TimStr

Great to have you back around, Leo. I am really looking forward to your reports as well.

Yeah, totally! And this is also how you free love from any sort of neediness and clinging. I think that some aspects of spirituality can only be learned through love and intimacy.

I think, my Kriya practice hasn't fully kicked in yet. But doing it very intensely 2 times/day as I did on the retreat definitely had an effect on me. I see the true value of Kriya in working with the body and especially with the breath to create a deep surrender. I don't see this in any other technique really. And this is big, because surrender and breathing are directly related. The way you breath litterally is the way you let go. I think, it's hard to really let go with a exclusively cerebral technique like meditation.

Yeah, that is sooo stunning! And this created this "Oh my god! It's all me!" moment. Glad to hear, that you share that experience. Have you posted a trip report about your trip?

There is one. And there is also Leos Getting Started Page: https://actualized.org/start

Sure. Labeling is a form of mindfulness meditation. You meditate by labeling every single experience with "See" "Hear" or "Feel". If you hear something, you focus on it and say "Hear" with you inner voice. If yo see something, so focus and say "See" and so on... I learned this from Shinzen Young, he is very big on labeling. There is also a video by Leo on mindfulness meditation. Holotropic breathing I a method of intense breathing that can alter your consciousness, developed by Stan Grof. Leo did a video on that quite recently, which is called shamanic breathing.

The first and most important thing to realize is, that nonduality is NOT a concept. All concepts are dualistic by nature because lamnguage and symbols are dualistic by nature. Nonduality is not. This is why you have to have a direct experience in order to truly understand it. You have to become it. It's very helpful to have some understanding about the nature of insight. There is a great video interview series, that Leo did with Peter Ralston, that I highly recommend: https://vimeo.com/181710583 As far as books, also Ralstons material is great, and I also recommend the books of Andre Doshim Halaw. I love them, because they are very short and conscise and crystal clear. I also like Daniel Ingram and Shinzen Young very much. Especially Shinzen has some great descriptions of infinity. There is a great audio progam by him, called The Science of enlightenment. Also Leo's videos about the topic.

Yes, could be. I would guess without the retreat, the experience wouldn't have been nearly as profound. Yet I think that even with the preparation it still required a high enough dose for me to achieve a breakthrough. I don't think that I would have happened by just adding in the retreat. Yes, first time. I tend to intensify my daily practice before trips, but I've never had one during a retreat. No, this was my very first breakthrough.

Yeah absolutely. I haven't attained full liberation. After the experience, my ego restructered itself and I am now back in the domain of forms. I have experienced the absolute nature of reality, though, and now I clearly know what enlightenment is and also what full liberation intails. Without that experience, all my knoledge about that topic would just have been of conceptual nature. Having this glimpse was a crucial and highly helpful step on my journey. It's kind of funny by the way. The actual experience itself was so empty of ego, it was so "not me" so to speak, that it even feels kind of presumptuous to me to claim it as being "my" experience, now, that I am back in the world of forms.

AL-LAD:

@Amer The deeper issue at play here is the ability of opening oneself up emotionally. If your partner is giving you silent treatment and won't speak about your issues, it's most probably because she/he can't handle the emotions, that come with that. There might have been some past experience from witch she/he learned the habit of closing herself off from challanging emotions, to avoid paing. Ironically, this causes even more suffering. I recommend, that you spend some time, developing an understanding of this issue, because some undestanding is crucial to develope traction on these topics. I can recommend the work of David Deida (The way of the superior man) and Brad Blanton (Radical Honesty). Read their books (ideally together with your partner) and follow their recommendation. For right now to get started: If your partner shuts her-/himself off from you or reacts narcissistic in any way, the key thing for you to do is not reacting in the same emotionall cold way. Try to keep yourself open and compassionate. If your partner closes off, stay and be with that. Show her/him, that it's ok to experience the situation like it is. If you provide this secure and open space, your partner will learn, that it actually is ok, to stay open. And just to say: Doing all this is extremely hard. Don't underestimate that. Expect to struggle with these issues. Emotional openness is a ability, with a rather steep and long learning curve. Don't expect it to work immediately, but most importantly: Don't get discouraged.

