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@texter 'she shouldn't commit suicide, is that true?' 'It's in her best interests to not commit suicide, can I really know that?' Contemplate these questions. They will change the way you feel about this situation. Note: I'm not saying that it's in her best interests to commit suicide, but if you contemplate these questions, you will get some amazing insights.

Don't worry, most of us who have an impasse/deadlock are not yet motivated enough to be willing to go to any lengths. Many in this situation have to get sick and tired of being sick and tired. Some even have to truly get mangled egotistically before surrendering it. And there are the unfortunate few how get so deluded by this that they end up thinking they are a mistake and rather die (suicide) than live another day with the impasse. However, there is a shortcut. Take a risk! Do the opposite. Feel lazy? well take a risk and go for a quick walk around the block. Can't set a goal? Take a risk and break your goal into smaller digestible/achievable pieces (one nail at a time so to speak). Negative self-talk? Take a risk and talk aloud your positives. Getting angry? Take a risk and calm down, be soft and gentle.

"NOTHING IN MY LIFE NOR ANYTHING I DO IN LIFE MATTERS SINCE I DON'T MATTER." In a twisted sense I'm actually happy I finally found this. Just because I've finally articulated the source after all these years of what I truly feel that has been causing all my self-sabotage and planned attempts in suicide over the years... Now, the question is... how the fuck do I eradicate this fucking thing once and for all? Yes, I know, 'challenge it.' I'm talking about on specific practical level though. Any techniques anyone has to share that can relate to this?

Need to get this off my chest and would really welcome some advice. I'm going to be all over the place here. Apologies in advance. This is probably gonna be a long story, so sit tight. When I was 10 years old, my entire family went to our home country to attend a wedding. It was awesome at the start. I loved going with my family to another country. All of us together. It was the first time in my life that I felt like I belonged with my family and it was great. That happiness was short-lived. The night before the wedding, a lot of the beds were taken up at the home we were staying at, and so we shared beds. It was me, my mom and the groom. My mom was in the middle of me and the groom. I woke up in the middle of the night. I did not move. I heard some noises. I opened my right eye. And saw my mom on top of the groom. She was fucking the groom. And she was fucking the groom, while I was in the same motherfucking bed. I mean, what the actual fuck? What sort of bitch would do that? Holy shit. I managed to get back to sleep. I woke up in the morning. The groom was leaving to get ready for his wedding. I heard him say "you're a home wrecker" to my mom. Later that morning, I saw my dad. He asked me where I slept that night. I thought it was really weird that he didn't know where I slept. I told him I slept with my mom and the groom in the same bed. He asked who was in the middle. For some reason, I knew this question to be important. So I answered "I was in the middle". I lied to my dad. And I knew I lied to him. And I lied to him to protect my family. Even now, in my twenties, I have a huge amount of respect for my 10 year old self for doing that. Top kid. I knew that had I said my mom was in the middle, he would know something was going on sexually. I was scared my family was going to break up. I didn't want that to happen. Later in the day. I plucked up my 10 year old courage and confronted my mom. The balls on that kid! I asked her about what happened last night. She lied to my face and said that the groom and her were "just talking" and gave me a hug. Fucking whore. She made a cuckold out of me and my dad. My mom is a rather volatile person. My dad is bigger and stronger than her, but she beats him and slaps him. Last year, after she slapped him a few times, he came to me in tears saying he was ready to "kill her" and rip her head off. I had to calm him down and tell him that isn't the right thing to do. And just to get a divorce. He's still with her. He's a big wimp. A big pussy. Always has been. He's a broken man. My mom slapped him up a few months ago, and he came up to my room and told me about it. What the hell am I gonna do about it, if he's not willing to do anything about it? I've been living with this secret my entire life. Only now am I telling it, on actualized.org, because I need another perspective on this. Ive blocked this memorry out of my mind for most of my life, but I've remembered it as I've started meditating and working on personal development. I'm unsure on my course of action here. I can't tell the truth of this to my family. It will rip and tear the family apart. It might even drag my dad to suicide. Like I said, he's broken. I'd rather keep this secret than tell them of it. For sure my mom never told my dad. Worse is that the groom and my dad are best friends. I saw the groom a few months ago at my grandma's funeral. We played cards. Ugh. One of the worst things is that, everyone thinks we're a normal family. But I've seen shit that tells me that we're fucked up. Everyone thinks we're the perfect family. But man, we've got some skeletons in the closet for sure. Everyone sees her as a holy religious person. But deep down she's a psycho. I regularly think about just disconnecting from my family. I think it will be healthier for me. Too much baggage. Way too many shitty memories. Not enough good memories to stay. Do I need to give them a reason for leaving them if I choose to? Or should I just do it? My heads all over the place atm. She's so nice to us now. She was horrible before. Used to lock me up the basement. Used to beat me. I was scared of these Halloween masks when I was a kid, and she knew that, so whenever I did something she never liked, she put on the mask, held me down, and made me stare at the mask. Fuck man. That was scary as hell. Then this? Putting me through that? I guess seeing her fucking the groom was my first ever sexual experience. Ugh. What would you do? Would you just carry on with life with these people as if nothing had happened? Thing is she's so nice now. Of course she is. I'm now 6 ft 2. She can't pin me back anymore. Plus, I think she's realised that she'll need people to look after her when she's old. She's super nice now. But the real side of her comes out when she's with my dad. Abuses him and everything. My dads a broken, broken man. I will not talk about this with my family. I won't reveal all this to them. I won't do that to my dad. I don't like family get togethers. Because I know I'm the only person in the room to know that this is all a lie. That this family is broken. And only I know this. Christmas with them is bullshit. My extended family look at me like "what's wrong". If only they knew the truth. But I gotta hold it in. I can see that this whole family dynamic is a complete sham! A mirage! Holding it in and staying connected to the family is harsh on me. Holding it in and leaving the family will be more just and merciful on my soul, I feel. More likely to forget about it that way as well. So should I just forgive and keep living on with them as if everything is cool. Or forgive, and then leave and go on my own? Don't wanna go to no therapist or shit. Need a course of action. Stay, or leave? They are family, though. What would you do? (If you've made it all the way here. Thanks. I realise this post was just everywhere and jittery. My apologies) Thanks in advance

