Santhiphap

What I also find interesting is that the goal of slowing the thoughts or focusing on the breath to have moments of thoughtlessness isnt even my priority now. Thoughts dont seem like a barrier anymore since they just slow down and dont come up when I focus on letting go, accepting and devoting myself to everything that comes up.

Never mind the quote above (cant erase it) While I enjoyed reading the conversation, here is a short report of the meditation sitting a few minutes ago. This time it took a while longer, it was a bit harder to connect with the love, devotion or compassion (whatever you want to call it) which seems to be a shortcut for me to reach a no-thought state. Thoughts were usually still active to an extent, but I remebered the words of one of you guys in this thread that thoughts are just clouding the conciousness, not completely covering it up. So there is a way to find an intuition that leads the way through the clouds. When that happens it usually feels like an instant/momentary absence of thoughts that leads to drifting into a no-thought state a bit further. If I can do this a couple of times in a row I reach an almost complete no-thought state very fast. Although fear, heart pounding, anxiety, again kept me from pushing through I think I made some progress. This time I took it a little easier, and didnt let the ego pull me back as fast as before. The other times this happened I still suffered from fear up to an hour after stopping to meditate and I had frightening feelings of something or someone standing behind me or being in my presence, like the fear of a little child alone in the dark. This time I felt much better right after I was done. The feeling, being so close, is already so amazing though. Its like everything tingles but its not physically. Maybe I am way off here but might it be the emptiness of mind that is slowly being perforated by conciousness which will fully push through and consume "me" if I keep letting go? After meditating I keep having a little distorted feeling for reality and the brain still feels so tingly for a couple of minutes. Its an incredible experience alltogether already.

I think Leo is taking a way more radical approach thus calling it ego death and focusing on one final meditation session to "kill" it all. I think he also talked about that the longing to "kill" it/get rid of it is a trap. From what i heard, sudden, complete and final disidentification only happens to very few people and is triggered by extreme circumstances. For example Eckhardt Tolle was about to kill himself physically short before his enlightenment happened afaik. So in that case it might be easy to use the term death to describe things. For others its more of gradual process that is accompanied by the embrace of experiences and includes more "positive" sounding desriptions when they talk about their experiences.

Thank you @Crystalous@Nahm @cetus56 as well for all the words. This thread has become an important resource for my process in no time! This is true. I also fear that I will not be able to live a social life with the people around me, those who I love. I fear that I will not be able to love them anymore and that they would notice and it would break their heart. But now that I think about it i will probably be able to project my love much better.

Thank you for the reminder This fact will probably help alot with the process of devoting myself to the natural state.

Ok after meditating an hour earlier I read this and it triggered some kind of deep insight that I didnt understand but it felt very much liberating. I thought I got it fully but I couldnt conceptualize and remember it. I lost touch of it a few minutes later. But I still feel a bit liberated of the fear now that I think of it more like there is no death, there is just another perspective to see things. Maybe working on that insight and investigate again during the next meditation I will be able not to be tricked into fear again and actually have a non disturbing, blissfull transcendence of I. This ego death thought just really stuck in my head. One of the reasons was Leos blog video where he talks about how frightening it is to "kill yourself" (ego).

Thank you for this. Seems like there is some wisdom to be discovered. I will come back to this when I have some silence to be able to understand this fully.

Thanks for the words @Solace. I could definitely do more practice towards being able to accept and love the fears that come up often during my daily life (a lot lately). I tend to put that kind of practice aside as I see only full enlightenment as the solution. Maybe practicing how to handle the "insignificant" anxieties during the daily life (which are really painfull as well) is the key here. Somehow I just realized how the last couple of months really have been an invitation exactly for that. From what I learned even if enlightenment/ego death happens the mind still goes on with "I-thoughts/feelings" etc. But the identification with that "person" that used to be identified with isnt happening anymore. Even though the "true self"/conciousness is still very much alive from my understanding ego death is still a death to be feared. Am I missing something? Can you or someone elaborate? Yes I understand that the ego comes back again. But for that moment of presence, if I would fully let go, it would cease to exist as the identification with it would cease to exist. Also, in that moment, I am assuming time wont be a thing so saying its not a permanent ego death doesnt seem to be relevant or make it easier to let go. Thank you guys for all your words, appreciate it!

