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@Sri McDonald Trump Maharaj Hey! I was where you are, a Zen monastery was everything i wanted to go to. Let me tell you this from my humble point of view. Going to a Zen monastery won't give you a single bit of an advantage on your way. Yes, not a single bit. If this is what resonates though, go do it. Give all that you have to it. Go there and don't expect to come back. I had so many fantasies about a Zen monastery only to not face myself where i am at RIGHT HERE and RIGHT NOW. One thing to remember: In a Zen Monastery you are on your own as you are where you are now. There won't be anyone to help you. And expect facing excruciating doubts day in and day out. And one more thing: A realisation inside monastery walls is this everything you want? There are many "awakened" monks who try their luck in the "real world" and just fuck up. Bringing it to life in everyday regular normal life is the real deal. So i'd suggest you find a genuine teacher first. And don't get me wrong Zen is a beautiful way.

A real awakening is waking up from the person, seeing through it's illusion. So if the person is taking credit of the experience it will not last. Are there signs? Yes there is. An awakened person wants attention and respect for being enlightened. He can be a douche. Feel like he is better than others who hasn't "awakened". Someone who has truly realized what they are will never act this way. They will rather keep quiet.

@bernieboy20 Either your awakened, or you continue to live in the matrix of the mind. Your choice. Awakening is not something you do for others. Although they will most likely benefit in some way from your awakening. "If" you awaken, ask yourself again, "What exactly is a Weirdo?" You may find that the definition has changed drastically for you!

I dont know you're enlightened or awakened but I believe you are opening your mind so does your possibility. You was brave man. There's a quote from GameOfThrones that I found it very useful to fight fear and anxious. "Let me give you some advice bastard. Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you." -Tyrion Lannister

