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This is typical dark night of the soul stuff and is unavoidable for serious progress. Congratulations on your progress! The rule is: It gets worse before it gets better... Always. Are you willing to swallow the "worse" period? That is the question. Damn right it is. Im sorry for your pain. May you be blessed with joy bliss extasy and love. The rule of the thumb is that noone who achieved full enlightenment is gonna tell you: "Oh I felt ok for a long period of time and then I gont enlightened." Hell no! Its more like "Yeah I felt terror, was pretty sure I was insane for a few years, I could barely function and then my redemption dawned." The human unconsciousness is real. The human pain is real. Very real. There is only one question. Are you willing to take it?

should have gone for the $60 version, you'd probably have reached full enlightenment by now

There is no way. Enlightenment is what you are so, if you share - sharing just happens - you share with yourself contemplate that I don't mean that sharing is bad but it should come after you reached some substantial levels of understanding at least if not the full Enlightenment. Otherwise you may easily spread just another belief you have...

@Dan94 Man you gotta follow @Nahm's solid advice, If you are really serious about your life purpose (Being a successful musician) and care about producing quality content until the death of your body. From my experience, I can say that there is no shortcut in the long run. I remember practicing guitar blindly for 6 years and making huge momentum. Then all of that crashed and burned in 1 year due to a series of addictions, health issues and depression. Discipline for discipline's sake is the legit way to master your craft and sustain that over a long timeline. In case of your life purpose especially in some very technical field like being a performing musician, there is really no other alternative than solid discipline and practice routine. Cause you know how skipping just a single day of practice disturbs your form. And about enlightenment, I think being a disciplined musician itself is a solid path towards that higher consciousness. I'm sure you know many virtuoso musicians (In many genres), who have practically surrendered their whole life to their practice and craft. After some good years, they are not really looking for anything particular. Their solid discipline carry their flow state. That goalless, dedicated practice itself consumes their ego, pride over time. Some of these people are extremely grounded and you can almost feel their aura (the way you feel in front of a guru) After a while, practicing those scale runs, chords and songs get mechanical anyway. Start practicing 24/7 awareness on breathing while you practice to keep it fresh and conscious. NEVER let your daily practice become mechanical even if you are doing it for 50 years. Cause it WILL come back to bite your ass. When you are mechanically doing stuff, all sorts of things go on in your mind (mostly unconsciously) which inevitably depletes your mental and physical energy that leads to low conscious behaviors. Every single day counts! How about this for a strategy? 1) 8 hours of solid, conscious music practice (after a while this will become your meditation session). Start block time practicing in 30 min/1 hour chunks instead of planning and grabbing all 8 hours by the balls at the same time (It will seriously demotivate you to practice that day) lol. 2) 1 hour meditation. 1 hour breathing techniques + exercise/yoga. 1 hour PD stuff (visualization, affirmation, journaling, reading) then you got 5 hours still left in day to rest, maintain relationships, do other stuff, enjoy nature, studying more etc. (24/7 mindfulness goes on ) even if you sleep 8 hours. Make a routine that suits you most at your particular life situation. Then maybe take 2 vacations every year for psychedelic/solo retreats. Consider trying this out. I think you can discipline yourself easier as you already got solid meditation practice going on. I know it may sound like a very tough and mechanical lifestyle, but remember a musician's life can be either a very fulfilling one or a very miserable one depending on how you build it. Yeah it will consume all of your personal agendas and low consciousness cycle. Yeah It will consume your whole life. But wouldn't a hardcore lifestyle solely towards full enlightenment and understanding do the same thing? Finally, I will attach this link of me playing guitar at almost my peak performance level. Not to brag but to verify that I'm not just throwing 2nd hand knowledge at you. A musician got a HUGE road in front of him. Gotta figure a lot of stuff out and it's very easy to get lost somewhere. That's why staying conscious and strategic in everyday life is the key. All the best! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQs9_M8gc5U

@electroBeam its because they think enlightenment is a withdrawal from illusory form. Which it is, like the first half of it. Then you complete the circle, and you come back to form - shakti. Advaita is the first stage, then you return to form/life/love. Another good metaphor is the divine feminine and masculine. The father that dwells in heavens - nothingness, the divine mother - shakti, kundalini and form. Full enlightenment is merger of masculine and feminine. Ah I just recalled Leo once saying that meditation is like having sex with reality. How accurate, the father nailing the divine mother.

