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Would you argue that enlightenment doesn't result in absolute bliss and happiness?

Understanding Anna Part 1 I think today I´ll write about how I became passionate about ecology. It´s a topic extremely close to my heart because pollution changed my life. First of all I want to ask anyone who reads this: Would you bliss out in the middle of corpses? That doesn´t feel quite right, does it? I know that nature is both a beautiful monster and a beautiful mother but I also know that it is different if a volcano erupts and different if the force of destruction is one that only brings more destruction (because lava does at least turn into fertile ground for example...). Let me explain... Some temporary anomalies like that one-two years we had a jellyfish plague because of the change in water temperature... Okay... That cockroach plague when they changed the wastewater channel system... I did not die from that either and I knew that eventually it would have an end but... As I grew up with beaches and some of them were clear, pure and just magnificent, there were/are also those where streams wash out all human sins and THAT never took it´s end. minor findings I grew up finding shoes. Tons of shoes of all kinds and all sizes on the beach. Some were like new so I always calmed myself down by saying that people loose shoes in the water sometimes... I found many fridge fluid bars, sometimes batteries... Toys. Turkish sunscreen and other plastic products probably washed over from ships traveling between Greece and Turkey, ropes... Fishing nets... But the dead animals. That was the worst. I found a piece that looked like part of the belly of some big furry mammal (probably horse or cow). On a different beach I found a dead bird that drowned because somebody had attached a string with a stick to its leg. Bycatch. Horror. Sometimes the stream would wash out the thrown away bycatch from the fishers from the port. How about poisoned sea gulls? worst A sea turtle. A really big sea turtle. With no head!!! Some weeks later we found the head... Probably got cut off by some marine screw propeller. I have pictures of the skull of a cow (that even used to be my cellphonebackground in my numb phazes)... The by far worst and traumatic thing we ever found was a dead dolphin. That was deeply disturbing. We were so young, figuring out life, dealing with our own neurosis and confusion, pressures from the system and all the other problems and stress, trying to find some release by a walk on the shore. Now we had to deal with the truth that the world in which we were trying to build a future was already... Dying. feelings I had on this I felt very betrayed by my own species when I was younger. It just felt malicious. That nobody cared about these beings and nobody cared about what the death of these beings means for us. I wondered: Is that what the world has for me? A rotting, stinking graveyard? Would you throw a party in a graveyard? Maybe you would. Would you throw a party in a hospital with people suffering and dying around you? If you are a psychopath maybe but not if you have some compassion inside you. In the local radio they said that the dolphin died by a rare disease but we were there and saw it with our own eyes. It was so filled with coal tar that it had changed Color and actually couldn´t even rot properly. And they buried it with stones that got washed away by the next storm... I know how asphyxia feels like and this creature didn´t deserve this. No creature disserves this. It was as big as me. Dolphin... Human where is the difference? I felt this huge problem of responsibility in the world. So much bigger than me. Those who never experience this first hand with all senses involved don´t feel how real it is. But the denial. The denial pissed me off. To be lied to and to be treated like you are dumm and like that you can´t speak up and say: I might be 16 but you know what? THIS, is not right. Then I thought... How sick and distracted and careless must people be to allow this? How depressed are they so that they have lost track of beauty and sustaining it? What on earth steals their attention and time to not try to fix this full speed? What is more important than this? Is my life worthless too? Just because most adults have decided that theirs is? That they can live however they like to ignore their problems and pains in cost of other beings? It´s not sad if not everyone survives, that´s part of how nature works but it´s sad if those masses of beings who didn´t make it suffered their guts out to death. ....................................................................................................... So... I guess this was my therapy for today... As self actualizing people we can´t allow more spacial trauma by/in very places that should be a Refugium and shelter (shouldn´t nature be a place to heal? If can´t go there anymore where will we?) and we can´t allow more suffering for all those creatures with whom we share the world arising and all those that are still to come after us... I know that this is all obvious... I am just communicating my experience and I might be able to contribute my part on ecology but deep down I know that it´s something that needs to be sparked in everyone and everywhere and okay... I just found a excuse to use this picture. hehe

Journey towards the unknown People have problems dealing with altered states of consciousness, especially when they came up randomly. Getting a hallucination by taking drugs is one thing but getting them just like that is another. How many people end up stamped by themselves and/or others as mentally ill because they saw or heard something unexplainable? How likely is it that they scared themselves and stopped trusting themselves because of what they thought their experience says about them or about reality? Okay, there are some who don´t get scared, they just think they are Jesus or somethin´but you get the point... How did they interprete what happened? For some it all came out of the blue. For others it seems like a response to not being able to handle the reality they were in. Emotionally. Hell got constructed, hell got altered by them in order to become somewhat homeostatic but hell never became bliss. Of course we can´t blame people for not knowing how to deal with certain circumstances... But it is strange to discover emotional self creation and look at psychology. Mental illness is a journey towards the unknown. It is a challenge for our logic because it points so obviously to its limits. Anyone has the potential to go insane, no matter the background. Physical or psychological. It´s just about how people deal with those things and carry on. Real is for everyone what they can experience. If it is madness, madness is real. It could be a near death experience, angels, monsters, aliens, ghosts, verbal hallucinations, other visions etc but whatever it is, it gives them one thing to understand and that is that you can´t tell what´s real. Who are you going to trust? People around or what you perceive? Even when you perceive things that you know others don´t then why is this happening? And how? Why is it possible? No matter if real or not. It is possible for people who believe in brains and matter and for people who believe in.... I don´t know... witchcraft. Yes, okay... The neurochemistry of our brain... Our diets, our traumas, our fears, all kinds of beliefs seem to play in. Play in on how often, the form, the kind of paranormal activity one might register but why is it possible and when does it become a problem? Is it a problem? What if we just accept the weird shit we can´t explain? Can we use it? What is it? What is it really? I guess there is this shocking realization waiting to be made about our existential nature, one good step to tasting the infinite, to reach enlightenment. We just don´t know and that is why we should make ourselves emotionally independent from all we knew and let it go. It´s not just a Kugelblitz, the paranoia of being stalked or observed, it´s about everything, even that for which nobody would declare you insane for. That tree, your house, your mum... Your hands... Yourself. In a sense what we are all doing is resisting insanity, resisting the truth because it shakes our beliefs too much. What people need is someone to tell them that all the assumptions they make about their illness are nothing better or worse than the assumption "normal" people make about their lives. Insane people have the most evidence that it is us, fooling us. We don´t need to suffer insanity, just like we don´t need to suffer health, in fact we don´t need to suffer anything in this game (okay, I admit, that´s easier said than done), we just need to transcend it.

