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Those religion accounts and reincarnation are just metaphors on the awakening states that leads to enlightenment, nothing more. <3

Religion and Reincarnation are the story tales of Enlightenment. Pictured in a comic or dramatic way. They describe the awakening processes and the harsh de-atrophy of the body/mind. Take religion or reincarnation as fact and die forever. Reading them between the lines and live. <3

Enlightenment and god is something you can verify yourself with meditation or psychedelics, and there are countless people who have experienced them, so I believe in that. But reincarnation, souls and going to hell after you die doesn't make sense to me. A soul is the sense of self or ego, which is an illusion, and its illogical to think that it can be transported to a different body after you die, you can't transport an illusion. The buddhist version of reincarnation makes sense as things are constantly changing and eg. you become the air that you breathe in and when you breathe out that breath becomes the atmosphere and it involves no soul or seperateness. If hell is being stuck identifying as the ego and not the universe as a whole, which creates suffering ( and the devil is the ego ). Then when the ego dies, ( when your body dies your ego has nothing to cling to so it has to die ) you become god, there is no worries, no pain and nothing matters ( suffering ends ) That's heaven/ nirvana. How can hell exist if it's caused by the ego. Also chakras. Chakras are spinning balls of energy. energy cannot spin that makes no sense. Can anyone explain these in further detail?

hi Lexonn~ Nice train of thought evident in your OP! There is no soul. There is absolutely nothing whatsoever that is referential in terms of the false personal psychological temporal identity of the karmic being that is going to die beyond the singularity of its incrementally created cycle which is utter illusion. It is possible to see through the illusion of self. Those whose inconceivable wonder results in experience of primal non-originated essence and who then further refine its potential in the course of everyday ordinary situations are those whose open sincere intent is a match for creation. Such people gather the real from within the midst of the false because they see that karmic energy and absolute essence are not different. Seeing is itself that which transcends creation. The light of creation and the light of non-origination is the same light. Just turn the light around. This is the nature of one's own mind right now. Your own mind right now is already the nature of enlightenment. What else is there to know other than there is nothing whatsoever to know by knowledge of non-origination. There is no doing. How does one see? It is necessary to turn the light around to awaken to reality. Ordinary people use awareness to create illusion instead of seeing Suchness as is. Reality doesn't look any different than illusion. What's different? Personal selfish perspectives that insist that there must be an ultimate and absolute nature to the self (such as a soul). There is no such thing— and that's a good thing! Karmic cycles are fueled by psychological momentum. This is the nature of conditioned thought. Non-origination has never entered the creative sphere whereby unified selfless knowledge dichotomizes and results in perpetual cycles of birth and death. Since people are essentially enlightened and innately selfless and non-originated, it is only necessary for them to awaken to their nature in order for them to assume their enlightening function. It's a matter of seeing reality as is. The absolute identity of the personality is illusion. This illusion exists by faith-based denial of the nature of selflessly aware enlightening potential. It is possible to see potential by virtue of everyday ordinary situations to the degree that one ceases viewing phenomena in terms of the personality. Views of self and other, right and wrong, good and bad, before and after are all relative to the personality. These are all binding one to karma in perpetuity. Seeing through phenomena without denying their characteristics is turning the light around. Directly experience the functionality of enlightening being in the midst of ordinary affairs. Sudden enlightenment is the result of such actualization of one's enlightening function whereby ego reverts to its rightful relationship with one's selfless nature. As for reincarnation, this is not only lifetime to lifetime— it is thought to thought. Since a lifetime is essentially thought, why not just work with reincarnation on the level of thought? Dry up the habitual streams of thought by simply observing habitual thoughts. Reincarnation is unnatural. Your own nature has never begun— that's non-origination. Habit energy is karmic. What's with that? You already experience that directly without being aware of it. What's with that? ed note: typo 3rd; 9th paragraph

A good memory triggers the release of “feel good chemicals” as if it happens in real life. If their is such a thing as reincarnation you don’t retain memories as they are physical and therefor is not a part of you.

Nostalgia has always been one of the most interesting emotions that I tend to experience every once in a while. Sometimes nostalgia occurs even when I think about the past that, funnily, I never got to experience. Such as when I'm listening to an old song or watching an old movie...sometimes the yearning get so bad I cry a little...which got me thinking; is the feeling of nostalgia an evidence for reincarnation? Is it a sign of overattachment to the ego? Why do we get nostalgic anyway?

