Leo Gura

@cactus Are you meditating eyes open or closed?

@rush Get to work then. That will take you a good decade or two at least.

@cactus Firstly, make sure you FULLY relax the face and jaw during meditation. Keep reminding yourself of this over and over again until you finally program it into your mind. Secondly, try to keep your eyes pointing straight ahead, not up or down. And relax the eye brow region. You're probably straining to "focus" towards some imagined goal. This is not necessary. Just be loose and easy-going. Thirdly, you can try moving your awareness to the top of the skull or the back of the skull or the middle of the skull, away from the eyes/nose area. I found this helps me when I'm over-straining the eyes.

@dice Do the work and discover the answer for yourself. This is like a puzzle. You gotta sit down and spend 1000 hours figuring it out for yourself. Reality is a lot more mysterious and counter-intuitive than you ever imagined.

@dice No, it's not like that. Your understanding of what occurred "before birth" is coming from ego, not from nondual awareness. The whole problem here is that currently you're not conscious of what you were before you were born. You assume you know, but actually you don't! It's not what you imagine. If you ever do become conscious of that, it will blow your socks off! One way to define enlightenment is as you realizing what you were before you were born. It's only pointless to say from the ego's perspective because by definition the ego cannot see outside itself. Imagine that all your life you thought you were a human being, and then one day you realize that actually you were the vacuum of empty space the whole time. Now you feel great, because you cannot die. How does an empty vacuum die? It can't! The body can die just like your car can get stolen, but it's not a big deal since you aren't the car or the body. For someone who totally identified with the body, this doesn't make sense, because you REALLY think you're the body! You actually think that's a physical fact of reality, when in fact it's just an idea. If you succeed in dropping that one idea, death will literally become impossible. Of course dropping that one idea entails your entire understanding of reality getting flipped upside down. You have to stop being human and become Infinite.

@Telepresent There are really only 2 meanings for "I": 1) "I" in the conventional sense that most people use, which is the ego. The identification with body/mind. Identification with a physical being. This entity does not exist whatsoever, although it appears to. 2) "I" in the nondual or spiritual sense which almost nobody understands because they've never experienced it. This is the True Self, pure consciousness, God, Absolute Infinity, or Nothingness. This none-thing is beyond existence and non-existence. And it's the only Truth. There's nothing else but it. And it has no properties whatsoever. It's what you actually are.

@dice Feelings will of course stop. They stop every night in deep sleep. The issue here is that you're identified with feelings. So you're attaching significance to no-feeling. Also, Nothingness is NOT anything you think it is. It's not nothing. It's consciousness. You have to experience it for yourself to appreciate the significance of this. It's the most extraordinary thing! When you're conscious of Nothingness, the notion of death seems silly. Until that point, it's very hard for the mind to even imagine how that could be possible. You need some direct enlightenment experiences to resolve this.

@DimmedBulb Of course. Under-developed people always get addicted to one thing or another. Not just one thing, actually. Dozens of addictions simultaneously.

It's not because you missed a day. But it could be because meditation was doing its job and surfaced some garbage as part of the spiritual purification process, and you fucked up by letting that garbage distract you. Anyhow... just get back on track and it will pass. Keep your spiritual practices CONSISTENT, no matter how you feel. It will be hard the first year or two. But you'll be glad you did it. I haven't missed a day of meditation in close to 1000 days. It's not that hard.

@Vercingetorix No, it has to be more than a no-ego experience. It has to be permanent realization of what you are. And that's just the first step on the path. Full enlightenment we cannot even begin to fathom. Might as well forget about it for now. Even the first step you cannot yet fathom how mindblowing it is. Maybe after 40 years of constant work you can start to throw around a term like full enlightenment. This is very serious stuff.

@Alphard Watch me and see what happens. Ya'll be way too worried about my level of awareness, when instead you should be more worried about your own. I don't have a God complex, you just think I do.

True passion comes from a source beyond you. True passion IS already spiritual, although it might not seem like it until you do a few years of serious spiritual practice. It's a pure desire to create, to share, to delight others -- independent of any material reward.