When a thought comes up, I love it. When a sound comes up that is unknown, instead of questioning or fear it, I love it. But when that deep existential anxiety comes up, I dont seem to be able to love it enough. Suggestions? Encouragement?

The main reason I am writing this is because I have encountered new unique problems of falling asleep for about 6 months now which seem to get more serious by the time. I know I should listen to my inner guidance to lead me the way and I am trying but its hard to see through. I do not have these problems every night and its hard to explain when or why it happens which is why I am hoping to get some objective hints or inspiration from you guys. So the last couple of years I have had these kind of “normal” insomnia problems, induced by depression and anxiety. I mainly overcame depression and have been living a happier life for about a year now. Melatonin helped me break through the sleep barrier in stressful times when my mind has been too busy. Still stress is an issue but I have found ways to take a step back when life becomes too much of a burden. Lately, approximately for 6 months now i feel like I am in a subconscious war with ego, subconsciously seeking truth more than ever. My mind constantly tries to solve random problems of life and thought patterns. Also about 6 months my sleeping problems became worse. It all started off after heavily drinking and partying for a couple of nights in a row. I woke up in the middle of the night and had a severe panic attack. Heart rate up, adrenaline pumping through, anxiety etc. I don’t think I need to go further into that. I stopped drinking for a while and have been trying it a couple of times again since then. I tried drinking less and going to bed earlier which resulted in endless thoughts, my mind more active than ever tried to reflect on the conversations, social conflicts etc. of the evening. I took a break again, trying never to drink again but my friend circle and society around me doesn’t really accept a sober person at the party. I know I need to change my environment, spend time with people that are “right” for me but its hard to change life altogether. In the end the longing for my long lasting friendships is strong enough to force me back into those drinking situations. Then, as I would call it, the next level happened. I had about 4 small beers in a nice environment, I felt great before and during drinking, I had a great evening, nothing would have suggested the mind problems I would face at night. I even slept in the same room with my best friend, talking and fooling around right before sleep. When I was about to drift off to sleep a mind shift happened. Thousands of thoughts and “problems” came up and my mind was busy to “solve” them like I have experienced before but in an incredible speed, unstoppable. The difference to the episodes before was that 1. the “problems” weren’t focused around the conversations and social conflicts from the evening anymore, they were totally randomly selected by my mind and had all kinds of nature. And the 2nd most important shift was that I felt like I had no control over them. 4 hours passed in a kind of awake state but totally without control. Usually I have been at least aware that I am thinking too much and that anxiety stops me from falling asleep. Not this time. it felt like I woke up from an awake state 4 hours later and the first thing I could voluntarily think was “What the f*** just happened? It was 5am in the morning when I could finally drift off to sleep. And of course this wasn’t the last time I tried drinking. Sometimes I would feel disconnected from the world and sick in my stomach even after 1 beer. The were also times when things went good so I kept experimenting with alcohol, trying different kinds, drinking lots of water with it. But nothing really resulted in it being back the way it has been. Lately (1-2months) when I drink a lot, the next day I wake up early and suffer from huge anxieties, permanent adrenaline upkeep for a couple of hours until late afternoon. Now the event that got me to write this happened the last couple of nights, last night being the worst even though I am now on holidays at the most beautiful place in nature. Without drinking alcohol my mind has been super busy and hasn’t let me drift off to sleep. The best way I could describe this is that my mind is in a constant war with my spiritual progress. I feel like I am tired but not tired enough to really “allow” myself to fall asleep. My mind is fighting at the edge of falling asleep but whenever I am drifting over to the sleep state it calls back to staying awake and solving problems. This is mainly an anxiety driven mechanism it seems. I am also so caught up in the need to be able to fall asleep so that I am actually not able to (let go). I also focused quiet a lot on acceptance lately. I keep trying to accept the things and thoughts that keep me from falling asleep. Last night it felt like a constant back and forth: Acceptance and almost drifting off to sleep until another thing pops into my mind which I have to accept again, an endless circle until I turn on the lights a couple of hours, take melatonin to help me fall asleep which finally works then. I think my subconsciousness has spiritually grown a lot lately due to reading and meditating and my conceptual mind can’t take the shift. I am still far away from enlightenment but the process feel is ongoing, unstoppable. Now I know that i might just have to accept these things all together. I believe that this is a process that leads to great results spiritually and I also am quiet sure that suffering needs to happen to a certain degree but I also don’t have anybody to talk about the spiritual work on this deep level. And I think that other people that have gone through a similar process can certainly help shine a light from a different angle on my problems and lead me to accept and resolve those. Lastly, I want to thank anyone who has read through this huge wall of text. I would really appreciate any thoughts of yours on these happenings.

