Leo Gura

@Gavalanche Interpreting is the problem. What you really want to be shooting for is a non-interpreted, non-symbolic, "raw" experience of phenomena. This is called mindfulness. You see exactly what is, and nothing more. The problem is that you've got many layers of interpretation running which create illusions such as objects, others, selves, dangers, good and bad, emotions, etc. Practice more and more to see only what is literally there. And notice how much shit you make up and project onto what is there. This is very hard to achieve without many hours of practice. The illusion created by symbolic projection is overwhelming. You are trapped inside an augmented reality. I highly recommend you do a week-long meditation retreat, otherwise you'll never know how deeply augmented your perception is.

Self-inquiry dissolves illusory concepts about reality and gets one ever-closer to an unmediated, non-conceptual experience of reality. If you're very attached to your illusory reality -- the entire social Matrix, for example -- you may not like the feeling of deconstructing it. You may experience emotional upheavals. You may overreact to certain revelations. You may misinterpret certain revelations. You may misuse certain revelations by being a dick to others. Etc. Healing or therapy occurs as you shed illusory notions about reality. Self-inquiry will raise your awareness A LOT. That's generally a very good thing, but like anything, it can be twisted and abused by the ego.

- Up to you. As slow as it takes for you to stay conscious of what's happening. - End it at wherever you think you are. This will be revealing. If you end it at your eyeball, then that tells you you think you're behind the eyeball. If you end it at your chest, then that tells you you are identified with the heart feeling area. I usually draw it to my eyeball, only to realize, there is no eyeball!

@Martin123 Yes, there can be damage, which is why I'm trying to make my videos more nuanced and careful. This work really requires great nuance to minimize all sorts of collateral damage. But even as I do that, there will still be many people who miss the nuances in what is said. I see people missing very obvious warnings that I give about all sorts of topics, from enlightenment to psychedelics. It just cannot be helped at some level, because this is core of what growth is about. Growth is difficult because people don't even know how to listen or properly interpret what is taught. They like to project or jump to radical conclusions. And of course I'm always learning how to teach better. But even given all that, the effect of such teaching is overwhelmingly positive. My philosophy is that business-as-usual is the most dangerous strategy. Not taking any kind of action is the most dangerous action. The world needs to be told to grow up, and then all of us must shoulder the burden of the growing pains that result.

@Martin123 Don't be so sure about that. Ekhart Tolle or Byron Katie are great examples of people who had DEEP emotional issues and what worked best for them was enlightenment. Of course that doesn't mean it will work for everyone. I generally agree that people with weak or wounded egos will not be able to attain enlightenment simply because they haven't learned to function in the everyday world. Which is why I teach far more than enlightenment. Most of the world is not ready for enlightenment. They have to work up to it. Of course, this shouldn't stop anyone who seriously wants to pursue enlightenment. It certainly can be done by people with deep emotional issues. This is a very personal decision. And one has to be very strategic about deciding which aspects of growth to pursue when. Improperly planning out your development can lead to quick failure. Which is why personal coaching can be so helpful. It customizes personal development to the individual's needs. One of the huge limitations of shooting self-help videos is that I cannot customize a video to everyone's needs. I have to aim at an average.

There are landmines everywhere in this work. If one teaches: "Only pursue enlightenment, drop everything else." Many people will get lost, because many people are not ready for that. If one teaches: "Heal yourself. Then pursue enlightenment." Many people will get lost, because most people will get distracted and never put in the necessary focus to attain enlightenment. If one teaches: "You are already enlightened." Many people will get lost, because they will not do any work. If one teaches: "You are not enlightened. Go pursue enlightenment." Many people will get lost in seeking. No teaching is fool-proof. And the most advanced teachings especially so. All personal development work is filled with traps. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. If there were, it probably would have been found by now and there wouldn't be as much diversity as we find within the fields of personal and spiritual development. When one ignores this context, it leads to even more traps, because then one can take anyone who misuses a teaching as evidence of the teaching's failure. This is how nonduality wars get started. I see one person misuse your teaching and then condemn your teaching for it. When in fact, it's virtually impossible not to misuse these teachings, because the nature of the thing being taught is so tricky. So there needs to be latitude in your assessment of teachings, otherwise you will become an ideologue. And that is just one more landmine in this work. Try to see this whole issue from a holistic, meta-perspective: there are billions of unconscious people in the world, and most of them are not going to successfully navigate any teaching. So expect some casualties, delusion, failure, and collateral damage as people strive to become conscious. How else could it be? The only solution to unconsciousness is consciousness. All teachings and techniques are ultimately mechanical. It's the student that really has to do the heavy lifting. He must supply the consciousness.

