B_Naz

I wouldn't take a break. I would try and push through this anxiety that you have. It is the same thing that is happening to me currently. One of my first posts on this forum was an experiment where I try and not think for a whole week. So meaning I was in complete awareness, and whenever a thought occurred, I would completely shut it down and let it go. Quite a rough practise but it was just to explore the mind and stuff, just personal experiments I wanted to do. I wouldn't recommend anything like this, this is just exploring "myself". The title of my post was literally "Being is uncomfortable". I've experienced only a small aspect of what you're trying to achieved and the feelings it weights on you. As @molosku said, your mind is completely resistance this behaviour. It happens to all of us. Happened to me. But always remind yourself that uncomfortable occurance is normal. Just go with it. Be with it. Be in the present, observe why are you uncomfortable, observe what the ego is actually doing, blah blah blah. Once you accept you are uncomfortable and overthink, you can change! The most important advice I could give is that this anxiety will go. It will disappear, and you will finally become relieved from the overthinking, because once enough time has passed, your mind rewires itself, and the anxiety goes! Keep at it. If it does however get too real, scary and even hard to a point where you want to quit, then stop and go to a less extreme habit and build up to it. (So like focus on one stuff).

How do I become aware of what is authentic that I produce? So for example, I am a computer geek. I study Computer Science and enjoy looking at computer systems, technology, and programming. I see this as my authentic self (if there is such thing as a self but that goes onto a deeper level lol). But I clearly receive some sort of pleasure/comfort or even addiction to having these habits... So does this stem from the ego? Since it's about me and me wanting to do all of these things (such as study, watch, become involved in the technology world). Then we have other pleasures such as sex, games, TV shows, etc... But can these also be authentic? If so, how do I know what I should flow with and what I shouldn't flow with? Should I do whatever I want?

It's what I really try to find out. I guess I need to do more awareness of what I am doing like you said. Will focus on that. @Nahm Great insight.

Very strong and yet simple... No need for joy, no wanting the joy... Just enjoy... Thank you

Yeah. Enlightenment should not be forced. If you don't understand the meaning or concepts now, you can just wait and feel the moment as @Crystalous said. A point I'll like to address. You enjoy life so why "kill" the ego? Well the ego is all about "me" and will always have a hunger to improve life and when that improvement is not met, you start to swim in emotions and thus, become suffered. But sometimes you may feel like that work on enlightenment is not worth it? Perhaps it isn't. Ultimately, be in the moment and enjoy the flow

