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I've experienced this (and still do to a certain extent), so I also highly recommend the following: The effects of this quick yoga segment are immediate. Trust me, it will bring you back to the earth. Whenever you feel pretty panicked, do that, or use Pranic breathing (like Martin recommended in another post) Also, if you have a gym routine, don't drop it. (it will help a lot) As Martin said above, talk to people that are more grounded. Do not try to STOP resisting negative emotions; instead try to detach and look at them with curiosity remember, those just need to get out in order for you to grow and increase your stress threshold Watch comedies Interact with animals Walk on grass barefoot Try to not stay alone for long periods of time, at least in this transitional period Watch videos of spiritual masters (with simple talks, nothing too serious, maybe where they are interacting with the audience). Their presence and state of bliss will rub off on you and calm you down Repeat this in your mind often : ”Where there is disconfort, there is resistance” this will remind you to let go of control and not waste a lot of physical/mental energy it might seem easy, but it's harder than it seems Also, a question @Martin123. Does the ”inner child” constitute the first three chakras? Should I do healing yoga that is not only for the root chakra, but also for the two that are above the root chakra?

Wake is better that not. Enlightened is same as titles. I mean to be above all in gods eyes eternal bliss us for the few. I would like to be in that state yet im improved in wake up. It is still higher and feels good or slightly crazy. So imagine enlightened is tops of crazy. Non-stop smiling always high. Yup sounds like id be locked up or is it just free.?

@Emre The whole Holographic Universe thing is astounding. It explains a lot though. I find that getting to an understanding of the science often crystalizes a spiritual or non-dual idea that was eluding me or seemed contradictive. I can possibly offer a tip that may help you recognize the beauty and majesty of no-self. Experiential, not intellectual, in this case. As I've had more and more of the gentle, beautiful, loving, clear teachings of many modern masters go into me, I have often managed to just quit being all human and egoic and stressed and bothered and anxious for long enough for my ego to just take a hike for a minute or two. I have directly experienced the welling up of pure, powerful, undeniable joy and love, from nowhere, for no reason other than I got out of it's way. For that few moments it's like someone broke the cap off of the love fire hydrant and out it poured. It's accumulatively transformative as you manage this more and more often, I imagine. Now, it's happened a number of times recently and I've never felt anything that strong, and recognized what it was before, so it's sort of a lovely, overwhelming wall of joy-tears and heart-bursting REcognition of the luminous, loving, self-aware, non-dimensional creator that 'I AM'. If you manage to lighten off of the drama and contraction long enough, and just spark the flow of beauty and love that you are, the shining of Source is really an explosion of bliss. At just BEing. BUT! As I managed a little more attention to the tears of joy and the heart welling up and the explosion of love and all the good, pure, pristine stuff, I also noticed something of a mourning, breath-hitching sadness. Incredible! Amongst all that bursting of joy, my sense of self cried a little for it's massive and sudden diminishment. There is a bit of a lossy, lonely undertone to that love-bomb, and it seems just to be my ego saying 'Holy shit, I have been Kingggg for the longest time and now... WTF?" Keep the faith man, you ARE all of life. I don't know what or who else you may have been studying or following, but you can try this Rupert Spira video and see how it resonates...

This reality is long journey... Of choice, free will. Options. Its not difficult. Today my mother said i looked lost.. Retrospect yes i was. However the moment was pure bliss. 10-15 maybe 20 humingbirds spiraling around. For me it was epic. To my mother is was story conversation of nothing. She doesnt see the pure love/vibration/life. Only mind. Chaotic mindset. Ill stop ranting only leave with inner peace and yes i love you too.

Well good thing im fucked up to begin with. Isn't this all about thresholds and attachment to form/identity? I really really really dont get how enlightenment work can hurt anything real in any way, even though I've seen other warnings before too... And why would you care about anything unreal. Maybe worsening the situation is exactly what you need to see what you are identifying with is not you. If you are too comfortable being an Ego, when will you transcend it. Crappy life is a good thing for spiritual realisations. It might be my ego being in mode ignorance is bliss. Also idgaf. I mean, i am a type of person that thinks to himself from time to time: Man, i wish they bomb the planet on a Monday and not on a Friday or it will suck Maybe I'm not deep enough in this yet to know what you mean.

I really wish I did have a better counselor... But maybe you just need to spread the love you feel so strongly right now rather than chasing something that is too abstract for the moment. If you chase your bliss, you will start to align with experiences that make those abstract things more concrete. It's gonna take a lot of courage and/or dissociation to just out and out quit though.

