Someone here

What views!?. Also don't pretend like you care about more than 5 feets around you.

Why worry about such shit? Rest assured it ain't gonna happen in your lifetime or even your children's children lifetime. For all I can see we are advancing exponentially like crazy. Nothing suggests any sudden inflection. Unless this covid thing is going to annihilate half the population or some similar Hollywood type of scenario.

@Moksha oh boy we got another Absolutist here lol

You don't choose shit. Entire reality is just happening. You are being lived.

I meditate every day for half an hour at least. It was such a leap to expect that I could do a week long continues meditation. I guess you are right. I should do it gradually. Start with one day. And each try aiming for a longer period of time.

As obvious as that might sound.. It's life changing if you fully get this. This is not to be confused with solipsism or anti-realism. I realized this directly after hours of continues contemplating and observation. Actual reality only comes to you through direct experience. An image is real but it is not the thing that it represents. Looking at your hand and thinking about your hand are two different things. One is sense.. one is image. What we gotta get clear about is what is real and what is belief. If you close your eyelids.. your house disappears from your senses right? But you still believe the house exists. But see.. your belief at that point is a concept.. not sensed ..right? That's what it means that your house disappears when you are not conscious of it . Technically what disappeared is your visuals of the house. Your belief that the house is more than that is not in the house but in your head. And those beliefs may persist when you close your eyes.. but your reality of the house.. The visuals have vanished. See the difference here? What I'm trying to show to you is how much of your reality is actually conceptual instead of literal. When you become more mindful of this.. You can start to see that many beliefs you have about what is real and true are in fact false beliefs. Your visual of your house is not your concept of your house. Often times we take the conceptual house and think that that is what is real. No.. technically what is real is your thought as something sensed and the visuals of the house. The thought-story (the meaning of the thought sensed) is not real.. Yet that is what unenlightened people take to be most real. What is the significance of this? Well you can see how 99 %of your so called proplems.. Worries.. Fears.. Are not real?

Well I did both meditation and contemplation. I didn't just want to be present. I wanted to tackle some existential inquiries. For that you need thought process. And what you realize is 100% of your thoughts are not your thoughts. They are programmed shit (voices) from your culture. So it's actually not possible to have a completely assumption-free contemplation. That would be just observing your experience like a new born. Which leads to.. the Truth is simply whatever you are experiencing right now..minus your thoughts about it.

I think you are right. Although I wouldn't say I had a problem with food and stuff. Everything was perfect. The problem is I got extremely bored and agitated. I only allowed breaks for food and sleep etc. Maybe I should give more space for breaks. But I thought this way I'm going to have bigger results. Also I don't want to do it with a group of people. The isolation component is extremely important.

Exactly! The key insight.. is fear is always about "something bad might happen in the future". But where exactly is this "future"? Lol. The future is impossible even in theory! There can only ever be the present lol Genius Peter

@Javfly33 too late lol.

@nistake thanks mate. LOL I only lasted a day and a half. I'm bagging my Stuff and leaving. Couldn't take it any longer lmao. It's way harder than I thought. I remember Leo did a month before. Lol how did he do it? But definitely worth it. I feel much more conscious right now and less lost in monkey mind. Maybe I will give it another try in few weeks lol. The primary insight that I had is.. I see that the present is the only thing that exists. As obvious as that sounds.

What Leo told you. Actually eyes don't exist. It's a concept. Right now if you are 'looking' (that's the whole problem there is no perception going on) at this screen.. There are no eyes.. There is just the screen floating in nothingness.. You imagine eyes to explain away the visual field. As there must be something sourcing the visual field. But the eyes are not sourcing the visual field. The eyes ARE the visual field! And what you see in the mirror is not you btw.

@LastThursday LOL not sure if I'm gonna continue. Will see just taking 3-5 hours break from contemplation. you can't understand what I'm talking about from your current level of Consciousness. you are lost in conceptualizing. seeing is an appearance. Eyes are a different appearance The eyes don't see. You have no experience of the eyes seeing anything. They are distinctions happening within consciousness. The visual field is occurring exactly where is it occurring. It is not occurring in your eyes lmao . Or in your so called brain. It is occurring exactly where it is occurring. Just like the 'dream world' at night.. It appears as if the dream character's eyes are seeing the dream world. But actually it's consciousness who is appearing as eyes.. As sight.. As world.

