Addy

@Preety_India ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ I would sign everything you said. I had a very powerful awakening 7 years ago, it kept going effortlessly for half a year, during and after that I was trying to force nonduality as the only way to view and live life. It did not solve my human issues one bit and I suffered terribly. Only after a year of forcing something that was not natural I quit, finally found a very sensitive psychotherapist with whom I was able to learn over the years how to actually address trauma (and that it was repressed trauma that was the source of my place in life, also suicidal back then). Awakening did not help me on that front. Only now after many years of sensitive human work do I feel safe going back to feeling my true nature as for so long I had it very strongly associated with rejecting the human. The human emotion, the human pain, the rejection, the joy, the sadness, the surprise, ... Now I know they are my deepest friends. I am not to heal them. They heal me. Also, If you don't feel safe in your life, don't use psychedelics. Don't let yourself be swayed by the childish notion that if you're not willing to take them, you're not doing the best you can (yes, Leo can often make it sound that way, please accept that he is not developed equally in every way, he has deep insight into many things and a tendency of saying very unskillful things confidently). It's not worth it, you're much more likely to suffer than to learn something deep. I've made this mistake too many times in my life. Please, I know you are doing your best. You are doing just fine. Please, acknowledge how much you are really asking of yourself, to instantly reorganize billions of neural networks, which served a purpose, their state is not a cosmic mistake, nor do they need to be all untangled instantly. Take your time and rest. It's okay. It's safe. ❤️

@Mirko I do not pretend to know what your suffering is like, all I can do is share my experience. In my experience developmental trauma is key. I've been through traumatic experiences in my childhood, my first trauma came the day I was born and it laid foundation for the way I related to the world around me for most of my life up until recently. I've been a seeker as well, lucky to stumble upon Fred Davis (thank you @Leo Gura for your booklist ?) and his method worked in my case. I've experienced a profound awakening, and as with most people there was "oscillation" where your experience sort of oscillates between perceiving yourself as everything and perceiving yourself as a human. Now why I'm even sharing that? Because it did not solve the human issues. I used to have very strong anxiety as a result of the organization of my nervous system as a whole due to early trauma. Very naturally and understandably, my nervous system was trying to use the insight of oneness and all the techniques of the teaching as a way to get rid of the pain. But in my experience those teachings are not really designed to rid you of your pain even though most claim to be. It seems to me that most of contemporary spiritual teachers, even when clearly and authentically awake, don't quite account for developmental trauma in skillful ways. If I had to say why, I'd say that a part of them didn't have too many very strong traumatic patterns in their nervous system so they were able to understand them themselves and a part of them are still doing spiritual bypassing, disregarding their human suffering as they learned early in their life, only using less detectable methods. Nondualist absolutist statements (like "Who is suffering?") are really not helpful and they often just reinforce the early patterns of self-abandonment. So what worked for me? Psychotherapy with a very sensitive psychologist. I had to leave the teaching and practices for that, because the teachings induced a lot of dogmatic thinking in me (untruths like "Feeling like a human is a problem", "Feeling lost is a problem"). In psychotherapy, a skilled and sensitive therapist will be able to explain to you why you feel how you feel. They will be able to create an environment where you can for the first time in your life see and understand why you're the way you are. A contextual understanding of your patterns automatically brings compassion. They will be able to show you that you're not broken and that all your patterns were the best response of your young nervous system to the incredibly challenging circumstances. The alternatives were often death or madness, creating a strong self-despising pattern was often the only way to physically survive the situation. The whirlwind of strong patterns makes it very hard to start this work by yourself, I'd even argue that past a certain strength of conditioning it's impossible to start by yourself. I for sure was not able to start this myself. It took several years to get to a point where I feel independent and where I'm able to pretty consistently understand what's going on in me. Still I meet with my therapist once in a while because she's very observant and points out things that in the end save me a ton of time. Nurturing and cultivating sensitivity in your own body is an absolute key. First few years are very challenging and it's hard to see progress but in my experience it's exponential. The start of an exponential is always very slow and may take very long time but is crucial to build up. It's okay to want change, it's okay to want to stop suffering. Those are perfectly human responses and make absolute sense given your situation. And I'm saying that good therapy will reduce the amount of suffering you experience. But it's not because they reduce it, it's because they teach you how to do it yourself and provide you with the context and safe environment where you can take your first steps. It was only recently that I found a capacity in myself to love myself. And it was only recently that I was able to come back to the knowledge that I am one without spinning into self-abandoning patterns. Making the first appointment was scary because I felt like I was acknowledging that there is something wrong with me but it was probably the most valuable decision in my life so far. Please, have faith that things can get better, even if you find find a therapist and they're not the right ones please don't abandon the idea. In my experience a good sensitive therapy really works and in my life it's been pretty much the only thing that worked (I've tried a lot of spiritual practices and personal development). Just to share, the only two spiritual teachers that are skillfully acknowledging and incorporating work with developmental trauma I've found so far are Matt Licata and Jeff Foster.

