Hello all,
Background
I am fairly new to the consciousness and enlightenment work. I have been watching Leo's videos for about a year but I only focused on the fundamentals (of self-improvement) and "life-hack" topics that have helped me practically. I do meditate as well but nothing in spiritual manner has came around. I have only been calm and clear-headed when it comes to the meditation practise. There is observation on what the ego is during these sessions but I have only a small understanding since I haven't worked on this type of improvement before. So on the topic of ego, I may need further explanations on what this concept is. Please forgive me if I sound naive, I just wanted to see if I am on the right track. By all means tell me if I am wrong in everything (if that is the case).
Situation
It was only a few weeks ago when I started to watch Leo's other videos based on Consciousness, enlightenment and spirituality. One video labelled "Spiritual Enlightenment - The Most SHOCKING Truth You'll Ever Hear" on Youtube have really shocked (as intended) and ultimately made interest to the "consciousness" world. One key correlation I have found along with all Leo's video is that thinking plays a huge role in our lives. It affects us in every possible way so I wanted to experiment with this. Here is my experience when I silenced my mind for a week.
A bit on the experiment - Since everything we do and perceive (either with emotions or interpretation) is done through the process of thinking, I wanted to eliminate this. So for a whole week, I silenced my mind, which wasn't as frustrating as it sounds to do since I do this everyday during my meditation but we can never truly silence or control our minds and emotions. But whenever a thought did come and I observed it, I simply let it go and I never became the thought (well, tried to). Of course, this exluded the important thoughts such as needing to go to the store. This is what I found:
Experiment with no thinking
I felt extremely calm. Nothing really bothered me, or caused me distress. However, I was never either happy nor sad. I felt content (which I wanted to get onto further). There was times when the thoughts did occur and I didn't immediately let go of it but when I did, the emotions or worry aligned with the thought also disappeared. This was a very powerful revelation. I knew this would obviously remove any emotions since the thought process causes us to trigger emotions. So naturally emotions will disappear but this felt something more deeper that I could not grasp my mind on. I assumed normal since I need a lot of mindful and mastery work. I also found that me observing my emotions was also subjective and in the end created thinking, so... This requires even more observation but this is not the main topic.
I felt like I connected with the physical reality. This actually scared me the most. An example of this connection happened when I was sitting on the train and I became one with the seat I was sitting on and i felt the dense air. It caused a spike of panic when I realised where I was. It felt like I was absorbing everything I came in contact with such as the people... my clothes... my hair, everything. I don't know if this is just a illusion of the spirituality nature but it is something I observed. Overall, I felt like I was in the moment 24/7, which caused so much discomfort.
I do not want to worry or even care about the above observations. This is because I already know why these notes occur. I know why I feel emotionally "neutral" since there is no thoughts triggering process. I understand why jealously or judgemental or any other negative emotions doesn't occur. The main thing that actually frightens me (the strongest emotion out of everything) is there a purpose I should be pursing. Of course, nobody has the true answer for this, but what I want to work on is why am I truly afraid of not thinking. Why am I afraid that what I am doing is wrong and feels so empty. Why do I need to have purpose?
So this moves onto the most important aspect of this topic. Simply being is uncomfortable to me. I guess I have to understand that I am not use to "being". I have always been "doing", but it seems to me that "being" can become a health issue. What makes it really uncomfortable is being exposes the lonely aspect of life. This lonely feeling isnt the concrete definition where describes we don't have anybody. It's more the fact that we only truly interacts with ourselves, and ourselves don't even exist in the physical realm. This goes onto even further and deeper topics but is it normal to have these feelings of anxiety?
Even though this eliminating thinking process is powerful, since it helps me with my emotions and have destroyed any discomforts that are caused by the external world. However, I feel empty, and void, with no return. I feel completely loss and frighten. I would assumed emotions such as frustration or boredom would be the strongest but it turns out these feelings of empty were the most powerful. Is it healthy that I am pursing this experiment? Should I continue? Is it normal to be this afraid of the empty void or perhaps, it isn't so empty. I do understand it's my own responsibility to take advice from anybody, but do I need to push myself to be this uncomfortable to get a true essence of myself?
In Conclusion
I just wanted to put my notes onto a forum for people to read and as well as criticise so I can improve. Maybe what I have noted was an incorrect way of thinking and needs slight adjustments. I am open-minded.
The main thing I want answering, if anything can even be answered, is being empty the right way to go?
