Alex K

@Ilya Then don't bother

Thanks, reading it now.

@Ilya Try 16/8 for a month and tell us. I think it is rather effective, am trying to get back to it. I would say it gives +50% awareness/conciousness if you are a newbie on the spiritual path like me.

I'm again at the crossroads. Minimal desires, little thought, some minor melancholia. No books read, no meditation done today. Hard addictions to food and youtube. Why should I care? I do not want to care. I want some company, people who would understand me. I want to be blank. Is it bad to be blank? Why? No desire. No desire. I feel serene and autistic. It's nice, so nice. Higher self tries to come up with some motivations to do something, but it is like leaves in the wind against calmness of my mind - it's so futile. Two days I've eaten "sugar, fat and salt" and watched politics marathons on youtube, now I feel as if I drank those two days. It will pass. I do not want to do it anymore. I want to be serene. I want to be with myself, alone. I want to be grounded in being. I want to get rid of these demons. Demons, demons, demons, demons, demons, begone

Hello Everybody, I'm Alex, from Russia, 27 years old, 40 kg (90 pounds) overweight, married, no kids. My home country is degrading with a medium pace year after year, my aim is to leave it for some better place. Is it like a rat fleeing a sinking ship? My other aim is to get to an enlightenment. I've always lived in my alternate reality - of computer games, of fantasy. So I'm at least a bit underdeveloped in common sense planning and executing. This is probably due to me being a very touchy person, and I cry a lot, at least used to cry until this year. I think that I feel more pain and suffer more from the same stimuli than the most people, my nervous system is weak naturally. So I think this made me strive towards cocoo-ing myself from other people. Last year in October I'd signed a work contract as a programmer and went to work to Munich, Germany, it was full fledged immigration attempt. There I worked for 1.5 month, it was very hard on my nerves. I always lived with my parents before, never have used a washing machine or an iron. I've never had to think where would I sleep on the next night. At work I was the weakest chain, afraid to ask for help too much, being less smart and knowing less than everybody else. These and other things downgraded me to a state where I cried for 3-6 hours every day and wanted to kill myself tens of times, not actually injuring myself once. I was in hysteria and I had to return back to Russia. Fortunately, my boss took me back with pleasure. My mental state was terrible thou, I was not able even to watch a film or have a smaltalk. Everything gave me intense head pains. I was like a zombie, my thoughts weren't there, I would not want anything, I thought my life is over. I visited 3 different neurologists and a psychotherapist. Finally I got a recipe for antidepressants and took them for 6-7 month. They saved my mind and probably life. Now I'm off of them for 2-3 month. Their effects subsided, still I feel more calm than I've ever felt in my previous 20 years of conscious life. I've been seeking for enlightenment from circa 18 years old, but my search was very slow, meditating once or twice a year. I'm watching Leo's videos for 1.5 years now. Last 2 month ago I've started to meditate again, gradually increasing volume. Started from 20 minutes once-twice a week. Now I usually meditate 10-20 minutes in the morning, than I try to meditate here and there during my 2 hour work commutes, try to do more meditation on weekends. I've developed idea to meditate in a sequence of sits. Today I've meditated 12 minutes right after morning bathroom. Then I had some morning exercise, some talking with my wife. Than 22 minutes of meditation. Than for the first time I did day 1 of the Adrienes' 30 day yoga challenge. I finished with 26 minutes sit, bringing total to a 1 hour do nothing floored cross-legged meditation. I had an idea of adding 20 seconds to one of my three morning sits each day, that would add up to a 10 minutes increase in a daily practice. The problem that I have is a medium-to-little pain in my head, reminiscent of my depression episode pains. I have a plan to do meditation for 2-4 more month and if the pain would still be a problem, I'd start searching for some neurologist/psychotherapist again. This concludes my first journal entry, ideas/thoughts are very welcommed.

@Spiral I'll try that

@Speedscarlet what does you nick mean

@Moreira Look at you talking about the contracts. Does Leo have any "status" to loose in case he asks us something like for help? Btw, in Los Angeles someone with the Rubio surname died in a bike crash, another one is hospitilized, unnamed. Not sure Leo would be a fellow member of bike club riding with other 6 people. And he should have jewish/russian surname.

Maybe he understood what a huge distraction this all is for him? In the end, so much people in the forum meditated for 6 hours a day for months on end and Leo reported to meditate 1-2 hrs a day.

Not everyone would have any connections at all. It's arbitrary, not absolute. One can imagine himself anything as healthy, higher meaningful or absolute, but it is not. Yes we are ripples in the field of existence. It does not mean we are not robots with an arbitrary evolved mechanism good enough to be aware - like a phone with GPS. I guess Im an example of bad knowledge without firsthand experience. Well maybe Leo could create some video on how to purify yourself from being a desire, will, vision, etc. impotent

I've never said anything against intuition, actually I'm working on bringing this autopilot in my life for some time now. Exactly this prompted me to come search for the idealism topics here and it assured me to reviving this exact topic 2 month after all activity had ceased in it. Things like idealism are those impurities Leo talks about in the vid, which prevent us from fully embracing something like intuition. Maybe you are advocating usual Leos brute force solutions - just force intuition over everything you've got going between your ears for the last decades and it'll end well. Well I do not buy it neither logically nor intuitively)

@Nahm Please help me dispel it. Outside view is much appreciated.

I've lost my thought. There is no intuition, there is an attractor. Let's meditate. There is no reason to do anything. I am in this vortex again. There is no meaning in anything, there is no worth. Another round of beauty is shown to those who do not buy this one.

Guys, look at this as a confirmation that this is possible. Franz will further the beauty of this throughout the world. I have Jealousy, use it as an exercise, do not resist it. Al lad is actually legally available in most countries - substance Leo used to hit rock bottom.

I guess I have this deep rooted beliefs entanglement: people mean something, there is love, higher ideals of friendship, kinship, honesty, ethics, human goodness, righteousness, glory, heroism, devotion, humor, beauty, harmony, etc. And truth is we are meaningless, relatively complex robots with programmed by evolution Loss function on survival and thriving, everything about us is inconsequential. We get together as hives of drones to accomplish survival tasks and special mechanisms call it marriage, caring for children, family, etc. and give it false feeling of higher meaning. Highest hero journey is just a somewhat more elaborate search for a software upgrade on a human robot. The existence itself has no meaning, it has an automaton like nature, even that of an endless automaton. Awareness is just another aspect of the program, just like an ego. Any meaning, like life purpose, is only a mean of programming somewhat different Loss function into this human robot software receptacle input console. Regarding this authentic self as Leo puts it - it is another fairy tail, we are mechanisms, there is no such thing as self, there is no such thing as authenticity, there is no such thing as proverbial shit, only literal one. Under such reality, there is actually no other course of action rather than maximizing pleasure by whatever means available to each specific human robot, like learning to be if it really does give you pleasure. For most people I believe if they learned this, gradually becoming a meditator and residing in bliss is the only logical way of action in this world.

@Joseph Maynor Yeah I've just watched that bit on. He says that what you get from not working hard is shit and rotting inside out. And missing on some higher pleasures. It seems I'm at the same moment Okay with being lazy rotting slob and not okay with that. Like I hold both things at the same time. But being a lazy slob and enduring long standing consequence is much more powerful in me right now. But I want being not okay with being lazy slob to be more powerful, because it seems more pleasant and overall appealing. Still it is weaker for some reason. I don't get this, this is so complicated. How to understand what I really want. How to purify this into single mindedness instead of fractures. wtf wtf wtf

@Joseph Maynor Don't you know this feeling? Like there is something magical, noble, about life, people and things. And in fact there is no meaning and people are evolutionary grouped survival machines under specifics of our planet - there is nothing "romantic" about them. Like when you have something and think of it as a must. Like a vaccine from different illnesses we got as infants. We default to this being status quo. But before them people died by the millions from those illnesses we would never have. And in future every infant would probably have a serum injected so that ego never consumes the mind ad every man is growing up enlightened. For me the dearest default position is that there must be some other "noble" way to move forward other than wat Leo preaches - enslaving yourself to some purpose or aim, because to my romantic brain this is simply programming a mathematical Loss function - reducing human to a piece of software.

@Joseph Maynor For example I know I believe people should do more for each other than they do. And things mean more then they do. But in reality I myself won't do anything for people because I have energy/time/ego/etc. restrictions on me as a system. And what would be an exercise to define and remove such idealism from myself? I also come across a term of hopeless romantic or rose tinted glasses. Would be good to know how to identify bits of this in oneself and remove them. This is maybe like viewing the world being opposite of a "doggy doggy world" For example lots of people can think that doctors or teachers "must" love helping people, "must" be nice and understanding when it is very far from reality. Like in your usual films there are this pure, knights in shining armor characters. Like you always think there would be no bureaucracy, like people would behave in an honest way without you shouting/hitting/shaming/suing them, like you would not have to bribe anyone. Like a police officer would genuinely care for your problems, etc.

Thank you guys, Ill try out your advice, Ive learned yesterday that al lad actually is not prohibited in most countries and mine as well it seems.

Hi There, I've been meditating off and on for a year now, I've reached some aims like giving orders of less f regarding most things. My problem is I have no desire to meditate, no desire for truth, no desire for life purpose and I hate the concept itself of life pertaining to some purpose. It all seems not worth it and very hard. I also would not buy drugs, but I'd use them if I would not be afraid of being caught and sent to jail, so basically I do not want the hardship of getting right info, right supplier, learning stuff, etc.. In short this looks like laziness and lack of desire. And I want to want all these things, I've had some minor experiences of unity after meditation during his year and it was beautiful, I've thought about such things my whole life and lots of what I've thought about without any books, matches with some minor insights from Leo and other people, so I do not need to deconstruct anything, I see this absolute infinity as a natural extension of my views throughout my life. I want to want to experience and be embodiment of this stuff but I just do not have enough desire to do anything. Please help I have symptoms from listening to Leo like: - He often says things like "I want every spare minute if your life you asking yourself this and that, contemplate this and that", when I hear it I want to puke and never hear him again. - He often says like "This will take you thousands of hours to start to have a taste of this and that" - removes any shred of desire from me and sends me into some intellectual despair. So it seems like I'm lazy, ok. But I still have some mindfulness and I observe myself and I just do not understand where does this laziness come from, where are desires suppose to come from, why am I not desiring what I want to desire etc.

@WaterfallMachine Hi, can you advice some books on meditation/enlightenment?

@WaterfallMachine https://www.dharmaoverground.org/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/FrontPage Found this site thanks to your journal. Must say I like how strong you're coming at it all.

@Loreena I just want closure, I'm sick of this everyday flames, I'm sick of stuggling. @Leo Gura The problem is if that is true, I do not feel where is the dirt exactly. I think that your exercise of beeing by yourself in an empty room is optimal for me. I can lie down and not fall asleep for an hour thanks to do nothing. Maybe than something shows up. Still this is very taxing on me. What type of cleanup do you have in mind?

Thanks man, I think I'll start doing the journaling of how do I feel before/after meditation, will try to do each time. I'll also include info on which types of med I've done and how long. Downloading an app