The White Belt

IMO! This is early Eckhart Tolle with a seeker. The best video i've watched on the topic, so far. Eckhart's words are just so beautiful and to the point. No BS.

@Dodo My first time viewing! Oh man, when they are sat on that bench. I just feel presence through the damn screen. His wife seems lovely too. I love it.

Why peace then? Why don't enlightened people have chaos? If consciousness is neutral...

@Prabhaker beautiful. Thank you!

Whats your whole thing about meditating in a cave about? What's wrong with meditating in a house, empty of distractions, in a secluded location far away from other people? Or at least a cabin in the woods... Why specifically a cave?

Listen to your inner chatter. The constant commentary. How does it sound? Perhaps it sounds like your voice? You can hear it can't you? Clearly.. WRONG! It sounds like absolutely nothing. It makes literally no sound. No sound at all. Sounds are physical vibratory air puffs that travel through the air itself. You have been lied to. And you hearing it? Also WRONG. It isn't travelling through your ears at all. It's making no sound and nobody is hearing it. It doesn't exist. You just THINK you are hearing your THOUGHTS. Do you see how clever they are. Keep seeing that an 'auditory' thought is not auditory at all, and you will see the illusion and there for, over time, loosen the grip. Now see, in your mind, very clearly what you had for breakfast this morning. Heck, even what you did 10 minutes ago if you want. You see that, right? NO! You don't see that! Nothing is travelling through your eyes. Visual thoughts are not visual at all. This is a down-right LIE! You aren't seeing squat. You aren't hearing squat. You only think you are. Expose these things! Gently, gently. Keep seeing, the illusory nature of thought. An illusion about an illusion. No wonder these things make us suffer. We 'hear' these things all the time and 'see' these things all the time, that are fake, fake, FAKE.

@Shin I've heard from numerous enlightened folks (indirectly, I don't personally know them ;-)) that they don't dream! It's more monkey chatter! The dreamless sleep is the deepest sleep. If you sleep without any dreams you will have the most refreshing sleep you've ever had! Not to be confused with not remembering your dreams though!

Do you still talk to or hang out with any friends that you met pre-actualized.org?

Is this right? It feels like it. E.G. After months of meditation, I see my feelings, beliefs, projections onto everything more and more, and I see the thought stories are subjective, and for the most part untrue. Yet when I can see this I can move towards a more objective view, and this objective view just wields way better results and makes me happier in the moment as well as in the long run. Thoughts?

Here's my two cents. As a rule of thumb, the closer your affirmations are to objective truth, the better. Saying you're a millionaire over and over is a massive waste of time. It's not true and it's not going to get you any more money, but saying 'I CAN be a millionaire' is pretty much true, anybody can be, and it chips away at a limiting belief, if that's what you're interested in. Another example 'I am happy'. Now if you aren't happy, saying that over and over again won't help. Yet if you want to become happy, and a limiting belief is blocking you, then repeating 'I can be happy' is far more productive. Think about it. It's objectively true, you can be happy. Anybody can be, and by doing the latter affirmation, you aren't deluding yourself in the process. The self help guys say; make it out to be already true and your mind will go to it. I call BS. It's a way of deluding yourself. I've met people who seem to be deluding themselves into happiness so they force a smile and force enthusiasm but it looks like they're dying behind the eyes. By making it more objective, you combat the negative lies in you without trying to replace them with 'positive' lies, that when you stop buying into them, they won't come back to bite you in the ass!

How do you plan what activities/research you will do for your days/months/years? What is your system for this? Do you have a tight to-do list to avoid procrastination/weak intentions, or a loose sort of list in order to go with the 'flow' of things?

Hi guys. So whenever I am doing enjoyable work, or having a nice interesting conversation. I feel I sense of engagement and it feels quite the opposite to presence. I can be present when i'm bored, say I'm having a walk, I say to myself; feel the air going through the nostrils, the pressure on the balls of my feet, look at the green on the trees. It's nice, but I can't do it when i'm engaged. When i'm engaged time seems to go very fast, but when it's over I feel like I was barely there, barely conscious. Engagement is also nice though, it happens when I am comfortable and happy, excited and interested but I can't imaging being engaged and present at the same time. It doesn't feel appropriate. Is being engaged being unconscious? Is there a way to be both engaged and present simultaneously, or is there no benefit to doing that?

Thanks @Loreena :-)

@Nahm one can only hope so..

