Joseph Maynor

It happens to everybody. I had one too that lasted a few days to a week after my first enlightenment re-shuffling. Your sense of who you are is changing, so it is kind of like a death. That's why it is so painful. You are grieving a part of you that is dying. But that part of you was never real, it was only beliefs. So, you will go through an existential crisis, and a lot of weird psychological stuff when this first happens to you. I think I went through the 7 stages of grief. And then I was so angry that I lived a lie for so long. And I was also relieved. And sad, grieving, etc. Then I went through a Zen Devil phase for a couple of weeks afterward, so watch out for that!

@How to be wise Having a large ego is better than having a small ego for ego-transcendence work. This is counter-intuitive. It's almost like the best way to live is to have a large ego but be able to see through it so well that you almost always mitigate unreasonable conduct. Paradoxically you need a large ego to be successful, but that doesn't mean that you have to act on it. That's the key point! Awareness alone is curative. Use the ego to attain your higher virtues and outer-worldy (Yang) ends, but at the same time deepen your connection to Truth such that it pervades your entire experience -- so your prolific results are karmically sound. You do want to fuck the world, but you want to do it nicely. And that puts you on the horns of the paradox -- you both need ego and need to transcend ego to be truly successful in life. A proper balance between Yin (No ego) and Yang (Ego) is needed to harmonize with the Tao. Non-duality includes duality. The Absolute is the perspectiveless perspective. Watch. I learned a lot from the below video on the issue of what Ego-Transcendence really is. "A strong ego can ride above the wave, and actually ride the wave of life. A weak ego gets crushed under the wave of life." Also watch Also watch Also watch. This is a good intro to what Yang is.

@Loreena People who are too against concepts, theories, beliefs, and Philosophy are being dogmatic in their own right. They run the risk of being Stage Blue beings. The true skeptic holds all beliefs loosely and focuses on Eudaimonia. Yes, even non-dual beliefs. Some people don't grasp this yet. Enlightenment is not the main-course, it's an element in a larger system -- the system of your developing awareness and improved actions. So, even non-duality comes full circle back to duality and ego. We transcend the ego mentally but not bodily. And that's as it should be. That's reality. Enlightenment is the perspective that makes self-actualization possible. It's the secret-password for true happiness. But the result, the main-course as it were -- is YOUR improved little egoic life, is it not? That's what we're really doing with all this stuff if we take the rose-colored glasses off and take a sober look at things. I think people really miss the big picture with all this personal development stuff. They get stuck on various ledges up the mountain-side and set up camp and never get to the very tip-top -- which is where you can get a 365 degree view of everything. Enlightenment is an element of personal development, not the other way around! This is one of the most recent epiphanies I've had. So non-duality really does include duality. Thus, conceptual thinking is necessary and good. It just has to be INTERPRETED the right way by a human monkey-mind and held loosely. Guns don't kill people. And neither do concepts. Neither does Philosophy. It's US that is the problem, not concepts, not Philosophy. The problem is in the rigidity that we want to hold concepts, theories, and beliefs. And that's a different issue! A lot of people miss this critical distinction. There is a larger system at work folks -- that system is your improved actual life, not some fantasy enlightened "thought-story" life you might dream about. Even Eckhart Tolle puts his pants on one leg at a time every morning.

@How to be wise I don't think so. What hinders enlightenment is closed mindedness and lack of awareness, not high self esteem.

You need to fight bad illusion with good illusion so concepts are necessary for enlightenment theory and practice. Don't fool yourself. The key is that you have to know when to get out of the theory and set yourself free so you can transcend YOUR ego, which is where the rubber meets the road with enlightenment, not further study. Has anybody become enlightened without concepts? I don't think so. Having a lot of theory will expedite your enlightenment, assuming the theory is good theory. What would otherwise take 50 years may take 5 weeks. So, theory is important. What is important is to not cling to it tightly. You gotta learn how to hold theory and beliefs loosely. That's the ENTIRE problem. It's not theory, it's how we hold the theory that is wrong. We wanna cling too hard to theory. Like a baby clawing for its comforting blanket.

No. Meditation is the gateway to Being. The nap-time for the monkey-mind. The crystal-gaze of the Self upon the barren portals of experience. The surveying of a sliver of God's potential.

@Truth Magnanimous.

