The beginnings of enlightenment

[ActualizedJohn]

As I lay awake at 3:14 pm, I cannot sleep for I am not tired. Three years of inquiry, lead to a spontaneous 40% awakening that scared the shit out of me, and I promised to never do it again, yet my mind is the definition of curiosity killed the cat (ego). This has happened a few times at night now, deeper each time, assuming it is because my brain relaxes when I am trying to fall asleep, but instead of sleeping…. BOOM. Detachment from the body. Freaky as hell. But what comes next is indeed VERY present. All of the bodily stress: stress in the face, sinuses, back, shoulders, muscles, and (craziest of all), the BRAIN just disappears. It is as if I have been flexing my brain ever since the end of childhood and could not find a way to stop, until now. To actually be able to UNFLEX you brain is the calmest feeling, and all of those pesky background noise thoughts just disappear, and you can focus so much more greatly in the present moment. I am not tired because of how relaxed my brain is. I’m seeing things the way I did as a kid again. Stress is PHYSICALLY not allowed in this state. Maybe I will go further, we shall see. I have to surrender more first, sometimes I am afraid to let go. 

[axiom]

1 hour ago, ActualizedJohn said:

I have to surrender more first, sometimes I am afraid to let go. 

You can’t do anything.

[Carl-Richard]

As someone who has experienced this process but spent 3 years forcing myself out if it, I can give you the blue pill or the red pill.

The blue pill: I'll teach you how to return to a more ordinary sense of existence. There is more suffering involved, but you'll not have to overcome your fear of death, insanity, isolation. 

The red pill: I'll do as Axiom here and help you close off the last subtle hiding spots your mind uses to perpetuate itself. I feel hesitant doing this as I know the seriousness of such a decision.

Edited December 15, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[ActualizedJohn]

2 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

As someone who have experienced this process but spent 3 years forcing myself out if it, I can give you the blue pill or the red pill.

The blue pill: I'll teach you how to return to a more ordinary sense of existence. There is more suffering involved, but you'll not have to overcome your fear of death, insanity, isolation. 

The red pill: I'll do as Axiom here and help you close off the last subtle hiding spots your mind uses to perpetuate itself. I feel hesitant doing this as I know the seriousness of such a decision.

@Carl-Richard It’s funny, because in the beginning all I wanted was out of the matrix, but of course when you never knew actually what it feels like to escape, the second it happens it’s something you were never actually prepared for, or genuinely wanted to take seriously, you knew you were just kinda ‘messing around’ doing exercises the whole time.  It’s a little bit of an unfair reality to not be able to know what it ACTUALLY feels like until it happens, if you know what I mean. So part of me wants to stop the inquiry before I REALLY scare the shit out of myself, cuz I haven’t hit 100% pure emptiness yet, maybe around 70% at most. But the other part of me realized that If I do hit 100%, it’s not like I’m gonna become something “new”, I have always been just the universe my whole life, the only difference is that I just didn’t know it, so therefore there is no reason to be scared. I want the benefit of being more present, more happy, being able to transcend physical death But it’s unfair to ask me to choose one of these pills, because I don’t know what I’m getting myself into if I’ve never experienced 100% enlightenment before. Kind of paradoxical. At the end of the day, it’s not really emptiness or enlightenment I fear, it’s the solipsism. If I could somehow be promised true solipsism is false, I would jump down the rabbit hole balls to the walls.

But at the same time, I know I’m one of those people that as soon as I reach like an 80% enlightened state, I’m gonna freak out so hard and swear I never mess with this stuff ever again. Besides, my goal was to transcend physical death, and I already know now that death doesn’t exist. So maybe I just stop now before I get too deep?

So your a moderator, huh? Do you know Leo personally? I would love to hear your full story of how it took you three years to get out of it. Interesting that your a moderator for Leo but wanted to escape the rabbit hole, I would very much like to hear that story. 

