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@Paul92 this is fantastic news my friend! No, really. This means you're questioning everything and you're on the path. What you're going through is pretty common; I went through that too and I feel your pain. You're close to flipping all these realizations on their heads (with the proper context), and about to burst into the most wonderful and liberating experience of your life. Hopefully I can try to explain this in a way that makes sense to you now... You're correct that this is potentially dangerous knowledge, because if interpreted from the ego, with your ego still identifying with feelings and emotions and meaning (like you're doing now), then yeah, this shit leads down a dark spiral of Nihilism. You're living proof of that. This is normal, don't be afraid. But try to notice something. Why are you afraid? Why does this feel like the end of the world? Why would you possibly want to commit suicide after reading The Power of Now? Really think about this. When you're in the present moment, do you die? You might be inclined to say yes, but be careful here. WHICH part of you dies? Please don't conceptualize this, you'll have to go into your direct experience. When you've identified the part of you that dies when living through present awareness (because YOU certainly don't), then ask yourself an important question. Is it right that I die when I'm present? When I'm being? Isn't that the opposite of what it should be? You've been identifying with a toxic illusion your whole life. You still do. That illusion is not you. This illusion is precisely illuminated as an illusion by the fact it ceases to exist in the light of being. Try to understand the gravity of this. You're insisting on answering to an illusory being whose sole purpose is to trap you in psychological time to control you. Now all of this should start making sense. One of the tricks your ego uses to control you is to make you believe in absolute meaning. When that gets stripped away, your ego will rightfully feel like it's dying, and will go into overdrive to make excuses and rationalize. Understand that ALL meaning ever was, was a conceptualizion of your own mind. It never existed out there. Nothing has "changed" with this new knowledge, you're only awakening to what has always been the case. Look back on all the times you used your sense of meaning in your life. If you are truly honest with yourself, you'll start to see that it was used as an enslavement tool more often than not. Love existed prior to meaning, and never required such a thing. You've never required meaning to be happy. On the other hand, you required a lot of artificial meaning to get stressed out and anxious. Another trick your mind plays on you is the "logical rationalization" that if none of this is "real" then the only thing to do is to stop doing anything. Classic! But think about this: picture someone just becoming lucid in a dream... Why is everyone's first instinct to fly, along with a whole slew of crazy things? If none of it "mattered" then why doesn't everyone who lucid dreams immediately frown and wake up, saying, "oof glad that's over, that could have been a huge waste?" What is "real?" How do you define "real?" Why would you get so protective of this notion of real, like your very life depended on it? Oh yes, because the existence of your parasitic, illusory self hinges on you believing that's the real you! Your direct experience, your consciousness, your love, your happiness, your purpose, and your friends and family do not hinge on the notion of real. The only thing that's threatened by it is the thing that created the illusion of real in the first place. Be aware of whose life is really on the line here.

