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First of all, thank you all for posting your suggestions, especially @pixelwave for revive this topic, i only saw it now. Recently i took a bite of the bullet as Leo always says and went deeper on my detoxification path, i am eating mostly fruits, juices, herbs and doing some fasting when i can. As result, my health greatly improved, my mind is way sharper and focused, almost no brain fog (which i had for years, especially after every meal, no matter how "healthy" it seems to be) and it is improving each day. I noticed that a fruitarian diet accelerated my "spiritual progress" many folds, especially when coupled with hatha yoga, seems to me that my body is always doing a spiritual, emotional and physical detox since it is all connected. I am shocked (in a positive way) with my progress in little time and only can imagine what kinds of benefits i will reap if i continue with this lifestyle throughout years. I also had a realization that i need to go back to concentration based meditation to cultivate my focus/concentration. Man, thank you for your post, i tried kriya yoga before (with the book in your book list) but i found it stirred up too much energy and emotions in my body at the time making me really anxious, angry, impatient etc. My kundalini is already awakened so, at the time, i was having lots of trouble with if (especially hard to ground myself) so i gave up. Recently i started practicing hatha yoga and i am simply LOVING IT, seriously, turned out i really needed to include my body into this equation and hatha yoga did it perfectly. But when you recommended i felt an intuition that it is time to try it again, i saw the mega-thread and bought the other book recommended in there by SantanaGamana i am excited to apply it About neurofeedback: i have never looked into it and i found it promising! With a little research, i found a place in my city (i live in Brazil) and i plan to invest in it in the future (i don't have money for it yet), it seems to have great potential, especially on the long run. Thank you, again, for your suggestions, both have so much potential, i am excited to try them

@Shin peacful awakening? Pls there is no such things only really rare cases before you get awakened you will wish to kill yourself and feel like horseshit..dont seek that it will come...

- I don't agree, I'm logical, I hate fallacy, So I focus on the 'content' not a sayer (and leo's content is mostly legit, except about science(Math/Quantum/Physics)) - But I'm skeptical person, I don't take thing for only one side before fully get into it.... - https://www.quora.com/Is-Leo-Gura’s-Actualized-org-a-scam / https://www.reddit.com/r/awakened/comments/93yzuj/be_wary_of_actualizedorg/ - There's a lot (some still reasonal) negativity on Leo Thoughts?

@Joseph Maynor many people awakened to awareness, its not really something new in this forum. if you think thats that for enlightenment work then you havent spent much time in your nondual state, life will trigger your attachments and youll see what i mean by this process of letting go either way. your system has a memory of fear mechanisms, regardless if you awakened or not, it takes time for it to fully dissolve, even after awakening.

@Joseph Maynor Lol, sure mate. i feel like youre not acknoledging that enlightenment isnt over for you yet, you just awkaened, which many did in this forum including me since 4 years. the process happens regardless if youre awakened or not, maybe youll reach full dissolution or maybe not, regardless, its still happening. nonduality isnt truly nondual until all fear mechanisms are gone and the delusional veils of the subconcious mind are gone. you can still abide in awareness and see this process, no need to avoid it. avoiding what u fear is.. delusional and unenlightened by definition. and that is my whole point, awakening is not the end, a human has memory of many fear mechanisms that are slowly getting proccessed and let go of after awakening.

@Joseph Maynor an awakened person has an ego, but a person who is in a complete state of nonduality (cleared all subconscious fear mechanisms through the process tha takes place after awakening, fear is the building blocks of your ego) has no ego. not many are in a complete state of nonduality, the buddha was though.

@Aquarius an enlightened person does NOT have an ego. an awakened person does still, but after the process of unentaglement you shall be an embodiement of the absolute. an awakened person still has veils of delusion in the subconscious that cloud from seeing reality as it is, such as the multitiude of fear mechanisms. Borderline personality disorder. and whats the point of saying "its just a label" do you think i dont know that? acknowledging whats observed is not something wrong. and also, borderline personality disorder still has many fear mechanisms in it, which isnt synonmous with enlightenment, you can look at positives and negatives sure which is cool, but concerning enlightenment, you cant be borderline and enlightened, not one bit.

there is a purging process takes place, if its not taking place for you and you have awakened to nonduality, then you are running away from something either concsciously or subconciously or using concepts and spiritual experiences to escape

@now is forever do you really think youre in a complete nondual state just because you awakened to awareness? awakening is synonomus with being truthful and acknowledging whats occuring in your experience (the process of untanglement), because disacknowledgement comes from denial which comes from fear, which is ultimately, delusional.

