Lloydish

True, agreee. 'new age' bullshit sums it up perfectly

@WhoisJonI have experienced similar things too. This is known as 'Torpor and Drowsiness' which will happen a lot if you are fairly new to meditation. As you start to unearth the imbalances within, there will be much turmoil and emotion which is coming up to be released. I guess we just have to keep dis-identifying with the emotion and let let it die out and they say a natural harmony will set in. This hasn't happened to me yet but I feel it's because there is just so much unackowleged emotion left in me that needs to be dissolved. Maybe it's the same for you.

Good Questions. As far as i know, physical death does not lead to enlightenment. The reason is because the content of your consciousness continues even after physical death and will reincarnate in another form in some other time period (billions of years possibly, it makes no difference in unconsciousness). The content is all your past and all the formations within the psyche (which is not limited to only 1 life). The normal human mind is very ignorant about death and does not realise that one is infact terminally ill and will die very shortly (80 years is nothing in terms of cosmic time), and until one contemplates this inevitable death, the content cannot be emptied out and will continue. Only by contemplating death can one 'die before you die' and empty the contents of consciousness. This is the art of dying whilst living and so freeing oneself from the fear of death by finding out that death is only for the body and not for YOU (you are the conscious presence that witnesses all). But you won't know this until you have actually died to the false self. This is real meditation. To perceive the truth about death. 'Muslim' is simply a concept/set of thoughts that the false self has identified itself with, and the madness that is going on due to ideological identification is simply absurd. But if they were to kill you, you would not awaken then because your mind is still full of time/thought (content). The Buddha has said that you have shed more tears in past lifetimes from sorrow then there is water is the four oceans. THAT is how long you have been on this endless cycle of rebirths, that is how much content is in your psyche. Die to the past now, in order to be liberated from the bondage of time and suffering. Hope this helps.

Russel brand has a 'spiritual ego', this is the worst of all traps to be in. It means that he has become identified with spiritual beliefs and is simply repeating words of the authentic sages, but his wisdom is not his own. He is very quick to defend the mental positions with which he is identified as is evident in any video of him.

To me , faith is the complete dropping away of all belief systems and to surrender completely to life. Faith has nothing to do with belief, infact faith is the ending of belief. Many people have misunderstood Jesus when he says 'have faith in god', they think he is asking them to 'believe in god', no. He is saying, drop the self (ego). As far as your gym routine and extra reps go, I would call that willpower which belongs to ego. Nothing wrong in it, it can feel exhilarating. But your true being is not ambitious and does not desire to get a few more reps done as it is already completely at peace with life in the present. The Buddha has said that birth is suffering, and his teaching is to extinguish all strands of rebirth to know at last that 'this body is my last, no more shall i enter the wheel of existence'.