uriel

@Leo Gura Leo what are your health issues? If you’re suffering from chronic low energy or fatigue, I strongly recommend you experiment with quitting porn and masturbation for a month. Just to see what happens. In the yogic traditions cumming too often is said to deplete virya, which is vital energy. And this is true in my experience. I have a feeling that if you limited cumming to 2 times per month, you would have much more energy. Atleast give it a shot

I’d be careful to be honest. I used to watch this guy for a while, and I think that although he has a fair level of discernment, he’s got some bad vibes mixed into him. Just listen to his vocal inflection patterns and you’ll know what I mean. He’s got a huge ego and is very rarely willing to be wrong, so keep that in mind. I’d definitely avoid going into debate mode with him in any manner.

Thank you to all who took the time to reply in this thread .

Thank you Leo. This helps me alot. Cheers my friend. I was thinking the same. It comes from simply allowing the mind to fabricate these particular thoughts. And if I don't allow for those particular thoughts to fabricate, the pain is absent and there is profound beauty.

@Leo Gura I'm wondering whether you could try to help me by answering the question - where does the pain come from? If possible at this time, could you try to give your take on this question? I would be grateful. I am asking in reference to there being One mind, God's mind. I find it to even be the case sometimes that there is a state regression from the One mind to multiplicity due to fear of and aversion to aloneness.

Where does it come from? When I am alone on a phenomenal level, aloness feels like the most stark thing in my experience, and I often end up contemplating aloneness, both metaphysically and on a phenomenal level. It feels unbearable to me, and I sometimes even begin to wail. The emotions are so strong. I feel such pain. Why is this?

I've had to come to accept that I don't know how to handle this. My mother, unfortunately, is not a very highly evolved person. I love her, but it's just true. She cheated on my father when I was a teen, leading to years of misery and lies and then, finally, divorce. That was about 15 years ago. Since then, she's cheated on and lied to every partner she's had. Lying is a constant habit for her which I've just had to accept. She's had a good career, but has spent every penny on renting expensive apartments, expensive cars, and plastic surgery, leaving her with lots of debts. She hasn't a dime saved. I don't hate her though. In some ways, she was a good mother, and I am grateful for those ways in which she was. Now she's in her later years. In the meantime, as all of this has been happening, I've managed to build a great life for myself. I'm happily married to someone I deeply love, and I have a good education and a good, but not great financial situation. Now, for the issue - my mother is still living her luxury lifestyle. She drives a luxury car, she lives in a luxury apartment, and not only is she saving nothing, but she's having trouble even paying rent and paying for food, etc, even having to put rent on a credit card and racking up more debts. It's making her miserable. I have begged her to just downgrade her apartment, to downgrade her car, begged her to save some money. She makes enough to be comfortable if only she would live within her means. I have even offered to help her with some money each month if she would only be willing to do these things. She will hear none of it. Anytime I bring this up, she attacks me, lashes out at me, aggressively. She starts cursing and blowing up on me and starts telling everyone around her that I'm emotionally attacking her, making herself the victim. I am deeply stressed about this. If she saves nothing, even though she is more than capable, ultimately, all of her finances will fall upon me (and I am not rich, I am middle class), or she will have to come move in with my wife and I, which I feel would be very damaging to our relationship. I really want to prevent that from happening. I just want her to save some money, to live within her means, to atleast buy herself a reasonable car rather than lease one for $750 a month. I have tried talking to her, writing letters, begging, yelling, everything. I have gotten nowhere. I have come to the conclusion that I just don't know how to handle this. I'll have no financial stability at this rate. I'm not even 30 years old yet, and I'm already looking at having to deal with this mess. Can anyone give me some advice here? It's making me miserable

I work in tech. It pays well. I'm good at what I do. I've got advanced degrees in computer science. But I don't feel that much passion for it. Do I like it? Sure. Do I love it? As much as other things? Probably not. My passion lies more in music, literature and overcoming mental illness. So my inclination is to pursue these things. To devote lots of time to these fields. But I have some sort of nagging guilt that it would be somehow frivolous. Like it's irresponsible not to use my attention to try to push technological progress forward for humanity. Irresponsible not to contribute to AI in some way or other. I believe I'd possibly be capable of something like that. I could put in the work. But it sounds kind of.. tedious and boring to me. How should one decide where they devote their energy? What should be the guide? Passion? Feelings of responsibility? Am I somehow selfish if I just do what feels good and what I enjoy my entire life? I'd love to write, I'd love to just make music. My soul sings for these things. But is it selfish? Is it frivolous? Is it childish? To pursue these things? Any helpful insight for me?

