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Yoga has fallen into wrong hands Yoga means union, the science of union. Meditation is the most supreme phenomenon as far as union with reality is concerned. Meditation is the god of yoga. But yoga has fallen into wrong hands, and not only recently – for centuries it has been in the wrong hands. The original fault must be with the founder, Patanjali himself. Patanjali has divided yoga into eight parts. His division is clear-cut, very scientific, but he was not really aware of human stupidity. He started with the body – and that's the right way to start. The first part of yoga must be physiological because man lives on the circumference, in the body, so the work has to start there, only then can it reach the mind. And when one has gone beyond the body and beyond the mind, then the third, meditation, happens. So according to Patanjali the first part belongs to the body. But he was not clearly aware that millions of people would remain entangled with the first part. Hence yoga has become synonymous with yoga postures: people standing on their heads and doing all sorts of contortions. That has become synonymous with yoga. It is not a true yoga, it is just the preface, the introductory part; and the person who thinks the introduction is the whole book is idiotic. But Patanjali did not warn people. If he had warned people it would have been better. People like Patanjali believe in others' intelligence – which is not there! They trust. Their trust is immense, their trust is as immense as people's stupidity is! They respect people's intelligence. So he did not warn people, but the warning was absolutely necessary: 'Don't get entangled in the physiological part.' A few people, only very few – if a hundred people become interested in yoga then only one person will get out of the physiological entanglement. And that one person will become entangled in the psychological. If a hundred persons are entangled in the psychological then only one person gets out of it...and only when you get out of the mind does the real yoga begin. The physiological part of yoga will give you great physiological powers; it can make you live a really long, healthy life. But what are you going to do with a long life? If you are idiotic, instead of being idiotic for seventy years you will be idiotic for two hundred years. It is not going to help anybody; it will be a calamity. Yoga can make a person live long, but what will you do? That physiological part should not be paid so much attention. Yes, a little bit is good to keep physically fit, but just a little bit; otherwise it is a vast jungle. One can be lost in its subtleties, in its complexities. The second part is even vaster than the physiological. If you get into it you can have many psychic powers, you can read people's thoughts. But what is the point? Your own rubbish is so much, what is the point of reading somebody else's rubbish? He is tortured by his rubbish and you are reading his thoughts – and you think you are doing something great! The real thing is to get rid of thoughts, not to read them. One even has to get rid of one's own thoughts; what is the point of reading other people's thoughts? And what is there? You can stand by the side of the road and you can see a man is walking along and thinking of his dog – so what? If you listen to people's thoughts, what will you find? Somebody is thinking of his cow, somebody is thinking of his buffalo, somebody is thinking of his wife, somebody is thinking of somebody else's wife! And you are thinking what they are thinking! Maybe the other person is also a yogi and is reading somebody else's thoughts. Then things become very complicated! The physiological part is ordinary, the psychological part is ordinary. Both can give power, but power is not the goal of meditation. Power is politics, all kinds of power is politics. And power corrupts – all kinds of power – it corrupts unconditionally and absolutely. It always corrupts. Hence I say the only essential thing, the real core of all religion, of all yoga, of all methods of search, is meditation. One should put aside everything non-essential. You can use things as stepping stones, but not more than that – just like jumping boards. You need not bother too much about them. Your whole concern should be one-pointed; you should move like an arrow towards meditation. Only then in this small life, with so little time, power and energy available and with so many problems surrounding you, can you hope that the arrow will reach the target. The moment you know something of meditation – not about it, but the very taste of it – a great release comes. a great relief comes. Suddenly all tensions disappear: anxieties, anguishes, are found no more. Even if you want them just for a change, you cannot find them. I have tried and failed! Sometimes I try very hard to find some anxiety but I cannot, it simply does not work. I have tried all possible ways, from this side and that side, but I come to the same end: it does not work. Once you have tasted meditation it is impossible for you to be in any misery. Bliss becomes inevitable, a natural showering, and it goes on showering like flowers showering from the sky. Osho, Nirvana: Now or Never

