snowyowl

hey, what if this thread is a mods sting operation to see who is just goofing around and not doing the serious work !

The internet is full of trolls, jealousy, hidden agendas etc so I'm not surprised at the reaction, sad as it is. I already filter out the psychedelic side to his work, and on the forum, because it's not my path, is mostly illegal here, and other people I know are opposed to "recreational drugs" as they call them. But even through that filter there's much wonderful wisdom to find.

ha ha this thread is like spiritual graffiti

@Consilience there's something valuable to learn around the area of control & intention vs non-control & letting be. I'm not saying I have the answers but it's worth contemplating and observing the mind when it appears we are doing these things. I often read forum posts about how free will is illusory (which seems to refer to something very much like control/intention) . Similarly, choosing a practice of letting be, intentionally fixing a time of day to have this discipline, contains paradoxes when you put it that way. "Both positions are empty of inherent truth." yes that's a good way of putting it, alternatively we could say that it's a false dichotomy because we haven't fully grasped the reality of the creative process which is our minds.

@Corpus yeah, good points. For TMI, I'm starting by skim reading through to get a feel its content before deciding whether to do a serious study. As my reading time is limited (busy life!) I need to choose my longer projects with care - my reading list is long and I'm a slow reader. The question at the back of my mind is, is the person's behaviour in real life going to be reflected in the quality of their writing/videos etc. Come to think of it, the reason why I got the TMI book and started watching Leo in the first place was other people's recommendations who I trusted. A bit like choosing a plumber

Answer's in the question - if something lasts forever, it is nothing (no-thing, void, empty).

I can kind of understand why there's so much scepticism around the subject of 'new religious movements', just because there have been so many high profile cults in the past and people are wary of being suckered into something by a glossy and friendly looking exterior. Sex and money scandals don't help the cause either - eg when I was just about to start reading The Mind Illuminated this month, I yahoo'd Culadasa to discover he'd been sacked from a spiritual teaching position for committing adultery. That's leaving me in two minds whether to continue reading his book, is that narrow minded of me? There's lots of opinions around posing as facts nowadays. Anyway, the upshot is that Leo is growing his audience, is making a living out of it, and hasn't had anything negative proven against him so it's as good as you can expect? (I never heard of retargeting funnels before so can't comment on that).

@Someone here sorry to hear you're going through this, but it's going to be worth it, perhaps the toxins deep inside your chest are coming out. Have you tried steam inhalations with essential oils, eg lavender which is a good all round healing herb.

@Luna you're welcome By the way, you're quite right that manta meditation is different from mindfulness meditation. They're just different methods, mindfulness isn't some sort of standard to compare others to. I did actually get good results from TM and 'transcended' regularly, my first mystical experiences, got relaxation, de-stressed, low blood pressure etc, so I'm grateful for all of that. It was a valuable learning experience for sure, I've no regrets, no hard feelings to the TM people, but no doubt we all would do things differently with the benefit of hindsight.

Hi, the TM I was taught, by an official teacher, wasn't a different technique to the other youtube / book ones really. I sat, eyes closed, and repeated the mantra silently to myself for 20 minutes, twice a day. That's it. I've had the same method in regular yoga classes. I think there are more advanced TM stages, called the Siddhi programme, but they didn't explain them, they weren't included in the price. But good on you for wanting to commit this much to your practice, whatever you choose - I just looked up the price on the official TM website. Don't forget it's the practice you put in which brings results, not the money or how it's packaged by the teachers. Think about how you're going to establish a regular daily practice in your schedule.

I used to smoke when I was a student. I wanted to give up but couldn't till the stress of exams was over, although I tried many times. I managed to cut down, but stopping altogether proved too much for my will power. Out of desperation I chose a day to quit, smoked a whole pack in the evening until I felt completely sick, but forced myself to keep on smoking when I hated it. That seemed to reprogram my brain somehow out of the belief that smoking was nice - my last memory of smoking was pretty unpleasant. Like DIY aversion therapy I guess. Some years later when I was in London I visited an exhibition called Body Worlds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_Worlds which showed dissected and preserved human and animal bodies. Pretty gruesome for sure, also quite artistic, and it had some lungs on display - smokers next to non-smokers and the difference was amazing, Also bodies with cancer. I never forgot it and want to keep healthy now! Yeah, it still took a couple of months for the nicotine cravings to fully die down. But they did, and the improvement in my fitness, sense of taste and smell was brilliant too! Like all the benefits of going jogging without the hard work! Keep at it and it will be really worth it.

I know about my own direct experience, but to say something doesn't exist because I'm not aware of it is going too far IMO. I don't know what I don't know, just because I can't prove something's existence (by being aware of it) doesn't prove it doesn't exist. Absence of proof isn't proof of absence. On the other hand, every object we do 'know' about is built up theoretically from the building blocks of awareness and thought. Let's think about the human process. We're born as babies who have an oceanic awareness without thought or delineating 'everything' into 'things'. Then we gradually learn to discern different things - eg mummy, daddy, hunger, food, warm, cold, toys, sounds, colours etc, which we are taught have names (special types of sounds which label or point to an experience). So, by the time we've grown up we have various layers going on. Direct awareness itself. Carving up and dividing awareness into named 'things'. Creation of conceptual models about the causes of our carved-up awareness. In this way, the entire objective universe we 'know' is actually a gigantic mental map which has been constructed by ourselves and our culture. Including the structure of an inner subjective experience and an outer objective world 'causing' the experience. @arlin "If you go down this rabbit hole you will go crazy, im warning you." Too late, by the time I got to your post I was already half way down and couldn't turn back ?

? If will is controlled by an ego, it isn't free

The existence / non-existence pair is a deep one, my thoughts around this subject are a bit hazy. Here goes: - For me to make a statement like 'unicorns don't exist' I must first define what a unicorn is, and therefore effectively create a unicorn in my imagination. - So I'm saying unicorns do exist in thought/image but don't exist in another realm like the physical reality. - The statement 'unicorns don't exist' therefore occupies a dualistic conceptual framework. From a nondualistic framework, presumably there's no split between mind and matter, imagination and physical reality. Imagined and physical unicorns are just as real or unreal as each other. I'm close to saying that there's neither existence nor non-existence of things in the nondual framework, just (being); but the paradox is holding me back. Perhaps I just haven't yet realised what existence/non-existence really means.

Strange loops often involve self-reference, which is paradoxical. Eg statements about "everything", or God creating itself. Nonduality is self-reference because there's no split between doer and done. Or like if I told you that I am lying right now, would you believe me or not?

There's a mixture of perspectives to master: Zen, Castaneda, Western Philosophy, etc. To understand the underlying Truth through these different lenses takes some doing IMO. Heidegger has a reputation for being impenetrable and many people need an interpretation; Zen is paradoxical etc. But it's good to have a variety, just that it starts off being baffling until the penny drops, you get the metaphors and can 'dig the scene' (sorry for my dated 60s expression )

Our monkey mind uses distractions like not focussing and changing techniques as a backlash against the meditation discipline. As a beginner I found it helpful to meditate in a group to not fidget, constantly look at the time, want to finish early etc. There's mutual support when meditating with others. It's difficult to meet up now with the coronavirus, but have you thought about online meditation meetings?

@Adamq8 thanks

@jim123 Hi, I watched your video and can see you're a caring person who genuinely believes in this type of Christianity and trying help other people. So thanks and I wish you all the best. I have a mixture of reactions to your message, too much to go into here. Yes I accept that Jesus was God in the sense that he realised his unconditional love. Love which we all are but don't see it yet. You put a lot of faith in the Bible as an accurate record of God's word, that's another way I disagree, I'd say the Bible is all very human and a mixture of deep wisdom and also foolishness, and history, written in ancient out of date historical culture. I've already been to hell and back in my life, I know what it's like, and it wasn't Christianity or belief in Jesus which saved me. Heaven and hell are right here my friend, not in a future place. But I don't want to change your mind or convert you away from what you believe, if that's how you access Love then all is well. Love and blessings to everyone whatever your path.

"Ever heard the expression "felt like time just stopped"?.. The answer is in the question..." I had a thought today about time. It doesn't exist separately from the physical world, really time is just counting the cycles in nature: earth's rotation, orbit round the sun, pendulums swinging, quartz crystals vibrating, caesium atoms vibrating etc. Time is an abstract idea. Isn't consciousness/awareness like this too? There's no such thing as pure awareness, just awareness of stuff: that stuff may appear like individual objects, or the suchness of the whole unity. If there's no spilt between awareness and it's content, then it makes sense to say that reality is self-aware. Everything is conscious and physical at the same time - that was today's nondual ta-dah moment for me

I learned TM a long time ago (1980s) so my experience may be too out of date but here goes, I haven't heard it's changed much since then anyway. It was really just a mantra meditation which they taught me with a Hindu ritual (Puja), I had 3 meetings before this where we were told about it by the teacher and how much scientific research had been done (apart from telling us the actual technique itself of course). What I was paying for wasn't only the initial teaching, but was told I could get checked by an official TM teacher if I wanted it for the rest of my life. I didn't take it much further, I practised by myself for a few years and didn't get involved in the TM organisation. You don't get to choose your own mantra, it's a Sanscrit word or syllable assigned to you based on your date of birth (mine was "aing", you can find them on the internet nowadays). In hindsight, it was a lot of money to pay upfront for a basic technique which you can find anywhere else, and is only worth it if you continue to be a part of the TM scene in future. If, like me, you decide to move on to something else, it's money you can't get back. But I was young and naive back then, and didn't do my research into other options - at least I was young enough to pay a smaller fee. When I got involved in organised meditation groups after then, I made sure to just pay small ongoing subscriptions rather than lump sums up front. Unless there's something substantial like a proper course or retreat to pay for. My advice would be to try out some mantra meditation (if that's what appeals to you) first from one of the many teachers in books, youtube videos etc, and if you like mantra practice, do more reading around different schools. There's many other types of meditation to try out too, of course - eg Leo has done free meditation videos. You may still decide TM is the one for you, but you will be committing your money after you've made an informed choice. For me, I've learned a lot of different techniques over the years and adjust my practice based on my own intuition about what I need. I occasionally use mantras when I can't relax into a more unstructured practice like do nothing or resting in being. Good luck and I'd love to hear how you get on

Interesting topic. I've had mixed experiences with Buddhist groups in the past, Theravada and Zen (I'm from the UK). Some people are open minded and focussed on practicing meditation and mindfulness to discover the truth for themselves. Others are stuck in a fossilised dogma and just parrot out the scriptures they've learned as answers to all questions, ie they haven't experienced it for themselves. It's been the same with internet groups. But I guess I shouldn't judge too harshly, all religions and philosophies have a mixture of followers and I reckon I've fallen into the same traps myself sometimes.

The only definition of 'sin' I can work with, is separation from God. Sin is separation, division, selfishness. God is wholeness, integrity, unselfishness. So the whole garden of Eden mythology is talking about God incarnating him/herself into apparently separate selves who have this strange belief that God is somewhere else. If we think we are separate bodies, then it seems like we live & die, have happiness and suffering etc. Heaven or Nirvana is when that duality collapses. I've heard this expression before. Out of interest, what does "believing on" mean? Is it the same as believing in?

My limited knowledge is that money started off by using special shells & other natural things to help with trading, so yes I guess that's innocent enough. But I bet it didn't take long for people to start stealing, mugging etc to get their hands on it. Then people need protection from the muggers and protection rackets etc can start up. Gold - well you can find a little bit of gold lying around in streams but then when it built up to larger scale mining and smelting it needs organisation and bigger groups of people - so maybe that's when the hierarchy gets started.

Wise thinking, but I'd say it goes deeper than this. Why is there unequal distribution of resources? Because there's unequal power relationships. And why is that? It's deeply rooted in our psychology, just look at most animals, monkeys, chimps, lions, etc they are unequal too, inequality's been around way longer than humans have.