@ZenBlue I hear ya. That's what I need to do now too. Get my business running smoother. I'm so glad I have such a strong background in enlightenment now so I can do that without stressing out about it. You can tell Leo was already experienced with enlightenment before he shot his first video. All the early videos are just as much about enlightenment as the later ones. He just got more focused on enlightenment in the later videos. So, yeah I think Leo was into business, but he was doing it all along while living an enlightened life. He didn't really change at all, not from a teacher standpoint. He just got more focused on enlightenment as time went on, but that was presupposed all along it was just not made so explicit in the earlier videos. All of the videos fit together nicely. I watched all Leo's videos 3 times, that's how I know. I'm sure he learned some details, but he knew what he was doing from the giddy-up. That's the way to start a business. He had a lot of knowledge to pass on. A solid value proposition.

Sounds like you have a slight fear of growth. You shouldn't be scared to watch any of Leo's videos. None of them are really more advanced than others. Every element of personal development is necessary.

@Dodo The crazy thing is that this is just happening naturally for me by realizing that all of my beliefs are false. Not a single belief in my mind has anything to do with reality. Once I realize this fully, all my perplexities will fall away. Even all the non-duality theory is false. The only true fact is that thought-stories are not reality. And this is confirmed by direct observation. This doesn't have to be framed as a statement or belief either because it is directly perceived once the nature of thought is inquired a little bit into. Because we cannot see thought, it is a little bit confusing about what is going on with thought. Thought is a little bit slick, but with awareness you can grasp its true nature. The problem with thought is that it makes fantasy appear to be reality.

@Hero in progress I agree with everything except these two: There is no doer the body moves and functions in the world through the intelligence of The Self only. the nature of consciousness is not only formless & infinite but has inherent intelligence. There is no intelligence there. That's a thought-story. It is just Nature playing itself out. Reality has no rhyme or reason. It just is. The Self has no distinction, no intelligence. Intelligence is a human distinction, a monkey-mind projection. The Self is no monkey.

Realize that all your beliefs about reality are false and illusory. Start to inquire into each and every belief you have about what is real. This will lead you to realize that the egoic self and the external world are both illusory. The body-mind is illusory. All of this is thought-story. Though-story is never real. Reality contains thought stories just like a bookstore contains fiction books. But nobody would ever confuse the fiction books for the non-fiction books. The mind has you so hooked into its matrix of thoughts. Enlightenment is finding a loose string and then pulling the old, frayed linen apart by the seams. What you're left with is everything exactly the way it was before, but without the warped paradigm overlaying the Truth. The ego wants you to think that warped paradigm is the true paradigm. That's our problem -- egoic self-deception.

Start to study enlightenment.

You are both and neither and even this sentence has to eat itself.

@Dodo This is so true. Everybody wants to have the last word to win. Need to be right. Need to solve the problem. Need to make the last intelligent point. Need to be the one to put the issue to bed. See? That makes me right. Now my ego gets to feel good for 5 minutes too.

Here's another great video on point. Watch.

@Ramu But even that is a concept. The true skeptic drops even that conception. Or he holds it loosely if he does hold it, not like a fact but more like a useful rule of thumb. This is tricky to do because we want to know, to have a definitive fact, to settle the issue, to be right. But that's another part of the illusion right there. Another piece of the problem.

Not necessarily. If SOUL is a true skeptic, then his claim is not dogmatic but extremely openminded.

Here you go. Leo explains it here: https://www.actualized.org/insights/just-scaffolding

@Anna1 It's so great that we can communicate effectively on here. Language is so ambiguous and it takes a great tight-rope walker to keep meaning in check. There is so much room for projection and argumentation in communication via writing.

@SOUL That only resonates with the monkey-mind perspective.

@Natasha You are the awareness of experience. And the increasing consciousness. You as a process of increasing awareness.

@Natasha When I see the limits of existence when I meditate I smile and think. Wow, it's just this easy! This is all there is? Cool! Nothing to worry about. We all exist in a small, plain, white room -- even if we don't realize it. The space of the soul.

@Anna1 You need to burn-out need to know. That takes as long as it needs to take for each person. Paradoxically, it is by knowing a lot that you come to the conclusion of the limits of knowing. Otherwise you're just a dogmatist, because it is not first-person knowledge for you.

Here's the thing. You need a huge amount of theory to become enlightened. This is the taboo truth that a lot of people do not want to admit. And you know what, let's stop bullshitting ourselves about this. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the end of this stupid denial. Why the hell are we perpetuating some anti-theory perspective on enlightenment? Enlightenment can be explained in a pamphlet. I've seen it done. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jnana_yoga Hare Krishna dancers in Florence. I saw this when I was there. Changed my life. Florence. You're crazy not to go there at least once. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence