Leo Gura

@TruthSeeker Truth = Being. No, it cannot be explained because the explanation is itself truth. How can one piece of being explain another? Does one atom explain another atom? Does the color blue explain the color red? Does the smell of roses explain the taste of oranges? Facts cannot explain facts. Facts merely are. The whole exercise of explanation is founded upon delusion. Symbols are being used without proper awareness of what symbols actually are.

Yes it is. Then again, it's possible to become enlightened sitting on the toilet taking a crap. Do Nothing is a great technique, but I would supplement it with self-inquiry. There are MANY different ways to become enlightened. No one way is best for everyone. You gotta find what will work for you.

Enlightenment cannot be explained, period. Being cannot be explained. Being merely is. All explanations are ultimately delusions.

Self-inquiry is extremely simple (and therefore extremely difficult): Step 1: Sit down in a quiet place Step 2: Create a possibility in your mind that you do not actually know who or what you are. Step 3: Ask yourself, "Who or what am I?" Step 4: Genuinely wonder what you could be other than a body/mind. Probe your direct experience for answers. Discard all verbal or rational answers. Try to burn through all your beliefs, assumptions, and images of who you are. Drop all of them over time. Step 5: Enlightenment spontaneously dawns after tens or hundreds of thousands of times of asking the question. That's basically all there is to it. But of course, in practice, it will feel 1000x more complicated and more challenging.

@Aldo Marchand Technically enlightenment IS science. The problem is that mainstream academic science refuses to acknowledge it because there is a bias against first-person phenomena and a bias towards rational explanations and modeling -- which are fundamentally incompatible with the truth of enlightenment. But I agree that more integration is called for, and we are definitely headed in that direction as a society.

Physics and enlightenment sort of work in two different domains. Enlightenment will not reveal facts about the big bang to you. But it will answer the ultimate question of what existence is in a way that physics really can't because physics is ultimately a map of the territory, not the territory itself. All models of reality, no matter how good or accurate, are ultimately fictitious. Your should really watch this video. It will save you years of dead-end searching: http://www.actualized.org/articles/the-ultimate-model-of-human-knowledge If you care about understanding what existence literally is, physics will be of limited value. The only way to answer that question is to become directly conscious of your true nature. Because as it turns out, you are existence itself. Does this mean physics doesn't have value? No, physics has it's purposes and it's useful. The question is more about what you're really after. Enlightenment will help the human race far more than physical discoveries will. And don't forget that even if you knew all the physics in the world, your life would still be miserable if you neglect enlightenment. Physics cannot help your personal life or significantly raise your fulfillment levels while enlightenment can.

Awareness is Nothingness. It's what you actually are. An empty, formless, infinite transparent field. It cannot be seen or thought. It is the empty space within which reality occurs and your body/mind exist in. Awareness = consciousness = spirit = God = you To get a real clear taste of it requires an enlightenment experience. In that moment you see everything as made out of awareness.

The effort is in overcoming the boredom and your internal resistances to relaxing (to use Matt Kahn's word). Ironically, for most people, this will be a great struggle. After all, what could be easier than sitting on your ass literally doing nothing for 4 hours straight? Yet in practice this is one of the most difficult things you'll ever do in your life. Proof? Try sitting for 4 hours doing nothing. To even hear and understand Matt would already mean you've gone through a lot of internal resistance and done much hard work. If you hadn't, you probably would never even believe him and you wouldn't practice the teaching seriously. I think his videos are great. Thanks for sharing it. Also, like with every spiritual teaching, keep in mind that this is just ONE path out of many. Thousands of people have become enlightened by doing the exact opposite of relaxation. In the end, both paths lead to the same destination. The aim of stressing yourself very hard is to ultimately trigger a surrender or relaxation. Each path has its pros and cons. The cons of the relaxation path is that people will just relax into watching TV and never even catch a whiff of enlightenment. Enlightenment can be attained through a path of pleasure or a path of discomfort and pain. The path of pleasure is actually harder because pleasure naturally causes people to lose consciousness, whereas pain necessarily spurs the mind awake. Which is why there is a long tradition of torturous meditation and yogic practices in the East.

Success can be had at any stage of the Graves model, although stage Orange is the one that's predominantly focused on acquisition of material success.

Most of my important decisions are based on intuition. It's the best thing you can base decisions on. Logical decisions result in poor alignment with ones values and authentic passions. The monkey mind should not be used to make decisions. The mind is like an accountant. You don't let the account decide how to run a cutting edge company. You do that based on the founder's or CEO's wisdom, passion, and vision (i.e., intuition.)

