Leo Gura

@fdrakely What is telling you that thoughts are separate from anything else? A thought? And why do you trust that thought? Another thought? And why do you trust that thought? Another thought? The bee isn't related to you through some mysterious "life energy". The bee IS you! Literally. The colors you see when you look at the bee are the exact same colors that make up your "visual field" so to speak. And it's actually possible to become deeply conscious of this to the point where the distinction between bee/you dissolves. Ask yourself this: What is telling you that there is such a thing as a "bee" and such a thing as a "you"? A thought? And why do you trust that thought? Another thought? Can you see that there is actually is no such thing as a "bee" or a "you"? Try removing the concept of "things" or "objects" from your mind and then try looking around the room. Do objects still exist? Do objects have any reality to them at all outside the mind's labeling of them as objects?

@William32 Reality is exactly as it is. It does not need "improvement". To believe that, is to create your own living hell. Suffering is first and foremost the result of lack of self-awareness. So if you care about ending suffering in the world, start by curing yourself of all your illusions. Including the illusion that suffering is bad.

Strong determination sitting is sitting for a very long time without moving your body. This technique doesn't really tell you about what to focus on in your mind. Your only goal is basically to survive the sit and not move. Do nothing is a specific focusing technique. It says nothing about how long you sit over whether you're even sitting. You could be walking. The two can be done together at the same time. Or separately.

How the hell can you be happy when you: You are unable to be present in the current moment You are always chasing future goals You actually believe you are going to die You haven't become aware yet of just how deep your life's predicament is. The way you're living life right now is simply insane. It takes a while to become conscious of this though. Most people think they've got life figured out.

I have quite a few videos explaining this issue: What Is Happiness The Happiness Spectrum The Secret Curse of Being Human Enlightenment FAQ Part 1 & Part 2 Etc There is only one true type of happiness, and that is happiness unconditional of any external circumstances.

Clearly not, given the large swath of the rich entrepreneurs who quit college or never went in the first place. College will teach you little about real-world business. In those four years you could learn 5x as much yourself and pocket six to seven figures to boot. That is, if you're motivated and hard working.

Newbie coaches should consider the opportunity. This is how you learn when you first start. You take whoever is interested. I've coached 100's of hours for free and I was happy to do it. Honestly, coaching people is so easy and fun that it shouldn't be considered work! The fee is really for the person's time. Of course once you make the leap to pro, you shouldn't give out freebies any more.

@The Alchemist It's the same way with billionaires. They're always wanting more. Which is exactly what made them billionaires. I just enjoy learning so for me it's not about accumulating more knowledge. It's about growing into my authentic self. And there's much I still need to know (and also un-know) before that's realized to the degree I envision. I have the kind of mind that likes to learn (INTP). Most people don't need to do what I do because their minds are concerned with other things. Acquiring too much knowledge can be a curse. You have to leaven it with wisdom and spiritual knowledge (which is really un-knowledge). Do I know more than most? Sure, but there are many great people who know way more than me.

@Mastermind Mindfulness is helpful with relationships and empathy, but don't use it as an escape from being in relationships. You need lots of relationship experience if you want to be good at relationships. So do both at the same time and you'll see big gains. Sounds like you may have a bit (or a lot) of an autistic. The autistic mind is so logical it lacks empathy. I have a great book about this issue on my book list in the Relationships category.

All lies! There is no true happiness as long as you believe you exist as a separate self! Period. NOT POSSIBLE! EVAR! Don't even try. I guarantee you will fail miserably no matter what techniques you use. Don't let people fool you with their external displays of happiness and success. Deep down they are not happy. They are neurotic and in deep agony, struggling to find fulfillment within falsehood. And the worst part about it is, they are not conscious of any of it. They've actually succeeded -- for the time being -- to deceive themselves that they are happy. This self-deception will be rudely interrupted soon enough. There's no escape other than enlightenment. Which is really not an escape but a head-on collision with this truth. As cool as Brendon is, listening to him will not lead you to happiness. He's teaching you success, not happiness.

Yup, indeed. Push your happiness comfort zone. Relax every time the body and mind starts to tense up with anxiety and worry. Just relax and give yourself more self-acceptance, more self-love.

Relax man, that "you" was never real in the first place. So there's really nothing to lose. Btw, stop saying "My ego". That's totally redundant. You = Ego. You don't have an ego. You are the ego! All this is normal. Just keep at it. Simply observe the ego's death-throes. This is real PROGRESS!

@Hadrian I suspect it may be possible in a 100 years perhaps to just take a pill that makes you permanently enlightened by nuking some part of the brain that's creating the sense of self. Maybe science will be good enough to allow that, and then there would truly be a world-wide social revolution unlike humanity has even seen. Or maybe Google becomes conscious before that time and kills us all. Either way, problem solved!

Stress damages the body is many subtle and gross ways and certainly might play a part in weakening the immune system and allowing stuff like cancer to thrive. But terrible diet is probably an even greater factor.

The human mind has an upper limit on happiness. You gotta stretch that ceiling just like stretching a muscle. If you're mindful you'll be able to see how your mind creates suffering to even-out the excess happiness you're starting to feel. The mind will concoct problems and anxieties out of the blue for no good reason simply to balance you out. After a nice meditation high usually comes a meditation low. And it goes like this in cycles, up and down, up and down -- for years.

