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Is it more like a "neti neti" approach like this one?

I know I told you I totally agree with the neti-neti method and self enquiry (or maybe I didn't tell you). But this does not mean that everything is not you. Every single thing one by one is not you, but Everything together? Why do you not believe about the end point of non-duality if you follow nonduality teachers? Not that you have to believe, but we're having a forum conversation, so I don't want to circlejerk around

@aryberry Yeah I think that's the point of Neti Neti. You play a game of whack-a-mole when a false concept of self comes up until the realization happens that there is no correct mole. Dig it.

I'm having difficulty understanding the neti neti method I'm watching leo's video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq4NDMNDzSs&t=3s and honestly it seems as if Leo keeps trying to tell us that there is something which is there, and... um, well. um, idk what to say. there's nothing to say... there are a few things which... traditionally, in certain circumstances I've used in some way to identify a self that is there just as a manner of reference. but I've honestly never held a "true" concept of self. I've literally just never imagined a self in the world. I imagine the world but it is not with a self. if there is anything which could be called a self, it is kind of like... a dimensionless camera that looks outward? lol what a description tho. there's just no holding onto this as a concept. and I just... It's such an obvious thing in my oppinion, that I just can't believe that this is what we're supposed to find. there's really nothing exciting about it. it's kind of dumb really, and useless. why are there all these people like leo and random enlightened monks who act as if there's some glorious realization to be had? it's... not that... lol... idk.. what to say... there's nothing to really say about it. and the thing is it isn't just in the self either it's kind of.. every where. some not-thing which isn't really there but there's... "space" for it. it's a weird thing I try to capture sometimes and get amused at its... nonbeing.. it shows up most often when you try to separate things apart really. idk. anyway, I'm not gonna try the neti neti method after all, because I just don't understand what it is. "not this not that" what is the point of trying to imagine this or that if it's already obviously not this and not that? in fact by doing the method itself you imply there is something... really it seems as if the only real way to do the neti neti method is to not do it 'cause it certainly isn't that lol. it isn't "it" either. eh, I guess I can understand why monks seem to find... amusement.. but idk. doesn't seem that amusing to me. 'cause it isn't amusing lol. - I guess the neti neti method could be fun in this way lol. but still it's like... Idk. Idk what to say. so maybe I shouldn't say.

It is odd, I don't really think I have much anxieties anymore. I mean occasionally if I am focused on something such that I am not self-aware, sometimes I can get worked up with stress or anxiety, but if I take a step back and become aware of this and the situation, it dissipates fairly quickly and evenly. I guess there are some things which cause stress. (I used to have too much anxiety, to the point it kept me indoors - so I spent a few years to work on that, already.) I don't think I will contemplate anxiety this weekend tho, maybe some time in the future, I don't want to multitask my focus on self improvement too much. But I have been thinking of trying the Neti-Neti technique. I will have at least one session this weekend. I will also contemplate focus, and motivation. I have not had much of a habit of sitting meditation, I mostly work via mindfulness in application, being mindful while working on a task or while walking. Actually, now I am actually thinking I will make it a plan this week to purposefully do certain tasks I am avoiding as part of my "meditation" journey this weekend I am also considering skipping media sites like this one for saturday and sunday, but am not sure yet. It could serve as a break from the high-focus work I will be doing. So actually, nevermind, I'm likely to be More active this weekend hehe! Maybe next time I have a fasting period it will be a good time to be technology free.

@aryberry Meditation will be done in shifts of 30-60 minutes with breaks. Mindfulness practice and practicing diffusing awareness. Both. Also, Neti Neti method for self-inquiry. For journaling, I will probably do some CBT. I'll write down thoughts that induce anxiety, shame, and fixation. Then question them and write more reasonable or more expanded alternatives. I have to work a little bit on Saturday and also go to the gym so I can shower.