@Santiago Hard to say, could be her, could be you, could be both. Could be, that she is projecting a lot of stuff onto you. An it seems like she is not happy, being by herself. If that is true, it can turn out to be toxic for any relationship. Rule of thumb is: Don't try to be happy with somebody else, if you're not able to be happy all by yourself. Talk to her about this, ask her, how she spends her time seperate from you. Ask if and why she is unhappy without you, and what bothers her about being by herself. Maybe though its just personality differences. You both could take a personality test to see, how you two are alike and how you are different from one another. I think, this can be a big eye opener for any couple. This one is good: https://www.truity.com/test/300-question-personality-test

I don't know how egotistical I am compared relative to other people. Probably less than the average person, probably not. I leave that for others to judge. What I wanted to say is, that its important to recognize and accept your own egotism instead of denying it. Accepance of what is denied is key to changing it.

@F A B Let's get some awareness in the situation you experienced. The thing, that is probaply hurtung you the most is, that you know, that your friend is totally right. You could have given a few bucks to that bum. That's a fact. And you didn't. That's also a fact. Accept that! That's by the way, how I would like myself to react in your situation. Just admitting the facts and experience how my emotions and thoughts react. If your friend says: "you live in a wealthy family, you could have given something to him", say "Yes, you're right. I could have. But I didn't." My point is not to rub salt into the wound, but to point out the deeper issue: What that your friend pointed out, is that you are deeply egotistical. I know, because I am deeply egotistical, too. Deep down inside, I think that I deserve my money more than any random homeless bum. And I secretly hate homeless people for revealing this part of my egotism to me. Have you ever noticed, that when a homeless person approaches strangers and asks for money, almost nobody is able to look into that homeless' persons eyes. That's because it hurts the ego to be exposed. Poor people must feel so lonely... If you actually looked in those persons eyes for a few seconds and allow yourself to see and feel his suffering, you couldn't help to be compassionate. Just test this out yourself, the next time you are approached for money just look that person straight in the eyes and observe his and your own reaction. Then say yes or no and observe again. By the way, your friend, that pointed out your egotism is in no way soperior to you. His ego just needs that reassurance that it get's by pointing you out. If you want you can share to him openly, how his behaviour made you feel and see, how he reacts. This may break down some of the boundaries that the situation created between you two.

@OnceMore If you want a quick and dirty fix: do a 10 day vipassana retreat After that retreat, commit yourself to a 90d no multitasking challang for integration. (Depending on how you set this up, you may allow for some entertainment (so and so many h per day / per week...), or at least some form of relaxation, that fills the place, that entertainment abstinence leaves.) This will be extremely hard, but the 10 day retreat should ease with the withdrawl symptoms a bit. Be especially mindful of how distraction and entertainment cravings slowly creep back into your life. Also spend more time of your day distraction free - just you yourself by yourself - and build a rock solid meditation routine (do nothing, vipassana, or labeling). Move more towards lifestyle minimalism. Also think about what aspects of yourself you want to be distracted of. Ego creates distraction because it can't face truth. Its crucial to find out what parts your ego consists of to get some initial leverage. This boils down to your greatest fears. Do you hate feeling alone? Do you hate feeling lazy because you are afraid of failure? Do you hate feeling bored, because it leaves you feeling useless? What do you run away from, so that you end up in a place of entertainment seeking?

@Shakazulu I think, there are two types of synesthesia: The first one is purely methaphorical. Talking about melodies and harmonies as having a certain colour to discribe the feeling that one associates with them. I think, this is somewhat common among musicians to talk about music like that. The second one is the experiential obliteration of the difference between sound of color, so that one sees a sound as a certain shade or colour. I have never experienced this personally, but I heard, that this can be achieved by using certain psychedelics like the 2C-x family of phenetylamines. https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Synaesthesia I would love to experience this some time. Having your physical senses blend together must be one of the greatest mindfucks possible.