It is not on YouTube, it's this course: http://awakeningclaritynow.com/new-the-living-method-of-awakening-self-realization-course-on-video/ If you can't afford it just watch any of his stuff on youtube, all he has there is very clear and to the point and apparently some people are waking up watching just his videos over there. From what you're saying it sounds like what Fred calls a witness stage, last and highest stage of duality, that you see that there is no self, but you are still witnessing it from the body, was it like that? If so, nice job my friend, that is the real deal, it is only question of time. Once you see that there is no self, it is only a "step away" to "seeing" that there is no separation, it is all very subtle and always there, that's why it's hard to notice. The step we're talking about is when you stop identifying with the body, that's when you realize, that there actually never was any separation and "experience" oneness. But you don't really do anything, you just notice it, it was always there, everywhere. The experience itself is often misleading, what matters the most is being awake right here right now. After having the initial awakening, the tricky part is not to fall immediately back to misidentification. And I recommend Fred's youtube channel, his videos are meant just for that, to clear you up and "see" it again. Hope it helps, Adam

Hello Kai, it depends on the terminology. What Fred offers is experiencing your true nature. If you watch the course or have a session with him, you will almost surely have a "look" at your true nature, thus you will see clearly, that the personality, ego is not real at all, that it is just an idea (First he makes you see what you're not and then in this created "space" he points you to your right-now-right-here experience to notice what you really are). Now this "seeing" usually doesn't stick, it have for a very very small percentage of people in history. The fact that you have seen your true nature, doesn't make your conditioning, ego, disappear. After this "awakening", there follows what Fred calls a "clearing" process, which is basically the process of dismantling your ego/conditioning over time, so you can function as the truth not as the ego. Because after having this awakening, the moment you "leave your room", the conditioning usually kicks in (the triggers are literally everywhere, considering how we live our life up to this point) and you again begin to identify with your body. After the initial awakening happens there is what he calls an "oscillation", which simply means oscillating between being as truth and living as ego. What could be called enlightenment is the point, when your seeing is "stable" so you don't oscillate anymore. The conditioning is always there to some degree, what makes the enlightened guy enlightened is the fact, that his experience doesn't switch between the ego and the truth but rather is "fixated" on the truth. This process usually takes couple of years. So that's where the practice comes in really handy, all the exercises and self inquiry, questioning your beliefs and everything. It can be useful in pre-awakening as well of course, but when you are functioning only from your ego all the time, there is a really good chance, that you are just chasing your own tail. Post-awakening you have a little bit more judgement. Now this post is not meant to represent truth in any manner, the language is not very sharp and may be contradictory, I was just trying to express this in a useful manner for you, so it can hold any practical value. If you want sharp language and as-close-as-possible descriptions of these things, Fred is your man :). You have to decide yourself whether to invest in it or not, but I tell you, he is the real deal, he wakes people up every day, and the money it will cost you is really well worth it ;). Being skeptical is good, I was skeptical as well, but I noticed that more than that I was really afraid that it might actually work :D, that's why I gave it a shot in the end. Hope this helps, Adam

Hey Guys, I was thinking A LOT whether to share this or not, but in the end I can't NOT try to share this. If THIS community can't hear this message, then none will. So please, keep an open mind. If this is a bit longer post, I'm sorry, but you don't have to read it ;-). The thing is, that I wanted to get enlightened or awakening or whatever you call it, because I've heard about it from Leo. It is amazing isn't it? And I'd been a "seeker" since that time (almost a year ago). I was amazed by how intriguing the idea was, that the self does not exist, etc. It is plain mind blowing and my mind was blown away and still is. I had started doing some self inquiry work, and meditation, but somehow, I couldn't make it stick, so I didn't make a habit of any of those, I've done them couple of times, 20min/day meditation for a month, but that's about it for my actual practice. About 2 weeks ago, I've decided, that after all this slacking, it is time to commit myself to the spiritual path, so I've been going through the Leo's book list, to find some books to order and listening to his reviews. Among others, I've stumbled upon his recommendation for "The Book of Undoing" by Fred Davis, in the review he said that he had a session with this guy and he's the real deal, so I've looked him up on Google and found his website Awakening Clarity Now. And on the website he claims that he can wake you up today, in one session. I thought that it is completely outrageous, that it is much more complicated than that, but I thought what the hell, if he's enlightened, he probably knows better than I do. I've checked out couple of videos on his YouTube channel, he seemed valid and decided to go for an awakening course, which he offers on his website as an alternative to a much more expensive one-on-one session. So long story short, I've had an awakening after the second video of this course (each video is 2 hours long). Before and during watching it, I was constantly afraid and nervous that it won't work, but this guy "could wake up a rock" :-D. So why am I telling you this? You don't need years of meditation and self inquiry to wake up. Not that any of that stuff is bad, not at all (it is even more useful post-awakening), but as long as you plan on getting awakened in the future, it is just a story and will not happen. This guy I'm talking about have already woken up HUNDREDS of people, and I'm really not overestimating. His method is the ultimate no-bullshit direct approach, with real results. Are you asking, why he is not widely known? Because he is not the mainstream convenient thing? Because people seek for the sake of seeking and not for ACTUALLY finding the truth? I really don't know. As far as you're concerned, I could be making all this up, right? Or just pitching his teachings or whatever, doubt is a good thing. But if you can doubt this thing, are you wise enough to doubt your own assumptions about what should enlightenment be like? If you really are into this enlightenment thing, and mean it REALLY seriously, consider checking this guy out. Can't hurt ya can it? :-) Alright, I'm out of here, I did my best to convey this message, can't say I didn't try. Love you all, Adam