FirstglimpseOMG

Hi, thank you for sharing the images you captured. One in particular is composed and captured in an extraordinary way, if I knew how to do it I would paste it here so we knew which one. It's the 'can't see the forest for the trees' lookin' one with the forest in the background out of focus, just a wash of beautiful texture, visible behind the few sharply-focused branches in the foreground. I'd put that on my wall.

Oops, so sorry, my karma ran over your dogma.

Hey bud, know when you are meditating well, and you get to that good place, that still place where you are very 'inner' and calm and you've managed to reduce the chatter of that 'monkey-mind' down to almost inaudible? What if when that's really happening for you, you are in that zone and it's calm, real calm, 'bottom of the ocean compared to the rough wavy surface' kind of calm, you allowed that monkey-mind to rise up just high enough and just loud enough to ask itself a question and be super open for the answer. What if 'I' was subtracted from this equation. What if whatever it is that feels like it's the monkey mind and all it encompasses, basically 'YOU', was pulled out of this scenario. Removed somehow... maybe, just maaaybe it doesn't exist at all as you've come to understand it for sure since birth. Your mind is still, calm, open, deeply curious and quietly desiring ANY insight so bad... have it ask the right questions and be open for what's left as the 'not so obvious 'til you SEE it', answer... If 'I', what 'I' have come to believe 'I' am is removed from the equation, what's left....??? Ok, say you logically assume a body and a brain, sitting right there in reality, is what's left if you could somehow remove 'Me'... the mind and all it has constructed from sensory feedback all your life, making up the whole of your experiences and emotions, the sum of all the minds constructed parts combined with your physical body and brain pretty much make up ''you', is just neutralized somehow, taken out of the equation. Gone, disappeared somehow, but there is a physical being with a fleshy brain-thing in it's head sitting there now. The brain works great, still recieves all the input from the senses that the various aspects of this physical body provide, still processes it as it is physically and quantumly designed to do and paints a picture for the physical body so it doesn't fall off cliffs or burn itself up. Well WTF, we magically removed the 'I', the 'self', the 'ego', whatever you want to call it, BUT THERE IS STILL A CONSCIOUSNESS HERE! We took the ego out, we took the construct of the mind out of the equation, banished it's illusive awareness that it was a single individual entity based on a lifetime of feedback, out of the equation, and when we were left with a body and brain that was still vibrant, alive, aware and CONSCIOUS, how in the world is it that that consciousness is still there? Still with me, taking these ideas and questions in for the next time you are in that very still, quiet meditative state? Awesome. Ok, crap, where is this consiousness and vibrant life force and awareness that's within this fully functional physical being coming from if we subtracted the mind/ego's constructs and unwavering sense of itself and belief in itself? Ooooohhhh, hold on just a frickin' minute... is it even remotely possible that this consciousness that is still so obviously there in this physical being IS. NOT. LOCAL. ....??? Uh oh....

@so here we are Wow, your last paragraph in particular was very well said and resonated with me, thanks.@Jelly_Shades Hiya, I believe what you read is the truth. I just recently enjoyed that initial, brand new, first time ever in my life, but total at the moment, ego-death. I can attest that the first flash of ego death was a brief thing for me. Sure, the ego just disappears suddenly and completely for that brief glimpse at your true nature, but it's right back up there in your face real quick. You didn't kill it really, just were aware enough to see right through it for that glimpse of what was really there, and your true nature. Say you yanked aside the curtain during the magician's performance to see behind the illusion, how the trick was done. You didn't really know it was a trick and not reality until you finally yanked that curtain back to see. Boom, the magician immediately yanks the curtain back into place, completing the illusion again. The illusion will never work for you again, but you didn't burn down or stomp the curtain into oblivion in order to see around it and wake up, you got a look behind it and there it is back in place. I imagine that's when you begin work to annihilate that curtain for good eventually though, as the reality behind the curtain is so much better than the illusion ever had a chance to be.

