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@NoSelfSelf No that would largely depend upon your skill. What ego is and what it not is, is just not relevant when you genuinely want to improve a situation, you work through the ego, the same with meditation. It's not like every sitting is a total bliss as an advanced partitioner. Yes, it comes down to what you want to help people with and how you want to do it, yet it does not mean that ego is not involved or even your biological, psychological or biographical self. The point is the ego obviously will come, otherwise, the "game" would be way to easy. Yet, it does not mean that effortless action or service does not exist. Similar to flow states while meditating, running, studying or listening to music, playing an instrument a high concentrative state penetrates ego. So, your actions become more free of them. A flow state is highly energetic and feels purifying and not egoic and greasy. To embody this is not easy and needs daily practice. I want to reach this place of living from. Regardless of what currently happens. The point is without sitting on a cushion day by day nothing will happen, especially without retreats. You could greatly benefit from the audiotapes of alan watts, to realize the meaninglessness of meaninglessness and how beautiful it can be to create and enjoy creation. https://www.audible.de/pd/Out-of-Your-Mind-Hoerbuch/B0161MI1A6?qid=1557492621&sr=1-1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=34e3b439-2a21-4dff-af95-98a7a74a1f67&pf_rd_r=4CTAGFBB7GA9TB693S8E This is IMO the best out of the 3 audiobook series I listened to and do not crank up the speed, otherwise, it just does not make sense. I started this path before actualized.org because the first video I watched from Leo was. Why I am a dick and why you don't change. I was so pissed and did not watch him for the entire year, until when he started talking about meditation. Since I just moved heavily into green from a more green/orange and could not deal with the directness of his way of teaching.

@Leo Gura that such a good description of what my LSD come down felt like. Though I imagine it’s more radically so with 5-MeOvand more drawn out. Coming down from a realization from God slowly felt like this drawn out torture as my Self came back in of just how much I taint and ruin my own bliss, truth, love, and General happiness. I think it was necessary for sure and good to see that but man is it painful. This was what really hit home on the importance of self-esteem and acceptance.

At around 2:26 of Jay's clip, I do suspect that when he said, "We want to keep chasing love, but we don't actually want to fall into it," I highly suspect that this is a pointer to the Satori. Fall into it refers to becoming the No-self and transforming and falling back into your ego, which of course is your body & the world. Then, there is this massive bliss for the ego, indicating to the ego that it is in the to love realm, which is earth. That means our purpose has to be aligned with love when we go through life. Life is the school. Hopefully, we will learn this lesson, apply it, and graduate from life.

Sounds like an ego backlash that feels like a hard uppercut to the jaw. Par for the course and is normal. Couple points: This is why developing self-love is important and also doing shadow work. Part of the reason there is that resistance that coming in the form of a mild depression is that your ego is your filter to the Love and Bliss that you are. I know what it feels like to have say a psychedelic trip to be one with universal Love and then a couple hours later I'm so depressed because as I come down slowly I'm noticing I tarnish and taint everything. It's pretty hard. More purification and love. Ego/the self ain't going down without a fight. Sustaining a conscious realization is totally different than having an awakening. A lot of awakenings aren't one's that abide but rather just create a new "set point" from which the self orients itself. That's not bad. Hell, it's WAY better than not having had any awakening or enlightenment at all. You're traversing a switchback trail looking out from a higher and higher vantage point. However, the self is still there. Breaking that down is much much MUCH harder. I suggest the above point, maybe doing some psychedelics, work on adopting honesty and authenticity as daily practices you carry on every day (that is so fucking hard it's honestly not even funny), and reading Ralston's book "Pursuing Consciousness" which specifically addresses this matter.

Is normal, because you awakened the limbic system and is atrophied. Now is time for healing and meditation. It is a very tough path to awaken the entire reptilian/limbic parts of the body. Because those parts are interconnected with everything in the universe and the drama is huge, because real awakening is beyond own drama, is experiencing all the drama and bliss of reallity. Being the reason so few people awaken.

