luckieluuke

Like the story of Babel. Mankind should not think they are so clever that they can build a tower and reach heaven. We cannot reach heaven with our intellect. Our intellect is gods greatest gift to humanity. The intellect is gods closest angel if you will. But when the intellect rises above god and fall in love with its creations then you are in hell. Now why would God allow the snake to exist in the garden of Eden? that is a difficult question worth pondering....

I wouldn´t try. People who take to much amphetamines fry their brain. I´ts not the drug that causes it, its the sleep deprivation. The mind needs sleep to be healthy. If you don´t sleep you might experience Schizophrenic stuff and psycosis and so on. Sometime spiritual experiencees can seem similar to going insane. The difference is that one is good for you and the other not.

Yes I would call that a high conscious activity because you need to be in the present moment. Then again if it´s alot of action, alot of stimulation it doens train your awareness in the same way. So lots of animals with a machine gun i would not call a very high consciouss activity. That´s why meditation is so powerful when you are simply aware of your breath. It´s the most simple thing.

@Hamilcar OK yea i guess one can say there is only one consoiusness, everything is one, infinite bla bla bla boooooooooring. It is useful to use ideas even if they are not true in the ultimate sense. Let me put it this way, Sometimes I feel like a robot, my life just goes along and im not in the driver seat. I wake up, go to work, get home, do household chores, and drink some beers with friends. I go to bed then wake up and the loop continues. Suddenly a week have passed, a month. When my life is like this i do certein activities....like drinking beer and watching mindless TV. But if i Meditate or do other sorts of activities I wake up from this life that my unconsious mind is running and I take back control, it´s like waking up from a dream and realize that you can do anything at any moment, the entire world opens up! this happens when you are concsious. That why I do these practices such as meditation. I dont see how this can be so confusing? it´s really quite simple. And it´s not my intention to make you laugh at it. Another wording could be "raising your awareness"?

Wow that chart is awesome! had no idea

@Hamilcar It might be weird to you, even thou I don´t understand why you find it weird. Im simply saying that activities that makes me more present are those i mentionend and those that makes me disconnected and mindless are the other. I have no idea how you see that as weird and black and white thinking. But to clear your confusion yes, If i Paint in the morning and watch Youtube in the evening I would probably feel medium level conscious. If i Meditated in the morning and painted in the evening I would feel more conscious. If i Fapped and watched porn the whole day I would feel less consiouss.

haha yea i thought he was joking about the shit sqatting part Some examples: High conciousness: Creating: painting, music, art etc Being in the nature Meditating Being fully focused on a task Read a good book or listen to music Dancing Growing plants/gardening Tripping Love Low conciousness: watching youtube video after youtube video until you end up watching something really weird Playing video games watching TV (generally) Not accomplishing anything Worrying about stuff / overthinking ignoring stuff - not taking responsibility In the end if i feel clear in my head with a light body /mind and feeling connected and one with the world ive been doing some high consiouss, and if I feel heavy and a cloudy/slow/tired head and disconnected ive been doing some low consiouss.

I´ve never mixed psychedelics (other than with weed) since people told me not to and also it´s not so well documented so just stayed away from doing it. From the experience i assume you will mix them again at some point. Would be interesting to hear if you get similar effects. Also interesting to hear someone else try it.

I enjoy Leo´s work but we all have our ways to reach enlightenment and his and mine differs in some aspects. Mostly he is very much about conceptualizing and contemplation. Like last video i listened to Leo explained "you have to figure our how to get out of the rats maze all the time, when you brush your teeth etc" I don´t want to think about this when i brush my teeth. I want to feel how nice the bristles feels against my gum For me its very offputting the way Leo says "you need to.. You should..." etc He is on his own path and instead of taking a role of a teacher I´d much rather he documented his own path and shared it with us. For me Leo is not a teacher like Tolle. Maybe one day he will be but until he is I don´t take what he says so seriously. (Sorry Leo if you´re reading this: I love your content so I don´t mean to discourage you!)

