FoxFoxFox

You are on the path of defining enlightenment and that will not go anywhere. If you press me i'll tell you that the Self (your real, enlightened nature) is perspective 0, that is absence of perspective as an individual, but even that misses the mark. You are trying to have enlightenment fit your logical framework of perspectives, but it really doesn't belong here. The frame of reference (Enlightenment as a perspective, like how materialism is a perspective) will not capture enlightenment within, because the Self comes first, then the frames of reference. What you are doing is like trying to hold on to your "fist" and simultaneously opening your palm. It doesn't come from anywhere. It is the source from which everything else comes from. No. It has nothing to do with what you as an individual do or believe in. But it does end up in the notion of individuality vanishing in the end. Something like this. Because, like i said, it has nothing to do with belief to begin with. It has more to do with the fact that you exist. Your girlfriend can't deny her existence, can she? The fact of her existence is proof of the Self, which exists whether or not you believe in it. The problem is that people identify with their bodies, saying that "this body here is I" when in fact the "I" comes first, then the body.

@Tony 845 Shri Anandi Ma (India?) and Craig Holiday (US) are reputedly competent teachers.

@Tony 845 Get in touch with a qualified Kundalini master.

@ahmet sukru No psychedelic will enlighten you (not DMT, not Ayahausca), because you are already enlightened. All you have to do is to take away the doubts and false beliefs about your true nature. You need mental clarity for that. Psychedelics do not produce mental clarity. Quite the opposite. You might have amazing, transcendental experiences and trips, but at the end of the day, they are just beautiful phenomena. Nothing more.

@ahmet sukru My advice will not help you with your problems but it will certainly be of help for enlightenment. When tripping, become aware of how unaffected the basis of experience is. I mean you might be tripping really hard experiencing all sorts of phenomena, but at the background of your existence, YOU are still there like you have always been. This "YOU" that i'm talking about is not the egoic "I" but the primordial "I". It's the Self. It becomes really easy to perceive during an intense psychedelic experience, and later you can identify it in your everyday experience much more easily. You'll become aware of it while awake or dreaming. Heck, you could even sense in deep sleep after the fact, since in deep sleep the Self is directly experiencing pure void.

Yes, in the sense that you realize that "the wheel" has never existed in the first place. Firstly I commend your ability to realize that the cycle of death and rebirth is mostly relevant when its taken metaphorically and not literally. Second, the realization will dawn on you when you are able to reside in the Self for a prolonged time.

@Preetom Not to hijack Winterknight's thread but this is a great clue. Let's put it this way for the sake of it: Being an "I" (which is to say having a POV) is a constriction of the Self in form of the mind AKA thoughts. So let go of the thoughts and you will automatically merge with the Self. This thought which we say is the cause of ignorance is the "I am the body" thought. All the projections out of the mind are either directly built on this notion, or distant derivatives of it. So reject it whenever it arises. Simply stop believing it, but be mindful not to replace it with another notion either (for example don't replace the "I am the body" thought with "I am my house's curtain" thought xD). This has an effect of quieting the mind. At that point, there is really nothing that you should be doing. Just stay in the quiet as much as you can, and keep going back to it (thankfully it is very pleasant). Eventually it will annihilate the sense of individuality within you. You will fully merge with the Self. Of course at that point it will be revealed that there has never been an "I" who ended up merging.

@Tony 845 Yes, but he doesn't call it Kundalini to avoid alienating people. Same with Adyashanti and Shunyamurti. Basically anytime you hear the mention of energy being raised from the base of the spine to the top of the head, or mention of "shaktipat", they are talking about Kundalini. I should add that Kundalini is mostly prevalent in Kashmir Sivaism lineage, if you are interested to dive deeper. I recommend getting in touch with a Shaktipat master and try it. Being interested in Kundalini, itself could be a sign of being susceptible to it.

@Deepconcepts Fantastic video.

Yes I will join tonight. There is a story I once heard about prayer that comes to mind. I won't tell the whole thing, but basically a yogi had such great power of conviction that consciousness had crystallized for the goddess Kali to materialize herself and have lunch with him. I wholeheartedly recommend prayer. And thanks again to you guys who prayed for me a while ago. Please keep doing it

There is only surrender that leads there. All the techniques are attempts at surrender which is paradoxical. It is so because surrender means to give up all actions to the Self or God. Therefore it should be clear how techniques, which are in the realm of "doing" run contrary to the point. What techniques do is silence the mind and stir your energies to a sufficient level where you are overcome by such force that you can't help but to surrender. But you have be the one who ultimately walks over the edge. You do so by surrendering the technique one enough mental clarity has been attained.

@Shakazulu You can't actually comprehend oneness with the mind. You need to pull your awareness away from the mind. Oneness follows once you stop believe in the "i am-the-body" idea.

Obligatory circlejerk: I really like Leo and his videos. Leo's older videos about enlightenment are not the greatest, and i'm talking about as early as one year ago. Some of them are really trash. You got to realize that Leo has made those videos in the past, when his own understanding was not as mature as it is now (for example his God video is excellent). So I encourage you to be mindful of this, and always ask questions here in the forum if you are confused about something. Leo's mind is (was) a highly logical one, and that perspective lingers in the content of his channel. So it's entirely possible that you might watch one video where he says enlightenment is 'this' or 'that', or 'this' lists the "benefits of enlightenment", but he himself probably would disagree with some of those today. Thankfully he does always seem to be growing as a desert saint. His recent choice of silence over yammering on is a great indicator.

