NoOne

If you were to estimate a percentage of possibility, from your experience, how often is it possible to convince a loved one to pursue the course? I mean, I feel like even though we have had lots of problems and she has been angry and disappointed in my being crippled by my emotions for the last five years or so, my wife and I still love each other and I think it's the kind of love that can survive this. Not sure about some other relationships, but I'm just curious: is it more common that couples work it out or not? And that's not even the question because my wife is trying to work it out with me now, and she's even practicing a little bit of mindfulness (which makes me happy given some of her initial reactions to my new perspective), but how likely or unlikely is it that a spouse would also gain this insight?

Thank you for giving me so much to think about. I know she is sick, but I didn't know if her pain was more real because it is physical and not emotional. Are there any stories of physically damaged people discovering this truth? I'd like to know how it affected the physical pain they live with. Is physical pain just like emotional pain, like a warning that we're veering off course? Maybe that's something I'm inferring incorrectly about pain.

I have to learn this yet. I don't feel like there is, but I need to experience that before I speak of it and for now it is bedtime. My ego is kind of upset that I feel like I've discovered this final and lasting peace from my emotions and I can't share it with anyone. Everyone gets mad at me when I try to share it. I know I can't force it. I know that's the whole crux of our brokenness is trying to make reality suit us instead of vice-versa. But I feel such grief for the people around me and their suffering. My ego thinks it is unjust of me to continue my journey without bringing my friends. But I guess they don't exist either huh?

I will have to contemplate that. I can sense that this whatever it is, is everywhere. I don't know if that means that it is me too, it's slippery. But I have this strong feeling of being loved by it which makes me think it is separate, but perhaps not. I feel like it is urging me to let go more and that this is just the beginning of a new sort of relationship. I guess that's why i think of it as separate, but in a sense it also feels like it is part of me too.

I can see how this would be really easy to do. I've only had this new perspective for a few days, but it is so powerful and life-changing even just here at the very beginning (and I know I have so much more to learn), that I just want to share it with all of my broken friends who have supported me in my misery. And they just get angry and emotional, and I keep thinking (my ego keeps thinking) that I ought to be able to show it to them. The temptation to become a conveyor of metaphysical truths is strong, and that's not what this journey is about.

Empirically, we are created male and female, but nature is not perfect. All of our bodies are potentially flawed in some way. Is the body to blame for the conflict or the mind? What about people with mental illness, are they physically ill/deficient in some chemicals, or is it all a matter of ego. I'm not talking about the way the resulting thoughts and emotions are handled, because I realize they are transient and a person with awareness would try to experience those feelings and let them pass, but I'm curious if there are any self-aware people who identify as transgendered or mentally ill, but who still pursue the truth of enlightenment? I have a number of friends in the LGBTQ community and other activist communities and a number of friends who struggle with mental illness, and I fear that these are people are particularly susceptible to the illusion of self and the pain it brings. How can I help them understand this new reality? I can't believe it has taken me 45 years to learn about it, but then, I have been avoiding anything that smelled of spirituality for my entire life. How do we reach these people who are stuck in this painful ego thing?

The idea, as I understand it is to experience reality as it is and analyze it, not with what you know (labels, science, reason), but actually try to imagine what the sensations and sounds and thoughts actually ARE, experience them firsthand. You have to sit with the unknowing and examine it. The point may not even be to discover the truth of these sensations and thoughts and feelings, but to give your mind a chance to expand to a point where it can potentially embrace concepts it is not yet ready for.

I wish I had answers to your questions but I don't. There are no reasons why you should or shouldn't do anything. This will sound corny but the answer is follow your heart. If that is what you want to do, do it. ☺ Interesting. I would think that anyone who discovered this truth would want to share it with other suffering individuals. I get that some people want to keep this truth to themselves, or maybe they want to use this truth to build themselves an empire. But as someone who came to this truth through excruciating pain, I feel an obligation to alleviate the suffering of others.

