Leo Gura

@Martin123 Do it your way then. I'm not here to debate with you.

If that's how you define enlightenment, then it will take you 50 years to get enlightened. Good luck.

@Torkys Do a good solid month of daily inquiry before you start to get too worried about being stuck or asking questions. You need a solid base of experience, just like with anything in life, before you are even remotely capable.

@Afonso You should hit a groove where the concentration becomes effortless and joyful. Not totally effortless, but relatively effortless. It's stop being a boring grind.

@username Truth and changing yourself are really two unrelated things. They are related of course, but best not to muddle them up, because it will lead to all sorts of stupidity, as seen in some of the threads about morality, etc. The Absolute Truth is one thing. And then changing yourself, developing your human body and mind and life, is another thing. One of the biggest problems with religions is that they muddle up existential truths with lifestyle changes. And this confuses a lot of people into thinking that Absolute Truth mandates a certain kind of lifestyle. Strictly speaking it does not. Although as you become more conscious, you want to naturally act more consciously. For example, a lot of people will tell you that being enlightened means you gotta become a vegan. That's not the case at all. Whether you decide to become a vegan is irrelevant to the Truth. Truth is Truth no matter what you decide to do. You could decide to kill yourself, and the Truth would still be the Truth after your body is dead. Or you could decide to become a ballerina. And just because you're enlightened doesn't mean you'll be a great ballerina. That will take tons of work. Most importantly perhaps... mastering your emotions is WAY harder than enlightenment. If you want that, that will take decades of consciousness work. Relationships too. Physical health too. Business too.

@PretentiousHuman Just? Your body and your car are also illusions. Reality is also an illusion. So calling something "just an illusion" is tricky. For you, these illusions are very real. In the same way that a nightmare feels very real when you're in it. Negative emotions are exactly what they are. What's required is becoming fully conscious of what they really are vs what you think they are. These are two totally different things. And learning why negative emotions arise, and how they arise, takes a lot of inner work and contemplation. That's what's necessary to become free of them. It's not about fending them off. It's about understanding the root of what they are and why the arise in the first place. A good place to start is to sit down and ask yourself: What is anger? What is fear? What is sadness? Why do they arise? What functional role do they serve in me? What would it take to not feel them? What would it take to be free of them?

@username It's not going to be a one-shot deal. You're gonna have tons of various kinds of experiences and mystical states along the way, most likely. Concentration practice is very important. It's not the only important thing. But it's important. There are many different paths. Many of them contradict on the surface, or in their practical application. I've seen results from both inquiry and from meditation. I think they work great together. Most modern minds are very addicted, which is why I stress meditation so much. Most minds are in no position to do inquiry. Most minds need a few years of meditation practice just to calm down enough to do 20 minutes of inquiry. You have to understand that people like Jed are extremely rare and hardcore. Are you willing to do what he did? There are gradual paths, there are extreme paths. Obviously the extreme paths can take you deeper, faster. But most people cannot handle them. You always have to consider who the teaching is aimed at, and how well you fit the bill. A teaching is worthless to you if you cannot handle it. Meditation is not about experience. It's about training up your mind so you can more easily break through experience. And "Truth" is far from the only consideration.

What if they don't want it?

You seem to like dragging Leo into this. Leo's got nothing to do with it. Watch your projecting. You speak of things which are utterly beyond your present experience.

I said nothing about respawning. "The only sensible thing to do..." << that is just monkey mind coming up with justifications again. You can do whatever you want. "I always knew it made no sense to be good" << again, be careful of ego misappropriating these teachings. What was said was simply: "good" is a construction of your mind. This doesn't say anything about how you should behave.

@Maxx Don't worry about me. Worry about yourself. I know what I'm doing.

You just sit down every day and keep looking at the situation from scratch. What are you? Start from zero every time. See where it goes. The questioning will take you to many different places.

@Torkys Inquiry is the technique. You're doing it. Don't stop just because you get a little stuck. You must be prepared to do it for 10,000 hours if necessary.

Good start at inquiry. But there is no way you can go from nonenlightenment to enlightenment. No way at all. It's a discontinuous jump. Not a path. You have to "teleport" to it, so to speak. And you have no idea where to teleport to or how to teleport. And the worst part is, you will never know no matter how much you think about it. Now, just do it anyway. Notice that "the ability to experience" is just another experience for you. Every thought is an experience. What you need to teleport to is not-experience. How? There isn't one. Keep chipping away at it. Don't stop inquiry.

@hinawashi Good job!

@Key Elements Don't idealize guru's too much. They are NOT perfectly enlightened. It's very hard not to identify with anything in Maya on a practical, everyday level. @Afonso Yes, although the bot has to realize not just that it's the whole system, but that it is NOT any of the system.

Last time I went to a Strip club I met girls there who are into meditation, yoga, Sanskrit, and DMT.

Dan Diggler

@Beyond Words Here is your answer in one man: http://isha.sadhguru.org/mystic/

You can judge in one hand, and crap in the other, and see which one has more substance. Now you got a good sense of how much your judgment is worth.

@Ramu When they tell people to stop seeking. That shit ain't gonna work unless you've already spent a decade seeking. And even then, I doubt it. And when they tell people that enlightenment/spirituality is simple. If it's so damn simple, how come all spiritual traditions and books are so complex? Common sense says it can't work that way. Simple truths are agreed upon by all. Nobody needs to write a 1000 page document about the existence of the sun. Many of those Neo's ain't gone all the way down the rabbit hole, methinks.

@blacksapp Your vision for your life.

@blacksapp What is your vision?

@Danielle Classic ego backlash. Should be expected. Go easy on yourself. Give yourself space. But also at least maintain some kind of basic mindfulness practice every day. You need to teach yourself that just by sitting, you can enter a peaceful, safe space. This is your centering point. So work on creating a really solid centering point. And be more expecting of the backlash in the future. Try to anticipate them, so they don't catch you by surprise. Whatever fears are there, notice that you can just sit with them. You don't need to "solve" them. Just sit and enjoy being. Notice that being is enjoyable.

Stay in school. College is optional, but if you can't finish high school, you're really kidding yourself.