One thing you should remember is that whether it's a dream or waking life, all experiences are real, and have happened. So if you had a night full of blissful dreams, that's 8 hours of being in that state, (of course you aren't dreaming the whole time). What you are wanting is to experience this feeling all day... that's going to take a lot of work rewiring your brain and self development, which I'm sure you know. Also the whole fake it till you make it thing works. When you wake up from one of those dreams, recall the feeling of blissfulness and force it upon yourself throughout the day. Force a smile, which helps sends bliss chemicals to your brain. To answer your question, it is most likely this way a lot in your dreams because it doesn't surface enough in your walking life. Dreams are a reflection of your psyche, but also express things that are suppressed during the day. It almost seems that the hardwiring of the mind that we deal with in waking life is completely bypassed in dreams, allowing us to experience heightened emotions, and even sometimes be a completely different person, forgetting who we are in waking life. That kind of thing has always fascinated me, the false memories that can get implanted in the little pocket universe that is a dream.

Notice how the bliss lasts a little bit after you wake up. Keep extending the bliss, a little bit longer each morning, hold on to it, how would you do that? Practice. That bliss is a message.

Bliss is when you don't have a dog in the fight in the Dream. You can stand back and watch the magic show all the time, rain or shine.

@BjarkeT cal newport is really dogmatic about not following your passion. really looks like he was pushing an agenda about that. rest of the book I like, but when he said that passionate ppl arent as happy, if you look at the study he references, it was a poorly related study with a sample size of less than 24 people. btw, why do you say that elon musk and albert einstein were not passionate about their fields? and Brian Johnson (the guy you linked in the video) is all about following your passion & bliss listen to newports argument on why not to follow your passion and see if it holds up against reality with love

Do both. I had the same, wasn't sure, and my 'bliss' came to me. This bliss was music! And then I knew. So the answer appeared right when I stopped pushing for it. Also what about 100milion dollar question? Ask it yourself!

During awakening there was a burst of repressed energy released. I don't recall any shaking. It was like my body was being destroyed. It was kinda like holy shit whats happening(in a funny way) rather than terror or bliss. After the awakening everything settled down and I entered into abiding non dual awareness.

Getting blown away with huge amounts of energy, spontaneous shaking, extreme amounts of bliss and perhaps even terror.

Has anything changed energetically after awakening? Any kriyas? Any weird paranormal things opening up? Bliss radiating out of the heart?

Letting go fully. That's it. Just resting as Awareness. Not as attached to the fluxing Dream. It's like I'm always meditating or something. Just peace and stillness and mild bliss. I don't have any more illusions of control within the dream anymore. So, it's just a surrender to reality. There never was a me doing anything in the first place. But what is missing is the illusion of Ego -- the illusion of control, doing, and conceptual-knowing. The illusion of being an actor in the dream who is trying to understand the dream. No. I am simply Atman, or unchanging Awareness.

I just cling to life much less seriously because I realize there is no Egoic me acting in it. Reality is gonna play itself out whatever way it does without any of my Egoic control. So, nothing I do is gonna change my life. All I do is rest in peace and bliss in detached awareness. It's been that way for a while for me now. At least a month, maybe two months. I've recently changed my Enlightenment theory a little bit and improved it for the better. But the moment I started to rest as awareness and let go, that was basically when I hit the Enlightenment jackpot. Everything else has been just a refinement of that. Getting the theory together to communicate that process to someone else, basically. It's been cool to develop my own theory so when I explain Enlightenment I can do it in my own words. But, keep in Mind, Enlightenment is simply resting as Awareness, nothing more, nothing less. Everything else said is just a conceptual exposition of this. And notice that Resting as Awareness is not a controlling, doing, or conceptual-knowing! So, you can see why concepts are technically irrelevant to Enlightenment. You really don't need them. But we are so trained on concepts that we need to use concepts to get out of concepts! So we do have to deal with concepts in this work very heavily. Otherwise nobody would ever become Enlightened! They would never get out of their concepts. So, life is a Dream that just runs on its own. Just sit back and watch. Enjoy your story, whatever that may be! It looks like I'm gonna be one of those annoying Enlightenment people haha. That's a trip. I never thought this would be what I became -- because I never had any control! See? It's so obvious to me now. There is no Egoic me -- literally no Egoic me. It's that simple. Enlightenment becomes simple when you get to the advanced stages of this work. Enlightenment becomes simple when you get to the advanced stages of this work -- but its extremely complicated in the early stages. That's because you have a lot of ignorance when you start the path, mostly of a conceptual sort. You've been programmed with a lot of concepts that you need to begin to examine. That takes hard work and some time to do! Everybody starts this path and this work in the weeds. Best advanced Enlightenment video I've ever seen:

It might be helpful to look at this a different way. The peace, calm, love, bliss that you want to “get back to”, has been there all along. It never leaves and returns. It is all things, it is you. The shiny things and dilemmas of the illusion can so easily trigger our thinking about it. Then it’s even easier to unconsciously identify or form a preference, a thought. I am finding deeper embodiment by proactively surrundering preferences. Food for example. I eat what is best for the body. I honestly lost preference for taste a while back. Not that I don’t appreciate taste, but “consciousness” as in beingness, is all, taste is illusion. So I surrendered it. Fitness is the same. I surrendered my preference and do what is best for the body. Relationships are the same. There is an epiphany of no self, and there is a ‘life’ of selflessness, and no, or as little as possible, preference relative to “my” body mind being the center or point of the relativity. I am finding this to be embodiment, and it is blissful. Ironically, the relativity of all ‘things around the body mind’ is revealed, as in a trip peak. I also have found that all is forgotten during a night’s sleep. When I wake up, I sit and do nothing. Staying in the all is forgotten. No talking, no watching anything, no thoughts. Within just a few minutes the bliss fills the body mind, as it is empty, void of subtle conditions. The nature of unconditional love is unconditional. It is unconditional to the bod mind, so only in complete surrender is it present. So essentially, try, upon waking everyday, complete surrender, complete body and mind surrender, before any activity at all, even observing. When there are no conditions of the person body mind, then their is only unconditional love. To your previous post, consider there is no soul, no human, no dimensions, no God, no universe. Nothing. It’s hard to communicate the full extent of nothing in body mind, and therefore no preferences or concept of these things, but that is when what is unconditional can be. It is always being, it’s the ‘anything added’ that get’s our attention.

@Leo Gura Hmmm. Thanks for cutting to the chase....I can see what you are saying and I am in agreement with it. The issue seems to be that it was my assumption that if I understood enlightenment the way it is described by many teachers, it appears as if it IS the catalyst to throw someone into the bliss and peace of knowing that all is one and everything is infinite and that when you literally experience this as close as we can get in human form to knowing the truth, the self as we have known it and all of its silly quirks and issues and petty unimportant mundane problems would drop away and that things would be without conflict because of the enlightenment experience and knowing the infinite nature of existence. How stupid and unrealistic this seems to be. This was my problem and why I felt so neurotic after experiencing that peace because I wasn't able to walk around with a smile nodding at everyone and agreeing with everything. My expectations were wrong. I fell into a simplistic view that enlightenment or the glimpse of it meant the end of the suffering fool living out a dream in physical form. I finally feel that there is something that I can work with here. The truth shall set you free ....but we are still living with a self that requires tending to. We still have to live within certain boundaries to be a part of society so we can function in this form. It makes sense that it would not be an instant fix but rather something that is so eye opening and so conscious that we could shift our thinking and habits to align with what we have realized. I don't have the most analytical mind and I don't conceptualize things as well as others but is this what you mean? If I am on the right track, then I can actually work towards trying to align my self with what I know to be truth and try to live as consciously as I can. Emotional triggers is the biggest issue for me and throws me back into insanity. I catch myself in unconsciousness countless times per day. I have woken up enough to see the insanity going on in my head and around me so I am able to do that, but I am still unconscious far too much for my liking. Yes the self is one stubborn bastard! lol!