@Shakazulu When it comes to mastery, you want to be way more serious about your practice, than with anything else. I think, being very serious is at the core of what qualifies an activity as a practice. Think of it like this, if you want to master sushi making, just making sushi for 4h a day wouldn't be considered real practice. A sushi apprentice usually spends at least 1 year just practicing to wash and boil the rice. Nothing else. Then another year of learning how to sharpen the knives, then another year of preparing and cutting all the ingrdients. It might take him over 3 years, before he will assemble his first sushi. The trick is to break your practice down as much as possible. If you really want to master something, it is very important, that you give yourself the space and time to investigate every little minutia of your craft. Get into the specifics and grind it out. So in a sense your 2h +1h + 1h approach seems like a great start, but really push your to get into those details. Don't just spend 2h with general songwriting, but maybe spend 2h experimenting how changing one single chord from major to minor affects the energy and tension in the first part of the chorus of your song. Or spend 2h just messing and experimenting with the speed of a single part of your song. You get the point. Take nothing for granted, experiment with everything and really grind out the details. I am mastering playing the drums and sometimes I practice a single rhythm at 30bpm for over 30min (not to brag), without stopping or changing, focusing on absolute consistency and accuracy. My point is: practice is about pushing the limits of your skill and your ability to concentrate. Pushing your limits is the only way, you will get better. If your practice feels easy, your not really practicing. A word on theory: learning the theory is also about learning to apply the theory as effortlessly as possible. You want to be able to not have to think about the theory while you're using is. This is especially important for domains like art and music that are more right brain emotional type of activities. Music, that is based totally on the application of music theory sounds like theory. It won't be moving people emotionally. Yet knowing the theory and being able to apply it is important. And what's even more important is to know, when you should forget about the theory.

Hey guys, procrastination is a huge obstacle in my life. I'm sure I am not the only one here. I spent some time today thinking about the issue and I think, I discovered the root cause of my problem: I think I am lazy! Not all the time of cause. I have productive days and I feel great about myself. But after a few of those, my addictions and homeostasis kick in and bring me back to a place of unfocused distraction and procrastination on what I wanted to accomplish. I then hate myself for being unproductive and lazy. I guess, I identified being lazy as a "bad" part of my personality and that belief generates a self-fulfilling profecy for me. Basically, being lazy is a part of my self-image, that I hate, but since its part of my self image, my self creates the behaviour, that reinforces that self image. In the past, I tried just to brute force myself out it by setting goals, having todo lists, accountability systems and whatnot. But it seems, that this didn't adress the root issue. In fact, I think, that this may have made the problem a lot worse. What can I do? Do you think, that affirmations and vizualizations may help here to change my self-image? I want to solve that problem once and for all and love to hear your tips and suggestions.

"Welcome to the post-truth world. You know it's not real. But you accept it as normal." -- Adam Curtis Hey guys, I want to share some documentaries with you, because I think they are essential to understand the world, we live in. I like Adam Curtis' films, because they bring together lots of detailed information from mass psychology, history, politics, economy, technology... to draw an extremely high level picture of how the notion of truth looks like in todays society. (Not Absolute Truth though, but relative truth. But I think understanding the mechanims of relative truth is crucial to act in this world.) I want to especially recommend HyperNormalization and The Century of The Self. These are a must-see for everyone interested in systems thinking, politics, history and understanding the collective ego. I know, a 2.5 to 4 hour watch is a big commitment, but these films literally have the power to shatter your paradigm so much, that you arrive at a place, where the only possible modus oparandi of your thinking is that of spiral dynamics stage yellow. So prepare for a test in open mindedness (it was one for me ).

@stevegan928 Research permaculture http://inhabitfilm.com/

I suppose, a martial art that provides you with the whole spiritual background, that it is based upon might be most enjoyable for you. I find, that most martial arts got out of touch with that and developed into a set of combat techniques, especially in the west. But the philosophy virtually all eastern martial arts is literally bulit upon nondual traditions, such as daoism or zen. The ones that tend to most "intact" in that sense are aikido, kendo and shaolin kung fu. You could also try Cheng Hsin, the martial art, that was developed by Peter Ralston, if that's avaliable in your area

Thanks for sharing!! Can anyone offer some background on the movements and hand gestures, he is making?

@SuperLuigi I agree with @Dragallur. If you keep track of what you eat, there shouldn't be any health problems. In fact you should be way healthier on a vegan diet. Get into the work of Michael Greger, he has a lot of videos, that adress specific issues, associated to diet. And I can recommend his book "How Not to die": www.nutritionfacts.org

@h inandout Music! Because it's non symbolic!

I think suffering is one of the forces, that pushes us towards growth. But I think there are other forces, like compassion and pure joy, that can do so as well. Compassion is the desire for the end of suffering, so it's sort of the other side of the coin. I think the one thing, that keeps you from making great art is complacency and avoiding suffering. If your art is not meaningful enough to you that you would go through hell for it, it's probably not very meaningful to others. But I wouldn't assume that torturing ourselves automatically produces great art.