Huz

Really, didn't know that. I assumed they were Roman. Yeah, just was reading up on it, the new bath houses which are there now are Turkish. The Romans colonized the area West of River Danube to make use of the springs - they built their baths there, but they are in ruin now. Yeah saw the castle from the river also, was very nice. And I love the citadel - was a workout to get to the top though!

Yeah I went last year with friends from university. It is my favourite place I have been too in Europe. Such a cool city. The night life is ridiculous and absolutely loved the spas. Made me feel like an ancient Roman when I went to them, then they turn it into a massive party during the night. Oh yeah and went on a boat party we had this view of the parliament building. Lol bit of topic of self-actualisation, but anyone who top authentic value is travel ( which are key to your happiness) then I recommend you go Budapest.

Yeah I think don't try to force trying to get into deep, samadhi like experiences. It is about maintaining high states off concentration during the sit and if it happens it happens. Well thats what it is like for me. Yeah that what this forum is for, I am sure this sort of stuff happens to people. Thanks for all you input bro! Has been helpful to me as well

lol

How have you managed to develop lucid dreaming? Something I have never been able to do but want to. I only dream but never think I am in a dream when dreaming.

Whose body? Whose mind? I beleive your mind is the influencing factor in the addiction. Realise that you are combining the components of the body-mind and are labelling them as yours. The bodily sensations, mind images and talk are being combined in such a ways tricking you into thinking that you are addicted. Of course "you" will feel withdrawal symptoms because you have associated yourself with them. When you get this symptoms, sit did down and shine awareness onto them. See them for what they really are, separate them out so they do not work together to trick you and be comfortable with the sensations for what they are and the addictions will drop. I have been doing this recently with my hunger - I am seeing that when I have an urge to pig out it is the combination if my body an mind. With low awareness you think is you doing that. With higher awareness you can see they are completely separate and you will be able to acknowledge they are there be accept them and be ok with them.

This is victim mentality - I do it all the time. Thinking I am getting detached from people, but realise that the only thing that is telling yourself this is your identity/ego and that is an illusion." You" are projecting things that your ego wants you to believe onto relationships to cause you suffering and making you believe that your alone in this journey. When I experience this I think my identity is trying to make me quit this path becuase it is "lonely" (but that is bullshit) and go back to living unconsciously. And there have been times where I have nearly gave in. Its a sneaky game it is trying to play.

Ahh I didn't manage to wake up. I was in a ridiculous dream all night where I was at some water park/Budapest spa party at the night with my school mates. 1000s of people, multicoloured lights everywhere, fireworks, music. Everyone was getting smashed, taking drugs and shagging. Was pretty interesting lol.

@cetus56 I think you as an ego is afraid what is in store for it. From my experiences, the times when I go into deep states during the day it is normally a gradual process. The journey is gruelling, a lot of fight from your identity within that comes though mental talk and body sensations. As you said in the your next post, you have experienced something which cannot be understood by your mind, something that you had been completely unaware of for your whole life. It must have been a shock. It seen as a sort "spiritual" death (not physical - but analogous to dying), realising the thing has been trying to control your whole your whole life isn't the true you. You are going to be shit scared but I guess keep on going. There will be massive resistance. I recently came back from a retreat and had some interesting/deep insights - but when I got home, it was like hell and I was shit scared when I was going to sit down on the cushion. It is defiantly passing now - I guess it is just part of the practice. Out of curiosity, what were the experiences like when you suddenly dropped into a deep states of awareness? How did you managed to do that? Was it spontaneous?

There are various ways to reach the sub-consious. The surface of the sub-consious can be reached by mental talk. To reach deeper levels of the sub-consious you can experience mental images (you can reach deeper by the experience of bodily sensations). So I guess as you were becoming more mindful of your mind, you experience images that your mind flashes back at you. This is because you were experiencing deeper parts of the mind. Don't let the awareness get attached to the images as we do with mental talk. This is just a distraction, just notice them from a distance. Incorporate all of the sensory experiences in your awareness not just the images. But good stuff!! yeah it is really interesting. I start with vipassana, then when my focus/concentration is acute enough my awareness increases. When i get to the point where my mental noise isn't so much of a distraction (with this night sitting it wasn't really at the start, whats why i could get to deeper states faster and because the body is very relaxed) I let my concentration/awareness expand to all sensory experiences and then "do nothing". It is like you are caressing the progression of your awareness.