*I feel like I should put a trigger warning here. My intent is not to offend anyone. If you have been the victim of a sexual offense in the past, please consider carefully whether you want to read this.* I am not new to self-help, and am actually quite well-read (or I thought I was anyway). The truth is for many years I steered far away from anything that smelled of religion or spirituality, because as a young man I was a zealous overeager Jesus Freak. I was involved in a charasmatic church that held beliefs similar to those of the now infamous Westboro Baptist Church. In fact, in those days, if I had known about Westboro Baptist Church, I probably would have joined it. I was a very damaged young man. When I first joined the church, I was full of joy and happiness and I really felt like I was in touch with God. The forgiveness story of Jesus is powerful stuff for someone who feels they aren't good enough, and I never was, until I found Jesus. But slowly, the joyful message of a loving God became twisted as i listened to my youth pastor rave about the evils of premarital sex and lust, and how God despises that in a young man above all. And I bought it all. I felt God's eyes turning from me in shame every time I masturbated. I was truly psychotic with shame and guilt and confusion. And an opportunity arose in which I was watching three children of a friend of mine, and the children were "playing doctor" naked in the house, and it occurred to me that this was just play and it was okay to join them and I did, and then i was instantly crushed with shame. I never did anything like it again and I never will and if I could go back in time and change it, I would, but I can't, and the past doesn't exist anyway--except it does--what is the past? It's just story, right? Anyway, I confessed my crime, and I spent more years in prison than I should have because I continued to punish myself and sabotaged my chances for release. When I finally go out, I went to school and sabotaged myself, and got an amazing job and sabotaged myself, I went back to school and finished my degree. I started a business. I got married. I had a kid. I've sabotaged myself every time I got close to succeeding because I didn't think I deserved to succeed. I am 45 years old and own a small Internet business which is failing miserably for many reasons. But something is happening to me and I am breaking the cycle. It started when I discovered cannabis a few years ago, and was able to get some relief from my anxiety and agoraphobia, I began to go through a process of self-examination then. Then my father passed away and this January, my mother, and I went into a VERY dark place. I have been in a pitched battle for my soul since December. I don't know how else to put it. I was restless and anxious and searching and searching for answers, and I came here, and i felt like Leo was speaking directly to me. I had some health issues that were directly related to my stress, but I overcame them and now I am awake. It's my life. How can I be the part of the reality that is what i call me, or share my gifts with anyone if I am afraid people will hate and persecute me? But really it doesn't matter if they hate me, because I'm no one, I get that now, but my story is important. People should hear it, as a cautionary tale if nothing else. I don't need to tell it non-anonymously though, I think. It is not who I am anymore. It was 26 years ago. I need to find a job, but I am afraid people will do a background check and find out about my past. I have an accounting degree and a lot of business experience. I have been self-employed for the last 9 years and counting and know a little about online marketing and website building and wordpress and ecommerce and Kickstarter (I have had several successful Kickstarter campaigns). Without bragging, I may not know the cutting edge of business apps and technology, but I'm creative, insightful and I've been very successful at various times, but never able to continue the momentum because I was afraid if I got too big, people would find out about me somehow. Once I had money, people would try to blackmail me, I need a job or my wife is going to leave me. I'm going to exercise a little of a word I haven't thought about in a long time: faith. I'm posting this because I want to have faith that there is someone out there who is on the middle path, who could maybe use someone to team up with. Maybe you want to team up with my business or I could team up on your endeavor, or something, but I'd like to find someone else who is awake and actively pursuing enlightenment. Is it wrong of me to want to team up with another actualized person? I really need some help. I am experiencing brand new things. Like, this is seriously changing the way I live my life. I am almost sure it's just a trick or that I'm being duped, that it can be so easy to just live your life the way you want to and experience these thoughts and emotions as just another something that happens, like a headache, but you just feel it and let it go. There's nothing you can do about a headache other than taking a couple of pills and letting it pass. It doesn't do any good to get upset with the headache. It's the same way with these stupid emotions. It doesn't do anyone any good to get upset and ruffled by them. They are part of our experience. It doesn't do to blame our pasts for who we are. Our past is part of our story, but our story hasn't been written yet. This idea that I'm damaged because i suffered through all of this crap in my past is true, and it's true that there are an awful lot of people who would rather spit on me than accept me as a brother, but none of that matters. I can live my life in the moment and life is beautiful and I feel like I can actually FEEL my consciousness expanding, like my mind is swelling with new possibilities of new ways to experience life without letting my emotions control me. My wife and daughter think I have lost my mind but in a beautiful way. I have the best conversations with my daughter now. It was so hard for me to connect with her before, because I never really wanted a child. My wife really wanted a child, and I wanted my wife to be happy, but I was always filled with anxiety, not that I would ever do anything to hurt my child, but that someone would recognize me and think something awful of me. But that doesn't matter either now. In a way, the experience of having a child has forced me to confront these anxieties. I can't escape her. And i don't want to. She is amazing. She's super smart and she reads to me or I read to her every night and she's undoubtedly one of the best things in my life. I found myself editing and revising a lot of this after I wrote it as my ideas about what I am going through are kind of evolving. I can't really explain what is happening to me, but i don't want it to stop. I want to get better, and I don't want to just get better for a little while and fail again. I believe I can do that now, and I am very grateful for these videos. I also wouldn't mind a hand up if someone was interested in taking on an apprentice or partner or employee... I just want to be around people who are awake.

@Electron You will still be able to think about these things after enlightenment. Alot of the minds activities will go away but it will only be the me-thoughts. Your mind will be clearer and better used for what it was meant be used for. It will be easier to not cling on to a thought, being able to see different perspectives. Maybe not a physisist but Sam Harris is a scientist that has awakened.

@werlight Oh yea, On my question about "what happens after awakening?" I felt like I wanted to share this awareness with everyone I know. But I usually don't. Not everyone. It would be beautiful if everyone could experience this. There would no such word as enlightenment because everyone would be awakened.

