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@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!

<05-14-16> Slice and Dice So today I probably spent 25% of my energy working on my indie game, 25% on trying to revive my reading habit (I still haven't finished reading "Becoming Steve Jobs" because of my sudden pause of the habit), 25% trying to study, and now I want to spend the remaining 25% working a little bit more on my game before I watch some cartoons online before going to bed. I'm trying not to push myself too hard today. That's part of the reason why I stopped reading, it was because I was so stressed out and overworking myself on all my college requirements combined with my daily routine and forcing myself to spend time practicing my creative hobbies. I still don't have a plan for what I want to do after college but I feel getting back to my sense of curiosity from the reading habit will help me a lot. On another note, I've had an interesting idea yesterday that I forgot to mention. I've always been very indecisive when it came to choosing what type of meditation I want to do for the day. Most meditators, I think, can choose a single technique to try out repeatedly for a month or so but I can't. I always decide which technique I want to use just before the session and it always ends up with me losing track and switching to a different type of meditation that feels more comfortable. Not anymore though! I've decided to get myself a 6-sided dice (which I took from a board game) and everyday, right after I finish meditating, I throw the dice to determine what type of meditation I will do for the next day (so I can prepare if necessary). Here is what I've decided which dice outcome results on which meditation technique => Do Nothing Technique => Zen Meditation => Mindfulness Meditation => Guided Meditation (I must also throw the dice a second time to tell which type of meditation I want to have guided for me. If I land with a 2 or 3 or 5, I do use their corresponding meditation technique but guided but if I end up with a 1 or 4 or 6, I end up doing a general guided meditation which focuses on no technique in particular). => Neti Neti Method => Strong Determination Sitting That's it for today. I rolled a 3 today so that means I'm going to be doing a Mindfulness Meditation session tomorrow.

neti neti has been very usefull overall and giving profound results when combined with SDS. similar to neti neti is one called ignore everything, in which you slip your attention away from all stimuli and experiences that apear, this way remaining in nothing. also making small pauses throughout the day of +- 5 seconds and just taking everything very mindfully helps develop a habit and if you do it consistentently it becomes automatic.

"that which stands in the way is the way" I had this exact same problem a few months back with self inquiry/neti-neti (to me they're the same thing). As my mind was realizing that there was no self to find and yet was unable to escape whatever was appearing in front of it I got extremely angry and frustrated. I would literally scream and punch walls after meditating. I also started to feel really claustrophobic in my body and mind, even after meditation stopped. I felt like this cat: Everywhere I tried to escape to the same truth was there and there was nothing I could do about it. I had practiced "comfy" spirituality before that and had some nice experiences but it wasn't until I really put the pedal to the metal that I actually started to change deep inside. Somebody posted this video on here and it really spoke to me: https://youtu.be/QVyv1uJ6Rd0?t=19m25s I realized I could just exhaust my way into truth. I started sds/inquiry. If I was still angry at the end of a sit I would immediately repeat the same time. There were a few times where I sat for 8 hours before I finally broke through an issue but once I had broken it, it was finished forever. My psyche got cleaned up really quickly doing this. It wasn't fun. But totally worth it. This is what I continue to do. I practice the technique that I hate the most, because I know if I hate it I have resistance to work out. A lot of people would probably disagree with this though. Its just my 10c. Do what you're gonna do.

