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Teal Swan is not enlightened. If you look more closely at her, she writes diatribes against people she feels wronged her, such as exes and demonizes them in public. Then look at her fanatical followers and how mentally unstable they are - how they go after anyone who criticizes her in droves. There is always scandal around her and many people hurt by her. I'm not sure why people like Teal Swan keep getting brought up around here as examples of enlightenment, though like any teacher, she has some good qualities. "Teal Swan, an emerging cult leader, claims she is a multi-dimensional Arcturian alien working with 11 other aliens in an “intergalactic Green Peace” type organization. She says she has x-ray vision and hearing, that she can inject herself into people’s brainstems to revive them and can hear tectonic plates moving. She has a massive following, many of whom, called “Tealers,” tattoo themselves with her symbol. Teal claims suicide is a “reset button” and that “death is delicious.” At least two of her followers have already committed suicide. Teal also claims to have suffered 13-years of abuse in a child-murdering Mormon Satanic Cult where she was routinely tortured, sewn into a corpse for 12 hours and made to torture other children." https://medium.com/@bescofield/the-gucci-guru-inside-teal-swans-posh-cult-36168edaf62f

Fucking money. Seems like a lot of you are trying to help him but missing the point and seeing it as just an emotional, psychological problem. But sometimes, people are so far down into physical challenges and financial scarcity that emotional/spiritual development can't really help them improve, only cope. And if fear of death is overcome, and there is no foreseeable way out of constant biological suffering, suicide can look like an option. I obviously don't know the nuances of his situation, but I know my own suicidal thoughts would stop if I just was provided with a safe and comfortable place to live and quiet place to sleep. From that springboard I imagine it would be possible to self-actualize financially, but when dealing with chronic sleep deprivation all I can really do is suffer through existence. If the OP has a way to meet basic needs and reject the role of family provider thrust upon him, why kill himself? From my point of view people end their lives for the stupidest of reasons. The things that bother me most are what feels like blatantly obvious short-sightedness and inefficiency. On the microscale, people feeling depressed over things that can easily be changed by changing their mental perspectives, their diet, physical body practices, and emotional self-hacking. On the macro-scale, a capitalist world where productivity is higher than ever, but individual survival still depends upon somehow making money. On the personal level, the feeling that there is nothing I can do except tell depressed people 'you're full of shit, get over yourself,' decry the detriments of capitalism, and feel too burdened by my own suffering to help others escape theirs.

@Baotrader I had a major insight from Byron Katie about why suicide doesn’t help in ending suffering. It’s because there will be no ‘you’ to realise that you’re dead. And so, in a twisted fate of luck, you will live in eternal suffering. But anyway, if that is your decision, then I respect it. Good luck my friend.

I know I shouldnt interact with people when in the lower self because I'm just miserable, cant focus on them at all,will pity myself or if I can fake it for a while they will at least definitely know something is up. The problem is I'm in my lower self 99% of the time. I just sit in my room lonely, not motivated to do anything. I can use meditation or sedona to release these negative emotions and it will work for about an hour and then they come back. Or maybe I'm feeling good for a day and I think this is it, I finally made progress. And the next day I'm back to zero. There was a time where I just hated work days and on the weekend I could relax and have fun with a videogame. This is not possible anymore, I'm suffering on the weekends now too. I cant bring myself to even play a video game or watch a movie or really do anything. I talked about this with my parents and they are very worried about the direction my life is heading, alone, no relationship, smoking a lot, really no happiness in my life. I can tolerate going to work for now but I wonder for how long. If I had to describe how I feel its just wave after wave of sadness. It doesnt matter if I'm conscious of it or not, the waves come. Its just my normal way of being. And I dont know if thats really a way to live life. At my worst times I think about suicide a lot I just cant sustain a normal level of happiness.

Is suicide justified?

To quote a suicide survivor “I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable—except for having just jumped.”