My thoughts are that if you make the efforts to understand just the layman's terms and demonstrations of how Quantum Mechanics seem to work and the subsequent quantum theories that are lately meshing very nicely with the hard mathematics side of things, you may hit on a few mini Aha! moments a little later during your enlightenment quest a little easier. The way the top physicists are very recently describing the universe via quantum experiments and theories, and matching/backing it up with the wicked mathematics that they go through looking for matches that correlate with their knowledge + theories, is profound lately. The way these advances are being explained and exposed to the public in layman's terms through lectures featured on Youtube etc., really manages to explain very, very well and convincingly, without religion or philosophy, the nature of us and the Universe and thoughts and probability waves collapsing and the nature and origin of consciousness... I absorbed all of that out of sheer curiosity, just before discovering Leo's site and videos. Get that latest quantum science unpacked in your head (whoah, already), then get Leo Gura just crushing your ego and illusive sense of self in his Enlightenment intro and part 1 and part 2 videos. However it happens that the sense and illusion of self dissolves for you long enough for you to sense and experience your true nature is going to be different for everyone when they get there. Science, current quantum mechanics and theories - superposition, entanglement, all the probability wave collapse stuff that happens, all that unity field stuff, with the string theory and super-string theory... all that new quantum science, all of it in my opinion and understanding, dovetails perfectly, naturally, and flawlessly with every word Leo says about enlightenment and our true nature in his 3 Enlightenment videos. In my very strong opinion anyway, lol. If you were to study the quantum stuff 'til it resonated with you (took me a few months, casual online study and research), then, however it happened, you were able to calm your monkey-mind down and make it still enough to start grasping 'No Self', and actually looking inward and recognizing for the first time in your life, your true nature? I'm convinced current science and Enlightenment are absolutely intermingled now. Perfect fit if you do the research and think long and hard on it. I honestly believe that without current quantum science as I understand it now as a stepping stone before having Leo hammer away at me on the No Self Truth.... I don't think l would have experienced that elusive flash of Ego Death, revealing my true nature.

@cetus56 I was very,very,lucky - in that I started to grasp it as it was hammered into my brain by someone with Leo's charisma and integrity. When you realize that what you are seeing in his eyes in those videos is Truth (Along with all the joy that it looks like he manages to turn into a calm 'hum of bliss') He's vibrating like a mofo but he's fine-tuned it and then must just draw from it. What power. (I want to work towards that.) Now, I studied all the current science of it out of an innate curiousity, managed to figure out the surfacy stuff of current Quantum Theories, just trying to understand all the paradoxes of the quantum world. Right now these top physicists of the world are explaining the universe so very convincingly through Quantum experiments, mathematics and theories... Well, when science starts to dovetail with that gnawing spiritual quest - naturally and Truthfully avoiding religion and philosophy, I'm hooked. ....Anyway, regarding the illusion of self just 'popping', once that Truth has been articulated to you effectively, repeatedly and maybe even from different angles (still avoiding religion or philosophy), and combined with that 'Aha!' moment of EXPERIENCING that Truth, whether through calming the mind down enough to just 'See it and BE it, even if only for fleeting moments.... Epic in the true sense of the word. Man, I am a little thankful for ego, last few days, it's filtered back in somewhat smoothly and I feel as if I've let it to some degree ... in order to just try and get some day to day shit done. You're simply never the same though, eh? Irrevocably, permanently changed. First big noticeable symptom, besides awe and tears and awe and 'holyfuckholyfuckholyfuck' is that I'm calmer. I don't think I'm calmer, I'm just calmer. My days are just automatically a bit smoother by default. Wow, what a way to realize that turning that Aha! moment into more than a moment, turning it into a near-constant experiencing of that Aha! moment, is so worth working for through self-actualization efforts. Man, if you hit on the 'no self' thing in your mind, and then experience the Truth of it, the ego/mind dissolving for those fleeting moments so you recognize that you are unity...? Well, imagine if you were vibing on life so vividly and in the moment that you had to dumb down that constant bliss of Awareness of your True Nature in order to get some regular, day to day stuff done. I don't think much could stop you in this reality if you worked for and reached, accessed and harnessed and focused that kind of energy and love. Hooboy, I have a lot of meditating to do.

As I was studying quantum theory lately I became aware that TM is now playing a very significant role within the Quantum theories discussions. So... the top physicists and big thinkers within the perplexing and paradoxical world of quantum mechanics are saying the same thing Leo has been telling us, just in a more technical, broken down way. I'm a layman, but I don't think there has been a time in history when hard science has come out and said 'Woohoo, hey you, you're not what you think you are. In fact you are much more, much less, and we have proof. (Or at least seriously solid theories that are now backed up by mathematics and tie together the quantum and Macro realities convincingly, cohesively, and empirically.) As I went through my education and discovered the very recent deeper understandings of the quantum theory world, (Yes! ...hard science mirroring what Leo has been telling us!), John Hagelin and other physicists and thinkers (philosophers & other big thinkers) in the top of this field have tied in Transcendental Meditation as an integral part of 'Seeing and understanding the big picture here'. Like I said, quantum theory mirrors almost to the smallest detail the mechanics of what an enlightened mind may realize. Now, as much as beginning to understand quantum mechanics and having my mini-Aha! moment through science and pretty irrefutable big-thinking and theories was awe-inspiring and mind-blowing, I was confused and a little turned off when Hagelin and others (David Lynch, d'oh!) started slipping in their little opinion (business plan) about how it's not possible to practice TM without paying a 'TM teacher-type' a few grand to be given some mystical, ancient mantra. Of course there's apparently a website, a society and a movement towards TM, but they blatantly insist that if you are intersted in Transcendental Meditation there is absolutely no way to do it effectively but their way. Anyway, is anyone else's ego incredulous at seeing 'TM' with a registered Trademark symbol after it?

