Amine

Hi there, I have read @Leo Gura post on his blog talking about the possibility of inducing 5 meo dmt like results by staying in a pitch black dark room for long enough. Has anyone any new information or insight about that? and I'm also kindly requestiong @leo to consider doing the dark room retreat as he can tell us about his experience since he has tried multiple times 5meo Thanks,

I agree with you, and I think that @Leo's intent to talk about islam is related to the fact he's got considerable followers from the middle east and from muslim countries. The issue, in my opinion is, like leo stated, Islam is misunderstood by many people but the true religion called Islam and its sharia is unfortunately the Islam that extremists talk about and the one you hear about in the media. Who would understand Islam better than Mohammed and his friends (sahaba) right? So the religion where Allah is You is no longer “islam”. Despite that, I have not found any spiritual teachings so far In islam (as someone who spent 20 yrs as muslim); Prayers : are about some "physical exercices" with recitation of quran, nothing to do with what meditation is about (even though am a beginner). Besides, I can guarantee that 99% of people who pray do not even stay mindfull while doing it. Not only that, but young people rarely pray nowdays. Practicing Islam is decreasing in the world of today individually and even collectively as many Middle east countries do not apply sharia laws. I think that doing good publicity to islam can be dangerous, as many people who watched the video, will only take the “islam’s jidah is good” and keep their dogmas even more hard. Mysticism in islam can only be found in rare groups such Sufism which is the mystical side of islam that can lead towards enlightenment (it includes retreats, long meditation : zikr, and hardcore praying). However, Suffists are a minority in islam and keep being threatened by the other majority of muslims. In my opinion, the muslim countries today, are realizing that islam of 600AD cannot be applied today, extremism is rather decreasing overall Raising muslim’s awareness would be effective by approaching it from a self help perspective, not a religious perspective as it will create more confusions. Of course, people wouldn’t want to meditate without 72 virgins, however the 72 virgins’s idea made thousands of people killed around the world. And people still do that today unfortunately.

As a muslim born and native arabic speaker, I think that @Leo Gura's perspective is way too superficial and naive and it lacks practical understanding of the muslim culture and islam basics. Leo looks at all religions with the same lenses. First, Leo supposed in the begining of the video that Mohammed was enlightened, a statement that is bold and needs to be explored deeply. A prophet is not by definition an enlightened person, and vise versa. Asking this question objectively doesn't make sense, since what remains of Mohammed is only some of his quotes (Hadith) and his biographies (Sira) which wasn't written untill a hundred years after his death and which can of course be subject to change and corruption by scholars. and which are by the way ego driven and include (racism, sexism, inequality, especially to women, and non muslims, not to forget about apostates) Not only that, but what is in Islam doesn't necessary mean it came from mohammed's experience, it can be either copied from older religion (i.e 5 prayers a day is also in Zoroastrianism, Quran stories come from biblican and jewish references, etc) or other people helping mohammed (Waraka ibn nawfal, a well known scholar of christianity that is claimed to have helped mohammed to write first chapters and many others). Second, regardless of Mohammed's spiritual views, Islam while in arabia 670AD was in no way about spirituality, as Mohammed used to spend most of his time expanding Islam through wars (one war every two months on average) which brought him money through taking fortunes and money of invaded tribes, and making women of these tribes after killing their families, a proprety of muslims (Milk al yamin), which is of course allowed in islam. If you read the hadith and the daily life of Mohammed, you would find him going all night to have sex with his 12 wifes, at 1am (Hadith sahih : which means an approuved quote from mohammed) Third, there is nothing to be fixed in islam, as in it's fundementals, it is a dualistic religion that opresses to anyone who tries or even intents to do otherwise than what is in the Quran and Hadith which includes all punishements of muslims (cutting one's hand if he steals) not to forget about non muslims that either pay taxes or get killed. Leo sees islam from an enlightened perspective, but is it really the intent of Mohammed? I personally don't think that a religion that points towards the truth tells you to kill those who don't agree with you or "beleive in other god", or to marry four wives and have unlimited number of sex slaved that you "gained" from wars.

I have heard @Leo Gura many times in his videos (ex : Overcoming Addictions, understanding neurosis, etc.) talking about pursuing enlightenment as the most direct solution to these issues. Now, I have been doing meditation "do nothing technique" for about 10 weeks and I'm wondering if I'm able to shift to enlightenment work now or later till I reach advanced meditation skills?

@Ether The one who thinks there is in ego, is itself the ego. the ego is not some random thoughts behind the scenes, it is much more personal than that.