Emerald

That's the tactic. It's a pretty good tactic. It's the one that I like to use when trying to win... which I find myself constantly doing. That's why I mentioned it. He's using the "I'm more self-aware than you in ways that you're not aware of" tactic and you're using the "I'm aware that I'm not aware of many things which makes me more aware... I'm not even mad at your lack of awareness" tactic. Then I come in trying to win with a "I'm so aware that I see the futility of trying to win. Then go meta on it all in the same sentence." We're all a bunch of dodo-birds.

You are kind of trying to win the interaction just as much as he is. Your tactic is just different. I'm eating popcorn right now eavesdropping on you guys. I got 5 on it!

Just thoughts and their interaction with other thoughts inexplicably being perceived. But these are more words.

No one. It is just an intentional creation of blindspots in awareness. Thoughts drowning out awareness.

I think fear and lack of acceptance. Inability to let go of cherished stories and identities... including the story relating to my two ego-transcendence experiences. Preconceived ideas about what enlightenment is based off of my memories of those experiences coupled with new second-hand knowledge that I've gleaned from Leo and various spiritual teachers. I think, I just can't let go and actually face what I am. So, I do a lot of mental masturbation and bypassing. But I'm sure I'll stop running from it eventually.

Thank you for sharing! I wish there were more extended half-day retreats. Most that I've found are complete full-day silent retreats where there is only that for 10+ days. I would love to do one like this, but with kids it's not possible for me. If they had the same thing only with half-days, this would be perfect.

Yes. It's very sneaky. Most actions that we take and thoughts we entertain are to run away from what we are, as though hounds of hell were at our heels.

At the present time, no. But I had two experiences of ego-transcendence in my past that gave me very strong glimpses of what the enlightened paradigm is like. Each lasted for several hours and were spurred on by use of an entheogen. I was able to see through the illusion of my identity completely, and I released all of my petty fears and concerns regarding the self that I was living as. I recognized that I was constantly deceiving myself, and this lying was what obscured my awareness of the wisdom that had always been there. I had always known everything that I needed to know as a human being. My fear of death went away completely and I was finally at peace with the fact that I would die one day and be forgotten, and that that's exactly what's supposed to happen. Also, I was capable of unconditional love, even of things that I didn't like and even reviled. I recognized the completeness and perfection in everything, and there was no more self-hatred or hatred of anything. My emotions played out at full stretch because I was finally allowing them and being honest about them. I felt deeper joy, sorrow, lust, and anger than I had ever allowed myself to feel. And all these emotions (positive and negative) were like watching a beautiful natural phenomenon and meant nothing about me as a person. This was a huge contrast to the numbness with which I lived my life at the time. I valued stoicism then, so emotions were not acceptable to me because of my self image. I also felt completely connected with everything in existence, and that existence was aware of me. I felt this awareness as something very self-evident. I was also able to pick up on subtler things, like the impact of the texture of the wall on the mood of the room. I was able to make connections between things happening now and larger patterns. But this wasn't in any analytical way. It was as though it was just self-evident. Also, many of the traits that I had repressed (some of them since childhood) came back into my conscious awareness because they posed no threat to my self-image. It was a complete letting go. It was heaven on Earth, and I was only looking to get high. I didn't expect to have my entire worldview and experience of reality turned on its head forever. I just wanted to see some cool colors and be like the hippies. I was only twenty and seeking a novel experience. It caused many issues in the aftermath because I didn't know what to call it or how to reconcile it with my daily life until I found Leo's videos on enlightenment which lead me to finding other resources and tools.

A lot of the language that I use is for the practical purpose of communicating. So, if I say 'ultimate truth' or 'higher nature' or anything like that, these are metaphors for practical understanding from the dualistic perspective. From the non-dual perspective, there is no ultimate truth, higher nature, lower nature, or self. There are illusions. But most people live from the dualistic (ego) perspective and communication must necessarily happen from the standpoint of duality in order for people to make meaning from words. This is why I wrote "words". They're the damndest thing.

Words

True from the ultimate perspective. But from the dualistic perspective, it is an apt description for the internal phenomenon that he was talking about. It is what's most helpful in this situation. Kind of like if you're trying to order a pizza and pizza guy says who should I deliver it to. The you say "There is no me. The person I call "I" is an illusion based in ego-consciousness." He's going to be very confused as to whom to deliver that pizza to.

Thanks. I'm glad that it was helpful. Many bloody battles were waged between my higher and lower nature to come to this understanding. hehehe.

I have sleep paralysis a lot and I've had scary things interacting with me. I find that my experiences in sleep paralysis/OBE tend to correlate to my emotional state.

Many resources say that drinking a couple cups of decaffeinated coffee daily can have positive effects on your health. So, the coffee itself isn't the problem. It is the caffeine, which can cause dehydration, heart palpitations, and irregular sleep patterns. My recommendation is to enjoy decaffeinated coffee in moderation.

Definitely allow them. Your mind is a self-correcting mechanism that is trying constantly to bring you to enlightenment. It is only ever you that gets in the way. Allow these images to be and just watch them with complete awareness. There is nothing wrong during meditation. Just be mindful of whatever is.

That's wonderful. You may have mentioned to me before, but how long have you been meditating for and how long during the day? Also, how long can you sit for and have you done any retreats?

