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@Nahm I have stopped pursuing Truth. I know what is true, but I don't know what you guys talk about. Although I kind of know, it's the sense of wonder and not recognising the things as mundane anymore, but rather as magical. I want that feeling because I am just a human being. Right now, I don't feel no bliss and no suffering. Just a neutral feeling of peace. I love you too ❤️ even though I don't feel the kind of romantic love I imagine "enlightened" people feel. Just a neutral feeling of love, not a feeling of high anyway.

Bliss is an experience achieved from LIMITING YOURSELF. I love you, and also you have no idea what you’re talking about. If the Truth were horrible would you be pursuing it? If you already new you wouldn't be pursing.

Hey guys, finally felt like sharing this after close to 365 days of procrastination (: I genuinely like to write, and even more about these topics. I enjoy the comunity aspect that this forum provides even though we all are at diferent levels of developement, we have shared interests, and I belive it helps us to stay grounded in our " personal-development " reallity frame rather than the reallity of those who are around us and culture itself. I'll mostly write when inspiration strikes me (: Note to whoever bothers to read: This here Is a "short" personal story about my steep but (probably) worth journey of following Actualized.org : Life Purpose, Meaning of life, Mystical experiences, Happiness, Motivation , Apathy and Nihilism. I feel that some of you will resonate. Enjoy! Concise background rant : 21 years old male born in Poland who moved to Spain at 5. Videogames were my life since as long as I can remember. They really sucked me in throughout my life as I really enjoyed them, I developed mastery in some of them, and they also were my way of escaping my upbringing ( bullied in school, feeling shame for being poor ( living in caravans/ in a shack up till 18), alcoholic / mentally unstable / emotionally abussive mother since birth, etc. All I did was school - videogames ( and very often skipping school to play some more ) . I literally barely have memories up till 17 since everything was very routine-like and other stuff I prefered to repress. I used to be deep in victim mentallity and merely reactive towards the world since I felt that the circumstances were stronger than me and also my father used to over-protect me and my brothers by providing everything he could and making my existance as comfortable as possible, which made me even " weaker " Got into personal development at 17 by accident while googling stuff about how to improove social skills to get a social life and ultimately get better with grils sice I had a crush on a chick in my class (actually I was amazed that there was a whole comunity about improoving themselves). Okay. January 2018 I bought the LP course after getting my first real job that I used to save up for my future studies ( having money is cool) . Three videos in, and next thing I know while meditating I get a flash of " go study psychology in university rather than translation". So I freeze the LP course and for couple of months do what's needed to make the switch in my studies since I didn't want to waste any more time. Resistance kicks in because of boring/challenging subjects and I go through a mini crisis. I didn't know if I was just rationalizing my laziness. But I could intuit that it didin't feel right. Shortly after, I had the insight that I wanted to study psychology because it's what's most similar to Personal-development, and I was like " why not study personal develpment directly? " ( also was actually somewhat motivated by a random Tai Lopez video where he was preaching "taking your eduaction in your own hands". Also shortly before that, as I was Journaling, I became aware ( thanks to Leo's theory and his BS detector ) of how little developed Universities actually are, and that the safety ( both the time spent studying and the job they provide later on ) are a complete ilusion. I knew there was no University Major on Personal-development, and that I would have to wing it. I would have to be both the teacher and the student. May 2018 my confident ass accompanied by faith in my half baked LP decide to take my university savings move to Barcelona (opposite extreme of Spain, 1000km away from my family or anyone I knew) to live on my own and get involved in the RSD pick up comunity ( that was the subfield of Personal developent that I chose to focus on after binging for a year or two on pick up theory). Spent around 3k euro on digital programs as I felt it was an investement. It probably was an investment, but . . . As I felt that my horniness/ flawed self-esteem /poor skills with whamen