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Analyzing isn't the word I would use, since it implies being stuck in your head. Diving into yourself through systematic meditation though, can lead to insight. The ancient gurus practiced neti neti, which means "not this, not that". They examined each aspect of themselves, the body, the senses, etc. and discarded each layer that was not the core of who they are. At the end, at the center, all that remained was Consciousness.

5MEO-DMT was the first substance I ever tried. It was meant to be jumping in the deep end for someone who had never drunk alcohol or even smoked a cigarette. I was interested in truth-seeking and had got in on Leos videos because of an interest in philosophy. Obviously, his Neti-Neti video put me face to face with a black void called infinite consciousness, that was quite a shock for a then atheist. The rest is the usual start down the personal development and spiritual journey of awakening inevitably coming across the idea of psychedelics and wanting to explore consciousness. I did my first 5MEO session at an ayahuasca retreat last May and while other people beside me also doing 5MEO were screaming, crying, moaning and wretching, I was lying there strangely contented. I had to take two inhales but it was enough to knock me catatonic so I lost sense of the body but still fully conscious. There was a bit of black and white patchy clouds morphing in and out and an intense buzzing energy. It left me a bit stumped because, except for the buzzing energy, I didn't experience anything different to my 'good' meditation or breathwork sessions. I couldn't make up my mind about it so decided I needed to experience another session as a reference. This was almost a year later and the dose was certainly higher. I didn't even get to finish the first inhaling or holding my breath and I was already gone. Again, everyone else screaming, crying, moaning, cathartic releases etc etc... Me... lying in a black void contently listening to space music with the intense buzz of energy present yet again. But both times I would have to honestly say that nothing really happened. It was the same with the ayahuasca and again with mushrooms. I don't really experience anything. one flash of visual but several hours of nothing really while everyone around me is going through a process or loosing their shit. What seems to happen is that everything I experience is formless, void, black and when I come out the other side I do my work during contemplation in the weeks after. it's a bit dissapointing to hear peoples fantastic DMT vision journeys being shot through the universe into the womb of creation itself and thinking my turn... for another buzzing black bath. I'd almost believe something is wrong with me or that I'm one of the rare people whos not affected by the substances. It's hard to find people to describe their 5meo experiences because they don't seem to be able to describe it or its so vastly different to what I'm experiencing, visually, consciously and emotionally.

