Nic

Hi Cuzzo, You just forgot to question one thing. Doubting the question-answering process... What are you looking for exactly? Feel good after we all give you an answer that will satisfy your rational mind so you don't have doubts anymore until the next question comes up, or do you want peace in your mind. Not to have doubts will satisfy your ego and reinforce it. Embrace that state of being in doubt! Observe the feeling without judging it! None of the questions above are valid as no one can give you an answer that could be close to the truth. Too many factors are at play here. Those questions are as abstract as what had Mozart on his mind while writing this or that symphony. Stop loosing your time running in your wheel. Forget about enlightenment. It's a carrot you are focused on, notice and see the beauty of landscape instead!

Just follow your heart! I hope you will find what you are looking for! You seem a lot more mature than I was, when I was your age! Did you talk about it with your family? I don't know how many times I wanted to run away from society in my teenage years, and later as well, not knowing that my ego was playing tricks on me. All this wisdom would have been very useful! I'm so glad today I never did it though now that I've seen the places I thought to be paradise by that time! You know I wasn't talking about finding your life's purpose, to be able to be happy, express love, in any given situation is not that, this is mindfulness. Once you master this, you will ultimately have a good life whatever you do! Take good care @Sri McDonald Trump Maharaj

@Sri McDonald Trump Maharaj Hi man, can I ask you the question, what do you want to run away from? Suffering, society and/or yourself or do you have anymore motives? What are you hoping to find there? Discipline, peace, happiness, enlightenment, answers, are you looking for your true nature, a fulfilled life? What can you find there that you cannot find right here, right now? For me to be able to enjoy the smell of flowers, I got to have some in front of my nose, not walls. You do what ever you want and I respect your actual needs and dreams completely. That you can't enjoy life with an ego is something I don't agree with, to live with an ego is not bad, nothing is bad, it just is. To realize how priceless life is, I decided to be mindful the best I can. Not to run away from everything which, at the end, I know, would not have saved me from myself, but that's just me, it might be different for you. I had one of those Aw moments just today again when I pass by a flowering tree. Time literally stopped, absolutely priceless, just because of a smell, yesterday it was a man's smile... life is priceless. A pleasure is not something bad, only the fact of making your happiness rely on pleasure is doing the suffering. I believe you could do something better with your life than watching walls for the next X amount of years. To go live in front of a wall, isn't that selfish? Personally I don't really know... do you? You want to be free from desire? What about making others happy? You want hardcore Zen, why not join a humanitarian agency that helps people in need? Absolute selfless work. What about putting smiles on everyones faces? What about mastering an instrument, being creative? These are not "bad" desires to have. In my eyes, enlightenment is not something one should aim for, my personal goal is just being able to express the emotion of love at will. As I see it, learn to change perspective first, this is everything you need to know and master for now. Don't change the surroundings, change the way you look at things. When you have mastered it, only after I would advise you to take into consideration if you still want to go there. There is no wrong or right, do what your intuition is calling you towards. Whatever you do it's gonna be fine, but I hope you can see that you might have other options than to run away from everything sitting in an irradiated country in front of a wall not laughing for the next years.

Why did I click on this thread ? Oh nooooooooo!!!! I can hear my ego from here... This is bad! Really, really bad! And I thought I was having mindful showers... I'm gonna save so much water from now on!

@Wesley- Hi Wesley, if the presence of your friends is making you unhappy, you put the responsibly of your emotional state in their hands, on external factors. In their presence, you believe what the voice is saying in your head, you believe that you are better than them, you have better things to do, than to listen to this bullshit. You divide the world in good and bad, you judge. I think everyone can relate to that, but from the wise perspective, everyone is able to be happy in every moment, to see the magic in it, be able to change perspective. Every moment is absolutely perfect. In other words your happiness is not depending on your doings, but on your faculty of being able to change perspective. It's an art. Recognise the responsibility you have to feel any emotion. You made it happen unconsciously. Changing what you'd say in the situation you are in is essential: Instead of saying "my friends are making me crazy" the shortcut, the ego, the lie is hiding right here, say "I'm making myself crazy with my expectations about how my friends(or the world, this person) should be." This is very important! Do it 100 times a day, make a habit out of it! Wright it down as much as you can, (your ego will tell not to). Never stop doing it until you are a master at this!!! The feeling of loneliness is also due to identification with the voice, this I personally don't have anymore. I love it in fact, I learned to embrace that. The voice always have a reason for making you want to do and change external factors. Instead of resisting loneliness, go inside of it, again change perspective at you own will, don't take the short cut, don't bite into the lie, the voice. You are perfect, and this moment is perfect, there is nothing to wish for. You are most probably at stage one of awareness, you realized there is something more to us than what we hear on TV . Stage 2 is seeing, accepting that no matter what you do, the voice is still hiding in dark corners and make you still unhappy, what I'm telling you right now. The stage above is progressively being able to anticipate what the voice would normally make yourself bite into and produce the emotion you are normally having in this or that given situation. As I see it, mindfulness is being able to thank the ego for its input and being able to choose another way, a way that is making you happy, the path of love and compassion towards anything, even the thing that you dislike and the very thing that is making you dislike a lot of thing, the ego, the path of less resistance. Your level of awareness can be measured by your level of happiness. Take care and have fun