@username When comparing spiritual teachings, you have to be extremely careful about terminology and language use. Terms like "logic", "free will", "God", "consciousness", "mind", "the self", "you/me/I", could have 180 degree difference in meanings. You have to look at the context they are being used in. Yes, you could say there is a certain "logic" to God and reality. But that's just a manner of speech. Like I could say there's a certain logic to operating a Windows PC, or a certain logic to playing beer pong, or a certain logic to psychedelic trips, or a certain logic to meditation, or a certain logic to suicide bombers. But that's a very loose use of that word. Yes, there is a certain logic to the Neti Neti method, where you realize that if you're having an experience, it cannot be you. To your other point, I noticed that his understanding of Buddhism is very limited. And his criticism of the Neo's saying they don't exist also fails to address their true meaning. When the Neo's say you don't exist, they mean the personal human self, not the Absolute self. The Neo's are teaching from the point of view of the ego, whereas Vedanta teaches from the point of view of the Absolute. It actually makes a lot of sense to teach from the ego's point of view, because the student is identified with ego. If you tell the student he exists, he's likely assume, "Yeah, of course I exist. I'm this body/mind right here. I got it! Duh!" But when you tell the student, "You don't exist!!!" he immediately gets scared and put on the spot. Now he has to come up with evidence for his body/mind identification, which he starts to see is impossible. And that creates an opening. James is a great teacher, but he suffers a bit from being a Vedanta hardliner. He feels old-school Vedanta is the ultimate teaching. Well, that's a relative judgment. And it certainly won't be true for all his students. For example, I was frustrated by his lack of giving actual self-inquiry technique. All that talking turns into mental masturbation very quickly without a clear, explicit practice method.

@LRyan Looks great! ? There aren't too many methods. Just means she's versatile and, if that's her profession, she should be. It would clearly be an improvement from that last one. Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Mindfulness mean this chick will totally be down with spirituality and expanding the mind to heal. PS wtf is existential therapy? The Neti Neti Method? I wanna do it!

In honor of Leo's birthday, I am going to raise my consciousness by doing the Neti Neti Method for 100 sessions in addition to my normal practice. I challenge someone else to do the same.

Watched the Leo's video about the Neti-Neti Method and I tried doing it while on mushrooms. I got some awesome insights, but while I was doing it my mind was constantly objectifying the idea of "You" being a constant. The neti-neti method is all about discarding everything that's not you to find your real you. In the video it's said that "You" is constant, so you discard everything that is not constant until you find constant. It seemed for me like an assumption itself. Where does assumption that "You" is a constant comes from? I also at some point had this insight and experience of me being nothing more but attention. I was meditating on mushroom and during the peak as my mind was going crazy trying to hopelessly figure out where "I" am, got this glimpse of "I'm attention" - if my attention on a sensation, then I'm there, if my attention on a screen, I'm there, if my attention nowhere, then I'm there. Have anyone ever had this?

This is a realization that had been kicked around in my mind for a long time. I have a scientific mind. What this means is that I allowed my beliefs to dictate my experience despite assumptions I took as given. I felt superior because ... it's science. One thing I had a lot of trouble with was the idea of no separate world from my awareness i.e. there is a tree over there that is separate from me, and I am over here. I was recently reviewing my sensation and perception notes from undergrad, and I had a realization that is big for me: Lets look at vision. A scientific perspective says that light hits the retinal rod and cone cells, a chemical excitation takes place which is transferred into a chemical and electric signal that travels up the optic nerve to the occipital lobe in the brain where it is rendered into a visual experience. So I realized that even though I never saw this for what it was (a model) I accepted it for truth. But even this model requires the brain to generate my experience. The brain projects reality into a hologram that I was taking for granted. There absolutely cannot be any separation from any image in awareness, because the image perceived is a result of the awareness perceiving it. Everything I see is completely dependent on this projection under a scientific model, but this isn't the experience as it is. This is a belief that keeps me in separation from objects in my awareness and was based on the assumption inherent to the model I accepted. Every sensation including thought works this way. The mind projects all things, and the mind is an object in awareness. Awareness contains it all. If I am awareness, I am the container in which all experience takes place. None of the experiences occurring can be the subject that is containing it (see neti-neti). I have been reminding myself of the inherent limitation of models in every moment. I am not separate from that which I see, I am creating it. This is the only thing that makes sense. It seems obvious. The experience that triggered this for me was noticing the depth of the darkness when I close my eyes and meditate. It is almost like a holodeck with nothing being projected. It is pure unadulterated potential to form experience. Now consider whether or not light is vital in this projection. When we dream, is there any light, or further, any sensation that provides the stimulus for the experiences in the dream? No. Of course not. Therefore, we are fully aware that our brain projects these things even in absence of stimulus. Generally dreams aren't mere memories, they are new experiences. Further, time is distorted in a dream. So time cant be a constant external dimension. It is a sensation like any other. Many psychologists believe that everyone in a dream is a projection of yourself (it would have to be because the awareness of other can only be supplied by your own individual awareness.) So, the question becomes, Is waking reality any different? Can it possible be any different than that? Could we all be a piece of the same awareness, creating a container that is a consensus reality that provides a void for experience to flow through? Is matter required in a dream to make a physical reality? I know my current answer to all of these based on my experience, but I write to show how deceptive models can be. Science = Models, not reality. It is only a working representation that seems to make the most sense, until it is supplanted by a new model. The assumptions we rely on are powerful and arrogant. I am trying to search and destroy via direct experience. A lot of this is vision based, but it extends to everything. If anyone has any thing to add, or any corrections, I am excited to learn them. I would say that this was a pretty big non-dual experience for me, and I am just in wonder that I ever thought differently. The walls continue to fall away as I see what really is and it is awesome.