Hi everyone, I've recently read the Power of Now and been watching numerous ET videos on YouTube. I have to say, I am now in a worse position that I have ever been in my entire life. To the point where I am seriously considering the prospect of suicide or admitting myself to a psychiatric hospital if I can. I just want to say a few things about ET first. I don't want to die, but I don't want to be thoughtless (which you will say is my ego). I am not anti Tolle as a person. I don't think he's someone who is doing it all for the money. I don't think he is trying to deceive people. I think he is genuine enough. But I also think what he says can be very, very dangerous. I started reading the PON as I thought it would be a book about how to be a better person. My dad had told me that it had helped him to stop ruminating so much about different things, something with which I've struggled with from time to time. Indeed, I used the approach from him explaining it to me a few times when I was in stressful situations and it helped calm me down. Out of curiosity, I thought I'd get stuck in to the read of what Tolle teaches. The dissolution of the ego. Or more plainly, the dissolution of the thinking part of our brains. People can say what they like here, about how Tolle words what he is teaching in his books. However, ultimately, what he is teaching is a form of nihilism. It really is. And what's more, he is right. Essentially, nothing matters. Suffering and pain aren't real emotions. That is what he is saying. If someone is done a perceived injustice (that we have socially constructed as an injustice), such as someone has physically harmed them, or their families, they have no reason to feel aggrieved or even have a negative emotion. If someone comes into my house now and chops my arms and legs off, Tolle would say accept it, live in the now and you won't suffer. If I suffer, it is my ego. Thinking logically, this is true. I would have a choice whether to suffer. What does it matter if I have arms or legs? Emotions are not real. Nothing is real. Everything is a thought, which isn't a thing. Our thoughts are conditioned because of hundreds of years worth of social constructs. Essentially, anything goes. We needn't feel bad for any behaviour, because whatever we do, essentially is neither right or wrong. There is no adjudicator. Even in the sense that you think you love someone. You don't. How mind blowing is that? I saw a video with Tolle (before he was with Kim), and he said that relationships should be avoided. They are social constructs, again. Love, as much as suffering and pain, isn't real. I thought I loved a girl. I would have jumped in front of a gun for her. But love isn't real. You don't love anyone. Because if you are in the now, which is your true self, you have no thoughts. To love something, you need to have thoughts. It cannot work. Therefore, love is based on a thought, that essentially is ego, which is not you. Nothing matters. Everything is a construct. Tolle says he enjoys spending time in nature, which he sees as beautiful. But isn't the idea of nature being beautiful a social construct too? Who says it is? Why do we think anything is interesting or beautiful? That is a thought, which isn't you. Why do you get out of bed and go to work? Why do you study? Why do you watch TV? Why do you socialise, when your friends are doubtlessly ran by their egos, which isn't them? As such, your friends are illusions. They are not real. Nothing is real, everything is an illusion. This is EXACTLY what Tolle is getting at but he might not have worded it as such. Yes, I could live in the 'now'. But how do I function if I have no thoughts? I would urinate and defecate in this exact spot which I am laid. How do I chose what to eat with no thoughts? Tolle's answer for everything is to be in the now. The now cannot be bettered. Nothing compares to the bliss of the now, because if you are not thinking. Of course the now will be a type of bliss, as there are no thoughts. I saw him on Oprah's show on YouTube and they was talking about people grieving. He didn't word it as such, but what he was saying was people are grieving over nothing and they choose to suffering. Do not grieve over your loved ones when they pass, because they, for one thing, they are illusions, two you cannot love them, and three there's nothing you can do to bring them back. It makes absolute sense. So cutting to the chase, why am I here when I could accept the now and none of this would matter? I should be content with just existing. Because I can't yet cease thinking entirely. And more specifically, I don't know if I want to (you will say, ah this is your ego). So I can't win. I am in a state of perpetual suffering as a result. Trying to achieve something that ultimately, you can't and trying to avoid going back to a world of illusions that I now find incredibly scary. My friends are not real, the love I feel for people is not real, everything is an illusion. And I know every single one of you Tolle fans on here know that I am speaking the truth. Tolle cannot write it like this in his books, as it would never be published. My world has come crashing down. I LOVED my life. I was content. I FELT things. Happiness, sadness, euphoria, excitement, nervousness, heartache. But these emotions are just illusions, mere thoughts that aren't real. I now have no desire to anything. See friends? No, they're illusions. See family? No, they're illusions. Go to work? No what's the point, it's an illusion and creates a false identity. If you are a Tolle follower, why do you do anything? The last vestiges of my thinking mind realise that I have two basic functions. To survive and to procreate. These are biologically preprogrammed. These are the only things that are 'real' to me. So, while I want to die (this is a genuine thought, as nothing matters. Indeed, having spoken to a number of enlightened folk online over the past few days, they have agreed that it doesn't matter if I live or die. If I want to die, then die. My family and friends will suffer, but as we know, that suffering isn't really who they are. The real 'them' would not care, as those emotions are born out of the ego). What do I do? I am stuck. I anticipate many of you will just say accept and submit to the now. My point is, I don't see how this truth (it is the truth, you can deny it as much as you like, but this absolutely what Tolle and others with similar messages are getting at in a round about way). can lead anyone to a state of happiness of euphoria, as these aren't real either. Ulimately, a tiny bit of my disgusting egoic brain tells me that perhaps it is better to leave people in their unconscious lives of ignorance. It is all an illusion, sure. But they don't know that. It's that or nothingness. How can't this truth, ultimately, lead to people just dying? And again, what would that matter? It wouldn't.

The choosing between Suicide and no Suicide seems simply reactionary. Mind has concluded upon some construction of mind and acts on that image based on the minds preference(the past). Its essentially all positive/negative resistance of desire. This desire limits itself by jumping from one contradiction to another, one condition to another, one conflict to another.

Having a good time, enjoying my life, dont really see how suicide would benefit me. I'm excited about my future, however irrelevant it may be

Anna Akana is an entertaining and vulnerable Stage Green youtuber. She talks about compassion, empathy, vulnerability and other feminine values, mental health, depression, anxiety, suicide, LGBT, feminist stuff like rape culture, etc. Her videos are well made and easy to digest for Orange people. I consider most of her videos to be "healthy Green".

