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@Pouya I think you should aim to be doing both. They both have their benefits. The meditation helps to slowly train and re-wire the mind which is very important for your day-to-day experience. Self-inquiry is obviously much more focused and direct. You're just going straight for the Truth without the long arduous path that often comes with meditation. So both are important. Work on establishing a daily meditation habit first. You need to find the balance between doing long enough sits to actually make it worth while, but also not so much that you burn out and quit. If you find Vipassana too difficult, read Culadasa's The Mind Illuminated. It's a very simple to follow technique that will take you all the way if you stick with it. Whilst you're implementing the meditation habit try to get in some occasional self-inquiry sessions here and there. You should read the books relating to self-inquiry on Leo's booklist for guidance. But again, a balance is required because too much information can very much hinder your self-inquiry progress. One very very important piece of advice with self-inquiry is to not just do it for the sake of the technique. Don't just do 30 mins if self-inquiry just so you can say to yourself you've done 30 mins and thats great, and feel good about it. Rather, the focus should be on getting the truth right this minute. If it takes another minute to get the truth then do another minute, and so on. I say this just because I wasted many hours doing self-inquiry just to tick that box for the day, and was not concerned with the actual purpose of the technique.

@Vasiles Stefanis Ralston is completely beyond SD. He's certainly not Yellow.

@Self Discovery Well done for going solo on your first retreat. I recently came back from my second group retreat and whilst they have their benefits, there are also many downsides with meditating with lots of other people. I'm considering going on my first solo retreat later this year so I have a few questions: Were you doing just meditation, or did you incorporate other things like self-inquiry, yoga etc? What did you schedule look like? Did you plan out your schedule prior to the retreat, or did you make it up as you went along? Did you rent a place like Leo has done? Did you find it challenging to motivate yourself at any point?

@Karlos Totally forgot about Ben Smythe! Definitely a great example of Yellow, possibly moving into Turquoise (I think he's had some sort of awakening, not sure though).

It's a contradiction to say you are not your thoughts and then to say you are your memories. Memories are thoughts of course, and only exist in the present. Nor are they continually present, just fleeting experiences. Try to see what memories are in your direct experience. Discard any concepts or ideas you have about what they might be. Don't assume that memories permanently sit somewhere in the back of the mind, or that they are somehow always here. This is just another invention. If you had never heard the word 'memories' would you still identify yourself those experiences? Observe what is true in your direct experience right now. Keep working on it and contemplate it from different angles. Don't get stuck repeating the same line of questioning. Or consider working on Who You Are first, instead of What.

Of course the epitome of Green in the UK is Glastonbury Festival, the biggest non-annual festival in the world. An experience like no other.

@cena655 Clearly a sign it's working for you, just keep doing what you're doing. Count yourself exceptionally lucky that you've only had to do 5 days of practise before getting to this stage.

Don't try to maintain present awareness for your whole 8 hour shift. It won't work and you'll burn yourself out, get demotivated and quit. In the beginning, quality is more important than quantity. So try doing 5 minutes at a time where you're super aware of all the little sensations in your experience. Try taking things slower if the job allows for that. But ensure that those 5 minutes are super high quality meditation. One of the most important things to do is, if your mind wanders, calmly bring it back to the present. This is key if you want to become more present and aware. Try to be very alert, focused and disciplined throughout the 5 minutes. Then over the weeks, increase the 5 minutes to 10 minutes and so on. To make it easier or to just mix it up a bit, you could try focusing on a particular aspect of experience, such as just sounds. So apply the same process but just focus on all the little sounds going on around you. It's good to use different focus ranges.

@MM1988 I think the oil was for additional calories, rather than for filling you up. Personally I only use a small amount of oil to cook down the vegetables at the beginning. There's no need for a large amount of oil. I get the additional calories from making my soup much thicker than Leo's, and I also add in a can or two of beans per pot. Much healthier and filling imo. Boiled eggs are great and super filling as well. Also when you're doing a salad, you should incorporate avocado as its super nutritious and a great source of fat.

@Jamie Universe I think you need to go into a bit more detail if you want some concrete advice. But from what you said, it seems like you're just lost in thought loops about how you could have done the 'weird social thing' differently. Is this the case? If so you need to do 3 things, in my opinion. The first is to develop your mindfulness abilities so that you're more aware of thoughts arising, making you less likely to be controlled by them and get sucked into the content. The second thing is to practise making the distinction between the content of the thoughts and the reality of the thought itself. You will react very differently if you shift your perspective to experiencing a thought just as a thought, rather than as the story about some weird social thing. The last thing you need to do is to stop resisting these thoughts that you say are terrorising you. They're terrorising you because you're a) resisting them and b) getting lost in the content. Instead, accept the thought when it arises, fully allow it to be there, let it be, smile, and watch it fade away. And then repeat that process until these thoughts just completely dissolve. Persistent negative thoughts thrive off attention.

I feel like you're taking the wrong approach with most of the things you mentioned here. It's like you're just going cold-turkey in every case. This can work, with some people, but for most people most of the time changing habits needs to be a gradual process. Otherwise you're just fighting against homeostasis and that'll always be an up hill battle. So for the healthy eating and loosing weight, this needs to be a gradual shift. Try replacing one aspect of your unhealthy diet at a time. Maybe start cutting down on your wheat consumption and work on implementing that for a few weeks or months if necessary. Then work on cutting down refined sugars etc. Then work on eating more vegetables and slowly getting used to those kinds of flavours and textures, rather than the usual saturated fats and super sweet sugary foods. The change has to come from within, not from an external source (i.e. giving away your credit card). With the business, quitting your job probably wasn't the best idea. Don't criticise yourself for loosing motivation on the business though. It happens to everyone. The trick is to push through that lack of enthusiasm and keep working at it even when you don't feel like it. Be disciplined about it. Every job and business has grindy aspects. It's not all fun and games. Maybe you needed to just take a short break and remind yourself of your original motivation for starting the business. To help with procrastination, set aside very specific blocks of time to work on the business. With meditation, trying to go full monk mode when you've barely done any prior meditation is a classic rookie error. Underestimating how difficult meditation can be is so common. I'm certainly guilt of this myself. It's not easy stuff by any means. Selling you're computer and changing your phone was bound to fail. Again, you're just going cold turkey and not understanding the power of homeostasis. Unless you're a super talented meditator and/or spiritually gifted this will just never work. It has to be a gradual implementation. Try just doing 20 minutes a day. And then gradually build up the time when it feels right. But even with a fairly easy session of 20 minutes a day, you need to commit to it for life. You might not actually meditate for the rest of your life, but that commitment needs to be there. I mean, why wouldn't you?!. Also commit to doing it every single day no matter what. Be disciplined. Don't be lazy. 20 minutes a day is so easy. Develop your mindfulness so that you become more aware of all the sneaky thoughts and justifications for not meditating. And then ignore them and sit down on the cushion. With regards to a lack of results, this is common so don't be disheartened. A daily practise is a great foundation, but you need to be either upping the quantity and quality of your daily meditation or attending retreats to see real progress. Also remember that meditation is a subtractive process. You don't gain anything from meditating. You only loose what is not needed. And this is often subtle, hard to identify and is quite different to what you imagine or want the results to be.

@Philip Thanks for sharing! I'll be attending my 1st 10-day next week actually. Any words of advice?

@kieranperez I'd also check out the other books on Kriya from Leo's booklist. The simpler techniques (but equally as powerful) given in those might be more suitable for you.

@Shroomdoctor Try out the exercise on this website: https://personalexcellence.co/blog/life-purpose-exercise/

@Salvijus It wasn't demotivating for me at all to be honest. It certainly wasn't the most motivating video Leo has ever released but it was real, authentic and just a great example of the reality of the spiritual path. It's rarely goes the way you expect it to, and it's always much harder. I did think he'd go further than 2 weeks, as a 2 week vipassana retreat is quite common, but I haven't done that amount personally so I can't judge. Leo mentions on more than one occasion that no amount of traditional meditation will get you the same results as the deep psychedelic trips, and for some this might be demotivating. But this doesn't mean you should stop meditating or doing the normal practises. Huge amounts of growth and life changing insight can be had from meditation and yoga. It just won't be as deep as the psychedelics.

@d0ornokey 1) Personally I just stay with an object until it either stops and then I label 'Gone', or until something else takes centre stage/grabs my attention. Don't worry about it being 7 seconds, it could be less or more. 2) I've never done the replay thing you talk about. I don't think it's necessary to be honest. Just observe experience as it literally is without interfering or manipulating it in any way. 3) Definitely do not keep looking at the clock. Observe the the feelings of boredom, impatience, agitation and all the thoughts that come with it like "when will this end?", "Did i set the timer correctly?", in exactly the same way as you observe the rest of reality. Mindfully watch the feelings and thoughts arise and don't get attached to them. Prior to meditating make sure the timer is set correctly so that you know for certain that it will go off. Staying mindful throughout the whole meditation is really the key here. 5) You have to mindfully sit through the boredom and desire to do something else. Label these feelings and thoughts. Do not resist them. Resisting will make it worse. Simply be aware of whatever arises. This is where the real growth occurs, not when it's all easy and nice.