Edited December 15, 2022 by ActualizedJohn

[Carl-Richard]

5 hours ago, ActualizedJohn said:

So your a moderator, huh? Do you know Leo personally?

I don't know Leo personally  If you're active and able to follow the guildelines, that's really all you need to become a mod.

 

5 hours ago, ActualizedJohn said:

I would love to hear your full story of how it took you three years to get out of it. Interesting that your a moderator for Leo but wanted to escape the rabbit hole, I would very much like to hear that story. 

Long story short, I became hooked on spirituality and meditated for 1000 hours over the course of 3 years, then this happened:

 

Then I had to spend another 2-3 years to "undo" that (it's really more about coping than undoing anything). I've experimented a lot, but the main techniques I use today is of course not meditating, constantly distracting myself, sleeping on my stomach, eating regular and big meals (slightly overeating), sitting/standing/walking with a sub-optimal posture, and slightly tightening the left side of my abdomen. Even when I do this, it's still not fully back to normal. My everyday life is ok, but I sometimes enter no-mind in novel situations where I'm physically relaxed but have to pay attention, like in a meeting or watching a movie, which is annoying.

Other than that, it has certainly had positive effects on my life.

Edited December 15, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[Aaron p]

I've found the fear is harder to deal with if you haven't got lots of pussy and money first 

[Moksha]

Partial awakening (including solipsism) is more frightening than full awakening. The conditioned mind is still fighting for survival because it lacks the wisdom to let go. Like a rocket climbing into the stratosphere, the forces opposing the ascent  beyond yourself increase until gravity is gone and there is only free space.

Enlightenment is the most liberating, profoundly enjoyable way to live. Life loses its melodrama. You are finally free to live creatively in this moment, lucidly enjoying the dream for what it is. There is no fear, only the serene wisdom that nothing ultimately real can be threatened.

[ActualizedJohn]

11 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

As someone who have experienced this process but spent 3 years forcing myself out if it, I can give you the blue pill or the red pill.

The blue pill: I'll teach you how to return to a more ordinary sense of existence. There is more suffering involved, but you'll not have to overcome your fear of death, insanity, isolation. 

The red pill: I'll do as Axiom here and help you close off the last subtle hiding spots your mind uses to perpetuate itself. I feel hesitant doing this as I know the seriousness of such a decision.

@Carl-Richardas I read that story, it just happened. The pressure in my head just disappeared and I detached for my body, got up and just paced around for a sec, but I repeated to myself ‘emotional intelligence.’ To remind myself to be level headed. I’m in it right now. I’m okay with the headspace, but don’t want to go any deeper. I’m realizing I have some more fundamental things in my life to work on first. 
 

I have two questions for you, one asking how old you are, if you okay with disclosing that, and the other is what is your view on solipsism, and how does it exist if it does?

[ActualizedJohn]

@Aaron p I have discovered this myself. Have you had any enlightenment experiences? 

[Carl-Richard]

11 minutes ago, ActualizedJohn said:

I’m realizing I have some more fundamental things in my life to work on first. 

That could be wise if you're young like me  That is my current strategy as well.

 

11 minutes ago, ActualizedJohn said:

I have two questions for you, one asking how old you are

25. I was 19 when I started meditating and had my first sober non-dual glimpse.

 

13 minutes ago, ActualizedJohn said:

and the other is what is your view on solipsism, and how does it exist if it does?

I've had the so-called solipsism realization of "there is only me; other people are just me", and it's of course a scary realization, because it literally feels like "there is nobody home" when you're looking at someone. But even so, I don't draw the conclusion that they're just pixels on my screen of perception and that they're not themselves having an individualized experience. Instead, what really happened is that I was the one who lost my sense of an individualized experience (or some sense of it), and therefore as a result, I can no longer recognize it in others the same way I used to. Other people still experience it, just like I did two seconds ago, and it still matters to them. You can still feel their pain and happiness, and you'll still want to interact with them in a humane way.