@smd Enlightened folk aren't speaking from a belief system when they say all of reality is an illusion, or that it's a dream. They're speaking from experience. Sure, if the unenlightened folk intellectualize this point, it's simply buying into a belief system. However, this argument is like Leo saying personal development works, and as a newbie for example, you're writing it off as a belief system, and therefore it shouldn't even be considered as a pursuit in your life. There are a number of enlightened folk on this forum who became enlightened in much less than 20-40 years of 'work'. Some realized liberation as young as 16, and others began and realized it only in their 20's. I can't agree with this all-or-nothing perspective: Either LP and fulfillment or no LP and no fulfillment. Many enlightened folks themselves don't even a solid direction of where their lives are headed in the next month, let alone 10 years from now, because they are utterly immersed in the present moment. Yet, simultaneously, they do what they desire at each moment, and paradoxically, their actions culminate/add to a life purpose as perceived from the 'outside' over time. Eckhart Tolle and other spiritual teachers are doing just that. To ignore the facts of our reality (i.e. that you don't exist), which you can prove to yourself, and wisdom of wise others, has the potential to lead to delusion and further suffering. The reality is, that there is no one who is pursuing a life purpose, or not pursuing one. However, it doesn't hurt if the body is fulfilling upon its highest desires at each and every moment. In this way, I think @Nahm's general advice is good: do what you want. You can still live a life purpose by doing what you desire in each and every moment, even having never taken an LP course. If you desire to master a skill for its own sake, great! Do that. Follow your bliss, and don't take things so seriously In this way, chopping wood and carrying water today is still chopping wood and carrying water tomorrow. I just think it's more nuanced than this harsh attitude of all or nothing, while I do understand that perspective because I was there too. I'd love to hear feedback on these thoughts. Cheers.

@Slade Follow your bliss

I just wanted to see if anyone else is struggling with an up and down journey to their awareness/consciousness...self inquiry. I have had very significant experiences that I believe were close to understanding what this thing called "life" is all about. I have had at the most 3 weeks of unbelievable calm and bliss and being so grounded and unaffected by anything. It was as if nothing was wrong or right it just was the way it was and I accepted it all with no inner conflict or struggle. That happened in 2008 for me. Since then, I recall a couple of other times where I didn't need any more answers...I wasn't seeking anything...I understood enough. There was nothing left to learn or know and I felt at complete peace and I felt so different and I just expected to always be like this. Watching the water droplets come out of the kitchen faucet. Looking....really deeply looking at nature and appreciating a blade of green grass poking through an icy snowy patch or ground. The different sounds of birds and dogs and footsteps. It was as if I was in tune with every single thing around me and I could identify 5 6 or 8 sounds at once and they all seemed to fit together seamlessly....as if it was all in harmony, like pieces of a puzzle. Then, somehow, i'm sucked back through a vortex and within a certain amount of time, almost asleep to everything I just experienced. Why does this happen? Even though I seem to forget, I also remember at some point and I come back again to what I know and believe but it's as if I am fighting a war to try to get back to the knowing that I have experienced. This is so frustrating and when this happens, I feel like I keep failing myself. Sometimes I can go weeks without realizing that I am living a waking dream and just acting out an old story line with the same old characters in the same old play and suffering through things I have already suffered through. It's like, how can I not learn after what I have experienced. Where is this battle coming from? Can I just not stay status quo so to speak? Why do I keep losing ground and then have to climb back up the mountain over and over again?

