Federico del pueblo

Which is probably more commonly referred to as "duality" in spiritual circles. How come that "something" can seem to be different than "something else"? If I look in front of "me", how can there seem to be different (various) shapes and colours, like areas with lines or boundaries around them, which seem to be separating one "thing" from another? This seems like an impossibility. If everything is one, why is it not just one big undifferentiated continuum? Or maybe an infinitely small "point". Why can I take a tennis ball and throw it through "space" if there is no tennis ball, nor any space to begin with?

@Breakingthewall That's pretty amazing! I'm gonna meditate on these statements

Exactly! Right. The reactivity to specific emotional triggers is less and less with more time passing. Great!

This is a new development which has unfolded over about the last month. It doesn't matter what exactly I do, any of the following practices after some time initiates a very strong energetic process in the body (I'll explain below what that means): Sitting in silence Doing nothing Being aware of the background witness Listening to some binaural beats Doing rhythmic breathing like "4 seconds in, 6 seconds out" Psychedelic breathwork (Dmt/shamanic breathing etc.) Being very aware of sounds or silence or that which witnesses the sounds/silence Staring at objects without thinking Sensing empty space Being aware of being aware And so on, anything that facilitates a meditative state After some time of doing any of these, subtle vibrations, mostly along the spine start to appear. Then as the state deepens muscle tensions in different areas of the body (especially the region of shoulders, neck and jaw) arise and these tensions also start to sort of rhythmically contract. After a while my entire spine might rotate in circles or spiralling movements or back and forth/left and right, etc. If I completely allow these movements to happen I basically need to stop my meditation and lay down so the body can do "it's work". What then happens seems like a full blown physical emotional/trauma release (of which I "have" a lot), with very strong shaking, tremors, twitching while feeling the flow of subtle energies in the body. If I want to keep meditating I must not let the movements get all to fierce, otherwise I'd be involuntarily swinging in all directions. Even if I let the movements not get to out of hand, meditating/concentrating has become very hard this way. I'm not entirely sure if this phenomenon is related to the Kundalini energy awakening, but it does seem like it, because so much is happening along the spine. It also doesn't feel wrong or harmful in any way, it's just new and seems kind of "crazy" in a good way. It actually seems like a kind of catharsis or purging. I'm just curious if any of you have made similar experiences or know anything about these phenomena? What comes to mind for you when reading this? Much love, Federico

Alright thanks! That is simply how it feels. Every time I allow it to happen it feels like a massive discharge. I simply feel better afterwards and my problematic emotions seem to be continuously decreasing in intensity, although it's a rather slow process. Also these tremors and shaking movements are exactly that which people experience when they do the so called "tension, trauma and stress release exercises" (TRE) from Dr. David Berceli. They also tend to happen a lot in deep experiential therapies (e.g. holotropic breathwork) or other trauma modalities like somatic experiencing (according to my research).

It was from @Leo Gura himself. I think it was a pinned topic, like a guide which explained different spiritual techniques like self-inquiry and/or contemplation. There were some memorable images in it like an illusory triangle or a cute monkey with huge funny eyes, below which it said "you cannot unsee what you have seen" or so. I don't find it anywhere :-/

I see. No problem though, UnbornTao linked it below @UnbornTao thanks man, you're my hero!

@Yimpa Do you know? Does anybody know this? Dear master @Leo Gura do you know what I mean and would you please be so loving to link that topic here if it still exists? 🙃 Thanks 🙏❤

Or both or neither one of them? 😄 The last 7,5 months have been absolutely brutal for me. A few days after my last lsd experience in July I was heavily destabilised and flooded with such unimaginable levels of fear that it seemed like I had damaged myself forever. This was also a heavy retraumatization with things that had already gotten considerably better after several years of good work. Since then several other things followed that destabilised me again after I had already improved. The last one is that since end of 2023 I haven't been able to overcome a fucking regular cold, which is constantly worsening my already debilitating chronic fatigue symptoms. It was a cycle of stress, more illness symptoms, more stress etc. Since my second last lsd experience (also July 2023) until now I have a thing where behind closed eyes I see subtle but still clear enough images of scary faces flashing up, very quickly and subtly, still unambiguous though. It's more like just the widely opened eye balls and mouths, like you would imagine insane people or people in terror or people being tormented or so. It started during the lsd experience but didn't unfold or complete itself and now it persists a little bit more subtly than during the experience. Needless to say that with my trauma and the last lsd experience I'm not gonna have any trip again any time soon... Weirdly though, at the same time my meditations are deeper than ever and it more and more feels like I'm connecting to something and dissolving into nothingness. I feel twitching or subtle tremoring movements around the spine, sometimes in the perineum itself. I've had meditations where I clearly felt a stream of energy through the spine up into the brain. I have more and more "visuals" during my meditations. My brain feels incredibly good in some meditations, sometimes there's virtually no thought (no selftalk) for maybe a minute or so, just imagery arising and leaving (biographical, phantastical or "random", kind of like on a psychedelic.) I'm sometimes in a normal environment but I really have to wonder: "what actually is this here? Objects, people, "me"?" Of course I know that people voluntarily start to do contemplation to awaken, but what I mean is that I really genuinely am confronted with this question, not really like I'm choosing to think about it. I also do very down to earth trauma work or emotional work with different techniques, I can't go very deep at the moment though, cause I can still downward spiral and get destabilised. I'm also aware of "something". It's like energetic but...I don't know. Like seeing a flimmering in the air, and it's not the one when a street is hot in summer, much more subtle. It kind of feels like a presence could be here, but I don't really see it yet. On some nights I also had terrible nightmares where I was paralysed and other crazy stuff happened. But also dreams of flying, chakras opening and energy spreading etc Stanislav Grof invented the term of "spiritual crisis/spiritual emergency" (as opposed to mental illness), so maybe you guys can calm me down a bit. I'd appreciate if you try to not make me more concerned but offer the most optimistic or encouraging view. Thanks a lot everyone! Greetings

From the burning man festival...

Yeah of course... there's also things like god realisation and OBEs and NDEs and unity and connectedness and so on. But look, you decided to dream the dream of a human. Why are you doing this? You could just be floating around as star dust all the time or experience yourself as a super nova explosion. But actually you truly want to have the human experience, this limited finite, kind of hilarious experience where you are this little goofy self, navigating this complex world with all all of these ups and downs and with all the misery and all the glory and what not. But now, if you truly allow yourself to completely let go and just truly surrender to this human experience amazing things can happen. Your experiences with other limited little humans can be so profound and meaningful, you just never knew it. We always wait until things are right. There is always this future moment when things will finally be ok enough and then finally we can fully enjoy the experiences with other humans. When my trauma is healed, then finally I can be open and loving with other people... When my health is improved, then finally I can be more social and do more of X and have more meaningful experiences with people... When my studies are finished and I have a good job in another city, then finally I can be like X with people feel like Y and do Z... When I have my ideal boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband etc., then finally I can feel X emotion which will help me to do more of Y so I can feel more Z and then because of Z I can be still more charismatic with people so I can connect more with them and feel more of this other human emotion... But look, you only have this fucked up human experience that you are aware of right now. Maybe you have anxiety, maybe you have depression, maybe you were bullied in school, maybe you have asymmetrical tits or a small Penis or you have this negative story in your mind of how you became so limited and you like to wallow yourself in it and tell yourself that until X is not fixed you cannot truly enjoy your humanness and connect with people. Maybe you think you first need to achieve enlightenment or "transcend your trauma" until you really can connect with people. I'm here to tell you that all of this is bullshit. All these other people you could meet have all kinds of flaws and a lot of them feel self conscious or insecure about something. A lot of people would really appreciate it if you showed up and were a bit more open about your flaws and insecurities because then they could let go more and just ve themselves. But anyway...if you could just be a bit more conscious of your neurotic human ego and understand that it's just this little illusionary thing - which is not truly you, but a part of your human experience - this would already do a lot. Then, when you step in front of another human being, you could be conscious that there is an exchange of information (facilitated by language), but more importantly there is an exchange of ENERGY happening at the same time. How much energy can you exchange or let flow from you to the other person? The other person does not need to be awake or anything for this to happen. It only takes you and your intention and presence, there's no excuse. Do you need anything from the person or can you simply give to give? Can you wish the other person the best? Can you just be fully present with the person and be grounded in your body and in the now? Does your ego need to tell the other person of all your achievements and get a lot of validation? But if the other person needs validation, can you be non-judgemental about it and see a little bit of yourself in them and just give them a bit of that validation? Don't wait until it's all perfect! This moment will never come... Allow yourself to fully connect with others now, with all your flaws and shortcomings and so on. Don't hide these things, just admit them, just own them. Don't "do good game", just do "no game-game". Or actually, do nothing and just fucking BE. Let it flow. Some people will judge or reject you. It doesn't matter. Don't let the fear about this get in the way of truly connecting with the "good" people who just take you as you are. Your life is now. There's nothing else. And be honest with yourself...you don't actually want to meditate all day long or do your yoga the entire time. You want the human experience. You want to meet and understand and truly FEEL others. That's why you became a separate limited human. If you truly allowed yourself to have this experience and connect with other people instead of protecting yourself you might actually get a spiritual experience from it. A human-spiritiual experience (Of course I'm projecting a lot here...I'm guilty of all the things I mentioned above). I think that's all I wanted to say. Thanks for reading!

@soos_mite_ah thanks for writing this. I love your post! @Breakingthewall so true!

Yes! Thank you!

I can only give you the advice to not do what I did with LSD, which is the following: LSD is a substance that will (at least after a few trips) automatically liberate stored/pent up emotions from your body and thus it will become conscious to you as energy/emotion, maybe accompanied by memories and can be clearly located in the body. Your body might react with movements in an attempt to "burn" the stress from these past experiences and their emotional charge. Anyway, here's what I did but you shouldn't: Even though the substance was already liberating and releasing emotions I thought it would be a good idea to additionally deeply feel into my triggers on full doses of LSD. I thought "but like this I can bring up more and release it". I brought up more indeed when I did this "mental exposure therapy" a few more times and in one last attempt I brought up a lot, it clearly felt too much and like some really deep dark energy had been brought up, creeping up through my upper back and neck. The trip ended normally though and I thought nothing too bad had happened. A few days later I got triggered by one of my regular triggers and the anxiety then quickly spiraled into deep fear and panic. I had the most horrible existential fears you could ever imagine for several days. This became a severe retraumatization with some of my prior fears and new fears arose from that too, together with dark depression and hopelessness. I'm still dealing with the consequences over 4 months later. With a substance like LSD (on a full dose) you basically create a little temporary hole in the barrier between conscious and unconscious mind so that unconscious material can come up. If you are then overly eager and try to bring up even more you might create a stream of emotion that is a little bit too strong and that can rip the little hole wide open and thus leave some damage in the barrier that doesn't immediately heal/close again after the trip. And then you can get flooded. So be careful. Just let come up what wants to come up and don't try to bring up all at once in one experience. Also at some point in this process very big experiences might happen, like reexperiencing very early unconscious traumatizations. This can be very challenging or overwhelming if you're by yourself and you might want to at least have a trip sitter or even better professional guidance.

Hi everyone, Some of you might remember a post I made at end of July: In this post I talked about how I didn't tolerate a LSD experience and fell into some pretty dark hole a few days after the trip. Interestingly the trip was not nightmarish, there was just a rather negative moment when seemingly I brought up a bit too much of a specific trauma related emotion. That must have sort of blown apart my barriers a bit too much. A few days after the experience I got triggered by one of my common triggers and then spiraled down into full blown panic. I then had to deal with this severe anxiety or panic for almost a week. In this time there really was no control over my emotions, the gates were simply too wide open and I had the most disturbing worst case scenario thoughts in my mind, which I could barely stop even though I did my best to not ruminate. I suspect that these days must have sort of overburdened my emotional processing system in the brain. The intensity of anxiety then gradually decreased and now I mostly have about the same levels of anxiety as before the experience. Though I'm now dealing with depressive feelings stemming from a kind of pessimism and hopelessness regarding my entire life, especially my mental and overall health and thus my future perspectives. Let me explain the constellation: For over a decade I've been dealing with chronic fatigue syndrome and for a whole bunch of years I haven't been able to work because of it. At the same time it seems obvious to me that this health condition was created by chronic stress and years of emotional problems stemming from earlier traumatic developments. Now in this situation of joblessness and health issues of course my emotional issues initially got worse too, but I've been working on them for years and have actually managed to now feel much less affected by everything, like being less insecure about it and so. And yet, since the severe post-LSD incident I'm now really struggling with existential fear about my chances of ever recovering from my emotional symptoms and overall health condition. Also: It seems like my health limitations (fatigue, ability to exert myself) stop me from living a really fulfilling life and thus it's still harder to affect my emotions positively and overcome certain inner limitations. It seems like a difficult cycle. I don't really ruminate myself into these states, it's rather like I wake up and feel negativity in the body. Or I just become aware during the day that there is this depressive feeling in my upper back and neck area. And then I know what it's related to and if I'm not careful I could exacerbate it with negative thoughts, but I manage to avoid that a lot of the time. Basically the new inner reality I feel limited by goes something like this: "It's too hard to overcome your trauma and emotional problems" "Therfore you can't cure your nervous system and thus your health condition" "So you won't have a fulfilling life again and will get old poor" I know these are "just thoughts" but due to the dark emotional states these thoughts carry a strong emotional charge and can feel very real and definitive. Especially after waking up there is a tendency for these states and thoughts to arise. Maybe some of you have experienced similar things and know different strategies to deal with these depressive feelings. What do you think I should do exactly when the feeling is present and I have some time to work with it? Yeah, I think that's it. Please be positive, I'd be struggling to deal with negative input these days. Any uplifting advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

@Salvijus Ok, very interesting. Thank you so much!

It's nice that we can use all kinds of techniques like shadow work, trauma releases and so on to work on our emotional responses, but I'd like to know how to handle it better in the moment when I get triggered out there in the real world, especially in social situations (like when you keep talking to someone). I have a bunch of anxieties that can get triggered in social situations and it seems not possible to avoid this entirely by controlling my thoughts or whatever. So what do you do once the emotion comes up in the body and changes physiology? Is the only thing I can really do to stay mindful of the emotion and not get pulled into its story?

Which practices do you have in mind? Is it Kriya Yoga, Kundalini Yoga or other Yoga or things like Tai Chi? Yeah, this is my current approach. It takes some practice too, but obviously it's much better than trying to run away from the emotion. That sounds super interesting. Who teaches something like this?

@Lila9 @flowboy @Javfly33 thanks for your insights!

Hi all, I've heard good things about this course but wanted to ask you (whoever has taken this course) a few questions. Can this course help to produce "spiritual experiences" like higher states of consciousness, states of bliss or love, realising your true nature and things like this? And are the exercises derived from Yoga? (And which type?) I actually wanted to get into (Kriya) yoga but I don't know, I'm having a difficult time at the moment and feel kind of overwhelmed by all the exercises of the kriya Yoga book from Leo's book list. So I wanted to start with something a little bit simpler, where exercises and theory are provided in various small bits. What I'm really looking for are exercises (and some supporting theory) that help me work with and improve my energy. Like making the energy stored in my body move back into the brain and thus entering altered states of consciousness. I've done a lot of meditation over the last years, but especially at the moment, I'm having a hard time not getting totally distracted by my racing mind and meditation still hasn't done too much for me in terms of changing my energy. @Javfly33 I think you recently talked about this course somewhere here, so would be cool if you could say a few words.

@Javfly33 I read in the course description (right before you order) that the seven 90 minutes lessons are not replayable "to create an experience as close to an in person workshop as possible", so you only have the option to go back in 10 seconds steps, lol. Is this how it works? You'd have life long access to meditations, exercises and Q&A videos though, it says.

Interesting! Thanks for sharing this info!

@Javfly33 which pills did you pop?

Sure you explained yourself. Interesting. Thanks!

@Javfly33 which other Yoga resources did you use to complement your practice?