Cepzeu's Enlightenment Adventure Journal

[Cepzeu]

Hello fellow actualizers!

I have recently considered starting the journey towards enlightenment more seriously. My aim with this journal is to document my journey for a number of reasons.

- I hope that as I advance with my self-inquiry I can look back on this journal to see where I fell into traps with my method. These insights may help others on their journey.

- As I document my progress, those more advanced than I may see potential traps that I am entering and could warn me beforehand.

- This journal may help me stay consistent with my practice by holding me accountable to updating it regularly.

 

My background regarding this work:

I stumbled upon Leo's videos in early 2016 and began self-help work beginning from a deep deficiency. Basically a newbie exactly outlined in Leo's '3 levels of personal development work' video. I studied from Leo as well as Elliot Hulse, RSD, and a number of other teachers. One day in the first quarter of 2017 I remember I was procrastinating and started watching Leo's more advanced content (enlightenment, true self etc.). This stuff made no sense to me and I thought that Leo was starting a cult or something (xD). I had seen these videos before but made an attempt to be more open minded this time. After sitting on my couch for ~2 h reflecting on what Leo described the realisation that I might not be the body or the mind came to me. This was the first stepping stone towards this work. In one day all of Leo's newbie videos lost their appeal and the more advanced stuff became very clear and I understood what was being said. I sensed that there was something much deeper to pursue than the surface level stuff. Fast forward to today I believe I have progressed far into the advanced stages of personal development. I have witnessed a radical turning inwards of my self-help effort and am actively trying to minimise my life to focus on meditation, enlightenment, life purpose, learning, and slow, deliberate practice. 

Stay tuned:

The next few entries will outline a few things that happened recently which convinced me enough to pursue enlightenment as well as some of the traps I have already fallen in to. After that I will begin documenting my self-inquiry process and any insights or experiences that occur.

Feel free to comment and ask questions, I will attempt to answer as many as I can. If there are a significant number of questions between journal entries I may start a companion thread for Q&A's. Also feel free to pm me.

Enjoy!

[Cepzeu]

Entry 1 (28 Dec 2017)

The last 2 weeks:

I began reviewing Leo's videos on enlightenment. Here: 

This post reminded me of the basic theory and concepts, the potential traps I might fall into and the general method for enlightenment practice.

I also viewed username's post Enlightenment is 4 realz. Here:

The Q&A's added to my conceptual understanding and removed some of my fears about becoming enlightened.

Edited December 28, 2017 by Cepzeu

[Cepzeu]

Entry 2 (28 Dec 2017)

A trap I fell into:

When viewing the above videos and posts I did 0 minutes of self-inquiry practice. I took in the theory but did not do any of the action steps. Awareness of this fact prompted me to stop watching more videos. 

I have a decent enough grasp of the concept of the true-self/ nothingness/ infinity but obviously any thought of it is not it.

I re-watched Leo's 'How to become enlightened' video and took down notes on the action steps.

I will now begin doing the self-inquiry process and will go back to this video once every 2 weeks to see if I missed anything or if there are any traps Leo outlined that I may have fallen into. I also got a cheap sports stopwatch so that I don't use my phone as a timer.

[Cepzeu]

Entry 3 (28 Dec 2017)

Began my first self-inquiry sit. Set timer for 35 min and sat upright with legs slightly folded on the couch.

Details of sit:

- calmed my breathing and became present to the now

- began with eyes closed (I think leaving out visual, non-thought phenomena will help me concentrate on the direct experience. Keeping my eyes open floods me with even more visual stimuli which distracts me from achieving direct experience imo).

 - started to feel my body and the experience of contact between skin and couch, skin and skin, discomfort. Noticed that rather than converging on a point the sensations occurred in a field of awareness.

- with my eyes closed it became easy to see thoughts as other 'things' that were being perceived. They didn't occur anywhere rather the thinking voice was perceived as a random occurrence with no particular location. The content of the thoughts was concepts of what nothingness could be.

- when your eyes are closed everything is black but you are actually not looking at the black. I tried to look at the actual blackness and the blackness was seen as a black void of nothing with no end in sight.

- I felt my heart become very tight and then my arms, my legs, and my right hip began to feel very very dense. It felt quite uncomfortable but not painful.

- it was windy and a loud bang distracted me and made me open my eyes. I continued with the sit with eyes open. I looked at another couch and tried to shift the focus in my eyes (you know when you make yourself cross-eyed and you lose focus on what you were looking at before - like when you try to look at your nose). I realised there was nothing between me and the couch. I though there may be air molecules there but realised molecules don't exist in my direct experience and are simply a concept.

- I ended the sit before my timer rang, I had 9 minutes left so sat for 25 min.

The end

[Cepzeu]

Entry 4 (29 Dec 2017)

Details of sit

- My family was making a lot of noise in the house so it was very difficult to concentrate. I can see now that when you are bombarded with stimuli you mind goes into thinking mode (or at least mine did), and this is why it is difficult to be present in the now outside of a dedicated meditation or self-inquiry sit. We are overstimulated in society.

- I listened to the music that was playing in the other room and asked "What is being experienced?" and felt how every time I heard a familiar word sound, my mind reacted by trying to form a meaning out of a string of words. Mind was encouraged to look at the content of the words rather than the reality of the sounds. I thought about some imaginary song in a language that I don't speak and if I would just hear the sounds as they are or if my mind would try and jump to meaning even if I didn't understand the words. Might try this out later.

- Other than these two points it was a really crap sit, I couldn't concentrate at all. I spent the whole day on a construction site so was nodding off and my body was fidgeting all over the place. Lesson: find a quiet spot, sit upright, be in a position where you won't be distracted, do sits when you are awake and not drowsy.

- Time-wise, I lasted for 25 min before looking at my stopwatch, but kept sitting for another 10 min. Total of 35 min.

- Lesson: It is very important to do the actual practice and make it into a habit rather than overloading on theory. Leo's video details finding a quiet spot etc. in his video and I thought "yeah I know all that" but made all these mistakes today anyway.

The end

[Cepzeu]

Entry 5 (30 Dec 2017)

Details of sit:

- I was really tired and only managed to do 10 min of self inquiry. I decided to take a 10 min nap to reduce my level of sleepiness but that turned into a 1.5 hour nap instead (woops).

- BUT I did have some new experiences.

- I became very present to the current moment. I don't know what clicked, maybe it was an absence of thinking about the self inquiry but rather a focus on the awareness of the present moment, but I was aware of thoughts just spewing up rapidly. What was interesting was that my awareness was very clear and I didn't really have a foggy or transient awareness. It was crystal clear and it was the first time that it was easy to be aware of thoughts. In fact, the less I tried, the clearer it became. I want to say it became easier to focus but it wasn't really the case, it was more like my body was dozing off but my awareness much clearer than it has ever been.

The end