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In the core of every human desire is magnification of happiness. May it be through emotional stability, soothing words, excitement, the euphoria rush from hardcore drugs, the beauty of music etc... The key to understand happiness is that every being has a different way of achieving happiness and all ways are okay. For example I am the most happy when I take acid, the pure bliss and peace it gives me is indiscribable. But is this the only and one way? Absolutely not. I have had friends that freaked out on acid because they couldnt distinguish what is reality and what is not. Happiness has many facets and can't be really defined in words. It is every beings own responsibilty to take care of their own happiness.

@Adam D Holy shit, you've just described my life at the moment in that post! Although I'm half way, at the intersection of follow the money, or following my excitement, joy, bliss, integrity. More and more I'm finding out what's real and what's not. Health, relationships, fun, feeling alive, happiness, being the best version of myself, improving, self-awareness and so on. Thanks for your comment Adam!

@Arik @werlight @Nic @Emerald Wilkins My experienced happened when I dropped all sense of self. I could feel that consciousness was no longer localized at my body location but surrounding me and extending outward. I remember a distinct shift in awareness as if awareness had come to a point of perfect focus. I never experienced that happening before. It was scary to let go like that for the first time, but still something about it felt right. So I let totally go and instantly I became pure being. It was as if my soul or pure being was floating in a ocean of pure bliss and silence. It felt like "home". I don't remember closing my eyes, but I was no longer seeing my physical surroundings. That happened twice. The first time was in Sept. and again in January. The first time my eyes were wide open. The 2nd time I was meditating. I felt that sudden shift in awareness that I never knew existed before. I don't know what happened. It felt like I went into another dimension it was so distinct. Very different! After it happened I thought "What the heck was that?" I never expected that to happen at all. I still don't really know how to explain it. Maybe that's just the way it is. I remember that all questions ceased to exist and everything was well taken care of. So no need to even ask. It was beyond everything within existence, but yet it was the source of all existence. It truly felt like home. Just to add a note: After the first experience happened, I sat here and knew "That infinite stillness and silence surrounds us at all times". Where we come from and where we return to is always present. We never left it " Everything that happens within existence is happening within that source of infinite silence at all times.

To find absolute truth, you need radical open-mindedness. You need to test these things for yourself, construct some sort of experiment, because If you blindly blow-off mystisism as "pseudo science" with pure ignorance with little to no knowledge or eexperimentation whatsoever, then you are not a good enough scientist. This is why in anything spiritual radical open-mindedness is needed. You might as well forget about life purpose, because it involves masculine and feminine "energies". You have research, but no experimentation, which means the case is closed. How can you even negate spirituality without even testing it? Not that I am strongly inclined to spirituality, but meditation itself is the search of one's true self, and is spiritual in sense. Again, ignorance is not bliss, it is ignorance. I believe in this spirituality thing because of the experimentation with NoFap, I got some of "magnetisism" with woman, they were really attracted to me for some reason, you have to firsthand experience these things to believe them. little did I know it was abundance of sexual energy, I abused it incorrectly and got hospitalized for psychosis, and had a psychotic break with reality. I wondered why all that happened until I researched that you're not allowed to play with these kinds of things. Mystics aren't going to go prove they have superpowers, the idea that yogis have some kind of superpowers is silly. Everything in the million dollar challenge is astrologers, their purpose is to bullsht you and steal your money. Do you even have any scientific background? You also spelled investigator wrong. You also biased your own definition of absolute "Truth", ironic isn't it? You're also chasing low conscious bullsh*t like money and woman. This whole idea of arguing is monkey business, we should argue to learn, not to prove.

You are not looking for an answer! That's not what self inquery is about! You ask "who am I" and just look, only look if you can find yourself. It's not about an answer, it's about a direct experience of the Self. Also who is aware of your bliss and awesomeness?

