Healing + Will I ever desire enlightenment again?

[Mind Health Coach]

Gratitude Meditation is a practice by which people focus on considering the things that they have to be grateful for in their life resulting in positive emotions. Meditation to reduce anxiety that also includes reducing physical comfort, putting things into perspective to make better decisions and coping with difficult situations.

[phoenix666]

@zunnyman you may resonate more with a more feminine or heart centered approach like Matt Kahn's teachings. they've helped me a lot in the past months. it's not about transcending and deconstructing, but loving and embracing, integrating the ego. I've noticed that this approach brings a lot more peace and warmth in my being. I still love Leo's videos and they're very precious to me. but combining them with Matt Kahn or Eckhart Tolle for example brings a lot more balance and tranquillity in my path <3

the most enlightened/transcended experiences during meditation and yoga for me have always come through embracing, accepting and loving 

[now is forever]

@mandyjw that’s not what i meant - it’s just because i am sure there are some who need to start to work very early on it... there are people who are more sensitive than others and some are born „old souls“  - if they don’t start early they get lost. so what some might experience with 30 others may have seen with 15 - there are different understandings of enlightenment - different stages of deep traveling, too. 

you can’t really say someone is more enlightened than another but you can say some see/dive deeper as others. and what is the measurement anyways?

Edited March 7, 2019 by now is forever

[tedens]

On 5.03.2019 at 10:24 PM, mandyjw said:

Leo has a very masculine, hard-nosed, dramatized approach to enlightenment. Look for teachers more like Eckhart Tolle. You're looking for more of a practice where you watch your thoughts and realize which thoughts cause you pain and are able to be present and stop those thoughts when they occur. You begin to recognize judgmental thoughts about yourself and others. Pay a lot of attention to your relationships with others. Spend time in nature. It's really easy in this day and age to get sort of sold on the idea of enlightenment and spirituality, and get excited about it and want to try to have enlightenment experiences. But lucky for you the real work is boring as hell. Nothing to be scared of. 

In fact, no guru is adequate for someone, at least you do not know that. They all are just a map and each path is different.  And whether you can be enlightened without knowing it? 

[mandyjw]

@now is forever I do agree with what you're saying. I'm looking at it from the perspective that it is becoming more common for westerners to hear about enlightenment in stage orange, so it's the idea that you can take certain substances and do some grueling meditation and get stage turquoise is the temptation I'm trying to address. I think Leo's channel sets people up for thinking they can do A, B and C and get enlightened, but there are plenty of others who do the same like Tim Ferris.  They started out making stage orange content and then themselves evolved but people don't see their journeys and only want to emulate. I'm not saying enlightenment can't happen at any age or spontaneously happen but I do think most of us are wired to only be patient and open enough for the real work a bit later in life. Stage orange to stage green to stage yellow. It's not stage orange, take some psychedelics, become stage turquoise for most people, for many it's stage orange, take some psychedelics, experience massive fear and ego backlash, perhaps even psychotic breaks. 

I keep hearing about this more and more. Leo has done the right thing, he's made the videos that "go into the weeds" as he says and explain spiral dynamics and the process thoroughly but there will always be those who skip over all of it in their impatience to enter a state of ultimate patience. 

When I was 20 and first heard about this stuff I had a lot of criticism, doubt and even disgust. That was a natural, healthy response from someone at stage orange. If I had been introduced to it by a role model I wanted to be like I probably would have seen it as a thing I could get to add to my sense of self. 

Edited March 7, 2019 by mandyjw

[now is forever]

@mandyjw i guess i get what you are saying, and agree. you are right most people come from an orange mindset. and i‘m always fast to ump in for the exceptions because they already have the tougher path. so maybe that’s where we are at, seeing it from two different perspectives.

also, just noticed, be careful with mixing up awakening with spiral dynamics and ultimate patience, these three are not inevitably connected. they fit together very nicely to a picture of enlightenment, and can lead you very deep into your metaphysics, too. but spiral dynamics is a tool, now, to understand development in society and your own position of thinking and agitating in it, that’s why you can only always see where you are at and only imagine how further up would look like - i doubt the buddha had it. of course patience should come along while growing! 

and then there is awakening what is a metaphysical process of seeing/visualizing and understanding your own position in the world. nothing more, can also lead to solipsism or egotheism.

and then there is developing patience, what’s a social process that has to do with understanding suffering and at first, very much with identification until you learn the methods to look very deep without clinging to your own emotions - that’s where only deep empathy and compassion can lead you. that’s the buddhist way. even though there are other ways to enlightenment that might work. buddhist scriptures don’t say it is the only one.

and then there is still enlightenment that doesn’t have to do anything with religion or the spirituality of religions - it is enlightenment that even might not work the buddhist way, it never has, and it’s only always the last resort. but it might also not work without understanding the buddhist way.

 

Edited March 7, 2019 by now is forever

[mandyjw]

@now is forever You've got me thinking. Do you think people can truly be awake and at peace/ fulfillment without that Buddhist patience, compassion and understanding of suffering? I certainly agree that people can have enlightenment experiences at all ages and stages, but having a more permanent integrated experience and still missing that compassion element seems like something that if could be attained would not be desirable. I think I'd rather just be a regular person caught in the dream of form than to be able to see through the dream but have to cut myself off from other people to maintain it. Because other people are me too, so I have to accept them to accept myself. If I cannot accept other people and love them unconditionally I cannot do the same for myself and then I am creating duality and am not enlightened but fooling myself.  

 

[now is forever]

@mandyjw yes you are right, but actually that’s one of the things a bodhisattva is not supposed to do: declining that there are other ways to reach nirvana. there is not only one way - although that’s what’s making buddhism special.

full acceptance of other will also lead you to understand the other paths.

how can you be at peace and fulfilled with compassion if you are fully aware and in peace with suffering?

Edited March 7, 2019 by now is forever

[Mu_]

On 3/5/2019 at 3:15 PM, zunnyman said:

When I first heard of enlightenment, I was so heavily interested doing all sorts of meditation daily, experiencing weird phenomena, having nice experiences, and reading and listening to all sorts of spiritual teachings. Then 8 months back I had a pretty strong traumatic weed trip, where i kept questioning my beliefs and reality, and it just turned into an emotional traumatic shit show that has effected me for the 8 months after until now. After that weed trip, i noticed some ptsd symptoms, my mind heavily trying to figure out reality, believing all sorts of beliefs about how reality is or what it will be like after enlightenment, a ton of fear, etc. This completely turned me off from all sorts of spiritual practices and teachings. But now I can thankfully say 90% of those symptoms are gone, I am a lot more grounded, emotionally stable, etc. I have opened up to wanting to go back into spiritual practices, have been doing Sadhguru’s Shambhavi Mahamudra for 4 months now as well. But Leo’s teachings now still give me anxiety, I don’t feel like pursuing enlightenment anymore and fear I never want to, sometimes I fear there might be spiritual damage of some sort because I perceive reality as meaningless, pointless, a weird illusion, “where am I even located” etc. I just want to heal now, that is my main desire. How can I heal from this? How can i desire enlightenment again? How can I pursue enlightenment in a safe slow manner? 

Maybe Leo's view is not for you and this is perfectly fine and important to recognize.  There are lots of other sources of nonduality and spiritual teachings out there.  See if any of them connect with your heart and go about them slowly to see how your mind/body/ego react.  I've had to take large chunks of time off from "spiritual" stuff and just live life (sometimes years off).  Interestingly enough though, if your desire is still truely to know truth and what this all is, you'll learn lessons even when you drop the meditation stuff, reading stuff and just do "normal" things (again so long as you truely desire truth).