Jed's views of meditation are too myopic and dogmatic. He is being dramatic to stress the point that self-inquiry is the more direct path to enlightenment than regular-old meditation, and this is generally true. However meditation is still a valid path to enlightenment -- many people have become enlightened through meditation -- and it also has MANY other positive benefits. For fuck's sake, the Buddha got enlightened through meditation. Hundreds of yogi's have become enlightened through meditation. The entire Soto Zen tradition is grounded in meditation (zazen). To discount the validity of meditation is just ignorance. Jed speaks from only his own personal experiences with enlightenment. He has not done a broader survey of all the rich spiritual traditions in existence which DO IN FACT WORK, despite a lot of dogma and abuses. Also, enlightenment is NOT the only issue. There are many others issues beyond enlightenment. Self-mastery is really the goal. And meditation is a very powerful tool for developing awareness and emotional intelligence. I still meditate every day. The only thing you should take away from Jed is that self-inquiry is a powerful method which is a good adjunct to meditation.

Fundamentally, the body's prime concern is self-survival. So it naturally tends to occupy itself with this aim to the exclusion of truth and reality. And so it is lost in thoughts about the self. Also our culture is designed to keep you asleep. As explained in this video: http://www.actualized.org/articles/30-ways-society-fucks-you-in-the-ass

Sure, you can related to people. But in the meantime, just notice that currently this motivation to relate is coming from a place of insecurity. You feel like you're going to lose something valuable if you stop relating -- which is a just more abstracted delusion. The True Self is complete. It doesn't need to relate. It relates when it wants to, not because it needs to. With enlightened relationships can deepen a lot because the ego stops getting the way of authentic relating.

Sure they can. Enlightened folks make some of the best leaders. Leaders TEND to be egotistical, but exceptional leaders are just the opposite.

The difference is that you are not being told to take this on as a position or a belief. You need direct consciousness of it. Don't believe anything I tell you. It will only harm you. My words are only here to get you to sit down and do your own work. This is not like school where you can copy answers from another kid's test. You have to grasp everything yourself. Any answer you copy is automatically false. This video tells you the exact method for how to become enlightened: http://www.actualized.org/articles/how-to-become-enlightened Just sit down and start doing it.

Haha, they do! All religious books talk about is enlightenment. You just have to know how to read between the lines. Remember that these religious books were written 2000 years ago. So they aren't designed to appeal to your modern intellect, but to the intellects and cultural traditions of 2000 years ago. Modern mainstream society has misinterpreted the original texts, turning them into cartoons.

Lol, "He" is YOU! Get enlightened and then all your questions fall away.

In practice, yes they do. They have many beliefs. But these beliefs are taken less seriously. And some beliefs fall away entirely, like the belief in a separate self.

It does involve deconstruction and unwiring, but the actual enlightenment itself is being. You become what you actually are, rather than what you presently believe you are. You are an infinite field of awareness within which all of life occurs. This field cannot be seen. It is not an object. It has no shape. It has no location. It is self-aware Nothingness. And you are it.

It's not that simple. Because if you truly knew nothing you would cease to exist as you. Because "you" is a belief. Truth is prior to thoughts, so thoughts cannot be used to access truth. That's right, truth is awareness itself. It knows itself. It is prior to any possible mental examination.

1) Matter is an image and audible sensation in your mind. Everything that occurs, occurs within awareness. Try to think of something which is outside your awareness. Notice that it is impossible. All of reality occurs inside of awareness. 2) You are existence itself. You are being it right now. Enlightenment is simply the recognition of this fact.

@Naviy Good! Now that's on the right track: you cannot describe anything. Sit with that and experience the thoughts without attempting this madness called description. All descriptions are illusions.

The problem is that your expectations are all wrong about this. You did it for 3 days for 5 minutes and you expect it to be fun? Try doing it for 2 years at 30 minutes per day. Then it might get a little fun. Still, don't expect too much fun. Don't be comparing meditation with porn, video games, internet, or movies. << These are all addictions that you need to ween yourself off of. For meditation to get really fun will take 5 to 20 years.

Well... that is a false conclusion. You CAN experience yourself, just not via the mind. You have to open your mind to a radical new possibility. Something other than thinking and other than seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, or tasting. You have to be humble enough to admit that you could be fundamentally wrong.

Firstly, absolute truth is not an experience. Secondly, it is not an understanding and it happens through no mechanism. Thirdly, it is not an answer to any question. Enlightenment is not a knowing, it is a deep un-knowing. The problem you're having is that you're conceiving enlightenment as some kind of additional belief or emotional state, which it is not. It's something totally alien that you have never thought was possible in a million years. It's not gonna be a "thing" that your ego is going to be able to grasp on to in the way you imagine. You have to really think outside the box on this one.