Azrael

@dice I'm in a similar situation, however I deal with logic, mathematics, proofing theorems and all that stuff in my day to day life on the one hand and being on a spiritual journey on the other. I see it this way, you have to engage in some activity either way and so use everything you do to see the actual nature of reality and get really fascinated with all that is around you and all the lectures you do, it's probably very interesting work. But see that it is just play, the stuff you do. Some form, some nice concepts that are really interesting and maybe share some really good views on your topics, but that's it. It's not the truth, it's some little part of it, as everything else. Enjoy!

I'd agree with @Leo Gura here. I have the most success with do nothing because I tend to have so much compulsive thought that this is the best technique to develop the mechanism that it shuts up for itself. If I go with a mindful meditation I'll have a much harder time staying on track. Self-Inquiry for me also works very good. Try 'em and choose your favourite ones. I also contemplate death ones a weak as a self-inquiry. That's real powerful.

What helps me with that a lot is that I actually let my thoughts do that. I just completely let them interfere as they want and just see it play. Because every decision in the end is intuitive if you look very deeply. It's just that you are so damn good at constructing thoughts about thoughts about .. that one just gets completely messed up. And when you let this be, it seems to just go away at times and you see intuition at its work.

I also find myself thinking about these more esoteric kind of things from time to time. What got me really interested are the similarities in near-death experiences - there's good and interesting research on this topic. For example, how do you want to rationalize that a blind person who never saw in her life seems do die in a hospital, flows over her body - comes back and tells the doctor that he lost his pen when he was helping her not to die? Also, when I read about going in past lives through hypnotherapy I was very sceptical. However, how are you going to explain that people start talking in other languages perfectly - they don't know anything about in their current live - and naming historical details about times that are ridiculous and than afterwards were verified. I found there is a lot of bullshit conceptualization in these esoteric topics. However, I think that there is a lot more than I can sense with my few senses. Gravitational waves were just discovered a few weeks ago. There is probably a lot of shit we don't know about. Isn't that great?

I really explore this kind of view a couple of weeks now and it works pretty well. It's a good analogy to go about it. Thanks for your wisdom, man!

This seems very true to me. As I delve deeper into the journey, now spending my first year seeking, meditating, reading books and so on it seems to always swing from one direction into the other. I have weeks in which I kind of feel enlightened. I'm completely calm, completely relaxed, my body actually feels like it massages itself all day long, my thoughts don't bother me and I do my usual stuff with this deep fulfilling knowing that everything is right. Then I have other weeks in which I am completely attached to all that is being said in my head. I feel terribly anxious, lonely, scared, weird and I have so much compulsive thought going on that I think I'm mentally ill. And then I have the standard weeks where you have just some of both in it. I know that everything what I describe are just phases to go through but as @Pinocchio stated, it's hard at times. Anyone, that really wants to get involved in this really take it into account. I really think that for me it's the thing to do because I just want to find truth, not even peace or happiness, just truth. And I'll take the cost into account. And I have the time and resources to do that. But before delving into this journey, ask whether it is the time and place to do it. It's serious business at some point. And there is no going back. There are points of no-return where you have to decide to either be blinded or to see right through.

@Jan Odvarko I am familiar with your problem and also have it once in a while. For me it helps to keep my eyes open, so I don't have the illusion of sitting in-balanced what for me seems to come up in longer sits with eyes closed. However, if I want to close my eyes and I get the sense of being in-balanced I try to imagine that a string is connected to my neck and somebody is gently pulling it into the sky. What then happens is that I unconsciously balance my self a little bit and get a better feeling. Also I found that I think that I'm in-balanced way more often then I really am. It is just a side effect from longer sittings.

My favourite one that to this day got me the most insight is: "What is my next thought?" Maybe, a little bit counter-intuitive but I'll ask that question and then just notice what my brain does. I'm actually trying to discover the game of silence and thoughts and how these two play together. I had one of my most shocking sittings with that question in which I understood on a way deeper level what it means that Free Will doesn't exist. Try to catch the moment in which the next thought comes up and observe how you actually think about your next thought and trick yourself and then you're off to the races for another round of monkey mind.

@Abhijeeth I think you can see Leo's enlightenment journey a lot if you know and compare his newer videos to the older ones. The way he talks and what he talks about and in which duration shows a certain trend. And no, to this day I do not recall a video where he would have stated something like being enlightened. But I wait every week for the video to come.

Ultimately I'd agree there is no purpose because there doesn't need to be one, it's all just flowing, creating, dying or however one wants to conceptualize the real nature of it all. It always is just an incomplete mapping of it. However, this fact also implies that everything is the purpose of life and so everything you want to create, pursue or do is just fine. Just do it. A lot of spiritual seeking people get this wrong, I guess. They think now that they're seekers they have to stop eating spicy food, stop playing videos games, stop taking part in this fucked up society - -, stop loving their families and loved ones because it's all "man made" ego thinking. And yes it is. Leo made a whole episode about it. And it is useful to acknowledge that. But it is not different then seeking enlightenment. Because there is nobody to seek. There just is it. And I won't give it a name. So, you don't have to throw all your preferences and needs away and just meditate like a monk. Instead, take meditation into your whole life and do all of the things with the understanding of what they really are. Just another creation of it. And as nice or ugly, good or bad, right or wrong as everything else that it does.

That's an interesting question that Transpersonal psychology talks about. I just read a book about ego development "Michael Washburn - The Ego and the Dynamic Ground" and they think that you are not born enlightened. They think that there are basically three different stages of ego development: the pre-egoic, the egoic, and the trans-egoic phase. The transpersonal phase is I think what we call enlightenment and is different from the pre-egoic phase because you are way more developed. However, the pre-egoic and the trans-egoic phase are both closer to let's say "The Source" than the egoic phase. So, did we screw up? Well, in western society maybe a little bit. Because our system is built in a way where ego development kind of stops when you are in the egoic phase. So most people die developmentally when they are 30 years old and get buried when they a 80 years old. However, if I look at the Graves model, than actually this also is just a phase of society and if we don't blow ourselves up we will naturally go in the right direction.

@Emerald Wilkins I agree that OBE's are more of a sensory than a spiritual / enlightenment experience. However, when I started this just blew my mind. The real deep and spiritual experiences were either achieved through deep meditation, mostly random and not in any way controllable, after a long strong determination sit in which my mind completely surrendered or through ... the good stuff. SWIM became more and more interested in psychedelics and especially in high doses of LSD and DMT, because both have the potential to give you deep insights. So, after lots and lots of intellectual research SWIM did look experientially into this and had the longest and deepest spiritual experiences and has been able to re-create lots of them through meditation. SWIM always tried and tries to heavily target this experiences to get spiritual and scientifically analyses what is just sensory and how does actually your nature change / your view on reality changes. However, in SWIM's mind such a behaviour can only be useful if your a very careful, mentally strong and are willing to integrate these experiences through meditation or something similar. A lot of negative shit in the end will come up, that you have to deal with, in any route of administration. The later described here can overwhelm some mentally not so prepared people with that. So, SWIM recommends to always do your homework and don't do something that you read on a self-help forum with blind faith. Cheers

For me basically that means that to wake up I need to completely surrender to spontaneity. And you can't be spontaneous when trying to be it because that contradicts the actual state. I can really see beauty in this dilemma, because when I started to realize that a lot of pain of not seeing through the illusion right now just went away. I'm pretty okay with what is. When I meditate, I meditate. When I think about enlightenment, I do that. When I play my game, that's all right. I just do thing after thing after thing. Even when I resist, I let myself resist and try to really see the essence of resistance. Because all that you can do, is being spontaneous. And to see this I just start to live it every day and stop seeking. The rest comes when it is time to come. Took a good year of very intensive seeking and feeling unhappy of not being enlightened to begin to see that, however.

This feels for me to be one of the most accurate descriptions on how to meditate. @Ayla, thanks for your wisdom. You just made my evening.

"Do nothing" combined with "strong determination sitting" does the job for me. However I wouldn't recommend strong determination to a beginner. So depending on how long you meditate check Leo's videos about them and then try 'em. But keep in mind that there is no best meditation technique. There are just ones that work good for you or support you with a certain goal. For example if I'd want to just calm my mind to the extend where thoughts go completely I'd use a mantra meditation technique like in TM. This works perfect for this goal. However, if I want to explore reality and what is I go with doing nothing because I can get a pretty good sense of my self and my reality. Also, I test and change techniques very few months and play around with combinations. However, doing nothing + strong determination is my standard.

I had several spiritual experiences through meditation and other means. The first one was 2-3 weeks after I started the practice and resulted in an out of body experience for I guess 2-3 minutes. I was able to recreate a similar experience a week later that lasted I'd guess 30 seconds. I would just shoot out of my head and be completely dissolved in streams of colors. Though it was nice to experience and freaked the shit out of me, it wouldn't teach me much or last. A few months later I had several experiences of oneness in meditation in which I would completely merge with what is and had no questions / ambitions / nothing to seek any more. The sense of going in some direction to achieve something just went. I just was with what is and that was fine. It was also okay then to go back to the normal ego state - in which I'd sometimes laugh or cry because I had just felt the pureness of coming home. Through other routes of administration I could stay longer in this oneness or undertake near-death experiences that basically brought me to the realization that dying or "forgetting of the self" is okay and needs to be done and is completely natural. This always made me feel completely peaceful.

1) I have used different approaches to handle the saliva-problem. In the first months of practising meditation a lot came up and I just swallowed it from time to time. Then I found that you can get rid of most of it when putting your tongue a little bit between your teeth. This does the trick for me. If you do a strong determination sit and saliva comes up, try just to keep your lips together so that nothing gets out of your mouth. If this makes you feel uncomfortable, that's what the method is supposed to do. After doing it for some time you won't even think about it any more. However, if you can't hold it any more just swallow it. It won't crash the method. 2) Keep your back in this shitty position. You probably meditate in a cross-legged position for less then six month, I'd guess. What will happen after some time is that your back automatically will stay up, be very relaxed and at the same time very erect. However, this takes some practice. When you do strong determination, you do not want to move your back consciously in any way. You wanna transcend that pain and state of mind in liberation. If you do that for a long enough time and it hurts so bad that you're getting all crazy because your mind has no answers and your body is in pain, you will suddenly just drop the resistance and feel just fine in any position. However, for this state to come it'll take some pains. What'll also happen is that your understanding of pain will dramatically change.

Well, try to look at it this way: Just because every Happening is completely spontaneous and you don't have control about it because you don't exist doesn't have to mean that everything is bad. In fact, you can get up everyday, do your normal business and be just amazed by what life puts in front of you. Every time you get sad or something goes wrong just be astounded how authentic you play your game. And any one out there, your friends, family and the society - just look at them as the most talented actors you can find. Don't see them as doing something wrong by not pursuing satori or anything. Just be marvelled what the Happening creates at every moment. After some time you get to way more peaceful inner state with that kind of view. It is not the right way to see the things, just one way. But in my opinion a pretty nice one. I also was depressed for two weeks after the introductory video, but it took such a phase of depression to stick me to pursuit. Cheers to you, man!

Berlin, GE

It took a week until I noticed the first changes. What happened was that I stopped biting my fingernails w/o noticing. I did this for roughly 13-14 years without being able or even wanting to stop it. It just happened. However, I journalled and still journal about all these experiences and I look for very subtle changes. 2 months in I stopped smoking w/o consciously wanting it. I just got up one day and had the realization that I can't do this any more. And I smoked 15-20 strong cigarettes a day and loved every part of it. 3-4 months in I noticed my concentration and relaxation levels increase and that my level of neurosis lowers. From then on a lot deeper changes happened, I also increased the sitting time, took extra sittings in the evening and practiced very hard to get the shit out of my system (basically a lot of strong determination sitting). Don't worry if you can identify no changes until now. Just go on and they will come when they will. I was pretty fucked up when I started, so a lot got out very soon. Maybe you don't have as much shit in your system as I had, so it'll take some time. Just speculating here. Keep it up, man!

Wake up 20 minutes earlier and use that time for meditation. It is that easy. I wake up 60 minutes earlier because of that and every minute is worth it. Trust me. 3-5 months into the practice and you'll preach the same. Happy meditating ;-)

Hey, that's actually a great sign of progress. I can completely relate to what's happening to you. When you start off meditating this phenomenon of feeling shitty in the meditation or after it, having compulsive thought streams and any kind of negative emotional feelings might be a little counter-intuitive. Your subconscious actually starts to release all the bullshit and social conditioning that it was fed in your childhood days and even in today's society. It has to free itself and release that. So this is a very, very good sign that you are meditating probably. Just go with it and look for a climax of this. From my personal experience these negative sittings come in cycles and are ended with some very peaceful and sometimes even spiritual sits. So look out for that and enjoy the process. Cheers to you,

If you do not meditate every day, it has not sense whatsoever. Actually stop it, you waste your time. What you need is a vision for yourself. Sit down and close your eyes for 20 minutes and just visualize what your life can be like when you completely let go of your inner voice, every thought and every perception. When you get right down to the root of things. Try to imagine the peace of it and also try to see that you can have not even a remote idea of how beautiful it really is. And then think about this for some time and finally make the decision that you will meditate for the rest of your life. You will learn the "How To" on the way and just surrender to the mastery. In the beginning it's something you have to remind yourself to do. After some time it is the place that provides the deepest kind of pleasure and emotional energy that you could picture. Words really just can point to the phenomenon and never fit its integrity.

To learn the "Art of Sitting". This is something that no typical Westerner can even remotely grasp.

Can't agree more. If you can sit for 20-30 minutes you probably can have a good experience of calming your mind a little bit and getting more aware or relaxed. Sitting for 40-60 minutes pushes it a little more and you tend to experience other worries and pains and also sitting 40 minutes in pure pain or pure silence is very different from 20 minutes, believe me. Now, I'm doing 60 minutes every morning and I'm working on the 90-120 minutes strong determination sits on good evenings. If you get in that kind of territory, this is a whole other game. Just think about sitting for two hours without moving. Most people would go insane. I did 120 minutes and you go out of it as a changed man. Your brain will shut the fuck up after 120 minutes, trust me. And I'm thrilled to go even further. Go push it!