@Outer I am not intelligent (the proof of that is that I failed college multiple times) so it does not apply to me. Besides, if that person was very intelligent then they wouldn't be homeless and a total failure. And suicide is a good option because that man has made probably a lot of suffering to his family or friends (because of his behavior) so suicide is good way to end this pathetic life and preserve the one you love.

I consider emperor Nero a zen-devil, too. He and Marcus Aurelius shared the same teacher, Seneca. The latter two are to be considered two of the main figures in stoic philosophy. I am not sure if they practiced some form of non-dual inquiry, but guessing from the way, they lived their lifes, I think, that they were somewhat spiritually realized. At least regarding the detachment aspect of enlightenment. But all three of them lived out their stoa in a different way. Seneca was more the yogi kind of guy and others wanted to learn philosophy from him, Marcus Aurelius went full on life purpose, becoming a great conscientious but at the same time extremely modest emperor after Neros death, and Nero himself just went all nuts, burned Rome several times and ordered Seneca to commit suicide.

I'm fifteen and my parents have crippling fears about self-actualization work . I tried to convince them but it didn't work very well and i asked (naively ) to a family friend to help me persuade them . She said that this work could bring me to suicide because i'm too young and imprudent . Now I fear this work too and i can't buy Leo's books nore the life purpose course wich i was so optimistic about. I've acknowleged that trying to convince my parents to buy these things right now is useless and i need to be more prudent and cautious with this work. Furthermore my parents are extremely aware of any unusual behaviors such as sadness and i'm scared that they could take my internet. I know that this goes against integrity but i need to know the most subtle and prudent ways i can approach this work right now ( apart from meditation and yoga )

Hey guys I know that "This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one." But just wanted to let you know that I am currently doing Leo's life purpose course and am upto #54 and am far from depression and suicide as of right now and have a clearer vision for my life now Thank you for those who commented and spent the time to write what they wrote. Sorry it took this long to get back to you. I hope you guys are doing just as well as you were then.

Now, shrooms can be highly effective in your situation. But I am not a doctor and I don't now who you are and how much you can stand. If I just were to say: "Yeah, go ahead, shoot your brain out with shrooms" and you do that and commit suicide because all of the repressed emotions are coming up, I cannot stay by that statement. (Btw, that's possible. You can lose total control if the dose is high enough and if you then get into a wrong stream of thoughts, you might kill yourself. That's not just a saying.) For someone who is emotionally at a normal base level (normal non-integrated egoic consciousness), I think it's quite safe if you do the research and start slow to try psychedelics. Of course there are always exceptions. But if you have serious emotional problems, you better talk to a doctor about that or do it with a doctor. I had serious emotional problems (due to shadow work / spiritual purification) and I did psychedelics either way, but that's because I researched them myself intensely, started slow, and I know who I am and how much I can take. But I can't make that call for you. So, go research. And if you do, start slow.