And thank you for sharing it. I am still in the baby, baby steps of this journey and I can say it is very similar to what you have described. I started of because I was depressed/anxious and Leo introduced me to the concept. My ego was shocked when I first watched his videos but I was also obsessed. I couldn't stop thinking about it and it was taking over my life at university. My ego saw it as an escapism for it to be happy and rid it self of the depression. But as the practice deepend it realised that its destroying itself and the depression started again. I always wondered why should i be doing this? is it real or am i wasting time? But I had a glimpse into the truth whilst doing Neti Neti and it became so clear that I need to follow through on this. After the glimpse (only for about 5-10secs) my ego kicked in and was telling me what you experienced was a lie and you were imaging it. The monkey mind went crazy that day, and all my insecurities hit me like a ton of bricks. I was on the verge of giving up again. It is because of this forum that I am able to persevere, with people like you sharing insights about enlightenment. The thing i have found really tough about this work is that it has distanced myself from some of my family and friends. My relationship with my dad is separating. I told him after uni I am going to live at a monastery for a year and he replies by saying, "you wasting time, I want you to have a good life, why you taking a step backwards, this is all confusing to me why are you doing it, I am losing a son, don't you want to be happy in life". That part I also find very challenging and struggling to cope with at the moment. They find it hard to understand what I am doing, and I don't blame them because if I was in their shoes I would think "this guy is on crack". Whats good at this moment is that I have come to the point where I am wise enough to see the potential it has for my life. Meaning its cemented in me, and I will continue for the rest of my life. I hope other people on here read this and do the same.

@Natasha I wish it was true, but why does that all seem like a wishful thinking and unreal? I really want to put my mind around this, but i just cant get dedication, im too sceptical, i started strong determination sittings, i was doing it for one week and then i quit. oh man. now i have watched this neti neti method two times and im doing that guided meditation a lot on my own, but i dont know. Like once again as leo said i am nothingness that is self-aware, im not self-aware when my body is asleep. I just cant grasp it.

I just watched the Neti Neti video and it was extremely helpful. So much so that I really felt something towards the end close to an enlightenment experience and it got me thinking. So what happens when I die? And what was before I was born? If nothingness has awareness, does that not make it a thing? How can it really be properly aware if it has no senses? If a robot was to be created capable of all the senses and thoughts a human can have, would it also be this empty nothingness existentially? And would that imply then that all things, rocks, cars, trees are also this empty nothingness? I kind of understand this truth of no self and empty nothing but I just couldn't help but ask these questions. Then again, if I have to ask these questions, maybe I don't understand it at all. Can this please be moved to the enlightenment section? I put it here by mistake.

Ok, so in Leo's video on the Neti Neti method I noticed this trend of dismissing any thought about what you are, on the basis that you are not that thought itself. But obviously when you have some thought regarding your nature you are never claiming to be that thought, you are simply claiming that the thought describes or points to you true self. You are claiming that some thing exists which you are but you don't know much about it. This whole method seems to just create a strawman and defeat it. If it's said that any thing you identify with must be a thing you have experienced, and not just experienced for a while but experienced non-stop throughout your life you are bound to fail to find such a thing. Meanwhile, this nothingness did not have to be experienced all throughout your life. I hope it is somewhat understandable what my problem here is. I'm sure there were many people that did the Neti Neti method and it worked for them but I just felt cheated. Can anyone explain?

7539 summary of the weekend On Friday I went to sleep very late because a good friend of mine was leaving for a really long time and we might even never see each other again so I had a really long conversation that night which made me get up late on Saturday on which other friends asked me out and even though I was of the first people to leave I lost some time there which could had been spent more meaningfully (one hour of nature was maybe the best thing I did yesterday). Today was the first of May and since everyone was free and most us are busy for the next weeks or month I spent this day almost entirely with my friends in cost of productivity, creativity and reading. I watched the neti neti video though before meeting up to at least stay on track with my self actulization basics. I did not have an enlightenment experience but I am not surprised about it. It did something to me though and I think one important thing to discover was that even I, as an open minded person have difficulties to bring up such RADICAL open mindedness that is required as well as to hold it. If I stick to my plans then I won´t digg again into spirituality before Thursday... I´ll keep doing my meditations of course... I wonder if I did the right choices over the last days... It´s not like they dragged me down or that relationships are useless or my friends bad. Quite the opposite actually-I am lucky to have them and they have evolved to be quite qualitative but I am not sure for how long I will keep spending time with people doing things that don´t give me what something else could give and I know that this sounds so egoistic and advatage oriented but my time every day is limited, my energy is limited, my whole life is actually limited, so why not get more out of it if possible? Why not live up to the full potential? I am really curious of how, where and with who I will end up in the coming years because I can already feel big changes coming up... (^ ^)

Today's Sunday. Yesterday was Saturday (naturally. lol) Around 2am, I watched this week's Leo's video which is longer than 1 hour!?!? -- I fell asleep and woke up now. I remember it was during Neti neti guided meditation. Unlike me, I was busy going here and there yesterday and I was really tired. Today gonna be busy too. I will come back and watch Neti Neti guided meditation, probably this evening.