Concentration This is the video that I have needed for a long time. Most of my time I have spent in monkey-mind-mode. I have trouble concentrating when I try to inquire. I have trouble concentrating on mindfulness meditation. So a few weeks ago I started practicing the mindfulness meditation daily with the aim to improve my concentration. My concentration ability was so weak that I had trouble even to stay with an object for a few seconds. Now it has improved a little bit. I am able to stay with objects for maybe 10 to 20 seconds and don't drift away too often while switching the objects. It still happens but I am able to concentrate more. I still have trouble concentrating while doing inquiry stuff. Yesterday in neti neti meditation most of my time was spend thinking about social stuff - look at the post above. I tried to contemplate what I really am, while in this weak state of not knowing what I am. But then my mind came up with imaginary conversations. I want to implement the habit of this concentration technique in the morning and in the evening, maybe also at midday. I think my aim now should be to be able to reach this state of access concentration, or whatever Leo called this. Then I will be able to be much more effective at inquiry sessions. Combined with meditating at a time of the day when I am most mentally alert will make a big difference. More high quality meditation will be the key. I have tested out the best time of the day to meditate for a few weeks. I think the time for me should be around 10am to 1pm, depending on my current state.

168th day: Year Wow I am not writing much here... well it has been a whole year since I started to self-actualize! My first meditation session since I decided not to break the streak and since I made my first routine (which I am not doing for a long time now) 1st of March.. I have not quit in the entire time and I am very glad for it now. Alright since I have made again my statistics for meditation I can even share that here: Together all meditation sessions and things towards enlightenment (like self-inquiry or neti-neti) took me: 563.7 hours From that 319.5 hours was do-nothing and SDS and most of the rest was self-inquiry. I started self-inquiry after like 4 months though. Thats about it, 1/20 of 10000 hours so not really much. Of course the next year should be better since I am already on track, but hey the quality is anyway better than quantity. Mindfulness I thought I would start today mindfulness challenge. I was doing well until I started to work on something intelectual like writing post. I actually do not understand how mindfulness should work at that point. It seems quite natural to just let the flow guide me and let me really soak in the thing I am doing.. is that being mindful? If I am not being lost in the stories my mind makes up? I will try to continue tommorow. Cold showers And only cold showers. Its quite easy I have to say. I just go into this state of self-inquiry, tell myself that it is not actually cold and than it is kind of easy. The only problem that I have is not the coldness immediately but when my hands start to hurt physically because they are cold. It takes few minutes though. Music I have backslided here a bit but also found a great piece: Melodeath is gold. The Grand Project I have not forgotten! Not at all! I was learning some math though I have to read a lot for school and am working basically from morning since I get into train where I read, through entire school and into the evening when I go to sleep.. this whole process feels very satisfying though today I am going to watch episode of Vikings. I have realised that I can help the Project in the future if I work on my blog which can serve as a part of the Project. Right now somehow I am starting to get likes on my facebook page from some random people which is cool.. I do not have much time to really upgrade it, hopefully in the future. Feel free to leave like on Science and Rationality facebook page Random Cutting wood is so much fun. Venus looks great. (I love her ) Moon is amazing, rises after Sun sets and sets a bit before Sun rises, thats not going to happen in few days I guess. Somehow I find more and more girls simply beautiful, before I go back to Czech I want to tell one of them that she is really nice. All food tastes amazing. [insert something smart] Dragallur ... wow this was long

