Leo Gura

Good questions! I'll try to briefly address them here: You'll never know if you can trust your mind. You've always got to stay vigilant to self-deception. This is your work here on Earth, human. Taking the course at 21 can be life-transforming, because once you're 30, you'll still have no idea what your purpose is without considering all the information presented in the course. I wish I had this course when I was 16. I would be killing it right now. Of course that slob has a Zone of Genius deep within. He's just got many layers of toxic habits and social conditioning to undo. Can he undo it? Of course. Would I bet my money on it? Hell no! I would never bet on a lazy person. But if you ARE that lazy person, you've got no choice but to bet on yourself. Not too long ago, I was a lazy, ineffective, TV-watching, sugar-eating, porn-thriving, couch-nesting guy. It's a hell of a thing to outgrow. But it's totally doable. But you need a purpose first. No, not necessarily. Your life purpose might simply be to make the world's greatest candy and put smiles on kids faces. And even if that was the case, the important part is EXACTLY HOW you're going to be increasing consciousness. "Increasing consciousness" is so generic that it has no bite. You need to be more specific. There are 1000 ways to increase consciousness. Well... the course goes into great length on this point, with various exercises. As a quick rule of thumb, if you life purpose can't make you cry when you visualize it, it's probably too weak. But of course, that assumes you're emotionally developed enough that you can actually weep tears of joy. Many people are so disconnected from their emotions they cannot. In which case, that's something to self-actualize on. A lot of this was directly addressed in the course. Your area of master is the thing you could be fascinated enough to learn for at least 10 years. Once you're clear on your purpose, get to work on it as much as you can! It's the most high-value activity you could do besides maybe becoming enlightened. So all time you invest elsewhere is sub-optimal. Your purpose shouldn't be any one project, like exploring a particular galaxy. It should be more general. It's about the emotional impact you want to have on other people or in the world-at-large. So in this case, your life purpose would be something like: "I share new natural discoveries with people." Or maybe, "I explore uncharted environments." And that is something which is technology-independent. You can find a way to do it now, even if you're never able to visit another galaxy. If the opportunity presents itself in 30 years for you to visit another galaxy, then you'll seize on it. Otherwise you will find a way to still fulfill your purpose using current technology. This purpose is flexible enough to allow you to become: A paleontologist An astronomer A naturalist An astronaut A space entrepreneur A biologist A geologist A photographer A writer A virtual reality designer Etc. Your domain of mastery, your top values, and your top strengths will help you narrow that list down a lot.

Be the tortoise, not the foolish hare. The hare will lose in the end. You can't even conceive yet what will be lost. Hares are average. Tortoises are rare.

No, the sneakiness here is the excuses and distractions being made to avoid doing the exercises. Just do the exercises and you will progress very well. All rationalizations for why the exercises aren't good to do, or can't possibly work, are just distraction. Don't get so hung up on avoiding the mind that you fall even deeper into mind. Steady practice is the key. Debating whether or not to do practice is a trap. If you do the practice, you will see results. And enlightenment itself is not the only measure of progress. Your awareness will grow A LOT even if you don't become enlightened here. You should be happy with any gains in awareness you make, no matter how small.

"A finger" is a sensation. "The body" is a sensation. How can one sensation "touch" another sensation??? Look more closely! There is no finger. There is no body. There is no you looking out at the world! And there is no "world" for that matter. All of those are conceptual constructions. Deconstruct them all. Direct experience has none of that. It's just raw, free-floating sensation.

These exercises are part of what I call self-observation or self-inquiry. The newbie mind needs something to start with. These exercises are that. If you're an experienced meditator, you can simply go into one-pointed concentration on the Self and break through that way. Or you can use these exercises to slowly deconstruct your mental models of reality until a breakthrough dawns. It's all just different ways of skinning the same tarsier

All is one. This is not possible to understand until you experience yourself as empty spirit. Tasting spirit is like pure magic, pure divinity. But it requires an awakening. You cannot see spirit yet because it's so obvious and close that you're overlooking it. Like a fish in water who cannot see the water.

Don't mistake these exercises for mere thinking. They are pointers to direct consciousness. They are to be experienced.