@Colin Yes, and not just psilocybin but also MDMA, Ibogaine, LSD, DMT, and 5-meo have all been clinically tested a lot and have been demonstrably shown to have enormous therapeutic benefits. The drug war has created an undue stigma around psychedelics, but society is coming around. In 50 to 100 years, these substances will be mainstream treatments for everything from PTSD to depression to anxiety to alcohol and heroin addiction. It's regular folks -- those who are not pursuing enlightenment -- that need psychedelics the most. Ironically they are the ones who reject psychedelics the most.

@Colin That's generally right, although I'd say he's under-emphasizing: Psychedelic's therapeutic potential The importance of the awake-up call and the openmindedness which results. The biggest problem people have with consciousness work is that they are closedminded to it, cannot fathom how deep it goes, and are not motivated to invest 1000s of hours practice just to get a tiny taste of the possibilities. Is it possible to use psychedelics egotistically, just for fun, which leads to no growth? Sure. Is it possible to use psychedelics consciously, for massive real growth and healing? Sure. The key, as with most things, is finding the right balance. And it also doesn't have to be either/or. It's possible to use psychedelics and do manual consciousness work together. In the same way that its possible to use a hammer and a screw driver when building a house. Given that psychedelics are powerful tools -- like chainsaws -- they can be easily abused by unconscious people. But in the right hands, a chainsaw is a great thing. It's interesting that when a powerful consciousness-raising tool is discovered, people bash it for being too powerful. This is understandable since the ego will use any excuse to sabotage any pathways that lead to its dissolution. There is a trap in abusing psychedelics. There is a trap in poo-pooing psychedelics. Yes, there is a danger to people misusing psychedelics, but there might be a bigger danger in people remaining entirely asleep. This planet may well destroy itself in the next 100 years if people remain as unconscious as they are. So we should be very careful about making judgments of which path is more dangerous. Danger abounds. And nothing is more dangerous than a business-as-usual attitude.

@zoli1964 There is no difference between enlightenment and non-enlightenment, or anything else. This is not possible to understand until you have a deep enlightenment experience. So don't worry about it.

The real danger you should be concerned about is staying under-developed. I know folks who got enlightened in their early 20s. So if anything, you're behind the ball. If our society had any decency, everyone would be fully enlightened before they finished high school.

Probably not, although who knows. I would guess one needs a basic level of intelligent capacity to do this work. One has to be smart enough just understand what is being pointed at. 1) It can be a tool to reach the realization that everything is an illusion. Or you can just do it to function smoother within the illusion. 2) Why wouldn't I? Everyday life is identical to enlightenment.

@laurastarla Good! All of that monkey-mind is part of your process. Stay with it. Keep investigating WHAT AM I? WHAT IS REALITY? Yes, you're in over your head. But that's how it is. Have faith in your intent to discover the truth. If 5-meo doesn't do it for ya, so what? It's just one tool, one experience. Why make such a big deal out of it? You don't need to trust anything. Just keep your mind open as you go through life, and be curious.

@whiterabbit Nothing is a prerequisite for enlightenment. You can get enlightened sitting on the toilet reading a magazine. If you don't like the way I teach it, feel free to do it your way. I am not an ideologue and I am not here to convince you of anything. I'm merely sharing what I've discovered through my own work and 1000s of hours and tens of thousands of dollars of research across dozens of highly experienced sources. Rather than debating, you might be better served by actually sitting down and doing even 1 hour of the practice suggested, to taste the results for yourself. Beware that the one who doesn't get it -- and is the biggest bullshitter -- might be you. After all, you are the whole problem.

@Mattylonglegs Sounds like you're describing classic Kundalini energy arising. It can get intense. Might want to study up on it. But also, don't get distracted by energy arising. Your goal is beyond all that. Energetic releases are a good thing. They purify body and mind, enabling both to operate smoother and at higher levels of consciousness. It works like psycho-spiritual detox. The cleaner your engine, the better it will run. Just don't expect the cleansing process to pretty or pleasant.

@Mattylonglegs All par for the course. Keep working through it. Check out my vid called The Dark Side Of Meditation if you haven't already. Best tip for overcoming sleepiness is meditate after a short nap.

@whiterabbit Sit down and contemplate for 100 hours straight and discover for yourself what happens. Every great master has spent huge amounts of unbroken time in meditation or contemplation. This should be obvious enough if you've done any kind of serious spiritual practice, or hung around people who have. I am not here to make logical arguments. All logic is illusion. Any logic I use in communicating with you is purely for your benefit. I hold myself to no logical standard because all logical standards are groundless and arbitrary. Logic is a game. The sooner you can drop logic and all expectations that people maintain logical coherence, the better off you'll be. I am not here to make a logically coherent model of enlightenment. That is impossible anyway. I am here to practically guide people. Of course the Self experiences the self. The problem is, you're not actually conscious of that when you start this process. That's something you must discover. I framed it the way I did so as to seed doubt in the reader. Yes, your Mom and Dad are you. But that's just an fantasy for you right now. So I'm not going to speak to you as though its true for you. I'm going to speak to you from within your place of delusion. When you actually interact with your Mom or Dad, you DO NOT perceive them as you. If you did, you'd already be enlightened, in which case you'd no longer need guidance for enlightenment.