I've been realli liking zen and buddhism books few years ago. I still do like this stuff. Although I always wondered how can people take the concept of reincarnation on blind faith? I mean this whole religion stands on the shoulders of concept that can not be experienced by MOST of the people. But they still follow it, just trusting someone. But if we go deeper instead of "how to make sure there's reincarnation" we face the question "is there any soul at all?" So the only way to get somewhere close to knowing for sure would be to experince the soul directly. How would one do that?

@Leo Gura Yeah but total enlightenment would mean leaving the cycle of suffering according to the buddhists right. You say you might suffer again in a next reincarnation, so you and the Buddha seem to have a disagreement here . What is this thing getting reincarnated if you have done away with all your karma and your ego anyway?

Sometimes an existential crisis can happen when people realize that 1) the ego/self is an illusion, and 2) there is no such thing as objective meaning/purpose. I've been mulling around a few ideas I wanted to throw out. Objective Meaning The idea that meaning or value can be objective is a misunderstanding of what objective means. The only “thing” that can attribute meaning, value and purpose is consciousness. Consciousness is pure subjectivity and has no relation to objectivity. The idea of objective meaning and value is logically incoherent. Value, meaning and purpose can only be determined subjectively. People seem to make the mistake that if value (and/or meaning/purpose) are not objective, then it isn’t valuable. Subjectivity is assumed to be inadequate to attribute “real” value and meaning. This is a false assumption. If it is true that the true Self is infinite consciousness, then what is the difference between subjective values determined by “you” and the idea of objective values determined by “god”? One could say that happiness is the highest value but I think that is too general to be of any use. After a lot of thinking over the past year, I have decided on what my three highest values are. They are love, beauty and being present. Those seem simple but if one builds meaning and purpose around those values, it is a never ending working in progress. Love Some people are predisposed to naturally feeling love and compassion. I am not one of those people. When I was young and Christian, I used to pray that god would give me a heart so I could feel love. In retrospect, it seems odd that I cared that I didn’t care. I have learned, and practice, loving kindness meditation and this has worked wonders. I have also noticed that when I am a more loving person, I am able to perceive beauty that I would have normally missed. I have also found that my trips on psychedelics are more beautiful when I do loving kindness meditation as opposed to other meditation techniques, which seems to confirm this correlation. If my daily goal is to embody love, that is going to change how I perceive other people and how I interact with them. The things I choose to say, or not say, are different. A side benefit of this is everyone thinks you are the most amazing person on the planet. Before the ego can be dissolved, it needs to be made healthy and strong. Someone that struggles with confidence, worries what people think about them, etc, etc is going to have a hard time actualizing. I believe that a focus on embodying love naturally fixes much of the problems that arise from a weak and needy ego. Everybody loves a loving person and a loving person loves themselves because they are easy to love. There is no need to go overboard with fake, contrived love. That comes across as weird and desperate. I just try to make sure love is a factor in how I treat and perceive others. Judging other is the antithesis of love. When I started trying to be mindful of how much I judge others, I was shocked to find that I do it constantly. This is something I work on daily. Beauty One of the things I learned from psychedelics is this universe if full of astounding beauty but sometimes we get so desensitized to it that reality appears to be dull, grey and mundane. Personally, I do not think someone can be happy if they are unable to perceive beauty. I believe that the ability to perceive beauty is affected by loving state of mind and being in the present moment. With myself, I have found I have to continue to cultivate love and being in the present moment to perceive beauty in the way I want to perceive it. Being in the present moment When I refer to the present moment, I don’t mean present moment-ish – I mean this exact present moment that is indivisible into smaller periods of time that can be experienced. Going for a walk around the block on a nice day can be simply refreshing or incredibly beautiful and profound depending on the degree of being present. I try to be as present in the moment as much as possible with everything I do. Much of the time, I get lost in the dream but try to remember to wake myself up as much as possible. Over time, I find that I am more present/mindful more often. If I am mindful, it is more natural to speak and see through the filters of love and beauty. Purpose I have a limited amount of time before I die to develop myself to the highest possible potential. That is my life purpose. I have always had a drive to do something huge with my life. If you havent decided to do something profound and huge with your life, maybe you should. There is more to life than just escaping a weak, needy ego. I look at myself as a blank canvas and I am the painter. I want to create myself into the most beautiful work of art possible by the time I lay on my death bed. Why? Because, subjectively I have decided that is the highest and best life purpose I can have. My purpose does not need to be utilitarian but from a utility standpoint, I suspect that reincarnation and karma are real things.

Is there hell or heaven in terms of how our consciousness would be affected after life dew to our karma or any other factors. You gotta do this one leo Also - On Reincarnation, Moksha ( a concept of liberation from reincarnation from Vedas ) and paranormal being that is spirits, ghost and even our soul. P.S. - You have been teaching meaning, tactics and strategy to achieve xyz things in this life, and now, I am trying to understand if there is a certain ideology that is to be followed as it can have impact after life.

I would give up thinking of reincarnation in conceptual terms because it is not something the body and mind can use. You've already reincarnated an infinite amount what recollection do you currently have of it? Probably none if you're being purely honest. You're already an alien on a planet in infinite space, if you're thinking about other aliens you've just grown bored of your current experience. There is nothing you can hold on to, absolutely nothing, everything you do in this body is temporary and nothing will be kept permanently, your true self is the nothingness or whatever else you want to call it. And the death of this body will not only mean you lose the body and experience but the entire reality, literally meaning any history till this date is lost in an infinite amount of possibilities, even people like the Jesus or Buddha are only relevant within this experience.

yeah reincarnation is a strange Idea if you think the ego is actually an illusion right. Because what is getting reincarnated? An illusion? I asked this to a Vipassana Teacher at a Guenka retreat once. He basically said that karma and memmories from old lives don't just go away. They find a new expression in a different life. And because you could make the argument that our ego's are pretty much just karma and memmories, reincarnation could sort of exist. I am very much agnostic about reincarnation. I have no Idea.

Watching one of Leo’s videos he says “sure this body will die, these perceptions will go away. What will happen then? That’s part of infinity, my death is part of infinity.” So consciousness shuts off, and you’ll no longer be able to experience this infinity.. Unless it’s like a reincarnation kind of thing? How is this still not sad as fuck and scary? You’re only able to see this infinity through some form of consciousness, right...?

Actually, there is some evidence that would indicate that reincarnation is real. I have read the studies by Ian Stevenson on reincarnation, the critiques of Stevenson's work and the critiques of the critiques. For this reason, I feel that a belief, or at least a suspicion, in reincarnation is reasonable. I think there can be some good that can come sometimes from taking spiritual direction from people on faith but I think caution and a healthy dose of skepticism should be exercised to avoid getting off-track. Even in the Kriya book that Leo recommends, the author claims that his spiritual development was hindered by following false teachers and beliefs.

The main difference is that you can just do the exercises yourself and see.I dunno siddhis though. I mean Buddhists believe in reincarnation, deity yoga and Tibetan Buddhism apparently let you become a literal deity by channeling it's characteristics and praying to it and stuff. By the way siddhis are a thing in buddhism as well. My personal take on it is to not waste too much time thinking about what is real and what isn't. I just do my practice and as long as I am progressing that is enough.

I think what we actually fear is not death of the physical body but more lives in a physical body, reincarnation. Failing a most difficult mission of freeing oneself from the prison of mind. Body out, failed level, reload, build player, go. At least that's what I fear.

zen devil is when you are enlightened to the extent that you have transcended your vital ego or your fears, psychological fear of death, doubts, sufferings, attachments to life, but still have a mental/spiritual ego which is a sense of superiority. It happens because after person have put so much effort for enlightenment and finally became enlightened he will feel like he is a spiritual hero. Because enlightenment doesn't yet mean end of mental/spritiual ego. By enlightenment I mean enlightenment that most people have attained which is birth in the soul when you no longer identified with body. There is also a higher stages of enlightenment when your ego disappears completely and you don't even consider your enlightenment as something special or differentiate between your state and other people's state. The main danger of zen devil is that you will become affected by dark forces if you feed your spiritual ego, and become Darth Vader, this is no good if you do it for too long because your spiritual ego might eventually EAT your soul and you can end up messing up with egoic use of different siddhis and eventually gone insane, or you simply will slow down your spiritual growth by feeling superior, and then you have to resolve your karma in the next reincarnation instead of growing your soul. Zen devilry is a phenomena of ZEN because Buddhism is nontheistic, and Buddhists rely on their own power only, but if you only rely on yourself you will eventually take enlightenment-reward as something that your SELF has achieved and mastered, these will fuel your spiritual ego. To transcend spiritual ego you need to rely and surrender to higher power or God as a higher authority, this will speed up dissolution of spiritual ego. But Buddhists and also modern Western ppl usually don't like to do that, thats why even first enlightenment might take decades if you only rely on yourself, then of course you will feel like a spiritual hero after spending decades in lotus posture.

