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Can experience be dependent upon what it is inseparable from? Does experience require an experiencer ? If so - says who? What could be so magic that this could be the case? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyzYKVL5CB0 Yes, Nothing is real. But Nothing is not a thought about nothing. Nothing is Everything. Nothing is infinite being, love, intelligence, pure joy, bliss, unequivocally unattached to thoughts supporting falsities; absolutely free self-love. If the set up is a thought that nothing is “non existence”, or an absence of anything....the punchline is that is a thought. ”What’s” aware of that thought? Your thought of real...is a thought, a veil to let go. Real doesn’t need clocks, black holes, white holes, paths & maps, and spinning totems. When all is let go... nothing.

Im feeling the exact same or at least from what u described i relate to. I feel absolutely indifferent to everything, including myself and my wellbeing and feelings and others as well. It hard to even see the significance of love or life at all for me. Its super confusing and i totally get what u mean by feeling like your going mad. I dont know how to get out of this lack of meaning or care. Except maybe to remember just how important love is...which is hard to do when u arnt capable of feeling it at the moment. I also fluctuate between moods of bliss and acceptance and then impossibly low moods of meaninglessness. I keep thinking that i need to care but i keep getting the feeling that non of this matters at all and it just seems impossible alot of the time to want to live. Edit: Also yes i think this is normal for those going through whats called the dark night of the soul which seems o happen frequently on the spiritual path.

@Recursoinominado haha thank you - it has been interesting lately. I am advancing at depths with it awakening my kundalni i think. I vommited after my first deep trip all the way through the entirety of my being lol and ever since then i feel bliss all the time

The very fabric of reality is Love. Love , consciousness and nothingness are synonymous. Divinity is synonymous. That's why if you ever become consciousness itself (you already are, but by becoming directly conscious of it) you will become Bliss/Love/Divinity.

Greetings! Since i have become more sensetive to other people and to the way i feel i have noticed a common pattern. I had this one girl a class higher than me and i performed in some school event before her or whatever and i remembered her recently and tried to contact her, she didn't respond. I have never been in contact with her, tho i have all kinds of dreams with her, usually us talking or being in a family, brother and sister type of thing, i am not sure what to think of that, i have this thing with musicians, this girl and another guy way back. This started happening as i got very interested in music. Sometimes images of her pop in to my vision, i can feel she is thinking about me from time to time and i feel bliss in my left side of heart mostly, altho there is alot of pain, especially when i meditate so... If anybody has some experience on this, let me know.

Hello everyone! I went through an awakening at the beginning of the year. Had a cancer scared then suddenly a moment of bliss came in and I finally understood what it means to fully love myself. I truly felt that love in my heart. I miss it! Unfortunately, the feeling of bliss slowly dissipated. Started taking action and learning how to love myself and exploring my spiritual gifts that I've denied for so long. Since then, everything has changed. I started seeing people 'narcissist' for who they really care. I realized I need reciprocity in my relationships. I'm unable to relate to people around me anymore. Now, I'm in this awkward place. It's like all the issues and pain I have never dealt with is coming back to haunt me now. I feel like I'm going through the dark night of the soul? I'm not sure what I'm going through. I hired a therapist just to make sure I'm taking care of myself. I'm finding that as if I don't know who I am anymore.... A part of me knows that I'm being shown my ego for a reason. Possibly, so then I make the necessary changes in my life. I had a sales background and socializing would be a strength for me and now it's not. I am more socially awkward than anything... This is only one example as to what I'm going through. It as also been a lonely journey for me. Feeling lost. Has anyone gone through this can help shed some light? Maybe share your experience? Anything would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Thank you for creating this post about being socially awkward. I have been a hermit since doing this work and funny thing is I didn't even know what kind of work I was doing. I was just trying to figure myself out. Then suddenly, I had a cancer scare in the beginning of the year. That was apart of my spiritual awakening process. I finally knew what I met to love myself and completed felt it in my heart. The moments of bliss left after a few weeks and I'm being on the path to find out who I really am now and embracing my spiritual gifts that I been denying my whole life. I have 10+ sales experience and feels like it all went down the tubes in 1 night. I have been socially awkward since. So, I totally understand what you're going through. I even hired a therapist to make sure I stay grounded because I have no idea what's going on... I wish you the best of luck. All I know is, I've gotten more answers in this forum then most places, so you're in the right place to ask these questions.