Heres the thing about the issue you're currently having. Leo is simply telling you to be open minded. To destroy your materialistic paradigm. So of course nothing makes sense right now, so that is why people responding "Do spiritual work" and "You will find it in yourself". I think the issue is that you feel like you have to try to exist. When you're talking about "how do I enjoy stuff", its the fact you're trying to enjoy stuff. You're "doing" to enjoy stuff rather than simply "enjoying". This is the main difference between "doing" and "being". You assume that since there is no ego after enlightenment, there is no enjoyment but you see after only you've been enlightened, you can finally understand why enjoyment is not needed, since there is no self. So HA, if there is no enjoyment, then why do I want to be enlightened! I won't be able to enjoy things anymore! But why do you want to enjoy things in the first place. EGO. That goes onto another point, then why bother doing anything if nothing I do is for me or if nothing is actually real?. THAT is the question you need to be asking. You must BE and not DO. Why bother doing things if it isn't real? It seems like its a chore. But that's way meditation is needed. That's why we need to think about why we do things. That is why we tell ourselves to clear our minds when we meditate, so we can "be" rather than thinking, which is essentially "doing". Only when we are true absence of the thoughts we are being. This is why we become mindful of our actions. What are we "doing". You see the common theme? You're doing. Not being. So I'm going to try to answer these questions in a way to keep you in line with actualized.org. To stop you from backsliding How can reality be nothing? The universe is created by the big bang. Outside of that is nothing. So if you want to apply logic to this question, the only way the universe could be made if it was equal to nothing. The big bang was nothing. Reality is nothing, because it was made from nothing. assume n is nothing and R is relationship. nRn. Nothing has a relation with nothing. But that doesn't make sense and hence you need to work on it by BEING. It is why you can't explain how reality can be nothing with Science. And if you use science to explain why reality exists, it goes backwards. OK how am I made? Atoms. How are atoms made? Stars. How are stars made? from the explosion of the big bang, antimatter and matter, collision. Ok? How is the big bag made? It's not, its made from nothing. So we are nothing. This makes no sense at all because of the materialistic and idea of "objective" paradigms. Find these answers, then you find why reality is nothing Why bother doing anything if nothing exists? You don't need to do anything even if reality does exist. Nothing is forcing you to do something but "yourself" which is the ego. You can just sit in silence and be content and one with the universe. That is what Leo actually promotes. Will this affect your day to day life to a point where your life is going to be ruined from doing nothing?!. No. Again, it's your ego saying "DO THINGS". It only affects your interpretation of the universe. You can still work in a 9-5 job or study at school but ultimately, you've realised that nothing exists, so I am just being and you become content. After enlightenment, there is no ego, there is no need for enjoyment The ego is all about "me". So you do not need enjoyment! You don't need to do anything! So is it shameful to enjoy things? No. But what is shameful is for not realising you're inline with the ego and doing. That is something you have to explore by yourself. But what I can say is that is a lot of these topics are repetitive, and you come to ask yourself the same questions... The same responses.. The same everything because you're questioning your logic in every way. You do not need enjoyment because there is no self. So what about it. Oh I won't enjoy things anymore, how sad. Again, your ego is telling you its bad to not enjoy things, and you get addicted to enjoying things and never become content with what you have. Nothing is sad. Nothing is real. This is a beautiful flow of nothingness! So with the Why Brains Doesn't Exist. Leo was really strong about the materialistic paradigm, the paradigm where we believe there must be some sort of material or substance to hold us all together. When we look at this more deeply, there is no such thing. The big bang supposedly "created" the universe. But where is the universe created from? Nothing. This is because the laws of science doesn't apply to outside of the universe. The "appearences" does not apply to the outside mythical universe. But heres the thing, there is no outside of the universe, this is only a manifestation. This is all a hallucination, its all for nothing. But that's the thing, if its all for nothing, and nothing is real, why do something. That is the point I'm trying to make with this post. There is no need to DO. There is only to BE because nothing exists. You can be nothing. Now to say nothing exists is never truly an correct answer. We just need to find out if what Leo said is true. Sorry for being naive if I am. If I am wrong in any way, PLEASE tell me. I am a new comer to the forums and haven't actually expressed my opinions before!

So as you can see, you've benefited when you cut ties with this toxic person. You can see the progress you've made and the peace that has been restored in your life. It seems to me that your friend is desperate for social interactions or for a friend and so your friend needs you, rather than wanting to be with you. In my personal opinion, I would not respond to him and carry on with my day because he will ALWAYS come back. He will bring a toxic and negative environment to your life and this could even halt your progression. This is because you're like a sponge that soaks the negativity and toxicity. Each time instance means soaking and that causes problems. The ULTIMATE solution is to remove him from your life completely. Why bring somebody who causes toxicity into your life when your life can be or will be even more challenging. You need more encouraging and positive thinking friends. It can be hard to forget somebody or a memory. The best and most powerful way of forgetting the past is by never bringing it back up into your thought process or your life.