Today was a really nice day. An awesome day. I now only have to concentrate on studying history. I write the exam on Friday and already feel well prepared. Today I have done 6 promodoro sessions. I finished writing down my notes for 1945-1949 and just have to revise them once in a while to get all the facts into my mind. Then I started looking what I have to study for commemorative culture about the Nazi time. I don't like that topic. I was sick when we did this in class, so I just have the facts from our book. Well, I have to ask my teacher tomorrow. At some point I didn't wanted to study anymore. I felt still alert and went into the tree house at about 11am to meditate. I firstly did 15 minutes of mindfulness meditation and then 1 hour of neti neti. I didn't got that deep because I got kind of disrupted. I have hay fever at the moment and the mucus running down the nose is a bit annoying. When I went back into the house I felt like its time to eat. I made myself my Sunday buckwheat porridge like always. After that I watched a bit of Leos new video. Surprisingly my concentration level didn't go down today. I was relatively alert even after the meal and although in the early afternoon I always get sleepy. The whether was gorgeous and I went outside into the sun and to read. Then I went in-line skating while listening to Leos video. It was like pure joy. The sky was totally blue, the temperatures were nice, I could hear the birds, I was moving, I got new inspirations... I got so much energy. And Leos video was just perfect. On my way back home I skated onto a little "hill" and got a lot of speed while skating down. I felt like a little child and remembered playing on this hill with my childhood fried driving there down with out wave-boards. Back home I went into the garden and tried to contemplate. I chose love as the object because I felt love at that moment. I already had a little bit of success. Then I went back inside because I felt like I could get a little sunburn. I went into my sisters room because she was away and there is a nice location to read. What I also did this afternoon was reading a part of Neti Neti Meditation and trying to apply it directly, because I feel like I go over these areas in the actual meditation just on the surface. So I tried to deeply feel that I am not the body, not even located in the head. I looked at my values and strengths again and updated them a little bit. And I visualized stuff for about half an hour. I did it more deeply than my usual morning visualization. Life will just become so amazing and fulfilling. And I socialized a little bit with the family, concentrating a little bit on contemplating love and relationships. This contemplation stuff is very inspiring. I already got many ideas on what I want to contemplate: love realtionship color sound feeling emotions artificial intelligence belief knowledge mathematics life my life purpose the meaning of life my true nature etc.

