Falk

The mind-state is like the flame-state. The flame is no matter, but that doesnt render the flame an illusion. It is a process or a visible sign of a process concerning the change of its subsrates information. Also the "mind" or the "self" or our "experiences of xy" are no matter (in the classic sense of what we know of after the quants collapsed). But that doesnt make them an illusion! The mind is a process in quite the same sense as in the flame is a process. Mind follows matter. If you want to change the flame , if you wanna make a bigger flame or moove the flame to another spot or change the color of the flame, you have to change the position or the qualitiy or quantity of the substrate! Same goes for "yourself". Change your subsrate ... what you eat, your habits, what you see, what you hear, read new things, work on new topics and you will become a different flame or even realize within the change of the flame that you are - in fact- not the substrate itself but the flame that emerges from it Also always be thankful for your body for giving the flame chance to emerge from it, don´t neglect and despise it. Take care of it. enough poetical astrays for today ...off to bed

I don´t need to become enlightened! It is just a word, some person came up with at some point ..which is fine. If i reach a state on that someone would call me "enlightened" he can do it ...i don´t care. But i don´t want it. I don´t desire it. Seriously i dont!! The more i learn and understand about myself the more i realize i dont have to become ..."enlightened" ..i dont have to "become" ..anything. I am more intressted to learn about what i AM right now. The idea of "becoming" anything is actually at the core of everyone´s misery, the paragon of disdain of "now", What you become is a result of what you are ....if what you are right now is just someone who wants to become something ...this is a feedbackloop ...you wont never arrive anywhere!! If someone sermons: "you people have to get enlightened ...then you will be happy (nowadays if you are not happy you are sick and need to change!!!) 24h a day" and some people believe it and try to become enlightened(happy) so hard and they fail and are even more depressed instead ... I ask: isn´t it better to just accept life as it is: and if you have to work a normal job instead of working in your "dream-carrier" ...(which per definition you can´t realy evaluate in terms of personal "satisfation", since it is just a dream, an at best semi-conscious desire-construct) thats fine! And yes, life is! hard sometimes, yes! why is that bad? it is not bad! you have to do stuff you don´t want ...so what? find a way to still enjoy it, grow a thicker skin and make a joke about it , don´t deny it ...just have humor and feel good about the now anyways even it is not exactly like "you" wanted it ... isn´t that enlightened too? also most of us HAVE to deal with different people, some are funny some are agressive, some are stupid and some a smart, some we like some we don´t but mabye we find that we don´t have a reason to not like them and start to like them instead, and that is some kind of enlightenment too? And Isn´t it ok to sometimes not be blissful? if you see inequity? or if you see a person with 50pounds too much, smoking a cigarette and eating his soon last burger ... do you must be blissful at this sight? if you see some parents treat their little daughter like shit and you can almost see how she will be exactly like her ignorant mother in 20years ...do you must be blissful? If you see your boss is doing no work and getting 5x your salary ...do you must be blissful? Is every feeling of "i don´t like this" just an illusion you have to vanquish, or is enlightment when you stand up and ACT! instead of just thinking ..."oh it is unjust...but only in my head..and since the new tacit agreement is that noone exists anyways it is ok to not help that person over there..." THIS is not my definition of enlightement! Isnt life a rollercoaster sometimes? Some tasks are hard and unpleasant ..you dont feel eternal bliss while doing them, but if you made it you feel realy good... I think the notion and the expecation to be "happy" all the time is absolutley ridiculous and hurtfull!! i think that has to be said! Life is NOT like that! we can try to improove our life and it is realy important to remoove all layers of bs-beliefs we hold , but even in a yogis life there are some shitty days and that is fine!! just remoove the megalomanic inclinations of what "enlightenment" is supposed to mean ...in the end we are not seperated as enlightened and not enlightened but united as living beeings experiencing ourselves, some with more insight some with less but noone with total understanding and noone with no understanding at all.

