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They are apparently different. Fundamentally, all techniques aim at the same thing. "Quieting the monkey mind", "Eternal bliss" "Enlightenment" are like carrots for our donkey. Choose the carrot you prefer most and follow it, see if this path works for you, if not you are free to change it at any point.

@Matt8800 Thank you for your kind. I also would like to try psychedelic, however in China it's illegal, people who take it would be arrested. So, I am wondering does it have alternative way to substitute psychedelic so that I can have a taste of the sudden enlightenment ? Is Shamanic Breathing an alternative one that Leo had introduced in a video? But I saw some people say this kind of breathing could shorten for life expectancy and harm health. Also, can you share some meditation skills, I find my mind wandering so often,so hard to calm down to gain peace and bliss during meditation. Thank you so much .

Focussing on one thing, concentration in one thing only, feeds the EGO, builds a heavier wall. Letting go of focus and be everywhere with Breath, just breathe! brings constant state of bliss.

@Tony 845 I find at the 2 hour mark I am completely at peace with the present, in bliss and my body feels amazing. How do you know if your Kundalini is awoken?

@Greg O don't take the thing I say about Zen too literally. I'm saying that's one way Zen portrays it. It has nothing to do with Zen p/say. And in a sense yes. Have you noticed that all because you're enlightened that doesn't mean you behave and act like every other enlightened person? Of course they don't. Shinzen Young doesn't behave as let's say Christ. One of the powerful things that's powerful and really helpful with enlightenment experiences and this entire spiritual work in general is that you start to discover what you truly want, what are your true genuine authentic motives and passions, etc. Not what you were programmed with when you were young with movies, TV, video games, fiction books, parental and societal programming and values and so on. This stuff manifests in different ways for different people. Which is why enlightenment work is so important because it's how you start living an authentic genuine life. I remember in Leo's interview with Ralston Leo brought up the common concern people have of if someone get's enlightened then they'll have to change their life and Ralston said, 'this is not true. You wouldn't have to change your life. You'd want to change your life. That's very different." This theme of the 10th Ox Herding picture is also a good example of why a lot of Zen holds the Bodhisattva higher than the Arhat who just abides in some nondual bliss.

@Greg O i don't know about you, but when enlightenment takes place within me I'm Gona be using my spiritual wisdom as much as possible to help people. However this is not my goal, enlightenment is my goal. Nothing else. I think it would be better to see this story for its principles, as opposed to its literal content (like you would do with the Bible as a spiritual seeker). Don't worry about what happens after enlightenment, I have no doubt both of our expectations for enlightenment will be CATASTROPHICALLY underestimated. From my glimpses, it's not just good....it's not just bliss, it's like...the concept of "bliss" shits itself at the raw presence of god...to literally BE God with a capital G. I've said it before, what we are doing here is rather literally, creating prophets of God. You will know what you need to do when you are enlightened.

Root - connected to - Solar Sacral - connected to - Throat Heart - connected to - Third eye Crown overflowing with bliss. This is my way of Being. I wasn't using my root chakra, I was a doormat. I hated myself not others and it was unhealthy. It's all over now. I was in constant fear and I was abused by everyone because my family is toxic. I was letting everyone use me because I did not care about myself, I wanted to see everyone being happy even if I suffered. My root chakra is my most active chakra right now and I'm sharing love and compassion with everyone and im super grounded. Also please don't analyze my profile pic, that's an old picture. I lost all my other pictures because my phone exploded in my hands. I thought it was me creating a poltergeist because all this extreme kundalini, but then I realized it was just too old. Meh, happens all the time. We tend to use things until they explode. Extremely green. I'm buying myself a nokia potato lol. Also, there are more than 7 chakras, so don't get stuck into that model. I can create an orgasm on any point of the body for example because there are thousands of points you can touch. This world needs so much healing, stop making assumptions please because that's hurtful... The strong attention is because I'm about 180cm tall and being a girl that's unusual for some (most girls here being 165cm). Also I'm quite muscular and curvy. Right now no one dares to look at me because they are not ready for my unconditional love. If they do, they do it with love and desire. I have no idea what I've done. I just started accepting and loving myself and respecting everyone unconditionally. I kept telling myself that I deserve good things. I prayed to God. I assume people like authenticity and confidence and that's the shift I'm experiencing. I love my life. I accidentally made a cute cashier blush and I was like wtf is life real??? lol. I'm just letting the Tao flow through me, i dont care about chakras and all that spiritual stuff. I had to mature, that was the problem. Read my journal to understand my maturization process. Thank you. Namaste!

