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Every time I feel pain in strong determination sitting I just remember the marathon monks who sit motionless without food, drink or sleep for 7 and a half days, really really helps. In the future I'd like to try it. also, recently I got the brilliant idea of listening to the Neti Neti episode from Leo every time I do strong determination sitting, it passes the time and also I could do self inquiry and meditation in the same time.

When you are practising neti-neti you are becoming aware of an experience and then noting that the experience is not you (because you are experiencing it, you logically deduct that you cannot be it) and then you become aware of the next experience and you repeat. When you are practising the letting-go technique, you are becoming aware of an experience and then you are just letting it go and becoming aware of the next experience and you repeat. They're both getting you to do the same thing, it's just described differently. If you keep doing this sooner or later it will dawn on you what you are. But you can't control that and nobody can tell you what "that" is. Paradoxically, you will merge with experiences, so you stop seeing experience as different from you. Again, it isn't something you can actually do, it just happens when it happens, so keep recognising experiences, feeling them and moving on. You don't actually have to "move on" to the next experience, it will just arrive by itself. Strong determination sitting just makes this process more intense i.e. you practice with more intense experiences like pain, so you drop your bullshit quicker. You don't need to do strong determination sitting though, you can do this lying down in your bed with stuffed toys and it will still work.

@Epsilon_The_Imperial oh okay thanks for clearing it up!! So would u say the main ways to find the true self is neti neti + strong determination sitting??

In the letting go method of leo's latest video he talks about 'becoming reality'. Instead of being in your mind, be 'out there'. Doesnt this contradict neti neti which says you are not an experience? Why would you become reality, when 'becoming reality' is itself an experience? What you really are is that intangible thing experiencing reality..

Guys please do not laugh at me I have phobia from dark places when I be alone lately I watched both of (neti neti method and the next level of meditation) and both of these methods required to be my eyes closed. So when I practice these methods I start to be afraid because my eyes close and everything dark and no one near me So my question is there any solution for my phobia or can I practice these methods with my eyes open

@xXguitarsenXx Let go of the illusion of self. Allow "you" to fall away. Absolute surrender of everything. If your not experiencing a breakthrough at this point, you may not be totally letting go of yourself and still holding on. Give yourself some time. Than when your ready, give yourself a gift by totally surrendering all self. *Just as a note: if it starts to feel a little freaky at some point, that's it. Don't shy away from that. That's the doorway to a completely different experience. Different from anything you have ever experienced from the perspective of "you". Leo's video "Neti-Neti Guided meditation" would work nicely here. Don't just hear the words and conceptualize what he is saying, actually experience it. He is creating a crack in the wall of illusion for you to look through. It lies beyond all the words and conceptualizing.

yeah, i just read an article about self-inquiry (ramana marashi method) and how it is similar to neti-neti , this helped me a bit , i´m motivated to try self-inquiry with a new aproach, (lol no wonder i had no succes i assumed self-inquiry to be smth totaly different, more like a rational internal dialog, which always lead to an impasse for me XD) Thx! ..here is the arcticle if you are interessted (quick read, but helpful) http://www.hridaya-yoga.com/meditation-retreats/what-is-hridaya-meditation/the-self-inquiry-method-of-ramana-maharshi/

@Falk Personally, I haven't done much self inquiry work so I can't be to helpful with that. Have you seen Leo's Neti-Neti video yet? I would think that would bring similar progress as self-inquiry would. I just watched it for the first time and thought it was excellent.

So yesterday I went to swimming with my friend and it was like 1:30pm so it was hot and the sun was so bright in the sky that we just jump straight into the pool we did some laps and other stuff then suddenly my friend decided to stop but I continued through,I hated doing laps so I changed into just diving but I had no googles hence my eyes were closed I would dive for like 15 meters without breathing for like 1.5min and as I was under water I saw the skin covering my eyes looking transparent which is normal but then I asked for reasoning so I brought up some physics reasons and so on but also noticed that when I was underwater my face was facing the sun but eyes closed I acted like I was the sun but when I was submerged hence eyes open. I hated the sun and lost the feeling of being the sun so I had an insight on how to become more authentic. The insight was that bassically I should see my self as an idol and not see others as idols this might be controversial to Enlightened folks (idea of no self)but I never did self enquiry or any or neti neti I just do daily meditation and once a week I do strong determination sitting if any one who's Enlightened/not Enlightened can tell me his opinion over this insight.