What is success to me is not the same for you. If we look closer into non-duality topic we can totally refute the notion of success. After achieving Enlightenment with all the major shifts in your life the main shift will happen with your life purpose. We try so hard, contemplate and seek our purpose in life in order to be successful. But it turns into a joke after realizing the Truth of Enlightenment. What will be your grounding point in this egocentric life after realizing this Truth? Every purpose, even one to share this Truth with others becomes irrelevant to you. Maybe that's why the most Enlightened people don't communicate at all. Why would they even care? That's the scary part of Enlightenment - dark side of it - from ego's perspective but anyways it's dark. Reality experiencing itself... While getting fully Enlightened we are pushing away from us the possibility to live our life as ego. Like it is a bad thing - but in reality ego is inseparable from our true self, thus it is necessary. Therefore maybe it's wise to stop at some point and don't try to achieve full Enlightenment. When you have some breakthroughs and see the real possibility of the Truth maybe that's the threshold where it's wise to stop and continue living? Yes that way you don't achieve bliss and highest possibilities of internal happiness but you keep your ego life at the same time realizing that you are just free to experience it as freely as you wish! P.S. When you fully realize the Truth there is no way back, but when you have seen some parts of it through small cracks there is always an option to stop or continue. Maybe that idea of choice is what's worth keeping and experiencing?!

I just visited Leo in the spirit realm. (Not a fan of out-of-body-experience, but a lot of people seemed concerned.) He said he's coming back soon reincarnated as Sadhguru's love child. Seemed psyched about it. Said he's going to reach full enlightenment much faster this way. Said to tell everyone to carry on with life purpose work and self-inquiry. Said you already have a wealth of material to work with, just be diligent.