@Pernani I'd say try to get a fairly decent job that pays well and is somewhat enjoyable. You don't want to be doing a dead-end job that you hate doing. Then work on your life purpose and other shit whilst doing that. Unless you're really really clear on your life purpose now then you can't just assume that you'll find your 'one true purpose' and then not have to get a normal job. You may never find a life purpose. It's totally possible to work a job, work towards a life purpose and do spiritual stuff. You just have to be effective and efficient with your time.

@Shroomdoctor As your name suggests, i'd recommend a dose of mushrooms. My last mushroom trip involved around 4 hours of intense emotional purging which I was unable to do in my normal state of consciousness. They broke down the ego enough that the emotions were allowed to run freely. Not saying that it'll be the same for you, as we all know how much psychedelics vary from person to person, but it's worth considering for sure.

Shouldn't the fact that you and so many other guys find it so difficult to completely quit tell you something? It tells you that having a sex drive and wanting to relieve that urge is a natural part of being human. Why are you trying to resist it? It's crazy. Now, i'm not saying that masturbating to porn every single day is what you should be doing. In fact i'd definitely not recommend that, and you should try to break that habit as soon as possible. But masturbation by itself is fine. And like anything in the world, just don't over do it. But if you really want to stop all together, don't call it a nofap challenge. The biggest mistake people make is trying to just go for as long as possible and then bragging about their 'streak'. This won't work for the majority of people. It's just the wrong mentality. The best approach, in my opinion, is a slow gradual decrease. Try going a day here or a day there without masturbating. Don't just go cold turkey. And most importantly, just commit to gradually cutting down for the rest of your life until it gets the point where it healthy. Scrap the silly streak. Make a life long commitment to improvement. Don't say to yourself, "I'm just gonna go without PMO for as long as I possibly can in the hope that eventually i'll no longer want to do it". This won't work. In fact, you're making it harder for yourself by taking this approach, which is what most guys do. As I said, it's better to decrease it gradually and slowly.

@Ross I recommend taking the course, but the important thing to realise is that the course itself will not provide you with your life purpose. That has to come from you after a lot of work and effort. Don't expect to be given the answers in any way. The course is extremely good value for money, but most people will not utilise it to its full potential and it probably won't change their lives in any meaningful way. Thats just the way these things work. People, and myself included, expect instant results handed to them on a plate. The course just gives you lots of opportunities to think for yourself and be creative in different ways. In the meantime, ask yourself this question and write down all the answers that come to your mind: If you had unlimited funds, and could not fail, what would you want to spend the next 20 years doing on a day-to-day basis? Spend atleast 60 minutes on this. Think hard and really imagine yourself in this situation. Discard all of the initial answers as they're often shallow and just automatic responses.

Nearly always vegetable soup for me. It's so easy to make and I make a big batch of it which usually lasts me 4-5 days. Takes me about 30-45 minutes to cook, which I usually do late at night when i'm least productive and mentally sharp (#efficiency). Add in lots of vegetables (my favourites are leeks, broccoli, celery, carrots) and lots of beans, lentils etc. Season well and you're good to go. My basic recipe is: Cook down onions, garlic (don't burn), chopped carrots and then any other veg you want. Throw in a bunch of different spices like cumin, paprika, celery salt, garlic salt, (a little goes a long way, don't over do it), salt and pepper, veg stock, and a load of hot water. Throw in 1 can of chopped tomatoes, stir around and let it cook for 10 minutes or until veg is all cooked. Blend to your desired consistency. Throw in a can or two cans (depending on the amount of other stuff in the soup) of any kind of bean or lentil. Cook for another 5-10 mins.

To ask what psychedelics do is a very broad question. It's hard to generalise the effects of psychedelics, because they differ so broadly from person to person and trip to trip (in a lot of cases). The range of possible effects and 'actions on the mind and ego' is huge. Just go to this page (https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/LSD) and scroll down to 'Subjective Effects' to see the massive list of things that just one psychedelic can produce. I'm not sure how you're planning on simulating the psychedelic experience in meditation. Maybe some serious holotropic breathwork.

Maybe i'm missing your point, but the difference between thinking and being aware of thinking is quite simple and not very hard to understand. Being aware of thinking = thinking, but mindfully observing those thoughts as they arise and pass away. Thinking = thinking and not realising you're thinking, and then often getting lost in those thoughts. I don't understand how you can forget how to be aware of your thoughts. Just sit silently and put your attention on your thoughts as they arise and pass away.

He's not aggressive, he's just playing around. Although I did feel a little sorry for the guy asking the question haha.