Normal isn't always best. You keep saying this is how you feel. What is this feeling? What are thoughts? These are questions you have to ask yourself and be comfortable with not knowing. Maybe someday you'll know, but for now this is what you have to know: your feelings and thoughts are not who you are; they are just sensations you experience. You believe you are the center of the universe, and so did I and so does everyone (I imagine) at least at first. This is not going to make any sense unless you spend the time reflecting on it. The truth, unfortunately is that most people are probably going to have to experience a lot of suffering before they can start to understand this, because when you have experienced the injustice of suffering long enough, something inside you snaps and refuses to take any more. I honestly can't say how it works for others, but I think perhaps one way of reaching this perspective has to do with forcing your brain to think about these concepts it doesn't understand until the sheer horror of how little we understand of ourselves allows us to realize how ridiculous it is that we pretend to be an authority on our existence. It gives you the ability to look at your thoughts and feelings objectively, like a scientist. Observing the thoughts and feelings as they happen, and experiencing everything around you with a new sense of wonder. Except the truth may be there is no observer, there is only existence, but that's a higher truth I haven't got my head around yet, but I look forward to discovering it.

Hmmmm. Okay, so doesn't it stand to reason that transgender people might be more open to this perspective, since they are already open-minded about their identity? Are there populations of people who are more or less likely to be able to discover this truth? I'm not trying to get trapped by my ego and pretend that I have anything to do with it, but I would really like to spend my life helping other people realize this truth of self-actualization. Is there a reason I shouldn't pursue this other than people will believe I am insane?

You might consider that your problem is not a lack of want. I spent 45 years of my life wanting to accomplish something, because my ego said it would be good to accomplish something and people would love me for it. Our western culture is so driven to succeed, but the truth is, you are fooling yourself to think that you can accomplish anything. There is no you to accomplish it. Just BE and experience what it is to be you, and see where your exploration takes you.

My wife is about to kill me because I am so full of questions and want to talk to her about my new perspective. I'm getting some very angry egoic responses from her, and I'm mildly concerned that she may kick me out or something. I realize that I have to now take my new perspective and use it to get a job and make some progress in our life (we are more or less living in poverty at this point). I'm thinking the best thing might be to show her how much this experience is going to positively impact our lives, but she thinks I am stark-raving mad and experiencing a "manic episode". I feel sadness when I think about this because I want her to come with me on this journey, but I am not going back. Has anyone else lived through this who could give me some advice on how to deal with my family? My daughter, incidentally, thinks this is the best thing that ever happened, because now when i spend time with her, I am REALLY spending time with her and helping her explore her own ideas. This is of course creating more tension with my wife who believes I have been brain-washed or something.

I appreciate the input. You've all given me some valuable insights. Do you guys know other actualized people in life? Do you spend time with them? Is there a community or something, and how do you get involved? I'm imagining that there have been multiple communities throughout history, and that they all turn into tradition and dogma. I keep thinking about everything i have read in my life that leads to this truth, and it has been there this whole time and I just want to share it with everyone around me. I want their suffering to end too.

If I don't have legs, it makes it impossible for me to walk like other people do. Is that a real problem? Maybe it's a problem when it comes to walking like others but not being, but it is still a problem.

I don't want her to be hurt though. I don't want her to have to suffer any more. She has suffered a lot putting up with me as I figured this out. I know my desires are my own and ultimately, she has to see this for herself, but really, how possible is it? Seriously, how rare is it for people to get this concept, to just be able to self-actualize--not necessarily to uncover the deeper truths, but to get to a place where they can examine them from this place of peace and joy?

Talk is a useful tool though. I find I feel sad when I think that I cannot share this with her. What is this sadness? It's my ego trying to impose my vision of how life should be on my wife, Sadness and pain are all connected to us wanting something that we can't have. So, our sense of free will runs into a brick wall when we try to impose order over the universe that has its own ideas and it hurts us. So, I'm told the ultimate truth is we have no free will, but surely we have some choice of how to exist. Every second is a new choice, but some choices result in pain. We're like rats in a maze....

What a great question! I'm more of a cat lover myself. i think cats are self-actualized. They can take or leave our affection. Dogs may have some kind of ego issues--they are possessive and territorial and the kind of loyalty they show to their masters makes me think they must attach their ego (such as it is) to their masters'.