@Leo Gura ive used psychedelics and benefited greatly from them, ive awoken to nonduality because of these substances and so i show my gratitude for that. However, many people including some gurus think that awakening and full enlightenment are synonomus with each other, when that couldnt be farther from the truth. Your limbic system has to catch up to the awakening by the slow process of dissolving subconcious fear mechanisms and attahcments running away from said fear mechanisms. Why i say at a certain point psychedelics are risky bussiness for a persons spiritual path is because the mere fact that the person is going through the process of dissolving attachments, goes against what many people do which is the subconcious chase of nondual experiences through psychedelics. now there isnt anything wrong with that for seeking purposes, but once awakened and you stabilize for a while psychedelics become more pointless ime and other peoples experience that ive talked to. energetic amplifiers have so much benefit im not denying that, but we are humans and we have egoic blindspots, and giving those blindspots an energetic amplifier will only make your process to enlightenment more rocky or more likely too. you can still use it as a tool sure, but based on what ive said i think its a flawed tool at a certain point, and there are more conductive ways of going through your spiritual process.

all that you described is awakening, NOT enlightenment. Enlightenment is a very real thing. enlightenment is when your limbic sytem catches up with the awakening and clears all subconcious fears and the attachments that try running away from. many people that just awoke to nonduality think that thats it, but they couldnt be farther from the truth, their reality will start to crumble because all their egoic paradigms will slowly be released, which can hurt. since fear is not synonomous with enlightenment, dont convince yourself your enlightened when youre not, youre just awakened to nonduality, there millions that are, but very few that are fully enlightened.

@Nahm awakening to nonduality is one thing, ive been in nonduality for 4 years without psychs (though awakened by psychs). and the process that your limbic system undergoes after the awakening is a whole nother thing. this is what seperates a zen master and a random dude on a forum who just convinces himself that he has no fear anymore because he just awoke to nonduality. one is humble enough to realize that his subconcious mind is going through a process of cleansing fear mechanisms, the other wants to hold on to the truth of nonduality and not look at the reality of the process.

during the early stages of awakening the ego can misinterpret nonduality and use it as an escape or be lazy or whatever subconcious egoic dream u have, due to lack of depth in the nondual experience itself. once awakened to nonduality, your limbic system goes through a process of uncontraction, and this process can be disrorienting because your ego is basically in a triggered-release cycle until all fear mechanisms and the attachments that resist and run away from those fears are completely absent from ur system, once thats happened, you are considered to be fully enlightened. i would say try reflecting on what you are trying to run away from, and then once that fear is exposed, then can clearly see its delusional (because you awoke to nonduality), dont try to escape or do anything though, just recognize the unreality of these fears and attachments. your energetic system will purge it out when its due. I suggest reading or watching sheng yen's videos on youtube, he has helpful videos concerning this process.

@Salvijus Like I said, psychedelics can awaken a person to nonduality, but awakening to nonduality is not full enlightenment. your energetic system which has a memory of fear mechanisms and attachments has to catch up to the awakening. only then can that be full enlightement. because how can you be truly nondual when fear mechanisms are still in your subconcious mind? a cleansing process of your limbic system has to take place for full enlightenment. Psychedelics, being energetic amplifiers by their nature, amplify your consciousness which can lead to nondual awakening and also other things such as dealing with trauma and having new perspectives, but they also amplify your emotional bubbles ALOT, and humans by nature have egoic blindspots, especially during psychedelic experiences because everything is just amplified to a ridiculous degree. All emotion and their thought patterns are based off of fear mechanisms in your subconious mind. when you awaken to nonduality, you realize fear is delusion, thus, the process of uncontracting your limbic system of fear mechanisms and the attachments that resist them, start to take place. Also, you shouldnt take any Guru's word just because he says hes enlightened. many gurus awoke to nonduality and stabilized for many years but they dont admit that they arent fully enlightened either, i mean, you can clearly see that sadghuru still plays egoic games such as arrogance and also you can see anxiety in him in some interviews, this does not indicate a fully enlightened man, although he is in a very deep nondual state i have to say, its just that he hasnt dealt with alot of his issues and him being a guru and being attached to that identity kind of stops him from seeing his issues. I have been in nonduality for 4 years, enlightenment is not instatenous, awakening is however. the veils that cover reality slowly uncover from your subconcious once awakened, only when they are fully gone can you consider yourself fully enlightened.