@Joseph Maynor @Joseph Maynor You mean the fact that I am indeed an idea as well and not real? There is in fact no difference. And I became conscious of this the week I became enlightened. And on the day of that realization and true consciousness of my true being I basically went from complete bliss to feeling dead inside. Not sure how to even describe the despair of that moment of realization other than to say see my post on stomaching the truth. Ego backlash resulted.

@zambize If you found out you were in a prison, would you stay there because it made you happy? Perhaps the happiness you know is not true happiness, but rather what the prison has taught you happiness is. Luckily, the door is right there, open for you. Ignorance is not bliss.

sometimes i ask myself if i have this - maybe a little bit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_talking maybe a little bit talkohol with lemon juice, even though the juice goes into the face? ? someone? maybe i‘ll go to the anonym talkoholics. i wonder about the volume level in the room - maybe i would be the only one listening in great awe and bliss. meditating there maybe also a challenge, stage turquoise for spiral meditators. talkoholism really is my greatest addiction at the moment - no regresses as i never really tried stopping for longer than a day..

I want to have this space to write down things about the complete surrender of everything I know about life and myself to this present moment, the oneness and bliss that flows like a river through my heart. This isn’t a rational choice for a deep voice within calls me everyday to let go of all limitations, and remain steadfast in the seat of my soul even if fears arise. And all of the time, I will take take each step gently, softly and with kindness. Beyond all barriers, dimensions, time, space, forms, thoughts, this world as I see it, beyond the “I” for no reason whatsoever!

I had my channeling session a few days ago. I was told especially how everything is absolutely perfect, and that everything reminds me that I am God. The meditation I have used 7 times since, and I can now feel the hearts love in all moments. This love is truly Unconditonal, and I’ve seen that even in the worst condition emotionally I can in just a dedicated short meditation I can come back to peace or near peace. The love and consciousness is always there, but our minds are usually too noisy and the nervous system too active to notice our perfection. Doubts are dissolved. Fears vanish. Confusion and uncertainty transform into clarity. And then sometimes they come back out of sheer subconscious habit to be healed by peace and bliss again and again until the entire mind becomes a reflection of purity and love. All there is in this moment is God. Everything is God, everything is blissful, everything is the light. It is all here to be embraced with our full consciousness. With heart felt sincerity. You have to be like a child again, or as a humble old man. As parts of me dissolve it helps to be humble, so that I can just walk away from them into a better reality. I don’t want to be recognized for my spiritual heights, or honoured as someone special. I want to be the humble old man who witnesses all things, and the child who dosen’t have a past, or a future. There are so many questions I found myself saying yesterday. And how do they all be answered so effortlessly in meditation? Love includes the whole universe, it includes and is the origin of everything. It is under appreciated in this way. People say how can Love solve all your problems? This is why. Love is the source of the all form, that known, all is known on some kind of level. Lastly I found that the greatest progress came from doing the practices. I mean putting down all of the books, and remaining as meditative awareness. I learnt much more than creating intellectual hypotheses which I did in spades as I tried to convince my mind to change its entire structure. Again this would create great amounts of ego backlash from the mind of it weren’t for divine love. Since Love is what the mind is looking for, it silences and submits with the least amount of backlash or suffering, this is the power of the heart. We start at the heart, until the heart becomes the effortless energetic center we live from. All of the videos on channelhigherself.com explain this in depth. These videos from this website have helped my mind have a solid understanding of this process, and faith and trust in the unknown. The journey continues then with a new experience of love that I can perceive. It is still challenging but these instances of come fewer and farther between. What lies ahead? I too am excited to see, because life always has its surprises in the form of emotionally triggering us. I accept and take responsibility for every emotion or thought that arises as my own creation, and life is only bringing out these seemingly external thoughts and emotions from the subconscious so I can heal in the most inspiring and effective ways.

