Itsokimok

I'm looking for ready to eat filling snacks I can find at grocery stores. This is surprisingly hard. They don't need to be super healthy as I'm not that clean yet. I already eat a lot of nuts, fruit and rice crackers but I still find myself getting hungry between meals.

I love Leo's style of communication. I like a good spanking. It's very effective. And I like that he doesn't give a shit when people criticize him. It's inspiring for thin-skinned folks like myself that are trying to learn to speak their truth and develop autonomy.

Which type of meditation is more likely to lead to an awakening? Taking the breath as an object or focusing your awareness on awareness itself?

This is mind-bending for me as I'm a newbie. Contrary to what I normally think/believe (that I was born), I felt during this exercise that I exist but it doesn't necessarily mean I was born. That's honestly what was implied by my parents and other people. They were talking about how we're all born, so I assumed that's what happened. What really happened if I'm being truthful, something suddenly arose out of nothing. All of a sudden there was a variety of feelings, thoughts, sensations, sounds, time, space, other people and a body that I called "my body" because those people said that's what it was. They taught me many more ideas on top of that as life went on (or as somethingness continued to exist). I started conceptualizing and talking like them in no time, building my own ideas about who we are and what's happening. But these are ideas and are somethings that I'm aware of just like sensations and sounds. Other people are also somethings that I'm conscious of. Before I was "born", there was nothing. Then I became conscious of a 5 year old "human" child's body and mind and other human children and adults around along with non-human animals and plants etc. a bunch of objects or somethings. What was there before there was something? It really felt like nothing. But Leo says I was there when there was nothing and will be there forever...but I don't being there. I only remember being there when something appeared as my body and mind and the world... I'm confused lol

I'm scared of non-duality. Remember that episode (The Radical Implications of Oneness) where Leo talks about how you will know what it's like to be all other people in all other situations and animals? People and animals that appear other than you in your current life, at one point, you will be them. It's totally terrifying! I can't even comprehend the magnitude and terror of that. This is extremely threatening because I feel like if it's true, I'm basically screwed and not even dying at the end of my life isn't going to do shit because I'll just be born again and who knows who or what I'll be and what a terrible existence I could live. I could be born in the Middle Ages during The Plague for fuck's sake or become a pig in a slaughterhouse. It's like existence is inescapable. Is there a way to stop being born again? Is enlightenment the answer? Nirvana in Buddhism? Exiting Samsara altogether? But my motivation is not positive. My motivation is that of a terrified human who feels trapped. Not a great motivation for awakening. This is why I sometimes wish the materialist paradigm were true because at least that way I'll never be alive again to worry about the terror of infinity after this life is over. Btw, I don't know what I believe. I'm trying not to believe things without direct experience. Like many of you, I want to have an awakening experience. but with my fear, I suspect it won't be a pretty experience.

I had a dream the other night that made me wonder if the people I saw in that dream, which were really just representations of my thoughts and feelings, ever wake up to their true nature just like I could wake up to my true nature in this life and realize I'm not a separate entity or even a human being? The people I saw in that particular dream represented a particular group of people I often come across in waking life that I have certain thoughts and feelings about. The characters in my dream weren't separate entities in their own right, just mental projections representing certain feelings and thoughts I have about a certain group of people. But they seemed to be acting like they were separate from me, my mind. They didn't seem to know that they were just in my mind, briefly manifesting while my body slept in bed. Could they ever wake up to their true nature?

Good point man!

I've new to self-inquiry and feel frustrated. I ask What am I? Immediately get a sense of the body and I say, not that and what am I? The body is too close to me and dominates my experience. I keep getting the body and the head. I know that I'm aware and trying to focus my awareness on awareness and it's so slippery. When I try to focus, I'm also using words and saying "I'm aware of being aware. I'm not the body. I'm not the pain in the arm. I'm not the feeling of anxiety in the chest. I'm not a mental image of the face. Awareness is aware. I'm aware of awareness. I'm aware of the knower of these words spoken etc. etc." But these are words. I'm saying these words to myself as I do this. Aren't words coming from the mind? So am I doing this right or wrong? Also am I supposed to keep my eyes open during this?