Suicide is my destiny now. I know now that there is no going back. My life will soon be terminated because of my inability to overcome myself and because I am not genetically coded for living. I never was. Some people will succeed and will do wonderful discoveries because there are gifted, because there are genetically coded to be successful. It's been a week since I stopped to meditate, I stopped eating healthy, I stopped to do math and science. I am now in a shitty job an organic grocery market. All day long, I transport fruits and vegetable to the shelf. Could I had a better job, a job in science, in research? NO because I am a 27 years old fucking retarded. I binge on porn and on junk media, on junk films, on masturbation because that's my destiny, because I can't resist the temptation! Because my brain is finished, his dopamine receptors will not be restored fully, I will never be able to be a researcher in maths. That's the cruel and clear reality. Now I am accepting it, I'm am accepting my mediocrity and know that this is all what life will be for me. I accept my destruction, I cannot fight any more, I cannot be better than this, it is impossible. Nearly 5 years of self-actualization for nothing... I was meant to be a failure. Now suicide is the only option, my absolute truth, my sweet and lovely destiny!! Dying like the junk I am. Self-help is useless, only gifted people or correct brain like Leo Gura and others can succeed. It was there destiny. Just like an organism that die prematurely because of a disease or because of an accident or malformation, I must be eliminated from the surface of the earth. Only the more intelligent, the more adaptable survive. I am not like that. I am tired and can't evolve.

@ajasatya then if someone who is Enlightened is so sure that the Ultimate Truth is pure Nothingness and knowing it is so relieving and beautiful why does not he suicide and end the physical body and ego completely?

@kieranperez It is very difficult to find a man who has not thought at least four times in his life of committing suicide. Why do people think of suicide? – for the simple reason that life is ugly and they don’t know how to beautify it, how to make a song out of it. It is just sadness, a long long anguish, a nightmare. When you are thinking of suicide, that simply says you are thinking that this life that you have lived up to now is not worth living. But there are possibilities in it which you have not tried yet. I say to you: This life can become a great joy. You may have lived a life without love. Why not try love? You may have lived a life obsessed with money. Why not live a life unobsessed with money? You may have lived a life which hankers to possess. Now live a life which is not worried about possessing anything. You may have lived a life of respectability - you may have always been considering what people think about you, what their opinion is. There is a life to live without bothering what others are thinking about you; there is a life to live individually and rebelliously. There is a life to live which is of adventure and not of social conformity. There is a life of meditation, of God, of search, of going within. You may have lived an outside life, chasing this and chasing that. I make available to you another life of not chasing anything, but sitting silently, disappearing within your being. A life of interiority. And you will be surprised - the whole idea of suicide will disappear like dewdrops in the morning sun, and you will stumble upon a life which is eternal. Osho ~ Dhammapada Volume 8

Leo, 1. Any plans to discuss suicide as a topic? 2. Where do you see actualized.org in 10 years?

How do you know that he wasn't talking about his state of being drunk? If someone is so drunk that he is falling to the floor and almost passing out he could be referring to his state when saying "why don't you let me die?" and not suicide later on.

@Toby COMPLETELY disagree with this advice. Any time anyone says anything about suicide it should be taken 100% serious, no matter the conditions. The conditions don't matter. Plenty of times throughout history I imagine that people have said suicidal stuff when drunk and then committed suicide later.

http://ruckasworld.com/ He attempted to suicide but he got help from a contact, people that help with these kind of cases (Listed on his website.) and now he makes amazing video parodies, he's happy and does what he loves to do. I think you father needs to change his aspect of life, he needs to spend his time with his family and gather peace in mind. You should definitely call your mother and sister, don't deal with this alone because you just might regret not calling them. He needs his family right now.

Sigh. Not a good day today. Anyone here I can PM? Or even just talk on this thread? Sorry, but I'm getting more depressed as the minutes pass. Being down is turning into sadness. Sadness is turning to depression. And from where it's heading, it seems like it's going to turn to despair. I'm even growing some thoughts of suicide but don't worry, I'm not taking that seriously. And I won't in the future. Probably. I would go talk to my usual listeners. But no one I know would really get the context of this situation. I explained it in my journal that I've recently made.