Liger, I can relate to your perceptions/feelings when it pertains to ignorance = bliss/happiness and Truth may = Aloneness. I have been on the path of Truth now for several years, and the more aware and conscious I become, the more alone I feel. Last fall I did a two-week Ayahuasca retreat and during the last Aya ceremony my world got shattered when I experienced and embodied God consciousness. I realized that everything was an illusion. My wife, family, friends, plants, pets, religion, politics, and this world is nothing but an illusion. There is only One “Consciousness”, and I am that consciousness. It was pure Love, and at the same time pure Aloneness. I struggled for months after receiving that awareness, and I still do, to some extent. The piece that is helping me through all this is that I am also Love/Consciousness, which means I need to keep reminding myself that I am Love every day and every moment. When I now see my wife, family, pets, strangers, etc. I get awareness's that they are me, and I am them. And when I do, I no long feel alone anymore and feel some bliss/happiness.

no experience designs skeptics. @Liger it’s funny as i grew up in an atheist family, so i did the opposite, i became a believer. but the belief i found was not what someone told me it was what remained after removing what is not true. so i suppose if you can’t be happy because of ignorance it is better to be unhappy without because you at least try to find bliss in truth. i guess the agnostic approach will distance you from dogmatism but there are still things you believe in don’t you? like love or other humans. you can prove to yourself.

This is what we mean by ignorance is bliss I love this picture, it speaks 1000 words and is answers to so many questions people ask here on actualized. It should have its own section

Thank you all for your tips and insights. @abrakamowse the ego is a complex complex thing which takes a lot of work to break down. @Leo Gura It was during a meditation practice, I was doing many hour long sits over several days. Specifically it was during a guided self enquiry (Rupert Spira) meditation, I became fully aware of the "I" as consciousness and experienced what can only be felt as pure, pure bliss. It was such a intensity that I sat like that for a very long time afterwards contemplating, and shed a few tears in the process. But now, two days later, back to normal life I feel quite low.

@Liger and @Rigel Interesting to see your names look alike, sorry for this stupid observation @Nahm Isn't bliss and feeling good what everyone wants after all? Why deny them their right to feel good? They've found happiness through belief, tell me, what is direct experience but a belief? Why do you take memory for granted? Questioning is not for everyone, some people are skeptical, and others are believers.