@WelcometoReality haha yea probably! What does it matter thou? who can tell you @NoSelfSelf other than yourself? Be careful to create ideas and concepts. Be careful when comparing experiences. You are your only truth so find out by becoming more aware. Of topic: this is what i fear when visiting this forum and listening to other people. It might just make my ego stronger when I think it is making it weaker.

were you intoxicated or was it a sober experience? Not judging just want the information to see. Anyway sounds like a very authentic non dual experience, glad for you

Why are you on this forum? When I on this forum I am thinking, conceptualizing and I feel it´s making my Ego stronger instead of weaker. I think that thinking about non duality will lead me closer to non duality but the act of thinking about it is distancing me from it. It´s so damn tricky! But on the other hand it does inspire me to keep on working with my spiritual pursuits. I feel maybe my time is spent wiser meditating, painting, listening to music. Whatever makes me feel alive in the moment and what makes me not think about time and concepts. Buddhist teachings seems to agree that learning concepts are of no use if you don´t use them. And learning concepts that are beyond your current experience is not useful. In my mind maybe even counterproductive? Please comment and/or tell us why you are here?

@CreamCat it is defined. You are not allowed to have sex with minors. Minors are not grown up and cannot make their own choice the way grown ups do. You questioning this is very concerning.

It´s so strange how the message of enlightened people gets diluted, misinterpreted and even purposfully twisted. Maybe Jesus said that heaven cannot be found in the quick desires of our bodies; sex, drugs etc. Maybe people thought then that sex must be bad, even lead to hell. Maybe monks lived without sex. The sexual drive in animals (people) is huge and if you deny it´s existence you´re bound to get screwed up eventually and do seemingly inhumane things. Just a line of thought. As to where the world is heading...well at least murder and rape is not common practice anymore so I´d say slowly in the right direction. But sometimes it surely doesn´t feel like it.

Shpongle

For me "2. A man is allowed to have multiple wives and a woman should submit to her husband" Is just crazy talk. I have a weird interest in cults. The phychology behind them, the cult leader and the followers. One thing that is almost a must is that the cult leader should tell his/hers followers to cut connection to their past life. Their friends and in the end most importantly family. ONce the family is gone you have them 100% Not sure about this guy but if his followers are encouraged to visit family and friends maybe his not as much of a cult leader as I thought. If they aren´t then 99% cult leader.

Wow that´s harsh man! is that including the parts of his mind that got him on the path of enlightenment? You have to realize that what @Stretch is saying in this topic is only one perspective he has and that he wants help to understand. There is a part of me that understands your question @Stretch Like you said and what Buddha did when he became enlightened, endless determination or what it´s called. He sat down under his tree and meditated until his body died or he was released from all the suffering of life. Personally I don´t feel life is full of suffering. Life is pretty good, I like it. And I´ve got a feeling that it might be a big barrier for me to break through in order to achieve enlightenment. My ego is not ready to die yet even if I want it to. The way I handle it is that I´m actually not persuing enlightenement. I´ve had a few experiences and it´s a path worth persuing and I shall see how it all enfolds. I keep my job, girl, family, hobbies and friends while exploring non duality. I see it more as a hobbie (now a 10 years hobby) Like other people have said on this topic, enlightenemnt is impossible to understand untill you are there, and there is no need to understand how it is supposed to fit into your life as it is now. Or what it will do to you. Just keep exploring your innerself as long as you please. And take some time off if you want to, you can always come back to it. You have your whole life so there is no stress Honestly Im not sure meditation works very well if you have a strong purpose to meditation, like getting enlightenment experiences. For me it´s better when my mind is empty even of that and I do it just because that´s what I do. It might be goood, bad, joyful, horrifying etc. It´s life. I guess that´s why I do it. To experience life rather than to become enlightened.

This is so random I hardly know whats up and down. Managed to bear watching for 6 minutes, how long did you? As to the question of the topic. Screams cult leader, he is charismatic, calling himself leader/jesus chief commander and has these guys backing him up like his people. Yes very much cult leader.