How do you KNOW that your purpose has been revealed? I just had an incredible emotional reaction of joy and bliss and wonder after receiving a thought of what I could do with my life and it's so obvious and something that will bring me so much fulfillment and answers so many questions about the suffering I've faced in my life and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and I'm sure it's my calling. But yesterday I was sure I was being called to be a ascetic. How do I know this is real? I can see a clear path of actions to take to make this real, and it would be so simple and easy and fulfilling and helpful to hurting beings and challenging, but something I know I could find a way to do, and the lives I could touch and the impact I could make would be a psychic force in the darkness of the rational world. But how do I know for sure, that this time, this is the time that I'm RIGHT about this being my purpose? Maybe I shouldn't be? Oh, but this feeling, this lovejoyhappinessecstasy and the perfectness of the solution--which briefly and without specific details involves me going back to help people who are trapped in a situation I was trapped in, because they are me, and I have insights to share with them, and they have things to share with me. I just posted this on my Facebook page regarding this because as I sit with it, I am more and more certain that this is my purpose in life, not that it should happen in any particular way, but that I should find a way to do this even if I work 40 hours a week doing something stupid and meaningless (and everything can be made to have meaning when you live in the moment) and work on this as I can, or find an opportunity to do this within the mechanisms of existing reality and get paid for it, it doesn't matter how it happens, I can't expect specifics. I just have to take each moment of experience and try to be in the moment while moving forward. That is hard. How do you do that? Facebook post *Enlightenment Update* I believe i have just discovered my true life purpose after 45 years. It's not anything I expected and yet it's more than I ever dreamed. It is completely attainable. It will bring me more joy and fulfillment than anything else I could ever do in life, no matter what form it takes--if I do it like a starving artist or like a big celebrity. And the truth is, I'm not ready to tell many of you what this new purpose is because it is actually kind of personal, I will just say that after 45 years, I found a way OUT of MY pain and worry and fear and anxiety and misery, and I think I'm uniquely qualified to help people who are like me figure out these truths sooner. So, that's what I'm going to do. One way or another, however the universe or God or what have you is leading me. And I'm going to continue to grow myself. And isn't this kind of the way life should be? Have we lost this from our earlier traditions of apprentices and mentors? Isn't that what all the fantasy novels are all about? Luke Skywalker had to have Obi Wan. I'm encouraging all of my older friends, no matter where you are in life, to find a way to reach out and mentor someone. Not just anyone. That won't work. You have to find someone to mentor who is like yourself, maybe a slightly less insightful self who you recognize as similar to you before you grew, and to do that, you have to get to know someone on their terms which will build your empathy and you will grow. Mentoring, like child-rearing is a two-way street of sharing wisdom. If you don't believe me, ask a kid what they want to do and then pay very close attention and listen and try to take "no" out of your vocabulary. Do what they want to do and listen to what they are saying and talk to them like they are as smart as you are, because they are. They may not have as many experiences as you have, but they are learning from every experience they have, and if you let them, they will teach you new things you never knew, because they are in the moment. They are absorbing what life has to offer and not just waiting in line or driving to work or relaxing before bed. To them, every moment is a discovery and something new, and just when you are convinced that they can't possibly teach you anything new, they do, because they have real insights sometimes too. This is the same for kids and adults as it is for democrats and republicans, conservatives and liberals, blacks and whites, and any kind of divisive label you can come up with. We just have to stop shouting and open our ears to each other and maybe we are all at different stages of enlightenment in our lives and I think enlightenment is maybe an over-important term, but maybe we all have different perspectives, but it doesn't hurt to listen, and many times you learn something.

Hey all So for the last week I have been meditating 20 minutes twice a day. In the morning I did "mindfullness" and in the evening "letting thoughts go". On monday I bumped that up to 30 minutes and I started self-inquiry. I asked myself the following questions: "Who is aware?" "Who is perceiving?" "Who am I?" just like Leo suggested. What I found as I started this inquiry was that I really could not get a sense of what the answer was. I asked myself these questions over and over but there was no answer at all. My mind was shut or quiet. Sometimes the voice would come up with a timid "I" or with my name but I really could not pinpoint it and when I asked "who is aware of I?"-complete silence. Suddenly after about 10-15 minutes as I was already frustrated there was this awesome sensation. I just felt it coming on. It was like a shower of bliss and awesomeness. Unfortunately it only lasted about 20 seconds hence it was one of the most awesome sensations I have ever felt. Nonetheless I really struggled with getting my mind to come up with answers at all. In addition to that I did a "strong determination sit" of 1 hour this morning. I tried to do self-inquiry whilst at it but there were no real answers to my questions, yet again. What was really interesting was that after about 45 minutes as I sat through pure pain and discomfort I just let go. Up to that I point I was just frustrated, in pain, bored out of my mind,... but then it almost became pleasurable. I just existed and there was no more resistance. Really interesting experience. I would really appreciate some feedback from you guys. Especially regarding my self inquiry. How would you rate my progress? Any feedback, tips or suggestions are much appreciated! Thanks!