To be honest, I have always been an outcast. I have never think like everybody, I was always with myself because others rejected me or because I was tired of their type of discussion, their interests and their mentality. But I forced myself to be like them for a long time. I repressed my creativity and my interests into others futile things. It is only since a few years that I realized that. But I think it is too late. How can a 27 years old boy with no diploma can do if he wants to solve a difficult logical math problem? I am not ready, and I never will. I should have started doing it a long time ago, when I was young, when my mind was more plastic, more efficient, less polluted my drugs, porn and society. I wanted to end my life 3 times: one time when I was 5 or 6, one when I was 9 or 10 and one when I was 18 or 19. I'm sorry I did not act, i'm sorry I did not cut those veins or tied this rope. I should have done that before. If I had know what was waiting for me then I should have committed suicide long time ago. Next time I will not miss the target, I will not fail, not this time. The only thing that must not be failed is this.

I had trouble in meditation for the past weeks. I am struggling to complete the full hour of meditation. I am so agitated, I feel so much pain. But I can't observe it, I can't embrace it. I am less and less able to embrace my pain. Less and less able to be in mindfulness in my every day life. I feel that the darkness is slowly enveloping me. My demons of the past doesn't want to let me go. I am condemned to do the same error again and again. It has been 4 years since I wanted to change radically my life and being able to study and innovate in mathematical logic. The only changes that I see at the moment are that I failed and failed at college, and I have simply multiply "good" habits that doesn't give me any progress and any reliefs. In contrary, I feel like on edge constantly. On the edge of suicide, on the edge of total failure, on the edge of giving up once and for all. And I waste my time doing that shit of personal development because I'm not able to do logical maths. I want to change but my mind and body doesn't allow it. And the porn relapses weakens me each time a little more. How many time will I keep going like that? Few years, maybe 3 or 4 but not more. Life is meant to thrive, not to survive. And I am sick to survive. If people tell me that life is surviving then I will respond to them by suicide.

There has always been a nagging question in the back of my mind when listening to Leo talk about enlightenment. If it is the death of the self/ ego, then would suicide bring about enlightenment/ experiencing absolute infinity?

Currently I am in the trenches of life and I am forced to give effort in things I am not good at in order to learn and evolve. Who is suffering that? You would, and I would say no-one, but the reality of the situation is that I am here getting punched left and right, required to make decisions and choices between accepting and escaping my reality if I have to be honest. I'm talking about the human being that is typing those words, not awareness. Turns out I am not really awareness! It has been a sham. I am actually a human being that has to deal with issues, but I'm so far the rabbit hole that I can't, so the only thing on the horizon is death. There is no way out. I better be awareness, because suicide looks like a better option day by day. It's a struggle, this life requires endless struggle and effort, unless you have the faculties needed to survive ( good DNA). There's nothing else. A damned lottery. Who is required to give an effort? The answer of that question leads nowhere. I accept my inability to give effort, furthermore my inability to find the one that is supposed to give effort. However at the same time as I accept effort can't be made at this time, at the same time I can see that this is just an attempt to escape from responsibility and effort. Why is escaping from a prison that tortures you worse than accepting a prison that tortures you in your opinion? This post may look like a bunch of ramblings, but that's because of my current state of consciousness, which is probably what Leo describes as severe Ego backlash.

of course there is nothing bad about death..there's only infinite love and light beyond the illusion of the ego. but there's value in reaching enlightenment while still being focused in this physical reality. so in that sense suicide would not bring the experience of being enlightened while being incarnated on earth