It's been a really great year for personal growth. I have got a much more larger amount of control over my emotions and well being overall. My diet is amazingly clean at this point and tastes great. I have built my business up quite a bit to a much more stable and sustainable point. I have been a Toastmaster in two groups for a whole year! I read close to 40 books this year! I am still living at home, but I want to change that this year. I am going to be working on getting enough resources and income level to move myself to Arizona or another state I might choose. I have been doing really well with investing, but I am not going to bank on that to get me there. I want to build up my business to a high level where I can afford this transition more easily. I will see how things pan out with Covid and how my living environment changes. I really don't feel that happy living here it seems like. I feel like this is something that is limiting my growth a lot. This year I plan to really work on and refine my life purpose a lot more. I am cruising through books lately and just love it. I am going to read all of the life purpose course books, then a lot more! I am going to be taking this much more seriously than I did previously. I feel like my purpose revolves around teaching people, but I have a lot to learn myself and limiting beliefs to break past. I might try to transition into my life purpose this year, but we will see. I am going to be working on building out a lot more deliberate practice though and really honing my skills. My speaking skills have improved so much now. I am going to work on really embedding a lot of this stuff that I am reading into my life. I cannot really describe how much better I feel over all. I still need to work on a stronger and more refined work ethic, but it is getting there. I am starting to be a lot more strategic with my energy and time as opposed to how I use to be. I am working on cutting out more of the bullshit in my life. Surpassingly, I was able to break myself out of being too strict this year too. I allow a lot of time to heal and relax now where I could not before. My exploration with psychedelics has been extremely impactful. I was actually able to mostly forgive and move past a big wall of being upset with my father. I actually contacted him after not talking for 7 years. There has been a lot of trauma from being raised by him, but I seem to be moving out of a lot of that. I can see taking these has made a profound difference in my ability to forgive and heal. I am building a good balance here with a lot of manual practices. I am not tripping all that much. I plan to explore further and deeper as I go though. I have had a no-self experience this year that was during meditation. I also had an awakening to infinity while sober, but there is likely more degrees and insights to be had. I am making a bit of spiritual progress, but not a whole lot. I am going to be working on doing more of the neti neti method and a bit of other practices mixed with my mediation. I am not really putting this as a main focus, but something that I am becoming more and more intrigued in. I am getting there with it. I think right now I just want to put finances as the main focus with knowledge building. I am going to work on hitting $50,000 worth of stuff listed. This needs to come up more to the top of my things to do. My income is growing well and I can see it going up more and more if I can keep focused this year. I think that I can get to this goal easily if I can just keep my eye on the ball. If I were to build up to $70,000 or $80,000 listed a move would be very feasible I think. I am not putting in enough work right now. I have a really efficient system going though. I am really likely going to do some Youtube videos again this year, but not put it as the main focus. I feel like if creating this kind of stuff is my purpose I need to explore it more. I felt so good making content before and with just reselling I feel kind of depressed. It might be possible that I could place it as the main thing if it is where my heart is. I am going to do it for fun though and to practice honing my speaking skills more. It also would really help me to retain the information I read in my books. I also already basically make the content for it in my Toastmasters groups anyway. I am going to invest in a $200 green screen and get working on doing some of these. I actually am putting together a really bad ass PC for editing and stuff too. I put off dating or really considering dating for now. I feel like I have fully healed from my last relationship. A goal I would like to have is to join some yoga class that has hot women in it and get comfortable talking with them more. I can see myself getting into building more social skills in the future for doing cold approaches. I would mostly just be looking for long term partners though, when I am ready. Just another facet of life that I think I want to put more on hold at least for now. I can still practice here and there. This year I discovered and practiced the Sedona Method a lot. Probably one of the most profound techniques I discovered for the year. This has really changed my emotional well being completely! I also working through a massive chunk of having OCD. Not even funny how much this garbage use to run my life. I feel awesome to be able to break free from this so much. I am going to get myself completely free of it. One big thing I have developed this year was getting into Kryia Yoga. I am doing a couple techniques. I am going to go much deeper with this. This is an amazing habit to get into. It has enhanced my meditation a bunch. I also investing in a proper meditation setup. I might give some other types of a yoga try as well. I really want to put as much of myself into this year as I can. I don't want this year to pass without making significant progress. I am putting in the work and I will get closer to my goal of moving out and being independent. I've made it another year in my self actualization journey. What a ride it has been going from where I was. You can see the previous journal here:

Hey everyone, I just finished my first book on the topic of zen, enlightenment etc - Alan Watts - The way of Zen. And it's a great book, I'm fascinated how easy it was to read it. Anyway, after completing the book I don't feel like there is any point to do self-inqury anymore, I mean I've been meditating and self-inquiring for a while now (I've Meditating daily ~1.5 years and self-inqury 2 - 3 times a week for 5 - 7 months) I do understand that asking myself questions like "who am I" or "what am I" or the neti neti method is basically spinning around in circles, chasing my tail - asking myself who is myself, while being I while searching for the I, and basically fueling my own existance. Baisacally the conclusion after finishing the book is that reaching Dao cannot be the goal or a destination or something to achieve because if it becomes one of these, it's not Dao. And that makes perfect sense since a goal, destination or achievement is a thing and how can enlightenment be a thing? I basically don't see any point of asking questions anymore or even looking since what is there to look for? Who's looking? It's still my mind that's doing all that. Any tips on what to do? How to think? or Any idea of how to proceed on this spiritual journe y past this point would be helpfull.

One way of completing the neti neti method is to recognize what thoughts are, and then to see that thoughts are a part of the totality and not a cause of anything. One way of looking at it is if a thought is a cause, then what is the cause of that thought itself? And the neti neti method can be seen as what the actual causes are which are not this, not that, and only That, as in the totality. I found another of Leo's older videos, and this is about the nature of thoughts.

