Markus

First the latter, then the intensive. The intensive did it for me, it is stronger for sure. Kundalini activation and kundalini awakening are synonymous. What doesn't mean much is Kundalini arousal. Shaktipat will cause kundalini to activate or awaken.

Maybe yes, maybe no. It's irrelevant. Nobody's gonna give you points or say you did a good job if it WAS an enlightenment experience, and nobody's gonna say you are a failure if it wasn't. This sort of retrospective wondering over what an experience was is useless. Only relevant thing is what your experience is NOW. So keep practicing, until one sweet day you're aware of awareness 24/7 and it's not going to leave you. Love ya, Markus

Enlightenment as itself does not completely and utterly dissolve the ego. It causes you to disidentify with it but it will still hang around. If you define ego as identification, that will disappear with enlightenment. But the ego structure will still remain and you can still behave selfishly without identifications. The ego structure will never completely dissolve because that would make functioning impossible. Unnecessary parts of the ego structure will dissolve over time however once identification is gone. There's no guarantee though, it's just a general tendency.

Family is probably the healthiest way. Osho's statement sounds like bullshit to me. Yes, people suffer in marriage but that doesn't mean marriage is the source of suffering. And communes are fucked up too, not just marriages. Raising kids can go wrong regardless of the best intentions or circumstances.

Research from different resources. Note you didn't list the likelihood of these things happening. If you consider the odds, and consider the odds of bad things happening from many things we rarely second-guess, you will likely discover LSD is not that dangerous under most circumstances.

Simply realizing the self isn't gonna cut it. You can become enlightened and stop suffering, but selfish tendencies will remain intact. Some will dissolve over time on their own, others need work or Kundalini process.

You can google "lovebliss" and go to the first website that pops up. It talks about kundalini activation, which takes place via something called shaktipat. It sounds ridiculous but I and many others have had results from it. If you have any questions feel free to pm.

@Martin123 Yeah but the one who shall not be named wasn't even enlightened, until a few weeks ago. Just awakened. Awakening doesn't deserve the label enlightenment in my opinion. Only when there's a permanent shift to oneness with the self is one enlightened.

It was whatever it was. Remember that glimpses are meaningless, and yours was so short you were left confused about whether it even was a glimpse. Could be a flow state or just some mystical experience. A glimpse is temporary oneness with the Self - that's how I would define it. Doesn't seem like that was the case here. The only thing that matters is whether you're conscious of who you are right now. And when you are, you will know. Don't try to force it or project enlightenment onto mystical experiences. Love ya, Markus

Yup. Do you agree with his assessment about dark nights? The of mind/of soul distinction makes sense to me.

You're not satisfied with your life. So work on that. Enlightenment is of course the ultimate solution but you can also do other personal development stuff. Leo has a channel full of vids about that. Watch the one on dealing with loneliness for example. Love ya, Markus

Whether it's a dark night or not (pretty sure it's not from what you describe), it's something you need to go through. It's silly to wish it were a dark night so it would be meaningful somehow. All ego crap. Negative emotions and experiences are normal on the path. What you can do is continue meditating and if something is being debilitating to the point where it disturbs your functioning and it does not go away, do shadow work. If things become really bad for a long period of time and meditation & shadow work doesn't take the edge off, go to a psychiatrist. 5-6 day periods sound normal, you're just processing some shit. love ya, Markus

Maybe your mind and emotions calm down. You're more relaxed so you notice more things in experience.

You're having an experience of some sort Unless it has debilitating consequences, it is normal. No idea about the connection of sadness and headache. What can you do? Meditate & practice surrender. Love ya, Markus

You're explaining this in a very confusing way. In any case I will give you advice. If your chosen path is self-inquiry, you keep doing that until you have a direct experience of the Self. At the moment you do have that, there will be no confusion. If you become confused later on, that means you've lost it. Self-inquire more and get it again. Love ya, Markus

1. activating kundalini 2. meditation, meditation, meditation

Depends on what you mean by non-dual awareness, because there are different definitions. I would presume you mean a person who is either self-realized (no Iness left) or in unity consciousness (inner and outer being one). I don't think so in either case. Zen Devils are people who've had awakenings or enlightenment experiences but aren't really enlightened.

No. Enlightenment is realizing you are not the mind. Then it won't matter whether it churns out 1 thought or 100 thoughts per minute. They're seen as just thoughts. Though it will very likely be quiet because there's no use to thinking as much as people do. Love ya, Markus

If you need anti-psychotics take anti-psychotics, to do otherwise would be irresponsible and potentially disastrous. Don't worry about it. If you have chronic mental illness you need to be taking them. If it is temporary you can come off when time is due. Love ya, Markus

Could be regular ol' depression. The Dark Night of The Mind (which is usually what people call dark night of the soul) is when your expectations/ideas about enlightenment are proven wrong and you have to give them up. The Dark Night of The Soul is when identifications with aspects of your personality break down. The latter is more severe. I don't think you are likely to have either without any awakenings. Love ya, Markus

Done!

Mind will always stereotype. Another thing is, race also comes with a cultural background. Black culture is a real thing. So that makes things complicated, because there's a correlation between race and certain attitudes & norms and even though those are in actuality separate from skin color, they'll get lumped in.

Matt Kahn puts it pretty good

I had to rescroll to see if I read the title right