Disclaimer: I am no way shape or form advocating physical suicide. I know this might sound like a silly question and I feel as though the answer won't be known till I do work, but I'm asking it anyway. I feel like it's starting to hit me that this whole Enlightenment stuff is serious shit. Whenever I talk about Enlightenment there's a tendency for me to compartmentalise stuff and forget I'm talking about the nature of all existence and reality itself. I remember I was meditating yesterday and had just a few moments of clear perception. It freaks me the hell out because it was like I was never there. I'm just feeling scared now after that experience. It felt extremely beautiful to me yesterday but right now I'm just freaking out for some reason. My mind is just racing with the thought "I don't want to die" and I'm just having a existential crisis. I'm wishing I never did any of this meditation or consciousness work in the first place, because it's making me think that I can delude myself into thinking I'm alive but I've always been dead and have just been an empty void. I feel like I'm going insane. I'm just feeling a wave of negativity. I know that the way I'm phrasing it is silly and unuanced but I'm just curious about people who are completely enlightened (if such a thing is 100% possible). Are these people like talking corpses? All these words can come out their mouth and it looks like they're alive, but they're really dead?

You're doing a huge service. So first off thank you. I’ve been in that spot when I was a teenager (can’t believe I’m saying that) when I was suicidal at that time and man, if you reach just 1 person who really hears you and feels you, that 1 person is more than you could probably ask for if you really impact them. I remember there would be suicide awareness speeches in my high school and whenever we had a good speaker, I literally felt that he was talking to me and I felt acknowledged and heard. As far as the hero’s journey, how deep are you going with it because obviously as a lot of us here on this forum know, what the hero’s journey is really pointing to is awakening and enlightenment and obviously those guys probably wouldn’t be that receptive to that if you’re being direct. For me, when I actually talk about the hero’s journey to people I actually get emotional (not in the sense that I’m crying) and people really feel that and it’s usually my strength when I communicate that I communicate from the heart and I do so emphatically and genuinely and people can really feel that off me when I do. So yeah, maybe food for thought.

After hours of work... EDIT YEARS OF MEDITATION DOUBLE EDIT: I AM GRANTED THAT I HAVE NEVER OWNED A PENIS AND I DON'T EXIST. I don't really get why would anyone chase enlightenment just for a mental suicide.

Suicide is cautioned against because if there is one birth, there is another -- there is reincarnation. Suicide doesn't mean you solve your problem. You simply get born again and have to face life's pain all over again, from the start. Better to commit the real suicide -- the one that kills the false self -- which can only happen through inquiry. Then you recognize divine immortality instead of being born again. Then you get all the benefits of life, and all the benefits of death. The video is ok, not great. There's a little truth to it, but it's also misleading. It implies that first there was a person and then it was sucked in and totally disappears, when in fact the realization is that there was never a person. Also, the Self is not this homogenous ball. But it's hard to represent the Truth in images. From the standpoint of enlightenment, the real truth is that there are no other people. Or if there are, they are all enlightened. But if you mean someone who has explicitly sought and seemed to have found and whose understanding is perfect, then no. I don't know what that would be like. It's hard to say, really, about the rest. The problem I was always different... always a little strange. So hard to say how much spirituality changes that fact. I think people seek my presence a bit more, but it's also hard to say for sure. Whether the bodhisattva can sustain a relationship with someone not interested in spiritual work doesn't really depend on their enlightenment but on their prior karma. That's what runs their bodies and minds. Finally, in fact there cannot be said to be any form. But if there is, then just as there are worlds with pain and suffering, there are surely worlds without -- as there are hells, there are heavens. Though even heaven is hell compared to the perfect realization of the Self. Because the realized one sees the truth that what appears to be suffering and pain is actually nothing other than grace and perfection.

@Pookie please don't tell that to psychiatrists hahaha! they're close-minded. and no talking about suicide/homicide with a therapist!