Religion is dead. It has really lived too long, it should have been dead long ago. It has not done any good to humanity, it has done immense harm. It has divided humanity. It has given different groups of people the idea that “You are the real people of God,” that “You are special; other human beings are second class.” It has fulfilled the egos of Jews, of Christians, of Hindus, of Mohammedans – of everybody. It has created so many wars. It has killed millions of people, burned thousands of people alive, and all in the name of God. For your own sake you are being burned alive! Religion is one of the most criminal phenomena that have existed in the world. It is time that we declare it dead. But remember, every death is a beginning of something new; every death is not an end. On the one side it looks as if something has ended, but on the other side something fresh starts growing. The death of religion becomes the beginning of religio. The word “religion” comes from religio. Religio has a beauty of its own, which is lost in “religion.” Religio means an existential, an experiential phenomenon. The very word means coming to a point where you are one – one with yourself, one with existence. Religion which comes from the same root does not have that meaning. It, on the contrary, makes you split. Making you one is not its work; its work is to make you schizophrenic, to put you into a split state, to put you against your own body, to put you against your own sex, to put you against yourself; to divide you into parts, fragments, and create an inner conflict in you. All religious people are continuously fighting with themselves, because their biology says to do something, and their holy scripture says to do just the opposite. Their own being wants to grow in one way, but the priests direct them into some other way. Every religion has been trying to make you somebody else. No religion has allowed you to be just yourself. They are all afraid of your being just yourself; then their function is lost. Their function is to create conflict in you, to make you miserable, suffering, in anguish. Then naturally you have to seek help. They create the disease, and then they start praying for you to be forgiven. They are the criminals, and they are asking for you to be forgiven. And whom are they asking? There is nobody. So it is really a great exploitation by the priesthood of all the religions. They have destroyed every individual. They have made you Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, but they have not allowed you to become just an individual, a human being. You were born not as a Christian, you were born not as a Buddhist; you were born just as a human being. They have destroyed your innocence; they have misdirected your life. They have molded you into something which you cannot become; it is not your potential. This is not religio. Religio is accepting you in your totality, making you whole, healthy. And that opens the door to become one with existence. You are part of it; every moment you are part of it. You are breathing existence in and out every moment – you are eating it, you are living it in every possible way. No man is an island, we are all part of an infinite continent; that’s what I am calling existence. Religio will relax you. Religio will give you, for the first time, the dignity of being a human being, and the vastness of being part of the whole existence. Religion is dead, religio is born. Religion is something like marriage: unnatural, arbitrary, artificial, created by social convenience. Religio is like love: natural, simple. No law is involved in it; no society, no culture dominates it. Love is a law unto itself, and love gives you something that is immensely precious. You start feeling needed. You are not superficial, you are not just accidental; you are needed, you are fulfilling some essential need. Love gives you the first glimpse that existence wants you the way you are. There is no need to become Jesus Christ or Gautam Buddha. Nature does not like carbon copies. Existence likes originals. You, in your originality, are acceptable. But a Christian is a carbon copy; he is trying to become Jesus Christ, and in two thousand years not a single Christian has succeeded. In twenty-five centuries not a single Buddhist has succeeded in becoming Gautam Buddha. Is it not proof enough? You can go even further backwards. In five thousand years, no Hindu has succeeded in becoming a Krishna. It is simply impossible. Nature never repeats. They say history repeats itself – because history is not nature. History belongs to carbon copies, retarded people; naturally it repeats itself. They don’t know what else to do, so they go on doing the same thing again. Nature is very inventive. It does not create even two persons equal, even similar. There are four billion people on the earth today, but you cannot find two persons who are exactly alike. Even twins are not exactly alike. They may appear to be, but their mother knows who is who; their wives know who is who. There are differences – very subtle. Outsiders may be puzzled, but those who know them closely can see the differences in their individuality – in their gestures, in their way of speaking, in their way of thinking, in their way of walking – in small things. But the differences are bound to be there. Religion has tried a very futile experiment, and almost destroyed humanity for thousands of years. The death of religion releases you from becoming somebody else. Now you can enjoy being yourself. We can call our commune, religio – a mystery school, a way of searching for one’s own spiritual being, a way of discovering one’s original face. Nobody has to become anybody else. And you are asking me, “God is dead, religion is dead, then what is left now?” In fact, those were the hindrances, which are removed, and everything that is essential is available now. Now you can be yourself without any guilt. Now you can be simply a human being without belonging to any organized religion. The moment truth becomes organized, it becomes untrue. I am reminded of a beautiful ancient story. A newly-recruited devil came running to the master devil, huffing and puffing, and said, “Something has to be done immediately! One man on the earth has just found the truth! And if he spreads it, what are we going to do? Our whole business is finished! He has to be prevented.” The old man laughed. He said, “You are a new recruit; you don’t know – my people are already there.” The young devil said, “Your people?” He said, “Yes, my people. The priests are already around the man, and they are organizing whatever he has found. That is my way of destroying truth, and it has never failed; for centuries I have been doing that. The priests – all the priests – are in my service! They don’t know it, but the moment truth is organized, it dies.” Why does truth die when it is organized? It dies because it is an individual experience. Can you organize love? Nobody has ever thought about it; otherwise it would have died. You cannot organize love. Love is something that transpires between two individuals. It does not need any priest, it does not need any book of instructions. When I was studying in the university I used to have a roommate – he was a little bit of an idiot, just the same as people are all over the world. He asked me, “Everybody talks about the fact that he has fallen in love, and some girl has fallen in love with him. It seems we are the only two persons in this whole university…. About you there is no