So well, I am not a firm believer of brainwave, I am quite skeptic, however I feel it's possible to link certain space and experience, sound with psychedelic experience
 
 
For example, whenever I revist the space when I was fully tripping on 5meodmt, I experience easier flash back
 
So, I wonder if it is possible to link 5meodmt experience with theta brainwave sound.
 
 
+ there is also certain frequencies that are vibrating on 5meomalt and 5meodmt, what brainwaves are they? 
 
 
 
I am gonna test it out soon, when I did I will update it

A poll based on "Life Unfolds in Chapters & Phases"
 

? Leo's Blog: Table of Contents ? ▶️ Blog Videos, Summaries & Interviews ▶️ ? Actualized.org on Psychedelics ?  (has all resources on psychedelics)  
Leo’s “20 Dream Killers” article. There’s an Actualized.org Textbook.  It was assembled by @Cepzeu and others.  Summaries that are in the Textbook (v2) will say: (book pg XXX). You can also check out Leo’s Personal Development Blueprint.  It covers over 100 concepts in personal development.  
      Actualized.org Youtube Episodes:
The first 200 episodes have transcripts in the video section of Actualized.org If you want to contribute to this thread, select one of the episodes that still needs a summary and post it here       Episodes:      1 - 249
      Episodes:  250 - 514

Sometimes it's a bit daunting to do spiritual work and the past few days I've been feeling the heat and wanting to get out of the kitchen. It's not easy or peaceful by any means. I'm sticking my leg in the door and I'm not still in as I would like to be, it really feels like an initiation and very overwhelming, I'm by no means a beginner yet there's an ocean and I have just dived. Can feel the initial shock. Will share some of my resources on this thread. 

I have always wondered if that could ever be explained in a satisfactory way. What I consider not a satisfactory explanation is "oh this is what the brain activity looks like when you see psychedelic visuals". Because that doesn't really tell you why you see what you see and not say pink elephants. But I also have no idea what a satisfactory explanation would look like.
 
 

Note: This document is a work-in-progress and will be improved and supplemented over time.
-----------------------
So you wanna become enlightened, eh?
Good!
That's where this journey starts.
A burning desire for TRUTH is essential to success in this. Don't let people confuse you with talk of how "desire is bad", "seeking is delusion". No! Seeking is essential to breakthrough. Don't burn your ship before you've crossed the ocean! That would be foolish.
Rather than filling your mind with beliefs and ideas about enlightenment, let me give you a bare-bones structure for how to actually make progress towards enlightenment.
There are at least 20 totally different ways that I know for how to get enlightened. What I'm going to share with you here is just ONE way out of dozens. It is however a very direct way. This method is highly effective. It may not work for everyone, but then again, no method works for everyone. I call this method self-observation or Leo's version of self-inquiry. "Self-inquiry" as classically taught by Ramana Maharishi is technically different.
Anyways...
First, let's be very clear what we're talking about when we speak of enlightenment.
So...
What this basically means is that YOU are deeply confused about who you think you are. Right now you think that you're a human being, sitting there, reading this text on your screen. This is false. Pure fantasy. You are in fact not that thing at all. What we have here is a case of mistaken identity. You think you're a body, but you're not. You think you're a mind, but you're not. You think you're an entity living inside your head, but you're not. You think you are a physical object but you are not!
Take a moment to seriously consider the magnitude of my claim. IF I happen to be right, and you happen to be wrong, then what that means is: you are NOT a human being, or even a physical object! Not metaphorically-speaking; not as some philosophical curiosity; but literally!
How could such an outrageous thing be possible??????
How could you be mistaken about what you actually are?????
Very easily actually!
Recall how you've met people in your life who you knew were indoctrinated from birth with silly religious beliefs about Jesus and all sorts of other nonsense. Recall how little children believe that Santa Claus exists because they don't know any better. Recall how terrorists believe they are killing civilians in the name of Allah and will go to heaven with 72 virgins waiting for them. Recall how racists insist they are right for persecuting minorities.
Well... here's something you're not gonna like hearing: that same delusion mechanism which existed in them, is operating FULL-FORCE within you right now! Yup! You too have been indoctrinated by ignorant parents and teachers from birth into believing a fairy-tale. Except in this case, the indoctrinated idea was: you are a human being.
What a mind fuck!
Now, in this work of "self-observation", you will discover -- for yourself -- what you REALLY are.
Important: I am not asking you to believe me. You will have to demonstrate empirically, for yourself, that what I say is accurate. You can be skeptical all you want here. It won't upset me.
"Okay" you say. "So what am I then if I'm not a human being or a physical object?"
Great question!
Sorry to tell you this, but your ENTIRE identity and life story is just a giant optical illusion. Like this non-existent triangle:

There's nothing really there! Although it sure seems convincing, doesn't it?
The problem is that you cannot know what you are rationally or logically because the mind is the source of the confusion. See.... No matter how cleverly or deeply or long you think, all the mind can ever do is symbolize stuff. It can only create maps and models. But you are not a symbol or a map or a model! You are not an idea or a thought! So you have to directly experience what you are. This MAY take months or years of very careful self-investigation.
Note: I am saying that you have NEVER IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE ever experienced yourself before! You've only experienced phenomena, none of which is essentially YOU!
So what is this mysterious "essential you"? Let me spoil the surprise because otherwise you will waste YEARS searching in the wrong places, thinking you've found yourself when you really just found another false belief.
So... as directly as possible now: the entity who thinks it's reading this sentence does NOT exist!
Again, please try to fathom the magnitude of what is being said. This is extremely radical (but nevertheless true).
Since you are pure awareness, all your focus goes toward shining "light" on sensory phenomena so it's really hard to "see" yourself. Pure awareness is very subtle, which means you have to develop extraordinary mindfulness abilities to "see" yourself.
"But Leo?! You can't be serious! This sounds like a crazy New Age hippy conspiracy!"
Let me assure you it's not. I am no hippy. I'm probably more rational and logical than you are. But I do recognize the limits of logic and rationality.
The problem here is that you've been so brainwashed by society that what I'm telling you right now sounds crazy. That's okay. Just keep your mind open to the possibility that what I'm claiming can be directly verified by you. Nothing here has to be believed. But you do have to be willing to take it on as a temporary hypothesis to be verified or falsified.
 
Leo's Patented () Step-By-Step Process To Become Enlightened:
Find a quiet, comfortable place to sit alone. (You don't need to sit cross-legged.) Turn off your smart phone and disconnect from all distractions Set a digital timer for 60 minutes Now sit silently and start to genuinely wonder: "What am I if I'm not the body?" Do NOT meditate! Sit and carefully observe your direct experience. Notice that direct experience is THE ONLY THING you have of reality. Nothing else is real. Realizing this should make you very "present". Try to locate yourself within direct experience. Be very specific and clear with yourself: What are you? Are you a foot? A hand? A face? A mind? A brain? The envelop of the skin? The picture of yourself in the mind's eye? A feeling in the chest? What? Seriously! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU????????????? Notice that anything you might point to as being "your true self" cannot be true, because that's just another experience arising. Here's the logic of it: Firstly, it isn't constant. It fades in and out throughout the day, so it cannot be you. Secondly, you are observing it, so it cannot be you because "you" are the one doing the observation. So again, WHAT ARE YOU? Open your mind to the possibility that you are mistaken about being a human body or mind. Just sit there and keep genuinely wondering about what you really could be. Try to locate the one who's perceiving things. Do not philosophize or come up with theories. Focus 100% on what your direct experience is telling you. This is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL!!!!!!!! The bulk of the work happens right here at this step. You have to slowly become aware that all your thoughts and ideas and feelings about "you" are not really you. They are just symbols and stories. For example: notice that the image of your body that you have in your mind is NOT actually your body! It's just an image! And the same goes for the feelings that make up your body. Those feelings are real, but they are not actually you! As any theories arise of what you think you are, notice that what that is, is a thought! And no thought can be you because you are the one perceiving the thought, and also because your existence does not depend on any particular thought's existence. Notice you don't cease to exist in between thoughts. Just sit and keep doing this for 60 minutes without getting distracted in irrelevant thoughts. As your mind wanders off track (and it will wander a lot) don't beat yourself up. Just bring your focus back on the self-observation. After 60 minutes, stop and notice what happened. Notice if your mind feels "elevated" or more aware. Frustration and confusion are OF COURSE going to arise. Do NOT be discouraged by frustration or confusion. Believe it or not, these are signs of progress. Do not expect instant results. You must be very methodical and patient like a crocodile. Repeat this process every day for at least 60 minutes for the next few months. Be very patient. It will take several months just to start to get your bearings straight. And by that I don't mean you will become enlightened. I mean you merely begin to realize the magnitude of your ignorance. In this time span of 3 months -- let's say -- you will get a strong sense that it really isn't possible to locate yourself. This may seem like you've failed, but actually this is a huge advance. Now you've finally started to realize that you've never really met yourself before. Now the journey towards enlightenment can begin in earnest!
Just keep doing the process without discouragement. At some point, your mind will crack and you will surrender to the realization that there's no one home. That life has always run with you. And BAAAAAMMMMM!!!!!!! Enlightenment has occurred! Notice, I did not say YOU got enlightened. Rather, enlightenment has occurred.
So who got enlightened? No one.
 
 
Tips For Self-Observation:
Don't just do this process mechanically, you MUST be genuinely curious about the truth of what you are. Try to establish a daily habit of self-observation. You need to build consistency and momentum. Be very careful about coming up with theories about what you are. We don't care about theories here. Every theory is NOT it. We only care about direct experience. REPEAT: ALL THEORIES AND IDEAS ARE DISTRACTIONS! Spend time asking yourself who you really believe that you are under the conventional worldview. Are you a body or are you the owner of the body? Are you inside the skull? If so, where exactly? The point of doing this is so you're clear and honest about your present beliefs, even if you intellectually know they are false. It's very important to get clear what exactly your false beliefs are. Do not be vague in your answers to the query of What are you? It's vital that you be precise and specific. Answers such as, "Well, I dunno, I'm just in the skull somewhere." are NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!! What EXACTLY are you identifying with? Hint: it will either be a thought, a body sensation, an emotion, a visual perception, or a combination of the above. But all of those cannot be the true you because they are not constant. Create an active sense of doubt that you are a human being or a physical object Any belief, thought, or idea about who you really are is automatically FALSE! Drop it. Any sensory experience about who you really are is automatically FALSE! Drop it. All scientific theories or models are automatically FALSE! Drop it. All spiritual, New Age, or religious ideas about who you really are, are FALSE! Drop it. You are NOT a visible object or "thing" so stop looking for yourself like you would look for a missing dog. You are NOT located in any area of space, so stop looking for yourself as a point or hidden object somewhere. You are NOT located inside "your" head You are NOT located inside "your" body There is nothing magical to discover in this process. You are not some kind of unicorn or fairytale creature. There is nothing hidden. Everything you see before you is exactly what there is, nothing more, nothing less. It is not possible to find yourself, so this process is futile. But you need to realize that through doing the process. Not by believing me. You will get VERY frustrated during this process and want to quit. Just accept the frustration and keep going. This process will surface deep emotional issues from our subconscious mind. You will experience emotional turmoil and anguish. Just accept it and keep going. You will feel depressed at times. Just accept it and keep going. Your mind will use every excuse in the book to distract you and get you to stop looking. Stay vigilant to all these tricks and keep looking. DO NOT GET TRICKED INTO STOPPING! The truth of what you are is ever-present. It is always HERE and NOW. You don't need to go anywhere or do anything to see it. You are you right now! Be prepared for this self-observation process to take several years if necessary. Understand that enlightenment happens always only in the NOW. Never in the future. You can be enlightened RIGHT THIS SECOND! You don't need to wait 3 years. Always intend to become enlightened right now! Enlightenment/Truth is NOT an emotional state. Enlightenment is occurring always, even when you're watching TV or sitting on the toilet. Meditation is NOT enlightenment. A psychedelic high is NOT enlightenment. A powerful energetic experience is NOT enlightenment. A vision or hallucination (however real it may feel) is NOT enlightenment. Enlightenment is what's absolutely true without ever changing. Don't forget the possibility that you may not be a thing! Don't forget the possibility that there might be nothing to find There is no you to become enlightened. When this is realized, that's enlightenment! Hint: it's MUCH simpler than you think. A HUGE HINT:
The thing you're looking for but aren't finding... THAT'S YOU!!! Don't expect it to have any attributes. Don't expect the mind to have anything whatsoever to latch onto.
You cannot grab NOTHINGNESS by the collar.
You can only realize you're already it.
Think of it this way: you are looking for a needle in a haystack, but this is no ordinary needle. In this case the needle is literally the realization there was no needle to begin with!
A cosmic joke! You've been punked by God (yourself).
 
 
Best Self-Observation Questions:
What am I? No, seriously now... WHAT THE FUCK AM I????? No, cut the shit! What am I -- RIGHT NOW -- in my direct experience???? Who is aware of reality? Who is aware of me? Who is perceiving? Who is the owner of the body? Who is the owner of the mind? Who is feeling pain? Who is asking all these questions? What was I before I was born? What am I when I'm in deep sleep? What could I be if I'm not the human body/mind? What connects and unifies all of my different senses? What is true independent of ever-changing sense experience? What is true independent of my life and my death? Why do I believe I'm the body? Why do I believe I'm the mind? Where to do thoughts arise from? If I'm the body, what is everything else that I'm seeing? Why do I trust my feeling that I'm the body? Is a feeling really evidence of TRUTH? Why must I be an object? What if the "perciever" has no attributes or properties? When I close my eyes, where did the world disappear to? Where is sound occurring? Where are thoughts occurring? Where are body sensations occurring? What is the relationship between physical body sensations and my visual field? What if I don't exist? What if I can't locate myself because I am "empty" or without form or attribute? What if I'm addicted to looking only for objects or perceptions, but my true nature is neither of those? What if I'm just an idea? What if my entire paradigm of physical reality is just an idea? Could my body and brain just be ideas? Is any physical object actually permanent according to direct experience? What distinguishes one object from another? Do boundaries between things really exist, or are they ideas? What would happen if I stopped distinguishing existence from non-existence?  
 
How To Tell If You're Enlightened:
This is very simple. Answer the following questions honesty:
Did a major shift in awareness occur? Are you absolutely clear now of what you are? Are you the physical human body you've always thought you were? Do you feel infinite, without boundaries or location? Do you actually understand, or are you in a temporary meditative high? If you answered: "YES! YES! NO! YES! I UNDERSTAND!"  then there's a pretty good chance you're enlightened. If your answers were not: "YES! YES! YES! NO! YES! I UNDERSTAND!"  then chances are you aren't enlightened. Keep trying.

If in doubt, find an enlightened master to help you verify the depth of your realization.
Don't get cocky, remember, there is more than one enlightenment breakthrough to be had. You ain't gonna become Buddha with just a few years of self-observation.
Is it worth the struggle?
Abso-fucking-luty! Awakening is divine.
 
