Leo Gura

@herghly I don't know. Spiritual powers are a seperate thing from realzing total nonduality. I am talking about total nonduality here, not spiritual powers. I do not understand why Martin does all that energy movement stuff. To me it is irrelevant to nonduality. I guess that's just his way. For me it is not like that.

@TruthSeeker47 When you awaken, you will realize you have no choice in the matter. Your ego still thinks it is in control. Hence it is asking these moralistic questions.

Just to clarify, transpersonal psychology is not enlightenment. It is more about spiritual and mystical experiences, but short of full-on nonduality. It's still a great field to study.

@Matt8800 No, you are tricking yourself. Having a worldview of any kind is false nihilism. True, realized nihilism is total nonduality. You ain't even close to that yet. All ideas about reality are basically false. So start dropping them. Reality is Nothingness. This cannot be understood using the mind. It requires a deep awakening out of materialism and duality.

One of the biggest obstacles to moving up the stages is all of the fears, judgments, and false narratives one has constructed about the next higher stage. You're gonna have to admit to yourself that your negative judgments of stage Orange people have been too simple-minded, lacking wider context and understanding. If you think of stage Orange (or any stage of people) as evil or bad or selfish, then obviously you can never grow to embody that stage.

Can't say. Haven't read enough of his work to tell how deeply he graps nonduality.

Ralston, Jed, Sadhguru, and a few others. It's hard to be certain because there are so many facets, degrees, and nuances to nonduality, and different ways of talking about it.

@phoenix666 I will talk about love and heart more in the future.

@NoSelfSelf It's like degrees of hot peppers. You got a Jalapeno which is fucking hot. But then you got a Habanero which is something else entirely. Most people have only licked a Jalapeno. But you ain't really enlightened till you've swallowed the whole Habanero

@Prabhaker What concerns me is why Sadhguru didn't think of that. He seems to dismiss the builders of the Pyramids too easily. It's rather arrogant to think that these people 5000 years ago were able to build those structures technologically, they had an enormous purpose and drive, and yet at the same time it was all just to glorify the egos of a few ruthless kings. That theory doesn't add up in my book. The other possibility is that the ancient Egyptians tapped into spiritual realms and insights that even Sadhguru doesn't know about. I'd be careful about underestimating the Egyptians. They seem unbelievably advanced, beyond what the materialist paradigm can fathom or explain.

That'll do it! Aren't they great at that?

@Maycol That requires a very deep enlightenment. Yes, Neti Neti, or self-inquiry, or yoga, or meditation, or 5-MeO-DMT. 5-MeO-DMT is the most direct and surest way. You will experience pure, total nonduality the likes of which cannot be imagined or spoken of. Experiencing total nonduality is not easy. It usually takes enormous work. It took me about 4 years of hard work every day, and the only reason I succeeded was thanks to 5-MeO. Most people here pursuing enlightenment will never realize total nonduality in their lives. It's too deep. But with 5-MeO it becomes very doable. LSD is the next best thing, since 5-MeO is hard to find. But LSD will still not take you deep enough. But it will still give you a good glimpse and knock your socks off if you use it properly.

@hundreth Great stuff. And then there's Father 5-MeO, the king-maker

@Salvijus I like Sadhguru's explanations, but there is actually little evidence that the Pyramids were used as tombs for the dead. It seems more plausible that the Pyramids where tools to boost spiritual practice. The Pyramids may not have been the creations of egotistical kings but just the opposite.

People into Western yoga are generally into self-improvement. Try joining a local yoga class and schmooze with them. They will introduce you to like-minded people. Western yoga classes exist in every city in the world at this point I think. But don't expect people there to be into hardcore enlightenment work. That kind of community is very rare. For that you need an ashram or a spiritual workshop lead by some enlightened guru. As always, be careful with group-think. Even the most enlightenment-oriented communities are full of corruption, dogma, idol worship, politics, rituals, and distractions (see Osho documentary to see how bad it can get). Serious spiritual work is best done solo. 10-day solo meditation retreats are the shit. But for newbies, a community can be useful to start off. Sign up to a Vipassana retreat in your area. You will meet some serious spiritual practitioners there.

I REALLY appreciate homeostasis after a bad trip. You go so deep down the rabbit hole, to the point of madness, and then homeostasis kicks back in and brings you back down to Earth. That's when you say, "Thank God for homeostasis! Otherwise I would be drooling in a wheelchair in an insane asylum." Never forget that homeostasis keeps your ass alive on this mortal plane. Which is why it's so damn stubborn. It's really looking out for your safety, like an obsessive, neurotic mother: "Honey, did you remember to take your sweater? You'll catch a cold!"

@see_on_see Darker stuff probably comes up at longer durations.

Best example would be strong determination sitting or doing a 10 day solo meditation retreat. The suffering experienced there, while you are fully mindful and not distracting yourself with anything, is like Miracle Grow for the soul. The problem with most forms of suffering is that people suffer mindlessly, never looking into the root of the suffering because they are distracted with entertainment or business or relationships. A classic shaman's vision quest in a great example of this. You go into the desert all alone with no food or water for 3 days. You suffer so much you start to have mystical experiences. Jesus supposedly did that for 40 days in the desert. The Buddha basically did that too under the Bodhi tree. He sat there and sufferred mindfully. Retreats create lots of mindful suffering for me and grow me the most. Psychedelics also create mindful suffering, AKA bad trips, which are very healing. It works because suffering is just the ego's unwillingness to surrender to reality. So by suffering mindfully without escape or distraction, you force the ego to die. It is like exposing a vampire to sunlight. The only trouble is, it's uncomfortable and the ego hates it.

Thanks ya'll! It makes my work all the more rewarding to see people getting results and expanding their horizons and having profound insights into the nature of reality. That was the whole point of Actualized's inception.

This is a really great solution to this problem. Also, psychedelics are very effective at disturpting the status quo, which is why they are banned by governments. Also, ego backlash is not necessarily wrong or a bad thing. It is a sign of growth. Nature evolves through oscillation, like a wriggling snake. Reframe every ego backlash you have as: "Ah, another lesson to make me wiser." The key to ego backlashes is to be mindful of them as they happen. Don't necessarily try to force-stop them. Use of force is actaully part of the root problem. Mistakes and failures, when observed with mindfulness, are not mistakes or failures at all! And even failure at mindfulness isn't necessarily a mistake.

They weren't enlightened. But they had some good intuitions and principles and understanding of human psychology, which makes their teachings useful for personal growth. One does not have to be enlightened to have useful and profound insights about how to live a good life.

Quickest way to enlightenment is 5-MeO-DMT. But mindful suffering is pretty good too.

Of course it is also true that unconscious people tend to be much less responsible with their sexuality, driven by 1st and 2nd chakras, so they end up spawning more babies and also infecting their minds with low consciousness beliefs and neurosis. Terrible parenting begets terrible parenting. The devil begets more devils.

That's heavy stuff. Will take some deep work to unwire that. Psychedelics and shamanic breathing might prove very useful for processing that. With awakening, you will realize you are perfect however you are. So chin up. Your courage in sharing that is already a big sign of growth.

Suffering. Deep deep suffering.