*I feel like I should put a trigger warning here. My intent is not to offend anyone. If you have been the victim of a sexual offense in the past, please consider carefully whether you want to read this.* I am not new to self-help, and am actually quite well-read (or I thought I was anyway). The truth is for many years I steered far away from anything that smelled of religion or spirituality, because as a young man I was a zealous overeager Jesus Freak. I was involved in a charasmatic church that held beliefs similar to those of the now infamous Westboro Baptist Church. In fact, in those days, if I had known about Westboro Baptist Church, I probably would have joined it. I was a very damaged young man. When I first joined the church, I was full of joy and happiness and I really felt like I was in touch with God. The forgiveness story of Jesus is powerful stuff for someone who feels they aren't good enough, and I never was, until I found Jesus. But slowly, the joyful message of a loving God became twisted as i listened to my youth pastor rave about the evils of premarital sex and lust, and how God despises that in a young man above all. And I bought it all. I felt God's eyes turning from me in shame every time I masturbated. I was truly psychotic with shame and guilt and confusion. And an opportunity arose in which I was watching three children of a friend of mine, and the children were "playing doctor" naked in the house, and it occurred to me that this was just play and it was okay to join them and I did, and then i was instantly crushed with shame. I never did anything like it again and I never will and if I could go back in time and change it, I would, but I can't, and the past doesn't exist anyway--except it does--what is the past? It's just story, right? Anyway, I confessed my crime, and I spent more years in prison than I should have because I continued to punish myself and sabotaged my chances for release. When I finally go out, I went to school and sabotaged myself, and got an amazing job and sabotaged myself, I went back to school and finished my degree. I started a business. I got married. I had a kid. I've sabotaged myself every time I got close to succeeding because I didn't think I deserved to succeed. I am 45 years old and own a small Internet business which is failing miserably for many reasons. But something is happening to me and I am breaking the cycle. It started when I discovered cannabis a few years ago, and was able to get some relief from my anxiety and agoraphobia, I began to go through a process of self-examination then. Then my father passed away and this January, my mother, and I went into a VERY dark place. I have been in a pitched battle for my soul since December. I don't know how else to put it. I was restless and anxious and searching and searching for answers, and I came here, and i felt like Leo was speaking directly to me. I had some health issues that were directly related to my stress, but I overcame them and now I am awake. It's my life. How can I be the part of the reality that is what i call me, or share my gifts with anyone if I am afraid people will hate and persecute me? But really it doesn't matter if they hate me, because I'm no one, I get that now, but my story is important. People should hear it, as a cautionary tale if nothing else. I don't need to tell it non-anonymously though, I think. It is not who I am anymore. It was 26 years ago. I need to find a job, but I am afraid people will do a background check and find out about my past. I have an accounting degree and a lot of business experience. I have been self-employed for the last 9 years and counting and know a little about online marketing and website building and wordpress and ecommerce and Kickstarter (I have had several successful Kickstarter campaigns). Without bragging, I may not know the cutting edge of business apps and technology, but I'm creative, insightful and I've been very successful at various times, but never able to continue the momentum because I was afraid if I got too big, people would find out about me somehow. Once I had money, people would try to blackmail me, I need a job or my wife is going to leave me. I'm going to exercise a little of a word I haven't thought about in a long time: faith. I'm posting this because I want to have faith that there is someone out there who is on the middle path, who could maybe use someone to team up with. Maybe you want to team up with my business or I could team up on your endeavor, or something, but I'd like to find someone else who is awake and actively pursuing enlightenment. Is it wrong of me to want to team up with another actualized person? I really need some help. I am experiencing brand new things. Like, this is seriously changing the way I live my life. I am almost sure it's just a trick or that I'm being duped, that it can be so easy to just live your life the way you want to and experience these thoughts and emotions as just another something that happens, like a headache, but you just feel it and let it go. There's nothing you can do about a headache other than taking a couple of pills and letting it pass. It doesn't do any good to get upset with the headache. It's the same way with these stupid emotions. It doesn't do anyone any good to get upset and ruffled by them. They are part of our experience. It doesn't do to blame our pasts for who we are. Our past is part of our story, but our story hasn't been written yet. This idea that I'm damaged because i suffered through all of this crap in my past is true, and it's true that there are an awful lot of people who would rather spit on me than accept me as a brother, but none of that matters. I can live my life in the moment and life is beautiful and I feel like I can actually FEEL my consciousness expanding, like my mind is swelling with new possibilities of new ways to experience life without letting my emotions control me. My wife and daughter think I have lost my mind but in a beautiful way. I have the best conversations with my daughter now. It was so hard for me to connect with her before, because I never really wanted a child. My wife really wanted a child, and I wanted my wife to be happy, but I was always filled with anxiety, not that I would ever do anything to hurt my child, but that someone would recognize me and think something awful of me. But that doesn't matter either now. In a way, the experience of having a child has forced me to confront these anxieties. I can't escape her. And i don't want to. She is amazing. She's super smart and she reads to me or I read to her every night and she's undoubtedly one of the best things in my life. I found myself editing and revising a lot of this after I wrote it as my ideas about what I am going through are kind of evolving. I can't really explain what is happening to me, but i don't want it to stop. I want to get better, and I don't want to just get better for a little while and fail again. I believe I can do that now, and I am very grateful for these videos. I also wouldn't mind a hand up if someone was interested in taking on an apprentice or partner or employee... I just want to be around people who are awake.

I'm the reason why dogmaticism is bad. We have to be able to figure this out without turning it into another ritual or another something that can be incorporated into the existing illusion of reality. The truth can't be uncovered by closing your eyes for 1000 hours. We all have to find it for ourselves. I don't know anything yet I'm really sure, but I know Empirical evaluation and discovery are their own rewards. Why question what is essentially an opportunity to learn something first hand by direct observation and contemplation? Here is a mystery. Maybe one of the last great mysteries of our lives, and it's a thrilling and personal mystery: who am I really? What is this thing I call life? Maybe it can't be answered perfectly by what we consider us, in our lifetimes, or maybe it can be, but the journey of challenging our assumptions and learning to exist in the moment is rewarding in and of itself.

I'm the reason why dogmaticism is bad. We have to be able to figure this out without turning it into another ritual or another something that can be incorporated into the existing illusion of reality. The truth can't be uncovered by closing your eyes for 1000 hours. We all have to find it for ourselves. I don't know anything yet I'm really sure, but I know Empirical evaluation and discovery are their own rewards. Why question what is essentially an opportunity to learn something first hand by direct observation and contemplation? Here is a mystery. Maybe one of the last great mysteries of our lives, and it's a thrilling and personal mystery: who am I really? What is this thing I call life? Maybe it can't be answered perfectly by what we consider us, in our lifetimes, or maybe it can be, but the journey of challenging our assumptions and learning to exist in the moment is rewarding in and of itself.

I'm very new to all of this, but it seems to me that coming to the truth is a difficult process, and probably a lot of people will never reach it, because it requires thinking in a way we are unaccustomed to. Some people probably achieve that kind of thinking by meditation and discipline, others maybe find it another way. I have meditated off and on throughout my life, but never really understood it's PURPOSE until now. And believe me I'm pretty sure this is just the beginning for me, and I'm actually excited about being on this path and trying to live more mindfully in every moment. At the moment, I can't honestly say what I should expect meditation should do for me. Practicing mindfulness while engaged with life is way cooler IMHO. I realize I'm using my reasoning faculties to grasp at the truth right now and that there is more to discover, but this right now, just being and existing in the moment knowing that it's okay to experience the feelings I have battled with and let them pass through me or examine them and learn from them... That is enough that if I never practiced anything else in my whole life but being present in the moment I think I could find my way to permanent enlightenment and I think I will. But it will be because I WANT to, not because someone is telling me to. Maybe meditation doesn't work for everyone. Maybe a really introspective life full of impossible choices and a little bit of cannabis are enough to grant someone a glimmer of the truth, and maybe if that person is really determined not to let that glimmer fade, they can make it a part of themselves. I hate to see what should be a beautiful process turn into dogma and ritual. Isn't that what we are escaping?

What if this is the work that must be done, to calm our minds enough to face the horror of our existence, something so terrible that our ego has evolved to distract us from it. I know how the mind plays tricks on us to help us avoid unpleasantness. But if this terrible reality was the truth, would it still be a relief to know it? Would you be a better human being for pursuing it? I am awake for the first time in many years. My life has been very painful and difficult. I want this freedom from my emotions. I am devouring your videos with great interest. I would like to know how I could start to practice. My life is a shambles. I have a failed small business and no job and I'm agoraphobic and have PTSD issues. I have been through manic and depressive episodes in my life, where I get depressed because nothing makes sense and I don't know what I'm doing with my life, and then I find something to be manic about--school, my job, my business, and for a while, I'm okay, but it never really satisfies my soul. I am in another downturn in my emotional life right now, and I haven't allowed myself to get out of it yet, because I don't want to chase the wrong thing again and be crushed. I'm 45 years old and I've chased so many things to find happiness. I don't believe in God or religion any more, though I was once comforted by it, and sometimes I long for that irrationally. I look at your quest for enlightenment as a noble, almost scientific quest. It seems the ultimate life quest. And I wish to take it. My life is miserable, I have nothing to lose. Please tell me where I can start.

