Leo Gura

Some food for thought: Even if everyone on the planet was enlightened, there would still not be peace on Earth. The nature of survival is nasty, brutal, and unfair. Not everyone in the world can live in a nice cushy suburb. Just by the very fact that your body exists, it is denying existence to other things/beings. Life is a dirty business.

That is where you'd be wrong. If enlightenment was as simple as people like to think it is, there wouldn't be so many spiritual books, teachers, teachings, and debates. The traps in this work are legion. The facets of enlightenment are many. The depth of this rabbit hole is beyond all human comprehension. And there is way more to enlightenment than enlightenment alone. If you neglect to do the research, I would bet good money you will never make it to enlightenment at all, and even if you have a glimpse or two, you will turn into a Zen devil, as so many people here are doing. There's nothing like one or two glimpses of the Absolute to bring out the devil in you. There is a very good reason why the world's oldest spiritual traditions are deep, intricate, and enormously nuanced. Because that reflects the nature of the spiritual terrain. But you will not appreciate any of that without lots of careful and openminded research. Enlightenment is simple. Enlightenment is complex. Enlightenment is all those things, and none of those things. When faced with the unknown, the wise person does research rather than making simplistic assumptions.

The really scary part is, even on mushrooms, he still hasn't experienced Absolute Infinity, the fullest nature of God -- I would bet. That is like a whole nother ballpark beyond what mushrooms usually show. Someone please give that man some 5-MeO so he discovers what Zen really is

It will be online for a long time, so don't worry about it.

@Sheeba 5 years in college is a long ass time, and chances are you come out of it still not knowing what you want your career to be. Figure out your life purpose ASAP so you don't piss it away. I would not invest 5 years of the prime of my life into something that wasn't what I was really passionate about and which didn't advance my career. You need to figure out how you're are going to meld your top passions with putting food on the table. That is your core challenge at your age. If you don't figure it out now, chances are, you never will. It will be MUCH harder after you are in the workforce. You will not have the free time to explore options, develop the right skills, or build a portfolio of work -- you will be working like a mule 8 hours per day.

I find that philosophy is a field best studied on one's own. Academic philosophy is really poor and not based on a search for Truth, but largely mental-masturbation and history. Why not start your career/biz and study philosophy as a hobby on your own? That is really the best of both worlds in my opinion. Spending too much time in college is not good.

https://www.actualized.org/start

Makes you wonder then, what makes him a Zen master if he isn't conscious of that already?

This is not a thing you can resolve with your mind -- not even close. Something is nothing, and nothing is everything. But this cannot make any sense to you while in your present state of dualistic consciousness. You have to collapse the distinction between something/nothing. Who said there is a difference between something and nothing? Start questioning that assumption.

@Cepzeu As they say in Zen, nothing is hidden. Perception is reality. If you are not seeing it, it doesn't exist, so to speak. But even more of a mindfuck is to realize that even that which you are seeing, also doesn't exist! Existence and non-existence are a conceptual duality. But since you're new to this, just start off with becoming aware of perceptions coming in and out existence (your awareness) every second. Mindfulness/meditation is all about starting to take your perceptions literally, and not figuratively like most people do. Which means, if you don't see the chair, stop assuming it exists. And if you want to take it one step deeper, when you look at a chair, notice it doesn't actually exist! The chair is made of nothing, like a hologram or an object in a video game. It's a virtual chair, so to speak. A hallucination. But that's not easy to see without crazy focused awareness skills.

"My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them -- as steps -- to climb beyond them. He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it." -- Ludwig Wittgenstein @TJ Reeves So what role did 5-MeO play in all this? How significant was it compared to all the other stuff you did?

@Max_V Psychedelics are the best tool I know for that. They will make you face the fear head on and it will be laser-effective. After you die a dozen times on psychedelics, you stop worrying about death and start looking forward to it.

@Source_Mystic I have testimonials Although on a more serious note, I wasn't speaking of my LP course (those were your words), I was speaking of many other things outside the domain of nonduality, of which the course is just one thing. Newbies get so stuck on seeking nonduality that they fall into the trap of neglecting all the other important aspects of life. That is what I was mocking.

Zen Devilry at its finest.

@Amadeusz Enlightenment will not solve all your real-world problems. You gonna be enlightened flipping burgers at McDonalds or living in a hippie commune sucking some dude's dick to pay your rent. If you're cool with that, by all means only focus on enlightenment and ignore everything else.

@Waves Good, but next time try to do it with zero internet or reading. Just 24/7 meditation. That's where your results will skyrocket a thousand-fold.

Being/Truth is the ultimate end of all legit spiritual techniques. So of course it feels that way. It's like you're saying, "You know... I'm starting to suspect that Lemons taste a lot like Limes and Oranges and Tangerines." Yes, of course, they are all citrus fruits.

Because you do not know! Stop assuming you know what enlightenment is, or where it leads, or what your inquiry will unearth. Only then can you truly inquire. For all you know, enlightenment could give you herpes. And here you are just stumbling into it blindly. Why would you assume you know a thing unless you've researched the hell out of it? And how can you claim to have researched the hell out of it if you haven't even bothered to read 50 books on the subject? Would you go to a brain surgeon who hasn't read 50 books about the brain? Would you hire an engineer to build you a bridge who hasn't read 50 books about engineering?

@egoless You're yet too immature to handle the Truth. That ego of yours got one tiny glimpse of its destruction and went reeling. Very predictable.

After some deliberation, I've decided to lock this thread because it's becoming a distraction. Whether UFOs are real or not is too off-topic for this sub-forum. Yes, openmindedness is important, but that has to be balanced with focus. UFOs are a very controversial subject which will just cause pointless debating without really helping people grow. I personally have nothing against UFOs. I'm open to them existing, and I'm open to discussions about them, but just not here. It turns a lot of people off from spirituality. Yes, this is a subjective judgment call. It's not a black and white case. But I don't want Actualized.org to develop a reputation of UFO-ology and things like that. I'd like to stick more closely to traditional nonduality. I many ways, it's a matter of style. Different people will resonate with different styles of spirituality. Maybe this policy will change after I personally meet a UFO and discover its personal growth potential, but until then, let's cut the UFO talk here. This doesn't mean I am denying UFOs exist. It simply means they are off-topic in this sub-forum in the same way that talking about military history or knitting might be.

@Sahil Pandit Your problem is that you're only giving out love to get love, like a tit-for-tat. That's not real love. Real love is given without expecting anything in return. The problem isn't that you love too much, it's that you don't love enough, and you put selfish expectations on it. Love isn't about getting, it's about giving. Real unconditional love isn't chimpery. Chimpery is conditional love, and trying to get other people to love you because you don't really love yourself.

@Hardkill Depends on what your expectations and sticking-points are. If you are a newbie and having trouble with cold-approaching and opening consistently all night long, it should definitely help push you past that. Learning how to approach consistently is one of the biggest problems people have. Bootcamps are designed to force you into tough situations and make you bolder.

Stop listening to that nonsense. You ain't remotely realized. Those are just word-games some people like to play. There are hundreds of different techniques with various levels of effectiveness for various people.

People who keep asking stupid questions will be banned. Use this forum productively.

Stop this mental-masturbation.