Ken Lecoq

@Ray Well, I'm quite stuck within this common illusion of time right now. I'm gonna do this 10 days retreat next summer. What you are doing with the Excel sheet is great. I don't really have some daily plans. Sometimes, during the evening, I write down all the stuff that I wan't to do the next day, but I don't do everything, because I usally plan too many things. Usually, I let the flow of life guide me, and I do and learn about what I'm most interested about (I'm an autonomus student, and I learn about personal devloppment, spirituality, energetic healing, nutrition, and more). But time is definitely a big barrier on the path of enlightenment. For me, it's instinctive. I need to know the time when I wake uo, when I go to sleep, and 20 or 30 times throught the day. it's an addiction. A 10 days silent retreat alone could really help, for sure. Nice day

I've just read "the big leap" from Gay Hendricks. In one chapter, he talks about the illusion of time, and the "Einstein time". I found this topic very interesting, and very usefull actually, because I saw that I was addict to the time, I have to look at a clock or a watch twice an hour or so. It's limitating, but I didn't see it before. He was also talking about doing a "time died", without looking at the time at all. I think it's a very good idea, I might do that, during a 10 days silent retreat alone for example. Eckhart tolle talks also about time. Time is a deeply rooted belief. It's a huge barrier on our path toward the discoery of the truth. You might want to do a video about time, Leo.

I searched for silent retrets in the UK and found one very interesting organization : https://www.dhamma.org/en/schedules/schdipa They are doing 10 days silent retrets (vipassana). You can apply for june, july, august or after, but you should apply the first day that the applications inquiries are starting. I might go in herefordshire in august or september to do one of those.

Hi everybody I'm creating this topic because I overcame my fear of other's people's opinion last summer, and I wanted to share with you my experience ^^ Well, last spring, I became conscious of the fear I had when I wanted to talk to strangers... Mostly with girls actually, because I always had boy friends (not "boyfriends", I'm into womens), and I didn't know how to talk to girls at all. I wanted to have a girlfriend, so I had to overcome this fear, because I was limiting myself through this fear. At that time, I already started personal development, and I was following Actualized.org. The video "How to stop caring about what people think of you" inspired me, and motivated me. I started learning about pick-up, mostly through youtube videos (simple pickup, simple sexy stupid, trippadvice...). For me, it was amazing seeing those guys totally free of fear, capable to talk to girls in the street and getting their number that fast ; and it wasn't because of how they looked. As I was thinking about myself doing pickup like them, I was already feeling the fear inside me, but at the same time, a lot of adrenalin, because those videos proved me that it was totally possible, and that it could be a lot of fun to overcome this fear. In summer, I did a 30 days challenge, going every single day outside in order to talk to groups of girls, at the beach, in the street, in shopping malls, at night in the city. There are two keys here : The first one, is to DO THE FIRST STEP. That's actually when the fear is the most present, and the most difficult to overcome. It can be for exemple the first aftenoon you decide to go outside and talk to groups of strangers. This first time, you can feel a lot of butterflies within tour guts, the fear is almost overwhelming, your heart can be beating very fast... But if you are not able to do the first step, you won't be able to overcome the fear at all, and you will be subdued by the fear the rest of your life. Once you did it a couple of times, you understand by experience that the fear is actually just an illusion, just an invisible wall that YOU are creating. And the second one is REGULARITY. If you go outside in order to overcome your fear once every two week or so, you aren't be able to overcome the fear the way you want to. Why ? Because between each "session", you are going to forget what you did the last time, and the fear is going to fully reinstall itself while you spend days alone without working on it. If you want to fully overcome the fear, do a 30 days challenge, talking everydays to groups of strangers, and you will learn exponentially. The first 2 or 3 days are going to be the hardest days, but after, the fear will naturally fade away, because you will be working on it every single day. If you do a 30 days challenge, the results of your work are going to be higher, and they will last a very long time. I personally did that last summer, and 6 months later, in february, the fear I had before never reinstalled itself. Last friday, I went to a pub alone, danced withs strangers, talked with them, and made 3 new friends. If you are alone, well do it alone (I personally did the 30 days challenge alone), but if you can find one or two friends to do it with you the first days, it could be better, you can do little challenges togeather for example. Here are some exercices for you. Some are easy, some are difficult. Start with little steps, and as you grow, the fear is going to fade away. Good kick

