Toby

Never heard of anyone who managed to live without thoughts.

Love him. Read like ten of "his" books multiple times.

No, "spirit" is that in and as which consciousness and it's states "waking", "dreaming", "dreamless sleep" appear and disappear.

If you are from Australia, check out Sailor Bob Adamson and Isaac Shapiro. The other ones were austrian dudes.

Never met or studied Mooji either, so I can't say. For my taste he wasn't really that much into "emodiment" when I watched some videos of his, unlike other disciples of Papaji (Isaac Shapiro, Gangaji...), so he never had that much of an attraction to me. I don't know, weren't you from Austria or something? Have you heard about "OWK Edgar Hofer" or "HO Gerhard Strauß"? Both are very good examples who "combine" "Energy-work" with Advaita.

Never heard of him. Anyone else of "Advaita teachers" that you spend time with that I might know or have spend time with myself?

out of curiosity: what guru was it?

This is a complete misunderstanding of "Advaita Vedanta" or "Neo Advaita". Yes, it is true, that some emphasize more the "Jnana"-part. But most do not and have a strong emphasis on "bhakti" or "love" as well. I really love what I guess Papaji said when stating something like "the bird of truth/freedom has two wings: wisdom/jnana and love/bhakti/devotion". It's not an either this or that.

@Markus did you do an intensive or did you really order the 100$ thing? I didn't study his stuff that much but didn't he clearly discriminate between "kundalini activation" and "kundalini awakening" and is saying that "activation" doesn't mean that much?

mental, emotional, behavioural patterns that are not brought to peace and are running unconsciously in someone. doesn't matter how exactly you call it.

@How to be wise because of patterns aka "vasanas" that are unresolved in them. Prime examples are teachers (e.g. Muktananda, Adi Da) that are "enlightened" but are/were abusing their "students" sexually, physically or emotionally.

@Markus I don't really have an opinion on it and would have to reread it. First time I read it I thought that within his map it did make sense. But he didn't even speak about "dark nights" that can come long before any awakening. In St John of the Cross' terminology "dark night of the senses" for example come way before any "nondual" breakthrough: http://www.acfip.org/wpaths.html .

@Markus sounds like you read a Jan Esmann book. @haai14 it is hard to tell if it is something like depression, depersonalisation or some symptoms of schizophrenia. Or if it is a dark night. But it is surely possible to have dark nights without awakenings or without noticing awakenings because they don't go all the way through.

@ajasatya are you aware during deep dreamless sleep?

I experienced something similar and my interpretation was that there is an overproduction of certain chemicals in the brain and when the trip wears off like 36h after taking it there might be some unusual depression because all chemicals are used up which shouldn't last that long. But I'm not an expert and it was just my interpretation. Happened only once of 3 trips. So I don't really know the reason.

Educate yourself on what an addiction is. Read about 12 steps or something. Might seem that this applies only to alcoholics but the approach is actually very spiritual. I played a bit with it with "thinking addiction" which everyone is addicted to more or less as well. The most important thing imo is: fighting it in whatever form doesn't help.

The Work is just to investigate and answer the questions but not to get somewhere. If you work with an agenda it surely doesn't work. It's the same with any meditation or inquiry.

Probably it's too obvious to notice.

1. Bernadette Roberts 2. Irina Tweedie 3. Siddharameshwar Maharaj 4. Swami Lakshman-Joo 5. Anandamayi Ma

It is not something personal but more a collective thing: https://www.soundstrue.com/store/healing-the-core-wound-of-unworthiness.html

One can raise or change one's state of consciousness but not Awareness as that is deeper than any change.

It is the same question like "has your gender changed since self-development?". Types don't change. They might appear different or more flexible and balanced but overall they don't change imo. And tests are not that accurate without studying what the given tupels mean.

Actually I would love to try mescaline more than any other psychedelic. The "bad" thing is that San Pedro or Peyote - as far as I've heard - don't taste that good and are of course hard to dose.

"Enlightenment Experience" might be the wrong word. I read a lot of books here and there, then spirituality really took off after reading Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie. A year later - because I realized I couldn't really do it just on my own - I visited a teacher for the first time and immediately had some kind of heart explosion and transcended "experience". Today I would say that "I" tapped into the emptiness/peace aspect of the "I am".