Tristan12

So if all other people in my experience are a creation of my own mind, does that mean they are not real at all? Does that mean that they don't have their own direct experience? I know you have no proof or experience of their direct experience, but does that mean that they are not actually conscious beings and would feel no pain if I hurt them or something, like a character in a video game? This is the part of solipsism that confuses me

Enduring deep suffering will burn out all shallower desires and drive one towards Love, Truth and awakening. That's why your soul might choose to design your life that way, it's to lead you towards the highest love. As to why people go through deep suffering but don't end up awakening or end up dying soon after, maybe it's just for soul progression to lead you to awakening in another life time, if you believe in that "When God loves people, he afflicts them. If they endure with fortitude, he chooses them." - Rumi

@ZenSwift If you read through the trip report he linked, the person was listening to Alan Watts

@tedens Wow. That's crazy

These videos of Leo's may be helpful to you: https://youtu.be/zGDGobqibDc https://youtu.be/Jar8Pd5oo_s https://youtu.be/9PjZB9CoFfs

A few weeks ago I was contemplating something about the nature of love and I had this huge insight that really changed my perspective on things. It felt like more than just an insight and more like a direct experience because my perspective and direct experience changed so radically. I basically realized why you can love anything when in a high enough state of consciousness. I saw that at a Being level, the reason you would love something is totally different than why a human would love something. Humans love things because they serve them or appeal to their survival in some way, and anything that goes against that, they can't love. In a higher state of consciousness where survival is not a concern and there is only Being, having a preference for one thing over another is ridiculous and completely unnecessary. I realized that when you say that you could love something like being ugly as well as being attractive, its not just the case that you are not against being ugly and you could accept and embrace it if you were ugly, but if you had the choice you would still choose to be attractive, its actually that there is literally no benefit whatsoever to being attractive over being ugly, from a Being perspective, and you can desire to be ugly just as much as you might desire to be attractive. At this level the thing that makes you love is not how the thing can benefit you, you love it for what it is, as a part of yourself, you being the whole and everything. You love and desire negative things just as much as the positives because it is just another way of being yourself and embracing yourself, and just being able to do that is what makes you love. This was a huge shift in perspective for me realizing this, and I find that even weeks later after that realization I have had quite a large shift in my ability to love seemingly negative things that would have been a lot harder to love before. I just wanted to share this with you guys and see if you had any input.

Be careful using spiritual truths to deal with unprocessed emotions and trauma. Some people might disagree with me on this but in my opinion all emotional issues can and should only be dealt with on a human level and spiritual truths should not be brought into it, because they end up just being a cover for the emotions, and you think you have worked through them or resolved them but actually they are still there. I'm speaking from experience. Unprocessed emotions and traumas (especially something like shame which comes from core childhood wounds) need emotional processing and release to be fully healed and integrated. Nothing you tell yourself can substitute for that, it cannot be rationalized away. It might make you feel better on the surface but it won't fully heal you.

@Leo Gura okay I think most of what I have experienced are lighter forms of awakening then. Pretty much everything I have become conscious of has felt like awakening from a dream in one way or another, and a lot of what I have experienced you talked about in your 'many facets of awakening' and 'what awakening feels like' videos. I've also experienced a lot of mindfuck and feeling like ordinary reality as I know it is just gone. I think what made me unsure was just that they weren't overly strong, because I expected awakening to be something completely mind shattering and super intense like what people describe on psychedelics but I guess those are just stronger forms. I wasn't sure if the lighter forms I have experienced were even considered awakenings at all or just mystical experiences. By the way, I wanted to thank you for everything you've done - I'm 21 and I've been watching your videos for a few years now, and they have completely transformed me and the direction I want to take my life. I've become extremely passionate about inner work/spirituality, I've been meditating an hour a day for 2 years now, I took your course and found my life purpose, and overall I have gained so much amazing wisdom from your material which has allowed me to really have my priorities straight and be on track to creating an amazing life, which I probably would have spent chasing money before. Because i'm still young I still have a career to build and other things to do so I can't go all out on spirituality yet, but I definitely plan to in the future. I know one day I will reach that full God realization and experience infinite Love, which I know is the highest love that you want for your followers. I can't wait to see what i'll be able to do with my life and also the kind of impact i'll be able to have on the world myself, all because of you and your videos, so from the bottom of my heart, thank you!

This goes into solipsism which I still have a hard time fully understanding... if my direct experience is all I have and the only reality i've ever experienced, then everyone else is just a creation of my own mind, meaning they were created when I was and so we were all born at the same time

@Leo Gura Is it easy for you to distinguish what experience is an awakening and what is just a mystical experience? I have become directly conscious of a few of the things you talk about in your videos, such as realizing reality is a dream, and I've never experienced any visual content or angels or anything like that, but i'm still not sure if that would be considered an awakening or not, because people said above that awakening is specifically a realization into the nature of what you are.