There's so much to say about this topic. ❤️ Suicidal thoughts and suffering was a huge part of my life growing up so I have a good amount of experience with it to the point of adoring it just as much as the "good stuff." For a long time I had a natural, intrinsic curiosity for pain and suffering and how it corresponds to empathy, and how it can help someone gain their empathy and emotional connection to the world. The more pain, hardship, and turmoil one goes through, the more likely they are to feel empathy towards others because now they can actually say they had direct experience with pain themselves, therefore it is to be deeply felt & understood and even appreciated. When I was 14 years old, I attempted suicide and eventually was led to the hospital because of it. The reason why was because I was dealing with so much internal adversity and struggle for a very long time, and once I hit my teens and discovered/fully grasped that what I went through as a child was completely inhumane and wrong, it was difficult for me to handle this massive awakening alone at this age. And it was indeed a massive awakening. However, I always felt like feeling, releasing and surrendering to my pain in numerous ways was extremely liberating and even then I embraced the pain I was going through. This whole experience was one of the most significant experiences of my life. It is a long story so I won't go too far but being at such an age, being hospitalized, diving into the domain of psychology right before my eyes, it all helped me learn and grow tremendously. Looking back on it now, it was pretty much one of the best moments of my life because not only did I feel so free from the internal battles in which I was dealing with for so long, but everything was finally disclosed and released, I gained wisdom and emotional relief because I had no other choice but to inform my parents/family the things that happened to me. It was painful at first and scary because I didn't want anyone to know what occurred, I didn't want to see them in pain, but in the end it only brought us to the Truth, tackled and captivated the darkness that could no longer be ignored, and granted freedom from an internal cage. Ironically, these suicidal thoughts and ideas and attempts only led me to feeling completely alive again. It was a brand new beginning for me and the start of my whole entire lifelong journey of healing through the craft of spirituality.

@Rilles he is saying that suicide and shit like that are things that all things that a first world mind will consider because of how spoiled it is. Notice how you don't typically hear of people in Africa or a lower economically developed country, committing suicide. They hold onto the idea that life will be better in the future. But that's always what the mind does, the person is always waiting for the day where they life is fulfilling. But it never does. Because of the fallen state of the mind, happiness will always be "somewhere else." And it's just that in the developed world, where money, sex and relaxation are plentiful, there is little else for the mind to believe in. So it's a bit of a brat. But meditation is suicide. Everything that is painful and depressive in you is imagination I'm pretty sure. But yeah, outside of "spirituality" and wisdom...my philosophy regarding suicide is that if I was really going to put a bullet through this thing I call "my head", then i would probably do some mad fun shit first. Like, if I'm prepared to do that, then I'll be prepared to say fuck it and go on 5 holidays, do loads of drugs and crash my car. Like why would you just kill yourself. You'd be better to have a bit of fun. Just change your life dramatically. But Leo's advice is the best. Anything that isint the one who observes is, by definition, not you...including wanting to die. But yo, you wouldn't get a chance to be enlightened if u did. So for my it's just not logical, even if I were to feel like doing it. At least have some fun and go nuts first like

yes, I've felt that, I was homeless once with a child, we had to live in a walk-in closet for 6 months, I've gone without food, been beaten, etc, etc, etc money troubles and trying to survive can be so hard I thought about suicide a lot, and took a lot of chances where I might die by accident but it never happened the thing is, that today, I am so glad I didn't die spiritually though, if you die without going through this then won't you just go through it again in the next life? might as well just plow though, I hope things turn around for you soon <3

Go with them, suicide the old you, your personality, your old patterns. Go with the flow to find bliss.

http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/suicide-rate-by-country/ Suicide rates are higher in more ”privileged” countries.