Consciousness is absolutely real. I think it's beginning to understand the difference between consciousness and the thing that you think is perceiving things in your physical body. You know that that feeling of experiencing the world with your senses sort of feels like it resides just a little way in behind your eyes, kind of in between your ears. It's a little floaty sometimes, but generally it feels like the senses all kind of compile in your skull right? And that experience of the senses providing input to your brain so it can process it all and construct a live-able, relatively safe representation of the environment around you, combined with 'your' AWARENESS that you are a physical being in the physical world that also is capable of pondering this awareness, pondering the past and future, making long-term plans, etc. (unlike animals, an order lower, so we'll leave them out), adds up to human consciousness right? That's the 'you' right, the individual, free thinking guy within the mind, experiencing life and physical reality through all the senses of the human body right? No, man. Whew, run-on sentence guy needs a breath, hoooo... I'm going to be bold here and go with my gut feeling that I can tell a story that may get you a little closer. I may bomb, so be nice. The analogies I'm going to try are flawed, but I believe they may suffice to get some truth to hit you and sink in. Okay, here goes.... Picture a big, fat being. An intelligent BEing that's as big and round as they come. So big and massive was this being that if you were a wee, wee, wee being inside it, you couldn't even see the inside walls of the being's guts that you were in. You were very aware of your little immediate surroundings, the thing they were sitting on, and that there was a LOT of space between that thing and whatever the hell you were inside, a part of. You knew a little bit about the space and what was in it, to a degree, but it's boundaries were so far away their nature was a mystery. Ok, now please try and picture the big-ass (likely infinitely big), BEing as not really a physical thing, but a natural force... Nature, The Universe, God, The Ultimate Light, the label gets less important. I know this sounds like a goofy description of us within the universe, but bare with me maybe... Now, more bad metaphors and analogies but they may work if you stick with me. Now let's shift the little being to not just be within this big ass entity, but a PART of it. The attachment isn't really on the outside of the Universe BEing's skin, we pictured the little being within the Universe BEing somewhere, but now for pure demonstration purpose we make him a single cell in the makeup of the big, mysterious Universe BEing, and we'll have to put him outside the Universe BEing's body, but not literally, only for making a point in the story. ..This single cell, we'll call 'he' is a hair cell, at the very end of a chain of hair cells that make up the smallest, furthermost hair on the tip of the Universe BEing's big toe. Let's, for demonstration's sake only, give this single hair cell at the very tip of the furthermost hair a brain. A little quicker-than-light fleshy quantum computer and call it a brain. The cell, miraculously enough has a few senses to feed info into the brain, but there's limitations to this little single individual cell's senses. For demonstration purposes (bare with me, this is a fun read anyway right?), we have 'him' only able to see straight ahead, and his sense of touch is mucked up, he can't feel or be really aware of anything going on behind him. 'He' is aware of a few cells around his environment though, and they seem to have brains too. Now, the brain's emergent state is 'mind', and the mind in this little single cell has constructed a framework of reference due to it's limited experience of 'life', and it's natural surroundings and what it's part of, and has used the sum of all the senses and experiences to complete a since-birth, thoroughly effective and consistent illusion of what's around it. It even takes credit for being this cool individual with so many senses and abilities and thoughts and knowledge and opinions and on and on. It also has concluded that life as a single cell in a big-ass universe can be really lousy often.... sometimes it gets scraped up against stuff and feels pain and distress, sometimes other cells fuck with it a bit, and threaten that illusive framework thing that the wee single hair cell's fleshy computer/compiler constructed at great length and cost, and maintains strongly. Now, usually, this very SELFish little single, smartypants individual of a cell can't really detect and understand it's immediate surroundings that well due to it's limited but still really cool, individual senses, and certainly is unaware of it's REAL nature as well.... BUT!! ...One day, simply by chance, for the first time, a wind bends that little hair around backwards a bit, it curls around and faces inward. Just by chance, or because the wee cell's a little tired of only seeing and feeling and percieving forward and he leans into the wind in order to bend a little further and have a look in a completely different direction. This happens to be the same day that the little cell got a wickedly, unimaginably powerful telescope to peer through when facing this new direction. Remember, this is one cell and it's fleshy computer with it's killer illusion of individual separate self and free will is absolutely connected to and obviously 'part' of the makeup of this infinitely huge, Intelligent and Omni-Present BEing, but it's awareness of it's true NATURE due to the illusion created by the mind that emerged from the fleshy computer, is cloaked and clueless. There is no TRUTH, or REALITY in it's concept of itself! The wee 'individual' single cell among trillions of others with limited awareness, gets a freaky break with that wind passing by though, bends with it a bit to see in a new direction with it's new, incredible magnifying optical tool, and what does it see when it looks carefully, and with a somewhat quieter, more still, illusively individual 'mind'? It/'he' sees clearly and all at once that he is not an individual, separate from that big-ass Universal BEing. Holy crap, he is attached. No, wait a minute, more than attached, he is... an important, perfectly natural part of it. So... this individual cell is, simply, very simply and straightforwardly, the Universal BEing. Holee, then it 's individual awareness illusion and the computer/compiler and the senses and ability to percieve, aren't really anybody. They are an effective, physical extension, feeler, tendril, remote probe, well-equipped gatherer and reporter of physical and remote, local experience to the big-assed Universal Being it is somewhere in the midst of. The single cell possesses a fleshy quantum computer and emergent compiler/illusion builder egoic 'mind', but to call this little, naturally connected, experience gathering, learning, physically interacting with and percieving with tool, an individual, would be preposterous. The Universe NATURALLY evolved the emergent, carbon-based, higher order life-form that is us, on the perfect location and environment for it, in order to to provide an outlet for, a conduit of, and return feedback for IT'S conciousness. Not so a single, individual, infinitesimally tiny aspect of itself can get all cocky, build a weak-assed sense of individual self, and then act up when the fact that it dosn't know what it is and what it's for, causes the illusion to fight with and contradict, and ultimately undermine itself, then perpetuating the individual misery experienced by the mind/ EGO. Sorry, I blew it didn't I? Did I muddy the waters with the flawed and fractured analogies? Aw man. You are the universe.