I don't really know what my preference is anymore. It's all clouded. Sometimes I wish I could just forget everything I've ever experienced or learned about enlightenment. Life used to have a lot more direction and paths were clear. But now the water is very murky.

It is boring from ego-consciousness because it does nothing for the continuation of the ego. The ego wants to go out with a bang, so it can be remembered. It abhors death, so it devises many tactics to keep itself alive in the minds of others through uniqueness and speciality. The ego can never accept death unceremoniously and always wants to set itself apart from the rest and be exceptional. Equalization in death is terrifying to the ego. Being forgotton can't be accepted.

These are more about lies that we tell ourselves, that inevitably make us lie to others. Deep down, we know that they aren't true but we trick ourselves into believing them anyway. This is why they are lies because deep down, we know full well that these things aren't true. So, relative to this, we always tell untruths to others because our capacity for being truthful with ourselves is low. So, I see no issue with telling white lies because we're constantly telling lies anyway whether we want to or not, until we can be conscious enough of how we lie to ourselves.

Well, it's admirable. If I recall, you're a teenager, and if you're not old enough to have a job this could be a good way to start a habit of philanthropy.

When you reach enlightenment, you won't care what music plays during your death nor will you care about what happens to your ashes. These are all ego concerns, even though the may not seem as such. The enlightened person doesn't care for being remembered or defining their personality through particular preferences or fashion statements. They just die unceremoniously and allow themselves with full acceptance to be swallowed completely by the sands of time. Forgotten forever with complete acceptance.

My wish is that, no matter how I die, I want to die enlightened. This is the only way that I will ever be able to accept it. The only time I ever truly accepted my mortality was during my ego-transcendence experiences. It became evident to me during those experiences that there was nothing of substance to truly lose. Otherwise, death is terrifying no matter how instantaneous or peaceful.

Well, I think that this is very normal to want to have deep relationships but also to want the excitement of experiencing new partners sexually. It's two different areas of the brain and two different neurochemicals that contribute to both of these feelings. One is based in the reptilian brain (biological urges and instincts) and the other is based in the pre-frontal cortex (emotions, socialization, reason). Now, even though the wanting to have sex with other people is more pronounced in men because more sexual variety equals more children and more genetic variety and more ways to pass on the genes. Sexual variety for women is biologically normal too but only after a few years when the child is well into toddlerhood. This is because, in nomadic times a woman could not both provide for a baby and care for a baby at the same time because human children are born premature because of our brain growth. So, the father needed to provide for the first few years otherwise the children would not survive and the woman would likely be in bad shape as well because of the intensity of the labor process. So, women have more biological impetus to settle with one partner. But once the three years is up, it benefits our gene pool for the woman to find another strong partner to mate with so that more genetic variety is added to the gene pool. For women, finding the best partner to make the children who are most fit to the environment is the most important. Women can only have so many children because it takes an entire 9 months to make one for them, and there's a lot of work and labor that goes into the process of making and caring for a child. So, the man has to be awesome. Men, on the other hand, can afford a few duds because they can have thousands of children in their lifetime. So, the biological impetus is to mate whenever possible. Both of these behaviors in men and women are what contributes to a biologically healthier species. But because we have a very complex social structure and a complex emotional understanding, we live in a society where men and women have to co-exist and find ways to make these two conflicting drives work in order to create a healthy relationship, a healthy family, and a healthy society. We also all want to be treated fairly because of our ability to reason which comes from the pre-frontal cortex. So, our lower nature (instincts) often conflict with our higher nature (socialization). So, these two things must be reconciled. This is where the paradox comes into play, because (no matter what) there is no way to perfectly reconcile this paradox. The only thing to do is to accept that you will never have things exactly as you want them, because one drive will always cancel out parts of the other. Your best bet for minimizing the issues caused by this paradox is to find an incredibly open minded partner who understands this paradox and doesn't shame you for wanting to have sex with other women. But to expect her to allow you to sleep with other women, while not being okay with her sleeping with other men will undoubtedly get in the way of her pre-frontal cortex's need for fairness. And even if she allowed it, deep down it would cause a barrier to intimacy (which your pre-frontal cortex wants) because of the unfairness aspect. This open-mindedness is hard to find because most people (especially women as I've noticed) buy into the idea of the fairytale romance of only being attracted to the person you're with, love at first sight, etc. These narrative only create more strain and shame around our most natural tendencies. So, unfortunately, it is what it is. You just have to make room for this paradox and find a balance between relationship stability and satiating your baser desires. But we're all in the same boat. I have the same struggles and I'm a woman. My husband and I talk about this struggle too, although I enjoy listening to his fantasies more than he enjoys listening to mine. I'm a bit more open-minded in this way because human sexuality is fascinating to me. I love watching the conflict and tension at work. I also know that his desires for sexual variety doesn't mean that he doesn't love me or want to stay with me. But, you can also change your relationship to your desires, so that they don't run you. I think that you seem to be very self-honest about this dilemma where few people are able to be. So, continue with self-honesty but make it more radical still. All suffering comes from illusion. So, you may not be able to change the way that you're wired on the physical level. Biology is biology. But you can transcend the ego so that you're not buying into "I can only be fulfilled by having things the way that I want them" stories.

Yeah. Only it's even more silly.

Wanting enlightenment is no different than wanting millions of dollars or wanting candy.