@pluto What makes you believe or know reincarnation (with that mechanism) is true?

The discussion of self or non self goes back all the way to the buddha and has often been changed since then. I am in Thailand at the moment and here lived a famous buddhist monk Buddhadasa. He translated the original Pali texts again. He says that there is no self whats so ever. Nor soul. Only in the relative truth one has still a self for he is in a state of delusion. In the absolute truth there is no self (anatta) an no birth no death. He also says to hold on to higher self (ātman) leads to attachment. And nibbāna is more like a extinction zone freed from cause and effect without a self. What i learned from the monks there is that the wheel of dependent origination (basis of reincarnation samsara) is actually not meant in a way of the physical rebirth, but more like the ego that gets created in a second of a thought process in the 12 nidānas and that you can train your mind to bee so fast that you catch your own ignorance in the point of contact with the six senses and transform it into wisdom thru true insight of the very nature of things. Impermanence.

Have been searching the net and found some of the answers. the Mundaka Upanishad (3.1.9) explains that the living being is the soul, and that: “The soul is atomic in size and can be perceived by perfect intelligence. This atomic soul is situated within the heart, and spreads its influence all over the body of the embodied living entities. When the soul is purified from the contamination of the five kinds of material air, its spiritual influence is exhibited.” My Thoughts Beautiful, so the soul is as small as an atom, not like the energy in the human shape as shown in movies. It is situated within the heart and spread its influence all over the body, so this basically hints that it is more than blood that is going through the body, the heart is performing its function to regulate blood but underneath much more is happening, this make me curious as to what the soul is doing to channel its influence throughout the body like heart. It is further explained that we should know that which pervades the entire body by consciousness is indestructible. No one is able to destroy the imperishable soul. Only the material body of the eternal living entity is subject to destruction. . . For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, undying and eternal. He is not slain when the body dies or is killed. . . As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly, the soul accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones. My Thoughts So, the soul just is and is forever but then why does it go through different bodies? What is the reason for the journey of the soul from body to body? The Katha Upanishad relates that within the body, higher than the senses and the sense objects, exists the mind. More subtle than the mind is the intelligence, and higher and more subtle than the intellect is the self. That self is hidden in all beings and does not shine forth, but is seen by subtle seers through their sharp intellect. My Thoughts Layer of human being - Body - Senses - Mind - Intellect ( what is this ?) - True Self/ No Self From this we can understand that within the gross physical body, composed of various material elements, such as earth, air, water, etc., there is also the subtle body composed of the finer subtle elements of mind, intelligence and false ego. The psychic activities take place within the subtle body. It is also within the subtle body wherein exist the memories of past lives, however deep they may be. Yet, the living being has his spiritual form that is deeper than this subtlety, otherwise he could not have repeated births. A person actually sees his spiritual self as well as the presence of the Supreme Being when he perceives that both the gross and subtle bodies have nothing to do with the pure, spiritual self within. Therefore, it could be asked that since we are separate from the gross and subtle bodies, why do we so strongly identify with the material body? It is explained that though the material body is different from the soul, it is because of the ignorance due to material association that one falsely identifies oneself with the high and low bodily conditions. My Thoughts Alright, I do believe in reincarnation and past life, and now this text tells me that we can have access to the memories of your past lives. Yo Leo, have you accessed your past lives yet? So, to summarize, the soul is a particle of consciousness and bliss in its purified state of being. It is not material in any way. It is what departs from the body at the time of death and, in the subtle body, carries its mental impressions, desires and tendencies, along with the karmic results of its activities from one body to another. To understand and perceive this self, which is our genuine spiritual identity, is the real goal of life. Such a realization relieves one of further material existence. As it is explained, those who have purified their consciousness, becoming absorbed in spiritual knowledge and absolving any impurities in the mind, are liberated from karma that frees them from any future births. They are free from any more births in the material world and are delivered to the spiritual atmosphere. How to do this is the ultimate accomplishment of human existence. My Thoughts If soul is a particle of consciousness, then what other particles constitute consciousness? So the personality of the soul would be related to the mental impressions, desires and tendencies, and karma that it takes away after death of the body? According the author and blogger "Stephan Khapp" - to understand and perceive this self a.k.a enlightenment is the real goal of our life. - It will free yourself from the birth cycle. Is anyone familiar with the work of "stephan kapp", should I order and read his book on vedas understanding and enlightenment?

