Superfluo

I've just finished a 7-minute session of meditation. I was cross-legged, eyes opened focusing on a lamp. As the session was ending, I started to experience a blurred sight. My room became a little darker and I could see a pattern of lights where I focused my sight, and all of this was "applied", "printed" on things I looked, so I could still see objects but they were a bit darker and with this pattern. This pattern of lights was similar to what you see when you close your eyes and look inside your eyelids. This pattern came and went as I inhaled and exhaled slowly. At first I thought it was something related to my breathing, like what you see when you hyperventilate (even if I was breathing slowly). But as I started to mentally surrender to that experience, wanting to see what would have happened, I started to feel a choking sensation in my throat, a pressure (I was still breathing slowly but normally), and my eyes started to itch, I couldn't make them stay open easily. The more I tried to surrender to all of this, the more these sensations increased, until I stopped. Is this an ego backlash or something similar to the stuff descripted by Leo in The Dark Side Of Meditaton?

@Meditationdude Thank you!

@Meditationdude Thank you for you answer! It's comforting So... what should I do? Are you referring to something particular? Or should I just explore more?

@Leo Gura I've seen you read essays, research papers, "advanced" documents, ecc. when exploring and learning new ideas, concepts or facts. Do you think they are more powerful tools than books you can find in bookstores? Do you think in-depth knowledge about, I don't know, psychology or nutrition is useful for personal development and people would benefit from it? Or is medium level knowledge enough?

Maybe it's a dumb question, but what's the divine's name? "God"? Is there a specific divinity to address?

@Matt8800 Okay, I think I got it. Thank you!

@Matt8800 Thank you for your response. I'll read your post! When you say internal power, do you refer only to mental power? And could it be also related to willpower energy usually associated to the third chakra?

@Matt8800 Hi, I'd like to hear your explanation on this. Some time ago I was in my house and I went into a room where sunlight enters with difficulty meaning that room is usually a bit dark during the day. That time I went there at night to relax and meditate (I know meditation at night is counterproductive). While I entered the room I started to feel fear, and I didn't know why. Then I thought I was fearful because of a presence, but I don't know why I thought that. At first I thought I was imagining the presence, like a fantasy that my mind made up (I'm learning about spirits, entities, other dimension and I had some experiences like glimpses of no-self that have convinced me to give credit to this realm of siddhis, but I'm not fully convinced, and it was also night, so I was tired). Then I sat, still fearful, and tried to visualize this entity because, hey, if it is imaginary (I know this word is misleading in this realm lol), I could be able to make it go away and get rid of that fear. So I visualized that entity and it appeared to me as a terrifying woman moving around me: black hair, pale skin, white dress, like the ones you see in horror movies. So I thought that couldn't be real, it's my imagination. That entity didn't want to hurt me physically but I felt it was a threat and it scared me. But I continued with the visualization, and I did this: I visualized a yellow/white light of love emanating from my body so much that it "touched" this entity. After about ten seconds, the entity started to be affected by my light and it was purified and became a beautiful woman (still black hair, pale skin and white dress) that stopped moving and started looking me with passivity, dead silent, its face calm and serious. At this point I stopped feeling it as a threat, and I'm not sure of this but I felt a subtle feeling of positivity coming from it towards me. Nothing "strange" has ever happened in that room before that event, even when I went there at night. It's a one-time event. Is this legit or not? If it is legit, why it behaved like that after it was purified? I've felt a similar unjustified fear, related to some presence in the darkness, various times in my life, but I've always thought it was in my mind, like a childish fear of the darkness, of the unknown. I'm confused, because sometimes I'm able to read minds intuitively, like if I'm with a person and I'm attuned with him/her sometimes I just know the next thing he/she is going to say with high accuracy, or I istantly "receive" a thought that is not mine without being able to pinpoint where it comes from. And sometimes I'm also able to just know other people's feelings, but I don't know if it's just a trained ability to read body language. Thank you!