Thanks guys!

I'm off work for a month and a half and wanted to make use of the rare opportunity by doing a retreat at home. I want to do meditation, Neti Neti and self-inquiry for 2 weeks. I can sit for a long time but have never done something this intense. Should I do half days or shoot for full days for the whole 2 weeks? Also should I stick with one method for one day and another one the next day or do all of them each day? Thanks!

So far I understand (at least conceptually) that all I know of life is experience and all I know of experience is the knowing and that being/awareness is prior to any objective experience. The knowing that knows sadness is the same knowing that knows joy or an itch on the hand or a thought about spirituality or the need to pee really bad. I realize my whole life has been experience, awareness, perception, knowing, being. What else do I know other than this? Even my sense of "I", the self is an experience, knowing, perception...This gives me a slight feeling of fear and freakiness. But nothing radical and destabilizing. Oh and also am-ness and is-ness feel the same. Sometimes I feel like saying, "Is!" "Am!" "Being!" "Now!" "Aware!" when I focus on the fact that I'm aware and experiencing the world. But I don't see how that leads to enlightenment yet... I also get that I can't insist that my 'I' is in my heart or head. I can see how I would assume it's in those places just because the most engrossing perceptual modes are located in the upper part of the body (seeing with the eyes, thinking in the head, talking with the mouth, expressing emotions with the face, feeling in the chest etc.) But that doesn't mean 'I' am actually there. So where am 'I'?? I don't know... So this is as far as I've gotten. Any books and teachers to recommend for a newbie like me? I would love to get some more traction with this! Thank you

It looks like a penis! I looked up pictures of it lol

Thanks! Are different teachers really pointing to the same thing ultimately even though there are variations and disagreements among their teachings?

Ok so there is What Is/Reality, which includes everything including this experience of being a separate, conscious individual. So there is What Is, which is infinite and so therefore it includes the experience of awareness and separate individuals ? According to Rupert, you can get become conscious of infinity by directing your awareness to its source away from the contents of awareness and see that it's infinite awareness. But for Jim, there is no awareness. There is just What Is. Do you know how Jim got enlightened? I'm confused as to how he arrived at this conclusion of What Is.

I'll have to check it out. I've done LSD but not a high enough dose to have any such experiences

@VeganAwake Jim Newman's approach sounds really different from, say, that of Rupert Spira. In another video, I heard him say that What Is doesn't need awareness or consciousness to be whereas Rupert says awareness is the only reality there is. Also do you know what Jim means about the "individual" being an "experience" that hides What Is? Why is there this experience?

@Nahm Ah! I've read the Power of Now already. Didn't know about Stillness Speaks! I found it. Thanks man

@PopoyeSailor Cool, thanks!

@Eminate Yeah I started studying him this week!

@CosmicTrekker Good point man!! I'll keep that in mind big time. Intuition is huge. I actually normally don't mess with enlightenment as I focus more on self-improvement, but my intuition told me now is the time to get more serious about awakening. I decided to listen to it urging.

Thank you so much guys!!!

I'm not very good at that actually, just not a priority at the moment but have watched Leo's videos and blog posts on political matters to get somewhat familiar.

I stopped watching TV many years ago and never read newspapers or articles. I've missed some things but nothing important. The most important things you hear about anyway without consuming news.

That's really interesting man!

@PopoyeSailor That dream-like state of seeing things based on your waking state life freaks me out too. Sounds like Bardo in Buddhism where you have either pleasant or unpleasant hallucinations for some time after your body dies. I'm sure I'll see a lot of my fears materialize in those hallucinations I bet. I have quite a few fears and even phobias. Something I haven't quite articulated yet is that I feel existence is scary and all consuming because imposes itself on sentient beings. It's fascinating and terrifying how you have to go through all this. All this shit in your waking life, then you go through some possibly terrifying hallucinations and get reborn to go through a similar cycle unless you're enlightened.