Leo Gura

It will get worse before it gets better. But as you get deeper into this work, and you fully grasp the depth of your own ignorance about reality, you will end up with a very deep compassion for the ignorance of our culture. Because you will understand that there is no "it". It is YOU! You are the ignorance you abhor. The infinite love of God will wash all that out of your heart. If only you can glimpse it for but 1 minute.

@Cammy You already are without everyone. You just aren't conscious of it. Not only is there not Other, there is no Self. So there's nothing to worry about. But you need to REALLY experience this, not just think about it or believe it. All your beliefs are NOT growth. They are obstacles to growth. When you finally realize that reality is nondual and no sentient entities actually exist, including yourself, you will be very much relieved and overjoyed beyond imagination. Your true nature is far bigger and cooler than if you were in an orgy with all 7 billion people on this planet. You will experience more love all alone than 7 billion people could give you if they all married you. WAAAAAY, WAAAAAY more love! So much love, you could not imagine it in your wildest dreams. So much love it will physically pain your body, sending you into convulsions, and horrifying your mind with its sheer immensity. Muster the courage to actually work toward the Truth. Trusting that it will give you everything you've ever desired, and a billion times more. So much more, you will be knocked on the floor, weeping tears of joy and gratitude.

Classic hero's journey. Everyone is on the spiritual path all the time. Most people just die never realizing it.

@Steph1988 Yes, I'm sure it looks that way from your POV. I just can't communicate to you how I come to these conclusions. They integrate hundreds of sources and 1000s of hours of practice. The only way for you to really understand is to walk the path yourself. I have made a career out of personal development, but the difference is, I understand that all my words are not the Truth. And my career in personal development will be short-lived. I am not kidding about the black hole effect. It's very real. And it is already happening to me. At some point, you may just find me sitting alone in a cave in silence. Come say Hi, but don't expect any answers. When you get far enough down the rabbit hole, you'll understand why it must be this way.

Don't just post bald links please. Explain what you're posting and why you're posting it.

@Loreena Realize it and tell me.

Careful with your logic and assumptions. The Buddhists describe a meditative state called: Neither-perception-nor-not-perception. It's clearly there to be cognized. Go cognize it and report back to us. Discover what is beyond experience, beyond world, beyond death, beyond self.

Some decent books on there, but just scanning over the list, I can see it will be way too academic and get you very little actual growth. Following some academics is great, but don't get too carried away with them. They are ultimately lost in mind, and their entire careers and livelihoods hinge on that, so they will not lead you very far in your own development, because if they were far in their own development, they would stop being academics. Sounds harsh of me to say, but it's just the practical reality of current academia. You will not find happiness there. Crusading against postmodernists (or anyone for that matter) is the red flag here. Conscious people do not crusade.

You can only expect so much from your academics. Don't expect them to be mystics. It's hazardous to their careers.

The whole notion is ridiculous, because by that logic, how did the first people become enlightened? Clearly they had no human gurus. There are many people who have become enlightened completely on their own, without any gurus or guidance. What's True is True regardless of gurus or any other social/cultural stuff. By blindly following a guru, even if you get enlightened, you will be a sheep, spewing dogma left and right. Because you didn't actually rely on any intelligent process to get enlightenment. You just rolled the dice and got lucky. Even if you get lucky, you will still be a sheep. The whole problem of religion in a nutshell: No one wants to really do the work by themselves. Everyone wants a crutch, some Daddy figure to guide you by the hand to the Truth. Good luck with that. You might as well just suck on your guru's tit instead of gathering your own food.

A healthy is ego is one that is willing to agree to annihilate itself, and does so of its own wisdom, without being prodded into it. An unhealthy ego is one which is unwilling to acknowledge its own unreality and its own shenanigans.

Interesting post. Not sure about all the other stuff, but definitely going 24/7 mindfulness beast mode will get you there much quicker. That is the main advantage of monks and doing meditation retreats. 1 hour of daily meditation is not sufficient to really become conscious. That's more like a newbie or maintenance dose. The issue is not that people don't know how to get to enlightenment fast, it's that they don't really want to. They are busy with life and don't want to drop everything. Congrats on awakening.

If you read it carefully, I said in the blog post everything SEEMS understandable. You can't know what you don't know. Everything I say could be wrong. All my knowledge is probabilistic. Also, maybe the thing you will end up understanding is that everything can't be understood.

You don't need to believe in it. You need to experience it. Yes, it helps makes many lives better. You are just out the loop. The Egyptians built an entire civilization upon it, and ran it successfully for over 2000 years. Which is more than we can say for ourselves. No one is questioning if the pen will fall. The question, rather, is what is a pen? What is life? What is reality? I dare you to try to use logic to answer that. Logic is for small minds. Big minds do not think. And they certainly do not argue.

Thanks for the review

@Shane597 Sure, it can be a good learning experience. Don't think of it as the end-all-be-all. At your age you need experience with many aspects of life, including expressing yourself. Don't make the blog about your personal views of life. Make it something more objective and useful to people. That way you aren't just ranting and blabbermouthing away like some radio talk show host. Try to offer people value in all your work rather than just serving your self, or creating an echo chamber for your ego.

Only the entirety of creation.

@kieranperez The Truth of reality doesn't depend on your medications. It's always there to be seen. It's like empty space. Space is always present, even if you're sick. But your psychological ability to contemplate might be impaired by all sorts of things, from medication to bad food to watching cable news. You've probably got months of groundwork inquiring to do before you even have a hope of enlightenment. So start there and start now. If you start to feel psychologically unstable, then just back off the work for a while.

@Timotheus Don't worry about that. Enlightenment is more than you could ever ask for. All your worries will melt away. At least until you have to clean the stinky litter box

@username Have your first enlightenment experience, and then you'll be able to reason about all this more clearly. Enlightenment will obliterate your whole paradigm of what reality and life are, to such a degree, that all your past metaphysical questions will become pointless to a large extent. If you still have doubts after that, we can talk. My motive is making sense of life.

@jimrich At his stage, it's not something one does or tries. It's permanent.

But what if there's more beyond that? Just because we can't imagine an alternative, doesn't say much about reality. It merely reaffirms that our imaginations are limited.

Of course we already know he's done it. I'm talking about giving 5-meo to an enlightened master to see if it will reveal anything more for him. That would be an important scientific achievement.

I am open to any possibility. But I must admit, the Absolute sure feels Absolute. But then again, if reality really wanted to fuck with us, it would create an Absolute, and then something more beyond that which we cannot imagine or access in any way. Maybe everything is not one? Maybe everything is 359,458,134? After all, if the most you could access was one, you'd have no clue about anything else beyond. And you'd feel like you've accessed everything without any possible exception. Enlightenment could be the ultimate epistemic trap. One from which you will never escape. An enlightened master will of course deny all this. But then again, that's exactly what he would do if he was epistemically trapped beyond all escape. And the craziest thing about it is, even if you became fully enlightened, this would still not resolve the problem. You'd certainly feel like you attain the Absolute and nothing more could be. But that might merely be your delusion. You could end up as epistemically lost as your enlightened master, and you'd never know it. It really is like a form of insanity or living in another reality from which there is no return. Or falling through a black hole.

The definition of a hallucination is something which is actually nothing. Hence, I like: world = hallucination.