@StonerLord I wish I could give you an answer. I don't meditate on a daily basis. @TwoDays It's just thought. If "I" had identified with the thoughts "I" would have stopped the sitting. "I" believed "I" had awakened but it was just an experience that "I" had grasped and identified with.

Video for penduling after being awakened (the true awakening, not the woowoo) Once you have awakened to the truth of who you are, there will be a bit of a penduling between person and REAL you. Use this video to get you to the center.

A self is just a label, a concept. No external factor can change that you don't exist. As for proving this is the case, I say just keep doing the enlightenment work. I'm not enlightened, but on good faith, I'll go ahead and say it will make sense when you are truly awakened. After all, nothing exists besides nothingness.

It's clear now. What happened a year ago was an experience that the "I" grasped and started to identify with. The awakened "me". I am the truth it thought. It just had a taste and it never got to see the truth. It was never awake 'cause it cannot.

Enlightenment is like an answer of a problem given to you, and you are told to figure it out only to realize that it can't be figured out, and that realization is enlightenment. When you first listened about enlightenment, your mind automatically made a concept out of it. Imagine every label, belief and concept to be like data that requires processing to exist in the first place, Furthermore, processing requires attention. Processing of the data, according to me is the identification. Thats what causes suffering. What we are required of, to be awakened is to somehow pull the attention from the processing. Pulling away the attention is the real tricky part. So how do you do that? You can't, because if you need to do something about it, you are going to end up processing the data, which is the thing that we are trying to run away from. So an action is to take place other than the processing of the data, and guess what, such an action isn't there, but still whatever happens ,in its essence is an action, a nil action so to speak, and what comes next I think is the awakening. (These are just insights from my own short awakening experiences) Notice that these are also words and labels being processed in your mind while you are reading them.

Like I've stated previously in a different topic on the same category; once awakened or enlightened, it does not mean you stop working at your job or stop paying bills. The only difference is you are aware of a truth that others who are not awakened or enlightened are not aware of. It doesn't give you superpowers, just a different conscious perspective. You still think and experience emotion, you just don't identify yourself with them.

Hello there, my awakened (hopefully) friends, I'm new here and this is my first post, funny how I've just stumbled upon this particular topic which has been my daily routine for a few weeks now. So let me share my 50 cents on this I started taking cold showers on 5th January 2016. It's actually been my tool/mechanism for staying on-track with NoFap challenge, which I actually accomplished pretty comfortably in the end. I know deeply that cold showers have helped me tremendously with this quest, but I could not have ever imagined how significantly it would change my (perception of my) own life. To be brutally honest (as Leo often says), I didn't think I would hold on to this habit for too long. I just wanted to accomplish NoFap and cold showers seemed to me like a beneficial tool. I started off during winter season with as-cold-as-technically-possible water, the first time I've actually tried I literally couldn't catch my breath, I felt tremendous pain everywhere, my brain was frozen and my shower time was less than a minute long. But I've never taken a warm/hot shower since then yet. Today it's exactly 52 days of strictly cold showers for me. The benefits for me are (in no specific order): Super strong immunity, no illness whatsoever. Willpower level 9000. Confidence level 5000 and still going higher every single day. Great skin, great hair. Refreshing thing in the morning and sleep-inducing in the evening. Sort of meditation technique for me. After a rough day it seems to put me in a balanced state of mind. Before a rough day it makes me feel like a superman. I can do anything & everything. It turns my body into a lean and fit shape, no workout required. For real. And these are just the ones I can think of right now. I also noticed that I turn myself into an action-taker, I am (almost strangely) calmly confident, happy, positive and level-headed. More loving & caring as well. It goes hand in hand with bunch of other stuff that I also do (namely being a vegan for a few months now), but still, cold showers are for me The Catalyst which hugely helps me GROW myself every single day. And it's free! I write this post for you right after a cold shower, I can now take freezing cold water for up to 15 minutes straight with a smile on my face. I can really enjoy my time in a cold shower now, it's just amazing what it does to you when you surrender and let go of being slightly uncomfortable. My balls are ice cold even now (30 minutes later) and I start to become really tired now, but that's allright, I've done a lot today. I'll just do some self-improving reading and then go straight to bed (around 10PM). I should also note that cold showers helped to get me on my feet at 5AM every single day, something I wasn't capable of doing in the past. Lastly, I can give you a few tips on how to start. First, go with ice-cold water right off the bat. Do not be a pussy. Better go with 30-60 seconds of ice-cold shower and enjoy your time doing something better instead. Second, start with feet, then add your genitalia and then go straight for the head and the rest of your body. Breath out as hard and long as you can, it seems to help with the pain. Third, keep in mind that it's just a water. Water can not hurt you in any way (unless you try to drown yourself, of course). After all, you are mostly made of water, so what's the big deal? The ego holds you back, your body holds you back and your habit of being stuck in your comfort-zone holds you back too. So just go and beat it, it's definitelly worth it. I am proof that it can literally change your life for the better. You'll never go back to warm showers again. Good luck, stay healthy, enjoy your days. Don't forget to smile! - TK