@Shakazulu i feel you. but a word of advice is to read up on the noble 8 fold path by the buddha. it used to seem like total bullshit and just running around to me when i first awoke, but i realized that its a pretty good system for having balance during this process of uncontraction. cuz this process can be pretty disorienting alot of the time due to the nature that we are so used to egoic consciousness and the mere fact that uncontraction means that we are gonna be feeling pain, alot. because attachment is pain, and when u release it its like you're releasing a thorn from your body, it will hurt, but progressively you will be so beat down that all of that stuff is gonna be gone, its like when a person goes through war, he has more resilience towards the pain and suffering of war, with enlightenment the process will eliminate every fear though, and even normal people are going through this process aswell but without their conscious awareness (and usually slower than people awakened to nonduality), life beats down our attachments again and again until we surrender the fight, and running away from fear.

yup, many dont like reflecting on themselves because it attacks the subconcious fears that the ego is trying to run away from, the game it likes to play of sadness and all the other slew of the human emotional system. you gotta deal with your man tho, he doesnt go away that easily, once awakened its only the mere start. a process of uncontracting from the delusional fears and the things u cling onto which protect you from those fears, starts to take place.

@TheAvatarState I highly doubt it tbh. just the mere fact that we are humans and we have egoic blindspots is enough reason to be very careful with believing that psychs are perfect, because even though people dont really think that, i think many subconciously do. Like i said they have many benefits and they benefited me aswell, but at a certain point energetic amplifiers are not congruent to enlightenment, it just doesnt make any sense to me at my point in the path. anything that makes your emotional bubbles bigger is not enlightenment, enlightenment is the clearing of emotional bubbles, not just awakening to nonduality, awakening to nonduality is the start. but sadly, since many have these fancy nondual experiences on psychs, they think its enlightenment. if you think it takes you straight to enlightenment then are u saying you are stabilized in enlightenment or just with the psych experience? cuz if its just an experience of enlightenment then that doesnt do anything benefecial for me, i already awakened to nonduality, but my system is undergoing systemic changes which is clearing energetic contractions, and giving my system a psychedelic which amplifies bubble contractions is just a bad idea at my point, so this is why im saying psychedelics at a certain point would blunt your progress. has alotta benefits for people starting out for sure but people whove been stabilized in nonduality long enough i think can relate to what i am saying.

All is One and One is all. Absolutely. All is love and love is all, indeed. But. Does knowing this put anything to an end? Does one stop infinity from expressing itself eternally? No can do. Obviously. Impossible. Delusional. Imaginary. If you're on this path with an intention to escape or end anything at all; you're in for a rude awakening. There is no escaping, no avoiding, no denying. That is not your highest priority. Otherwise none of this would be here right now, happening effortlessly. You could merge with infinite nothingness and/or fall asleep for another eternity, yes. You could even deconstruct this dream and enter another one, as well... But why, really? It does not matter where are you if you are awake. Nor does it matter what form you are expressing and experiencing yourself through. That is the ultimate beauty of existence. Of true, authentic awakening. Of being. Knowing you could do whatever the heck you want, even completely self-destruct; but still choose to be right here, right now; doing exactly what you are doing. That is the definition of willpower and the driving force. It is also the definition of absolute freedom. That's the force that moves mountains and gives birth to planets and stars. That is the force of creation. Freedom is right in front of your face. Don't search for it elsewhere. If baby Jesus was to knock on your door, holding a billion dollar check in his hands; you'd think baby Jesus wants to fuck you over in some malicious way. You'd think he has some kind of a nasty, hidden intention. Why else would he want to give you a billion dollar check? Who does that, ever?! It is impossible. It must be a trap. Baby Jesus only wants to fool you. So that he could throw you in hell later; to burn for all eternity. Right? How dare he think you were ever going to fall for that? Does he think you are stupid? That is exactly what you are doing with yourself. You want to give yourself the absolute freedom and unconditional love you deep down know you truly deserve; but you think you will somehow be fooled. Tricked. Fucked over. By whom ??!! By you? By infinity? By love? You cannot fuck yourself over more than you have been doing it so far. It is the definition of fucking yourself over and keeping yourself as a hostage. As a slave. Playing victim forever. Instead of playing creator. Instead of L I V I N G. Being. Creating. Expressing. Exploring. Loving. Sharing. Naturally, effortlessly and freely. It is the reason why you are awake. To experience yourself consciously. To know yourself while you are yourself. To recognize your infinitude. To play with yourself. To make love to yourself eternally. In infinite ways. Through infinite forms and shapes. FREEDOM IS YOUR BIRTHRIGHT. How could you not be free? You are formless. Have no location. No attributes. Cannot be pointed to, ever, by no one. You are pure and infinite potential. You are all there is. You cannot possibly be anything else but absolutely free. You are love. You are unity. There is nothing outside of you; there is everything within you. And so is absolute freedom. You can choose to experience it. Give yourself the permission. Use your freedom of choice. Freedom of expression. Freedom to love. Actualization is a never ending process. Do not look at it as a destination or a goal. Enjoy the ride. Keep expanding; look back only with a smile on your face. Again; if you're in this to end anything; you're not choosing the right lenses to look at existence. That is; if you want to experience freedom and life in general. The process of actualization is incredibly fun. Thrilling. Unique to all individuals. It is one of the most beautiful experiences life offers you. Do not be afraid to bite in that juicy fruit. That is precisely why it exists. You deserve to enjoy the gifts of existence. Stop demonizing your own, true, authentic desires to experience the beauties and the pleasures of life. Nothing wrong with those. Nothing wrong with anything at all, ever in existence. Wrong does not exist. Only pure infinite perfection and love. Isn't it wonderful to observe a project as it is becoming actualized? As it is reaching it's highest form of expression? Isn't it beautiful to recognize your reflection in your expression; in your project? Isn't that whole process the most fulfilling thing in existence? Yes it is. You know you love what you see. Don't be afraid to declare it loudly and proudly, for all to hear. Love is not ashamed of itself. Nor is it afraid of itself. Do not view actualization as an end. There are no ends. There are perfect expressions. And an infinite amount of them. Once you've finished one project and marveled at it's beauty for a while; guess what? You start a new one. You move on with expressing your infinitude. You keep on doing what you love with burning passion. There are no ends. Only progress. Constant upgrades. Eternal expansion. Infinite expressions and perceptions of those. Consciousness. There are no destinations. There are stations. There are stages, processes of evolution; of awakening. And they never truly end. They express themselves, for themselves; eternally. Your life is a project, too. So is your character. Your imaginary ego. Your goals and visions. All a part of project Y O U. And that is an expression. Each expression can be actualized; crystallized. But nothing really ends, ever. Nothing has never even begun. Enjoy the process. Drop the need for destinations. Drop the need for safety nets. Just let go. Travel at the speed of light. Dive in deep. Make love, create, expand; forever. Do that for the sake of doing just that. For nothing, for nobody. Free yourself from all chains. The last thing that grows out on a fruit tree ... is the fruit itself. Patience. Steadiness. Dedication. Integration. Will; which is free and there for you to use it. All of these are important when it comes to actualization. And all of them are within you; waiting to be recognized and used, right here, right now. All you have to do is recognize and align. You have the power. Don't use it for what you do not desire to experience. Align it with your highest intention. Everything will run smoothly. All the knowledge you gained, the insights you had, the perspectives through which you were gazing at the Truth, the realizations you had, the miracles you witnessed... All of those have been preparing you for this one precise moment. Right now. For LIFE. For awakened being. That is why life exists. That is why you exist as an inseparable part of it. Integration is a process, as well. A part of the ongoing actualization. It is a necessary piece of the puzzle. Without integration; none of your insights matter. Nor does your knowledge; hidden from all eyes. Nor do the high perspectives you look through at the the world. All of those are meant to be shared with your heart wide open. Once all of that is integrated and embodied naturally and effortlessly; without a need for a single thought; the expression is actualized. It is crystallized. It is real. Authentic. Actual. Eternal. And it is also the definition of pure perfection and beauty. Enjoy the process of growth. Admire the expression that is coming to life right before your eyes. Love your every move. That is ultimate freedom. That is what living a fulfilling, loving, enlightening life really is. Give freedom to yourself. No one else will. Love.

I think Leo's answer is correct. I've listened to hours of Tolle, read all his books and he has said similar things multiple times and never refers to spiritually awakened people abusing drugs but rather the general population. However, I also wonder about how Alan Watts drank himself to death. Most of us can only be awake in the moment, permanent awakening is after all only a concept of the mind and awakening in its essence is not of the mind so the two cannot meet. You can definitely be both awakened and addicted. If you are the universe and the universe contains addicted people, you're also addicted yourself.

@traveler Maybe he means people who has started to awaken but are not "fully" awakened yet. I got very sensitive to peoples energies at first. I got very emotional and it was just a tough time to deal with people in general. I wouldn't be surprised if people that is dealing with the same thing might use alcohol or other drugs to dampen the senses.

@traveler No, because I'm not enlightened. But I can suspect that because the person the person needs some personal work to do. Enlightenment is just knowing what you are, absolutely. It seems that people that are enlightened suffer less, so taking drugs might be an uncommon phenomenon for awakened people. Anyways, Osho was addicted, Nisargadatta was a smoker, Alan Watts was an alcoholic.

Attempt at a Crushed Analysis in reclaiming our 'Red' energy. Awakened Conscience is not the same as Acquired Conscience with its ideas of morality which changes from culture to culture. We need all our energy for doing Inquiry. This means becoming Boss/manager of our sex energy. A sign that your not boss is if you feel shame connected with any part of your sex life. Which is a sign of active super ego. Super ego is directly in the way for nearly everyone in reaching and hearing the voice of Conscience, ironically. Super ego is the internal critical voice of our caregivers, usually one parent,, more than another. Religious upbringing with a lot of shame really adds to this conditioning in us in a way that's difficult to get free of as adults. Overcoming super ego involves processing and integrating any shadow in our sex life responsible for shame. Overcoming super ego means befriending our Parents at a higher level than the permanent part time child who was still under the control of the super ego. An enormous amount of vital energy and attention is then reclaimed. This is often times considered one of the first things to go after in Inquiry and work on self. How do we reach Awakened Conscience? By processing repressed negativity AND integration of shadow in becoming shameless boss/manager of one's sex energy, as a starter. Any traumas or humiliations need to have observational light put on them and eventually sorted out. Only for yourself. A part of this process is you decide what's right for you with your feelings, and not with your inner critic. Our heart helps us connect with the intelligence of Conscience when we become completely sincere and curious. We all have repressed negativity. We can do pretty good while sitting in a peaceful environment but if someone hits us in the face with a shovel, things go to a different level of difficulty. It seems women catch a double dose of conditioning apart from super ego in the automatic judgements and dictates of the cultural ego, most of which is born out of Patriarchal notions. Men have their uphill battle too in having on average at least 10 times the amount of testosterone than women. One reason why men are often just a slave to their penis. Expressing negative emotions rob energy in general. Shame, specifically robs vital energy in dividing us against ourselves.

@Shakazulu I wouldn't say the insights are more profound. I would say there is an expansion of the profoundness. This is an analogy appearing in my mind space now. Imagine a diamond that has many facets. For one's whole life, they were unaware of the diamond. The first look at the diamond is of just one facet. So one becomes aware of that one facet, yet still unaware of the whole diamond. Yet that first good at just the facet is extremely profound. It's the first time you've ever seen it. It could change the way one looks at life. It could open a door to something previously unimaginable. So now imagine re-visiting that same facet over and over. It may start to become obvious and ordinary. One may think "why can't most people see this facet? It's so obvious". The mind may assume that "this is it" and "I have awakened". After time, another facet may be revealed and it is ground shaking. "Omg!! There is another facet!!". You had assumed this was it, and now this whole new facet revealed itself. It is unique from the first facet. You see how the two facets are inter-connected. It is deeply profound and can again change the way one looks at life. Now imagine this cycle continuing with a third, fourth and fifth facet, leading to a more holistic view. Is the revelation of any one facet more profound than the other? I'd say they are each special, yet I don't think I would rank them in terms of how profound they are. As well, I would say that as more facets are revealed there is a spiritual maturity that develops and a more holistic experience and understanding arises. Ime, yoga and meditation are essential to integrate psychedelic lessons. When I first started using psychedelics, I skimped on the yoga / meditation and just tried to hit home runs with psychedelics. I had practiced meditation for over 20 years and thought I was good in this area and it wasn't so important anymore. This eventually caught up with me. Things got unstable and unsustainable and I had to slow down. Ime, integrating psychedelics doesn't necessarily make the insights more profound, yet it is really important for observing contextualization patterns, seeing bigger pictures and developing spiritual maturity.

This thread is dumb. One guy says, "Look at this person who used psychedelics in a really extreme way and is having hella ego backlash. This obviously means that all psychedelic use is bad!" Then other people who are like, "You are not awakened." "No, I'm more awake than you." "No I am!" Can we all just take a more nuanced approach for God's sake? Psychedelics totally work. You only have to take them and experience them for yourself to see that they do. However, their effects (just like other spiritual technologies) can come on very fast if you're too extreme with them, and your ego might not be able to integrate what you experienced in that case. But this isn't unique to psychedelics. This happened to a friend of mine who was using several spiritual technologies at once (none of them psychedelic at the time) and had a very intense, even traumatizing experience that still marks him to this day. His ego was not prepared. You don't have to use psychedelics to work on your spiritual growth, but they are an option, especially if you're someone who has trouble getting into certain states, and without an entheogen you may have never even known what was possible. I think people are just biased against them because they are "artificial," but that's just a concept, a social construct. Whether you're meditating or taking mushrooms or whatever, it's all part of one singular reality. The mushrooms, or 5-MEO, or LSD or whatever are just as much a part of your brain as your brain is.

@Jack River no idea is an idea to most people unless they have awakened. I don’t understand why you aren’t getting that. It’s a bit odd.