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No. Meditation is a habit that you'll probably be doing for years. One day won't matter much in the gram scheme. That being said, there's something to be said for momentum. I've found that if I rationalize not meditating one day, you'll tend to miss more. And then the next thing you know, it's been weeks or even months and you haven't done any meditation. So just keep that in mind.

There definitely can be information overload. But depending on the circumstances, I wouldn't say it should cause anxiety by itself. Maybe just a headache

You do not need to abandon your whole life to pursue enlightenment. However, I have found that people tend to "unplug" from everything at a certain points in their journey. The solitude seems necessary so that you're able to disconnect other people's opinions and really contemplate. If you don't feel the desire to firebomb your life and do nothing but meditate and pursue enlightenment, don't. You're not going to be able to force yourself into it. If the time comes when that's necessary, you'll know.

Focus is just the label we give to concentration of the mind. You can increase your ability to focus. I'd suggest reading a book called Focus by Daniel Goleman and maybe The Shallows by Nicholas Carr. But I really wonder how much of people's inability to focus is because they have some sort of "problem" that needs to be fixed and how much of it is that they're doing things that they have no motivation to be doing.

Man, I should have written a book! That sounds awesome though. I'd love to check it out.

The rational answer as @Neo pointed out is that your brain loves patterns. Once you've got some sort of belief, it will block out counter evidence and focus on what confirms the already established belief. That being said, Enlightened people will often talk about navigating the world through flow and recognizing patterns. They do this because they've surrendered "personal will" and instead are just moving where life seems to be taking them. When you do this, in the end, things tend to work out with perfection.

This might be a male-biased opinion, but I've found that breakups can be incredibly powerful in terms of personal growth. If it's really bad, basically your entire life goes up in flames. And from that wreckage you're forced to come back a more highly evolved person, capable of doing things you never would have done before. Usually it can take at least a couple of months, if not years though that you can look back and go "oh wow, I'm so glad that happened. What was I thinking doing X / being with Y kind of person?" And then everything is alright again. What kind of advice did this book give?

I look at compassion as a possible byproduct of Enlightenment. If you say "I want to be a more compassionate person, so let ME become Enlightened", you're still coming at it from an egoic perspective. Enlightenment is Truth Realization. Everything else is speculation.

@Frogfucius @Progress Let me see if I can reconcile these two pieces of advice. @Frogfucius is right. You want awareness over you actions and your thoughts, and eventually that will lead to a dissolving of your behavior patterns. But @Progress is right as well. You need to take external action as well. Call me ant-spiritual, but I don't believe sitting in a room and meditating is going to cure you of your shyness. It's just not a practical. Rather, you should go out and socialize. You should go and put yourself in uncomfortable situations. But do it consciously. Observe yourself while you're doing this. When do you start to feel the shyness come on? What thoughts are going through your head? What are the consequences of these actions? You don't need to beat yourself up or hate yourself to do this. You just need motivation and an understanding of why you're doing it. I also agree that self-acceptance exercises and meditation AS A SUPPLEMENT can be immensely valuable. But no, I don't buy that it's the only thing that's necessary.

From the video, it sounds like you didn't "break through". Leo said lower doses will often only cause panic attacks. I'm not looking down on you. I've had an awakening experience and resisted it the whole way as well. But I still really want to try this drug to see how it compares and if I can deepen my own understanding.

Amazing thread congratulations man!

Fair enough. I misunderstood the question. But this can be answered too. The fact that someone is Enlightened does not necessarily mean they are going to teach the same way as another Enlightened being. Once you get into studying "enlightenment techniques", we're back into the world of dualistic thinking. And so we're going to have these kinds of problems because everyone has their own perspective just like anything else. When Leo says, "enlightenment is random", he doesn't literally mean that there isn't a process people usually go through. There is no such thing as random, only our limited capacity to understand cause and effect. So techniques of course can play an important role.