Love/Acceptance: embracing every aspect of people and loving them, without losing myself. I try to help people with practical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual obstacles, even little ones. I show a lot of kindness and acceptance during interactions with people. Everytime I talk with someone, I make people feel good about themselves without diminishing me. I consider many different points of view to see things from other people's perspective and understand them. Thank you , I guess I made this confusion too complicated

Hi everybody. I think this is something which everyone could benefit from, something for people looking for inner clarity. I recently tried to jot down my personal values. But as soon as I began, I faced some obstacles. When I first wrote my first values, I stopped to evaluate if they were true. In my life I always helped people, I strived to not make people suffer (not people pleaser, just kind heart). I don't know if this value is authentic, because it comes from my experiences of pain: I experienced pain, and I don't want people to do it too. I practiced shadow work a lot to heal past experiences, and it was overwhelmingly helpful, but I still have this behaviour. In addition, social (and egoic) pressure of being good, of being seen as good influences this value. Also, when I'm kind and unconditional* loving with someone, I'm not "super happy"; it feels nice, but it's not intense. Even if someone told me I was extremely kind and loving toward him/her, and he/she really appreciated it, I bet this wouldn't make me deeply happy and grateful as I think it should. However, I couldn't live without loving and being kind towards everyone and everything. I feel I'm at a reasonable level of peace with myself (or at least I think so), even if there's still some little inner work to do. Could it be only a matter of being able to feel loved? Or could it be not a value of mine? I have a hard time figuring out if this value is something wired in my brain that I don't really value or it is normal to feel this way. Thank you. PS: I'm INFJ ahah *true unconditional love is only possible when you eliminate all judgements, all filters, all ego (enlightment). However, I lean towards unconditional acceptance of everyone and everything. I just behave like this. Not bragging, I'm just explaining.

@Serotoninluv I haven't thought about this topic yet, about higher levels of intuition. I'd be glad if you could tell me more about it.

In the last decade I searched for truth, I did self-inquiry and I questioned all that I've learned, without me knowing it (due to negative emotional states, I searched for a truth to hang on, now I'm okay) (just to tell you that I'm not a newbie in exploring my inside ahahah). The other day I was feeling negative emotions. I was sad and I felt lonely. Trying to understand the root cause of those feelings, I came up with a thought that I already had in the past, but that day I used it. I asked myself: "What if this negative state, this feeling I'm having, that I think is sadness/loneliness, is not sadness/loneliness? What if I feel sad only because I think this feeling is sadness/loneliness? What if this feeling is actually happiness but I have mistaken it my whole life for sadness/loneliness?" In other words, I convinced myself that feeling was happiness. As I shifted my assumptions, I felt good. This shocked me. How can it be possible for an emotion to change depending on our thoughts? Maybe I was wrong, maybe I just wrongly recongnized that feeling of happiness as sadness. A mistake in analizing that feeling. But what if I'm not wrong, what if I have not made a mistake? This means that emotions are merely physical sensations to which we learn to associate thoughts. But feeling good (the following relief I had) is not only a thought. Do emotions have no intrinsic value? But then, our emotions arise in certain situations and for certain reasons. How can it possibly be? How can all of this fit together? In addition, what ensures me that even the sensation I had when I felt good is not me deceiving myself again? Can I then trust emotions? All of this reinforced my idea that everything perceived is part of an illusion. Thank you for your answers!

@ground Yes, I agree. @Leo Gura and @Seed When you say "emotions of the higher self", you mean emotions like love, happiness, peace, playfulness, appreciation, right? @EternalForest Yes, it's mindblowing to realize you are the one and only person that prevents you from happiness. It's life transforming! @Serotoninluv Yes, intuition is something beyond the mind, I think.

@ground Yes, at first I didn't see that my reasoning was biased. Okay, this is something that had already been stuck on my mind for some time. But then when we associate a feeling of dislike or like to a sense appearance or idea, we are doing it starting from some previous knowledge, otherwise we couldn't generate this association. Why associate pleasure and not pain to a certain sensation that has no value? In addition, if conceptual associations can lead to emotions, can we say that emotions are thoughts applied when a sense appearance or an idea arises? It seems like the ego is applying itself to itself. It seems so much twisted to me, I've never explored so much emotions with this point of view. @Leo Gura I came to similar conclusions. So how can I trust emotions? Do I need to be skeptical? But the only way to know it is to try, I guess. @tsuki Interesting point of view. Thank you for all your answers!

