How to be wise

Something interesting happened during my self-inquiry session two days ago. When I asked the question ‘is it true’ (for some particular thought), instead of asking the mind, which I usually did, I decided to ask the heart instead. I call it the heart, but what it is is some sort of empty space within you where your mind doesn’t operate in. So when I asked the question there, I went into a meditation on that space, and I felt a clear ‘no’. And that ‘no’ was very transformative. It changed the way I felt about that situation, and it really took a big stab at my identity. True self-inquiry happens when ‘the heart’ answers the question. The mind can’t answer the question that it itself is asking.

@Leo Gura What’s the difference between an enlightenment experience from meditation and from psychedelics? Are psychedelic ones less transformative?

Interesting discussion. The Muslim man is saying a lot of the things that Leo is saying, whilst the Atheist man is saying all the things that Leo hates about Orange. Even though I’m pretty sure the Muslim man is Blue.

@Serotoninluv Of course not.

@Mondsee Fasting only makes your meditation sessions more difficult. It will only be a hindrance in the beginning. Perhaps when you’re advanced, you may use fasting to grow yourself. But definitely not the beginning.

Who else is working with you?

@Iiris

@Iiris This will take A LOT of work to cure. I know because I myself am in this process.

@Emerald I liked your video on the present moment. Thanks. It seems to be the opposite of Echkart Tolle’s ‘The Power of Now’, but I’ve heard other teachers also say the now doesn’t exist. Radical stuff!

@CreamCat What about on your bed? Try that.

Or thought to be understood.

The partner desired it.

@Leo Gura From my understanding, in the 10th century the Middle East were some of the most advanced people, heavy stage Blue. Why are they still in Blue 1000 years later? What keeps a society from growing?

@The Blind Sage you can put on night mode on your apple device for that.

@Sahil Pandit Yeah, same with me.

@kieranperez @SoothedByRain But also you should be ambitious about spirituality. Use your stage Orange success-driven mentality on spirituality. Try to succeed on enlightenment. This will help you work very hard on the practices.

That’s true, but what about fighting a war with another country. Can you really shoot other human beings without suffering? And what about being part of a police force that is about to raid some drug dealers. Can you really fight the drug dealers without internal resistance?

But how can you do all of that without suffering. Believing the thought ‘someone needs to be stopped’ by definition creates suffering. Fighting anything internally creates suffering. You can fight it externally, as long as you do not fight it internally. Are you saying we can’t survive without suffering?

@Leo Gura I’m not saying that we shouldn’t act in a responsible manner towards life. That is of course important, and I agree with you there. But that doesn’t mean that I have to believe that somebody ‘needs to be stopped.’ That’s just not true. That’s the ego’s judgement. I’m not saying don’t create a police force, those things are important. But that doesn’t require believing that anybody needs to be stopped, cause it just ain’t true. Escaping suffering is priority number one, but of course if you escape your suffering you will automatically start helping other people. It’s important to know that nothing matters, but at the same time be available to others if they require your help.

But isn’t that just letting your egoic emotional reaction make judgments about what should and shouldn’t happen. Reality is perfect as it is, so if Trump exists, then he shouldn’t be stopped, until he is. Nothing ‘needs’ to happen in life. If anything ‘needs’ to happen, reality will make it happen. Otherwise it doesn’t need to happen. If I experience suffering because of tyranny, the problem is the suffering my ego is creating, not the tyranny. Tyranny is God if it exists. Tyranny is beautiful. The problem is that we don’t have awareness over that. Which is why spirituality work is so good.

Is that really true? Why?

@luqqzr Exactly my problem too. In my work, 80-90% of the time I’m sitting and doing nothing. I work at an evening tuition for kids, and there are two other teachers with me in the classroom. The other two teachers manage to do all the work by themselves whilst I just sit in a chair and scratch my beard. I thought I would be fired right away when they saw they didn’t need me, but it’s been a year and they seem just fine keeping me doing nothing. I guess this is more of an emotional problem rather than a physical one.

@Leo Gura I also agree that brain type is an important factor to this work. But we can’t move forward without first resolving this mystery: why so few of their relatives are also not awake. You mentioned upbringing, but siblings get very similar upbringing. Usually they go to the same school, same schedule, etc. Lack of knowledge about awakening is also not an answer, because the chances are high that after one of them gets enlightened, the others will find out what happened to him. Whether they agree with spirituality or not is a different matter, but they will find out about it nonetheless. So how do you explain the severe rarity of family members: siblings, children, parents following along?

@Leo Gura It took Byron Katie one evening to turn from a suicidle depressed woman to an enlightened person who was basking in nothingness and love. That experience stayed with her 33 years as of now. Sure she did three years of integration work, but her initial experience was permanent. Could the brain rewire itself that quickly? Plus, from (1), your points are true, but it’s just so rare to find relatives enlightened at the same time. 90% of those gifted teachers do not have enlightened relatives. Doesn’t that say something about the correlation between enlightened teachers having gifted genes.

@Leo Gura I generally agree with what you’re saying, but there are two problems. 1) If those sages were genetically gifted why aren’t their siblings and parents also spirituality gifted, after all they have the closest resembling genes. Sadhguru was the youngest of thirteen children, yet I hear none of his other siblings are gurus. His parents? Ramana had a brother, what about him? Was he also gifted spiritually? 2) Overall, talking about the link between the neural system and awakening leaves a huge problem. What about spontaneous awakening that happened in the past many times. Those took only a few moments, and yet left a permanent awakening experience and a radical new state of consciousness. How did the entire neural system rewire itself in only a matter of a few moments? Because the person often goes from an unconscious depressed, hugely egoic person to an enlightened master in a couple of minutes.