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In the last video Leo referenced the "how to be funny" video about developing a sense of humor. For me it was one of those titles that I won't click on. Sure, I like a good laugh but it seems like a low priority, "light", "not serious" topic not worth a good contemplation. There are so many videos out there and only so much time, so you have to prioritize. I got really hooked after the last video's reference to it, made clear to me that I overlooked something very fundamental and vital. So I watched it and did the 10 minute string-together sentences exercise. It was hard at first but very soon I started having fun and after finishing I kept laughing so hard my stomach hurt. I didn't laugh like that for a very long time. I hope it will help with my crippling social anxiety and awkwardness situation. I've been losing hope lately, starting to accept that maybe that's what it is for me. It's an insufferable way to live life. So just wanted to share that... Some of you may be cringed out by the specific joke examples he used in that video, I read some comments. Jokes are very context sensitive, you'd laugh at things you wouldn't believe if you'd be in the right situation. The core principle and advice is super solid. This also ties well together with the "clickbait titles" video from the blog... "how to be funny" has the assumption that I know the value of being funny.

So what is the point of talking about it here, or making videos trying to explain how to get there, using words and metaphors and pointers to the moon? I think the point is to try to make an awakening happen. If it's not possible, who are you providing all this information and inspiration with? The woke are already there. What is the use of all the explaining, pointing etc., if it's ultimately not true? is it because somehow it helps some people to get more conscious? How does that work? why does it work for someone but not for another? It's certainly not the content of what's being said that's the key thing. There isn't one. I completely see that there could be nothing more than my consciousness, for me. Beyond that I'm not really qualified to say, that's the problem. All of this consciousness work pulled me out of my years of suicidal depression, so I'm familiar with the benefits of using direct experience and realizing how I'm deceiving myself and making all of my problems, and I'm forever grateful for stumbling upon this possibility. But now I'm interested in truth for the sake of it, and if there's something "behind" my experience I'd like to know that, even though it's not practically important to me or may be inconvenient and scary. I've never seen the point that me and @Someone here are making ever been addressed properly in this forum. Try not to dismiss it so fast. Thank you!

I created the robot. 2 cameras for eyes, the image is edited in real time to find patterns in it. It can "recognize" the refrigerator and can execute the function that I wrote in code for the response to this recognition. etc. etc. Its code, bits in memory. If the robot says to me that there's no reality to the refrigerator beyond his memory, I see through his delusion. Maybe me and you are like this robot.. That's exactly right. The robot may also think that, that I'm just the projection of his mind. What I'm trying to illustrate with this robot thought experiment is that "only-perceptions-exist" idea is unfalsifiable. It's certainly possible and self consistent, we agree about that. But it's also can be not true, like I'm trying to show with this robot story. The fact that nothing exists for the robot except his code and memory, doesn't mean that the refrigerator he sees IS code and memory. Just like the fact that everything that happens to me is my perceptions, doesn't necessarily mean that the fridge doesn't exist "out there somewhere". I really hope I'm clear here, it's a subtle point. It takes me a very long time to write and formulate all of this and it still doesn't come as clear as I want it to. It's a process.. Maybe because nothing of the sort was experienced by me, understandable.. but I'm not ideologically opposed to it or something. Probably, we'll see. In the meantime I'm writing from a more limited place. In your videos you suggest the thought experiment that verifies that everything happens in consciousness. I think I realize that. It doesn't lead me to the conclusion that there's nothing "behind" my perceptions. Of course this suspicion itself that something might still be "behind" things, happens in consciousness. But that's doesn't solve the problem, because I might be in the robot's position. The robot may get convinced that the fridge is just bits in memory. It seems that there's just no way of getting this problem sorted with logic, so why then make videos that appeal to logic?

