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@Inliytened1 I was Hardcore Seeker for about a year-and-a-half but I could feel myself slowly getting burnt out. I thought to myself I must have came across the truth by now. I remember I kept hearing it's a turning 180 degrees within and a falling away not a gaining of something. So yes I turned within and started self inquiring. Shortly after I recognized that this ME character is just a compilation of ideas beliefs thoughts perceptions and labels I have allowed myself to buy into over the years. It was recognized that the story of ME was not the true ME. Then I started shedding the layers.. it started feeling lighter and lighter so I continued until there was nothing left, Just emptiness or a pregnant nothingness. It's simultaneously recognized there never was an individual ME inside the body... the whole thing was a sham of the Mind. It's recognized the seeking perpetuated the illusion and keeps one distracted from turning within and seeing the truth. This is why the ego is infatuated with seeking externally it knows if the veil is peered through for too long the truth will be discovered about it's non-existence. The seeking actually prolongs the recognition and perpetuates the belief in a separate ME character. At the end of the day it's a recognition that there was nothing to find... and the whole illusion is created in the mind and by energy contracting in the body. ❤

Its an empty fullness...A pregnant nothingness.. When the self fell away it was nothing as everything remaining...

Last night I had a dream where I was was with a friend and we both decided to take LSD. I've taken LSD before and had breakthroughs. The LSD within this dream actually changed the content within the dream. Everything was suddenly recontexulized and I saw Nothingness. I then realized I was inside a dream and woke up.

cool - i was just going to add that yeah - i get what you mean about the "nothingness" is without description, because what you are pointing to is Absolute Infinity - and anything that you imagine it to be isn't it. It would just be another finite thing or an idea. It wouldn't be actually IT. So yeah Being or Infinity or Isness is prior to knowing, but the amazing thing is that You are Being/Issing right now, and it never goes anywhere because it has nowhere to go.

The "nothingness" is without description. It is the absence of me as the observer. Consciousness (from the "I AM" that is with me now) leaves. The only reason that point to it is because of the gap that I notice in time when consciousness returns to me. I think there are two ways of thinking about this. "Consciousness" either exists inside "Nothingness" or "Nothingness" exists inside "Consciousness."

Whats this complete nothingness that you describe? That's something you can only imagine right? And maybe its not because you are coming back to consciousness - maybe its because consciousness never left. Where would it go when its already everywhere and nowhere? To imply that it came back would mean there was somewhere it wasn't. But consider it is infinite. Don't take any of our words for it though it is something You have to discover. (You capitalized) and to discover is the collapse of knowing into Being. The collapse of the relative into the Absolute. The finite into the Infinite.

How is consciousness ever-present if I can cite moments where I am unconscious (Sleep)? If the "I AM's" purest form is void than is their an experience or an observer in that void? How is there no "on/off" switch for consciousness. When I go to sleep "I AM" is no longer there - only complete nothingness. The only reason that I can describe the experience is because I come back to consciousness. Thanks - appreciate your answers - this has been eating my brain :-)

@Inliytened1 well said. Consciousness is ever present, no matter what state you are in. Therefore, from a relative perspective you could say the body is sleeping/ resting, yet Consciousness is ever present during this experience, I think it was Leo who said notice when you’re dreaming and you die there is still an experience of Nothingness, key is there is still an experience. Without Consciousness, no experience would ever be possible. This experience is simply All consciousness through the many forms of finite life.

Still nothing that satisfying - what I'm seeing is that the "I AM" is not all and that a pure "nothingness" exists, one that foresee-ably occurs after death.

If you ever die in your dreams you should notice that you still exist as nothingness afterwards. That should be your clue that you cannot actually die.

His basically saying that your origin is Nothingness-Nothingness is something so wast that even word infinite would be poor explanation, well anyway you can call it source that has potential for anything, this source on it self does nothing more then being source of infinite potential, wick is your physical body and flame is confusing as it makes you question allot of things as they do not add up. He is just saying when your experience ends, you die , but infinite potential is still there and he thinks he is it, so it is fine, I am not sure but I am starting to think that he is one of thous chaotic source preachers. Do I agree, no , does it matter, no!

Because that one is not working. I am a hardcore addict because I cannot control myself and I give in not because I fear death as you said. Would you remake that video or at least give us some strategies that would work? I think that you would disagree if you see that video now,because you talk about after death and you describe it as doing nothing and being nothing as it would be something boring and we need to get use to this state in order to get rid of our addiction.(by doing all kinds of meditation like do nothing tehnique and whatnot). The bottom question: Do you consider that the root cause of an addiction is still the fear of nothingness? Thank you Leo

It might not be fear of nothingness. It might be limiting enjoyment to only a few experiences instead of enjoying all experiences. If u enjoyed all experiences fully how could any one experience be your fav? What helps this human enjoy every moment more is no mind/no imagination. Then it can fully focus on whatever it is sensing while also sensing peace. Also knowing you are not anything that u can sense/imagine allows the human form to enjoy every moment knowing it is a miracle to experience being human so vividly. So then what is boring can be enjoyed, what is hell can be enjoyed, and what is heaven can be enjoyed even more than before. There are a bunch of diff ways/paths that work diff for each person for solving any one “problem” tho since every human is unique.

