Leo Gura

There are a lot of weird state-experiences that can happen during meditation. You could have life-like hallucinations of giant spiders crawling around you, or of Jesus coming to bless you, or the Buddha, or people's faces can start to warp and distort, or you may see bright lights, or images of demons, or total blackness, or an explosion of energy in your head, etc. All of that is called Makyo in the Zen tradition. Literally it means, "abode of the devil". It's all a distraction from truth. It makes you feel like you're making progress or gaining some deep spiritual insight when in fact you're identifying and getting lost in sensory phenomena. It's the devil playing tricks on you, testing to see if you're wise enough to distinguish between truth and illusion. The important thing to remember is that enlightenment is NOT a state! It is not an emotion. It is not a sensory experience. It is not a high. It is not some blissful light, or any other thing you can imagine. Everything you can perceive or imagine is guaranteed to NOT be enlightenment. Enlightenment is the Truth! It is what you are! You are it ALWAYS! You cannot ever not be it. You're IT right freaking now as you're reading this sentence. No special state is required. Truth is ALWAYS present. In fact, it's the ONLY thing that's present. It cannot EVER be lost. You already are enlightened! (You just don't know it.) The only problem is that your mind doesn't know what to do with this. The mind only knows how to conceptualize. The mind only knows illusion. It cannot know truth no matter how hard it tries because truth isn't something that's known, it is BEING itself, and it is not an object. Absolute Truth is indescribable and unimaginable. It has no shape. It is not even an "it". It transcends even existence and non-existence. Absolute Truth is ETERNAL -- it NEVER changes. Ever! Instead of trying to attain a grandiose meditative state (and I've been guilty of this myself A LOT), try relaxing your body and mind and focus on genuinely wondering, "Who am I really if I'm not the body?" or "What is true independent of all phenomena?" or "What is it that's aware of all of reality?" Hint: don't neglect the possibility that you may literally be nothing at all Ask yourself, "What is the only 'thing' that could be ETERNAL, untouchable, and indestructible?" Also make a distinction in your experience between meditation and self-inquiry. Lean more towards self-inquiry vs meditation if you wanna get enlightened faster.

You're not going to get enlightened through visualization practice or positive self-talk. But you could use it to stoke up intent and develop consistency of practice. INTENT << very important for enlightenment work. You have to WANT to know the truth. Not to be enlightened. But to REALLY know the truth of who/what you really are. Intent is a tricky thing to get right. It should be steady and cool, not spastic and neurotic. The people who get enlightened are like a bulldozer. They slowly roll their way through every obstacle without flinching because they are crystal clear about their priorities. The best set of priorities for this work is: TRUTH AT ANY COST! But of course all this wanting and intent has to be followed through on with many hours of daily self-inquiry work. And in the end, you will not make yourself enlightened. You will surrender to truth and enlightenment will undo you. A great (true) story I heard at a retreat I attended:

It's a good book. I wouldn't use it as a guide to getting enlightened (way too much woo-woo stuff in there), but it can certainly stoke up a passion for spiritual pursuits.

Make sure you look into the root cause of your hypothyroidism. Pills do not address the root cause, they only mollify symptoms. I've found that most modern doctors and endocrinologists are TERRIBLE at treating hypothyroidism. All they do is give you a pill to take for the rest of your life and shrug their shoulders when you ask them about actually curing it. But curing it is VERY doable. Many people have done it. I'm in the process of curing myself over the next year. Make sure you get tests for thyroid antibodies to see if you have Hashimoto's or Graves disease. Those diagnoses are very important for figuring out the cure. The top root causes of hypothyroidism are: Poor diet Gluten intolerance Dairy intolerance Leaky gut syndrome Candida or parasites in your gut Heavy metal toxicity Hormone imbalances: like xeno-estrogens from plastics Overstressed adrenal glands

