Leo Gura

Oh, some fun gossip about David Deida. I once went on a date with Tony Robbin's copywriter. She knew all the dirty secrets. She told me that Tony Robbins had to physically kick David Deida off his cruise ship because he was getting handsy with Tony's wife. Lol Oh the delicious irony of it all...

That's only because they don't know how to use them properly. I have successfully use psychedelics to become conscious of every facet of nonduality. Total nonduality, beyond anything humanly imaginable. So much nonduality, that I see most enlightened masters now as not fully realized. David Deida, for example, is not fully realized.

That's like being a tyrant and asking yourself: Why the fuck would I want to stop being a tyrant?

Well, you are experiencing it. You're unconscious of what you're experiencing, but you are experiencing something. So then you got nothing left to do but kick back and enjoy your pina colada at the beach. You have no interest in Truth. You will live and die in delusion. Enlightenment is the realization that you have always been dead. No one was born. Nothing is happening. The confusion about this comes from that idea you have of death as being "lights out." That is not death. That is your materialist idea of death, which turns out to be wrong. Death cannot make sense from the materialist paradigm. It only makes sense once you're dead. No self = death The Buddha was a man who sat under a tree and meditated for so long that he died. But then his body kept on living and teaching for another 40 years. How that is possible you cannot understand so long as you are alive. To awaken, is to awake up from life, in the same way that you can wake up from a bad dream to realize it wasn't ever real. See my video: Life Is A Dream

@phoenix666 But look deeper. Why can you not just still comfortably with the stress? Why are you running away from it? Notice that if you sit down with any negative feeling, there will be a kind of agitation there, and it will feel "lonely" for lack of a better word, facing it. Just having a bunch of stress in your life is not the same thing as addiction. If you just have lots of stress, that's already a symptom of some deeper problem in your life, and chances are really good that that deeper problem is only a problem because you are afraid of facing emptiness. Example: You are stressed about finishing all your school work because deep down you are afraid of failing school and ending up with nothing -- AKA emptiness. Example: You are stressed about pleasing your husband because deep down you are afraid that otherwise he will leave you, and you will end up all alone -- AKA emptiness.

Yes, but behind this stress is something even more real: emptiness! You can't stand stress because it feels too bleak and empty to face all alone, so you want a companion for that emptiness. The reason it's hard to tolerate that stress very mindfully is because there is an emptiness to it. The mind is always looking for movement and agitation because otherwise the stillness is too much to bear. It's too "real". So you seek escape from the suffering of emptiness into pleasant emotions. Because your mind is addicted to stimulation. The value of understanding a problem at its root is that you stab the hydra in the heart rather than merely chopping off one of its many heads.

Guys, careful not to treat Kriya yoga as a quick enlightenment fix. That's not at all how it works. You need to be in this for the long-haul. Questions such as: "Do you see a light yet at your 3rd eye?" are the totally wrong attitude.

@Applejuice Those are all great questions. The only way you can find out is by doing your own personal investigation with direct experience. No matter what anyone tells you, it will just be hearsay and stories from your perspective until you directly experience it for yourself. If you are serious about exploring the outer limits of reality, you should watch my episodes about epistemology very carefully and apply the principles taught there. The #1 principle to all serious investigation of reality is: be radically open minded to anything and everything. Don't judge. Seek to verify every claim with personal direct experience. You'd be amazed at how far that one principle can take you, if you bother to apply it seriously, and you are genuinely curious to know the TRUTH. Asking about such things on an online forum, or debating such things with people, shows a lack of seriousness and a gross underestimation of the nuances and complexities of reality. It's okay to ask, but don't expect any serious resolution of your existential questions via an online forum. The things you are asking about cannot be spoken of or even thought about in many cases. You need to start to appreciate the depth of this communication gap. You can start by reading all of the 5-star rated books on my book list -- especially in the Consciousness, Epistemology, and Paranormal categories. That will give you an good theoretical foundation to follow up on with direct experience. To answer all of your questions will probably require 10-20 years of serious spiritual practices. Just so you understand the depth of what you're asking about.

An additional point of clarification: Some of you guys pounce on each new technique I share as though it was the silver bullet to solve all of your problems. That is the wrong attitude. Doing a self-help technique once or twice and expecting something miraculous to happen is the wrong attitude. I never said that this technique will produce enlightenment. That is not its goal. This technique is not a replacement for meditation, yoga, or self-inquiry. Deep psychotherapy can take years and costs tens of thousands of dollars. So if this technique can speed up that process by even a factor of 2x, all in the comfort of your own home, that would a huge thing.

