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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.

As for you questions: 1 do enlightenment not experience a wide range of emotions? Like adventures, or you feel hyped up in a concert. Big Yes ! .. enlightenment brings you closer to your feelings and emotions. All of them.. We are not here to remain in a perpetual state of bliss.. if this were the case we would of stayed were we where before we came to life. We are Human ! We are meant to experience all human emotions ! Friendship, Falling in Love, Sex, Laughter, Joy, Sadness, good and bad moods etc.. You are going through the process.. as @Leo Gura said. The goal of this fase is to drop resisitance and find balance and acceptance.. in this case trying to remain in a certain state of mind all the time.. The key is to be mindful of your own state of mind knowing and accepting that it is subject to change. That's how you let go of resistance and find peace. 2 do enlightenment people not experience the fullfilment from contibution? Since they are not identified with the material they make. When I make something on guitar, I do not feel that enthousiasm, it is just empty expression. Another Big Yes ! .. Knowing who you are doesnt mean you have to live in a cave ! Nothing in your life has to change. You dont have to quit your job, move to india, change your eating habits, or the way you speak .. etc And yes contributing to society is still a very important part of your life. And you can definetly still enjoy it.

7489 Just finished today´s meditation. Used the "do nothing" technique this time. Time passed by quickly. Could have continued for longer. This whole body-mind thing is really interesting... There was this tingle sensation but this "inside tingle". It asked Itself what that even is. Turns out this was in straight relation with the stress that comes with the urge to stick with today´s plan. Now, this tingle once It became more aware of it went straight up to the nose, like that the immune system was having this response to these... Thoughts? Well more like subconscious expectations of Itself. Sneezed twice or so and then It was maybe not in bliss but at least somewhat relaxed and centered... Interestingly when It sits down to meditate all kinds of discomforting thoughts don´t come up that much and when they do they don´t cause so much resistance, it is as if they don´t even belong to Itself-kinda surreal. Yesterday was good. Stayed around 7 hours at uni, small breaks... The first hours passed quickly then concentration levels started dropping. It is proud anyways. But one day does not make a habit... So let´s not become too euphoric here. Quite amazing how much time one could spend studying and practicing the material of Leo´s videos. There is so much potential and juicy, useful, qualitative information in there. Reading questions and answers in the forum contributes only a tiny bit in comparison to listening to these. The longer It thinks about this the more It realizes that only because of trying a little here and there to act upon these concepts nothing too great will happen. This is hard work actually if done correctly. Now if a human wants then whatever would normally be just pain is not perceived as such because it is passion. It has one of Its really thoughty phases again. Got almost hit by a car yesterday. Not because It did not see it but because It just continued walking after a glimpse. Guess that is far from "in the moment" but better than an all cloudy mind. At least it is able to concentrate at SOME-thing. As for the clarification of what It wants to create... Still unspecific. Might work on that later again. That´s it. "See" you tomorrow. -(° °)-

I'm not sure what to believe about reincarnation. Who really knows. One the one hand, maybe consciousness returns to it's original source and just recycles back as pure consciousness into some other life form. There is a lot out there to this universe for consciousness to occupy. Or maybe consciousness is just a product of existence and when the body dies, consciousness is finished also and it all ends there. But on the other hand, maybe there is an essence or spirit self or soul, or divine self that returns to the manifest realm to do more work. Some believe that enlightened teachers are very old souls that have reincarnated many times before. When we pass on could that divine self enter into a higher realm, and from there decide to either move into infinite bliss and vanish, or return to existence to do more work? Why do I have a feeling if that is the case, my divinity would choose to return to this raw existence instead of moving into the infinite bliss of nothingness? I'm experiencing something very deeply at this very moment, something that I know extends much farther than this existence, divinity. Tears are suddenly pouring from my eyes for all of humanity. I love you all

