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You do spirituality to increase insight. Insight is a bridge between dualities. The deeper and more intrinsic a duality is, the more progress can be made from it. Leo is right. The ego does not get the power of God. By the time you can create whatever you want, you’ll realize the nature of experience and see that preferring anything over what you already have in front of you is pointless. If you are attached to manifesting one million dollars, you still would have to be under the illusion that there is a self who could benefit from one million dollars and believe that that money could somehow create anything other than an impermanent experience of suffering. The ego gets brought to its complete and final destruction through the three characteristics which are always baked into any experience. This is why Buddha called nirodha samapatti (the cessation of perception and feeling) nibbanic bliss. It’s the bliss of no longer existing. The most satisfying experience is no experience at all, and you can’t know that satisfaction until you have direct experience of going from samadhi, the ultimate absorption into the limits of experience, into the passing away of that most unimaginable experience into the impossibility which is the lack of consciousness, lack of existence, lack of God, lack of truth, lack of illusion, etc. If there wasn’t illusion, there’d be nothing at all. This isn’t the nothingness people talk about in spirituality. That nothingness is still a bundle of subtle sensations creating the possibility for experience. We’re talking about something so alien and plain that it could never be uncovered. There would be no distinctions in anything. Distinction and duality are the illusion, but without distinction, there would be no way to point to or even be truth. Nibbanic bliss is like being a Holocaust victim then going to deep sleep and having the relief of being completely detached from the miseries of your previous day except the enlightened person has the experience of ultimate reality and God which they are escaping from. They have reached the maximum temporary satisfaction that could be held in experience yet still want more. The only result is the complete loss of everything. It’s the dissolution of any possibility of self, suffering, and impermanence which is the best gift. Losing everything is the best gift. You can’t reach that dissolution experientially. After tasting that bliss, you realize that anything that could ever be real or formed or experienced is intrinsically tied to suffering. Any self you hold onto long enough to create a goal is guaranteed to create suffering. When fully enlightened, you become the arising and passing of everything simultaneously while also being absolutely certain there is no continuity that could ever accurately be called a self. You recognize that the present moment is itself an illusion. As soon as something can be perceived, it’s already gone. Even to say there is motion, activity, perception, distinction, consciousness, or truth is to imagine that any of these things could be defined in a way that lasts. There’s absolutely nothing to hold on to and no ability to choose whether to hold on or let go. A definition is a self. If whatever goal you want spiritually can still be defined, it isn’t the highest attainment.

I'm reading a book which heavily leans on the teaching of the course. I have not read ACIM itself, even though it's waiting on my bookself. It has this weirdly strong 'energy' to it and I'm not sure what to think of it. I feel like there is something extremely powerful going on there and I fear it a little. I know it's kind of stupid to ask anyone stuff like this, since it really seems to be the case that I can't in full honesty rely on any other source than my own authority. But here it is: It seems that the course explains the dream/reality in a very different manner than most other teachings. As I understand it, the course says that the dream/world/sensory experience is due to a single "thought" in the mind of God/Oneness, which is basically that of being separate. The thought of being separate is the "sin" and feels "guilt" for losing the unity with God. This then causes the Mind to divide itself to multiple parts, even though it never actually happens, but only seems like it. The course says that it is the guilt that creates the world, sensory experience itself, by projecting it's own guilt and fear on "the other", hence creating a world to "hide" in. Something in this 'explanation' resonates a lot, though it brings a weird anxiety. I always had this idea that the world would be a playground, a place for Love's expression, rather than a projection of this "guilt" or something. I don't know if it's just my own interpretation, but this seems very different from what I've heard others say. How come it is still possible for the world to exist, or for me to "create my own reality", if the guilt is recognized and made undone? I'm just weirded out on how different this seems to be from other sources. It makes it seem like Oneness/awakening would be just total nothingness and that's it. No creation, no 'experience', no fun and games in the dream world, no expression. Why do I feel like I'm missing on something super obvious and being really stupid?

This breaking vow rests so near my tongue Anchor of the cloud Shade upon the sun, you took my word for it The vanishing of doubt Will unfold my empty space Your time froze over I must lead the way to this conclusion I let you inherit these words I sing to you See how death will bestow seclusion The one you are looking for is hidden from view In my absence now, irrelevant time will pass In nothingness abide See the evening rise and take my word for it Focus is beyond your vision Will unfold my empty space Your time froze over I must lead the way to this conclusion I let you inherit these words I sing to you See how death will bestow seclusion The one you are looking for is hidden from view Do you remember when It didn't use to be so dark And everything was possible Still

It wasn't even an experience for me. Nothingness is different from that realisation!

People only like the fancy stuff. The Consciousness/Nothingness gets ignored. They go for nice experiences..

lay off the shrooms bro if you are saying nothingness is a bundle of sensations thats some mad-talk. The page is the page and will remain the page when the text is deleted.

