Leo Gura

@Aamir King It's normal. Energy is being redirected in your body. The brain must optimize itself to sustain higher degrees of coherence and consciousness. Like I said before, don't be too surprised if one day you have to howl like a wolf. Energy has a mind of its own. Let it do its thing as long as you're not hurting yourself or anyone else.

You do understand that most of the founders of Zen were great sages, right? Zen was founded by Japanese monks who dedicated DECADES of their lives, often risking their lives, traveling by ship to China and even India to study 1000s of original Chan and Buddhist scriptures, copying them, debating them, reconciling them, collecting them to bring back to Japan to transform Japanese spirituality. This was a massive sagely undertaking without which Zen would not exist. Monasteries are very complex social machines that need to be well-managed. Land, funding, and permissions must be acquired by appealing to emperors and sponsors. But how would you know any of this if all you're interested in is sitting on a cushion in meditation? How would you understand these nuances without STUDYING them? Maybe picking up a few books would be helpful? "No, Leo... all I'm interested in is enlightenment! And books are just more beliefs and illusion." This notion that meditation or consciousness work eliminates the need for reading, thinking, knowledge, training, therapy or traditional self-help, career development, business, science, medicine, proper diet, etc. is very simplistic. Don't forget: After enlightenment, the fucking laundry! Not Oreo's and cartoons. And don't forget, before enlightenment, still... the fucking laundry!

Awesome! I'm in awe of their brevity. Perfect for Youtube audiences

In the next few days the book list will be updated with 24 life-changing new books. Wanted to give you guys a heads-up as the price of the book list will be bumped up by a small amount after the update. Remember, anyone who's purchased the list (no matter when) will get free future updates. I'm committed to continuing improving the list, sharing with you the best gems that I keep finding. This update includes a lot of books about: Psychedelics and spirituality Paranormal phenomena (yes, it's real!) Metaphysics Theory of science Quantum mechanics Meditation Enlightenment A few of the new books are rare finds, and ABSOLUTELY life-transforming. This year I read more mind-blowing books than ever. Many of these are advanced books that require radical openmindedness to complete. So be ready to have all your models of reality torn to pieces.

I find claims of something new under the sun pretty rare. There's a long history of politics as showmanship, so it's not like Trump is that much of a surprise. And if we've learned anything from spiritual development, after big positive change a big ego backlash is the norm. Complex mechanical systems maintain homeostasis.

@Harvey Well, if it makes you feel any better, I struggle to explain enlightenment in my 1st language too. Enlightenment is a tricky thing to communicate clearly in any language. But practice makes perfect. If it's really that important to you, grab a dictionary and start building up your vocabulary.

@Beyond Words Nonduality means everything is infinitely interrelated. It's not like consciousness is one thing, reality is another thing, meditation is a third thing, and enlightenment is a fourth thing. IT'S ALL ONE INFINITE THING! The distinctions you make between things constitute reality. And all these distinctions are arbitrary. It's like you're partitioning an infinite-sized hard drive. How many partitions does an infinite-sized hard drive have? And of course scientific method is a part of S. Otherwise it couldn't exist S includes everything possible.

@Toshko Don't get too hung up on "helping people". The point isn't to help people but to be passionate about having some sort of creative output -- whatever that may be for you. If it's creating fun video games, that fine. But you gotta be REALLY passionate about that. If it's healing people as a doctor, that's fine, but you gotta be REALLY passionate about that. Given that you're so young, go do some traveling. It's not like you need to travel for 4 years. You can do some traveling and go to university too, if you want. Be creatively flexible. If Asia and Africa aren't realistic for you right now, then maybe travel somewhere closer and cheaper. Just to scratch that travel itch. As you do that, you may receive your next clue.

@Cammy Your inner muse is telling you to travel. That sounds like exactly what you should do. As you do that, keep your ears to the ground for your next clue.

@Callum Milner You may need to develop another marketable skill besides acting in order to help finance your acting career. Some life purposes require building up capital. Sometimes the route isn't directly A > B. Sometimes you gotta jump through hoops while keeping your eye on the prize. For example, rather than being a waiter, maybe you could learn some programming or graphic designs skills to finance yourself through college or during those periods where you don't have acting gigs. Remember, you are allowed to be strategic in pursuing your purpose. Just don't get lost in the side-gigs. And especially if you're young, you might need to spend a few years building up capital to open some doors.

@username You'll probably want to invest some time and energy diagnosing the root cause of this "impotence", cause it doesn't sound healthy, especially if you're still young. Keep in mind the root cause might be psychological (or related to lifestyle, stress, or diet). Or it could be a hormonal imbalance. Which you'd want to get tested for.

It's good that you're questioning these things. Nothing is scared here. The reality is, that from your point of view, enlightenment could be a hoax and all of us supporting it could be deluded or liars. You'll never know unless you actually reach it, or fail to do so. But you have to start somewhere. You need a working hypothesis to test. P.S. While you're being skeptical, don't forget to question your skepticism and doubt of enlightenment too! What if the greatest hoax is your own doubt?

