Kensho

Take the Red pill In order to escape the matrix you have to realize its mechanics. You have to see it from outside, get in the control room and see how it is being built and directed. How do one does that? Consciousness Right now your consciousness is limited in the matrix. You dont know what you are, what the matrix is. There is a point of consciousness growth/expansion/elevation that goes beyond the matrix and includes it. When you achieve that, you understand the game and YOU decide the way you take part in it. You move your own strings. The matrix of course is exactly where and what you are experiencing right now. It s just that you see things difrerently. You get new cognitive tools, new lens, new filters (or to be exact, less filters or no filters at all) so that Reality is rendered difrerently in your brain. Plato described it beautifully in his allegory of the cave. Look it up. P. S. If you have been around Leo's videos for a while, you can probably guess what was in that Red pill Neo swallowed.

Let's say "don't have high expectations". A person who has been into material like what Leo is teaching and listening to Leo suggesting the Vipassana retreat, may expect to have deep experiences during it, like a samadhi or satori or some sort of mystical experience (your nickname... :-) ). They may happen of course, but this is not what you go there for. Even the vipassana technique is not something that can be achieved from the first retreat. If it's not sticking don't get frustrated. Keep trying. The retreat gives you the chance to focus on meditation and mindfulness for ten days. No distractions, nothing of the everyday life to worry about. During the retreat, you ll go on a thought roller-coaster ride. 24/7 only with your thoughts. You get the best chance possible to observe them. It's a lot, lot of thinking, processing and self-inquiring. I 've done the 10-day retreat twice. The most difficult part for me was to cease the continuous thoughts to leave the place, that is why I told you "stay till the end". Take pillows and blankets. Have a pair of ear-plugs too. It's a good experience.I wish you the best. P.S. You know what the best thing in Vipassana is? No talking for 10 days!

Ayahuasca

Have no expectations STAY TILL THE END !

Hi Vagos. I live in Athens too. Nice meeting you

Why do you want it to stop? bliss feels bad? It's like you became temporary enlightened. Enjoy it. Be careful with doctors, they may stuff you with anti-psychosis drugs. You can't tell to a doctor you had a kundalini awakening or similar. There is no such thing for medicine...

One thing. No matter what your mind tells your or how well it justifies it... DON'T LEAVE!!

During my last ceremony, ayahuasca killed my ego's worst aspects. It was a painful process in which my ego resisted but finally gave up. I saw myself as a free loving person with no walls around, happy and feeling deep meaning. Combining that with what you correctly stated, the ego's job is to censor our true self. After the trip I am being more and more aware on how and when my ego 'steals' (hinders) my happiness

When something is disgusting, it's disgusting. Ayahuasca is beyond disgusting. By far the worst thing I have tasted. The more you drink the worse it gets. It being a sacred drink is irrelevant

Existence is a an opportunity, a gift. Apart from all the other things/objects/beings in the universe which have a constant connection to God, constant God being-ness but no self-awareness, man acquired something that gave him the ability, the contrast, to separate him from God, and thus to realized the existence of God. The bible describes it as adam and eve eating the apple (not much to understand there...). It is given as the worst thing possible and as a downfall. Greek mythology describe it as Prometheus stealing the fire from gods and giving it to humans (Prometheus' fire is not the fire we light to roast meat or warm up, it is an allegory for the kindle that sparked the first man to be aware of himself, as gods do). The second myth is more on point than adam and eve. The fact that Prometheus stole the fire from the Gods shows the significance of being self aware. Being self aware is a God-level property. The downside is that if it is not cultivated it brings ultimate suffering. At the moment, as a humanity we are in a very early stage of development with 99% of egos underdevelopment hence the mess and suffering we are experiencing (fact is that not even the existence of the false ego is not yet realized by most humans). Living a life like Adam and Eve directly as part of God is not better than being separate of Him and earn your way up to reach him again. It looks better because it doesn't contain suffering, but then you are missing the best part. We humans have been given the ultimate gift of the stages: separation from God, realization of God, consciousness expansion to become God again. Suffering is part of the game. From God's perspective, suffering is a work of his art, as everything else. He gives us the hammer but we prefer to hit the nail with our palms. It is true that most of the people do not even know that there is a hammer, but that is not God's fault. In some millennia humankind may reach a point of collective consciousness that everything will be in harmony and only healthy egos or a majority of people of no ego will exist, and in their history books they will have stories about us in the 20th century being asleep, having wars, killing each other and suffering, as we do now for the middle ages period in Europe. P.S. The myth also says that Prometheus was punished by the Gods. Some say that they punished him because that wasn't supposed to happen as humans were not yet ready to receive it.