The neti neti method might be useful as a stepping stone towards nonduality, but notice that's it only goes half the way. Why? Because when we say "not that" about anything, that's a duality perspective. The nondual perspective includes everything. That of course means that it even includes the neti neti method but it's more than that. It's a totality perspective. So the neti neti method should only be used as a stepping stone or it becomes a duality trap.

Neti neti means not this, not that. I now have a different method that I will experiment with. Instead of saying not this not that, to say this and that. I am this, and I am that, I am everything I experience!

Something that I got reminded of is that all personal memories are from the personal stage! So it's the whole personal self that needs to be questioned, including when practicing the neti neti method. And I also want to remind myself of what Roger Castillo said in his recent satsang video. The thinking mind (the crystallized ego) is very attached to successes and failures. What needs to happen I theorize is that all personal successes and failures need to be recognized as a part of the perfect order of reality. So it's actually 100% success! And then from a transpersonal stage there can be a transcend and include of success and failures so that it's still valid but seen as a "game" layer on top of a foundation of peace.

Here is an older video by Leo where he explains the neti neti method. I find it useful for shifting my perspective from material identification and separations and to a nondual perspective.

@Gesundheit What Is sees these both as conceptual notions. Pointing attempts to arrest the mind, if not for just a glimpse of what IT IS, completely free of the mind's gravity. To be clear, you are approaching this identified with the mind's constructs. The words used to point are flying by. The more you think, the more you will fail, but that is OK... such futility is required, apparently. neti neti

Where's the line that separates something and nothing? When does something change to nothing? It never does because It's the same thing. No, not at all. You can not learn nor realize Infinite love with a finite mind. Of course Mahasamadhi is now, where else would it be? There is only here and now, and has been so for eternity, but "you", the one which happens to be in your body typing on a computer, could not interact within the illusion if you were not in a "physical" vessel in this gross realm. If you were in a mahasamadhi right now you would not be able to interact with anything or anyone, nor do anything, because you'd be in an absolute state of consciousness unable to stand or move. Agreed, yet we must somehow talk about these things, for the love of expression, the love of sharing. Yet in a lighthearted manner because you can't communicate serious awakenings. As soon as you take yourself seriously, or what you speak of seriously on a forum like this, you've already missed the point. Ken Wilber covers all these points in "The religion of tomorrow" much better than I can. The four inexpressibles cover it well, and The heart sutra: That which is emptiness is not other than form, and vise versa. And neti-neti, not this not that.

@Swarnim Yes, it is not my intention with this practice to be awake 24/7. I have seen the nothingness, and I do self inquiry and use the deconstruction of reality with neti-neti in combination. I have a lot of "associations" of objects that I consider a thing. On that I am working too, I am also doing that with every suffering that occures, using shinzen youngs mindfullness methods. Unfortunately I am not aware of all the associations I have. An awakening into the nothingness can help I believe, but I'll exercise mindfullness with what I have now. Unfortunately It is hard to deconstruct every association of "bad pain" that occures, because it doesn't happen really often, and I don't want to deliberately hurt myself. I'll just wait for the suffering to happen, and not cause myself for harm than necessary, because I am more interested in relieving suffering than in truth atm. I have seen the nothingness and had countless awakenings. I want to "stabilise" and fall deeper into enlightenment in the now.

So I wanted to share this Insight I had a while ago about the existential nature of the self / other and the sentient / inert duallity. Not long before this, I had a short Samadhi experience while doing some neti-neti and focusing on Actuallity meditation. I'm saying this because I applied the "Mu" insight while talking with a co-worker face to face. That day I had been pondering: what does it mean that something is alive? How is it possible for something to exist and be " dead, inert, not sentient " ? This notion felt so absurd. So I was chatting with, lets call him Paul, and as I was directly looking at his face, eyes, mouth moving, etc, I asked myself " how can I be sure of him being "alive", just like " I am " in my direct experience? What I saw was his mouth moving, making sounds, facial expressions, etc while I was PROJECTING on him the idea of " human being, alive, sentient, not inert and different from a rock " . This kind of freaked me out for a while. I felt as if he was a robot, as in ", just moving but no person inside ". I asked myself " what's the difference between him and a rock?? And I could't find a proof of him being more alive than a rock is, the only difference being that I was projecting that he is "alive" and that "he" displays more intelligence and movement. I imagined him being made of stone, but a kind of stone that is intelligent, could move, had a girlfriend, could comunicate, and looks and feels like flesh. WOW. IT'S THE SAME!! I thought " oh god, I'm fucked " . I knew I won't be able to shake this off. And that's how the dead / alive and inert / sentient conceptual duallity colapsed in my mind. Since then, I don't look at others the same way. Anyways, Paul is a cool guy. No idea what he was saying though LOL. TLDR : Others = Mu. Rocks = Mu. The only difference is that I project one is alive, human, sentient and rocks are not intelligent, not alive, etc. wtf. Is this what Leo means with "others" being imaginery? Edit : yes, nevertheless I'm still nice to people