@winterknight i have communicated with you several times in this thread, mostly with asking questions. Now i feel like i want to share some of my backgrounds with you. I had my last profound experience in 2016 december/ 2017 january. I havent had that much meditation experience before, i wasn't even familiar with the word self inquiry. Before that, i was suffering greatly for several months. It felt like i am finished, i have no reason to live in this world, i felt i should suicide and there is no way out from this misery. I was like a complete hell. I didn't know where i was going in my journey of life. Until something happened.... One day, something inside of me said to me to STOP. And suddenly i stopped. I noficed my thought is happening, and i am just beginning to watch it like a observer. It was like a movie. I realized my thoughts were not me. I felt like something very big fell upon me. It was shocking. Then i felt something inside me guiding me to take a tour with him/her/entity. I gone along with it, and it showed me really very profound things, things that i couldn't even believe! One might ask what was those, but really, i felt like i can not describe those in words, they are so profound and complex. I saw my suffering and that entity showed me those were not even existed in the first place! Then it showed me how i created those sufferings! Watching that, i became really very sad, depressed. It showed me that i am a creator and how i create, things! This period went for several days and those were so profound that i even regreted that why would i have to take food and bath because it felt like waste of time. I was eager to see those things. It finally showed me that i do not exist. It showed me happiness, sadness, depression, sexuality, guilt, shame, sweetness and many things. I felt like its just a layer and there is more to see more to dive deeper. After some days it went away. But i wasnt the same me i was before. I felt that i died. Literally died. After some days of sadness, i became surprisingly happy. I felt joy in my heart. I felt fresh, even the joy was so great that one night i literally was jumping in a street with no reason. And it was giving me tremendous happiness. I thought this feeling will be always there for me. But i was wrong. Now i want to hear from you. What do you think? What was that? What happened to me? Was it some sort of enlightenment? N.B - at that time as i remember now is that i didnt even know the word enlightenment and what it is.

hi my name is amirali and im an 19 year old college student from iran . this is my first post and im excited to be a part of this community. before i ask my questions i want to add that i will use the word "self" instead of "ego" . in my opinion the world ego can be a bit misleading because in my case amirali is the ego and not a separate entity and i did not notice this till recently . now lets get to questions : 1: enlightenment means dissolving or killing the self , how fully enlightened beings or someone with no sense of self can even function (walk,talk,socialize,...) as a human being? or they describe enlightenment as being joyful or stronger than any drug highs, how can I experience joy when there is no me?! 2: after my recent trip i realized that by doing consciousness work im actually killing myself ! how can killing the self or in other words dissolving the ego slowly but surely benefiet the self ?! even so why not just suicide? for the first question i've got some idea's . by killing the self you become formless so you can take many forms . im not so sure about that and would like to hear your opinions too. I'd appreciate you sharing your answer and forgive me for any grammatical mistakes

thank you great people for attending i know that ego is not physical but still suicide and shedding the ego are somehow similar because they both get ride of the concept and dont worry i wont suicide because im scared of losing my identity just like how people get scared during trips or after years of meditation but i think that people should stop demonizing things and that suicide is worth thinking about. maybe thats the fastest way to truth and how can reality , something thats infinite (at least people say so) be joy? something so simple . that does not seem right to me and in my opinion you cant be loving in that sense because still there is some selfishness in it and in best case scenario's you are doing loving things so your ego can feel good about itself and true love can be achieved only by shedding the ego really cool insights my friend but you see in my opinion I am the small self.everything i identify with : my parents , my body , things that happened to me. the small self is these projections(amirali). and i know that there is something beyond but still getting over who you are and what you identify with is really hard at least for me actually this is what i got to during my contemplation and trips but the thing is i havent seen beyond the persona but i know that i am the persona and I started these techniques and consciousness works to make a better persona . seems like ive been wrong this whole time and its better to kill or defrag the persona i couldnt agree more but you see "i am the illusion" . you have to agree mate that its a hard pill to swallow .and you know whats even harder? that by doing meditation , psychedelics , ... i am getting rid of the illusion = i am getting rid of myself. thank you all for your great insights . maybe im just making a big deal out of it

There is nothing to be dissolved or killed. There is no being. There is no experience. There is no self to be benefited and nobody to commit suicide. Ideas are fooling a person that is merely an idea.

