nistake

The thing is, the most intense otherworldly bliss and you clicking away at work on a regular Monday are the same thing. Truth.

You're honest with yourself, so that's a great starting point. The only way to experience a shift in consciousness is to keep meditating every single day. Read the necessary books, find retreats if you feel like it, but most importantly, be patient and disciplined. Psychedelics can help you a lot, but if you have lots of unconscious shadow material in your psyche, it'd be wise to actaully uncover them in a sober way beforehand. Then, you can proceed to experimenting with psychedelics. However, if you feel like you're in a good place and you've got a clear, focused mind, go for it, but only with a small dose first with the right set/settings.

I guess everybody goes through that phase. Sitting in meditation and waiting for something to happen. The ego-mind is constantly speculating and asking questions like "Is this it?" "Where's that enlightenment?" and so on. I totally get that it's frustrating, but hang in there, you'll have that realization in due time. Also, this video helped me a lot:

@Raptorsin7 Yeah, it's really ironic that it is the most fundamental and natural 'thing' and yet...

Thanks for sharing, I'll definitely check this out! His 'effortless mindfulness' pointer has been huge help for me.

@Thought Art Been doing 10-20 minutes Qigong sessions since I asked and I have to say it's pretty awesome! At first, I was a bit skeptical, but after the sessions I'm definitely much more relaxed and I can feel energy moving around in my body.

How about giving yourself permission to be selfish and even enjoying it? As twisted as it sounds, try to enjoy the shit out of your selfish tendencies (as long as nobody gets hurt in the process, of course). Hell, you can even meditate on your selfishness and indulge in it in a kinky way. Now that's some real Love. If you're trying to judge it, deny it, repress it, that's gonna make you suffer and your selfishness is gonna persist.

Here's the thing: you've experienced everything and you're experiencing everything right now. You'll continue doing so for infinity. What's important to notice is that Leo was talking about the Absolute 'You', not the relative 'you'.

I tried this a few times and yeah, it can be a relatively good solution, however it is only temporary. What did the trick for me was learning proper tongue posture through doing several articulation and speech exercises for months. Now my tongue rests in its natural place (which is the roof of the mouth) even when I'm asleep, therefore breathing through my mouth is physically impossible. There are lots of videos of this method on YT (called mewing), but that didn't work for me. I actually paid for a whole course designed to resolve this issue, but it was so worth it.

Deep breathing exercises may come in handy before going to bed. The box breathing technique is pretty effective (4-4-4-4), or the 4-7-8 method would be even better. https://blog.zencare.co/square-breathing/ https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324417#about

That episode does seem frightening, but pause for a minute and observe your direct experience. All these thoughts you're having refer to an imaginary future. That should tell you something.

I've got the book. It can give you a solid foundation, but yeah, it tends to be overcomplicated. As far as I remember, I quit practising his method around stage 4-5. Nevertheless, it's definitely worth practising the techniques and moving up the stages, but after a certain point, dropping all the techniques may be advisable. Adyashanti calls it 'true meditation', Loch Kelly calls it 'effortless mindfulness'. For beginners, it's an excellent book.

Yup, that's pretty important and usually underemphasized.

@Thought Art Will check it out, thank you!

Sounds like awesome progress, love it! How does one go about learning Qigong? I've heard great things about these energy practises, it'd be fun to try it.

Yup, I'd like to know too.

This book helped me tremendously.

Speaking of. I just started watching this one: This guy knows what he's talking about ?

Check out Leo's newest episode (relative vs absolute). That whole episode is really profound and it should answer your question.

Exactly. Imo shadow work is essential for this very reason.