Playing video games makes you introvert. There seem to be only two ways: either be an extrovert -- but by being an extrovert you can never become a Buddha. Your focus is others, you are in a shadow. But how will your inner being grow this way? You will look more happy, you may look as if you are enjoying life more, but how are you going to grow? How will your inner being come to that point where it becomes light? If you are not concerned with it at all, it is not going to grow. To be an extrovert is good in the sense that you remain healthy -- you don't become a pervert. To be an introvert is dangerous because an introvert becomes ill, an introvert becomes in reality perverted. He thinks continuously about himself, he becomes enclosed. He remains with his frustrations, worries, anxieties, anguish, depressions, anger, jealousy, hate, this and that -- and he only worries. Think what type of anguish he lives in, continuously worried about things: Why am I angry? How should I become non-angry? Why do I hate? How should I transcend it? Why am I depressed? How to attain bliss? -- he is continuously worried, and through this worry he creates the very same things he is worried about. It becomes a vicious circle If you move wrongly, you will become a pervert and the wrong movement is that you become too concerned. Then what to do? Treat yourself as if you also are the other; don't be too concerned. When your body is ill it is as if somebody else's body is ill: do whatsoever is needed but don't be too concerned. If you have a fever go to the doctor, take the medicine, take care of the body, and that's all. Why be concerned too much? If you are on path of enlightenment, ready to accept everything life offers, good or bad, success or failure, health or illness, then only playing video games is OK. If you cannot follow this then it is better to be an extrovert, be unconcerned; you will not grow but at least you will not suffer so much as an introvert suffers.

I get it… you want your happiness to be independent of any external factor. Well then my advice would be… choose to be happy… everyday… every moment. I know easier said than done. You asked is enlightenment the answer, the answer is no. Enlightenment can’t be used as an escape. I understand the reasoning, “maybe I can transcend my ego and then I won’t feel this pain, this desire for happiness”. I’m sorry but as long as your underlying desire for enlightenment is escape then I believe transcendence will remain elusive. Also, becoming enlightened is a hell of a lot harder than just choosing to be happy I also think you have unrealistic expectations. You want to be in a state of bliss at all times. Not going happen. Even enlightenment won’t provide this type of everlasting bliss. What is realistic is to feel a consistent level of peace and contentment independent of external factors. This will be possible when you begin to exert control over your mind. Direct your mind towards positivity and happiness will follow. Once this baseline level of happiness has been achieved then love will only enhance it.

So I just had this incredible experience I've once had before but this time it was in longer duration (2 mins). I don't think it was a sleep paralysis because it was clear that I was able to move my body. It was also quite enjoyable. Upon falling into deep sleep I had an indescribable dream/sensations of vertigo, morphing inside out and back outside in continuously, like being blended alive. As soon as I woke up from this dream/sensation in the middle of the night first of all I noticed my mental state. It was undeniably sharp, awake, alive, and impossibly alert at such an hour as if I've just woke up from a month long nap, or on some high energy enhancement drug ..... all at the same time still feeling as if I'm in a dream. My body had an encompassing energy feel to it. Subtle vibrations surrounding my whole body. Feelings of lightness, coolness, and restfulness. I could feel the subtle coolness on my forehead, the warmth beneath the sheets. The little sensations I get after long sessions of meditation. It was a state of bliss, non-attachment, and non-knowing. Looking around the room was quite confusing with a hint of terror. Although my mind was sharp and alert, there was a shift in perspective. I looked at the ceiling fan and I said to myself "what in the world is that?," looked at my hand "what the heck is going on?" I was able to label such things as ceiling fan, hand, or blanket, however, there was a shift in perspective and I didn't know what any of these were for, for a minute, or why they were here or still yet why anything was here including myself. Just a state of utter confusion as if I've just been born at that exact moment. Please keep in mind, my mind was incredibly clear and awake, even more so than as I type this or as I've ever been in my last 20+ years.. Anyone else have similar experiences? Not talking about sleep paralysis here, I've had them too but different.

I am NOT the field of vision I am NOT the sense of hearing, feeling, or emotion I am NOT thought nor its creator What I used to believe was me was never in my direct experience at all! EVER! It was just never there! I was just never there! It's so obvious! But yet, I am everywhere in direct experience! Not just everywhere, but everywhere SIMULTANEOUSLY! How can that be? it's IMPOSSIBLE! Being everywhere simultaneously as opposed to being a single point in space. I am not my experience but simply am AWARENESS of it. When "I" have a thought, I am not its creator. Simply, thought arises and I am awareness of its existence before it inevitably vanishes back to nothing. Same goes with everything else. And this awareness is not anything, but it is PRESENT! It does exist! Because it is me! I AM empty I AM pure bliss I AM being I AM ------------- I AM not yet enlightened, though. Now I see the illusion of myself that I used to think was real just doesn't make any damn sense! Enlightenment makes sense to me now. But I still have tons more work to do. 'Til next time.