True. That the bliss of the Self is in fact supreme bliss is seen only if and when you fall out of it, so to say. If and when a mental disturbance arises, even a 'pleasant' one, it will seem clunky and clumsy compared to that utterly smooth, perfectly subtle non-experience, that perfect frictionlessness.

@winterknight Thank you. I believe the confusion with the "bliss" aspect was a factor. Some sages have a grand idea of what bliss is and believing that to be lacking ironically is the cause for suffering.

@winterknight Okay, this frictionless undisturbance is there, but i would call it nothingness, rather than bliss. It is not pleasant in any way. Sometimes it is unpleasant, but that aspect usually goes away when inquiry is made into it. But it is never experienced as being actually pleasant, sometimes a gentle joy like i said. Really, it's neutral, like nothingness.

Right. The bliss of the Self is not ordinary bliss. If you feel frictionless un-disturbance while going about your daily life, that's it. The state of samadhi needs to be recognized as constant, and not a 'state.'

@winterknight By final truth you are referring to the teaching that nothing can be said about the Self, correct? Going back to bliss, I still cannot say that I experience the bliss aspect of the Self. In retrospect I can say that what I experience during the states of "no-mind" or samadhi is complete detachment. There is sometimes uncaused joy, but that is more of a feeling in the body, and not what i would call bliss. What is obstacle here?

Well, self-inquiry can sometimes work for that -- people will get little tastes immediately. Or sometimes people will relate to examples of times when they felt connected to something deeper inside -- experiences of being "in the zone," or experiences of profound peace in nature, or simply thinking of that time just after waking but before memory re-descends. Or sometimes being in the presence of a spiritually advanced person can do this. Sometimes. Or sometimes it can be about resolving various intellectual doubts they have -- they may be interested, but dealing with those doubts will help them. It really depends on the person and a degree of intuition. But then again, the person has to be receptive and ripe -- looking. There's a reason it's said in the Gita not to wake the sleepers. This teaching will only connect with people who already are longing for something more, and feel in their hearts a belief that it is there to be found. And no worries with the constant questioning. I might be bored, but I'll still answer This can mean many things. The suffering involved in painful experiences of romantic love can lead to the spiritual. Loving-kindness meditation can be a practice that quiets the mind and thus ultimately aids in self-inquiry. Loving others generally and broadly does the same -- seeing them as part of one interconnected whole (even though this is not the final truth). But the real love is of course simply your true nature, which is that total completeness... yes, the bliss of the Self.

Also, what about love? Many sages talk about love as a major factor in their enlightenment. What is the nature of this love in your understanding? Is this in the same vein as bliss of the Self, or more of a feeling related to the physical body?

so there I was sitting at home working on an illustration for a client and had this realization hit me like a brick: "I don't like doing this". I don't mean just that particular job, which was boring and not turning out so great, which I was only doing for the pay, but just what I do for a living in general - drawing, illustrating, designing, I didn't care for any of it at that moment. Sitting in front of the computer for hours, making chicken scratch motion with my hand to create images on a screen to be sent off in exchange for dollars. Having to constantly second guess myself and having anxieties about if the image or design will turn out right, if the client will approve and I get to continue my lifestyle. This is coming at a time when I've hit some major breakthroughs in my art and started to gain a following on social media. I've enjoyed moments of triumph and bliss while creating art and seeing the growth in my abilities. I thought my life purpose is to experience this growth and use it to offer something great to the world - but isn't that all just ego? Looking back I never really LOVED any of it, more like I was just bearing with the suffering to gain some kind of recognition or achieve a certain lifestyle. Isn't that enough though? How many people on this planet get to say they LOVE what they do for a living? I mean like 100% passionate, love every single aspect of it, get excited to wake up in the morning kind of love? Isn't that also the ego trying to make it about itself and be distracted by life? I don't even know what else I would rather do. On one hand it seems like I'm just in a depressed state and looking for a way out. On the other hand it feels like I'm just continuing with this farce because it's the only life I know and it's scary to consider anything else and admit that I should quit. If this is the 'resistance' or the ego backlash against me finally making progress in my skills and moving up in the world it's a bloody damn good one. I really have to tip my hat to the devil for this one because it's really the mother of all resistance to stop me dead in my tracks. This is not the first time I've had thoughts like this but I guess after all the things I've accomplished and all the growth I've made I thought that I wouldn't have to question myself like this.