I think I'm gonna spend a couple of months in England, from august to... september or october maybe. If you meet in England one day, I'm coming, for sure ^^

Nantes, 44, FRANCE ... But I feel like I'm the only one from France x)

Now, @Mulky I can suggest you some movies I watched, movies that makes you question yourself and your beliefs. I really enjoy watching those kind of movies, because there is a deeper meaning to them (well, in the end there isn't any, but at our level of consciousness, with the beliefs we hold, there is, and those can be usefull) : →Spring, summer, fall, winter and spring →The tale of princess kaguya (Ghibli) →Spirited away (Ghibli) →Baraka →Samsara →I Origins →The life of Pi →Enlightenment guaranteed (Well, I didn't watched this one, because I didn't found it in english, it's a german movie, but it seems very interesting... and funny) →Lucy →The Wolf of wall street (to see that materialistic things doesn't makes you really happy) →The Island →Matrix (well, this one, you should already know) →The trueman show (This one as well I guess) →Moving from emptiness : the life and art of a zen dude ... there are some more actually, you can search for that on google, typing "spiritual movies" for example.

@Mulky You wouldn't say that if you were fully enlightened. You might have had one or several enlightenment experience, but if you were fully enlightened, you wouldn't see anything as negative, you wouldn't see any separation. And if something is negative the way you see it right now, it wouldn't bother you at all, it would just be the way it is without any idea, any conception, any belief. Just try to look at your thoughts when you are having those : "That's very crappy, it's making me feel bad, it's grey and depressive, and the other peoples look at that without even noticing that" ... Ask yourself : Why do I think it's bad ? Is it really ? Who is thinking that ? Who is the I ? Where does those emotions comes from ? ... You can learn from literally anything. Every experience is here for a reason, for you to learn something. There isn't anything "bad" in the end, nor is there anything good, those are just labels you put on your perceptions. Be open, and look at your perceptions the way they really are, look at the beliefs you hold, the ideas you have. Everything is fascinating from this point of view.

Thanks a lot for your detailed reply @Emerald Wilkins That's a great method to question our "truths". You convinced me to read Jed McKenna's books ^^

Hi, I like mdeitation, but I usually do it while walking or while driving... Today I tried meditating seated, eyes closed. I just wanted to share an insight I had while doing it. I was doing a "Do nothing" meditation, letting go of all the thoughts that were arising, and forgotting all the conceptions and belifs that I hold (which is not that easy, because that's deeply rooted)... At some point, I was very relaxed, very still, and I was very aware of all the thoughts that came, and whenever I had one, I was just letting it go, very smoothly. Later during the meditation, I was giving too much intention on a thought, and became aware of it, so I just let it go as well ; but as I did it, one other thought came into my mind "F***, the ego is very heavy, the ego is this way, the ego is that way", but as I was thinking that, I was beliving this voice, because it was talking about the ego, so the voice had to come from somewhere beyond the ego... Well, that's what I was beliving, because I was taking this voice talking about the ego for granted. At the end, I had this insight, that even this voice, talking about the ego, was also coming from the ego... Because I heard "The ego is this way, the ego is that way"... but in the end, the question is "Who is asserting that that ?" "Where does that voice talking about the ego comes from ?"... And in the end, this voice was just a construction from the ego in order to distract me from looking deep inside and from letting go of every single thought. Well, to conclude, I would say that the ego is as sly as a fox, very cunning, it's going to try making me belive a all bunch of stories in order to distract me and prevent me from seeing the truth. Hope it helps you guys... I personally decided to do a 30 minutes seated meditation every single day as a result of this one.

