Akuma

I've just watched the JRE podcast with Sir Roger Penrose. The podcast is all about consciousness. But I still cannot fathom how are they missing this important distinction between thoughts, concepts, ideologies, prejudices, etc. and pure consciousness. Even Joe talks about how he is sceptical of the woo-woo consciousness talk. He is correct he should be sceptical of other ideologies but can't anyone show him he needs to at least make the difference between thoughts and the space between thoughts. Sir Roger Penrose is 87 years old and a very smart, sharp cat. How wasn't he able to at least grasp some minor truth regarding consciousness for all those 87 years of life experience, studying and research? Perplexes me. Just wanted to share it with the forum. Here is the link:

@sarapr You must be very new to nonduality. Logic is just one facet of intelligence. However, you can't grasp nothingness with your logical mind and you can't use symbols to encapsulate reality. Your logical mind is finite, reality is infinite. When asked about enlightenment and nothingness, Bodhidharma replied - there is nothing to say, there is nothing to teach. However, you must study and learn, but you also must practise diligently. Find a balance between the two. I said this metaphor to someone here yesterday, but it illustrates what we are discussing quite well, so here it is: What disappears the moment you say its name? Answer: - Silence You see the more you try to explain what silence is to someone, the further from the truth you will be. The more words, language and sounds you make to explain what silence is, the more you will puzzle that person. The only way to understand silence is to stop philosophising about it, become quiet - and there it is. In his videos, Leo is using his finger to point at the moon and you are paying so much attention to his finger that you are missing the moon.

@Jordan94 Have you tried ice baths? If you have a bath at home you can meditate whilst in a cold/ice bath. DO NOT go for more than 5mins at first and DO NOT put ice at first! Try with moderately cold water and build your way up. But that's a for sure way to add pain to your meditation.

Please tell me I'm wrong... Please bear with me, it's extremely difficult to explain what I'm feeling right now and I'm so so scared... Yesterday as I was falling asleep (I often try to squeeze in additional meditation practice while I'm falling asleep at night), I don't even know if I was sleeping already or in between sleep cycles but I had a realization which I've never had before - that there is nothing else but me here. When I think about any human, animal, plant, object etc. I've always had a concept about them. Let's take my mother for an example. Even though I live alone in a different country, far away from her, when I think about her I have a very clear and concise concept of her. I can imagine how she feels, what is the experience of life through her eyes, etc. But when I go back home and actually see her in person and I remove the concept of her from my mind - I'm just seeing a "thing" there that is a part of my visual reality but is definitely not "my mother". In other words, she doesn't exist. Her reality doesn't exist (it's only a concept in my mind). There is only one reality - MY REALITY, there never was anything else but my reality (Please bear in mind when I say " my reality", I also mean "your reality", it's not some ego place where I walk above it all, It's quite the opposite I feel great love towards me because its only me, there is no one fucking else. I don't know how to fucking describe it. Sorry.) Am I right in saying that? Is my reality the only one that exists????? Or is it just another hiding place for my ego in order to mislead me from realizing deeper truth? Fuck, I hope someone understands this badly patched up paragraph and answers me. Thank you all (me) ???

Good question. However, I fear you are getting too much into semantics. You need direct experience. Not "logical" armchair philosophy. A good metaphor/model that can sum up what I mean is - this question: What disappears the moment you say its name? The answer is: silence You see the more you try to explain what silence is to someone, the further from the truth you will be. The more words, language and sounds you make to explain what silence is, the more you will puzzle that person. The only way to showcase what silence is to a person, who has never experienced silence, is to become quiet - and there it is.

@Sahil Pandit Yes, my friend. Can't wait to hear your input after you watch the podcast ?

@Tony 845 Yes, my friend. I'm really sorry to hear you cannot drive on highways. I can only imagine how it would feel ? But, you will find yourself. A formula which I learned from Leo, 2 years ago from one of his videos might help you. It is: Suffering = Pain × Resistance What happens when you multiply by 0? No matter how great the pain is (give it a number 1,000,000 or more) if your resistance is 0, you are multiplying by 0. Meaning, your suffering will be 0. Stay strong, my friend.