Naturally, we do know things and happenings exist because it can be known and felt by our senses. And our minds interpret event or happening as a condition that one has to go through, to persevere with, to soldier on with, to carry on with or to undertake with, inevitably. In other words, what exists is defined as that which can be known. If it cannot be known by the mind consciousness, then it does not exist and things can exist as in fallacy or in reality. Since things and happenings existed long before we have a slightest opportunity to recognise and understand it well, we are bound to suffer (bear with) ignorantly. However, as human beings, we have the wisdom to make recognition on the entire cycle of events or happenings in Mother Nature. In the realm of subject-object duality, our mind consciousness could observe the fluctuating vibrational frequencies arising because everything in the material Universe is made up of energy. Atoms and molecules are made up of energy. Our bodies, our clothes, our cars, our houses are all made up of energy but what makes them different is their vibration. Energy is always vibrating at a different frequency under the influence of conditional phenomena. In other words, energy is the underlying element that exists everywhere within Mother Nature because every single thing or happening would involve with it, without exception. In fact, energy is an expression that emptiness exists. When one sees into energy, one sees into emptiness; when one sees into emptiness, one sees into energy. This is the rationale for the saying, ‘Form is Emptiness.’ The principle in effect: seeing into form is seeing into matter, seeing into matter is seeing into energy and seeing into energy is seeing into emptiness. At the same time, emptiness is a necessary prerequisite for any objects to exist; without it, the object would be impossible and this hypothesis attributes to the saying, ‘Emptiness is Form.’ When we examine into Mother Nature, its intricacy is negated, what is left is emptiness that is portrayed as in a uniformed translational motion i.e. a bare becoming process. When the two opposing translational forces clash against one another, vibrational forces arise concurrently. The arised vibrational forces would appear in a regular pattern of waves i.e. standing and traveling and this in turn would give rise to deflective forces. The traveling waves would involve with higher vibrational frequencies and the standing waves would involve with lower vibrational frequencies. Subsequently, the conditions of duality and multiplicity would arise out of the combination of deflective, translational, vibrational and rotational forces as the becoming processes moved into an advanced level of complexity. And only when there is a balanced circumstance, there is a chance for the integrating process i.e. under a balanced phenomenon, one could witness shapes or forms arising; under an imbalanced phenomenon, one could witness no shapes or forms arising - and the cycle of conditional phenomena continues endlessly. This scenario can be portrayed in the cycle of dependent origination shown as below: - Balance leads to stability. Stability leads to aggregation. Aggregation leads to agitation. Agitation leads to information. Information leads to knowledge. Knowledge leads to representation. Representation leads to memory. Memory leads to compulsion. Compulsion leads to ignorance. Ignorance leads to blindness. Blindness leads to disorientation. Disorientation leads to confusion. Confusion leads to irrationality. Irrationality leads to impulse. Impulse leads to sparkling. Sparkling leads to inkling. Inkling leads to volition. Volition leads to awareness. Awareness leads to consciousness. Consciousness leads to mind and body. Mind and body lead to sensation. Sensation leads to six sense bases. Six sense bases lead to conductivity. Conductivity leads to contact. Contact leads to stimulation. Stimulation leads to feeling. Feeling leads to experience. Experience leads to craving. Craving leads to grasping. Grasping leads to clinging. Clinging leads to unsettling. Unsettling leads to becoming. Becoming leads to creation. Creation leads to birth. Birth leads to energising. Energising leads to mobility. Mobility leads to hauling. Hauling leads to aging. Aging leads to draining. Draining leads to death. Death leads to fragility. Fragility leads to segregation. Segregation leads to diffusion. Diffusion leads to imbalance. Imbalance leads to adjustment. Adjustment leads to alignment. Alignment leads to new balance. As depicted above, the elements of awareness would begin to discern some simple varying frequencies that consecutively give rise to consciousness - that basically arises out of awareness. This is the soul thing that we talk about all the time. Consciousness would then progress and expand into a manipulative typecast i.e. mind or also known as consciousness in individuality. Therefore, soul is referring to a blueprint of endless evolving mind consciousnesses. Such a blueprint would serve as a steering wheel and is often mistakenly deemed as a permanent entity. In fact, soul is dependent arising and anything that is dependent arising would involve change and therefore, it cannot inherently exist in Mother Nature. In summary, we could mention that firstly there is the arising of preliminary awareness, and then there is the arising of consciousness-cum-intermediary awareness, thereafter the arising of consciousness-cum-advanced awareness, and lastly the arising of ultimate or full awareness. This means every existence would contain with the elements of awareness that is known as the seeds of emptiness. And when we talk about seeing into emptiness, we talk about the progressive realisation of the mind on the reality of things. Therefore, emptiness can be realised into stages as below: - Stages of Enlightenment Stage 1 Elementary Realisation · All things and phenomena are lack of core essence. · Nothing is unchanging and permanent. · Everything is inter-related. Stage 2 Intermediary Realisation · Ability to differentiate the way things are perceived to exist and the way things really exist. · Only seeing without believing. Stage 3 Advanced Realisation · No dualism of the subject and object, and no appearance of multiplicity. · All things and phenomena rise and fall within a singular condition. · Only uniformity exists. Stage 4 Ultimate Realisation · All dependent arising are completely blown off or extinguished. · No string attached, and nothing is left remaining. · Infinite, unchanging, permanent, and unconditional. · Exists beyond all conventional phenomena. The ultimate realisation of emptiness would mean a phase of perfect intermediation being accomplished by the mind consciousness (a.k.a. full enlightenment). A perfect intermediation would mean a comprehensive absence of any or all units under consideration. It is also known as a complete neutralisation of conditional phenomena. But an absence of any or all units under consideration is not equivalent to nothingness of any or all units under consideration. Therefore, absence is not about nothingness but instead it is about no-thing-ness. No thing means no becoming or no changing. No changing means no suffering. No suffering means no mind. Mind is the forerunner of all states. No mind means a completely neutralised state of affairs - that is nibbāna. The state of nibbāna is inexplicable in conventional terms but still, it can be tasted by the enlightened ones during deep meditation. At the end of the day, the cyclic processes of so-called seed and fruit would continue ad infinitum until upon uprooting ignorance from the mind consciousness. This is the ceasing moment of rebirth i.e. the evolving consciousness or stream of consciousness of a person in Mother Nature.