The past couple of days it's happened a few times. Let me try to describe it. I think I was contemplating at work, sort of a compulsive contemplation, not a planned one. Probably thinking about oneness, it usually starts with a sort of 'pushing feeling' like energy is trying to push through my body and I get a little adrenaline, and the first time everything went quiet. Everybody was still moving around, there was still sound, but it was quiet sound, like all sounds melting into one soothing sound, and it was like a was gliding effortlessly rather than walking. Everything was so effortless, easy, and I felt a feeling of expansion. The second and third times the feeling of expansion was the more prevalent feeling. It wasn't like I became one with absolutely everything, but it was more like I was bigger than the senses and than the body. I could still feel the body, but it just didn't feel like I was tied down by it so much, but more like I filled the area around me. The areas I was perceiving at the time and place. It didn't make me happy, but it didn't make me anything. It was just like in those short moments, everything was happening and I had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. All was calm, crystal clear, tranquil. The thing is, this wasn't a mind blowing experience. My monkey mind was there, but a lot slower. It just told me to relax into it. It felt comfortable, natural. Not disturbing in the least. So, has anybody experienced this? What was it? I ask for clarification, because i've never experienced no-self, or anything of that nature (unless that WAS no-self, I don't know).

@Nahm close to what?

How often do you call or message your immediate family and have often do you go to see them in person? Does the thought of meditating in a cave shut off from the outside world make you afraid that your family will be worried sick about you, not knowing if you're dead or alive?

Does being able looking at things on a deeper (or more subtle) way mean that one is more conscious? Say you have two different women eating in McDonalds with their kids. The first one isn't even thinking about what she's eating at all. Doesn't even enter her mind that she's eating with her children some ofthe most healthy foods on the planet right now (she probably always eats there). The second woman has a second thought about what shes doing. So she looks into McDonalds online and finds out about the disgusting process of it all, and decides she will not eat there with her kids again, or if so just on very rare occasions. Because the second woman thinks into things more deeply, and uses her initiative, does it make her 'more conscious'. Is this initiative anything to do with the quality of ones consciousness? Where do these thoughts telling us to look deeper come from? Why do some people have it and some people don't? We can't WILL ourselves to investigate deeper into things, because the thought that encourages us to, is just another thought! What does it all mean?

Good answers. To clarify this isn't about me wanting to eat McDonald's. Just an example. I'm all plant based for over a year. I just want to say that people seem to take things in face value where others have a sense to look and investigate.

Do you ever speak to your family about enlightenment and your research? How to they respond? Do they watch your videos and how do they react? Especially to the ones this past year.

Today I read this quote by Osho; "If you are trying to discipline yourself, the doer remains, in a subtle way. If you are trying to discipline yourself, you remain schizophrenic, you remain divided. A part of you disciplines you, another part is being disciplined by you. So one part becomes the master and another part becomes the slave. Again there is division, again there is duality, again you are not one. And there is bound to be conflict in this duality, because in reality you are one, and this is a fiction. Who is trying to rule whom? Who is there to be dominated by whom? There is only one existence inside, one being. To bring any sort of discipline means to divide that unity, and that division is misery, that division is hell." I began to contemplate this and after about just 5 seconds of thinking about it. Everything I could see just seemed unified, one. My body felt airy and light. So I closed my eyes, because it was enjoyable, as one would do during orgasm, and I could just see like a static in my closed eye lids. Like television static. What was this? Is it a common thing? Does it mean anything? I am not deep into spiritual work.

Hey. I'm working hard on my LP which is acting, but as a results i'm getting intrusive thoughts (I apparently have OCD but it hasn't shown it's head until i've started work on my LP), which can be sick in content. I'm always conscious about how much i'm swallowing saliva also, which is weird, I think it's related to anxiety, and i'm just getting a load of resistance and guilty feelings. A lot of my guilt comes from actualized.org, because at the moment I can't split my focus between my LP and this advanced spiritual stuff, which is making all these thoughts come up saying i'm making a mistake not getting enlightened instead, but acting is what I want to devote my life to and this stuff has just been plugged into me because i've watched so many of Leo's videos that I feel so bad about it. Any thoughts?

Thanks everyone. I'll take a look at the book. Yes I exercise daily.

@krazzer Thanks, but we're going off topic here. It's not to do with meditation.

@krazzer I'm still meditating, 20 mins per day. Haven't missed a day in 7 months. Still getting a lot of intrusive thoughts. My theory is that it's coming up because I've started and it's that beginning resistance manifesting in the 'best' way it knows how. I feel if I keep plugging away and I get my mind to know i'm serious about this, then it will die off a bit. Right now it's a bit brutal, I can handle it, but i'm even having bad nightmares.