I have no idea if I've ever gotten to ego = 0 but I've definitely had some intense experiences. For instance, I can remember the first time I got REALLY PRESENT after doing meditation for awhile. It was like the first time I'd ever actually been happy. I walked around for like 2 hours in this blissed out state, really crazy. Because ego can only survive in mental fairy tale land, presence is like a reduction in ego. You're not really "thinking", you're kind of just aware. And so you experience what IS when you don't place labels or judgments or any kind.

It's because what is trying to be communicated can't inherently be done through words. Imagine that you were trying to describe the sun to someone who had been in doors their entire life. So enlightened people have to resort to analogies, metaphors and incomplete statements of knowledge in order to get you going down the right path. But eventually, the hope is you say "fuck all that" and you experience it FOR YOURSELF. If you honestly break down most non-duality books, it's all the same shit at the core. The perceived contradictions come from the LIMITS OF HUMAN RATIONALITY, not the message itself.

You've missed the nuance of what Leo has been talking about since the beginning of his Enlightenment series then. It's not as simple as "Leo takes substance, Leo becomes God". No. I'd suggest re-watching his Enlightenment series from the start and then reading some books about non-duality. Here is the first video to get you started: Good luck!

If you want to succeed in grasping enlightenment theory, you're going to have to understand some very nuanced and subtle truths. Read between the lines. What are both Eckhart and Leo word's pointing at? Keep learning, everyone is saying the same thing.

Emotions are good, it means you're not just theorizing. I describe this part of my journey as my "boiling phase". Once it's over, things will be very different.

Of course they're not required for Enlightenment. There is no hard and fast rules or requirements in this game. That being said, let's not be naive enough to assume that a relationship automatically puts you farther away from enlightenment either. If God is waking up in you, it can use anything. Universal intelligence is incredible.

I'd read Crush it! by Gary Vaynerchuck for a great intro on these kind of questions. Essentially, you need to find a passion (sounds like for you programming and math) and run with that. Don't worry about getting the overall specifics right, those things will tend to work themselves out as long as you just keep hammering away at whatever drives you deep down. But generally, you want to start some sort of blog, product and community similar to how Leo did here at Actualized.org and then just keep making it better. Don't be afraid to change when necessary, but also don't think that just because it's been a year and you're not a millionaire that you'll a failure. That's simply not true, these things take time, and they take more time than most people would admit. That's where the passion comes in. You've got to love what you're doing to push through the times when it seems pointless.

I've found life purpose and enlightenment very complimentary. How can you really know what you want to do with your life when you're still asleep?

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One distinction you have to make with science is the difference between USEFUL and TRUTH. Evolution as a model is extremely ACCURATE. It can model reality in such a way that we can navigate with extreme efficiency. Same thing with mathematics, physics and all the other sciences. They've been shown over and over that their model is USEFUL. But is it actually TRUE? Is there really such a thing as the number "2"? Or is the number "2" something the human mind has invented, and because it's so USEFUL and ingrained in our everyday life that people have forgotten that there's no such thing?

The best method is one that works for you. Experiment, find something you like, and then hammer it like it's life or death.

Pickup was great for me while I was into it. Currently in a relationship with a girl I would never have "gotten" before pickup. In fact, we met when I was doing Game with a wing one night at a bar. It inspired to take up self-development because of the whole idea that attraction is not what you do, but who you are. I figured if this is what I needed to do to get laid, fine. I never would have done that otherwise, and holy shit what a mistake that would have been. I shudder to think how my life would have turned out if I hadn't found self-dev. So follow your intuition. I know people here are generally against pickup because it seems egotistical / manipulative, but that's not how I see it. If you understand spirituality, than you understand that anything can be a spiritual practice, even picking up girls. It depends how you go about it.

Do you actually have a passion for personal training itself, or do you just love working out? Those are two very different things. The best advice I can give you is be creative. You're going to have to be strategic and manufacture this ideal dream setup. And it's going to take time. For instance, I love to read, write and meditate. Okay, how can I monetize these habits? By starting a book review blog and a youtube channel for meditation. People will pay me to do book reviews for them. That was my solution. Your solution might look very different depending on your situation. How can you incorporate all these things you love into your life? Keep in mind not everything you do has to be your career.