As I posted in the Philosophy sub-forum when a similar question was asked... Enlightenment is definitely made possible by deactivating regions of the brain. This has been demonstrated by neuroscience. The error, though, made by rationalists is thinking that this demonstrates that enlightenment is unreal. Just the opposite! Actually, what it demonstrates is that a region of the brain must be actively firing in order for a sense of self to exist. Which means that the sense of self is just mind-activity. Which means it's false. Which is exactly what enlightenment demonstrates. So these studies support enlightenment rather than refute it. The key that you're missing is that enlightenment is NOT mind activity. It is not a sense experience or a thought! Imagine that! It is literally absolutely Nothing, for which a brain is not required. The brain has hardware and software in it that keeps you locked in a cage. Drugs and meditation can break this cage. Sometimes I speak of jailbreaking the mind. And that's literally what you're doing when you do enlightenment work. You're hacking the bios and stopping those sub-routines that create a sense of self, space, time, and everyday life. You're hacking the Matrix. Consider this: when the brain is totally destroyed, what remains? Certainly no notions of the self you presently believe you are. And yet if the true you is not that conceptual self, then it is unaffected! This is such a radical possibility most rational people neglect it. But if you are already literally Nothing, then destruction of the brain cannot destroy you. The brain is actually the only thing that's obscuring this reality by projecting a false self-image. The brain is like a projector while the true self is like the room in which the projector exists. Eventually the projector will break. Except you were not the actor the projector had projected on the screen. You were the room the whole time and didn't know it! Now that's quite the mind fuck.

Yes, that is certainly one valid path. It does work for some people. The problem with modern western notions of God is that people have no clue what "God" actually refers to. They think of God as bearded man in the clouds. And that of course is a delusion. And it will totally screw up your attempts at enlightenment. The problem is made even worse in that when people think about God, they think about "him" dogmatically and reverently. They don't actually question their beliefs. They don't see "God" as a belief, and are again totally lost in stories and illusions. All of this makes God a HUGE obstacle for most modern people. You have to be willing to throw God under the bus in this process. So long as you believe there is a God out there somewhere, that belief will become the biggest obstacle to you ever realizing what God is. Enlightenment is closer to atheism than it is to modern religion or faith. Because God is actually Nothing. God is not an object. And God is not separate from you. The reason people like to think about God is because they've been indoctrinated with the idea of God. So if you could drop the idea of God, you'd be much closer to God than anyone who worships God zealously. There's a very good reason why in Buddhism they have the classic quote: "When you meet the Buddha, kill him." Worshiping the Buddha (or God) is retarding your search for truth.

If you can just sit down and become what you actually are (infinite empty awareness) then by all means do that. In reality what you'll discover is that you can't do that. There are layers upon layers of misguided beliefs and ideas that will get in your way. The self-inquiry process helps clear those misconceptions away gradually over time. You basically keep querying for a direct experience of your True Self every time you genuinely wonder, "Who/what am I?" And the mind generates all sorts of wrong and deluded answers, you throw those away and query again and again and again until finally the mind runs out of ideas, surrenders, and the True Self is revealed. Especially when you first start this process (the first 12 months) it helps to question various aspects of your beliefs about self and who you really believe you are. Without this foundation of doubt, you won't get very far because the mind is too certain that it already knows everything. And the mind is also very murky and vague about what it believes your are. Even the false beliefs are vague. It helps to clarify even your false beliefs so that you can understand why they are false.

To convince yourself of that would be a gross lie. Why on Earth are you trying to get back into the system? Escaping the system should be your goal. The system will only make you sick, depraved, and depressed. You should be more worried about how to convince yourself to release your clinginess to all systems.

From lots of stuff that I've read my researching my own health issues, it seems that if your PMS is excessively bad, it's not normal. It's due to improper diet or toxins, which then create all kinds of imbalances in the body. A lot of women report that various supplements help.

@Hellsgunz100 My videos are mostly meant to play on people's emotions and persuade them into action. A video like that is not meant to say that watching TV or getting married is wrong. It's meant to slap one in the face and say, "Hey, stupid, you're doing these dumb things without even realizing it." And mostly what I tell people these days isn't even to stop. It's simply to be mindful of when it happens. Like with the pickup video, most people interpreted it as me saying, "Don't do pickup" when in fact that's not what I said at all. And also, to be honest, I am still growing and learning so my older videos do not incorporate the deeper spiritual wisdom which I've acquired in the last year and still continue to acquire. 3 years for now, everything I say will be much more refined and more nuanced and far deeper than what I currently say. The problem is, that then people will criticize me for being too airy-fairy, too idealistic, too unrelatable, too spiritual.

@Toasty Read some of the stories in this thread: Ordinary folks are slowly transforming themselves.

I found mindfulness meditation, focused specifically on internal phenomena like feelings and thoughts, to be the fastest and most direct way to increased EQ. But there are many other ways as well. This vid explains mindfulness meditation: http://www.actualized.org/articles/mindfulness-meditation

I'm always frustrated by how little I know.

Living alone in a cabin in the woods. Fear, complacency, and ego. I tend to be a lone-wolf and not waste my time on shallow relationships. I dunno. I'm not a fan of it. I keep a lid on fantastical metaphysical beliefs. Yes, my rational mind didn't like talk of prayer or God or spirit, etc. I'm actually growing into the lingo now. It's all just labels in the end for various experiences, or lack there of. Definitely! Imagine your typical day. Mine would probably be 10x less exciting for you. Seems like some kind of enlightenment cult. Not sure. They sure like to spam everyplace. No Combover? How 20th century. Enlightenment wouldn't make me senile. Yes, I would still know of my own website. Who said I don't exercise? Worry about more important things. Not as much as I'd like because I don't have the time. I felt a special connection to Vegas, that's why I moved here. I also like Austin, TX. Ask an elephant what he does for protein.