The Professor

thank you for the kind words... sounds like your a truth seeker... what else can we do but face ourselves...

Live a balanced life. Exercise, Sleep and pursue your interests.

It is important to actually do the work rather than talk about it. Once one does the work however the social component is also important so one can get feedback and progress further than if alone. I guess fruitful online discussion would be ideal.... We definitely live in a "screen generation" though... Most people are either watching TV, using their computers at work, checking their cell phone, etc.. basically all looking at some screen. I think it is important to take time away from these things and just meditate for short periods of time until one can do longer periods. The problem is most people have a very short attention span and can't sit with themselves and their thoughts. This is probably why they call it personal development "work". It takes persistence and constant proactive effort to maintain a meditation discipline. Much easier to slide back into Neurosis.

I agree with your point both types of meditation are beneficial. Also you can definitely buy or possibly make a flotation tank if you are handy enough. One needs to really account for the space and there are many more concerns with upkeep than one might first assume. One has to keep the water sterile and heated etc... I would recommend just going to a "float lab", where you can pay to float. They are common nowadays but I also commend anyone who has the means, space and money to make and maintain their own.

I think its important to consider that Leo is inviting us to actually meditate for long periods of time more than he is asking us to believe in a certain concept or idealogy.

For a long time I have been thinking it would be cool to have an Earth Moment where everyone meditated at the same time on a specific day. It would be kind of like a collective moment of silence. Not everyone is in to meditation however and since people come from different religious and spiritual backgrounds its important to keep it as secular as possible. Even the word 'meditation' might dissuade some people so maybe something along the lines of a "Global Silence Movement" or "Global Silence Minute". The idea would be for us to pick a day and time and for everyone to sit in silence for one minute. No cell phones, and no music or TV in the background would be encouraged. What you guys think? This is basically a "Do Nothing" meditation yet collectively encouraged.

I think if extra terrestrials exist we most likely won't be able to interface with them. Its a communication problem. Sort of like how we can live right next to ants and hummingbirds but yet we don't communicate with them. If aliens exist they most likely will have developed their civilization a few years before or after us. (few years here.. being thousands, millions, or billions of yrs).... Either way, this time lag in development will mean that they will not be able to interface with us or us with them. From another viewpoint... the whole idea of Aliens or "us" and "them" is from an egoist perspective where reality is this world that the 'body' inhabits and walks around in. A world were it might encounter other bodies or aliens in this case.... Most likely the Truth is that the world is non-dual and there is no real difference between our body and the field of experience around it. The boundary being an artificial creation. If this were the case then we actually are the aliens and they are us....

Sensory deprivation tanks are great places to learn how to let go. Rather than seeing them as vehicles to other altered states one can see them as useful chambers to meditate in. When your in there its pretty much completely dark and your normal tendency to latch your attention onto something visual or physical as a distraction fails so one has to really accept ones mental state. Great place to do Leo's "Do nothing" meditation or "Strong Determination Sitting" in this case "Strong Determination Floating"...