Preetom

Yes I agree with you. But there is a section called 'journals' in this forum for all that personal littering to take place. Best to do it in private in a diary, but if its too expressive then the journal section is there. But whenever something is posted on other subforums, it is expected that others might join in and a discussion might follow from there. And one is bound to keep a coherrent discussion there as it is not ones ''personal littering space" anymore. And intellectual debates, exchanging ideas is crucial and it has its vital place on the journey. Or else this whole spirituality business will devolve into a fundamentalist religion with a holy book. But that must be done within proper context, with a willingness to learn and with an intelligence to notice where one's tire of understanding and pet theories gets leaked and becomes unable to move forward. For me personally, things became clear through this studying, understanding, applying and contrasting with other ideas and POVs and ultimately seeing the dryness and unsubstantiality of gathering knowledge as well- which further motivates me to do the real work.

If only the circle itself had it figured out what really happened lol I bet most people had or will have the common knee jerk reaction "oh look at that man raving about god and fell flat dead. God is a hoax. This is what he gets by worshiping god? What a miserable, poor man. Why god would do such a thing?" (Saying this from my own experience of seeing people around me making such remarks) People are just so attached to their body, they simply cant see even an inch beyond it. Even religious people, they wanna go to heaven and meet god; but with this body and all the things they love. What a sick joke ?

Lol My opinion is if one is communicating, then one should keep the context, coherency and logic of it intact. It should not involve the shouting of a lunatic (like how some people purge here after whatever 'insight' it is they encounter) or an impossible chasm (like go meditate for 50 years or take this substance and then come back) or regressing into idle relativism and deconstruction (like oh ho its all language and beliefs! Just shut up and see how enlightened I am for pointing this out!)

Nah Leo is doing good. Not even the greatest masters went through everything smoothly. So there is always gonna be hiccups here and there. Some will be helped while others will be repelled. I wish good luck to whatever mission Leo is on ?

We have made a very simple practice into a very complicated intellectual thing. This is what Ramana Maharshi or Nisargadatta Maharaj meant as self inquiry. Do you feel yourself as one or many? Notice that no matter what, you always feel that I am one and whole. That subjective, singular feeling of I is your target for self inquiry. Self inquiry is not about one I looking frantically for another second I, a godlike liberated I. As if one day you will discover a new I as an object. Or one I disidentifying a second I from other objects. To illustrate this point, Ramana Maharahi composed a funny hymn which is something like this "Compare the man who mindlessly asks who am i? Whence am i? To the drunkard who repeats who am i? Whence am i?" I know where all these misconceptions come from. Leo in his enlightenment guide framed this entire practice which makes it seem like a very intellectual and complicated process with dozens of existential questions to ask and issues to parry and resolve. But that is not what the sages meant as self inquiry. Those existential, intellectual questions, insights and understandings were the last thing they would want you to think about. The fact of the matter is this: That singular, subjective feeling of I is already the liberated Self. But due to inadvertance, that sense of I mistakenly seems to be stuck inside the body as a limited entity. One's job is not to argue with oneself and try to convince oneself that the I is not an object but it is the supreme God, that would be brainwashing. Ones job is to simply be with it, be more interested in it and the truth of it will be revealed by itself. Usually we forget ourself all the time and attend to everything alien to us. That self forgetting attitude is what self inquiry tries to correct. If you keep on forgetting yourself, that I will keep on wearing that illusory mask of being the body-mind. But when you keep it on your radar, you eventually discover its truth. And as final note, that singular feeling I at first might seem like a sensation in the body, so that doesn't mean you'll now keep on focusing on a particular part of the body forever. The moment you clearly see the sensation, you'll also see that I is separate from it. So basically you wont grasp the I as an object ever. Its sort of like following that I feeling around, keeping it in your radar instead of forgetting it. But remember, its not about mindlessly roaming around either. You know that subjective, singular feeling I right now. Thats the scent you wanna keep on gently trying to lock on. Its all about more and more deeply feeling, being and settling down into oneself instead of superficially thinking, arguing with oneself, asking questions or any activity of the mind.