Welcome! 1. You're already doing it. You have the wrong idea of ego/self - It's conceptual, not physical. The 'death of physical' is the end of the falsity that there was ever such a thing as physical. Joy is. Concerns over physical, death, self doubt, worry, fear, lack - these 'cover' or veil reality / the joy - and keep your mind thinking, when you could be loving. 2. Someone confused you with 'physical death', understandably, you have equated it to suicide. Don't do that. You won't experience formlessness in the sense you understand it now. Your perspective of what you are, and what the world is will change. For the better.

English is not my first language. Read only the bold text for a general idea. Fact/Force No 1: Self Actualization feels like the one true thing, the path to follow, the source of meaning and value to oneself and to all existence. It is the highest Maslow need and, as highly developed individuals, we feel attracted to pursue it Fact/Force No 2: Self actualization is threatening to the ego and constantly attacks it, since you can think and experiment the fact that the ego is a blatant illusion and it is somehow funny how we keep doing it even though its clearly ridiculous. The ego is extremely potent after all these years of conditioning and is capable of producing really horrible sensations and feelings that you are about to lose your mind/suicide, and in losing your mind you will never be able to self actualize any further. Therefore, there is an opposing force to self actualization work. Situation: Right now, I'm in a sensitive moment, living in another city, doing hard work, far from my friends and family, with not much comfort/money (it is temporary and I will be back in my city in one week, so it's not like I need to stop and go back to work on the previous levels of Maslow's needs, because I honestly got all that working already). Still, I kept a high load of self-development work, taking advantage of this new moment that I'm living, and therefore force No 2 is starting to get way too intense. The discussion: What should a self-actualizing individual do in this moment? Actively decide to numb down the SA work for a week or two and then resume it? Keep hammering it because the ego suffering is actually good to shatter the illusion even though it feels really bad? Is there a strategy/system to manage the balance between the two forces? I need some light from this brilliant community. Thanks for the insights =)

In the book truth vs falsehood (on leo's book list also a must read in my opinion) david hawkins talks about using muscle testing to determine truth from falsehood, you can also than pinpoint where on the universal scale of consciousness ( A scale from 1 to 1000 with the highest 10000 being enlightened avatars like the buddah, jesus christ etc, the lowest being around 10 the level of severe depression commonly followed by suicide) a person's energy is. I thought it would be interesting, to test a bunch of spiritual teachers on this scale. Anything below 200 is considered ultimately destructive (means your worse of being exposed to them to varying degrees) anything above 200 is seen as supportive of life and beneficial to all. Using testing around 70-80% of the worlds population is seen to be below 200 so it is uncommon to be over this. - Leo gura: Leo calibrated at 310 this is the level of willingness the life view is hopeful and god view is inspiring. This is a very good level for a teacher to be at it means they have overcome inner resistance and are willing to participate in life. This means actualized.org is a positive force on it's audience and generally beneficial to all who use it. -Byron Katie: calibrates at 565 the level of unconditional love, at this level love and compassion, people at this level feel near constant joy and the world is seen as an expression of love and divinity. This is the level to aspire to in a lifetime. Another interesting thing to note is the amount of people who drop down into pride ( around 180 level feeling of superiority over others) after making spiritual advances it's easy to think of yourself as special given the feedback from the outside world, which is a huge cause of a drop in consciousness for people, back to the level of pride. Below is a list of teachers with a note able drop. -Deepak Chopra - Deepak calibrates at 185 the level of pride. At this level it generally feels good and is socially encouraged, but people at pride are still vulnerable because a change in external conditions can drop them down to fear anger etc. Because of the calibration below 200 they are seen as someone to avoid. - Eckhart tolle- Eckhart calibrates at 265 the level of neutrality. At this level life view is generally neutral, a feeling of whatever happens ill be fine. The interesting thing is eckhart has dropped from 510 at the level of unconditional love, to 265. May possibly be attributed to the constant media presence/fame around him?

