The White Belt

Just got back from a WHM Workshop. It wasn't held by Wim himself, but rather somebody who has been trained by him. The workshop was split into three distinct parts; Yogic breathing and retention cycles. Yoga postures. Finally more breathing with an ice bath, as well as a presentation on the health benefits and Q&A. Seekers may be interested a lot in the breathing technique, as an exploration of consciousness can be possible with this technique. One girl said that she felt as if she was slipping into a nothingness, and that she had a thought, that perhaps death is quite a nice and liberating experience. The ice bath was great as it requires a lot of one pointed concentration, and once you get in there, the monkey chatter slows a lot. I even went back for an optional second go in the bath. Once you do the ice bath, you feel confident and empowered, because it isn't easy, as well as really alive and awake. Anyway, I would recommend you guys to do it, if you are new or at least fairly new to it. If you've done the full online course I can't see there being tons of value. I enjoyed it anyhow.

‘I’m going to tell you a story,’ said Zedka. ‘A powerful wizard, who wanted to destroy an entire kingdom, placed a magic potion in the well from which all the inhabitants drank. Whoever drank that water would go mad.’ ‘The following morning, the whole population drank from the well and they all went mad, apart from the king and his family, who had a well set aside for them alone, and which the magician had not managed to poison. The king was worried and tried to control the population by issuing a series of edicts governing security and public health. The policemen and the inspectors, however, had also drunk the poisoned water and they thought the king’s decisions were absurd and resolved to take no notice of them. ‘When the inhabitants of the kingdom heard these decrees, they became convinced that the king had gone mad and was now giving nonsensical orders. They marched on the castle and called for his abdication. ‘In despair, the king prepared to step down from the throne, but the queen stopped him, saying: “Let us go and drink from the communal well. Then, we will be the same as them.” ‘And that was what they did: the king and the queen drank the water of madness and immediately began talking nonsense. Their subjects repented at once; now that the king was displaying such wisdom, why not allow him to continue ruling the country? ‘The country continued to live in peace, although its inhabitants behaved very differently from those of its neighbours. And the king was able to govern until the end of his days.’ – ‘Exactly,’ said Zedka.’They think they’re normal, because they all do the same thing. Well, I’m going to pretend that I have drunk from the same well as them.’ Excerpt from 'Veronika decides to die', by Paulo Coelho

@TJ Reeves Thanks a lot. Only had a flick through but this paragraph definitely stood out. "We have much to learn in terms of what separates the founder of a soup kitchen or a home for lepers from a suicide bomber; however, the uncomfortable truth is that there is a dimension in which they are similar: devotion to a cause or purpose beyond the self"

Was enlightenment included in the original hierarchy of needs? I always thought it was added on by others..

@PetarKa Hahaha. Oh man, you got me so hyped ;-)

I LOVED this video. It spoke to me so personally. Particularly the bit about the life purpose and too much theorising about it. Got my note book ready

@lennart didn't know about that. Thanks!

I just watched Leo's video on contemplation. It's a really interesting concept indeed. A thought just popped into my head. Maybe books like the Qur'an and the Bible, are supposed to be, line by line, very deeply contemplated. I mean, the average person just reads them right? But this is god conceptualized into word form. Surely one should contemplate so deep, these words, that the conceptualized form dissolves back into the absolute. Maybe that's the problem, and the reason these books have caused much trouble for the world. Due to their misuse.

Got a 9-5 job (or even if not)? How to set up an effective practice as an autodidact. What should a typical schedule look like for maximum effectiveness. What does good study look like? How to properly study a book, with effective note taking. How to not get caught up in mental masturbation, and general STRATEGIC MOTHERFUCKER-NESS in this endeavour. Stop people from spending tens of thousands going to college/university, for a degree that doesn't mean sh*t in the real world (not speaking about all degrees), that they can learn with a few books, and effective practice/mastery. Thanks, @Leo Gura

@Leo Gura - Leo. The Peter Ralston interview. Why let his team put it on a channel with no way near as many subs as yourself, let them split it up into bits and render the quality quite badly? Did you film it for Peter or for your channel?

@LifeandDeath Sounds good. I've recently been coming to some similar conclusions. The mind is a machine that is rapidly spitting out labels so it can compress 'reality' into different little boxes, because that's what it likes to do. But REALITY can not be conceptualized.

@Captain Flint @username @Leo Gura - Okay dudes. Thanks a lot :-)

Yo. I'm doing the LP course. I am stuck in the 'Values' section. I got it all together, did the work, and Leo said 'Now you should be looking at these values and thinking 'This is basically me', 'this feels authentic'' Well it didn't, so I went all the way back to start again. Still not feeling authentic. They feel good, and they will take me far if I implement them, but it still isn't deeply resonating. Now i'm getting discouraged, because it's getting boring, having to go back and slog it out with all the questions again. I've stopped putting the effort in now and i'm getting so guilty that I've created a lot of resistance to carry on the course Any advice?

What does bringing consciousness to an arising of desires (good or bad), actually look like folks? Tangibly. Let me give you something to go off: I want to watch some porn and masturbate. Give me the step by step process for bringing awareness, the thought processes etc. as i'm doing (or not doing) this act.

Hey people. I've suffered from sleep paralysis for as long as I remember. It comes on more frequently when I start to try lucid dreaming by keeping a dream journal and what not. Last night I woke paralyzed, and I told myself to not panic, my body was totally light which is normal, but then I realised I was slowly descending from the air, into my bed, and I felt the pressure as I lightly fell into the bed and I realised that I was levitating. In the day I was thinking about angels because of somebody elses post and a ringing in my ear. But then I saw the face of a demon, but it seemed more just like a mental image than a figure in my room, and I began to choke as if I was being strangled. What do I do about this? How do I take it all? Is it significant, or should it be ignored? I'm not frightened or anything. Like I said i've had sleep paralysis before, and in the past a headless shadow man touched my foot, but I can't remember levitation happening since I was a child and i've never felt strangulation before. I'd like a comment from @Emerald here too, if possible.

@crazycrazycrazy I like it so much, that when I got to Tokyo, the first thing I did was go to the Park-Hyatt, and sat in that bar!

Could somebody please recommend me some good guided self-inquiries on YouTube? I've used a few, but I can't find that many. Not too fussy about the length, but about 30 minutes long would be nice if possible. Thanks.

Thanks guys. Why do they call these meditations? Perhaps why I can't find so many. Is self-inquiry a form of meditation?

Valid points from both sides. Chill guys...

Isn't that your own projection onto animals? How do you know that animals don't conceptualize?

Stop trying to calm it down then. Just notice what it's doing. That's all. This is not the same as calming it down. When you try to calm it, it's like trying to push down a gigantic whirl pool in the middle of the ocean, you're just going to get sucked in. Watch the whirlpool, see how it operates, study it via meditation.

@Loreena thanks for sharing. It's not the best is it?

@Emerald Hey thanks for your response! All of your negative experiences sound absolutely horrifying. It was like reading short horror stories . I'm glad mine aren't that bad. Usually they do come on when i'm stressed, but i'm pretty calm lately, so i'll have to dive deep to see what's going on! Thanks again.

England!