Leo Gura

Sounds like a lot of folks will be having their awakenings after 2 years of drought

@gahzito Thanks but South America is too far. Even traveling across the US will be very exhausting. I am not a high energy person like Tony Robbins. I don't have the energy to do a ton of seminars.

@XYZ Why don't you start a business which would solve many of these issues? If you really wanted to, you could. The problem is you don't want to. You're lacking the vision, the ambition. Changing your situation will require lots of hustle for a few years at least. But don't look of that as a negative, it's a positive. For once you will be doing something exciting with your life. That excitement leads to passion and the feeling of "being alive".

@Anirban657 You are creating a duality between thoughts and matter, as though they are made of two different substances. This is false. Thoughts and matter are literally made out of the exact same stuff: consciousness. There is no other substance in the universe but consciousness. No exceptions whatsoever!

@graded24 1) I-AM-ness is nothing. Which is why the mind cannot grasp it. Yes, I-AM-ness is awareness. Nothingness is self-aware. But don't think of awareness as a thing or a substance. It is nothing. The reason you struggle to get this is because you assume that nothing cannot be self-aware. This is a false assumption. 2) There is only one "substance" in reality, period. That substance is nothing. Everything is it. No exceptions. Everything is self-aware because it is nothing. The entire sponge is nothing. The sponge is not distinct from the empty space it occupies. This cannot really be conveyed by the analogy because it would require you to already have nondual awareness. You see the sponge as distinct from the empty space because you're looking at it dualistically. If you were awake, you'd realize the sponge is nothing, as are all physical objects. This does not mean that sponge disappears or changes shape or color. It just means that you realize that shapes and colors ARE nothing. 3) Again, you are making the mistake of thinking of nothing as the opposite of something. This is the ultimate duality. You're expecting nothing to be a blank -- the opposite of something. And it is that. But it is also all the non-blank stuff as well! Form and formlessness are actually identical. This won't make much sense without a deep awakening. You have to deeply question all dualities like: Something vs nothing Form vs formlessness Dual vs nondual Me vs you Inner vs outer God vs not-God Life vs death Existence vs non-existence Awareness vs non-awareness Material vs immaterial Mind vs body Self vs world Good vs bad Sentient vs non-sentient Life vs non-life Matter vs empty space All of those distinctions will ultimately collapse into unity if you question them deeply enough. Everything you've experienced in your entire life was nothing. It's like the entire universe never even happened. In the beginning, there was nothing. The end. It's like the universe was never even born. This is an utterly shocking realization which requires super-human levels of consciousness to realize. If you ever get this far, it's as though you broke all of existence. And then again, this is already true right this second in your experience. You just overlooking the obvious.

It is not that. It is the belief that there is no God and that the universe is a dumb material object. There is no atheism without materialism. They go hand in hand.

@Mafortu That is how I am. Genuine desire for Truth is the best motivation. But suffering lights a nice fire under your ass too. Don't make this a false dichotomy. Use both and you will go far. Also, the reason why you don't appreciate liberation from suffering yet is because you have not suffered deeply enough. Don't worry, one day you will Then you will understand.

Firstly, no human being is rational. There is nothing rational about survival. Secondly, the concept of rationality depends on a duality created by the rationalist which carves up the world into rational vs its opposite. So by the very logic of the rationalist, to say something is rational is to say something else is not, which be definition means the world contains both rational and not rational things. Which means the world is not rational. If everything in the universe was rational the label "rational" would cease to have any meaning. The only value this label has is precisely because there are irrational things afoot which you wish to distinguish from the rational things. Rationality is a self-defeating category. As all categories are. Because they are projections of the human mind. Calling reality rational is as silly as calling reality "sexual" just because you like sex. Some stuff is sexual, but most stuff is not. Likewise with the rationality label. Reality contains sex but it is not limited to sex. Sex does not even account for 1% of reality, neither does rationality.

Lol, what a bullshitter that dude is.

Locked for being a trolling topic. I don't see anyone but a psychopath killing animals for pure pleasure. Even avid hunters don't kill animals for pure pleasure. And certainly no one on this forum kills animals for pure pleasure.

Sorry to hear that. Our society is not really designed to treat these kinds of edge cases. The advice is: take full ownership of your life. Do not expect anyone else to solve your emotional or psychological issues for you. Get a journal and start working it out yourself. Start doing research, start reading books, start watching videos. Become the expert on your condition and cure yourself. Sounds like you got more fundamental issues to resolve before you worry about meditation. Find a way to ease off the drugs if it is safe to do so. You can solve this. It will just take some work.

The universe is perfect only once the "you" is gone. So long as there's a "you", it will bitch and moan about things not going its way. Extinction of humans would be a great thing for many other creatures. If humans go extinct it will be because that is what is best to raise the overall consciousness of the universe. So it's all good in the end. (Just maybe not for "you" )

Welcome

@SoonHei It is not just brute force permutations. The universe is so intelligent that it figured out a way to design itself down the very last molecule. You can see a bit of this in action if you observe how your own mind works. The mind does not randomly string together permuations of words and ideas. The mind intelligently selects each thought so it makes maximum sense. This is the universe in action. The universe is thinking your thoughts for you. How? That is the wonder of it! It's astounding.

If I was blaming people for blaming people, yes. That of course would be delusional. But just to call delusion for what it is is not delusional. Delusion is an inevitable part of life. This is a place of teaching. If you want to say nothing at all, go live in a cave.

@SoonHei That's what I used to think until I discovered that no, it is not random, it is infinitely intelligent. This cannot be understood in your present state of consciousnsess -- like, at all. It doesn't make sense to the linear logical mind. There is little sense trying to think this through. You must do intense practices or psychedelics to get it.

@herghly I will try it some day.

"You can't fire me, I quit!" Watch that ego playing its games. That you have managed to convince yourself that you would know my (non-existent) knee pain better than me is rather silly. Think about the arrogance and presumptuousness of such a position. Practice whatever you want. But don't make false claims about me. I understand your intention was good, to help me. But good intentions alone are not sufficient. You must also get your facts right.

Speaking more usefully to the POV of the ego: enlightenment is awesome. It is like sex, but better. You can think of it as cosmic sex. You'd be a fool not to enjoy it. It beats all other goals and pursuits.

That's begging the question. You're already assuming in that case that you are the thing being hit. Why do you assume you are a body? Just because pain happens does not mean it is you. What if you are a thing which cannot feel pain but mistook yourself for a thing that can? How would you know? Question the basics of your metaphysics.

Why, when I could do other psychedelics with less hassle?

Those are called Kriyas. It doesn't really matter. The body/mind bio-machine is just rewiring itself and working stuff out. Let it happen naturally, don't cling to it, don't get wowed or distracted by it, and carry on with your practices with your eye on the ball: Truth/Enlightenment Basically, no matter what happens during spiritual practice you just keep doing the practice. Unless it gets so bad that you cannot function, then you can ease up on the practice for a bit, but then get back into it. There are lots of potential side effects and none of them really matter other than as signs that you are growing.

Hence the video: All Criticism Is Untennable All blame is delusion.

@Jed Vassallo Ayahausca should be more uncomfortable than 5-MeO-DMT. You're overthinking it. Stop listening to all the stories you've heard about 5-MeO and just go based on your direct experience. If you haven't tried it you have no idea what it will do and nothing to fear. 5-MeO is quite beautiful, peaceful, benevolent, and straight-forward as far as psychedelics go. At least for me. For me it has the least potential for weird, twisted trips. It's just a pure increase in consciousness. No funny business. If you can handle Ayahausca you can handle 5-MeO.

@elias Welcome