To quote Emperor Palpatine, "let the hate flow through you." The hate isn't the problem. The problem is that you feel the hate, and then feel bad about feeling the hate. Seems like you want to be a "nice" person. You don't want to have intense, messy emotions. I hate to break it to you, but as long as you don't act on your hate, the world doesn't really care what you feel or think. You can execute a million feminazis in your imagination, and it's fine. There's no such thing as a thoughtcrime. Shadow work is tricky business. You can only access so much repressed material until you reach full enlightenment, so it's really, in my experience, a Sysyphean task. I did quite a bit of shadow work a few years ago...and then I hit the wall with it. Until I went higher in consciousness, which automatically dissolved some blocks, it was like pounding my head against the concrete. So...back to your situation. Here's one way to think about it: the feminazis are doing the best they can, the cock carousel riders are doing the best they can, and you're doing the best you can. So give everybody involved, including yourself, a break. It is what it is.

Yeah, I can't really disagree with anything in your post. That's the simplest way of formulating it: (full) enlightenment is the lack of resistance to what is.

There's nothing to solve, I think. I agree with you that the 5eo-dmt experience was a Stage 3 "God Consciousness" experience. The only peril here is that he stabilizes in that stage and believes that's full enlightenment. Otherwise it wasn't a bad experience to have, it likely accelerated his progress. I've had experience with spirit guides on psychedelics (that's of a stage prior to Leo's experience) and it was definitely helpful. As far as striving, this is natural until you stabilize in the last pre-nonduality stage. Eventually, you realize it can't be done and let go. He knows it intellectually already but accepting it takes time. Yes, no other, no world, no enlightened being, everything is perfect exactly as it is.

Putting aside the issue of whether these particular teachers were enlightened "instantly", there are some people who go from duality to full enlightenment with breathtaking speed (e.g. in a day or in a week or a month.) I believe it all has to do with past-life spiritual karma. Some people come into this life ready to pop, and at some point their time comes. Maybe they were saints in previous lives, etc. It doesn't really matter - you could be one of these people or not; it doesn't really change much. One takes it as it comes.

How much work is it really gonna take? To get all this super deep understanding of everything? For high level or full enlightenment? For all this wisdom and growth mastering this stuff? Mastering nonduality, consciousness, knowledge, wisdom, growth, etc. To becoming a sage? Is it really possible without a life purpose dedicated to doing this stuff? If your life purpose isn't centered around mastering this stuff will you really have the time to do this in life with another life purpose happening? If your a writer do you have the time to do this? Wouldn't you need to be a nonduality teacher or something like that to reach these levels? A life focused completely on it? It doesn't seem possible to me to be honest. What do you guys think?

Full enlightenment happens in many lives, masters like Buddha are very rare. You have no limits but your body has limits so this journey is very long.

What you said here is very interesting. I have thought about it, and it's not wrong to do this. It's your choice. However, I noticed that you are a fan of Osho, and that's ok too. Osho did mention the 10 Ox Herding Pics, and as you know Riding the Ox Backwards is the full enlightenment. It means we are one - non-duality. There is not a distance between everything. If you can find your life purpose that can express this in some way, it creates / triggers more peace in this world. You're not doing it for "survival" or "money" or any objects anymore. You're doing it cause you don't want to see others suffer. You're doing it because you want to show others that ego is only a fiction, and we're all living in infinite abundance - this means so many opportunities are there in our physical world, etc. etc. It's just that with your own life purpose, people (your own fans) take you more seriously. They will ask themselves, "What is driving this person to do all this? Money? Nope. That can't be right." Why was Sai Baba a guru, and he used to build hospitals and universities? For his own well-being? For the money? Nope. Ppl do try to figure it out - what is the message here? Sai Baba went beyond being an entrepreneur/philanthropist. More ppl will get it since the message is spread in a different way - not Osho's way, not Leo's way, not anyone else's way but your own unique way. Here you said something interesting too. We're not snakes or birds. We're not cookie-cutter animals relying purely on instincts. We're unique. We discover ourselves. We have different professions so that we could help each other live through life more peacefully. We have a long way to go because not everyone is living peacefully. Btw, are you using Baba Ramdev's products? Are you using Dant Kanti, his toothpaste? I am. I don't have toothaches anymore because of Dant Kanti. I used to use other mainstream toothpastes - it didn't work. It'll be interesting to see what happens on my next visit to my dentist.

Just returned from my vipassana retreat today, probably did about 80 hours of meditation and I got some good insights about life. While talking to the teacher, I asked him about trying other practices... For the last 6 months I've been doing only vipassana meditation (similar to noting practice) for 2 hours daily and this was my second retreat. Basically my teacher said that you don't need to do any other practices, Vipassana is all you need really . After 10 minutes of respectful debate, I asked him about concentration, self-inquiry, visualization, etc. and he still told me that I should not mix practices. I told him that I wanted to try many different practices and that "I don't want to marry the first woman I fall in love with" but he just again said that Vipassana is a great practice and there is no need to do other practices. I was very confused after this conversation because everyone on actuaized.org practices a variety of meditations and this contradicts my meditation teacher's view. My teacher has practiced meditation for 10 years and was trained as a vipassana teacher in Thailand. Many monks spend 70 years with only one practice and they are extremely fulfilled so why should we have to do self inquiry and do nothing and mindful labelling etc... We concluded our disagreement with him saying "You can do whatever you want but don't blame me and I told you that you don't have to mix practices." This implies that he thinks that mixing practices may harm me/lead me off my path. Confused. Confused. Confused. Is my teacher being dogmatic (probably a little bit)? The way he speaks leads me to think that maybe he's onto something. Should I do only vipassana for the rest of my life? I'm probably going to dabble in other practices before I decide but is it beneficial to "get married" to one practice? An example of someone that I know that uses many different practices is Shinzen Young P.S. My teacher also said that you can't attain full enlightenment unless you are an ordained monk...Basically he explained that Buddhism has 4 or 5 main levels of enlightenment and the deepest ones can only be attained through a monastic lifestyle and that those people who claim to be enlightened but are not monks are likely at a lower level of enlightenment. What do you think about mixing practices? Is it okay or do they interfere with each other? Why do I need to do many practices when I can just stick to one? Thanks

No one is claiming he is an enlightened master and that we should all bow at his feet. I'm only claiming that the book, and what he's doing in general by promoting meditation, spirituality, and thinking more deeply about your cultural biases, has value. Especially to a certain segment of the population (his core audience) whose very rational, Western, atheist, overconfident, etc.. He's playing a crucial role as a stepping stone to higher levels of consciousness (assuming you're below where he's at), or at least he did for me. He helped lead me to you after all Speaking of his never experiencing God, I've always been discouraged by hearing how much time he spent in India on silent retreat with what should've been very worthwhile teachers, and never attained full enlightenment. I guess his "karma" is what it is for this incarnation though and I shouldn't think his experience applies to me in any way.

