Neo

The red pill disguised as the blue pill. I don't think anyone could honestly answer that.

Ok I will spill the beans. I have long been a sufferer of the chronic condition know as scribus clamitus which translates aswriters torrets, keyboard torrets). It causes me the utmost inconvenience and tends to surprise my audience at the F**K BAS*&*^ FKF KFK FK FK FU&&&&&!!!

But why do people think "decisions" have some special place outside of the free will argument? Is it because it's at the point of a "decision" that you think the cerebral cortex takes back a modicum of control, where what I believe is; it doesn't, the decision is all part of the game too.

@Sri Ramana Maharshi IS that to Leo, not Neo? I'm not in the 5Meo camp, I just can't find a better forum of seekers.

I see.

Just to play Devils advocate with you... you give this book to a man in prison. He will no longer see the bars as a problem because it was just a point of view or perspective. Now you have a happy man in prison. Isn't it best to first help people (or yourself) over come your basic problems as a human being and then worry about your peaceful mind?

Really? Do you mean in the sense of the EGO?

OK, so I can't really do any wrong there, but can you see my thoughts are jumbled on no-self and infinity?

@Leo Gura It looks like while trying to help @starsofclay I discovered my own folly. The link in my mind between no self and infinity is not just a conceptual one but I am always combining self enquiry with do nothing meditation. Is this wrong? Is this why strange things happen when trying this meditation, like bizarre activation of chakras totally unexpectedly and never experienced before?

Me and my wife were having trouble conceiving, (not right now - we are pregnant) however, back at the time every friend and acquaintance took every opportunity to tell us how they knew *someone*, and that when they stopped trying for a child, then they got pregnant. We heard this until we were sick of it from 100 different friends. Yes we're trying too hard lol. But this rings true in enlightenment. It sounds perfectly possible to me that the effort involved can impede progress.

You remember the story about the big old house, you're looking around going from room to room, all the dusty furnishings and dust covers and as you reach the bottom of the stairs, and realise that there is no-one there, you take a step back and see that you in fact don't exist. You are not there! In fact what you were, was a story built of labels applied to us by others. The true nature of yourself to be discovered, and yet when we do this enlightenment work, we just keep piling stuff on the same "mind"

You, forget eat slugs and snails.... only kidding. It's to drop all concepts including enlightenment. If you drop all concepts of French, you don't become French.

Yes, I kinda agree because I'm on this path, however, we are told that enlightenment isn't something you get by accumulating knowledge. You are basically saying the same thing as "If I use French words all day, eventually I will be a French person."

I'm going to make you all spit your tea out again now: (and yes I'm a big kid at heart!)... Postures for achieving ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) padmasana:

Is it true that if I say "think of something that's not a concept", this is impossible? The near breakthrough moment I had sometime ago, was when pondering "Am I an object or the observer?" but I must have understood while saying that, that both are concepts and so I am neither. The temptation while doing this is to break yourself in two and imagine that the ego of me is an asleep object and there's a higher me which can act as an observer but again, this all becomes conceptual, like a catch 22. However I can't deny that meditating on this can "do" something?

Who does?

OK, How do you square the following; in self enquiry, we are asked to keep asking "who am I", it's not something that you try the first time, you keep going at it,... with the fact it is said that it is "NOW" / power of now etc. Are we then to assume that the "now" is a metaphor and the type of thinking needs to be in the present? I can hear you replying already saying that you're already enlightened blah blah, I am asking a question on a PRACTICAL level.

My best guess, vanish is trolling, he designed the avatar to make vanishing relevant and appropriate and will simply "vanish". Leo doesn't give two ducks because he knows if someone committed suicide on his forum, just think of the publicity! Second really nasty option Leo = Vanish. This would create maximum effect with zero risk.

The universe exists in your mind and you exist in the universe simultaneously. We don't have a word for this. Maybe a symbol which is ouroboros (appeared in one of Leo's videos). The universe depends on observation to exist and we depend on the existence of the universe to exist and observe it. This concept doesn't really have a place in scientific explanation that you are looking to nail down.

Leo, your answer might have been straight from the pages of David Koresh. You are going to have to draw a line somewhere.

@egoless You could always combine a rabid online porn habit with self improvement videos. I mean, anything to save time right?

I got liberated in a meditation retreat. ... Someone broke me out with a pair of bolt cutters...

I shall prove to be...

Psychedelics - are they "authentic"? You join a club of "happy" people, you all meet up and all stand one one by one to say how happy you are and why. When it's your turn, you stand up and say, "I'm happy - I take Valium! In fact, I took a Valium and a bunch of other drugs just before I got here! I expect I'll be really miserable later!" So, is it "authentic" and more importantly, are the "benefits" authentic. Can you reach the same end point as meditation AND not affect the possibility of making further progress with meditation alone. Is it like taking soooo much VIAGRA, for years, and you're expected to perform for your Mrs, and you haven't got any VIAGRA and it's freezing cold, and there's a lot on your're mind, in fact, you have a headache and you're tired.