It feels like I just need to figure out who I am now and just start from there. Make sense with what you're saying. Bliss won't last but that's everything is life. Thank you for your support and advice. =)

Today was a much better day. I did around 2 hours total of meditation, and my new meditation cushion has really changed my practice. I am able to keep my back much straighter, and i even felt a weird tingling energy moving up my spine during my meditation. I looked up how to lucid dream and i am going to begin recording my dreams and doing reality checks throughout the day to get this habit going. Hopefully I can automate this habit and just make it apart of my normal routine. I also referenced the emotional mastery concept Nahm always talks to me about. Aligning thought with feeling. So i'm not sure about the whole choose a thought thing. But i can see how different thoughts are associated with different emotions. I'm going to start referencing the chart throughout the day to get my thinking right. I think I can always get myself to a feeling of contentment from meditation, from that point it's about optimism and hopefulness I think for my next steps after my meditation. I am thinking i'm going to put off doing Leo's life purpose course for now. I need to get my happiness and satisfaction in check first. I want to be happy. Full stop. Then i will deal with my life purpose. I know it's possible, i've done it before. Cold showers are amazing. So pumped to have them back in my life. My family is going to think i'm crazy but im thinking of doing like 3 or 4 showers a day just so i can get that rush from the cold shower. I wasn't in there long today, but over time i'm going to just stay in longer and longer until i can sit with the pain and the cold. Feeling hopeful and content today. Pretty solid. But i have much more to go. I want bliss and joy. I will not get complacent. But a strategy to apply when i get out of alignment.

Have read different perspectives about it. Like the instant awakening is that, instant and "accidental" . Meditation will make you more accident prone to it (think It was ken willber that said it) As I read somewhere that meditation itself is connected with an effort of the physical brain and needs to be transcended in order achieve spiritual meditation, as a disciple needs to transcend his Master in the end. Whatever that means. For me its the way to connect deeper with Self or "I am" . Although if someone wants to experience some more. A group or even better a mass meditation (some are organized on the internet) can be highly recommended. There is this meditation that goes on every sunday same time that i do. Some hours or even days prior to it I experience some mental churning, then a hightened state of energy or bliss, there are those days that i cannot handle this positive collective energy that i get "blissed out" and drowsy that i fall peacefully asleep an hour prior this meditation and wake up an hour after its done, sort of feels im with the meditation but in a sleep state(?), it can become a very healing experience unlike a regular solo meditation.

I exchanged journal time with sauna and thai massage so I was in bliss afterwards. I become aware of the fact that all what I'm going to write might be used against me in the future. Despite that I'm going to keep honest posts. One of the goals is finish Leo's LP course, it might fill gaps that I might have in my current journey. I listened to 10-20 percent of videos long time ago, I realized that I do not need it per se and Leo has lots of stuff already in his videos from the past. So I started to review all core concepts and I plan to finish it this weekend.

I'm not kidding, I've only just started meditation and I'm already feeling different, more productive, more self-confident, etc.❤️ I've even miraculously stopped the wine just like that, which beggars belief. Huh, and that's only with a lousy 20 minutes every day. I hate that it has taken me this late in my life to discover it. Leo's a pretty persuasive guy! Nobody (including myself) has ever been able to convince or galvanize me enough to do meditation before. I've had this book on my bookshelf eyeballing me for donkey's years: "Peace of Mind" by Dr Ian Gawler. He actually has a website and does meditation retreats. He overcame terminal cancer through meditation and wrote about it. I had read the book, as you do. And then put it back on the shelf, as you do. And then the wasted years go by, as they do. So glad I came across Leo's videos and this site. I was just innocently googling "karma's a bitch" two Sundays ago, and there was Leo. I loved his explanation straight away. It seems Karma has more to do with the ego (who sounds like the real bitch around here!) than any "carrots and sticks". The only problem now is my addiction to this site. A site with all these resources pooled together and an active forum like this just doesn't exist anywhere else, it's unique. Now I wanna know everything. I understand though the need to vary one's sources and not just fetishly stay on this one site. I started reading some of your journals @zeroISinfinity, sorry I don't "get" them much yet. I'll probably understand them better when my "colour's changed". It looks like a great and crazy party though, haha!! It's actually starting to give me a bit of FOMO. Before coming to this site, I was kinda agnostic, even if my upbringing was solid catholic. I've always been afraid of ghosts and the paranormal so was perfectly happy deciding to just believe "what you see is what you get". You just die after three score years and ten, and kaput, you are no more. No reincarnation, no after-life, no hell nor heaven, nada. I was SO happy believing that. Ignorance is bliss as they say. So as you can imagine, I'm going through a major paradigm shift at the moment, lol. But it's all good. The Real Bliss will come later. Still scared of ghosts though. My dad frightened us when we were kids, threatening to lock us in the attic with the ghosts if we were naughty. Discovered years later that's where he'd kept all his porno mags. Go figure! No wonder he'd frightened everyone away from ever snooping around up there. Still the damage had been done, the phobias created. Since I've been on this site, I've had to put the light on again when I go for a pee in the middle of the night. In case I see or bump into something scary. I'm just going at my own pace right now. Slow and steady wins the race. And starting at the bottom of the heap dealing with the "easy stuff" (the physical stuff) first. My goals are more to do with the body at the moment. And yeah, I'm getting the meditation sessions in. Am even feeling optimistic I may really get a sense of "God" one day. Ha, I'll be able to join in the same "party" then, or at least understand some of the more "cryptic" posts here better. But if I don't, no pressure, maybe in my next life haha. I don't want to spook myself out by running before I can walk. Damn, if only I hadn't put that Meditation book back on the shelf all those years ago! I'd have been way more advanced by now. So yeah, feeling really indebted to Leo for all he's done and is doing!! ❤️ I'm going to honor his generosity by doing the Work.

Has any one seen this movie? I think its the perfect analogy of platos cave, the way truman discovers his fabricated reality not out of being motivated by pleasure, his drive for truth comes from an inability to stand being false, he couldn't live his fake life when it didnt seem real. I feel people think enlightenment is a state of bliss, its not but its a state of being true. I feel like i would go mad if i was truman if everything in my town that i was trapped on all started to revolve around me, maybe thats what enlightenment is like going mad for unravelling truth ps i feel its great they called him truman, ie hes becoming 'a true man'

Read this about Carl Jung this morning. "One sunny day, when Jung was twelve, he was traversing the Münsterplatz in Basel, admiring the sun shining on the newly restored glazed roof tiles of the cathedral. He then felt the approach of a terrible, sinful thought, which he pushed away. He was in a state of anguish for several days. Finally, after convincing himself that it was God who wanted him to think this thought, just as it had been God who had wanted Adam and Eve to sin, he let himself contemplate it, and saw God on his throne unleashing an almighty turd on the cathedral, shattering its new roof and smashing the cathedral. With this, Jung felt a sense of bliss and relief such as he had never experienced before. He felt that it was an experience of the “direct living God, who stands omnipotent and free above the Bible and Church.”

45 min sitting today. Many of the same qualities as yesterday, but it didn’t quite catch fire the way it did yesterday, so I feel a bit disappointed in one way, but it is also very interesting to surrender into this disappointment, and there is something very grounding about it. So whereas before I would have craved to get back what I had yesterday, and felt like a failure for not, it is a huge success to see that my attitude is getting much more mature. I’m working on creating a stable platform for this deepening to happen, and finally I’m getting process-oriented, instead of result-oriented. I guess ultimately meditation is this freedom to let go of any craving for the present moment to be anything else than what it is - total surrender into what is. But it is really interesting that I have to learn how to navigate these addictive mind-states as part of that process. They come as a by-product of learning to let go, but experiencing them can trigger some really painful patterns of clinging, which I guess is a really potent opportunity of studying the minds tendencies of exactly this tendency. As the mind learns to rest in itself it will naturally starts to gather and focus all this energy that is usually wasted on chasing something outside of itself, and this energy then turns into bliss, well-being and healing.

One sunny day, when Jung was twelve, he was traversing the Münsterplatz in Basel, admiring the sun shining on the newly restored glazed roof tiles of the cathedral. He then felt the approach of a terrible, sinful thought, which he pushed away. He was in a state of anguish for several days. Finally, after convincing himself that it was God who wanted him to think this thought, just as it had been God who had wanted Adam and Eve to sin, he let himself contemplate it, and saw God on his throne unleashing an almighty turd on the cathedral, shattering its new roof and smashing the cathedral. With this, Jung felt a sense of bliss and relief such as he had never experienced before. He felt that it was an experience of the “direct living God, who stands omnipotent and free above the Bible and Church.”

I had while light experience few days after 5-meo trip while meditating, it was total bliss. Since then nothing :).

@Hansu Oh no! Sorry to hear. What comes to mind from experience is weight, muscle to fat percentage, and balance. Bit of a shotgun approach, but hopefully something clicks or is useful. Short term... You mentioned the plank on the bed helped. Maybe a maximum firmness mattress, if you don’t already have one. Daily exercise is key imo. A few things to consider. During, and for a bit after weight loss, many small muscles are adjusting to the change in weight & how it’s distributed, specifically the back, as it was holding the extra weight of the front. This is a good thing, and it plays self out. One thing however to consider... if exercise involves weights / any strength training, you want evenly spread distribution. I had a major lower back pain issue for years, even though I was at a good weight and fit. I found that I had neglected the muscles area lowest on the back. Never even thought of it. I started doing a pretty simple exercise where I’m basically, from a standing point, lifting each leg up behind me. Like the opposite of a kick motion, but slowly. I used the resistance of about 10 lbs at first on a bow flex. You can google this, it can be done without weights, and lying on your stomach too. After 1 - 2 weeks, the pain was completely gone, and that was maybe 5 years ago or so. Never came back. So if you’re getting fit, make sure there’s a daily exercise that targets the area of pain. Also have a bone spur in my neck, got a neck weight thingy, and it fixed that too. It’s not perfect, but there’s no pain anymore. I definitely recommend bow flex. They’re simple and last, and old models which are great, can be found very cheap on EBay etc. Also, when exercise is done daily, the chemistry of the body changes. @Michael569 would know the details here...but endorphins, etc from exercising in the morning sure do seem to reduce pain all day. It also improves mood & outlook, which also (I believe) psychosomatically have a positive effect. If the pain is too much to exercise, a short term solution might be a steroid shot, with the exercise / fitness being the longer term plan. Seeing a chiropractor can help on a few levels. The manipulation overtime can significantly realign and bring relief. Also, if you find a good one, just seeing the X-ray, listening to their explanation etc, Brings a lot of finite awareness to the situation, and sometimes I think the biggest piece is just the going and doing something about it. The body likes that, so to speak, and response in kind with healing. A self-love fest. I would do some research on an anti-inflammatory diet for sure. Ime, sugar, bread, and any carbonated drinks just blew it up, and it would take days to get back to good. Take a while to get off such roller coasters but it’s worthwhile. The right nutrients, and eating without those foods, allows the body to divert energy to strength & healing, as it is not having to compensate for what is really imo not actually ‘food’ (sugar, bread, etc) The time of day that you eat could also play a huge role. I know it can be difficult, but try not eating anything after 8...or better yet 7. It might take a few days for the body to adjust to that but it can be a game changer. This could also aid in sleeping through the night, in addition to cutting caffeine off by maybe 2pm. This is ‘out there’ for some...but have you tried telling your subconscious you want this? I’ve seen this be very effective. Simply talking to yourself basically, and requesting the subconscious bring healing to the disc, and that the past is changed in kind. Longer term... Go get two or three sessions before you assess it. Then try out that reiki class. Reiki 1 is healing yourself. Powerful stuff. Reiki is arguably the most under-appreciated, underrated practice imo. The release of things emotionally / psychologically benefits the body, allowing more efficient natural healing. We all hold onto a lot, and get used to it, and don’t realize we are. We’re so naturally adaptive it’s nuts. It takes energy to do that though, and likewise, we adjust and don’t realize low bodily energy has this at it’s root. Reiki 2 is about healing others. This is the real mind blowing stuff. Love in action. Love & bliss through your body would be one heck of a change of pace, and you’d be without the pain. I’d think of it as when you give your self & time for the love & healing of another, as the universe would have it, you are filled with love & healing. But, and I know it’s cliche...the thought about reiki is nothing like the experience of taking the 2 classes. There is also Letting go, and moving awareness. Many people find a ‘clearing’ of specific pains, by tuning into the awareness in the body, right where the pains at, and ‘moving’ the pain to another location. It’s a risky thing to say, but, the pain isn’t really from the location it seems like it is, it is all mind. “Loosening up” the relationship between the mind which is where the pain is, and the body where the mind “believes” it to be, can reduce the pain. Meditation of course, specifically breathing & filling the body with the breath, as well as walking meditation can be very helpful. There’s a bunch in my signature link. Also, Yoga, holding positions and breathing, oxygenates & strengthens the muscle which balance the body, helping muscles acclimate to weight loss muscle / balance shifting. I don’t want to assume, so...have you went to the dr’s? Ideally a wholistic one. Again, the hearing, doing, loving your body, taking the time to go, as well as what the doctor recommends diet & weight wise could be helpful. The difference in pain and energy at a high weight compared to a middle weight, in terms of the median ‘healthy’ weights dr’s use as a reference is very significant. And then the difference in going from a middle weight, to the ‘ideal healthy’ weight (example 6’ tall male, 150 - 155 lbs - don’t quote me on that) can be a huge difference. There is a certain carefree-healing-body zone at the most ideal weight. 5 lbs more, and we’re back at the middle weight, with the body spending energy that was diverted to healing. Hope something helps here. ??

This is not about going from the depressed life story to 5-meo God like bliss, from zero to hero. This is not about playing 'Who is right' game, feeling fear. This is about doing the smallest possible step which feels good. Step by step, until you are loving. This is about asking and then letting go, enjoying the moment. This is about your intuition, choosing the first impulse, before rational mind comes and says 'no'. This is about being authentic, feeling love. ?

Do you do Mahamundra? Nothing creates more silence and relaxation than that as a preparation in my opinion. Especially so once you get to the point that you can do each rep comfortably in the 1-2 minute breath hold range. All the co2 from doing 9-12 moderate breath holds combined with the stretching just create massive amounts of bliss and relaxation.

@Dragonfly210 Sorry you're going through such tough stuff. I'm sure no one has been through exactly what you're going through, but I'd also bet tons of people here have been through some form of dark night like you. I've definitely gone through some tough periods. Maybe you need to renegotiate or change some relationships in your life. Sometimes the old has to fall apart to make room for the new, whether that's a new way of thinking, new people in your life or a new way of relating to yourself. Regardless, sounds like a very good idea to see a therapist like you are. That'll keep you grounded and help you be practical while providing an outlet to talk through what you need to. I'm limited in how much I can help over an internet forum like this, but keep in mind that everything changes. Your level of social awkwardness will ebb and flow. How much bliss you are in touch with will ebb and flow. However bad it seems, it isn't permanent. Hang in there

This concentration stuff reminds me my childhood. I was in a peaceful, blissful state. I was inclining my mind on positive and entering bliss. I had total trust in the existence. I was not comparing myself to anybody. Life was a miracle for me.

Doing vipassana is great but dry insight approach can create a lot of negative emotions and issues even after legit awakenings. Look at Daniel Ingram and his emphasis on dark night of the soul. I also know people that experience a lot issues integrating the insights into emptiness and no-self in the dry insight approach. That doesn't mean samatha vipassana styles like TMI doesn't lead to integration issues with these insights. Awakening has a price of admission either way. But samatha masters go through the progression of insight in a more pleasurable and gentler way. From personal experience, my emotional health is close to awakening levels as Samatha factors are getting more ingrained in the nervous system. Effortless access to jhana basically means activating anti-depressant levels of pleasure in the mind at will and maintaining that with contentment on top of that from waking up to going to bed. Initially that sort of a thing can be effortless, but then a lot of hardcore mindfulness is needed to maintain that as months go by. I don't want to say that this is advanced stuff but this sort of emotional mastery is not too common at the initial stages of awakening (stream entry etc.) Samatha mastery is not to be downplayed. Craving can reduce very radically. A stage 10 TMI master can actually be regarded as awake on a skill-based level. Not actual insight wise but in terms of the skills you need for awakening, it just gives you incredible levels of consciousness on demand consistently. But you are not completely free of suffering until there is no self so that is why vipassana is essential. Samatha skills by themselves only go so far. You need to investigate and go deeper with those skills as a foundation. Now, how will a samatha master react to the truth of no-self when it arises as an insight? Depression and meaningless? Initially, yes. This is a traumatic experience that undermines all of your egoic agendas. The entirety of your life dissolves into meaningless. But you integrate the no-self deeper and get to bliss faster if you are Samatha master already. What happens as a dry insight meditators, noting sensations without stable attention and sufficient awareness? You still get to the insight into no self, but you get stuck in the meaningless and negative emotional sensations. Then you need to deal with dark night sort of issues for a while until awareness gets to sufficient levels. Then you get to bliss. But at that point you master samatha. So the question is, will you do the work now and master samatha or do it after the traumatic insight into no-self, suffering , impermanence and emptiness,? The safest and the most pleasurable path is to do the samatha mastery first. It is harder and requires more discipline initially but it is worth it. I understand dry insight meditators doing noting practices and self enquiry all the time but I'm seeing a lot of people experiencing issues integrating insight into daily life. So I recommend samatha mastery strongly to everyone. And to add the vipassana component, I think TMI is a great manual. It integrates all this and does so in a scientific but non-materialistic way.

@zeroISinfinity I haven't felt the love yet. I feel like i understand all this stuff intellectually but my direct experience isn't anything like you describe yours. Also, i was reading your rold journal about not helping bliss chasers and people pursuing enlightenment for egoic reasons. because they will cause suffering if they don't fully understand god. These people, like me, will cause WAY MORE suffering without enlightenment. Bliss chaser, prisoner, it doesn't matter who. Enlightenment is the best case for me, you, and everyone and everything. There are no reasons to not help someone pursue enlightenment. But i do get your point about you can't do it from egoic reasons. If I want to be enlightened for my own sake and my own desires I think it's going to take a lot long then if i find a different motivation.

@ardacigin You have no clue what my practice is like I practiced for one month of nonstop vipassana in a monastic setting in Nepal before this retreat. I understand discipline and "applying the techniques properly." And just because I rated the growth as lower than psychedelic growth doesn't mean it wasn't substantial. I spent hours in bliss fully present with every footstep, loving every action and moment. I saw some wild stuff manifest in the mind and body. Yet, one ayahuasca retreat I did was like 10 years of therapy in one weekend, and I have to call that more impactful (as of now). There are poems from the first enlightened nuns which talk about practicing for YEARS with little sign of awakening, and then finally getting it one day. Progress and growth aren't linear. And if you want to develop true equanimity, that means learning to be equanimous while actually struggling in meditation practice. You are correct about the importance of discipline, but should be careful assuming that discipline and ease are opposites. You need some ease for your heart to actually be in these practices. My answer should not inform your decision. Every person, trip and meditative roadmap is different. I started with 3g of mushrooms, so this is what I was referring to. I'd recommend less on the first time.