@0ne I have asked myself this question too. Why not just end this misery and start a new game? Or just dont exist at all? See, you are going to die anyway. Why kill the possibility that it gets better? You are "supposed" to do nothing at all. Your mind wants to cling on meaning and projections, and then you see that they are not real and conclude that this is a bad thing; it doesnt have to be. meaningless and meaningful is a duality. you can't just say "reality is meaningless", for meaningless implies meaning. this duality has to be transcended. Reality is neither meaningful nor meaningless, it just IS. In vedanta, they describe our true self (Brahman) as Sat-Chit-Ananda. Sat=being Chit=consciousness Ananda=bliss; joy So for god (you!) this question doesn't arise. why not exist? because why not enjoy infinte bliss and go on an adventure or dream a game of "suffering" from time to time? All will be good in the end anyway.

Entry 85 | True Insanity Theory: What the general consensus for insanity is, in fact, is not what insanity is. True insanity is believing in the false sense of self. Applying it: Notice the ways that the Ego sets up suffering in your life and realize how useless it truly is. If you can find yourself laughing at how useless and pointless it all is, you are on the right track. Did I catch you off-guard there? I hope so But this definition of insanity that we are taught by other people is nowhere near the truth. The fact that I'm formatting my words from right to left is not an insane decision whatsoever. It simply happened by accident and I thought "fuck it, why not?" It's nice to approach things from a different perspective. Suddenly, your world view and preferences are called into questioning. Why do we even format our words from left to right anyway? But on with the topic. Last night, I had just about had enough with the situation in the flat. I wrote my feelings in a group message with subtle hints of anger that I tried desperately to control. My mind was full of stress and I was unable to concentrate. But when I reached my bed, I was suddenly overwhelmed with random laughter. It wasn't just a mere transition of a few minutes. I went from a tormenting stress to fits of laughter within around 5 seconds. The realization had hit my subconscious mind before surfacing to the conscious mind, which caused me to start laughing without knowing why. But now I understand the realization that hit me: the Ego is so pathetically useless and pointless, that it is laughable to think that it can serve me in any way. As every single thought appeared from the Ego, I noticed the intent behind it to create suffering. And I just find it hilarious to think that it pretends to be something so important and vital to life. IT'S NOT! Then I started contemplating every aspect of the Ego and found each one to be just as laughable. There is no way the Ego can serve me other than to provide me with insanity. Perhaps without the insanity of Ego, one wouldn't be able to comprehend the bliss of living in a place of sanity: an enlightened state. And the crazy thing is that our society is designed to reinforce this sense of ego, identity, and authenticity. But clearly, this is just meaningless when it comes to the actual truth of existence. Even in a folk music module that I'm taking, the lecturer has highlighted that there is no such thing as authenticity or identity. This is because there are so many people out there with individual opinions about these topics, making them discursive in nature. If the average person could witness my behaviors when in solitude, they would probably call me insane. When I switch from stress to fits of laughter like a light switch, and when that laughter is seemingly irrelevant to my surroundings, they would happily label me as insane. But I know that I'm not because I've made the realization that the Ego is so utterly pointless in life. It's backward! Like I mentioned before, the only thing that it is good for is to highlight the enlightened path. I hope that everyone can reach this state of awareness and join in the laughter! Life doesn't need to be full of stress, drama, or suffering. It's beautiful as it is. Even more so in the absence of the Ego. Pick of the day:

We are born alone, we die alone. Between these two realities we create a thousand and one illusions of being together - all kinds of relationships, friends and enemies, loves and hates, nations, races, religions. We create all kinds of hallucinations just to avoid one fact: that we are alone. But whatsoever we do, the truth cannot be changed. It is so, and rather than trying to escape from it, the best way is to rejoice in it. Rejoicing in your own aloneness is what meditation is all about. The meditator is one who dives deep into one´s aloneness, knowing that we are born alone, we will be dying alone, and deep down we are living alone. So why not experience what this aloneness is? It is our very nature, our very being. East have done a deeper research. We have discovered that when a person stays wholly within himself, then all relationships dissolve. It is a very fortunate thing to happen; it is not something to be unhappy about. When a person becomes stable within himself, sex dissolves and the keenness to make relationships with others also disappears. The feeling of gratitude is so much that one does not want to make any relationship with anyone. No longer will that person beg of others to have some relationship with him, no longer will he say that "I cannot live without you." Now he can live alone. And the person who can live alone, really lives! The other type of living is only a deception, an illusion. If you cannot live alone how can you live with others? Man ordinarily lives in loneliness. To avoid loneliness, he creates all kinds of relationships, friendships, organizations, political parties, religions and what not. But the basic thing is that he is very much afraid of being lonely. Loneliness is a black hole, a darkness, a frightening negative state almost like death … as if you are being swallowed by death itself. To avoid it, you run out and fall into anybody, just to hold somebody’s hand, to feel that you are not lonely… Nothing hurts more than loneliness. But the trouble is, any relationship that arises out of the fear of being lonely is not going to be a blissful experience, because the other is also joining you out of fear. Aloneness is our very nature, but we are not aware of it. Because we are not aware of it, we remain strangers to ourselves, and instead of seeing our aloneness as a tremendous beauty and bliss, silence and peace, at-easeness with existence, we misunderstand it as loneliness. Loneliness is a misunderstood aloneness. Once you misunderstand your aloneness as loneliness, the whole context changes. Aloneness has a beauty and grandeur, a positivity; loneliness is poor, negative, dark, dismal. Everybody is running away from loneliness. It is like a wound; it hurts. To escape from it, the only way is to be in a crowd, to become part of a society, to have friends, to create a family, to have husbands and wives, to have children. In this crowd, the basic effort is that you will be able to forget your loneliness. The ordinary man goes on trying to forget his loneliness, and the meditator starts getting more and more acquainted with his aloneness. He has left the world; he has gone to the caves, to the mountains, to the forest, just for the sake of being alone. He wants to know who he is. In the crowd, it is difficult; there are so many disturbances. And those who have known their aloneness have known the greatest blissfulness possible to human beings – because your very being is blissful. After being in tune with your aloneness, you can relate; then your relationship will bring great joys to you, because it is not out of fear. Finding your aloneness you can create, you can be involved in as many things as you want, because this involvement will not anymore be running away from yourself. Now it will be your expression; now it will be the manifestation of all that is your potential. Only such a man – whether he lives alone or lives in the society, whether he marries or lives unmarried makes no difference – is always blissful, peaceful, silent. His life is a dance, is a song, is a flowering, is a fragrance. Whatever he does, he brings his fragrance to it. But the first basic thing is to know your aloneness absolutely. This escape from yourself you have learned from the crowd. Because everybody is escaping, you start escaping. Every child is born in a crowd and starts imitating people; what others are doing, he starts doing. He falls into the same miserable situations as others are in, and he starts thinking that this is what life is all about. And he has missed life completely.

Day 36 & 37 : Meditation went right. Few insights I had last night, while REM : 1) I was in a dream where few people with psychic/energetic abilities where helping me to figure out hidden part / dysfunctional parts of my psyche. At first, they thought it was all right. But then, something get noticed, a sort of demon where hidden down, and it was hard to notice it because it come from nowhere. It was a demon which is associated with "addiction" and which I named "rush" because it's like the rush to open an email, the rush to eat, the rush to go to work, the rush to do something quicker than necessary. I was first person view of the demon (for few seconds, then I woke-up). I also learned that this "demon" or "psyche" came from my grand-mother (mother's side). I don't know if these people in the dream where real, but it put light on something that I "felt" before, but haven't put words on it. 2) At the middle of the night, while not sleeping (short awoken state between sleep cycles) I felt asleep while thinking "What do I really want ?" & "Follow your bliss" sorts of mantra. The result where a dream where the answer was "Rediscover / Reconnect, with the beauty in ourselves" by beauty I mean the beauty in human being / life form, in general. I also remember Leo's video on 10 things we want but that we don't know that we want : it connected immediately with "existence to feel magical again" (while the previous insight was more about "slow down" or "slow life"). This dream almost shed tears to my eyes. 3) This one was more like a fictional story, like a movie, similar to Interstellar. Here is the plot : in 1972, a nasa team went to Mars. Once they are on the planet, the communication between Earth & Mars was about 4 minutes latency. Then an accident happen, they all died (on Mars). Then, nowadays, nasa receive message (radio frequency / video) from Mars again, the same team, exept that they say living in 1973, one year after the accident (we are in 2017 now). The strange thing is that the communication is in real time, it is because the guys from the 70' traveled through time/dimension, and they had seen this moment (the communication ha penning) before it happens, and it's a pre-recorded message (but it feel like a direct - real time communication for us, living in 2017, because we ask things, and they answer directly, all simply. Dunno if that's clear^^. A funny thing was that the guys from the 70, on Mars, after the accident, appeared in the message/video without equipment, and had the typical hippy look, like in this picture. Hey @Loreena I've seen this picture yesterday from thread "Al-lad Response" :

@ashashlov The search for material happiness does have a significant contribution to make in the search for spiritual happiness. The most significant contribution this search makes is that it inevitably takes one into frustration and anguish. It is not that the theist doesn't have a relationship with material happiness, of course he does, but the more he seeks it, the more he will find that attaining it is impossible. And only when the search for material happiness leads one to experiencing its impossibility, does the spiritual search begin. Material joys function as negative warning signs on die path to spiritual happiness. Again and again we seek happiness through material pleasures, and again and again we fail. Again and again we desire something, and fail to get it every time. Again and again we aspire, and each time we fall back. The desire for material pleasures has an essential role in the spiritual search, because its failure, its utter failure, is the first step towards the search for spiritual bliss. That is why I don't call someone who is seeking material happiness irreligious. He too is seeking religiousness but in the wrong direction; he too is searching for bliss but in a place where it cannot be found. But at least he has to discover this much first: that he cannot find it there. Only then will he look in a different direction --- meditation and yoga.