Yes, I see this when meditating. Interestingly I often wonder whether other animals spend more time living with that 'peace of mind' that we find very hard to cultivate. They don't live 'in their own heads' like we do. They're living outwardly. You could call it ignorant bliss. But that's the point really - what is ignorance other than the absence of awareness of knowledge. They can't sit around worrying about life, questioning it. Unless they are in iminent danger or facing some other threat they are at peace. We spend too much time analysing and questioning our lives and our world. We're forever in our heads thinking, worrying, wondering, challenging life. We don't spend enough time living outwardly and just 'being'. The more knowledge, models and beliefs we have the more time we spend rearranging, modifying and reviewing it. We can't just sit down and 'be', without some useless thought-story taking over our focus and consciousness. We need thoughts, to a point. We have a remarkable piece of biological engineering in our skulls. But we need to refine the amount of data that we shove in there. Put it to better use and reduce the amount of wasted mental resource taken up by neuroses and other meanlingless pursuits. I don't know yet where the balance is. But there must be some truth to this. I can't speak for anyone else but when I meditate I can't maintian focus for more than 10 or 20 seconds at a time. When you become mindful of your thoughts throughout your day, you become aware of how short-lived your moments of concentration and focus are. How short the periods of true mindfulness are. Something seems off that we spend more time distracted by thoughts than actually focussed on the present moment. Perhaps this is how our brains are wired from evolution. Perhaps it's the conditioning and BS we fill them with througout our lives. To me it seems our species is becomming more trapped by it's own mind as time goes on and less in touch with reality. There must be a way to shrink the knowledge base and reverse this effect. Interesting topic.

Freedom and discipline are opposites and they are also complementary. The purpose of defense is to protect freedom. But is there freedom in defense? Do soldiers have freedom? No, they are bound, not allowed to put the right foot down when told the left foot. Their steps are measured; they are unable even to walk with a natural rhythm. There is no freedom in defense, yet this is what protects the freedom of the country! Freedom without discipline is like a country without a defense. Discipline protects freedom. They both go hand in hand. Understand this and move ahead in life. You have certain restrictions that allow you your freedom. You can focus either on freedom or discipline, and be happy or unhappy. Fences have a definite place and purpose. If you build a fence all over the entire property, then where will you put your home? Yet a well placed fence protects the property. Love puts you on track. Fear also puts you back on track, as is the case with religions that have put fear as the main motivating force. Nature itself induces fear in a child at a certain age. A child has no fear when very young; he gets 100% love and attention from the mother. But as he grows more independent, nature brings in an iota of fear; he learns to become cautious. With increasing freedom, the child learns to walk more carefully. There is a state of absolute freedom, unlimited bliss, the freedom Advaita* talks about. But the Advaita Knowledge has been totally misused according to people’s fancies and conveniences. We need to be very practical. There must be freedom in the mind, love in the heart, and discipline in action. Fear of losing freedom brings discipline and defense. And the purpose of defense is to eliminate fear. *On this Path, Knowledge is your freedom - and also your defense

Yes. When the mind moves back to the Lila-point, it`s increasing. The more it`s increasing, the more it`s empty. Till it vanishes totally. This is what the jnani-yogi does and he will enter the dark night of the soul. From that point transcendence has to happen, but that`s bliss.

I always have been confused since I was introduced to enlightenment. Why should I work on anything as soon as I am enlightened? Why should I try to self-actualize when I am a state of perfect bliss all the time? When you are enlightened you are totally happy and content all the time. Isn't his everything a human being need? One the other hand you can work hard to self-actualize. And at the end of the process you are totally happy too. So isn't enlightenment and self-actualization the same? Or would someone become self-actualized by getting enlightened, and the other way around?

For me it was like going through 5 stages of loss and grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Once you start this journey, you can't really regress. Just keep going and feeling all the emotions that arise - they are all part of the process. The seeking will suddenly vanish, suddenly be there no more. There will be no more pain, no more suffering... just the peace and the bliss of what is.

Does all this "Namaste, bliss, absolute love, Sri, Baba, jijijijijijiji, beloved master, flowers, blankets", etc. thing not delude people too much? I've watched a lot of his videos and I often saw how people are just trying to parody each other and play as actors before him, just to show how fucking badass blissful and spiritual they are. While the only thing he says is "Do self inquiry, people".

