stephenkettley

I want to setup a time in the next few months where I just sit and be for 12 hours a day doing nothing, sitting on my couch, for 10 days straight, only eating maybe at the beginning and end of each day. The goal is to connect with pure being as deeply as possible. Is this guaranteed to produce powerful results or is it a potential hit and miss?

@Nemra I've been building up daily concentration with a metronome for a few months. I also have been doing what I call pure being, which is just to sit and be present in a room and nothing else. This is what I want to build up to 10 days over time.

@Leo Gura The idea would be to push myself to sit for the 10 days and be aware of being present in the room and getting in touch with what is around me in as focused a way as possible

F*******K I just know enlightenment is going to be the biggest mind-fuck of my entire existence and it's going to be nothing like I ever imagined in the decades up until it occurs.

@Leo Gura Oof tough answer. But definitely the Truth. That lack of guarantee is what makes the work so deep.

@Leo Gura You are absolutely right. I think my answer is to find the appropriate balance each week over the decades. Thank you!

Hey everyone! I often feel hesitant to pursue life purpose because I have this mental block of having to postpone my reading and study of spirituality and epistemology and all the exciting, deep elements of self-actualisation for it. So I essentially find myself putting off the more material pursuit of life purpose out of fear of falling behind on the growth in the rest of self-actualisation. In a sense, I feel attached to studying and embodying all these other exciting things and so I struggle to decide to commit a few years to life purpose. Currently, I am 26 years old. Has anyone else struggled with this? Any interesting thoughts or advice?

@Javfly33 I would definitely not just sit on the couch but would stand at regular intervals and sit with healthy form!

Anyone remember that crazy moment when the concept of living out a life calling and creating a life purpose where you pursue something that you love deeply, switched from being a luxury in life to something that you realised is absolutely baselines to your entire point of living.

@Davino I have been brainstorming how to self-actualise for a living. Would be amazing to pursue Leo's content and the entire realm of self-actualisation as the LP which is my current LP. I've been wondering about a future where I can potentially combine my skill of programming with self-actualisation.

@r0ckyreed You're right! I guess you carry with you your spirituality, metaphysics and epistemology within your experience as your pursue your LP. It's all together as one.

@A Fellow Lighter Amazing! Where in South Africa are you from? I currently live in Knysna. Moved here from Johannesburg recently.

I have started the journey of building spiritual practices. I have been meditating for nearly 6 months everyday, as well as doing concentration every day with my meditation, also for nearly 6 months. I have also been slowly building strong determination and mindfulness with labelling over the weeks. I have also been taking psychedelics maybe twice a year for a few years. I am not in any rush but rather curious, at what point does the spiritual snowball really start rolling where one has proper mystical experiences and glimpses of enlightenment (seeing the tail of the ox...)?? How long did everyone get deep into the practices before starting to see life altering results?

@vibv I am still doing the work to figure it out.

@Leo Gura I definitely agree that LP is a part of self-actualising. Basically, I think my main concern is, is it valid to use the rest of my twenties for LP and then only start deeper epistomology, metaphysics and enligtenment around mid-thirties?. I always feel like if I spend my time on LP deeply, then I am falling behind in watching your other content and reading books on these other topics. I do need to remind myself that life is a marathon and that there is more than enough time for it all.

@Michael569 Good perspective thank you!

@Leo Gura This makes a lot of sense. In terms of the psychedelics, I have mostly involved myself intentionally in psilocybin. I definitely have had some interesting experiences of becoming far more conscious of the profundity and mysterious nature of the reality in front of me. During one of my trips, I definitely came close to being conscious of the fact that "Of course! It's me! This is my dream!". So I probably have had some slight mystical experiences. Recently, I have been trying to combine psychedelics in conjunction with life purpose as I am struggling in this area at the moment. I am hoping that as I build up my spiritual practices daily over the next few years that it will start to feed my journey more and more as I move through discovering life purpose, studying deeper epistemology and then on to deep consciousness and enlightenment work for the remainder of life.

So, as we know, according to the teachings of enlightenment and no-self, the world we experience is not materialistic and is not a permanent world made of objects or matter, and further, we do not exist as an object in the room - we are not the mind or the body. I have been contemplating the following question regarding the above: if all the illusions of materialism and being a mind/body in a world that is separate from us happened to be the truth (in an alternate reality), how would that change what we currently experience? Or would that feel exactly like what the pre-enlightenment state feels like? Because, if when enlightenment occurs, none of the perceptions and feelings change, then I wonder what a material world would feel like and what difference there would be in experience if we were in fact a separate body and mind in this world? Any thoughts? Hope this makes sense.

@gettoefl So I understand that materialism isn't true but then what would materialism feel like is what I am curious about. I agree that no self is the truth of our nature (I haven't yet awakened to it yet, but putting in the work) but then what would being a mind and body feel like?

@James123 @James123 What I am asking is if what we currently experience is, according to teachings, a non-materialistic world where we are in fact a "no-self" that is not the body or mind that we previously believe whilst under illusion, then what would the experience of a material world feel like where we are the body and the mind? I am very curious. Basically, if the world was in truth materialistic, how would we experience this differently to how it currently is?