Leo Gura

They were blown out into outer space by the giant meteor

@Magic I don't talk about it because these are very nuanced, complex, technical subjects which require decades of experience to fully understand. They are definitely worth investigation.

Because we have no words in the human language for something beyond experience. So when we speak of an "enlightenment experience" we mean it very loosely. You have to understand that it's actually not an experience. Even though it may be accompanied by an experience when it occurs. But it also actually doesn't "occur" because it's outside of time. 1) Get a guide/teacher who can work with you one on one, who is specifically good at direct pointing techniques. 2) Go to a retreat, workshop, or seminar. 3) Start practicing Mindfulness Meditation with strict labeling, as I explain in the Mindfulness Meditation video. 4) Take some psychedelics. 5) Get more serious. Stoke up a burning desire to know What you are. 6) Spend more time doubting your present belief that you are a body/mind, so you really don't know. 7) Spend A LOT more time inquiring. You need to build up momentum. Long chunks of time are necessary. 1 hour here and there just doesn't build enough momentum. Try spending a whole weekend doing solid inquiry until you're absorbed in it.

@bobbyward Go deeper! Until it knocks you off your feet. There is nothing subtle about realizing all of reality is unreal.

@Loreena See my Practical Guide To Enlightenment post. It lists all the key questions.

@Epiphany_Inspired Sorry, there's no way to rescue it on our end. There needs to be a successful submission resulting in a post. Sometimes your connection can time out, which means the forum never got your data. Most web browsers allow you to click the Back button or CTRL+Z to go back and retrieve your own data.

That's right. "Normal" and "paranormal" are just social conventions. What's paranormal for mainstream Western society might be totally normal to an experienced yogi or a shaman in the Amazon rainforest. Is seeing a demon or an angle paranormal? Most Westerners would say Yes! Because what "paranormal" really means is: "My paradigm of reality doesn't allow such a phenomena to be possible." But of course, one's paradigm of reality could be wrong. A smart phone would have been viewed as paranormal by the ancient Greeks, for example. To us, it is normal. If you showed up to a forum in Athens with a smart phone, you would have probably been called a witch, put to trial, and hung.

Yes, that's what you should be shooting for. Fancy experiences are not it. You are guessing. In this work, you cannot take anything for granted. Everything must be derived from scratch. You don't even know if there is such a thing as enlightenment. You have an illusion of control (which is called ego). There is no one in control of anything.

@EmilyCook26 You'll need 1000s of hours of serious meditation practice before the inner voice starts to quiet down. Especially if you live an intoxicated lifestyle. I don't have a quiet mind when I meditate. And that's okay. I still get many benefits. Spirituality is not a magic cure. It takes real work to get the fruits. But it's worth it. Have you started doing self-inquiry yet? That might be helpful.

Simple, you don't know what your values are or what you want out of life. Probably because you've never seriously contemplated it. Or you're just going through a big transition, which naturally leads to confusion.

@electroBeam Aren't you bored of being scared yet? How long you gonna play these silly games? Get enlightened and get on with your life already! ...rather than furiously jerking off to yourself in the mirror. You're like the groundhog who surfaced to jerk off to himself, but mid-way through saw his own shadow, got scared, hid back in his little dank hole, only to repeat the whole thing the next day, bragging about it to his groundhog friends.

@ChimpBrain The evidence for paranormal phenomena is overwhelming. And it makes perfect sense given that reality is nondual and conscious. But nevertheless, I think most people into LoA understate the mechanical aspects of it. Changes in thoughts lead to changes in emotions lead to changes in actions lead to changes in results. You don't need some fancy quantum mechanical explanation for that. Although there probably is paranormal stuff going on around the fringes or for very advanced spiritual practitioners. People into LoA tend to crave "spiritual" explanations for things. Yes, if you want to get super-spiritual you could argue that the muffin you eat in the morning was baked by God. But it's also simpler to say it was baked by your oven using chemical heat. Yes, your oven is technically God, so if you want to get all spiritual about it, you can. There are many different frameworks for explaining natural phenomena.

