Leo Gura

@Gneumatics Think about this now... It's very simple: Maybe you are the body, but if you are not the body, then you are mistaken about what you're taking the word "you" to refer to. See? So when you say, "Why do I follow it (the body) everywhere its ever been" what are you actually saying? What is following the body? If you're the body, as you insist, then there's nothing to follow the body. There's just the body being you. Nonduality doesn't say you follow the body. Nonduality says, You do not exist! The body just walks around like a zombie on its own. The problem is, it thinks there's someone inside it. You are like a robot who's been programmed to believe it's a human. When you think, "But I'm a real human." << that's just a program running. That program has no one behind it. In the same way that when you look at your computer, you don't think of it as having a "soul" in there somewhere. It's just a bunch of mechanics. What you REALLY are is the empty field of Nothingness within which the body walks around.

It's hard to escape the rat race without working for yourself. The catch-22 is, when you start working for yourself, you will be working longer hours for the first 5 years than you worked for your boss. But once you succeed, you'll have the possibility to truly be free. Of course the next catch-22 is that by that point, you will have become so addicted to success that you will likely never go minimalist. At least not until after another 5 or 10 or 20 years of really feeling the pain of it. This issue is veritable Sarlacc pit. Freedom ain't free. All that said, deciding to work for myself was one of the best decisions I've made in my life.

@Adam M The spiritual marketplace is subject to forces of self-survival, just like all other marketplaces. Even more so when money tends to be eschewed. The currency then becomes occupying people's mind-space. If you're a spiritual school with no mind-space occupied, you're extinct. It is suicidal for a school to tell you explore other schools. It would be like your wife saying, "Sure, honey, go ahead and sleep around with other women. I don't mind." Think about it.

That's a big maybe. Maybe. But often not. I've had deeply enlightened masters tell me that yoga is a bunch of bullshit, and that yogis are not enlightened. Of course after enlightenment you don't need to go back and do other kinds of techniques. That's not the issue. The issue is, will Vipassana actually trigger enlightenment in you? That's a big maybe. The dishonesty of these Buddhists is that they don't admit this. They pretend that it works for everyone. Obviously not, since so few of them are actually enlightened. Once you admit that a technique doesn't necessarily work for all people. Then you have to admit that it is improper to tell people to only use your technique/school. Because that assumes you know what will and won't work for them. Which is just arrogance and can be very misleading. Everyone has to find their own way. And you cannot predict ahead of time what your way will be. That is why the spiritual path is so tricky. People keep trying to sell you their way rather than genuinely wanting to help you with yours.

@Afonso People are generally very closedminded and dogmatic. They stumble into one thing in spirituality and they cling to it just like they do with all their other beliefs and perspectives, and so they are ignorant of all the techniques and teachings available. Unless one has made a conscious effort to study this field very openmindedly and very carefully, investing years and thousands of hours, one will become dogmatic about techniques and teachings. This has been the case for over 5000 years. Every religion misunderstands every other religion, because they don't care to understand. They care to create an identity out of it. And mindfulness with labeling is not by any means required. There are a dozen other ways to raise mindfulness. Depending on your culture and personal preferences, you may or may not resonate with it. I recommend it because it's very straight-forward and was effective for me.

Unraveling the self is serious business. Then again, not unraveling the self is even more dangerous. How many people committed suicide this year because they DIDN'T go to a meditation retreat? All such things need to be understood in proper context.

@Afonso 1) Thousands of hours of questioning. 2) Thousands of hours of silent meditation. You awareness is just too low right now to see your way out of this pickle. If your mindfulness skill was higher, you'd be able to clearly see that a tension has nothing to do with you. Tensions are just feelings, which come and go. It's like you're a level 5 elf trying to win a battle with a level 100 dragon in an RPG. It's not gonna work. He's gonna one-shot you. You gotta go back to the newbie area (mindfulness with labeling) and level up your skills, son

Of course, that's what almost all schools will tell you: We are the best, ignore everyone else. Of course mixing practice is more challenging than blindly doing one practice. But the fact is, if you ask most people at a Vipassana retreat what enlightenment is, they won't even be able to tell you. And some of them have been doing Vipassana for 20 years! Vipassana is a great practice, but it is weak without self-inquiry.

Ya'll are just wasting time.

@Afonso No, that tension is a sensation/experience. But the True Self is beyond all that. Are you a tension? Is that what you're saying you are existentially? A tension?? So a tension has a body? A tension is thinking? A tension perceives life? A tension experiences emotions? A tension is reading this sentence right now? Cause that's what you're basically saying: I AM A TENSION. Rather silly, when you inquiry into it a bit, no? The point is not that the tension needs to disappear. The point is, why are you identifying with it? You might as well be identifying with a coffee table. Doesn't the coffee table in your living room need to disappear before you realize it isn't you?

I think we'll allow this topic because it is well-written and reasonably put. Hence we're unlocking it. But keep your discussion from veering off into character assassination or debate. Over all, James is a pretty good teacher, whatever issues you might have with him. Not all teachings will appeal to all folks. Yes, James likes to be critical/dismissive of some traditions/teachings which don't line up with his style of teaching. But that's true of most teachers. I've seen some of the most enlightened teachers being overly dismissive. This is a common issue. The best thing to do in these cases is to the listen to the overall thrust of the teaching, not getting caught up in nitpicking details. Because details can always be nitpicked, and end up distracting you from your own work. It's quite easy to criticize every single non-dual teacher in existence, from Buddha to Jesus to whoever.

@Revolutionary Think I supposed, if you really care to be alpha chimp

Modern court systems are God's justice. Because there is nothing which isn't God.

@nahtanoj Sure, studying at various schools can be very eye opening. They don't have to be perfect to be useful. Just don't get stuck there, is the point.

@Fidelio I don't really see myself as someone who teaches enlightenment. I share commentary on self-improvement, and it just so happened that enlightenment came up as a topic which I couldn't not talk about. I also spend a lot of time warning you guys about the dangers of dogma, or taking any one teaching too seriously, which most schools never do. If spirituality schools actively encouraged their followers to study other schools and perspectives, that would leave me very happy. Unfortunately that's a very rare thing.

It's scary to imagine how hairy his balls are

@kino You are delusional... now. The truth you glimpsed during LSD was the truth. Now you're back in the world of delusion along with all the other deluded chimps

Dogma will be a problem no matter what spiritual school you follow. That is why I strongly advise people to never study just one school. Even the best school will fill your head with dogma. It's too difficult not to. Such is the nature of the mind. And enlightened people are not immune to dogma. When evaluating a school it's always a good idea to ask yourself, "Okay, how many people here are ACTUALLY enlightened? And how deeply?" Often times, the answer will be 0 or 1.

Like I've told him before, his books should come stapled with a bag of mushrooms, cause it's the only way people will get it

Well it's true, reality is an illusion. Why are you taking it as a negative thing? It's great! That means reality has no limits. It can be any way it wants.

@Shanmugam He didn't go deep enough with them. Of course he's gonna have bad trips when he insists on being so rational. 5-meo would probably give him a heart attack because it would mean his whole career is based on bullshit. And of course his ego is not gonna like facing that truth. A dogmatic mind is a hell of thing to change. Especially when it thinks it's above dogma.

30mg of 5-meo up the nose. That's is the perfect antidote for all atheists and rationalists. That's as tangible and scientific as spirituality gets. Which is why I like it. Because anyone who rejects it, does so purely out of closemindedness. Any serious skeptic should be ready to take the 5-meo challenge. This deeper issue here is that Sam treats spirituality like degrees of tranquility of the mind. That is the case at the newbie stages. At the higher stages, it's not just deeper peace. It's deities, paranormal phenomena, God, Absolute Infinity, and realizing that all of reality is a dream. It's a whole order of magnitude difference. Tranquility of mind and no-self is easy for an atheist to accept. God, however, is not. It's beyond your wildest imagination.

@Silver Sounds like a Buddha in the making. Your intuitions are exactly right. But don't expect society to support you in that. The kind of joy you can experience by yourself is infinitely beyond anything the external world can offer you. With nothing but some food and basic shelter you can live like a king. That's why people become monks.

@spicy_pickles It's not easy. You gotta really have vision, and carry it out. I remember 5 years ago, when it was impossible for me to do 5 minutes. But I slowly kept at it. Try some binuaral beats program like Holosync if you're really stuck. Then you can wean yourself off it once you get used to sitting still. You need to also fix your media addictions. It does little good to meditate for 10 minutes and then spend 2 hours on Facebook and 4 hours play video games and 4 hours watching funny cat videos on YT.

Lol, by your logic, when you eat a walnut, you should eat the shell too, because, hey, it's there for a reason. Why would mother nature put walnuts in walnut shells unless she wanted you to eat them? It will soften up your body.