That's interesting! The reason I asked about the void was, Once when I was meditating I experienced pure being. There was just a silent essence of myself. Just floating in infinite silence. Very peacefully. Blissfully. I had a whisper of a thought to totally let go and merge into that blissful silence. Than I disappeared into nothingness. I became non-existent. I only realized that after I returned to that state of pure being and silent bliss. After that experience happened I thought to myself, becoming the void is nothing to be afraid of because you don't exist when it happens. When I referred to other perceptions, I was eluding to perceiving higher realms. I wonder if those higher realms surround us always and we are actually occupying then now. And during sleep we sometimes directly access them. Also when we pass on we go back into the higher realm. From there we chose (as pure being) to come back again to the manifest realm (reincarnation) to work on ourselves and to help others in their journey. It's all or none, so to speak. Have we all decided to be here by choice? Do we all know in our hearts what we truly are, even though we may not be obvious from this point of view (the manifest realm). But everyone here is trying to remember what we truly are. Something bigger is driving all of us on this search. Who knows? Whatever it is it's way beyond the thinking mind.

Hello Friends This is my first time!! expercience with strong determination sitting (sds) English is not my native language, but i read a lot in english and i learn now words/vocabulary every day. Feel free to correct me if you see a mistake! I meditate every day (very few exeptions to be honest) since 8 weeks. Started with mainly breating and mindfulness-meditation lately nothingness-meditation. I already see positive effects. Beeing more calm/balanced, more productive (i did a LOT! of stuff in the last 2 weeks only, seemingly without effort and without forcing myself, i just did it!), less self-hating ^^(yes i told myself sometimes how bad my life is/ or how good it WAS before i srewed up etc...) less complaining and more pro-active behavoir, and i feel im on the right path! Work to do! I just did 80 Minutes of SDS. It was totaly different from what i expected, it started of quite underwhealming for me just to bring me to places where i wasnt able to get to in the last 8 weeks with my other medi-techniques! Now that i did it i can say im glad i did and i will continue with sds every day throughout march. I feel like maybe 10% of this firsttime i can NOT recreate, but 90% of what i expericed can be accuratly be recalled. here and there might be a small chronologic jump. Some of this protocoll is "direct speech" or "flow of consciousness-speech" and some of it i edited into correct sentences.^^ 1. THE START I was sitting on my chair, silent humming of my refridgerator in the other room, i put on a sweater so getting cold wont be a topic/additional distraction, since i expect the partice of sds to be hard from what i read about it. straight back sitting on my chair i close my eyes... after 10sec already ^^ omg! how long am i in this? 10sec maybe? shit! a THOUGHT!!... wait it is ok im alowed to think in this one. but i didnt think a lot i didnt try to think something actively most of the time but it felt comfortable knowing that if i do, it is not a problem. god! this is borring! and also way to easy i just sit here ..so what? how long now? 5minuntes maybe? ...im made for this. this is waaaay too easy slight pain in the back ..maybe a 2 on a scale from 0 to 10. i can ignore it. Thought occurs: probably becasue im a sportive guy i released all my body energy already by doing gym-work and badminton yesterday so my body feels realy calm, maybe those ppl who struggle with "sds" are all overweight americans ^^ (sorry guys!^^) they think it is so hard but actually im way better than them... (ofc you are) how long now? 10minutes maybe? this is so easy what´s the point? should i even go on? couldnt i use my time better? couldnt i use the 80minutes for breathing meditation or nothingness meditation (which i did the last week every day and felt positive about it since i did it even thou i found it extremly hard to do the first times) wouldnt that be a better use of time , maybe im not made for this? WOuldnt it be better to stop now and do something else something "harder" .... pain in the back goes up to 3 ..still i ignore it. OR!! now a different thought occured... since i find it so easy...can i do this even longer than 80minutes ? i could do 5 hours...i can just ignor my timer when it goes of and do it longer they will be so impressed on the forum if i tell them^^ wait isn´t it a realy bad reason to want to impress people? i realized that impressing is kinda important to me and it is no coincidence that i want to do it here in this practice too and this might be my first small realization. I was not thinking: I SHOULD NOT impress or swearing i will never try to impress someone again from now ..but just realizing / narrating to myself objectively that i DO have the tendency to wanting to impress ppl in