@AxelK You're the one placing all these moral expectations on enlightened beings. Applying today's cultural norms to someone from 2000 years ago is silly. The culture of Arabs 2000 years ago was insanely vicious and brutal. Mohammad was a saint compared to tribal rape, pillage, and lawlessness that was common-day occurrence at the time. The Arab culture is extremely tribalistic. That's true today, but it was 1000x more true 2000 years ago. Islam was a huge pacifying influence at the time of its inception. Understanding the historical and cultural context of Islam is hugely important. What you call "child-rapist" was standard practice just 100 years ago all over the world. Girls have historically been married off and started giving birth in their early teens. Many of the wives Mohammad kept where orphaned or homeless or abandoned women, who keep took under his care. In that culture, a woman without a husband or brother is basically a homeless starving untouchable. The reason Mohammad had to wage war was because all the tribes wanted to slaughter him for his higher spiritual teachings. In that environment, he could only fight back or get slaughtered. Enlightenment does automatically mean peace, rainbows, and butterflies. We live in the real-world, where shit happens. If you live in a warzone, you're not automatically gonna have peace. The Buddha could be peaceful because India had a very tolerant culture. Jesus was slaughtered within a couple of years. Arab culture presented a unique challenge to the spread of spirituality.

@Bookum The real question is, how can you stay motivated if you're merely motivated to please others??? That's absurdity, not motivation. Time for you to face to hard fact that all motivation is groundless. Contemplate this really deep.

@username Yes, but contemplate in your sleep. What am I? Who is sleeping? Who is dreaming?

@Mr Lenny That will yield less results. It's critical that you quiet the mind. In 30 minutes, the mind is only starting to settle. I recommend you spend 100 hours straight doing self-observation. Just to see for yourself the power of momentum. If you do it for 30 minutes twice a day, you may not ever get enlightened. It's just a drop in the bucket compared to the hardcore self-observation required to break through. 100-hour stretches of contemplation are merely child's play compared to what the masters do. And if your excuse is, "But Leo! I don't have 100 hours to contemplate." Well... then you're not really serious about waking up. You've lost all sense of priority, drowning in a bottomless pit of depravity and illusion.

@ULFBERHT Yeah, don't get stuck on any one part for WEEKS. Skip and keep going. You can circle back around to it later. Your priority should be on completing the bulk of the course versus doing everything perfectly. If you finish the course even at 80% of stuff done, that's still a huge net win for you.

I'll still be using 5-meo, but it was never my only tool. I like to research and try all sorts of different methods. I would never hinge the entirety of my salvation any external thing or substance.

No, it's so beautiful no words can describe it. Some mornings I wake up and think, "OH MY GOD!!! It's an infinite illusion!"

Except it IS the case. You've just made a habit of not accepting reality as it is, because it doesn't serve you, and now this habit is very difficult to drop. That's the crux of this matter: stop serving you. Truth is antithetical to self-agenda. Which is why so few pursue it. The best way to hide the Truth is in plain sight. Just make it useless and no one will see it. It's not necessary to "trust" direct experience. It's only necessary to observe it and realize that there is nothing else!

@Mariem So you're basically asking: Would you rather be happy or depressed?

@How to be wise Not really. Life purpose is about finding the kind of impact you want to make and your domain of mastery. A big mistake is to think of life purpose as a single narrow project, like: building a wormhole. That's way too narrow. Nothing wrong with wanting to build a wormhole, but the fact is, you're putting the cart before the horse. You have no idea right now what is and isn't possible within your domain of mastery. Nor should you. What you're really interested in there is physics, or whatever. So isolate the essence of what about building a wormhole appeals to you so much. And then you'll see that not only can you pursue stuff like building wormholes, but also perhaps even better things which you can't even imagine yet. Why are you passionate about building a wormhole? Hint: the answer has nothing to do with wormholes.