Accept all sufferings. If you don´t escape, if you allow the suffering to be there, if you are ready to face it, if you are not trying somehow to forget it, then you are different. Suffering is there but just around you; it is not in the center, it is on the periphery. It is impossible for suffering to be in the center; it is not in the nature of things. It is always on the periphery and you are the center. So when you allow it to happen, you don´t escape, you don´t run, you are not in a panic, suddenly you become aware that suffering is there on the periphery as if happening to someone else, not to you, and you are looking at it. A subtle joy spreads all over your being because you have realized one of the basic truths of life, that you are bliss and not suffering. With a real, authentic meditation you will suffer more, because you will become more aware. So if you start meditation and you do not suffer, it means it is not meditation, but just a hypnosis. That means you are just drugging yourself. You are becoming more unconscious. Anything which makes you less aware of your suffering is antireligious. Anything that makes you more aware of your suffering, and which helps you encounter it without escaping, is religious. If you do not escape, if you remain there with your suffering, one day suffering will disappear and you will have grown into more awareness. Suffering disappears in two ways. You become unconscious; then suffering disappears for you. But, really, suffering remains there. It cannot disappear. It remains there! Really, your consciousness has disappeared, so you cannot feel it, you cannot be aware of it. If you become more conscious, in the meantime you will have to suffer more. But accept suffering as a part of growth, as a part of training, as just a discipline, and then one day, when your consciousness has gone beyond your suffering, suffering will disappear not just for you – it will disappear objectively. Use suffering as a stepping-stone; do not escape from it. If you escape from it, you are escaping from your destiny, from the possibility of going beyond knowledge by using suffering as a device.

Hi guys! I've been really trying to hone in my life purpose and I've been contemplating a lot about the topic, thinking deeply and trying to be the most honest possible. Before I knew Leo and his content, I was all about making money with some app or work for my father's business, bang a lot of chicks and travel the world. I really believed that this was going to bring me the happiness and fulfillment I craved. I read a while back that everything we do, we do it to be happy. The problem is we dont know what we dont know. Oh, the ignorance! After doing the Life Purpose Course, it was something like "Build systems to help society develop". It was a good first attempt. I've always been good at dealing with people and I can learn stuff pretty easily. I was always the one with the best grades and since I was a child, intelligence was a characteristic in my person. Anyways, I felt that my purpose was quite vague and I didn't feel that connected to it. What I knew is that I wanted to make something big, i wanted to create an organization, an empire, a kingdom with people that work with me to achieve this goal. As Steve Jobs said, "You can only connect the dots looking backwards", and it is 100% true. I knew that I was a very ambitious person, I wanted to do something, AND SOMETHING BIG! I moved to San Francisco just after finishing the Course. Here in the Bay Area, everyone is looking for that big home run, everyone is aiming to build a Facebook, a Snapchat, cash out and live "happily ever after". I must admit that it was difficult not to fall into this trap, but following your bliss is something that will pay in the long run. To recap, I knew I wanted to do something big and it was probably an organization that do something to help the world develop. Still vague. This year, I sat down and said: "Juan, you have to hone in this fucking life purpose, no matter what". That is what I did. After some thought I came with: "Build a business that makes people more conscious and developed". Hmmmm. Sounded good enough, but after posting it on the Forum and receiving some feedback, I realized that chasing business is not a good idea and could probably cause more harm than good in the long term. I had to sit down again and think. I realized I wasn't getting the life purpose components and I wasnt asking the right questions: - What is the impact you want to have in the world? - What do I love doing? - What area I want to become a master of? Difficult questions. Fucking difficult questions. This was a really long process. I really care about the environment, I care about poverty and I care about politics. But the real question is "which one are you willing to actually do something?" Which is the one that is the most important for you?". After contemplating the answer came up to me. It was education and human development. It became so obvious. This is the core reason we are having the problems we are having. We lack the understanding that is needed to be happy, to be productive, to have a functional world. I want people to study and learn the right things, the right methods, the right concepts. I want people to live out their fullest potential, to know how to deal with suffering, to get really passionate about wisdom. Great, I got my impact. Now... How the fuck can I be useful? How can I use my strengths to do it? I know I love learning and thinking. I always try to have a deep understanding about things. I love studying business, technology, science, politics, economics, physics and love how things start to click inside my head. I basically love wisdom and how to apply it. I love reading business books and see how can I apply them in my endeavors and so on. I'm a fan of Ken Wilber and his Integral Theory. I love complex problems like global warming, economics, humans in general, how they develop and so on. Okay, I got this part kind of handled. I want to make people more educated, wiser and developed. Now the how question. I love learning and thinking and designing solutions, and I wanted to build an organization. I'm left with 3 parts: - I wanted to make people wiser and developed - I wanted to build an organization - I love learning and thinking in integral terms After contemplating I thought it would lead to something like this: " Design holistic solutions that makes people more developed and wiser". I want to build the infrastructure for them so they can develop, be wiser, more efficient, more loving and more conscious. Imagine the possibilities!: - Courses made by me and other masteful instructors - Retreats in which people can meditate and get enlightened without any dogma. - Events - Change the education system so children can study this topics - Create an university for all of these topics! I think I'm closer to my life purpose. I just need to get started and let the dots connect themselves while I push forward. I really dont know what to do with my life if I dont do this. Personally, I see myself as someone very wise but knows how to take actions and change the world in a positive way. I see myself talking in events for ONU and talk about systemic problems. I definitely need to work on it but I think it is a good start and things will change as I take action. I hope I kind of inspire you and if you feel that I need some feedback, feel free to do it. Life purpose is a process, it is not a destination. You are in it right now, even if you dont realize it. You are here for a reason and the world needs you! And I need your help you change it!