@Alphard Amen! Social media is like consciousness' worst nightmare.

@Wind If you're trying to start a business, you definitely want to cultivate a thirst for success and excellence or you won't have a chance in hell. There's nothing anti-spiritual about success, as long as you don't get addicted to it or neglect your spiritual practices. Look as how the Jews handle it! Success and spirituality all in one! Or the Amish, or the Arabs There are plenty of traditions where you can kick ass by day and be deeply spiritual by night. Try grounding your success in your spirituality. As in: when I succeed, I help raise the spirituality of all around me. I remember reading a book by a deeply spiritual guy who sold diamonds during the day. He was kicking ass at both.

London is a very expensive place to live. You might want to consider moving somewhere cheap, and cut all expenses as much as possible. You gotta get creative here! You're not gonna make it happen unless you really think outside the box. You're bootstrapping it. Do some research and think creatively about how to set yourself up and what exactly you need to make the life purpose feasible. Then reverse-engineer a strategy to get there.

@Alphard You can do whatever you want. But if you want fulfillment, you gotta do what creates true fulfillment. It's not an opinion. Ego is ego. You can't escape the karma that comes with egoic living. Feel free to try. Let us know how it works out for ya in 20 years. The arrogant one is you, thinking you can circumvent the laws of consciousness.

@DimmedBulb The mistake here is thinking of addictions as "things one does in the external world". That's not the essence of addiction. Addiction is a mental attitude. This attitude can apply to virtually anything. Additions are sorta like hatreds. Anything can be hated. Hatred is never inherent to the thing. It's in your mind. And a well-developed mind doesn't hate anything, even the things you'd normally think are impossible not to hate. You could use heroin without addiction. A well-developed mind should have no problem doing heroin and not getting addicted. I've even thought about trying it, just to see if I can, (not that I want to.)

@Martin123 Sounds like a killer niche opportunity for a budding young counselor. The quality of therapists and counselors is so low, you should be able to wipe the floor with them if you just apply yourself.

@MochaSlap Anywhere from 0% to 100%, depending on your particulars.

Fixed it just now. Refresh page and try again.

@Beyond Words Sounds like a cool experience. I have no idea if levitation is real. I simply implied in a cheeky way that I'm open to it.

@Vercingetorix Ekhart Tolle is an interesting example. After his first enlightenment he supposedly spent 2 YEARS full-time sitting on a park bench integrating it. For him, 2 years is equivalent to you doing 20 years of personal development work. And I bet Tolle still continues to work on himself. And just because 1 person in a billion has a deep breakthrough, doesn't mean that you will. And in point of fact we have no idea how deep his enlightenment or development really goes. It's not a good idea to use someone like Ekhart Tolle or Bill Gates as your benchmark, whether you're pursuing enlightenment or money. Hate to break it to ya, but you probably ain't Tolle or Gates.

The book list has just been updated! Enjoy!

@Raffaella Takes LOTS of practice. So get started! You need to practice active ALLOWING! When a negative emotion comes up, just recognize it and try to allow it fully, rather than resisting it the way you normally do. Yes, it ain't easy at first. After all, there's no one in control in that skull of yours. It's empty if you haven't noticed yet Nevertheless, it's still possible to open up and allow. You can even actively ENJOY the deepest suffering. Like your dog dies, and your heart is broken, and you ENJOY it! That's the ultimate goal, but it will take you awhile to get there. You do realize, right?, that you can ENJOY any suffering. You can do it instantly at any time simply by deciding to. The problem is, it's extremely counter-intuitive and you have limiting beliefs telling you its not right or not possible. There is no HOW. You just have want to enjoy it and remember to do it. Next time you feel terrible, simply ask yourself, "Can I allow myself to enjoy this?"

Of course, I'm not talking about Actualized.org. You can follow whoever you want. But if your goal is maximum human potential, you will NEVER get there without Enlightenment + Personal Development. Personal Development is being defined broadly here. I don't have a monopoly on personal development. And if your goal is to merely be productive, you can do that without enlightenment or personal development. Just look at Donald Trump. And that's basically who you'll become, a Donald Trump character.