 
Videos Explaining Enlightenment In More Depth:
https://www.actualized.org/articles/spiritual-enlightenment-intro https://www.actualized.org/articles/what-to-do-next-after-learning-about-enlightenment https://www.actualized.org/articles/spiritual-enlightenment-part-2 https://www.actualized.org/articles/spiritual-enlightenment-part-3 https://www.actualized.org/articles/enlightenment-faq-part-1 https://www.actualized.org/articles/enlightenment-faq-part-2 https://www.actualized.org/articles/how-to-become-enlightened https://www.actualized.org/articles/my-enlightenment-experience https://www.actualized.org/articles/being-a-spiritual-seeker-good-or-bad https://www.actualized.org/articles/radical-openmindedness https://www.actualized.org/articles/mindfulness-meditation https://www.actualized.org/articles/understanding-awareness https://www.actualized.org/articles/the-enlightened-self https://www.actualized.org/articles/the-benefits-of-enlightenment https://www.actualized.org/articles/how-your-mind-distorts-reality https://www.actualized.org/articles/enlightenment-guided-inquiry https://www.actualized.org/articles/grasping-the-illusory-nature-of-thought https://www.actualized.org/articles/what-is-god https://www.actualized.org/articles/the-dark-side-of-meditation https://www.actualized.org/articles/mystical-traditions-around-the-world https://www.actualized.org/articles/becoming-a-zen-devil List Of Enlightenment Exercises:
https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/7587-list-of-enlightenment-exercises/  
 

I was diagnosed schizophrenic and has spent the past 3 months in and out of Psych hospitals and it was all through my journey and Awakening that this happened. After my Awakening and God realization multiple times I began to use psychedelics so often that I became homeless and was on a path that I thought was God's path and seeing things and hearing things all of the time outside of my skull hearing voices and getting their whole personalities not just voices. I took them as my heavenly brothers and sisters guiding me to Freedom and to where I should be because I was lost in a maze I was seeing so many things that it was like I was visiting other dimensions of reality. Now that this is subsided for a time and I am no longer homeless I look back at the whole thing is either I'm crazy or I really experience what I experienced and it was God's doing and it was God's guidance to get to me and to reach me on a level that would put me where I needed to be even though I felt I've had some PTSD from the journey because some of the dimensions that I was in or so terrifying,I  call one of them Beetlejuice world,  and that one was top two scariest ones. I've experienced my death multiple times and have experienced being brought back to the land of the living slowly. My heart was stopped and I was still conscious. My breathing had to restart and so did my heart. I've met Leo Gura and a bunch of other people I admire through this shared connection we have, via the field of Consciousness itself. Just really need someone to talk to about this and see if anyone deals with the same. I see it as a spiritual gift like when I place my awareness on a car I can feel it moving or when I place it on someone walking, I can feel each step they take. I thought this was just evolution like when I Astral projected the first time and it was scary at first but then it was normal after awhile. Someone please help me understand. Can anyone else channel God and move around and speak unconscious to the next word or motion?

Here's the strange Loop.  The more you pump the ego the more you will ultimately suffer.  Short term satisfaction will never fulfill you. It will leave you wanting more.   So when your suffering becomes so severe it will inevitably kill you- sending you into a pure ego less yet God full state.  Thus, completing the loop.  Moral of the story? Let that motherfucker run wild.

This is a very practical topic which will help you to get more effective and happier in life.
Integrating Emotions
 
What are Emotions?
Emotions are a form of energy. This energy exists. If it is not already, it will becomes gnaringly obvious after doing the work explained later in this post. For now we have a look at some examples where we can see this energy in our everyday lives.
When we are stressed we sweat or our hearts beat fast. We might be unable to concentrate or get tunnel vision. Triggers exist. When we feel very emotional about a topic we will react strongly whenever this topic comes up. How other people react to us. People will sense our emotions (especially woman), even if they only ever so slightly find their ways into our micro expressions. When we surpress emotions and let the energy get stuck in our body we feel heavy. Keeping the energy down and holding it in takes effort. Because of this we can feel exhausted. Sex. That strong rush of energy. Feeling of turn on.  
Again, this post is not about philosophy or concepts but to teach you a practical skill that will help you immensely if you take it seriously.
It will also help you to get out of victim mentality and take responsibility for your life.
Emotions are what motivate your actions and shape your reality.
Examples:
Backwards rationalization: We do something out of emotional impulses, to pull us towards one emotion and/or push us away from another emotion. Then rationalize our controversial actions after the fact. Life circumstances: When we get hurt or abused in childhood our adult-self will draw similar situations or relationships in our lives again and again. Not out of poor reasoning but because we subconsciously feel like this is how our reality should be. Our emotions will drive us to what we subconsciously want with greater precision and reliability than a fine swiss watch. Science: Reason is only the secondary process when we do science. Emotions, psychology and ego are the primary processes.  
You would be wrong to think that reason and logic are the driving force behind your actions. Emotions are what move you.
Our emotions are a navigation system and show us how much we are in alignment with reality, with life. When we feel heavy emotions we are out of sync. If we feel light in our body and our emotions, we know we are in balance.
When it comes to emotions there are mostly two kind of people. Those who feel emotions and those who do not.
Emotions are located in the body. If you can't feel anything you are shutting parts of your body down and restricting the flow of energy there. Yes, you do. All humans are highly emotional creatures. Emotions drive almost everything we do (Survival, Relationships, Sales, Business, Politics, Music, Literature & Movies etc.).
And they are very important in your life. Emotions are the key to real Growth. Whatever journey you decide to go on. Past, present, or future.
 
If you are already in tune with your emotions and are able to feel into your body you can skip to STEP 2. Alltough, it will be beneficial to start here.
 
Step 1: Getting in touch with your Emotions
The first step is always to feel something. To do that we need to open up to this energy. Remember I said emotions are in your body? They are but you might not be able to feel them right away.
What helped me was talking to friends about their emotions and finding out where they feel them and let them describe how specific emotions feel to them. What I also did was looking up a study which asked people a similar question. They then created these body maps on where certain emotions can be found in the body.
And I just looked out for them.
1. Sit down in a quiet environment and focus on the body parts mentioned above. Open your heart, open your chest. Do some basic meditation focused on bringing awareness to your body and relax into it as good as you can.
Depending on how good you were at feeling your emotions before this can take a while. Don't expect to feel anything right away. Stick with it because the payoffs will be immense.
2. Think about a moment in your life where you felt a really strong emotion. Could be anything, anger, fear or happiness. Now imagine the situation in as much detail as you can and see if you can feel the emotion again.
3. Notice how in heated debates, discussions or arguments you might become emotionally triggered. Notice where in your body you can feel this.
If you already start to feel something, even if it is just an ache, something restricting or opening up, cold or warmth in your body and you can link it to an emotion you can do this.
4. Do Mindfulness practice with labeling feelings as emotions. Notice how some emotions might be masked and hide behind different emotions.
Emotions can be linked to different Emotional States. I'll start with the heaviest ones. Fear, Grief and Apathy.
 
If you are someone who can't feel their emotions you are probably in Apathy. Now, Apathy is a coping mechanism we use when there are too many emotions.
Imagine for example being at work and something really sad happens and it overruns you emotionally. Instead of being with that emotion we suppress it to keep on functioning. But it doesn't have to be at work. The fundamental mechanism at work is that we don't want to feel the emotions. Could be because of fear, ego, peer-pressure, social conditioning etc.
The more lighter Emotional States are Desire, Anger, Pride
Courage, Acceptance, Peace/Bliss
Love
 
Just be mindful of the Emotional States and repeat the 4 practices in this step until you are able to feel from your body and not be in your head.
You don't need to perfect this step. But the better you become at getting in touch with your emotions the better the next step works and vice versa. 
 
