Azrael

Berlin, GE

It took a week until I noticed the first changes. What happened was that I stopped biting my fingernails w/o noticing. I did this for roughly 13-14 years without being able or even wanting to stop it. It just happened. However, I journalled and still journal about all these experiences and I look for very subtle changes. 2 months in I stopped smoking w/o consciously wanting it. I just got up one day and had the realization that I can't do this any more. And I smoked 15-20 strong cigarettes a day and loved every part of it. 3-4 months in I noticed my concentration and relaxation levels increase and that my level of neurosis lowers. From then on a lot deeper changes happened, I also increased the sitting time, took extra sittings in the evening and practiced very hard to get the shit out of my system (basically a lot of strong determination sitting). Don't worry if you can identify no changes until now. Just go on and they will come when they will. I was pretty fucked up when I started, so a lot got out very soon. Maybe you don't have as much shit in your system as I had, so it'll take some time. Just speculating here. Keep it up, man!

Wake up 20 minutes earlier and use that time for meditation. It is that easy. I wake up 60 minutes earlier because of that and every minute is worth it. Trust me. 3-5 months into the practice and you'll preach the same. Happy meditating ;-)

Hey, that's actually a great sign of progress. I can completely relate to what's happening to you. When you start off meditating this phenomenon of feeling shitty in the meditation or after it, having compulsive thought streams and any kind of negative emotional feelings might be a little counter-intuitive. Your subconscious actually starts to release all the bullshit and social conditioning that it was fed in your childhood days and even in today's society. It has to free itself and release that. So this is a very, very good sign that you are meditating probably. Just go with it and look for a climax of this. From my personal experience these negative sittings come in cycles and are ended with some very peaceful and sometimes even spiritual sits. So look out for that and enjoy the process. Cheers to you,

If you do not meditate every day, it has not sense whatsoever. Actually stop it, you waste your time. What you need is a vision for yourself. Sit down and close your eyes for 20 minutes and just visualize what your life can be like when you completely let go of your inner voice, every thought and every perception. When you get right down to the root of things. Try to imagine the peace of it and also try to see that you can have not even a remote idea of how beautiful it really is. And then think about this for some time and finally make the decision that you will meditate for the rest of your life. You will learn the "How To" on the way and just surrender to the mastery. In the beginning it's something you have to remind yourself to do. After some time it is the place that provides the deepest kind of pleasure and emotional energy that you could picture. Words really just can point to the phenomenon and never fit its integrity.

To learn the "Art of Sitting". This is something that no typical Westerner can even remotely grasp.

Can't agree more. If you can sit for 20-30 minutes you probably can have a good experience of calming your mind a little bit and getting more aware or relaxed. Sitting for 40-60 minutes pushes it a little more and you tend to experience other worries and pains and also sitting 40 minutes in pure pain or pure silence is very different from 20 minutes, believe me. Now, I'm doing 60 minutes every morning and I'm working on the 90-120 minutes strong determination sits on good evenings. If you get in that kind of territory, this is a whole other game. Just think about sitting for two hours without moving. Most people would go insane. I did 120 minutes and you go out of it as a changed man. Your brain will shut the fuck up after 120 minutes, trust me. And I'm thrilled to go even further. Go push it!

Man, I really know what you mean. I struggle with this every day. And personally I have weeks in which I feel kind of very enlightened and detached and I have weeks where I'm completely in my head and there is no way out of it. While this always goes from on side to the other I actually just try to let it be. When I'm resisting, I'm resisting. When I'm laughing, I'm laughing, when I'm sitting, I'm just sitting. And I don't judge my ego so much any more for playing devil and priest at the same time. Because the judging is also just another stream of thoughts that is just happening. Here is a very nice view to go about your spiritual journey: Try to see everything your ego does, everything the watcher sees and every perception you have as the most marvelous kind of act that could be played. Try to get a good fascination for that. And also see it in other people. Then just go about your life, do your business and go seeking and see the beauty of it.

Actually from doing this for a good year now, I can tell that you need a good amount of faith. Not in a kind of religious "Wu-Wu" sense but the faith to meditate every day, to watch and re-watch Leo's videos, to read book after book and get a real good understanding in which direction to go, to integrate new realizations and so on. But here is the thing, you can exchange "faith" for actual first-person experiential Truth on the way. And when this starts to happen it kind of goes automatically (at least for me) and then someday you cross the point of no-return because you have seen a few goodies from the other side and can imagine what else might be there. So yeah, have some faith man. It'll treat you well.

I go with the "Burmese Position" which gives me the stability of a lotus position and I'm able to sit in without moving for 60-120 minutes without much difficulty (this took more then a few strong determination sits). I also like it because it pushes my back up and creates a very erect posture that induces a meditative state kind of automatically.

As a first step I'd encourage you to figure out your life purpose before choosing a degree. I took Leo's course and I am amazed by it's contents. Secondly then, I'd really think about studying at all. I'm myself studying computer science and it is a very deep passion of mine. And I also see how university can help you learn stuff very deep, but I think there are a lot of degrees / skills that you could learn out of books and lot's of practice through working in your field. Be very aware of that before you actually decide to go with a plan. Also, be very aware that university will give you a very academic approach to things. If you like that - that's fine. But research how stuff is presented to you. A lot of my friends dropped out of university because it is too academic for them.

This can probably vary. I had several spiritual encounters in meditation and I can see how I progress and get to deeper experiences and more direct Truths however actual spiritual experiences appear very random in intensity and duration. "spiritual experiences" is used here as a description of a single very transforming experience that does not lead to a permanent stage off satori but displays some deeper truth of reality.

I'd guess that "Self-Actualization" isn't the right place to discuss DMT-Trips and that this is better off in "Meditation, Consciousness, Enlightenment, Spirituality". Also SWIM has done some heavy research intellectually and also experientially and somehow comes to the conclusion that DMT-Trips can give you very deep personal / spiritual insights and are amazing to do (for emotionally VERY stable people) but I think the long-term usage for spiritual growth is nothing compared with a habit like meditation. It's nice to experience it and can deepen your spiritual growth (so SWIM experienced it with all traditional psychedelics when done with a lot of discipline and spiritual targeting) but it probably won't enlighten you (with some rare exceptions) and that's for a good reason. Check out PsychedSubstance, he is actually one of the rare exceptions that got to a stage of satori with LSD and he himself said that he wasn't ready for it. Use psychedelics with caution and they can help you a lot but don't see them as little tricks to skip the process.

I use the "do nothing"-technique as a standard combined with the "strong determination sitting"-technique. If you do let's say 10-20 strong determination sits you transcend your 20 minutes meditation time, no pain comes up any more and you're very centred and calm. These two techniques are responsible for my fastest and deepest meditation growth. I'm currently meditating a hour every day for 10 months and it changed the way I perceive reality and myself to the complete positive.