A visual sensation might influence a thought, but that's not what's being investigated here. We're investigating what is perceiving sensations. Can a thought perceive a sensation? Can a sensation perceive another sensation? Take a close look. How is perception happening? How is it even possible in theory? What would a perceiver even be when all there are are perception? Focus is focus. Yes, focus happens, but this is not what I meant when I said "superior". I was referring to an existential superiority. For example, is red existentially superior blue? No. Is color superior to sound? No. Is your hand superior to a book? No. Is your body superior to a tree? No. How then, can you identify with any one thing over another? Notice, the only way that can happen is if you create a tacit heirarchy of sensations, where you basically say, "Okay my body is above that tree. And my mind is above my body. And I am above everything. I own everything." Except what is that thing which sits at the top of this hierarchy and claims to "own" everything? Could it be that there is no such thing, and that the hierarchy is really a fantasy? Take a look. Is there a hierarchy within the field of sensations? Or the field utterly democratic, everything co-arising from who-knows-where?

@Vladz0r It takes several years to really hone in on your values. You don't need to get them perfect. Just do the best you can for now, and then re-evaluate them at least once a year as you get to work implementing your life purpose. Clarity will come as you grow and do work. This course is a launching point. All of this stuff has to be implemented and practiced.

Notice, all of this is just more ego. THERE IS NO YOU! And there's certainly no you to kill you. This is just silly. So stop pretending like you exist to be destroyed. There is nothing to destroy and no one to fight. So if you're gonna pursue enlightenment, do it with a calm manner, without the drama. It will be a lot easier and quicker. The drama is what enlightenment is supposed you relieve you of. So why not start right there, rather than kicking and screaming the whole way? Sit and enjoy your self-inquiry. It's not like you're being asking to go mine coal for 8 hours a day. All you're being asked to do is sit and look. This isn't some sort of epic Hollywood struggle. Finishing high school was harder than getting enlightened. So keep things in perspective, and stay calm and carry on.

@philosogi You have a silly conception of enlightenment. Nothing changes. All emotions remain. All enlightenment is, is the realization that you never existed. Everything else remains. Nothing is gained. Nothing is lost. Enlightenment is exactly the same as non-enlightenment. Enlightenment is a shift in perspective, nothing else. All emotions that ever occurred, occurred without ego. The problem is you don't realize it yet.

The only people who get banned are those who start mudslinging contests or have an axe to grind. Genuine dialogue -- conducted in a civil and intellectually charitable manner -- is allowed. Don't turn yourself into a martyr, as if this place is North Korea. If you're seeking a place with no rules, good luck finding that anywhere on planet Earth.

@Hunter Arrington A million times fewer than have died engaging in default egoic ways of life. The danger is not enlightenment. The danger is your current low-consciousness lifestyle. People too easily overlook the toxicity of the default position. You're like a lobster who's found himself inside a simmering pot of water. And you're debating the dangers that might await you if you open the lid and crawl out.

Red herring! Go work on enlightenment. If you happen to die getting enlightened, we promise to shed a tear for you

Notice what this is: You avoiding emptiness. It's kinda hard to solve a problem by avoiding its solution.

Yes, that's exactly what it means: doing what means the most to you. That will turn into altruism. Don't worry too much about it. That point is now! Start practicing every day to master your chosen domain. As you develop valuable experience, you will be able to market it. Without experience or know-how, you've got no career capital, so you're of no use to anyone, so why should they pay you? Would you pay me if I came to you and said: "I know nothing, I can't help you with anything, now give me money and a nice position!" No. It's a tool. You can use it to feed a superego, or you can use it to develop a great career without being attached to it. I talk about the importance of detachment in life purpose in the course. Yes, it could slow down your enlightenment work. Then again, really think through your life plan practically. How will you feed yourself? Unless you plan to be homeless and begging for food, you will have to do some kind of work, and that work will eat up most of your day. Enlightenment won't excuse you from work one bit. It's not some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card. Mundane reality still matters and it will punish you harshly for not planning accordingly. The pursuit of your purpose must be strategic and pragmatic. If you cannot sustain it, then what good is it? Your mission is to CREATE a sustainable way to do your work. Whatever that means. The path may not be direct. It may be winding. I had to sell my soul and work in a business I didn't like for 4 years before I could get to the point where I was able to do Actualized.org. It wasn't easy. I had to be very creative and insistent about realizing my purpose. As far as making Youtube videos goes, that's a very crowded marketplace these days. You may need to look for greener pastures. I get the sense that you're not thinking creatively enough. You won't generally succeed through imitation. You gotta bring something new to the table. Rewatch the video about The Purple Cow. Where is your Purple Cow? How are you gonna bring massive value to people?