Who in the right mind takes vedanta or any doctrine as THE TRUTH? Even vedanta doesn't instruct to believe this stuff without brutal inquiry. I guess vedanta sounds so logically coherent that some people feel the need to lash out against it fearing that it might eventually become THE TRUTH! OH no, what will happen to my precious pet theories then?

And Leo's usual policy of "dont talk about 5 meo unless you've had it like 50 times" is kinda absurd. So basically one has to keep on taking it and come to same conclusion as Leo or else he'll just reject it out of the window. How is that any different than saying, "dont dare talking about islam unless you've been a hardcore follower in that circle for 40 years who experienced all the pros and cons himself. Otherwise just shove your opinions up your butt and stay silent". I hope Leo comes up with better tactics and mechanisms to talk about this stuff if he is really planning to chart out this psychedelic route as a ''spiritual teacher''. The thing I love most about vedanta is that it never imposes a new doctrine or a set of herculean qualifications like going to some other time, place or take the help of something outside upon one. It simply lays out the fundamental theory and encourages any doubt to be resolved. Then it directly points out to one's own immediate experience and goes on a very logical and precise philosophical inquiry to cut off as much falsehood as possible, so that the truth shines clearly after that discrimination. If you get it then and there, cool. If not, better luck next time. The recognition is immediate and it does so by talking about very fundamental daily mundane experiences of everyone like the 3 states of waking, dreaming and sleeping or the sheaths of body-personality or the nature of I etc. If the recognition is there and one is convinced, then they will provide some strategy or skillful means to be established in that new mode of being. And that might take some time depending on the different traits of people.

its alright. Roaming in this forum made me realize very eye opening things about understanding and conviction. There are people well versed in direct self inquiry path, there are people well versed in the scenic routes and understanding of karma theories etc. Basically what they invested most time to figure out and understand. For Leo it could be 5 meo dmt. Somehow along the way he had to admit it to himself "this is it!" This is why you can see why there is/was no solitary spiritual teaching or communion within people, ever. They are all fundamentally talking about the one truth, about the ONE shared Being; and yet when it is talked about, thousands of doctrines, beliefs, sanghas and traditions come about. Its shocking to see that it only happens in the domain of spiritually. You wont find a chemistry forum which refutes the periodic table or a physics forum which refuses to acknowledge Newton's work. Why is this case? Because spirituality is the 'final' knowledge and ones own life is literally hinged upon it. The situation is really twisted. Its like the head of the police is appointed to chase down and catch the most notorious criminal of the country and guess what? That police head IS that criminal himself, so fathom the dilemma of the whole situation. Just like I will never leave 'my' body and completely inhabit 'your' body because that would be death for me. Similarly I wont relinquish 'my' insights, beliefs, dogma, understanding, morality to completely inhabit yours. Because thats death to me. Its shocking to see that whereas all other fields of knowledge are being more and more unified due to upgrade in technology and global communication, the field of spirituality remains ever scattered. Even the greatest of sages were unable to reconcile this contradiction, in fact most times their own teachings became the weapons of discrimination. So yeah, the contradictions and differences are endless where the destination is supposed to be the same. You now know the whats going on, you know the mechanism of bondage and how to be free, if you are convinced about it then you are free to walk the path ??

@bmcnicho Its alright, let it go. Glad that you(and some others) got something out of it. I guess this is kinda inevitable because whenever you present something here on your own and try your best to interpret it in your own style, there are inevitably gonna be people who will creep in to superimpose their own doctrines and beliefs over it. This tendency isnt new to this forum so I wasn't that shocked or hurt that the vedanta thread was locked. In fact I am surprised it even got to stay alive for few days lol Go check out winternight's featured thread. You'll see the same pattern there as well. Over 50% of posts and exchanges there are utter junk, basically people superimposing their own shit on winternight. But thank god that thread wasnt locked. So its always up to you what to pick and what to leave. Take care

Yeah and the psychedelics gang might retort saying Sadhguru must deny psychedelics in order to keep his sadhguru business going on ?