@Nahm "The identification is a self nourishing thought-loop" is what an insight I got from reading faceless posts. I think I am going to raise thought awareness without interfering. As I mentioned, the identification will probably switch from the second thoughts to the next, or to the changing awareness thoughts. Yesterday I just laid in bed with a very calm mind doing nothing, not even meditating and it was calm. There is definitely something to it. "Now what should I do, how can I do contemplative work and neti neti and self inquiry if I just obsverve the seeker" is a thought and a mystery to me. It is a strange loop of deciding to do stuff, but who decides? hahaha. I'm just going with the flow now I guess. "Oh, I want to be in the mystery, how do I get there? What can I do?" hahahahahaha. "I wonder if the spiritual part of me will work without identification"... man that's also just a thought. I risk to identify as the referee of thoughts to decide what to do or what not to do hahahaha. Oh damn that is tricky. Just more thoughts always want to become identified with, in a very sneaky way, it's like the alan watts story of the police chasing thieves up a building. Everytime the police goes up one floor, the thieves go up one, and so they never catch up (until they arrive at the roof). That is happening with my thoughts right now. Maybe I'll inquiry every "level of thought", I don't know what the roof will look like or if it's an infinite loop. Really weird.

Neti Neti is the ancient Hindu meditation practice of stripping away the layers of your personality, until only Consciousness is left. It doesn't have to be meditative. You can practice this during your regular day, and notice forms arising that you identify with, but are not pure Consciousness. Irritated at your wife? What is the source of your irritation? Why do you respond the way you do? Notice the stimulus and the response. It feels automatic, but when you observe more closely, you realize that there is a space between her behavior and your irritation. Similar to the space between two frames in a feature film. The mind perceives the movie as continuous, but it really isn't. It may be a very small space, but it is there. That space is Consciousness. Simply recognizing the space is the first step to expanding it. The irritation is not who you are. You are not defined by it, nor are you at the mercy of it. You can observe it, and explore it, but you are not it. Neti Neti.

I have watched leo's videos on the Neti Neti technique and I want to make it a habit but I have a few questions is the Neti Neti technique supposed to be a contemplation exercise using words and saying things like "where is the perceiver?" or "this isn't me". this seems quite different from others forms of meditation where I want to quite my mind. Can I do this while doing basic tasks like waling and driving? is 20 minutes a day a good start? should this be more of a repetition thing asking the same body parts and ego parts if they are me or should it try and explore. Is brute repetition key or is it more just sitting and contemplating whatever comes to mind first? when I first watched his videos on the self, and asking where "I" am at that time I felt confident that I knew where "I" was and that was the head, but then later this conceptual idea loosened a bit and now my conceptual idea is that I am nothing, However I still feel like this could be hiding something. My intellectual idea of my ego is hiding behind my own vale of spiritualty and most likely is still about the same but is just pretending that I am nothing. How should I proceed? Any other tips on how to make this a habit and do it regularly? Thank you

Best episode of the series!! ? I really loved the part where Philosophy of Language and Linguistics was talked about. Now I have also started to question this label or to say limit--'Infinity' as well, anything that is coming out of the limits of language is just confined and limited within it's own limit, the nature of reality is perhaps unfathomable and a MYSTERY (and it's really hard for some to settle with this word cos it doesn't base/ground you somewhere, you don't get satisfaction it doesn't gratify the Self-Identity), and if somehow you are grasping it, or can fathom it, that shouldn't be mistaken for Reality itself. Reality as such, is a Mystery, which is the best thing that could possibly be about Reality, it's where the fun lies, there's no fun in labelling or giving reality meaning just for self gratification. Neti Neti!