Elliott Hulse I watched some videos by Elliott Hulse in the last days. Oh man, I can feel this love, masculinity, authenticity, strength in this guy. He has made a lot of development. There is a lot I can learn from him. I especially find this Bioenergetics stuff interesting. Wim Hof I also become more interested in Wim Hof again. He resonates with Elliott Hulse too. Right now, standing here in the warmth I am motivated to take cold showers in the morning again and get into the garden and let my sister pour cold water over me. Getting Initially out of the comfort zone But everytime when I want to do such things there is this initial resistance. But then when I did this step out of the comfort zone I get empowered. The cold is your teacher, like Wim Hof says it. There is a lot to learn from getting into the cold and beating the resistance. Honesty When I now thing about the book Radical Honesty I almost immediately feel the resistance. I know what I should be honest about. I should have a long conversation with my parents and tell them what I think about their marriage. And I should express love to them, and hug them for example. But this resistance! I will watch how this feeling progresses and journal about it. There will come the right time and I will feel it. I kind of just want to push these thoughts and the resistance away and emerge in unconscious behavior, and not think about such uncomfortable stuff. But then it comes to my mind that life will not improve through this and in the future I will regret it. If I do this I will benefit from it a lot in the future. I would be able to express my emotions, clear blockages... I already became better with it, but really not enough. Neti Neti Meditation I did this today, just for 35 minutes after the mindfulness technique. I forgot how deep I can go with this technique if I am just alert enough. Today I was so deep, so deep I haven't been in quite a while. But this deepness is on the absolute level not very deep, not at all. I want to read the book again and master this technique together with mindfulness. Feeling Blessed Today again was a birthday "party" with the broader family because of my sister and myself. I hate this day of the year, because of all the cake and all the stress my parents have. This time my father made 4 cakes... And that causes a lot of stress and bad mood for him. Anyways, I feel blessed to have this family. I am living in a great time, where there is no war and no people out of a family die because of war. I realized that through studying the German history after the World War II. (In June 1947 the German population just got 750 calories each day!) My family is relatively healthy and wealthy. And I got presents again. I got a big smoothie book. And I got tea, some sort of oat meal and snacks. And I got money (so much )and credit notes. And I got two new books: "Loving What Is" by Byron Katie and "Taming Your Gremlin" by Rick Carson. Just looking through those books made me excited to read and learn from them. By the way: I hate cake. I ate 5 pieces today. I feel terrible. Apes I continued reading "Our Inner Ape" and I am astronished by how much we can learn just from apes. I am in the chapter about power and its so cool. Some stuff I underlined: allegory of modern humanity: like violent apes, covered in our own blood, we long for reassurance. Despite our tendency to maim and kill, we want to hear that everthing will be alright. No male can rule by himself, at least not for long, because the group as a whole can overthrow anybody... = human politics Power is the prime mover of the male chimpanzee death is the ultimate price of trying to reach the top being in a position of power is stressful. stress compromises the immune sytem A male can increase his progeny by mating with many females while keeping rivals away. The females goes for quality rather than quantity. Risk-taking is a male characteristic, as is the hiding of vulnerabilities men have been socialized into hiding emotions girls competed only if necessary, but boys seemed to do so just for the sake of it. they desperately want to find our where they stand relative to one another knocking a male of his pedestal gets the same reaction as yanking the security blanket away from a baby What these male chimpanzees are doing seems to me like a perfect discription of what the boys in my high school are doing all the time. They are just apes, driven by their instincts. So funny of thinking of certain people this way and seeing them as babies covering themselves with blankets, just to hide their true emotions. Change Its a time of change and I really like this change now. I am growing. I love this. Notes I now have removed the old quotes from my door and put new quotes, pictures and ideas from The Happiness Hypothesis on it. Now when I look on my door I see in huge letters "Areté" (virtue, goodness, excellence) and "Eudaimonia" (happiness, a life lived well, flourishing, actualizing). I love these concepts. Maybe soon as much as Brian Johnson:

Hi, Have you read many books..like Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti, Mooji? They're good for beginners I think. You could watch youtube videos- Tolle, Mooji, Adya, Rupert Spira. Getting insights/awakenings this way can keep you motivated. I didn't meditate (legs crossed, silent). I did/do Self inquiry and neti-neti.

@unknownworld oh and here is a little exercise for you. Can you "neti neti consciousness? I am not body. Ignore I am not thoughts. Ignore what is left? Awareness. neti neti I am not awareness I am not consciousness. Go beyond. Realize that there is beyond. It doesn't end with awareness. There is more to explore. Consciousness, awareness are NOT synonymous with the absolute.

@Visionary Have you seen Leo's 'Enlightenment Guided Inquiry - The Neti Neti Method'? This one made me realize and grasp exactly that. Amazing.

