poke because it likes rules. It likes to simplify a complex world. It fears complexity. And so the poke is welcomed, for the off chance that it’s an absolute truth. So the mind can take the easy way out. “I know a rule of life! Therefore I don’t have to think so hard about this thing anymore! I have too many other things to think about!” The poke is welcomed, and things just go to shit from there.
Step 2: The Poison enters: Then the poison is injected: “do this everyday or bad things will happen.” This is a rule that, if accepted, will implant in the depths of your subconscious that you now must brush everyday, or else.
Step 3: The Poison Spreads: What you thought was a helpful truth was really a trojan horse containing a new fear and new desire (both honestly quite interchangeable). You now fear black teeth / social ostracization / death. And you desire the opposite: white teeth / social acceptance / not dying. Now your mind has linked brushing everyday with DEATH. Think about this for a moment, the significance of this. This simple, seemingly harmless, and “helpful tip”, this “IF” statement, has implanted DEATH in your mind. It seems like a long leap, but is it? What is black teeth? That’s the possible end of your social future. What’s the end of your social future? Possibly ending up on the streets. What’s ending up on the streets? Probably no food, no money, no roof. What happens when you don’t have those things? Probably death pretty soon.
Step 4: Dead before Death: So you now better buy a toothbrush and toothpaste. And buy more when you run out, because you better brush everyday. In the effort to avoid DEATH, you give your life force to toothpaste brands. You always have Colgate on standby, and buy more if you run out. God forbid you don’t have any toothpaste. And you are now enslaved. For life. Because of an “IF” statement.
The way out? Question the “IF” statement Let’s return to the word “everyday.” Do you really need to brush everyday? Sure, it is wise to brush regularly. But does it have to be every day? Does it even really matter? Did indigenous tribes brush their teeth? So maybe every day isn’t an absolute truth. Well, it isn’t. You can skip a day. You don’t have to freak out every time you run out of toothpaste. You don’t have to be enslaved. You can keep your teeth clean, but out of love for your teeth and your presentation, not out of fear of social ostracization and death. Everyone has haters the moment they enter this world. And everyone dies. So this “IF” statement, can fuck off. And if your teeth go black, just get new ones. It’s 2026. That’s how you destroy the illusion. You question it. You find ways it is wrong. You look at the truth. Watch out for “IF”s and watch out for absolutes like “everyday”, “always”, and “never.” There are absolute truths out there, but “If you don’t brush your teeth, they will turn black.” isn’t one of them.
Pro tip: almost all “IF THEN” statements are false. There are few absolute truths, and we’ll go over them. And the only IF THEN statements that are true are super situational and super specific. For example, “If I jump off a bridge and it is 20,000 feet from the street below, then I will die upon impact.” But notice, if I make this IF THEN statement vague, then it can’t be considered to be true all the time. For example, “If I jump off a bridge, I will die.” I can easily come up with exceptions: what if there’s water underneath? One wouldn’t die. What if there was a giant moon bounce beneath. Or a hot air balloon. Or a platform only 5 feet below the jump point? IF THENS are easy to debunk, unless they are super specific and situational, or if they are one of the rare absolute truths.
What is the truth about the mind?
The mind is a highly useful tool, excellent for problem solving. It takes in sensory input, stores data and skills, and generates emotions and thoughts.
However, the mind is also easily programmed.
Think about a dog. If you reward a dog progressively and consistently, it can roll over on command. You first reward him by going on his belly. Then you reward him by turning his head to look to the side. Then turn until he’s looking up. Then look up and turn his shoulder up too. Then turn his whole body to roll. This is progressive training. Do enough progressive training, and you can train a dog to jump through 30 hoops and do back flips and find specific drugs in someone’s shoe.
There’s two ways to train. Negative reinforcement (do something, like hitting, that the dog will fear happening again), or positive reinforcement (do something, like getting a treat, that the dog will desire happening again, which conversely will create a fear of it not happening again, so both types of reinforcement are actually FEAR-driven).
Important concept: Fear and desire are really two forms of Fear. Fear creates a fear of not wanting something to happen. Desire creates a fear from needing something to happen. So you can lump both Fear and Desire into simply Fear.
Imagine now the level of progressive programming possible for a human brain. Just by being a part of a family, you are instantly immersed in negative/postiive reinforcement. A smile when you do something like stand up. A frown when you cry. You are being programmed how to behave the moment you come out of the womb, unknowingly by your family members, who were programmed by theirs. This continues more aggressively once you enter society, school, corporate, friend-groups, social media, church, etc. Any societal group has their set of “norms” and “traditions”, which are just nice ways of saying programs.
Why are we talking about programs? Because these are what instill FEAR and DESIRE into your mind.
There are innate fears and desires which are useful for survival. Fear of being eaten by a lion. Fear of dying. Desire for a shelter. Desire for communal support. Desire for your kids to be well. These are fine to have to a certain, reasonable point.
Depression occurs when fear and desire 1) expand and amplify beyond the basic fears and desires, and 2) turn into super acute versions of these basic fears/desires, and 3) begin to time-travel from the past and future into the present moment.
This is important, so please pay attention.
I’m going to break these three down, because these are the key to DELETING depression from your life.
1) Expand and amplify beyond the basic fears
If you see a lion in front of you and fear that this lion is about to eat you, that’s a useful fear. If you fear that if you leave your house, a lion might pounce out of your bush one day so you never leave your house, that’s a useless fear. 99% of human fears are useless fears, aka illusions. Because unless it is a life or death situation happening this very moment, it is a purely in your mind.
Another good example is public speaking, which something like 3 out of 4 people fear. I was constipated the whole week prior to my first talk, and shaking during the first 5 minutes. But once I was 5 minutes in, and told everyone, “Shit, I’m so nervous.” It just went away. I realized, I’m not in danger. I’m not facing 10 lions. I’m facing 10 people. People who literally looked like they were hoping to hear something cool. I went on to give a great talk and they loved it. Not because I was a great speaker, but because I came from love and honesty.
We no longer have to worry about predators, as we are the apex predator on Earth. So our fears are now coming from things that literally have no chance of killing us. Speaking. Talking to strangers. Being in an interview. Making a mistake at our job. NONE of these things can kill us, but we extrapolate something like “societal death” or “reputation death” or “getting cancelled” and mistake that for actual death. Unless you are facing a lion or great white shark or something of the sort, there is literally nothing to fear.
2) Turn into super acute versions of these basic fears
By super acute, I mean super heightened versions of a basic fear or desire. To give a range, to worry is to have a light fear of something. To be paranoid is to have an acute fear of something. Let’s say you have a desire for your kid to be well. Many well-meaning parents take this desire and believe for their kid to be well, they need to be happy. For them to be happy, they can never be sad. In order for them to never be sad, they must be soothed whenever they’re bitching about not having ice cream or a toy. So the parents always give in to their kids whenever they cry. The parents have turned the desire for kids to be well into the desire for their kids to never cry. I haven’t even touched the societal and cultural shame they feel for being parents of kids who are crying.
So this simple desire for their kids to be well has turned into a paranoia around their kids crying and how that means they are bad parents, society will call social services on them, they are destroying their kids’ confidence, and their kids will become depressed and hate them.
Acute fear is essentially taking a fear, and creating a story from it that makes it bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and bigger until it has completely controlled a portion of your life.
Look at those who work a corporate or hourly job. How the fear of not having money/security causes them to become complete slaves at work and never speak their mind or push back or say no to their boss or coworkers. That is what acute fear leads to: slavery. If you are so afraid you can’t be yourself, you are a slave to fear and those who instill it in you.
3) Begin to time-travel from the past and future into the present moment.
I saved the best (or worst) for last. Remember, I was depressed my whole life until 3 years ago. I studied this thing and went all-in on beating it through every possible master, guru, trainer, course, guide, youtube video, hack, trick, tip, you name it. I didn’t just read stuff, I tested them in a structured way using spreadsheets to track time, date, details, grading the impact of the tactic 0-10 over a whole decade. I know this mother fucker inside and out.
[show your spreadsheet]
And I’m giving you the essence of what worked.