I would respond in a way in which the other would regret his decision to spit on me. By the way, who ever said that an Awakened or Enlightened person wouldn't assert them self?

Well you said: What you know is that people who are truly awakened don't necessarily talk to you. I agree totally with what you're saying. Don't believe any of that, explore it for yourself, see if it's true or not.

This is no different than what religious fanatics feel and experience when they pray to god. A strong belief in something and the feeling of greatness/ultimate love can cause such physical sensations very often. And so does music. 1. This does not mean you are enlightened or awakened at all. 2. People who are truly awakened don't necessarily talk about it at all.

Oh, I have / had a big problem with that myself. I'm not at the point where I completely accept everything and just be the flow itself but I made some good improvements. I started out with being totally frantic and neurotic (as I see it right now) and at this point in my life I'm pretty chill most of the time and a little neurotic and frantic when "important" stuff happens. So, here is basically what I do to get better at this: Every time I feel as if I cannot accept either the present moment / myself or whatever is happening to me I concentrate very deeply into that feeling. I locate it in my body (for example fear often sits in my stomach) and I just observe it. If I can I lay down on my bed and feel really into it, doing some self-hypnosis to getting to the root of it, I do that. I don't try to get rid of it, but I just feel it and so kind of accept that the "non-acceptance" is just there. This typically helps me to get out of my head and relax myself a little and overtime this is my key for holding my shit together. I agree to everyone saying that you don't need any technique and just let it be. That's all right. And I agree that we are all awakened but don't see it and so on. But in reality @Emerald Wilkins I know for myself that there are situations in which you need a technique to get on with your life. So, that's what I do. In the long-term I cannot agree more to @Jan Odvarko. Strong determination sittings are responsible for my fastest and deepest gains in that field.

@abrakamowse This seems to only be possible within an awakened master's presence (just a hypotheses)

Getting back to ego death.. What the guy describes in the video I would say is actually awakening. You are aware that you are not your ego, but the ego still has it's effect on you. I would say what ego death really is, is when you have been living in an awakened state for a while and have noticed your ego so much to the point where you no longer properly identify with it. At this point you may have an identity crisis and go through some hard times... Is this correct? Has anyone experienced this and if so how did you deal with it? I had this realisation that there isn't really a 'me' (awakening) the other day. It was very profound at the time and then I became scared, worried of the implications it would have on my family/love life etc. Then I started to see more of the positives to it. Since then I have been very calm and still for the last few days. At the same time, I feel like I've uncovered something that is non reversible. It sounds awful but its a bit like opening pandoras box LOL. I feel like I don't have a choice in being on this path now and that more is going to unfold without my will. The only thing I can compare this feeling to is from when I was younger. I spent a few years experimenting with drugs and had a few experiences where I was high and actually believed that I had uncovered another reality, the way it really was.. This reality I thought I had uncovered is very similar to what I feel now. The more I think about it the more I trip out. LOL I just hope I don't end up in a mental ward..!