This is maybe a similar direction of "is football better than enlightenment" topic ;-) So I probably have mild(ish) - ADHD. Thoughts run wild in my head which can be great fun and creative but I have a hard time concentrating for a longer time. Meditation is excellent for this and I feel such great oneness with reality for lack of better words after meditation (you know the experience) My work is fun at times and boring at other times, I sit in front of computers every day and test software. At times when it´s boring its because I make it boring, I cannot concentrate. But when I discipline myself and concentrate on one specific task for a long period of time, max one hour (exactly the amount of time i can meditate). Usually, it's 20-40 minutes until I snap out of it. But the feeling is quite similar to when I meditate. It´s something like the job is not overly stimulating so it´s hard to concentrate, but when i manage I get calm, get into "the zone" and is sooo productive. Does this makes sense? there are too many similarities to ignore. In the end meditation is about getting bored. When the mind gets bored "the monkey in our head" to use a buddhist term gets so agitated and tries anything to get out of the boredom. Get your phone, go to toilet, start cleaning, watch tv etc. I think it might be the ego that knows if it gets bored enough it might die so it desperately tries to get distracted to ensure it´s survival. It really struggles like an animal running from a predator, or a hungry predator who must have food. So Im starting to view my job as meditation practice. See how long I can focus on what might seem boring tasks. (when i manage the task becomes so fun and the process full of enjoyment) Can anyone relate? what do you think? can meditation and some sort of work be related by boredom?

Ok, sorry for the clickbait Title, this is just a drunk rambling ;-) I never really understood sports like football. Objectively its really stupid; a bunch of ppl kicking a ball in two nets. Like WTF? Enlightenment is alot about understanding feelings and not get dragged into them, seeing with a higher perspective, a higher consciousness. Life can seem pointless. Pain is arguably the truest thing we know; happiness is hard to describe but pain surely isn´t. It´s amazing how in this life that is full of pain and suffering we can find meaning and joy in such an objectively meaningless things as football. It seems somehow a pinnacle of humanity to pursue such a thing. It´s the world championship in Russia now and Sweden just won a game. The City is on fire, everyone is happy and celebrating. The spiritual side of me is saying that this all nonsense. But then another side of me is happy. If they would have lost I would be sad. But still that side would find meaning where my spritual side would not. If I was enlightened would I be above such foolish and pointless pursuits? Why is finding meaning in non duality "better" than finding it in football? or anything else you choose? Maybe we are all on our paths and none is "better" than the other. What do you think? do you enjoy sports like football? why / why not?

To be honest, no I haven´t had that. I have only been to Vipassana retreat and the last day you get to talk. And wow everyone talks. I feel it was soooo important to have this day of adjusting before facing the bombardment of stimuli the "normal" life entails. But feeling that your self is deteriorating is exactly what you want, to shatter those ideas of yourself that you identify with. I understand that you are asking the question and it´s a very good one. I would say wait and see, in my experience, a retreat like this has very profound but subtle changes. Some will be obvious like the ones you stated but some will take time. And the changes that are obvious have not yet run their "full course" ie. the outcome is yet uncertain. Wait a few months and then you can better evaluate what actually happened on this retreat and how it affected you. Well done for taking your time and courage to go on this retreat, I applaud you!

Thanks@Alexandar Edwards for a very interesting topic. I agree with @fluidmonolith Also I think you are on the right track to becoming full green and in some time you will see the limitations of your current path. But also remember the strong pros that you told us about. I used to do similar stuff until i realized I was putting to much energy to it and forgot my own spiritual growth. I am still convinced that the ideas i supported were good but I had more personal development to do after which I could see how to better spend my time and effort.

Great idea I do agree its like you say for beginners. Or for those days you just can't seem to meditate and the mind keeps wandering. Or maybe starting a meditation session with this on a busy day just to get down to "baseline" and then starting the deeper meditation. I usually do some relaxing exercising before meditation, or breath harder when I cannot focus on my breath, this could be an interesting tool for that. Will try it!

@Nagma If it was possible everyone could do it and most people would. A big reason why so few are enlightened is that it´s hard work that generally takes ALOT longer than 2 months.