Ohh and I know I could have posted this in "Serious emotional problems" section but I think the key to resolve my issues is in the spiritual process which is why I posted it here.

@Natasha I tried it again. First I did the "Enlightenment - Part 3 - Creating An Experience Of No-Self" which I hadnt done before. This technique was quiet nice and has taught me a few more things about how to be in the present. I will try to integrate some of the methods to my daily meditations. After that I did the Neti Neti method again with Leos Guided meditation. I didnt reach the nothingness again. My ego fought quiet hard. I could keep presence and mindfulness until the part when I tried to find the nothingness but then my heart rate went nuts and my whole body started to sweat. I tried to calm myself which worked but it was already too late, it threw me off track. I kept trying until I realised that I already had lost mindfulness and presence. Kind of disappointing. But anyway, my meditations skills have improved a lot lately. I think I will just append self inquiry to each of my normal meditation sessions at the end and not put too much focus on it. Right now my ego seems to be too well prepared to trick it into letting go

Hi, I just did the "Enlightenment Guided Inquiry - The Neti Neti Method" by Leo and I had an experience of that nothingness, or did I? At the moment in the video when Leo said I should just try to consider that I am nothing and I should now try to be that nothingness, something happened for a split second or even shorter: Some kind of feeling of nothingness evoked very strongly. It seemed like nothingness was expanding rapidly, followed by an immense fear and because of that strong fear the nothingness shrunk/contracted and disappeared. All this happened in less of a second I think and the fear was dissolving as well. Now I am questioning myself if that was some kind of imagination or hallucination. Everything else during the meditation felt like imagination but this short experience didnt feel like imagination. It just happened unvoluntarily. I cant really give more information except that now I have a very unclear picture in my head how it "looked" like in that moment. Just expanding and contracting blackness but no structures in it with which I could explain how I identified the expansion or contraction. It was more like a feeling than a picture. Whats weird is that I didnt understand/realized myself as being that nothingness. It just came over me like a frightening chill. Could someone with confirmed enlightenment experiences comment on this? Thank you.

I did understand all. You wrote pretty clear and understandable to me.

I had a misunderstanding of awareness as well. Tronds post didnt make sense to me before watching the video. I understand much better now. It nice that nowadays the ideas about meditation, enlightenmend and other related things are spread amongst many different cultures and beliefs. It is easier to come in contanct with these things and it catches the interest of more and more people but a sympton that comes along with it is that people start to use and teach terms like awareness completely wrong. As I am recently digging deeper into the true meanings of such terms I realize I have a lot of work and reevaluation to do.

@Barna So to get back to your initial question. You are asking of a method to experience infinity again in your dreams I suppose? I guess no one can tell you the right method for you. I guess only you can find out. Maybe think about what was it in the dream that led you to infinity? Maybe try to direct your dreams to the urge to experience it again. If you have a dream that goes there, try to breathe it in again like you did before. It seems like you already found a way how to do it, you just dont understand it. Do you really have to understand it? Dont be disappointed if it doesnt work tonight. I guess it only works if the circumstances are aligned. I cant look into your mind, and even if I could I probably wouldnt be able to analyse and understand you. This is just what I came up with by trying to help.

If it would be that easy, the people of this world wouldnt be stuck with their egos anymore and monks wouldnt need years of meditation practice.