the last months/years and i felt intuitivly that is not realy something im proud of ^^ and i should keep an eye on that! ..nothing more and norhing less for the moment then my handy rang ..shit! (the first call). who could it be? someone at work, they sometimes call me when they need something i must help them out with, or maybe i forgot something important...nah! maybe my friend is calling asking me if we go bouldering today? but i cant since i hurt my ankle at badminton yesterday... maybe my father is calling? maybe i did something wrong maybe my aunt asking me if i can go buy food for my grandmother? it stopped ringing. it is not imporant right now...i have my free day, i dont have to take calls. i wont die! if i dont take the call.. it is fine! ok back to: this is easy im made for this, then i felt bad : pain in the back increased to 4-5, still no problemo but it is annyoing. leo said it will be worth to do "sds" maybe he doesnt know that im different, that it is too easy for me. if he could see how easy i sit here for like 15minutes now he would recommend me to do "breathing meditation" instead or someting else. ------------- 2. BREAKING UP then my state kinda changed and i cant quite remember / reconstruct how it exactly came to be. i didnt feel a hard change while i was doing it, but recalling it is a bit foggy for me. i know it had something to do with this: for some reason i cant quite remember the cause (althou it is probably secondary) i felt guilty , maybe because i mooved a bit while i shouldnt? and i went like: you piece of shit! you mooved! you failed..you fucking idiot! and i sometimes talk to myself in that way always implying that i dont realy mean it, it is more to motivate me ^^ now i realized that it is not realy helpful if i insult myself for doing something wrong?! also somehow that everytime i realize something, learn something about myself, i feel like there is the old me (not knowing the new thing) and the new me (knowing the new thing) and then the 2 are getting into a kind of micro-fight with each other, who´s the better "I" ...i realized this is fucking tragic! WTF am i doing? i realzied and remembered that i do this on a daily basis never beeing able to see what happens...that 2 mini-egos fight each other over who is the boss! first i felt mooved by this realization ...it wasnt realy crying. just feeling realy mooved by realizing how i get into arguments with myself, beeing able to see how sad this is! 2 tears went from my eyes, 1 right and 1 left. It didnt feel like crying, just like water is coming out of my eye. both waterdrops went down my face to my mouth and the right one was bigger i guess and went further to my chin. i felt something changed, i knew this place where i am now. i realzied that i have so many unrealsitic ideas about getting enlightend or the way i can change throu meditation, i can become this new "super human" kind of guy almost godlike ^^ in a way , my goals are actually ridicoulous i realized now, it will make "click" and im perfect i will understand everything and be happy for all the time ^^ i know and i knew of course: that cant be achieved it is just a child fantasy but at the same time a part of me still wants that or wanted that, i also cant exclude that the wish wont appear ever again , it probably will but next time it comes i can see it from another persepective. because now that i have seen what it ACTUALLY means to learn something about myself, to starting to know myself better, i realized what i can actually get from meditation and how it is so much more worth to me than beeing perfect and happy all the time or even like beeing a super-alfa-male 24/7 ^^ i thought about how tragic humans are, how most of them try their best to be happy (like me) but they only cause pain in themself and others cause they dont know what they do and what they are. the difference between the human intention to do good and actualy doing harm without knowing made me cry. it was too much at that point. it seemed so sad, so heartbreakingly tragic that all those peolpe realy honestly want to be happy but they all fail cause they dont understand shit ^^ 2 more tears go down my face... (now comes a part which does not! represent any political standpoint on the question of how to treat criminals, but it is rather an experience in empathy and seemingly understand the suffering of a psychopath/murderer) the topic about why people do bad things without knowing it took me to the question about criminals. why do some people kill others. why do some people become insane killers. are those people realy evil, or are they just completly diconnected from their own inner life from their emotions. what is wrong with them? of course i want them to be locked away and in prison but also i thought maybe they are helpless. what kind of pain must have been inflicted on them in order to create such personalites that can´t feel for others anymore that are completly numb. i saw those killers as childern and feeling sorry for them getting beaten in fact i thought: how dare i - how ignorant of their suffering do i have to be to judge those people