i see myself in you when i was much younger i was pretty nihilisitc sometimes, so let´s take out some stridency and look at the facts: I think we can agree for example, if you think "i wanna get that car then im happy", that´s probably what you mean by pot of gold that you never reach?! But this is not the case with everything in life thou... happieness will come from within, from knowing yourself and from beeing independent from affectiveness and wishfull thinking. Btw. what is your definition of "illusion"? And also why is "separation" the new "devil" all of a sudden? The principle of "separation" meaning having a separated system where the second law of thermodynamics doesn´t screw up every attempt to build complexity, is the ground on which life itself is based on!... so... without separation, without systems beeing able to shut themselves of off the surrounding world ... we wouldnt even exist in the first place, the emergence of minds has the principle of separation on lower levels as a necessity.

After having done 3 month of daily meditation with occasional peaks of 2h, 90min and now 3h i can state: The longer the meditation, the more intense, the deeper the new understanding of yourself. Daily meditation of 20min is better than nothing ..ok, but i is a joke compared to what you can experience if you sit down for 3h!! I wonder if leo is adressing this topic of duration more directly in the future, because the correlation between duration and insight seems as an very important and usefull fact to me!!

@Leo Gura "Most people aren't willing to invest 3hrs a day though, so I rarely speak of it." I started my first strong determination sittings of 2h because of your recommendation. Best new habit! You are influential in a positive way... ...so make those bastards meditate!!

@Pinocchio is introducing "orginal sin" and "fall from grace" which have direct religious conotations and are woven into the picture that christianity paints of the human existence (it is christianity map , one map of many) what you refer to as "original sin" is the bibles take on the up-coming of consciuousness/mind on the evolution of mankind, and thereby the new "problem" of mind/matter-duality. (or some people state it is not even a real problem, since mind emerges from matter/ the complexity of the mind is expainable by mechanistic terms of the single neurons etc ..for example daniel denett states this (read his books if you are interessted in this topic) Of course duality is another map (tacitly agreed on by most) but there are also diffrent explanations on this absolutly fascinating topic of how we experience ourselves as minds knowing we are matter as well. There is the model of panpsychism(saying even quarks & atoms have already some intrinsic mind-like quality), then also monism (which can be theoretical mean that only matter exists like the bahaviourists stated or only mind exists) Also the term "awake" is a methaphor based on a physiological mechanism: sleep. The model of spiritualy "beeing awake" is just another map, another idea, that MIGHT be useful or not, i dont like the digital undertone giving only 2 options like a mechanical switch awake *switch* not awake, anyways; never start to get dogmatic about these terms! a nightmare is another metaphorical term, if you say "life is a nightmare" that is one statement, one map about life (i personaly don´t like to use such an emotional downward map) , but nevertheless it is a model. also i don´t wish to be in the position of tantalus ...that poor guy (it is a clever story thou i sometimes remember it when i think im hungry) @cetus56 you say : "My worst nightmare would be if when my time finally comes to the end of the road, to say to myself "I went through life with eyes half shut with preoccupation and self". Never having them fully open untill that last breath." Well i think we all have to accept the fact that we can´t KNOW everything about this life for shure ..so in some sense the idea you have "your eyes" opened FULLY! is just an idea an idealisitc /unrealistic idea ... evolution goes on/ more knowledge keeps adding ...untill we actually know everything ..we don´t (maybe we find out some day that it is even impossible for us to know everything, human brains are not made to "map" the whole reality fully) @Emerald Wilkins Yes i agree , there are many traps on the way to finding out more about reality and truth and yourself, but i think with beeing a bit humble and always returning to the track you feel is right, you have good chances of living a fullfilled life and maybe help some others on their journey as well

lol ok that was funny BUT!! Just imagine: I force the dalai lama to work 16h shifts in an indonese i-phone manufacture, scourging him to put together 2 random pieces faster and faster (those workers also don´t get weekends free so neither gets he) ...and 1 year later or 5 years later ...let´s see if he is still in bliss after a double-shift of that work knowing he will have to do it for the rest of his life ...he will be soooo happy definatly! Fuck the real-life circumstances ...you ONLY!!! need enlightenment...

