Sven

How long will your retreat be?

Curious what you guys have to say!

I think this is related- here Ralston speaks about how when you fully realize your true nature it becomes, I don't want to say "easier", but, certainly more clear as to why to change yourself so that you can achieve certain goals. If you were to want to build a business you might want to look into what "kind of a person" would run a successful business. And then you do that. Anyway, I think it comes down to you know when you know kind of thing.

"Habit is the force of ego." The one without a set-in-stone identity is free- and can choose freely anything in the mind to arise or not to arise.

Let's celebrate! It's been 100 pages and 2000 posts

Sounds about right- in a broad sense. The definition contains "it seeks" a lot- isn't the true movement you're mentioning here more responsive to an already present struggle consciousness has, which is to know itself? Or something along those lines. But perhaps a way of saying that really there's no agenda for the movement would be in place. Nobody can "join the movement" in a sense, because then immediately we deal with ideology- and we shallt remember: "Do not be ideological".

You don't need to "lock habits" - unless you really just want to. As far as your question goes: don't try to quiet the mind. It means you are not accepting that which is already present. Rather, "watch" without judging. That's what meditation is also. Watch the mind. For more on this Eckhart Tolle is my recommendation

Enlightenment is not an experience, it can't "stay with you"

I don't think you're asking the right questions

"Resistance keeps us from being who we really are" Everything happens for a reason- bullshit? Well- just take this axiom for granted for now and see what happens when you don't resist emotions, situations, people, judgments, ego backlashes... list is endless. Take this axiom and see how it influences your authenticity. The opposite of resistance is acceptance. I feel resistance in my body e.g. in arms, shoulders. Body awareness to let go of resistance- ongoing practice of letting go of body tension during meditation

Distractions? But I keep forgetting. And then forgetting that I forgot. And then saying there's nobody to forget. Ahh... What a game

Do you meditate?

@111111 You are planning on going weekly? Wow. I personally felt I needed lots of months to integrate my experience. But we all differ

Thank you @Nahm! Though why is Leo stressing that certain efforts are very much required? "There is nothing to do/ nothing you can do. (You are already enlightened.)" - Leo laughs. "No no no... (...) ego trick (...)" etc. There's a relief in letting go. Letting go should also be prio number 1 as far as I know. But Leo's videos are still quite detailed. Why watch them then?

Oof. I read "The Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot on this. Have to say, this was a while ago. And back then I didn't take notes out of the books I read. I don't really remember anything out of the book It did explain this stuff though. Mostly from a scientific standpoint, however. Can't provide any help any further than this I'm afraid

Awesome ! Also, the album you shared, that music must be insane when on LSD. Love it. How long ago was the trip? You said you set aside goals for your first time- do you plan on (if ever in the future you were to go again) setting goals? What would those goals be?

That's amazing to hear. Thank you for sharing. I can imagine how at the same time you feel like someone special is in front of you, yet, there's not much really to say, right? Well- you can ask him questions like people are doing to @winterknight I love the questions you asked as well, "was it worth it?" is such a good question actually. What else would you have wanted to ask him?

Are you gonna do it alone? I'm sure doing it alone has its perks, but so does doing it with someone you trust. It's like a safety anker

Something to do with strange loops I think Leo has also mentioned somewhere that "reality" can be seen as a hologram (only metaphorically). Holograms contain the whole in a part. But I think your question cannot be really answered. The answer you already just gave. The whole is contained in a part. But the experience is what matters in this case

Alright it took me a while to think this over (which ironically probably, ultimately, should not be necessary, but aside from that) The following hypothesis came to mind: A) There is something blocking my memories / experiences from being remembered short-term. Now - this is an honest question of mine (maybe I'll go ask winterknight I guess) - is enlightenment the same as living only on short-term memory? I guess that's bullshit because if that were true, you would not be able to remember what you ate or wore yesterday. This blocking/repression I am talking about might be a way in which I think I'm making progress. Let me explain. Obviously, I try to let go of all the issues I used to have in the past. This is what growing and learning means- in the sense that you learn that everything is okay as it is- you are not fat- you are not ugly- (well maybe you are) but these should not be problems. They only take up space in your mind and hinder your everyday life so to speak. This might be a sign of building awareness and letting go of unnecessary baggage (like, who is popular, what's the news?, what's the weather like these weeks, what's Justin Bieber up to (hey, don't judge)- dropping this stuff is another way of saying that the clouds of thought are no longer veiling true self e.g. consciousness in pure form. B) Or- the blocking simply means I am stressed and only capable of focusing on short term tasks- which can very well be true since I'm currently kinda stressed about my study. I study psychology, but at the moment it's a course on statistics. Great fun!... Anyhow, this could indeed simply be a defense mechanism as @Nahm mentioned. In this case stress would cause repression in a certain way I'm not aware of. So- Yes, @zambize I meant that distractions might be a way of identifying ego backlash. Still I have not figured this out actually. My perspective on this is getting more and more blurred. To clarify: I have no clue what progress entails and what does not. Sure I had an amazing awakening last sunday (posted here on the forum briefly), but as I had expected then, this "feeling" of an understanding of infinity expressed such that, no matter what happens, good or bad, it is perfect the way it is. Awesome! But... Sadly, this is relying on a FEELING. Feelings come and go as we know. It's not grounded in an actual experiential consciousness (or however one wants to phrase enlightenment). @Hellspeed I was not able to identify these physical sensations in the moment I feared a drop in progress- which as of now- I'm not sure is even possible. But yet, as many including Leo have said, there seem to be stages of enlightenment. Well fine. I never really like to think of it this way, though, since then I have to put myself on a scale. But I'm not even sure how to measure that! @Rilles (why does the name tag not turn blue!): funny you say that actually... I thought the fear of losing your mind (as I have described above in some detail) is to be considered as an increase in detachment? Either that, or yes, you are going insane... And in that case the ego has fear. Obviously real awareness cannot feel fear. It sees through this. Fear is Fake Evidence Appearing Real @Sahil Pandit (again not blue : ( ): Yes I do feel resistance to be key... Maybe I hereby answered my above questions in a way? Ego resists- pure awareness does not... Okay... Sounds about right. Here's my personal standpoint: I used to be very high energy as a kid, jumping around and the like. No wonder I took up Freerunning as a sport later. As I got older, though, (about 11 years old) I wanted to change this high energy. The reason being that, not only was my high energy manifested in positive emotions, but also in negative ones (go figure). Long story short: took me some years, but I became more dull overall. Was this a mistake? I mean- I resisted my natural being. I resisted my high energy. Now after all these years I have grown to believe that high energy corresponds to ego. And don't get me wrong, high energy here I simply define as being very active. Not necessarily meaning high vibrational energies or anything. Or are children just more active in general? I don't think this is true. You got shy kids. Tl;dr A) Is resistance the key to understanding ego and ego backlash? If you feel resisting of anything (people, situations, emotions, thoughts): this is ego? Don't resist? B) Is being very active a sign of ego? Why do I say this you say? Well, look at Eckhart Tolle, Sadhguru, Rupert Spira, Bentinho Massaro, whatever, you name them, they are always very relaxed. Is this a direct correlation, or is it just a role they play because people expect this? thank you

Either it's bullshit- or it's extremely counter-intuitive. Or are these two the same things? Well, probably 90% of what we as a community think enlightenment is, is not enlightenment. Maybe even more than 90. But @Dumb Enlightened - it is possible to realize your true nature Nobody ever speaks of 'defeating' Maya either- it's all about seeing Maya as Maya- and that's that I'm not sure how to follow up but this is all I can so far say is true from my experience. I'm not drawing conclusions because I can't

Try this one

If anyone does know: I've been wondering about this for some time now

It's a skill which gradually develops with consistency and dedication, there's a lot of stuff to learn as well. I got so many cool books on this I'm not sure where to start really. It's a little too much to explain here I think. You can PM me if you want

It can be very profound, plus it's a hella cool hobby! Imagine asking that dao symbol "Why does this appear?" for example