Maybe you care about understanding what reality is. That would require your death.

Then how do you explain that Sadhguru and Peter Ralston both have daughters? And Shyama Lahiri (founder for Kriya yoga) was a householder with kids? Careful with making broad-sweeping narratives about enlightened people. It tends to be as problematic as making general statements about any group of people (black, white, Asian, gay, women, etc).

Drinking urine, AKA drinking Budweiser.

@WildeChilde Both ways work well. Eyes closed is great when you want to focus on labeling sounds or body sensations or thoughts.

@JustinS Hehe... amen

@0ne Because you are an illusion. And your very life depends upon you not realizing it. You're not yet fully appreciating the significance of breaking this illusion. We are talking about breaking reality and the end of life.

Not necessarily one place. And different techniques resonate for some while not for others. What happens when you get stuck with only one technique in your toolbox?

Who's to judge what is and isn't earned? You think your "hard work" is of your own doing??? You think somehow it isn't a gift from God? You think you stumbling upon yoga or meditation was your own doing and not a gift given to you? Such egotism! Be careful acting as though you have a choice in how things unfold. You don't. "Earned" vs "unearned" is an egoic notion. Everything is the manifestation of Infinity and could not be otherwise. Be grateful for any higher consciousness you come across, however it comes to you. Otherwise, it's like you're spitting in the face of God for giving you a gift. (Of course, you're free to do that too.) P.S. While you're at it, you may as well stop meditation, self-inquiry, and yoga, because those are also "unearned". You stole those techniques from other people who invented them the hard way. You are just riding on their coattails like a lazy bum, looking for a shortcut to God, too weak-willed to carve a unique path through the jungle of delusion for yourself Your entire life is unearned.

@phoenix666 Good work! That's a nice glimpse at infinity. Now go deeper. Plumb its staggering depth until it melts your mind.

Oneness and manyness is not two, but ONE! There is no difference between real and unreal -- that is twoness. Oneness means real and unreal are one. One = Many Many = One Form = Formlessness Formless = Form Duality = Nonduality Mu

Awakening is just nihilism fully realized. If McKenna sounds "nihilistic" to you, that's because that's the way YOU are reading him. Don't confuse lack of sugar-coating with "nihilism". There is a certain compassion (masculine compassion) that comes with being ruthlessly blunt about a matter, as opposed to glittering it up with promises of 72 virgins. The ego-mind tends to hate direct Jihad. It's too much for an ego to stomach unless one is really spiritually mature. But also, keep in mind, that people will have different journeys to awakening. For some people the journey will be very hellish and bleak, for others it will be more heavenly and lovey-dovey. That's gonna depend a lot on your personal karma and how your mind interprets the journey. Also, keep in mind, there are many degrees of awakening. Certain levels may be sweet while others bleak. Again, depending on how your mind interprets it. For example, some minds will find it horrifying to discover that there is no right/wrong, while others will find this delightful. Some minds will find it atrocious to discover that God is nothingness, while others will find this beautiful.

If that's true, how can you be sure you're not insane right now? Have you forgotten that THIS experience of reality you're having right now is determined by the brain? What if your brain is functioning ignorantly RIGHT NOW!? Hint: It is! You are mentally ill and you don't even know it. Your mental illness is otherwise known as materialism. Of course the whole trick with being afflicted with this illness is that you deny that you have it So take your own advice. The problem isn't that you're being too skeptical here, but that you're not being skeptical enough! You are blindly accepting your default level of consciousness. Which is a massive epistemic blunder.