I wanted to introduce myself by sharing my story. Another function of this post is to thank Leo. This post contains detailed experiences that I have had. If you don't want to be influenced, don't read it. Prior to starting law school, I was living in San Antonio while my wife was attending law school. During this time, I was working in Family Law and hated it for a lot of reasons, but really, I hated it because I didn't know who I was. My entire life, I have been obsessed with learning, devouring information about anything I was interested in. 3 primary areas that I have always loved: Psychology (it was my major and I was always drawn to Freudian Theory surrounding the ego relationship as well as motivation: Why people do the things they do), Physics (specifically quantum mechanics, the universe, and black holes), and then a variety of other random subjects depending on what I was into. During these 3 years I went through a few times where I meditated, but never really looked at any kind of doctrine other than the science of meditation. One day I happened across Leo's enlightenment video when watching quantum mechanics videos on youtube. I started to watch the video, and I got to where Leo said "you are not a person" before turning it off. I will never forget this, the feeling I had when I heard those words disturbed me deeply and left an impression. I wrote it off and kept moving along with life. Fast forward, I decide that I want to go to law school, get accepted to UH. At this time, I am in no way mentally prepared for law school, but I realized this as well as how I have been acting toward the person I love most, so I started making an effort to change by meditating a little bit and just doing what I can to prepare for the onslaught that is law school. When school started I moved to Houston where I stayed for the first month in a friends house. He was showing the house so I was the only one there. At this point, my meditation practice picks up and I start using youtube focus hypnosis. This is important because, in doing so, I learn what trance feels like. This allowed me to develop a strong muscle mind connection, where I am able to relax a specific muscle. Having not ever read about meditation, I found out later that this is exactly how you are supposed to start meditating. So in my nightly practice, after I read voluminous tomes of legal knowledge, I start going deeper and deeper into trance by just continuously relaxing my body. First I imagine a ball of energy expanding from the center of my head to push out thoughts and then imagining that I am walking through a corn field, only instead of pushing the stalks aside, I am emptying my brain by pushing aside thoughts. I started being able to really and truly clear my head (later this corn field technique translated over to everyday tasks to effectively return to the present). This is were I started going deep enough to really have cathartic experiences. Experience 1: Though I used to get the bliss feeling that comes natural with meditation, At first, I always feel a dark presence in my immediate vicinity. I write this off, because I figure that I'm an adult, and I can handle it. One night, I decide that I am not going to fear it anymore and just relax. Shortly thereafter, a terrifying woman appears in front of me, blurry, with head down and hair covering face. I relax deeper, and tell myself that I am going to face it. All the sudden the lady comes into focus and boom, I realize that the woman is an embodiment of all the things I hated about myself and felt guilty for. I finally forgive myself for my darker tendencies,namely, how I treated my wife, and various other manipulations that happen when you grow up. I feel ecstatic, and immediately have a religious experience where I feel connected to everything, I am everything, everything is me. The stereotypical meditation experience. I cant remember what I saw, but it looked real and filled me up with glowing energy. When I come out, the feeling lingers for a day. After this I kept meditating and then stopped when law school took up too much time. We finally found a house to rent and my wife moved down here. I start to truly see her as my soul mate and start asking what I can do to give her what she needs instead of seeing her like a burden. I felt (and feel) like everything was right in the world and though law school is tough, I just know in my soul that this is were I am meant to be (a feeling I hadn't felt since I had worked at the capitol). However, I am lagging behind and feel like I'm not getting the material, but I know that if I just try hard that my innate ability will carry me through, and I will be top of my class. I had a teacher that graduated from Harvard and I am pretty sure that he developed his style, modelling after the professor in Paperchase. I raised my hand a few times in the beginning until I realized that I just didn't get it, and then do a 180 and develop a fear of speaking in front of all the smart people in class. I got called on twice in his class, and it was nerve-racking. I felt like he was taking an interest in me, and sometimes when he was lecturing, I felt deeply that he was looking at me as if trying to get a message across. But I stopped raising my hand in all classes and felt terrified often in them. At the end of the semester I forced myself to raise my hand with an idea that I thought was brilliant, and he screamed at me. I was mortified. At the end of the semester he gave an inspiring speech about the profession, and says that if you are unhappy, you should do something else now. Again, I felt like he was looking me directly in the eyes and felt this energy that he meant me. I study my ass off, and it is very important that I show my natural skill and prowess. I get my grades back on Christmas eve, I got a C in his class, and gpa over all is 2.59 (90th percentile). I was crushed and immediately start studying ways to change my approach. Again, in my heart of hearts I know I have found my place in law. Though I had been doing hypnosis all semester, I didn't meditate, so I started again here. I should also say that during the time before and during the first semester, I helped my dad with a messy divorce. He started meditating and that prompted my to begin practicing again. I get back into the groove and feel great. My practice spills over into my everyday life. When I am anxious, I would use the corn stalk method and recenter my breathing to great effect. Experience 2: I had the insight that my ego has been the source of my problems from the beginning. This occurs when I am talking to my dad and my mind is flooded by Freudian doctrine about ego. I realized that all of my anxiety stemmed from the arrogance I used to over compensate for a feeling of inadequacy. It was simply that the inner struggle was causing an incompatibility between what I considered reality, and what reality actually was. This has been going on since childhood and is the reason that when I was placed into a room of intellectual peers, I all the sudden developed anxiety in raising my hand. Then a few days later, I meditated, did a focus hypnosis, and then just let myself go deeper into trance after it was finished. I had a crazy flashing feeling as my eyes were trying to flutter open, So I allow them tomand relax, and my field of vision starts going black in the middle as I relax through it. I start feeling these incredible feelings of love and glowing in my chest. I sit up and hug my knees. I think about my wife and the feeling intensifies. After I was finished, It stayed. I feel a little empty in my face, but I feel like my senses were operating in over-drive. The next day I went to school, and on the way in, I am just noticing how beautiful the world is, seeing details that used to be of no interest to me. Greens are brighter, my field of vision is wider, and I feel the glowing in my chest and pressure in my face still. I went to class, got called on in class and spoke with no anxiety, drove home and told my wife, expecting that she would think I was manic or insane. She was supportive (as usual), and not in the least bit scared. The only way I can describe it is that I felt like I was pure awareness. Living in the moment 100 percent. In class, I understood the subtleties perfectly. I was clear minded and thinking objectively and logically. I googled my symptoms on the second day, and see all this information on "ego death". what I was feeling was exactly the same as what these people are describing. During this whole weekend, I felt like I could slip back into an anxious state. I talk to my dad who freaked me out, and feel almost normal on Sunday, meditate and back the peace. Same pressure in face, all of it. I think great, I have given myself multiple personalities or something. Experience 3: Monday I come home and feel the need to meditate outside. So I do, go deep, open my eyes and focus my gaze on the fence in front of me. The fence starts to look like its on the same level as whats behind it. I was trying to look through the fence (and it did flicker, but I tell myself its because of a blink.) I close my eyes, and my mind goes perfectly still I see these innocuous memories that irritated me in elementary school. I cant figure it out, but I explore them, imagine that I'm apologizing, and getting a chance to explain myself to everyone involved, and then let the string of memories move on. After this my mind goes blank again. This is the crazy part. I imagine that I am in a room with all of my brain structure around a table. I think the room we are in is the subconscious. They are out of focus. I tell them that if I am going to succeed, I need them to work together instead of apart. There is a presence that is unhappy, I think that its ego. It doesn't like what I am telling them. After I talk to them and they agree, I look down at my body and there is nothing there. I am nothing. The words are coming from nowhere. I come out of trance feeling almost like I did over the weekend. Pure in the moment awareness and glowing in my chest. I went inside, walk to my computer, go to youtube, and type in "Actualize Enlightenment". Low and behold, I see a video that I had once started watching a few years ago with some guy named Leo. I instinctively click on it. As I watch it, I feel a physical shift in my mind, the pressure subsides and moves from the front to the back of my head. And I feel even more so in the moment. It was unbelievable to me how everything starts making sense. As I'm reading for school, I'm catching all of the subtleties in the case, I can almost see the argument developing structurally, and I'm speed reading with no voice in my head. It continues to the next day. I get called on in constitutional law, and give a flawless answer. I was calm and collected. I felt like there was a barrier between me and the professor, I wasn't intimidated, and I felt like everything was slower. That I didn't have to answer immediately, and I was able to take a minute to think. Again, I was functioning cognitively on a much higher level the whole day. When I needed information it just popped into my head. Like it was just offered up for me to consider. It felt like "flow" - I think a humanist concept. This feeling of awareness has come and gone, but is generally stable now. I have had numerous insights that seem to make my deep interests in psychology and physics unify into one amazing idea. I'm not going to go into those, because they are for each person to discover, but it has been a powerful occurrence in my life. For my entire life, some force has been driving me to learn about them, and have been grooming me to make this realization. I wrote this for 2 reasons: 1) I needed to share it. I think there is a lot to learn from it especially by people striving to reach a result with their enlightenment experience. You will notice that a lot of my experiences are somewhat different than what Buddhist doctrine says will happen. I mention this because It is important to remember that Buddhism is a concept. It is there to guide, but at the end of the day, this work is all about you. It is good to have a map, but if you are doing this stuff for the right reasons, you will find your way. The funny thing that you realize about Buddhism, is that the way it is set up is actually hilariously designed to trick ego into awakening. All of the paradoxes make sense after awakening, and there is more wisdom squeezed into the doctrine than you can ever fully realize. This is one of many things that all of the sudden makes sense to me and humbles me to the bone. It is the most beautifully deceptive concept that has ever been devised, and I love it for that reason. I don't claim to be enlightened. I actually feel like I know nothing, and it will be a lifelong process to pull every bit of understanding out of reality. The thing is though, I realized early on that my mind has always known this stuff. Most of the transition happened naturally prior to researching it. If you find yourself extremely interested in ego death, awakening, enlightenment, spirituality, or anything related to this, I'm going to go ahead and say that your mind knows as well. Allow yourself to accept it and be persistent in finding what works for you by devouring information, but more importantly, find your own path. There is an internal teacher that will appear if you open you heart and mind to Truth. Don't get bogged down in concepts and doctrines. You create your reality, and therefore there can literally be no objective singular path. Use your intuition. 2)Some times you need an external teacher. Leo provided and continues to provide this function for me as I pull every ounce of meaning from his videos on subsequent rewatches after I have an insight. So really and truly to Leo, thank you for showing me a fundamental truth. I don't know how I could ever repay someone giving me infinity. I do however know that you know the magnitude of this realization, and take solace in that at least. Your kick you in the ass style is what I needed, and you have changed my life in ways I cant put into words. You have done something that has added significant value to the world and the greater mind. I could write on this subject for days, but the point is: When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Don't overlook the fact that the original teacher is the student himself. If you are unwilling to teach yourself initially, then an external teacher does nothing. Finally, I will share another teacher that has appeared recently to me: trinfinityacademy.com Its a free enlightenment course that has some useful practices to help move along.