Hi, I just did the "Enlightenment Guided Inquiry - The Neti Neti Method" by Leo and I had an experience of that nothingness, or did I? At the moment in the video when Leo said I should just try to consider that I am nothing and I should now try to be that nothingness, something happened for a split second or even shorter: Some kind of feeling of nothingness evoked very strongly. It seemed like nothingness was expanding rapidly, followed by an immense fear and because of that strong fear the nothingness shrunk/contracted and disappeared. All this happened in less of a second I think and the fear was dissolving as well. Now I am questioning myself if that was some kind of imagination or hallucination. Everything else during the meditation felt like imagination but this short experience didnt feel like imagination. It just happened unvoluntarily. I cant really give more information except that now I have a very unclear picture in my head how it "looked" like in that moment. Just expanding and contracting blackness but no structures in it with which I could explain how I identified the expansion or contraction. It was more like a feeling than a picture. Whats weird is that I didnt understand/realized myself as being that nothingness. It just came over me like a frightening chill. Could someone with confirmed enlightenment experiences comment on this? Thank you.

@Natasha I tried it again. First I did the "Enlightenment - Part 3 - Creating An Experience Of No-Self" which I hadnt done before. This technique was quiet nice and has taught me a few more things about how to be in the present. I will try to integrate some of the methods to my daily meditations. After that I did the Neti Neti method again with Leos Guided meditation. I didnt reach the nothingness again. My ego fought quiet hard. I could keep presence and mindfulness until the part when I tried to find the nothingness but then my heart rate went nuts and my whole body started to sweat. I tried to calm myself which worked but it was already too late, it threw me off track. I kept trying until I realised that I already had lost mindfulness and presence. Kind of disappointing. But anyway, my meditations skills have improved a lot lately. I think I will just append self inquiry to each of my normal meditation sessions at the end and not put too much focus on it. Right now my ego seems to be too well prepared to trick it into letting go

I guess then really the question I am asking is. why is enlightenment not just an transcendent mask of ego? losing perception of a thing is only a lack of object permanence. What really is Ego but a sense of self - and what is nonduality but a sense of self? letting go doesn't cease the existence of the object - only the attachment to it. But both the Sage who speaks his mind shows he is attached by his insistence to share it - and the Sage who holds silent shows he is attached by adhering to the principal he imagines up to explain things away. Thought is not limited to words and images and sensation. Awareness is thought too. literal being is thought, as we can experience it. Experience itself is the ego - It has been recommended to be in the moment, to be aware of the direct experience without judgement without allowing the rational mind to rationalize the experience. I do not deny the inherent meaning in such an activity - but it is like in quantum mechanics - the measurement itself changes the existence. True existence is necessarily unknowable - because knowing AKA direct experience is limiting existence to a measurable state. awareness is our most authentic tool of measuring the world around us - but measurement itself is why duality "exists" = measurement itself results from the "influence" of ego. in a certain way, "true" or however you name it - enlightenment is in ceasing to be aware altogether. we cannot escape our existence - only transcend it - and to transcend it does not leave the existence behind in any way. that existence is still there. to return to the discussion at hand - we name certain thoughts and experiences. in this way we create duality. Both in asking if he glimpsed nothingness, and in answering - we all have forced the topic to be about somethingness. Nothingness cannot be remembered - and we cannot be aware of it. There would be no experience in nothingness - and no sensory input - no awareness - no consciousness - no body and no mind. Nothing that we can imagine* can be nothingness - we can't even look at it sideways with our periphery. I am not yet familiar with the neti-neti method. but any method is not nothingness. this is not to say that we are futile to attempt to pretend to glimpse at it - but instead the intention is to reveal the practicality in releasing the need to ask if we've got it. the answer will always be no. It is only something we learn from in pursuit of, but never something we reach - and if we believe we've reached it, we are fooling ourself by means of ego. *or be

Well, try it again Everyone goes through different experiences during their practice. The neti-neti is meant to show you that you are not an experience (na+iti = not that). So then what are you? Of course, the experiencer. The experiencer is the nothingness behind all experiences. It is like that here and now. The next step is to see that you are the origin of all experiences, and the dichotomy of experience and experiencer is only an illusion.

@Neo I'm also a student, but I've done almost all stupids acts that are a strict no-no for a path. So I know what not to do That's all I share usually. The answers to self-equiry (contemplation/introspection) do not come through as a voice or a thought or an image. Those are just mind activities that can happen after the answer is already seen. So never expect the thought to appear first which may contain an answer, its exactly reverse, the thought may come as an after effect of answer. See, if you do not already know the answer, what will you think about? what will the voice say if it doesn't know what to say? So knowing comes first, the answer is in the form of an experience. Ok what is this "experience of knowing"? For example, when you see a flower in your garden, and you are curious what color is it, and you ask that question, perhaps just intend to know the color, you will see red (say). The experience of redness is direct knowing. No voice or thought or memory or image told you that it is red. You know it directly. Later once you know the color, the mind jumps in, it forms a thought - its red, and perhaps puts it in a language form, a sentence you hear inside. When you ask - who am I (or what am I), look for an experience, not for a thought. Perhaps who am I is too advanced for some. So start from "what am I not?" (the famous neti-neti formula). Another better version is - "Am I aware now?". Takes a fraction of second to know that. Experience it, taste it, repeat..... Later you are free to form thoughts and do logical analysis on the knowledge (the answer) you just got. Let us know how it goes. Try Leo's stuff, its short and sweet. If you can handle detailed long text, try my blog here. The physiological reflexes you are getting are a common occurrence. Your practice is something new for the mind, it causes very deep changes in it. Since the body is tightly coupled to the mind, the reactions appear in the body. You need not cure them or avoid them, they come and go. I had the saliva problem and sleep problem too. I'd get dizzy, tired and almost felt like fainting. I slowed down, and it passed. This is nothing actually, people get a large variety of "purification symptoms", some painful and some crazy, like non-stop crying or anger or sexual arousal that lasts 24x7 . Read here more, if you are interested. Anyway, if you find all that challenging, I suggest join a good teacher, just listen to him, sit together, do guided stuff etc. Some people find that more comforting than simply reading books/net/videos and doing it all on their own. Those who are serious about the path, take solid actions.

Hey there, I would really appreciate some feedback: to this day I have 2 mushroom trips and about 1.5 years of meditation under my belt (8 months of 1 hour self inquiry daily). Lately I'm really struggling with my enlightenment practise. I get up early before work to meditate... groggy and tired I sit down and go into it (mostly Neti Neti). But my mind just comes up with excuses: After 30 minutes I go kind of deep but I always have this sense of "Yeah so what you cannot find yourself... you knew that this would happen anyway... no surprises here." And it goes on and on. Day by day. I just struggle with my motivation. I tried to switch up some questions... some perceived process (more wondering) and then stagnation again. I you have any suggestions I'd appreciate it deeply. Cheers.

135th day: What was going on Ok so 8 days ago I wrote that (intuition approved) I want to go for one week without computer. I was not really sure I would do that at that point but then I did. I still used phone but the computer was turned off the whole time. It was cool. I did not have any back lash when I stopped suddenly using it and was pretty calm. All the days except today I did 1 hour SDS, 1 hour self-inquiry and 1 hour Neti-Neti.. that was also kind of cool. I went running few times and also set a new record! I have to admit that it was more easy then I expected actually not really a challenge so next time I would have to go without all of internet or something like that, still it was cool and I had more free time! Mindfulness OH... YEAH MAN! It is rockin'! I am mindful longer and more often. I could not say the time throughout the day but compared to when I struggled some weeks ago! I am doing self-inquiry in classes quite often. I do not have any problem in paying attention throughout whole 90 minute lesson (I do drift to monkey mind).. I am not feeling sleepy at all which is amazing. I have been also trying to set up new sleeping schedule, I will be working on that now. I somehow caused me to have many dreams so I wrote some down. I also want to investigate something I call now MMM - Micro Morning Meditation. I will mention it if I have any success with it. I am reading Book of Not Knowing again. Wow I just noticed how many times "I" is here, uhh . Right now I am trying to use as much time as possible during the school pauses to study physics and when I am at home I spend time by meditating. I have finally finished the first chapter in the Introduction to Modern Astronomy book. Soon I read the next one about celestial mechanics. This time it will take longer time to catch up, I will need to do some research on vectors and integrals which they use of course This means more Khan Academy when I have computer access again. Alright, I have to go to bed now. Dragallur