I just thought I would share my experiences here. Hopefully they might be helpful to somebody on here who’s trying to understand what they are going through. So enlightenment? I watched Leo’s video about spiritual enlightenment. He talked about how it is such a rare thing, maybe only one in a million could achieve it. So, yes, that sounds daunting. It seems like some people have a tendency to lose their minds on their way to enlightenment. So I thought a somewhat different perspective on the subject might be helpful. I think my own experience perhaps isn’t enlightenment but just a stopping point along the journey. I don’t know. Everyone has their own way of labeling their experiences and this is how I see mine. This may be something that is easier for you to wrap your head around than enlightenment. Maybe it is just a story that I tell myself to create drama in my life. You be the judge. Life has no meaning until you give it meaning and all of that. I think my experience is somewhat rare but perhaps not as rare as what Mr. Gura describes as enlightenment. If I’m going to put a label on what happened to me I would say it was me developing my own morality and sense of ethics and where that ultimately led me. I think it is something that a lot of your teachers have experienced, especially the ones that you liked really well. It is perhaps not such an unattainable feat of the mind. So I was a quiet introverted kid. I lived in my own head a lot. I liked to read books. I would find myself lying awake at night thinking about things like – What happens when we die? Do we just disintegrate into nothingness? Can I be okay with the belief that I will one day just disintegrate into nothingness? That’s sort of sad and disturbing to me. What does it all mean? - My mom took us to church I think more to socialize and have a community to fit into rather than through any real need to instill faith in God. My dad had a somewhat strained relationship with his mother, who was very religious, and I think that made him jaded about God and religion. He used to read passages of the Bible and make fun of them. He did not go to church with us. Eventually I started to hate church and began to refuse to go. It was just boring. All through junior high and high school I thought about these types of topics a lot. A lot of the time I would be going about my daily business on autopilot with thoughts like this in the background. Hey, I likely could have spent thousands of hours on this. I don’t know. It was automatic to me. It was just something that I did. I didn’t feel the need to share these ideas. I just thought them. I read a fair amount of the classic books because I had to for classes and some on my own. I liked authors like Mark Twain, Jack London, John Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis, Charles Dickens, George Orwell, etc. Lord of the Flies comes to mind as an important book in my thoughts. At any rate, what I now realize is that I was drawn toward books in which the characters faced moral dilemmas. If you look at any famous classic book, it probably revolves around some big moral dilemma that the characters are experiencing. One of my teachers would talk about God a lot and I thought he was kind of kookie, but I liked him. There was another teacher who I now realize seemed to be sizing me up on the moral development scale. I remember him asking me “What would happen if you turned in your assignment late?” As I was always waiting until the last second to turn things in. So the year was 1995, I was in college and taking a couple of history classes and a class about the philosophy of morality. I was an introvert and never fit in to the college scene very well. I was more immersed in my studies than the average college student I would guess. But I was studying all of this stuff, Greek and Roman history, Socrates, Charlemagne, World War I and II and it just seemed to me that everything was starting to make sense and come together cohesively in a meaningful pattern. History wasn’t just a series of random events but almost seemed orchestrated and moving in a direction of greater freedom and social justice. Political systems were becoming less and less authoritarian as people gained more and more power. I felt so inspired and uplifted by these ideas and couldn’t sleep at night. I was just thinking and thinking about all of these ideas and trying to put all of the pieces together. The philosophy of morality seemed to fit perfectly into the paradigm that I was forming. I remember reading Kant and his ideas about why human beings should have value. Why should we have human rights and a respect for life? Because human beings were endowed by their creator with these rights. If there is no God than human life has no value and we’re just a bunch of sacks of meat. I’m sure you could argue against this all day, but this was my uplifting realization. During this time I was thinking a lot and just didn’t feel like eating so I think I lost 20 pounds, and I wasn’t heavy to begin with. At any rate, I was thinking all of these thoughts one night and it just hit me that there must be a God and I felt this shift in me like my ego and the part of me that wanted to be selfless came together and something entered my heart. I don’t want it to sound like another BS religious experience. It was a profound shift in me. Unfortunately, I was still very much me, an awkward introverted girl trying to navigate my college experience and not really doing a very good job of it. I felt like wow, I need to do something and take action on this. I tried to talk to people about it and of course they just thought I was nuts. I dropped out of school and pissed off my parents royally and made a whole slew of strategic blunders. I tried to find someone to give me guidance, but I realized I was on my own. I had to figure out my own path and I did a piss poor job of it. I didn’t really heed to call to go on my own hero’s journey, as they say, and wound up going back to school. I didn’t have the skillset to deal with my experience and didn’t find anyone to guide me to a better path. So this became a big source of shame for me. This experience I had and couldn’t really relate to anyone I knew about. I felt like I was failing the world in a sense. I wasn’t ready to be Gandhi or Martin Luther King or anyone awesome like that. I’m not going to relate my whole lame life story after that point. It is not impressive. At some point I started to learn about the dark side, conspiracy, 911 etc. and then my life took on a whole new level of effed upness. I’m not going to relate that story here. But this phenomenon is something that is understood and studied in the psychology field. I’m no expert on the topic. I do recall one of my high school teachers handing out a worksheet about the levels of moral development and moral reasoning. Lawrence Kohlberg is a psychologist who spent a fair amount of time studying the subject and breaking down the various levels and what type of moral reasoning is behind them. You can size yourself up on the scale. So thanks Mr. Leo for your videos. I am started to see the light I think at the age of 40, yikes. Yes, we all need to grow the fuck up and meditate and figure our shit out. So enlightenment sounds like an attempt to bliss out of reality. What I experienced is not that. It is something that ultimately created more suffering in my life. I still had a lot of layers of crud over my shiny authentic self as Leo would say. I’m finally finding ways to lift those layers of crud. It’s a slow process and the hero’s journey still seems like something I still don’t really want to take on. I have to or I will remain miserable and un-actualized. That’s all that I’m going to write for now. Hopefully this will give you something to ponder on your journey to enlightenment. Anyway, here is some info about moral development Levels and Stages of Moral Development Level 1: Preconventional Morality The first level of morality, preconventional morality, can be further divided into two stages: obedience and punishment, and individualism and exchange. Stage 1: Punishment- Obedience Orientation Related to Skinner’s Operational Conditioning, this stage includes the use of punishment so that the person refrains from doing the action and continues to obey the rules. For example, we follow the law because we do not want to go to jail. Stage 2: Instrumental Relativist Orientation In this stage, the person is said to judge the morality of an action based on how it satisfies the individual needs of the doer. For instance, a person steals money from another person because he needs that money to buy food for his hungry children. In Kohlberg’s theory, the children tend to say that this action is morally right because of the serious need of the doer. Level 2: Conventional Morality The second level of morality involves the stages 3 and 4 of moral development. Conventional morality includes the society and societal roles in judging the morality of an action. Stage 3: Good Boy-Nice Girl Orientation In this stage, a person judges an action based on the societal roles and social expectations before him. This is also known as the “interpersonal relationships” phase. For example, a child gives away her lunch to a street peasant because she thinks doing so means being nice. Stage 4: Law and Order Orientation This stage includes respecting the authorities and following the rules, as well as doing a person’s duty. The society is the main consideration of a person at this stage. For instance, a policeman refuses the money offered to him under the table and arrests the offender because he believes this is his duty as an officer of peace and order. Level 3: Postconventional Morality The post-conventional morality includes stage 5 and stage 6. This is mainly concerned with the universal principles that relation to the action done. Stage 5 : Social Contract Orientation In this stage, the person is look at various opinions and values of different people before coming up with the decision on the morality of the action. Stage 6 : Universal Ethical Principles Orientation The final stage of moral reasoning, this orientation is when a person considers universally accepted ethical principles. The judgment may become innate and may even violate the laws and rules as the person becomes attached to his own principles of justice.

I am meditating and want to grow spiritually, but I think relationships are important as well. You never ever hear of monks or spiritual teachers caring about sex. Sex is a human pleasure that you are supposedly supposed to get over once you realise that you can reach higher states of bliss and connect with the divine nature of consciousness. But in my experience, you can grow a lot from relationships and it is one of the beautiful things about being human. I don't want to give it up. Is the fact that im finding it hard to detach from relationships signalling that I have a long way to go before being enlightened?

@jjer94"In fact, meditation can become a trap for some people when they imagine that they are getting somewhere, as if there's some destination they need to arrive to in order to be who they are. They believe that a silent mind (or feeling 'bliss' or whatever other bogus fleeting experience) means enlightenment, so they work so hard to try to silent the mind, as if you need immense effort to reach a state of effortlessness. Sure, earnestness is required to reach enlightenment, but in my opinion, trying to brute force your way to a silent mind is a fool's game. It's like cutting off the heads of a hydra when they're just going to grow back. " Your first sentence makes sense, but I'm sorry, the rest makes no sense. There are many who study non-duality. Why aren't they all enlightened? If you don't know HOW to let go, or release control, you aren't gonna get there. Releasing control itself is meditation! And what's the best way to LEARN how to release control? Sitting down and learning how to release control.... Yes, you can be mindful in your day-to-day activities, but if the practice of realeasing control is not at the forefront, then it is extremely easy to get caught up in these day-to-day tasks. Meditating in your day-to-day activities WITHOUT proper practice of sitting down at the cushion is like learning how to run before you walk.. Yes, spiritual autopsy and acquiring knowledge about the truth is very useful, but doing that just means that the monkey mind can see through it's fake nature. It doesn't mean that the monkey mind is going to quiten down. You are coming at this from an angle of spiritual autopsy VERSUS meditation. I would argue that it is NOT one or the other, but both. Also, what is your definition of enlightenment? The monkey mind seeing it's fake nature is not the same as actually having an enlightenment "experience". There is only this moment. THe right NOW. Everything is just passing away around you. If one doesn't meditate and doesn't develop the practice of meditation, this cannot be truly seen.

You don't have to meditate to reach enlightenment. Technically, you don't need to do anything to realize what you already are, because you're already it! All methods to reach enlightenment are just a matter of removing obstructions (desires, fears, beliefs) in order to see that you've been there the whole time. That's why they call it the "gateless gate." In fact, meditation can become a trap for some people when they imagine that they are getting somewhere, as if there's some destination they need to arrive to in order to be who they are. They believe that a silent mind (or feeling 'bliss' or whatever other bogus fleeting experience) means enlightenment, so they work so hard to try to silent the mind, as if you need immense effort to reach a state of effortlessness. Sure, earnestness is required to reach enlightenment, but in my opinion, trying to brute force your way to a silent mind is a fool's game. It's like cutting off the heads of a hydra when they're just going to grow back. I'm not saying that meditation is useless. When used as a way to release control, meditation can be a very powerful tool. And it doesn't necessarily have to just take place on the cushion. Life itself is your meditation. Every situation can be an opportunity to release control. Monkey mind is not the issue; it's the importance you give to your monkey mind that's the issue. Monkey mind will start to settle down a bit once you start seeing through your desires and fears (i.e. releasing control), and you don't need to be on the cushion to do that. Cheers!

@dominic1 This is the kind of question that if you ask 100 ppl, you'll probably get 100 different answers. No two will be exactly alike because it is all illusion of mind and the way mind will interpret that experience will be different for each. That being said, the first time I let go of my ego self and had an awakening "experience" it was quite dramatic. Conscionsceness was no longer localized at my body location. It was filling the room and became externalized. That was VERY different to experience for the first time. There was a distinct and sudden "shift" in consciousness. Just as if you changed the channel on a radio and tuned to another station than the one you normally listen to in daily life. For me it was like discovering there was more than just one station to tune to. It was like tuning to a "universal" frequency of pure consciousness. I became just a very silent observer in the background to what was happening. I flowed into the consciousness that was outside of my body location and was suddenly floating in an ocean of pure silent bliss and stillness. My interpretation of that was that I entered another dimension, it was so distinct from my usual awareness. Again that's just the best way I can describe it using words and mind. I refer to all this using the word "I" just for the sake of conversation. I'm not "enlightened" but I do understand that all this is "Maya" that is happening within my mind. My interpretation of nothingness is there is no experience of that. No "heavenly" feelings. You don't exist when nothingness happens so it can't be described at all. It is a total blank space within awareness. It's a total non-experience. Not even a silent observer is present experiencing a state of bliss so there is no memory of that at all..... So I guess to sum it all up, we all have "awakening experiences" until we get to the point where the "I" vanishes and than there is not even an experience to be had of any kind because there is no experiencer remaining. That's my illusion!

If you don't meditate at all don't start with a hour. Start with something like 20 minutes, I even recommend 10 minutes to starters. Do the "Do Nothing" technique for three months, than raise your sitting time to maybe 30-40 minutes. Than do that for a while and than you can start to sit for 60 minutes. If you have sat some time (I'd say 1-2 months) with 60 minutes and "Do Nothing" try doing it with strong determination sits. If it's too hard go back to 30 minutes with it. It's key to start slow here and make it a habit. Every raise of time is challenging in the beginning and you can't hold up with it if you challenge yourself too much in the beginning. It needs a few months for most people to really see where this is leading you (or get a sense of it). Also, get a vision for why you actually want to do this. I have very strong motives so it's never the question for me whether I meditate or not. Now, after a year of it I have seen so much (and it's just the early beginning) that I can't picture going back. That's my thing now and I love it. Cheers to you, PS: Also picture the big picture. Visualize where this would lead you in one year. In the first year you can master the 1 hour sits (w/ or w/o strong determination). The second year you can do the 90 minutes or 120 minutes and so on. I see myself sitting for 4 hours with strong determination sits in I'd say 5 years. That will be insane. I probably wake up on the way with this stuff. Now, if I look at 10 years from now I'd like to have mastered 6-8 hours. Then I'll nuance that for the rest of my life, maybe join a Zen monastery some day, I don't know. Visualize how your life would change if you can sit for 8 hours and also how it would feel to sit for 8 hours w/o pains and complete bliss. How would you feel in your normal life?

This is accurate, it depends on the perspective; If you look at a wave, you need both the Crests and troughs or there is no wave. The Buddha taught bliss through extinguishment (trough), the Hindu Vedantas taught bliss through fullness(or purpose) (crest). There are also downsides to the bliss in both, via misunderstanding; with Buddhism you can get to nihilism and/or an ego driven marit system, with Hinduism you get a cast system, and/or an ego driven purpose.

In a way, yes, sort of how Christianity came out of Judaism. Though Suffering is more accurately "unsatisfactoriness", or "Bummer". And only if you cling to impermanent things. Once you get past clinging, you get to bliss, or equanimity as well. I guess some would call that "contentment".

By the way; The Buddha was a Hindu-Yogi... He just found another path to enlightenment opposite to the most common one. A Hindu talks about bliss, a Buddhist about suffering. A Hindu talks about fullness, a Buddhist about emptiness. That`s all folks...

@ZenDog Before those hours I had never meditated, but in the preceding year I had some very intense life experiences that the meditating has allowed me to fully integrate. I dropped out of college with a deep feeling of angst and pointlessness and I attempted to walk across Australia. I was walking between 30-70km per day and I had multiple transcendent experiences completely accidentally. As the walked progressed I became more and more aware that I was doing it from a highly egoistic internal stance. At the halfway mark I was resting in a motel, at that point I had several stress fractures and suspected tendinitis. While I was there, the movie "Into the wild" played and in the opening scenes as he is carving into a piece of wood he says: "and now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure; The climactic battle to kill the false being within, and victoriously conclude the spiritual revolution" I immediately understood the quote and quit the walk completely cold, I didn't tell anybody why and to be honest I thought I was going insane. It was the most painful thing I have ever done, deliberately giving up on an achievement that I literally bled for, in favor of vague notions of truth. When I got back home I would have very intense mood swings that I kept completely internalized. I hated news, pop culture, idle chit chat etc. This was all made worse by that fact that I knew I was capable of really intense feelings of love, bliss. acceptance etc. I started researching what was happening and I came across this video by Jason Silva: In there he mentions "temporarily scrambling the self" I didn't understand what this meant and I followed the breadcrumbs to Leo's video's and enlightenment work (overcoming the self altogether). This is when I started strong sitting. I started on a stool because I wasn't very flexible but after a few weeks of stretching I was able to do it cross legged. In the beginning I thought that higher volume of sitting would lead to more progress. It certainly helped because I had a huge pile of subconscious tension to work through as a result of my experiences. I would have tiny glimpses of the no-self here and there and I became terrified of the "I" concept altogether. I could actually watch the "I" re-congealing (as Adyashanti describes it) < I realize the paradox of this statement but I also know that communicating this is ultimately impossible. After 500 hours of sitting this has all been resolved. Now as "I" am typing "my" story "I" am completely aware that it is just a communicative formality. I know myself to be nothing. At the same time I "feel" as though I am just beginning somehow. I'm completely cool with news, pop culture, ordinary conversations and the like. I'm totally at ease in situations that used to take me to the edge of hell internally. Now my focus is moving to quality meditation. I've found my concentration, clarity and equanimity to be better with interval meditating (this is what I call it) for 3 hours than just brute force meditation for 6+hours. I seem to be deeply present much more regularly. My hypothesis is that the interval exercising brainwashes the subconscious to bring attention back to the present every few minutes, because even while strong sitting and practicing do-nothing or self-inquiry I still had the ability to daydream or half-doze without having any ability to rectify it. Once I noticed this happening I had my doubts as to how far the technique would take me too. That's why I started tinkering with it. I'm interested to see what the next 500 hours will bring.

@8LanguageStud This is just a wording difference but I wouldn't call this being enlightened. I would call it having a (possibly strong) glimpse into enlightenment. Not that it makes much difference for the sake of communication, except that way you have a truthful and humble attitude towards it and not make it emotional for yourself. One cannot become enlightened suddenly. I.e. it's not like a drug trip where you're all the sudden shoved into this new world. Sometimes you do (and I have too) get a glimpse into enlightenment and it is very inspiring and illuminating, but you cannot form strong enough bonds to it (your subconscious cannot grasp it well enough as it is too foreign and abstract) and so it evaporates after a few days, a week, a few weeks. I've had this many times. So, just as a cautionary point, try not to form emotional bonds to your glimpses of enlightenment, because the same way that you feel bliss initially, you will feel terrible and disillusioned after it loses it's form after a few days. Meditate more often and generally during the days that follow try to keep calm and be fully present. That way you can really experience them and truly move towards more lasting enlightenment. At least that's what I've been practicing and seems to work.

What exactly is it that we refer to an enlightening experience? Could that all be just part of a natural evolutionary process of our species? Realizing that we are more than just our physical bodies? Are we getting away from the caveman way of associating ourselves to our environment only. Everybody has a different personal view on their experience of awakening. Some call it spiritual, some call it awakening, some refer to it as ecstasy or bliss. Maybe that's all just personal interpretations of our expanding awareness of the cosmos we exist in and also other dimensions than just the physical dimension we occupy. Maybe there is really nothing spiritual about it at all. Maybe we are just beginning to experience a bigger picture of what we truly are within the universe and the unseen forces that act on it. I think about this sometimes, If there are highly advanced civilizations out in the universe somewhere, how would they interpret what we are referring to as enlightenment? Are we just awakening to the fact that we are truly multi-dimensional beings and always have been? Just a thought.

I saw this video on youtube. In the end part he talks about "the right path" is directed with either an adrenal rush in the body(EGO mind) and bliss(the right way). I want to hear from you, any insight on this topic? I myself tried this but it´s really hard for me to know the difference. Im planning on starting a buisness and when I think of it I sort of get an adrenal rush in the body, but it can also be because Im a little scared and nervous for the task.

Today ,I was with 2 of my childhood friends : Andrew and Smith after 1 year and it was a real moment of acceptance at its best. And because of this acceptance, the cool breeze of peace was flowing through my heart. Here is the whole story : I always used to spend my time with 2 of my childhood friends, Andrew and Smith but internally, I was always hurt or emotionally disturbed because of my own mind. The problem was that Andrew was very mature kind of a person and he was never seemed to be stuck in his relationship problems or ego problem. It seemed to me like Andrew has really good mind and my MIND should be like Andrew's. He never has ego problems but I have. He never takes anything on his heart but I take everything on my heart and I could be easily hurt by anyone. So, I always tried to behave like I am a mature guy like Andrew, like I don't care about any bad comments made about me, like I don't care about anything , like I am so strong person, but I always knew that internally I am suffering even more while doing this. Another friend was Smith. Smith is very stingy kind of person. He is richest of the three of us. He always tries to save money and always talks of money and in his heart, nothing is more important that money. So, I never wanted to be like him, because I always thought like I don't want to be a heartless guy like Smith who has value only for money and not for friendship or relationship. Whenever we all three used to sit together and drink, I was the one who used to speak from heart and always tried to accept negative points of his friends , specially Smith. Andrew was able to save himself from most of his negativities of life because of his high level of maturity and Smith was able to save himself from most of his negativities because of his too much adherence of himself and his life and his money etc...But I was always stuck with my mind. I was not able to save myself from the negativities of my life and emotional hurts because I was not mature enough like Andrew and i was not self centered like Smith. Between these two childhood friends, I always felt like a rejected guy that was a negative point for his friends and his family ... So, I was always like a poor, unhappy and helpless guy tortured with his own mind. I could not tell my problems to anyone, because noone listened to me and never cared about my feelings, not even my sister or mother I was the guy who was suffering the most internally. So, I started meditating after watching a meditation video of Leo, and it has been now 8 months since i starting meditating and i meditate every single day for atleast 40 minutes and meditation has changed my mind internally. I can very much feel this now. I was out of touch of these two friends of mine from past 1 year because my internal sufferings were growing more and more and I was unable to enjoy their presence any more. I was tired of the problems of my mind. So, I was trying to stay away from them and from every social thing like partying or going for picnic etc... Today, after 1 year, I met to Andrew and Smith again. We were enjoying the party and taking alcohol. Andrew and Smith started to quarrel with each other badly and started blaming each other for enormous number of things. The fight was turning really ugly. I was thinking that they might attach each other. So, my heart beat was also going up. But today, I saw that only my body was trying to show reaction to this quarrel by sweatening and pumping up heart beat and being anxious, but internally my mind was in so much peace, that at that time of quarrel, I was blissed out with the feeling of love for both of them. Today, I could not say if my heart loved Andrew more or Smith more (though my mind likes Andrew more as he has a mature mind) but my heart was producing love for both of them equally. When I was trying to quite both of them, Smith even said some bad words about me and I was really amazed that my mind was not reacting to those negative emotions thrown by Smith. I still had same level of feeling of love for him after listening to bad words from him about me. Andrew respects me always more than Smith. Today Andrew was blaming Smith and Smith was blaming me for all negativities between all the three of us, but I did not have any feeling of hatred for any of them and there was equal love in my heart for both of them irrespective of their attitude towards me. I was amazed by feeling that so much of negativities were coming at me but my mind was not catching them. They were blaming me so much specially Smith, and I had so much love for Smith like I could start weeping for him out of my love for him. But somehow I was controlling my emotions and my love for both of them and I didn't express it infront of them. Even I shouted sometimes on both of them, but it was just to control the situation and stop their quarrel. Internally, I was so much blissed out of love and compassion that I was almost weeping internally but I didn't show it externally. So, today I felt the power of no-self. I was able to feel the great extent of love and compassion for my negative friends without caring what they were thinking or saying about me. I was feeling like consciousness(Smith) is fighting with consciousness(Andrew and me) and consciousness(me) is wathing itself fighting with itself and this was producing so much love and so much bliss that it was really really heart touching. Thankfully, the quarrel was vanished at last and both Andrew and Smith were quite in the last. So, today i saw that something inside me can produce so much love, happiness and joy. Today i saw that mind was unable to give me suffering as I was hearing bad words from Smith. I fully accepted whatever Smith was saying about me, even though if it was wrong and bad because I didn't care about my reputation or my position among friends. So much of bliss was there that I was not caring about my reputation. Only love was sprouting constantly. So, today I felt like my mind lost and I won. My mind was unable to give me suffering after hearing bad words about myself, it didn't even try to give me suffering or feeling of insult or feeling of disgrace. Only love was there nothing else. Now a days, I feel like I have found the love and bliss of life. I have found myself and I feel like I am no one. When I was a person, I was surrounded by so much mental pain and suffering of relationships, insults, egostic prblems, but now too much of love and joy and happiness is there that sometimes I am unable to handle it and I start weeping when I am alone. I feel like nature is embracing me in to its arms and I am fulfilled. A feeling of completeness and eternal love is in my heart. Its like I can almost feel the eternal God and eternal love around me and both of these are not different than me When I see plants or trees, I feel so much bliss and love. When I look at dark clouds, I feel bliss and love. When I ask myself who am I, I feel love and compassion. When I ask myself where I am, where are my boundries, I can't find my boundries (because the body is not me) and at that time, I feel so much love, so much happiness that sometimes its almost unbearable and tears try very hard to come out of my eyes. I am sorry if I was going off topic in the end, but I have tried to tell everything that is inside my heart. If there is something with which I can help anybody, to achieve this state, it will be my pleasure Let there be peace and love among all living beings With love, PK

Again, I am not saying that the killer in my example is "evil". Especially since I don't believe in free will myself. But even so there is something going on in that situation that I don't think is a "natural" state, even though the universe is oblivious and does not really care one way or another. We where built by nature to be able to feel immense pain and suffering, and so there is something to be said that this horrible experience is in a sense an "evil" experience if that should be the label. I don't think that experience is "natural" considering the experiences we have the capacity to have. I mean if there is no such thing on any level as good or evil, then there is also no right and wrong. But because of how nature is made I would say if someone had the ability to create a new world it would be "wrong" to create a world where everyone suffered all the time, say by infinite torture vs creating a world where everyone feelt bliss and happiniess. I still believe there is something there that is more than the sum of its part, even though it is not material and has no substance, and we can only somehow describe it with a word that really don't do it justice. Also, even though morality changes in society there are still some things that will always be on the "evil" spectrum. And I would say that these thing are the things that involve immense suffering. These thing can never morally change or be "good", unless our whole being would change and we would become something totally different, no longer humans as we are now. The examples with involvement with young boys does not fall into this, because there is really nothing in that action that is necessary causing suffering. Of course it could in some cases, but it is not a necessity. Watching your family getting massacred and yourself getting tortured to death is something that is objectively suffering to us as we are built as organisms.

Hi @JevinR. I would say Enlightenment IS the primary (essential) life purpose of everyone. After enlightenment what remains is acceptance, gratitude, balance and compasion and a deep desire to be present and enjoy the beauty of everything that IS. This doesnt mean that you have to forget about everything else and live in a constant state of bliss. Actually doing this would mean you are in resistance and still have not accepted your humanity completly. You can be enlightened and live a normal life. You can still work, have friends, go to parties, play a sport, have a partner etc.. The difererence is that you know who you ARE in essence so you dont identify with your thought, your emotions, or your life situation although you accept and love all these things as part of who you are. You also recognize the inpermanence of form and learn to flow with what ever IS. You can dedicate your life to teach other people how to find theselves (reach enlightenment) but only if you feel like doing this. If, when and how it makes sense to you ..

7494 (after Meditation) I could end up on the streets, world war 3 might happen, I could die tomorrow but I AM HERE, I am here and NOTHING else matters now. I am HERE in the moment. It is just endless bliss, it is just gratitude for BEING, it is just words, pouring out of me, describing this beauty. The places pass INTO my head THROUGH my eyes and right there, inside of me they ARE, we make the world look good or bad but the world just IS. What success, what strategy, what goals-I am high as ****, I am everything, everywhere, everyone, omnipresent and nothing at the same time. This whole thing is so counterintuitive and so complex and so hard to articulate. All I want is this. This state all the time but I know I will fall again. I will forget. I will judge, I will think, I will lie, I will feel hate and anger and fear and dispare and I will have to move through them. I know that this journey is a lot harder than I thought. When I started with this journey I told my brother that my whole life I have been seeing things through a dusty window, now I opened the window and the bright, is brighter, the green is greender, the dark is darker... All the shades man, just so clear, right there, popping up into my face. Look at those trees... Upside down lungs or dendrites or veins, arteries, bloodvessels, look at this complexity, look! Look at the fibonaci spirals forming this stimulating flower, this mathematical precision. All given. Right there, in front of your eyes to see. Time and space bend... Albert was a poet. Words of passion. And light... Electricity in me in you, beneath my god damn fingers, inside this technological wonder I am tipping on... All this passion from my friends Nicola, Steve and Bill and dozens of others that were extraordinary and changed the world. How can´t you soak it all in? All there is to know about the possibilities of this world? How can´t you want to be a Tessla? How can´t you start researching on your own like a Goethe? How can´t you get inspired? How? How on earth can you be so blind? What madonna- whore effect, what halos? Let the teachers feel, let the students feel, let people feel something. Let me get turned on by reading about thermodynamics or listening to waterfalls, let me be weird. John Lenon was a wise man: LET IT BE. The only way to take the trash out of YOUR HEAD. Do you know what these prodigies had in common? I will tell you... They just were. They just did. They just LOVED. Oh man they just loved every single headache when they worked untill exhaustion. Do you know what real masochism is? Getting closer to death while doing what you love. I sound crazy? Crazy? An ADJECTIVE?! Do you really think I will stop because of an adjective? I am making myself vulnerable-absolutely vulnerable. I am giving away my thoughts, I am giving away my dreams, I am giving away my emotions, my weaknesses, my strenths, my name, my age and where I live. All one by one. For me the fear is over. I am in peace now and I am very human and I might regret doing this one day but I want to give truth, to ME. I won´t make any distinctions between ME and the others. I AM the others in a way. In January I met a man on a 7 hour Flixbus ride, he said: Let me tell you a secret Anna... Everything in life comes in circles. How right he is. "God bless" that man. I don´t have a microscop to look at the telemeres at the end of my chromosomes, I don´t know how long I will live. But when I feel this. This thing right now then I feel eternal. That´s all I wanted to add. -(* *)-

Tell me how you opened your mind to spirituality. I see how hard it is to hear the same old cliches and dismiss such beautiful ideas. Do you really want to have that experience? First throw out all your assumptions of what you think it will be like. The experience happens only when there is no mind and no self to relate to. The "key" is to transcend all that. I followed Leo's direction on becoming no-self. I thought of all the history of myself, from my earliest childhood memories, to being a teen ager, to becoming an adult. I took my complete life story and put it in one pile in front of me and looked at that and embraced it all. Than I said to myself. "none of that ever existed". I really wanted to feel what it would be like not to exist at all. And suddenly something clicked in me and I became absolute pure being and pure consciousness. It felt like something came to a point of perfect focus that was beyond "me". Conscionsceness was no longer localized at my body location, but extending outwards. There were no boundaries to consciousness. I had my eyes opened when this was happening at first. Than something suddenly happened that was totally amazing, I must have closed my eyes and I experienced a blissful state of pure being that was just floating in an ocean of pure, silent, bliss. It honestly felt like my true being entered into another dimension. After that experience I sat here and thought to myself "I never knew that existed in me before". I was totally blown away! So if at some point, your not doing anything in particular, and you want to experience this. Give yourself just 10 minutes, take that time to let go of yourself as if you truly don't exist. Could you do that? It was a scary thing to do, to totally let go of self like that. But that is the price of admission that must be paid. You must put all your faith in trusting something much greater than self exists. If you can do that and totally let go of every fragment of yourself, It will naturally happen to you too! The "key", the total surrender of the self. Pure being does not exist on the same frequency that mind does. You must become the frequency that matches pure being and shift into that. It is a tricky key to find because there is a price to be paid, but I promise you, it's there waiting for you. It is in all of us whether we realize it or not.