Thanks for the notes @LfcCharlie4 From my experience the ego tries to subsume the awakened state. When I know of my nothingness, the "I" might've gained a new identity. It is "my" nothingess, "I" am Pure Awareness. The ego just wants a name. There aren't any names.

Hi love, I am permanently awakened after a two-day ayahuasca retreat. Here is the report of the retreat. Before the ceremony, I had no intentions, desires, or expectations, just beingness. First ceremony: I became an absolute infinity. The entire existence. All the experiences, all the dimensions. The infinite consciousness. All is one. All is love. All the pleasure and pain, all the senses and emotions. Infinity of infinity. Total surrendering and beingness. The entire existence is just the imaginary manifestation of our infinite love. Time is love's infinite awareness of itself. I am all of you, and all of it is a song that's sang by the entire existence, and it is infinite love and beauty. The knowing of the true self is permanently present. Second ceremony: I became so infinite that I became absolute nothingness and god. The consciousness expands infinitely and beyond. All is one, all is whole, all is love. I am. I love. Just love, and nothing else. Just being, and the entire existence. I purged my entire existence into infinite love and merged into one. The infinite love radiance from everything and everywhere. Life is absolutely clear, it is absolute love. The total surrendering of existence. Enlightenment. The beingness of the absolute is permanent. No more questions or seeking, just absolute beingness. Nirvana. I love you all! Just love, just live, just be.

The nothing I think you are referring to is also something. Some people are confused and think there is only this physical reality and on the other side of the coin there is nothingness. There is more somethingness well beyond or minuscule physical reality. The somethingness beyond our physicalness is infinite. The real you and me is in the somethingness that lives in formlessness( non- physical) (Having no material existence as we understand it) beyond time and space. There are infinite beings with distinct consciousness that live in this somethingness beyond our physical reality. Your psychic, entity, higher self, soul, or whatever you relate to, lives in this somethingness that is also non- physical and beyond our time and space. The somethingness that is in the non- physical can manifest its self with light, sound, electromagnetic energy and infinite other somethings that we here in the physical can never imagine or understand. We are just physical personalities that are extensions from this somethingness that is in the non- physical, which some relate to as our souls. Our souls are distinct beings, which God create to explore what life is and can be in infinite possible directions. Yes, we are God consciousness, but we are so removed from full God consciousness that our physical conscious minds will never fully grasp the full meaning of it. We are Ants living in an Ant community somewhere in a desert, the Ant hill representing our earth, thinking there is only Us and Nothingness. Yet the Earth contains billions of Ant hills, plants, animals, rocks, grians of sand, clouds, weather humans, etc., that us Ants are not aware of. When one of Us goes into nothingness they think they have reached God consciousness and everything there Is, thinking it's just God and just Us.. Don’t get caught up thinking it’s just you/me and God consciousness. There are infinite layers between us in this physical reality, your soul and God. Look beyond the tree and see the forest. Touching nothingness through meditation, psychedelics, or by other means is just the tip of the iceberg. Most people think they have reached God consciousness when they reach the nothingness. You have no idea how far away you still are from touching full God consciousness, meaning, being God. Once you have gotten a taste of nothingness, the real work begins. It begins here in the physical Mastering your Emotions, your Physical reality and body, your conscious physical mind, your sexual life force energy (Chi etc.,) your connection to the real you that lives in the somethingness of non-physical beyond time and space Just thoughts and beliefs.

So I am pretty good at astral projection and have never taken a psychedelic as I am 19. However I have become pure awareness/void in the astral before. Recently this character/ego has had many insights and actually started to realize them for what they are. That all is imaginary, all is because I want it to be, I am, and I am imagining myself experiencing all imagined angles. Etc This morning after laying in bed for a while I realized I was “out of body” / in a parallel reality. So I got up and the first thing that came to mind is to say “zen guru” over and over. In the book of Thoth he said it is apparently a powerful word to say when in “astral”. I then saw my surroundings fade to nothingness/void and then I was looking directly at the nothingness yet I did not become it this time. When I looked directly at this void it made a loud screeching noise and I could sense its intelligence, awareness and power. It gave me the feeling that it was all powerful and could do whatever it wanted with this ego. In the tao Te Ching it says the Tao is radiant. That’s what this experience made me feel even though I was looking at void. I am not sure if this was an imaginary “Self” within the higher “Self” but it does show me a glimpse into myself/my nature. It was like being a dream character looking at the dreamer, a piece of art looking at the artist, an instrument looking at the musician, a thought looking at the thinker.

@Leo Gura well I was very scared it was like my consciousness was trapped It's not the same void as lsd, I've had lsd void where everything shattered and return to the one and I was nothing in nothingness. Not same as the dmt void.

