Leo Gura

Look man, you're on the path. You're walking THE DEEPEST path possible for humans. Now, if you took up practicing piano, and you only practiced it for 1 hour a day for 2 years, and then came to me and said, "But Leo!!!! Why am I not as good a Mozart yet????? Why????? This is hopeless!!!" I think you know what I would tell you. To become as good as Mozart, you need 10,000 hours of practice. To become fully liberated, you will probably also need 10,000 hours of practice. Now, have some people managed to become liberated much faster? Sure. A handful of people -- out of 7 billion -- have been lucky enough to get that. But the majority must sink 10,000 hours into this. This is why I talk about more than just enlightenment. This is way beyond enlightenment. We're talking about self-mastery, and self-mastery is the deepest mastery path of all. It's the most difficult and the longest. But also the greatest. MASTERY is a CRITICAL concept to keep in mind in this work. If you don't understand how mastery works, you will fail. Go re-read the George Leonard's foundational book called Mastery. Or at least watch my video summary about it. The reason it seems like it's not happening, is because you're doing way too little consciousness work. Try meditating for 100 hours straight, and you'll see more growth in 1 week than you've probably seen in the last 2 years. There's a very good reason why monasteries exist. So you can do consciousness work 24/7 and hit your 10,000 hours quickly. Liberation itself is less important than firmly setting yourself on this path. Don't worry so much about the fruits of the path. Worry about how to devote yourself to the path. This is all of life right here. This is really your only job on Earth, so do it with dedication and a light heart.

@BeginnerActualizer Keep in mind that was written 2000 years ago, for hardcore practitioners. If you ever experience God, you'll see why Patanjali wrote what he wrote. No other pleasure compares. The problem is that most people these days aren't serious about discovering God. The entire culture has been pussified, pacified, and materialized. Asceticism and hardcore spirituality has been demonized by mainstream culture so that average folks can feel good about their piddling spiritual efforts. If you want to read yoga philosophy that's more embracing of sensual desire, check out Tantra Yoga. It was the next evolutionary step after Patanjali's classical yoga.

@Key Elements Tell that to Trump

@Tanuj Yes, I'll talk about it in the future.

@Key Elements Tell that to Jesus

@Thinh Yes. After enlightenment, it should become obvious to you that the most worthwhile life purpose is raising consciousness. It's the universal purpose. And it beats all others. If you ever experience God, you will instantly understand why religions exist and spread. You will want to share this experience with the whole world. But you won't really be able to. And that will break your heart.

@Anlib Generally speaking it is curative. But old habits run deep. You'll still have many bad habits after an initial enlightenment insight. Some may drop away, but many won't without additional work. Because enlightenment is BEYOND the mind. And stuff like being a crack addict is deeply embedded in mind habits. Enlightenment will NOT rewire your whole brain. That's much more difficult to accomplish and will require some serious work. In practice, an enlightened person would probably not be a crack addict, because that's so low consciousness. But they could easily be overweight for example, or be terrible in relationships, or struggle with money.

@ULFBERHT Your question is too broad. There are hundreds of methods for doing inner work, depending on your specific issues and goals. A couple of very basic universal methods might be: Meditation Visualization Journaling Therapy Life coaching Reading self-help books Contemplation Psychedelics Etc If you have my book list, check out the books in the Emotional Mastery category. They provide a lot of resources for doing deep inner work. Also check out some of my top books in the Consciousness category. This step alone should give you tons of ideas for how to start inner work. Remember, when you don't yet know how to formulate a specific challenge or question, and it feels like you don't know how to get started, that's simply because you haven't done enough RESEARCH! Go read 25 different self-help books. Then see if you still have this problem of not knowing how to begin. This path requires you do research. No one will spoon-feed you all the necessary information in one place (not even me).

I suggest you do some research into body energy and body work. There is A LOT going on physically in the body. Emotions are carried physically in the body and can create energetic blocks. Find a professional who is experienced in this field who can help you. There are many modalities of energy and body work: Reiki Hypnosis Deep tissue massage Certain kinds of body-based therapies Yoga Etc. Make sure that you're not just doing inner work in your head. The body and mind are one system. You need to do body work too if you want to really feel great and become fully developed.

Spiritual purification is much larger in scope than enlightenment proper. Enlightenment simply means you are conscious of what you are. You could be enlightened but still very under-developed in many other areas, or be a homeless crack addict. Yes, enlightenment means high consciousness, but there are many degrees of high consciousness. Like, just because you can play a tune on the piano doesn't mean you're at the level of Mozart. It takes A LOT of work to get to Mozart's level. If you become enlightened, making money shouldn't be too hard. It's a lot easier to learn how to make money.