@Leo Gura Yes, Penrose does seem to emit a lot of stage yellowish vibes. And thanks to watching your eloquent videos on Spiral Dynamics (each episode multiple times), I have some understanding of what you mean. You do spoil us with staggering amounts of wisdom. There were countless times where I have cried like a baby after watching a video of yours (Absolute Infinity episodes come into mind right now). It almost feels like we don't deserve you, Leo. I know it sounds absolutely cliched and very airy-fairy, but you've literally saved my life. Love you, Thank you ? ❤. I hope to meet you someday ?

Sorry to hear you are suffering like that Tony. I've had and still have OCD and depression to an extent. However, It's not nearly as bad as before. From what you've described yours is much more pernicious. From my limited direct experience, It seems that what you ask can be done. You just need to keep practising. To attain that state which the Japanese call Munen Muso, or no thoughts/no mind (From the book of five rings). Not that you have absolutely 0 thoughts, but you are unaffected by them. Absolutely unaffected. Keep on that journey to the place where you already are. Just like you, I will keep practising. Bless up Tony!

Thank you all for replying. Much appreciated ???

Okay, I was contemplating for the past 2 weeks whether I should share this and whether the "need to share it" is ego driven in it of itself. But also I realized that the "need NOT to share it" might be ego driven as well. So fuck it here it goes. In the past 6 months, I've been going through tremendous hardships that were literally life/survival related. 2 weeks ago, I was meditating around evening time. I was doing a 1hr Active Detachment session and I was having a really turbulent day prior to sitting down and meditating. Somewhere midway through the meditation, I was experiencing a lot of quietness, headspace and gaps between the thoughts. But I've always had this problem where the moment I have some quietness, the mind jumps in and tells me "Ooh this must be your real self, the quietness is your real self". So therefore, I have programmed myself in situations like this to tell myself " You must die and there it is" or "All that ever is, is now". The next part I will try to describe the best that I can. We all know that language is symbolic and dualistic in nature so bare with me, please. Suddenly as I was meditating and shortly after repeating the aforementioned phrases to myself, my mind became increasingly quieter. My heart started beating faster, I started sweating and suddenly it felt like I saw the " EGO AS A FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS". I had a direct experience of the ego trying to attach itself to everything it can, but at that moment I realized "there is no one here", "there is nobody home", "there never was anyone here and there never will be". So, I bursted out in tears and couldn't stop. I kept whispering to myself "there is no one here" for about 10mins until "I came to my senses". I have no idea what this was, I don't want to label it and I don't want to know it. However, it was the most beautiful, joyful experience I have ever had. It has been 2 weeks since and my life is different. I was always comparing myself to others and was very jealous because I came from a really rough part of the world and was subscribing to the "lie of lack" for my entire life, even though I tried every day to remove that jealousy and envy and to love myself, I couldn't, because I was trying to "think my way out of thought" However, 2 weeks have passed I don't feel jealousy and envy anymore nor do I feel threatened because there is no one here to "be threatened". Probably it will wear off and I will have egoic backlash, backsliding etc.. but I hope this makes at least partial sense. Thank you ?

Thank you, Leo ?❤ My biggest shovel stays by my side and I'm always ready and will never stop digging deeper. ?❤

Wow Thank you! Very insightful, thank you ?

@Nahm Thank you, I'm glad to be here as always ? Haha, I know right. Once you go deep enough there is no coming back.

@SOUL Very accurate, Thank you! I can see the intrinsic flaw of my question and I've never posted on this forum before even though I've been following Leo for 5+ years and watched literally all of his videos multiple times. But this confused me so much that I decided to post here. Thanks ??

@ground Thank you!!! Your answer gives me more peace now, thank you!

@tsuki Thank you! Yes exactly! I didn't mean to say "my" and "your" in such a dualistic manner but there is no other way of explaining it without committing linguistic errors. Language is dualistic in nature.

@ajasatya Yes, so true my friend THANK YOU!