Honestly, it's a real trade-off. I don't think you can do it all simultaneously. When I started my first business, I was working over 60+ hours per week for several years until things finally settled in. When I started Actualized.org, I had to abandon most of my social life and dating life. And that was 3 years ago and still continuing today! Just recently I started to dial back on the quantity of work I do and spend a little more time to myself. It will probably take me another year of work just to be able to get back into dating again. In the book, The One Thing, the authors speak about the myth of living a balanced life. Life balance doesn't mean you do everything evenly all the time. Balance is a dynamic, not a static state. In reality, what effective living looks like is you're slowly swinging your pendulum strategically between various areas of focus. You might spend 3 years working really hard on your career with single-minded focus, then once that's handled, you spend 2 years dating really hard, then once you get your girlfriend, you might put your focus on lots of meditation and traveling, etc. It's like spinning plates but you're doing it over the timeframe of months and years, not hours. It's also very important to be crystal clear about your top values and priorities in life. Most people are so vague and indecisive that they can't focus on any one thing and so they get mediocre results across the board. You have to do very strategic long-term life planning. You should have a 5 year plan for your life at least.

Good topic! A good rule of thumb I learned about women: If she's ever upset with you, for whatever logical reason << that's just girl-speak for: I need you to love me more! It's like owning a cat. You gotta lavish it with attention. Credit: David Deida In general, people don't invest into their relationships nearly enough. They assume they can just coast their way to success. In a relationship, if you two aren't growing together, you're dying, and it's only a matter of time before a catastrophic implosion from one side or the other.

And I just bought an expensive package of smoked salmon yesterday! Dammit! My favorite food!

I never said I was a vegetarian. I've dabbled with it, but never fully committed.

I've struggled a lot with chronic fatigue, for years. After doing much research, what I discovered is that chronic fatigue can have like over 100 causes! And it could be the sign of something much deeper that's wrong with your body. I've tried MANY different supplements and none of them increased my energy, although many people do have success with them. Common causes of chronic fatigue and brain fog include: Standard American Diet (SAD) Eating high carb foods like wheat, potatoes, corn, sugar Heavy metal toxicity, especially mercury and lead Pesticides Leaky gut syndrome, candida bacteria in your gut, gut parasites Auto-immune diseases Dysfunctional thyroid gland Dysfunctional adrenal glands Food allergies and food sensitivities Vitamin deficiencies, especially: vitamin D, vitamin B Low levels of blood iron and ferritin Hormone imbalances Chronic high stress Psychosomatic: basically you are subconsciously resisting something in your life So if you have a chronic problem, I highly recommend getting blood work done, urine testing done, and definitely get your thyroid hormones checked! Low thyroid free T3 and free T4 are VERY common causes of chronic fatigue. Just today I go my urine test results back and they show high levels of mercury! Now I have to do a detox protocol and cut out all fish FYI about Bulletproof Coffee: I did it for about 6 months. I got comprehensive blood lipid testing before and after. My bad cholesterol shot through the roof! My brother did the same sort of test on Bulletproof and also got similar results. I think Bulletproof Coffee can work for some people, but for other people (because we have different genes) it's not that healthy and may cause long-term issues. You hear people complaining about the same problem my brother and I experienced on the Bulletproof Forum. If you're gonna do Bulletproof, get a comprehensive lipid profile done and track your numbers over the next 6 months to make sure you're not doing more harm than good. Also I highly recommend trying a 30 day all-raw, all-veggie & fruit diet. You will notice a HUGE energy boost and unprecedented levels of mental clarity. As far as energy-boosting supplements go, here are the common ones people report work well: Rhodiola (500 mg) Vitamin D3 (5,000 IU) Vitamin B12 Methyl (5000 mcg) Ashwagandha (800 mg) Vitamin B6 P-5-P (50 mg) Fish Oil (500 EPA + 250 DHA) As for brain-boosting supplements: Vinpocetine (10 mg) L-Theanine (200 mg) Huperzine A (200 mcg) Ginkgo Biloba (120 mg) If the supplements don't help you, then you should look into blood work.

You know... original old-school Yoga had nothing to do with physical body training. The West has turned yoga into something very different than it used to be in India. Not to say that physical yoga is bad in any way. But the connection between yoga and spirituality is much clearer in the old-school formulation of yoga. Yoga actually means -- union -- which refers to the dissolving of ego, merging you and reality into one. Which basically means Enlightenment. As Patanjali says in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali -- a classic 2,000 year old text -- the sole aim of yoga is the cessation of the mind. Old-school yoga simply involved sitting still and learning special techniques for breathing and calming the mind and training concentration enough so that union became possible and one entered into ever higher states of Samadhi (union). Yoga is literally like having sex with reality using your mind! So if you're gonna do physical yoga, good. But if you really want to take your spirituality to the next level, you should really research and start practicing mental yoga too. Otherwise known as: meditation!