I believe the original question was, can Leo claim no other teacher has reached the depths of consciousness and knowledge that he has? I have had many teachers in the last 20 years, read books, immersed myself 6 years into Shamanism and other spiritual teachings, worked with aboriginal healers, and done several Ayahuasca ceremonies. What I have come to learn is that the right teacher, book, spiritual paths, people, plants, animals, and psychedelics will gravitate towards you when you are ready to explore the next level of consciousness and awakening. Every teacher, book, path, person and psychedelic etc. has it’s pros and cons. They can only provide you with the knowledge that resonates with your belief system. The limited conscious physical mind, combined with magnetic-attracting-thoughts and electromagnetic energy field, shape and mold our beliefs. Our beliefs shape our reality. Our reality is then strengthened with our imagination, which then stimulates our emotions. Our emotions further shape and solidifies our beliefs and energy field in the physical. It’s an intemperate circle. Every author, teacher, healer person, etc.. is caught in this circle and can only share with us what they are awakened and conscious of through their belief system. Our concentrated thoughts and beliefs are basically what create our physical reality. Our Physical reality is a very narrow banned width of conscious sound, light and electromagnetic frequencies and waves of energy. When I break through the veil of physical consciousness into nothingness, the void or miniscule aspects of God consciousness using a psychedelic or through meditation, I return to this limited reality struggling to translate my experience into symbols, such as words and images that my physical conscious mind can grasp and retain. These symbols are interpreted and integrated by my human conscious mind and by my belief system, which then further create my conscious physical reality. So, to answer your question, can Leo claim no other teacher has reached the depths of consciousness and knowledge that he has? Yes and no. His physical conscious mind, thoughts and beliefs are his. They maybe similar to other humans, but they are unique and distinctly his. That’s the beauty and gift that God has created. It’s neither right or wrong, more or less. It just is. We all have our distinct beliefs, thoughts, and conscious levels, which others may or may not have similarly accessed or reached. There are many conscious beings that have touched great depts of awareness that have decided not to share their wisdom with the masses. They tend to share only with select beings that are open and can resonate with the knowledge. Leo, like a few others, has decided to take a chance and courageously shares his wisdom and knowledge to the masses, knowing full well that he will be opening himself to all levels of consciousness on the Spiral Dynamic hierarchy, which may, or may not resonate with the knowledge. Having said that, he does have a profound amount of knowledge and consciousness that can and will resonate with many students. We are all students! Even the great masters were students in physical reality, until some of them were able to direct there magnetic-attracting-thoughts, from the physical conscious mind, towards other physical and non-physical states of beingness. Not to confuses anyone, what I have learned over the years is that the Ego is more or less your belief system. It is a narrow-focused form of physical mind consciousness (for lack of better words) that allow us to create this physical reality. The Ego (a misguided label we have given it) is a segment of confined focused consciousness that has been created by God for Beings to penetrate and explore physical reality, experience distinctness, objects and other limited forms of consciousness in physical form. The more you focus your attention to one belief, or field of thought, the narrower your world becomes and the more inclined you are to suffering and dwelling in the lower stages of Spiral Dynamics. The more consciousness you bring into your field of thoughts, Ego, physical conscious mind, the more you become aware of how your deep seeded beliefs affect and create your reality. Just a few thoughts and beliefs!

@seeking_brilliance Never. I have no sleep related problems. Only experiences during sleep were 2 non-dual/nothingness dissolution a few months ago, though they were nice and simple. No energy stuff. This one had a strong alien/inhuman/freaky vibe to it.

Yes of course Hegel is no easy, but the person I gave links to lived in house with library (his grandpa was philosopher) and so he has read Hegel and Marx at age 12. Coz he started his spiritual path so early, he was awakened at 20. Then in mature age he read Hegel in German, Rene Guenon (who combined feuerbach hegel kant fichte plus all traditionalistic doctrines together) in French and Quran in Arabic. He is himself Anti-Hegelian, Anti-Guenon, Anti-Plato, Anti-Advaitian. He is the first one (at least as far as I researched) who has actually explained difference between path of Abrahamic prophets (from Adam to Muhammad) and path of traditional spirituality (no-self enlightenment oneness dissolving in god etc etc). Before that i couldn't get this difference, I thought they all speaking about same truth and that these paths lead to same enlightenment. But there is radical difference! All human history is about war between these two doctrines, two spiritual paths. War between priests (traditionalistic path) and warriors (prophets' path). Everything else is stemming from this war, everything else is show, but in the core of all is the war between two radically different understanding of consciousness. Abrahamic doctrine states that consciousness exists as opposition to Being=Everything-ness, and Traditionalistic doctrines states that consciousness is equal to Being and consciousness is everything. Abrahamic doctrine states that God is hidden and He is opposite to absolutely everything, while Traditionalistic doctrine states that God is equal to everything, to Total All. I 'experienced' both kind of awakenings, and difference exists, and Abrahamic path is True, while Traditionalistic path is tricky lie, it is how Being tries to suppress Consciousness. Simple example: why some gurus are nuts even thought they are awakened? Why are they saying stupid things or acting weirdly? We think that they are so wise that they act in transcendent wise way. But actually its simply because their awareness is still suppressed by Being, they are awakened but in twisted way, in traditionalistic way. It didn't emancipate their awareness but suppressed it, made it even more 'cloudy', because they dissappeared. If you disappear then awareness can't emancipate from Being, because your physical individuality is that tool that makes consciousness to be emancipated from dictatorship of being. Of course Being through priests will tell you: it is ego, its avidya, it is ignorance, you should destroy it, you should merge with reality etc. LIE! Absolute Lie. So the main evil of traditionalistic doctrine is that you should disappear, to become nothingness, to dissolve in reality, to lose yourself. Thats the main evil! Never do it, its not truth. Its lie. Idea of disappearing, idea of becoming nothingness and losing your ego, is the main evil that exists. Because if you only taste what is disappearing is really like, you will absolutely hate that, its absolutely wrong. Not your 'ego' or ignorance hates that, not your selfishness but consciousness hates that. Devil wants that, but not God.

Some of you may have read my "hospital trip report". It was my very first post here. I don't think I gave it justice back then. I still had a few steps to make in order to see the picture clearly. Still, to this day I have no explanation of what went down that night. I cannot rationalize the experience. It was way too much. Way over the top. It left a mark, for sure. I was and still am traumatized by the event. Can't deny. I did trip on acid and shrooms a handful of times afterwards. But this strange sensation would not allow me to surrender fully and explore the magic freely. Somewhere deep down I was always afraid. Now the tricky part is explaining what it is that I am afraid of exactly. I struggle pointing at it. Precisely because I struggle explaining what I went through on that terrifying night. But I know when I "go there". I know how it feels. I know where it leads. It is not just death. It is beyond death. Yet there still seems to be annihilation. Destruction. Dematerialization. Reality falls apart. Quite literally. It is torn apart, to be precise. Parallel realities start merging. I become aware of all of them. To the point where I am literally there, in all of them. Imagine having your TV screen split to a million parts; each playing a different movie. It's kinda like that. The mind starts freezing. Time is long gone. No sense of linearity or a continuum, whatsoever. Then...Everything is pulled to the center and it burns...it burns so bad. I cannot imagine anything more painful. All there is left is pure light. No individual. No being. No reality. No issness and no amness. No breath, even. Only light; crossing its own path. Swirling. Until it stops. And then there is nothing. No light. No sound. No sensation. Absolutely nothing. And I have no idea how it is that I know about it. It should be impossible. At that point, there is no more awareness to be aware of anything - including nothing. It's just infinite, black nonexistence. Unknown and unseen. It's Source. Why the heck does this happen? Why can't I trip normally, like everyone else? Simply explore magical realms, dimensions and all the wonders of existence? Even very low doses can trigger me into that shit...whatever it is. I went through it once completely sober, as well. It often feels like I'm tripping even without taking any substances. Why? It has crossed my mind that perhaps I'm "too conscious" as I am. And consuming psychedelics catapults me stright into nothingness; destroying everything. Maybe psychedelics are not relevant to me. Maybe I should just explore life and its magic naturally; sober. Or is this paralyzing fear all that's "in my way" ? Something in me wants to trip. But it would be nice to have something...Anything...That is...Not being torn apart. A reality. An experience. An experiencer. The biggest paradox is that in that precise moment of terror I seem to be left with no choice. If I surrender - I surrender myself to fire. If I don't - I still burn. Suffering and destruction seems to be inevitable. Choice is only born once I am one with nothing; Stay eternally still and silent or reconstruct everything from scratch and give birth to existence once again? I chose to be here. Help?

@ivankiss it is your choice to not touch the splinters. it reminds me of the story of the snow queen. for nothingness experienced in a state of soberness nothingness is the state you are in when you cut through or see through what people call maya and mara - if you arrive there with the help of a psychedelic it`s clear why there seems no pointer towards it, as all pointers point outside.

It feels like some kind of unknowable Smart Energy with no limitations. Pure potential with no beginning and no end, it's what IS. Some kind of pregnant nothingness. It's an everything and a nothing. There is nothing that it's not, it's the all encompassing. It's absolute perfection. It's infinite. It's meaningless and means everything. Its THIS ❤

Leo's meditation videos already watched: 1. Meditation for Beginners - the "no manipulation technique" (see Dec 20 in this Journal for notes) 2. The Dark Side of Meditation (see Dec 23 & 26 in this Journal for tapescript) 3. Benefits Of Meditation Meditation is nothing but just sitting down and clearing your mind of thoughts. Why do it? * Reduces stress, better focus, peace and tranquility and less negative, distracting thoughts. * Builds up your pre-frontal cortex (controlling impulses, self-discipline, less procrastination, sharper thinking) * Improves your performance, calms you down, makes you grounded. * Makes you more mindful, happy to be right here in the moment realaxed (better decision-making, less influenced/distracted/tempted) * Makes the brain healthier, stronger and reduces the effects of brain degeneration with age (memory loss, Alzheimer’s). * Makes you feel fulfilled without external stimulation, without worrying about the past or the future. * Cleans up Your subconscious (ego evolves, things seen as more unified, childhood/early adult baggage let go, self freer, no longer held back by past) * Helps shed limiting beliefs and resolve a lot of stuff that is bothering you, triggering you, holding you back (stuff bubbles up from subconscious, you deal with it consciously and resolve those conflicts, then get tranquility from that, no longer triggered by it). * Helps towards enlightenment. Enlightenment is something I’m a little bit hesitant to cover, especially in a newbie, introductory, quick segment like this, because enlightenment is a very deep topic. It takes serious commitment to reach. If you’re not willing to spend years, maybe a decade or more, in serious contemplation and meditation, then you’re never going to reach it. I think a state of enlightenment is something you can really shoot for. It can be a long-term vision of yours. It’s really awesome, because what happens when you reach a state of enlightenment is literally your ego melts away. The petty distinctions that you make right now, the judgements, the criticisms, all the emotional baggage that you have, all that melts away. You become one with the source. You become one with the universe. You see everything interconnected. You feel like everything is love. You drop all the fears that you have. You drop all the anger and the pettiness. Life just becomes a joy. Just a joy, right now, in the moment. Leo's personal development blueprint n°55: Meditation calms the monkey chatter in your head, puts you in flow, raises your consciousness, and unhooks you from stimulation. ************************************* 4. Meditation Techniques: Do Nothing (for all stages, Newbies and advanced) I sit down and center myself, then in my mind I say "okay now I am doing nothing" and then I let go of control over my attention, over the need to stop the monkey mind, I let the mind literally do whatever it wants to do. It is basically a complete acceptance of the present moment. You sit motionless, as still as possible, don't scratch your itches, and keep your eyes wide open so you don't fall asleep. The only way you can do this technique wrong is by trying to do something with your mind like trying to get somewhere, trying to become enlightened, trying to reach some goal. What you're training yourself to do is to accept both the monkey mind and the calmness. What's beautiful about this technique is that it's really hard to do wrong because all you have to do is just let go of of any need to control and then you know you're doing it right. The second beautiful thing about this technique is that it's really effortless, it requires virtually zero skill, zero energy so you could do this technique when you're dead tired. Even though you're letting go of control of your mind and you're not trying to direct your focus or thoughts, you are still maintaining control of your body. So if you're sitting there very still that's actually going to be difficult to do, you might want to scratch your face or move around in your seat, or lean back because your back is aching or something, so here you exercise control and you maintain your posture and you keep your eyes wide open. If you're getting sleepy, your eyes will want to close and you're going to force them open so there's a lot of control being exerted physically on the body but no control is being exerted over the thoughts. You only need to let go of control of your intention to control your mind and only if you can. Monkey mind is still meditation if you're using this technique. The only thing you're doing is watching for those moments where you're trying to take control and you're releasing control. I recommend that you accept the present moment whenever you sit down to meditate. Always remind yourself "Why am I resisting the present moment? Why can't I just accept it?" and then just accept it. Also relax your jaw, keep it a little bit loosely open and keep reminding yourself of that as you're meditating. Also let your breathing be deep and natural. You don't need to try to control your breathing, just stop restricting it. You need to have faith that the "do-nothing technique" is very powerful. Give it at least a whole month before you judge it. The way meditation works, and this is what most people do not understand about meditation, is that it's like a purging of your unconscious and subconscious mind. You have shit in your mind that's decades old that your mind is kind of dealing with and struggling with. When you force your mind to actually sit down and be still, fully in the present moment, your mind can't be still, it's moving around like that,so in order to stabilize itself what it has to do is it has to purge crap that's making it anxious so when you first force this kind of process you kind of clamp it down, you try to force it. What happens is that it even creates more resistance and so this creates this kind of friction in your body and also in your mind and to reduce this friction, purging has to happen and so that's what happens if you're doing meditation effectively, you'll get these moments of monkey mind and craziness and anxiety and then a week later there's a release, it's finally purged, and then you're calm, you've reached a new level of calm and then you keep practicing and what happens is again that tension and that friction starts to build up and then again there has to be a release. It's almost like tectonic plates in the Earth's crust which rub against each other and they're kind of stuck next to each other and then there's more and more pressure being put on them and then finally they release and there's an earthquake. Those earthquakes when they happen in your mind, those are the true signs of progress on this journey so don't worry about too much monkey mind here. Have faith that it will all just automatically work out for you. ********************************* So far, we've seen the "No Manipulation Technique" (see 1. above), neither manipulating the mind nor the body. Then, the "Do Nothing Technique" (see 4. above), not manipulating the mind but keeping the body still. Here, on this next video, we have the "Clear Mind Technique", trying to keep the mind AND the body still. 5. How To Meditate: The no-bullshit guide to meditation This is a very foundational video that gets you to actually practically start meditating in your life (the benefits-see video above for these, the how to, the common pitfalls) Do you want an exceptional, extraordinary, successful, fulfilling, happy, peaceful type of life? Or is it going to be a frantic, neurotic, chaotic, overstressed, overwhelmed, making-stupid-decisions, self-sabotaging kind of life? You can even ultimately reach enlightenment, you can literally reach this very blissful, peaceful state which is your natural state, but which is obstructed by all the crazy monkey chatter that’s going on. This is just the truth that you are one with the world, you are one with everybody else. When you can attain this state then the amazing thing about it is that you feel very peaceful, totally content, totally fulfilled without needing anything else in your life. This is the ultimate state you can shoot for with your personal development. Meditation is basically just sitting down and quieting your mind. Just being aware of exactly what’s happening in the present moment. It’s the ability to just focus your mind on basically nothingness, nothing in particular, and not getting caught up in thought stories. What’s going on in your head is that all the time you’ve got these stories that come up. What can happen is either you go along for the ride with this story or you don’t, you just observe the story just kind of wearing itself out, fizzling and bubbling away. That’s what thoughts are in your mind. There are different techniques: some of them have you focusing on a mantra or an affirmation that you say to yourself, some of them have you do particular breathing exercises, some of them have you counting your breaths in a specific way, some of them just have you trying to clear your mind constantly…there’s a lot of different stuff. Actually meditation is very, very simple. I want to keep things very simple here. Here’s the technique I’m going to give you. You can use this technique to get to the highest levels of meditation you can. All you’ve got to do is use it consistently. Step one: Set twenty minutes on the timer. Step two: Sit in a comfortable position in some sort of quiet area, preferably alone with your back very, very straight and erect. You don’t need to sit in any lotus position, that’s usually difficult. You can literally just take a chair and sit on it. You could do it on the couch. You could do it on the side of your bed. Don’t lie down. Keep your back straight to avoid sleepiness. You’re comfortable, give yourself a minute just to adjust, scratch anything that needs scratching so that you’re comfortable there, you’re going to try and sit still and not move for those twenty minutes. Step three: Close your eyes. You’re going to relax, you’re not going to do anything special with your breath, you’re just going to let your breath go automatically nice and calm and steady. Step four: Try and clear your mind of any particular thoughts, let them go. Like I said before, you’ve going to try and not get caught up in the thought stories. What immediately is going to happen is that for the first five or ten seconds maybe your mind will be clear, but then some thought will come up, some sort of story. You Can Either Let It Go Or Get Carried Away with it. Maybe I’m sitting there and the first thing that comes into my mind is, “Oh shoot, I’ve got that email I’ve got to answer for a client of mine.” When you get that thought, you have a choice. You can either continue on that train of thought and start thinking about it like, “I need to go and research, I need to compile this report then I’ve got to send that to my clients.” You can kind of get carried away with a story, or you can notice it in your mind like, “Wait a minute, that’s just a thought. I don’t necessarily need to go along for the ride.” Let the thought go on its own way but don’t go with it. You just let that thought go. You continue like this, you just let thoughts come and go without ever moving from where you are. Not physically, I mean in your head. Be very still. Be the atmosphere. Don’t be the clouds. Let the clouds pass through you.That’s it. Your brain is going to get caught off track. You’re not going to be able to do this perfectly. It’s very difficult to do this perfectly. In practice what you’re going to do is get carried away by these thoughts. Sometimes, you’ll get carried away a little bit and you’ll start to refocus, sometimes you get carried away very, very far. You might find yourself caught up in some sort of thought story and you’ll be caught up in it for five minutes. For five minutes you’ll be totally unconscious of the fact that you’ve caught up in this thought story but then five minutes later you’re going to go, “Wait, I’m supposed to be meditating. Where did I go? I got lost in fantasy land. Let me bring myself back and center myself, become the atmosphere again.” That’s the technique. Very simple. There’s no new age nonsense here, there’s no ritual, there’s no theory behind it, there are no gods to it, there are no religions behind it, there are no principles, there are no holy books. It’s very, very simple. You just sit and clear your mind. Even though this is simple, it’s extremely difficult. If you’ve never meditated before then one of the things you’re going to discover is how shocking it is, how difficult it is to sit still for twenty minutes without thinking about anything, without getting carried away to fantasy land with your stories. It’s very, very difficult. You’re going to tend to want to get distracted. Meditation is meant to be very simple. It’s meant to fundamentally make you totally accepting of the present moment as you are right now without needing anything. It’s like the most simple activity that you can do. It’s the essence of minimalism. Don’t let somebody confuse you into thinking that you need more information, more theory, more equipment, this kind of stuff. You don’t need it. In fact that stuff will just distract you. Notice your mind trying to complicate meditation, try to make it too complicated. It doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be very simple. What I find is that whenever you’re trying to complicate meditation, that’s you trying to procrastinate from doing it. Your mind is very tricky. It will try to procrastinate this especially at the beginning where you haven’t built up a habit yet just because it doesn’t want to sit still. Your mind wants to be running around. It doesn’t want to be sitting still. The scariest thing you can do is force your mind to sit still. How Do You Go About Making It A Habit? At this point let’s actually talk about how to make a successful meditation habit. The trick is that this must be done daily. This twenty minutes? Every single day; weekday, weekend, holidays, birthdays, on Christmas, on New Year’s, on Valentine’s Day… every single day. On vacation days, it doesn’t matter. On your worst days, when you have a break up, when your business collapses, when you lose a hundred thousand dollars, you’ve still got to do it. When you’re sitting sick in the hospital, you’ve still got to do it. That’s the point. If you’re not going to do meditation every single day of your life, there’s not even any point in watching this video and continuing further. Don’t even try it. It’s pointless. It won’t get you anywhere. Meditation needs to be done daily not just for a month or year, but you need to make a commitment to do it for the rest of your life. That’s what I find is necessary. It’s just like going to the gym. If you’re only going to go to the gym for a week, why even go? If you’re only going to go for a month, why even go? It makes no sense. You’re just going to waste a lot of your time and get very frustrated. The thing with meditation is that it takes work to start to get benefits of it. Yes, you’ll get a little bit of a benefit even within just a few weeks, but the true benefits come months and years later. This is a subtle thing, meditation. It’s not this big, huge, supercharging boost to your life, at least when you start. To start to get that giant, supercharging boost, that will take you months and years. It’s not going to happen immediately. You need to prepare your mind with those expectations otherwise I find that you’re going to fail. Here are some of the common doubts and pitfalls that I see people having with meditation. One, is they tell me, “Leo, I can’t focus. I’m ADD, my mind can’t focus.” No, everyone’s mind can focus. There’s nothing wrong with your mind it’s just that you haven’t trained it. Meditation will help train that. If you can’t focus that means you need to be meditating extra hard. It’s not an excuse. Two, is that people tell me, “Leo, I keep trying to meditate but my mind isn’t calm in the middle of the meditation. I can’t calm down.” Again, that’s not something fundamental that’s wrong with you, that’s just how the mind works. That’s exactly why meditation needs to be done. That’s kind of like telling me, “Leo, I’m fat so I shouldn’t be going to the gym.” No, if you’re fat that means you’re fat because you haven’t been going to the gym and you need to be going to the gym even more than the regular person does. Same thing here. Your mind will learn to calm down through the repetitive practice of meditation. It Takes Years Of Practice To Perfect Just because you can’t always focus during a meditation session, doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. This is where people get caught up the most, I think. This is the biggest failure point right here. People think that, “I sat here for twenty minutes and even though I sat through twenty minutes of it I couldn’t get my mind to be calm and peaceful.” They imagine this picture in their head of a Zen master sitting there with a perfectly calm mind for twenty minutes or a whole hour and they think that that’s meditation. If they’re not doing that then I’m not meditating. No! Meditation is the entire process, not just the calm part. When you start what’s going to happen is you’re going to have little windows of calmness, maybe five seconds here, and then in five minutes you’ll have another five seconds, then maybe you’ll hit ten seconds somewhere in your twenty minute meditation session. Don’t expect to do this for twenty whole minutes. You might not reach that state for a decade. Maybe with ten years of meditation practice you’ll be able to do twenty minutes perfectly calm, but right now you’re not going to be anywhere near that so don’t set that expectation. Don’t think that because you’re having five seconds of peace here and five seconds of peace there but the rest of it is mental chatter that somehow you’re failing. No, that’s a full twenty minute session as long as you sit down and you try to focus you’re meditating, even if your mind is going crazy. Especially if your mind is going crazy, that’s where the muscle is being trained. Imagine that I sent you to the gym. You go to the gym for a couple of weeks and then you tell me, “My muscles are so sore. I’m straining my muscles every time I’m doing a bicep curl.” Yeah, that’s how it’s supposed to be. Your muscles are sore for good reason; because you’re working them out, they’re training. You’re literally breaking down the muscle tissue and those last couple of reps that are really tough, those are actually building up your muscles the most. Keep doing that, your muscles will get really big. Same thing with meditation. When your mind is chattering away and it’s having difficulty focusing and you bring it back and you focus it, that’s when you’re getting the most benefit. You’ve got to refrain that and say, “I’m doing good. That means I’m doing it properly.” Another expectation people have is that meditation is somehow going to be exciting and stimulation. No. If you feel like meditation is boring at first, that’s totally normal. You’re going to have a wide range of feelings while you’re meditating. Everything That Happens Is Normal Sometimes you’re going to feel agitated, frustrated, stressed, bored, sleepy, tired, anxious… all of those are normal emotions, especially the one about being frustrated and agitated. Sometimes people will do a twenty minute meditation session and at the end of it they’ll actually get agitated not calm. They’ll tell themselves, “What’s the point? I thought meditation was supposed to make me calmer. I must be doing it wrong.” No, you’re doing it just right. Meditation doesn’t always make you calm. That’s the end state after many, many years of meditation. Initially in fact you can be very agitated doing meditation. That’s okay. Remember, you're flexing your muscle. Some people say, “I don’t see the point of meditation. Why should I keep doing this?” I’ll cover that at the very end of the video. Some people have this belief that, “I’m not a good meditator. Somehow meditation isn’t right for me. It might work for other people but for me it doesn’t work.” No that’s total nonsense. Meditation literally works for everybody. All human beings can meditate, and anyone can become a professional meditator, you’ve just got to practice it consistently which is what you’re not doing. Here’s the principle that I want you to carry with you for the rest of your life as you’re meditating: everything that happens in meditation as long as you’re sitting there, you’re focusing and you’re trying to be mindful, as long as you’re doing that everything else that happens is perfectly normal and exciting, and it’s good. Sleepiness, tiredness, feeling boring, feeling anxious… all that stuff? Good. You’re doing it properly. This is a really huge principle to accept. Once you accept this principle you can use it to reground yourself. You are going to have days when you’re going to be like, “It’s not working. I must be doing something wrong.” You’re going to doubt yourself, especially when something turbulent happens in your life. One of the most difficult times to meditate is when you have a big breakup with your girlfriend or boyfriend. Meditating on that day or the next morning, that’s like hell because your mind is all over the place. It’s thinking all these negative thoughts. You just sit down, you try to focus, you do the best you can. There’s no way you can have the perfect meditation session on that day. You’re going to have a very rocky, very turbulent and agitated meditation session, but when you finish that you tell yourself, “You know what? I sat here, I did it. I followed through on my commitment.” That’s exactly what matters. Everything else is okay. Don’t judge yourself while you’re meditating. In fact try to turn off your logical mind. Don’t be thinking too much about the thoughts you’re thinking. Don’t be doing any meta-analysis. Just sit and be peaceful. It’s kind of like you trying to find an off switch to your mind. You’re never ever going to find that off switch because there is no off switch. Thoughts just come. One thing you’re going to learn through meditation is that you don’t really have as much control over your thoughts as you think you do. That’s fine. You Become More Mindful What you’re going to learn is mindfulness. You’re going to observe the thoughts. What that’s going to do, it’s not going to shut them off, it’s just going to get you distance and separation from them. It’s going to misidentify you with them. You don’t even realize how powerful that is right now until you’ve actually experienced it. I want to set the expectation that the first two years of meditation, even if you do it consistently every single day, are going to be hell because your mind is not good at bringing your focus back from these wandering thoughts. It’s going to be difficult. You have to tell yourself that that’s normal. It’s not going to be smooth sailing. Which brings us to the final reason which is why should you meditate at all when there are all these difficulties, frustration and agitation, feeling bored, tired and sleepy, and all this stuff? Why are we meditating? We already talked about some of the benefits, but the reason that you fail if you’ve tried it in the past to set up a successful meditation practice, is because you’ve lacked the vision of what meditation can do for your life. The reason that now I’m very consistent with my meditation is because after lots of research, lots of trial and error, I’ve finally been able to create a vision that I’ve really bought into, heart and soul convinced myself that meditation is something that I should do for the rest of my life. Here’s what I picture for myself. I picture that through years of meditation I’m going to develop really strong emotional control. I also picture to myself that I’m going to be able to be happy no matter what the circumstances. How cool is that? If something goes wrong in my life, I’m still going to be happy. If something goes great in my life, I’m still going to be happy. I’m going to be in control of my life, I’m going to be in control of my emotions. It’s going to help me in my relationships, it’s going to help me overcome any negative habits and addictions that I have, it’s going to build strong mental willpower that I’ll be able to apply in my business – I’m very business oriented. I’m also going to be able to apply this to become more productive – I’m very productivity oriented. I’m also big on creativity. I love being creative in my work, it’s going to help me with that. I also realize that without meditation I’m never going to actually attain fulfillment in life. It’s not going to be possible because I’m just going to be chasing and running around like that monkey looking for sources of stimulation. I want to unhook myself from all that. I see myself five or ten years from now being much more unhooked from stimulation than I am right now and I can see that having huge positive repercussions throughout my life. Ultimately the thing that has me really excited is the potential of using meditation to attain enlightenment. The sense of oneness with the whole world, the loss of ego, the loss of all the pettiness that we as human beings strive for every day, the need to protect yourself, all the insecurities you have, all the negative emotions… all that ultimately stems from ego. I’ll shoot more videos talking about that but for me that’s a really exciting prospect, is to attain that kind of state. That’s how I was able to convince myself. You have to build a case in your own mind. Pick and choose from this laundry list of benefits whatever is most important to you, latch on to it and try to make this vision then go and start with a thirty day meditation habit. Start with just thirty days. Do a thirty day challenge and see if you can last for thirty days staright. Every single day, like clockwork, twenty minutes, and see how far you get. If you’re still not convinced, that’s fine. Try it more. The first time I did a thirty day challenge I wasn’t convinced and I fell off track. Get back on until eventually you see that this is something that you really, as a human being, must do if you want to attain fulfillment, happiness and full potential in your own life. This doesn’t just apply for hippies but for every single human being. If you aren’t meditating and you’re saying it’s too difficult or whatever excuse you’re coming up with, in the end it’s just because you’re lazy and undisciplined, and you don’t want to become disciplined. It takes a lot of practice to discipline your mind because your mind is the most unruly part of you. It’s that drunken monkey. So bust through the laziness, bust through the lack of discipline, start the habit and we’ll talk when you become a good consistent meditator and I’ll shoot a lot of cool videos that will help you to take that meditation and channel it into even more advanced things with enlightenment, which is really exciting. ************************************* Meditation videos still to watch (at a later date because more advanced) = Guided Meditation (The Next Level Of Meditation) How To Meditate Deeper (3 techniques to transition from newbie to intermediate meditator) Mindfulness Meditation (A Complete Guide With Techniques & Examples) Meditation On Steroids (How To Get The FASTEST Meditation Gains)