Hey Leo! I noticed you mentioned shamanism in a recent episode, as something you should "maybe do an episode on." You referenced Carlos Castaneda. Before you go down that path, I have a couple of suggestions. Apologies in advance if any of this sounds patronizing. It's not intended. Shamanism, as you know, is a huge topic. Seeing as you're turning this website into a kind of Sage University, I suggest you consider that shamanism is something you're going to come back to again and again. It's intertwined with spirituality, though in someways distinct. Terence McKenna was ultimately more drawn to a shamanic style of interpretation with entheogens than a spiritual path with meditation and gurus. Myself, I'm studying both and have written a forthcoming book from Apocryphile Press (San Francisco) on my experiences with Amazonian plant shamanism (particularly ayahuasca) although I've more recently embraced meditation and Kriya yoga, while continuing to work with entheogens such as toad sacrament, huachuma (San Pedro cactus) etc. (I recommend the latter to you.) Anyway, my point is that I support your idea of covering shamanism on Actualized.org but suggest you think of it as an ongoing major theme and not something to cover in one or two episodes (although an "Introduction to Shamanism" episode would be a great idea). In that regard, please invest in further learning about and sharing the work of real shamans and real students of shamanism, and not Carlos Castaneda. Of course you can refer to Castaneda, who wrote beautiful fiction and whose work contains wonderful moral and other teachings. But I suggest there are better sources. You can find a BBC documentary on YouTube that examines Castaneda "the man" as opposed to the myth. His books were based on his own imagination and not any real scholarship or understanding of the indigenous people whose culture he claimed to represent. The BBC program presents him as a fraud and leader of a cult that included somewhat zombified blonde interchangeable acolytes some of whom committed suicide in the desert after his death. You can draw your own conclusions about Castaneda of course. Maybe the BBC documentary is itself a piece of agitprop although it didn't strike me as such. In any case, i commend to you the writings of a real American shaman -- Bradford Keeney -- and especially his books about the bushmen of the Kalahari (e.g., Way of the Bushman) into whose secret and sacred methods of ecstatic dance, healing and N/om energy he was initiated years ago. That is only one of many authentic and existent shamanic or medicine holding traditions, of course, including the First Nations modalities, and the aforementioned Amazonian plant shamanism. There are many other wonderful writers and experts on shamanism. I have immensely enjoyed your shift in direction over the past year or so, and am myself walking a parallel path to yours, of the sage. I have worked with some of the same entheogens as yourself, and plan to try AL-LAD because of your video on that. One more thing, and sorry for being picky, but I shudder every time you use the word "trip" in regard to your experiments with different entheogens. In the psychedelic/shamanic culture some of us are making a deliberate effort to cultivate new language around these profound (and in some cases ancient) tools. Words like "trip" and "drug" are holdovers from the 1960s culture and bring to mind the excesses with LSD and so on. While it's a bit of a stretch to refer to substances such as AL-LAD as "medicines" my preferred word is "sacrament" and I refer to my experiences as "journeys" rather than "trips." (You can file this point under analism of editors.) I invite you to help us re-tool the language of altered states with similar innovations. You're doing great work Leo! I'm not one to be easily impressed, yet I'm devouring your recent videos and sharing them widely. Your interview with Martin Ball was superb, by the way, and I suggest you do more of those. Brad Keeney would be a good guest in that regard, for shamanism. (Note that he doesn't use entheogens.) I will recommend a few books and sources in another post. I've stumbled on some real gems in the past three or four years that you'd enjoy. I'll just mention one here, which is The Psychedelic Gospels,co-authored by Dr. Jerry B. Brown (not the California governor!) who was interviewed about his book by my friend Dan Cleland on an excellent episode of the Dan Cleland Experience Podcast (DCEP). That book makes a slam dunk argument that Christianity and Paganism co-existed more or less harmoniously up until the time of the Inquisition, and that therefore the use of Amanita Muscaria and Psilocybin mushrooms was widespread among church elders. Because Brown is a mycologist (among other things) he was able to detect overlooked depictions of both mushroom strains throughout the paintings and stained glass art and iconography of the church throughout Europe. Brown has kicked open the door on what could be a whole new field of understanding Judeo-Christian mysticism. And I won't even get into the acacia species whose DMT-rich bark is found throughout the Middle East, with one example being the Acacia Nilotica that, interestingly, was depicted by the Egyptians as the Tree of Life in wall paintings.

I have been getting similar feelings about suicide lately too. It isn't entirely new to me however; I have struggled with suicidal thoughts for years. Sometimes I think I'll drive myself to insanity with my spiritual practice and the only way out is suicide. Luckily, that thought is baloney The more I inquire the more I realize that there isn't even a me that needs to die. I'm already dead! Just because there is content and sensory perceptions doesn't mean that there is a self at the center of it. They are simply just there. I can't know for sure, but if "I" were to die, then I would still be who I am, minus somethingness. So basically, you're already dead, so what's the point in suicide?

@Dan Arnautu Many depressive drunks, at times, talk in a depressive way. I used to be one. My motto at the time was "poor me, poor me, pour me a drink". I used it as justification for getting drunk. After all he did admit to this by saying " I would at least mention to him that he is still okay (a loving and supporting father when he is off the drink), well I don't know him, but from what you say it points to that. If you get a chance to talk with him in a non threatening way, find out if he actually has a 'plan' for committing suicide. If so, I would be very concerned. In Australia, and in my ex-profession as a counsellor, if a client had a definite plan, it would be my duty to tell the client that I have to call the mental health team and get them to have a chat with that person. Surprisingly, nearly every one of my clients, probably for the first time, realized that what they were planning to do was very serious. They became willing to be consulted by the team. The team are specialists in helping people to circumvent their suicidal tendencies. Also, if your father has already attempted suicide in the past, then that is also a major concern, because he will have less fear of dying. If you are having difficulty dealing with this, I would advise talking with a mental health team, or those trained for attempted suicide, to get help for both you and your father.