@Taavi This work is inherently paradoxical. Nothing changes, and everything changes simultaneously. But enlightenment will certainly not change anything material. So if you're broke now, you'll still be broke after enlightenment. Even addictions may not change. If you're a chain smoker now, you probably will be after enlightenment unless you make efforts to change it. Enlightenment is utterly useless. It has no practical function. It just happens to be TRUE. After realizing this, your life must still go on. You still have to eat, shit, read, drive a car, go to work, relate to people, pay your taxes, avoid falling off cliffs, etc. But you will have a new perspective on life and your role in it. And emotionally, stuff should change quite a bit. Judging your life's quality is arbitrary, but that doesn't mean you want to live like a dog. You still have many preferences. You are not merely a passive observer of life. You are an active participant whether you like it or not. Every action you take has consequences (even if there is no "you" steering the ship).

That's right! This work is paradoxical. Believe it or not, it is possible in this case to demolish your house while building it too. And that's EXACTLY what you should be doing in this work. Remember that enlightenment really changes nothing. If your life is crappy before enlightenment, it will still be crappy afterwards.

@Richard Alpert Of course you gotta compare gram for gram of dried substance.

@Taavi It's a long, drawn out process. You have much more toxic beliefs to question right now than life purpose. Yes, life purpose requires some belief building, but that's just a practical facet of life. The trap here would be to think, "I gotta dissolve all beliefs. So let me start by doubting my beliefs in life purpose, self-actualization, enlightenment, love, compassion, etc." No! Those beliefs are practical and useful. Keep them if they are serving your growth. What you should be more concerned about dropping are all your other limiting beliefs. What you're doing right now is sorta like saying, "Oh, my left leg has a paper cut in it, let's amputate it." While your right leg is infested with cancer and gangrene. The paper cut on the left leg is NOT the problem. Start by amputating the stuff that's really toxic. There's nothing contradictory about -- say -- pursing enlightenment and developing a career in music. You can do both. Likewise for whatever other career you might be passionate about.

@Taavi Congrats, now you know how Hippies happen Seriously though, the truth is most striving for success or self-improvement are phony and misguided. It's like going to McDonald's your whole life without realizing there are much better meal options available elsewhere in the city. As you do more consciousness work, you will realize more and more how dysfunctional and shallow everything in mainstream society is. This can be difficult to reconcile at first, because your entire foundation for living is thrown into doubt. If you continue the work, eventually you will come to peace with all this and you will find more healthy ways to relate to mainstream society. You'll find your niche at some point, but it might take a few years or a decade. You're still so young you don't really know yourself yet. You'll spend most of your 20's just getting to know who you are and what you want out of life. Rolling with it at your age is probably the best strategy.

Even 1 gram of mushrooms can be a powerful spiritual and healing experience.

The practical level of survival will always exist as long as you're alive as a human being. Yes, you are formless consciousness. But you are also a human avatar, and as long as you are, on the practical level, you will have to behave like a human. This shouldn't be so surprising.

@Feeble Dave Anything can affect your drive for work. It's not like your drive for work is a given. It could end tomorrow. Consciousness work of any kind will cause you to seriously re-examine your entire life. That's the point.

Truffles have the same effect. They can be even more potent gram for gram.

Awareness is EVER-PRESENT! Right now! You cannot not access it. Try right now to not be aware. It's impossible. You're always aware (unless perhaps in deep sleep). Feeling is acknowledged with thought, yes, but notice that feeling must happen before thought can acknowledge it. There must be something first to acknowledge. Notice that you can think whatever you want and the feeling of the floor doesn't change from that. Do this in your experience right now. Stop theorizing about it.

When you want sex, do you stop and ask yourself: "But how do I know I REALLY want sex? What if I stop wanting it just as I'm pulling my dick out?" Desire is FELT. Desire is passion. It's a deep yearning. If you have no desire for anything, then good. Just sit there and be satisfied without desire. You don't need anything more. Or do you? For people who have no other yearning, I recommend pursuing consciousness and Truth. Your desires will materialize as you shed layers of fake self in that process.

@DimmedBulb One strong mushroom trip or 5-meo trip would solve that problem. You're stuck in a low-consciousness trance right now and you don't even know it yet. It's hard to break out of that without a kick in the ass (which psychedelics provide very nicely). You've basically got two options with fear: face it head on, or keep running away for the rest of your life.

@MHarris Sounds like you're a good candidate for enlightenment work. Nothing in the material world will ever really satisfy you anyways. Only Truth will. So why not pursue it with a vigor? The Truth is free ya know As you get closer to Truth, I'd bet your purpose will materialize. You might also be a good candidate for psychedelics. One strong mushroom trip could really jolt you out of your funk. I say this because it sounds like you're really lacking a connection to Source Consciousness. You've gotten lost in our dysfunctional culture and materialism. It's time for you to discover that reality is mystical and your crappy life is but a dream.

@DimmedBulb Whatever arises arises, but you want to look past the knee-jerk fear reaction and use this method to get perspective on your life. If you will die, then what does that mean for how you should live life? What is worth doing? What isn't worth doing? There lies the value of this method. Working through the fear of death will require a much more serious effort than merely contemplating it. Fear of death is visceral. It can be overcome, but only through very serious consciousness work.

Interesting poll. I'm INTP, but very balanced on the N and P to the point of almost being 50/50. But I and T are very strong for me. Although that's from over 4 years ago, before doing any consciousness work. I wonder how it's shifted in the last 4 years.