No-Thing

Contemplation time! There is no SELF! There is no YOU! There is no I! Self is an illusion Self is a dream, wake up Transformation is possible because there is no fixed self Self is created but it is not true and therefore self creates suffering, just like believing you are the president of the USA is not true. It's a false belief and results in problems and suffering. Self is a habit Think back to a conversation you had yesterday. There was no separate identity, just life talking to life. Life playing a game with itself. What are the illusions you live based on the belief that there is a self? There is no self! There is no YOU! YOU = 0 YOU + sensations = sensations YOU + emotions = emotions YOU + thoughts = thoughts Banana-milkshake, potato Relax, you don't exist As yourself a question. E.g. "Who am I?". Who is answering? No one. Thoughts arise. Where do they arise from? Who do they talk to? Where do they disappear into? Knock knock - Who is there? - No one Say your name to yourself in your thoughts. Realise that this process of reading, remembering a name, thinking is just a conditioning! No-self involved here. ThEr iS nO YoU! YOU, Stop! Say your name to yourself in your thoughts. Bring up some childhood memories. Bring up what you did yesterday. Think about what you hate. Think about who you love. Say your name over and over and over. Do it! DO IT! ..... THERE IS NO YOU! It's a misconception. False programming. Fiction. No-Self is hard business. Ego feeds not only to the bad stuff like fear but also on the good, like your dreams or the idea that there is special someone out there who will make you happy for the rest of your life. It's okay to grief those ideas. But hey, cheer up, it's nothing but the TRUTH. Think about some kittens. They are cute, right? Okay back to business. Thinking there is no self over and over is kind of stupid. 'Cause there is no self! No one is there. "Ding Dong", oh, no one is home Don't think about a pink zebra. You did right? It's a reflex. There is no you Remember when you tried to form a habit or brake one and you couldn't. No-self comes with no free will. Who is there to have one? Look, each part of your body has it's role, interacts, influences and is influenced by other parts of your body. But not part has totalitarian dictatorship over the others. It's an interplay. there is no self at the top of the hierarchy. EVERY TIME you think don't accept what is, because you think there is a YOU who has a say in whatever, you are fooling yourself. STOP FOOLING YOURSELF! There is no SELF! There is no YOU! There is no I! Self is an illusion Self is a dream, wake up ZZZzzZZzzzzzZzzzz How else could it be put in words?

Resist Nothing (in the moment) and be willing to include everything as exclusion creates duality. That annoying colleague of yours - resist not That emotional reaction to your annoying colleague - resist not That pop-culture - resist not Your parents - resist not Your enemy - resist not Death - resist not Success - resist not Your thoughts - resist not Your un-enlightenment - resist not Your ego - resist not unconsciousness - resist not But how, you ask, how can I live like this? Would I allow everything, would that end people using and abusing me? First of all, I find, that the less you resist the less problems arise as the resistant causes problems in the first place. If you still resist non-resistant maybe Bruce Lee's perspective might enlighten you, "There is no opponent". See you can still take action, even from a place of non-resistance. You can even beat the crap out of people without resisting them. Don't make non-resistance into mental masturbation. Just stop resisting whatever is now and become one again with the higher power you usually label as ______ (fill in your favourite pointer). Practice being mindful of your inner resistance and whenever you recognise it, say yes to what you have been resisting instead. Enlightenment is one big fucking YES!

If you are following Leo's videos on a weekly basis and hold him as a form of authority there might be some traps you fall into due to his style of teaching and way of approaching the Truth. Most of what I will point out probably comes from my own projections but becoming aware of those is the point. This article comes from a place of love, I have deep respect for Leo and his work and I am grateful to have the possibility to watch his videos every week. Nonetheless here we go. Read every point slowly and see if it can help you move beyond your current perspective. Make a pause after every point and just sit with it for a while. Watch out for any emotional or thought responds you might have while reading. Leo's teachings are really head heavy. Hour-long videos and subtle differences described with more and more complex word systems. I don't say that this approach can't guide you towards liberation. I am convinced that Leo sees words as pointers and that he would drop them all like a hot potato if he would find a way to just make us aware of what he wishes us to be aware of. Just remind yourself every now and then that, "Words, WORDS they are just words Woerdz wurdts potato". There are paths and practices that work with very little words like, well actually any form of meditation (which Leo of course recommends). I feel like Leo doesn't put enough emphasis on emotions. A trap spiritual people fall into is, what is sometimes referred to as, the "spiritual bypass". It goes something like this, "I am above and beyond emotions I surpassed them" Bullshit! Emotions are one of the major keys to spiritual transformation. You meditated for 40 years and get angry at a bird pooping onto your chocolate ice-cream? Good, allow it, feel it fully, accept it, love yourself and your anger. You don't become enlightened by ignoring your emotions thinking you are so spiritual. You transcend your emotions by going through them and loving them for what they are and that means acknowledging them. A gem on this topic I recently discovered is "Radical Forgiveness". It might also help to follow some female teachers, they tend to be in touch with the emotional side of it more naturally. Watch out for what words Leo uses frequently: "subtle differences", "nitty-gritty". They tell you what the sub-communication revolves around. What else does he love to say? On the scale of "you can work your way to enlightenment to there is nothing you can do" I project Leo more strongly towards the former. While persistent work is, from my perspective, definitely a crucial part of it there are times where you just have to put the hands of the wheel and admit to yourself, "I have no fucking say in this". Then life takes over and gives you exactly what you need for your next step. Sometimes it's good to sit at home all day and do one of Leo's worksheet after another, reflect and contemplate. Sometimes, it is the right thing to let go, say yes to your current life-situation and just see what comes up next. I project onto Leo, that he advocates a sense of rejection towards all forms culture, and "normal" society. In his recent video he stated something like, "I realise over and over how toxic society is". In order to get your ass out of the grip of societal programming this form of approach can be effective. Just stay aware to the idea that this approach has a strong judgemental tone. At a given point on your path when you freed yourself enough from the shackles of society you can start to drop those judgements again and embrace society to whatever extend you like. From the absolute perspective society is not wrong! At a given point Leo said something along the lines of, "you have to meditate for at least X years to reach Y" or "make the commitment to meditate daily for the rest of your life". For many people, hearing this might be exactly the right thing for others it can be dangerous. The same holds true for certain stages of your development. Okey, here is the danger I see in this. Hearing that you have to meditate for at least X amount of years and work really really hard is perfect tinder for your ego. You can reach enlightenment without any form of formal meditation. Jed McKenna's approach is an example. Though from my experience at later stages you are so free from attachments (no matter how you got there) that less and less thoughts arise and you enter a meditative state without even trying. Don't get me wrong meditation is a powerful tool. I meditate everyday and I love it but forcing your practice is not always the right approach. Here is an example from my journey: Through the help of Leo's videos I finally managed to build up a daily meditation routine. After a couple of months I realised that I approached it in the same way that I approached chasing money, chasing success and chasing personal development before. I became attached to it. I then stepped of the gas and stopped for a couple of days. I slowly started again but in a more natural way from a place of love and curiosity rather than goal oriented. I don't beat myself up when I don't manage to sit for an hour all the time. I am gentle to myself when I miss a day or two. You have to be careful again though. Recognise where you are at. Do you need the head through the wall approach because you can't get your ass up? Or do you need to chill the fuck out and let it come naturally because you are a self-help junkie? I think that is it from my side from now. Again, this comes from a place of gratitude towards Leo's work. He helped me streamline my development, embrace spirituality more and guided me towards a level of understanding and living that was unimaginable a couple of years ago. Thank you for that Leo! I invite you to join in, in a none-judgemental way with the goal of helping yourself and others. You can check whether your statements are judgemental by sensing if you feel superior, inferior, angry, frustrated, proud, apathetic or sad while formulating them. If you feel neutral (don't confuse with a state of not being in touch with your emotion) or better compassionate, love or goodwill towards Leo, people of this forum and yourself than you surpassed judgment. If you find yourself judging, use it as fuel for your practice, but don't judge yourself on being judgmental! Start by accepting that you are and loving yourself anyway. Love, Dario

@Seed Hey Seed, I read your post and looked for any reaction to it. There was a slight fleeting flinch of protectiveness but as soon as I spotted it it evaporated. :-) Now I feel only gratitude towards you posting. I contemplated if I take it too serious and I think you are right I do! I am obsessed with it and the gravitational pull gets stronger and stronger. But the obsession burns itself and I see the light shining through in my life more and more. I wrote this post inspired by the afterglow of a recent awakening experience. I thought I can help but right it feels like it is more about you guys helping me.

Haha @Sevi I totally imagined you as a guy. Your name could have given me a clue but your tone of writing made me kind of think that. In your last message your sweetness shines through. My perception of you has totally changed and that makes me laugh and smile. It was just a misconception. Thank you so much :-)

A special thanks to @Sevi again, you made me help see the following in myself more clearly. I was internally judging you about: Sevi is making an argument against me He always needs to be right he can't see my good intentions I then flipped it around (shoutout to Byron Katie) I was making an argument against Sevi (which was true internally I was preparing for an argument. I was feeling like I needed to protect myself) I always need to be right (which is also something that I still struggle with. I see suffering in people and then I make the assumption that they are to stubborn to see my position. It helped me so much why can't you see that? I am right you are wrong. Well actually the suffering might be exactly what they need right now to realise what they need to realise. If they ask for my help, I am here, if not I drop my judgment and accept them for who they are) I can't see Sevis good intention (that was also true, I was reading the first sentence and then scanning the rest. I was already biased. I bet what he wrote comes from a good place!)

First of all thanks to all of you! You made me aware about some misconception I am still holding like for example I mentioned in the title of the thread, "the traps of Leo's videos" but it's actually bullshit there are no traps, just lessons to learn and there is nothing wrong with that. "Traps" has a negative connotation. @Sevi Thank you for responding. If perceive that you are projecting and argument into my text. But there was no argument going on. From my experience the path is about hearing or realisings the right things at the right time. The push in the right direction can come from people like Leo or children, animals, trees, drugs, your life, whatever it takes! My only objection was to share some insights I had as a frequent Leo listener to maybe help someone open the next door on their path. But to be honest, who am I to make claim that I know what people need to hear. There is a higher intelligence "fill in your favourite pointer" going on and my whole life I have not been willing to surrender to that. My ego wanted to control but that brought me suffering and I see that now. I am willing to give that "higher intelligence" a shot.

As we developed language thousands of years ago we started to categories things and attach words to these categories. Primates that were better at communicating through these sounds (words) had a higher chance of survival. We agreed on more and more words and started to develop relationship between words. Soon names occurred to differentiate primates within one group. At this point the only difference between "you" and "me" was, that when the finger pointed away it was Jack (you) and when the finger pointed towards the thing the finger was attached to it was Joe (I). This went on for a while and the only logical time a primate used words was when there was at least one other primate nearby and the thing the word was pointing to was also present. But than one damn day the mess started to unfold. Primate Joe had the idea to talk about something that was not there. All the other primates looked at him and thought, “What the fuck is he talking about there is no mammoth. He is nuts” (and they were right). But after a while they got the hang of it and started to talk about all kinds of things that weren’t there. Slowly the nature of words changed. At the beginning they were mere pointers: “Rock”, “Mammoth”, “Fire” .... But now as we learned to use words without the thing we point to being present, they changed fundamentally. This is crucial! Once we developed this ability, we were able to think of all kinds of things that are not there. Fantasy was born (fantasyland as Leo calls it). I know that you get all tingly because you see where this is going, right? Now that words became abstractions (i.e. the quality of dealing with ideas rather than events.) the freak show was about to begin. Joe (again? come on!) sat on a rotten tree log thinking about all the words he learned, “Sticks, stones, Joe, fire, mammoth, Jack, fish … Joe, Joe, Joe … hmmm” something was odd about this "Joe"-thing. This "Joe"-thing was always there wherever he went. Jack was a primate just like Joe but Jack was not always there. Weird … and then it happened. Joe thought, “Joe needs another word for this Joe thing as Joe is always where Joe is and therefore Joe is really important to Joe. Lets call this thing - I - (please read this with an angel voice choir singing a final chord “Haaaaaaah”). Cool, This I thing is pretty cool. Wait a minute. - I AM Joe!!!! –“ and the self was born. The rest is his-story.

Form is created by the mind and is ultimately an illusion. We are space, there are no boundaries, no duality. I now understand that more clearly. Let me share my realization with you: The distance between atoms is vast. I don’t know how vast exactly but it is ridiculously vast. The distance between subatomic particles (electron, neutron, proton) within an atom is huge as well. 99,x% of an atom is empty. How much further do we have to go to realize that in the end we are space. Form appears within space. Our mind creates form in every moment but as there is actually only space form is an illusion created by the mind. Space cannot perceive itself therefore it needs the illusion of form to know itself. So what are you? You are space. Even if we believe in the illusion of form (as we all do) we can understand that we are rather space than anything else. Think about it; meditate about it. Your body is space; your brain is space. The boundary of our self only exists within the illusion of form. Space = no-thingness = formless = god = however you want to call it I am curious about your opinions and about what is the next step!

@Leo Gura I don't know and I can't know. I can only know what I am not. I can't perceive myself just like I have never really seen my face. Every time when I go "that's it" then it is not it because who is the one perceiving that it is? Thanks Leo. I never thought about it that way! So my conclusion is. I can never know or experience my true self. Everything I know or experience is what I am not. Now I am confused about what Enlightenment is.

@Ayla How can we not?