@Shan I haven't reduced my very high anxiety to anything close to the ideal level but I feel it improving now. In the past I've had panic attacks where I hyperventilate for 30 mins straight and have had a few times where I frantically search the Internet on methods for suicide. The best thing I think you can do is mindful suffering. Suffering which is done mindfully is best done when you're meditating or something. Being mindful of suffering in your day to day life is hard unless you're consciousness is already high enough to try to be. Yesterday I was meditating for 1hr for example, and I was trying to maintain most of my posture. In my mine came up these thoughts "I want to escape I want to escape I want to escape I want to escape.... It hurts It hurts It hurts.." but through meditation you force both your conscious and subconscious mind to react differently to pain. There were times yesterday when my conscious mind was trying to be okay and accepting the pain, realising that a sensation in your consciousness is neither inherently good or bad. But despite this my subconscious mind was in overdrive, providing so much resistance. But throughout the session my resistance was dissolving as mindfulness increased. Meditation when done right is good for general happiness and anxiety. You're confronting your bodies fight or flight response "I want to escape I want to escape I want to escape" and are dissolving it. Your anxiety will also start to fade as you pay attention deeply to what this "I" that wants to escape is. The way I see it, you can conceptualise anxiety as an over the top reaction to some "negative" circumstance. And you want to rewire those reactions.

I know “I’m only 23” but right now it feels like all the shit in my life is just hitting the fan and I just feel so absolutely demoralized about my future and like I’m not prepared enough internally/psychologically to turn things around. Still living at home with no real friends at this point at a dead end part time job with no support system at all but more importantly, no solid internal development, I just found out yesterday from my car insurance company raised my rates again for an accident that involved me getting t-boned from a guy blowing a stop sign and because the guy didn’t pick up the phone after I filed the claim on him to accept liability they actually dropped the claim, stopped pursuing him, and aren’t going to coverage about $5000 minimum if I’m lucky worth of damages. It just feels like my life is just in this melting pot and culmination mode of endless misery and hopelessness that’s destined for me and all the mistakes I’ve ever made are coming to haunt me and will to me being just another average person that accomplishes nothing. Where there’s no background of sense of self-acceptance, self-esteem, how I was never good enough to my parents and how they coddled me with giving me all the wrong forms of help when I was younger and how stupid I was bullshitting around. I struggle to be concrete on my life purpose through the course after taking it 3+ times because it’s so emotionally hard when you have so much fear about how you can’t subsist which leads to being motivated from this place of aggression and anger which is really more of a reaction from this deep sense of hurt. I just don’t know how I can get myself out of this. I grew up in a emotionally and psychologically unstable family where screaming and yelling and suicide threats by my mom and yelling about money was the norm at my house, I struggled in high school from ADHD and from struggling socially and emotionally from the toxic parenting I got at home so I didn’t get to even get to taste some sort of freedom in what would’ve been “the college experience”. I have a terrible relationship with the family I live with now (my Dad) because I’m treated like I just my mentally unstable mom and how I’m some loser that needs to work 80 hours a week. I have no friends to move out with or anything. I feel resistance to just apply for a job here in San Francisco, because 1. I can’t afford to live here, 2. I hate living here in this claustrophobic neurotic human zoo, 3. Working these jobs, I’m sometimes in the bathroom just in tears because I’m faced with ‘this all I can fucking do and I don’t know what I actually can do.’ Every time I get another job like this (some low end job) I just get used to it and numb to it until I stop being numb to it and then I sabotage it by coming in late in stuff because deep down I’m reacting to how much I resent and despise hate with a very visceral hate how much I’m wasting my life in yet I keep getting caught in this catch 22. It feels like yes, life is a maze, this thing is fucking rigged against me to lose and go for fucking cheese, I don’t want cheese, I know the goal, but I’m not good enough in the achieve that goal and I can’t just ask 99.9999999% of people for help on this issue because they want cheese and I don’t want cheese. In yet, I’m not good enough nor prepared to get out of here.