wouldn't let me advance the LP course, and given that pick up provided a clear path for self-actualization with tangible results, it would be the perfect decision. Right? Well, bear with me. As I meditated more and more ( staring at the same wall since 2016, for 20, 30 min daily, up to 60 min for half a year at my peak ) I became more and "numb". The " wins " just felt okay , and the " loses " just felt okay. I was becoming deatached from life. I could feel it was It was building up towards something. Around June 2018 Leo bursted my bubble. The "Understanding Meaning, Value and Purpose" video cracked my reallity ( Highly recommended video, THANKS LEO) I became conscious of how our Meaning-Making Apparatus works, and that my whole life was a house of cards. Everything I belived in was BS from the beggining ! Long story short : We pull meaning out of our Individual / collective asses and hold on to it as if our life depended on it ( Because it does ! So there is nothing to do and nothing to archive. Your problems aren't real. Seriousness doesn't exist. There is no reason to develop yourself. There is no reason to have sex. There is no reason to talk with your family. There is no reason to eat healthy, there is no reason to stay alive rather than killing yourself. There is no good or bad. Whatever you do, is " Okay" ( with capital "O" ) Also, there is no reason WHY NOT to do any of these things. You are left completely groundless with overwhelming and terrific Freedom. It's all up to you. You either create meaning consciously or soak it up unconsciously. Meaninglessness isn't good or bad, it's meaningless. All of this doesn't come across remotely as powerfull by writing it in a sentence as by becoming directly aware of it with your own real-life examples and actually feeling how the whole conceptual framework of your life crumbles down (: Alright. That ah-ha nihilist moment combined with the decision of quitting my old life , confusion about what do I actually want to do with my life, struggle with understanding what I am, existential dread and tons of questioning of my beliefs, escalated into not only a mid-life crisis, but a full blown Dark night of the soul. For months I was consumed by Nihilism and Anomie. Learning how to date lost its meaning and became very shallow. I flunked my expensive RSD program and I didn't care because money lost meaning for me. I had lost my virginity with a hooker because the stigma was gone, and I half assed some psilocybin mushroom trip where I had no major insights. Finding my Life purpose also lost its meaning for me and although I could Intuit that some anwsers were there, I was already chained by resistance and distractions. I felt enormous emotional pain. Loneliness that wouln't go away even around people; a feeling of not being understood & being amazed at how unconsciously others held onto their beliefs, and more extreme levels of confusion by each belief or asumption that I dared to question. I Indulged in addictions, Porn, masturbation, junk food, trash entretainment. . . Sometimes I laid 24 hours in bed for weeks doing barely nothing, besides standing up to pee and grabbing some unhealthy food to eat. (if there is something that I regret from all of this, it's not documenting my thoughts and the shifts in my worldview enough as everything was happening ) Then, after binging on some more Actualized and Byron Katie content something clicked. I learned how to let go. Of everything, any shoulds, regrets, expectations. . . I learned how to Sit and bliss out. Complete acceptance and surrender to the pressent moment without wishing to be anywhere else. I finally became aware of where the main source of happiness comes from. September 2018 I decided to swallow my pride and fly back to my dads home to be become a Squatter ( quite extended practice here in Spain ) so I wouldn't have to pay rent. I seriously considered to just do full time meditation somehow. Interestingly enough I had a chance to join an Ashram in Barcelona since a monk in an orange toga approached me literally at the entry to my house , offering me a free short copy of the Bhagavad Gita, but I after a brief chat I could see that he was clearly lost in dogma, and my desire to join would be corrupted by the desire of grounding myself in some structure/ authority that would tell me what to do rather than having to embrace the paralyzing freedom. First month back was alright. Blessing out doing nothing feels good but it doesn't manifest in cash ( at least directly ). Since im not into Breatharianism or Freeganism, I got a weekend job to get some income, where I'm working till today. After binging on some more of Leo's content, I stumbled across the " You aren't Happy because you don't want to be " video. After that one I