Yesterday I had a Heaven awakening for a few hours, everything was perfect, a love and peace I couldn't escape from. This isnt my first awakening, but definately the best so far. I didn't even meditate but I know it is a result from the neti neti practice from a book where I had a no self experience. I cannot even put into words how the experience was, while driving 2 hours I had multiple ego deaths merging with objects etc. It was so full of love that my ego couldn't even make me feel bad. Now I realised that "my reality" can have 2 perspectives. The depressed nihilistic perspective to avoid suffering and surviving or realising I'm in heaven. Now this is a 180 degree change in perspective of the world, so I have to adjust to it. Guess what my ego is telling me. "No this is dangerous, you can get trapped into heaven, what if it changes, this is too good you need to ground yourself the world is full of dangers, are you sure this isn't a mental health issue, what if you are bipolar and today is heaven - tomorrow is hell? What about your family? Are you okay with you feeling like you're in heaven while your parents suffer, is this fair? Don't forget that this isn't permanent. Oh no this isn't permanent, now make sure this doesn't go away, okay just check to see if you are still able to tap into ego death... Okay it works... But dont do this too much, who knows maybe you'll fall so deep into it that suddenly you have a panic attack and end up in the dark night. Why are you smoking so much nicotine today, are you sure you weren't drugged? What if this is something neurological and you are about to have a seizure? WHILE DRIVING!!!! Yesterday I realised there was nothing the ego could do, but it simultaneously wants to keep that state of being and wants to control. Now I strongly believe I have to shower the ego with love until it understands without it having to fight with itself. I just use equanimity practice and adyashantis true meditation methods. Do you guys have any post satori practice I can do to "keep the balance" or any advice? Buddhism says that the next step is to keep the state of no self 24/7, but I don't know if I am comfortable with doing this...

The ancient Eastern sages practiced spiritual science. The literal meaning of brahmavidya is "supreme science". It is the discipline of focusing intently and systematically on the contents of consciousness, and discarding everything impermanent as ultimately unreal. Their principle was neti, neti atma: "this is not the self; that is not the self." They peeled away identity, layer by layer, and found at the core the one irreducible reality: Consciousness itself. This meets scientific standards, with one crucial exception. It cannot be externally observed and replicated. It can only be directly experienced.

Rupert Spira said “Be aware of simply being. Ask yourself, what is it that is aware of my being? What is it that knows that I am? Your own Being is know by itself. It is not an experience at all it is recognition alone “ am I being? Is that what I am? Or should I neti neti that?