Dear All, I've been to a beautiful ayahuasca retreat in Peru. Below I share my trip report. What I mostly came here for though is interpretation. Obviously multiple questions came up after the experience. There are some answers that I give to myself but I want to know if I don't fool myself, if it isn't my ego / my limited mind that provides concepts and explanations that it is familiar with but which might not necessarily be true. Those of you who experienced ayahuasca too / had a similar experience / just feel capable to, please help me answer the below questions: - What is that thing that I connected to / blended with when I was dropping my self? - Is this the experience that we are left with after physical death? - Is dropping the mind (that I needed to do in order to blend / connect) the same as ego death / physical death? As you can see in the below report, in short my answers are: I blended with universal life energy and experienced ego death. However I'm worried that those answers might not be true, that it's just a limited interpretation of my limited mind - and that's why I came here. Few words about the trip itself and the trip report: - During the session I did have references to Leo and his teachings, few times actually. The most prevailing one was that wow, much of the stuff that I experienced, Leo did talk about. I mean yes, I know his videos well but it seemed like only at that time could I grasp the meaning of the most profound of them. And I was really really impressed with how precisely they describe those insights. I could barely wrap my head around them for myself (or sometimes just plainly couldn't, with my mind at least), and Leo is not only able to dig into them deep enough to understand them for himself and put it into concepts and words understandable to the mind but also to describe it in a way that the public can understand. I mean only now do I realise that in some cases I really understood little until I experienced it, but Leo gets as close as possible, and in terms of technical precision and accuracy - possibly the closest of all that I've come across. Thank you Leo, it's a wonderful work that you do. - Yes, by now I know that I should have let go more - There was a bad trip as described but that's not where the main insight came for so from today's perspective, its not very meaningful - The below report was written in the morning after and slightly edited later for clarity. Please also note that I'm not an English native speaker. And here comes the report itself. Ayahuasca, 9.04.2019‌ - I felt like I understood everything, how everything works. I was kind of proud because all the research and contemplation and all the understanding that I gained throughout the last few years - it was right. It wasn't IT but it was a great foundation that I could refer to now, it was pointing to the right direction, to IT. - I knew I understood it but at the same time I was aware enough to know that I wouldn't be able to comprehend it once I'm back. (now I only remember mundane things that I understood : for example why John, my caretaker said that with vipassana experience, it might be easier for me to reach there. I can't recall what was the profound understanding of the world like.) - I laughed, sometimes quite hard. I thought to myself : haha dude THIS is the ultimate game! And I was enjoying figuring it out. ‌- Then I remembered that people say that once you get enlightened, then you only laugh. There was nothing else to do, I understood it but when I wanted to grab it, grasp it - I couldn't, it was beyond my mind's capabilities. Not to mention putting it into words. - I thought : this is what enlightenment must be like. It was pure bliss. I stopped worrying how to comprehend it later, transfer to lucid life. I just enjoyed it. - About 'this' life here : it seemed like a fun adventure but one to not take too seriously, which made it even more fun. - I had the multidimensional visuals that you see in related art sometimes.‌ - I was blending with something. When I got back from time to time [and I used the presence of my girlfriend to do that] , I thought : Maybe this is what death is like or what ego death is like? - And I think maybe it was, but the moment I grounded myself, brought back to here, the moment I had a thought, instead of just blending, it wasn't it anymore. It wasn't ego death anymore. - Why? Because how can it be ego / mind death, when just the fact that I THINK (about it) , means that I look at it from an ego/mind perspective. - It might not have been good to be grounding myself because then I was loosing IT. I was on and off. Sometimes I thought : 'let's check on that body here'. I was on and off.‌ - The singing of the shaman was very very helpful to be on. Few times I thought with excitement: ok, we are so deep already and know Mr Shaman is gonna drop in with his shit too hahaha. - Of my mind, I thought : thank you, my loyal and so helpful companion to bring me to this point. I will need to leave you now and go into the further journey by myself. - And in 'this' world, the love between me and my girlfriend was kind of the only tangible, worthy thing, the only thing worthy my attention. [there was more to explore here, I felt, but I didn't]. ‌ - At times / some point I thought : Hey, maybe this is not ego death if - again - I THINK of it from ego / mind perspective. How do I know that this is not actually my ego fooling me? [I remember that this notion came to me from a YouTube comment that somehow I remembered now]. - But again : I was on and off.‌ - I was curious what was on the other side and I had glimpses of it (bliss, blending) but I felt that in order to really reach that and truly explore what is there, I had to drop myself, my ego and somehow I convinced myself that it's impossible because how I perceive all experience and this bliss too is through ME and physically through my body (which is the host of the mind) so I can't fully drop it. I convinced myself that it's physically impossible. - Probably this was my ego holding me back. But on the other hand, I feel like maybe it wasn't ego death that I wanted to taste but death itself, and that obviously wouldn't be possible, while I'm still in this body - that's why I convinced myself of it.‌ - This was probably the very bad mistake that I made [convincing myself that it's physically impossible to drop my mind] that got me to the second part of the experience - the bad trip.‌ - I felt like I was reaching somewhere but couldn't enter. It was layer after layer after layer. I did have that sensation going in, and each time I went in, I came out from the other side. Can't explain it with this limited mind now, even to myself... However it brought to my mind one of Leo's videos, even though right now I can't recall which one was it - either the one about infinity or strange loop. At that time though, I knew perfectly.‌ - I thought : OK, this is supposed be the TRUTH and I want to get there but to do that, I have to drop my mind but to drop my mind is impossible because it is this mind / body that brought me here to this point. So I need to drop it but I can't (ego telling me that?). - I had this loop all the time. Exploring the TRUTH was the only thing that mattered to me. It was like I realised that my life here on earth is like a meaningless cartoon or TV show and I'm only a character in it. I really need to find the exit, come out of the TV screen and into real life. - In such circumstances, exploring the TRUTH was the only thing that mattered and each time I was trying to figure it out but each time I ended up in the same point: can't explore it with the mind but can't stop the mind. That was my realisation. But after I realised that, my mind was going the same path again and again - trying to figure the TRUTH and ending up at the same point that was impossible to cross. Like being stuck in a riddle that can't be solved. - At some point I realised that I always end up at the same point but couldn't think in any other way, couldn't get out - it was the same thinking process over and over again. That's when the worst time was, when I was asking Jhon how much longer, that I can't stand it, etc.‌ - I wanted to go back to 'this' world. I knew it was rather meaningless but I preferred to be here rather than in that fucking trap.‌ - What was helping me the most was holding girlfriend's hand and feeling her. With time, I was realising sooner and sooner that the riddle doesn't make sense and that I will end up at a point with no way out. Thats when I was always looking for my girlfriend and that was bringing me back here. Step by step, I managed to do it sooner and sooner in the riddle and this is how it gradually faded away and finished.

Someone who finds ignorance to be bliss, does not know bliss. Someone who finds religion to be Truth, does not know Truth. One who questions existence, doesn’t know the self. Discover within yourself what you looked for in religion. What good is it to tell you the taste of this green tea latte? I can give you my word that it is delicious, but, pretty sure you’re here to taste for yourself.

@Inliytened1 No non dual experience or no ego death experience. But my question is Ego death is not physical death.Ego death is just the absence of I feeling but not absence of conciousness in waking state. Death is absence of the physical body and hence absence of conciousness or equal to unconsciousness. Death is equal to deep sleep the complete absence of any experience. Enlightenment or Non dual realization or God experience is not possible with out conciousness.In other words God experience or sleep less sleep or bliss is possible only when conciousness is present. If else God experience must be available during deep sleep in the absence of conciousness.Which is not the case. @zeroISinfinity @Nahm Please clarify.

These are some of the deepest questions you can ask yourself. Death is enlightenment..as you might know. It is the dissolution of the ego in which all dualities collapse and you become Absolute Infinity. Pure unimaginable bliss and if you had a breakthru you know this. Infinity is outside time and space. So to ask yourself how long do you remain as God is only a question you can ask from the ego's perspective. It's tricky. From God's perspective it's Infinite. All dualities collapse. It is infinite! Now you might ask yeah but how long is that? But again notice you find yourself in this finite state now because you forgot you were God and your asking this question FROM your finite perspective! It only has meaning from your perspective! That's the mindfuck. And it is one hell of a mind fuck. Its trying to grasp the Infinite with the finite. But don't look at it as a problem but as how it should and must be! The purpose of enlightenment while the physical body lives is to become conscious of your true nature but not just that..to embody it in the human form. To become so conscious that you view the world from God's perspective as a natural state or as much as is possible with our finite minds. To see the world thru the lens of Truth..which is Absolute Love and the transcendence of all the unconscious dualities we create. To embody wisdom, humility and selflessness. Thats a tall order! It's very deep stuff but its what keeps us passionate about this work.

@Conrad “Effort psychologically means thought went beyond its limits. Do you see what I mean? Desire, pleasure seeking, looking for happiness through memory/thought means we think doing that will make us whole/complete/in a state of bliss. But thought can never offer that, and when it tries to that just sustained false self. “ @Jkris

Again sorry for bursting your spiritual fantasies then when you AWAKEN you become God no oposite is the case you realize you are the devil. After awakening True work starts. Self actualization self-realization (notice word self/ego) most effective way to lure devils in. In search for bliss ?

Right! I'll abandon my bliss and keep seeking in order to.reach your enlightenment.. But wait, that's weird, because as awareness I know that's the end of the game. Seeking and awakening is part of the dream. Catch 22 eh?

@Aakash as you become more and more conscious you will embody Truth more and more. Part of this is love. Infinite Love is selfless. Now just because you are enlightened doesn't mean you have to necessarily help other people. It would not be wrong for you you to go live in a cave and bliss out 24/7. You could still be at stage turquoise and do that..but generally at this stage of consciousness you engage systems and holistic thinking and want to make a difference collectively and not just individually. That is not mandatory though.