Thank you, The core reason for understanding this is to understand why we are born, if reincarnation happens again and again and for a reason, that we have to work towards in this life, then I will definitely want to work towards it. Edit: I need some guidance, some basic answers to my question and resource materials that I can go through.

What is a soul? How to best define it? Does a soul have a personality of its own? What I mean here is, just like people are different at the level of their mind dew to their learning and personality, are two people different at the level of their soul dew to certain traits? What is a spirit? The difference between soul, spirit and pure consciousness. Why are we born? Is reincarnation true? If so, why are we reincarnated again and again? Do moksha ( end of reincarnation ) a true? Thank You.

Actually, Leo has already covered the major pitfall of enlightenment in his Zen Devils video. Mahasamadhi is a non-issue. What will happen is you will hit mahasamadhi and then your karma will get exhausted during the integration period. Maybe, to riff off Shanmugam, if you're really old and feeble you are presented with a choice, otherwise you're probably not. (I assume Mahasamadhi is Unity Consciousness and not sahaja, since karma has already been exhausted by the time sahaja is reached.) That is what the people who have gone through it have told me (I haven't completed it myself yet.) I wasn't even presented with a choice upon reaching 1000, since I had no intention of dying. Edit: A thought has occurred to me as to why the choice of death may be presented. The integration period can involve going through added crap to exhaust your karma fully (although usually not THAT bad.) If, however, you're already old and feeble, in pain, whatever, it may exacerbate all of that. Maybe that's what it's about. Taking the no-reincarnation option upon death or staying alive and going through the integration period struggles. This is a theory based on my experience so far.

@Shanmugam I don’t care about authorities really, I’m not into believing them, I’m not identified with any religion. I’m not asking to believe in anything. I’m simply researching it and it is in progress, I’m not concluding anything. But you have to understand that There are rules to this dream, you see? Everything changes. we used to be monkeys, now we are clever monkeys, then we will be something else. There is evolution and it’s not only physical but also happens on the level of subtle bodies or souls. It’s easy to understand that once you dig deeper into understanding of karma and reincarnation cycle. This cycle exists for evolutionary purposes, not just to torture us like Buddha thought. That’s it, evolution has its logic and plan and Homo sapiense is not the highest stage of evolution. Its not about higher meaning and purpose per se, its about how reality is structured, how it progresses, how it changes. Christianity, Islam and Judaism only exists because of that, they give a guidance within this ‘dream’, they are not about enlightenment, enlightenment for them is just one step, if they are about enlightenment they would simply state that, like Buddha did he said I teach enlightenment, but they stated different things. It’s not just bunch of metaphors of enlightenment like many ppl like to think. And they seem to be contradictory but once you look on the spirituality and religions from integral point of view you can see that they actually complement each other. To understand what Aurobindo meant, one need to research it, it’s rather a complicated topic. Even the chosen ones will be deceived (c) Jesus. (chosen ones = enlightened ones)

@Joseph Maynor Just to give some important points 1) In Buddhism, after the death of a lama, Tibetan lamas follow some stars and travel a long distance to find out the reincarnation of that Lama. This is a custom. Once they find that reincarnated child, they usually take him with them as the child becomes a boy and teach him Buddhism. Those lamas could be the three magis from East who visited Jesus during his birth (as explained in Bible) 2) In a Buddhist monastery in India, a manuscript was discovered. It talks about Issa, a saint from Isreal who was taken by lamas and brought to India when he was 14 years old. This explains why there is nothing found in Bible about where Jesus was between the age 12 to 30.. Consider the above fact and also consider those gnostic gospels which talk about Jesus in a different way. Watch the full video, you will get more details..