@Sri McDonald Trump Maharaj Oh my god yeah!! I forgot to mention that about sleeping after the sit. It was so weird, it was exactly how you described it. I didn't really sleep much, my eyes were wide open but I was so relaxed that it felt like sleep but aware of the sights!! We had pretty similar experiences lol i am doing this indefinitely ? ????

@cetus56 Good stuff. Did you notice any signficant differences from meditating during the day? How do you feel now? With me I started a 45min med at 2:30 am after sleeping for around 3 hours. Was surprisingly easy to get up - felt less resistance to actually getting up in the morning lol. I found it easy to keep awake during and no nodding off in the sit. What I noticed was how smooth and quick it was for me to get into a deep state of meditation. During the day it can takes like 30 mins for me ( if my monkey mind is racing then it wont) to breathe about 3-5 times a minute (roughly speaking - an estimate). But last night it was virtually instant - took like 5-10 mins by my guess. My mind was virtually switched off and meaning I could deal with the pain way easier towards the end. I felt very concentrated but very relaxed at the same time, and super present. I reckon from this method it would be easier to induce Samadhi experiences so going to stick with it. I didn't have any visualisations. When I woke in the morning I felt quite the opposite and unrelaxed, insecurities, monkey mind have come up so I guess we are on to something here lol.

@Sri McDonald Trump Maharaj Sweet dream aha

haha, does that mean we have lift off?

Yep, Charlie is absolutely right here. I used to smoke heavily and I just suddenly quit within the timeframe of when I started self-actualising. I never brute forced my way into it, it just spontaneously happened. It was like a shift inside me internally. It was so easy and I have no urge to smoke now. Start a meditation habit, raise your awareness, look at yourself and how you feel inside and out when you smoke and you will realise the absurdity of what you are doing. Not grounded in your thinking but int awareness.

@Sri McDonald Trump Maharaj I am in brothers! Let's do it. I got to bed at around 12 and wake at 7. So will wake up at like 3am. I say lets do it for a week or more to get better idea of what it is like ?

Thats another concept. Is that the rule of enlightenment? Just believe you misinterpreted his words.

I think you misunderstood him. He said enlightened beings, people like the Buddha, Eckhart Tolle. They are self realised and completely have become self-liberated. They dont get sucked back into illusions. You probably had a samadhi experience or a glimpse into non-duality which isnt that hard to obtain. But you dont experience consiousness from that state permanently so you do get sucked back into illusions. You are not an enlightened being.

What happened during the weekend?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I think it is important that you do some study on epistemology if you watch actualised.org. Actualised.org is a site that stems from a person who uses the information to benefit his own life, with his own personal preferences and values. Be mindful of the information you allow your mind to take in. Some of the stuff will suit you and some will not. From my point of view a lot of the stuff I have learnt from him and the forum, with very wise people, has massively helped me. It has given me more emotional harmony, cut down my bad addictions, given me the love I had been denying myself for my whole life, it had been helping me see through the biases of my own knowledge, made me less attached to the beliefs I held so dear - this is been so helpful because it lets me listen to crazy/wacky ideas that I would have never contemplated before (I mean isn't that whats it about? fuck clinging to a set of single ideals about life, that makes it so one dimensional and boring. I love listening to people opinions now because my mind is waaaaayy more open and less dogmatic. Just more free!!), and created a general space up there within my mind which i have been longing for, and COMPLETELY STOPPED my bulimia. I can say that out of all the shit I have allowed my mind to be influenced by in society this has been far the most helpful in my life (not calling this shit). I love Leo and all you guys for this xx

I guess you have to be careful about the labels you use when talking about this stuff to others. Something Yogananda dis very well apparently when he came to the west from India.

maybe if that is the difference of your feelings that you should give meditation up for a little bit to deattach yourself from it. Hope you are ok dude! go to the doctor to see whats going on

you are a believer in consciousness? Can label consciousness as god who is the great creator. But how can you state consciousness the creator, isn't that another belief? just a question that entered my mind. Yeah I was quite surprised that you are into quantum physics. It is my favourite part of uni physics. The mathematical models physicists have created are incredibly accurate and match well with experimental data but there still are issues to deal with and approximations used at my level. Can I ask, how it it enable you to understand your own life? Is it the fact that we actually have no fucking idea whats going on becuase that theory, as beautiful and intricate as it is, to me shows how little we understand why the universe is the way it is and how our minds just cant get to any conclusion at the moment.

Have you got any books which you suggest to read?