How to awake from the dream or how to notice that you are being unconscious earlier is how I understand your question... if you remember thoughts you are still caught in thoughts. There is nothing you can do about it but to practice & practice. The good news is, you don't have to seat down for this. Remind yourself in your daily life as often as possible "Hey who is thinking now?" and let go of the thought. You can choose to let go of it or.... you can make a little funny computer game in your head, you being awareness, thoughts being some bad cowboys or indians or zombies that you want to get rid of. Pick your weapon of choice, punch, gun, hand grenade, atomic bomb, or a simple kiss, get your enemy and watch until ones comes by... be the stillness, you are the stealthy, invisible hunter waiting that doesn't even exits. If you forget about the game, it's ok. Insert coin, start again. I know what some could say that this is not complete stillness, it's another layer and all. I'd say it's depending on how well you play that game. What I actually do when I notice I'm in the dream. I just say "thinking think thinking" There is no judgment in that. You can also "be aware" of something useful, this meditation is working so well for me, try it out, it's really good for health as well: The microcosmic orbit meditation: It might not be the best video about it, so you might consider getting more information about this one! Totally worth it! My ego truly hates this one.

@NoOne I agree with you but I also disagree, Just before you loose yourself in argumentation and questioning about the world in the forum and in university, in a previous post I reminded you about the questioning-answering process. This is basically what is comes down to... for ME! The mother of all problems. I believe we have all the same problem, I might be wrong about it, but for me, this is it. If for you taking action is running in a wheel, so shall be it... it's fine! In that sense, this questioning-answering process is taking action, and probably, on the path to awareness, everybody has to walk the walk before he gets to notice it. Intellectual conversations, sure have their meaning if you give them one... I asked myself a hell lot of questions before I came to this conclusion, and yes I found my final answer that there is no question to ask. I don't trust the question, I don't trust the voice I hear anymore or try my best not to. So yes, I had to ask myself so many questions to find the final answer. It's not only with the world that we have to have the "let it be" approach, but also the chatting in our heads. Have as much philosophical conversation as you want, just don't cling to one that is talking in your head. In that sense, reason could very easily be confused with what is good for you. It'll find the best arguments for that, it has them already! I'm having so many philosophical debate myself, it's not possible to avoid that, and I enjoy those moments. If those debates are used as a tool to let go of the self, then fine, but you'll notice in all honesty that it is rarely the case. They bring a lot of mind chatter with them. In my head mind chatter brings more mind chatter. Silence, being mindful, walking in nature, playing an instrument, helped me to be centered, being creative and from those moments came not only peace but also so called "solutions" out of nowhere. Not debate, not talking about my new views of the world and asking myself questions. I tell you what is written on my wall since more than 2 years, these are the most important words I've ever come across in a book for my mental state, do what you want with it, but writing them on my wall helped me to solve every problem I had since... In that sense I believe that the whole subject about enlightenment could be resumed in a few words: "Things don't change when they are understood. Understanding reinforces the intellect (the ego). The seeker has to make room to the meditative state." I just added "Let go" to that. I really encourage you and anyone else to not let those words that goes to the core of the problem to get forgotten in a Forum. Have a nice one NoOne and thank you for the nice debate!

Ok man! The best link between the rational world and the I Am, I found in Leo's content, in addition to the course of my spiritual master that I took long time ago. As I see it from where I Am, it seems that your lack of action is due to too much thinking... But only you can tell! Remember that whatever you do right now, it's OK! I hope you'll find your way soon! Take care!

@werlight Yep! But For my part I don't draw any conclusions if it was the same place or not or if it is coincidence or not... It is amazing however that we seem to relate the same thing though! Maybe they are things that are deeper than this and even if it looked like the end of the road, it might only be the beginning. It wouldn't be the first time that we would have been duped. The universe is big, possibilities are endless. They are dimensions that we cannot grasp with our mind that is for sure. I don't pretend to know the truth. I just can try to describe, in that case rationalize, what happened in that moment. I enjoy reading that others can relate to those experiences, it's like describing an orgasm on the spiritual level. In french we call orgasm "the small death" it is quiet close to it somehow, but more like a new birth... It felt like I was a new born baby actually, I didn't have the feeling that anything died, like the ego, it probably just wasn't there.

Oh yes it did!