@Orange Without an identity, you couldn't be you! Think about it. What would you be without this particular constellation of traits and boundaries you call "me"? When I had my deepest mushroom trip, I lost my identity so much that I stopped existing as a "thing". By the end of that trip, I was begging to return to be "something". I couldn't handle being unlimited and undefined. It's too weird. And so I came back as Leo. Grateful to be little old familiar Leo. How would you know yourself if not by your limitations? It's one thing to philosophize about that. It's a totally nother thing to actually become unlimited. It's scary as fuck.

@rush You haven't been at it long enough. Be more patient. Try meditating every day for at least a couple years to start to see some progress on overthinking. And even then, you're really just scratching the surface of what it takes to tame the monkey mind. Right now it's like you're trying to stop the Titanic with a BB gun.

@Peace and Love Sorry for your loss. The solution is to turn into the emotions and feel them fully. But not unconsciously. See my video: How To Deal With Strong Negative Emotions There is a conscious way to feel emotions. You can suffer greatly, but as long as you're not running away from it, or distracting yourself, you can let the suffering grow and mature you. There are also many lessons and insights to have about life from experience of great suffering. Here are a couple to jog your mind: Notice that everything is impermanent Notice that people who don't actively develop themselves and don't cultivate spiritual connection don't cope well with suffering Notice that your life too is short. Use this to clarify your top values and priorities. Notice how and why you create suffering or resist certain emotions Notice how material attachments create suffering (yes, people are material) Notice how great suffering can make you more compassionate for others' suffering Etc. Drawing out such lessons is difficult when you've got a lot on your plate, so don't overwhelm yourself too much. If you're having a crappy day, sometimes you just gotta give yourself some comfort and forget about personal development. But it's a good idea to keep your meditation habit going every day no matter what, so you've at least got that one period in the day where you can re-ground yourself.

@Mrkvn8 Look at this process like a psycho-spiritual colonic. If you're going to get your colon cleaned out, don't expect the stuff coming out to look pretty

Of course I didn't mean this soon. It might take you a few years (or decades) to realize your jackassery

@Frogfucius A little bit of higher consciousness can be a dangerous thing. This is a phase of the newbie on this path. A trap. Later you will look back on this attitude and cringe a bit for its lack of refinement. You've yet to experience deep suffering, which builds compassion. And you've yet to experience true Love. There is MUCH you're still not conscious of. So don't get cocky, kid You blew up one Tie fighter, but there's an entire squadron out there you've yet to face.

That's enlightenment. That's what we're talking about of course!

Of course! That's why it's funny. When I say hippie, it's part tongue-in-cheek, part self-depricating, part preemption of criticism from stage Orange people. As you actualize, you will become a total hippy. Orange must pass through Green to get to Yellow. But they've demonized Green so much that they've burned their only bridge, so to speak. If you read Martin's biography, you'll get a very strong hippy vibe.

@Pauline Bureau The question you really gotta ask yourself is, Are you actually close to your family now? Probably not as close as you think. Most families are stuck in a coping pattern, looping over and over. How do you imagine that will end? Egos can't really relate or love each other because they are too busy wrapped up in their own crap.

You can master physics if you want, but it really has nothing to do with enlightenment or raising your consciousness. Studying physics is not what's going to all the sudden convince people of enlightenment. They resist enlightenment and higher consciousness out of ego, dogma, and ignorance. In fact, many genius physicists and neuroscientists are still fundamentally ignorant of consciousness. The most direct way to enlightenment (short of 5-meo) is simply to sit down and be aware of what is happening right now in your direct experience. No matter how much physics you learn -- you could become Stephen Hawking or Albert Einstein or Richard Feynman -- you will still not be enlightened and you will still not understand what reality really is. Because it's NOT possible via conceptual knowledge. The map is never the territory. This limit is baked into the entire scientific method. You cannot do scientific method to reach enlightenment. It's important to grasp this, otherwise you will waste years or decades in vain. If you take a 20+ mg dose of 5-meo, you will immediately realize why all conceptual attempts at enlightenment must fail. We're dealing with something MUCH vaster here than mere physics. You have to simultaneously grasp all of existence AT ONCE! This is not possible for the mind or brain to do. The only way to do it is to stop believing in mind and brain. These are illusions. Existence has no physical substrate. It's way more ingenious than that!

@Geo A lot more disconcerting things will happen than rocking. The advice is always the same: Just shut up and keep meditating Notice how easily phenomena distracts you. Every little thing instantly becomes an excuse to YAP, YAP, YAP, YAP, YAP inside your head and lose track of awareness. It doesn't matter is Satan himself comes for a visit. It's just a distraction from really being aware.

@cetus56 Cause reality seems to unfold in certain patterned ways. There are boundaries. An unbounded collection of boundaries.

You ain't too wise if you're placing pragmatism and safety above passion If you're older, all the more reason to stop screwing around and get serious about your passion. You're gonna be dead soon!