@Darrick I would definitely NOT start a new business in California. California is WAY too overpriced, and state income taxes suck. Start-ups need to be lean and agile. There's a reason why Steve Jobs started his start-up in a garage and Bill Gates started Microsoft in New Mexico, not Seattle. You gotta be economical as a start-up. I started my first business in Fort Worth, one of the best-value real-estate markets in the country at the time. It would have been stupid of me to stay in Boston. So the very first thing I did was relocate. As an indie musician, you should be excited to get the hell out of Silicon Valley and live somewhere dirt cheap. Your main focus should be your WORK, not your place of residence. After you're successful, you can live wherever you want. And, BTW, there are much nicer places to live than California for 1/5th the cost. California is overcrowded and overrated. Be more flexible and creative as you pursue your life purpose, otherwise, you'll get stuck real quick. And, BTW, living in different cities is a huge catalyst for self-actualization. It pushes your comfort zone. Never stay in one city for more than 5 years at your age. Check out places like Vegas, Dallas/FW, Austin, Oregon, etc. Consider even moving to a 3rd world country for a while, like Bali or the Philippines or Costa Rica. A lot of business can be done online these days, and your main focus should be on honing your craft -- mastery even more so than business.

@Neo My philosophy is that shadow work is necessary to do beside meditation. Meditation alone is often not sufficient to unwire deep neuroses or traumas. Although meditation is extremely beneficial for people with neuroses and traumas. I feel that personal development work is still necessary alongside any spiritual practices you do.

It's so radical you still stop believing reality is real. I sometimes wake up in the morning and think, "I clearly know this entire reality is pure fantasy. Yet here I am stuck in this dream. Okay, let's get to work."

When I first started this sub-forum, my biggest concern was that people would use it as a platform to engage in religious debate. Thankfully that's never happened. However, what I failed to foresee was the same dynamic manifesting in a more subtle form: people engaging in nondual debate. This is even more regrettable, because it goes directly against what nonduality is about and such folks should know better. There has been a recent trend of people stirring up nonduality debate or embarking on "discrediting" campaigns. It's this toxic tendency to criticize and nitpick nondual teachings because they happen to differ from how you think nonduality ought to be done or taught. As if there is one or two paths that everyone should take, and all others are delusional. This is a classic trap. Traditionally, most spiritual paths -- as part of their marketing strategy -- highlight their upsides while conveniently never mentioning their own downsides. Then they criticize all the other paths by only highlighting their downsides while never mentioning their upsides. This creates a false apples-and-oranges comparison. It's functional purpose is to recruit new adherents. It's basically a dishonest advertising campaign. The problem with this approach is that it breeds intolerance and sectarianism. It creates in-fighting and distraction rather than contributing positively to the discussion. It's intellectually uncharitable and ultimately makes the entire field of spirituality/nonduality look hypocritical to outsiders. If you are so nondual, or so self-realized, why are you wasting so much of your time fighting others? This is such a rookie mistake. The reality is that nonduality is a difficult thing to teach, no matter by what method. Traps are numerous NO MATTER WHICH PATH YOU TAKE. There is no such thing as the perfect path. There is no such thing as a path with no downsides or traps or potential for delusion. Any path you take can be misused. Any teaching you hear can be misused. Any teaching can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Any teaching can be nitpicked and criticized into ill-repute if one so desires. You can easily write a massive diatribe about every single spiritual teacher and spiritual path ever devised by man. And you would be half-right. But all of this is just an ideology game. It's a fundamental failure to understand the other person. It's also rather annoying to moderate and creates idle controversy where none really exists. Not only does it turn good people against each other, it's false and ignorant. Just because you've had a rude awakening -- just because you realized that reality is illusory -- doesn't mean you get to come on here and trash the value of conceptual work, or traditional self-help, or other nondual methods. Just because one method didn't resonant with you, doesn't mean you get to crap all over other people's methods. Again, this is such a rookie mistake we shouldn't even be having this discussion. The work that we're doing here is very nuanced. It's very easy to misunderstand. It's very easy to demonize. It's very easy to abuse by its nature. All advanced work is this way. And our work here goes WAY beyond enlightenment. I am counting on you to be a nuanced and understanding student. If you disagree with this philosophy and think that all there is worth doing in life is enlightenment, that's your opinion -- and you're entitled to have it -- but you have no business being here. Go spend your time doing something productive that you believe in, rather than debating, "debunking", and criticizing -- with flagrant disregard for intellectual charity -- the hard work of others. Anyone engaging in nondual debate like: "Method X is all bullshit. It's delusional. Teacher Y doesn't know what the hell enlightenment is. Just follow the method that worked for me." will be banned. There is nothing nondual about such behavior. It's juvenile and driven by a lack of understanding of the deeper aspects of this work. The very act of making such posts is already evidence of one's low level of development. Highly conscious people do NOT behave in this way. Here's a very simple rule of thumb: you will NEVER see highly-conscious and self-realized masters debating, criticizing, nitpicking, or engaging in "debunking" campaigns. Because all of that is egoic, dualistic, ideological nonsense. If they disagree with a teaching, they simply avoid it. They don't start a crusade to fight against it. They understand that different people resonant with different paths and teachings. They understand that everyone needs to find their own path. Remember that guiding people to nonduality is an inherently challenging thing. It's one of the most challenging teaching scenarios. If you ever get the opportunity to teach hundreds or thousands of people about enlightenment, you'll gain a new appreciation for how many of them will deeply misunderstand you and use your well-intentioned teaching for evil. Have respect and compassion for that. When assessing the value of a teaching, observe the principle of intellectual charity, and seek to understand the communication rather than how best to discredit it. Discrediting is easy, understanding is difficult. Division is easy, integration is difficult. Hostility is easy, compassion is difficult. To be a part of this community, you certainly don't need to agree with me on everything. I've always encouraged you to think for yourself and never follow blindly. But you do need to agree with some of my core values like: intellectual honesty, tolerance, compassion, holism, and openmindedness. You must show a basic level of tolerance for diversity and you also need to adhere to the principle of intellectual charity when discussing the pros and cons of various nondual paths. If you don't agree with such principles, that's fine, you just have no business posting on this forum. Please help me keep this community in line with this high standard of discourse, so it doesn't devolve into the kind of low-consciousness finger-pointing that we see all across the web. And none of this should be taken to mean: "So Leo is always right?" No! Leo is just a guy on the web who shares ideas with you. Be very intelligent in how you understand and apply these nuanced and tricky ideas. And none of this should be taken to mean: "Leo is saying that all teachings are identical and equally valid." No! That's obviously not the case. Some teachings are downright absurd. Use of good discernment is ALWAYS necessary. But even if a teaching is absurd, you're still not entitled to troll it or crusade against it. Your actions always speak louder than your words. If you choose to engage in debate or crusading, that shows us exactly what your level of development is, no matter how many enlightenments you may think you've had.

@Will Bigger That was a rough guideline, so you don't have the silly expectation of getting enlightened after 1 week of doing this process. It can take anywhere from 1 second to never. For most of you, it will probably take longer than 2 years simply because you're not doing it with single-minded focus. I'm focus on business and doing research, for example, so it's taking me longer. 5-meo can speed it up because it will change your priorities, if nothing else.

Of course that can affect your life a lot. I wouldn't call it a vow. It's something else. But still might be highly significant. They're a lot more to neurotic psychology than just vows. Remember that an episode of mine is just an episode. It's not meant to be -- nor can it be -- a comprehensive, exhaustive look at anything. I could shoot 10 episodes on each topic and still not say everything that needs to be said about it. This stuff can get very deep and nuanced. And the nuances can be significant. The episodes are merely meant to be launching points for your own investigations and research. This topic is generally called shadow work. It's the bulk of psychotherapy. There are dozens of techniques and theories for how to deal with it.

@Tibor Fear of suffering. And you making an identity out of it. It becomes part of your life story. Sorta like Westworld characters are defined by their past horrors. Without memories, who would you be?

You're gonna want to strategically shift focus between things depending on your exact situation. If you're undertaking a BIG endeavor like starting a business, or learning pickup, or developing your life purpose, or starting a family, or enlightenment -- you're gonna want to focus on it rather obsessively and exclusively for some significant length of time: anywhere from 6 months to several years. This means ONE thing. Of course you can still have minor projects and habits that you're building alongside your ONE big thing. Learning how to find the exact right balance is one of the KEYS to all success. A rigid, black-and-white thinking mind is not capable of this. Which is why its rare to see a highly successful, well-rounded human being. Don't think of balance as a static state. Think of it as a dynamic thing. Your focus will shift throughout your life, as you finish one chapter and start another.