problem, because you don’t want anything to do with any love, any woman, because you think they will be a distraction in your search. I don’t know what you are searching for, but I am at a loss. I want to fall in love. But how to fall in love? I have been to the university library looking for a book, HOW TO FALL IN LOVE; there is not a single book on the subject. And I cannot ask anybody else, because they will simply laugh. If everybody knows how to fall, then why don’t I?” I said, “You don’t be worried, I will teach you. You just choose the girl that you would like to fall in love with.” He said, “I chose her two years ago, but how to start? The moment she enters, I become so nervous in the classroom, I forget all about love. I forget even what the teacher is saying.” I said, “Don’t be worried. I will write a love letter for you. You simply post it to the girl and wait for the answer.” I knew the girl; she was one of the most beautiful girls in the university. She had been interested in me, but I had told her, “Right now, I am involved too much in my own work, in my meditations, and I don’t think you have patience enough to wait. But if you can wait, then I can promise you one thing: the day I become enlightened I will be ready. But not before that.” She said, “Enlightened? My God! How long will I have to wait?” I said, “Nobody knows. I may become enlightened in this life, I may become enlightened in another life. Nothing can be said, it is unpredictable. So the best is, for the time being you choose somebody else.” But she was persistent. So I approached her and said, “Just do me a favor.” She said, “Have you become enlightened?” I said, “No, not yet. But one of my friends is in a difficulty. He wants to fall in love, but he does not know how to fall in love. So you will receive a letter from him. Don’t discourage him – write him a beautiful letter.” She said, “This is tricky. Then I will be stuck with that boy – and I know your roommate, I don’t want anything to do with him.” I said, “You need not be worried.” And she said, “How can I write a very loving letter to that idiot? I cannot!” I said, “Then I will write it.” So I was writing letters from both the sides. And the boy was so ecstatic! He could not believe that just with his writing a letter, love began. But then the girl fell in love with somebody else. She told me that she could not wait, her parents were forcing her: either she had to choose someone, or they would. “You are my choice, but your enlightenment is a strange thing,” she said. ”I have never heard of anybody making such a condition, that when they become enlightened, then they will think about other matters. I have to choose; otherwise they will choose. So I have chosen, unwillingly. I will remember you, but I am getting married.” I said, ‘You get married happily, and don’t feel that you are doing it unwillingly. I am responsible for making you sad, and for making you decide in favor of someone else. I like you, but as far as love is concerned, that involvement is possible only after my enlightenment, not before that!” She said, “Then what about your friend that you have been unnecessarily forcing upon me? He goes on writing every day. And you have made it such a mess that you go on writing in my name, and I have to post those letters. I read them and I say, ‘My God! That idiot!’ And you are praising him and telling him, ‘I will die without you, and I cannot live without you. You are my heart.’ What am I to say to that man?” I said, “You have simply to say that your parents are forcing you to get married.” And in India it is common, an arranged marriage. A love marriage is still not acceptable. So she told the idiot, “What can I do? I love you so much, but my parents have arranged my marriage. So now I will not be seeing you anymore, and you stop writing the letters.” He almost came to a nervous breakdown, crying, in tears. I asked, “What is the matter?” – I knew what was the matter! He said, “My love affair was going so smoothly. Every day a letter – I was writing, she was replying; everything was going so smoothly. And her father has disturbed everything. I will shoot that man!” I said, “That won’t help. You find another girl – there is no problem – and start writing letters again.” He said, “But I don’t know what to write.” So I said, “You do one thing. You go to the girl and ask for all the letters you have written to her.” He said, “What!” “You just tell her, ‘I need those letters, because I have not been writing them.’ And return her letters to her.” So he went to the girl and asked for his letters. But she said, “What will you do with those letters?” He said, “What will I do? Have I to live or not? You are getting married – I will have to write letters to somebody else. Now what is the point of writing the same letters again? I can use these letters. And here are your letters that you had written to me; perhaps you may need them sometime, because who loves one’s own husband? Who loves one’s own wife? You may need them.” The girl said, “You can have both the sets, because both are written by the same man.” He was very angry with me, but I said to him, “That is the function of a priest. I have not done anything unique; that is what the priests have been doing all through man’s history. They pray for you to God. They even bring answers from God to you – answers to your prayers. They make your prayer, they make the answers for your prayer. I have been just functioning like a priest – only the area was different; it was love, it was not God.” The priests have no function if there is no God. Then there is no prayer, then there is no holy book, then there is no ritual. The priest has nothing left. He wants an organized religion. He turns religio into its opposite and calls it religion. Religio is a freedom. Religion is a slavery. Dropping God, dropping religion, I have restored your freedom. Now you can be yourself without any fear. You can grow without copying anybody. You can just grow into your own unknown potential. You are asking, “What is left?” Everything becomes available; only blocks have been removed, hindrances have been removed. Now you can meditate. You cannot pray; prayer needs a God. Meditation needs no God. Prayer has divided humanity, because Christian prayer is different from Hindu prayer. Mohammedan prayer is different from Christian prayer. But meditation is the same. Here, this very moment… if you are all silent, it is the same silence. Silence cannot have any name, any label. And meditation is the ultimate growth of silence. Now you can be silent, you can grow deeper and deeper within yourself, searching for the center from where your life arises. The moment you discover that center, there is an explosion which is far more significant than any atomic explosion, far more luminous. The atomic explosion is destructive. The explosion that happens at your center gives you a tremendous energy to be creative. And it does not make you part of any organized cult, creed, dogma – no. It simply makes you a dignified individual, immensely blissful because you have found the greatest treasure in the world. There is nothing more to be found. In finding your center, you have found the very center of existence. You have found eternity. Now there is no death. And out of this experience arises lovingness, compassion, creativity. Even sitting silently, doing nothing, there will be a certain aura of bliss around you, a certain fragrance around you. You have come home. -Osho Taken from Bondage to Freedom, Chapter 23