Are we spiritual beings having a human experience or are we human beings having a spiritual experience Spirituality is like a potion that helps you to live to escape reality, to be in a mental rehab, to have clarity and have a better perspective on life and things and help the mind to be more peaceful. It's possible to further expand into that awareness. When you become aware that you are awareness itself then it's enlightenment. Now I have separated two concepts. Spirituality and Divinity. Spirituality is a freedom principle whereas divinity is a stoic principle. Spirituality is all about escape from reality and living in a different reality, field of awareness and feeling peace and bliss. Divinity is being strong, taking guidance and deriving strength from a higher source and using that to fight and survive through life. The constant battle between spirituality and reality is a spiritual war So there are 3 components here. Spirituality Spiritual struggle or war Divinity Two things happen on the spiritual journey You feel disappointment. You feel disappointed in humanity because you see all the chaos and all the illusions and you see all the mindlessness. A spiritual struggle or war between right and wrong and between material rewards and spiritual rewards. Spirituality is for the soul or the spirit or the consciousness element of ourselves. It's about a state of mind, it's about an ethereal experience. More like escape from life Divinity is for life, to live with great endurance, courage, stoicism, perseverance and to survive the assaults of life and to have the strength to carry on. None of these spiritual practices consist of miracles. The next thing is Alter Ego. I think it's important to have an alter ego. It makes perceiving things better or easier