Step 2 (A): Accept & Let Go
The counter-intuitive nature of emotions is that you will not suffer by feeling unwanted emotions. But you will suffer if you repress emotions and restrict energy in your body.
Let go of the identification with what you fear. Let go of problems in your life and the story around those. This is real Growth, letting go.
Now, we all have different stories and problems we want to let go here but Hale Dwoskin identified 5 needs we all have to some degree.
Need for acceptance Need for control Need for protection Need for oneness/seperateness  
In any given situation see if you can feel one or more of these needs coming up. Look at the need. See how it is like and where it is located in your body. Give yourself permission to feel it fully. Accept that it is there. And let it go.
This was the warm up. Now we will go a little bit deeper.
Coming back to the second practice from step 1. You are hopefully able to feel the emotion and label it. Imagine the same scenario or a different one where you felt a strong emotion that you want to let go.
Maybe you felt an incredible fear because you wanted to do something out of your comfort zone, or you felt rejected by someone you care about, or you felt anger towards someone who hurt you, or you felt sad. Can be anything, you can even go into your childhood memories if you want.
Get comfortable and feel into your body. Ask yourself the following questions and listen for the answers in your body.
Can you welcome your experience? Notice what it feels like.
Any sense of abandonment, sense of frustration? Just sit with it.
Any sense of wanting to control it, push it down?
Any sense of you wanting approval? Or push approval away?
Any sense of wanting security, wanting to survive or quit? Welcome it.
Any sense of wanting seperation/being alone, or wanting oneness, really wanting someone to love me?
Welcome everything and notice what comes up the most and pick that one.
And ask, can I let this go? This wanting.
Than ask your body can you let go any of that wanting? A little more?
Then ask yourself can you let go of the experience itself? Notice your body, emotions and sensations.
Maybe they release completely, maybe only a bit?
Can you welcome the experience, can you feel your heart, stomach your body while doing this?
Can you notice what you are feeling, letting go of thinking about it. Feeling the emotional experience.
Can you notice wanting to do anything with this experience or about it?
Can you let that whole experience go? Or maybe only let go a little bit?
Do it 10-20 minutes until you feel a sense of relief in that area, sense of relaxation. Relax in your body.
Notice how your body is doing this.
 
 
What you did here is called releasing based on the Sedona Method. I highly recommend it.
During release you might cry, feel intense pain and I've even seen people vomit. It doesn't have to happen but don't be surprised if it happens when you go deep into old repressed emotions.
Release your emotions and focus on what happens after the release. For example: What is behind anger?
As you do that, you will find that beyond the current emotion you might feel a greater truth, a greater emotion. Notice the constant flux in your emotions going from better to worse to better, let it flow.
If you get into a real deep state you can realize certain things about your memories or reality. Those realizations can make a big change in your life alone. Don't get attached to them
If you feel that you still have resistance start by feeling into you body.
Welcome tightness or pain in your body and let it be there for a second. Be with it.
Welcome resistance, notice you can handle it.
Welcome acceptance, notice if it feels lighter.
Switching back and forth. Breath with it. Be with it. Allow it to be there.
Notice any wanting to do anything with this resistance. Just be with the resistance.
You can even see an emotion from all different perspectives over several days. Again, give yourself permission to feel it. Don't judge it.
Acceptance: If you are ok with either getting something or not you will be in emotional alignment.
 
Step 2 (B): Self-Love
For this step having non-dual insights or experiences is a prerequisite as I wont be going into much detail here.
You are not seperate from anything. Everything is you. Everything is exactly as it should be.
Whatever you experienced in life or are experiencing right now is exactly as it should be. You are Love. Expand your uncoditional Love towards your experiences and your body. Expand your Love to any situation you want to let go and release.
If someone rejected you - Love that. If someone hurt you - Love that. If you feel fearful or sad - Love that. If you took something personal - Love that. If you feel any heavy emotions like Grief, Sadness or Apathy - Love that.
You can even start with asking if you can love this emotion 1%, 2%... Make small steps in the beginning.
When you start to Love more and more and get more into your body you can even go as far and take enjoyment in everything that makes you feel heavy emotions. There is no one telling you you can't.
 
 
Closing Words
What you will notice is, you become lighter and lighter. Your body will get used to releasing emotions. And you will become better at it.
At first you need courage, to deeply feel negative emotions, then it will require patience, great stamina & tenacity. If you have been struggling with something in your life, I'd suggest you release your emotions every day, for at least 2 hours. This is not something you do for a few minutes and then expect big results. You might get great results. But your baselines emotions will not change by much. If you want to change your inner world, expect to release hours everyday for months!
If you release on your childhood issues/traumas. And then release again on those memories from a different angle. Your life will lift up automatically.
As Lester Levenson said, we want to get the push out of us, so the world stops pushing back.
 
Focus on your Emotional States. They will direct your life magically.
When you do this work you will notice that you feel better and better.
Because of this you achieve goals easier with minimal work.
Your action becomes easy rather than destructive.
If you want to achieve something while being in a state of Apathy or Grief it will be so much more difficult.
Don't waste your time trying to work on something while being in that Emotional State, instead get in a lighter State like Courage and then continue with whatever you where doing.
Like with everything in Self-Actualization it is harder when there is no one around you doing it, too. I kinda got lucky because I hang around releasing coaches who are very indulged in this kind of work. Surround yourself with people who are on the same inner journey.
What also helps is general body awareness. Because your emotions are stored in your body, becoming aware of tension in your body/muscles is key.
Become directly conscious of what I am pointing towards here. Just looking at and understanding the pointer is not enough! Feel it.
Another thing is, you don't want to do this for fixing yourself. You will likely get stuck. Yes, we carry these energies and shadows inside of us. But it doesn't mean you are somehow broken or that there is something wrong with you.
From my experience everyone has some shadow energy that they haven't felt or looked at for a while. It's not a bug, it's a feature. It is your journey and it defines all the experiences you make. When doing these exercises you are not fixing yourself, you are growing. And you will grow immensely, Be ready for it ❤️