Man, for two grown men who are ‘done seeking’, you both sure seem to be digging pretty deep for something. Two can tango. One is bliss.

I remember when I was in school, my teachers always told us that life according to Buddhism is equal to suffering. The goal was to never be born again in order to reach nirvana, then you end the circle of life (and suffering). I was attracted to buddhism because I find it so tolerant and liberal, it also embrace compassion which I love. But I couldn't understand this depressing view of life as a suffering event. And to be honest I can't understand that today either. Here we talk much about unconditional love, bliss, infinite awareness, the beauty of the absolute and so forth. This spiritual journey of mine and this forum has teach me how precious and beautiful life is. That's quite the opposite to what Buddhism teaches. This is hard for me to wrap my mind around, since Buddhism to me is true in every other aspect. Just this view about life as something to suffer I can't understand. Life is great, of course it has downs as well, but who doesn't want to live. Just go out and breath fresh air and you feel how wonderful and magic life is. So, how was this depressing view developed in Buddhism? Please elaborate. Thank you Namaste.

Enlightenment and pure bliss and a plesant experience A memory is a thought Functional thoughts are "How To" thoughts. How to get to this place, how cook dinner, etc. Psycological thoughts are the thoughts that cause suffering. "This is bad", "That girl is ugly\beautiful".

Yesterday and a month ago I went to a cycle breathing practice (it has something to do with osho). when we breath without any pauses between inhaling and exhaling, weird stuff starts to happen. for me, it was the shaking of my face and nose at first, and then intense energy in the palms. the instructions were "to do what feels right" whether it be screaming or moving the body. the first time i did it, a month ago, i ended up feeling intense love and crying at the end of the practice. It also healed a lot of my social anxiety. The second time I did it, yesterday, I moved my body in a pleasant way and felt intense energy throughout my whole body, shouting. at the end though, this is the most important part, I felt a very strong feeling in my upper neck from behind and on the top of my head. when i concentrated on that energy, my whole body was filled with joy and bliss, I didnt feel that way since I was a kid (while a kid I was unaware of it, that feeling faded away with time as i grew older). then it dissipated after a few minutes. today, during my morning meditation I felt a weird pleasant feeling in my tailbone and it sometimes spread from that concentrated spot for a few seconds and went again into the tailbone. my body feels pretty exhausted right now. you cant believe this shit until you experience it. all of what happened with me i connected theoretically to chakras and kundalini energy. I never really studied that stuff but im aware its a thing, and yoga is the way to go on with it. now im wondering if to study more about it. I have a ton of other stuff to do, like the life purpose course, meditating, consciousness/belief work, emotional mastery, reading books, so its hard to allocate time for it, so i have to choose wisely. I wonder if I have a certain susceptibility to the kundalini path, since just after 2 times of doing "some" breathing exercises having such amazing experiences. I mean maybe im "built" for that path and that path would resonate better with me and would give me faster and better results than the other paths. Im just speculating, I would like to know what are your thoughts on it and whether it seems like im bullshitting myself.