@ground Okay, I agree with you. Much like I was expecting. But I have a counter example: if you take a child and you don't teach him anything, the child still learns to smile when certain sensations arise. How can it be possible? And the child doesn't try to cry, to get mad, or to ponder in order to see what's the correct thought pattern for that sensation. I'm not trying to prove that emotions are an illusion. I'm mostly trying to understand how this specific illusion works and to evaluate different perspectives regarding sensations, thoughts and emotions.

@How to be wise Some questions to stimulate new reflections and ideas: How do you know inanimate objects aren't aware? Maybe they are a lot more aware than humans, but we don't have an organ to perceive that. Maybe they have a consciousness, but we don't even see that they have one because maybe we can't understand or perceive it. From a spiritual perspective: enlightened people tell you that everything is pure being, that all is one. So if you have a consciousness, even inanimated objects have consciousness. Now let's get to people. I don't understand if what you mean with "conscious people" is "people that grasp the meaning of reality, life and stuff" or "people that I perceive are separate from me and therefore, as I have a consciousness, they have one too". If you mean the former, I don't understand why if you are idealist you must assume that. However, all people are conscious but the majority of them has their consciousness dimmed, blurred, tarnished. That's because of how they grew up and how they live their life. If you mean the latter, I suggest watching Leo's video "Why Brains Do Not Exist", I'm not the most reliable person to explain it. But I'll try. I'll explain only the key points in my reasoning so that if you want to know why I say what I say you are more inclined to research that. So: Reality is everything you perceive. Perception happens inside the brain. You could say it is a thought. But "the brain" is also a thought. So it's the thought that's inside the brain, or it's the brain that's inside the thought? The same conclusion arises if you reflect upon the thought-mind relationship. Personal conclusion (also told by Leo in his videos and by some spiritual teachers): "You" as a personality/identity/being don't exist. Everything is just perception that is perceived. There is not "me" or "you" that perceives. So there's no distinction between "you" and "everybody else". So if you think you are conscious, everything is conscious. Everything. Even rocks, houses, trees, cars. You are all that exists. Actually there is no "you". There is only being that has different masks. This is a solipsist point of view I think, yet we still can say people are conscious.

@How to be wise Some questions to stimulate new reflections and ideas: How do you know inanimate objects aren't aware? Maybe they are a lot more aware than humans, but we don't have an organ to perceive that. Maybe they have a consciousness, but we don't even see that they have one because maybe we can't understand or perceive it. For example, there are animals that communicate through body language, and the same species of animals understand each other. What if maybe rocks and crystals communicate with what we perceive as the reflection of what we call light, and we are too "short-sighted" to understand that? From a spiritual perspective: enlightened people tell you that everything is pure being, that all is one. So if you have a consciousness, even inanimated objects have consciousness. Now let's get to people. I don't understand if what you mean with "conscious people" is "people that grasp the meaning of reality, life and stuff" or "people that I perceive are separate from me and therefore, as I have a consciousness, they have one too". If you mean the former, I don't understand why if you are idealist you must assume that. However, all people are conscious but the majority of them has their consciousness dimmed, blurred, tarnished. That's because of how they grew up and how they live their life. If you mean the latter, I suggest watching Leo's video "Why Brains Do Not Exist", I'm not the most reliable person to explain it. But I'll try. I'll explain only the key points in my reasoning so that if you want to know why I say what I say you are more inclined to research that. So: Reality is everything you perceive. Do you perceive something that doesn't exists? For example do you see, or hear, or taste, or touch, or smell a phoenix? No. You could say "But I can think of it!" But it's not a direct experience of reality, in fact most people don't think that phoenixes are real. Then, your sensorial organs are linked to your brain through nerves. Materialistically, when you perceive something the nerves produce chemical reactions and electric impulses that arrive to the brain. And it's the brain that processes the information and puts them together to produce reality (think about the fact that our eyes perceive light upside down, but our brains fix our perception, otherwise we would see upside down). So we could say that perception is a thought. But where does the thought takes place? In the brain, you could say. But when you say "in the brain" you think of a brain, you think of a squishy thing. But then: It's your thought that's in the brain? But then, the brain is a thought... How do you "solve" this paradox/misconception/fallacy? You could say that thoughts take place in the mind, and the mind is in your brain (even if how mind and brain relate is difficult to explain, but let's put this aside). But again, "the mind" is also a thought. So the mind is inside of itself? How do you manage to solve this? You can't if you still follow materialistic conceptions and ideas. Let's ask ourselves some questions: "If I'm not my body, because the body is a perception/thought, and I'm not my thoughts because I'm not a thought (be careful of this second assumption: thoughts arise and fade away, so you might think you are not a thought. But you could think that maybe the "me" you think you are is the longest thought ever. Examine in depth that if you want), what am I? Do I not exist? But... but... I exist, I perceive this thing called reality!" Well, examine in depth this too. Now the link with people: when you apply this whole process to you and also to the people, thinking that other people could do this reasoning, you can come to the conclusion that everything is just a perception that is perceived (I haven't written who of what does the action of perceiving for a reason). But let's make some steps back. We said at the beginning that your reality is in your mind . Then other people are in your mind. So their consciousness is a thought in your mind. But other people could make the same reasoning and say that you are a thought in their mind! The solution? Based on my experience and what I've learned (so don't take it for absolutely true), if reality is just perception that is perceived, there is not "me" or "you" that perceives. Everything is just perception. So you literally are other people, and even objects. And if you think you are conscious, then other people are conscious, because it's all one giant magical stuff. There is no "you vs. reality" or "you vs. other people" or "you vs. your thoughts". You don't exist. I'm not sure if I explained it well enough, and if it's the answer you were looking for.