I've made a similar post like this before (deleted though) on the topic of using dreams as a tool for awakening. Now it's been more than a year and I've gotten further in my process. 
Anyways. Although I've dabbled with psychedelics and 'enlightenment-work' for years now, I've never really had the breakthroughs I've been looking for - except for when I'm sleeping. This might sound weird but just keep an open mind. I've always been naturally 'gifted' when it comes to lucid dreaming, astral projection and such, it's never really been a big thing for me, but lately my dreams and my sleep has spiraled out of control. Much to a point where I'm even scared to sleep at times. 
For example yesterday night, I fell asleep, waking up in another room in my apartment. Knowing I was dreaming. Suddenly this bear comes to me and starts cuddling with me. I can actually like feel the bear 100% as if it's real. No difference between the normal Awake-feeling and lucid dreaming at this point. Only difference is I'm aware that I am asleep. So I use this opportunity to start "experimenting" within the dream. I try to keep control of the dream but suddenly the bear starts attacking me, and I can feel his claws ripping through my skin and it hurts like hell. Eventually he eats my entire head and I feel the worst pain I've ever experienced along with death-anxiety.
Suddenly I wake up on a farm, still knowing that I'm dreaming but at this point I'm so confused whether or not I'm dead or just asleep that I'm starting to doubt the difference between being awake and sleeping. So on this farm, everything is so bright, like a beautiful summer day, and the colors are so f*cking vibrant and beautiful that I start crying out of pure bliss and Love. It becomes so beautiful that my entire being melts into the scenery and by then "I" realize that I am this beautiful dream and that I am God. This lasts for a few seconds. Absolute f*cking infinity.
And boom, I wake up somewhere else, in an apocalyptic scenario where I am another character/ego. I see comets flying around, I am getting tossed around, experiencing panic and pain, and trying to escape and find a safe spot. By this time I go into normal dream-mode where it's like a movie being played with a bunch of symbolisms from my daily life. I can actually pin-point certain details within the dream and see how they connect to my everyday life, my problems, my goals, relationship with people etc. Another crazy thing here is that I'm sometimes able to predict the future. Here is where it gets really f*cking strange. I don't believe I have psychic abilities or anything, but yesterday I dreamt that I got a message from the company that owns the building/apartmentI live in. They have never contacted me before, and when they did in the dream I got anxiety for some reason. And just a couple of hours ago they actually called and asked me to book a time for an inspection. Stuff like this happens to me sometimes so I wasn't THAT surprised, but still it's so mindf*cking and strange that it makes me question a lot.
So anyways, after this normal-dream-scenario ends I wake up again, somewhere else, experiencing the same apocalyptic scenario but as a different ego, until I eventually die/something big happens in the dream and I wake up again as someone else. This goes on for like 5 times and for every "character" it just gets more and more intense and real. Eventually it gets so real that I start to "wake up within the dream world" and I become fully conscious that I am dreaming, I am this dream, and I enter God-mode once again. And then I actually woke up for real, from my sleep, I was in my bed and for a few seconds I was still in this God-state. It slowly faded away though, and I fell back into sleep, this time in a lucid dream world where I can create everything I want. So I was between being awake and sleeping, and I could basically just close my eyes whenever I wanted and think of something, and I ended up there (almost exactly the same), with the people I wanted and so on. It wasn't "perfectly matched" but it was quite close. You can imagine what I created within the dream, since I'm a guy and hey, why not take the chance to have sex with your dream-woman right?  So I do. She's there. I can actually feel her physically as if it was totally real. Awesome, a little sex woweee, and then another woman, same thing touchy touchy, exciting exciting. And then I actually wake up from my sleep and I'm done. 
So I know this might sound surreal, and it is. I don't know if this has a lot to do with God-realization but I actually feel that the insights I gain from these dreams have an incredible impact on my "awakening-process". I've had cool insights and experiences on psychedelic but nothing as intense as during my dreams. I don't know why this happens, maybe because my mind is more free, and it becomes so obvious when I'm actually dreaming since I am not connected to my body as much, that I am consciousness itself, just basically everything that is going on. But at the same time I don't feel like it's Really there yet, since it's still a bit "mindy" in the way where I can almost feel my Mind being God and doing all the work, so it's still like I am a bit inside my head. Difficult to explain.
Sorry for a long-ass post, but I just had to share this and see if anyone else have had similar experiences

Thinking of doing a video on this topic but wanted to hear your ideas.
Contemplate before you post.

I am in Massage school, Currently the most challenging class is Anatomy, Physiology and Pathology. 
 
My strategy so far has been to make flashcards and active recall the answers, just brute repetition, which works, I want to be sure I understand the material before the actual quiz so  tonight I tried something new, Using Chatgpt I wrote this prompt.
 
'Write me a 15 question, multiple choice, short answer and true/false practice quiz based on this study guide. (fill with specific study guide.) Do not give me the answers"  
It proceeds to spit out a quiz, to which I respond,
 
"grade my quiz based on these answers. 1 = a, 2 = d, 3 = false (etc..)"  
The result is incredible, so satisfying! Not only will it grade the quiz, but also, if you think you got the answer right and it thinks you got it wrong, you can refute it and it will check to see based on your argument. 
 
For example.

 
I think this is fascinating. Holy shit this is cool!

The title says it all. Not going to get too much into detail about it. Keeping it as simple as i deem it necessary so, the thought patterns that transformed into text are in a balance of falseness. I know nothing.

Hey guys. I've been thinking about how tricky it can be to learn how to do things, and how to evaluate mastery of a domain.
By copying and learning from masters, you can start to construct a routine filled with high yield techniques. I'm currently trying to become a better programmer, and haven't come across them. It isn't so obvious to me who is successful and who isn't, and a lot of people only become good at their domain over 5-10 years, which makes them poor case studies. I've made huge improvements in my Japanese learning, and I consider it something I know how to master, though I've been lacking time and need to focus on my career until I can turn it into a calling.
My Mastery - Language Learning: I do believe I've found "the truth" for language learning and language acquisition. This is what I consider my blissful productive activity, though, and what I'd like to make into a calling if possible. My good friend Matt makes videos on his language immersion method with Japanese: https://www.youtube.com/user/MATTvsJapan/videos
He's an honest friend who's into self-actualization as well, and has proven his mastery of Japanese to Japanese people, and I've verified the ability of Matt and his original mentor Khatzumoto with Japanese natives. People study Japanese for 5-10 years without coming anywhere near his level, and it's seen as a really difficult language to learn. His method is built upon the methods of Khatzumoto and Antimoon. Steve Kaufman is another supporter of immersion who's fluent at understanding novels in around a dozen languages.

It's based off of a method called AJATT, or All Japanese All The Time.
Essentially you create these habits and mindsets (for learning Japanese, which I'll use as an example):
The main rules for language learning:
1. Immerse in the language all day every day, through active and passive immersion.
2. Learn 10+ new sentences worth of vocabulary from real native content each day through a flash card program (ex. Anki). Aim for 10,000+ cards.
 
Immerse in Japanese content each day. Listen to media you're interested in, and keep earbuds on you all day. Switch all of your enjoyment from English over to Japanese. Watch a show dubbed in Japanese or watch different shows instead. Cut attachments to distracting (English) media to do this.
Use spaced repetition software to make flash cards that you find from these shows. There's some software like Anki you can use to make engaging flash cards.
Know that the core of improving at a language comes from listening to it and reading it each day. Listening helps the subconscious mind automatically consolidate the information. It'll take a few years of consistent effort to improve.
"Seek first to understand, then to be understood" - You'll get fluent at understanding the language first, and then be able to speak it, as you can get used to the grammatical patterns through example and mass media consumption.
College classes are not the way to get good at a language, and degrees don't mean jack shit. You need to be doing at least 10 new sentences worth of vocab each day, while immersing, which is going to give you the cumulative review and gains you need to maintain it all and reach mastery.
You don't need to go to the country to immerse: this is fallacy. You just need enough native media that you can learn new words from and practice with, and to incrementally challenge yourself.
The main high yield techniques in language learning:
-Turn a TV show into mp3 files and listen to them on your phone/mp3 player throughout the day. Keep earbuds always prepared. This is the equivalent of using audiobooks to fill that empty time.
-Make a habit of learning new sentences daily, in interesting contexts. Refrain from using too many premade/random flash cards with vocab words on them. They're just not as interesting or enjoyable, and can lead to burnout, based on the content you're learning. This is synergistic with active immersion. There are tools out there like subs2srs that can be used to turn entire TV shows into flash cards.

If anyone has any high yield techniques for any domain that you're mastering, that'd be awesome. It could be for anything related to mastery, from self-actualization to pragmatic mastery . Make sure it's something that you've actually tested.
 

To work towards my life purpose, I need to conquer procrastinations and addictions sustainably.
It seems that even, Leo Gura is still addicted to the internet after many psychedelic trips and many hours of meditation.
If Leo still is addicted to the internet after years of work, it means I can't rely solely on doing nothing and meditation. After many years, I won't be able to pursue my life purpose due to financial constraints. I can't wait for years. I need something that works in a short amount of time.
Are there high-yield techniques specifically designed to just conquer procrastination and addictions fast and hard? I know that it's essential to watch Leo's videos and practice concepts in his videos, but it seems I need something more.
Perhaps, should I rearrange my life so that addictions exist but don't have a chance to manifest for many years?

So, I ain't into pursuing enlightenment right now (because I'm in a period of major transition in me life, switching from college to the work force soon + still not being clear on my life purpose).
I am studying the theory though (reading books, listening to teachers etc.), doing hatha yoga 3-4 times a week for one hour (which helps me improve my flexibility and breathing  for my strength training, plus helping me release blockages) and also meditating for 10 minutes and releasing emotions with the sedona method. 
I have a history of panic disorder, as in getting frequent panic attacks, which I've managed and tamed in the past 2 years. But still, when i go involuntarily into  self-inquiry, it usually causes me to panic and make my mind fearful, to the point of a panic attack. I've experienced major backlashes from it and I feel the need to learn to manage my "negative" emotions and detach from thoughts better before I can go further.
I remember that Leo once said that the average person needs years of meditation before the mind is calm enough to do 5 minutes of self inquiry. 
Similarly, Sadhguru said that without a certain level of stability/equanimity in the system and preparatory practice, most people can go crazy from the intermediate-advanced techniques. He used the analogy of: you can't build a skyscraper without a very stable base, which is one I am inclined to agree with (both from reason and personal experience). 
I feel the need to dial the whole spiritual thing back for a while because I feel very ungrounded, but I still want to keep a practice in place which will help me with my emotions, especially fear in the long term. 
Should I stick to a practice of 10 minutes. mindfulness meditation (this is currently the sweetspot for me - I've tried 20 and 30 but I've noticed that my mind is still too rampant for that and it fights back hard), the 1h hatha yoga 3-4x a week and releasing emotions with the sedona method, or do you suggest something else?
@Leo Gura Would love your thoughts on this. 
 
 
 
 

It would be interesting to see what high yield techniques you've all found for actualisation and any other subjects you've tried to study. 
 

Hey actualized! Today's video really inspired me to research and share the best enlightenment techniques. Please share the most effective techniques you have found so far. Love.
 

Hello guys, please share your examples of the high-yield techniques/deliberate practice that you use and find helpful

I'm thinking about what habits are the most important to start and track. I would like to know which Habits gave you the most results in your life.

Maybe pain is just a dualistic occurrence, the polar opposite of love. Paradoxical intertwined in this dance of space time. But the denser the dualism gets the more the state of love-pain merges until it becomes one. Hence Non-Duality were only love exists and god does not hate or distinguish. 

📜 Leo’s Blog: Table of Contents 📜
(2017 - 2023)
➼ @MuadDib has a list of all of Leo's Blog links in descending chronological order:  List of Blog Links in Descending Order
➼ List and Summaries of Actualized.org Episodes are in the Self-Actualization Forum.
➼ Actualized.org on Psychedelics: Safety, Trip Reports, Research, Episodes, Forum Mega-Threads, General Info.
➼ List and Summaries of Leo’s Blog Videos, Summaries and Interviews.
The Best of Leo’s Blog Essays on Epistemology and Enlightenment. (Read these.  They’re good and short) Posts on Actualized.org News Posts on Creativity & Art, Gaming Posts on Images of Infinity, Strange Loops ➰ Posts on Funzies, Music, Conferences 😹 Posts on Cults — Case Studies Posts of Quotes (Proverbs, Yoda, Batman) <(⦿_⦿)>  🦹 ______________________________________________________
Blog Posts for 2017  Blog Posts for 2018  Blog Posts for 2019  Blog Posts for 2020  Blog Posts for 2021   Blog Posts for 2022   Blog Posts for 2023 ______________________________________________________
(Essay) for posts with an extended commentary by Leo. (note) for posts with a short commentary by Leo.  
⁉️    Epistemology 🤯   Enlightenment 🌈   Spiral Dynamics 💪   Life Purpose and Mastery 😹   Funzies (after Sept 2021) 💸   Money & Corruption ➰   Strange Loops  
🍄       Psychedelics 🍄🧷   Psychedelics and Safety 🍄🧳   Trip Report 🍄🔬   Psychedelics Research

In an effort to make this forum more useful and resource-packed, I want to get some practical "mega threads" going. For this, I need your help!
This thread is specifically for all kinds of meditation techniques. If you have videos, links, or personal experiences with a specific meditation technique, post it here. Discussion is also welcome, but keep it constructive. Try to avoid armchair philosophy, debating, or keyboard-jockeying. Try to speak from your direct experiences with these techniques. There are 100s of techniques out there. Let's get to work analyzing and cataloguing them.
Our aim here is to create a comprehensive resource for people getting started with meditation or people trying to broaden their practice.
Let's keep resources for self-inquiry or direct-pointing-to-enlightenment for another thread. This thread is specifically for meditation and concentration practices.

Anyone wanting to reach the peaks through meditation here is a beautiful illustration. Every little detail in the picture has its importance. 
What level are you on this scale ? If you have seen this before and have additional input, please share.
 

Diagram of The Ten Stages of Meditation. 
The monk is the meditator. The rope he holds represents vigilant, alert mindfulness. The goad in his other hand represents strong intention and firm resolve. The elephant represents the mind. The black color of the elephant represents the Five Hindrances and the Seven Problems they give rise to. The monkey represents scattering of attention, and the black color represents subtle and gross distraction, forgetting, and mind-wandering. The rabbit represents subtle dullness. The flames represent vigilance and effort, and when effort is no longer required, the flames disappear. The length of the road between successive Stages indicates the relative time required to progress from one Stage to the next. The Stages come closer together until Stage Seven, then they begin to stretch out again. Because the road folds back, it is possible to jump up to higher Stages or fall back to lower ones.  
The Novice—Stages One through Three
Stage One: Establishing a Practice
This Stage of meditation is about developing a consistent and diligent meditation practice. Being consistent means setting a clear daily schedule for when you’re going to meditate, and sticking to it except when there are circumstances beyond your control. Diligence means engaging whole-heartedly in the practice rather than spending your time on the cushion planning or daydreaming.
Goals: Develop a regular meditation practice.
Obstacles: Resistance, procrastination, fatigue, impatience, boredom, lack of motivation.
Skills: Creating practice routines, setting specific practice goals, generating strong motivation, cultivating discipline and diligence.
Mastery: Never missing a daily practice session.
Stage Two: Interrupted Attention and Overcoming Mind-Wandering
Stage Two of meditation involves the simple practice of keeping your attention on the breath. This is easier said than done. You will discover that attention is easily captured by a distraction, making you forget that you’re supposed to be paying attention to the breath. Forgetting quickly leads to mind-wandering, which can last a few seconds, several minutes, or the entire meditation session. This sequence is so important it’s worth committing to memory—the untrained mind produces distractions that lead to forgetting, which results in mind-wandering. In Stage Two, you only work with the last event—mind-wandering.
Goals: Shorten the periods of mind-wandering and extend the periods of sustained attention to the meditation object.
Obstacles: Mind-wandering, monkey-mind, and impatience.
Skills: Reinforcing spontaneous introspective awareness and learning to sustain attention on the meditation object. Spontaneous introspective awareness is the “aha” moment when you suddenly realize there’s a disconnect between what you wanted to do (watch the breath) and what you’re actually doing (thinking about something else). Appreciating this moment causes it to happen faster and faster, so the periods of mind-wandering get shorter and shorter.
Mastery: You can sustain attention on the meditation object for minutes, while most periods of mind-wandering last only a few seconds.
Stage Three: Extended Attention and Overcoming Forgetting
Stages Two and Three are similar, but mind-wandering gets shorter and shorter until it stops altogether. The biggest challenge during this Stage of meditation is forgetting, but sleepiness often becomes a problem as well.
Goals: Overcome forgetting and falling asleep.
Obstacles: Distractions, forgetting, mind-wandering, and sleepiness.
Skills: Use the techniques of following the breath and connecting to extend the periods of uninterrupted attention, and become familiar with how forgetting happens. Cultivate introspective awareness through the practices of labeling and checking in. These techniques allow you to catch distractions before they lead to forgetting.
Mastery: Rarely forgetting the breath or falling asleep.
Milestone One: Continuous Attention to the Meditation Object
The first Milestone is continuous attention to the meditation object, which you achieve at the end of Stage Three. Before this, you’re a beginner—a person who meditates, rather than a skilled meditator. When you reach this Milestone, you’re no longer a novice, prone to forgetting, mind-wandering, or dozing off. By mastering Stages One through Three, you have acquired the basic, first level skills on the way to stable attention. You can now do something that no ordinary, untrained person can. You will build on this initial skillset over the course of the next three Stages of meditation to become a truly skilled meditator.
The Skilled Meditator—Stages Four through Six
Stage Four: Continuous Attention and Overcoming Gross Distraction and Strong Dullness
You can stay focused on the breath more or less continuously, but attention still shifts rapidly back and forth between the breath and various distractions. Whenever a distraction becomes the primary focus of your attention, it pushes the meditation object into the background. This is called gross distraction. But when the mind grows calm, there tends to be another problem, strong dullness. To deal with both of these challenges, you develop continuous introspective awareness to alert you to their presence.
Goal: Overcome gross distraction and strong dullness.
Obstacles: Distractions, pain and discomfort, intellectual insights, emotionally charged visions and memories.
Skills: Developing continuous introspective awareness allows you to make corrections before subtle distractions become gross distractions, and before subtle dullness becomes strong dullness. Learning to work with pain. Purifying the mind of past trauma and unwholesome conditioning.
Mastery: Gross distractions no longer push the breath into the background, and breath sensations don’t fade or become distorted due to strong dullness.
Stage Five: Overcoming Subtle Dullness and Increasing Mindfulness
You have overcome gross distractions and strong dullness, but there is a tendency to slip into stable subtle dullness. This makes the breath sensations less vivid and causes peripheral awareness to fade. Unrecognized, subtle dullness can lead you to overestimate your abilities and move on to the next Stage of meditation prematurely, which leads to concentration with dullness. You will experience only a shallow facsimile of the later Stages, and your practice will come to a dead end. To overcome subtle dullness, you must sharpen your faculties of attention and awareness.
Goal: To overcome subtle dullness and increase the power of mindfulness.
Obstacles: Subtle dullness is difficult to recognize, creates an illusion of stable attention, and is seductively pleasant.
Skills: Cultivating even stronger and more continuous introspective awareness to detect and correct for subtle dullness. Learning a new body scanning technique to help you increase the power of your mindfulness.
Mastery: You can sustain or even increase the power of your mindfulness during each meditation session.
Stage Six: Subduing Subtle Distraction
Attention is fairly stable but still alternates between the meditation object and subtle distractions in the background. You’re now ready to bring your faculty of attention to a whole new level where subtle distractions fall away completely. You will achieve exclusive attention to the meditation object, also called single-pointed attention.
Goal: To subdue subtle distractions and develop metacognitive introspective awareness.
Obstacles: The tendency for attention to alternate to the continuous stream of distracting thoughts and other mental objects in peripheral awareness.
Skills: Defining your scope of attention more precisely than before, and ignoring everything outside that scope until subtle distractions fade away. Developing a much more refined and selective awareness of the mind itself, called metacognitive introspective awareness. You will also use a method called “experiencing the whole body with the breath” to further subdue potential distractions.
Mastery: Subtle distractions have almost entirely disappeared, and you have unwavering exclusive attention together with vivid mindfulness.
Milestone Two: Sustained Exclusive Focus of Attention
With mastery of Stages of meditation Four through Six, your attention no longer alternates back and forth from the breath to distractions in the background. You can focus on the meditation object to the exclusion of everything else, and your scope of attention is also stable. Dullness has completely disappeared, and mindfulness takes the form of a powerful metacognitive introspective awareness. That is, you’re now aware of your state of mind in every moment, even as you focus on the breath. You have accomplished the two major objectives of meditative training: stable attention and powerful mindfulness. With these abilities you’re now a skilled meditator, and have achieved the second Milestone.
The Transition—Stage Seven
Stage Seven: Exclusive Attention and Unifying the Mind
You can now investigate any object with however broad or narrow a focus you choose. But you have to stay vigilant and make a continuous effort to keep subtle distractions and subtle dullness at bay.
Goal: Effortlessly sustained exclusive attention and powerful mindfulness.
Obstacles: Distractions and dullness will return if you stop exerting effort. You must keep sustaining effort until exclusive attention and mindfulness become automatic, then effort will no longer be necessary. Boredom, restlessness, and doubt tend to arise during this time. Also, bizarre sensations and involuntary body movements can distract you from your practice. Knowing when to drop all effort is the next obstacle. But making effort has become a habit, so it’s hard to stop.
Methods: Practicing patiently and diligently will bring you to the threshold of effortlessness. It will get you past all the boredom and doubt, as well as the bizarre sensations and movements. Purposely relaxing your effort from time to time will let you know when effort and vigilance are no longer necessary. Then you can work on letting go of the need to be in control. Various Insight and jhāna practices add variety at this Stage of meditation.
Mastery: You can drop all effort, and the mind still maintains an unprecedented degree of stability and clarity.
Milestone Three: Effortless Stability of Attention
The third Milestone is marked by effortlessly sustained exclusive attention together with powerful mindfulness. This state is called mental pliancy, and occurs because of the complete pacification of the discriminating mind, meaning mental chatter and discursive analysis have stopped. Different parts of the mind are no longer so resistant or preoccupied with other things, and diverse mental processes begin to coalesce around a single purpose. This unification of mind means that, rather than struggling against itself, the mind functions more as a coherent, harmonious whole. You have completed the transition from being a skilled meditator to an adept meditator at this point in your journey through the stages of meditation.
The Adept Meditator—Stages Eight through Ten
Stage Eight: Mental Pliancy and Pacifying the Senses