Okay here it goes. Pure consciousness is the ultimate subject/pure witness/Brahman/atman/absolute reality. It can never be perceived as an object. That's why mind can't 'find' the absolute truth as all it can perceive are objects(sense perceptions). Now the brain/mind is like a mirror. That pure unattached consciousness is reflected on that mirror. Thus a reflected consciousness appears on mind and everything in subjective experience (mind, body, world) lights up!! This is why when you ask the question, 'am I aware?', you get an experience of the mind, body, senses etc. being aware and alive. In reality, the brain, body, world has no consciousness of itself. NOTHING has consciousness except for pure consciousness itself. The reflected consciousness produced in the brain is making this entire living experience possible while the pure consciousness(the source, That which I truly am) remains totally unaffected and unattached. No object can touch it. Now it's funny when we say that we are raising or lowering consciousness. Consciousness is ever present, ever unchanged. It's the brain/mind(the mirror) that produces the reflection of pure consciousness depending on it's state during various times and situations. This is why when brain is damaged, the person becomes psycho/sick as if consciousness has been damaged. But in reality, it's the mirror that has been distorted and thus a 'distorted' reflected consciousness is there while the source(pure consciousness) remains unaffected. This is why we have 3 apparent states of consciousness in waking, dreaming and sleeping phases. It's because of the different functions and modes of brain/mind in these different states. But as usual the source(pure consciousness) has nothing to do with it and remains totally independent, untouched. This is why every state is a dream which has no inherent reality in of itself. The waking and dreaming states are dreams with contents while deep sleep is like a dream with absolutely no content lol. It is the source alone that lights up these states and yet remains untouched by them. Our 'precious' theories about brain, body, world are just more contents in such a dream state #When does enlightenment happen? When I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am the pure consciousness; totally free, unattached, unaffected, an infinite existence-consciousness-bliss which has NOTHING to do with the mirror(brain/mind), the state of reflection(reflected consciousness) and everything else that's lit up(body, world) . It's the 1st step of enlightenment aka a complete dis-identification. #Then what is this Universe/Creation? That pure consciousness itself is projected to create a world of myriad forms. The world has literally no substance other than the pure consciousness, the same infinite existence-consciousness-bliss that I am . When I directly experience this truth, the witness and the witnessed is merged and that's true non duality, the 2nd step of enlightenment aka a complete union. Thank you for reading. PS: I haven't had any of the two realizations myself aka i'm not enlightened yet

@Viking Bliss is actually knowing, first hand, what you are.

Hello folks, long time follower, first-time poster here. This past summer, thanks to following the path laid out by Uncle Leo (That's what we call him in my home, although he's younger), I woke up. I see and experience the unity daily and at times become so zoned out while meditating, I tear up with bliss but still have many old remnants and still have issues with the idea of a soul. Here is something that I have been contemplating off and on for a little while now, I hope I can explain my thoughts. If things are as I see them now, there is only one soul, but if things are not as they seem, I would consider the soul to be an array variable, as is used in software such as this very Forum and any program that is not extremely basic. For those who are not familiar with programming, here's a copy/paste of what an array variable is. "An array is a variable containing multiple values. Any variable may be used as an array. There is no maximum limit to the size of an array, nor any requirement that member variables be indexed or assigned contiguously. Arrays are zero-based: the first element is indexed with the number 0." By combining Buddhism with software practices and throwing nonduality out the door (or at least seeing the soul as a many-sided coin as the base of everything), perhaps the soul can be considered an array variable. All of our thoughts, experiences, and actions are smaller variables which accumulate over time and become a part of the larger variable -- the array/soul. The first element "0" could perhaps represent our birth/death/purpose/anything of utmost importance to the variable. When the functions that make use of this variable end (this existence), the variable would either be wiped clean and freed up, or recycled and embedded into a new function. This could explain both transcendence and reincarnation. This idea might not be a new concept but figured I'd share my thoughts and say hello to you fine people. Hello! How ya dooooooooooin?