Sorry for the long post, a part of me needs to just get this out. There is a question, but I would be doing it an injustice without the backstory. Maybe someone can offer some insight or help as I'm not sure I can move through this one alone. After being emotionally hurt quite badly in my past I literally closed myself off from love, for perhaps the last 12-18 months. I could not let love come from an intimate relationship, let alone the entirety of existence. After some psychedelic trips I became aware of this, and of the importance of developing more love in my life. I KNEW that a part of this for me had to be finding a loving partner. I decided 2019 would be my year of love. Well, I met this beautiful girl, who shares many of my interests mid-December. We have been deep and open with each other. We had planned a proper date on the 3rd (today) and I had been looking forward to this for over a week. Yesterday I sent her a message as a reminder over Facebook. When I check back a few hours later her account is blocked, she has blocked me. I almost immediately fall into a deep depression like I never have before. That night I dream about her pushing me away without explanation, I wake up in a state of absolute panic. At 2am she messages me, she had completely forgotten about the date. This marks the 3rd time this has happened to me, others leaving me to sit alone waiting for them. But she never blocked me, it was just a mental fiction I had created. She was experiencing some personal shit in her own life that was eating her away and had to temporarily deactivate her account. We had a really beautiful conversation, though it didn't look like the date was going ahead. I asked her to message me when she wakes up, she doesn't. Again this spirals me into a depression and all my baggage starts to come up. Until she messages me (as I'm writing this). I have so much resistance to letting go of these mental stories in this one part of my life. There are so many other areas where I can just observe without reacting, let it come and go. But this has become a sticking point for me. It's like a part of me wants to suffer in romantic relationships of any kind, this pattern has expressed itself throughout my life since I was 5 years old. I push people away, and then when there is someone that I want to get close to they push me away. Within 3 days of 2019, my "Year of Love", for the first time maybe ever I contemplated the merits of suicide. I have slept most of the day or just laid on the floor. It breaks my heart. It's like I've become bipolar. My diet is solid, exercise, nature, meditation. Is this just a spiritual purging of past emotions that need to be expressed as I'm letting it. Or am I indulging in mental stories around the reality which is just causing more suffering on my part. I guess the obvious solution is just meditate more and become detached, but that almost doesn't feel right. Is my ego just deluding me? I almost knew I was opening up myself to all this pain when I decided to let love back in. But it's so much harder to bear that I thought, any help is appreciated.

you guys need to relax...he missed videos few times in the past and there was always this type of thread opened. "Omg has Leo died..why is there no video"? One time somebody posted an article of guy dying in motorcycle crash in Vegas and all of a sudden this was Leo committing suicide on psychadelics

I dont have any desire to grow anymore, i do that out of necessity. I dont have dreams i want to achieve. i just want to not be disturbed. sometimes i feel like i just want to stop existing (I would never consider suicide, dont worry about me) i dont want to initiate anything, i dont want to initiate conversations with people, im ok by myself, being proactive takes too much energy, i dont want to do that. i dont think im depressed, im not sad or anything either. im actually fine. im just tired, just want to do nothing. and its not that i need a break, ive had a lot of vacations, i have a scheduled relaxation time in the day, im not stressed too much. i dont know why i dont want to do anything. any ideas?

Why did she commit suicide?

Hahaha damn, collective cult suicide is coming

Is as stupid as a waste of time and suicide is not a virtue, is not true courage. What I see on these monks is just cultural harakiri mentality, nothing much, another form of belief that is virtuous in their society. So don't confuse an enlightened master with an ascetic that does not feel anymore and castrated himself.

So it’s the planning ahead aspect... Contemplate what planning actually is then. It’s not necessarily living as though there is a future. It could also be processing a possibility, one possibility out of infinity. Afterall, life/form is impermanent. Thinking about the future is really just the conceptualization of form that hasn’t actually manifested outside of the mind. “Planning” is like witnessing just another form of reality within the domain of mind and need not have anything to do with seperating from now. In fact, the concept of future is literally only available right now. The future does not exist because all is happening now but form is impermanent and may take an infinite number of forms. “Planning” too is one such form reality can take but it happens now. So basically, I disagree that planning necessarily means you are living in the illusion of a future. You have to first understand the existential nature of “planning” and then the illusion will begin to crack. Planning is witnessing potential form manifest inside of the mind RIGHT NOW. It is egoic, but all acts of survival and really any action at all is egoic. But watching the ego unfold and survive does not necessarily mean one is caught in the illusion of a seperate self just as planning does not necessarily mean one is caught in the illusion of time. This magy be difficult to understand but maybe try. Life purpose and enlightenment dont contradict anymore than actively surviving as a body/not committing suicide and enlightenment. Nor does planning. Enligtenment is understanding the absolute nature of what a “plan” is or what the “future” is or what “survival” is. Just because these concepts play out, it does not mean one is caught in their illusory nature. Not really how else to describe it. Just watch the act of planning, the act of life purpose, the act of survival from a metta perspective. Any form could potentiate into direct experience and none of it need to seperate one from the truth.

Alright. Imagine that voice/force directing someone towards a life purpose and enlightenment both. It's not an egoic thing, it's an effortlessly flowing through life without resistance thing, just as it takes zero effort to not commit suicide.

Wait until you watch one of your parents get sick and slowly die and then come tell me reality is Heaven. No, actually reality is a mixture of Heaven and Hell and everything in between. That’s where we got those concepts from to begin with — from reality. We know certain times in reality can be Hell. Talk to a war veteran and ask them if reality is Heaven. Talk to somebody whose 24 year old son just committed suicide whether reality is Heaven.

It hasn’t come to me to commit suicide. I follow the Voice within myself without resistance.

@How to be wise a pretty direct question here, but oh well - what’s stopping you from committing suicide? I hope this isn’t taken to be offensive or anything; it’s a very genuine question.

The idea that suicide is logical has a massive flaw. it relies on the assumption that after death is nothing. The truth is, we have no idea what happens to our consciousness after death. we may have to relive the last day of our suffering over and over like groundhog day. we may be put in a situation that is even worse. we just don't know. There is also the idea that we CAN suicide. This is an issue because people have been shot in the head and survived. people have fallen from great heights and survived. people have survived all manner of things and the suffering that comes afterwards can be many times worse than the suffering of a person who feels suicidal. This is how I overcame my suicidal ideations; by realising that it is not under my control.

Interesting idea about the suicide containers. If I had an advanced terminal condition of some kind with only a few months to live and a likelyhood of a lot of physical pain. Considering also my family and sparing them the trauma of dealing with my slow painful death. In some instances, to me the idea has merit. If it's at the point where I really feel a fast decline occurring. We should have a right to sovereignty over our bodies. Maybe have my rotting corpse mix with some kind of compound where by just throwing in some tomato seeds in a few months,,, little Eucharist gardens develop,,,, Commune with cousin Joe after death,,,, Someone mentioned not editing their posts. That's a good one. Tough. That was a part of the deal in my last two Gurdjieff group online endeavors. Good luck Leonid! Thanks for sharing and trusting us.

Some buddhist monks calmly burn themselves alive to protest bad government policies. In other words, they calmly commit suicide in public spaces. 99.999% of people would dance crazily if they are being burned alive. Is that what enlightened people are capable of? Awesome. I think they would make excellent warriors. They are warrior sages because they are sages and they are fit to be warriors. I want to become a warrior sage for my life purpose, too.

Yeah you're right, but these suicides were often done in protest of policies at the time, government stuff etc and these monks just truly believed that their suicide would cause the most change and end the most suffering. So despite being in a blissful state, they threw it all away for others. It's kind of a beautiful tragedy, the person enjoying their life the most sacraficing it for people who arent enjoying it. Lmfao

Why would they commit suicide? Enlightenment doesn't equal suicide.

Thank you, @Nahm! Awesome post by the way! Just to make it clear, you mean that, instead of taking many things to improve (like the 5 I mentioned), I should just pick one? I'm thinking about it and maybe it's a good idea to challenge myself for 21 days to create a unique habit and then start another. Baby-steps. The post was really awesome! Thank you, @Dan Arnautu! My tears are not of excitement and joy, but I love releasing them. It's being a bit difficult to focus on presence while on neuroleptics, but I'm handling it. Thank you for your inspiring post, @rabbitat! I really appreaciate it :). Thank you, @Hellspeed! That's the whole point of my thread, that if I really need a desperation point to start evolving. I think my desperation point started when I was hospitalized and forced medications. Then after the hospitalization, I gained some weight, had back injuries and lost my best friend (suicide). Maybe those situations weren't challenging enough...

Do you mean you have watched some monks commit suicide?

is that picture real? Suicide by fire? I don't think enlightenment can help you remain calm while being burned alive. You're going to feel the burn.

@BjarkeT I think you're missing the point. The reason I made the manifesto is so we should avoid disaster. Scarcity means a scarcity of resources spiritual and physical so if you really embraced pain why don't you right now give everything you own to charity and start from scratch. It'll be a painful journey to do something like that and outside of your comfort zone. There's a difference between going outside of your comfort zone and embracing pain which I do agree with you it helps. What I'm talking about here is true suffering that leads nations on the brink of war and people on the brink of suicide. I think if we avoided this we'd be living in a better world. I don't know what your history is yet I saw when someone asked if working 24/7 is manageable and you said that you doubt it and your body needs sleep. In a world of scarcity let's say if we got rid of all labor laws and a person had to work 24/7 and sleep was considered a luxury we'd all be suffering for it for no reason. This scenario would usually happen in a scarcity world as opposed to an abundance world. If pain is your thing in an abundance world you'd have the chance to buy a ticket to go climb mount Everest that would most likely push you out of your comfort zone and grow you. In a scarcity world just to survive if you needed to be a wage slave it wouldn't exactly be painful it would just be boring and mind numbing yet if you didn't do this job you'd run out of money and your survival needs. Do you understand it's not about pain and pleasure it's about creating a sustainable system that sustains physical and spiritual growth. It's about not being a mindless cog in a heartless machine.