@Nic Thanks for the kind reply! I just felt the urge to write down some thoughts...text was longer then i intended

@cena655 Can you descripe briefly what you do in "inner sound meditation" ? Concerning the nightmares it could be that a) you have them usually but havent noticed until now or b) the medi acutally released some semi-conscious negative contents. You should write down the nightmares, and think about what topics of your life they relate to, turing them in something usefull to grow on. Also if the overall negative experiences get to strong just stop for a while , intergrate all the new things first and then go on with meditation. Maybe there is just too much "dirt" released at once for the psyche to deal with it.

i sense you are autosuggesting to yourself that it is realy hard or smth "someday i will make it to a full hour " as if sds was flying a jet or climbing mount everest ...it is not! it is just sitting on a chair! don´t be lazy , do it

PEOPLE!! you have to join me!! Together we can do it!! April, 30 days, no meat!!! Who´s in?? GO!

Yeah i´m drinking 1 additional protein-shake per day to realy enshure i got those proteins, since i go to gym 2xweek and go bolder 1xweek and badminton as well (which is not realy anabol-process-inducing, but still i like to make shure i got enough protein) also lentils!! Jeah!! that´s a good idea, mexican ( i will try "chilli sensa carne" next week) and asian food has a lot to offer i guess.... Today i went zucchini filled with a mixture of champignons/ para-nuts/ and cottage cheese/ pepper ...ahm? AWESOME?!

I did the 3h sitting on the edge of a chair with a pillow, closed eyes. I got a steeple in the vincinity which rings the bell in the distant every 15minutes (i can hear that from away), so i knew i will have 12parts à 15minutes. I concentrated mostly just on not mooving (obvi) but sometimes after the bell rang i went: ok the next 15minutes i will focus on breathing (while also not mooving of course) or i will focus on just what i hear or what i see internaly, to make it more varied and "do-able", perhaps i will try a whole 3h sit on next sunday again, this time only focusing on not mooving and nothing else. While i did the sit i had some smaller rewarding experciences like feelings of bliss and realizing: "ohh! I ...AM!!! THIS!! is me... of course ..how could i have forgotten"... but also some siginificant changes came afterwards and the next days. Also near the end the pain grew quite strong at some point but somehow i realized i couldn´t fight the pain ..i mean i could fight but i couldnt win so in this situation the brain becomes realy creative since it is forced to handle the hard situation and i though im just like water now ...flowing around the rock (the rock beeing the pain) and it worked ...quite nice...then the last bell rang .. calmness and also relief Afterwards, that same day i went to go bouldering and on the way i had some funny ideas, or it where the same ideas as i usualy have but they seemed incredible funny and ridiculous to me and i had to laugh, i felt really silly in a good way, i joked around with myself a bit ( i wasnt searching for that but it just happend and i noticed that it was a long time since i was so foolish usually beeing quite rational and bla ... ) also the next day i noticed that i came up with some questions about society, some analytical models that i just created on my way home from work ( again i wasnt searching for that, neither am i saying that my ideas were "good" or usefull but i usualy don´t just come up with rather philosophical theories , so this was somewhat interessting. And the next days to follow i felt like i was way more secure in my conversations, like i could go into speaking quite different instead of trying to be very nice and goal-oriented or to please people and make a nice impression in a way i could just... go ... see what happens , i had trust in me since i knew at least a bit more about me now... was cool. You can start with 60min or 90min of you´re adventerous Now you decide if it might be for you. I already planed: 7-10 o´clock this sunday...