i have no idea what they went throu!! start crying again this time with opened mouth , couldnt keep it closed , felt like caughing in an emotional way realized i should return to my pratice to not moove now but it is fine i mooved affectivly couldnt stop it now return to pratice... i thoght this year had already had 8 weeks and in this last 10minutes i had more meaningfull personal realizations about myself and the world than in the last 8 weeks. even thou i did my routin, 1 hour meditation , breating medi, body scan sometimes, nothingness medi the last week which realy felt like stepping it up for me, but i usualy had only positiv feelings, i smiled i had moments of joy even bliss in the meditation, i even had moment where i went: oooh! THAT`S WHO i am , or Ohhh! right im not that (rather abstractions/ feelings almost autosuggestive realizations) also i faced fear (in one of my first meditations in january i had the sense that someone stands behind me and wants to murder me ^^ i sat though that and made me face it ..it never came back or only in a softer form and then it went away) i never had concrete realizations about myself, what EXACTLY almost scientificaly it is that i am, what i do, how i behave. this time i had that and it made me cry i felt that having an epiphany that makes you cry because your realze how wrong and almost tragic your behaviour is worth more than smiling or feeling bliss... then again i realized that there is probably a time for each of them i wouldnt want only crying all the time ^^ but for now im realy glad i could get those insights! ------------------ 3. CALMING DOWN / JOY i hoped i can recall everything or maybe the most important things for people to read beacuase i also enjoy reading such protocols by others to kinda see what they saw. also i realized that by beeing prepared to narrate my experience it made the experience more clear for me. it reminded me of this psycho-therapy technique of just narrating what happend without judging, just objective desciption of events. i feel i was able to do this for the most part in the last 15minutes of this sds. i wished for it to end now and i felt like i realy enjoy it. i thoguht ok it was enough now. i have to write it down and let it breathe take a break now. OR! maybe i could go even deeper now...but there is still time the next weeks i will do this daily. so no hurry! i felt realy relaxed now, my back pain had completely gone and instead i felt warm and unified like ... you may laugh now: i felt like a banana it must sound horrible but it was realy funny and i had to laugh myself when i tried to explain to myself how i feel now and i came up with the banana comparison ^^ my body feeling was good i felt like one huge slightly rounded thing beeing whole. i felt like i expanded. i could still feel my body borders as a silouette but i was also in the whole room filling it up, it was realy nice! i felt refreshed and i enjoyed it. ----------------------- 4. LAST MINUTES / WORK TO DO... one time at the end maybe 5-10 minutes before the alarm went of i licked my lips and i thought ..awww np i wont tell them! wait what? im going to lie about stupid shit like that just to make me look better ^^ LOL i had to chuckle this is ridicoulous ..did i actualy just thought about lying , trying to make me look better even i realized earlyier in the sds that i shouldnt do that. that i should try to impress people. here i also had to smiled and realize it will take MORE! than only realizing things to stop bad habits in myself, bad habits have a momentum they are automatic almost and i have to be aware of them and stop them everytime they will occur in the next weeks/month. then i went nah ok...ofc i will tell becasue if i lie that makes me feel bad.. then i realized not lying just because you feel bad is also not a realy good reason isnt it? but i couldnt think of a better reason right now and i felt no urge to do so since im mainly supposed to sit still in this technique. then the second call came... i thought np. i wont answer it is fine... it stoped 1minute later the alarm went of. i did it! 80 something minutes... i waited the alarm to stop /wanted to do bonus time for some reason and then when it stopped i breathed sometimes in and out streched my back, and then started to open my eyes...eyelashes beeing glued together by dried tears ^^ i felt fine. i want to write down everything...here i am!

I sometimes awaken at night and there is a conversation about enlightenment that was happening while I was asleep. I wake to just the tail end of the conversation and only get the last few words of it. I lay there and think to myself, "I wish I could of heard the whole conversation"! Also "who was I having the conversation with?" Last night I woke to a voice saying "that's because there is bliss on the inside, and junk on the outside". Weird ! But it happens often. Other times I know there was a conversation going on, but I have no idea what was said. Not consciously anyway. Does anybody else experience any thing like that? Maybe that's common?

it still is an experience within the experiencing of bliss....