@PetarKa "A Paradox Of Life - If There Is No Good Or Evil, Then How Can We Say That Self-actualization Is The The Goal Of Life?" Good and evil, goals, are preferences. Some we easily agree on, some we don't. So there are 8 billion versions. Outside of those preferences, all is what it is. The question is, what do you prefer? You are free to make that preference your experience. Letting go is very relative to your life experience and current situations. You may need to let go of things that I have never experienced. Generally speaking though, there are 2 of me. The higher self / everything / God...and the ego, which chooses not to simply sit on a hill and bask in the bliss of everythingness. I love being both. I lead a very high energy full life. As careful as I am with my perspective, outlook, health, etc - I of course still accumulate resistant thought and emotion, like I assume everyone does. I do not proceed with it though. I have found a letting go process that works for me and has sticking power. When I learn new things, face challenges, etc, I feel a slight impurity or disharmony, so I do my letting go work to get empty again. Here's what I have found works for me: Sleep: Before you fall sleep, increase your awareness that we all wake up everyday with zero thought momentum. Waking: When you wake up, notice how you awoke with no thought momentum. Admit to yourself, that if you immediately fill your head back up with yesterday's thoughts, that is a choice you are unknowingly making. If this sounds foreign to you, give it a few mornings and you'll start to notice the choice. I have a piece of paper placed so I see it when I wake up that says "DO NOT THINK WITHIN 1 HOUR OF WAKING. DO NOT THINK BEFORE EXCERCISING". Your paper would probably say something different. Whatever works for you. I implement a mental / verbal excercise so that I don't think in a wandering way. I take deep breaths and focus on what a fucking miracle it is that I can take a deep breath. I notice the sweetness of it. The good fortune. The deliciousness. I play the 'my favorite' game. Everything I see (on the way to my coffee maker) I say "You're my favorite". - "You're my favorite blanket" "You're my favorite light switch" "You're my favorite steps" "You're my favorite cup" "You're my favorite coffee bean" It sets the state of mind I want. Then I have my coffee. (Which is really a cappuccino but I don't want to sound all cappucinoish) Meditation: Then I meditate. I focus on my breathing and let the thoughts, if any, pass right on through. I don't write them down. I don't try to remember them. I let ALL of them pass right on through. I don't identify with them. I am the everything. This non thinking meditation is easy because I have practiced every morning for twenty some years, and I have primed myself for it since the first second I woke up. I relax every little muscle from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. I feel the wave of relaxation move through me. I do this 4 or 5 times, deeper and deeper, until I feel the tiniest muscles in my spine relax. Muscles I didn't even know were flexed. Day: Then, throughout the day, I notice in very black and white - someone's energy is higher than mine or lower than mine. (Not the person, the energy) If it's lower than mine, I am mindful to use compassion, never empathy. If it is higher than mine, I am mindful to use curiosity, humility and attention. This 'way' if you will, prevents most of the resistant thought that would later need letting go of. Next day, repeat. *Realizing how long this is. I hope it's helpful or at least worth reading. Godspeed.

Whasup guys! After Leo posted Suzanne Segal's description of enlightenment, it sounds like really bizarre and not joyful at all. Do you think this was due to a lack of a proper framework? A lack of a proper practice in which this stage can be transcended? This description of enlightenment is really on point but it lacks the bliss of being that many teachers preach. After doing some research, she had another insight about the nature of reality in which she realized that she was everything. The question really is: which is the difference between a master that talks about the joyful mess of being vs Suzanne's empty life. Let's make an interesting discussion ?

I do all those things. I feel it contributes to the bliss that is my life. It has not caused me any misery or cravings. On the contrary, it has made me notice a world I did not see before.

Hi, First of all let me start by saying that I read all sorts of self-development books, I've heard all the cliche advice about doing what you love / having a purpose and yada yada yada. At one point, I was: meditating consistently had brief out-of-body experiences had measurable Law of Attraction results learned all the new age self-development jargon , etc... and I thought I was this awesome enlightened guy who loves everyone and helps everyone. That lasted maybe a few months until I realized that it's all just a silly phase . OBJECTIVELY looking at my life, absolutely nothing changed and I still have wild mood swings going from bliss to depressed in a matter of seconds. I want to do what I love. What I love sometimes includes meditating in solitude for a month. I also have expensive hobbies which can cost upwards of $4k per day (currently unable to enjoy my hobbies). I don't need to have a purpose in order to feel fulfilled. I feel fulfilled when I: 1.meditate 2.spend time with my family 3.enjoy my hobbies. I hate constantly thinking about how to earn money, I hate wasting my time on earning money. Yes, I am already a minimalist, I excluded all expenses which don't make me feel fulfilled. Meditation and enlightenment doesn't pay your medical bills and your property taxes in USA. I spend roughly 60hrs a week earning money just to cover basic expenses for me and my family. This takes away from what I really love doing. I have these crazy mood swings almost daily because of this.

Very nice description there I must say. Nothing about bliss or love. Which is good, so that people know what they're actually going for. I don't know why, but I laughed after reading the first two paragraphs. It was a positive laugh though, for some reason. After reading more I got a slight rush of fear, very subtle, when reading about the part where she describes that there was no one home when she's looking at her reflection. Not saying I have had this intense experience like she describes, but I've definitely had this when looking in the mirror lately. I think thats the reaction I got. The recognition of "no one home." Nice trip ahead I see... What do you guys think of the description? Had any similar experiences?

I am inclined now to say that it does have to do with depth of enlightenment. In person, the presence of someone as enlightened as Peter Russell (or Leo;) may be very pleasant. But the presence of OSHO, Sadguru, Ramana Maharshi, Mooji, or Ram Dass? Profoundly loving, pure radiation of bliss. People go to Ram Dass retreats, for example, and they sob because of his presence alone.

Consciousness != mind Emptiness != body The rest is more or less okay. Here's an idea of how to map it: Buddha = Jesus = God = you Consciousness = Awareness = Emptiness = Fullness = Divine Love Nothingness = No Self = God Ego = Mind = Sin = Devil = Hell Awareness = Holy Spirit Meditation = Prayer Reality = God Nirvana = Illumination = Kingdom Of Heaven = Bliss = Ecstasy

Where to people get this idea of 'bliss' from? Happiness is not bliss, or excitement, or stimulation or any elevated positive mood. Happiness = peace of mind. It's not a mood, or an emotion. Therefore, yes, happiness is gained from detachment, Yes, precisely. They are the same thing. There really needs to be some clarification of what we are trying to acheive through personal development. The term 'happiness' is too often misused and misunderstood, and confused for 'bliss'. I see this time and again. Only an ego needs to look for 'bliss'. Bliss = a happy ego. Peace of mind = ego is irrelevent.

So if attachment = suffering. Does detachment = bliss? Which means satisfaction with the present moment? Also how do i detach myself from everything? Is that just the process of enlightenment? Is that meditation? Not too sure.

You have to pass through the psychic realms because they lie between you and your innermost depth between you as you are and you as you will be. But you can pass through them with such jet speed that you never experience them or you can pass through them at a bullock cart’s pace. But if you are longing for psychic powers, even unconsciously, then even with a jet method you will behave as if you are in a bullock cart. If you have a keen desire to develop psychic powers then as you pass them you will be caught by them. We have inner longings that we are not even aware of. Our mind is basically power seeking: whether it seeks power in the outer world or the inner, it is always seeking power. One must be careful not to seek power. The psychic realm is there, and if you are seeking powers then you will be caught in them somewhere.

The outer world cannot give you as much power as the inner world; there is a great potential of power within. They are there, but if you seek them you will be caught in them, which will be pathetic, pitiable, because when you reach the psychic you are very near to the cosmic, to absolute bliss. You are near to the flower, but you have shut your hands over it. We must be cautious of psychic powers. They are there, but they are not of much significance in themselves. Inner power becomes absolute in the sense that you are not dependent on anybody else. You are the sole master of it so it becomes more egocentric. Outer power has corrupted man, but inner power has corrupted him more. It is not power itself that corrupts, because the divine also is power; rather, it is the seeking, longing ego that corrupts. If we are corrupt, then when power comes our corruption will be exposed. Before that it remains hidden. To be corrupt we need power. So one must beware of inner psychic forces. They exist, but do not look at them.

@kuwaynej In personal development, you will be in constant cycles of crisis and bliss

If things go right the future will keep on advancing and our understanding of the world will become more and more complete. Some people say we can expect a technological singularity where knowledge and technology will change the world so drastically we will not be able to keep up with the change. I think we already see that many people (especially older people) are slowly falling outside the technological era. The world has drastically changed since the industrial revolution and information exchange is at unbelievable rates (will reach around 2.7 Zetabytes till 2020!). We practically created as much information in the 21th centuary as in entire human existence, maybe even more. Big data will eventually reveal many underlying mechanics of all interactions of things. Machine learning will become more and more precise in predicting the future, weather, population growth, basically everything you can imagine. The question is, what will all this knowledge do with the human psychology? If you can predict your entire life, the mystical experience of new experiences fades slowly away. Reality becomes more and more solid and imagination which is our biggest driving force shrinks. What would you do if you know what most of your entire life would look like? The surprise element is what makes me really wonder but if all becomes so obvious then what is there to dream about? The other side of the coin would be a life where you know nothing, not even instincts and would die pretty quickly due to survival reasons. The middle of ignorance or not-knowing and knowing everything is the golden zone where you have enough ability to stay alive, build a life with some certainty but can always be amazed with new things. What do you guys think? Will all this new knowledge about psychological/physical patterns or cycles make the world a much better palace or is ignorance really bliss? I like knowledge more than anyone I know but also see the major downsides people don't really grasp yet. The world is a weird place haha..

@ajasatya That's great to hear man. Follow your bliss #Hippie

You will do more good with the guitar than with second option. Because the issue is never material. It's psychological and ultimately spiritual. People don't need your money, they need your passion, love, and happiness. If you earn shitloads of money and give it away to charity, you will actually contribute evil to the world. Because you're disconnected from yourself. When you're disconnected from yourself, you're a devil, no matter how much money you give to charity. Once you've betrayed yourself, you will certainly betray others. Because your true sin was giving into ego, giving into fear. That's the reason you betrayed yourself in the first place, and that pattern will only continue. Besides which, the world is perfect as it is, and doesn't need you to fix it. There is nothing you can do to make the world better. It's already perfect. So relax and follow your bliss. Your guilt is contributing to the suffering of the world. Guilt is a low-consciousness motivation with leads to evil. So do the world a favor and be happy, if you dare. How's that for a counter-intuitive move?