Suffering is created by the ego. Ego is something created withing existence, withing the Universe. Even if we see the ego as a glitch or a bug in God's plan, God has given us all the tools needed to get rid of the ego and terminate suffering. It is just that we don't want to go through the labor and pain that requires. We have 100% the ability to do the work, but we don't. Do you know how science calls the disinclination to activity despite having the ability to act?? Laziness We just discovered a new property of god. He doesn't like lazy people. If you built the best playground possible and all the children in it were just laying around doing nothing, it wouldn't be nice, would it?

The closest science will ever get to consciousness is when it will realize that consciousness can only be experienced . Then, it will create an experience within a specific set and setting, using medical equipment for safety and a special pure and precisely weighted dose substance like 5-MeO-DMT. Scientists and other people with various social, religious and racial backgrounds will go through the medical experiment multiple times, and their experiences and testimonies will be thoroughly recorded, beside testimonies from people who had deep mystical experiences without substances. At some point the converging testimonies will reach a critical mass, (like tens or hundred of thousands) that there will be a specific common core of the experience, and that will be proclaimed consciousness (or the closest we can know God), in an indisputable way. From that moment on, whoever wants to place an argument against it will have to go through the experiment.

Since our existence is indifferent to God, doesn't that entail that the only healthy relationship we can have with him is him being indifferent to us?

It doesn't have to do with IQ. People who are the kind of "smart" stated in the title, the first think they get even before watching the video is why the word 'smart' is in the title.

After having a little direct experience of God myself, having a technical background, the simplest way I can communicate God to people is by resembling him to a software language like C++ or Java, and all of creation is a program written in that language. Objects are let's say classes and such. A computer language is a non tangible thing by itself, yet it can create all tangible apps and programs. The language is a set of rules and structures to be realized by programs in order for them to become real. A program cannot do something that is not dictated by the rules of the language. Everything the program is, it's the language. The existence of the language implies the "let there be code" primordial principle. It's like all cutting was created the moment the first knife was created. The language does not care what a program does, neither it can prevent a program from being created. You cannot point your finger to it. It's everywhere and always, "waiting" for programs to use its rules in order for them to become existent. Lastly, the most counter-intuitive property of this language is that is itself written in it's own language I think using the above examples we could create a nice and funny collection of similarities between god and computer language, but let's make it as less technical and nerdy as possible.

I wish you a fast recovery Leo. Take care.

There is a big difference though... Only 8% of men and only 0.5% of women are colorblind, so here we have a case of the vast majority of people watching a minority seeing the 'normal' for the first time, where 'normal' is what most humans see. Unlike other cases , the 'normal' here is a far richer experience and objectively better, bringing the individuals to tears due to the beauty of colors, nature etc. (some animals get it even better than humans), so we could say that the majority has it better, knows better, has a better experience than the minority. Now imagine the opposite. The 0.5% watching the other 99.5% not being able to see the beauty. Things get complicated. When 99 people go to someone and tell him "We are sorry but there is a problem in your eyes so you cannot see what we can see, it's a scientific fact and blah-blah" , he has no other option but to believe them. On the contrary, if one person goes to 99 and tell them that they are ignorant of what's going on, they ll call him crazy. As Plato wrote in his allegory of the cave, they can even kill him.

...go on youtube and watch some videos of colorblind people who see color for the first time wearing those Enchroma glasses.

Well, if I was him i would do it just to see the reactions. Despite they would be predictable, he would have enough material for a whole new episode on non attachment and several others aspects.

What is your suggestion?

Why do you build something when you get the idea for it? Why does a musician writes a music track? How would you manifest yourself without producing something out of yourself in any way? How would you know what kind of musician you are , if you knew all the theory but never wrote music? In the same way, existence was the answer to a primordial question the Creator had about himself.

Have you done any?

In Greece it's the same without the option for community service (in fact, there is an option, jail). People's opinion about the army is mostly negative to very negative. I don't know what exactly would the community service be, but if there was that option here, a big percentage of men would choose the community service.