Note: Might be a long post. And again it might be helpful for those who are confused as it will present a straightforward conclusion. A claim Leo often makes which is the possibility of having the highest realizations for the first time. But this is simply not true as these things have been systematically mapped out since time immemorial. So hear me out. My guess is most people dont bother to study it or take it into consideration because they think it is traditional dogma and product of ''deluded illiterate people". But if the same message is told in a slightly different twist by a contemporary spiritual teacher or by a 21st century modern, educated man; everyone loses their shit. ? Part 1: The mechanism of creation/manifestation For any form to exist, there must be a trinity of subject-mechanism-objects or knower-knowledge-known. Religiously, it is known as the trinity of soul-god-world. So basically a subject perceives objects and god is the mechanism or principle that makes this perceptual connection possible by holding it all together. Now in Vedanta, the absolute reality Brahman is prior to this trinity. This trinity is in fact relative and only 'seems' to exist from its own POV. Poetically speaking, This trinity is said to have borrowed existence from Brahman. We will make these fine distinctions here but connect it all together in the end. Part 2: All of reality, cosmology explained in vedantic perspective! So we can see that god is the macrocosm and the subject or individual ego is a microcosm of that god. Basically god is the total summation of all individual subjects and objects. Here I am going to explain things in terms of 3 bodies : 1) Gross body (product of food/the external form) 2) Subtle body(the subjective, private aspect that is not shared with other egos aka thoughts, sensations, feelings etc) 3) Causal body ( the unmanifest body which holds everything that is possible for individual ego in seed potential form. In modern terms, the deepest subconscious layers can be thought of as the causal body) Now just like I as this individual subject have 3 aspects of bodies, similarly god as my macrocosm also has these 3 aspects. 1) Gross god aspect ( It is literally the absolute summation of all visible, external forms..from humans to animals to trees to insentient matter. Literally any form there is, was or can be, it is part of this Gross god. In Vedanta it is called Virat) 2) Subtle god aspect ( it is literally the absolute summation of all subjective feelings, thoughts, sounds, tastes, sensations, smells there are, were and can ever be. This is the psychic or subtle aspect of god) 3) Causal god aspect ( it is literally the absolute summation of all potentiality. In Vedanta, it is called Hiranyagarbha, meaning the highest heaven. This is also known as the universal cosmic mind in its unlimited, pure potential state) This is the entire cosmology mapped out in Vedanta. Now where is Brahman in all of of this? None of it is Brahman. After total negation, Brahman is discovered as the solitary Reality prior to all of this. Part 3: Connecting it all together and explaining Leos psychedelic experiences. Does this ring some bells? Isn't Leo just talking about these aspects of god and cosmic mind through various metaphors and explanation? From this individual body-mind to the macrocosm god, there are infinite gradations, POVs, pieces, microcosms. What psychedelic does is that, it takes one from the microcosm of this individual body mind with limited knowledge graph to more and more expansive levels of the macrocosm. It can even ultimately take one to the highest macrocosm god where things like absolute omniscience, absolute will, absolute oneness becomes evidently clear (the places where Leo recently hit). Meditation, yoga and other spiritual practices are also tools that can take one from this individual ego level to more expansive macrocosm ego levels. All shiddhis or paranormal powers are basically manifestations of these higher realms. Now what does Vedanta says about all this? Once again, none of it is Brahman. That universal cosmic mind is as much non-Brahman as my current individual ego self. So 'I' can travel from microcosm to the macrocosm, to the highest of heavens millions of times and still I will be equally distant from Brahman the Absolute. So what does the direct path prescribe? It says that there is no reason or necessity to take the scenic route. Upon right knowledge and contemplation, this entire trinity of soul-god-universe becomes annihilated and Brahman is found to be the solitary Reality. Right here, all communication fails. So from vedantic perspective, all the 'ultimate' mysteries and insights found through psychedelics or spiritual highs are still inside the dream/Maya. No matter how expansive or oneness one feels, its still a state, just different facets of macrocosm, all of it are non-existent, non-Brahman. That's why nowadays all of Leos psychedelic insight videos start with the common theme "by far my greatest breakthrough/deepest trip ever/ its not like anything I've ever had before" - a regular claim he has already made over a dozen times. Hell yeah! The more one gets to infinity depth, it becomes more infinite without end, so this 'traveling' never comes to an end. The more one sees, the more there is to see. Brahman is the total annihilation of this dream. It is called nirvana or total extinction for this reason. Part 4: some simple suggestion 1) its okay not to have 100 psychedelic breakthroughs or spiritual highs. No need to feel inferior about that. You are still yourself, one, intimate after 0 or 1000 highs. 2) this psychic traveling, expansiveness, shifts that happen from microcosm to many levels of macrocosm with psychedelics or spiritual practices can be helpful if it shows one that how one is not exclusively this particular ego body mind. This can make the surrendering of individuality easier. But this same 'traveling' can backfire and work as a roadblock if one nests into any particular facet of the macrocosm. Basically the ego identity and some god identity both are similar roadblocks if one gets stuck there. One has merely shifted into a more illuminating, fantastic dream and yet to discover the reality of Brahman 3) Instead of being confused with every half baked non duality theories and fads around, make a systematic study and logical scrutiny of this subject. All the absolute-relative conflating tendencies arise from not knowing this subject matter properly. There is probably not a single objection or doubt that hasn't been raised and discussed in this study. Hope you learned a thing or two reading this post. Good day ?

If you really wanna know more about the Self, start doing self inquiry. I studied Ramana and nisargadatta texts and notes on self inquiry for years, yes it was helpful but when I actually tasted being, i was like "omg! Why didnt they say it like that?" Then I went back and saw that they did say it as best as it could be said lol. The actuality of Being clarifies everything. This is all you gotta 'do': become uninterested and cease paying attention to any thought, feelings, anything other than yourself, and only be interested in your own self(the 1st person singular feeling I). Stay there, have the satsang with the Self and you dont need any knowledge from anyone! "Is this enlightenment?"- thats another thought "Omg i feel so good"- thats another thought "But what about that thing that sage talked about"- thats another thought "I dont feel the peace, its boring"- thats another thought "Okay, but what to do now?" - thats another thought "Cool but let me spin a cosmology now about everything else"- thats another thought So on and so forth. You get the idea. Leave all these alien things and only attend to yourself. You know what is you and what is alien to you. @Aakash take care ??? @akash

@Aakash I am not gonna argue with you. And honestly most things you say nowadays sounds incorrehent and pretty much goes over my head. But I can sorta sense a similar trap you might be falling into. Im writing this as I've been there done that. We can conceptualize enlightenment to such a degree that at some point we might create an illusion that we've understood it all and call ourselves enlightened. We forget that there is really an actual side of it and instead get nested into the stories formulated about the actual thing. Its like say i've studied billionaires for a decade so much so that I conceptually know in and out about that whole business- i least i think i do. There is a very good possibility of falling into trap of thinking along the lines of "oh I know everything about what its like to be a billionaire" - this attitude can create the illusion that i have made it while forgetting that there is infact an 'actual' thing like really being a billionaire. Or it might go another way as well. After reducing conceptually everything and still feeling frustrated(obviously), i might now start a crusade of bashing the billionaires. Why did those fuckers ever become billionaire or ever introduced such a thing in the first place? Basically if i cant grasp the real thing, let me at least bring it down at my own level using my concepts. Oh my almighty concepts! Hope you read between the lines and dont take anything personally. Its all part of the process and we all tend to stay a little too long in these dark trenches depending on our tendencies...until we sober up eventually. Take care @akash

True. But studying, analyzing other players, rules, practices, splitting hairs at times for pinpoint accuracy and then leaving all of that at times for spontaneity to take over- all of those are part of being a good basketball player. Without all that, one would look like a deluded monkey running after a ball in the court ?

sri sadhu om in the book "the path of sri Ramana part 1" elaborately discussed this topic. You should read it in order to gain clarity about self inquiry. You are right that the mind/ego can never know the Self. Its very existence is to attend to things other than itself, and thats exactly how it sustains its dominance in spite of being a fictitious entity. It sustains itself through inadvertance. But the moment one starts to scrutinize the subject itself, the mind starts to lose its ground. Before, the mind was all about doing or paying attention. But the moment it relinquishes that doing, that same attention ceases to be a paying and becomes Being. The mind loses its mean name and form and itself shines as the Self. More accurately it was already the case and the mind was simply a false superimposition. So the mind never knows Self, nor the Self requires self inquiry or any sadhana to know itself. Self-inquiry really means this Being or sinking the mind into the Self. It seems like an activity of the mind in the start but it eventually reveals Being and that is real self inquiry. Another important distinction is there between this being/self-inquiry and witnessing. They arent necessarily the same. One can witness 2nd and 3rd person objects for years and that wont result in self realization. So its not about witnessing thoughts or things but exclusively focusing on the subject (the 1st person singular feeling I)

Now there is conceptual enlightenment, love enlightenment, brahman enlightenment, no enlightenment ? Everybody gets an enlightenment ?

@LoveandPurpose A better question to ask is what is really preventing me from being happy? ''What do I need to be happy?''- this question already assumes that there is a cute golden goose somewhere and we have to find that to be happy(which we aren't right now)

....but the transformational aspect is that at some point, you won't be there anymore... *chills*

@AlphaAbundance I think Winterknight said it as well as it can be said. I'll just leave one more contemplative question you can use when you feel confused or tangled within a really convoluted objection or experience. Silently ask yourself this question and ponder the implication of it ''Am I aware of this 'thing' or is this 'thing' aware of of I?'' - put anything in place of 'thing' depending on your current experience. You'll very quickly re-orient yourself and exactly know who is what.

brahman noodles

@kieranperez of course it is possible to change deep rooted traits of oneself, its not even relevant to enlightenment. All is required is tremendous one pointed vision and desire to remold oneself. After the initial struggles of building momentum, that new identity and corresponding surroundings starts feeling more natural. David goggins became the hyper athlete from being fat and lazy Many successful PUAs became from shy, unsocial insecure boys to fucking over 100 girls per month Many wealthy and successful people were once crippled with many lack beliefs about theselves for decades so on and so forth In one of Teal Swan's video, I heard about this really fascinating idea which is like negative life purpose. It's like you are actually born with the opposite traits than what you are destined to become in this life. Destiny plays the role this way so that your actual life purpose comes true. For example, if you are destined to be a very wealthy person, you'll actually start life in a very poor place with poor psychology in such a way that the utter suffering of poverty drives you mad and sends you straight into wealth by herculean effort exercised by you.

you are taking poetry as something real

I can sorta sense what you are trying to convey. Thoughts are no longer thoughts and things are no longer things, they are not what they previously seemed to be.

So according to this, can I be a conceptual billionaire? I am conceptually a billionaire but I don't have the actual 'benefits' of being a billionaire like I can't buy fine huns and private jets. This is precisely why a hyper refined and no-bullshit discrimination is so much stressed in vedanta. It's the potent tool to not fall into some infinitely regressing relativity or every single fantastical shit the mind comes up with, because the mind will keep spinning it's thread as long as it is there due to inadvertence.

This is what I don't get. What the fook is a conceptual enlightenment? And there is no other way to talk about anything except with concepts. By arguing and deconstructions, we are only breaking apart concepts which are unreal in the first place, the reality remains unaffected.