@Gili Trawangan okay, thanks

@Gili Trawangan I've heard Leo talking about having multiple awakenings or being due for another awakening on a meditation retreat or something like that, and I always assumed that awakening meant any kind of mystical experience, just becoming directly conscious of something, but you're saying that an awakening is specifically a realization about the nature of what you are, is that correct?

I feel like this is an appropriate thread to ask this, can someone please explain what the difference between an awakening and a mystical experience is? I have had direct experiences of multiple things like reality being a dream and solipsism and other things. I just consider them mystical experiences because they don't feel overly deep but I’m not sure at what point I could consider something an awakening.

However long it takes, we're headed in that direction and will probably get there eventually

Relatable lmao

Couldn't this be considered yellow too? He has a very deep and all-encompassing sort of perspective, seeing beneath the surface, focusing on addressing the root issue of trauma that leads to the addiction rather than getting too caught up with the addiction itself at the surface. To me this seems pretty yellow. I get that it is about psychotherapy and talking about the need for compassion and everything which makes it resonate with green, but I’m wondering if there is anything preventing this from being yellow?

@somegirl I guess it just comes from continuous spiritual practice and putting in the work to raise your consciousness. For myself I'm not at a point in my life where I'm ready to go all out on spirituality, I am still young and have a career to build. The only spiritual work I have done is meditating an hour a day for the past two years, and I have watched probably hundreds of hours of Leo's videos and done a good amount of contemplating in my spare time just because I really love it. I find at this point I get these sorts of realizations fairly often just through contemplating things. I think this particular realization I had after watching some edit of Leo's videos that someone posted in the forum. I was contemplating about love after I watched it and all the sudden what I wrote above really clicked for me and I really got it, whereas before when I would hear Leo talk about it, it was just an idea and I didn't have any direct experience of it. Here's the video by the way:

@Yali I'm guessing its much easier to pull a girl if you have a quick and easy place to take her, like your van conversion, rather than taking her all the way back to your house or to a hotel or something

You should have been like "so do you always go for guys who look homeless?"

@Consilience I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're talking about, but after reading what you said I tried applying mindfulness to my sleepiness whenever I feel it coming on during meditation, and it has helped a lot. I tend to fall asleep whenever meditating while being tired, and my strategy before to deal with that was to meditate with my eyes open, but sometimes even that wouldn't work. I've tried what you said a few times now and I find that just putting awareness on the part of my mind that is starting to fall asleep and go unconscious is enough to wake it up. Thanks for your advice

@KatiesKarma psychedelics could be a good way to help you process old trauma and work through emotions you have trouble working through on the surface. Specifically a mushroom/MDMA combo would be good as the molly makes the emotions lighter and easier to handle. If you already have experience with psychedelics then this could be a viable route for you. Make sure to do your research first though on the psychedelics, such as the dosages. When you are using them for inner work like this you want to be careful and not do too much. Also you of course need to have a good setting, somewhere peaceful where you won't be bothered. Check out the book 'Psychedelic Psychotherapy' by R. Coleman. It's a really great and practical guide for how to do this work.

I remember hearing Leo talk about there being more effective spiritual-based solutions to things like psychosis and schizophrenia than what is offered from modern therapy, since the roots of those issues can only be explained from a more spiritual perspective, and they need to be resolved in that way. Does anyone know of any books or resources talking about psychosis and other similar issues in this way? Its not something I deal with, I’m just interested in learning the psychology behind these issues explained from a spiritual perspective and not a western therapy one. thanks

Hatred is a cover emotion for hurt, similar to anger. It's when you have been hurt in some way by something, and then you retaliate back through the emotions of hatred or anger, since those emotions are much less painful than being helplessly hurt and victimized. There is much more you can be hurt by than just an unfair distribution of resources, which is what creates jealousy, so I'd say you can absolutely experience deep hatred without any jealousy. Also, there are still some emotions which almost always lead into another emotion regardless of the person or situation, so in that sense there is some predictability, but it's not enough to create an entire chain going from one emotion to another that works the same for every person. Like I said there is so much complexity and influence of various factors within emotions that I don't think such a linear model is possible.

I agree with @BipolarGrowth, this model seems very individualized, like it would be describing the emotional progression of one person and their own unique state. Emotions are much less like a linear ladder and much more like a giant complex web. There are so many factors that go into your emotional state, and so many factors that influence how your emotions progress and move into the next state, and these factors are unique to each person. For example, not everyone will become insecure about feeling fearful, and not everyone will become jealous of others after becoming insecure.