really made myself into a lazy slug couch potato. Summarizing : Swallow unconditional happiness ( which screws up your entire motivational system). You don't guilt yourself for anything. You don't reward yourself. I had learned to be Okay with anything, and also, all the rules to live by were gone. No "shoulds" or "shouldn'ts" I was still half-assing meditation, yoga, journaling if I was doing any of these at all, and I was resisting the LP course that had caused me so much struggle. I had some mystical experiences in the past like becoming directly conscious that thoughts come LITERALLY from NOWHERE and had some short lucid dreams here and there, but now after letting go of SO much suddenly for couple of days I started being conscious inside of my dreams sometimes even few times per night; two times I started Astral Proyecting and levitated horizontally out of my body for a short time and flew around my room; that one time I woke up half asleep and had a short no-self experience where I literally lost my sense of self and finally around november I had a two minute samadhi experience where I discovered non symbolic understanding and realized what direct awareness actually means. I became aware of what the fabric of reallity was ( you can call it consciousness, but if you categorize it in any way it dissapears, exactly the same way as if you want to think about silence, any word that you come up with is not it.). I remember looking at the wall for around 20 min doing some neti neti / focusing on Actuallity meditation , and I realized the wall, my body, my perceptions and my thoughts were made exactly out of the same thing! Finally that " all is one " cliche made sense. Cool, but I'm still here, and life is still going on. Yeah, this happened around 7 months ago. Thought it would be a good idea to not " push" myself and just digest the insights. I didn't resist anything, and as you can guess, before I knew I was already caught in distractions / addictions. Since then, even though It's hard for me to suffer unless I go full unconscious mode, I've been stuck in the same rut as from last year since the reallity breakdown of discractions, porn, masturbation, sugar, wheat, junk food and and now also videogames. Resistance has the cuffs on me and the LP course feels like a threat to my ego so I keep sweeping it under the rug after slowly chipping away at it. I rationalize my behaviours because ultimately everything is " Okay ". Right? This is a new challenge. I never had to face addiction . I never had to create Meaning to live by from scratch. (Fun fact , I used to have somewhat arrogant thoughts along the lines of " how can these people be addicted to smoking? Boii, make me addicted to crack-cocaine and I'mma break that sh*t in NO TIME. Lol.) At the beginning when I had quit videogames after 15 years, I did it cold turkey since I had so much motivation to develop my social skills for a reason ( the idea of getting in a relationship was so meaningful ! ) But during the " crisis " I saw that actually, it was meaningful to me because I craved aprooval, both from the girl and from other people for getting such girl. It was ME who created that meaning. Admiting that ALL of my motivation to develop myself was grounded in the desire for girls and aprooval was a tough pill to swallow. So once I realized this, and that family, money, working out for looks , fame, archiving any kind of social status or any other "Social Success" , are no longer sources of motivation and meaning, I'm just left with "doing whatever I want , only for myself". And it's freaking hard and lonely. Developing myself just for myself . I never had to do this before. I was used to allways suck on other peoples meaning and value structures. But now I saw behind the curtains and there is no going back even if I wanted to. Definately subestimated what it takes to be an Autodidact and what it takes to be in charge of your own life . Pretty funny how reallity humbled down my arrogant ass that expected smooth exponential growht lol. Even though I have quite a few ideas about how to break free I'm struggling to pull myself out of the rut even after couple of attempts, and i'm too arrogant in my skill of taking care of myself to ask for help. Any rules I set for myself are weak since I can see they are groundless. Commitments are also shallow since I see how they are groundless. ( I see how I create meaning out of thin air ). Blurry visions that I come up with for my life haven't yet created enough leverage. But yeah, I'll have to humble down again and go for Tony Robbins basic self help, consciously create a structure to live by, and keep chipping away at the LP course. Shoutout to all my fams who are stuck in a rut, and if you aren't , don't worry, you will be ! (:

@LittleMaslow Nice! Awesome! Thanks for your input. It would be awesome to experience that everyday bliss sadhguru talks about if one does this practice for a while. Thanks for this i had the same concern. @Chi_ Oh and one more question is the practice rather noisy or can it be done in silence?

Lesson He said God is precision engineer. I realized that I have gotten random results because my execution was not precise or consistent. To get precise results, my execution needs to be precise or consistent. My plan is precise enough. I just need to improve precision of execution. Even though precise execution could increase short-term inefficiency due to rigidity, it is a rocket fuel of productivity in the long term. If you allow imprecise execution, you will soon end up being distracted and procrastinating. By sacrificing a bit of flexibility in execution, you get far superior execution. Elon Musk's schedule is somewhat rigid. But, through precise execution, he gets superior results. Questions He said God is bored in nirvana and decides to go back to life because there is nothing to do in nirvana. He said in another video that God can never be bored because it is infinitely fascinated by itself. In nirvana, God experiences infinite bliss. Which one is correct? Is God bored or not bored? Why would God be bored in nirvana if it experiences infinite bliss there?

This... This is the peak of male power. Im gonna take on the beast of 6 months as the superior man takes on his depolarized potato. Im gonna ravish the world with neverending, evergrowing spring-nectar of holy hormonal bliss extracted by the means NoNut and the cultivation my alpha essence into awareness, creativity, wet attraction, and fuckin' nonduality. Let me present a short backstory for you all: I have been on this journey of NoFap for close to 2 years, my longest streak being 6 months which im now gonna recreate a year later with unmeasurable power gained from this hard journey in between. Only recently have I been gaining the benefits of my endless observations of where my life is going with this addiction, and only now I have gained a confidence like never before out of the sheer fact that I have learned something new every time I have relapsed, up until a week ago; I felt this sudden shift, that signaled that im capable of doing this. I quit video games and PMO cold turkey last week, and my positive motivations have provided me with unmeasurable confidence, aiding me to pulverize and absorb the last fiber of any hedonistic desires with the light of my awareness. Many goals have been set. This ain't gonna be an easy cookie to chew but I shall let the confidence in my goals carry me through! Im gonna read many books that will aid me in this journey, and I will be exposing myself through this journal as frequently as I have the time to be online. This challenge will be: Unconditional semen retention (within my power) No ejaculation, not even when having sex No watching porn, (Not exposing myself to anything sufficiently graphic to spawn arousal) No intentional/recreational fantasizing I will keep you guys updated through this journal, in @Shin's words: In this quote, Mr.Shin refers to accountability partners. With radical honesty, I will keep you guys updated along the way! Credits to @8Ball, @Sahil Pandit, @youngshinzen, @Shin, @Vitamine Water, @Marinus, @Jol356 , @alea @Leo Gura and all of you guys who are inspiring me and are keeping the holy practise of semen retention alive!

Still didn't resolved this. Walking around in absolute bliss doing what this body needs to stay alive while all other humans suffer. Only reason they suffer is because rampant egotism but they are so blind to it. Doesn't seem fair. They are me.

@WelcometoReality hmmm yes. i think ur right. just lots of mental questions... and concepts. just curiosity really. @Mu_ Whats your main desire in wanting to know the answer to your questions? nothing really about the path.. just curious... i like knowing the structure of reality/universe in a way... i think i grasp quite well what leo/many teachers talk about (of course i dont rule out i maybe deluded... as direct experience reeally is the king) what i am talking about here is the saying that "it maybe a while before u understand what the guru was talking about vs what u thought he was talking about" and i have had my fair shares of these... nothing too crazy but still. direct expereinces melted my soul lol it was like.. " I " was there.. but it was just a knowing that i am watching this body/mind what i call SOONHEI who has been watching these videos.. doing practicies/contemplation when high etc trying to figure out a way out of life ... but the message was always for "ME" not "SoonHEI" anyhow. there's that @Preetom hmmm thank you. that clears what i was sorta aiming for there i suppose @Inliytened1 in my direct experiince.. or at least what i call "direct experience" i was peacfull .. but it wasnt a powerfull kundalini/bliss exprieince... but i was peacefull. a very clean crisp peace of mind it was during a train ride home. it was very amazing to see all these empty bodied shells sitting on the top of the train (quite zone) and everyone looking down and busy in their phones... necks down... just amazing... no powerfull bliss.. but all was known... thoughts were seen... and actually thoughts were not even there... this is what allowed me to see/observe and know who the message has been for vs who i thought the message was for it's amazing how it's so hard - actually impossible - to talk about this without sounding like the ego-using the ego and well. i am very much the ego right now. but it's all good

@seeking_brilliance to understand this you would have to completely destroy the illusion and then rebuild it from scratch. Not talking sitting in your room, doing your little meditations and contemplating your own death. Talking about literally going out there and destroying your life. Slowly, over time. Until there is nowhere left to go, nothing left to do. Literally. Actually. For real. That's not how you get enlightened. @zeroISinfinity ignorance is bliss. I am Ivan. I love music. I live in the middle of nowhere. I do nothing else. Nothing does everything else. enlightenment is not a goal or destination.

that's why I only have few friends in fact now that I m clear with my way. I have no time for 10 relationship. the more you got, the more hollows they are aswell just what I observed on me. and with girls, one is already taking me too much time. When I would use my time to makes music and all sort of things if I was around 2-3 girls ? and I need aswell true dedication, a girl who fucks around and stack MST is not my thing, I cannot accept to share emotion in her mind with thinking about the others guy who fucked her yesterday. I need aswell someone worth to trust and that I could totaly be vulnerable with. with friends I m the same, loyal and trustful. and I hope for the same. I m not really into pick up life dedication is not a disease, it is bliss and true passion, the only way to accomplish solid things long term. when you'll one day be 30y + you will hardly have any solid relation with anyone. of course fix my love in a few range that I call "family" is dangerous, but having no solid attachement, then no family, no deep spirituality. depend what you call spirituality, of course people bother me etc.. it takes work to keep real relations but I m not sayin your way are wrong, you should just not believe that "family" is a thought story, it's just one of the main aspect of the metaphysical aspect of reality. Even monkeys have a sense of family and fixed relation ( especially for rising a child, but still ).

God wins both ways. It is a joke really. If you consider yourself as separated self you Will create awesome story for God.If ego is smart and wise and more connected to the heart it Will annihilate itself faster. End is always the same merging with as God in full glory before or after death of apparent body it doesn't matter really. Problem with humans is that we developed ego, plants rocks animals do not have this virus. They live in absolute bliss all the time.

Cool, you guys' replies match with a lot of my own realizations. I delved into the Bible a bit, there are clearly some non-dual teachings there. ("Take no thought for tomorrow, tomorrow will take care for itself.") It looks like these people (as we all do) had some traumas from their childhoods that got released as they prayed to Jesus. Hence the saying: "I'm saved!" That's my theory for now. @mandyjw So you're saying enlightenment doesn't gurantee "Infinite love" like Leo says? How can Jesus be deeper than Buddha? When I had my awakening it caused a bliss and a sense of Unconditional Love for everything and everyone. How could it go any deeper than that? (But then again, hearing some of the stuff that happens when people take 5-Meo DMT, anything could be possible, lol.) There's also Christian mysticism which I think is the optimal way. I have a theory that Christians have a "Born again" experience, which is great, but they stop there. They just stop growing spiritually. I know a guy in my town who is "Born again" and now he just wanders around town, condemning anyone who isn't Christian. Yes, you can have mystical experiences, but you can interpret them in a way that is completely counterproductive and can even set you back. I'd say having a Born again experience is a Stage Turqoise experience, while becoming a Fundamentalist Christian is a Stage Blue perception of that experience. Just like with any other religion. @ajasatya You're right. Gotta go back to my"meditation cave" and find the Truth for myself

I’ve taken mushrooms, MDMA, weed and 10 day Vipassana retreat. No doubts, MDMA was the most beautiful experience. It’s pure bliss and love. Couldn’t imagine what 5meo reveals. But saying that, the biggest impact on everyday life is after 10 day Vipassana retreat.

First of all, when i thought i couldn't get surprised cause i knew it all theoretically, Leo's came with this gem of a video and kicked my ass, having a hard time swallowing it all, this has many consequences. So, congratulations Leo, you are inspiring. 1. What stops some fully enlightened being from fully drop his body dead like how we change a shirt? Why do they keep going after seeing that it's all meaningless, an illusionary survival game? What about some people that DO reportedly left their bodies during/after enlightenment experiences? How about the enlightened masters that decided to just sit, and meditate into bliss until their body dropped dead? 2. How do i escape from it since the ego doesn't want to die and getting enlightened and seeing the illusion means death to the ego? 3. What about affirmations, visualizations, and techniques that make the ego stronger, how can i use them and do self-inquiry at the same time, this isn't contradictory? 4. Does that mean i have to ignore all emotions and thoughts if i want to achieve anything that doesn't make my ego comfortable with like creating a habit like meditation/self-inquiry or trying to fulfill my life purpose?

The fallacy here is in the definition of God that you are currently making up. That definition doesn't correspond to anything close neither to your own direct experience nor to an open minded thought experiment. That is why this creates all this confusion and frustrations. We need to be extremely vigilant on the word 'God', it's meaning and consequences before starting flinging it at everyone's face like Oprah's EVERYBODY GETS A CAR!! Let's look at it this way. The Absolute is undefinable. Anything that can be said about it, is not it. You are that Ultimate Reality. Plain and simple. No buts, no questions asked, nothing more or less. It's the proclamation upon which all nondual text relies upon. Now take a look at God. God is that Absolute WITH a bunch of definitions such as omnipotence, omnipresence, existence, consciousness, bliss, all powerful, all merciful, infinite will, the creator, sustainer, destroyer of the universe etc so on and so forth. Now Leo might send me into exile from this forum if I say this but guess what... You are NOT this God. The ultimate pointer is You are the Absolute prior to this God(with definitions). You are the Absolute that makes it possible for such a God to appear in the first place. Now this might bring in a serious argument that how can it be non-duality if 'I' as Absolute remain separate from God, World etc. So are there multiple absolutes now? The answer is no. When the Absolute is directly realized, all ideas of God, world, subject, object, consciousness, absolute etc become null and void. The absolute is absolute. Non-duality. And it can't be talked about. So the bottom line is, the God that has the infinite power to manifest 10000 chicks and living comfortably in a mansion(lets say there is such a God), YOU ARE NOT THAT GOD. You are the Absolute Reality that makes it possible for such a God to exist and do his/her shit. That is why you can't manifest 10000 hot chicks. That is God's power, not your power. Your truth and reality is even deeper and prior to that God. You are the Absolute. When you realize that, then there is no God, world, subject, object, 10000 chicks and a mansion left

Be careful holding nirvana as a separate from form or samsara. From God's POV they are identical. So if you imagine nirvana as a formless realm of pure emptiness and bliss, that is true, but that is also incomplete. That's only one side of the coin. The other side is manifest relative reality. So to say that "God gets bored" simply means: a state of pure formlessness is unstable. It cannot stay that way because it bursts forth with infinite creative force. It must explode into infinite manifestation. Of course all of this happens instantly, prior to time. Is already is, always was, and always will be. That is true, full, nondual Nirvana: formless and formed forever as one.

You are going through a phase. Its inevitable. The old has to die for the new to come. Dont worry, you'll get your peace, bliss, love and all that good shit when you make it to other side. Spirituality is serious business. If these ideas are entertained seriously, your 'insides' are literally being rearranged and processed. So expect some(or massive) hiccups. One cant stay the same.

@Rilles if it was a true experience when he fully integrates back into his ego the ego will feel the backlash. He could remain in a state of bliss for weeks though, just depends.

Yes the Ego is so Total in its self deception than it cannot perceive or comprehend non-existence. It fears it. Even though non-existence is happening right now - right on top of existence. It fears death, which in reality there is no such thing - you are Infinite right now - you cannot escape yourself - (or infinity) because you are actually God/Infinity as a part of Infinity/God or a part of itself. Consciousness minus the ego/formed is Absolute Infinity - if is formless. It is Being. There are no dualities or distinctions there. There is no survival or non-survival. So if you meditate and do self inquiry and other techniques long enough a mystical experience will occur and you will become only formless. You as the ego shall dissolve. You will no longer be the ego. And you will experience Being as Being. This is the ultimate Bliss. Better than a heroin high. Anyone out there who has not had a mystical experience after years of this may want to ponder using pyschedelics as a tool to speed the process. This was a lengthy reply but i felt the question needed a lengthy explanation.

I used to love breathing meditation, and engaged in it with a lot of reckless intensity. IT seemed to yield great benefits, especially in the moment experiencing euphoria and also working through blockages, finding depths and heights of beauty and intensity. At one time I referred to it as "getting high on your own supply". At times I would notice that in a way my behavior was not that much different than an addicts, and I would experience anger and resentment at anyone or experience blocking my ability to experience this. Eventually my breath openened up enough to stay open, and my breath stayed big and full for years. You notice many strange things, and find strange experiences like explaining to your boss that you actually can't wear your pants tight, and that is why your clothing looks sloppy. Your breath is that important. It yielded great benefits, including eradicating fears and behaviors that had I gone through conventional means never would changed, it's like I became a new person. Now during intense deep breathing(the way i always did it, the closest thing would be the wim hof method, but without holding your breath, just continuing the deep breathing as often as possible, while watching the flow of feeling energy moving up and moving it through everything it seems to be blocked by, even all day if you can.) there were times my whole being resisted it, and some kind of inner "knowing" said that it was just part of my psyche trying to prevent the ego death etc, or fear of going through the really deep emotions. While that may be true, I can help but think also my body was worried about like some kind of nerve damage. It turns out, I do now have a lot of unatural feelings in my body, mostly in my face and heart, that feel odd enough that I wouldn't be suprised if they were some type of nerve damage. I have not done serious breathing work in over a year, and I find this yearning and desire to get back into it again. It is true that the breathing itself makes the symptoms feel much better, but am I like burning my nerves out here or something, am I getting pleasure now at the expense of nerve damage later? I haven't gotten into it again yet, but when I have gone into my breath somewhat lately, it isn't like it was years ago, it isn't crazy intense bilssful light colored movement, its just kinda full clear breath but sort of normal and no beautiful intense energy there. Theres not really anythign visual to go with it, not lights etc. Is this justr because I haven't gone deeply into it enough again? There is like this reluctance to go deep into that again, and I;m trying to figure out if this is a wise or unwise reluctance. for me its not as though I sit and do breathing excercises for 10 minutes, I end up doing it all the time as I do other things, ideally walking. Anyone who knows a lot about this have any thoughts or insights? Should I go back into breath full force, am I now past that, did I do damage, etc. Another caveat, it is possible a lot of the uncomfortable sensations are just known more during this time of deep breath, ability to feel deeply. Because at times i would feel pain in my heart when it was appopritate, while others claimed they could not feel that, as though they were numb. So maybe that pain was not caused by breathing meditation but I was just more conscious of pain that made sense and was healthy? Like I can easily go shallow with myself and not feel wierd, but then I also cannot feel deep bliss etc. thanks gang