The endless battle is the idea of when all feelings are introspected deep enough they arrive at the same point, Nothing. Nothingness maybe is a better description. Not the idea that I can't find it, but rather there is no ground to arrive at. There is no Absolute reason for the feeling itself to have manifested once it's out of the moment it was conceptualized. This nothingness has potential to be anythingness. It only remains "true" the moment it is felt. I can pretend like I have the answer as to why I felt something, but it is just a narrative my ego tells to me to validate my reality/existence. I don't disagree, but I have no reason to consider my past feelings is a better way of saying it. It's not that I can't contemplate, but rather the above statement I made will arise. This doesn't mean I will never again contemplate what I perceive as the past as if I think it is hopeless. It still has it's usefulness. It's not that I do allow feeling. I fully allow the feeling, the feeling will pass. There is no reason to latch onto it for I know attempting to understand it will either give me my ego's validation or nothing. There is no reason to purposely dismiss it for it's not seen as a threat or a blessing. I suppose if something extreme happened I wouldn't be able to hold this mindset. Though I suppose no matter what I do, even if I latch completely onto my feelings and spin the greatest of narratives, I'm still in the present moment. I don't discredit feeling at all. I just believe we should breath with it.

Nothing is permanent is a paradox just by stating it. If nothing is truly permanent then the concept of "nothing is permanent" is a permanent feature of reality. But, that is just playing word games. Nothingness is the concept of the cup being only as useful as it's emptiness. Without Nothiness, there could be no somethingness. It only "is" and it is not separate from you. Sensation is conceived from Nothiness. The idea of time, temporary is conceived from Nothingness. "Nothingness is the womb in which infinite possibilities are birthed from". But, "from" is not accurate for Nothing/Infinity are One.

There’s nothing that is permanent. Nothingness is a fine bundle of sensations, but it is a temporary experience and illusion nonetheless.

Of course this is the case, it comes with the territory. But, the solution to problems rarely exits by fixing the poles of the problem. Rather taking a holistic approach to the situation, there is a "solution". But, solution is not the right word for it for that creates another pole. All of these concepts we are discussing are nothing more than imaginary, self fulfilling, and gives the illusion of a ground when there is none. The mind(ego) does not it when it can't feel it's own ground. The finite can only be finite, if it also holds the seed to infinity. The concept of Indra's Net describes this very well. This is why the dualistic nature of our reality is highly relative. "truth" is that which you perceive it to be, or rather that which you are "now". "Truth" would be all the "truth"s summed into one within the essence of nothingness. No One holds the answer, but as One we do. This idea alone is why I don't refute people' claims completely even if they don't resonate with me. For I know I'm ignorant and I can never truly know the finite due to it's infinite nature. I can "believe" to know, but really it's just a self delusion or confirmation biased. So with that, the philosophy is to meet my perception of other "As, I am". Which is just a fancy way of saying to be myself regardless of who I talk to. If there is an attractive female, there is no reason my ego needs to play mental games and treat her differently. Same goes for someone who may be homeless. Allowing reality to play out, remain present, without past ideas/experiences tethering you to what is possible I believe is a key to peace. Even if I'm not fully there yet. Because I am peaceful and present, reality reflects that when I meet others. Specially in person, so I can only confirm my own biases. But, this is how reality works and it will always conform to what you perceive it to be. If it did not, you would realize very easily that it's an illusion and it would no longer work on the self. As many times and I say "I" or "self" there really is no self. It's just consciousness, just awareness, and not even those two. It just is what it is. Though, I would call it Love.

As if you had never asked yourself why you do all of that. I hated the nothingness, until I lost it and wanted it back. Imo it's a good question. It's probably even a necessary step for most people. My ignorant answer would be, it's not good for anything except it's the escape from ego-suffering.

Death, nothingness and non-existence are paradoxical ideas I can't even properly think about. Does non-existence exist, or not exist? If non-existence (death) exists, it is part of the realm of existence. In that case, existence has no opposite. In fact, that's true either way: if non-existence (ie nothing or death) does exist, it's not opposite to existence. If non-existence doesn't exist, then it's also not in opposition (or duality) to existence. So existence and non-existence aren't different things are they? This, here and now, is the absolute. This is life. This is death. Obviously I can't make myself immortal in the relative sense with a clever philosophical argument, that'd be way too easy!