@cetus56 Oh definitely. The science was seeping into my brain and then I found Leo's videos. It was the perfect storm of realization for me. I think I might be still trying to grasp this enlightenment/no self reality if it hadn't been in that order. Science first and then Leo's inimitable way of hammering his points home. Lucky me, holy crap.

Oh man, keep up with the meditation. If you are following Leo I wouldn't be remiss in suggesting you watch the Enlightenment Intro, and Enlightenment part one and two videos. Back to back if you can. When you get about 30 minutes into part two, he was hammering on the 'there is no you, there is no self. He does this 'You' (pointing at you) thing... 'Yes, you, nod your head, that's right, say your name, ok. YOU don't exist! There is no self!' Well, when you get it you get it because you experience it, and it does something to your ego that it's never experienced before. The illusion of self fractures for real, and if only for an instant, it's bigger and badder than any matrix shit. Hey Arik, yeah the tears of pure joy and bliss, especially upon initial seeing and early in your journey, nothing like that eh? 'I' wish it for you, WhatAmI, stay with Leo on Enlightenment, look up 'John Hagelin, what is consiousness? Part 1 & 2 & 3. Try some Stuart Hameroff lectures and interviews on YouTube as well. Brian Greene lectures on quantum theories as well. Have a little mind melting fun with Quantum mechanics explanations on YouTube, current ones by the top minds and physicists in the world. Try to wrap your head around the two-slit experiments (many explanations on Youtube), Entanglement (Einstein's 'spooky action at a distance), String and super-string theory, Probability wave collapse and consciousness and 'thoughts', and ultimately the Unified field theory stuff. (Done very well by John Hagelin in those vids I listed.) Have some fun with that, it was big fun trying to unpack all this science for me and I got to grade 10. It's do-able with an open mind and some repetition of the videos. Yeah, long stuff but trust me. THEN! Try Leo's enlightenment videos, the intro and pt. 1 and 2. again. AND! Keep up with the meditation, especially, I think, the self inquiry type, the Who am I, who's really thinking these thoughts stuff. Oh man, have fun. It's going to fuck you up 1000 times better than the best way imaginable when it hits you and you see, feel, and even if for a second, 'Be' nature, for the first time. Thanks for listening, I hope I'm on the right track trying to give a little nudge or hint, or point to great info and learning to further your journey.

I can't listen to music the same way as I did two days ago! The universe is playing! The universe is playFULL! OMG, how perfectly brilliant is that!?