That's sort of a grey-area. If you think it's relevant for the purposes of me shooting a video about it, post it here. Otherwise, if you want to have an in-depth discussion about it and get other people to chime in, post it in the Meditation, Consciousness, Enlightenment, Spirituality sub-forum.

Yeah, that's a deep issue. I like it!

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The concept of self-actualization comes to us from the humanistic psychologist, Abraham Maslow. Maslow defined the self-actualizing human being as follows. Self-actualization is the expression of your true self, your fullest potential, and your great capacities. Self-actualizing people exhibit the following traits: Have a superior perception of reality — they see things in an objective, accepting way without intruding themselves upon what is being perceived. Have an increased acceptance of self, others, and nature. Have increased spontaneity in behavior — they can be unpredictable and outrageous. Are more focused on the problem than themselves. Have increased detachment and desire for privacy. Have increased autonomy and sense of individuality — take full responsibility for how their lives unfold. Are resistant to social conditioning. World-citizens not beholden to any one culture. Pick and choose what they like from culture. Are comfortable being themselves even if that means being unpopular. Have a good sense of what is real and unreal. Value truth and facts over beliefs. Have great freshness of appreciation and richness of emotional reaction. Have higher frequency of peak experiences. Being in flow state more often. Have an increased identification with the human species. Have improved interpersonal relationships. Have a more democratic character structure. Have greatly increased creativeness. Have a deep knowledge of themselves. Are constantly moving toward unity and integration of their personality and world view. Are actively nurturing their talents. Place great value on truth, beauty, goodness, uniqueness, wholeness, justice, simplicity, richness, effortlessness, and playfulness. Are driven by positive, intrinsic motivation, not by lack. Generally enjoy most aspects of life, not just achievement, triumph, or peak experiences. Take pleasure in functioning at their prime. Take a non-valuing, non-judging, non-interfering, non-condemning attitude towards others. Are more loving. They need love less but are able to give love more. Embrace conceptual dichotomies, polarities, and conflicts by fusing, transcending, or resolving. Are comfortable with paradox, contradiction, and not knowing. Have desires and impulses that correlate with what's good for them. Have solid psychological health. Live on purpose with a sense of mission. Work is a precious cause. Involved in improving the world. Willing to admit and correct mistakes. Have an easy self-discipline which comes hard to average people. Duty and pleasure are the same. Gratify themselves moderately rather than abstaining through harsh self-discipline. Express impulses more yet use less control. Controls are less rigid or anxiety-driven. Are able to express their aggression in a healthier way, as a sort of righteous indignation rather than a lashing out. Have a different, new set of concerns: being-challenges vs needs-challenges. Live to experience joy rather than avoid pain. Live in the present moment. Make more conscious decisions. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:

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This community is built to enable self-actualization. More than just a place to hang out and blabbermouth, this is a call to transform your life. Make your life count, seek the profound, inspire others to do that same, and die with a smile on your face, knowing you lived well. Self-actualization is a nuanced attitude towards life. Here are our community values -- the things we care about most: Practical, no-bullshit, results-driven personal development Self-improvement as a way of life Truth/Reality/Consciousness/Enlightenment Openmindedness Authenticity/Honesty Developing awareness & mindfulness Emotional awareness & mastery Understanding of diverse viewpoints, treating them with all with equanimity Meditation & deep introspection Embracing paradox & uncertainty Being vigilant of our infinite capacity for self-deception in all its forms: Dogma Black & white thinking Superstitious thinking Warping of our worldview due to ego & personal bias Narcissism Vanity Hedonism Group think & social conditioning Arm-chair philosophy Academic snobbery or technical argumentation Debate Acting superior Judging/criticizing others 100% responsibility: holding yourself to a higher standard than anyone else Concern for the well-being of humanity and the larger ecosystem Passion for life Being a positive leader & role-model Walking your talk Hard work: recognizing that it takes massive effort to become successful Long-term thinking: investing in yourself Finding your true life purpose Staying on track with your purpose after you've found it Becoming world-class at what you do Creating financial success, creative autonomy, freedom, and lasting fulfillment Unleashing your full potential Helping others unleash their full potential