It seems like every time I need just the right video from Actualized.org it always comes up at the right time... This was a very relevant episode for me. I'm right at the End Phase and also in Limbo. This is what I'll be addressing in this journal log along with the lessons I've learned. The End Phase: Right now I'm wrapping up the phase of living at home. I'm about to venture off into a hardcore door-door sales program @Robby hooked me up with from mid-May till August 30th/mid-September in Arlington, New Jersey. Joaquin is about to graduate from high school at TL and will be moving down to Santa Barbara to attend the city college there at the end of Summer. Abuelo seems to be moving towards the final days of his life since I'm hearing how he's starting to not be able to eat or drink anymore and has pretty much lost his battle to dementia. I'm starting to get ready to make amends to let go of running as a pursuit. I'm starting to cut ties with mom and I'm about to leave the protection of dad. I was even told by dad that he's planning to give Ellie away to maybe Ellen & Jerry. Although someone on the outside can easily point out the positive of how this is perfect timing for me to start my next chapter, I would be neglecting my own experience if I said it feel this way even in the slightest in my own experience (which of course is rationalized by those outside as "totally normal"). It's easy to say that and also address in language all the obstacles I'm going to face and blah blah blah. Though on paper, yes, they are most certainly correct in their linguistic analysis of my situation. However, that doesn't mean shit. From the ever evolving collapse of my family since May 22nd, 2006, to my ever increasing decay in emotional, psychological, overall egoic stability, to dropping out of college the 3 semesters I went to participate, to having to get an incomplete Junior year of high school because I was such an emotional train wreck and went to counselor saying how I thought I was going to kill myself, to quitting every single running training cycle since high school, DNF-ing the majority of races I went into after high school and the ones I did race I pretty much bombed 95% of them, to quitting dozens of workouts, to feeling more and more inferior to other peers killing it in one domain or another over the years, to never having really had sex with a girl I found truly attractive, to crashing multiple cars wasting tens of thousands of dollars of my parents' money... do I really need to go on? I feel absolutely emotionally drained. Crying has become almost a daily thing because I have so much anxiety that I'm like a pot boiling and eventually blows out steam because it can't take the pressure being held inside. I've lost so much self-esteem, personal integrity, and the willpower to sustain even the most minor endeavors like meditating for 15 minutes. With the closing of this "End Phase" I feel a lot of anxiety and a lot of fear. I also am desperately holding onto what fate I still have within me. As much as it doesn't feel like it when I'm going through one of my daily emotional bad patches, reminding myself after I let what I have out of my system that I can get through this, that I do have more, that there is light at the end of this tunnel, that this is (in a sense) normal and other people too have made it through this and worse does help because that helps me emotionally regather myself and "put back on" the right perspective of how I can use this summer to move out fully be in the "Limbo Phase" where I can spend deliberate time healing, soul-searching, really regather myself, change my environment by moving to Denver/Boulder, camp, be in the mountains, etc. As drained as I am, I know I have to close this chapter with all I got and finish it. Right now I'm running down the last bend about to make it onto the final home-straight where I have to give everything I have this summer. I'm usually pretty good when I gather my inner strength and pulling myself back up and letting everything I have out in the final 100-200m of a race and claim every scalp I have in front of me with authority. I think I can do that here this Summer. I have it in me. The Limbo Phase: I've been trying so hard racking my mind on the Life Purpose Course. I feel like I've exhausted the amount of mental and emotional effort I can possibly put into that course since purchasing it back in June 2017. Though I have 8 Solid Top Values & My Top 5 Strengths locked in and starting to really be able to intuit what my real Zone of Genius is, I really have to pull the plug and give it a rest and come to terms with the fact that I just don't know. Though I had great insights and intuitions from my 1st ever psychedelic trip on LSD back on March 29th this year, I really need to put my focus into just closing up the last bit of the the End Phase before I can really go into a more soul searching process. If all turns out well this Summer I would like to spend as much time investing in my own soul-searching process, finally heal and regather and integrate my self, and explore new avenues of Bliss. I feel so destroyed internally that, even if I really found my next path in life I wouldn't be able to follow it because inside I feel like I'm a tube of toothpaste that's been so mauled and crumpled up for that last bit of toothpaste that I won't have enough for the net endeavor. The amount of internal willpower I have left is virtually empty and I need to recognize, honor, and respect that. This is why healing is going to be important and honor my inner muse. I completely disagree with people who telling me otherwise after this 4 month sales program is up that I should put in the hard work to improve socializing, my dating game, make more money, how I need to press even harder on the gas, etc. I'm willing to listen to feedback but I'm also willing listen to when I know what's right for me and when to tell people to stop giving me advice. I really need to hit the reset button once I wrap the End Phase up. I know what my heart needs while still needing to address practical & logistical matters. I believe this phase is going to consist of time backpacking, camping, traveling to different countries alone, going to some workshops & seminars, meditation & enlightenment retreats, meeting sages/saints/mystics face-face, reading, actually exploring new paths of interest (whatever it may be) and doing so full-heartedly, therapy, volunteering, a lot of journaling, going to new events, and contemplating. This episode really helped me reconcile the perfectly normal reality of this very phase and that this a phase worth honoring and really working through at whatever pace I need to take it at. Also because it helped really give myself the permission to acknowledge and be okay with accepting that the last cycle I'm now wrapping up was a failure with tons of valuable lessons that and that, all because it totally blew up in my face like a lab experiment gone totally wrong doesn't mean I can't be okay with it, make amends with it, and move on from it. I'm very eager to wrap the End Phase and finally get into the Limbo Phase. Lessons Learned: Following one's Bliss is so important. It took me up until this episode that that was actually how I even got into running in the first place! Look where that took me! I seriously need to heal Soul-searching cannot just be a mental process. I actually need to go out and explore. Travel to new cities, states, countries, forests, etc. I am extremely impressionable. This is a huge habit I'm going to need truly to shed in order to unearth a new authentic path and chapter in my life. Since I was less than 2 years old I've had this habit. From Michael Jordan, Steve Prefontaine, all the runners I've ever looked up to in some way, Sadhguru, Leo, other sages, etc. I always base my visions based on the lives of other people and unconsciously try to mimic them as much as possible. This comes from the deep seeded vow I made since I was probably even a toddler of like 3 or 4 years old that I really feel like I need to be different, special, and stand out amongst other and also the belief that I'm not good enough so I compare myself to others and cling onto them because I don't have enough self-esteem to really carve my path independent of anyone I may admire and look up to. Really being okay with just doing me and no one else. It's my path and my path alone and that that's just fine and how I'm going to be better off owning and living that. I quit and give up a lot. I need to focus on rebuilding integrity. I lie a lot and I'm going to really need to focus on making a daily commitment to fix that in order realign myself with my experience and integrity It's okay to really not know not just on a metaphysical level but when it comes to life issues to. Embrace not-knowing not just in direct contemplation but towards life situations in general and be will to let go into not-knowing and some real exploring. I have more in me I can turn this around I need to learn to really love myself I need to trust my drive for full enlightenment but I can't go fully into it when I'm this broken inside emotionally. Enlightenment is going anywhere. Again, I don't need to be Buddha, Jesus, Sadhguru, Leo, Ralston, etc. I need to be me and walk my path. I could probably jot more down but this is longer than I thought it would be and I'm a bit tired of writing... I think that's good for now. Signing off for now.