What I forgot to mention is that after my experiences, I went from eating 14 times meat a week to one time... if even one... I don't buy meat anymore, I eat meat when there is nothing else to eat. So I don't consider myself vegetarian, but close to it. I wanted to become vegetarian before that but I never found the will to change my ways. This experience made me more empathic that I was and gave me the kick I needed to stop that nonsense eating behavior. After that I also did also 5 full days water and herbal tea fasting. Not saying it was easy, but it was not that hard too as didn't think of it as negative or positive at all. I just wanted to know what it feels like and follow my intuition, open to new experiences. I did also cook a lot during those 5 days to not throw away my food that I had bought the day I decided to fast, and then put it in the freezer without touching it. This could be considered as torture, but it really wasn't. Coming out of it was less controlled though, the ego, the survival instinct, the addiction of eating struck hard, I didn't came out of it as Zen as hoped to... and made some "mistakes" about the amount of the stuff I put in my mouth but maybe next time I'll know how to handle it...

This is what got you to those enlightened states? That means that it really doesn't have any rules at all! It just happens...

For me it struck when I didn't expect it. Being totally at ease with the present moment, happiness was a constant state for a couple weeks before, embracing everything, smiling to what life has to offer. I just got back into meditation habit as well. Those experiences happened while I was walking in nature listening to the last lesson of my spiritual master, which is basically a mediation to love unconditionally. The way it felt was like being eyes with extensions, body parts that move not because "i"tell them to do so, but because they had to. There was no choice. My eyes were not focussing on particular objects most of the time... I also felt like being completely flat, to "non existent"(the body disappears), not a 3 dimensional being but thin as a line. I had the feeling my brain was being sucked out of me. I still had thoughts but it felt like drops landing on a hot stone, they were evaporating without me having to do anything about it, I could not cling to any of them, thoughts felt like & made the typical sounds of drop landing in the bathtub. I was hearing the voice of my master through the headphone in the background, I could not cling to words he was saying either. The only thing in the foreground was "sensation". The lessons I was listening to tells you to express love towards anything without reason, I believe that I became that love. Time was given to me, there was no other choice than to be present. I saw the world for the first time as it is, and there was nothing more beautiful than this realization. It literally struck me in Aw, speechless of the scenery that was in front of me, a scenery that I see nearly everyday when I go for a walk. I cried my eyes out for two hours. It stops progressively when I got back home. Not clinging to the experience, I had the same experience on the next day doing the same thing again. The emotion was nothing I experienced before. In contrast to mediation, the identification of the feeling of being one with everything didn't disappear after I made the mistake to want it make it last longer, or that I identify with the feeling of it. In that state, I just couldn't escape it, it was forced on to me. By that time I didn't label it as an enlightenment states, Leo did that for me after I watched videos where he makes attempts to describe what enlightenment is... before that I didn't know what to call it, just maybe, moments of Grace, but fairly, I didn't know what happened, it was just magic. The word Enlightenment has so many concept attached to it, I don't really like to use it. Before this experience I thought that you have to look for enlightenment in order to find it. And maybe enlightenment isn't what I now think it is... I just don't know and I don't really care. I Am still not looking for enlightened states, it will strike again when and if it needs to. I don't know what is awaiting for me at the next corner. I Am just very grateful to have lived those intense moments. I do see life in a different manner, I don't think my life has to have a meaning anymore. In one sentence, I just want to smile to life more often than I ever did, that's about it! I hope you like that description of what I label now as enlightened states... Wish you all a very nice day

@NoOne My friend, you are living in fear, you are lost in thought, I could answer all your questions, and we would philosophy all day and night about it all. I would come with all my rational answers and all, my whatever cool and diplomatic, scientific answers which you would agree or not... in the end, the work we are doing here is questioning at first the question-answering process, see that it makes no sense at all! In the end we try our best to stop the question-answering process. This is the goal. What happens from there is acceptance, anything is possible. You are dividing the world in good and bad... In this I see that none of the above as a valid question. You are trapped in your wheel. You need to step out of the wheel and not ask why should I step out of the wheel as that would make you climb right back in it. I take for only example : What shall I do with my life? The sense of the question is not valid. If you are satisfied with an answer, it doesn't mean that it will be true or right... First you will only see a sense that your rational part of your mind will satisfy itself with. You will be happy to do good around you... but there is not such a thing as good and bad... and there is not such a thing as a failure. Later in your life you'll change your mind about your ideas of the world and so on... We cannot understand all what is implied in that question. Once we believe we found an answer, we just find another question. We need to embrace life as it unfold in front of us. You only seem to have control over it. Surrender, and you will live your life to its fullest potential, find a sense in that matter, no more living by fear and start going into action without being afraid of the outcome. You are on a journey, wherever you are right now is absolutely fine, wherever you were yesterday and will be tomorrow as well. You want to be christian teacher of some sort, do it, you want to be a fireman, do it, you want to be a doctor, do it, you want to be happy, do it... don't ask yourself questions, (like what happens if I fail?) The question-answering process has to stop. The instructions are here to take, whatever the outcome, everything will be as they are... simply fine. Clinging to what make us feel good make us fear all the time we could feel bad. Embrace the pain without labeling it. Look at Leo's video, what to do with strong emotions... Take care NoOne and enjoy the journey.