@Wisebaxter I can explain. I didn't resist it, I went into it fully. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. Was I afraid, fuck yes! I literally was dying, it's not that bad, but like it definitely scares you. And when you are some kind of nondual state you can start freaking out. It came together for me on my latest trip (I wrote up a trip report on here). I'm happy everything happened the way it did. I was frolicking around in nondual bliss for a long long time, living lifetimes and shit. I really loved it. However, when I came back down to my ego more fully I had walked into my neighbours' place. He had called the cops, the cops handcuffed me and called an ambulance. I'm still thinking this is part of the trip, I had ascended and none of this shit matter to me anymore. Anyway I was taken to hospital, kept there for a few hours, my parents were called but it was midnight so they didn't pick up. Just awoke to a message saying I was in the emergency department. I didn't have my phone or wallet on me so I couldn't call anyone for help. I caught a taxi back to my place after they let me out at like 1am. I get back and I'd destroyed my place, broken plants, flipped cabinents, torn the top of a glass table off, pulled off all my clothes and shit. There was dirt everywhere. I had crushed my guitar by falling on it. This didn't matter to me because I was in this nondual state. But when I came back down it suddenly mattered again.... Anyway, all I'm saying is. Be careful (again this was on 600ug), I couldn't really control myself and the shock of realising my true nature led to a god head feeling that my entire life was a lie and so didn't matter. I thought at the time I was handling it really well, I didn't handle it so well. Also I pissed myself thinking I was having the best orgasm of my life, ahha. That's all I meant about it not being pretty. I mean, during the trip I had the most beautiful time of my life. But just remember, you'll come back down and your ego will be left to clean up the mess. Still, I think it was all worth it.

If you’re on the search for your purpose and having trouble finding your passions/values, or maybe you do but you doubt them or think they are petty and lower-self. A key insight to understand is actuality in the realm of your passions. It’s super easy to be idealistic and deluded when creating a vision for yourself. One tends to create a life of having things instead of being your greatest self. So if you’re confused and doubtful just take a step back. Stop analyzing yourself so intensely. Look in your direct experience and find what you genuinely like to do, what gives you fulfillment and bliss in the moment? Sometimes those are too big of words. Coaches tend to place so much importance on the certainty of knowing what you want from life. And this scares a lot of people away from finding their true passions. All passions start out as enjoyment and fun in the present moment. Usually they aren’t even done for any particular reason or effect. You just do it because you like it. But once that voice sneak in and says, “You wanna do this for the rest of your life?” The ego tears your passions to shreds by adding seriousness, a reason, and priority. You really need an easy going detached approach to your work and life. Sometimes it’s hard to do, it’s easier when you know that life is a dream. maybe you feel guilty or shame when doing what you love. Maybe you think it’s petty or stupid because of family and societies influence. So you create new “mature” values with shallow goals and direction. The truth is, that won’t make you happy. Nothing but your fullest surrender to the present moment and your passion will make you fulfilled. Happy creating!

Yup, sounds about right... The end of all bliss/kundalini/chakra work is liberation. That's the whole point of liberation: it's the whole pot of honey at the end of the rainbow. God consciousness, unity consciousness -- nothing but pointers to liberation (which of course is already so much what is already the case that it cannot even be said to exist...).

@winterknight Lastly, have you any interest in pursuing bliss/Kundalini/chakra work? There is also speak of things such god-consciousness, unity-consciousness etc among legitimate contemporary sages. Have you any experience in that regard?

''I am that complete which prevails everywhere...complete in itself I, Shiva; the deity of eternal bliss I am Joy itself…I am Bliss itself I bow down to lord Shiva I AM SHIVA, I AM PURE CONSCIOUSNESS EVERLASTING, EVER PURE , ENLIGHTENED. I AM FREE I AM BLISSFUL CONSCIOUSNESS PRESENT IN ALL FORMS AND WITHOUT FORM. I AM WITHOUT A DUAL FORM. I AM THE SELF , SUPREME CONSCIOUSNESS. I AM CONSCIOUSNESS TRUE AND PURE.........'' What a beautiful prayer!