Hi everybody! It's been a while since I've started my journey towards growth and actualization. I watch videos (Leo's ones and other videos on YouTube), I read self-help books, I read topics in this forums, I read articles and blogs, I listen to podcasts, I try to change my behaviour and the way my brain in programmed, I try to change my habits, I started to heal with shadow work, and many more. However, now I'm starting to run into tons of information, and I don't know how to manage them. In a video, Leo suggested taking notes and spending a lot of time searching for information in order to find the most suitable ones for oneself. But now I have a lot of scattered notes, and too much information to handle. Everytime I read a topic here, in the forum, I see lots of valuable details, sentences, but I can't keep up with every one of them. I also can't keep up with all the videos I watch, all the powerful sentences in a book, ecc. I thought about making a mind map on paper for each argument, but it requires too much time and it will be hard and maybe useless. I'd like to avoid having to read again a book because I forgot something, or watch again a video of 2 hours because I was a little distracted and missed a key point. I also often run into information I already acquired, but I can't know it before reading/listening to/watching something. And I'm also a bit concerned about losing what I learned during this journey. In the end what really matters is practice. But how can I practice in an powerful way if I can't put all information together? So, how do you manage your personal growth? How do you organize all your knowledge? How do you approach new information? What do you focus first? How do you manage not to be overwhelmed? Thank you!

In the end what y'all have told me is basically to get my *** off the chair and practice ahahahah. Thank you everybody, I needed that kick in the *** to start doing instead of continuing to ponder. All your advice are valuable. @aurum @Leo Gura I've watched Leo's video about the Commonplace Book. It's very helpful, it can boost hundreds of times learning and productivity. I didn't knew OneNote was so powerful! So grateful to have watched that video!

@Serotoninluv Thanks! You could say "I'm All" (warning, enlightenment-related horrible pun).

@Nahm Yes, I agree, but I didn't mean to go spiritual :D, but thank you. As latins said: "repetita iuvant", literally "The things (that are) repeated are useful". Interesting A powerful quote, thank you @aurum I've just seen the video on his channel, guess I'll watch it. Thank you @Andreas Yes, totally agree. In fact now I'm in the process of shifting from absorbing to actually doing and I'm aware the ego tends to keep me in my comfort zone, thank you