What is worse, seeing your family get tortured, rapped and killed or that a meteorite destroys all life on earth tomorrow? What would you choose? In hope that it never happens to anyone, I probably wouldn't give a fuck that a meteorite kills all life on earth after watching my family get tortured... and vice versa. I believe that good things can emerge out of evil and vice versa. My parents would have never met without the second world war. We would never be born (as we are) without all the "stupid" things that humans thought and did in the past. We would probably never exist if a meteorite didn't strike the earth millions of years ago. Now was this meteorite a disaster? For the dinosaurs point of view sure! From an alien point of view it must have been an excellent scientific show to watch on their TV screens. I'm happy to be alive, what about you? Are humans a good thing for planet earth. Wanting to save poor people that are suffering, you might want to inject them a vaccines for protection that will give birth to disabled children, and some of them could die of cancer and would have never gotten sick in the first place, or you might save the next dictator that will kill millions... Not saying with this that you shouldn't help people that are suffering!!! I love this quote: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions!" It's the good old story of the Zen master, the farmer & the farmer's son that finds a horse and break his leg and can't go to war... For me good and bad are dependent to perspective and time. We are not capable of grasping the entire picture, the ripple effect of our daily actions. We only believe we do. So my answer to the question does good and evil exist, it depends on how you look at it. From the perspective of unawareness it does. From the perspective of awareness, truth, enlightened states, no it doesn't. Our brain just doesn't have the capacity to take all what should be taken into consideration to make the final judgement. It just assumes it does.

-How to make money selling drugs (or how society fucks you in the ass one more time...)

The idea of being happy no matter what happens is your goal, isn't it? In my view, this should be considered as the priority. You noticed already that it is easy to get confused with gaining information and gaining experience. So what is your plan of action?

In my opinion, -Awareness is the spotlight of your experience, your "5" senses limits and capacity. -Mindfulness is the art of paying attention to what the spotlight puts into the light, like paying attention to the force of gravity that we don't pay often attention to, and the art of moving that spotlight at your own will. The spotlight is mostly controlled by our lower self, being aware of this puts you in a higher state of consciousness. This is why we practice mindfulness. What the spotlight lands on comes into your consciousness. The rest remains in the dark, but the darkness, the unconscious world, has more influence on us than one would think or like to admit, in fact, it has a lot more influence than the conscious world. I hope it makes it a little clearer for you, Good luck!

@werlight Tanks a lot!

Yes Emerald, I do agree. The problem I see with enlightenment , is that people, including myself, often take it like a political debate or a new philosophy. It's so easy to fall in that trap. Kind of "Please adhere to my view of the world so we can live in peace." But peace is here now, the chaos is nowhere else than in our own head. And It is not easy to see that, as this is the key to access peace, this is the difficult part. There is nothing to change around you, just something to realize, the changes happen on their own, this is the nature of the universe. Wanting to prevent someone to do so called mistakes is nonsense. They have to live and feel the experience in order to desire a change in perspective. In order to influence people around you, in my eyes, the only thing you can do is by trying your best to be seen as an example in the eyes of others, so that they will see how happy you are by living in peace with what is. One day they might notice the contrast with themselves and have the desire to change. If not, that is just fine as well. Of course you can talk about enlightenment with everyone, but there you will notice (or not) how much you cling to your own beliefs, how much you want to be right about it, how much you want to change things and therefor see that you do not accept them. In that sense you can measure your level of awareness by your ability of letting go of the story about enlightenment. The only way that I see here to not cling to the story is to let go of the false sense of self. See myself as part of the universe, not someone or something separated or different from it . Sometimes it helps me to see myself as a planet lost in space, something I would consider a part of the scenery I could observe (if I had a telescope...). Peace is the acceptance of what is, not the desire to change what is.

Welcome to the new world where people use a towel for hairstyling! Tadaaaaa! What are your impression?

@Lou Lou Hi Lou Lou Learn to stop being judgmental, dividing the world in good and bad, you've got to accept the world and your situation as it is, Leo and this forum will help you get in there in no time if you are ready to do the work. Learn about mindfulness and don't forget not to be angry at yourself for not being where you want yourself to be on this path of being aware. Watch the different layers of thoughts! Smile to life and life will smile back at you! Good luck!

This 2min short 7 years old video made me realized why I felt so good in nature and why there is nothing to worry about in life. Everything is perfection.