Leo Gura

Philosophy, mathematics, nuclear physics, trans-personal psychology, linguistics/semantics/semoitics, comparative religion. Although you'll have to be very picky within those. Lots of anti-enlightenment dogma in each of those fields.

They are the exact same advice!

That's because ego twists this whole thing around. To become God is the humblest move possible. But from your egoic perspective it looks arrogant because it feels threatening to you that I am now somehow above you. But that's not how it feels to me. I AM YOU! So there's no superiority or separation. There is no one to whom I could be superior or inferior. Those ideas only make sense to egos.

@Mercy Chances are quite high that a Christian ego would coopt the experience and say, "See! I knew it all along! I was right, and they were wrong! Christianity is the one true faith!" But a truly openmineded Christian would say, "OMG! So much of what I believed and was told about religion is bullshit! But I understand why now and I don't hate anyone for it because the same forces of ignorance I see in others is present within me. All beliefs are wrong."

I've noticed a lot of aspiring life coaches here, which is cool. I remember the days, not so long ago, when I was in your shoes, struggling to enter this weird new field called life coaching. If you have any questions about the DO's and DON'Ts of coaching, ask away. I'm happy to share my lessons from the last few years of coaching clients. I've actually stopped coaching at this point to focus on shooting better videos and developing Actualized.org. One thing that I discovered about myself through this career journey is that my zone of genius is more about direct advice-giving and research than coaching and guiding. I enjoy coaching people, but I enjoy shooting videos more.

The problem with all religions/sects is that they are not 100% bad/useless. If that was the case, it would be very easy for people to reject them. The problem with all religions/sects is that they take techniques and methods which have legitimate psychological or spiritual value and mix it with a bunch of dogma. And no matter how good the benefits of the techniques may initially be, eventually the dogma catches up to you and limits your growth. But by then, it's usually too late. The dogma's got ya!

@Esoteric http://www.shinzen.org/Articles.htm Detailed Vipassana manuals available here, although Shinzen's approach is a bit different than mainstream Goenka Vipasanna retreats, which just have you do body-sweeping and focusing on the breath.

All par for the course. After deep insights often comes the Dark Night of Soul. The key is to not get unnerved by it, and continue your practices, continue applying mindfulness to the negative reactions. And remember not to throw your everyday life in the toilet or do anything rash while in this negative funk. Remember it will pass and deep levels of equanimity will follow. You can also ease up on yourself. Learn to trust your emotions, to read them, to be kind towards yourself, and to know when to take your foot of the pedal so you don't spin out. This doesn't have to be some mad dash for enlightenment. It's important to remember to stay grounded and mature throughout this whole process and to know give way to foolish reactions and delusions of grandeur.

@FeelFree It's way more twisted than that. You created yourself and the entirety of reality, but still don't know it. There's no one else here but you. It's ALL you!

Draw a distinction between 1) absolute truth, 2) relative truths, and 3) pure fabrications.

@Ramu Sounds about right. Keep digging deeper and deeper into that. There are MANY levels of depth to that insight, and your goal is to make it more or less a permanent feature of your life. Try to translate that insight into emotional reactions. So you're not reacting against reality so much.

@Happiness Practice surrender. A feminine trait that becomes very important in enlightenment work. In the end, enlightenment basically fucks you in the ass, and you need to be okay with that. Again psychedelics can be helpful here. They will teach you the meaning of surrender.

I used to have a girlfriend who was afraid to take a shit at my house because it wasn't lady-like. And while I appreciate that personally, it probably wasn't too comfortable for her, and certainly not authentic.

@Key Elements The experiences are not that important. Keep doing the work and go for the Absolute Truth. Powerful experiences will come up as you do this. Set them aside, be mindful that they are experiences, and keep working toward Absolute Truth. What are you? The Absolute Truth is beyond all experiences, thoughts, emotions, and states. If you identify with anything experiential or phenomenal in any way, you've got further to go. Experiences of whiteness, blackness, darkness, lightness, love, stars, space, etc. That is NOT it.

You're questioning the boundaries of the self. If you do that successfully, (and it seems like you did for a while) then a lot of fear will arise, because you're literally on the brink of discovering that the self you've always believed you were, isn't real. Which of course means the ego dies. You die. Hence the fear. It's a legit fear because we are talking about the end of you as you've known yourself all your life. Keep going. This is just the tip of the iceberg. What you really are is so crazy, it's unbelievable. There's nothing really to fear. All of that is just scare-tactics of the ego. Discovering your true nature is an amazingly positive thing. To truly find yourself, you have to kill the image of yourself.

@Key Elements I notice you're obsessed with this Ox's tail, riding backwards stuff. Maybe it's time to let these images go and focus on actually direct experience.

Use it as motivation to study hard, work hard, get your shit together and move out. And in the meantime, alchemize the negative emotions as best you can by practicing mindfulness and growing yourself stronger internally. Later in life this will all be invaluable experience and skills you're developing. Don't get distracted by other people's bullshit. That's the most important thing.

"Bad stuff" = lack of gratitude

Farting! You know you ladies do it!

This channel here is legit: There's also a book on my book list that gives you EVERY SINGLE secret Kriya Yoga technique and tells you exactly how to practice them. But it's HIGHLY technical and demands serious commitment to get anywhere. Most schools of Yoga are secretive and don't share their techniques with laymen. Which is why I love that book. It spills all the beans.

Vipassana can definitely be used to attain enlightenment. That's it's entire purpose. The problem occurs when people just sit and blindly meditate for decades without questioning the self, or get lost in Buddhist dogma. As you do Vipassana, toss all the dogma out the window, and you should also inquire into What am I? The two methods work great together. My first direct consciousness experience occurred during Vipassana. But that's probably because I did over one year of self-inquiry and was doing it during Vipassana practice that day. And of course ignore all those fools who think enlightenment takes 30 years. Or who don't even know what enlightenment means. I have been to Vipassana retreats where half the people there don't even know what enlightenment is! WTF? Ignore those kinds of folk.

@LifeLife It will not make you enlightened. But it can help with meditation, especially if you're a newbie.

@Key Elements It was for having an experience of psychedelics.