Key Elements

"A Guru is not someone you meet or shake hands with. It is not someone you bow down to or beg for this or that. A Guru is a certain space or energy. The difference between a teacher or a scholar and a Guru is, a teacher is someone who holds a torch to something and shows it to you. Because of them you might have seen something. A Guru doesn’t hold a torch. He is the torch. He burns. Either you burn with him or you don’t.” – Sadhguru Wow, what a quote! So, basically, a guru mastered this life. It's the end of suffering for him. He learned to apply his "enlightenment experience" in real life (Maya). He doesn't identify with anything in the Maya - not the monkey mind to not identifying with the body - because "he is the 'pain'" - he can literally burn himself up like a torch (Eg. Like the monk who burned himself up in protest against the Vietnam War). Or, to a lesser degree, he mastered a skill, like yoga, and you are doing yoga with him.

This is one of my favourite quotes.

@Prabhaker John was saying that you can judge yourself since your insides are available to you only.

Oh, I'm not worried. It doesn’t matter if the news is fake or not. Become a NRI of the US and you will know what I'm talking about. Watch the reaction of the mainstream. It may be different for you because you're a guy and native, but I'm not.

You are probably giving others the wrong impression of India when you say such things. I could understand if you say India is at stage orange. Remember the movie, Slum Dog Millionaire? That was too much. Just because a minority of ppl does rape festival, doesn’t mean the whole of India does this. A person really do have to travel and have lived for years at a place up to the present to actually understand the place.

Ok, I've been going through this thread. Looks like we're talking about morals and enlightenment and if there is a correlation. Here's what I noticed: most of us hold the moral of (I like to call it: core value): we enter into a relationship (bf/gf), if it doesn't work out, we break up. We enter into another relationship, and if it doesn't work out, we break up -- and so on and so on. Most of us accept this moral as truth. Anything outside of this moral is a taboo. So we apply our own morals on others and think that something is "wrong" with the others. Here are the other more "shocking" morals of our world: both man and woman have to be virgins in order to marry; I will not marry a non-virgin; polygamy; arranged marriages; marrying within relations (ie, cousin marriages, uncle marrying niece); (Leo's favourite, j/k!) rape marriage (it's already explained in this thread); or just plain rape for enjoyment. Ok. You get the point. Just go think about it. I know that Leo is not asking anyone here to follow anyone else's morals (core values). The problem comes when one person has a certain moral and applies it on someone else with a different moral. Talking about it is one thing. If it's played out in real life, it's another. It could boil down to: I'll respect your morals if you respect mine. Enlightenment doesn’t require any morals. Enlightenment is just is. It's just peace. You could be detached from all these morals, including your own. In an actual relationship, you're not always moralizing. You could be detached from it and doing something else - like working on your career or life purpose. ---------------------------------------------- Yes, enlightenment can play a heavy role in relationships. Ask yourself, does your moral lead to the best relationship? Or, does it lead to this? If it does, what could be missing? Detachment? Detachment is an enlightenment feature. When a person is in his/her "enlightenment experience," he/she is detached from everything. Leo talks about detachment:

@Alii There is a difference between having an "enlightenment experience" and actually being enlightened. A person gets to see everything being one during an "enlightenment experience." Now, if the person could live his/her life knowing that everything is one, then you have an enlightened person. An enlightened person shows, not tells.

You mean...

I rather we just *bling* past each other and not eat at all.

Believe it or not, I thought the same way. One of these day, we will wake up into a world where we don't have to eat each other anymore.

Ooo la la! Two Osho fans. Folks, this is gonna get interesting.

Yes, I agree. Be prepared to meet a master suitable for you. You may want to be deeper in your own path before meeting one. Otherwise, you might be disappointed. You might say something, and when the master happens to give an advice, you might get disappointed because you may feel that the master is shedding the wrong light. Or, we accidentally realize our mistakes and it set us straight, and we finally turn inwards.

Oh.....what's inside me? What??? What??? Look inside! Look inside! Look inside this black hole and the whole world appears, which is just YOU!

@Shin It appears that you want to know something.

Dust??? Sounds kinda 'scary.' I hope no one has to 'bite the dust' to reach enlightenment. Reminds me of this song:

Every little step counts. The hints are spread everywhere. It's up to you to realize it as an ah-ha moment and move on to the next. Hints lead you in the right direction if you realize them. You can't understand the next step if you skip a step. If we all became enlightened masters now, we won't be enlightened masters in the same way.

@Natasha When a person is in an 'enlightenment experience,' it's 'normal.' The person is it. The person is everything. The person has no doubts and doesn’t think it's 'abnormal.' It's just pure infinite peace. However, there is a revert back to the ego 'self,' and the person awakes from that infinite peace with a huge hint of 'bliss' and remembers it. Many times the person wishes to be back to that infinite nature, the true nature, because that's what we are. We are not the ego. It's all a fiction. So what happens when we wish we were back to our true nature? This: "Oh my god! It's absolutely infinite!" "It's absolutely infinite!!!!!" "It's absolutely infinite!!!!!" "It's absolutely infinite!!!!!" "It's absolutely infinite!!!!!" "It's absolutely infinite!!!!!" "It's absolutely infinite!!!!!" "It's absolutely infinite!!!!!" "It's absolutely infinite!!!!!" "It's absolutely infinite!!!!!" "It's absolutely infinite!!!!!" "It's absolutely infinite!!!!!" "It's absolutely infinite!!!!!" "It's absolutely infinite!!!!!" "It's absolutely infinite!!!!!" "It's absolutely infinite!!!!!" -Leo We get too excited. But, that's ok. It'll pass. What we can do from that moment on is to realize that our true nature can be applied to real life, the illusional life. So, for example, the next time you feel lonely, or get an emotion other than peace, you could say to yourself that it's just an emotion (ego). It's not our infinite nature - which is peace. And, we could teach this to others in our own ways so that they will get a chance to become aware of it.

That's the disadvanage of being famous. It's like living in a house made of glass, and they splash false news about you. Don't worry; things will fall into place.

Teal and Ralph talking about their journeys, pitfalls of being YouTubers, and how they manage:

Let bed? You mean go to sleep? It's late?

Yoga police: "You have the right to remain silent!" ------- Kundalini Yogi sharpshooter: "Ready, aim, fire!" ------- Two men meet on the street. One asks the other: "Hi, how are you?" The other one replies: "I'm fine, thanks." "And how's your son? Is he still unemployed?" "Yes, he is. But he is meditating now." "Meditating? What's that?" "I don't know. But it's better than sitting around and doing nothing!" ------- Don't just do something -- Sit there! ------- Albert Einstein: "Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish." ------- A student went to his meditation teacher and said, "My meditation is horrible! I feel so distracted, or my legs ache, or I'm constantly falling asleep. It's just horrible!" "It will pass," the teacher said matter-of-factly. A week later, the student came back to his teacher. "My meditation is wonderful! I feel so aware, so peaceful, so alive! It's just wonderful!" "It will pass," the teacher replied matter-of-factly. ------- Warning! Dates on the calendar may be closer than they appear!

Just trying to be clear here. This thread was actually a good exchange of info. I didn't feel like it was a debate. The topic is on spirituality with life purpose.

This is a very small summary of an explanation of spirituality with life purpose. What do you think?

I get your point, but I'm also talking about the global society living like this, not just an individual. I'm also talking about an individual making a gradual transition and not just sudden - also it's very unlikely society making a sudden transition.

I think life purpose doesn't have to mean earning money. It can, but doesn't have to be. It's broad. It's a good way to transition lifestyles.