[ActualizedJohn]

19 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

That could be wise if you're young like me  That is my current strategy as well.

 

@Carl-Richard I am 21, so yea still young.

 

I read something someone wrote on a forum:

This guy summed it up pretty good, the “Awakening to an infinity of gods” video that Leo did. Would you agree with what this guy said?

[Carl-Richard]

45 minutes ago, ActualizedJohn said:

@Carl-Richard I am 21, so yea still young.

 

I read something someone wrote on a forum:

This guy summed it up pretty good, the “Awakening to an infinity of gods” video that Leo did. Would you agree with what this guy said?

What the guy says makes sense, but to be honest, the Infinite Gods video is probably the only video of Leo I don't understand. I thought it was superfluous. "An infinity of Gods" or "one infinite God" is the same to me. Maybe I missed something.

[ActualizedJohn]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

What the guy says makes sense, but to be honest, the Infinite Gods video is probably the only video of Leo I don't understand. I thought it was superfluous. "An infinity of Gods" or "one infinite God" is the same to me. Maybe I missed something.

So when the body physically dies is it just not scary because you ego is completely killed so there is nothing to freak out? Apologize for all the questions about this, I’ve always wondered about a lot of this stuff since childhood, and you seem like a pretty cool guy so I’d figure I ask someone who seems to know what they are talking about. I wrote this one too about examples of being ‘woke’ as a child, feel free to check it out here:

@Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

9 hours ago, ActualizedJohn said:

So when the body physically dies is it just not scary because you ego is completely killed so there is nothing to freak out? Apologize for all the questions about this, I’ve always wondered about a lot of this stuff since childhood, and you seem like a pretty cool guy so I’d figure I ask someone who seems to know what they are talking about. I wrote this one too about examples of being ‘woke’ as a child, feel free to check it out here:

@Carl-Richard

I would think so, but of course, I haven't experienced these things ? You still won't walk off a cliff. You'll still have a biological imperative (prarabdha karma) that will run itself out in this life, unless you're able to leave the body intentionally through mahasamadhi.

I don't know if I would classify myself as "woke" as a child, but I started being obsessed about the concept of morality at like 7 years old, and sometimes I would go into something like a panic attack where I would start crying because I would become so aware of my own mortality (maybe it was a type of non-dual glimpse). That lasted until I was 11, and then it reignited one summer when I was 14 while stuck on a super boring vacation trip. After that, I was able to create coping mechanisms to avoid thinking about it (you sort of see the parallels with my spiritual journey some years later ☺️).

[Nilsi]

On 16.12.2022 at 5:59 AM, Carl-Richard said:

What the guy says makes sense, but to be honest, the Infinite Gods video is probably the only video of Leo I don't understand. I thought it was superfluous. "An infinity of Gods" or "one infinite God" is the same to me. Maybe I missed something.

I thought that was one of his most profound talks. 

Of course there is no difference between an infinity of Gods and an infinite God if you logically disect the statement, but its still a profound insight to really get that this is "us" being in this thing together - even though this "us" is only an "I" in the final analysis.

This togetherness is just another facette of awakening - just like Love, Truth, God, Infinity, etc. are all "the same," but are qualitatively distinct experiences.

Maybe this is already obvious to you (which it probably should be to a healthy human being), but I certainly had times when any sense of community or belonging was completely alien to me.

Edited December 17, 2022 by Nilsi

[AsafTheMagniv]

if I were in your position I would enquire why I feel fear - when you truly understand why you fear something, the feeling of fear will lessen and its a great way to understand yourself and how emotions work better

we feel fear because we feel danger but when you understand what you fear, it would not look that scary at all

[axiom]

@ActualizedJohn

When the body appears to die, it will be very obvious that there is no reality to death beyond concept.

There is no you that is actually there to die. “Death” is just life without apparent attachment and seeking.