It was about 3 days ago that something strange had happened in my consciousness. I was in class, bored, thinking about something that I occasionally questioned as a result of 5 months of meditation (which I had done about 4 months ago and left) which gave me some insights but these insights were not so concrete in my mind, they were just thoughts that came from time to time to my mind. Anyway, the thought of "what if everything is happening in the mind, what could that mean to me?" came. This was an "insight" (you could say) that came to me after doing the exercise on Leo's video on neti neti method. At that point of time, it did have an effect on me but this effect didn't last for too long, it didn't have that concreteness to it that was enough to convince me. Anyway, after the thought that I was talking about came, I decided to think on it a bit because I was quite bored. Not so long after I started thinking, suddenly something struck me. I don't how I could put it in to words. Words are just not enough to explain this to someone clearly. What I realized was this (shortly): Everything is happening in the mind or you could say, in a field of consciousness. Everything is just a projection that I'm creating. (But what is that I? I haven't answered that yet.) The other doesn't exist. Another way to say it is that, because other is a result of my creation, it's illusory by nature. If everything is illusory then I'm eternally alone and one... forever. Lastly, if all of these are true then I'm not even alive, I'm already dead. I'm just tricking and distracting myself not to realize that. All of these were the things that I realized and this time, it felt quite concrete. I felt like I was losing my mind. My heart started to pump faster, I started to breathe faster. My body started to shiver. My head started to feel lighter. For a moment I thought I was dying. Everything around me that I considered material, started feeling fluidly. I couldn't reach out to someone because they were in the end just a projection, they were not real. And all of this... scared the shit out of me. I was literally pressing the undo button in my mind at speeds that are not human, and trying to distract myself from the experience. I wanted to return back to my old conscioussness so bad but I knew that it wasn't possible anymore. I didn't expect this to be this serious. I started to blame Leo and myself at first (I blamed myself multiplied by two you could say :D) but in the end, I knew that this wasn't gonna change anything and that I was wrong about my blaming. After all of this had happened, I went to the bathroom and hoped that washing my face would change all of this. Surprise, surprise, It didn't change anything. I was still losing my sense of reality, uh-oh. Anyway, my storytelling started to pall on. I explained all of this to you to be sure if there are any flaws in my understading of the situation. So ultimately, my question is, is what I had experienced was an actual awakening or somehow I managed to delude myself so badly that the delusion shifted my paradigm? According to the things that I learned from that experience, I can't trust the correctness of your answers but neither my answers. I'm still quite new to this work and didn't expect such a thing to happen. It wasn't like what I had imagined it to be. I don't know what I'm going to do with this knowledge and how it's going to shape my life. Should I stop all of my consciousness work and move on (even if I won't be able to forget this experience) or should I continue on and see what is there to be discovered in my mind. I know that these questions don't have a literal answer and in the end it all depends on me but I feel like at this point, I need some guidance to get my thoughts straight. Sorry that this reading took a bit long. And also sorry for any grammatical mistakes in my writing, I'm a foreigner. I will be waiting for your answers. Thank you.

Hi all! a few days ago I posted about the 'self-inquyri' .. then I met 'neti neti' and it was a better experience, which I usually use both ... Two days ago, I went to bed, I started with neti neti and within minutes, intuitively I knew that I had to let myself go, that something was coming, then I started with the typical spasms that I have had for months, especially in my legs and suddenly without my will , I experienced that my stomach inflated and contracted violently, as if passing waves of water, with a perfect synchronicity in which 'I' could not get involved, then something happened that I will never forget again, I felt an orgasm from the tip from the feet to my head, continuous orgasm, I began to laugh without wanting to, laughter and happiness begin to increase more and more. This lasted approximately 3 minutes, finished, I felt a spiral-shaped current that took the shape of my inner body, slowly it spread, surprised by the experience, I remained smiling for several more minutes .. I also remember that the same intuition that I felt of letting myself go, I also felt a clear message, that I should not look for or wish this again .. Now, I'm not looking to repeat it, the experience was so beautiful that just remembering it puts me in a good mood and I have no intention of forcing it to repeat it, but inevitably my mind wants to know what happened. I would be grateful if someone experienced something similar. I was able to read on some sites about samadhi, but this requires concentration, an object and a lot of time ... quite the opposite of what happened to me. So I would discard any relationship with samadhi. Thank you !!!

Nice work! To answer your question, one of my first major mind-jarring experiences occurred from a strong dose of edibles in 2016. Something like neti-neti happened at the peak of the experience and somehow blasted me into an inner space that felt like a singularity in consciousness. This was accompanied by a flash of some kind of visual appearance vaguely similar to the new actualized logo. All while I was rolling around on the floor Context: In the years prior to this experience I had experimented with a psychedelic once, and had experimented with various meditation techniques (SDS, neti neti, mindfulness with labelling). Maybe these things can potentiate it significantly. Never heard about such strong experiences from smoked though.

When you get freaky with the girl next door but are also deep into your neti-neti practice

I have misinterpreted the spiritual neti neti method which says "not this not that". I have been thinking that I am Mind and that my body is in consciousness so that I am my body plus everything else I'm experiencing. So I thought that neti neti was only half of the truth, but my mistake was to think in terms of concepts. Even what we call experience is a concept! And therefore we aren't even experiences. From a meta perspective one can say that concepts are included in what we are, but that meta perspective is itself conceptual unless it becomes trans-conceptual. Really tricky. Leo explains the neti neti method in this video: