OneHandClap

I meaaaaan. I think both can be quite bad if they're used to evade or bypass legit issues going on in life. If your first instinct when bored is to jerk one out, there's probably a deeper issue. Also, just personal anecdote, but any kind of orgasm early in the day (for whatever reason) tends to create lethargy. People who masturbate in the morning... how the hell do you have energy?

Absolutely. It's one of the major reasons psychiatric wards find people coming in who claim they are Christ or must carry out their divine will as God. It is the ultimate level-up and amphetamine to the ego Those who are serious about this path, of course, will learn to see beyond the words themselves. They are just shapes, images, sounds, ideas. The reality they describe is where the real fun is at, right?

Where is the sink? I have many bowls to wash.

I agree. God leads to some of the "enlightened nonsense" you find around here, especially with people falling into solipsism. "I'm God, the alpha and the omega, the infinite, and you are all my creations." Yawn. For every one mind that awakens, ten more slip deeper into the dream. There are better words to describe infinite reality. Being. Stillness. Presence. Love. That-Which-Is. The Real.

Well, why not view it as a communal exchange? You are not a parasite that just takes unless you have nothing to offer (or do not wish to offer anything) your partners. If you can provide something for them, and they can provide something for you, there's a possibility for real connection. You can always express the type of love you are describing here. The dating game involves a lot of survival instincts brushing up against other instincts, yes, but in a longer-term relationship the unconditional love seeps out. That is what builds genuine connection.

This is a pretty good cross-examination. I would go a step further to state that Hinduism's main appeal to Westerners is the concept of Brahman, a single mind containing all consciousness. It appeals to our Judeo-Christian soul language TBH. Buddhism takes the opposite approach in saying that there are no minds at the absolute level. Everything is random phenomena tied together into a bundle and called "self." But at the finest level of reality, there is only the quantum dance. If you go by orthodox Theravadin Buddhism, anyway

Sure, I'll take a peek!

I want to ask Santa for a red ryder BB gun

Well, keep in mind there is nothing wrong with a role. A mother is a role. A teacher is a role. A soldier is a role. Every role has its own nuances and codes of behavior, and within them, there are standards for how to perform that role well or poorly. We can all pick a "bad" mom apart from a "good" mom, for example. All of our modern world's successes have come from people playing their roles well. Engineers, doctors, firefighters, researchers... all of these fields are just roles that we have set standards within. So the real question is not how to avoid roles, but how to realize that you are not identical to a role. If you are a mom and your child dies, you do not stop being what you are. You simply stop being the role of a mom. The easiest way to do this is to look at the continually shifting boundaries of what you consider yourself to be. As a newborn, you didn't have any labels for yourself. As a young child, you were taught you could become anything. Stay with the sense of being somebody who could become anything. That is all you need to play the roles when they're right, and to drop them if they're not.

Take it with a grain of salt, but when I did boxing and lifting, I was hellishly enslaved by calories. I would pack all my calories into one meal at night so I didn't go to bed hungry. I would literally be excited to sleep so I could wake up and eat again. Talk about insanity, lol. I was in great shape, but mentally no better than a pack animal. Nowadays I just eat when I'm hungry, and crucially, I eat stuff that is good for the human organism. By doing this, the calories will naturally settle out. No need to count if you are truly listening to your nutritional needs and watching your performance, body-wise, throughout the day.

I'll leave you to your crusade, then.

I apologize if my use of belief offended you. A belief doesn't mean there's not evidence behind it; it just means it's what you consider true from your POV. We can both agree that is true. Others believe there is no problem with any of it (I am not saying I believe that). I am sorry about your friend. I'm just pointing out that this is akin to going to a political rally and standing in the middle, shouting about how bad that political party is. You would have better results speaking to those who are not firmly committed yet. Again, I sympathize and do wish Leo would look more closely at his teachings about psychedelics and radical deconstruction of the human mind. I am not here to buy into teachings blindly, merely to talk about consciousness work.

What I meant is, if you believe this strongly, you can always post on other platforms to tell people about what you think. Posting here, in the heart of the forum where regular viewers often go, will probably be met with the most resistance. I agree with you, but only because I already believe in the methods of not using psychedelics for excessive contemplation. Others do not.

Well, let's put it this way. I believe you are speaking up about a valid issue, and I find that admirable. But I believe Leo's own reflection will have to come from himself in time. I do wish he would back off the promotion of psychedelics, but at this point I don't see it occurring. This has to be a personal decision. Thank you for speaking up, in any event.

I'm not saying you don't have a point. I'm just saying... what is the real end result? I don't think he is going to change. I have accepted that. There are a million forums online to discuss spirituality and consciousness, and this one's "fixation" is psychedelic use. So, again, we come back to the question... what will you do about it? Are you going to put up billboards saying Leo Gura is bad? This just doesn't feel productive. He is not receptive to mandates about what he should do, and if he hasn't expressed remorse now, I doubt he will in the future.

Well, as someone who doesn't use psychedelics anymore, I can agree that I think it's premature to be telling people to pop some LSD to see God. You have a point that the reckless promotion of drugs is a bit antithetical to the main goal of peace. The question is, will he stop promoting these methods? I don't see it happening anytime soon. As such, if you do feel it's a major issue, this forum is probably not a great spot. Leo has his style and I doubt he will compromise. Your thread is well intentioned, but again, will he change? I do not believe so.

The boring method, if you like, is to continuously realize that what you want most of all is to be happy. To feel safe and loved. And if you can train the mind to realize that you are already safe and loved at every moment, you're enlightened. It's not easy, nor is it quick. The mind will tell you that it needs X, Y, or Z to be complete. It needs this experience or that drug to reach the finish line. But it's just noise. You are happy beneath all the stories you tell about yourself. You are not a victim of anything; you are deeply happy. Whenever a thought, emotion, or sensation arises, realize that you are noticing it, so you cannot be that thing. Keep going back to the center. Keep telling the mind you are at peace, and... tada... it will be at peace. There are flashier methods, like psychedelics, but they carry risks. Be careful with shortcuts to taming the mind.

Because silence is the noise of nothing. Any noise you hear must arise from silence. But more to your question, I am 100% sure that Zen masters are more at peace than people who run around yelling about God and how they're imagining everything. Taking DMT does not make one an enlightened being. It is a slow, gradual process that requires maturation. The proof is in the pudding. I am not denying that I see cult-like parroting from many people here. It unsettles me more than what Leo does, however. Leo can be cold, and very blunt, but I think he is at least speaking from a position of genuine understanding, not just beliefs. Do I think some teachings have been given recklessly, in a way that would shake up people's lives for the worse? Yes. There is a reason I would entrust enlightenment work to a proper sangha/Buddhist meditation center rather than a Youtube channel. These traditions have evolved over thousands of years to teach in a rigorous and gradual manner. Still, again, Leo cannot control who watches his videos. It is not his fault if people with prior mental illness decide to fuck around with psychedelics.

Oh, totally. I do like this forum, but sometimes I scratch my head at the sheer amount of beliefs filtering into people's perceptions. All this talk about God, infinity, consciousness... but the words are not the reality they're describing. Sages were just trying to verbalize a state of total non-reaction to stimuli. The realization that reality as it is has always been OK, no matter what the human brain and nervous system believe for the sake of survival. Your posts are a breath of fresh air. Thanks.

Right, so if I understand correctly, you are saying that you experienced moments where you seemed to "merge" mentally with another person, thus becoming vulnerable because your mind's contents were easily accessible. There are a few ways to look at it, but the first is this one... what you are fearing right now is a memory. It is not occurring right now; it has been filtered, packaged, and presented by the brain using a very primitive method of danger avoidance. The brain is trying to help you survive, and it believes this experience was a threat to you. Start by assuring your mind that you don't actually know what happened. Then assure it that you are currently safe and OK. Next, you can consider that as the mind begins to loosen its boundaries, reality becomes more "interconnected." This means you are better able to understand how other beings function, and they may also understand how you function, as you become more in tune with them. This is actually good. It's the beginning of real empathy and being able to understand what your loved ones or friends are experiencing. And finally, it is not possible for others to actually know exactly what you are thinking or feeling. They are using the same "hardware" as you to interpret this reality. They may be able to get an idea, but they cannot know 100%. And for that matter, neither can you. You cannot verify that they actually know anything you're thinking. Therefore, what you're reacting to is your own idea... about you... in your idea of them Does that help?

He is mostly saying that when we imagine we have a God-given purpose, we're fabricating a belief that the universe is compelling us to do something. The trap is that it's egoically driven. There is no "need" to do anything. Anytime we believe we've been given a purpose by God, we will feel disappointed and even broken if we fail to achieve our goal. At worst, we might even harm other people to accomplish our task. Look at jihad or similar ideas, for example. When people believe that their purpose is divine, they will stomp on "normal" people and things to achieve their aims.

Wow, what a refreshingly down to Earth and honest post. Love it. You are correct in saying that the habits drop over time, and that they are often subtle. After an initial big "insight" experience, I couldn't shut up about meditation to anybody that would (or would not) listen. Lots of grand egoic fantasies about saving the world. Lots of pride. But those things do dissolve in time. The need to impress, the grasping tendencies of the mind, the like-dislike machine. Awakening is a subtractive process. And a lifelong one, at that. Great username, btw.

You too, my friend! Let us know how it goes. Stay with the peace, and remember to have fun, too. The path isn't anything to take too seriously when you've learned how the mind plays its tricks Have a good meal, watch a funny movie. Laugh at how hard we try to do the simplest thing in the universe

Yep, you are on the straight and narrow path. If you look around this forum enough, you will see a lot of people who have taken the map to be the real territory. A lot of hanging up on words like God, Truth, Infinity. The truth is that we didn't evolve to understand these concepts, as you can surely sense. Trying to get the brain to understand reality is like trying to explain thermodynamics to an ant. It just can't do the task. The hardware isn't up to speed. Just keep probing for that deep stillness and staying with it. Keep telling the mind that you're set where you are, and that you don't understand a thing, but also don't need to. Then the way things are will come up naturally, like water from a spring. We all have these deep questions, but ironically, trying to find an answer is what gets us further from the actual answers. We were born knowing nothing, only being there and being mindblown at the absurdity and wonder of it all; it's now our job to return to that.

Aha! You are enlightened Well, you know what I mean Stay with that. Each time your mind tells you something bad will come, or that it will change away from peace, just tell it "Nice try, but I'm all good." Meditation is nothing more than telling the mind, over and over, that you have already found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You are already in heaven. Even with pain, you are in heaven. The nervous system is not your boss It does not know what is actually good and bad... just good and bad for your human body and its ideas of keeping you alive. You can also try thanking your brain for doing such a good job, but telling it that it can take a break. It works hard. It needs a nice pina colada, don't you think?