Monday, 16/08/02 - 4h Meditation Retreat Day 2 Meditation: I twice tried to apply the Neti Neti Method myself. It kind of worked but kind of it didn't. The monkey mind often interrupts me and I forget about what I wanted to do. Then I have to start all over again and never truly reach the state where I can glance at Nothingness itself. I watched the Radical Open-mindedness video and did the meditation there too. The rest of the day I was much more open-minded, although I would consider myself a pretty open-minded person normally. I was much more open to the content I consumed. Life Purpose Work: I read a few chapters in my book "A little history of philosophy". Some chapters I like, some I am absolutely not interested in, e.g. when the author talks about much to logical concepts. When I was taking a walk in the rain I came up with the idea that my domain of mastery could be consciousness. I was really sceptical about consciousness being a domain of mastery. But now that makes sense to me because it is related to Enlightenment as well as discovering new wisdom. Things I am grateful for: coconut oil all the high quality food I am allowed to eat my best friend Ways I could have made today better: reading "The War of Art" spending less time on the internet

<08-02-16> I Found My True Self I'll just outright say it, I found my true existential self during my meditation session today! I couldn't believe after all this time trying to "search" for the existential self, I actually grasped what it is. Pretty much what I learned from watching Leo's videos basically got confirmed. The existential self is NOT and experience at all. It is NOT a thing! It is completely empty and I was also able to see that it was inherently self-aware! How did I "find" it? Well, I simply had to grasp was that whatever I am, it had to be something that was constant. And so during the session, my mind basically wandered into doing a sort of spontaneous "Neti Neti method" where I noticed just how different kinds of experience came and went, and because of the constant flux, I couldn't possibly be any of my direct experience. It didn't take me long to realize and find that what was constant was pure awareness that experience was happening. And there I finally grasped that what I am is not only the "thing" that is aware of experience, but that it was also the fact that experience is even happening, if that makes any sense at all. Maybe you might be reading this and getting skeptical with my claims, maybe you might think that I have not actually found my true self and am just talking shit but I can assure you, what I discovered was very profound and very true. The real problem is is that I can't communicate my direct experience. I mean, how am I supposed to describe empty self-aware nothing to you if you haven't "experienced" it for yourself. I'm using a lot of quotation marks in my writing because the words can't really accurately describe what I actually found. Also, I realize that today was only a step forwards in my consciousness journey. Today I only "found" my true self. I only managed to genuinely grasp what the self exists as but I have not gotten close to being it yet as a human individual. I still recognize that merging with the true self will require significantly more work and years in order to truly live without ego or lower self. That's all for today, see you again tomorrow.

Monday, 16/08/01 - 4h Meditation Retreat Day 1 Yesterday I spontaneously decided that I will make this week a 4h Meditation Retreat. This means that I will meditate from Monday to Friday each day at least 4 hours. Meditation: I meditated in the morning 1h and right before lunch another hour. This way really relaxing like yesterday. I once got into a state where I looked at the light switch and just saw the visual sensation of it, nothing else. Then I meditated right after lunch for almost two hours. First I did 35 minutes, switched positions and started the guided Neti Neti meditation by Leo. This took about 50 minutes and at the end I got a little little sense of my true nature, of nothingness. I wanted to stop the mp3 on my handy, so I had to move and open my eyes. I lost the sense of nothingness and meditated for another 20 minutes. Life Purpose Work: I started writing a little bit about happiness. I felt a lot of resistance and stopped after one hour. I am asking myself whether this is really my life purpose, writing blog post like stuff about some philosophical/spiritual topic. It probably is something like this. The problem though at the moment is that I do not have a lot of wisdom. I need to investigate a lot of time in research and personal spiritual growth before I am able to share something. Who would want to read something by a 17 year old inexperienced one? Maybe I should first do a lot of research, study and spiritual development first. This means a lot of meditation, reading books, hearing spiritual teachings on YouTube and going out of my comfort zone like hard intense exercise. I consider becoming a none after finishing school. Personal Development Work: Nothing really. I could have read a little bit, but I rather wanted to think about my meditation experiences and life. Things I am grateful for: the time to meditate a lot nothingness music Ways I could have made today better: longer meditations to feel and surrender with the pain in my legs

I'm 16 years old I started with Actualized.org recently just because of an arbitrary experience and I would like to share it with you.One day I was on youtube searching for a video about politics....and in that video there were words that were used,the words were so irrelevant to self actualization it was "Brain wash"I really had a thought in my head so profound!it goes like this.......... I'm a chimp and I get brain washed everyday by society the insight was similiar to the video Leo made about "30 ways society fucks you in the ass" But mysteriously the night after that insightfull experience I got depressed,neurotic and I was acting the victim so eventually I looked for soloutions for those problems and so I discovered Leo and Leo's videos are so exciting though there long but still he gives accurate simplified information that suits the myopic,unwise(unactualized)mind which I believe is a gift he has,so now I'm after meditation for the rest of my life,I'm through 1 month now and through 5 months of that I would like to start touching on Enlightenment through self enquiry and the neti neti method so now I want to read more on Enlightenment and other quartered techniques. I was never so sure of what I want till I started watching Leo(Actualized.org).....so thanks so much Leo!!!!!!!!!! For providing me with ideas from your far sighted mind to understand the self actualization needs hence build my own.

After a second failed attempt at performing the Neti Neti inquiry method, I've discovered something extraordinarily critical, if not totally imperative, to successfully performing this work. I have discovered that any beliefs, prior knowledge and/or convictions about reality that you hold (whether they be dictated to you in a science lecture by an esteemed professor, or by your parents, or by religious teachers, or by books, or by enlightenment gurus/lectures given by spiritual teachers, or even by Leo himself) must be completely extinguished and recognized as potential malarkey the second the work commences. You have to disregard everything, or completely unlearn everything. You have to admit to yourself that you don't know anything about anything authentically. If this admission is performed authentically, your awareness opens up and curiosity will naturally lead the way and the work itself (in the inquiry process after a question is asked, your mind should not be pointing to a belief or an idea that you may already hold. If you see an affirmation to a belief/an idea you have, arising to a question you have heard in your awareness (in presence), you have failed). The millisecond you recognize these affirmations, you have failed, as all affirmations are genuine to you whether you choose to see them that way or not. You must be genuinely curious and admittedly, dumb about everything. You must be extremely honest with yourself in this work. Also, I've realized that the more you do the work, the harder it becomes, because you have an expectation already set up for yourself in the work, including the future sequence of steps in inquiry (for example, in replaying Leo's Neti Neti video for every new inquiry session, you have a subconscious expectation of what's going to be said and done, which diverts your awareness to your thoughts about the experience and not to the experience itself). If you already have the logical answers known, either consciously or subconsciously, it is extremely difficult to not refer to them in your awareness when the questions are asked instead of searching for them. However, you must search for them. Knowing this, I somewhat regreat soaking up all of that knowledge that now seems to be regressing my awareness work. This is all I have to say. Now forget about everything I said, and just do the work. No, but seriously. This is all bullshit -- everything that's been said. And everything that Leo said is bullshit, and everything else that anyone else has ever said for that matter.

@MrPeak If awakening is what you want, you should be doing self-inquiry & questioning more than meditation. Meditation is not that effective for awakening. You have to systematically break down your conceptual framework of who and what you think you are. I have many videos explaining how to do that. See my video especially about the Neti Neti method.

The way things are going 7.9.2016 I don't know if I should continue this journal or not? The original reason why I started this journal is to hold myself accountable. And to be honest it was actually doing it's thing with meditation. But the disciplined counter/ streak counter were things I made up to see if I can complete my tasks for today. And usually I will succeed or fail. Now as for the past 2 days I been changing my meditation habits a lot. There are other ways to do meditation( walking, standing, sitting on chair etc.) And another thing I'm doing is researching meditation techniques and the problems I'm having. One of my problems is sleeping while meditating. Today I was watching a video on the Neti Neti technique by Leo, and along the way I started to sleep. And I had to stop the video because of how close my body was getting to sleep(like really close my eyes were closing and I was being sent to unconscious land). For the past two day I been programming and finish two sections on freecodecamp and I am on the iquery section. I also started rollerblading and will be having fun in that. The future of this journal... It appears that I have finally found a way to get things done: wake up early, get started on what you want to do and just do it/ focus on it.(make sure your just focus on the task on hand and focus on one thing at a time). I also feel that I won't be updating this regularly anymore. The problem is that do I really need to write the stuff I did today and describe in detail. The point of this is that I want to living my life not writing what I did today. In the future I want to be living a life of growth and learning but to have to write about whether I got everything done just makes me thinks its a waste of time. I prefer to just live, and not rely on any planner to plan out my day. My thoughts can do that. I don't need a system to hold myself accountable, my thoughts and actions can do that. The benefits of writing this journal is as follows: improve writing(could help me in school) but it appears that I only get write so well when I am passionate or excited about something, I only start to fail when I am not interested in what I am writing. (And yes there are parts where the writing kind of suck.)(but mostly I'm using my thoughts.) information to help, I get to talk about myself and share resources on anything I learn or experience today. The downsides of writing this journal: wasted time, usually it's wasted time if I feel like I'm doing this for homework(it feels like homework if I don't feel passionate or excited) or because I have to update the system of accountability. In the end I get to save time and truly live my life of personal growth and learning.

Neti Neti

According to leo is the neti neti method or self inquiry, but Shinzen Young talks about strong determination sitting plus some form of meditation called "expand contract". does anyone tried both tecniques? here is the tecnique of Shizen Young https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYSSf71Vo7w Also I want to know if is better do the self inquiry with the guided video of leo, or by oneself. because with the video sometimes I am trying to focus my atention in the sensation of my skull (where I believe I am until today) but then leo keeps talking and that distracts me, but without the video it is so more easy to get lost in monkey mind and miss the flow.

I've watched all of your enlightenment videos several times so I'm familiar with this line of thinking. You're right, the idea that all people are some part of a greater whole or we're all one entity clearly isn't something I can logically understand but have to experience. The closest I've come was doing your guided Neti Neti video while on a mild dose of mushrooms. I had some kind of experience that was not like any other I've ever had where this truth really REALLY seemed to be the thing I'd been overlooking my entire life, and yet it seemed so obvious in the moment. The visualization I had of it at the time was that of a horses mane. Like every human was a hair on a horses mane that didn't realize they were all just part of a horse. Each hair thought he was a unique little hair with his own experience but it was all an illusion. To the horse itself or anyone observing from the outside it's obvious that the hairs are just part of a greater whole. I realize this analogy is far from perfect but it's what my psilocybin filled mind came up with in a matter of seconds when I was trying to understand the experience. A very odd feeling stayed with me for several hours after like I had just glimpsed something that would forever change my life but as the days passed it seemed less and less real. I don't think I'd ever get mad at you no matter how personally I managed to take something. You've quite literally transformed my life in a matter of 6 months. I can't thank you enough for your videos, this forum, the reading list, the life purpose course, etc. I'm not ready for the whole enlightenment trip yet and I realize that, I just want to be happier, more conscious, have better relationships, be a better dad, etc., but I expect as I work my way through the stages I will come to the same conclusion that you and many others here have- that it is of the utmost importance. Thanks again!

Hello everyone! At the present moment I’m bothered with a question. The problem is that I don’t know who is the ego and who is not. I accept that the sense of an entity called “I” is an illusion. I can understand that there is no “master behind the scenes” who rules and controls the actions of my life. For me, the sense of “I” is an emergent property of the body-mind system. As an emergent property, it does not have existence itself – that’s why it is called illusion. The illusion is created by the intricate body-mind system (which is part of reality) and it takes thoughts (which are also an illusory emergent property) and claims control and possession over it. I am aware that we have no control over our thoughts and over our actions… And the interesting fact is that, although I understand and accept the illusory nature of that “I”, I can’t free myself of its modus operandi. The act of writing a question to this forum is an egoistic driven action. It represents the need of reason and logic, the “everything in its place” feeling that is typical of rationalism. That’s why the state of not knowing that I am right now is so painful (for the ego, of course). There is no logic and reason in reality itself. Contradictions are created and are only a problem for the ego. My question is: why not identify ourselves with the body-mind system? This system is a brute natural element of reality, so it is a part of the whole field of reality. In the “Neti Neti method” video, Leo told us to seek for that element, that “thing” that have always been constant in our entire lives. Of course our body and mind changes throughout the course of our lives, but why is that a problem? Reality itself is a constant flow of change. Our body-mind system is changing all the time, so is reality. That is why the biological system is a part of reality. And about awareness… Who is being aware and perceiving reality? I think that we can only be aware of things due to process of the body-mind system. Can we still be aware of external world things when the body-mind is turned off? For instance, can we perceive the sound of a bird when we are dead? I don’t think so… Therefore, why not connect ourselves with the body-mind system as a part of reality itself? I am not talking about the “I” feeling who wants to control things…. Because if we truly link ourselves with the biological system we would instantly surrender to reality. The biological system is influenced by all of the “external” things in the environment, so the only “choice” that is left when you accept this is to surrender yourself to this constant changing reality. Deep inside I feel that it is possibly one more of the many masks of the ego, so here I am searching for help haha. I would appreciate anyone who wants to help me… Thanks!!

@Mal Thankyou Mal for the good advice, I kind of know what you are talking about because I've been practicing neti neti for 1 hour per day for the last 3 weeks or so. Even though I have an intuitive sense that trying to seek approval is building up a complete fiction in my mind, that doesn't stop my ego from causing negative emotions lol! So I urgently need a way to control it/distance myself from the feelings. I have dreams of becoming successful in my business, and I know that people skills are required for it, so it would be beneficial to have techniques to improve those. That's really what my questions are aiming at, gaining those. Sure 'I'(or maybe more accurately, pain occurs in experience) feel a lot of pain talking to people, bloody ego is broken! But the concern is more to do with the anxiety preventing myself being able to communicate effectively and grow EQ to start a business. I strongly appreciate your advice, and will continue to look at your posts to direct me, but I am autistic, I need to find a way to develop people skills, and unfortunately meditation cannot give that to me

Aha! Reading your comment confirmed for me what I've been speculating over. I've found my meditation to naturally take a it's own course, whether it be the "do nothing", neti neti, mindful med, etc. Different styles, yet still producing the same inevitable result of opening the "third eye" to more awareness. Naturally, you'll also find yourself wanting to stay in your meditative state longer. I think the most important thing is to do it every day for 15+ minutes, (many recomend twice a day).

@Paul-from-France If you drive a car, you can look through the window as far as you like or can, but it`s not going to teach you anything about the power of the car. The senses are nothing but limited tools. To say because of that, we must be nothingness , is a short cut. It`s about making the distinction between the relative and the absolute; that`s where the neti-neti technique is about. So the proper questions are needed otherwise it`s a never ending story. A good example is astronomy. The further one looks the more complicate it becomes till one ends up with total nonsense. Same with the quantum mechanics. If you dive more into the senses the same will happen. It`s important to distinguish the relative and the absolute, the relative meaning everything that has a beginning will have an end also. The absolute being without beginning thus without end. And for the conclusion of being nothingness; I prefer being fullness!

Hi everyone ! While going through the Neti Neti visualization, especially when it comes to the channels smell and taste, it seems rather unsatisfying to basically dismiss those only because we naturally have poor faculties in both smell and taste ; which is also relatively true for all of our senses knowing that none of them are perfect. Leo says this himself : " the channel of taste is very easy because we have such a poor sense of taste ". This is a misinterpretation. Theoretically, we might be capable of smelling something coming from our true self if only we had a much more powerful sense of smell ; and of course this is also true for all the other senses. What do you guys think ?

Hey all, I wanted to share some of my questions concerning self-inquiry. Currently I am meditating for one hour every morning, normally as a "stong determination sitting". Here is my usual process: 1. doing a body scan and becoming aware of my breathing 2. doing self-inquiry (mostly something similar to the Neti Neti method) 3. go into "do nothing" until the hour is over I do not really struggle to "get through" the hour although I doubt that that is the purpose of this meditation (Eckhart Tolle). My "problem" is that I cannot really maintain doing self-inquiriy for more than 20 minutes. It just feels like my mind is completely closed. At the end of my inquiry I ask "who am I?" over and over. When I get silence I try to "bask" in it and enjoy it but then my mind jumps in with thoughts. Every couple weeks there seems to be a "crack" and I get to a really profound "wondering stage" but for the most time I am just banging my head against the wall and waiting for the hour to go by. Should I attempt to ask myself the "who am I/who is aware/...?" questions for the full remainder of the hour even when my mind goes berserk again? Or should I rather go into "do nothing" when my mind seems shut? Any feedback is deeply appreciated. If need to clarify some points let me know. Cheers!