Mantras are awesome. I went long time ago to a kind of short retreat with some friends, we did mantras, meditations, etc... and I was like for one week after that full with bliss and love, I was a teenager at that moment. Long time ago hehehe...

@Leo Gura We all suffer though. This work is about going from suffering to bliss, or it's about trying to find the truth and realizing that everything is a lie. Seek and you will find. For me it has been equally both. I desperately wanted truth when I was a Christian kid. Then I decided it was all a lie, that truth couldn't be found and I went into material things, which caused me to suffer enough that I went down a road that lead me here, to "truth." The difference is the intention, the story they tell themselves about why they are doing it. In the end we don't really need a story, but to begin we need a why. I guess it's like the boat you don't need anymore once you've cross over.

Very interesting topic, very interesting title, and interesting analysis. When we wake up to start our day, we're still in the ass. What happens is, we start off without a body and external environment, No-self, no-ego, and when we get embodied, we go through this black hole/singularity (I almost said butthole, lol). We go through the day as the ego. If you don't want to be the ego anymore, then do something within this lifetime so that you could be aligned with no-self, peace, love, bliss, etc. Contribute to end of suffering for all in this 'dream.'

I don't know if anyone has been following my "story", but I made a post called "detachment from suffering" a few weeks ago. I just wanted to share and elaborate on what I've learned recently. I don't want to blow my own trumpet. I'm not here to try and demonstrate how enlightened I am. But this is really something that could be life-changing for you if you put this into practice. This is what I've learned: suffering is real. It is constant for some people. The Buddha said "life is suffering", if I'm correct. But.... and this is a big but... You are not the sufferer! I have been meditating for 4 hours a day, every day for the past 13 months. I also started self inquiry a few months ago. The meditation was quite tricky at first. I felt tense, angry, and my monkey mind would not slow down. Then after about 7 months I had an enlightenment experience after watching Leo's "most shocking truth" video. I was in a state of bliss for ten days, but then my ego resurfaced and I found myself in hell again. And then I started self inquiry. This is the most important thing. Because this has helped me separate the awareness that I AM from the suffering "me". Some people just watch their thoughts when they meditate. They recognise: these thoughts are not me. But have you recognised that you can also watch your suffering in exactly the same way? What I mean is that you can have a visceral experience of suffering (i.e. actually feel the suffering in your nerves) yet not be effected by it! For anyone who has not started self inquiry, I HIGHLY recommend it. The most important question you can ask during self inquiry is "am I suffering?" You may find that your awareness detaches from the suffering. It will still be there, but YOU will not suffer. You may find yourself smiling and laughing at the suffering, as you will see it is no more a part of you than the wall/floor/ceiling. Hope this helps. ? Ps. If anyone has any questions I'm happy to answer.

I got it aswell, asking "god" to litteraly with pure will, truth or kill me. my mind breakdown & tear of joy & pain, beauty. I don't think this is a state of bliss ( but it was indeed ), it was confusing as hell and my mind was like on a mild dose of LSD for almost 2 weeks. we all tend to call that enlightment or whatever, I think that's just the shell of our illusion that has been shattered, a litteral and physical awakening. I don't think this "state" can be hold, I think that's what our society call schizophrénia. ( for me it was like being loaded on "serotonin" ) I don't think meditation is the only game in town, cause I almost never did, a lot of self inquiry and philosophy about the source of "me".