You already know this, but an adherence to and operating in accordance with what one has discerned as true, even when it’s difficult. This includes both ‘inner’ and outer actions.

In the right circles of Buddhism, you awaken to exactly what you describe in your ‘What Does Awakening Feel Like’. These circles might be rare for all I know, but they’re out there if you know what to look for. So from what I understand, you consider that type of awakening to be an awakening from one level of dreaming, but not the whole chain. I would agree with that actually, based on some stuff I’ve experienced on psychedelics, with the caveat that spiritual practice, from my perspective, has proven invaluable to me in making the type of awakening described in your video into more and more of an abiding experience, which has opened up many levels of beauty and release, and which I’m hoping will serve as a platform for deeper insight when I choose to do psychedelics again.

Leo, would you mind elaborating on what you mean by this?

Leo, I see you mention this again and again, but the awakening that I’ve seen taught in some select essence buddhism circles, in addition to classical yogic texts and kashmir shaivism is the exact awakening you described in your ‘What Does Awakening Feel Like’ video. I’m talking about the intermediate stage. I am aware that it can go deeper, but if we’re talking about the intermediate stage that you described in that video, then I don’t see a difference. Am I missing something here? Are we looking at different teachers? I’ve also seen you mention that jhanas don’t lead to awakening, but when one enters Nirvikalpa samadhi, and comes out, the entire cosmic event of reality is realized to be and experienced as the self and nothing else. From your perspective, do I have a blind spot here? Am I missing something?

Hello everyone, I wanted to thank you all. It's very kind for you to have taken a bit of time to try to help me. The responses here, including their variance, are a pretty good reflection of the state of my very own stream of consciousness. That's been the difficulty. The only peace I've found is meditating myself into a sattvic state and living life from this. I still hope though, that I can at some point become clear on this issue, both for her, and for myself. I think that the responses here are all high-quality perspectives, and having them here in this form will surely help me in my quest for clarity on this issue. Thank you.

In total, I've been with my girlfriend for 4 years. This woman is incredible. She's the most loving and supportive person I've ever met. For the past 2 years though, I've felt mostly unhappy, and I think the near-daily torture of questioning whether I should break up has contributed heavily. The thing is, I've been full of doubt. Partly due to a mental illness that I've carried with me since my adolescence, severe obsessive-compulsive-disorder. It's ruined many things in my life and taken much from me. I just didn't want to see it potentially take something else from me. I'm in therapy with a good therapist for the OCD, a specialist, but I haven't seen much progress. The problem is, I don't know whether this questioning of the relationship is due to my mental illness, or whether it's due to my own inner voice. If it's the inner voice, then I should and will leave. But I always have that question 'but what it it's not?' I used to feel so bright and full, with so many dreams. And now I feel mostly despair. Anyways, this is killing me. Can anyone please offer me any guidance? A resource? A book to read? Anything, on how to make big decisions.

I have a critique of a conviction you hold that subtly affects all of your outlooks on life, your notions on the world, and which, I believe, causes you much cognitive dissonance. The conviction I’m talking about is your idealist notion of reality. Aka, your belief that reality is all mind created. That there are no others. That there is no common Prakriti to multiple Purushas. My issue with you on this matter is that you are too confident of this, I believe unjustifiedly, and it has many subtle implications on how you interact with the world and reality, and it causes evident cognitive disonance. If reality is only ever mind created, then there is no objectivity. Nada. I’ve also put in many hours on the cushion. I’ve also done heavy psychedelics and had the same notion occur to me ‘I am God. I created everything. All of it.’ And I still consider it to be a good possibility. I still consider the idealist, rather than realist position on reality, to have a good chance of being true. The difference between us though, I suppose, is that I don’t hold onto this notion with certainty. There are other possible ways to explain my experiences. Especially after study of other Vedantic and Sankyan explanations on the nature of reality, and what happens metaphysically when ignorance is eradicated, rather than holding on so tightly to the Advaita Vedantic and Kashmir Shaivist perspectives (which I still adore and consider to be very possible). Edit: One thing though, I want to say is that I respect and commend you for your ability to be self critical and to question yourself. You have disavowed positions you’ve held in the past. This is a good thing, in my opinion. A good sign. It’s extremely important. You lose this ability though, and things are going to get messy - for you yourself, and for your students.