That's just delusion on top of delusion because going to gym has nothing to do with you getting more sex. The reason you go to the gym is because you feel incomplete. Or maybe you just care about being healthy. I know, I know... healthiness? What a crazy notion! P.S. You're thinking with the wrong part of your body

@Outer Sure, those are all great techniques. That combination is helping you with spiritual purification which then frees you up to go deeper into self-inquiry. The reason most people don't do existential investigation (self-inquiry, contemplation, mindfulness, etc) is because they are too intoxicated by their lifestyle, emotional states, addictions, distractions, works, and chasing material goals. So anything you do to reduce your intoxication will bolster your existential investigating. This means that even very basic lifestyle changes, like cleaning up your diet, can be significant if you're really serious about seeking Truth. In fact, I would say that 99% of people don't reach enlightenment simply because their diet is wrong. The details matter in this work, and although they seem minor, lots of minor stuff adds up into a huge impediment. How are you going to get enlightened if your meals put you to sleep, for example.

@FirstglimpseOMG Yes, definitely you should be growing long before you reach enlightenment. Every baby step you can take it good. Sometimes you gotta fake it till you make it. Even if you aren't loving, sometimes you can just force yourself to behave lovingly, and although that's not ideal and can become a problem if over-done, it can be useful. You gotta start somewhere and you can't be too picky at the outset. @BLABLABLA Except it's not simple because you cannot imagine it, ever! So don't even try the imagination route. I'm just saying you need to be openminded and cognizant of your own mind's limitations. The mind must be smart enough to realize, "Hey, I will never get this, and that's okay because there's something beyond me at work here. I'm not the only game in town so let me stop acting as if I were."

@FirstglimpseOMG If you are stuck grasping at experiences, you will NEVER reach Absolute Truth. The Absolute cannot be an experience, because all experiences are limited and changing, hence non-absolute. In this work, you have to imagine that there is something beyond experience. A "thing" which cannot ever be experienced, but can nevertheless be known.

It definitely works. The trouble is that you gotta remember to apply it, again and again and again and again.

Become more conscious of THAT result. Do you like that result? If not, then bite the bullet and learn to pace yourself. Your suffering is there to teach you all the lessons you need to learn. The trick is to be conscious of the lesson when it hits you. It's all too easy to lose sight of the lesson as we get mesmerized by the emotions of it.

They look promising. Wish I had more time for it.

Depends on the habit, but 90 days is a good solid number if it's a serious habit like meditation, gym, etc.

@ChimpBrain http://amzn.to/2np5QMI

@LRyan Spirituality is not so fragile that one therapist's methods can break it. You can probably do his methods and still maintain all your spiritual practices. That is, if you were really hard-pressed. But the obvious answer here is: Why continue seeing someone who isn't aligned with your values? The biggest benefits from therapy come when the therapist and client are a team. They both have to trust each other, share similar values, and want to work together. If the relationship is adversarial, you might as well stay home and watch TV. Sounds like this guy doesn't really understand proper therapeutic method. Regardless of how good his results might be with treating PTSD. He also needs to understand that his methods are not appropriate for everyone. If a professional life coach behaved in this manner, he would be disqualified from coaching. It's very amateur behavior to push anything on the client. The client must set the agenda in order for there to be buy-in.

@Lenny How can you say you have control when you cannot even locate yourself? What is the thing which is in control? You have no idea. You should really spend some time sitting down and observing this illusion of control. You clearly cannot control your thoughts. You cannot even control your own body. Do you blink your eyes? Do you pump your heart? Do you breathe? Do you move your legs when you walk? Do you think? Do you regenerate your own cells? Do you replicate and transcribe your DNA? No! You have no control over anything. Even the thought, "But I have some control!" is not under your control. See my vid called Free Will vs Determinism for more.

@ChimpBrain Look into Reichean therapy. It's all about this.

@Revolutionary Think From before I was 10 years old. I was always self-actualizing in some degree, just not calling it that and not always as directly as now. I suspect that some people are just born more conscious than others. Not to say I'm better than anyone, but to me it just doesn't make sense how people can not question life and not aspire to grow fully.