@DizIzMikey not sure what you mean@DizIzMikey Well ive been through that stuff and at first it was bizarre...going through synchronicity experiences and peeking behind the curtain. Now that I realize that there is more to life than what appears on the surface (awakened), I can never go back to the way I used to live, (with ego, trying to obtain meaning through form, judging, comparing myself to others, ad nauseum).

I believe buddha is almost a generic term or title for awakened one. In buddhist traditions there are many buddhas. The fat bellied happy buddhs is one representation of one buddha. When people refer to the buddha, I think they generally mean siddartha.

Like... if you are awakened.. than you know of me than since you are one with everything? Correct or not?

Well ive been through that stuff and at first it was bizarre...going through synchronicity experiences and peeking behind the curtain. Now that I realize that there is more to life than what appears on the surface (awakened), I can never go back to the way I used to live, (with ego, trying to obtain meaning through form, judging, comparing myself to others, ad nauseum).

This got me thinking and I started to explore the concepts of the 'present moment' and time itself. Some realisations hit me. There is a profound truth in the statement "A present moment is only there when there is someone to live in it", or more to the point, when there is something to perceive it. I appologise if this gets deep.. The fact is, by the time our brain (or any brain or system) has received the sensory information and 'made sense' of it, the moment has already passed. There is a delay. So the present moment we perceive is always lagging by a fraction. Also, it is the speed at which we can process and make sense of the stream of sensory information that creates the perception of time. Smaller animals with smaller brains tend to have much faster perception and reactions. Why? It is beleived that in smaller neural systems signals travel faster (less distance to cover) so they can perceive time more slowly and hense create faster reactions to the sensory input. This is why it is so hard to swat a fly even though it appears to us that we are swinging our arm really fast. Yet to the fly, it still has time to casually finish pollishing it's eyes and smoothing it's wings before taking off at the last moment and evading the impending hand. To the fly the perception of time is very different (our actions seem extremely slow) and so the present moment to the fly is different to the present moment we are experiencing. I imagine the 'present moment' as a continuous 'burst' of sensory moments that our brains create some perception out of and also create the sense of time. Interestingly, when we are unconscious, maybe in deep sleep, under general anasthetic, coma, passed out or even dead, there is no perceiving, no present moment and no perception of time. Infact there is no time. If there is no conscious awareness then there is no present moment or passage of time at all. You could be put unconscious today, and awakened in 1000 years and you would have no sense of the passing of time. It would feel like seconds or minutes. Which brings in to question the whole concept of time - it has no speed, or measurement. In fact, it may well be infinite, instantaneous. What is time anyway? Just the perception of passing, more importantly changing, events - if everything was static there would, in theory, be no passage of time. Billions of years passed from the beginning of the universe to when you became a conscious life-form. That time passed in an instant. Then, while you are experiencing conscious awarness and perception, time (events) seems to take on a 'speed', except during periods of unconsciousness when it return to being instantaneous. Then, once you die and stop perceiving permanently, the rest of eternity will play out in an instant. It occurs to me that the perception of passage of time is in itself just a manifestion of our conscious awareness and as such the concept of the 'present moment' is aswel. In reality there is no present moment because in order to have a 'moment' a moment has to have duration. How long is the present moment? It isn't any length. It is only a perception in itself. Weirder and weirder... ultimately, reality isn't anything like what we think we know about it. It is weirder than we can possible imagine. It's unlikely we even have the mental capacity to understand it. In fact, as we are a part of reality that is like saying that reality can't comprehend itself. The system can't comprehend the system because it is the system. A paradox. In any case, what is comprehension? A concept? Concepts within concepts within concepts.... If there were no brains to conceptualise then there would be absolute reality just as it is without any understanding or knowledge or questions or present moments or even passage of time.. Sorry, got carried away...will leave it there!