To worry about the existence of others is to assume the existence of oneself. A singular consciousness can have multiple experiences in the relative domain, just like a singular consciousness can have multiple forms in the relative domain. Why not? With regards to the movie/relative, there's a lot in this moment you can't experience based off your state of consciousness e.g. other dimensions, other minds, other entities, etc. On the other hand, Leo is right in saying that all that is is the eternal now because behind the veil it has never been anything but pure bliss. Both are true depending on how you look at it. Absolute vs relative. An inability to properly integrate this will fuck you up. Non duality is about realising that the whole thing is a game, it tells you nothing about the nitty gritty details of the game. To think non duality will give you the answer to solipsism is the equivalent of thinking non duality will give the answers to how DNA operates, how gravity works, etc. etc. "Bu-but, Gravity is just an illusion, DNA cells are an illusion! It's all illusion!" Yeah, and? Did you realise the whole thing was an illusion? Did you realise despite all that the game still uses certain rules and regulations that cannot be broken? Maybe questioning solipsism is more distractions related to/inside the game that cannot be proven or unproven? You realise that everyone on this forum asking this is wasting their time completely? yep! With no one to do the seeing, no ownership at all. I'm surprised people on the forum almost gloat about being absolute nothingness; shit's kinda weird lol. Probably because the belief of being God is more ego inflating than the actual raw experience of it.

What you are reading from the book is spot on. What you are misunderstanding is that there is literally no guilt. The world literally is the playground. It does not seem like it if you blame the world. Such as the world could make you mad, the world could make you sad, or the world could make you corrupt. If you are experiencing this, recognize this is reactionary projection, and when you experience the reaction focus on breathing from your stomach, and experience the reaction without reacting in terms of behavior, actions, and words. Only if then is it clear the reactionary projection was the averting of feeling. Not sure where you could be coming from on the course in miracles being different from what pretty much every spiritual teacher is saying. That’s very odd. A course in miracles is a fundamental staple of spirituality and non-dual theory, as much as and synonymous with the immutable laws. As to why you are worried about nothingness, and some kind of loss, like fun etc., it is because you are seeing material which is opening your eyes to the truth, so misunderstandings and beliefs you’ve been holding are coming up and out, and being projected onto the very material which is helping you. Your idea of nothingness is not the actuality of nothingness. It’s an idea. Nothing this is far better and greater than any thing. Nothing / not-a-thing is appearing as all “things”. Yes, it makes perfect sense. It is almost word for word what just about every spiritual teacher is saying. Specifically, if you have not heard of or listened to Rupert Spira, definitely check him out on YouTube. His teaching is basically synonymous with course in miracles. If memory serves, that book talks about doing one thing at a time, presence, mindfulness. Doing one page, or teaching, in one day. Try to abide in that rather than thinking ahead. Get your meta bang for your buck.

Well, yes it would be total nothingness but total nothingness is completion, it is total bliss and it is the very fulfillment that the ego seeks but which cannot be achieved through the paradigm of separation.

I highly recommend this book. Read all of those self-image, visualization books on Leo's book list. I got a lot of motivation from reading Psycho-Cybernetics and just working on that basic self-image and visualization thing. Things like just walking around and creating feelings I want to have in life; like just creating the feeling of already being successful, or of having a deep and comfortable connection with friends/community, etc.. You know Martin Ball? That enlightened 5meo guy? I did a counselling session with him once and this was his advice for me; It went something like... "Nothingness and enlightenment will always be there. Go find your Matt-ness, your you-ness. What do you like to do? What do you enjoy? Things like 5meo-DMT are great for guys like Mike Tyson who already had a massive ego. For them, breaking down the ego was what was needed. Now Mike Tyson is all lovey-dovey with his birds and stuff. He needed that. It sounds like to me you need to strengthen your ego, not destroy it." Seemed relevant to your cause. But then again, spirituality might actually be in line with your life purpose and actually building your ego in a sense. I can imagine things like doing 10-day meditation retreats being great for ego building and self-confidence since they are such difficult things to do. Almost like going through boot camp or something. Building discipline and ego-strength seems to be requirements to building a spiritual life in a sense. At least in the beginning. Ultimately, feel it out. Use your gut. Do what you most want to do in each moment.

Images of Infinity Samadhi Full Movie (70 mins) A Taste Of Absolute Infinity ? Infinite Life ? A Taste Of Infinity ? What Does Nothingness Look Like? ? The Mind Of God (note) Zooming Into God The Fractal Of Life Infinite Consciousness GIF ? How Big Is Infinity? Scale Of The Universe 4000 Exo-Planets Found Accessing Infinite Consciousness Strange Loops Strange Loop Cosmology ? Wicked Strange Loop ? More Strange Loops! Strange Loop Meme Strange-Loopy Rollercoasters Killer Strange Loop

If you take psycodelics inside a lucid dream you Will samadhi, i did it then i realize the nature of nothingness