Say you are working 8hour shifts on a product in a dark room without a light, without seeing anything and you are not satisfied with the product... so your plan is now to try to improove the results by working 3 shifts and 10times as fast ...would the product really increase in quality? Or would it help to first think about what you produce and why you stick to this product in the first place...also start switching on the lights in the room might help the work *super-awesome-metaphor-mode-off*

I first only read the summary (to safe time XD, instant gratification calling ) of "mastery" and wasn´t realy blown away... Then some month later i stumbled upon the book again an read it full ... very inspirational !! Learn all your life, have strong determination to practice, never be afraid to be childish and playful.

Last year i had a period where i worked almost 90h/week was pretty much a disaster, 40h in my normal job and try-hard 50h in my "hobby" until i realized that if i keep on doing this i will end up in hospital/ grave the best time to work are the first 6h of every day ...it is realy not how much you work but how efficent and inspired and how deep your understand is of what you do

Don´t know what i should think about those supernatural/alien things ..not realy my coup of tea! But i find her quite attractive for some reason, and the fact that she is hot *just say it!!!* is always a bonus in the youtube-game. She´s probably a nice person.

Frist of all: religion is ALWAYS a good reason to punch someone or to start wars and kill each other so you are in good company with pretty much the whole mankind of all times Second *jokes apart* : I also get angry sometimes and the following helps me: After the discussion/confrontation took place just count how many times you keep "reengaging" in the argument in your mind by thinking about it and instead of getting carried away by internaly insulting that classmate and reliving the bad situation just count : 1 ..when it comes again ..realize it: "ah there it is again : 2" ...and so on... Sometimes you will find yourself beeing in the middle of reliving the situation and insult that mate of yours and then realising: oh ...ok ..3 ... do it all the time and by that you disengage from the useless waste of energy that kind of confrontations bring... You don´t have to be the slave of your lower self aka. hate, anger, spite etc...

so you´re bald... -Bruce Willis? -Vin Diesel? -Leo ? should i go on? You can go stubble & bald and some decent muscles and the ladys will hunt you down my young friend

Right now im reading marcus aurelius : meditations / selbstbetrachtungen He was a roman emperor around 160 A.D. and the book reflects his view on life /how to live a good life, beeing philosophical and practical at the same time. It is an small book, accessible in small paragraphs, but also contains heavy weight, you can read this over and over and always discover new emeralds!! I can almost garantee that you will LOVE this one!!

You can achieve everything in this life if you REALY want it. BUT! : It is kind of a new myth that EVERYONE HAS TO!! live their lifes with their "dream"career , beeing an actor, writer, designer etc... and making millions out of it ...OR alternatively : be a looser and unhappy and better kill yourself for failing!! *this might sound funny, but this exegerated statement exists in our unconciuous minds, it is a new lifestyle-phenomenon!* So, you better check if you try to "achieve" your dream-career because beeing driven by this myth or because you realy LOVE doing a certain thing...because if you realy do love something... (acting, music, designe, writer, gamer, carpenter, whatever) noone can stop you from doing so anyways ... and if you are realy good at it then you will eventaully transition in that working-field and make a living out of it!...so it is all very natural if you realy LOVE it...if you only fall for the myth and wanna be a millionair or famous or want that people say about you : "oh look he achieved somehting!" you will only create pain on your journey to failure.

Hey Mikey, how long do you meditate? When i first started i had crazy fears of dying, getting murdered ( i thought while meditation that someone is standing behind me a monster or something ) and going insane... *those were the days* Those fears disappeared within a week after facing them thou and now looking back some month i´m glad i did. What i wanna say is this: "YOU" won´t die, but the part of you that fears dying will die/disolve.

Every moment you invest in: ...learning about yourself & getting closer to understanding your true nature ...beeing healty in your body, mind and spirit. ...creating a meaningful life for yourself without taking away from others Is time well spent.

Hey Henri , is there a good yoga-practice for beginners you can recommend? Some kind of allround-pratice for unison of the different bodys maybe. I know the "3body-workout" does this count? I´m here to learn, you seem to know some stuff cheers