I think I made some progress: I have recently had a body sensations that I now identify as the mind attacks @Natasha posted the link to in her post. The sensation was a feeling of pressure in my heart area and the result of that was unconcious worry and nervousity. As far as I remember, it probably started Sunday evening (A day after the glimpse) but I didnt realize/wasnt aware of it until Monday. The sensation was nothing completely new to me which might had also been the reason why I didnt become aware of it immediately. I have had this kind of unsettling feeling near the heart before, sometimes after smoking weed. Monday evening this sensation become more and more frightening and I was plagued by it before, during and after sleep. It went on today, got worse and I almost completely freaked out when I realized I was literally worried of dying. Then I read the post about mind attacks again and started meditating using the techniques by Ayla. It was tough... Terrible mindgames were trying to keep me from concentrating on the sensation. What if I make it worse? What if I have a medical heart problem? What if my rising anxiety makes it break?.... I almost gave up. I was one second away from opening my eyes and stopping the meditation when I realized that stopping could make it worse as well. I would just run into the livingroom grab my cigarettes and spend the next few hours in anxiety and endless monkey chatter thought circles. So somehow I did it. I concentrated on the feeling, tried to acknowledge the sensation, opened my mind to the possibility that Ayla was right and these are just mind attacks. When thoughts of "life is being threatened" came up I tried to drop them, afterall Ayle said "there is no pain in the sensation", "what hurts is the ASSOTIATION with the thought that you perceive negative". Then somehow I became relaxed, I was back in control and the sensation began to fade. OMG, it worked! I feel so calm now and the sensation hasnt been coming back for a couple hours now. Although I think I can still sense it very subtly it is not making me nervous in any way. (Now it might make sense that through smoking weed I experienced the same mind attacks before without understanding due to the "dissolving" of the ego while high. I have a history of being very "out of space" while high and also anxious and unsocial which is why I stopped smoking weed for a couple months now.) Alright and last I want to share an explanation of the ego and the fear of death which I found today. I read it over and over and I am starting to get it now. I really like the way its described here:

@Telepresent Thanks for reminding . This is definitely something that has been bothering me a lot in life. I can sometimes see an incredible importance in something and a few hours later its all gone.. Not to mention the uncountable times I have laid in my bed before sleep and found things in my mind to be incredibly important, desparately trying to keep them in mind, even writing them down so I can remember in the morning, but even then, I read them and they dont seem as important afterall. I think I try to use emotions alot to remember or set myself back in the state I was but even that does not work. Now then, I have done a lot of reading today to eliminate some of my fear of ego-death. How I understand it I will not completely and forever be sucked into it if I reach it again during meditation. I think ego always comes back or "re-builds" itself unless we have been experiencing enough to understand it and unless we can keep the mindfull state of mind throughout the day, which requires lots of training i suppose. The existential fear from the first glimpse has somehow let me to think that if I let go again, a bit more, it would just "click" and I would never get my ego back. This thought is keeping me from trying again and bothers me alot as I want to try and stay a while in that nothingness without worrying never to be able to come back to my ego. I think its possible to go in and out of nothingness isnt it? And the ego dissolving is just the symptom of staying in nothingness for longer and seeing more and more how false it is, am I right?

So I read Leos Practical Guide to Enlightenment and I watched the Benefits of Enlightment video because I think maybe I can trick myself into another glimpse by replacing the fear with curiosity. The elimination of things like anxiety, depression, overthinking, suffering is truly motivating to keep on trying. One question that arised during whatching the video is what drives us after enlightenment? What matters? What do we do things for? Because Leo said that once enlightenment happened and we eliminated all the suffering we can finally do what we want to do.

At least I am still curious and I will definitely try again and try to reinforce that there is nothing to be scared of. The only thing I am scared of is that people say I will lose something that I can never get back to which makes it a life decision..