Hello all, Background I am fairly new to the consciousness and enlightenment work. I have been watching Leo's videos for about a year but I only focused on the fundamentals (of self-improvement) and "life-hack" topics that have helped me practically. I do meditate as well but nothing in spiritual manner has came around. I have only been calm and clear-headed when it comes to the meditation practise. There is observation on what the ego is during these sessions but I have only a small understanding since I haven't worked on this type of improvement before. So on the topic of ego, I may need further explanations on what this concept is. Please forgive me if I sound naive, I just wanted to see if I am on the right track. By all means tell me if I am wrong in everything (if that is the case). Situation It was only a few weeks ago when I started to watch Leo's other videos based on Consciousness, enlightenment and spirituality. One video labelled "Spiritual Enlightenment - The Most SHOCKING Truth You'll Ever Hear" on Youtube have really shocked (as intended) and ultimately made interest to the "consciousness" world. One key correlation I have found along with all Leo's video is that thinking plays a huge role in our lives. It affects us in every possible way so I wanted to experiment with this. Here is my experience when I silenced my mind for a week. A bit on the experiment - Since everything we do and perceive (either with emotions or interpretation) is done through the process of thinking, I wanted to eliminate this. So for a whole week, I silenced my mind, which wasn't as frustrating as it sounds to do since I do this everyday during my meditation but we can never truly silence or control our minds and emotions. But whenever a thought did come and I observed it, I simply let it go and I never became the thought (well, tried to). Of course, this exluded the important thoughts such as needing to go to the store. This is what I found: Experiment with no thinking I felt extremely calm. Nothing really bothered me, or caused me distress. However, I was never either happy nor sad. I felt content (which I wanted to get onto further). There was times when the thoughts did occur and I didn't immediately let go of it but when I did, the emotions or worry aligned with the thought also disappeared. This was a very powerful revelation. I knew this would obviously remove any emotions since the thought process causes us to trigger emotions. So naturally emotions will disappear but this felt something more deeper that I could not grasp my mind on. I assumed normal since I need a lot of mindful and mastery work. I also found that me observing my emotions was also subjective and in the end created thinking, so... This requires even more observation but this is not the main topic. I felt like I connected with the physical reality. This actually scared me the most. An example of this connection happened when I was sitting on the train and I became one with the seat I was sitting on and i felt the dense air. It caused a spike of panic when I realised where I was. It felt like I was absorbing everything I came in contact with such as the people... my clothes... my hair, everything. I don't know if this is just a illusion of the spirituality nature but it is something I observed. Overall, I felt like I was in the moment 24/7, which caused so much discomfort. I do not want to worry or even care about the above observations. This is because I already know why these notes occur. I know why I feel emotionally "neutral" since there is no thoughts triggering process. I understand why jealously or judgemental or any other negative emotions doesn't occur. The main thing that actually frightens me (the strongest emotion out of everything) is there a purpose I should be pursing. Of course, nobody has the true answer for this, but what I want to work on is why am I truly afraid of not thinking. Why am I afraid that what I am doing is wrong and feels so empty. Why do I need to have purpose? So this moves onto the most important aspect of this topic. Simply being is uncomfortable to me. I guess I have to understand that I am not use to "being". I have always been "doing", but it seems to me that "being" can become a health issue. What makes it really uncomfortable is being exposes the lonely aspect of life. This lonely feeling isnt the concrete definition where describes we don't have anybody. It's more the fact that we only truly interacts with ourselves, and ourselves don't even exist in the physical realm. This goes onto even further and deeper topics but is it normal to have these feelings of anxiety? Even though this eliminating thinking process is powerful, since it helps me with my emotions and have destroyed any discomforts that are caused by the external world. However, I feel empty, and void, with no return. I feel completely loss and frighten. I would assumed emotions such as frustration or boredom would be the strongest but it turns out these feelings of empty were the most powerful. Is it healthy that I am pursing this experiment? Should I continue? Is it normal to be this afraid of the empty void or perhaps, it isn't so empty. I do understand it's my own responsibility to take advice from anybody, but do I need to push myself to be this uncomfortable to get a true essence of myself? In Conclusion I just wanted to put my notes onto a forum for people to read and as well as criticise so I can improve. Maybe what I have noted was an incorrect way of thinking and needs slight adjustments. I am open-minded. The main thing I want answering, if anything can even be answered, is being empty the right way to go?