With mental pliancy, you can effortlessly sustain exclusive attention and mindfulness, but physical pain and discomfort still limit how long you can sit. The bizarre sensations and involuntary movements that began in Stage Seven not only continue, but may intensify. With continuing unification of mind and complete pacification of the senses, physical pliancy arises, and these problems disappear. Pacifying the senses doesn’t imply going into some trance. It just means that the five physical senses, as well as the mind sense, temporarily grow quiet while you meditate.
Goal: Complete pacification of the senses and the full arising of meditative joy.
Obstacles: The primary challenge is not to be distracted or distressed by the variety of extraordinary experiences during this Stage of meditation: unusual, and often unpleasant, sensations, involuntary movements, feelings of strong energy currents in the body, and intense joy. Simply let them be.
Method: Practicing effortless attention and introspective awareness will naturally lead to continued unification, pacification of the senses, and the arising of meditative joy. Jhāna and other Insight practices are very productive as part of this process.
Mastery: When the eyes perceive only an inner light, the ears perceive only an inner sound, the body is suffused with a sense of pleasure and comfort, and your mental state is one of intense joy. With this mental and physical pliancy, you can sit for hours without dullness, distraction, or physical discomfort.
Stage Nine: Mental and Physical Pliancy and Calming the Intensity of Meditative Joy
With mental and physical pliancy comes meditative joy, a unique state of mind that brings great happiness and physical pleasure.
Goal: The maturation of meditative joy, producing tranquility and equanimity.
Obstacles: The intensity of meditative joy can perturb the mind, becoming a distraction and disrupting your practice.
Method: Becoming familiar with meditative joy through continued practice until the excitement fades, replaced by tranquility and equanimity.
Mastery: Consistently evoking mental and physical pliancy, accompanied by profound tranquility and equanimity.
Stage Ten: Tranquility and Equanimity
You enter Stage Ten with all the qualities of samatha: effortlessly stable attention, mindfulness, joy, tranquility, and equanimity. At first these qualities immediately fade after the meditation has ended. But as you continue to practice, they persist longer and longer between meditation sessions. Eventually they become the normal condition of the mind. Because the characteristics of samatha never disappear entirely, whenever you sit on the cushion, you quickly regain a fully developed meditative state. You have mastered this Stage of meditation when the qualities of samatha persist for many hours after you rise from the cushion. Once Stage Ten is mastered, the mind is described as unsurpassable.
Milestone Four: Persistence of the Mental Qualities of an Adept
When you have mastered the final Stage of meditation, the many positive mental qualities you experience during meditation are strongly present even between meditation sessions, so your daily life is imbued with effortlessly stable attention, mindfulness, joy, tranquility, and equanimity. This is the fourth and final Milestone and marks the culmination of an adept meditator’s training.
Cultivating The Right Attitude and Setting Clear Intentions
We naturally tend to think of ourselves as the agent responsible for producing results through will and effort. Certain words we can’t avoid using when we talk about meditation, such as “achieve” and “master,” only reinforce this idea. We often believe we should be in control, the masters of our own minds. But that belief only creates problems for your practice. It will lead you to try to willfully force the mind into submission. When that inevitably fails, you will tend to get discouraged and blame yourself. This can turn into a habit unless you realize there is no “self” in charge of the mind, and therefore nobody to blame. As you continue to move through the stages of meditation, this fact of “no-Self” becomes increasingly clear, but you can’t afford to wait for that Insight. For the sake of making progress, it’s best to drop this notion, at least at an intellectual level, as soon as possible.
In reality, all we’re “doing” in meditation is forming and holding specific conscious intentions—nothing more. In fact, while it may not be obvious, all our achievements originate from intentions. Consider learning to play catch. As a child, you may have wanted to play catch, but at first your arm and hand just didn’t move in quite the right way. However, by sustaining the intention to catch the ball, after much practice, your arm and hand eventually performed the task whenever you wanted. “You” don’t play catch. Instead, you just intend to catch the ball, and the rest follows. “You” intend, and the body acts.
In exactly the same way, we can use intention to profoundly transform how the mind behaves. Intention, provided it is correctly formulated and sustained, is what creates the causes and conditions for stable attention and mindfulness. Intentions repeatedly sustained over the course of many meditation sessions give rise to frequently repeated mental acts, which eventually become habits of the mind.
At every Stage of meditation, all “you” really do is patiently and persistently hold intentions to respond in specific ways to whatever happens during your meditation. Setting and holding the right intentions is what’s essential. If your intention is strong, the appropriate responses will occur, and the practice will unfold in a very natural and predictable way. Once again, repeatedly sustained intentions lead to repeated mental actions, which become mental habits—the habits of mind that lead to joy, equanimity, and Insight. The exquisite simplicity of this process isn’t so obvious in the early Stages of meditation. However, by the time you reach Stage Eight and your meditations become completely effortless, it will be clear.
While useful, the lists of goals, obstacles, skills, and mastery provided above can obscure just how simple the underlying process really is: intentions lead to mental actions, and repeated mental actions become mental habits. This simple formula is at the heart of every Stage. Therefore, here’s a brief recap of the Ten Stages of meditation, presented in a completely different way that puts the emphasis entirely on how intention works in each Stage. Refer to the earlier outline when you need to orient yourself within the context of the Stages as a whole, but look at the outline below whenever working through the individual Stages begins to feel like a struggle.
Stage One
Put all your effort into forming and holding a conscious intention to sit down and meditate for a set period every day, and to practice diligently for the duration of the sit. When your intentions are clear and strong, the appropriate actions naturally follow, and you’ll find yourself regularly sitting down to meditate. If this doesn’t happen, instead of chastising yourself and trying to force yourself to practice, work on strengthening your motivation and intentions.
“When your intentions are clear and strong, the appropriate actions naturally follow, and you’ll find yourself regularly sitting down to meditate.”
Stage Two
Willpower can’t prevent the mind from forgetting the breath. Nor can you force yourself to become aware that the mind is wandering. Instead, just hold the intention to appreciate the “aha” moment that recognizes mind-wandering, while gently but firmly redirecting attention back to the breath. Then, intend to engage with the breath as fully as possible without losing peripheral awareness. In time, the simple actions flowing from these three intentions will become mental habits. Periods of mind-wandering will become shorter, periods of attention to the breath will grow longer, and you’ll have achieved your goal.
Stage Three
Set your intention to invoke introspective attention frequently, before you’ve forgotten the breath or fallen asleep, and make corrections as soon as you notice distractions or dullness. Also, intend to sustain peripheral awareness while engaging with the breath as fully as possible. These three intentions and the actions they produce are simply elaborations of those from the previous Stage of medtiation. Once they become habits, you’ll rarely forget the breath.
Stages Four through Six
Set and hold the intention to be vigilant so that introspective awareness becomes continuous, and notice and immediately correct for dullness and distraction. These intentions will mature into the highly developed skills of stable attention and mindfulness as you move through later stages of meditation. You overcome every type of dullness and distraction, achieving both exclusive, single-pointed attention and metacognitive introspective awareness.
Stage Seven
Everything becomes even simpler at this stage of meditation. With the conscious intention to continuously guard against dullness and distraction, the mind becomes completely accustomed to effortlessly sustaining attention and mindfulness.
Stages Eight through Ten
Your intention is simply to keep practicing, using skills that are now completely effortless. In Stage Eight, effortlessly sustained exclusive attention produces mental and physical pliancy, pleasure, and joy. In Stage Nine, simply abiding in the state of meditative joy causes profound tranquility and equanimity to arise. In Stage Ten, just by continuing to practice regularly, the profound joy and happiness, tranquility, and equanimity you experience in meditation persists between meditation sessions, infusing your daily life as well.
As with planting seeds, at each Stage of meditation you sow the appropriate intentions in the soil of the mind. Water these intentions with the diligence of regular practice, and protect them from the destructive pests of procrastination, doubt, desire, aversion, and agitation. These intentions will naturally flower into a specific series of mental events that mature to produce the fruits of our practice. Will a seed sprout more quickly if you keep digging it up and replanting it? No. Therefore, don’t let impatience or frustration stop you from practicing or convince you that you need to seek out a “better” or “easier” practice. Getting annoyed with every instance of mind-wandering or sleepiness is like tearing up the garden to get rid of the weeds. Attempting to force attention to remain stable is like trying to make a sapling grow taller by stretching it. Chasing after physical pliancy and meditative joy is like prying open a bud so it will blossom more quickly. Impatience and striving won’t make anything grow faster. Be patient and trust in the process. Care for the mind like a skilled gardener, and everything will flower and fruit in due time.
Credit , Reference, Additional details  :
http://www.consciouslifestylemag.com/ten-stages-of-meditation-complete-guide/
 
 
 
 

People seem to be getting into Kriya Yoga after my video, and lots of questions are coming up, so I thought it would be best to accumulate them all in one place.
Post all your Kriya Yoga questions and tips here.
Over time this should become a valuable resource for people. Similar to our monstrously large 5-MeO-DMT Mega-Thread.
Feel free to share your advice, tricks, and progress reports. If we have a lot people doing Kriya, it would be cool to see how many people start experiencing gains and mystical experiences, and how quickly. It would be awesome if we had like 100 people post a progress report after 3, 6, and 12 months of practice. In the name of pseudo-science