Sorry, I had a bit of an epiphany a few days ago with the 'there is no self' stuff. Been on a quest for months figuring a bunch of this enlightenment stuff out from a few different angles and was very very lucky to get somewhere with it all in a relatively short time I think. As Leo says, it can't be communicated, that 'AHA! moment and what it's like. Just hinted at was the way he put it. It's more than an understanding right, it's an experience and it happens in a flash, he said as well. The dissolution of the illusion of self ... not just understanding it, but experiencing it, just for a second ...no words. Mindblowing. So please forgive me, I got that one second of 'seeing' and it was profound, and now I'm changed and different and confused but convinced and I'm likely to spout off about it around here because it's so huge. Wow, I will try and contain myself and keep it a little more intellectual, or whatever. Cohesive?

Thanks, I have seen most of this stuff and absorbed it like a sponge. Hagelin, Brian Green, Stuart Hameroff et al, are sort of my heroes lately. Talk about jaw-dropping science! I was just a little disillusioned (a good thing I think), when looking further into the TM movement, to discover it had been monetized and had somehow become.... exclusive. Hagelin is right up there with his hand out. He/they may think he has good reason to insist on this exclusivity for the purpose of maintaining pureness, accuracy and integrity within Transcendental Meditation techniques, but I don't buy it. Literally.

Interesting. My first impressions as someone with a profound first glimpse of enlightenment are like this. I think my ego might be a little less finicky now when assessing different women as potential mates, short-term, longer term, whatever. The universe enjoys experiences. The universe is experiences. 'My' brain and mind seem relatively intact and healthy. Not too damaged psychologically, not injured physically or malformed physically by anything or any incident or occurence. In other words, I, mercifully, feel like 'I' am a reasonably effective, receptive, extension of the true nature of the universe. Tendril, feeler, extension, part of, handy tool, remote probe, natural furtherance, etc., of the universe. ( Just words to try and describe...) Being so, 'I' am trending towards 'We are hard-wired to feel good' (Maybe google that statement). So, guilt and self-consciousness fade and a 'playful' seeking seeps in. In other words, I am more than 'allowed' to seek and enjoy pleasant physical sensations and experiences. 'I' am partly 'made' to. Pursued by the higher self (terminology, sorry), in other words, being genuine (Authentic, I believe Leo calls it), I think sex is absolutely awesome and desirable. Eliminating negativity and enhancing the natural, positive aspects of relationships, physically, emotionally (striving towards making the experience mutually beneficial to both beings) seems like a natural progression from the simplistic, short-sighted 'I'm horny and lonely!' Furthermore, I wonder if, just as you don't eliminate (positive) friends and family members from your life or mind just because they are not enlightened, eliminating or narrowing down potential lovers from your experience for the same reason, to a degree, seems counter-intuitive. Please don't take my word for any of this, I am simply excited and thinking aloud. And just as likely to be wrong than right on many points and aspects of enlightenment and it's effects. Good shit to think about though.

OK, correction... I was able to 'Notice For One Second' that there was no 'I' and realize what 'my' nature really was. I was always this of course, and never me! (Insert Keanu Reeves letting out an extended 'whoooah! here.)

Good to hear and thanks for sharing. Bit of a life changer eh? I haven' t put any effort into meditation yet, but it's next for me. I had done a bunch of research, purely out of curiosity. Maybe 3 months of internet research and lectures and learning. Simply curious, maybe fairly frustrated with life, but a healthy, fun curiosity got me from barely being able to grasp non-duality to actually taking in and 'getting' (for the most part) Quantum theories from all the best physicists; entanglement, string theory and especially unified field theory. 'Getting' quantum theory and having that lead to understnding what the Unified Field theorists were discovering lately and reporting, brought me a mini-aha! moment. Realizing about a fundamental intelligence to the UNIVERSE, including attributing Platonic values to this life-force.... being pointed to by most of the top minds of the world.... That was good. I thought I had 'hit it', that thing I was looking for that I didn't know I was looking for all my adult life. Whew, so 'newly knowledged' me then finds Leo. I watch maybe 10 - 15 videos and LOVE this guy. Then... I get into the Spiritual Enlightenment videos. About a half hour into Part 2, he talks, I listen, and suddenly I see. WTF! It seems like I more than saw. Maybe, MAYBE for one second, within that same 'Seeing' second, I got to 'BE'. Like the real kind of 'BE'! 'I' WAS THE UNITY FIELD CLEARLY FOR ONE SECOND! (Or God, or the universe or whatever label you choose.) I'm 53. Boy, that took a while.