How many layers can we pull over our eyes? Sure, everybody is enlightened, because the Self is all that there is. That is the highest truth: that there has been no ignorance in the first place. But if I ask you, in the relative world, "are you enlightened?", you either say yes, or no. If the eyes are not open enough to see your enlightenment for your own self, then you should abstain from judging other people's enlightenment. This is something that is severely lacking in this forum. Good advice is lost in a sea of drivel. People butt in their noses to tell us that "all experience is relative". That is childish idiocy. That, relativity is implied in the phenomenal world, is given. When I tell you that Consciousness is the first cause - this is not relative knowledge. When I tell you that the mind does not exists - this is not relative knowledge. When I tell you that there are no "stages to enlightenment" that come about the more drugs you imbibe - this is not relative knowledge. When I tell you that the world ceases to exist with a silent mind - this is not relative knowledge. None of this is relative knowledge, it only seems so because it has been filtered through the English language. YOU have lost the ability to discern fact from fiction. YOU could verify things by your own, but YOU don't want to. What YOU want to do, is to tell people how ignorant they are. When I say "YOU", i'm talking directly to the Self. Who is at this very moment, the only one who is speaking, reading, and listening. Neophytes always tell you that nothing can be said about enlightenment. This is basic enlightenment talk. If you look at all the sages, all they do is talk about enlightenment. But you hide behind a shield of passivity, adopting the mask of sagacity, pointing out the Ego in others, only to satisfy yourself - hiding the ignorance that bubbles in your belly. That eerie, uneasiness in your stomach that is with you all the time, gnawing in the back of your head, constantly causing doubt whether you are in fact enlightened or not. That is the knot that connects the body and the Self. That's what you want to cut. Instead of sitting down to open a window into the Self, you adopt all these funny notions and judge people by them. Judging your own enlightenment against others. What ends up happening is that you lose discretion. You lose the ability to discern truth from drivel. That's why when once in a blue moon some one comes and tells you, hey, your drugs are not really helping you, or hey, these videos are not really helping, you automatically assume that they are dismissing your relative experience. This is not the case. Your relative experience is no different from God, and so it cannot be dismissed as "relative" after all.

@Serotoninluv What was meant to be said has been. Do with it as you wish. You are projecting your own story and think it is mine. YOU are in the largest conceptual trap and think yourself a sage. Get a grip.

@Serotoninluv There is only reality. As you said, reality itself cannot be objectified, but it always is experienced. It has nothing to do with beliefs. Consciousness comes first, then the beliefs. Also your sense is wrong. And considering that you are someone who goes back and edits his post to sound more profound (and fails at that) this is no longer a worthwhile conversation.

@Serotoninluv There are no states of consciousness. You are confusing your sense-perceptions of the changing "content" of consciousness with "states". Become aware of the unbreakable reality behind all experience, and stay there as long as possible. That is enlightenment.

@cetus56 Yes, it's great news. And the right thing to do. For a lot of sages, sitting with the self, immersed in the bliss and silence is the way to go, no matter how much they might fight that outcome at first - this is something that Leo's mind does. We only know of the few sages who have large followings, but in truth there are numerous others who are hermits. I predict to see less and less of Leo as he reconciles his frantic mind with his enlightenment.

@Monkey-man The mind cannot kill itself. The point is not to have a silent mind either. Prolonged immersion in the self will eventually result in a quieter mind, but if you chase a quiet mind, and not enlightenment, you won't get either.

@Serotoninluv No, this is all misguided woo woo talk. You assumptions are based on false ideas about the nature of reality. I've seen you are a big fan of psychedelics elsewhere, and that is fine. It's your prerogative. But, again, this is not an exercise in relativity. Its about getting enlightened, and the drugs haven't helped, obviously. But hey, you like drugs right? Next time you are getting high, maybe do this and i think it might be of value in self-realization: Instead of following the visuals or whatever else the trip produces, become aware of your existence, and see how it is the same when you are tripping and when you are not.

@Pouya Let's say you have memories of a past life. Memories that are definitely not of your current life. Is that proof for the existence of past lives? If so, whose past life is it? Yours? Whose life is it you are living now then? If you even entertain these questions, you are already admitting that there is a consistent, unbreakable reality that to whom these lives belong - knowing that is enlightenment. View all your questions from that perspective and you'll find answers.

@mandyjw Amen

Thanks for the info.

@Preetom Yes you are correct. Leo is actually wrong here. There are no facets of reality. There is only reality. What he calls "facets of reality" are appearances, which have no substance of their own. An LSD trip is as real as a simple dream, or even deep sleep. The notion that one must experience all these psychedelics to be enlightened is frankly stupid, irresponsible, and dangerous. What is meant by "everything is one" is that there is a consistent, underlying reality which is directly experienced by everyone, which has always existed, exists, and will exist, and that, is the fact of your own existence, independent of awareness of body or sensations or mind. Any worthwhile spiritual practice clears away all your doubts to grant you enough clarity to see this reality, which is called God or Self. The only psychedelic experience that is of any value in self-realization, is that which assists in granting you clarity. LSD hardly does that. That does sound like what the mind/ego does, no? But like i said, Leo going on a silent retreat is only a good sign of his increasing sagacity.

@noselfnofun I should add that I'm talking about his enlightenment videos, and as early as a year ago. This is not really the case. It only appears so. A good enough teacher will enlighten you in an instant. Humility has nothing to do with teaching enlightenment. Humility is the mark of the sage, in his dealings with life, but not the mark of a teacher, in dealing with his pupils.