(Something to keep in mind, this video came out in April 2015. In Leo's blog on Dec 2017 he wrote: “I was wrong about some of my earliest characterizations of enlightenment as the ultimate fix for unhappiness and all your psychological neuroses. That is a half-truth. In reality, enlightenment, strictly-speaking, will not fix all your neuroses. Although it is usually a big leap in the right direction.”) ? 199. Summary: Enlightenment FAQ - Part 2 This is the second part to Enlightenment FAQ - Part 1. Summary is here. 1) “What are the benefits of enlightenment?” -Breaking free from your mental prison. You stop being a slave to your thoughts and to your emotions and you get a deep, meaningful tranquility in your life, which is something you’ve been searching for your whole life without realizing it. You can experience tranquility, regardless of external circumstances (breakups, getting fired, losing loved ones, poverty, rejection, etc.) How cool would it be if you could keep your cool throughout that without getting crazy agitated? -A deeper understanding of reality and truth. Understanding how your consciousness works is the key that unlocks it all. -You’ll still have moments of sadness, loneliness, frustration, anger and annoyance. However, your relationship to these emotions changes completely. These upsetting emotions no longer become a source of suffering. They just become another experience, not really any worse or any better that any other experience. That’s freedom. -Relief from your self-image problems, like shyness, lack of confidence, low self-esteem, worrying about how you look, trying to live up to certain people’s expectations. You get rid of that by getting rid of the self. -There’s a whole video that answers this question. (ep: Benefits Of Enlightenment.) Summary is here. 2) ”Does this mean I’ll have complete control over my emotions once I’m enlightened?” -The truth here is there’s no self. There is no you. So, who’s going to have complete control over his or her emotions? Nobody. If you think that's going to happen, here's some bad news: you have zero control over your emotions because you do not exist. Paradoxically and counter-intuitively, once you surrender yourself to this fact, you get complete peace and calm with your emotions. You get pseudo-control, you get the appearance of control. It’s as though you have total control but, in fact, you have zero control. -The biggest reason you need control is you’re a slave to your emotions. Once you realize that there is no “you” who’s experiencing emotions and no “you” to control emotions, you get calm and cool with whatever emotion is happening. -Enlightenment doesn’t make you emotionless. There will be plenty of emotions, but your relationship to them will change completely. So, you will appear to have complete control over your emotions or a lot more control than the average person. -The reason other people suffer from emotions is because they believe there’s a “them” inside who’s being threatened by the external world. Once that notion is removed, life flows very, very smoothly. 3) “Why pursue enlightenment? What if I’m already happy in my life?” -Well, another bitter pill for you to swallow is, you’re not actually happy. You’re lying to yourself and saying you’re happy, but you’re not. -Currently, your happiness is contingent upon external circumstances. So, even if you’re happy right now, in this moment — maybe your career, relationship and fitness are going great. If we remove any of that, you’re going to be very, very miserable. So, your happiness is extremely contingent. You got to be very careful about saying that you’re “happy.” -It’s not possible to be truly happy without being enlightened. So, unless you’re enlightened, you can’t be happy. It’s psychologically impossible. Why? Because there's a falsehood that you’re living. You’re telling yourself you exist when, in fact, you don’t. -That’s reflected in your entire life. You’ve never been able to have consistent, true happiness. What you’ve had is this rollercoaster ride, because external circumstances change all the time. -Well, you’re happy right now, if we take one snapshot, but how happy are you going to be five minutes later? You’re not going to be very happy. That’s basically your current condition in life. 4) “But, Leo, why don’t I just earn millions of dollars and wait until everything is perfect? Won’t that sort everything out?” -That’s a delusion. Even if you get so much money and power that you’re “untouchable,” you’re still going to face disease, loneliness and death. In the end, your life is going to end in misery, no matter how happy you think you are right now. So, really, you’re not happy. -Even if you have a great relationship, career and great health, on a minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour basis, your mind is driving you nuts. You’re having insane thoughts. You’re sabotaging yourself, you’re getting angry, you’re jealous, you’re fearful. -It’s not possible for you to be happy because you actually believe if you lose these things you will be unhappy. You have a false paradigm in place. You must get aware of how your mind tricks you into a false sense of happiness. -Part of enlightenment work is to realize you’re lying to yourself all the time about how well this egoic paradigm is working for you. The ego keeps telling you it’s working and you should continue using this paradigm. If you look carefully, you can see this paradigm is rotten. It’s not working, if you’re very honest. 5) “Should I stop pursuing goals in my career, relationships, fitness and health and with my hobbies?” -Becoming enlightened doesn’t mean you no longer have any relationships, or hobbies, or an exercise routine. Enlightenment is an inner knowing and a realization, it’s not any lifestyle per se and it’s not any particular external situation. If you really, authentically want a relationship, be in a relationship. If you authentically want good health, go get good health. If you want to live in your house and be able to pay your electricity bill, then you should probably have a job. If you enjoy some particular hobby, like playing basketball on the weekend, or you like sailing or surfing or whatever, those are probably fine hobbies. -The problem is that a lot of people have egoic goals. You’re pursuing these goals because you think they will make you truly happy. So you’re like an addict. You’re a career addict, a relationship addict, a health & fitness addict, and you think that that’s going to be your salvation. Those are the wrong reasons, so you should probably stop. Why? Because they are not going to make you happy and they are an opportunity cost. They are taking time away from your ability to do inner mental development and find what would truly make you happy. -Everyone will have to judge for themselves which goals are authentic and which are not. This is a very tricky process. You don’t really know! eg: You might tell yourself that going to the gym is an authentic goal of yours, but you might discover the only reason you’re going is to uphold a self-image as a hot ripped dude. Authentically, if you weren’t trying to uphold that self-image you probably wouldn’t need to go to the gym as much. 6) “Isn’t enlightenment dangerous? Couldn’t it be eroding the foundations of a happy, healthy, normal life?” -The only danger, really, is the current egoic paradigm that you’re living under. All the evils in the world don’t come from enlightened people, they come from selfish people. If you think you can be above the egoic paradigm while still living from the egoic paradigm, you’re kidding yourself. If you think you’re not capable of evil (crime, theft, rape, murder, genocide, bigotry, racism, getting angry at people, and violence of all sorts), it’s only because you’re sitting in a cushy position in life where you’re not being threatened. -You would commit all those evils under the right circumstances. As soon as your ego is threatened sufficiently, you will resort to all those evils. Why? Because, fundamentally, you think you exist and that you need to be protected and defended. How do we overcome this? By removing the notion that you exist. In fact, there’s nothing that needs defending. -This can seem dangerous and threatening to talk about because it goes against a lot of your worldviews and cultural assumptions. It can seem like a negative process. Destroying the mental concepts in your mind can feel like you’re eroding the moral fabric of your being, that it’ll lead to nihilism, insanity or make you anti-social. (clip: Nihilism and Confusion [9 mins]. ep: Nihilism) In fact, all those bad things are just the ego paradigm run amok. That’s who you presently are, but you’re just masking it. The enlightenment paradigm frees you up from all that. This makes you the