Do you want answers deconstructing those "true" statements ? You can't explain the deconstruction of what you hold as true with words... I mean, you could with truths like "the earth is round", but you couldn't with very advanced statements like those. For example... "All the existant colors are hold within The spectrum of colors"... That's seems to be true, for sure, but if you want to deconstruct it you can't explain it with words. The only way to deconstruct those truths would be through meditation. Very interesting anyway, those statements or questions could be great objets of meditation. Thanks for creating this topic@Emerald Wilkins You are going very far @Leo Gura , Thanks a lot I'm gonna meditate on those, and do self inquiry asking that ^^

When I spent time with my grandparents, I can see the same behaviour, a very big sens on self. Moreover, they are spending 4 or 5 hours a day in front of the God "TV" xD. Even if it seems to be this way for almost everybody in this society, it's not true. Enlightenment is something beyond our current understanding of reality. It's totally possible for someone completly blind to have an enlightenment experience and to start a path toward the ultimate truth. It's less probable, for sure, but possible anyway. We cans say that, as a general rule in today's society, that's right. But not totally. Congrats for your 2,5 days home retreat ^^

@Sarah_Flagg On the path toward the discovery of truth and enlightenment, that's very usual for difficulties and obstacles to appear. What you are living is necessary, there is nothing wrong with it. I want to talk about your disease, because the pain you are feeling, and the obstacles you have in your life might be related to the disease. I've been involved quite a lot in the field of alternative therapies and medicinal plants, with Josep Pamies (in Spain, he is doing quite a lot of conferences about those topics). I've learned there that the primary causes or diseases are emotions and nutrition ; and that the best way to cure a disease is by changing your diet and resolving emotional conflicts. An interesting medicine to learn about (related to emotional causes and the resolution of those) is the german new medicine, discovered by the Doctor Hammer : About nutrition, I can't know what would be the most suitable for you... I heard a lot about alkaline diet, and that cancer cells couldn't grow within an alkaline environement : http://www.acidalkalinediet.net/anti-cancer-diet.php I also heard about fasting, and about mono-diets (with only red rice, or only grapes, or only strawberries, always with seasonal fruits)... Well, all the information I do have about those topics is in spanish. If you can read spanish, I recommend you suzanne powell books (alimentacion consciente ; le cancer). From what I learned about alternative therapies, If I had cancer (I know, that's not your case right now, but it might be soon) and the doctors recomended me a chemeotherapy, I would refuse and choose a natural way to cure the disease. I don't really trust in conventional medicine, because it's managed by big farmaceutical companies, and their ultimate goal is to make money and survive as a company, it's not so save lives. They want to have patients alive, but addicted to their drugs. Your doctor (if you have a normal doctor) isn't going to talk about emotional causes and nutrition related causes, because he never learned it (it's the most important, but he never learned that). The really effective medicines aren't the officials ones, because they are too effective, and the big companies couldn't make as much money with them... If a patient is totally cured, he isn't cutomer anymore. You have a lot of very effective medicines and therapies, but their are alternatives : Chinese medicine (acupuncture, reiki...), medicinal plants, new diet...). Well, that's just my opinion, You take it or not, that's your decision. I just wanted to share my point of view from my experience.

Thanks for sharing what you think about addictions, @shouldnt, it's very interesting. Addictions are too deeply rooted, It's difficult to see the original causes. We need to change our self image in order to change our habits. A great book talking about that is "The presence process" by Michael Brown, I'm gonna read it soon. I never tried before because I wasn't interested about it at all, and because of the conditionning I had about it. I never tried before, and I didn't knew the pleasure and relaxation you experience from it was possible, so I was thinking that masturbation was just a waste of time, just procrastination. I never really questionned myself about sexuality before, and was expecting a girlfriend to teach me that. Your questions helped me questionning myself deeper Thanks ^^. Yes I was chubby, the childrens were making fun of me. That might have been a subconscious cause. As I learned about personal developement, I learned to love myself and stopping caring about what other peoples think about me (I did pick-up everyday during one month straight in order to overcome the fear, I got a lot of numbers, but I didn't found a girl that I really love). I just didn't knew I could also love my this way. I need to work more on self love, and stop feeling guilty and angry about myself when I do something Iike too much procrastination or eat too much sugar. I hope so as well @kalter000

@wasabelll Look at Leo Gura for example, he is bald and looks attractive. Attractiveness isn't all about physical appearance, there is much more to it. Accept the way you are and love yourself.