Also, I have all of these anxieties that I will build something great and then someone will find out about my past and because of the way people are, they would hate me. Even though it was 26 years ago, even though it has caused me to grow in empathy for humankind more than I thought possible which I think is still key to finding peace and harmony in this experience of life, even if it is an illusion. If our existence is merely sensory and we have to abandon what we know in order to embrace the new reality of being, don't we need people who can communicate this to people of all walks of life, people who can feel empathy for others? Is it not the responsibility of awake people to point the way for others? But how do I avoid this concern that my efforts might result in nothing because of my reputation? I love the video in which Leo says you should sort of be rude to people and experience people not liking you and accept that experience and feeling. But it's a different thing if people react to you not only with angry words or gestures, but who actually seek to destroy something valuable purely for the sake of the fact that its creator was someone considered undesirable. If they reject me, I am nothing, but if they reject something beautiful, something awesome, because I created it, or if they cause my family any turmoil because of their association with me, then that is what I find unacceptable. And as unlikely as that fear is, I have seen it happen. People are vindictive and spiteful and jump to hate the instant they are given an opportunity. So, I feel as though I can either take a job that means nothing and that doesn't satisfy my hunger to grow and learn, or I can keep trying to semi-anonymously peddle my wares online and find a way to make it work without revealing myself. I hate the secrets.

You won't judge because I won't let you. I judge myself enough. I have considered myself a loser in life for so many years because of an act I committed when I was 18 years old. Do you know how stupid you are at 18 years old? How sometimes completely incapable of navigating life and relationships and emotions young people can be? Especially if they've had some traumatic things occur to them. I STILL feel like that. I feel like I've only partly learned how to deal with my shit. I got out of prison and I worked hard to fit in: I worked hard, got an education, started a business... and then my business failed. And it broke something inside me. My wife is disgusted by me because I'm unemployed and have no motivation. I turned my failure inward and decided that it was Karma or something, that I wasn't meant to have a good life, and that I should just be content in my misery. This is when I discovered cannabis. Cannabis freed me from the trap of my mind. It quieted all the garbage, and now I'm finally starting to see that I can actually look at my life in a completely different way, and not subject myself to this endless cycle of working to succeed for the sake of someone else--trying to prove that I'm someone to myself and to people around me. Maybe now I can live for ME, and I'm scared of what that might mean. My wife still loves me, and we have a daughter together, but she is having a hard time letting me be me, because she has witnessed me become manic about other business ideas and so forth that I have invested a lot of time and energy into and seen no results. I need to find a middle way for my kid's sake. I will get a job and work on my business in my spare time. I'm just wondering if spending $249 that I should really spend on other (non-essential-to-physical-well-being) bills is going to give me enough of a better grasp on how to live my life that I might be able to reconcile things with my righteously angry and disillusioned wife? Or should I prepare to uproot my life completely now? All my life, I have been a man of inaction. I have had enough. I want to exist and live MY life. I do love my wife, but I don't think she gets me. She's also my security blanket. I mean, the truth is, I live in a house and drive a car and eat food that is primarily paid for by her. She works in public education, so you can imagine, we're not rich. Last Christmas was the hardest Christmas of my life. We really scraped the bottom of the cupboard and barely made it to the next monthly paycheck. We're living in a temporary bubble of financial stability caused by our tax refund and some student loan funds (I was attempting to get a Masters Degree in Marketing out of some misguided attempt to fix my business, when I really don't care about my business anymore because it reminds me that I'm a failure. But I'm not a failure because I haven't given up and I can't give up. I just have to find the right idea. I feel like these videos are something I have been looking for my whole life, and the prospect of it scares the willies out of me because I pride myself on my intellect. I don't want to be duped. But there is really something here. I don't understand it yet, but I want to. I think my life being so chaotic is making everything extra hard. I just wish I knew what to DO.

The video on self-esteem blew me away. I have no foundation in any of the pillars, really, but I am curious, if we are on a quest to discover the fact that we don't exist, why build up our self-esteem?