least dangerous person to yourself, to society and to everyone around you. When you have nothing to defend and protect, you have no need to go out and hurt people, or commit suicide or do anything dangerous. -Insane people, criminals and serial killers have monkey chatter in their mind all the time. This is the exact opposite of enlightenment. Enlightenment is the silencing of the monkey chatter. When you’re perfectly calm, present and happy in the moment, who are you going to bother? What’s the danger? You can easily discover this in meditation. When you’re meditating and very focused, you’re in a totally peaceful, innocent, innocuous state. It’s the ego that tells you this is dangerous. It’s how the ego defends itself. This is a defense mechanism. Watch out for that trap. 7) Is Enlightenment really for everyone? Isn’t it only for a very small segment of the population? -No! Enlightenment is one of the most universal things that people ought to pursue. Things like marriage, kids, a six-figure income, scuba-diving, marmite, cheese and mayo on fries, a Chris Evans film festival, are all particular things that some people might like and some might not. If you want to live to your full potential, if you want to be happy and peaceful, if you want to experience the truth of your being on a profound level, then this is for you. This is not just for monks or hard-core self-help junkies. -Leo feels very comfortable saying: You should become enlightened. No matter who you are, no matter what culture, location, religion, scientific background, age, income, family situation you come from. Why? Because this is one of the most fundamental truths of your existence — understanding your true nature. Your true nature is not what you’ve been told by society. It’s not this entity, this body or this mind. Your true nature is, actually, nothingness, but you need to discover this. Anyone with normal mental health can discover this. If everyone discovered this, society would be completely transformed. It would be the biggest shift that human civilization could experience, bigger than anything we have invented. -This would be more powerful because it would change the whole world’s orientation towards life. This would give you the happiness and peace that you really, really want. So, this is not for radical people. -One thing you can find universally, across all cultures and peoples, is that they have monkey chatter and drive themselves crazy with it. They have emotional, neurotic problems and can’t be happy. Because happiness is the objective of life, this is for everyone. The only reason you do anything, that anyone does anything, is they believe it will make them happy. The problem is that most people do things that will not make them happy, but they don’t realize it yet and they don’t want to admit this fact. 8) ”Won’t spirituality make me a tree-hugging, hippie slacker? How do I stay on the right track and avoid bongo drumming, singing Kumbaya and smelling like patchouli oil?” -This is a stereotype. In fact, hippie tree-huggers are not enlightened. Slackers are not enlightened. Leo’s doesn’t identify as a hippie, New Age thinker. He doesn’t like that sub-culture. He’s not a slacker. He’s very productive and wants to achieve stuff in his life. If you actually go and meet a real, enlightened person, you’ll see that they are not a tree-hugging hippie slacker. These people are productive when they want to be. This hippie sub-culture seems spiritual, but it’s actually a false spirituality. They live their lives incongruently. It’s one of the things Leo doesn’t like about hippies. -If a hippie was really living congruently, they would become enlightened and then counter-intuitively, they would drop a lot of their hippie ways. Hippies are reacting against a certain element of society, and this creates another element, a philosophy, a mind-set, belief systems, and a world-view. Enlightenment is about wiping that slate clean, emptying yourself of those cultural reactions and world-views. It’s just a calm, peaceful neutral. So, don’t worry about becoming a hippie slacker. 9) “I enjoy my vices (sex, alcohol, drugs, food). Sometimes I like to combine them in unique and interesting ways. I also enjoy my career. If I have to give that up why would I want to become enlightened?” -Enlightenment is not a particular lifestyle. It’s an understanding, a realization. Vices aren’t in and of themselves wrong, bad, evil, or even anti-spiritual. They’re not compatible with enlightenment. In fact your sex will become more amazing after enlightenment, if you choose to have it. You’ll appreciate alcohol, drugs and food more. You’re also less likely to get addicted to them. Why? Because you’re able to stay focused and in the moment, and you’re able to get rid of the monkey-chatter. You can perform amazingly well at work, because you no longer worry, doubt or have to protect your ego. You won’t need to look after your self image or be fearful about money. You could just focus on doing great work and be more creative too. So, none of these things need to be given up. -Enlightenment unhooks you from needing these things. So, if you do these things you’ll do it consciously, deliberately, because you want to. Your capacity to appreciate it will be much more expanded than it ever was in the past. Right now, you’re a drug addict. You’re probably going to give up addictions if you become enlightened because you’ll feel less pain all around. -So, you don’t really need to give up sex, good food, money or a great career. Although, Leo doesn’t recommend alcohol and non-psychedelic drugs because they aren’t healthy. 10) “My vices are immoral (sex, alcohol and drugs). Isn’t making money bad and evil too? If I become spiritually enlightened will I have to stop these activities? -Why are you so attached to engaging in these activities? It’s probably for egoic reasons. Even if you think these things are evil, you still probably have a hidden urge to do them. Maybe you guilt yourself for having sex, drugs, or cheating people out of money. The fact is that none of these vices are bad in and of themselves. In fact, this is a really blanket, outrageous statement, but…there’s nothing wrong with any action that you choose to do at all. The question is: why are you doing it? What’s the motivation behind it? It’s always about the motivation. -When you get the motivation right, when you remove the ego and act selflessly, without addiction and clinginess, then you can engage in these things and they will be of value in your life. They won’t have all the negative repercussions that these things generally have. -You can use drugs and alcohol in moderation after enlightenment. You can have amazing, enlightened sex and lots of money if you feel that’s something worth doing. So, don’t worry about losing that stuff, you just won’t cling to it. 11) ”I’ve already had an enlightenment experience using drugs or meditation. Isn’t that enough (mushrooms, DMT, meditation retreats, etc)? That’s the truth of no-self, right?” -Enlightenment is tricky. When you start on this journey you get little moments of enlightenment. Like on a very cloudy day, and the sun starts beaming. All of a sudden, the clouds open up and there’s little beam of light breaking through. But then, quickly, the clouds come back and close up and the light beam goes away. You’ll have mini, brief, tiny moments of no-self, maybe for five seconds here, for a whole hour here, maybe for a whole day, but you’re not going to be able to hold on to them. It’s frustrating. -This is like an expansion of consciousness. Your consciousness dilates like the lens on a camera, it zooms in and out. When the lens dilates up, you get this expansion, but then it closes back down and falls into its default state. So, what I’m really interested in here is not in a temporary expansion of your consciousness. I’m more interested in the permanent removing of the clouds. What I really mean when I say “enlightenment” is: the clouds are completely gone and you’ve just got light shinning all the time. You’re not trying, or holding on or struggling to make it work. You don’t even have to meditate anymore. You’re permanently enlightened. This is possible. This is a real state. Thousands of people have achieved this state, so it can be done. Any normal human being, as far as we know, can do it with enough work, but it takes quite a bit of work. A thousand hours of work is a ballpark figure. -Generally speaking, a drug will never give you permanent enlightenment. I don’t really know of any people who have become permanently enlightened off drugs. It can only give you a couple hours of enlightenment-like experience. -Meditation is more helpful. I recommend you start doing a lot of meditation. If you’re starting to experience enlightenment-like experiences with meditation, that’s great — but don’t just stop because you think you’ve “made it.” You haven’t made it yet. Keep meditating until you get the real, permanent deal. -Don’t assume that because you’ve had a little experience with drugs, you know what enlightenment will be like. In the end, enlightenment will probably turn out very different than you expect it to. 12) “What about my friends and family? Will I stop caring about them after enlightenment because I’m so detached from everything?” -It depends. A lot of people have very dysfunctional families and friends. So, if you’re hanging around in a gang or some horrible friends and you become enlightened, you’ll probably abandon those friends. They weren’t very healthy and now you don’t have much in common. -There’s nothing inherently wrong with family or with friends. If you have a good family and friends who bring you authentic joy, you’ll probably keep them. In fact, your relationships with them will improve. -You keep dysfunctional relationships because you have buttons that those people push. Your ego is involved in those relationships. When you take the ego out, it’s not going to bother you anymore. You’ll be capable of having compassion for them. You won’t need to be mean to them. -Also, if you’re in a romantic relationship with someone, enlightenment will make you independent of that relationship. So, if the relationship serves you, you will stay. If the relationship stops serving you, or becomes toxic, won’t have any hesitation walking away. That is what neediness does — it produces a toxic attachment. Having healthy boundaries doesn’t make you a monster or a bitch. -Living with toxic attachments is very unhealthy. Cutting them out is a good thing, not a bad thing. In general, your friendships and relationships with the right people will be significantly amplified and improved with enlightenment. 13) “How does love play into all this?” -What you call love right now, is not true love. It’s egoic love. That’s another bitter pill to swallow. You don’t really have an experience of true love. What you call love now, even in your most sacred relationships, is still egoic love. You love those people, but only on your terms. It’s a selfish love that serves you in some sneaky, underhanded way that you don’t like to admit. You try to change them, manipulate them in subtle ways, to make sure you’re getting the love you want. -If you want real, true love, all you have to do is break down the ego. Without the ego, you can love everything as much as you, right now, love yourself. Imagine how kind you would be to your family, friends, partner, and even people in general if you honestly believed that your body was not separate from their body. That you and them are literally one and the same. That’s the true meaning of the Golden rule. The Golden rule says: do onto others as you would do onto yourself. You can’t do that when you actually believe that you are here and everyone is separate and out there. If you really care about true love, you should definitely want to become enlightened. -You can only live the Golden rule when you truly believe there’s no separation between you and everything. So, you’re kind, compassionate, and loving towards everything. You’re here, there and everywhere, so you treat everything as though it’s you, which enlightenment shows to be true. That’s what real love is. Almost no one knows this practically because of their unenlightened state. 14) “Doing regular personal development has filled me with doubt. It’s created a lot of confusion about my life, my ambitions, my relationships and my business.” -In a sense, that’s exactly what we’re doing here. Because enlightenment is not about building up more of your ego, it’s about cutting out the ego. And this is going to feel scary, threatening and emotionally disturbing. It’s not going to be pleasant. That’s why so few people are enlightened. -Your mind wants clarity and certainty at all times. Your mind hates being confused and doubting itself. You need to get comfortable with uncertainty, because enlightenment is not ultimate certainty. It’s actually getting comfortable with ultimate uncertainty. It’s about realizing that there’s nothing to cling to and that there is no truth. The truth of no truth. Again, very paradoxical and fascinating how this works. -The problem with most people is that they are too certain and too afraid of getting confused once in a while. They’re also too afraid of questioning their world-view. If you’re doubting yourself, good. Stop trying to be certain all the time. This is what an intelligent, open-minded, intellectually honest human beings do- purposefully put themselves into situations where they doubts themselves. This is healthy, this is building you up, not tearing you down. 15) “Isn’t it better to hold off on this enlightenment until I’m older (50s, 60s) or retired? Isn’t it better to spend the first half of my life partying, running a business and traveling the world?” -No! Your ego’s procrastinating! The longer you put it off, the more suffering you will have in your life. Why would you delay happiness? You’re asking, “wouldn’t it be better to spend the next twenty years suffering and then finally be happy when I retire?” -In fact, many people who become enlightened report that it’s the most positive experience they’ve ever had. They wish they’d had it earlier in their life. -Some people become enlightened in their forties and their fifties, but then they have very bad experiences in their twenties and thirties, because they are just emotionally all over the place. There’s monkey chatter going around. This goes back to the earlier question of: Are you truly happy? The answer is that you’re not. -Realize that you’re closing your mind down. You don’t want to do a self-honest inquiry. You don’t really want to put the effort into this process. -Realize that your life is going to end in a very bitter way no matter how successful you are. You're going to die, you're going to have disease, and you're going to have bad relationships. All this stuff is going to disturb you a lot. -What you’re really saying is you’re at the lower stages of your development and you haven’t gone to the higher stages yet. -Normal is a very bad standard. The normal life is really a crazy, dysfunctional life. It might be necessary for you to do some stupid stuff, waste ten, twenty years, and suffer. Hopefully, you have the wisdom to short-circuit all that nonsense. 16) “But, Leo, what if you’re wrong? Are you enlightened? And if you’re not, how can you be talking about enlightenment? Aren’t you being a hypocrite?” -Leo isn’t enlightened, but he feels he can offer valuable information. He’s gone through the initial, early stages: the fight, the resistance to this idea of enlightenment. (This video came out more than 6 years ago). Enlightenment is a long journey. Leo can point out the traps. A lot of these questions in the FAQ are issues he had to struggle through. -Leo’s a normal person you can identify with, not some hippie or spiritual guru or Indian yogi who meditates in the woods for ten hours a day, everyday. He’s not a Buddhist monk, or the Dalai Lama. Those people might be more knowledgeable about this stuff, but those monks live very differently than you. Their lifestyle is probably very incongruent with the way you live your life. You probably live a much more normal social existence. -With personal development, once you move to the next level all the other levels suddenly make so much more sense. It’s so clear when you look backwards on your life and the lives of people around you who haven’t advanced yet, why they’re stuck. -If you’re very advanced, then maybe you want to go to some very advanced teacher. If you’re starting off and you like a very no-nonsense, non-mystical, non-religious, somewhat logical and scientific approach to enlightenment, that’s Leo. That’s his bias and perspective he’s bringing to you, which can be rare to find in a teacher. -As for the objection that he might be wrong: an intelligent person always has to leave room for the possibility that he might be wrong. Smart people are always revising their worldview and growing. Also, the same is true with everyone that you listen to. Whether it’s a scientist, a religious person, the Dalai Lama or the Buddha himself — they could always be wrong. That’s just a fact of life and a fact of communication. Even after enlightenment there’s still more to discover about consciousness. -Don’t believe this on blind faith. Verify it for yourself. Use your intelligence, your rational faculties, think critically but also self-honestly. Not with monkey chatter and ego defenses. Prove it to yourself. That’s how you know what’s real, through direct experience (clip: Validate Absolute Truth For Yourself [10 mins]).

@impulse9 A panic attack on weed actually shot me into nothingness and the dark night of the soul for 6 months straight. However I doubt, that most people who consume it ever reach that level. Take a look at cannabis induced DP/DR. I don't recommend doing what I did, because it comes with suffering, and after my ego came back it got very disfunctional and led to huge amounts of suffering.

One could see it as identification = rigidity and no identification = fluidity. Ego isn't an entity that exist. It only seems to exist because identification has a separating quality to it. "I am the owner of my thoughts and feelings" which is a thought. One can still be identified with being the witness of experience. It's a half baked realization. Identified to being the nothingness that experiences. Which is rigidity and still separation between the experiencer and the experience. Raw sensation is when the experiencer and experience is the same, oneness. Experience implies an experiencer which is thought dividing the two but there is only one. Can one explain oneness with language that is built upon subject-object division? ?

'Illusion' is a thought you're having. So is what you call 'nothingness' now before awakening. You're looking at dualistic thoughts when you say things like 'illusion', 'nothingness' without having direct experience of the actual (...) prior to any concepts. You are not a concept. You are not a thought. You're not an illusion. Also, you're not a creature/human on planet Earth who's been born on a physical plane. The way you experience life right now needs 'a backdrop of the story(you're creating)', a fabrication... aka 'my past as a child, my birth, my memories, historical events' and so on. Because Reality is ultimately groundless. But not what you think(before you awaken) 'groundless' means. You are absolutely free. Freedom itself. God's Will is all-powerful. Infinite creative control, infinite creative power + Infinite intelligence,imagination. You are Truth. By using the word 'truth' I'm pointing to THAT which is prior to any concept. Once 'it' gets recognized for what 'it' truly is/once You actually awaken to your true nature, you realize that Reality is truth. The Substance of 'what you call your body' or 'sound' or 'light' or rain' & everything = God. There is no external substance, there is no 'separate anything' in Reality. The meanings that can be manifested/dreamed into existence are potentially infinite. God/You/Consciousness is Absolute infinity. So any relative stuff it creates, any stories, life stories, identities etc are facets of Absolute infinity too. Beyond all the layers & concepts, there is actuality. Beyond any label & way of explaining away the present moment, there is Truth. But only by recognizing the relative for what its substance really is will You recognize that form & formlessness are identical in nature. This right here is it. Always.