@zeroISinfinity @Shaun ummm..actually when you come face to face with your own death its pretty fucking terrifying. I don't think its fair to sugarcoat True Awakening...its serious shit at least in my own experience. You are right its amazingly beautiful and the Bliss is just insane. But also there is the dissolution of you. That part is an Oh Fuck moment. And after the experience you don't come back immediately. You are kind of in between still in God mode as you come out of the mystical experience. My wife was trying to figure out what was wrong with me because i was walling around like prophet. She didn't like it at all neither did my older son. But it was truly amazing and i wouldn't trade my experience for anything. And you can too. Once you break thru you can break thru again.

@Shaun your right about that its both terrifying and beautiful at the same time. But just the fact that you are saying this means your Ego is strong enough to come back after a non-dual experience. So do not get lost in that and miss out on unimaginable bliss. Bliss that will change your life forever. The Ego backlash will be severe but even if you experience it just once in your life you will never be the same. You will be Awakened.

How I treat others is an reflection of how I treat myself. I don't need to develop the skills to live life authentically because I already have it all inside of me now as my authentic self. The thing that holds me back is me attacking myself (which manifests as symptoms of low self worth, nervousness, anxiety, anger, sadness, regret, and unhelpful behaviour). If I become aware of an attack thought towards an outside source, there will be a corresponding attack inward on the same trait. Become aware of the quality of the trait being attacked and consciously make peace with it. Dislike of myself manifests in an obsession with external approval from others. The approval seeking self is the symptom, the attacking of myself is the root cause. Beware of blindly accepting the needy self expression - don't accept it as self, look to the deeper cause and work with that. (There is a notable shift in energy as a write this- my experience expanded, I became more present, I feel lighter, my breathing has slowed down, there is an increase in personal power, increase in contentment, less seeking, less avoidance, less turmoil- inner stillness and less emotion). I have tried to cease thoughts before but it never worked. This method seems to stop the thoughts much better so that I can enter Samadhi experience. I have just done a quick pranayama breath and opened myself upto the present moment. Deep peace, no emotion, no thought, just panoramic presence of sitting in this park on this warm spring afternoon with the sun gently warming my back. No shame, but still inhibited. Low self worth, fear, anxiety, emotional labour is not my true identity. When I say identity I mean my true nature. Fear and contraction is not my true nature. I wonder if states of bliss and peace heal and rejuvenate the body and mind? It feels as if I need a well earned break from my mind attacking me 24/7 The sadness came back. But this time I noticed that I am already present to this. That I don't need to create a watcher, that the watcher is always present and that any knowing of the watcher can only be the thought of the watcher in my mind. As thought recognizes the ever present watcher the feeling becomes more raw, more physical, more pronounced. I thought is not the watcher. I thought appears in front of the watcher and tries to identify as the watcher. But it can never identify as the watcher. The watcher is always free of what is seen. Forever free. What is the nature of the watcher? Thought is attending to investigate the nature of the ever present watcher. Ever present Untouched Still Permanent Vast Open Unlimited Unbound Unwavering Awake The light Unshakable Untouchable Unmanifest Free Absolute Reliable Consistent Unperturbed and unpreturbable Innocent Stillness itself (non conceptual stillness) Infinate depth There is a sense of peace and freedom and a shifting of the sadness as mind talks about the ever present watcher. Heart feels open, raw, sensitive, raw pain unprocessed. Body is mega relaxed but alert, sensisitive, like a big cat eyeing up it's prey. Alert but still. The watcher is manifest in the body now, permeating the body with nothingness. 3 more pranayama breaths and I'm at the end of today's journal - what I'm witnessing is indescribable.

@Jkris and you are dead on. When you have a mystical experience you will dissolve from the ego into Being and its pure bliss. But of course once AGAIN these are just words. We can't escape it as form. But you have the concept down... now go BE it!

@Onecirrus it gets a lot more beautiful actually. The moment of liberation is unimaginable bliss but at some point there is the facing of your own death which is terrifying and causes Ego backlash. But to understand your true nature is just beyond words and everything after that becomes pure Divinity and beauty. A deep sense of inner peace accompanies the liberation. Yes all goals can continue stronger than ever as your consciousness has shot thru the roof.