Hi! I gained self esteem and confidence thanks to what happened in my life and how I overcame my obstacles. And this is personal, this is my perspective. However, I learned that confidence and self esteem are not actually "skills" (like being able to speak fluently a language), but they are a reflection of how you see yourself. You can "obtain" them by changing how you see yourself and taking control of your life and your needs. Also realizing that your life is only yours, and that only you have the possibility to be happy and make your life a masterpiece could help. But you don't just need to think "Okay, my life is mine. I get it", you have to realize it, that means to understand to a deep deep level the consequences of it. That realization will shake how you see your life, your problems, your attitude, basically yourself. If you want pragmatic and practical advice, you can find powerful techniques on the internet or reading books related to self esteem. You can also search for them on the forum, on Actualized videos or on YouTube. But I think everything that promotes positivity in your life is fine. Some techniques/advice are: Making a list of things you have accomplished in your life. Making a list of your talents and gifts, and your strenghts and abilities. Making affirmations that inspire positivity. These affirmations are to be made in present tense, in a simple and brief way, and in first person. Affirmations however can be harmful or useless if you don't believe them. When you decide to affirm something, use affirmations that drive you emotionally, and don't use the ones that make you feel the lack of what you are affirmating. For example, if you want to say "I believe all people are good" or "I love living my life" or "I feel happy no matter what" but they make you feel they are false, this could mean that they are too different from your perspective of reality, and therefore they could make you upset because you want to believe them but you can't. So use affirmations that have a positive emotion behind, so that the emotion will boost your sense of confidence. Changing the way you use words. Positive words can change how you see a problem and therefore solve it, thus you gain confidence. Asking yourself useful questions: "What can I learn from this?", "What can I change?", "What can I do to improve this situation?", "How this situation can make me happy?". Finding your core beliefs and follow them. Developing more empowering beliefs. Visualizing the life that you want, the personality that you want, the job that you want, and remember that you have two possibilities: you can try to pursue what you want, and you can quit. If you quit you never know how things can go. Maybe trying can make things go bad. But if they go spectacular? And moreover, no one will take you step by step to the life you want. You are the only one that can improve your life. Nobody will do the work you have to do. In fact people will actually use you to make their life better. Be aware of that. Starting healing, shadow work and other forms of healing. Maybe the fact that you feel you need more confidence has a root cause in a event or situation in the past, when you were a child. Furthermore, healing your wounds can make you feel in control of your life and more complete. There are some techniques explained in some books: "The Work" by Katie Byron, "The Completion Process" by Teal Swan, and others. Starting to change your habits if you want a better life. They can improve your quality of life both in the short term and in the long term, and they make you feel in control of your life. But you have to want it. I personally meditate 5 minutes per day, exercise every morning, drink a glass of water after I wake up to rehydrate my body and read 15 pages of a Self-Help book a day. WITHOUT EXCUSES. If you start to think "Well, if I skip a day/time/week, what 's wrong with that?", this leads to losing that habit. You have to kill excuses or excuses will kill you. And start with changing only two or three habits, otherwise you will be overwhelmed and decide to not do them again. Changing your diet. Vegetables and fruits are a good start. Doing what you love to do, when you want to do it (but do it intelligently, don't screw up your job because "you have to play the guitar" :D). Scheduling your chores/appointments/duties/daily activities/tasks. Improving your relationship skills: find how to relate better with your family, your friends, your partner. Everybody has his/her own way to do it. Keeping learning. This makes you feel more in control and you can learn new ways to improve. Meditating and doing self-inquiry work: they make you question some stuff and build new and more solid ideas. However they can also lead to confusion. So better focus on them when you feel ready. Also they require time to have significant impact on your life. Being aware that you could slide back (ego backslash), but don't worry, that's part of the process. Spreading love in the world, helping others, doing volunteering, ecc. Following your emotions, don't suppress them and don't ignore them, they are there for a reason. If you have struggles with emotions, find out how to solve them (healing, shadow work and meditation can help). Finding your life purpose (I haven't succeded in doing it yet). A question you could ask is "If I had all the money I wanted, what would I still do?" or "What would I do even if I never got paid to do it?". There are many other practical advice, but I don't remember all of them, and I don't have all the answers.

@Andreas Thank you, that idea roamed my mind for some time but I wasn't sure if it was right. Any other practical advice?

@Outer So basically you're saying that too much information isn't a problem if I'm able to distinguish useful from useless?

Mhm I think I got it now, thank you everybody! However, feel free to continue discussing this topic if you want!