I'm on my isolation retreat atm..I'm taking a three hours break to settle down otherwise I'm gonna have a mental breakdown lmao from the levels of consciousness I'm accessing.. Not sure if I'm gonna continue.. Will see. Amazing stuff I became conscious of. What the actual fuck lmao. @LastThursday the eye is not seeing... it is just 'eyeing'. It is the appearance of an eye. As one looks into someone's eyes.. one is looking at an image. Behind the image and within it are nothing. The image has no 'behind' or 'within'.. any more than the image in an 'apparent nightly dream' has a 'behind' or 'within'. There is no 'spark' or 'focal point' or 'bit' of consciousness in.. or associated with the image seen. One is wholly present. One is not divided into 'bits' or 'loci' or any other differentiators. Wtf.

@Adamq8 thanks. Mindfulness meditation. Just being present with whatever is present. Cutting any wandering into the past or future.. Or concepts.

@Ananta thank you Ananta. Appreciate your support

Yeah I remember... There was like thousands of such days.. The Romans were not screwing around.... But which one you mean?

It plays a role but notice that it's not inclusive. For example experiencing pain or discomfort can come on its own accord without any relationship to "desires" like getting sick or losing a loved ones. So then comes aversion to "bad" stuff. That also plays a role. And these are just only two factors. Suffering stands on its own. It's a thing in and of itself. It is it's own cause. It's not related entirely to your desires and aversions. If we slice your body into a half you gonna suffer no matter what.

@from chaos into self I am that I am. This is about as clear as it gets ?

It can't be said or defined. You can't encapsulate the infinite and explain it away with a bunch of words like "everything".. "nothing" .. "eternal".. "infinite". These are yet more attributes. The essence of God (being) itself is a total mystery (mystical) and it will remain like that. Forever. You underestimate that God is INFINITE. Sit down and contemplate what INFINITE means untill it breaks your mind. Infinity allows you to be God and not God simultaneously. This is not a contradiction. That's exactly right. You are God and not God at the same time.

@from chaos into self are you conscious of that or do you just Believe it?.. OP is being very honest that his experience as a human that is vulnerable to suffering is not quite God-like. If God is imagining himself to be a human.. That means right now you are not God. You are just human. God has seperated himself from himself to experience what it's like to pray to himself but without knowing that he is praying to himself. Ultimately yes you are God. But most likely you are not conscious of that right now. Which is why you shouldn't parrot it.

It's a very foundational component of Leo's teachings. One cannot be following Leo's work without being radically open-minded. Also I found it's the key to successful contemplation and unlocking deep truths and insights. However I discovered there is a huge problem.. The mind is fundamentally afraid of being open.. The mind has a natural tendency to be closed off from radical ideas or new possibilities. Because being closed minded is what grounds your sense of reality. You look at the world through a specific lense and you assume a bunch of things about the world that are basically unquestionable. You do this to survive. You can't survive if you assume that you know nothing and you're equally open to any information. As soon as you start entertaining new ideas and open your mind to change your entire worldview.. You start to feel like you are losing a part of what grounds your reality. This can be noticed for example with religious people who are so attached to their beliefs.. and then they discover that religion is just bullshit and there is no sky daddy up there taking care of you.. Yeah that might send them to an existential crisis. My question is what is the limit of open mindedness? Can one be open minded to literally anything? Is that how you reach truth? But what you notice is if you are Infinitely open minded.. You will just end up knowing nothing and not able to know a thing. There must be a balance. But where do we draw the line? Can you open your mind to the following possibilities : 1 that you have no brain or any internal organs. Literally. After all have you ever seen them? 2 that you are the only conscious being in the entire universe and everyone else are just figments of your mind. 3 that Leo is an alien not a human. 4 that your mom got born out of a chicken.(that's an example from Leo's open-mindedness video lol). 5 that the world ceases to exist as soon you stop looking and gets rendered once again when you look again . Like a video game. 5that the flying spaghetti monster is real. He created this world. And he will punish you if you don't worship him in this life. 6 that the entire world that you can see through the media is not real. 7 that their might be a space Kangaroo standing behind you your entire life but you couldn't see him cuz he turns with you . Can you honestly open your mind and entertain such ideas? Notice the emotional reaction against some of these ideas. and notice that you can't actually disprove any of them with 100% certainty. You can't open your mind to these possibilities not because they are false(you don't know that) or because they are stupid lol.. But because they will threaten your sense of reality and everything you thought you know about the world might get thrown out the window. It's like you have to be close minded to survive . What would happen if you become infinitely open minded?

@Muhammad Jawad If God is the substance of everything.. How can he not be a victim of suffering? I don't like this approach. Don't Anthropomorphise God and then ask questions about it as if "he" is a human that should have a "why" for what "he" does. What is GOD? You underestimate the significance of this question.

Haha wise empty talk as always lol ?

@BlackMaze I'm reading the book. Very powerful stuff. @Natashaeye-opening stuff. Motivation by fear of the consequences seems to work with me. @AnantaI agree. Cold turkey is the way to go. And that's my plan. Almost a week clean. Will keep going.