This guy Sam Harris is very honest... Read this (I don't intend to post the whole book, but I can't help sharing some passages with everyone... I like his approach.. He is a 100% skeptic, criticizes the stupid myths of many traditions but fully acknowledges what we are trying to do here... I would recommend his book to everyone here): Poonja-ji’s influence on me was profound, especially because it came as a corrective to all the strenuous and unsatisfying efforts I had been making in meditation up to that point. But the dangers inherent in his approach soon became obvious. The all-or-nothing quality of Poonja-ji’s teaching obliged him to acknowledge the full enlightenment of any person who was grandiose or manic enough to claim it. Thus, I repeatedly witnessed fellow students declare their complete and undying freedom, all the while appearing quite ordinary—or worse. In certain cases, these people had clearly had some sort of breakthrough, but Poonja-ji’s insistence upon the finality of every legitimate insight led many of them to delude themselves about their spiritual attainments. Some left India and became gurus. From what I could tell, Poonja-ji gave everyone his blessing to spread his teachings in this way. He once suggested that I do it, and yet it was clear to me that I was not qualified to be anyone’s guru. Nearly twenty years have passed, and I’m still not. Of course, from Poonja-ji’s point of view, this is an illusion. And yet there simply is a difference between a person like myself, who is generally distracted by thought, and one who isn’t and cannot be. I don’t know where to place Poonjaji on this continuum of wisdom, but he appeared to be a lot farther along than his students. Whether Poonja-ji was capable of seeing the difference between himself and other people, I do not know. But his insistence that no difference existed began to seem either dogmatic or delusional.

No, as I am Indian, I have seen mystics devoting their life for pursuing enlightenment. To survive full enlightenment, preparation is necessary. I am still not prepared. But I live my life relaxed and blissful.

Sounds interesting here...reminds me of the 10 Ox Herding Pics told by Shinzen Young. Riding the Ox Backwards is the full "enlightenment experience." Notice at the very end of the story, there is a teacher/monk called the Cloth Bag Monk who passes out gifts to anyone. He teaches by action, not lecturing. Have a look... Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Do you expect to write about Samadhi and full enlightenment from their own experience on this forum ? There are thousand and one ways to inflate the ego, even writing in your own language can inflate the ego. It will drop on it own accord, I am not in a hurry. If you want to remind me to cite the source again , you can reply. I will continue to respond , as long as you want.

@Azrael Is there anything major, or minor if you care enough to specify, about Leo's approach that you don't think is very good or any traps you think he's falling into/ ways in which he's not giving good advice? I'm also curious what you think about various degrees of Enlightenment. Do you think that there is still much deepening of your realization to be done, or do you feel like there can't possibly be anything else or that you have "Full Enlightenment", as some might say? You mentioned that spirituality isn't really on your mind that much. Do you feel like you just don't really have any reason to do more consciousness work?

Most of the religions stop at self realization, they don't talk about full enlightenment. Translation of Bhagavad Gita 7.3 Out of many thousands among men, one may endeavor for perfection, and of those who have achieved perfection, hardly one knows Me in truth.

@Prabhaker How rare is full enlightenment in your opinion?

@Prabhaker I can totally relate about your point on China. As a guy with Chinese background, the environment and people there this generation I think are truly hopeless for the most part. 99.9999% of the population are parasites and almost 100% money oriented as far as I've experienced and heard. They are trapped deep in their egos, both education system and diet is messed up. I authentically don't think eating healthy is possible with all the gmos and pesticides and condiments, unethical corporations, and lack of responsibility of a lot of the population. There is a gem in China though and that's Daoist internal alchemy and qigong which I believe has one of the most esoteric and thorough understandings of energy and consciousness in the world. There are definitely breatharian masters in China who've achieved "immortality" their way of saying full enlightenment, but yeah. Most people would never even bother to search, much less become enlightened in an environment that is utterly obstructive to their completion.