The main source of illusory fear comes from psychological past and future. There’s past and future events. I went to high school in 2006. I am going to the zoo this coming weekend. That’s past/future events. Then there’s psychological past/future.
Psychological past is thinking about past events, remembering them, whether positively or negatively. If negative, you’re regretting them. If positive, aka nostalgia, you’re wishing you were back there. Either way, you are using the past to escape the present moment. Neither are helpful for you. Both are HARMFUL! Fuck the past. What’s done is finished. Unless you absolutely need it to help you with something happening in the present moment, like you are facing a great white shark and you think back to the past where you learned you can punch a great white shark in the nose to ward it away, the past is nothing but mental and emotional pain you are bringing into the present. Let the past go. It is done. It no longer exists.
Let’s say you made a mistake yesterday and accidentally ran over a dog. Yes, that sucks. It’s a damn shame, it is. But today, fully grieve the dog and move on. It’s over. You can’t change it. Lingering on it is only a form of victimizing yourself. “Poor me, look how bad I am. I’m not a good person. Look at the wrong I did.” You made a mistake. We all make mistakes. Even Jesus got pissed and popped off in the temple and overturned all the vendor tables because they were disrespecting his Father’s house. He lost his cool. So can you. Just learn from your mistake, quickly, and move on. No time to mope, no time to linger, no time to delay your grief. Grieve it fully, then let it go.
Psychological future is thinking about what might happen in the future, and trying to cope with it. Usually, it’s a negative eventuality that you are thinking about. “What if this goes wrong?” “What if I fail?” “What if I succeed and can’t handle it?” “What if I succeed and don’t deserve it?” Let me cut to the chase: You can NEVER cope with the future. It is made up of infinite possibilities and you can’t predict it. The possibility that things will “go wrong”? It is just as likely that things will go right. I assert it is more likely that things will go right, when you stop focusing on how it will go wrong.
Look at your life. Of the things you devoted yourself to, may it be beer pong or video games or hanging out with your friends when you were a kid. Did it completely fail? Or did it work out? Look at you right now, having read this far into this course? You must be doing something right, to be taking this time to work on yourself and doing the reps of showing up, reading, and letting this stuff sink in. You’re not doing that bad. You’re still alive. You were able to pay for this course. You are able to read. You have access to internet and a phone or laptop. You aren’t blind. Your brain is working or you wouldn’t have gotten this far. You’re not retarded. You have great taste in teachers since you found me. Seriously. People fall for fake gurus. You didn’t.
So, have you failed? The absolute truth is: not yet. Not while you have a beating heart. Not while you have internet access. The world is your oyster. And you’re on your way to cracking that bad boy open. So let’s keep going.
You can NEVER cope with the future. Too many possibilities. Anyone can say “how can I handle if everything goes to shit in one month because I’m running out of money?” Easy to say something so burdensome and impossible to cope with, then just call it quits. “I’m fucked anyway.” BULLSHIT. No one can cope with the future and these “everything is going to go bad soon” possibilities. But that’s the trick of the ego. It wants to keep you in the past or future so you keep feeling you are fucked. The ego is a victim. That’s why everyone for the most part is a victim. They are driven by their ego. Get the fuck out of the future. You have no idea what’s going to happen. And again, I assert, the odds of things going well are 998/1000, and the odds of things going to shit are 2/1000. So stop focusing on the 2 possibilities like a victim, and focus on the 998 possibilities like a champion. It’s simply a choice. Just choose the 998 every time. Every moment. Every time you feel like future is fucked, choose that instant to remember that 998/1000, it will be not fucked. Probably nice.
In summary, always come back to the present moment when you catch yourself thinking about the past or future.
Core practice: practice checking in on your internal state. Ask “What is going on inside me at this moment?” If you are tense, feeling unease, check if you are thinking about the past (i.e. “I shouldn’t have done that…” or future (i.e. “I’m worried they will not like me if I speak my mind.) Then return to the present by saying to yourself: “I let go of the past, it is done.” or “I let go of the future, it is uncopable.” then say “I return to this present moment.” You’ll feel your shoulders (or muscles that are usually tense) relax. Welcome to baby enlightenment.
Do this shit every minute. All day, everyday. To the best of your ability. You don’t need to be perfect. You never need to be perfect. But do your best. Everything you’ve got. And if you do this consistently and often, you will begin to automatically do this.
Depression is living in the past and future. Fear, paranoia, anxiety, stress, all of these are just living in the past or future. Shame is livinig in the past. Anger is living in the past. All the emotions and thoughts that haunt you every day and keep you from doing what you love, saying what you truly feel, going after your dreams, all the things you wish you could do but are blocked from doing, are entirely coming from fear. So do this practice. The alternative is things don’t change.
What is enlightenment?
Enlightenment is being present. That’s it. It’s not hard to get, it’s not esoteric and only for Buddhist monks or yogis. It’s everyone’s original state before they were programmed with fear, shame, desire, and all those things that come from being in society. When you are a baby, you have no sense of shame. That’s learned. When you are a baby, you have no fear of public speaking. That’s also learned. Illusory fear is a holding onto the past and future. Being present literally means not being in the past or future. You are in this moment completely. Without regard to outcome (future) and without holding onto a story (past).
For example, let’s say you speak to a stranger. If you are living in the past or future, you will say something you’ve planned to say or have seen work in the past like “How are you?” You are worried how they will perceive you (future thinking) so you say something proven.
If you are present, you don’t give a fuck about what you learned in the past or what will happen in the future. You literally do what feels right and true in the present. So you go up to them because you feel drawn to them, and then say what is honest. Maybe you say “Hey, I wanted to come up to you because I liked your energy.” Then you let them respond, and you actually listen because you are present. They say, “Wow, thank you. I like your energy too. I’m Sara.” “You say “I’m Jeff, you have nice eyes.” and smile. Sara smiles and says “Thanks, and you have a nice athleisure style.” “Yeah I love being able to workout at any moment. What do you like to do for fun?” and blah blah blah
But look how it’s just ordinary, real, genuine talk. No fake “How are you?” No fake posturing, proving, dominance bullshit. That’s enlightenment. Ordinary as fuck. A frog jumps onto a lilly pad. A deer eats grass with morning mildew as the sun rises. A man sits on a bench. A woman enjoys a Cava bowl on the patio. That’s peace. And peace is the absence of unnecessary and incessant thinking about the past and future. It’s not trying to be anything. It’s just being yourself. Just being. Just is. Just honesty.
Presence is saying “I don’t want to do that.” when you don’t want to. Look at children, they straight up say “I don’t like that.” “You have big hair.” when someone has an afro. No tricks. Because they have no fear. So they don’t need tricks. They don’t lie, because they haven’t learned yet to hold their tongue.
Look at your favorite people. They speak their mind regardless of the outcome. Jesus, Buddha, Mother Teresa, Mohammed, MLK, Abraham Lincoln, Charlie Kirk, Andrew Tate, Candace Owens, Steve Jobs, Kobe Bryant, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eckhart Tolle, Hariett Tubman, Quentin Tarnatino, and many more. It’s not about politics or right and wrong. It’s about speaking your truth, living your truth, regardless of the outcome. That’s presence. None of these people are perfect, and that’s actually the trick. Imperfection is the way.
In terms of other enlightenment abilities, yes, it is possible to learn things like floating, walking on water, the yogi stuff. Sure, and for some people, that is their path. And it sounds quite exciting. But for most people, they are perfectly not only happy with, but would easily pay a billion dollars for presence and peace. And that’s what I’m going to help you get to in the Self campus. But before you can get there, you need to calm your mind. And that’s what the Mind campus will do for you.
What’s next?
The next lesson will introduce a technique that will accelerate the process of overcoming fear. No fear, no depression. It’s called Morning Pages, from Julia Cameron. Combine with all the techniques in this course, and hard, diligent, everything-you’ve-got energy from you, you will get to enlightenment very possibly in months, not years or decades. Months. It’s up to you how badly you want it. And I recommend you start wanting to overcome fear real badly if you don’t already. Because not only is living in fear basically living in hell, but the alternative is heaven. Presence is better than any drug, any amount of money. Every moment is fucking beautiful. That is the prize for your hard work. So get to it. You literally have nothing better to do.