@Anahata so we are an illusion in this illusion? nothingness?

Here's an imaginary conversation I had with my Mother (who may as well have been hatched from an egg, as of course, she is imaginary), the Truth literally sounds like the ramblings of a crazy person: Me: "Hey mum, did you know that science, history, politics, economics are all completely imaginary?" Mother: "Yes dear of course they are..." Me: "That's right, all that exists is the present moment, there's no past, no future, in fact me and you only exist as characters in the cosmic play" Mother: "That's an interesting perspective dear..." Me: "Yep, God is nothingness. My perspective is all that exists, you are a rather convincing NPC without your own perceptual bubble" Mother: "ok you are scaring me now..." Me: "there's nothing to be scared of mum, we are infinite beings! Well, the empty fullness which I am is atleast... The brain is just an appearance within consciousness to create the illusion of a separate, finite, vulnerable organism. God is playing make believe that it is a human having an adventure with "other humans" LOL. Scientists have been measuring the dream the whole time! I learned all of this from Leo Guru... I mean Gura... wait is that even a real name...?" Mother: "-Oh hello, yes I need a psychiatrist for my son, he is trying to convince me reality is an illusion, yes the situation is quite unfortunate..."

@EmptyVase @Nahm Truth/Love/Consciousness/Nothingness is like an ocean. Beliefs and thought-attachments are the same water put into cups. They are isolated from the natural currents of the ocean. The borders of the cups is fear. The friction between the natural currents of the ocean and the isolated water is suffering. Via feeling and consciousness the borders are recognized to have never truly been there. And the water is poured back to the ocean. Now they are part of one infinite whole and it's natural currents.