For my part I've found two really interesting ones. Neti neti meditation consists of: "what I can perceive is not me", so you sit down and whatever shows up(thoughts, emotions, body sensations, external objects, etc, etc) you disidentify from. Second is resting as awareness, best explaneid by adya here

Well Leo the I that doesn't exist is impressed that what you thought would be an infinitesimal number turned out to be the population of a small African nation. This many people seeking is quite astonishing. I liked your video - like Papaji and Ramanana it is clear that there is no religion here just simple facts that aren't that easy to see. Without wading through all the thousands of other stuff - where is the path - the gun to shoot ego - the suicide pill to get rid of the illusion - I have been on the path for a while - neti neti so much of myself, but still I am there, here still the worries and the clinging to form and formless. When does the penny drop for me that - I am that - not the father, brother, friend, professional, blah de blah that I live day by day. There is only isness - being - whatever - I too feel close - but maybe my wanting is getting in the way. Would love to talk to people who nearly non existent.

Maybe thats the ego throwing everything away in order to not identify with the situation, because of whatever negative beliefs about it(been there, done that). Here's a juicy excerp from Bentinho Massaro you may enjoy: "The Neti Neti Meditation has a potential trap when misused by an unbalanced entity, that out of fear of feeling further thoughts and emotions of a potentially hurtful nature compensates by leaning too far in the direction of separation from things, thoughts, feelings, and other-selves—to the point where one becomes, in a sense, disembodied from the well-rounded abundance of being connected to all-that-is, appreciative of all-that-is, and thus vibrating in harmony with all-that-is....As you explore Neti Neti’s purpose ...it is tempting to use this newfound freedom as a “stick to beat smaller sticks with.”I urge you to refrain from this type of behavior, and to not take your Neti Neti too seriously; or if you do, to Neti Neti that seriousness as well, and see that you are not the fearful extremist you are pretending to be...I also encourage you to not take it on as a life philosophy, for when used as such, it is extremely flawed and leads to imbalance. This imbalance can at any point in one’s process be corrected by feeling forgiveness/love to one’s self and the things one rejects as “not being who one truly is.”" If this is the case, love, forgiveness, acceptance and work on your beliefs can be a gateway to balance it out

Yeah. Totally true. People just switch their vocabulary but underderlying is the same structure. It is possible with every concept, also the "neti neti" approach. "Everything is illusion", "i am the whitness", "i am", "nothingness", "emptiness", "unity", "Self", "no self", "here and now", "love", "bliss", "be still", "you are that"... Different traditions have different words and concepts which can be taught to a parrot which doesn't render him awake. Even though "he is also the one". Of course. "Have you read the bible?" today is like "Have you read 'I am That'?". And "have you heard of Jesus?" now is almost like "have you heard of Ramana?". Expressions and pointers of truth can quickly become just concepts if not spoken from truth. But they all can be amazing pointers if they are spoken from truth.

In a way you can consider a philosopher a jnani-yogi. A jnani-yogi uses the methods of the intellect to achieve knowledge about the deeper aspects of surpreme reality. This he does by the neti, neti way what means not this, not that... Finally you end up with nothing, the thinking stops, the consciousness went back to the lila-point, back in itself. With the right intentions in the heart the consciousness transcends from there and knowledge will flow. The yogi knows that, he`s looking for that. But when one does that out of just a odd wanting of relative knowledge as the philosopher does, he can end up there as well, comparable with the `dark night of the soul`. He will not have the right intentions and coming out of it is eventually only granted by bliss or good luck if you want. Not able to get out you will become insane. Nietszche is a famous example, God was really dead for him... On the other hand the famous Schopenhauer always said he was saved by the knowledge of the Upanishads, thus saved by his heart.