Me and my robot are looking at a refrigerator. For the robot there's no other reality that the bits of his memory, just like for me the reality boils down to my perceptions. The robot wouldn't know if there was a reality more real behind his memory bits, which there is! (from my perspective) That shows that there is a possibility that there is a layer behind my perceptions, and it's not possible for me to know, maybe I'm limited by my bits. All of this of course is being said by me here in my consciousness, so we can also tell that I'm spinning the webs here. THIS also is only my perceptions. This. My point is that how would you know? Maybe if I had a mystical experience, we would have a different conversation. Just because it's the most efficient or elegant way for the universe to be? Maybe there are infinite turtles all the way down, whatever that would mean. I don't think that thought experiments are enough for these kind of questions. I understand the concept, that everything is perception, even this problem/paradox here is made up by me. Maybe it is. Maybe it's not. How can it be more than a perspective?

Anything that is a disturbance of a complete joy/peace/ecstasy/love/whatever I call suffering. I think that ultimately, the self-love exercise is about being able to accept and love suffering. To love suffering is to appreciate it deeply, to find meaning in it, to see how it's not even a bit worse than total and eternal joy. I'm not sure how to do that.. I'm contemplating all the things that I don't love about myself/my life/life in general, and what all of those have in common is that I don't accept the card that I've been dealt in life. I think I have a better idea of how life can be better. But that's exactly why I suffer. If I don't think like that, I start to appreciate life more and the suffering dissolves. But I'm not sure if it works like that for all kinds of suffering. Suffering is very elusive.. Do you have something to say to clear up the confusion?

Hi everyone! I have this weird experience sometimes.. When I wake up in the middle of the night and have a hard time to go back to sleep, somewhere at the transition between being awake and asleep something snaps, and I get this electricity buzzing inside my body and I have some control over it, I can allow it to become stronger or can fight it and try to get awake (and be paralyzed for some time). It is usually located somewhere specific, like the head or in the middle of the chest, but it's so strong I can feel it everywhere. It's frightening because it can become so strong that I feel that it's unhealthy and can do some permanent damage, so sometimes I don't go all the way because I'm too afraid. But when I do go all the way, it's sort of climaxes to become a very pleasant experience. It can give me some weird body sensations that can feel so amazing. I don't know if I have a point here.. but it will be very interesting for me to hear something about it.. Thank you!

The thing is that I don't feel emptiness, so I'm in doubt if I'm in the right direction at all. I'm not sure If I understand what I need to do exactly. As you stated in the video, it is very important to do it correctly. Is putting awareness on awareness enough? How do I know that I do it right? Is what I described above (wonder, newness, sharpness) look like putting awareness on awareness? Or is there another trap that I missed? Thank you very much!

Hi everyone, I have some questions about self inquiry in response to this week's video. In the video Leo described 2 perspectives on how is it mid self inquiry: Finding that inner emptiness, when the mind is quiet and there's no thought, concept or feeling, and holding on to that. Putting awareness on the awareness itself. How do they relate? How is it the same thing? I think I'm kind of know how to do the second one, though I'm not sure. Because for me everything becomes a bit clearer and more alive, there's a sense of wonder and it feels new (to be aware that you can be aware). But then again, isn't it a kind of feeling? sensation, perception, whatever. No emptiness for me. How do I know that I'm in the right direction? I'm a little down lately because Leo keeps talking about those who spend decades in fruitless practices.. Thank you!

I know how I breathe because I can be aware of it for a second or two without the problem I described. The problem was with long focusing on the breath while meditating. I think that I can get that awareness you're talking about. But then, I don't experience anything out of the ordinary. Reality doesn't collapse, I don't realize that I'm connected to everything or something like that. I'm still this separate thing. I can deconstruct any meaning from my perceptions and be in that state, but then it becomes just neutrality, detachness, random perceptions. Nothing good or bad, just the thing itself. Any motivation to do something seems weird to me.. But I'm not nihilistic it the sense that I view all of that as something negative. I haven't had any mystical experience yet, although I understand all the theory pretty good. This is an annoying gap. I don't have nothing more interesting or important to do, and I have a ton of interests. I'm interested in how reality works. The thing is, I feel that I have already exhausted this method, Or that I'm super deluded to think so... I can't think of an idea or a should statement that I cling to anymore, I don't judge anything really. I guess that you can find me judging sometimes, but that is only because I'm not as aware most of the time. If I'm aware, I can't really judge or cling to some idea, I can understand the motives of all people no matter what they've done, and even when I can't, I know there must be a motive and I don't really care what it is. I can't find what to chip, but I know it seems arrogant and that most likely I wrong somehow. I guess that I can be against the idea of me suffering eternally. Just the pure feeling of suffering without anything to associate it with, without being able to do anything to stop it. Can we work with that? Read 2 of his books already, loved them. I didn't feel the way you described. I love to burn bullshit. Spiritual autolysis is the chipping away that Telepresent described, and as I said, I can't find anything to burn. I don't trust anything. Every word I say, I immediately feel opposed to it. Thanks to other for suggesting Yoga and Shadow work.

Is it by moving those ideas and beliefs from the subconsciousness to the conscious? How to go about that? What are some examples of subconscious beliefs and ideas? I don't see the point of doing self inquiry anymore, because all of this is just shuffling ideas around. I already doubt everything, so I don't get new insights and mindfucks from the process. I don't seem to have an identity, an ideology or anything like that. As far as I know, I can pinpoint every belief of mine. How to proceed? Show to me my bullshit please. Thank you!

How can I be sure that direct experience or actuality is true ? What if the direct experience is just something very subjective and biased and you cannot know truth directly. What if the truth is really outside of what I'm capable to directly perceive? What if truth can only be deduced or concluded by some kind of method? What I'm really talking about is the materialist paradigm really. I'm at a stage that I don't know what is true, to the extent that I can't just "believe" my direct experience. Maybe the materialist view is somehow true after all, although I understand its limitations. I understand really good all of the concepts. I'm never surprised to hear something in Leo's videos, I always know what is Leo trying to say. I'm aware that all of this is just more concepts and imagination. I'm aware that it is impossible to wrap a mind around it. I'm aware of all the "I"s here.. I'm not sure what am I trying to say or ask.. Just seems off, to trust my direct experience like that.. Probably I have way more work to do. The timing of the videos is always nice, just recently I've started to notice the difference that today's videos is talking about. Suddenly I've become way more quiet and relaxed. Can be very nice to just sit and look around my room for a long time, especially after a run. But what does it all lead to? Am I going to be more relaxed, content, wise, fulfilled? Will I gain more understanding? Is this leading to enlightenment? It looks like I can answer my questions myself all the time. This is what preventing me from posting my questions here, so I'm going to post now before it's too late.. How can we trust direct experience?

I can do this too! For me it's when I'm holding my breath. If I manage to do a lot of it, it can accumulate and culminate with a good and strange feeling of buzzing and warmth, with a nice relief at the end. Suddenly I feel very relaxed and way more comfortable than in the minutes before. I lose the ability to do this again for several minutes. Sounds like an orgasm, now that I'm reading what I wrote It happened 2-3 times during meditation, but often I can't get this far. I sort of get somewhere and then lose strength, and there is a feeling of floating back into place.. Maybe it's just a distraction from the meditation I'm doing, but it is the only "non ordinary" thing that I've experienced so far with all this work.

When I'm trying to notice my breathing, I can't shake the feeling that I control it. I don't know what to do. When I'm not aware of my breathing, the breath is very slow and shallow, maybe because I need less oxygen than usual (because of running). So in order to notice the breathing, I need to concentrate. When I put the attention on the breathing, I start to feel out of breath and in need of more air, and then the mindfuck happens: If I try to breathe more ,that means (and feels) I'm controlling my breath. I end up breathing a lot and getting tired of it. If I decide not to breathe more, I'm controlling my breath. Either way I can't do it calmly. Most of the time I'm just trying to be aware of being aware of things. trying to feel what comes, recognizing thoughts as thoughts, connecting to the senses with no particular plan or order to it. Is this OK? Should I somehow be able to concentrate on one thing? If so, how can I do that? I tried a lot to concentrate on one body part, but I lose it very soon, can't feel it anymore. It's hard all of this..