Leo Gura

It's hard to become deeply enlightened as a householder unless you got some special tricks up your sleeve, like powerful yogic techniques or psychedelics or something. The disadvantage is probably 10:1 to 20:1. If this wasn't the case, there would be no point in becoming a monk. If you went at enlightenment full-time, hardcore, you could probably do it in 1-2 years. Although who really knows. These are just guestimates and everyone is different. #1 factor in enlightenment seems to be undivided focus for long periods of time. Which is a rare thing these days. Which is why so few people get enlightened. Unnatural periods of focus are usually required. It will have effect. But not likely to produce enlightenment.

Collapse from excess materialism.

Lesson #1: Don't buy agriculturally zoned land when building a commune. Lesson #2: Don't have sex outdoors in eyesight of conservative rednecks. Lesson #3: Poisoning a city's water supply with diseased beavers = bad Lesson #4: Assassinating government officials = bad Lesson #5: Bombing government offices from the sky using your private jet = bad Lesson #6: Injecting people with lethal drugs = bad Lesson #7: Taking in homeless people = bad Lesson #8: Drugging homeless people with tranquilizers = bad Lesson #9: Arming your commune with Uzi's = bad Lesson #10: Buying untraceable handguns = bad Lesson #11: Mass immigration fraud = bad Lesson #12: Wiretapping people = bad Lesson #13: If you have a biological weapons lab on your property, you've probably taken a wrong turn somewhere in your life.

@MM1988 Contemplate and observe why emotions happen. It's all right there before your eyes if you'd only look closer. Start with the premise: all emotions are manipulations of the ego for the purpose of survival. And then observe very closely.

@ADD Yes, normal. That's how you know it is working. See my vid: The Dark Side Of Meditation

@Lynnel The present moment is all there ever is. Don't buy into the idea that emotions are locked in the body too much. This is disempowering. Rather, you want to become conscious that at every moment your emotions are arising as a self-manipulation. You emote to fulfill the needs of the ego, and you have the ability to cut the shit and realize: "Oh, I'm angry because my ego wants X. Oh... That's just a mental trick. Let me just be peaceful." That won't always work, but the more conscious you become, the more you'll see how emotions are just a ruse your mind is playing on you. And you can stop that game any time just by becoming conscious of the fact that it is a game. The problem is: most people are not aware (in the moment) that an emotion is just a game. They take the emotion seriously because they can't even imagine an alternative. Next time you experience a very negative emotion, try to notice it is just a game. And see what happens. For this to really start working, you have become aware of your self-agenda and be willing to face the fear of surrendering it. Most people are too selfish to do that. The only reason emotions have any sway over you is because you want to survive. So the counter-intuitive move here is: surrender the need survive.

Do 10 full days of rigorous, nonstop Vipassana, and you'll have your enlightenment experience. If that fails, do 10 more days. The power of these techniques really only shines with 100+ hours of continuous practice. Which is why most meditators will never acheive enlightenment. You need to start doing week-long retreats. That is the simple secret of all the sages: they meditate for very long stretches of time without distraction, family, relationships, social commitments, or work. Yoga is more effective for "householders" than Vipassana.

Sounds like you missing the key idea: you create all your emotions. So you can drop it any time. Your emotions are just a game you play for which you need to start taking responsibility. You need to understand this before Sedona will work for you. You can let go of any emotion within a second. Try imagining this for starters. Try imaging that you are a Greek philosopher, who just drops any emotion he/she wants through reason alone.

Just pick a thing you're passionate about and resolve to solve that one piece. One piece at a time.

@Elisabeth Lol, a detector cannot click without you being conscious of it! Unless you are conscious, reality doesn't exist. The detector only exists in your consciousness. You are attempting to do science without being mindful that it is happening inside YOU! You cannot isolate the experiment from you. Consciousness isn't a term. Consciousness is the only thing you got to work with, if you actually take a look at reality rather than spinning stories. Science is a story. You can stop spinning it at any moment. It is not ultimately true.

Locking this because we don't want to encourage people bragging about heroic doses. This is not how psychedelics should be used. Doing large doses is never the goal. The goal is to take as little as possible while still having your insights.

Do not bastardize these teachings. You are acting irresponsibly, out of lack of proper and full understanding. Don't do anything to physically harm yourself or anyone else. Take a break for any personal development work and re-ground yourself in something enjoyable. Whatever nihilistic mood you're in right now will pass. Do not taint spirituality with such irresponsible behavior.

@Pernani This is a deep and subtle topic. I plan to shoot a video in the future explaining what intelligence is. In the meantime, try deeply contemplating: What is intelligence? Keep pondering that.

This is nonsense.

At moderate doses I personally haven't experienced energetic damage. Blasting yourself with high doses of 5-MeO, for example, definitely could cause energetic damage. Once you're in the 30mg+ range, you're playing with fire. I experienced some energetic damage at 30mg, but it was still worth it. And now I'm more cautious. You have to remember that many spiritual techniques can release energy. We know that people successfully take mushrooms in the 25-30 gram range. And they seem fine. We also know that people have taken hundreds of doses of LSD and N,N-DMT and they seem fine. So taking a few grams of mushrooms or a few tabs of LSD should be a drop in the bucket for most people. Of course judge for yourself via direct experience. Your results may be different. Psychedelics are a cutting-edge field. There's still much about them we don't know and most yogi's, monks, enlightened masters have never seriously used them, so their opinions are not to be trusted.

Peace is the absence of "I".

@trustyadam Look, you wanted to do spirituality and get results, there you go. Spirituality is a radical thing. If you don't want to turn reality inside out, then stay away from spirituality. There are a 1001 different kinds of radical mystical experiences which you could have. Keep calm and carry on, or don't. Driving in a car can kill you. So what?

Obviously it's a superposition: 69

@Nahm I hear the seaweed is good

I've experienced insanity from which there seemed to be no return. I've experienced not even remembering that I was born. When all of reality collapses in around you, there's nothing left to anchor yourself with. You cannot reassure yourself, "It's okay, this is just a head trip, it will be over soon." because at that level, there is no reality to return to, and no head or trip.

If you do yoga, things so good will happen that they cannot be communicated in human language. There is infinite light at the end of the tunnel.

I dictate nothing. Figure it all out for yourself. I am just sharing my personal lessons. If you want to balance spirituality with ego, give it a shot and let us know your results. Of course the biggest wrinkle in that plan is that you will not even know what you're missing.

Yes. They are no joke. They are inevitable I believe. Get very good at surrendering.

Those puffer fish are the shit! Lol

Yes, I know. Which is why I wrote that warning. Doesn't sound like you're ready to handle an actual bad trip. They can get real hairy and require enormous maturity, otherwise you might do something stupid like try to get inside a car and drive yourself to the hospital and end up crashing the car. Rule #1 for tripping: As soon as you swallow the substance, you commit 100% to riding it out. No doctors, no parents, no phone calls, no running around, no screaming. Just sit and surrender. Don't go anywhere, don't do anything. If you're feeling negative during a trip, play some happy and energetic music and dance around to it. That will change your mood. It's safe and effective. And when all else fails, pray to Jesus