2-step meditation that'll blow your mind into eternal bliss when practiced consistently

@100rockets Ya. What did you do? Great to hear you're finding hope. I assume you're young, like 16-23. Don't write your life off. When I was 20, I was where you are. Total fucking hopelessness and suicidal tendencies. (I never thought about doing it, but I did feel that it would have been better) The thing is, you DON"T KNOW what your life is going to pan out to be. I found this tiny little crack of hope way back then, and it led to a wonderful life. Actual fulfillment and satisfaction. Hang in there. It WILL get better. There are equal opposites at play. To the extent you have dove down deep into the abyss, if you just hang on for a while, you will equally rise to the bliss. All is relative to your experiencing, it can be no other way.

@Martin123 DUDE! Shit is going crazy around me already and I am totally with you on the 5 years good shit is unfolding intuition. The wake up is real. All that shit on your list, pollution etc. It's always been going on. Now we have the internet and smart phones so awareness of it is a little intense right now, people are waking up, meditating, not staring at walls, etc. It's gonna get good. I'm callin it right here and now...3 years from now Leo does a video about bliss controlling and containment.

These kinds of trips are dangerous for people that are at the beginning of the journey. Try to understand that the ego loses control over reality so quickly that you don't even realize there is still a little bit left of it and it still distorts the reality. Any negative feelings you have exist because the ego is desperately trying to make reason out of it all but it can't so it makes you feel like shit. Try to focus on the truth without creating any labels you could attach to it. Without labels there is no suffering. It comes down to what you want to believe. If you believe life is meaningless it will be. You have the power to choose if you want to live in suffering or eternal bliss but the only problem is that you don't know how to control your believes that is all.

2 years is nice, so congrats on the consinstency. But what you describe (asking a lot of logical questions) sounds more like self-inquiry. Which is also or can also be important (althou i think inquiry is more benefitial for people who usually don´t overthink - it balances them out ..for people who overthink a lot , self inquiry can lead really on the wrong tracks where the inquirer feels he will get somewhere by just logical constructs alone and might possibly indulge in endless fruitless inquiry and getting stuck in his head. doing more body focused work like body scanns or SDS is better for "overhtinkers" at least that is my experience - having that tendency to getting stuck in my head ...what helps me most is connection with my body in any way (meditation is only one form , i also recommend doing sports or dancing or yoga) -principle of mastery is applicable to everything but don´t force it too much imo -the curve-model from mastery is -after all- just a theory , a map to help you in the actual "field" , don´t stick to hard to it - that beeing said i would say it totally depends from person to person and from time to time ... some month you get little increases then suddenly a big epiphany and then 2 weeks where you feel like shit and can´t concentrate or even feel pain ... everyone has to get to know oneself ...that is part of the practice and an important and very valuable part i think! -no it is NOT ok!! what if it is not ok? then you are a naughty brat and need to be punished srsyl ... everyone thinks while meditating the purpose of the practice is to understand the internal mechanisms of yourself and how you can relax and drop the thoughts, and understand the nature of your thoughts better... eventually surrender and bliss out -yes as long as you "say" sentences in your head you are using thoughts (words are a common form of thoughts ) mindfullness meditation is therefor often considered as a concentration practice more than a meditation -guided medis are using thoughts yes and there is nothing wrong with that to calm you down, loose your mind and bring you to your senses ... for example you can use guided medi as an introduction for 15 or 20 minutes if you like and then when it stopped go on and meditate for yourself without "sound-input" -the point of meditation is to understand who you are , how your mind works and dissolve the notion you get in everyday life (where this notion is usefull of course ) that you are an object in the world seperated from the subjects you are interacting with. It will open you up and make your more creative and possibly in a sense more intelligent and reflected ... your quality of life will improove because the chances you make horrible life-decisions that only serve other people and not your own purpose and happyness will get more and more unlikely since you transcended a lot of the wrong paradigms that society gave you and instead you trust your own senses. -how does it work? by monitoring yourself your consciousness can create new links and connections concerning the very fabric of your awareness ... it is like learning, learning how to it really feels like to be you. Actually it is quite simple, but it can shure take time and sometimes one gets confused ...but thats ok ... that is life peace

1. Start with the daytime. With the first ray of consciousness as you wake up in the morning, start the experiment. After a thousand attempts, perhaps one may succeed but even if one attempt is successful you will realize that the thousands of attempts were worthwhile. If even for a moment, you came to experience that he who walks is not you but he who is unmoving is you; he who is full of desires is not you, but that he who is forever desireless is you; that that which is perishable is not you, but the fountain of eternal nectar is you. Start with the daytime, and gradually you will succeed in carrying it through into your sleep. Gurdjieff used to teach his disciples to practice awareness during the daytime, and then he would tell them that just before going to bed they must remember: ”This is a dream.” You are still awake. There is no dream yet, but you have to keep repeating to yourself: ”Everything I see is a dream.” Touch the bed and intensify the feeling: ”Whatever I touch is a dream.” Touch one hand with the other, and experience: ”All that I touch is a dream.” You go to sleep sinking deep into this feeling. There will be a constant stream of feeling moving inside. After a few days you will find that in the middle of a dream you will suddenly become aware that it is a dream. As soon as you remember that it is a dream, the dream breaks, because the dream works only in the absence of consciousness. Then you will be filled with bliss such as you have never known before. 2.Shankara’s Vedanta propounds the concept that the universe is an illusion. This philosophy is an experiment of the same kind. The seeker has to remember constantly that whatever is happening is a dream. While getting up in the morning, walking on the road, in the midst of the marketplace, he has to remember: ”Everything is a dream.” Why? Because this is the method. It is a process. If you experiment constantly for eight hours, this remembrance will penetrate so deeply that you will remember it even in the middle of the dream; you will remember that it is a dream. At present you are unable to remember. Actually, you are doing it even now – but in the reverse order. All your waking hours you feel and understand that whatever you see is real. And that is why dreams seem real at night, because the feeling is very strong. What can be more false than dreams? How many times on waking up have you realized their falsity, their uselessness? Yet every night you make the same mistake. Why? There must be a very deep reason behind this folly. The reason is: in your waking state you take everything to be true. If you take everything you see to be real, then how can the dreams you see at night appear to be illusory? You take them to be real. The maya experiment is just the opposite. Whatever you see during the day, you remember that this is unreal. You forget again and again, but once again you pull yourself together. You remind yourself that everything you see is nothing but a huge drama in which you are only a spectator. You are not the actor, not the doer, but only a witness. If you nurture this feeling, it becomes a constant flow within. Finally the dream disappears in the night, and this is a great attainment. If the dream is shattered, you are ready to take the third step. If the dream is shattered, you can take the third step of retaining consciousness in deep sleep. But right now this is difficult for you. It is not possible to do it all at once; you must proceed step by step. 3. While walking along the road, stop! Become the observer: realize that it is the body walking and you are merely an observer. While eating, stop! Become the observer. The body eats. You are merely observing. While attending to the customers in your shop, stop! Become the observer. Do not get so engrossed as to forget the observer. Take hold of yourself time and again. It will require a continuous effort. You will find, by and by, that the effort becomes easier day by day; now and again you will get flashes of 'pure consciousness'. When 'pure consciousness' comes easily in the daytime you can gradually utilize it in your dreams. Then when you are about to fall asleep let the last thought in your mind be: ”I am the observer”. As sleep overcomes you let this thought reverberate in your mind: ”I am the witness, I am the witness...” And thus you fall asleep. You will not be able to catch the moment when sleep comes and the repetition stops. If you cultivate the feeling till you fall asleep the feeling will continue into sleep, for it is only the body that sleeps. As you cultivate this feeling more and more, one night you will suddenly become conscious of the observer in your sleep. And as soon as you become aware of the observer a rare thing happens – dreams vanish. Dreams occur only because of your unconsciousness. Now nothing and nobody can make you unaware, unconscious. He who awakens even for a moment in his sleep, his unawareness is gone forever. The day you awaken in your sleep you become a yogi. You cannot become a yogi by performing asanas. These are merely exercises. They are good and useful to keep the body healthy, but if you take them to be the true yoga then you are deluded. Yoga means: the art of awakening in sleep. Thus he who awakens is a yogi.

What I am arguing here is that "enlightenment" can result in both absolute bliss and happiness, as well as absolute despair and sadness. So yes it can, but not necessarily, would be the correct answer. One simply cannot exist without the other in this world. And if you are to have all knowledge, it would include the idea that you must take the bitter with the sweet as a human being.

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.