@Leo Gura Thank you for replying Leo, Yesterday I thought the first glimpse is the hardest and that I now know how to get there easily. Well, I just meditated again and tried to get there. I knew how to reach out for it but I couldnt become it. Once I came near to becoming it, my heartrate increased, adrenaline, heavier breathing and existential anxiety kept me from becoming it. What you said makes perfect sense. Is there a better way to think of nothingess thats not so frightening? Maybe, oneness or something better that I can tell my ego? In the past I have always thought of enlightenment in a good way of being everything in nature. Now I just fear death. Of course I understand what my ego "did" there but I cant help it, of course. I dont want to "be gone"! I dont want to forget my ego. Its what has always kept me going in this world. Isnt it foolish to throw it all away? Its funny, Now I feel so much love for my ego. I had a hard time during the last couple of years (depression and anxiety) and I always tried to think back to times (mostly childhood) when I felt so much love for myself and the love of my parents. Those were the happiest times of my life so I always try to feed my ego with them to be able to live better. I thought that it was unconditional love but was it really that and does it matter? I see the paradoxes I think. But how do I put my trust in something that I dont know yet what it really is. The "teachers" say it is the true self, it all I am. How do I trust them? I guess it all comes down to: Realizing that ego is an illusion. (I guess I am not fully convinced yet) Digging deeper into the existential anxiety/terror that occurs close to becoming nothing. (Somehow it tells me there is something real about the nothingness that I am to become) Maybe I can try to concentrate on the things that in the past led me to believe ego is stupid. Maybe it helps if I read and understand more about what exactly happens in terms of existential terror when I chose to become it again and kind of foresee it so I am prepared to react and not helpless. I am quiet confused now. If anyone can help I would appreciate it.

@Bebop Thanks for replying Bebop, I am almost speachless. Its hard for me to believe that it was genuine, but then again there is no possible way I could truly explain it with words because I have never had it before. One thing that I am sure of is that I didnt try hard at all. I was almost bored by the parts of the video when Leo went through the different senses and thoughts. "Of course I am not taste, duhhh" Despite from other meditation sessions in which I tried so hard to grasp something that might enlighten me, today, I did not intend or think of an outcome like this in any way. After having that moment as confused and excited as I was, I almost didnt make it to the end of the video. The next thing I thought of was to ask about it in the forums. Then I cooked a meal. I didnt feel any different, just excited and mind blown. After eating, I am writing this now. I am scared to forget and doubt it. I am trying to write down as much as possible to remind myself. Somehow I already start to lose some of the memory of what it REALLY was like. It wasnt the question of who I am that kicked it off. During the session I asked myself many times without results who I am or who the observer is. First word perceiver had a huge impact on me to understand more and that something must be perceivinig. But the thing that kicked it off was the thought of nothingness, trying to imagine nothing and then without being able to grasp it, just trying to be it. Trying to be something that I had no idea of what it might be but it must somehow be perceiving everything. I wonder why I didnt feel/experience any relation with that nothingness, it felt completely foreign. And the fear was like an existential fear of being sucked into the nothingness, not ever being able to get out again. I think before trying to get to that nothingness again I might have to do some deeper research on peoples experiences and what happens next or else I will be too scared again and wont get any further than today. Edit: @Natasha Funny how in that exact moment you post the reply with the guide Thanks alot!

Hello friends, This is my journal of Anxiety Elimination, Positive Thought Training & Meditation Experiences. I will also talk about my latest journey of love. These topics seem to be the most important to me to improve on at the moment so I decided to focus on them during this journal to keep track of my goals. But of course there will be a variety of topics coming along and I want to keep my freedom to write about even more things of life that happen to me along the way. Here are a few more topics that are currently important to me: learning to appreciate the value of taking action to be able to take action more frequently (I am very bad at this due to my neurotic and perfectionistic condition) mastering love and relationships creating good habits Finding life purpose Creating long term goals for life & Finding my life purpose These are a lot of topics because I have bottled them up for a long time, but I feel so much energy lately that I know this is the right time to seriously do some self-actualization work. Never in my life have I written so much down on paper as in the past month. I have tried to write journals a few times in my life but I failed miserably. I think that I failed because I didnt see the importance of it. Now I know that a new chapter of my life has just begun about month ago. I might write a post about my past if someone is interested or if I suddenly need to get it all out. Because thats what this journal shall be about. Its for me, and for people who see similarities between my life and theirs, who feel a connection. But most importantly this journal shall be for myself, to get the things out of my system, because, writing thoughts down helps me letting thoughts go.