A few pointers for you guys: 1) This question of whether oxygen is being increased or decreased is really irrelevant. Don't get hung up on that. What matters is if you feel the technique working for you. If you feel like it is harming you, then don't do it. For me, it feels healing. Obviously people can have all sorts of health conditions which might make this technique inappropriate, in the same way that running 2 miles on a treadmill is inappropriate for many people. But for most healthy people, it is healing. Medical doctors and academics can say all sorts of things. But the proof is in the actual doing of the technique. Do not listen to people who have not actually done the technique. Spiritual techniques tend to be hardcore. They can also be counter-intuitive, breaking conventional medical, physiological, and materialist paradigms. Case in point: most medical researchers still do not understand psychedelics for example, so don't expect them to understand a technique like shamanic breathing. With naive thinking, a doctor could easily classify running a marathon as unhealthy and physically dangerous, pointing to isolated factors like: "There is less oxygen in the blood than normal" or "There is more CO2 than average", "The muscles are producing lactic acid which is damaging to the body", "The heart beat is near heart attack levels", "The body temperature is near fever levels", "Dehydration is too high", "The immune system is under great stress", etc. This doesn't say much. Normality is no sign of health, and doctors usually just parrot whatever medical ideology they are subscribed to. They have zero spiritual understanding. Their understanding of human physiology is materialistic, crude, and linear. They have no sense of the subtle, energetic, psycho-somatic, or metaphysical aspects of human physiology. 2) Don't fall into the trap of mistaking difficult emotional and physical sensations as "negative" or a sign of physical damage. It's very easy for a noob to misinterpret muscle burn at the gym as a sign of physical damage, for example. A little bit of pain can make the ego come up with all sorts of excuses. Your shadow and emotional trauma are wired deep into your mind, brain, and body. Releasing this deep trauma can feel painful, uncomfortable, difficult, scary, etc. Negative emotions arising is a sign of HEALTH, not sickness. It means the technique is working just as it should. This is called spiritual purification, and any serious spiritual technique has the potential to release very deep, painful, and scary thoughts and emotions. Facing your own lies, delusions, and ego-death is not rainbows and butterflies. With that said, you need to learn to intuit how much spiritual purification you can handle at a time. Going overboard is not good. Make sure you only bite off as much as you can chew. 3) If 30 minutes of this techniques brings up a lot of physical challenges, pain, and emotions in you, then all that probably means is: you have a lot of emotional baggage to work through. For me, for example, 30 minutes of this technique feels intense, but there is no negativity, no pain, and little emotional baggage arising. For me, 30 minutes feels rejuvenating and empowering. It feels like an intense workout. Perhaps akin to running a marathon. 4) Don't judge a spiritual technique unless you've actually done it with an open mind. 5) Keep in mind, the ego is very sneaky. Any technique which directly threatens it, it will tend to demonize and reject. This is true of psychedelics and many other radical methods. 6) The more effective a spiritual technique is, the more challenging it will be, and the less your ego will want to do it. 7) Use common sense. Don't hurt yourself. Search your heart for whether this is healing or hurting you. As an example, after an intense workout at the gym, you should have a sense of whether you hurt yourself or strengthened yourself with that session. I am no doctor and this is not medical advice. You are 100% responsible for your own well-being. I like to practice hardcore and experimental techniques which may not be suitable for certain people. If you want to be 100% safe, then stick to 100% conventional materialist techniques (which basically means: no spirituality for you). Spirituality always involves some degree of danger and risk. You have to determine for yourself what you are comfortable with and how deep you're willing to go. If you think that meditation or yoga cannot get as intense as shamanic breathing, that's just because you've haven't really experienced hardcore meditation or yoga yet. And certainly this shamanic breathing is peanuts compared to a deep psychedelic session. I've done psychedelic sessions in which I've physically died. Good luck explaining that to a doctor. FYI, any technique that can produce ego-death or awakening is capable of eliciting in you deep fear and powerful emotions. Because are are literally facing your own death. That is no small thing. Spirituality takes courage, but also intelligence. Be fearless, but also don't do anything stupid like physically harming yourself. You can call it hyperventilation if you want. But then by that logic you can also call awakening insanity. So what? You could also call weightlifting: tearing of your muscles. And you could call sex: exposure of your immune system to foreign diseases. And you could call eating a slice of pizza: ingesting cancer-causing poison.

Yes, that's good. That's the only way really. You must doubt everything until nothing remains. Spirituality is like extreme skepticism taken to its ultimate conclusion, consuming everything, and even itself. Until only pure being remains. Trusting me is not what I ask you to do. I ask you to be skeptical of everything equally, especially of your self. You cannot trust anyone in this work. Not me, not any guru, not Buddha. You must discover what is true in your direct experience. Direct experience is all that really matters. My words are only here to motivate you to look more closely at your direct experience and question everything society has taught you. There are no authority figures. The truth cannot be spoken or proven to you. You must seek it out all alone. Make sure you don't mistake my talking for truth. All the ideas I fill your mind with are NOT the truth!

Perhaps so, but agenda isn't consciousness.

Lol, that's actually a major plus. The whole point is to lose your mind to the techniques and stop all this mental masturbation about theortical nonduality.